Current Down syndrome screening strategies are based on multiple ultrasound and serum markers. The single most discriminatory marker is first-trimester ultrasound nuchal translucency (NT) measurement. However, to achieve good performance, operators need to follow a standard NT protocol, such as that promoted by The Fetal Medicine Foundation. This includes carrying out repeat measurements and using the largest value for risk calculation. In a study in this issue of the journal, Salomon et al. investigated circumstances in which just one NT measurement would be sufficient. It is a statistical fact that repeating any measurement of a marker routinely and taking the average (or the largest) value will reduce variability and hence improve discriminatory power. Indeed, it is standard practice in biochemistry to test analytes in duplicate, unless costs are very high and intra-assay variability is known to be extremely low. The reason given in this study for using a single NT measurement in selected cases is different: the measurement may be sufficiently small that repeating it is unlikely to alter the estimated Down syndrome risk. The distribution of NT in Down syndrome and unaffected pregnancies follows a log Gaussian model over most of the range, although there are limits beyond which the model deviates, and it is customary to 'truncate' risk for extreme NT levels to the nearest limit. Most risk calculation software further raises the bottom limit to avoid an apparently paradoxical situation in which lower NT is associated with a higher risk. Whilst this phenomenon may have a biological explanation, it contradicts common sense and can undermine confidence in calculated risks. Thus, there will be some low NT values which are unlikely to increase sufficiently on repeat measurement to reach the bottom truncation limit and change the risk. The authors investigate this using simulated results based on estimates of intraoperator variability from the literature together with a published risk calculator. This yields a table of crown–rump length (CRL)-specific NT cut-off values, and applying them to a series of 165 actual scans shows that in about one-quarter of these cases, repeat measurement could have been avoided. Two weaknesses are acknowledged by the authors, one concerning the published intraoperator variability, which was assumed to be unrelated to the NT level, and the other concerning the confirmatory series, which was retrospective and from a single center. They call for a prospective multioperator trial. I concur, since both average NT and variability can differ markedly between operators, profoundly affecting risks. Operator-specific parameters overcome these differences, but most risk calculators, including this study, use overall parameters. While adoption of this approach may shorten the average NT scanning time, it could have a negative consequence unforeseen by the authors. External quality assessment of NT, apart from involving review of images, relies on epidemiological performance characteristics, such as median multiples of the median (MoM), standard deviation of log MoM and slope against CRL; all three of which will be distorted if a large proportion of measurements are 'censored'. Finally, in the coming era of cell-free DNA testing, screening strategies are likely to widen the range of disorders sought by traditional markers, marginalizing the current focus on Down syndrome risk calculation.


A virus isolated from cattleya in Xiamen, China was identified as an isolate of Odontoglossum ringspot virus, based on its biological properties, particle morphology, serological characterization and RT-PCR. Mechanical inoculation test with the isolate was carried out to 27 species of 6 families of indicative plants, of which 8 species of 4 families showed symptoms. The result is different from that of Tobacco mosaic virus. The thermal inactivation point of the isolate was about 92℃~94℃, and the longevity in vitro was beyond 3 months. Electron microscopic examination of the purified virus particle preparations showed straight particles of about 300nm long and 18nm wide. The pure viral coat protein was estimated to be about 17 kDa. The serological test showed that the virus isolation reacted positively with the antiserum against ORSV while weakly with TMV antiserum. Antiserum was prepared by immunizing rabbit, and used to detect ORSV in Xiamen orchid's plant by Dot-ELISA.


Since social media gains ever increasing popularity, Online Social Networks have become important repositories for information retrieval. The concept of social search, therefore, is gradually being recognized as the next breakthrough in this field, and it is expected to dominate topics in industry. However, retrieving information from OSNs with high Quality of Experience is non-trivial as a result of the prevalence of mobile applications for social networking services. For the sake of shortening user perceived latency Web caching was introduced and has been studied extensively for years. Nevertheless, the previous works seldom focus on the Web caching solutions for social search.In the context of this master's thesis project, emphasis is given to the design of a Web caching system which is used to cache public data from social media with the objective of improving the user experience in terms of the freshness of data and the perceived service latency. To be more specific, a Web caching strategy named Staleness Bounded LRU algorithm is proposed to limit the term of validity of the cached data. In addition, a Two-Level Web Caching System that adopts the SB-LRU algorithm is proposed in order for shortening the user perceived latency.Results of trace-driven simulations and performance evaluations demonstrate that serving clients with stale data is avoided and the user perceived latencies are significantly shortened when the proposed Web caching system is used in the use case of unauthenticated social search. Besides, the design idea in this project is believed to be helpful to the design of a Web caching system for social search, which is capable of caching user specific data for different clients.


Although exposure to exocannabinoids (e.g. marijuana) is associated with adverse pregnancy outcome, little is known about the biochemistry, physiology, and consequences of endocannabinoids in human pregnancy. In these studies, we measured the levels of the endocannabinoid anandamide (N-arachidonoylethanolamine, AEA) by HPLC-mass spectrometry in 77 pregnant and 25 nonpregnant women. The mean +/- sem plasma AEA levels in the first, second, and third trimesters were 0.89 +/- 0.14, 0.44 +/- 0.12, and 0.42 +/- 0.11 nm, respectively. The levels in the first trimester were significantly higher than those in either the second or third trimester. During labor, AEA levels were 3.7 times nonlaboring term levels (2.5 +/- 0.22 vs. 0.68 +/- 0.09 nm, P < 0.0001). During the menstrual cycle, levels in the follicular phase were significantly higher than those in the luteal phase (1.68 +/- 0.16 vs. 0.87 +/- 0.09 nm, P < 0.005). Postmenopausal and luteal-phase levels were similar to those in the first trimester. These findings suggest that successful pregnancy implantation and progression requires low levels of AEA. At term, AEA levels dramatically increase during labor and are affected by the duration of labor, suggesting a role for AEA in normal labor.


A major challenge for video captioning is to combine audio and visual cues. Existing multi-modal fusion methods have shown encouraging results in video understanding. However, the temporal structures of multiple modalities at different granularities are rarely explored, and how to selectively fuse the multi-modal representations at different levels of details remains uncharted. In this paper, we propose a novel hierarchically aligned cross-modal attention (HACA) framework to learn and selectively fuse both global and local temporal dynamics of different modalities. Furthermore, for the first time, we validate the superior performance of the deep audio features on the video captioning task. Finally, our HACA model significantly outperforms the previous best systems and achieves new state-of-the-art results on the widely used MSR-VTT dataset.


A vast amount of research on nanoparticles has been conducted in recent years with versatile applications in the field of drug delivery systems. Nanoparticles are designed as a carrier molecule to deliver drugs in a sustained and stimuli response manner. Recent advances in nanotechnology have led to the development of long circulating nanoparticles with high encapsulation efficiency. This article focuses on the properties such as biocompatibility and biodegradability, which are considered as essential criteria for nanoparticles to be successfully used as a carrier molecule in drug delivery systems. Physicochemical characterization of the nanoparticles such as size and size distribution, surface morphology, zeta potential and surface chemistry has a significant role in the successful formulation and applications in drug delivery systems. Mostly, the size and surface characteristics of nanoparticles enable enhanced intracellular accumulation in tumor cells through passive targeting mechanisms and rapid development of nanoengineering, and aid towards attaining active targeting delivery by co-functionalization of nanoparticles using appropriate targeting ligands. This article reviews the recent progress and development of employing different biocompatible and biodegradable nanoparticles in drug delivery systems. It also briefly recaps the important methods available to evaluate its biocompatibility, the mechanism of biodegradability and clearance properties of NPs.


In this work we address the problem of angle estimation in a wideband array when sidelobe interference is present. We assume a typical monopulse radar system and consider two adaptive estimation techniques, the maximum likelihood (ML) approach and an approximate ML solution called the generalized adaptive multidimensional monopulse algorithm (GAMMA). We extend these techniques for a wideband array with both a tapped delay line architecture and a frequency subbanding architecture. Performance is compared to a conventional monopulse processor operating in an interference free environment and to the Cramer-Rao lower bound.


We obtain the exact solution of the bond-percolation thresholds with inhomogeneous probabilities on the square lattice. Our method is based on the duality analysis with real-space renormalization, which is a profound technique invented in the spin-glass theory. Our formulation is a more straightforward way than that of a very recent study on the same problem [R. M. Ziff et al., J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 45, 494005 (2012)]. The resultant generic formulas from our derivation can give several estimations for the bond-percolation thresholds on other lattices rather than the square lattice.


Vascular smooth muscle cell migration and proliferation are the primary events that govern neointimal thickening and thus they determine the extent to which delayed restenosis occurs after percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty. In this study, the in vitro and in vivo smooth muscle cell antichemotactic and antiproliferative properties of a 2-aminochromone, 2-(4-morpholinyl)-8-(3-pyridinylmethoxy)-4H-1-benzopyran-4-one (U-86983), were examined. Migration and proliferation of early-passage rat vascular smooth muscle cells were inhibited by U-86983 in a concentration-dependent manner (IC50S, approximately 10 microM and 3.5 microM, respectively). Longer-term studies showed that the proliferation of smooth muscle cells was inhibited by U-86983 for at least 7 days and was fully reversible on removal of the drug. In addition, the effect of U-86983 on neointimal formation was examined in rats subjected to left common carotid artery balloon dilatation injury. Continual (2-week) i.v. administration of U-86983 (216 mg kg-1 day-1) resulted in a mean plasma drug concentration of 2.39 micrograms/ml (blood level, approximately 3.5 microM) and a 42% (P = .003) reduction in the neointima/media ratio of the injured artery. In agreement with the in vitro reversibility results, administration of U-86983 for only 2, 4 or 7 days did not affect significantly the neointimal thickness measured at 14 days, which indicated that the stimuli for smooth muscle cell migration and/or proliferation were still present 1 week after injury.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


We present the analysis of new, deep Hi observations of the spiral galaxy NGC 3198 as part of the Westerbork Hydrogen Accretion in LOcal GAlaxieS (HALOGAS) survey, with the main aim of investigating the presence, amount, morphology, and kinematics of extraplanar gas. We present models of the Hi observations of NGC 3198. The model that matches best the observed data cube features a thick disk with a scale height of similar to 3 kpc and an Hi mass of about 15% of the total Hi mass; this thick disk also has a decrease in rotation velocity as a function of height (lag) of 7-15 km s(-1) kpc(-1) (though with large uncertainties). This extraplanar gas is detected for the first time in NGC 3198. Radially, this gas appears to extend slightly beyond the actively star-forming body of the galaxy (as traced by the H alpha emission), but it is not more radially extended than the outer, fainter parts of the stellar disk. Compared to previous studies, thanks to the improved sensitivity we trace the rotation curve out to larger radii. We model the rotation curve in the framework of modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND) and confirm that, with the allowed distance range we assumed, fit quality is modest in this galaxy, but the new outer parts are explained in a satisfactory way.


This study examined the seasonal and reproductive influences on individual plasma amino acid concentrations and nitrogen metabolites in a black bear population (Ontario, Canada). During hibernation, 11 of 23 plasma amino acids were significantly higher (13%–108%) in lactating than in nonlactating females, without an alteration in plasma total protein or total essential or nonessential amino acid levels. The greatest changes were observed in glutamine, arginine, and glycine levels. Plasma urea, urea/creatinine, and ammonia levels were significantly lower in hibernating compared with active female bears, but lactation had no effect on these parameters. Taken together these results show that lactation during hibernation is an additional metabolic challenge that results in increased mobilization of individual plasma amino acids and no accumulation of nitrogen end products, underlining the remarkable efficiency of amino acid and urea recycling in denning female black bears.


Obesity is a state of relative leptin resistance, and obesity in childhood is associated with an increased incidence of type 2 diabetes in later life. Offspring of mothers with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) are at increased risk of obesity. A cohort consisting of 64 mothers, 33 GDM and 31 controls screened for diabetes during the index pregnancy together with their 9-year-old offspring were studied. Our hypotheses were: 1) an elevated child leptin is associated with elevated maternal leptin in GDM mothers 9 years post delivery; and 2) child leptin at 9 years serves as a marker for incipient insulin resistance. By univariate analyses, child leptins were only significantly correlated with maternal leptins among the offspring of GDMs (OGDM) (r = 0.59; p = 0.001). By multivariate analyses, child leptin for the total study group was significantly associated with child body mass index (BMI) (R(2) = 0.65; p < 0.0001), child fasting insulin (R(2) = 0.08; p = 0.03), and female gender (R(2) = 0.28; p = 0.001). In addition, among OGDM child leptin was associated with maternal leptin (R(2) = 0.14; p = 0.005). Our results suggest that there is an association between maternal and child leptin levels 9 years after a pregnancy complicated by gestational diabetes.


Introduction Patients subject to major surgery, suffering sepsis, major trauma, or following cardiopulmonary bypass exhibit a systemic inflammatory response. This inflammatory response involves a complex array of inflammatory polypeptide molecules known as cytokines. It is well accepted that the loss of local control of the release of these cytokines leads to systemic inflammation and potentially deleterious consequences including the Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome, Multi-Organ Dysfunction Syndrome, shock and death. Methods The Medline database was searched for literature on mechanisms involved in the development of SIRS and potential targets for modifying the inflammatory response. We focus on the novel therapy of cytokine adsorption as a promising removal technology. Results Accumulating data from human studies and experimental animal models suggests that both pro- and anti- inflammatory cytokines are released following a variety of initiating stimuli including endotoxin release, complement activation, ischaemia reperfusion injury and others. Discussion Pro-and anti-inflammatory cytokines interact in a complex and unpredictable manner to influence the immune system and eventually cause multiple end organ effects. Cytokine adsorption therapy provides a potential solution to improving outcomes following Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome.


Abstract A purification scheme for the enzyme phosphinothricin-N-acetyltransferase (PAT) originating from Streptomyces viridochromogenes {pat-gene product from Streptomyces viridochromogenes) and mediating herbicide resistance to transgenic plants was developed. The enzyme was isolated from a transformed and overproducing Escherichia coli strain. With a combination of ammonium sulfate fractionation, chromatography on DEAE-Sephadex A50-, Phenylsepharose-, Hydroxylapatite-and FPLC-Superose 12-columns it was possible to obtain PAT which was at least 90 % homogeneous on the basis of SDS-PAGE. The properties of the isolated PAT were compared with the properties of PAT from S. hygroscopicus (bar-gene product from S. hygroscopicus) previously isolated and characterisized by Botterman, J., Gossele, V., Thoen, C., Lauwereys, M. (1991), Gene 102, 33-37. Differences were observed in the molecular masses of the two native enzymes (PAT from S. viridochrogenes being a dimer of 40 kD and PAT from S. hygroscopicus being a monomer of 21 kD), and in the temperature sensitivity of the two enzymes (the PAT from S. viridochromogenes being slightly more temperature stable than PAT from S. hygroscopicus). However, since the pat and the bar-gene are to 85 % homologous, substantial similarities exist between the two enzymes especially in the kinetic values and the substrate specificity. The isolated S. viridochromogenes PAT did not acetylate putative substrates present in the plant cell. Antibodies were raised against the isolated protein. This antiserum was able to detect PAT in transgenic plants and therefore is suitable to analyse the fate of the protein in such plants under various stress conditions.


Accuracy of the different levels of electronic structure theory is frequently studied for stationary-point properties; however, little is known about the effects of the electronic structure methods and basis sets on the dynamics of chemical reactions. Here we report such an investigation for the F− + CH3I SN2 and proton-transfer reactions by developing 20 different analytical potential energy surfaces (PESs) obtained at the HF/DZ, HF/TZ, HF-D3(BJ)/DZ, HF-D3(BJ)/TZ, MP2/DZ, MP2/TZ, MP2-F12/DZ, MP2F12/TZ, CCSD/DZ, CCSD-F12b/DZ, CCSD(T)/DZ, CCSD(T)-F12b/DZ, OQVCCD(T)/DZ, B97-1/TZ, PBE0/ TZ, PBE0-D3(BJ)/TZ, M06-2X/TZ, M06-2X-D3(0)/TZ, B2PLYP/TZ, and B2PLYP-D3(BJ)/TZ levels of theory, where DZ and TZ denote the aug-cc-pVDZ and aug-cc-pVTZ basis sets with a relativistic effective core potential and the corresponding bases for iodine. Millions of quasiclassical trajectories on these PESs reveal that (a) in the case of standard methods, increasing the basis from DZ to TZ decreases the SN2 cross sections by 20−30%; (b) the explicitly correlated F12 reactivity is converged with a DZ basis; (c) the quasi-variational OQVCCD(T) and the CCSD(T) methods provide virtually the same cross sections; (d) the above DFT functionals give significantly larger SN2 cross sections than the ab initio methods; (e) retention SN2 cross sections show striking method and basis dependence and double inversion is substantially enhanced with a TZ basis or F12 methods; (f) the TZ basis doubles the DZ proton-transfer reactivity; (g) at a high collision energy ab initio methods show dominance of backward scattering, in agreement with experiment, whereas most DFT functionals provide slight forward preference; and (h) at high energy the ab initio correlation (DFT) methods slightly underestimate (overestimate) the CH3F internal energy excitations, whereas the broad experimental distribution is qualitatively reproduced.


In this study, we firstly performed a comparative analysis of five attractants, four European products and one Chinese product, for their attraction to adult Monochamus alternatus Hope and other insects in the forestry area in Fuyang, Zhejiang, China. Research results show that among these 5 different lures to trap M. alternatus, Seudenol trapped the largest amount and species of insects. In terms of efficiency, M-99 (the Chinese product) and exobrevicomin are the best, Seudenol, 2-Methyl-3-buten-2-ol and ipsenol, ipsdienol and cis-verbenol the second, while the control group is the worst. Based on the attractive effect, 2-Methyl-3-buten-2-ol is distinctly different from the other four lures according to the statistical analysis, while there is no significant difference among the other four lures. This is probably due to factors such as the lure composition, natural environment, host plant, geographical difference, and geographical isolation of Monochamus alternatus Hope. These five lures not only showed effect on the Monochamus alternatus Hope, but also had attraction to borer pests, such as Spondylis buprestoide and Monochamus bimaculatus Gahan. Among them, Seudenol trapped the largest amount of S. buprestoides and M. bimaculatus Gahan.


Baryonic acoustic oscillations imprinted in the galaxy power spectrum provide a promising tool for probing the cosmological distance scale and dark energy. We present results from a suite of cosmological N-body simulations aimed at investigating possible systematic errors in the recovery of cosmological distances. We show the robustness of baryonic peaks against nonlinearity, redshift distortions, and mild biases within the linear and quasi-linear regime at various redshifts. While mildly biased tracers follow the matter power spectrum well, redshift distortions do partially obscure baryonic features in redshift space compared to real space. We calculate the statistical constraints on cosmological distortions from N-body results and compare these to the analytic results from a Fisher matrix formalism. We conclude that the angular diameter distance will be constrained as well as in our previous Fisher matrix calculations while the Hubble parameter will be less constrained because of nonlinear redshift distortions.


Four transits of the planet orbiting the star HD 209458 were observed with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph on board the Hubble Space Telescope. The wavelength domain (1180-1710 Å) includes H I as well as C I, C II, C IV, N V, O I, S I, Si II, Si III, and Si IV lines. During the transits, absorptions are detected in H I, O I, and C II (5% ± 2%, 13% ± 4.5%, and 7.5% ± 3.5%, respectively). No absorptions are detected for other lines. The 5% mean absorption over the whole H I Lyα line is consistent with the previous detection completed in 2003 at higher resolution (Vidal-Madjar et al.). The absorption depths in O I and C II show that oxygen and carbon are present in the extended upper atmosphere of HD 209458b (nicknamed "Osiris"). These species must be carried out up to the Roche lobe and beyond, most likely in a state of hydrodynamic escape.


A novel reconfigurable slot antenna architecture allowing polarization switching is presented. The antenna shape consists of a slot-ring with perturbations which are switched on and off using pin-diodes. Two antennas allowing switching either between linear and circular polarization or between two circular polarizations are demonstrated. The antenna architecture is interesting for commercial wireless applications because it is compatible with modern fabrication processes and can be realized on low cost dielectric materials.


Background: Group B streptococcus (GBS) or  Streptococcus agalactiae are members of the normal flora of the female genital tract. Maternal colonization has been found to be a major risk factor for invasive GBS disease within 6 days of birth. GBS has become the major cause of bacterial infections in the perinatal period, including bacteremia, amnionitis, endometritis, and urinary tract infection in pregnant women as well as sepsis and meningitis in neonates and young infants. Infection of the new born may be acquired by the intra-amniotic route or directly during passage through the birth canal. This study was undertaken to determine the prevalence of GBS colonization in pregnant women attending the antenatal clinic of Al-Hada Armed Forces Hospital in Western province, Taif, Saudi Arabia. This paper was the first data on incidence of GBS in pregnant women at Western province, Taif, Saudi Arabia. Methods: A total of 2,632 pregnant women were screened for GBS colonization between January and December 2014. Standard microbiological methods were used to isolate and identify GBS from vaginal and anorectal swabs obtained from study subjects. An antimicrobial susceptibility test was performed for all GBS isolates according to the criteria of the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) by disk diffusion method. Results: A total of 632 out of 2,632 (24%) pregnant women were colonized by GBS. Statistically significant association was observed for GBS colonization with any of socio-demographic characteristics of the study subjects including age, occupation, number of antenatal clinic visits, and type of gravida. All GBS strains were susceptible to penicillin, ampicillin, vancomycin and gentamicin, erythromycin, tetracycline, ceftriaxone, chloramphenicol, ciprofloxacin, clindamycin, and norfloxacin. Resistance was observed in some strains against clindamycin (0.18%). The data from the present study showed that incidence of GBS in Saudi pregnant women increased rapidly. These results are the first record of the database in Saudi Arabia at western province with high prevalence of GBS in pregnant women. Conclusion: This study showed that prevalence of GBS colonization was 24% among the study subjects. The finding of this study was comparable with findings reported from developed and developing countries. However, further epidemiological investigations should be done in different parts of the country (all provinces) in order to know the actual GBS colonization rate in pregnant women and to consider the use of intrapartum antibiotics prophylaxis for prevention of early onset GBS-neonatal diseases, considering the accelerated demand for reducing neonatal morbidity and mortality due to GBS. J Clin Gynecol Obstet. 2015;4(3):258-264 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.14740/jcgo341w


A 2-year field experiment was conducted to evaluate the response of potato plants to water deficit. Treatments included 10 potato cultivars were evaluated at the presence of different moisture conditions (30-40 and 60-70% depletion of available soil water). Water deficit increased the activities of peroxidase (POX), ascorbate peroxidase (APX), catalase (CAT), superoxide dismutase (SOD), ion leakage and proline content while decreased chlorophyll pigments, plant dry mass (PDM) and tuber yield (TY) in all cultivars. The extents percent of increases in SOD, POX and CAT activity were greater in tolerant cultivars. The biplot analysis results also showed SOD and POX closely correlated with biomass production of the tolerant cultivars. The highest tuber yields were obtained in Santé under control irrigation and in Spirit under water deficit. The reductions in TY ranged from 55.08 (Born) to 83.42% (Agria). Based on both STI index and biplot analysis Spirit and Agria were respectively identified as the most tolerant and sensitive cultivars to water deficit.


The objective of this paper is to evaluate the relative performance of several Bayesian distance-based pattern recognition models and two non-Bayesian models for non-destructive damage detection (NDD). A theory of damage localization, which yields information on the location of the damage directly from changes in mode shapes, is formulated. Next, the application of pattern recognition for NDD is established. Expressions for pattern classification using discriminate functions based on Bayes' Rule, Neyman-Pearson criteria, and neural networks are generated. A set of criteria for the evaluation of the pattern recognition models is then established. Damage localization is applied to a finite element mode of a structure which contains simulated damage at various locations using the pattern recognition and neural network models. Finally, the evaluation of the pattern recognition models is carried out using the established criteria.


Studying complex metazoan communities requires taxonomic expertise and laborious work if done using the traditional morphological approach. Nowadays, the popular use of molecular-based methods accompanied by massively parallel sequencing (MPS) provides rapid and higher resolution diversity analyses. However, diversity estimates derived from the molecular-based approach can be biased by the co-detection of environmental DNA (eDNA), pseudogene contamination, and PCR amplification biases. Here, we constructed microcrustacean zooplankton mock communities to compare species diversity and composition estimates from PCR-based methods using genomic (gDNA) and complementary DNA (cDNA), metatranscriptomic transcripts, and morphology data. Mock community analyses show that gDNA mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase I (mtCOI) amplicons inflate species richness due to environmental and nontarget species sequence contamination. Significantly higher amplicon sequence variant (ASV) and nucleotide diversity in gDNA amplicons than cDNA indicated the presence of putative pseudogenes. Last, PCR-based methods failed to detect the most abundant species in mock communities due to priming site mismatch. Overall, metatranscriptomic transcripts provided estimates of species richness and composition that closely resembled morphological data. The use of metatranscriptomic transcripts was further tested in field samples. The results showed that it could provide consistent species diversity estimates among biological and technical replicates while allowing monitoring of the zooplankton temporal species composition changes using different mitochondrial markers. These findings show that community characterization based on metatranscriptomic transcripts reflects the actual community more than PCR-based approaches.


3D integration is the big next step in system integration. It is still an emerging technology though and its implications on die and packages are not fully understood yet. Furthermore, it comes in many different process flavors. Adoption by mainstream designers requires the availability of tools that let them evaluate the cost and benefits of 3D compared to conventional system implementations. In this paper we propose a software-supported framework for system prototyping on 3D ICs. Also, we provide a case study scenario for realizing and evaluating a system implementing MPEG4 encoding on a 3D IC. The results show that 3D integration provides significant improvements among others in delay, power/energy consumption, as well as die area, compared to conventional 2D implementations.


One of the major goals of computer vision is the research and the development of flexible methods for shape description. A large group of shape description techniques is given by heuristic approaches, which yield acceptable results in the description of simple shapes and regions. In this case, objects are represented by a planar graph with nodes symbolizing subregions from region decomposition, and region shape is then described by the graph properties. In the paper, the angular bisector network (ABN), a descriptor of polygonal shape, is used to automatically detect intersections between neurites of cell structures. Some properties of the ABN, such as linear algebraic complexity, easy extraction of characteristic points, etc., are very useful and experimental results are promising.


Aspergillus flavus, the main aflatoxin B1 producing fungal species, Fusarium graminearum, a deoxynivalenol producer, and the fumonisin-producing species F. proliferatum and F. verticillioides are the main toxigenic fungi (TF) that colonize maize. Several strategies are available to control TF and related mycotoxins, such as chemical control. However, there is poor knowledge on the efficacy of fungicides on maize plants since few molecules are registered. The sensitivity of F. graminearum, F. proliferatum, F. verticillioides, and A. flavus to eleven fungicides, selected based on their different modes of action, was evaluated in both in vitro assays and, after selection, in the field. In vitro, demethylation inhibitors (DMI) showed excellent performances, followed by thiophanate-methyl and folpet. Among the succinate dehydrogenase inhibitors (SDHI), isopyrazam showed a higher effectiveness against Fusarium species than boscalid, which was ineffective against Fusarium, like the phenyl-pyrrole fludioxonil. Furthermore, both SDHIs and fludioxonil were more active against A. flavus than Fusarium species. In field trials, prothioconazole and thiophanate-methyl were confirmed to be effective to reduce F. graminearum (52% and 48%) and F. proliferatum contamination (44% and 27%). On the other hand, prothioconazole and boscalid could reduce A. flavus contamination at values of 75% and 56%, respectively.


Amoebiasis, a disease of worldwide distribution, is endemic in tropical countries with suboptimal sanitation facilities. Isolated amoebic appendicitis (IAA) is regarded as a rare manifestation of the disease globally. Because there are no defined clinical features that distinguish IAA from bacterial appendicitis, diagnosis is usually dependent on histopathological examination. A 9-year retrospective study was undertaken to investigate the clinicopathological aspects of IAA. The main complaints were fever and abdominal pain. None of the patients had dysentery. The pre-operative clinical diagnosis was acute appendicitis and acute abdomen in 13 and 8 patients, respectively. In all cases the intra-operative diagnosis was acute appendicitis. Gross pathological appraisal revealed peritonitis and perforation in 19 and 17 cases, respectively. Histopathological examination of these appendices demonstrated appendiceal ulceration, transmural mixed inflammation, haematophagous amoebic trophozoites and necrosis in all cases. Vascular pathology comprised venous and capillary luminal plugging (11 cases), necrotising small vessel vasculitis (11 cases), thrombophlebitis of medium sized veins (9 cases) and arteritis with associated thrombosis (1 case). Organising fibrinopurulent peritonitis was present in 19 cases. Two appendices that appeared normal macroscopically demonstrated ulceration and inflammation that were confined to the mucosa and submucosa. All of 18 patients who were treated with metronidazole survived without further surgery, while three patients who were untreated succumbed to the disease. Appendicectomy, accurate histopathological appraisal thereof and optimal, timely management of IAA were critical to the favourable outcome in the present study.


Abstract A choroid plexus cyst may be present throughout the ventricular system of the brain. A hemangioblastoma is generally found in patients with genetic diseases like Von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) syndrome disease, but it can also be found sporadically in the spinal cord, retina and in rare cases in the cerebrum. An eighteen-year-old male subject was referred for autopsy in Kolkata police morgue on 27/02/2017. Two hours before, the patient had been brought to the hospital for severe headache; but before any diagnosis could be made, he collapsed and died. On autopsy, a 4cm fluid filled cyst was found in the anterior portion of third ventricle and sent for histopathological examination. HPE findings were consistent with a hemangioblastoma, which made this case extremely rare. Sudden death due to increased intracranial tension cases should be properly examined for any neuroepithelial tumours like a hemangioblastoma.


Background/Aims Pegylated interferon (peginterferon) and ribavirin combination therapy is less effective and associated with a higher frequency of serious complications in chronic hepatitis C patients with cirrhosis than in noncirrhotic patients. This study evaluated the efficacy and tolerability of peginterferon and ribavirin treatment in patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV)-related cirrhosis. Methods Eighty-six patients with clinically diagnosed liver cirrhosis were treated with either peginterferon alpha-2a (n=51) or peginterferon alpha-2b (n=35) plus ribavirin. The sustained virologic response (SVR) and adverse effects were analyzed retrospectively. Results Of the 86 patients (55 males), 48 patients (55.8%) had HCV genotype 1 infection and 38 (44.2%) had genotype non-1 infection. The overall SVR rate was 34.9% (30/86), and the rates of SVR in the genotype 1 and non-1 patients were 20.8% (10/48) and 52.6% (20/38), respectively. The multivariate analysis revealed that having HCV genotype 1 (P=0.003) and high baseline viral load (>8.0×105 IU/mL, P=0.012) were the independent predictive factors for SVR failure. In 20.9% (18/86) of the patients, treatment was not completed due to adverse events (27.8%), loss to follow-up (50.0%), and other reasons (22.2%). Conclusions Peginterferon and ribavirin combination therapy was relatively effective and feasible for clinically diagnosed HCV patients, especially in those with genotype non-1 infection and low baseline viral load.


Experimental autoimmune myocarditis could be produced in mice by repeated injection of syngeneic heart extract together with Klebsiella pneumoniae O3 lipopolysaccharide (KO3 LPS) as a powerful adjuvant. Histological changes in the cardiac lesions were characterized by infiltration with mononuclear cells in the myocardium, degeneration and loss of myocardial fibers, and replacement of granulation tissues. No such cardiac lesions were produced in mice receiving injections of heart extract alone or KO3 LPS alone. Development of the autoantibody and the delayed type-hypersensitivity (DTH) against syngeneic heart extract was found in mice immunized repeatedly with the mixture of heart extract and KO3 LPS. Moreover, definite cardiac lesions were produced in normal recipient mice by transfer of sensitized spleen cells from hyperimmunized mice. Therefore, it was suggested that those cardiac lesions were caused by the autoimmune mechanism. Our methodology provided a new experimental murine model for autoimmune myocarditis.


Chronic pain (i.e., pain lasting ≥3 months) is a debilitating condition that affects daily work and life activities for many adults in the United States and has been linked with depression (1), Alzheimer disease and related dementias (2), higher suicide risk (3), and substance use and misuse (4). During 2016, an estimated 50 million adults in the United States experienced chronic pain, resulting in substantial health care costs and lost productivity (5,6). Addressing chronic pain and improving the lives of persons living with pain is a public health imperative. Population research objectives in the National Pain Strategy, which was released in 2016 by the Interagency Pain Research Coordinating Committee, call for more precise estimates of the prevalence of chronic pain and high-impact chronic pain (i.e., chronic pain that results in substantial restriction to daily activities) in the general population and within various population groups to guide efforts to reduce the impact of chronic pain (3). Further, a 2022 review of U.S. chronic pain surveillance systems identified the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) as the best source for pain surveillance data (7). CDC analyzed data from the 2019-2021 NHIS to provide updated estimates of the prevalence of chronic pain and high-impact chronic pain among adults in the United States and within population groups defined by demographic, geographic, socioeconomic, and health status characteristics. During 2021, an estimated 20.9% of U.S. adults (51.6 million persons) experienced chronic pain, and 6.9% (17.1 million persons) experienced high-impact chronic pain. New findings from this analysis include that non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native (AI/AN) adults, adults identifying as bisexual, and adults who are divorced or separated are among the populations experiencing a higher prevalence of chronic pain and high-impact chronic pain. Clinicians, practices, health systems, and payers should vigilantly attend to health inequities and ensure access to appropriate, affordable, diversified, coordinated, and effective pain management care for all persons (8).


Adoptive immunotherapy with tumour‐specific T cells is an emerging technology that may be applicable to a broad range of cancers. However, tumours can avoid T cell‐mediated attack through multiple mechanisms including downregulation of major histocompatability complex (MHC). Consequently, engineering T cells to target intact protein antigen directly, thus bypassing the need for MHC presentation, can facilitate T cell targeting of tumour cells. Peripheral blood lymphocytes from nine of nine patients with non‐Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) were successfully gene‐modified to express a receptor consisting of a CD19 single chain variable fragment (scFv) fused to the T cell CD3ζ signalling molecule. These T cells were functionally active against the CD19+ Raji Burkitt's lymphoma cell line. Importantly, engineered T cells from seven of nine NHL patients efficiently lysed autologous lymph node tumour biopsy cells. There was a clear correlation between levels of CD19 expression on the tumour and effective killing by the engineered T cells. For two patients with a low or absent CD19+ cells within the biopsy, no significant killing was observed. These results demonstrate that patients with CD19+ NHL would be suitable candidates for this form of therapy in the setting of a phase I clinical trial.


We evaluate the persistence of incremental industry, firm-specific, and corporate-parent effects on firm profitability across the food and agribusiness sector and further analyze the persistence within four major sectors: processing, wholesale, retail, and restaurant. Results suggest that industry effects are more persistent than corporate effects across the food and agribusiness sector. Results also suggest the retail supermarket sector has had relatively stable profits due to both industry and firm effects during the time period under study. The results have implications with respect to research and extension programs targeted toward educating producers and management about producer-owned businesses.


The purpose of this study is to examine social workers ability to respond to unaccompanied children's individual needs and circumstances. The study is based on semi-structured qualitative interviews with three social workers. The results have been interpreted with previous research findings and a theoretical perspective based on bureaucracy's influence on client relations. The results show that social workers possibility to investigate unaccompanied children's needs and circumstances are limited due to limited information sources, cultural and linguistic differences and children's mistrust in government agencies. There is also reason to believe that the research method BBIC isn't fully adapted to the target group. Social workers are limited in their ability to respond to unaccompanied children's individual housing needs, due to a lack of living accommodations. Another finding is that Swedens municipalities differ in the way they handle unaccompanied children's matters, which may affect the wellbeing of these children.


The aim of this study was to explore the experiences dhe perceptions of the parents of children with autism in relation to involvement in kindergarten and the impact on them. The qualitative method was used in the study. Semi-structured interview with open-ended questions was the instrument for data collection. Data collections were made possible by interviewing 21parents of children with autism in Tirana, Albania. Through data analyses it came out that: (i) Most of children with autism attended kindergartens, in most cases private ones. The reasons that children with autism did not attend public kindergartens were because their staff didn't welcome them, they were considered as problematic, the highest number of children in the group, and a lack of specialized staff. For most parents private kindergarten remain the only option; (ii) The involvement of autistic children in kindergartens had a positive impact on them. Kindergarten had many influences especially on their child's socialization, on collaboration with others, on the structuring behavior, on the child cognitive development, on reducing aggression, increase cooperation between each other and in the ability to understand the context and to learn to work with others; (iii) The problem remains the lack of specific knowledge and information on autism from kindergarten staff. DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2015.v4n2p169


The intertwining of state and religion in Israel bestows substantial authority to the autonomous Jewish, Muslim, and Christian communities. In that respect, citizens enjoy freedom of religion. But the relationship between state and religion also leads to the imposition of religious law on community members even if they are not personally religious. Among Jews, who comprise 80% of the population, this has led to friction between those who are religiously observant and those who are not, as the latter complain about the lack of freedom from religion. We study ten Jewish couples who make wedding plans that cross a threshold of protest over the religious status quo by choosing a non-government recognized alternative service rather than the mandatory state sanctioned Orthodox religious ceremony. Data from interviews with these persons and with five additional nonreligious couples who wed through the state rabbinate indicate that the conflict focuses mostly on the Orthodox rabbinical establishmen, perceived as rigid and inflexible. Generally, nonreligious Israelis conform to social norms and conduct their wedding ceremonies in a traditional Jewish manner that is seen to be bound up with their identities as Israelis. Nonreligious Israelis who marry outside of the State Rabbinate reject the state Orthodox religious establishment more than they reject religion.


This study is based on the Bagmati river basin that flows along with the capital city, Kathmandu which is a small and topographically steep basin. Major flood occurring in 1993 and 2002 as stated in the report of DWIDP shows that the basin is subjected to water-induced disaster in monsoon season affecting people and property. This study focuses on the development of a rainfall-runoff model for Bagmati basin in HEC-HMS using the Synthetic Unit Hydrograph (SUH) with Khokana as the outlet. The coefficients for SUH like Lag time coefficient (Ct), peak discharge coefficient (Cp), unit hydrograph widths at 50% and 75% of peak and base time were determined calibrating the Synder's equation where Ct varies from 0.244 to 1.016 and Cp varies from 0.439 to 0.410. The rainfall-runoff model in HEC-HMS has been calibrated from daily data of 1992-2013 and validated from hourly data for July 2011, August 2012, and July 2013. Furthermore, the model has been tested to compare the discharge for various return periods with the observed ones which are in close agreement. The determination of Peak Maximum Flood (PMF) using the calculated Peak Maximum Precipitation (PMP) is also another application of the model which can be used to design various hydraulic structures. Thus the values of coefficients, Ct and Cp can be used to construct unit hydrograph for the basin. Moreover, the satisfactory performance of the model during calibration and validation proves the applicability of the model in flood forecasting and early warning.


We report on the design and characterization of an ultralow-power converter, designed for use in baseband digitization in wireless sensor network radio receivers. The converter uses a successive approximation architecture and operates robustly with a supply voltage as low as 450 mV, overcoming charge leakage limitations. Implemented in a 90 nm CMOS process, this design achieves a figure of merit of 0.14 pJ/Conv.Step for the converter core and shows the integration of a complete data-conversion subsystem, including reference generation, from a 0.5 V supply.


Abstract Objective Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are important to a community during times of disaster and routine operations. However, their effectiveness is reduced without an operational framework that integrates response and recovery efforts. Without integration, coordination among NGOs is challenging and use of government resources is inefficient. We developed an operational model to specify NGO roles and responsibilities before, during, and after a disaster. Methods We conducted an analysis of peer-reviewed literature, relevant policy, and federal guidance to characterize the capabilities of NGOs, contextual factors that determine their involvement in disaster operations, and key services they provide during disaster response and recovery. We also identified research questions that should be prioritized to improve coordination and communication between NGOs and government. Results Our review showed that federal policy stresses the importance of partnerships between NGOs and government agencies and among other NGOs. Such partnerships can build deep local networks and broad systems that reach from local communities to the federal government. Understanding what capacities NGOs need and what factors influence their ability to perform during a disaster informs an operational model that could optimize NGO performance. Conclusions Although the operational model needs to be applied and tested in community planning and disaster response, it holds promise as a unifying framework across new national preparedness and recovery policy, and provides structure to community planning, resource allocation, and metrics on which to evaluate NGO disaster involvement. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2012;0:1–8).


Many developing nations, especially the least developed countries, are subjected to recurrent spells of food insecurity. In order to understand food insecurity in these countries it is necessary to consider not only immediate or trigger-causes of food crises, but also its underlying or systemic causes. This paper argues that the agricultural support measures of advanced countries may act as a systemic cause for food insecurity in developing countries. While the import of subsidized foods by developing countries and/or the provision of food aid by developed countries are frequently necessary options to address food crises in the short run, they can adversely affect the economic development in the long run. Access to cheap foods can undermine agricultural production and contribute to the recurrence of food shortages. This paper examines these developments and makes proposals to address them.


This retrospective cohort study compares the virtual planned and postoperative jaw positions in patients undergoing orthognathic surgery. Surgery was virtually planned with the Digital Münster Model Surgery system (DMMS). Primary outcome: Spatial difference in the maxillo-mandibulo relation between virtual planning and postoperative result. Secondary outcome: Possible relationship between the measured differences and surgical movements as well as the postoperative stability according to Proffit. Ninety female and sixty-one male patients were included in the study. The average translation errors were 0.54 ± 0.50 mm (anteroposterior), 0.37 ± 0.33 mm (mediolateral), and 0.33 ± 0.28 mm (superoinferior). Orientation errors were 0.86 ± 0.79 degrees (yaw), 0.54 ± 0.48 degrees (roll), and 0.90 ± 0.72 degrees (pitch). The surgical procedures do not differ with respect to their error sizes. Maxilla forward and class II maxilla up with mandible forward are the most precise procedures. Most significant differences were found in the anteroposterior direction, whereby the extent of the surgical movement has no effect on the magnitude of the error. The process of planning with the DMMS followed by surgery is highly accurate and shows error values well below the clinically accepted limit of two millimeters in translation and four degrees in rotation.


Enhancement of the dynamic response of generators, within a power system, when subjected to various disturbances, has been a major challenge to power system researchers and engineers for the past decades. This work presents the application of intelligent Voltage Source Converter – High Voltage Direct Current (VSC-HVDC) for improvement of the transient stability of the Nigeria 330kV transmission system which is used as the case study network in this work. First, the current transient stability situation of the grid was established by observing the dynamic response of the generators in the Nigeria 330-kV grid/network when a balanced three-phase fault was applied to some critical buses and lines of the transmission network. These critical buses were determined through the eigenvalue analysis of the system buses. The result obtained clearly show that there exist critical buses such as Ajaokuta and critical transmission line such Ajaokuta Benin Transmission line within the network. The results also revealed that the system losses synchronism when a balanced three-phase fault was applied to these identified critical buses and lines. The results further indicated that the Nigeria 330-kV transmission network is on a red-alert, which requires urgent control measures with the aim of enhancing the stability margin of the network to avoid system collapse. To this effect, VSC-HVDC was installed in addition to those critical lines. The inverter and the converter parameters of the HVDC were controlled by the artificial neural network. The results obtained showed that 42.86% transient stability improvement was achieved when the HVDC was controlled with the artificial neural network when compared to the PI controllers in the Nigeria 330-kV grid/network. Keywords— buses, converter, stability, transient, transmission.


There are many health workers who suffer podiatrists problems as a consequence of an inappropriate footwear. This article is going to show the strengths and the shortcomings of the main sanitary shoe, the clog. Moreover, it is going to show what are the general and the specific characteristics that a suitable footwear should have for this group of professionals, taking into account the features of their daily activities. (Med Segur Trab (Internet) 2009; 55 (216): 71–76)


The All Sky Monitor (ASM) on board the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer has continuously monitored a number of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) with similar sampling rates for 14 years, from 1996 January to 2009 December. Utilizing the archival ASM data of 27 AGNs, we calculate the normalized excess variances of the 300-day binned X-ray light curves on the longest timescale (between 300 days and 14 years) explored so far. The observed variance appears to be independent of AGN black-hole mass and bolometric luminosity. According to the scaling relation of black-hole mass (and bolometric luminosity) from galactic black hole X-ray binaries (GBHs) to AGNs, the break timescales that correspond to the break frequencies detected in the power spectral density (PSD) of our AGNs are larger than the binsize (300 days) of the ASM light curves. As a result, the singly broken power-law (soft-state) PSD predicts the variance to be independent of mass and luminosity. Nevertheless, the doubly broken power-law (hard-state) PSD predicts, with the widely accepted ratio of the two break frequencies, that the variance increases with increasing mass and decreases with increasing luminosity. Therefore, the independence of the observed variance on mass and luminosity suggests that AGNs should have soft-state PSDs. Taking into account the scaling of the break timescale with mass and luminosity synchronously, the observed variances are also more consistent with the soft-state than the hard-state PSD predictions. With the averaged variance of AGNs and the soft-state PSD assumption, we obtain a universal PSD amplitude of 0.030 ± 0.022. By analogy with the GBH PSDs in the high/soft state, the longest timescale variability supports the standpoint that AGNs are scaled-up GBHs in the high accretion state, as already implied by the direct PSD analysis.


I define how public space is constituted not by real property but by a regime made up of regulatory practices. What is at issue in assertions about the decline of public space is that this regulatory regime is reconfiguring liberty—that is, rights to public space—through a change in the conception of the public, of who and what belong as part of the public. By way of a case study (the redevelopment of the corner of Yonge and Dundas Streets in Toronto), I argue that liberty is defined by a multiplicity of practices (e.g., laws, regulations, urban design, surveillance, policing) that are oriented to a particular conception of the public, and which seek to guide the conduct of agents. This suggests that if our concern is to expand the political and social uses of public space then we need to turn our attention away from resources, spaces, and goods and toward how the regulatory regime configures liberty and in turn the possibilities that public space can be taken and made.


In recent years, a number of models concerning question-answering (QA) systems have been put forward. But many of them stress technology and neglect the research of QA itself. In this paper, we analyse the essence of QA and discuss the relationship between technology and QA. On that basis, we propose that when designing web-based QA systems, more attention should be paid to the learning mechanism involved in the QA process than to technology. Some new ideas on the design of QA systems are also put forward in order to promote the rapid development of web-based QA systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]


'Fuchs-20' (Persea americana Mill.) was selected in an experiment carried out during 1959-60 to find a highly tolerant rootstock for saline conditions from West Indian seedlings of 5 different groups and hybrids, including seedlings of 'Fuchs' (West Indian x Guatemalan). Plants were grown in containers and irrigated with highly saline water (1330 ppm NaCl). Only 4 plants survived. These survivors were planted in an orchard in order to obtain material for further experiments by vegetative propagation. 'Fuchs-20', a 'Fuchs' seedling marked No. 20, was the only one of these 4 plants from which cuttings have been successfully rooted (2) (350 ppmCl), (1). Trees of various cultivars grafted on 'Fuchs-20' rootstocks show excellent performance without any damage due to salinity in a commercial orchard irrigated with water containing 380-400 ppmCl, (A. Ben-Ya'acov, unpublished data).


This survey reflects the contemporary state of Mori theory and its log version. The main stress is on applications of the theory of log pairs to the birational geometry of varieties of negative Kodaira dimension (as is known, they are close to rational varieties; however, it is also known that many varieties of negative Kodaira dimension are birationally rigid, which is peculiar to a more general class than that of rational varieties), namely, to the Sarkisov program of factorizing birational maps of Mori models that are Mori fibre spaces under the above restrictions. In particular, we present a new proof of the birational rigidity of a non-singular three-dimensional quartic (the Iskovskikh-Manin theorem, which claims that such a quartic is not rational) and of another anticanonical hypersurface in a weighted projective space (from the Corti-Pukhlikov-Reid list). We also present Chel'tsov's results on the birational rigidity of smooth hypersurfaces of degree N in  for 4≤N≤8; the proofs use the Shokurov connectedness theorem.


Several large scale P2P networks are based on a distributed hash table. They all suffer from a critical issue allowing malicious nodes to be inserted in specific places on the DHT for undesirable purposes (monitoring, DDoS, pollution, etc.). However, no study so far considered the actual deployment of such attacks. We propose a first approach to detect suspicious peers in the KAD P2P network. First, we describe and evaluate our crawler which can get an accurate view of the network. Then, we analyze the distances between the peers and the contents indexed in the DHT to detect suspicious peers. Our results show that hundreds of KAD entries are clearly under attack during our measurements.


Living organisms regulate the expression of genes using complex interactions of transcription factors, messenger RNA and active protein products. Due to their complexity, gene-regulatory networks are not fully understood, however, various modeling approaches can be used to gain insight into their function and operation. This paper describes an ongoing study to use evolutionary algorithms to create computational models of gene-regulatory networks based on observed microarray data. Because of the computational requirements of this approach (which requires the discovery ofgene network topologies), it is critical that it is implemented on a computing platform capable of delivering significant compute power. We discuss how this can be achieved using distributed and grid computing technology. In particular we investigate how Condor and JavaSpaces technology is suited to the requirements of our modeling approach.


The lesson of the antibiotic era is, the microbe always wins. Pediatricians need to understand why, to take the threat seriously, and to mobilize to fight back.


Soft gelatin capsules are also known as soluble elastic or soft elastic capsule.The composition of soft gelatin capsule differs from hard gelatin capsule in that sugar the sugar is replaced by a plasticizer like glycerin ,sorbitol or a similar polyol.plasticizer impart elastic properties to capsules.The soft gelatin capsules are hermetically sealed they are suitable for liquids,volatile drugs and for drugs sensitive to atmospheric oxidation. This has led to the commercial pharmaceutical and nutraceutical industries opting for the development of alternative shell forming materials instead of the traditional capsule shell material gelatin. This review discusses the establishment and the on-going development of the manufacturing technology for liquid fill capsules with a focus on the progress and challenges of soft gelatin capsules formulation in oral administration for improved solubility and as an absorption-enhancing technique. This considerations form a basis for new applications in oral drug.


Hausdorff distance (HD) seems the most efficient instrument for measuring how far two compact non-empty subsets of a metric space are from each other. This paper considers the possibilities provided by HD and some of its modifications used recently by many authors for resemblance between binary text images. Summarizing part of the existing word image matching methods, relied on HD, we investigate a new similar parameterized method which contains almost all of them as particular cases. Numerical experiments for searching words in binary text images are carried out with 333 pages of old Bulgarian typewritten text, 200 printed pages of Bulgarian Chrestomathy from year 1884, and 200 handwritten pages of Slavonic manuscript from year 1574. They outline how the parameters must be set in order to use the advantages of the proposed method for the purposes of word matching in scanned document images.


This poem, written after my writing was plagiarized, heeds Bowers's (1994) call to use language, rather than silence, to express the emotions associated with the plagiarism of my work. I write how the act of plagiarism cut into my core and created a wound. That wound opened a space to see how, like Bowers (1997), my writing and creative process are deeply personal. They are inquiry (Richardson & St. Pierre, 2018). And they matter more than I ever knew. They are a life. A life that is healed with the writing of this poem. The poem and brief methodological note that follow it aim to open conversations about plagiarism in the qualitative inquiry literature.


Recently, RFID has emerged as the main technology in the logistic services. When the existing recognition technology based on bar codes brings about lots of problem due to its own limits. RFID becomes the center of attention to solve them. However, RFID is not without any obstacles: companies have their own operating systems, while RFID is developed regardless of each company's special features. RFID middleware system based on web service is expected to remove these obstacles. This paper shows how to operate the middleware based on web service and to lay in the DB the tag informations taken from reader system. Middle assures that companies adopting RFID system for their logistic service are given adaptability to any systems whatsoever, available by way of defining logistic information, tag information and reader information. For this purpose, we implement as the basic web service a middleware system that turns all data into XML(eXtensible Markup Language) of SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol), the standard data.


N-Nitroso-compound DNA adduct formation in vivo and occurrence of aberrant crypt foci (ACF) were studied in the rat colon mucosa after a single, local treatment with a carcinogen, N-methyl-N-nitrosourea (MNU), using a simple surgical approach. A segment of F344 rat colon was ligated to make a pouch and injected with MNU solution. For the study of DNA adduct formation, the solution contained 50 microCi of [3H]MNU. The results demonstrated that similar ranges of carcinogen dose, i.e. 0.15 x 10(-2) - 1.5 x 10(-2) M MNU, could induce both DNA adduct formation and appearance of ACF in the rat colon with both parameters showing a nearly linear dose dependence. HPLC analysis revealed the DNA adducts to include both 7-methylguanine (7-mGua) and O6-methylguanine (O6-mGua) with the 7-mGua/O6-mGua ratio being 8.2-11.3:1 in the system used. Assessment of ACF development from 4 to 16 weeks after MNU treatment at a dose of 7.5 x 10(-2) M showed the numbers to increase up to the 8th week, followed by a decrease at weeks 12 and 16, when 40% of the ACF counted at the peak time point were still present. The percentage of large ACF (> or = 4 crypts/ACF) significantly increased with time. These results indicate a clear relation between DNA adducts and preneoplastic lesions, i.e. ACF. In conclusion, DNA adduct formation and ACF can be efficiently and simply detected in vivo by using the method described in the present paper.


Sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) facilitates multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) debundling and enhances nanotube stability in the aqueous environment by adsorbing on the nanotube surfaces, thereby increasing repulsive electrostatic forces and steric effects. The resulting SDS-wrapped MWCNTs are utilized in industrial applications and have been widely employed in environmental studies. In the present study, MWCNTs adsorbed SDS during ultrasonication to form stable MWCNTs suspensions. Desorption of SDS from MWCNTs surfaces was then investigated as a function of Suwannee River Humic Acid (SRHA) and background electrolyte concentrations. Due to hydrophobic effects and π-π interactions, MWCNTs exhibit higher affinity for SRHA than SDS. In the presence of SRHA, SDS adsorbed on MWCNTs was displaced. Cations (Na(+), Ca(2+)) decreased SDS desorption from MWCNTs due to charge screening effects. Interestingly, the presence of the divalent calcium cation facilitated multilayered SRHA adsorption on MWCNTs through bridging effects, while monovalent sodium reduced SRHA adsorption. Results of the present study suggest that properties of MWCNTs wrapped with commercial surfactants will be altered when these materials are released to surface waters and the surfactant coating will be displaced by natural organic matter (NOM). Changes on their surfaces will significantly affect MWCNTs fate in aquatic environments.


Monkeypox and syphilis are two distinct infectious diseases that can cause severe health complications in infected patients and can share clinical manifestations, making their simultaneous occurrence challenging to diagnose and manage. Here, we present a case report of a patient with the coinfection of monkeypox and syphilis, highlighting the clinical presentation and treatment considerations. This case underlines the importance of considering coinfections in patients presenting with atypical clinical manifestations and risk factors. This case highlights the importance of early diagnosis and prompt intervention in managing patients with infectious diseases, particularly when dealing with multiple infections. Increased awareness among healthcare professionals regarding the potential for concurrent infections can enhance diagnostic accuracy and improve patient care in similar challenging cases.


In this paper we find the families of relative equilibria for the three body problem in the plane, when the interaction between the bodies is given by a quasi-homogeneous potential, which is the sum of two homogeneous functions. The number of the relative equilibria depends of the values of the masses and of the size of the system, measured by the moment of inertia.


The theory of superatom (or artificial atom) formed from spatially separated electrons and holes (hole moving in the volume of a semiconductor (dielectric) quantum dot and an electron localized on the outer spherical interface between the quantum dot and a dielectric matrix) is developed. Predicted a new hydrogen - artificial atom, which is similar to the new alkali - metal atom.


The results of toxicological analyses of the body fluids of the victims from the accident involving the British Air Tours Boeing 737 in August 1985 are presented for carboxyhemoglobin, cyanide, and volatiles. All the victims except one had raised concentrations of carbon monoxide. All the victims had raised concentrations of cyanide. All the victims showed the presence of volatile substances in the blood. Autopsies revealed that all the victims had carbon particles in the trachea and bronchi. Thus, all the victims must have inhaled fire products in the burning aircraft cabin. Six victims had concentrations of carbon monoxide or cyanide in the blood that were neither fatal nor incapacitating; therefore, it is reasonable to suggest that these six victims survived for a comparatively short time and that there may have been other causes, in addition to toxic fumes, for their deaths. The other 48 victims must have survived long enough in the fire to accumulate incapacitating or fatal concentrations of carbon monoxide or cyanide or both. The effects of these substances found in the blood of each of the 48 victims must have combined to produce an insurmountable impediment to escape from the aircraft.


As an important member of metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluR), metabotropic glutamate receptor 1 (mGluR1) plays an important role in the signal transduction of central nervous system. Selective mGluR1 antagonists can block the signaling pathway activated by mGluR1 and exert a series of physiological actions including analgesia, antianxiety, antidepression, etc. Currently, the discovery and modification of selective mGluR1 antagonists have become a hot research focus. This paper reviews the structural catalogs of selective mGluR1 antagonists and their structure-activity relationships in the last decade.


Esophageal carcinogenesis is a multistage process characterized by morphological changes from normal esophagus to basal cell hyperplasia, dysplasia, carcinoma in situ and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). Our laboratory has used the model of N-nitrosomethylbenzylamine (NMBA)-induced esophageal SCC in rats to investigate carcinogenesis and identify putative chemopreventive agents for this disease. The current study is part of large scale investigations on carcinogenesis of esophageal SCC. F344 rats were treated with NMBA (0.30 mg/kg b.w.) or a solution of 20% dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) in water (the solvent for NMBA) three times per week for five weeks. The esophageal tissues were collected at 6 and 29 weeks. The RNA pools from 3 individual RNA samples each were prepared for microarray analysis using Affymetrix Rat Genome 230 2.0 Array. Triplicate microarrays were completed for total 27 rats/9 microarrays. A P-value cutoff of 0.001 with a minimum 2.0-fold change was used to define the differently expressed genes. Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) software was used to identify cancer-related pathways and cellular functions. At 6 weeks (tumor incidence = 20%), 173 genes were modulated by NMBA when compared to control animals. Among which, 20 genes were associated with cancer, cellular development, cellular assembly and organization network; 34 genes were associated with inflammatory disease. The top five cellular functions altered by NMBA were cellular development, carbohydrate metabolism, cell death and survival, cellular growth and proliferation, and cellular function and maintenance. At 29 weeks (tumor incidence = 100%), we identified 1628 genes which were significantly up- or down-regulated by NMBA treatment when compared to normal animals and among which, 466 genes were involved in tumor development. In addition, we identified four cancer-related pathways (nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 mediated oxidative stress response, protein kinase A signaling, mitochondrial dysfunction, and AMP-activated kinase signaling) and five cellular functions (cellular development, cell morphology, cell death and survival, carbohydrate metabolism and molecular transport). Among genes altered during NMBA-induced esophageal carcinogenesis, 16 genes differently expressed only at 6 weeks including Gbp2, Psmb, Psmb9, Lgals3bp, Id1, Igfbp3, Agpat4, rCG_35099, Tes, RGD1563091, Cyp26b1, Itga1, Scarb1, LOC682861, Serpinb2 and Slfn3. The fold changes of Plcd4, Hbb, Bmper, Hba-a2, Defb4, LOC100134871 and LOC364653 increased from 6 weeks to 29 weeks. In conclusion, we identified differently expressed genes in early and late stages of NMBA-induced esophageal SCC by microarray analysis. Further investigations on biomarkers and cellular/molecular events during multistage of carcinogenesis in NMBA-rat preclinical model of esophageal SCC are underway. Citation Format: Ni Shi, Ronald G. Nines, Lianbo Yu, Michael J. Nicholl, Tong Chen. Microarray analysis of dynamic regulation of genes in early and late stages of chemically induced esophageal carcinogenesis in rats. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 3686. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-3686


The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (FDNPP) accident drew global attention to the health risks of radiation exposure. The large Japanese field mice ( Apodemus speciosus ) are rodents endemic to, and distributed throughout, Japan. This wild rodent live in and around the ex-evacuation zone on the ground surface and/or underground. In this study, we evaluated the effect of chronic radiation exposure associated with FDNPP accident on the testes of large Japanese field mice. Morphological analysis and electron-prove X-ray microanalysis (EPMA) was undertaken on the testes. Morphological analysis of testes based on H&E staining showed that the spermatogenesis was observed normally in the breeding season of wild mice in the heavily contaminated area. However, caesium (Cs) was not detected in all testes of wild mice from FDNPP ex-evacuation zone. In conclusion, even if the testes and the process of spermatogenesis are hypersensitive to radiation, we could not detect radiation effects on the spermatogenesis and Cs in the examined large Japanese field mice testes following chronic radiation exposure associated with the FDNPP accident.


We evaluated the antibacterial activities of selected edible Korean plant seeds against the food-borne pathogens Staphylococcus aureus KCTC1927, Escherichia coli KCTC2593, Salmonella typhimurium KCTC2054, and Bacillus cereus KCTC1014. While screening for antibacterial agents, we discovered that wheat germ extract contains 2,6-dimethoxy-1,4-benzoquinone (DMBQ) and is highly inhibitory to S. aureus and B. cereus. This is the first report of the antibacterial activity of wheat germ extract. We also investigated the antibacterial activities of the 1,4- benzoquinone standards 1,4-benzoquinone (BQ), hydroquinone (HQ), methoxybenzoquinone (MBQ), and 2,6-dimethoxy- 1,4-benzoquinone (DMBQ). DMBQ and BQ were the most highly inhibitory to S. aureus and S. typhimurium, followed by MBQ and HQ. MICs for DMBQ and BQ ranged between 8 and 64 microgram/ml against the four foodborne pathogens tested. DMBQ and BQ showed significant antibacterial activity; the most sensitive organism was S. aureus with an MIC of 8 microgram/ml. BQ exhibited good activity against S. typhimurium (32 microgram/ml) and B. cereus (32 microgram/ml). The results suggest that wheat germ extract has potential for the development of natural antimicrobials and food preservatives for controlling foodborne pathogens.


We study the influence of daily routines of Dutch academic institutions on the number of DDoS attacks targeting their infrastructures. We hypothesise that the attacks are motivated and harness the postulates of Routine Activity Theory (RAT) from criminology to analyse the data. We define routine periods in order to group days with similar activities and use 2.5 years of NetFlow alerts data measured by SURFnet to compare the number of alerts generated during each of these periods. Our analysis shows clear correlation between academic schedules and attack patterns on academic institutions. This leads us to believe that most of these attacks are not random and are initiated by someone who might benefit by disrupting scheduled educational activities.


In 2006, LabVIEW Object Oriented Programming (LVOOP) became available as a new feature with LabVIEW version 8.20. This work accomplishes a design study in order to investigate the use of LVOOP to control system development. With LVOOP, the way of objectoriented programming must be reconsidered, since this approach reveals quite a few differences compared to conventional object-oriented programming.


Optimists would say the Brazilian competition policy has been a successful case of antitrust revolution in Latin America. However, the perceived success of competition law hides old inconsistencies in antitrust practice regarding an unusual topic: the interplay between merger control and labor market regulation in the 1990s. That policy interplay could well be seen as only an old miscarriage of "antitrust justice�? in developing countries. It may not be the case, though. Past intersections of different regulatory domains, and the lack of accountability as to the reasons for abandoning labor concerns, can still affect the legitimacy of competition policy. Such failures in policy-making could also create conflicts between the Brazilian Competition Authority (CADE) and authorities responsible for enforcing labor laws. In view of those potential hurdles to antitrust implementation, this paper takes a normative stance on the question of how CADE could justify what appears to be a definitive shift in competition policy away from labor market regulation. My analysis is centered on policy justifications: instances of legal argumentation meant to support implementing decisions. Accordingly, antitrust decision-making is framed within the argumentative discourse of competition law, as a product of practical reasoning informed by legal rules and economic knowledge. That said, I do not offer a positive answer as to whether and how CADE should justify its decision to break the interplay between merger control and the regulation of labor markets. Instead, my claim is only that, in defense of such implementation choice, justifications grounded on economic theory may become, in practice, an informal fallacy. This paper thus contributes to the literature by identifying logical flaws in arguments that could justify a policy decision implicit in Brazilian competition law. As an unusual topic in antitrust policy, the broken interplay between merger control and labor market regulation also allows me to explore the impact of economic indeterminacy on legal discourse. I demonstrate that disagreements among economists can reduce the plausibility of arguments based on economic consequences. In doing so, this paper challenges some uses of economic analysis of law, as argumentation technique, in legal reasoning.


Watermarking has become a technology of choice for a broad range of multimedia copyright protection applications. This paper proposes an audio watermarking scheme that uses the modified tonal masker as an embedding carrier for imperceptible and robust audio watermarking. The method of embedding is to select one of the tonal maskers using a secret key, and to then modify the frequency signals that consist of the tonal masker without changing the sound pressure level. The modified tonal masker can be found using the same secret key without the original sound, and the embedded information can be extracted. The results show that the frequency signals are stable enough to keep embedded watermarks against various common signal processing types, while at the same time the proposed scheme has a robust performance.


The low bandwidth and high error rates of the wireless channel make joint source-channel coding desirable for optimizing resource usage. The authors argue that a mechanism for providing variable quality of service (QOS) is essential for joint source-channel coding, and show that its implementation by way of power control is a natural choice for CDMA. Present-day power control techniques focus on controlling interference. The authors present a power control algorithm which simultaneously minimizes interference and provides variable QOS contracts for different traffic types in a CDMA system. The algorithm accommodates different QOS requirements by assigning different power levels to each traffic type, and can add or drop connections dynamically while ensuring that QOS specifications are satisfied. Both the uplink and downlink are analyzed, and the scheme is statistically formulated to handle variable-rate traffic.


Introduction: Reporting of ethical approval and informed consent in clinical research articles involving human subjects is necessary as per the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Aim: To assess the reporting of ethics committee approval and informed consent in clinical research articles published in AYU journal. Materials and Methods: This was a retrospective analysis of published articles in AYU from 2012 to 2014. All original articles (clinical research) were included. Data was collected to note – Ethics Committee approval and written informed consent (assent from children when applicable). Descriptive statistics was used to report the findings. Results: A total of 104 articles were included in this analysis. Of these, 38 articles included children. Ethics committee approval was reported in 53 (51.0%) articles and consent was also reported in 51 (49.0%) articles. Thirty-eight (36.5%) articles reported both ethics committee approval and consent, whereas 38 (36.5%) articles did not report both. Only five articles reported consent from guardian or parent whereas none of the articles were reported assent. Conclusion: Findings from this study demonstrate that Ayurvedic clinical research articles lack in reporting ethics committee approval and written informed consent.


Lycoris species have appealing characteristics for potting plants, cut flowers, and landscaping decorations, including attractive foliage, which is very similar to that of cymbidium. Lycoris species have been extensively propagated and marketed in Asia. Understanding the response of Lycoris spp. to irradiance intensity will help the horticultural industry improve the production of potting plants of those species. We studied the responses of photosynthesis, growth, and biomass allocation of potted Lycoris spp. (L. chinensis, L. longituba, and L. sprengeri) bulbs grown under three levels of irradiance, i.e., 100%, 70%, and 30% full sunlight. We found that in terms of biomass production L. chinensis can be cultivated under all levels of irradiance studied from full to 30% sunlight. For L. longituba, high irradiance levels increased the rate of net photosynthesis. For both L. chinensis and L. longituba, the full sunlight treatment produced the most attractive plants characterized by shorter, wider, and darker green leaves, features that appeal to consumers. However, none of the growth traits of L. sprengeri were affected by the irradiance treatment over the entire experimental period. It can be concluded that potting plants of L. chinensis and L. longituba are best produced under full sunlight, whereas L. sprengeri can be produced under irradiance levels from 30% to full sunlight.


Three hundred and thirty-two percutaneous cholangiograms were done in 313 patients. The etiology was benign in 137 cases and malignant in 152 instances. The level of obstruction was correctly localized in 97.8% of cases. The total sensitivity was 88.5% and specificity 95.9%. Positive predictive value 95.4% and negative predictive value 89.6%. Major complications occurred in 3.3% of cases. Complications occurred more frequently when the bile ducts were dilated. They were not related to the number of attempts to puncture ther biliary tree or the experience of the physician.


Insulin-like growth factor-binding protein-3 (IGFBP-3), after first associating with IGF-I or IGF-II, is able to associate with the acid-labile subunit (ALS) and form a 140-kDa complex. To investigate the factors regulating ternary complex formation in vivo, human (h) IGFBP-3, hIGF-I, and hALS were administered in various combinations to GH-deficient (dw/dw) rats. hIGFBP-3 had a complex pattern of disappearance from the rat circulation, with an initial phase lasting minutes and a prolonged phase(s) lasting hours. If coinjected with hIGF-I, significantly more hIGFBP-3 was retained over 2 h. The molecular distribution of hIGFBP-3 was determined after size-separation chromatography. After an iv bolus of hIGFBP-3, 36.1 +/- 5.0% was in the 140-kilodalton complex at 5 min; this increased to 55.1 +/- 7.1% if hIGF-I was coinjected (P < 0.05). The 140-kDa complex disappeared slowly over hours, whereas 50- and 30-kDa forms of hIGFBP-3 cleared rapidly, with half-lives of minutes. To determine the importance of ALS in regulating the molecular distribution of hIGFBP-3, hALS was coinjected. Immunoreactive hALS disappeared slowly from the circulation and was shown to retain functional activity after 2 h in vivo. Coadministration of hALS did not influence the pattern of ternary complex formation, consistent with the presence of excess endogenous rat ALS. We conclude that ALS circulates in excess even in GH deficiency, is retained in the circulation for hours, and determines the stability of the 140-kDa complex, whereas IGF-I is a limiting factor in ternary complex formation by hIGFBP-3.


Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) technologies like the Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) standard provide the foundation of applications realizing communication and intelligent interaction between almost any kind of object. These applications are commonly called Smart Cities and the Internet of Things (IoT). Offering the potential of great benefits for mankind, these applications can also present a significant risk, especially when their security is compromised. This paper's work analyzes the possibility of two particular scenarios of impersonating a LoRaWAN gateway combining existing attacks. Impersonated gateways are of use when exploiting vulnerabilities already shown by other researchers. We give a basic overview about LoRaWAN, the Semtech Packet Forwarder protocol, attacks needed to perform the impersonation, and assumptions made. We explain our attack and propose countermeasures to increase the security of LoRaWAN networks. We show a gateway impersonation is possible in particular circumstances but can be detected and prevented.


INTRODUCTION
Peritoneal dialysis is the dialytic method of choice in chronic end-stage renal disease in children. This study main purpose was to characterize the long-term survival of a pediatric population who began peritoneal dialysis within the first two years of life.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
A descriptive and retrospective study was performed in a portuguese nephrology and renal transplantation pediatric unit, between January 1991 and August 2014. End-stage renal disease etiology, mortality, comorbidities and complications of peritoneal dialysis and end-stage renal disease, growth and psychomotor development were evaluated.

RESULTS
Twenty children started peritoneal dialysis within the first two years of life. There were six deaths, but no deaths of children with primary chronic kidney disease were registered over the past decade. The 14 living children were characterized; 13 were males. Congenital abnormalities of the kidney and urinary tract were the leading etiology of chronic kidney disease (45%). The average age start of peritoneal dialysis was 6.1 months; six children started before 30 days of life. Peritonitis was the most frequent cause of hospitalization. Ten children were transplanted at an average age of 5.3 years. All of the children who are still in peritoneal dialysis have short stature, but nine of the transplanted have final height within the expected for their mid-parental height target range. Nine (64%) had some type of neurodevelopmental delay.

DISCUSSION
Peritoneal dialysis is a technique possible and feasible since birth, as evidenced in the study, as more than half of children successfully started it before 6 months of life. It allows long-term survival until the possibility of renal transplantation despite the associated morbidity, including peritonitis and complications of chronic renal disease. The ten transplanted children improved their growth, recovered from chronic anemia and improved dyslipidemia, compared with the period of dialysis. However, the average waiting time until the renal transplant was 5.3 years higher than other international centers.

CONCLUSION
These data support the use of peritoneal dialysis from birth, but complications and the worst growth reflect the need to develop strategies to optimize care relating to nutrition, growth and development and to reduce pre-transplant time.


Researchers have not yet investigated how alliance networks influence the value of a firm's patents (inventions), despite evidence that this is an important contributor to financial performance. Our paper addresses this gap in the literature. Specifically, we suggest that characteristics of the knowledge contained in a firm's inter-organizational network and the structure of the network will both affect the value of its inventions. Two different dimensions of a firm's network are important. A firm's position within a network, i.e. its structural embeddedness, determines its access to information circulating among members. Characteristics of a firm's direct contacts describe its knowledge embeddedness and determine its access to more fine-grained (tacit, complex) knowledge. We propose that the context (e.g. the difficulty of learning from external sources) and the type of innovation being considered (e.g. entrepreneurship as brokerage versus creation) have implications for how structural and knowledge embeddedness affect invention value. Longitudinal patent and alliance data from the pharmaceutical industry provides support for these ideas.


One way of investigating the phenomenon of wrongful convictions is to study the road to exoneration. In some respects, the post-conviction review process lies at the heart of the wrongful conviction issue, since this is where alleged miscarriages of justice are either acknowledged or rejected.  However, the number and characteristics of the criminal cases that pass through the Swedish post-conviction review process are unknown. Against this background, the overarching objective of the present article is to provide an empirical basis for an informed discussion of wrongful convictions. More specifically, this article examines wrongful conviction claims and the judicial outcomes of these claims over a one-year period. The findings are discussed in relation to the view that the operation of the post-conviction process may be understood as a means by which the legal system may preserve its legitimacy. It is also discussed why there is a need for more transparency in this particular part of the criminal justice system.


Contents: Preface. Part I: Introduction. A. Goncu, S. Gaskins, An Integrative Perspective on Play and Development. Part II: Biological/Ethological Perspectives of Play and Development. P.K. Smith, Evolutionary Foundations and Functions of Play: An Overview. R.W. Mitchell, Pretense in Animals: The Continuing Relevance of Children's Pretense. A.D. Pellegrini, The Development and Function of Rough-and-Tumble Play in Childhood and Adolescence: A Sexual Selection Theory Perspective. Part III: Social/Cultural Perspectives of Play and Development. M.H. Bornstein, On the Significance of Social Relationships in the Development of Children's Earliest Symbolic Play: An Ecological Perspective. A. Lillard, Guided Participation: How Mothers Structure and Children Understand Pretend Play. A. Goncu, J. Jain, U. Tuermer, Children's Play as Cultural Interpretation. S. Gaskins, W. Haight, D.F. Lancy, The Cultural Construction of Play. Part IV: Applied Perspectives of Play and Development. P.L. Harris, Hard Work for the Imagination. M. Taylor, A.M. Mannering, Of Hobbes and Harvey: The Imaginary Companions Created By Children and Adults. A. Nicolopoulou, The Interplay of Play and Narrative in Children's Development: Theoretical Reflections and Concrete Examples. C.D. Clark, Therapeutic Advantages of Play.


An effective macroscopic model of magnetorheological fluids in the viscoelastic regime is proposed. Under the application of an external magnetic field, columns of magnetizable particles are formed in these systems. The columns are responsible for solidlike properties, such as the existence of elastic shear modulus and yield stress, and are captured by the strain field, while magnetic properties are described by the magnetization. We investigate the interplay of these variables when static shear or normal pressure is imposed in the presence of the external magnetic field. By assuming a relaxing strain field, we calculate the flow curves, i.e., the shear stress as a function of the imposed shear rate, for different values of the applied magnetic field. Focusing on the small amplitude oscillatory shear, we study the complex shear modulus, i.e., the storage and the loss moduli, as a function of the frequency. We demonstrate that already such a minimal model is capable of furnishing many of the key physical features of these systems, such as yield stress, enhancement of the shear yield stress by pressure, threshold behavior in the spirit of the frequently employed Bingham law, and several features in the frequency dependence of storage and loss moduli.


DNA polymerase beta (Polbeta) knockout mouse embryos exhibit extensive apoptosis in postmitotic neuronal cells and die immediately after birth. In contrast, no apoptosis has been observed in other tissues as well as liver in the mutant embryos. To study the relationship of Polbeta deficiency and mutagenesis during development and neurogenesis, we examined spontaneous mutations in Polbeta null (Polbeta-/-) and wild-type (Polbeta+/+) mouse embryos, by using the transgenic mutation detection system consisting of a pSSW shuttle vector with the Escherichia coli rpsL reporter gene. Unexpectedly, we found a significant decrease in the mutant frequency of Polbeta-/- brain (1.63+/-0.67x10(-5)) compared with wild-type controls (3.12+/-0.83x10(-5)) (P<0.001). In contrast, no such difference was found between livers from Polbeta-/- (0.92+/-0.38x10(-5)) and wild-type (0.71+/-0.31x10(-5)) embryos. Analysis of mutation spectra revealed that mutations in brains from the two genotypes were almost exclusively single-base deletions and that these sites fell within runs of 2-6 identical bases and a two base repeat in the rpsL sequence, while mutations in the corresponding livers contained base substitutions as well as single-base deletions. Taken together with the extensive neuronal apoptosis associated with Polbeta deficiency, we suggest that the lower mutant frequency observed in Polbeta-/- embryonic brain may be caused by the elimination of neuronal cells with unrepaired DNA damage through apoptosis.


A field examination of representatives of the vascular plants of xeric sites and shallow soils in Australia disclosed about 25 species with foliage which can revive after dehydration. Most were grasses, or ferns in the genus Cheilanthes. Only one dicotyledonous species was found. The protoplasmic drought tolerance limits were predominantly in the range of water potentials equivalent to 0-5 % relative humidity at 28°C. Most grass species were too low-growing to have agricultural potential.