Abstract 3979 Adhesion of MM cells to the BM microenvironment can lead to cell adhesion mediated drug resistance (CAM-DR). We have previously shown that treatment with Dexamethasone (a drug commonly used against MM alone or in combination with new therapeutic agents) induces in MM cells increased assembly of CD138, and F-actin containing membrane extensions named podia. Using this 2D co-culture model we found that podia from MM cells from patients or MM cell lines elongate on the surface of BM stromal cells and also interconnect distant MM cells correlating with CAM-DR. Formation of podia was observed after at least 6 days of co-culture when many soluble factors and extracellular matrix proteins may have been secreted and remodelled. We also showed that preventing SDF1-alpha binding to the CXCR4 receptor in MM cells inhibits podia formation. In order to investigate the possible role of ECM proteins and their ligands in podia assembly we have now tested the formation of podia in 3D co-cultures of MM and stromal cells embedded in gels composed of polymerised extracellular matrix proteins found in the BM including collagen I and collagen IV. We now found that MM cells incubated overnight in 3D matrix lattices assembled podia that elongated along fibres of polymerised extracellular matrix that put them in contact with stromal cells or other distant MM cells. We also found that culture of MM cells in 3D matrices in the absence of stromal cells did not result in podia formation. These results suggest that stromal cells promote podia formation in contact with the extracellular matrix. It has been shown by Neri et al 1 that beta7 integrins are involved in MM cell adhesion to BM cells and extracellular matrix during recruitment to the BM and they are involved in CAM-DR. We found that integrin beta7 KD MM cells failed to form podia to the same extent as the parental cell lines in 2D and 3D cultures. Podia assembled by beta7 KD cells were shorter and highly irregular in shape in comparison to long and straight podia formed by parental MM cells. Using immunostaining, we found that podia in beta7 KD cells lacked internal F-actin as well as vimentin filaments that we identified in podia of parental MM cells. However, total levels of these cytoskeletal proteins remained unchanged as detected by western blot. Dexamethasone-induced increased formation of podia was also dependent on the expression of beta7 integrins by MM cells and the presence of BM stromal cells in 2D and 3D culture conditions. We conclude that podia promote the formation of cellular networks of distant MM cells as well as the contact with BM stromal cells in 3D and this process is involved in CAM-DR against Dexamethasone. Podia assemble in contact with stromal cells and along extracellular matrix cables and require polymerisation of actin and vimentin cytoskeletal filaments downstream of beta7 integrins. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


ADAMTS13 (a disintegrin and metalloprotease with thrombospondin motifs) catalyses the proteolysis of von Willebrand factor (vWF). Recent research has indicated that the rate of vWF proteolysis by ADAMTS13 is greater for group O than non-O groups, in the order: group O ⩾ group B > group A ⩾ group AB. This, together with the observation that vWF levels are lower for group O than non-O groups, suggested a possible inverse relationship between vWF proteolysis and vWF level. We studied four patients with von Willebrand disease type 1 and found that the ADAMTS13 activity in their cryo-depleted plasma was similar and comparable with a normal control. In contrast, the vWF from one patient was significantly more susceptible to proteolysis than that of the others, which were comparable with a normal control. The increased susceptibility to proteolysis was associated with heterozygosity for tyrosine/cysteine 1584 (Tyr/Cys1584). A preliminary cohort study (n = 200) indicated an allele frequency of 0.005 for G 24/1282 encoding Cys1584. In vitro, heterozygous vWF showed an increase in proteolysis of 13.1–23.5% compared with homozygous Tyr/Tyr vWF. These data suggest that increased vWF proteolysis may be implicated in type 1 von Willebrand disease in some patients and that Cys1584 may, in part, exert its effect through this mechanism.


The north‐eastern part of the Chotanagpur Granite Gneiss Complex (CGGC) in the East Indian shield contains enclaves of migmatitic pelitic granulites (PG) within felsic orthogneiss (FOG). Field observations, petrology and geochronology (LA–MC–ICP–MS U–Pb dating of zircon and EPMA Th–U–total‐Pb dating of monazite) of the PG suggest two distinct metamorphic events. The earliest event M1, which is characterized by high‐temperature (>850°C) granulite facies metamorphism, occurred in the timespan of ~1680–1580 Ma. Extensive dehydration melting of biotite + sillimanite + quartz‐rich protoliths led to stabilization of the restitic assemblage (garnet + alkali‐feldspar + quartz + sillimanite + ferrian‐ilmenite) together with large volumes of felsic melts (leucosomes). Collisional tectonics followed by delamination and asthenospheric upwelling could have triggered the M1 event. Subsequently, at ~1470–1400 Ma, the igneous protolith of the host FOG intruded and hydrated the PG. Thereafter, a second metamorphic event, M2, accompanied by compressional structures, affected both the rock types. A clockwise P–T path that culminated at ≥10 kbar ~760–850°C and is followed by a steeply decompressive retrograde path characterizes this event. The P–T path and the inferred geothermal gradient (<27°C/km) are compatible with a continent–continent collisional setting. Geochronological findings suggest a protracted orogeny for the M2 event with its major pulse during ~970–950 Ma. When combined with the published information, this study supports the view that a large (if not the entire) portion of the Indian shield and the granulite terranes of east Antarctica share similar tectonothermal events that led to the formation of two supercontinents, Columbia and Rodinia.


BaTi2Sb2O is a \(T_{\text{c}}=1.2\) K superconductor with a \(d^{1}\) square lattice, and isovalent Bi substitution for Sb can increase its \(T_{\text{c}}\) to 4.6 K (BaTi2Bi2O), accompanied by the complete suppression of charge density wave (CDW) or spin density wave (SDW) transition. In the present study, we demonstrate that aliovalent Sn substitution (hole doping) also increases \(T_{\text{c}}\) up to 2.5 K for BaTi2(Sb0.7Sn0.3)2O, while suppressing CDW/SDW transition only slightly. The overall electronic phase diagram of BaTi2(Sb,Sn)2O is qualitatively similar to that of cation-substituted (hole-doped) (Ba,Na)Ti2Sb2O, but quantitative differences such as in \(T_{\text{c}}\) are observed, which is discussed in terms of Ti–Pn hybridization and chemical disorder.


I develop a Latin Social model of the Trinity that is an extension of my previous work on indexicals and the Trinity. I focus on the theological desideratum of the necessity of the divine persons' unity of action. After giving my account of this unity, I compare my account with Swinburne's and Hasker's social models and Leftow's non-social model. I argue that their accounts of the divine persons' unity of action are theologically unsatisfactory and that this unsatisfactoriness derives from a modern conception of personhood according to which distinct and incommunicable intellectual acts and volitional acts are necessary conditions for one's being a person. I argue that the Latin Social model is preferable to the modern-personhood models because it is simpler in explanatory economy with regard to securing the necessity of the divine persons' unity of action.


A significant gap exists between animal production and world's population demand. Although conventional breeding methods have been effectual for selection of animal populations on many traits of economic importance, with these methods, the accuracy of breeding value always remains questionable. Simulation and experimental results suggest that breeding values can be predicted with high accuracy by genomic selection for young animals without own performance. Genomic selection is a type of marker-assisted selection in which genetic markers covering the whole genome are used so that all quantitative trait loci are in linkage disequilibrium with at least one marker. The possibility to select animals at an early stage allows defining new breeding strategies aiming at boosting genetic progress while reducing costs. Genomic selection is the future of livestock breeding companies; it improves the genetic gain by decreasing genetic interval and improving reliability. Further research is required to improve the accuracy of genomic estimated value and manage long-term genetic gain. The aim of this review was to provide an overview of the developments of genomic selection and its application in animal breeding.


We consider the one-dimensional extended Hubbard model in the presence of an explicit dimerization $\delta$. For a sufficiently strong nearest neighbour repulsion we establish the existence of a quantum phase transition between a mixed bond-order wave and charge-density wave phase from a pure bond-order wave phase. This phase transition is in the universality class of the two-dimensional Ising model.


Isiolo Boran are becoming a population of permanent paupers. During the colonial period they were protected from Somali incursions, and their way of life preserved. Since Independence, however, largely as a result of increasing government intervention and market integration, they have become caught in a vicious spiral of poverty and decline.


Forecast combination has been proven to be a very important technique to obtain accurate predictions for various applications in economics, finance, marketing and many other areas. In many applications, forecast errors exhibit heavy-tailed behaviors for various reasons. Unfortunately, to our knowledge, little has been done to obtain reliable forecast combinations for such situations. The familiar forecast combination methods, such as simple average, least squares regression or those based on the variance-covariance of the forecasts, may perform very poorly due to the fact that outliers tend to occur, and they make these methods have unstable weights, leading to un-robust forecasts. To address this problem, in this paper, we propose two nonparametric forecast combination methods. One is specially proposed for the situations in which the forecast errors are strongly believed to have heavy tails that can be modeled by a scaled Student's t-distribution; the other is designed for relatively more general situations when there is a lack of strong or consistent evidence on the tail behaviors of the forecast errors due to a shortage of data and/or an evolving data-generating process. Adaptive risk bounds of both methods are developed. They show that the resulting combined forecasts yield near optimal mean forecast errors relative to the candidate forecasts. Simulations and a real example demonstrate their superior performance in that they indeed tend to have significantly smaller prediction errors than the previous combination methods in the presence of forecast outliers.


Objective To improve the diagnostic and therapeutic efficacy for young patients with malignant tumors of pancreas at the early stage, and describe the clinical characteristics of this group of patients. Methods The clinical data of 46 young patients less than forty years old with malignant tumors of pancreas received treatment and follow up, including clinical features, clinicopathological parameters, status of misdiagnosis, CA 19-9, CEA, were retrospectively reviewed. Results The main manifestations of young patients with malignant tumors of pancreas were abdominal bloating (78.26% ), epigastric discomfort (73.91%), weight loss (73.91%), loss of appetite (69.57%), abdominal pain (60.87%). Majority of the tumors were located in pancreatic head. 30 cases (65.22%) had pathological evidence of metastasis, among them 13 cases had multi-organ involvement. Pancreatic exocrine tumor accounted for 72.73% (24/33) of all the tumors, while endocrine tumor accounted for 27.27% (9/33). The positive rates of CA 19-9 and CEA were 73.91% (34/46) and 32.6% (15/46). The misdiagnosis rate of young patients with malignant tumors of pancreas was up to 80.43% (37/46). The main misdiagnoses were acute or chronic gastritis (36.96%). The rate of radical operation for young patients with malignant tumors of pancreas was 23.91%, and the median survival was 12.6 months. Conclusions The symptoms of young patients with malignant pancreatic tumors are non-speciflc and the misdiagnosis rate was high and the prognosis was poor, therefore, the early diagnosis of pancreatic malignant tumors shall be emphasized.

Key words:
Pancreatic neoplasms;  Retrospective studies;  Early diagnosis;  Prognosis;  Young patient


With the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Cassava Adding Value for Africa (C:AVA) project is transforming the lives of cassava small holder farmers in the five countries of Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda. The C:AVA project has encouraged good agronomic practices and provided farmers with higher yielding and disease tolerant cassava varieties. These have resulted in higher yields (ranging from about 16 percent in Ghana to over 100 percent in Uganda), which have contributed to an increase in the incomes of the small holder farmers and community processors through their participation in profitable and sustainable value-added cassava chains. Rather than rely solely on income from processing fresh roots into traditional products, community groups and large industries have shifted focus to adding value to the roots through processing into new chains being promoted by the Project. These new value chains include high quality cassava flour and grits for bakery, confectionery and brewery industries as well as chips and grits as feed mix into the livestock industry including poultry. Other chains being promoted include starch and ethanol. Mobilisation into new value chains ranged from just over 2 percent in Tanzania to a 100 percent in Malawi in the first year of project operations. By the third year, mobilisation into the new chains has significantly increased to about 70 percent and above in all countries; 69 percent in Nigeria and 100 percent in Uganda. Collectively, the five countries have mobilised close to a million tons of fresh cassava roots that have been processed into both traditional and new value chains. Over 70 percent of these volumes have gone into the new chains. These value chains have generated an income of over USD 57 million into these rural communities assisting to raise the living standards of the resource poor households and providing employment opportunities in the participating countries. Keywords: smallholder farmer, transformation, value chains, cassava value addition


The present study was undertaken to compare the adsorption efficiency of activated carbon prepared from animal horns (AHC), which is both a waste and a pollutant and a commercial activated carbon (CAC) with respect to uptake of the organic components responsible for the chemical oxygen demand (COD) of industrial wastewater. The adsorption process was examined in terms of its equilibria and its kinetics. The effect of pH, contact time and adsorbent dose were investigated. The most effective pH was found to be 5 for AHC and 6 for CAC. The equilibrium data for COD removal fitted the Linear, Langmuir and the Freundlich models. The mechanisms of the rate of adsorption of COD were analysed using the pseudo-second-order model. The model provided a very high degree of correlation of the experimental adsorption rate data suggesting that this model could be used in design applications.

 Key words: Adsorption, batch, kinetics, Langmuir, Freundlich, adsorbent.


Inheritance is one important and controversial issue of object-oriented programming, because of it's different implementations and domain uses: design methods, database, knowledge representation, data mining, object programming languages, modelling. .. Most of the object-oriented programming languages have a direct implementation of specialization, thus we promote the idea that a relationship between classes based on generalization can help in the process of reuse, adaptation, limited evolution of class hierarchies. We name it reverse inheritance. Our goal is to show that reverse inheritance class relationship and it's supporting mechanisms can be used to accomplish the objectives mentioned earlier. Another goal is to prove the feasibility of the approach. On the other hand we analyze some use cases on how the objectives are reached.


While the divided south wall of the Stanza della Segnatura offers a balance of Civic Law that follows traditional practices in the classification of legal literature in medieval libraries its subjects, Justinian and Gregory IX, encouraged a view of the present in terms of its relation to the history of civilization. Thus could Roman law and Canon law be viewed, by an ambitious pontiff who saw his own situation as forged from the inheritance of both, as the greatest influences on-and explanations for-his own governmental ideas and actions. A Ciceronian interpretation of the Law as deriving from the supreme authority (above) would suggest that the three suavely articulated and interconnected female figures above represent the Three Graces or the legal "sisters," daughters of Zeus who supervise the benefits of the Law. Thus is it tempting to imagine the possibility that through the (Greek) graces, the (Roman) Justinian, and the (Christian) Gregory, a grandiose concordance, or harmony, of Greek Law, Roman Law, and Christian Law is offered in the three interrelated scenes of this wall.


Two enzymatic mechanisms have been proposed for the metabolism of hydroperoxy-phospholipids: i) the combined action of phospholipase A2 and glutathione peroxidase, and/or ii) direct enzymatic reduction. The latter reaction may be catalyzed by selenium-dependent phospholipid hydroperoxide glutathione peroxidase and/or by glutathione S-transferase alpha. To study the pathway of this reaction, we used human hepatoma HepG2 cells into which was incorporated labeled, hydroperoxy-phospholipids. The major product of incorporated l-palmitoyl-2-(13-hydroperoxy-cis-9, trans-11-octadecadienoyl)-L-3-phosphatidylcholine was the corresponding hydroxy-phospholipid with no hydroxy- or hydroperoxy-fatty acids. The contributions to reduction of hydroperoxy-phospholipids in HepG2 cells from glutathione S-transferase Al and phospholipid hydroperoxide glutathione peroxidase were calculated to be 0.5% and 99.5%, respectively. Increasing selenium in the cell culture medium led to increases in selenium-dependent phospholipid hydroperoxide glutathione peroxidase activity but not in glutathione S-transferase alpha. This increase in the selenium-dependent enzyme was paralleled by a concomitant increase in the extent of reduction of the incorporated hydroperoxy-phospholipid. We conclude that the main metabolic fate of hydroperoxy-phospholipids in HepG2 cells is by direct reduction to hydroxy-phospholipids by phospholipid hydroperoxide glutathione peroxidase but also by glutathione S-transferase alpha, and that phospholipase A2/selenium-dependent glutathione peroxidase does not play a significant role in the reduction.


The purpose of this chapter is to identify the reasons for the emigration of Ukrainian employees and to explain the importance of cultural proximity and human resources practices whose aim is to keep them in Polish organisations. The considerations are based on a desk research analysis of migrations of Ukrainians, and on the results of quantitative empirical research conducted by the Authors regarding national cultures, values related to work and managing human resources. The research results allowed to determine problems faced by Ukrainian workers employed in Poland, as well as human resource management practices to help overcome them. The study shows that cultural proximity, linguistic similarity or common history favour the choice of Poland as the direction of migration for Ukrainians, and human resources management practices of Polish employers favour quick implementation to work in Poland.


Encouraging clinical experience with chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells supports the notion that even immune-privileged sites such as the brain may be amenable to CAR T therapy. In the context of hematologic B cell malignancies, CD19-CARs have been shown to accumulate in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and reduce the incidence of metastatic disease in the central nervous system. However, treatment of solid tumors, including brain tumors, has proven quite challenging due to heterogeneous antigen expression, suboptimal trafficking, and immunosuppressive networks in the tumor microenvironment that limit CAR T cell function and persistence. This presentation will describe our efforts to overcome these challenges for the treatment of glioblastoma (GBM), one of the most common and aggressive primary malignant brain tumors. Tumor antigen selection is a key challenge for CAR T therapy of brain tumors, as on-target/off-tumor toxicities could be life-threatening. Our preclinical studies demonstrate that a glioma-associated protein, interleukin 13 receptor alpha 2 (IL13Rα2), is an attractive CAR T cell target for glioblastoma in part because this tumor-restricted antigen is expressed by the majority of GBM. Initial clinical findings demonstrate that local delivery of IL13Rα2-CAR T cells is feasible and safe, with evidence for clinical activity in patients. In addition, as part of our on-going efforts to expand the repertoire of immunologic targets for GBM, we have optimized a HER2-CAR and developed a novel toxin-based CAR harnessing the selective GBM-binding properties of chlorotoxin (CLTX). To reduce the potential for tumor antigen escape, we are exploring approaches that leverage multiple antigens, including combining CAR T cells specific to different antigens and developing tandem CARs. Another challenge is achieving efficient tumor trafficking and infiltration of CAR T cells to brain tumors. While different routes of delivery present advantages and disadvantages, our preclinical studies using several tumor models suggest that locoregional delivery, into either the tumor or cerebral spinal fluid (CSF), is more effective than systemic delivery for treatment of brain tumors. These studies underlie our clinical approach of infusing T cells into both the resected tumor cavity and CSF. Indeed, we have demonstrated that CAR T cells administered into the CSF induced a complete response in a patient with recurrent multifocal GBM, including metastatic lesions in the spine.Additional efforts are addressing the highly immunosuppressive GBM microenvironment that limits the effectiveness of adoptively transferred T cells. Our studies highlight the impact of the PD-1/PDL-1 immune checkpoint axis in reducing the antitumor activity of CAR T cells, an inhibition that can be overcome by anti-PD-1 checkpoint blockade. In another approach designed to interrogate the interplay between the tumor microenvironment (TME), host immune system, and CAR T cells, we have established a syngeneic mouse model recapitulating the invasive nature of GBM. These studies are elucidating the reciprocal interactions of CAR T cells, the immune landscape, and the inflammatory TME. In summary, this presentation will highlight on-going studies focusing on the biology of GBM, its microenvironment, and strategies to enhance CAR T cell approaches to more effectively treat brain tumors. Citation Format: Darya Alizadeh, Dongrui Wang, Renate Starr, Brenda Aguilar, Vanessa D. Jonsson , Saul J. Priceman, Michael E. Barish, Behnam Badie, Stephen J. Forman, Christine E. Brown. Advancing CAR T cell therapy for the treatment of brain tumors [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Fourth CRI-CIMT-EATI-AACR International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference: Translating Science into Survival; Sept 30-Oct 3, 2018; New York, NY. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Immunol Res 2019;7(2 Suppl):Abstract nr IA15.


Conventional phase change thermal interface material is in the form of a tape or pad with canier or backing liner. Such configuration requires the bulk material to be processed into sheets of thin tape, cut to required sizes and either supplied as an individual unit or in a roll before being dispensed and attached onto the heatsink. Pressure is required to hold the tape firmly during the attachment process so as to allow for initial adhesion. All these processes involve various equipment, labour and overhead costs. Yield losses in making the tape as well as in the process of attachment onto the heatsink also increase the cost of the final material. A new process of attaching phase change material onto heatsink is by using a stencil printing technique. The phase change material's viscosity was reduced before it is transferred to the heatsink. This stencil printing process provides more flexibility in attaching phase change material onto a heatsink surface with higher yield of attachment. This paper aims to discuss the characteristics of stencil printable phase change material and the method of stencil printing. The thermal performance of the stencil printable phase change material before and after reliability test is also discussed.


We lay out the framework to numerically study nonlinear structure formation in the context of scalar-field-coupled cold dark matter models (φCDM models) where the scalar field φ serves as dynamical dark energy. Adopting parameters for the scalar field that leave negligible effects on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) spectrum, we generate the initial conditions for our N-body simulations. The simulations follow the spatial distributions of dark matter and the scalar field, solving their equations of motion using a multilevel adaptive grid technique. We show that the spatial configuration of the scalar field depends sensitively on the local density field. The φCDM model differs from standard ΛCDM at small scales with observable modifications of, e.g., the mass function of halos as well as the matter power spectrum. Nevertheless, the predictions of both models for the Hubble expansion and the CMB spectrum are virtually indistinguishable. Hence, galaxy cluster counts and weak lensing observations, which probe structure formation at small scales, are needed to falsify this class of models.


Currently, most chemicals and materials are obtained from fossil resources. After use, these chemicals and materials are converted to CO2. As discussed in chapter 1 , this causes a build-up of CO2 in the atmosphere, the main driving force of global warming. In order to reach a sustainable system, biomass could be used as a resource for chemicals and materials instead. A biorefinery approach, where all parts of biomass are used to its full potential is essential. Taking this into consideration, wastewater streams of current biobased processes could be an excellent source for chemicals and materials. However, wastewater is often dilute and heterogeneous of nature. To overcome these challenges, wastewater rich in carbon can be processed by microorganisms to obtain a biodegradable polyester, polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA). However, the mechanical properties of this polymer make it unsuitable as polymeric material. Moreover, processing of PHA is challenging. To circumvent these issues, we propose a conversion of the inferior PHA to methyl acrylate and propylene (Figure 7.1) which can be used in current processing infrastructure. PHA rich cells are obtained from the purification of wastewater. The PHA obtained can be purified and converted to MC (Figure 7.1, chapter 2) or the PHA rich cells can be used directly (Figure 7.1, chapter 3). For the second step, the conversion of methyl crotonate (MC) to methyl acrylate and propylene, the catalyst was immobilised (Figure 7.1, chapter 4). The current state of ethenolysis reaction on biomass was reviewed (Figure 7.1, chapter 5). The conversion of PHA to methyl acrylate and propylene enables the use of carbon from wastewater streams without the disadvantages related to the direct use of PHA. In chapter 2, the first step of the conversion of PHA to methyl acrylate and propylene was investigated. Since PHA obtained from wastewater exists mostly as polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB), this was chosen as a starting material for our studies. It was shown that PHB could be converted to MC using methanol at 200 °C.. MC has the advantage of being immiscible with water, which aids its separation. In chapter 2, the pathway of the reaction was clarified, which was subsequently used to optimise the conditions of this conversion. The conversion of PHB to MC proceeds via a thermolysis to crotonic acid (CA), which is followed by an esterification to MC. The formation of CA is the rate determining step below 18 bar, where above 18 bar this changes to the esterification to MC. A selectivity of 60% to MC is obtained with a full conversion of PHB with 18 bar being the optimal pressure for the conversion. Microorganisms produce PHA within their cells, which poses challenges to the downstream processing of PHA as the material has to be isolated from within the cells and dried. The isolation and drying of PHB is costly and is responsible for a large part of the production costs of PHA. In order to reduce the costs of PHA for the production of biobased chemicals, the conversion of PHA to MC was tested using whole cells. In chapter 3 , PHA rich cells were directly converted to MC using the optimised conditions found in chapter 2. The influence of fermentation salts, water and the presence of valerate monomers in the PHA were studied. It was found that the valerate monomers have no influence on the conversion. Fermentation salts do influence the conversion depending on the salt. Magnesium hydroxide catalyses the conversion of PHB to MC, where magnesium sulphate catalyses the formation of methyl 3-hydroxybutyrate as side product. The reaction tolerates up to 20% water, which means that the drying step in the downstream processing of PHA can be significantly reduced. The second step of the conversion of PHA to methyl acrylate and propylene involves an ethenolysis, a cross metathesis of MC with ethylene. This ethenolysis reaction requires a homogeneous catalyst. One of the most active catalysts for this conversion is the ruthenium based Hovey-Grubbs 2nd generation. However, the required high loading of this catalyst makes it an expensive part of the conversion. In order to enable reusing of the catalyst, immobilisation of the Hovey-Grubbs catalyst was investigated in chapter 4 . The catalyst was immobilised inside a metal organic framework (MOF). For this purpose MIL-101-NH2(Al) was used for its large cavities connected by small openings. This allows the catalyst to reside inside the cavities, while the small openings prevent it from leaching out. The catalyst was successfully immobilised using a mechanochemical approach. This method can be applied on other catalysts as well, which was shown by the immobilisation of Zhan catalyst. Both immobilised catalysts show metathesis activity for multiple reaction cycles. It was found that the MOF, MIL-101-NH2(Al), partially undergoes a structural change to form MIL-53-NH2(Al). When MIL-53-NH2(Al) was used as starting MOF the catalyst was trapped but inactive. It was concluded that when starting from MIL-101-NH2(Al), the catalyst trapped in the parts of the material that was converted to MIL-53-NH2(Al) are catalytically inactive. To investigate the current state of the art of the use of ethenolysis on biomass, a literature review was performed in chapter 5 . The results of the ethenolysis of methyl oleate (MO) were compared in order to investigate the most important parameters. It was found that the purity of the ethylene feed has the biggest influence on the turn over numbers (TONs) and that a higher purity ethylene has shown a larger impact on the ethenolysis of MO than the development of novel catalysts. When electron poor substrates are used, the highest TONs are obtained with the less stable Hoveyda-Grubbs 2nd generation. However, no studies were performed on the influence of ethylene purity on these reactions and higher TONs may be achieved using a higher purity ethylene. In chapter 6 , the results and conclusions of the thesis are summarised. The implications of these findings are discussed and suggestions for further research within the field are given.


The use of post-purchase online consumer review in hotel attributes study was still scarce in the literature. Arguably, post purchase online review data would gain more accurate attributes that consumers actually consider in their purchase decision. This study aims to extract attributes from two samples of five-star hotel reviews (Jakarta and Singapore) with text mining methodology. In addition,this study also aims to describe positioning of five-star hotels in Jakarta and Singapore based on the extracted attributes using Correspondence Analysis. This study finds that reviewers of five star hotels in both cities mentioned similar attributes such as service, staff, club, location, pool and food. Attributes derived from text mining seem to be viable input to build fairly accurate positioning map of hotels. This study has demonstrated the viability of online review as a source of data for hotel attribute and positioning studies.


Volunteer tourism (VT) is defined 'as a form of tourism, which aims to provide sustainable alternative travel that can assist in community development, scientific research or ecological restoration' Wearing (2002, p. 240). VT is frequently described as making a difference or doing something worthwhile and its sustainability performance is based on transparency and accountability between its stakeholders manifested by joint planning and community engagement with host projects that lead to their empowerment and equality. Currently, the VT industry has been criticised for the commodification of volunteer experiences by exploiting host communities that fail to making a difference. More research is needed about how the engagement between the main VT stakeholders influence sustainability performance and how to evaluate sustainability performance.
This research develops an evaluative framework to better understand how stakeholders' relations influence sustainability performance in VT, crucially investigates how and why certain sustainability outcomes occur. The principle contribution of developing an evaluative framework is the innovative methodology that brings together collaboration theory and realistic evaluation. While collaboration theory provides an essential theoretical basis for exploring the main stakeholders' relations in VT, realistic evaluation determines the root causes of how and why sustainability performance is achieved. By doing so, the evaluative framework takes an all-encompassing and holistic approach and determines the nature of the collaborative relations between all the main stakeholders.
Two main advantages of the evaluative framework are pertinent, i.) its in-depth analytical ability in evaluating sustainability performance and ii.) the transferability of its findings. The findings address the current body of knowledge in terms of what VT's mantra of doing something worthwhile or making a difference actually means at an operational and community level. Based on the theory developed through realistic evaluation, this study offers a definition of sustainability performance in VT:
The theory outlines that the (sending and receiving) organisations under certain circumstances enable sustainability. Their practices must include the integration of stakeholders, screening and matching of volunteers to host projects in such a way as to support effective skills and expertise transfer to host project staff. The on-going facilitation of stakeholder relations should lead to positive experiences and safety for all involved. In addition, long-term planning and needs assessment support empowerment, equality and transparency for host projects and which can encourage social mobility over time.
The development of the evaluative framework addresses an emerging research agenda for evaluating sustainability performance by offering a new understanding of social mobility and other long-term outcomes for the recipients at host projects and how VT is making a difference through transformative change. Further afield, the evaluative framework offers a sound foundation for future investigations in assessing the effectiveness and outcomes of other social interventions.


The article describes observations of 102 patients subjected to intra-articular unipolar prosthetics for diseases and trauma consequences. Good remote results were obtained in 68.4% of the cases.


A molecular characterization of a plasmid-born qepA gene in (ESBL)-producing E. coli clinical isolates were performed. An 2.63% (11/418) were qepA positive isolates, of which a 90.0% carried CTX-M-15 (9/11) and SHV-12 (1/11). All isolates showed chromosomal mutations in the gyrA and parC genes. The clonal groups A, B and C were identified and belonged to, respectively, phylogroups A, B1 and D, as well as the sequence types 205, 405 and 617. Several plasmid profiles were determined with incompatibility groups FIA, FIB and FII. The genetic environment of the qepA in plasmid pEC8020 was different from those reported previously. The plasmid sequence included genes conferring resistance to β-lactams (blaCTX-M-15), macrolides (mphA), fluoroquinolones (qepA1), trimethoprim (dfrB4) and sulphonamides (sul1). Likewise, the IncF-pEC8020 plasmid carried several insertion sequences including ISCR3, IS6100 and multiple copies of IS26. This work contributes to the epidemiology and genetics of plasmid-born qepA genes of ESBL-producing E. coli.


Background: Bullying in itself has several impacts and entire world had been seeking solution for it. Bullying starts from the primary state of growth, which begins from school. Bullying has its various type and impact. Aggression is one of the prominent factor for it. Objectives: 1. To study the nature of bullying in some schools of Kathmandu. 2. To compare bullying pattern among community and private schools. 3. To find out types of bully among the students. 4. To find out aggressive and behavior of students involved in bullying Method: Descriptive with purposive sampling method was used and SPSS was used for data analysis. Discussion: There were 200 respondents where 100 were male and 100 were females. Mean score of male bully (38.08) and female (30.70). There were 83 respondents from community school and 117 from private school. Numbers of boys are higher in bullying, as bullies, victims, and bully-victims. Bullying students have higher aggression. Bullying occurs both in community and private school but it is more in community school and so was aggression. Verbal bullying was higher in teenagers than social and physical bullying. There was significant positive correlation between bully and victim, aggression and bully and bully and behavior. Conclusion: Verbal bullying was higher than that of physical and social pattern of bullying. If gender was taken in count, male bully more than female. Comparing schools, community school has higher bullying than private schools.


In this paper I begin to lay out a conceptual scheme for: (i) analysing dualities as cases of theoretical equivalence; (ii) assessing when cases of theoretical equivalence are also cases of physical equivalence. The scheme is applied to gauge/gravity dualities. I expound what I argue to be the contribution of gauge/gravity dualities to questions about: (iii) the nature of spacetime in quantum gravity; (iv) broader philosophical and phyiscal discussions of gauge/gravity dualities.

(i)-(ii) proceed by analysing duality through four contrasts. A duality will be a suitable isomorphism between models: and the four relevant contrasts are as follows:

(a) Bare theory: a triple of states, quantities, and dynamics endowed with appropriate structures and symmetries; vs. interpreted theory: which is endowed with, in addition, a suitable pair of interpretative surjections from the triples to a domain in the world.

(b) Extendable vs. unextendable theories: which can, respectively cannot, be extended as regards their domains of applicability.

(c) External vs. internal intepretations: which are constructed by coupling the theory to another interpreted theory, respectively from within the theory itself.

(d) Theoretical vs. physical equivalence: which distinguish formal equivalence from the equivalence of fully interpreted theories.

I also discuss three meshing conditions: between symmetries and duality, between symmetries and interpretation, and between duality and interpretation. The meshing conditions lead to a characterisation of symmetries as redundant or as physical, and to a characterisation of physical equivalence as a commutativity condition between two maps.

I will apply the above scheme to answering questions (iii)-(iv) for gauge/gravity dualities. I will argue that the things that are physically relevant are those that stand in a bijective correspondence under gauge/gravity duality: the common core of the two models. I therefore conclude that most of the mathematical and physical structures that we are familiar with in these models (the dimension of spacetime, tensor fields, Lie groups, and the classical-quantum distinction) are largely, though crucially never entirely, not part of that common core. Thus, the interpretation of dualities for theories of quantum gravity compels us to rethink the roles that spacetime, and many other tools in theoretical physics, play in theories of spacetime.


Alkyl aryl sulfonates is the largest in quantity among all surfactants produced. Their importance lies in its power of reducing oil-water interfacial tension. They have wide applications based on their functional properties, i.e., de- emulsification & de-emulsification, dispersion, wetting, solubilization, inhibition of rust and corrosion. Petroleum sulfonates originally were produced as by-products of petroleum refining. But refineries are now adopting solvent extraction in place of acid treatment and petroleum sulfonate is no more available as by-product. In the search of alternatives, scientists are working on different source and molecular design. Aimed at the ultimate design and development of suitable sulfonates for a particular application, extensive studies were initiated regarding the effect of structural parameter on their surface-active properties. In this connection, several alkyl aryl sulfonates have been synthesized having different structures in aromatic portion and evaluated for their surface-active, micellar, hydrodynamic, thermodynamic, detergency and solubilization properties to establish a correlation between the structural parameters and these properties.


Morphine addiction has become a long-time, serious medical and social problem. To understand the cellular mechanisms of morphine application and addiction, the effects of chronic morphine treatments were examined in primary cultured human neurons. Our results show that, surprisingly, morphine protects cultured human neurons against serum deprivation and staurosporine induced cytotoxicity. Morphine downregulates proapoptotic factor Bax levels in cultured human neurons. In addition, heat shock protein 70 is also involved in morphine protection. Our data suggest that chronic morphine application may be beneficial to stimulate cell survival.


The ground state of the parent compounds of many high temperature superconductors is an antiferromagnetically (AFM) ordered phase, where superconductivity emerges when the AFM phase transition is suppressed by doping or application of pressure. This behaviour implies a close relation between the two orders. Understanding the interplay between them promises a better understanding of how the superconducting condensate forms from the AFM ordered background. Here we explore this relation in real space at the atomic scale using low temperature spin-polarized scanning tunneling microscopy (SP-STM) and spectroscopy. We investigate the transition from antiferromagnetically ordered $\mathrm{Fe}_{1+y}\mathrm{Te}$ via the spin glass phase in $\mathrm{Fe}_{1+y}\mathrm{Se}_{0.1}\mathrm{Te}_{0.9}$ to superconducting $\mathrm{Fe}_{1+y}\mathrm{Se}_{0.15}\mathrm{Te}_{0.85}$. In $\mathrm{Fe}_{1+y}\mathrm{Se}_{0.1}\mathrm{Te}_{0.9}$ we observe an atomic-scale coexistence of superconductivity and short-ranged bicollinear antiferromagnetic order.


A novel method for predicting the equivalent OATS radiated emissions of a DUT from anechoic chamber measurements is presented. This method allows the use of a single environment (the anechoic chamber) for both radiated emissions and immunity tests. It is based on the substitution of the DUT by an equivalent set of elemental dipoles (using a hybrid genetic algorithm-gradient method) which radiates the same anechoic field. Since the field generated by an elemental dipole is known, OATS equivalent radiated emissions can be calculated using image theory. Simulations show the viability and usefulness of the new method.


In this work, the high cycle fatigue behavior of cast hypo-eutectic Al-Si alloys is investigated. It is observed that two different coexisting fatigue initiation mechanisms can occur in these materials depending on the presence of different microstructural heterogeneities (i.e. micro-shrinkage pores, Si particles, Fe-rich inter-metallics, DAS of the Al-matrix, etc).Firstly, an experimental study is presented, highlighting the coexistence of these two fatigue damage mechanisms and their dependence on the presence of different micro-structural heterogeneities. A probabilistic high cycle fatigue model, which has the capacity to describe these two mechanisms, is then presented. The model contains the same principal ingredients as the one developed by [1]. It uses a probabilistic framework to link the two different fatigue damage mechanisms, and can take into account the mean stress and the effect of a biaxial stress state.INTRODUCTION


The objective with this thesis is to clarify the advantages - both economic and environmental - that companies in the Thai electronic manufacturing industry can draw from managing their supply chain and adding a green aspect to it. This through investigations of the concept known as Green Supply Chain Management (GSCM). The research will assist companies with scarce knowledge of green supply chain management in making decisions and priorities in that area. Semi-structured interviews were performed on sight in Bangkok, Thailand and surrounding region. These provided insight and knowledge of the situation and today-state regarding environmental awareness and GSCM implementation within the Thai Electrical and Electronics Industries. Interviews were performed with representatives and experts from different sectors – from universities, industry and supporting agencies and serve as the foundation for the research. A model has been developed out of previous research and findings that could suit the Thai industry. This model can be seen as guidelines in the work towards becoming green and aims at continuous improvement of the organizations environmental performance. In Thailand today companies do not see the benefits of themselves review their organizations environmental impact or developing in this area. Environmental awareness among the public is low and the lack of demand for green products result in few drivers for companies to become green. Also the lack of proper legislation and compliance audits are part of the problem. Missing environmental education and knowledge are extensive and improvements needed. The concept of GSCM is not wide spread but popularity is increasing steadily. Some environmental initiatives are though performed in the industry but not under the name of the concept. Customer demands, legislation and education should be the main focus areas for developing the industry. From the today state at a very basic low much is to be done. Fear of large investments, cost and the lack of knowledge are obstacles to the development. This research shows that these concerns are to be avoided. And by following the model in this thesis companies can find proper knowledge in the area of GSCM. Concluded is that with understanding of the concept and proper implementation from the right knowledge Thai companies can gain great advantages in the future - both economical and environmental.


Resumen In this paper, mode vectors are obtained via the Empirical Orthogonal Function (EOF) based on real Sound Velocity Profiles (SVP) measurements. Through correcting the terrain distortion, reconstructed coefficients of SVPs are determined by Genetic Algorithm (GA) and then the inversion result of the SVP is obtained. The conclusions show that the terrain distortion caused by sound velocity errors can be effectively corrected by the inversion result of the SVP. Using this process, the accuracy and processing efficiency of multi-beam bathymetry data can be significantly improved.


[Report of a Committee read before the American Academy of Medicine at New York, October 10, 1883. The progress made in the legislative restriction of medical practice in the United States since your Committee was appointed, three years ago, to report upon the subject, has been both notable and salutary. At that time the propriety of establishing such laws was under active discussion, and weak enactments, temporizing in character and but partially effective in their action, were evoked from tardy and timorous legislators in several of the States of this country, as compromises between a sense of the necessity of doing something to protect the health of their constituents and a consciousness that the practitioners and supporters of quackery and of irregular methods of medical treatment were among the influential voters whose active opposition might jeopardize their reelection. It was also found to be impossible, in a few of the


A better understanding of an individual's smartphone use can help researchers to improve methods for early detection, evaluation, and intervention of anxiety disorders.For this reason, we present an exploratory study of behavioral markers extracted from smartphone data. We examine fine-grained behaviors before and after smartphone communication events across social anxiety levels. To discover behavioral markers, we model the smartphone as a linear dynamical system with the accelerometer data as output. In a two-week study of 52 college students, we find substantially different behavioral markers prior to and after outgoing phone calls when comparing individuals with high and low social anxiety.


ABSTRACT The Community Rule from Qumran (1QS) communicates its message to its recipients by employing a variety of genres (e.g., instructions, rules, rituals, myth, hymn). This article attempts to explore some of the underlying cognitive mechanisms involved in the process of transmission by drawing on insights from cognitive science in terms of Harvey Whitehouse's Modes of Religiosity theory. According to this approach, certain religious ideas and concepts are "cognitively optimal" (i.e., relatively simple and straightforward, often minimally counterintuitive) and therefore easy to remember, while others are "cognitively costly" (i.e., requiring greater conscious effort to be preserved and transmitted). Two different "modes" are the typical ways to preserve and transmit such contents: The "imagistic" mode relies on low-frequency and high-arousal rituals, whereas the "doctrinal" mode is associated with high-frequency and low-arousal rituals. Through the usage of different genres, each of which shed light on 1QS's agenda, the costly and demanding nature of the 1QS content is highlighted. Analyses of selected passages from 1QS show how elements of the doctrinal and the imagistic modes are involved in facilitating the transmission of the content.


What is a blog? While this may seem like a basic question, it is the subject of dispute among researchers, and hardly settled among users of the medium. We return to this fundamental inquiry by asking 89 blog-reading college students how they conceptualize the term and what purpose blogs serve for them. Our findings suggest that perceptions of blogs are varied and ambiguous, and definitions largely fail to distinguish blogs from other online media. We discuss what this means for the study of blogs and other "new" media and argue that more constructionist approaches are necessary to develop ecologically valid theories of media perceptions and use.


ABSTRACT In Ireland, coastal zone management has proceeded largely in an ad hoc manner and is based on sectoral legislation covering issues such as fishing, water quality, coastal protection, etc. Within this framework there exists a plethora of national and local institutions whose responsibility is divided between the marine and terrestrial sub-zones of the coastal zone. This paper presents results from a survey of local government approaches in 16 coastal local authorities to 2 aspects of coastal zone management, viz. coastal protection and application of the national legislation contained in the Foreshore Acts. The approaches of three local authorities are highlighted to illustrate that management, while based on the same legislative and administrative framework, varies considerably between local authorities. While changes in the administrative structure of local government are on-going it is important that the current problems of legal ambiguity and administrative uncertainty are clarified in order to provide a more consistent approach to coastal protection in Ireland.


We report on recent investigations of the classical and semiclassical properties of the helium atom. We show that regular as well as chaotic classical motion of the electrons exists. Semiclassically, both types of motion require a separate treatment. Stability islands in phase space are quantized via a torus-quantization-type procedure, whereas a periodic-orbit cycle expansion approach accounts for the states associated with chaotic electron pair motion. The results are compared with accurate ab initio quantum calculations.


Three problems arise in handling numerical values in databases: bad data, missing data, and sloppy data. The effects of bad data are mitigated by using statistical subterfuges such as robust statistics or outlier removal. Missing data are replaced by creating a substitute through interpolation or by using statistics appropriate to unbalanced designs. Sloppy, semiquantitative data are relegated to innocuous positions by using nonparametric, rank, or attribute statistics. These techniques are illustrated by the telephone directory, a database of carcinogenicity test results, and a database of precision parameters derived from method performance (collaborative) studies.


Liver transplantation has become an acceptable surgical procedure with the advancement of the technical and rejection considerations involved. Initially nonliving donors were used for transplantation procedures. However, with improved techniques, living donor procedures have become much more frequent. With this, complications involving the transplant organ donor may occur. We present 2 patients with intrathoracic bowel obstruction due to herniation of the small intestine and colon through a defect in the dome of the diaphragm with development of chest pain and gastrointestinal symptoms. Both patients were diagnosed by computerized tomography scan and had a right thoracotomy with lysis of the adhesions, reduction of the hernia, repair of the diaphragm, and mesh reinforcement of the diaphragm. Neither patient had a prior diaphragm defect. These patients, on review of the literature, represent the first 2 such reported cases and suggest the need to be aware of any potential diaphragm defects before closure of the abdomen after resection of the donor liver or if they develop appropriate symptomatology.


247 C57B1 male mice were killed after Diethylnitrosamine (DEN) treatment at various time intervals ranging from one day to nine months. The number of esophageal tumors was divided by the length of the resected esophagus (i.e. Tumor Index = TI). Animals treated for up to 2 months had a TI of 0.1. Since the histological examination of the esophagi in those animals revealed only normal histology, the conclusion drawn was that the TI of 0.1 was a methodological error in assessing esophageal tumors by transillumination. Three months' treatment with DEN resulted in a 9-fold increased TI and 6 months' treatment in a 69-fold increased TI. Other groups of animals treated with DEN for the same period of time were allowed to survive 7, 9 or 12 months without further treatment. Animals treated with DEN for 1 day but followed without further treatment for 7 months demonstrated a 3.5-fold increased TI. For animals treated with DEN for only 14 days, (TI 0.1) and followed for 7 months with a carcinogenic-free diet, a 7-fold TI was observed. For the group of animals treated for 3 months (TI 0.9) but allowed to survive to complete 7 months on a carcinogen-free diet, a 5-fold higher TI was recorded. DEN animals treated for 6 months (TI 6.9) but allowed to survive 3 additional months had a TI of 9.6. A similar TI, namely 9.7, was found when the carcinogen-free interval was prolonged for 6 more months. These results suggest that clones of esophageal cells are "programmed" for tumor growth at an early stage of DEN treatment.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


Meditation as a form of body–mind interaction for primary and secondary prevention in cardiovascular disease has been discussed critically in the past. However, data that aimed to link this intervention to a reduction of various aspects of cardiovascular disease, rendering it a potential part of a cost-effective treatment approach in patients at risk, remain scarce and inconclusive. This article aims to provide an overview of currently available evidence in the literature and the potential impact of meditation on cardiovascular health. However, the data highlighted in this article cannot render with certainty directly reproducible effects of meditation on patients' cardiovascular disease profiles. Meditation may be suggested only as an additional link in the chain of primary and secondary prevention until future research provides sufficient data on this topic.


The present contribution describes the method of work, the types of source materia] used, and the historio- graphical and historico-eismic tradition of Armenia. The catalogue' s territorial frame of reference is that of socalled historical Armenia (which included part of present Eastern Turkey, and part of present Azerbaijan). The sources belong to different languages and cultures: Armenian, Syriac, Greek, Arab, Persian and Georgian. A comparison of the local sources with those belonging to other cultures enab]es the historical and seismological I"adition of the Mediterl'anean to be "linked" with that of the Iranian p]ateau, traditionally considered as two separate areas. We analyzed historical events listed in the most recent catalogues of earthquakes in the Armenian area compiled by Kondorskaya and Shebalin (1982) and Karapetian (1991). Important and valuable though these catalogues are, they are in need of revision. We found evidence for six hitherto unrecorded seismic events. Numerous errors of dating and location have been corrected, and several new localities and seismic effects have been evidenced. Each modification of the previous catalogues has been documented on the hasis of the historiographical and literary sources and the data from the written sources have been linked with those concerning the history of Armenian cities and architecture (monasteries, churches, episcopal complexes). On the whole. the revised earthquakes seem underestimated in the previous catalogues. The aim of this catalogue is to make a contribution to the knowledge of historical seismicity in Armenia, and at the same time to underline the specific nature of the Armenian case, thus avoiding a procedure which has generally tended to place this area in a marginal position, within the wider field of other research on historical earthquakes.


This paper describes the hysteresis in the torque for Taylor–Couette flow in the turbulent flow regime for different shear Reynolds numbers, aspect ratios and boundary conditions. The hysteresis increases with decreasing shear Reynolds number and becomes more pronounced as the aspect ratio is increased from 22 to 88. Measurements conducted in two different Taylor–Couette set-ups depict the effect of the flow conditions at the ends of the cylinders on the flow hysteresis by showing reversed hysteresis behaviour. In addition, the flow structure in the different branches of the hysteresis loop was investigated by means of stereoscopic particle image velocimetry. The results show that the dominant flow structures differ in shape and magnitude depending on the branch of the hysteresis loop. Hence, it can be concluded that the geometry could have an effect on the hysteresis behaviour of turbulent Taylor–Couette flow, but its occurrence is related to a genuine change in the flow dynamics.


A simple procedure to synthesize gold nanowires based on the reduction of hydrogen tetrachloroaurate by 2-mercaptosuccinic acid in aqueous solution is presented. This procedure requires no additional capping or reduction agent and produces wires with an apparent curly morphology several micrometers in length with diameters as thin as 15 nm. Some of the wires produced end in a ribbonlike structure, finally terminated by a flat triangular prism. Investigations by scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy (bright and dark field), scanning transmission electron microscopy, and atomic force microscopy as well as conductivity measurements indicate fully connected, polycrystalline gold objects.


Abstract In the study described here model calibration was performed employing the inverse analysis using genetic algorithms (GA). The objective of analysis is to determine value of the coefficient of hydraulic conductivity, k. The commonly used method for the determination of coefficient of hydraulic conductivity based on Terzaghi consolidation leads to an underestimation of the value of k as the Terzaghi model does not take into account the deformation of soil skeleton. Here, an alternative methodology based on genetic algorithms is presented for the determination of the basic parameters of Biot consolidation model. It has been demonstrated that genetic algorithms are a highly effective tool enabling automatic calibration based on simple rules. The values of the coefficient of hydraulic conductivity obtained with GA are of at least one order smaller than values obtained with the Terzaghi model.


The effect of intravenous glucose on pentagastrin-induced submaximal gastric acid secretion was invesgated in 8 patients with uncomplicated duodenal ulcer and normal glucose tolerance. 50 ml of a 50% glucose solution, injected over approximately 3 minutes, was completely without effect on volume, acidity, and acid output. These findings seem to rule out the possibility that the marked inhibition earlier demonstrated after intrajejunal glucose is caused by hyperglycemia.


This paper provides an introduction to the design of augmented data structures that offer an efficient representation of a mathematical sequence and fast sequential summation algorithms, which guarantee both logarithmic running time and logarithmic computational cost in terms of the total number of operations. In parallel summation algorithms, logarithmic running time is achieved by high linear computational cost with a linear number of processors. The important practical advantage of the fast sequential summation algorithms is that they do not require supercomputers and can run on the cheapest single processor systems.


Microscale thermal measurement by the atomic force microscope (AFM) with a thermocouple probe has been investigated. Temperature distribution measurement of a small heater and thermal visualization of a composite material, carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP), were conducted with controlling an ambient air pressure. In the temperature measurement, it has been shown a temperature image is affected by heat conduction through the ambient air in a spatial resolution and contrast. The performance is evaluated at 30 μm spatial resolution in a high contrast image under the atmospheric pressure condition, while less than 1 μm resolution in a noisy image under the low pressure condition. In the microscale thermal characteristics measurement, carbon fiber and epoxy resin in the CFRP are thermally distinguished by detecting contact point temperature, implying thermal visualization is possible. The heat conduc-tion simulation shows the thermal image displays overall thermal conductance of the sample from the back side to the contact point which is decided by contact scale, thermo-physical properties and material structure.


In the present study we have evaluated the effect of recombinant interferons, including leukocyte (IFN-alpha A), fibroblast (IFN-beta) and immune (IFN-gamma), and the tumor promoting agent 12-0-tetradecanoyl-phorbol-13-acetate (TPA) on the expression of tumor associated antigens (TAA) and class II HLA-DR antigens on human breast carcinoma cell lines. The effect of these agents on the shedding of a high molecular weight tumor associated glycoprotein, BCA-225, was also determined. All three interferons and TPA enhanced the expression of the Mr 180,000 carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and CEA-related TAA recognized by monoclonal antibody B1.1 in both T47D and MCF-7 human breast carcinoma cell lines. The three types of interferons and TPA differed in their absolute TAA-augmenting ability, even in single-cell subclones derived from MCF-7 cells and previously shown to display a differential susceptibility to IFN-alpha augmentation of B1.1 expression. In general, IFN-gamma was more effective than IFN-alpha, IFN-beta or TPA in augmenting the expression of TAA, CEA and BCA-225, and HLA-DR expression in T47D and MCF-7 cells. Differences were also apparent in the ability of the three interferon preparations and TPA to induce shedding of BCA-225 in T47D and MCF-7 cells and their subclones. As observed with TAA expression, IFN-gamma was the most effective preparation in inducing TAA shedding. IFN-gamma also induced the expression and the shedding of BCA-225 by a subclone of T47D cells, T47D cl 17, which normally displays a reduced expression of BCA-225 and does not spontaneously shed this TAA without exposure to IFN-gamma. Recombinant leukocyte interferon (IFN-alpha A) also enhanced BCA-225 expression on T47D cells grown as xenografts in nude mice in vivo. The results of the present study emphasize the complexity of potential antigenic responses which can be induced in human breast carcinoma cells when they are exposed to biological response modulators, including different types of interferon, and tumor promoting agents, such as TPA. This investigation also indicates that both classes of agents can differentially augment expression and/or shedding of TAA by specific breast carcinoma cell lines as well as subclones derived from the same breast carcinoma cell line.


An anomalous vessel is reported in a patient with an anterior circulation aneurysm. The presence of an accessory middle cerebral artery arising from the postcommunicating segment of the anterior cerebral artery is described. The clinical relevance and possible etiology of the anomaly are reviewed.


Background/Purpose Resilience has received attention as an important process in the experience and management of chronic morbidities.1 However, few studies have evaluated resilience in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus and possible associations with treatment adherence.2 Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess the impact of resilience, the ability to withstand and bounce back from adversity, on medication adherence in SLE patients. Methods A cross-sectional observational study was conducted in outpatients with SLE. Patients were assessed for resilience (Connor-Davison Resilience Scale, CD-RISC), depressive symptoms (Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, CES-D) and medication adherence using the Compliance Questionnaire for Rheumatology (CQR). The disease activity index (Mex-SLEDAI) and damage index (SLICC) were administered in the patients. Factors independently associated with adherence were identified using multivariable logistic regression. Results Of the 157 patients, 152 (96.8%) were female with a median age of 45.9 (IQR: 39.0–55.5) years and disease duration of 14 (IQR: 10.0–19.0) years. Medication adherence (CQR ≥80%) and depressive symptoms were found in 74.5% and 43.9% of patients, respectively. Adherent patients had a lower CES-D score and a higher CD-RISC score. A positive correlation between resilience and adherence was found (r=0.26, p=0.001). In the multivariate analysis adjusting for demographic and clinical confounders, resilience remained significantly associated with high adherence (OR 1.04 [95% CI 1.02–1.07]). In addition, being older was also independently associated with high adherence (95%CI 1.04 [1.0–1.07]). Conclusions In SLE patients, resilience may be associated with better medication adherence. Therefore, a resilience-based perspective might be a new approach that focuses on enhancing strategies to improve adherence. References Grünberg J. The impact of logistics and resilience on compliance. Pediatric Nephrol. 2005; 20;1823–1824. Mehat P, Atiquzzaman M, Esdaile JM, et al. Medication Nonadherence in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: A Systematic Review. Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken) 2017;69; 1706–1713.


In this paper, we report on the successful fabrication and comprehensive optical and electrothermal characterization of a silicon-based tunable optical filter. Of particular interest here are the static and transient electrothermal characteristics of the filter membrane. The filter is configured as a Fabry-Perot resonator with dielectric Bragg reflectors and is fabricated as a stress-compensated multilayer of dielectric thin-films. Tunability is achieved by changing the refractive index of the solid-state cavity material through thermal modulation, accomplished by Joule heating in metal thin-film resistors. The filter layers are configured as a membrane to provide good thermal isolation and its electrothermal behavior was characterized in steady-state and dynamically. A maximum stable temperature difference of 450 K and a heating efficiency of 13.4 K mW-1 were measured with a thermal time constant for the filter hotplate of 3 ms. The filter's spectral width is 0.28 nm at a wavelength of 1550 nm and through thermal modulation it was possible to shift the filter peak over more than 29 nm.


The aim of this chapter is to describe and compare the trends and innovations of family policies in the European Union (EU) and the United States, from the latter part of the twentieth century through to the present day, taking into account cross-national differences in the wider political objectives, the underlying policy logics, and the consequences for different population groups. Having previously followed different policy frames and approaches, advanced welfare states have all, on some level, recognized the need to support if not actively encourage female labor market participation. Despite some level of convergence in policy frames and, to a lesser extent, policy approaches, the different institutional and social legacies mean that even when policy goals and instruments are similar, the nature and extent of their impact may nonetheless vary substantially.


BACKGROUND
Obesity is a chronic and multifactorial disease, associated with increased cardiovascular risk, especially diastolic heart failure.

OBJECTIVE
To evaluate left ventricular diastolic function in morbidly obese patients in the pre-operative for bariatric surgery, correlating it with cardiovascular risk factors and heart structure.

METHODS
This is a cross-sectional study with 132 patients eligible for bariatric surgery submitted to transthoracic echocardiography assessment and of cardiovascular risk factors, as follows: 97 women (73.5%), mean age 38.5 ± 10.5 years and BMI of 43.7 ± 7.2 kg / m(2). Patients were divided into three groups: 61 with normal diastolic function, 24 with mild diastolic dysfunction and 47 with moderate/severe diastolic dysfunction, of which 41 with moderate diastolic dysfunction (pseudonormal pattern) and six with severe diastolic dysfunction (restrictive pattern).

RESULTS
Hypertension, age and gender were different in the groups with diastolic dysfunction. Groups with dysfunction had higher left atrial diameter, left ventricular diameter, left atrial volume in four and two chambers, left atrial volume index and left ventricular mass index corrected for body surface area and height.

CONCLUSION
The high frequency of left ventricular diastolic dysfunction in the preclinical phase in morbidly obese patients justifies the need for careful echocardiographic assessment, aiming at identifying individuals at higher risk, so that early intervention measures can be carried out.


Novel carbon-supported Ni catalysts (Ni/C/Al2O3) for wastewater treatment by the hydrothermal gasification were prepared by the sol-gel method using polyethylene glycol (PEG) and aluminium tri-s-butoxide (ASB). Phenol and glycerin aqueous solutions were used as a model wastewater and as a model byproduct of biodiesel, respectively. It was found from XRD patterns that metal Ni in fresh catalysts increased with increasing PEG, and that amorphous Al2O3-support was transformed to boehmite during hydrothermal gasification. N2 adsorption measurement revealed that effect of amounts of PEG on surface area and pore volume was negligibly small for sol-gel derived catalysts, whereas surface area, pore volume and pore diameter of catalyst prepared by impregnation method decreased during impregnation of Ni. The catalysts prepared using more PEG tended to show higher phenol conversion and higher yields of gases (methane and carbon dioxide) for hydrothermal gasification under the same condition. The sol-gel derived catalysts, especially sg-16N63C21A (Figures show 16wt% of Ni, 63wt% of carbon in PEG, 21wt% of Al2O3, respectively. Similarly described below. LHSV=48h, phenol water 2-20 g/L), exhibited high catalytic activity compared with (1) catalyst prepared without PEG (sg-16N84A), (2) catalyst prepared by the impregnation method (i16N/sg-11C73A) and (3) commercial reference Ni catalyst (ref. Ni). In the present case, it is considered that Al2O3-support does not play an important role in hydrothermal gasification, because the catalytic activity was stable during the reaction, even if the surface area and pore volume decreased, and the boehmite was formed during hydrothermal gasification. However, introduction of PEG dispersed metal Ni with high loading on carbon derived from PEG. Thus, the sol-gel method using PEG was effective in preparation of catalysts for hydrothermal gasification.


Diamond films have been grown on a Si substrate that acts as the anode of a tubular DC hollow cathode discharge, using CH4-H2 as the feed gas mixture. Changes in film morphology were observed for different electrode spacing but the film morphology was nearly independent of the substrate temperature. This suggests that the film morphology depends on the concentration of free radicals reaching the anode.


The United Kingdom was one of only three EU member states to allow citizens of those Eastern European countries acceding in May 2004 freedom of entry into the labour market. Although this arrangement was not extended to the citizens of Bulgaria and Romania they continue to be employed under the work permits scheme, the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme and the Sectors Based Scheme. This chapter looks at the post-enlargement worker inflows from the new EU member countries and their impact on employment and wages of domestic workers by level of education in the United Kingdom.


The distribution and the morphology of some endocrine cells (gastrin, somatostatin and 5-HT immunoreactive) in the pyloric region were studied in the Talpa europaea, an insectivore representing one of the most primitive living Eutherians. The immunohistochemical studies enabled us to identify and calculate the percentage of each cell type: the most numerous endocrine cells were gastrin immunoreactive; fairly numerous appeared somatostatin immunopositive; less numerous were 5-HT immunoreactive cells. While the ultrastructural observations let us describe four endocrine cell types: G cells producing gastrin, D cells containing somatostatin, EC cells of the gastric type producing 5-HT and D1 cells whose content is still unknown.


"Know your enemies, know yourself," advised Sun Zi in his famous Art of War (AoW). In contrast, the legendary Admiral Zheng He would have said, "Know your collaborators, know yourself," and this would be the essence of his Art of Collaboration (AoC). This book offers a fresh new approach to doing business and providing leadership in the twenty-first century, where Zheng He's peaceful and win-win collaborative paradigm present in his AoC provides an alternative to the aggressive and antagonistic mindset inherent in Sun Zi's AoW. The author has culled from the existing literature on the historical, cultural, diplomatic, and maritime-oriented Zheng He, connected the dots of his discovery of a managerial Zheng He, and wrote this book to present both the big message of Zheng He's Art of Collaboration as well as an understanding of Zheng He's specific work as a leader and manager.


Otitis media with effusion (OME) offers the primary care physician both a diagnostic and a therapeutic challenge. The tympanic membrane of a child frequently is difficult to assess, especially in the uncooperative patient whose ear canal is partially occluded by cerumen. However, if the ear canal can be cleared to allow an unobscured view of the tympanic membrane, then pneumatic otoscopy and tympanometry can be extremely valuable in both the diagnosis and follow-up after initiation of treatment. Patient Groups The pediatrician usually is faced with two groups of patients in this disease process. The first group includes the young child who has recurrent episodes of acute otitis media. Frequently, affected patients can be subdivided into those who clear their middle ear space of fluid between episodes and those who do not. The second group consists of children who have asymptomatic chronic effusion, usually leading to persistent hearing loss. These children tend to be slightly older but are no less troublesome for the clinician. Treatment Controlled clinical trials have been extremely important in providing information about both of these groups. These studies have shown that chemoprophylaxis is extremely useful in managing the patient who has recurring acute suppurative episodes not complicated by persistent effusion during the interval periods.


N6-methyladenosine (m6A) modification is a prevalent modification of messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) in eukaryote cells and is closely associated with recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL). Circular RNAs (circRNAs) play critical roles in embryo implantation, trophoblast invasion and immune balance, which are important events during pregnancy. However, how m6A modification is regulated by circRNAs and the potential regulatory mechanism of circRNAs on RPL occurrence remain largely unclassified. We displayed the expression profiles of circRNAs and mRNAs in the decidua of normal pregnancies and RPL patients based on circRNA sequencing and the Gene Expression Omnibus database. A total of 936 differentially expressed circRNAs were identified, including 509 upregulated and 427 downregulated circRNAs. Differentially expressed circRNAs were enriched in immune, metabolism, signaling and other related pathways via the analysis of Gene Ontology (GO) and the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway. The competitive endogenous RNA (ceRNA) network was predicted to supply the possible role of circRNAs in RPL occurrence, and we further analyzed the profiles of nine m6A regulators (seven readers, one writer and one eraser) managed by circRNAs in this network. We also showed the expression profiles of circRNAs in the serum, trying to seek a potential biomarker to help in the diagnosis of RPL. These data imply that circRNAs are involved in pathogenesis of RPL by changing immune activities, metabolism and m6A modification in the ceRNA network. Our study might provide assistance in exploring the pathogenesis and diagnosis of RPL.


IC design is upstream and innovation-oriented in semiconductor industry. This industry is emerging rapidly due to severe competition and shorter product life cycle. In this context, maintaining the leading edge among global competitors as well as overcoming operational challenges is critical to pursue sustainability. In order to enhance the achievements and improve service quality, IC design firms often endeavor to comprehend, if the inputs/investments have led to effective outputs/achievements. A holistic discussion on how successful IC design companies prevail can facilitate how different IC design firms utilize their particular attributes associated with organizational goals. The purpose of this research is to conduct a cluster analysis for global top 30 IC design firms through 15 selected variables to understand their characteristics. These 15 variables include inputs/investments and outputs/achievements collected from financial indicators primarily to examine their characteristics in each cluster. The factor analysis, cluster analysis, and discriminant analysis are adopted to identify the attributes of these companies. The findings first show that the preliminary 15 variables can be refined into four significant factors by their factor loadings using factor analysis. Second, five groups among 30 companies have been categorized in terms of cluster analysis. Third, the accuracy is 94.7% by the validation of discrimination analysis. The strengths and weaknesses of each single cluster are also discussed. The results can help IC design companies to pursue a more suitable business model and tackle unique improvements, respectively.


Considering a determinantal point process on the real line, we establish a connection between the sine-kernel asymptotics for the correlation kernel and the CLT for mesoscopic linear statistics. This implies universality of mesoscopic fluctuations for a large class of unitary invariant Hermitian ensembles. In particular, this shows that the support of the equilibrium measure need not be connected in order to see Gaussian fluctuations at mesoscopic scales. Our proof is based on the cumulants computations introduced in [48] for the CUE and the sine process and the asymptotics formulae derived by Deift et al. in [12]. For varying weights $e^{-N \tr V (H)}$, in the one-cut regime, we also provide estimates for the variance of linear statistics $\tr f(H)$ which are valid for a rather general function $f$. In particular, this implies that the characteristic polynomials of such Hermitian random matrices converge in a suitable regime to a regularized fractional Brownian motion with logarithmic correlations defined in [19]. For the GUE kernel, we also discuss how to obtain the necessary sine-kernel asymptotics at mesoscopic scale by elementary means.


This paper analyses developments of comparative output and productivity levels in 17 manufacturing industries in Taiwan, South Korea and Indonesia compared to the United States for the period 1980-2000. In order to express value added in a common currency, unit value ratios are developed for the benchmark year 1997. The study provides an update and extension of the benchmark studies for 1987 of Taiwan (Timmer, 1998), South Korea (Pilat, 1994) and Indonesia (Szirmai, 1994). In addition, comparisons of unit labour cost are made. It is shown that the Asian financial crisis has led to a quick restructuring process in South Korea which maintained its catch-up trend with the US during the 1990s. The level of value added per hour worked in 2000 is 35% of the US. On the other hand, performance in Taiwanese manufacturing dwindled in the 1990s and it has almost lost it productivitylead over South Korea. In 2000, labour productivity was 40% of the US level. Catching up in Indonesia started to take off at the end of the 1980s but this process has been dramatically reversed in the aftermath of the 1997 financial crisis. It has barely recovered to pre-1997 levels and growth relies heavily on export industries with little productivity growth. In 2000, value added per hour worked in the medium and large scale industry is still below 10 % of the US level.


AIM
The primary purpose of this study was to examine the effect of attempting to exercise supra-maximally on reaction time and movement time in a non-compatible response time task.

METHODS
Subjects (n=9) undertook a 4-choice non-compatible response time test at rest, while cycling at 70 rpm with a resistance of 35 W (low intensity exercise), cycling at 70% of their maximum power output (MPO), cycling at 100% MPO and attempting to cycle at 70 rpm, with a resistance that was 28 W greater than the resistance required to elicit MPO (supra-maximal effort).

RESULTS
Reaction time, movement time, intra-individual variations in reaction time and movement time at each exercise intensity were compared by a series of repeated measures analyses of variance. A significant effect of exercise was shown for movement time, F(4,32)=6.05, p<0.001, eta2=0.44, Power=0.97 and intra-individual variation in reaction time, F(4,32)=4.98, p<0.005, eta2=0.38, Power=0.93. For movement time, Tukey post-hoc tests showed that performance at rest was significantly slower than that during exercise at 70%, 100% MPO and supra-maximal effort. Performance at low intensity exercise was significantly slower than that at MPO. For intra-individual variations in reaction time, Tukey tests found that variations under supra-maximal effort and MPO were significantly greater than those at low intensity and 70% MPO.

CONCLUSIONS
It was concluded that exercise facilitates speed of movement when the limbs used for the motor task are not the ones that are being exercised. Reaction time during maximal and supra-maximal exercise demonstrates large intra-individual variations.


This paper is concerned with a particular fracture mechanics parameter ΔK th , known as the 'threshold stress intensity range', or 'fatigue threshold'. This threshold ΔK th constitutes, as it were, a hinge between the notion of crack initiation and the notion of crack growth. It has often been thought that, like the endurance limit, it could be an intrinsic criterion of the material. The study was conducted on a SA-508 pressure vessel steel used in the nuclear power industry. This material exhibits a typical threshold effect in the range of the crack growth rates which were determined; that is, below approximately da/dN=10 -6 ㎜/cycle, the slope of the da./dN versus ΔK curve is almost vertical. The value of ΔK th was determined at a growth rate of 10 -7 ㎜/cycle according to the ASTM Standard for threshold testing. The fatigue threshold values are in the range 21 ㎏/㎜ 3/2 to 12 ㎏/㎜ 3/2 depending on the stress ratio effect.


Chemical pesticides are indiscriminately used for pest management and vector control. However, many farming communities are unaware of the dangers associated with the chemicals. This study assessed vegetable farmers' perception of the environmental impact of pesticide use in Bangladesh concerning the farmers' knowledge and type. The farmers' socioeconomic characteristics and their relationship to some of the study variables, their attitude towards pesticides' environmental consequences, and their level of pesticide related knowledge were investigated. In this study, 882 farmers from nine districts participated through in-depth interviews and observations on-farm. The majority of farmers were males aged between 30 and 40 (32.44% in winter and 32.87% in summer). Moreover, 29.77% of the winter vegetable growers can sign their name only, but for the summer season's 31.02% were educated up to high school. For the winter season, the highest 74.44% of respondents belonged to focal farmers who believed pesticides could be hazardous to their health. Only 1.68% of control farmers agreed pesticide use could lead to secondary pest resurgence. For the summer season, farmers were most concerned (60.19%) about the health risks to farm-workers, while secondary pest resurgence was the least concerned. In general, the focal farmers had a high level of knowledge and concern about pesticide hazards compared to the proximal and control farmers. Comprehensive intervention measures are required to mitigate pesticide-related health and environmental risks, including pesticide safety training programs for farmers, which could promote sustainable agricultural development while minimizing the environmental and health risks of pesticide misuse.
Environ. Sci. & Natural Resources, 13(1&2): 94-99, 2020


User cooperation technique exploits the diversity in wireless networks. In this paper, we have analyzed a hybrid FDMA-TDMA access technique in a cooperative distributive fashion introducing and implementing a modified protocol introduced in [1]. We have defined one parameter termed as cooperation gain parameter (CGP) which is the function of transmitter-to-receiver average received signal to noise ratios. Depending on the value of CGP, we decide that whether we proceed with the direct transmission or using the cooperation in consideration. For instance, if value of CGP (G ≪ 1), the system will undergo the direct transmission and we termed as Power Gain Protocol (PGP) and if (G ≫ 1), the system will be operated in Power and Cooperation Diversity Gain Protocol (PCDGP). Vertical BLAST (Bell Laboratories Layered Space Time) or V-BLAST with minimum mean square error (MMSE) nulling is used at the relays to perfectly detect the joint signals from multiple source terminals. The performance is analyzed using binary phase shift keying (BPSK) modulation scheme and investigated over independent and identical (i.i.d) Rayleigh and Nakagami-m fading environments. Subsequently, simulation results show that the proposed scheme can provide better signal quality of uplink users in a cooperative communication system using hybrid FDMA-TDMA technique.


A multidisciplinary expert review of key issues and future directions from the conference "Controversial labels and clinical uncertainties: psychogenic disorders, conversion disorder, and functional symptoms." On October 9 and 10, 2015, a conference entitled "Controversial labels and clinical uncertainties: psychogenic disorders, conversion disorder, and functional symptoms" was held at the Center for Ethics, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA. This conference brought together a select group of 30 distinguished thought leaders and practitioners, including ethicists, researchers, clinicians, humanities scholars, and advocates to discuss the unique challenges and controversies related to the diagnosis, treatment, and stigma for patients with what is currently recognized as functional ("psychogenic") neurological disorders. Our group of experts explored the conflicts and ethical tensions within health care that must be addressed in order to advance care for these disorders. What follows is a reflection on the conversations between conference attendees outlining key challenges and value conflicts in the diagnosis and treatment of patients with functional disorders. With this report, we aim to provide a roadmap for reducing stigma and improving care for functional neurological disorders (FND). A path forward would involve (1) setting a multifactorial research agenda that equally prioritized access to effective psychotherapy as well as identification of novel biomarkers; (2) empowering patients with FND to be heard and to drive changes in care; and (3) reducing isolation for clinicians by providing formal training and setting up multidisciplinary care teams and support networks.


Inter-thread shared memory dependences are crucial to understanding the behavior of concurrent systems, as such dependences are the cornerstone of time-travel debugging and further predictive trace analyses. To enable effective and efficient shared memory dependence tracing, we present an optimistic scheme addressing the challenge of capturing exact dependences between unsynchronized events to reduce the probe effect of program instrumentation. Specifically, our approach achieved a wait-free fast path for thread-local reads on x86-TSO relaxed memory systems, and simultaneously achieved precise tracing of exact read-after-write, write-after-write and write-after-read dependences on the fly. We implemented an open-source RWTrace tool, and evaluation results show that our approach not only achieves efficient shared memory dependence tracing, but also scales well on a multi-core computer system. Keywords—concurrency; shared memory dependence; dynamic analysis


A 26 year old primiparous woman in the 30th gestational week presented with upper right abdominal pain. Clinical examination revealed direct tenderness under the right curverture, oedema, hypertension and proteinuria. Ultrasound scanning showed a normal gallbladder. Laboratory findings revealed Hemolysis, Elevated Liver enzymes and Low Platelet count. On account of suspected HELLP-syndrome cesarean section was performed. We suggest screening of all pregnant with upper abdominal symptoms suspected for preeclampsia by measuring platelet count and liver enzymes.


A bell jar is used to determine containment vessel pressurization due to outgassing of plutonium materials. Fifteen food cans containing plutonium bearing materials, including plutonium packaged in direct contact with plastic and plutonium contaminated enriched uranium oxide have been tested to date. As expected, minimal pressurization occurs and in some cases a slight depressurization has been observed. Linear extrapolation of the greatest pressurization observed in the bell jar to a typical drum shipping container (such as a 9975) has been performed. Pressurization from this particular can packaged for one year in a 9975 container is negligible.Copyright © 2002 by ASME


Abstract The hadrosaurid Nipponosaurus sachalinensis Nagao, 1936, was the first dinosaur discovered in Japan. Here we establish its ontogenetic stage, diagnostic characters, and systematic position by redescribing and phylogenetically analyzing the type and sole specimen of Nipponosaurus. The unfused neurocentral sutures of all vertebrae suggest that the type specimen of Nipponosaurus is subadult. Furthermore, it can be diagnosed by the following characters: (1) the coronoid process of the surangular is robust, (2) the neural spine of the axis is only slightly developed, and (3) the lateral margin of the first phalanx on digit IV is strongly deflected. The phylogenetic analysis, using 78 characters for seven ingroup and six outgroup taxa, indicates that Nipponosaurus belongs within Lambeosaurinae as the sister taxon to Hypacrosaurus altispinus.


AIMS To determine whether unilateral cataract causes a pathological Pulfrich's phenomenon. METHODS 29 subjects with unilateral cataract and contralateral pseudophakia were assessed on their ability to perceive the Pulfrich phenomenon. Using a computer generated pendulum image, and graded neutral density filters, a series of forced choice trials were performed in which the subject was required to describe the direction of any apparent pendulum rotation. A pathological Pulfrich effect was said to occur when apparent rotation was perceived in the presence of a zero strength neutral density filter. The size of any pathological Pulfrich effect which was present was quantified by neutralising the perceived pendulum rotation with neutral density filters of varying strength placed before the better seeing eye. RESULTS 20 out of 29 subjects were able to perceive apparent pendulum rotation when uniocular filtering was performed. In the group (n=12) which was tested both before and after cataract extraction with intraocular lens implantation, a statistically significant pathological Pulfrich effect was demonstrated preoperatively, compared with a group of normal control subjects. This effect was abolished after cataract extraction (p=0.009). The median size of the effect was equivalent to a 0.25 log unit neutral density filter over the non-cataractous eye. The subjects who were unable to perceive the Pulfrich phenomenon at all had a significantly greater difference in the visual acuity of each eye (p=0.045) and significantly worse stereoacuity than those who were able to perceive the effect (p=0.002). CONCLUSIONS Unilateral cataract can cause a pathological Pulfrich phenomenon. This finding may explain why some patients with unilateral cataract complain of visual symptoms that are not easily accounted for in terms of visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, or stereoacuity.