Although treatment of BPD is complicated, CBT therapists can learn schema therapy (ST) principles and strategies used as an additional tool in the therapy. ST originally began as an extension of Beck's cognitive therapy model and has developed into an unique integrative treatment for the personality disorders. According to the ST principles, schemas provide in-depth understanding of personality disorders. People perceive their own self, others and world in the lenses of their schemas. A schema is an extremely stable, constant pattern which developed during childhood or adolescence and now is elaborated in individuals life. ST also devotes considerable attention to modes, the predominant emotions, schemas, and coping reactions used by an individual at a particular time. The aim of the therapy is to engage in schema healing processes. These methods are intended to reduce the early mal- adaptive schemas and coping styles, and build up more adaptive and healthy approaches. A conceptualization is usually created early in the treatment. The history of the schemas, modes and coping strategies are systematically discussed, their origins explored and linked to current problems, and the opportunity of modifying is explored. In treatment phase, the therapist flexibly uses cognitive, emotional/experiential, behavioral, and relational/ interpersonal strategies to change schemas and maladaptive coping styles. The therapeutic relationship is also an important part of the healing process The relationship is an area in which behaviors modes and schemas can be noticed, assessed and modified. It is also used as mediator for a "corrective emotional experience". The therapist behaves in ways that supply the unmet early needs of the patient. This connection to the childhood is mir- rored in the label of this particular stance called "limited reparenting". The change of the schemas is impossible without the well-established therapeutic relationship.


We present a contribution on dynamic load balancing for distributed and parallel object-oriented applications. We specially target on peer to peer systems and its capability to distribute parallel computation, which transfer large amount of data (called intensive-communicated applications) among large number of processors. We explain the relation between active objects and processors load. Using this relation, and defining an order relation among processors, we describe our active object balance algorithm as a dynamic load balance algorithm, focusing on minimizing the time when active objects are waiting for the completion of remote calls. We benchmark a Jacobi parallel application with several load balancing algorithms. Finally, we study results from these experimentation in order to show that a peer to peer load balancing obtains the best performance in terms of migration decisions and scalability.


Starting from a previous work, a new Data Acquisition USB Device has been designed, developed, realized and characterized to be used in Power Quality and Smart Grid applications. The system simultaneously manages 8 data acquisition channels to allow voltages and currents monitoring on tri-phases lines. It can get external both certified time and voltage references to warranty certified measurements, but it also use internal references for non certified ones. The USB card is in PCI form factor and can be placed inside a common PC slot or in external shielded housing. FTDI Virtual ComPort drivers yield to a flexible multiplatform device, without requiring any advanced programming skill. The proposed device has been tested with custom software written in C# and VB6 languages, moreover it has been characterized applying the most common ADC performing test to verify its behavior.


The role of RNA methylation in the control of ribosome production in mammalian cells has been reinvestigated through a study of the effects in vivo of cycloleucine, a specific and reversible inhibitor of nucleic acid methylations. No close coupling is observed between methylation and transcription. During an extensive blocking of methylation, the synthesis of preribosomal 45-S RNA continues, although at a slightly reduced rate. Transcription and methylation can be temporarily uncoupled in vivo without impairing significantly the efficiency of the subsequent maturation of the transcript which takes place when the methylation is resumed. At the post-transcriptional level, two main observations are made. First, the cleavage pattern of ribosomal RNA is not qualitatively modified by the drug treatment. Preribosomal 45-S RNA which is synthesized during an extensive blocking of methylations (95%) is cleaved in vivo in a stepwise fashion into molecules resembling the species of the normal processing. Undermethylation does not result in the appearance of new size products and no extensive or rapid degredation of rRNA precursors can be detected. Second, the global efficiency of the process of ribosomal RNA maturation is severely affected, in quantitative terms; the undermethylation partially inhibits several stages in the maturation pathway and does not block selectively at a definite step of processing, as previously reported by others. Two main modifications are observed. (a) In the nucleus, the life times of the various undermethylated intermediates of ribosomal RNA maturation are markedly increased and a significant accumulation of these forms is detected by long-term labelling studies. (b) The rate of appearance of ribosomal 28-S RNA into the cytoplasm is severely affected (85-90% inhibition), in much higher proportions than the formation of its immediate precursor, nuclear 28-S RNA, thus suggesting a particular sensitivity to a lack of methylation of the last stage of preribosome maturation (possibly the release to cytoplasm). Finally, if a normal level of methylation does not appear to be stringently required for the completion of ribosomal RNA maturation, our results indicate that the degree of RNA methylation can modulate the general efficiency of the maturation processess.


The photoproduction of pions from 12C leading to the ground states of 12N and 12B is studied in the distorted-wave impulse approximation theory using the nuclear wave functions of Hirooka et al. The final state interaction is incorporated by solving the wave equation with a suitable pion-nucleus optical potential. Our calculations are in reasonable agreement with the available experimental data and the existing theoretical calculations.


Shannon Bartelt-Hunt is a Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Nebraska. She received her Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from the University of Virginia and her research focuses on the fate and transport of biologically-active organic contaminants in agricultural systems and water reuse in agriculture. She is a faculty fellow of the Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute at the University of Nebraska and maintains a courtesy appointment in the Department of Environmental, Occupational and Agricultural Health at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. She has published over 95 peer-reviewed journal papers and book chapters, was awarded an NSF CAREER award in 2012, and in 2015 was a member of a team receiving the Grand Prize for University Research from the American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Scientists. Dr. Bartelt-Hunt teaches an introductory course in environmental engineering as well as environmental engineering chemistry and solid waste management and has received university and national awards recognizing her teaching. She served as graduate chair in the Department of Civil Engineering from 2013-2016 and in 2014, was named a R. Vernon McBroom Engineering Leadership fellow in the College of Engineering.


ABSTRACT The political language of radical nationalism, combined with the logic of justice as non-domination, has become hegemonic in the Hungarian press. The structural position and related discursive traditions of the country form the background against which migratory processes and their interpretations are examined in this article, making the analysis revealing also in regional terms. In the Hungarian case, alternative narrative frames and justice logics are linked to migration collapse in the face of a nationalist 'freedom fight' and efforts to create and preserve an ethnically and culturally homogenous nation – and Europe.


In order to use in the classification of minor crop for the mutual application of safe use guideline, it was investigated the residue property of fungicide boscalid and fludioxonil at the same time harvest leafy-vegetables, such as spinach, ulgaribaechu, vitaminchae and cheongkyungchae. After pesticides were applied 2 times with 1 week interval in that day of harvest, 2 days, 5 days and 7 days before harvest, vegetables were harvested, and the residue of pesticides was investigated. Base on the residue in that day of harvest, the deposit of spray solution in vegetables was calculated. The deposit of spray solution of boscalid was 253.9 mL/kg in spinach, 83.0 mL/kg in ulgaribaechu, 97.8 mL/kg in vitaminchae, and 88.3 mL/kg in cheongkyungchae, respectively. In case of fludioxonil, it was calculated 157.6 mL/kg in spinach, 67.6 mL/kg in ulgaribaechu, 64.8 mL/kg in vitaminchae, and 66.6 mL/kg in cheongkyungchae, respectively. When the amount of the deposit of both pesticides was compared in leafy-vegetables, it was the highest in the spinach. On the other hand, it was estimated the predicted dissipation curve of pesticides in leafy-vegetables during cultivation. The half-life of boscalid was 5.9 days in spinach, 7.4 days in ulgaribaechu, 4.6 days in vitaminchae, and 4.3 days in cheongkyungchae, respectively. Also, it was estimated half-life in fludioxonil, it was 3.0 days in spinach, 4.0 days in ulgaribaechu, 3.2 days in vitaminchae, and 3.5 days in cheongkyungchae, respectively. The half-life was the longest in the ulgaribaechu. When both pesticides were compared with the residue property, the deposit of spray solution and half-life of dissipation of boscalid were more than those of fludioxonil.


As automotive torque converters decrease in both diameter and axial length, the effects of cavitation in the torque converter becomes increasingly important on noise, efficiency, and performance goals. Cavitation is the formation and collapse of vapor bubbles in a working fluid when local static pressure falls below the vapor pressure of the working fluid. A technique to detect cavitation in automotive torque converters using nearfield acoustical measurements is presented. The technique concentrates on high frequency noise that is associated with the collapse of vapor bubbles. The nearfield acoustical technique is compared to two other techniques using static pressure measurements inside the torque converter; one on the torque converter stator blades and the other on the torque converter pump blades. A microwave telemetry transmitter was used to obtain data from inside the torque converter in both previous investigations. The nearfield acoustical technique is demonstrated to be valid on a torque converter dynamometer test stand and in the bell housing of an operating vehicle. Using the nearfield acoustical technique, the effects of temperature and charge pressure on cavitation are shown. These effects are shown to agree with typical cavitation behaviors. The results for different performance torque converters are compared in the vehicle and on the dynamometer test stand. The results from in-vehicle tests show the same trends as test stand results. The nearfield acoustical technique provides a simple, relatively inexpensive procedure that can be utilized on a test stand as well as in the vehicle to determine the onset of cavitation in automotive torque converters.


The Andean genera Lurama Schaus, 1928 and Ulmara Schaus, 1928 are revised. Lurama poses difficulty for revision due to lost male genitalia of the types of both described species. Ulmara conjuncta sp. n., Ulmara azurula sp. n., and Ulmara dombroskiei sp. n. are described as new in the genus Ulmara. A lectotype is designated for Lurama quindiuna Schaus, 1928 and Ulmara rotunda (Dognin, 1916). A new monotypic genus, Cunicumara gen. n., which is externally similar to Ulmara, is described to include the new species Cunicumara anae sp. n. from low elevations of Bolivia and Paraguay. Male genital morphology does not support a close association of Cunicumara with Lurama or Ulmara. The latter two genera, however, are closely related based on similarities of male genitalia and biogeography.


Let T=(V, E) be a tree with vertex set V and edge set E. Let n=|V|. Each e/spl isin/E has a non-negative length. In this paper, we first present an algorithm on the CREW PRAM for solving the V/V/r-dominating set problem on T, where r/spl ges/0 is a real number. The algorithm requires O(log/sup 2/ n) time using O(n log n) work. Applying this algorithm as a procedure for testing feasibility, the V/V/p-center problem on the CREW PRAM is solved in O(log/sup 2/ n) time using O(n log/sup 2/ n) work, where p/spl ges/1 is an integer. Previously, He and Yesha had proposed algorithms on the CREW PRAM for special cases of the V/V/r-dominating set and the V/V/p-center problems, in which r is an integer and the lengths of all edges are 1. Their V/V/r-dominating set algorithm requires O(log n log log n) time using O(n log n log log n) work; and their V/V/p-center algorithm requires O(log/sup 2/ n log log n) time using O(n log/sup 2/ n log log n) work. As compared with He and Yesha's results, ours are more general and more efficient from the aspect of work.


BACKGROUND
The HIV Cost and Services Utilization Study (HCSUS) was conducted by a consortium of private and government institutions centered at the RAND Corp. to provide national estimates of adult medical patients who are HIV-positive. This article presents descriptive oral health findings from that study.

METHODS
The National Opinion Research Center (NORC) conducted four interviews of a nationally representative sample of adults with HIV who made a medical visit for regular care in early 1996. This article uses data from the second interview conducted between December 1996 and July 1997. The authors constructed analytical weights for each respondent so the 2,466 interviewees represented a population of 219,700.

RESULTS
Most adult medical patients with HIV rated their oral health as at least "good," but 12 percent (representing a population of 25,300) rated it as "poor." Xerostomia was the most commonly reported symptom (37 percent) to arise in the time since the previous interview. Twenty-nine percent had a dental benefit under Medicaid and 23 percent had private insurance. Eighteen percent had not revealed their HIV status to the dentist they usually saw.

CONCLUSIONS
National data on adult medical patients with HIV provide a context for local or convenience sample studies and can help give direction to public health and public policy programs directed to the oral health needs of this population.

CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS
The attitudes and beliefs of adult HIV patients should be taken into account in the creation of community health education programs and continuing education for dentists. Medicaid programs should include adult dental benefits.


The aim for this research is to deliberately discuss how and why the contexts of culture are the main significant factors which need to be considered when conducting the international business oversea. As a consequence of understanding these various factors, the researcher would be able to infer some suggestions to the international organizations. With this in mind, the results of the understanding in a national culture environment can support the organizations to settle its international strategies which may be useful to develop the national export and import effectiveness. This data collecting methods will be concentrated upon 5-10 interviews from the senior members and business officers in the international company in Thailand by e-mail interview and analyses the individual manager's viewpoint. As well as, focus on the questionnaires which the respondents were selected randomly around 100 samples from UK and Thailand, together with providing a functional sample size and comparable to data. The results of the study question the role of national culture, which contributed to in international business effectiveness and emphasize the positive and negative aspects, as well as suggestions to business investors are informed. Keywords—Contexts of culture, International business effectiveness, International strategies, National Culture.


Strong global competition in the shipbuilding market has forced shipyards to focus their efforts on optimizing their system resources. Therefore, the development of efficient medium-term and short-term operation strategies in the shipyard block assembly process is becoming a potential competitiveness tool. This paper introduces a heuristic simulation-based approach to address the scheduling problem for shipbuilding in a real-world multi-stage production system. The main goal is to minimize the total production and assembly time of the shipbuilding process (makespan) applying different types of heuristic rules in an advanced simulation framework. The proposed simulation model allows evaluation of the effective production of a large number of blocks and sub-blocks, while satisfying a large set of hard constraints. Uncertain alternative scenarios are tested and computational statistics are carefully analyzed.


Synchronization of network-coupled dynamical units is important to a variety of natural and engineered processes including circadian rhythms, cardiac function, neural processing, and power grids. Despite this ubiquity, it remains poorly understood how complex network structures and heterogeneous local dynamics combine to either promote or inhibit synchronization. Moreover, for most real-world applications it is impossible to obtain the exact specifications of the system, and there is a lack of theory for how uncertainty affects synchronization. We address this open problem by studying the Synchrony Alignment Function (SAF), which is an objective measure for the synchronization properties of a network of heterogeneous oscillators with given natural frequencies. We extend the SAF framework to analyze network-coupled oscillators with heterogeneous natural frequencies that are drawn as a multivariate random vector. Using probability theory for quadratic forms, we obtain expressions for the expectation and variance of the SAF for given network structures. We conclude with numerical experiments that illustrate how the incorporation of uncertainty yields a more robust theoretical framework for enhancing synchronization, and we provide new perspectives for why synchronization is generically promoted by network properties including degree-frequency correlations, link directedness, and link weight delocalization.


An apparatus (100, 300, 370, 380, 400, 500, 600) and method are provided for producing an electrochemically-activated liquid (20, 22, 44, 45, 51, 52, 71, 160, 190, 192). The apparatus includes a mobile body (102, 306, 381) configured to travel over a surface (125, 302), a source (14, 70, 106, 502, 602) of a liquid, a liquid dispenser (194, 310, 352, 354, 362, 371, 406, 506, 606) and a flow path (16, 17, 18, 59, 70, 71, 160, 160A, 160B) from the liquid source to the liquid dispenser. A functional generator (10, 40, 162, 324, 504, 604) is coupled in the flow path, which comprises an anode chamber (24) and a cathode chamber (26) separated by an ion exchange membrane (27, 43) and which electrochemically activates the liquid from the liquid source which is passed through the functional generator (10, 40, 162, 324, 504, 604).


Food allergy is an immune system reaction to a particular food, milk being the most common one. β-Lactoglobulin (β-Lg) is the main ingredient of milk protein and the main cause of infant milk allergy. On such an occasion, the determination of β-Lg is very important and the electrochemical sensors are a good alternative for this purpose since they are sensitive, selective and inexpensive. In this work, an electrochemical aptasensor was fabricated for the quantitative detection of β-Lg in hypoallergenic formula (HF) milk. A tri-functional hairpin (HP) was designed, which was composed of an aptamer sequence, a nicking site and a DNA sequence (T1). In the absence of β-Lg, the aptamer part hybridized with T1 to form a stable stem-loop structure. However, in the presence of β-Lg, the capture of the aptamer sequence towards β-Lg caused the reconstruction of HP and thus the nicking sites were exposed. Then, the nicking enzyme was activated and T1 could be released, which bound with the end of the hairpin 1-methylene blue (HP1-MB)/HP2-MB conjugation on the Au nanoparticle (AuNP) modified electrode surface. Thus, the insulating property of the electrode was enhanced and the current response of MB decreased, which built the quantitative basis for β-Lg detection. In this way, the proposed aptasensor exhibited a wide linear range of 0.01-100 ng mL-1 and a low detection limit of 5.7 pg mL-1. This aptasensor also displayed high selectivity, reproducibility and stability, and became a promising platform for β-Lg detection in real food samples.


Blockchain technology has demonstrated huge potential in providing simplicity and efficiency for different industries. However, its implementation in the automotive and aerospace industry is quite slow because of its difficulty to show value creation. Real option methodology, specifically the learning option, is an assessment tool which fits the conditions under which investment in blockchain technology is carried out. Thus, its application can help managers to wisely invest in this technology despite the complexity of this industry. This study offers a suitable tool to assess the strategic value of an investment in blockchain technology from a conservative position by using the real option approach, particularly the learning option. Specifically, this paper provides the mathematical expression to obtain the value of a project which includes the learning option for n periods. Likewise, it tries to raise awareness among managers of the importance to gather relevant information before making irreversible decisions. The results show that, despite the high profitability of the analyzed sector and the strategic value added by the learning option to the investment, the value of this option remains constant over the project lifespan. This indicates that the blockchain investment has to be implemented as soon as possible given that it is a highly profitable project whose value increases very slowly by waiting to get more new information. In this way, the immediate investment in blockchain technology in the automotive and aerospace industry is recommended to reap the competitive advantages offered by digital technologies.


Most gait training systems are designed for acute and subacute neurological inpatients. Many systems are used for relearning gait movements (nonfunctional training) or gait cycle training (functional gait training). Each system presents its own advantages and disadvantages in terms of functional outcomes. However, training gait cycle movements is not sufficient for the rehabilitation of ambulation. There is a need for new solutions to overcome the limitations of existing systems in order to ensure individually tailored training conditions for each of the potential users, no matter the complexity of his or her condition. There is also a need for a new, integrative approach in gait rehabilitation, one that encompasses and addresses all aspects of physical as well as psychological aspects of ambulation in real-life multitasking situations. In this respect, a multidisciplinary multinational team performed an overview of the current technology for gait rehabilitation and reviewed the principles of ambulation training.


The purpose of the study is comparing changes of an autonomic nervous system by measuring the pre and post autonomic nerve activity of middle-aged women between treatment and non-treatment meridian massage. By using Nerve Express 2.2(HEART RHYTHM INSTRUMENTS, INC. USA), we operated Ortho Test to measure an autonomic nervous system. The results in brief are, autonomic nerve changes by meridian massage were no significant difference but were little decreased at upright condition of SN of MG and were significantly decreased at supine condition of MG. At supine and upright condition of PSN were increased significantly after complete meridian massage. No significant difference was found between pre and post meridian massage in SN and PSN of CG at supine and upright condition. The significant difference between two groups at supine and upright condition of SN, supine and upright condition of PSN were found statistically. In conclusion, an automatic nerve activity was affected positively by meridian massage because of decrease in sympathetic nerve tension and increase in parasympathetic nerve tension. Therefore, meridian massage should be the appropriate exercise for middle-aged women to improve their cardiac function.


CONTEXT
The GH/IGF-I axis influences gonadal development and function. Recently, a deletion of exon 3 in the GH receptor gene (GHRd3) has been linked to increased responsiveness to GH.

OBJECTIVE
Our objective was to evaluate the influence of the GHRd3 gene on birth size and pubertal onset.

DESIGN AND SETTING
We conducted a cross-sectional study, part of The COPENHAGEN Puberty Study, at a tertiary center for pediatric endocrinology.

PARTICIPANTS
Participants included 618 healthy boys aged 6.1-19.8 yr.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
We assessed pubertal onset by genital staging and testicular palpation and parental reported birth weight and length. GHR genotypes were determined by multiplex PCR.

RESULTS
Age at onset of genital development (G2+) was significantly earlier in the GHRd3 homozygotes (GHRd3/d3) [10.86 (10.35-11.37) yr, mean (95% confidence interval)] compared with the full-length homozygotes (GHRfl/fl) [11.76 (11.35-12.00) yr, P = 0.002]. The odds ratio of having detectable testosterone levels for a given age was significantly higher in GHRd3/d3 compared with GHRfl/fl group (odds ratio = 3.1; 95% confidence interval = 1.2-8.9; P = 0.036). The GHRd3/d3 group the higher prepubertal IGF-I levels compared with the GHRfl/fl group (9.2% (0.1-18.1%), P = 0.048) after adjustment for IGF-binding protein-3 levels. Lower gestational-age-adjusted birth weight and length were found in the GHRd3/d3 group compared with the GHRfl/fl group and the GHRfl/d3 group, respectively (all P < or = 0.018).

CONCLUSION
The GHRd3/d3 genotype was associated with smaller birth size and earlier age at pubertal onset compared with the GHRfl/fl genotype. Thus, this common polymorphism could play a role for prenatal growth and gonadal development in boys.


Objective: To enumerate the types of pathology seen on lumbar spine plain radiographs of patients reporting to private chiropractic clinics in the United Kingdom.
Design: Retrospective analysis of radiology reports from a chiropractic radiology consultancy.

Setting: Private chiropractic radiology practice. Patients/Participants: All lumbar spine radiograph reports from a chiropractic radiology consulting practice over the course of one year were reviewed and the diagnoses were noted. 276 reports were reviewed and 262 were included in the study. Reports were included if they had definitive diagnoses, contained all relevant clinical information such as patient age, and reported on the lumbar spine only (e.g. full spine and thoraco-lumbar reports were excluded).
Intervention: None. Main Outcome Measures: The types of pathology and number of times each was encountered were entered on to a spreadsheet and totaled by type and category.

Results: Postural alterations and degenerative arthropathies were the most common pathologies encountered. The most serious pathologies encountered included two patients with tumours, three with acute compression fractures, 31 with osteoporosis and 80 with atherosclerosis. Seven patients with potentially significant findings were lost to follow up.

Conclusions: This study was limited by convenience sampling and small sample size, however some indication of the types of pathologies that chiropractors find on their images was obtained. Improved communication between manual therapy practitioners and the medical community would benefit all parties involved, including patients.


Nowadays, understanding the topology of biological neural networks and sampling their activity is possible thanks to various laboratory protocols that provide a large amount of experimental data, thus paving the way to accurate modeling and simulation. Neuromorphic systems were developed to simulate the dynamics of biological neural networks by means of electronic circuits, offering an efficient alternative to classic simulations based on systems of differential equations, from both the points of view of the energy consumed and the overall computational effort. Spikey is a configurable neuromorphic chip based on the Leaky Integrate-And-Fire model, which gives the user the possibility to model an arbitrary neural topology and simulate the temporal evolution of membrane potentials. To accurately reproduce the behavior of a specific biological network, a detailed parameterization of all neurons in the neuromorphic chip is necessary. Determining such parameters is a hard, error-prone, and generally time consuming task. In this work, we propose a novel methodology for the automatic calibration of neuromorphic chips that exploits a given neural activity as target. Our results show that, in the case of small networks with a low complexity, the method can estimate a vector of parameters capable of reproducing the target activity. Conversely, in the case of more complex networks, the simulations with Spikey can be highly affected by noise, which causes small variations in the simulations outcome even when identical networks are simulated, hindering the convergence to optimal parameterizations.


Demonetization is the demonstration of stripping a cash unit of its status as legitimate delicate. It happens at whatever point there is a difference in national cash: The present structure or types of cash is pulled from course and resigned, regularly to be supplanted with new notes or coins. Now and again, a nation totally replaces the old cash with new money. Evacuating the legitimate delicate status of a unit of cash is an extreme mediation into an economy since it straightforwardly impacts the vehicle of trade utilized in every single financial exchange. It can help settle existing issues, or it can cause bedlam in an economy, particularly whenever attempted abruptly or all of a sudden. All things considered, demonetization is attempted by countries for various reasons. Demonetization alludes to Withdrawal of a specific type of cash from dissemination. Demonetization is fundamental at whatever point there is a difference in national money. The old unit of money must be evacuated and substituted with another cash unit. The cash was demonetized first time in 1946 and second time in 1978. On Nov. 2016 the cash is demonetized third time by the present Modi government. This is the strong advance taken by the govt. for the improvement of the economy and nation. In this paper I need to examine the effect of ongoing demonetization on the Indian framework .


Hadron production measurements for neutrino experiments is a well established field at CERN since the '70s. Precise prediction of atmospheric neutrino fluxes, characterization of accelerator neutrino beams, quantification of pion production and capture for neutrino factory designs, all of these would profit from hadron production measurements. In recent years, interest in such studies was revived and new generation of low-energy (from 3 to 400 GeV) hadron production experiments were built or proposed. Such experiments all share a basic design, consisting in the presence of open-geometry spectrometers, as close as possible to full angular coverage, and aiming at full particle identification. New results are now provided by Harp in the very low energy range (3 to 15 GeV/c) and by NA49 at 158 GeV/c. In the next years NA49- future will explore the medium energy range (30 to 400 GeV/c) and at LHC energies for the first time thanks to the TOTEM experiment, it will be possible to measure with unprecedented precision the total cross section beyond 1 TeV/c.


We report a GaNAsSb-based photoconductive switch for microwave switching application. The GaNAsSb layer was grown by molecular beam epitaxy in conjunction with a radio-frequency plasma-assisted nitrogen source and a valved antimony cracker cell. The switch shows a maximum ON-OFF ratio of 9 dB at 1.5 GHz under 1.55-m laser excitation at 80 mW. The switch also shows a positive ON-OFF ratio up to 10 GHz. This is the first successful demonstration of a photoconductive switch for microwave switching application under 1.55- m wavelength excitation. Further analysis suggests that the high contact resistance may degrade the performance of the photoconductive switch.


Automatic detection of leukemic B-lymphoblast cancer in microscopic images is very challenging due to the complicated nature of histopathological structures. To tackle this issue, an automatic and robust diagnostic system is required for early detection and treatment. In this paper, an automated deep learning-based method is proposed to distinguish between immature leukemic blasts and normal cells. The proposed deep learning based hybrid method, which is enriched by different data augmentation techniques, is able to extract high-level features from input images. Results demonstrate that the proposed model yields better prediction than individual models for Leukemic Blymphoblast classification with 96.17% overall accuracy, 95.17% sensitivity and 98.58% specificity. Fusing the features extracted from intermediate layers, our approach has the potential to improve the overall classification performance.


Myasthenia gravis is an autoimmune disease affecting  nearly one million individuals worldwide. Myasthenia gravis develops due to antibodies against the nicotinic acetylcholine receptoror othe r postsynaptic antigens. Hyperplasia and tumours of the thymus can cause the abnormal production of these autoantibodies. Diagnosis of myasthenia gravis could be made through recognition of the cardinal clinical features of fatigable, painless muscle weakness with confirmatory serum autoantibody analysis and electromyographic evidence of disordered neuromuscular transmission, thereby excluding other differential diagnoses. Symptomatic improvement may be achieved through the use of anticholinesterase drugs, although usually immune-directed treatments are required to control the disease. The disease does not affect fertility in women and patients can have children. In this paper management to pregnant myasthenia gravis patients will be discussed in detail.


A patient presented with headache, soreness over her scalp and general malaise. She was treated for hypertension, but later went blind in one eye. Following referral to the Eye Department, she was treated successfully for six episodes of blindness in her second eye. The case highlights the ways in which temporal arteritis may present. Prompt treatment will save vision, but a missed diagnosis may result in blindness.


The consultative psychiatry is the field of scientific research and medical practice connecting biological, psychological and social aspects of mental and somatic disorders. The aim of the study was to discuss the subject area of the consultative psychiatry. Psychiatrist may be asked for consultation by the physician, family or patient. The reason for this may be the need to transport or cam the patient down (emergency), the need to understand the disorder, its dynamics, therapeutic difficulties or difficulties in cooperation with the patient. The introduction to consultation consists of gathering information from the supporting staff, patient's family, main physician or from the disease records. Psychiatric examination should be taking place in peaceful surroundings enduring privacy. Basic examination of mental condition should be carried out. The results of the consultation are required to be shared in writing and they influence further treatment and often, further life of the patient. In difficult situations it is advised to carry out psychiatric consultation several times. In emergencies there is a need to consult the aggressive patients with suicidal tendencies and consciousness disorders. The future of consultative psychiatry is connected with development of medicine in the field of transplantology, oncology, pandemics of contagious diseases, biomedicine, etc.


In this study, we present results from the CASA (Carnegie-Ames-Stanford Approach) model to estimate net primary production (NPP) in grasslands under different management (ranching versus unmanaged) on the Central Coast of California. The latest model version called CASA Express has been designed to estimate monthly patterns in carbon fixation and plant biomass production using moderate spatial resolution (30 m to 250 m) satellite image data of surface vegetation characteristics. Landsat imagery with 30 m resolution was adjusted by contemporaneous Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data to calibrate the model based on previous CASA research. Results showed annual NPP predictions of between 300 - 450 grams C per square meter for coastal rangeland sites. Irrigation increased the predicted NPP carbon flux of grazed lands by 59 grams C per square meter annually compared to unmanaged grasslands. Low intensity grazing activity appeared to promote higher grass regrowth until June, compared to the ungrazed grassland sites. These modeling methods were shown to be successful in capturing the differing seasonal growing cycles of rangeland forage production across the area of individual ranch properties.


Rebranding corresponds to the creation of a new name, term, symbol, design or a combination of them for an established brand with the intention of developing a differentiated position in the mind of stakeholders and competitors. Increased competition has led firms to an avenue of differentiation, and rebranding has been approached by firms in order to differentiate themselves and to promote the corporate image. Corporate rebranding, although commonly referred in the press, has received little attention from academia. This paper tends to contribute to fill this gap in the academic literature, by analysing the impact that corporate image through rebranding has on the firms' stock market value, using event study methodologies. We focus on firms listed on the Lisbon Stock Market in the period 2000 - February 2009. We do not find evidence of a positive impact of corporate rebranding on firm value, in Portuguese firms. In fact, our results suggest that these events may have a negative impact on firm value, even though our empirical evidence is weak, in supporting this conclusion.


BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
The purpose of this randomized controlled trial was to examine the usefulness of the addition of specific stabilization exercises to a general back and abdominal muscle exercise approach for patients with subacute or chronic nonspecific back pain by comparing a specific muscle stabilization-enhanced general exercise approach with a general exercise-only approach.

SUBJECTS
Fifty-five patients with recurrent, nonspecific back pain (stabilization-enhanced exercise group: n=29, general exercise-only group: n=26) and no clinical signs suggesting spinal instability were recruited.

METHODS
Both groups received an 8-week exercise intervention and written advice (The Back Book). Outcome was based on self-reported pain (Short-Form McGill Pain Questionnaire), disability (Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire), and cognitive status (Pain Self-Efficacy Questionnaire, Tampa Scale of Kinesiophobia, Pain Locus of Control Scale) measured immediately before and after intervention and 3 months after the end of the intervention period.

RESULTS
Outcome measures for both groups improved. Furthermore, self-reported disability improved more in the general exercise-only group immediately after intervention but not at the 3-month follow-up. There were generally no differences between the 2 exercise approaches for any of the other outcomes.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
A general exercise program reduced disability in the short term to a greater extent than a stabilization-enhanced exercise approach in patients with recurrent nonspecific low back pain. Stabilization exercises do not appear to provide additional benefit to patients with subacute or chronic low back pain who have no clinical signs suggesting the presence of spinal instability.


The design of this paper is to present the first
installment of a complete and final theory of rational human intelligence. The
theory is mathematical in the
strictest possible sense. The mathematics involved is strictly digital—not
quantitative in the manner that what is usually thought of as mathematics is
quantitative. It is anticipated at this time that the exclusively digital nature
of rational human intelligence exhibits four flavors of digitality, apparently
no more, and that each flavor will require a lengthy study in its own right. (For more information,please refer to the PDF.)


Introduces the Paraguin project at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. The goal of the project is to build an open-source message-passing parallelizing compiler for distributed-memory computer systems. We discuss the progress we have made in developing this compiler as well as mention the parts that have not yet been developed. It is our intent that, by providing an open-source compiler, we will stimulate research in automatic message-passing parallelism and encourage collaboration. We demonstrate a technique to improve the performance of a message-passing program by overlapping communication with computation. Although the original concept was introduced previously by S.P. Amarasinghe and M.S. Lam (1993), the algorithm was not developed nor shown to provide any benefit. Our preliminary results indicate that the technique significantly improves the performance. We were able to reduce the running time of our test program by 4-65%.


Physical systems are by nature continuous, but often exhibit nonhnearities that make behavior generation complex and hard to analyze. Complexity is often reduced by linearizing model constraints and by abstracting the time scale for behavior generation. In either case, the physical components are modeled to operate in multiple modes, with abrupt changes between modes. This paper discusses a hybrid modeling methodology and analysis algorithms that combine continuous energy flow modeling and localized discrete signal flow modeling to generate complex, multi-mode behavior in a consistent and correct manner. Energy phase space analysis is employed to demonstrate the correctness of the algorithm, and the reachability of a continuous mode.


Different cell isolation techniques exist for transcriptomic and proteotype profiling of brain cells. Here, we provide a systematic investigation of the influence of different cell isolation protocols on transcriptional and proteotype profiles in mouse brain tissue by taking into account single-cell transcriptomics of brain cells, proteotypes of microglia and astrocytes, and flow cytometric analysis of microglia. We show that standard enzymatic digestion of brain tissue at 37°C induces profound and consistent alterations in the transcriptome and proteotype of neuronal and glial cells, as compared to an optimized mechanical dissociation protocol at 4°C. These findings emphasize the risk of introducing technical biases and biological artefacts when implementing enzymatic digestion-based isolation methods for brain cell analyses.


Clematis brachiata Thunb. (Ranunculaceae) is used as a folk remedy for the treatment of pain, fever and inflammatory ailments. Aqueous extract of Clematis brachiata leaf was screened for its phytochemical constituents. The anti-inflammatory investigations were carried out using carrageenan and histamine-induced edema models; acetic acid writhing, formalin-induced pain and tail immersion models were used to evaluate antinociceptive activity while a Brewer's yeast-induced hyperthermia model was employed for the antipyretic experiment. Phytochemical screening of the extract revealed the presence of tannins, saponins, flavonoids and cardiac glycosides. The extract at 100, 200 and 400 mg/kg body weight significantly (P<0.05) reduced the edema paw volumes induced by carrageenan and histamine with the 400 mg/kg body weight extract being the most potent. On the antinociceptive front, while the extract reduced the writhing caused by acetic acid and the number of licks induced by formalin in a dose dependent manner, the increase in the reaction time by the extract in the tail immersion model was not dose-dependent. Again, there was significant (P<0.05) lowering of the Brewer's yeast-provoked elevated body temperature. The results suggest that the aqueous extract of Clematis brachiata leaves can be employed in the management of inflammation, pain and fever. These activities may be due in part to the flavonoid content of the extract.


The thermal stress caused by the ultra-low temperature of liquid nitrogen (LN2) can seriously affect the porosity of the coalbed. In this paper, the effects of various temperature differences on the LN2 damage were studied by changing the initial temperature, so as to explore the effect of LN2 on coal seam with different buried depth. The X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), wave velocity, acoustic emission (AE), and uniaxial compression experiments were used in the experiments. The experimental results show that LN2 causes a lot of damage to coal and the LN2 effect increase at first and then decrease with the increase of the initial temperature. When the initial temperature is 293 K, before and after liquid nitrogen treatment, the wave velocity damage of the coal sample reaches 0.2207 and the compressive strength decreases by 27.92%. These two values are 0.3697 and 47.37% at the initial temperature of 323 K, and 0.2727 and 28.27% at the initial temperature of 353 K. This is because if the temperature exceeds 353 K, it will cause a 3.17% drop in water content, thus reducing the damage caused by LN2, resulting in the overall effect slightly lower than that at 323 K.


An advanced method is presented, which allows the measurement of aperture areas with diameters smaller than 50 µm. The method follows the comparator technique and compares the photocurrent of a detector covered with a reference aperture of known area with the photocurrent of the same detector equipped with the aperture under investigation. Using typical reference apertures with diameters of some millimetres, the very small measured aperture area results in extreme large ratios of measured photocurrents. This requires sophisticated detector and measurement electronics to obtain high accuracy. Significant improvement with respect to common set-ups has been achieved by applying a silicon trap detector instead of a single photodiode. The advanced set-up allows areas with diameter below 50 µm to be measured with uncertainties in the order of 10-3. Application of the method to four ultra-small apertures with nominal diameters in the range from 300 µm down to 50 µm is presented.


Sheet metal forming is one of the most popular technologies for obtaining finished products in automotive industries. The main techniques of sheet metal forming: sheet microforming, warm/hot forming, incremental sheet forming, flexible-die forming, Electromagnetic sheet forming, Electrohydraulic forming, Spinning and Shear Spinning, Shear Spinning and Flow Forming and cold sheet forming. One most popular cold stamping process. In the production line of Ravne VPS400 1992, we take twenty details for looking quality review, looking for surface damage reasons - a little changing tonnage and speed. The biggest deformation, when velocity is the slowest the tonnage don't have an impact on this radius deformation.
Firstly, we measured the surface for all twenty details with Contourograph CV-2100 M4. In one measurement point we have ten points which is the biggest or slowest tolerance, these results can be the reason why the detail is damage. These details make one tact process. We can say the recommendation – if the detail will be making for one more tact process, detail not be damage, but this extra process is a very grown the price.
Second, we see metal steel chemistry alloy elements, and we can be looking which elements have some reason mechanical properties of steels.
Our samples have not enough elasticity, and in steel structure we can recommend taking more carbon C, Silicon Si and Vanadium V. Silicon Si, is important for a machinability and tensile properties as well and this element is essential in steel structure.
Thirsty, we used the 3D coordinate measuring machine Mitutoyo SurfaceMeasure 606T, looking for tolerances differences.
And we see in detail which places will have a damage, we have the results lowest from the layout, we see the blue color. If we made detail not one tact process, but more tact's making detail the thickness would be evenly gradually. The crystalline structure of the metal broke due to excessive thinning.


: The need for certified pH reference materials to support the traceability claims and quality of the daily large volume of pH measurements is very strong. In this work, three batches of buffer solutions were prepared, and their pH values were certified in accordance with the IUPAC Recommendation 2002. The first batch was prepared from potassium tetraoxalate (dihydrate) and disodium oxalate to provide pH4 and the second batch was prepared from disodium hydrogen phosphate and potassium dihydrogen phosphate to provide pH7. The third batch was prepared from sodium hydrogen carbonate and sodium carbonate to provide pH10. Every batch was homogenized by mechanical shaking for one night and bottled into 50 HDPE bottles, each is 250 mL. A number of bottles were systematically selected for homogeneity, stability and characterization studies of the buffer reference materials. These studies were carried out in accordance with the requirements of ISO 17034 and ISO Guide 35 using Baucke cell. The pH values 4, 7 and 10 of the secondary buffers were restandardized with regard to the pH values 4, 7 and 10 of the primary buffers produced by the Slovak National Metrology Institute, SMU. The results obtained showed that the produced buffer RMs were homogeneous and stable enough and their certified pH values were found 4.001±0.019, 7.005±0.015 and 10.002±0.023. These CRMs will be very useful as calibrants and as PT samples for analytical laboratories performing pH measurements in various fields.


Defective sperm function has been identified as the most common cause of infertility. The objective of this study was to review recent findings on the effects of various antioxidants on male fertility. High amounts of poly unsaturated fatty acid are found in the mammalian spermatozoa membranes, thereby making them susceptible to lipid peroxidation. Although, free radicals and reactive oxygen species (ROS) play major roles in reproduction, they are strongly associated with oxidative stress. Furthermore, factors such as obesity, inflammation, pollutants and cigarette smoking are negatively correlated with spermatogenesis. Endogenous antioxidants system exists to mediate these damages. In a normal physiological state, the seminal plasma contains antioxidant enzyme mechanism that is capable of quenching these ROS as well as protecting the spermatozoa against any likely damage. However, high level of ROS triggered by inflammatory cells and oxidation of fatty acid in obese subjects may down play antioxidant mechanism resulting in oxidative stress. Evaluation of such oxidative stress is the first step in the treatment of male infertility through administration of suitable antioxidant. Notably, antioxidant such as vitamin E and C, carotenoids and carnitine have been found beneficial in restoring a balance between ROS generation and scavenging activities. There are emerging evidences that herbal products can also boost male reproductive functions. Nonetheless, a good lifestyle, regular exercise, avoidance of stress and observing safety rules at work are habits that can reverse male infertility.


To compensate for the growing effect of process, temperature and voltage variations in digital ICs, several dynamic approaches have been proposed. These approaches require the use of capacitors to offset the effects of variations. Although MOSFET based capacitors are a natural choice, such capacitances vary significantly depending on the applied voltage. In this paper, we propose techniques to make the capacitance of MOSFET based capacitors relatively constant over the applied voltage. We study approaches that are based on gate as well as diffusion capacitors. We study the trade-off (in terms of capacitance variation, requirement of a bias voltage and area efficiency) of all the proposed schemes. Simulation results are presented for two process technologies. We show that by using our techniques the capacitance variation across applied voltage can be reduced from 75% down to 3% for a 70nm process technology.


Sentiment analysis (SA) using code-mixed data from social media has several applications in opinion mining ranging from customer satisfaction to social campaign analysis in multilingual societies. Advances in this area are impeded by the lack of a suitable annotated dataset. We introduce a Hindi-English (Hi-En) code-mixed dataset for sentiment analysis and perform empirical analysis comparing the suitability and performance of various state-of-the-art SA methods in social media. In this paper, we introduce learning sub-word level representations in our LSTM (Subword-LSTM) architecture instead of character-level or word-level representations. This linguistic prior in our architecture enables us to learn the information about sentiment value of important morphemes. This also seems to work well in highly noisy text containing misspellings as shown in our experiments which is demonstrated in morpheme-level feature maps learned by our model. Also, we hypothesize that encoding this linguistic prior in the Subword-LSTM architecture leads to the superior performance. Our system attains accuracy 4-5% greater than traditional approaches on our dataset, and also outperforms the available system for sentiment analysis in Hi-En code-mixed text by 18%.


A fluorometric procedure for procainamide hydrochloride was developed, and it offers improvements in ease, speed, and sensitivity over the official method. The new procedure is based on the reaction with fluorescamine in aqueous medium at pH 7.5 to form a fluorophore, with activation and emission wavelengths of 400 and 485 nm, respectively. The fluorescence is linear (r = 0.999) over the 0. 04-1 mug/ml concentration range and is stable for at least 2 hr. Recovery data appeared to be accurate, quantitative, and reproducible. The overall recovery was 99.8% with a standard deviation of +/-1.14 (n = 5). The method was successfully applied to commercially available dosage forms.


This paper examines the dynamic correlation structure between A-share and B-share stock returns based on three different measures of correlation coefficients. Testing the models by employing daily stock-return data for the period from 1996 through 2003, we reach the following empirical conclusions. First, the correlation coefficients between A-share and B-share stock returns are time varying. Second, the dynamic path of the correlation coefficients indicates that the correlation coefficients are significantly correlated with the trend factor. Third, there is a substantial spillover effect from the Asian crisis to Chinese stock-return dynamic correlations. Fourth, the evidence suggests that the time-varying correlations are significantly associated with excessive trading activity as measured by excessive trading volumes and high–low price differentials. Fifth, the correlation between A-share and B-share markets has increased since the relaxation of the restriction on B-share market investments by domestic investors.


In this article, we describe the Mid-Infrared Imager Module (MIRIM), which provides broadband imaging in the 5–27 μm wavelength range for the James Webb Space Telescope. The imager has a pixel scale and a total unobstructed view of 74″ × 113″. The remainder of its nominal 113″ × 113″ field is occupied by the coronagraphs and the low-resolution spectrometer. We present the instrument optical and mechanical design. We show that the test data, as measured during the test campaigns undertaken at CEA-Saclay, at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, and at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, indicate that the instrument complies with its design requirements and goals. We also discuss the operational requirements (multiple dithers and exposures) needed for optimal scientific utilization of the MIRIM.


Abstract 2440

Poster Board II-417

Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and progenitor cells (HPCs) reside in the bone marrow and give rise to blood-forming cells. Mobilization of these cells from the bone marrow is clinically important as these cells can be harvested from the peripheral blood, and used in transplantation. G-CSF (granulocyte colony stimulating factor) is used clinically and is considered the 'gold standard' for human progenitor cell mobilization. However, there is broad variability in mobilization between G-CSF-treated patients, with some heavily-treated patients exhibiting very poor mobilization. Therefore, novel agents to mobilize HSCs and HPCs are urgently required. The G protein-coupled chemokine receptor, CXCR4, and its ligand, stromal derived factor-1a (SDF-1a), regulate a diverse array of cellular processes, including hematopoiesis, stem cell homing to the bone marrow, and survival of HSCs and HPCs. SDF-1a secreted from stromal cells in the bone marrow acts on CXCR4-expressing HSCs and HPCs to maintain these cells within the bone marrow microenviroment. Therefore, disruption of the interaction between SDF-1a and CXCR4 is a potential strategy for mobilization of these cells to the peripheral blood.

In this study, we employed cell-penetrating lipopeptide 'pepducins' which interact with the intracellular loops of CXCR4 to specifically antagonize SDF-1a-mediated CXCR4 activity. We characterized a number of pepducins that are targeted to different intracellular loop regions of CXCR4. We demonstrated that two pepducins based on the first intracellular (i1) loop, PZ-218 and PZ-305, significantly inhibited SDF-1a-mediated calcium flux and chemotaxis of human neutrophils. A pepducin targeted to the third intracellular loop (i3), PZ-210, also inhibited calcium flux and migration of neutrophils, and caused a conformational change in CXCR4 that inhibited binding of the 12G5 CXCR4 antibody. Conversely, no such conformational change was elicited by the i1 pepducins PZ-218 and PZ-305, suggesting that different pepducins have distinct modes of action on CXCR4 signaling.

To examine the efficacy of these pepducins in mobilization of stem cells, colony forming unit (CFU) assays and transplantation studies were performed. We determined that, when used in combination with G-CSF, the i1 and i3-loop pepducins mobilized up to three-fold more progenitor cells from the bone marrow than G-CSF treatment alone. Furthermore, lethally irradiated mice were rescued with peripheral blood from pepducin-treated donor mice, and cells mobilized by pepducin treatment had long-term repopulating ability in donor mice. These data demonstrate the potential therapeutic application of cell-penetrating pepducins in CXCR4 antagonism for the purpose of stem cell mobilization and modulation of the effects of SDF-1a on hematopoietic cells.

Disclosures: O'Callaghan: Ascent Therapeutics Inc: Research Funding. Covic: Ascent Therapeutics Inc: Consultancy, Equity Ownership, Patents & Royalties, Research Funding. Kuliopulos: Ascent Therapeutics Inc: Consultancy, Equity Ownership, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Patents & Royalties, Research Funding.


As of January 1, 2011, arbitration users can benefit from a revised version of the AFA Rules of Arbitration. The Rules have been entirely restructured and appear to be more user-friendly. The new Rules are in line with the new French Arbitration Decree and contain a series of useful modifications, accompanied by an enhancement of the role of the Arbitration Committee.


Background:Cholestatic liver disease (CLD) is a common disease of infancy, threatening infants' health seriously. However, there is no effective drug to treat this disease.It is urgently to develop a new drug to overcome it. Polyamide-amine (PAMAM) dendrimer is a hyperbranched nano polymer, which has been found that has an anti-inflammatory effect recently. For this study, we aim to explore the protective effect and mechanism of PAMAM on CLD.Methods:In this study, a mouse model of cholestatic liver injury was created using ANIT,and TNF-α was utilized to stimulate human hepatocytes to investigate the protective effect and mechanism of 4.5th generation carboxyl-terminated PAMAM dendrimers (G4.5-COOH) in vivo and in vitro.Liver serum biochemistry, inflammatory, oxidative stress(OxS), endoplasmic reticulum(ER) stress and apoptosis indicators were determined.In addition, the effects of G4.5-COOH on PPAR-γ and PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway were studied. Data were analyzed by using one-way ANOVA. Results:We find the G4.5-COOH may inhibit TNF-α to damage hepatocytes and ameliorate the cholestatic liver injury. We also find that the protective effect of G4.5-COOH might be due to inhibition of P-Akt、P-mTOR expression by a mechanism that might be partly dependent on up-regulated functional expression of PPAR-γ.Conclusions:G4.5-COOH PAMAM dendrimer has a protective effect on CLD.


The period of postmodernism refers to a diverse set of ideas, practices, and disciplines that came to prominence in the later 20th century. It is the overarching philosophical project that responds to and critiques the principles of modernity and challenges the established ways of thinking. It opposes the ideas that it is possible to rationalize life through narrow, singular disciplinary thinking or through the establishment of a universal truth and grand narratives that strive for the value-neutral homogeneity that defined Enlightenment thinking. Postmodernism questions ontological, epistemological, and ethical conventions, and it opens up possibilities for multiple discourses and accepting marginalized and minority thoughts and practices. Openness to diversity is a key outcome of the multiplicities arising in postmodernity across a range of fields, including, among others, art, education, philosophy, architecture, and economics. Through its rejection of the totalizing effects of metanarratives and their intentions to achieve universal truths, goals, outcomes, and sameness, the postmodern condition opens an ethical responsibility toward otherness, to allow for diversity, and thus to elevate those who have been subjugated or marginalized in modernity. Postmodernism has been playing a significant role in what sometimes is termed the equity approach in education. While postmodernism may be eventually overtaken by other "posts"—post-qualitative, post-truth, post-digital—it still remains an important part of philosophy of education scholarship and broader understandings and conceptualizations of education.


Drilling is a vital machining process for many industries. Automotive and aerospace industries are among those industries which produce millions of holes where productivity, quality, and precision of drilled holes plays a vital role in their success. Therefore, a proper selection of machine tools and equipment, cutting tools and parameters is detrimental in achieving the required dimensional accuracy and surface roughness. This subsequently helps industries achieving success and improving the service life of their products. This chapter provides an introduction to the drilling process in manufacturing industries which helps improve the quality and productivity of drilling operations on metallic materials. It explains the advantages of using multi-spindle heads to improve the productivity and quality of drilled holes. An analysis of the holes produced by a multi-spindle head on aluminum alloys Al2024, Al6061, and Al5083 is presented in comparison to traditional single shot drilling. Also the effects of using uncoated carbide and high speed steel tools for producing high-quality holes in the formation of built-up edges and burrs are investigated and discussed.


The lack of a well characterized, continuously growing in vitro model of human distal lung epithelial phenotype constitutes a serious limitation in the area of inhalation biopharmaceutics, particularly in the context of transepithelial transport studies. Here, we investigated if a human lung adenocarcinoma cell line, NCl-H441, has potential to serve as an in vitro model of human distal lung epithelium. The development of barrier properties was studied by immunocytochemistry (ICC) against the junction proteins zonula occludens protein 1 (ZO-1) and E-cadherin and measurement of transepithelial electrical resistance (TEER). Moreover, transport studies with the paracellular marker compounds fluorescein sodium and fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC)-labeled dextrans of molecular weights ranging from 4 to 70 kDa were carried out. The expression of P-glycoprotein (P-gp; ABCB1) and organic cation transporters (OCT/Ns; SLC22A1-A5) was investigated by ICC and immunoblot. P-gp function was assessed by monolayer release and bidirectional transport studies using rhodamine 123 (Rh123) and the inhibitors verapamil and LY335979. Uptake of 4-(4-(dimethylamino)styryl)-N-methylpyridinium iodide (ASP(+)) was measured, in order to assess organic cation transporter function in vitro. Furthermore, the inhibitory potential of several organic cations on ASP(+) uptake was studied. NCl-H441 cells, when grown under liquid-covered conditions, formed confluent, electrically tight monolayers with peak TEER values of approximately 1000 Ω·cm(2), after 8-12 days in culture. These monolayers were able to differentiate paracellularly transported substrates according to their molecular weight. Presence of P-gp, OCT1, OCT2, OCT3, OCTN1, and OCTN2 was confirmed by Western blot and ICC and was similar to data from freshly isolated human alveolar epithelial cells in primary culture. Rh123 release from NCI-H441 monolayers was time-dependent and showed low, albeit significant attenuation by both inhibitors. In transport studies, Rh123 exhibited net secretion, which again was inhibitable by bona fide P-gp modulators. The uptake of ASP(+) was time- and temperature-dependent with Km = 881.2 ± 195.3 μM and Vmax = 2.07 ± 0.26 nmol/min/mg protein. TEA, amantadine, quinidine, and verapamil significantly inhibited ASP(+) uptake into NCl-H441 cells, whereas the effect of d- and l-carnitine and ergothioneine, two OCTN substrates, was less pronounced. NCl-H441 cells are the first cell line of human distal lung epithelial origin with the ability to form monolayers with appreciable barrier properties. Moreover, drug transporter expression and activity in NCl-H441 cells was consistent with what has been reported for human alveolar epithelial cells in primary culture.


Drawing from both historical ethnographic sociology and more recently collected narrative data, we trace changing resilience strategies employed by Irish family farms. We focus specifically on collective action within farm families and communities, a pathway to resilience that has traditionally depended on patriarchal relations and an accession of individual interests to the survival of the family farm. We find that new conditions for resilience have emerged, disrupting relationships on which historical forms of collective action depended. Threatened with the flight of women and youth towards off-farm opportunities, resilience strategies have come to accommodate better and respond to the needs of individuals in farm families. However, if the farm is to survive, family members remain collectively challenged with meeting its physical demands. One contemporary resilience strategy employs Joint Farming Ventures (JFVs), which involve formalised collaborative arrangements between husbands and wives, parents and offspring, non-immediate relatives, and farming neighbours. We find women and men at different stages in the lifecourse are employing JFVs to drive and resource renewed resilience strategies. Reconstituted relational arrangements within the farm family allow the farm to draw from an increased range of resources through an enhanced commitment of diverse farm family members. By prioritising the family farm, contemporary resilience strategies are consistent with historical ones but create greater capacity for family farm resilience by boosting reservoirs of social, cultural and economic capital available to the farm. This insight goes some way towards shedding light on the intricate puzzle that is the remarkable resilience of Irish family farms and those continuing to exist worldwide.


To accelerate clean energy transition, China has explored the potential of hydrogen as an energy carrier since 2001. Until 2020, 49 national hydrogen policies were enacted. This paper explores the relevance of these policies to the development of the hydrogen industry and energy transition in China. We examine the reasons, impacts, and challenges of Chinese national hydrogen policies through the conceptual framework of Thomas Dye's policy analysis method and the European Training Foundation's policy analysis guide. This research provides an ex-post analysis for previous policies and an ex-ante analysis for future options. We argue that the energy supply revolution and energy technology revolution highlight the importance of hydrogen development in China. Particularly, the pressure of the automobile industry transition leads to experimentation concerning the application of hydrogen in the transportation sector. This paper also reveals that hydrogen policy development coincides with an increase in resource input and has positive spill over effects. Furthermore, we note that two challenges have impeded progress: a lack of regulations for the industry threshold and holistic planning. To address these challenges, the Chinese government can design a national hydrogen roadmap and work closely with other countries through the Belt and Road Initiative.


This study examines the Effects of Project Management Techniques on Primary Health Care Delivery. A review of literatures on primary health care delivery showed that most public health professionals receive little or no formal training in project management. This has led to improper usage of project management methods for planning, scheduling and controlling. To assess the situation 200 questionnaires were administered to patients at primary health centers in the five divisions of Lagos State using systematic random sampling technique. Also 20 questionnaires were administered to middle and top management staff of the Primary Health Care centers in the five divisions using stratified random sampling technique, and judgment sampling technique. The data collected was analyzed using descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis. The findings revealed that greater percentage of the variance that occurred in the dependent variables could be explained by the project management techniques indicators identified by this study. It was therefore recommended among others that Lagos State government should organize regular training programmes on project management techniques for workers in the primary health care sector.


To investigate the bioelectrochemical enhanced anaerobic ammonia oxidation (anammox) nitrogen removal process, a bioelectrochemical system with coupled anammox cathode was constructed using a dual-chamber microbial electrolysis cell (MEC). Specifically, a dark incubation batch experiment was conducted at 30 ℃ with different influent total nitrogen concentrations under an applied voltage of 0.2 V, and the enhanced denitrification mechanism was investigated by combining various characterization methods such as cyclic voltammetry, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and high-throughput sequencing methods. The results showed that the total nitrogen removal rates of 96.9%±0.3%, 97.3%±0.4% and 99.0%±0.3% were obtained when the initial total nitrogen concentration was 200, 300 and 400 mg/L, respectively. In addition, the cathode electrode biofilm showed good electrochemical activity. High-throughput sequencing results showed that the applied voltage enriched other denitrifying functional groups, including Denitratisoma, Limnobacter, and ammonia oxidizing bacteria SM1A02 and Anaerolineaceae, Nitrosomonas europaea and Nitrospira, besides the anammox bacteria. These electrochemically active microorganisms comprised of ammonium oxidizing exoelectrogens (AOE) and denitrifying electrotrophs (DNE). Together with anammox bacteria Candidatus Brocadia, they constituted the microbial community structure of denitrification system. Enhanced direct interspecies electron transfer between AOE and DNE was the fundamental reason for the further improvement of the total nitrogen removal rate of the system.


The end of the Cold War and the accompanying easing of archival restrictions in former communist countries have created a veritable renaissance in historical literature on the region in the last two decades. The fall of the Iron Curtain has subsequently thrown into doubt the historiographical salience of a strict East–West divide and prompted the resurgence of analytic concepts such as Central Europe or East Central Europe. The former term, defined famously but imprecisely in the 1980s by Milan Kundera as those lands 'culturally in the West and politically in the East', has grown no easier to delimit with the march of European integration and democratic stability across most of the 'central' part of the continent. The latter term is, in some senses, less problematic, since the 'East' in East Central Europe is generally understood to exclude those areas in current-day Germany or Austria. Yet the region's eastern and southern borders are still much disputed.


Simulations from six global climate models participating in Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 5 are used to project future changes in regional early spring (February–April) temperature and in cherry (Prunus yedoensis) first‐flowering date (FFD) over South Korea in order to investigate a potential plant growth response to local climate change. For the study, we statistically downscale daily Historical (1986–2005), RCP4.5 (2071–2090), and RCP8.5 (2071–2090) gridded model data to 59 cherry FFD observation sites over South Korea. In order to reduce the uncertainties in the model simulation produced by a single model, multi‐model ensemble (MME) is performed after eliminating the mean systematic bias of each model. A shift of cherry FFD under global warming is estimated and compared with the observation and Historical simulation by applying the downscaled data to a DTS phenological model. The analysis reveals a projected advance in cherry FFD over South Korea by 2090 of 6.3 and 11.2 days compared to the current dates due to a rising mean temperature of about 2.0 and 3.5 K under the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios, which approximately correspond to moving north at a speed of 0.01 and 0.03oN year−1, respectively. These average yearly advances (0.07 and 0.13 days year−1) of cherry FFD in the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 simulations are 0.22 and 0.16 days year−1 lower, respectively, than the value of 0.29 days year−1 derived in previous studies with the SRES A2 scenario. Regardless of the difference between the SRES A2 and RCP8.5 scenarios, the discrepancy in the advancement tendency was primarily attributed to the inability of the previous studies to eliminate the systematic model biases, which led to overestimation of both the temperature and the FFD changes.


A total of 32 pairs of obese fathers or mothers and their obese offsprings, aged 20 yr or younger, from 25 families with established hyperinsulinemic obesity was studied. Although the obese pairs with offsprings aged 11-20 y r equally showed an insulin hyperresponse to glucose, the offsprings 10 yr or younger revealed a rather normal insulin response, despite the presence of obesity, and this contrasted with their fathers or mothers. No difference was found in the estimated age of onset between the two groups of offspring. The offsprings in both age groups ate a similar high carbohydrate, high calorie diet. The results suggest that the insulin hypersecretion is not the primary trait in this form of familial obesity and that the insulin response to glucose becomes augmented during the maturation years of 11-20, thus resulting in the accumulation of hyperinsulinemic and hyperlipidemic adults in the family.


Incidental supervision from language has become a popular approach for learning generic visual representations that can be prompted to perform many recognition tasks in computer vision. We conduct an in-depth exploration of the CLIP model and show that its visual representation is often strongly biased towards solving some tasks more than others. Moreover, which task the representation will be biased towards is unpredictable, with little consistency across images. To resolve this task bias, we show how to learn a visual prompt that guides the representation towards features relevant to their task of interest. Our results show that these visual prompts can be independent of the input image and still effectively provide a conditioning mechanism to steer visual representations towards the desired task.


Steadily increasing developments in the natural sciences and increasingly complex procedures and apparatus are making it extremely difficult for traditional forms of instruction to equip the next generation with either an understanding of the problems it will have to face or a willingness to work together on these. This inability to cope with the situation can be attributed to insufficient coordination of instruction in the individual subjects and to the limited amount of specialised knowledge imparted. The author therefore advocates an integrated course of instruction for the natural sciences which, by encompassing central topics, is designed not only to impart knowledge but also to give students the opportunity to develop fundamental insights. These insights make general interrelationships between the natural sciences accessible to the students and serve as points of reference in the students' later lives.


Neuroendocrine carcinoma of the colon can be classified into small cell carcinoma and large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma. The incidence of neuroendocrine carcinoma is so low that the guidelines for the treatment of large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma of the colon are not established. The prognosis of large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma of the colon is worse than that of conventional adenocarcinoma of the colon. We report a case of large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma of the colon that treated with right hemicolectomy and 6th sequential combination chemotherapy of 5-fluorouracil and cisplatin. There has been no evidence of the recurrence of metastasis of tumor for 6 months.


Gasification is a promising thermochemical technology used to convert waste materials into energy with the introduction of low amounts of an oxidant agent, therefore producing an environmental impact that is lower when compared to incineration and landfilling. Moreover, gasification allows a sustainable management of wastes and reduces the use of fossil fuels responsible for the increment of greenhouse gases. This work aimed to perform gasification tests with solid recovered fuels (SRF) containing organic fractions mainly retrieved from construction and demolition wastes to assess the potential for energy conversion. Tests were conducted in a pilot-scale downdraft gasifier (maximum feedstock input of 22 kg/h) at c.a. 800 °C, using SRF samples containing different proportions of polymeric wastes ranging between 0 and 20 wt %. Gas and chars obtained as by-products were analysed to evaluate their properties and to establish valid pathways for their valorisation. The addition of polymeric wastes reduced char production but rose both tar and HCl concentrations in the gas. The SRF with 10 wt % of polymeric wastes generated the best results, producing the highest calorific value for the gas (3.5 MJ/Nm3) and the highest cold-gas efficiency (45%). Possible char applications include their use as catalysts for tar decomposition, or as an additive in construction materials. Gasification can therefore be considered a valid solution for the energetic valorisation of these SRFs.


IPv6 over low-power wireless personal area networks (6LoWPANs) will be a key technology for smart devices such as sensors, smart home, industrial control and even toys to Internet protocol (IP) based networks. But, how to realize 6LoWPAN network connect to IPv6 network? In this paper, we implement a 6LoWPAN gateway that interfaces between them. We provide a performance evaluation of 6LoWPAN gateway used in actual network based on the round trip times, delay variance, packet loss, and the average throughput. These performance tests are executed in various size of payload. The experiment shows that the gateway can realize 6LoWPAN network and IPv6 network interconnection, and it can run well in actual network environment.


Organic electrochemical transistors that employ polymeric mixed conductors as their active channels are one of the most prominent biosensor platforms because of their signal amplification capability, low fabrication cost, mechanical flexibility, and various properties tunable through molecular design. For application to biomedical devices, polymeric mixed conductors should fulfill several requirements, such as excellent conductivities of both holes/electrons and ions, long-term operation stability, and decent biocompatibility. However, trade-offs may exist, for instance, one between ionic conduction and overall device stability. In this report, the fundamental understanding of polymeric mixed conductors, the recent advance in enhancing their ionic and electrical conductivity, and their practical applications as biosensors based on organic electrochemical transistors are reviewed. Finally, key strategies are suggested for developing novel polymeric mixed conductors that may exceed the trade-off between device performance and stability.


In the paper, the structure, working principle, functions and characteristics of an data acquisition and analysis system for internal combustion engines (I.C. engine) based on DSP is introduced. The DSP can not only acquire and analyze the data alone, also can work with the PC together to form data acquisition and analysis system with high speed and large memory. The system takes advantages of TMS320F2812's plenty of peripherals on chip, becomes small and easy for installation. USB technique is used to translate data between DSP and PC in high speed, so the system's real time processing is proved very much. It is proved that the designed system can acquire and analyze the steady and transient parameters of the I.C. engine very well.


We have reviewed the currently published results on a role of the gut microflora in a prevention of acute respiratory infections. The main biological properties of probiotic bacteria are presented in a context of their modulating activity on an inflammatory immune response. Available data on the reduction of a possible risk, duration, and severity of respiratory infection symptoms during a probiotic medication intake were analyzed. Potential antiviral probiotic mechanisms have been reviewed and discussed.


OBJECTIVES
Investigate cognitive, educational, and perceptual motor skills up to 2 years posttransplant of pediatric hematopoietic progenitor cell transplantation (HPCT) survivors and their correlates.

METHODS
Survivors were assessed at baseline, 12, and 24 months after transplant.

RESULTS
Performance IQ improved over time and was negatively related to maternal depression. Full IQ and educational outcomes were positively related to child's age and mother's age. Low depression scores were associated with high Verbal IQ one and 2 years post-HPCT, and with high visual motor scores 2 years post-HPCT. Poor educational outcomes were related to increased time since diagnosis. Two years post-HPCT, Performance IQ and Processing Speed were above the norm values whereas arithmetic and motor scores were below.

CONCLUSIONS
Pediatric HPCT survivors do better cognitively than educationally. Maternal age and depression, child's age, and time since diagnosis are critical factors for these outcomes.


Diabetic retinopathy is a common consequence of diabetes mellitus and the leading cause of vision loss in workingage people in the United States. The pathology of this disease is well characterized by microvascular lesions but also includes deficits in visual function, possibly as a consequence of retinal neurodegeneration. Microvasculature changes are clinically detected by fundus examination and used as the primary method of diagnosis, but functional tests may represent alternative endpoints that may be useful in translational research. Components of visual function can be characterized in a variety of different ways including measures of acuity, contrast sensitivity, dark adaptation and a number of electrophysiological parameters of the retina. This review discusses loss of function as measured both in human and animal models of diabetic retinopathy.


A molecular dynamics simulation of the demixing process of a binary complex plasma is analyzed and the role of distinct interaction potentials is discussed by using morphological Minkowski tensor analysis of the minority phase domain growth in a demixing simulated binary complex plasma. These Minkowski tensor methods are compared with previous results that utilized a power spectrum method based on the time-dependent average structure factor. It is shown that the Minkowski tensor methods are superior to the previously used power-spectrum method in the sense of higher sensitivity to changes in domain size. By analysis of the slope of the temporal evolution of Minkowski tensor measures, qualitative differences between the case of particle interaction with a single length scale compared to particle interactions with two different length scales (dominating long-range interaction) are revealed. After proper scaling the graphs for the two length scale scenarios coincide, pointing toward universal behavior. The qualitative difference in demixing scenarios is evidenced by distinct demixing behavior: in the long-range dominated cases demixing occurs in two stages. At first, neighboring particles agglomerate, then domains start to merge in cascades. However, in the case of only one interaction length scale only agglomeration but no merging of domains can be observed. Thus, Minkowski tensor analysis is likely to become a useful tool for further investigation of this (and other) demixing processes. It is capable to reveal (nonlinear) local topological properties, probing deeper than (linear) global power-spectrum analysis, however, still providing easily interpretable results founded on a solid mathematical framework.


In this study, we investigated pathogenesis-related (PR) protein expression in interactions between rice plants with bacterial blight resistant gene Xa21 and Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae (Xoo), the causal agent of bacterial blight. Three PR genes, OsPR1a, OsPR1b, and OsPR10a, were cloned and the fusion proteins were expressed in E. coli to generate polyclonal antibodies. The proteins isolated at 0, 12, 24, 36, 48, 60, 72, and 144 h post-inoculation (hpi) from rice leaves inoculated with incompatible Xoo strains were analyzed using Western blotting. Significant inductions were observed for all three PR proteins in the late stages of inoculation. We also compared the expression of PR proteins among four different modalities: (i) incompatible interactions (R); (ii) compatible interactions in the absence of the Rgene (SR -); (iii) compatible interactions in the absence of the avirulence factor in Xoo (SAvr -); (iv) mock inoculated control treatments (M). Results showed that the three PR proteins are enhanced in the R, SR -, and SAvr - interactions more than in the control treatments. The induction of PR proteins in the R interaction is the highest, suggesting that these proteins are involved in the defense mechanism.


BACKGROUND: We examined whether the primary composite outcome (cardiovascular death or heart failure hospitalization) was related to differences in background use and dosing of guideline-directed medical therapy in patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction enrolled in VICTORIA (Vericiguat Global Study in Subjects with Heart Failure with Reduced Ejection Fraction), a randomized trial of vericiguat versus placebo. METHODS: We evaluated the adherence to guideline use of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors, angiotensin-receptor blockers, angiotensin receptor-neprilysin inhibitors, beta-blockers, and mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists. We assessed basic adherence; indication-corrected adherence accounting for guideline indications and contraindications; and dose-corrected adherence (indication-corrected adherence+≥50% of drug dose target). Associations between study treatment and the primary composite outcome according to the adherence to guidelines were assessed using multivariable adjustment; adjusted hazard ratios with 95% CIs and Pinteraction are reported. RESULTS: Of 5050 patients, 5040 (99.8%) had medication data at baseline. For angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor, angiotensin-receptor blockers, and angiotensin receptor-neprilysin inhibitors, basic adherence to guidelines was 87.4%, indication-corrected was 95.7%, and dose-corrected was 50.9%. For beta-blockers, basic adherence was 93.1%, indication-corrected was 96.2%, and dose-corrected was 45.4%. For mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists, basic adherence was 70.3%, indication-corrected was 87.1%, and dose-corrected was 82.2%. For triple therapy (angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors, angiotensin-receptor blockers, or angiotensin receptor-neprilysin inhibitors+beta-blocker+mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist), basic adherence was 59.7%, indication-corrected was 83.3%, and dose-corrected was 25.5%. Using basic or dose-corrected adherence, the treatment effect of vericiguat was consistent across adherence to guidelines groups, with or without multivariable adjustment with no treatment heterogeneity. CONCLUSIONS: Patients in VICTORIA were well treated with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction medications. The efficacy of vericiguat was consistent across background therapy with very high adherence to guidelines accounting for patient-level indications, contraindications, and tolerance. REGISTRATION: URL: https://www.clinicaltrials.gov; Unique identifier: NCT02861534.


The automatic composition of Web services requires the existing services to be encoded in a semantic form, such as ontology. If Web services are represented with ontology, we can automatic compose Web services by means of their semantics. Ontology modeling is divided into two steps: input/output parameters modeling and Web services modeling. First, we collect Web services' input/output parameters, represent them with classes in ontology, and transform Web services to properties in ontology, define relations between classes and properties. Then we judge Web services' relations based on relations between properties transformed from these Web services and estimate whether these Web services can be composed


A combination of solid-state mechanochemical and green approaches for the synthesis of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) is explored in this study. Thymus serpyllum L. (SER), Sambucus nigra L. (SAM) and Thymus vulgaris L. (TYM) plants were successfully applied to reduce AgNO3 to AgNPs, as confirmed by X-ray diffraction analysis, with SER being the best reducing agent, and TYM being the worst. The experiments were performed via a one-step planetary milling process, where various AgNO3:plant mass ratios (1:1, 1:10, 1:50 and 1:100) were investigated. Atomic absorption spectrometry indicated that the stability of the mechanochemically produced AgNPs increased markedly when a sufficiently large quantity of the reducing plant was used. Furthermore, when larger quantities of plant material were employed, the crystallite size of the AgNPs decreased. TEM analysis revealed that all AgNPs produced from both AgNO3:plant ratios 1:1 and 1:10 exhibit the bimodal size distribution with the larger fraction with size in tens of nm and the smaller one below 10 nm in size. The antibacterial activity of the produced AgNPs was observed only for AgNO3:plant ratio 1:1, with the AgNPs prepared using SER showing the greatest antibacterial properties.


This learning pack contains information, resources and activities to help you to: find relevant information and analyse and share it with your workgroup; communicate ideas and information to a culturally and socially diverse audience; encourage consultation and feedback with your team; use contributions from internal and external sources to develop new ideas; implement processes to address and resolve issues quickly. Contains an overview, key terms, a show and tell audio presentation, a content guide (reading notes and references), websites and a self-check quiz. Contains an interactive Flash object with audio.


Power derived from the utilization of physical or chemical resources, especially to provide light and heat or to work machines.


Gaining informed consent from research participants is widely regarded as central to ethical research practice. This article reports on research which sought to identify contemporary practice in this area amongst researchers working in fields where research participants are often constructed as vulnerable within the research process, and where their potential involvement tends to be mediated by institutional gatekeepers. Drawing on telephone interview and focus group data, the article focuses specifically on the experiences of researchers working with children and young people. It highlights the tensions experienced by many researchers between a personal commitment to an ethical framework which seeks to prioritise the agency and competency of children and young people, and the conditions imposed upon them by working within institutional settings where these principles may be undermined. This research suggests that the consent practices of child- and youth-orientated institutions, however much frowned upon, tend to go largely unchallenged by researchers, to the detriment of the rights of children and young people to opt in and out of research on their own behalf.


BACKGROUND
In the western world, 2-5% of women of child-bearing age suffer from irondeficiency anemia. Iron overload due to chronic treatment with blood transfusions or hereditary hemochromatosis is much rarer.

METHODS
This review is based on pertinent publications retrieved by a selective search on the pathophysiology, clinical features, and diagnostic evaluation of iron deficiency and iron overload.

RESULTS
The main causes of iron deficiency are malnutrition and blood loss. Its differential diagnosis includes iron-refractory iron deficiency anemia (IRIDA), a rare congenital disease in which the hepcidin level is pathologically elevated, as well as the more common anemia of chronic disease (anemia of chronic inflammation), in which increased amounts of hepcidin are formed under the influence of interleukin-6 and enteric iron uptake is blocked as a result. Iron overload comes about through long-term transfusion treatment or a congenital disturbance of iron metabolism (hemochromatosis). Its diagnostic evaluation is based on clinical and laboratory findings, imaging studies, and specific mutation analyses.

CONCLUSION
Our improving understanding of the molecular pathophysiology of iron metabolism aids in the evaluation of iron deficiency and iron overload and may in future enable treatment not just with iron supplementation or iron chelation, but also with targeted pharmacological modulation of the hepcidin regulatory system.


Understanding and managing the safety and reliability issues of ocean energy converters is a key factor in the development of viable technologies. The present article deals with wear in the high-pressure hydraulic power take-off machinery in a heaving-buoy wave energy converter. In this study, an abrasive wear model for such machinery is developed for the steady-state operation by considering the effects of sealed pressure, relative velocity, material properties, time-varying environmental conditions, and lubrication, with a focus on the piston ring. In particular, the dependence of the wear damage on the sea state condition is investigated. The dynamic parameter named instantaneous wear work rate (Load × Velocity) is numerically calculated in the time domain. An estimate of the average wear work rate in each sea state is computed on the basis of a wave scatter table (significant wave heights versus peak period). Long-term wear damage can then be accounted for by summing up the short-term wear damage multiplied with the occurrence probability of each sea state. Finally, the relative contribution of wear damage from different sea states is obtained.


Continuous advancements of technologies such as machine-to-machine interactions and big data analysis have led to the internet of things (IoT) making information sharing and smart decision-making possible using everyday devices. On the other hand, swarm intelligence (SI) algorithms seek to establish constructive interaction among agents regardless of their intelligence level. In SI algorithms, multiple individuals run simultaneously and possibly in a cooperative manner to address complex nonlinear problems. In this paper, the application of SI algorithms in IoT is investigated with a special focus on the internet of medical things (IoMT). The role of wearable devices in IoMT is briefly reviewed. Existing works on applications of SI in addressing IoMT problems are discussed. Possible problems include disease prediction, data encryption, missing values prediction, resource allocation, network routing, and hardware failure management. Finally, research perspectives and future trends are outlined.