The magnetic liquids such as ferrofluids, biocompatible magnetic nanocarrier, play an important role as drug carriers in the human body. Based on Maxwell's equation and Navier-Stokes equations, a time-dependent analysis of a two-dimensional computational model of magnetic fluid flow is purposed. The FEM is applied to solve Maxwell's equation for a static magnetic field, and Navier-Stokes equations for fluid dynamics. The result of magnetic field has some influences to ferrofluid dynamic flow in blood vessel


Servitude and Emancipation Archival Research ClearingHouse Act or the SEARCH Act - Directs the Archivist of the United States to establish, as part of the National Archives, a national database consisting of historic records of servitude and emancipation in the United States to assist African Americans in researching their genealogy. Requires the National Historical Publications and Records Commission to maintain the database.


RELN is a large secreted glycoprotein that acts at multiple steps of cerebral cortex development, including neuronal migration. Only recessive mutations of the Reelin gene (RELN) have been associated with human cortical malformations and none has been functionally characterized. We identified novel missense RELN mutations in both compound and de novo heterozygous patients exhibiting an array of neuronal migration disorders (NMDs) as diverse as pachygyria, polymicrogyria and heterotopia. Most mutations caused defective RELN secretion in vitro and, when ectopically expressed in the embryonic mouse cortex, affected neuronal aggregation and/or migration in vivo. We determined the de novo heterozygous mutations acted as dominant negative and demonstrated that RELN mutations mediate not only recessive, but also dominant NMDs. This work assesses for the first time the pathogenicity of RELN mutations showing a strong genotype-phenotype correlation. In particular, the behavior of the mutant proteins in vitro and in vivo predicts the severity of cortical malformations and provides valuable insight into the pathogenesis of these disorders.


ABSTRACT White settlers began to establish Christian schools in what is now Wisconsin in 1661. Through examining the papers of Benjamin Stucki, the headmaster of the Winnebago Mission Home—a Wisconsin boarding school in which many Ho-Chunk, Oneida, Chippewa, and Potawatomi children (and others whom were of mixed ancestry) were indoctrinated into Christianity—the author argues manipulation of chronos affects decolonial kairotic moments. Undergirding this argument is the conviction that manipulation of chronos tampers with perceiving settler colonialism's everyday exigency. The mission school's rhetorical obscuring and replacing of settler colonialism's exigency with one (or multiple) they manufacture is a settler exigency. In this process, settlers segment, omit, and create new timelines that distract from the past violence that is undoubtedly stretching into the present. Through manipulating time, what surfaces as the new problem (i.e., not settler colonialism) is the Indigenous person's vulnerability. The implications of rhetorically manipulating time are therefore central concerns in decolonial goals and coalitions.


We develop an approach for estimating net ecosystem exchange (NEE) using inventory-based information over North America (NA) for a recent 7-year period (ca. 2000–2006). The approach notably retains information on the spatial distribution of NEE, or the vertical exchange between land and atmosphere of all non-fossil fuel sources and sinks of CO 2 , while accounting for lateral transfers of forest and crop products as well as their eventual emissions. The total NEE estimate of a À327 ± 252 TgC yr À1 sink for NA was driven primarily by CO 2 uptake in the Forest Lands sector (À248 TgC yr À1), largely in the Northwest and Southeast regions of the US, and in the Crop Lands sector (À297 TgC yr À1), predominantly in the Midwest US states. These sinks are counteracted by the carbon source estimated for the Other Lands sector (+218 TgC yr À1), where much of the forest and crop products are assumed to be returned to the atmosphere (through livestock and human consumption). The ecosystems of Mexico are estimated to be a small net source (+18 TgC yr À1) due to land use change between 1993 and 2002. We compare these inventory-based estimates with results from a suite of terrestrial biosphere and atmospheric inversion models, where the mean continental-scale NEE estimate for each ensemble is À511 TgC yr À1 and À931 TgC yr À1 , respectively. In the modeling approaches, all sectors, including Other Lands, were generally estimated to be a carbon sink, driven in part by assumed CO 2 fertilization and/or lack of consideration of carbon sources from disturbances and product emissions. Additional fluxes not measured by the inventories, although highly uncertain, could add an additional À239 TgC yr À1 to the inventory-based NA sink estimate, thus suggesting some convergence with the modeling approaches.


This paper presents a spatial reduction framework for simulating nonlinear deformable objects interactively. This reduced model is built using a small number of overlapping quadratic domains as we notice that incorporating high-order degrees of freedom (DOFs) is important for the simulation quality. Departing from existing multi-domain methods in graphics, our method interprets deformed shapes as blended quadratic transformations from nearby domains. Doing so avoids expensive safeguards against the domain coupling and improves the numerical robustness under large deformations. We present an algorithm that efficiently computes weight functions for reduced DOFs in a physics-aware manner. Inspired by the well-known multi-weight enveloping technique, our framework also allows subspace tweaking based on a few representative deformation poses. Such elastic weighting mechanism significantly extends the expressivity of the reduced model with light-weight computational efforts. Our simulator is versatile and can be well interfaced with many existing techniques. It also supports local DOF adaption to incorporate novel deformations (i.e., induced by the collision). The proposed algorithm complements state-of-the-art model reduction and domain decomposition methods by seeking for good trade-offs among animation quality, numerical robustness, pre-computation complexity, and simulation efficiency from an alternative perspective.


We report a rare cavernous hemangioma that involved the posterior tibial nerve in a 47-year-old woman; this hemangioma demonstrated unusual epineural, perineural, and endoneural tumoral involvement. We describe the potential histogenesis, specific therapy recommendations, and important associated morbidity of this histologically benign lesion.


PURPOSE/BACKGROUND
Excellent aesthetic outcomes have been demonstrated with TRAM flap breast reconstruction. However, abdominal wall morbidity after TRAM flap breast reconstruction has not been accurately evaluated in terms of patient symptoms or patient quality of life. To further examine this issue, we performed a cross-sectional survey of TRAM flap breast reconstruction patients utilising questions from a patient-related outcome measure questionnaire.

PATIENTS AND METHOD
The questions were posed to post-mastectomy breast reconstruction patients. Items pertaining to abdominal wall symptoms and satisfaction with the outcome were reported on a 5-point Linkert Scale (1=very satisfied/no symptoms to 5=very dissatisfied/frequent symptoms).

RESULTS
The study population consisted of 270 patients who underwent pedicled (n=183) or free (n=87) TRAM flap procedures. The frequency of abdominal wall symptoms reported on abdomen-specific questionnaire items was increased in the pedicled TRAM group relative to the free TRAM group. This included "tightness or pulling in abdomen" (2.34 vs. 2.01); "abdominal pain, bloating, or discomfort" (2.11 vs. 1.69); "difficulty doing everyday activities requiring the use of your abdominal muscles" (2.11 vs. 1.67); and "abdominal weakness" (2.36 vs. 1.8).

CONCLUSION
We found a relatively low frequency of abdominal symptoms in the TRAM flap patients as a whole. However, there was a tendency towards increased abdominal symptoms in the pedicled TRAM patients compared to the free TRAM patients. As the population sizes in this study are somewhat limited, future studies with increased patient numbers may find greater differences between pedicled and free TRAM patients. In addition, studies evaluating the patients' abdominal wall symptoms pre- and postoperatively may allow for a detailed analysis of abdominal wall morbidity in post-mastectomy TRAM patients.


We consider feedback transformations of the back-stepping/feedback linearization type that have been prevalent in finite dimensional nonlinear stabilization, and, with the objective of ultimately addressing nonlinear PDEs, generate the first such transformations for a linear PDE that can have an arbitrary finite number of open-loop unstable eigenvalues. These transformations have the form of recursive relationships and the fundamental difficulty is that the recursion has an infinite number of iterations. Naive versions of backstepping lead to unbounded coefficients in those transformations. We show how to design them such that they are sufficiently regular (not continuous but L ∞ ) We then establish closed-loop stability, regularity of control, and regularity of solutions of the PDE.


Rapid environmental change can affect both the mean and variability in environmental conditions. Natural selection tends to favour those organisms that best respond to such changes. Here, we consider delayed germination as bet hedging strategies for 10 Sonoran Desert annuals. We use a germination model parameterized with long-term demographic and climate data to explore potential effects of changes in the mean and variance in precipitation on the evolution of germination strategies, as well as the risk of extinction. We then explored the potential for evolutionary rescue in response to these changes. As expected, results indicate that as rainfall declines, or uncertainty in rainfall increases, all species have higher extinction risk (the former being more detrimental). These shifts also increased the benefit of delayed germination. Results also indicate that evolutionary rescue can often occur for small shifts, especially for more variable rainfall regimes, but would not likely save populations experiencing larger environmental changes. Finally, we identified life history traits and functional responses to precipitation that were most strongly correlated to the ability to cope with changes in rainfall and with potential for evolutionary rescue: dormant seed survivorship and, to a smaller degree, chance of reproduction and seed yield sensitivity to precipitation.


T he good news about Africa is that many countries are now showing sustained economic growth. Not to be overlooked, however, are the persistent security dilemmas in many parts of the continent exacerbated by "discordant development." Addressing these troubling problems of security and social unrest requires an understanding of the complex factors involved and the need for innovative approaches. The idea of discordant development conveys more than just "unequal development," but rather how deepening inequalities and rapid progress juxtaposed with group distress can generate uncertainty and violent conflict. Unfortunately, continued discordant development is in the forecast for sub-Saharan Africa in 2013.


Gastric neuroendocrine carcinomas (NECs) are rare tumours that are divided into four subtypes depending on tumour characteristics. Patients with NECs are known to have an increased risk of synchronous and metachronous cancers mainly located in the gastrointestinal tract. A case of synchronous gastric NEC and hepatocellular carcinoma in a patient with several other precancerous lesions is presented. The patient had anaemia, and a gastric tumour and two duodenal polyps were identified on upper endoscopy. A CT scan of the abdomen revealed several lesions in the liver. The lesions were invisible on B-mode sonography and real-time sonography fused with CT was used to identify and biopsy one of the lesions. Histology showed hepatocellular carcinoma. A literature search showed that only one case of a hepatocellular carcinoma synchronous with a gastric NEC has been reported previously. Trial registration number: NCT00781924.


Endoluminal repair is now a realistic alternative to open surgery for the treatment of thoracic aortic disease

Since Volodos and colleagues performed the first endoluminal repair of a thoracic aneurysm, the technique has been used to treat descending thoracic aneurysms, type B (Stanford) aortic dissection, false aneurysms, penetrating ulcers, and aortic transection.1,2 This minimally invasive approach has many advantages over conventional surgery as it avoids open thoracotomy, single lung ventilation, and aortic cross clamping.

The main criticism of endoluminal repair is poor durability of the stent grafts. The first published series from Stanford used home made stent grafts and reported a primary success rate of 73%.3 However, there were problems associated with the large introducer catheters and rigidity of these devices. The now commercially available stent grafts are more flexible with smaller delivery systems and have improved deployment mechanisms. Notably, stent graft failure has been reported with the early home made grafts and more recently the Gore Excluder (WL Gore Associates, Inc, Flagstaff, Arizona, USA) has been withdrawn for redesigning following reports of fractures in the nitinol frame. The longer experience from the infrarenal devices has shown that lifelong surveillance is essential.

Descending thoracic aneurysms are life threatening, with an estimated incidence of 6 cases per 100 000 person years.4 The number of patients with thoracic aneurysms is increasing presumably because of better diagnostic modalities and longer life expectancy.5 We advise treatment for symptomatic aneurysms and for asymptomatic aneurysms greater than 6 cm in diameter. Several reports have reported the risk of rupture in patients with untreated aneurysms to range from 46–74%, with five year survival rates estimated at 9–13%.4 The contraindications for endovascular repair of thoracic aneurysms are absence of an aneurysm neck, an excessively large neck, or insufficient normal …


The aim of the HOT Study (Hypertension Optimal Treatment) was to determine the optimal diastolic blood pressure decrease and to assess the effect of the acetyl salicylic acid as a primary prevention on the cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in hypertensive patients. The HOT Study is an open, prospective, randomised, international trial with blinded end points. This study included 18,790 patients, 50 to 80 years old (mean 61.5 years) in 26 countries (1,574 patients in France) with a primary hypertension (100 < or = PAD < or = 115 mmHg). The patients were randomised in 3 target diastolic blood pressure: < or = 80 mmHg (n = 6,262), < or = 85 mmHg (n = 6,264), < or = 90 mmHg (n = 6,264). The felodipine LP, a long acting dihydropyridine, was selected as a first line therapy, other hypertension drugs combined if necessary. The lowest incidence of cardiovascular events was observed at a diastolic blood pressure level of 82.6 mmHg. There was no increased risk below this level even in the hypertensive patients with medical history of coronary heart disease or stroke. In the diabetic population, the diastolic blood pressure decrease from 90 to 80 reduced the incidence of the major cardiovascular events by 51%. The acetyl salicylic acid reduced the myocardial infarction risk in the blood pressure well-controlled population.


31 therapeutic vascular embolizations were performed: 4 for osteolytic lesions; 24 for renal tumors and 3 for malignant hypertension in 3 patients with chronic pyelonephritis and corresponding bilateral kidney shrinkage with the kidneys left in the patients (- one patient being put on chronic dialysis and 2 having undergone renal transplantation). Opacifying chemical substances (Ethibloc) and non-opacifying chemical substances (Fibrospum, Butyl-2-Cyanoacrylat) were sometimes used for embolization; but most of the time, metal spiral (licenced by Gianturco) were taken, because of the following advantages: Their insertion is simple and easily controlled by fluoroscopy; they cause less pain, and they induce progressive thrombosis in the embolised artery. In cases, however, where catheterisation is difficult or impossible (narrow lumen/collaterals), embolization with chemical substances has to be done in addition to that by spiral.


We explore the connections between finite geometry and algebraic coding theory, giving a rather full account of the Reed-Muller and generalized Reed-Muller codes. Some of the results and many of the proofs are new but this is largely an expository effort that relies heavily on the work of Delsarte et al. and of Charpin. The necessary geometric background is sketched before we begin the discussion of the Reed-Muller codes and their p-ary analogues. We prove all the classical results concerning these codes and include a discussion of the group-algebra approach and prove Berman's theorem characterizing the codes as powers of the radical. Included also is a discussion of the characterization of affine-invariant cyclic codes given by Kasami, Lin and Peterson and its generalization by Delsarte. our theme throughout this work is the relationship between these codes and the codes coming from both affine and projective geometries. The final section develops the theory in the more difficult case in which the field is not of prime order, here must look at subfield subcodes - which complicates the connection with the geometric codes, which are codesover the prime subfield of the field of the geometry.


Whole-mount electron microscopy was used in conjunction with immunogold labeling to characterize the cytoskeleton architecture of C6 rat glioma cell subclones. These subclones differ in intermediate filament (IF) protein composition and either contain vimentin (subclone C6D8) or do not express any of the known cytoplasmic IF proteins (subclone C6D10) (Röser et al., 1991). In C6D8 cells short thin (3 nm) connecting filaments frequently linked vimentin to actin filaments and, in addition, connected vimentin filaments to each other. Occasionally, direct contacts were noticed between actin and vimentin filaments. Thin connecting filaments were present at a significantly higher number in IF-deficient C6D10 cells, forming a dense cytoplasmic network in conjunction with actin filament bundles as the dominating structure. The data indicate that thin connecting filaments are present in C6 cells independent of the expression of cytoplasmic IF proteins. They suggest that structural linkages between vimentin and actin filaments mediated by thin connecting filaments could play a major role in determining the cytoskeleton architecture of these cells.


ABSTRACT
Kamalia, Niken Arina (2016): The Use Of Picture Series To Improve
Students' Ability In Reading Narrative Text In The Eighth Grade Of SMP N
3 Pringapus Satu Atap In The Academic Year 2015/2016. Course by Noor Malihah, Ph.D.
Keywords: Picture series and reading comprehension
This research is aim to improve the students' reading comprehension
through picture series. This research answers these questions (1) How to picture
series and RTP improve students' ability to read narrative text in classVIII SMP N
3Pringapus Satu Atap? (2) How to improve the learning achievement of students
reading narrative text as using picture series and RTP implemented for class VIII
SMP N 3Pringapus Satu Atap? This is a Classroom Action Research (CAR)
which the data were collected qualitatively and quantitatively. This research was
conducted in two cycles. Each cycle consisted four steps: planning, action,
observation and reflection. The results show that there is an important of students'
reading comprehension when they were using picture. In this research, the
Standart Minimum of Completeness or Kriteria Ketuntasan Minimum (KKM) of
English subject is to. Then, the criteria for success in this research is to target 85%
of the students should target pass KKM. The results of the cycle 1 show that there
is an improvement from pre-test to post-test 68. However, there was only 68%
students passing KKM, which is below the target. Therefore, the writer
continoued to conduct cycle 2. The results of cycle 2 shows an improvement for
92. In this cycle, there are 92% students passing KKM. This mean, the target of
this research has been achived. Thus, it can be concluded that the use of picture
series is successful to improve the students reading comprehension especialy for
the narrative text


This article introduces a new method for the management of cavernous hemangioma in deep maxillofacial region.Common surgical approach was carried out to expose the mass of hemangioma,then Nd:YAG laser was irradiated it without tumor removal.Immediatelly shrinking of hemangioma can be seen in all these seven cases.The therapeutic effect was satisfied in 3-12 months follow up.With the basic research of the rabbit facial nerve's Nd:YAG laser injured detecting experiment.We discussed its indication,advantage and interaction between laser and peripheral tissue.Our result shown that this new way is a good method for hemangioma in deep maxillofacial region as its advantages of skin preventing and peripheral normal tissue preserving


A new autoantibody to 210kDa microtubule associated protein (MAP) obtained from rabbit liver excrude was detected in the serum with various liver diseases and SLE. As there were no reports concerning autoantibodies to MAPs in animals and human, it may say that anti-210kDa MAP autoantibody we detected was a new cytoskeleton antibody. Using western blotting method, the anti-210kDa MAP autoantibody was frequently found in the patients with alcoholic liver diseases (52.5%), PBC (55.6%), autoimmune hepatitis (83.3%), SLE (71.4%) but rarely in the patients with viral liver diseases (26.4%) and none in normal controls at a serum dilution of 1:10. In addition, at a serum dilution of 1:100, the anti-210kDa MAP autoantibody was found in the patients with alcoholic liver diseases (22.5%), PBC (44.4%), autoimmune hepatitis (66.7%), SLE (71.4%), viral liver diseases (17.0%) and none in normal controls. It was confirmed that the anti-210kDa MAP autoantibody was frequently detected in cases of alcoholic liver diseases, PBC, autoimmune hepatitis and SLE than in those of viral liver diseases and normal control.


Abstract. Hidden-keyhole padlocks use a plate or some other means to cover the keyhole
and are a category of traditional Chinese padlocks. The topological
structures of traditional hidden-keyhole padlocks have distinct arrangements
in the operation. Therefore, they are reconfigurable mechanisms. This paper
presents the structures of traditional Chinese hidden-keyhole padlocks, which
were popular and had abundant types. The structural characteristics of
hidden-keyhole padlocks are described first. Then, the representation for
kinematic pairs appeared in operating steps is introduced. The variable
chains of hidden-keyhole padlocks are presented by using the representation
of kinematic pairs, from which all topology variabilities of hidden-keyhole
padlocks in the operation are derived. Four main types of hidden-keyhole
padlocks are provided as examples to illustrate the configuration
transformations. This work presents a useful procedure to indicate and
analyze the topology variabilities of hidden-keyhole padlocks.


cations subsequentlyproposes Medwin and Walton in 1974. The clinical section conta review of the annual inciden neuropathies in different c general, however, this st balance and certain subj disproportionate emphasis al of others. For example, seve devoted to rare inherited coi as abetalipoproteinaemia, I drome and Refsum's disez clinical aspects of common (Guillain-Barre syndrome, ceive cursory treatment. (1 example, no mention of thic in the clinical account of nei The few pages devoted to me traumatic nerve lesions do n to the subject; if more detail was not possible, it might ha to have omitted this section.


This is a protocol for a Cochrane Review (Intervention). The objectives are as follows: To evaluate the effectiveness of telephone interventions, delivered by healthcare professionals, when compared to usual care or non-telephone-based support interventions for educating and psychosocially supporting informal carers of people with acute and chronic diagnosed illnesses, on these carers' quality of life, psychosocial and physical well-being. We aim, additionally, to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of telephone interventions.


This article describes the application of an opto-mechanical lever apparatus in the education and research of the mechanism of sewing machines. One device is a projector which produces feed dog motion profiles. The device displays on a screen magnified pofilesof feed dog motion measured by contacting a lever with thefeed dog. For a better visualization of the feed dog motion profile, angular displacements of the arm shaft at regular intervals are indicated on the profile as bright spots by using two polaroid discs combined as a light beam modulator. The other is a projector for displaying dynamic torque profiles. The projector displays torque profiles on polar coordinates by making the inclination of a mirror attached to the arm shaft proportional to the torque. These apparatuses are easily attachable to and removable from regular household and industrial sewing machines to make them useful not only as teaching aids but also as service tools for lockstitch sewing machines.


The reversible N6-methyl-adenosine (m6A) modification of messenger RNAs (mRNAs) has generated much interest in the field of stem cell modulation in recent years. Meanwhile, mounting evidence has shown that many physiopathological processes concerning cell death and survival harbor this chemical mark. Our review provides an overview of the m6A epitranscriptomic field and the updated mechanisms of m6A decoration in stem cell regulation. Furthermore, we focus on the role of m6A in DNA damage and the immune response, cell apoptosis, autophagy, and senescence, followed by recent advancements in m6A-induced viral replication. The function of abundant RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) identified in m6A regulatory systems will also be discussed in this review, highlighting their far-reaching implications in cellular m6A machinery and disease treatment.


Most algorithms are run-to-completion and provide one answer upon completion and no answer if interrupted before completion. On the other hand, anytime algorithms have a monotonic increasing utility with the length of execution time. Our investigation focuses on the development of time-bounded anytime algorithms on Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) to trade-off the quality of output with execution time. Given a time-varying workload, the algorithm continually measures its progress and the remaining contract time to decide its execution pathway and select system resources required to maximize the quality of the result. To exploit the quality-time tradeoff, the focus is on the construction, instrumentation, on-line measurement and decision making of algorithms capable of efficiently managing GPU resources. We demonstrate this with a Parallel A* routing algorithm on a CUDA-enabled GPU. The algorithm execution time and resource usage is described in terms of CUDA kernels constructed at design-time. At runtime, the algorithm selects a subset of kernels and composes them to maximize the quality for the remaining contract time. We demonstrate the feedback-control between the GPU-CPU to achieve controllable computation tardiness by throttling request admissions and the processing precision. As a case study, we have implemented AutoMatrix, a GPU-based vehicle traffic simulator for real-time congestion management which scales up to 16 million vehicles on a US street map. This is an early effort to enable imprecise and approximate real-time computation on parallel architectures for stream-based timebounded applications such as traffic congestion prediction and route allocation for large transportation networks. Keywords-Graphics processing unit; real-time systems; anytime algorithms; imprecise computation; vehicle traffic simulator


Abstract The viscosity tensor of biaxial-nematic liquid crystals contains 16 independent elements. A complete set of these viscosity coefficients is introduced and related to experimentally accessible quantities. Furthermore, the flow alignment and its stability against an arbitrary infinitesimal disturbance are discussed. By the affine transformation model, formerly established for the uniaxial symmetric case, one can express the viscous anisotropy of perfectly ordered biaxial ellipsoids in terms of the two viscosities of an isotropic reference system and the axes ratios of the nonspherical particles.


In the early 1980's, Brazilian industry underwent a crisis of the previous accumulation model, ushering in a period in which the country lost international competitiveness. This paper traces the changes that have taken place since then, including the further changes that have taken place since 2003. It concludes that the last four years have not differed much from the earlier pattern, even though several new industrial policies have been introduced with the aim of spurring technological innovation. The paper investigates the reasons for this, seeking to underline the limits and the potentialities of such policies, given the general global context. In order to do so, it analyses managerial strategies and innovative processes in the Brazilian manufacturing sector as a whole, with a special focus on the automotive sector, and discusses the implications of this restructuring for labour.


Occurrence and expression of cytokeratins were studied by the immunoperoxidase-antiperoxidase (PAP) technique in formalin-fixed, paraffin embedded material from 18 cases of carcinoid tumours of the gastrointestinal tract. Polyclonal antikeratin for wide spectrum screening was detected in 12 cases; low molecular weight cytokeratins, C19 and CAM5.2 were positive in majority of the cases whereas antikeratins for high molecular weight were negative in all. Similar positive immuno-reactivity with antibodies to cytokeratins were detected in the surrounding epithelial cells. These results suggest that carcinoids of the gastrointestinal tract originate from the endodermal stem cell and differentiates along one or more directions, and the immunohistochemical findings depend upon the direction of their differentiation.


Background: Elevated circulating IgA complex deposits in the glomerular mesangium and causes resultant mesangial cell activation, eventually leading to the progression of IgA nephropathy (IgAN). Complement-C1q TNF-related protein 3 (CTRP3) is documented as a potential anti-inflammatory and anti-fibrotic mediator; however, its role in IgAN is unknown. Methods: Serum polymeric IgA (pIgA) was isolated from patients with IgAN and healthy volunteers. Human mesangial cells (HMCs) were incubated with the isolated pIgA. The expression of CTRP3 and its effects on inflammatory cytokines and extracellular matrix were evaluated. Results: Median circulating CTRP3 decreased in patients with IgAN compared to the controls, accompanied by the elevated serum and urine TGF-β and IL-6. While urine CTRP3 in IgAN patients were comparable to that in healthy subjects. pIgA dose-dependently inhibited the expression of CTRP3 and HMC tolerated pIgA at 1.0 mg/ml, for which galactose-deficient IgA might be responsible. pIgA markedly increased IL-6 and TGF-β in HMCs, which were suppressed after Ad-CTRP3 transfection. Additionally, CTRP3 significantly inhibited pIgA-stimulated HMC proliferation, cell cycle progression and synthesis of CTGF and fibronectin. Furthermore, we found that pIgA-treated HMC exhibited higher NF-κB activity as reflected by the increased levels of nuclear p65. Moreover, Src activation and the subsequent Smad3 phosphorylation were significantly elevated in response to the stimulation with pIgA. However, NF-κB activity and Smad3 signaling were inhibited after Ad-CTRP3 transfection in HMC. Conclusion: CTRP3 potentially targeted to NF-κB and TGF-β-Src-Smad3 signaling and exerted anti-inflammatory and anti-fibrotic roles to attenuate the progression of IgAN, which may represent a new strategy for the treatment of IgAN.


Spores of the strain NCIB 8122 of Bacillus cereus have been depleted of coats by treatment with 0.1% sodium dodecyl sulfate--200 mM 2-mercaptoethanol--0.5 M NaCl (pH 9.6). The coat-depleted spores did not show any decrease in viability, heat resistance, refractility, dipicolinic acid content, or specific activities of several protoplastic enzymes. The germinative response of the coat-depleted spores to adenosine and several analogues thereof was found qualitatively similar to that obtained with intact spores. However, germination kinetics appeared to be affected by coat removal, since germination rate measured as loss of refractility was eight times slower even at inducer concentrations 10-fold higher than those required to promote optimal germination response of intact spores. Loss of heat resistance, on the other hand, was hardly affected by coat removal. These results suggest that, even though spore coats are not essential for the triggering reaction, they are required for a rapid evolution of the later events in the germination process.


Many speech enhancement algorithms have been proposed for speech restoration from distorted speech. However, if some components of the signal are completely missed or distorted, there is no way for those algorithms to restore the clean speech. Considering that the restricted Boltzmann machine (RBM) is a stochastic version of the Hopfield network which can be used as an associative memory, we propose to use its "recall" ability for speech spectrum restoration when some parts of the speech spectrum are completely missed or distorted. Traditionally, in training the RBM, speech spectral patches are randomly selected as input. There is no consideration of the temporal correlation between different input spectral patches. In this study, we further propose to model this temporal correlation by using a conditional RBM (CRBM). The inference on the CRBM is almost the same as that of on the RBM by only modifying the biases as conditional dynamic biases. We did experiments for clean speech reconstruction and distorted speech restoration based on the trained models. Our experimental results showed that both the RBM and CRBM worked well in restoration task. By incorporating temporal correlation in the CRBM, a further improvement on reconstruction and restoration accuracy was achieved.


The antiviral endoribonuclease, RNase L, is a vital component of the mammalian innate immune response that destroys host and viral RNA to reduce viral gene expression. Herein, we show that a consequence of RNase L-mediated decay of cytoplasmic host RNAs is the widespread re-localization of RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) from the cytoplasm to the nucleus, due to the presence of nuclear RNA. Concurrently, we observe global alterations to host RNA processing in the nucleus, including alterations of splicing and 3' end formation, with the latter leading to downstream of gene (DoG) transcripts. While affecting many host mRNAs, these alterations are pronounced in mRNAs encoding type I and type III interferons and coincide with the retention of their mRNAs in the nucleus. Similar RNA processing defects also occur during infection with either dengue virus or SARS-CoV-2 when RNase L is activated. These findings reveal that the distribution of RBPs between the nucleus and cytosol is fundamentally dictated by the availability of RNA in each compartment and thus viral infections that trigger cytoplasmic RNA degradation alter RNA processing due to the nuclear influx of RNA binding proteins.


In Coleman-Weinberg symmetry breaking, all dimensionful parameters vanish and the symmetry is broken by loop corrections. Before Coleman-Weinberg symmetry breaking in the standard model was experimentally ruled out, it had already been excluded on cosmological grounds. In this Brief Report, the cosmological analysis is carried out for Coleman-Weinberg models with extended Higgs sectors, which are not experimentally ruled out, and general constraints on such models are given. {copyright} {ital 1996 The American Physical Society.}


Caridean shrimps are an integral component of lowland river ecosystems in south-eastern Australia, but their distributions may be affected by flow alteration. Monthly shrimp samples were collected from slackwaters in three hydrologically distinct sections of the heavily regulated Campaspe River and the less regulated Broken River for three consecutive years. The distributions of Paratya australiensis, Caridina mccullochi and Macrobrachium australiense, along with their life history in river sections with different hydrology are outlined. Paratya australiensis and M. australiense occurred in all sections, but C. mccullochi was absent from sections of the Campaspe River that received irrigation flows during summer/autumn. Shrimp larvae were most abundant in summer (December–February) and juvenile recruitment continued through to mid autumn (April). Breeding and recruitment of P. australiensis occurred for longer than other shrimps. Apart from large adult and berried M. australiense, all life stages of shrimps commonly occurred in slackwaters, particularly the larval and juvenile stages. Irrigation flows in summer/autumn probably adversely affect the size, extent and arrangement of slackwaters, at a time when they may be critical habitats for C. mccullochi larval development and recruitment. Dams and weirs in the Campaspe River may have influenced shrimp abundance and the timing of breeding.


The continuous enzymatic in vivo estimation of blood alcohol was used for plotting curves of blood alcohol concentrations in 24 double-experiments from 4 to 6 h duration. Absorption and elimination of alcohol were observed under the influence of the food eaten before. Two hours after a light meal test persons drank whisky and blood alcohol curves were recorded determining increase, maximum and elimination. The curves varied especially in the phases of absorption. In a second test compared with the curves after a light meal the retardation of absorption was examined after drinking the juice of "Sangritta picante" spice in addition. Delayed alcohol absorption could be verified. After taking a fat meal the retardation of absorption was found even greater. Recorded after fasting for more than 12 h the curves showed a slower increase in blood alcohol concentration and a higher maximum in comparison with the curves after a light meal.


The energetics of the boron substitution in the B/Si(111)-( √ 3× √ 3) surface phase and in subsurface silicon layers has been studied using the semiempirical cluster method AM1. It has been found that the boron energy in the second layer (the B-S5 site) is about 1 eV lower than in the adatom position (the B-T4 site) and about 2 eV lower than in the fourth bulklike layer. The latter value may be interpreted as the surface segregation energy (enthalpy). The barrier height for the B-T4–B-S5 transfer has been found to be about 0.7 eV.


The literature has been relatively silent about post-conflict processes. However, understanding the way humans deal with post-conflict situations is a challenge in our societies. With this in mind, we focus the present study on the rationality of cooperative decision making after an intergroup conflict, i.e., the extent to which groups take advantage of post-conflict situations to obtain benefits from collaborating with the other group involved in the conflict. Based on dual-process theories of thinking and affect heuristic, we propose that intergroup conflict hinders the rationality of cooperative decision making. We also hypothesize that this rationality improves when groups are involved in an in-group deliberative discussion. Results of a laboratory experiment support the idea that intergroup conflict –associated with indicators of the activation of negative feelings (negative affect state and heart rate)– has a negative effect on the aforementioned rationality over time and on both group and individual decision making. Although intergroup conflict leads to sub-optimal decision making, rationality improves when groups and individuals subjected to intergroup conflict make decisions after an in-group deliberative discussion. Additionally, the increased rationality of the group decision making after the deliberative discussion is transferred to subsequent individual decision making.


PURPOSE
To assess the usefulness of combining hyperthermia with a DNA repair inhibitor (double-strand break bait [Dbait]) and its potential application to radiofrequency ablation (RFA) in a preclinical model of human colorectal cancer.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The local ethics committee of animal experimentation approved all investigations. First, the relevance was assessed by studying the survival of four human colorectal adenocarcinoma cell cultures after 1 hour of hyperthermia at 41°C or 43°C with or without Dbait. Human colon adenocarcinoma cells (HT-29) were grafted subcutaneously into nude mice (n = 111). When tumors reached approximately 500 mm(3), mice were treated with Dbait alone (n = 20), sublethal RFA (n = 21), three different Dbait schemes and sublethal RFA (n = 52), or a sham treatment (n = 18). RFA was performed to ablate the tumor center alone. To elucidate antitumor mechanisms, 39 mice were sacrificed for blinded pathologic analysis, including assessment of DNA damage, cell proliferation, and tumor necrosis. Others were monitored for tumor growth and survival. Analyses of variance and log-rank tests were used to evaluate differences.

RESULTS
When associated with mild hyperthermia, Dbait induced cytotoxicity in all tested colon cancer cell lines. Sublethal RFA or Dbait treatment alone moderately improved survival (median, 40 days vs 28 days for control; P = .0005) but combination treatment significantly improved survival (median, 84 days vs 40 days for RFA alone, P = .0004), with approximately half of the animals showing complete tumor responses. Pathologic studies showed that the Dbait and RFA combination strongly enhances DNA damage and coagulation areas in tumors.

CONCLUSION
Combining Dbait with RFA sensitizes the tumor periphery to mild hyperthermia and increases RFA antitumor efficacy.


Despite recent progress in therapy and management of diabetes mellitus, diabetes remains a serious disease with life-threatening complications. It is by far the most common metabolic disease and affects 5% of the population in industrialized countries. Noninsulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) is a complex disorder characterized by insulin resistance and impaired insulin secretion and is associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease, peripheral vascular disease, arterial hypertension and dyslipidemia. Predisposing factors for NIDDM are obesity and a family history of diabetes. Greater physical activity has been associated inversely with the prevalence of NIDDM in several cross-sectional studies. Physical activity increases the sensitivity to insulin, and regular endurance exercise can induce and maintain weight loss, improve glucose tolerance and ameliorate most of the abnormalities in the metabolic syndrome. Type I diabetes mellitus arises as a consequence of immunologically mediated pancreatic islet beta-cell destruction in genetically susceptible individuals. It is an insidious process that may occur over years. During the stage of disease evolution (prediabetes), individuals may be identified by the presence of immunological markers and a decline of beta-cell function. The autoimmune nature of the disease process has led to attempts to stop this process by immune intervention strategies. A variety of immune interventions has been used, some immunosuppressive and some immunomodulatory. Several screening programs are used in order to identify high-risk subjects (i.e. first-degree relatives of individuals with type I diabetes) who may benefit from an early intervention. The ultimate goal of all these efforts is to prevent the development of overt type I diabetes mellitus in those at risk for the disease, using strategies that are both safe and specific. This review summarizes the results of the various studies conducted to date and outlines the approaches currently being tested.


Non-negative tensor factorization has been shown a practical solution to automatically discover phenotypes from the electronic health records (EHR) with minimal human supervision. Such methods generally require an input tensor describing the inter-modal interactions to be pre-established; however, the correspondence between different modalities (e.g., correspondence between medications and diagnoses) can often be missing in practice. Although heuristic methods can be applied to estimate them, they inevitably introduce errors, and leads to sub-optimal phenotype quality. This is particularly important for patients with complex health conditions (e.g., in critical care) as multiple diagnoses and medications are simultaneously present in the records. To alleviate this problem and discover phenotypes from EHR with unobserved inter-modal correspondence, we propose the collective hidden interaction tensor factorization (cHITF) to infer the correspondence between multiple modalities jointly with the phenotype discovery. We assume that the observed matrix for each modality is marginalization of the unobserved inter-modal correspondence, which are reconstructed by maximizing the likelihood of the observed matrices. Extensive experiments conducted on the real-world MIMIC-III dataset demonstrate that cHITF effectively infers clinically meaningful inter-modal correspondence, discovers phenotypes that are more clinically relevant and diverse, and achieves better predictive performance compared with a number of state-of-the-art computational phenotyping models.


OBJECTIVE
Describe the clinical and laboratory features of rubella observed during the first semester of pregnancy in 11 patients in 1997.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Eleven pregnant women, aged 15-30 years, were referred to the Clermont-Ferrand University Hospital for suspected rubella. Four had had at least 1 prior pregnancy, none had been vaccinated. Rubella serology was obtained for all 11 patients and polymerase chain reaction viral amplification was performed on amniotic fluid in 9 cases.

RESULTS
The virology laboratory identified 8 cases of primary rubella (2 prior to 12 weeks gestation) and 3 reinfections (1 prior to 12 weeks gestation). Fetal infection was evidenced in I gravida II patient at 17-18 weeks gestation. All pregnancies were continued to term and no case of congenital rubella malformation was observed. However specific IgM assays were performed at birth in 6 of the 11 infants and revealed infection in 3.

CONCLUSION
These observations indicate that a local epidemic of rubella occurred in the general population. They illustrate the risk of a rubella epidemic in France and the lack of sufficient vaccination of the young adult population, finally they emphasize that current anti-rubella vaccination programs should be promoted.


This study reports the results of administering an inventory of 15 sociometric questions to 11 groups of students, 274 in all, in primary, secondary, teacher-training and mine youth schools on the Copperbelt of Zambia. Choices made were analysed with tribal identification as a classification within class groupings and over all respondents. Two conclusions emerge. First, tribal identity represents a significant category for social interaction within institutionalised groups when social distance is pronounced. Second, the inventory's dimensions, when subjected to factor analysis based on the tribal groupings of the respondents, lay on three axes. They were hypothesised as leadership within an institutionalised system, social acceptance by peers, and ethnic identity. The results, when discussed with reference to other work in social distance, suggest modifications of current theory.


While traveling in India, a previously healthy twenty-year-old man had febrile diarrhea. The patient was prescribed medical therapy, and all symptoms were resolved. Fourteen days later, however, similar symptoms recurred. The patient was admitted to a local hospital, but was transferred to our department because of oliguria. Salmonella paratyphi A was isolated from blood and stool specimens, and Giardia lamblia was identified in his stool. The patient's condition was complicated by acute renal failure. The patient received tosufloxacin and metronidazole. Renal function recovered completely without hemodialysis. Paratyphoid fever and giardiasis were resolved. It is suggested that giardiasis exacerbated the paratyphoid fever.


Abstract The energetics of a frontal depression initially formed in the Gulf of Genoa is studied. The partition of available potential energy and kinetic energy into zonal and eddy components is adopted. The energy equations, as developed for an open area of the atmosphere, are applied over a region enclosing the synoptic-scale disturbance in study. The period covering stages of the development of the depression is from 1200 GMT 15 January to 1200 GMT 17 January 1981. Vertical distributions of components of the energy equations are presented and discussed. Also, the energy balance over the region in terms of an energy cycle is presented.


OBJECTIVE
The study evaluates exposure to the cold of personnel involved in helicopter rescue operations in an alpine environment.

METHODS
Rescue operations over a period of 15 months in the Oberwallis region (Switzerland) were analysed with special regard to the weather conditions, the locality and its altitude, and the duration. The equivalent chill temperature was estimated with two independent models. "Mean exposure" as well as the "worst-case situation" (based on maximum windspeed) were calculated. The results were evaluated according to the "classic" Siple-Passel model, the more recent model of Danielsson, ISO 11079, ISO 9920, the German industrial standard DIN 33403.5, and the German government regulations for work in cold environments ("G21").

RESULTS
The temperature models showed only marginal differences in chill temperature. Assuming "worst-case conditions", the Siple-Passel model showed that 87.1% of the operations occurred at chill temperatures > -30 degrees C, 12.1% in the range of -30 to -45 degrees C, and 0.8% at <-45 degrees C. The lowest temperature was -54.6 degrees C. The Danielson model resulted in 77.6% without the risk of frostbite, 20.1% with >5% risk, 6% with >50% risk and 1.8% with >95% risk. According to DIN 33403.5, 1.5% of the operations were performed at chill temperatures higher than cold class 1: 2.3% are class 1, 13.3% class 2, 34.7% class 3, 34.6% class 4 and 13.7% class 5. The maximum exposure times of DIN 33404.5 are exceeded in at least 0.5% of the missions. According to ISO 11079, clothing with 2.0 clo is sufficient in 40.2 and 23.9% of the operations [summer, required clothing insulation (IREQ) min. and IREQ neutr., respectively]. In winter the corresponding results are 0.3 and 0.0%. Duration of limited exposure is exceeded in 9.1 (IREQ min.) and 19.8% (IREQ neutr.) of the operations in summer and in 10.3 and 19.8% in winter. According to ISO 9920, ICL min. as well as ICL neutr. is exceeded in 100% in summer and winter operations.

CONCLUSIONS
Alpine rescue operations are typical of a place of work in a cold--sometimes extremely cold--environment. Because of the limited time of exposure during the majority of the operations, the most important danger for rescue personnel is frostbite, although hypothermia cannot be excluded in cases of prolonged operations. Special advice to avoid the specific risks must be given to the crews and an examination by occupational medicine, e.g. according to "Working in cold environments, G21" of the German Berufsgenossenschaften, is recommended. Recommendations for adequate clothing are given.


I had the good fortune to initially present the thoughts written here at the Psychosocial Interest Group of the American Burn Association Annual Meeting in New York City in 1997. The paper begins with a personal introduction and proceeds to describe how Frances Cooke Macgregor's work inspired my colleagues and myself to develop a series of programs to address the rehabilitation challenges inherent in living with any kind of facial disfigurement. It is our sincere hope that the programs developed by our organization, Changing Faces (based in the United Kingdom) will contribute to the rehabilitation of people living with disfigurement throughout the world. We especially look forward to learning how what we have learned can be adapted to and disseminated in the United States as we establish collaborative relationships with the dedicated group of burn professionals there.


This work provides a statistical analysis and interpretation of homicide rates and patterns in South Africa for the years 1948 to 2003. Complied from data accessed from the South African Police Services, Mortuary Reports, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Non Government Organisations the patterns of homicide according to race, gender and age are analysed. This thesis proposes that the anomic condition of South African society is a key contributor to the creation and maintenance of the high levels of homicide found in this society. The normalisation of inter-personal violence through the collective conscious of communities and individuals has resulted in the growth of homicide and its continued high levels ten years after the end of Apartheid. This hypothesis is further supported through a survey conducted upon teenage subjects in Kwa-Zulu Natal province of their attitudes towards the use of violence. This work demonstrated strong positive support for interpersonal violence by members of the police and state. The survey also showed significant racial and gender differences in attitudes. The anomic conditions that continue to be present in South Africa will contribute to the weakness of the criminal justice system, and the willingness of individuals and communities to use their own resources to combat crime rather than rely upon the state and its agents for protection. The result being a continued high level of violence and a weak criminal justice system.


Radiotherapy is currently used in around 50% of cancer treatments. Although it is generally effective, it is damaging to surrounding healthy tissues. This damage can be reduced by by better targeting to cancer cells. Improved radiotherapy outcomes can be achieved by targeting heavy elements to cancer cells, since these produce energetic electrons and free radicals upon irradiation that further increase the effectiveness of radiotherapy. Because of their biocompatibility and amenability to surface modification, gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) show significant promise in this area.We observe that acute 3hr exposure of cells to 2nm gold nanoparticles, bearing a 50:50 ratio of alpha-galactose and PEGamine ligands, results in selective chemotoxicity toward cancer cells at nanomolar concentrations, without affecting normal cells (Figure 1). Chemotoxicity is prevented by antioxidant co-administration and is partially prevented by a pan-caspase inhibitor (ZVAD- fmk). Our initial results suggest that AuNP toxicity is additive with using X-ray radiotherapy. Cerium oxide NPs are one of the most studied metal oxides NPs due to their high redox and oxygen transport properties [1]. They are interesting for radiotherapy applications because they adsorb oxygen and may therefore favour the radiolytic production of oxygen-containing free radicals, especially under low-oxygen conditions, such as the environment of most solid tumours. The surface oxygen vacancy of ceria NPs therefore makes them an interesting tool for prooxidant properties [2,3]. Nevertheless, the potential of ceria as a radiosensitiser has not been investigated extensively as it has a relatively low atomic number. It will therefore produce a low flux of secondary electrons upon irradiation which could potentially displace the adsorbed oxygen. We have been working on the fabrication of mixed ceria NPs, incorporating gold or bismuth, to increase the flux of secondary electrons (Figure 2). It is hoped these effects combined will further facilate the localized generation of ROS and increase effectiveness of targetted radiotherapy We predict that these new mixed-oxide ceria NPs will have better radiosensitisation potential than pure ceria NPs, and could be used to effectively target hypoxic cancer cells.


Migrant remittances are the strong source of foreign exchange income of Bangladesh that help the country to pay import liabilities, improve balance of payments' position, serve external debt and enhance the viability of the countries' external sector. Increase in flow of remittances is associated with increase in migrant flow. Being a populous country, Bangladesh is making foreign exchange funds round the year by exporting labor. However, as different problems associated with the traditional remittance payment system, a large portion of migrant remittances are still being handled by the informal channels. So, government as well as banks is incessantly trying to provide simple, fast, safe and affordable remittance transfer services. This research monograph discusses the issues related to migrants' remittance flows to Bangladesh such as trends of migration, magnitudes of remittance flows, role of remittances in developments, migrant friendly facilities and services, and other relevant issues. This research monograph also covers evidence on and implications of adopting an innovative technology that some banks have experienced in recent times in remittance payment system in Bangladesh.


Is North Korea a failed state? Through a case study of North Korea, this study tackles the meaning of defining a state as "failed" and highlights the theoretical and conceptual limitations of the failed state approach. This study presents a thorough literature review on the subject and aims to bridge a theoretical gap between academic discussions of failed states in the field of international development and the study of North Korea. By doing so, this study highlights the conceptual limitations of viewing North Korea as a failed state and suggests that that misconception has been one of the reasons for the failure to solve various puzzles about the country. In particular, this study underlines the conceptual problems and the Western‐dominant perspective in defining North Korea as a failed state for having weak political legitimacy and a lack of in‐depth understanding of contextual/historical factors and recent political‐economic changes that have affected state‐society relations in North Korea.


Objectives: This study was conducted to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Korean version of the Quality of Life questionnaire cervical cancer module (QLQ-CX24), developed by the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC). Methods: The EORTC QLQ-CX24 and the core questionnaire (the EORTC QLQ-C30) were administered to 860 Korean disease-free survivors of cervical cancer and 494 female control subjects from the general Korean population. The construct reliability and validity of the EORTC QLQ-CX24 questionnaire were assessed via factor analysis, multitrait scaling analyses and known group comparisons. Results: Factor structure of the Korean version of the EORTC QLQ-CX24 questionnaire agreed with the originally hypothesized scale structure. Scale reliability was confirmed by Cronbach's α coefficients for internal consistency, which ranged from 0.78 to 0.87. Convergent and discriminant validity was confirmed by multitrait scaling analysis, which revealed scaling errors of 0.9. The clinical validity of the Korean version of the EORTC QLQ-CX24 was demonstrated by the ability to discriminate among controls and patient subgroups of different stages, treatments and overall health status. Conclusions: The Korean version of the EORTC QLQ-CX24 was found to be a reliable and a valid measure of quality of life among survivors of cervical cancer when administered in a large survey setting.


Visualization techniques are applied to an electric power system transmission network to create a graphical picture of network power flows and voltages. A geographic data map is used. Apparent power flow is encoded as the width of an arrow, with direction from real power flow. Flows are superposed on flow limits. Contour plots and color coding failed for representing bus voltages. A two-color thermometer encoding worked well. The resulting visualization is a significant improvement over current user interface practice in the power industry.<<ETX>>


Roquefornine A, a sesterterpenoid with an unprecedented 5/6/5/5/6-membered pentacyclic system, was characterized from Penicillium roqueforti YJ-14. Its structure was determined by extensive spectroscopic analyses, [Rh2(OCOCF3)4]-induced CD data, and DP4+ calculations. A biosynthetic pathway, cytotoxicity, and anti-inflammatory activity were also discussed.


Lactobacillus rhamnosus is a lactic acid bacterium that is found in a large variety of ecological habitats, including artisanal and industrial dairy products, the oral cavity, intestinal tract or vagina. To gain insights into the genetic complexity and ecological versatility of the species L. rhamnosus, we examined the genomes and phenotypes of 100 L. rhamnosus strains isolated from diverse sources. The genomes of 100 L. rhamnosus strains were mapped onto the L. rhamnosus GG reference genome. These strains were phenotypically characterized for a wide range of metabolic, antagonistic, signalling and functional properties. Phylogenomic analysis showed multiple groupings of the species that could partly be associated with their ecological niches. We identified 17 highly variable regions that encode functions related to lifestyle, i.e. carbohydrate transport and metabolism, production of mucus-binding pili, bile salt resistance, prophages and CRISPR adaptive immunity. Integration of the phenotypic and genomic data revealed that some L. rhamnosus strains possibly resided in multiple niches, illustrating the dynamics of bacterial habitats. The present study showed two distinctive geno-phenotypes in the L. rhamnosus species. The geno-phenotype A suggests an adaptation to stable nutrient-rich niches, i.e. milk-derivative products, reflected by the alteration or loss of biological functions associated with antimicrobial activity spectrum, stress resistance, adaptability and fitness to a distinctive range of habitats. In contrast, the geno-phenotype B displays adequate traits to a variable environment, such as the intestinal tract, in terms of nutrient resources, bacterial population density and host effects.


The push for lower carbon emissions in power generation has driven interest in methods of carbon capture and sequestration. One such promising method involves the supercritical CO2 (sCO2) power cycle, a system which is powered by oxy-fuel combustion where supercritical carbon dioxide is used as the working fluid. The high CO2 concentration in the combustion products allows for relatively simple extraction of CO2 from the system. Although this is an active field of research, the design of such a combustor requires continued study of oxy-fuel combustion in high levels of CO2 diluent. With that objective in mind, laminar flame experiments were conducted for CH4-O2-CO2 mixtures at one atmosphere and room temperature, where the relative concentrations of O2 and CO2 in the oxidizer mixture were 34.0% and 66.0% by mole, respectively. These concentrations were chosen to ensure the flame would propagate quickly enough to overcome the effects of buoyancy, which were observed to become significant below laminar flame speeds of roughly 15 cm/s. A high-speed chemiluminescence imaging diagnostic was employed in place of the traditional schlieren technique. Laminar flame speed was measured from OH* emission at 306 nm for a full range of equivalence ratios, varying from 15.2 cm/s at 0.7 to 24.8 cm/s at stoichiometric. Additionally, images of OH* chemiluminescence of turbulent CH4-O2-CO2 flames and of quiescent, 5-atm CH4-O2-CO2 flames at stoichiometric concentration are also presented. These experiments provide useful data for validation of chemical kinetics models for oxy-methane combustion in a CO2 diluent, which can be applied to the modeling of oxy-methane combustion for supercritical CO2 power cycles.


The "boundary" between the Adirondack Highlands and the Northwest Lowlands near Harrisville, New York, is a multiply folded intrusive contact between metamorphosed sedimentary rocks of the Lowlands and metamorphosed intrusive rocks of the Diana Complex in the Highlands. This is shown by detailed geologic mapping and analysis of stratigraphy and minor structural features. Regionally developed protomylonitic foliation in the Diana Complex is an axial-plane foliation formed during isoclinal folding of dry quartz syenite at granulite-facies metamorphic grade. Lack of major post-intrusive fault displacement along the Diana Complex–Northwest Lowlands "boundary" is demonstrated by correlation of xenoliths in the Diana Complex with immediately adjacent metamorphosed sedimentary rock units of the Northwest Lowlands and by continuity of major folds across the "boundary." A stratigraphic succession consisting of seven rock units has been recognized in Northwest Lowlands rocks of the Harrisville area. Rocks in these units include, from oldest to youngest(?): (1) garnet-sillimanite-cordierite gneiss; (2) rusty pelitic gneiss with biotite gneiss, pyroxene amphibolite, and quartzite; (3) graphitic calcite marble; (4) siliceous marble; (5) rusty calc-silicate rocks; (6) diopside gneiss, and (7) calc-silicate granulite. Four phases of folding are evident in these stratigraphic units, but only the last three phases affect, intrusive quartz syenite gneisses of the Diana Complex. First-phase isoclinal folds in bedding have a pervasive axial-plane foliation which is the regional foliation. Associated regional lineations are parallel to first-phase fold axes. Foliation and lineation formed during the first phase of folding were deformed by second-phase isoclinal folds, which have a weak to strong axial-plane foliation or slip cleavage. Quartz syenite of the Diana Complex intruded folded metamorphosed sedimentary rocks early during second-phase folding and was itself isoclinally folded somewhat later during the second phase. Isoclinal folding of quartz syenite gneiss is associated with development of protomylonitic to mylonitic axial-plane foliation, which is most intense in the northwest border zone of the Diana Complex, due to lithic contrast with rocks northwest of the border. Third-phase folds are isoclinal to open and are locally characterized by axial-plane slip cleavage or fracture cleavage. The axial surfaces of folds associated with the first three phases of deformation have a general northeasterly trend and northwesterly dip, but their axes have varied plunges. Two-dimensional heart-and-anchor and hook patterns are a product of interference of second- and third-phase folds. Fourth-phase deformation resulted in northwest-trending open folds with locally developed axial-plane slip or fracture cleavage. Interference of third- and fourth-phase folds is manifest in dome and basin patterns that are elongate to the northeast and overturned to the southeast, similar to dome and basin patterns throughout the Northwest Lowlands. Late-stage ductile shearing produced very fine-grained, thin mylonite and ultramylonite in shear zones that transect the preexisting protomylonite foliation in quartz syenite gneiss. Later brittle deformation resulted in closely spaced fractures, quartz and epidote veins, and local minor faults. However, no evidence for major faulting has been observed along this part of the Adirondack Highlands–Northwest Lowlands "boundary."


The 5' flanking region of the alpha-lactalbumin (alpha-LA) gene was sequenced for the Duroc, Yorkshire and Meishan breeds of swine to identify potential sequence variants within this regulatory region of the porcine alpha-LA gene. The sequenced region of the gene encompasses 391bp5' of the translation start site to 11bp3' of the translation start site. Within this sequence of the porcine alpha-LA gene two single-base pair differences were detected. One variant occurs at position -178 and the other at position -235 from the translation start site. Each of the variations can be detected by a restriction fragment length polymorphism within a polymerase chain reaction amplified product. The polymorphisms at the -178 and -235 positions appear to be genetically linked in the animals that have been analysed.


Peracetic acid (PAA) is a widely applied disinfectant in aquaculture. Knowledge on PAA decay in seawater (SW) is crucial for its successful implementation in SW aquaculture systems. We investigated the decay dynamics of PAA in SW under controlled conditions to assess the potential effect of temperature, salinity and light. We also applied PAA to 22 tanks with post-smolt Atlantic salmonSalmo salarin full-strength SW (33‰) over a realistic range of therapeutic concentrations (0.15-4.8 mg l-1) to simulate relevant treatment scenarios. The study showed that PAA degrades rapidly in SW. The degradation follows exponential first-order decay with half-lives on the order of minutes to hours. Salinity and temperature significantly affected the decay of PAA, showing a 4-fold faster decay rate in full-strength SW compared to freshwater. The decay of PAA was not significantly related to the nominal concentration of PAA in the concentration range tested. The other 2 active ingredients in PAA products, hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and acetic acid, were found to degrade at a much slower rate. H2O2half-lives in SW were found to range from 15 to 70 h, and minimal acetate was found to be degraded when added to SW. Finally, we compiled published data on PAA decay in relevant water matrices and discussed the potential environmental impacts, mitigation options and future research.


Aimoin of Fleury's Gesta Francorum has mostly been ignored apart from its importance as a source for the Grandes Chroniques de France. Aimoin's editorial techniques in reworking his Merovingian‐era sources deserve more attention, however. Through a process of selective editing, strategic silence, and rhetorical invention he compiled a history that would appeal to its probable target audience, King Robert II of West Francia. The most noteworthy changes wrought by Aimoin are the assignment of a divinely appointed imperial and evangelizing mission to the Franks and the transformation of Clovis into an exemplary Christian king.


Prior to the initiation of this program guideline based care was not prioritised by health policy. Asthma control is sub-optimal in Ireland; recent primary care data shows 14% of asthma patients attended A&E, 8% hospitalised in the previous 12 months. The Asthma Society of Ireland (ASI) developed a framework for the Dept. of Health and Health Service Executive (HSE) in collaboration with Healthcare Professional (HCP) bodies based on nationally modified guidelines (GINA) and a core program to assess the feasibility of implementing a National Asthma Program. The ASI funded and developed an asthma management program in primary care to identify barriers and facilitators to implementation of guideline based care. 25 primary care teams completed a guideline based educational program and practical training session. Each team was given a tool-kit with spirometer, peak flow meters and diaries, patient education materials, placebo inhalers and spacers. Adherence to guidelines was facilitated with a specifically developed Electronic Patient Record. 778 patients were included in the program for 6 months. A guideline based asthma program can be implemented successfully if practices are provided with necessary resources for diagnosis, management and patient education. HCP agreed guidelines improved patient care (92.7%), facilitated cost effective care (70.7%). Arising from this study HSE has prioritised the development of a National Asthma Program with asthma specific key performance indicators in its service plans. Active collaboration between patient organisations, HCP and health service providers has lead to a fundamental change in asthma health policy in primary care.


Abstract : The basic question is whether the US Army Advanced Management Program (AMP) provides worthwhile training and education to Army colonels and if it is, in fact, the best source for this training and education. The history of this type of civilian management program was traced from its roots and a detailed analysis of current ofificer development was conducted so that AMP could be viewed in its proper perspective. Data was gathered by interviewing recent Army participants, current military administrators, and university program directors; and by a general literature search and review of official publications, letters, and regulations, the tremendous and growing use of these various programs by major corporations, the strong positive opinions of prominent educators, as well as the almost totally favorable response by recent attendees indicate that the Army's investment in senior level management courses at leading civilian universities is well placed. Although the worth of these civilian programs may not be directly measured in terms of acquired skills of immediately applicable knowledge, their value instead is that they immerse the participants in a persistent discussion of the underlying values upon which our civilization is based - values too often taken for granted. The Army should continue this valuable program, but should develop a feedback method to more closely monitor its effects.


Alpha-sarcoglycan (ASG) is a transmembrane protein of the dystrophin-associated complex, and absence of ASG causes limb-girdle muscular dystrophy. We hypothesize that disruption of the sarcoglycan complex may alter muscle extensibility and disrupt the coupling between passive transverse and axial contractile elements in the diaphragm. We determined the length-tension relationships of the diaphragm of young ASG-deficient mice and their controls during uniaxial and biaxial loading. We also determined the isometric contractile properties of the diaphragm muscles from mutant and normal mice in the absence and presence of passive transverse stress. We found that the diaphragm muscles of the null mutants for the protein ASG show 1) significant decrease in muscle extensibility in the directions of the muscle fibers and transverse to fibers, 2) significant reductions in force-generating capacity, and 3) significant reductions in coupling between longitudinal and transverse properties. Thus these findings suggest that the sarcoglycan complex serves a mechanical function in the diaphragm by contributing to muscle passive stiffness and to the modulation of the contractile properties of the muscle.


In this paper, the edge a-Zagreb indices and its coindices of some graph operations, such as generalized hierarchical product, Cartesian Product, join, composition of two graphs are obtained. Using the results obtained here, we deduce the F-indices and its coindices for the above graph operation. Finally, we have computed the edge a-Zagreb Index, F-index and their coindices of some important classes of graphs.


Al MCM-41 mesoporous molecular sieves were synthesized by a hydrothermal method at 110 ℃ using the cationic surfactant cetyltrimethylammonium bromide as a template, sodium silicate as the silicon source, and pseudoboehmite as the aluminum source. The obtained Al MCM-41 molecular sieve was characterized by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), N2 adsorption-desorption, solid-state 29Si, 27Al magic angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance (MAS NMR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and pyridine adsorption in Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The results showed that the Al MCM-41 molecular sieves had an ordered hexagonal packed structure, high relative crystallinity, high BET surface area, large pore volume, and a narrow pore size distribution. Furthermore, strong bonding between the silicon atoms in the Al MCM-41 framework resulted in good crystallization. The presence of the four-coordinate aluminum in the framework resulted in higher acidity.


The paper provides an analysis of adaptation of fishers' households to climate change around Jebba Lake Basin, Nigeria. Fisheries of Jebba Lake Basin are presented as a system of dynamic trends, seasonality and shock. An analysis of livelihood diversification reveals that some households are more adaptable to environmental change than others. Fishers who have become overly specialised in fishing as sole livelihood activity are least able to adapt. The study thus recommends increased capabilities of fishers through formal enlightenment campaigns in respect of other livelihood portfolios outside fishing for better livelihood diversification.


Liver metastasis is the gravest prognostic factor in colorectal cancer. To identify a reliable indicator for liver metastasis, we evaluated macroscopic features and seven established histopathological findings at the cut section containing the deepest penetration using univariate and multivariate analyses in 417 colorectal cancers. Macroscopic features were divided into two types, streak type and non-streak type, according to the presence or absence of white streak(s) at the advancing margin of tumor invasion. Streak type was observed in 109 patients (26%). The frequency of liver metastasis in streak type tumors (56%) was significantly higher than that in non-streak type tumors (13%) (p < 0.001). The white streak corresponded histologically with cancer cells showing focal dedifferentiation with marked stromal and perivascular fibrosis extending towards the serosa or adventitia. In 343 curatively treated patients, univariate analysis showed that recurrent liver metastasis was significantly associated with macroscopic features, venous invasion, focal dedifferentiation and lymph node metastasis. Multivariate analysis disclosed that macroscopic features and lymph node metastasis were independent indicators of liver metastasis. These macroscopic features, corresponding histologically to stromal behavior against invading cancer cells, are a simple and useful indicator of liver metastasis of colorectal cancer.


As a result of the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1997, schools must now consider positive behavioral interventions and strategies to address problem behavior of students with Emotional/Behavioral Disorders (E/BD). Given the poor behavioral, academic, and social outcomes for these students, there is a compelling need to identify effective, proactive interventions. Current literature has well established the ineffectiveness of traditional, punitive, and consequence-laden strategies to deal with behaviors. Research has shown the manipulation of antecedent stimuli, in the form of curricular adaptations, can provide a positive, proactive means of managing behavior. Specifically, curriculum modifications, based on student interest, are proposed as a positive, proactive strategy used to manipulate antecedent stimuli to improve the behavior of students with E/BD. The purpose of this study was to investigate the manipulation of antecedent stimuli through the implementation of individualized, curricular adaptations, based on student interest, to reduce the problem behavior of students exhibiting disruptive behaviors. A second purpose was to explore the effect of those adaptations on the behavior motivation of students with E/BD. In this study, curriculum modifications based on student interest were used to reduce disruptive behavior, increase desirable behavior, and effect change in the motivation for problem behavior among four elementary school boys with E/BD. Use of an ABAB reversal design, including interval data collection, and the use of a behavior rating scale and a motivation assessment scale were used to establish baseline data and determine effectiveness of the intervention. Results indicate that each student demonstrated a reduction in disruptive behavior, an increase in desirable behavior, and changes in motivation for behavior.


In recent decades, increased economic pressure and growing societal expectations have led to the introduction of performance-based funding models of public research, namely universities. In this respect, universities have started to use various strategies to adapt and develop their activities under the new framework. National governments are currently attempting to design and apply various taxonomies for structuring university infrastructure in different ways in order to facilitate the development of efficient programmes for the advancement of higher education. This paper provides a review of different approaches to university typologies, discusses the choice of indicators and mathematical tools for grouping universities using common criteria and evaluating their performance based on classical and modified DEA approaches. The authors develop a typology which was tested in the Russian context, taking into account indicators of research and educational activities implemented by domestic universities and their efficiency score. The typology is based on clustering universities by the availability of resources and research and educational performance and the combination of these results with their efficiency score. It groups universities by type and includes a decision tree for classifying them taking into account their heterogeneity. It serves as a basis for the content analysis of a wide range of universities, and for shaping targeted policies aimed at particular groups.


BOBEK L. (1,2), TOMASEK O. (1,3), KRALOVA T. (1,2), KOTASOVA ADAMKOVA M. (2), ALBRECHT T. (1,3) (1) Ustav biologie obratlovců AV CR, Brno; (2) Ustav botaniky a zoologie, PřF MU, Brno; (3) Katedra zoologie, PřF UK, Praha Life-history theory posits that amount of energy available for growth, reproduction and survival is limited resulting in allocation trade-off between these components of individual fitness. As a consequence most life-history variation runs along one major axis, so called fast-slow life-history continuum. Compared to slow life-histories, fast life-histories are characterised by fast growth and development rates, high annual reproductive output, low survival and hence short life-spans. Recently, divergent life-histories has been hypothesised to co-evolve with a suite of physiological and behavioural adaptations–so called pace-of-life syndromes. The most studied trait in this regard is the rate of energetic metabolism, which is often used as a characteristics defining species-specific pace of life: fast and slow pace of life is characterised by high and low metabolic rate, respectively. In vertebrates, glucose is one of the main substrates for energy production circulating in the blood, and has been reported to positively correlate with metabolic rate. Therefore, we hypothesise that basal blood glucose concentration (G0) may also be a component of pace-of-life syndromes. To test this idea, we measured basal blood glucose concentrations (G0) in 330 individuals of 30 passerines and tested whether G0 is related to body mass and other life-history traits. Our data revealed significant interspecific differences in G0 with mean values ranging from 9.77 mmol/L to 15.4 mmol/L. Controlling for phylogeny, we found G0 to be negativelly correlated with body mass and migration distance and positivelly with immediate reproductive investment (clutch size and egg mass, but not yearly clutch frequency). These findings support the idea that G0 is an important component of paceof-life syndromes and corroborate findings of previous intraspecific studies reporting that, in contrast to fatty acids, glucose may not be the main fuel for migration. Supported by GACR projects 17-24782S a 14-36098G.


The purpose of this paper was to examine the relationship between self-efficacy and online learning environments. Self-efficacy refers to "beliefs in one's capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments" (Bandura, 1997, p. 3). This paper reviews studies on self-efficacy in online learning environments from 1997 to 2015. Three main categories were discussed: computer self-efficacy, Internet and information-seeking self-efficacy and LMS (Learning Management Systems) self-efficacy. Possible areas of research on self-efficacy in online learning environments were suggested.


Despite the fact that the study of geology and geophysics, especially applications in the petroleum industry, is becoming more and more computer oriented, students in these disciplines generally have very little exposure to computer techniques during their academic training. The major reason for this lack of training is probably the scarcity of appropriate and readily available software. Most software currently available seems to have been designed for research, and may not be suitable for teaching or may be prohibitively expensive. The authors have tried to solve this problem by developing a series of geophysics programs that teach basic concepts as well as more sophisticated applications like geophysical modeling. This package includes programs on gravity (simple shapes and two-dimensional modeling), magnetics (simple and complex shapes and two-dimensional modeling), seismics (refraction concepts and modeling, including multiple dipping layers), earth tides (graphical representation), and and geophysical data reduction (gravity reductions, magnetic smoothing, etc). All of the programs use a similar menu-driven user interface. Thus once the students learn how to use one program, they known how to use all of the programs. More time can then be spent learning from the software rather than learning about the computer. Several of the programs containmore » game-type drills, and all of the programs are graphically oriented. This maintains interest while continuing to demonstrate concepts. The student learns by simulating various situations and observing the resulting changes in the system.« less


In attempting to purify toxic factors in peptones, it was found that adequate methods of bioassay were lacking. In particular, methods for assaying the potency of biological preparations which increase capillary permeability or produce hemorrhage in the skin have beencrude and inaccurate. Commonly, a guinea pig or rabbit is prepared by the intravenous injection of a proteinbinding (1-3) indicator; e.g., sulfonated dyes such as trypan blue (4-9), fluorescent dyes -(10), radioactive dyes (8), and certain metals (11, 12). The toxic material is then injected intradermally. An increase in capillary permeabiltiy is indicated by an accumulation of the indicator-protein complex at injection sites. The intensity of the discoloration after intravenous dye has been estimated roughly using a + to ++++ scale (4-6, 9), or by measurements of diameter of the discolored area (7, 13, 14). However, the subjective evaluation of such diffuse and irregularly discolored areas is unsatisfactory for quantitative assay. A method is presented in this paper for quantitative assay of toxins which produce local hemorrhage after intradermal injection. The amount of hemorrhage has been measured spectrophotometrically. Dosage-response curves have been prepared and ordinates obtained which give a linear relationship and equal variance at all dosage levels. Using these ordinates a five point slope-ratio assay is described which has an error ("standard error of potency") of approximately 11 per cent. This assay method has been used to study the appearance of toxic products during the tryptic digestion of fibrin.


Biofuels and electrification are potential ways to reduce CO2 emissions from the transport sector, although not without limitations or associated problems. This paper describes a life-cycle analysis (LCA) of the Brazilian urban passenger transport system. The LCA considers various scenarios of a wholesale conversion of car and urban bus fleets to 100% electric or biofuel (bioethanol and biodiesel) use by 2050 compared to a business as usual (BAU) scenario. The LCA includes the following phases of vehicles and their life: fuel use and manufacturing (including electricity generation and land-use emissions), vehicle and battery manufacturing and end of life. The results are presented in terms of CO2, nitrous oxides (NOx) and particulate matter (PM) emissions, electricity consumption and the land required to grow the requisite biofuel feedstocks. Biofuels result in similar or higher CO2 and air pollutant emissions than BAU, while electrification resulted in significantly lower emissions of all types. Possible limitations found include the amount of electricity consumed by electric vehicles in the electrification scenarios.


We propose a mean field approach to the transport properties of carbon nanotube quantum dots. Quantum interaction between spin and orbital pseudo-spin degrees of freedom results in an SU(4) Kondo effect at low temperatures. By calculating the chemical potentials and the tunnelling strengths, and hence the spectral functions for different coupling constants and applied magnetic fields, we find that this exotic Kondo effect manifests as a four-peak splitting in the non-linear conductance when an axial magnetic field is applied.


Corrosion of Reinforcement (rebar) is nondestructively estimated by the half-cell potential measurement. As is the case with other nondestructive testings (NDT), understanding of the underlying principles should be clarified in order to obtain meaningful results. Therefore, the measurement of potentials in concrete is analytically investigated. The effect of internal defects on the potentials measured is clarified numerically by the boundary element method (BEM). Thus, a simplified inversion by BEM is applied to convert the potentials on concrete surface to those on rebars, taking into account the concrete resistivity. Because the potentials measured on concrete surface are so sensitive to moisture content, concrete resistivity and surface condition, an inverse procedure to convert the potentials on concrete surface into those on rebars is developed on the basis of BEM. It is found that ASTM criterion is practically applicable to estimate corrosion from the potential values converted. In experiments, an applicability of the procedure is examined by accelerated corrosion tests of reinforced concrete (RC) slabs. For practical use, the procedure is developed where results of IBEM are visualized by VRML (Virtual Reality modeling Language) in three-dimensional space.


An adaptive ant colony algorithm is proposed based on dynamically adjusting the strategy of the trail information updating. The algorithm can keep good balance between accelerating convergence and averting precocity and stagnation. The results of function optimization show that the algorithm has good searching ability and high convergence speed. The algorithm is employed to design a neuro-fuzzy controller for real-time control of an inverted pendulum. In order to avoid the combinatorial explosion of fuzzy rules due to multivariable inputs, state variable synthesis scheme is employed to reduce the number of fuzzy rules greatly. The simulation results show that the designed controller can control the inverted pendulum successfully.


We have discovered a substantial enhancement of the piezoelectric coefficients (from 10 to 78 pm/V) in the chalcogenide Ag2Ga2SiS6 single crystals. The piezoelectric studies were done under the influence of a CO2 laser (wavelength 10.6 μm, time duration 200 ns, lasers with power densities varying up to 700 MW/cm2). Contrary to the earlier studies where the photoinduced piezoelectricity was done under the influence of the near IR lasers, the effect is higher by at least one order, which is a consequence of the phonon anharmonic contributions and photopolarizations. Such a discovery allows one to build infrared piezotronic devices, which may be used for the production of the IR laser tunable optoelectronic triggers and memories. This is additionally confirmed by the fact that analogous photoillumination by the near IR laser (Nd:YAG (1064 nm) and Er:glass laser (1540 nm)) gives the obtained values of the effective piezoelectricity at of least one order less. The effect is completely reversible with a relaxation time up to several milliseconds. In order to clarify the role of free carriers, additional studies of photoelectrical spectra were done.


Magnetic properties of maghemite (γ-Fe2O3) nanoparticles grown on activated multiwall carbon nanotubes have been studied by alternating current (AC) magnetic susceptibility experiments performed under different temperatures, frequencies, and applied magnetic fields. Transmission electron images have suggested that the γ-Fe2O3 nanoparticles are not isolated and have an average size of 9 nm, but with a relatively broad size distribution. The activation energies of these 9 nm γ-Fe2O3 nanoparticles, determined from the generalized Vogel–Fulcher relation, are reduced upon increasing the direct current (DC) field magnitude. The large activation energy values have indicated the formation of a superspinglass state in the γ-Fe2O3 nanoparticle ensemble, which were not observed for pure γ-Fe2O3 nanoparticles, concluding that the multiwall carbon nanotubes favored the appearance of highly concentrated magnetic regions and hence the formation of superspinglass state. Magnetic relaxation studies, using Argand diagrams recorded for DC probe fields (<20 kOe) below the magnetic blocking temperature at 100 and 10 K, have revealed the presence of more than one relaxation process. The behavior of the ensemble of γ-Fe2O3 nanoparticles can be related to the superspinglass state and is also supported by Almeida–Thouless plots.


Applications that manage semi-structured data are becoming increasingly commonplace. Current approaches for storing semi-structured data use existing storage machinery; they either map the data to relational databases, or use a combination of flat files and indexes. While employing these existing storage mechanisms provides readily available solutions, there is a need to more closely examine their suitability to this class of data. Particularly, retrofitting existing solutions for semi-structured data can result in a mismatch between the tree structure of the data and the access characteristics of the underlying storage device (disk drive). This study explores various possibilities in the design space of native storage solutions for semi-structured data by exploring alternative approaches that match application data access characteristics to those of the underlying disk drive. For evaluating the effectiveness of the proposed native techniques in relation to the existing solution, we experiment with XML data using the XPathMark benchmark. Extensive evaluation reveals the strengths and weaknesses of the proposed native data layout techniques. While the existing solutions work really well for deep-focused queries into a semi-structured document (those that result in retrieving entire subtrees), the proposed native solutions substantially outperform for the non-deep-focused queries, which we demonstrate are at least as important as the deep-focused. We believe that native data layout techniques offer a unique direction for improving the performance of semi-structured data stores for a variety of important workloads. However, given that the proposed native techniques require circumventing current storage stack abstractions, further investigation is warranted before they can be applied to general-purpose storage systems.


The mechanisms determining the functional specificity of Drosophila homeodomain proteins are largely unknown. Here, the role of DNA-binding specificity for the in vivo function of the homeodomain protein fushi tarazu (ftz) is analyzed. We find that specific DNA binding is an important but not sufficient determinant of the functional specificity of ftz in vivo: The ftz DNA-binding specificity mutant ftzQ50K retains partial ftz wild-type activity in gene activation and phenotypic rescue assays. Furthermore, specificity mutations in a ftz-in vivo binding site only partially reduce enhancer activity as compared to null mutations of this site. Despite bicoid-like DNA-binding specificity ftzQ50K does not activate natural or artificial bcd target genes in the realms of ftz. These results are discussed in the light of recent observations on the mechanism of action of the yeast homeodomain protein alpha 2.


Plasmid pBR322 is amplified following amino-acid limitation in Escherichia coli relA hosts. In relA+ hosts there was no significant amplification or a much smaller one. Plasmid amplification is due to the relA mutation; when the relA+ allele is transferred into the relA mutant CP79 this strain no longer amplifies plasmid DNA during amino acid starvation. It is concluded that ppGpp is a negative effector of plasmid replication. Amplification is temperature dependent, being maximal at 32 degrees C and negligible at 37 degrees C.


Social dominance orientation (Sidanius et al.,1992) has been proposed as one antecedent of social attitudes. This study examines the relationships of this variable to prejudice, both blatant and subtle (Pettigrew and Meertens, 1995), and also to attitudes toward affirmative action. Two hundred people participated in the study. The data showed that social dominance orientation is a good predictor of blatant prejudice but not of subtle. These results are explained in relation to a multidimensional conception of the social dominance scale, in opposition to the unidimensionality defended by its authors.


This article examines patterns of academic mobility of Japanese and East Asian universities from a comparative and historical perspective. Firstly, it overviews the historical background of the academic profession in this region, especially focusing on Japan. Secondly, making use of the typology of mobility patterns by Kim and Locke (2010), the author reveals a contradictory relationship between gaining international profiles in the academic profession and the capacity of fostering next generation academics. The author also identifies the impact of colonization and other international relationships even in the contemporary patterns of academic mobility.