In higher education, besides final examination, students' performance will also be measured throughout 14 weeks of lecture that contains tests, projects, quizzes and assignments as their continuous assessment. In UiTM, the continuous assessment for statistical subject is in range of 40% to 60% that contributes to their performance. This percentage is considered high and students cannot neglect this factor if they want to get good grades. With this belief, the effect of continuous assessment as mediating variable to determine
relationship between final examination performance and students' classroom participation throughout one semester in UiTM Kuala Terengganu among Diploma of Computer Science (CS110) students and Bachelor of Business Computing (CS244) students from Faculty of Computer Science and Mathematics who undertook a statistics course will be studied. Positive correlation was reported indicating that there exists positive relationship between classroom attendance and final examination grades. Students then were
grouped into two groups according to the '80% rule'. Furthermore, Sobel Test indicates that there exists mediating effect of continuous assessment between class attendance and final mark. As a conclusion, participation and understanding the lecture in a statistics class is an important indicator that contributes to their performance.


Abstract The widely distributed, polyphagous fall armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda (J.E. Smith, 1797), is one of the most important crop pests worldwide. The egg-parasitoid wasp, Telenomus remus Nixon, 1937, is frequently described as a possible control agent for S. frugiperda. We selected an isoline of T. remus and evaluated its parasitism potential (for 24 h) in S. frugiperda eggs, in laboratory conditions, and also its ability to fly at different temperatures and relative humidity levels, aiming to provide basic information about this isoline. The selected isoline maintained good flight capacity without affecting its parasitism efficiency or developing inefficient haplotypes for biological-control programs, compared across generations to a regularline laboratory-reared for more than 60 generations. The flight capacity of the isoline was best at 25–30 °C and relative humidity 70–90%.


The purpose of this study was to investigate plagiarism among undergraduate students at a higher education institution in South Africa. This study investigated the awareness and causes of plagiarism among undergraduate first, second and third year students of the departments of Chemistry and Mathematical Technology within the Faculty of Applied Science at a university of technology. A quantitative research method was used. The results of the study confirm that student plagiarism is fairly common. The study shows that 41% of undergraduate students think that plagiarism is very serious, but plagiarism is still being practised within these departments. It was also found that 71.9% of students admit to using the Internet to compile their assignments. This implies that the Internet is the most possible source of plagiarism. Students also used books and journal articles as possible sources to plagiarise.


Nanoscale Schottky barrier MOSFETs (SBFETs) are explored by solving the two-dimensional Poisson equation self-consistently with a quantum transport equation. The results show that for SBFETs; with positive, effective metal-semiconductor barrier heights, the on-current is limited by tunneling through a barrier at the source. If, however, a negative metal-semiconductor barrier height could be achieved, on-current of SBFETs would approach that of a ballistic MOSFET. The reason is that the gate voltage would then modulate a thermionic barrier rather than a tunneling barrier, a process similar to ballistic MOSFETs and one that delivers more current.


One of few limitations of remote laboratory technology is the fact that access and usability of such laboratories depend largely on the existence of favorable bandwidth conditions between the remote user and the system under test. This dependence is regrettable because some of the institutions likely to find remote laboratories attractive are also those most likely to have severe bandwidth limitations. Also, a typical remote laboratory will be completely unusable to remote students in the event of an outright network downtime. In this paper, we propose a hybrid online laboratory architecture that allows the automatic generation of accurate software models of remote laboratories. Such models can be hosted closer to the student and during periods of unfavorable bandwidth conditions, students can successfully interact with such models in lieu of the real hardware. We identify the challenges that need to be resolved for such a scheme to be useful and discuss the process by which suitable modeling bases were chosen. Finally we present and discuss data from a first test of the system and conclude that such a scheme holds considerable promise in changing the way remote laboratories are used and viewed.


A general method to construct recombinant tree approximations for stochastic volatility models is developed and applied to the Heston model for stock price dynamics. In this application, the resulting approximation is a four tuple Markov process. The first two components are related to the stock and volatility processes and take values in a two-dimensional binomial tree. The other two components of the Markov process are the increments of random walks with simple values in $\{-1,+1\}$. The resulting efficient option pricing equations are numerically implemented for general American and European options including the standard put and calls, barrier, lookback and Asian-type pay-offs. The weak and extended weak convergences are also proved.


The Atlantic coastal plain of North Carolina contains a complex stratigraphic sequence of Mesozoic and younger rocks. Sidewall cores were taken in the shale sequences of 2 closely spaced wells for analysis of their mineralogy and interstitial waters. In both wells, interstitial waters from all shales are less saline than sea water--even in those shales that are distinctly marine. Typical samples from the first well are mostly NaCl; sulfate is commonly high--around 4,000 ppm or more, and calcium also is above its seawater concentration. The waters in the adjacent sands, which are calculated from logs and assumed to be NaCl, have salinities that range from 30,000 to 40,000 ppm. There is no regular relation between salinities in shales versus the associated sands. In the second well, interstitial waters in corresponding shales are of equal or lower salinities, in some only half as saline as in the first well, and contain more nearly pure NaCl. However, the salinity in the adjacent sands is always greater than 40,000 ppm and increases with depth to over 100,000 ppm. Thus, the correlative shale and sand beds in these 2 wells contain very different interstitial waters. There is no obvious geologic explanation for the different diagenetic history. The mineralogy of all shales is similar, with kaolinite, montmorillonite, and quartz predominant, illite always present, and calcite sparingly present. Neither salt nor gypsum was present in the second well, although many samples in the first well are nearly saturated with gypsum. Temperatures are not esp cially high, and there is no evidence for extensive mineral diagenesis. End_of_Article - Last_Page 802------------


This study assessed the effect of sufentanil administered before conclusion of remifentanil-based anaesthesia on postoperative hyperalgesia and haemodynamic stability in patients undergoing laparoscopic gynaecological surgery. The patients were randomly allocated to a sufentanil administration group (S group) or a normal saline administration group (C group). Anaesthesia was induced and maintained with controlled administration of remifentanil at 10 ng·mL−1 and propofol under bispectral index guidance. Once the surgical specimen was procured, sufentanil or normal saline was administered at 0.15 ng·mL−1 and maintained until extubation. The haemodynamic status during anaesthetic emergence was evaluated. The pain and postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV) were assessed for 72 h following postanaesthetic care unit (PACU) discharge. The S group had significantly lower mean systemic arterial blood pressure and heart rate changes between the start of drug administration and extubation. Postoperative pain was significantly lower in the S group until 24 h following PACU discharge. There were no significant differences in PONV incidence and severity 72 h after PACU discharge between the two groups. Sufentanil administration before concluding remifentanil-based anaesthesia improved postoperative hyperalgesia and achieved haemodynamic stability at extubation without delaying recovery or increasing PONV during laparoscopic gynaecological surgery. Clinical trial registration is found at KCT0000785.


The steady, laminar boundary layer, two-dimensional Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) flow past a continuously moving (with constant velocity) semi-infinite vertical porous plate is studied taking into account the Dufour and Soret effects (Double diffusion) on variation of fluid viscosity with temperature. The effect of an exponential form of Internal Heat Generation (IHG) is also considered. The fluid viscosity is assumed to vary as a linear function of temperature. The governing fundamental equations of the problem are obtained by using the usual similarity technique. The local similarity solutions of the transformed dimensionless equations are solved numerically. The effects of the governing parameters within the boundary layer of the flow field are studied and the corresponding set of numerical results for the non-dimensional velocity, temperature and concentration profiles as well as the skin friction parameter, Nusselt number and Sherwood number are illustrated and displayed with the aid of graphs and tables to show typical trends of the solutions considering with and without IHG. It has been found that the results of the present study are completely different from similar problems in the absence of double diffusion and IHG.


The primary goal of this project is to implement the iterative statistical image reconstruction algorithm, in this case maximum likelihood expectation maximum (MLEM) used for dynamic cardiac single photon emission computed tomography, on Spark/GraphX. This involves porting the algorithm to run on large-scale parallel computing systems. Spark is an easy-toprogram software platform that can handle large amounts of data in parallel. GraphX is a graph analytic system running on top of Spark to handle graph and sparse linear algebra operations in parallel. The main advantage of implementing MLEM algorithm in Spark/GraphX is that it allows users to parallelize such computation without any expertise in parallel computing or prior knowledge in computer science. In this paper we demonstrate a successful implementation of MLEM in Spark/GraphX and present the performance gains with the goal to eventually make it useable in clinical setting.


ABSTRACT This article examines the concept of service learning in nursing practice and education. The benefits of education and practice partnerships for the community partners and organizations, students, nursing staff, the health care system, and academic institutions are described. Examples of innovative service learning projects with undergraduate nursing students that impact maternal-infant health are presented. A successful interdisciplinary campus and community partnership service learning project with students in a community nutrition course is highlighted.


The mukB operon is located at 21 min on the Escherichia coli chromosome and seems to consist of four genes, orf30 (smtA), mukF, mukE, and mukB. Based on sequence similarity, the promoter-proximal gene, orf30 (smtA), could encode an S-adenosylmethionine-dependent methyltransferase. The smtA gene is not essential for cell growth and its expression is positively regulated by H-NS, an Escherichia coli histone-like protein.


A Better Border Biosecurity (B3)-funded project investigating the interactions between the self-introduced generalist hymenopteran parasitoid Meteorus pulchricornis and native parasitoids of lepidopteran larvae throughout Auckland involved three years of eld work. The last eld trip was to Te Hauturu-o-Toi (Little Barrier Island) in December 2016 to survey some of the least-modi ed native forest in the North Island. Forty Cleora scriptaria moth larvae were collected by hand from Piper excelsum (kawakawa) host plants into ziplock bags, with a small amount of leaf material to support feeding. They were transported to the laboratory and reared to fate in a temperature-controlled room. Of the 40 larvae collected, twelve were parasitised by M. pulchricornis. This is the rst record of M. pulchricornis from Te Hauturu-o-Toi. In addition, nine larvae were parasitised by an undescribed parasitoid (Casinaria sp. 3). This new species may be endemic only to Te Hauturu-o-Toi, but it may have been out-competed on the more modi ed habitat of mainland Auckland, and found refuge in a more pristine environment. Further surveys of island and mainland parasitoid complexes would provide better baseline risk-assessment data prior to border invasions or importing biocontrol agents.


The article explores the phenomenon of ethical fashion from the beginning to nowadays as an example of material culture where the role of new values is particularly visible. Fashion, long-considered the most frivolous/useless/negative way of consumption, is framed by the author through the categories usually employed when explaining the passage from rational productive modernity to the aesthetic consumer culture of postmodernity. Ethical fashion seems to contrast this dichotomous mentality and expects to integrate aesthetic innovation and morals, sustainability and shared welfare, production and consumption. A new Ethical Imagination, supported by advanced digital instruments and the recent sharing economy values, drives toward work/consumption solutions that promise to subvert old hierarchies and alienated relations as well as gender bias.


Water pollution induces pathological changes in fish. As an indicator of exposure to contaminants, histology represents a useful tool to assess the degree of pollution, particularly for sub-lethal and chronic effects. However, a standardized method for the description and assessment of histological changes, mainly for use in freshwater fish, is still lacking. In this paper, the present authors propose a standardized tool for the assessment of histological findings which can be applied to different organs. The methodology is based on two factors: (1) the extension of a pathological change is rated with a 'score value'; and (2) the pathological importance of this alteration is defined as an 'importance factor'. The sum of the multiplied score values and importance factors of all diagnosed changes results in different indices. With these indices, statistical analysis can be carried out. Assessment methods for the gills, liver, kidney and skin are described.


Background: Overweight and obesity are defined as abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that may impair health. Body mass index (BMI) is a simple index of weight-for-height that is commonly used to classify overweight and obesity in adults. The good irrigation of the ocular tissues is ensured by an adequate ocular perfusion pressure (OPP) which depends on a complex regulatory process that balances blood pressure (BP) and the intraocular pressure (IOP).

Aims and Objectives: The aim of this study is to study the role of gender and BMI on OPP in healthy young adults.

Materials and Methods: A total of 100 healthy young adult volunteers comprising 50 obese (25 males and 25 females) and 50 non-obese (25 males and 25 females) in the age group of 18-19 years were selected among MBBS Phase I students of JSS Medical College, JSSU, Mysuru. BP and IOP were recorded using standard methods. Mean arterial pressure (MAP) and OPP were calculated.

Results: Systolic BP (P < 0.001), MAP (P < 0.001), IOP (P < 0.05), and OPP (P < 0.05) were higher in obese group when compared with non-obese group. MAP and OPP were significantly higher in obese males when compared with obese females (P < 0.001). Similarly, significantly higher MAP and OPP were observed in non-obese males when compared with non-obese females (P < 0.05).

Conclusion: The MAP, IOP, and OPP were significantly higher in obese group. There exists a significant gender difference in MAP and OPP, which were significantly higher in males.


Intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) is envisioned as a key technology for the next-generation wireless communication systems that enhances coverage and performance by reconfiguring the wireless propagation environment. In this letter, the performance of an IRS-aided wireless-powered internet-of-things (IoT) network over Rayleigh fading channels is investigated that consists a power station, an IRS, an access point, and IoT devices. In particular, the impact of transceiver hardware impairments (HIs) is considered. An IoT node selection strategy is adopted that maximizes the harvested energy and improves the system performance. The closed-form expressions of outage probability (OP), ergodic capacity, and symbol error rate are derived by using the Gaussian Chebyshev Quadrature method. Further, the closed-form expressions of the asymptotic OP and asymptotic ergodic capacity are derived and the diversity order of the considered network is obtained. The impact of HIs, overall system ceiling effect, IoT devices, reflecting elements, and various system parameters on the considered network are highlighted. Finally, the Monte-Carlo simulations are performed to verify the derived closed-form expressions.


This paper evaluates the implementation of a low-complexity adaptive direct-state Kalman filter (DSKF) for robust carrier phase tracking of global navigation satellite system (GNSS) signals. This architecture consists of a loop-bandwidth control algorithm (LBCA)-based lookup table (LUT)-DSKF in an FLL-assisted-PLL (FAP) tracking scheme. The FAP considers the carrier phase and frequency Doppler measurements to achieve a robust tracking. The use of the DSKF in the FAP achieves optimal performance, assuming a known Gaussian distributed model of the states and the measurements. However, the performance decays in time-varying scenarios where the measurements' distribution changes due to noise, signal dynamics, multi-path, and non-line-of-sight effects. In addition, the DSKF's implementation in real-time applications requires a high computational cost. This study derives the so-called LUT-DSKF for the FAP, a simplified DSKF that considers the convergence of the Kalman gains. In addition, the LBCA is used to adapt the time of response of this architecture and improve the tracking performance in time-varying scenarios. The presented technique is compared with the adaptive LUT-DSKF in a phase-locked loop (PLL) tracking scheme. These two tracking architectures are implemented in an open software interface GNSS hardware receiver. The receiver is evaluated in simulated scenarios with different dynamics and noise cases for each implementation. The results confirm that the LBCA-based LUT-DSKF in the FAP exhibits superior dynamic tracking performance than the adaptive PLL while maintaining similar static tracking performance and low complexity.


A New Approach to Medicine. J Fry pp 154 £6.95 Lancaster: MTP Press 1978 Seventeen years ago John Fry described the natural history of catarrhal infections in childhood, and emphasized the tendency for spontaneous resolution as the child gets older. The book, 'The Catarrhal Child', was based on the author's experience and careful records at a time when such record-keeping in general practice was rare indeed. I did not realize until much later how profoundly I had been influenced by reading the book. On countless occasions I have related John Fry's message to anxious parents. Many others must have been similarly influenced, many children saved from unnecessary surgical interference, and many parents reassured and educated about the natural history of common disorders. Much of the author's work has been concerned with a simple description of the natural history of common disorders based on 30 years of observations collected from his practice. It is one of the two aspects of medicine in which he is most interested, the other being the different health care systems in various parts of the world. He is an acknowledged expert in both fields (amongst other posts that he holds is that of consultant to the World Health Organization). Dr Fry believes that the public expects too much of us, and that we try to do too much. 'We tend to over-investigate, over-operate and over-treat.' We fail to realize how few diseases we can cure or how many are self-limiting and are cured by time alone, and we are unwilling to accept how much has to be tolerated or to accept that most prevention lies in the improvement of our living habits. Moreover, 'much waste and over-use of expensive resources goes on because we do not appreciate what is normal'. These generalizations are backed up by impeccable evidence, mostly in the form of simple tables and graphs. The book is short, easy to understand and, I believe, correct in most of its conclusions; but many of his conclusions will not be politically popular. To those who believe that the NHS is starved of finance, his main message is that we waste so much that we need more rational and economical behaviour rather than more money. He also believes that we may already have enough doctors. His flat statement that 'some physicians, and I am one, can provide for 5000 [patients] care of a sound and reasonable quality' will not endear him to many general practitioners. Nevertheless, there are few general practitioners in this country who have the breadth of knowledge, the background of original contributions, or the sound flat commonsense of John Fry, and even fewer who have his prodigious energy and his generosity towards colleagues. This book can be recommended to those who are not already familiar with his views. They may or may not be excited by the book, but, like me, they may realize later that he has influenced their thinking to a much greater degree than they ever expected.


The effects of concentrations of 2-phenoxyethanol of negligible bactericidal activity upon the rates of biosynthetic assimilation by Escherichia coli, of 14C-thymidine, 14C-uracil, 14C-phenylalanine and 14C-glucose, were assessed. Increasing the drug concentration from 0.05-0.4% w/v progressively increased inhibition of growth rate, measured as changes in optical density. Thymidine, uracil and glucose assimilation were inhibited to an extent similar to growth rate, whilst phenylalanine incorporation was markedly less sensitive at the lower concentrations (leads to 0.2% w/v). In addition to its previously observed roles in inhibiting oxidative phosphorylation and TCA cycle enzymes, it is suggested that 2-phenoxyethanol can exert a more direct inhibitory action upon DNA and RNA biosynthesis and possibly on protein biosynthesis.


Effective technology integration requires knowledge and skills of three key interdependent knowledge areas: pedagogical content knowledge, technology content knowledge and technological pedagogical knowledge. At the intersection of all these knowledge areas is Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge or TPACK. From the analysis of the data from an online survey completed by pre-service teachers in Australia and Israel, the authors will share similarities and differences of TPACK across two international universities.

The aim of this research was to identify if there are any contextual differences between the levels of TPACK in pre-service teachers from the two different countries. This paper presents implications for teacher education programs that may be relevant in multiple contexts. The following are outcomes of the research. First, pre-service teachers are provided with a wealth of experiences using technology in their learning and in designing learning experiences in their course work. Second, pre-service teachers need to have opportunities to apply the theory of TPACK in the design of their lessons and learning tasks in their professional experience. Third, pre-service teachers have low confidence in TK and TPK. Finally, there is limited difference in the experience and confidence of pre-service teachers in TPACK irrespective of location.


We show that the minimally coupled massless scalar wave equation in the background of a six-dimensional extremal dyonic string (or D1{endash}D5-brane intersection) is exactly solvable, in terms of Mathieu functions. Using this fact, we calculate the absorption probabilities for these scalar waves and present explicit results for the first few low-energy corrections to the leading-order expressions. For a specific tuning of the dyonic charges, one can reach a domain where the low-energy absorption probability goes to zero with inverse powers of the logarithm of the energy. This is a dividing domain between the regime where the low-energy absorption probability approaches zero with positive powers of energy and the regime where the probability is an oscillatory function of the logarithm of the energy. By the conjectured AdS-CFT correspondence, these results shed novel light on the strongly coupled two-dimensional field theory away from its infrared conformally invariant fixed point (the strongly coupled {open_quotes}noncritical{close_quotes} string). {copyright} {ital 1999} {ital The American Physical Society}


The potential of Multiple Pinhole Arrays (MPA) collimators for developing a Single Photon Emission Computer Tomography (SPECT) system without rotating or moving elements is investigated. A four layer arrangement is proposed and the system performance is evaluated using the simulation toolkit GATE [1]. For a camera with a field of view (FOV) of the order of a human brain (a sphere of radius 100 mm), a sensitivity of 86,0 cps/MBq and an overall resolution of 5 mm have been estimated, indicating that performances comparable to traditional parallel-hole-collimator cameras can be achieved.


Structures, energetics, and electronic properties of noble metal-doped germanium (MGen with M = Cu, Ag, Au; n = 1-19) clusters are systematically investigated by using the density functional theory (DFT) approach. The endohedral structures in which the metal atom is encapsulated inside of a germanium cage appear at n = 10 when the dopant is Cu and n = 12 for M = Ag and Au. While Cu doping enhances the stability of the corresponding germanium frame, the binding energies of AgGen and AuGen are always lower than those of pure germanium clusters. Our results highlight the great stability of the CuGe10 cluster in a D4d structure and, to a lesser extent, that of AgGe15 and AuGe15, which exhibits a hollow cage-like geometry. The sphere-type geometries obtained for n = 10-15 present a peculiar electronic structure in which the valence electrons of the noble metal and Ge atoms are delocalized and exhibit a shell structure associated with the quasi-spherical geometry. It is found that the coinage metal is able to give both s- and d-type electrons to be reorganized together with the valence electrons of Ge atoms through a pooling of electrons. The cluster size dependence of the stability, the frontier orbital energy gap, the vertical ionization potentials, and electron affinities are given.


Abstract To study the relationships between in vitro NDF or true dry matter digestibility (NDFD and IVTDMD) and forage fibre content, 95 alfalfa samples from 5 cultivars grown in 3 different locations and from different cuts were analysed for fibre fractions and evaluated for NDFD and IVTDMD. NDFD was mainly influenced by order of cut and age of the fields. The multifoliate cultivar controlled did not appear to differ for fibre composition and NDFD from the other ones. Fibre fractions contents explained a large part of the difference in NDFD and IVTDMD, and no significant differences in this relationships appeared for first-cut vs. aftermath forage. The best predictive equation of NDFD from fibre factions was: NDFD = 73.61 -0.62 * NDF (% DM) – 56.33 * ADL/NDF (R2=0.39). Variations in fibre content and quality do not completely explain differences in NDFD suggesting the interference of other factors that are worth to be better studied.


The compatibility/incompatibility of crude oils will affect the asphaltene precipitation and finally for sludge deposition if such oils are storaged or blending together. Normally, the refineries process a mixture of several crude oils owing to economic, technical and political aspects. In this study, four crude oils were characterized and investigated in order to determine physical-chemical properties and insolubility number (IN) and blending solubility number (SBN). The result revealed that two pair of crude oils are fully compatible and the remaining are partly compatible. The volume limitation of each crude oil in the mixture is proposed. In addition, the relationship between the compatibility and physico-chemical properties of crude oils is discussed. In fact, the crude oil which possessed high wax content and low resins to asphaltenes ratio possesses low stability. This finding might provide a new and valuable strategy for solving the foulings in crude oil tanks and processing units in refineries.


In the presence of retinoic acid undifferentiated NT2 cells turn into terminally differentiated hNT (or NT2N) neurons within 5 weeks. We have used this in vitro cellular model to investigate the changes in expression and activity of cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs) and glycogen synthase kinase-3 (GSK-3) during this neuronal differentiation process. We here show that CDK1/2 protein level and kinase activity sharply decrease during the NT2→hNT transition. In contrast, the activity of CDK5/p35 dramatically increases, probably as a result of an enhanced expression of p35 in a stable CDK5 level background. GSK-3 activity increases modestly during the differentiation of hNT cells, and this event correlates with enhanced expression of each of the three GSK-3 isoforms. Pharmacological inhibitors of CDKs and GSK-3 lead to a dose-dependent decrease in cell viability.


OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this article is to present our experience in treating patients with hepatic metastases from a neuroendocrine primary malignancy.

CONCLUSION
The tumor and patient characteristics, vascular access, and features of treatment all play a role in the long-term management of patients with metatastic neuroendocrine tumors. Routine prophylactic measures are recommended to reduce the frequency and severity of crisis events related to hormone release in patients with neuroendocrine tumors.


The effect of fermentation with mixed cultures of Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus and Streptococcus salivarius subsp. thermophilus on the microbiological characteristics of oat extract was investigated. Changes in pH, titratable acidity and viable cell populations indicated that growth was better in mixed cultures of L. delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus and S. salivarius subsp. thermophilus. Growth of S. salivarius subsp. thermophilus in oat extract was more rapid than growth of L. delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus. Cooperative interaction between two cultures during fermentation of oat extract as in yogurt from cow's milk was observed, but the intensity was relatively weak.


 Abstract—Digital contents like images are becoming abundant on the World Wide Web (WWW). The searching of images pose numerous challenges, the few of the approaches that gave encouraging results are automatic image annotation (AIA) via digital content processing. There is a growing awareness of content based-image retrieval (CB-IR). In CB-IR, first of all a system can strain images depending upon their content. Then, they would provide superior indexing and gives more accurate and efficient output. In order to produce more accurate results, semantic search seek out for the improvement of search accurateness by considerate searcher purpose and the related meaning of conditions as they show in the searchable data space. In this research we build a visual content semantic search engine that exploits the digital image feature to search the image repository and produce efficient and accurate results. In this research, we have presented an algorithm that searches the images by its contents and then produce efficient and accurate results. The performance of our algorithm is much better than the previous ones.


Background and Purpose—Inflammation, a process that involves neutrophils, lymphocytes, and monocytes, contributes to cerebral ischemic injury. Blockade of neutrophil adhesion to endothelium improves outcome after experimental stroke. In this study we sought to assess the contribution of lymphocytes and monocytes to ischemic brain injury. Methods—Male Lewis rats underwent 3 hours of middle cerebral artery occlusion followed by 45 hours of reperfusion. Two hours after the onset of ischemia, one group of animals received an intraperitoneal injection of antibodies to the α4 integrin (n=16); another group was injected with an isotype control antibody (n=11). Neurological examination, body temperature, and body weight were assessed at different time points after stroke. Animals were killed 48 hours after the onset of ischemia for determination of infarct volume and leukocyte counts. Results—There were no significant differences in body temperature or weight at any time. Neurological scores (deficits) were signi...


Jatropha curcas Linn has been identified worldwide as one of the sources of biodiesel. Biodiesel has energy properties close to fossil diesel and can be a potential energy alternative. However, these properties may vary based on soils, plant genetics and agro-climatic conditions in a given geographical location. Several studies on biodiesel production under such conditions have been done elsewhere, but few have been done on J. curcas oil in Uganda. This study analysed the physicochemical properties of J. curcas L. oil for biodiesel production in Nebbi and Mukono districts using American Standards and Testing Methods (ASTM D6751) and European Standards (EN 14214). J. curcas seed kernel contained 51% w/w and 48% w/w of oil with high levels of Free Fatty Acids (1.52% and 1.93%) and acid values (35 and 36 mg KOH/g) for Nebbi and Mukono, respectively; the difference was significant (p ≤ 0.05). Generally, the quality and quantity of the oil from Nebbi were better than those of Mukono, based on the biodiesel standard values. Nevertheless, kinematic viscosity, acidity, potassium and phosphorus content values were found abnormally high (31.46 - 33.23 mm2/s, 35.23 - 36.66 mg KOH/g, 16.50 - 20.52 mg/100g and 16.13 - 26.02 mg/kg, respectively) for both regions as compared to the standard values (3.5 - 5.0 mm2/s, 2 mg KOH/g, <5 mg/100g and <10 mg/kg, respectively) of biodiesel for diesel engine. Such properties are very important for engine fuels and if not considered well, may affect engine performance negatively. Therefore adequate treatment of the oil by degumming, etherification and transesterification before use in a diesel engine could avert this difficulty.


This article, written by JPT Technology Editor Judy Feder, contains highlights of paper SPE 191561, "Effective Zonal Isolation in Horizontal Wells: Mitigating Negative Impact of Mud Channels," by Petr Kolchanov, SPE, Dominic Perroni, SPE, Anatoly Medvedev, SPE, Yan Gao, Randy Tercero, SPE, Larry Todd, SPE, and Bernhard Lungwitz, SPE, Schlumberger, and Kenneth Cowan and William Turner, SPE, Occidental Petroleum, prepared for the 2018 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, Dallas, 24–26 September. The paper has not been peer reviewed.
 Hydraulic isolation of wells drilled with nonaqueous fluids (NAFs) relies heavily on eliminating mud from the annuli before placing cement. Failure to expel all NAFs results in residual fluid channels that may compromise well integrity and can serve as nonproductive communication pathways during subsequent stimulation treatments. This paper presents an interactive cementing system (ICS) that is designed to mitigate these risks by reducing conductivity of the residual mud channels.
 Introduction
 Currently, most horizontal wells drilled in the US are completed with multistage stimulation treatments. Isolation between stages is required both inside and outside the production casing string for effective stimulation. Although plugs can be used between stages for effective isolation inside the casing, cement must create external isolation. Lateral cement jobs are pumped according to plan; however, it is difficult to optimize fully all design inputs needed for an optimal cement job. With few operators logging horizontal well sections to understand actual lateral cement quality, mud channels are frequently identified as the root cause of stimulation inefficiency. Because completion effectiveness and well productivity depend upon good zonal isolation, profitability of the well is thought to be compromised.
 Mud removal remains an integral part of the cementing process. A cement formulation was developed to improve zonal isolation in the case of poor mud removal. The ICS reacts with the hydrocarbons present in NAFs, reducing channel permeability and mobility to significantly improve the likelihood of hydraulic isolation. Specialized testing protocols were developed to demonstrate the capabilities of this new system. Additionally, American Petroleum Institute (API) testing methods and analytical techniques were used to optimize the slurry.
 Historically, zonal isolation was dependent on complete mud removal, which was a function of many parameters. Even after well preparation is completed, mud removal is dependent on adequate centralization. Although most drilling engineers agree that well-centralized casing results in a better cement job, the tradeoff comes with the challenges of getting casing to bottom on long-lateral and extended-reach wells. Rotating and reciprocating casing can improve mud removal and cement quality, but significant cost and safety concerns limit their use. Spacer type and volume also influence mud removal. After decisions have been made on these cement-design parameters, cement placement should be optimized using computer simulation models to maintain adequate rheological parameters and achieve mud removal. The likelihood of a mud channel is much greater if these design parameters are not optimized.


There has been increasing interest to design better probability estimation trees, or PETs, for ranking and probability estimation. Capable of generating class membership probabilities, PETs have been shown to be highly accurate and flexible for many difficult problems, such as cost-sensitive learning and matching skewed distributions. There are a large number of PET algorithms available, and about ten of them are well- known. This large number provides an advantage, but it also creates confusion in practice. One would ask "given a new dataset, which algorithm to choose and what performance to expect and not to expect? What are the reasons to explain either good or bad performance under different situations? " In this paper, we systematically, for the first time, answer these important questions by conducting a large-scale empirical comparison of five popular PETs by examining their AUC, MSE and error rate "learning curves" (instead of training-test split based cross-validation). Using the maximum AUC achieved by any of the evaluated probability estimation tree algorithms, we demonstrate that the preference of a probability estimation tree on different evaluation metrics can be accurately characterized by the "signal-noise separability" of the dataset, as well as some other observable statistics of the dataset explained further in the paper. Moreover, in order to understand their relative performance, many important and previously unrevealed properties of each PET's mechanism and heuristics are analyzed and evaluated. Importantly, a practical guide for choosing the most appropriate PET algorithm given a new data mining problem is provided.


ABSTRACT Bio-engineered surfaces that aim to induce normal cell behaviour in vitro need to 'mimic' the extracellular matrix in a way that allows cell adhesion. In this computational work, several model cell-binding peptides with a minimal cell-adhesive Arg–Gly–Asp sequence are investigated in the bulk as well as immobilised on a soft surface. For this reason, a combination of density functional theory and all-atom MD simulations is applied. The major goal of the modelling is to characterise the accessibility of the cell-recognition motif on the functionalised soft polymer surface. As a reference system, the behaviour of three peptide sequences is preliminarily studied in explicit water simulations. From the analysis of the MD trajectories, the solvent accessible surface area, the distribution of water molecules around peptide groups, the secondary structure and the thermodynamics of hydration are evaluated. Furthermore, each peptide is immobilised on the surface of a homopolymer poly(acrylic acid) brush. During MD simulations, all three peptides approach closely toward PAA brush, and their surface accessibility is characterised. Although the peptides are adsorbed onto the brush, they are not hidden by the polymer strands, with RGD unit accessible on the surface and available for guided cell adhesion.


Cell extracts from Pyrococcus furiosus were found to contain five proteases, two of which (S66 and S102) are resistant to sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) denaturation. Cell extracts incubated at 98 degrees C in the presence of 1% SDS for 24 h exhibited substantial cellular proteolysis such that only four proteins could be visualized by amido black-Coomassie brilliant blue staining of SDS-polyacrylamide gels. The SDS-treated extract retained 19% of the initial proteolytic activity as represented by two proteases, S66 (66 kilodaltons [kDa]) and S102 (102 kDa). Immunoblot analysis with guinea pig sera containing antibodies against protease S66 indicated that S66 is related neither to S102 nor to the other proteases. The results of this analysis also suggest that S66 might be the hydrolysis product of a 200-kDa precursor which does not have proteolytic activity. The 24-h SDS-treated extract showed unusually thermostable proteolytic activity; the measured half-life at 98 degrees C was found to be 33 h. Proteases S66 and S102 were also resistant to denaturation by 8 M urea, 80 mM dithiothreitol, and 5% beta-mercaptoethanol. Purified protease S66 was inhibited by phenylmethylsulfonyl fluoride and diisopropyl fluorophosphate but not by EDTA, ethylene glycol-bis(beta-aminoethyl ether)-N,N,N',N'-tetraacetic acid, or iodoacetic acid. These results indicate that S66 is a serine protease. Amino acid ester hydrolysis studies showed that protease S66 was hydrolytically active towards N-benzoyl-L-arginine ethyl ester.


ABSTRACT The self-perceived communication competence (SPCC) measure has been used in over 50 published studies since 2000. McCroskey and McCroskey (1988. Self-report as an approach to measuring communication competence. Communication Research Reports, 5, 108–113. doi: 10.1080/08824098809359810) developed the measure to be used within the US college/university classroom. Despite its intended use, the measure is frequently used outside of the US and outside of the college/university setting without tests of measurement invariance. In fact, only four studies have performed tests of internal consistency on the measure since 2000, and each has found poor fit. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to assess the utility of the measure outside of its intended population. The measure was utilized to survey respondents from 12 countries and failed to yield acceptable fit statistics in all samples, showing poor evidence of construct validity.


Measurement of thermal radiation through uncooled bolometers is at the heart of many industrial applications. From the development of the Honey- well silicon microstructure developed in 1982, no particular change in paradigm was recorded. The advent of 2D-materials offers a whole new promising future for bolometric measurements and thermal detection. 2D-materials have record properties extremely sensitive to external stimuli making them great candidates for boosting bolometers performance. In this work, a method to model, fabricate and characterise 2D material- based bolometers is presented. The proposed design uses a suspended 2D- material beam as thermal sensor and IR absorber. The model suggests an im- provement of the state of the art on three different aspects. Reduction of thermal losses, tunable enhancement of absorption and increased bandwidth. An inno- vative read-out technique is also suggested. Bolometers employing graphene as suspended beam were successfully fab- ricated. An optimised fabrication process is proposed and allow to consistently produce devices having optimal properties to host graphene. Electrical mea- surements on graphene beams lying on silicon dioxide showed good tunability of graphene resistance through electrostatic gating proving possible to enhance thermal radiation absorption in graphene. The results obtained offers a promis- ing outlook toward the future of 2D material-based bolometers.


This paper reveals an under researched phenomenon: the ways that export-oriented, original equipment manufacturing (OEM) clothing companies upgrade to original brand manufacturing (OBM), and the implementation challenges involved, especially at the high end of the market. In order to provide an in-depth understanding of this particular phenomenon, this research adopts a qualitative form of methodology and features a case study of recent business practice in Hong Kong.

The background of the Hong Kong clothing manufacturers is examined from the perspective of the global commodity chain (GCC). A review of OBM opportunities in Hong Kong is conducted and the possible explanations for initiating OBM are also identified.

The insights from the Fenix case study reveals the advantages of adopting an indirect path towards achieving OBM, factors governing decisions and actions during the transformation, inherent obstacles of branding in the high-end market and the synergies of running the OEM and OBM business models in one company. These insights serve as an example of success in both transforming the enterprise from OEM to OBM and diversification of markets to sustain OBM business activities.


Median-of-means (MOM) based procedures have been recently introduced in learning theory (Lugosi and Mendelson (2019); Lecué and Lerasle (2017)). These estimators outperform classical least-squares estimators when data are heavy-tailed and/or are corrupted. None of these procedures can be implemented, which is the major issue of current MOM procedures (Ann. Statist. 47 (2019) 783–794). In this paper, we introduce minmax MOM estimators and show that they achieve the same sub-Gaussian deviation bounds as the alternatives (Lugosi and Mendelson (2019); Lecué and Lerasle (2017)), both in small and highdimensional statistics. In particular, these estimators are efficient under moments assumptions on data that may have been corrupted by a few outliers. Besides these theoretical guarantees, the definition of minmax MOM estimators suggests simple and systematic modifications of standard algorithms used to approximate least-squares estimators and their regularized versions. As a proof of concept, we perform an extensive simulation study of these algorithms for robust versions of the LASSO.


Abstract The purpose of this research is to examine the poverty phenomenon indicators in Poland through the prism of sustainable development. The subject of poverty and its consequences is often omitted in the discussion of sustainable development, or simplified only to social issues, yet it is an important aspect of economic development and implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The study will cover the problem of poverty in Poland, together with the assessment of the potential of implementation of sustainable development goals in terms of poverty eradication, as well as the issue of the impact of social policy activities on SDGs (named as 'no poverty') and household finances, both closely related to the risk of poverty. To achieve the aim of the study the authors use statistical data describing the issues of poverty and changes in this area in the period between 2010 and 2020 (or the most up-to-date data available) based on data from the Central Statistical Office in Poland.


Abstract
Survival studies were done on 36 children with cystic fibrosis and heart failure. Thirty percent did not survive the first four weeks, and the median survival for the group was between two and three months. By the end of the first year from the onset of failure, 74 percent had died and at 30 months, 87 percent had died.


This paper achieved the optimize which is based on the Series processors Produced by NVIDIA, such as Geforce, Tegra, Nexus and so on, and discussed the future development of the video image processor. Expounded the most popular DSP optimization techniques and objectives in the current, to optimized the design for the methods of the various papers available in existence. Based on the NVIDIA's series of products, specific discussed CUDA GPU architecture based on NVIDIA's products, raised the hardware and algorithms of the current most popular video encoding equipment, based on real practical technology to improve the transmission and encoding of multimedia data.


Apoptosis of chondrocytes are the main initiator of osteoarthritis (OA) and can be explained by oxidative stress and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, thus the pharmacological interventions aimed at inhibiting of these pathways may be a promising approach for the management of OA. Quercetin is a member of the flavonoid family and has antioxidant and anti‐inflammatory properties in degenerative diseases. However, its effects and potential mechanisms on the pathological process of OA are not very clear. The present study aimed to investigate the protective effects of quercetin on OA and the underlying mechanisms. The tert‐butyl hydroperoxide (TBHP)‐stimulated rat chondrocytes and destabilization of the medial meniscus OA rat model was used to explore the protective effects of quercetin. Our results showed that quercetin treatment can attenuate oxidative stress, ER stress, and associated apoptosis. Moreover, quercetin inhibited ER stress through activating the sirtuin1/adenosine monophosphate‐activated protein kinase (SIRT1/AMPK) signaling pathway. The protective effects of quercetin were also observed in OA rat model which is evidenced by abolished cartilage degeneration and decreased chondrocytes apoptosis in the knee joints. Our results suggested that quercetin is a promising treatment for OA.


Effective leadership development has eluded many organizations and academia for a long time. Those who have attempted to improve the practice and study of leadership development focus on the same old elements of leadership development. The traditional elements of leadership development that have been studied and implemented previously include: the content of the leadership development programs, the delivery of leadership development programs, the length of the programs and advocating for leadership development programs that are entrenched in leadership theory. Despite numerous studies and implementation of the studies' findings on leadership development, there exists widespread dissatisfaction with leadership development outcomes. Some scholars have observed that leader developmental readiness may be the missing ingredient in leadership development. Learning goal orientation is one of the five elements of leader developmental readiness. Therefore, this study examines the effect of learning goal orientation on leadership development. The study reveals that learning goal orientation has a significant effect on leadership development, F(1,286) = 62.346, p < 001. In addition, learning goal orientation accounts for 17.9% of the variation in leadership development. Thus, enhancing participants' learning goal orientation should be part and parcel of any leadership development program in order to improve the effectiveness of leadership development.


After outlining a short and select history of (the usefulness of) parallel texts and alignment, this paper presents a case study where the point of departure is a Norwegian text extract aligned against its translations into seven different target languages, using the Translation Corpus Aligner, originally developed by Knut Hofland. Our main concern is cases where there is not a one-to-one correspondence at sentence level between original (source) and translation (target) text. We seek to answer questions such as why a translator, translating into a specific language has chosen to split, or merge, a sentence in the source texts, while translators, translating into other languages have chosen not to do so. The study shows that a multitude of contributing factors seem to be involved , including author and translator style, target language constraints and preferences and perhaps even country- or language-specific translation guidelines. Keywords : alignment; parallel texts; contrastive analysis; corpora; translation strategies


The feasibility of co-culturing the sea cucumber Holothuria leucospilota Brandt in a subtropical fish farm was investigated in a field study. Sea cucumbers were cultured in the fish farm in cages suspended at 4 m deep (suspended culture) and directly on the seafloor (bottom culture). The survival and growth of the sea cucumbers were monitored twice during the 3-month, summer experimental period (May 26August 14, 2010). Results showed that the suspension-cultured sea cucumbers exhibited excellent survival rate (100%) during the whole study period. There also occurred no mortality in the bottom-cultured sea cucumbers during the first culture period (May 26July 13); but all these died from anoxia caused by water column stratification during the second culture period (July 14August 14). The specific growth rate of the bottom-cultured sea cucumbers (1.05 +/- 0.21 % day-1) was nearly double that of the suspended culture animals (0.57 +/- 0.21 % day-1) during the first culture period, and the growth rates of the suspended culture sea cucumbers in the second culture periods (0.46 +/- 0.24 % day-1) was only a little lower than that of the first period. The sea cucumbers H. leucospilota could ingest and assimilate sediment with high organic matter content with an average assimilation efficiency of 14.9 +/- 3.9%. This study indicated that fish farm detritus can be effectively used as a food source for the sea cucumber and that it can be turned into a valuable secondary crop in the form of the sea cucumber biomass.


Breastfeeding is a complete nutrition for the baby and beneficial to the baby and the mother. Mothers should be prepared for breastfeeding and motivated antenatally. Breastfeeding should be initiated within 1 h of normal delivery and 4 h of Caesarean section. In the first 2 days, colostrum is secreted which is highly immunogenic to the baby. Mature milk comes by day 10 of life. Foremilk is rich in protein and vitamins, while hindmilk is rich in fat. Proper technique should be followed for successful breastfeeding. Reflexes in the mother while breastfeeding are prolactin and oxytocin reflexes, while reflexes in the baby are rooting, sucking and swallowing. In case of early discharge from the hospital, adequacy of breastfeeding should be checked at 3–5 days of life. Breastfeeding develops bonding between the baby and the mother and promotes brain growth of the baby. Human milk is suitable for the baby and contains less protein and minerals than cow's milk and has less solute load for immature kidneys of the baby. Breastfeeding should be on demand, minimum eight times per day. The common feeding problems in the mother are flat or inverted nipple, sore nipple, engorgement of breasts, and mastitis which should be prevented.


The LVAS utilizing an intrathoracic blood pump and a parathoracic, electrohydraulic energy converter has a number of promising features. These include: transcutaneous energy transmission and an implanted variable volume device which eliminate the need for percutaneous access; utilization of an intrathoracic blood pump and variable volume device which allow the diaphragm and abdominal cavity to remain intact; parathoracic or subcutaneous location of the transformer secondary, energy converter, internal battery and interconnecting elements allowing replacement with a minor surgical procedure; employment of the "biolized" continuous blood contacting surface which has the potential of long-term use without anticoagulants and utilization of an electrohydraulic energy converter which provides synchronization without requiring transducers and associated electronics and which provides lubrication of mechanical components. The development effort, which began separately in 1977 and has been conducted jointly by Nimbus and the Cleveland Clinic since 1980, has demonstrated that the above features can be incorporated in a reliable LVAS. In particular, the system in vivo test series have demonstrated the soundness of the basic concepts and led to refinements which were demonstrated in the 6-1/2 mo test. All elements of the system have been utilized during the in vivo test program. Component tests of significance include: LVAS and total heart blood pump in vivo experiments of up to 7 mos duration which demonstrate the blood compatibility of the biolized surface without the use of long-term anticoagulation.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


Tenderness is an important characteristic of meat quality. Calpastatin and calpain play important roles in meat tenderization. However, it is not clear how phosphorylation affects the regulation of calpastatin on μ-calpain and, consequently, meat tenderness. Calpastatin with high and low phosphorylation levels were obtained in vitro corresponding to the treatments by protein kinase A (PKA) and alkaline phosphatase. Then, calpain was incubated with calpastatin with different phosphorylation levels, and the effect of calpastatin on calpain activity under different phosphorylation levels was analyzed. The results showed that PKA promoted the phosphorylation of calpastatin, and a high phosphorylation level was maintained during incubation. The degradation rate of μ-calpain in AP group was higher than that in the other groups, meaning there was lower inhibition of calpastatin on calpain activity. The degradation of calpastatin was lower and its structure was more stable after phosphorylation. One more serine 133 site of calpastatin was identified in PKA group compared with the other groups. Phosphorylation at serine 133 of calpastatin enhanced its inhibition on calpain activity by maintaining its structural stability, thus inhibiting the tenderization of meat.


The study by Gordon et al1 looking at the portrayal of psychiatry in YouTube videos was novel, although it was disheartening to note their finding that our field is being depicted in a predominantly negative light.

In this context, I am writing to provide some details of my YouTube channel called 'Psychiatry Lectures' (www.youtube.com/channel/UCVZhg8unEqo0XUm8cHAIwbA/videos). This is a free-to-access educational channel featuring videos on psychiatry topics targeted at health professionals who see psychiatric patients. So far, I have uploaded 19 videos covering most of the major psychiatry topics, for example, schizophrenia, mood disorders and anxiety disorders. The average duration of the videos is 50 min and most videos end with a set of five multiple choice questions. The videos are in the form of PowerPoint presentations with my narration.

YouTube has an analytics section that is accessible to the channel's creator and that provides detailed statistics about viewership. Until 31 December 2015 the 19 videos had garnered over 34 000 views in 160 countries, with the top 5 nations in terms of views being the USA, India, UK, Australia and Canada. Viewer demographic details show a male preponderance (65%). With respect to age, the 25-34 group had the maximum number of viewers, followed by the 18-24 group. This suggests - and is supported by feedback in the comments section – that medical students and postgraduate psychiatry trainees form the bulk of the audience. In total, the videos have received 210 'likes' and only 6 'dislikes', indicating a high degree of acceptability in a discerning, mainly professional audience.

My YouTube channel may be considered as part of free open access medical education (FOAM). The FOAM movement, pioneered by emergency medicine physicians in Australia,2 aims to offer medical students and doctors free access to medical information online, delivered in a variety of formats such as videos, slideshows, podcasts, articles, blogs and Twitter (#FOAMed).

The paper by Gordon et al1 is a timely reminder to the psychiatric profession that we have to battle widespread misinformation, whether deliberate or well-intentioned, about our specialty, not only in traditional, mainstream media such as print and TV, but also in cyberspace. Constructive criticism, both from within and outside the profession, is definitely valid and welcome. But biased and baseless distortions about psychiatry only reinforce the already entrenched stigma, with far-reaching consequences ranging from inadequate recruitment of psychiatrists3 to discrimination against patients.4 Gordon et al's suggestions on how psychiatry can fight back against this misrepresentation are worthy of consideration.


Early childhood caries (ECC) is the most common childhood infectious disease with increasing prevalence in young children in many countries. Diet and non-biological factors such as race and poverty are considered prime suspects in the worsening of this affliction. In spite of extensive study, control of ECC remains elusive. Restoration of carious primary teeth and intense preventive post-surgical therapy often have little effect on the disease's progression. Children afflicted with ECC continue to suffer from its effects throughout childhood and growing evidence favors a predilection for continued progress of the carious process into the permanent dentition. Prevention of ECC through early dental visits, with both pediatricians and dentists involved, may be the only way to eliminate the disease and reduce the number of children with significant co-morbidities. The purpose of this report is to describe the nature of ECC, the evidence documenting the ineffectiveness of restoration as a cure, and the limits of preventive therapies in preventing recurrence of the disease once established.


The DNA sequence that encodes the first 406 amino acid residues at the N-terminus of yellow head virus (YHV) protein gp116, namely N/2 gp116deltaTM, and the DNA sequence that encodes the next 392 amino acid residues at the C-terminus of gp116 (without the transmembrane region), namely C/2 gp116deltaTM, were cloned into pGEX-6P-1 plasmid and expressed in E. coli. Both recombinant proteins were expressed, purified by SDS-PAGE and used to immunize mice. The mouse anti-recombinant N/2 gp116 and C/2 gp116 antisera bound specifically to both the recombinant proteins and to natural gp116 protein in YHV-infected haemolymph as shown by Western blotting and in tissues as shown by immunohistochemistry. Immunohistochemical localization of YHV using anti-gp116 antiserum or monoclonal antibodies specific to gp116 (V3-2B), gp64 (Y18) and p20 (Y19) revealed similar immunoreactivity patterns for all these reagents in muscle and mandibular tissue in shrimp showing gross signs of yellow head disease. However, in gill, hepatopancreas, lymphoid organ and thoracic ganglion tissues from experimental YHV-infected shrimp (Penaeus vannamei and Palaemon serrifer) that did not show signs of disease, immunoreactivity to gp116 was reduced or absent while that for gp64 and p20 remained intense. Thus, some shrimp species were able to selectively inhibit the synthesis of gp116 in a manner that was associated with absence of gross signs of disease.


Forced marriages due to ijbar rights have become commonplace among the people in the Teritip Village. Ijbar is coercion in the sense of marriage which is fully owned by the guardian, namely the father or grandfather. Scholars in viewing forced marriages have different opinions from the object of forced marriage to whether the marriage is legal or not. In this case, the impact of forced marriage because the right of ijbar has two connotations, negative and positive. Some have a bad or negative impact and some have a good impact.
This research is a type of field research, which is qualitative in nature, by describing and analyzing the impact of forced marriage due to the right of ijbar. Data collection techniques that researchers use are observation, interviews and literature study. Then the presentation of the data that has been found in descriptive form, and drawing conclusions
The results of the research that the researchers got based on the data found, the researchers concluded, there were two different impacts from the cases that the researchers studied. There are cases that end happily and have a positive impact, some end in failure and have a negative impact. The negative impact outweighs the positive impact. The positive impacts are: Parents help their children to find a man who is well known by their parents too, children don't have to worry about a mate who doesn't come because parents help and engage in choosing a mate for their child. The negative impacts are: There is no sense of love and affection that arises in the household based on a sense of compulsion, the household becomes inharmonious and uncomfortable to live and what is more fatal is the occurrence of divorce, an act that although lawful but is hated by Allah


FAP48 was identified and cloned thanks to its interaction with FK506-binding proteins (FKBPs) such as FKBP52 and FKBP12, which belong to the large family of immunophilins that bind the macrolide immunosuppressant drugs FK506 and rapamycin. We have previously shown that FAP48–FKBP complexes are dissociated by FK506 and rapamycin, suggesting that FAP48 is an endogenous ligand of FKBP. The present work describes the biochemical consequences of FAP48 overexpression, induced by the tetracycline analogue doxycycline, in an established cell line derived from Jurkat T cells. We report that overexpression of FAP48 results in the inhibition of cellular proliferation as does the exposure of Jurkat T cells to FK506. We also show that the expression levels of argininosuccinate synthetase and the Myc antagonist Mxi1 are modified by overexpression of FAP48, suggesting that these proteins could be good candidates to mediate the antiproliferative effect of FAP48. FAP48 affects neither the calcineurin-dependent nuclear factor of activated T cells (NFAT)1 nor JNK/p38-dependent pathways that mediate immunosuppression by FK506. However, contrary to FK506, which blocks IL2 synthesis, we observed that FAP48–FKBP complexes increase IL2 production, thus revealing a previously uncharacterized aspect of the immunosuppressive mechanism of FK506.


The new species Clitocybula striata is described from La Palma Island (Canary Islands, Spain), growing in a dry pasture with rare shrubs of Cistus symphytifolius and Laburnum anagyroides. The main features of Clitocybula striata are the medium to small sized basidiomes, the dark tinges, the odourless context and, from the micromorphological point of view, the small, broadly ellipsoid to ellipso-ovoid, smooth basidiospores and the versiform, mainly fusiform cheilocystidia. A colour photograph of fresh basidiomata and a drawing of the main micromorphological features are provided. Lastly, notes on the Clitocybula species so far reported from La Palma and an identification key, are given.


Abstract The observation of elusive mammals, is still problematic, particularly in flowing waters or wetlands. But with the usage of camera traps, it was possible to obtain valuable information about otters. The aim of this study was finding the diel activity of the otters that live in Central-Eastern Romania. The diel activity of the Eurasian otter along its habitat was studied from March 2011 to April 2016 over 1356 days & nights of camera trapping. The camera traps have recorded a total of 222 otter visits at all 10 observation sites. Otters, passing through the observation sites, were strongly nocturnal and displayed a trimodal diel activity pattern, one occurring just before dawn (between 04:00 and 06:30 h), the second one occuring just after dusk (between 18:30 and 22:00 h) and the third one occurring in the middle of the night (between 00:30 and 01:30). Otters have been also active during the Civil Twilight (7.2 %), more active during the dusk (5 %) than during the dawn (2.3 %). Seasonally the Eurasian otters were more active during winter (39.6 %) and progressively less active in spring (31.5 %) summer (9 %) or autumn (19.8 %).


Background The optimal goals for blood pressure management in SLE are unknown. Uncontrolled blood pressure is a known risk factor for cardiovascular disease. The increased cardiovascular risks associated with SLE are not fully explained by traditional risk factors, such as hypertension and dyslipidemia, at least when based on definitions established for individuals without SLE. One possibility is that the patterns of blood pressure dysregulation in SLE may differ from those in otherwise healthy individuals or patients with obesity/metabolic syndrome. Methods The BPpSLE study is a cross-sectional multicenter analysis of blood pressure patterns in children with SLE. Inclusion criteria:≥4 ACR classification criteria for SLE and age <21 years. Exclusion criteria: intravenous steroid use within past month, glomerular filtration rate <60 mL/1.73 m2/min, or kidney transplant. Interim analysis was performed on the initial 52 subjects enrolled. Participants were assessed once over 24 hours by ambulatory blood pressure monitoring, using routine equipment and SpaceLabs software. Diurnal and nocturnal averages for both systolic and diastolic blood pressure were assessed, and nocturnal blood pressure dipping was calculated as difference between median awake and sleep measurements. In addition, blood pressure loads were calculated as percentages of measurements that exceeded validated, age-specific thresholds for normal blood pressure. Nocturnal hypertension was defined as systolic or diastolic load during sleep of >25%. Enrollment in the BPpSLE study is open to all interested CARRA investigators. Results The cohort is 79% female, 29% Hispanic and 27% black. Median age was 16.3 years (IQR 13–17) at time of testing. Median SLEDAI was 4 (IQR 2–11), renal SLEDAI was 0 (IQR 0–4), and median glomerular filtration rate was 104 mL/1.73 m2/min (IQR 91–114). Nocturnal hypertension was seen in 47% and attenuated dipping was seen in 71% of children with SLE, compared to 39% and 26% of historical controls. Loads were 14% and 13% while sleeping verses 5% systolic and 6% diastolic while awake. This corresponded with median nocturnal dipping of 6% in systolic and 13% in diastolic blood pressures (normal >10%). Conclusions There is a high prevalence of both nocturnal hypertension and attenuated nocturnal blood pressure dipping in out SLE cohort, compared to an age-matched adolescent population with borderline high blood pressure. These patterns are not due to renal failure or active nephritis. Although most SLE patients in the cohort do not meet criteria for diagnosis of hypertension, the degree of dysregulation could potentially contribute to the cardiovascular risk noted in SLE. Acknowledgements This abstract is being presented on behalf of the Midwest Pediatric Nephrology Consortium (MWPNC).


Abstract This series of two videos reprises the opening session of the 2019 Annual Meeting of the American Thyroid Association. A summary of original research articles influencing surgical thyroido...


A photonic nanojet (PNJ) is a fine and high intensity light beam that is generated from a dielectric microsphere irradiated by a laser. A PNJ has a smaller beam diameter than the wavelength of the incident laser and can propagate for longer than 1 μm with high intensity and minimal divergence. In other words, a PNJ has a long depth of focus. Due to its outstanding optical properties, a PNJ is suitable for laser micro machining to create sub-micrometer scale structures. Depth of focus of a PNJ generated in water is longer than in air. In this paper, we experimentally investigated machining characteristics of laser micro machining using a PNJ in water medium. First, electromagnetic simulation was conducted to know the intensity distribution of PNJ in water medium. The simulation demonstrated that PNJ in water mdium has beam diameter of sub-micrometer scale and micrometer scale depth of focus. Next, machining experiments were also conducted on a silicon substrate. A femtosecond laser was used as the machining laser. By controlling the microsphere position, the PNJ position can be controlled in the propagation direction. Sub-micrometer scale hole diameters were obtained even when the PNJ position in the propagation direction was changed by 3 μm. In conclusion, the long depth of focus of a photonic nanojet in water medium enable to create sub-micrometer scale structures.


Smart sensors and connected devices have changed the concept of garments along with IT technology convergent garments that transform the performance of basic functions. Various types of products have been researched and developed due to the increased interest in smart clothing; in addition, studies based on physical and mechanical properties have also been actively studied to improve accuracy and reliability. This study represents a basic study for the development of smart textiles based on motion recognition for the surfing practice of beginners interested in IT convergence type. A physical durability evaluation of conductive yarn according to sewing method was later carried out. This study is a conditional specimen sewn with cotton lower thread and 100mm pattern length based on the results of previous studies. The durability of the conductive yarn according to the sewing method was evaluated according to the sewing method. Durability was evaluated by two kinds of repeated strain and abrasion tests. The specimen with applied cotton in a lower thread · zigzag pattern · 2mm stitch size · 100mm stitch length was shown to have the most suitable durability for smart textile.


The paper is concerned with the analysis of the main determinants of foreign direct investment in MENA countries. The estimation is run on the determinants of FDI in our sample which consist of 36 countries. 12 of these countries were in MENA countries and another 24 were the major recipients of FDI in their respective regions in developing countries. By employing a panel data methodology the study investigates whether the determinants of FDI are similar to the other FDI receiving developing countries. The study reveals that the key determinants of FDI inflows in MENA countries are the size of the host economy, the government size, natural resources and the institutional variables. The paper concludes that, countries that are receiving fewer foreign investments could make themselves more attractive to potential foreign investors. So, the policy makers in the MENA region should remove all barriers to trade, develop their financial system and build appropriate institutions.


In a process of screening mouse embryonic cDNA library with suc2 signal sequence trap, a strongly positive clone named spt1 was obtained repeatedly. Analysis of spt1 shows that the inserted sequence is 697 bp containing 37 start codons (ATG) and 80 stop codons (TGA, TAG, TAA), and there is no potential open reading fame in it. Similarity search by BLAST indicates that the sequence locates in the long arm of 17th chromosome, and no known genes show significant similarity with it. Northern blot and RT-PCR give positive signal specifically in ovary tissue, the full length of spt1 is about 4. 5 approximately 5.0 kb. Yeast transformation and sequence truncation experiment suggested that spt1 could mediate the secretion of invertase. Hence, spt1 may be part of a novel ncRNA gene which is involved in protein secretion.


The effect of dietary potassium content on the proximal tubular fluid output (Vprox), and the relation between Vprox and potassium excretion was examined in conscious unoperated diabetes insipidus rats adapted to five dietary potassium contents in the range 25-400 mmol/kg. The lithium clearance (CLi) and the urine flow (V) were used as measures of Vprox, CLi being equal to and V being about one-third of Vprox. Increase of the dietary potassium content from 25 to 400 mmol/kg led only to a slight, barely statistically significant increase of Vprox. However, repeated measurements in the same rats on different days showed considerable intraindividual variation of Vprox and the potassium excretion. At each dietary potassium level except the lowest one the potassium excretion was linearly correlated to CLi (r = 0.60-0.92) and to V (r = 0.56-0.85). Errors in bladder emptying could not explain these correlations. The slopes of the regression lines increased with increasing dietary potassium content, and the regression lines all intercepted the CLi axis at approximately the same CLi value, i.e., on the average about 70 microliter/min./100 g body weight. The results indicate that an increase of the dietary potassium content leads to a slight increase of Vprox. Spontaneous intraindividual variation of Vprox is considerable and is associated with linearly related variation of the potassium excretion. The change of the potassium excretion for a given change of Vprox increases with the dietary potassium content.


K-Ras mutant pancreatic cancer cells display intensive macropinocytosis, indicating that this process may be exploited in the design of anticancer targeted therapies. In this study, we constructed a macropinocytosis-oriented recombinantly tailored defensin (DF-HSA) which consists of human β-defensin-2 (DF) and human serum albumin (HSA). The macropinocytosis intensity and cytotoxicity of DF-HSA were investigated in K-Ras mutant MIA PaCa-2 cells and wild-type BxPC-3 cells. As found, the DF-HSA uptake in MIA PaCa-2 cells was much higher than that in wild-type BxPC-3 cells. Correspondingly, the cytotoxicity of DF-HSA to MIA PaCa-2 cells was more potent than that to BxPC-3 cells. In addition, the cytotoxicity of DF-HSA was much stronger than that of β-defensin HBD2. DF-HSA suppressed cancer cell proliferation and induced mitochondrial pathway apoptosis. Notably, DF-HSA significantly inhibited the growth of human pancreatic carcinoma MIA PaCa-2 xenograft in athymic mice at well tolerated dose. By in vivo imaging, DF-HSA displayed a prominent accumulation in the tumor. The study indicates that the recombinantly tailored β-defensin can intensively enter into the K-Ras mutant pancreatic cancer cells through macropinocytosis-mediated process and exert potent therapeutic efficacy against the pancreatic carcinoma xenograft. The novel format of β-defensin may play an active role in macropinocytosis-mediated targeting therapy.


The structure and dynamics of water under a geometric confinement is of great significance due to its importance in water flow, surface chemistry and environmental sciences. The physical properties of water at an interface or in a nanopore are often different than its bulk counterpart and can strongly depend on the fine details of the confinement. A systematic understanding of the influence of the confinement on this rich behavior was, until recently poor, because of experimental limitations to access interfacial water structures. The discovery that graphene is stable in its two dimensional form has opened new research possibilities and it has proved to be an instrumental tool for the investigation of confined water structures. Its remarkable mechanical and electronic properties combined with scanning probe techniques allowed us to directly visualize and measure water structures that are confined between graphene and a variety of supporting substrates. Information regarding the influence of the interface structure and wettability, environmental humidity, temperature, pressure and the presence of foreign species on the structure and dynamics of confined water were experimentally accessed in situ and real time with scanning probe microscopies. The observed phase behavior, phase transitions and dynamics of the confined water structures underline the complexity of the governing physical mechanisms. We found that the behavior of the water molecules heavily depends on the confinement characteristics as well as temperature and pressure, which indicates the significance of the interface in defining the geometry of the ice phase. We conclude that a general picture of the state of water under confinement cannot be drawn without considering the exact confinement details and conditions.


Having been created in 1919, as part of the Treaty of Versailles which ended the hostilities of the Great War, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has almost 100 years' experience in addressing the important theme of balancing tensions that pit work responsibilities against family roles and societal expectations. With such a weight of history and time, one might be forgiven for expecting this article to overflow with successes and positive examples, built up over decades of normative work, policy advice, research and data collection, technical support and capacity-building with the ILO's tripartite (employer, union and government) constituents. Yet, as with many fundamental principles and rights in the world of work, equality for women and men remains a challenge. The following section will cover the particular characteristics of the ILO and its commitment to gender equality in general. Next I will expand on the International Labour Standards (ILS) relevant to balancing work and family, with recent examples of good practices. In concluding, I will tempt the reader to examine in more depth the structural reasons that appear to feed the tensions, and posit ways forward.


This article explores issues related to community-university partnerships by examining the unfolding of the Black Belt Initiative, a 21st century mobilization within the Black Belt South to establish a Black Belt Regional Commission. The Black Belt Initiative provides an instructive and compelling case study. For instance, the very nature of the Black Belt Initiative's beginnings through the provision of a grant by Senator Zell Miller of Georgia to the University of Georgia with the proviso that "poverty – not race be the guiding principle…" heightened the tension between historically black and white universities reflecting longstanding contestations around how problems within the Black Belt should be framed and addressed. Consequently, these contestations resulted in very different ideas for the governance structures that would guide the definition of policies and practices for a Black Belt Regional Commission.


Streams and rivers metabolize dissolved organic matter (DOM). Although most DOM compounds originate from natural sources, recreational use of rivers increasingly introduces chemically distinct anthropogenic DOM. So far, the ecological impact of this DOM source is not well understood. Here, we show that a large music festival held adjacent to the Traisen River in Austria increased the river's dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentration from 1.6 to 2.1 mg L–1 and stream ecosystem respiration from −3.2 to −4.5 mg L–1. The DOC increase was not detected by sensors continuously logging absorbance spectra, thereby challenging their applicability for monitoring. However, the fluorescence intensity doubled during the festival. Using parallel factor analysis, we were able to assign the increase in fluorescence intensity to the chemically stable UV-B filter phenylbenzimidazole sulfonic acid, indicating organic compounds in sunscreen and other personal care products as sources of elevated DOC. This observation was confirmed by liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry. The elevated respiration is probably fueled by anthropogenic DOM contained in beer and/or urine. We conclude that intense recreational use of running waters transiently increases the anthropogenic DOM load into stream ecosystems and alters the fluvial metabolism. We further propose that chemically distinct, manmade DOM extends the natural range of DOM decomposition rates in fluvial ecosystems.


Can we use newspaper articles to forecast economic activity? Our answer is yes and, to this end, we propose a brand new economic dictionary in Italian with valence shifters, and we apply it to a corpus of about two million articles from four popular newspapers. We produce a set of high-frequency text-based sentiment and policy uncertainty indicators (TESI and TEPU respectively), which are constantly updated, not revised and computed both for the whole economy and for specific sectors or economic topics. To test the predictive power of our text-based indicators, we propose two forecasting exercises. First, by using Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) techniques, we show that our monthly text-based indicators greatly reduce the uncertainty surrounding the short-term forecasts of the main macroeconomic aggregates, especially during recessions. Secondly, we employ these indices in a weekly GDP growth tracker, achieving sizeable gains in forecasting accuracy in both normal and turbulent times.


Many real-world decision-making problems fall into the general category of classification. Algorithms for constructing knowledge by inductive inference from example have been widely used for some decades. Although these learning algorithms frequently address the same problem of learning from preclassified examples and much previous work in inductive learning has focused on the algorithms' predictive accuracy, little attention has been paid to the effect of data factors on the performance of a learning system. An experiment was conducted using five learning algorithms on two data sets to investigate how the change in labeling the class attribute can alter the behavior of learning algorithms. The results show that different preclassification rules applied on the training examples can affect either the classification accuracy or classification structure.


The porcine gut microbiome is a novel genomic resource for screening cellulose-degrading enzymes. A plasmid metagenomic expression library was constructed from the hindgut microbiota of 6 Yorkshire growing pigs (25 to 40 kg) fed a high-fat basal diet supplemented with 10% Solka-Floc for 28 d. Fresh cecal and colonic digesta samples were collected, flash-frozen in liquid N, and stored under -80°C. Metagenomic DNA was extracted, mechanically sheared, and cleaned to remove small DNA fragments (<1.0 kb). The resulting DNA fragments were subjected to blunt-end polishing, fractionation, and purification by using commercial kits. The end-modified DNA fragments were ligated to pCR4Blunt-TOPO vector and transformed into competent Escherichia coli TOPO10 cells. Metagenomic plasmid libraries were screened for carboxymethyl cellulolytic activities by using lysogeny broth agar plates. The average insert size of the resulting library was approximately 4.2 kb. Screening for the ability to hydrolyze carboxymethyl cellulose yielded 14 positive colonies, giving an estimated 430 Mb of metagenomic DNA in the approximately 102,000 E. coli clones with an overall hit rate of 0.14%. The 11 assembled insert sequences included 4 function-related gene clusters, and a total of 18 putative carbohydrate active enzyme genes were identified. This included genes encoding 11 cellulases, 4 hemicellulases, 1 polygalacturonas, 1 glycoside hydrolase family 26 mannanase-family 5 cellulase chimeric enzyme gene, and 1 cellobiose phosphorylase. In conclusion, the coupling of functional metagenomic mining with biochemical characterization of fiber-degrading enzymes is a powerful strategy for exploring the enzymological underpinnings of the anaerobic fermentation of dietary fiber in the complex animal gut environment.


In order to prevent grain mass and quality loss, a fast and efficient method for early detection of insect infestation of grain is urgently needed during trade and storage. Based on the biophoton analytical technology (BPAT), this work adopted a newmethod of extracting feature by combining statistical characteristics and histogram distribution. Considering the sample covariance matrices of any single class could be singular, the feature vector was compressed by principal component analysis (PCA) and given as inputs to classifiers for the identification of uninfested wheat and infested wheat, such as linear discriminant analysis (LDA), quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA), mahalanobis and linear support vector machines (linear SVM). For further improving the classification accuracy, regularized discriminant analysis (RDA)was presented to optimizeQDAandmahalanobis algorithms. The results proved that the proposed method is workable


Utilization of thermomechanical treatment in forging medium-carbon alloyed steel with microaddition of titanium is presented. Results of forging tests carried out in industrial conditions with a use of a high-speed forging press in conventional cooling conditions are compared with those involving controlled forging and direct cooling after forging. Significant grain refinement accompanied by increase in tensile properties was observed.


This scientific paper describes the structure, phase composition and mechanical properties of nanocrystalline coatings obtained using the ion beam-assisted deposition technology. The results of computer simulation of IBAD processes for different energy values of bombarding ions and for relationships between the densities of ion fluxes and metal deposition rates is given. The data of electron-microscope analysis of the initial stages of film structure formation (of 5 nm thick and more) is presented. And finally we demonstrate the influence produced by the ion energy and ion current density on the formation of nanocrystalline structure and its correlation with tribological properties of coatings.


OBJECTIVE
To study the gene expression difference of polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMN) in systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) in early and late periods termed as multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) and to evaluate the related changes in function of PMN.

METHODS
Using cDNA microarray technology, RNA of peripheral blood PMN of 4 patients with SIRS was detected in early and late periods, the gene expression difference was observed and analyzed.

RESULTS
Among 8 464 genes there were 84 differently expressed with 19 expressed higher and 65 expressed lower. The differently expressed genes consisted of cell receptor genes (31 percent), immunity-related genes (27 percent), metabolism-related genes (20 percent), and genes of DNA binding or transcriptional factors (18 percent) etc.

CONCLUSION
Differently expressed genes suggest that PMN in MODS be in a dysfunctional state characterized by decreasing innate immunity response and increased tissue auto-injury, which may portend a bad prognosis of the patients.


The Sherman function has been calculated for the elastic scattering of electrons from zinc, cadmium and mercury atoms at incident energies up to 14 eV. The calculations were carried out within a relativistic polarized orbital approximation. Comparison with existing experimental data shows rather moderate agreement.


This article is one in a series of annual updates on reported cases and opinions in the area of ethics and land use regulation, A number of themes emerged from the round of litigation in the last year. The most surprising discovery was for a second year in a row, the number of reported cases involving allegations of unethical conduct on the part of land use attorneys. This article reviews these cases, as well as cases involving conflicts based on community involvement, familial relationships, employment and finacial interests; and cases involving allegations of bias and prejudgment.