Despite widespread use of online reviews in consumer purchase decision making, the potential value of online reviews in facilitating digital collaboration among product/service providers, consumers, and online retailers remains under explored. One of the significant barriers to realizing the above potential lies in the difficulty of understanding online reviews due to their sheer volume and free-text form. To promote digital collaborations, we investigate aspect based sentiment dynamics of online reviews by proposing a semi-supervised, deep learning facilitated analytical pipeline. This method leverages deep learning techniques for text representation and classification. Additionally, building on previous studies that address aspect extraction and sentiment identification in isolation, we address both aspects and sentiments analyses simultaneously. Further, this study presents a novel perspective to understanding the dynamics of aspect based sentiments by analyzing aspect based sentiment in time series. The findings of this study have significant implications with regards to digital collaborations among consumers, product/service providers and other stakeholders of online reviews.


It has been known for almost 40 years that general planar quadratic polynomial systems can have four limit cycles. Recently, four limit cycles were also found in near-integrable quadratic polynomial systems. To help more people to understand limit cycles theory, the visualization of such four numerically simulated limit cycles in quadratic systems has attracted researchers' attention. However, for near-integral systems, such visualization becomes much more difficult due to limitation on choosing parameter values. In this paper, we start from the simulation of the well-known quadratic systems constructed around the end of 1979, then reconsider the simulation of a recently published quadratic system which exhibits four big size limit cycles, and finally provide a concrete near-integral quadratic polynomial system to show four normal size limit cycles.


The authors have developed a water cooling and gas-aerosol particles removal system during formation process or charging lead-acid batteries. The mentioned system allows increasing the output of high-quality products with identical parameters under conditions of commercial production and large-scale operation.


Previous research on the use of behaviour modelling techniques for training in industry have shown it to be generally effective. Further, more specific work has suggested that effectiveness might be improved by the use of techniques (symbolic coding and rehearsal) designed to improve trainees' retention processes. This study examined the use of symbolic coding (learning points) and rehearsal techniques in behaviour modelling training. The data were derived from a field experiment conducted in a UK financial services organisation. Although, as expected, the behaviour modelling approach did produce effective learning the results showed that, contrary to hypotheses, variations in symbolic coding (different learning points conditions) and rehearsal did not influence training outcomes.


Many industries are impacted by "superstars," where a select few individuals add tremendous economic value. This paper estimates fan willingness-to-pay for superstars in the National Basketball Association, and, in particular, distinguishes between demand for player skill versus player popularity. Using microdata from an online secondary ticket marketplace and plausibly exogenous player absence announcements, I find 4-16% ($7-$42) reductions in prices when superstars are announced to miss games. Additionally, LeBron James and Stephen Curry exhibit even larger impacts when isolating away game absences--21% ($75) per ticket for LeBron and 18% ($55) per ticket for Curry. The results suggest popularity is a more significant determinant of willingness-to-pay than skill, and in line with previous literature on superstars, popularity predicts price impacts convexly. This paper provides a novel methodology to estimate superstar value, and has implications for players, leagues, franchises, and ticket companies.


Study has revealed that metal and glass exterior curtain walls constructed between the late 1960's and early 1980's can perform poorly and become very ineffective in preventing water infiltration. One such high-rise commercial office building demonstrates that wall performance against water infiltration is compromised due to cyclic wind loads, poor performance of gaskets and sealed joints and poor performance of fasteners and welds used to connect aluminum wall components. Failures and restoration methods at sealant joints and mechanical connections of the curtain wall are illustrated at eight major joint conditions. Methods and approaches used to restore weather resistance and structural integrity are discussed. Use of structural and non-structural silicone sealants as well as unique methods of mechanical anchorage are highlighted. Criteria driving the restoration design are presented, including: minimal disturbance to tenants, no disturbance of asbestos materials, a pleasing visual solution and providing for future long-term wall performance.


Europe's contemporary political landscape has been shaped by massive shifts in recent decades caused by geopolitical upheavals such as Brexit and now, COVID-19. The way in which policy makers respond to the current pandemic could have large effects on how the world looks after the pandemic subsides. We aim to investigate complex questions post COVID-19 around the relationships and intersections concerning nationalism, religiosity, and anti-immigrant sentiment from a socio-cognitive perspective by applying a mixed-method approach (survey and modelling); in a context where unprecedented contagion threats have caused huge instability. There are still significant gaps in the scholarly literature on populism and nationalism. In particular, there is a lack of attention to the role of evolved human psychology in responding to persistent threats, which can fall into four broad categories in the literature: predation (threats to one's life via being eaten or killed in some other way), contagion (threats to one's life via physical infection), natural (threats to one's life via natural disasters), and social (threats to one's life by destroying social standing). These threats have been discussed in light of their effects on religion and other forms of behaviour, but they have not been employed to study nationalist and populist behaviours. In what follows, two studies are presented that begin to fill this gap in the literature. The first is a survey used to inform our theoretical framework and explore the different possible relationships in an online sample. The second is a study of a computer simulation. Both studies (completed in 2020) found very clear effects among the relevant variables, enabling us to identify trends that require further explanation and research as we move toward models that can adequately inform policy discussions.


The investigation was conducted to study the role of the determination of tumor markers (CEA, beta 2-microglobulin, IgE and ferritin) in patients with malignant lymphomas. Altogether 66 patients with Hodgkin's disease, 60 with non-Hodgkin's lymphomas and 15 with clinico-hematological remission over one year were investigated, using commercial kits of reagents. An increase in the level of beta 2 was shown to depend on the spreading of a lymphoproliferative process. An elevated level of IgE was noted in Hodgkin's disease whereas a significant rise was unnoticed in non-Hodgkin's lymphomas. An increase in the level of serum ferritin was noted in an advanced and aggressive lymphoproliferative process. The CEA test in malignant lymphomas is not informative.


This paper discusses nonprofit organizations as providers of public goods in the context of market failure theory. The paper defines common terms, elaborates on existing theory regarding non-profits and the market, and ties the argument to the current conversation in Public Administration. The author's argument is that the establishment of non-profit organizations as community solutions to fill the void of market failure is congruent with the communitarian and implicitly Anti Federalist perspective in the Public Administration discourse. Due to urbanization and urban migration related problems, Turkey is facing market failures in the provision of public goods similar to those of the progressive era in the US. As government falls short of providing necessary services, third sector organizations step up to the task. Currently Turkey's third sector is rather loosely structured and needs to be developed to be able to compensate for the shortcomings of the private and public sectors provision of these goods.


The theory describing the electron mass enhancement in Kondo-lattice heavy-fermion systems is presented. The description is based on the picture of a spin Fermi liquid of RVB type which strongly interacts with conduction electrons. It is shown that the electron - spinon scattering results in large phase shifts for conduction electrons near the Fermi level which mimic the resonance renormalization but does not involve f-electron states. The results are compared with dHvA data for several Ce-based compounds.


The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) adopts as a final rule, with changes, a proposal to amend its regulations concerning copayments charged to certain veterans for medication required on an outpatient basis to treat nonservice-connected conditions. Prior to this final rule, VA charged non-exempt veterans either $8 or $9 for each 30-day or less supply of medication, and that amount may have changed in future years. This rulemaking replaces those rates and
establishes three classes of medications for copayment purposes, identified as Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3. These tiers are defined further in the rulemaking and are distinguished in part based on whether the medications are available from multiple sources or a single source, with some exceptions. Copayment amounts are fixed and would vary depending upon the class of medication. The following medication copayment amounts are applicable on the effective date of this final rule: $5 for a 30-day or less supply of a Tier 1 medication, $8 for a 30-day or less supply of a Tier 2 medication, and $11 for a 30-day or less supply of a Tier 3 medication. For non-exempt veterans these copayment amounts will result in lower out-of-pocket costs, thereby encouraging greater adherence to taking prescribed medications and reducing the risk of fragmented care that results when veterans use non-VA pharmacies to fill their prescriptions. The proposed rule was published on January 5, 2016 and the public comment period closed on March 7, 2016. We received nine comments and respond to these comments
here.


This research aims to test the influence about fundamental factors which is consisting of Retrun on Assets (ROA), Return on Equity (ROE), Debt to Equity Ratio (DER), and Net Profit Margin (NPM) to share price. The sample of this research is the manufacture company which is registered in Indonesian Stock Exchange during 2012 - 2016. This research uses 12 samples which is choosen by purposive sampling method. The results showed that ROA and NPM have positive but unsignifcant effect on price share, ROA has positive and significant effect on price share, and DER has negative and unsignificant effect on price share. ROA, ROE, DER, and NPM all simultaneously have significant effect on price share. Moreover, the result that has been obtained by using R-Square is 90,41% and the remaining 9,59 % influenced by other factors.


'Acute bilateral thalamic necrosis in a child with Mycoplasma pneumoniae' SIR–I read with great interest the case report by Ashtekar and colleagues that concerns a 5-year-old boy who recovered from acute bilateral thalamic necrosis due to Mycoplasma pneumoniae with only minor deficits.1 Acute necrotizing encephalopathy of childhood (ANEC) is the accepted terminology for this particular acute childhood encephalopathy, with striking neuroimaging changes described by many authors.2–5 One of the many reasons for this, is that the bilateral thalami are not the only regions involved. Cerebral white matter, the cerebellar medulla, and brainstem tegmentum are also involved in more than 50% of our participants,5 and we would appreciate information on those areas in the patient reported by Ashtekar and colleagues.1 More than 80 participants of ANEC have been reported from Japan and Taiwan.2,5 Until now, only a few case reports have been published in the English literature outside these two countries. These include reports from the USA,6,7 UK,1,8 Italy,9 Portugal,10 Spain,3 Belgium,11 Greece,12 and Korea.13 The boy report by Ashtekar and colleagues1 is certainly important because he is not Asian; one patient reported from Germany was actually an immigrant from Japan.4 Race is truly a very significant factor for ANEC. Influenza viral infections, predominantly type A but also B, have frequently been associated with ANEC, and may cause small epidemics in Japan.14–16 However, other viral infections of measles, chickenpox, roseola infantum, and exanthum subitum have been reported.2–5 M. pneumoniae encephalopathy reported in a 75-year-old man, was not ANEC at all.17,18 My colleagues and I treated an 8-month-old girl with ANEC who had positive serum mycoplasmal immunoglobulin M, and raised paired serum immunoglobulin G antibody 11 years ago.5 She survived with a near vegetative status and severe dystonia and choreoathetosis. Although the pathogenesis of ANEC is still uncertain, increasing numbers of authors believe that some virus, or its variants, will usually rapidly start (within 24 to 48 hours) intracranial cytokine storms that cause blood-brain-barrier damage in a particular brain region. This results in localized oedema and other pathological changes, such as congestion or haemorrhage, without signs of direct viral invasion and parainfectious demyelination.14–16 Certain symptomatic medications used in the early stages of viral infection may play some similar roles in ANEC as those played by salicylates in Reye syndrome.16


This study delves into what teachers think about their own continuing education. Different points of analysis are identified with respect to seniority in the profession, methodological interests, interest in updating know-how, interest in incorporating new knowledge and, finally, the place training occupies in the teacher's subjective thinking. At the onset of teaching, continuing education works and is conceived as a way to stay active while entering the job market. In contrast, for teachers who already have a history in the profession, it is viewed as an escape from work or a recourse that occasionally gives meaning to work, thus assuming an important subjective place in the teacher's vocation. Yet, regardless of the motivation, the acquisition of new knowledge is the most enduring reason teachers draw on to further their training.


Abstract High-resolution, tympano-cochlear scintigraphy (TCS) is a useful tool for visualizing changes in labyrinthine bone metabolism in active otosclerosis in vivo. But until now, the activity patterns have mostly been rather imprecisely ascribed to the labyrinthine structures; more exactly by means of high- resolution CT (HR-CT). Experimental studies on TCS using a human temporal bone model revealed that correlative imaging of X-ray photographs and the scintigrams or superimposition with masks of the temporal bone drawn from the X-rays can facilitate the localization of small foci of about 0.5–1 mm. Clinical applications of the visualization technique, combining functional with structural images, confirmed the benefit of this method, improving the accuracy in detection and localization of focal activity enrichment of the petrous bone in cases of active otosclerosis by means of TCS.


Reintegrating ex-offenders into society poses a significant global challenge, yet, it is fundamental to reducing recidivism. Nevertheless, there is research paucity exploring public perceptions and attitudes towards ex-offenders and their reintegration in Nigeria. This study makes an original contribution, drawing on a mixed-method approach underpinned by positivist and interpretivist epistemology to understand attitudes towards ex-offenders' reintegration and whether there is a positive association between the level of education and the likelihood of accepting ex-offenders into society. In total, 1187 respondents completed survey questionnaires from states representing Nigeria's main geopolitical zones affected by conflict. Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics and Spearman's rank correlation coefficient. The qualitative analysis involved a unique combination of social identity and boundary theories. The quantitative ambit reveals a correlation coefficient of r = .025, denoting a negative association between the level of education and reintegration. The qualitative analysis further finds a lack of confidence in ex-offenders' genuine reintegration coupled with the perceived role of community trauma, which collectively fuels a negative social identity against the ex-offenders. Collectively, insight gained from the findings advances our knowledge on improving reintegration in countries affected through addressing trauma and stigma to encourage the successful reintegration of ex-offenders and avoid recidivism.


The attention in anomaly is difficult since they include important and actionable data in lots of domains, for example invasion and recognition of fraud furthermore to medical diagnosis. It had been in recent occasions observed that distribution of point reverse-neighbour counts become skewed in high dimensions that results within phenomenon referred to as hubness. We offer a unifying vision of role concerning reverse nearest neighbour counts within problems strongly related not viewed anomaly recognition, and concentrate on high dimensionality effects on not viewed anomaly-recognition techniques in addition to hubness phenomenon. The feel of anti-hubs happens because high dimensionality when neighbourhood dimension is small in comparison with data size. These anti-hubs occurrence is strongly associated with anomaly in high-dimensional furthermore to low dimensional data.


In September 2000, the Quality Interagency Coordination (QuIC) Task Force invited the RAND Center to Improve Care of the Dying and Americans for Better Care of the Dying to testify at its National Summit on Medical Errors and Patient Safety Research. In their testimony, the organizations urged the QuIC to consider the special vulnerability and needs of individuals at the end of life in crafting their research agenda. Patients at the end of life are particularly vulnerable to medical errors and other lapses in patient safety for three reasons: (1) substantially increased exposure to medical errors; (2) more serious effects from errors because they cannot protect themselves from risks and have less reserve with which to overcome the effects; and (3) pervasive patterns of care that run counter to well-substantiated evidence-based practices. A national research agenda on preventing medical errors and increasing patient safety must include a focus on how to improve shortcomings affecting these vulnerable patients. The QuIC's preliminary research agenda, released in October 2000, included patients coming to the end of life. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the lead federal agency for researching patient safety and medical errors, released between November 2000 and April 2001 six Requests for Applications for research into medical errors.


The problem of this study concerns the structure and content of teacher education programs in colleges and universities which are members of the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI).
A questionnaire was developed and consisted of four sections: (1) general background information of the respondent; (2) questions relating to the live NCATE standards using a Likert scale of 1 to 3, regarding respondent's teacher education program; (3) general information concerning Bible credit hours required, critical problems and factors considered in job placement of graduates; and (4) an opinionnaire concerning current issues in teacher education, significant changes in respondents' programs and cooperative and unusual program arrangements. One hundred questionnaires were mailed to the 100 collegiate members of ACSI in 1987. Of the 75 returned, 57 were usable. This represents a 57 percent response rate.
Based on the information provided by the chairpersons participating in the study, the following conclusions are drawn relative to ACSI teacher education programs:
1. The influence of an outside agency, such as the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), seems to benefit teacher education programs.
2. State accreditation of teacher education programs appears to be important to both NCATE and non-NCATE accredited programs.
3. Of the five NCATE standards, knowledge base for professional education was the standard that seemed to be the strongest to ACSI collegiate members.
4. ACSI schools emphasize biblical and theological education concurrent with teacher education.
5. Institutions with NCATE accredited programs seem to be satisfied with NCATE accreditation, although institutions with non-NCATE accredited programs seem to favor additional accreditation from an organization other than NCATE.
6. The small number of ACSI programs accredited by NCATE may be due to (1) theological conflicts, (2) fiscal requirements, (3) the amount of work involved in the accreditation process, or any combination of the three.


Analog optical transmission techniques such as radio-over-fiber (RoF) and multiple intermediate-frequency-over-fiber (multi-IFoF) have attracted a great deal of attention for use in 5G mobile fronthaul links. Recently, an IFoF transmission with a record CPRI-equivalent capacity of 1.53 Tb/s has been demonstrated by using the Kramers-Kronig (KK) receiver. However, one major issue associated with the KK receiver is its computational complexity. Also, since the minimum phase condition must be satisfied, the optimal carrier-to-signal power ratio (CSPR) should be large enough; however, this results in a low receiver sensitivity. To address these issues, we have recently proposed and demonstrated a signal-to-signal beat interference (SSBI)-free direct-detection (DD) system employing phase modulation (PM). Since a PM signal has a constant amplitude, its SSBI term becomes just a direct-current (DC) component. Therefore, the SSBI can be perfectly removed using a DC block without resorting to complicated digital-signal-processing (DSP)-based schemes such as the KK algorithm. In this article, we describe the principles of operation of the SSBI-free PM system in detail. We present a numerical study of performance comparisons between the SSBI-free and KK systems. The result reveals that the optimal CSPR is always 0 dB in the SSBI-free system, while it depends on optical-signal-to-noise-ratio (OSNR) levels in the KK system. The dispersion tolerance of the SSBI-free system is also investigated, showing that the SSBI-free system can support a 2-GHz 1024QAM-signal delivery in a typical deployment scenario of mobile fronthaul links. Finally, we present an experimental demonstration of a 2-GHz 1024QAM OFDM transmission with the SSBI-free system. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of 1024QAM DD-based transmission for analog mobile fronthaul links.


The results are presented of a migration assay of scleral fibroblasts to 25% diluted vitreous samples from 27 patients with complex retinal detachments divided into three groups: group 1, no proliferative vitreoretinopathy (PVR); group 2, early PVR; and group 3, advanced PVR. There was a statistically significantly greater migration with vitreous samples from group 3 than with group 1 (p less than 0.0001) but no significant correlation for migration with the age of patients, duration of retinal detachment, or number of retinal procedures undertaken. Analysis of vitreous by gel electrophoresis showed that cellular migration was proportional to the number of peptide bands. Vitreous fibronectin levels were measured and there was a positive correlation between fibronectin in the vitreous samples and the migration of fibroblasts to the vitreous (r = 0.68, p less than 0.004).


Abstract. The Lochkovian (Lower Devonian) conodont biostratigraphy in China is poorly known, and conodont-based subdivision schemes for the Lochkovian in peri-Gondwana (the Spanish Central Pyrenees, the Prague Synform, Sardinia, and the Carnic Alps) have not been tested in China. Therefore, we studied conodonts from the lower part (Bed 9 to Bed 13) of the Shanjiang Formation at the Alengchu section of Lijiang, western Yunnan to test the application of established subdivision schemes. The conodont fauna is assignable to 12 taxa belonging to eight genera (Ancyrodelloides, Flajsella, Lanea, Wurmiella, Zieglerodina, Caudicriodus, Pelekysgnathus, and Pseudooneotodus), and enables recognition of two chronostratigraphical intervals from the lower part of the Shanjiang Formation. The interval ranging from the uppermost part of Bed 9 to the upper part of Bed 10 belongs to the lower Lochkovian; whereas an interval covering the uppermost part of Bed 11 to the upper part of Bed 13 is correlated with the upper half of the middle Lochkovian. The Silurian-Devonian boundary is probably located within Bed 9, in the basal part of the Shanjiang Formation. However, the scarcity of specimens precludes definitive identification of bases of the lower, middle, and upper Lochkovian as well as other conodont zones recognized in peri-Gondwana.


Abstract. In this paper, the effect of the morphological modification of aerosol particles with respect to heterogeneous ice nucleation is comprehensively investigated for laboratory-generated hematite particles as a model substrate for atmospheric dust particles. The surface-area-scaled ice nucleation efficiencies of monodisperse cubic hematite particles and milled hematite particles were measured with a series of expansion cooling experiments using the Aerosol Interaction and Dynamics in the Atmosphere (AIDA) cloud simulation chamber. Complementary offline characterization of physico-chemical properties of both hematite subsets were also carried out with scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy, dynamic light scattering (DLS), and an electro-kinetic particle charge detector to further constrain droplet-freezing measurements of hematite particles. Additionally, an empirical parameterization derived from our laboratory measurements was implemented in the single-column version of the Community Atmospheric Model version 5 (CAM5) to investigate the model sensitivity in simulated ice crystal number concentration on different ice nucleation efficiencies. From an experimental perspective, our results show that the immersion mode ice nucleation efficiency of milled hematite particles is almost an order of magnitude higher at −35.2 °C


This paper uses annual time series data on inflation in Israel from 1960 to 2017, to model and forecast inflation using the Box – Jenkins ARIMA technique. Diagnostic tests indicate that Q is I (1). The study presents the ARIMA (1, 1, 2) model for predicting inflation in Israel. The diagnostic tests further show that the presented parsimonious model is stable and acceptable for predicting inflation in Israel. The results of the study apparently show that inflation in Israel is likely to be hovering around 1.6% over the next decade. Basically, the study encourages the Bank of Israel to continue being transparent and independent in order to retain credibility and boost its ability to engineer successful macroeconomic policy actions.


This research aims to evaluate the performance of PolyCera® Titan membrane for different wastewater treatment. Membrane filtration of several cycles was conducted in understanding the fouling mechanism, fouling propensity, and defouling potential of the PolyCera® Titan which had not been studied by any other researcher before. The PolyCera® Titan membrane is effective for the treatment of textile industry wastewater, palm oil mill effluent (POME), leachate, and semiconductor-industry wastewater. Rejection of methylene blue (MB) and Congo red (CR) was in the range of 78.76-86.04% and 88.89-93.71%, respectively; 94.72-96.50% NaCl, 96.07-97.62% kaolin, and 97.26-97.73% glucose were rejected from synthetic leachate indicating the removal of TDS, TSS, and COD from the leachate, respectively. Standard blocking and complete model were the best models used to explain the PolyCera® Titan membrane fouling mechanism in all types of wastewater treatment processes with a high R2 value. Physical cleaning with the use of distilled water was able to recover the permeate flux with the flux recovery ratio (FRR) value in the range of 79.2-95.22% in the first cycle, 81.20-98.16% in the second cycle, and 86.09-95.96% in the third cycle.


Aromatic π-π interactions between phenyl groups of adjacent chains in poly(4-vinylbiphenyl) (PVBP) have profound effects on the dynamics of this polymer. We report two unexpected nonlinear viscoelastic responses of PVBP when subjected to uniaxial flow. One is the unprecedented observation of extensional strain hardening (SH) in a barely entangled polymer melt. An even more intriguing finding is that SH of lightly (or even barely) entangled melts occurs at strain rates one order of magnitude below the coil-stretch transition predicted by Rouse theory (ϵ[over ˙]_{H}=0.5/τ_{R}).We postulate that this behavior is due to a molecular rearrangement mechanism (supported by x-ray diffraction measurements) that involves flow-induced π-π stacking of the phenyl groups, which results in an enhancement of the friction coefficient between polymer chains.


Over the last two decades, urban planning has been reapplied in several European countries: common tendencies that underline the reform of planning procedures are the generalization of sustainable development and the reorganization of local government. Bringing an additional degree of complexity to planning procedures, the implementation of sustainable development appears to be strongly dependent of an effective and efficient inter-sectorial coordination between urban and transport policies. However, beyond these common evolutions, large differences appear in practice, depending on political cultures, planning traditions, and local contexts. This recent need for coordination, commonly considered a condition for success within urban sustainable development strategies, leads us to question the role of urban planning procedures and its evolution by analysing a specific case study, the cross-border agglomeration of Geneva, Switzerland, and reconstituting its "trajectory" during the last forty decades. The policy paths of the Genevan urban area have been described by considering the evolution of successive master plans, the implemented technical solutions and projects and the different means used in favour of an inter-sectorial coordination. For this analysis, factors of change or inertia in terms of have been identified by focusing on three main variables: ideas, institutions and interests. The case of Geneva illustrates how planning procedures take an integral part in the policymaking process, with these procedures elaborated simultaneously with policies. Torn between the renewal of public policy goals and the outcome of new territories, the reform of urban planning presents several contradictions. Conversely, sustainable development particularly fails to be addressed as a true political issue, limited to a definition of norms or legitimizing local policies.


The aim of the paper is to develop a methodology for risk analysis and risk assessment of a risk technical system (traffic light scheme) using the fault tree method. Results: Analysis of the risk of risk technical systems through a fault tree gives an unambiguous relationship between element parameters and parameters of equivalent elements describing a system or a part of a system. An example of risk analysis of a risk technical system (traffic light-scheme) is shown with the fault tree method applicable to students training on risk analysis and management, including a sample scheme and a tree scheme (according to accepted assumptions) and with the possibility of calculating it and determining the risk at the assumed value of the damage. Contributions: A methodology for analysis and risk assessment of risk technical systems (traffic lightscheme) has been developed and an example has been developed for the students' training in risk analysis and management.


As the first example of using a parent tetrazole and an azide together in preparing magnetic complexes, two novel tetrazolate–azido-bridged Cu(II) coordination polymers, [Cu(tz)(N3)]n (1) and [Cu(tz)(N3)(NH3)2]n (2) (tz = tetrazolate), have been synthesized through the reaction of Htz, CuCl2, and NaN3 under hydrothermal conditions and in ammonia solution at room temperature, respectively. Single crystal X-ray structure analysis reveals that the two complexes possess distinct three-dimensional (3D) framework structures and can be topologically described as a 3-connected srs (SrSi2)-type net and a 4-connected cds (CdSO4)-type net, respectively. Both tetrazolate and azide groups also have different linkage modes in the two complexes. 1 contains end-on (EO) type azide bridges and 3-connected tetrazolate, while 2 possess end-to-end (EE) azide linkers and 2-coordinated tetrazolate. Magnetic measurements indicate that antiferrimagnetic interactions dominate between Cu(II) ions in the two complexes with the corresponding magnetic coupling constant being J = −41.0 cm−1 in 1 and J = −8.62 cm−1 in 2.


The optimization method for public traffic line network is studied according to the feature of line network optimization problem. By using system science theory, seven objective functions and three constraints of line network optimization are established. An ideal solution decision method based on entropy weight and multi-objective programming is proposed. The method is simple and easy to use. By using the method combining expert judgment with entropy weight, the indexes weights are determined, which realizes the unity of subjectivity and objectivity.


The aim of this paper is to analyse the syntax of Polish nominal expressions in terms of what is known as the DP hypothesis (the idea that was discussed in Abney 1987). The fact that articles occupy the D position crosslinguistically is widely accepted. But many linguists have raised the question whether it is reasonable to assume the DP hypothesis for languages that do not have lexical articles. Polish is an articleless language. In this paper, I will argue that even Polish has the DP layer. Furthermore, I will show that it projects at least one more functional phrase between NP and DP. The evidence for the above claims will be based on certain DP-internal word order facts. I will account for them by postulating that, in the absence of lexical articles, other elements may move to the functional projections above NP and lexicalise them in overt syntax.


ABSTRACT Introduction. The investigation of word generation performance is an accepted, widely used, and well-established method for examining cognitive, language, or communication impairment due to brain damage. The performance measure traditionally applied in the investigation of word generation is the number of correct responses. Previous studies, however, have suggested that this measure does not capture all potentially relevant aspects of word generation performance and hence its underlying processes, so that its analytical and explanatory power of word generation performance might be rather limited. Therefore, additional qualitative or quantitative performance measures have been introduced to gain information that goes beyond the deficit and allows for therapeutic implications. Method. We undertook a systematic review and meta-analysis of original research that focused on the application of additional measures of word generation performance in adult clinical populations with acquired brain injury. Results. Word generation tasks are an integral part of many different tests, but only few use additional performance measures in addition to the number of correct responses in the analysis of word generation performance. Additional measures, which showed increased or similar diagnostic utility relative to the traditional performance measure, regarded clustering and switching, error types, and temporal characteristics. Conclusions. The potential of additional performance measures is not yet fully exhausted in patients with brain injury. The temporal measure of response latencies in particular is not adequately represented, though it may be a reliable measure especially for identifying subtle impairments. Unfortunately, there is no general consensus as of yet on which additional measures are best suited to characterizing word generation performance. Further research is needed to specify the additional parameters that are best qualified for identifying and characterizing impaired word generation performance.


This study uses satellite imagery and geospatial data to examine the impact of floods over the main planting areas for double-cropping rice and grain crops in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. During summer 2020, a long-lasting 62-day heavy rainfall caused record-breaking floods over large areas of China, especially the Yangtze basin. Through close examination of Sentinel-1/2 satellite imagery and Copernicus Global Land Cover, between July and August 2020, the inundation area reached 21,941 and 23,063 km2, and the crop-affected area reached 11,649 and 11,346 km2, respectively. We estimated that approximately 4.66 million metric tons of grain crops were seriously affected in these two months. While the PRC government denied that food security existed, the number of Grains and Feeds imported from the U.S. between January to July 2021 increased by 316%. This study shows that with modern remote sensing techniques, stakeholders can obtain critical estimates of large-scale disaster events much earlier than other indicators, such as disaster field surveys or crop price statistics. Potential use could include but is not limited to monitoring floods and land use coverage changes.


In the plywood manufacturing factory established in 1979, female 3 workers who had exposed to adhesives containing formaldehyde for more than 48 months of duration suffered from eye, nasal, oral, throat and skin irritation and dyspnea as chief complaints. The actual level of the exposure to formaldehyde were not estimated when the exposed workers started to have above symptoms. The environmental monitoring of workplace was measured on April 25, 1990, and the concentration of formaldehyde revealed 0.2 ppm, however the exhaustive ventilatory system was already installed at that time. Twenty six subjects from entire factory were examined by questionnaire, physical examination and spirometry, etc. on August 22, 1990. Significant difference was observed in symptoms and signs of nasal, oral and throat irritation between the exposed group with longer duration and that with short duration. When the exposed group with longer duration was compared to the group of nonexposed, symptoms and signs of nasal, oral, throat and skin irritaion, chest tightness and dullness were significantly increased in the former group. The results of the spirometric test showed that the forced vital capacity and the forced expiratory volume at 1 second were decreased among the exposed group with longer duration but not significant.


Teaching purpose of enterprise management course in colleges and universities is that students can master the basic knowledge of enterprise management, and apply the enterprise management theory skillfully to solve the problems in the enterprise management practice correctly and reasonably. With the deepening of the reform and opening along with the unprecedented fast development of national economy in our country, the management environment of enterprise is changed significantly and profoundly. At present, many enterprises doubt about management ability and business level of students in the teaching status of enterprise management in colleges and universities. For this purpose, enterprise management teaching in colleges and universities should explore restriction factors on their developments by setting out from themselves, carrying out teaching system reform by taking the market as the guidance, building reasonable and effective teaching process, adopting reasonable teaching means and methods under the guidance of advanced teaching idea. ERP (enterprise resource planning) plays an important role in the reform of enterprise management in colleges and universities as a kind of new enterprise management mode and method with the combination of production and learning in the background of knowledge economy. As a result, the detailed analysis is conducted.


Deep learning shows great potential for the domain of digital pathology. An automated digital pathology system could serve as a second reader, perform initial triage in large screening studies, or assist in reporting. However, it is expensive to exhaustively annotate large histology image databases, since medical specialists are a scarce resource. In this paper, we apply the semi-supervised teacher-student knowledge distillation technique proposed by Yalniz et al. (2019) to the task of quantifying prognostic features in colorectal cancer. We obtain accuracy improvements through extending this approach to a chain of students, where each student's predictions are used to train the next student i.e. the student becomes the teacher. Using the chain approach, and only 0.5% labelled data (the remaining 99.5% in the unlabelled pool), we match the accuracy of training on 100% labelled data. At lower percentages of labelled data, similar gains in accuracy are seen, allowing some recovery of accuracy even from a poor initial choice of labelled training set. In conclusion, this approach shows promise for reducing the annotation burden, thus increasing the affordability of automated digital pathology systems.


The objective of this edited book is to gather best practices in the development and management of mobile apps projects. Mobile Apps Engineering aims to provide software engineering lecturers, students and researchers of mobile computing a starting point for developing successful mobile apps. To achieve these objectives, the book's contributors emphasize the essential concepts of the field, such as apps design, testing and security, with the intention of offering a compact, self-contained book which shall stimulate further research interest in the topic. The editors hope and believe that their efforts in bringing this book together can make mobile apps engineering an independent discipline inspired by traditional software engineering, but taking into account the new challenges posed by mobile computing.


Since their discovery as a by-product of the arc-discharge process (Iijima, 1991), carbon nanotubes and their related materials, i.e. nanofibers and onion-like particles, have received an increasing academic and industrial interest due to their exceptional mechanical and electronic properties (Dresselhaus et al., 2001). Most commonly, carbon nanofilaments are produced by evaporating solid carbon in an arc discharge, by laser beams or by catalytic chemical vapour deposition (CCVD) of carbon-containing gases (Ebbesen, 1997). Depending on the nature of the metal catalyst, the composition of the carburizing mixture, and the synthesis temperature, carbon nanostructures with different shapes, i.e. nanotubes or nanofibers, can be prepared (de Jong & Geus, 2000). A carbon nanotube structure consists of cylindrical graphene layers with a hollow internal cavity, whilst a carbon nanofiber structure consists of a stacking of different graphite sheets oriented at an angle with respect to the fiber axis. The exposed surface of the carbon nanofibers mainly consists of prismatic planes with high surface reactivity when compared to the graphite basal planes of the carbon nanotubes. Among the different potential applications of these materials, catalysis either within the gas or the liquid phase seems to be the most promising according to the results recently reported in literature (Salman et al., 1999). Metals supported on carbon nanofibers or nanotubes exhibit unusual catalytic activity and selectivity patterns when compared to those encountered with traditional catalyst supports such as alumina, silica or activated carbon. The extremely high external surface area displayed by these nanomaterials significantly reduce the mass transfer limitations, especially in liquid phase reactions (Pham-Huu et al., 2001), and the low interaction between the impregnated metallic phase and the exposed planes of the support which leads to the formation of active metallic faces (Rodriguez et al., 1994) were advanced to explain these catalytic behaviours. However, these materials have only been synthesized in a powder form, making difficult their handling and large scale use, especially in a conventional fixed-bed catalytic reactor. The handling of the carbon nanostructures is hampered by the formation of dust and a severe pressure drop along the catalyst bed. It is of interest to find a method allowing (i) the synthesis of carbon nanostructures on a large scale and (ii) with a macroscopic shape in order for it to be used as a catalyst support. It is expected that the macroscopic shaping of such nano-structured materials will open-up a real opportunity for their use as a catalyst support in relation to the traditional catalysts carriers (Vieira et al., 2004). The macroscopic


Abstract Glufosinate efficacy was examined in two major grass weed species, rigid ryegrass and sterile oat. Dose–response pot experiments under controlled environmental conditions showed that sterile oat was more successfully controlled by glufosinate than was rigid ryegrass. Glutamine synthetase was extracted from both species and assayed in vitro. Glufosinate readily inhibited glutamine synthetase activity in both species, indicating no differential sensitivity to the target enzyme. Thin-layer chromatography analysis of glufosinate showed no significant metabolism of glufosinate in either species. Absorption and translocation studies with 14C-glufosinate showed that the radiolabel was rapidly absorbed into the leaves of both species. However, translocation of radiolabeled glufosinate from the treated leaf to the meristematic regions was significantly greater in sterile oat, whereas translocation to the tip of the leaf was significantly greater in rigid ryegrass. This indicates that there is a difference in glufosinate distribution between the two species. It is likely that this difference in the distribution of glufosinate results in sterile oat being more easily controlled by glufosinate than is rigid ryegrass. Nomenclature: Glufosinate; phosphinothricin; rigid ryegrass, Lolium rigidum Gaud. LOLRI; sterile oat, Avena sterilis L. AVEST.


ABSTRACT Why do intelligence estimates sometimes fail to prepare policymakers for change? Some explanations suggest the fault lies with insufficient data collection, weak analysis, or unreceptive audiences. But while more data and better analysis would always be welcome, they may not materially reduce uncertainty; and explanations centering on the intelligence-policymaker relationship offer no systematic critique of the orthodoxy that keeps intelligence and policymakers at arm's length. This paper argues that some cases of estimative failure – including the case of the 1979 Iranian revolution – are the result of a flawed orthodoxy of intelligence-policymaker relations, which overlooks the policymaker's actual and potential impact on the target. In contrast, this paper introduces the concept of "the view from somewhere", which places the customer's policy and preferences at the center of the intelligence problem. In the Iran case, estimates adopting the view from somewhere could have warned Washington of critical decision points while it still had leverage to act, explained how US policy had inadvertently shaped the Shah's ineffectual response to unrest, and assessed opportunities for effective policy alternatives.


Contemporary society is becoming increasingly reliant on critical infrastructure (CI), which contributes to the wellbeing of its populations. One of the CI sectors that most strongly supports society is healthcare, with hospitals a critical healthcare infrastructure that contributes to society by providing numerous healthcare services, especially when dealing with the effects of disastrous events. Any disruption in hospitals' performance—either by physical damage or functional disruption—can have negative consequences on their effective response to disastrous events, which can worsen the outcomes of the emergency situation. Adverse events can affect the overall performance of healthcare systems, directly or indirectly, by compromising the lifeline infrastructure network, with cascading and amplifying effects from malfunctions and failures throughout the CI network. Thus, improving the resilience of hospitals' functional performance (HFP) is critical to minimise interruption to hospital services.
This study's review of the literature highlights the need to approach the issue of HFP resilience from both static and dynamic perspectives to provide a comprehensive understanding of the subject matter. Thus, this research aimed to achieve the following objectives:
- identify the performance metrics through which the resilience of hospitals' performance can be evaluated
- explore the existing interdependencies and complex interactions between the Resilience metrics related to hospitals' internal performance, and the performance metrics related to hospitals' external CI and stakeholders
- develop a model to explore the interactions between hospitals' critical functions when operating under surge procedures and analyse the effects of functional variability on HFP resilience.
The outcome of this review of the relevant literature was the development of a functional resilience index (FRI) for evaluating hospitals' resilience in the face of disruptive events. Following this, this study narrowed the FRI, to a list of metrics and their relative sub-metrics to those elements that a group of subject matter experts (SMEs) collectively believed contribute the most to HFP resilience. Finally, SMEs were interviewed to identify the pairwise relationships among the list of metrics and their relative sub-metrics. Based on their view, the data was prepared for being used by structural modelling techniques (interpretive structural modelling [ISM] and Matrice d'Impacts Croises Multiplication Appliquee a un Classement or 'Cross-Impact Matrix Multiplication Applied to Classification' [MICMAC]). ISM provided a hierarchy within which resilience metrics were classified into different brackets, based on the significance of their influence on HFP. Use of MICMAC highlighted the direct and indirect influences of the chosen metrics and identified their influence on overall HFP resilience. Hence, by using structural analysis techniques, the extent of the relative influence and dependence of internal and external resilience metrics were highlighted and their overall effect on systems was identified.
To address the third objective from a dynamic perspective, functional resonance analysis method (FRAM) was deployed to provide a macro analysis of the interactions among hospital system functions under surge conditions. The use of FRAM as the modelling technique helped address the extent of system adaptability to change and explore the hidden effects of different functions on overall system performance. The modelling involved identification of surge functions and the required conditions for functions generating their intended outcomes.
In the next step, this study identified the pathway through which functional variabilities may propagate throughout the system. To achieve this objective, application of FRAM was integrated with application of the resilience analysis matrix to analyse HFP. The results identified 23 couplings in 153 interactions between 29 functions that had the potential to affect overall HFP. The approach of this research revealed how managing the variability of certain interactions can enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of HFP in dealing with disruptive events. Finally, a number of instantiations were developed to study HFP under different surge scenarios. For scenario analysis, in this study, FRAM was integrated with Monte Carlo simulation to identify the likelihood of hospital functions varying and generating functional resonance.
The outcome of studying HFP with respect to complexity theory was the development of a five-tiered hierarchy to classify the criticality of the couplings between different functions. This hierarchy helped uncover which functions are sensitive to certain types of variability in their input aspects. By discovering the dynamics between the system functions and the way they behave in different scenarios, decision makers can make appropriate decisions to monitor, mitigate and manage those functional variabilities and functional resonance. In this study, it was suggested that, by exploring the interactions among internal and external resilience indicators (which represent the outcomes of different resilience practices and strategies), decision/strategy makers can target those sensitive functions and establish benchmarks to dampen the functional variabilities or isolate the functions to manage functional resonance.
In summary, by analysing HFP from static and dynamic methods, this study provides a unique perspective into the topic of hospital functional resilience when dealing with surge conditions. This approach provides a better understanding of the way in which hospitals' performance can deviate under stress and deal with uncertain conditions, and the way that implementation and improvement of various strategies and practices can effectively improve HFP.


Abstract:Throughout 2021, numerous celebrations, conferences and events took place to pay tribute to the Harvard philosopher John Rawls (1921-2001) and to his most famous book, A Theory of Justice published just fifty years ago in 1971. At the time, the publication became an immediate success worldwide and its influence has been deemed tremendous, the most commented and quoted philosophy book of the century. What was so special about it, was that it brought back to the forefront major normative political and moral issues such as the meaning of distributive justice and its value for democracies, as well as a definitive critique of welfarism. Through an evocation of Rawls's impact as experienced in the States, in France and Europe, from different disciplines ranging from political and moral philosophy to economics and politics, this issue of The Tocqueville Review/La Revue Tocqueville will help to understand the complex nature of European-American cultural and political relations, well in the spirit of Tocqueville. This introduction to this issue presents the various contributions that have been brought together to achieve this goal.


Immunological properties of isepamicin (HAPA-B), a new semisynthetic aminoglycoside, were compared with those of gentamicin (GM). The results are summarized as follows. Rabbits were immunized by HAPA-B or GM with a strong adjuvant, Freund's complete adjuvant, and specific IgG antibodies were found in sera when assayed using PHA and PCA reactions. In sera from guinea pigs and mice immunized by HAPA-B or GM with aluminum hydroxide gel, no specific IgG nor IgE antibody was detected when assayed using PCA reactions. Specific antibodies (IgG, IgE) produced against HAPA-B and GM were confirmed in different animals immunized by chemically introduced antigens of HAPA-B-carrier protein conjugate and GM-carrier protein conjugate, respectively. Guinea pigs immunized by HAPA-B or HAPA-B-carrier protein conjugate with aluminum hydroxide gel did not exhibit typical systemic anaphylactic reactions when elicited with HAPA-B alone. HAPA-B had some immunocross-reactivity with GM. These results suggested that the antibody-producing activity of HAPA-B was similar to that of GM.


In the vast majority of studies on semiconductor particles ligands or capping agents are used that bind to the surface of the particles covering them with an electrically insulating shell. Since the transport of charge carriers and/or energy across interfaces is desirable for a variety of applications, the use of π-conjugated ligands becomes increasingly interesting. Among them are compounds that react to external stimuli. Molecular switches in particular are fascinating because the properties of the interfaces can be potentially adjusted as required. However, there is debate about how the properties of such special ligands are influenced by the presence of a semiconductor and vice versa. Here ammonium-modified azobenzene compounds were selected as prototypes for molecular switches and organic–inorganic hybrid perovskites as semiconductor materials. The class of ammonium–lead–halide phases as prototypes is peculiar because, in addition to the surface functionalization of 3D crystals, organic compounds can actually be incorporated into the crystal as 2D phases. Thus, for example, layered Ruddlesden–Popper phases are obtained. We present photoswitchable azobenzene ligands with different head-group lengths for the synthesis of 2D and 3D hybrid perovskite phases. The energy transfer mechanisms are influenced by the length of the molecular spacer moiety, which determines the distance between the π system and the semiconductor surfaces. We find huge differences in the photoswitching behaviour between the free, surface-coordinated and integrated ligands between the perovskite layers. Photoswitching of azobenzene ligands incorporated in 2D phases is nearly quenched, while the same mechanism for surface-coordinating ligands is greatly improved, compared to the free ligands. The improvement originates from an energy transfer from perovskite to azobenzene, which is strongly distance-dependent. This study provides evidence for the photoswitching of azobenzenes as ligands of hybrid perovskites, which depends on the spacing between the chromophore and the perovskite phase.


An overdue and welcome addition to the otolaryngologist's library of new books is an updated text on the human larynx. The author's aim is to make available to the student, practitioner, specialist and laryngologist much that is relatively new and not available in previously published texts. In this he has succeeded and covers the field remarkably well. However, there is little material in the text that should be unfamiliar to the laryngeal specialist. The book is written in a lucid but dogmatic style which may be somewhat less acceptable to the laryngologist than the undergraduate. It is abundantly illustrated with line drawings, sketches, photographs. Photomicrographs have been carefully selected for representative pathology and have been well reproduced. Each of the 35 chapters has an excellent bibliography of both English and foreign references. This is a very acceptable and well-recommended textbook.


A method of producing single-crystal semiconductor material comprises: providing a template material; creating a mask on top of the template material; using the mask to form a plurality of nanostructures in the template material; and growing the single-crystal semiconductor material onto the nanostructures.


Although cytomegalovirus (CMV) can be fatal to patients with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), it usually causes few, if any, symptoms. The virus has an affinity for the alimentary tract, especially the ileum and right colon. CMV infections of the gut are often erosive, resulting in enterocolitis, hemorrhage, or intestinal perforation. Inflammatory mass formation is rare. Kaposi's sarcoma and lymphoma are established causes of bowel obstruction in patients with AIDS. This report describes a case of ileocecal obstruction due to a discrete CMV-induced pseudotumor in a patient with AIDS.


During a study of the capacity of Syrian hamster cells derived from various organs to transform in vitro after exposure to simian virus 40 (SV40), it was found that cells from lung and liver responded differently compared to those from certain other organs. The most significant difference was the apparent absence of the viral genome in lung and liver cultures that eventually underwent transformation. Materials and Methods.-Virus: SV40, strain VA 45-54 obtained from Dr. M. R. Hilleman, was propagated in grivet monkey kidney cells, line AH-1.1 Infectivity titer of the stock virus was 106-2 TCID50/0.1 ml as determined in AH-1 cell system. Cell cultures: (a) Newborn hamster lung cells: Lungs were removed from a litter of 10 newborn animals, pooled, and trypsinized. (Throughout the article, "hamster" refers to the Syrian hamster.) Cells were grown as monolayers in 16 X 150-mm tubes. Incubation at first was at 370C in a stationary position. Thereafter, cultures were kept at 370C in a roller wheel turning at 1/4 rpm. On day 9 each one of half of the cultures was exposed to 0.1 ml undiluted stock virus, and the remainder were maintained as controls. Growth media were as previously described.2 Serial cell passages from SV40-exposed primary cultures and from controls taken at random were initiated at 1, 2, 2'/2, 3, 3'/2, and 4 months (Table 1) after addition of SV40. Subsequent passages were made every 2-3 weeks, dividing the cells in a ratio of 1: 2. At the end of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th months after addition of virus, a culture from each group was fixed and stained, employing the collodion embedding technique. Representative cultures from subsequent passages were similarly examined. (b) Hamster embryo liver cells: Cultures were prepared from livers of 11 embryos of 2 weeks' gestation, divided into two groups, one of which was exposed to SV40 virus, and handled in the same manner as the lung cultures. Serial cell passages from SV40-exposed primary cultures and from controls were initiated at 1, 1'/2, 2, 21/2, and 3 months (Table 1) after addition of virus. Those started at 1 and 11/2 months (lines N, 0) were made from single primary cultures; those initiated at 2 and 21/2 months (lines BG, 2M) were made by pooling the cells of two tube cultures. Line 2N, initiated at 3 months, originated from a pool of cells from three primary cultures. Pooling some of the embryo liver tube cultures was adopted because passage of single cultures was made with difficulty. (c) Grivet monkey kidney cell cultures: Line AH-11 was used for assay of SV40 infectivity and tests for infective virus in culture fluids and by the Eddy-Gerber4 "overlay method." Plating efficiency: Cell suspensions were prepared from well-grown cultures in 1 ml of Puck's trypsin solution per culture, which was then added to 9 ml of growth medium. Cells were counted and aliquots of suspension diluted to contain 10' to 104 cells/ml were added to Falcon plastic dishes (60 X 15 mm) containing 3 ml of the same medium. Cultures were incubated at 370C in 5% CO2 for 10 days, fixed, stained with hematoxylin, and colonies counted. Tests for infective SV4O: (1) Undiluted culture fluid was centrifuged and the supernatant added in aliquots of 0.5 ml to cultures of AH-1 cells. (2) By a slightly modified Eddy-Gerber "overlay method," 0.2 ml of a suspension of trypsinized cells was overlaid on AH-1 cultures. At the end of 2, 4, and occasionally 6 weeks, centrifuged supernatant fluid from the latter was added to fresh cultures of AH-1 cells, which were examined biweekly for cytopathogenic effect and at the end of 6 weeks were fixed and stained. Immunoftuorescence technique: The indirect test for "cellular" or "tumor" antigen in SV40-


The soft-error resilience of the IBM POWER6™ processor I/O (input/output) subsystem was measured using proton beam irradiation to accelerate the effect of single-event upsets. Test programs exercised each of the adapters on the chip. Error rates were measured for various cases ranging from idle to high I/O bandwidth and utilization. The POWER6 processor and I/O hub subsystem work together to maintain resiliency even under strenuous irradiation conditions.


This paper analyses the construction of a linguistic identity in Argentina through school textbooks. The basic assumption is that the Argentinean school continues to exhibit the 19th century imaginary of being the agency for the diffusion of knowledge and the construction of citizenship, but that today, the instruments that it employs for teaching and the laws that govern the functioning of these materials are strongly influenced by the rules of the market economy. Therefore, the Spanish language, bearer of the Hispanic heritage and a binding element of the Argentinean school of the 19th century, is no longer subject to territorial limits (and thus, to the particularities of linguistic variety) because, by moving beyond these limits, language is able to more easily adapt itself to the expansionist tendencies of the market. In the framework of linguistics politics and relying on the theories that study the role of emotions in the process of self-identification, the article analyses the coexistence of «globalized» language and dialect identification. The tension between these two aspects of language generates identifications of contrasting natures among citizens/speakers; on the one hand, linguistic practice in school is associated with belonging to the nation, while at the same time the use of global textbooks and manuals tends to inhibit the use of language featuring particular local or national elements. The analysis of regional linguistic features in a sample of textbooks (from the present and from past milestones in Argentina) evidences overlapping identities discursively generated between a de-territorialized language and a curricular pattern that promotes the appreciation of varieties.


Bioethanol is one of many promising fuels and alternative energies because bioethanol is made from natural fermentation which can be renewed. White sorgum seed (Shorgum bicolor (L) Moench) is abundantly available in tropical area . With starch content among 70 - 80 wt%, it has the potential as a raw material of bioethanol production. Th is research is conducted continuously in 4 chamber s of Anaerobic Baffled Reactor (ABR) with biocatalyst beads of co-immobili zed glucoamylase and yeast ( Saccharomycescereviceae ) in Na-Alginat. Deactivation time of fermentation can be observed when the decreasing of ethanol content was detected. This time shows the dead phase which is needed in the optimization of bioethanol production by determination of some factors causes th is phase . The result show ed that the biocatalyst beads began to undergo deactivat ion in every ABR chamber s after 358 hours of the fermentation. At this time , the e thanol content in each chamber is: A 1.828 g/L , B 2,319 g/L , C 2,810 g/L , dan  D 3,019 g/L.


The embodiment of the pragmatic school of the 100 years old Eurasianism movement - the Eurasian Economic Union - took inspiration from the European Union to create a single internal market. Hence, the EU and the EAEU both aim to liberalize economic relations between their member states despite their fundamentally distinct histories and development levels. Both unions have achieved some degree of success in establishing the common labour market. As the integration process continues in the context of the global pandemic there are new barriers to abolish. This article examines the European Union (EU) and Eurasian Economic Unions (EAEU) major accomplishments and challenges in establishing a single labour market. The research used a systematic approach to outline two regional labour markets policy context and mechanisms. Comparative analysis is used to highlight the similarities and differences of the EAEU and EUs practice and current challenges in the framework of the single labour market. We found that despite the similar concept and legal basis the practice of a common labour market is distinctive. We have identified the similarities and differences in challenges the unions are facing currently. They vary from individual to global, including linguistic and cultural barriers, skill gaps, aging population, socioeconomic inequalities, etc. We conclude that the ongoing global pandemic has exposed and further aggravated the existing problems for both unions, which requires revisiting and enhancing the legal basis and creating more favorable conditions for migrants, for instance, better social protection.


BACKGROUND/AIMS
Orofacial injuries are a significant public health issue. The evidence-based knowledge associated with adolescent violence and trauma is highlighted by the World Health Organization with regard to its specific needs related to disability, violence, and unintentional injuries. The main aim of this study was to present evidence-based information about orofacial traumatic injuries of an adolescent population using Portuguese epidemiological data. The second aim was to report follow-up data of injuries for disability assessment in a trauma prevention approach.

METHODS
An observational cohort study was performed using the clinical database of the national-specialist-healthcare-centre-of-trauma (2014-2018). Information was collected regarding gender, school age range, etiology, injury type, injury time, and severity. Mann-Whitney (p < .05), Kruskal-Wallis (p < .001), and Cox regression (p < .001) analyses were performed.

RESULTS
Orofacial trauma injuries were present in 23.3% of Portuguese adolescents (age range 10-18 years). The majority were male (72.6%), and no age range stood out in frequency. School accidents (90.6%) were the major etiology for all groups of injuries. The diagnosis of superficial intraoral injuries was the most frequent (50.8%), followed by similar injuries to the face (22.5%). A Cox regression model with an adequate fit was yielded (χ2 [6] = 54.893, p < .001), suggesting that variable injury type was a predictor of disability, considering injury time. Tooth and alveolar loss, complicated tooth fracture, complicated face injury, and temporomandibular injuries were more predictive (1<hazard ratio < 5.329 [95% CI:1.340-12.685]).

CONCLUSION
The type of injury could be used to predict the time of temporary disability. Regarding definitive damage, some injuries were more predictive of severity than others. Preventive procedures should be highlighted in schools.


While Japanese people represent a significant and growing cultural group within the United States, little is known about the culture-specific needs of Japanese women who experience pregnancy and childbirth in this country. Five women participated in a study of Japanese women's experience of pregnancy and childbirth in the United States. The following thematic clusters emerged from the interview data: issues related to the maintenance of Japanese birth-related practices and traditions; comparison of the Japanese and U.S. health systems; language difficulties; and the need for support systems. This group of well-educated, medically sophisticated women regarded their experiences overall to be positive. Still, they identified areas of uncertainty and unfamiliarity of which health professionals should be aware in order to facilitate the negotiation of culturally congruent care.


Objective: Microalbuminuria (MA) is a marker of diabetic nephropathy (DN) but also indicates subclinical inflammation and vascular disease, limiting its sensitivity and specificity for early prediction of DN in type 2 diabetes. A urinary proteomic classifier based on 273 peptides (CKD273) shows promise for early detection of DN; however, the influence of inflammation and subclinical vascular disease on CKD27 is unknown. Design and method: To dissect the relationship between CKD273, vascular phenotypes and inflammation without the confounding influence of MA we studied 145 normoalbuminuric patients with Type 2 diabetes participating in the PRIORITY (Proteomic prediction and Renin angiotensin aldosterone system Inhibition prevention Of early diabetic nephRopathy In TYpe 2 diabetes with normoalbuminuria) trial. Heart-rate corrected augmentation index (AIx@75) and ultrasound measurement of carotid intima-media thickness (c-IMT) were obtained. Urinary proteomic analysis was by capillary electrophoresis coupled to mass spectrometry (CE-MS). Cardiac troponin (TnT); brain natriuretic peptide (BNP); and C-reactive protein (CRP) were assessed by ELISA in a subset of 100 participants. Results: Clinical characteristics (age 61 ± 8.5; BP 135 ± 13/78 ± 9 mmHg; HbA1c 65 ± 13 mmol/mol) and markers of renal function (estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) 89 ± 15 ml/min/1.73 m2) and damage (urinary albumin:creatinine ratio (UACR) 7.4 ± 6.2 mg/g) were distributed within a narrow range. In contrast, CKD273 had a wider distribution (from −0.542 to 0.713) with 16 patients (11%) scoring above the threshold of 0.154 indicating risk for DN development. There was no correlation between CKD273 and vascular parameters (r = 0.13, p = 0.13 for PWV; r = −0.05, p = 0.56 for c-IMT), nor with circulating biomarkers (r = 0.05, p = 0.60 for TnT; r = 0.16, p = 0.12 for BNP; r = −0.07, p = 0.51 for CRP). PWV (9.3 vs 9.1 m/s); TnT (8.5 vs 7.4pg/ml); CRP (1.22 vs 1.19 mg/L) and BNP (56.9 vs 47.7 mg/L) were not significantly different between participants with CKD273 score above/below the mean (−0.256 ± 0.371). Forty-five (31%) patients had diabetic retinopathy and thereby a clinical diagnosis of microvascular disease. There was no association between retinopathy and CKD273 (p = 0.84). Conclusions: CKD273 is neither determined by markers of large and small vessel disease nor biomarkers of inflammation and cardiovascular risk, suggesting that it is a specific renal biomarker rather than indicating generalised vascular disease.


Text clustering is the process of segmenting a particular collection of texts into subgroups including content based similar ones. The purpose of text clustering is to meet human interests in information searching and understanding. This study proposes a new fast hierarchical text clustering algorithm HBSH (Hash-based Structure Hierarchical Clustering), which is suitable for massive text clustering. This algorithm uses hash table instead of numerical vectors as its input data. Compared with the other clustering algorithms, the HBSH performs the text clustering process without setting clustering center number and has minor space complexity in advance, which can achieve better performance. The experimental results illustrate that the average time of HBSH is faster than that of traditional text clustering algorithms. Index Terms—hierarchical, text clustering, hash table


AIM
This paper is a report of part of a larger study exploring rural Ghanaian women's experiences of seeking reproductive health care. The aim of this part of the study was to describe rural women's perspectives on their experiences in seeking reproductive care from professional nurses.

BACKGROUND
Nurses' relationships with childbearing women have been linked to women's reproductive healthcare-seeking behaviour and service utilization. However, few researchers have studied women's perspectives on their relationships with nurses when seeking health care. In Ghana, the high rates of maternal mortality raise concerns about a number of factors, including nurses' relational practices.

METHODS
Data were collected in 2007 with a convenience sample of 27 Ghanaian women via in-depth interviews, focus groups and participant observation. Women's ages ranged from 15 to 49 years. The translated and transcribed data were thematically analyzed.

FINDINGS
Healthcare providers' relational practice influenced women's healthcare-seeking behaviours. Major themes from women's stories were: (a) experiences of intimidation and being scolded, (b) experiences of limited choices, (c) receiving silent treatment, and experiences of lack of privacy. Women emphasized the importance of their relationships with nurses and the impact of these relationships on their healthcare-seeking.

CONCLUSION
Nursing education in Ghana must place emphasis on basic relational practices. Structural changes to health clinics and routine nursing practices are necessary to create conditions for privacy to address women's health concerns. Women's perspectives must be considered for service improvement. Further research is needed to examine nurses' perspectives on relational care.


The prevalence of cardiovascular disease in 453 subjects admitted consecutively to a state school for the retarded was 9%. All but three of the 41 subjects who had cardiovascular disease had congenital heart disease. The population contained 76 with Down's syndrome, 26% (20) of whom had heart disease. Of those who did not have Down's syndrome, 5.6% (21) had heart disease; this is approximately 25 times the rate in the normal population. There was a surprisingly high prevalence of diseases of the aortic valve or ascending aorta; 44% (18) of those with cardiovascular disease had this type.


The objective of this study was to identify changes in prepartum behavior associated with the incidence of postpartum diseases in dairy cows. Multiparous Holstein cows (n = 489) were monitored with accelerometers for 3 wk prepartum. Accelerometers measured steps, time at the feed bunk, frequency of meals, lying bouts, and lying time. Postpartum health was monitored from 0 to 30 d in milk and cases of metritis, mastitis, retained placenta, displaced abomasum (DA), ketosis, and hypocalcemia were recorded. A multivariate linear mixed model was used to assess differences in behavior between diseased and not diagnosed diseased cows. A multivariate logistic regression was used to predict the occurrence of diseases. Predictors were selected using a manual backward stepwise selection process of variables until all remaining predictors had a P < 0.10. Models were submitted to a leave-one-out cross-validation process, and sensitivity, specificity, false discovery rate, and false omission rate were calculated. On average, over the 3-wk prepartum period, cows not diagnosed diseased (n = 345) took 1,613 ± 38 steps, spent 181 ± 7.1 min at the feed bunk, had 8.3 ± 0.17 meals, had 9.8 ± 0.32 lying bouts, and spent 742 ± 11.3 min lying per day. Behavior of diseased cows (n = 144) did not differ from those not diagnosed diseased. However, differences for specific diseases were observed, being significant in the week prepartum. When considering changes in behavior for only the week before calving, cows with metritis had more lying bouts (+21%), cows with DA had fewer meals (-24%) and tended to take fewer steps (-18%), and cows with ketosis had fewer meals (-22%) and spent less time at the feed bunk (-40%). Prediction models with the best outcomes were found for DA and ketosis using data of the prepartum week only. The model for DA included time at the feed bunk. Cross-validation resulted in a 80% sensitivity, 58.1% specificity, 59.2% accuracy, 91.2% false discovery rate, and 1.7% false omission rate. The model for ketosis included time at the feed bunk and number of meals. Cross-validation resulted in 64.3% sensitivity, 59.3% specificity, 59.5% accuracy, 93.0% false discovery rate, and 2.8% false omission rate. Prepartum behavior of cows affected with metritis, DA, and ketosis was different from that of cows not diagnosed with diseases. Prediction equations were able to classify cows at high or low risk of ketosis and DA and can be used in taking management decisions, but the high false discovery rates requires further refinement.


The Barvinok rank of a $d \times n$ matrix is the minimum number of points in $\mathbb{R}^d$ such that the tropical convex hull of the points contains all columns of the matrix. The concept originated in work by Barvinok and others on the travelling salesman problem. Our object of study is the space of real $d \times n$ matrices of Barvinok rank two. Let $B_{d,n}$ denote this space modulo rescaling and translation. We show that $B_{d,n}$ is a manifold, thereby settling a conjecture due to Develin. In fact, $B_{d,n}$ is homeomorphic to the quotient of the product of spheres $S^{d-2} \times S^{n-2}$ under the involution which sends each point to its antipode simultaneously in both components. In addition, using discrete Morse theory, we compute the integral homology of $B_{d,n}$. Assuming $d \ge n$, for odd $d$ the homology turns out to be isomorphic to that of $S^{d-2} \times \mathbb{RP}^{n-2}$. This is true also for even $d$ up to degree $d-3$, but the two cases differ from degree $d-2$ and up. The homology computation straightforwardly extends to more general complexes of the form $(S^{d-2} \times X)/\mathbb{Z}_2$, where $X$ is a finite cell complex of dimension at most $d-2$ admitting a free $\mathbb{Z}_2$-action.


Reflection that closely follows the work of Zigmunt Bauman, Wasted lives: modernity and its outcasts, presents an analysis of more obscure aspects and baffling of the effects of globalization and urbanization deregulated in Panama, providing a new perspective on the effects of the processes of urbanization based on the commodification of the soil, the proliferation of economic migrants, the planning deregulation and the privatization of public spaces lead a significant amount of citizens to join the ranks of the informality; and to gradually and inevitably become what society considers "human waste". Also it reveals the origins of this exclusion, the characteristics of the habitats that are forced to live as pariahs and profiles of these second class, marginalized people. The objectives of reflection are visible characteristics and origins of the Habitat they occupy the excluded, the causes of the mixofobia, the consequences on the citizens and society, as well as point out possible routes to reorient the policies of urban management that minimize the exclusion. Methodology, inductive research process, data collection in official sources, analysis and reflection of the urban development of policies of housing, observation, field visits.


Kernel machines are widely known as powerful tools in various fields of information science. One of central topics of kernel machines is a selection of a kernel function or its parameters. In terms of generalization ability, many methods, represented by cross-validation, have been used for the selection. However, the mathematical analyses of the role of the kernels in kernel machines are not investigated sufficiently. The difficulty of the analyses lies on the fact that the metric of the reproducing kernel Hilbert space corresponding to the adopted kernel depends on the kernel itself, which implies that we do not have a unified (or kernel-independent) framework for the formulation of learning problems. In this paper, we construct a unified framework of learning problems and show that the kernel plays a role to specify the correlation structure of an unknown target function to be estimated.


Software models describe structures, relationships and features of the software. Modern software development methodologies such as MDE (Model Driven Engineering) use models as core elements. In MDE, the code is automatically generated from the model and model errors can implicitly shift into the code, which are difficult to find and fix. Model verification is a promising solution to this problem. However, coverage of all facets of model verification is a painful job and existing formal/semi-formal verification methods are greatly inspired by mathematics and difficult to understand by the software practitioners. This work considers particularly UML Class/OCL (Unified Modeling Language Class/Object Constraint Language) model and presents an ontology-based verification method. In the proposed method, a class diagram is transformed into ontology specified in OWL (Web Ontology Language) and constraints into SPARQL NAF (Negation as Failure) queries. This work tries to demonstrate that the proposed approach can efficiently cover all aspects of UML Class/OCL model verification.


Graph libraries containing already implemented algorithms are highly desired since users can conveniently use the algorithms off-the-shelf to achieve fast analytics and prototyping, rather than implementing the algorithms with lower-level APIs. Besides the ease of use, the ability to efficiently process extra large graphs is also required by users. The popular existing graph libraries include the igraph R library and the NetworkX Python library. Although these libraries provide many off-the-shelf algorithms for users, the in-memory graph representation limits their scalability for computing on large graphs. Therefore, in this paper, we introduce Graph-XLL: a graph library implemented using the WebGraph framework in a vertex-centric manner, with much less memory requirement compared to igraph and NetworkX. Scalable analytics for extra large graphs (up to tens of millions of vertices and billions of edges) can be achieved on a single consumer grade machine within a reasonable amount of time. Such computation would cause out-of-memory error if using igraph or NetworkX.


Human immunoglobulin G (IgG) is the primary component of the human serum antibody fraction, representing about 75% of the immunoglobulins and 10–20% of the total circulating plasma proteins. Generally, IgG sequences are highly conserved, yet the four subclasses, IgG1, IgG2, IgG3, and IgG4, differ in their physiological effector functions by binding to different IgG-Fc receptors (FcγR). Thus, despite a similarity of about 90% on the amino acid level, each subclass possesses a unique manner of antigen binding and immune complex formation. Triggering FcγR-expressing cells results in a wide range of responses, including phagocytosis, antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity, and complement activation. Textbook knowledge implies that only B lymphocytes are capable of producing antibodies, which recognize specific antigenic structures derived from pathogens and infected endogenous or tumorigenic cells. Here, we review recent discoveries, including our own observations, about misplaced IgG expression in tumor cells. Various studies described the presence of IgG in tumor cells using immunohistology and established correlations between high antibody levels and promotion of cancer cell proliferation, invasion, and poor clinical prognosis for the respective tumor patients. Furthermore, blocking tumor-cell-derived IgG inhibited tumor cells. Tumor-cell-derived IgG might impede antigen-dependent cellular cytotoxicity by binding antigens while, at the same time, lacking the capacity for complement activation. These findings recommend tumor-cell-derived IgG as a potential therapeutic target. The observed uniqueness of Ig heavy chains expressed by tumor cells, using PCR with V(D)J rearrangement specific primers, suggests that this specific part of IgG may additionally play a role as a potential tumor marker and, thus, also qualify for the neoantigen category.


The article traces the shared development of an individual, a people, and a universe as expressed in the eighteen episodes of Preliminaries. Each episode is a work in itself, yet at the same time, it is provisionally part of the architectural structure of the novel, which has a preface and five chapters. Each chapter (including the preface) has three episodes, a kind of triptych. The publication of the novel in 1992 came as a surprise to the Israeli reader: Yizhar had gone back to writing after thirty years of silence. The article uncovers the mode of writing and the pattern of the novel.


Operating temperatures of overhead lines have risen. Tests have indicated that conventional sag tension calculations may underestimate sags that occur at the higher temperatures in ACSR (aluminum conductor steel reinforced) spans. Search for the source of the disparities has identified two effects associated with the manner in which conductors are manufactured. One effect involves residual stresses, resulting from stranding practice, in the finished conductor. The other is caused by the ability of the aluminum part of ACSR to bear axial compression. Analysis of these effects appears to explain the disparity in at least one of the test programs that revealed it.


With the next generation of mobile communication being trialled across the world, 5G New Radio (NR) promises to provide a flexible radio interface that fits a diverse range of use cases. As trials and pilots progress, propagation studies are required that evaluate electromagnetic (EM) propagation effects for 5G NR signals. In this article, 5G NR signals are used to evaluate the over-the-air (OTA) error vector magnitude (EVM) within a line-of-sight (LoS) rural/urban environment. For the same receiver locations, time dispersion and propagation loss were measured via the root mean square (RMS) delay spread and path loss. The transmitter−receiver distance investigated ranged from 60m to 450m. From the measurement campaign, the path loss exponent (PLE) using a directional antenna at the receiver was 1.98, and 1.82 with an omnidirectional antenna. The root mean square error (RMSE) of the floating intercept/close-in (FI/CI) models for the path loss was 4.96/4.74 and 3.84/3.23 for directional and omnidirectional receivers. The delay spread using a cross polar configuration showed significant increase and a dependency of the delay spread on the path loss was observed. For the measurement route, the mean delay spread was 24 ns and 35 ns for directional and omnidirectional measurements. With regards to the EVM, 16 and 64-QAM transmissions were robust along the entire route for directional and omnidirectional antennas, whereas 256-QAM worked in locations where there was minimal obstruction to the propagation path. The average EVM (%) for 16, 64 and 256-QAM measured along the route was 4.5/5.3/3.9 and 3.4/4.3/3.6 for omnidirectional and directional antennas. The OTA results also show that using a directional antenna (as the receiver) significantly improves the obtainable signal quality of 5G NR signals and also reduces outages for higher modulation schemes. With the measurement results presented, system designers can design efficient receivers, estimate coverage and adequately provision services using 5G NR on the sub-6 GHz frequency band. INDEX TERMS Path loss; delay spread; EVM; RF propagation; OTA testing; urban environment; 5G.


The plasma membrane Ca2+ ATPase (PMCA) plays a major role in clearing Ca2+ from the neuronal cytoplasm. Calmodulin stimulates PMCA activity and for some isoforms this activation persists following clearance of Ca2+ owing to the slow dissociation of calmodulin. We tested the hypothesis that PMCA‐mediated Ca2+ efflux from rat dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons in culture would remain stimulated following increases in intracellular Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]i). PMCA‐mediated Ca2+ extrusion was recorded following brief trains of action potentials using indo‐1‐based photometry in the presence of cyclopiazonic acid. A priming stimulus that increased [Ca2+]i to 506 ± 28 nm (>15 min) increased the rate constant for [Ca2+]i recovery by 47 ± 3%. Ca2+ clearance from subsequent test stimuli remained accelerated for up to an hour despite removal of the priming stimulus and a return to basal [Ca2+]i. The acceleration depended on the magnitude and duration of the priming [Ca2+]i increase, but was independent of the source of Ca2+. Increases in [Ca2+]i evoked by prolonged depolarization, sustained trains of action potentials or activation of vanilloid receptors all accelerated Ca2+ efflux. We conclude that PMCA‐mediated Ca2+ efflux in DRG neurons is a dynamic process in which intense stimuli prime the pump for the next Ca2+ challenge.


Although the development of rheological software has kept pace with the advances in modern rheometrical instruments the process of data analysis and interpretation remains fallible and can be prone to some signiicant errors. The reason for this is that the ability and knowledge of human beings to utilise the intruments and data at their disposal can be somewhat limited in some instances. To solve this problem an intelligent system has been built which incorporates knowledge to assist the user. The system provides descriptions about the data or graph using natural language, explanations using tutorial frames, and a step-by-step hands-on guidance through the data analysis. In this paper, the two major problems faced by users are stated and the techniques (symbolic and nonsymbolic computation) employed to solve these problems are described theoretically. Finally, illustrations are given which show how these ideas are implemented in the system.


A central political goal of Juha Sipila's government was to implement comprehensive reform concerning health and social services. In this article we study how leaders of change, whose task it was to prepare and implement the reform together with regional institutions, experienced the political process aimed to prepare and implement the reform. Key theoretical concepts discussed herein are different models of democracy, dialogue and trust. Our empirical data consists of 17 interviews with the leaders of change. The key focus is on interaction and trust at the interface of politics and the public authorities involved in the implementation process. According to our results political guidance and power replaced trust at the interface of political and public authorities. As a result, criticism of the leaders of change toward the problems of reform was not sought, and thus the political decision-making process was characterized by a lack of trust.


Organotins (OTs) are considered some of the most toxic chemicals introduced into aquatic environments by anthropogenic activities. They are widely used for agricultural and industrial purposes and as antifouling additives on boat hull's paints. Even though the use of OTs was banned in 2008, elevated levels of OTs can still be detected in aquatic environments. OTs' deleterious effects upon wildlife and experimental animals are well documented and include endocrine disruption, immunotoxicity, neurotoxicity, genotoxicity, and metabolic dysfunction. Crustaceans are key members of zooplankton and benthic communities and have vital roles in food chains, so the endocrine-disrupting effects of tributyltin (TBT) on crustaceans can affect other organisms. TBT can disrupt carbohydrate and lipid homeostasis of crustaceans by interacting with retinoid X receptor (RXR) and crustacean hyperglycemic hormone (CHH) signaling. Moreover, it can also interact with other nuclear receptors, disrupting methyl farnesoate and ecdysteroid signaling, thereby altering growth and sexual maturity, respectively. This compound also interferes in cytochrome P450 system disrupting steroid synthesis and reproduction. Crustaceans are also important fisheries worldwide, and its consumption can pose risks to human health. However, some questions remain unanswered. This mini review aims to update information about the effects of OTs on the metabolism, growth, and reproduction of crustaceans; to compare with known effects in mammals; and to point aspects that still needs to be addressed in future studies. Since both macrocrustaceans and microcrustaceans are good models to study the effects of sublethal TBT contamination, novel studies should be developed using multibiomarkers and omics technology.


: The article highlights and summarizes the main aspects of the work of the Czechoslovak Red Cross in Soviet Russia and Ukraine during the famine of 1921-1923s. Its sources are documents from the Russian archives, the National Archives of Sweden, first introduced into scientific circulation in Russia, as well as the memories of the participants in the events. The substantial assistance to the starving population was provided by the Nansen International Relief Committee. One of the organizations that belonged to this Committee was the Czechoslovakian Red Cross. The Czechoslovakian Red Cross united several charitable organizations under its authority and worked in the regions most affected by the famine: in Samara province and in Berdyansk and Melitopol districts on the territory of the Ukrainian SSR and the Autonomous Crimean SSR. The aid was provided not only in the form of sending humanitarian supplies to the starving areas, but also by sending their own expedition of the Czechoslovak Red Cross to work in disaster-affected areas. The article reveals the scope of the assistance and provides some details on the activities of the Czechoslovak Red Cross in Soviet Russia and Ukraine during this period. Special attention is paid to a part of the well-known history of the evacuation of children from the starving provinces to Czechoslovakia, namely the little-studied aspect of their re-evacuation after the end of the famine disaster. The article contains references to the receipt of Czechoslovak humanitarian aid to the starving people from the other organizations and sources, such as Workers International Relief, donations from private and official persons, works of art in favor of the starving.


Abstract Classical Wolf-Rayet stars are evolved, hydrogen depleted massive stars that exhibit strong mass-loss. In theory, these stars can form either by intrinsic mass loss (stellar winds or eruptions), or via mass-removal in binaries. The Wolf-Rayet stars in the Magellanic Clouds are often thought to have originated through binary interaction due to the low ambient metallicity and, correspondingly, reduced wind mass-loss. We performed a complete spectral analysis of all known WR binaries of the nitrogen sequence in the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds, as well as additional orbital analyses, and constrained the evolutionary histories of these stars. We find that the bulk of Wolf-Rayet stars are luminous enough to be explained by single-star evolution. In contrast to prediction, we do not find clear evidence for a large population of low-luminosity Wolf-Rayet stars that could only form via binary interaction, suggesting a discrepancy between predictions and observations.