The addition of organic acids (picric, oxalic, citric, or tartaric) to peptide and protein samples was found to significantly increase the yield of their quasi-molecular ions (QMI) in time-of-flight 252Cf plasma desorption mass spectrometry. The yield of the ions depended on the pKa of the acid added.


We have compared the sequence complexity and diversity of polyadenylated cytoplasmic RNA derived from two differentiated trout tissues: liver and testis. The kinetics of hybridization of polyadenylated RNA from each of these tissues with complementary DNA synthesized by reverse transcriptase revealed three abundance classes for liver RNA, the first comprising 4 sequences, the second 120, and the third, 20 000; in contrast, testis RNA showed only two abundance classes containing 6 and 6100 different RNA sequences, respectively and of average length 6 x 10(5) daltons. The extent of overlapping among those two RNA populations was further studied by performing heterologous annealing reactions between cDNA and a vast excess of mRNA. Liver mRNA was complementary to 80% of the testis cDNA. Conversely, testis mRNA reacted with only 25% of the liver cDNA. Experiments with fractionated cDNA probes indicated that the unshared sequences belonged mainly to the less frequent, most complex, class of mRNAs.


Different kinds of graphical properties of manuscripts such as layout, marginalia, handwriting or text decorations are crucial for the palaeographic and philological analysis thereof. These properties help to locate the manuscript in time and space, as well as enhance the philological analysis of the text. However, in the case of ancient historical documents, this can be considerably impeded by various kinds of damages such as deterioration, erasure, moulds, fading, staining or overwriting, just to name a few. The aim of this paper is to provide a new and handy method for digital reconstruction referred to as Tracing that allows quite accurate reconstructing of the original graphical appearance of a damaged manuscript without requiring considerable technical expertise. Tracing is a non-invasive method that crucially relies on high-resolution digital images of the manuscript. Its application is illustrated here on the basis of the palimpsested manuscript Vaticanus graecus 73. Tracing was employed in order to restore the earlier, underlying text layer (scriptio inferior ) on 12 folios or 24 pages. The results are quality images of the reconstructed manuscript pages that faithfully render the graphical properties of the original. These images may immediately be used for palaeographical and philological analyses.


While popular televised events such as presidential debates or TV shows are airing, people provide commentary on them in real-time. In this paper, we propose a simple yet effective approach to combine social media commentary and videos to create a multimedia summary of televised events. Our approach identifies scenes from these events based on spikes of mentions of people involved in the event and automatically selects tweets and frames from the videos that occur during the time period of the spike that talk about and show the people being discussed.


Partial and perceived empowerment in the practice of public hearings, widely spreading across China since the late 1990s and still operating today, is puzzling. Citizens enjoy the right to participation, information, and formal equality but their political empowerment is constrained without the right to elect and dismiss officials there. This article examines the politics of 'authoritarian empowerment,' which combines partial empowerment and sophisticated control, and separates psychological empowerment from political empowerment. Through such a delicate combination and separation, citizens are partially empowered, paradoxically, to prevent their full empowerment. Our study is a supplement to the previous study of authoritarian deliberation (consultation) and phantom democracy, discloses the deficiency of the literature on local deliberative democracy in China, and enriches the literature on sophisticated authoritarian innovation in Southeast Asia. The article is based on documented research, interviews with 469 non-participants and 72 participants, and an in-depth case study in Shanghai.


This article deals with the issue of the role of traditionalists and modernists on the development of the Saudi legal system. It presents and defines the two movements and evaluates their backgrounds and approaches. It also explores their impacts on the development of the Saudi legal system through evaluating their approaches on the following areas: legislative process, people's perspective toward applied laws, the judicial system, and legal education. The article concludes that it is clear from this evidentiary demonstration that the development of the Saudi legal system has been affected by the concurrent influences of traditionalist and modernist movements. The substance of enacted laws, legal education, the judicial systems, and people's attitude toward both Shariah and enacted laws has been negatively affected by the approaches of both movements. The paper provides for various approaches and solutions that address the problems of the system of legal education, judicial system, and legislative process. The paper suggests that these various approaches and solutions have to be adopted jointly; otherwise the confusion in the legal system will continue.


Oxidative damage produced by oxygen free radicals has been investigated in various mammalian cells in culture. Incubation of these cells with redox cycling quinones resulted in a stimulation of superoxide anion and hydrogen peroxide formation. Further metabolism of H2O2 by glutathione peroxidase caused oxidation and depletion of cellular glutathione followed by oxidation of protein sulfhydryl groups and cytotoxicity. Several targets susceptible to oxidative modification have been identified, including the mitochondrial, endoplasmic reticular, and plasma membrane Ca2+-translocases. As result, a marked and sustained increase in cytosolic free Ca2+ concentration occurred, followed by the activation of some catabolic Ca2+-dependent processes, namely phospholipases, proteases, and endonucleases. In addition, an impairment of the transmembranal signal-transducing system(s) was found. Recent investigations demonstrated that several modifications occur also in the cytoskeleton of oxidative stress-challenged cells. They mainly consist of oxidative actin cross-linking and dissociation of the cytoskeleton from the plasma membrane. All these alterations appear to contribute to the multifactorial process underlying the irreversible cell injury caused by oxidative stress.


This paper reviews the growing literature on the internationalisation of R&D in the business sector. By internationalisation of R&D, this paper means the fact that firms conduct research and development at locations outside their home countries. The survey focuses on three issues: first, the drivers of the process at the country, the sectoral and the firm level – why firms go abroad with R&D activities. Second, evidence on the effects of the internationalisation of R&D on the host and home countries of multinational firms. So far, there is a consensus in the literature that R&D internationalisation benefits the host countries. Third, the paper discusses some new lines of research on R&D internationalisation related to the role of indirect funding for R&D, R&D internationalisation in services and multinationals from emerging economies.


Little research has focused on and tried to understand the link between children's participation in sports and their human rights. In Norway, children's leisure athletics and sports participation are regulated through rules of sport ( CRS ), voted in the Executive Board of the Norwegian Olympic and Paraolympic Committee and Confederation of Sports ("Idrettstinget"). The CRS represent formal legislation rooted in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, binding for all Norwegian sport coaches in their work with children until the age of 13. This qualitative study investigates coaches' views of talent and talent development, and examines their views in the children's rights perspective. The study is based on interviews with eight professional coaches in football (soccer), gymnastics, swimming and skiing. In important areas the coaches' views are consistent with children's rights; however, there are also coaches who speak out in violation of the rights.


ABSTRACT Turbines that would provide a quiet, safe, simple and efficient alternative to our supposedly advanced bladed turbine aircraft engines are the need of the hour. One such turbine called the bladeless turbine that poses to be the ideal replacement for the conventional turbines was successfully designed. The design of such an unconventional turbine was conceived considering the catastrophic effects that conventional turbines may have on the machines they are incorporated. The turbine is designed in such a way that the blades of a conventional turbine are replaced by a series of flat, parallel, conical shaped structure spaced along a shaft. The Structure is used to eliminate the expansion losses that are incurred in conventional turbines and also to reduce noise considerably at high RPMs. Furthermore, the design of the turbine ensures that the turbine rotates at high RPMs with total safety unlike a conventional turbine which explodes under failure due to fatigue. The engines making use of these bladeless turbines can run efficiently on any fuel, from sawdust to hydrogen. Bladeless turbines are also the greenest turbines with almost nil harmful effects on the environment. Another major advantage of this design is that this turbine has only one moving part, thereby reducing the vibrations to a minimum. Overall this design aims at bringing out a new age turbine with improved performance that can provide an engine that is economic, ecofriendly and reliable as the expensive, complicated and wear prone transmission is eliminated.


This is the first study wholly devoted to reception of Spanish art in Britain and Ireland. Examining the extent and sources of knowledge of Spanish art in the British Isles during an age of increasing contact, particularly in the aftermath of the Peninsular War, it contains contributions by leading scholars, including reprints of three essays by Enriqueta Harris Frankfort, to whose memory this book is dedicated. Focusing on Spanish art from the Golden Age to Goya, these studies chart the growth in understanding and appreciation of the Spanish School, and its punctuation by controversies and continuing distrust of religious images in Protestant Britain, as well as by the successive 'discoveries' of individual artists - Murillo, Velazquez, Ribera, Zurbaran, El Greco and Goya. The book publishes important new research on art importation, collecting and dealing, and discusses the increase in access to and scholarship on works of art, including their reproduction through both traditional prints and copies and the newly invented photographic methods. It also considers for the first time the role of women in reflecting taste for the arts of Spain. It is richly illustrated with 17 colour and 54 black and white illustrations. NIGEL GLENDINNING is Emeritus Professor of Spanish and Fellow of Queen Mary University of London. HILARY MACARTNEY is Honorary Research Fellow of the Institute for Art History, University of Glasgow. Contributors: NIGEL GLENDINNING, HILARY MACARTNEY, JEREMY ROE, SARAH SYMMONS, MARJORIE TRUSTED, ENRIQUETA HARRIS FRANKFORT


Deep learning based object detection approaches have achieved great progress with the benefit from large amount of labeled images. However, image annotation remains a laborious, time-consuming and error-prone process. To further improve the performance of detectors, we seek to exploit all available labeled data and excavate useful samples from massive unlabeled images in the wild, which is rarely discussed before. In this paper, we present a positive-unlabeled learning based scheme to expand training data by purifying valuable images from massive unlabeled ones, where the original training data are viewed as positive data and the unlabeled images in the wild are unlabeled data. To effectively utilized these purified data, we propose a self-distillation algorithm based on hint learning and ground truth bounded knowledge distillation. Experimental results verify that the proposed positive-unlabeled data purification can strengthen the original detector by mining the massive unlabeled data. In particular, our method boosts the mAP of FPN by +2.0% on COCO benchmark.


AIMS
Remote ischaemic preconditioning (rIPC) protects cardiac and non-cardiac tissues against ischaemic injury. Although there is increased demand to investigate its potential clinical applicability, fundamental mechanisms responsible for rIPC-mediated protection remain unresolved. We examined in isoflurane-anaesthetized dogs whether an intact cardiac nervous system was necessary to mediate rIPC protection against ischaemic injury.

METHODS AND RESULTS
Dogs were randomly allocated to six groups: 1, control (CON, no-rIPC); 2, rIPC (4 × 5 min renal artery occlusion/reperfusion); 3, autonomic ganglionic blockade with hexamethonium (HEX, no-rIPC; 20 mg/kg iv); 4, HEX + rIPC; 5, cardiac decentralization by surgical ablation of extracardiac nerves (DCN, no-rIPC); and 6, DCN + rIPC. All dogs underwent 60 min coronary occlusion and 180 min reperfusion; cardiac haemodynamic parameters were monitored. Regional blood flow (microspheres) in the heart and kidneys was assessed. Necrotic tissue was visualized using triphenyltetrazolium staining and related to anatomic risk zone size (area at risk; P = NS between groups) and coronary collateral blood flow. Infarct size (% AAR) was 29 ± 5 (mean ± 1 SD) in CON and 15 ± 4 in rIPC dogs (P = 0.001 vs. CON); 24 ± 3 in HEX vs. 12 ± 2 in HEX + rIPC (P = 0.001 vs. HEX); and 20 ± 2 in DCN vs. 12 ± 4 in DCN + rIPC (P = 0.001 vs. DCN). In CON dogs, infarct size was inversely related to coronary collateral flow; this relation was shifted downwards in all groups pre-treated with rIPC.

CONCLUSION
We report robust myocardial protection by rIPC against ischaemic injury in canines that was not abrogated by either pharmacological or surgical decentralization of cardiac nerves.


Big data frameworks such as Spark and Hadoop are widely adopted to run analytics jobs in both research and industry. Cloud offers affordable compute resources which are easier to manage. Hence, many organizations are shifting towards a cloud deployment of their big data computing clusters. However, job scheduling is a complex problem in the presence of various Service Level Agreement (SLA) objectives such as monetary cost reduction, and job performance improvement. Most of the existing research does not address multiple objectives together and fail to capture the inherent cluster and workload characteristics. In this paper, we formulate the job scheduling problem of a cloud-deployed Spark cluster and propose a novel Reinforcement Learning (RL) model to accommodate the SLA objectives. We develop the RL cluster environment and implement two Deep Reinforce Learning (DRL) based schedulers in TF-Agents framework. The proposed DRL-based scheduling agents work at a fine-grained level to place the executors of jobs while leveraging the pricing model of cloud VM instances. In addition, the DRL-based agents can also learn the inherent characteristics of different types of jobs to find a proper placement to reduce both the total cluster VM usage cost and the average job duration.


ABSTRACT The relation of self-compassion to physical and psychological well-being was investigated among 182 college students. The self-compassion scale was delineated into three composites, following the proposition by Neff that self-compassion consists of three main components: self-judgment versus self-kindness (SJ–SK), a sense of isolation versus common humanity (I–CH), and over-identification versus mindfulness (OI–M). Findings support the association between self-compassion and psychological and physical well-being, but the composites demonstrate different influences. SJ–SK and I–CH were predictive of both depressive symptomatology and physical well-being, and SJ–SK and OI–M were predictive of managing life stressors. The results of this study support and expand prior research on self-compassion.


We investigate numerically and experimentally the near-field response of disordered arrays comprising asymmetrically split ring resonators that exhibit a strong cooperative response. Our simulations treat the unit cell split-ring resonators as discrete pointlike oscillators with associated electric and magnetic point dipole radiation, while the strong cooperative radiative coupling between the different split rings is fully included at all orders. The methods allow us to calculate local field and Purcell factor enhancement arising from the collective electric and magnetic excitations. We find substantially increased standard deviation of the Purcell enhancement with disorder, making it increasingly likely to find collective excitation eigenmodes with very high Purcell factors that are also stronger for magnetic than electric excitations. We show that disorder can dramatically modify the cooperative response of the metamaterial even in the presence of strong dissipation losses, as is the case for plasmonic systems. Our analysis in terms of collective eigenmodes paves the way for controlled engineering of electromagnetic device functionalities based on strongly interacting metamaterial arrays.


Abstract A narrow interpretation of "medical necessity" can result in poorer health as well as a more restricted life for people with disabilities. We examined the impact of US policy on reimbursement of intermittent catheters (ICs) on the lives of people with neurogenic bladder (NB) who require catheters to urinate. We conducted in-depth, longitudinal interviews with nine stakeholders. Actor-Network Theory was used to describe interactions among human agents, IC products, and policies in the reimbursement arena. Restrictions on the type and quantities of ICs reimbursed emerged as the most potent inhibitor to health and wellbeing among consumers with NB. IC suppliers, due to the large number of other stakeholders with whom they interact in the reimbursement process, emerged as strong enablers of preferred IC use among people with NB. Lack of an impartial central clearinghouse on IC products and coverage impeded consumers' ability to make informed decisions. A narrow interpretation of "medical necessity" can result in poorer health as well as a more restricted life for people with disabilities. We examined the impact of US policy on reimbursement of intermittent catheters (ICs) on the lives of people with neurogenic bladder (NB) who require catheters to urinate. We conducted in-depth, longitudinal interviews with nine stakeholders. Actor-Network Theory was used to describe interactions among human agents, IC products, and policies in the reimbursement arena. Restrictions on the type and quantities of ICs reimbursed emerged as the most potent inhibitor to health and wellbeing among consumers with NB. IC suppliers, due to the large number of other stakeholders with whom they interact in the reimbursement process, emerged as strong enablers of preferred IC use among people with NB. Lack of an impartial central clearinghouse on IC products and coverage impeded consumers' ability to make informed decisions.


Locomotor performance of hatchling snapping turtles ( Chelydra serpentina ) was assessed while turtles were running on land and swimming in water. Hatchlings from eggs incubated on a relatively wet substrate were faster than hatchlings from eggs incubated on a drier medium, both in absolute distance and in body lengths moved per unit time. The superior performance of turtles from the wet substrate was not due to differences in hydration of tissues, because differences in performance persisted after turtles from both groups had been fully hydrated. The superior performance of turtles from the wet substrate may stem from a greater aerobic capacity, because these animals accumulated lactate more slowly during locomotion than did turtles from eggs incubated on the dry substrate. These observations may provide a physiological basis for the improved survival of larger hatchlings of many species of reptiles.


Recently, there has been increasing interest in the use of rain garden systems as environmentally friendly ecological infrastructures for controlling stormwater runoff and managing non-point source pollution and information for the contamination of soil and plants can be essential for sustainable rain garden management. In this study, four rain garden mesocosms, namely single species planting with Rhododendron lateritium, single species planting with Zoysia japonica, mixed planting with R. lateritium and Z. japonica, and control without plants, were tested to investigate the change in concentrations of nutrients (N and P) and heavy metals (Cd, Cu, Pb, and Ni) in the soil and plants used in the rain garden system. The presence of plants resulted in greater nutrient retention in soil and lower potential leaching from the system. All systems showed an increase in the heavy metal concentrations in soil. The concentrations of most heavy metals were found to be higher in the herbaceous plants (Z. japonica) than in the shrubs (R. lateritium). The belowground part (root) had higher heavy metal concentrations than the aboveground part (leaf) but also showed a potential increase in leaves, and hence, careful plant management should be considered during rain garden operation.


Three component measurements in the wake of a double ship model without propeller in a wind tunnel are presented. The Reynolds number is 4.65 × 106. In the plane of the propeller turbulence intensities of more than 80% are found. The signal of the one channel fringe type laser anemometer is processed by autocorrelation. The correlograms are evaluated by curve fitting assuming gaussian velocity distribution. It is shown how the results compare with a pressure tube investigation. The statistical errors of the LDA data are studied evaluating a large number of simulated correlograms. It is found that the errors in velocity and turbulence are described by two two-dimensional functions.


A wide range of values for the exothermicity of the oxidative addition of methane to (cyclopentadienyl)rhodium carbonyl have been reported at the MP2 level of theory. These energies are recalculated using several different basis sets which reproduce previous results and provide evidence for the inadequacy of some commonly used basis sets. The calculations show that the magnitude of the exothermicity of this reaction is particularly sensitive to the metal 5s orbital. With a metal basis set which includes proper representation of the (n + 1)s and -p metal orbitals, the exothermicity is also calculated at the MP3, MP4(SDQ), and QCISD levels. The best results show that the MPX perturbation series does not converge well and that the MP2 results in any basis set are only qualitative.


The Loess Plateau (34°–40°N, 103°–114°E) is situated in the northern part of Central China (Fig. 2.1). It borders on North China Plain in the east, adjoins Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in the west, stands in the north of Qinling Mountains, and neighbors Inner Mongolia Plateau in the north. The Loess Plateau is a part of the dryland region in northwest China, with its altitude in the range of 800–3000 m, encompassing a vast expanse of 620,000 km. The Loess Plateau stretches over Shanxi province, northern Shaanxi province, Gansu province, northeastern Qinghai province, Hetao Plain, and Ordos Plateau of Inner Mongolia, and the western hilly land of Henan province—that is, 341 counties (cities) in seven provinces (or autonomous regions) (Fig. 2.2). The loess is perfectly arable due to its fine grains, loose texture, and high content of mineral nutrients. In fact, it is the cradle of the ancient Chinese civilisation, with a long agricultural history (over 6000 years) in its basins and river valleys. Standing between the developed eastern part and the less developed western part of the country, the Loess Plateau is one of the major regions selected for China's national eco-environment development programme.


Despite aggressive efforts to reduce nosocomial infections, many intubated patients develop ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP). VAP has been an area of intense research; however, there is still little consensus in the literature on how to accurately diagnose or treat VAP. VAP complicates the course of 8 – 28% of mechanically ventilated patients and mortality varies greatly from 8 to 76%, depending on the specific population being studied. Once pneumonia is suspected, bacteriologic confirmation should be obtained and empiric therapy must be instituted as soon as possible, as a delay in therapy or inappropriate therapy greatly increases mortality. Initial antibiotic therapy should be based on the most common organisms in each hospital or unit, and the most likely pathogens for that specific patient. Constant surveillance of the responsible pathogens through the use of antibiograms allows clinicians to make educated choices for antibiotics. When final cultures and sensitivities are available, de-escalation to less broad spectrum antibiotics should be performed. If cultures show no bacterial growth, antibiotics should be discontinued so that patients are not exposed to unnecessary antibiotics. Following these practices will help to decrease multi-resistant strains of bacteria and can improve the morbidity and mortality of VAP.


We report experiments on grains falling in a bidimensional vertical column. We identify a steady flow regime and, for narrow openings, a regime of density waves. The density, velocity and temperature fields are measured and compared with the prediction of a granular hydrodynamics theory. We find a good qualitative agreement for weakly dissipative particles but for the more dissipative ones, we evidence a new regime of momentum and energy transport characterized by a clogging dynamics.


A series of amidine ligands RAmDIPP (R is backbone substituent, R = 2-methylpyridine (HL1), N,N,2-trimethylaniline (HL2), N,N-dimethylpropan-1-amine (HL3); DIPP (2,6-diisopropylphenyl) is N substituent) and a (Z)-1,1-diethyl-2,3-bis(2-methoxyphenyl)guanidine ligand (HL4) have been synthesized. Reaction of HL1-HL4 with Ca[N(SiHMe2)2](THF) or Ca[N(SiMe3)2](THF)2, respectively, afforded complexes 1-8 (1: [L1AmDIPPCa(SiHMe2)2]2, 2: L1AmDIPPCaN(SiMe3)2·(THF)2, 3: L2AmDIPPCaN(SiHMe2)2·(THF)2, 4: L2AmDIPPCaN(SiMe3)2·(THF), 5: L3AmDIPPCaN(SiHMe2)2·(THF)2, 6: L3AmDIPPCaN(SiMe3)2·(THF)2, 7: [L4CaN(SiHMe2)2]2, 8: [L4CaN(SiMe3)2]2). All the complexes were well-defined by NMR spectrum analyses and the molecular structures of 3 and 5-8 were further determined by single crystal X-ray diffraction analyses. In combination with an excess of PhOH as the chain transfer agent, complexes 1-8 catalyzed immortal ring-opening polymerization of rac-lactide in a controlled manner and exhibited moderate catalytic activity at room temperature. The end-group fidelity of the resultant polymer was certified by NMR and MALDI-TOF mass spectra.


The purpose of his study aims to determine and analyze how much the income level of tuna fishing business is and what factors affect the level of tuna fishing business income in Manokwari Regency. The analytical method used is the quantitative descriptive analysis method with interview guides and questionnaires as instruments. Data analysis was performed using multiple linear regression analysis. The results showed that simultaneously and partially the variables of capital, length of time at sea, number of workers and experience at sea had a significant effect on the income of tuna fishermen in Manokwari Regency.


Purpose Although lung cancer incidences in female never-smokers have increased, few studies focus on explicit investigation. We aimed to investigate the relationship between long-term exposure to ambient particulate matter sized 10 μm or less in diameter (PM10) and the incidence of lung cancer within different genders and smoking status populations. Materials and Methods We included Seoul metropolitan residents, aged between 20 and 65 years, who underwent a national health screening examination from 2005–2007 and were followed up until 2015. Individual-level long-term exposure to PM10 was assessed based on subject home addresses. To assess the relationship between PM10 and lung cancer, we estimated hazard ratios (HRs) for increased lung cancer incidence from a 10 μg/m3 increase in PM10. Results Among 5,831,039 individuals, 36,225 (0.6%) developed lung cancer within the 7 years observed. In females, the majority (94.4%) of lung cancer development was found in never-smokers. In adjusted analyses, a significant relationship between lung cancer development and PM10 was observed in males, regardless of smoking status (never-smoker: HR, 1.14 [95% confidence interval (CI), 1.13 to 1.15]; ex-smoker: HR, 1.16 [95% CI, 1.14 to 1.17]; current smoker: HR, 1.18 [95% CI, 1.17 to 1.19]). We also found significant associations in female never- or ex-smokers with smaller HRs (never-smoker: HR, 1.06 [95% CI, 1.05 to 1.07]; ex-smoker: HR, 1.13 [95% CI, 1.02 to 1.23]; current smoker: HR, 1.04 [95% CI, 0.99 to 1.10]). Conclusion Our findings suggest that long-term exposure to PM10 is associated with lung cancer development. A novel approach to lung cancer screening needs to be considered depending on the exposed PM10 level.


Spheranthus africanus is a minor weed of rice, which can be utilized for various purposes. It can be used for phytoremediation of soil contaminated with Pb and also reported to have anti-bacterial activity to be used as natural pesticides. However, because of its minority status little is known about this species in its natural habitat. This study was aimed to understanding the relationship between S. africanus with other weed species in a fallowed paddy field in Tabanan District, Bali, Indonesia. Vegetation analysis by quarter method was done in the rice field, where the species had occurred, in 2011 and 2012. Determination of association type between S. africanus with other weed was conducted by using 2x2 contingency table to calculate χ2, association coefficient (AC) and Ochiai index (OI). The result shows that the Shannon diversity index in this same area for the two consecutive years were 2.06 and 2.48 with species richness of 22 and 27 respectively. Calculation of Summed Dominance Ratio (SDR) showed that the species composition was not evenly distributed, in other words some species dominated others. In terms of association, although S. africanus mainly has no association with most of the weed species in the field, it prominently has positive association with Lindernia ciliata , and Digitaria ciliaris , with no significant negative association. Keywords : diversity, species association, Spheranthus africanus


In the fall of 2018, news broke about a researcher from China who had used CRISPR gene editing to cause human babies to have a deletion in the CCR5 chemokine receptor, making them resistant to HIV infection. One of the numerous ethical concerns about this study is that the deletion may have other effects. Subsequently, Nature Medicine published a Brief Communications from Wei and Nielsen concluding that homozygotes for the CCR5-∆32 deletion have a survival probability to age 76 of 83.5% compared to 86.5% and 86.4% for the heterozygotes and the other homozygote, respectively, and that observed departures from Hardy Weinberg proportions also support selection operating on this allele1. In the study, Wei and Nielsen used a proxy variant, rs62625034 in their analysis. Here, we report that the reported CCR5-∆32 deviation from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) inferred by Wei and Nielsen can be explained by poor genotyping of rs62625034, the variant used for their analysis.


Background: M-M-RII, a combination measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, was licensed in the United States in 1978 based on data from several clinical trials that demonstrated that the safety and immunogenicity of the vaccine were comparable to the component monovalent vaccines and to the previous trivalent combination vaccine. Methods: Safety and immunogenicity data from 23 postlicensure clinical trials conducted with M-M-RII between 1988 and 2009 were summarized. A total of 12,901 children who received only a first dose, 920 children who received a first and second dose and 400 children who received only a second dose were evaluated. Results: The vaccine was generally well tolerated among children who received a first and/or second dose of M-M-RII. During the 28–42-day follow-up after dose 1 and dose 2, the median rate of temperatures ≥102°F (oral equivalent) was 24.8% and 13.0% and the median rate of measles/rubella-like rash was 3.2% and 0.5%, respectively. The median rate of injection-site reactions during the first 5 days postdose 1 and postdose 2 was 17.3% and 42.7%, respectively. The seroconversion rates (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) after dose 1 were remarkably consistent from study to study between 1988 and 2009 (92.8%–100% for measles, 97.7%–100% for mumps and 92.8%–100% for rubella). A trend test showed that there was no change in the immunogenicity of the vaccine over the 21-year period. Conclusions: The results of this analysis demonstrate that M-M-RII is well tolerated and immunogenic. The vaccine performed consistently over 21 years of evaluation in clinical trials.


Malnutrition was first highlighted as a prevalent concern in hospital care more than 30 years ago. In response the nutrition support field grew precipitously but changes in the healthcare environment have culminated in a period of accountability and consolidation in nutrition support practice over the past decade. Evolving regulatory environment and reimbursement policies have had a profound impact upon nutrition support and these trends are likely to continue. Both undernutrition and overnutrition (obesity) remain prevalent concerns in North America. In particular the growing prevalence of overweight/obesity will have far-reaching implications for nutrition support practitioners and will require the development, testing, and validation of new standards of assessment, intervention, and monitoring. Adoption of common language and definitions by practitioners will facilitate standardized interventions, outcome measures, and high quality research. The future remains bright with tailored nutrition interventions poised to become a part of the individual medical treatment plan for specific patient conditions and genotypes. Future research priorities should include studies of nutritional modulation of inflammatory conditions with specific nutrients and functional foods and the testing of individualized nutritional interventions tailored to gene polymorphisms.


Background: The peripheral leukocyte count is a biomarker of inflammation and is associated with human all-cause mortality. Although causes of acute leukocytosis are well-described, chronic environmental determinants of leukocyte number are less well understood. Objectives: We investigated the relationship between house dust endotoxin concentration and peripheral leukocyte counts in human subjects. Methods: The endotoxin–leukocyte relationship was evaluated by linear regression in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2005–2006 (n=6,254) and the Agricultural Lung Health Study (ALHS; n=1,708). In the ALHS, we tested for a gene [Toll-like Receptor 4 (TLR4), encoding the endotoxin receptor]-by-environment interaction in the endotoxin–leukocyte relationship using regression models with an interaction term. Results: There is a statistically significant, positive association between endotoxin concentration and total leukocyte number [estimated change, 0.186×103/μL (95% CI: 0.070, 0.301×103/μL) per 10-fold change in endotoxin; p=0.004) in the NHANES. Similar positive associations were found for monocytes, lymphocytes, and neutrophils. Stratified analyses revealed possible effect modification by asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. We observed similar associations in the ALHS. For total leukocytes, there was suggestive evidence in the ALHS of a gene-by-environment interaction for minor allele carrier status at the TLR4 haplotype defined by rs4986790 and rs4986791 (interaction p=0.15). Conclusions: This is, to our knowledge, the first report of an association between house dust endotoxin and leukocyte count in a national survey. The finding was replicated in a farming population. Peripheral leukocyte count may be influenced by residential endotoxin exposure in diverse settings. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP661


The increasing of the number of transistors on a chip, which plays the main role in improvement in the performance and increasing the speed of a microprocessor, causes rapidly increasing of microprocessor design complexity. Based on Moore's Law the number of transistors should be doubled every 24 months. The doubling of transistor count affects increasing of microprocessor design complexity, power dissipation, and cost of design effort. This article presents a proposal to discuss the matter of scaling hardware complexity of a microprocessor design related to Moore's Law. Based on the discussion a hardware complexity measure is presented.


Abstract Localization of agriculture with the aim of local food support has become a very urgent topic for Yamal region. The most fertile soils of this region are sandy textured anthropogenically affected soils. Microbiomes from disturbed soils of the Nadym region were studied using analysis of 16S rRNA metagenomic libraries. It was shown that plant cover is a driving force of microbiome composition. Forest soils covered with aeolian transfers from the quarry retaids a typical forest microbiome with the following dominant bacterial phyla: Proteobateria, Acidobacteria, Verrucomicrobia, Planctomycetes and Bacteroidetes. However, it contains significantly less Planctomycetes, which indicates greater aridity of the soil. The microbiomes of the overgrown quarries were strikingly differ from the soil microbiome and resemble those of arctic soils being dominated by Proteobacteria, Chloroflexi, Acidobacteria and Cyanobacteria. Absence of dense vegetation cover and availability of nutrients facilitated the formation of autotrophic microbial mats. The microbiome of the lower horizons of the quarry is characterised by Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria and Firmicutes. Presumably, most of the time these bacteria reside in a dormant state with short periods of activity due to nutrient uptake from the upper horizons.


Purpose: The aim of this study was to determine the clinical significance of food-specific IgE antibody tests in detecting triggering antigens in food protein-induced proctocolitis (FPIPC). Methods: Between February 2006 and May 2007, data from 16 consecutive FPIPC patients that underwent MAST and Uni-CAP tests on initial visits, were reviewed. The endoscopic criterion used for establishing a diagnosis of FPIPC was an increase in the number of eosinophils in the lamina propria (≥60 per 10 high power fields). Offending foods were suspected clinically based on elimination and challenge testing to mother or patient diets with the following five highly allergenic foods: dairy products, eggs, nuts and soybean, fish and shellfish, and wheat and buckwheat. We compared the results of initial MAST or Uni-CAP tests with clinically suspected offending foods. Results: For the 16 FPIPC patients, MAST tests showed positive results in 2 patients (12.5%), and Uni-CAP tests showed positive results in 3 patients (18.8%). Through clinical elimination and challenge, the 33 offending foods were identified: 7 fish and shellfish (21.2%), 6 eggs (18.2%), 6 wheat and buckwheat (18.2%), 4 dairy products (12.1%), 3 soybean (9.1%), 3 pork (9.1%), 2 nuts (6.1%), 1 beef (3.0%), and 1 mushroom (3.0%). Clinically suspected offending foods and MAST and Uni-CAP test results were found to be correlated in 1 patient (6.7%) each. Conclusion: Food specific IgE antibody tests are inappropriate for predicting offending foods in FPIPC. Clinical food elimination and challenge testing provide useful means of detecting offending foods. (Korean J Pediatr Gastroenterol Nutr 2008; 11: 36∼41)


We investigate the formation and propagation of ultraslow weak-light solitons and their memory in the atomic gas filled in a kagome-structured hollow-core photonic crystal fiber (HC-PCF) via electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). We show that, due to the strong light-atom coupling contributed by the transverse confinement of the HC-PCF, the EIT and hence the optical Kerr nonlinearity of the system can be largely enhanced, and hence optical solitons with very short formation distance, ultraslow propagation velocity, and extremely low generation power can be realized. We also show that the optical solitons obtained can not only be robust during propagation, but also be stored and retrieved with high efficiency through the switching off and on of a control laser field. The results reported herein are promising for practical applications of all-optical information processing and transmission via the ultraslow weak-light solitons and the kagome-structured HC-PCF.


Bill Would Permit Partial Filling of Opioid Prescriptions Legislation introduced recently in both the Senate and the House would permit the partial filling of opioid prescriptions at the request of patients or physicians (http://1.usa .gov/1QAInh6). "This bipartisan bill will empower patients and doctors to work together to determine appropriate pain treatment while limiting the number of unused pills left in family medicine cabinets," co-sponsor Sen Elizabeth Warren (D, Mass) said in a statement (http://1.usa.gov/1UuNIMZ). Too often, that's where opioid addiction begins, said Rep Katherine Clark (D, Mass), a co-sponsor of the bill in the House. The Drug Enforcement Administration currently permits controlled drugs in schedules III, IV, and V to be partially filled, but the regulations are narrower and more vague for schedule II drugs, which include prescription opioids, according to a fact sheet about the proposed legislation (http://1.usa.gov /1KOCnVR). Under the proposed legislation, pharmacists will notify physicians when prescriptions are partially filled. Partially filled prescriptions will not be allowed past the date that the full prescription would have run out.


With the advent of copper metallization in interconnect structures, new barrier layers are required to prevent copper diffusion into adjacent dielectrics and the underlying silicon. The barrier must also provide adequate adhesion to both the dielectric and copper. While Ta and TaN barrier layers have been incorporated for these purposes in copper metallization schemes, little quantitative data exist on their adhesive properties. In this study, the critical interface fracture energy and the subcritical debonding behavior of ion-metal-plasma sputtered Ta and TaN barrier layers in Cu interconnect structures were investigated. Specifically, the effects of interfacial chemistry, Cu layer thickness, and oxide type were examined. Behavior is rationalized in terms of relevant reactions at the barrier/dielectric interface and plasticity in adjacent metal layers.


Sustainable development calls for an efficient utilization of natural and human resources. This issue also arises for warehouse systems, where typically extensive capital investment and labor intensive work are involved. It is therefore important to assess and continuously monitor the performance of such a system to identify possible improvements in the system configuration. We believe that a modular system architecture and an accompanying performance monitoring method serve this purpose. In this paper we advocate a system architecture with a decentralized hierarchical control structure. The architecture allows easy adjustment of system configurations and control heuristics to deal with ever-changing warehouse requirements. We also propose a performance monitoring method that only requires little shop-floor data. This method is based on the concept of effective process time and it can be used to generate key performance indicators of the warehouse. By applying the system architecture and the performance monitoring method, we believe that more efficient ways of utilizing resources and capitals can be identified to improve the sustainability of warehouse order picking systems.


Conventional feeding for sows is usually based on the average herd's nutrient requirements. Thus, sows can be under- or over- fed leading to extra feed costs and environmental losses. New technologies, as sensors and AI, bring opportunities to measure and integrate individual variability into nutrient requirements estimations. The objective is therefore to go towards precision feeding (PF) combining on-farm data as input for a dynamic nutritional model with smart feeders to provide individual and daily-adjusted rations. As a first step, a mechanistic model (InraPorc) was upgraded and applied to databases to calculate daily nutrient requirements at the individual scale for sows. For lactating sows, it highlighted that milk production and appetite influenced the amount and composition of the optimal ration to be fed to each sow. For gestating sows, it showed that parity, gestation stage, and activity level influenced nutrient requirements. The second step was to develop algorithms to predict the parameters of interest defined in the first step and not measured daily on-farm. For lactating sows, feed intake and litter weight at weaning (as proxy for milk production) were accurately predicted using supervised methods: respectively, clustering k-shape and a linear regression. For gestating sows, an algorithm is being developed to identify individual activities via video recordings. The third step is to test on farm the decision support systems (DSS) composed of the models and algorithms. An interface allows the link between the DSS and the feeders, and another allows the farmers to enter observational data. During on-farm trials, nitrogen and phosphorus excretions as well as feed costs were reduced for sows fed with PF compared to sows fed a conventional diet. To conclude, AI allows mechanistic models and algorithms to be integrated on farm for sows for an on real-time individual adjustment of the nutrient supply.


The nature of the emergence of conditional losses. An experimental study of "conditional loss" power to parts of the Odessa railway. Recommendations to reduce "contingent losses"


Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are a group of syndromes of diverse etiology with a common set of core symptoms that include three core symptoms: communication difficulties, social challenges and repetitive behavior. Drugs for treating these symptoms represent a huge area of unmet need, especially in pediatric population. Side effects affecting lipids and glucose metabolism and neurological status are among main concernes. Newer Antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) have improved side effect profiles and have shown some efficacy in subiects for treating aggressive symptoms in children with ASDs. In this review we examine and illustrate the mechanisms of action of AEDs; we speculate on the possible effect of new AEDs on pathophysiological mechanisms and on their clinical efficacy in cognitive and behavioral disorders of ASDs patients.


This paper reports on estimating the Schottky barrier height of small contacts using a thermionic-field emission model. Our results indicate that the logarithmic plot of the current as a function of bias voltage across the Schottky diode gives a linear relationship, while the plot as a function of the total applied voltage across a metal-silicon contact gives a parabolic relationship. The Schottky barrier height is extracted from the slope of the linear line resulting from the logarithmic plot of current versus bias voltage across the Schottky diode. The result reveals that the barrier height decreases from 0.6 eV to 0.49 eV when the thickness of the barrier metal is increased from 500 Å to 900 Å. The extracted impurity concentration at the contact interface changes slightly with different Ti thicknesses with its maximum value at about 2.9×10 20 cm -3 , which agrees well with the results from secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS) measurements.


Although the SRL16E 16-bit shift register sounds like an additional component, it is an alternate operating mode for the Look-Up Tables in which they become 16-bit shift registers. While a synthesis package will automatically apply the SRL16E in some situations, substantial benefits can be realized by understanding the potential of the SRL16E and deliberately applying it to your designs. This white paper provides examples to help your understanding of the capabilities and use of the SRL16E to improve the performance and lower the cost of your designs by as much as an order of magnitude.


One of the fundamental aims in catalysis research is to understand what makes a certain scaffold perform better as a catalyst than another. For instance, in nature enzymes act as versatile catalysts, providing a starting point for researchers to understand how to achieve superior performance by positioning the substrate close to the catalyst using non-covalent interactions. However, translating this information to a non-biological catalyst is a challenging task. Here, we report a simple and scalable electrostatically tuned phenol (ETP) as an organocatalyst for transfer hydrogenation of N-arenes using the Hantzsch ester as a hydride source. The biomimetic catalyst (1–5 mol%) displays potential catalytic activity to prepare diverse tetrahydroquinoline derivatives with good to excellent conversion under ambient reaction conditions. Kinetic studies reveal that the ETP is 130-fold faster than the uncharged counterpart, towards completion of the reaction. Control experiments and NMR spectroscopic investigations elucidate the role of the charged environment in the catalytic transformation.


Abstract. The verbal and argumentative approach predominantly practiced in previous repository projects is only comprehensible to the general public to a limited extent (FKT, 2021; Blattman et al., 2023). One option to improve the transparency and the comprehensibility of decision-making processes is to supplement verbal and argumentative approaches with multiple-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) (Geldermann and Lerche, 2014; Frieling et al., 2020; Blattman et al., 2023). In nuclear waste management, MCDA has been used sporadically with respect to disposal strategies and site selection procedures (Achillas et al., 2013; Frieling et al., 2020). For the German site selection procedure, Frieling et al. (2020) identified the potential suitability as well as the development and testing needs of MCDA. Collaborators of the Chair of Repository Safety at RWTH Aachen University are investigating the applicability of MCDA for specific decision problems in the German site selection procedure. One decision problem is the emplacement of high-level radioactive waste (HLW) packages, which is being researched in the context of a doctoral thesis. For this decision problem, influencing factors and interdependencies between decision criteria, for example operational and long-term safety, and between other decision processes in the site selection procedure need to be considered. In the research project presented here, the emplacement of radioactive waste packages is categorized into three concepts: (1) drift emplacement and (2) horizontal and (3) vertical borehole emplacement. All concepts are tracked internationally. In principle, the Bundesgesellschaft für Endlagerung (BGE) evaluates the three concepts as feasible. However, for the performance of the representative preliminary safety investigation (rvSU), the drift emplacement concept is preferred, which is verbally and argumentatively weighed in BGE (2022). In this present research, the applicability of MCDA to the decision of the
emplacement concept with respect to the German site selection process is
explored in four main iterative steps based on Belton and Stewart (2003):
(1) decision problem definition, (2) problem structuring, (3) decision model creation, and (4) verification. Currently the decision problem is being structured. Preliminarily, testing of the applicability of the sequential MCDA methods Preference Ranking Organization Method for Enrichment Evaluation (PROMETHEE) I and II is planned, although the method selection has not been finalized (Brans, 1982; Brans and de Smet, 2016). Furthermore, the combination of different MCDA methods will be elicited. The expected outcome of the research project is a basic decision model for
robustness-based comparisons of disposal concepts of HLW. The decision model has the potential to provide decision support and to identify areas for further research regarding safety investigations as well as an increase in transparency, understanding, and acceptance in the site selection procedure. When MCDA methods are adequately applied by the decision maker, benefits are possible in terms of problem structuring, information processing, integration of qualitative and quantitative factors, deeper insights into relevant factors, and identification of compromises (Geldermann and Lerche, 2014; Frieling et al., 2020). Furthermore, the research results are particularly significant for international site selection procedures that are at the beginning of the selection procedure or at a comparable level in the German procedure.


AGE: 15 Large parts of the far north of our planet, the Arctic, were permanently covered with ice for thousands of years, but this is now changing. By burning fossil fuels like coal and oil, we rapidly return carbon, stored for millions of years in the Earth's crust, back into the atmosphere. This increases the carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration in the atmosphere and causes Earth's surface temperature to rise. Warmer temperatures and melting sea ice and glaciers are changing the Arctic environment. In a few decades, the North Pole could be ice-free for the first time in human history. A warming Arctic will have global consequences, through higher sea levels, changes in climate and precipitation patterns, and loss of fish, birds, and marine mammals. In this article, we discuss how large changes in the Arctic environment may a ect the entire planet.


ABSTRACT Purpose: The purpose of this research was to examine the number and type of sources cited by featured articles on the Slovenian Wikipedia and to compare a sample of featured articles with a sample of random articles, with the purpose of determining an indicative framework for the quality of both. Methodology: 122 featured Wikipedia articles created in 2009, 2010 and 2011 were analysed, particularly the topic and originality of an article and the number, language and type of sources. A sample of featured articles was compared to a sample of 194 random articles which represent average Wikipedia articles. Results: The results showed that most of the featured articles were adapted from the English Wikipedia, the most common topics being natural science, sports and history. It turned out that the majority of random articles were stubs and articles with a minimal number of references, with military, sports or biographic topic. Based on these results it has been confirmed that despite their deficiencies the featured articles represent the highest-quality Wikipedia articles as compared to random articles. Research limitation: The biggest limitation of the research was the very low quality of random articles as they were mostly stubs, so it was hard to even determine sensible parameters upon which they could be analysed. Originality/practical implications: This is the first research of the Slovenian Wikipedia that focuses on citation analysis of featured articles. Results of this research offer valuable information to editors of featured articles on their own work as well as point out certain deficiencies which can be eliminated.


In the last decade, genome-scale metabolic models have been increasingly used to study plant metabolic behavior at the tissue and multi-tissue level under different environmental conditions. Quercus suber, also known as the cork oak tree, is one of the most important forest communities of the Mediterranean/Iberian region. In this work, we present the genome-scale metabolic model of the Q. suber (iEC7871), the first of a woody plant. The metabolic model comprises 7871 genes, 6231 reactions, and 6481 metabolites across eight compartments. Transcriptomics data was integrated into the model to obtain tissue-specific models for the leaf, inner bark, and phellogen, with specific biomass compositions. The tissue-specific models were merged into a diel multi-tissue metabolic model to predict interactions among the three tissues at the light and dark phases. The metabolic models were also used to analyze the pathways associated with the synthesis of suberin monomers. Nevertheless, the models developed in this work can provide insights into other aspects of the metabolism of Q. suber, such as its secondary metabolism and cork formation.


There exists dark energy models that predict the occurrence of "little rip". At the point of little rip the Hubble rate and its cosmic time derivative approach infinity, which is quite similar to the big rip singularity except that the former happens at infinite future while the latter at a finite cosmic time; both events happen in the future and at high energies. In the case of the big rip, a combination of ultra-violet and infra-red effects can smooth its doomsday. We therefore wonder if the little rip can also be smoothed in a similar way. We address the ultra-violet and infra-red effects in general relativity through a brane-world model with a Gauss-Bonnet term in the bulk and an induced gravity term on the brane. We find that the little rip is transformed in this case into a sudden singularity, or a "big brake". Even though the big brake is smoother than the little rip in that the Hubble rate is finite at the event, the trade-off is that it takes place sooner, at a finite cosmic time. In our estimate, the big brake would happen at roughly 1300Gyr.


The conformational requisites at the receptor for unsymmetrically substituted phenyl-1,4-dihydropyridine calcium entry blockers are examined by screening a series of (2'-halophenyl)-1,4-dihydropyridines 1-4, with increasing bulk at the 2'-position of the phenyl ring, for their ability to relax potassium-contracted rabbit aortic smooth muscle and to competitively displace [3H]nitrendipine from its specific binding sites on guinea pig skeletal muscle. The fraction of synperiplanar rotamer in solution for these compounds, as determined by the nuclear Overhauser enhancement method, shows a positive correlation with vasorelaxant activity and receptor binding affinity. These findings are consistent with the synperiplanar rotamer of nonrigid unsymmetrically substituted phenyl 1,4-dihydropyridine calcium channel blockers being the receptor-bound conformation.


Abstract The study aimed to investigate behavioural intentions to receive free and self-paid COVID-19 vaccinations (BICV-F and BICV-SP) among Chinese university students if the vaccine was 80% effective with rare mild side effects, to examine their associations with social media exposures and peer discussions regarding COVID-19 vaccination, and to explore the mediational role of perceived information sufficiency about COVID-19 vaccination. An online anonymous survey (N = 6922) was conducted in November 2020 in five Chinese provinces. Logistic regression and path analysis were adopted. The prevalence of BICV-F and BICV-SP were 78.1% and 57.7%. BICV-F was positively associated with the frequencies of passive social media exposure (adjusted odds ratio (AOR) = 1.32, P < 0.001), active social media interaction (AOR = 1.13, P < 0.001) and peer discussions (AOR = 1.17, P < 0.001). Indirect effects of the three factors on BICV-F via perceived information sufficiency were all significant (P < 0.001). The direct effect of active social media interaction on BICV-F was significantly negative (P < 0.001). Similar associations/mediations were observed for BICV-SP. The COVID-19 vaccination intention of Chinese university students needs improvement. Boosting social media exposures and peer discussions may raise students' perceived information sufficiency and subsequently increase their vaccination intention. Considering the potential negative effect of active social media interaction, caution is needed when using social media to promote COVID-19 vaccination.


People are exposed to different sociocultural changes in the modern world. The Chinese, especially the young generation, always puzzle towards the adoption between the traditional Chinese yinyang theory and the western nutritional concept. Attempts to examine the value of persistence of the two theories in Chinese society. Reviews and investigates the general framework and the content of the two theories with food samples. Draws conclusions that the fundamental principles of both theories are similar: to give advice to people in order to adjust their diet for healthy bodies. They have different categorizations and each theory has its own characteristics. It is unnecessary to search for a true theory between the two but it is better to accept their existence and adopt an appropriate one in suitable circumstances.


Traumatic brachial plexus injuries are serious, life-changing injuries that are becoming more common worldwide. A thorough physical examination, as well as radiologic and electrodiagnostic tests, are all part of the initial evaluation. Parameters such as injury patterns, the timing of intervention, patients' expectations, and pre-injury functional level should always be considered. A bilateral brachial plexus injury is a very uncommon occurrence. To our knowledge, only one case of a bilateral brachial plexus injury associated with trauma has been published in recent literature. We present a rare case of a 19-year-old man who sustained a bilateral brachial plexus injury after a motorbike accident. The patient underwent exploration of the left brachial plexus and a modified Oberlin procedure on his left arm. The right plexus injury was managed conservatively. After a follow-up period of 12 months, the patient completely returned to his previous functional level.


Abstract Purpose Use of stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR) in the treatment of recurrent or metastatic lesions from a primary gynecologic cancer is a relatively new concept. The present study aims to assess the safety, efficacy, and possible toxicity profile of CyberKnife SABR, recurrent or metastatic disease. Materials/Methods CyberKnife VSI-based SABR was offered to 20 oligometastatic/recurrent gynecological cancer patients between 2013 and 2019. Patient, tumor, and treatment characteristics including radiotherapy details, clinical outcome in terms of local control rates, and toxicities are reported in this study. Results Twenty-five recurrent or oligometastatic lesions for 20 primary gynecologic cancer patients including cervical (n = 8), ovarian (n = 6), endometrial (n = 5), and vulvar (n = 1) cancers were analyzed. Of these, 4 (16%) were intracranial lesions and remaining 21 (84%) were extracranial, consisting of 14 (67%) extrapelvic and 7 (33%) pelvic lesions. The median SABR dose delivered was 60 Gy biologically effective dose (range 42–133 Gy) in an average of four fractions (range 1–6). The mean follow-up was 18 (range 2–70) months. Local tumor control was achieved in 82% of patients. There was no grade ≥ 3 toxicity recorded. Conclusion Our study results suggest that CyberKnife SABR is an effective treatment modality with no major morbidity in patients with recurrent or oligometastatic gynecological cancers.


This study investigates selected aspects of the dynamic behaviour of mine hoists during the emergency braking in an event of overtravel. Characteristics of the braking force that needs to be applied in the headgear and in the pit bottom to arrest the conveyance in the event of an overtravel are derived from laboratory and industrial test data and recalling the results reported in literature. The real hoist installation is replaced by a model whereby the equations of motion of rope elements are written as for elastic strings, taking into account the variable length of the hoisting rope section between the Koepe pulley and the conveyance being arrested in the head tower. Analytical formulas are provided whereby the displacement of the top conveyance with the payload for the constant elasticity coefficient of the hoisting rope section between the conveyance being arrested in the head tower and the Koepe pulley is expressed as the function of the braking force and of the operational parameters of the hoist gear. The hoist operation is investigated in the event of emergency braking, taking into account the two aspects of the cycle: – the time required for the conveyance to be stopped, – the distance travelled by the conveyance until it is stopped. The results of the dynamic analysis of the hoist installation in the conditions of emergency braking may be utilised in selection of the effective and adequate braking system guaranteeing the safety of the system operation.


Christians living in the World of Islam have had a lively interaction with the Qurʾān ever since it became widely available in the Arabic-speaking milieu of Umayyad and Abbasid times. This article discusses the multifaceted aspects of this interaction as they are disclosed in texts written by Christians in Greek, Syriac, and Arabic from the eighth through the thirteenth centuries. Christian writers quoted from the Islamic scripture, imitated its diction and style, wrote polemics against it, used its words and phrases as proof texts in their own apologetic texts, and appealed to the religious authority of the Qurʾān for its probative value. In many ways the Qurʾān effectively structured Christian religious discourse in Arabic and this article explores some of the ways this was the case.


The three countries covered in this first report, Mali, Chad and Niger, share a number of common characteristics and face a similar set of challenges, which provides the foundation for this joint-review approach. All three are low-income landlocked economies. Each relies heavily on the agricultural sector as its primary source of income and livelihoods, and each has a large livestock subsector that is based in part on traditional nomadic pastoralism. All countries have important natural resource industries, gold for Mali, uranium and oil for Niger, and oil for Chad, which represent the bulk of export earnings and public revenue. This dependence on the primary sector renders these economies highly vulnerable to weather-related shocks and volatile commodity prices. Each is struggling to overcome a legacy of instability and violence, which is complicated both by the fragility of domestic socio-political conditions and the severity of regional security challenges. Finally, all three countries are members of a monetary union that uses a regional currency pegged to the euro and exercises significant influence over the macroeconomic policies of its member states. At the center of the trade-off between stabilization and development lies public investment management, at macroeconomic and financial management levels. Faced with repeated negative shocks, countries tend to cut ongoing and planned public investment projects which are often designed to reduce drivers of fragility and strengthen the resilience of economies, thus perpetuating risks of falling into fragility traps. Hence, Section three discusses the impact of public investment volatility on its quality in Chad, Mali and Niger, and explores possible options in terms of macroeconomic and public financial management to smooth public investment budget execution.


A new series of physical model tests were conducted to analyse the behaviour of a breakwater core when it becomes exposed to wave attack. The emphasis of this research was on the measured influence of a wide stone grading on both the deformation of a breakwater trunk and the occurring longshore transport. This behaviour was investigated for both head-on and oblique waves using two different wave loads. The findings were compared to the currently available formulas and the validity of these formulas for the tested range of parameters was (re)checked. In general a clear distinction was found in the processes between tests with narrow grading and wide grading. It turned out that both the parameters describing the two-dimensional deformation and the longshore transport show an increase for wider grading.


Dengue fever is an important arboviral infection globally. Tanzania has experienced multiple dengue outbreaks since 2010 leading to mortalities and public distress. Dengue is caused by viruses which are transmitted to humans by vector mosquitoes. Nevertheless, the abundance, distribution and extent of viral infections of these vectors are poorly understood. The aim of this study was to characterize dengue vectors and determine their virus infection rates. Adult mosquitoes were collected from selected regions in Tanzania including Dar es Salaam, Tanga, Coast, and Arusha regions using CO2 baited mosquito magnet traps between December 2018 to February 2019, additional samples were collected during dengue epidemic in June 2019. Samples were fixed in RNA later and preserved at –20 °C for virus detection using Reverse Transcriptase – Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR). A total of 1530 mosquitoes were collected and morphologically identified as: Aedes (75%), Culex (13%), Anopheles (10%) genera and 2% other mosquitoes. All Aedes mosquitoes were identified as Aedes aegypti of which 46% were from Dar es Salaam, 31% Tanga, 21% Coast and 2% from Arusha. The abundance of Ae. aegypti significantly differed across sampling locations (p = 4.6425E–09), and the virus infection rate was 2%. The presence of these vectors and the detection of dengue viruses is an indication of ongoing arboviral activities necessitating intensification of vector control programmes.
Keywords: Aedes aegypti; dengue vectors; arboviruses; Tanzania


Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of social influence and individual vanity on passion for fashion of clothes and accessories and the mediating role of exhibitionist tendency.

Design/methodology/approach

The study was conducted in two phases. The first was exploratory (n=109), using online panel interviews, carried out among a sample of fashion enthusiasts. The quantitative phase (n=425). Shopping mall intercept field survey methodology has been utilised to collect data. Consumers who just completed their shopping and were about to leave the shopping malls were approached by trained interviewers.

Findings

The content analysis of phase 1 yielded four major aspects and more two aspects less cited that participants seek in posts and online information that motivate them for shopping, such as inspirational outfits, products and brands posted, self-identification with the style, value for money, friends and fashion magazines and runway shows. The findings of phase 2 reveal that the social influence is more important than individual vanity in enhancing the desire to buy and use fashion clothes and accessories. Further, the exhibitionist tendency acts as a mediator between passionate desire for fashion and self-expression word-of-mouth.

Originality/value

As far as authors know, this is the first attempt to explore the effect of two components of narcissism in fashion context and to analyse the social and individual influence on passionate desire to use fashion.


The problem of enough high prevalence and intensity of diseases of a mucous membrane of an oral cavity (MMOC) in the country, and at the same time, absence of a trustworthy information about the given pathology at adult population of the Vladimir area is designated. Results of clinical inspection of patients with defeats of MMOC, based on principles of demonstrative medicine and completeness of diagnostics are presented. The characteristic of structure of stomatologic desease of MMOC depending on age is given, is emphasized on revealing of an oncological pathology and decrease in its risk by means of additional methods of visualization. In research is presented the technique of early diagnostics of oral neoplasia by means of system «VELscope Vx», which opening new prospects in practice of dentists.


Rainfall-induced slope failure is the most common type of slope failure in Malaysia. Many studies have been carried out to assess the correlation of infiltration to 2D geometric features such as slope inclination. However, the relationship between infiltration and 3D slope geometric features has not yet been widely studied. The aim of this study is to assess the effect of varying slope geometries on slope stability with the influence of rainfall, and to compare the results of the 2D and 3D slope analysis. Seepage and slope stability analysis of homogenous slopes for normal, curved surface and turning corner slopes of varying angles were modelled using the numerical software PLAXIS LE. The 3D analysis demonstrated that multiple shallow failures spread across the sloped surface, which could not be captured by the 2D analysis. The failure modes are similar for the various geometric types of slopes. The results also indicate that the safety factor from the 3D analysis decreases more significantly with the rainfall duration as compared to the 2D analysis. This study changes the perception that a 2D analysis is more conservative than a 3D analysis, which is not always true.


This guide will assist you with copyright issues, preparing your manuscript for publication, and submitting your document to ProQuest for publication. A check list to use to prepare your manuscript for submission


Input signal feedthrough in a high-speed track-and-hold (T/H) circuit often degrades the performance of analogue-to-digital data converters. A 10 GSamples/s CMOS T/H circuit with input feedthrough cancellation is proposed. This T/H circuit has been fabricated in 0.18 /spl mu/m CMOS process. It achieves 5-bit resolution in 2.5 GHz analogue input signal at 10 GSamples/s.


In mass analysis of proteins, mass spectrometry directly measures the mass to charge ratios of ionized proteins and promises higher accuracy than that of indirect approaches measuring other physicochemical properties, provided that the charge states of detected ions are determined. Accurate mass determination of heterogeneously glycosylated proteins is often hindered by unreliable charge determination due to the insufficient resolution of signals from different charge states and inconsistency among mass profiles of ions in individual charge states. Limited charge reduction of a subpopulation of proteoforms using electron transfer/capture reactions (ETnoD/ETnoD) solves this problem by narrowing the mass distribution of examined proteoforms and preserving the mass profile of the precursor charge state in the reduced charge states. However, the limited availability of ETnoD/ETnoD function in commercial instruments limits the application of this approach. Here, utilizing a range of charge-dependent and accuracy-affecting spectral features revealed by a systematic evaluation at levels of both the ensemble and subpopulation of proteoforms based on theoretical models and experiments, we developed a limited charge reduction workflow that enables using collision-induced dissociation and higher energy collisional dissociation, two widely available reactions, as alternatives to ETnoD/ETnoD while providing adequate accuracy. Alternatively, substituting proton transfer charge reduction for ETnoD/ETnoD provides higher accuracy of mass determination. Performing mass selection in a window-sliding manner improves the accuracy and allows profiling of the whole proteoform distribution. The proposed workflow may facilitate the development of universal characterization strategies for more complex and heterogeneous protein systems.


Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have made a breakthrough in cancer therapy. Patients treated with ICIs may develop immune‐related adverse events (irAEs) due to the upregulated activity of the immune system. With the increasing use of ICIs, irAEs are more frequently reported and have become important challenges in many patients. Neurological irAEs, which include encephalitis, myelitis, aseptic meningitis, peripheral neuropathy, myasthenia gravis, and myositis, consist of a distinct group of neuroinflammatory disorders. These disorders are rare but frequently severe with high mortality and morbidity. Patients with neurological irAEs are generally responsive to immune‐modulating therapy. Therefore, early recognition and treatment are the most important ways to improve their prognosis. Here, we provide a comprehensive review of neurological irAEs associated with ICIs and focus on these affecting central nervous systems.


Experiments studying layer orientation of sheared lamellar phases have consistently observed not only the seemingly obvious parallel orientation (with layers parallel to the shear plane), but also the so called perpendicular orientation (with layer normals along the vorticity direction) at the condition of higher shear frequencies and near the lamellar phase transition. We find that three-dimensional simulations of a deterministic mesoscopic dynamical equation (without thermal fluctuations) under the convection of simple shear flows have shown exactly such a dependence. The simulations show the important role played by the transverse orientation (layer normal along the velocity direction) and highlight the mechanism of the shear alignment being the competition between the shear frequency and the mesoscopic time scale of pattern organization.


Relation inference between concepts in knowledge base has been extensively studied in recent years. Previous methods mostly apply the relations in the knowledge base, without fully utilizing the contents, i.e., the attributes of concepts in knowledge base. In this paper, we propose a content-structural relation inference method (CSRI) which integrates the content and structural information between concepts for relation inference. Experiments on data sets show that CSRI obtains 15% improvement compared with the state-of-the-art methods.


A selection of books and websites that teach one how to write a professional and effective resume. Books are linked to a search of the book title in the Google Books database.


Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to understand the influence of leadership programmes on leaders and co-workers, as well as which mechanisms are involved in the process.

Design/methodology/approach

An analysis was done into 431 free-text answers to questionnaires given to 120 participants in two different leadership programmes and their co-workers six months after their participation, using a grounded theory inspired approach.

Findings

The result is a model, linking internal psychological and external behavioural aspects, with the central outcome that leaders gained more confidence in their leadership role through theoretical models learned, and reflection.

Research limitations/implications

The course participants as well as the co-workers seemed to experience a positive leadership development indicating a value of participating in the courses.

Practical implications

Confidence in leadership role seems important for having positive outcomes of leadership. Although this needs further research, it is something organisations should consider when working with leadership questions.

Social implications

The co-workers perceived their leaders to be calmer, more open for discussions, and willing both to give and receive feedback post training. There appears to be an increase in trust both in the leader and reciprocally from the leader in the co-workers.

Originality/value

Until now there has not been any systematic research into the effects on participants and co-workers following the programmes, despite the fact that over 100,000 have participated in the courses.


A 25 year old man was admitted to otorhinolaryngology department with a mass in the ear canal. The patient had a history of tympanoplasty with mastoidectomy in another centre (for chronic otorrhea) 2 years earlier. Details of the surgery were not available. He had no discharge during this time and he came to our hospital for routine follow-up visits. On otomicroscopy a white mass was noticed in the superior part of the canal, the origin of which could not exactly be localized. On palpation with a blunt instrument it proved to be soft. No otorrhea was noted in the canal and the tympanic membrane seemed to be intact in the visible area. The most likely diagnosis was cholesteatoma recurrence but the chief differential diagnosis to be ruled out in such cases is meningocele and dural herniation. An HRCT was ordered and the mass origin from attic was obvious. The intact tegmen tympani rules out intracranial involvement. The patient was operated and a rather extensive cholesteatoma was found and cleaned. It seems that he has had an attic cholesteatoma which went unnoticed and consequently unmanaged in the previous surgery and tympanoplasty had been done on the epidermal remnants in the attic.


The increasing growth of wireless networking and new mobile computing devices has caused boundaries between trusted and malicious users to be blurred. The shift in security priorities from the network perimeter to information protection and user resources security is an open area for research which is concerned with the protection of user information's confidentiality, integrity and availability. Intrusion detection systems are programs or software applications embedded in sophisticated devices to monitor the activities on networks or systems for security, policy or protocol violation or malicious activities detection. In this work, an intrusion detection model was proposed using C4.5 algorithm which was implemented with WEKA tool and RAPID MINER. The model showed good performance when trained and tested with validation techniques. Implementation of the proposed model was conducted on the Network Security Laboratory Knowledge Discovery in Databases (NSL-KDD) dataset, an improved version of KDD 99 dataset, which showed that the proposed model approach has an average detection rate of 99.62% and reduced false alarm rate of 0.38%


Knowledge management (KM) is of increasing interest to a number of leading UK construction organizations. Companies are keen to find out what other organizations are doing both within the construction and other industry sectors. There are important lessons to be learned from Canadian oil and gas organizations on how they manage their knowledge. A case study is used to explore the KM activities of eight leading organizations and investigate the opportunities for construction organizations to adopt some of their ideas. Three areas are covered: KM strategy and implementation, people aspects of KM and metrics for KM performance. There are several potential lessons for UK organizations: the need for KM to be driven by senior management if it is to have any notable success; the use of people‐centred techniques for sharing tacit knowledge and IT tools for sharing explicit knowledge; the importance of selling solutions to project teams to obtain employee support for KM; peer recognition has a more sustainable impact than financial reward; and KM measurement should be considered as a way of improving its impact, rather than justifying expenditure.


Distributed stream filtering is a mechanism for implementing a new class of real-time applications with distributed processing requirements. These applications require scalable architectures to support the efficient processing and multiplexing of large volumes of continuously generated data. This paper provides an overview of a stream-oriented model for database query processing and presents a supporting implementation. To facilitate distributed stream filtering, we introduce several new query processing operations, including pipelined filtering that efficiently joins and eliminates duplicates from database streams and a new join method, the progressive join, that joins streams of tuples. Finally, recognizing that the streamoriented model results... Read complete abstract on page 2.


Discovering Radical Contingency examines the implications of postmodern culture for education, particularly those involving adult learners. Against a critical review of modernist culture and education, a comparative account of the postmodern is posited. That account is reconfigured as a set of six tensions. These tensions are then used in exploring the nature of educational practice and engagement in postmodernity, from different perspectives: through dialogues with students of that practice; through case studies of practice; as descriptive tendencies of engagement; and as nodal forms of programmatic activity. The book closes with chapters examining the nature of educational research and the professional development of adult educators in postmodernity.


This dissertation uses elementary school-choice programs in Canada in order to examine issues relating to the economics of education. Chapter 2 examines the role of parents' uncertainty and learning in a setting where parents make dynamic education choices for their children and learn over time about unknown, child-specific returns to schooling. Using administrative data from the province of British Columbia and the French Immersion program, I estimate a dynamic model that incorporates imperfect information and parental learning into a school-choice framework. I find that new information parents receive after the initial enrolment decision accounts for a large fraction of program attrition, particularly in earlier grades, and also raises student achievement. In chapter 3, using the same data as in chapter 2, I estimate the causal impact that the French Immersion program has on short and medium-run student outcomes using a control function and instrumental variables approach that exploits variation in the distance to the nearest immersion and non-immersion schools within a given neighbourhood. I find that initial entry into the French Immersion program has large negative and significant effects on student outcomes in grade 4 in each of math, reading and writing. Over time, these effects decline such that by grade 10, I find no effect on English scores, but there remains a negative effect on math scores. Chapter 4 examines how changes in peer composition from school-choice policies impacts students' own achievement. Using administrative data from the Canadian provinces of Ontario and British Columbia and exploiting the Late French Immersion program, I estimate these peer effects using a two-stage residual inclusion approach along with a school-fixed effects model. I find that as more children leave for the choice program, there is a negative and significant effect on the remaining students; however, this result masks substantial heterogeneity. I find that an increase in the fraction of low-performing students to enter the choice program leads to increases in achievement for the remaining students; conversely, I find that high-performing leavers cause large reductions in the achievement of the remaining students.


To study changes autonomic nervous function at differential light stimulations of the brain hemispheres in 126 healthy persons stimulated of the right and left hemifields in retinas eyes by light of different colour. Before and after influence the spectral analysis of a heart rhythm was made. The decrease of capacity of a spectral range 0.08-0.12 Hz is revealed at red-green stimulations, that testifies to decrease baroreflex tone and range 0.15-0.5 Hz at red-green and red-violet stimulations, that testifies about vagolitical influence. The conclusion about domination of the right hemisphere in autonomic nervous function is made.


Thirty patients with surface hemangiomas were investigated for any latent coagulopathy. Whole blood clotting time, kaolin cephalin clotting time, prothrombin time, thrombin time and platelet counts did not differ significantly from the control group values. The values of plasma fibrinogen, euglobulin lysis time and serum levels of fibrinogen degradation products remained within the normal ranges but their mean values were significantly different from those of healthy children. The findings may be attributed to a chronic incipient type of "consumption coagulopathy" occurring locally in the hemangiomas.


FLT3 (FMS-like tyrosine kinase 3) and KIT are both members of the class III receptor tyrosine kinase family characterized by an autoinhibitory juxtamembrane (JM) domain that docks with the kinase domain to stabilize a catalytically inactive conformation. Therefore, mutations or deletions in this or in adjacent regions cause constitutive activation of these kinases as observed in 30% of AML patients for FLT3 and in 70% of adult GIST and a subset of melanoma patients for KIT. NMS-P088 is a member of a novel indazole sub-series, which selectively targets both FLT3 and KIT kinases, with different mutations, both primary and secondary, some of which involved in resistance to inhibitors clinically used to target these kinases, such as quizartinib for FLT3 and imatinib for KIT. The compound is able to arrest in vitro growth of human cell lines (AMLs and GISTs) which bear constitutively activated FLT3 or KIT, with IC50s in the low nanomolar range and with high selectivity towards cell lines, including AMLs, which are not dependent on these kinases. When tested against a panel of BA-F3 cells engineered to be driven by different FLT3 or KIT mutants, NMS-P088 compared favorably with reference compounds, both in vitro and in vivo. For example, comparative in vivo tumor inhibition values against BA-F3_FLT3-ITD(F691L) model were 85% for 15 mg/kg NMS-P088 vs. 14% for 40 mg/kg quizartinib. In vivo studies conducted on nude mice bearing the human MOLM-13 AML model revealed that repeated oral administration of NMS-P088 was able to significantly inhibit tumor growth and to increase survival time and that strong inhibition of FLT3 signaling is sustained for at least 48 h after a single treatment. Preclinical profiling of the compound showed a good oral bioavailability in all species, indicated a good therapeutic window in 7-day repeated toxicological studies in rat and in dog and excellent BBB penetration. The low myelotoxicity observed in exploratory toxicological studies suggests that NMS-P088 is potentially well-suited to combination with myelotoxic chemotherapeutic agents and this point is currently subject of preclinical evaluation. Furthermore, no adverse effects on cardiac parameters were observed in a canine telemetry study in which animals were exposed to Cmax levels several fold higher than those required for efficacy in the mouse. NMS-P088 is currently undergoing advanced preclinical development activities. Citation Format: Marina Ciomei, Nadia Amboldi, Sabrina Cribioli, Daniele Casero, Angela Greco, Antonella Isacchi, Enrico A. Pesenti, Daniele Donati, Arturo Galvani, Andrea Lombardi Borgia. NMS-P088, a dual FLT3-KIT inhibitor active also on gatekeeper mutations and devoid of QTc prolongation. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 798. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-798


BACKGROUND
Unicuspid and bicuspid aortic valve (BAV) are congenital cardiac anomalies associated with valvular dysfunction and aortopathies occurring at a young age.

OBJECTIVES
To evaluate our experience with aortic valve repair (AVr) in patients with bicuspid or unicuspid aortic valves.

METHODS
Eighty patients with BAV or unicuspid aortic valve (UAV) underwent AVr. Mean patient age was 42 ± 14 years and 94% were male. Surgical technique included: aortic root replacement with or without cusp repair in 43 patients (53%), replacement of the ascending aorta at the height of the sino-tubular junction with or without cusp repair in 15 patients (19%), and isolated cusp repair in 22 patients (28%).

RESULTS
The anatomical structure of the aortic valve was bicuspid in 68 (85%) and unicuspid in 12 patients (15%). Survival rate was 100% at 5 years of follow-up. Eleven patients (13.7%) underwent reoperation, 8 of whom presented with recurrent symptomatic aortic insufficiency (AI). Late echocardiography in the remaining 69 patients revealed mild AI in 63 patients, moderate recurrent AI in 4, and severe recurrent AI in 2. Relief from recurrent severe AI or reoperations was significantly lower in patients who underwent cusp repair compared with those who did not (P = 0.05). Furthermore, the use of pericardial patch augmentation for the repair was a predictor for recurrence (P = 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS
AVr in patients with BAV or UAV is a safe procedure with low morbidity and mortality rates. The use of a pericardial patch augmentation was associated with higher repair failure.


Electronic properties of the (001) surface of cubic BaZrO3 with BaO and ZrO2 terminations have been studied using first-principles calculations. Surface structure, partial density of states, band structure and surface energy have been obtained. We find that the largest relaxation appears in the first layer of atoms, and the relaxation of the BaO-terminated surface is larger than that of the ZrO2-terminated surface. The surface rumpling of the BaO-terminated surface is also larger than that of the ZrO2-terminated surface. Results of surface energy calculations reveal that the BaZrO3 surface is likely to be more stable than the PbZrO3 surface.


Karyotypes of the A and B genomes of Musa L. were prepared using a technique involving squashing of 0.02 M hydroxyquinoline-treated and HCl-fixed root tips. The wild diploids had 2n=22 chromosomes. Mitotic metaphase chromosomes of both the AA ('Calcutta 4', M. accuminata Colla) and BB ('Butohan 2', M. balbisiana Colla) taxa ranged from 1.4 to 3.6 μm in length and showed great similarity in structure and size. The genomic chromosome complement in a somatic cell of the 2 species was made up of 10 metacentric, 6 submetacentric, 4 subacrocentric and 2 acrocentric chromosomes. The 2 largest submetacentric chromosomes in each of the diploid species had secondary constrictions. The 2 species did not show obvious differences in their karyotypes.


We describe the TclOSAScript extension to MacTcl. TclOSAScript provides the ability for MacTcl scripts to run scripts in any other OSA compatible language on the Macintosh. Since the OSA is the standard mechanism for interapplication communication on the Mac, this allows MacTcl to run other applications, and provides an exec like facility (though arguably using a much richer communication model.)


Purpose of reviewWhilst the 'early origins of adult disease' hypothesis has focused primarily on the impact of early undernutrition, an increased fat and energy intake has recently become a dominant characteristic of the human diet. This review presents a summary of recent developments in understanding of how maternal overnutrition and undernutrition during critical windows of development program adult metabolic and cardiovascular disease. Recent findingsRecent evidence suggests that exposure to maternal overnutrition results in changes in the development of the energy balance regulating system that may be 'maladaptive' for life and result in an intergenerational cycle of obesity. Whilst activation of the fetal hypothalamo–pituitary–adrenal axis in response to a poor nutritional environment confers an early fitness advantage, it also incurs delayed health costs. Recent findings highlight that such tradeoffs may be anticipated from conception as changes in the periconceptional nutritional environment program the developmental trajectory of the hypothalamo–pituitary–adrenal axis. SummaryA better understanding of the long-term impact of overnutrition in early life and of changes in the nutritional environment of the embryo will provide insights into the timing and type of maternal dietary interventions required to improve metabolic health in adult life.


In brief One of the most difficult on-site medical decisions is what steps to take when an athlete sustains a neck injury. A cautious examination is imperative and may involve assessing consciousness, pain, and spasm; evaluating neurologic symptoms; testing cervical range of motion; and deciding whether or not the player can return to play. Various signs and symptoms may herald serious injury and indicate the need to place the patient on a backboard before further assessment.


Growth differentiation factor 15 (GDF-15), which modulates cellular energy balance, is reported to be positively associated with cardiovascular disease. However, there have been no reports about the association between serum GDF-15 concentration and atherosclerosis as evaluated by carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT) among the general population. A cross-sectional study of 536 Japanese individuals aged 60 to 69 years was conducted. To avoid the influence of abnormal cellular energy balance, this study only included participants who had a normal body mass index (BMI) and normal thyroid hormone (free thyroxine and free triiodothyronine) levels. A significant positive association between serum GDF-15 concentration and atherosclerosis was observed. In the sex- and age-adjusted model (Model 1), the odds ratio (OR) (95% confidence interval (CI)) for the logarithmic value of GDF-15 and atherosclerosis was 2.62 (1.67, 5.87). This association remained after adjusting for thyroid function and renal function (Model 2) and further adjusting for known cardiovascular risk factors (Model 3). The corresponding values were 2.61 (1.15, 5.93) for Model 2 and 2.49 (1.08, 5.71) for Model 3, respectively. Serum GDF-15 concentrations could help us to estimate the risk of atherosclerosis by indicating the status of cellular energy balance, which is related to mitochondrial activity among comparative healthy older individuals.