The main aim of this study is to clarify the rights and guarantees of the accused when faced with forensic evidence. The legal authority has provided a number of guarantees to the accused or the subject that must be provided so that he can have free will when faced by forensic evidence. This is especially the case in stages of gathering evidence. One of these rights is making him fully aware of the accusation, his right to remain silent, the right to seek assistance from a lawyer, and the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty. This study concludes that actions involving violation of these rights and freedoms may be taken only in the narrowest possible circumstances and for the purposes of necessity. In addition, these actions may only be taken within a legal framework through procedures that do not result in oppression or coercion or violation of those rights and freedoms. Exercising these rights and having freedoms is not absolute; it is relative: a person is subject to restrictions imposed by law in the interests of others in an attempt to achieve a balance between these rights and personal freedoms on the one hand and the public interest on the other. Such rights must not be restricted except to actualize public interest or establish justice, because a person is innocent until proven guilty in a fair legal trial. Justice is harmed by criminals walking free, but it is also harmed by the violation of the freedoms of an individual and their rights. This is avoided by guaranteeing that these rights and freedoms are not violated.


Exogenous reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation is a promising antibacterial strategy. The short diffusion distance coupled with the transient existence of ROS restrict their precise release at inflammation sites, so it is imperative to regulate the reactive sites of ROS donors. In this work, we developed a glycomimetic-decorated fluorescent nanobiocide to mediate the release of ROS generated from CuInS/ZnS quantum dots. The introduction of glycomimetics innovatively improved the biocompatibility of the hydrophobic quantum dots, allowing pathogenic bacteria to be targeted. The functionalized CuInS/ZnS quantum dots allowed simultaneous fluorescent reporting and sterilization under 660 nm illumination. Moreover, the nanobiocide can serve as a cell-binding glue causing bacterial aggregation, disrupting bacterial adhesion to host cells and inhibiting biofilm formation. Collectively, this work indicated the far-reaching future of ROS-generating biomimetic design for multifunctional nanobiocides to combat bacterial infections.


This article outlines the concept of doing celebrity: whereby celebrity and pop stardom are presented as a deliberately constructed set of actions and behaviours, rather than an ontology. It does so by conceptualising celebrity as something one does, not something one is. The article examines Grace Jones' 2015 memoir, I'll Never Write My Memoirs, as an example which contravenes the claim in both celebrity culture and autobiography to offer up access to an authentic self. This article reveals an embrace of performativity over authenticity that Jones presents as part of a wider art practice. This self-representational move claims the masculinised status of creative agent and author of the star image, and seeks a level of cultural value otherwise often denied to the female pop star celebrity. The concept of doing celebrity, therefore, opens up new ways to consider the means available to public women to navigate the negative value judgements associated with female celebrity as a cultural field.


With the coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemic now deep into its second year, widespread testing for the detection of the causative severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is fundamental. The gold standard reverse transcription quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) cannot keep up with the high demand alone, therefore alternative diagnostic tests are needed. Here we present ADESSO (Accurate Detection of Evolving SARS-CoV-2 through SHERLOCK Optimisation), an optimised version of the CRISPR-based SHERLOCK (Specific High-sensitivity Enzymatic Reporter unLOCKing) assay. After an extensive validation on 983 clinical samples, we demonstrated that ADESSO has a sensitivity of 96% and a specificity of 100% on extracted RNA, comparable to RT-qPCR. Its performance on unextracted samples still allows the detection of the more infectious 75% of the COVID-19 positive population, making it suitable for point-of-care (POC) testing. Interestingly, our in parallel comparison of 390 matching swab and gargle samples showed consistently lower viral loads in gargle specimens. We also validated ADESSO for the detection of the B.1.1.7 variant and demonstrated that ADESSO is adaptable to any variant of concern in less than one week, a critical feature now that worrisome SARS-CoV-2 variants are spreading all around the world.


Site-directed mutagenesis and gene-replacement techniques were used to substitute alanine for the MoFe protein alpha- and beta-subunit phenylalanine-125 residues both separately and in combination. These residues are located on the surface of the MoFe protein near the pseudosymmetric axis of symmetry between the alpha- and beta-subunits. Altered MoFe proteins that contain an alanine substitution at only one of the respective positions exhibit proton reduction activities of about 25-50% when compared to that of the wild-type protein. The lower level of proton reduction also corresponds with decreases in the rates of MgATP hydrolysis. The MoFe protein which contains alanine substitutions in both the alpha- and beta- subunits did not exhibit any proton reduction activity or MgATP hydrolysis. Stopped flow spectrophotometry of the singly substituted MoFe proteins indicate primary electron transfer rate constants approximately an order of magnitude slower than what is observed for wild-type MoFe protein, while no primary electron transfer is observed for the doubly substituted MoFe protein. The doubly substituted MoFe protein is able to interact with the Fe protein as shown by chemical crosslinking experiments. However, this protein does not form a tight complex with the Fe protein when treated with MgADP-AlF4- or when using the altered 127delta Fe protein. Stopped flow spectrophotometry was also used to quantitate the first-order dissociation rate constants for the two component proteins. These results suggest that the 125Phe residues are involved in an early event(s) that occurs upon component protein docking and could be involved in eliciting MgATP hydrolysis.


INTRODUCTION
As members of the military, all active duty service members (ADS) must meet physical fitness requirements and are provided with equal-access healthcare through the DoD. In addition, 92% of ADS are ≤40 years of age. Together, these characteristics suggest that ADS represent a healthy population that may have a low risk of cancer. Each year, however, >800 ADS are diagnosed with cancer and the resulting in time off for treatment, reassignment, or medical retirement may significantly impact force readiness.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
Relevant literature was identified by searching the PubMed database using search terms ACTIVE DUTY and CANCER. Only articles written in English were included.

RESULTS
Melanoma is the most common cancer in ADS, while testicular cancer is the most common cancer in males and breast cancer is the most common in females. Cancer incidence patterns in ADS differ from those in the general U.S. population and from military veterans. Tumor etiology in ADS may be influenced by military-enriched exposures such as prolonged use of oral contraceptives, suboptimal use of sunscreen, exposure to volatile organic compounds, or germline predisposition/family history.

CONCLUSIONS
The etiology of cancer within ADS remains largely unknown. A number of new research programs may provide the means to improve understanding of the etiology of cancer in ADS. Together, these efforts will improve prevention, early detection, and clinical management, thus improving the outcomes of ADS and preserving force readiness.


SISK, DANA MARIE STANLEY. Reproductive Gene Expression in Male Sus scrofa: An examination of the Differential Gene Expression of Divergent Testosterone selection and development of a Ribonucleic Acid extraction protocol from whole Porcine Spermatozoa. (Under the direction of Melissa S. Ashwell.) The ability to characterize and enhance market traits in livestock has facilitated a greater interest in determining the genetic tool kit available for manipulation. In swine, using new approaches in genomics, such as microarray analysis and biological pathway analysis, we can show genes up and down regulated in a variety of processes and conditions. To this end, we identify the genes, pathways, and disease biomarkers affected by divergent selection of testosterone in boars. Testicular samples were taken from boars at 0, 30, 120, 150, and 180 days of age for lines of high (HT) and low testosterone (LT). Evidence that many of the differences in gene expression were at the pubertal period of 150 days led to a subsequent microarray study of the 150 day HT and LT animals. Microarray studies were followed by validation with real-time RT-PCR of 11 genes and extensive GeneGo pathway analysis (Metacore) of differentially expressed genes. While increased testosterone has long been associated with increased growth rates, we now have supporting genomic evidence of the genes and pathways up-regulated and down-regulated in these lines. To this end, this study has identified several disease biomarkers that may require further investigation and biological pathways associated with growth and metabolism that allow the recommendation of selective breeding for high testosterone to increase lean growth traits. The genetic blueprint contained in the spermatozoan transcriptome can also illuminate key issues in swine reproduction. By developing a procedure for effective RNA extraction of boar spermatozoa we are one step closer to elucidating the porcine sperm transcriptome and the genes implicated in growth and fertility. A viable protocol was developed to handle the complexities of large scale extraction of RNA from porcine semen utilizing an RNA carrier and Dnase treatment. This protocol was validated with PCR amplification of Sus scrofa prm1 in order to provide evidence of a successful RNA extraction from sperm. Reproductive Gene Expression in Male Sus scrofa: An examination of the Differential Gene Expression of Divergent Testosterone selection and development of a Ribonucleic Acid extraction protocol from whole Porcine Spermatozoa by Dana Marie Stanley Sisk A thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty of North Carolina State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science


A damage detection and assessment system based on laser-induced changes in surface scattering is reported. It is integrated with a 1064nm, 532nm, 355nm damage test facility used for routine testing of production optics. HfO2/SiO2 HR-coating and HfO 2/SiO2 AR-coating were tested by this system, and compared with plasma spark method and Nomarski phase contrast microscope method. The results show He-Ne scattering technique is an effective, reliable technique. Plasma spark intensity varies with different film material and plate fashion, and Nomarski phase contrast microscope observation method is an international standard detection method, but it can't detect some damages and is difficult to detect on line


We divided acute ischemic stroke patients into an oldest old group (≥90 years, n = 414) and an elderly group (75-89 years, n = 1,927), and compared the clinical characteristics between the two groups. Female sex, early admission, severe stroke on admission, atrial fibrillation, and cardioembolic stoke were significantly more frequent in the oldest-old group. On the other hand, risk factors associated with atherosclerosis were less frequent in the oldest-old group. There were no differences in hyper-acute recanalization therapy between the two groups, whereas antithrombotic therapy for secondary prevention at discharge was introduced less frequently in the oldest-old group than in the elderly group. Death prior to discharge from the acute care hospital , and death at 3 months were significantly more frequent in the oldest-old group. Moreover, in the oldest old group, severe stroke and atrial fibrillation were independent predictors for both death prior to discharge from the acute care hospital and at 3 months after onset. Oldest-old stroke patients had poor outcome, although they had received aggressive treatment as same as elderly patients. Therefore, as the number of oldest-old stroke patients is increasing, the demand for cooperation in the healthcare system is likely to grow, including acute care hospitals.


Background: Peripheral nerve injuries have significant effects on patients' life quality. To make patients' therapeutic expectations more realistic, prediction of repair outcome has significant importance. Materials and Methods: Totally, 74 patients with 94 nerve injuries (44 median and 50 ulnar nerves) were evaluated and followed up for 5 years between 2008 and 2013 in two main university hospitals of Isfahan. Patients' age was 6–64 years. 24 nerves were excluded from the study and among the remaining; 53 nerves were repaired primarily and 17 nerves secondarily. 42 nerves were injured at a low-level, 17 nerves at intermediate and 11 at a high one. Medical Research Council Scale used for sensory and motor assessment. S3+and S4scores for sensory recovery and M4and M5scores for motor recovery were considered as favorable results. The follow-up time was between 8 and 24 months. Results: There was no significant difference between favorable sensory outcomes of median and ulnar nerves. The difference between favorable motor outcomes of the median nerve was higher than ulnar nerve (P = 0.03, odds ratio = 2.9). More favorable results were seen in high-level injuries repair than low ones (P = 0.035), and also cases followed more than 18 months compared to less than 12 months (P = 0.041), respectively. The favorable outcomes for patients younger than 16 were more than 40 and older, however, their difference was not significant (P = 0.059).The difference between primary and secondary repair favorable outcomes was not significant (P = 0.37). Conclusion: In patients older than 40 or injured at a high-level, there is a high possibility of repetitive operations and reconstructive measures. The necessity for long-term follow-up and careful attentions during a postoperative period should be pointed to all patients.


ABSTRACT Inspired by Bauman's notion of "liquidity," we problematize the socio-cultural dynamics taking place in contemporary retail. The notion of liquid retail enables researchers to untangle marketplace transformation and to highlight developments centred around markets and market-actors that jointly transform each other. This introduction underlines, as a point of departure, recent developments in retailing that have been marked by the corrosion of fixity and boundaries. We provide a short synopsis of marketplace transformation and liquid retail, from a socio-cultural perspective, and summarize the papers included in this special issue.


Deep neural networks (DNNs) can easily be manipulated (by an adversary) to output drastically different predictions and can be done so in a controlled and directed way. This process is known as adversarial attack and is considered one of the major hurdles in using DNNs in high-stakes and real-world applications. Although developing methods to secure DNNs against adversaries is now a primary research focus, it suffers from limitations such as lack of optimization generality and lack of optimization scalability. My research highlights will offer a holistic understanding of optimization foundations for robust AI, peer into their emerging challenges, and present recent solutions developed by my research group.


Indian society divided along the lines of Caste is a unique case for the study of exclusion. Caste
based divisions and consequent exclusion has a significant impact on human well being in India.
Even after significant restructuring of living spaces and social equations in the form of urbanisation,
exclusion is implicit in Indian cities. It manifest in the form of social and spatial exclusion in
Indian urban landscapes. In this study, we examine linkages between socio-spatial exclusion and
health and well-being through certain pathways. Based in an urban village of Varanasi in India,
this study is built on a mixed method. The population of the study area, although historically an
integral part of city, were found to be marginalised and excluded socially and spatially in the
whole process of urban transformations. Continued exclusion suffered by this urban village amid
the city influenced well-being of its inhabitants negatively, particularly their patterns of health.


Recent work in the literature has studied fourth-order elliptic operators on manifolds with a boundary. This paper proves that, in the case of the squared Laplace operator, the boundary conditions which require that the eigenfunctions and their normal derivative should vanish at the boundary lead to self-adjointness of the boundary-value problem. On studying, for simplicity, the squared Laplace operator in one dimension, on a closed interval of the real line, alternative conditions which also ensure self-adjointness set to zero, at the boundary, the eigenfunctions and their second derivatives, or their first and third derivatives, or their second and third derivatives, or require periodicity, i.e. a linear relation among the values of the eigenfunctions at the ends of the interval. For the first four choices of boundary conditions, the resulting 1-loop divergence is evaluated for a real scalar field on the portion of flat Euclidean 4-space bounded by a 3-sphere, or by two concentric 3-spheres.


This paper presents a progressively challenging series of experiments that investigate clarification subdialogues to resolve the words in noisy transcriptions of user utterances. We focus on user utterances where the user's specific intent requires little additional inference, given sufficient understanding of the form. We learned decision-making strategies for a dialogue manager from run-time features of our spoken dialogue system and from observation of human wizards we had embedded within it. Results show that noisy ASR can be resolved based on predictions from context about what a user might say, and that dialogue management strategies for clarifications of linguistic form benefit from access to features from spoken language understanding.


We present high resolution optical spectroscopy of three candidate members of the Taurus-Auriga star forming region. Based on the spectral type, the strength, profile and width of the Hα line, the detected lithium at 6708 Å, the location of these objects in a H-R diagram and the comparison with similar objects belonging to young stellar associations, we determine that they are bona fide members of the SFR, with about ∼3 Myr, have masses at or below the substellar limit and, at least in one case, there is active accretion from a circum(sub)stellar disk. This result suggests that high mass brown dwarfs go through a Classical TTauri phase and form like stars, from colapse and fragmentation of a molecular cloud.


From the perspective of content safety issues, alignment has shown to limit large language models' (LLMs) harmful content generation. This intentional method of reinforcing models to not respond to certain user inputs seem to be present in many modern open-source instruction tuning datasets such as OpenAssistant or Guanaco. We introduce a novel insight to an instruction-tuned model's performance affected by the presence of alignment in supervised fine-tuning dataset. To be specific, we noticed that alignment acts as if it is poisoning the instruction dataset. Experimentally, we demonstrate that aligned answers significantly worsen the performance of the resulting fine-tuned model's on various reasoning benchmarks such as Big Bench (BBH), Massive Multitask Language Understanding (MMLU), Human Eval, and Discrete Reasoning Over Paragraphs (DROP), performing worse than the counterpart tuned without alignment by 4-33%.


Introduction The population of children born prematurely has increased in line with improving the quality of perinatal care. It is essential to ensure to these children a healthy development. Objective We evaluate the neuromotor development of a group of preterm infants regularly assisted by a physiotherapy service in comparison to full-term newborns, checking, so the impact of the service. Materials and methods We randomly assigned preterm and full-term infants that formed two distinct groups. The group of preterm infants was inserted into a monitoring program of physiotherapy while the other infants were taken as a control group not receiving any assistance in physiotherapy. The groups were compared using the Alberta Infant Motor Scale (AIMS) at forty-week, four and six months of corrected gestational age and the scores were compared using Student's t-test, assuming a significance level of 5% (p < 0.05). Results The preterm group had significantly lower scores at 40th week compared to the control group, but subsequent scores showed no significant differences between the two groups. Conclusion The timely and adequate stimulation was efficient to promote the motor development of premature infants included in a follow up clinic.


It is expected that when you arrive at an airport you most likely will have to check in a bag or two. What is not expected, however, is that someone would rummage through your baggage and take your belongings. Unfortunately, this happens frequently. A passenger packs her jewelry in her luggage, checks that luggage in, boards her flight, and never sees that jewelry again. Once she discovers the missing jewelry, her options for recovering the loss are quite limited. This article examines the history and current state of the law regarding airline liability for passengers' lost belongings on domestic as well as international flights. The article further discuss how these problems increased in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States. The article concludes by offering suggestions for changes to the airline industry's liability and standards regarding loss of jewelry in checked-in baggage.


Colorectal cancer is a significant worldwide health problem, and an altered immunoresponse plays an important role in colorectal tumorigenesis and cancer progression. T helper 17 (Th17) lymphocytes (a subgroup of CD4(+) T cells), together with the related cytokines, such as interleukin (IL)-6 and IL-17A, participate in cancer-related immunity. In this study, we measured the percentage of Th17 cells in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and the levels of IL-17A and IL-6 in serum samples or tumor tissues, prepared from 40 colorectal cancer patients (a median age of 75 years), 32 age-matched healthy controls (a median age of 74 years), and 30 young healthy controls (a median age of 26 years). The percentage of Th17 cells in PBMCs and the serum IL-6 levels were higher in cancer patients than those in elderly controls, and they were associated with tumor progression. Moreover, the percentage of Th17 cells and the serum IL-6 levels were higher in elderly healthy controls than those in young healthy controls. In contrast, serum IL-17A levels were similar in the cancer patients and the elderly controls, although its serum levels were higher than those in young controls. Importantly, Th17 cells were accumulated in the intratumor and peritumor regions. In conclusion, the percentage of Th17 cells and the serum IL-6 level are significantly increased with aging, and their higher levels are correlated with colorectal cancer progression. The percentage of Th17 cells in PBMCs and the serum IL-6 level are potential biomarkers for predicting disease progression.


INTRODUCTION
Multiple sclerosis is a chronic, inflammatory and degenerative disease of the central nervous system. In most cases it is characterised by the recurring focal neurological deficit, which may become progressive over time. Given the chronic nature of the disease, patients may present with additional diseases (comorbidities), which affect the natural history of the disease and its treatment in different ways.

AIM
To summarise the available evidence regarding the influence of comorbidities on the natural history of multiple sclerosis.

DEVELOPMENT
Patients with multiple sclerosis are at greater risk than the general population of developing both acute and chronic comorbidities. It has been shown that comorbidities can delay the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis after clinical onset, increase the rates of relapses and of accumulation of disability. Comorbidities also influence aspects of the choice of treatment and therapy adherence. Finally, comorbidities also increase the mortality rate and reduce the quality of life of patients with multiple sclerosis.

CONCLUSIONS
Screening, diagnosis and treatment of comorbidities are a key aspect of caring for patients with multiple sclerosis to improve their long-term prognosis in terms of disability, quality of life and mortality.


Black holes and weakly-magnetic accreting neutron stars show strong quasi-periodic variability over timescales that span a very wide range. This property offer us a unique opportunity to improve our understanding of basic physical processes in strong gravitational fields as it reveals, for the first time, phenomena that occur on the most fundamental timescales near accreting compact objects. In this article, I review our current understanding of the variability properties of accretion flows onto neutron stars and black holes. I discuss a number of challenges faced by theoretical models, in order to identify open questions in accretion physics that need to be addressed. Finally, I discuss the relation to and implications for variability models of the detection of nearly coherent oscillations during type I X-ray bursts in several neutron-star sources.


Increasing global human population coupled with the climate change pose serious threats on the basic needs of society. The coming decades will witness the challenges associated with the food security, land availability, clean water availability, and energy security. These issues directly or indirectly affect the various components of the Earth's Critical Zone (ECZ). Our natural resources are finite and hence a policy framework is urgently required to deal with the growing demand in food, clean energy, and water in sustainable ways. This work characterises some key components of the ECZ such as wetlands, through modelling and computational simulation approaches. A data-driven methodology known as the system identification is used to devise a nonlinear dynamic model of the tropical wetlands. The dataset used in the study corresponds to a Global Inundation Extent from Multi-Satellites. The model gives some useful insights about the dynamics of tropical wetlands and the possible effects of climate change on wetlands. The prediction power of this model is shown to be superior than the competing analytical models representing the inundation dynamics. This work also contributes towards the theoretical advancements in the nonlinear system identification method by proposing a new algorithm capable of performing the model structure selection in the NARMAX model class under the Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) framework. In addition to the data-driven approach, this thesis also switches to analytical modelling framework for investigating the sustainable ways of food production and climate change mitigation through a Negative Emission Technology (NET) known as enhanced weathering. The recent reports of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have highlighted the need of an NET to meet the ambitious targets of lowering the global temperature. A process-based model representing the enhanced weathering of a mineral is developed and integrated with standard soil, vegetation process models. The integrated model is termed as the Integrated Enhanced Weathering Critical Zone Model, which is used to analyse the potentials of enhanced weathering in the UK conditions. The simulation results indicate that with the implementation of enhanced weathering in the UK farmlands, we can reduce the atmospheric carbon through sequestration as well as increase the crop yield substantially. In another words, food security and climate change mitigation can be addressed simultaneously. In a nutshell, the simulation results and analyses of this thesis can be used to design further experiments for investigating the ECZ processes like inundation dynamics and enhanced weathering. The results can also act as guidelines for framing the relevant policies towards environmental and food sustainability.


Murine T cell replacing factor (TRF) was purified from a cellfree supernatant of a T cell hybridoma (B151K12) that constitutively produces TRF. Two assay systems for TRF activity were employed: 1) induction of anti-DNP IgG PFC responses in cultures of splenic B cells from DNP-KLH-primed BALB/c mice, and 2) induction of IgM PFC in chronic B cell leukemic cells (BCL1). The purification scheme consisted of ammonium sulfate precipitation, DEAE-cellulose chromatography, Blue-Sepharose chromatography, hydroxylapatite chromatography, gel permeation with fast protein liquid chromatography (FPLC), and disc polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Overall, TRF was purified approximately 34,000-fold with a maximum 3.8% recovery of activity, and the specific activity of the purified TRF was approximately 9.6 X 10(4) U/mg. The TRF that is active in these systems is distinct from the other lymphokines such as IL 1, IL 2, BCGFI (now known as BSFp1), and gamma-interferon. The TRF is extremely hydrophobic, with an apparent m.w. of 50,000 to 60,000 on gel permeation chromatography and 18,000 on SDS-PAGE under reducing conditions. Highly purified B151-TRF abrogated the activity by treatment with trypsin but not with RNase. Moreover, it bound to lima bean agglutinin-Sepharose specific for N-acetylgalactosamine residues, indicating that B151-TRF is a glycosylated glycoprotein containing N-acetylgalactosamine residues. The role of N-acetylgalactosamine residues on TRF activity was additionally substantiated by the fact that the addition of appropriate amounts of N-acetylgalactosamine in the assay systems for TRF preferentially induced a profound suppression for TRF-mediated PFC responses.


The size dependence of the strength of nano- and micron-sized crystals is studied using a new simulation approach in which the dynamics of the density functions of dislocations are modeled. Since any quantity of dislocations can be represented by a density, this approach can handle large systems containing large quantities of dislocations, which may handicap discrete dislocation dynamics schemes due to the excessive computation time involved. For this reason, pillar sizes spanning a large range, from the sub-micron to micron regimes, can be simulated. The simulation results reveal the power-law relationship between strength and specimen size up to a certain size, beyond which the strength varies much more slowly with size. For specimens smaller than ∼4000b, their strength is found to be controlled by the dislocation depletion condition, in which the total dislocation density remains almost constant throughout the loading process. In specimens larger than ∼4000b, the initial dislocation distribution is of critical importance since the presence of dislocation entanglements is found to obstruct deformation in the neighboring regions within a distance of ∼2000b. This length scale suggests that the effects of dense dislocation clusters are greater in intermediate-sized specimens (e.g. 4000b and 8000b) than in larger specimens (e.g. 16 000b), according to the weakest-link concept.


This project explored the reasons for the slow growth of women entrepreneurs in Malaysia, despite the availability of many funding and aid options for women entrepreneurs. Through purposive and snowball sampling three participants from each major ethnic group in Malaysia were selected (Malay, Chinese and Indians). Primary data were collected using in-depth interviews. The findings indicated (i) a lack of awareness of the availability of aid,, (ii) an impact of gender, (iii) incorrectly identifying target market needs, (iv) statistics not truly reflective of the situation, and (v) neglecting of potential 'rising starts'. The recommendations suggested are that (i) Government and related agencies entrusted with aiding women entrepreneurs carry out comprehensive research to identify the correct need for the target market, (ii) advertising to disseminate information must be properly channelled for maximum exposure, and (iii) aid should not be restricted to funding. Keywords: Women entrepreneurs, stumbling blocks, aid, ministries and government agencies, Malaysia


Current specials at Harris Wood Machining, producers of timber flooring, mouldings, decking, specialising in Jarrah and Marri timbers and Redgum Park Dexter Cattle Stud.


Following the traditional example of the so-called Kelsen pyramid, the author proposes a new kind of legal pyramid, integrating the incipient concept of global law, which has superseded international law. At the top rests the human person, from which all law ultimately arises (ius ex persona oritur). The base of the pyramid, heptagonal in shape, would be made up of that same humanity, organized as a function of an "anthroparchy." The pyramid's seven sides correspond to the seven formative principles of law: justice, rationality, coercion, universality, solidarity, subsidiarity, and horizontality. The three-dimensionality of the legal pyramid, a polyhedron, is reflected in the law's individual, social, and universal dimensions. The last of these corresponds to global law.


The work is aimed at control of physical and chemical properties of paper by surface application of water based polymer dispersions. The polarity and specific charge density as well as hydrophobic effect of alkylketen-dimer, styrene-acrylate copolymer, styrene-butadiene latex, copolymers of styrene and dimethyl aminopropylamine maleimide and styrene-acrylic ester on printing properties of modelled papers was studied. All papers were printed with thermal inkjet printer using dye and pigmented water-based inks. Print quality was evaluated in terms of optical density, water fastness and print sharpness. The necessity to modify and to optimise sizing solutions in order to create a cationic and simultaneously sufficiently and adequately hydrophilic paper surface is emphasized.


The role of insight in working with a preadolescent girl, who was engaged in a seven-year analysis, is examined from the perspective of therapeutic action. The patient's use of insight, within the context of a transference neurosis, contributed substantively to changes in the depth of object relations, modulation of affect, return of development to its anticipated pathways, marked reduction of obsessive-compulsive symptomatology, and profound flowering of intellectual development.


The non-selective muscarinic receptor antagonist scopolamine (SCP) induces memory deficits in both animals and humans. However, few studies have assessed the effects of amnesic agents on memory functions of marmosets – a small-bodied neotropical primate that is becoming increasingly used as a translational model for several neuropathologies. Here we assessed the effects of an acute SCP administration (0.03 mg/kg, sc) on the behavior of adult marmoset monkeys in two tasks. In the spontaneous object-location (SOL) recognition task, two identical neutral stimuli were explored on the sample trial, after which preferential exploration of the displaced versus the stationary object was analyzed on the test trial. In the fear-motivated behavior (FMB) procedure, the same subjects were submitted to an initial baseline trial, followed by an exposure period to a snake model and lastly a post-exposure trial. All trials and inter-trial intervals lasted 10 min for both tests. Results showed that on the SOL test trial, the saline group explored the displaced object significantly longer than its identical stationary counterpart, whereas SCP-treated marmosets explored both objects equivalently. In the FMB test, the saline group – but not the SCP-treated animals – spent significantly less time where the stimulus had been specifically encountered and more time being vigilant of their surroundings, compared to pre-exposure levels. Drug-related effects on general activity, overall exploration (SOL task) and behavioral response to the aversive stimulus (FMB task) were not observed. SCP thus impaired the marmosets' short-term ability to detect changes associated with the spatial location of ethologically irrelevant (SOL task) and relevant stimuli (FMB task). Similar results have been reported in other animal species. Marmosets may thus help reduce the translational gap between pre-clinical studies and memory-associated human pathologies.


Nowadays, newly invented vehicle equipped with smart mileage monitoring system where notification is given when maintenance mileage reached. However, this feature is not own by old car owner. Furthermore, the available monitoring device or system in market is expensive and not accurate. Thus, in this research a Car Mileage Monitoring device with features such as mileage monitoring, maintenance service notification and car tracking system is design and develop. The objectives of this research are to investigate the accuracy percentage of the mileage monitoring system and the response time of the tracking system. In addition, a mobile application is to be fabricated to integrate with the device. In this research, STM32F103C microcontroller (Blue Pill) and A7 GPS+GSM/GPRS module is used. Moreover, Haversine formula is used to calculate distance between two coordinates. The results show that, the average percentage of accuracy for car mileage monitoring system is 91.38%. For response time, the maximum time taken is 24.54 seconds and minimum response time is 13.22 seconds. Furthermore, a mobile application with pop up maintenance notification, car tracking button and mileage reading monitor is developed. In short, the device developed is a reliable device in mileage monitoring where it has a high accuracy percentage when compare to car odometer. Besides, the device is also useful in car tracking where the response time is very short. And lastly, the device fabricated is integrated with a smart maintenance notification where notification is sent when the maintenance limit reach.


An approach to building a three-dimensional description of the environment of a robot using three cameras is presented. The main advantages of trinocular versus binocular stereo are simplicity, reliability, and accuracy. It is believed that these advantages make trinocular stereo vision of practical use for many robotics applications. The technique has been successfully applied to several indoor and industrial scenes. Experimental results are presented and discussed. >


Stroke is a leading cause of death and disability in the United States. However, there is limited public knowledge about stroke signs and symptoms and the importance of seeking immediate medical care. Educational efforts such as stroke awareness campaigns are one way of informing the public about stroke symptoms and the need for early medical treatment following their onset. In this article, we present recent surveillance data concerning public awareness of stroke symptoms; summarize findings from 12 studies of the effectiveness of stroke awareness campaigns; and describe the efforts by three states to develop, implement, and evaluate heart disease and stroke programs, and the lessons to be learned from their experiences.


The transient receptor potential vanilloid channel 1 (TRPV1) is a non-selective ion channel capable of being activated by multiple factors such as noxious stimuli, heat (>42 °C), low pH and pungent agents. Due to its pivotal role in pain perception TRPV1 has extensively been studied in the context of nociception in sensory neurons. Although TRPV1 has been discovered in the hippocampus, the exact cellular and subcellular expression as well as the function of the channel is still subject of strong debate. Using multiple techniques our study confirms the functional expression of TRPV1 in hippocampal neurons and provides information about the localization of the receptor. We found that the expression of TRPV1 was upregulated by NGF and high neuronal activity. TRPV1 was highly expressed in reelin/somatostatin-positive interneurons of the oriens lacunosum moleculare (OLM) that concomitantly express NGF (that likely increases TRPV1 expression). TRPV1 promotes high excitatory innervation of OLM neurons; when activated the channel recruits more excitatory terminals but if the channel is blocked or removed OLM neurons receive substantially less excitatory input. Such impairment is reflected in a significant decrease in LTP in the Schaffer collateral pathway in the TRPV1 KO mouse. This deficit in LTP is bypassed when OLM neurons are activated with nicotine - which selectively activates only OLM neurons in the hippocampus. This demonstrates functionally that TRPV1 is specifically expressed in OLM neurons. We also report some drawbacks detected in the TRPV1 knockout and the TRPV1 cre/lox P reporter mouse, two commercially available mouse lines commonly used in the field. Our findings may encourage other researchers to be more cautious with conclusions drawn using these animals. Together this thesis sheds light on the role of TRPV1 in synaptic plasticity in the hippocampus.


Abstract Context. A framework was developed to help investors improve the delivery of environmental benefits from environmental programs. The framework, Investment Framework for Environmental Resources (INFFER), assists environmental managers to design projects, select delivery mechanisms and rank competing projects on the basis of benefits and costs. Aims. To identify design requirements for an environmental investment framework on the basis of consideration of lessons from practical experience, and established theory from decision analysis and economics. Methods. The design and delivery of the framework are based on extensive experience from working with environmental managers and policy makers. In addition, the developers have paid close attention to the need for processes that are theoretically rigorous, resulting in a tool that allows valid comparison of projects for different asset types, of different scales and durations. Key results. From the practical experience outlined, several important lessons and implications are identified, including the need for simplicity, training and support of users, trusting relationships with users, transparency, flexibility, compatibility with the needs and contexts of users, and supportive institutional arrangements. Use of a theoretically correct metric to rank projects can deliver dramatically improved environmental values relative to a commonly used weighted additive metric. Conclusions. Practical and theoretical considerations have strong implications for the design of a practical, effective and accurate tool to support decision making about environmental project priorities.


Two groups of male albino rats of the Sprague-Dawley strain, with average initial body weights of about 265 g, were trained for 22 weeks on an exercise program of swimming one-half hour daily in water at 35 C. One trained group was fed a normal diet containing 18% casein. The other trained group received an isocaloric diet containing 1% cholesterol which was designed to produce hypercholesteremia. Two nonexercised groups, one fed the normal and the other the 1% cholesterol diet, served as controls. The adrenals and heart ventricles of both trained groups were larger than their respective controls. Exercise had no hypocholesteremic effect on the sera of either trained group. Fat and cholesterol accumulation in the livers of rats fed the 1% cholesterol diet were not affected by training, but training significantly lowered the fat and cholesterol of the livers of the normal rats.


The authors conducted an investigation of perceptions of outreach worker credibility using the social network members (N = 20) of indigenous outreach workers in an HIV/AIDS prevention intervention. The network members included in the study received semistructured interviews following the program's completion. Outreach workers who were not actively using illicit drugs were more likely to be described as credible than were those who were using drugs. In general, drug use negatively affected perceptions of credibility via damaged trust in the outreach worker's relationship with his or her network member. Results indicate the complexity of using indigenous drug users as outreach workers, the potential negative perceptions concerning hypocritical behavior, and the need to evaluate social interventions from the standpoint of indirect participants.


OBJECTIVE
To determine the prevalence and clinical characteristics of tuberculosis (TB) in diabetic patients.

DESIGN
This study was a cross-sectional survey based on the retrospective analysis of data on tuberculosis in diabetic patients.

SETTINGS
The study was conducted at Endocrinology and Metabolism Unit of the Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

SUBJECTS
Seventy-eight cases of tuberculosis among 1352 diabetic patients were included from September 1989 to 1996.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Clinical evaluation, chest x-ray, acid fast bacilli (AFB) in sputum or measures tissue and histopathologic characteristic of biopsy specimens.

RESULTS
Seventy-eight cases of TB were identified among 1352 diabetic patients giving a prevalence of 5.8%. Among 1352 diabetic patients, 713 (52.7%) were males, 639 (43.3%) were females, 619 (45.8%) were IDDM and 733 (54.2%) were NIDDM. The mean age of the 71 TB patients whose records could be retrieved was 34.0 +/- 11.9 years, 42(59%) were males, 29 (41%) were females. Fifty-four (76.1%) were IDDM and 17(23.9%) were NIDDM, 17 of the IDDM had clinical characteristics of malnutrition-related diabetes mellitus (MRDM), 36 (56%) of 71 patients were admitted for management. The three most common symptoms of tuberculosis were fever (80.5%), sweating (80.4%) and cough (70.5%). Twenty six (36.6%) of 71 cases were positive for AFB and six (8.5%) were seropositive for HIV. Fifty-six (78.9%) had pulmonary,eight (11.2%) had extrapulmonary and seven(9.8%) had disseminated TB. Forty-eight of 53 abnormal chest x-ray showed unilateral involvement. Thirty-eight of 41 (53.6%) had completed TB treatment, relapse occurred in seven (9.8%), eight (11.2%) are currently on treatment, 13 (18.3%) were lost to follow up, four (5.6%) defaulted and three (4.2%) died. The relative risk of developing TB in IDDM and NIDDM patients was being 26 times and seven times than the general population respectively.

CONCLUSION
The prevalence of tuberculosis in the diabetic population is high and this warrants a prospective study to determine association between pulmonary tuberculosis and diabetes.


Purpose This retrospective pilot study investigated whether sound-level and speech production errors decreased in confrontation naming following Verb Network Strengthening Treatment (VNeST) for four participants with acquired apraxia of speech (A-AOS) and aphasia for whom lexical retrieval was previously reported. Specifically, we investigated a potential increase in correct number of syllables per word and posttreatment changes across three domains of speech: segmental production, fluency, and prosody. It was hypothesized that treatment shown to increase lexical retrieval in persons with aphasia and A-AOS could potentially facilitate a reduction in sound-level and speech production errors consistent with dual diagnoses of A-AOS and aphasia. Method Naming responses from four participants with aphasia and A-AOS who previously participated in VNeST studies were investigated for correct number of syllables per word and measures of segmental speech, fluency, and prosody. Results Significant gains in at least one measure of speech production were reported for three of the participants. One participant demonstrated decreased segmental speech errors, two showed significant reduction on syllable segmentation, and two demonstrated a significant reduction on false starts and pauses. Significant gains in production of correct number of syllables were limited to one participant, and one participant did not demonstrate increased accuracy on any measure of speech production. Conclusions While speech production errors consistent with motor speech impairment cannot always be definitively distinguished from the confound of aphasia, two participants produced significantly decreased segmentation of syllables, a characteristic unique to A-AOS. The sound-level and speech production changes recorded may be attributed to a combination of interacting motor and language processes and resource allocation. In addition, specific components of VNeST may have contributed to speech production changes. Future work will focus on a prospective study of effects of language therapy (e.g., VNeST) on measures of speech production with investigation beyond the single-word level.


ABSTRACT The insertion of artificial intelligence technologies (AITs) and data-driven automation in public policymaking should be a metaphorical wake-up call for critical policy analysts. Both its wide representation as techno-solutionist remedy in otherwise slow, inefficient, and biased public decision-making and its regulation as a matter of rational risk analysis are conceptually flawed and democratically problematic. To 'outsmart' AI, this article stimulates the articulation of a critical research agenda on AITs and public policy, outlining three interconnected lines of inquiry for future research: (1) interpretivist disclosure of the norms and values that shape perceptions and uses of AITs in public policy, (2) exploration of AITs in public policy as a contingent practice of complex human-machine interactions, and (3) emancipatory critique of how 'smart' governance projects and AIT regulation interact with (global) inequalities and power relations.


We identified that GATA zinc finger domain containing 1 (GATAD1), a transcriptional factor, was significantly up‐regulated in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) through gene amplification. We demonstrated the critical role, molecular mechanisms, and clinical implications of GATAD1 as a novel oncogenic factor in HCC. We found that GATAD1 protein was expressed in 76.6% of primary HCCs (85/111) but silenced in normal liver tissues. Gene amplification of GATAD1 was positively correlated with its overexpression in primary HCCs (R = 0.629, P < 0.0001). GATAD1 significantly increased cell proliferation, G1–S cell cycle transition, and migration/invasion but suppressed apoptosis in liver cell lines and promoted tumor growth and lung metastasis in both xenograft and orthotopic mouse models. Mechanistically, GATAD1 induced the transcriptional expression of phosphatase of regenerating liver 3 (PRL3) by binding to its promoter identified by RNA sequencing and chromatin immunoprecipitation‐PCR analyses. PRL3 played an oncogenic role in HCC. Knockdown of PRL3 blunted the tumorigenic effect of GATAD1. In addition, GATAD1 activated Akt signaling, evidenced by increased phosphorylation levels of total Akt, Akt1, Akt2, and Akt target glycogen synthase kinase 3β, while knockdown of PRL3 abolished this effect of GATAD1. We further unveiled that PRL3 activated Akt signaling by dephosphorylating phosphatase and tensin homolog at tyrosine residue, thus reducing phosphatase and tensin homolog protein. The PRL3 inhibitor 5‐[[5‐bromo‐2‐[(2‐bromophenyl)methoxy]phenyl]methylene]‐2‐thioxo‐4‐thiazolidinone significantly suppressed HCC growth by inhibiting Akt activation. Moreover, high GATAD1 nuclear protein expression was associated with poor survival of HCC patients as an independent prognostic factor. Conclusion: GATAD1 plays a pivotal oncogenic role in HCC by directly inducing PRL3 transcription to activate the Akt signaling pathway. GATAD1 may serve as an independent poor prognostic factor for HCC patients. (Hepatology 2018;67:2302‐2319).


This article is a comparative analysis and it discusses the judicial independence in South Sudan and India. An authoritative attempt has been made in its preliminary part to shed light on the meaning of judicial independence and manner in which the term judiciary has been used in various contexts within the legal domains. The discussion focuses on at least most of the important aspects of judicial independence. The article laments on the notion of judiciary independence as a legal means apart from political means (electorates) in ensuring democratic principles which are expected to be adhered to by the other two organs of government by way of bringing legislative and executive actions or arbitrariness under judicial scrutiny. The aspects of judicial independence which are discussed include Courts structure, appointment of judges, security of tenure, retirement of judges, transfer of judges, finance, and administration of courts. It finally concludes that in both constitutions there are loopholes or flaw clauses which hamper the practical realization of judicial independence as intended and expected by the people.


The Salerno model constitutes an intriguing interpolation between the integrable Ablowitz-Ladik (AL) model and the more standard (nonintegrable) discrete nonlinear Schrödinger (DNLS) one. The competition of local on-site nonlinearity and nonlinear dispersion governs the thermalization of this model. Here, we investigate the statistical mechanics of the Salerno one-dimensional lattice model in the nonintegrable case and illustrate the thermalization in the Gibbs regime. As the parameter interpolating between the two limits (from DNLS toward AL) is varied, the region in the space of initial energy and norm densities leading to thermalization expands. The thermalization in the non-Gibbs regime heavily depends on the finite system size; we explore this feature via direct numerical computations for different parametric regimes.


This paper is a sequel to an earlier paper of the present author, in which it was proved that every finite comma-free code is embedded into a so-called (finite) canonical comma-free code. In this paper, it is proved that every (finite) canonical comma-free code is embedded into a finite maximal comma-free code, which thus achieves the conclusion that every finite comma-free code has finite completions.


Serial order processing or Sequence processing underlies many human activities such as speech, language, skill learning, planning, problem solving, etc. Investigating the neural bases of sequence processing enables us to understand serial order in cognition and helps us building intelligent devices. In the current paper, various cognitive issues related to sequence processing will be discussed with examples. Some of the issues are: distributed versus local representation, pre-wired versus adaptive origins of representatio n, implicit versus explicit learning, fixed/flat versus hierarchical organization, timing aspects, order information embedded in sequences, primacy versus recency in list learning and aspects of sequence perception such as recognition, recall and generation. Experimental results that give evidence for the involvement of various brain areas will be described. Finally, theoretical frameworks based on Markov models and Reinforcement Learning paradigm will be presented. These theoretical ideas are useful for studying sequential phenomena in a principled way.


Active methylene compounds such as 5,5-dimethylcyclohexane-1,3-dione, cyclohexane-1,3-dione, 3-methyl-1-phenyl-1H-pyrazol-5(4H)-one, 1,3-dimethyl-1H-pyrazol-5(4H)-one, and 3-methylisoxazol-5(4H)-one react with the 3-C position of N-confused porphyrin in THF for 5 min to afford a novel type of N-confused porphyrin derivatives in good yield without the need of any catalyst.


Abstract Suredaite, ideally PbSnS3, is a new mineral species from the Pirquitas Ag-Sn deposit (Province Jujuy, NW-Argentina). It was observed in symmetrically banded veins in the Oploca district, and is associated with sphalerite, arsenopyrite, pyrite-marcasite, cassiterite, cylindrite, franckeite, hocartite, rhodostannite, and various Ag-Sb and Ag-Bi sulfosalts in minor amounts. Suredaite occurs in layers up to 1 cm in thickness as aggregates of radially arranged tabular-prismatic (single) crystals, has a metallic lustre, and a dark grey streak. VHN50 ranges between 18.2 and 20.6 (mean 19.6) GPa, the Mohs hardness is 2.5-3. It has perfect cleavages parallel to {001}, {101}, and {100}. The measured density varies between 5.54 and 5.88 g/cm3, Dx was determined to be 5.615 g/cm3. In reflected plane-polarised light, it is white and is not perceptibly bireflectant or pleochroic. It lacks internal reflections and is weakly anisotropic with metallic blue, mauve to brown rotation tints. Specular reflectance percentages in air and in oil are tabulated from 400 to 700 nm and compared graphically with those for the type specimen of teallite, PbSnS2. Electron microprobe analyses showed suredaite to be chemically inhomogeneous with respect to the compositional variations (in wt%): Pb 42.3- 48.5, Ag 0.3-1.1, Fe 0.3-1.0, As 0.2-2.1, Sn 27.7-30.2, S 23.1-24.7. The crystal structure determined from single-crystal X-ray diffraction data revealed orthorhombic symmetry [space group Pnma, Z = 4, a = 8.8221(3), b = 3.7728(3), c = 14.0076(3) Å; V = 466.23(4) Å3]. The atomic arrangement is isostructural to the NH4CdCl3 structure type which exists in a series of isotypic sulfides and selenide compounds. The suredaite structure, which is the natural analogue of synthetic PbSnS3, consists of columns of double-edge sharing octahedra running parallel to the b axis, which house the Sn atoms. These columns are linked by rods of eightfold-coordinated Pb atoms. On the basis of the structure determination, the empirically determined idealized formula follows a [8](Pb, As,Ag, Sn) [6](Sn,Fe)S3 stoichiometry. Crystalchemical arguments suggest Ag possibly to occupy interstitial sites according to the alternative formula [4](⃞,Ag) [8](Pb, As, Sn) [6](Sn,Fe) S3. The name of this new mineral species is in honor of R.J. Sureda Leston, head of the Department of Mineralogy and Economic Geology, University of Salta, Argentina.


scarlet topknot. When he comes, spring is here, .and March is gliding into April. Thoreau has written that the cackle of this woodpecker is like the note of an alarm clock, set last fall so as to waken Nature up at exactly this date. May it also waken all the children to hasten to know their March neighbors before the crowd of summer visitors makes recognition harder. For just behind, "April's coming up the hill," bringing all the other sparrows, and "after April when May follows, and the white throat builds and all the swal10ws," and the warblers are everywhere (except on. the spot you are searching), and every twig has its bird, then indeed bird study will be a bewildering maze, and you will wish you had made a good start .in March,


: To develop ultrahigh-strength steels for automotive impact safety parts, the effects of the microstructure and nitrogen content on the fatigue properties of ultrahigh-strength low alloy transformation-induced plasticity (TRIP)-aided steels with martensite (TM), bainitic ferrite-martensite (TBM), and bainitic ferrite (TBF) matrices were investigated. Compared to TBF steels, both the TM and TBM steels achieved high tensile strength, of more than 980 MPa, and excellent fatigue properties. This results from the sup-pression of crack propagation due to the effective TRIP of the relatively stable interlath retained austenite and the increase in tensile and yield strengths attributed to the low isothermal transformation treatment. The fatigue strengths of the ultrahigh-strength low alloy TRIP-aided steels were slightly increased by the addition of 100 ppm of nitrogen. The increase in fatigue strength of TM, TBM, and TBF steels with 100 ppm of nitrogen was caused by the fine and uniform martensite and bainitic ferrite matrices and retained austenite, along with the increase in carbon concentration in the retained austenite due to the precipitation of AlN.


We present the complete nucleotide and deduced amino acid sequences of a mouse epidermal keratin subunit of 60,000 Da. The keratin possesses a central alpha-helical domain of four tracts (termed 1A, 1B, 2A, and 2B) that can form coiled-coils, interspersed by short linker sequences, and has non-alpha-helical terminal domains. This pattern of secondary structure is emerging as common to all intermediate filament subunits. The alpha-helical sequences conform to the type II class of keratins. Accordingly, this is the first type II keratin for which complete sequence information is available, and thus it facilitates elucidation of the fundamental distinctions between type I and type II keratins. It has been observed that type I keratins are acidic and type II keratins are neutral--basic in charge. We suggest that the basis for this empirical correlation between type and charge resides in the respective net charges of the 1A and 2B tracts. Calculations on interchain interactions between charged residues in the alpha-helical domains indicate that this keratin prefers to participate in dimers according to an in-register parallel arrangement. The terminal domains of this keratin possess characteristic glycine-rich sequences, and the carboxyl-terminal domain is highly homologous to that of a human epidermal keratin of 56,000 Da. According to the hypothesis that end-domains are located on the periphery of keratin filaments, we conclude that the corresponding mouse and human keratins are closely related, both structurally and functionally.


Intersubband transitions stimulated by an electromagnetic wave which has a momentum in the plane of a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) are accompanied by a ``photon-drag'' current due to the momentum imparted to electrons by the absorbed photons. In a high-mobility 2DEG at low temperatures, an enhanced effect occurs owing to the difference in the momentum relaxation times in the ground and the excited subbands. A theory of this effect is developed with particular attention paid to the geometrical aspects of proposed experiments. The enhanced effect is considered in two limits, corresponding to two dominant mechanisms of line broadening in the intersubband absorption spectra (the collision and the Doppler linewidths). The photon-drag effect permits a new type of spectroscopy containing information about the momentum-relaxation kinetics in 2D subbands. Moreover, it allows the implementation of novel far-infrared detectors. Fundamental limits on the quantum efficiency of such detectors are discussed.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate the clinical characteristics of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma(DLBCL) patients with bone marrow involvement and chromosome abnormalities, and further analyze the correlation between the degree of chromosome abnormality and prognosis.

METHODS
The clinical data of 88 patients diagnosed with DLBCL with bone marrow involvement and complete chromosomal findings in Shanxi Province Cancer Hospital were retrospectively analyzed. The χ2 test was used to analyze their clinical characteristics, and the Kaplan-Meier method was used in PFS and OS, and log-rank method in comparison.

RESULTS
Chromosome abnormalities were detected in 31 of the 88 patients(35.2%), 15 of whom had complex karyotype(17.0%). The positive rate of BCL-2, BCL-6, C-MYC and Ki-67≥80% was high in patients with complex karyotype, and most of them are double expressor lymphoma. Survival analysis showed that patients with complex karyotype of DLBCL had poorer PFS and OS compared to those with normal karyotype and 1-2 chromosomal abnormalities.

CONCLUSION
In DLBCL patients with bone marrow involvement and chromosome abnormalities, patients with complex karyotype have a shorter survival time.


Abstract A 48-hr. forecast for the entire Northern Hemisphere of a barotropic hydrostatic atmosphere is made with the "primitive equations." Overlapping Mercator and stereographic grids are used, together with the finite-difference scheme proposed by Eliassen. Initial data corresponded to a Haurwitz-type pattern of wave number 4. The initial wind field was nondivergent and the initial geopotential field satisfied the balance equation. The computations seem to be stable and well behaved, except for two small temporary irregularities. The amplitude of the gravity-inertia waves present in the forecast geopotential field is about 1/30 that of the large-scale field. It can be shown that this is due to the neglect, in the initial data, of the quasi-geostrophically conditioned divergence field. The computational technique itself therefore does not give any unreal prominence to the "meteorological noise." The computational characteristics and stability criterion of the Eliassen finite-difference system are invest...


Based on in-depth interviews, survey data, and archival sources, this paper analyzes the origins of nostalgia for Maoist mass campaigns directed against corruption and other malfeasance engaged in by local officials. It argues that campaign nostalgia is an indicator of frustration and unmet expectations. Its origins trace to an unwillingness on the part of the Party leadership to rely on mass mobilization to check cadre corruption. Although nostalgic villagers undoubtedly underestimate the downside of mass movements while conjuring up an idyllic era of official probity, it is understandable that these individuals long for a romanticized version of the rectifications of old and dismiss ineffective clean government drives, legal remedies and bureaucratic supervision as feeble replacements for centrally sponsored, direct struggle against wrongdoers. Still, campaign nostalgia may wane as institutional anti-corruption measures take hold and popular confidence in rule by law builds up. Continuing economic growth and village elections, at least in some locations, may also help reduce the popular yearning for mass mobilization.


Transport industry and, more specifically, railway industry, is confronted with a permanent need of improvement of its products. The competitiveness of rolling stock does not come only from low-cost production, but also from wise-calculated lifecycle costs. Nowadays, many contracts for railway operators include not only rolling stock, but also its maintenance services throughout its lifetime, which may reach up to 30% of global costs. Hence, deep knowledge about the system's ageing is a strong asset to ensure a good performance, both on quality of service and financial costs. Rubber parts are widely used in railway technology because of their mechanical properties, providing both stiffness and, to a certain extent, additional damping and vibration filtering. Unlike metallic parts, whose mechanical properties remain relatively stable, rubber's behaviour can change throughout a lifecycle, due to service loads and environmental influence. Such changes might have an impact on the system's overall behaviour and lead to undesirable scenarii. For a given bogie model, we seek to estimate the stiffness variation of some rubber parts, which are deemed critical for safe operation.


Measles morbidity and the state of the immune stratum among children during pre-epidemic, epidemic and post epidemic periods, taken separately, has been analyzed by a specially developed method of statistical analysis. With the immune stratum remaining the same, differences in morbidity rates in different years of the cycle have been revealed. The study has demonstrated that in the presence of a high level of the immune stratum measles morbidity retains its cyclic character, which may be attributed to the action of other factors on this process. Morbidity rate has been found to be influenced by such factor as the frequency of contacts with the source of infection, and in this connection the risk of contacting measles by nonimmune children varies in different age groups of children. Regressive equations have been constructed on the basis of the above approach, thus permitting the prognostication of measles morbidity for the coming year in individual groups of children, which is of importance for the scientifically substantiated and oriented correction of antiepidemic measures.


The aim of the study was to investigate the peculiarities of cardiac arrhythmias in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) secondary to minor heart anomalies (MHA). We examined 84 patients (58 men and 26 women) at the age from 43 to 78 years with stable coronary artery disease, stable exertional angina of functional class1-2. The first group included 47 patients (33 men and 14 women; median age was 61,2 ± 8.5 years) with coronary artery disease and MHA identified during the echocardiographic examination. The second group consisted of 37 patients of the same age (25 men and 12 women; median age was 59.2 ± 7.5 years) with stable coronary artery disease without MHA. CAD was diagnosed on the basis of the comprehensive clinical and instrumental examination with the resting electrocardiogram registration, echocardiography including polypositional study to identify MHA, daily electrocardiogram monitoring for detecting cardiac arrhythmias and evaluation of circadian index. The study resulted in the detection of the statistically significant increase in the incidence of arrhythmic complications in patients with stable exertional angina in combination with MHA, as well as a significant decrease of the circadian index which was associated with a poor prognosis in terms of dangerous rhythm disturbances.


abstract This paper investigates in what manner the spectrum of body waves radiating from point sources in a multilayered medium over a homogeneous half-space is different from the spectrum of body waves from the same source in an infinite medium. The effect of the system consisting of a point source in a layered crust on the spectrum of P -waves observed at large distances in the half space is studied. Analytical expressions for the transfer function of this system are derived for three types of point sources: an explosive source, a single couple, and a double couple of arbitrary orientation within the crust. Preliminary numerical computations for the explosive source at various depths in a realistic model of the earth9s crust permit the study of the effect of: a) the angle of incidence into the homogeneous half-space, b) the source depth, c) minor variations of the crustal model. In the case of an explosive source the most influential parameter of the transfer function is the source depth. In shallow explosions the low frequency part of the spectrum of body waves is comparatively rejected.


Introduction: Previous studies demonstrated the cardioprotective properties of glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists in patients with diabetes or cardiac disease. We investigated whether preoperative subcutaneous liraglutide improves myocardial function after cardiac surgery. Methods: We performed a pre-planned secondary analysis of adult patients undergoing cardiac surgery included in the GLOBE trial. Patients were randomised to receive 0.6 mg subcutaneous liraglutide on the evening before surgery and 1.2 mg after induction of anaesthesia, or matching placebo. Perioperative echocardiographic assessments, haemodynamic parameters, doses of vasoactive inotropic support and postoperative measurements of troponin, Creatine Kinase-MB , creatinine and lactate were compared between groups. Results: The study population consisted of the entire intention-to-treat cohort of the GLOBE trial. In this study, 129 patients received liraglutide and 132 patients placebo. Baseline characteristics were comparable between groups. Postoperatively, 170 (65%) patients underwent echocardiography. In the liraglutide group, more patients had a normal left ventricular systolic function (68%, 59 patients) compared to placebo (53%, 44 patients), difference = 15%, 95%CI = 0–30, p = 0.049. Assessment of the right ventricle revealed no difference in function. Conclusions: Patients receiving short-term preoperative liraglutide treatment better maintained normal myocardial function after cardiac surgery. This study warrants further evaluation of the potential beneficial effects of GLP-1 receptor agonists in cardiac surgery patients.


This study explores concepts related to effective madrasah head leadership in building and developing a quality culture. The type of literature study research is used to explain the results of existing studies. Data were obtained from various relevant literature sources, such as books and journals, which contained information following the focus of the study, namely the leadership of the head of the Madrasah and the culture of quality. The data obtained is then carried out for content analysis. In addition, in maintaining the suitability of the review process and preventing and overcoming misinformation, checks are carried out between libraries, re-read the literature, and pay attention to expert comments. The results showed that ten indicators must be owned by school principals so that the development of a quality culture can run effectively, namely: complete vision, responsibility, example, empowering staff, listening to others, providing excellent service, developing people, empowering madrasahs, focusing on students, and management that prioritizes practice. Therefore, the critical roles of school principals must continue to be pursued, including as educators, managers, administrators, supervisors, leaders, innovators, and motivators. By integrating this critical role, it can be ensured that the quality culture of the Madrasah can be realized immediately.


For the coal mine underground coal mining working face scraper conveyor usually work starts with load, in order to get the accurate dynamic scraper conveyor starting characteristics, using AMEsim dynamic simulation software of finite element modeling of the scraper conveyor, and then using the viscoelastic mechanics model of the dynamic analysis of scraper conveyor, scraper conveyor are starting the process of chain tension and the velocity and displacement of the 2D and 3D change trend. Lay the theoretical foundation for reasonable selection mode.


another way, only 0·3–0·5 per cent of the original population of 4062 were left with significant symptoms. The reason for reoperation and the findings in these patients were not reported, but was this the incidence of true neuralgic pain in this population-based study? Clearly, pain is very subjective and difficult to quantify accurately; one patient's ache is another's nightmare. The cause of chronic groin pain after inguinal hernia repair is likely to be part nociceptive and part neuropathic. We sent a questionnaire to 80 patients (mean age 68 (range 29–93) years), 4–5 months after mesh-plug hernioplasty, with a response rate of 88 per cent. To our surprise, 29 per cent also reported discomfort in the groin. Their symptoms, however, were suggestive of nociceptive pain (related to tissue injury). No patient required regular analgesia, had altered their lifestyle or was disabled by their symptoms, and all stated they would have a similar repair on the contralateral side in the future. This last question is one that should be asked of all patients when trying to quantify their symptoms. K. J. Swarnkar, N. Hooper and B. M. Stephenson Royal Gwent Hospital, Cardiff Road, Newport NP20 2UB, UK DOI: 10.1002/bjs.4153


This research analyses the change and politicisation of educational management in Lithuania in 2001–2013, as well as the impact of reforming the educational managers' recruitment procedures on the scope of politicisation. According to the data analysis, 39% of managers in Vilnius city and Vilnius district are politicised. The politicisation level is even higher (50%) among the managers who were selected through the new recruitment procedures. This is a concern because the level of politicisation in public educational organisations is higher than in other public sector organisations (government agencies or state-owned companies). Furthermore, contrary to the initial expectations, reforming the recruitment system has not decreased the politicisation level. The aim of this research is to identify factors that stimulate different behavioural strategies ('top-down' and the 'bottom-up' politicisation) and affect the actual level of politicisation. In order to achieve this aim, data were collected on the political engagement of 168 managers currently employed in public educational organisations in Vilnius city and Vilnius district as well as 64 managers who were appointed under the new recruitment procedures. Moreover, a survey of 58 public educational institutions was conducted in order to gather data on the career patterns (appointment and dismissal dates) and professional background of the former managers.


Teaching has been identified as one of the most stressful professions, with a high attrition rate resulting from teacher stress and burnout. This chapter addresses the problem of how to enhance teaching quality and effectiveness by providing teachers with professional development in stress management, specific to the stressors of teaching. Existing research has clearly identified the key stressors for teachers, and evidence-based stress management approaches have been shown to be effective in mitigating teacher stress and improving teaching quality. However, there is little evidence that such professional development approaches have become integrated into the teacher training or continuing professional development curricula for teachers. Consequently, the aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of how teaching quality can be improved with a professional development framework of targeted approaches in stress management, which are aligned with the needs of individual teachers and whole schools.


Early recanalization of the occluded culprit coronary artery clearly reduces infarct size in both animal models and patients and improves clinical outcomes. Unfortunately, reperfusion can seldom be accomplished before some myocardium infarcts. As a result there has been an intensive search for interventions that will make the heart resistant to infarction so that reperfusion could salvage more myocardium. A number of interventions have been identified in animal models, foremost being ischemic preconditioning. It protects by activating signaling pathways that prevent lethal permeability transition pores from forming in the heart's mitochondria at reperfusion. Such conditioning can be accomplished in a clinically relevant manner either by staccato reperfusion (ischemic postconditioning) or by pharmacological activation of the conditioning signaling pathways prior to reperfusion. Unfortunately, clinical trials of ischemic postconditioning and pharmacologic conditioning have been largely disappointing. We suggest that this may be caused by inappropriate use as models intended to mimic the clinical scenario of young healthy animals that receive none of the many drugs currently given to our patients. Patients may be resistant to some forms of conditioning because of comorbidities, for example, diabetes, or they may already be conditioned by adjunct medications, for example, P2Y12 inhibitors or opioids. Incremental technological improvements in patient care may render some approaches to cardioprotection redundant, and thus the clinical target may be continually changing, while our animal models have not kept pace. In remote conditioning, a limb is subjected to ischemia/reperfusion prior to or during coronary reperfusion. Its mechanism is not as well understood as that of ischemic preconditioning, but the results have been very encouraging. In the present article, we will review ischemic, remote, and pharmacologic conditioning and possible confounders that could interfere with their efficacy in clinical trials in 2 settings of myocardial ischemia: (1) primary angioplasty in acute myocardial infarction and (2) elective angioplasty.


This research aimed to understand the current status of early childhood education and to develop a future direction of early childhood English education. One group interview and three private interviews were conducted with 10 early education teachers to obtain in-depth understanding of the problems inherent in English education. The findings show that there is an internal conflict in the teachers regarding the value of English education in early childhood. In addition, there are external conflicts with the children the parents, the English teacher, the program director, and the government in English education. It is concluded that the early childhood educators felt an internal conflict regarding the current, inappropriate execution of early English education which is lacking a suitable educational plan including goals and practices. Furthermore, the teacher's preference for English also contributed to the internal conflict regarding the belief in early childhood English education. Secondly, the external conflicts included: English teachers with inadequate understanding of comprehensive early childhood development, parents who show excessive interest in early childhood English education without regard to childhood development, the reality that early childhood English education is mostly influenced by the attitudes of the program director without regard for the conflicts experienced by the early childhood teacher, and the politics of the government continuing to ignore the reality that early childhood English education ontinues in practice without being included in the national curriculum.


The significance of a recently developed system that measures dynamic forces experienced by individual needles during formation of needlepunched fabrics is demonstrated. The system design, coupled with a new signal analysis technique allows measurement of peak penetration and stripping forces as well as the penetration and stripping energies due to needle/fiberweb interaction. Systematic experimental investigations were conducted to determine the critical locations in the needle board where needles experience the highest forces, and correlate needle force parameters to fabric performance. The research results, supported by statistical analysis, show there is a strong relationship between needle penetration energy and fabric properties. Additionally, the needling density significantly impacts the location of maximum penetration forces.


SIRS, We read the recent article by Hoffman et al. on the evaluation of a RBC-based triple regimen administered for only 1-week to eradicate Helicobacter pylori infection. They obtained excellent eradication rates (86% with ITT and 91% with PP) on a small number of patients (n ˆ 50) and therefore emphasize the effectiveness of this short-term triple therapy. The authors present their study as an original one, because they hypothesized that adding an inexpensive antibiotic (metronidazole) to the FDA-approved double regimen based on RBC 400 mg b.d. and clarithromycin 500 mg b.d., and giving these drugs only twice daily and for half the time commonly used in USA (7 instead of 14 days), would have improved its ef®cacy. Unfortunately, they seem not to be aware of the fact that this regimen has been already assessed and found to be excellent in a great number of previous studies. The ®rst experience with RBC combined with clarithromycin and metronidazole for 1 week was published 2 years ago by our group in a small, but randomized and controlled study. We obtained eradication rates higher than 85% on ITT with metronidazole 500 mg b.d. and a low dosage of clarithromycin (250 mg b.d.). This reduces further the cost of therapy, if the American authors wanted also to address this important aspect. Later, other authors 4 con®rmed our excellent results on larger series and nowadays the good performance of this new 1-week RBC-based regimen can be considered consolidated, as con®rmed by a recent paper showing the results of many studies using this therapeutic scheme. By pooling together all these trials, Pipkin et al. show that RBC-based triple therapy allows us to achieve high and consistent eradication rates, which are similar to those of proton pump inhibitor-based triple regimens. We are greatly surprised that Hoffman and co-workers did not mention at all in their article the above clinical trials. We think that the quality and relevance of their study are greatly reduced by several important methodological ̄aws (lack of randomization and control) and by the apparent ignorance of the already published literature in this ®eld.


The paper aims to clarify the relationship between organizational citizenship behavior, psychological empowerment, affective commitment and turnover intensions along with mediating effects of variables. Main purpose of the study is to analyze the organizational citizenship behavior on the basis of five dimensions altruisem, courtesy, sportsmanship, civic virtue and conscientiousness and finding how OCB and psychological empowerment influence the affective commitment and turnover intensions of workers directly and indirectly. The paper opted for a causal study using the standardized questionnaire approach. Data set of 410 respondents, employees representing middle level management belonging to Hattar industry was studied. Analysis was conducted by application of SEM to explore the direct and indirect relationship among the constructs. The paper provides empirical insights about how variables influence each other and finally concluded that OCB with its five dimensions and psychological empowerment, both affect affective commitment positively in a respective manner while both the variables have negative impact on turnover intensions of employees. Research also resulted that Affective commitment acts as a mediating variable between OCB and Turnover intensions as well as psychological empowerment and turnover intensions of industry middle management workers. Keywords: Organization citizenship behavior, psychological empowerment, affective commitment, turnover intensions JEL Classifications: J10, M10


The article considers the six-year results of work on the introduction of legume herbs Astragalus cicer, A. sulcatus, A. onobrychis in the Kulunda dry steppe conditions. A comparative assessment of the success in the astragalus introduction was carried out. We identified the species that are prospective for introduction. The possibility of using astragali for the recultivation of haylands and pastures in the dry steppe area was evaluated.
Keywords: Introduction; recultivation; haylands and pastures; degradation; legumes; astragalus
References:
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Kornievskaya, T. V., & Silanteva, M. M. (2017). Reclamation of degraded pastures in dry steppe conditions. Trudy po prikladnoy botanike, genetike i selekcii, 178(3), 5-12 (in Russian).
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During video transmission, errors may happen normally. Addressing error resiliency, the reference modification (RM) approach at video compression encoder is used to modify the original reference to a modified one, which is less sensitive to errors. Apparently it is a bit rate overhead compared to original reference based conventional encoder. Therefore to reduce such bit rate overhead while still keep the error resilience performance is a big issue. A low bit rate overhead based RM approach is proposed in this paper, where the decoder information is exploited to perform encoding. In the proposal, the modified reference has more correlation to original reference, thus can reduce the bit rate overhead. In addition, the proposal can achieve better image recovery compared to existing works, and still be compatible to standard decoder. Overall, the proposal provides the best trade-off among the error resiliency, coding efficiency, and standard compatibility.


The timing of mineralization at the Hemlo gold deposit has long been a controversial issue. We present arguments that use partial melting of the ore assemblage to explain the mechanism of ore mobilization and resolve problems with the model of premetamorphic mineralization. The results have implications for mine exploitation and exploration strategies. We show that the ore mineral assemblage underwent partial melting during middle-amphibolite facies metamorphism (600°–650°C, 6–7 kbars), primarily through breakdown of stibnite and arsenopyrite in a high-ƒS2 environment. Concurrent deformation led to segregation of the resulting Sb- and As-rich sulfosalt melt. Interaction between this melt and a range of unmelted sulfides led to further melting and incorporation of other elements into the melt. The gold-bearing melt was mobilized from compressional high-strain sites into dilational domains such as boudin necks and extensional fractures developed in competent lithologies. Ore minerals that did not melt significantly (pyrite, molybdenite, pyrrhotite, and sphalerite) were not extensively mobilized and largely remained within high-strain compressional domains. This segregation of melt from residue thus resulted in the observed heterogeneous distribution of ore minerals within the deposit. Crystallization of the sulfosalt melt produced a diverse suite of ore minerals, dominated by stibnite and realgar and containing an array of rare sulfosalts, native elements, intermetallic compounds, and tellurides. Some sulfosalt melt persisted to low temperature (<300°C), allowing continued small-scale, localized mobilization during late deformation. Although gold occurs at moderate concentrations within the compressional high-strain domains, it is particularly concentrated in the dilational domains, a consequence of its mobilization within a sulfosalt melt. Our model of partial melting of the ore mineral assemblage with consequent mobilization explains how ore minerals that are unstable even at greenschist facies conditions came to be hosted in structures that formed at or near the peak of amphibolite facies metamorphism.


The study aims to evaluate the feasibility and the safety of early mobilization in critically ill children under 2 years and its impact on comfort scores. This prospective, monocenter clinical trial was conducted in a tertiary care pediatric intensive care unit in Belgium. Twenty children were recruited to the study. Early mobilization was done between 24 and 48 hours of admission. Mobilization of upper and lower limbs was performed according to practice protocol. The heart rate (HR), respiratory rate (RR), systolic and diastolic blood pressures (SBP and DBP, respectively) and pulsed oxygen saturation were recorded before mobilization, immediately after the treatment and after 10, 30 and 60 minutes. The EDIN score for the extubated children and the COMFORT-B score for the intubated children were used in order to evaluate comfort. The primary outcome was the feasibility and safety of early mobilization. The secondary outcome was to evaluate the impact of early mobilization on comfort. Sixteen sessions were completed and 4 sessions of mobilization were interrupted because of important agitation. HR, SBP and DPB showed no change immediately after the mobilization, compared with baseline. RR and SpO2 were similar at the different times. Agitation had impact on the EDIN and COMFORT-B scores in children whose session was interrupted. No adverse events were reported.Conclusions: Early mobilization is feasible and safe in the majority of critically ill children under 2 years even if the agitation is described as an adverse event. Early mobilization does not influence the cardio-respiratory parameters.Clinical Trial Registration number and date of registration: Clinicaltrials.gov, NCT02958124, 10/09/2017


Contemporary society is often thought of being media-saturated as the mass media have increasingly become an integral part of modern ways of life. The media reinforce gender norms already being communicated by other social institutions through their representation or reconstruction of social reality. Despite legal and social recognition of gender equality, the media representation of both genders still reproduces stereotypical portrayals underlining biological and emotional differences between men and women. With the proliferation of beauty industries, the media reiterate the individual benefits of beautified bodies and encourage individuals to take control of their own beautification. This paper explores the Thai media's representation of femininity in relation to the discursive embodiment of beauty discourse. It examines how the notion of beauty is defined and established in Thai public discourse, particularly in mainstream media texts. These texts are read to highlight power relations in the Thai media's representation of modern Thai women. Two television commercial clips are selected for detailed visual analysis to illustrate how contemporary patriarchal values reinscribe feminine beauty as an essential, imperative commodity in Thailand's capitalist economy. This paper underlines the connection between a patriarchal representation of beautiful women and the commodification of female bodies in valorizing a capitalist beauty discourse in Thai


When scientists use a taxon name like Mammalia, it is important that they talk about the same thing. But, what does it mean to be the same thing in different phylogenetic hypotheses? And, how is taxonomic reference maintained across hypotheses? Here, we discuss the differences between real and hypothetical clades, and how such a distinction relates to the sameness problem. Since hypotheses influence how we perceive things and pursue science, we find it important to have a functioning nomenclatural system for clades as perceived in phylogenetic hypotheses. As a solution to the sameness problem for such clades, we argue that a taxon name does not primarily refer to a single clade that somehow mirror the reality of branches in the tree of life. Instead we suggest that a taxon name refers to a set, or natural kind, of counterfactual and reconstructed clades.


Abstract: The ad libitum ingestion of casein diets varying in protein content altered serum and retinal levels of tyrosine. The serum tyrosine level rose when protein ingestion was increased from 6 to 24% casein. In rats consuming highprotein diets (40% casein), no further increase in serum tyrosine level occurred, although the levels of other large neutral amino acids, which compete with tyrosine for retinal uptake, continued to rise. The activity of the liver enzyme tyrosine aminotransferase varied directly with the percentage of protein in the diet and may partially explain the failure of chronic high‐protein feeding to increase serum tyrosine levels. The retinal tyrosine concentration was significantly correlated with the serum tyrosine level and with the serum tyrosine ratio at all levels of protein intake. Retinal 3,4‐dihydroxyphenylalanine synthesis and dopamine (DA) level varied in parallel with the level of the precursor, tyrosine. Addition of pure l‐tyrosine (1, 2, or 4%) to normal protein diets resulted in a stepwise increase in serum and retinal tyrosine levels and retinal DA turnover. Alterations of retinal tyrosine level as a result of change in amount of dietary protein or by its addition to the normal diet can influence retinal DA synthesis and release.


This paper examines the following questions: how the ROK government formulates its request for Japanese Official Development Assistance (ODA), and how the Japanese government makes ODA decisions with respect to the ROK. It will focus mainly on the bureaucratic decision-making process of the two governments: the process by which a project is selected, and the criteria employed in that process. The unit of analysis of this paper is a project which is funded by Japanese ODA, as an output of organizations. The basic scheme of decision-making in the introduction of Japanese ODA to developing countries consists of three stages. First, the would-be recipient country prepares its annual plan for using Japanese ODA, and presents it to the Japanese government. Next, the Japanese government reviews the request and decides whether or not to provide its ODA to the projects. Third, after the Japanese government informs the recipient government that it has decided to fund a project, the recipient government selects a supplier of goods and necessary services to begin implementation of the project. This paper concerns mainly with the first and the second stage. This paper concludes that the Japanese government always tries to apply the formal pattern of (1) recipient's request→ (2) Japanese decision→ (3) implementation, to all recipient countries regardless of the time frame and of the nature of the projects.