One of the largest river systems in South Africa, the Olifants River, has experienced significant changes in water quality due to anthropogenic activities. Since 2005, there have been various "outbreaks" of the inflammatory disease pansteatitis in several vertebrate species. Large-scale pansteatitis-related mortality events have decimated the crocodile population at Lake Loskop and decreased the population at Kruger National Park. Most pansteatitis-related diagnoses within the region are conducted post-mortem by either gross pathology or histology. The application of a non-lethal approach to assess the prevalence and pervasiveness of pansteatitis in the Olifants River region would be of great importance for the development of a management plan for this disease. In this study, several plasma-based biomarkers accurately classified pansteatitis in Mozambique tilapia (Oreochromis mossambicus) collected from Lake Loskop using a commercially available benchtop blood chemistry analyzer combined with data interpretation via artificial neural network analysis. According to the model, four blood chemistry parameters (calcium, sodium, total protein and albumin), in combination with total length, diagnose pansteatitis to a predictive accuracy of 92 percent. In addition, several morphometric traits (total length, age, weight) were also associated with pansteatitis. On-going research will focus on further evaluating the use of blood chemistry to classify pansteatitis across different species, trophic levels, and within different sites along the Olifants River.


ABSTRACT Twenty-five fructicolous and seminicolous species of Xylaria are classified into three groups by stromatal morphology: (i) the X. ianthinovelutina group; (ii) the X. carpophila group; and (iii) the X. heloidea group. Xylaria reevesiae, X. rossmanae, and X. vivantii are described as new species. Xylaria reevesiae belongs to the X. carpophila group, resembling X. euphorbiicola but differing from it mainly by having conspicuous perithecial mounds and growing on fallen fruits of a different host plant. Xylaria rossmanae and X. vivantii belong to the X. ianthinovelutina group. Xylaria rossmanae differs from the species of the group mainly by larger, paler, fusoid-inequilateral ascospores, and X. vivantii differs by larger ascospores with a slightly oblique germ slit. A dichotomous key is provided for identifying the 25 species. Doubtful names are also listed and annotated.


For a complex Lie group $G$ with a real form $G_0\subset G$, we prove that any Hamiltionian automorphism $\phi$ of a coadjoint orbit $\mathcal O_0$ of $G_0$ whose connected components are simply connected, may be approximated by holomorphic $\mathcal O_0$-invariant symplectic automorphism of the corresponding coadjoint orbit of $G$ in the sense of Carleman, provided that $\mathcal O$ is closed. In the course of the proof, we establish the Hamiltonian density property for closed coadjoint orbits of all complex Lie groups.


The paper presents experimental research on a 4-stroke, 3-cylinder, turbocharged AL25/30 Diesel engine. Research consisted in investigating the effect of the geometry of the fuel injectors on the exhaust gas composition from the engine. During measurements, the engine was operated with a regulator characteristic of a load range from 40 kW to 280 kW, made by electric water resistance. The engine was mechanically coupled to the electric power generator. Three observations were made for each engine load, operating with fuel injectors of varying geometry. All considered types of injectors were installed on all engine cylinders. Mentioned injectors differed in the size of the nozzle holes diameters, holes numbers and angles measured between the holes axis. Engine performance data were recorded with a sampling time of 1 s. Cylinder pressure and fuel injection pressure on the front of each injector were collected also. The composition of the exhaust gas was measured using an electrochemical analyzer. According to the results, the change of fuel nozzle geometry results in a change in fuel spraying and evaporation and consequently changes in the course of the combustion process. The effect of this is the change of the composition of the exhaust gas.


Aim To observe the influence of operating urologist's education and adopted skills on the outcome of ureterorenoscopy treatment of ureteral stones. Methods The study included 422 patients (234 men, 55.4%) who underwent ureterorenoscopy to treat ureteral stones at the Urology Department of Clinical Hospital Center Split, Croatia, between 2001 and 2009. All interventions were carried out with a semi-rigid Wolf ureteroscope and an electropneumatic generator used for lithotripsy. The operating specialists were divided into two groups. The first group included 4 urologists who had started learning and performing endoscopic procedures at the beginning of their specialization and the second group included 4 urologists who had started performing endoscopic procedures later in their careers, on average more than 5 years after specialization. Results Radiology tests confirmed that 87% (208/238) of stones were completely removed from the distal ureter, 54% (66/123) from the middle ureter, and 46% (28/61) from the proximal ureter. The first group of urologists completed significantly more procedures successfully, especially for the stones in the distal (95% vs 74%; P = 0.001) and middle ureter (66% vs 38%; P = 0.002), and their patients spent less time in the hospital postoperatively. Conclusion Urologists who started learning and performing endoscopic procedures at the beginning of their specialization are more successful in performing ureteroscopy. It is important that young specialists receive timely and systematic education and cooperate with more experienced colleagues.


The article presents the description of a new species of the suctorian genus Rhabdophrya inhabiting the body surface (cuticle) of harpacticoid copepod from Navy-Nagar, Mumbai intertidal coralline region, west coast of India, the Arabian Sea. The diagnosis of the genus is refined, all other species diagnoses and identification keys are presented.


Several technologies are presently competing for measuring the temperature increase in cryogenic micro-calorimeters used as high resolution energy-dispersive X-ray detectors. Doped germanium, whose resistivity depends on temperature, is a promising material for this purpose, because of its comparatively low specific heat and the possibility of making wafers with high doping uniformity by neutron transmutation. Presently, Ge-based microcalorimeters are still micro-machined and manually assembled. Here we present a planar approach to the fabrication of 2-D arrays of microcalorimeters and show the preliminary technological results.


This paper presents a human behavior analysis model combining process discovery and decision tree analysis. The proposed analysis model uses the event log traces generated by enterprise sales applications, which are mainly used by salespeople. We verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach using scenario-based simulation and find that our proposed approach is robust against randomly generated activities. We also present that important work behavior patterns can be discovered using the process discovery technology by checking higher frequency transitions.


The most dramatic changes in the British National Health Service since its inception are underway. These changes place new responsibilities on general practice and create new opportunities to expand and develop general practice. Market strategies are important in these changes and could result in a system that adopts aspects of the US health care system. There is disagreement within the United Kingdon about the need for and wisdom of these changes. This paper partially describes these changes for hospitals and general practice. Family physicians in the United States can learn valuable lessons by monitoring the progress of this grand social experiment.


This study examined beliefs of mental health nurses about smoking by clients, nurses, and visitors in inpatient facilities and identified the influence of years of experience, smoke-free status, and workplace on these beliefs. Data were collected by a survey, distributed via a nursing newsletter with approximately 600 members. Descriptive statistics and cross-tabulations explored the data. A total of 104 responses were received. Smoke-free status made significant differences to nurses' beliefs relating to prohibition of smoking for clients, staff, and visitors; concern about the effects of passive smoking; the role of smoking in the development of therapeutic relationships; smoking as a source of patient pleasure; and the role of smoking in symptom management. That half of the nurses who responded believe that smoking is helpful in the creation of therapeutic relationships is of concern. The nurse plays an important role model in promoting smoke-free lifestyles amongst clients, and the effects of positive role modelling could be lost if nurses continue to smoke with clients. The negative impacts of smoking on the physical health of mental health inpatients is considerable and well documented, and the creation of smoke-free inpatient mental health services can help to address these.


BACKGROUND Critical healthcare issues are impacting society. Interprofessional learning must be designed to match this complexity. PURPOSE We designed and implement multiple interprofessional learning activities to address serious topics in health care to determine if learning experiences founded on critical health issues resulted in increased knowledge among the interprofessional team of learners. METHOD This was an observational, cross-sectional cohort study. Participants were students enrolled in health science and medical programs at a university in the Midwest U.S. Learning activities consisted of journal club, Pain C.A.R.E., poverty simulation, or Strategies for Health. RESULTS Outcomes for student learning indicated strong agreement on teamwork variables. Faculty involvement sustained the implementation of interprofessional learning experiences. CONCLUSION Addressing social determinants of health as the learning content of an interprofessional learning activity was an effective method for increasing students' confidence and comfort within an interdisciplinary team.


Designing of a high voltage gain or high step-up boost converter is the major challenge in the high power applications. In this work, a high voltage gain Switched Capacitor Boost Converter (SCBC) is designed for fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) applications. The designed converter achieves the high voltage gain with low duty cycle and reduces the voltage stress across the power semiconductor switches. The converter output voltage is given to the Brushless DC (BLDC) motor through a DC link and a Voltage Source Inverter (VSI) for the propulsion of the vehicle. An adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) based MPPT technique is adopted for the fuel cell system for extracting the maximum power at different temperature conditions. The performance analysis of fuel cell electric vehicle system with SCBC is done by using the MATLAB/Simulink environment.


It is very challenging to the quality of the papaya culture's fruits (Carica papaya L.) after the crop, especially due to their significance to the international market, that is, their elevated exportation demands. The purpose of this work was the application of biodegradable coatings composed of Scenedesmus sp. and Chlorella sp. associated or not with pomegranate seed oil in 'Golden' papaya and to evaluate their effect in the conservation powder-crop. The installation of the experiment was carried out in a completely randomized design, with a 6 x 6 factorial outline, that is, six concentrations (C: control; SO: 0.5% of Scenedesmus sp. + 0.3% of pomegranate seed oil; S: 0.5% of Scenedesmus sp.; CO: 0.5% of Chlorella sp. + 0.3% of pomegranate seed oil; CH: 0.5% of Chlorella sp.; O: 0.3% of pomegranate seed oil) and six evaluation periods (0, 3, 6, 9, 12, and 15 days), stored at a temperature of 18±2 °C with 60±5% RH with three repetitions of two fruits per portion. The use of coverings composed of Scenedesmus sp. and Chlorella sp. in association or not with pomegranate seed oil was proven efficient in the reduction of the breathing tax of 'Golden' papaya, delaying the ripening process, and therefore representing a promising alternative for these fruits' powder-crop conservation. The coating composed of 0.5% of Chlorella sp. + 0.3% of pomegranate seed oil (CO) provided a better powder-crop conservation of 'Golden' papaya during 15 days of storage.


Abstract
 Polymorphism provides a classic example of adaptive evolution. A great advantage of studying polymorphism is that the phenotype can serve as a genetic marker; therefore, researchers can take full advantage of this to test a hypothesis based on Darwin's principle of adaptive evolution. Evolutionary theories of polymorphism have been established and suggest that polymorphism is likely maintained through negative frequency-dependent selection. Such selection is mediated by the viewer's perception or recognition of the focal trait as expressed by appearance, such as the colour and pattern of eggs. The viewer's response to that trait selects against the majority of the population, and thus favours the rare type. Such evolutionary dynamics can also be applied to avian brood parasitism, in which parasites exploit the parental care of their hosts. In this review, I describe recent findings in brood parasitic systems, in which polymorphism plays an important role in the coevolutionary arms races, at the egg, chick, and adult stages. Finally, I emphasize the need to synthesize traditional ultimate approaches with proximate approaches, incorporating genomics and psychology, in order to draw a fuller picture of the coevolutionary arms race between avian brood parasites and their hosts.


Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is the most common sexually transmitted infection (STI) worldwide. Although most HPV infections will spontaneously resolve, a considerable proportion of them will persist, increasing the risk of anogenital dysplasia, especially within certain populations, such as patients infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Furthermore, high-risk oncogenic HPV types (HR-HPV) are the main cause of cervix and other anogenital cancers, such as cancer of the vagina, vulva, penis, or anus. HIV and HPV coinfection is common among people living with HIV (PLWH) but disproportionally affects men who have sex with men (MSM) for whom the rate of persistent HPV infection and reinfection is noteworthy. The molecular interactions between HIV and HPV, as well as the interplay between both viruses and the immune system, are increasingly being understood. The immune dysfunction induced by HIV infection impairs the rate of HPV clearance and increases its oncogenic risk. Despite the availability of effective antiretroviral therapy (ART), the incidence of several HPV-related cancers is higher in PLWH, and the burden of persistent HPV-related disease has become a significant concern in an aging HIV population. Several public health strategies have been developed to reduce the transmission of HIV and HPV and mitigate the consequences of this type of coinfection. Universal HPV vaccination is the most effective preventive tool to reduce the incidence of HPV disease. In addition, screening programs for HPV-related cervical and vulvovaginal diseases in women are well-recognized strategies to prevent cervical cancer. Similarly, anal dysplasia screening programs are being implemented worldwide for the prevention of anal cancer among PLWH. Herein, the main epidemiological features and clinical implications of HIV and HPV coinfection are reviewed, focusing mainly on the relationship between HIV immune status and HPV-related diseases and the current strategies used to reduce the burden of HPV-related disease.


While comorbid depression/physical health is a major clinical concern, the conventional methods of medicine make it difficult to model the complexities of this relationship. Such challenges include cataloguing multiple trends, developing multiple complex aetiological explanations, and modelling the collective large-scale dynamics of these trends. Using a case-based complexity approach, this study engaged in a richly described case study to demonstrate the utility of computational modelling for primary care research. N = 259 people were subsampled from the Diamond database, one of the largest primary care depression cohort studies worldwide. A global measure of depressive symptoms (PHQ-9) and physical health (PCS-12) were assessed at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months and then annually for a total of 7 years. Eleven trajectories and 2 large-scale collective dynamics were identified, revealing that while depression is comorbid with poor physical health, chronic illness is often low dynamic and not always linked to depression. Also, some of the cases in the unhealthy and oscillator trends remain ill without much chance of improvement. Finally, childhood abuse, partner violence, and negative life events are greater amongst unhealthy trends. Computational modelling offers a major advance for health researchers to account for the diversity of primary care patients and for developing better prognostic models for team-based interdisciplinary care.


Jakarta as a tourist destination has a variety of interesting tourist attractions. Various tourist attractions in this city cause tourists to visit, both foreign and domestic tourism. This study aims to analyze the spatial distribution of main tourist attraction in Jakarta. The method used this research is spatial analysis. The result of the research shows that the majority of nature attraction on northern side of city. Snorkelling, diving and beach activities are available at near by Pulau Seribu. The capital Jakarta has interesting, dutch colonial architecture and museums with exhibits from Indonesia's difference ethnic groups and cultural periods. On the eastern side of the city there is on outdoor cultural park with full-scale replicas of the traditional houses from Indonesia's thirty-three provinces (Taman Mini Indonesia Indah). The transport system for tourist consists of the network of routes along which the vehicles travel (e.g. roads, railway tracks and sea lanes). The speed of trevel of the vehicles along the network govern journey times. At certain points these sparate networks come togerther to provide interchage nodes where tourist may change from one mode of trnasport to another. Each form of transport will have different advantages in terms of speed, comfort, cost, convenience and travellers will make appropriate choices between modes.


Eosinophilia in murine schistosomiasis is very intense and extensive, involving distinct compartments such as bone marrow, blood, peritoneal cavity and tissues. Comparison of the shapes of eosinophil concentration or distribution curves showed a synchronization of the tendencies around 50% between blood and bone marrow, 33 to 64% between blood and peritoneal cavity, and 33 to 43% between peritoneal cavity and bone marrow. The hepatic eosinophil granulocytopoiesis or metaplasia follows the same pattern as observed in bone marrow. Schistosoma infection can be divided into three distinct phases based on the eosinophilic response: 1) non- or low-productive phase (before 35-40 days of infection), 2) acute productive phase (from 35-40 to 70-90 days), and 3) chronic productive phase (after 70-90 days of infection).


. Cloud computing and big data applications are likely to have far-reaching and profound impacts on developing world-based smallholder farmers. Especially, the use of mobile devices to access cloud-based applications is a promising approach to deliver value to smallholder farmers in developing countries since according to the International Telecommunication Union, mobile-cellular penetration in developing countries is expected to reach 90% by the end of 2014. This article examines the contexts, mechanisms, processes and consequences associated with cloud computing and big data deployments in farming activities that could affect the lives of developing world-based smallholder farmers. We analyze the roles of big data and cloud-based applications in facilitating input availability, providing access to resources, enhancing farming processes and productivity and improving market access, marketability of products and bargaining power for smallholders. In the developing world's context, an even bigger question than that of whether agricultural productivity can be improved by using cloud computing and big data is who is likely to benefit from the growth in productivity. The paper analyzes the conditions under which at agricultural productivity associated with the utilization cloud computing and big data applications in developing countries may benefit smallholder farmers. Also investigated in the paper are important privacy and ethical issues involved around cloud computing and big data. While some analysts view that people in developing countries do not need privacy, the paper challenged this view and points out that data privacy and security issues are even more important to smallholder farmers in developing countries.


We present the characteristics of the nondegenerate emission of a ring four-wave mixing oscillator. The nondegenerate symmetric mode where the two counterrotating beams have the same frequencies has never been observed. The oscillation always occurs on an asymmetric mode with beams of different frequencies propagating in opposite directions. Application to optical gyros is also discussed.


Proponents of the programming language Prolog share the opinion Prolog is more appropriate for transforming XML-documents as other well-established techniques and languages like XSLT. In order to clarify this position this work proposes a tuProlog-styled interpreter for parsing XML-documents into Prolog-internal lists and vice versa for serialising lists into XML-documents. Based on this implementation a comparison between XSLT and Prolog follows. First, criteria are researched, such as considered language features of XSLT, usability and expressibility. These criteria are validated. Second, it is assessed when Prolog distinguishes between input and output parameters towards reversible transformation.


Perceiving and understanding literary text is difficult for schoolchildren as this kind of text includes implicit meanings, metaphors and certain standards of word usage. Students' linguistic and sociocultural competences are not developed enough so they not always can eliminate textual lacunas, the result of cultural shift. Basing on the experiments and observation the author comes to conclusion that students make mistakes interpreting the text because of narrow encyclopedic knowledge. That is why teaching students using socio-cultural commentary can make perceiving a literary text easier for them. The theory of teaching Russian as a foreign language provides certain hints on commenting a literary text. However nowadays students should be taught to use publishing commentary and create their own one while learning the native language and literature. The article shows that both linguistic elements (unusual word usage, lexemes limited in usage, complicated syntactical constructions, deviations from modern language norms) and extralinguistic factors (sociocultural knowledge that make the context) are to be commented on. The author describes the types of exercises based on text commenting, underlines the necessity to use reliable literary and historical sources, search engines. The author also states the importance of teaching the students to special techniques aimed to deal with lacunas (defining lexemes, putting questions based on the text, etc.), to offer tasks connected with intertextual commentary, composing hyperlinks, bookmarks and glossaries for the text, etc. The article offers the examples of review questions and assigments for students.


Summary
Mice maintained for 1 week on a bedding of cedarwood shavings were refractory to Schistosoma mansoni infection when exposed by immersing their tails in a cercarial suspension.
Immersion of the tail in ether solutions containing 1% cedarwood oil completely prevented infection in mice exposed 4 hours later. A 50% solution of cedarwood oil in ether provided complete protection for 3 days. The prophylactic efficacy of a 20% cedarwood solution (in ether) was not impaired by washing the treated skin in running water for 4 hours.
East Indian sandalwood oil, clove oil and pineneedle oil have also been shown to possess prophylactic efficacy against S. mansoni.


Automatic group emotion recognition plays an important role in understanding complex human-human interaction. This paper introduces, Emolysis, a standalone open-source toolkit for real-time multimodal group emotion recognition and visualization. Given any input video, Emolysis processes nearly real-time synchronized multimodal input and maps it to group level emotion, valence and arousal. Additionally, the toolkit supports major mobile and desktop platforms (Android, iOS, Windows). The Emolysis platform also comes with an intuitive graphical user interface that allows users to select different modalities and target persons for more fine grained emotion analysis. Emolysis is freely available for academic research, and encourages application developers to extend it to application specific environments on top of the existing system. We believe that the extension mechanism is quite straightforward. Our code and models are available at https://github.com/ControlNet/emolysis.


Thermal power stations have a multifaced and scale impact on natural biogeocenosis. This problem is of great actuality in the Precarpathia, where such most powerful enterprise as Burshtyn Thermal Power Station (BTPS) is the main polluter in all western region. When researching technogenic impact of BTPS on local environment, there studied the amount of manganese in soil, water and celandine in the territory of its direct impact by atomic absorption spectrometry with inductively coupled argon plasma on analytic system "Plasmaquant 110" and by methods of mathematical statistics.This study deals with the impact of BTPS on the amount of manganese in soil, water and celandine tissue. It was proved that emissions of BPTS change not only gross manganese amount, but also significantly break correlation between different manganese fractions in water and soil. Gross and changeable manganese amount in soil, water and celandine tissue are changeably interrelated and depend on the season, the distance from the polluter. Manganese distribution in celsndine tissues is organically specified, which is determined when a particular tissue is a part of the plant powering process and depends on the environmental possibilities where celandine grows.


This paper examines a controversial research programme aimed at the production of transgenic cows in New Zealand. It emphasizes the contested representation of the research, in its promotion, in its governance, and in the opposition sparked amongst environmental/anti-genetic modification groups and within the Māori community. The paper contends that the case of New Zealand's genetically modified cows certainly reveals some unique features of the prevailing economic, geographical and cultural context, but nonetheless has salience for the broader understanding of the promotion, public reception and governance of genetic modification.


Carbonation governs the microstructure and the overall mechanical performance of mixes involving MgO cements as the main binder. Aggregate grading has a significant influence on the carbonation process due to the different particle arrangements that determine the porosity and permeability of the resulting formulations. This work investigates the effect of aggregate particle size distribution on the carbonation of blocks containing reactive MgO. Samples containing four different aggregate profiles were subjected to accelerated carbonation at 20% CO2 concentration for up to 28 days. While the influence of gap grading on strength development was not very pronounced, mixes with the lowest initial porosity indicated the greatest increase in density at the end of 28 days. This also translated into the highest strength results obtained due to the formation of hydrated magnesium carbonates, reaching 10 MPa only after 1 day of carbonation. The porosity values measured before carbonation were inversely correlated with the corresponding densities and final strengths of each mix. An inverse correlation between porosity and permeability values before carbonation led to the conclusion that the connectivity of pores rather than the total pore volume controls the carbonation reaction. Mixes with higher initial permeabilities achieved the highest strengths, proving that the extent of CO2 diffusivity is mainly dependent on pore connectivity.


The paper presents a description of indexing techniques integrated with Materialized Aggregate List used in designed trajectory data warehouse system TrDW. It also describes the TrDW system and shows a need and means to index trajectories. Then conclusions on the future work are given.


Relationships between diet, sex hormone concentrations, and the estrous cycle are important from the perspective of infertility and estrogen-dependent disease prevention and treatment. Four dietary interventions reflecting modern eating behaviors were explored. The study involved 50 female rats divided into five feeding groups. The impact of the amount of sucrose consumed (9% and 18% of the dietary energy content), alternating high-sucrose and sucrose-free diets, and a high-sucrose diet combined with intermittent one-day fasting on the estrous cycle and sex hormone concentrations in female rats was assessed. Even low amounts of dietary sucrose (9% of the dietary energy content) were found to lead to increased estradiol (E2) concentrations and decreased progesterone (Pg) concentrations. A high-sucrose diet, even when periodically applied, additionally led to a reduced concentration of luteinizing hormone (LH). The largest changes in the hormones tested were observed with one-day fasting coupled with the high-sucrose diet; in addition, the estrous phase was shortened and the estrous cycle was disrupted. The results of this study show that both the amount of dietary sucrose and also its uptake pattern affect the estrous cycle and sex hormone concentrations in female rats.


This study tested the hypothesis that naturally and industrially produced trans fatty acids (TFA) exert distinct effects on rats' metabolic parameters. Wistar rat groups were fed the diets: CONT - without added fat; HVF − 20% hydrogenated vegetable fat (HVF); and RUM − 20% ruminant fat. Biochemical markers, cytokine levels, fatty acid (FA) composition of liver, heart and adipose tissue, liver histology and the gut microbial composition were also evaluated. Rats fed RUM presented lower deposition of adipose tissue and LDL and higher HDL and anti-inflammatory IL-10 than those fed CONT and HVF. Pro-inflammatory cytokines, malondialdehyde (MDA) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) were higher in group HVF than CONT and RUM. In all types of tissue, the highest TFA levels were observed in rats fed HVF, which contributed to the development of fatty liver. The RUM diet led to higher concentrations of stearic acid and conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). The lower incorporation of TFA and distinct FA profile in the liver of rats fed RUM compared to HVF could be associated with protection hepatic. The microbial gut communities were significantly dissimilar among the groups. It is plausible that ruminant fat might reduce risk parameters involved in the development of cardiovascular disease.


We present a theoretical investigation into the use of normalised artificial neural network (ANN) outputs in the context of hidden Markov models (HMMs). The work is motivated by the pursuit of a more theoretically rigorous understanding of the Kullback-Liebler (KL)-HMM. Two possible models are considered based respectively on the HMM states storing categorical distributions and Dirichlet distributions. Training and recognition algorithms are derived, and possible relationships with KL-HMM are briefly discussed.


Recent studies on the genomic organization of the human Ig VH locus have revealed the presence of an important proportion of VH pseudogenes and a high degree of interspersion among VH gene-family members. The mechanisms of selection of VH genes expressed by differentiating B cells remain to be elucidated. We have made use of RNA-RNA in situ hybridization to probe the repertoire of VH gene-families assembled in peripheral B cells of normal adults. Cells were in vitro activated with mitogens and then hybridized to [35S]-labeled anti-sense RNA probes specific for C mu and C gamma genes, and for the six known human VH gene-families. We found that the numbers of cells expressing C mu and C gamma mRNA were similar to the total numbers of cells expressing members of the six VH gene-families. Therefore, the six known VH gene-families represent essentially the human VH locus. We also found that expression of VH gene-families does not closely correlate with their relative genomic complexity. This apparently biased expression may suggest that in some VH gene-families the ratio of pseudogenes/functional genes is particularly high, and/or that regulatory mechanisms play a major role in shaping the available VH gene repertoire in differentiating B cells.


The effects of goal-directed fluid therapy, with lactated Ringer's (LR) and 6% hydroxyethyl starch (HES) solution, on hemorrhagic shock dogs are unknown. We aimed to determine the optimal LR: HES ratio for the resuscitation of hemorrhagic shock dogs. Hemorrhagic shock was induced in 40 ventilated dogs by drawing an estimated 60% blood volume. The animals were randomly divided into five groups (N = 8) according to the LR: HES ratio of the resuscitation fluid (3:1, 2:1, 1:1, 1:2, and 1:3), and were then resuscitated for 24 h to reach the stroke volume variation (SVV) and hemoglobin (Hb) goals by fluid infusion and autologous blood perfusion. The extravascular lung water index (EVLWI), pH, partial pressure of oxygen (PaO2), base excess (BE), sodium, chloride, Hb and creatinine clearance (Clearcrea) were checked after 24 h (R24). The EVLWI of the 3:1 group at R24 were higher than that of the 1:3 group and the baseline value (P < 0.05), whereas the PaO2 was lower (P < 0.05). In contrast to the 3:1 group at R24 and baseline, plasma chloride and sodium in the 1:3 and 1:2 groups increased; however, pH, BE, and Clearcrea decreased (P < 0.05). No significant differences were found in the 1:1 and 2:1 groups at R24 compared with baseline (P > 0.05). Resuscitation with LR and HES at 2:1 and 1:1 ratios are superior in maintaining the acid-base, electrolyte, and lung water balances as well as renal function in hemorrhagic shock dogs than at ratios of 3:l, 1:2, and1:3.


Exploring impressively effective dielectric nanofluids for transformers to improve dielectric strength and thermal stability is indispensable. It is crucial to determine the modification mechanism of dispersed nanomaterials in insulating oil for operative applications in power transformers. This paper aspires to authenticate the experimental evidence of the enhancing AC dielectric strength of synthetic ester Midel-7131 using two newly introduced semiconductive nanoparticles, CdS and Co3O4, and uncover the potential reasons for enhanced AC dielectric strength. The AC breakdown voltage (BDV) of synthetic ester and nanofluids was investigated and statistically evaluated. The mean AC breakdown voltage of SE/CdS and SE/Co3O4 was increased by 31.9% and 31.3%, respectively. The augmentation in AC breakdown strength is possibly due to the facilitated charge-scavenging ability owing to the large specific surface area and wide bandgap. Simultaneous thermogravimetric analysis, differential scanning calorimetry, and derivative thermogravimetry analyses (TGA–DSC–DTG) confirmed that the initial decomposition temperature was high and heat dissipation was low, indicating that the nanofluids were thermally stable in both air and nitrogen. Hence, emerging semiconductive CdS and Co3O4-based nanofluids of synthetic ester possess remarkable dielectric strength and thermal stability enhancement for their application in power transformers.


Abstract : While deployed at sea, sailors are traditionally provided much of their education at sea through correspondence and pace courses. But with recent developments in the Internet and videoconferencing, it is now feasible to deliver real time educational material anywhere, even to a ship at sea. This thesis investigates the current status of networked desktop videoconferencing technology, and its use in support of Joint Vision 2010, with respect to Distance Learning. It provides an analysis of videoconferencing protocols, standards, and applications, as well as a videoconferencing pilot project. The objective of the analysis is to determine the viability and economical benefits of using videoconferencing technology and collaboration tools, from the desktop, as a means for simultaneously delivering synchronous and asynchronous distance learm%g material from an academic location to multiple students at remote locations. The results show that desktop videoconferencing technology, via IP based networks in the Defense Information Infrastructure, is a viable tool that can add numerous economical benefits, such as a decreased spending for travel and eliminating the need to rely on large, room-based systems.


In Succeeding as an International Student in the United States and Canada, the author, Charles Lipson, provides an informative guide to campus life for both undergraduate and graduate foreign students who are interested in pursuing their studies for the first time in the institutions of higher education in the United States and Canada. His intention is that this book can serve as "a friendly, informative guide, one that helps you succeed in your classes, labs, and everyday activities" (p. xvi).


Traditional venom immunotherapy uses injections of whole bee venom in buffer or adsorbed in Al (OH)3 in an expensive, time-consuming way. New strategies to improve the safety and efficacy of this treatment with a reduction of injections would, therefore, be of general interest. It would improve patient compliance and provide socio-economic benefits. Liposomes have a long tradition in drug delivery because they increase the therapeutic index and avoid drug degradation and secondary effects. However, bee venom melittin (Mel) and phospholipase (PLA2) destroy the phospholipid membranes. Our central idea was to inhibit the PLA2 and Mel activities through histidine alkylation and or tryptophan oxidation (with pbb, para-bromo-phenacyl bromide, and/or NBS- N-bromosuccinimide, respectively) to make their encapsulations possible within stabilized liposomes. We strongly believe that this formulation will be nontoxic but immunogenic. In this paper, we present the whole bee venom conformation characterization during and after chemical modification and after interaction with liposome by ultraviolet, circular dichroism, and fluorescence spectroscopies. The PLA2 and Mel activities were measured indirectly by changes in turbidity at 400n m, rhodamine leak-out, and hemolysis. The native whole bee venom (BV) presented 78.06% of α-helical content. The alkylation (A-BV) and succynilation (S-BV) of BV increased 0.44 and 0.20% of its α-helical content. The double-modified venom (S-A-BV) had a 0.74% increase of α-helical content. The BV chemical modification induced another change on protein conformations observed by Trp that became buried with respect to the native whole BV. It was demonstrated that the liposomal membranes must contain pbb (SPC:Cho:pbb, 26:7:1) as a component to protect them from aggregation and/or fusion. The membranes containing pbb maintained the same turbidity (100%) after incubation with modified venom, in contrast with pbb-free membranes that showed a 15% size decrease. This size decrease was interpreted as membrane degradation and was corroborated by a 50% rhodamine leak-out. Another fact that confirmed our interpretation was the observed 100% inhibition of the hemolytic activity after venom modification with pbb and NBS (S-A-BV). When S-A-BV interacted with liposomes, other protein conformational changes were observed and characterized by the increase of 1.93% on S-A-BV α-helical content and the presence of tryptophan residues in a more hydrophobic environment. In other words, the S-A-BV interacted with liposomal membranes, but this interaction was not effective to cause aggregation, leak-out, or fusion. A stable formulation composed by S-A-BV encapsulated within liposomes composed by SPC:Cho:pbb, at a ratio of 26:7:1, was devised. Large unilamellar vesicles of 202.5 nm with a negative surface charge (–24.29 mV) encapsulated 95% of S-A-BV. This formulation can, now, be assayed on VIT.


The article discusses the past development and the possible futuristic innovations in the quartz watch industry. Of primary concern is that the intervals between battery replacement will increase as the watch improves in accuracy and versatility.


From the Publisher:
This tutorial/reference walks readers step-by-step through the systematic use of AutoCAD LT 98--with emphasis on the proper use of drafting standards in several key disciplines. It features screen displays and illustrations, icons at each heading that identify the related AutoCAD LT 98 tool bar item, and Field Notes with tips, helpful hints, and cautions. An Introduction to AutoCAD LT 98. Introduction to Drafting with AutoCAD LT 98. Drawing Basic Objects. Drawing Display Control. Using Layers, Linetypes, and Colors. Precision Drafting Tools. Editing Your Drawing. Drawing and Editing Polylines and Double Lines. Placing Text on a Drawing. Drawing Patterns and Section Lines. Dimensioning a Drawing. Designing and Using Your Own Symbols. External References and Multiview Drawing Layout. 3-D Drafting with AutoCAD LT 98. File Management and Data Exchange. AutoCAD LT 98 and the Internet. Customizing AutoCAD LT 98. For anyone involved mechanical, architectural and electrical drafting or graphic design.


ABSTRACT
 New anatomical observations and reinterpretations of previously identified structures have resulted in new taxonomic diagnoses for the fossil hind-limbed marine snakes Pachyrhachis problematicus, Eupodophis descouensi, and Haasiophis terrasanctus. Among the most important conclusions of our study are the following: Haasiophis and Eupodophis show no evidence of possessing a laterosphenoid; Pachyrhachis and Eupodophis do retain a jugal; Haasiophis, like Eupodophis, has chevron bones in the caudal region; Haasiophis has a large number of unfused intercentra along the anterior portion of the precloacal column; the dentary of Pachyrhachis has numerous mental foramina (at least four); Pachyrhachis has at least one sacral vertebra with unfused sacral ribs. To test the effect of our new observations on the phylogenetic relationships of snakes, we ran three phylogenetic analyses using alternative outgroups to polarize the character transformations. The ingroup consisted of all well-preserved fossil snakes from the Cretaceous, the madtsoiids, and taxa that are representative of all major groups of extant snakes. The analyses yielded a series of most parsimonious trees that placed Pachyrhachis, Eupodophis, and Haasiophis either as a series of stem taxa at the base of the radiation of snakes (two analysis), or as members of a clade of fossil snakes that are the sister group of all living alethinopidians (one analysis).


Within the past few years, the accuracy of deep learning and machine learning models has been improving significantly while less attention has been paid to their responsibility, explainability, and interpretability. eXplainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) methods, guidelines, concepts, and strategies offer the possibility of models' evaluation for improving fidelity, faithfulness, and overall explainability. Due to the diversity of data and learning methodologies, there needs to be a clear definition for the validity, reliability, and evaluation metrics of explainability. This article reviews evaluation metrics used for XAI through the PRISMA systematic guideline for a comprehensive and systematic literature review. Based on the results, this study suggests two taxonomy for the evaluation metrics. One taxonomy is based on the applications, and one is based on the evaluation metrics.


The purpose of this research was to identify and discuss the improvement of speech delayed children in developing speech after undergoing several neurofeedback training with the belp of assistive tools through the changes in brainwave pattern. However, when it comes to assistive tools, most of them are develop based on the western culture and based on normal circumstances. This is important as the acceptance and the ability for the special children to learn things are different from the normal children. Hence, this case study use the Pre-test and Post-test design in which a total of 8 session of neurofeedback training (session 1 of NFT without assistive tools and session 2-8 ofNFT with assistive tools) is conduct on two speech delays children diagnosed by pediatrician. The brainwave or raw data will be recorded and compared using the average reading from each session. Thus, the research found that the use of Delta Training Protocol helps the subject to show an improvement and increment in which throughout the session the Delta brainwave start to produce a more desirable pattern. In a conclusion, the findings revealed that both subjects improved in terms of speech behavior as shown in the result section. The Delta training protocol was used to inhibit the excessive wave (High Beta & Beta) using neurofeedback training in combination with the assistive tools (game & video).


The layout for 28 concrete pits is described herein where sand-culture and irrigation studies under cover have been carried in Puerto Rico since 1940 with certain crops: Sugarcane, beans, corn, sweetpotatoes, and cotton. The data for 10 experiments performed with sweet corn, dent corn, sugarcane, and cotton are reported. These data included N-P-K contents of the respective leaves at different crop ages and yields obtained by varying the N or P or K levels from deficient to sufficient values, but keeping other major and minor nutrients constant. These experiments were important in showing that foliar contents of the major nutrients at specific crop ages can be used to predict or correlate with relative yield values. These correlations are not generally obtained with phosphorous and potassium in field experiments because the initial available phosphorus and potassium contents of the soil are usually high.


Persistent phytoplankton bloom events, surface cooling, and associated fronts in the Strait of Ombai were seen by Sea‐viewing Wide Field‐of‐view Sensor (SeaWiFS), Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery. It is suggested that the cooling events were caused by variable flow through the strait and its interaction with complex bathymetry. During the strongest cooling events a sharp, midstrait frontal feature was seen with a cross‐front gradient in sea surface temperature (SST) of the order of 4°C and a gradient in chlorophyll concentration of over 1 mg/m3. The frontal feature, associated with increased ocean color signal, extended, during major events, 100s of kilometers downstream of the strait and at times influenced nearly all of the Savu Sea. We show that variability in the bloom events can be tied to seasonal monsoons, ENSO, and their effect on thermocline depth.


: Colletotrichum truncatum (syn. C. capsici ), like many other members of the genus Colletotrichum , displays a highly developed infection mechanism against a number of agriculturally important crops. Among many survival strategies, C. truncatum is well known for its wide host range and high pathogenicity on several major crop species. Meticulous understanding of a pathogen's infection mechanisms is the best way to achieve successful management of a disease. This study was carried out to evaluate the pathogenicity of C. truncatum on selected crop plants and weed species and to detect the possibility of non-host species to facilitate survival of the pathogen. Inoculation of an isolate of C. truncatum to four crops: curry chilli – Capsicum annuum (var. CA8), eggplant – Solanum melongena (var. Lena Iri), tomato – Solanum lycopersicum (var. Thilina) and green chilli – C. annuum (var. KA2) and three weed species: little ironweed ( Vernonia cinerea ), billygoat-weed ( Ageratum conyzoides ) and Bengal dayflower ( Commelina benghalensis ) resulted in approximately 3.5 disease severity (DS) (100% disease incidence-DI) on S. lycopersicum and C. annuum (var. KA2), followed by 2.8 and 1.8 DS (100%, 75% DI) on C. annuum (var. CA8) and S. melongena (var. Lena Iri), respectively. The three weed species were completely symptomless up to 8 weeks after the inoculation (WAI). However, microscopic studies and serial culturing of the inoculated tissues revealed the presence of the fungus in all the tested plants. Appressoria were present in all treated leaves and eventually broke their dormancy upon leaf senescence nearly 6 WAI. This study reveals the potential of C. truncatum infecting all tested crops and the capa-bility of the three weed species in harboring the pathogen asymptomatically for several weeks. Thus, early management of inoculum in the field is suggested for C. truncatum diseases.


A new module to the Atmospheric Radiative Transfer Simulator is presented that models the strong oxygen spectral band at 60 GHz. The module handles the line mixing effect and works with or without additionally calculating the Zeeman effect. It is shown how the module may be internally reduced to calculations of the Zeeman effect at higher altitudes, and to calculations of the line mixing effect at lower altitudes. The article ends with a short discussion on what is being done to validate the module, and what may be done to refine the theoretical description of line mixing in the simulator.


: This Element examines the many facets of ethical realism and the issues at stake in metaethical debates about it – both between realism and non-realist alternatives, and between di ff erent versions of realism itself. Starting with a minimal core characterization of ethical realism focused on claims about meaning and truth, we go on to develop a narrower and more theoretically useful conception by adding further claims about objectivity and ontological commitment. Yet even this common understanding of ethical realism captures a surprisingly heterogeneous range of views. In fact, a strong case can be made for adding several more conditions in order to arrive at a paradigm of realism about ethics when understood in a non-de fl ationary way. We then develop this more robust realism, bringing out its distinctive take on ethical objectivity and normative authority, its unique ontological commitments, and both the support for it and some challenges it faces.


An orthorhombic crystal of xylanase II from Trichoderma reesei was grown in the presence of sodium iodide. Crystal structures at atomic resolution were determined at 100 and 293 K. Protein molecules were aligned along a crystallographic twofold screw axis, forming a helically extended polymer-like chain mediated by an iodide ion. The iodide ion connected main-chain peptide groups between two adjacent molecules by an N-H...I-...H-N hydrogen-bond bridge, thus contributing to regulation of the molecular arrangement and suppression of the rigid-body motion in the crystal with high diffraction quality. The structure at 293 K showed considerable thermal motion in the loop regions connecting the beta-strands that form the active-site cleft. TLS model analysis of the thermal motion and a comparison between this structure and that at 100 K suggest that the fluctuation of these loop regions is attributable to the hinge-like movement of the beta-strands.


In this article, there is a suggestion that the application of certain key concepts or procedures of Husserlian phenomenology can be helpful in the practice of therapy. It is well known that how a therapist is present to a client and his or her story is critical for the success of therapy. What is less clear, however, is how to address this "way of being" in therapy and what kinds of interventions are helpful to clients. In addressing some of these difficult issues, the Husserlian concepts found to be helpful are (1) Husserl's chief directive to go "back to the matters themselves," (2) the distinction among real and irreal objects, (3) presence to the order of phenomena, the phenomenal realm, (4) the intentional-fulfilling-identifying nature of conscious acts, (5) the phenomenological-psychological reduction, and (6) the discovery and description of eidetic structures of experience. These fundamental philosophical distinctions are taken up within a psychological perspective and elaborated and used within a phenomenological psychological perspective.


Background A variety of spinal surgery procedures are performed on patients with different cardiac, vascular, and respiratory comorbidities. Postoperative pain management is a major determinant of hemodynamic and respiratory status in these patients and promotes clinical results, prevents complications, saves health services, and improves the quality of life of patients. Objectives We compared the effects of dexmedetomidine and remifentanil on pain control after spinal surgery. Methods Sixty patients aged 18 - 65 years undergoing spinal surgery were randomized into the two groups of dexmedetomidine and remifentanil. The dexmedetomidine group (group D, n = 30) received dexmedetomidine infusion (0.6 mcg/kg/h), and the remifentanil group (group R, n = 30) received remifentanil infusion (0.1 mcg/kg/min) from induction of anesthesia until extubation. Propofol (1.5 mg/kg) and fentanyl (2mcg/kg) were used to initiate anesthesia, and propofol (100 - 150 mcg/kg/min) was infused to maintain anesthesia. Postoperative pain, hemodynamic parameters, and recovery characteristics were evaluated after surgery. Results The mean pain intensity in the dexmedetomidine group was significantly lower than in the remifentanil group (2.98 ± 1.29 vs. 3.80 ± 1.1; P < 0.001). Hemodynamic changes in the dexmedetomidine group (MAP: 92.60 ± 5.56, HR: 73.07 ± 7) were less, and their condition was significantly more stable than in the remifentanil group (MAP: 93.85 ± 4.78, HR: 79.15 ± 7.03; P < 0.05). The mean arterial oxygen saturation (O2 sat) in the dexmedetomidine group was significantly higher and more stable than in the remifentanil group (98.87 ± 0.51 vs. 97.92 ± 0.46; P < 0.05). The incidence of nausea and vomiting was significantly lower in the dexmedetomidine group compared to the remifentanil group (P < 0.05). The administration of analgesics in the post-anesthetic care unit (PACU) was significantly higher in the remifentanil group than the dexmedetomidine group (P = 0.016). Conclusions Anesthetic maintenance with either dexmedetomidine or remifentanil infusion until extubation provided more smooth and hemodynamically stable conditions, without complications. However, dexmedetomidine provides better analgesia, causes a more stable hemodynamic state, and reduces postoperative nausea-vomiting, shivering, and the need for analgesics.


A study carried out 2 to 12 months after women discovered to have bacteriuria during pregnancy were delivered of their infants has shown the following: (1) bacteriuria persisted in 90 of 111 untreated women; (2) bacteria were present in urine obtained from one or both ureters in 17 of 23 patients; and (3) pyelographic abnormalities were detected in 61 of 131 patients. These findings suggest that in many instances asymptomatic bacteriuria first noted during pregnancy persists following delivery and is associated with active renal infection.


This quick note is based on the report of the same name which was prepared just prior to the Arab Spring. The study anticipates the demands for social and economic inclusion articulated by Moroccan young people, especially February 2011. Since then, these demands have been amplified and reached a new level of urgency. This study adopts a mixed method approach combining an innovative quantitative instrument with qualitative and institutional analysis. The goal is to provide policy makers with a nuanced analysis of barriers to employment and active civic participation encountered by young people aged 15 to 29 years so as to tailor youth interventions more effectively. It identifies a wide range of recommendations available to support youth-inclusive activities and policies, and a roadmap for integrated youth investments.


A well-written program is a poem. Both are powerful because their content is condensed without being inscruitable and because the form is careful chosen to give insight into the topic. For a program, the topic is an algorithm and the implementation should emphasize the key steps while minimizing the details. The most elegant implementation is not always the most efficient, although it often is within a constant factor of optimal. The choice of programming language most closely corresponds to the choice of poem structure, e.g., sonnet or villanelle, not the choice of natural language, e.g., English or French. Structure enforces certain patterns and ways of thinking on the author and reader, thus aiding certain kinds of expression and inhibiting others. To author elegant programs, one must master a set of languages and language features. Then, one must subjectively but precisely choose among them to express specific algorithms. Languages are themselves designed. A well-designed language is a meta-poem. A language designer crafts a set of expressive tools suited to the safety, performance, and expressive demands of a problem domain. As with literature, the difficult creative choice is often not what to include, but what to omit. A programming language is a mathematical calculus, or formal language. Its goal is to express algorithms in a manner that is unambiguous to people and machines. Like any calculus, a language defines both syntax and semantics. Syntax is the grammar of the language; the notation. Semantics is the meaning of that notation. Since syntax can easily be translated, the semantics are more fundamental. Church and Turing (and Kleene) showed that the minimal semantics of the λ calculus and Turing machine are sufficient to emulate the semantics of any more complicated programming language or machine. However, reducing a particular language to the λ calculus may require holistic restructuring of programs in that language.


Recent research has discovered that a shared bilingual word embedding space can be induced by projecting monolingual word embedding spaces from two languages using a self-learning paradigm without any bilingual supervision. However, it has also been shown that for distant language pairs such fully unsupervised self-learning methods are unstable and often get stuck in poor local optima due to reduced isomorphism between starting monolingual spaces. In this work, we propose a new robust framework for learning unsupervised multilingual word embeddings that mitigates the instability issues. We learn a shared multilingual embedding space for a variable number of languages by incrementally adding new languages one by one to the current multilingual space. Through the gradual language addition the method can leverage the interdependencies between the new language and all other languages in the current multilingual space. We find that it is beneficial to project more distant languages later in the iterative process. Our fully unsupervised multilingual embedding spaces yield results that are on par with the state-of-the-art methods in the bilingual lexicon induction (BLI) task, and simultaneously obtain state-of-the-art scores on two downstream tasks: multilingual document classification and multilingual dependency parsing, outperforming even supervised baselines. This finding also accentuates the need to establish evaluation protocols for cross-lingual word embeddings beyond the omnipresent intrinsic BLI task in future work.


Laminins are basement membrane glycoproteins consisting of three polypeptide chains α, β and γ. Until now 12 members of the protein family have been characterized and all isoforms have an αβγ chain composition, but they assemble in varying combinations of chain variants. The functional properties of laminins include cell adhesion, proliferation, differentiation, growth and migration. Laminin-5 has a chain composition of α3β3γ2 with the distribution mainly restricted to epithelial basement membranes, where its biological functions involve anchorage and locomotion of cells. The importance of this protein for the attachment of basal keratinocytes is clearly demonstrated by the fact that all genes encoding its chains have been shown to be mutated in the severe skin blistering disease Epidermolysis bullosa junctionalis. The present study focused on investigations of the role of the laminin-5 isoform and particularly its γ2 chain in cell adhesion and migration. The role of the short arm of the laminin γ2 chain in the process of epithelial cell attachment is to serve as a kind of a bridging molecule to the extracellular environment, because it does not have any cell binding activity by itself. It was also shown that the newly synthesized γ2 chain participates in the complex process of cell migration, probably as one of the first attachment components for moving cells. Thus, as a migration and differentiationassociated molecule, laminin-5 was considered a potential marker for detection of malignant processes where cell movement plays a role. Subsequently it was shown that the γ2 chain is expressed not only in a restricted manner in human epithelial tissues, but also in a number of human epithelium-derived cancers. In some carcinomas, expression of the γ2 chain appeared to be a characteristic of cancer cells with invasive properties. Examination of over 50 dysplasias and cervical tumors revealed that γ2 chain antibodies were able to distinguish between lesions with or without invasive capacity. This is the first systematic study of epithelial cancers where γ2 chain antibodies have been shown to be a useful marker in the histopathological diagnostics. In addition, this study showed in a mouse tumor model that the γ2 chain of laminin-5 has a potential for being of use for in vivo tumor imaging.


The role of relaxin in mammary development was studied between days 80-110 of pregnancy in ovariectomized gilts given progesterone to maintain pregnancy. To obtain an objective measurement of lobulo-alveolar (parenchymal) composition, mammary glands were cut in cross-section through the teat, and the area of parenchymal tissue on the exposed face of the gland was determined. Ovariectomy on day 80 or 100 followed by progesterone replacement therapy resulted in a dramatic reduction in the rate of growth of mammary parenchymal cross-section area on days 100 and 110 of gestation, respectively, compared to that in controls. In contrast, progesterone plus relaxin therapy, with highly purified porcine relaxin, restored the mammary parenchymal cross-section area to control values in ovariectomized gilts. Morphometric analysis of mammary tissue on day 110 of pregnancy indicated that both the absence of relaxin after ovariectomy and replacement therapy with porcine relaxin in ovariectomized gilts had little if any effect on the percentages of the lumen, stroma, or epithelial that comprised the mammary parenchyma. It is concluded that relaxin has a stimulatory effect on the growth of mammary parenchymal tissue during late gestation in the pig.


The contemporary revival of virtue ethics has focused primarily on retrieving central moral commitments of Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and the Neoplatonist traditions. Christian virtue ethicists would do well to expand this retrieval further to include the writings of the Roman Stoics. This essay argues that the ethics of Jonathan Edwards exemplifies major Stoic themes and explores three noteworthy points of intersection between Stoic ethics and Edwards's thought: a conception of virtue as consent to a benevolent providence, the identification of virtue as a singular and transformative good, and an account of moral formation as simultaneously self-directed and received. Common ground between Edwards and the Stoics illustrates the value of recognizing Stoic moral thought as a philosophical framework that can enhance and undergird Christian ethicists' understandings of moral development and the nature of virtue.


The Formation Medical Continue (FMC) is a continuing education programme for private practice doctors (generalists and specialists), and was established in the legislation of April 1996. In analysing the stages of the policy's introduction, an attempt was made to understand the difficulties encountered in its implementation. Using a semi-directive questionnaire, the opinions concerning the policy were collected from the different actors in the process: professionals, social welfare organisations, government agencies and health organisations. The analysis of their perceptions was complemented by an analysis of historical data and a review of the literature. The greatest difficulties with implementation related to the interactions among the stakeholders: the "game" of the medical unions, among themselves and with social security and government agencies; the under-representation of the medical profession, exacerbated by its divisions and the split between generalists and specialists; the indecision of government agencies, leaving the stakeholders waiting; the "game" of the social security funds, which act as if the principle of "mutualisation" of FMC funds can be by-passed. Conflicts of interest regarding the FMC have "crystallised" among the different stakeholders, as well as within the medical corpus. These conflicts relate in particular to the creation of the memorandum agreement and to the definition of the relationship with the pharmaceutical industry.


An innovative quasi-dimensional multizone combustion model for the spray formation, combustion and emission formation analysis in DI diesel engines was assessed and applied to an optical single cylinder engine. The model, which has been recently presented by the authors, integrates a predictive non stationary 1D spray model developed by the Sandia National Laboratory, with a diagnostic multizone thermodynamic model. The 1D spray model is capable of predicting the equivalence ratio of the fuel during the mixing process, as well as the spray penetration. The multizone approach is based on the application of the mass and energy conservation laws to several homogeneous zones identified in the combustion chamber. A specific submodel is also implemented to simulate the dilution of the burned gases. Soot formation is modeled by an expression which derives from Kitamura et al.'s results, in which an explicit dependence on the local equivalence ratio is considered. The model was used to analyze low load (BMEP = 2 bar at 1500 rpm) and medium load (BMEP = 5 bar at 2000 rpm) operating conditions in an optical single cylinder engine sharing the combustion system configuration of the 2.0L Euro5 GM diesel engine for passenger car application.


We review the concept of $\tau$-function for simple analytic curves. The $\tau$-function gives a formal solution to the 2D inverse potential problem and appears as the $\tau$-function of the integrable hierarchy which describes conformal maps of simply-connected domains bounded by analytic curves to the unit disk. The $\tau$-function also emerges in the context of topological gravity and enjoys an interpretation as a large $N$ limit of the normal matrix model.


Cognitive load and motivation are two factors that have been established as mediators of learning. It has been established that learners who experience low cognitive loads and are highly motivated to succeed in learning. Since e-learning is becoming a very popular means of delivering learning, there needs to be established strategies to ensure that learners learn. This study sought to look at the various means that have been used in e-learning studies to manage cognitive load and enhance motivation through the analysis of literature. Use of metaphorical interfaces, hypertext, sequencing, and fading of learning content, use of transient information, and adaptation of the problem-solving support were the strategies that have been used in e-learning studies to manage cognitive load. Motivation has been enhanced through the use of motivational messages and adaptive navigational support and pedagogical agents.


Dispersal of colour-banded South Island Pied Oystercatchers Haematopus ostralegus fimchi from a breeding m a on farmland in mid-Canterbury, New Zealand, was investigated from December 1987 to September 1997. Most moved north and were away from the breeding area from late December to mid-July. All birds spent this time at coastal sites, which ranged from 97 to 834 km from their breeding area. Distances travelled by males and females and birds of all ages were similar. Birds had high fidelity to wintering sites within and between years. Pair bonds were not maintained in winter and there was no evidence that fledglings accompanied their parents to wintering sites.


Creatine was discovered more than one century ago, but its use became importantin sports scenario in the 70's. Since then, the improvement in knowledge and utilization protocolsmade this substance the licit ergogenic aid most studied and used by athletes nowadays. Thebenefits of supplementation in athletes served as a model for studies in diseased individuals,that present ATP synthesis or ressynthesis deficiency, neurological and muscular diseases,or that suffer from muscular atrophy or impairment of muscular metabolism


: Avermectin B1a given at a dose level of 0.05 or 0.1 mg/kg of body weight caused rapid removal of Dirofilaria immitis microfilariae from the blood of dogs with heartworm infections. If the adult worms were also killed with an arsenical (melarsoprol), the removal of microfilariae was permanent.


The convergence of IT and TelCo face enormous research challenges due the existence of heterogeneity in corresponding systems. Rapid advances in technical and technological aspects of these domains intricate the integration requirements while blurring the intersection point. Service-oriented computing is a middle-tier paradigm that facilitates the integration of IT and TelCo domains by providing services with standardized access interfaces. Within the research and industrial sectors, the reference model for Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is currently the most promising and widely accepted standard for ABSTRACT


In the advent of technological revolution, genetic interaction has become a crucial aspect in the understanding of any diseases. Information on individual genetic variation is now used in translational genomics to implement precise diagnosis and personalized medicine. Finding causal genes for genetic diseases or exploring interaction of genes in diseases with genetic predisposition is the first step to getting insights into such diseases. The human genome project made a paradigm shift in thinking, especially in the developed countries affected by non-communicable diseases. Some cutting-edge technologies, including gene therapy and genome editing, hold the promise in better diagnosis and treatment of common to rare genetic diseases. Scientific communities are trying hard to accumulate all the genetic disease information from publicly available platforms. A genetic disease database of a country serves as a depository. Many developed and a few developing countries have already developed genetic disease databases, which could benefit early diagnosis and proper patient management. Unfortunately, Bangladesh is lagging behind in this aspect. It is imperative to develop genetic disease database in Bangladesh because of its large population of patients with genetic disease. In this review, we discuss the reasons for constructing a genetic disease database and how this database can help to fight against challenges arising from the genetic diseases in Bangladesh.

https://article.accscience.com/journal/GPD/1/1/10.36922/gpd.v1i1.78/GPD_ID 78 - Proof 4.0.pdf


Heavy neutrinos from the Type-I Seesaw model can have a large mixing with active states, motivating their search at collider experiments. However, loop corrections to light neutrino masses constrain the heavy neutrinos to appear in pseudo-Dirac pairs, leading to a potential suppression of lepton number violating parameters. In this work we perform a detailed review of a proposal to relax constraints on lepton number violation by adding supersymmetry. We define the conditions necessary to maximise the SUSY screening effect, with the objective of allowing a larger mass splitting between low-scale heavy neutrino masses. We find that the sole addition of SUSY does not guarantee a screening, and that favourable cases have some degree of fine-tuning.


Objective: To evaluate whether there is a circadian pattern in the onset of acute myocardial infarction.
Methods: This study included 60 patients. Diagnosis of myocardial infarction was by ECG and/or enzyme abnormalities. Patients
were sub-grouped based on age, sex, prior history of ischaemic heart disease, hypertension, and diabetes mellitus. Time of onset of
symptoms was noted. For calculation of frequency of onset of symptoms, the day was divided into 4 quarters.
Results: Statistically significant peaks were observed in the second and third quarter of the day. Highest number of patients had
onset of events in 2nd quarter of day. Similar pattern of distribution was observed in females, patients above and below 60 years,
diabetics, hypertensives, and ischaemic heart disease patients. In males, highest frequency was seen in 3rd quarter.
Conclusion: There were statistically significant peaks in the onset of acute myocardial infarction in the 2nd and 3rd quarter of the
day.


The ultra-thin tin doped crystalline indium oxide (ITO) films (≤50 nm) were successfully deposited by a 3-dimensionally confined magnetron sputtering source (L-3DMS) at the temperature lower than 100 °C. The resistivity and the mobility of the ultra-thin ITO films deposited at
 a low processing temperature were about ~5 × 10−4 Ω · cm and >30 cm2/Vs, respectively, for the thickness of 30 nm. The high quality of the ultra-thin ITO films deposited by L-3DMS is believed to be related to the improved crystallinity with
 oxygen vacancies of the ITO films by high density plasma and low discharge voltage of the L-3DMS which enables the formation of a crystalline structure a low processing temperature.


We introduce a new approach to proving that a sequence of deterministic linear codes achieves capacity on an erasure channel under maximum a posteriori decoding. Rather than relying on the precise structure of the codes, our method exploits code symmetry. In particular, the technique applies to any sequence of linear codes where the blocklengths are strictly increasing, the code rates converge, and the permutation group of each code is doubly transitive. In other words, we show that symmetry alone implies near-optimal performance. An important consequence of this result is that a sequence of Reed–Muller codes with increasing blocklength and converging rate achieves capacity. This possibility has been suggested previously in the literature but it has only been proven for cases where the limiting code rate is 0 or 1. Moreover, these results extend naturally to all affine-invariant codes and, thus, to extended primitive narrow-sense BCH codes. This also resolves, in the affirmative, the existence question for capacity-achieving sequences of binary cyclic codes. The primary tools used in the proof are the sharp threshold property for symmetric monotone Boolean functions and the area theorem for extrinsic information transfer functions.


We show that the event-by-event fluctuations of the transverse size of the initial source, which follow directly from the Glauber treatment of the earliest stage of relativistic heavy-ion collisions, cause, after hydrodynamic evolution, fluctuations of the transverse flow velocity at hadronic freeze-out. This, in turn, leads to event-by-event fluctuations of the average transverse momentum, . Simulations with GLISSANDO for the Glauber phase, followed by a realistic hydrodynamic evolution and statistical hadronization carried out with THERMINATOR, lead to agreement with the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) data. In particular, the magnitude of the effect, its centrality dependence, and the weak dependence on the incident energy are properly reproduced. Our results show that the bulk of the observed event-by-event fluctuations may be explained by the fluctuations of the size of the initial source.


Gastric leiomyoma is an uncommonly found entity. Most leiomyomas are asymptomatic and are found at autopsy or on abdominal exploration for other reasons. Indications for resection include large size and symptoms of compression, obstruction, or hemorrhage. The traditional surgical approach consists of laparotomy and resection. This article describes a technique for minimally invasive resection using a combined laparoscopic and endoscopic approach.


This is the first volume in what is intended to be an annual series designed to publish lectures delivered at the Centre for European Law Studies in Oxford. These lectures have been sponsored by one of Britiain's largest law firms, Cliffor Chance. The first volume brings together lectures given by some of Britain's most distinguished academic lawyers and judges. These lectures have apppeared previously only in pamphlet form. This book is intended for scholars and practitioners of English Law, European Law and Comparative Law.


The authors propose a scheme to achieve strong modification of the light properties in the terahertz (THz) range and in particular up to 70% changes in the THz reflectivity of CuCl, TlCl and LiNbO3 crystals. This is realised by using transverse optical (TO) phonons as a mediator in the interaction between an acoustic wave (AW) and a THz light field, via the strong anharmonicities of the interatomic potential. Their numerical modeling of CuCl, TlCl and LiNbO3 crystals also predicts that these effects are tunable by applying various coherent AWs from sub-GHz to few GHz frequency. The length of the interaction between electromagnetic and acoustic fields is also greatly reduced compared to conventional acousto-optics. The modifications of the reflectivity spectrum are because of single and multiple intra-branch phonon transitions within the TO-phonon polariton dispersion branches.


For children on the Hualapai Indian Reservation in Peach Springs, Ariz., life is a rich combination of traditional Hualapai culture and contemporary lifestyle. Even among the ages-old natural beauty of the rolling hills, breathtaking cliffs, high plateaus and deep gorges surrounding the Grand Canyon, MTV has found a willing audience. This melding of past with present extends to the school day where tudents may go from beading ceremonial belts and capes in art class to a science lesson where videodiscs are used to research the plants, animals and heavenly bodies revered in the traditions of our Indian culture. Project TNT For the past five years, Optical Data Corp.'s science videodiscs have been part of a three-pronged bilingual and bicultural curriculum program at the Hualapai Indian Peach Springs School. Dubbed Project Tradition and Technology (Project TNT), the process-oriented program integrates the language and culture of the Hualapai with new teaching technologies to increase academic achievement and language competency in both Hualapai and English. The program also is intended to develop students' self-confidence and pride in their heritage. Hualapai is the language that 91% of our K-8 grade students speak and hear at home. And 75% of our school's 200 students are identified as Limited English Proficient. each Springs teachers alternate between Hualapai and English to reinforce concepts, vocabulary and cultural awareness. Project TNT emphasizes a holistic language approach. Language learning occurs when individuals are actively engaged in tasks in which they discover and explores concepts familiar to their environment. Via technologies such as interactive video and computers, students expand their conceptual ability and maximize their visual and auditory learning styles. I first saw videodiscs in a presentation at a National School Boards Association conference over six years ago. Since then, they have had a tremendous impact on what we do here. In 1985, fewer than two-thirds of all Peach Springs students completed high school. Today, after using educational videodiscs as part of Project TNT, 100% of our graduates go on to obtain a high school diploma. Teachers Explain Use Classroom learning with the science videodiss is complemented by frequent field trips with community members and parents to local historical and cultural sites. For example, following a videodisc-based lesson on cavern formation, eighth-grade teacher Damon Clark took his students to visit the geologic formations of the nearby Grand Canyon caverns. Clark, a teacher in one of the school's 14 self-contained classrooms for grades K-8, has been using The Living Textbook and Windows on Science curricula for the past three years. He teaches science for 45, minutes four or five times a week with the videodisc-based programs. "The videodisc lesson made the [field] trip more meaningful to the students. They had better questions and were better prepared to learn from the trip with the prior knowledge they gained from the videodiscs," says Clark. Back in the classroom, students wrote reports that they then shared with their families. The family is a very important social unit in the Hualapai culture. We believe the parent is a child's first and most important teacher. Parents in our 1,500-person town are very active in their children's education, support ongoing school activities and serve on our school board's parent advisory committee. So when we began using the videodiscs, Pam Cochran, a sixth-grade teacher at Peach Springs, created a videodisc presentation to share with parents during an open house. Using a Living Textbook lesson on Saturn, Cochran demonstrated the power and possibilities of the new technology to parents. The lesson was then integrated into the student curriculum. Cochran appreciates the two types of software included with The Living Textbook secondary-level science series. …


The nerve pathways in the praesoma are described for the first time for a member of the genus Octospinifer. Eleven nerves, five paired, and one single, are traced from the cerebral ganglion to their associations with the musculature of the body wall, neck sense organs, and the musculature of the proboscis wall and the invertor muscles of the proboscis. The structure and location of the Stützzelle (support cell) and its association with the neck sense organs are described. A comparison with the nervous system in the praesoma of Noechinorhynchus and Paulisentis is discussed.


In the last few years, microblogging platforms such as Twitter have given rise to a deluge of textual data that can be used for the analysis of informal communication between millions of individuals. In this work, we propose an information-theoretic approach to geographic language variation using a corpus based on Twitter. We test our models with tens of concepts and their associated keywords detected in Spanish tweets geolocated in Spain. We employ dialectometric measures (cosine similarity and Jensen-Shannon divergence) to quantify the linguistic distance on the lexical level between cells created in a uniform grid over the map. This can be done for a single concept or in the general case taking into account an average of the considered variants. The latter permits an analysis of the dialects that naturally emerge from the data. Interestingly, our results reveal the existence of two dialect macrovarieties. The first group includes a region-specific speech spoken in small towns and rural areas whereas the second cluster encompasses cities that tend to use a more uniform variety. Since the results obtained with the two different metrics qualitatively agree, our work suggests that social media corpora can be efficiently used for dialectometric analyses.


OF THESIS Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts Organizational Learning & Instructional Technology The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico


Age-related cataract (ARC) is a common cause of blindness in elderly individuals. Long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) myocardial infarction associated transcript (MIAT) has been reported to participate in various biological processes in a number of diseases; however, the biological mechanism underlying MIAT during ARC is not completely understood. The expression levels of MIAT, microRNA (miR)-181a and connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) were measured by reverse transcription-quantitative PCR. The protein expression levels of CTGF, α-smooth muscle actin, fibronectin, collagen type I, ERK, phosphorylated (p)-ERK, mitogen-activated protein kinase (MEK), and p-MEK were detected by western blotting. Cell viability and migration were assessed using MTT and Transwell assays, respectively. Moreover, a dual-luciferase reporter assay was performed to investigate the interaction between miR-181a and MIAT or CTGF. MIAT and CTGF were upregulated, while miR-181a was significantly downregulated in ARC tissues compared with normal tissues. MIAT or CTGF knockdown decreased cell viability, migration, epithelial-mesenchymal transition and extracellular matrix production in TGF-β2-treated SRA01/04 cells. It was hypothesized that miR-181a may be sponged by MIAT and may target CTGF. Furthermore, the miR-181a inhibitor reversed the inhibitory effect of MIAT knockdown on the progression of TGF-β2-treated SRA01/04 cells. Moreover, CTGF knockdown also reversed MIAT overexpression-mediated progression of TGF-β2-treated SRA01/04 cells. In addition, MIAT and CTGF regulated the activity of the ERK signaling pathway. The results suggested that MIAT may regulate the progression of ARC via the miR-181a/CTGF/ERK signaling pathway, which may serve as a novel therapeutic target for ARC.


Due to the increased life expectancy since the turn of the century also the urological interventions in patients of older age increased in number and thus in significance. Also when a smaller proportion of the TUR-interventions (in most cases only diagnostic measures) can be carried out in local anaesthesia, for the majority of cases a general anaesthesia or a central conduction anaesthesia is necessary. The particular characteristics of the anaesthesia in endovesical interventions, the pathophysiological peculiarities of the senium, the senile involution of the kidney, and a water and electrolyte balance often disturbed by urological complaints are among others the most important criteria which determine the choice of the anaesthesia in a senile patient when TUR-interventions are to be carried out. Based on an experience of many years, it is reported on the results of anaesthesia in 4,130 geriatric patients, among then 2,818 TUR-interventions. On account of the character of the TUR-interventions, of the age of the patient and the factors of risk even nowadays the central conduction anaesthesia, especially the spinal anaesthesia, is more often the method of choice.


—In this paper, we introduce a variant of the density peaks clustering (DPC) approach for discovering demand hot spots from a low-frequency, low-quality taxi fleet operational dataset. From the literature, the DPC approach mainly uses density peaks as features to discover potential cluster centers, and this requires distances between all pairs of data points to be calculated. This implies that the DPC approach can only be applied to cases with relatively small numbers of data points. For the domain of urban taxi operations that we are interested in, we could have millions of demand points per day, and calculating all-pair distances between all demand points would be practically impossible, thus making DPC approach not applicable. To address this issue, we project all points to a density image and execute our variant of the DPC algorithm on the processed image. Experiment results show that our proposed DPC variant could get similar results as original DPC, yet with much shorter execution time and lower memory consumption. By running our DPC variant on a real-world dataset collected in Singapore, we show that there are indeed recurrent demand hot spots within the central business district that are not covered by the current taxi stand design. Our approach could be of use to both taxi fleet operator and traffic planners in guiding drivers and setting up taxi stands.


The game model is founded on the product differentiation, and in the system consisting of two upstream enterprises and two downstream enterprises, the market exclusion effect of the vertical integral enterprises towards the non-integral enterprises is studied. The research results indicate that after vertical integration the intermediate product price ascends and causes the market exclusion to the non-integral enterprises. The greater the product differentiation is, the greater the degree of the market exclusion is; after vertical integration the production of integral enterprises increase while the downstream independent enterprises decrease with descending profits.


The purpose of this study was to investigate the consumption and perception of high caloric-low nutrient dense foods in middle school students in the Daegu. Among 550 questionnaires distributed to students in Daegu, 528 (256 boys and 272 girls) were analyzed. A little higher than 80% of students ate snacks everyday, and 43.4%, 29.0%, and 8.1% ate snacks once, twice, and three times or more per day, respectively. Snacks and foods most frequently consumed were ice cream, fried noodles, drinks, cookies, and baked goods. Energy supply from snacks was 104.8∼356.9 Kcal/intake while that from meal substitution foods was 520.7 ∼980 Kcal/intake. Students` knowledge score of high caloric-low nutrient dense foods was 6.51±3.02 out of 10 points. Sixty percent of students did not read nutrition labels, but 67.9% of them thought that they need nutrition education by nutrition teachers. Students recognized the criteria of high caloric-low nutrient dense foods as well as proper food selection for essential educational items, It was concluded that effective education should be implemented in middle schools by nutrition teachers for students to develop good habits in selecting snacks and foods.


CD161 expression on CD4+ T cells is associated with a Th17 functional phenotype, as well as with an innate capacity to respond to interleukin (IL)-12 and IL-18 without T cell receptor (TCR) stimulation. Chronic HIV-1 infection is associated with loss of the CD161+ CD4 T cell population, and non-human primate studies suggest that their depletion is associated with disease progression. However, the dynamics of the CD161+ CD4+ T cell population during acute HIV-1 infection remains unknown. In this study, we characterize peripheral blood CD161+ CD4+ T cells in detail, and examine how they are affected during the earliest stages of HIV-1 infection. Unbiased surface proteome screening and principal component analysis indicated that CD161+ CD4+ T cells are relatively phenotypically homogeneous between donors, and are intermediates between conventional CD4 T cells and innate-like T cells. In acute untreated HIV-1 infection, the circulating CD161+ CD4+ T cell population decreased in frequency, as did absolute cell counts starting from peak viral load, with elevated levels of activation and exhaustion markers expressed throughout acute HIV-1 infection. The capacity of these cells to respond to stimulation with IL-12 and IL-18 was also reduced. Early initiation of anti-retroviral treatment (ART) during acute HIV-1 infection restored the functionality of peripheral blood CD161+ CD4+ T cells, but not their frequency. In contrast, early ART initiation prevented the decline of colonic CD161+ CD4+ T cells that otherwise started during acute infection. Furthermore, loss of peripheral and colonic CD161+ CD4+ T cells in untreated infection was associated with levels of viral load. These results suggest that acute HIV-1 infection has profound effects on the CD161+ CD4+ T cell population that could not be completely prevented by the initiation of ART.


The design of novel therapeutic agents to treat specific diseases has always been the aim of the medicinal chemist. Today, using the three dimensional structure of the target-ligand complex as the main tool, it is possible to design novel therapeutic compounds with a specific mode of action. Knowledge of the molecular basis of the disease, the structure of the
biological target (enzyme or receptor) and the mechanism of drug action are
essential to succeed in this challenging task.

In addition, the recent explosion of combinatorial chemistry techniques, along with the development of high throughput and automated techniques that permit screening of thousands of compounds per month against a given target, offer an unparallel opportunity for medicinal chemists to increase significantly the prospect of finding new bioactive molecules, in a relatively short period of time.


This research consists of an evaluation of the effectiveness of different substances administered as adjuvants in the stimulation of humoral immune response induced by the vaccine composed of strains A1, A2 and C of Dichelobacter nodosus. To do this, a total of 120 Merino sheep were vaccinated and revaccinated. These sheep were selected from a farm located in the region of Extremadura (Spain), and they were divided into 12 groups of 10 animals each. An additional group with 10 sheep was used as control. The immune response (titre of antibodies) was determined by agglutination tests and ELISA. The most pronounced immune response was obtained by the use of Freund's incomplete adjuvant and aluminium hydroxide as adjuvants.


The present investigation details our interesting findings and insights into the evolution of exotic hierarchical superstructures of In(OH)3 under solvothermal conditions. Controlled variation of reaction parameters such as, reactant concentration, solvent system, crystal structure modifiers, water content along with temperature and time, yielded remarkable architectures. Diverse morphologies achieved for the first time includes (i) raspberry-like hollow spheres, (ii) nanosheet-assembled spheres, (iii) nanoparticle-assembled spheres, (iv) nanocube-assembled hollow spheres, (v) yolk-like spheres, (vi) solid spheres, (vii) nanosheets/flakes, and (viii) ultrafine nanosheets. A plausible mechanism is proposed based on the evidence gathered from a comprehensive analysis aided by electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction studies. Key stages of morphological evolution could be discerned and rationally correlated with nucleation, growth, oriented attachment, and Ostwald ripening mediated by dissolution-redeposition mechanism coupled with solid evacuation. Remarkably phase-pure bcc-In2O3 with retention of precursor morphology could be realized postcalcination at 400 °C, which underlines the advantage of this strategy. Two typical hierarchical structures (raspberry-like hollow spheres and nanoparticles assembled spheres) were investigated for their gas sensing and photocatalytic performances to highlight the advantages offered by nanostructuring. An impressive sensor response, Smax ≈ 7340 and 4055, respectively for the two structures along with appreciably fast response/recovery times over a wide concentration range and as low as 1 ppm exhibits the superior sensitivity toward carbon monoxide (CO). When compared to commercial In2O3, estimated rate constant indicates ∼3-4 times enhancement in photocatalytic activity of the substrates toward Rhodamine-B.


Summary

In the 25 years following the initial 1967 report of the disease, butternut canker was able to quickly spread throughout the entire range of butternut (Juglans cinerea) in North America, from Minnesota in the upper Midwest to Tennessee in the south and Quebec in the north-east. The speed of this dispersal is notable as butternut trees do not make up a significant proportion of any single forest type. Instead, they are usually found sparingly in most mixed hardwood forests. In this review, we synthesize the current knowledge of the invasion process of the butternut canker pathogen, Ophiognomonia clavigignenti-juglandacearum, an invasive fungal pathogen, that as its emergence has spread across North America and is now found wherever butternut naturally occurs. Taxonomic studies have determined that the fungus belongs in the genus Ophiognomonia, which includes a number of saprophytes, endophytes and pathogens of members of the Fagales, rather than the genus Sirococcus, which includes several important pine pathogens. The ability of fungus to be dispersed by rain splash, transported on and in beetle vectors, transmitted by infected seed and successfully colonized several species of Juglans and Carya have all likely contributed to the rapid increase in abundance and severity of disease and tree mortality in the invaded forest ecosystems. Recent genomic and population genetic analyses have determined that there were at least three emergence events. A less virulent strain of the fungus likely has been present in the north eastern United States for over a century, but it was the emergence of a more virulent strain of the fungus in Minnesota and Wisconsin in the 1960s that resulted in range-wide mortality and pushed butternut to be listed as an endangered species in Canada and a number of states in the United States.