MOTIVATION
Synthetic lethality (SL) is a promising form of gene interaction for cancer therapy, as it is able to identify specific genes to target at cancer cells without disrupting normal cells. As high-throughput wet-lab settings are often costly and face various challenges, computational approaches have become a practical complement. In particular, predicting SLs can be formulated as a link prediction task on a graph of interacting genes. Although matrix factorization techniques have been widely adopted in link prediction, they focus on mapping genes to latent representations in isolation, without aggregating information from neighboring genes. Graph convolutional networks (GCN) can capture such neighborhood dependency in a graph. However, it is still challenging to apply GCN for SL prediction as SL interactions are extremely sparse, which is more likely to cause overfitting.

RESULTS
In this paper, we propose a novel Dual-Dropout GCN (DDGCN) for learning more robust gene representations for SL prediction. We employ both coarse-grained node dropout and fine-grained edge dropout to address the issue that standard dropout in vanilla GCN is often inadequate in reducing overfitting on sparse graphs. In particular, coarse-grained node dropout can efficiently and systematically enforce dropout at the node (gene) level, while fine-grained edge dropout can further fine-tune the dropout at the interaction (edge) level. We further present a theoretical framework to justify our model architecture. Finally, we conduct extensive experiments on human SL datasets and the results demonstrate the superior performance of our model in comparison with state-of-the-art methods.

AVAILABILITY
DDGCN is implemented in python 3.7, open-source and freely available at https://github.com/CXX1113/Dual-DropoutGCN.


My paper [2], which appeared in the special issue dedicated to the late Professor Brian Hartley, contained an error in Lemma 2.2 as a result of overlooking the case that the exponents ki on p. 359 may be divisible by arbitrary powers of p, which was pointed out by Professor H. Smith. In order to overcome this situation all of Section 2, except Lemma 2.1, has been rewritten. However this does not cause any change in the rest of the paper. In particular the original assertions remain correct.


Coleus is a popular ornamental plant that exhibits a diverse array of foliar color patterns. New cultivars are currently hand selected by both amateur and experienced plant breeders. In this study, we reimagine coleus breeding using a quantitative color analysis framework. Despite impressive advances in high-throughput data collection and processing, complex color patterns remain challenging to extract from image datasets. Using a new phenotyping approach called "ColourQuant," we extract and analyze pigmentation patterns from one of the largest coleus breeding populations in the world. Working with this massive dataset, we are able to analyze quantitative relationships between maternal plants and their progeny, identify features that underlie breeder-selections, and collect and compare consumer input on trait preferences. This study is one of the most comprehensive explorations into complex color patterning in plant biology and provides new insights and tools for exploring the color pallet of the plant kingdom.


MAJOR outbreaks of avian influenza have occurred in a number of countries over the past few years. The Asian H5N1 strain, much in the news, emerged in geese in the Guangdong province of China in 1996, and was first associated with human infection in Hong Kong in 1997. In 2005/06, it spread westwards to Eurasia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. It has been associated with mortality in wild birds, village chickens and, in some countries, commercial poultry, and presents a significant threat to poultry and game bird producers. Sudden increased mortality in poultry and game birds is a likely presenting complaint in cases of highly pathogenic avian influenza. This article reviews the differential diagnosis of sudden high mortality in these species.


Corruption is endemic in emerging economies – many transactions of private citizens with government institutions require the payment of bribes. While well known as a general phenomenon, specific data about the "bribe economy" is hard to come by. But such data is needed for rational responses to corruption at the societal and individual level – to expose it; to know which offices to avoid; or to know how much to pay if other recourse is not available. In response to a corruption survey of 102 participants, we have developed Bribecaster, a web application and an Android app to enable citizens to report and consume corruption information about dealing with government offices. Bribecaster uses a novel privacypreserving implicit login schema and one-way hashing for protecting user identities while simultaneously ensuring the accuracy and integrity of reports. This citizen-induced transparency facilitates rational social and individual responses to corruption. Participants in a first-use user study rated Bribecaster highly for its usefulness.


Structural maintenance of chromosomes (SMC) proteins play central roles in regulating higher order chromosome dynamics from bacteria to humans. As judged by electron microscopy, the SMC homodimer from Bacillus subtilis (BsSMC) is composed of two antiparallel, coiled‐coil arms with a flexible hinge. Site‐directed cross‐linking experiments show here that dimerization of BsSMC is mediated by a hinge–hinge interaction between self‐folded monomers. This architecture is conserved in the eukaryotic SMC2–SMC4 heterodimer. Analysis of different deletion mutants of BsSMC unexpectedly reveals that the major DNA‐binding activity does not reside in the catalytic ATPase domains located at the ends of a dimer. Instead, point mutations in the hinge domain that disturb dimerization of BsSMC drastically reduce its ability to interact with DNA. Proper hinge function is essential for BsSMC to recognize distinct DNA topology, and mutant proteins with altered hinge angles cross‐link double‐stranded DNA in a nucleotide‐dependent manner. We propose that the hinge domain of SMC proteins is not a simple dimerization site, but rather it acts as an essential determinant of dynamic SMC–DNA interactions.


Detection based on eigenvalues of received signal covariance matrix is currently one of the most effective solution for spectrum sensing problem in cognitive radios. However, the results of these schemes always depend on asymptotic assumptions since the close-formed expression of exact eigenvalues ratio distribution is exceptionally complex to compute in practice. In this paper, non-asymptotic spectrum sensing approach to approximate the extreme eigenvalues is introduced. In this context, the Gaussian approximation approach based on exact analytical moments of extreme eigenvalues is presented. In this approach, the extreme eigenvalues are considered as dependent Gaussian random variables such that the joint probability density function (PDF) is approximated by bivariate Gaussian distribution function for any number of cooperating secondary users and received samples. In this context, the definition of Copula is cited to analyze the extent of the dependency between the extreme eigenvalues. Later, the decision threshold based on the ratio of dependent Gaussian extreme eigenvalues is derived. The performance analysis of our newly proposed approach is compared with the already published asymptotic Tracy-Widom approximation approach.


Salinity-alkalinity stress can remarkably affect the growth and yield of apple. Strigolactone (SL) is a class of carotenoid-derived compounds that functions in stress tolerance. However, the effects and mechanism of exogenous SL on the salinity-alkalinity tolerance of apple seedlings remain unclear. Here, we assessed the effect of SL on the salinity-alkalinity stress response of Malus hupehensis seedlings. Results showed that treatment with 100 μM exogenous SL analog (GR24) could effectively alleviate salinity-alkalinity stress with higher chlorophyll content and photosynthetic rate than the apple seedlings without GR24 treatment. The mechanism was also explored: First, exogenous GR24 regulated the expression of Na+/K+ transporter genes and decreased the ratio of Na+/K+ in the cytoplasm to maintain ion homeostasis. Second, exogenous GR24 increased the enzyme activities of superoxide, peroxidase and catalase, thereby eliminating reactive oxygen species production. Third, exogenous GR24 alleviated the high pH stress by regulating the expression of H+-ATPase genes and inducing the production of organic acid. Last, exogenous GR24 application increased endogenous acetic acid, abscisic acid, zeatin riboside, and GA3 contents for co-responding to salinity-alkalinity stress indirectly. This study will provide important theoretical basis for analyzing the mechanism of exogenous GR24 in improving salinity-alkalinity tolerance of apple.


Perinatal exposure to environmental chemicals is proposed to reprogram development and alter disease susceptibility later in life. Supporting this, neonatal activation of the nuclear receptor CAR (Nr1i3) by TCPOBOP induces persistent expression of mouse hepatic Cyp2 genes into adulthood, attributed to long-term epigenetic memory of the early life exposure [Hepatology (2012) 56:1499-1509]. Here, we confirm that the same high-dose (15x ED50) neonatal TCPOBOP exposure used in that work induces prolonged (12 weeks) increases in hepatic Cyp2 expression; however, we show that the persistence of expression can be fully explained by the persistence of residual TCPOBOP in liver tissue. When the long-term presence of TCPOBOP in tissue was eliminated by decreasing the neonatal TCPOBOP dose 22-fold (0.67x ED50), strong neonatal increases in hepatic Cyp2 expression were still obtained but did not persist into adulthood. Furthermore, the neonatal ED50-range TCPOBOP exposure did not sensitize mice to a subsequent, low-dose TCPOBOP treatment. In contrast, neonatal treatment with phenobarbital, a short half-life (t1/2=8 h) agonist of CAR and of PXR (Nr1i2), induced high-level neonatal activation of Cyp2 genes and also altered their responsiveness to low-dose phenobarbital exposure at adulthood by either increasing (Cyp2b10) or decreasing (Cyp2c55) expression. Thus, neonatal xenobiotic exposure can reprogram hepatic Cyp2 genes and alter their responsiveness to exposures later in life. These findings highlight the need to carefully consider xenobiotic dose, half-life and persistence in tissue when evaluating the long-term effects of early life environmental chemical exposures.


<para> Wireless sensor networks are characterized by energy-constrained nodes that are tasked with collecting and forwarding environmental parameters with a requisite measurement, which is spatial and temporal fidelity. At the system level, fidelity is not the only issue of interest but also the achievement of a low-cost solution and a long life for the deployed network. As such, sensor nodes should be low in complexity and should achieve the requisite fidelity requirements, with minimum communication and coordination. This paper proposes that these nodes can operate as automata and still achieve the overall system performance requirements with minimal control. This paper presents and analyzes an automaton architecture and a control strategy designed to maintain spatial fidelity as the performance objective. In particular, we show the following: 1) that the architecture permits control of the number of nodes actively transmitting information in each epoch (denoted by <formula formulatype="inline"><tex Notation="TeX">$Q$</tex> </formula>); 2) that the variance of <formula formulatype="inline"><tex Notation="TeX">$Q$</tex></formula> can be controlled and, particularly, can be set to a value significantly less than that of a Bernoulli-process benchmark (i.e., the architecture is expedient with respect to the control of this variance); 3) that the control strategy is scalable over several orders of magnitudes; and 4) that the methodology is efficient in approaching benchmark performance with respect to energy usage. The proposed methodology has the following specific advantages over the benchmark: 1) The total number of sensors deployed in the network need not be known, and 2) the strategy maintains a robust control of <formula formulatype="inline"><tex Notation="TeX">$Q$</tex></formula> over changes in the commanded value and changes in the number of deployed sensors. </para>


Changes in platelet count by dengue virus-platelet interaction and the participation of anti-DV antibody to such changes were studied in vitro with the aim to investigate a mechanism of how the DV causes prominent thrombocytopenia characteristically seen in DHF. The results obtained showed that: (1) DV antigen attached to human platelets without immune-mediated reaction, (2) a decrease in platelet count was more markedly demonstrated by the binding of anti-DV antibody on the DV antigen associated with platelets than by the binding of the antigen-antibody complex on platelets, (3) a modulation of endothelial cell by the infection of DV to the cell was suggested as one of the causes of the thrombocytopenia.


This paper presents a method to verify (the internal consistency) and to validate (with respect to the purpose of the builders) Sequential Function Charts [8] (grafcets in French). The method is based upon the translation of any grafcet into its equivalent finite automaton. The proofs of consistency of the models are then established on this automaton. The main difficulty of this approach is the control of the combinatorial explosion implied by the parallel and the synchronous nature of Grafcet. A specific grammar has been developed in order to express the expected properties to prove. An example is given to illustrate the presented approach.


The superiority of gas quenching to liquid quenching in distortion control and environmental protection causes an increased interest in the various gas methods. The heat transfer in gas quenching processes can be directly influenced by the pressure, the velocity, and the kind of gas. Processes based on high velocities can be easily included in continuous heat treatment processes. Various authors investigated the heat transfer distribution caused by the operational parameters of the nozzle field, but none reflects the influence of these parameters or the heat transfer gradients on the properties of the quenched material. Different geometries like cylinders, plates, and ball bearing rings were gas quenched in a variable nozzle field under atmospheric pressure. The influences of nozzle field parameters on the cooling velocity and hardness are summed up in the first part of this paper. The second part contains investigations on distortion and presents the results of numerical simulation of the gas flow in the nozzle field. The results of simulation are compared to experimental results.


The proliferation of Distributed Generation (DG) in power systems calls for a redesign of electricity network management, which should be able to accommodate large amounts of intermittent generation. This issue requires a discussion about the current dispatching regulation, giving distributed storage systems and qualified electricity consumption the opportunity to provide ancillary services to the distribution grid. In this work, a new dispatching strategy for the integration of active-demand and distributed storage in the Italian electricity market is presented. The strategy is focused on a distribution Smart Grid (SG), where customers can indirectly participate to the Day-Ahead (DA) and the Ancillary Services Market (ASM) through a load aggregator, able to manage the consumers' flexible consumption through Direct Load Control (DLC). The dispatching strategy is described both in the architectural framework and in the functional aspects. The proposed dispatching strategy has been designed in order to fit the current Italian electricity market, giving the opportunity to increase the electricity market flexibility, ensuring a reduction of electricity zonal prices and contributing to the benefit of all the players involved.


Abstract Objective The present study explored recipients' perceptions of food charity and their suggested improvements in inner-city Perth, Western Australia. Design In-depth interviews were conducted with charitable food service (CFS) recipients. Transcripts were thematically analysed using a phenomenological approach. Setting Interviews were conducted at two CFS in inner-city Perth. Subjects Fourteen adults. Results The recipients' journeys to a reliance on CFS were varied and multifactorial, with poverty, medical issues and homelessness common. The length of time recipients had relied on food charity ranged from 8 months to over 40 years. Most were 'grateful yet resigned', appreciative of any food and resigned to the poor quality, monotony and their unmet individual preferences. They wanted healthier food, more variety and better quality. Accessing services was described as a 'full-time job' fraught with unreliable information and transport difficulties. They called for improved information and assistance with transport. 'Eroded dignity' resulted from being fed without any choice and queuing for food in public places, often in a volatile environment. 'Food memories and inclusion' reflected a desire for commensality. Recipients suggested services offer choice and promote independence, focusing on their needs both physical and social. Conclusions Although grateful, long-term CFS recipients described what constitutes a voluntary failure. Their service improvement recommendations can help meet their nutritional and social needs. A successful CFS provides a food service that prioritises nutritious, good-quality food and individual need, while promoting dignity and social inclusion, challenging in the current Australian context.


Sleep disorders are pervasive in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) although clinically underrecognized by most physicians. The most common sleep disorders seen in patients with MS include insomnia, nocturnal movement disorders, sleep-disordered breathing, narcolepsy, and rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder. Factors that influence the quality of sleep in this patient population include pain, nocturia, depression, medication effect, location of lesions, and disease severity. Disrupted sleep has the potential to cause daytime somnolence, increased fatigue, and nonrefreshing sleep, and it may be associated with dangerous respiratory events. Awareness and treatment of these conditions is vital to improving health and quality of life in patients with MS.


Topless bars, casino gambling, needle exchange programs for drug addicts there s no question, morality issues remain front and center in urban politics. Presenting a systematic analysis of culture-war issues at the local level, Elaine Sharp shows how American cities deal with these ongoing concerns. Drawing on a sample of ten strategically chosen cities, she explains differences in how municipalities respond to controversies surrounding sex business, abortion clinics, legalized gambling, gay rights, and drug use. By analyzing the relative importance of subculture, economics, and institutional arrangements in the disputes, she points the way toward richer and more complete understanding of how different cities respond differently to these hot-button issues. Far more than a statistical study, "Morality Politics in American Cities" is a collection of fascinating stories of real people grappling with down-to-earth issues and real-life drama richly informative case studies that will captivate students and interested citizens alike. Mayors, public health directors, activists, and others speak their minds about the pros and cons of these controversies. Here are officials in one city confronting the Vatican over funding for abortion services, those in another battling a local university over its refusal to provide health benefits to gay partners of faculty members, and still others mounting a massive, community-sponsored attack on topless clubs. These stories provide detailed evidence to support classifications needed for comparing cities experience with each of the five morality issues. They also corroborate inferences drawn from the comparisons by showing what considerations were in play as local officials grappled with these issues. Overall, the study shows that cultural factors usually dominate policymaking in local politics except when specific economic interests are at stake and also observes that county-level governments are more important than previously thought in terms of morality-issue decisions. As provocative as it is informative, "Morality Politics in American Cities" demonstrates that such issues same-sex marriage, for example are multidimensional and often difficult to resolve. Its conclusions, however contingent, mark an important step in the ongoing process of understanding important differences in approaches to these issues and clearly show how moral conflicts continue to define American politics."


A hyphenated technique based on vis–NIR spectroscopy and electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance with motional resistance monitoring was employed to investigate the dissolution of copper in acid media. Changes in motional resistance, current, mass, and absorbance during copper dissolution allow the evolution of the interfacial region of copper|diluted sulfuric solution to be understood. In particular, motional resistance is presented in this work as a useful tool to observe the evolution of the passive layer at the interface. During the forced copper electrodissolution in sulfuric solution, SO4(2–) favors the formation of soluble [Cu(H2O)6]2+. On the contrary, OH– involves the formation of Cu(H2O)4(OH)2, which precipitates on the electrode surface. The high viscosity and density of Cu(H2O)4(OH)2 formed on surface causes an increase in motional resistance independently of resonance frequency changes. During the copper corrosion in a more natural acidic environment, the results of electrochemical impedance spectra at open circuit potential indicate that corrosion is controlled by the diffusion of copper to the solution at short experimental times. However, copper diffusion is hindered by the formation of a passive layer on the electrode surface at long experimental times. During the copper corrosion, motional resistance shows an oscillatory response because of an oscillatory formation/dissolution of the passive later. Vis–NIR spectroscopy and electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance with motional resistance monitoring give new perspectives for reaching a deep understanding of metal corrosion processes and, in a future, other interfacial processes such as the catalysis or adsorption of (bio)molecules.


The intermetallic phase control is a promising strategy to optimize the physicochemical properties of ordered intermetallic compounds and engineer their performance in various (electro)catalytic reactions. However, the intermetallic phase-dependent catalytic performance is still rarely reported because of the difficulty in synthesizing ordered intermetallics with precisely controlled phase structures at atomic level, especially having ordered mesoscopic structure/morphology. Here, we successfully reported a precise synthesis of two phase-pure mesoporous intermetallic gallium-platinum (meso-i-Ga-Pt) nanoparticles, including meso-i-Ga3Pt5 with an orthorhombic space group and meso-i-Ga1Pt1 with a non-symmorphic chiral cubic pace group. The intermetallic phase control of ordered meso-i-Ga-Pt nanoparticles was realized by carefully tuning the induced Ga salts with different anions that optimized the free energies during the synthesis. The intermetallic phase-dependent catalytic performance of ordered meso-i-Ga-Pt was systematically evaluated for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) electrocatalysis, with completely opposite catalytic performance in alkaline media. Interestingly, ordered meso-i-Ga1Pt1 catalyst with chiral atomic arrangements disclosed unexpected high ORR activity and stability with 5.9 and 3.2 enhancement factors in mass activity compared to those of meso-i-Ga3Pt5 and commercial Pt/C.


Salt marshes are ecosystems that provide many important ecological functions in the Gulf of Maine. The U.S. Geological Survey investigated salt marshes in and around Acadia National Park from Penobscot Bay to the Schoodic Peninsula to map the potential for landward migration of marshes using a static inundation model of a sea-level rise scenario of 60 centimeters (cm; 2 feet). The resulting inundation contours can be used by resource managers to proactively adapt to sea-level rise by identifying and targeting low-lying coastal areas adjacent to salt marshes for conservation or further investigation, and to identify risks to infrastructure in the coastal zone. For this study, the mapping of static inundation was based on digital elevation models derived from light detection and ranging (LiDAR) topographic data collected in October 2010. Land-surveyed control points were used to evaluate the accuracy of the LiDAR data in the study area, yielding a root mean square error of 11.3 cm. An independent accuracy assessment of the LiDAR data specific to salt-marsh land surfaces indicated a root mean square error of 13.3 cm and 95-percent confidence interval of ± 26.0 cm. LiDAR-derived digital elevation models and digital color aerial photography, taken during low tide conditions in 2008, with a pixel resolution of 0.5 meters, were used to identify the highest elevation of the land surface at each salt marsh in the study area. Inundation contours for 60-cm of sea-level rise were delineated above the highest marsh elevation for each marsh. Confidence interval contours (95-percent, ± 26.0 cm) were delineated above and below the 60-cm inundation contours, and artificial structures, such as roads and bridges, that may present barriers to salt-marsh migration were mapped. This study delineated 114 salt marshes totaling 340 hectares (ha), ranging in size from 0.11 ha (marshes less than 0.2 ha were mapped only if they were on Acadia National Park property) to 52 ha, with a median size of 1.0 ha. Inundation contours were mapped at 110 salt marshes. Approximately 350 ha of low-lying upland areas adjacent to these marshes will be inundated with 60 cm of sea-level rise. Many of these areas are currently freshwater wetlands. There are potential barriers to marsh migration at 27 of the 114 marshes. Although only 23 percent of the salt marshes in the study are on ANP property, about half of the upland areas that will be inundated are within ANP; most of the predicted inundated uplands (approximately 170 ha) include freshwater wetlands in the Northeast Creek and Bass Harbor Marsh areas. Most of the salt marshes analyzed do not have a significant amount of upland area available for migration. Seventy-five percent of the salt marshes have 20 meters or less of adjacent upland that would be inundated along most of their edges. All inundation contours, salt marsh locations, potential barriers, and survey data are stored in geospatial files for use in a geographic information system and are a part of this report.


Tested was the hypothesis that enhanced nitric oxide (NO) production that is stimulated by increased renal endothelin activity mediates decreased distal nephron HCO(3) secretion that is induced by dietary protein. Munich-Wistar rats that ate minimum electrolyte diets with 50% casein-provided protein (HiPro) compared with controls that ate 20% protein for 3 wk had higher urine excretion of endothelin-1 (80 +/- 15.7 versus 29 +/- 3.9 fmol/kg body wt per d; P < 0.02) and of the NO metabolites NO(2)/NO(3) (21.2 +/- 1.9 versus 14.9 +/- 0.8 mumol/kg body wt per d; P < 0.03). Bosentan, an endothelin A/B receptor antagonist, reduced HiPro rats' urine excretion of net acid (5859 +/- 654 versus 8017 +/- 1103 micromol/d; P < 0.03, paired t test) and NO(2)/NO(3) (18.1 +/- 1.1 versus 22.9 +/- 2.0 micromol/kg body wt per d; P < 0.05, paired t test). N-nitro-l-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME), an NO synthase inhibitor, also decreased urine net acid excretion (6621 +/- 717 versus 8449 +/- 1086 micromol/d; P < 0.05, paired t test) but was not additive to bosentan. L-NAME increased in situ late distal nephron HCO(3) delivery in HiPro rats (18.8 +/- 1.7 versus 9.6 +/- 1.4 pmol/mm per min; P < 0.001) that was mediated by increased distal nephron HCO(3) secretion (-7.2 +/- 0.7 versus -3.5 +/- 0.4 pmol/mm per min; P < 0.001) without changes in distal nephron transtubule HCO(3) permeability or H(+) secretion. Bosentan decreased H(+) secretion and increased HCO(3) secretion in the distal nephron of HiPro rats, but L-NAME had no additive effect on either component. The data support that dietary protein augments distal nephron acidification through decreased HCO(3) secretion that is mediated through endothelin-stimulated NO.


A group of client relationship managers participate in a formal learning program to implement new selling skills. Six months after the program, sales improve, and the learning team presents the results to the Vice President of Sales. The senior executive responds, "An increase in sales is great, but how much of the improvement is connected to the new selling skills versus the other factors that also made a contribution?" Sound familiar?


As the two major accounting standard setters, Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), are jointly advocating a full fair value disclosure regime, there have been heated discussions regarding the pros and cons of fair value versus historical cost among accounting researchers, practitioners, and regulators. Current accounting research basically examines the value relevance of fair value accounting from a shareholder perspective (e.g., Barth, 1994; Petroni and Wahlen, 1995; Song et al., 2010). In comparison, the impact of fair value accounting on the debt market is largely under-investigated. As noted by Baker, Greenwood and Wurgler (2003, p.262), "Relative to the literature on equity financing patterns, and relative to the actual importance of debt finance in the U.S. economy, the literature on debt financing patterns is surprisingly underdeveloped". Hence, the interface between accounting regime and debt financing has recently emerged as a fruitful area for research. In fact, creditors, especially public debtholders, have informational and pay-off disadvantages that they seek useful accounting information to compensate for.
 The purpose of this dissertation is twofold: (1) to examine the impact of fair value accounting on the debt market; (2) to examine the influence of specialized auditors on the association between fair value accounting and the debt market effects. The investigation focuses on U.S. bank holding companies issuing debt as they are the reporting entities most affected by the advent of fair value accounting. The first essay focuses on the relative explanatory power of fair value accounting versus historical cost in explaining credit ratings, a common proxy for firm credit quality. I consider both short-term and long-term credit ratings. Results show that fair value accounting outperforms historical cost in explaining firm short-term credit ratings. On the contrary, I do not find evidence that fair value accounting is a better predictor of firm long-term credit ratings. Additional tests further reveal that auditor industry expertise improves fair value's explanatory power for short-term credit risk. The second essay concentrates on the impact of fair value accounting on banks' cost of debt, proxied by yield spread. Results suggest that greater use of fair value accounting measurement in the financial statements is generally associated with a lower cost of debt, which supports the argument that fair value accounting improves the decision usefulness of accounting information. Findings further show that Level 1 and Level 2 fair value inputs are related with a lower cost of debt, while Level 3 fair value inputs are associated with a higher cost of debt. In addition, evidence suggests that auditor industry expertise improves the decision usefulness of fair value accounting information, especially of Level 3 inputs, resulting in lower cost of debt.
 Overall, these results lead to the conclusion that fair value accounting is generally decision useful, although the extent of decision usefulness of fair value varies across the three tiers of fair value levels. Besides, the existence of industry specialized auditors improves the decision usefulness of fair value accounting to debtholders. However, cautions are advised with regard to the implications based on the empirical results, due to the limitations of the methodologies used in this dissertation.

Key Words: Decision Usefulness; Fair Value Accounting; Credit Ratings; Cost of Debt; Auditor Industry Expertise


Macular edema remains one of the important therapeutic issues. Vitero-macular tractions are said, to be the cause of persistent, non responding to laser treatment diabetic macular edema. Surgical removal of these tractions is used in treatment of non resolving macular edema. However, vitrectomy in treatment of diabetic macular edema remains the experimental, method requiring further studying.


We demonstrate a polarization-multiplexed multiplane display system for near-eye applications. A polarization-sensitive Pancharatnam-Berry phase lens is implemented to generate two focal depths simultaneously. A spatial polarization modulator is utilized to direct the two images to designated focal planes. Based on this design, a dual-focal-plane display system is constructed without space- or time-multiplexing operations, to suppress the vergence-accommodation conflict successfully.


The oscillations of a carbon nanotube can strongly affect the spin of an electron trapped on the tube, and the tube can also be affected by the spin, according to theory.


INTRODUCTION
Many radiology centers perform risk assessment at time of screening mammography. The Massachusetts General Hospital North Shore Cancer Center (MGHNS) developed a nurse practitioner (NP)-led high-risk breast clinic (HRBC) to provide comprehensive care for patients with elevated breast cancer risk by a validated tool.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Patient and administrative data from the MGHNS HRBC was collected to evaluate clinical and implementation outcomes. We compared patients from the HRBC with those identified as having ≥ 20% lifetime risk at 5 community imaging centers.

RESULTS
From March 2018 to February 2019, 318 patients were seen in the HRBC; 264 (83%) had ≥ 20% lifetime risk, 13 (4%) had prior atypia/lobular carcinoma in situ, 9 (3%) had ≥ 1.7% 5-year risk, and 32 (10%) had no indication of elevated risk. Genetic testing was recommended for 159 patients (50%); 33 (21%) completed testing with 1 mutation identified. Chemoprevention was discussed with 99 patients (31%); 9 (9%) initiated treatment. Screening magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was recommended for 284 patients (89%); 184 (65%) had MRI performed with 2 mammographically occult cancers identified. During this time period, 215,112 patients had risk assessment performed at time of breast imaging; of these, 1,170 were found to have ≥ 20% lifetime risk. Compared with those identified as high risk in the community, patients seen in the HRBC were more likely to be white (94.3% v 85.4%; P < .001) and have a family history of ovarian cancer (16.4% v 9.4%; P < .001).

CONCLUSION
We demonstrate the feasibility of an NP-led HRBC. Follow-through of recommendations by patients was highest for screening MRI; use of genetic testing and chemoprevention was lower than anticipated. In our community, uptake of the HRBC by referring providers remains a barrier, with only a minority of identified high-risk patients assessed in our clinic.


Of 15 Peptostreptococcus sp. strains isolated between 1975 and 1984, 13 hybridized with the Tet K, Tet M, or Tet O determinant. A donor Peptostreptococcus anaerobius strain carrying the three determinants could transfer Tet M to P. anaerobius and Fusobacterium nucleatum recipients but not to an Enterococcus faecalis recipient, while neither Tet K nor Tet O was transferred.


In this article, Smooth Super-twisting Sliding Mode Control (SSTWSMC) is investigated for the class of underactuated system. In underactuated systems, the control design is not directly applicable as for other systems (known as fully actuated systems). Therefore, at initial step, a nonlinear uncertain model of systems is transformed into the controllable canonical form, and then Smooth Super Twisting (SSTW) based Sliding Mode Control (SMC) is devised for the control design purpose for the considered class. In addition, closed loop stability of the proposed technique is presented in a fascinating way. The effectiveness and supremacy of the proposed control technique is proven by extensive analysis between conventional Sliding Mode Control (SMC), Super twisting (STW) sliding mode control and Smooth Super-twisting Sliding Mode Control (SSTWSMC). The comprehensive analysis evaluates the attributes like robustness enhancement, settling time, control effort, chattering reduction, overshoot, sliding mode convergence, etc. and is supported by simulations as well as practical implementation on ball and beam balancer (which is considered as application example).


Date palm has been considered for centuries as the most important fruit tree (economically, socially and environmentally) in Iraq and other date producing countries. Dates and other palm trees products are contributing to both national economy and farmer income as well. Date palm plantations are an integral component of the citrus agro-ecosystem in irrigated regions in the central and southern of Iraq. Both date palm productivity and dates quality has been deteriorated mainly due to pests attack and other environmental and social factors. Date palm trees and fruits are affected by many principle insect pests such as Dubas bug Ommatissus lybicus De Berge., borers Oryctus spp., Jebusae spp and Lesser Date Moth Batrachedra amydraula which cause serious and significant reductions in date palm productivity and quality. Conventional insecticides have become inefficient to reach a satisfactory solution against date palm pests in addition to their negatives consequences on environment and human health. Therefore, efforts were directed towards the application of Integrated Pest Management techniques as a safe affective alternative. Based on this concept, the Iraqi agricultural policy started moving towards safe alternatives in managing epidemic pests. Direct actions were taken to implement the integrated management programs in various agricultural systems in the country. The Harmonized Support for Agricultural Development program (HSAD) in Iraq, funded by USAID and implemented jointly by ICARDA and the Ministry of Agriculture, has devoted much effort in the dissemination of the IPM concept and application in controlling major date palm insect pests t in Iraq. As a result of these joint efforts an IPM program was developed and implemented against major date palm pest in the country.


Demonstrating the economic value of treatment has become an important objective of many clinical trials. Awareness of the limitations of the methods used in pharmacoeconomic studies of infectious diseases will help in understanding why improved methods are needed to adequately describe the costs associated with infectious episodes. Current analyses generally consider three levels of cost and use three methods to determine costs associated with an infectious episode. However, these costs and the methods for obtaining them may not be appropriate in all studies. Future pharmacoeconomic research needs to adhere to established principles but embrace new methodologies to improve the validity and usefulness of these studies.


High-energy quark-quark scattering is calculated in quantum chromodynamics (QCD) using the infrared equation of Cornwall and Tiktopoulos. In contrast to ordinary quantum electrodynamics, the high-energy behavior is determined by the infrared structure. The infrared divergence is regulated by introduction of a small gluon mass; the amplitudes obtained agree with previous perturbation calculations (for t fixed, s→∞) in QCD modified by the addition of a Higgs meson in the limit of small gluon mass. A proposal to calculate the infrared-finite behavior at fixed angle using asymptotic freedom is made, based on the hypothesis that the infrared divergence can be factored from an infrared-finite and renormalization-point-dependent part. The latter is calculable for the colorless exchange amplitude but not for the color exchange amplitude.


BACKGROUND
The activation of the soluble guanylate cyclase and the production of cyclic 3',5'-guanosine monophosphate (cGMP) have been reported as the primary cellular response to nitric oxide (NO) in the nervous system. Previous results indicated, that three-fold sublethal ischemia repeated at 1-h intervals induces damage in gray matter of the spinal cord. However, little is known about the changes of NO/cGMP signal transduction system in gray matter of the spinal cord under conditions of repeated sublethal ischemia.

MAIN PURPOSE
The aim of this study was to compare the catalytic NOS activity and cGMP concentration in the gray matter regions of lumbosacral spinal cord segments (dorsal horn, zona intermedia, ventral horn) after three (8-, 8-, 9-min) sublethal occlusions repeated at 1-h intervals.

METHODS
Twenty male rabbits, weighing 2.5-3.5 kg were used in the experiments. They were divided into two experimental groups: (1) control animals (n = 10); (2) animals subjected to three brief (8-, 8-, 9-min) occlusions, each time repeated by reperfusion lasting for 1 h (n = 10). Ischemia of lumbosacral segments was induced by ligation of the abdominal aorta just below the left renal artery (DeGirolami and Zivin, 1982). The catalytic NOS activity was determined by conversion of [3H]-L-arginine to [3H]-L-citrulline according to the method of Bredt and Snyder (1990) slightly modified by Strosznajder and Chalimoniuk (1996). cGMP concentration was assessed by radioimmunoassay method (RIA).

RESULTS
Repeated sublethal ischemia evoked a slight increase in catalytic NOS activity over control values in all gray matter regions. On the other hand, cGMP concentration in gray matter regions has a decreasing character, in a descending order: dorsal horn > zona intermedia > ventral horn. A significant impairment of NO-cGMP signal transduction was detected in the intermediate zone and ventral horns.

CONCLUSIONS
Our results indicate that threefold (8-, 8-, 9-min) sublethal ischemia repeated in 1 h intervals of reperfusion causes the impairment of NO/cGMP signal transduction system in gray matter of lumbosacral spinal cord segments and the extent of impairment is region-specific. This finding correlates with the neurological hindlimbs impairment in experimental animals. (Tab. 1, Fig. 2, Ref. 39.)


The bidding strategies based on energy-saving generation dispatching pattern are dynamic and complex problems. It is very difficult to analyze and compute with the traditional mathematical methods, which is particularly conspicuous in the middle- or long-term transactions. This paper proposes a model about the optimized middle or long-term bidding strategy in two-tiers electricity market, which is based on the optimal power flow (OPF). In this model, uncertainties in the outside world are regarded as the agent (Agent) of "external environment". Under the condition, the agent selects a viable strategy by environment evaluating and guides the purpose of the optimal production by learning from past experiences and competitors' behaviors. The adaptability and superiority of this model are tested on a standard IEEE-5 bus 6 notes test system.


The search for catalysts with a perfect substrate-selectivity towards the hydrogenation of nitroarenes is a goal of high importance, which still remains a significant challenge at present. Here, we designed a new type of catalysts with superior substrate-selectivity by combining space-confined effect and hydrogen bonding network, in which metal nanoparticles (MNPs) were confined in hierarchical hollow silica (HHS) with poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPA) coating. Given the strong induced properties of hydrogen-bond donors and acceptors in the HHS support and PNIPA coating, the as-synthesized catalyst would achieve perfect substrate-selectivity for the hydrogenation of various nitroarenes and their mixture by thoroughly impeding the reduction of nitroarenes with any hydroxyl or carboxyl groups, which is typically very difficult to be realized over almost all of the reported supported-metal catalysts. Notably, the hydrogenation of nitroarenes can produce almost quantitative anilines over the as-synthesized catalyst. Furthermore, DFT and experimental evidences are also provided for the hierarchical structure of HHS and PNIPA coating associated with substrates to demonstrate how substrate could access or be blocked into the confined active centers (MNPs). Therefore, this work would open a new window to design efficient catalysts for a wide variety of substrate-selective catalysis.


Objective To develop inclusion compound of menthol with hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin(HP-β-CD) for water-soluble long-acting analgesic injection.Methods the inclusion compound of menthol was prepared by HP-β-CD. The reaction products were characterized in the solid state with differential scanning calorimetry (DSC),etc. Solubility enhancement of the water-insoluble menthol was studied during the formation of its inclusion compound at various HP-β-CD concentrations. Pharmacodynamic features were tested in intracutaneous wheal model in Guinea pigs.Results The experimental results confirmed the existence of inclusion complex of menthol with HP-β-CD. The solubility of menthol increased from 172 folds to 2631 folds when the drug was included by HP-β-CD with the concentration of HP-β-CD increasing from 5% to 30%. The animal testing showed that effective time of inclusion compound of menthol with HP-β-CD with concentration higher than 20% lasted for 7~8 days. And the inclusion compound was safe with little stimulation,causing no injection site edema.Conclusion The results showed that HP-β-CD was an efficient complexation agent for menthol which was highly volatile and hydrophobic. The research of water-soluble menthol-HP-β-CD injection was the basis for preclinical study of water-soluble menthol-HP-β-CD injection and provided references for the preparation of other dosage form of menthol.


Abstract This article investigates the current status of Yiddish as a home language and the impact of Modern Hebrew on Yiddish nouns and noun plurals spoken in Sanz Hasidism. In the Hasidic community, Yiddish and Modern Hebrew have been competing as native tongues in an inconsistent bilingual sociolinguistic situation for over 60 years. The aim of this study is two-fold: first, a sociolinguistic issue concerning the amount and character of Yiddish usage across generations; second, to explore psycholinguistic issue regarding the nominal lexicon (kind 'child') and its plural marking (kinder 'children'). Participants were first asked about the language prevalent in their parental home and in their current home. Then we administered a confrontational naming task to 48 Israeli Hasidic (IH) men and women who were asked to name 95 singular nouns from pictures and provide their plural forms. Results showed that over generations there is a tendency towards using only Yiddish as a home language accompanied by substantial variation and change both in the nominal lexicon and in the plural system. Both facets indicated that participants who grew up in Yiddish-only homes and still maintain this linguistic exclusiveness produce fewer Modern Hebrew-related lemmas.


Cancer invasion and spreading is promoted by membrane protrusion formation driven by actin polymerization and filament (F)-actin elongation, a process controlled by the actin-binding protein vasodilator-stimulated phosphoprotein (VASP). Tumor epithelial cell matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) is a key promoter of carcinogenesis and invasion in colon cancer. Interestingly, both VASP and MMP-9 activities are regulated by intracellular cGMP signaling in colon cancer cells. However, direct functional relationships between VASP and MMP-9 are unrecognized. Here, human colon carcinoma cells were examined by immunoblotting, sucrose-gradient fractionation, confocal microscopy and imaging analysis. MMP-9 localizes at membrane protrusions and lipid rafts, cell surface microdomains specialized in signal transduction, in a cGMP-dependent manner. Activation of cGMP signaling disrupted membrane protrusion dynamics and induced intracellular MMP-9 redistribution. Strikingly, cancer cells expressing the serine-to-alanine VASP phosphomutant at Ser239, resistant to cGMP-dependent VASP phosphorylation, were insensitive to cGMP effects on membrane protrusions and MMP-9. Importantly, cGMP signaling through VASP Ser239, but not Ser157, critically regulates the ability of cancer cells to release MMP-9 in the extracellular environment. Together, these observations indicate tumor epithelial cell MMP-9, a key promoter of cancer invasion, is regulated by VASP Ser239 phosphorylation, a previously unappreciated paradigm in colon cancer biology. Citation Information: Cancer Prev Res 2010;3(12 Suppl):A8.


Crop water productivity has been receiving special attention in regards to productivity and food security. Limited-transpiration rate (LTR) at high vapour pressure deficit (VPD) has potential to improve drought adaptation. The quantification of the impact of LTR on water consumption, biomass accumulation and yield formation requires the use of dynamic crop modelling to simulate physiological and environmental processes at a suitable time scale and across environments. Here, a new module for the new generation of Agricultural Production Systems sIMulator (APSIM-NextGen) was developed and evaluated, which enables the simulation of atmospheric (VPD) and edaphic water effects on transpiration, biomass production and yield. The module was used to assess the potential of the LTR trait at improving transpiration efficiency at 60 sites across the Australian wheatbelt. Results showed that selection for the LTR trait could result in a 2.5% increase in grain yield nationally through significantly higher transpiration efficiency. Greatest productivity gains were found in eastern part of the wheatbelt where crops rely heavily on stored soil moisture and saving water mid-day (i.e. under high VPD) allows crops to consume it at more critical stages later during the crop cycle.


The psychological factors that predispose an individual to substance abuse are the same factors involved in relapse, a major threat to recovery from a reliance on substances. Modified Dynamic Group Therapy (MDGT) is a group therapeutic approach that is sufficiently supportive and structured to provide the safety and comfort that such patients require, but unstructured enough to allow a natural unfolding of their vulnerabilities and characterological defenses that need to be identified and modified. MDGT targets and focuses on four areas of self-regulation vulnerabilities involving difficulties with feeling life (affects), self-esteem, relationships, and self-care, and the defensive, charactemlogical traits that compensate for, while they also reveal, these vulnerabilties.


Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the association between conceptual metaphors of affect and physical dimensions. Background: The evidence that affect is unconsciously linked to physical dimensions(e.g., position and color) has been obtained in western cultures. However, in eastern cultures, especially, in Korea, it has been seldom tested. It is indispensable to examine whether or not cultural differences exist for better understanding of the conceptual metaphors. Method: 50 positive and 50 negative words were adopted from previous studies in order to determine the relationship between physical domains and abstract affect. Three hypotheses were tested in this study: (1) Good is up. (2) Good is bright. (3) Good is right(for right-handers). The automatic association between valence(positive vs. negative) and vertical position (up vs. down) was investigated in experiment 1, in which 100 words were randomly presented on either the top or the bottom of a LCD screen and the evaluation time of the presented word was recorded. The unconscious association between valence and color(white and black) was examined in experiment 2, where each word was randomly presented in either white or black. Lastly, we tested whether right-handers tend to associate rightward space with positive ideas and leftward space with negative ideas. Results: Reaction time was faster when words were presented in metaphor congruent domains(e.g., 'positive words on the top, in bright color, and on right space vs. negative words on the bottom, in dark color, and on left region) than when they were shown in metaphor incongruent domains. Conclusion: The results might give the groundwork for various directions in further understanding perception, emotion, and behavior. Application: This study may provide useful points to GUI designers and service developers if further studies enhanced in validity and reliability are followed.


Drill-stem tests (DST's) in porous media typically consist of a sequence of production and shut-in periods. Interpretation of DST's is often based on application of the Horner method to the shut-in periods. Such an analysis assumes that the wellbore rate is constant during the production period and that the pressure response during the shut in is affected only by that production period. For many DST's, however, these assumptions are no longer valid and other interpretation methods are required. For example, prior production and shut-in periods and/or pre-test pressures can significantly affect the pressure response of subsequent periods and cause erroneous parameter estimates. In this paper, we present a new DST analytical solution that can account for the effect of pre-test pressures, prior test periods, wellbore temperature variations, and other factors such as wellbore storage and skin on the pressure response. The solution is an extension of the solution presented by Correa and Ramey who derived a DST solution by writing a single time-dependent wellbore boundary condition. Application of the new solution to example DST data shows that estimates of formation pressure from the Horner analysis can deviate from the true formation pressure by several hundreds of psia, whereas permeability estimates can differ by a factor of two or three. The errors in the estimated formation parameters increase as the permeability is reduced, but can be significant even for large permeability reservoirs. These errors are more pronounced for longer pre-test pressure periods and when the pre-test pressures are much greater or smaller than the true formation pressure. The effect of wellbore temperature variations are also shown to be important for DST interpretation in certain cases when the permeability-thickness product is small.


Pile driving tests were conducted using models of concrete piles with titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) coating and piles without coating. Pile surfaces coated with TiO 2 become superhydrophilic, which enables water molecules in clay pores to be attracted to the pile during the pile driving process. The attraction suppresses the compression of the pore water in the clay soil, hence the result of the pile driving tests showed that piles with TiO 2 coating could penetrate deeper than piles without coating with the same count of hammer strokes. An examination using FTIR confirmed the formation of bonds between water molecules for piles with coating and the absence of such bonding for piles without coating. Furthermore, it was successfully established that pile surface coating gives different results for pile driving in different clay soils.


This study aims to determine the competitiveness of kopra in the South Minahasa based competitive advantage and comparative advantage. The benefits of this research are as reference material to South Minahasa regency government in formulating policies related to commodities kopra. Data used include primary data and secondary data. The primary data collection conducted by interviewing farmers, especially farmers kopra. While secondary data taken from the agencies involved in this study as the Central Bureau of Statistics, department of agriculture and plantations, and the service industry and trade. Determining the location of this research was done by using purposive sampling, where the number of samples is set at 10 samples in the village Pakuure 2 with the consideration that the village is a producer of kopra in the South Minahasa District of Tenga. The analysis used in this research that the Policy Analysis Matrix (PAM). The results showed that the coefficient of the ratio of the cost of domestic resource (DRCR) is smaller than one that is 0.660 which means it can compete to be the leading export commodities in the international trade market, while the value of the coefficient ratio of private costs (PCR) commodities kopra smaller than one that is 0,249 which means it can compete in terms of quality and price.


On November 17, 2006 the InterActions editorial team attended the Library and Archives OUTreach symposium at UCLA. This galvanizing event brought together academics, practitioners, and activists from the information studies field to discuss the importance of increasing visibility around lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) issues as they pertain to libraries and information seeking. Given the tremendous energy generated by these proceedings, we asked Patrick Keilty, a doctoral student in UCLA's Information Studies department and OUTreach founding president, to share his impressions and insights on this important event. Keilty prepared the following essay with full cooperation from the remarkable ensemble of symposium panelists. In order to expand upon some of the themes introduced at this event, Keilty also conducted follow-up email discussions with panelists. His essay represents a summary of these on-going discussions. Sadly, LGBT activist and symposium keynote speaker Barbara Gittings died February 18, 2007 as this essay was being prepared. Keilty's appreciation of Gittings serves as a fitting accompaniment to this piece. In the Footsteps of Barbara Gittings: An Appreciation Click on the supplemental links for video clips of Barbara Gittings' keynote address at the Library and Archive OUTreach Symposium at UCLA. Barbara Gittings remembers HQ 76.5. Barbara Gittings tells the story of the first gay kissing booth. American Library Association members ogle the kissing booth. The kissing booth will show them how it's done. Hug a Homosexual gets noticed. An outraged ALA member objects to Hug a Homosexual. Barbara Gittings looks toward the future. Barbara Gittings on her career with librarians.


This paper presents a forwarded clock receiver based on an injection-locked oscillator (ILO) with a simple clock multiplication unit to reduce the clock jitter and power consumption. The clock multiplication unit employs AC coupling and superposition technique to generate first-harmonic pulses. The first-harmonic injection reduces the rms and peak to peak jitter of the ILO output clock by about 0.65ps (29%) and 46.06ps (65%), respectively. The measured power efficiency of the receiver is 1.69mW/Gbps at 7.4Gb/s data rate in a 1.2V 0.13µm CMOS process.


Aerosol generation, sampling and analysis for fine carbon nanotubes (CNT) of 10nm diameter is demonstrated and compared to structures formed by coarse CNT. Aggregate structures formed in an aerosol are coil-shaped for fine CNT and bundles for coarse CNT. These structures could be an expression of differences in their physical properties, such as the bending stiffness.


Alcoholism has been studied in adults and found to share obsessive-compulsive characteristics. The Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (YBOC) was used to quantify the measurements of this disorder. This study adapted the YBOC for use with adolescents/young adults in an attempt to measure the "craving" expressed as obsessive and compulsive phenomenon. The primary findings show that the obsessive compulsive dimensions of alcohol cravings, as described in adult populations, also exist in adolescent/young adults. The Adolescent Obsessive Compulsive Drinking Scale (A-OCDS) was developed utilizing idioms and language typical for the 17-20 age group. Various quantitative evaluations proved that the Interference and Irresistibility sub-scales were the primary dimensions causing the obsessive behavior. This study begins to address this aspect of adolescent substance abuse utilizing a tool that is easy to administer. Because of the ease of use, although not a diagnostic instrument, the A-OCDS may be useful for identifying problem drinking in adolescents as well as detecting impairment in function related to drinking.


A tree-ring δ 18 O chronology of Linzhi spruce, spanning from AD 1781 to 2005, was developed in Bomi, Southeast Tibetan Plateau (TP). During the period with instrumental data (AD 1961–2005), this record is strongly correlated with regional CRU (Climate Research Unit) summer cloud data, which is supported by a precipitation δ 18 O simulation conducted with the isotope-enabled atmospheric general circulation model LMDZiso. A reconstruction of a regional summer cloud index, based upon the empirical relationship between cloud and diurnal temperature range, was therefore achieved. This index reflects regional moisture variability in the past 225 yr. The climate appears drier and more stable in the 20th century than previously. The drying trend in late 19th century of our reconstruction is consistent with a decrease in the TP glacier accumulation recorded in ice cores. An exceptional dry decade is documented in the 1810s, possibly related to the impact of repeated volcanic eruptions on monsoon flow.


Southeast Hunan lies on the margin of central Naning Mountains. Thermochronological dating was used to study the Meso-Cenozoic thermal history and the uplift processes of five plutons in southeast Hunan. Based on regional tectonic settings, the authors probed into the relationship between the thermochronological evolution and the tectonic development. The results show that the Meso-Cenozoic uplift process of southeast Hunan can be divided into 4 stages, developing in order of fairly rapid uplift→rapid uplift→slow uplift→rapid uplift, with the fairly rapid uplift process at an average rate of 0.069mm/a during 222~146.4Ma, the rapid uplift process at an average rate of 0.113~0.186mm/a during 146.4~94.11Ma, the slow uplift process at an average rate of 0.014~0.028 mm/a during 94.11~14.8Ma, and the rapid uplift process at an average rate of 0.143~0.295mm/a during 14.8Ma~0.0Ma. The uplift rate speeded up at the latest stage. The uplift processes were not uniform in space, and different plutons had somewhat different uplift processes. There existed commutative uplift reparation in time, i.e., the more rapid uplift and the larger uplift range the pluton at the early stage was, the slower uplift and the smaller uplift range the pluton at the late stage became. Based on thermochronologic analysis and regional tectonic setting as well as other geological data, the authors consider that the lower crust of Wufengxian, Dayishan and Qitianling areas was thickened by 4100~7700m as a result of tectonic stacking in late Middle Triassic, suggesting that there existed violent intracontinental orogeny at the early stage of the Indosinian movement. The Late Yanshanian uplift and the cooling of the plutons were caused by early tectonic denudation and late weathering erosion, which led to the good deposition response in basins. The latest rapid uplift in southeast Hunan was a regional integral uplift.


PurposeThe study aims to identify Green Lean Six Sigma (GLSS) barriers in the context of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and prioritize them for executing the GLSS approach.Design/methodology/approachA systematic literature review (SLR) was used to identify a total of 14 barriers, which were then verified for greater relevance by the professional judgments of industrial personnel. Moreover, many removal measures strategies are also recommended in this study. Furthermore, this work also utilizes Gray Relational Analysis (GRA) to prioritize the identified GLSS barriers.FindingsThe study reveals that training and education, continuous assessment of SDG, organizational culture, resources and skills to facilitate implementation, and assessment of satisfaction and welfare of the employee are the most significant barriers to implementing this approach.Research limitations/implicationsThe present study provides an impetus for practitioners and managers to embrace the GLSS strategy through a wide-ranging understanding and exploring these barriers. In this case, the outcomes of this research, and in particular the GRA technique presented by this work, can be used by managers and professionals to rank the GLSS barriers and take appropriate action to eliminate them.Practical implicationsThe ranking of GLSS barriers gives top officials of HEIs a very clear view to effectively and efficiently implementing GLSS initiatives. The outcomes also show training and education, sustainable development goals and organizational culture as critical barriers. The findings of this study provide an impetus for managers, policymakers and consultants to embrace the GLSS strategy through a wide-ranging understanding and exploring these barriers.Social implicationsThe GLSS barriers in HEIs may significantly affect the society. HEIs can lessen their environmental effect by using GLSS practices, which can support sustainability initiatives and foster social responsibility. Taking steps to reduce environmental effect can benefit society as a whole. GLSS techniques in HEIs can also result in increased operational effectiveness and cost savings, which can free up resources to be employed in other areas, like boosting student services and improving educational programs. However, failing to implement GLSS procedures in HEIs could have societal repercussions as well. As a result, it is critical for HEIs to identify and remove GLSS barriers in order to advance sustainability, social responsibility and operational effectiveness.Originality/valueGLSS is a comprehensive methodology that facilitates the optimum utilization of resources, reduces waste and provides the pathway for sustainable development so, the novelty of this study stands in the inclusion of its barriers and HEIs to prioritize them for effective implementation.


The occurrence of endothelin (ET), a recently discovered polypeptide with potent vasoconstrictor properties, was studied in maternal and umbilical blood and amniotic fluid. The level of ET-like immunoreactivity (ET-LI) in maternal plasma was in most cases below the detection limit of the radioimunoassay, i.e. less than 2 pmol/l. The median concentration of ET-LI in the umbilical artery and vein before the initiation of breathing was 14.9 and 10.9 pmol/l, respectively. When sampling was performed after fetal breathing had begun, the arterial concentration increased to 93.7 pmol/l. Labor was not associated with increased concentrations of ET-LI, however, since neonates delivered by elective cesarean section had similar ET-LI in blood and amniotic fluid as after vaginal delivery. An approximately fivefold increase in the amniotic fluid ET-LI was seen at term as compared to early mid-trimester values. Reversed phase HPLC characterization revealed that the observed ET-LI mainly corresponded to ET-1. It is suggested that ET-1 may contribute to the fetal hemodynamic changes, e.g., closure of the umbilical vessels occurring at delivery.


Neutron diffraction measurements have been performed on a single crystal of 7Li2O to investigate the time-averaged positions of the nuclei at seven temperatures between 293 and 1603 K. At temperatures up to 873 K the observed Bragg peak intensities can be well fitted using the regular antifluorite structure, including harmonic and anharmonic temperature factors to describe the thermal vibrations. At higher temperatures an improved fit to the experimental data is obtained by allowing a fraction of cations to leave their regular lattice sites. This is indicative of a transition to a 'fast-ion' phase, analogous to that observed in the fluorite-structured compounds at elevated temperatures. The model of the time-averaged disordered structure which best fits the data consists of interstitial lithium ions occupying mean positions very close to the midpoint between two nearest-neighbour Li+ ions. The fraction of Li+ ions occupying these sites increases rapidly above 1200 K, reaching approximately 16% at 1603 K. There is some evidence that the presence of the interstitial cations produces slight relaxations of the two nearest-neighbour Li+ ions in (111) directions, away from the interstitial.


Hepatopathy-thrombocytopenia syndrome (HTS) is a severe complication very similar to vein occlusive disease (VOD), also known as hepatic sinusoidal obstructive syndrome (SOS), characterized by fever, hepatopathy (hepatomegaly with abnormal liver function tests), ascites, weight gain, jaundice, and thrombocytopenia (platelet count less than 25 × 103/μL). It has been generally observed in patients with Wilms tumor, and is commonly associated to administration of actinomycin D. We report three children with Wilms tumor, with severe HTS/SOS, but had a different outcome, in spite of vigorous supportive therapy.


[Objective] To investigate the potential role of macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) in promoting angiogenic gene expression in human umbilical vascular endothelial cells (HVECs). [Methods] Using subcloning technique, the prokaryotic MIF expression plasmid pET22b-MIF was constructed. The MIF gene was induced by IPTG to express 6His-tag fusion protein in E. coli BL21 (DE3) and purified by HisTrap affinity columns. The collected recombinant MIF (rMIF) was renatured and the bioactivity of rMIF was tested by macrophage migration inhibition assay (MMI). The HVECs were incubated with 0, 30, 60, and 120 ng/mL rMIF for 12 h, and VEGF_(165), FGFR_3, MMP9, TGF-α and PDGF-α mRNA expression were determined by real-time quantitative PCR test. Using in vitro angiogenesis assay, the tube formation of HVECs induced by MIF was tested. [Results] pET22b-MIF was constructed correctly and transformed into E. coli BL21 (DE3). The rMIF was successfully expressed in E. coli in inclusive bodies. The result of MMI assay showed that the renatured rMIF inhibited the macrophage cells migration at the rate of 30% (P<0.05). The results of real-time quantitative PCR revealed that MIF specifically promoted VEGF_(165), FGFR_3, MMP9, TGF-α and PDGF-α genes expression in HVECs. The result of in vitro angiogenesis assay showed that MIF specifically induced tube formation of HVECs. [Conclusion] rMIF is successfully expressed in E. coli and rMIF can promote angiogenic factors expression in HUVECs.


The glycosphingolipid (GSL) globoside (Gb4) is essential for parvovirus B19 (B19V) infection. Historically considered the cellular receptor of B19V, the role of Gb4 and its interaction with B19V are controversial. In this study, we applied artificial viral particles, genetically modified cells, and specific competitors to address the interplay between the virus and the GSL. Our findings demonstrate that Gb4 is not involved in the binding or internalization process of the virus into permissive erythroid cells, a function that corresponds to the VP1u cognate receptor. However, Gb4 is essential at a post-internalization step before the delivery of the single-stranded viral DNA into the nucleus. In susceptible erythroid Gb4 knockout cells, incoming viruses were arrested in the endosomal compartment, showing no cytoplasmic spreading of capsids as observed in Gb4-expressing cells. Hemagglutination and binding assays revealed that pH acts as a switch to modulate the affinity between the virus and the GSL. Capsids interact with Gb4 exclusively under acidic conditions and dissociate at neutral pH. Inducing a specific Gb4-mediated attachment to permissive erythroid cells by acidification of the extracellular environment led to a non-infectious uptake of the virus, indicating that low pH-mediated binding to the GSL initiates active membrane processes resulting in vesicle formation. In summary, this study provides mechanistic insight into the interaction of B19V with Gb4. The strict pH-dependent binding to the ubiquitously expressed GSL prevents the redirection of the virus to nonpermissive tissues while promoting the interaction in acidic intracellular compartments as an essential step in infectious endocytic trafficking. Author summary The neutral glycosphingolipid globoside (Gb4) has been historically considered the cellular receptor of B19V, however, its wide expression profile does not correlate well with the restricted tropism of the virus. Here, we show that Gb4 is essential for the infection at a step following virus uptake and before the delivery of the viral ssDNA into the nucleus. B19V interacts with Gb4 exclusively under acidic conditions, prohibiting the interaction on the plasma membrane and promoting it inside the acidic endosomal compartments, which are engaged by the virus and the GSL after internalization. In the absence of Gb4, incoming viruses are retained in the endocytic compartment and the infection is aborted. This study reveals the mechanism of the interaction between the virus and the glycosphingolipid and redefines the role of Gb4 as an essential intracellular partner required for infectious entry.


This study examines the northeastern provinces of China, where close to two million Koreans represent the most important non-Han ethnic community. Relatively recent immigrants, their historical and cultural background is closer to that of the Han Chinese than that of most other non-Han nationalities. This regional case study aims to illustrate not only the limits but the achievements of the Chinese Communist party's nationality policy, and demonstrates the importance of going beyond a macro-analysis of Chinese policies to show what insights can be gained by focusing on a specific area of study. It also seeks to facilitate the analysis of the subtleties of China's ethnic diversity and the difficulty of generalizing the results of nationality policy implementation.


This article explores the gift tax consequences of an exchange of promissory notes between family members when interest rates have dropped from when the original or old note was issue to the present time when the new note is issued. More specifically, the scenario contemplated involves two events. At the first, which is T=0, a parent loans money to a child and the loan is evidenced by a promissory note (old note) which provides for adequate interest (i.e., interest at a rate equal or greater than the Applicable Federal Rate or AFR that set by the Treasury Department) when it is issued by the child. Under section 7872 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 as amended (Code), the value of this note at T=0 is its face amount, as it bears adequate (AFR) interest. However, Code section 7872 does not determine that note's value at a later time, T=5, when the interest rates have gone down (or even if they have gone up or remained the same). At that time, Treas. Reg. § 25.2512-4 generally provides that the value of the old note is presumed to be its face value. Thus, if the old note is exchanged for a new note which provides for adequate interest (new note) and so would also be valued at face under section 7872, there should be no adverse gift tax consequences, as the notes exchanged have equal values: the old note likely will be valued at its face amount and a new note bearing current AFR will be worth its face amount. Hence, each party will receive back in money or money's worth an asset having a value the same as the one transferred. And when parties make such an equal worth exchange, there can be no gift for Federal gift tax purposes.


of antibiotics, whether there was an explicit note in the medical chart in which the physician diagnosed a true bacteremia, and the Centers for Disease Control surveillance criteria for primary bloodstream infection. Agreement between same-strain bacteremia and each definition was examined, based on the assumption that most true infections should be the result of a single strain. The study sample consisted of 42 patients and 106 isolates. Nineteen of the 42 bacteremias (45%) were the same strain. Classification of bacteremias as same-strain correlated poorly with all three clinical assessments (range of percentage agreement, 50%-57%; range of kappa statistic, 0.01-0.15). There were both false-positive and false-negative errors. Patients with three or more positive blood cultures were more likely to have same-strain bacteremia than those with only two positive cultures (11/15 [73%] vs 8/27 [30%], P=.006). Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis was more discriminating than AP PCR (percentage agreement, 83%; kappa, 0.67). The authors concluded that molecular typing correlated poorly with clinical criteria for true bacteremia, suggesting either that true bacteremias are frequently the result of multiple strains or that the commonly used clinical criteria are not accurate for distinguishing contamination from true bacteremia. Vancomycin treatment of clinically defined coagulase-negative staphylococcal bacteremia may frequently be unnecessary. FROM: Seo SK, Venkataraman L, DeGirolami PC, Samore MH. Molecular typing of coagulase-negative staphylococci from blood cultures does not correlate with clinical criteria for true bacteremia. Am J Med 2000;109:697-704.


Abstract : The purpose is training in nutritional and molecular epidemiology to establish an independent investigator. The major hypothesis is that high folate intake is associated with a decreased breast cancer risk particularly among those with MTHFR, MTR, and MTRR polymorphisms. The specific aims are 1) methodological training in the analysis of gene-gene and gene-environment interactions by studying folate intake and metabolic gene polymorphisms in a population-based breast cancer case-control study, 2) training in cohort study methodology through designing and implementing a newly proposed nested case-control study of breast cancer to examine dietary and plasma folate, and metabolic gene polymorphisms, 3) nutrition and cancer biology coursework 4) field work of a breast cancer case-control study and 5) development of a grant proposal examining folate, global DNA methylation and uracil misincorporation in breast cancer risk. To date, the major results are the MTHFR 677TT genotype and low folate intake is associated with an increased risk of breast compared to high intake and the 677CC genotype. We also found 677CC was associated with poorer survival from breast cancer among women with late-stage disease who had survived at least one year post-diagnosis. MTR and MTRR genotypes were not significantly associated with breast cancer risk. The investigator has also completed coursework, training in methodology, and field work experience.


Formal models of syntax typically accord the structural position external to the verb's domain a privileged status in the overall syntactic makeup of a language, either by assuming that external arguments are always S or A, or by linking external argument position to syntactic pivothood. This paper demonstrates that the Oceanic language Äiwoo has an ergative verb phrase – i.e. A as the VP-internal argument and S/O as external arguments – but no corresponding S/O pivot. That is, the ergative structure of the verb phrase in Äiwoo does not entail any syntactically privileged status of the VP-external arguments; rather, it is simply a by-product of various diachronic developments. This situation shows that what has traditionally been perceived as fundamental differences in grammatical organisation – the difference between an accusative and an ergative pattern of VP structure – need not in fact be associated with any broader differences in syntactic or pragmatic structure. More importantly, it goes against the assumption that it is possible to assign universal functions to syntactic configurations. Instead, it can be seen as providing support for the view argued for by Evans & Levinson (2009: 444) that 'most linguistic diversity is the product of historical cultural evolution operating on relatively independent traits'.


We examine the reaction fronts that develop when an undersaturated 'injection fluid' displaces a saturated 'formation fluid' in a chemically reactive porous medium. We allow the injection and formation fluids to differ both in temperature and in chemical composition. The undersaturation of the incoming fluid drives a dissolution reaction and leads to the formation of a 'depletion' front. Under certain circumstances, which we describe, the temperature difference drives a separate thermal reaction front. We develop long-time asymptotic solutions of the governing equations which illustrate the interaction between thermal reaction fronts and depletion fronts. Two distinct regimes arise. If the compositional difference between the injection and formation fluids exceeds a critical value, the depletion front travels faster than the thermal front, leaving the porous medium depleted of reactant from the source to a point downstream of the thermal front and no thermal reaction front develops. Conversely, if the compositional difference is smaller than the critical value, a thermal reaction front advances ahead of the depletion front and so there is a double reaction front structure. We illustrate the evolution of the thermal and compositional fields towards these asymptotic solutions with numerical simulations. We discuss the implications of this work for secondary mineralization in subsurface reservoirs.


This paper gives the analysis and numerics underlying a shooting method for approximating the eigenvalues of nonselfadjoint Sturm-Liouville problems. We consider even order problems with (equally divided) separated boundary conditions. The method can nd the eigenvalues in a rectangle and in a left half-plane. It combines the argument principle with the compound matrix method (using the Magnus expansion). In some cases the computational cost of compound matrices can be reduced by transforming to a 2 nd order vector Sturm-Liouville problem. We study the asymptotics of the solutions of the ODE for large absolute values of the eigenvalue parameter in order to calculate the eigenvalues in a left half-plane. The method is applied to the Orr-Sommerfeld equation and other examples.


The aim of this guideline is to help improve health outcomes for people with tuberculosis (TB), through improved nutritional care and support. The objectives of the guideline are to provide guidance on nutritional assessment, advice and treatment, for integration into clinical care for people with TB. Five guiding principles for nutritional care and support for people with TB are presented. The focus is on nutrition assessment, counselling and management to improve the clinical care of people with TB. These should be considered an essential part of services for people with TB and can be adapted according to countries' burden of disease and health-care infrastructure, including human resources capacity. It is recognized that food assistance1 is sometimes used in TB programmes for purposes other than nutritional care, especially in food-insecure settings. Specific guidance regarding the role of food assistance as part of a larger package of services intended to improve access and adherence to treatment and to mitigate the financial and social consequences of TB will be addressed elsewhere. The primary audience for the guideline is health workers providing care to people with TB. However, the guideline is also intended for a wide audience, including policy makers, their expert advisers, and technical and programme staff managing national and subnational TB programmes and nongovernmental agencies that deliver TB services, and for policy-makers involved with scaling up TB prevention, diagnosis and treatment, including adherence to and completion of therapy.


An open, randomized study evaluated the immune response and safety of two different regimens of diphtheria-tetanus-acellular pertussis-hepatitis B-inactivated poliovirus-Haemophilus influenzae type b (DTPa-HBV-IPV-Hib) immunization in infants primed at birth with hepatitis B vaccine. One-half of the 150 healthy, full-term infants received a DTPa HBV-IPV-Hib vaccine at 1 1/2, 3 and 5 months of age; the other received a DTPa-IPV-Hib vaccine at 1 1/2, 3 and 5 months of age with separate HBV vaccine at 1 and 5 months of age. Immune response was similar following the two regimens with 100% of the vaccinees seroprotected for HBV, diphtheria, tetanus, Hib and poliovirus types 2 and 3 diseases after the full vaccination course. One vaccinee in the DTPa HBV-HPV- Hib group failed to respond to the poliovirus type 1 antigen. Response to the three pertussis antigens ranged from 92-97% in the DTPa-IPV-Hib plus separate HBV group and 100% in the DTPa HBV-IPV-Hib group. The most frequently reported post-vaccination symptoms were irritability in the DTPa-IPV-Hib plus separate HBV group (49% of vaccinees) and fever, defined as axillary temperature > or =37.5 degrees C, in the DTPa HBV- IPV-Hib group (50% of vaccinees).


Cryptococcus neoformans, the most common cause of fungal meningitis, is a basidiomycete haploid budding yeast with a complete sexual cycle. Genome modification by homologous recombination is feasible using biolistic transformation and long homology arms, but the method is arduous and unreliable. Recently, multiple groups have reported the use of CRISPR-Cas9 as an alternative to biolistics, but long homology arms are still necessary, limiting the utility of this method. Since the S. pyogenes Cas9 derivatives used in prior studies were not optimized for expression in C. neoformans, we designed, synthesized, and tested a fully C. neoformans-optimized Cas9. We found that a Cas9 harboring only common C. neoformans codons and a consensus C. neoformans intron together with a TEF1 promoter and terminator and a nuclear localization signal (C. neoformans-optimized CAS9 or "CnoCAS9") reliably enabled genome editing in the widely-used KN99α C. neoformans strain. Furthermore, editing was accomplished using donors harboring short (50 bp) homology arms attached to marker DNAs produced with synthetic oligonucleotides and PCR amplification. We also demonstrated that prior stable integration of CnoCAS9 further enhances both transformation and homologous recombination efficiency; importantly, this manipulation does not impact virulence in animals. We also implemented a universal tagging module harboring a codon-optimized fluorescent protein (mNeonGreen) and a tandem Calmodulin Binding Peptide-2X FLAG Tag that allows for both localization and purification studies of proteins for which the corresponding genes are modified by short homology-directed recombination. These tools enable short-homology genome engineering in C. neoformans.


55 Population dynamics of waders are shaped by a range of different environmental factors including annual variation in food availability, climatic conditions, predation pressure, and the interaction of these factors with population density (Evans & Pienkowski 1984, Yalden & Pearce-Higgins 1997, Whitfield 2003). One factor that is poorly understood in most wildlife populations is the ecological role of pathogens and parasites (Friend et al. 2001). Disease dynamics are difficult to study in free-living birds because carcasses of small animals are usually consumed by scavengers and decompose rapidly (Osborne et al. 2000), and because large die-offs are rare events (Adams et al. 2003, Woodard et al. 1977). Nevertheless, diseases of waders may be of ecological and epidemiological importance, particularly if long-distance migrants are a vector for dispersal of zoonotic pathogens, such as West Nile virus (Komar 2003), avian influenza virus (Hurt et al. 2006, Makarova et al. 1999), avian cholera (Adams et al. 2003), and avian malaria (Mendes et al. 2005). Here, we report isolation of a reovirus from the brain of a wild Upland Sandpiper Bartramia longicauda found dead in the field. Reoviruses are viruses of respiratory or enteric origin (REO), and are characterized by spherical virus particles 75 to 80 nm in size, a double-stranded RNA genome, and a double capsid protein shell (Read-Connole 2000, Ritchie & Carter 1995). Reoviruses are best known as a pathogen of domesticated or captive poultry, waterfowl and psittacines (Ritchie & Carter 1995, Robertson & Wilcox 1986), but have also been detected in wild populations of waders, waterfowl and other birds (Docherty et al. 1994, Hlinak et al. 2006, Hollmen et al. 2002). We conducted a population study of Upland Sandpipers during April to August of 2002–2007 at Konza Prairie Biological Station in northeast Kansas, USA (39°05'N, 96°34'W). In this six-year period, we radio-marked 261 adult sand pipers by attaching transmitters with either a leg-loop harness (n = 203) or adhesives (n = 58). Mortality of sandpipers during the breeding season was infrequent, and the probability of surviving the ten-week breeding period was 0.875 in females and 0.965 in males (Mong & Sandercock 2007). We recovered eight carcasses of radio-marked birds during our six-year study, and evidence at recovery sites indicated that seven of eight dead sandpipers were killed by predators or scavenged after dying of unknown causes. This case history is based on a single Upland Sandpiper (U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service band 1573-29956) that was captured and radio-marked on 19 May 2005 by BKS and AEC, and monitored for 30 days. We discovered the bird incubating a four-egg clutch on 25 May, and the clutch successfully hatched on 12 June. We relocated and observed the bird on three brood checks between 13–16 June. The bird exhibited normal behavior when approached by an observer, including flying, perching on fence posts, and giving vocalizations associated with brood attendance and defence of young. On 18 June, we recovered the intact dead bird lying on its side with the legs flexed and the head arched back over the spine. From inspection of the carcass at the recovery site, BKS and AEC discounted predation, collision and harness entanglement as possible causes of death. The six-day old young were not relocated and their fate was unknown. The carcass was frozen and shipped on dry ice to the National Wildlife Health Center (U.S. Geological Survey) at Madison, Wisconsin for diagnostic examination. Upon receipt, the sandpiper was dissected by DEG and a range of cultures and tissue analyses were completed. External examination revealed no significant abnormalities. Internally, the bird was in fair body condition and in good post-mortem condition without decomposition. Internal gross examination revealed a small, atrophied spleen (1.5 × 5.0 mm), and reddish-black pasty material in the small intestine, presumed to be blood from intraluminal hemorrhaging. The bird had Reovirus associated with mortality of an Upland Sandpiper


The global spread of COVID-19 transforms the communication practices not only of business structures, but also of state institutions. Numerous crisis situations arose for the public administration, which were both specific and requiring coordinating communication actions with local authorities and related ministries. The experts in public communications in the structures of the state administration carry out relations with media, building relations with non-governmental organizations and representatives of the civil sector, organizing visits, coordination with other institutions. Following the pandemic crisis, PR professionals and crisis managers had to develop digital skills and competencies for strategic planning and online public communication.Purpose: The aim of the study is to analyse the Bulgarian institutions crisis communication infrastructure during the pandemic. The study aims to 1) provide information on the practical challenges for PR experts in designing and implementing online crisis communication strategies on social media; 2) to review the quality and quantity of the published content in the Facebook profiles of the state administration; 3) to present a conceptual framework for the quality of the communication strategies of the PA during a crisis.Methodology: The research methodology is based on of both qualitative and quantitative methods: 1) theoretical sources and research for peculiarities of the communication in the structures of the public administration, crisis communication in the public administration are analysed; 2) by the method of case study a qualitative analysis of the official Facebook profiles of 17 ministries and municipalities was made; 3) a representative empirical study was conducted with 182 communication specialists working in the Bulgarian public administration.Findings: The study identifies the most common crisis situations caused by the pandemic and systematizes traditional and online communication techniques. The results of the survey summarize the three stages of crisis communication management: 1) preliminary preparation (pre-crisis); 2) Crisis phase and response; 3) post-crisis period.Research limitations: Our study covers only the structures of the state administration in Bulgaria. The period of case analysis is March – December 2020, when a state of emergency was declared in Bulgaria. The questionnaire was distributed only among communication specialists in municipal and state structures to achieve maximum accuracy in answering specialized questions.Originality: This is the first study in Bulgaria that highlights good practices and deficits in communication strategies of Bulgarian institutions during crisis.Discussion: The study raises research questions about the online communication strategies of the Bulgarian institutions during the pandemic and about the digital competencies of the communication specialists in the public administration.Conclusion: Deficits have been registered in terms of online communication strategies - there is no clear identification of stakeholders and vulnerable groups, the quality of the created online content is low, and in a number of institutions it is missing.


Abstract Background: In many countries and especially in Scandinavia, blood samples drawn in primary healthcare are sent to a hospital laboratory for analysis. The samples are exposed to various conditions regarding storage time, storage temperature and transport form. As these factors can have a severe impact on the quality of results, we wanted to study which combination of transport conditions could fulfil our pre-defined goals for maximum allowable error. Methods: Samples from 406 patients from nine general practitioners (GPs) in two Danish counties were sent to two hospitals for analyses, during two periods (winter and summer). Transport conditions (mail, courier pick-up, or brought to hospital by public coach), storage time, storage temperature and centrifugation requirements were different in the two counties. Results were tested for deviation from a "0-sample", the blood sample taken, centrifuged and separated at the doctor's office within 45–60 min. This sample was considered as the best estimate of a comparison value. Results: The pre-set quality goals were fulfilled for all the investigated components for samples transported to hospital by courier either as whole blood or as "on gel" after centrifugation, as long as the samples were stored at 20–25°C and centrifuged/analysed within 5–6 h. A total of 4% of the samples sent by mail had mismatched identity, probably due to plasma being transferred to a new tube. Conclusions: Samples can be sent as unprocessed anticoagulated whole blood if the above mentioned conditions are met. There is no need for centrifugation in the primary sector. Neither mailing of samples with plasma "on gel" nor public transport by coach bus fulfil our analytical goals. Clin Chem Lab Med 2008;46:225–34.


In large eddy simulations (LES) using low-order finite-difference-type methods, the numerical error can be large in comparison to the effect of the sub-grid scale (SGS) model. In this paper, we study two approaches to explicit filtering which can reduce the numerical error involved. In the first approach, the non-linear convection term of the Navier–Stokes equations is filtered explicitly, and in the second one, the small-scale shear stress is devided into sub-filter (SFS) and sub-grid (SGS) components, and filtering is provided via the model. The aims are to clarify the effect of SGS modelling in the first approach and to compare the two approaches. For SGS and SFS modelling, the standard and dynamic Smagorinsky models and the scale-similarity model are applied. When the convection term is filtered explicitly, the effect of modelling on the simulation results reduces and differences between the models are rather small. Filtering with a smooth three-dimensional filter has a strong effect on the flow statistics, and none of the models is able to compensate for this. Although the high frequencies are damped efficiently, the total simulation error does not decrease. When filtering is provided only via modelling, improved results are obtained if both SGS and SFS modelling are applied. However in this approach, all terms in the equations do not have the same frequency content, and the high frequencies that are badly described by the discrete gird are not damped as efficiently as when the convection term is explicitly filtered.


this paper presents a new conf energy conversion system using P e synchronous generator (PMSG-based W rectifier and three phase four switch i motivation of this work is the need for effective topology for PMSG-based W WECS, Vienna rectifier is used as genera and B4 inverter is employed as grid- WECS. This configuration has seve compared to conventional back to back in cost, high reliability and simple contr because the number of active semicon reduced and there is no shoot through po rectifier. In this paper, the effect of Vien inverter on WECS has been studied. validate the performance of the proposed