(1) Background: Sepsis is a life-threatening condition caused by an abnormal host response to infection that produces altered physiological responses causing tissue damage and can result in organ dysfunction and, in some cases, death. Although sepsis is characterized by a malfunction of the immune system leading to an altered immune response and immunosuppression, the high complexity of the pathophysiology of sepsis requires further investigation to characterize the immune response in sepsis and septic shock. (2) Methods: This study analyzes the immune-related responses occurring during the early stages of sepsis by comparing the amounts of cytokines, immune modulators and other endothelial mediators of a control group and three types of severe patients: critically ill non-septic patients, septic and septic shock patients. (3) Results: We showed that in the early stages of sepsis the innate immune system attempts to counteract infection, probably via neutrophils. Conversely, the adaptive immune system is not yet fully activated, either in septic or in septic shock patients. In addition, immunosuppressive responses and pro-coagulation signals are active in patients with septic shock. (4) Conclusions: The highest levels of IL-6 and pyroptosis-related cytokines (IL-18 and IL-1α) were found in septic shock patients, which correlated with D-dimer. Moreover, endothelial function may be affected as shown by the overexpression of adhesion molecules such as s-ICAM1 and E-Selectin during septic shock.


Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore research opportunities for service innovation and system design in network platforms by investigating representative case examples in an emerging market, China.

Design/methodology/approach
The authors provide four case examples to illustrate the manner in which network platforms facilitate and lead to service innovation and effective system design. Then, the authors propose nine research directions that present significant research opportunities, and the authors make theoretical and methodological suggestions.

Findings
The results indicate that research opportunities exist mainly in three areas: ecosystem design and evolution, including role design, coherence and sustainability issues; leader–participant collaboration, including governance, co-opetition and innovation stimulation issues; and transformation of traditional industries, including process informatization, modularization and standardization issues.

Originality/value
This study extends the platform-related literature by showing new platform features represented by case evidence from emerging economies, and provides recommendations to guide and direct management practices and efforts in platform-based service innovation and system design.


Canavan disease (CD) is a recessively inherited pediatric leukodystrophy resulting from inactivating mutations to the oligodendroglial enzyme aspartoacylase (ASPA). ASPA is responsible for hydrolyzing the amino acid derivative N‐acetyl‐L‐aspartate (NAA), and without it, brain NAA concentrations increase by 50% or more. Infants and children with CD present with progressive cognitive and motor delays, cytotoxic edema, astroglial vacuolation, and prominent spongiform brain degeneration. ASPA‐deficient CD mice (Aspanur7/nur7) present similarly with elevated NAA, widespread astroglial dysfunction, ataxia, and Purkinje cell (PC) dendritic atrophy. Bergmann glia (BG), radial astrocytes essential for cerebellar development, are intimately intertwined with PCs, where they regulate synapse stability, functionality, and plasticity. BG damage is common to many neurodegenerative conditions and frequently associated with PC dysfunction and ataxia. Here, we report that, in CD mice, BG exhibit significant morphological alterations, decreased structural associations with PCs, loss of synaptic support proteins, and altered calcium dynamics. We also find that BG dysfunction predates cerebellar vacuolation and PC damage in CD mice. Previously, we developed an antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) therapy targeting Nat8l (N‐acetyltransferase‐8‐like, "Nat8l ASO") that inhibits the production of NAA and reverses ataxia and PC atrophy in CD mice. Here, we show that Nat8l ASO administration in adult CD mice also leads to BG repair. Furthermore, blocking astroglial uptake of NAA is neuroprotective in astroglia‐neuron cocultures exposed to elevated NAA. Our findings suggest that restoration of BG structural and functional integrity could be a mechanism for PC regeneration and improved motor function.


OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was a comparison of treatment results in the year after disk surgery between the following treatment groups: rehabilitation immediately after discharge from hospital, rehabilitation with a transition time (at home) up to twenty days after rehabilitation or no rehabilitation.

METHODS
On basis of claims data from a statutory health insurance and the German Federal Pension Fund the comparison of treatment results was performed. Therefore, duration of disability, return to work and early retirement are considered as treatment results and are analyzed using general linear models (GLM). Furthermore utilization of occupational rehabilitation was compared between the treatment groups with logistic regression.

RESULTS
Rehabilitants showed a lower risk of unemployment. Moreover, rehabilitants utilize more often occupational rehabilitation. Both rehabilitation treatment groups had a higher duration of disability (including duration of rehabilitation) in the first quarter after surgery. Afterwards the duration of disability decreased faster. Risk of early retirement was higher in patients that started rehabilitation immediately.

CONCLUSION
Rehabilitants tend to have better treatment results in the year following disc surgery.


Abstract : The purpose of this descriptive correlational study was to determine the extent that social factors, health beliefs, and attitudes influenced caregiver's decisions in home management with over-the-counter (OTC) medications. Home management decisions were studied in relation to seeking professional care. The association of parents' decisions concerning OTC medications with social factors, as well as beliefs and attitudes related to illness, susceptibility and severity, and medication effectiveness was examined. A theoretical framework based on the Health Belief Model (Rosenstock, 1974) guided the conceptualization of this study. A convenience sample of caregivers with an index child of 3 - 5 years of age was recruited through county-based Head Start programs. Approximately 50 caregivers completed the study instrument at monthly parent counsel meetings. Data were analyzed using Pearson product-moment correlational coefficient. Significant correlations were noted between the age of the caregiver, perception of severity of the child's illness, and perception of the child's susceptibility to illness and calling the doctor for advice or intervention. There were also significant correlations between both the economic status of the household and the perceived effect of OTC medications with caregiver's report of when they would give OTC medications. No significant relationships were found between trust in doctors, barriers to seeking care, and gender of the child and either the choice of giving OTC medication or calling the doctor. It has been estimated that more than 50% of all 3 year olds have been given some type of OTC medication (Kogan, et al., 1994). Findings from this study suggest clinical counseling directions for nurses working in primary care settings.


Nuclear Medicine (NM) images quantify the spatial variations in concentration of an injected or inhaled radiopharmaceutical. Such variations can indicate the presence of disease well before it is discernible in other imaging modalities such as X-ray Computed Tomography (CT). For that reason NM is widely used despite the drawbacks of slow acquisition and faint, noisy and blurred images. The blurring in NM images is in part due to the inevitable breathing of the patient that takes place during the 3 to 15 minute acquisition periods. Breathing motion can lead to substantial errors in quantitation and hinder the accuracy with which lesions may be located. Blurring due to breathing motion becomes increasingly significant as instrument resolution improves. The non-invasive but robust approach to reducing breathing motion artefact presented in this thesis is to monitor patient breathing and relate the configuration of the external abdominal-thoracic surface to parameters that describe the configuration of the internal organs. These parameters are then used to reconstruct, register and then combine a set of respiratory-gated PET images in order to improve signal to noise ratio whilst compensating for breathing motion. The novel procedure presented here, termed Virtual Dissection (VD), requires the acquisition of a breathing cycle of 4D CT images which provides a 4D map of the internal organ and external surface configuration. For each frame in the cycle, organs are segmented and then individually registered to frame 1 in the cycle. Per-organ deformations are then merged to create a global deformation field for each frame. The motion fields are then used to realign the gated PET images to give the motion-corrected NM image. VD uses two fundamental image processing procedures: segmentation and registration. A data-specific segmentation algorithm was developed to perform a cycle-wise organ classification. Three independent registration methods, representing a range of registration characteristics were used, one of which was developed specifically for this work. The registration methods were chosen to demonstrate that VD enables the integration of different registration techniques and parameterisations to permit a choice of registration methods to be made on a per-organ basis in order to reach the optimal choice for the completed images. These developments provide a path, for a subset of organs, from the breathing cycle of CT images through VD to corrected CT images. These techniques have been validated using both simulated and patient data. Visual inspection of lesions in simulated PET images show a reduction in blurring and ten frame animations of CT and PET images show significant breathing motion compensation is achieved by the VD pipeline. Objective measures confirm these findings.


AIM
To test the hypothesis that measures of aerobic fitness, body mass and indices of body composition will influence the metabolic and cardiovascular demands of simulated load-carriage tasks.

METHOD
Twenty-eight healthy male volunteers, following assessment of maximal oxygen uptake (O(2)max) and body composition, walked on a treadmill at 4 kph (1.11 m/s) for 60 min on gradients of 0, 3, 6 and 9% whilst carrying backpack loads of 0, 20 and 40 kg. During the final 3 min of each 5-min exercise bout, indirect respiratory calorimetry and heart rate data were collected and the 'steady-state' metabolic O(2) and cardiovascular (heart rate) demands quantified.

RESULTS
Absolute O(2)max (ml/min) produced the strongest correlation (r = -0.64, P < 0.01) with the metabolic demand of heavy load-carriage (40 kg). The body composition index lean body mass/(fat mass + external load) produced a moderate correlation (r = -0.52, P < 0.01) with the metabolic demand of heavy load-carriage. The increases in metabolic and cardiovascular demands were greater when the load carried increased from 20 to 40 kg compared with 0 to 20 kg at all four gradients. A model incorporating anthropometric and physiological characteristics with gradient and load explains 89% of the variability in the metabolic demands of load-carriage compared with 82% using gradient and load alone.

CONCLUSION
The results show that indices of body composition as well as absolute aerobic power influence the relative metabolic demands of load-carriage. Application of these measurements would ensure selection criteria for load-carriage occupations are based on lean muscle mass rather than running speed.


ABSTRACT Severe sepsis and septic shock are the biggest cause of mortality in critically ill patients. Obesity today is one of the world's greatest health challenges. Little is known about the extent of involvement of the white adipose tissue (WAT) in sepsis and how it is being modified by obesity. We sought to explore the involvement of the WAT in sepsis. We hypothesize that sepsis induces browning of the WAT and that obesity alters the response of WAT to sepsis. Six-week-old C57BL/6 mice were randomized to a high-fat diet to induce obesity (obese group) or control diet (nonobese group). After 6 to 11 weeks of feeding, polymicrobial sepsis was induced by cecal ligation and puncture (CLP). Mice were sacrificed at 0, 18, and 72 h after CLP and epididymal WAT (eWAT), inguinal WAT, and brown adipose tissue (BAT) harvested. Both types of WAT were processed for light microscopy and transmission electron microscopy to assess for morphological changes in both obese and nonobese mice. Tissues were processed for immunohistochemistry, image analyses, and molecular analyses. BATs were used as a positive control. Nonobese mice have an extensive breakdown of the unilocular lipid droplet and smaller adipocytes in WAT compared with obese mice after sepsis. Neutrophil infiltration increases in eWAT in nonobese mice after sepsis but not in obese mice. Nonobese septic mice have an increase in mitochondrial density compared with obese septic mice. Furthermore, nonobese septic mice have an increase in uncoupling protein-1 expression. Although the WAT of nonobese mice have multiple changes characteristic of browning during sepsis, these changes are markedly blunted in obesity.


To improve the blood compatibility, the surface of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) films were irradiated using a CO2-pulsed laser. Acrylamide (AAm) was grafted onto a pre-irradiated surface. The AAm-grafted and laser-treated films were characterized using different techniques. Platelet adhesion and activation onto the AAm-grafted PDMS, laser-treated (ungrafted) and unmodified PDMS film surfaces were compared. Data from in vitro assays indicated that the platelet adhesion was reduced on the AAm-grafted PDMS and laser treated PDMS films in comparison with the unmodified PDMS. The laser-irradiated sample showed the minimum platelet adhesion. It seems that laser irradiation onto a silicone rubber surface is a versatile technique to produce anti-thrombogenic surface for biomaterial applications.


The Sensor Information Testbed COllaberative Research Environment (SITCORE) and the Automated Online Data Repository (AODR) are significant enablers of the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL)'s Open Campus Initiative and together create a highly-collaborative research laboratory and testbed environment focused on sensor data and information fusion. SITCORE creates a virtual research development environment allowing collaboration from other locations, including DoD, industry, academia, and collation facilities. SITCORE combined with AODR provides end-toend algorithm development, experimentation, demonstration, and validation. The AODR enterprise allows the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL), as well as other government organizations, industry, and academia to store and disseminate multiple intelligence (Multi-INT) datasets collected at field exercises and demonstrations, and to facilitate research and development (R and D), and advancement of analytical tools and algorithms supporting the Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) community. The AODR provides a potential central repository for standards compliant datasets to serve as the "go-to" location for lessons-learned and reference products. Many of the AODR datasets have associated ground truth and other metadata which provides a rich and robust data suite for researchers to develop, test, and refine their algorithms. Researchers download the test data to their own environments using a sophisticated web interface. The AODR allows researchers to request copies of stored datasets and for the government to process the requests and approvals in an automated fashion. Access to the AODR requires two-factor authentication in the form of a Common Access Card (CAC) or External Certificate Authority (ECA)


We report two cases of benign polyps of the posterior urethra. Their first symptoms were gross hematuria and urinary frequency. Both specimens obtained by transurethral resection were histologically identified as prostatic tissue. Discussion on benign polyps of the posterior urethra as ectopic prostatic tissue was done with review of literature.


MRL-lpr/lpr (lpr) mice spontaneously develop massive lymphadenopathy resulting from the expansion of a unique population of Thy-1+ cells which are CD4- and CD8- (double negative) and the nature of which is not clear. The antibody J11d has been shown to define a differentiation Ag found on immature thymocytes but not on mature and functional peripheral CD4+ or CD8+ T cells. To analyze the possible relationship between the lpr double-negative T cells and the thymocytes, we investigated the simultaneous expression of J11d and Thy 1 Ag on the double-negative lpr lymph node cells by using two-color immunofluorescent staining technique. We observed that lpr mice at 3 to 4 weeks of age, before the onset of lymphadenopathy, did not have significant numbers (less than 4%) of J11d+ T cells in the periphery, similar to the number found in the control MRL +/+ mice. However, with increasing age of approximately 8 to 10 weeks and coinciding with the appearance of lymphadenopathy, a significant number (approximately 35%) of J11d+ Thy-1+ cells started appearing in the periphery of lpr mice and was maintained until the mice died at 20 to 24 weeks of age. The J11d+ T cells belonged to the abnormal double-negative T cell pool, inasmuch as J11d+ CD4+ or J11d+ CD8+ cells were absent in the lymph nodes of 20-wk-old lpr mice. Furthermore, 20-wk-old lpr mice demonstrated increased numbers (approximately 41%) of double-negative T cells in the thymus, a significant proportion of which were J11d+. In contrast, the 20-wk-old +/+ mice or 4-wk-old lpr mice had only 4% double-negative T cells in the thymus. The present study suggests that a significant number of peripheral double-negative T cells of lpr mice bear the immature thymic differentiation Ag J11d. The possibility that the accumulation of double-negative T cells results from abnormal peripheralization of double-negative J11d+ thymocytes, before complete differentiation into CD4+ or CD8+ T cells, is discussed.


During 2005-2007, the US Securities and Exchange Commission ran a randomized experiment, in which it removed short sale restrictions for some "treated" firms, chosen at random, and left these restrictions in place for others. The SEC experiment has been exploited by many finance and accounting scholars, who report evidence that removing short sale restrictions affected a wide range of financial outcomes, including share prices, firm investment strategy, accounting accruals, auditor behavior, innovation, and much more. We show that the SEC busted its own randomization experiment, in a way which undermines most prior studies. The SEC in fact conducted three distinct randomized experiments; these can be examined separately but cannot be combined without further, likely unjustified assumptions. We discuss what one can and cannot learn from these three experiments.

We also develop reasons and supporting evidence for why relaxing short-sale restrictions was unlikely to affect most of the outcomes studied in recent work. We explain the need, when studying the indirect effects of the SEC experiment, to account for nonrandom choices by short sellers on which firms to "target", and the nonrandom responses of firm managers and other market participants to removal of short sale restrictions. We then revisit selected results from prior studies (effect of the experiment on open short interest and share prices), and find no evidence that the relaxing short-sale restrictions affected either measure.


Abstract In this paper, a new product development lifecycle model, the Transdisciplinary Product Development Lifecycle (TPDL) model, is explained. This new model is based on the axiomatic design (AD) method developed by Suh; hence it inherits the benefits of applying AD to product development. In this model, the AD method is extended to cover the whole product development lifecycle, including the test domain, and new domain characteristic vectors are introduced to systematically capture and manage the input constraints and system components. The TPDL model helps develop, capture, and present both the big-picture and a detailed view of the product development knowledge, including design and requirement traceability knowledge. The objectives of the TDPL model are to guide the designers, developers, and other members of a transdisciplinary product development team throughout the development effort as well as to help capture, maintain, and manage the knowledge produced during the product development process. The TDPL model aims to improve the quality of the design, requirements management, change management, project management, and communication between stakeholders as well as to shorten the development time and reduce the development cost.


We have synthesized as-grown superconducting MgB2 thin films on polyimide film substrates, making use of a low substrate temperature growth of MgB2 thin films, and found that Tc's above 30 K were obtained on polyimide films, like on Al2O3-C substrates. For highquality MgB2 thin film fabrication on substrates completely out of lattice-matching with MgB2 lattice, we have examined Ti/Ag double-layered buffers on glass substrates, and clarified that a double-layered buffer composed of Ag bottom layer 50 nm thick and Ti upper layer 50 nm thick prepared at an ambient temperature is effective for this purpose.


This paper analyses the statistical distribution of war size. We find strong support for a Pareto-type distribution (power law) using data from different sources (COW and UCDP) and periods. A power law describes accurately the size distribution of all wars, but also the distribution of the sample of wars in any given period. The estimated Pareto exponent is always less than 1, indicating that the distribution is heavy-tailed; this means that the war average loss is controlled by the largest conflicts. Furthermore, the study of battle deaths' growth rates reveals a clear decreasing pattern; the growth of deaths declines faster the greater the number of initial deaths.


This book speaks to readers with a particular interest in the Baltic states as well as to those with a broader interest in post-communist democratization and citizenship. The notion of citizenship has not been prominent in academic perspectives on post-communism. This study aims at bringing citizenship back into these perspectives.

Starting from the idea that citizenship is both a condition of democracy and an indicator of the level of democracy in a given society, the author studies the extent to which theories of citizenship currently dominating political science account for the specific experience of people living in the Baltic countries. This study's theoretical bedrock is thus a critical overview of the republican, liberal and cultural conceptions of citizenship, done in relation to the historically specific nature of post-communism.

The analytical instrument derived from this critical overview of theory is a two-dimensional model of citizenship called the Legacy and the Scruples. That model draws insights from, notably, linguistics and anthropology. It is applied to Baltic citizens' experiences of both communist and post-communist citizenships. Ruptures and continuities between these two kinds of citizenship are highlighted. This study argues that the current weakness of citizenship in the Baltic states is due not so much to difficulties in managing ethnic diversity (although such difficulties exist) than to more specifically political factors. These factors are linked to the ways citizenship and political power are conceived of and exercised in these countries.


In wireless broadcasting retransmission,any node of multi-nodes request the retransmission of information packets. This approach always needs large mounts of broadcasting packets. This paper presents a novel retransmission approach (RLNCBR)in wireless broadcasting networks based on random linear network coding. Firstly,source node will send linear coding packets based on the largest mounts of lost packets in received nodes. Then,received nodes will decode lost packets with network coding theory; Mathematic analysis reveals that our approach can ensure the solvability in the received nodes,and have optimization performance in wireless retransmission. Simulation results indicate that compared with existing approach; the approach in this paper can effectively reduce the average number of transmissions and advance the transmission efficiency.


The purpose of this MD is to measure the octupole current threshold to reach single-bunch stability in the LHC at flat top. Two bunches with different emittances are injected in the LHC in both B1 and B2 and the current in the Landau octupoles was progressively decreased until an instability developed. The measurements provide insight into the LHC impedance model by comparing them with the stabilising octupole current predicted from DELPHI.


With Supplementary Observations, Sections, and a Map. By Roderick Impey Murchison, Esq. Sec. G.S. F.R.S. F.L.S. &c. [Read Jan. 19, and Feb. 2, 1831.] Preface The following Memoir contains a series of papers, presented by the authors after their visit to the Austrian and Bavarian Alps in 1829, which would have been already published, but for an unavoidable delay in printing the present Part of the Transactions. The abstracts of these papers no sooner appeared than they were combated, both in British and foreign journals, by Dr. Boué, who, in his system, placed in the lower green-sand what the authors regarded as a connecting link between the great secondary and tertiary deposits. As, however, in confirmation of his own views, he cited phenomena they had not seen, it was important that at least one of them should visit the places referred to; and it also became necessary to describe in greater detail the formations they had considered of the age of the green-sand and chalk, and to prove them inferior to those peculiar deposits which they regarded as intermediate between the chalk and the well-known tertiary groups. For this purpose Mr. Murchison, during the summer of 1830, again visited the Eastern Alps, and communicated the result of his observations in a memoir, of which an abstract has been recently published in the Proceedings of the Society. During the progress of the present Part of the Transactions, it became a question with the Council in what order the papers on the


Detection of immiscible lipid domains in biological membranes offers an alternative support to protein sorting. Liquid ordered domains ("rafts") comprising cholesterol and saturated sphingolipids incorporate saturated glycosyl-phosphatidylinositol (GPI)-anchored or acylated (palmitoyl- and myristoyl-) proteins or particular transmembrane protein sequences. These lipid domains can be isolated in the form of Detergent resistant membranes (DRM) from biological plasma membrane preparations. Caveolae appear to be a differentiated fraction of plasma membranes comprising such numerous cross-linked microdomains associated with caveolin in different cell types. While the biological relevance of such membrane domains is evidenced in vivo by co-patching of proteins sharing the identical affinity for sphingolipids and by the disruption of co-patching following cell cholesterol depletion, only a few physical studies confort the principle of membrane heterogeneity. Results are now presented where cholesterol addition in a tertiary lipid mixture forces outphase-separation, as a realistic model where the lipid segregation can promote protein sorting to the segregated Lo phase. A lipid mixture comprising phosphatidylserine, phosphatidylethanolamine and sphingomyelin of natural origin in the ratio (1/4/3: mole/mole) has been rendered neatly heterogeneous after the addition of cholesterol (27 mole%). Xray diffraction (Small angle Xray scattering) showed the splitting of two neatly resolved lamellar diffractions in the presence of cholesterol. Above 37 degrees C the heterogeneity was traceable by a broadened diffraction spot up to the complete get-to-liquid transition of sphingomyelin at temperatures > 40 degrees C where the spot became again symmetrical and narrow. The large temperature range where the immiscible lamellar phases are detected, the specific requirement for cholesterol association with sphingomyelin, the positive influence of calcium and the reversibility of domain formation support the occurrence for such domains at the inner side of the plasma membrane whereon lipids-bound proteins concentrate.


We recently reported on the physical characteristics of photo-triggerable liposomes containing dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC), and 1,2-bis (tricosa-10,12-diynoyl)-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DC8,9PC) carrying a photo agent as their payload. When exposed to a low-intensity 514 nm wavelength (continuous-wave) laser light, these liposomes were observed to release entrapped calcein green (Cal-G; Ex/Em 490/517 nm) but not calcein blue (Cal-B; Ex/Em 360/460 nm). In this study, we have investigated the mechanism for the 514 nm laser-triggered release of the Cal-G payload using several scavengers that are known specifically to inhibit either type I or type II photoreaction pathways. Liposomes containing DPPC:DC8,9PC: distearoylphosphatidylethanolamine (DSPE)-polyethylene glycol (PEG)-2000 (86:10:04 mole ratio) were loaded either with fluorescent (calcein) or nonfluorescent (3H-inulin) aqueous markers. In addition, a non-photo-triggerable formulation (1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl phosphatidylcholine [POPC]:DC8,9PC:DSPE-PEG2000) was also studied with the same payloads. The 514 nm wavelength laser exposure on photo-triggerable liposomes resulted in the release of Cal-G but not that of Cal-B or 3H-inulin, suggesting an involvement of a photoactivated state of Cal-G due to the 514 nm laser exposure. Upon 514 nm laser exposures, substantial hydrogen peroxide (H2O2, ≈100 μM) levels were detected from only the Cal-G loaded photo-triggerable liposomes but not from Cal-B-loaded liposomes (≤10 μM H2O2). The Cal-G release from photo-triggerable liposomes was found to be significantly inhibited by ascorbic acid (AA), resulting in a 70%–80% reduction in Cal-G release. The extent of AA-mediated inhibition of Cal-G release from the liposomes also correlated with the consumption of AA. No AA consumption was detected in the 514 nm laserexposed Cal B-loaded liposomes, thus confirming a role of photoactivation of Cal-G in liposome destabilization. Inclusion of 100 mM K3Fe(CN)6 (a blocker of electron transfer) in the liposomes substantially inhibited Cal-G release, whereas inclusion of 10 mM sodium azide (a blocker of singlet oxygen of type II photoreaction) in the liposomes failed to block 514 nm laser-triggered Cal-G release. Taken together, we conclude that low-intensity 514 nm laser-triggered release of Cal-G from photo-triggerable liposomes involves the type I photoreaction pathway.


The particle swarm optimization (PSO), although it has been widely used in various fields, has a step-size problem, which deteriorates optimization performance. This problem is resolved using the golden section search (GSS) and the steepest descent method. We also design a filter that will improve optimization performance of the proposed algorithm. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, including for which type of problems the proposed algorithm is adequate, is verified using some benchmark problems. Moreover, a hardware-in-the-loop system which consists of a NC system with two motors and a computer that optimizes control parameters of the NC controller is introduced as an industrial application


• The hydraulic conductance of leaves (
k
leaf
) was examined to determine whether
this little understood component of the water transport pathway plays a role
in governing leaf phenology of two deciduous dry forest trees (
Calycophyllum
candidissimum
and
Rhedera trinervis
).
•
k
leaf
was monitored in parallel with stem hydraulic conductivity (K
stem
) during the
transition from wet to dry season. The relationships between declining photosynthetic
quantum yield during senescence and declining
k
leaf
and K
stem
were compared.
• Divergent patterns were observed in the response of K
stem
to seasonal drying;
however, the behaviour of
k
leaf
was essentially similar in both species. Large (five- to
ten-fold) decreases in leaf hydraulic conductance occurred before, and during the
later stages of leaf senescence. During senescence, declining
k
leaf
, which continued
until leaves were ultimately shed, was associated with a concomitant decline in
quantum yield.
• We conclude that, in these species, the loss of hydraulic conductance of the leaf
vascular system is linked to, and possibly responsible for, the loss of photosynthetic
capacity during leaf senescence.


In the karst lake district in peninsular Florida in the southeastern United States, as many as 70% of the lakes lack surface outlets, and groundwater outflow is an important part of the water budgets of these lakes. For 11 karst lakes in the Central Lake District, vertical leakage from the lakes to the upper Floridan aquifer averages 0.12 to 4.27 m yr−1. The vertically averaged vertical conductance Kv/b, a coefficient that represents the average of the vertical conductances of the hydrogeologic units between the bottom of a lake and the top of the upper Floridan aquifer, was determined to range from 0.0394 to 1.00 yr−1 for these lakes. For six of the lakes, various hydraulic parameters previously calculated by other investigators are shown to be equivalent to the Kv/b values calculated in this study. If Kv/b is determined for a lake, then vertical leakage can be estimated for other conditions of lake stage and hydraulic head in the upper Floridan aquifer, using Kv/b for the lake and Darcy's equation written for vertical flow. The methodology described in this paper for quantifying Kv/b, which requires only limited data (i.e., vertical leakage, lake stage, and hydraulic head in the upper Floridan aquifer), could be used to investigate the apparent association between relatively large Kv/b values and lake level instabilities at some lakes in the Central Lake District and similar hydrogeologic settings. This methodology for calculating vertical leakage is applicable to the Central Lake District in Florida and to other similar lake and groundwater systems.


Holiday-makers experience the places where they are on holiday in different ways. Back in 1979, Erik Cohen introduced his `modes of tourist experience'. Cohen's approach was promising for better understanding `experiences' in a phenomenological way, but very little happened afterwards with his `modes' either in a theoretical or empirical way. This article reconsiders his theoretical model and reformulates the modes of experience, which have a basis in Alfred Schutz's lifeworld concept, and a theory on imagination and metaphors. The role imagination can play in free-time experiences is that it can provide a new synthesis between the self and the environment. The metaphorical context has a quality that can be referred to as `out-there-ness'. The concept of out-there-ness, instead of Cohen's `centre-out-there', can be well applied to leisure situations where no centres are relevant, but only orientations and metaphorical references.


Recent work has indicated that cobalt, at sub-millimolar concentrations, blocks horizontal cell (HC) to cone feedback, without attenuating direct cone to second-order cell synaptic transmission. We utilized low concentrations (0.25–0.5 mM) of cobalt to test the contribution of the feedback circuit, and other possible cobalt-sensitive mechanisms, to the receptive-field surrounds of retinal neurons. In the great majority of cases, low cobalt blocked ganglion cell surrounds, and it invariably blocked driving the ganglion cell by extrinsic current injected into the HC network. Although low cobalt reduced the integrating area of the HC network, dopamine, which similarly constricted the HC receptive area, did not block ganglion cell surrounds. Low cobalt reduced a late depolarizing wave in the HC light-evoked waveform and selectively suppressed the depolarizing component of chromatic HCs, both signs of HC to cone feedback. Low cobalt also reduced or blocked completely the receptive-field surrounds of a small sample of bipolar and amacrine cells. These results implicate the HC to cone feedback synapse in the formation of the receptive-field surround of retinal neurons.


The obesity epidemic continues to escalate each year in the United States more than anywhere else in the world. The existing pharmaceutical and other nonsurgical treatments for morbid obesity produce suboptimal physiologic outcomes compared with those of Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) surgery. RYGB has been the gold standard of bariatric surgery because the beneficial long-term outcomes, which include sustainable weight loss and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) resolution, are far superior to those obtained with other bariatric surgeries. However, the current understanding of RYGB's mechanisms of actions remains limited and incomplete. There is an urgent need to understand these mechanisms as gaining this knowledge may lead to the development of innovative and less invasive procedures and/or medical devices, which can mirror the favorable outcomes of RYGB surgery. In this review, we highlight current observations of the metabolic and physiologic events following RYGB, with a particular focus on the role of the anatomical reconfiguration of the gastrointestinal tract after RYGB.


In order to clarify the interconnection and interdependence of the human somatic organism and psyche, their nature is discussed. The somatic organism is a specific morphological functional system, developing in every being. The psyche is a functional structure developing individually in the course of ontogeny, under the effect of internal processing influenced by the environment. The function of conditioned and unconditioned reflexes is discussed including the way in which the conditioned reflexes are built up on unconditioned ones. The mechanism is described, by which the psyche develops in the individual and how its functions manifest themselves. A concept is discussed concerning the structure of the human psyche, the system and nature of the conscious and unconscious functions. The personality is the manifestation of the interconnections and the formation into a system of the somatic organism and the psyche. This interconnection brings about the socialized humanization of the vital processes in man living in society. A concept concerning the essence of personality is discussed, emphasizing the "actual personality" and describing its structure. Clinical examples are given concerning the interconnection of somatic organism and psyche and the somatopsychic and psycho-somatic processes, and conclusions are drawn for the purposes of education.


The Probabilistic Identification of Causal SNPs (PICS) algorithm and web application was developed as a fine-mapping tool to determine the likelihood that each single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in LD with a reported index SNP is a true causal polymorphism. PICS is notable for its ability to identify candidate causal SNPs within a locus using only the index SNP, which are widely available from published GWAS, whereas other methods require full summary statistics or full genotype data. However, the original PICS web application operates on a single SNP at a time, with slow performance, severely limiting its usability. We have developed a next-generation PICS tool, PICS2, which enables performance of PICS analyses of large batches of index SNPs with much faster performance. Additional updates and extensions include use of LD reference data generated from 1000 Genomes phase 3; annotation of variant consequences; annotation of GTEx eQTL genes and downloadable PICS SNPs from GTEx eQTLs; the option of generating PICS probabilities from experimental summary statistics; and generation of PICS SNPs from all SNPs of the GWAS catalog, automatically updated weekly. These free and easy-to-use resources will enable efficient determination of candidate loci for biological studies to investigate the true causal variants underlying disease processes.

AVAILABILITY
PICS2 is available at https://pics2.ucsf.edu.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION
Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.


Background and aim This study aimed to elucidate whether interferon (IFN)-free direct-acting antiviral (DAA) therapy for hepatitis C after curative treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) promotes HCC recurrence in a real-world large-scale cohort. Methods This multicenter study was conducted by the Japanese Red Cross Hospital Liver Study Group. This retrospective study analyzed 516 patients who underwent antiviral treatment for hepatitis C with either IFN (n = 148) or IFN-free DAA (n = 368) after curative HCC treatment; 78 IFN-treated patients and 347 IFN-free DAA-treated patients achieved sustained virological response (SVR). The recurrence rate of HCC was compared between the antiviral therapies. Logistic analysis and Cox proportional hazards analysis identified factors associated with early recurrence of HCC within 24 weeks of antiviral therapy and recurrence throughout the observation period, respectively. Results AFP at the completion of antiviral therapy, clinical stage of HCC, and non-SVR were independent factors associated with early recurrence of HCC. Among patients who had achieved SVR, the clinical stage of HCC and the level of AFP at completion of antiviral therapy were independent factors associated with early recurrence of HCC. For recurrence throughout the observation period in SVR patients, AFP at completion of antiviral therapy, duration between last HCC treatment to antiviral therapy, and the number of treatments were independent factors. There was no significant difference in the rate of early recurrence of HCC or recurrence throughout the observation period between IFN and IFN-free DAA treated patients. Conclusions There were no differences in the early recurrence rate of HCC between patients who underwent IFN and those who underwent IFN-free DAA as antiviral therapies.


Apart from its well‐known functions in calcium homeostasis and parathyroid hormone regulation, 1,25‐(OH)2D3 and its synthetic analogs are being increasingly recognized for their potent antiproliferative, pro‐differentiative and immunomodulating activities. The effects of these drugs are exerted either via vitamin D receptor‐dependent genomic, or cell‐surface receptor‐mediated, non‐genomic pathways. Several vitamin D analogs with fewer hypercalcemic side effects have been developed for use in secondary hyperparathyroidism. These analogs may potentially improve treatment of autoimmune disorders and graft rejection, and in dialysis patients may open a new opportunity for amelioration of the chronic inflammatory status. It has recently been shown that hemodialysis (HD) patients treated with paricalcitol have lower total and cardiovascular mortality and morbidity rates and experience improved hospitalization outcomes compared with HD patients treated with calcitriol, suggesting a potential beneficial effect in chronic inflammation and the development of cardiovascular disease. Specific studies on the immunomodulating effects of vitamin D are needed in the HD population.


Historically conceived as a method of truthfully depicting reality, photography serves a critical function in disseminating knowledge and constructing representations about people, places, and objects. In this essay, I examine the historical role photography has played in generating cultural conceptions of the freak in 19th-century America. By drawing a proximity between medical photographs and sideshow cartes de visites of the physically anomalous, I demonstrate a shared aesthetic tradition between science and the arts that destabilizes elements of power, authority, and control typically associated with the western medical/scientific community. My work demystifies the apparent contradiction between subjectivity and objectivity inherent in early photographic practices to reveal a strategic methodology: a way of playing with the politics of photographic representation to generate meanings for bodies that resist empirical explanation. Here, photography's structures of power and knowledge that imbricate the freak are made transparent, challenging the medium's claims to truth and "reality" that inform its critical status in contemporary American culture.


Aim: Chronic rhinosinusitis is an inflammatory disease of the nasal mucosa often occurring concurrently with dry eye. The aim was to assess the effects of Manuka (Leptospermum spp.) antibacterial honey nasal spray (Melcare and reg; Manuka+ and #8482; Nasal Spray, Melcare, Australia) and eye drops (Optimel Manuka+ Dry Eye Drops, Melcare, Australia) on both conditions. The safety of and adherence to these treatments were also evaluated.

Methods: Twenty-seven participants, aged 50 to 77 years, with chronic rhinosinusitis and dry eye symptoms were recruited and randomised to two treatment groups; 22 completed the study. One group used the Manuka Nasal Spray (n=10) and the other the Manuka Nasal Spray plus Manuka Dry Eye Drops (n=12); treatments were used twice daily for 4 weeks. Before and after treatments symptoms were surveyed (SNOT-20, ODSI) and ocular surface assessed (bulbar and limbal conjunctival redness, non-invasive and fluorescein tear break up times, tear secretion, ocular surface staining). Participants completed a daily log of their usage of treatments and any issues experienced.

Results: Both treatment groups showed significant improvements in nasal symptoms, and decreased surface staining. Participants using the Manuka+ Dry Eye Drops also had a reduction in their dry eye symptoms. There was no significant difference between the effects of the two treatments on ocular surface assessments. No adverse responses were reported to either treatment.

Conclusions: The Manuka+ Nasal Spray is effective in improving symptoms of chronic rhinosinusitis over a 4 week period, but must be used in conjunction with the Manuka+ Dry Eye Drops to improve concurrent dry eye symptoms.


Cyberspace is composed of a multitude of different spaces where users can represent themselves in many divergent ways. Why in a video game, is it more acceptable to murder or maim than rape? After all, in each case, it is only pixels that are being assaulted. This book avoids wrestling with the common question of whether the virtual violation of real-world taboos is right or wrong, and instead provides a theoretical framework that helps us understand why such distinctions are typically made, and explores the psychological impact of violating offline taboos within cyberspace.


Abstract. The presented research deals with the issue of the potential effect of adjuvants/wetting agents (WA) added to the spray mixture for stability of soil aggregates (SAS) in agricultural soil. Nine localities were chosen in the Czech Republic. Each locality was mapped using soil pits (depth min. 1.4 m). A total of 54 mixed samples were collected from the topsoil horizon in the selected localities. The samples were exposed to the action of four different types of wetting agents (organosilicone wetting agent; methyl ester of rapeseed oil; mixture of methyl ester palmitic and oleic acids; Isodecyl alcohol ethoxylate). SAS was determined before and after the addition of WA. Average values of SAS across the sampling point exhibited a demonstrable trend: the SAS value of control sample (without WA application) was at all times higher than in samples with the addition of WA (organosilicone wetting agent; mixture of methyl ester palmitic and oleic acids; Isodecyl alcohol ethoxylate), on average by more than 15 %. If the measured SAS values are compared in terms of overall means, it is obvious that the control variant always exhibited the highest SAS value (44.04 %) and the variants with the application of WA showed always SAS values lower by min. 16 %. All soil samples were also analysed for basic soil parameters (glomalin, Cox, pH, Na, P, Ca, K, Mg) in order to determine their potential influence on SAS and a possible elimination of the negative impact of WA. In this respect, only a significant influence of Cox content on SAS was recorded, which positively correlated with SAS.


This research is related to the analysis of Majelis Tarjih Muhammadiyah 22th's decision about law of marriage with Kitabiyah women. This research is based on Maqashid AlSyari'at. In Majelis Tarjih decision stated that law of marriage with kitabiyah women is forbidden (proscribed). Although, most of Islamic scholar's opinion showed that marry with kitabiyahwomen is allowed. Based on Majelis Tarjih, it is allowed when it has illat, such as: The marriage is aimed to ask her wife to join Islam. However, in reality, especially in Indonesia, Majelis Tarjih
see this case, marriage with kitabiyah women has big disadvantage for Islam community. For most of Muslims those marry with kitabiyah women will follow with their wife's religion and their children will follow with what their mum's believed. Majelis Tarjih thought that the illat's
exceptional will be not used to anymore, even it will be attack back, allowing will become proscribing. In this case, by using Saddu AlDzari'at method, so Majelis Tarjih decided proscribed, this decision is unique because the method which is used is putting the benefit "first" than nash. It contrasts to most of Islamic scholars' opinion. So, this research has urgent for knowing the considerations, reasons, methodology and the analysis of Majelis Tarjih in deciding law of marriage with kitabiyah women. In addition, to find out how is the relevance of Maqashid AlSyari'at.
Based on this reference's study, there are some conclusions of this decision here should be critical, they are: The beneficial which was suggested by Majelis Tarjih is proscribing a Muslim's marriage with kitabiyah women which has aim to keep his faithful (Hifz AlDin). It contrasts with nash qath'i (permanent text) which is allowed it clearly. Dzari'at of Majelis Tarjih is suspected to create harmful for a Muslims. On the writer's view, it is not suitable because it is based on previous research. Furthermore, the law is viewed by all people generally. Besides, the writer suspected that this decision is caused by politisyuridis factor.


Objective: To assess the silent ischemic changes in diabetics presented to atertiary care hospital and to know its association with different variables. Methodology: A cross sectional study done at Ayub Teaching Hospital (ATH)Abbottabad, from 16th July 2016 to 14th November 2016. Data was collected byfilling preformed questionnaire, examining the patients and seeing ECG byinterviewers and analyzed using SPSS 23. Results: Our results shows that out of total 246 patients 45.1% were males withmean age of51.62±11.3years. Of them 11% were type 1 while 89% were type 2diabetics. About 129(52.4%) of patients had ischemic changes on ECG,19.6%were smokers, 26.8%had family history of DM, 21(8.5%) of hypertension,99(40.2%) had family history of both DM and hypertension. Among patients66.3% had raised HbA1C level, 43.1% had dyslipidemia, 7.3% had proteinurea,22.7% had glycosuria and 18.7% had both proteinuria and glycosuria. Patientshaving ischemic changes on ECG, 127patients aged more than 30 years andregarding duration of diabetes mellitus (DM) 44 had 20years duration of DM. Conclusion: Ischemic changes were positively associated with age of patients,duration of diabetes, hypertension, raised HbA1C level and hyperlipidemia.


Contested term used to describe compulsive drug taking. First in use to denote a disease requiring psychiatric treatment in the early 20th century, replacing older language of "habit", "inebriety", "morphinomania". Primarily focused on alcohol and drugs initially. Recent discussion of nicotine addiction symbolises ownership by public health as well as by psychiatry.

Community health workers were organised in the countries of the developing world after Alma Ata's (1978) focus on primary health care (PHC) and WHO's Health for All by the Year 2000 gave public health a higher profile at the international level. Conceptual and practical confusion between PHC and public health, as in the UK, with tensions between general practitioners (GPs) and public health personnel.

Concept developed by social medicine academics in the UK to provide training in health administration and epidemiology for the effective administration of health services. Critics argued that, when implemented in the 1970s, the loss of the medical officer of health meant that the relationship with the local community was lost. Distinct from community health (see above).

The science of disease in populations. In the 19th century, the epidemiology of infectious disease and vital statistics were central parts of the public health curriculum. After the second world war, epidemiology expanded its remit within public health to include …


This paper discusses Zelen's method (a study design with pre-randomization) in randomized controlled trials from the following aspects: 1) compliance of patients with a randomly assigned treatment; 2) infringement of patients' right to choose treatments; and 3) unfairness that only patients assigned to a new treatment are allowed a choice of treatments. The reason Zelen's method is rarely used in the United States or European countries seems to be the lower compliance of treatments in Zelen's method than in the conventional design of randomized controlled trials. Considering the present study practice in Japan, where study subjects are not completely informed by randomized assignment of treatments, Zelen's method is thought to be more practical, and not inferior to the conventional design in terms of compliance.


Endogenous sugar receptors of human tumors, supposedly involved in recognitive interactions and growth regulation, were comparatively analyzed from human metastases to lung and liver by affinity chromatography and subsequent sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. These profiles of sugar receptors including Ca2+-dependent and Ca2+-independent specificities to alpha- and beta-galactosides, alpha-mannosyl and alpha-fucosyl moieties from salt and detergent extracts were found to be significantly different from the profile of the corresponding normal tissue. Metastatic lesions to lung from three different types of primary tumors revealed primarily tumor-associated mannan- and galactoside-binding proteins, whereas different liver metastases showed a tendency towards preferential expression of additional beta-galactoside-binding proteins and, to a reduced extent, fucose-binding proteins. The patterns of two metastatic lesions to lung and liver from a similar primary tumor, a colon carcinoma, disclose significant differences. Each resembles the pattern of other metastases to the same target organ more than it resembles the pattern of metastatic lesions to the other target organ, derived from a similar primary tumor. Further analyses of two primary liver tumors underscore the significance of changes in such a pattern upon malignant transformation.


Serum ribonuclease levels were determined in 54 patients with lung carcinoma, 74 long-term cigarette smokers, and 172 nonsmokers. The mean serum ribonuclease level was significantly higher in patients with lung carcinoma and long-term smokers compared with healthy nonsmokers (P less than .001). The serum ribonuclease activity level was not related to chronological age, sex, or race of the smoker or nonsmoker population. Forty (75%) of 53 patients with lung cancer and 49 (66%) of 74 smokers had elevated serum ribonuclease levels compared with 13 (7%) of 179 nonsmoker healthy controls (P less than .001). The highest incidence of elevation was noted in patients with epidermoid carcinoma (95%).


Dialeurodes citri (Hom. Aleyrodidae) first invaded citrus orchards in the South Adriatic, near Dubrovnik, during 1977. Since the characteristics of the pest have not been studied in Croatia, this paper reviews its morphology, locations, host plant range and biology. Leaf samples, collected all over the Croatian coast and islands, were observed in the laboratory for purpose of creating a map with citrus whitefly locations, morphological description and a list of host plants. The pest biological cycle and population trend were investigated in the region of Split (May 1996-May 1998). The presence of citrus whitefly was confirmed in all citrus-growing areas of Croatia. The number of noted host plants was somewhat lower than in Mediterranean countries. Other than citrus, it also colonised and harmed laurustinus (Viburnum tinus Hemsl.), persimmon (Diospyros kaki Thunb.) and several plants of Oleaceae. The citrus whitefly had three generations on citrus per year. However, the part of larval population that belonged to second generation did not finish the post-embryonic development and it remained on the summer flush leaves and awaited the hibernation. The appearance of adults followed the appearance of young citrus growth. All development stages had three population peaks during vegetation period. The presence of young larval stages (L-1, L-2) was pronounced during the middle of June, August and October. The pest overwintered mainly as fourth instar larva. On deciduous persimmon trees it had two generations per year.


At the request of the Prime Minister's office, between 2011-2013, the World Bank conducted a study to understand the social and economic costs of crime and violence in Papua New Guinea. The purpose of the study was to feed a national conversation about crime and violence and inform policy directions and program interventions. The findings of the study are summarized in this research and dialogue series. This brief outlines the policy and programming recommendations that emerge from the research. The recommendations are intended to provide information, possible policy approaches towards an ongoing dialogue on the issue of crime and violence and that they will fuel a growing coalition of state and civil society actors for an integrated response.


A cell-wall-surface protein purified from the cells of Saccharomyces cerevisiae NCYC 227 was found to be involved in the non-sexual flocculation of this yeast. This 13 kDa protein was found to bind specifically to mannose. The protein bound to mannans isolated from yeast as well as in situ to intact cells, but only in the presence of calcium ions. The protein, a mannoprotein, formed aggregates as revealed in SDS-PAGE. Urea and higher temperatures prevented protein aggregation, suggesting that the flocculation of S. cerevisiae is primarily due to hydrogen bonding between mannan and protein.


Key location identification in cities is central in human mobility investigation as well as for societal problem comprehension. In this context, we propose a methodology to quantify the power of point-of-interests (POIs) in their vicinity, in terms of impact and independence - the first work in the literature (to the best of our knowledge). Different from literature, we consider the flow of people in our analysis, instead of the number of neighbor POIs or their structural locations in the city. Thus, we first modeled POI's visits using the multiflow graph model where each POI is a node and the transitions of users among POIs are a weighted direct edge. Using this multiflow graph model, we compute the attract, support and independence powers. The attract power and support power measure how many visits a POI gather from and disseminate over its neighborhood, respectively. Moreover, the independence power captures the capacity of POI to receive visitors independently from other POIs. Using a dataset describing the mobility of individuals in the Dartmouth College campus, we identify a slight dependence among buildings as well as the tendency of people to be mostly stationary in few buildings with short transit periods among them.


This research proposes to evaluate the level of thermal comfort of the environment in real time using Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data and Machine Learning (ML) techniques for collecting, storage, processing and analysis of the concerned information. The search for thermal comfort provides the best living and health conditions for human beings. The environment, as one of its functions, must present the climatic conditions necessary for human thermal comfort. In the research, wireless sensors are used to monitor the Heat Index, the Thermal Discomfort Index and the Temperature and Humidity Index of remote indoor environments to intelligently monitor the level of comfort and alert possible hazards to the people present. Machine learning algorithms are also used to analyse the history of stored data and formulate models capable of making predictions of the parameters of the environment to determine preventive actions or optimize the environment control for reducing energy consumption.


. Revelation principle implies that given any admissible social welfare function, the outcome of Baron and Myerson's (1982) (BM) optimal direct-revelation mechanism under incentive constraints cannot be dominated by any other mechanism in expected utilities. However, since the expected total surplus varies with a change in the social welfare function, Pareto improvements should be possible if the monopolist and consumers can agree, by means of side payments that reveal no additional information to the regulator, on the use of an alternative social welfare function which would generate a lower expected deadweight loss. We check the validity of this intuition by integrating the BM mechanism with an induced cooperative bargaining model where unilateral pre-donation by consumers or the producer is allowed. Under this new mechanism producer's pre-donation in the ex-ante stage always leads to ex-ante Pareto improvement while a certain amount of it completely eliminates the expected deadweight loss. Moreover, if optimally designed in the interim stage, the producer's pre-donation may also lead under some cost parameters to interim (and also ex-post ) Pareto improvement. Consumers, on the other hand, have no incentive to make a unilateral pre-donation, nor to reverse the optimal pre-donation of the monopolist.


In this paper , some of the shortcomings in the existing system has been proposed to be rectified. The advances have allowed numerous ways for power harvesting systems in practical applications in order to meet the power demand. The use of piezoelectric crystal is to generate electric output from surrounding vibrations . Piezoelectric materials have a crystalline structure that they can convert mechanical energy into electrical charge and is vice-versa. These materials have the ability to absorb mechanical energy from their surroundings, usually ambient vibration, and transform it into electrical energy that can be used to power other devices. The produced electrical energy from the piezoelectric crystal is very low in the order of 2-3volts and is initially stored in a 2v rechargeable battery through a charge controller ,since it is not possible to charge a 12V battery through crystal output . In order to increase the voltage, the boost converter circuit is used. The use of boost converter is to increase the level of voltage ranges about 12V and is stored in a 12V battery. In order to supply power to the load an inverter circuit is required by which the generated voltage is fed to the CFL lamp load .This project can be implemented in dense populated areas like railway station ,bus stands etc where more amount of vibration energy will be obtained. In this paper, we discuss about many researches that has been performed in the area of power harvesting.


In this study, we present a gripping mechanism that is inspired by caterpillar's proleg. A caterpillar's proleg has planta that gives compliance to the proleg by greatly deforming its shape. In the bio-inspired gripper, the planta is implemented by flexure joints. The flexures buckle when end force and end moment is applied on the joint in opposite direction. Using this characteristic, the gripping structure is designed so that the flexure buckling can occur. Flexure buckling increases the region where gripping force is constant and this region leads to increasing in gripping range. At the same time, flexure buckling decouples all spines and therefore all spines can move differentially and independently. With this simple but effective mechanism, the bioinspire gripper can achieve adaptive gripping on rough and rugged surfaces. A prototype is built to demonstrate adaptive gripping on rough and rugged surfaces such as cement block, brick.


Thermally processed diets are widely consumed, although advanced-glycation end products (AGEs) are unavoidably formed. AGEs, clusters of protein-cross-linking products, become less digestible because they impair intestinal peptidase proteolysis. We characterized the impacts of dietary AGEs on gut microbiota through a microbiome-to-metabolome association study. C57BL/6 mice were fed a heat-treated diet (high-AGE diet, H-AGE) or a standard AIN-93G diet (low-AGE diet, L-AGE) for 8 months. Fecal-microbiota composition was examined by 16S rDNA sequencing, and fecal-metabolome profile was evaluated by gas chromatography-tandem time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC-TOF-MS). Reduced α-diversity and altered microbiota composition with elevated Helicobacter levels were found in the H-AGE group, and among the 57 perturbed metabolites, protein-fermentation products (i.e., p-cresol and putrescine) were increased. Major dysfunctional metabolic pathways were associated with carbohydrate and amino acid metabolism in two groups. Moreover, high correlations were found between fluctuant gut microbiota and metabolites. These findings might reveal the underlying mechanisms of the detrimental impacts of dietary AGEs on host health.


Introduction Black rot is an important fungal disease of grapes that originated in eastern North America, but which now occurs in portions of Europe, South America, and Asia as well. It can cause complete crop loss in warm, humid climates, but is virtually unknown in regions with arid summers. There is a wide variation in susceptibility to this disease among native American and hybrid cultivars, whereas all common cultivars of Vitis vinifera appear to be highly susceptible. Symptoms and Signs All young green tissues of the vine are susceptible to infection. Relatively small, brown circular lesions develop on infected leaves (Fig. 1), and within a few days tiny black spherical fruiting bodies (pycnidia) protrude from them (Fig. 2). Elongated black lesions on the petiole (Fig.3) may eventually girdle these organs (Fig. 4), causing the affected leaves to wilt (Fig. 5). Shoot infection results in large black elliptical lesions (Figs. 5 and 6). These lesions may contribute to breakage of shoots by wind, or in severe cases, may girdle and kill young shoots altogether. Infection of the fruit is by far the most serious phase of the disease and may result in substantial economic loss. Infected berries first appear light or chocolate brown (Fig. 7), but quickly turn darker brown, with masses of black pycnidia developing on the surface (Fig. 8). Finally, infected berries shrivel and turn into hard black raisin-like bodies that are called mummies (Fig. 9). Integrated Pest Management


Corporate governance mechanisms designed to ensure that managers act in shareholders' interest have evolved dramatically over the past forty years. "Old governance" mechanisms such as independent directors and performance-based executive compensation have been supplemented by innovations that give shareholders greater input into both the selection of directors and ongoing operational decisions. Issuer boards have responded with tools to limit the exercise of shareholder power both procedurally and substantively. This article terms the adoption and use of these tools, which generally take the form of structural provisions in the corporate charter or bylaws, the "new governance."Delaware law has largely taken a hands-off approach to the new governance. The courts have policed shareholder innovations that interfere unduly with board authority and have invalidated board innovations that are extreme or adopted for an inequitable purpose. For the most part, however, the law has deferred to private ordering – leaving individual firms to structure their governance mechanisms as they see fit, with market discipline forming the primary constraint. In 2015, however, the Delaware legislature responded to the growth of bylaws designed to control the extent of shareholder litigation with an unusual step; it amended the statute to impose mandatory limits on litigation bylaw and charter provisions that went beyond the constraints imposed by the Delaware courts and that could not be altered by individual firms. It is difficult to reconcile the legislature's action in light of Delaware's traditional deference to the courts and the market.This article argues that the legislature's response to litigation bylaws is best understood as a mandate that corporations who seek to avail themselves of Delaware law by incorporating within the state submit to the full package of Delaware corporate law – a package that includes both statutory provisions and oversight by the Delaware courts. In that light, the legislation should not be understood as signalling an intention to subject the new governance to greater oversight.


Following Roussarie's program (1989) for solving the 16th Hilbert's Problem, it's shown that non-trivial double homoclinic loops with a degenerate hyperbolic saddle are of finite cyclicity in C infinity families of planar vector fields. For this, we study the zeros of the displacement map Delta by blowing up the analytic parameters and the phase variable by the translation parameter.


In order to identify the clinical, haematological, biochemical and echographic variables that may be predictors of the presence of oesophageal varices in patients with liver cirrhosis, an endoscopy of the upper digestive tract was conducted among 200 patients with this disease evaluated by the group of hepatic transplant of the Center for Medical and Surgical Research from January 2004 to December 2006. The presence or not of varices was related to the following variables: staging of hepatic insufficiency according to the classification of Child-Pugh-Turcotte, bilirubin, albumin, prothrombin time, platelet count, ascites, splenomegaly, and diameter of the portal vein. 139 patients presented esophageal varices (69.5 %) and 89 (44.5 %) portal gastropathy. As regards the Child staging, 33, 31 and 36 % presented A, B and C staging, respectively. In the univariate analysis, the appearance of varices showed a significant association with the advanced staging of Child-Pugh-Turcotte, with bilirubin, albumin, splenomegaly, the increase of diameter of the portal vein and ascites. In this analysis, only splenomegaly and ascites has a predicitive value independent of the presence of varices.


The aim of this research is to produce SAS based on MI and problem solving skills oriented using simple science tools that are suitable to be used by elementary school students for energy material. The feasibility of SAS is based on validity, practicality, and effectiveness. The implementation of Lesson Plan (LP) and student activities are the indicators of SAS practicality. The effectiveness of SAS is measured by indicators of increased learning outcomes and problem-solving skills. The development of SAS follows the 4-D (define, design, develop, and disseminate) phase, which is limited to the third stage (develop). The written SAS was then validated through expert judgment by two experts in the science field, before being tested to the target students (trial I and II). The SAS trial used a one group pre-test post-test design. The result of the research shows that: (1) SAS is valid with "good" category, (2) SAS is considered practical as seen from increased student activity at each meeting and LP implementation, and (3) SAS was declared as effective from the significant difference between pretest and post test result of learning result and problem solving skill test so that SAS is feasible to be used in learning.


The purpose of this disquisition is to disseminate an improvement initiative in a public high school that addressed female Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) disparity in STEM classes. In this high school current instructional and career guidance practices were inadequate in providing female STEM students opportunities to experience relevant instruction in STEM through the application of real world practices. The improvement initiative identified four interventions using qualitative research that addressed the question, how do instructional and career guidance practices that emphasize the real world application of STEM impact the academic choices and career aspirations of female STEM students? The interventions include (1) instructional feedback (2) instructional resources, (3) career coaching, and (4) community college partnership. These interventions were chosen as a result of insider research methods that followed a scan, focus, summarize framework for understanding the problem. The aim of the improvement initiative was to develop structured protocols that impact STEM classroom and career guidance practices. An intervention team intended to identify opportunities for female STEM students to experience the real world application of STEM. First, the research context is explained. Then, a review of the literature explains foundation knowledge that led to the conceptual and leadership framework. Next, the research methodology is outlined including design and participants, survey instruments, procedures, timeline, and measures. The research methodology is followed by an analysis of data for instructional and career guidance practice efficacy. Finally, a discussion of the initiative and its outcome are illustrated through the stories of three female STEM students. As a result of these stories, the intervention team developed STEM classroom observation protocols. These protocols can be used by school leaders as a structure for STEM instruction and career guidance.


Mr. J. H. Iliffe, Keeper of the Palestine Museum, has again increased our knowledge of Terra Sigillata in the Near East by publishing a second extensive instalment of his Index of Potters' Stamps on Sigillata wares in the lands of the Eastern Mediterranean. Most of his present material proceeds from excavations at Corinth and in the Athenian Agora, together with examples from Knossos, Cyprus and Syria. He has also made his work more complete by incorporating many additional stamps from Dr. Howard Comfort's ' Supplementary Sigillata signatures in the Near East' (Journ. American Oriental Society, Iviii, 30-60). Mr. Iliffe's continuation of his Index will doubtless stimulate excavators to contribute further examples they may find to a future publication by him, and his Index possesses the great advantage of specifying in most instances the form of the vessels on which the stamps occur. It would still further increase the usefulness of his work if exact facsimiles of the stamps could be reproduced, although he has indeed done this to some extent for unusual or peculiar cases. As a rule he reproduces the stamps mostly in the so-called ' diplomatic style'. Although Oxe, in his review of Mr. Iliffe's first part of his Index, was positive that all the stamps cited by Mr. Iliffe as Gaulish were in reality Arretine, it is now clear that wares with the stamps of several well-known and indisputable South Gaulish potters such as ARDACVS, MACCARVS and VITALIS were exported to the Near East. Arretine wares, however, held their own much longer in the East of the Roman Empire than in the West, where they were supplanted by South Gaulish wares, and it is quite possible that some of the Arretine potters may have migrated to the East and set up their kilns in Asia Minor or Syria. Mr. Iliffe has also been able to establish the presence of the ' marbled ' variety of Terra Sigillata in the Near East, in some cases with Greek stamps, e.g. A00PON on a cup at Corinth. In his reference to a specimen of marbled ware stamped ARTivs at Cologne, the well-known museum is, by a minor though regrettable typographical error, given as the ' Waldorf-Rickarts ' instead of the WallrafRichartz Museum. It is noticeable that a very large proportion of the stamps occur in planta pedis or in ansate form, and are hence of Tiberian date. The origins of Terra Sigillata in Asia Minor still await investigation, but Mr. Iliffe's valuable Index furnishes the groundwork for a comparative treatment of Terra Sigillata in the lands of the Eastern Mediterranean and bears testimony to his great industry and research in collecting widely scattered material. Yet until kilns of this ware (in addition to that of Tschandarli near Pergamum, investigated by Loeschcke) can be discovered and recorded, the subject cannot be put on the firm and strict chronological basis which will be of the highest importance to excavators in these regions.


'Don't put metal objects in the microwave' is common safety advice. But why? Here we describe demonstration experiments involving placing household metallic objects in a microwave oven. These allow a better understanding of the interaction of microwaves with materials. Light bulbs and discharge lamps can also be used in instructive demonstrations.


The essay examines a particular stage of the life and scientific production of Werner Sombart: the years of the First World War. Most biographers of Sombart showed that the German scholar, during these years, remained essentially on the fringe of the debate that took place in Germany, as well in other countries taking part in the war, on the economic and social transformations induced by the conflict, and in particular, on the new role assumed by the State in directing the life of the economy and society. Published in 1915, Händler und Helden (Merchants and Heroes) should be primarily considered as a work of propaganda. It is a vicious attack on Britain, seen as the country that had produced a petty and materialistic conception of existence. The topics chosen by Sombart for his polemic, however, summarize many aspects of his previous works on the origins and development of modern economics, and even anticipate some of his reflections – later developed in the second edition of Modern Capitalism or in works such as German socialism – on the future and the fate of capitalism.


As the IoT continues to grow over the coming years, resource-constrained devices and networks will see an increase in traffic as everything is connected in an open Web of Things. The performance- and function-enhancing features are difficult to provide in resource-constrained environments, but will gain importance if the WoT is to be scaled up successfully. For example, scalable open standards-based authentication and authorization will be important to manage access to the limited resources of constrained devices and networks. Additionally, features such as caching and virtualization may help further reduce the load on these constrained systems. This work presents the Secure Service Proxy (SSP): a constrained-network edge proxy with the goal of improving the performance and functionality of constrained RESTful environments. Our evaluations show that the proposed design reaches its goal by reducing the load on constrained devices while implementing a wide range of features as different adapters. Specifically, the results show that the SSP leads to significant savings in processing, network traffic, network delay and packet loss rates for constrained devices. As a result, the SSP helps to guarantee the proper operation of constrained networks as these networks form an ever-expanding Web of Things.


Due to rising consumer demand the food packaging industry is turning increasingly to packaging materials that offer active functions. This is achieved by incorporating active compounds into the basic packaging materials. However, it is currently believed that adding active compounds as a coating over the base packaging material is more beneficial than adding them in bulk or in pouches, as this helps to maintain the physicochemical properties of the base material along with higher efficiency at the interface with the food. Colloidal systems have the potential to be used as active coatings, while the application of coatings in the form of colloidal dispersions allows for prolonged and controlled release of the active ingredient and uniform distribution, due to their colloidal/nano size and large surface area ratio. The objective of this review is to analyse some of the different colloidal solutions previously used in the literature as coatings for active food packaging and their advantages. The focus is on natural bio-based substances and packaging materials such as PLA, due to consumer awareness and environmental and regulatory issues. The antiviral concept through the surface is also discussed briefly, as it is an important strategy in the context of the current pandemic crisis and cross-infection prevention.


ABSTRACT: To assess whether erythropoietin (EPO) treatment is safe and reduces the need for transfusion, we randomized 44 preterm infants to an EPO group and a comparable control (CON) group. EPO 150 U/kg was given s.c. twice weekly for 6 wk from the 1st wk of life. Hematologic parameters, transfusion requirements, and growth were followed during therapy and for 6 mo thereafter. To better assess in which neonates EPO treatment was effective, we classified retrospectively the EPO and CON groups into uncomplicated neonates (EPO A: n = 9, birth weight = 1247 ± 126 g, gestational age = 29.8 ± 1.5 wk; CON A: n = 7, birth weight = 1217 ± 145 g, gestational age = 29.9 ± 1.5 wk) and neonates requiring artificial ventilation (EPO B: n = 16, birth weight = 1169 ± 249 g, gestational age = 28.1 ± 2 wk; CON B: n = 12, birth weight = 1173 ± 215 g, gestational age = 28.3 ± 2 wk). There were significant differences in reticulocytes between both uncomplicated and ventilated neonates in the EPO group compared with respective control groups. However, the need for transfusion was significantly less in the uncomplicated EPO group (EPO A: 0.44 ± 0.73 versus CON A: 1.28 ± 0.75, p< 0.05) but not in the neonates on ventilation (EPO B: 8.25 ± 5 versus CON B: 7.75 ± 3.7). In conclusion, early EPO administration reduces the need for transfusion in uncomplicated premature neonates. Although stimulation of erythropoiesis was apparent in both uncomplicated and complicated neonates, the end-result of increased need for transfusion in complicated neonates was related to altered indication of transfusion. These infants probably require further or longer EPO administration after weaning from ventilation and improvement of clinical condition.


This research aims to (1) find out what is the effect of educational and health sector expenditure as well as PDRB per capita on Human Development Index of regencies/cities in East Java Province between 2007 and 2012, (2) to find out which dominant variable has a significant impact on Human Development Index of regencies/cities in East Java province between 2007 and 2012. Variables of expenditures of health and educational sectors used ratios of health and education sector expenditures toward total expenditure. Quantitative method was used in this research, using panel data analysis with Fixed Effect Model approach. Estimation result shows that government expenditure on health and educational sectors as well as PDRB per capita has a positive and significant influence, affecting Human Development Index of cities/regencies of East Java Province during the research period. Variable of educational expenditures with its regression coefficient of 0.112 is a variable having the most dominant effect on Human Development Index, compared to that of health expenditure with its regression coefficient of 0.049 and that of PDRB with its regression coefficient of 0.049.


Capitalist transformation is composed of many multifaceted processes, but growth in the size and capabilities of locally owned firms is essential. The AfriCap research project aims to understand how African-owned firms learn and build their technological capabilities in order to enter and remain competitive in new export sectors. The purpose of this first working paper is to advance our conceptualization of what it means to build capabilities within globalized industries. The paper draws on the conception of technological capabilities from the Technological Capabilities literature, but adapts it to the context of global value chains and the specific requirements demanded and capabilities needed in this regard. It does so by drawing on the Global Value Chain and Global Production Network approaches. This approach offers conceptual tools for understanding firm-level processes of learning and capability building as well as how these firm-level processes are influenced and shaped by the specificities of the industry and global value chain in which they operate, as well as the national institutional and policy context. The paper concludes by showing how this conceptual approach can be operationalized in the context of specific global value chains.


High levels of suspended solids are typically observed during the initial part of storms. Field evidence suggests that these suspended solids derive from the erosion of in-sewer sediment beds accumulated during dry and previous wet weather periods. Suspended sediment transport rate models within existing sewer network modeling tools have utilized inappropriate transport rate relationships developed mainly in fluvial environments. A process model that can account for the erosion of fine-grained highly organic in-sewer sediment deposits has been formulated. Values of parameters describing the increase in deposit strength with depth are required. These values are obtained using a genetic algorithm based calibration routine that ensures model simulations of suspended sediment concentrations that correspond to field data collected in a discrete length of sewer in Paris under known hydraulic event conditions. These results demonstrate the applicability of this modeling approach in simulating the magnitude and temporal distribution of suspended in-sewer sediment eroded by time varying flow. Further work is developing techniques to enable the application of this type of model at the network level.


To identify the role of the myocardial beta-adrenergic pathway in congestive heart failure, we examined beta-adrenergic-receptor density, adenylate cyclase and creatine kinase activities, muscle contraction in vitro, and myocardial contractile protein levels in the left ventricles of failing and normally functioning hearts from cardiac-transplant recipients or prospective donors. Eleven failing left ventricles had a 50 to 56 per cent reduction in beta-receptor density, a 45 per cent reduction in maximal isoproterenol-mediated adenylate cyclase stimulation, and a 54 to 73 per cent reduction in maximal isoproterenol-stimulated muscle contraction, as compared with six normally functioning ventricles (P less than 0.05 for each comparison). In contrast, cytoplasmic creatine kinase activity, adenylate cyclase activities stimulated by fluoride ion and by histamine, histamine-stimulated muscle contraction, and levels of contractile protein were not different in the two groups (P less than 0.05). We conclude that in failing human hearts a decrease in beta-receptor density leads to subsensitivity of the beta-adrenergic pathway and decreased beta-agonist-stimulated muscle contraction. Regulation of beta-adrenergic receptors may be an important variable in cardiac failure.


The best optimal initial reactant state and collision energy for observing the stereodynamical vector properties of the title reaction in the ground electronic state X2A' potential energy surface (PES) [Zanchet et al. 2006 J. Phys. Chem. A 110 12017] are theoretically predicted using the quasi-classical trajectory (QCT) method for the first time. The calculated results reveal that the smallest value of the rotational quantum number j, larger vibrational quantum number v, and the lower strength of collision energy should be selected for offering the most obvious picture about the stereodynamical vector properties. Polarization-dependent differential cross sections and the angular momentum alignment distribution, P(θr) and P(Φr) in the center-of-mass frame, are obtained to gain an insight into the alignment and orientation of the product molecules. The rotational angular momentum vector j' of CO is aligned to be perpendicular to reagent relative velocity k. The product polarizations align along the y axis, pointing to the positive direction of the y axis. A new method is developed to investigate massive reactions with various initial states and to further study the vector properties of the fundamental reactions in detail.


Chaperone proteins are redundant in nature and, to achieve their function, they bind a large repertoire of client proteins. DnaK is a bacterial chaperone protein that recognizes misfolded and aggregated proteins and drives their folding and intracellular trafficking. Some Mycoplasmas are associated with cancers, and we demonstrated that infection with a strain of Mycoplasma fermentans isolated in our lab promoted lymphoma in a mouse model. Its DnaK is expressed intracellularly in infected cells, it interacts with key proteins to hamper essential pathways related to DNA repair and p53 functions and uninfected cells can take-up extracellular DnaK. We profile here for the first time the eukaryotic proteins interacting with DnaK transiently expressed in five cancer cell lines. A total of 520 eukaryotic proteins were isolated by immunoprecipitation and identified by Liquid Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS) analysis. Among the cellular DnaK-binding partners, 49 were shared between the five analyzed cell lines, corroborating the specificity of the interaction of DnaK with these proteins. Enrichment analysis revealed multiple RNA biological processes, DNA repair, chromatin remodeling, DNA conformational changes, protein-DNA complex subunit organization, telomere organization and cell cycle as the most significant ontology terms. This is the first study to show that a bacterial chaperone protein interacts with key eukaryotic components thus suggesting DnaK could become a perturbing hub for the functions of important cellular pathways. Given the close interactions between bacteria and host cells in the local microenvironment, these results provide a foundation for future mechanistic studies on how bacteria interfere with essential cellular processes.


This paper summarizes and publicizes some of the issues currently confronting power engineering education today. The issues are grouped into four general topics. The first topic has the same name as the title of this paper and includes a variety of general issues. The second topic involves the impact of emerging technologies on power engineering education. The third topic involves university research and its funding. The final topic involves philosophical differences about power engineering education from the viewpoint of industry and the university.


We consider a broad class of linear operator equations that includes systems of ordinary differential equations, difference equations and fractionalorder ordinary differential equations. This class also includes operator exponentials and powers, as well as eigenvalue problems and Fredholm integral equations. Many problems in engineering and the physical and natural sciences can be described by such operator equations. We generalise the fundamental matrix to a fundamental operator and provide a new explicit method for obtaining an exact series solution to these types of operator equations, together with sufficient conditions for convergence and error bounds. Illustrative examples are also given. AMS Subject Classification: 34A30, 15A16, 34A08, 39A05, 47A75


To investigate the relationship between the decreased immunity associated with infirmity and low body weight at birth as a consequence of intrauterine growth retardation in Japanese Black calves with stillbirth/perinatal weak calf syndrome, the thymuses and spleens of 13 calves with this syndrome, weighing less than 20 kg at birth, were examined histopathologically. Cytokeratin staining of the thymus was also carried out to examine its composition. The thymus and spleen were classified as grades 0-4 and I-III according to their hypoplasia, respectively. All calves showed a decreased number of thymocytes. One calf was classified as grade 1, which was characterized by a starry sky appearance. Five calves were classified as grade 2, demonstrating a reversion of the cortex-to-medulla ratio, and the rest were classified as grades 3 and 4 showing an indistinguishable boundary between the cortex and medulla. The thymuses of grade 3 and 4 were occupied by stroma cells, and their Hassall bodies and other structures were rarely observed. Six of 13 calves showed a decreased number of splenocytes, grade II or III, and their red and white pulp regions were unclear. The intrauterine growth retardation caused by lack of growth factors during the fetal period might have induced thymic hypoplasia associated with decreased immunity in the calves with stillbirth/perinatal weak calf syndrome. Therefore, intrauterine growth retardation might be associated with one of the causes of decreased immunity involved in infirmity in this syndrome.


Abstract The NAVSTAR Global Positioning System (GPS) is a satellite-based radionavigation system designed for positioning, velocity determination and timing. The relative movement between a GPS receiver and a GPS satellite causes the received signal frequency to differ from the transmitted frequency due to the Doppler effect. This frequency difference, an observable in GPS measurements, is referred to as the Doppler shift. However, the Doppler shift is biased by the inherent errors in the signal propagation. Since velocities of GPS satellites are known, the velocity of a user can be determined through observing four or more satellites, similar to GPS positioning. When the GPS selective availability (SA) was activated, errors imposed on the ephemeris and satellite clocks significantly affected the accuracy of both GPS positioning and velocity determination. The removal of SA has enabled a significant improvement on the accuracy of both GPS satellite orbits and clocks. As a result, velocity accuracy at sub-centimetre per second level is achievable for standalone GPS users if all the errors associated with the Doppler observables are corrected for properly. This paper overviews the developments in precise velocity determination and investigates all error sources associated with the Doppler measurement. The properties of errors in the Doppler shift are analysed and the methods to eliminate or mitigate these errors are discussed. The relativistic errors such as the orbit eccentricity and the Sagnac effect are derived and formulated in easy forms for correction. Algorithms for modelling the atmosphere delay rates are also presented. It is concluded that real-time velocities in millimetres per second level are achievable if the error correction schemes provided are used.


Abstract A player's ability to score low is critical to the tournament outcome in golf. The relationships of round scores to fairways hit in regulation or striking distance on two holes per round have been investigated before with some disagreement. The purpose is therefore to examine the relationships of par-4 and par-5 hole scores to tee shot functional accuracy and distance, measured as lie of the ball and penalty, and striking distance or distance to the pin for the second shot. Such information is possible to collect without interviewing players. The best US Professional Golfers' Association Tour players' statistics during a season are used, provided by the Professional Golfers' Association Tour and ShotLink. Distance was measured with laser equipment. The results include significant (P < 0.05) correlations between score and striking distance or distance to pin, when hitting rough but not fairway on par-4s and when hitting fairway and rough on par-5s. It is therefore relevant, for performance, to consider the type of fairway miss as well as the striking distance in relation to the par and length of the hole. The findings can be considered when making gap and needs profiles, and when making tactical decisions for tee shots on different types of holes.