One of the prevailing narratives spread by mainstream media and many nongovernmental organizations is that Haiti is a site of disaster. The devastation wrought by the earthquake only reinforced this cliched depiction, especially as the ruined National Palace was read as an allegory for the country as a whole. This article examines the ways that contemporary Haitian literature complicates narratives of disaster. Beginning with the 2010 publication of Edwidge Danticat's essay collection Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work, a number of texts published by Haitian writers in the wake of the earthquake adopt a more personal and critical stance in opposition to the symbolic representation of destruction.1 At the outset, I suggest that these writers, through varied forms and voices, attempt a "reconstruction" of landscapes historical, cultural and literary. The aim here is to examine how literature-encompassing both the texts themselves and the acts of reading and writing that give life to them-offers a vision for rebuilding from the ruins.The writer's awareness of history is central to this vision. Indeed, if there is a theme that resonates deeply in Haitian literature, it is that the rebuilding of the present must come to terms with the cyclical resurfacing of the past. Of several texts that could serve as primary sources for this study, I would like to focus on Kettly Mars's 2010 novel Saisons sauvages, which was written before the earthquake but published shortly thereafter. Written at the intersection of the author's own memory and history (Mars was born in 1958), Saisons sauvages is a terrifying story of the early years of the regime of Francois Duvalier. The political violence of the Duvalier dynasty (from father to son) continues to haunt Haiti today, in ways both imagined and real. One year after the earthquake, Jean-Claude Duvalier returned to Haiti, thus superimposing his ailing physical body onto the ghostly presence that had nourished neo-Duvalierist political discourse during his exile.In ways that Mars could never have imagined, the appearance of her novel between two separate tragedies mirrors the painful reflection on past and present that the text itself undertakes. Therefore, this article will also consider the novel's uncanny similarities with realities outside, but which put pressure on, the frame of the story itself. I then address the work's implications for responses to the earthquake, including its relation to Mars's own call for renewed fellowship and to the figure of the "ruinreader" proposed by Junot Diaz in an essay on the earthquakes in Haiti and Japan. These theoretical questions, along with a brief look ahead to Mars's subsequent novel, Aux frontieres de la soif bring the article to a close by returning to the central idea of literature as a force of "reconstruction."Saisons sauvages is a work of fiction that thoroughly interrogates the cyclical aspects of Haitian history.2 Danticat observes in Create Dangerously that Haitians are keenly aware of the cycle of tragic and proud moments that have come to define the country since its founding. "Grappling with memory is," she writes, "one of many complicated Haitian obsessions. We have, it seems, a collective agreement to remember our triumphs and gloss over our failures."3 One place where this "agreement" plays out is in literature. Despite the collective nature of this reading, however, it could be argued that Haitians have struggled to coalesce around a unifying interpretation of the event that collected them: namely, the Haitian Revolution. A short three years after independence, Haiti split into Christophe's kingdom in the north and Petion's republic in the south, and the scribes of these political icons immortalized this rift in a trove of writings that has recently been the subject of extensive scholarly exploration.4 These early documents, both historiographical and literary, constitute an archival record of division that helps to explain the kind of national obsession on which Danticat reflects. …


Appetite loss/anorexia of aging is a highly prevalent and burdensome geriatric syndrome that strongly impairs the quality of life of older adults. Loss of appetite is associated with several clinical conditions, including comorbidities and other geriatric syndromes, such as frailty. Despite its importance, appetite loss has been under-evaluated and, consequently, under-diagnosed and under-treated in routine clinical care. The International Conference on Frailty and Sarcopenia Research (ICFSR) Task Force met virtually on September 27th 2021 to debate issues related to appetite loss/anorexia of aging. In particular, topics related to the implementation and management of appetite loss in at-risk older adult populations, energy balance during aging, and the design of future clinical trials on this topic were discussed. Future actions in this field should focus on the systematic assessment of appetite in the care pathway of older people, such as the Integrated Care for Older People (ICOPE) program recommended by the World Health Organization. Moreover, clinical care should move from the assessment to the treatment of appetite loss/anorexia. Researchers continue to pursue their efforts to find out effective pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic interventions with a favorable risk/benefit ratio.


Mature biological phosphorus removal granules were inoculated into a SBR. The effect of the ammonia concentration on biological phosphorus removal granules system was investigated by increasing the concentration of ammonia in the influent. The ability of the system to withstand ammonia loading was determined. The results showed that when the influent ammonia concentration was below 45 mg·L-1, the biological phosphorus removal granule system showed good performance. The TP removal efficiency was above 96%, the COD removal efficiency was over 89%. The effluent TP concentration and COD concentration were 0.4 mg·L-1 and 25 mg·L-1 respectively. The particle size was above 950 μm and the SVI was below 45 mL·g-1. When the influent ammonia concentration was 60 mg·L-1, the removal efficiency of TP was more than 95%. The effluent TP concentration was below 0.5 mg·L-1, the particle size was 760 μm, and the SVI was 56 mL·g-1. Furthermore, the biological phosphorus removal granules partially disintegrated and the metabolism and growth of PAOs began to be inhibited in the system. When the influent ammonia concentration reached 70 mg·L-1, the removal efficiency of TP was 70%, the effluent TP concentration was about 3 mg·L-1, the particle size was 570 μm, the SVI was 75 mL·g-1, and the value of PN/PS was about 7.50. The biological phosphorus granules severely disintegrated and the metabolism and growth of PAOs was severely inhibited in the system. Moreover, as the influent ammonia concentration increased, the protein increased and polysaccharide decreased from the microbial secretion of biological phosphorus removal granules. Moreover, the value of PN/PS increased, the biological phosphorus removal granules disintegrated, the particle size decreased, the SVI increased, and the structure and function of the biological phosphorus removal granules were destroyed.


The ADRB3 gene plays a role in energy expenditure by participating in lipolysis, which affects body composition and performance. The ADRB3 rs4994 polymorphism has been studied in groups of athletes, overweight individuals, and obese and diabetic patients, but it has not been studied in young and healthy adults so far. In the present study, we examined the association of ADRB3 rs4994 polymorphism with body composition, somatotype, cardiorespiratory fitness and physical activity in young, healthy adults (N = 304). All subjects had anthropometric measurements, and somatotypes were assessed using the Heath–Carter method. In addition, cardiorespiratory fitness and physical activity levels were assessed. Genotyping for the ADRB3 gene was performed using a PCR-RFLP method. In the male group, body components were associated with the Trp64Trp genotype (waist circumference (p = 0.035), hip circumference (p = 0.029), BF (%) (p = 0.008), and BF (kg) (p = 0.010), BMI (p = 0.005), WHtR (p = 0.021), and BAI (p = 0.006)). In addition, we observed that the Trp64Trp genotype was associated with somatotype components (p = 0.013). In contrast, the Arg allele was associated with the ectomorphic components (0.006). We also observed a positive impact of the Trp64Trp genotype with maximal oxygen uptake (p= 0.023) and oxygen pulse (p = 0.024). We observed a negative relationship of the Trp64Trp genotype in the female group with reported moderate-intensity exercise (p = 0.036). In conclusion, we found an association of the Trp64 allele with anthropometric traits, somatotype and parameters describing physical performance in the male group. In the female subpopulation, we only found an effect of the polymorphism Trp64Arg on the level of physical activity for moderate-intensity exercise.


. The analysis and the description of complex visual scenes characterized by the presence of many objects of interests involve reasoning on spatial relations such as "above", "below","before", "after" and "between". In this context, we have defined these semantic concepts in terms of ternary spatial relations and we have formalized them using the clock model which is based on the clock-face division and the semantic notions of hours to describe relative spatial positions. The presented approach has been efficiently applied for the automated understanding of spatial relations between multiple objects in real-world computer vision image datasets.


Achieving visually consistent colors across multiple images is important when images are used in photo albums, websites, and brochures. Unfortunately, only a handful of methods address multi‐image color consistency compared to one‐to‐one color transfer techniques. Furthermore, existing methods do not incorporate high‐level features that can assist graphic designers in their work. To address these limitations, we introduce a framework that builds upon a previous palette‐based color consistency method and incorporates three high‐level features: white balance, saliency, and color naming. We show how these features overcome the limitations of the prior multi‐consistency workflow and showcase the user‐friendly nature of our framework.


BACKGROUND
The objective of this study was to evaluate the interaction between the length polymorphism of the guanosine thymidine repeat [(GT)n] in the heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) gene and far-infrared (FIR) therapy on access flow (Qa) and arteriovenous fistula (AVF) patency in hemodialysis (HD) patients.

METHODS
A total of 280 HD patients were randomized into a control group (n = 141) and the FIR group (n = 139) who received 40 min of FIR therapy three times weekly for a year during the study period from May 2005 to December 2007. Access flow was measured during HD. The [(GT)n] was determined with the definition of long (L) allele as [(GT)n] ≥ 30 and short (S) allele as [(GT)n] < 30.

RESULTS
The Qa decreased from S/S to S/L and further to the L/L group but increased by FIR therapy with the highest Qa increase in the S/S group. The incidence of AVF malfunction decreased both from the L/L, S/L to S/S group (32.4 versus 17.2 versus 10.9%, P = 0.007) and from the control group to FIR group (27.5 versus 12.6%, P = 0.004). Significant associations were found between AVF malfunction and the following factors (hazard ratio, P-value): a past history of AVF malfunction (2.45, P = 0.044), FIR therapy (0.369, P = 0.03) and L/L genotypes of HO-1 (2.531 versus S/S + S/L genotypes). The 1-year unassisted patency decreased from 91.9 and 77.6% in S/S and S/L subgroups with and without FIR therapy to 75.8 and 60% for L/L subgroup with and without FIR therapy, respectively (P < 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS
FIR therapy improves Qa and patency of AVF in HD patients, with the best protective effect in those with S/S genotype of HO-1.


In high technology industries, product line technology strategies are critical to firm success. However, the determinants of these product line strategies are still unclear. We suggest that a joint consideration of firm size, firm age, and pre-entry experience better explains the choice of a specific strategy. Results obtained from the personal computer industry reveal that larger firms and older firms were more likely to pursue broad product line technology strategies, whereas the oldest firms reverted to a narrow technology strategy after a particular age. Furthermore, the contingent relationships between firm size, firm age, and pre-entry experience also yielded interesting results. Copyright © 2013 Strategic Management Society.


Rank Aggregation problem is to find a combined ordering for objects, given a set of rankings obtained from different rankers. Rank aggregation is a technique that combines results of various rankings on the sets of entities (e.g. Documents or web pages of search result) to generate an overall ranking of the entities. In the context of the World Wide Web, Rank aggregation is frequently used in metasearching. In this paper, we discuss the development of a supervised rank aggregation system that is based on "neural networks". A supervised rank aggregation system provides an aggregation of rankings of entities by learning rules for combining the different individual rankings of the entities on the basis of training data. In case of a metasearch system, the training data may be the user feedback based ranking of the search results. The main contribution of the paper is the formulation of the rank aggregation problem as a function approximation problem. As the multilayer perceptrons are considered as the universal approximator, we use a multilayer perceptron for the supervised rank aggregation. For experimental purpose, we apply this supervised rank aggregation technique to metasearching. We train our metasearch system with the user feedback based ranking of the search results from 7 public search engines for a set of 15 queries. We also evaluate the performance of our trained metasearch system using the feedback from three independent evaluators and find that our system gives a very good performance.


Despite the benefits of decentralized applications in terms of resilience and privacy, the overwhelming majority of applications with mainstream adoption are provided in a centralized manner. We argue that this is due to the direct benefits to the developer that centralization provides in terms of performance, monetization, and deployability. In this paper we introduce a new model, untrusted delegation, which joins the simplified deployment model of centralization with the benefits of decentralization. In this model, we decouple administrative ownership from administrative management, and leverage the existence of either a private cloud infrastructure, or a public cloud provider that acts as a neutral third party, that is augmented to support decentralization. Our initial prototype integrates with the Digital Ocean API and as a proof-of-concept, we can deploy Tor relay nodes with users only needing to sign up for a Digital Ocean account.


Palaeoscientists of necessity deal with time as a fundamental part of the research process and have developed understandings within the discipline of how to deal with a range of timescales from the deep time of Archaean geology to recent time, that is the last few centuries. Time has however largely been seen as providing a chronology, the ability to place events in sequence and through the implementation of various dating techniques to relate these sequences across space, providing fundamental information toward understanding cause and effect within the Earth system. Variability in the units of time, the differences between radiometric and sidereal or calendrical years is accounted for and not deemed significant. When dealing with other disciplines, either through research into the relationship of past societies to climate change, or when contributing to the concerns over future directions of climate problems arise in attempting to communicate the nature of timescales. The real issue is to reinforce the idea of change as a basic quality of the climate system, something that can occur very rapidly. It is open to question whether a concentration on timescales of climate change is proving a distraction in terms of communication from the most important issue. Change is a fundamental property of the global climate system, and from our paleoscience knowledge it is clear that change will continue into the future and could well be very rapid. WIREs Clim Change 2012 doi: 10.1002/wcc.178


OBJECTIVE
This study evaluated the accuracy of different intraoral scanners (IOS) for scanning of implant-supported full arch fixed prosthesis with different implant angulations with and without scanbodies splinting.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Two maxillary models were designed and fabricated to receive an all-on-four implant retained. The models were divided into two groups according to the angulation of the posterior implant (Group 1; 30 and Group 2; 45). Each group was then divided into three subgroups according to the type of IOS used: Subgroup C; Primescan, subgroup T; Trios4, and subgroup M; Medit i600. Then each subgroup was divided into two divisions according to scanning technique; division S: splinted and division N: nonsplinted. Ten scans were made by each scanner for every division. Trueness and precision were analyzed using Geomagic controlX analysis software.

RESULTS
Angulation had no significant effect on both the trueness (p = 0.854) and precision (p = 0.347). Splinting had a significant effect on trueness and precision (p < 0.001). Scanner type had a significant effect on trueness (p < 0.001) and precision (p < 0.001). There was no significant difference between trueness of Trios 4 (112.15 ± 12.85) and Primescan (106.75 ± 22.58). However, there was a significant difference when compared to trueness of Medit i600 (158.50 ± 27.65). For the precision results Cerec Primescan showed the highest precision (95.45 ± 33.21). There was a significant difference between the three scanners, precision of Trios4 (109.72 ± 19.24) and Medit i600 (121.21 ± 17.26).

CONCLUSION
Cerec Primescan has higher trueness and precision than Trios 4 and Medit i600 in full arch implants scanning. Splinting the scanbodies improve the accuracy of full arch implants scanning.

CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE
Cerec Primescan and 3Shape Trios 4 can be used for scanning of All-on-four implant supported prosthesis when scanbodies are splinted using a modular chain device.


OBJECTIVES
To estimate the annual prevalence of different diagnostic categories by age, breed and sex in insured cats in Japan for which veterinary care claims had been made, and to identify if there is a pattern in these host factors.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Data from 48,187 cats insured for veterinary care in Japan in the period from April 2012 to March 2013 comprising 26,003 males and 22,184 females were analysed to calculate the annual prevalence of 18 diagnostic categories of disease by age, breed and sex.

RESULTS
The prevalence was highest for urinary system disorders (12·2% for males and 10·0% for females), followed by digestive disorders (11·6% for males and 10·7% for females) and dermatological diseases (8·7% for males and 9·0% for females). The male cats had a higher prevalence than female cats for most diagnostic categories. The prevalence of cardiovascular, urinary, endocrine and neoplastic disorders increased with age; infectious and parasitic diseases had high prevalence at young ages, and the prevalence of respiratory, musculoskeletal disorders and injuries had bimodal peaks. Dermatological disorders had a high prevalence at all ages. A large variation in prevalence was observed between breeds for otic, dermatological, dental and cardiovascular disorders.

CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE
The findings can be used to increase awareness of patterns of health disorders in different categories of cat.


Channel catfish ponds are treated with salt (sodium chloride) to increase chloride concentration and prevent nitrite toxicity in fish. A survey indicated that most farmers try to maintain chloride concentration of 50 to 100 mg/L in ponds by annual salt applications. Averages and standard deviations for selected water quality variables in salt-treated ponds were as follows: chloride. 87.2 +/- 37.5 mg/L; total dissolved solids (TDS), 336 +/- 96 mg/L; specific conductance, 512 +/- 164 μmhos/cm. Maximum values were 189 mg/L for chloride, 481 mg/L for TDS, and 825 μmhos/cm for specific conductance. Good correlations between specific conductance values and both chloride and TDS concentrations suggest that specific conductance can be a rapid method for estimating concentrations of these two variables in surface water. The maximum limit for chloride concentration in Alabama streams allowed by the Alabama Department of Environmental Management is 230 mg/L. The usual recommended upper limit of TDS for protection of aquatic life in freshwater streams is 1,000 mg/L. Based on the observed relationship between TDS concentration and specific conductance in Alabama catfish ponds, 1,000 mg/L TDS corresponds to 1,733 μmhos/cm specific conductance. It is unlikely that effluents from salttreated catfish ponds would violate the in-stream chloride standard of 230 mg/L or harm aquatic life in streanis. Nevertheless, chloride concentrations in ponds should be measured before salt application as a safe guard against excessive salt application and chloride concentrations above the in-stream chloride standard.


Introduction: Etiologic diagnosis in patients with end-stage cardiomyopathy can be challenging. A large number of patients remain undiagnosed despite a thorough evaluation, so they are classified as idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathies.Objectives: To describe the etiology of cardiomyopathy in heart transplant recipients according to pretransplant clinical diagnosis and its degree of agreement with the anatomopathological diagnosis of the explanted heart.Methods: We performed a retrospective analysis of consecutively transplanted patients in a high complexity hospital of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires from 2003 to the end of 2013. An agreement analysis between pretransplantation clinical diagnosis and anatomopathological diagnosis of the explanted heart was done using the kappa coefficient.Results: One-hundred patients with mean age of 49.7 ± 12.5 years at the time of transplantation and median ejection fraction of 26.6% were analyzed. The most common pretransplant clinical diagnosis was idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (37%), followed by ischemic-necrotic cardiomyopathy (32%) and Chagas cardiomyopathy (10%). The most common histopathological diagnoses were ischemic-necrotic cardiomyopathy (35%), hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (10%), Chagas cardiomyopathy (10%) and myocarditis (8%); a causal diagnosis was not reached in 25% of cases (idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy). The kappa coefficient was 0.64 (CI 0.52-0.76).Conclusions: Approximately one third of patients reach transplantation without an etiologic diagnosis. Anatomopathological analysis allows identifying the cause in more than half of these patients. Although the correlation between pretransplant diagnosis and pathological anatomy was statistically adequate, a significant percentage of patients could benefit from a more specific etiologic diagnosis, which may have prognostic, therapeutic and/or family assessment implications.


【This study was intended to grasp the history of nursing education from the beginning to the present in Korea, and grip and look-out current diversified systems of nursing education on basis of February, 2000 through literatural review and investigation by close telephone interviews. The basic nursing educational institutions in the whole country were total 113, namely, 3 years course, 65 junior colleges of nursing, and 4 years course, 48 colleges of nursing. And there were 3 types of continuing nursing educational system: two of three were transferring to another college for gain bachelor's degree in nursing; RN-BSN programs and university of broadcasting, and the other was the system of independent learning and then examination for BSN. Total nursing graduates from junior college of nursing courses and college of nursing courses were 7,564 on February, 1999. In general graduate school, the number of master courses were 21 and Ph.D courses were 13. And the number of special graduate schools were 21, i.e., graduate school of education were 7, graduate school of administration were 2, graduate school of public health were 11 and graduate school of industry was 1. As the perspective on nursing education, we overviewed changing nursing organizational environment, increasing the system of continuing education, making standards in nursing education and systemization of nursing educational accreditation, specialization of nursing, information system in nursing education and education of graduate school. The summary of the above overviewed subjects were as follows; Every nursing educational institution needed to educate by educational criteria and standard and characteristically run BSN and graduate courses. Specialization in nursing has to develop more and more, therefore advanced education and law should be prepared appropriately. According to the age's and social needs, we have to establish counter-plan for fundamental educational environment. We have to sensitive to rapidly changing information in the era of globalization. In the level of university education, each university needs characterization of educational objectives, goals and contents, and has to replace the shortage of the number of professor. And the regulation of thesis and dissertation examinations need to be reinforced. Education in nursing should consists with specialization. Collaboration among universities will bring efficiency in the nursing education.】


To determine whether the remarkable chemical properties of the pyranosyl isomer of RNA as an informational Watson-Crick base-pairing system are unique to the pentopyranosyl-(4′2′)-oligonucleotide isomer derived from the RNA-building block D-ribose, studies on the entire family of diastereoisomeric pyranosyl-(4′2′)-oligonucleotide systems deriving from D-ribose, L-lyxose, D-xylose, and L-arabinose were carried out. The result of these extended studies is unambiguous: not only pyranosyl-RNA, but all members of the pentopyranosyl-(4′2′)-oligonucleotide family are highly efficient Watson-Crick base-pairing systems. Their synthesis and pairing properties will be described in a series of publications in this journal. The present paper describes the α-L-lyxopyranosyl-(4′2′)-system.


Purpose To assess the usefulness of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in assessing fibrovascularization progression into synthetic hydroxyapatite (HA) implants inserted in anophthalmic sockets of children submitted to enucleation. Methods We studied 23 HA orbital implants in 23 children who underwent enucleation for retinoblastoma. Each patient was examined by MRI within to 9 to 69 weeks after implant insertion (mean 34 weeks, median 30 weeks). No patient had received chemotherapy or radiotherapy at MRI examination. From each T1-weighted, fat-suppressed enhanced axial examination, the image depicting the center of the implant was identified. Enhancement was evaluated using a 5-point scale. Additionally, possible associated orbital and intracranial pathologies and implant migration or extrusion were evaluated. Results All patients showed areas of enhancement of the implant consistent with the presence of fibrovascular ingrowth. There was no grade 1 enhancement in our series. Grade 2 was observed in 1 patient (4.34%), grade 3 in 7 patients (30.43%), grade 4 in 11 patients (47.82%), and grade 5 in 4 patients (17.39%). During follow-up there were no cases of clinically evident orbital infection, implant migration, or implant extrusion. No second tumor, optic nerve invasion, orbital extension, tumor relapse, or leptomeningeal brain seeding were noted. Conclusions In this series, enhanced MRI showed satisfactory fibrovascular ingrowth of orbital implants since the 13th week after HA spheres insertion, with a trend towards progressive enhancement during the following weeks. The data also confirm the advice to wait at least 5–6 months after enucleation to perform drilling and peg placement.


Objective: We described the patterns of chemotherapy use and outcomes in patients diagnosed with stage III or IV non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in England. Method: In this retrospective population-based study, we included 20,716 (62% stage IV) patients with NSCLC diagnosed in 2014-17 treated with chemotherapy. We used the Systemic Anti-Cancer Treatment (SACT) dataset to describe changes in treatment plan and estimated 30 and 90-day mortality rates and median, 6- and 12-month overall survival (OS) using Kaplan Meier estimator for patients aged <75 and [≥] 75 by stage. Using flexible hazard regression models we assessed the impact of age, stage, treatment intent and performance status on survival. Results: Patients aged [≥] 75 years were less likely to receive 2 or more regimens, more likely to have their treatment modified because of comorbidities and their doses reduced compared to younger patients. However, early mortality rates and overall survival were similar across ages, apart from the oldest patients with stage III disease. Conclusion: This observational study demonstrates that age is associated with treatment choices in an older population with advanced NSCLC in England. Despite reflecting a pre-immunotherapy period, given the median age of NSCLC patients and increasingly older population, these results suggest older patients (>75yrs) may need additional support to access more intense treatments that may influence overall survival.


When the road passes through the first-grade surface sources protection zones and secondary reserve for domestic and drinking water, Road runoff needs to be treated. Pollutant control index achieve environmental quality standards for surface water (GB 3838-2002) before being discharged. Road runoff treatment belongs to a new field. It is not very clear about the definition and not formed a mature system in domestic research. In the vast literature at home and abroad about pavement runoff, this article summarizing the engineering and non-engineering measures of pavement runoff, and discussing handling the problems existing in the research and future development trend, provides reference for the related research and engineering design.


This thesis investigates the impact of financial liberalisation policies on finance-growth relationship and financial crises. Analysis of recent trends and economic performance of financially developed and stable economies raises at least two very important questions that seem to have strong analytical connections. The first question is associated with the link between financial development and economic growth and the second question focuses the possible association between the policies of financial liberalisation and financial vulnerability. In this thesis we aim to shed light on some of the aspects that have gained so much attention from academics and policy makers during the last two decades.First we address whether excessive liberalisation has caused financial development to lose its effectiveness in generating economic growth. We employ a dynamic panel data analysis for 88 countries over the period of 1973 to 2005. Our index for the financial sector liberalisation covers seven aspects: credit controls and reserve requirements, interest rate controls, entry barriers, state ownership, policies on securities markets, banking regulations and restrictions on capital market. We use a comprehensive financial development indicator constructed through principal component analysis of five different indicators: bank private credit to GDP ratio, liquid liability to GDP ratio, deposit money bank assets to total bank assets ratio, deposit money bank assets to GDP ratio, and bank credit to bank deposit ratio. The results indicate that the positive effect of financial development on long-run growth continues to decline as the financial sector becomes more liberalised. Our results are robust to changes in the financial development indicators and the dis-aggregation of the financial liberalisation index.Second, we examine the possibility for an optimal sequence of financial sector reforms that may reduce an economy?s vulnerability to financial crises. We construct a distance measure from the countries that followed a more gradual approach and liberalised their capital account at a later stage. Our analysis shows that the experience of the countries that delayed or followed a very gradual approach for the liberalisation of their capital accounts have high level of implications to those countries that allowed for shock approach or liberalised their capital account before bringing reforms in other sectors.


Deep learning methods have become the default tool for image classification. However, application of deep learning to surface shape classification is burdened by the limitations of existing methods, in particular, by lack of invariance to geometric transformations of input data.

This thesis proposes two novel frameworks for learning a multi-layer representation of surface shape features, namely the view-based and the surface-based compositional hierarchical frameworks. The proposed representation is a hierarchical vocabulary of shape features, termed parts. Parts of the first layer are pre-defined, while parts of the subsequent layers, describing spatial relations of subparts, are learned.

The view-based framework describes spatial relations between subparts using a camera-based reference frame. The key stage of the learning algorithm is part selection which forms the vocabulary based on multi-objective optimization, considering different importance measures of parts. Our experiments show that this framework enables efficient category recognition on a large-scale dataset.

The surface-based framework exploits part-based intrinsic reference frames, which are computed for lower layers parts and inherited by parts of the subsequent layers. During learning spatial relations between subparts are described in these reference frames. During inference, a part is detected in input data when its subparts are detected at certain positions and orientations in each other's reference frames. Since rigid body transformations don't change positions and orientations of parts in intrinsic reference frames, this approach enables efficient recognition from unseen poses. Experiments show that this framework exhibits a large discriminative power and greater robustness to rigid body transformations than advanced CNN-based methods.


The special thermochemical and kinetic characteristics of electroslag remelting (ESR) require an advanced process control in order to apply this process for the desoxidation of titanium alloys. Based on the example of high oxygen containing γ-Titanium Aluminides, that have been prepared from oxidized scrap or via metallothermic reduction, the application of Ca-reactive slags is modelled using a quasi-equilibrium approach, taking into account the effects of varying slag composition and evaporation. This leads to a detailed design of experiment and parameters for process control in order to receive a chemically homogeneous product with low oxygen content.


The genomic composition of the microbiome and its relationship with the environment is an exciting open question in biology. Metagenomics is a useful tool in the discovery of previously unknown taxa, but its use to understand the functional and ecological capacities of the microbiome is limited until taxonomy and function are understood in the context of the community. We suggest that this can be achieved using a combined functional phylogenomics and co-culture-based experimental strategy that can increase our capacity to measure sub-community interactions. Functional phylogenomics can identify and partition the genome such that hidden gene functions and gene clusters with unique evolutionary signals are revealed. We can test these phylogenomic predictions using an experimental model based on sub-community populations that represent a subset of the diversity directly obtained from environmental samples. These populations increase the detection of mechanisms that drive functional forces in the assembly of the microbiome, in particular the role of metabolites from key taxa in community interactions. Our combined approach leverages the potential of metagenomics to address biological questions from ecological systems.


A quantitative description of the optical performance of a pre-objective scan system for the laser recrystallization of silicon on insulator (SOI) material is given. The thermal effects induced by the high power argon-ion laser beam in the transmitting optical components making up the optical path of the laser beam are discussed extensively. Thermal lensing in plan-parallel optics and heating of the flat field scan lens by the laser beam leads to a recrystallization condition dependent beam waist position of the focused laser beam. A model is presented to calculate the beam waist position as a function of the recrystallization parameters. Using this model it is possible to predict the thermal defocusing and compensate for it by adjusting the wafer position. In this way a recrystallization parameter independent spot size can be obtained on the wafer. A critical evaluation of the pre-objective scan technique is given.


The article gives a general classification of medical errors. There are given arguments in favor the replacement of a «medical error» for an «innocent mistake». It is proved expedient to replace "negligence, frivolity" to "a mistake due to negligence and frivolity". Common features and criteria for distinguishing both types of mistakes are written. There is given an example of thinking errors due to stereotype and its analysis.


Using data from the Deep Ecliptic Survey (DES), we investigate the inclination distributions of objects in the Kuiper Belt. We present a derivation for observational bias removal and use this procedure to generate unbiased inclination distributions for Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) of different DES dynamical classes, with respect to the Kuiper Belt plane. Consistent with previous results, we find that the inclination distribution for all DES KBOs is well fit by the sum of two Gaussians, or a Gaussian plus a generalized Lorentzian, multiplied by sin i. Approximately 80% of KBOs are in the high-inclination grouping. We find that Classical object inclinations are well fit by sin i multiplied by the sum of two Gaussians, with roughly even distribution between Gaussians of widths 2.0+0.6−0.5° and 8.1+2.6−2.1°. Objects in different resonances exhibit different inclination distributions. The inclinations of Scattered objects are best matched by sin i multiplied by a single Gaussian that is centered at 19.1+3.9−3.6° with a width of 6.9+4.1−2.7°. Centaur inclinations peak just below 20°, with one exceptionally high-inclination object near 80°. The currently observed inclination distribution of the Centaurs is not dissimilar to that of the Scattered Extended KBOs and Jupiter-family comets, but is significantly different from the Classical and Resonant KBOs. While the sample sizes of some dynamical classes are still small, these results should begin to serve as a critical diagnostic for models of solar system evolution.


Updating a calibration model formed in original (primary) sample and spectral measurement conditions to predict analyte values in novel (secondary) conditions is an essential activity in analytical chemistry in order to avoid a complete recalibration. Established model updating methods require sample analyte reference values for a small set of secondary domain samples (labeled data) to be used in updating processes. Because obtaining reference values is time consuming and is the costly part of any calibration, methods are needed that do not require labeled secondary samples, thereby allowing on demand model updating. This paper compares model updating methods with and without labeled secondary samples. A hybrid model updating approach is also developed and evaluated. Unfortunately, a major impediment to adapting a model without secondary analyte reference values has been model selection. Because multiple tuning parameters are commonly involved in model updating methods, thousands of models are formed, making model selection complex. A recently developed framework is evaluated for automatic model selection of several two to three tuning parameter-based model updating methods without secondary analyte reference values (labels). The model selection method is based on model diversity and prediction similarity (MDPS) of the unlabeled samples to be predicted. The new secondary samples to be predicted can be used to form the updated models and again to select the final predicting models. Because models are formed and selected on demand to directly predict target samples, complicated cross-validation processes are not needed. Four near-infrared data sets covering 40 model updating situations are evaluated showing that MDPS can select reliable updated models outperforming or rivaling prediction errors from total recalibrations with secondary reference values.


Cavity solitons are predicted in a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser with a saturable absorber and coupled to an external frequency-selective feedback element. An entirely variational-method-based analytical study of the complex Ginzburg–Landau equation—the governing equation of the system—gives rise to one- and two-dimensional cavity solitons. Both types of cavity solitons are verified stable by Lyapunov stability analysis. Stability regions are identified for both types and are found to shrink for higher dimensions. Split-step Fourier-method-based direct numerical analysis of the governing equation exhibits matching results for the existence and stability of the cavity solitons. Cavity soliton interaction has been studied numerically. All-optical control on cavity solitons has been demonstrated by introducing a phase gradient. Cavity solitons thus generated have potential applications in optical information technology.


In a new CEPS Essay, Michael Emerson assesses the initiatives taken by the UK and Dutch governments to cut out excessive EU regulatory intrusion, namely in the form of the ongoing British Balance of Competences Review and the Dutch list of 54 items of EU regulation that they would like to see repealed or reformed. He concludes that while one can approve of a campaign for better EU regulation and for cutting out unnecessary micro-regulation, it would require impressive commitment by all member states and the EU institutions to follow the best features of the British and Dutch leads for this to have a real effect in the fight against populist euroscepticism. In his view, that battle will have to be won primarily with bigger weapons – some combination of better macroeconomic results, bigger foreign policy achievements and the emergence of a European-level political leadership to which the people can relate. In short, there has to be due proportionality in the diagnosis of the responsibility of inadequate subsidiarity for the EU's ills.


¶ Despite the widespread popularity of online opinion forums among consumers, the business value that such systems bring to organizations has, so far, remained an unanswered question. This paper addresses this question by studying the value of online movie ratings in forecasting motion picture revenues. First, we conduct a survey where a nationally representative sample of subjects who do not rate movies online is asked to rate a number of recent movies. Their ratings exhibit high correlation with online ratings for the same movies. We thus provide evidence for the claim that online ratings can be considered as a useful proxy for word-of-mouth about movies. Inspired by the Bass model of product diffusion, we then develop a motion picture revenue-forecasting model that incorporates the impact of both publicity and word of mouth on a movie's revenue trajectory. Using our model, we derive notably accurate predictions of a movie's total revenues from statistics of user reviews posted on Yahoo! Movies during the first week of a new movie's release. The results of our work provide encouraging evidence for the value of publicly available online forum information to firms for real-time forecasting and competitive analysis. ¶ This is a preliminary draft of a work in progress. It is being distributed to seminar participants for comments and discussion.


The problem of bacterial contamination of clinical and operating equipment is well recognized [Claymane et al., J. Cataract Refract. Surg. 12, 158-161 (1986); Magnusson et al., J. Hosp. Infect. 7, 86-90 (1986)] and appropriate methods are available for ensuring adequate cleanliness. Operating theatre equipment may contain complex electro-mechanical technology which requires substantial 'down time' for maintenance and cleaning. Often this is not built into operating theatre schedules and problems can occur. Opportunistic bacteria may colonize surfaces in semisealed parts of equipment where, since these areas are not normally subject to cleaning procedures, their growth may go undetected. This could have serious clinical consequences. While the risk to patients is obvious [Bengtsson et al., J. Hyg., Camb. 83, 41-57 (1979)] theatre and maintenance staff may also be at risk, particularly if they have well controlled chronic disease which could predispose them to opportunistic infection. We describe bacterial contamination in the pump unit and exhaust of a combined electrosurgical/suction/fibre light unit commonly used in operating theatres throughout the U.K. A method of ensuring acceptable freedom from bacterial contamination is discussed.


This article examines the treatment of disabled characters in British and North-American children's classics and in books that are out-of-print or less available to children from the 19th century to early 20th century. One of the main findings of this article is that the treatment of disabled characters is often more complex and varied in the latter than in the former. Moreover, the prevailing view of many 19th century and some early 20th century authors was that one should submit to misfortunes, both as a form of obedience to God's will, and because these seeming misfortunes are ultimately intended for one's own good. Therefore, in many books, disability, where it occurs, and its cure are associated with character.


The $G$-representation variety $R_G(\Sigma_g)$ parametrizes the representations of the fundamental groups of surfaces $\pi_1(\Sigma_g)$ into an algebraic group $G$. Taking $G$ to be the groups of $n \times n$ upper triangular or unipotent matrices, we compare two methods for computing algebraic invariants of $R_G(\Sigma_G)$. Using the geometric method initiated by Gonz\'alez-Prieto, Logares and Mu\~noz, based on a Topological Quantum Field Theory (TQFT), we compute the virtual classes of $R_G(\Sigma_g)$ in the Grothendieck ring of varieties for $n = 1, \ldots, 5$. Introducing the notion of algebraic representatives we are able to efficiently compute the TQFT. Using the arithmetic method initiated by Hausel and Rodriguez-Villegas, we compute the $E$-polynomials of $R_G(\Sigma_g)$ for $n = 1, \ldots, 10$. For both methods, we describe how the computations can be performed algorithmically. Furthermore, we discuss the relation between the representation varieties of the group of unipotent matrices and Higman's conjecture. The computations of this paper can be seen as positive evidence towards a generalized motivic version of the conjecture.


improvement as demonstrated by reduction or in some cases disappearance of spontaneous pain in walking (so much so that after many years two patients were able to go upstairs without pause). The rheographic tracing was not modified in one case; in six others it showed an improvement both in baseline conditions and after trinitrin. More prolonged and extended trial is needed to confirm the preliminary observations.--We are, etc., EMANUELE VACCARO ALMERICO SOLITRO


Special consideration is necessary choosing materials and selecting design for dynamic cables due to the mechanical stress, sometimes in combination with a wet design, experienced by the cable. For high voltage cables (>;36 kV) this is mainly related to the required (IEC 60840) metallic water barrier and for wet solutions the influence of water treeing and the associated accelerated electrical aging is of concern. Lead is commonly used as a radial water barrier for high voltage cables but the fatigue resistance is inferior to steel and most other metallic materials due to its low melting temperature and poor mechanical properties. For these reasons it is generally not considered suitable as a radial water barrier for dynamic power cables. Alternatives such as longitudinally welded copper sheaths have proved to be viable alternatives to lead and studies on non-metallic barriers have been performed which show promising results. For wet medium voltage designs or designs which allow some moisture ingress into the insulating material water treeing is often a concern. However, it has been shown that high relative humidity (>;70%) is necessary for water tree inception. By delaying the water ingress with sheaths and swelling tapes the time to reach critical humidity levels in the material can be increased from 1 month to several decades. The influence of hydrostatic pressure and compressive stress has been found to diminish water tree growth whereas tensile stress enhances it. For dc voltages there are indications that both humidity and mechanical stress can increase accumulation of charge in the insulating material. It has also been shown that moisture ingress will increase the conductivity which could influence breakdown strength negatively.


Introduction Obesity is a risk factor for type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and cardiovascular disease. T2DM increases the risk of cardiovascular-related death. We investigated changes in circulating exosomal microRNA (miRNA) profiles in patients with DM with obesity compared with patients without DM with obesity. Research design and methods This prospective study involved 29 patients with obesity (patients without DM=16, patients with DM=13) and healthy volunteers (HVs) (n=18). We measured circulating levels of exosomal miRNAs by next-generation sequencing and compared miRNA levels across the three groups. Results The expression levels of 25 miRNAs (upregulated=14, downregulated=11) differed between patients with obesity with DM and patients with obesity without DM. Compared with HV, patients with DM with obesity had 53 dysregulated miRNAs. Additionally, moving stepwise from HV to patients with obesity without DM to patients with obesity with DM, there was a consistent increase in expression levels of miR-23a-5p and miR-6087 and a consistent decrease in expressions levels of miR-6751-3p. Conclusions Our data show that the exosomal miRNAs is altered by dysregulated glucose metabolism in patients with obesity. This circulating exosomal miRNA signature in patients with obesity with or without DM is a potential biomarker and therapeutic target in these patients.


Packet transmission scheduling for supporting real-time traffic in a WMN is difficult, and one of the main challenges is to coordinate temporal operations of the mesh access points (APs) in order to provide strict latency guarantee while efficiently utilizing the radio resources. In this paper a connection-based scheduling (CBS) scheme is proposed. Connections with more hops are given a higher priority, and connections with a lower priority can only use resources remaining from serving all higher priority ones. For each multihop connection, the scheduling minimizes latency between successive hops. A connection-based optimization problem is formulated with an objective to minimize the amount of required AP resources, subject to the latency requirement of the connections. Numerical results show that the proposed scheduling scheme achieves close-to-optimum performance at both the connection and packet levels.


Immersion tests for phosphorous deoxidized copper (PDC) and oxygen-free copper (OFC) tubes were conducted to investigate an ant nest corrosion developed in copper formate and copper acetate solutions. The test solutions with copper formate and copper acetate concentrations of 0.001, 0.01 and 0.1 mol/L were prepared. The copper tubes were taken out from the solutions at 28, 56 and 84 days for optical and scanning electron microscopy on the cross-sectional surface of the specimens. Typical ant nest corrosion with randomly-branched pits occurred in both PDC and OFC tubes immersed in 0.001, 0.01 and 0.1 mol/L copper formate solutions. On the other hand, hemispherical single pit developed in both PDC and OFC tubes immersed in only 0.1 mol/L copper acetate solution. SEM observation revealed that the corrosion pit area developed in both the copper formate and the copper acetate solutions were composed of metallic copper with fine sponge-like pores.


Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore the experiences of parents of children with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) who are living in rural areas. Individuals living in rural areas face barriers to accessing health care that lead to significant health disparities with increased morbidity and mortality. There is a need to understand the unique experiences of those living in rural communities to support their health needs. Methods: In this qualitative study, a convenience sample of 11 parents of children who were diagnosed with T1DM in the last 10 years living in Vermont were recruited through connections with local health professionals and family support networks and interviewed about their experiences. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using Braun and Clarke's 6-step approach to reflexive thematic analysis. Results: Five themes were identified to capture the experience of parenting a child with T1DM in a rural community, including enduring emotional traumas, living life on call, adapting to everyday challenges, lacking a safety net for support, and finding a rhythm. Conclusions: Although findings echo many themes found in previous studies on experiences of parents of children with T1DM, participants also identified unique barriers such as physical distance from formal and informal support systems, unreliable and/or insufficient technological resources, and lack of understanding of T1DM by their communities, including among child care and schools. Diabetes care and education specialists working with families living in rural areas must explore ways to educate key supports to these families to minimize isolation, stigma, and burnout among parents.


The article is devoted to the problem of rhetoric analysis of an artistic text, the structure of an artistic text and its rhetoric composition are described as parallels. The author considers artistic text to be an utterance with a certain rhetoric structure. The latter is entitled 'rhetoric structure of an artistic text'.


This book is well written for use in college level courses or for adult education. It reads quite well and the material is well organized. Of particular interest is the ample room made for synoptically arranged study, e.g. Chapters Five, Six and Seven treat of the miracle stories, Passion and Resurrection in the Synoptic Gospels. After chapters on the historical background and on the modern tools used in Scripture study, namely source, form and literary criticism, the authors include a necessary overall introductory view of the four gospels. Such is needed to give the student some basis for both synoptic and redactional study. Chapters Eight to Eleven give the student a chance to study more in depth each individual canonical Gospel. Luke—Acts is treated as one unit instead of being separated by the Gospel of John. Unfortunately comparatively little space is given to Pauline literature. Only one chapter of 31 pages handles the total material. This short shrift given to Paul and his Letters is the only serious drawback that this book has organizationally. Book of Revelations also receives scant coverage. Only ten pages are dedicated to this book. Perhaps such sets the pace for the usual location of Revelation material to the first few hours of class time. 3 There is an adequate bibliography which is helpfully annotated. A brief ' Pauline chronology and Scripture index completes the book. This reviewer used this book for adult education courses. The feedback was good. It is a more than adequate book for use in college and adult education presentation of the entire New Testament or of the four Gospels or the Synoptic Gospels. For Pauline or Revelation studies it is woefully inadequate.


The correspondence problem is one of main topics in stereo vision that, despites being studied for man y years, is still in progress. In this paper, we present a new method that computes the disparity map. Our method is local (i.e. only information gathered in the close neighborhood is used) and is based on image statistics. More specifically it combines multiple adaptive windows and local statistical measures in or der to optimize the quality of the computation of disparity maps. As the size of windows is critical for local methods, we propose an algorithm that modifies the size of windows surrounding the pixel of interest to capture enough information in regions with low texture energy. This process is base d on statistical measures (mean and horizontal/vertical ave rage deviation) taken in the windows of the original stereo images. In the last section we show that our method performs very well compared to other existing local methods.


We conducted an interactive online production experiment on German in which participants were asked to read aloud stories for a fellow player who then had to sort picture cards corresponding to single sentences of the stories in the correct order. The target sentences contained two target words, an indirect object followed by a direct object, which were either new or accessible in their discourse context. Our aim was to investigate the paradigmatic and syntagmatic effects of information status as well as the (syntagmatic) influence of tonal context on the prosodic prominence relation between the target words. Results show that (i) new referents are generally marked by more prominent accent types than accessible referents, (ii) the prominence of sentence-final accents increases/decreases when their referents are newer / more accessible than non-final referents (carrying 'medial' accents), and (iii) the type of medial accent determines the relation between accent type and information status in the final pitch accent. The results support the idea of a prominence budget that is distributed across pitch accents within an utterance. Furthermore, modulations of a specific distribution of prominences may reflect changes in both meaning-related factors (such as information status) and form-related factors (such as accent type) simultaneously.


To improve cavitation erosion prediction based on induced
vibrations, some experimental work has been carried out on two
different materials, a stainless steel and a protective coating.
First, the erosive characteristics of the materials have been
analyzed in a cavitating vortex generator. Pit counting results
have been correlated to inferred force intensities occurring on
the eroded area from measured vibrations considering the
transmissibility from the excitation location to the measuring
position. The relationship between the pit area and the force
intensity has been calculated. To validate these results, the same
materials have been tested in a hydrodynamic tunnel where the
force intensities have been inferred in the same way. Then, the
eroded area has been calculated using the erosion characteristics
previously determined. The results obtained compare well with with
the actual erosion measured on the tunnel specimens. Next step is
to apply this method to hydraulic machines.


ABSTRACT We identify all small groups of order up to 288 in the GAP Library for which the Zassenhaus conjecture on rational conjugacy of units of finite order in the integral group ring cannot be established by an existing method. The groups must first survive all theoretical sieves and all known restrictions on partial augmentations (the HeLP+ method). Then two new computational methods for verifying the Zassenhaus conjecture are applied to the unresolved cases, which we call the quotient method and the partially central unit construction method. To the cases that remain we attempt an assortment of special arguments available for units of certain orders and the lattice method. In the end, the Zassenhaus conjecture is verified for all groups of order less than 144 and we give a list of all remaining cases among groups of orders 144 to 287.


The Middle Devonian Boyle Dolomite is a sequence of dolomite, dolomitic limestone, limestone, chert, and shale which has been deposited on a regional unconformity that truncates successively older units toward the axis of the Cincinnati arch. The Boyle varies in thickness (0 to 11 m) and crops out in a 40-km-wide, northeast-trending, arcuate belt on the eastern margin of the Blue Grass region. The Boyle Dolomite is divided into the following four lithofacies: Kiddville, Winston (Boyle limestone), Casey, and Duffin. The basal Kiddville is a quartzose dolomicstone with abundant fish remains and represents the slow accumulation of a lag deposit in a platform environment. The Winston (Boyle limestone) is a crinoidal grainstone-packstone and indicates a full marine transgression with high-energy winnowing action on the shelf. The Casey is a cherty dolomicstone with a sparse fauna and represents continued transgression of carbonate mud environments. The Duffin is an interbedded dolomicstone and shale with an abundant and diverse trace-fossil assemblage and marks the transition between carbonate and clastic deposition in Middle to Late Devonian time. An upward decrease in fossil abundance, diversity, and detrital clastics corresponds to an increase in the percentage of dolomite. Iron substitution in the dolomite crystal lattice increases upward and suggests an influence of reducing diagenetic environments. Trace-fossil analysis reveals a shelf to slope assemblage in the Boyle. The Boyle Dolomite represents the marine transgression in the western margin of the basin during Middle Devonian time. The transition between open-marine carbonate and anoxic black shale is a shelf to slope carbonate mud with a predominant infaunal assemblage. End_of_Article - Last_Page 1589------------


The present collection brings together a set of essays which shed light on recent research into non-religion, secularity and atheism-topics which have been emerging as important areas of current research in a number of different disciplines. The essays cover a wide span-in terms of the various stances they discuss (secular, atheist, non-religious), the settings in which these topics are relevant (families, wider society, politics, demography) and the different perspectives which relate to socialisation and social relations (belief acquisition, discrimination). Written by authors from a variety of national settings and academic disciplines, the collection presents a range of methodologies, combining theoretical approaches with quantitative and qualitative research findings. The authors address issues related to an important academic field which had been neglected for some time, but which has been made relevant by the increasing percentage of people professing a non-religious stance. This collection represents a major contribution to this area of academic research, not only because it puts the themes of non-religion and secularity firmly on the academic map, but also because it offers a variety of different viewpoints and aims to bring clarity into the use of concepts and terminology. The authors make important contributions to the emerging body of research in this area and point out areas where further research is needed. The first essay provides a thorough introduction to this field, taking stock of the work done so far, highlighting the overarching issues, and embedding the essays in the wider context of existing literature. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Contemporary Religion.


Zirconium diboride (ZrB2) thin films were deposited on a Si(100) substrate using pulsed direct current (dc) magnetron sputtering and then annealed in high vacuum. In addition, we discussed the effects of the vacuum annealing temperature in the range of 750 to 870 °C with flowing N2 on the physical properties of ZrB2 films. The structural properties of ZrB2 films were investigated with X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The XRD patterns indicated that the ZrB2 films annealed at various temperatures exhibited a highly preferred orientation along the [0001] direction and that the residual stress could be relaxed by increasing the annealing temperature at 870 °C in a vacuum. The surface morphology was smooth, and the surface roughness slightly decreased with increasing annealing temperature. Cross-sectional TEM images of the ZrB2/Si(100) film annealed at 870 °C reveals the films were highly oriented in the direction of the c-axis of the Si substrate and the film structure was nearly stoichiometric in composition. The XPS results show the film surfaces slightly contain oxygen, which corresponds to the binding energy of Zr–O. Therefore, the obtained ZrB2 film seems to be quite suitable as a buffer layer for III-nitride growth.


Flooding of harmful information on the Internet seriously endangers the physiological and mental health of teenagers. Due to the user-friendliness of the Internet as well as the difficulty in the authentication for the access of specific categories of information, curbing the transmission of harmful information, i.e., to assure the information content security (ICS), has become a reasonable yet challenging alternative. At present, there is an urgent need to develop a systematic model that can effectively carry out the curbing. In fact, curbing the transmission of harmful information by way of filtering can be modeled by access control. In the paper, based on the three core-elements of communication, namely, "Who communicates with whom", "How do they communicate" and "What is the content of communication", we propose a control model, called ICCON. Unlike the existing access control, the reference monitor (RM) of our model is placed in the transmission channel, and moreover, an evaluation frame is proposed, through which the effectiveness of the RM in controlling information transmission on the Internet can be quantitatively evaluated.


Soil organic matter (SOM) in agricultural soils comprises a significant part of the global terrestrial C pool. It has often been characterized by utilizing a combination of chemical dispersion of the soil followed by physical separation. We fractionated soil samples under continuous corn (Zea mays L.) rotations at four long-term sites in the Corn Belt to determine the concentration ofC and N associated with soil fractions (light fraction [LF], particulate organic matter [POM], silt size, clay size, and Bradford reactive soil protein [BRSP]) and to identify the change in C concentration and δ 13 C signal of each fraction using laboratory incubations. Light fractions comprised 3 to 5% of the soil organic carbon (SOC), with no significant difference between conventional tillage (CT) and no-till (NT) treatments. The POM fraction accounted for 5 to 11% of the SOC in the soils with >30% clay and 17 to 23% for the soils with <20% clay. The clay-size fraction contained the highest proportion of SOC. Measurement of 13 C during long-term incubation showed that the average mean residence time (MRT) of corn-derived C in the LF was 3.5 yr, whereas the POM fractions ranged from 6 to 12 yr. The 13 C changes during incubation show that both fractions consist of a mixture of active and resistant materials, with movement between fractions. The BRSP has long MRTs except in the NT Hoytville soil. Measurement of the dyna mics of these fractions provides a basis for C models to test the impacts of land use and management on C sequestration.


it most valuable. Cover begins with a short over-view of the natural law tradition in law, and the development in the Utilitarians and Blackstone of opposing positivist views. He acknowledges that positivism was dominant in the early American legal system, but illustrates various ways in which judges had discretion to rely on natural law standards in slavery cases. In a series of chapters, the author discusses the &dquo;Free and Equal&dquo; clauses in state constitutions, the presumption in favor of liberty which could be expressed through statutory interpretation, and the extent to which natural law no-


Three times in the last 620,000 yrs, highly silicic ash ejected from Icelandic or Jan Mayer volcanoes has been deposited in sediments over an area of several million square kilometers in the North Atlantic. Sand-sized bubble-wall shards were initially deposited on ice cover on and near Iceland and later dropped from melting ice as far as 1,800 km to the south. Since the largest sand-sized shards cannot be that widely distributed by wind, they must be ice-rafted. The shards thus serve as localized injections into North Atlantic paleocirculation patterns, with the resulting geographic patterns of ash redistribution tracing the counterclockwise movement of the subarctic gyre. The total ash fall volumes thus carried out to sea (1 to 8 km 3 ) approximate or exceed those of ash falls inferred from measurements on land near volcanic sources. These geologically instantaneous ash falls are spread vertically through well-defined zones in cored sediments, providing models for vertical mixing of sand-sized microfossils. In cores with pelagic sedimentation rates varying from 2.4 to 6.7 cm/10 3 yrs, significant amounts of ash are mixed through thicknesses of core ranging from 17 to 66 cm, representing from 5,000 to 22,500 yrs of time. In cores with such high sedimentation rates, strongly defined climatic spikes should be little disturbed: episodes of only 10 to 100 yrs duration will still be visible after mixing, and those lasting 1,000 to 5,000 yrs should be left largely intact.


IgA isotype responses are regulated by at least two compartments including those of CD4+ Th2 type cells and cytokines produced by these cells. Interaction of CD4+ Th cells and APC via TCR and Ag-MHC II leads to activation of Th2 type cells. This would allow for secretion of cytokines, especially IL-5 and IL-6 which are key cytokines for the terminal differentiation of B cells into Ig secreting cells. Further, expression of Fc alpha RII on CD4+ Th2 cells could be important for the recruitment of sIgA+ B cells which would allow selective interactions of Th2 cells and sIgA + B cells via Fc alpha RII. This could lead to selectively transfer of IL-5 and IL-6 to sIgA + B cells from CD4+ Th2 cells.


Gene duplication results in extra copies of genes that must coevolve with their interacting partners in multimeric protein complexes. The cardiac troponin (Tn) complex, containing TnC, TnI, and TnT, forms a distinct functional unit critical for the regulation of cardiac muscle contraction. In teleost fish, the function of the Tn complex is modified by the consequences of differential expression of paralogs in response to environmental thermal challenges. In this article, we focus on the interaction between TnI and TnC, coded for by genes that have independent evolutionary origins, but the co-operation of their protein products has necessitated coevolution. In this study, we characterize functional divergence of TnC and TnI paralogs, specifically the interrelated roles of regulatory subfunctionalization and structural subfunctionalization. We determined that differential paralog transcript expression in response to temperature acclimation results in three combinations of TnC and TnI in the zebrafish heart: TnC1a/TnI1.1, TnC1b/TnI1.1, and TnC1a/TnI1.5. Phylogenetic analysis of these highly conserved proteins identified functionally divergent residues in TnI and TnC. The structural and functional effect of these Tn combinations was modeled with molecular dynamics simulation to link divergent sites to changes in interaction strength. Functional divergence in TnI and TnC were not limited to the residues involved with TnC/TnI switch interaction, which emphasizes the complex nature of Tn function. Patterns in domain-specific divergent selection and interaction energies suggest that substitutions in the TnI switch region are crucial to modifying TnI/TnC function to maintain cardiac contraction with temperature changes. This integrative approach introduces Tn as a model of functional divergence that guides the coevolution of interacting proteins.


Neural material reflectance representations address some limitations of traditional analytic BRDFs with parameter textures; they can theoretically represent any material data, whether a complex synthetic microgeometry with displacements, shadows and inter-reflections, or real measured reflectance. However, they still approximate the material on an infinite plane, which prevents them from correctly handling silhouette and parallax effects for viewing directions close to grazing. The goal of this paper is to design a neural material representation capable of correctly handling such silhouette effects. We extend the neural network query to take surface curvature information as input, while the query output is extended to return a transparency value in addition to reflectance. We train the new neural representation on synthetic data that contains queries spanning a variety of surface curvatures. We show an ability to accurately represent complex silhouette behavior that would traditionally require more expensive and less flexible techniques, such as on-the-fly geometry displacement or ray marching.


Abstract Ameloblastoma is a highly aggressive odontogenic tumor, and its pathogenesis is associated with many participating genes. Objective We aimed to identify and validate new critical genes of conventional ameloblastoma using microarray and bioinformatics analysis. Methodology Gene expression microarray and bioinformatic analysis were performed using CHIP H10KA and DAVID software for enrichment. Protein-protein interactions (PPI) were visualized using STRING-Cytoscape with MCODE plugin, followed by Kaplan-Meier and GEPIA analyses that were used for the candidate's postulation. RT-qPCR and IHC assays were performed to validate the bioinformatic approach. Results 376 upregulated genes were identified. PPI analysis revealed 14 genes that were validated by Kaplan-Meier and GEPIA resulting in PDGFA and IL2RA as candidate genes. The RT-qPCR analysis confirmed their intense expression. Immunohistochemistry analysis showed that PDGFA expression is parenchyma located. Conclusion With bioinformatics methods, we can identify upregulated genes in conventional ameloblastoma, and with RT-qPCR and immunoexpression analysis validate that PDGFA could be a more specific and localized therapeutic target.


This article deals with one of the best documented medical cases of the sixteenth century—a near fatal head injury suffered in 1562 by Don Carlos (1545–68), son of Philip II and heir to the Spanish throne. It examines the highly detailed contemporary sources that shed light on the injury and its treatment and then explores the relationship between them. It also explores the conflicting claims of medicine and religion to explain the prince's seemingly miraculous cure and the canonization of the first Counter-Reformation saint, San Diego de Alcalá, that resulted directly from this healing.


The reasons are only poorly understood, but may involve migration-related changes in lifestyle and diet, genetic predisposition as well as peculiarities in perception and practises. RODAM (Risk of Obesity & Diabetes among African Migrants) is a collaborative project with 8 partners from 3 European and 2 African countries which addresses these fundamental health issues among a homogeneous, and one of the largest SSA migrant groups in Europe (i.e. Ghanaians). The project aims at studying the complex interplay between environment, healthcare, biochemical and (epi)genetic factors in T2D and obesity among SSA migrants, at providing a basis for improving diagnosis and treatment, and at identifying specific risk factors to guide intervention and prevention. In a multi-centre study, adult Ghanaians will be recruited in rural and urban Ghana, Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK. The differences in prevalence rates within Ghana on the one hand, and three European countries on the other, will allow us to unravel environmental and (epi)genetic factors in relation to T2D and obesity. RODAM: Risk of Obesity & Diabetes among African Migrants


Abstract The water resources of the Lake Tana catchment are largely untapped. Currently, water resource development is being promoted to stimulate economic growth. This study utilized the WEAP model to determine the likely impact of a number of possible development scenarios on lake water levels. For each scenario, the model was used to simulate water demand in three sectors (i.e. irrigation, hydropower and downstream environmental flows) over a 36-year period of varying flow and rainfall. The simulation results revealed that if all the planned development occurs on average 2198 GWhy −1 power could be generated and 677 Mm 3 y −1 of water supplied to irrigation schemes. However, the mean annual water level of the lake would be lowered by 0.44 meters. As well as adverse ecological impacts this would have significant implications for shipping and the livelihoods of local people.


During the planning and implementation of Information and Communication Technologies solutions in the healthcare system, attention should be focused on the interests of citizens, healthcare employees, and the public. The project 'Development of the Healthcare Information System for Basic Healthcare and Pharmaceutical Services' demands the implementation of Electronic Healthcare Documentation in the Healthcare Information System of Serbia. This article represents a short overview of previous development of the healthcare information system. Electronic health documentation needs to represent basic health process of every single user. Healthcare Information Systems is based on patients, medical documents, information exchange about patient's health between health's, insurances and financials institutions, with primary goal to made healthy population with less cost.


We developed a simple process to fabricate point-type CNT emitters by repeatedly coating CNT films with controlled nanotube morphologies and strong adhesion. The CNT emitters produced significantly large field emission current densities at very low electric fields and excellent long-term stability for high current emission. The fabrication processes and characteristics of the CNT electron sources for high-resolution miniaturized X-ray tubes will be presented in detail.


Interleukin- (IL-) 35 and IL-37 are newly discovered immune-suppressing cytokines. They have been described in inflammatory diseases such as collagen-induced arthritis and asthma. However, their expressions in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients have not been yet explored. Our aim was to evaluate serum and inflamed mucosal levels in IBD patients. In 20 ulcerative colitis (UC) patients, 7 Crohn's disease (CD) patients, and 15 healthy subjects, cytokine levels in serum were determined using ELISA and mucosal expression studies were performed by immunohistochemistry, quantitative real-time PCR, and Western blot. The results showed that serums IL-35 and IL-37 levels were significantly decreased in UC and CD patients compared with healthy subjects. The cytokines levels correlated inversely with UC activity. IL-35 was expressed in infiltrating immune cells while IL-37 in intestinal epithelial cells as well as inflammatory cells. IBD patients had significantly higher Ebi3, p35 (two subunits of IL-35), and IL-37b gene expressions; IL-35 and IL-37 protein expressions were higher in IBD patients compared with controls. The study showed that serums IL-35 and IL-37 might be potentially novel biomarkers for IBD. Intestinal IL-35 and IL-37 proteins are upregulated, suggesting that regulating the expression of the two cytokines may provide a new possible target for the treatment of IBD.


OBJECTIVE
To introduce a minimally invasive, percutaneous fluoroscopic technique for treating symptomatic zygapophysial joint (z-joint) synovial cysts.

METHODS
Chart review to describe the clinical presentation, representative imaging, technical procedural details, and follow-up of a 72-year-old female with a symptomatic lumbar z-joint synovial cyst.

RESULTS
Before the cyst puncture, the patient failed conservative care including transforaminal epidural and intra-articular z-joint injections. Immediately after the puncture, and at 4-month follow-up, the patient was free of left lower extremity radicular pain. Computed tomography at 4 months post puncture showed resolution of the cyst. There was no recurrence of left leg pain at 30-month follow-up.

CONCLUSION
This technical case report illustrates that puncture of an intraspinal z-joint synovial cyst using an interlaminar approach with fluoroscopic guidance may be safely performed with effective relief of radicular symptoms.


A robust digital identity infrastructure will be built for our current information age. This paper contributes a new application of digital identity towards e-learning systems. E-learning digital identity classification is defined by the different roles of e-learning participants. The attributes of e-learning digital identity are designed for the e-learning systems. The new conceptual framework for e-learning systems is illustrated in six different stages among digital identity lifecycle. The adoption of digital identity technology for e-learning will open a research area for future educational institutes.


High-entropy alloys (HEAs) comprise a minimum of five major elements. These alloys show some special characteristics, such as excellent mechanical and high temperature properties. The development of the HEAs requires a knowledge of phase transformations during alloy making procedures. The phase transformations of an Ni36Co18Cr20Fe19Al7 HEA were studied in this research. The alloy underwent hot forging, cold rolling, annealing at and quenching from 1323 K, and isothermal holding at 873 K. The alloy is a single face-centered cubic (FCC) phase in the as-quenched condition. After annealing at 873 K, not only fine coherent L12 particles precipitated homogeneously in the FCC matrix, but lamellae of FCC and L12 phases also developed from the grain boundaries. Both lamellar FCC and L12 grains have a cubic-on-cubic orientation relationship (OR). The composition of the lamellar L12 phase is Ni60Co8Cr6Fe6Al20, and that of the lamellar FCC phase is Ni31Co15Cr28Fe21Al4. Cellular precipitation occurs in the HEA, and the high-temperature FCC (γ) transforms to a lamella of low-temperature FCC (γ1), and an L12 phase, i.e., γ → γ1+L12.


Background: Blockade of the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve (LFCN) with local anesthetic (LA) has therapeutic role as well as diagnostic value for meralgia paresthetica (MP). The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of ultrasound-guided LA and LA + CS injections in the treatment of MP. Methods: This was a prospective, double-blinded, randomized controlled study. Thirty-two patients were evaluated clinically, and electrophysiologically and diagnosed as MP by diagnostic block. They were randomly assigned to two groups and all patients completed the study. The first group (n = 17) received 2 mL of lidocaine 2%+1 mL of betamethasone, while the second group (n = 15) received 2 mL of lidocaine 2% + 1 mL saline solution. Results: No statistically significant difference was detected between the groups in numeric rating scale (NRS) values. In both groups, NRS values were significantly decreased after the injection that confirms the diagnosis of MP. The improvement continued on the following weeks in both groups. At the 4th week, the NRS value reached to 2.47 in the CS group and reached to 3.13 in the LA group. Conclusions: Both CS and LA injections for the treatment of MP were found to be clinically effective and both may be therapeutic options. In intractable cases, once the nerve block is applied with or without CS, well-being can be achieved by keeping the patient away from the triggering factors. To provide effective and isolated injection of LFCN, that may have frequent anatomical variations, ultrasonography guidance could be suggested.


Fourteen DRB alleles, DRB1*0705, DRB1*11014, DRB1*1134, DRB1*1136, DRB1*1141, DRB1*1335, DRB1*1337, DRB1*1338, DRB1*1342, DRB1*1343, DRB1*1349, DRB1*1510, DRB3*0105, and DRB5*0103, are described. Among them, eleven are variants which differ by only one nucleotide from previously described alleles, including one silent variant (DRB1*11014). Alleles, DRB1*0705, DRB1*1335 and DRB3*0105, display unique sequence motifs that have never been observed in DRB alleles.


INTRODUCTION:
Formation of arches of foot plays a key role in bipedalism in human beings. Calcaneum is a unique tarsal bone participating in the arch formation. It has six surfaces facilitating attachment of muscles, ligaments and joint formation. There are individual and racial differences in the anatomical construction of calcaneum depending on the nature of articular facets and calcaneal grooves. The dysmorphologies of calcaneum due to congenital anomalies or fractures need medical or surgical management.
AIM AND OBJECTIVE:
The aim of our study was to find out, that each race has a unique pattern of
calcaneum and the pattern of calcaneum was defined genetically. The detailed morphologic and morphometric observation would enlighten the knowledge of Anatomist, Radiologist and Orthopedic surgeons.
MATERIALS AND METHODS:
120 adult dry human calcanei of unknown gender without anomalies were studied. 30 calcanei of fetuses without gross anomalies were dissected out and observed. 100 x-ray images of ankle lateral view without any pathology were studied from the PACS in the institution, PSG IMS&R In the dry bone study, the shape, position, pattern ad numbers of articular facets were observed with naked eye. Thus the types of calcaneum were classified. The length breadth, height of calcaneum and length, breadth, height of interfacetal grooves were measured with the sliding digital Venire caliper. In the fetal bones, the shape of articular facets and the nature of interfacetal grooves were observed with hand lens and then they were classified as in adult pattern. In normal lateral view of x-ray images of ankle, the incidence of spur was observed. The Bohler's and Gissane's angle were measured with the help of special electronic on screen caliper tool.
OBSERVATION AND RESULT:
Out of the 120 dry calcaneal bones observed, 4 types of calcanei were identified
except type 4 which was not found. Among these, Type 1 had the predominant incidence (68.33%) followed by Type 2 (26.67%) and Type 5 (0.83%) had the least incidence. While analyzing the subtypes, Type 1b (36.67%) had more incidence. In both anterior and middle articular facets, the oval shaped facets were predominant followed by the elongated facets.
Whereas in posterior facets the circular shaped facets were predominant followed by rectangular facets. In analyzing the 30 fetal calcaneal bones, Type 1b calcanei had the highest incidence followed by Type 1a.When 100 images of lateral view of ankle radiographs were observed, the mean Bohler's angle was 30.49o and the mean Gissane's angle was 114.80o. The mean Bohler's angle had a significant difference while comparing the right female and left female samples with a P value of 0.047. The presence of spur was higher 32% on the left side than right side. The incidence of spur in female population was higher (34%) than the male population (24%).There was a gradual increase in incidence of spur from 21to60 years. The highest incidence of spur was in the age group of 41to50 years and the least incidence was in less than 20 years of age. Both Achilles and plantar spur had the highest incidence (44.83%) and the least incidence was found in Achilles spur (12.07%).
CONCLUSION:
Type 1 calcanei had the highest incidence, both in adult and fetal bone study. The
increased sustentacular angle and more surface area of Type 1 calcanei could favor easy gliding of articular facets and formation of unstable joint, resulting in early subtalar arthritis.
So the podiatrists who treat this population could meet patients with more incidence of subtalar arthritis which is a common problem of Type 1 calcanei. The orthopedic surgeons' reconstructing the calcaneal derangements will be benefited by the detailed knowledge of calcaneal morphometry. The surgical techniques need modification while treating the Type 1 calcanei which is more common in Indian population in contrast to Type 2 calcanei present in European population. As calcaneal spur is one of the cofactor in the aetiologies of heel pain, the morphological and morphometric knowledge of spur observed in this study would help the podiatrist in planning the surgical or non-surgical line of treatment. The lower limit of Bohler's and Gissane's angle were comparatively less in our population than in international standards. The study of these angles in this population will help the Radiologist in, not reporting a false positive or negative calcaneal fracture. The angles of calcaneum play a key role while reconstructing the arches of foot in calcaneal fracture and also in assessing the prognosis of fracture management.


OBJECTIVE
To determine the clinical utility of urinary bladder and prostate characteristics measured by ultrasound scan in predicting acute urinary retention (AUR) for men with bladder outlet obstruction with an underlying benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH).

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Consecutive men aged ≥50 years presenting with lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) or AUR were prospectively recruited in this cross-sectional study. International prostatic symptom score (IPSS) and serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA) were recorded. High-resolution ultrasound was used to measure bladder detrusor thickness (DT, mm), prostatic volume (PV, cm3), intravesical prostatic protrusion (IPP, mm), bladder wall thickness (BWT,mm), intravesical volume and bladder radius. The latter two parameters were used to estimate bladder weight (UEBW, g), assuming a spherical bladder.

RESULTS
Among selected patients, thirty had AUR while 32 men presented with LUTS only. There were significant differences between those with and without AUR in their age (70.5 vs 66.0, p=0.017), IPSS (24.0 vs 18.5, p=0.009), serum PSA (6.18 vs 1.77, p=0.002), PV (56.7 vs 32.4, p=0.006), BWT (5.0 vs 4.4, p=0.034) and UEBW (39.1 vs 25.0, p=0.0003). Multivariate analysis revealed high IPSS and UEBW to be predictors for AUR. UEBW was the strongest predictor of AUR: area under ROC curve was 0.767, with sensitivity and specificity of 63.3% and 87.5%, respectively, at cut-off point of 35 g. The likelihood ratio for AUR was also best with UEBW≥35 g.

CONCLUSIONS
Combined with IPSS, ultrasound determined bladder characteristic, particularly UEBW, is a useful tool in predicting AUR in men with BPH.


Cancer cells adapt altered metabolism to enable efficient conversion of glucose into biomass needed for massive cell growth and proliferation. The metabolic switch takes place even when oxygen is abundant, a phenomenon known as the Warburg effect. A key mediator of this effect is pyruvate kinase type M2 (PKM2), a rate-limiting enzyme, which catalyzes the last step in glycolysis, converting PEP and ADP to pyruvate and ATP. PKM2 switches between a highly active tetrameric form and low activity monomeric or dimeric forms, following binding to its natural allosteric activator FBP (an upstream glycolytic intermediate). Our goal was to identify novel small molecule PKM2 activators that can be used as potential anti-cancer therapeutics. Using our proprietary structure-based screening tools, we identified several novel, potent, allosteric PKM2 activators, with AC50s as low as 50nM and 150% activation levels, similar to the natural activator FBP (AC50=116nM, 150% activation). Kinetics studies showed that these compounds significantly improve the rate and efficiency of the enzymatic reaction to the same level as FBP (a 4-fold decrease in KM, and a 2-fold increase in VMAX). Furthermore, a greater increase in VMAX (3-fold) is observed when combining these compounds with FBP. These small-molecule activators induce the formation of the (active) tetrameric form of PKM2, increasing the PKM2 tetramer:monomer ratio by more than 10-fold, quantitatively similar to the action of FBP. In cellular assays, these compounds show significant reduction in the proliferation rate of cancer cell lines, including colorectal, lung and hepatic carcinomas, in a dose- and time-dependent manner (up to 80% proliferation inhibition). In line with the ability of these novel compounds to re-direct cellular metabolism from aerobic glycolysis to oxidative phosphorylation, we found that inhibition of oxidative phosphorylation with oligomycin extends the anti proliferative effect of our compounds. When used in combination with commonly used chemotherapeutic agents, such as 5FU in colorectal cancer cells, they show an additive effect and yielded close to 100% inhibition of cell growth. Our compounds demonstrate excellent in vitro and in vivo DMPK profiles, including metabolic stability, excellent permeability with no efflux (CaCO-2 PApp=20.5 106/cm·s-1), and in vivo mouse pharmacokinetics with 20% oral bioavailability, good half life PO and volume of distribution. Several animal efficacy studies, as mono-therapy and in combination with chemotherapy or specific kinase inhibitors, are ongoing. Taken together, we present a new class of potent PKM2 activators that modulate the metabolism within cancer cells and show a promising anti cancer therapeutics potential. The favorable DMPK profile of these compounds suggests that they can be further developed either as mono-therapy or in combination with targeted therapeutics or chemo-therapy. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 102nd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2011 Apr 2-6; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2011;71(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 4065. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2011-4065


A new method based on the differential evolution (DE) algorithm is proposed for antenna‐array pattern synthesis with prescribed nulls. The array excitation amplitudes are the only controlling parameters, and the objectives are to synthesize array patterns with nulls imposed on directions of interferences while keeping the sidelobe levels (SLLs) below prescribed levels. Many factors such as the excitation dynamic range ratio, null depth level, null width, and SLLs are taken into account in the synthesis. Simulation results of several typical problems are compared with published results to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 14: 57–63, 2004.


1. The permeability to water of the cuticles of some adult water bugs has been measured using deuterium oxide (heavy water) as tracer. 2. The D 2 O permeability constant of Ilyocoris cimicoides cuticle was 1.7 x 10 -2 cm./hr. at 18° C. There was no apparent difference between the rates of D 2 O influx and efflux at 18° C., but at 28° C. a possible difference between them was indicated. The Q 10 , of the influx was 1.8 over the temperature interval 8-18° C., 1.5 over the interval 18-28° C. The estimated osmotic water uptake was 2.3% of the body weight per day at 18° C. 3. In Corixa dentipes adults the D 2 O permeability constant of the cuticle was 2.3 x 10 -2 cm./hr. at 18° C. and the derived osmotic water uptake 3% of the body weight per day. In Notonecta glauca adults the corresponding values were 1.4 x 10 -2 cm./hr. and 1.8% of the body weight per day.


Abstract In order to reduce the accumulation of hydrogen and thus to mitigate the risk of combustion, many countries have installed passive autocatalytic recombiners (PARs) within light water reactor containments. The severe hydrogen combustion events of the recent Fukushima Daiichi accident are likely to incentivize an increased demand in upgrading nuclear power plants with PARs. Numerical simulation is an important tool for assessing PAR operation during a severe accident in terms of efficiency and proper installation. Advanced numerical PAR models are required for the challenging boundary conditions during a severe accident, for example, low oxygen amount, high steam amount, and presence of carbon monoxide. The REKO-DIREKT code has been developed in order to provide a PAR model capable of simulating complex PAR phenomena and at the same time being suitable for implementation in thermal-hydraulic codes. The development of REKO-DIREKT was supported by small-scale experiments performed at Forschungszentrum Juelich in the REKO facilities. These facilities allow the study of PAR-related single phenomena such as reaction kinetics under different conditions including variation of steam, oxygen, and carbon monoxide (REKO-3) and the chimney effect (REKO-4). Recently, the code has been validated against full-scale experiments performed in the Thermal-Hydraulics, Hydrogen, Aerosols, Iodine (THAI) facility at Eschborn, Germany, in the framework of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development/Nuclear Energy Agency THAI project. By this, the code has proven its applicability for different PAR designs and for a broad range of boundary conditions (pressure of up to 3 bars, steam amount up to 60 vol %, low-oxygen conditions). REKO-DIREKT has been successfully implemented in the commercial computational fluid dynamics code ANSYS-CFX as well as in the LP code COCOSYS [Gesellschaft für Anlagen- und Reaktorsicherheit (GRS), Germany].