We consider the problem of estimating the distance from an unknown signal, observed in a white-noise model, to convex cones of positive/monotone/convex functions. We show that, when the unknown function belongs to a Holder class, the risk of estimating the L r -distance, 1 ≤ r < ∞, from the signal to a cone is essentially the same (up to a logarithmic factor) as that of estimating the signal itself. The same risk bounds hold for the test of positivity, monotonicity and convexity of the unknown signal. We also provide an estimate for the distance to the cone of positive functions for which risk is, by a logarithmic factor, smaller than that of the plug-in estimate.


FNV executive member in the 1990s, Member of the European Parliament, 1999-2009 and currently a supervisory board member nominated by the works council in a Dutch AEX listed company as well as of APG, one of the largest pension fund asset managers worldwide. Member of the Dutch Corporate Governance Monitoring Committee. With her Board compensation fees she established the Foundation A PROPOS to promote employee influence on strategic boardroom decision making.


Growth is a significant factor that results in deformations of tubular organs, and particular deformations associated with growth enable tubular organs to perform certain physiological functions. Configuring growth profiles that achieve particular deformation patterns is critical for analyzing potential pathological conditions and for developing corresponding clinical treatments for tubular organ dysfunctions. However, deformation-targeted growth is rarely studied. In this article, the human cervix during pregnancy is studied as an example to show how cervical thinning and dilation are generated by growth. An advanced hyperelasticity theory called morphoelasticity is employed to model the deformations, and a growth tensor is used to represent growth in three principle directions. The computational results demonstrate that both negative radial growth and positive circumferential growth facilitate thinning and dilation. Modeling such mixed growth represents an advancement beyond commonly used uniform growth inside tissues to study tubular deformations. The results reveal that complex growth may occur inside tissues to achieve certain tubular deformations. Integration of further biochemical and cellular activities that initiate and mediate such complex growth remains to be explored.


The World Health Organization describes traumatic injuries as a "neglected epidemic" in developing countries, accounting for more deaths annually than HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined. Low- and middle-income countries rely on volunteer assistance to address the growing surgical disease burden of traumatic injuries. Efforts to increase the availability of international electives for orthopaedic trainees can help with the short-term need for surgical personnel abroad and facilitate sustainability through capacity building, maximizing long-term benefits for all parties. The volunteer invariably benefits from this cross-cultural experience with many citing improved skills in communication, clinical diagnostics, appreciation of equality and diversity, and cost-consciousness. A consolidated discussion regarding barriers and implementation strategies can assist interested individuals and institutions plan for future volunteering endeavors.


Noble and Schmidt (1) in 1937 showed that the sense organ in the facial pit of blindfolded crotalidsrattlesnakes, copperheads, and moccasins—mediates the ability to strike correctly at moving objects such as a dead rat or a cloth-wrapped light bulb and to distinguish between warm and cold ones. They attempted to describe its sensitivity in terms of the reading of a mercury thermometer in the air at the position of the snake's head. However, it seems indicated by their conditions that radiant energy was the effective stimulus. We have undertaken to find out what can be learned of the function of this organ by recording activity from its nerves. The present paper is a preliminary report based on multi-unit analysis.


While some militant groups consistently target civilians, others only resort to violence in specific locations and points in time. Existing research typically treats civilian targeting as a static feature of conflict systems at either the country or group level. This offers little explanation for variation in the patterns of violence across time and space. I develop an explanation for why militant groups target civilians at specific places and times based on how groups are likely to respond to local political and security conditions. I argue that violence against civilians serves as a function of response for militant groups – violence depends on both the control of territory and subnational competition from other non-state actors. The likelihood of civilian targeting is higher in locations where groups control territory and face competition, as groups seek to display dominance and punish defectors. The likelihood of civilian targeting is high in locations where groups face competition. However, this violence is unlikely to be as high as where groups also control territory, accounting for the need to reach out to civilians for support. The analysis of georeferenced event data on civilian targeting by militant groups across sub-Saharan Africa (1997–2013) and an illustrative case study on Boko Haram in Nigeria and Cameroon find robust support for my argument.


Introduction: Emphysematous pyelonephritis (EPN) is associated with high mortality rate, up to 25%. There is still conflicting reports regarding the most appropriate management, conservative versus nephrectomy. Objective: To describe the outcome of patients with EPN. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of patients diagnosed with EPN by computed tomography from three tertiary institutes in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Type of management was classified as conservative and surgical. The conservative includes medical and minimally invasive procedures, such as percutaneous drainage and nephrostomy. The surgical which is nephrectomy. The outcome observed was preservation of the kidney function or patient's life. Results: A total of 10 patients were included (9 females and 1 male), median age was 55 years and 63% were diabetic. The most common presentation was flank pain (100%), fever (75%), and vomiting (63%). The most common organism isolated was Escherichia coli. Nephrectomy was not associated with increased survival rate, while conservative management was associated with a good outcome, less morbidity (not dialysis-dependent). Conclusion: Nephrectomy was not associated with high survival rate. Patients managed conservatively had a better overall performance and better survival. This study will add to other studies, which are encouraging conservative management.


In aeromechanical design one of the major rules is to operate under High Cyclic Fatigue (HCF) margins and away from flutter. The level of dynamic excitations and risk of HCF can be estimated by performing forced response analyses from blade row interaction forces or Low Engine Order (LEO) excitation mechanisms. On the other hand, flutter stability prediction can be assessed by calculation of aerodynamic damping forces due to blade motion. In order to include these analyses as regular practices in an industrial aeromechanical design process, interaction between the fields of fluid and structural dynamics must be established in a rather simple yet accurate manner. Effects such as aerodynamic and structural mistuning should also be taken into account where parametric and probabilistic studies take an important role. The present work presents the development and validation of a numerical tool for aeromechanical design. The tool aims to integrate in a standard and simple manner regular aeromechanical analysis such as forced response analysis and aerodynamic damping analysis of bladed disks. Mistuning influence on forced response and aerodynamic damping is assessed by implementing existing model order reduction techniques in order to decrease the computational effort and assess results in an industrially applicable time frame. The synthesis program solves the interaction of structure and fluid from existing Finite Element Modeling (FEM) and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) solvers inputs by including a mapping program which establishes the fluid and structure mesh compatibility. Blade row interaction harmonic forces and/or blade motion aerodynamic damping forces are inputs from unsteady fluid dynamic solvers whereas the geometry, mass and stiffness matrices of a blade alone or bladed disk sector are inputs from finite element solvers. Structural and aerodynamic damping is also considered. Structural mistuning is assessed by importing different sectors and any combinations of the full disk model can be achieved by using Reduced Order Model (ROM) techniques. Aerodynamic mistuning data can also be imported and its effects on the forced response and stability assessed. The tool is developed in such a way to allow iterative analysis in a simple manner, being possible to realize aerodynamically and structurally coupled analyses of industrial bladed disks. A new method for performing aerodynamic coupled forced response and stability analyses considering the interaction of different mode families has also been implemented. The method is based on the determination of the aerodynamic matrices by means of least square approximations and is here referred as the Multimode Least Square (MLS) method. The present work includes the program description and its applicability is assessed on a high pressure ratio transonic compressor blade and on a simple blisk.


OBJECTIVES
Although the presence of a preauricular sulcus is often cited as an indicator of female sex, very little research has been conducted to substantiate this claim. This article examines both the relationship between the incidence and morphology of the preauricular sulcus and sex.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
A total of 500 left ossa coxae from the Hamann-Todd Human Osteological Collection belonging to 261 males and 239 females were examined to investigate the relationship between the preauricular sulcus and sex. The sample includes both American Blacks and Whites. Each individual was scored based on groove presence and morphology. Differences between the sexes in terms of overall prevalence and morphology were investigated using chi-squared tests. Additionally, possible relationships between ancestry and the manifestation of the preauricular sulcus were investigated using multiple regression analysis.

RESULTS
Overall, the presence or absence of the preauricular sulcus resulted in correct sex assessment in 75.8% of ossa coxae. However, the accuracy differed between the sexes, with 62.84% of males and 89.96% of females being assessed correctly. Males were significantly more likely to display a short, narrow sulcus (score 4) than females, whereas females were observed to be significantly more likely to have a wide, long sulcus. Ancestry was not related to sulcus manifestation.

DISCUSSION
The results presented here suggest that the presence of a preauricular sulcus should not be considered positive proof of female sex. However, the complete lack of a sulcus could be considered suggestive of male sex.


In the present study, we have demonstrated that both B151-T cell-replacing factor 1 and rIL-5 are responsible for the activity to partially induce CL-3 cells into IgM-synthesizing cells and also to synergize with IL-2 to augment IL-2R expression on and IgM synthesis in CL-3 cells. These actions of rIL-5 on a homogeneous cloned line (BCL1-CL-3 cells) allow us to identify and characterize the two alternated B cell developmental pathways. One is an IL-2-independent, IL-5-driven differentiation pathway without preceding up-regulated IL-2R expression, and the other is an IL-5 plus IL-2-dependent augmented differentiation pathway with preceding up-regulated IL-2R expression. We have also demonstrated the functional difference of two distinct B cell growth-promoting factors, B cell-stimulating factor 1 (rIL-4) and rIL-5. CL-3 cells are equally stimulated to grow by rIL-4 and rIL-5, whereas only rIL-5 can render CL-3 cells responsive to rIL-2, indicating that these two lymphokines affect B cells in a strikingly different manner.


Sixty CF1 mice were given 600 r whole body x-irradiation, a dose calculated to kill 30% in 30 days. Half were isolated as controls and the remaining half were provided with an adequate number of nonpregnant, mature females for daily matings for the next 30 days. The controls showed 33% lethality while the experimentals, aggravated by frequent sexual activity, showed 73% lethality. Sexual activity more than doubled the lethal effect of 600 r x-rays. Litters derived from x-irradiated, sexually active males mated during the 1st week resulted in an average of 3.1; matings during the 2nd week produced an average of 2.7 (normal control size is 9.6). Matings during weeks 3–7 were sterile. Fertility was recovered by some at 8 weeks (litter size, 6.9) and by some as late as 75 days. Control x-irradiated males, after resumption of fertility, produced litters of 7.3.


Lupus Anticoagulants (LA) pathology is a disease frequently associated with venous and/or arterial thrombosis. The authors describe a 6 year-old boy complaining cephalea and emesis, followed by lethargy, in whom antiphospholipids antibodies were detected. Brain magnetic resonance scans showed lesions of the cerebellum. The characteristics of LA disease are discussed.


The 4-hydroxyacetophenone assimilating bacterium Arthrobacter sp. TGJ4 was isolated from a soil sample. The resting cell reaction suggested that the strain cleaved 4-hydroxyacetophenone and its 3-methoxy derivative to the corresponding carboxylic acids and formaldehyde. Some properties of the enzyme catalyzing the cleavage reaction were examined.


As part of an integrated project to map the 3-D structures beneath Taiwan, which is a typical example of arccontinental collision, broadband magnetotelluric (MT) data have been collected and analyzed at 20 sites uniformly covering the entire Taiwan. The determinant response of impedance tensor was calculated for inversion and the Occam's inversion which could generate smooth model was used for interpreting MT data at each site. A north dipping conductor, at a depth of approximately 10-20 km with resistivities lower than 100 ohm-m beneath the Island of Taiwan is undoubtedly the most significant feature obtained in this study. The depth are correlated well with the inferred depth of dehydration reactions from Suppe (1981) and the top of the aseismic lower crust observed by Wang (1994). We infer that this dipping conductor is associated with the upper surface of the subducting Philippine Sea plate. This finding also provides one more example to support the argument that conductivity anomalies are commonly associated with plate subduction.


Modern mobile devices are equipped with multiple antennas, which brings various wireless sensing applications such as accurate localization, contactless human detection and wireless human-device interaction. A key enabler for these applications is phased array signal processing, especially Angle of Arrival (AoA) estimation. However, accurate AoA estimation on commodity devices is non-trivial due to limited number of antennas and uncertain phase offsets. Previous works either rely on elaborate calibration or involve contrived human interactions. In this paper, we aim to enable practical AoA measurements on commodity off-the-shelf (COTS) mobile devices. The key insight is to involve users' natural rotation to formulate a virtual spatial-temporal antenna array and conduce a relative incident signal of measurements at two orientations. Then by taking the differential phase, it is feasible to remove the phase offsets and derive the accurate AoA of the equivalent incoming signal, while the rotation angle can also be captured by built-in inertial sensors. On this basis, we propose Differential MUSIC (D-MUSIC), a relative form of the standard MUSIC algorithm that eliminates the unknown phase offsets and achieves accurate AoA estimation on COTS mobile devices with only one rotation. We further extend D-MUSIC to 3-D space and fortify it in multipath-rich scenarios. We prototype D-MUSIC on commodity WiFi infrastructure and evaluate it in typical indoor environments. Experimental results demonstrate a superior performance with an average AoA estimation error of 13°. Requiring no modifications or calibration, D-MUSIC is envisioned as a promising scheme for practical AoA estimation on COTS mobile devices.


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Owing to trade imbalance, shipping companies position empty containers between ports or depots periodically. The most difficult problem for positioning is that it is not possible to know the exact amounts of empty containers required in the future. The paper deals with the problem of positioning empty containers in a port area with multiple depots. Customer demands and returning containers in depots per unit time period are assumed to be serially-correlated and dependent random variables. Three options are considered to prepare the required extent of positioning: positioning from other overseas ports, inland positioning between depots, and leasing. The policies for empty-container management consist of three parts as follows: a coordinated, (s, S) inventory policy for positioning from other ports, (ri, Ri) policy for inland positioning between depots; and a simple leasing policy with zero lead-time. For inland positioning policy, four heuristic methods are proposed to reposition empty containers between depots. The objective is to obtain optimal policies corresponding to different methods of inland positioning in order to minimize the expected total costs. A genetic-based optimization procedure is developed to find the optimal parameters (s, S) and (ri, Ri). Some numerical examples and sensitivity analyses are given to demonstrate the results. 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.


A theory of optical anisotropy for zinc-blende semiconductors in an electric field is derived by extending the formalism of Luttinger and Kohn [Phys. Rev. 97, 869 (1955)] to higher order. This resolves a recent controversy over the correct form of the Hamiltonian for the degenerate valence bands.


Market supply of upcountry vegetables suffers heavily during prolonged rainy periods due to crop failures in the main centers of production. The best resolution might be the alternative production regions in relatively dry areas. North Central and North Western dry/intermediate regions during Yala season are highly potential for this task. Therefore the study assessed the technology and economy of upcountry vegetable production in Halmilewa Grama Niladari Division that belongs to agro-ecological region IL1a with the aim of assessing its production potential. Primary and secondary data on crops, varieties, agronomy and marketing were collected, tabulated and examined statistically to understand the standards, technological strength and economy of vegetable production in Halmillewa. Significant differences could be seen in extent of cultivation, selection of crops and agronomic practices within the farming community. Income generation also varied with the selected vegetable crop because cost of cultivation, yield generation and farmgate prizes were different. Most preferred upcountry vegetable by the farmers in Halmilewa Agrarian Services Division is cabbage despite the fact that Knol khol is giving the lowest breakeven yield and the highest gross income. Chemical (synthetic) pesticide application is relatively high in both knol khol and cabbage. Lack of proper advisory support was found to be one of the major limiting factors of the economic and environmental sustainability of this very specific rice based vegetable based cropping system practiced in a highly potential farming region.


To the Editor:— In two recent articles, lesions of the ascending colon have been intimated to be cecal. By definition (Thorek: Anatomy in Surgery, Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott Company, 1951; Turell: Diseases of Colon and Anorectum, Philadelphia, W. B. Saunders Company, 1959, vol. 1; Spalteholz: Handatlas der Anatomie des Menschen, Leipzig, Verlag von S. Hirzel, 1920, vol. 3), the cecum is that portion of the large intestine of which the distal limit is the ileocecal valve. Accordingly, that part of the colon immediately above or distal to this site is part of the ascending colon. In the article by Waggener and others entitled "Asymptomatic Tuberculous Enteritis Simulating Carcinoma of the Cecum" inThe Journal, Nov. 7, 1959, page 1337, it is stated that "roentgenographic examinations of the colon with use of the barium enema revealed a persistent filling defect of the middle of the ascending colon," and the legend beneath


Tissue sampling of primary duodenal lymphoma is essential for its histological diagnosis. Endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration (EUS-FNA), which is frequently used for submucosal tumor (SMT)-like duodenal tumors, is adequate for cytological diagnosis, but not for histological diagnosis. Therefore, in the present study, a mucosal incision-assisted biopsy (MIAB) was performed in an 81-year-old woman for the diagnosis of an SMT-like duodenal mass, as tissue sampling for histological analysis using a regular endoscopic biopsy had failed to establish a definite diagnosis of malignant lymphoma. EUS-FNA had also led to poor tissue sampling due to the difficult location of the duodenal tumor. The pathological examination of biopsy samples using MIAB revealed the presence of a diffuse proliferation of atypical lymphocytes, and the expression of cluster of differentiation (CD)20 and CD79a, but no expression of CD3 in the tumor specimens. The patient was diagnosed with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. To the best of knowledge, this is first report of a case using MIAB as a sampling method for the histological diagnosis of SMT-like primary duodenal lymphoma. This case suggests that MIAB may be an essential method for obtaining tissue samples from SMT-like duodenal tumors.


The lack of traceability of the results of ash content measurements to the state standards of measurement units is considered. The problems of ash mass fraction measurement in food industry are revealed: dependence of the measurement results on conditions of the analysis, incomplete information on the modes of measurements and metrological characteristics in standardized methods, the absence of reference materials. We present information about the measurement method and equipment for implementation of the State primary reference procedure (SPRP) for measuring the ash mass fraction in food and foodstuff (grain, grain products, starch, sugar, dairy products, low-lactose products, lactose-free products, compound feeds and feed components) and describe the procedure of determining the methodological parameters (temperature, duration of combustion, weight of sample) in the course of the SPRP development using a stereoscopic pancratic microscope and thermogravimetric analyzer with mass spectrometric detector (implementing TGA-MS methods) included in the State primary measurement standard of mass fraction and mass (molar) concentration of water in liquid and firm substances and materials GET 173 – 2017. The described algorithm for estimating the uncertainty of the ash mass fraction measurements using multifactor experiment, regression analysis and single-factor ANOVA provide information about the sources of the uncertainty and their contributions to the total uncertainty of measurement results. The metrological characteristics, scope and purpose of SPRP are presented. The results of interlaboratory comparisons confirming the equivalence of the developed SPRP to similar measurement procedures (methods) of foreign countries are presented. The applicability of the developed SPRP for determination of the certified values of the mass fraction of crude ash to testing reference standards of compound feed composition is demonstrated.


We implemented two neural network based benchmark tasks on a prototype chip of the second-generation SpiNNaker (SpiNNaker 2) neuromorphic system: keyword spotting and adaptive robotic control. Keyword spotting is commonly used in smart speakers to listen for wake words, and adaptive control is used in robotic applications to adapt to unknown dynamics in an online fashion. We highlight the benefit of a multiply accumulate (MAC) array in the SpiNNaker 2 prototype which is ordinarily used in rate-based machine learning networks when employed in a neuromorphic, spiking context. In addition, the same benchmark tasks have been implemented on the Loihi neuromorphic chip, giving a side-by-side comparison regarding power consumption and computation time. While Loihi shows better efficiency when less complicated vector-matrix multiplication is involved, with the MAC array, the SpiNNaker 2 prototype shows better efficiency when high dimensional vector-matrix multiplication is involved.


Ample evidence indicates that changes in the utilization of energy yielding substrates generate signals which contribute to the control of eating. The rapid prandial increase in glucose utilization might thus contribute to meal-ending satiety. The oxidation of dietary fatty acids increases later after a meal, and also can influence eating. A common energy-related signal reflecting the metabolizable energy of all ingested nutrients, rather than specific signals derived from carbohydrate or fat utilization, presumably controls eating. Neurons that react to nutrients or changes in their utilization have been located in the hepatic portal area and in the brain (hypothalamus and medulla oblongata). Each seems to contribute to the satiating effect of glucose, but their general function in the control of eating is not completely understood. The AMP-Kinase and the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) are two sensors of intracellular energy flux which have been located in hypothalamic neurons and appear to be involved in the control of eating and peripheral metabolism through the modulation of hypothalamic anabolic and catabolic neuropeptidergic pathways.


Vascular and neurological mechanisms are both likely to be involved in foot ulcer. We recently reported a pressure-induced vasodilation (PIV), relying on unmyelinated afferent excitation. We previously found that cutaneous blood flow in response to locally applied pressure might be impaired in diabetic patients because of the combined effects of low cutaneous temperature and alterations in microcirculatory function. Therefore, we aimed to analyze whether, at a relatively high cutaneous temperature, PIV is present in type 1 diabetes and to assess endothelial-dependent vasodilation and endothelium-independent vasodilation. We measured cutaneous blood flow using laser Doppler flowmetry on the head of the first metatarsus in response to applied pressure at 5.0 mmHg/min in warm conditions (29.5 +/- 0.2 degrees C). Responses to iontophoresis of acetylcholine (endothelium dependent) and sodium nitroprusside (endothelium independent) were measured using laser Doppler flowmetry in the forearm. The data indicate that PIV exists at the foot level in normal subjects, whereas it was not found in diabetic patients. In diabetic patients, the nonendothelial-mediated response to sodium nitroprusside was preserved, whereas the endothelial-mediated response to acetylcholine was impaired. These findings might be relevant to the high prevalence of foot ulcer that occurs in diabetic patients.


To improve drug efficacy and minimize side effects for treating human promyelocytic leukemia cells, we explored a strategy using the traditional chemotherapy drug all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) combined with nanodiamonds (NDs) and blue light (BL) irradiation on the typical HL60 cell line. The synergistic ATRA–BL–ND could significantly induce cell inhibition ∼4 times that treated by ATRA alone. The introduction of BL plays an important role in the enhancement of cells apoptosis, improves the level of reactive oxygen species (ROS), reduces the expression of B-cell leukemia/lymphoma 2 (Bcl-2) mRNA, and increases the activation of caspase-3 of HL60 cells. The biocompatible NDs are favorable for increasing ATRA concentration and improving drug delivery. The synergistically enhanced antitumor effect was further verified by in vivo examinations. The results in this paper could be helpful to establish a high efficiency and low toxicity strategy for clinical treatment of various tumors.


Multiple sclerosis (MS) is neuro-degenerative disease of the Central Nervous System characterized by the loss of myelin. A Clinically Isolated Syndrome (CIS) is a first neurological episode caused by inflammation/demyelination in the central nervous system which may lead to MS. Better understanding of the disease at its onset will lead to a better discovery of pathogenic mechanisms, allowing suitable therapies at an early stage. We propose an automatic segmentation algorithm for two different contrast agents, used within a framework for early characterization of CIS patients according to lesion patterns, and more specifically according to the nature of the inflammatory patterns of these lesions. We expect that the proposed framework can infer new prospective figures from the earliest imaging signs of MS since it can provide a classification of different types of lesions across patients. The lesion detection algorithm based on intensity normalization and subtraction of the used MRI data is a pivotal step, since it avoids the time-demanding task of manual delineation.


Outer hair cells underlie high frequency cochlear amplification in mammals. Fast somatic motility can be driven by voltage‐dependent conformational changes in the motor protein, prestin, which resides exclusively within lateral plasma membrane of the cell. Yet, how a voltage‐driven motor could contribute to high frequency amplification, despite the low‐pass membrane filter of the cell, remains an enigma. The recent identification of prestin's Cl− sensitivity revealed an alternative mechanism in which intracellular Cl− fluctuations near prestin could influence the motor. We report the existence of a stretch‐sensitive conductance within the lateral membrane that passes anions and cations and is gated at acoustic rates. The resultant intracellular Cl− oscillations near prestin may drive motor protein transitions, as evidenced by pronounced shifts in prestin's state‐probability function along the voltage axis. The sensitivity of prestin's state probability to intracellular Cl− levels betokens a more complicated role for Cl− than a simple extrinsic voltage sensor. Instead, we suggest an allosteric modulation of prestin by Cl− and other anions. Finally, we hypothesize that prestin sensitivity to anion flux through the mechanically activated lateral membrane can provide a driving force that circumvents the membrane's low‐pass filter, thus permitting amplification at high acoustic frequencies.


Using a survey of adults in Nebraska, we find that the association between church attendance and mental health varies across religious traditions and across two distinct dimensions of mental health—depressive symptoms and positive affect. Specifically, the association between church attendance and depressive symptoms differs for mainline Protestants, evangelical Protestants, and Catholics. Of these three religious traditions, only mainline Protestants report significantly lower levels of depressive symptoms when they attend church more often. Comparing across religious traditions, we find that among high attendees, evangelical Protestants report considerably more depressive symptoms than do Catholics; among low attendees, evangelicals report fewer depressive symptoms than do mainline Protestants. The results also show that church attendance is unrelated to positive affect for respondents as a whole and across the three religious traditions. We discuss how these differences in the relationship between church attendance and mental health comport with theological and social distinctions across religious traditions.


A new approach to the relay design problem has led to improved sensitivity, reliability, maintenance-free long life, and a considerable reduction of size and cost. Extremely efficient magnetic circuits having no ineffective reluctance and requiring no new contact materials permit a high degree of miniaturization of polar relays. To simplify the magnetic circuit, the permanent magnet is used both as the balanced armature and as the "permanent magnet" itself, with all of the air gaps in the magnetic circuit serving as effective reluctances to drive the armature. A characteristic equation obtained from an examination of the leakage flux and the internal reluctance of the permanent magnet is in good agreement with the experimental results. To improve the transmission performance, good chatter-free contact springs were used. Experimentally, it was determined that a stable contact resistance having a very long life is provided by the combination of a platinum contact and a gold-plated tungsten contact, hermetically sealed in inert gas containing a small amount of hydrogen. A subminiature polar relay recently developed for use in carrier telephony, telegraphy, and data transmission equipment has a volume of 2.9 cc, a weight of 10 gm, and an operating power of 0.5 mw. Transmission performance characteristics such as bias distortion and contact ratio are superior to any other widely used polar relays and are reliable enough to meet the environmental test of "MIL-R-5757D."


ABSTRACT Chronic kidney disease–associated pruritus (CKD-aP) is a common, yet underrecognized condition in patients with CKD and end-stage kidney disease (ESKD). Real-world observational studies indicate that CKD-aP affects up to 80% of ESKD patients undergoing haemodialysis (HD), with ∼40% experiencing moderate to severe itch. CKD-aP can negatively impact patients' mental and physical health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and is also associated with sleep disturbance and depression. Several studies have found that CKD-aP is a predictor of adverse medical outcomes, including an increased risk of hospitalizations and mortality. In this article we review the literature relating to the epidemiology of CKD-aP to describe its prevalence across the treatment spectrum of CKD (non-dialysis, HD, peritoneal dialysis and transplant recipients) and to summarize potential risk factors associated with its development. We also review key data from studies that have evaluated the impact of CKD-aP on HRQoL and medical outcomes.


BACKGROUND
The widespread entrance of antibiotics from the pharmaceuticals industry and human medication into aquatic environment increased concern over public health. Due to the importance of the antibiotics removal, a considerable amount of patents reported the conventional methods for the removal of antibiotics from the wastewaters. However, newly of patents reported improvements in the removal capacity. The present study focuses on the removal of Penicillin using a nanocomposite of zinc oxide/natural-Zeolite.

METHODS
A nano-composite of zinc oxide/natural-Zeolite was synthesized by mechanical method. The obtained microstructure was characterized by FE-SEM, XRD, EDX, and DLS techniques. The prepared nanocomposite is used for the removal of penicillin from aqueous solution.

RESULTS
Two different phases were identified in XRD patterns as hexagonal ZnO and orthorhombic Zeolite with the average crystal size of 86 and 141 nm respectively. The prepared nanocomposite consists of uniform particles with the mean diameter of near 91 nm. The prepared nanocomposite is used for the removal of penicillin from aqueous solution. It exhibited high removal performance in adsorption of penicillin antibiotic. The effects of penicillin concentration, catalyst amount, and pH on the adsorption were studied. The equilibrium adsorption data were analyzed using Langmuir, Temkin and Freundlich equations at room temperature. The Langmuir, Freundlich and Temkin constants were determined as -1.93, 410.2, and 3.87 respectively. The adsorption of Penicillin is followed from Freundlich (R2 = 0.979) equation. Adsorption kinetics followed the intra-particle diffusion model.

CONCLUSION
A high efficient procedure for the removal of penicillin was developed using ZnO/ natural-Zeolite nano-composite as useful catalysts.


Calcite (CaCO3) is one of the most common scales in oilfield, and its formation can cause a decrease in production. Pressure drop can cause the pH and calcite saturation index (SI) to increase, similarly increase in temperature increases calcite SI. We have developed a new approach to simulate the water composition (e.g., TDS, Ca, and alkalinity) for laboratory tests with ScaleSoftPizer (SSP) software based on desired temperature, pH, and SI. The evaluation of calcite formation and inhibition in the laboratory is also a challenge because the release of CO2 gas increases the pH and saturation index (SI) of the solution, and must therefore be controlled. Accordingly, this study aimed to develop a new and well-controlled test method for calcite inhibition under simulated oilfield conditions (i.e., pH, SI, Ca/HCO3 ion ratio). A new rapid kinetic turbidity method was developed in a closed system for calcite inhibition study. Good consistency was obtained for triplicate calcite nucleation and inhibition experiments, which demonstrated the reproducibility of the new method. Calcite nucleation experiments were conducted, and a new calcite nucleation model is proposed. The effect of acetic acid and inhibitors on calcite kinetics was also evaluated with this new method. This is the first time to accurately measure calcite inhibition under a broad range of production conditions, especially under neutral-to-acidic conditions (pH = 5.5-7), using simple and low-cost kinetic turbidity test methods. By avoiding the release of CO2, this new laboratory test method strictly controls pH, SI, and Ca/HCO3 ion ratios, and thereby the field conditions for calcite scales can be accurately simulated. In addition, barite inhibition experiments were conducted, and inhibition models for eighteen different inhibitors were determined and put onto a self-consistent algorithm, with many practical advantages: speed, reliability, internal consistency, and relative effectiveness for common conditions, to mention a few. Finally, a protocol has been developed to characterize the inhibition of essentially any new inhibitor, or combination, with minimal to no testing.


Abstract Network DEA provides a flexible way to customize DEA problems to specific applications. It provides 'links' across DMU's, or alternatively allows us to look inside a complex DMU with multiple nodes. In this short paper, we provide an illustration of a dynamic network DEA model. It is a network in the sense that it links the behavior of DMU's across time. Our particular illustration is to an 'old' issue: the impact of public capital on technology and productivity (TFP) at the state level in the U.S. We use a dynamic network production model developed by Fare and Grosskopf [8,9] to measure dynamic efficiency. As a byproduct of the model, we solve for optimal public and private investment paths, which we then can compare to realized investment. We apply this to U.S. manufacturing data over the 1978-1999 period using state level data.


Rabbit peripheral blood, spleen and thymus lymphocytes were stimulated in vitro with scarlet fever toxin. The ultrastructure of stimulated blast cells was described; the morphological features of these cells are similar to those of T-lymphoblasts. 3H-thymidine incorporation into lymphocytes stimulated with ET or PHA was studied in correlation with blast formation. Some quantitative discrepancies between both parameters are discussed.


Objectives: Ectrodactyly-ectodermal dysplasia-clefting syndrome (EEC) is a rare syndrome with features of ectrodactyly, ectodermal dysplasia and cleft lip/palate. This study presents an Iranian case with classic features and oral complications. Case: We report a 20-year old female with all manifestations of this syndrome. The simultaneous presence of these three malformations is extremely rare; the incidence is estimated to be 1.5 per 100.000.000 births. Conclusion: Oral hygiene management of patients with EEC syndrome is important and dental practitioners need to know the oral and dental conditions presenting with this syndrome.


PURPOSE
Laparoscopic resection of submucosal tumors in the gastric fundus, especially in the posterior wall near the esophagocardiac junction (ECJ), is difficult and time consuming and is and likely to cause esophageal stenosis and splenic injury. In this article, we report an extraluminal laparoscopic wedge-resection (ELWR) that minimizes these problems.

METHODS
Thirty-seven patients with submucosal tumors in the posterior wall of the gastric fundus received ELWR. The operation consisted of four steps: 1) localization of the tumor, 2) dissection of the omentum, 3) mobilization of the gastric fundus/upper pole of the spleen and exposure of the ECJ, and 4) resection of the gastric fundus with a linear endoscopic gastrointestinal anastomosis stapler.

RESULTS
None of the cases needed conversion to open surgery. Mean postoperative hospital stay was 5.5 +/- 1.0 days. The distance between the tumor and the incision margin ranged from 0.7 to 2.5 cm toward the ECJ. Pathologic examination revealed 7 cases of leiomyomas, 29 cases of stromal tumors (4 were low-grade malignant tumors), and 1 case of neurofibroma. There was no recurrence, metastasis, esophageal stenosis, or any other severe adverse event during the follow-up period (52 +/- 3.1 months).

CONCLUSIONS
ELWR is a safe, effective treatment for submucosal tumors in the posterior wall of the gastric fundus.


The aim of the paper is to explore both of the effects of macroeconomic variables on house prices and the lead-lag relationships of real estate markets to examine house price diffusion across Asian financial centres. The analysis is based on the Global Vector Auto-Regression (GVAR) model estimated using quarterly data for six Asian financial centres (Hong Kong, Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore, Taipei and Bangkok) over the period from 1991 to 2009. The empirical results indicate that the global economic conditions play significant roles in shaping house price movements across Asian financial centres. In particular, a small open economy that heavily relies on international trade such as - Hong Kong and Taipei, shows a positive correlation between openness and house prices, consistent with the Balassa-Samuelson effect in international trade theory. This suggests that a rise in openness may increase relative price of non-tradable goods and services. In addition, a high degree of economic linkages between the regions indicates existence of lead-lag relationships in house price movements that is transmitted through the housing wealth effect chains. However, the region-specific conditions also play important roles as determinants of house prices, partly due to restrictive housing policies and demand-supply imbalances as in Singapore and Bangkok.


To improve the precision of two-dimensional magnetic field measurement in a single core loss measuring system, a novel sandwich arrangement of magnetic field sensing coils is proposed. The losses are calculated from the measured magnetic field intensity and flux density. A new method of resolving the total loss into four portions depending on the rotational and alternating components of magnetic field and flux density is presented. >


Bacterial catabolism of aromatic compounds from various sources including phenylpropanoids and flavonoids that are abundant in soil plays an important role in the recycling of carbon in the ecosystem. We have determined the crystal structures of apo-HcaR from Acinetobacter sp. ADP1, a MarR/SlyA transcription factor, in complexes with hydroxycinnamates and a specific DNA operator. The protein regulates the expression of the hca catabolic operon in Acinetobacter and related bacterial strains, allowing utilization of hydroxycinnamates as sole sources of carbon. HcaR binds multiple ligands, and as a result the transcription of genes encoding several catabolic enzymes is increased. The 1.9–2.4 Å resolution structures presented here explain how HcaR recognizes four ligands (ferulate, 3,4-dihydroxybenzoate, p-coumarate, and vanillin) using the same binding site. The ligand promiscuity appears to be an adaptation to match a broad specificity of hydroxycinnamate catabolic enzymes while responding to toxic thioester intermediates. Structures of apo-HcaR and in complex with a specific DNA hca operator when combined with binding studies of hydroxycinnamates show how aromatic ligands render HcaR unproductive in recognizing a specific DNA target. The current study contributes to a better understanding of the hca catabolic operon regulation mechanism by the transcription factor HcaR.


We present a new framework for describing multiagent systems with hybrid individual dynamics where the interaction between agents occurs at both the continuous and discrete levels. We formally define these multi-agent systems as Interconnected Hybrid Systems and then recast fundamental hybrid concepts such as a hybrid metric, hybrid execution, and reachability in this new interconnected hybrid systems framework. We then prove a necessary condition for the existence of the interconnected hybrid executions. This work extends results in [10], [16].


The aim of this study was to determine the expression of growth hormone receptor (GHR) in patients with primary gastric adenocarcinoma. We investigated 48 specimens of primary gastric adenocarcinoma and their corresponding normal gastric mucosa. Immunohistochemistry and reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) were used to detect the expression of GHR. Immunohistochemical analyses revealed that GHR was expressed in human primary gastric adenocarcinoma (36/48, 75.0%) and appeared to be upregulated, compared to the normal mucosa (28/48, 58.3%, P < 0.001). A significant correlation was found between GHR expression and tumor stage (P < 0.001) and tumor differentiation (P < 0.001). The average positive rate of ki-67 in GHR-positive tumors was 16.06%, while the positive rate in GHR-negative tumors was 6.17% (P < 0.01). The average apoptosis index (AI) of GHR-positive tumors was 3.36%, which was significantly lower than that (7.33%) of GHR-negative tumors. In addition, 27 of 48 cases of tumors had GHR mRNA expression, while only 17 of all 48 cases of normal mucosa did so. Our results indicate that the frequency of GHR was significantly higher in primary gastric adenocarcinoma than that in normal gastric mucosa. GHR expression was significantly correlated with tumor differentiation and tumor grade. This finding supported a possible role of growth hormone in primary gastric adenocarcinoma pathophysiology.


A significant challenge in successful implementation of large channel count dynamic test systems, like multi-channel modal systems, has been efficient and error free test set-up and data collection. Newly developed instrumentation that digitally communicates self-identifying information (including transducer type and serial number, calibration value and physical location) greatly enhances system performance and drastically reduces the opportunity for human documentation errors. Sensors featuring this Transducer Electronic Data Sheet (TEDS, consistent with the impending IEEE P1451.4 standard), in addition to such techniques as sonic digitization for geometry definition and automated data acquisition with computer controlled, bank switching signal conditioners are continually improving accuracy and reducing the per channel price of multi-channel dynamic test systems.


The purpose of this paper is to analyze the multilevel methodology in order to estimate the effect of primary care physician in the pharmaceutical expenditure of the patient. We use individual data from population that is part of the Spanish public health system in the Autonomous Community of Aragon in 2004. For the city of Zaragoza, our results show the existence of a random effect significant of the primary care physician in spending made by patients. The large proportion of zeros in the sample requires a correction for selection bias. The application of Heckman's model provides evidence of this bias, although the main results do not differ. Estimating a censored model with multilevel structure called a topic of particular interest.


The 'Proverbs 31 woman' has been the focus of considerable scholarly reflection. Whereas some celebrate the 'Proverbs 31 woman' as the embodiment of femininity, others challenge this interpretation as it infers an underlying patriarchy and a socialisation of women to sacrifice themselves. In either case, the dominant focus has been on the woman. However, there has been a notable development in the study of religion and masculinities in Africa in general, and in Pentecostalism in particular. There is a growing appreciation of how Pentecostalism seeks to transform masculinities in Africa and to promote the emergence of "a new man for a new era."3 This article explores how Pentecostalism in Kenya seeks to reconfigure masculinities, going on to describe how selected preachers are challenging boys and men to adopt more life-giving masculinities. Utilising the concept of the 'Proverbs 31 man',4 the article describes how Pentecostal preachers envisage transformed boys and men in the Kenyan contexts. The article contends that despite some challenges, Pentecostalism does offer some promise of redemptive or transformative masculinities in Africa.


Distance learning applications provide valuable opportunities to users with disabilities. To enhance the accessibility of the distance-learning portal to vision impaired users, we utilize analytical studies on human vision to develop a visibility based adaptation algorithm. Using this adaptation the quality levels and layout of the portal is adapted to enhance the visibility, to users with various vision impairments.


The role of nematic order for the mechanism of high-temperature superconductivity is highly debated. In most iron-based superconductors (IBSs) the tetragonal symmetry is broken already in the normal state, resulting in orthorhombic lattice distortions, static stripe magnetic order, or both. Superconductivity then emerges, at least at weak doping, already from the state with broken ${C}_{4}$ rotational symmetry. One of the few stoichiometric IBSs, lithium iron arsenide superconducts below 18 K and does not display either structural or magnetic transition in the normal state. Here we demonstrate, using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, that even the superconducting state in LiFeAs is also a nematic one. We observe spontaneous breaking of the rotational symmetry in the gap amplitude on all Fermi surfaces, as well as unidirectional distortion of the Fermi pockets. Remarkably, these deformations are hardly visible above superconducting ${T}_{c}$. Our results demonstrate the realization of the phenomenon of superconductivity-induced nematicity in IBSs, emphasizing the intimate relation between them. We suggest a theoretical explanation based on the emergence of a secondary instability inside the superconducting state, which leads to the nematic order and $s\ensuremath{-}d$ mixing in the gap function.


This article describes the involvement of John Tanaka in the Insulated Conductors Committee (ICC), which is one of the equipment committees of the IEEE Power and Energy Society. Because the ICC is a Power and Energy Society Technical Committee, it is worthwhile to give a short history and description of the activities for the benefit of readers who might not be familiar with the ICC. In addition there will be a description of the activities within the ICC on polyethylene, one of the main materials of John's research.


This research aimed to determine the quality characteristics of kochujang made of sword bean chunggukjang. The effects of chunggukjang addition were compared in products fermented for 90 days. During the fermentation period of kochujang, sword bean chunggukjang was added at 0, 2, 5, 8, and 10%. The moisture content ranged from 40.24 to 42.83% (w/w). After 90 days of fermentation, sodium chloride was at around 10.2 to 10.3%, which was not much different from that of control kochujang (SBC 0) before and after fermentation. The color values were not significantly different between SBC kochujang and traditional kochujang. The microbial counts in 0, 2, 5, 8, and 10% SBC kochujang fermented for 90 days were around 5.42×10 to 9.59×10 CFU/g for aerobic viable cells, 1.14×10 to 9.73×10 CFU/g for yeast, and 8.49×10 to 1.25×10 CFU/g for Bacillus cereus. Sensory evaluation of kochujang showed that the comprehensive preference was 5.40, 5.15, 6.30, 6.10, and 6.95, respectively, for SBC 0, 2, 5, 8, and 10%. In conclusion, the quality difference between SBC and traditional kochujang was not significant, and sensory evaluation of kochujang showed that SBC 10% received the highest score.


Modern enterprises have to respond to the challenge of changing competitive situations by being able to adapt their business models and the supporting IT systems. Service-orientation and cloud computing offer established approaches for achieving flexibility in the use of computing resources and sourcing strategies. This requires promoting systematic development and management of capabilities to key activities. To ease the adaptation of business services to changed business needs a complementary abstraction layer, namely, "Capability as a Service" (CaaS) should be considered. The primary purpose of this layer is to support the capture and representation of the factors that are decisive for flexibility in business services. The main contributions of this paper are (1) motivating the additional capability-focused abstraction layer by an industrial application case, (2) the concept of CaaS including methodical aspects and technology for delivery, and (3) an initial model of capabilities for the industrial application case from utilities sector.


This study assess the removal of fecal indicators (i.e., total coliforms, fecal coliforms, E. coli, fecal streptococci, and pathogens [Salmonella sp. and helminth eggs]) in a full‐scale facultative and maturation pond system with primary screening and manual grit removal facility. The capacity of the plant is 6 ML/d. The results showed that the system was able to remove approximately 2.0 to 3.5 log units of fecal indicators and almost 100% of helminth eggs. Meanwhile, Salmonella was not eliminated significantly, as only 1.26 log units removal was found. Removal efficiency of fecal indicator bacteria was reported maximum during summers (3.4 to 4.0 log units) and minimum (1.9 to 2.0 log units) in winters. Further efforts were made to seek the correlation between key physicochemical wastewater quality parameters (biochemical oxygen demand, turbidity, and suspended solids) and indicator microorganisms (total coliforms, fecal coliforms, and fecal streptococci). Among all these parameters, suspended solids showed the highest correlation coefficient (r 2) with total coliforms (0.79), fecal coliforms (0.78), and fecal streptococci (0.75). These correlations manifest that the improvement of microbiological quality of wastewater is strongly linked to the removal of suspended solids.


Asymptomatic bacteriuria is considered a transient and benign condition in the geriatric population. Before a diagnosis of a urinary tract infection (UTI) can be made, symptoms and significant bacteriuria must be present. One of these symptoms is malodorous urine. Other symptoms of a UTI, typical in the younger population, have been found to be absent or misleading in the older adult population. Though early detection of UTIs improves outcomes, unnecessary laboratory tests are costly and time-consuming, and may encourage inappropriate antibiotic therapy. The purpose of this study was to determine if urine odor is an accurate predictor of a UTI in the older adult incontinent nursing home population. Ninety-seven recently wet incontinence pads of residents in six Midwestern nursing homes were evaluated for odor within 1 hour of voiding. These results were compared to microscopy and culture results of clean-catch urine samples from these individuals. Defining a UTI as either bacteriuria or bacteriuria and pyuria, using urine odor to identify a UTI resulted in error in one third of cases. Results of this study indicate smell of urine in incontinence pads may be an absent or misleading symptom for UTIs in elderly nursing home residents.


Modified Tabusen-2 decoction (MTBD) is traditional Chinese Mongolia medicine, mainly used to treat osteoporosis. However, the precise material basis of this prescription is not yet fully elucidated. Herein, we establish an HPLC-Q-Exactive MS/MS spectrometer method with four-step characteristic ion filtering (FSCIF) strategy to quickly and effectively identify the structural features of MTBD and determine the representative compounds content. The FSCIF strategy included database establishment, characteristic ions summarization, neutral loss fragments screening, and secondary mass spectrum fragment matching four steps. By using this strategy, a total of 143 compounds were unambiguously or tentatively annotated, including 5 compounds which were first reported in MTBD. Nineteen representative components were simultaneously quantified with the HPLC-Q-Exactive MS/MS spectrometer, and it is suitable for eight batches of MTBD. Methodology analysis showed that the assay method had good repeatability, accuracy, and stability. The method established above was successfully applied to assess the quality of MTBD extracts. Collectively, our findings enhance our molecular understanding of the MTBD formulation and will allow us to control its quality in a better way. At the same time, this study can promote the development and utilization of ethnic medicine.


SUMMARY

Geodynamic models incorporating metamorphic phase transformations almost invariably assume the validity of the Boussinesq approximation that violates conservation of mass. In such models metamorphic density changes take place without volumetric effects. We assess the impact of the Boussinesq approximation by comparing models of orogeny accompanied by lower crustal eclogitization both with and without the approximation. Our results demonstrate that the approximation may cause errors approaching 100 per cent in characteristic measures of orogenic shape. Mass conservation errors in Boussinesq models amplify with model time. Mass conservative models of metamorphism are therefore essential to understand long-term tectonic evolution and to assess the importance of the different geodynamic processes.


Ceratocystis laricicola and C. polonica are fungal symbionts of bark beetle species of the genus Ips that attack species of Larix and Picea, respectively, across Eurasia. Earlier studies found that these fungal species were morphologically identical, had similar isozymes patterns, and had identical internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequences of the rDNA operon. We analyzed 27 isolates from Europe, southwestern Siberia (Russia) and Japan, representing the known geographic ranges of the two species. Phylogenetic analysis of the DNA sequences of a portion of the MAT-2 idiomorph showed these species to be distinct, with the Japanese isolates of C. laricicola having a sequence slightly different (5 bp) from those of the Russian and European isolates of C. laricicola. Sexual compatibility tests showed full interfertility among isolates of C. polonica from Europe, Russia and Japan, but isolates of C. polonica were not fully interfertile with isolates of C. laricicola. A Russian and a European isolate of C. laricicola mated with each other but not with the Japanese isolates of C. laricicola. Mature L. sibirica and P. obovata were inoculated with isolates of C. laricicola and C. polonica from Europe, Russia, and Japan, and measurement of lesions in the inner bark/cambium region demonstrated strong host specialization. The data suggest that the two fungal species are very closely related and are distinguished primarily by their physiological specialization to the hosts of their bark beetle vectors.


Estimation of various flow and mass transport parameters can be seen as the inverse problem of groundwater modeling. In this article, current methodologies for parameter estimation are classified according to whether they consider the errors in observation data, in parameter structure, and in model applications. The structures of hydraulic parameters are usually very complex and unknown. This article gives an overview on adaptive parameterization methods for simultaneously identifying the parameter values, the complexity level, and the pattern of parameter structure. Methods for model reliability analysis are described. Finally, a generalized inverse problem is introduced that can find a representative parameter for a given model application.

Keywords:

parameter estimation;
inverse problem;
groundwater modeling;
sensitivity analysis;
reliability assessment;
model complexity;
experimental design


Purpose: This study investigates the relationship between corporate governance and shariah noncompliant risk (SNCR) that is unique for Islamic banks. The study examines the roles of shariah committee along with the board of directors in mitigating SNCR. Methodology: The paper empirically investigates the implications of characteristics of board of directors and shariah committee on the SNCR by using a sample of 29 full-fledge Islamic banks from Malaysia and Indonesia over the period 2007 to 2017. All data is hand collected from the Islamic banks' annual reports with the exception of country-level data collected from the World Bank database. Findings: The results show that banks with a smaller board size and higher proportion of independent board members are likely to have lower SNCR. The findings also indicate that the financial expertise and higher frequency of shariah committee meetings reduces the SNCR. Collectively, our analysis shows that banks with strong corporate governance environments reduce SNCR. Practical Implications: The findings of the study sheds light on the relationship between corporate vernance practice, shariah committee characteristics and SNCR. The results can be used by different stakeholders such as policy makers, boards of directors and senior management of Islamic banks to mitigate SNCR. Originality/value: This study extends the literature on corporate governance and risk-taking by including additional dimensions of governance and risk type. The corporate governance mechanism at the board level is complemented by including the shariah committee characteristics and SNCR which is relevant to Islamic financial institutions is examined.


OBJECTIVE
The aim: Revealing of clinical-pathogenetic peculiarities in manifestations of uncontrolled As+MS.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Materials and methods: Sixty-five cases, divided into 2 groups: Group I - severe As (n=20), Group 2 - severe As+MS (n=45). The general clinical examination included fasting blood glucose, insulin level, HOMA-IR index, body mass index (BMI), spirometry, levels of ММР-9, МСР-1, IL-8 and IL-12.

RESULTS
Results: In Group I, 20 patients (100%) had obstructive respiratory dysfunction. Group II had 13 cases (28.88%) with the restrictive, 15 (33.33%) with the obstructive and 17 (37.77%) with the mixed types. BMI revealed: Group I had the normal mass (BMI averaged 24.62 [22.76; 25.71]; Group II had 21 overweighed cases (46.66%) and 24 (53.33%) with grade 1 obesity, averaging 29.70 [28.35; 31.23]. Correlation analysis in Group II showed significant correlations between: age and WHR (r=0.52, p<0.001) (increase of abdominal fat depots during life), FEV1 and BMI (r=-0.63, р<0.001) (obesity affects pulmonary function). IL-8 and IL-12 levels in Group II were increased, respectively, by 27.86 and 13.18 times versus Group I. A relationship was found between MCP-1 and MMP-9 (r=0.77, р<0.05), Group II revealed direct correlation between MCP-1 and total FEV1 (r=0.53, р<0.05).

CONCLUSION
Conclusions: Overweight and obesity in As+MS deteriorate respiratory function versus the same indices in isolated As. Relationships between proinflammatory cytokines and MMP-9 and MCP-1 prove pathogenetic peculiarities of systemic inflammation and metabolic homeostasis. As and MS can cause their coexistence, facilitating development of mutual aggravation.


In this paper, we propose to reduce the effect of rate-independent MAC overheads in random access protocols by partitioning the transmission channel spectrum into a narrow channel and a wide channel. The narrow channel is used for transmitting the short packets (approximately 100 bytes long) and the wide channel is used for transmitting the longer packets. We intend to use multiple radios, one each for the different channel partitions. Narrow width channels have a reduced capacity, which lowers the maximum transmission rate achievable on these channels. As a result, the channel wastage due to the rate-independent MAC overheads can be reduced. We propose a protocol called WiSP (channel Width Selection based on Packet size) to estimate the appropriate channel widths depending on the relative traffic load involving short and long packets in the network. We evaluate our protocol using extensive simulations and demonstrate its effectiveness in achieving higher throughputs. We propose our algorithm to complement the frame aggregation (an existing approach that aggregates multiple packets to be sent in a single transmit opportunity) technique. We show that there are scenarios during which the frame aggregation can perform poorly, and show that our proposed algorithm can provide a good performance even in those situations when used along with frame aggregation.


Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of the product-specific region-of-origin (ROO) and product-specific country-of-origin (COO) on the willingness to pay a premium price for a wine label designated as a superbrand by the Italian Government: the Chianti Classico.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper introduces the concept of "ROO-COO distance", defined as the importance attributed to a product-specific ROO as compared to its COO. In order to better understand whether the construct "ROO-COO distance" influences the willingness to pay a premium price, the paper considers consumers' cross-national differences and their knowledge, distinguishing among three types of knowledge: consumers' subjective general product knowledge, consumers' subjective country product knowledge and consumers' regional product experience (PE). Four hypotheses were tested focussing on Chianti Classico – a premium wine – as related to its ROO and COO (Tuscany, Italy). The authors employed a sample of 4,254 consumers originating from New World countries (Australia, USA and Canada) and Old World countries (Germany, UK, Sweden and Belgium).

Findings

The findings confirm that a place-of-origin influence on price-related product evaluations is country specific. Furthermore, the moderating role of consumers' subjective product knowledge and consumers' region-related PEs differ across countries. The ROO-COO distance was found to positively affect only Old World consumers. It was established that respondents' subjective country/product knowledge and consumers' regional knowledge or PEs positively moderate this relationship.

Originality/value

The paper links the COO and ROO effects in a single framework and analyses it at the cross-national level, while also considering the moderating effect of consumer's knowledge.


We have developed SASK (Socratic ASK), a domain-independent architecture for implementing Socratic dialogs to foster deeper student reflections on well-defined tasks. In SASK we have built the Dialysis Mentor, a program that uses Socratic questioning to improve student performance and learning in an undergraduate biomedical engineering lab. Small usability tests and a pilot run in the actual lab suggests that Dialysis Mentor and SASK systems in general can improve the value of pre-defined learn-by-doing task experiences. We are now working on improving our SASK Mentors and building authoring tools for them. SASK Mentor Project: http://www.cs.northwestern.edu/~riesbeck/sask/


This paper studies the conformal invariance and conserved quantities of general holonomic systems in phase space. The definition and the determining equation of conformal invariance for general holonomic systems in phase space are provided. The conformal factor expression is deduced from conformal invariance and Lie symmetry. The relationship between the conformal invariance and the Lie symmetry is discussed, and the necessary and sufficient condition that the conformal invariance would be the Lie symmetry of the system under the infinitesimal single-parameter transformation group is deduced. The conserved quantities of the system are given. An example is given to illustrate the application of the result.


The use of pitch predictors in linear predictive coding systems is an efficient way to represent periodicity in the speech signal. Typically, the predictor is described by one parameter representing the delay in samples and 1 to 3 predictor coefficients can provide interpolation for periodicities that are not a multiple of the sampling interval and allow for a frequency-dependent gain. The authors describe a first-order pitch predictor whose delay is specified as an integer number of samples plus a fraction of a sample at the current sampling frequency. This realization has a better performance than conventional multiple coefficient predictors and leads to more efficient coding of the predictor parameters. >


In this brief history, the beginnings of artificial intelligence are traced to philosophy, fiction, and imagination. Early inventions in electronics, engineering, and many other disciplines have influenced AI. Some early milestones include work in problems solving which included basic work in learning, knowledge representation, and inference as well as demonstration programs in language understanding, translation, theorem proving, associative memory, and knowledge-based systems. The article ends with a brief examination of influential organizations and current issues facing the field.


The crash of John F Kennedy Jrs single-engine Piper Saratoga airplane in the waters off of Marthas Vineyard, Massachusetts, on July 16, 1999, prompted round-the-clock, global media coverage. Cameras panned the waters as the search began the following day, Saturday Pundits at first commented on the likelihood of survival of the late U.S. president's son, who piloted the plane, and the passengers—his wife and sister-in-law. Television screens displayed the projected, hour-and-one-half, nighttime flight path east from New Jersey As the tragedy unfolded, coverage focused on speculation about the cause of the crash. News analysts repeatedly mentioned that haze attributed to summertime heat and high humidity levels may have sharply reduced visibility during the flight.


Language, a uniquely human skill, is intrinsic to the self. Beyond its base communication purpose, language serves to shape the identity of the speakers who use it. One of the biggest examples of language defining and confining interlocutors' identities is the concept of gender. Based on a language's use of gender, speakers of that language are confined to the gender rules set forth in grammatical systems. How then can people who do not identify as male or female be recognized as legitimate if the language they speak does not accommodate for their gender identity? This thesis aims to examine how gender variant people speak in gendered languages, first examining English, Hebrew and Japanese as case studies, then moving on to the historically rigid and regulated French. This study examines respondents' proposed solutions to the French language's lack of a non-gendered pronoun on social media to see if it is indeed possible for people to identify themselves and each other in a language that does not structurally recognize them as legitimate.


ABSTRACT This article explores how a multiplatform advertising strategy enhances brand perceptions and performance in the fast-digitizing Chinese market. Using schema theory as the overarching framework, the authors posit that a company's choice of online versus offline advertising efforts significantly affects its brand perception and performance, with message content strategies, social interactivity, and reputability playing a moderating role. Results from a series of controlled experiments and a real-life brand database confirm that online and offline advertising efforts influenced brand warmth and competence, respectively, and these effects were enhanced by appropriate message content. Brand warmth and competence individually and complementarily affected purchase intentions.


Digital terrain data has widespread applications in areas such as the military, geographic information systems (GIS), and flight simulator video games. The combination of the abundance of terrain data with the limited rendering capabilities of computer graphics machines creates the necessity for algorithms which generate efficient representations of the data for rendering. This paper presents such an algorithm. Terrain data is tessellated using a regular triangular grid, and the regular grid is represented using a binary tree. The generalized BFOS algorithm, a well-known optimal tree-pruning method for regression and quantization trees, is used to prune the tree optimally, resulting in a far more efficient representation of this data than known in the literature. In addition to its optimal properties, the representation is also embedded, making it suitable for displays at multiple resolutions.


The variable regions of heavy- and light-chains of mouse monoclonal antibody 196-14 toward ovarian cancer-associated antigen CA125 were linked with a peptide linker (GSTSGSGKSSEGKG) and a histidine tag was attached at the carboxyl terminal. This single-chain Fv (scFv) with a histidine tag was expressed in Escherichia coli as an inclusion body. The inclusion body was solubilized with guanidium chloride, followed by purification on nickel nitrilotriacetic acid agarose column and refolding into the active form. The scFv thus obtained bound to the Siso cells, which express CA125, and may recognize the same epitope as the parental 196-14 antibody IgG does.


BackgroundAntibiotic resistance is one of the most urgent threats to the public health globally. The extensive use of biocides in clinical settings poses risk for emergence and spread of antibiotic resistance among nosocomial pathogens. This study aimed to investigate the effect of biocides exposure on the antibiotic susceptibility patterns, morphology and ultrastructure of clinically isolated Enterococcus faecalis.MethodsThe antibiotic susceptibility patterns of E. faecalis following biocides exposure were studied using disk diffusion and broth microdilution methods. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification was performed to confirm the ampicillin resistance genes. The effect on the morphological and ultrastructural of E. faecalis was characterized using transmission and scanning electron microscopy. All descriptive data from this study were presented as percentages.ResultsExposure to subinhibitory concentration of hydrogen peroxide increased the MIC of E. faecalis EF2 and developed resistance to ampicillin. However, the exposure did not exhibit any effects to the ultrastructure and morphology of E. faecalis. Molecular analysis of E. faecalis EF2 and ampicillin resistant EF2 which was referred as EF2r in this study showed that both isolates contained pbp4 gene. Sequence analysis revealed that there was no mutation detected within the pbp4 gene thus suggesting that ampicillin resistance observed following exposure to subinhibition concentration of biocides did not cause any mutation within the pbp4 gene of E. faecalis EF2r.ConclusionsThis study demonstrated that exposure to subinhibitory concentration of biocides leads to reduced antibiotic susceptibility of the clinical E. faecalis. This investigation provides an insight into the event that could lead to the development and possible dissemination of antibiotic resistance determinants among nosocomial pathogens.


This work describes the Semiconductor Wafer Representation (SWR) for representing and manipulating wafer state during process and device simulation. The goal of the SWR is to provide an object-oriented interface to a collection of functions designed for developing and integrating Technology CAD (TCAD) applications. By providing functions which can be common across many applications, we aim to greatly reduce tool development and integration time. Corporate, vendor, and university TCAD developers have worked together under the auspices of the CAD Framework Initiative to create an architecture and C++ programming interface for an SWR 1.0 draft standard. Here we describe this architecture and the results of creating and using a prototype implementation of the standard both to integrate existing TCAD tools and to develop simple new tools. >


Amiodarone is an antiarrhythmic drug which has received considerable attention in recent years. It has been suggested that the unusual pharmacodynamic characteristics of this drug may be due in part to the influence of active metabolites. Using fast atom bombardment (FAB) mass spectrometry we have identified a new metabolite of amiodarone, the di-N-desethyl analog (DDEA). This metabolite was present in the blood of dogs treated with the parent drug, and showed a greater affinity for myocardium than did the parent drug. The unique features of FAB mass spectrometry over electron impact mass spectrometry was an essential element in facilitating the identification of this new metabolite. Whether or not this metabolite has pharmacologic activity or is responsible for some of the side effects occurring during amiodarone administration is not known.


Introduction In patients suitable for radical chemoradiotherapy for lung cancer, 18F-FDG-PET/CT is a proposed management to improve the accuracy of high dose radiotherapy. However, there is a high rate of locoregional failure in patients with locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), probably due to the fact that standard dosing may not be effective in all patients. The aim of the present review was to address some criticisms associated with the radiotherapy image-guided in NSCLC. Materials and Methods A systematic literature search was conducted. Only published articles that met the following criteria were included: articles, only original papers, radiopharmaceutical ([18F]FDG and any tracer other than [18F]FDG), target, only specific for lung cancer radiotherapy planning, and experimental design (eventually "in vitro" studies were excluded). Peer-reviewed indexed journals, regardless of publication status (published, ahead of print, in press, etc.) were included. Reviews, case reports, abstracts, editorials, poster presentations, and publications in languages other than English were excluded. The decision to include or exclude an article was made by consensus and any disagreement was resolved through discussion. Results Hundred eligible full-text articles were assessed. Diverse information is now available in the literature about the role of FDG and new alternative radiopharmaceuticals for the planning of radiotherapy in NSCLC. In particular, the role of alternative technologies for the segmentation of FDG uptake is essential, although indeterminate for RT planning. The pros and cons of the available techniques have been extensively reported. Conclusion PET/CT has a central place in the planning of radiotherapy for lung cancer and, in particular, for NSCLC assuming a substantial role in the delineation of tumor volume. The development of new radiopharmaceuticals can help overcome the problems related to the disadvantage of FDG to accumulate also in activated inflammatory cells, thus improving tumor characterization and providing new prognostic biomarkers.


BACKGROUND
Untreated patients with symptomatic neonatal presentation of vein of Galen aneurismal malformations (VGAMs) carry almost 100% morbidity and mortality. Medical management and endovascular techniques for neonatal treatment have significantly evolved.

OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the clinical and angiographic outcomes of modern management of neonates with refractory heart failure from VGAMs.

METHODS
From 2005 to 2010, 16 neonatal patients with VGAM presented to our institution. Medical care from the prenatal to perinatal stages was undertaken according to specified institutional guidelines. Nine patients with refractory heart failure required neonatal endovascular intervention. All patients were treated by transarterial deposition of n-butyl cyanoacrylate into fistula sites. Short- and long-term angiographic studies and clinical outcomes were reviewed.

RESULTS
Control of heart failure was achieved in 8 patients. One premature baby died shortly after treatment. Long-term angiographic follow-up shows total or near-total angiographic obliteration in all 8 patients. One patient has a mild hemiparesis from treatment. Another has a mild developmental delay. One patient developed a severe seizure disorder and developmental delay. Overall, 66.7% patients have normal neurological development with near-total or total obliteration of the malformation.

CONCLUSION
Treatment of refractory heart failure in neonatal VGAM with modern prenatal, neurointensive, neuroanesthetic, and pediatric neuroendovascular care results in significantly improved outcomes with presumed cure and normal neurological development in most.


Current search interfaces of digital libraries are not suitable to satisfy complex or convoluted information needs directly, when it comes to cases such as "Find authors who only recently started working on a topic". They might offer possibilities to obtain this information only by requiring vast user interaction.We present SchenQL, a web interface of a domain-specific query language on bibliographic metadata, which offers information search and exploration by query formulation and navigation in the system. Our system focuses on supporting aggregation of data and providing specialised domain dependent functions while being suitable for domain experts as well as casual users of digital libraries. CCS CONCEPTS • Information systems → Query languages; Digital libraries and archives.


This article attempts to devise the analysis of continuous ethnic minority rule over hostile majority. A synthesis of the cultural, psychological approach and theory of rational choice to study of ethnic conflicts provides the grounds for explanation of the ways in which the identities of the minority and majority were shaped throughout modern Syrian history and why Alawi become politically salient. On this basis, it is possible to understand why Alawi minority seek political power In case of Alawi, the ability to attain power is primarily dependent on dominating army, usually French colonial legacy. Alawi to maintain rule over sunni majority relies on an authoritarian and oppressive government structure, and the ability of the regime to legitimize itself primarily by decreasing the saliency of the distinct. Alawi minority regime manipulates various needs of identities, political participation, social justice and personal security from political oppositions by rational choice. So Alawi don`t carry out credible commitment of various needs of them and protracted social conflicts happen. Alawi identity and hostility, and creating a unified identity for regime security. Factionalism within the armed forces was the key cause of instability in Syria in the past. After 1970 Hafiz Asad gained a position of unquestioned supremacy over the military and security forces.


We describe the process of installing a monitoring system in the homes of 19 families who were caring for a relative with dementia, and evaluating the use of the system for 24 weeks. The system is Internet-based and consists of cameras and sensors that are routed through a controller unit via a broadband-connected computer to a web site. From the web site, text messages indicating sensor activity are sent to a cell phone that alerts caregivers to activity in the home. Specifically, we discuss 'behind the scenes' issues associated with bundling the various technologies together and installing and maintaining the technologies in caregivers' homes, describe the challenges that caregivers confronted while using the technology, and summarize caregivers' experiences with the technologies over the 24-week assessment period. Results indicate that, although the use of technology is not without challenge, it has the potential to facilitate family caregiving.


Conventional regression case diagnostics use the fit of the regression model to all cases to assess the deviation of individual cases from the full sample. Unfortunately, as few as two bad cases can make these diagnostics completely unreliable. An alternative approach is that based on recursive fitting, in which the sample is stripped away case by case and the regression refitted after each deletion until there are only as many cases as parameters. Recursive residuals are residuals obtained from these successive recursive fits. They are particularly effective for diagnosis when the assumptions of the regression model do not hold for the full data set but do hold after some "bad" cases are stripped away. Conventional regression case diagnostics provide not only residuals but also measures of leverage and influence, and in this article, I propose analogous single-case diagnostics for use with recursive fitting. Furthermore, since recursive fitting focuses on the compatibility of various subregressions with the full regression, it is also important to have cumulative measures that assess the leverage, mean compatibility, and influence of all excluded cases; measures of these quantities are also defined. The diagnostics are applied successfully to one artificially constructed data set and to another data set from the literature, and it is shown how they provide useful insights into the fit of the model. liers.


Abstract The present paper takes an ethnomethodological and conversation analytical perspective on assisted shopping as it is done by a person with acquired brain injury in collaboration with her caregiver. My interest is directed towards the interactional and embodied organization of the situated selecting and decision-making processes, while I am aiming to understand the interactional organization of assistance and agency. The embodied interaction analysis is based on two video-recorded examples in which a caregiver treats the institutional resident's shopping choice as either unproblematic or undesirable. I will differentiate five phases in which the participants systematically organize the selection process. In these phases, the participants take different roles either as shopper or as assistant caregiver; as to the later, I will distinguish between moral and instrumental assistance. The analysis demonstrates an inherent tension in the assistance during shopping activities, as it is oriented to both the incompetence that justifies the need for assistance and to the interactional construction of a competent and independent shopper.


A kind of intelligent wireless sensor networks (IWSN) is set up from the point of view of multi-agent systems. IWSN is composed of some sensor node agents, some cluster head agents, a base agent and a command agent. According to the characteristics of these agents, intelligent wireless sensor networks model (IWSNM) based on Petri nets is proposed, which can accurately and unambiguously model the overall and individual characteristics of the networks. Moreover, IWSNM can be analyzed, verified and validated by the supporting tools of Petri nets. Consequently, the defects in early design stage can be detected, and the security and reliability can be improved. Finally, IWSNM are employed to develop the target tracking systems.


The size effect still remains one of the mysteries of capital markets. This effect was first discovered by Banz (Banz, 1981) during the test of asset pricing model (CAPM) in the US market. This discovery led to further investigation of the issue in other developed and developing capital markets. however, until now in the scientific community there is no consensus about the real presence of this effect in capital markets and its magnitude. At the same time, the size premium is actively used in the practice of companies, funds and individual analysts for evaluating the cost of equity This paper presents an overview of studies devoted to analysis of the size effect on developed and developing capital markets. we systematized and summarized different approaches of assessing the size premiums, compared the obtained empirical results and summarized possible explanations for this effect. In this study we also identified the features under the analysis of the size effect, discussed their causes, as well as the appearance of the effect, in general, in capital markets and its further disappearance in several countries.


Targeted therapy is a method owing to its limited side effect profile, particularly in cancer treatment. Magnetic hyperthermia, which is induced by nanoparticles (NPs) conjugated with targeting agents, can be useful in combination with chemo- or radiotherapy. In this paper, we constructed dextran-coated ferric oxide NPs conjugated with specific anti-human epidermal growth factor receptor (HER2) aptamer and used them to induce magnetic hyperthermia in cultured cells. The specificity of the tagged NPs was determined by studying their effect relative to that of non-tagged NPs against two cell lines: human adenocarcinoma SK-BR3, overexpressing the HER2 receptor; and U-87 MG, a human glioblastoma epithelial cell line, not expressing HER2. In order to confirm the interaction of the tagged NPs with the cells we used, fluorescence microscopy and fluorescence-activated cell sorting analysis were performed. All of these experiments showed that the aptamer-tagged NPs were highly specific toward the HER2-expressing cells. In addition, a ninetyfold lower dose of the tagged NPs relative to that of the non-tagged NPs was needed to achieve ~50% cell killing by hyperthermia of the SK-BR3 cell line, while for the U-87 MG cells the viability level was close to 100%. These results show that targeted NPs can be applied at substantially lower doses than non-targeted ones to achieve similar effects of hyperthermia, which should greatly limit the side effects of treatment.


Within the framework of the French evaluation program MEDIA on spoken dialogue systems, this paper presents the methods proposed at the LIA for the robust extraction of basic conceptual constituents (or concepts) from an audio message. The conceptual decoding model proposed follows a stochastic paradigm and is directly integrated into the Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) process. This approach allows us to keep the probabilistic search space on sequences of words produced by the ASR module and to project it to a probabilistic search space of sequences of concepts. This paper presents the first ASR results on the French spoken dialogue corpus MEDIA, available through ELDA. The experiments made on this corpus show that the performance reached by our approach is better than the traditional sequential approach that looks first for the best sequence of words before looking for the best sequence of concepts.


A chaotic synchronization secure communication method based on chaotic maps switch is proposed. The extended chaotic model is first built to generate many kinds of chaotic signals based on changing parameters during different time durations. In the transmitter, the modulation is implemented by adding the information signal to chaotic carriers, taking a modular operation on the sum, and embedding the result of the modular operation in the iteration of the extended chaotic generating systems. In the receiver, the chaotic carriers are retrieved from the received signals by using the corresponding nonlinear dynamical system, and then the information signals are recovered. The simulation results show that this chaotic synchronization secure communication method based on chaotic maps switch has the good immunity to interference and can be realized easily. It is also shown that this chaotic secure communication system is better in security than that based on single chaotic map.


The pulmonary alveolar macrophages possess metabolic pathways operative predominantly in the aerobic environment. These cells consume 0.15 to 0.2μmolar O 2 /mg protein/sec in vitro. Mitochondria from these cells manifest a respiratory rate of 0.5 to 0.6μmolar O 2 /mg protein/sec for succinate as a substrate. Mitochondrial oxidation is coupled to phosphorylation; adenosine diphosphate (ADP):oxygen (0) ratios are approximately 2 for flavin-linked and 3 for pyridine nucleotide-linked substrates. Cadmium ion adversely affects respiration of alveolar macrophages. It completely inhibits macrophage mitochondrial oxygen uptake at 50μmolar concentrations and uncouples oxidative phosphorylation at 5μmolar concentrations. This and several other divalent cations, like Cu ++ , Hg ++ , Sn ++ and Zn ++ , also inhibit adenosine triphosphatase (ATPase) activity of alveolar macrophages. Since metal fumes and oxides are common air pollutants, a study of this sort might provide information on mechanisms at the biochemical level as to how toxic inhalants initiate pulmonary pathology.


Background: Postnatal Care (PNC) service is important for both mother and child not only to treat complications arising from the delivery, but also to provide the women with important information on how to care for themselves and their child.Objective: Identifying determinants of postnatal care service utilization among mothers who delivered during the past one year preceding the study.Methods: Unmatched case control study was conducted in Amigna district, Arsi zone from May to June, 2016. Data were collected from 116 cases and 234 controls selected by multistage random sampling. Data were collected by face-to-face interview using structured questionnaire, entered into EpiData and analyzed using SPSS. Bivariate and multivariable logistic regressions were performed to identify determinants of postnatal care service utilization.Results: Mother who attended at least secondary school utilized postnatal care over 3 times higher (95% CI: 1.4-7.3) than mother who didn't attend formal education. Mother whose husband attended at least secondary school utilized postnatal care 3 times higher (95% CI: 1.3-6.7) than mother whose husband didn't attend formal education. Mother who had good and moderate knowledge of postnatal care utilized it over 4 times (95% CI: 2.0-10.0) and over 3 times higher (95% CI: 1.4-7.3) respectively than mother who had poor knowledge of postnatal care. Mother who visited antenatal care at least once utilized postnatal care over 3 times higher (95% CI: 1.5-7.3) than mother who didn't visit antenatal care. Mother who delivered at health institution utilized postnatal care nearly 4 times higher (95% CI: 2.0-7.2) than mother who delivered at home. Mother who traveled at most one hour to reach nearest health institution utilized postnatal care over 3 times higher (95% CI: 1.9-6.2) compared to mother who traveled more than one hour.Conclusion: Educational status, knowledge of postnatal care, antenatal care utilization, place of delivery and distance from health institution should be considered for intervention to improve postnatal care service utilization.


Ergosterol, lanosterol and two further unidentified sterols were detected and quantified in Schizosaccharomyces pombe cell extracts. In cells grown under anaerobic conditions, the levels of these sterols were dramatically reduced with a concomitant increase of their squalene precursor as compared with cells growing under aerobic conditions. Presence of ethanol resulted in a decrease in the sterol content under aerobic conditions. On the contrary, under anaerobic conditions presence of ethanol resulted in a three-fold increase of total sterols. Lanosterol was the main constituent of this elevation. It is suggested that lanosterol in parallel with unsaturated fatty acids is responsible for maintaining membrane integrity of S. pombe cells growing in the presence of ethanol.