Typee is a fast-moving adventure tale, an autobiographical account of the author's Polynesian stay, an examination of the nature of good and evil, and a frank exploration of sensuality and exotic ritual. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.


In vitro studies have demonstrated that prostacyclin (PGI2) is the most powerful antiplateiet/ antithrombotic drug. Short-term infusion of a stable analogue of PGI2 (iloprost [I]) has been recommended for the treatment of Raynaud's phenomenon in patients with severe systemic sclerosis. Intravenous infusion of [I] was given to 10 such patients, according to manufacturer's recommendations, on 3 consecutive days, for 8 h starting at a rate of 05 ng/kg/min and increasing by 05 ng/kg/min every 15 min to a maximimi of 20 ng/kg/min. The thrombotic status of patients was assessed by a new technique (haemostatometry) which allows measurement of platelet function such as shear-induced haemostasis and thrombus formation on collagen fibres from a non-anticoagulated venous blood sample. Coagulation of the blood was also monitored. Haemostatometry was perfonned before the infusion, 4 h after its commencement on the third day and i h after completion of the infusion. There was a complete lack of any antiplateiet effect on haemostasis and thrombus formation on collagen of [I] during and immediately after the infusion. Conversely, platelet hyperreactivity and enhanced coagulation were observed during the infusion. In vitro, a potent antiplateiet effect with greatly prolonged coagulation was observed in the i 6-80 ng/ml range of [I], which is 25-125 times higher than that achieved in the blood of patients. Enhanced platelet reactivity and coagulation was observed in vitro at the concentration which corresponds to the peak plasma level of [I] in patients. Thus our study, using the recommended dose of [I], failed to show any antiplateiet effect, but demonstrated a risk of thrombotic complication, due to the previously undetected effect of low dose of [I] on platelets and the coagulation system.


Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) is the main infectious agent responsible for piglet post-weaning diarrhea with high mortality rates. Antimicrobials represent the current principal strategy for treating ETEC infections in pig farms, but the occurrence of multi-resistant bacterial strains has considerably increased in the last decades. Thus, finding non-antibiotic alternatives becomes a real emergency. In this context, we investigated the effect of a live yeast strain, Saccharomyces cerevisiae var boulardii CNCM I-1079 (SB) in an in vitro model of the weaning piglet colon implemented with a mucus phase (MPigut-IVM) inoculated with ETEC and coupled with an intestinal porcine cell line IPI-2I. We showed that SB was able to modulate the in vitro microbiota through an increase in Bacteroidiaceae and a decrease in Prevotellaceae families. Effluents collected from the SB treated bioreactors were able to mitigate the expression level of genes encoding non-gel forming mucins, tight junction proteins, innate immune pathway, and pro-inflammatory response in IPI-2I cells. Furthermore, SB exerted a significant protective effect against ETEC adhesion on porcine IPEC-J2 intestinal cells in a dose-dependent manner and showed a positive effect on ETEC-challenged IPEC-J2 by lowering expression of genes involved in pro-inflammatory immune responses. Our results showed that the strain SB CNCM I-1079 could prevent microbiota dysbiosis associated with weaning and protect porcine enterocytes from ETEC infections by reducing bacterial adhesion and modulating the inflammatory response.


Consideration is given to the application of Markov random field (MRF) models to the problem of edge labeling in range images. The authors propose a segmentation algorithm which handles both jump and crease edges. The jump and crease edge likelihoods at each edge site are computed using special local operators. These likelihoods are then combined in a Bayesian framework with a MRF prior distribution on the edge labels to derive the a posterior distribution of labels. An approximation to the maximum a posteriori estimate is used to obtain the edge labelings. The edge-based segmentation has been integrated with a region-based segmentation scheme resulting in a robust surface segmentation method.<<ETX>>


In order to fully understand protein kinase networks, new methods are needed to identify regulators and substrates of kinases, especially for weakly expressed proteins. Here we have developed a hybrid computational search algorithm that combines machine learning and expert knowledge to identify kinase docking sites, and used this algorithm to search the human genome for novel MAP kinase substrates and regulators focused on the JNK family of MAP kinases. Predictions were tested by peptide array followed by rigorous biochemical verification with in vitro binding and kinase assays on wild-type and mutant proteins. Using this procedure, we found new 'D-site' class docking sites in previously known JNK substrates (hnRNP-K, PPM1J/PP2Czeta), as well as new JNK-interacting proteins (MLL4, NEIL1). Finally, we identified new D-site-dependent MAPK substrates, including the hedgehog-regulated transcription factors Gli1 and Gli3, suggesting that a direct connection between MAP kinase and hedgehog signaling may occur at the level of these key regulators. These results demonstrate that a genome-wide search for MAP kinase docking sites can be used to find new docking sites and substrates.


We use N-body simulations to examine whether a characteristic turnaround radius, as predicted from the spherical collapse model in a $\rm {\Lambda CDM}$ Universe, can be meaningfully identified for galaxy clusters, in the presence of full three-dimensional effects. We use The Dark Sky Simulations and Illustris-TNG dark-matter--only cosmological runs to calculate radial velocity profiles around collapsed structures, extending out to many times the virial radius $R_{200}$. There, the turnaround radius can be unambiguously identified as the largest non-expanding scale around a center of gravity. We find that: (a) Indeed, a single turnaround scale can meaningfully describe strongly non-spherical structures. (b) For halos of masses $M_{200}>10^{13}M_\odot$, the turnaround radius $R_{ta}$ scales with the enclosed mass $M_{ta}$ as $M_{ta}^{1/3}$, as predicted by the spherical collapse model. (c) The deviation of $R_{ta}$ in simulated halos from the spherical collapse model prediction is insensitive to halo asphericity. Rather, it is sensitive to the tidal forces due to massive neighbors when such are present. (d) Halos exhibit a characteristic average density within the turnaround scale. This characteristic density is dependent on cosmology and redshift. For the present cosmic epoch and for concordance cosmological parameters ($\Omega_m \sim 0.7$; $\Omega_\Lambda \sim 0.3$) turnaround structures exhibit an average matter density contrast with the background Universe of $\delta \sim 11$. Thus $R_{ta}$ is equivalent to $R_{11}$ -- in a way analogous to defining the "virial" radius as $R_{200}$ -- with the advantage that $R_{11}$ is shown in this work to correspond to a kinematically relevant scale in N-body simulations.


Modular multiplication is one of the most computeintensive arithmetic operations. Most public-key cryptosytems utilize modular multiplications of integers of various lengths, depending on security requirements. Efficient algorithms and implementations are required to realize a practical public-key cryptosystem. Different parameters, such as area, power and time, can be optimized for different implementation requirements. Low latency was not as important as high throughput requirement for modular multiplication implementations before. However, with recent work on Verifiable Delay Functions (VDFs), a necessity for lowest possible latency for modular multiplication implementations emerged. VDFs are designed to take a prescribed time to realize the underlying computation that can be publicly verified. VDF constructions are required to utilize inherently sequential arithmetic operations. Efficient VDF constructions have been proposed recently, based on time-lock puzzles constructed by Rivest, Shamir and Wagner. An exponentiation operation in an RSA group needs to be realized for these VDF constructions. For these VDF constructions to be practical, low-latency modular multiplication algorithms and implementations are required. In this paper, a modular multiplication algorithm suitable for low-latency circuit implementations is proposed and an FPGAoptimized variant of this algorithm is presented.


Objective: The purpose of this study is to expatiate on high performance thin layer chromatography (HPTLC) as a simple, easy and scientific method for evaluation and standardization of herbal formulae. Methods: Through retrieving HPTLC application for herbal formulae in the literatures, the current situation of HPTLC application, and potential as well as limitation of HPTLC as a standardization method for multi-herbal drug was studied. Results: HPTLC is a speedy, inexpensive and well-operable tool for possessing multi-capability on component identification, separation, quantification and purification compared to other methods, such as high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), gas chromatography (GC). Conclusions: HPTLC is considered as an available and convenient method for quality control and standardization of multi-herbal drugs. Thereby, this method could be recommended to widely applicate in the traditional Korean medicine.


Objectives The aim of the study was to investigate the prog-nostic significance of lymphadenectomy and intraoperative tumor rupture in patients with apparent stage I mucinous ovarian carcinoma (MOC). Methods We conducted a retrospective cohort study of MOCs diagnosed between – 2019 at two tertiary cancer centers. Pathology was reviewed to rule out metastasis from gastroin-testinal tract. Clinicopathologic details, five-year overall survival (OS) and recurrence free survival (RFS) were examined. Cox proportional hazard models were used to determine the association of lymphadenectomy and intraoperative rupture on survival.


BACKGROUND
Eribulin mesylate is a non-taxane microtubule dynamics inhibitor that recently gained Food and Drug Administration approval for late-line metastatic breast cancer (MBC).

PATIENTS AND METHODS
In this single-arm, multicentre open-label phase II trial Japanese patients pretreated with an anthracycline and a taxane received 1.4 mg/m(2) eribulin mesylate (2- to 5-min i.v. infusion on days 1 and 8 of a 21-day cycle). The primary efficacy end point was overall response rate (ORR) by independent review.

RESULTS
Patients (N = 80) had received a median of three prior chemotherapy regimens (range 1-5). ORR was 21.3% [95% confidence interval (CI) 12.9-31.8; all partial responses (PRs)], stable disease (SD) occurred in 30 patients (37.5%) and the clinical benefit rate (complete response + PR + SD ≥6 months) was 27.5% (95% CI 18.1-38.6). Median duration of response was 3.9 months (95% CI 2.8-4.9), progression-free survival was 3.7 months (95% CI 2.0-4.4) and overall survival was 11.1 months (95% CI 7.9-15.8). The most frequent treatment-related grade 3/4 adverse events were neutropenia (95.1%), leukopenia (74.1%) and febrile neutropenia (13.6%). Grade 3 peripheral neuropathy occurred in 3.7% of patients (no grade 4).

CONCLUSIONS
Eribulin exhibited efficacy and tolerability in Japanese patients with heavily pretreated MBC.


aggie ELLERSLEY, the working-class heroine of Jessie Redmon .Fauset's There Is Confusion (1924), does not cry when her hus- band leaves her. Instead, she searches the pockets of the poplin suit in which she was married and pulls out a business card for "madame hark- ness, Hair Culturist" (127). The next day, she embarks on a career as a beauty specialist, an occupation that sustains her financially through- out the novel. Although linked by name, poverty, and description to the young girl-turned-prostitute of Stephen Crane's Maggie (1893), Fauset's Maggie avoids entering the ranks of sex workers by becoming a beautician.1 This story begins Fauset's career-long habit of testing the promises of the African American cosmetics industry—a testing that evolves, in her subsequent novels and those of her younger and better- known contemporary, Nella Larsen, into a remarkable challenge to as- sertions of racial authenticity. This essay traces the "making up" of race in Fauset's Plum Bun (1928) and The Chinaberry Tree (1931) and Larsen's Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929). Writing in an era marked by unprecedented sales of mass-produced beauty products, both Fauset and Larsen imagine women of color empowered in contradictory ways through commercial beauty culture.2 Reading these novels as a commentary on the convergence of "racial uplift" rhetoric and cosmetics consumerism, I suggest that their protagonists are best understood as consumers of a racialized beauty cul-


Abnormalities of placental development and function underlie many pathologies of pregnancy including preeclampsia and fetal growth restriction (FGR). Advances in MRI techniques provide capacity to obtain additional placental in vivo information to support clinical decision-making. Animal models are used in invasive validation studies are possible in animal models and allow for controlled experiments during pregnancy. Here, we investigated whether MRI technology could be used to study the anatomical morphology of placentae in vivo in sheep; and we characterise diffusion and perfusion properties in normal pregnancies and those complicated by induced FGR.


The ever-changing nature of IT demands a changing role for both system administrators and database administrators. Being system admin personnel will require more knowledge, broader skillset, and more tools on hand to be able to adapt to the cloud computing culture. The cloud computing has changed the way for IT Operations. The future system administrator will thus have to help configure, implement and manage the applications that run on cloud platforms.   The same thing happens to database administrators as well. The role of DBAs will shift to cloud DBAs, and adding to their responsibilities will manage the cloud based database and NoSQL databases in serverless settings. Cloud DBAs will have to deal with data protection and play a key role in providing data compatibility across the cloud platforms and maybe migrating data storage from one cloud service provider to another. In short DBAs role moved from tactical infrastructure caretakers towards a more strategic role of being an advisor for other developers.   In this poster, we describe changes of roles of system administrators and database administrators in the era of cloud computing.


Dental anterior open bite is a condition which is characterized by decreased incisor dentoalveolar height. The occlusal planes in the dental anterior open bite usually diverge from the mesial to the first premolar forwardly. This case report describes the treatment of dental anterior open bite. A male patient aged 23 years presented 6.0 mm anterior open bite along with increased lower anterior facial height. Other features included incompetent lip, deficient incisor display during rest and smile, and irregular upper and lower anteriors. Management included extrusion of both upper and lower anterior teeth with camouflage nonextraction therapy. There was no recurrence of anterior open bite, and a balanced occlusion was maintained during the follow-up of next 2 years after treatment completion which suggested a long-term stability of occlusion.


Computer vision is widely deployed, has highly visible, society-altering applications, and documented problems with bias and representation. Datasets are critical for benchmarking progress in fair computer vision, and often employ broad racial categories as population groups for measuring group fairness. Similarly, diversity is often measured in computer vision datasets by ascribing and counting categorical race labels. However, racial categories are ill-defined, unstable temporally and geographically, and have a problematic history of scientific use. Although the racial categories used across datasets are superficially similar, the complexity of human race perception suggests the racial system encoded by one dataset may be substantially inconsistent with another. Using the insight that a classifier can learn the racial system encoded by a dataset, we conduct an empirical study of computer vision datasets supplying categorical race labels for face images to determine the cross-dataset consistency and generalization of racial categories. We find that each dataset encodes a substantially unique racial system, despite nominally equivalent racial categories, and some racial categories are systemically less consistent than others across datasets. We find evidence that racial categories encode stereotypes, and exclude ethnic groups from categories on the basis of nonconformity to stereotypes. Representing a billion humans under one racial category may obscure disparities and create new ones by encoding stereotypes of racial systems. The difficulty of adequately converting the abstract concept of race into a tool for measuring fairness underscores the need for a method more flexible and culturally aware than racial categories.


In response to this charge I want to make three points. The first is that the principal cosmopolitanism claim does not entail radical cosmopolitanism and may be compatible with mild cosmopolitanism. This can be seen if we illustrate the claim with an example. Consider, for example, those who think that people should be assisted if they are vulnerable. To this, the principal cosmopolitan claim responds that if this is the rationale for redistribution, it implies that there should be global principles of distributive justice which protect the vulnerable. If vulnerability is a criterion for distributing resources the logical upshot is that everyone who exhibits this property should be assisted (Goodin, 1985, especially pp. 11, 154). In other words, the principal cosmopolitan claim follows through the global implications of people's convictions about distributive justice. It does not entail that all principles of distributive justice have a global scope. Rather, it claims that the logic of most theories of distributive justice establishes some global principles of distributive justice but, within this, it allows some special rights. It would, for example, happily allow that people may generate special rights and duties by making a contract with each other.


The stereocontrolled synthesis of the β-branched anti,anti-dipropionate stereotriad 4 via aldol or crotylmetal chemistry represents a historical challenge to the organic synthesis community. Here we describe a general solution to the long-standing problem associated with the synthesis of 4 by utilizing mismatched double asymmetric crotylboration reactions of enantioenriched α-methyl substituted aldehydes with the chiral, nonracemic crotylborane reagent (S)-(E)-22 (or its enantiomer). This method not only provides direct access to anti,anti-dipropionate stereotriads 24 [a synthetic equivalent of 4] with very good (5-8:1) if not excellent (≥15:1) diastereoselectivity from β-branched chiral aldehydes with ≤50:1 intrinsic diastereofacial selectivity preferences but also provides a vinylstannane unit in the products that is properly functionalized for use in subsequent C-C bond-forming events. We anticipate that this method will be widely applicable and will lead to substantial simplification of strategies for synthesis of polyketide natural products.


This paper examines the problems and prospects for including meaningful indicators of intragenrational equity into the city based regional planning efforts unfolding around the globe. The central focus of the paper is on the challenges that environmental justice (EJ) activists face as they attempt to frame the problem of equity in ways that the general public would see as not only informative, but compelling. After reviewing examples of successful efforts to reframe debates about equity, the paper concludes with a discussion of a set of EJ concerns and indicators that have the greatest potential for capturing public attention and commitment despite mounting resistance to the use of redistributive policies in support of sustainability goals.


In this paper, an adaptive fuzzy wavelet neural network control (AFWNNC) system composed of a neural controller and a robust compensator is proposed. The neural controller using a fuzzy wavelet neural network (FWNN) is designed to approximate an ideal controller, and the robust compensator is designed to ensure system stable. In many previous published papers, to ensure the stability of the intelligent control system, a switching compensator is designed to dispel the approximation error introduced by the neural controller. However, the switching compensator usually causes chattering phenomena. The proposed robust compensator is designed to eliminate the approximation error without occurring chattering phenomena. Moreover, a proportional-integral-derivative (PID) type adaptation tuning mechanism is derived to speed up the convergence of the tracking error and controller parameters. Finally, the proposed AFWNNC system is applied to a chaotic system and a DC motor. The simulation and experimental results verify the system stabilization, favorable tracking performance and no chattering phenomena can be achieved by the proposed AFWNNC system.


Evaluation of: Miotto O, Heiny AT, Albrecht R et al. Complete-proteome mapping of human influenza A adaptive mutations: implications for human transmissibility of zoonotic strains. PLoS ONE 5(2), e9025 (2010). The emergence of an influenza pandemic is of great concern globally. It is, therefore, necessary to have a better understanding of the adaptation of influenza A viruses to humans. The mutation patterns affecting host tropism may provide information on the mechanisms and determinants of the host barrier. The work by Miotto et al. describes a catalog of mutations observed specifically in human influenza A viruses by analyzing almost 100,000 influenza A virus protein sequences. These sites may be important for host tropism and characteristic mutations of human influenza viruses may be required for efficient human-to-human transmission. The catalog can be used for genetic surveillance of zoonotic strains of the influenza A virus to determine their pandemic potential, as well as for basic research on the influenza A virus.


The Effect of Chain Rigidity on Pore Formation by Peptide Action in Model Polymeric Bilayers Christopher DiLoreto Advisor: University of Guelph, 2012 Professor Robert Wickham A common strategy employed to destroy harmful bacteria is to disrupt the bacterial membrane through the action of pore-forming anti-microbial peptides. The manner in which the peptides arrange themselves spatially to form a pore in the membrane, which is important for understanding both the mechanism of pore formation and pore function, is a topic of current debate. We contrast the response of a model membrane bilayer to the presence of solid, cylindrical nanoparticle insertions, when the bilayer is composed of persistent worm-like chains and when it is composed of flexible Gaussian chains. We use self-consistent field theory, with the appropriate single-chain propagator, to describe the amphiphilic star-like triblock copolymers composing the membrane and the solvent. The nanoparticle surfaces are designed to have patches that prefer either the solvent or the tail groups of the copolymers, and the nanoparticles are fixed in space. Using this model with polymers in the lamellar phase, we investigate the question of pore-formation, nanoparticle insertion and hydrophobic mismatch in lipid bilayers and the effect that chain rigidity has on these particular interactions. We find that the main effect of increased chain rigidity is that it increases the free energy scaling and the significance of the energy barriers associated with these pore-forming processes. These results demonstrate the importance of using a more realistic persistent chain when modelling pore formation.


Abstract: Soil health plays a vital role in sustainable agronomy development. Earthworms are visible organisms in the soil ecosystem, rendering them convenient to monitor soil health. Household detergents are widely used for daily cleaning purposes. To study their effects on two types of earthworms, Pheretima guillelmi and Eisenia andrei, dilutions of six household detergents (1‰, m/v), such as perfumed soap, washing powder, shampoo, dish washing liquid, bath lotion, and lavatory cleanser, were prepared to immerse 20 earthworms for 4 h or more, either directly or mixed with Yellow-brown soil samples from a peanut cultivation field; rain water without detergent dilutions served as the control. Surviving earthworms were counted, and the survival rate was calculated. The results showed that after 4 h of immersion in the six detergent dilutions, 100% of the E. andrei died, whereas 100% of P. guillelmi survived. When the immersion period was extended to 24 h, 100% of the P. guillelmi also died. However, after adding the six detergent dilutions to Yellow-brown soil after the earthworms had drilled into it, 100% P. guillelmi and E. andrei survived after 4 h in control solutions and two detergents dilutions, namely perfumed soap and lavatory cleanser. However, 100% of the P. guillelmi died in the other four detergent dilutions. In contrast, 30%, 24%, 19%, and 12% E. andrei survived in washing powder, shampoo, dish washing liquid, and bath lotion treatments, respectively. It can be concluded that dilutions of the six household detergents (1‰; m/v) can kill P. guillelmi and E. andrei both in soil and on direct exposure. This is the first study to report the mortality of earthworms after exposure to dilutions of household detergents.


The main aim of the study was to develop once-daily controlled release matrix tablet of the selected propionic acid derivative flubiprofen (100 mg) using ethyl cellulose ether derivative release controlling polymer. Preformulation factors, including solubility, powder flowability and compressibility, and loss on drying were studied. Hausner's factor and angle of repose ranged from 1.10 to 1.25 and 25 to 29° respectively, indicating the best flowability and compressibility of the powder. Drug-polymer interaction was analyzed by particle size analysis, SEM and FTIR spectroscopy. Matrices were prepared by direct compression, with and without polymer. Effect of co-excipients like HPMC, starch and CMC, was studied on release behavior of the drug. The tablets were subjected to different physicochemical tests including hardness, friability, weight variation, % drug content, thickness and diameter with limits ranging from 6.4 ± 0.24 to 6.9 ± 0.44 kg/cm, 0.22 ± 0.06 to 0.77 ± 0.03 w/w, 200 ± 1.3 to 203 ± 1.0 g, 98.30 ± 0.16 to 99.70 ± 0.64%, 2.1 ± 0.032 to 2.3 ± 0.020 mm and 4.2 ± 0.001 to 4.4 ± 0.001 mm respectively. Invitro drug release study was conducted in phosphate buffer (pH 7.4) and different kinetic parameters were applied. Ethocel FP polymer alone showed the best anomalous release with exponent = n 0.793 with the linearity = 2 r 0.992, whereas the market brand released 90% of the drug after four hours with release exponent = n 0.210.


High quality kicking technique is the most important aspect of the football player. The good technique will increase quality of the game. This study will focus on the biomechanics analysis on the ten male Majlis Sukan Negeri Terengganu (MSNT) football players as well as to clarify the difference between three types of step run using kinematic variables and electromyography analysis. Electromyography data management and analysis are using Origin Pro 8.5.1 software and the statistical analysis carried out by using the ANOVA analysis. In order to observe the kicking motion experiment, the subjects will perform the instep kicking on the plane of activity in the laboratory. The image of the instep kicking was shot using high speed camera (250Hz). The subject tried to kick a ball at their full strength for each kick, namely the one step kick, two step kick and three step kick. The results indicate that there was no great difference in performance between the muscle of Quadriceps and Hamstring to the pairing of the three types of step run, though muscle discharge of the Calves and Tibialis Anterior show greater values in the group of pairing the three type of step. Image of the instep kicking was captured during the study and is useful to get the data of the kicking action for the kinematic variables. In this context, kinematics variable can be determine such as leg velocity, ball velocity, ball deformation, coefficient of restitution (COR) and force by leg. Based on the investigation with same leg velocity after impact which is 16 m/s, the highest force for leg is 5378.95N and the highest ball velocity is 23.07 m/s. The maximum ball deformation and coefficient of restitution noted as 0.018m and 0.86. These finding led to the conclusion that in a comparison between the kicking, three steps run demonstrates higher kinematics variables value compared to the one step and two step of kick.


The evolution of drug-resistant pathogenic microbial species is a major global health concern. Naturally occurring, antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are considered promising candidates to address antibiotic resistance problems. A variety of computational methods have been developed to accurately predict AMPs. The majority of such methods are not microbial strain-specific (MSS): they can predict whether a given peptide is active against some microbe, but cannot accurately calculate whether such peptide would be active against a particular microbial strain. Due to insufficient data on most microbial strains, only a few MSS predictive models have been developed so far. To overcome this problem, we developed a novel approach that allows to improve MSS predictive models (MSSPM), based on properties, computed for AMP sequences and characteristics of genomes, computed for target microbial strains. New models can perform predictions of AMPs for microbial strains that do not have data on peptides tested on them. We tested various types of feature engineering as well as different machine learning (ML) algorithms to compare the predictive abilities of resulting models. Among the ML algorithms, Random Forest and AdaBoost performed best. By using genome characteristics as additional features, the performance for all models increased significantly—on average by 7%—relative to models relying on AMP sequence-based properties only. Our novel MSS AMP predictor is freely accessible as part of DBAASP database resource at https://dbaasp.org/tools?page=genome-prediction


Abstract Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of PASOS SALUDABLES, a culturally tailored lifestyle intervention to prevent obesity and diabetes among Latino farmworkers, when implemented at large scale in the worksite. Design: This study was a two-arm parallel group, cluster randomised controlled trial, where participants received either a twelve-session lifestyle intervention (intervention) or six-session leadership training (control) at their worksite. The intervention was delivered by Promotoras in Spanish. All sessions were conducted at the worksites (ranches) during meal breaks. Blinded, trained research assistants collected socio-demographic and outcome data (i.e. BMI as primary outcome and waist circumference, glycated Hb (HbA1c), cholesterol and blood pressure as secondary outcomes) at baseline and follow-up assessments (i.e. 3 months, 6 months, 1 year and 1·5 years). Setting: Recruitment and intervention delivery occurred at twelve study ranches in Oxnard, California. Participants: We enrolled farmworkers hired by a large berry grower company, who were ≥18 years old, spoke Spanish and were free of diabetes at screening. Results: A total of 344 workers were enrolled in the intervention and 271 in the control group. The intervention resulted in attenuated increase of BMI over time; however, the difference in trend between groups was not significant (β = −0·01 for slope difference, P = 0·29). No significantly different trend by group was observed in secondary outcomes (P > 0·27). Conclusions: The worksite intervention, implemented during meal breaks, did not reduce BMI or other clinical indicators. Nevertheless, this study supports the feasibility of recruiting and engaging the Latino farmworker population in workplace health promotion interventions.


The Symposium on Data Mining and Applications (SDMA 2014) is aimed to gather researchers and application developers from a wide range of data mining related areas such as statistics, computational intelligence, pattern recognition, databases, Big Data Mining and visualization. SDMA is organized by MEGDAM to advance the state of the art in data mining research field and its various real world applications. The symposium will provide opportunities for technical collaboration among data mining and machine learning researchers around the Saudi Arabia, GCC countries and Middle-East region. Acceptance will be based primarily on originality, significance and quality of contribution.


Objective: To determine the mean endothelial cell change in patients undergoing vitrectomy with silicon oil replacement and to compare the corneal endothelial cell loss frequency of phakic, pseudophakic, and aphakic Vitrectomized Silicone Oil-filled eyes.
Study Design: Cross-sectional Study.
Place and Duration of Study: Retina Department, Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospital, Rawalpindi Pakistan, from Aug 2020 to Jan 2021.
Methodology: A total of one hundred patients of either gender, aged 50-80 years, who underwent vitrectomy with silicon oil replacement were enrolled in the study. Patients were assigned to one of the three groups based on their lens status, phakic,pseudophakic and aphakic. Mean endothelial count density before and three months after vitrectomy was estimated in all the patients.
Results: Cell loss was higher in the pseudophakic and aphakic groups than in the phakic groups. More than 5% cell loss at three months was observed in 11.8%, 21.2% and 33.3% in the phakic, pseudophakic, and aphakic groups, respectively (p-value 0.102).
Conclusions: Mean endothelial cell loss was higher in the pseudophakic and aphakic groups than in the phakic groups.


Peripheral nerves extend throughout the body, innervating target tissues with motor or sensory axons. Due to widespread distribution, peripheral nerves are frequently damaged because of trauma or disease. As methods and strategies have been developed to assess peripheral nerve injury in animal models, function and regeneration, analyzing the morphometry of the peripheral nerve has become an essential terminal outcome measurement. Toluidine blue staining of nerve cross sections obtained from resin embedded nerve sections is a reproducible method for qualitative and quantitative assessments of peripheral nerves, enabling visualization of morphology number of axons and degree of myelination. This technique, as with many other histological methods, can be difficult to learn and master using standard written protocols. The intent of this publication is therefore to accentuate written protocols for toluidine blue staining of peripheral nerves with videography of the method, using sciatic nerves harvested from rats. In this protocol, we describe in vivo peripheral nerve fixation and collection of the tissue, and post-fixation with 2% osmium tetroxide, embedding of nerves in epoxy resin, and ultramicrotome sectioning of nerves to 1-2μm thickness. Nerve sections then transferred to a glass slide and stained with toluidine blue, after which they are quantitatively and qualitatively assessed. Examples of the most common problems are shown, as well as steps for mitigating these issues.


Despite of the success of targeted therapy with tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI) in epidermal growth factor receptor ( EGFR ) -mutant lung cancer, the duration of response is limited due to the inevitable development of acquired resistance. Previous studies have revealed that TKIs may induce survival in drug-tolerant cells (DTC) following initial treatment, leading to acquired resistance from further evolution over time. Moreover, recent studies have also shown that Bcl-xL is involved in the survival of DTC; however, little is known about the mechanism of how Bcl-xL regulates DTC in the presence of EGFR TKIs. Therefore, it is crucial to elucidate pathways which promote DTC emergence in order to develop more effective therapeutic protocols. In this study, we found that the Met/Ror1-β-catenin-Bcl-xL axis may contribute to the emergence of DTC in the presence of EGFR TKIs. We previously demonstrated that β-catenin has an essential role in lung tumorigenesis driven by EGFR -mutants, particularly EGFR-T790M . We found that genetic deletion of β-catenin gene reduced Bcl-xL expression both in vitro and in vivo . Secondly, in the presence of EGFR TKI, we found that Met-induced Ror1 activation led to tyrosine phosphorylation of β-catenin via Src. Our experiments further suggested tyrosine phosphorylation of β-catenin by EGFR and the Met-Ror1-Src cascade, whose sites were identified by mass spectrometry, plays a critical role in the interaction between β-catenin and a transcriptional factor, TBX5. Contrary to known transcriptional interaction with TCF/LEF, tyrosine phosphorylated β-catenin was found to form a complex with TBX5 and the transcriptional regulator, YAP1. This complex may regulate anti-apoptotic genes such as BCL2L1 , which encodes Bcl-xL. Combination treatment with osimertinib and stable knockdown of Ror1 (or TBX5) effectively reduced Bcl-xL expression. Furthermore, treatment with osimertinib in lung cancer mouse model in which Bcl2l1 can be conditionally knocked out inhibited completely the emergence of resistant tumors compared to Bcl2l1 wild-type mouse model treated with osimertinib. These observations suggest that the Met/Ror1-β-catenin-Bcl-xL axis may serve to explain the underlying mechanism for the emergence of DTC. Our findings thus identify this axis as a promising target for EGFR -mutant lung cancer. Citation Format: Masanori Fujii, Sohei Nakayama, Naoki Akanuma, Gilbert Pan, Ikei S. Kobayashi, Hisashi Takei, Kohei Shimizu, Mariko Ando, Eunyoung Heo, Carol Gergis, Hiroyuki Inuzuka, Wenyi Wei, Daniel B. Costa, Susumu S. Kobayashi. Met/Ror1-β-catenin-Bcl-xL axis contributes to the emergence of drug-tolerant cells that evolve into resistant tumors in EGFR -mutant lung cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2019; 2019 Mar 29-Apr 3; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2019;79(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 320.


Efficient O-alkylation of phenols and carboxylic acids has essential applications in organic synthesis. A mild alkylation method for phenolic and carboxylic OH groups is developed using alkyl halides as alkylation reagents and tetrabutylammonium hydroxide as a base, and lignin monomers can be fully methylated in quantitative yields. Additionally, phenolic and carboxylic OH groups can be alkylated by different alkyl halides in one pot in different solvent systems.


Terrorist groups use the Web as their infrastructure for various purposes. One example is the forming of new local cells that may later become active and perform acts of terror. The Advanced Terrorist Detection System (ATDS), is aimed at tracking down online access to abnormal content, which may include terrorist-generated sites, by analyzing the content of information accessed by the Web users. ATDS operates in two modes: the training mode and the detection mode. In the training mode, ATDS determines the typical interests of a prespecified group of users by processing theWeb pages accessed by these users over time. In the detection mode, ATDS performs real-time monitoring of the Web traffic generated by the monitored group, analyzes the content of the accessed Web pages, and issues an alarm if the accessed information is not within the typical interests of that group and similar to the terrorist interests. An experimental version of ATDS was implemented and evaluated in a local network environment.The results suggest that when optimally tuned the system can reach high detection rates of up to 100% in case of continuous access to a series of terrorist Web pages.


Synergistic hybrid feedback refers to a collection of feedback laws that allow for global asymptotic stabilization of a compact set through the following switching logic: given a collection of Lyapunov functions that are indexed by a logic variable, whenever the currently selected Lyapunov function exceeds the value of another function in the collection by a given margin, then a switch to the corresponding feedback law is triggered. This kind of feedback has been under development over the past decade and it has led to multiple solutions for global asymptotic stabilization on compact manifolds. The contributions of this paper include a synergistic controller design in which the logic variable is not necessarily constant between jumps, a synergistic hybrid feedback that is able to tackle the presence of parametric uncertainty, backstepping of adaptive synergistic hybrid feedbacks, and a demonstration of the proposed solutions to the problem of global obstacle avoidance.


Modern ecosystems are almost universally degraded relative to their past counterparts, from the Pleistocene to the present day. Thus, modern ecosystems may serve as poor guides to conservation actions. Conservation paleobiology is well-suited to address this challenge through enhanced understanding of systems dynamics during past periods of greater species and functional diversity, abundances, and resilience. However, past and present ecosystem dynamics must be integrated to model the future impacts of conservation actions. Here we propose a three-step, Past-Present-Future (PPF) methodology rooted in mathematical modeling. First, construct a model of primary species and interactions of the present-day ecosystem, including biotic and abiotic components. Second, integrate historical and/or paleontological data into the model to investigate past states and processes of the ecosystem, with an emphasis on critical elements (e.g., ecological engineer species) that are no longer present. Third, integrate analyses from the first two steps to predict putative future dynamics and states, and use these to make testable predictions regarding specific conservation interventions. We illustrate this approach with a study investigating impacts of the now-extinct Steller's sea cow on north Pacific giant kelp forests. The model indicates that the historical system was distinct from the modern, with differing abundances of giant kelp and understory algae. Furthermore, the familiar kelp-dominated state is metastable, capable of rapid transitions to an urchin-dominated state if perturbed by extreme hydrodynamic events, disease-driven reductions of seastar predation, or disease coupled to extreme warming events. We explore the possibility of increasing the resilience of modern forests by artificially recreating at least some of the ecological impacts of sea cows, accounting for metabolic requirements, estimates of abundance based on recent analyses of ancient DNA, and trophic impact.


Over the last two decades, flow technologies have become increasingly popular in the field of organic chemistry, offering solutions for engineering and/or chemical problems. Flow reactors enhance the mass and heat transfer, resulting in rapid reaction mixing, and enable a precise control over the reaction parameters, increasing the overall process selectivity, efficiency and safety. These features allow chemists to tackle unexploited challenges in their work, with the ultimate objective making chemistry more accessible for laboratory and industrial applications, avoiding the need to store and handle toxic, reactive and explosive reagents. This review covers some of the latest and most relevant developments in the field of continuous flow chemistry with the focus on hazardous reactions.


A nine-year time series of nutrient cation and anion concentration and efflux from three forested catchments in the Jemez River Basin Critical Zone Observatory (JRB-CZO) in northern New Mexico was used to quantify the pulse of chemical denudation resulting from varying levels stand-replacing wildfire intensity in May-June of 2013. The 3 years of pre-fire and 6 years of postfire data were also probed to shed light on the mechanisms underlying the pulsed release and the subsequent recovery. The initial large solute pulse released to the streams—K+, Ca2+, Mg2+, SO42-, Cl−, dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC), dissolved organic carbon (DOC), and total dissolved nitrogen (TDN)—was caused by leaching of hillslope ash deposits during the first monsoon storms post-fire. Debris flow following the wildfire likely redistributed much of the ash-containing sediments along streams and valley bottoms. Sustained elevated solute concentrations observed in the surface waters throughout the post-fire period relative to pre-fire baselines is consistent with these soluble materials being periodically flushed from the soils during wet seasons, i.e., snowmelt and summer monsoons. As microbial mediated reactions and biotic uptake—due to plant regrowth—recover after fire, nutrient ion export (e.g., NO3-, Cl− and SO42-) steadily decreased toward the end of the post fire period, but remained above pre-fire levels, particularly for NO3- and SO42-. Surface water concentrations of polyvalent cations (e.g., Al and Fe) decreased significantly after the fire. Our observations suggest that changes in organic matter composition after fire (e.g., increased humification index—HIX) and the presence of pyrogenic carbon may not favor organo-metal complexation and transport. Finally, differences in burn severity among the three watersheds presented in this study, provide insights of the relative impact of solute exports and resilience. The catchments that experienced high burn severity exhibited greater solute fluxes than the less severely burn. Moreover, despite these differences, toward the end of the post-fire period these surface waters presented low and similar solute effluxes, indicating system recovery. Nonetheless, magnitudes and rebounds were solute and process specific. The results of this study highlight the importance of surface and near surface physical and biogeochemical processes on the long-lasting geochemical denudation of forested catchments following wildfires of varying intensities.


Slope failure behaviour of noncohesive media with the consideration of gravity and ground excitations is examined using the two-dimensional combined finite–discrete element method (FDEM). The FDEM aims at solving large-scale transient dynamics and is particularly suitable for this problem. The method discretises an entity into a couple of individual discrete elements. Within each discrete element, the finite element method (FEM) formulation is embedded so that contact forces and deformation between and of these discrete elements can be predicted more accurately. Noncohesive media is simply modelled with assembly of individual discrete elements without cohesion, that is, no joint elements need to be defined. To validate the effectiveness of the FDEM modelling, two examples are presented and compared with results from other sources. The FDEM results on gravitational collapse of rectangular soil heap and landslide triggered by the Chi-Chi earthquake show that the method is applicable and reliable for the analysis of slope failure behaviour of noncohesive media through comparison with results from other known methods such as the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH), the discrete element method (DEM) and the material point method (MPM).


The increasing global awareness of the rapid depletion of the non-renewable fuel and energy resources as well as the environmental concern of the world have resulted in the search for sustainable alternative fuels. One of the most promising alternative fuels is the vegetable oils and their ester derivatives or commonly known as biodiesel. Oil palm, the golden crop of Malaysia which yields an average of 3.5-5.0 t of palm oil per hectare per year, is regarded as the most cost-effective compared to any other oil crops. Thus, it offers a potential environmental-friendly and renewable alternative fuel source. In this respect, the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) has embarked on an extensive research and development of palm oil methyl esters (palm biodiesel) and its products. Since the 1980s, MPOB has been in the forefront of research and development of palm biodiesel and has successfully developed several processes for converting crude palm oil (CPO) and its products into methyl esters for applications as biodiesel as well as feedstock for the oleochemicals.


SUMMARY Carrion is a major source of botulinal toxin for animals. A type D strain of Clostridium botulinum differed from type A and B strains in producing (1) much higher concentrations of toxin in putrefying mouse carcasses at several different temperatures over a period of 35 days, (2) toxicity that sometimes persisted in mouse carcasses for at least a year, and (3) mouse carcasses with exceptionally high oral toxicity. Fish carcasses were much less favourable than mouse carcasses for type D toxigenesis. The study, together with earlier studies on types C and E, indicated that carrion contaminated with C. botulinum type C or D is likely to be particularly dangerous for animals that may ingest it. This accords with the observation that carrion-transmitted botulism in animals is usually caused by type C or D.


In this work, some characterizations of closed time-like dual curves and time-like dual curves of constant breadth in dual Lorentzian space are presented.


Test driven development (TDD) is the practice of writing unit tests before writing the source. TDD practitioners typically start with example-based unit tests to verify an understanding of the software's intended functionality and to drive software design decisions. Hence, the typical role of test cases in TDD leans more towards specifying and documenting expected behavior, and less towards detecting faults. Conversely, traditional criteria-based test coverage ignores functionality in favor of tests that thoroughly exercise the software. This paper examines whether it is possible to combine both approaches. Specifically, can additional criteria based tests improve the quality of TDD test suites without disrupting the TDD development process? This paper presents the results of an observational study that generated additional criteria-based tests as part of a TDD exercise. The criterion was mutation analysis and the additional tests were designed to kill mutants not killed by the TDD tests. The additional unit tests found several software faults and other deficiencies in the software. Subsequent interviews with the programmers indicated that they welcomed the additional tests, and that the additional tests did not inhibit their productivity.


We study the dynamics of one-dimensional solitons in attractive and repulsive Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) loaded into an optical lattice (OL), which is combined with an external parabolic potential. First, we demonstrate analytically that, in the repulsive BEC, where the soliton is of the gap type, its effective mass is negative. This gives rise to a prediction for the experiment: such a soliton cannot be held by the usual parabolic trap, but it can be captured (performing slow harmonic oscillations, with a period that is estimated to be ~0.01 s in realistic experimental conditions) by an anti-trapping inverted parabolic potential. We also study the motion of the soliton in a long system, concluding that, in the cases of both the positive and negative mass, it moves freely, provided that its amplitude is below a certain critical value; above it, the soliton's velocity decreases due to interaction with the OL. At a later stage, the damped motion becomes chaotic. We also investigate the evolution of a two-soliton pulse in the attractive model. The pulse generates a persistent breather, if its amplitude is not too large; otherwise, fusion into a single fundamental soliton takes place. Collisions between two solitons captured in the parabolic trap or anti-trap are considered too. Depending on their amplitudes and phase difference, the solitons either perform stable oscillations, colliding indefinitely many times, or merge into a single soliton. Effects reported in this work for BECs can also be formulated for optical solitons in nonlinear photonic crystals. In particular, the capture of the negative-mass soliton in the anti-trap implies that a bright optical soliton in a self-defocusing medium with a periodic structure of the refractive index may be stable in an anti-waveguide.


In recent years, FLASH irradiation has attracted significant interest in radiation research. Studies have shown that irradiation at ultra-high dose rates (FLASH) reduces the severity of toxicities in normal tissues compared to irradiation at conventional dose rates (CONV), as currently used in clinical practice. Most pre-clinical work is currently carried out using charged particle beams and the beam charge monitor described here is relevant to such beams. Any biological effect comparisons between FLASH and CONV irradiations rely on measurement of tissue dose. While well-established approaches can be used to monitor, in real time, the dose delivered during CONV irradiations, monitoring FLASH doses is not so straightforward. Recently the use of non-intercepting beam current transformers (BCTs) has been proposed for FLASH work. Such BCTs have been used for decades in numerous accelerator installations to monitor temporal and intensity beam profiles. In order to serve as monitoring dosimeters, the BCT output current must be integrated, using electronic circuitry or using software integration following signal digitisation. While sensitive enough for FLASH irradiation, where few intense pulses deliver the requisite dose, the inherent insensitivity of BCTs and the need for a wide detection bandwidth makes them less suitable for use during CONV "reference" irradiations. The purpose of this article is to remind the FLASH community of a different mode of BCT operation: direct monitoring of charge, rather than current, achieved by loading the BCT capacitively rather than resistively. The resulting resonant operation achieves very high sensitivities, enabling straightforward monitoring of output during both CONV and FLASH regimes. Historically, such inductive charge monitors have been used for single pulse work; however, a straightforward circuit modification allows selective resonance damping when repetitive pulsing is used, as during FLASH and CONV irradiations. Practical means of achieving this are presented, as are construction and signal processing details. Finally, results are presented showing the beneficial behaviour of the BCT versus an (Advanced Markus) ionisation chamber for measurements over a dose rate range, from <0.1 Gys−1 to >3 kGys−1.


The study sought to investigate the social impact of fraud on the Nigerian banking industry. Secondary data of Fraud, Actual/Expected Loss and Return on Equity were obtained from Annual Reports and Accounts of Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) and the commercial banks during the period 1990-2014.  The Ordinary Least Square (OLS) with its Best Linear Unbiased Estimate (BLUE) Property was used in analyzing the data via the Statistical Package for Social Sciences. The findings showed that banks in Nigeria are significantly thriving from, and may also be complicit in, the high rate of fraud in the country. We also discovered a negative social impact of fraud on the Nigerian banking industry. Based on the findings, we recommend that the EFCC and other agencies responsible with the task of tracking fraud in Nigeria should earnestly beam their searchlights on the banks, being possible conduit pipes for corrupt financial flows. Also, banks should be enjoined to take, and continue to take, a closer look at their own operations, declining to provide tolerant environments for fraud, among others. Keywords: Social Impact, Fraud, Actual/Expected Loss, Banking Industry, Society Expectation, Nigeria


Abstract The experience of pain spans biological, psychological and sociocultural realms, both basic and complex, it is by turns necessary and devastating. Despite an extensive knowledge of the constituents of pain, the ability to translate this into effective intervention remains limited. It is suggested that current, multiscale, medical approaches, largely informed by the biopsychosocial (BPS) model, attempt to integrate knowledge but are undermined by an epistemological obligation, one that necessitates a prior isolation of the constituent parts. To overcome this impasse, we propose that an anthropological stance needs to be taken, underpinned by a Bayesian apparatus situated in computational psychiatry. Here, pain is presented within the context of lifeworlds, where attention is shifted away from the constituents of experience (e.g. nociception, reward processing and fear-avoidance), towards the dynamic affiliation that occurs between these processes over time. We argue that one can derive a principled method of investigation and intervention for pain from modelling approaches in computational psychiatry. We suggest that these modelling methods provide the necessary apparatus to navigate multiscale ontology and epistemology of pain. Finally, a unified approach to the experience of pain is presented, where the relational, inter-subjective phenomenology of pain is brought into contact with a principled method of translation; in so doing, revealing the conditions and possibilities of lifeworlds in pain.


Male Sprague-Dawley rats were maintained on a vitamin A-deficient diet for a period of five weeks. At the end of that time, hepatic cytochrome P450 levels in vitamin A-deficient rats were 65% that of rats fed a complete diet. However, the hepatic rate of benzo[a]pyrene metabolism was significantly greater (2 times) in vitamin A-deficient rats compared with those fed a complete diet. The pattern of metabolites separable by thin-layer chromatography was similar in both groups of rats. Benzo[a]pyrene induced its own metabolism by a slightly greater amount in the vitamin-sufficient rats, but it was not to the level of the deficient group, although the levels of cytochrome P450 were still below those of the deficient rats. In discussing lung microsomes, benzo[a]pyrene pre-treatment of deficient rats resulted in slightly elevated levels of cytochrome P450 and a slightly greater rate of metabolism of benzo[a]pyrene compared with rats fed the complete diet.


Transhumance is a resource efficient means of livestock production by seasonally moving grazing animals to utilize pastures between varying ecological zones. This article investigated two separate transhumant societies in Romania and Turkey, countries that resemble cultural and environmental likeness. The data for the Turkish component of this study was collected in 2015 by interviewing Turkish transhumant populations during their migration route through the Taurus mountains. Romanian data for the Carpathian Transhumant came from personal communications with Romanian authors and also from Romanian and English written sources. Both nations possess rare natural environments with high nature conservation value open grassland habitats that benefit from traditional, low-impact agriculture of the transhumance. After a millennia of practicing conservation and natural resource management skills it is a lifestyle that is all but lost. Ecosystem services provided by the Romanian and Turkish transhumant family farming systems include preservation of biodiversity, providing substantial carbon sinks and reduction of CO2 emissions assisting to mitigate climate change. The system also maintains erosion control, improves soil quality and deters the likelihood of forest fires, whilst weaving a resilient social web. The survey also indicated a clear link between social and ecological resilience emphasizing that sustainable development relies on the interconnectedness between biological and cultural diversity and as such they merit strong policy recognition and support. The economic, social and environmental costs of losing them would far outweigh the costs of support. To loose this animal production system with its rich cultural heritage would be a tragic deficit for both biological and cultural conservation.


There is growing evidence that bacteria that live in diverse soil environments are gaining multidrug resistance. Recent functional screens and the growing information of metagenomic databases are also revealing the presence of an unexpected density of resistance genes in the environment, the antibiotic resistome. To explore this reservoir, we isolated 15000 morphologically diverse microorganisms directly from soil samples, and constructed a diverse library of 264 resistant isolates. Without exception, all the 264 isolates were found to be resistant to at least one antibiotic. Multi-drug resistance was observed for more than 3 antibiotics in 83% of the isolates, while five strains showed resistance to more than 10 antibiotics of the 15 antibiotics tested in the library. These results indicate that soil bacteria are a reservoir of antibiotic resistance with greater genetic diversity than previously accounted for.


Log is a key enabler of many security applications including but not limited to security auditing and forensic analysis. Due to the rapid growth of modern computing infrastructure size, software systems are generating more and more logs every day. Moreover, the duration of recent cyber attacks like Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) is becoming longer, and their targets consist of many connected organizations instead of a single one. This requires the analysis on logs from different sources and long time periods. Storing such large sized log files is becoming more important and also challenging than ever. Existing logging systems are either inefficient (i.e., high storage overhead) or designed for limited security applications (i.e., no support for general security analysis). In this paper, we propose ELISE, a storage efficient logging system built on top of a novel lossless data compression technique, which naturally supports all types of security analysis. It features lossless log compression using a novel log file preprocessing and Deep Neural Network (DNN) based method to learn optimal character encoding. On average, ELISE can achieve 3 and 2 times better compression results compared with existing state-of-the-art methods Gzip and DeepZip, respectively, showing a promising future research direction.


Despite recent advances, treatment options for men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) progressing after next-generation hormonal agents (NHAs) are limited and provide only modest survival benefit. Thus, an unmet need remains for mCRPC patients after treatment with targeted endocrine therapy or NHA therapy. Pembrolizumab, a humanized monoclonal antibody for PD-1, has been found to have activity as monotherapy in patients with mCRPC and as combination therapy in a Phase Ib/II study with docetaxel and prednisone/prednisolone for patients previously treated with enzalutamide or abiraterone acetate. The aim of the randomized, double-blind, Phase III KEYNOTE-921 study is to evaluate the efficacy and safety of pembrolizumab plus docetaxel in patients with mCRPC who were previously treated with an NHA. Clinical trial registration: NCT03834506 (ClinicalTrials.gov).


BACKGROUND Angiography and embolization have become the treatment of choice after abdominal trauma or pelvic injury in hemodynamically stable patients with a suspicion of internal hemorrhage (contrast extravasation, pseudo-aneurysm, or a vessel cutoff diagnosed on computed tomographic scanning). Some studies, however, report a high incidence of rebleeding (failure) or complications. The aim of this study was to evaluate the failure rate and the complications in trauma patients undergoing such procedures. METHODS All consecutive patients (n = 97) admitted to our Level I trauma center between January 2002 and December 2008 in whom angiography with or without embolization was performed were analyzed. Complications were classified as organ specific, puncture site related, and systemic. Additional interventions, required to treat complications, were documented. RESULTS The overall failure rate was 12%. Overall, 48 complications were documented in 28 patients. Organ-specific complications were observed in 18 patients (19%), especially abscess formation and infarction of the liver. Puncture site–related complications occurred in three patients. The incidence of contrast-induced nephropathy was 24%. Three patients developed renal failure. Nine of the 15 patients with rebleeding could be managed with reembolization or operative packing, resulting in an organ salvage rate of 93%. Most (83%) of the organ-specific complications and all of the puncture site–related complications could be managed conservatively or with percutaneous treatment. CONCLUSION In the present study, the failure rate and incidence of organ-specific and procedure-related complications were low and often could be managed with nonoperative minimally invasive interventions. Trauma patients undergoing angiography have a high chance (24%) of developing contrast-induced nephropathy and should therefore receive optimal prophylactic measures to avoid this complication. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE Therapeutic study, level IV; prognostic/epidemiologic study, level III.


The increasing technological revolution of the mobile smart devices fosters their wide use. Since mobile users rely on unofficial or thirdparty repositories in order to freely install paid applications, lots of security and privacy issues are generated. Thus, at the same time that Android phones become very popular and growing rapidly their market share, so it is the number of malicious applications targeting them. Yet, current mobile malware detection and analysis technologies are very limited and ineffective. Due to the particular traits of mobile devices such as the power consumption constraints that make unaffordable to run traditional PC detection engines on the device; therefore mobile security faces new challenges, especially on dynamic runtime malware detection. This approach is import because many instructions or infections could happen after an application is installed or executed. On the one hand, recent studies have shown that the network-based analysis, where applications could be also analyzed by observing the network traffic they generate, enabling us to detect malicious activities occurring on the smart device. On the other hand, the aggressors rely on DNS to provide adjustable and resilient communication between compromised client machines and malicious infrastructure. So, having rich DNS traffic information is very important to identify malevolent behavior, then using DNS for malware detection is a logical step in the dynamic analysis because malicious URLs are common and the present danger for cybersecurity. Therefore, the main goal of this thesis is to combine and correlate two approaches: top-down detection by identifying malware domains using DNS traces at the network level, and bottom-up detection at the device level using the dynamic analysis in order to capture the URLs requested on a number of applications to pinpoint the malware. For malware detection and visualization, we propose a system which is based on dynamic analysis of API calls. This can help Android malware analysts in visually inspecting what the application under study does, easily identifying such malicious functions. Moreover, we have also developed a framework that automates the dynamic DNS analysis of Android malware where the captured URLs at the smartphone under scrutiny are sent to a remote server where they are: collected, identified within the DNS server records, mapped the extracted DNS records into this server in order to classify them either as benign or malicious domain. The classification is done through the usage of machine learning. Besides, the malicious URLs found are used in order to track and pinpoint other infected smart devices, not currently under monitoring.


Objective: Evaluate the impact of self-reported sleep problems on post-stroke recovery. Design: Cross-sectional secondary analysis of longitudinal data from the Locomotor Experience Applied Post-Stroke (LEAPS) rehabilitation and recovery study (phase-III single-blind randomized controlled clinical trial). Group medians were compared for three sleep problem groups across three time points. Setting: Outpatient and in-home physical therapy. Subjects: Adults during the first year following stroke (n = 408, 380, 360 at 2, 6, 12 months, respectively). Interventions: The original study compared effects of locomotor training with body weight support in the year post-stroke. This analysis evaluated function in three sleep/functional-impact groups: no sleep problems, sleep problems with no-to-minimal-impact and sleep problems with moderate-to-quite-a-bit of impact. Main measures: Participants' responses regarding if they had "a sleep problem, such as insomnia" and, if so, what the impact was on their function. Stroke Impact Scale subscales for strength, hand function, mobility, ADLs, memory, communication, emotion, participation, and percent recovery. Results: About 25% of people with stroke reported sleep difficulty, 10% perceived sleep problems negatively impact function. Groups self-reporting worse sleep performed worse in all functional subscales (except self-perceived percent recovery) during the first year post-stroke. Conclusion: Self-reported poor sleep adversely effects post-stroke functional recovery.


Background: The loss of cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) mediated chloride conductance does not fully explain the diverse pathologies evident in patients with cystic fibrosis (CF). Bicarbonate (HCO3−) secretion is also impaired in CFTR expressing tissues and CFTR is thought to regulate HCO3− secretion at the apical membrane of epithelial cells. We hypothesised that the epithelial lining fluid (ELF) of patients with CF would be acidified and that this may be worsened during an infective exacerbation due to the increased inflammatory burden. Methods: pH and nitrite levels in exhaled breath condensate (EBC) from 12 healthy non-smoking controls and 30 patients with CF (11 of whom were in an infective exacerbation) were measured. A further nine patients were studied before and after intravenous antibiotic treatment for an exacerbation of CF. Results: The pH of EBC was significantly lower in patients with stable CF than in controls (5.88 (0.32) v 6.15 (0.16), p=0.017), and was further reduced in CF patients with an exacerbation (5.32 (0.38), p=0.001) compared with stable CF patients. EBC pH increased significantly following antibiotic treatment from 5.27 (0.42) to 5.71 (0.42), p=0.049). Nitrite levels in EBC were increased in CF patients with an exacerbation compared with control subjects (4.4 (4.0) μm v 1.6 (1.6) μm p=0.047). No correlation was found between EBC pH and nitrite levels. Conclusions: These findings support the hypothesis that airway acidification occurs in CF. This acidity is in part a function of inflammation as the pH of the EBC of patients increased significantly with treatment of an exacerbation, although not to control levels. Acidic pH of the ELF may play a role in the pathophysiology of CF lung disease and requires further investigation.


The anatomy and histology of the abdominal eversible vesicles and the male reproductive tract of the spoonwing lacewing Palmipenna (Neuroptera: Nemopteridae) have been examined. The eversible vesicles open as a pair of large bulbous sacs between tergites five and six, each folding into halves during retraction. They consist of highly pleated cuticle, beneath which are typical gland cells, each having a circular or oval end apparatus surrounded by closely packed microvilli. These communicate to the surface via cuticularized channels. In spite of considerable behavioral observations, male Palmipenna were never noted with everted vesicles. Even during mating trials, where females were presented to males in the field, the vesicles were never everted during the attempted copulation that ensued. Our observations indicate that mate attraction is mediated by the release of a female pheromone. The function of the eversible vesicles and their associated gland cells remains unknown, and their structure appears to be unique to the Nemopteridae. The reproductive tract is similar to that of other Neuroptera, consisting of a pair of five‐lobed testes, a medium‐to‐large pair of seminal vesicles, and three pairs of accessory glands. The major accessory glands are surrounded by circular and longitudinal muscle, and are lined by an epithelium, the cells of which presumably secrete the amorphous rods of material always present in this pair of glands. The sperm in the seminal vesicles are elongate, with a pointed head and a 9 + 9 + 2 configuration in the flagellum. A single spermatophore, similar in shape to that described for other Neuroptera, was found occluding the bursa copulatrix of a teneral female. © 1994 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


Standard form of Contract for Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) Projects in Oil and Gas industry has not gained the favor. Most of the NOCs/IOCs (National Oil Companies / International Oil Companies) prefer to use standalone bespoke EPC Contracts often based on in-house expertise that is developed from using the contents of different standard forms of Contract. This requires a lot of care during the drafting and several rounds of lengthy instructive discussions during the tendering. This paper discusses whether the use of Second Edition of FIDIC Form of Silver Book or Yellow Book released in December 2017 is possible as acceptable standard form of Contract for Oil and Gas Industry with the use of Particular condition to address the special requirements of a Project.
 The EPC Contracts for onshore and offshore oil and gas projects are generally experiences the issues related to deficient scope definition, force majeure, performance related issues, indemnity, insurance provisions, change orders, termination, limitation of liability, no damage for delay etc. Second edition of FIDIC rainbow suite has striven hard to address the above stated issues with balance distribution of the risk.
 The 2017 FIDIC Form of Contracts provides increased reciprocity between the Parties (i.e. Employer and Contractor) with an emphasis on notices and time bar provisions. Further, use of standard form of contracts such as FIDIC facilitates better understanding of the risks distribution at the outset of contract due to availability of precedence and accepted explanation of 'terms and conditions of Contract'.


Objective This multicenter study aimed to compare demographic, operative, and short-term outcomes data between open and minimally invasive surgical approaches for craniosynostosis repair utilizing the American College of Surgeon's National Surgical Quality Improvement Program Pediatric (NSQIP-P) database and highlight surgical disparities among races and ethnicities. Design Retrospective review of large multicenter database. Setting Freestanding general acute care children's hospitals, children's hospitals within a larger hospital, specialty children's hospitals, or general acute care hospitals with a pediatric wing. Patients and Participants A total of 4931 pediatric patients underwent craniosynostosis correction within the NSQIP-P database from 2013 to 2019. Interventions None. Main Outcome Measure(s) Demographic information included age at surgery, sex, race, and ethnicity. Operative and outcomes measures included operative time, anesthesia time, days until discharge, postoperative complications, blood transfusions, 30-day readmission, and 30-day unplanned return to operating room. Results Patients who underwent minimally invasive surgery had significantly shorter operative and anesthesia times (p < .001; p < .001), fewer days until discharge (p < .001), fewer postoperative complications (p < .05), and less blood transfusions (p < .001). The proportion of White patients was significantly higher in the minimally invasive surgery group (p < .01), whereas Black and Hispanic patients had a significantly higher proportion in the open surgery group (p < .001; p < .001). Additionally, the percentage of patients undergoing minimally invasive surgery increased from 3.8% in 2014 to over 13% in 2019. Conclusions This study adds to a growing consensus that minimally invasive surgery has significantly decreased operative time, anesthesia time, transfusion rates, length of hospital stay, and postoperative complications compared to open surgery. Racial and ethnic surgical disparities showed larger proportions of Black and Hispanic populations undergoing open procedures.


: A case of multifocal avascular necrosis of the bone complicating systemic lupus erythematosis is presented in which the extent of involvement was incidentally identified by Tc-99m HMPAO leukocyte imaging. Leukocytes labeled with Tc-99m HMPAO may be an excellent bone marrow imaging agent.


Abstract Telmisartan is highly variable drug indicated for treatment of hypertension. This study aimed to compare the bioavailability of two 80 mg telmisartan tablets in healthy Indonesian subjects. A randomized, open-label, single-dose, three-sequence, three-way, reference-formulation-replicated crossover study was conducted under fasting period with two-week washout period. In this study, 31 Indonesian subjects were enrolled and 28 subjects were completed the study. Serial blood samples were collected up to 72 h following drug administration. Plasma concentrations of telmisartan were determined using high-performance liquid chromatography method with fluorescence detector. The pharmacokinetic parameters of AUC0– t , AUC0–∞, and C max were assessed for bioequivalence. Bioequivalence acceptance was based on predefined criteria of 90% confidence interval (CI) of 80.00–125.00% for AUC parameters and reference-scaled-average bioequivalence of 71.73–139.42% for C max. The 90% CI for AUC0– t , AUC0–∞, and C max was 96.11–107.25%, 93.06–104.36%, and 94.23–127.01%, respectively. These results indicated that the two formulations of telmisartan were bioequivalent.


Slurry trench cutoff walls have been used as vertical barriers in the rehabilitation of land disposal sites to mitigate subsurface contaminant transport and permit safe reuse of the site. This paper presents two detailed case studies where soil bentonite slurry trench cutoff walls have been used for the rehabilitation of existing land disposal sites. The first case study, a hazardous waste land disposal site, was successfully closed and subsurface migration of contaminants to offsite receptors was controlled by a subsurface vertical barrier installed using the slurry trench method of construction. Portions of the site have been converted to a golf course. This second case study, a municipal and industrial waste landfill, was originally the site of a sand and gravel quarry. Using a soil-bentonite slurry trench cutoff wall, the existing landfill was contained to prevent the spread of ground water contamination and converted into an industrial use. Specifically, the site cap cover was designed as a "wear surface" cap designed to accommodate regular use for the storage of heavy equipment. The paper describes the site and subsurface conditions, the design, laboratory and analytical studies supporting the design, the construction, construction quality control measures and results and the performance of the completed systems. Based on the results of this study, it is concluded that the installation of vertical barriers using the soil-bentonite slurry trench method of construction can provide an economical and environmentally sound means to control subsurface contaminant migration from land disposal sites and, when combined with a properly designed and constructed cover, allows for site reuse.


A primary goal of volcanology is forecasting hazardous eruptive activity. Despite much progress over the last century, however, volcanoes still erupt with no detected precursors, lives and livelihoods are lost to eruptive activity, and forecasting the onsets of eruptions remains fraught with uncertainty. Long‐term forecasts are generally derived from the geological and historical records, from which recurrence intervals and styles of activity can be inferred, while shorter‐term forecasts are derived from patterns in monitoring data. Information from geology and monitoring data can be evaluated and combined using statistical analysis, expert elicitation, and conceptual and or mathematical models. Integrative frameworks, such as event trees, combine this diversity of information to produce probabilistic forecasts that can inform the style and scale of the societal response to a potential future eruption. Several developments show promise to revolutionize the utility and accuracy of these forecasts. These include growth in the quantity and quality of multidisciplinary monitoring data, coupled with increases in computing power; machine learning algorithms, which will allow far better utilization of this growing volume of data; and new physiochemical volcano models and data assimilation algorithms, which take advantage of a wide range of monitoring data and realistic physics to better predict the evolution of a given physical state. Although eruption forecasts may never be as generally reliable as weather forecasts, and great caution must be exercised when attempting to predict highly complex volcanic behavior, these and other innovations—particularly when combined in integrative, fully probabilistic forecasting frameworks—should help volcanologists to better issue warnings of volcanic activity on societally relevant time frames.


The CXCR1 gene plays an important role in the innate immunity of the bovine mammary gland. Associations between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) CXCR1c.735C>G and c.980A>G and udder health have been identified before in small populations. A fluorescent multiprobe PCR assay was designed specifically and validated to genotype both SNP simultaneously in a reliable and cost-effective manner. In total, 3,106 cows from 50 commercial Flemish dairy herds were genotyped using this assay. Associations between genotype and detailed phenotypic data, including pathogen-specific incidence rate of clinical mastitis (IRCM), test-day somatic cell count, and test-day milk yield (MY) were analyzed. Staphylococcus aureus IRCM tended to associate with SNP c.735C>G. Cows with genotype c.735GG had lower Staph. aureus IRCM compared with cows with genotype c.735CC (rate ratio = 0.35, 95% confidence interval = 0.14–0.90). Additionally, a parity-specific association between Staph. aureus IRCM and SNP c.980A>G was detected. Heifers with genotype c.980GG had a lower Staph. aureus IRCM compared with heifers with genotype c.980AG (rate ratio = 0.15, 95% confidence interval = 0.04–0.56). Differences were less pronounced in multiparous cows. Associations between CXCR1 genotype and somatic cell count were not detected. However, MY was associated with SNP c.735C>G. Cows with genotype c.735GG out-produced cows with genotype c.735CC by 0.8 kg of milk/d. Results provide a basis for further research on the relation between CXCR1 polymorphism and pathogen-specific mastitis resistance and MY.


The binding of Ferrocyphen [Fe(phen.)2(CN)2]2+ to sodium dodecylsulphate (SDS), cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) and Triton X-100 surfactants was studied spectrophotometrically in water-ethanol medium. The equilibrium binding constant (Kb) and the number of binding sites (n) per surfactant monomer were obtained from Scatchard plots. The change in free energy of binding , and the change in free energy of dissociation of bound complex per binding site were calculated from Kb. It is proposed that ethanol stabilizes the surfactant monomers when compared with hydrophobic hydration and hence enhances hydrophobic binding. Kb values suggest that the binding is driven largely by favourable entropic contribution moderated primarily by hydrophobic and electrostatic interactions. The entropic, hydrophobic and hydrogen bond interaction effects are suggested to go through multiple equilibria steps. For CTAB the results indicate preferential electrostatic interaction between electron rich phenanthroline ligands of the metal complex and the cationic ammonium head group over hydrophobic interaction. IFE Journal of Science Vol. 9 (1) 2007 pp. 137-144


Celiac disease is an immune-mediated, chronic, inflammatory, and systemic illness which could affect the eye. The aim of this study is to look for possible signs of retinal involvement in celiac disease that could be utilized as biomarkers for this disease. Sixty-six patients with celiac disease and sixty-six sex-matched healthy subjects were enrolled in this observational case–control study. A comprehensive ophthalmological evaluation, axial length measurements, and SD-OCT evaluation were performed. The thickness of the retinal layers at the circle centered on the fovea (1 mm in diameter) and the average of the foveal and parafoveal zones at 2 and 3 mm in diameter were evaluated, together with retinal volume and the peripapillary retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL). Concerning the thicknesses of the retinal layers in each analyzed region, no statistically significant differences were found. The same results were obtained for the total volume. Regarding peripapillary RNFL, the celiac patients showed slightly thicker values than the healthy controls, except for temporal and nasal-inferior quadrants, with no statistically significant differences. All the analyzed parameters were similar for the celiac patients and the healthy individuals. This could be related either to the non-involvement of the retinal layers in celiac disease pathophysiology or to the gluten-free diet effect.


These two papers are explosions that clear the mind of preconceptions and stereotypes. Balliet and Joseph tear away the surface of the sign of the book, the sign of historic truth, and reveal the underlying complexities. Balliet shows us an extraordinary paradox. We have been convinced of the universality of the stereotype of the nineteenth-century American middle-class white woman as confined to the domestic sphere, prevented from entering the fast-growing world of the spread of information, an idle player on the cultural stage. We believe that the world of the Yellow Wallpaper is all pervasive. In the Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Gilman describes the virtual imprisonment of a woman to her bedroom to rest and get over her urges to go beyond Victorian standards of acceptable behavior, limiting her to the domestic sphere. In her confinement, she creates a world of hallucination based on patterns in the yellow wallpaper. The room becomes her world and she lives in its fantasy, removed from the real world. It's a powerful image, used in the beginning stages of feminist theory to break into a new era of freedom and potential for women.


CONTENTS Introduction Chapter 1. A survey of work on the mixed problem § 1. The formal scheme of the Fourier method § 2. A survey of results contained in the text-books § 3. Investigations relating to the wave equation § 4. The generalised solution of the general hyperbolic equation § 5. Further investigations of the hyperbolic equation § 6. The definition and uniqueness of the classical solution § 7. Solvability of the mixed problem for the hyperbolic equation in an arbitrary normal cylinder § 8. The justification of the Fourier method for the parabolic equation in a normal cylinder Chapter 2. Uniqueness of the classical solution in an arbitrary normal cylinder § 9. Uniqueness theorem for the weakly classical solution § 10. Existence of a finite energy for almost all t Chapter 3. Convergence of the basic bilinear series § 11. Summary of some results from the theory of elliptic equations § 12. Convergence of the basic bilinear series of eigenfunctions § 13. Convergence of the bilinear series of first derivatives § 14. Convergence of the bilinear series of second derivatives Chapter 4. Auxiliary results on the order of magnitude of the Fourier coefficients § 15. Two preliminary lemmas § 16. Basic lemmas on the order of magnitude of the Fourier coefficients Chapter 5. Solvability of the mixed problem for the hyperbolic equation in an arbitrary normal cylinder § 17. Proof of Theorem 8 § 18. Analysis of the conditions of Theorem 8 Chapter 6. The justification of the Fourier method for the parabolic equation in an arbitrary normal cylinder § 19. Proof of Theorem 9 References


Background: Myocarditis is a life-threatening heart disease characterized by myocardial inflammation, necrosis, and chronic fibrosis. While mast cell inhibition has been suggested to prevent fibrosis in rat myocarditis, little is known about its effectiveness in attenuating cardiac remodeling and dysfunction in myocarditis. Thus, we sought to test the hypothesis that mast cell inhibition will attenuate the inflammatory reaction and associated left ventricular (LV) remodeling and dysfunction after fulminant autoimmune myocarditis. Methods and Results: To induce experimental autoimmune myocarditis, we immunized 30 rats with porcine cardiac myosin (PCM) twice at a 7-day interval. On day 8 animals were randomized into treatment with either an intraperitoneal (IP) injection of 25mg/kg of cromolyn sodium (n = 13) or an equivalent volume (∼0.5 mL IP) of normal saline (n = 11). All animals were scanned by serial echocardiography studies before treatment (baseline echocardiogram) and after 20 days of cromolyn sodium (28 days after immunization). Furthermore, serial cardiac magnetic resonance was performed in a subgroup of 12 animals. After 20 days of treatment (28 days from first immunization), hearts were harvested for histopathological analysis. By echocardiography, cromolyn sodium prevented LV dilatation and attenuated LV dysfunction, compared with controls. Postmortem analysis of hearts showed that cromolyn sodium reduced myocardial fibrosis, as well as the number and size of cardiac mast cells in the inflamed myocardium, compared with controls. Conclusions: Our study suggests that mast cell inhibition with cromolyn sodium attenuates adverse LV remodeling and dysfunction in myocarditis. This mechanism-based therapy is clinically relevant and could improve the outcome of patients at risk for inflammatory cardiomyopathy and heart failure.


Culinary practitioners (chefs and healthcare cooks) need tools to systematically assess and improve the sensory quality and acceptance of the food they produce. Sensory science provides these tools to develop, revise and improve foods. However, in the culinary arts educations in Denmark teaching in sensory science is limited. We developed a teaching programme for culinary arts educations, focusing on the use of central practices of sensory science in production kitchens. The teaching programme was tested and developed in dialogue with vocational teachers and culinary students. The material consists of five theoretical and practical teaching modules that cover topics such as the senses, sensory vocabulary development and training, fast sensory methods and factors contributing to palatability. In total, 137 culinary students participated in the teaching programme. The goal was to make culinary students master sensory evaluation techniques and improve their ability to develop food that is liked by consumers. Consequently, these practitioners can improve the sensory quality and acceptance of sustainable and healthy foods. Learning outcomes in a combined sensory knowledge (ten questions) and skills test (eight sensory tasks) were examined. Altogether 89 culinary students participated in both the baseline and follow-up test. Results demonstrate a highly significant effect in both domains. The knowledge scores were significantly higher after than before the course and the scores in the skills tests revealed a significant improvement of culinary students' vocabulary after completing the course as measured by a higher number and quality of descriptors used to describe four different foods in an open description task. A higher number of descriptors used to describe foods by means of a check-all-that-apply (CATA) sensory descriptive methodology emphasized these findings. Integrating a course on sensory science and methods into the culinary arts educations leads to significant improvement of culinary students' sensory vocabulary, knowledge and skills. The sensory educational programme is available in Danish with elaborate instructions for teachers through Taste for Life's online services. Additionally, to train vocational teachers so they can teach it themselves, virtual courses on the sensory educational content were created in 2021 and are accessible online.


Higher-derivative gravity theories, such as Lovelock theories, generalize Einstein's general relativity (GR). Modifications to GR are expected when curvatures are near Planckian and appear in string theory or supergravity. But can such theories describe gravity on length scales much larger than the Planck cutoff length scale? Here we find causality constraints on Lovelock theories that arise from the requirement that the equations of motion (EOM) of perturbations be hyperbolic. We find a general expression for the ``effective metric'' in field space when Lovelock theories are perturbed around some symmetric background solution. In particular, we calculate explicitly the effective metric for a general Lovelock theory perturbed around cosmological Friedman-Robertson-Walker backgrounds and for some specific cases when perturbed around Schwarzschild-like solutions. For the EOM to be hyperbolic, the effective metric needs to be Lorentzian. We find that, unlike for GR, the effective metric is generically not Lorentzian when the Lovelock modifications are significant. So, we conclude that Lovelock theories can only be considered as perturbative extensions of GR and not as truly modified theories of gravity. We compare our results to those in the literature and find that they agree with and reproduce the results of previous studies.


Purpose To compare changes in anterior segment parameters after Nd:YAG laser capsulotomy in eyes that underwent either combined phacovitrectomy or cataract surgery. Methods This retrospective study enrolled 37 eyes of 35 patients with posterior capsular opacification treated with combined phacovitrectomy (group A), and 35 eyes of 32 patients with posterior capsular opacification treated with cataract surgery (group B). Anterior segment parameters, including anterior chamber depth (ACD), anterior chamber angle, and anterior chamber volume, were measured by a Pentacam before Nd:YAG laser capsulotomy and 1 hour, 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, and 3 months after this treatment. Results In the cataract surgery group, the ACD was significantly lower 1 day (3.75 ± 0.74 mm), 1 week (3.73 ± 0.24 mm), and 3 months (3.74 ± 0.33 mm) after Nd:YAG laser capsulotomy compared with the pretreatment value (4.20 ± 0.62 mm, p = 0.002). By contrast, the ACD did not change significantly over time in the combined phacovitrectomy group. The ACD differed significantly between the two groups at 1 week, 1 month, and 3 months after capsulotomy. There were no significant changes in the anterior chamber volume, anterior chamber angle, central corneal thickness, or pupil size from before to after capsulotomy in either group. A non-significant trend toward myopic shift was observed in group A (p = 0.072) and B (p = 0.055). Conclusions The results of the present study may help determine the power of the intraocular lens in patients who underwent combined surgery or cataract surgery and who will receive Nd:YAG laser capsulotomy.


Imaging characteristics are covered by the image transfer theory. But up to now, image transfer theory dealt mainly with observation of Lambertian (diffuse reflecting) objects on a Lambertian background. This model of reflection is quite a reasonable one for many natural and artificial objects to describe vision quality. We present here the mathematical description for images of non-Lambertian objects to permit their angular reflection patterns to be dealt with under unfavorable viewing conditions through a light-scattering medium. Retroreflectors are chosen as an convenient example of these objects. The small-angle diffusion approximation of the radiative transfer theory is used for the calculations of light characteristics under illumination by some source of an active vision system. The case studies consider, in particular: (1) Imaging of large-area objects where some of their parts would be seen as dark and others as bright, and (2) the interesting effect of enhancing the contrast of a retroreflector image with increasing optical thickness of a scattering medium. This is related to increasing the effective albedo of an equivalent Lambertian object, by which the retroreflector can be replaced. The results on imaging characteristics of retroreflective objects are compared with those for Lambertian. The corresponding differences are discussed.