Different lipids were melted and resolidified as model systems to gain deeper insight into the principles of recrystallization processes in lipid-based dosage forms. Solid-state characterization was performed on the samples with differential scanning calorimetry and X-ray powder diffraction. Several recrystallization processes could be identified during storage of the lipid layers. Pure triglycerides that generally crystallize to the metastable α-form from the melt followed by a recrystallization process to the stable β-form with time showed a chain-length-dependent behavior during storage. With increasing chain length, the recrystallization to the stable β-form was decelerated. Partial glycerides exhibited a more complex recrystallization behavior due to the fact that these substances are less homogenous. Mixtures of a long-chain triglyceride and a partial glyceride showed evidence of some interaction between the two components as the partial glyceride hindered the recrystallization of the triglyceride to the stable β-form. In addition, the extent of this phenomenon depended on the amount of partial glyceride in the mixture. Based on these results, changes in solid dosage forms based on glycerides during processing and storage can be better understood.


Dielectric and viscoelastic behavior was examined for a 8/2 (wt/wt) blend of a cis-polyisoprene (PI; M = 19.9×103) and a low molecular weight (M) poly(p-t-butyl styrene) (PtBS; M = 16.4×103). In general, PtBS and PI exhibit the LCST-type phase behavior, but the blend examined was in the miscible region at temperatures examined, T = 30-70 °C. The dielectric loss e" of the blend at low frequencies was exclusively attributable to the large-scale motion of the PI chains having type-A dipoles. The e" data obeyed the time-temperature superposition, suggesting that all PI chains in the blend felt the same frictional environment. This result was in contrast to the failure of the superposition previously observed for the same PI chains in a 8/2 miscible blend with a higher-M PtBS (M = 69.5×103). This difference was attributed to a difference of the lifetime of the dynamic heterogeneity due to the concentration fluctuation of PtBS. In the blend with high-M PtBS, the terminal relaxation of PtBS was slower than that of PI and thus the concentration fluctuation was effectively frozen and the PtBS chains behaved as non-uniformly distributed frictional objects during the terminal relaxation of the PI chains. Then all PI chains could not feel the same segmental friction, which naturally resulted in the failure of the time temperature superposition. In contrast, in the blend with low-M PtBS examined in this study, the terminal relaxation was slower for PI than for PtBS. For this case, PtBS behaved as uniformly distributed frictional objects during the terminal relaxation of PI thereby allowing the PI chains to obey the superposition.


The territory of the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site represents vast areas of grassy steppes, their use as pastures seems promising. The purpose of work was to compare beef samples obtained from settlements belonging to different categories of radiation risk: Kokpekty village, Chagan urban-type settlement, Krivinka village, Sarzhal village, three samples were examined from each settlement. Organoleptic analysis, radiometric determination of 137 Cs, was used as criteria. Also, an analysis of the amino acid composition by the high-performance liquid chromatograph method was carried out and a calculation of protein indicators was made: meat tenderness, amino acid usefulness, nutrition value. The organoleptic examination showed the compliance of all samples with the standards, with the exception of one sample from the Sarzhal village. The study of the specific activity of 137 Cs showed a direct correlation between the category of radiation risk and the content of this radioisotope in meat from different zones. The availability of some deviations in the samples indicators obtained from the Sarzhal village indicates the need to approach the products control from this zone more carefully, and radioisotope analysis should become a decisive criterion in determining the safety profile of the product.


Stimulus repetition produces a decrease of the response and affects neuronal synchronization of macaque inferior temporal (IT) neurons. Previously we showed that such stimulus-specific adaptation results in a decreased accuracy by which IT neurons encode repeated compared to non-repeated objects. Not only spiking activity, but also local field potentials (LFPs) are affected by repetition. Here we ask how the repetition-induced changes in IT LFPs affect object decoding accuracy. To answer this, we recorded local field potentials using a laminar microelectrode in macaque IT. We presented two familiar stimuli each for 500 ms successively with an inter-stimulus interval of 500 ms. Trials consisted either of a repetition of the same stimulus or of their alternation. Machine learning-based classifier was employed to decode stimulus identity from the LFP power in different frequency bands of each penetration. We found that the object classification accuracy depended strongly on spectral frequency, with frequencies below 30 Hz (alpha and beta) producing greater accuracies than gamma bands. However, the effect of repetition on classification accuracy was stronger at the gamma frequencies, showing a decrease in classification accuracy for repeated stimuli and a tendency for an improved object encoding when the stimulus was preceded by a different stimulus. The present results demonstrate that due to adapting input, stimulus encoding in IT (1) can be more accurate for stimuli that differ from recently preceding ones while being impaired for stimuli that are repeated, and (2) these effects are more pronounced at high spectral frequencies of the LFP.


In this paper, we consider a nonorthogonal multiple access (NOMA) assisted mobile edge computing (MEC) system where the power and time are jointly optimized to reduce the energy consumption and delay. In order to achieve a tradeoff between energy consumption and delay, we introduce weighting factors, and the optimization problem is formulated to minimize the weighted sum of energy consumption and delay. In the literature, only two offloading strategies, i. e., orthogonal multiple access (OMA) and pure NOMA, are mainly considered. In this paper, we investigate a third strategy, hybrid NOMA, which contains the strategies of OMA and pure NOMA. As the main contribution, we analytically characterize the optimal resource allocation, i. e., the joint power and time allocation, for two-scheduled-user case. Simulation results show that the proposed resource allocation method in hybrid NOMA systems yields lower energy consumption and delay than the conventional OMA scheme.


Abstract The demand of cotton is increasing but its low production rate cannot fulfill the world requirements. The increase in cotton demand has augmented the production of regenerated cellulosic fibers. Furthermore, cotton has proved to be unsustainable because of the use of huge amount of fresh water, pesticides and insecticides. The purpose of this work is to find out the suitable blend/blends of regenerated fibers so as to replace 100% cotton fabrics. Therefore, mechanical and comfort properties of Tencel fabrics blended with other regenerated cellulose fibers have been compared with 100% cotton to achieve the equivalent or even better end properties. Hence, cotton, viscose, Tencel, modal, and bamboo fibers were taken. Plain woven blended fabrics of 100% cotton and 50:50 blends of Tencel with other regenerated fibers were prepared from normal yarn count of 20 tex. The mechanical properties (warp-wise and weft-wise tensile and tear strengths, pilling, and abrasion resistance) and the comfort properties including air permeability, moisture management properties, and thermal resistance were evaluated. It is found that Tencel blended fabrics show better results than 100% cotton fabrics. Therefore, it is concluded that Tencel blended with these regenerated fabrics can be used to replace 100% cotton fabrics.


The purpose of this paper is to analyze the influence of the pandemic on the provision of social services in Romania that have experienced a development only in recent years, so the institutional organization at central level contributed to the elaboration of the first legislative regulations that took into account a number of beneficiaries such as: children in difficulty, the elderly, people with disabilities, users of banned substances and victims of domestic violence. Social services are mainly aimed at people who are in an unfavorable social situation and who cannot have a basic basis for their lives or who urgently need help for other serious reasons. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a negative impact on social services, with massive outbreaks being reported in all care facilities around the world, affecting not only residents, but also caregivers and visitors .


Traffic prediction plays an essential role in intelligent transportation system. Accurate traffic prediction can assist route planing, guide vehicle dispatching, and mitigate traffic congestion. This problem is challenging due to the complicated and dynamic spatio-temporal dependencies between different regions in the road network. Recently, a significant amount of research efforts have been devoted to this area, especially deep learning method, greatly advancing traffic prediction abilities. The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive survey on deep learning-based approaches in traffic prediction from multiple perspectives. Specifically, we first summarize the existing traffic prediction methods, and give a taxonomy. Second, we list the state-of-the-art approaches in different traffic prediction applications. Third, we comprehensively collect and organize widely used public datasets in the existing literature to facilitate other researchers. Furthermore, we give an evaluation and analysis by conducting extensive experiments to compare the performance of different methods on a real-world public dataset. Finally, we discuss open challenges in this field.


SUMMARY: The entire sexual apparatus (oospore-oogonium-antheridium, or OOA) of Phytophthora megasperma var. sojae was isolated in large quantities free of mycelium. The cells were fractured in a Teflon tissue homogenizer and the wall fraction was washed with a cytoplasmic dialysate to prevent agglutination and a tendency to adhere to glassware. The wall preparations were a mixture of oospore and oogonium walls (oow) and probably unrecognizable antheridial wall fragments. The walls constituted 47% of the dry weight of the OOA. Insoluble glucans comprised almost 80% of the wall; the main component was non-cellulosic β-glucan(s) linked mainly through the 3-position. Less than 10% of the oow was cellulose. In addition to glucose, there were small amounts of mannose and glucosamine in the wall polymers. Proteins comprised about 12% of the oow; the most abundant amino acids were arginine and glycine. Hydroxyproline, a component of oomycetous hyphal walls, was also present. Readily extracted lipids varied from 2.8 to 5.9%, while bound lipids comprised 5.4 to 5.9% of the wall. Most of the readily extractable lipids of the ooa were found in the walls whereas bound lipids were mainly in the cytoplasmic fraction. Sterols (0.025%) were detected in the readily extracted lipid fraction. Phosphorus amounted to 0.55% of the oow. There was substantial similarity in gross chemical composition between oow and hyphal walls of Phytophthora spp.


Rice production is affected by many biotic and abiotic stresses; among them, bacterial blight (BB) and blast diseases and low soil phosphorous stress cause significant yield losses. The present study was carried out with the objective of combining the BB resistance gene, Xa21, the blast resistance gene, Pi54, and the low soil phosphorous tolerance QTL/gene, Pup1, into the genetic background of the Indian mega-rice variety, MTU1010 (Cottondora Sannalu), through marker-assisted pedigree breeding. RP5973-20-9-8-24-12-7 [a near isogenic line (NIL) of MTU1010 possessing Pup1] and RP6132 [a NIL of Akshayadhan possessing Xa21 + Pi54] were crossed and 'true' F1s were identified, using the target gene-specific markers and selfed. F2 plants, which are homozygous for all the three target genes/QTLs, were identified using PCR based markers and were advanced further through the pedigree method of breeding, with selection based on phenotypic traits specific for MTU1010. At the F5 generation, a set of 15 promising triple positive homozygous lines were identified and screened for their resistance against BB and blast diseases and tolerance to low soil P. Among them, two lines (LPK 30-18-16 and LPK 49-15-22) showed higher yields as compared to MTU1010, along with the desirable long slender grain type in both low soil P and normal soil P plots, and also exhibited high levels of resistance against BB and blast diseases, with lesser grain shattering as compared to MTU1010. These lines are being advanced for multi-location trials for validating their performance.


Education reform efforts in developing countries are aimed at making education an effective vehicle for national development. Educational attainment, especially primary education, is perceived as one of the main vehicles for spurring economic growth and improving living standards in developing countries. In Kenya, the proposed allocations to both the Ministry of Education and that of Higher Education constitute 13% of the total expenditure for the Financial Year 2011-2012, out of which the Teachers Service Commission receives 4.6% of the total annual expenditure. Bungoma-North and Kimilili-Bungoma Districts have consistently performed poorly in Kenya Certificate of Primary Education despite some schools within the same Districts performing above average. The mean scores in 2008, 2009 and 2010 were 246.96, 240.89 and 234.19 respectively. This raised concern on internal efficiency of primary schools in the districts. The purpose of this study therefore was to examine the influence of home based factors on internal efficiency of primary schools in Bungoma-North and Kimilili-Bungoma Districts. Objectives of the study were to: Establish the extent to which parental level of education; parental occupation; language use at home and parental income influence internal efficiency of primary schools. Education Production function theory (Psacharopoulos & Woodhall, 1985) was used in this study to show the influence of home based factors on internal efficiency of primary schools. The research designs used were correlation and descriptive survey designs. The target population consisted of 106 Head teachers, 530 standard eight teachers, 6850 standard eight pupils and 2 District Quality Assurance Officers (DQASOs). The study sample consisted of 40 head teachers, 200 standard eight teachers, 400 class eight pupils who were selected using simple random sampling technique and 2 DQASOs who were selected using saturated sampling technique. The study used questionnaires and interview schedules as research instruments. From the research findings, the study established that Parental level of education, occupation; income and language used at home do influence academic achievement of pupils. Fathers' level of Education was a significant predictor of pupils' performance, Pupils Performance in KCPE improved by 16.973 with fathers Education, The variation in Kenya Certificate of Primary Education pupils results were accounted for by home based factors (6.1%).


Author(s): Doo, Alex | Abstract: Perinatal stroke is a focal cerebrovascular event occurring during fetal or neonatal life before 28 days after birth that occurs in approximately 1 out of every 2,500 term births. Perinatal stroke is associated with lifelong morbidity, but because the developing brain is capable of tremendous plasticity, developmental outcomes can vary greatly among patients. While some pro-thrombotic conditions have been implicated as risk factors for early ischemic events, there is less data about the impact these genetic factors have on developmental outcomes. One particularly interesting pro-thrombotic trait is the methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) gene with polymorphisms at nucleotides 677 and 1298, which lead to increased serum homocysteine levels and has been shown to potentially increase the risk of a number of cardiovascular diseases, including ischemic stroke. To explore the potential association between MTHFR mutations and outcomes of perinatal stroke, 13 children with perinatal stroke were categorized into three genotype groups based on the presence of C677T and A1298C mutations in MTHFR which were correlated with neurodevelopmental outcomes. There was no significant increased allele frequency or genotype frequency of MTHFR in perinatal stroke subjects compared to the general population. Given the small sample size, no significant difference in lesion size or language and cognitive outcomes among the genotype groups could be detected however, there was a trend toward worse outcomes with increasing mutant MTHFR polymorphisms which may warrant further study.


Abstract Loneliness is prevalent and severe among adolescents, indicating the need for a reliable, valid, and concise instrument for detecting adolescent loneliness. This study aims to examine the psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the short-form UCLA Loneliness Scale (ULS-8) among Chinese adolescents. Computer-assisted self-interviewing was used to complete the questionnaire among 3480 junior or senior high school students aged 10 to 19 years. Construct validity was assessed using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). To test the concurrent validity and convergent validity of the scale, a single loneliness item and variables such as depression, suicidal ideation, and quality of interpersonal relationships were used. For reliability, Cronbach alpha and test–retest correlation were computed. Construct validity and internal consistency showed that the ULS-6, which excluded 2 reverse-scored items from the ULS-8, had stronger psychometric properties than the ULS-8. The convergent validity and concurrent validity were also supported by the study results. The overall Cronbach &agr; of the ULS-6 was 0.878 and the test–retest reliability coefficient was 0.663. The ULS-6 showed satisfactory reliability and validity in this study, suggesting that this instrument can be used in the measurement of loneliness among Chinese adolescents.


Tumbling and stunts in physical education.-Although varying degrees of importance have been placed on the teaching of tumbling and stunts in the physical-education program, these activities have been classed largely as spectacular events developing the showmanship of a few superior participants. In recent years, however, there has grown a tendency to incorporate tumbling and stunts into the informal type of program. It is true, of course, that teaching procedures in these activities have not been well formulated in their application to large groups. Therefore, a complete treatment' of the organization, administration, and method of teaching tumbling and stunts by two well-known authors in the field is a welcome addition to the literature of physical education. The book is divided into two parts. The first part deals largely with the teaching of tumbling and stunts. The historical sketch in the opening chapter presents an enlightening and interesting picture of these activities from the time of the early Egyptians to the present. The discussion of tumbling and stunts as physical-education activities reveals the objectives to be obtained and also serves to justify their place in the program. Various phases of teaching procedure are described in detail, such as motivation, presentation, visual and verbal aids, practice, and informal methods of conducting classes. The discussions of organization, of the use of material, and of supervision of classes are out-


This paper deals with a support tool for an automation of simulation of Coloured Petri nets and selected simulation experiments conducted with the aid of the tool. The tool is called CPN Assistant, it has been developed at the home institution of the authors and cooperates with the CPN Tools software. It allows to run and manage multiple customized simulations in a network environment. The experiments presented aim at an evaluation of several modification of a raytracing management implementation in a cluster environment.


This article depicts the chronological development of research on social and environmental accounting practices of the companies of a developing country Bangladesh. The research identifies that research on social and environmental accounting from the Bangladeshi perspective started in 1996. From then up to 2006, the research was mostly small scale and methodologically simple. It is mainly from 2007 the researchers having Western university affiliation, became interested in conducting research on Bangladesh. From then a development in terms of content and methodology can be noticed. The article concludes that the main contributors in the development of research in this area are the scholars affiliated with the Western universities. Local Bangladeshi researchers, because of their 'colonized' mentality, just followed and imitated the Westerners in terms of the methodologies and other aspects of research.


There are many problems such as a conducting cylinder with finite length where the Green's function in the exterior region cannot be obtained whereas the Green's function in the interior region can be easily obtained. When the moment method is adopted to obtain the surface current of such a conducting scatterer, the procedure to calculate the impedance matrix is very complicated. A method is proposed to obtain the mutual admittance matrix by using the interior Green's function of the scatterer. Comparison of the results of the proposed method and the conventional moment method shows the validity of the present analysis.<<ETX>>


A study was conducted to determine the reasons for the steady rise in voluntary employee turnover, particularly in the US IT industry. The study focused on the potential differences between Generation X IT workers and others. The study found that many employees leave mainly because of distrust between management and employees. To fix this problem and counter voluntary turnover, open two-way communication must flow between IT employees and senior management. Leaders must listen to the concerns of valued employees about new technologies and provide a voice for employees to contribute to the organization's future. Without these improvements, an organization risks considerable costs that it can ill afford in highly competitive business environments


The aim of this study is to determine the opinions of primary school teachers working in rural areas about their efficacy in using information and communication technology, the sufficiency of the physical environment, technological tools, and the contribution of information and communication technology to teaching-learning process. Phenomenological design within the qualitative research methods was used in this study. 11 classroom teachers working in four different primary schools in a city from Central Anatolian Region during fall semester in 2012-2013 participated. Results indicated that most of classroom teachers working in rural areas expressed themselves competent in terms of using technology. Half of the teachers found physical environment of their schools sufficient in terms of information and communication technologies, and the other half found it insufficient. In addition, classroom teachers stated that contribution of ICT usage to learning as; achievement, facilitation, motivation, providing care and attention, meaningful learning and effective use of time. It was found that classroom teachers thinking themselves efficient and inefficient in using information and communication technology were open to following innovations and professional development. Therefore, in-service training to classroom teachers might be arranged


The increased use of explosives in combat has resulted in a large number of returning veterans suffering from blast-related mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) and self-reported complications. It remains unclear whether this increase in self-reported difficulties is unique to the blast mechanism or stressful preinjury environment and whether cognitive-functioning deficits correspond with these difficulties in the postacute phase. This study examined the relationship between cognitive performance and self-reported psychological and somatic symptoms of blast-related mTBI compared with civilian mTBI, independent of comorbid posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. Twelve veterans with blast-related mTBI were compared to 18 individuals with civilian mTBI on cognitive tests and self-report questionnaires. Univariate analyses failed to reveal differences on any individual cognitive test. Further, veterans reported more psychological and somatic complaints. These self-reported difficulties were not significantly correlated with neuropsychological performance. Overall, preliminary results suggest that in the postacute phase, subjective complaints related to blast-related mTBI do not covary with objective cognitive performance. Additionally, cognitive outcomes from blast-related mTBI were similar to those of civilian forms of mTBI. Future studies should identify the cognitive and self-reported sequelae of blast-related mTBI independent of comorbid PTSD in a larger sample of veterans.


Effects of additives on tissue culture and rapid propagation of Dendrobium canducum Walla. ex Lindal. by 1/2 MS added activated charcoal, plant growth regulators, banana juice, apple juice and potato juice were studied. The result showed that the medium 1/2 MS + 0.1 mg/L NAA + 0.5% activated charcoal was suitable for propagation of protocorm-like body (PLB), the medium 1/2 MS + 0.5 mg/L 6-BA + 0.5% activated charcoal was suitable for differentiation of PLB, and 0.5% activated charcoal, banana juice and apple juice could promote root formation and growth.


This work was to evaluate the catalytic properties Ru/Cobalt/SBA-15 catalyst for Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS). The molecular sieve SBA-15 synthesized by hydrothermal method with rice husk ashes (RHA) and with tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS). The Ru promoted Co/SBA-15 catalyst was prepared by wet impregnation method and was characterized by X-ray diffraction, X-ray energy dispersion spectrophotometer, N2 adsorption-desorption, temperature-programmed reduction and transmission electron microscopy. The Fischer-Tropsch synthesis using the catalysts were carried out to evaluate the catalysts activities and its effect on FTS product distribution. The synthesis was carried out in a slurry reactor operating at 513 K, 20 atm, CO : H2 molar ratio of 1 : 2. X-ray diffraction showed that the calcined cobalt catalyst did not modify the structure of SBA-15, proving that Co was present under the form of Co3O4 in the catalyst. The addition of cobalt in SBA-15 decreased the specific superficial area of the molecular sieve. By RTP results was found the ranges of temperature reduction typical of iron oxides phases.  Fischer-Tropsch synthesis activity and C5+hydrocarbon selectivity increased with the addition of Ru. The increases in activity and selectivity were attributed to the increased number of active sites resulting from higher reducibility and the synergetic effect of Ru and Co. The most interesting fact to be pointed out is that the use of this catalytic system for the catalyst prepared with alternative source of silica and  cheap  (rice hull ash) showed high selectivity in liquid products, that is, in hydrocarbons with C5+ (88.2% w/w ), higher than the catalyst prepared with conventional silica source.


The discovery of superconductivity in magnesium diboride Tc≈40 K), announced in January 2001, stimulated intensive research into the nature of superconductivity and electrophysical, magnetic and thermodynamic properties and spectroscopic characteristics of MgB2 and related compounds. The review concerns methods for the synthesis of new MgB2-based superconductors with more complex chemical composition. Particular emphasis is placed on the results of investigations on the electronic structure and peculiarities of chemical bonding in these compounds. Materials science aspects of practical utilisation of materials based on the new superconductor are analysed. Main results of theoretical and experimental studies in the above-mentioned fields are generalised. The bibliography includes 228 references.


Cyadox (CYX), (2-formylquinoxaline)-N(1),N(4)-dioxide cyanoacetylhydrazone, is a growth promoter, which is more efficient and less toxic to animals. Few studies have been performed to reveal the metabolism of CYX in animals till now. In this study, the metabolic fate of CYX in the liver microsomes of animal was investigated firstly using high-performance liquid chromatography combined with hybrid ion trap/time-of-flight mass spectrometry. CYX was incubated with rat, chicken and pig liver microsomes in the presence of a NADPH-generating system. Multiple scans of metabolites in MS and MS(2) modes and accurate mass measurements were performed simultaneously through data-dependent acquisition. Most measured mass errors were less than 10 ppm for both protonated molecules and fragment ions using external mass calibration. The structures of metabolites and their fragment ions were easily and reliably characterized based on the accurate MS(2) spectra and known structure of CYX. The relative biotransformation of CYX into characterized metabolites was estimated based on the UV absorption and the assumption that all metabolites had the same extinction coefficient as the parent compound at 305 nm. Totally, seven metabolites were identified as three reduced metabolites (cyadox 1-monoxide (Cy1), cyadox 4-monoxide (Cy2) and bisdesoxycyadox (Cy4)), three hydrolysis metabolites of the amide bond (N-decyanoacetyl cyadox (Cy5), N-decyanoacetyl cyadox 1-monoxide (Cy6) and N-decyanoacetyl bisdesoxycyadox (Cy7)) and a hydroxylation metabolite of Cy1 (Cy3). Cy1-Cy6 could be detected in rat, chicken and pig liver microsomes while metabolite Cy7 could only be observed in pig. The amounts of the metabolites in three species are different. For the formations of Cy1 and Cy3, the rank order was rat approximately chicken > pig. For Cy4 and Cy5, the order was pig > rat > chicken. Cy1 and Cy4 have been previously reported, whereas the other five metabolites were novel. The N-->O group reduction and hydroxylation were the main metabolic pathways for CYX in the three species.


Introduction Regulatory macrophages (Mreg) have been experiencing a clinical trial in the One Study to test their potential in immunomodulation in allotransplantation. However the limited number of Mreg induced from individual adult peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) may restrict their application. Thus, exploring an alternative source for Mreg is required for the development of Mreg as a practicable cell therapy. In this study the potential of cord blood (CB) derived Mreg used as a cellular immunotherapy in allotransplantation was investigated. Materials and Methods CD14+ monocytes isolated from adult peripheral blood (APB) or CB were cultured with M-CSF for 7 day with IFN-&ggr; added at day 6 for Mreg induction. Mreg phenotype was characterized by flow cytometry, and in vitro suppressive function was assessed by mixed lymphocyte reaction (MLR) in both transwell and non-transwell systems. The possible molecular mechanism(s) involved were studied after MLR culture. Results Both APB- and CB-derived Mreg revealed a similar phenotype and showed no difference in their capacity to suppress proliferating allo-reactive responder CD14- PBMC at a 1:1 ratio of Mreg: responder cells in both transwell and non-transwell MLR assays, suggesting the involvement of their indirect suppression mechanism(s). However, CB-Mreg were more suppressive than APB-Mreg when ratios of Mreg: responder cells increased from 1:2 through to 1:16 in MLR. Moreover, CB-Mreg harvested from the MLR cultures with both allogeneic stimulators and responder cells exhibited much higher expression of Mreg functional molecule indoleamine-2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) than that by APB-Mreg determined by real-time PCR and western blot, and demonstrated upregulated levels of IDO transcription factor p-stat1 (Signal transducer and activator of transcription 1) examined by western blot when compared to their counterparts cultured with stimulators or responder cells alone, suggesting the induction of stat1 phosphorylation by allogeneic stimulated responder cells which may result in increased IDO expression in CB-Mreg and consequently, lead to their more potent suppressive function in MLR. The IDO-involved mechanism was then confirmed by including IDO inhibitor epacadostat in the MLR assays, showing reduced capacity of Mreg to suppress the allogeneic response in a dose dependent manner when compared to that detected in the MLR without adding epacadostat. Discussion Compared to their APB-Mreg, CB-Mreg were more potent in suppression of the allogeneic response in vitro due, at least in part, to their upregulated IDO expression. However, their in vivo function needs be further assessed in an appropriate humanized mouse model. Conclusion Our study demonstrates CB-derived Mreg as a potential source for large-scale preparation of human Mreg to meet the demands for clinical cell therapy in immunomodulation in transplantation. This project was supported by NSFC 81201171 and Hunan Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China 2017JJ3423


AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
To investigate the difference between nurses and the general population regarding seasonal variations in sleep disorders during 2004-2008. The effects of season and group interaction on sleep disorders with regard to different comorbidities were also examined.

BACKGROUND
Studies on seasonal variations in sleep disorders were mainly conducted in Norway for the general population. Furthermore, whether different comorbidities cause seasonal variations in sleep disorders in nurses remains unknown.

DESIGN
A retrospective study.

METHODS
Data from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database were used in generalised estimating equation Poisson distribution models to investigate the differences in sleep disorders between nurses and the general population diagnosed with sleep disorders (each n = 7643) as well as the interaction effects of sleep disorders between the groups with respect to different seasons. Furthermore, the interaction effects between groups and seasons on sleep disorders in the subgroups of comorbid anxiety disorders and depressive disorders were studied.

RESULTS
Both the nurses and the general population had fewer outpatient visits for sleep disorders in winter than in other seasons. The nurses had fewer outpatient visits for sleep disorders than the general population did in each season. The nurses had more outpatient visits for sleep disorders in winter than in summer compared with the general population in the comorbid depressive disorder subgroup but not in the comorbid anxiety disorder subgroup.

CONCLUSIONS
Nurses and the general population exhibited similar seasonal patterns of sleep disorders, but nurses had fewer outpatient visits for sleep disorders than the general population did in each season. For nurses with comorbid depressive disorders, outpatient visits for sleep disorders were more numerous in winter than in summer, potentially because nurses with comorbid depressive disorders are affected by shorter daylight exposure during winter.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE
Depression and daylight exposure may be considered in mitigating sleep disorders in nurses.


Phenolic compounds are commonly employed as preservatives, disinfectants, pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, dyes and medical and industrial organic raw chemicals. These chemicals are present in the environment as a result of different manufacturing activities of the petrochemical, resin and plastic, pharmaceutical, antioxidant and paper and pulp industries, among others. They are mostly recalcitrant pollutants that accumulate over time and are found in potable water, sediments and soil. Furthermore, some phenolic compounds are widely known due to its toxicity and potential carcinogenic and mutagenic activity. Chlorophenols , which are the main degradation products of many chlorinated phenoxy acids, are one example of these hazardous compounds. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has listed 11 phenolic compounds as priority pollutant. Moreover, the European Union has set the maximum total and individual phenol allowed concentration in water used for human consumption at 0.5 mg/L and 0.1 mg/L, respectively. However, as phenols are hardly degraded by traditional water treatment processes, their concentration in drinking water usually exceeds the allowed concentration. Conventional analytical methods for these compounds, such as spectrophotometry, HPCL and GC-MS and their variations, are extensive as they require several analytical procedures to obtain accurate results. The analysis of phenols in water is normed by EPA methods. These time-consuming and cost-intensive methods required large sample amounts for the extraction and use of large volumes of toxic organic solvents. Therefore, current developments in the field aim for fast and low-cost measuring methods. The resulting environmental concern creates a demand for the development of reliable, sensitive simple and cost-effective methods for fast detection of phenolic compounds. Consequently, enzymatic-based biosensors have grown as a promising technology in the detection field. Enzymes are the most widely used biological sensing element in the fabrication of biosensors . The major advantages of biosensors are high sensitivity, specificity, and applicability to multi component solutions in situ . This chapter seeks to give an overview of the developed techniques that can be applied to the analysis of phenolic compounds in environmental water samples. The principles of the electrochemical biosensors based on enzyme-catalyzed chemical reactions for phenolic compounds determination are studied in this segment. Redoxenzymes, such as tyrosinase-, peroxidase- and laccase-based biosensors have proven to be very useful for the determination of phenols and substituted phenols at low concentrations. The recent trends in the advancement of electrochemical biosensor for phenolic compounds quantification, including nanomaterials transducer modification, are also reviewed.


The present invention relates to a composition for the controlled release of a stimulant of xanthine or a xanthine derivative, which comprises microparticles including a biodegradable matrix of at least one water-soluble material and the stimulant, said stimulant being in the form of solid particles which are substantially uniformly distributed throughout the matrix. It is also concerning a method for making this composition by dispersing the stimulant in the form of a plurality of solid particles into a biodegradable matrix. Such composition can advantageously be orally administrated for increasing the alertness of an individual.


: Activity of natural killer cells (NK-cells) was determined in a 4-hour 51Cr-release test using K-562 as target cells in patients with brain tumours and donors. This activity was significantly (P less than 0.05) reduced in preoperative patients with metastatic brain tumours (mean--5.7%), gliomas of III-IV malignancy grades (mean--16.4%) as compared with the control (mean--32.5%). The activity of NK-cells remained low after surgical treatment irrespective of the length of remission.


Testing of electronic devices is an integral part of the technological process of any manufacturer of such equipment. In this case, an electronic device is understood as an energy-intensive unit such as a mobile phone, data center or spacecraft. One of the key stages of testing is to identify the effect of electric fields on various electronic components of the device. This stage often requires making a mock-up of some part of an unfinished device in order to fix interference with special equipment. This requires time, financial and human resource costs. In order to reduce these costs in the modern world, the use of mathematical modeling tools for testing noise immunity and electromagnetic compatibility is becoming popular. In this paper, it is proposed to use an algorithm for visualizing electric fields in three-dimensional space and time. The algorithm is easily embedded into applications as a component of a mathematical modeling system. The work considered three ways of visualizing the electric field strength: starting from a simple setting of points in space, on the basis of which the electric field will be built, around the source of electric field radiation, to the use of algorithms that make it possible to arrange points equidistantly based on a given number of points in space for the formation of an electric field. The performance and visual implications of these methods were analyzed. The proposed methodology will be useful to the developer community as an embedded solution for point visualization of the electric field in any project in any algorithmic language with the ability to animate in time.


Microfibrils having a diameter of 10-12 nm, found either in association with elastin or independently, are an important component of the extracellular matrix of many tissues. Because isolation of native proteins composing the microfibrils has proven difficult, information on structure/function relationships is limited. In order to extend our understanding of the 31-kDa microfibril-associated glycoprotein (MAGP), the bovine gene has been cloned and characterized and the protein has been expressed in a eukaryotic system. The compact coding portion of the gene is contained in 4.5 kbp of genomic DNA and does not appear to share any domain motifs with other known proteins. The size, amino acid composition, and sequence of the amino terminus of the secreted recombinant protein (rMAGP) all agree with values predicted by the nucleotide sequence of the cDNA used in the expression vector. The rMAGP reacts with a monospecific antibody prepared against a defined amino acid sequence of the natural molecule and reacts specifically with recombinantly produced tropoelastin, suggesting that rMAGP will be a useful reagent with which to study its interaction with other extracellular matrix components.


Objectives: Eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) is a chronic disease which requires endoscopy with biopsies for diagnosis and monitoring. We aimed to identify a panel of non-invasive markers that could help identify patients with active EoE. Methods: In this prospective cohort study, we enrolled 128 children aged 5–18 years old, scheduled for endoscopy for suspected esophageal or peptic disease. On the day of the endoscopy, fractionated exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) was measured; and blood was collected for peripheral absolute eosinophil count (AEC), plasma amino acids, and plasma polyamine analysis. Patients were grouped into controls (n = 91), EoE in remission (n = 16), or active EoE (n = 21), based on esophageal eosinophilia and history of EoE. Results: AEC was not statistically significant different among the groups compared (P = 0.056). Plasma amino acids: citrulline (CIT), β-alanine (β-ALA), and cysteine (CYS) were higher in active EoE compared to controls (P < 0.05). The polyamine spermine was lower in active EoE versus controls (P < 0.05). Receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve to assess the predictive capability of a combined score made of FeNO, β-ALA, CYS, and spermine had an area under curve (AUC) of 0.90 (95% CI: 0.80–0.96) in differentiating active EoE from controls and 0.87 (95% CI: 0.74–1.00) when differentiating active EoE from EoE in remission. Conclusion: A panel comprising FeNO, 2 plasma amino acids (β-ALA, CYS) and the polyamine spermine can be used as a non-invasive tool to differentiate active EoE patients from controls.


In light of increasing rates of overweight and obesity worldwide, there is a critical need for accurate self-report measures of disinhibited and restrained eating behaviors across the weight spectrum. Item response theory was used to determine whether differences in disinhibited and restrained eating between healthy weight and overweight or obese individuals were due to item bias (i.e., differential item functioning). Study 1 participants were healthy weight (n = 510) or overweight or obese (n = 304) adults recruited from the community. Study 2 participants were healthy weight (n = 778) or overweight or obese (n = 320) college students. Study 1 participants completed the Eating Disorder Examination-Questionnaire (EDE-Q), Eating Disorder Inventory-3, Dutch Eating Behaviors Questionnaire, Restraint Scale, and Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire. Study 2 participants completed the Eating Pathology Symptoms Inventory (EPSI). Items on the Restraint Scale demonstrated the most evidence for bias (60% of items), whereas the majority of other scales demonstrated low to moderate levels of item bias (17-38% of items). However, EDE-Q Restraint and EPSI Binge Eating, Cognitive Restraint, Excessive Exercise, Muscle Building, and Negative Attitudes Toward Obesity scales did not show any evidence of differential item functioning among weight groups. Participants with the same level of disordered eating responded differently to certain eating disorder self-report items due to weight-bias, rather than true between-groups differences. Nevertheless, EDE-Q Restraint, EPSI Cognitive Restraint, and EPSI Binge Eating did not exhibit any evidence of bias and are ideal for assessing restrained and disinhibited eating across the weight spectrum in both research and clinical settings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).


Modeling occupies an important place in service-oriented solutions. However, as far as approaches covering whole development cycle are concerned, either their modeling languages are too simple, except CBDI SAE metamodel for SOA 2.0, or modeling processes are incomplete. This paper presents an approach to modeling service-oriented solutions based on CBDI SAE metamodel for SOA 2.0, which has gotten the widely attention of academic and industrial circles. The paper discusses which modeling activities can output which models and how to build and describe the models, and prescribes the relations between the models.


INTRODUCTION
Thrombocytopaenia is common in adults with cyanotic heart disease. Our aim was to explore potential mechanisms for thrombocytopaenia in these vulnerable patients.

METHODS
Adults with cyanotic heart defects were identified from our clinical database. Haemoglobin levels, platelet counts, and resting oxygen saturations were determined at baseline and during follow-up. Associations between patient characteristics and cardiac physiology with these parameters at baseline and during follow-up were analysed using regression models. Survival estimates were determined by the Kaplan-Meier method.

RESULTS
We included 79 patients (mean age 32.2 ± 12.4, 48 (61%) Eisenmenger syndrome, 20 (25%) Down syndrome). Mean oxygen saturation was 84.1 ± 5.9%; 38 (48%) had thrombocytopaenia. There was a strong inverse correlation between platelet count and haemoglobin level (R = -0.655, R2 = 0.429, p < 0.0001) and a weaker but significant positive correlation between platelet count and oxygen saturation (R = 0.345, R2 = 0.119, p = 0.002). There was a significant inverse correlation between decrease in platelet count and increase in haemoglobin level during follow-up (R = -0.401, R2 = 0.161, p = 0.001) but not to changes in oxygen saturation (R = 0.043, R2 = 0.002, p = 0.726). Survival estimates were lower for patients with thrombocytopaenia at baseline (log-rank test p < 0.0001).

CONCLUSIONS
Our findings suggest a direct inverse correlation between platelet counts and haemoglobin levels in adults with cyanotic heart disease. Further studies are required to explore the mechanisms of thrombocytopaenia in cyanotic heart disease and its potential role as an independent marker of risk.


More than one thousand per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) have been discovered by nontarget analysis (NTA), but their prioritization for health concerns is challenging. We developed a method by incorporating size exclusion column co-elution (SECC) and NTA, to screen PFASs binding to human liver fatty acid binding protein (hL-FABP). Of 74 PFASs assessed, 20 were identified as hL-FABP ligands in which 8 of them have high binding affinities. Increased PFASs binding affinities correlate with stronger responses in electrospray ionization (ESI-) and longer retention times on C18 column. This is well explained by a mechanistic model which revealed that both polar and hydrophobic interactions are crucial for binding affinities. Encouraged by this, we then developed a SECC method to identify hL-FABP ligands, and all 8 high-affinity ligands were selectively captured from 74 PFASs. The method was further applied to an aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) product in which 31 new hL-FABP ligands were identified. Suspect and nontargeted screening revealed these ligands as analogues of perfluorosulfonic acids, and homologues of alkyl ether sulfates (C8- and C10/EOn, C8H17(C2H4O)nSO4- and C10H21(C2H4O)nSO4-). The SECC method was then applied to AFFF-contaminated surface waters. In addition to perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorohexanesulphonic acid (PFHxS), 8 other AFFF chemicals were discovered as novel ligands, including four C14- and C15/EOn. This study implemented a high-throughput method to prioritize PFASs and revealed the existence of many previously unknown hL-FABP ligands.


Abstract Strong ground motions usually trigger lots of slope failures in the affected area. In this work, we analyse the occurrence likelihood of earthquake-triggered landslide by employing the ensembles of adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference systems (ANFIS) with four well-known metaheuristics techniques, namely particle swarm optimization (PSO), genetic algorithm (GA), ant colony optimization (ACO), and differential evolution (DE) algorithms. Twelve landslide conditioning factors namely, elevation, slope degree, lithology, peak ground acceleration (PGA), stream power index (SPI), topographic wetness index (TWI), distance to road, distance to river, distance to fault, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), slope aspect, and plan curvature are considered within the geographic information system (GIS) to produce the required spatial database. In this paper, frequency ratio (FR) model is used to evaluate the spatial interaction between the landslides and conditioning factors. Meantime, among a total of 458 marked earthquake-induced landslides, 366 (80%) are specified to the learning process, and the remaining 92 (20%) landslides are used to evaluate the accuracy of applied models. The landslide susceptibility maps are generated in the GIS environment. Three accuracy criteria of mean square error (MSE), root mean square error (RMSE), and area under the receiving operating characteristic curve (AUROC) are used to develop a ranking system for comparing the integrity of the designed models. The total ranking scores (TRSs) of 15, 8, 10, and 18, respectively, obtained for PSO-ANFIS, GA-ANFIS, ACO-ANFIS, and DE-ANFIS revealed the superiority of the DE algorithm compared to other metaheuristics techniques. Also, the DE-ANFIS emerged as the fastest ensemble, due to the highest convergence speed obtained for this model.


The recent curriculum reform in China puts forward higher requirements for the development of physical education. In order to further improve students' physical quality and motor skills, the traditional model was improved to address the lack of accuracy in motion recognition and detection of physical condition so as to assist teachers to improve students' physical quality. First, the physical education teaching activities required by the new curriculum reform were studied with regard to the actual needs of China's current social, political, and economic development; next, the application of artificial intelligence technology to physical education teaching activities was proposed; and finally, deep learning technology was studied and a human movement recognition model based on a long short-term memory (LSTM) neural network was established to identify the movement state of students in physical education teaching activities. The designed model includes three components: data acquisition, data calculation, and data visualization. The functions of each layer were introduced; then, the intelligent wearable system was adopted to detect the status of students and a feedback system was established to assist teaching; and finally, the dataset was constructed to train and test the designed model. The experimental results demonstrate that the recognition accuracy and loss value of the training model meet the practical requirements; in the algorithm test, the motion recognition accuracy of the designed model for different subjects was greater than 97.5%. Compared with the traditional human motion recognition algorithm, the designed model had a better recognition effect. Hence, the designed model can meet the actual needs of physical education. This exploration provides a new perspective for promoting the intelligent development of physical education.


The cornerstone of Chile's impressive fiscal performance has been its structural balance rule. By insulating public spending from short-term copper price fluctuations and the business cycle, the rule has helped preserve fiscal discipline. However, the implementation of the rule in recent years has revealed certain challenges, and in May 2010, the government established a high-level commission to recommend reforms that could make the rule even more effective. This paper assesses the scope for improving the design and implementation of the structural balance rule in light of best practices and OECD country experience with fiscal rules. This assessment suggests several options to strengthen Chile's fiscal rule, including by simplifying the calculation of the structural balance; enhancing the rule's flexibility, transparency and accountability; and complementing it with a medium-term fiscal framework.


inter-relation of astrocytic function to cerebral blood flow regulation. Measurements of relative blood flow obtained with a surface laser Doppler probe are correlated to interstitial and astrocytic measurements of various ionic concentrations in rat. Thus far our studies show that one determinant of cerebral blood flow regulation appears to be astrocytic sodium-potassium ATPase activity.


In biological systems, enzymes catalyse the efficient synthesis of complex molecules under benign conditions, but widespread industrial use of these biocatalysts depends crucially on the development of new enzymes with useful catalytic functions. The evolution of enzymes in biological systems often involves the acquisition of new catalytic or binding properties by an existing protein scaffold. Here we mimic this strategy using the most common fold in enzymes, the alpha/beta-barrel, as the scaffold. By combining an existing binding site for structural elements of phosphoribosylanthranilate with a catalytic template required for isomerase activity, we are able to evolve phosphoribosylanthranilate isomerase activity from the scaffold of indole-3-glycerol-phosphate synthase. We find that targeting the catalytic template for in vitro mutagenesis and recombination, followed by in vivo selection, results in a new phosphoribosylanthranilate isomerase that has catalytic properties similar to those of the natural enzyme, with an even higher specificity constant. Our demonstration of divergent evolution and the widespread occurrence of the alpha/beta-barrel suggest that this scaffold may be a fold of choice for the directed evolution of new biocatalysts.


Plasma salicylate concentration was monitored in 42 children on long-term salicylate therapy for rheumatoid arthritis. A given dose of salicylate per kg resulted in large variations in plasma levels, both between individuals and for a single individual at different times. The factors responsible for such variations were studied; in 6 cases urinary metabolites of salicylate were analysed. The relation between salicylate dosage and plasma half-life accounts for the fact that small changes in dosage can result in large changes in plasma concentration. The addition of corticosteroid or ACTH therapy results in lower plasma levels of salicylate, and necessitates higher dosage of salicylate. After the introduction of routine monitoring of plasma salicylate, the incidence of toxic symptoms fell sharply.


TOTHEEDITOR: The comment of Mueller et aI. (DICP 1989;23:93-4) on the possible role of digoxin-like immunoreactive substance (DLIS) in the unusually high serum digoxin concentrations (SDCs) reported by Ujhelyi et al.' prompted us to review the original case report. Although we agree that DLIS could have been a factor in the high SDCs reported in the case, we would like to comment on the apparent flaw in the pharmacokinetic interpretation originally put forward by Ujhelyi et aI. These authors observed an SDC of 9.3 ng/mL in a 98-year-old woman with congestive heart failure and renal insufficiency. Serum digoxin and creatinine data for the period prior to hospitalization were not available. After admission, the patient's SDC declined in a log-linear manner with an elimination half-life of 106 hours. The authors concluded that there was a "large and rapid decrease in the volume of distribution" (they apparently assumed a decrease of about 60 percent). They also stated that the "digoxin half-life changed moderately due to a further decrease in the patient's renal function" (they assumed a literature-predicted half-life of 107hours before the change in the patient's status). They argued that these changes were responsible for the unusually high SDC. The authors' pharmacokinetic analysis of this case is apparently incorrect and may lead clinicians to expect that changes in volume of distribution can lead to changes in steady-state serum drug concentration (Css)' This is an error that is frequently made during pharmacokinetic monitoring of drug therapy in relation to the effects of changes in a patient's physiologic status or drug regimen on Css' The half-life (t 112) of a drug is determined from the overall elimination rate constant (Ke) by: t1h = 0.693/Ke Eq. I The relationship between Ke, volume of distribution (\d), and clearance (CI) of a drug is: x, = ClI\d Eq.2 The rate constant K, is a derived parameter determined by the two independent and physiologically based parameters CI and Vd•1.2 Therefore, a large decrease in \d must result in a similarly large decrease in t '12unless it is offset by a proportionately large decrease in CI. The average Cssof a drug taken chronically is determined by: Css = (D/T)F/CI Eq.3 where D/T is the dose rate and F the fraction reaching the systemic circulation. From this relationship it can be seen that, if D/T and F do not change, the only way that Css can increase is if Cl decreases. An error often arises when clinicians write Eq. 2 as Cl = K,\dand Eq. 3 as Css= (D/T)FIKe\d, which give the impression that Cl and Css are derived from K, and \d. While Cl can be calculated from K, and \d, it is not determined by these parameters. I.' Therefore, a change in Vd in the absence ofa change in Cl will result in a change in the t 112 of a drug but will have no effect on the Css' In this case, the authors apparently had no historical data and it is likely that the patient's SDC had been elevated, perhaps for weeks, prior to admission. If we assume, as the authors suggest, that the patient's SDC did increase over the two-week period prior to admission, then this must have been due to a change in Cl and not \d. Although it is possible that her \ddecreased due to renal failure and hyperkalemia, Eqs, I and 2 show that this would result in a decrease in t1h unless accompanied by a similar decrease in CI. Moreover, a change in \dalone would result in no change in Css (Eq. 3). If there was a rapid decrease in Vd , as assumed by the authors, this would produce a temporary increase in SDC that would return to the initial Css in fourto five times the new t 112 if no change was made in the dose rate. A reduced Vd would result in higher peaks and lower troughs but this could not account for the high SDCs reported. It is very difficult to determine what actually happened in this case because of the lack of information from the period prior to admission. Based on the patient's advanced age and elevated serum creatinine concentration, it is likely that she had a very low digoxin clearance, resulting in a high SDC on the 0.25 mg daily dose. Her renal impairment and hyperkalemia could both have contributed to a Letters


The protein kinase v‐akt murine thymoma viral oncogene homolog (AKT) gene family comprises three human homologs that phosphorylate and inactivate glycogen synthase kinase 3β (GSK3β). Studies have reported the genetic association of AKT1 with schizophrenia. Additionally, decreased AKT1 protein expression and the reduced phosphorylation of GSK3β were reported in this disease, leading to a new theory of attenuated AKT1‐GSK3β signaling in schizophrenia pathogenesis. We have evaluated this theory by performing both genetic and protein expression analyses. A family based association test of AKT1 did not show association with schizophrenia in Japanese subjects. The expression levels of total AKT, AKT1 and phosphorylated GSK3β detected in the schizophrenic brains from two different brain banks also failed to support the theory. In addition, no attenuated AKT‐GSK3β signaling was observed in the lymphocytes from Japanese schizophrenics, contrasting with previous findings. Importantly, we found that the level of phosphorylated GSK3β at Ser9 tended to be inversely correlated with postmortem intervals, and that the phosphorylation levels of AKT were inversely correlated with brain pH, issues not assessed in the previous study. These data introduce a note of caution when estimating the phosphorylation levels of GSK3β and AKT in postmortem brains. Collectively, this study failed to support reduced signaling of the AKT‐GSK3β molecular cascade in schizophrenia.


Police Powers and the Individual. Basil Blackwell. £29.50 (hardback); £10.95 (paperback). This is a very useful and worthwhile book which looks at the whole issue of police powers in a practical context. The authors, both lecturers in law at the University of Manchester, are to be congratulated on their skill in presenting the law in a concise but lucid way and for maintaining a critical but balanced approach towards a topic that is so often coloured by excessive legalism or political bias. The question posed at the end of Chapter I "Are we in danger of discarding our tradition of policing by consent?" provides the basis for subsequent discussion about the law in relation to the investigation of crime, searches, arrests and interrogation. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, is dealt with at some length and with inconsistencies and potential dangers appropriately highlighted. The authors are under few illusions about this Act; they echo the concern of many police officers in regretting that any hopes of it being a "framework of principle" or "concrete realisation of any particular philosophy of policing" disappeared through the influences of "pressure groups, professional bodies and political influences". They are certainly not alone in noting its vagueness and incomprehensibility. A chapter entitled, "Remedies against the Police" contains a well-argued debate on the subject of "double-jeopardy" which concludes that the burden of avoiding disciplinary charges based on the same set of facts as a dismissed criminal charge "seems to place the interests of the individual officer, as opposed to that of society at large, at a very high premium indeed". This section alone would justify the purchase price of the book for anyone concerned with police discipline. Other police officers will find much helpful insight into what their powers are and reasons why they should be careful when they exercise them. Only one minor quibble should perhaps be made. A three page Appendix comments on aspects of the Public Order Act 1985. It was evidently written at a very late stage in the preparation of this book but before the Act became law. The result is not really satisfactory because only ss. 4, 5 and 12(1) are reproduced in anything like a complete form so that there are unfortunate omissions. For example, the provisions of s. 14 (which deal with static demonstrations) are dismissed simply as an example of a move away from "control by breach of the peace power". Doubtless the second edition of this work will have much more to say about such an innovation in English law. In sum, this is a well written and practical guide to police powers that should find a place in any police law library. M.E.D.


This study presents a newly designed topology for a fuel cell energy source conversion in order to supply a highly reliable utility power. Because the fuel cell has the power quality of low voltage as well as high current due to the electrochemical reaction, a high step-up dc-dc converter is utilized for boosting the fuel cell voltage up to a constant dc-bus voltage for the utilization of later inverter. Moreover, a current-source sine-wave voltage inverter is designed in the sense of voltage-clamping and soft-switching techniques to enable the use of a smaller inductor in the current source circuit and the compression of the voltage stress across switches about two times of the dc-bus voltage. In this power conversion scheme, the output voltage has the salient features of lower distortion, fast dynamic regulating speed and insensitivity to load variation, even under nonlinear loads. In addition, experimental results via an example of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell generation system with 250-W nominal power rating are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed power conversion strategy. According to the experimental measure, the maximum power inverter efficiency is over 95% and the total harmonic distortions for various load conditions are all within 1.1%.


BRAACK, L. E. 0. & RETIEF, P . F., 1986. Dispersal, density, and habitat preference of the blow-flies Chrysomyia a/biceps (Wd:) and Chrysomyia marginalis (Wd.) (Diptera: Calliphoridae). Onderstepoort Journal ofVeterinary Research, 53, 13-18 (1986) 16 000 Chrysomyia a/biceps and 52 000 C . marginalis adults were radioactively labelled with P-orthophosphate and released in the northern Kruger National Park, South Africa. After a 1-weekilispersal period 69 baited blow-fly traps were placed in different habitat !}'pes and at varying distances around the release point. C. a/biceps were subsequently found to have covered up to 37,5 km ~ alld c: marginaliso3,5 km, suggesting dispersal rates per day of 2,20 km and 2,35 km for the 2 species, respectively. Calculation of density using the Lincoln Index yielded estimates per hectare of 7,56 C. a/biceps and 29,03 C. margina/is. Both species were trapped more numerously in forested environments than in open scrub, and both avoided arid scrubland.


Background: Antibiotics are one of the most widely used groups of drugs. Irrational and uncontrolled use of these agents both in developing and developed countries has resulted in an evolution of resistant strains in addition to poor health outcome. The abusive use of antibiotics is a worldwide problem and worth investigation. The regional data from Ethiopia is contributing to worldwide understanding of the situation.

Objective: To assess prescription practice for inpatients clients at St Paul's Hospital millennium Medical College in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 2018.

Methods: Data was collected prospectively from March 1-30/2018 G.C. through chart abstraction, observation and interview by following patients from admission to discharge, death or left against medical advice. Sample size was calculated using a single population proportion formula and the calculated sample size was 264. Data was analyzed using (SPSS) version 24.0. Descriptive statistics were done by running frequencies.

Results: Antibiotics for systemic use were prescribed to 87.5% of the patients which was nine out of ten. Of total admitted patients for 87.50% antibiotics were prescribed as treatment, of which only 38.50% prescription of antibiotics were prescribed based on treatment guidelines. The most frequently prescribed antibiotics were third generation cephalosporin alone which accounts 48.92% of all antibiotics prescribed for clients and cephalosporin (ceftriaxone, cefotaxime and ceftazidime) in combination with metronidazole were 16.88% and cephalosporin in combination with Vancomycin were prescribed for 9.96% for inpatients clients.

Conclusions: In the present study for nine out of ten patients antibiotics were prescribed and more than half of prescription was inappropriate prescription 61.67% which indicated that an abusive use of antibiotics at inpatient setting of SPHMMC. Therefore, Health care practitioners' would be better to adhered to drug prescription guideline regarding antibiotics and others drugs in developing countries Hospital settings for inpatient treatments.


Television studies has always been haunted by the concept of power, caught in a dilemma between Frankfurtian pessimism and a vulnerability to charges of a cheerful 'banality'. The paper suggests a new perspective on this problem by introducing a distinction between theories of power (in the singular) and a more differentiated attention to plural powers. The latter approach can be traced as an emerging possibility in 'post-Cold War' formations in popular culture — the example discussed here being Pokémon. The paper further suggests that television studies might learn something from this development. The way is opened, specifically, for questions of power to be considered in a historical, rather than theoretical, mode. Such an approach offers an alternative to remaining caught in what have become increasingly repetitive debates about power.


The present study aimed to determine the efficacy and safety of pro re nata (PRN) intravitreal brolucizumab therapy for neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD) without a loading dose in the real-world setting. The PROBE study (Pro Re Nata Brolucizumab for Exudative AMD) is a retrospective, observational, multicentric study that included 27 treatment-naïve patients (27 eyes) with neovascular AMD who received PRN brolucizumab therapy with the treatment interval being at least 8 weeks, should the need for a second consecutive injection arise. The primary outcome measure was changed to best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) over time. Secondary outcome measures included the determination of change in central subfield thickness (CST) and complications. The mean follow-up was 11.2 ± 1.2 months. The mean baseline and final BCVA were 57.4 ± 4.5 letters and 65.3 ± 3.12 letters, respectively (p = 0.014). The mean gain in letters at the end of follow-up was 7.8 ± 3.5 letters. There was a significant decrease in CST at the end of the follow-up period (p = 0.013). Patients received a mean of 2.2 ± 0.9 injections (in addition to the first mandatory injection) during the follow-up period. There were no adverse events noted. In conclusion, initial PRN brolucizumab for exudative AMD without a loading dose demonstrated significant visual improvement and no adverse events.


Accurate matching of unfamiliar faces is vital in security and forensic applications, yet previous research has suggested that humans often perform poorly when matching unfamiliar faces. Hairstyle and facial hair can strongly influence unfamiliar face matching but are potentially unreliable cues. This study investigated whether increased attention to the more stable internal face features of eyes, nose, and mouth was associated with more accurate face-matching performance. Forty-three first-year psychology students decided whether two simultaneously presented faces were of the same person or not. The faces were displayed for either 2 or 6 seconds, and had either similar or dissimilar hairstyles. The level of attention to internal features was measured by the proportion of fixation time spent on the internal face features and the sensitivity of discrimination to changes in external feature similarity. Increased attention to internal features was associated with increased discrimination in the 2-second display-time condition, but no significant relationship was found in the 6-second condition. Individual differences in eye-movements were highly stable across the experimental conditions.


In Bierens (1987) a Granger causal relation was found between unemployment and the interest rate for the Netherlands. This phenomenon could be explained by the revenue maximization theory of Baumol (1959) augmented with a flexible labour effort rate. This implies that fixed costs are important in determining the employment decisions of firms. In the present paper we will investigate whether there exists a similar Granger causal relation between unemployment and interest rate for a number of other countries. It appears that, with our ARMAX modeling approach, this relationship is not confined to the Netherlands, but also holds for the USA, Canada, Japan, Germany, the UK and France. For these countries the interest rate is the main explanatory variable, together with industrial production (the latter with one exception), whereas for most countries the wage rate is of minor or no importance as a determinant of unemployment.


Bawaslu is an election management institution of the Republic of Indonesia which has the task of supervising the conduct of general elections. Panwascam is an election supervision institution that is in the sub-district level. Panwascam has the task of forming a polling station supervisor (PTPS) who has the task of overseeing elections at the polling station level. PTPS is the spearhead of Bawaslu to conduct oversight in election activities. The need for PTPS which is very difficult and more so makes Panwascam have difficulties in recruiting. The increasingly complicated performance also makes panwascam must provide a qualified understanding for PTPS when serving in polling stations. Recruitment activities through interviews and PTPS bimtek are expected to produce more competent PTPS. Through the results of the interviews, several trumpets were found regarding PTPS requirements, in this case the age of PTPS must be more than 25 years and at least high school education. Bimtek is carried out to understand PTPS about its functions, duties, and authority, and also work tools from TPS officers, and work tools used by PTPS.


For papermakers, an understanding of the development of strength properties in the paper is of uttermost importance. Strong papers are desirable both in the traditional paper industry as well as in new fields of application, such as fibre-based packaging and light-weight building material. In this study, the effects of adding abaca (Musa textilis) as a reinforcement fibre for softwood pulp was investigated. Moreover, the LB Multilayer Handsheet Former for the production of stratified sheets was evaluated and used to study the effects of placing selected fibres in separate layers, rather than by making homogeneous sheets from a mixture of the pulps.Handsheets of a softwood sulphate pulp with the addition of abaca fibres were made in a conventional sheet former. It was seen that the addition of abaca fibres can increase the tearing resistance, fracture toughness, folding endurance and air permeance. Tensile strength, tensile stiffness and tensile energy absorption, however, decreased somewhat.It was shown that the LB Multilayer Handsheet Former is suitable for studying the effects of stratification of paper. The sheet former produces sheets with good formation and the variation of paper properties of the sheets is retained at a fairly constant level when the number of layers in the stratified sheets is increased. The uniformity of the sheets produced in the LB Multilayer Handsheet Former are generally at the same level as of those produced in conventional sheet formers.Homogeneous and stratified sheets were produced in the LB Multilayer Handsheet Former and it was found that by stratifying a sheet, so that pulp with a high tear index and pulp with a high tensile index are placed in separate layers, it was possible to increase the tear index by approximately 25%, while the tensile index was decreased by 10-20%.


INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES: Readmission rates after cystectomy remain considerable despite established enhanced recovery after surgery concepts. We developed a cell phone-based application (APP) to intensify and standardize patient-physician communication. The aim was to evaluate the APP's potential in terms of early complication detection, physician intervention and herewith prevention of readmissions following cystectomy. METHODS: Pilot series with 18 cystectomy patients (9 neobladders, 9 conduits). During hospital stay, the APP was downloaded on the patient's cell phone and instructions given. The first month, patients received twice a week a push notification indicating that data input was required. This was reduced to once a week in month 2-3. As variables, body weight, body temperature, fluid intake/output volumes, nausea/vomiting (yes/no), defecation (yes/no) and a pain score were chosen for the recording. Patients were also offered space for individual remarks. Recorded data were checked by the surgeon using the same APP. If deemed necessary, patients were contacted (surgeon) to get more clinical information allowing to decide, whether a control visitation was required. Finally, patients were asked to estimate the usefulness of the APP. RESULTS: 5 patients could not be enrolled (no cell phone). All 18 study patients completed the 90 days period. Overall, 95% of push notifications were answered. No patient skipped more than one data input. No one required readmission. Two times, interceptions were necessary. One neobladder patient with fever 3 weeks after discharge was given antibiotic therapy for suspicion of beginning pyelonephritis. Another patient with weight loss and nausea and therefore suspicion of metabolic acidosis after 2 months was advised to increase his sodium-bicarbonate and fluid intake. All participants felt reassured having a chance to communicate with their surgeon and judged the APP as an extremely valuable tool. CONCLUSIONS: APP-based recording of clinical parameters within the fragile 90-day post cystectomy period provides the surgeon with meaningful information. In this pilot series, two potential readmissions could be omitted due to relatively simple interceptions by the involved surgeon. Compliance was excellent. All patients estimated this straight forward communication tool as reassuring and extremely valuable. The modifiable APP can potentially be used for any kind of therapy control within all medical specialties. Source of Funding: None


It is known that a shunted nonlinear resistive-capacitive-inductance Josephson-junction (RCLSJ) model has a chaotic attractor. This attractor is created as a result of Hopf bifurcation that occurs when a certain direct current (DC) applied to one of the junction terminals. This chaotic attractor prevents the system from reaching the phase-locked state and hence degrade the performance of the junction. This paper aims at controlling and taming this chaotic attractor induced in this model and pulling the system to the phase-locked state. To achieve this task, a sliding mode controller is proposed. The design procedures involve two steps. In the first one, we construct a suitable sliding surface so that the dynamic of the system follows the sliding manifolds in order to meet design specifications. Secondly, a control law is created to force the chaotic attractor to slide on the sliding surface and hence stabilizes system trajectory. The RCLSJ model under consideration is simulated with and without the designed controller. Results demonstrate the validity of the designed controller in taming the induced chaos and stabilizing the system under investigation.


Two types of congenital laryngeal defects in the adult are presented. The first case is a patient with a laryngeal cleft who became symptomatic at 42 years of age. Dysphagia, dyspnea, hoarseness and aspiration progressed in severity until surgery was necessary at the age of 48 years. The second case presented is a 21-year-old male with nonfusion of the thyroid laminae. He was asymptomatic except for persistence of a high-pitched voice after puberty. The case histories and radiographic studies are reviewed, emphasizing that the diagnosis of these defects was more difficult than their management. The surgical repair is described and illustrated. Briefly, this involved repair of the laryngeal cleft using techniques similar to those of a herniorrhaphy. The nonfusion of the thyroid laminae and resultant defective anterior glottis was repaired using bipedicled muscle flaps and a silicone keel.


A resource estimation approach, specifically oriented towards long-lived software being actively evolved, is proposed and investigated. The approach seeks to be coherent with empirically grounded knowledge including the observation that the software progresses through a series of stages during its lifetime and that a distinctive model characterizes the economics of each individual stage. Instead of a single estimation model for the whole lifetime of the software, the approach calibrates models to each stage. Its feasibility was assessed in case studies using industrial data, yielding accuracy (in magnitude of relative error - MRE) between 20 and 33 percent.


Objectives The quantitative associations between prehypertension or its separate blood pressure (BP) ranges and the risk of main cardiovascular outcomes, including stroke, coronary heart disease (CHD), myocardial infarction (MI) and total cardiovascular disease (CVD) events, as well as diabetes, have not been reliably documented. We aim to qualitatively and quantitatively assess these relationships through a systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies. Methods We performed a comprehensive search of PubMed (1966-June 2012) and the Cochrane Library (1988-June 2012) without language restrictions. This was supplemented by review of reference lists of original and relevant reviews. Prospective studies were included if they reported multivariate-adjusted risk ratios (RRs) and corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of desirable outcomes (i.e. fatal or non-fatal incident stroke, CHD, MI, total CVD events and diabetes) with respect to prehypertension or its separate BP ranges (low range: 120-129/80-84 mmHg; high range: 130–139/85–89 mmHg) at baseline. After the related data were extracted by two investigators independently, pooled RRs were estimated using a random-effects model or a fixed-effects model. Publication bias was evaluated, and sensitivity and subgroup analyses were performed. Results Thirty-two articles met our inclusion criteria, with 1,010,858 participants. Both low- and high-range prehypertension were associated with a greater risk of developing or dying of total CVD (low-range: RR: 1.24; 95% CI: 1.10 to 1.39; high range: RR: 1.56; 95% CI: 1.36 to 1.78). Low-range prehypertension was associated with a greater risk of stroke (RR: 1.35; 95% CI: 1.10 to 1.66, P = 0.004), and high-range prehypertensinon was related to a much higher risk (RR: 1.95; 95% CI: 1.69 to 2.24, P < 0.001). Both two ranges in prehypertension increased the risk of MI (low range: RR: 1.43; 95% CI: 1.10 to 1.86; high range: RR: 1.99; 95% CI: 1.59 to 2.50). The whole range prehypertension had a 1.44-, 1.73-, 1.34- and 1.79-fold risk of total CVD, stroke, CHD and MI, respectively. Prehypertennsion was not significantly associated with incident diabetes (RR: 1.25; 95% CI: 0.99 to 1.57). There was no evidence of publication bias. The effects of prehypertension on CVD outcomes differed by many factors, such as gender, age group and study quality. Conclusions Prehypertensive patients have a greater risk of incident stroke, MI and total CVD events, even within the lower range. More attention needs to be paid to this high risk population. Trials investigating the effects of BP reduction on CVD outcomes among prehypertensive patients are expected.


Online and offline exhibition spaces are an important mechanism by which online artworks are experienced by and contextualized for audiences. Critical attention needs to be paid to the aesthetics and pragmatics underlying these 'frames' for online art.There is a range of approaches to presentations of online art. Some seek to duplicate either the structure or the look of physical exhibits in galleries and museums. Others mimic online and offline presentational forms such as search engines or magazines. Taking into account the relativity of content and context online, some of the most adventurous exhibition spaces are effectively inseparable from the works they present, and can be considered artworks themselves.While online exhibits initially sought to duplicate the form of the physical exhibition space, today we are beginning to see the reverse. The fluid and flexible aesthetic of the online exhibit is beginning to creep into the design of physical exhibits. One such example, <Alt>DigitalMedia, is a physical gallery space of digital art at the American Museum of the Moving Image.The broad debate about whether online works are to be displayed at all in physical spaces does not take into account the inherent variability of software-based art, the sheer diversity of works and genres in existence, and the notion that distinguishing online from offline experience, physical from virtual, is becoming increasingly immaterial. More relevant are discussions around how online work can be implemented in a physical context, and how the artwork itself might have both a physical and virtual embodiment. Such discussions are most productive when each work is taken on its own terms.


We employ plane-wave with ultrasoft pseudopotential method to calculate and compare the total density of states and partial density of states of bulk-phase GaN,Ga0.9375 N,and GaN0.9375 systems based on the first-principle density-functional theory(DFT).For Ga and N vacancies,the electronic structures of their neighbor and next-neighbor atoms change partially.The Ga0.9375 N system has n-type semiconductor conductive properties,whereas the GaN0.9375 system has p-type semiconductor conductive properties.By studying the optical properties,the influence of Ga and N vacancy defects on the optical properties of GaN has been shown as mainly in the low-energy area and very weak in high-energy area.The dielectric peak influenced by vacancy defects expands to the visible light area,which greatly increases the electronic transition in visible light area.


Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) are widely used for analyzing graph-structured data. Most GNN methods are highly sensitive to the quality of graph structures and usually require a perfect graph structure for learning informative embeddings. However, the pervasiveness of noise in graphs necessitates learning robust representations for real-world problems. To improve the robustness of GNN models, many studies have been proposed around the central concept of Graph Structure Learning (GSL), which aims to jointly learn an optimized graph structure and corresponding representations. Towards this end, in the presented survey, we broadly review recent progress of GSL methods for learning robust representations. Specifically, we first formulate a general paradigm of GSL, and then review state-of-the-art methods classified by how they model graph structures, followed by applications that incorporate the idea of GSL in other graph tasks. Finally, we point out some issues in current studies and discuss future directions.


Globally, heart disease is still a major public health problem. In developed countries, this is due to an ageing population, and in developing countries, like Uganda, it is due to increasing negative lifestyles. Many women in Uganda move from rural to urban areas, thereby changing their diet, reducing their level of physical activity, and increasing their weight as well as their risk of myocardial infarction. Method The qualitative method was used in this study. Twelve women aged over 40 years, who within 10 years had moved from the countryside, into the city of Kampala, were interviewed by the use of a semi-structured question guide. Data were analyzed by means of Burnard's content analysis method and by using the Theory of Reasoned Action.The aim was to examine women's experiences and perceptions of body image, lifestyles and overweight in relation to a change of living conditions, and, furthermore, to examine their knowledge of the risks of heart disease. The results showed the following themes: body image, overweight, physical inactivity, culture, transition, women's needs, concerns and lack of knowledge about the risk of heart disease. The core finding was that in spite of an income increase, a reduced health situation was described. All the interviewees reported increased body weight, encouraged by their surroundings. Lack of knowledge about nutrition and risk factors for heart disease, i.e., overweight and inactivity, and the fact that being obese was perceived, by themselves and others, as beautiful, were reported. Conclusion Important knowledge gained for public health measures was that interventions increasing women's heart health should be geared towards women's empowerment. Strategies ought to raise knowledge and awareness of forces and structures in Ugandan women's surroundings that keep them inactive and make them increase their body weight. It is important to give the women support in taking charge of their own body and health.


A 72-year-old woman was admitted to our hospital because of hemosputum. Enhanced CT showed ruptured true aortic arch aneurysm. True aortic arch aneurysm ruptured at distal portion of aneurysm. The aorta was chronically dissected from an entry proximal to ruptured portion, to ascending aorta. Ascending aorta to aortic arch was replaced with 20 mm gelatin sealed graft under selective cerebral perfusion with hypothermia. Post-operatively tracheostomy was done because of respiratory failure, and there was some leak from distal anastomosis portion which was 42 mm in diameter at the operation. So replacement of descending thoracic aorta was performed using elephant trunk of the previously replaced graft. Post-reoperative course has been uneventful. She weaned from respiratory support. True aortic arch aneurysm combined with Stanford type A dissection is very rare. We presented ruptured true aortic arch aneurysm in association with Stanford type A chronic dissection which had an entry in true aneurysm.


: In this study, we used a particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm to address a variation of the non-deterministic polynomial-time NP-hard traveling tournament problem, which determines the optimal schedule for a double round-robin tournament, for an even number of teams, to minimize the number of trips taken. Our proposed algorithm iteratively explored the search space with a swarm of particles to find near-optimal solutions. We also developed three techniques for updating the particle velocity to move towards optimal points, which randomly select and replace row and column parameters to find candidate positions close to an optimal solution. To further optimize the solution, we calculated the particle cost function, an important consideration within the problem conditions, for team revenues, fans, and media. We compared our computation results with two well-known meta-Heuristics: a genetics algorithm utilizing a swapping method and a Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search Procedure Iterated Local Search algorithm heuristic on a set of 20 teams. Ultimately, the PSO algorithm generated solutions that were comparable, and often superior, to the existing well-known solutions. Our results indicate that our proposed algorithm could aid in reducing the overall budget expenditures of international sports league organizations, which could enable significant monetary savings and increase profit margins.


This study presents a design method of an energy control strategy for parallel hybrid electric vehicles by using fuzzy multi-objective optimisation. By converting the electric energy consumed by the electric motor into an equivalent fuel consumption, the overall vehicle fuel economy and the corresponding emissions could be treated as the optimisation objectives. Then a minimum average weighted deviation method is proposed and intends to find the Pareto optimal solution, considering that its flexibility could content the variations in emission requirement in different districts. The simulation results reveal that, compared with the conventional rule-based control strategy and fuzzy logical control strategy, the proposed fuzzy multi-objective control strategy not only improves fuel economy and emission level but also maintains the battery state of charge within its operation range effectively.


In large federations of autonomous database systems, automatic distribution of the query workload to those systems is a critical issue. We examine this problem under the perspective of microeconomics theory and show how the latter can be used to construct an efficient decentralized mechanism that maximizes system throughput. In particular, we introduce a solution that is based on the notion of query markets. We examine the properties of these markets and show that they result in Pareto-optimal allocations of resources to queries. An extensive set of experiments with both a simulator and an actual implementation on top of a commercial DBMS demonstrate significant improvements in the overall system throughput when our technique is used.


Climatic conditions contribute to reduced white clover (Trifolium repens L.) productivity and plant survival in the southeastern USA, particularly during the summer. Our objective was to determine the incidence of cutting height and frequency on yield and plant morphological traits associated with survival of white clover under humid-subtropic conditions. Regal (large-leaf), Louisiana S-1 (medium-large-leaf), and Grasslands Huia (medium-small-leaf) white clover were sown on a Catalpa silty clay (fine, montmorillonitic, thermic Flavaquentic Hapludoll) and were cut every 7, 28, and 49 d at a 2.5- and 10-cm stubble height from March to November. Forage yield was measured at each harvest. Stolon growth and branching (growing point density; GPD) and post-harvest leaf area index (LAI) were measured in May, August, and November. Dry matter (DM) yield measured by season (spring, summer, and autumn) increased as leaf size increased and cutting height decreased. The effect of cutting height on stolon DM was opposite that of its effect on DM yield. After the spring, stolon DM of all cultivars was reduced by harvesting at 2.5- vs. 10.0-cm stubble, regardless of cutting interval. Within a cutting height, increasing the harvest interval from 7 or 28 to 49 d generally resulted in greater stolon DM accumulation by autumn. During much of the growing season, there was a positive association between stolon CPD and post-harvest LAI. Our results suggest that close defoliation of white clover (2.5-cm stubble) during the summer and autumn is detrimental to plant survival, particularly when combined with a short (7-d) defoliation interval.


An important function of the AMS technical committees provides for the dissemination of information about recent progress in specialized fields of interest to meteorology. This survey deals with the variety of research conducted on air-sea interaction phenomena during the past few years. The article is organized in such a way as to present a sequel to the report from the NAS committee on air-sea interaction, published in 1963. Review of the literature in this framework shows that many of the critical areas identified at that time have been researched extensively. However, as in most problem areas in atmospheric research, progress has been made, but there remain many questions that require answers before our understanding of the dynamic relationships between the sea and the air emerges into greatly improved methods of weather forecasting. In viewing the current status of this field, some recommendations are made as important objectives in the next ten years for the metetorological and oceanographic community.


A man with small-cell carcinoma of the lung underwent a Tc-99m red blood cell gastrointestinal bleeding study because he had a tarry stool. In his first-pass study, there was early filling of the radiotracer in the middle and lower portion of the inferior cava; in addition, the study revealed a distorted and distended inferior vena cava along with an abdominal aortic aneurysm. Collateral circulation of the trunk was noted in the subsequent blood-pool images. A subsequent radionuclide superior vena cava study confirmed superior vena cava obstruction just above the entrance to the right atrium. Contrast-enhanced computed tomographic scans of the chest showed that the superior vena cava was compressed completely by the mediastinal tumor mass and that collateral circulation was present. Development of collateral circulation after superior vena cava obstruction in this patient allowed venous blood to return to the right atrium through the inferior vena cava. Thus, early filling of the inferior vena cava on radionuclide first-pass studies of the abdomen may serve as a sign of superior vena cava obstruction.