The aim of the paper is to explore the influences of initial inequality on the long run distribution of wealth. The paper presents two mathematical models that analyse the occupational choice of individuals in the presence of capital constraints and risk in entrepreneurial activities. The models show that inequality and particularly polarization hinder economic growth. The higher the initial level of polarization is, the lower the long run aggregate wealth of the economy and the higher the long run polarization will be. The models are calibrated using numerical simulations. The implications of the models are assessed empirically using data on economic growth, and income distribution in Mexico, during the period 1895-1994, as well as the "Doing Business" databases of the World Bank. Policy-wise it is found that a more egalitarian wealth distribution and less poverty can be achieved through wealth redistribution policies and by improving the business climate. This can be done by reducing the cost of setting-up firms (technology,bureaucratic and administrative costs), introducing labour-market reforms encouraging the hiring of those typically excluded such as the poor, improving the access to credit markets by reducing the costs of creating and/or registering collateral and broadening the credit bureau coverage.


Despite evidence on the social and economic importance of financial inclusion (FI), the relationship between FI and bank profitability remains unclear. In this research, we evaluated the association between financial inclusion and the performance of banks in Palestine using dynamic panel analysis applied to a sample of 11 banks, with two econometric models representing profitability indicators over a nine-year period (2012–2020). In addition to linear regression models, the generalized method of moments estimator was utilized. The results showed that access to financial services (e.g., the number of automated teller machines (ATMs) and the number of bank branches), service delivery (including the average costs to maintain a current account), and the quality of the products improve banks' profitability. However, point-of-sale terminals have no impact on profitability. Additionally, financial service utilization reflected in bank account number sand credit to small and medium-sized enterprises do not affect bank profitability, and among bank-specific variables, the nonperforming loan ratios, the cost-to-income ratios, and liquidity were found to be the main drivers of profitability. Policymakers in Palestine must prioritize FI by adopting rules that encourage lending to practices of financial institutions.


Photocatalysis is highly promising as a technology to mitigate environmental pollution. In this thesis the focus will be on air purification by photocatalytic oxidation of volatile organic compounds (VOC's). A major challenge in photocatalysis is the low photonic efficiency, due to high electron hole recombination rates. One of the solutions proposed for this issue, is the use of (metal) nanoparticles as co-catalyst. However, currently knowledge on how nanoparticles affect the photocatalytic performance of TiO2 is limited, especially because of the often complex relation between chosen reaction conditions (light intensity, oxygen and pollutant concentration) and rates obtained for TiO2 (and co-catalysts). The aim of this thesis is to improve the understanding of the effects of Pt nanoparticles on the rates obtained in photocatalytic oxidation of propane and ethanol over TiO2. Control of the properties of TiO2 and co-catalysts is essential for such fundamental study. Therefore, methods allowing the synthesis of well-defined TiO2 morphology, and co-catalysts have been explored and used, respectively supersonic cluster beam deposition and a spark-generator system.

First, the effects of crystallinity, surface area and quantity of OH-groups of Hombikat (TiO2) on photocatalytic activity, with focus on the applied reaction conditions are tested for propane oxidation. The activity of both TiO2 and Pt-TiO2 was tested in the oxidation of ethanol and propane at variable light intensity and oxygen concentrations. The functionalization of TiO2 with Pt resulted in a significant increase in activity compared to TiO2 in ethanol oxidation, and in a minor decrease in activity for propane. It is proposed that the also observed change in selectivity by the addition of Pt is a result of changes in rate limiting steps in the reaction sequence of conversion of the reactants to CO2. The effect of the size of the Pt nanoparticles on the photocatalytic activity is described for both propane and ethanol oxidation. It is proposed that the negative effect of the addition of Pt, is a result of back-donation of electrons from Pt into TiO2 trap states, and that this back donation is more pronounced for larger particles. The practical implications of the results are also discussed.


John Shute Duncan (1769–1844), keeper of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford from 1823 to 1829, instituted a major reorganisation, and also donated his own library to the museum as the nucleus of a reference department. In addition to his writings on natural history, in 1815, he published (anonymously) this pamphlet, benevolence to the poor being one manifestation of his strong religious belief. In it, Duncan argues that in all nations from the ancient Hebrews to the Chinese, and from the Greeks and Romans to the peoples of modern Europe, either religious or ethical impulses have directed that charity should be offered to the poor. He describes (from written sources) the state of provision for beggars and the sick in Italy, Germany, France, Russia and Iceland, before turning to Britain, and concluding that, rather than seek government action, all people in comfortable circumstances should aid the 'worthy' poor via existing charitable establishments.


In response to declining elk calf recruitment in the southern Bitterroot Valley of Montana, we initiated a 3-year study to determine the importance of bottom-up and top-down factors for elk calf survival and elk population dynamics. We monitored the survival of 286 elk calves during 2011-2014 in order to estimate cause-specific mortality and calf survival to age 1.We used continuous-time survival modeling to evaluate the effect of risk covariates and estimate calf survival and cause-specific mortality rates. Annual elk calf survival was 0.32 in 2011, 0.43 in 2012, and 0.45 in 2013. We found that mountain lions (20%) were the most important mortality source for elk calves, followed by unknown causes (17%), unknown predation (9%), bear predation (5%), natural, non-predation (4%), wolf predation (3%), and human-related mortality (1%). Male elk calves were at 63% higher risk of mortality than females (P = 0.01), and elk calves in the West Fork area were at 42% higher risk of mortality compared to the East Fork (P = 0.07) during their first year. Also, we detected a significant positive effect of estimated birth date on summer mortality risk for elk calves (P = 0.07). We will use integrated population modeling to combine elk calf and adult female survival, nutrition, and carnivore population data, allowing us to forecast the effect of habitat and carnivore densities on elk population trends. These tools may help managers balance carnivore and ungulate population objectives and is applicable to all areas experiencing carnivore recovery.


The unusual sphingoid base 5-hydroxy-3-sphingenine was identified in the hydrolysate of brain sphingolipids more than 40 years ago. We present here the first synthesis of the 5R and 5S diastereoisomers of the N-acyl derivatives of 5-hydroxy-3-sphingenine, 2 and 3, respectively, which represent regioisomers of (2S,3R)-ceramide (1). The key steps include the synthesis of alpha,beta-unsaturated ketone intermediates 4 and 5 from N-Cbz- and N-Boc-l-serine and diastereoselective reduction of the enones. The configuration at the new carbinol center was deduced by proton NMR analysis of (R)- and (S)-Mosher [methoxy(trifluoromethyl)phenylacetate] ester derivatives. Ceramide analogues 2 and 3 showed a markedly higher antiproliferative activity than 1 on MCF-7 cells.


BACKGROUND
Epidemiological findings on dietary fat intake and risk of pancreatic cancer (PanC) are inconsistent.

OBJECTIVE
This study aimed to determine the association between types of dietary fat intake and PanC.

METHODS
We conducted a hospital-based case-control study in 957 pathologically confirmed PanC cases and 938 cancer-free controls. Cases and controls were frequency matched by age, sex and race. Dietary information was collected using a self-administered validated food frequency questionnaire. Unconditional logistic regression models were used to estimate the odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of PanC risk by quintiles of fat intake with the lowest quintile as referent and with adjustment for other risk factors and dietary factors.

RESULTS
We observed no difference in (median) intake of total fat standardized for energy among cases versus controls. The multivariable-adjusted OR (95% CI) of the highest versus the lowest quintile of intake (ORQ5 vs Q1) was 2.51 (1.68-3.72) for fat from animal sources and 0.41 (0.29-0.58) fat from plant sources. Intakes of total monounsaturated (MUFA), total polyunsaturated (PUFA), linoleic (n-6) and long chain n-3 fatty acids were inversely associated with PanC [ORQ5 vs Q1 and 95% CI: 0.55 (0.36-0.82), 0.59 (0.42-0.82), 0.64 (0.43, 0.84, and 0.60 (0.42-0.84), respectively]. Arachidonic acid (n-6) and several saturated fatty acids were positively associated with PanC.

CONCLUSION
While some observed associations with pancreatic cancer risk could be explained by reverse-causation, the potential protective associations with intakes of largely plant-derived PUFAs and MUFAs and fish-derived long chain n-3 PUFAs warrant further prospective investigation.


Data Processing is one of the core functionalities of distributed and cloud computing. There is a high demand on low latency and high performance computing as well as the support of abstract processing methods such as SQL querying, analytic frameworks or graph processing by data processing engines. The Definitive Guide to Apache Flink by Papp starts with the history of Big Data processing with Hadoop and explains the shortcomings of Map Reduce. It shows how YARN and Hadoop 2.x changed the game and how new technologies started to compete to become the successor of Map Reduce. After some detailed information on Tez and Spark and how they try to solve shortcomings of Map Reduce, this book deals with some architectural patterns for creating a solid data processing engine, such as advanced pipelining methods or in-memory caching. It shows how Flink is using these concepts. Flink programming will be introduced in a hands-on approach. It starts with how to create a ten minutes build and how to run the first "Word Count" with Flink. Then it continues with more advanced topics such as programming more complex programs. All samples are programmed with Java or Scala. It shows that Apache Flink has the potential to become one of the key technologies for distributed computing. It aims to replace many small technologies with a more powerful one that covers many aspects of Hadoop programming.


Plastids are the site of the reductive and the oxidative pentose phosphate pathways, which both generate pentose phosphates as intermediates. A plastidic transporter from Arabidopsis has been identified that is able to transport, in exchange with inorganic phosphate or triose phosphates, xylulose 5-phosphate (Xul-5-P) and, to a lesser extent, also ribulose 5-phosphate, but does not accept ribose 5-phosphate or hexose phosphates as substrates. Under physiological conditions, Xul-5-P would be the preferred substrate. Therefore, the translocator was named Xul-5-P/phosphate translocator (XPT). The XPT shares only approximately 35% to 40% sequence identity with members of both the triose phosphate translocator and the phosphoenolpyruvate/phosphate translocator classes, but a higher identity of approximately 50% to glucose 6-phosphate/phosphate translocators. Therefore, it represents a fourth group of plastidic phosphate translocators. Database analysis revealed that plant cells contain, in addition to enzymes of the oxidative branch of the oxidative pentose phosphate pathway, ribose 5-phosphate isomerase and ribulose 5-phosphate epimerase in both the cytosol and the plastids, whereas the transketolase and transaldolase converting the produced pentose phosphates to triose phosphates and hexose phosphates are probably solely confined to plastids. It is assumed that the XPT function is to provide the plastidic pentose phosphate pathways with cytosolic carbon skeletons in the form of Xul-5-P, especially under conditions of a high demand for intermediates of the cycles.


Volunteers infected with Salmonella typhosa develop a remarkable hyperreactivity to the pyrogenic and subjective toxic activities of homologous (S. typhos) and heterologous (Pseudomonas) endotoxins. The present studies quantitate this augmented reactivity and demonstrate by three differing approaches that significant tolerance to these endotoxins can be readily induced within the framework of the hyperreactive state. Thus, (a) tolerance induced before illness by repeated daily intravenous injections of the endotoxins remained demonstrable during overt illness, (b) daily intravenous injections of the endotoxins begun during overt illness evoked progressively increasing tolerance, and (c) continuous intravenous infusions of S. typhosa endotoxin during illness rapidly induced a pyrogenic refractory state. Despite unequivocal activation of the endotoxin tolerance mechanisms by any of the above methods, the febrile and toxic course of typhoid fever proceeded unabated. Similarly, in other volunteers with Pasteurella tularensis infection, continuous intravenous infusions of S. typhosa endotoxin evoked initial hyperreactive febrile and subjective toxic responses followed by rapid appearance of a pyrogenic refractory state without modification of the underlying clinical illness. These observations suggest that circulating endotoxin plays no major role in pathogenesis of the sustained fever and toxemia during typhoid fever and tularemia in man. The mechanisms responsible for the systemic hyperreactivity to endotoxin during typhoid fever and tularemia were further investigated. Low grade endotoxemia, nonspecific effects of tissue injury, impaired ability of the reticuloendothelial system to clear circulating endotoxin, and production of cytophilic antibodies capable of sensitizing leukocytes to endotoxin did not appear responsible. Inflammatory reactions to intradermal S. typhosa endotoxin increased significantly during typhoid fever. However, since no such dermal hyperreactivity developed to Pseudomonas endotoxin during typhoid fever nor to S. typhosa endotoxin during tularemia, the systemic hyperreactivity to bacterial endotoxins during typhoid fever and tularemia could not presently be ascribed to enhanced levels of acquired hypersensitivity.


Microfluidic lab-on-chips are miniaturized biosensors that integrate fluidic, electronics, thermal elements or optical apparatuses for analysing electrolytic or biochemical samples. Supplementary to their analysing capabilities, the microfluidic lab-on-chips can process, control, separate or sort fluidic samples by means of hydrodynamic manipulation, thermal gradients, electrical or optical actuation. The significance of the lab-on-chips lies on the potential of automating laboratory procedures which highly reduce the time of the laboratory tests. We review numerous fabrication methods and procedures that we have experienced by designing such devices.


This study aimed to compare the function of Ciherang rice production, knowing the elasticity of production with jejer legowo systems and non jejer legowo in District Sungai Tabukan legowo Hulu Sungai Utara Regency, and provide recommendations for the research extension program implementation jejer legowo planting method. Research using primary data from 50 respondents farmers with jejer legowo systems and 50 respondent farmers with traditional systems. This research used Cobb-Douglass Production Function and predicted by OLS using SPSS version 20.  Production function predicted for jejer legowo planting system gives better results than the non jejer legowo system. Paired t-test value -5674 in 0.000 sig. showed that recommended planting method gave significantly different results than the traditional planting method. Production elasticity of each factor for production in non jejer legowo system with negative value showed farmers producing at irrational area (Stage III) is helping agriculture educators to show that jejer legowo planting method is better than the traditional way. However jejer legowo system was also not maximized its application. The use of capital inputs and fertilizers are recommended to add for the region I (irrational), while the others input need to be reduced to achieve a rational stage that allows farmers at optimum production level.


This study sought to investigate the role of capacity building on stakeholders' participation in M&E urban Water and Health projects initiated by the county government of Kisii Central Ward. This research project was guided by research questions based on the objective aforementioned. Data was collected using the questionnaire and interview schedules from county officers, public health officers, water officers, project committee members in Kisii Town. Reliability of research instruments were tested using test-retest technique and validated by experts in academic research. Stratified random sampling and simple random sampling were used to select the sample size of 45 respondents. The data was collected and analyzed by descriptive statistics. The study concluded that inadequate capacity building contributes to low participation of stakeholders in M&E of community projects in Kisii Town. Based on the findings the research recommended for Training (capacity building) on project M&E undertaken within the county government of Kisii. This will enable them embrace community participation and service delivery. Adequate resources (money, personnel, materials/ equipments) for M&E should be allocated for capacity building of communities and committees involved in project identification, implementation and monitoring and evaluation of community development projects. The Members of County Assembly (MCAs) should desist from interfering with the allocation of funds and materials/facilities to community health, water and sanitation projects. The county government should put in place severe punishment for MCAs who influence the selection of committee members and allocation of funds. Based on the findings, the study suggests further study to be carried out to establish the extent to which stakeholders' participation in monitoring and evaluation affects sustainability of county government initiated community projects.


Colloids in low-frequency (<1 kHz) oscillatory electric fields near planar electrodes aggregate in neutral pH electrolytes due to electrohydrodynamic (EHD) flow but separate in alkaline pH electrolytes. Colloid ζ-potential and electrolyte ion mobilities are thought to play roles in the underlying mechanism for this phenomenon, but a unifying theory for why particles aggregate in some electrolytes and separate in others remains to be established. Here, we show that increasing local pH near the electrode with an electrochemical reaction causes a colloidal aggregation-to-separation transition in oscillatory electric fields that induce strong attractive EHD flows. An electroactive molecule, para-benzoquinone, was electrochemically reduced at the electrode to locally increase the solution pH near the colloids. Superimposing a sufficiently large steady electrochemical potential onto an oscillatory potential caused a reversible aggregation-to-separation transition. Counterintuitively, decreasing frequency, which increases attractive EHD drag forces, caused a similar aggregation-to-separation transition. Even more interesting, multiple transitions were observed while varying the oscillatory potential. Taken together, these results suggested that the oscillatory potential induced a repulsive hydrodynamic drag force. Scaling arguments for the recently discovered asymmetric rectified electric field (AREF) showed that a repulsive AREF-induced electroosmotic (EO) flow competed with attractive EHD flow. A pairwise colloidal force balance including these competing flows exhibited flow inversions qualitatively consistent with experimentally observed aggregation-to-separation transitions. Broadly, these results emphasize the importance of AREF-induced EO flows in colloid aggregation and separation in low-frequency oscillatory electric fields.


Purpose Escherichia coli O157:H7 is one of the most important pathogens which create hemorrhagic colitis and hemolytic uremic syndrome in human. It is one of the most prevalent causes of diarrhea leading to death of many people every year. The first diagnosed gene in the locus of enterocyte effacement pathogenicity island is eae gene. The product of this gene is a binding protein called intimin belonging to the group of external membrane proteins regarded as a good stimulants of the immune system. Chitosan with its lipophilic property is an environmentally friendly agent able to return to the environment. Materials and Methods Intimin recombinant protein was expressed in pET28a vector with eae gene and purification was performed using Ni-NTA and finally the recombinant protein was approved through western blotting. This protein was encapsulated using chitosan nanoparticles and the size of nanoparticles was measured by Zetasizer. Intimin encapsulated was prescribed for three sessions among three groups of oral, injection, and oral-injection using Chitosan nanoparticles. Challenge was performed for all three groups with 108 E. coli O157:H7 bacteria. Results Intimin produced by chitosan nanoparticles improves immunological responses through the adjuvant nature of chitosan nanoparticles. Chitosan may be used as a carrier for transportation of the prescribed vaccine. Among the mice, encapsulated intimin could be able to provide suitable titers of IgG and IgA by the aid of chitosan nanoparticles. Results of mice challenge showed that decreased the bacterial shedding significantly. Conclusion Results showed that the chitosan nanovaccine with intimin protein may be used as a suitable candidate vaccine against E. coli O157:H7.


Background: Chronic suppurative otitis media (CSOM) is a chronic inflammation involving the middle ear space and it became a burden especially in developing countries. Mastoidectomy remains the main treatment in CSOM with cholesteatoma. Recurrent cholesteatoma and suppurating process indicated the need of revision mastoidectomy. Purpose: Until now, study about the mechanism of recurrent cholesteatoma and its management still need further research. Case report:  This paper reports a case of chronic suppurative otitis media with recurrent cholesteatoma which underwent revision mastoidectomy. Clinical Question : What are the factors associated with the occurrence of recurrent cholesteatoma and how to managed it? Methods: Evidence base literature study about chronic suppurative otitis media with recurrent cholesteatoma and surgery treatment was performed through PubMed, ProQuest, and Google Scholar database. Results: Recurrent cholesteatoma that occurred after mastoidectomy can be caused by residue of the cholesteatoma itself or new forming of retraction pocket. Revision mastoidectomy is necessary to evacuated the cholesteatoma and provide good drainage to the mastoid. Conclusion: Routine follow up after mastoidectomy is an important thing to help prevent recurrence of CSOM especially with cholesteatoma.


Introduction The NHS Bowel Cancer Screening Programme (BCSP) commenced screening in North East England in February 2007. It offers biennial faecal occult blood testing (FOBt) followed by colonoscopy for those with a positive FOBt. All cases of colorectal cancer (CRC) known to the MDTs in this region are registered with the Northern Colorectal Cancer Audit Group (NORCCAG) database. Methods CRCs occurring in the screening population (aged 60–69 years) between April 2007 and March 2010 were identified from the NORCCAG database. Their screening history was obtained by cross-referencing this database with the regional BCSP database. Cases were classified into four groups: a control group (cancers diagnosed prior to first screening invite), screen detected, interval (cancers diagnosed between screening rounds after a negative FOBt) and non-uptake (patients who declined screening). Patient demographics, tumour characteristics and survival were compared between the four groups. Results 1336 CRCs were diagnosed in the screening population. 511 (38.2%) cancers were in the control group. 825 cancers (61.8%) were detected in individuals who had been invited for screening. 322 (39.0%) were screen detected, 311 (37.7%) were in the non-uptake group and 192 (23.3%) were interval cancers. All of the interval cancers followed a negative FOBt. Compared to both the control group and the interval cancer group, the proportion of males in the screen detected group was significantly higher (73.0% vs 62.4% & 60.4%, χ2=9.88, p=0.002 and χ2=8.77, p=0.003 respectively). Screen detected cancers were more likely to be left sided than in the control or interval cancer groups (78.6% vs 70.1% & 66.7%, χ2=7.32, p=0.007 & χ2=8.89, p=0.003). Significantly more Dukes A and fewer Dukes D cancers were found in the screen detected group compared to the control and interval groups (p<0.05). Screen detected cancers had a superior survival compared to interval cancers (χ2=50.36, p<0.001) and the control group (χ2=53.62, p<0.001). There was no difference in patient demographics, tumour location, stage of tumour nor survival between control and interval cancer groups. Conclusion This is one of the first studies that provides data on the performance of the BCSP in one region since its national implementation. The FOB test is better at detecting cancers in the left colon and in men. There are significant numbers of interval cancers, which were not found to have an improved outcome compared to the non-screened population as has previously been published. Competing interests None declared.


A comparision of experimental data and theoretical predictions on time resolution limits of fast photomultipliers has been performed. XP 1020 photomultipliers have been used and measurements were done with a fast electronic system built in our laboratory. This system was tested with a Co60 source, the best time resolutions achieved over a period of two hours being 164 psec at f.w.h.m. A hydrogen discharge lamp has been built which produced short light pulses whose shape is determinated by a sampling method. Several light intensities were used to simulate different energy losses in plastic scintillators and time resolution measurements were performed for different threshold settings of the discriminator. The results of these measurements were compared to theoretical data calculated by means of a statistical model of the photomultiplier. Good agreement was found assuming a photoelectronic yield of one photoelectron per 2.5 KeV in Naton 136 plastic scintillator and a single electron response (SER) variance of 500 psec. The necessity of having more accurate data on photomultiplier parameters, mainly concerning the transit time jitter, was pointed out in order to have a better understanding of the photomultiplier's behaviour.


Objective: Identify the factors related to the perception of low back pain in workers of a trucking company. Materials and methods: Cross sectional study on 140 employees working in administrative areas and operate a trucking company. We applied the Nordic Questionnaire Kuorinka, a survey to investigate sociodemographic and occupational, and weight was measured using a Tanita scale and height by a stadiometer. We used SPSS version 17 to estimate the association between the perception of lower back pain and sex, body mass index (BMI) and the work area through the odds ratio (OR). Results: 82, 9 % were men, with a mean age of 34, 9 years ± 9,4 years. 55, 0 % perceived discomfort in the lumbar region and 31, 4 % in the shoulders. Are more likely to feel discomfort in the lower back, men [OR 3,70 (95 % CI 1,31 to 10,7)], employees with a BMI greater than 25 [OR 2,3 (95 %: 1,03 to 5,2)], those who work as operators [OR 2,6 (95 % CI 1,2 to 5,7)] and those with more than 6 years of work in the company [OR 2,24 (95 % CI 1,07 to 4,7)]. Conclusion: Being a man with a BMI over 25 and working as a laborer are factors that influence the perception of symptoms and discomfort at the lumbar region.


The experimental approach to attaining the goals of this research program is briefly outlined and the progress made in the last year is reviewed in sections entitled: (a) Primary steps in the reaction of recoiling silicon and germanium atoms and the identification of reactive intermediates; (b) Thermally induced silylene and germylene reactions; (c) Silicon free radical chemistry; (d) The role of ionic reactions in the chemistry of recoiling silicon atoms.


Abstract Aim: To describe experience using general practitioners (GPs), with an extended role (GPwER) in spinal medicine, to expedite assessment, triage, and management of patients referred from primary care for specialist spinal surgical opinion. Background: Low back and neck pain are common conditions in primary care. Indiscriminate or inappropriate referral to a spinal surgeon contributes to long waiting times. Previous attempts at triaging patients who really require a surgical opinion have used practice nurses, physiotherapists, clinical algorithms, and interdisciplinary screening clinics. Methods: Within the setting of an independent spinal care centre, we have used GPs specially trained in spinal practice to expedite the assessment and triage of new referrals between 2015 and 2021. We reviewed feedback from a Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire and the postgraduate backgrounds, training, practice with regard to triage of new referrals, and experiences of the GPs who were recruited Findings: Six GPwER had a mean of 26 years of postgraduate experience before appointment (range 10–44 years). The first four GPwER, appointed between 2015 and 2018, underwent an ad hoc in-house, interdisciplinary training programme and saw 2994 new patients between 2016 and 2020. After GPwER, assessment in only 18.9% (range 12.6 to 22.7%) of these patients was a spinal surgical opinion deemed necessary. Waiting times to see the spinal surgeon remained at 6–8 weeks despite a three-fold annual increase (from 340 to 1058) in new referrals. A Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire revealed high levels of satisfaction with the performances of the GPwER across seven dimensions. A dedicated training programme was designed in 2020, and the last two appointees underwent 20 h of clinical teaching prior to practice. Initial experience using GPwER, here termed 'Spinal Clinicians', suggests they are efficient at screening for patients needing spinal surgical referral. Establishing a recognised training programme, assessment, and certification for these practitioners are the next challenges.


Abstract Fossil Picea pollen recovered from the Boriack Bog in central Texas are from layers radiocarbon dated as being older than 15,000 years in age. In an effort to identify the species of fossil spruce present, a comparison between modern Picea species and the fossil Picea grains was conducted with aid of a scanning electron microscope. Those studies revealed the closest correspondence between the fossil Picea pollen and modern pollen of Picea glauca. The presence of Picea glauca in the regional vegetation near the bog is further supported by macrofossil evidence from late‐glacial localities in Louisiana. These new data enable a reevaluation of the proposed east‐central Texas late‐glacial vegetation and a comparison with similar late‐glacial flora in the southeastern United States.


In this paper, we present a pattern language for sharing practical knowledge to design innovative projects, which we call project design patterns. This pattern language consists of 32 patterns about designing projects, which are organised into five categories: core, learn, create, live, and pleasure. This collection of practical knowledge behind designing projects was created through a mining process of interviewing professional project designers, organising the mined elements using the KJ method (a method for clustering ideas named based on the initials of its originator), and writing the information in the pattern format: pattern name, illustration, context, problem, solution, and consequence. This paper presents three patterns in full as well as summaries of all 32 patterns. Survey results and responses of workshop participants and users, presented in the later sections of the paper, provide exploratory data which testify to the potential power of the proposed language for thinking, reflection, and dialogue on designing innovative projects.


Several signal transduction pathways have been implicated in the induction of long-term potentiation (LTP), yet the signal transduction mechanisms behind the maintenance–expression phase of LTP are still poorly understood. We investigated the role of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3-kinase) in LTP at Schaffer collateral/commissural fiber–CA1 synapses in rat hippocampal slices using biochemical approaches and extracellular electrophysiological recordings. We observed that PI3-kinase activity was induced in the CA1 region during LTP of field EPSPs (fEPSPs) and that two structurally unrelated PI3-kinase inhibitors, LY294002 and wortmannin, abated established LTP, suggesting that PI3-kinase is involved in the maintenance–expression phase of LTP. However, LTP recovered after washout of the reversible PI3-kinase inhibitor LY294002, confirming that LTP maintenance and expression are distinct events and indicating that PI3-kinase activity is required for LTP expression rather than for its maintenance. Interestingly, preincubation with LY294002 did not prevent LTP induction. In fact, if LY294002 was withdrawn 5 min after high-frequency stimulation, an LTP of fEPSP was seen. Last, a voltage-dependent calcium channel-dependent form of LTP in the CA1 could also be reversibly abated by LY294002, raising the possibility that PI3-kinase could be required for the expression of multiple forms of synaptic potentiation.


A new antigenic specificity for HBsAg is described, and its usefulness as an epidemiological marker is discussed. This specificity, l, was found in specimens from all geographic areas studied (United States, Latin America, South Africa, the Solomon Islands, and New Guinea). In these areas, l was strongly associated with HBsAg/ay; y-positive, l-negative samples were observed only among specimens from United States volunteer blood donors. This determinant allowed a distinction of HBsAg/ad classes. Thus, the l determinant was detected in 51.4% of HBsAg/adw4, 44.1% of HBsAg/adw(non-w4), and 50% of HBsAg/adr. The association of l and other HBsAg determinants with HBeAg or anti-HBe was also investigated. HBeAg was found to be associated with the presence of the l determinant and with the r determinant. Anti-HBe was associated with the presence of the d and w determinants and with the absence of the l specificity.


Sequential histological changes of the lungs were studied in experimental Klebsiella pneumonia, using untreated control mice, cyclophosphamide‐treated mice, and carrageenan‐treated mice. Cyclophosphamide was used to deplete polymorphonuclear leukocytes and monocytes, and carrageenan was used to deplete mononuclear phagocytes selectively. At 72 hours, varying degree of alveolar necrosis could be seen in untreated control mice. However, the lung lesions of cyclophosphamide‐ or carrageenan‐treated mice were significantly different from those of the control mice. The lung lesions of cyclophosphamide‐treated mice indicated that destruction of the alveolar septa was not induced by K. pneumoniae itself but by inflammatory cells, because the alveolar walls were preserved very well in spite of considerable bacterial multiplication in alveolar lumina until infiltration of inflammatory cells occurred. The lung lesions of carrageenan‐treated mice showed that alveolar spaces were packed with polymorphonuclear leukocytes, but the alveolar walls were preserved very well as far as the authors could tell after examining the lung lesions by silver impregnation staining. These results suggest that macrophages rather than polymorphonuclear leukocytes and organisms play an important role in alveolar injury in experimental Klebsiella pneumonia.


The prognostic factors in breast cancer are numerous and interdependent. The single most important variable is the total tumor cell burden as well as the marked heterogeneity of tumor cell population. In women with clinical localized disease, the progressive increase in the diameter of primary tumor is associated with higher incidence of histologically involved axillary nodes; in turn, this involvement, and particolarly its extent, represents an indirect sign of distant micrometastases. In women with clinical advanced disease, the extent of tumor cell burden (inflammatory carcinoma, multivisceral involvement) is associated with a decrease in the response rate by drug therapy. The percent of drug-resistant neoplastic cells is inversely related to the tumor mass; this resistant fraction represents today the limiting factor to a more effective contribution of medical treatment (i.e. long-term complete remission and cure) in all stages of breast cancer. The concept of breast cancer as systemic disease in a higher percent of women than thought in the past, allows to perform breast-saving procedures without affecting prognosis and stimulates treatment strategies utilizing a combined modality approach for high-risk women.


Analytical pyrolysis is a powerful technique that is seldom used in the pulp and paper industry. This article illustrates the utility of the technique to study the chemistry of wood and pulps, mechanistic aspects of pulping, troubleshooting process upsets in pulp and papermaking, and evaluating the quality of finished products. The technique has advantages over other analytical techniques in that little sample preparation is required and enough data can be obtained from very small amounts such as dirt spots on paper. In many cases good data can be obtained by analyzing the pyrolysis products by gas chromatography (GC) with flame ionization detection (FID). Detection with mass spectrometry (MS) offers the advantage of absolute qualitative and quantitative determination of the chemistry of the analytes. In many instances the chromatography can be improved by on-line derivatization of the pyrolysis products with an alkylating agent.

This article takes the reader through a survey of the different types of analytical pyrolysis systems, through data analysis and processing, and examples of applications of analytical pyrolysis in the pulp and paper industry. Ample illustrations are used to highlight the usefulness of the technique.


A future content-centric Internet would likely consist of autonomous systems (ASes) just like today's Internet. It would thus be a network of interacting cache networks, each of them optimized for local performance. To understand the influence of interactions between autonomous cache networks, in this paper, we consider ASes that maintain peering agreements with each other for mutual benefit and engage in content-level peering to leverage each others' cache contents. We propose a model of the interaction between the caches managed by peering ASes. We address whether stable and efficient content-level peering can be implemented without explicit coordination between the neighboring ASes. We show that content-level peering leads to stable cache configurations, both with and without coordination. However, peering Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that coordinate to avoid simultaneous updates converge to a stable configuration more efficiently. Furthermore, if the content popularity estimates are inaccurate, content-level peering is likely to lead to cost efficient cache allocations. We validate our analytical results using simulations on the measured peering topology of more than 600 ASes.


In this work, the mechanical properties of butt joints of AA1100 Aluminum alloy obtained through FSW in a conventional milling machine and a friction stir welding machine were compared. The joints were obtained using the same tool geometry and welding parameters. The milling machine was adapted to ensure position control during the welding process and the friction stir welding machine was operated under force and position control modes. Mechanical properties of the beads were evaluated through tensile tests and microhardness measurements. Defects generated in the joints were analyzed using optical and scanning electron microscopy. Results showed that mechanical properties were strongly affected by the welding parameters, whereas the kind of machine infl uenced the presence of defects in the joints. It was found that the tensile properties were more appropriate to compare the results between sets of parameters and level of defects than the hardness test. Higher mechanical properties and a lower level of defects were obtained in the FSW machine by position control mode, with tensile strength around 130MPa, whereas the highest tensile strength obtained in the conventional milling machine was 109 MPa.


Surface plasmon resonances confine electromagnetic fields to the nanoscale, producing high field strengths suitable for exploiting nonlinear optical properties. We examine the prospect of detecting and utilizing one such property in plasmonic metals: the imaginary part of the cubic susceptibility, which corresponds to two plasmons decaying together to produce high energy carriers. Here we present ab initio predictions of the rates and carrier distributions generated by direct interband and phonon-assisted intraband transitions in one and two-plasmon decay. We propose detection of the higher energy carriers generated from two-plasmon decays that are inaccessible in one-plasmon decay as a viable signature of these processes in ultrafast experiments.


Porphyrin precursors and porphyrins were measured in three patients with recurrent attacks of acute intermittent porphyria and end-stage renal disease (ESRD): two patients on hemodialysis and one on peritoneal dialysis. Plasma porphobilinogen (PBG) and porphyrins were considerably increased in the three patients. In a previous study, the mean urinary and plasma PBG/ALA ratio in biochemically active AIP patients with conserved renal function was 2.0 (normal 0.3) and plasma porphyrin levels were normal (< 10 nmol/L). In this study we show that the progression to ESRD was paralleled by an increase in urinary and plasma PBG/ALA ratio reaching levels above 6 and higher. Plasma porphyrin increased to levels above 1000 nmol/L causing cutaneous lesions resembling porphyria cutanea tarda. The porphyrin precursors were readily filtered by dialysis membranes but not the porphyrins. The development of kidney failure was a devastating complication in these AIP patients with chronic active disease, leading to unavoidable deterioration of peripheral veins, progression of peripheral neuropathy, dialysis treatment and secondary cutaneous lesions. The clinical course could not be reversed by medical treatment in any of the cases. Today, combined liver and kidney transplantation should be considered as a therapeutic option.


The purpose of this draft is to define a BGP-based auto- discovery
mechanism for layer-1 VPNs. The auto-discovery mechanism for l1vpns
allows the provider network devices to dynamically discover the set of
PEs having ports attached to CEs member of the same VPN. That
information is necessary for completing the signaling phase. One main
objective of l1vpn auto-discovery mechanism is to support "single-end
provisioning" model, where addition of a new port to a given l1vpn
would involve configuration changes only on the PE that has this port
and on the CE that is connected to the PE via this port.


The concept of entropy–enthalpy compensation has exercised a peculiar fascination for biochemists since it was first proposed.[1, 2] The idea is that if a particular rate constant or equation constant is measured for a series of sample of the same enzyme from different sources, the variations in enthalpies of activation or of reaction will largely cancelled out by variations in the corresponding entropies, cancelling out completely at a temperature known as the compensation temperature. Until recently, the evidence for this phenomenon came mainly from studies of temperature variation, more specifically from Arrhenius or van 't Hoff plots, despite the fact that Exner [3] pointed out many years ago that the supposed correlation between the slopes (enthalpies) and ordinate intercepts (entropies) of these plots is almost wholly due to a statistical artefact, and means strictly nothing. In recent years there has been been an increasing tendency to base conclusions on direct calorimetric measurements of the heat produced or consumed in reactions [4–6], and it is important to note at the outset that nothing I say in the rest of this article has any bearing on calorimetric measurements, though Sharp [7], for example, has also criticized conclusions of compensation based on these. In addition, given a wide enough temperature range in which no complications such as changes in state intervene, say from 50 to 300 K (−223 to 27 ◦C ), it is not impossible for an Arrhenius or a van 't Hoff plot to give meaningful and approximately independent values of both entropy and enthalpy, but it is sufficiently unlikely for these conditions to be fulfilled in a biochemical context that it seems safe to ignore it. If one surveys the recent literature, one can find at least four kinds of article. There are increasing numbers of papers based on calorimetry [4–6], and, as noted already, these fall outside the scope of the present article; there are a few — extremely few — that recognize the validity of Exner's analysis, and conclude that no biological significance can be attached to estimates of thermodynamic parameters based on measurements of


A service control interface is proposed that can be used for telephony services provided by interworking among intelligent networks (INs), computer telephony, and voice over IP systems, when distributed object technology is used. The IN application protocol is mapped to a common object request broker architecture (CORBA) API, based on a proposed rule. The mapped API was implemented and confirmed by a service example running on an experimental system. To achieve fast and lightweight implementation, the rule uses the capabilities of an existing CORBA platform as much as possible.


BACKGROUND
A primary extramedullary plasmacytoma of the head and neck is a rare neoplasm with an incidence of 1%. The clinical features depend on localization.

PATIENTS
The clinical features, the method of diagnosis, and response to treatment of two cases with different localization were analysed.

RESULTS
For diagnosis immunohistological and serological investigations are necessary.

CONCLUSIONS
The method of treatment is determined by complete staging.


The purpose of this study is to investigate the present status of dwelling spaces and deduct sustainable elements in transformation of them by comparing the restored drawings with the surveyed drawings focused on traditional houses that exist in the urban area of cheongju city in Korea. In alteration and extension of these traditional houses, scale of a private room became larger as it has been connected and expanded, the exterior main hall (Daecheong) became the interior living room, and the conventional kitchen was westernized and changed from K type to DK or LDK type. The toilet located at outside was installed by the attached aisle (Toetgan) inside and the existing room. The extension was completed with equipments, storage space, and rental accommodation. The conservative and sustainable elements in the various transformation of them are as follows. Firstly, it was to maintain 3 rooms such as main room (anbang)-main hall (daecheong)-detached room (gunnunbang). Secondly, it was to sustain the circulation of kitchen and arrangement of the - type worktable even though it was westernized. Thirdly, extension of storage space was completed less than 600 mm within the eaves. Although there were functionally and structurally many changes in 18 houses, 4 houses had maintained wooden floor of main hall, 5 houses long planked wooden floor of the attached aisle, and 12 houses rafter ceiling of the main hall and the attached aisle.


The bibliometrics and scientometrics are set of methods used for measuring the production and dissemination of the scientific knowledge's. This study explore that the scientometric techniques were applied to analyze the authorship trend in online journal of "IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking "during the period of 2010-2014. A total of 735 articles and 2540 authors in the journal were examined by year and volume to ascertain authorship patterns, author productivity and degree of collaboration. The bibliometrics and scientometrics are set of methods used for measuring the production and dissemination of the scientific knowledge's. This study explore that the scientometric techniques were applied to analyze the authorship trend in online journal of "IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking "during the period of 2010-2014. A total of 735 articles and 2540 authors in the journal were examined by year and volume to ascertain authorship patterns, author productivity and degree of collaboration.


Role playing activities, when incorporated into a group experience, have been shown to enhance social skills development in patients with chronic psychiatric conditions. This approach, adapted from the psychological therapeutic model of Structured Learning Therapy, addresses interpersonal skill development at three distinct levels: rudimentary interpersonal skills, community interpersonal skills, and abstract intepersonal skills. Unique to this therapeutic model is the concept of the patient taking an active role in formulating the dialogues used in each role playing situation.


We examine differences in motives, firm characteristics, market performance, and subsequent operating performance of firms that repurchase shares frequently versus firms that repurchase only occasionally or infrequently. Frequent repurchasers are much larger, have significantly less variation in operating income, and higher dividend payout ratios. Infrequent repurchases are made by smaller firms with more volatile operating income, lower institutional ownership, lower market-to-book ratios and high degrees of asymmetric information. Although most repurchases are viewed favorably by the market, infrequent repurchases receive a much stronger positive reaction. Finally, we find little evidence of improved operating performance following repurchase announcements.


Abstract Terrestrial and epiphytic herbaceous forest species have different ecological qualities and leaf stoichiometry. Ferns represent a great component of herbaceous forest species in tropical regions with different lifeforms and evolutionary histories. However, little is known about the differences in leaf stoichiometry between the lifeforms. We studied the concentrations of leaf elements (N, P, K, Ca and Mg) between lifeforms (16 terrestrial, 4 epiphytic) and evolutionary clades (12 polypods, 8 non-polypods). The leaves were collected from the field, acid-digested and analyzed for nutrient elements. Results show that epiphytic species had a higher concentration of most leaf elements. Epiphytes had a lower N:P ratio compared with terrestrial ones. This suggests that epiphytes were nutrient-limited, relying on stochastic elements supply compared to terrestrial species which have a constant supply. Epiphytes tend to accumulate higher element concentration beyond their immediate metabolic needs, defined as luxury consumption. Epiphytes showed a higher concentration of P and Ca for their necessity of coping with severe habitat conditions and sclerophyll leaves. We found that modern polypod and archaic non-polypod ferns are significant stoichiometry different for K. The results contribute to the context of the poorly studied stoichiometry of tropical Asian fern species and their ecophysiology.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE
To evaluate neurodevelopmental outcomes among infants treated for retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) at the authors' institution.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Before-and-after retrospective chart reviews identified 40 infants treated with laser and 46 treated with primary intravitreal bevacizumab (IVB). Primary outcomes were death, hearing loss, bilateral visual impairment (BVI), and cerebral palsy (CP); odds ratios (ORs) were calculated to determine factors associated with CP. Secondary outcomes were mean Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development, Third Edition (BSID-III) scores.

RESULTS
Overall, there were no significant differences in primary outcome measures by treatment group. However, adjusted odds of BVI were significantly higher with laser compared to IVB (OR = 13.1; P = .038). Although IVB was not associated with CP, both hydrocephalus and BVI were strongly correlated with CP. Mean Bayley-III scores were similar when comparing nine laser-treated infants to 13 IVB-treated infants.

CONCLUSIONS
Visual outcomes are an important aspect of neurodevelopment. IVB was not associated with severe developmental disabilities and may protect against vision loss in this analysis. [Ophthalmic Surg Lasers Imaging Retina. 2019;50:337-343.].


In this paper we first discuss the relations between some G-M-type spaces, and the previous eight kinds of G-M-type Banach spaces are merged into four different kinds. Then we build a Generalized Operator Extension Theorem, and introduce the concept of complete minimal sequences. Some sufficient and necessary conditions under which a Banach space is a hereditarily indecomposable space are given. Finally, we give some characterizations of hereditarily indecomposable Banach Spaces.


Astrocytes are a predominant glial cell type in the CNS and an integral part of a synapse and vasculature unit in CNS. In vitro and in vivo studies have revealed that astrocytes play a variety of roles in physiology and pathology. In particular, recent studies indicate that astrocytic Ca2+ signaling is involved in the regulation of functional hyperemia. This article reviews the astrocytic Ca2+ signaling pathway and recent advances regarding the role of Ca2+ signaling in the regulation of cerebral blood flow. The article discusses the discrepancies from different studies (especially in vivo studies) and the potential role of IP 3 R-mediated Ca2+ signaling pathway, and suggests that the involvement of astrocytic Ca2+ in functional hyperemia can be affected by tissue metabolism, animal species, age, brain region and wakefulness of animals. Thus the precise mechanisms by which astrocytic Ca2+ regulates cerebral blood flow can only be elucidated in a defined preparation.


Acute pulmonary insufficiency was observed in nonthoracic trauma, hemorrhagic shock, fat embolism, blast injury, pulmonary contusion, thermal burns, and sepsis. In the period July 1969 through June 1970 this syndrome was successfully reversed in 21 casualties in Vietnam varying in ages from 10 to 45 years. All manifested marked respiratory distress or hypoxemia and improved dramatically on a program of therapy that was developed to counteract each of the pathophysiologic changes thought to occur in this syndrome. Regardless of the immediate precipitating etiology, a number of common factors were found to be present: pulmonary hypertension, capillary obstruction with increased permeability and fluid extravasation, and pulmonary shunting. The therapeutic program consisted of (1) fluid restriction consistent with adequate resuscitation, (2) diuretics, (3) controlled positive pressure ventilation, (4) steroids, (5) heparin sodium, (6) antibiotics, (7) chlorpromazine hydrochloride, and (8) sedation. This regimen was effective in 21 out of 25 cases (86%) treated and is in marked contrast to the previous fatality rates of 50% to 90%.


We propose a method for automatic segmentation of individual muscles from a clinical CT. The method uses Bayesian convolutional neural networks with the U-Net architecture, using Monte Carlo dropout that infers an uncertainty metric in addition to the segmentation label. We evaluated the performance of the proposed method using two data sets: 20 fully annotated CTs of the hip and thigh regions and 18 partially annotated CTs that are publicly available from The Cancer Imaging Archive (TCIA) database. The experiments showed a Dice coefficient (DC) of 0.891±0.016 (mean±std) and an average symmetric surface distance (ASD) of 0.994±0.230 mm over 19 muscles in the set of 20 CTs. These results were statistically significant improvements compared to the state-of-the-art hierarchical multi-atlas method which resulted in 0.845 ± 0.031 DC and 1.556 ± 0.444 mm ASD. We evaluated validity of the uncertainty metric in the multi-class organ segmentation problem and demonstrated a correlation between the pixels with high uncertainty and the segmentation failure. One application of the uncertainty metric in active-learning is demonstrated, and the proposed query pixel selection method considerably reduced the manual annotation cost for expanding the training data set. The proposed method allows an accurate patient-specific analysis of individual muscle shapes in a clinical routine. This would open up various applications including personalization of biomechanical simulation and quantitative evaluation of muscle atrophy.


In the acorn barnacle Megabalanus rosa, two types of galactose-binding C-type lectins (BRA-2 and BRA-3) have been identified. Here, we report the isolation and characterization of BRA-2 cDNA and genomic clones. In contrast to the BRA-3 gene, which consists of four exons, BRA-2 is encoded by a single exon, implying differences in the physiological roles of the two lectins.


To operate superconducting steadystate tokamak (SST1) for 1000 seconds, lower hybrid current drive (LHCD) system has been designed at a frequency of 3.7 GHz., which would couple 1.0 MW CW of microwave power to the shaped plasma. The system consists of various rf passive components and transmission line, employing which the rf power from the source is transported to the antenna. During calibration of transmission line, it was observed that the losses in the transmission line is substantial and eventually would lead to less coupled power to the plasma. Further it is anticipated that more LH power would be required for advanced operation of SST1 machine. Thus it is decided to upgrade the existing LHCD system to 2 MW CW power level. The proposed up gradation would demand several infra structural changes and needs to be addressed. Due to lack of space, we have proposed a scheme in which additional two klystrons, along with existing two klystrons would be accommodated in the existing space. The low rf power requirements have also been increased to cater the new needs. Accordingly additional cooling requirements have been proposed to accommodate the two new klystrons. The DAC and auxiliary power supplies have been also designed. The new up graded LHCD system would address several key technological issues. Firstly it would establish the operation of four klystrons at rated power in parallel employing single RHVPS (80kV, 70A). Secondly it would establish the operation of two high power klystrons operation at rated power when their collectors are cooled in series. In this paper we would present the various requirements for up-gradation of LHCD system to 2MW. The main requirements like high power rf source, along with modified support structure, low power rf systems to drive the high power rf source, auxiliary power supplies required for high power rf source, DAC system improvement, cooling improvements, etc. would be discussed.


PURPOSE
To explore the effects of prepubertal obesity induced by high-fat diet during lactation and post-weaning on puberty onset and the neuroendocrine changes before puberty onset in a female mouse model, which may explain obesity in children starting early puberty.

METHODS
A total of 72 female mice were assigned to the high fat diet group (HFD) and the control diet group (CONT) during lactation and post-weaning. The bodily indexes; pathological changes; and protein and gene expression levels in the hypothalamus were examined on postnatal days (P) 15, 28, and 45, respectively.

RESULTS
The average vaginal opening time in HFD mice occurred significantly earlier than that in CONT mice (p < 0.05). On P15, no significant difference in the MKRN3, kisspeptin, GPR54 and GnRH level between HFD and CONT mice was noted (p > 0.05). Whereas on P28 and 45, compared to CONT mice, GnRH expression in HFD mice was significantly increased (p < 0.05); kisspeptin and GPR54 expression in HFD mice was also significantly increased (p < 0.05); but the MKRN3 level in HFD mice was significantly lower than that in CONT mice (p < 0.05). On P15, 28, and 45, compared with CONT mice, miR-30b expression in HFD mice increased (p < 0.05). Compared to P15, miR-30b, KiSS-1, GPR54 and GnRH mRNA level increased significantly, however MKRN3 decreased significantly in HFD mice on P28 and 45 (p < 0.01).

CONCLUSIONS
Prepubertal obesity induced by high-fat diet during lactation and post-weaning may advance the time of pubertal initiation in female mice. The increased expression of miR-30b, kisspeptin, GPR54 and GnRH, decreased the expression of MKRN3 may explain the early onset of puberty in obese female mice.


Charles Darwin, who was married to his first cousin Emma Wedgwood, was the first experimentalist to demonstrate the adverse effects of inbreeding. He documented the deleterious consequences of self-fertilization on progeny in numerous plant species, and this research led him to suspect that the health problems of his 10 children, who were very often ill, might have been a consequence of his marriage to his first cousin. Because Darwin's concerns regarding the consequences of cousin marriage on his children even nowadays are considered controversial, we analyzed the potential effects of inbreeding on fertility in 30 marriages of the Darwin–Wedgwood dynasty, including the marriages of Darwin's children, which correspond to the offspring of four cousin marriages and three marriages between unrelated individuals. Analysis of the number of children per woman through zero-inflated regression models showed a significantly adverse effect of the husband inbreeding coefficient on family size. Furthermore, a statistically significant adverse effect of the husband inbreeding coefficient on reproductive period duration was also detected. To our knowledge, this is the first time that inbreeding depression on male fertility has been detected in humans. Because Darwin's sons had fewer children in comparison to non-inbred men of the dynasty, our findings give empirical support to Darwin's concerns on the consequences of consanguineous marriage in his own progeny. © 2014 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2015, 114, 474–483.


GPUs are becoming an increasingly attractive option for obtaining performance speedups for data-parallel applications. FPGA technology mapping is an algorithm that is heavily data parallel; however, it has many features that make it unattractive to implement on a GPU. The algorithm uses data in irregular ways since it is a graph-based algorithm. In addition, it makes heavy use of constructs like recursion which is not supported by GPU hardware. In this paper, we take a state-of-the-art FPGA technology mapping algorithm within Berkeley's ABC package and attempt to parallelize it on a GPU. We show that runtime gains of 3.1x are achievable while maintaining identical quality as demonstrated by running these netlists through Altera's Quartus II place-and-route tool.


Over the last two decades we have witnessed the genesis of a rapidly consolidating market with nearly all healthcare providers now participating in a handful of purchasing organizations either alliance-based or major national GPOs. For a traditional GPO to survive, even thrive in today's rapidly consolidating customer environment, it needs to focus on five essential issues: negotiating agreements, electronically-formatted contract information, sales force and support staff, value-added programs, and equity ownership. This articles discusses these five issues giving suggestions for their implementation.


Abstract Red blood cells play a key role in normal hemostasis and thrombosis. Their ability to affect coagulation is multifactorial and depends on their mechanical properties affecting viscosity and blood flow, ability to aggregate and adhere to each other and potentially to vascular endothelium, molecular signaling via microvesicles and surface proteins, including blood group antigens, and participation in nitric oxide metabolism. Transfused red blood cells suffer from a storage lesion that damages the cells leading to changes in shape, function, and intracellular communication. In this article, we review if and how transfused red blood cells may lead to both increased hemorrhage and increased thrombosis.


This paper on Roman etymologizing and etymological word-play was orginally conceived in the 1990s as a response to Robert Maltby's Lexicon of Ancient Latin Etymologies.Section 1 offers a snap-shot of etymological word-play inaction in Augustan elegy; the focus is on plays associatedwith the name of Venus, in Propertius and in the poems of theCorpus Tibullianum associated with Sulpicia. Section 2 turnsfrom the poet to the grammarian, and briefly considers the language used to expound etymologies in Varro's De Lingua Latina. Section 3 employs readings of Varro and of Ovid to adumbrate larger epistemological issues connected with etymology and etymological word-play in its Roman cultural contexts, and in modern critical practice.


Purpose - The hypothesis of the paper is that domestic value added created by exports in Croatia could be increased by investments in green economy. Methodology - In the developed economies only specific products, processes and functions that outperform emerging economies in Global Value Chains are able to profit from the larger share of value added. Large portion of "green economy" is knowledge intensive, and if knowledge based economy (KBC) plays a significant role in determining the domestic value added created by exports, economies with a larger stock of KBC should have a larger difference in VAX between knowledge-intensive industries and less knowledge-intensive industries. Domestic value added embodied in exports can be proxied by attracted FDI. Findings - The results seem to show some support to the hypothesis. In Croatia it has already been shown that sectors of economy with larger stock of intellectual capital measured by Intellectual Capital Efficiency (ICE) index attracted more FDI, which can also serve as a predictor for larger value added in exports due to higher productivity. Knowledge intensity of 18 industries in the US as the benchmark economy shows that "Electrical and optical equipment" has above average knowledge intensity of 0,53, and it can be matched with "green economy" in Croatian industries that attracted more FDI and have higher levels of KBC. Research limitations and implications - Although this study is limited just to KBC, as an extension, the potential role of financial development could be included. Also, the length of time series for VAX measured by OECD does not allow for more thorough analysis. Originality/value – Although not conclusive, this paper is an important first step giving direction to subsequent studies of effects of KBC on value added.


There is a common misconception that 'kids will be kids' however, youth is a turbulent time for most young people. The media portrays an image that youths are gang leading, knife wielding terrors and an all-round threat to society.

This dissertation embarked on a journey to question whether children and young people become a victim to their own crimes by previous experiences of family and paternal violence. The study intended to explore the potentiality of the implications of turbulent upbringings causing a repercussion of crime committing behaviours in 10-17-year olds.

The study approach used a thematic analysis of existing secondary research as a method for data collection using government issued grey literature, charitable organisational reports and peer reviewed journals from the UK. The use of international research became useful to contrast and compare arguments made in the UK and provided a clearer understanding of how young people are impacted by their childhood experiences.

Main findings of the study included arising themes of, adverse childhood experiences, children who have been or are looked after by local authority care and being a witness to familial domestic violence. Themes were supported by Beckers Labelling Theory and Walkers Cycle of Violence Theory.

Overall, the study worked in support of published data, articles and theories which guided the research process. The report produced and highlighted findings arising from the study which could be used by practitioners who work with young people involved in the youth justice system to inform their practice.


In this paper we propose approaching the concern addressed by the technology literacy movement by using process design rather than product design. Rather than requiring people to know an impossible amount about technology, we suggest that we can teach process for understanding and making decisions about any technology. This process can be applied to new problems and new contexts that emerge from the continuous innovation and transformation of technology markets. Such a process offers a strategy for planning for and abiding the uncertainty intrinsic to the development of modern science and technology. We teach students from diverse backgrounds in an NSF funded course on the social, human, and ethical (SHE) impacts of nanotechnology. The process we will describe is global open source collective intelligence (GOSSIP). This paper traces out some the principles of GOSSIP through the example of a course taught to a mixture of engineers and students from the Arts and the Humanities. Open source is obviously a powerful method: witness the development of Linux, and GNU before that, and the extraordinary success of Wikipedia. Democratic, and hence diverse, information flows have been suggested as vital to sustaining a healthy company.


Unit selection synthesis has made it possible to produce speech with high quality. However, because it allows little control over intonation, it may produce speech with contextually inappropriate intonation. In the signalling of information status, intonation, in particular, choice of pitch accent, has been taken into account in a number of dialogue systems. Previous research shows that this can improve the perceived intonational appropriateness of synthetic speech. Using an eye-tracking paradigm, this study investigates how pitch accents H*L and L*H and deaccentuation affect the interpretation of information status in synthetic speech in English. It was found that H*L biases listeners' interpretation to new information but L*H, like deaccentuation, biases listeners' interpretation to given information. These results indicate that listeners can and do make use of intonational cues in the interpretation of information status in synthetic speech and lend strong support to the integration of intonational signalling of information status into unit selection synthesis.


Chlorination for drinking water forms various disinfection byproducts (DBPs) of trihalomethanes (THMs) and haloacetic acids (HAAs). Chlorination has been attributed to the destruction of activated aromatic sites of the natural organic matter (NOM) predominantly at electron rich sites. Experiments with Istanbul surface waters showed that the magnitude of the decrease in the ultraviolet (UV) absorbance at 272 nm (UV272) was an excellent indicator of destruction of these sites by chlorine. The main objective of the present study is to develop the differential UV272 absorbance (ΔUV272) related models for the prediction of the formation of THM, HAA, and their species in raw water samples from Terkos, Buyukcekmece, and Omerli lakes under different chlorination conditions. Significant factors affecting DBP formation in the raw waters were identified through numerical and graphical techniques. The R2 values of the models varied between 0.94 and 0.97, indicating excellent predictive ability for THM4 and HAA9 in the raw waters. The models were validated using additional data. The results of this study concluded that addition of ΔUV272 parameter into THM4 and HAA9 models make the prediction of these DBP compounds more precisely than those of DBP models developed in the past. A better understanding of these modeling systems will help the water treatment plant operators to minimize the DBP formation, providing a healthier and better drinking water quality as well as identifying strategies to improve water treatment and disinfection processes.


Objective: Zirconium oxide has gained the spotlight during the recent years as a high strength ceramic material. However, despite its mechanical superiorities, it forms a weak bond with different synthetic substrates and tissues due to its neutral nature and resistance against chemical agents. Therefore, it is important to improve the bonding technique in order to prevent microleakage and increase retention and fracture resistance of the restoration. Literature Review: Since the discovery of zirconium oxide, several surface treatment methods have been evaluated to increase its bond strength to resin cement such as surface grinding with micro- abrasion, burs or abrasive papers, tribochemical silica coating, silicoating, glass micropearls, glaze- on technique, selective infiltration etching, hot etching and use of phosphate ester monomers. The mentioned techniques and related articles are reviewed and discussed in the present study. Conclusion: Despite extensive studies, no consensus has been reached about a specific treatment as the standard protocol for improving the bond strength of zirconia restorations.


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An oil loading device and an oil carrier provided with the same are disclosed. An oil loading device connected to a supply pipe and loading oil to a storage tank comprises: a loading pipe connected to the supply pipe and disposed in a vertical direction with respect to the storage tank; a pressure decrease pipe in which one end is connected to the lower end of the loading pipe; a porous orifice provided in the pressure decrease pipe in a traversal direction and inducing a decrease in the pressure of oil discharged from the loading pipe; and a first static mixer connected to the other end of the pressure decrease pipe for the mixing of the oil discharged from the pressure decrease pipe.


By using information about specific road grades, one can predict the power required by a vehicle. The prediction of the required power enables the driver to choose the driving route with the best fuel economy, which results in cost and energy savings. A clinometer is one of the more simple tools used to measure road grades, but requires significant time and effort. In this paper, a new method for measuring road gradesfrom within a vehicle is proposed and experimentally verified.


Publisher Summary Most of the tissue engineering strategies developed for the creation of hard tissue substitutes relies on the use of a temporary three dimensional (3-D) scaffold material in which cells are seeded and in vitro cultured prior to implantation. In this type of strategy, the formation of new tissue is deeply influenced by the 3D environment provided by the scaffolds, namely their composition, porous architecture and their biological response to implanted cells and/or surrounding tissues. To meet all the necessary requirements, scaffold materials must be fabricated from polymers with adequate properties, but many of the scaffold's features are also dictated by the processing methodology used to fabricate them. Biocompatibility is the first obvious demand, but an ideal tissue engineering scaffold should also exhibit appropriate mechanical properties. The scaffold must possess adequate porosity, interconnectivity and permeability to allow the ingress of cells and nutrients as well as the appropriate surface chemistry for enhanced cell attachment and proliferation.


The alkaline etchant is used in large quantities for producing printed wiring boards (PWB) of electric appliances. As the demand for PWBs in electronic components has increased, the amount of spent-alkaline etchant as an industrial waste has also increased. The alkaline waste contains high concentration of ammonia and copper, and this waste treatment is very difficult. Meltex merchandises alkaline etchant for PWB manufacturing, recovers from spent solution and adjusts solution after the recovery to produce replenisher. This article provides a brief review of the methods employed at Meltex for recovering copper and chemicals from alkaline etchant.


Even though online radio services have been available since the mid-1990s, academic research on online radio diffusion remains scarce. The present study explores how online radio's value-added affordances may help shape the cognitive and affective responses to influence the adoption process among terrestrial radio listeners. Results show that online radio's fluid technology attributes, positive adoption beliefs and attitudes, and functionally similar technology clusters are significant predictors of online radio adoption. A lack of familiarity with online radio and low affinity with radio listening might have contributed to the lack of interest in online radio adoption.


Recumbirostran 'microsaurs' are a clade of Palaeozoic tetrapods that possess numerous morphological adaptations for fossorial ecologies. Re‐study of many 'microsaurs' using tomographic methods has provided substantial new data on poorly known anatomy that informs their debated phylogenetic position. Recent studies have identified suites of features among recumbirostrans that place the group within crown Amniota, contrary to hypothesized positions on the amniote stem or the lissamphibian stem. Herein we describe the cranial anatomy of the early Permian gymnarthrid Euryodus dalyae through tomographic analysis of the holotype from South Grandfield, Oklahoma and new specimens from karst deposits near Richards Spur. The braincase of E. dalyae is composed of well‐ossified pleurosphenoids, orbitosphenoids that brace against the skull roof, and unpaired median ossifications. The otic capsules are well‐ossified, and the occiput is unconsolidated. Analysis of the mandibles, typically obscured in articulated specimens, reveals a second tooth row on the dentary, a feature previously unknown in 'microsaurs' that is reminiscent of the condition of the co‐occurring captorhinid Captorhinus aguti. The Richards Spur specimens share many of these features, including the second tooth row, but the neurocranium of the scanned specimen (OMNH 53519) differs from that of the holotype of E. dalyae (e.g. absence of unpaired median ossifications), and these specimens are referred to Euryodus sp. These data add to the growing neurocranial dataset of 'microsaurs', which is essential for iterative reevaluation of early tetrapod phylogeny. This discovery of multiple tooth rows in 'microsaurs' provides further support for the hypothesized close relationships between 'microsaurs' and reptiles.


BACKGROUND
Clinical drugs for herpesvirus exhibit high toxicity and suffer from significant drug-resistantance. The development of new, effective, and safe anti-herpesvirus agents with different mechanisms of action is greatly required.

OBJECTIVE
Novel inhibitors against herpesvirus with different mechanisms of action from that of clinical drugs.

METHODS
A series of novel 5-(benzylamino)-1H-1,2,3-triazole-4-carboxamides were efficiently synthesized and EC50 values against human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), varicella-zoster virus (VZV) and herpes simplex virus (HSV) were evaluated in vitro.

RESULTS
Some compounds present antiviral activity. Compounds 5s and 5t are potent against both HCMV and VZV. Compounds 5m, 5n, 5s, and 5t show similar EC50 values against both TK+ and TK- VZV strains.

CONCLUSION
5-(Benzylamino)-1H-1,2,3-triazole-4-carboxamides are active against herpesviruses and their activity is remarkably affected by the nature and the position of substituents in the benzene ring. The results indicate that these derivatives are independent of the viral thymidine kinase (TK) for activation, which is indispensable for current drugs. Their mechanisms of action may differ from those of the clinic anti-herpesvirus drugs.


Exploiting the SU(2) Skyrmion Lagrangian with second-class constraints associated with Lagrange multiplier and collective coordinates, we convert the second-class system into the first-class one in the Batalin-Fradkin-Tyutin embedding through introduction of the St\"uckelberg coordinates. In this extended phase space we construct the "canonical" quantum operator commutators of the collective coordinates and their conjugate momenta to describe the Schr\"odinger representation of the SU(2) Skyrmion, so that we can define isospin operators and their Casimir quantum operator and the corresponding eigenvalue equation possessing integer quantum numbers, and we can also assign via the homotopy class $\pi_{4}(SU(2))=Z_{2}$ half integers to the isospin quantum number for the solitons in baryon phenomenology. Different from the semiclassical quantization previously performed, we exploit the "canonical" quantization scheme in the enlarged phase space by introducing the St\"uckelberg coordinates, to evaluate the baryon mass spectrum having global mass shift originated from geometrical corrections due to the $S^{3}$ compact manifold involved in the topological Skyrmion. Including ghosts and anti-ghosts, we also construct Becci-Rouet-Stora-Tyutin invariant effective Lagrangian.


Breast cancer is one of the most common diseases that causes the death of several women around the world. So, early detection is required to help decrease breast cancer mortality rates and save the lives of cancer patients. Hence early detection is a significant process to have a healthy lifestyle. Machine learning provides the greatest support to detect breast cancer in the early stage, since it cannot be cured and brings great complications to our health system. In this paper, novel models are generated for prediction of breast cancer using Gaussian Naive Bayes (GNB), Neighbour's Classifier, Support Vector Classifier (SVC) and Decision Tree Classifier (CART). This paper presents a comparative machine learning study based to detect breast cancer by employing four different Machine Learning models. In this paper, experiment analysis carried out on a Wisconsin Breast Cancer dataset to evaluate the performance for the models. The computation of the model is simple; hence enabling an efficient process for prediction. The best overall accuracy for breast cancer detection is achieved equal to 94%. using Gaussian Naive Bayes.


Experimental and theoretical data on the structure of clusters of Group IIA and IIIA metals are summarised. General trends in the properties of the clusters as a function of nuclearity are outlined, and special points on the dependences, corresponding to the so-called magic numbers, are identified. Data on the reactivity of clusters in the gas phase are used to establish the anomalies corresponding to these points. It is shown that the reactivity of mixed clusters obeys more complex relationships, determined by their electronic structure and geometry. A new type of organomagnesium cluster is described, and shown to be promising as a component of catalytic systems. The cryochemical synthesis of giant clusters of transition metals, which offer a high reactivity and catalytic activity is described. The bibliography includes 176 references.


A real time (30 frame) two color sensor fusion method utilizes a dichroic mirror to separate incident radiation into 3-5 and 8-12 mm wavebands. The overlapped thermal images created by the dichroic mirror and optical path difference are shifted and made to coincide together, directly on the focal plane. This is the basis for developing an optical image coincide technology which can replace the conventional circuit of the time delay and integration (TDI). It greatly reduces the deterioration caused by TDI circuits and results in a better image quality. In the experiment, it was found that when several different bandpass filters are inserted into the optical paths, there exists an optimized fusion relationship among the incident power, waveband, detector responsivity and preamplifier gain. if an appropriate adjustment is made the signal to noise ration of the combined thermal can be improved a factor above of 30% or more.


Since the early 1990s there has been a growing body of research on intergenerational income elasticities and correlations. One of the most prominent findings is that these associations are much higher in the United States (and the United Kingdom) than in Canada, Australia and many European countries. This finding is often interpreted as America being much less fair than other industrialized societies since the reproduction of economic inequalities is substantially stronger. This chapter questions these conclusions on the following grounds: (i) inconsistencies with other outcomes, such as socio-economic inequalities in student achievement, educational attainment, occupation attainment and the patterning of intergenerational occupational mobility, (ii) family income having weaker effects on educational attainment (which has substantial effects on earnings and income) than other parental characteristics and (iii) methodological issues such as estimates based on the concept of 'permanent income' and the use of instrumental variables. Even if the consensus estimate of 0.4 for the intergenerational correlation in the United States is accepted, it may not mean that the United States is unusually unfair due to larger regional differences in labour market returns and/or stronger associations between parents' and their children's ability, ability and education attainment, and education and earnings.


We theoretically and experimentally study the optimal duty cycle and pumping rate for square-wave amplitude-modulated Bell–Bloom magnetometers. The theoretical and the experimental results are in good agreement for duty cycles and corresponding pumping rates ranging over 2 orders of magnitude. Our study gives the maximum field response as a function of duty cycle and pumping rate. Especially, for a fixed duty cycle, the maximum field response is obtained when the time averaged pumping rate, which is the product of pumping rate and duty cycle, is equal to the transverse relaxation rate in the dark. By using a combination of small duty cycle and large pumping rate, one can increase the maximum field response by up to a factor of 2 or π/2, relative to that of the sinusoidal modulation or the 50% duty cycle square-wave modulation respectively. We further show that the same pumping condition is also practically optimal for the sensitivity due to the fact that the signal at resonance is insensitive to the fluctuations of pumping rate and duty cycle.


Empirical literature on corporate governance often assumes independence among different control mechanisms. However, different studies in the Anglo-Saxon context find that control mechanisms are interrelated. The Spanish corporate governance system, unlike the Anglo-Saxon one, is characterised by the dominance of internal controls, mainly the stock ownership concentration and the board of directors. In this internal control context, we specifically analyse the possible substitution of the supervisory potential of the board outsiders by the incentive effects derived from managerial stock ownership and the supervisory role of large shareholders. Our main results show a negative relationship between the proportion of outside directors and managerial and large blockholders' ownership stake. These findings support the substitution among internal controls and suggest that Spanish firms form an efficient conglomerate of managerial controls, in which deficiencies in a single mechanism can be compensated by the action of an alternative one. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2005.


Generating multi-vehicle trajectories from existing limited data can provide rich resources for autonomous vehicle development and testing. This paper introduces a multi-vehicle trajectory generator (MTG) that can encode multi-vehicle interaction scenarios (called driving encounters) into an interpretable representation from which new driving encounter scenarios are generated by sampling. The MTG consists of a bi-directional encoder and a multi-branch decoder. A new disentanglement metric is then developed for model analyses and comparisons in terms of model robustness and the independence of the latent codes. Comparison of our proposed MTG with $\beta$-VAE and InfoGAN demonstrates that the MTG has stronger capability to purposely generate rational vehicle-to-vehicle encounters through operating the disentangled latent codes. Thus the MTG could provide more data for engineers and researchers to develop testing and evaluation scenarios for autonomous vehicles.


Abstract The landscape for academic endocrinology divisions has continued to evolve rapidly;thus, finding reliable data that can be used as benchmarks has become more difficult. Resources are available for salary and relative value units, with the Association of American Medical Colleges, Medical Group Management Association, and Faculty Practice Solutions Center the most commonly used databases. However, details regarding how these data are collected and what they include are unclear. For example, does the income include bonus and/or incentive payments? How are work relative value units defined (individual rendering vs supervising advanced practitioners or fellows or residents)? How is a clinical full-time equivalent defined? In addition, other important data that would be relevant to running an academic division of endocrinology are not available from these, or any other resources, including support staff numbers and compensation or fellowship funding and training information. Therefore, an unmet need exists for reliable data that divisions can use to help shape their visions and goals. To address this demand, the Association of Endocrine Chiefs and Directors, in collaboration with the Endocrine Society, developed a detailed survey for members to address the financial, productivity, composition, and educational issues that they regularly face. Twenty academic institutions throughout the United States completed in the survey in 2018. In the present report, we have provided the results of the survey and some initial interpretations of the findings. Our hope is that the information presented will prove useful as academic endocrinology divisions continue to evolve.


Demographic processes in rural areas of Belarus: geographical structure and spatial dynamics The study presents the spatiotemporal regularities and shifts in geo-demographic development of rural areas of Belarus at the multiscale level. Trends in rural population size dynamics for the period of 1959-2009 are detected and characterised. In accordance with the trends in the dynamics of the rural population of Belarus spatial regularities were identified. The geo-demographic territory of Belarus is typified on character of demographic dynamics and natural movement processes of rural population. We have identified three types of districts by the nature of the rural population dynamics for the period of 1970-2009: stable, growing and shrinking; and three types of natural population movement dynamics for the same period in accordance with spatial and temporal heterogeneity of the rural depopulation.