The attitude to corruption and the perception of it (as well as the acceptance or rejection of corruption) depends largely on the customs and traditions in a particular country, with the causes of corruption deriving from the political, economic, social conditions of a particular country and from the historical development, customs and culture. However, the demographic indicators must not be ignored. The existing researches thus show that the perception of corruption, at least to some extent, depends on gender (women are supposedly less corrupt and perceive corruption more; age and education). For the purpose of this article, the influence of demographic indicators (gender, age) on the perception of corruption in Slovenia was researched. The results were compared with the already known researches and it was determined that there are no statistically significant differences in the perception of corruption with regard to gender and age, which shows that Slovenia, in view of the specifics of the corruption perception (although the corruption perception is high in Slovenia), differs from other countries in which researches took place.


Blood pressure was measured by the ear capsule method in 12 conscious rabbits. After a two-week control period, at operation under anaesthesia rapid-setting dental cement casts were placed bilaterally around the carotid sinuses in eight animals and around the internal carotid arteries immediately above the sinuses in a control group of four animals. The animals were allowed to recover and ear capsule pressure measurements were made for a further 50 days. Then again at operation the integrity of the sinus reflexes was tested in each animal. Reflexes were present in all the control animals and in five of the experimental group but were absent in three of the experimental animals. The control animals and the experimental animals without sinus reflexes showed little or no pressure rise, but the experimental animals with intact reflexes showed a substantial and sustained pressure rise averaging 37·6% ± 2·3 (SEM). This shows that a primary interference with baroreceptor function can lead to a sustained rise in arterial pressure.


Article 74 United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG), which lays down a general framework for the recovery of damages under the CISG, has been associated with certain challenges due to the fact that it does not derive its basis from any of the existing legal systems of the world. In particular, certain elements fundamental to the recovery of damages are not expressly addressed by the said provision. These include the use of a counter claim to cancel out claims for the recovery of damages and place of performance for the payment of damages. This paper will investigate the admissibility of the above mentioned aspects under the CISG. In doing so, it will consider the opinions of scholarly writers, courts and arbitral tribunals and will evaluate the impact of their arguments on the entire Convention. In addition, it will recommend important guidelines for consideration in deriving solutions for matters not settled by Article 74 CISG.


To better understand the morphological variation of the Perilla crop and their weedy types in East and Southeast Asia, we studied the morphological variation of 90 accessions by examining 10 morphological characteristics, such as flowering time, seed size, seed hardness, seed color, color of surface leaf, color of reverse side leaf etc. As a result, morphological variation determined that between cultivated var. frutescens and var. crispa, and between cultivated var. frutescens and its weedy type showed significant morphological differences in terms of seed size and seed hardness, whenever cultivated var. crispa and its weedy type could not showed significant differences in most morphological characters. In PCAs (principal component analysis), among 10 morphological characteristics, flower color (QL6), color of surface leaf (QL3), seed size (QN2), seed hardness (QL1), seed color (QL2), stem color (QL7), and color of reverse side leaf (QL4) contributed in negative direction on the first axis, while flowering time (QN1), leaf shape (QL5), and degree of pubescence (QL8) contributed in positive direction on the first axis. Among these morphological characters, particularly flower color (QL6), color of surface leaf (QL3), seed size (QN2), seed hardness (QL1), and degree of pubescence (QL8) were useful characters for discrimination between cultivated var. frutescens and weedy var. crispa, and between cultivated var. frutescens and its weedy type. However, most accession of cultivated and weedy types of var. crispa was not clearly discriminated by PCA analyses. Although the wild ancestral species of var. frutescens and of var. crispa are still unknown in East and Southeast Asia, the weedy types of Perilla crop may be the key taxon for our understanding of the origin of cultivated types of var. frutescens and var. crispa.


Electronic health records (EHRs) are an essential aid to effective healthcare delivery, with significant benefits from their use. Nevertheless, the percentage of adoption of EHRs remains low and in the paediatric domain, it is even lower, partially cause to the fact that sufficient training is not provided to paediatric healthcare professionals. Usage can be increased through enhanced training that provides accurate information when and where it is needed and enables users' substantial participation to instil their knowledge and expertise in EHR usage. Moreover, EHR training can be accelerated if the content of training materials is based on competency models that meet the needs of paediatricians, paediatric nurses and practitioners. Recently, considerable effort has been made to develop Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as a means of online training with no restrictions by location and time. Better training is expected to increase the use of EHR data, leading to optimal medical, and containing medical costs. On these grounds, this paper outlines the design of a MOOC service based on the competencies that paediatric healthcare professionals need to acquire to optimally operate through the EHR system at any time, either at the point of care or no.


Dynamics-driven allostery provides important insights into the working mechanics of proteins, especially enzymes. In this study we employ this paradigm to answer a basic question: in enzyme superfamilies where the catalytic mechanism, active sites and protein fold are conserved, what accounts for the difference in the catalytic prowess of the individual members? We show that when subtle changes in sequence do not translate to changes in structure, they do translate to changes in dynamics. We use sequentially diverse PTP1B, TbPTP1, and YopH as the representatives of the conserved Protein Tyrosine Phosphatase (PTP) superfamily. Using amino acid network analysis of group behavior (community analysis) and influential node dominance on networks (eigenvector centrality), we explain the dynamic basis of catalytic variations seen between the three proteins. Importantly, we explain how a dynamics-based blueprint makes PTP1B amenable to allosteric control and how the same is abstracted in TbPTP1 and YopH.


In this article, we propose a class of high-order stochastic partial differential equations (SPDEs) for spatial dimensions d < 5 which might be called high-order stochastic Anderson models. This class of the equations is perturbed by a space-time white noise when d < 3 and by a space-correlated Gaussian noise when d = 4, 5. The objectives of this article are to get some estimates on the Lyapunov exponent of the solutions and to study the convergence rates of the chaos expansions of the solutions for the models.


The overall aim of this multi-informant study was to examine pre–post treatment changes, and maintenance at 3-year follow-up, for multiple dimensions of the family context, for a modular intervention that has previously demonstrated significant clinical improvements in child behavior and maintenance of these effects. Family outcomes included parenting practices (i.e., positive parenting, harsh/inconsistent parenting, psychological/physical aggression), parent functioning (i.e., symptoms of psychopathology, self-efficacy), and family functioning (i.e., family adaptability/cohesion, social support, negative life events). The sample comprised 139 families with children ages 6 to11 who participated in a modular treatment protocol for early-onset oppositional-defiant disorder or conduct disorder that has already been associated with improved child behavior outcomes, delivered in a nonrandomized comparison of research clinic and community settings. Improvement from pre- to post-treatment included indicators of maternal psychological distress and negative parenting practices (e.g., corporal punishment, inconsistent discipline, psychological aggression). Psychological aggression significantly increased following treatment termination; corporal punishment continued to decrease during the 3-year follow-up period. Results are discussed in the context of treatment effects in the broader family context and potential needs for continued intervention research and development.


Neural tube defects are the second most frequent cause of congenital malformation during prenatal development. They constitute 10% of them. The origin is usually multifactorial, and it results in an incomplete or defective closure of the anterior or posterior neuropore, causing different levels of defects in the central nervous system. Despite all the research done, our knowledge of genetics in this topic is very limited so we don't know how many genes can confer risk of anomaly in the development of the neural tube. Diagnosis is mainly based on the ultrasound study of the central nervous system generally during the second trimester. Nevertheless, assessment in the first trimester allows us a fairly reliable diagnostic approach by means of the echographic markers described a few years ago. Once the diagnosis is confirmed, and if abortion is allowed in the country, the management depends on the parents' willingness to continue or not with the gestation. In case of continuing with it, there are options for intrauterine or post-natal surgical treatment. The prognosis of this malformation is usually variable and depends on location, size and its association or not with hydrocephalus.


The organization model of virtual organization (VO) and the relationships with organization model of the participant organizations are analyzed. Then based on the interaction message chart (IMC), the workflow of VO integrating the workflows of participant organizations is presented, and its validity is researched. Finally, the workflow architecture of VO is proposed and the experiments and applications are introduced. The workflow of VO is easily implemented on the existing workflows of participant organizations using the method and architecture, and has the advantages of agility and scalability. The workflow of VO can strongly support the applications with the characteristics of VO such as cooperative design, e-commerce and grid computing and improve their efficiency.


This paper attempts to present the most important methodologies for the
development of information systems, as documented in the international
literature.
Firstly, some basic concepts are analyzed, which are the basis for
understanding all the methodologies of developing an information system. The
study then deals with traditional models of information systems development,
giving detailed descriptions of the most important bibliographic ones. Then, the
study analyzes and describes the most important of the agile methodologies
resulting in the Scrum, followed by the decision to select the most appropriate
methodology which is provided through a structured benchmarking framework.
The paper then includes a case study, which takes place under real production
conditions, in a public-sector organization, specifically the army and the
responsible IT development department. The application of Scrum
methodology is for the first time in this department and a detailed description of
its findings for the duration of this diploma is carried out.
Finally, drawing conclusions from the evaluation of the findings of the case
study attempts to document the necessity of adopting the methodology and the
agile methodologies in general.


Quality of education has remained at the heart of educational administration over the years. The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which teacher motivation levels influence quality of education in public secondary schools in Kenya. The study was guided by the general systems theory. The study used a correlational research design focusing on a target population of 7,325 secondary school principals and 65000 public secondary school teachers employed by the Teachers Service Commission. Based on social economic potential of a region, the study purposefully sampled Kitui, Kisii and Nairobi counties to represent low, medium and high social-economic potential counties in Kenya respectively. Stratified sampling was used to classify schools in these counties into National, Extra County, County and sub County categories. The three counties have a school population of 783 (11 national, 34 extra county, 120 county, and 618 sub county schools) and 8617 teachers giving a sample population of 260 schools and 368 teachers. By stratified proportionate sampling, the study sample consisted of 4 national schools, 11 extra county schools, 40 county schools and 205 sub county schools. The schools were randomly selected in each category to ensure representativeness of all school types. The instruments used to collect data included the teachers questionnaire, principals' questionnaire and observation guide. Reliability coefficient for the questionnaires was 0.7 for teacher questionnaire and 0.72 for principals questionnaire. Data was analyzed using frequencies, percentages, means, T- test, Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficients and regression analysis. The findings revealed that there was a positive correlation between teacher motivation and quality of education. From the regression analysis, teacher motivation levels predict KCSE mean score at 6.5.There is need for a structured teacher incentive policy for teachers. The award of incentive should focus on teacher performance and student achievement. Keywords : quality of education, teacher motivation, student achievement


In agricultural production systems soil organic matter (SOM) is of paramount importance when assessing soil quality. Therefore, the objective of this study was to quantify the total organic carbon (TOC) and the humic fractions of the soil organic matter in silvopastoral system (SS) and to compare them with the conventional pasture system (CP) and a native vegetation area of Cerrado (NV). In the SS, soil samples were collected at distances 2.5, 5.0, 7.5 and 10 m from the eucalyptus row. Soil samples in each system were collected in the 0-10, 10-20 and 20-30 cm layers. The following parameters were determined: TOC, organic carbon associated with minerals (OCam), particulate organic carbon (OCp) and carbon of the humic soil substances. Carbon management index (CMI) and the sum of humic substances (SHs) were also calculated. SS was able to promote larger increases in the TOC, OCam and carbon stocks in the humic fractions when compared to CP and was also able to increase OCp and CMI values in depth. Soil sampling distances in the silvopastoral system had no significant influence on the changes in total carbon stocks and short-term SOM fractions. Furthermore, the land use with two years of SS implementation is not yet able to provide for most of the evaluated attributes with values equal to or higher than the soil with NV.


Production of low-input, shaded coffee in the Los Tuxtlas UNESCO Biosphere Reserve (LTBR), Veracruz, Mexico, an economically marginalized but ecologically rich region, was strongly affected by the collapse in international prices and the reconfiguration of the Mexican coffee sector in the 1990s. This place-based study used qualitative methods to investigate local strategies to reactivate coffee cultivation and improve market integration. Ninety-five producers, processors and cooperative representatives were interviewed to: 1) characterize the different actors in the local coffee commodity chain; 2) explore how producers, organized or not, shape and are constrained by the local coffee sector, and 3) evaluate whether producers' land use strategies may be compatible with conservation in the LTBR. We combine the Land Sparing and Sharing framework with the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve zonation system to conceptualize how coffee plantations can be spatially integrated in protected areas and facilitate synergies between local livelihoods and conservation. Our empirical study illustrates the complexity and dynamism of the LTBR coffee sector. It highlights the resourcefulness of producers in adapting their cultivation systems, but also the narrow maneuvering room farmers have to exploit textbook synergies between conservation and fair trade and / or "certified organic" markets. In principle, coffee cultivation can be expanded and intensified without affecting remaining primary forest (Land Sparing) and contribute to maintain a diverse landscape matrix in productive agroforestry systems (Land Sharing). However, few producers have the means required to successfully achieve profitable and long-term market integration. Future research on sustainable land use management in, and around, protected areas needs to explicitly address local, sectoral and market dynamics as drivers of land use at the local level. Although these dynamics may create windows of opportunity for the biggest and best-connected producers, they exacerbate asymmetries inside peasant farming communities and weaken producers' cooperatives.


The effect of addition of Rhizoma gastrodiae on mycelia and exopolysaccharide production by submerged culture of Grifola frondosa was investigated. About 7% (v/v) of R. gastrodiae extract was added to the basal medium used for its biomass and exopolysaccharide productions. The biomass and exopolysaccharide productions reached a maximum of 2.0630±0.0520 g/L and 89.3846±3.2422 mg/L, respectively after day 10 and 8 of cultivation. G. frondosa was sensitive to R. gastrodiae, and there was a reduction in the cycle of exopolysaccharide synthesis. The pH variation in culture provided an indirect inference to this stimulating effect of R. gastrodiae extract addition. Moreover, a curve fitting and parameter analysis was carried out to assay the increasing effect on biomass and exopolysaccharide productions. Meanwhile, the kinetics parameters predicted through the fitting equations in culture, X0 = 0.1523 g/L, Xm = 2.0630 g/L, µm = 0.4994 d -1 , α = 0.0858 and β = -0.0069, further clarified the stimulatory effects of R. gastrodiae extract addition in G. frondosa culture.


This article investigates whether and how regional international organizations created by authoritarian countries can aid the regime survival of their member states. Numerous regions of the world have witnessed a proliferation of regional organizations established by powerful authoritarian states. We argue that the external influence of these organizations can affect regime survival and reinforce non-democratic regime trajectories, but in a nuanced manner. The article argues that, in addition to examining the impact of the regional organization itself, one must examine how the existence of these regional organizations changes the strategy of autocratic leading states, which-in bilateral relations with other countries-could become more eager to support authoritarian regimes of geopolitical importance. We use the case of the Eurasian Economic Union to explore various strategies of Russia, the leading state, vis-a-vis post-Soviet Eurasian countries. These strategies, however, appear only to matter for authoritarian consolidation when countries, from the Russian point of view, are on the 'front line' of geopolitical competition with the EU, and which are, therefore, important in stabilizing Russian influence. The article identifies five strategic foreign policy models of leading states which are determined by the existence of regional organizations and evaluates the benefits of these strategies for both leading and targeted states.


Nowadays, a good deal of research is focusing on the development of new analytical procedures for detection of hazardous agents, such as bacteria, harmful pollutants, toxic vapors, and many others. The majority of the research is aimed at developing new sensors and analytical equipment. This paper demonstrates a simple construction of an ammonia sensor based on commercially available electronic connectors with active elements from polyaniline. The main goal of this research is to present the simplicity of sensor manufacturing, without the need for advanced apparatus such as electropolymerization or electrospinning set-up. The active element of the proposed sensor is composed of polyaniline synthesized in situ on the surface of conductive glue. The layer of the conductive glue is a key element in this sensor as it protects the metallic pin against destruction during in situ synthesis of polyaniline (acidic and oxidizing conditions).


mRNA DESTABILIZING FACTOR TTP EXPRESSION AT THE PORCINE MATERNAL-FETAL INTERFACE Kasra Khalaj Advisors: University of Guelph, 2013 Chandrakant Tayade Neil J. MacLusky The tristetraprolin family consists of mRNA destabilizing genes that bind to target mRNA and degrade them. In this context, TIS11 gene family is of primary interest in the spontaneous fetal loss seen in pigs. I hypothesized that the tristetraprolin family regulates these genes in this model. Higher levels of the TIS11 family transcripts in endometrium and trophoblast samples from healthy conceptuses at gd20 were found than in tissues from arresting conceptus attachment sites and significantly higher levels of TIS11 family transcripts were expressed in trophoblast samples associated with arresting conceptuses at gd50 compared to healthy endometrium and trophoblast. TIS11 proteins were expressed and localized at both maternal and fetal sides of maternal-fetal interface. These results provide a basis for understanding some aspects of gene regulation by mRNA destabilizing factors such as tristetraprolin at the maternal-fetal interface and how these factors may play a role in porcine pregnancy and fetal loss.


We have developed models of how problem spaces are navigated as male and female secondary school, university, and medical students engage in repetitive complex problem solving. The strategies that students used when solving problem-solving simulations were first classified with self-organizing artificial neural networks resulting in problem solving strategy maps. Next, learning trajectories were developed from sequences of performances by Hidden Markov Modeling that stochastically described students' progress in understanding different domains. Across middle school to medical school there were few gender differences in the proportion of cases solved; however, six of the seven problem sets showed significant gender differences in both the strategies used (ANN classifications) as well as the in the HMM models of progress. These results were extended through a detailed analysis of one problem set. For this high school / university problem set, gender differences were seen in how the problems were encoded consolidated and retrieved. These studies suggest that strategic problem solving differences are common across gender, and would be masked by simply looking at the outcome of the problem solving event.


In order to develop novel efficient gene carriers, we have been focusing on the transcription of transgene in the nucleus among various steps in the gene transfer system. Optimal carrier properties for improving the transgene recognition by transcription factors have not been clarified so far. In the present study, we established a novel evaluation system for the intranuclear transcription efficiency of the transgene using microinjection technique. Polyplexes composed of polypeptides with different molecular weights were microinjected into the cytoplasm or nucleus of COS-1 cells, and the relationship between the carrier properties, such as molecular weight, and the intranuclear transcription efficiency was evaluated. The molecular weight (Mw) dependency of the transgene transcription in the living cells was successfully quantified, and the low Mw polymers were found not to suppress the transcription but high Mw polymers allowed almost no transcription. Interestingly, the transcription efficiencies of poly(arginine) (PR) and poly(lysine) (PK) were almost same although the PR is widely reported to be more efficient gene carrier than PK. The difference in the various properties and intracellular trafficking of PR/DNA and PK/DNA polyplexes will be discussed.


PurposeThe confusion over what counts as "strategic" is widely acknowledged to be a problem for both research and practice. The paper aims to develop a robust definition of "strategic decisions" and a classifying tool that distinguishes them from grand tactical, tactical, and other organizational decisions.Design/methodology/approachAn extensive literature review focused on the leading journals is carried out. Articles having "strategic decision" in the abstract are retrieved from EBSCO Host and ProQuest One Academic databases. Definitions of "strategic decisions" are critically assessed and classified to form the trigger and basis of the development of new definition.FindingsThe literature review identifies five approaches by which strategic decisions are defined, and their limitations are exposed. The proposed definitions of "strategic," grand tactical, and tactical decisions, and the novel classification tree, used to distinguish those decisions, are shown to be more accurate and robust than those previously offered in the literature.Originality/valueNew definitions of "strategic," grand tactical, and tactical decisions are offered; and a new classifying tool is developed.


We revisit the thermodynamic aspects of the scalar-tensor theory of gravity in Jordan and Einstein frame. Examining the {\it missing links} of this theory carefully, we establish the thermodynamic descriptions from the conserved currents and potentials by following both the Noether and the ADT formalism. With the help of conserved Noether current and potential, we define the thermodynamic quantities, which we show to be {\it conformally invariant}. Moreover, the defined quantities are shown to fit nicely in the laws of (the first and the second) black hole thermodynamics formulated by the Wald's method. We stretch the study of the conformal equivalence of the physical quantities in these two frames by following the ADT formalism. Our further study reveals that there is a connection between the ADT and the Noether conserved quantities, which signifies that the ADT approach provide the equivalent thermodynamic description in the two frames as obtained in Noether prescription. Our whole analysis is very general as the conserved Noether and ADT currents and potentials are formulated {\it off-shell} and the analysis is exempted from any prior assumption or boundary condition.


Due to the high dimensionality of microarray data, feature selection is an indispensable task in classification to identify a smaller subset of relevant genes. However, feature selection techniques that consider solely on gene expression values might not be able to identify biologically meaningful genes. Thus, this paper presents an integrative feature selection method that is able to incorporate gene expression data with additional biological data for finding informative genes. The proposed approach is a two-stage method that combined the strength of both filter method and association analysis. The experimental results show that the selected gene subsets are able to improve classification accuracy.


The Hybrid Solar Thermal Power Plant Project for Mexico involve s the construction of a solar thermal/natural gas-fired hybrid power plant in Baja California Norte with a total net installed capacity of about 300 MW, including about 30 MW for the solar component. This environmental assessment document evaluated impacts as follows : noise and air quality; loss of flora and disturbance of fauna; ground and surface water quality; soil and vegetation degradation; dumping of construction wastes and accidental spillage of used oil, lubricants and hazardous materials, lost of top soil; solid waste and waste water disposal. As a result of this assessment the EA describes mitigation measures for each of the evaluated impacts.


Plants have a high concentration of biologically active molecules. Aloe plants tend to store water and important chemical constituents in their swollen and succulent leaves due to their ability to survive in hot and dry conditions, which makes them a unique source of phytochemicals. The Aloe leaf contains more than 200 nutritional substances, including vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and active enzymes. These constituents are analyzed as phytochemical screening (qualitative analysis) or proximate and mineral content analyses (quantitative analysis). Aloe is used as a food product and beverage ingredient. Functional and nutraceutical foods, edible coatings/films, Aloe species as cooked vegetables, and raw eating of Aloe species are how the Aloe plant is considered in food applications. The researchers reported edible Aloes for several species. However, it is not mean that all species of Aloe are edible. It is not only the leaves of Aloe that have nutritional values also other parts of the plant do. The study evaluated the nutritional value of Aloe flowers and their possible use as edible flowers. Aloe species are increasingly being incorporated into different health drinks, foods, and beverages due to the beneficial biological activities of the phytochemicals.


Macroinvertebrate community composition and differing patterns of land use/ land cover (LULC) were assessed in three watersheds of northern New Jersey. A total of six 40-m reaches were sampled in the agriculturally dominated Wallkill, the urbanized Rockaway and the forested Flat Brook. Qualitative observations and scorings of ten habitat factors commonly associated with stream health and water quality were made at each site. These Habitat Assessments resulted in the two Flat Brook sites being rated as "optimal" and the remaining four sites being rated as "suboptimal". The 2007 NJDEP Land Use/Land Cover (LULC) dataset was used to determine percent urban, forested, agricultural, barren land, water and watershed cover types. LULC was analyzed for each site at two spatial scales: 1) within a 100m riparian zone upstream from the sample point and 2) the entire drainage area of the watershed upstream of the sampling point. LULC in the riparian area was not found to be highly correlated with watershed area LULC. Eleven types of single value and multimetric indices and percentages of the six types of functional feeding groups were computed from 3,908 individual benthic macroinvertebrate samples. Similarities in results from the single metric and multi-metric indices suggest that they were equally useful for most sites in determining habitat conditions based on the biota. The metrics supported the notion that as forest cover increases, the quality and biodiversity of macroinvertebrate communities improves. The strongest correlations were between macroinvertebrate multimetric indices and forest cover at both the riparian and the watershed scales. R-values at the watershed scale were highest when forest cover was correlated to the High Gradient Macroinvertebrate Index (HGMI), the Hilsenhoff Biotic Index (HBI) and the Shannon Weiner Index of Biodiversity. Poisson regression model results indicated that urban and water LULC significantly impacted the number of EPT species. Urban negatively affected the number of EPT species and water positively affected the number of EPT species. A better understanding of how to analyze biological communities at different landscape scales can improve management approaches for the physical habitat of streams and improve basin-wide water quality conditions and stream biological integrity. Key terms: biomonitoring, land use, land cover, New Jersey, stream, watershed, scale, macroinvertebrates, urbanization AN EXAMINATION OF THE EFFECTS OF LAND USE AND LAND COVER ON MACROINVERTEBRATE COMMUNITIES AT TWO LANDSCAPE SCALES


Indigenous peoples globally are pursuing diverse strategies to foster mental, emotional, and spiritual wellness by reclaiming and restoring their relationships to land. For Anishinaabe communities, the land is the source of local knowledge systems that sustain identities and foster mino-bimaadiziwin, that is, living in a good and healthy way. In July 2019, the community of Biigtigong Nishnaabeg in Ontario, Canada hosted a week-long land camp to reclaim Mountain Lake and reconnect Elders, youth and band staff to the land, history, and relationships of this place. Framed theoretically by environmental repossession, we explore the perceptions of 15 participating community members and examine local and intergenerational meanings of the camp for mental wellness. The findings show that the Mountain Lake camp strengthened social relationships, supported the sharing and practice of Anishinaabe knowledge, and fostered community pride in ways that reinforced the community's Anishinaabe identity. By exploring the links between land reclamation, identity, and community empowerment, we suggest environmental repossession as a useful concept for understanding how land reconnection and self-determination can support Indigenous mental wellness.


This paper presented an architecture of IEEE 802.15.4 standard-based MAC controller containing improved CSMA/CA mechanism, hardware security mechanism, efficient frame processing, ACK mechanism etc. The design of MAC controller individual module and detailed structure is completed optimal. Module level of this MAC controller is simulated after the RTL level design, and is verified via FPGA. The hardware implementation of all the MAC functions mentioned above provides strong support for the MAC protocols. The experimental results show that the average clock speed can be up to 64MHz.


This paper reviews the multiple forms of European continental regionalism, which takes the overall shape of a complex set of concentric circles, with a substructure of a core group within the EU based on the euro and Schengen areas, and several rings of neighbors outside, including the European Economic Area, the regions of the EU's neighborhood policy and finally some pan-European organizations. While all world regions have their own unique features, the European case offers some important lessons that should be of interest to other world regions. The first is what appears to be a relatively robust model for single market integration. The second consists of the lessons currently being learned on the hazards on monetary integration without adequate fiscal and political integration. The third lesson is another warning, over the difficulties of anticipating the political dynamics of integration processes once set into motion, often described in Europe as a 'journey to an unknown destination'. The fourth consists of the EU's current efforts to develop a comprehensive neighborhood policy, which is encountering difficult issues of matching ambitious objectives with incentives of adequate weight. Nevertheless, the policy sees a landscape of positive and constructive relations between the EU and its neighbours, in marked contrast to some ugly conflictual or coercive features seen in the cases of other continental hegemons – the three BRIC states of China, India and Russia, but not the fourth one, Brazil.


Aerial line transect surveys of the density of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) conducted off West Greenland eight times between 1984 and 2007 were used to estimate the rate of increase on the summer feeding ground. Only surveys in 1993, 2005 and 2007 had enough sightings to construct independent density estimates, whereas the surveys in 1984–85 and 1987–89 had to be merged and treated as two surveys. The annual rate of increase was 9.4% yr–1 (SE = 0.01) between 1984 and 2007. This rate of increase is higher than the increase estimated at the breeding grounds in the West Indies, but is of the same magnitude as the observed rate of increase at other feeding grounds in the North Atlantic. A matrix model based on observed life history parameters revealed that the theoretical growth rate of a humpback whale population ranged between 1 and 11%. This confirms that the observed growth in West Greenland is within the plausible values. The survey in 2007 was used to make a fully corrected abundance estimate including corrections for whales that were submerged during the passage of the survey plane. The line transect estimate for 2007 was 1,020 (CV = 0.35). When the estimate was corrected for perception bias with mark-recapture distance sampling (MRDS) methods, the abundance increased to 1,505 (0.49). A correction for availability bias was developed based on time-depth-recorder information on the time spent at the surface (0–4m). However, used directly this correction leads to a positively-biased abundance estimate and instead a correction was developed for the non-instantaneous visual sighting process in an aircraft. The resulting estimate for 2007 was 3,272 (CV = 0.50) for the MRDS analysis. An alternative strip census estimate deploying a strip width of 300m resulted in 995 (0.33) whales. Correction for perception bias resulted in 991 (0.35) whales and corrected for the same availability bias as for the MRDS method resulted in a fully corrected estimate of 2,154 (0.36) humpback whales in West Greenland in 2007.


In 1882, Ilya Mechnikov discovered the phenomenon of phagocytosis when he studied larvae of starfishes that were present on small thorns from a tangerine tree that had been prepared for Christmas. The next morning he found the thorns surrounded by the mobile cells. Knowing that when inflammation occurs in animals that have a blood vascular system leukocytes escape from their blood vessels, it occurred to him that these cells might take up and digest bacteria that infest the body [1] . Since their discovery, the knowledge concerning macrophage subsets, functions and roles in health and disease has become comprehensive and sometimes difficult to grasp, in particular for the non-expert. The field became even more complex with the entrance of dendritic cells (DCs). It took Ralph Steinman and Zanvil Cohn [2] , who first described DCs in 1973, many years to convince the immunology community that these cells were truly distinct from macrophages. Distinguishing DCs from macrophages is still a matter of debate, and the heterogeneity of the mononuclear phagocyte system was recently reviewed [3] . In this issue, Charles D. Mills and Klaus Ley [4] present an excellent review on the biology of M1 and M2 macrophages, providing perspectives that help to better understand this complex field. Their reasoning centers around 'inhibit'-type macrophages (M1) can rapidly kill pathogens and are thus primary in host defense while 'heal'-type macrophages (M2) repair and maintain tissue integrity. Even early forms of life have features of macrophages, for example amoebas that can phagocytose foreign objects but also have the ability to repair [5] . Macrophages are the most numerous leukocytes throughout the animal kingdom and originate from several places including the fetal yolk sac, local renewal, and are also recruited from bone marrow-derived monocytes [6–9] . In the different compartments of the spleen, macrophage populations can be Published online: September 10, 2014 Journal of Innate Immunity


The Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm is a swarm intelligence based algorithm, which simulate the foraging behavior of honey bee colonies. It has been widely applied to solve the real-world problem. However, ABC has good exploration but poor exploitation abilities, and its convergence speed is also an issue in some cases. In order to overcome these issues, this paper presents a new metaheuristic algorithm called Quantum Artificial Bee Colony (QABC) algorithm for global optimization problems inspired by quantum physics concepts. Simulations are conducted on a suite of unimodal/multimodal continuous benchmark functions. The results demonstrate the good performance of the QABC algorithm in solving complex numerical optimization problems when compared with other popular algorithms.


In this paper, a theoretical study to the effect of journal misalignment on the static characteristics of oil filled porous journal bearing when lubricated with couple stress fluid has been carried out. The analytical model used through this work is for a bearing with isotropic permeability. Considering isotropic permeability the Reynolds' equation for the oil film is modified to include a so – called filter term and the effect of fluid coupled stress. The pressure equation for the porous medium is obtained from Darcy's law and continuity equation. The equation which was used to evaluate the oil film thickness was modified to include the effect of possible misalignment in longitudinal and transverse directions. The governing equations with appropriate boundary conditions are numerically solved using a suitable numerical technique. A computer program has been prepared to solve the governing equations. The validity of the program has been tested by comparing the results obtained through this work with that published in available works. The comparison shows a good agreement between the results obtained through this work and that published by other workers. By comparing the behavior of aligned and misaligned bearing it was found that the journal center misalignment has a considerable effect on the performance parameters of the bearing which can not be neglected.


Oral immunotherapy (OIT) is a promising therapeutic approach for treating food allergy. Past studies have shown that OIT reduces allergic response only in severe allergy model mice. We worked to establish mild allergy model mice, and investigated whether 'rush' OIT for 10 d improved the allergic response and biomarkers in these mice. Balb/c mice were sensitized to ovomucoid (OM) in alum. The rush OIT was done for 10 d. Oral OM challenge was used to determine the impact of OIT on the allergic response. We measured allergic biomarkers, such as vascular permeability in the skin, plasma levels of total IgE, OM-specific IgE, IgG1 and IgG2a and cytokines in splenocyte culture supernatant. OIT for 10 d did not improve allergy symptoms and increased vascular permeability. Total IgE in the plasma of OIT-treated mice was significantly higher than in that of non-treated mice. OM-specific IgG1 and IgG2a plasma levels were not significantly different between OIT-treated and non-treated mice. Among the cytokine secretion of splenocyte from OIT-treated mice, IFN-γ and IL-10 were significantly lower than in non-treated mice, and IL-4 and IL-5 were significantly higher. Total TGF-β in the OIT-treated group was not detected. The IFN-γ/IL-4 ratio of the OIT-treated group was about 1/8 that of the non-treated group. OIT for 10 d was not effective and some biomarkers showed negative responses in the mild allergy model mice. We suggest OIT should be used very carefully as this treatment carries a risk of worsening allergy symptoms for mice with mild allergy.


Abstract One of the most severe consequences of climate change on the rabbit production sector is heat stress. Dietary supplementation of phytochemicals could alleviate the negative impact of heat stress on rabbits. Thirty-six V-line rabbit does with average live body weight (LBW) of 2.672 ± 0.031 kg were randomly allocated into three experimental groups as follows: the control group (OPE0) and the OPE2.5 and OPE5 groups were orally administered orange peel extract (OPE) at doses of 2.5 and 5 mL/doe. The increasing OPE levels significantly improved LBW at partum (p = 0.002) and weaning (p = 0.004), daily and total feed intake from pregnancy until weaning (p = 0.007), daily milk yield per doe at 7th and 14th days (p ≤ 0.05), and milk efficiency (p = 0.001). Litter size at 1st–28th days, litter weight gain, survival rate, and kit weight gain at 21st–28th days of heat-stressed doe rabbits were significantly improved with OPE treatments. The treatment of OPE5 significantly decreased serum glucose, triglycerides, and very-low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol levels of rabbits. The increasing OPE levels decreased significantly total lipid and low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol levels and increased (p = 0.001) high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol concentration in heat-stressed rabbits. In conclusion, the treatment of OPE improved feed utilization, milk efficiency, and reproductive performance and alleviated the drastic impacts of heat stress on rabbits.


The authors examine how Japan's public and private sectors support small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs). They focus on technical, financial, and marketing assistance. Their findings are based on a survey of 107 firms; 40 that produce silverware, 33 engaged in synthetic textile weaving, and 34 that manufacture auto parts. Each sector represents a distinctive form of industrial organization, but they also share several characteristics: each industry is concentrated in a particular region, each involves close subcontracting relationships, and each has overcome difficulties and achieved a certain measure of industrial success. Technical support for these SMEs came largely through private channels, including parent firms, equipment suppliers, and other firms in the same line of business. Public institutions played only a subordinate role. Marketing support also came largely from parent firms, trading companies, and other private sources. Producers of intermediate goods in particular - such as auto parts and synthetic textiles - relied heavily on subcontractors. Most loans for Japan's SMEs were provided under competitive market conditions but three sources of directed credit - loans from specialized parastatals, loans channeled through local governments, and loan guarantees - accounted for about 20 percent of all SME borrowing and 35 to 60 percent of investment borrowing. Default rates averaged less than one-half of one percent of outstanding loans, and real interest rates were positive. The majority of firms surveryed used and valued directed credits. The smallest firms in particular valued them. Public institutions complemented the private marketplace in all three areas. Public technical and marketing support helped create and maintain private networks. In finance, Japan successfully embedded directed credit in a well-functioning, predominantly private, competitive, and prudential financial system. Through partnerships, public support continues to play both a direct and an indirect role in supporting the development of SMEs in Japan.


A facile and rapid glycine-assisted combustion method was developed to synthesize polycrystalline La0.8Ca0.2MnO3 (LCMO) powder by dissolving lanthanum nitrate, calcium nitrate, manganese nitrate (oxidant) and glycine (fuel) as the starting materials and water as solvent and then heating the resulting solution on a heating plate. The X-ray diffraction and FTIR analyses confirmed the orthorhombic crystal structure, and a morphological study showed the polycrystalline form of the LCMO powder. The calculated lattice constants a = 5.46, b = 7.73, and c = 5.49 Å agreed well with the standard values. The magnetic measurements showed a paramagnetic behavior of LCMO at room temperature. The maximum change in entropy observed for the LCMO sample was −1.95 J/kgK at an applied magnetic field of 2 T at the Curie temperature of 165 K.


Communication technology plays an increasingly important role in the growing automated metering infrastructure (AMI) market. This paper presents a thorough analysis and comparison of four application layer protocols in the smart metering context. The inspected protocols are DLMS/COSEM, the Smart Message Language (SML), and the MMS and SOAP mappings of IEC 61850. The focus of this paper is on their use over TCP/IP. The protocols are first compared with respect to qualitative criteria such as the ability to transmit clock synchronization information. Afterwards the message size of meter reading requests and responses and the different binary encodings of the protocols are compared.


America's youth have been screened for cardiovascular disorders for nearly a century. Initial efforts to detect rheumatic heart disease in schoolchildren have gradually shifted to the detection of congenital heart disease in the fetus and newborn, and to the prevention of sudden cardiac death in older children, especially athletes. Proposed screening programs need to consider sensitivity and specificity, cost, resource availability, and the potential for adverse effects of the screening process.


The state-led resolution of the 2007-2009 financial crisis has proven to be costly. Calls are being heard in Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland to cap the size of domestic banks. Is small beautiful? In this policy paper, we first match bailing out cost data to the relative size of banks for a sample of 14 countries and 29 banks. An important observation is that some countries with relatively small banks faced large bailout cost when correlated systemic risk affected many banks. Secondly, we call to the attention that capping the size of banks can have an unintended effect: A lack of credit risk diversification. Risk diversification is needed to reduce the costs of financial distress, which are quite significant in the banking industry. If reducing public bail out costs is the right objective, capping the size of banks is not the best tool. So as to keep large banks that provide highly skilled employment opportunities in a services economy, we discuss four policy options that help to ensure financial stability: Independence and accountability of bank supervisors, prompt corrective action mechanisms, burden sharing across countries, and an end to the too-big-to-fail doctrine.


This paper describes a classical version of the two-magnon model of ferromagnetic resonance linewidth in inhomogeneous magnetic thin films. The ferromagnetic resonance line broadening due to inhomogeneity is described in terms of film properties and the statistical properties of the inhomogeneity. Analytical results for the case of ultrathin films in the limit of zero damping are compared with numerical results computed with finite damping.


Purpose: To compare the radiographic evaluations between two radiographic views (AP and lateral views) and four radiographic views (AP, lateral and both oblique views) in ankle fractures. Materials and Methods: From January 2000 to June 2002, 60 cases of ankle fractures were treated with open reduction and internal fixation and its followed up periods were at least 2 years. All cases were classified into three groups according to the method of preoperative radiographic evaluation. Two radiographic views (AP and lateral views) were taken in group A and four radiographic views (AP, lateral and both oblique views) were taken in group B. 12 Cases were evaluated with three dimensional computed tomography (3D CT). Four radiographic views and 3D CT were taken in group C. All cases were classified according to the Danis-Weber and Lauge-Hansen classification. Displacement of fracture fragment of medial, lateral, posterior malleolus and size of fracture fragment of posterior malleous were measured using picture archiving communication system (PACS). Results: Although kappa value between two or four radiographic views were good or excellent in Danis-Weber classification and Lauge-Hansen classification of ankle fractures, the displacements of medial and lateral malleoli were statistically different. Four radiographic views evalulated the degree of displacement of medial and lateral fragments more accurately compared to two radiographic views. Conclusion: Four radiographic views will be more useful than two radiographic views to decide the method of treatment and operation considering the displacement of fracture fragment.


Purpose: Brain metastasis is infrequent in colorectal cancer patients. The purpose of this study was to analyze the clinical characteristics including the survival, type of treatment, and metastatic patterns of brain metastasis in colorectal cancer. Methods: Between January 1993 and September 2002, we analyzed 2,019 surgical patients with colorectal carcinoma operated at Korea Cancer Center Hospital. Among these patients, 13 patients were identified with metastatic colorectal cancer to the brain. The medical records of these patients were reviewed retrospectively and survival analysis was performed. Results: During the study period, the incidence of brain metastasis of colorectal cancer was 0.6%. Male-to-female ratio was 1 : 1.6. Mean age was 55.29.7 years and median age was 56 years (34-67years). The most frequent primary tumor site was the rectum (11 cases, 84.6%). and the most frequent symptom of brain metastasis was headache. According to the TNM staging system, there were 1 case in stage II, 8 cases in stage III, and 4 cases in stage IV at the time of initial diagnosis of colorectal cancer. Brain metastases were often occurred concurrently with lung metastases (9 cases, 69.2%), otherwise solitary brain metastasis was found in 4 cases. Between the diagnosis of primary cancer and the diagnosis of brain metastasis, the mean interval was 25.96.9 months and the median interval was 16 months (5-97) in stage II and III patients. The mean survival time after the diagnosis of brain metastasis was 18.5 months for patients who underwent surgery and 3.3 months for patients who received non-surgical therapy. Conclusion: Brain metastasis of colorectal cancer is relatively uncommon and the incidence is significantly low, commonly more or less than 1%. It is often accompanied by pulmonary metastasis. The results of this study show that surgical resection may increase the survival of these patients. Though inability to the awareness of the possibility and early diagnosis of brain metastasis in colorectal cancer could affect the poor prognosis, aggressive treatment in suitable cases might enhance the survival for this group of patients.


In this paper, we propose a novel model for the appropriate recommendation of antiarrhythmic drugs by introducing a fusion of a latent semantic analysis and k-means clustering. Our model not only captures the latent factors between the types of arrhythmia and patients but also has the ability to search a group of patients with similar arrhythmias. The performance studies conducted against the MIT-BIH arrhythmia database show that clinicians accepted 66.67% of the drugs recommended from our model with a balanced f-score of 38.08%. Comparative study with previous approach also confirms the effectiveness of our model.


Just over four hundred years ago Shakespeare was born. Somewhere I am quoted as having said something about being interested in Shakespeare and his medical lore. At the moment such casual words were issued I thought this was nothing more than any civilized physician would say. I have been getting cheerful letters, reprints, commentaries, and even books from people who wish to tell me about Shakespeare. Here and there I have picked up some books. They are called Dr. Shakespeare, William Shakespeare, M.D., Medicine and Shakespeare, Shakespeare as a Midwife , and suchlike things. I thought it would be interesting in the year of Shakespeare's four hundredth time around to reread some of the plays and the books about them, as well as the sonnets. I procured this current study of Shakespeare's Politics , wondering what it might have of medicine and doctors. A surprising but very rewarding book it is and


Lightweight semantic segmentation promotes the application of semantic segmentation in tiny devices. The existing lightweight semantic segmentation network (LSNet) has the problems of low precision and a large number of parameters. In response to the above problems, we designed a full 1D convolutional LSNet. The tremendous success of this network is attributed to the following three modules: 1D multi-layer space module (1D-MS), 1D multi-layer channel module (1D-MC), and flow alignment module (FA). The 1D-MS and the 1D-MC add global feature extraction operations based on the multi-layer perceptron (MLP) idea. This module uses 1D convolutional coding, which is more flexible than MLP. It increases the global information operation, improving features' coding ability. The FA module fuses high-level and low-level semantic information, which solves the problem of precision loss caused by the misalignment of features. We designed a 1D-mixer encoder based on the transformer structure. It performed fusion encoding of the feature space information extracted by the 1D-MS module and the channel information extracted by the 1D-MC module. 1D-mixer obtains high-quality encoded features with very few parameters, which is the key to the network's success. The attention pyramid with FA (AP-FA) uses an AP to decode features and adds a FA module to solve the problem of feature misalignment. Our network requires no pre-training and only needs a 1080Ti GPU for training. It achieved 72.6 mIoU and 95.6 FPS on the Cityscapes dataset and 70.5 mIoU and 122 FPS on the CamVid dataset. We ported the network trained on the ADE2K dataset to mobile devices, and the latency of 224 ms proves the application value of the network on mobile devices. The results on the three datasets prove that the network generalization ability we designed is powerful. Compared to state-of-the-art lightweight semantic segmentation algorithms, our designed network achieves the best balance between segmentation accuracy and parameters. The parameters of LSNet are only 0.62 M, which is currently the network with the highest segmentation accuracy within 1 M parameters.


The dove tree (Davidia involucrata Baill.), a tertiary relic species, is adapted to cool climates. With the progression of global warming, high-temperature stress has become the primary environmental factor restricting geographic distribution, ex situ conservation, and landscape application for D. involucrata resources. However, the detailed molecular events underlying D. involucrata responses to heat stress are poorly understood. Here, we conducted RNA-Seq-based gene expression profiling in D. involucrata seedlings during the time course of a 42 °C heat treatment (0, 1, 6, and 12 h). After de novo assembly, we obtained 138,923 unigenes, of which 69,743 were annotated in public databases. Furthermore, 19,532, 20,497 and 27,716 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified after 1 h (HS1), 6 h (HS6), and 12 h (HS12) of heat treatment in comparison to 0 h (HS0), respectively. Based on a KEGG enrichment analysis, the two pathways "protein processing in endoplasmic reticulum" and "plant hormone signal transduction" are hypothesized to play vital roles during heat response in D. involucrata, and their potential interactions during heat stress are also discussed. In addition, 32 genes encoding putative heat shock transcription factors (Hsfs) were found to be associated with the response of D. involucrata to heat stress. Finally, the expression patterns of eight heat-responsive genes derived from qRT-PCR were in agreement with their transcript level alterations, as determined by a transcriptome analysis. Taken together, our transcriptomic data provide the first comprehensive transcriptional profile affected by heat stress in D. involucrata, which will facilitate further studies on the improvement of heat tolerance in this rare and endangered species.


In 2009, 2589 mosquitoes were collected in northwest Italy and screened for orthobunyavirus RNA by RT-PCR. One pool of Anopheles maculipennis complex mosquitoes was found to be positive and a virus was isolated from that pool. The isolate was identified as Batai virus (BATV) by sequencing. Previously, BATV was detected in Italy, but limited data and no prior isolates existed. Full-length sequences of the S, M and L segments were determined for the newly isolated Italian strain. For comparison, partial sequences were also determined for the BATV strain Calovo (former Czechoslovakia, 1960). Phylogenetic analyses revealed clustering of the newly derived Italian BATV along with a recent isolate from Germany and the historic strain Calovo. To the best of our knowledge, this represents the first isolation of BATV from Italy, which confirms a broader geographical distribution of BATV in Europe than was previously verified by isolation.


Six presentations at the Nystagmus Research Workshop (Abingdon 2005) were delivered in the session on 'Modelling'. The following is a brief summary of these presentations, indicating (i) the wide range of approaches taken, (ii) the rationale for each approach, and (iii) possible experiments to help resolve apparent conflicts between differing theoretical models of Early Onset Nystagmus.


Wind is abundant almost in any part of the world. Its existence in nature is caused by uneven heating on the surface of the earth as well as the earth's rotation means that the wind resources will always be available. Of the available alternative sources of energy, wind energy is considered to be one of the proven technologies. With a competitive cost for electricity generation, wind energy conversion system (WECS) is nowadays deployed for meeting both grid-connected and stand-alone load demands. However, wind flow by nature is intermittent. In order to ensure continuous supply of power suitable storage technology is used as backup. In this paper, the sustainability of a 4-kW hybrid of wind and battery system is investigated for meeting the requirements of a 3-kW stand-alone dc load representing a base telecom station. A charge controller for battery bank based on turbine maximum power point tracking and battery state of charge is developed to ensure controlled charging and discharging of battery with fuzzy logic controller. The mechanical safety of the WECS is assured by means of pitch control technique. Both the control schemes are integrated and the efficiency is validated by testing it with various load and wind profiles in MATLAB/SIMULNIK.


The systematics of the Lactobacillus population of the intestines of 88 different rats was studied; 80 rats had been fed on fermented oat-meal soup (Molin et al. 1992). One-hundred-twenty-two Lactobacillus strains from the intestinal mucosa were phenotypically classified together with twenty-eight reference strains of Lactobacillus and Leuconostoc, using 49 unit characters. Data were examined using Jaccard coefficient, and unweighted pair group algorithm with arithmetic averages. Two major and eleven minor clusters were defined at the 76% SJ-similarity level: Cluster 1 included thirty isolates which could not be identified further, but had resemblance to the type strains of L. jensenii, L. gasseri, L. crispatus, and to some extent to L. acidophilus. Cluster 12 including fifty-four intestinal isolates was identified as L. reuteri; and so was cluster 13 (five isolates). Isolates of the major clusters were found in all parts of the intestines. The genomic homogeneity of the L. reuteri isolates was scrutinized by endonuclease restriction analysis of the chromosomal DNA, and the isolates could be divided into six genomic strains.


Graph Convolutional Networks (GCN) have been effective at tasks that have rich relational structure and can preserve global structure information of a dataset in graph embed- dings. Recently, many researchers focused on examining whether GCNs could handle different Natural Language Pro- cessing tasks, especially text classification. While applying GCNs to text classification is well-studied, its graph construc- tion techniques, such as node/edge selection and their feature representation, and the optimal GCN learning mechanism in text classification is rather neglected. In this paper, we conduct a comprehensive analysis of the role of node and edge embeddings in a graph and its GCN learning techniques in text classification. Our analysis is the first of its kind and provides useful insights into the importance of each graph node/edge construction mechanism when applied at the GCN training/testing in different text classification benchmarks, as well as under its semi-supervised environment.


Abstract Successful implantation requires complex signaling between the uterine endometrium and the blastocyst. Prior to the blastocyst reaching the uterus, the endometrium is remodeled by sex steroids and other signals to render the endometrium receptive. In vitro models have facilitated major advances in our understanding of endometrium preparation and endometrial–blastocyst communication in mice and humans, but these systems have not been widely adapted for use in other models which might generate a deeper understanding of these processes. The objective of our study was to use a recently developed, three-dimensional culture system to identify specific roles of female sex steroids in remodeling the organization and function of feline endometrial cells. We treated endometrial cells with physiologically relevant concentrations of estradiol and progesterone, either in isolation or in combination, for 1 week. We then examined size and density of three-dimensional structures, and quantified expression of candidate genes known to vary in response to sex steroid treatments and that have functional relevance to the decidualization process. Combined sex steroid treatments recapitulated organizational patterns seen in vivo; however, sex steroid manipulations did not induce expected changes to expression of decidualization-related genes. Our results demonstrate that sex steroids may not be sufficient for complete decidualization and preparation of the feline endometrium, thereby highlighting key areas of opportunity for further study and suggesting some unique functions of felid uterine tissues. Summary Sentence Estradiol and progesterone influence distinct aspects of felid endometrial cell organization in vitro, but they are not sufficient to support expression of decidualization-related genes.


The paper makes an attempt to explore the relationship between real GDP (the dependent variable) and labour and capital (the independent variables) in case of Bangladesh, India, China, Malaysia and Thailand using the CobbDouglas production function and to make a comparison among Bangladesh and the selected countries. The study uses a time-series data covering the period of 19902014. Ordinary Least Square (OLS) is used to estimate the model. To test for autocorrelation, Newey-West test has been applied to obtain reliable parameter estimates. The results show that there is a strong positive and significant relationship between labour and capital and real GDP in case of all countries selected. The value of R ranges between 0.930 to 0.988, indicating that most of the variations in real GDP in all these countries are explained by labour and capital alone. The results are statistically significant at 1% and 5% level of significance. The study also shows that there are increasing returns to scale in the production process in case of all the selected countries. It has been found that a 100% increase in labour will increase real GDP by 301% and a 100% increase in capital will increase real GDP by 40%. The contribution of both labour and capital is the highest in case of China followed by Bangladesh. The contribution of capital is lowest in case of Thailand (10%) and Malaysia (15%) because they both emphasized investing in human capital by giving importance to education, health and training of their labour force. The study concludes that investing in the huge labour force especially the female labour force in case of Bangladesh and India and proper use of capital by trained labour and management are essential to sustain the increasing growth process in these countries.


Du Pan syndrome is a rare acromesomelic dysplasia with characteristic clinical and radiographic findings. It is inherited as an autosomal recessive trait. Almost all the patients reported have been from Muslim countries. We report on a female and her child with Du Pan syndrome from a Caucasian, Polish family. Three new heterozygous mutations clustered on one allele of the CDMP1 gene were identified in the affected individuals resulting in the first familial case with dominant Du Pan syndrome. A possible synergistic effect of the cis‐acting mutations located in the active domain of the mature CDMP1 protein is likely to be responsible for the clinical expression of the disorder. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


The harmful alga Gymnodinium catenatum is one of the species that produces the neurotoxic, hydrophilic, tetrahydropurine derivatives known as paralytic shellfish toxins (PST). Studies have shown that several classes of marine toxins have genotoxic effects on bivalves. However, there are few studies on PST and their genotoxic effects on bivalves such as oysters. Experiments were performed to assess the effects of the toxic dinoflagellate G. catenatum on changes in the transcription level of the genes involved in cellcycle regulation (p21, p53, cafp55) and initial inflammatory (casp1) processes and injuries in tissues of juvenile Crassostrea gigas. Our results reveal an effect at the level of transcription. The high transcription levels of the p21 and p53 genes found in oysters exposed to dinoflagellate diets suggest an activation of the cell-cycle checkpoints by DNA damage induction. At the histological level, the oysters exposed to the toxic dinoflagellate showed exfoliation, epithelial rupture and inflammation, which correlate with the observed changes in expression level of casp1 that is known to play a role in initial inflammatory responses. Our results provide molecular data suggesting probable DNA damage through expression modulation of the analysed key genes, in addition to histological evidence of tissue injuries due to PST dinoflagellate exposure.


BACKGROUND
Most guidelines recommend a midstream urine (MSU) or a midstream clean-catch (MSCC) sample for urinalysis. However, whether this sample is better than others is still controversial.

OBJECTIVES
To assess the most adequate non-invasive method to collect a urine specimen for diagnosing urinary tract infections (UTI) in symptomatic non-pregnant women.

METHODS
This review was conducted according to the Systematic Reviews of Diagnostic Test Accuracy guidelines (PROSPERO CRD42021241758). PubMed was searched paired sample studies and controlled trials. Studies comparing MSCC, MSU without cleaning, first-void urine, and random voiding samples were considered. Studies evaluating invasive methods were excluded. The main outcome was diagnostic accuracy of urine cultures. Contamination rates were evaluated. The risk of bias tool for systematic reviews on diagnostic accuracy (QUADAS-2) was assessed.

RESULTS
Six studies including 1,010 patients were evaluated. Only two studies used paired samples. No study was considered as having low risk of bias. There was no difference in contamination for MSU specimens collected with or without cleansing and between random void urine collection and MSCC. In one study comparing first-void urine with MSU samples, the contamination rate was lower in the latter, but the gold standard of urine culture was only used for one sampling collection.

CONCLUSIONS
To the best of our knowledge, this systematic review is the first to assess the evidence available from different exclusively non-invasive urine sampling. Despite being widely recommended, our review did not find consistent evidence that asking women to provide midstream samples with or without cleansing is better.


This study aims to analyse the effects of conflict resolution and peer mediation (CRPM) training on the levels of aggression of 10–11-year-old Turkish primary school students. The study was conducted using a quasi-experimental design. The experimental group of the study included 347 students (173 girls, 174 boys), and the control group had 328 students (158 girls, 170 boys). Data for the research were collected using the 'Aggression Scale'. Data analyses revealed that CRPM training was effective in lowering the aggression scale scores of the students. Boys seem to have benefited more from the training than girls. CRPM training was found to reduce student aggression which may lead to more constructive, restorative and peaceful behaviour in classroom and school settings. Since less energy and time will have to be allocated to resolving problem behaviour, academic success may increase, and a safer school atmosphere may be attained.


This study examines gender differences in computer attitudes and experiences of adolescents. A sample of students from five Bay Area high schools was surveyed for their uses of computers before and during their high school years, in both formal instruction and informal settings. Adolescent males had greater total exposure to computers, based primarily on higher enrollments in computer programming classes and participation in voluntary experiences, such as home computer use. Fewer gender differences were found in enrollment in classes using computers for purposes other than programming. Overall, males held more positive attitudes of interest in and confidence with computers than did females. Controlling for amount of computer experience, however, males and females responded with similar levels of interest. Social influences, especially those among peer groups, are explored as important factors for differential rates of participation in computer activities.


Teaching physics during the 1960s was fun; new ideas abounded and new tools were available to help. Single-topic, short film loops were a very popular teaching support; quick and easy to set up, they must have been used in every school and college teaching O- and A-level physics. When the machines broke down and could no longer be replaced, we tele-cined the fading loops and squeezed a bit more life from them on video. Linear video (VHS) has a number of problems when used for short demonstrations in the classroom or lecture theatre - it takes a long time to find the sequence, still-frame use damages the tape, sequences can only be run forward at the standard rate and they cannot be run backwards. Interactive laserdisc solves all these problems and in addition delivers a much better, broadcast standard, image quality. It is the ideal successor to the old film loops. The Video Encyclopedia of Physics Demonstrations takes advantage of the medium by compiling over 600 demonstrations on 25 videodiscs. The interactive nature of laserdisc enables many of the sequences to form the basis of quantitative experimental work. This is an impressive resource; I was able to review the pilot disc which contains a representative sample of 24 of the 600 demonstrations. Many of the demonstrations are well set-up and filmed examples of standard lecture-room illustrations such as thermal expansion and optical effects. It could be argued that these can and should be performed live, but there are circumstances in which the convenience of the video could be an advantage. As well as these standards, there are some real gems and one or two turkeys. The demonstration of a beaker being forced into resonant oscillation by a powerful loudspeaker, and filmed stroboscopically, is very effective, especially when the driver power is increased to the point where the beaker shatters. On the other hand, a decent demonstration of adiabatic expansion is spoiled by an incompetent attempt to measure and display the temperature of the gas during the event. As the container is pressurized, the indicated temperature slowly increases as expected, but after the sudden expansion it appears simply to cool exponentially to room temperature over a period of about five seconds - it gives a completely wrong message, and one that is visually contradicted by the spontaneous cloud formation within the container. This is a resource that I believe every physics teacher would like to have access to, but for those with limited resources it may seem expensive. The full 25-disc set is priced at $2995 plus import charges and VAT, and a four-disc version for middle schools is available at $795 plus import charges and VAT. It should also be noted that it is only available on the American NTSC television standard and will not play on a PAL system. It requires an NTSC or dual standard videodisc player and monitor.


Educational or academic alienation as one of the forms of alienation means the separation of students from the learning process and the experience of isolation from a school or college group that a person must belong to it or involved in it. The present study tries to analyze the relationship between Hysteresis in academic field and academic alienation among Mazandaran University. The method is survey, and statistical population consists of all students of Mazandaran University in the academic year 2015–2016, in which 390 students were selected by Cochran formula as sample with classified sampling, and the questionnaires were distributed among them. The theoretical framework of this study is Bourdieu's theory of incompatibility (Hysteresis). After collecting the data, the research hypotheses were analyzed in two levels of descriptive and inferential by SPSS and AMOS packages. Based on the results of Pearson's correlation coefficient, there is a positive and direct impact between academic field (restricting norms, weak educational sociability) and the dependent variable (academic alienation). Also, based on the test results of research theoretical model, which was done by structural equation method, the components of academic field explain 40% of the dependent variable changes (academic alienation).


Background Patients with locally advanced rectal cancer receive 5 weeks of neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (CRT). Whilst CRT improves overall survival, data from our group have shown it to cause deterioration in physical fitness (Vo 2 at estimated lactate threshold; Vo 2 at LT) which can be rescued by a 6-week interval exercise training program. We hypothesized that a training effect is achieved earlier than 6 weeks and that work efficiency (Vo 2 workrate relationship; Vo 2 -WR ml-W -1 -min -1 ) is a more sensitive marker. Methods 30 patients (20 male) with rectal cancer had baseline cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET). Patients were allocated to exercise or control groups (mean age; exercise 64.4 ± 10.4 vs. control 71.3 ± 8.1 years). The exercise group (n= 20, 10 male) underwent interval training for 18 sessions between week 0 (completion of CRT) and week 6. All patients had CPET at week 0, 3, 6 and 9. Results All patients had decreased Vo 2 -WR following CRT (controls; p = 0.005, exercise; p= 0.0002). In controls, Vo 2 -WR remained depressed over the 9 week period. In the exercise group, Vo 2 -WR significantly increased by week 3 (p=0.01), whilst Vo 2 at LT did not increase significantly until week 6. Within the exercise group, there was a variable training response training (9responders9 increased Vo 2 at LT by >2mls -1 kg -1 min -1 by week 9). The increase in Vo 2 -WR at week 3 was only seen in responders. Non-responders showed a training effect at week 9. Conclusion CRT causes a decrease in work efficiency, which can be rescued by 3 weeks of interval exercise training. Vo 2 -WR may be a more sensitive marker of training response, though the slowed improvement in non-responders requires further investigation.


This essay looks at Malaysian playwright K. S. Maniam's English-language playThe Sandpit: Womensis, and discusses the playwright's portrayal of the individual's negotiations with the tensions inherent in Malaysia's multicultural society. Most Malaysians live in tension between the fluid cultural spaces of their lived reality and the rigid, narrowly defined cultural spaces allowed them by public policy. In this play, Maniam embodies the tension between these two cultural spaces through the characters of Santha (who lives within the prescribed cultural borders) and Sumathi (who feels the constraints of these borders and pushes against them). Finally, Maniam suggests that the only solution, tentative at best, is to find some new space where these apparently opposing views can come together.


Azoreductase is an important enzyme for the reduction of the azo linkage of dye during the biodecolorization process. In the present study, the production of intracellular azoreductase from bacterial cultures Enterobacter dissolvens AGYP1 (ED) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa AGYP2 (PA) was achieved during biodecolorization of synthetic textile dye Acid Maroon V. When compared with PA, the enzyme activity of ED was 2.31 times greater. The partial purification of azoreductase revealed specific activity of the dialyzed enzyme 51.72 U mg-1 protein (ED) and 33.06 U mg1 protein (PA). Methyl Red served as the best substrate for the azoreductase enzyme with superior activity at optimal pH 7 and temperature 30 °C. 75-80% of azoreductase enzyme activity was maintained when Mg+2 and Ca+2 were present. The azoreductase activity was considerably increased with NADH as the most suitable electron donor. The kinetic study showed consequent Michaelis-Menten constant (Km) and maximal velocity (Vmax) values of 50 μM and 2222 U ml-1 (ED) and 250 μM and 1000 U ml-1 (PA), respectively


Although one of the most constant clinical features of periarteritis nodosa is the presence of so-called neuritis and myositis, little attention has been paid to the pathologic changes in the peripheral or central nervous system. Every one recognizes that the changes which sometimes occur in the brain are the result of occluded arteries, with subsequent infarction of various portions of the cerebrum or cerebellum. Similar changes occur in the heart, kidneys and other organs of the body; yet it is not generally recognized that the changes which occur in the peripheral nervous system are actually the result of occluded nutrient arteries in the nerve trunks, with subsequent infarction of the nerve bundles. We have selected and studied the clinical records in five cases in which there were prominent neurologic symptoms and also have studied rather completely the neurologic tissues involved. Since the examination of peripheral nerves in their entire length


In this paper, we discuss the seedling planting mechanism which is applied in transplantation of baccy, corn¿beet, eggplant, tomato, cotton Conclusions Etc. A mathematic model of the seedling transplanting mechanism is established and the model is calculated&simulated with MATLAB. By means of this model, the analysis for the movement of the mechanism became Intuitive and visible. And this model could also provide bases for choosing the rational parameters of transplanting mechanism and enhancing its transplanting performance. According to the agronomy requirement of seedlings transplantation, we optimally design the key component that is suitable for the seedling transplanting mechanism, analyze and study the universal law of the mechanical planting and find the main factors that affect the transplanting performance.


T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) accounts for 10–15 % of pediatric ALL. Very rare cases of T-ALL ( NOTCH1 , a gene encoding a single-pass, heterodimeric transmembrane receptor. NOTCH1 has an essential function in early intrathymic T-cell development. Recently, it has been demonstrated that more than 50 % of childhood T-ALLs carry activating mutations within the NOTCH1 gene (Weng et al., Science 2004). In the present study, we systematically analyzed the impact of activating NOTCH1 mutations on treatment response in 108 pediatric T-ALLs, registered in the ongoing ALL-BFM 2000 trial. In 56 cases (51.8%) activating NOTCH1 mutations were identified, located either in the heterodimerization (38/56 mutations; 65.5%), in the PEST (10/56; 17.9%) or in both domains (8/56; 14.3%). The presence of activating NOTCH1 mutations was significantly correlated with good prednisolone (p = 0.001, c2 or Fisher's exact test) and MRD response (p = 0.002). T-ALLs with NOTCH1 mutations were 3.7 times more likely to show a good prednisolone response (95% confidence interval = 1.64–8.33; p = 0.002) and 4.8 times more likely to show a favorable MRD response (95% confidence interval = 2.04–11.11; p = 0.0003) when compared to patients with wild type NOTCH1 . Patients with mutated NOTCH1 were thus underrepresented in the high risk group of the ALL-BFM 2000 protocol. This influence of NOTCH1 mutational status on risk stratification was independent from other commonly used criteria, like age and initial white blood cell count (WBC) at the time of diagnosis. Considering the impact of NOTCH1 mutations on long term prognosis, we analyzed those 49 patients of this cohort with a median follow-up of > 4 years. Eight patients relapsed within this follow-up period, 2 patients with mutated and 6 with wild type NOTCH1 . With this small number of relapses, this trend towards a favorable influence of activating NOTCH1 mutations on EFS did not reach statistical significance. In conclusion, T-ALLs with NOTCH1 mutations are demonstrated to be more sensitive than those without to the ALL-BFM 2000 treatment strategy and may show a lower rate of relapse.


Review summarizes recent data on morphofunctional features of circadian cycle mediator - suprachiasmatic nuclei of hypothalamus--including their molecular organization with participation of clock genes. The role of these mechanisms in the action of neuropsychotropic drugs is discussed.


Purpose of reviewThis review highlights the control of transcriptional networks, including induction of inhibitory receptors, by T cell-specific transcription factors in exhausted T cells that accumulate in chronic viral infections including HIV. Recent findingsTranscriptional profiling has established distinct molecular phenotypes for exhausted CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in chronic viral infection models. There exists a subset of transcription factors associated with exhaustion, notably Blimp-1, basic leucine zipper transcription factor, ATF-like and Helios. Epigenetic phenomena are likely important in regulating gene expression networks during exhaustion as illustrated by programmed death 1 promoter methylation patterns. SummaryFollowing chronic viral infections, CD4+ and CD8+ T cells defined functionally and phenotypically as exhausted have distinct transcriptional profiles. These studies have identified a core set of transcription factors that have been implicated in promoting exhaustion. However, no single factor appears to be an exhaustion determining factor, suggesting that T cell exhaustion reflects a combinatorial mechanism with multiple transcription factors interacting to influence the development of functionally exhausted T cells as well as different T effector populations.


Penile blood flow (PBF) was measured by the Xe-133 clearance method. In 16 patients, complete erection was obtained by visual sexual stimulation (VSS). Their mean PBF before and after erection were 1.95 ml/100 g/min and 10.71 ml/100 g/min, respectively. In 69 patients, full erection was obtained by intracavernous injection of 20 micrograms prostaglandin E1 (PGE1). Their mean PBF before and after administration were 2.00 ml/100 g/min and 6.28 ml/100 g/min, respectively. The mechanism of erection by intracavernous PGE1 was different from that of physiological erection, since the mean PBF after PGE1 was apparently lower than VSS. In diabetic and geriatric patients, the mean PBF before PGE1 was lower than that of cerebrospinal disorder patients. This result indicated that arterial lesion was the main cause of impotence in diabetic and geriatric patients. In some patients, while mean PBF after PGE1 injection was considered to be sufficient, full erection was not obtained. A venous impotence was suspected in such cases. Thus, vasculogenic impotence could be diagnosed by investigating PBF before and after PGE1 injection.


Dear Sir, I am writing with regard to the article ''Carpal Tunnel Release Under Intravenous Regional or Local Infiltration Anaesthesia'' by M. M. Tomaino et al., which appeared in the Journal of Hand Surgery 26B: 67–68. I have been using local anaesthesia exclusively for carpal tunnel release for the last 20 years, and during that time suspect that I have done well over 1,000 carpal tunnel releases in that way. Roughly half of the cases are supplemented with some sort of sedation, primarily because of patient anxiety but also in some cases to allay discomfort related to the tourniquet. I have found local anaesthesia infiltrated intradermally and occasionally into the subcutaneous tissue to be quite effective for anaesthesia, even for limited synovectomy, epineurotomy, and other procedures which one might assume to be painful. I prefer not to put the local anaesthesia in the carpal canal because the patient then can respond with a kind of biofeedback if I do wander too close the median nerve or one of its branches. I therefore agree with the authors that local anaesthesia is an appropriate and effective method, which can be used for carpal tunnel release. I would encourage the authors to consider broadening their indications for the use of local anaesthesia for carpal tunnel surgery, including those rare cases where epineurotomy and limited flexor tenosynovectomy are needed. I think that they will be pleasantly surprised to find how comfortable the procedure can be. I also find it useful that the patient can actively move their fingers while under local anaesthesia, as this allows me to check for intertendinous or tendon-nerve adhesions and for cases in which, after release of the flexor retinaculum, the flexor tendons or median nerve displace anteriorly out of the carpal canal with grip, which may be an indication for retinacular reconstruction. I commend the authors on their study and look forward to additional work along these lines.


This study examines the perception of teacher effectiveness and its role in optimising students' learning in five private primary schools in Lagos State. It aims to understand the lived experiences and dispositions of teachers who have been defined as effective in the context of their schools and the wider Nigerian context and what they articulate are the factors that promote their effectiveness. Two research questions were addressed. First, how do effective teachers in private primary schools in Lagos State understand and describe their effective teaching and learning practices? Secondly, what are the personal qualities these effective teachers possess?A theoretical framework derived from a synthesis of three existing theories was employed. They are the Dynamic Model of Educational Effectiveness (DMEE), Constructivism, and the Virtue Ethics Theory (VET). DMEE and constructivism were used as a framework in answering the first research question. They were supplemented with VET in order to gain insight into the dispositions behind teacher effectiveness, which answers the second research question.This study was conducted as a multiple case study of five primary schools with five teachers selected from each school. Data were collected through interviews and unstructured observation and were then thematically analysed.The findings from this study revealed teachers' practices and personal qualities that are integral for effective teaching and students' learning optimisation. They include: a. Professional Knowledge b. Instructional Planning c. Differentiated Instruction d. Formative Assessment e. Care and f. Practical Wisdom. The study recommends that Pedagogical Content Knowledge should be encouraged in teachers' practice. Furthermore, professional development in the use of success criteria and Formative Assessment should be given more attention, as this is key to teacher effectiveness. Finally, Teacher Autonomy is essential for the development of Practical wisdom (Phronesis).


Monolingual word alignment is crucial to model semantic interactions between sentences.In particular, null alignment, a phenomenon in which words have no corresponding counterparts, is pervasive and critical in handling semantically divergent sentences. Identification of null alignment is useful on its own to reason about the semantic similarity of sentences by indicating there exists information inequality. To achieve unbalanced word alignment that values both alignment and null alignment, this study shows that the family of optimal transport (OT), i.e., balanced, partial, and unbalanced OT, are natural and powerful approaches even without tailor-made techniques.Our extensive experiments covering unsupervised and supervised settings indicate that our generic OT-based alignment methods are competitive against the state-of-the-arts specially designed for word alignment, remarkably on challenging datasets with high null alignment frequencies.


Depression frequently occurs and antidepressant medication is often taken in the long term to prevent relapse. In the research article of Breedveldt et al. in JAMA Psychiatry (2021) is found that the relapse rate in both groups was about the same during a follow-up period of 15 months. In this commentary the clinical implications for patients with recurrent depression and remaining questions for daily practice are discussed. More knowledge is needed on prognostic factors, such as number and severity of the depressive episodes, comorbidity, treatment history (medication and psychotherapy), residual symptoms, family history, and on tapering method, to decide what fits for who. To adjust clinical guidelines seems to be too early, but preventive psychological treatment might be offered as an option in patients who want to taper their antidepressant medication.


Influence of Nano-Silica on the Mechanical Properties of Jute/Glass Fiber Reinforced Epoxy Hybrid Composites. Abstract Natural composites have gained importance recently due to increasing environmental factors and relatively low cost. Although their biodegradability, low density, and high processability, the use of natural fibers in composite materials as the only reinforcement phase faces with some challenges due to their disadvantages such as high moisture absorption and low mechanical properties. To overcome these issues, the natural fibers are generally utilized in composite materials by synthesizing with synthetic fibers. In this context, jute/epoxy composites have been hybridized with glass fiber layers and nano-silica particles to improve low mechanical properties, and the contributions of hybridization on mechanical properties are investigated through performing tensile, bending, and impact tests. Nano-silica particles in the ratio of 1%, 2%, and 3% by weight have been used in composite production. Three different hybrid configurations (G 1 J 6 G 1 , J 3 G 2 J 3 , J 2 G 1 J 2 G 1 J 2 ) are tested as well as pure jute/epoxy and pure glass/epoxy composites. According to the experimental results, nano-silica additive has a significant effect on both non-hybrid and hybrid fiber reinforced composites. By using the glass fiber layer on the outer surface, the highest tensile strength, flexural strength, and impact behavior have been achieved in the G1J6G1 hybrid configuration.


This exploratory study examined the role of both gender and race/ethnicity, and their interaction, on cultural values likely to be related to attitudes toward equality and diversity and an attitude towards equality and diversity itself. Data were collected from 120 employees from a large financial institution in Canada. Non‐North Americans and non‐Caucasians held cultural values that were found to be associated with less support for equality. These findings suggest that additional efforts must be made to bring non‐Caucasians on side as companies attempt to create a level playing field for all employees.


OBJECTIVE
To try to define when and what type of operation should be performed in von Hippel-Lindau disease (VHL) with renal involvement.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
Between 1985 and July 1996, 43 patients with renal involvement of VHL disease were followed in our department. We decided to operate on patients with one or several solid or complex tumours greater than 2.5 cm in diameter, by means of conservative surgery (tumour excision removing a layer of healthy parenchyma) when the kidney did not contain more than 5 or 6 tumours or radical nephrectomy in the other cases. Subsequent follow-up consisted of CT, chest x-ray and renal function tests every 6 months.

RESULTS
Twenty-nine patients with a mean age of 33.6 years were operated. 21 patients (29 kidneys) were treated by conservative surgery: in situ in 20 cases and ex vivo in 9 cases; 3 cases were treated by bilateral radical nephrectomy, 4 by unilateral radical nephrectomy and 1 by resection of the prominent dome for urinary tract obstruction. Four cases of acute arterial thrombosis were observed following ex vivo surgery, requiring nephrectomy in every case. No serious complications were observed with in situ conservative surgery. A new lesion in the renal parenchyma remaining after conservative surgery was observed in 5 cases during follow-up (mean: 29 months). No local recurrence was observed after radical nephrectomy. Two nonoperated patients developed metastatic disease.

CONCLUSION
Conservative treatment is usually possible: either simple surveillance, in the absence of any solid or complex tumours larger than 2.5 cm in diameter, or conservative surgery for tumours larger than 2.5 cm in diameter, with no more than 6 tumours per kidney; this attitude requires six-monthly follow-up by CT of the renal parenchyma.