Background Landmark thrombectomy trials have provided evidence that selected patients with large ischemic stroke benefit from successful endovascular therapy, commonly defined as incomplete (modified Thrombolysis In Cerebral Infarction (mTICI) 2b) or complete reperfusion (mTICI 3). We aimed to investigate whether mTICI 3 improves functional outcomes compared with mTICI 2b in large ischemic strokes. Methods This retrospective multicenter cohort study was conducted to compare mTICI 2b versus mTICI 3 in large ischemic strokes in the anterior circulation. Patients enrolled in the German Stroke Registry between 2015–2021 were analyzed. Large ischemic stroke was defined as an Alberta Stroke Program Early CT Score (ASPECTS) of 3–5. Patients were matched by final mTICI grade using propensity score matching. Primary outcome was the 90-day modified Rankin Scale (mRS) score. Results After matching, 226 patients were included. Baseline and imaging characteristics were balanced between mTICI 2b and mTICI 3 patients. There was no shift on the mRS favoring mTICI 3 compared with mTICI 2b in large ischemic strokes (adjusted common odds ratio (acOR) 1.12, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) 0.64 to 1.94, P=0.70). The rate of symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage was higher in mTICI 2b than in mTICI 3 patients (12.6% vs 4.5%, P=0.03). Mortality at 90 days did not differ between mTICI 3 and mTICI 2b (33.6% vs 37.2%; adjusted OR 0.69, 95% CI 0.33 to 1.45, P=0.33). Conclusions In endovascular therapy for large ischemic strokes, mTICI 3 was not associated with better 90-day functional outcomes compared with mTICI 2b. This study suggests that mTICI 2b might be warranted as the final angiographic result, questioning the benefit/risk ratio of additional maneuvers to seek for mTICI 3 in large ischemic strokes. Trial registration number NCT03356392.


We report an 850-nm, vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL)-based optical link that achieves new benchmarks in speed and power efficiency. The laser diode driver and receiver ICs are fabricated in standard 90-nm bulk CMOS, and the gallium arsenide optoelectronic devices are commercial components. An operation at a bit-error rate less than 10-12 at 25 Gb/s is achieved, representing the highest speed reported to date for a CMOS-based full optical link. At 22 Gb/s, the link power efficiency is 3.8 pJ/bit and improves further at lower data rates, attaining a minimum of 2.6 pJ/bit at 15 Gb/s. The efficiency numbers reported here, which include a complete accounting of the power dissipation of all the components, are the best reported for any optical interconnect in any technology. This work demonstrates the scalability of VCSEL-based links in both efficiency and speed to meet the demanding requirements of next-generation exa-scale computing and large data center systems.


The present investigation aims to study the feelings of job satisfaction experienced by bank employees in Greece. In addition, it is studied how much the above feelings are affected by several demographic factors, like gender, age, educational level, years of experience in the specific institution, total years of experience and position held in the specific institution. The method which was preferred in the frame of the study was the quantitative research method. The tool which was used for the measurement of job satisfaction was the Employee Satisfaction Inventory, ESI, created by Koustelios, 1991. It included 24 questions, which measure six dimensions of job satisfaction: 1. Working conditions (5 items), 2. Earnings (4 items), 3. Promotions (3 items), 4. Nature of work (4 items), 5. Immediate superior (4 items) and 6. The institution as a whole (4 items) (total Chronbach's α = 0.75). The responses were given in a five-level Likert scale: 1 = I strongly disagree, 5 = I strongly agree. The sample of the present study consisted of 230 employees of Greek banks and credit institutions. The results of the study showed that the feelings of job satisfaction experienced by Greek bank employees occur in quite high levels. Furthermore, it was found that job satisfaction is affected by several demographic characteristics, like age, gender, educational level and position held by the employee. However, further investigation should be carried out in the Greek population, so that the phenomenon of job satisfaction is well studied and promoted. Keywords: motivation, burnout, bank employees, Greece JEL Classification: J 21, J 24, J28, M 12, M54


Background: Results of preliminary studies that have been conducted by researchers at the Regional Mental Hospital (Rumah Sakit Jiwa Daerah/RSJD) Surakarta show that RSJD Surakarta has conducted the various therapeutic models which consist of group activity therapy over a period of one month or four times a week on Thursdays. Data shows that there are cases of schizophrenia with total number of 17,763 patients for some cases, such as hebefrenic schizophrenia, paranoid, catatonic, residual, simplex, and others. While the total number of schizophrenia cases in 2011 reached 18,022. Objective: To determine the effect of therapy group socialization activity to improve the clients verbal communication skills in RSJD Surakarta after treatment. Method: The design of this study is pra-experiment with post-test. The populations in this study are schizophrenia patients with the total number of 211 patients based on medical records of people with impaired verbal communication. Samples were set of 30 respondents by using purposive sampling technique. The analytical tool used is descriptive analysis. Result and Discussion: Based on a whole observations starting from observation the first session (from session 1 until session 7), we can see the improving from average capability verbal communication after conducted therapy group activities in the aspect of the socialization. Numbers who are unable is 13 (43,3 %) , while who experienced the ability verbally are 17 (56,7 %). This means that more than half (56,7 %) clients in RSJD surakarta already improved the ability to communicate verbally after conducted therapy group activities socialization, and only 43,3 % clients could be classified not to be able to communicate verbally in RSJD Surakarta Conclusion: Results of Therapeutic Activity Group Socialization in RSJD Surakarta have improved of verbal communication skills in terms of patients" schizophrenic withdrawn, and no negative effect of treatment group socialization activities (syntax) of the verbal communication skills of the process of patient schizophrenic withdrawn at RSJD Surakarta. .


Edge computing has enabled extensive reasoning capabilities at the edge of the network. Edge nodes have direct access to edge sources (e.g., sensors, devices) to read and process relevant data, while each sensor/device manufacturer uses their bespoke protocols in the Internet of Things (IoT) environment, hence, addressing compatibility problems to ensure seamless access has become a cumbersome task. A conventional solution is to save all sensor/device protocols in an edge node, however, which brings higher redundancy and hardware expenditure. Hence, we propose a dynamic edge access system (DEA) built on a collaborative IoT architecture. It solves the compatibility issues with low redundancy by customizing access programs. Besides, embedded programmable logic controllers are designed as edge nodes and have been applied in around 78 000 base stations. After implementing DEA, the analysis illustrates that the average improvement of every station's protocol utilization is 96.3% and 66.6%, while the memory footprint is decreased to 4.5% and 33.3% compared with the conventional solution and global dynamic reconfiguration method.


A six-month, double-blind clinical trial was conducted to determine the effectiveness of a sanguinarine-containing dentifrice in reducing plaque and gingival inflammation. One hundred twenty adult volunteers were randomly assigned to a control or experimental group. The test dentifrice contained 750 mcg/g of sanguinaria extract. A dentifrice of similar composition without sanguinarine was used as the placebo. Plaque and gingival inflammation scores were recorded for four surfaces on each of 12 index teeth at baseline, one-, three, and six-months. Matched pair t-test analyses showed no significant differences between experimental and control groups for mean six-month changes in plaque and gingival inflammation scores in analyses using all 48 sites per subject or in analyses of only the 24 interproximal sites. No long-term reduction was demonstrated in plaque or gingival inflammation with the use of a sanguinarine-containing dentifrice.


Soap Fans: Pursuing Pleasure and Making Meaning in Everyday Life. By C. Lee Harrington and Denise D. Bielby. Temple University Press, 1995. 225 pp. Cloth, $49.95; paper, $19.95.
Reviewer: REBECCA G. ADAMS, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
For decades, psychologists had a monopoly on the study of fans, whom they found to be abnormal, sometimes prone to violence, and worthy of ridicule. Such portrayals are a bit disconcerting, because almost everyone is a fan of someone or something, whether it be in the realm of film, sports, music, or even social theory. Recently, however, a few researchers have studied fan subcultures from a sociological perspective as normal, everyday phenomena, examining the internal organization of fan communities and the relationship of members with one another.


In this correspondence, we study the performance of a multiprocessor in which a crossbar is employed to interconnect p processors to m commonly shared memory modules. A set of nonuniformly distributed probabilities including a probability P(0) which denotes the probability of a processor not generating any request is also employed to illustrate the program behavior, but no distinction is made between processors. Several relations between the average request completion time, the average processor utilization, and the effective memory bandwidth are obtained. One approximation method based on the idea of aggregation is proposed. Its solutions are compared to the exact solution.


Indirect purchases represent a large part of a company's costs, yet many companies have neglected such expenditures, sheltering them from rigorous competitive scrutiny in favor of supplier partnerships. The authors suggest that companies should examine their indirect purchases more closely.

First they delineate indirect purchases ? those not directly associated with end products or services ? into five major expense clusters: advertising and marketing, technology, overhead, human resources, and those specific to the business such as store fixtures or collection agencies. Three problems prevent most companies from managing these purchases effectively: (1) inadequate information ? companies have confusing, inaccurate data about indirect purchases; (2) insufficient resources ? the people negotiating purchases lack skill or have other incentives in making purchasing decisions; (3) improper techniques ? few companies gather sufficient information or solicit competitive proposals.

Kapoor and Gupta propose five approaches for improving purchasing programs that are rooted in a competitive, free-market view:

1. Measure pragmatically. Managers should be extremely selective and focused when defining pricing data for purchasing.

2. Assign resources selectively. Companies should increase the resources assigned to indirect purchasing and clearly define the roles of people assigned to administer supplier relationships.

3. Demystify business requirements. Companies must establish precise quality requirements for indirect purchases.

4. Clarify the pricing basis. Lax pricing practices work to the buyer's disadvantage. In order to compare prices, the buyer must establish discipline in pricing by creating and enforcing a standard vocabulary.

5. Leverage the free market. Buyers must be willing to use free-market competition to reduce costs and must take business away from suppliers if necessary.

The five approaches run counter to the prevailing "partnership" purchasing model, according to the authors. In a supplier partnership, they suggest, companies give up their right to investigate alternative sources by making a commitment to work with a partner through good and bad. Such partnerships may be appropriate when there are few viable alternatives or when changing suppliers would be difficult. Otherwise, they say, companies should establish free-market competition as their standard operating procedure and form partnerships only on an exception basis.


Powerful development frameworks and adoption of agile development methods are continuously increasing release frequency, thus compress test cycles. Test automation, often relying on model based approaches, helps to reduce test time, however the introduction of related heavy weight processes is often quite challenging. In order to tackle this problem, we propose a bottom up testing approach, which in a nutshell, in the initial phase supports the integration tester in creating a semi-formal test case description and report. The approach, a textual domain specific framework, will guide the test expert in evolving the base language, in order to be tailored for a domain language of an organization. The evolved language can be linked to executable code, which enables in the long run (semi-)automated model based regression testing.


Epidermal flavonoids have long been suggested as targets for selection in stress-adaptive crop breeding, but routine selection is neither practicable nor cost effective because of the time-consuming process involved in phenotyping. In this research, we found that the content of epidermal flavonoids, measured using the chlorophyll fluorescence excitation ratio method, was inversely related to stripe rust (Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici [Pst]) response in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). We investigated the genetic basis by conducting quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping with a 9K single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) array in a cross of 'Drysdale' × 'Waagan' segregating for adult-plant stripe rust resistance. Data from 3 yr of field experimental trials were analyzed, and heritability estimates for epidermal flavonoids varied from 0.16 to 0.47 across the experiment-years. In contrast, heritability for stripe rust response varied from 0.79 to 0.84. Eleven QTL were identified for epidermal flavonoids, with a major locus on chromosome 4D, explaining between 19.5 and 47.3% of the phenotypic variation across years. Thirteen QTL were identified for stripe rust response, with the major locus explaining 68% of the phenotypic variation. Quantitative trait loci associated with epidermal flavonoids and stripe rust response were colocated on chromosomes 2B and 3B, but other genetic loci detected for the respective traits were independent. The study has established a genetic basis for epidermal flavonoids measured using the nondestructive, leaf-clip sensor in wheat, which will encourage further research on the possible exploitation of the compound by breeding and selection.


. Introduction: In accordance with the main objectives of the National Demography Project, all citizens, regardless of their social, economic and physical status, shall have access to high-quality food products sufficient to meet
human physiological needs in basic nutrients and energy for health preservation and active ageing. The objective of our
study was to assess the results of pilot monitoring of food quality and availability of domestic food products contributing to elimination of macro- and micronutrient deficiencies within the framework of the National Demography Project
implemented in the Sverdlovsk Region. Results: We identified problems related to planning, sampling and testing of
food products including those associated with purchases, laboratory equipment, and methods of testing. According
to the results of laboratory testing carried out in compliance with the developed method recommendations, 47 % of
all food samples failed to meet the established quality requirements. We identified a high percentage of poor quality
samples of meat, dairy, confectionery, bakery, and fish products. Conclusions: The results of our pilot project can be used
to correct and develop methodologies of food sampling and testing and to regulate quality characteristics. They will
contribute to enhancement of the methodological basis for monitoring of food quality and availability of local foodstuffs
rich in macro- and micronutrients to the population.


Bjôrdal, C. G.; 2000. Waterlogged archaeological wood,biodegradation and its impli cations for conservation.. Doctoral thesis. ISSN 1401-6230, ISBN 91-576-5876-5 Although archaeological wood found in waterlogged environments is often described as well preserved, microbial degradation has taken place. Microscopic investigations revealed that despite different types of soil, water, sediment, pH, wood species, and age, archaeological wood was mainly degraded by erosion bacteria, even though soft rot and tunnelling bacteria decay was also occasionally observed. Erosion bacteria seem to be the only wood degrading micro-organisms active in near anaerobic environments. A weak skeleton consisting of the lignin rich compound middle lamella remains after decay and maintains the form and integrity of the historical wood, as long as it is kept waterlogged. Erosion bacteria and their attack of wood cell walls are described and illustrated in detail. Presence of active erosion bacteria in 1200 year old Viking poles, suggests that degradation is generally a slow process, that proceeds until all cellulose rich parts of the wood cell wall are utilised. The results indicate that depth of deposition in historic times as well as in reburial situa tions today, is an important factor for successful preservation in nature. In laboratory experiments, it was found that both clay and sandy soils had an equal protec tive potential, and were significantly less aggressive to wood than top soil. However, 20 cm depth of burial in waterlogged soil did not prevent significant attack by soft rot fungi, but different cover sheets had some positive effect. Long term effects of soil and cover protections are still unknown. From observations on aerobic decay patterns in archaeological materials, valuable informa tion can be obtained about the history of these objects before waterlogging. In active conservation situations, polyethylene glycol (PEG) in impregnation baths give rise to microbial growth at the liquid/air interface during immersion. However results indicate that the microbes present are not degrading the wood during treatment and there fore do not represent a threat for historical objects. Knowledge on microbial degradation in wood, particularly waterlogged archaeological wood, is important for the development of passive and active conservation strategies in future in the interdisciplinary areas of conservation and archaeology. Keywords', archaeological wood, waterlogged, micro-organisms, degradation, erosion bacteria, conservation, archaeology, reburial, in situ preservation, PEG. Authors address'. Charlotte Gjelstrup Bjordal, Department of Wood Science, SLU, Box 7008, 750 07 Uppsala, Sweden.


Pilocytic astrocytoma (PA) is the most common pediatric tumor, with the vast majority being benign (WHO Grade I). Herein, we present a rare sporadic (not radiation- or NF1-associated) anaplastic PA arising from the cerebellum of an adult patient. The diagnosis was based on the coexistence of classic PA and more cellular foci, associated with both tumor necrosis and up to 27 mitoses per 10 high power fields. Based on these features, the tumor was felt to be equivalent in biological behavior to that of a WHO Grade III astrocytoma. Additional genetic studies revealed the presence of a BRAF V600E mutation. In comparison to the foci of classic PA, the malignant component showed increased p53 protein expression, decreased p16 protein expression, and hemizygous p16 gene deletion by FISH analysis. This case provides additional support for the concept of anaplastic transformation in PA and further elucidates the possible molecular pathways associated with malignant progression.


Climate change, particularly global warming, is disturbing biological processes in unexpected ways and forcing us to re-study/reanalyze the effects of varying temperatures, among them extreme ones, on insect functional traits such as lifespan and fecundity/fertility. Here we experimentally tested, under both laboratory and field conditions, the effects of an extreme range of temperatures (5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, and 45 °C, and the naturally varying conditions experienced in the field), on survivorship/lifespan, fecundity, and fertility of four pestiferous fruit fly species exhibiting contrasting life histories and belonging to two phylogenetic groups within the genus Anastrepha: A. ludens, A. obliqua, A. striata, and A. serpentina. In the field, we also measured the length of the entire life cycle (egg to adult), and in one species (A. ludens), the effect on the latter of the host plant (mango and grapefruit). Under laboratory conditions, none of the adults, independent of species, could survive a single day when exposed to a constant temperature of 45 °C, but A. striata and A. serpentina females/males survived at the highly contrasting temperatures of 5 and 40 °C at least 7 days. Maximum longevity was achieved in all species at 15 °C (375, 225, 175 and 160 days in A. ludens, A. serpentina, A. striata and A. obliqua females, respectively). Anastrepha ludens layed many eggs until late in life (368 days) at 15 °C, but none eclosed. Eclosion was only observed in all species at 20 and 30 °C. Under natural conditions, flies lived ca. 100 days less than in the laboratory at 15 °C, likely due to the physiological cost of dealing with the highly varying environmental patterns over 24 h (minimum and maximum temperatures and relative humidity of ca. 10–40 °C, and 22–100%, respectively). In the case of A. ludens, the immature's developmental time was shorter in mango, but adult survival was longer than in grapefruit. We discuss our results considering the physiological processes regulating the traits measured and tie them to the increasing problem of global warming and its hidden effects on the physiology of insects, as well as the ecological and pest management implications.


The Mi‐1.2 gene in tomato, Solanum lycopersicum L. (Solanaceae), confers resistance against several herbivores, including the potato aphid, Macrosiphum euphorbiae (Thomas) (Hemiptera: Sternorrhyncha: Aphididae) and the sweetpotato whitefly, Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) (Hemiptera: Sternorrhyncha: Aleyrodidae). Previous studies on the tissue localization of resistance have given varying results; whitefly resistance was attributed to factors localized in the mesophyll or epidermis, whereas aphid resistance was attributed to factors localized in the phloem. Our study utilizes the direct current electrical penetration graph (DC‐EPG) technique to compare aphid feeding behavior on resistant (Mi‐1.2+) and susceptible (Mi‐1.2−) tomato plants. This study also compares the impact of resistance on the feeding behavior of two aphid clones that vary in their virulence, or their ability to survive and reproduce on resistant plants. Previous work had shown that the avirulent WU11 clone is almost completely inhibited by resistance, whereas the semi‐virulent WU12 clone can colonize resistant hosts. Here, DC‐EPG analysis shows that both aphid clones take longer to initiate cell sampling and to establish a confirmed sieve element phase on resistant plants than on susceptible hosts, and have shorter ingestion periods on resistant plants. However, the magnitude of these deterrent effects is far less for the semi‐virulent clone than for the avirulent aphids. In particular, the WU12 clone is less sensitive to factors that limit sieve element ingestion, showing shorter non‐probe duration and rapidly establishing sustained phloem ingestion on resistant plants when compared to the WU11 clone. We conclude that, in addition to previously described factors in the phloem that inhibit ingestion, Mi‐mediated aphid resistance also involves factors (possibly in the mesophyll and/or epidermis) that delay initiation of phloem salivation, and that act in the intercellular spaces to deter the first cell sampling. Furthermore, the relative effectiveness of these components of resistance differs among insect populations.


When we initially proposed a case study track to Erik Bohemia, the ADIM's 2019 conference chair in London, it was a speculative exercise to ascertain whether an alternate form to the academic paper and the workshop could enrich discourse in the management design community. We are both business-design educators at Parsons School of Design in New York City. Our institution maintains its industry connections principally through our teaching faculty who are drawn from agencies, consultancies and in-house innovation teams globally. Based on our own experience with industry/academic hybridity and through our teaching approach, we developed a hunch that there may be a wide interest in, and applicability [with] this form and we're gratified for the high level of engagement in this initiative, exemplified by the inaugural set of cases in this volume


Computing technologies have grown to saturate every aspect of human life, with high speed and in broader aspects. As a result, a major revolution in information technology is emerging in the form of pervasive computing technologies. Pervasive computing is a technology that integrates intelligent instruments, appliances, information sources and information analysis tools by high speed wire or wireless networks into a new class of ubiquitous intelligence appliances. This new class of appliances allows users to have the ability to function at any time and anywhere, which provide a convenient access to relevant information and applications. This paper will address some of the key issues related to pervasive computers as they relate to the diffusion of this broad array of new technologies.


Selective eosinophil accumulation is a hallmark of diseases such as asthma. In a model of chronic eosinophilic inflammation, we have previously shown that the tethering step in eosinophil adhesion is mediated by PSGL-1 binding to P-selectin. The Th2-associated cytokine IL-13 is of potential importance in allergic disease. We have therefore investigated whether IL-13 can mediate eosinophil binding to human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) through P-selectin. IL-13 caused dose- and time-dependent increases of P-selectin expression, as assessed by flow and laser scanning cytometry. A similar degree of expression was observed with IL-4. There was no effect on E-selectin or ICAM-1 expression. Tumor necrosis factor-alpha induced the expression of VCAM-1, E-selectin, and ICAM-1 but had no effect on P-selectin expression. IL-13 increased the production of mRNA for surface and soluble variants of P-selectin. Under flow conditions, eosinophils, but not neutrophils, showed enhanced binding to IL-13 and to IL-4-stimulated HUVEC compared to medium-cultured cells. Eosinophil adhesion was completely inhibited by a blocking monoclonal antibody against PSGL-1 and P-selectin. Anti-VLA-4 and anti-VCAM-1 antibodies inhibited binding to a lesser extent. Thus, at physiologic levels of expression induced by Th2 cytokines, P-selectin/PSGL-1 supported eosinophil but not neutrophil adhesion. This mechanism is likely to be a key event leading to the selective accumulation of eosinophils in allergic inflammation.


A study of the influence of surface roughness on the net work of adhesion when a smooth, high viscoelastic solid is first brought into contact with and then pulled away from a roughened Perspex surface. The work of adhesion was observed to be strongly dependent upon the rate at which these surfaces were pulled apart. The rate dependence of the adhesion could be calculated by normalizing the data obtained for the normally smooth surface. At small roughness value an increase in the adhesion was observed.


Nitraria retusa Asch (Zygophyllaceae) of Jordanian origin has been investigated phytochemically and biologically. Three compounds, two new and one previously known, have been isolated and identified. The new compounds are 5,7-dihydroxy-3-deoxy vasicine (I) and 7-hydroxy-3-deoxy-1-vasiciene (II), while the known compound is O-acetyl nitraraine (I) but reported for the first time from this species. The relative levels of antioxidant activity and total phenolic content of the methanolic extract of Nitraria retusa and fraction B (the alkaloid rich fraction) were determined using the improved ABTS•+ method and the Folin-Ciocalteu colorimetric method, respectively. The total phenolic content of the methanolic extract and fraction B was found to be 234.66 and 114.53 mg GAE/g extract, respectively, while the total antioxidant capacity was found to be 429.3 and 809.9 μmol TE/g extract, respectively. The methanolic extract and fraction B were also tested for their general cytotoxicity using the brine shrimp lethality test (BSLT),but no activity was detected (LC50 >1000 ppm).


Little research exists on one of the most common, oldest, and most utilized forms of online social geographic information: the 'location' field found in most virtual community user profiles. We performed the first in-depth study of user behavior with regard to the location field in Twitter user profiles. We found that 34% of users did not provide real location information, frequently incorporating fake locations or sarcastic comments that can fool traditional geographic information tools. When users did input their location, they almost never specified it at a scale any more detailed than their city. In order to determine whether or not natural user behaviors have a real effect on the 'locatability' of users, we performed a simple machine learning experiment to determine whether we can identify a user's location by only looking at what that user tweets. We found that a user's country and state can in fact be determined easily with decent accuracy, indicating that users implicitly reveal location information, with or without realizing it. Implications for location-based services and privacy are discussed.


Written language is the core of culture and central to marketing communications. The differences in language processing exhibited by Eastern/Western bilingual consumers are of great concern for global and multinational companies wishing to effectively promote their products through the Internet. Advergaming is a promotional method consisting of the delivery of advertising messages through electronic games. Despite recent scholarly interest, no previous research has compared brand memory across groups of bilinguals of different writing systems or scripts in the advergaming context.
The dissertation investigated differences in brand memory of bilinguals of languages based on different scripts. Specifically, a logographic-based language (Chinese), a biscriptal language (Korean), and alphabetic-based languages (English and Spanish) were investigated. The purpose was to compare differences in brand recall and recognition across groups of bilinguals from China, Mexico, South Korea and the United States. Since high arousal levels might negatively influence cognitive capacity as generated by emotional intensity, the effect of arousal was also examined.
The data collection procedure involved a series of international experiments. The experimental stimuli consisted of designated exposure to selected advergames. Following the gameplay in experiment 1, data was collected through translated surveys. In experiment 2, data was collected during the gameplay with aid of an electrocardiogram machine, and after the gameplay via self-reported measures of arousal.
Four hundred subjects participated in experiment 1. Contrary to expectations, results indicated that alphabetic and biscriptal participants outperformed logographic participants. The main finding confirmed that second language proficiency is a key concept that should be included when comparing East/West bilingual consumers' memory. Familiarity with brands was also a factor affecting both recall and recognition scores, indicated by significant differences among groups.
Thirty additional subjects representing the script groups of interest participated in experiment 2. Triangulation of measures indicated that the physiological (heart rate) measures impact was the most salient. The most robust finding was the negative effect of physiological measures on recall scores.
In sum, the effect of script, second language proficiency, prior brand familiarity and arousal in short-term brand memory was uncovered, in order to provide guidelines for an effective use of brand placements in advergames.


Plants are considered as one of the main sources of biologically active materials. The medicinal property of a plant depends upon the physiologically active biochemical compounds called secondary metabolites. Curcuma amada is one of the important species of Curcuma family having medicinal and biological properties. The aim of the present paper assesses the phytochemicals, volatile compounds, antimicrobial and other biological activities, along with recent trends in research of C. amada. Volatile oils extracted from rhizomes of C. amada are rich in phytoconstituents. The major constituents found in its rhizomes are curcuminoids (curcumin, demethoxycurcumin, bisdemethoxycurcumin), penolic compounds (caffeic acid, gentisic acid, ferulic acid, gallic acid cinnamic acid), terpinoids (difurocumenol, amadannulen, amadaldehyde) and essential oil (β-myrcene and α-asarone). The curcuminoids present in C. amada is responsible for its therapeutic activities. It is traditionally used to treat various diseases which includes anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial, anti-cancer, anti-tubercular, anti -allergy, anthelmintic and antipyretic activities. It also possesses healing of various skin diseases.


Electroencephalogram (EEG) examinations were carried out on three Japanese Black calves (1, 2 and 14 week old) affected with cerebrocortical necrosis (CCN) in order to investigate the relationship between EEG abnormalities and encephalic lesions. Some neurologic signs such as circling, astasia, convulsion and opisthotonus appeared in two of the calves (case 1 and 3). The other calf (case 2), however, showed no neurologic signs. The EEGs obtained from the two calves (case 1 and 2), in the awake state, showed constant high amplitude (50-160 microV) and slow (1-4 Hz) activity (HASA). One of these (case 1) had necrosis mainly in the right hemisphere and showed a markedly asymmetric sharp wave. On the other hand, in case 3, the EEG showed diffuse lowered activity, and almost flat in some leads. A decrease in fast activity observed in common with all three animals. These findings suggest that one of the characteristic EEG patterns of CCN patient may be HASA and decreased fast activity. Histopathologic diagnoses of the calves were CCN in various degrees. The degrees of abnormality of the EEGs seemed to accord with the seriousness of the lesions. Because the EEG obtained from the calf having no obvious neurologic signs showed an abnormal pattern, it was considered that EEG examinations in the early stages of disorders are valuable to diagnose CCN.


Partner Institution Students: British College of Osteopathic Medicine (BCOM) Information about using Plymouth University's Library and online Library (Primo) for Partner Institution students


Model interoperability, also known as model coupling, is involved in a significant part of scientific research and offers an interesting and worthwhile area of exploration and development for related supporting software frameworks and environments. This paper presents the challenges of scientific model coupling, with emphasis on climate change research, and briefly describes the current main methods for dealing with model interoperability. The paper also proposes a design solution for a new intelligent software tool aimed at facilitating model coupling and improving research productivity in climate change research. The main components of the proposed tool are presented and the tool's major modes of operation are described. An outline of planned future work on the proposed software environment for enhanced model interoperability is also included in the paper.


Conducted research aimed to describe the processes in marriages of the elderly, which included experience of love and intimacy in the relationship, ways of showing love, and the relations of these variables to marital satisfaction. The study sample consisted of 75 old couples in which the women were aged 55-77 and men 55-89. Average duration of marriage within the sample was 39 years, and most, about 91% of couples had adult children who lived independently of them. Respondents assessed satisfaction with their marital relations using a nine point scale, while information about the experience of love for both partners was obtained by the Love Scale (Love Scale; Braiker & Kelly, 1979). Ways of showing love were assessed by the Ways of showing love Scale ( Huic et al., 2010), measuring four expressive ('communal orientation/sacrifice', 'emotional openness and support', 'physical affection', 'verbal affection/ gifting') and two instrumental factors ('domestic instrumentality' and 'public instrumentality'). The results indicated a moderately high marital satisfaction and experience of love for both partners. Men showed higher satisfaction with marriage. Marital satisfaction in this life stage was related to the subjective experience of love. The dominant ways of showing love, for both partners, included domestic instrumentality, emotional openness and support, and communal orientation/sacrifice. All measured ways of showing love correlated with the experience of love and intimacy in a relationship, but their independent contributions to satisfaction with marriage was not observed.


The use of antibody to vascular endothelial growth factor to treat neovascular glaucoma yields good anatomic results in most cases. However, this type of glaucoma can cause angle closure with decompensation of intraocular pressure secondary to fibrovascular tissue contraction in the anterior chamber. Our surgical technique treats the cause by removing the anterior chamber fibrous complex after administration of antibody to vascular endothelial growth factor, thus restoring the chamber angle.


This paper describes a limited sample of non-listed real estate funds operating in the Nordic countries. Non-listed closed-ended funds are typically associated with a lack of transparency, limited size and tradability and complicated structures. More and more non-listed closed-ended funds have been launched in Europe and the Nordics for the past ten years. The purpose of this study is to describe and examine the potential benefits with investing in non-listed funds in relation to other real estate investments. By conducting interviews with fund managers and investors alike, this paper reviews the recent developments of funds, discusses typical fund structures and presents how investors and fund managers consider non-listed funds as opposed to other real estate investments. Our findings suggest that non-listed funds are not suffering from low transparency. Moreover, there are indeed liquidity issues but they are not considered to be of particular concern. The findings also suggest that there has been a homogenization of distribution policies and administration fees. The answer to the specific research question is that institutional investors invest in non-listed funds in order to achieve greater diversification effects as the investment is seen as a complement.


. We propose a hybrid strategy that combines three ideas, namely, a convenient way for reducing the length of the permutations, using a permutation similarity measure adjusted for these clipped permutations, and the use of the closest permutant of each object as a pivot for it. In this way, we increase the discriminability of the permutation index in order to reduce even more the number of distance computations without reducing the answer quality. The performance of our proposal is tested using two classical real-world databases: NASA and Colors which are part of the SISAP project's metric space benchmark. We reduced more than 30% of the number of distance evaluations needed to solve the queries on both databases.


Identifier names are the main vehicle for semantic information during program comprehension. Identifier names are tokenised into their semantic constituents by tools supporting program comprehension tasks, including concept location and requirements traceability. We present an approach to the automated tokenisation of identifier names that improves on existing techniques in two ways. First, it improves tokenisation accuracy for identifier names of a single case and those containing digits. Second, performance gains over existing techniques are achieved using smaller oracles. Accuracy was evaluated by comparing the output of our algorithm to manual tokenisations of 28,000 identifier names drawn from 60 open source Java projects totalling 16.5 MSLOC. We also undertook a study of the typographical features of identifier names (single case, use of digits, etc.) per object-oriented construct (class names, method names, etc.), thus providing an insight into naming conventions in industrial-scale object-oriented code. Our tokenisation tool and datasets are publicly available.


Background: Nutrient deficiency leads to a high fruit abscission rate in Sapindus mukorossi Gaertn. (Soapberry), which is one of the most widely cultivated biodiesel feedstock forests in China. Exogenous sucrose can provide a solution to nutrient deficiency and fruit abscission, which was applied to whole trees at two stages, 20 days before blooming (DBB stage) and fruit abscission (DBFA stage). Six sucrose concentrations, 0%, 1%, 1.5%, 3%, 5% and 7%, were sprayed three times at a completely randomized block design with 5 replications and 6 treatments. 13CO2 labelling experiments were carried out after the 3 sprayings. Results: (1) In the DBB stage, the 3% treatment significantly increased the inflorescence fructose and glucose contents 1-1.2 times, also resulted in the highest fruit GA3, leaf IAA, fruit IAA and fruit ZT contents, while it decreased the inflorescence ABA from 16 μg/g to 4 μg/g. (2) The 1.5% and 3% treatments significantly increased the carbohydrate content and decreased fruit ABA content to 30%-50% of the control level in the DBFA stage. (3) High-concentration sugar treatment (over 3%) increased the nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium contents, which decreased the calcium and magnesium contents. (4) The 13C-dispatching ability of the inflorescence was 3 times greater than leaves under high-concentration sugar treatment in the DBB stage. Supplying 1.5% sucrose nearly doubled the allocation capacity in the DBFA stage. (5) The source-sink nutrient migration pathway showed that leaf and fruit sugars were directly correlated via phosphorus. Fruit fructose and glucose contents affected the leaf mineral element contents. Conclusions: It can conclude that exogenous application of 3% sucrose in the DBB stage and 1.5% sucrose in the DBFA stage can increase the sink nutrition allocation capacity, and phosphorus is the main mineral element correlated with leaf and fruit sugars.


This paper presents work towards heterogeneous integration of high-efficiency power amplifiers (PAs) and tuner and biasing circuits implemented with micro-electro-machined elements. The PAs operate in switched mode with over 70% efficiency at X-band. Many such switched-mode amplifiers are used as the active portion of spatial power combining antenna arrays, with 2.3kW ERP at 8.4GHz at 65% drain efficiency, and 10kW ERP at 10GHz with over 60% efficiency. The switched-mode PAs are sensitive to the load impedance and small device variations can degrade efficiency. An output tuner for post-production efficiency tuning is developed with varactor diodes as a demonstration. For MEM tuners, variable capacitors are developed with 3:1 tuning range and with Q factor above 200. Lumped element bias lines for these amplifier circuits have been developed with MEM inductors that are suspended in air and have very low parasitic capacitance, allowing for high resonant frequencies. The capacitors and inductors can be assembled on any substrate for true heterogeneous integration.


In the study of the stoichiometric relationship between autotrophs and herbivores, attention has been largely focused on effects of the encountered mismatch between needs and supplies of an element on herbivore growth and ecosystem processes. Herbivore adaptation to poor food quality has rarely been investigated. This study presents a predictive model of feeding, assimilation, digestion and excretion of Daphnia facing a dietary deficiency in phosphorus. Biochemical compounds in the food were divided into phosphorous and non-phosphorus compounds. It was assumed that Daphnia is able to differently assimilate both types of compounds by regulation of target specific digestive enzymes. Feeding rate was regulated by optimal gut residence time of food particles, and assimilation efficiency by gut residence time and optimal secretion of both classes of gut enzymes. The model predicted the optimal strategy for a consumer facing an elementally imbalanced diet: (1) increase the ingestion rate, and (2) increase the secretion rate of both classes of gut enzymes. It resulted in decreased C and nutrient assimilation efficiencies, increased C feeding costs, and reduced growth rate. Sensitivity analysis showed that these predictions were qualitatively not influenced by parameter values. An alternative model was tested that includes an additive term allowing the direct excretion of C assimilated in excess. Results showed that this strategy is not optimal for the consumer growth rate. In conclusion, the model supports the hypothesis that carbon ingested in excess may generate energy that can be used to obtain more nutrients by increased feeding rate.


The purpose of this essay is to propose and justify a theory of the proper role of the lawyer faced with issues involving civil disobedience. Given the assumption that civil disobedience sometimes is morally proper, the more difficult question concerns whether civil disobedience might be proper in certain circumstances for general (nonlawyer) citizens, yet still improper for the lawyer, either as individual or as counselor. As described in Part IA, by becoming a member of the legal profession the lawyer takes on special responsibilities, which require the lawyer to make certain personal and professional sacrifices. As described in Part IB, our American legal system, with its Constitution, Bill of Rights, and emphasis on democracy, causes many people to see a close correlation between the rule of law (the notion that there are certain principles of justice with which both governments and individuals must comply) and positive law (the pronouncements of legislatures, courts, and administrative entities). Part IC sets out why, in light of this close identification between positive law and the rule of law, lawyers have a special obligation to act in accordance with the law. Part II of this article discusses the lawyer as counselor. When serving as a counselor, the lawyer provides both raw information and discussion to help the client make a fully informed decision. The lawyer's role as counselor includes informing the client of his or her options within the law. In order to fulfill this responsibility, the lawyer must be able to have a wide ranging discussion with the client. Any limitations on the lawyer's discussion come from according proper respect for the client's autonomy.


Among the many writers and artists involved in the « Yes » campaign for the Scottish Independence Referendum in September 2014, the author and performer Alan Bissett stands out. His fervent commitment, as part of National Collective, involved speechmaking at rallies, public debating, poetry recitals on- and off-line, and the creation of referendum-themed poetry, plays and essays. His international(ist) socialism is paradoxically combined with a firm belief in the necessity for an independent republic, as opposed to the Scottish National Party vision of an independent state in which the current monarchy and establishment ethos still have a place. At the same time, he recognises the vital role played by the Scottish National Party and Alex Salmond in triggering the popular will for independence. Popularising key issues through his cultural productions, in varying registers and tones, he confirmed the need for an alternative way of doing politics. His commitment continues today for the upcoming Holyrood elections in May 2016. As a politically committed creative, he will be involved in the brand new party RISE (Respect, Independence, Socialism, Environmentalism) Scotland's Left Alliance.


ABSTRACT A method to rapidly generate gene replacement constructs by fusion PCR is described for Aspergillus nidulans. The utility of the approach is demonstrated by green fluorescent protein (GFP) tagging of A. nidulans ndc80 to visualize centromeres through the cell cycle. The methodology makes possible large-scale GFP tagging, promoter swapping, and deletion analysis of A. nidulans.


BACKGROUND
antibiotic-associated diarrhoea caused by Clostridium difficile is increasing in hospitals, and older people are at particular risk.

OBJECTIVE
to establish whether reducing patient exposure to injectable third-generation cephalosporins by substituting alternative antibiotics can produce a cost-effective reduction in the incidence of antibiotic-associated diarrhoea.

DESIGN
we prospectively investigated 2157 patients admitted to the department of elderly medicine in the year before introduction of antibiotic restrictions and 2037 patients admitted in the following year. Patients admitted to other wards, where antibiotic prescribing was unchanged, acted as controls.

SETTING
a 900-bed teaching hospital in Cambridge, UK.

MEASUREMENTS
use and cost of injectable antibiotics prescribed in the department of elderly medicine and the other wards studied; occurrence of C. difficile-associated diarrhoea.

RESULTS
in the wards for older people, consumption of injectable cephalosporins fell by 92% (compared with 8% on other wards) and cases of C. difficile-associated diarrhoea fell from 98 to 45 (cases in other wards rose from 213 to 253; P < 0.001). The Pound Sterling 8062 increase in injectable antibiotic costs on the elderly wards were offset by the release of 1087 wasted bed-days attributable to the 53 fewer cases, with potential savings of Pound Sterling 212,000.

CONCLUSIONS
restricting the consumption of injectable third-generation cephalosporins is a cost-effective method of reducing the incidence of C. difficile-associated diarrhoea.


Abstract This article will explore the role and visibility of advertising during the Super Bowl over the years as a model for strategies of modern advertising and the resulting commercialization of US society. It uses the concepts of 'spectacular consumption' derived from Guy Debord and the 'commodity audience' from Dallas Smythe to frame the commercials' cultural transformation and influence. The spectacular nature of Super Bowl commercials and the special commodity worth of its audience were not present in the early days of the event, but gained momentum with Super Bowl XVII and its airing of Apple's '1984' commercial that became mythologized in the advertising industry. After 1984, both the rising inflation-adjusted CPM ('cost-per-thousand') and the increased media coverage indicate an increased spectacularization. This also manifested in such phenomena as the influential, decades-long Doritos user-generated content contests and the Greatest Super Bowl Commercials TV specials, and was a forerunner of such post-millennial advertising strategies as branded entertainment and content marketing, all designed to integrate advertising as a legitimate form of entertainment culture and prevent the avoidance of advertising by audiences.


Space information networks (SINs) have become a rapidly growing global infrastructure service. Massive volumes of high-resolution images and videos captured by low-orbit satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles have provided a rich training data source for machine learning applications. However, SIN devices' limited communication and computation resources make it challenging to perform machine learning efficiently with a swarm of SIN devices. In this article, we propose Spacedml, a distributed machine learning system for SIN platforms that applies dynamic model compression techniques to adapt distributed machine learning training to SINs' limited bandwidth and unstable connectivity. Spaced-ml has two key algorithm:s adaptive loss-aware quantization, which compresses models without sacrificing their quality, and partial weight averaging, which selectively averages active clients' partial model updates. These algorithms jointly improve communication efficiency and enhance the scalability of distributed machine learning with SIN devices. We evaluate Spacedml by training a LeNet-S model on the MNIST dataset. The experimental results show that Spacedml can increase model accuracy by 2–3 percent and reduce communication bandwidth consumption by up to 60 percent compared to the baseline algorithm.


The causal revolution has stimulated interest in understanding complex relationships in various fields. Most of the existing methods aim to discover causal relationships among all variables within a complex large-scale graph. However, in practice, only a small subset of variables in the graph are relevant to the outcomes of interest. Consequently, causal estimation with the full causal graph -- particularly given limited data -- could lead to numerous falsely discovered, spurious variables that exhibit high correlation with, but exert no causal impact on, the target outcome. In this paper, we propose learning a class of necessary and sufficient causal graphs (NSCG) that exclusively comprises causally relevant variables for an outcome of interest, which we term causal features. The key idea is to employ probabilities of causation to systematically evaluate the importance of features in the causal graph, allowing us to identify a subgraph relevant to the outcome of interest. To learn NSCG from data, we develop a necessary and sufficient causal structural learning (NSCSL) algorithm, by establishing theoretical properties and relationships between probabilities of causation and natural causal effects of features. Across empirical studies of simulated and real data, we demonstrate that NSCSL outperforms existing algorithms and can reveal crucial yeast genes for target heritable traits of interest.


Objectives
Macrophage activation has become implicated in the pathogenesis of obesity and type 2 diabetes that are now recognized as chronic pro-inflammatory diseases.However, the mechanisms by which macrophages mediated the enhanced inflammation associated with metabolic defects are not completely understood.This study examined whether 1-20 μM asaronic acid (2,4,5-trimethoxybenzoic acid), identified as one of purple perilla constituents, counteracted inflammatory activation of diabetic macrophages with M1 phenotypes through blocking NF-κB pathway/JAK-STAT signaling.

Methods
J774A.1 murine macrophages were incubated with 2 μg/ml lipopolysaccharide (LPS) or 33 mM glucose in the absence and presence of 1-20 μΜ asaronic acid, which led to M1 or diabetic inflammatory state at 48 h. The M1 macrophage biomarkers were estimated by conducting Western blot analysis, IHC and ELISA with specific antibodies. Asaronic acid at ≤20 μM was nontoxic during 72 h-incubation.

Results
The presence of asaronic acid reduced the LPS-promoted secretion of pro-inflammatory IL-6 and MCP-1. LPS elevated the induction of the M1 markers of toll-like receptor 4, CD36 and CD68 in macrophages. The LPS exposure to macrophages enhanced NF-κB transactivation, STAT1/STAT3 activation and SOCS3 induction. However, asaronic acid suppressed the aforementioned effects of LPS. On the other hand, high glucose stimulated macrophages to express advanced glycation end products, receptor for AGE , hypoxia inducible factor-1α and VEGF. Furthermore, glucose enhanced the induction of TLR4 and inducible nitric oxide synthase and IL-6 production in macrophages. Asaronic acid encumbered NF-κB transactivation, activation of JAK2, STAT1/STAT3, and SOCS3 induction in glucose- supplemented macrophages.

Conclusions
These results clearly demonstrated for the first time that asaronic acid may limit diabetic inflammatory activation of macrophages toward the M1 phenotype through inhibition of TLR4- and IL-6-mediated NF-κB pathway/JAK-STAT signaling entailing AGE-RAGE interaction.

Funding Sources
This work (Grants No. C0501612) was supported by project for Cooperative R&D between Industry, Academy, and Research Institute funded Korea Ministry of SMEs and Startups in 20.


This commentary responds to an article by Melissa Grant, Lucy Vernall and Kirsty Hill in Research for All (Grant et al. , 2018) that assessed the impact of broadcast programming through quantitative and qualitative evidence. In that piece, the authors attended exclusively
 to the uptake by, and attitudes of, end users. But viewer or social media statistics can paint a patchy picture, and feedback groups recreate an unusually attentive mode of reception. This commentary argues for an alternative or complementary emphasis on the participation of academics in producing
 broadcast programming for the purposes of writing REF impact templates. In highlighting the process of programme-making rather than the reception of a completed output, the commentary seeks to 'read' academic impact on the media in a more dynamic way, and speaks to the sometimes substantial
 and substantive involvement of academics prior to a programme's broadcast and its ultimate effects in the public sphere. Indeed, a focus on the 'front-loaded' impact by academics in the media, and on their longer-term institutional ripple effects, offers evidence that is more easily captured
 than establishing the attitudes of audiences. The latter are notoriously difficult to determine and, as Grant et al .'s (2018) data show, do not always do justice to the importance of media work as part of impactful academic activity.


[1] Among the various factors affecting recruitment of marine invertebrates and fish, larval transport may produce spatial and temporal patterns of abundance that are important determinants of management strategies. Here we conducted a field and modeling study to investigate the larval transport of eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica, in Mobile Bay and eastern Mississippi Sound, Alabama. A three-dimensional larval transport model accounting for physical transport, biological movement of larvae, and site- and larval-specific conditions was developed. A hydrodynamic model was used to simulate physical transport, and biological movement was parameterized as a function of swimming and sinking velocity of oyster larvae. Site- and larval-specific conditions, including spawning location, spawning stock size, spawning time, and larval period, were determined based on the previous studies. The model reasonably reproduced the observed gradient in oyster spat settlement and bivalve larval concentration, although the model results were less dynamic than the data, probably owing to the simplified biological conditions employed in the model. A persistent gradient decreasing from west to east in the model results at time scales of overall average, season, and each survey in 2006 suggests that the larval supply may be responsible for the corresponding gradient in oyster spat settlement observed over the past 40 years. Biological movement increased larval retention near the spawning area, thus providing a favorable condition for local recruitment of oysters. Inclusion of biological movement, however, caused little change in the overall patterns of larval transport and still resulted in a west-east gradient, presumably because of frequent destratification in the shallow Mobile Bay system.


Part I of this book sets the stage for this collection. In Chapter 1, Ronald Burke and Debra Major begin by positioning the chapters that follow. Talented women continue to have difficulty advancing their careers worldwide. Organizations are gendered; they were created by men for men. Women feel uncomfortable in them, are disadvantaged, and face barriers to advancement. They argue that examining men, masculinity, and gendered organizations adds to our understanding of why women have made so little progress over the past two decades, how men can be allies in changing organizations, and that there are benefits to men, women, families, and organizations if more men get on board. Male privilege has yielded both benefits and costs. Men with daughters and men seeing the value of using the best talent available to achieve business results, are more likely to 'get it'. Other factors such as having had a working mother, more working partners, women now earning more than their partners, more women in professional schools, more women in the workplace, and more men interested in fatherhood also play a role. Potential benefits to men, women, families, and workplaces are likely to occur when men become allies instead of observers or adversaries. The second part of the book considers the downside of masculinity. Ronald Levant and Thomas Rankin review in Chapter 2 the literature on the gender role socialization of boys into men. Gender roles are psychologically and socially constructed and they have both advantages and disadvantages. Men thus score higher on variables associated with men and masculinity. Building on the gender role strain paradigm, violating gender roles results in negative consequences, particularly for men, and some of the prescribed masculine gender role traits are dysfunctional (e.g., restricted emotions). Through social interactions associated with rewards and punishments, boys and men behave in line with male norms by exhibiting masculine behaviors. Boys and men come to believe that they should behave in these ways. The gender role strain paradigm, however, is associated with three types of strains: discrepancy, dysfunction, and trauma. The authors go on to show how gender role


Medical practice today still entails sorting through scattered information on a specific patient. Making things more difficult, the EU, in bringing its member states closer together, is encouraging people's mobility, and raises thus the desire for treatment wherever and whenever necessary. Aware of such a problem, the EU has been fostering the adoption of interoperable electronic health records since the early '90s, but an optimal solution has not yet been found. The current trend is in building up a European Patient Summary as a virtual common infrastructure for accessing citizens' critical health data with respect to interoperability, multilingualism and security-privacy issues. However, such a demanding objective seems difficult to achieve with available technologies. For this reason we aim at evaluating the development of a patient summary based on Triple Space Computing, an innovative paradigm that is significantly moving towards a new era of the Internet, in which communication is achieved via Semantic Web Services based on persistent publication of information instead of messaging.


Introduction The ILLUMINATE study evaluated the superiority of the once-daily QVA149 110/50µg, a dual bronchodilator combining the LABA indacaterol and the LAMA glycopyrronium, compared to twice-daily LABA/ICS, salmeterol/fluticasone 50/500µg (SFC), in terms of efficacy, safety and tolerability in patients (pts) with moderate-to-severe COPD. This analysis reports the efficacy and safety of QVA149 vs. SFC in the sub-group population using fixed-dose LABA/ICS prior to study enrollment. Methods 122 pts on LABA/ICS prior to study entry were randomized to QVA149 (n=54) and SFC (n=68). FEV 1 area under the curve for 0-12h (AUC 0-12h ), pre-dose trough FEV 1 , rescue medication use, exacerbations and safety were assessed after 26wks. Results QVA149 significantly improved FEV 1 AUC 0-12h , pre-dose trough FEV 1 and reduced rescue medication use in COPD pts regardless of previous LABA/ICS use at study entry (Table). Number of exacerbations (QVA149: 23; SFC: 41) and pts with incidence of adverse events (QVA149: 50%; SFC: 55.9%) was numerically lower with QVA149. Conclusion In the subpopulation previously treated with LABA/ICS, QVA149 demonstrated significant improvements in lung function and rescue therapy use compared to SFC. These results were consistent with the overall study population.


To the Editor. —The medical lecture and the television news program share some common goals. Both must capture the audience's attention, transmit information, and generate interest in tuning in again. Despite these common goals, anArchiveseditorial 1 advised medical lecturers to avoid an effective news program strategy: plenty of visual material. Visual aids, including text displays, diagrams, maps, and photographs, abound on news programs. A rapidly presented sequence of pictures can explain an issue step by step. Frequent picture changes can maintain viewer interest. On television, pictures are most numerous when the pressure for effective communication is greatest: during the commercials. Surprisingly, theArchiveseditorial called for generally limiting the number of lecture slides and spending three to five minutes on each one. Such a slow pace would bore a television viewer. Why does the editorial, which cites many empiric studies, call for such a pace? Wouldn't a series


A comparative analysis of combination of local decompression and the impulse complex-modulated electromagnetic therapy for patients with the Raynaud disease has shown the expediency of this method giving good immediate results. The method proposed gives an additional curative effect consisting in the improvement of regional and capillary blood circulation after 10 sessions, as a rule, and may be recommended for wide use under conditions of polyclinic.


We have prepared tailored small arrays of single-domain Ninanomagnets exhibiting an easy-axis perpendicular to the substrate surface. Using ballistic Hall micromagnetometry we probe the magnetization under different tilt angles. For an array of 13 nanomagnets with 700 nm spacing, we observe distinct plateau values in the hysteresis loop indicating the stepwise switching of these particles. The observed hierarchy of reversal comes close to a model on the basis of the magnetostatic interparticle interaction.


"The trees importance to the street" discusses just that, the trees importance to the street. The purpose of this paper has been to examine what influence the trees have on streets. By writing about good examples of how trees can add good qualities to a street I wish to inspire to more use of trees in future city-planning.
I have examined three streets in Malmo and three streets in Berlin and analyzed the trees influences there through the help of literature by three authors: Great Streets (1993) and The Boulevard Book (2002) by Allan B. Jacobs, Trees in Urban Design (1993) by Henry F. Arnold, and City Planning According to Artistic Principles (1909) by Camillo Sitte. Trees and their different qualities and influences is handled in the chapters: The trees symbolism, The trees aesthetics, Identity, Trees as room shapers, Trees & the City and Species & Ecology.
The examined streets in Malmo are: Kungsgatan, Regementsgatan and Mjolnaregatan.
In Berlin I looked closer at Unter den Linden, Lychener strasse and Am Tempelhofer Berg. The streets physical environment is described in text, sections and plans. The trees influences on each street is described separately along with a sketch. A fictional dialogue between me and the tree authors, enlivens the analysis of the trees influences on the streets.
In the chapter Tree- and Green plans I have looked at how Gothenburgs Tree policy and Malmos Tree- and Green plan view trees in the city. None of them really mention the trees influences in the city or how they function as city-planning element, even though they said themselves to do so.
What I arrive at in my paper is that how the trees influence has very much to do with the surroundings it co-operates with. The relations is of great importance.
B
ased on measurements taken on the examined streets and comparing them to Jacobs ideal street height – width relation, I have discovered that Jacobs numbers are a bit to tight, at least when it comes to tree lined streets. The trees fill out the space between the houses, they can make wide streets seem narrower, and narrow streets seem wider.
I have also compared tree and house height based on Arnolds statement that the trees should follow the houses scale. Through this I have seen that the streets that have trees and houses about the same height are those who has the best experience. The very best experienced street is the one where the trees are slightly higher than the houses.
Regarding placing and spacing it'
s hard to draw conclusions, since these have been very much alike in all the examined streets (except for one street where the trees were placed both with smaller and greater spacing).
Trees planted along streets lined with houses often have similar influences because of the similar room they're influencing upon: they give the street a roof, bring down the scale, separate the pedestrian sphere from the cars sphere (depending on how they're placed) and add a great number of sensory impressions which differs specie to specie. Generally I think that variation is good, both in species and placing, but of course always adapted to fit the given situation.


We demonstrated a sensitive and selective adenosine deaminase (ADA) detection by modulating the fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) between cationic conjugated poly(9,9-bis(6'-N,N,N-trimethylammonium) hexyl)fluorine phenylene) (PFP) and the deoxyguanosine-tailored hairpin aptamer. The hairpin aptamer was labeled with a fluorophore FAM at one end and three deoxyguanosines (Gs) at the other end as a quencher. In the absence of ADA, aptamer forms hairpin-like conformation with adenosines making close affinity of Gs and FAM, which results in the weak FRET from PFP to FAM because of FAM fluorescence being quenched by Gs via photoinduced electron transfer (PET). After addition of ADA, adenosine was hydrolyzed by ADA, followed by the release of free aptamer. In this case, FAM being far away from Gs, the strong FRET thus was obtained due to the quenching process being blocked. Therefore, the new strategy based on the FRET ratio enhancement is reasonably used to detect the ADA sensitively, combining the fluorescence signal amplification of conjugated polymers with the initiative signal decreasing by Gs. The detection limit of the ADA assay is 0.3 U/L in both buffer solution and human serum, which is more sensitive than most of those previously documented methods. Importantly, the assay is rapid, homogeneous, and simple without a complicated treating process. The ADA inhibitor, erythro-9-(2-hydroxy-3-nonyl) adenine hydrochloride (EHNA), was also studied based on this assay, and the detection limit of EHNA is 10 pM. This strategy provides a new platform for the detection of other biomolecules and enzymes.


Abstract : A preliminary study of atomization mechanisms in gas-centered swirl-coaxial injectors for use in rocket engines has been undertaken. Gas-centered swirl-coaxial injectors differ from other injectors in that atomization occurs from a wall-bounded liquid. Few studies of atomization mechanisms in wall-bounded flows exist; some probable atomization processes have been determined, however. These mechanisms include liquid turbulence, aerodynamic stripping and a process driven by gas-phase structures. The likely character of the gas and film undergoing these atomization processes is presented. Relevant nondimensional groupings based on simplified theoretical descriptions of select mechanisms are outlined. Preliminary experimental and numerical results taken at atmospheric pressure are qualitatively compared to the likely mechanisms and each other.


An enhancement in the performance of P3HT:SWNT bulk heterojunction solar cell was achieved by using a buffer layer of P3HT between the anode and the bulk layer. The buffer layer improved the shunt resistance of the device (1 wt% SWNT) from 25 kΩ to 400 kΩ. This resulted in the increase of open circuit voltage from 0.06 V to 0.45 V. Because of the increased thickness, the light absorbed by the device increased resulting in the short circuit current density, Jsc, to improve from 2.54 µA cm−2 to 13.25 µA cm−2. Variation of SWNT content in P3HT showed that the optimum concentration of SWNTs is near 0.25 wt% which gave the highest open circuit voltage, Voc, of 0.53 V. Dark characteristics of these devices show a ohmic behavior at low voltages indicating that addition of SWNTs resulted in increased residual charges. Reverse photocurrent of the devices is found to increase considerably with higher concentration of SWNTs. Spectral response of the devices show that SWNTs do not contribute to generation of photocurrent. Thus, we conclude that SWNTs help only in charge transport in P3HT devices. Use of Ca cathode increased Jsc to 16.4 µA cm−2 and Voc to 0.65 V because of the higher built-in field.


This research work deals with efficient resource utilization in the downlink of cellular networks which use Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access, as the Long Term Evolution of 3GPP technology. Efficiency is considered first of all in an intra-cell context, where Base Stations exploit the multiuser diversity by adaptive resource allocation. Then, the focus is extended to a scenario with several adjacent Base Stations belonging to different network operators, and a new paradigm is explored. Instead of the classical static orthogonal division of the spectrum, a spectrum sharing approach is introduced where operators share part of their frequencies. Game Theory is the mathematical tool used to model the systems in both steps. Simulative approach is employed for the quantitative evaluation.


Bacterial contamination is a public health concern worldwide causing enormous social and economic losses. For early diagnosis and adequate management to prevent or treat pathogen-related illnesses, extensive effort has been put into the development of pathogenic bacterial detection systems. Colorimetric sensing systems have attracted increasing attention due to their simple and single-site operation, rapid signal readout with the naked eye, ability to operate without external instruments, portability, compact design, and low cost. In this article, recent trends and advances in colorimetric systems for the detection and monitoring of bacterial contamination are reviewed. This article focuses on pathogen detection strategies and technologies based on reaction factors that affect the color change for visual readout. Reactions used in each strategy are introduced by dividing them into the following five categories: external pH change-induced pH indicator reactions, intracellular enzyme-catalyzed chromogenic reactions, enzyme-like nanoparticle (NP)-catalyzed substrate reactions, NP aggregation-based reactions, and NP accumulation-based reactions. Some recently developed colorimetric systems are introduced, and their challenges and strategies to improve the sensing performance are discussed.


Recently there has been a resurgence of interest in the analysis of job satisfaction variables. Job satisfaction is correlated with labour market behaviour such as productivity, quits and absenteeism. In this paper four different measures of job satisfaction are related to a variety of personal and job characteristics. The data used are from the 28 240 British employees in the Workplace Employee Relations Survey, 1997. This data set is larger and more recent than in any previous studies. Four measures of job satisfaction that have not previously been used are considered: satisfaction with influence over job; satisfaction with amount of pay; satisfaction with sense of achievement; and satisfaction with respect from supervisors. The paper contributes to the literature by analysing job satisfaction with respect to industrial composition and occupations. One of the striking findings is that those in the education and health sectors are less satisfied with their pay but more satisfied with their sense of achievement. Further, it is found that employees who received job training were more satisfied than those who had no training opportunities. Unlike previous studies, it is found that married individuals have lower job satisfaction levels than the unmarried. Other results confirm those in the literature, such as women being more satisfied than men, and a U-shaped relationship between satisfaction and age.


From the Publisher:
This exciting workbook uses actual projects from fields of engineering, architecture, and business to demonstrate how to transform static drawing, storyboards, and preliminary sketches into professional-quality, 3D models, rendering, and animations. The book begins with an overview of the basic process of animation, taking the reader through the discrete steps of concept development and storyboarding, model construction, scene layout, animation setup, and final editing and composition. Working with tutorial assignments provided with Autodesk, Inc.'s 3D Studio program and additional exercises developed by the authors, readers then explore in detail the skills involved in modeling, rendering, and animating their designs. The book concludes with four in-depth 3D modeling projects that demonstrate how 3D Studio is used to create a manufactured product assembly, an engineering process model, an architectural walk-through, and a company logo. In this exciting hands-on book, Duff and Ross not only demonstrate the graphic capabilities of 3D Studio, but empower readers to create their own design and product visualizations, following a well-defined and understandable procedure used by graphics professionals.


We present an unusual case of a delayed right ventricular perforation by a single standard-caliber implantable cardioverter-defibrillator lead, which manifested 14 days after implantation. Multidetector computed tomography could clearly display the lead perforation, and allow for identification of the associated sequelae such as pericardial effusion and planning the lead extraction strategy.


Phase Fresnel lenses have the same imaging properties as zone plates, but with the possibility of concentrating all of the incident power into the primary focus, increasing the maximum theoretical efficiency from 11% to close to 100%. For X-rays, and in particular for gamma-rays, large, diffraction-limited phase Fresnel lenses can be made relatively easily. The focal length is very long - for example up to a million kms. However, the correspondingly high 'plate-scale' of the image means that the ultra-high (sub-micro-arc-second) angular resolution possible with a diffraction limited gamma-ray lens a few meters in diameter can be exploited with detectors having mm spatial resolution. The potential of such systems for ultra-high angular resolution astronomy, and for attaining the sensitivity improvements desperately needed for certain other studies, are reviewed and the advantages and disadvantages vis-a-vis alternative approaches are discussed. We report on reduced-scale 'proof-of-principle tests' which are planned and on mission studies of the implementation of a Fresnel telescope on a space mission with lens and detector on two spacecraft separated by one million km. Such a telescope would be capable of resolving emission from super-massive black holes on the scale of their event horizons and would have the sensitivity necessary to detect gamma-ray lines from distant supernovae. We show how diffractive/refractive optics leads to a continuum of possible system designs between filled aperture lenses and wideband interferometric arrays.


The structural development of what we understand as cadence has a long and complex history associated with an awareness and appreciation of musical elements assimilated by a decodification process that is related to adapted morphology. Thus, the connection between music and text goes beyond its joint praxis: it lends structural elements from its main vehicle (text), engendering a true corpus grammaticae musicae . In general terms, this principle resulted in parameters from both synchronic and diachronic dimensions, i.e., a specific set of intervals with a particular melodic progression. The argument presented in this study aims to exam the musical treatises through the end of the fifteenth century in testimonies that contain evidence that corroborate a probable dichotomy between understanding of cadence as a "metaphor of instability" and "conclusive unity"'.


The sizing process is necessary to analyze the electromagnetic characteristics according to the major shape parameters during the early design stage of permanent magnet synchronous motors (PMSMs). However, predicting the performance of PMSMs with 2-D finite element analysis (FEA) has errors due to axial leakage flux. Therefore, the axial leakage flux should be considered in the sizing process. The most accurate way to consider the axial leakage flux is to perform 3-D FEA, but it has a disadvantage of high computational cost. In this view, we propose a deep transfer learning-based surrogate modeling method to reduce the computational cost for calculating 3-D FEA-based motor parameters. The transfer learning is conducted using a large amount of 2-D FEA-based and small amount of 3-D FEA-based motor parameters. Using the proposed process, it is possible to accurately predict the motor characteristics according to size-related variables that satisfy the required specifications with small amount of 3-D FEA-based motor parameters. The proposed method was verified through 3-D FEA and experiments for pancake-type PMSMs, which is highly affected by axial leakage flux.


Fuzzy rule interpolation (FRI) is of particular significance for reasoning in the presence of insufficient knowledge or sparse rule bases. As one of the most popular FRI methods, transformation-based fuzzy rule interpolation (TFRI) works by constructing an intermediate fuzzy rule, followed by running scale and move transformations. The process of intermediate rule construction selects a user-defined number of rules closest to an observation that does not match any existing rule, using a distance metric. It relies upon heuristically computed weights to assess the contribution of individual selected rules. This process requires a move operation in an effort to force the intermediate rule to overlap with an unmatched observation, regardless of what rules are selected and how much contribution they may each make. It is, therefore, desirable to avoid this problem and also to improve the automation of rule interpolation without resorting to the user's intervention for fixing the number of closest rules. This article proposes such a novel approach to selecting a subset of rules from the sparse rule base with an embedded rule weighting scheme for the automatic assembling of the intermediate rule. Systematic comparative experimental results are provided on a range of benchmark datasets to demonstrate statistically significant improvement in the performance achieved by the proposed approach over that obtainable using conventional TFRI.


Flipped Classroom is an instructional strategy that acquired students to gain necessary knowledge before class. This study determined the use of flipped classroom in teaching General Mathematics to Grade 11 students of Senior High School. The pre-test and post-test questionnaires were administered to the respondents under the supervision of the assigned researcher for easy access and ready to answer concerns of the given questions. This quantitative research study used the pre-experimental design. The data were collected, tallied, analyze and summarize using the t-test statistics. The following conclusions were hereby presented: pre-test and post-test scores has significant difference which means the improvement is observable in using flipped classroom style in General Mathematics academic performance of students. Students are very satisfied with the use of flipped classroom, however, traditional way like lecture was more favorable by them in learning General Mathematics subject.


The tube flap technique is an old and safe distant flap for soft tissue reconstruction, and tissue expansion is a well known way of repairing adjacent soft tissue defects. We have experience of expanding a tube flap during the last transferring stage for reconstruction of the face and neck after a burn. The tube flap from the right acromiopectoral region, of which the two pedicled stumps had been transferred to the face and neck separately, was successfully extended to double its length in 17 days without changing the diameter of the flap by placing a tissue expander under the tube flap. The tube flap tolerates tissue expansion well, even after the pedicles of the flap have been transplanted to new positions. In this way, a tube flap can be enlarged by tissue expansion when it is used in certain cases of reconstruction.


In the late 1700s, a composer, orchestra director and soloist named William Herschel became fascinated with astronomy, and, having built his own reflecting telescope, went out in his garden in Bath, England, one night and discovered Uranus - the first planet in human history ever found by an individual. The feat earned him a lifetime pension from King George III. But Herschel considered the discovery to be relatively unimportant in comparison to his real work: understanding the composition, structure and evolution of the universe. In pursuing that work, he became the first observational cosmologist.


Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) victims are difficult to describe physically because they seem outwardly indistinguishable in nearly all characteristics from infants (alive or dead) of comparable chronological age. Relative (allometric) size of vital organ and body weights has not been examined among SIDS victims. In the present study, autopsy organ and body weights for 152 SIDS deaths (1–12 months) were compared with the results of 115 controls that were trauma or illness‐related death (0.25–12 months). A pattern of abnormal relative size in vital organs (brain, heart, liver, and kidney) was revealed. In allometric regressions, increase in the weights of the organs relative to total body weight among SIDS victims were approximately three times the increase among controls in the first year of life. This finding indicates a disturbance of normal patterns of vital organ size of SIDS victims that is of unknown etiology. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 12:382–387, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


The paper represents the results of research of some functional indices of blood plasma and erythrocytes in rats obtained on days 1 and 5 after exposure of the organism to low intensive electromagnetic irradiation (EMI) with 900 MHz frequency using the following two irradiation schemes: single 2 h/1 day and fractional 0.5 h/4 days. According to the data obtained, a significant increase of lipid peroxidation (LPO) intensity is registered in animal erythrocyte membranes after the influence of 900 MHz frequency EMI irrespective of the scheme applied. Inhibition of the activity of low-molecular non-enzymatic water-soluble blood antioxidants and enhancement of blood plasma LPO processes is observed on the background of a single prolonged exposure. Stimulation of the antioxidant activity with an abrupt decrease in the blood LPO activity takes place after exposure to fractional irradiation. Single long-lasting exposure, rather than intermittent shortterm exposure to 900 MHz frequency EMI facilitates the appearance of shifts in the activity of Ca(2+)-dependent K(+)-channels of erythrocytes and hyperpolarization of erythrocytes membranes.


We investigated the gas-phase fragmentation reactions of a series of 2-aroylbenzofuran derivatives by electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (ESI-MS/MS). The most intense fragment ions were the acylium ions m/z 105 and [M+H-C6 H6 ]+ , which originated directly from the precursor ion as a result of 2 competitive hydrogen rearrangements. Eliminations of CO and CO2 from [M+H-C6 H6 ]+ were also common fragmentation processes to all the analyzed compounds. In addition, eliminations of the radicals •Br and •Cl were diagnostic for halogen atoms at aromatic ring A, whereas eliminations of •CH3 and CH2 O were useful to identify the methoxyl group attached to this same ring. We used thermochemical data, obtained at the B3LYP/6-31+G(d) level of theory, to rationalize the fragmentation pathways and to elucidate the formation of E, which involved simultaneous elimination of 2 CO molecules from B.


There is growing interest among historians of late medieval and early modern Europe in the concept of resistance for understanding women and power. Researchers are beginning to look beyond religious women's overt and well-documented forms of opposition to reform efforts that increasingly restricted their physical enclosure; they contend that these women also resisted through more subtle cultural means, such as the devotional practice of imagined pilgrimage. Yet recent studies — including one by this author — have argued unconvincingly that late medieval Dominican nuns in southwest Germany who took mental journeys to Jerusalem or Rome thereby resisted their enclosure. This article uses an approach created by the anthropologist Sherry Ortner to check and correct this resistance model. It shows that the interpretation of what imagined pilgrimage meant to and for these late medieval women is most likely an effect of scholars' present biases, both intellectual and sociocultural.


Software systems are often designed without considering their social intentionality and the software process changes required to accommodate them. With the rise of artificial intelligence and cognitive services-based systems, software can no longer be considered a passive participant in a domain. Structured and methodological approaches are required to study the intentions and motives of such software systems and their corresponding effect on the design of business and software processes that interact with these software systems. This paper considers chatbots as domain example for illustrating the complexities of designing such intentional and intelligent systems, and the resultant changes and reconfigurations in processes. A mechanism of associating process architecture models and actor models is presented. The modeling and analysis of two types of chatbots retrieval-based and generative are shown using both process architecture and actor models.


By Edmund Leach, Biological Sciences
Advisor: Annette Rowe
Presentation ID: AM_ATRIUM11
Abstract: The ability of organisms to utilize reduced electrons from an electrode for respiration and biosynthesis has been investigated. However, the mechanistic and bioenergetic understanding of direct electron uptake is limited. Using microscopic techniques with electrochemical conditions probing for electron uptake, we sought to investigate conditions that support respiration and NADH production in an electrode oxidizing model system(s). The Alphaproteobacteria, Thioclava electrotropha and Gamaproteobacteria, Idomarina loihiensis were both isolated from a marine sediment using electrodes. These organisms also grow heterotrophically, making them a potential ideal model system. To investigate the metabolic consequences of electron uptake, we propose to utilize microscopic techniques that relate cellular electrochemical gradient (Nernstian voltage indicator, Tht) and NADH concentration (NADH-binding protein Peredox). To establish the validity of fluorescent markers for biosynthetic capacity and respiration, T. electrotropha and I. loihiensis were studied under different growth conditions where the concentration of acetate and/or the presence of oxygen was used to modulate energetic state. It was confirmed under the microscope that certain concentrations of acetate affect the NADH concentration of I. loihiensis. Also that the electrochemical gradient of T. electrotropha is proven to be affected by different acetate concentrations and oxygen states. Given preliminary results grounding truth in the utility of these fluorescent markers, electron uptake in both T. electrotropha and I. loihiensis can be investigated under various poised electrochemical conditions. This study will help in understanding the bioenergetic consequences of electron uptake in microorganisms and potentially the link between respiration and biosynthesis in electrode oxidizing organisms.


Previous research has described age-related changes in children's attributions for deviant behaviors. This research has suggested that children begin to develop a social psychiatric theory of deviant behavior by the end of the elementary school years. The current study extended this line of investigation to examine attributions for deviance by early and middle adolescents. Results suggested that adolescents view deviant behavior as caused not only by social and environmental factors but also by nonrational internal psychological states.


Background The Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) developed infections that caused serious epidemics. Special priority of awareness and prompt initiative involvement of health workers (HW) during such intensified health situation necessitated an assessment of their preparedness, appropriate attitudes and protective strategies for better efficiency modes and acceleration during emergency. Methods HW of Prince Sultan Military Medical city in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia were reviewed through specifically designed questionnaires to acquire the demanded data. It included clinical and demographic information about the viral diseases, associated signs and symptoms, transmission and protection, and attitudes about the MERS-CoV disease. Results The study was accomplished between August and November, 2017 and 477 participants of the medical city, successfully completed the study questionnaire (Appendix I). Females represented a majority and there was an indirectly proportional decrease with the increasing age. Gradual educational increase levels reflected dominance of the university degree holders. Jobs were dominated by nurses and non-Saudis were a majority whilst, the highly experienced, (>10 years) were a minority. A majority recognized the viral transmission methods, popular information sources of MERS-CoV and associated medical terms. Highest scores were observed in dealing with protective aids and recognizing symptoms of disease. High adherence to hand hygiene protocols and correct washing steps were recorded. Correct and high levels were observed in taking preventive measures and avoiding infection. Participants responded correctly to negative and wrong actions that patients should refrain from. High scores were observed in taking appreciable attitudes towards oneself and towards others. Conclusions Expatriates were majority and nurses were dominant which, necessitates Saudization of this sector. Ministry of health pamphlets and seminars were of less impact in invigilating HW, hence, more attention and efforts are demanded. HW were quite aware of the basic and emergent health policies during epidemic episodes of MERS-CoV.


Parental relationship is an important criterion for child growth. The substantial purpose of this study was to analyse the current parental relationship and involvement practices at Early Childhood Education (ECE) centres in Malaysia and consequently propose an ideal model for parental partnerships. Findings from the qualitative study steered three major themes for discussion-current trends on parent-child relationship, the intensity of parental relationship within ECE centres and ECE centres' initiatives for parental involvement. Based on these findings, a model for parental involvement grounded by Epstein's six types of parental involvement known as Parental Relationship and Iterative Involvement Model (PRII-M) was developed


Chemical inhibition of the proteasome has been previously found to effectively impair pollen germination and tube growth in vitro. However, the mediators of these effects at the molecular level are unknown. By performing 2DE proteomic analysis, 24 differentially expressed protein spots, representing 14 unique candidate proteins, were identified in the pollen of kiwifruit (Actinidia deliciosa) germinated in the presence of the MG132 proteasome inhibitor. qPCR analysis revealed that 11 of these proteins are not up-regulated at the mRNA level, but are most likely stabilized by proteasome inhibition. These differentially expressed proteins are predicted to function in various pathways including energy and lipid metabolism, cell wall synthesis, protein synthesis/degradation and stress responses. In line with this evidence, the MG132-induced changes in the proteome were accompanied by an increase in ATP and ROS content and by an alteration in fatty acid composition.