A circularly polarized antenna with wide axial-ratio beamwidth is presented by placing two pairs of parallel dipoles in a square contour. Firstly, our study demonstrates that circular polarization can be achieved at the broadside by setting a 90° phase difference between the vertical and horizontal paired-dipoles. Secondly, the principle of wide-beamwidth circularly-polarized radiation is described under the similarity in polar and azimuthal radiation pattern for a pair of parallel dipoles. After the spacing between two parallel dipoles is studied, the similar radiation patterns in these two orthogonal planes are derived. As such, a wide-beamwidth circular polarization can be achieved by placing the two pairs of parallel dipoles vertically and horizontally while setting a 90° phase difference between them. In final, a circularly-polarized printed antenna is designed and fabricated on a single dielectric substrate. The two arms of its four dipoles are formed on the lower and upper interfaces of the substrate, and they are excited by a 1-to-4 probe-to-microstrip feeding network. Experimental results show good agreement with simulated ones in terms of radiation pattern/gain, axial ratio and returned loss. In particular, the 3-dB axial ratio beamwidth at the central frequency of 1.6 GHz has extended to 126 ° in an angular range from -63° to +63°. The fabricated antenna exhibits a low-profile property with the height of 0.0043 free-space wavelength.


Over the last decade, a dramatic increase has been observed in the ability of individual experimental scientists to generate and store data, which has not been matched by an equivalent development of adequate data management tools. In this paper, we present the results of our efforts to develop a Desktop Experiment Management Environment that many experimental scientists would like to have on their desk. The environment is called ZOO and is developed in collaboration with domain scientists from Soil Sciences and Biochemistry. We first describe the overall architecture of ZOO, and then focus on key features of its various components. We specifically emphasize aspects of the object-oriented database server that is at the core of the system, the experimentation manager that initiates the execution of experiments as a result of scientists' requests, and the mechanisms that the modules of the system use to communicate between them. Finally, we briefly discuss our experiences with the use of the current ZOO prototype in the context of plant-growth simulation experiments and NMR spectroscopy experiments.


We have prospectively followed over a 5‐year period 434 volunteers who were at intake ambulatory, functional, presumably nondemented, and between 75 and 85 years of age. Fifty‐six (an incidence of 3.53 per 100 person‐years at risk) developed a progressive dementia: 32 met diagnostic criteria for Alzheimer's disease (AD) (an incidence of 2.0 per 100 person‐years at risk), 15 had vascular or mixed dementia, and 9 had other disorders or remain undiagnosed. New cases of dementia were as common as myocardial infarction and twice as common as stroke. Risk factors for both dementia and AD were age (over 80) and gender (female); other reported risk factors such as family history, prior head injury, thyroid disease, maternal age, and smoking were not risk factors for AD in this elderly cohort. Prior stroke was the major risk factor for vascular or mixed dementia; diabetes and left ventricular hypertrophy but not a history of hypertension per se were also risk factors for vascular dementia. The major predictor of the development of AD was the mental status score on entry. The 58.5%f of the cohort who made zero to two errors on a 33‐item mental status test had a less than 0.6% per year chance of developing AD, whereas the 16% of the cohort with five to eight errors on this test developed AD at a rate of over 12% per year. Thus, it is possible to identify a large cohort of 80‐year‐olds who are at low risk for AD and a smaller cohort at very high risk.


This study examined the relationship between peers popularity and self-esteem within the attitude towards sexual behaviour among young pregnant out of wedlock. A total of 130 teenagers pregnant out of wedlock aged between 14 years and 19 years from 4 welfare institutions in the states of Selangor, Perak, Johor and Kelantan participated in this research. Respondents were selected using stratified random sampling technique. This study utilises the three questionnaires of the Inventory Peer Pressure, Popularity, and Conformity Scale (Santor, Messervey & Kusumakar, 2000), the Rosenberg Self- Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965) and Brief Sexual Attitudes Scale (Hendrick & Reich, 2006). All instruments used had yielded a Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient value ranging from 0.82 to 0.90. Findings revealed that the level of peers popularity is high, level of self esteem also high and respondents indicated a high level of attitude sexual behavior. Results of Pearson's correlation analysis revealed that there were significant relationships between peers popularity and attitudes toward sexual behavior (r= .801, p<.05) and a significant correlation between self esteem and attitude sexual behavior (r = .708, p <.05). Bootstrapping analysis revealed the role of self esteem as a mediator variables of peers popularity and self esteem with sexual attitude behavior. From the theoretical implications, this study describes the role of self esteem as a mechanism that effect the popularity of peer sexual behavior and attitude. In conclusion, peers popularity and self esteem related to sexual attitude and behavior. The study showed that risk factors such as the acceptance by the peer group have a significant direct effect on sexual behavior At the same time, this study also suggests several alternatives in order to curb sexual misconduct among the teenagers today.


Indeterminacy maintains that the simultaneous measurement of object location and speed is theoretically impossible. This study present indeterminacy as a theoretic tool to interpret a variety of expression characteristics that seem disorderly in recent fashion illustrations; in addition, it analyzes the characteristics and meaning of indeterminacy as expressed in fashion illustrations. This study reviews concepts and related theories on indeterminacy to examine characteristics of indeterminacy expressed in the arts and fashion; subsequently, indeterminacy characteristics found in fashion illustrations are analyzed. In expressing the fashion figure, indeterminacy finds expression in a distorted figure transformations that include a hybridized combination of heterogeneous forms that dismantle and reconstruct the human body. The hybridized body of combined machines, animals and plants indicates an indeterminate body endlessly transforming itself. Indeterminate space expression finds expression in space expression by projection with the overlapping and juxtaposition of irrelevant constituent elements as well as a space expression from the insertion of unexpected images. An unclarified inconclusive open space provides space with fluidity, causes space expansion and conveys inconclusive meaning. Indeterminate expressions found in fashion illustrations reveal the ambiguity and complexity of a postmodern society with polysemous aesthetic values and the expanded visual concepts of fashion illustrations.


This study aimed to test and compare two novel dental mini-implant designs to support overdentures with a commercial model, regarding the stress distribution, by photoelastic analysis. Three different mini-implant designs (Ø 2.0 mm × 10 mm) were tested: G1-experimental threaded (design with threads and 3 longitudinal and equidistant self-cutting chamfers), G2-experimental helical (design with 2 long self-cutting chamfers in the helical arrangement), and G3-Intra-Lock® System. After including the mini-implants in a photoelastic resin, they were subjected to a static load of 100 N under two situations: axial and inclined model (30°). The fringe orders (n), that represents the intensity of stresses were analyzed around the mini-implants body and quantified using Tardy's method that calculates the maximum shear stress (τ) value in each point selected. In axial models, less stress was observed in the cervical third mini-implants, mainly in G1 and G2. In inclined models (30°), higher stresses were generated on the opposite side of the load application, mainly in the cervical third of G2 and G3. All mini-implant models presented lower tensions in the cervical third compared with the middle and apical third. The new mini-implants tested (G1 and G2) showed lower stresses than the G3 in the cervical third under axial load, while loading in the inclined model generated greater stresses in the cervical of G2.


Real-time seismic monitoring is of primary importance for rapid and targeted emergency operations after potentially destructive earthquakes. A key aspect in determining the impact of an earthquake is the reconstruction of the ground-shaking field, usually expressed as the ground-motion parameter. Traditional algorithms compute the ground-shaking field from the punctual data at the stations relying on ground-motion prediction equations computed on estimates of the earthquake location and magnitude when the instrumental data are missing. The results of such algorithms are then subordinate to the evaluation of location and magnitude, which can take several minutes. To fill the temporal gap between the arrival of the data and the estimate of these parameters, a new data-driven algorithm that exploits the information from the station data only is introduced. This algorithm, consisting of an ensemble of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) trained on a database of ground-shaking maps produced with traditional algorithms, can provide estimates of the ground-shaking maps and their associated uncertainties in real time. Because CNNs cannot handle sparse data, a Voronoi tessellation of a selected peak ground parameter recorded at the stations is computed and used as the input to the CNNs; site effects and network geometry are accounted for using a (normalized) VS30 map and a station location map, respectively. The developed method is robust to noise, can handle network geometry changes over time without the need for retraining, and can resolve multiple simultaneous events. Although having a lower resolution, the results obtained are statistically compatible with the ones from traditional methods. A fully operational version of the algorithm is running on the servers at the Department of Mathematics and Geosciences of the University of Trieste, showing real-time capabilities in handling stations from multiple Italian strong-motion networks and outputting results with a resolution of 0.05° × 0.05°.


Abstract AIMS: To determine whether the application of lime or nitrogen to pasture affected the spore counts of Pithomyces chartarum. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The lime application studies were undertaken on a spring-calving, pasture-based, commercial dairy farm near Te Awamutu, New Zealand. On 6 November 2012, five randomly selected paddocks were split into three equal sections. In two of the sections, lime was applied at either 1.5 or 2.5 t/ha, and the central section was left as an untreated control. Each section was sampled for spore counting weekly from 16 January to 15 May 2013. Starting in January 2013, five other randomly selected paddocks were monitored for spore counts. On 20 March 2013 the average spore counts in three paddocks were >100,000 spores/g of pasture. These paddocks were then divided into three equal sections and lime was applied as described above. Spore counting in each section continued weekly until 15 May 2013. The nitrogen application study was carried out on three commercial dairy farms near Te Awamutu, New Zealand. Two randomly selected paddocks on each farm were divided into three equal sections and, on 20 December 2012, nitrogen in the form of urea was applied at either 50 or 80 kg urea/ha to two of the sections; the central section remained as an untreated control. Each section was sampled for spore counting weekly from 16 January to 15 May 2013. RESULTS: Following pre-summer lime application, treatment at 1.5 or 2.5 t/ha did not affect spore counts over time compared with the control section (p>0.26). Similarly following autumn lime application, treatment at 1.5 or 2.5 t/ha did not affect spore counts over time compared with the control section (p>0.11). Following nitrogen application median spore counts remained <20,000 spores/g pasture throughout the trial period and there was no effect of treatment on spore counts over time (p>0.49). CONCLUSION: This study found that application of lime before the risk period for facial eczema, in November, application of lime after a spore count rise, in March, or urea application in December did not affect changes in number of spores produced by P. chartarum. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: This study does not support previous suggestions that fertilising pasture with lime or urea could alter the spore counts of P. chartarum. Fertiliser use does not provide an alternative to, or support, conventional methods of facial eczema control such as zinc prophylaxis or treatment of pasture with fungicides.


Consulting engineering companies strive for more innovation and flexibility as a response to the contradictory demands from the organization and an unpredictable business environment. In doing so, knowledge management strategies, project organization and the redesigning of office spaces are employed. A five-year longitudinal set of ethnographic studies uses multidisciplinary perspectives to examine organizational change and development in a consulting engineering firm. The analytic approach encompasses three dimensions: the development of the firm itself, the way in which it organizes its projects and the spatial/community dimension. This enables an understanding of the multiple, often contrasting, organizing dynamics in the organization as well as diverse interests and groups found within this type of organization. It finds that it is not only the clients of the company who rule in a 'project tyranny', but also other organizing dynamics that in contrast 'perforate' the projects and maintain professional communities. The 'tyranny' of projects affects the allocation of resources and the scheduling of work can constrain organizational and other innovations. An attempt to create a new organizational grouping in the studied engineering consultancy to 'perforate' the project-based structure and improve internal interactions within the organization reveals that although spatial integration is obtained, too few resources are allocated to support the change. The implications for other consulting engineering organizations are the need for multiple organizing principles and management to bridge contradictory and competing concerns for skill development, resource alignment and innovation efforts; and a need to focus on soft management practices such as mediation, brokering and coaching.


Historically, the modern conception of rule of law is integrally related to the rise of liberal democracy in the West. Indeed, for many, "the rule of law" means a liberal democratic version of rule of law. There is, however, little support for liberal democracy, and hence a liberal democratic rule of law, among state leaders, legal scholars, intellectuals or the general public in China. Accordingly, if we are to understand the likely path of development of China's system, and the reasons for differences in its institutions, rules, practices and outcomes in particular cases, we need to rethink rule of law. We need to theorize rule of law in ways that do not assume a Western liberal democratic framework, and explore alternative conceptions of rule of law that are consistent with China's own circumstances. To that end, I describe four competing thick conceptions of rule of law: Statist Socialism, Neo-Authoritarian, Communitarian and Liberal Democratic. In addition, I contrast all four variants of rule of law with rule by law, and suggest that China is in transition from rule by law to some version of rule of law, though probably not a Liberal Democratic one. I then address a number of thorny theoretical issues that apply to rule of law theories generally and more specifically to the applicability of rule of law to China. For instance, can the minimal conditions for rule of law be sufficiently specified to be useful? Should China's legal system at this point be described as rule by law, as in transition to rule of law or as an imperfect rule of law? How do we know that the goal of legal reforms in China is rule of law as opposed to a more efficient rule by law or some third alternative? Given the many different interpretations of rule of law, should we just stop referring to rule of law altogether, or at least reserve rule of law for Liberal Democratic rule of law states? Finally, turning from theory to practice, are non-Liberal Democratic rule of law systems sustainable?


The article analyzes one of the topical issues of modern professional pedagogy the training of future foreign language teachers to create virtual pedagogical interaction. The author reviews scientific research on the topic done by native and foreign scientists and defines the basic concepts: pedagogical interaction, virtuality, virtual pedagogical interaction. He also characterizes the core competencies and skills necessary for future foreign language teachers in order to create effective pedagogical interaction in computer-orientated environment. To conclude, the author describes perspectives for further research on this topic.


Defence lawyers' work takes place in emotionally charged, yet emotionally constraining situations. This is particularly evident in criminal trials. Distressed clients, unforeseeable disruptions, disturbing evidence, emotional plaintiffs and even moral suspicions should all be managed in a proper and appropriate manner. Loyalty Work analyses how this is done in the context of Sweden, with specific focus on criminal trials at district courts. Defence lawyers constitute a category of legal professionals that have received relatively little sociological attention and thus warrant deeper theoretical and empirical understanding.By drawing on ethnographic fieldnotes from observations of over 50 criminal trials the strategies for performing loyalty and teamwork are revealed. Interviews with 18 lawyers have also been conducted to explore how defence lawyers talk about emotions and their professional role. This empirical material, along with other sources such as the audio recording of a trial, are analysed using dramaturgical theory and theories on emotion work.The study shows how defence lawyers project a professional impression in line with invisible emotional, interactional and ceremonial expectations. Defence lawyers attempt to represent clients by managing performances in the courtroom– their own, their clients' and others' - and by ensuring they remain within the boundaries of the emotional regime of law. Simultaneously, the defence team should present a united front to the court. These strategies involve using emotion work and facework to build up or undermine facts in the trial, by drawing attention towards or away from information presented or by the use of props.A criminal trial is found to be an inherently emotional and interactional accomplishment with the reproduction of defence lawyers' loyalty to their clients as a crucial component. Defence lawyers are also expected to ensure that the overarching emotional regime of law with its illusionary dichotomy between rationality and emotionality is upheld. The study concludes that loyalty work demands emotion work, facework and teamwork. The Swedish context is particularly interesting as it calls for subtle drama with understated performances. (Less)


Why species are found where they are is a central question in biogeography. The most widely used tool for understanding the controls on distribution is species distribution modelling. Species distribution modelling is now a well‐established method in both the theoretical and applied ecological literature. In this special issue we examine the current state of the art in species distribution modelling and explore avenues for including more biological processes in such models. In particular we focus on physiological, demographic, dispersal, competitive and ecological‐modulation processes. This overview highlights opportunities for new species distribution model concepts and developments, as well as a statistical agenda for implementing such models.


Despite the recent advances in software security hardening techniques, vulner-abilities can always be exploited if the attackers are really determined. Regardless the protection enabled, successful exploitation can always be achieved, even though admittedly, today, it is much harder than it was in the past. Since securing software is still under ongoing research, the community investigates detection methods in order to protect software. Three of the most promising such methods are monitoring the (i) network, (ii) the filesystem, and (iii) the host memory, for possible exploitation. Whenever a malicious operation is detected then the monitor should be able to terminate it and/or alert the administrator. In this chapter, we explore how to utilize the highly parallel capabilities of modern commodity graphics processing units (GPUs) in order to improve the performance of different security tools operating at the network, storage, and memory level, and how they can offload the CPU whenever possible. Our results show that modern GPUs can be very efficient and highly effective at accelerating the pattern matching operations of network intrusion detection systems and antivirus tools, as well as for monitoring the integrity of the base computing systems.


We describe the case of a 70-year-old woman who presented with symptoms of cardiac failure, and was found on clinical examination to have a purpuric rash over her lower extremities. Further evaluation of cardiac failure revealed tricuspid regurgitation with two large tricuspid valve vegetations. Blood cultures yielded a growth of Streptococcus viridans. She was treated with an intravenous ceftriaxone and gentamicin and made a complete recovery with resolution of the rash.


High anxiety levels have been associated with high levels of the imposter phenomenon (IP), a negative experience of feeling like a fraud. This study was designed to explore IP among graduate students and to determine whether a difference exists between online graduate students and traditional graduate students. The theoretical foundation of this study was social influence, which holds that students may feel pressured in a traditional setting because of the social cues of peers and instructors, as well as institutional norms. This quantitative study used a between-subjects design to compare 2 independent samples (115 online students & 105 traditional students). The study used a cross-sectional survey design, with 4 different measures: the Clance Imposter Phenomenon Scale, the Zung Self-Rating Anxiety Scale, the Perfectionistic Self-Presentation Scale, and a basic demographic survey. Results indicated that traditional graduate students had significantly higher IP scores than online graduate students. Results also indicated a significant, positive relationship between IP scores and anxiety scores. Regression analysis indicated that perfectionism was the most influential predictor of IP scores, followed by anxiety and program type. Because the scale used in this study explored socially prescribed perfectionism, the results appear to suggest an underlying social component to IP.


Modeling Neural Radiance Fields for fast-moving deformable objects from visual data alone is a challenging problem. A major issue arises due to the high deformation and low acquisition rates. To address this problem, we propose to use event cameras that offer very fast acquisition of visual change in an asynchronous manner. In this work, we develop a novel method to model the deformable neural radiance fields using RGB and event cameras. The proposed method uses the asynchronous stream of events and calibrated sparse RGB frames. In our setup, the camera pose at the individual events required to integrate them into the radiance fields remains unknown. Our method jointly optimizes these poses and the radiance field. This happens efficiently by leveraging the collection of events at once and actively sampling the events during learning. Experiments conducted on both realistically rendered graphics and real-world datasets demonstrate a significant benefit of the proposed method over the state-of-the-art and the compared baseline. This shows a promising direction for modeling deformable neural radiance fields in real-world dynamic scenes.


aghdad, once the cultural and social centre of the Arab world, has become a theatre of violence and devastation. Simultaneously, altering people lives, social interaction, urban fabric and Iraqi's identity. This paper examines this situation by sharing five narratives of five places in Baghdad. Those places are public spaces, each different in function, but all essential to the urban fabric and all historically charged. The five public spaces are: 1. Swords of Qadisiyah 2. Nasb Al-Hurriyah 3. Al Mutannabi Street 4. Al-Khilani Mosque 5. AL Zawraa park The analysis is based upon an ethnographic case study, which is grounded upon fieldwork, interviews and plan analysis. The main objective of this paper is to evaluate the development of the five places, allowing the reader to grasp an idea of the recent events and the meaning of the public space in a conflict environment. The narrative presented has shown that the public spaces are neglected, in shortage and segregated, which results in a decrease of social life and aggravation of sectarianism.


Biofilms that contribute to the persistent bacterial infections pose serious threats to human health, due in part to the extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) matrix of biofilm block the diffusion of intact antimicrobials. The poor penetration of antimicrobials into biofilm greatly reduces their bacterial killing efficacy. Here, we have demonstrated a nanocapsule PMPC-CS synthesized by encapsulating a chitosan nanoparticle with poly(2-methacryloyloxyethyl phosphorylcholine) (PMPC). Such PMPC-based surface exhibited low EPS-adsorption, allowing enhanced penetration of PMPC-CS. Additionally, PMPC-CS showed effective targeting toward negatively charged bacterial cell surfaces and pH-responsive drug release mediated by the swelling of chitosan core under the acidic environment of biofilm. These unique features ensured targeted delivery of antimicrobials throughout the depth of a biofilm. Delivery of triclosan with PMPC-CS outperformed direct application of free triclosan in inhibiting the growth of bacteria in biofilm, suggesting the potential of PMPC-CS as an effective delivery system for the treatment of bacterial infections.


Province. Antibody was detected in samples from 3 of 4 Myotis species captured in the same location in 2006 and 2007. A relatively high prevalence of henipavirus antibody was also found among Rousettus leschenaultia samples from Hainan Province in 2007. Notably, Yunnan and Hainan are both located in southern China. Although pteropid bats are not found in China, these data suggest henipaviruses could be introduced into China by other susceptible bat species that overlap their habitat with pteropid bats in neighboring countries. Several possibilities may explain the failure to detect neutralizing antibodies. One might be the unique immune response among those nonpteropid bats, which results in a low level of neutralizing antibodies that are diffi cult to detect in the current assay systems. Alternatively, and perhaps more likely, >1 Nipah-like viruses could be circulating among the bat populations sampled in this study, producing antibodies that cross-react with, but do not neutralize, the prototype Malaysian NiV virus isolate. This phenomenon has been observed previously by our group for severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)–like viruses in horseshoe bats, whose sera cross-reacted with, but did not neutralize, the SARS virus in humans (10). Obtaining serologic evidence of viruses in bat populations is typically more successful as a screening tool than either nucleic acid based assays or virus isolation; this is likely attributable to the often low-level of virus replication, the transient nature of the infection in bats, or both. The inability to amplify NiV sequences may have been attributable to the viral RNA present among these samples being below the threshold of detection in our assay or to the absence of infection in the population at the time of sampling. In addition, the primers used in the PCR may target regions of the NiV N protein that exhibit substantial sequence divergence in a Nipah-like virus. Bat species in the genera Rousettus, Myotis, Miniopterus, and Hipposideros naturally reside in trees, buildings, and caves that can be in close proximity to human residential areas, which increases the potential of transmission of zoonotic pathogens from bats to humans. The increased risk for these zoonotic infections to spread from bats to humans in areas of cohabitation is best illustrated by the repeated spillover events involving NiV in Bangladesh (5). Given the present initial evidence of exposure among bats in mainland China shown here, there is an urgent need to continue and expand surveillance studies for henipaviruses in China and elsewhere on the Asian continent.


In the last three decades, flooding has become a nightmare associated with rainfall in all the continents of the world, as it records heavy casualties everywhere and each time it occurred. Flooding is now a big and seemingly unstoppable environmental threat to rural and urban settlements, in both developed and developing countries, regardless of their topographic traits (mountainous or lowland) and locations (coastal or landlocked). It is no longer limited to coastal communities, such as Vancouver, Bangkok and Manila or Lagos, Port-Harcourt, Warri, Sapele, Calabar, and Yenagoa in Nigeria, as many residents of landlocked cities, towns, and villages have been killed and properties destroyed by flash flood. Flooding has significantly impacted peoples' housing, transportation, electricity, water and sanitation infrastructure, food and livelihood security. Engineering measures to address the effects of flooding through the provision of hydraulic structures seem inadequate. Indigenous knowledge (IK) has been practiced in rural communities over time to address disasters and it has been found to be effective in the protection of the lives and properties of the people and communities. This paper examines the application of indigenous knowledge to flood control and management in urban and rural communities in different parts of the world. It reviews the traditional rain prediction and flood control mechanisms as well as the coping and adaptation strategies practiced in the communities as reflected in their IK. The paper argues that it is imperative to augment western flood control practices with indigenous lood prediction and management skills to achieve sustainable flood prevention and control.

Key words: Indigenous knowledge, flooding, communities, flood
management, livelihood security.


Neural crest is formed at the boundary of epidermal and neural ectoderm. To understand the molecular mechanism of neural crest formation, we focused on the transcriptional regulation of the Slug gene. In the upstream sequence of the chicken Slug gene, we have identified potential binding sites for transcription factors, such as Lef/Tcf and Smad1. Transgenic mouse embryos carrying the chicken Slug promoter‐reporter gene showed a crest‐specific activation of the reporter, suggesting the isolated sequence included the cis‐regulatory elements to receive Slug‐inducing signals in the mouse neural crest. While these potential cis‐regulatory elements could be recognized and activated by corresponding transcription factors, such as Lef1 and Smad1, Wnt‐Lef‐β‐catenin signal failed to induce endogenous Slug expression in quail neural plate tissue prepared from forebrain and midbrain levels. In contrast, Slug expression and subsequent epithelial‐mesenchymal transition were effectively induced by BMP4. Consistently, while we could detect phosphorylation of Smad1 in the ectoderm including the neural plate and the neural fold region, the activation of a reporter gene for a detection of canonical Wnt signal activation was below the level of detection at the forebrain and midbrain levels. These observations indicated that in the anterior ectoderm BMP signal has a predominant role for Slug expression.


This paper provides new evidence on the positive risk-return tradeoff in the Thai stock market using monthly data. An AR(p)-GARCH-in-mean model is applied to the data from January 1981 to December 2009. Since stock prices and dividend series are not cointegrated, the excess returns are separately calculated as capital gain and dividend excess returns. By incorporating the dummy variables that capture the impact of the 1987 global stock market crash and the Asian 1997 financial crisis in the conditional variance equations, the results show that the persistence of excess return volatility is reduced. It is also found that there exists a positive risk-return tradeoff in the stock market in both capital gain and dividend excess returns. The size of the risk-return tradeoff is higher and more highly significant when the market dividend yield is used to obtain the excess return. Therefore, dividend is more important than capital gain. In addition, the impact of volatility on excess returns is not asymmetric implying that the AR(p)-GARCH-in-mean model is sufficient to detect the positive risk-return tradeoff.


A new scheduling strategy of terminal system virtual link (VL) is put forward, which is based on the short-frame prior scheduling and integrated with weighted round robin (WRR).The new approach, ensured the priority of the important short-frame and balanced the delay upper bound of other different priority signals. Based on the theory of network calculus, the paper derived the delay upper bound of different virtual links through the new combinatorial scheduling strategy and researched the relation among the maximum delay upper bound, weight ratio and frame length. The AFDX network model based on OPNET is established, the terminal system data transmission delay under the three scheduling strategy is simulated and compared. The results show that, the new scheduling strategy can reduce the maximum delay time of short-frame virtual link, and improve the processing bandwidth of relatively important task in long-frame data transmission. Above all, it is feasible and applicable to airborne network with more short-frame and different priority data flows.


Objective To expand our knowledge of the range of clinical phenotypes associated with vaccinia-related kinase 1 (VRK1) gene mutations. Methods We present clinical and molecular data of 2 individuals with slowly progressive weakness and a clinical syndrome consistent with adult-onset spinal muscular atrophy without pontocerebellar atrophy. Results Genetic testing revealed likely pathogenic variants in the VRK1 gene in both subjects. One individual carried homozygous p.R321C (c.961 C>T), likely pathogenic variants. The other carried compound heterozygous p.V236M (c.706 G>A) and p.R321C (c.961 C>T), likely pathogenic variants. Notably, both patients were of Hispanic descent. Conclusions We report 2 cases with VRK1 mutations presenting as adult-onset spinal muscular atrophy without pontocerebellar hypoplasia and review the current literature of similar cases. Our report expands the clinical spectrum of neurologic disorders associated with VRK1 mutations.


A 10 MeV travelling wave linac will be used as injector for the 10-75 MeV racetrack microtron Eindhoven. The six dimensional emittance of the linac will be matched to the acceptance of the microtron. In longitudinal phase space the negative dispersive action of the first bend in the racetrack microtron is counteracted by the dispersive action of the doubly achromatic bending section in the transport line. The data for the longitudinal emittance are obtained from numerical simulations. The energy spread of the initial beam is larger than the energy acceptance of the racetrack microtron. It will be reduced with a slit system in a dispersive section of the transport line.


Summary :The authors examine data on syntactic variation from a typological viewpoint, concentrating on verbal constructions. Examples predominantly derived from written sources highlight strategies perceived as « deviant ». The analysis, carried out simultaneously at syntactic, semantic and discoursive pragmatic level, reveals a tendency to use enunciations with only one argument, to substitute « richer diatheses » for active and passive voices, and the inversion of neutral perspectivization. The origin of the examples under scrutiny (mainly taken from newspapers) and their rate of recurrence lead the authors to investigate the question of the discoursive function of these constructions and to describe the textual type they belong to from a synchronic perspective. On the other hand, the results show that, far from being exceptional, the strategies analyzed instigate linguistic change.


Abstract. Fai ALY, Kaullysing D, Jeetun S, Soondur M, Bhagooli R. 2023. Diplosoma simile (Ascidiacea: Didemnidae) distribution and its photosynthetic thermal stress responses from Mauritius: Implications for invasive or opportunistic behavior. Indo Pac J Ocean Life 7: 16-26. This study aimed to investigate the morphological identity of the ascidian Diplosoma, its distribution, experimental thermal stress responses, and its characteristics of being potentially invasive or opportunistic in Mauritian waters. The Diplosoma species were anesthetized in menthol, fixed, and preserved in a formalin-seawater solution. Isolated zooids and embryos were examined under a microscope for distinct morphological characteristics, which revealed their identity as D. simile (Sluiter, 1909). The D. simile percentage cover studied at seven sites in 2019 around Mauritius tended to be high at the near-reef zone, with a high percentage of dead coral cover per 0.5 m2. At Flic en Flac, long-term observations in 2008, 2010, 2016, and 2019 indicated a significant decrease and increased from 61.25±3.31 to 6.15±0.60 % and 0.08±0.05 to 2.50±090% for the percentage covers of live coral and D. simile, respectively. The D. simile was recorded on five coral species, and its percentage occurrence increased from 2008 to 2019 in Acropora muricata, A. cytherea, Pocillopora damicornis, and Montipora aequituberculata with the highest levels occurring in Acropora while Porites lutea was not found to be covered by D. simile during the study. Visual observations from the thermal exposures at 27ºC, 30ºC, and 33ºC during 19 hrs revealed that D. simile was more affected by increasing temperature and exposure time. Using four observed conditions of normal, bleached/paled, tissue sloughing, and mortality, D. simile suffered from only bleaching/paling at 33ºC at 19 hrs exposure. Variable visual responses were noted for corals, with P. lutea appearing normal at all trials while A. cytherea was suffering from mortality both at 30ºC and 33ºC at 19 hrs exposure. The effective quantum yield (?PSII), measured using a Diving-PAM, declined significantly at 33ºC treatments at 6 and 19 hrs of exposure. D. simile generally tended to be more thermally tolerant than corals like P. lutea, P. damicornis, M. aequituberculata, A. muricata, A, cytherea, though the ?PSII thermal responses were variable among the tested corals. When considering the reported behavioral characteristics of D. simile, namely the lack of broad dispersal range and wide environmental tolerance, it is tempting to deduce that the species is potentially invasive. However, in this study, D. simile's significant distribution on dead corals, its presence in zones of high anthropogenic activities, and its relatively more robust thermal stress responses than corals colonized suggest an opportunistic behavior.


Summary
The sequence homology between the RNA genomes of Cricket paralysis virus (CrPV) and Drosophila C virus (DCV) strains have been compared using cDNA hybridization analysis. Results show 60 to 85% homology between DCV strains obtained from different geographical locations. There was no detectable sequence homology between DCV and CrPV.


This paper deals with the energy efficient issue of cryptographic mechanisms used for secure communication between devices in wireless sensor networks. Since these devices are mainly targeted for low power consumption appliances, there is an effort for optimization of any aspects needed for regular sensor operation. On a basis of utilization of hardware cryptographic accelerators integrated in microcontrollers, this article provides the comparison between software and hardware solutions. Proposed work examines the problems and solutions for implementation of security algorithms for WSN devices. Because the speed of hardware accelerator should be much higher than the software implementation, there are examination tests of energy consumption and validation of performance of this feature. Main contribution of the article is real testbed evaluation of the time latency and energy requirements needed for securing the communication. In addition, global evaluation for all important network communication parameters like throughput, delay and delivery ratio are also provided.


This paper deals with the design problem of robust and non-fragile H∞ state feedback controller for a class of uncertain singular system with state delay.One class of perturbations are considered,namely,additive.The state feedback non-fragile controller designs for H∞ control under the class of gain perturbations are given in terms of linear matrix inequalities.The designed controllers are such that the closed-loop system is regular,stable and impulse free as well as has optimitive H∞ norm bound.An illustrative example shows the effectiveness of the proposed design method.


Owing to the local/heterogeneous structures in supercooled liquids, after several decades of research, it is now clear that supercooled liquids are structurally different from their conventional liquid counterparts. Accordingly, an approach based on a local probe should provide a better understanding about the local mechanical properties as well as heterogeneous structures. Recently, the superiority of active microrheology over global rheology has been demonstrated [Yu et al., Sci. Adv., 2020, 6, 8766]. Here, we elaborate this new avenue of research and provide more evidence for such superiority. We report on the results of an extensive molecular dynamics simulation of active microrheology of a model glass. We identify several time scales in time series of friction, and detect a transition in dynamical behavior of friction. We discuss the possible relation to structural heterogeneities-a subject of considerable interest in glass physics.


Many problems of discrete optimization are connected
with partition of the n-dimensional
space into certain subsets, and the requirements needed for these subsets
can be geometrical—for instance, their sphericity—or they can be connected
with certain metrics—for instance, the requirement that subsets are Dirichlet's
regions with Hamming's metrics [1]. Often partitions into some subsets are
considered, on which a functional is optimized [2]. In the present work, the
partitions of the n-dimensional space
into subsets with "zero" limitation are considered. Such partitions allow us to construct the set of the group codes, V, and the set of the channels, A, between the arbitrary
elements, V and A, having correcting relation between them. Descriptions of some
classes of both perfect and imperfect codes in the additive channel are
presented, too. A way of constructing of group codes correcting the errors in the
additive channels is presented, and this method is a further generalization of
Hamming's method of code construction.


We describe a patient with chordoma located in the mid-posterior mediastinum whose first clinical symptoms were respiratory. This, together with the patient's age at presentation, made this case unusual.


The role of the liver in cholesterol metabolism and experimental atherogenesis is not completely understood. Katz and Stamler1in their familiar monograph on "Experimental Atherosclerosis" state that, to their knowledge, "no thorough-going studies have been carried out on the influence of hepatic factors on atherogenesis in experimental animals." According to the texts, free cholesterol exists in the blood stream as a result of the breakdown of erythrocytes and other cells and is excreted by the liver in bile—the only body fluid in which it is readily soluble. In addition, the liver may synthesize cholesterol from acetate by a process involving some 26 separate enzymatic reactions. According to Siperstein and Guest,2exogenous cholesterol may exert some control over this synthesis by a feedback mechanism probably blocking the synthesis prior to the formation of squalene. Little else appears to be known of the handling of exogenous cholesterol by the liver.


Soybean polysaccharide (SPS) is a class of soluble polysaccharide derived from soybean cotyledon, soybean meal or okara, and has broadly been used in the food industry. In recent decades, due to its attractive physicochemical properties, SPS has been developed into various emulsifiers or stabilizers for beverages. Additionally, studies have emerged to reveal its potential in biomaterial and biological applications. In this review, we critically appraise the latest literature on the extraction and the structural features of SPS, and provide a perspective on the biological applications of SPS. We focus on the current strategies for the extraction of this unique polysaccharide, specific structural features, and functional utilization of SPS. Notably, SPS-based food additives have been demonstrated to add value in biological applications due to their anticancer and immunoregulatory effects, encouraging us to use SPS directly in the area of biomedicine. Lastly, we suggest some potential directions for the development of SPS for extensive utilization in biomedicine.


A range of soils, with or without the addition of peatmoss, and seedlings of blueberry progenies were used in an outdoor pot study to examine the adaptability of blueberries to upland soil conditions with controlled fertilizer additions and trickle irrigation. Blueberry progenies ranged from essentially pure highbush (Vaccinium corymbosum L.) to interspecific hybrids containing varying amounts of evergreen (V. darrowi Camp), lowbush (V. angustifolium Aiton), black highbush (V. atrococcum Heller), and rabbiteye (V. ashei Reade) blueberry germplasm. The soils represented the 3 physiographic regions of the eastern United States with Berryland sand used as a comparative control. Leaf analysis for N, P, K, Ca, and Mg showed significant effects of soil, but no consistent effect of peatmoss addition or fertilizer source in the 2 years of the experiment. There were significant differences among progenies. Foliar Fe, B, Al, Zn, and Cu concentrations varied independent of soil material, progeny, or fertilizer source. Leaf Mn was significantly increased from solid 10N-4P-8K fertilizer and a significant soil by progeny interaction existed. Those progenies containing some V. angustifolium tended to have increased foliar Mn levels. The reduced vigor of the blueberry progenies grown on soils other than the Berryland sand was tentatively ascribed to induced nutrient imbalances, involving Ca, Fe, and Mn, possibly being governed by soil cation exchange capacity and organic matter reactivity.


Due to their large mass, heavy quarks are produced in the earliest stages of the collision and will, therefore, experience the full evolution of the system. Leptons resulting from heavy flavor decay are an important tool to probe the hot and dense matter created in nucleus-nucleus collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). PHENIX is capable of measuring electrons in the central rapidity region (|y|< 0.35) and muons in the forward rapidity region (1.2 < |y|< 2.2). PHENIX has multiple cross section measurements in p+ p collisions at 200 and 500 GeV. These measurements provide a test of perturbative quantum chromodynamics (pQCD) theory in additional to a crucial baseline to study the hot and cold nuclear matter effects present in heavy ion collisions. Similar measurements in d+Au allow access to initial state cold nuclear matter effects. Modification of heavy flavor production in heavy ion collisions (Au+Au and Cu+Cu) is beyond that expected from cold nuclear matter effects alone.


Pythium species are cosmopolitan, fungus-like oomycotes which may cause diseases in plants, animals and even human beings. Some of the species, however, are saprophytes and also well-proven biological control agents of plant pathogenic fungi. Since 1968, when the first Pythium species was reported from Iran, ca 44 species, two varieties, and five groups of this genus have been reported from different regions of Iran. Nevertheless, morphological or morphometric characters of only 35 species are more or less described. On the other hand more than 50% of these species have only been reported once. In the course of identification and classification of Pythium taxa in Iran, in addition to general obstacles, there exist some other problems. The lack of identification keys for the species; the absence of comprehensive checklists of the species, their dispersal and matrices; the lack of or the inadequacy of  the species descriptions; unillustrated descriptions; generalization about the host names; unspecific geographical locations; unknown isolation matrices; the absence of type specimens in type culture collections; and the overlooking of molecular analyses, especially in the case of phylogenetic species are some of the challenges ahead. In this review, the prospects of future studies on the taxonomy of the Pythium species in Iran and the proposed solutions for the taxonomic challenges are discussed.


In the available literature, only the Becchi-Rouet-Stora-Tyutin (BRST) symmetries are known for the Jackiw-Pi model of three (2 + 1)-dimensional (3D) massive non-Abelian gauge theory. We derive the full set of off-shell nilpotent (s(a)b = 0) and absolutely anticommuting (sbsab+ sabsb = 0) (anti-)BRST transformations s(a)b corresponding to the usual Yang-Mills gauge transformations of this model by exploiting the "augmented" superfield formalism where the horizontality condition and gauge invariant restrictions blend together in a meaningful manner. This superfield formalism leads to the derivation of (anti-)BRST invariant Curci-Ferrari restriction which plays a key role in the proof of absolute anticommutativity of s(a)b. A novel feature of our present investigation is the derivation of (anti-)BRST transformations for the auxiliary field ρ from our superfield formalism which is neither generated by the (anti-)BRST charges nor obtained from the requirements of nilpotency and/or absolute anticommutativity of the (anti-)BRST symmetries of our 3D gauge theory.


Kupffer cells (liver macrophages) represent the largest reservoir of fixed macrophages in the body. Accordingly, we have undertaken a study to evaluate their susceptibility to human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1). Five-day-old primary cultures of Kupffer cells (KC) were infected with HIV-1, and as the infection progressed, syncytia appeared. Within the cells, viral proteins were detected by immunofluorescence using monoclonal antibodies directed against gp120 and p24. Electron microscopic examinations revealed the presence of typical Lentivirinae particles. The particles released from KC in the extracellular medium showed reverse transcriptase activity and p24 antigen; they could infect lymphocytic cells and were neutralized by a HIV+ patient's serum or an anti-gp120 monoclonal antibody. Our results thus demonstrate that the interaction of HIV-1 with KC in vitro leads to a productive infection. They suggest that the KC may be involved in the pathogenesis of HIV-1 infection and may (i) participate in the transmission of the infection to the peripheral blood cells, (ii) play a role in the depletion of uninfected CD4+ cells.


When squid giant axons were intracellularly perfused for about 10 min with 100 mM K+ solutions containing Pronase or Protease Type VII at a concentration of 0.1-0.5 mg/ml, the action potential developed a long-lasting plateau. The plateau persisted after switching to an enzyme-free solution at standard pH (7.3 +/- 0.1) as the intracellular perfusate. The plateau was promptly and completely suppressed when the intracellular pH was lowered below 6.5. Upon increase of pH again to the standard level, the plateau promptly reappeared. With alkaline intracellular pH plateau formation was enhanced. Lowering the pH of the extracellular medium to 5 did not influence the plateau. The duration of the action potential under bi-ionic conditions (inside Cs+, outside Ca++) decreased with low intracellular pH and increased with high intracellular pH. The plateau duration of the action potential from axons intracellularly perfused with solutions containing 10 mM tetraethylammonium also decreased with low intracellular pH and increased with high intracellular pH. The underlying mechanisms for the pH effects remain to be explored.


Electrocardiographic Imaging (ECGI) aims to reconstruct electrograms from the body surface potential measurements. Bad leads are usually excluded from the inverse problem solution. Alternatively, interpolation can be applied. This study explores how sensitive ECGI is to different bad-lead configurations and interpolation methods. Experimental data from a Langendorff-perfused pig heart suspended in a human-shaped torso-tank was used. Six different bad lead cases were designed based on clinical experience. Inverse problem was solved by applying Tikhonov regularization i) using the complete data, ii) bad-leads-removed data, and iii) interpolated data, with 5 different methods. Our results showed that ECGI accuracy of an interpolation method highly depends on the location of the bad leads. If they are in the high-potential-gradient regions of the torso, a highly accurate interpolation method is needed to achieve an ECGI accuracy close to using complete data. If the BSP reconstruction of the interpolation method is poor in these regions, the reconstructed electro-grams also have lower accuracy, suggesting that bad leads should be removed instead of interpolated. The inverse-forward method was found to be the best among all interpolation methods applied in this study in terms of both missing BSP lead reconstruction and ECGI accuracy, even for the bad leads located over the chest.


Grade stabilization structures have been used for many years to control degradation of alluvial stream in the southwest. These structures result in reducing the gradient of the stream to an acceptable level commensurate with flow quantity and soil conditions. Grade stabilization structures have been constructed of rock, wood, metal and reinforced concrete, depending on stream size and life expectancy. The reinforced concrete structures have generally followed the configuration used for drop spillways in small dams. However, seldom can the design of these stream structures actually fit the design criteria developed for spillway application; and generally some simplifying assumptions are made for lack of adequate data. Furthermore, due to inherent conservatism built into the limited design criteria, use of these designs for instream criteria, use of these designs for instream application becomes very costly. This paper describes the application of hydraulic modeling to the design of instream grade stabilization structures. The major advantages of this approach is the ability to customize the configuration to the actual site conditions and to substantially reduce the construction costs from that of a conventional design.


A~tract. An approach for the estimation of the frequencies and damping factors of exponentially damped cisoids (complex sinusoids) is presented. The method may be seen as an extension of the method of backward linear prediction and singular value decomposition of Kumaresan and Tufts to the second-order statistics domain. The proposed estimator is interpreted as a high-order Yule-Walker (HOYW) method using a data based covariance matrix. The HOYW method is analysed at high SNR where closed-form expressions for the accuracy of the estimates are derived. By Monte Carlo simulations the HOYW method is applied to data consisting of one and two damped cisoids in additive white noise. The simulation results are compared with the results using the Kumaresan and Tufts method, with the Crarn6r-Rao bound, and with the derived theoretical results. The method is not statistically efficient, but the comparison shows that the HOYW method outperforms the method of Kumaresan and Tufts in terms of accuracy versus algorithmic complexity and in terms of precision in the cases considered. Due to the above properties the method is suitable to provide fast initial estimates for nonlinear search methods.


A rapid prototyping technique is demonstrated which uses a red femtosecond laser to produce a metallic mould which is then directly used for the replica moulding of PDMS. The manufacturing process can be completed in less than 6 h making it a viable technique for testing new designs quickly. The technique is validated by creating a microfluidic device with channels of height and depth of 300 µm, with a ramp test structure where the height and width of the channels reduces to 100 µm to demonstrate the techniques 3D capabilities. The resulting PDMS device was easily removed from the metallic mould and closely replicated the shape aside the expected shrinkage during thermal curing. As the technique uses a single replica process, the surface roughness at the base of the channels corresponds to the un-ablated polished metal mould, resulting in a very low surface roughness of 0.361 nm. The ablated metallic mould surface corresponds to the top of the PDMS device, which is bonded to glass and does not affect the flow within the channels, reducing the need for optimisation of laser parameters. Finally, the device is validated by demonstrating laminar flow with the no-slip condition.


In this work, SnO2 modified with reduced graphene oxide (rGO) and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) separately and combined sensitized by using the co-precipitation method and their sensing behavior toward ethanol vapor at room temperature were investigated. An interdigitated electrode (IDE) gold substrate is very expensive compared to a fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO) substrate; hence, we used the latter to reduce the fabrication cost. The structure and the morphology of the studied materials were characterized by using differential thermal analyses (DTA) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), transmission electron microscope (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller surface area and Barrett-Joyner-Halenda (BJH) pore size measurements. The studied composites were subjected to ethanol in its gas phase at concentrations from 10 to 200 ppm. The present composites showed high-performance sensitivity for many reasons: the incorporation of SnO2 and CNTs which prevents the agglomeration of rGO sheets, the formation of a 3D mesopourus structure and an increase in the surface area. The decoration with rGO and CNTs led to more active sites, such as vacancies, which increased the adsorption of ethanol gas. In addition, the mesopore structure and the nano size of the SnO2 particles allowed an efficient diffusion of gases to the active sites. Based on these results, the present composites should be considered as efficient and low-cost sensors for alcohol.


The federal government has been heavily involved in promoting housing affordability since the 1930s and continues to have a critical role to play. Over the past several decades, the federal government has financed affordability by promoting development and income subsidies, but specific allocation decisions have devolved. Housing inequities can best be addressed locally, but only if localities are held to high standards of fairness and regional coordination is facilitated. Successful and sustainable local solutions to housing affordability will also require a substantial financial investment, one that the federal government can and should reliably and adequately provide. Each year, Congress permits households with the least household need to receive billions of taxpayer dollars in unnecessary housing subsidies — Congress must correct this misallocation of funds in order to help those facing the severest housing burdens.

Much of federal affordable housing policy today involves a patchwork of insufficient and ineffective measures mitigating affordability harms. These measures provide critical short-term relief for the minority of genuinely needy households who receive assistance, but the federal government has inadequately invested in long-term solutions for housing instability. The federal government's responsibility to address persistent housing inequity arises in part from decades of its own harmful, racist housing policies. Although the inherently local nature of housing markets suggests that the actual implementation of housing assistance programs should continue to devolve, responsibility for ensuring fair access to quality housing ultimately lies with the federal government.

Part I of this Article describes the ubiquity and impacts of the problem of unaffordable housing. Part II examines the spectrum of approaches that a government can use to address housing unaffordability, from police power mandates to supply- and demandside subsidies. Part III makes the normative case for significant but reimagined federal involvement in the affordable housing sphere. Part IV points out the risks inherent in relying on federal funding and oversight and suggests ways the law might mitigate such risks.


The article examines the development of a dialogue between Russia and Germany regarding the recognition of the Sputnik V vaccine, the opinions of German and European politicians on this issue. The author comes to the conclusion that the mutual recognition of vaccines between Russia and Germany as one of the main actors of the European Union could be both the beginning of an improvement in the situation with the spread of the virus, as well as bilateral relations and relations between Russia and the EU as a whole.


Rhabdophane-type hexagonal lanthanide orthophosphate, LnPO4·nH2O (Ln = La, Ce, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd and Tb, n = 0 to 0.6), and body-centered tetragonal ErPO4·nH2O nanowires/nanorods have been successfully synthesized in high yield (>95%) by simple microwave heating of an aqueous solution of Ln(III) nitrate and NH4H2PO4 in the pH range 1.8–2.2. The reaction was conducted in a simple domestic microwave oven. The structure, morphology, composition and physical properties of the as-prepared products have been characterized by powder X-ray diffraction, low resolution transmission electron microscopy, high resolution transmission electron microscopy, selected area electron diffraction, thermogravimetric analysis, differential scanning calorimetry, infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and photoluminescence spectroscopy. The length and width of the resulting lanthanide orthophosphate nanowires/nanorods are in the range 70–2200 nm and 6–130 nm, respectively. A possible mechanism for the formation of LnPO4·nH2O nanowires/nanorods is briefly discussed.


The phenomenon of plasma self-organization in a free-localized high-pressure microwave discharge has been investigated on the basis of the mechanism of ionization-field (IF) instability. Linear and weakly nonlinear stages of discharge evolution have been studied. It has been shown that IF instability at the nonlinear stage, due to the interaction of the harmonics with different wavevectors, can lead to the formation of a rich spectrum of plasma structures, from simple plane plasma autowaves to various 3D spatial structures (helical filaments and three-dimensional Bernard cells).


The authors use a comparative politics framework, examining electoral interests, policy-maker's own normative commitments, and domestic political institutions as factors influencing Annex 1 countries' decisions on Kyoto Protocol ratification and adoption of national policies to mitigate climate change. Economic costs and electoral interests matter a great deal, even when policy-makers are morally motivated to take action on climate change. Leaders' normative commitments may carry the day under centralized institutional conditions, but these commitments can be reversed when leaders change. Electoral systems, federalism, and executive-legislative institutional configurations all influence ratification decisions and subsequent policy adoption. Although institutional configurations may facilitate or hinder government action, high levels of voter concern can trump institutional obstacles. Governments' decisions to ratify, and the reduction targets they face upon ratification, do not necessarily determine their approach to carbon emissions abatement policies: for example, ratifying countries that accept demanding targets may fail to take significant action.


In health care, outcome measures have become important tools to assist with monitoring the efficacy of therapeutic interventions. This article defines functional outcomes and describes why therapists should begin monitoring the care of patients with burn injuries in terms of function. Suggestions are provided on the identification and documentation of functional outcomes for patients with burn injuries.


As with any scientific domain, the field of risk perception also embraces many subfields and topics. These have been discussed in literature reviews that have sometimes focused on particular hazards, such as seismic hazards (Lindell and Perry, 2000), flood hazards (Kellens et al., 2012), genetically modified foods (Pin and Gutteling, 2008) or multiple hazards (Wachinger et al., 2013; Shreve et al. 2014).


27 In contrast to genome editing that introduces genetic changes at DNA level, 28 disrupting or editing genes' transcripts provides a distinctive approach to perturb a 29 genetic system, offering benefits complementary to classic genetic approaches. To 30 develop a new toolset for manipulation of RNA, we first implemented a member of 31 type VI CRISPR systems, Cas13a from Leptotrichia shahii (LshCas13a) in 32 Schizosaccharomyces pombe , an important model organism employed by biologists to 33 study key cellular mechanisms conserved from yeast to humans. While it was shown 34 to knock down targeted endogenous genes' transcripts, differently from previous 35 studies in E. coli , no collateral cleavage of other non-specific RNA by activated 36 Cas13a-crRNA complex was detected in fission yeast. Second, we engineered a 37 RNA-editing system by tethering an inactive form of LshCas13a (dCas13) to the 38 catalytic domain of human Adenosine Deaminase Act on RNA 2 (hADAR2d), which 39 was shown to be programmable with crRNA to target messenger RNAs and precisely 40 edit specific nucleotide residues. We optimized the system parameters using a 41 dual-florescence reporter and demonstrated its utility in editing of randomly selected 42 endogenous genes' transcripts. Our engineered RNA-editing system enables a new 43 toolset for transcriptomic manipulation that is widely applicable in basic genetic and 44 biotechnological research. 45 46 47 48


Background: Myringoplasty is one of the surgical techniques for the management of chronic suppurative otitis media with permanent perforation of tympanic membrane. It is defined as simple surgical repair of tympanic membrane perforation without doing ossicular reconstruction. The aim of this study is to analyze the anatomic and functional outcome of this procedure in our setting.
 Material & Methods: This descriptive study was conducted from October 2010 to October 2011, at DHQ and Al-Shifa Hospital Dera Ismail Khan. Patients with dry perforation for 6 weeks were included while those with any other associated ear pathology, prior ear surgeries or less than 5 years of age were excluded from the study. Informed consent was taken from all the patients. All patients were operated under microscope with underlay technique through postaural approach by single surgeon.
 Results: Total number of operated ears was 53. Mean age of the patients was 17.3+4.3 years; 28(52.83%) were males while 25(47.16%) females. The overall success rate of myringoplasty was 88.6% and 73.5% in terms of anatomical and functional outcomes respectively. No major complication such as worsening of hearing or dead ear was observed. Hematoma formation was seen in 12(22.6%) while wound dehiscence in 9(16.9%) patients.
 Conclusion: Myringoplasty is a safe surgical procedure in achieving intact tympanic membrane and to improve the hearing loss.


The knowledge of an organization's employees is a valuable asset. Therefore organizations should ensure that their employees share their knowledge among each other. Knowledge exchanges between employees can be modelled as a network of relationships. To study these networks we have developed the Knowledge Network Analysis technique, which is based on Social Network Analysis and supports visual as well as quantitative analysis of knowledge networks. The goal of this technique is to identify bottlenecks in knowledge sharing in a particular knowledge area. In this paper we present the results of the application of Knowledge Network Analysis in an explorative case study. The goal of the case study is to explore the usefulness of Knowledge Network Analysis in identifying knowledge sharing bottlenecks. The case study results in a deeper understanding of how to translate the characteristics of the knowledge network and the employees in this network to the context of the case study organization. Moreover, the case study results have also been used to formulate recommendations to improve knowledge sharing at the case study organization.


### What Is a TJR Registry?

TJR registries represent ongoing prospective observational studies in which primary and revision TJR procedures are recorded1-4. Registries may be local, regional, national, or international. The data set collected must include a patient identifier and details regarding demographic, surgical, and clinical outcome data5.

A registry can collect up to four levels of data. Level-I data include patient, surgeon, and hospital identifiers and procedure data, allowing monitoring of revision rates after TJR. Level-II data consist of patient factors, comorbidities, surgical data, perioperative care, and complications. Changes in complication rates over time can be evaluated and compared with changes in care. Level-III data include patient-reported outcome measures, which increase the ability of the registry to detect poor outcomes after TJR by assessing the patient's perspective. Generic and disease-specific self-administered questionnaires measure general health, symptoms, function, activity level, and patient satisfaction. These allow for identification of risk factors for poor outcomes, assessment of overall health improvement after surgery, and analysis of the cost-effectiveness of TJR. Finally, radiographs are considered level-IV data. Inclusion of level-IV data increases the ability to detect subclinical implant failure. Storage of digital radiographic images in an organized registry framework facilitates analysis of large numbers of patient images for implant wear, osteolysis, alignment, and/or component positioning. Addition of level-V data to registries has been discussed; such data would comprise explanted components and would be used for assessing the relationship between device damage and the reason for revision.

National TJR registries aim to capture all TJR procedures performed and are generally maintained by the national orthopaedic society and funded by the government6. Data quality is highly dependent on compliance by the hospitals performing TJRs. Full membership in the International Society of Arthroplasty Registers (ISAR) requires participation of >80% of national hospitals (high compliance) and …


Production and management of Japanese quail is relatively new in Nigeria but the birds have been attracting national attention in the recent times. This study on Japanese quail was conducted to estimate genetic parameters of egg production traits of Japanese quails in a semi-arid area of Nigeria. In a study that lasted for 40 weeks, 40 sires and 120 dams that produced 1267 progenies (743 females and 524) in three batches were used. The mixed model least squares and maximum likelihood programme of Harvey was used to estimate heritability, genetic, phenotypic and environmental correlations for body weights of Japanese quails from 0 – 40 weeks of age. Heritability estimates from sire, dam and, sire plus dam variance components from 0 to 36 weeks were low to moderate ranging from 0.071 to 0.569. Genetic correlations between body weights at the different ages were positive but varied widely from low (0.02) to high (0.977). However, the genetic relationships between body weights from hatch to 8 weeks were high (0.921 to 0.992). This may suggest that selection for final body weight may be based on early weight records. The phenotypic and environmental correlations were generally high, positive and ranged from 0.572 to 0.995 and 0.776 to 0.999, respectively. Though, the magnitude of genetic and phenotypic correlations of body weights decreased with increase in age of Japanese quails. Thus, rapid progress in selection for improvement of body weight of the Japanese quail may be


Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDSs) are heterogeneous diseases of bone marrow (BM) cell precursors for which immunophenotypic characterization is still considered irrelevant despite the accuracy and sensitivity of flow cytometry techniques. The aim of this study was to determine whether immunophenotypic abnormalities could be defined in MDSs and could correlate with the French-American-British classification and cytogenetics. Analysis was performed on 275 BM samples (207 MDS patients, 68 controls) and 25 control blood samples. Immunophenotyping was based on a primary gating of blast cells, monocytes, and granulocytes according to CD45 antigen expression and side scatter light diffraction. Immunophenotypic hierarchical clustering was performed to analyze the results. The data obtained show that (1) immunophenotypic clustering partly discriminates patients with refractory anemia with excess blasts/refractory anemia with excess blasts in transformation (RAEB/RAEB-T), chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (CMML), and refractory anemia/refractory anemia with ring sideroblasts (RA/RARS) for CD45(lo) blast cells and patients with RA/CMML, RARS, and RAEB/RAEB-T for CD45(hi)/side scatter(hi) (SS(hi)) granulocytes; (2) the most discriminating markers were CD16, CD34, CD36, CD38, CD71, and HLA-DR for blast cells and CD11b, CD13, CD33, CD36, CD38, CD71, and HLA-DR for CD45(hi)/SS(hi) granulocytes; (3) clusters related to CD34 expression were associated with high levels of blast cells on BM smear; (4) clusters related to high levels of CD36 expression on CD45(lo) blast cells and CD45(hi)/SS(hi) granulocytes were associated with a poor International Prognosis Scoring System score; and (5) high levels of CD71 expression on CD45(hi)/SS(hi) granulocytes were associated with the RARS category. These results show a close relationship between immunophenotypic abnormalities and BM dysplasia and suggest that flow cytometry could be a future tool for the characterization of MDSs.


As part of a quality control process in manufacturing it is often necessary to test whether all parts of a product satisfy a required property, with as few inspections as possible. When multiple inspection apparatuses with different costs and precision exist, it is desirable that testing can be carried out cost-effectively by properly controlling the trade-off between the costs and the precision. In this paper, we formulate this as a level set estimation (LSE) problem under cost-dependent input uncertainty - LSE being a type of active learning for estimating the level set, i.e., the subset of the input space in which an unknown function value is greater or smaller than a pre-determined threshold. Then, we propose a new algorithm for LSE under cost-dependent input uncertainty with theoretical convergence guarantee. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm by applying it to synthetic and real datasets.


Background and Purpose: The number of surgeons in Japan has declined more than 25% in the last 20 years, a critical problem not only limited to this country. Another problem faced in Japan is the limited English communication skills of Japanese students. In an attempt to address these problems, international tele-education involving live surgery for second-year medical students was undertaken in Japan and Korea over a ten-year period. In this study, we aimed to clarify the effect of the class for pre-clinical medical students. Methods: A 90-minute lecture was given, designed to introduce students to telemedicine as well as devices and instruments for laparoscopic surgery. The class required a connection between Kyushu University Hospital in Japan and Seoul National University Bundang Hospital in Korea. Annual live surgeries were performed each year from 2008 to 2017. Each class comprised a total of 62–90 students per year. After the class, students were given questionnaires for evaluation purposes. Results: A total of 96% of medical students had a favorable impression of the class over the 10 years. More specifically, 94.6% of students were positive about image quality, and 73.5% of them about sound quality. A total of 88.3% were positive about the class being in English, and 96.1% thought this was important for promoting international exchange and improving their English skills. The percentage of students indicating interest in general surgery was 86.6%, and 94.5% of them were interested in laparoscopic surgery. Finally, three quarters of students had a more favorable impression of surgery after the tele-education class than before. Conclusion: Our tele-education class is an effective approach for encouraging medical students in the early years of training to become interested in surgery and international exchanges.


The notion of service design as a design field has emerged during the last 10-15 years and seems to be growing more and more; a 2007 textbook on interaction design states: "The new frontier of interaction design is services" (Saffer, 2007, p. 174). Since the field is so young, there still are areas which hardly have been explored. One of these is cultural effects on service expectations. This thesis aims to help to fill in the knowledge gap by applying a model of cultural differences. The model used is the one developed by Geert Hofstede, which has been proved to be valid within a large number of varyingfields. This was done through the research question "Is Hofstede's model applicable to service design in general, and individualization of services in particular?". The question was explored through two parallel research processes; a quantitative questionnaire distributed via the web and a qualitative evaluation of 47 different service web sites. The qualitative evaluation was done through a new method called Cultural Walkthrough. Four key countries were chosen; the questionnaire was aimed at natives of these countries and the web sites all came from these countries. The countries in question were Germany, India, the United Kingdom and the USA. The results indicate that Hofstede's model can't be applied to service design straight off. Neither can they be used as a basis to deem the want for the possibility to individualize services, which seems to be dependent on the individual. The results indicate a large number of interesting questions for further research.


On September 21, 1994, Brazil and the World Bank signed the grant agreement for the Science Centers and Directed Research - Phase I project. The grant agreement was the first to be signed under the Pilot Program and follows two years of preparation work by Brazilian and Bank teams. The project will support institutional strengthening for two established Amazon research institutions, the National Institute for Amazonian Research (INPA) and the Goeldi Museum, as well as grants program to fund scientific research on conservation and sustainable development in the Amazon.


In the paper, a generalized sub-equation method is presented to construct some exact analytical solutions of nonlinear partial differential equations. Making use of the method, we present rich exact analytical solutions of the one-dimensional nonlinear Schrödinger equation which describes the dynamics of solitons in Bose–Einstein condensates with time-dependent atomic scattering length in an expulsive parabolic potential. The solutions obtained include not only non-traveling wave and coefficient function's soliton solutions, but also Jacobi elliptic function solutions and Weierstrass elliptic function solutions. Some plots are given to demonstrate the properties of some exact solutions under the Feshbach-managed nonlinear coefficient and the hyperbolic secant function coefficient.


root of the equation. The purpose of this paper is to show some applications of the method to algebraic equations with real roots. A root can be evaluated with any accuracy by a simple procedure, and in many cases close upper and lower bounds of the root can be found at the same time. The main result of ?2 is presented by formulas (15)-(18). Formula (22) of ?3 represents a generalization of the Laguerre quadratic formula for the solution of algebraic equations with real roots. Formula (33) of ?4 gives a generalization of the Laguerre quadratic formula for finding upper and lower bounds of the roots of an algebraic equation with real roots and, at the same time, of the Bernoulli method for finding the numerically largest root of such an equation. 2. A few simple cases. In this and in the following sections, let f(x) =0 be an algebraic equation of degree N with real coefficients and real roots a,, i= 1, 2, * * * , N, aj-aj, for i$j. We may write the identity


A locomotion study was performed on a hemipelvectomy amputee wearing a prosthesis. The experimental arrangement described in this paper, combining joint motion developed during walking, a computer analysis of the force pattern between the foot and ground and plotting of pressure point on the foot print, has enabled detailed investigation with demonstration of several abnormal features in the prosthetic gait of a hemipelvectomy amputee.


Electronic Commerce (eCommerce, i.e. the execution of business processes using Internet technologies) continues to be a significant, pervasive issue for both enterprises and customers. Similarly, mobile commerce (mCommerce, i.e. the execution of business processes using mobile technologies) is gaining momentum again. Management of relationships between enterprises and customers has often been referred to as Customer Relationship Management (CRM). We define CRM as an interactive process that achieves an optimum balance between corporate investments and the satisfaction of customer needs to generate the maximum profit. Fundamentally CRM concerns attracting and keeping "economically valuable" customers and repelling and eliminating "economically invaluable" ones. The amount of information relevant in CRM processes can only be handled effectively when information technology is applied. Due to the lack of personal contact, CRM is of particular importance in eCommerce and mCommerce.


: Background: Primary health care represents the first contact of an individual and families with the healthcare system and is a major part of the many initiatives of the Ministry of Health (MOH) that are directed towards the national transformation plan 2020 and the Saudi vision 2030. It is of vast importance to determine the reasons for attending primary health care centers for identification and meeting the health needs of studied population. Objective: The aim of this study is to identify reasons for attending primary health care centers among adults in Jeddah City. Methods: A cross sectional survey comprising 451 (225 males (49.9%) and 226 females (50.1%)) adults, visiting 9 primary health care centers. These PHCCs were selected from each health sector in Jeddah city using proportional allocation technique. Furthermore systematic random sampling was utilized to select participants from each PHCC. Participants were invited to complete a 19 item interviewed questionnaire which consists of three parts: sociodemographic data, past medical history and identifying the reason for attendance. These questionnaires were collected within a period of one month from November 2018 to January 2019. Results: Fifty six percent of the study population attended PHCs for health problems and the remainder attended for health services. The most common reason for attendance was respiratoy system complaints followed by medication refill service. The most common chronic diseases encountered were diabetes and hypertension Conclusion: Respiratory complaints followed by dental care and womens' health issues account for the most common reason for PHCCs attendance and further action should be implemented based on these findings to ensure adequate care of PHCCs attenders.


Abstract Five species of the genus Pseudodiaptomus, P. inopinus, P. poplesia, P. marinus, P. nihonkaiensis, and P. sp. occur in Korea nearshore waters. Although the four species except for P. sp. have been classified into Lobus and Ramosus groups, two for each group, based on morphological characters, this classification had yet to be confirmed by molecular characters. Here, we determined molecular characters and phylogenetic relationships of the five species in order to evaluate the morphology-based groupings and the species identifications. For this, a 625-bp DNA region of the mitochondrial gene cytochrome oxidase subunit I (mtCOI) was sequenced and compared among the species. Intraspecific variation of the sequences is less than 0.6%, while interspecific variation ranges from 17.6–26.7%, indicating every species, including P. sp., is a genetically distinct, valid species. Phylogenetic trees of the mtCOI DNA reveal that the Lobus-group species including P. inopinus and P. poplesia form a well-supported clade and that P. sp. belongs to this group. On the other hand, the Ramosus group clade consisting of P. marinus and P. nihonkaiensis is not well supported by bootstrap analyses, suggesting that further evaluation of the validity of this group assignment is needed.


X-ray emission from cosmic sources indicates that these sources are heated to temperatures exceeding a million degrees or that they contain highly energetic particles. Recent X-ray telescopes, such as the Chandra X-ray Observatory and XMM-Newton, observed thousands of cosmic X-ray sources. These observations greatly impacted our understanding of the physics governing the evolution of structures across the universe. Here, I review and highlight some of these important results.


The article is devoted to studying of change of eytological indicators of gum's mucous membrane in dabs prints before and after treatment of hypertrophic gingivitis, edematous form use herbal remedies and ortofen ointment.


The 1630s was a decade of dramatic and often controversial change within the Church of England, as innovatory standards of ceremonial conformity and for the maintenance and appearance of church buildings were imposed upon the Church. This article will examine the imposition of so-called Laudian policies in the Yorkshire parish of Slaidburn. Despite a growing interest in Laudianism amongst historians in recent decades, little work has attempted to explore the dynamics of Laudianism in one parish. The unusual variety of sources which survive relating to Slaidburn during this period provides a rare opportunity to explore the circumstances in which Laudian enforcement was enacted. Central to these responses was the rector, Samuel Moore, a somewhat isolated figure within the parish. This article will suggest that beyond the high polemics which buttressed Laudianism, practical considerations may have prompted a willing clerical constituency for Laudian ideas of ministry and of proper worship.


Research on implicit learning - a cognitive phenomenon in which people acquire knowledge without conscious intent or awareness - has been growing exponentially. This volume draws together this research, offering the first complete reference on implicit learning by those who have been instrumental in shaping the field. The contributors explore controversies in the field, and examine: functional characteristics, brain mechanisms and neurological foundations of implicit learning; connectionist models; and applications of implicit learning to acquiring new mental skills.


Radiomics is the extraction of a significant number of quantitative imaging features with the aim of detecting information in correlation with useful clinical outcomes. Features are extracted, after delineation of an area of interest, from a single or a combined set of imaging modalities (including X-ray, US, CT, PET/CT and MRI). Given the high dimensionality, the analytical process requires the use of artificial intelligence algorithms. Firstly developed for diagnostic performance in radiology, it has now been translated to radiation oncology mainly to predict tumor response and patient outcome but other applications have been developed such as dose painting, prediction of side-effects and quality assurance. In gynecological cancers, most studies have focused on outcomes of cervical cancers after chemoradiation. This review highlights the role of this new tool for the radiation oncologists with particular focus on female GU oncology.


A software team comprises software practitioners with diverse backgrounds and responsibilities, such as programmers, reviewers, testers, and documentation experts. Whether developing the architecture, implementing new features, creating test cases, or providing documentation for users and the development team, each of these jobs is essential to the accomplishment of software tasks. Current methods for determining a student's software development skill include sending questionnaires and monitoring students while they work. Not only are these techniques restricted in coverage, but they also rely on intervention strategies, which may result in social desirability bias and student exhaustion. In this research, we offer a multivariate time-series classification strategy for automatically identifying students' expertise in software development based on information passively accessible via LMS logs and course grades. Several machine learning and deep learning models, including XGBoost, Random Forest, SVM, Stochastic Gradient Descent, Multi-layer Perceptron, Gaussian Naive Baye, Complement Naive Bayes, Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), and XceptionTime, are examined for their ability to model students' LMS activities and academic performance at various degrees of granularity, namely semester and daily levels. A case study of 33 IT-majoring college students is utilized to validate the effectiveness of the proposed strategy. The experimental findings demonstrate that our best models yield F1 values of 79.52% and 75.68% for the developer and documenter identification tasks, utilizing Multilayer Perceptron with daily features and LSTM with semester features, respectively. We are the first to attempt to determine the roles of students in software development using passively accessible data. The findings not only shed light on the ability to create personalized education tailored to each student's needs but also pave the way for numerous intelligent education technology applications that aim to automatically evaluate certain student characteristics in order to optimize student learning outcomes.


In a recent paper, a new three-parameter class of Abel type equations, so-called AIR, all of whose members can be mapped into Riccati equations, is shown. Most of the Abel equations with solution presented in the literature belong to the AIR class. Three canonical forms were shown to generate this class, according to the roots of a cubic. In this paper, a connection between those canonical forms and the differential equations for the hypergeometric functions $_2{\rm F}_1$, $_1{\rm F}_1$ and $_0{\rm F}_1$ is unveiled. This connection provides a closed form $_p{\rm F}_q$ solution for all Abel equations of the AIR class.


In this paper a forest model of four‐layered geometry is utilized for the theoretical analysis of radio wave propagation characteristics in the forest environment. Differing from those reported in previous publications, the current paper considers a receiving antenna that is located in the forest canopy layer instead of the trunk layer, and hence the results presented are not available elsewhere. Dyadic Green's functions in their eigenfunction expansion forms for the four‐layered geometry are used at first to obtain an exact integral representation of the radiated electric field in the canopy layer. The radiated electric field components due to an arbitrarily oriented, small dipole in the trunk layer are then evaluated using the saddle point technique and the branch cut integrations, leading to closed‐form expressions for the field. The total field is found to consist of the direct, the reflected, and the lateral waves. Although both the lateral waves propagating along the air‐canopy and the trunk‐ground interfaces play an important role in the propagation mechanism, only the lateral wave along the air‐canopy upper interface dominates the total field in the far zone. Path loss of the radio waves in the forest is computed numerically for both the vertically and the horizontally oriented dipoles.


Objective : Major depressive disorder (MDD) is associated with an estimated fourfold risk for premature death, largely attributed to cardiovascular disorders. Pericardial adipose tissue (PAT), a fat compartment surrounding the heart, has been implicated in the development of coronary artery disease. An unanswered question is whether people with chronic MDD are more likely to have elevated PAT volumes versus acute MDD and controls (CTRL). Methods : The study group consists of sixteen patients with chronic MDD, thirty-four patients with acute MDD, and twenty-five CTRL. PAT and adrenal gland volume were measured by magnetic resonance tomography. Additional measures comprised factors of the metabolic syndrome, cortisol, relative insulin resistance, and pro-inflammatory cytokines (interleukin-6; IL-6 and tumor necrosis factor-α, TNF-α). Results : PAT volumes were significantly increased in patients with chronic MDD > patients with acute MDD > CTRL. Adrenal gland volume was slightly enlarged in patients with chronic MDD > acute MDD > CTRL, although this difference failed to reach significance. The PAT volume was correlated with adrenal gland volume, and cortisol concentrations were correlated with depression severity, measured by BDI-2 and MADRS. Group differences were found concerning the rate of the metabolic syndrome, being most frequent in chronic MDD > acute MDD > CTRL. Further findings comprised increased fasting cortisol, increased TNF-α concentration, and decreased physical activity level in MDD compared to CTRL. Conclusion : Our results extend the existing literature in demonstrating that patients with chronic MDD have the highest risk for developing cardiovascular disorders, indicated by the highest PAT volume prevalence of metabolic syndrome. The correlation of PAT with adrenal gland volume underscores the role of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal system as mediator for body-composition changes. Metabolic monitoring, health advices and motivation for the improvement of physical fitness may be recommended in depressed patients, in particular in chronic depression. results point to a higher risk for the development of disorders a key role for the hypothalamus-pituitary adrenal axis in the development of heightened PAT volume also in severely depressed patients with a chronic disease course.