BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
We have previously shown that incomplete global cerebral ischemia complicated by dense acidosis produces a profound secondary deterioration of energy metabolism and cerebral blood flow. Antioxidant treatment only partially averts this deterioration, suggesting that parallel or sequential mechanisms are involved in cerebral ischemic injury. We tested the hypothesis that a novel competitive N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist GPI 3000 (GPI) ameliorates metabolic injury and that the effectiveness of the iron-chelator and antioxidant deferoxamine (DFO) is augmented by combined therapy with GPI after incomplete global cerebral ischemia.

METHODS
Anesthetized dogs were treated with 30 minutes of global incomplete cerebral ischemia. Preischemic plasma glucose was raised to approximately 500 mg/dL to exaggerate lactic acidosis. Brain ATP, phosphocreatine, and pH were measured by 31P MR spectroscopy for 180 minutes of reperfusion. Neurophysiological outcomes were assessed by evoked potential monitoring. Five groups were treated with either saline; 75 mg/kg DFO preischemia plus 75 mg/kg at reperfusion onset, followed by 27.5 mg/kg per hour for the remainder of reperfusion (DFO group); 25 mg/kg GPI pretreatment, followed by 5 mg/kg per hour (GPI-pre group); 25 mg/kg GPI at reperfusion, followed by 5 mg/kg per hour (GPI-post group); or DFO and GPI-pre at the same doses (Combined group).

RESULTS
Ischemic cerebral blood flow (microspheres: 5 to 8 mL/min per 100 g) was similar among the groups. End-ischemic pHi was also similar; 5.9 in saline, 6.1 in DFO, 6.2 in GPI-pre, 6.2 in Combined, and 6.1 in GPI-post groups. Progressive hypoperfusion was observed in all groups except Combined during reperfusion. Metabolic recovery was improved relative to saline in all drug-treated groups. Phosphocreatine recovery was improved in Combined compared with DFO and GPI-pre groups. Somatosensory evoked potential recovery was not observed in the saline group and incomplete in all treatment groups. At 60 and 90 minutes of reperfusion, DFO, GPI-pre, and Combined groups demonstrated improved recovery relative to the saline group.

CONCLUSIONS
Pretreatment and posttreatment with GPI ameliorated postischemic metabolic failure, suggesting that NMDA-mediated mechanisms are more important in global cerebral ischemia complicated by dense, acidosis than early studies indicated. Combined treatment with GPI and DFO improved cerebral blood flow during reperfusion and one indicator of energy recovery. These data support the hypothesis that parallel therapy aimed at antioxidant and antiexcitotoxic mechanisms of ischemic brain injury augment recovery compared with the individual agents.


With the increase in the number of patients carrying implants, the demand for magnetic resonance imaging diagnosis is getting higher and higher, and a variety of magnetic resonance compatibility magnetic torque test methods for medical implants have been proposed internationally. The standard conversion is far behind the international in terms of timeliness, testing technology, and testing equipment. This study analyzes the existing medical implant magnetic resonance compatibility standards, compares the magnetic resonance compatibility magnetic torque test methods and devices of the implants, analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of the detection methods and devices, so as to optimize China's medical implants magnetic resonance compatibility magnetic torque test method and device.


Children with traumatic injuries present an emotionally and professionally demanding situation for radiologic technologists. A child's fear and anxiety, developmental stage and the psychological impact on parents and caregivers all affect the technologist's ability to perform a rapid but technically excellent exam. This article examines the specific causes and presentations of unintentional (as opposed to abuse-related) skeletal trauma in children, with emphasis on the role of imaging. The differences between children and adults in terms of injury patterns, healing and complications are discussed, along with efforts to reduce the incidence of childhood skeletal trauma.


BACKGROUND AIMS
Cord blood is considered to be a superior source of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells for transplantation, but clinical use is limited primarily because of the low numbers of cells harvested. Ex vivo expansion has the potential to provide a safe, effective means of increasing cell numbers. However, an absence of consensus regarding optimum expansion conditions prevents standard implementation. Many studies lack clinical applicability, or have failed to investigate the combinational effects of different parameters.

METHODS
This is the first study to characterize systematically the effect of growth factor combinations across multiple oxygen levels on the ex vivo expansion of cord blood CD34(+) hematopoietic cells utilizing clinically approvable reagents and methodologies throughout.

RESULTS
Optimal fold expansion, as assessed both phenotypically and functionally, was greatest with thrombopoietin, stem cell factor, Flt-3 ligand and interleukin-6 at an oxygen level of 10%. With these conditions, serial expansion showed continual target population expansion and consistently higher expression levels of self-renewal associated genes.

CONCLUSIONS
This study has identified optimized fold expansion conditions, with the potential for direct clinical translation to increase transplantable cell dose and as a baseline methodology against which future factors can be tested.


There are several advantages offered by a franchise distribution system. The four main attributes are: 1) rapid access to markets; 2) reduced investment by the franchisor; 3) risk‐sharing between franchisors and franchisees; and, 4) highly motivated owner/operators. Other advantages include: managerial work sharing between franchisor and franchisee, protection from antitrust action, ability to service marginal locations, promotion of independently‐owned business, reduction in economic concentration, and protection against unionization. If the concept to be franchised is new, or rapid entry into the market is needed, franchising can minimize the risks of the venture.


The present study investigates how the L2 learning experience shapes multilinguals' motivation to improve their writing skills in Spanish, a language they study at university level. Within the Second Language Motivational Self System Theory (L2MSS), the L2 learning experience is often neglected when it comes to interpreting and discussing findings on motivation. We propose that the analysis of the L2 learning experience should acknowledge both formal and informal settings, such as the family context, in order to research why and how a person chooses to develop certain linguistic abilities like writing.
Given that the L2 learner experience is spatially and temporally bound, the concept of sensitivity to initial conditions, i.e., the conditions or changes that may trigger the learner to move towards enhanced language learning, will be adopted to research the L2 learning experience.
The aim of the study is twofold. First, to investigate the Spanish learning experience as a function of the initial conditions referred to by the participants. Second, to research how the Spanish ideal and ought-to selves are related to the students' motivation to use and learn or maintain Spanish skills.
The data consist of a questionnaire answered by multilingual university students of Spanish (n=21) and written autobiographical narratives. The participants belong to two groups: one group of Spanish heritage language learners (n=10) and one group of native-Swedish speaking L3 Spanish learners (n=11). Overall, family reasons, previous school experiences, high proficiency in Spanish, previously acquired languages, contact with the linguistic communities, language use and context are all aspects tightly connected to the students' motivation to learn, maintain and develop Spanish language proficiency. The L2 learning experience, as a wider construct dependent on the sensitivity to initial conditions, must be considered to understand the complex nature of multilingual literacy development.


With the infrastructure of the United States continuing to deteriorate, the problem becomes who will decide how much to spend in both repairing, maintaining and building new facilities to meet future growth needs. Will the businessman or engineer have the final say? What is needed is to have businessmen learn about engineering and engineers learn about business. Neither should be making final decisions in the vacuum of their own specialities. Thus, it is the responsibility of the civil engineer to continue his education in both state-of-the-art technology and business management, while the businessman should acquaint himself with the basics of the engineering disciplines. In this way, the decisions about how much and where to spend money on needed facilities will become more exact and result in safer structures— to the public's benefit.


Recovering expressive 3D human pose and mesh from in-the-wild images is greatly challenging due to the absence of the training data. Several optimization-based methods have been used to obtain pseudo-groundtruth (GT) 3D poses and meshes from GT 2D poses. However, they often produce bad ones with long running time because their frameworks are optimized on each sample only using 2D supervisions in a sequential way. To overcome the limitations, we present NeuralAnnot, a neural annotator that learns to construct in-the-wild expressive 3D human pose and mesh training sets. Our NeuralAnnot is trained on a large number of samples by 2D supervisions from a target in-the-wild dataset and 3D supervisions from auxiliary datasets with GT 3D poses in a parallel way. We show that our NeuralAnnot produces far better 3D pseudo-GTs with much shorter running time than the optimization-based methods, and the newly obtained training set brings great performance gain. The newly obtained training sets and codes will be publicly available.


During the Spanish Civil War two young Welshmen volunteered to fight for their convictions - but on opposite sides. They had similar backgrounds. The elder, Frank Thomas, had a powerful yearning for military adventure. The younger, Sid Hamm, became a Communist before going to Spain. In April 1937, by now a battle-hardened veteran, Thomas was with Franco's Foreign Legion near the town of Brunete, helping to strengthen the Nationalist trenches. Hamm was just arriving in Spain to join the Republican International Brigade. Three months later, Thomas was back home, recuperating from terrible wounds, while Hamm met his death attempting to puncture the very defence works which Thomas had helped to construct. This story of a parochial civil war within the most defining of all civil wars has come to light through Robert Stradling's discovery of two unknown documents. Robert Stradling has provided a comprehensive introduction to these two accounts, with detailed notes and explanatory glosses, complemented by a selection of maps and illustrations.


Presently, the wireless communication market is the tendency that the consumer request increases it desires the faster service with the saturation of the radio communication. In the near future, the mobile traffic increases and the new mobile service appearance are predicted. Many radio communications can be used one base station and the size small and technology considering the environment-friendly is needed. The technology generated by this request is the light-radio technology [1]. Each small-sized base station is connected to the optical cable and the speed of the light is implemented and it is called as the light-radio. The core technology for comprising light-radio is the miniaturization of the base station. It has within the RF part and antenna in one small square cube and the base station has to be miniaturized. Particularly, the miniaturization of the antenna is very important. The dual-polarized antenna using the electric and magnetic field is used [2-6]. However, it is very difficult to comprise two antennas inside the cube where there is the restriction of the space not being free space. In this paper, we have modified the dual-polarized dipole antenna of [7]. The proposed antenna had the size smaller than published paper [7] and applied inside the cube. The proposed antenna induced the coupling characteristic of the radiator and feeding line and expanded the frequency bandwidth. To antenna matching, we changed distance and width of two feed lines. We changed width of the shorting plate and length of the feed line and the operating frequency was moved. In spite of being the small sized antenna mounted inside cube, the proposed antenna obtained the wide bandwidth, the high isolation and antenna gain.


The introduction of electronic referrals in Norway started in 1996, when the first standard for an electronic referral was developed. Subsequent implementations of electronic health record (EHR) systems have been tested by a national testing and approval service. Almost all the Norwegian EHR systems comply with the recommended standards, but the volume of electronic referrals remains low: only 8200 referrals were sent electronically in September 2007. In comparison, 125,000 electronic discharge summaries were sent during the same month. There are four elements that need to be in place before smooth communication can occur between the EHRs of the hospitals and the general practitioners. First, the regional health authorities must have a strategy for electronic cooperation. Second, various technical problems must be solved. Third, certain organizational problems must be addressed. Finally, electronic referrals should be used to support enhanced work processes and joint reception for referrals should be considered at larger hospitals.


Purpose: Physical exam skills are essential to core competencies for physicians in training. It is increasingly difficult to secure time and funding for physician faculty to teach these critical skills. This study was designed to determine whether Patient Educators (PE) (non-physician instructors) in an introductory clinical medicine (ICM) course (1) were as effective as physician faculty in teaching the physical exam, (2) impacted consistency of student performance on a final practical exam, and (3) whether this model was cost effective. Method: PE were introduced into an ICM course at the University of Minnesota from 2006 to 2008. Each year, students' physical exam competencies were evaluated by a performance-based head-to-toe examination and 6 months later by an objective structured clinical examination (OSCE). Differences in test scores between years and variability (i.e., consistency) among yearly scores were assessed. The cost per student was calculated by considering a stable compensation cost per hour for the required number of physician faculty, standardized patients, and PE in each year. Results: Mean student performance was statistically lower with PE, but only by two percentage points. The amount of variation within the medical student classes' physical exam skills remained stable as the use of PE expanded. Total educator salary costs per student declined from $449 in 2006 to $196 in 2008. Conclusions: In terms of sustainability and student performance, the use of trained lay educators has equivalent outcomes and is less costly for physical exam instruction in the pre-clinical years.


Raspberry pomace is a source of polyphenols, which nutritional and health promoting properties are not sufficiently known. The aim of this 8-weeks study was to scrutinize if raspberry extracts (REs) with different ellagitannins to flavan-3-ols ratios might favorably affect the caecal fermentation processes and blood lipid profile in rats. Forty male Wistar rats were fed with a standard diet or its modification with two types of REs (E1 and E2) characterized by different ratios of ellagitannins to flavan-3-ols (7.7 and 3.1 for E1 and E2, respectively) and added to a diet at two dosages of polyphenolic compounds (0.15 and 0.30% of a diet; L and H treatments, respectively). Irrespective of polyphenols dietary level, both REs reduced the activity of bacterial β-glucuronidase, increased production of butyric acid in the caecum and reduced triacylglycerols in blood plasma. The E1 treatment at both dosages caused more effective reduction in the concentration of ammonia and elevated acetate level in the caecal digesta than E2. On the other hand, only the E2 treatment lowered value of the atherogenic index when compared with control group. When comparing dosages of REs, a higher one was more potent to reduce the activity of bacterial β-glucosidase, β-, α-galactosidase and lowered value of the HDL profile in plasma. To conclude, REs may favorably modulate the activity of the caecal microbiota and blood lipid profile in rats; however, the intensity of these effects may be related to the dosages of dietary polyphenols and to their profile, e.g., ellagitannins to flavan-3-ols ratio.


MTsim (Mobile Traffic Simulator) is an Ericsson AB internal software application that is part of 2Gsim. It is used to simulate elements of a GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) network for feature testing and automated testing. It is written in the programming language TSS Language, also known as SMILE which is a proprietary Ericsson programming language. SMILE is based on the principles of state matrix programming which in essence means that each program is on its own a finite state machine. The language is old and was originally intended as a macro language for smaller test programs, not for applications the size of MTsim. It is of interest to evaluate the feasibility of performing an automatic conversion of applications written in SMILE, with special interest in converting MTsim, to a Java framework since Java has many advantages compared to SMILE. Java, as a language, is well suited for larger applications, there are numerous well supported tools and there is a much wider spread competence than there is for SMILE. It is clear that in order to do a full conversion of a SMILE program to a Java framework two applications must be implemented. First a Java framework, which acts as a run time environment, must be designed which can host the translated programs. The other part is an actual translator which takes a SMILE program as input and ouputs a translated Java program. A more sophisticated framework is preferred since it makes the actual translated programs more light weight and easy to read which means higher degree of maintainability. There are different ways to implement state machines in Java but the most flexible and versatile is to implement it as a black-box framework in an object oriented way where the framework has sophisticated mechanisms for message and event handling which is central to any state machine framework. The translation for SMILE can easily be done by using a AST (abstract syntax tree) representation, which is a full representation of the SMILE program in tree-form. The AST is obtained from an intermediate state of the SMILE program compiler.


A variety of experimental results indicate that dolphins possess a unique and sophisticated sonar system. In addition, this sonar system is highly adaptive in detecting, discriminating, and recoginizing objects in highly reverberating and noisy environments. In this paper a new approach using resonance scattering theory in target detection and recognition is presented. The results seems to imply that this approach may be useful in minelike target detection and identification.


Fractured reservoirs simulation has long been challenge to reservoir engineers to handle the complex geometry structure of fractured reservoir and fluid flow processes in it which includes viscous, capillary, gravitational and diffusive effect. In traditional reservoirs simulation, the fractured reservoir is usually divided into matrix and fracture interacting continua such as Dual Porosity model or Dual Permeability model. It is assumed in these models that the fracture system is in a steady state which the width, length, density of the fractures in reservoir does not change during the whole production history, therefore, it is not possible to simulate fractures variation effect with these models. In order to simulate the unsteady state of fracture system, a dynamic hybrid model has been developed in the paper which a dynamic transitivity tensor model is overlapped to Dual Porosity model. It is assumed that the fracture network is the primary continuum for fluid flow, the matrix of low permeability, high storability is considered to be a sink or source to the fracture.
The matrix and the fracture communicate through an exchange term which describes the fluid flow between matrix and fracture. The fracture network is considered to be in unsteady state in which fracture has possibility to widen, lengthen, and lose during oil production. A transitivity tensor is introduced to describe these processes, which is a function of pressure, stress, density of fractures. The paper will detail the dynamic hybrid model such as its assumptions, equations, mechanisms and also its applications in the fractured reservoirs simulation. The simulation results show that the dynamic hybrid model has high potential to accurately simulate the dynamic fracture network as well as the fluid flow with the capillary, gravitational and diffusive effects between matrix and fracture.


This paper proposed the voltage compulsion method that used chopper for light dimming control of fluorescent lamp. During the dimming period, electronic ballasts have the bad characteristics such as low power factor, high THD(Total Harmonic Distortion) and etc. The proposed dimmer improves power factor, THD of electronic ballast and has benefit such as low cost, simple build up.


Abstract Objective: To summarise the effects of anthelmintic drug treatment on growth and cognitive performance in children. Data sources: Electronic databases: Cochrane Infectious Diseases Group controlled trial register, Cochrane controlled trials register, Embase, and Medline. Citations of all identified trials. Contact with the World Health Organization and field researchers. Review methods: Systematic review of randomised controlled trials in children aged 1–16 that compared anthelmintic treatment with placebo or no treatment. Assessment of validity and data abstraction conducted independently by two reviewers. Main outcome measures: Growth and cognitive performance. Results: Thirty randomised controlled trials in more than 15 000 children were identified. Effects on mean weight were unremarkable, and heterogeneity was evident in the results. There were some positive effects on mean weight change in the trials reporting this outcome: after a single dose (any anthelmintic) the pooled estimates were 0.24 kg (95% confidence interval 0.15 kg to 0.32 kg; fixed effects model assumed) and 0.38 kg (0.01 kg to 0.77 kg; random effects model assumed). Results from trials of multiple doses showed mean weight change in up to one year of follow up of 0.10 kg (0.04 kg to 0.17 kg; fixed effects) or 0.15 kg (0.00 to 0.30; random effects). At more than one year of follow up, mean weight change was 0.12 kg (−0.02 kg to 0.26 kg; fixed effects) and 0.43 (−0.61 to 1.47; random effects). Results from studies of cognitive performance were inconclusive. Conclusions: There is some limited evidence that routine treatment of children in areas where helminths are common has effects on weight gain, but this is not consistent between trials. There is insufficient evidence as to whether this intervention improves cognitive performance.


Anomalous events, i.e., events other than simple reflections, are becoming more and more evident with the advent of magnetic tape and the various types of display sections such as variable area, variable density, full trace, etc. Recognition of these events, such as multiple reflections, diffractions, etc., is of considerable importance if the interpreter is to make optimum use of his data. A knowledge of the characteristics of the anomalous events likely to be encountered aids in their identification. Simple parameters, viz., arrival time, apparent dip stepout and normal moveout, readily obtained from the reflection seismogram, may be used to enable the problem to be approached quantitatively. Under the general headings: direct, refracted, reflected, and diffracted energy, air waves, surface waves, ghost reflections, simple multiples, complex multiples, diffractions, reflected refractions and refracted reflections are discussed. An example of a simple analytical attempt to solve an unusual offshore multi...


This is one of a series of Education Papers issued from time to time by the Education Division of the Department for International Development. Each paper represents a study or commissioned research on some aspect of education and training in developing countries.


This study aimed to identify Staphylococcus sp. and antibiotic resistance in Tutur District, Pasuruan. A total of 273 samples of cow's milk were evaluated and identified as Staphylococcus sp. Furthermore, the antibiotic resistance test was carried out according to CLSI standards. This study showed 41 isolates of Staphylococcus sp. of 97 positive CMT. The results of the study reported seven isolates of Staphylococcus sp. resistant to antibiotics consisted of one multidrug-resistant isolate, i.e. S. saprophyticus which was resistant to penicillin, erythromycin and clindamycin, and six antibiotic resistant isolates consisted of two S. aureus isolates, one S. haemolyticus isolate and three isolates S. simulans. Staphylococcus sp. isolates showed resistance to penicillin, erythromycin, clindamycin, and tetracycline. While the antibiotics gentamicin, ciprofloxacin, cefoxitin, and cotrimoxazole did not reported resistance, so these antibiotics were applicable. The incidence of bacterial resistance Staphylococcus sp. to antibiotics with details of resistance to penicillin 7,3%, resistance to tetracycline 7,3%, resistance to clindamycin 4,8% and resistance to erythromycin 4,8%.


Abstract The botanical compound allyl isothiocyanate (AITC) is toxic to many microorganisms and insects. The aim of this study was to assess the effects of AITC on the Bradysia odoriphaga Yang et Zhang (Diptera: Sciaridae) and the seeds and seedlings of the Chinese chive. Allyl isothiocyanate was toxic to all four developmental stages of B. odoriphaga. The adult was significantly more sensitive to AITC than the other three stages, which exhibited no significant differences to one another in sensitivity to the chemical. The control efficacy of AITC against B. odoriphaga was far superior in the greenhouse than the field. In addition, seedling survival was higher in the greenhouse compared with that in the field. In the absence of B. odoriphaga, seed germination and seedling growth of Chinese chives were inhibited by 16 µl/liter of AITC, and significant inhibition occurred under higher doses of AITC. These results indicate that AITC could be used to control B. odoriphaga during cultivation of Chinese chives.


The purpose of this study was to determine the characteristics of infants' temperaments, maternal feeding behaviors and feeding practices in picky eaters. Participants were 83 infants (aged 12-24 months) form "A" hospital (Seoul) and "B" public health center (Kyunggido). Mothers completed questionnaires that assessed their own feeding behavior, feeding practices, infants' temperament and infants' feeding behavior. Picky eaters' demographics were not significantly different from non-picky eaters after adjusting sex and age. The average of thiamin, niacin and vitamin E intakes of picky eaters were below 75% Korean RDA, whereas vitamin A intakes exceed 120% RDA in both groups Activity level of infants' temperament and disinhibition of maternal feeding behavior in picky eaters were significantly higher than those in non-picky eater. All constructs of infants feeding behavior were significantly associated with certain constructs of infants' temperament, maternal feeding practice and maternal feeding behavior. The pickiness of infants feeding behavior was positively correlated with activity level of infants' temperament, pickiness and disinhibition of maternal feeding behavior and negatively correlated with adaptability of infants' temperament. Findings suggest that maternal feeding behavior and feeding practices as well as infants' temperament should be addressed in nutrition education for picky eaters.


AbstractLevelling techniques is classified as geometric levelling, trigonometric levelling and GPS/Levelling depending on used instruments or the methods applied. Accuracies of geometric levelling with using three equipments (Leica NA-720 optical level, Topcon RL-VH4G2 laser level and Leica NA-3003 digital level), the trigonometric levelling with using two equipments (Topcon GTS710 total station and Topcon Imaging Station) and GPS/levelling with using Sokkia GSR2600 receiver were investigated to determine their performances against precise levelling that yields the most precise results. For this purpose, measurements were taken at hundred points on the ground of a well-protected site. The comparison of the results was performed based on accuracy, time cost and terrain independence. The comparison shows that levelling using digital level produces the closets results to precise levelling results, the time cost of GPS/levelling was 74% and 41% less than geometric and trigonometric levelling respectively, and...


A bamboo foam is the simplest case of an ordered foam confined in a narrow channel. It is made of a regular film distribution, arranged perpendicularly to the channel. Our work consists of studying the structural properties of several films taken in a drained foam. X-ray experiments highlighted the equality of the equilibrium thickness for each film within a foam. The same thickness was found as by measurements of disjoining pressure isotherms, proving as well that films of a bamboo foam behave like isolated ones. The refinement of X-ray data by a simple model of specular reflectivity showed a significant variation of the electronic distribution of the surfactant layer for a common black film forwarding from one equilibrium state to another. A discussion on the organization of the surfactant molecules to the gas/liquid interface and film is proposed.


Testing provides a probabilistic assurance of system correctness. In general, testing relies on the assumptions that the system under test is deterministic so that test cases can be sampled. However, a challenge arises when a system under test behaves non-deterministiclly in a dynamic operating environment because it will be unknown how to sample test cases. In this work, we propose a method combining hypothesis testing and probabilistic model checking so as to provide the ``assurance" and quantify the error bounds. The idea is to apply hypothesis testing to deterministic system components and use probabilistic model checking techniques to lift the results through non-determinism. Furthermore, if a requirement on the level of ``assurance" is given, we apply probabilistic model checking techniques to push down the requirement through non-determinism to individual components so that they can be verified using hypothesis testing. We motivate and demonstrate our method through an application of system reliability prediction and distribution. Our approach has been realized in a toolkit named RaPiD, which has been applied to investigate two real-world systems.


In keeping with earlier reports, the Marmot review of the English health inequalities strategy argues that social injustice is killing people on a large scale: up to 2.6 million extra years of life could be gained across all social groups if health inequalities were significantly reduced. Despite the considerable effort and resources that have gone into research and action over recent decades, the health gradient has remained largely unchanged and in some instances has worsened. Tellingly, inequalities in income, wealth and life chances have also widened. It is therefore imperative that public health redoubles its efforts to reduce health inequalities. But if these are to be more effective in future we need a more sophisticated understanding of the barriers to progress as well as a renewed commitment to addressing them. The need for radical changes in local systems, including new forms of adaptive leadership and looser partnership structures that allow for flexible solutions tailored to local contexts, is part of the solution. But other equally intransigent barriers must be dismantled. Prominent amongst these is 'lifestyle drift'—the tendency for policy to start off recognizing the need for action on upstream social determinants of health inequalities only to drift downstream to focus largely on individual lifestyle factors. Coupled with this is a move away from action to address the social gradient towards activities targeted at the most disadvantaged. For example, the House of Commons Health Committee's report on health inequalities concluded that the causes were complex encompassing lifestyle factors and 'wider determinants such as poverty, housing and education'. But this analysis was not reflected in their proposed actions. The most strongly expressed and 'urgent' recommendation—immediate legislation introducing a statutory traffic light labelling system for foods—may be important, but lack of information on food labels is not a major cause of inequalities in health. Inadequate community empowerment is also slowing down progress on health inequalities. Empowerment can have positive health and social outcomes for individuals and communities but done badly it can do harm. Much current policy and practice assumes that the main barrier to effective empowerment is the lack of skills and competencies at the community level but research suggests that barriers arising from professional and organizational culture and practice are more important. These include negative stereotypes of communities, inappropriate timing and style of meetings, failure to accommodate cultural diversity, accessibility issues, inadequate resources and misuse of professional power to control agendas. Short-termism in central government also impacts negatively on empowerment processes and outcomes. Consequently, individuals and communities become increasingly unwilling to engage in decision-making, thereby undermining democratic accountability. Finally, with lifestyles in the ascendancy, action to address the upstream determinants of inequalities in health is at best neglected, at worse undermined. Public policy in general and welfare systems in particular mimic markets in the search for economic efficiency and higher productivity. As welfare services are redesigned to support flexible labour markets, public health appears to embrace the 'worklessness' agenda and neglect the possible negative impacts of poor working conditions on health inequalities. Social life and relationships—the ethics of care—are secondary, and must adapt, to the work ethic and economic growth. The personalization agenda, which aims to meet individuals' unique needs, is effectively a consumerist agenda that risks undermining collective approaches to meeting need. Area-based regeneration subordinates social development to the primary goal of economic growth (e.g. housing market renewal). In contrast, evidence suggests that a welfare system aiming to support and promote social justice and hence reduce health inequalities would need to establish clear limits to the operation of markets not be subservient to them. It would consist of high quality, publicly funded, universally accessible services that promote social cohesion and the values that sustain social co-operation. Public health must resist lifestyle drift, silo-based working and the drive in policy and delivery for 'quick fixes' and low-lying fruit. But the wider changes needed to reduce health inequalities will not happen without 'popular' pressure for greater social justice. The public health community played a pivotal role in developing the social movement for legislation to ban smoking in public places—it could have an equally significant role in a social movement for health equity. Working for more genuine and sustainable community empowerment, particularly amongst those social groups with least power over decisions that affect their lives,


Clove oil has become a popular fish anaesthetic for invasive fisheries research procedures, but few studies have examined the use of low concentrations of clove oil to achieve sedation for aquaculture procedures such as fish handling and transport. The present work evaluated the response of blue tilapia by transportation stress procedures, and using of clove oil as an alternative natural anaesthetic to reduce the stress effects by transportation on blue tilapia( Oreochromis aureus). Clove oil solutions were tested at concentrations of 0, 0.2, 1, 2 and 3 mg/L during blue tilapia transportation in plastic bags and sitting in styrfom, supplied with water and oxygen as the usual field procedures in Egypt. Results revealed that clove oil reduced some of the physiological responses such as Cortisol and glucose, which are the most common stress indicators. Also, results showed that clove oil (0.2 mg/l) can mitigate the stress response and high survival rate occurred within group in blue tilapia subjected to transport, wherever high mortality occurred within 24 hrs post transport in 3,0,2 and1 mg/l groups. Preferred to use 0.2 mg/l of clove oil when you move the blue tilapia fish for long distances.


The government authorizes the Village to manage their resources to improve the economy and welfare of the community, requiring village apparatus to have an understanding and commitment to the preparation of financial reports in accordance with [1] Government Regulation number 71/2010 on Government Accounting Standards. This study aims to analyze the effect of the Village Apparatus Competence and Organizational Commitment on the Quality of Village Funds Financial Reports. This research was conducted at villages in Sukabumi Regency, West Java, which involved the Village Head as one of the Village Fund Management Apparatuses as the observation unit with 193 villages as the research samples. The obtained data were analyzed by using SEM models and processed using Smart PLS software. The results of this study revealed that the competence of the apparatus significantly influences the quality of Village Fund reports and organizational commitment does not greatly affect the quality of Village Fund reports.


This paper analyses how Machado de Assis utilized rumors as a compositional procedure for his chronicles. The chronicler highlights the use of rumor, seeking a definition to what they are and organizing his comments about everyday news based on such a definition. To understand both the definition and the use of rumors in the chronicles, we propose establishing a dialogue with Jean-Noel Kapferer (1993), who investigated different functions of rumors, as a way to understand both the definition and the use of rumors in Machado's chronicles, considering rumors as cross-functional that go beyond the truth-lie binary to be a black market of information or, as in Machado de Assis's definition, news that runs in whispers.


An experimental investigation of the turbulence generated by low-blockage-ratio space-filling square fractal grids is performed by means of particle image velocimetry (PIV) in an open-circuit wind tunnel. Careful corrections are performed to account for and eliminate sources of noise and error that become significant in very-low-turbulence-intensity flows such as highly decayed grid turbulence. The signal-to-noise ratio varies between 20 and 70, but despite noise and some spatial filtering, it is possible to accurately measure the turbulent viscous dissipation within ±10%. The results confirm that the proportionality relation Lu /λ ∝ Reλ (where Lu is the integral length scale, λ is the Taylor microscale and Reλ is the Reynolds number based on the Taylor microscale), stemming from the scaling of the turbulent dissipation ε = Cε k3/2 /Lu (where k is the turbulent kinetic energy), does not apply to the turbulence generated by square fractal grids. More importantly, the semi-empirical constant Cε is not at all constant for this flow, varying by more than a factor of 4 over the observed decay range.


Percutaneous umbilical blood sampling (PUBS) provides a new and exciting method for assessment and management of certain fetal disorders. This procedure offers direct access to the fetal circulation for obtaining blood samples or for transfusing the fetus in utero. Although investigational, PUBS offers treatment approaches that were not previously available. This ability to treat the fetus in utero can prolong pregnancy, resulting in decreased prematurity and mortality rates for infants with erythroblastosis fetalis. This article describes the PUBS procedure and the indications for PUBS and discusses the nursing implications associated with the care of women undergoing PUBS.


Analysis of Holocene sedimentary seascape is focused on the Red Sea windward Al-Wajh platform margin, its central lagoon, and nearby isolated platforms based on data that include mapped ecological facies (habitats), water depths, grain sizes, and allochem types and abundances determined from thin sections. On this basis, a depositional model applicable to Red Sea Plio-Pleistocene and other ancient icehouse carbonate platforms is presented. The model highlights favorable reservoirs in analogous ancient systems to include coral crests and columnar framework habitats with primary porosity developed in boundstone lithologies and windward platform margins to contain considerable open pore space, including cavernous openings, of which not all should be anticipated to be occluded with marine cements and sediments. Meteoric diagenesis is expected to be minor as limited freshwater is available due to extreme aridity, but may play a role during glaciation.
 Most habitats have potential for secondary (enhanced) porosity resulting from dissolution of aragonite skeletons, particularly mollusk shells and calcareous coral (Scleractinia) endoskeletons. Central-lagoon habitats are expected to have the least favorable reservoir potential of environments considered because they are dominated by peloids. Central-lagoon sediment differs from other published localities, having higher peloid abundances, greater peloid distribution, and little or no association with Halimeda and quartz grains. Under the likely scenario that platform-interior sediments are completely bioturbated and comprise peloid-rich, grain-dominated fabrics, with many smaller peloids (most of them likely fecal pellets) at or near 4 μm in size (i.e., mud fraction), it is possible that grain size will control pore size once the considered deposits are lithified. If so, platform-interior sediments will lithify as mudstones, wackestones, or very fine-grained grainstones, an outcome which might otherwise be unexpected given the abundance of coarse peloid grains.
 The Al-Wajh platform is compared with 15 Holocene analogs and found to be unique with respect to rift-margin type, restricted-marine circulation, in having a lagoon with high peloid content, and lack of karst. In further comparison with ancient reservoir analogs, two greenhouse and four icehouse, it compares favorably to icehouse platforms deposited in rift basins with respect to mineralogy of deposition, meter-scale cycle thicknesses, and general peloid content and distribution. It provides a snapshot as to how an icehouse platform might have nucleated and attached along an active rift margin; it is a broadly applicable carbonate analog for the Red Sea Plio-Pleistocene and similar icehouse, rift basins.


Introduction/Background Minimally invasive surgery has become essential technology in field of gynecologic malignancies including cervical cancer. We reviewed our experience and evaluated the results of radical hysterectomy in patients with early stage cervical cancer. Methodology This retrospective study included patients with early stage cervical cancer (Ia1–IIa2) who were treated with radical hysterectomy from May 2006 to April 2018. Patients were divided into three groups according to the approach of surgery: open laparotomy (ARH), laparoscopic radical hysterectomy (LRH), and robotic-assisted radical hysterectomy (RRH). The type of hysterectomy included Piver type II and III hysterectomy. Learning curves of each type of surgery were obtained using cumulative sum (CUSUM) method. The survivals were compared using Kaplan-Meier curves. Results Learning curves of each groups showed two distinct phases. The minimal cases required to achieve surgical improvement were 16 in ARH, 14 in LRH, and 15 in RRH. Progression-free survival and overall survival were not different between 3 groups (p=0.556 and p=0.273, respectively). But when the groups were stratified by the phases of the learning curves, the patients included in early phase showed poor PFS in RRH (p=0.043). Conclusion The learning curve could significantly affect the oncologic outcome in robotic-assisted radical hysterectomy. Enough experience is necessary to improve surgical outcome in RRH. Further, a prospective randomized study regarding sufficient surgical competence is necessary for elaborate analysis of feasibility of minimally invasive radical hysterectomy. Disclosure Nothing to disclose.


Activating mutations in the cytokine receptor/JAK2 signaling axis are found at high frequency in myeloproliferative disorders (MPD). Lnk, an SH2-containing adaptor protein, is a negative regulator of several hematopoietic cytokine receptors including MPL and EpoR. Here, we assessed whether Lnk can attenuate the activity of mutant MPLW515L, JAK2V617F and JAK2K539L found in MPD patients. Lnk overexpression in Ba/F3-MPLW515L cells inhibited cytokine-independent growth, while suppression of Lnk in UT7-MPLW515L cells enhanced proliferation. Lnk-mediated growth inhibition was associated with downregulation of JAK/STAT, MAPK and PI3K signaling pathways. Similarly, Lnk inhibited cytokine-independent growth conferred by JAK2V617F and JAK2K539L in Ba/F3-EpoR cells. Following thrombopoietin stimulation, Lnk became tyrosyl-phosphorylated and associated with activated wild-type (WT) MPL and MPLW515L at the plasma membrane of Ba/F3 cells. An SH2 mutant Lnk (R392E) failed to bind and inhibit WT MPL and MPLW515L, demonstrating that the SH2 domain is essential for Lnk down-modulation of the receptors. The Lnk-MPL interaction was also detected with endogenously expressed proteins from cultured bone marrow cells. A series of C-terminally truncated Lnk constructs were used to determine which Lnk regions are required for Lnk inhibition of JAK2. Experiments in 293T cells indicated that Lnk SH2 domain binds to phosphorylated JAK2. In addition, other Lnk regions associated with non-phosphorylated JAK2, and these interactions were critical for Lnk inhibition of JAK2V617F and JAK2K539L constitutive activation. Our data suggest a model wherein Lnk downregulation of the receptor/JAK2 signaling involves two mechanisms; one is inhibition of the cytokine receptor utilizing JAK2, the second is direct suppression of JAK2 kinase activity. Furthermore, while the receptor mediated inhibition requires the SH2 domain, direct inhibition of JAK2 mutants, V617F and K539L, relies on other Lnk domains. Further elucidating the molecular mechanisms underlying Lnk inhibition of signaling pathways abnormally activated by oncogenic alleles, will provide insight into the pathogenesis of MPD and may have therapeutic value.


Light and electron microscopic techniques show that the eye of the marine prosobranch gastropod, Ilyanassa obsoleta, is composed of an optic cavity, lens, cornea, retina, and neuropile, and is surrounded by a connective tissue capsule. The adult retina is a columnar epithelium containing three morphologically distinct cell types: photoreceptor, pigmented, and ciliated cells. The retina is continuous anteriorly with a cuboidal corneal epithelium. The neuropile, located immediately behind the retina, is composed of photoreceptor cell axons, accessory neurons, and their neurites. The embryonic eye is formed from surface ectoderm, which sinks inward as a pigmented cellular mass. At this time, the eye primordium already contains presumptive photoreceptor cells, pigmented retinal cells, and corneal cells. Several days later, just before hatching, the embryonic eye remains in intimate contact with the cerebral ganglion. It has no ciliated retinal cells, neuropile, optic nerve, or connective tissue capsule and its photoreceptor cells lack the electron‐lucent vesicles and multivesicular bodies of adult photoreceptor cells. As the eye and the cerebral ganglion grow apart, the optic nerve, neuropile, and connective tissue capsule develop.


Angiopoietin-like proteins are a family of proteins that are closely related to lipid, glucose and energy metabolism, as well as angiogenesis. To date, eight Angptls have been discovered, namely Angptl1 to Angptl8 that play key roles in metabolic regulation and marker assisted selection. In this review, we summarized current progress on the structure, signaling pathways, upstream regulatory genes and metabolic network of Angptl1-8. Finally, in combination with our work, the status and problems of animal breeding as well as the future prospects for Angptls were discussed.


When Vermont became the first state in the United States to legalize civil unions for same-sex couples, it marked an important milestone in lesbian and gay Americans' struggle for equal rights. Against this background, S. E. Solomon, E. D. Rothblum, and K. F. Balsam's (2004) study, the first to examine experiences of same-sex couples who have undertaken civil unions, is a significant effort. The study provides valuable data about these couples, yet much remains to be learned. Further study of the impact of changing legal landscapes on experiences of same-sex couples and their families has the potential to add significantly to knowledge about contemporary family lives.


Mice were supplemented with beta-carotene in beverage for 10 days. After the supplement, beta-carotene accumulated mainly in the liver and to some extent in the blood plasma, kidney and lung. The beta-carotene administration was associated with an increase in the amount of retinyl ester and retinol in the liver, but not in the amount of retinol in blood plasma. Lipid peroxidation in vivo was induced by the injection of carbon tetrachloride under the dorsal skin of mice. As an index of lipid peroxidation, thiobarbituric acid-reacting substances (TBARS) were assayed in urine and tissue homogenates. Urine and kidney TBARS were reduced by the supplementation of beta-carotene. The amounts of TBARS in kidney, liver and lung, decreased with increasing amounts of beta-carotene accumulated in these tissues, i.e. inverse correlations were obtained. These results indicate that beta-carotene can suppress lipid peroxidation in mouse tissue.


The gene region cloned from a lipopolysaccharide (LPS) mutant carrying the Tn5 and flanking DNA sequences was used as a probe to screen a gene bank prepared from wild-type Bradyrhizobium japonicum strain 61A101C and to isolate the corresponding wild-type LPS-gene region. By cross-hybridization experiments the LPS-gene region did not appear to be closely linked to previously cloned nodulation genes. A detailed restriction map of the LPS-gene region (5.5-kb EcoRI genomic fragment) was established and the mutation site was localized to be in a 300-bp PvuI/PstI restriction fragment. In genomic Southern-blot analysis of various rhizobia, the LPS-gene region was found to be conserved among all the slow-growing bradyrhizobia, but not the fast-growing rhizobia. The different groups of slow-growing bradyrhizobia are polymorphic for restriction-fragment length at the LPS-gene region.


Intact BALB/c and CBA mice distinct in the total number of germ cells and testosterone level in blood plasma were exposed to doses of 0.1 and 0.25 Gy. Being tested 4-8 days after irradiation the BALB/c mice display compensatory-protective reaction which promote the maintenance of the germ cell number by active division of all spermatogonia types including the reserve ones. The CBA mice use the reserve later and only when the cells have reduced their proliferation activity or died. Testosterone plays a significant role in the process as the increase in its concentration stimulates proliferation activity and promotes mitosis block.


Management, delivery, and marketing of library resources and collections necessitate interaction with a plethora of data from many sources and in many forms. Accessing and transforming data into meaningful information or different formats used in library automation can be time consuming, but a working knowledge of a programming language can improve efficiency in many facets of librarianship. From processing lists to creating extensible markup language (XML), from editing machine-readable cataloging (MARC) records before upload to automating statistical reports, the Python programming language and third-party application programming interfaces (APIs) can be used to accomplish both behind-the-scenes tasks and end-user facing projects. Creating programmatic solutions to problems requires an understanding of potential. Here we summarize the data sources, flows, and transformations used to accomplish existing projects at Mercer University and the College of Charleston. Foundational programming techniques are explained and resources for learning Python are shared.


Cancer is a disease that is characterized by abnormal growth of body cells. There is huge challenge for controlling cancer both in the world an Indonesia. Health care providers have important role to prevent the morbidity and mortality related cancer. It can be well they prepared when they are students. Nursing students should have good learning media for learning about cancer care. Facebook can be one option for this purpose. The aim of the study was to determine the effect of learning using Facebook to recognize the ability of nursing student to understand the nursing problems of patient with cancer. The method used quasi experimental approach with one group pre-post test design with simple random sampling technique. Data analyzed by Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test. This study was conducted on May, 18-31th 2015 at 68 nursing students of fourth semester in Udayana University. Results of this study found that the mean of pretest is 38,74, and posttest is 75,62, and the statistical analysis shown p value = 0.000 ( p < 0.05 ) or it can be concluded that there is a significant effect of learning using Facebook to recognize the ability of nursing problem patients with in nursing student Udayana University.


Objective Dyslipidaemia, which is now seen as one of the most important cardiovascular risk factors, is becoming more common in the younger population. The aim of this study was to assess the efficacy of tracking serum lipid levels over a four-year period in an urban population of schoolchildren. Methods The study began in 1999 with a cohort of 789 schoolchildren. Four years later this group was resurveyed and a further 452 adolescent were recruited to the study. Results The percentages of boys who were initially in the extreme quartile for total cholesterol (TC), low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol and triglycerides were 42.5, 54.8 and 40.4%, respectively. Similarly, the percentages of girls in the extreme quartile were 62.7, 53.8 and 38.2%. Four years later, both the boys and girls were still in the extreme quartile for these parameters. Therefore, the best predictor of follow-up level for each of the serum lipoprotein cholesterol fractions was the corresponding baseline level. Interestingly, the next best predictor in most of the groups was change in body mass index (ΔBMI) and smoking status. Conclusion Prevention of coronary heart diseases in adults must begin early on in childhood, and should be driven by health education towards achieving a healthy lifestyle.


Agrobacterium- mediated genetic transformation system has been developed for two tomato ( Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) varieties, namely Pusa Ruby (PR) and BARI Tomato-3 (BT-3). Prior to the establishment of transformation protocol cotyledonary leaf explants from the two varieties were cultured to obtain genotype independent in vitro regeneration. Healthy multiple shoot regeneration was obtained from the cut ends of cotyledonary leaf segments for both the varieties on MS containing 1.0 mg/l BAP and 0.1 mg/l IAA. The maximum root induction from the regenerated shoots was achieved on half the strength of MS medium supplemented with 0.2 mg/l IAA. The in vitro grown plantlets were successfully transplanted into soil where they flowered and produced fruits identical to those developed by control plants. Transformation ability of cotyledonary leaf explants was tested with Agrobacterium tumefaciens strain LBA4404 harboring binary plasmid pBI121, containing GUS and npt II genes . Transformed cotyledonary leaf explants were found to produce multiple shoots on MS containing 1.0 mg/l BAP and 0.1 mg/l IAA. Selection of the transformed shoots was carried out by gradually increasing the concentration of kanamycin to 200 mg/l since kanamycin resistant gene was used for transformation experiments. Shoots that survived under selection pressure were subjected to rooting. Transformed rooted plantlets were transferred to soil. Stable expression of GUS gene was detected in the various tissues from putatively transformed plantlets using GUS histochemical assay. Key words: In vitro regeneration, t ransformation, t omato D.O.I. 10.3329/ptcb.v19i1.5004 Plant Tissue Cult. & Biotech. 19 (1): 101-111, 2009 (June)


The effects of inoculation of rhizosphere-promoting bacteria (PGPR) on photosynthesis and physiological-ecological characteristics of apple tree seedlings under drought conditions were investigated in this study, aiming to provide a theoretical basis for the application of PGPR in plant drought resistance. In the pot experiment, the rhizosphere-promoting bacterium YX2 which had both ACC deaminase activity and strong phosphorus solubilizing ability was selected as the tested strain. Apple seedlings were grown under four different irrigation levels i.e., control (CK), mild drought (LD), moderate drought (MD), and severe drought (SD) with soil moisture equivalent to 70%-80%, 55%-65%, 40%-50% and 25%-35% of field water holding capacity, respectively. Inoculation of PGPR alleviated the damaging effects of drought on growth by improving relative water content and chlorophyll content in apple tree seedlings. In addition, PGPR inoculated individuals exhibited higher antioxidant enzyme activity, chlorophyll fluorescence values, stomatal conductance and photosynthetic rate and lower relative conductivity and lipid peroxidation. Our results suggested that PGPR-YX2 alleviated the negative effects of drought stress on the growth and net photosynthetic rate by improving the antioxidant system, water content and membrane functioning.


ABSTRACT Ostrinia nubilalis (Hübner) (Lepidoptera: Crambidae) is one of the most damaging insect pests of corn. Studies were conducted to determine whether live larval counts obtained from corn whorls were predictive of the amount of larval tunneling that would result in the stalk of the plant 40 d later at the end of larval development. Whorls from plants treated with Dipel 10G (6,400 IU per whorl) and untreated controls, both infested with O. nubilalis neonates, were evaluated for the number of live larvae in 50 whorls 5, 7, 9, and 12 d after Bacillus thuringiensis (Berliner) (Bacillales: Bacillaceae) application. Forty days after larval infestation, 25 plants from each plot were split from tassel to base, and the length of larval tunneling was recorded. There was a strong relationship between numbers of live larvae in the plant whorl and the length of larval tunneling that resulted. While linear at each location, there was significant variation in the relationship among locations, indicating that comparisons could not be made between years or locations within a year. Blocks within a location on a given year did not vary significantly and reproducible results were obtained each year within a given location as well as on any of the whorl pulling dates evaluated. Because of its ease of use, predictability, and rapid return of results, we propose this technique as an additional method to shot-hole feeding and stalk splitting to evaluate the effectiveness of O. nubilalis management strategies.


Objective Because of concerns about malignancy risks, using biological disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (bDMARDs) in patients with a history of malignancy remains a challenging issue in rheumatology practice. This study aimed to investigate bDMARD preferences of physicians when treating of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and spondyloarthritis (SpA) patients with a history of malignancy. Methods The data for this cross-sectional study were gathered from the TReasure database using a date range of December 2017 and January 2020. Biological disease-modifying antirheumatic drug preferences were analyzed for 40 RA patients and 25 SpA patients with a history of malignancy. Results The most frequently prescribed bDMARD was rituximab, which was given to 28 RA patients (70%). For 25 patients (62.5%), the time between the diagnosis of malignancy and starting on a bDMARD regimen was less than 60 months, with a median interval of 43.5 months. Among SpA patients, the preferred bDMARDs were secukinumab and etanercept, which were each administered to 7 patients (28%). For 13 SpA patients (52%), the time between the diagnosis of malignancy and starting on bDMARDs was less than 60 months, with a median interval of 97 months. Conclusions The observed bDMARD preferences may be related to the therapeutic effects of rituximab on lymphoproliferative malignancies, the protective effects of secukinumab on tumor progression, and the short half-life of etanercept. Biological disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs should be used in RA and SpA patients with malignancy in case of high inflammatory activity.


Panicum virgatum (swich-grass) is cultivated in some countries to obtain biomass used in the production of heat, fiber, electricity and second generation ethanol. Currently, in Argentina, this species is used for forage and as an ornamental. The aim of this work was to design an agroclimatic zoning model for swich-grass in Argentina, both for upland and lowland ecotypes, based on its bioclimatic requirements and employing a Geography Information System. The variables taken into consideration were: average temperature during growing period and reproductive period, frost free days and rainfall during growing season. This work demonstrated that an ample region of the country is agro-climatically suitable for the implantation of switch-grass in rainfed conditions or with complementary irrigation. The agroclimatic zoning for the upland ecotype shows that suitability reaches latitudes of up to 46oS, while the lowland ecotype can be grown up to 40oS. Thornthwaite's Moisture Index equal to zero was overlapped to the Argentinean agroclimatic zoning for upland and lowland types, to obtain the potential growing areas under dry-subhumid, semiarid to arid climates. The areas where switch-grass should be effectively tested are those categorized as optimal, very suitable, suitable, and very suitable/suitable with irrigation, located to the West of TMI equal to zero, which include dry-subhumid (0<TMI<-20), semiarid (-20<TMI<-40) and arid (-40<TMI<-60) climates. This agroclimatic zoning model can be applied to any region in the world, using the same bioclimatic indices and the classes delimited in this paper.


Subgroup discovery is a descriptive and exploratory data mining technique to identify subgroups in a population that exhibit interesting behavior with respect to a variable of interest. Subgroup discovery has numerous applications in knowledge discovery and hypothesis generation, yet it remains inapplicable for unstructured, high-dimensional data such as images. This is because subgroup discovery algorithms rely on defining descriptive rules based on (attribute, value) pairs, however, in unstructured data, an attribute is not well defined. Even in cases where the notion of attribute intuitively exists in the data, such as a pixel in an image, due to the high dimensionality of the data, these attributes are not informative enough to be used in a rule. In this paper, we introduce the subgroup-aware variational autoencoder, a novel variational autoencoder that learns a representation of unstructured data which leads to subgroups with higher quality. Our experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the method at learning subgroups with high quality while supporting the interpretability of the concepts.


Background: The submission of informed consent aims to obtain evidence of consent that can document legal and ethical liability. Anesthesia procedures include pre-anesthesia, intra-anesthesia and post-anesthesia. Pre-anesthesia is a pre-anesthesia and sedation assessment, informed consent for anesthesia and sedation, giving premedication drugs if necessary, and instructing fasting before surgery. Purpose: This study was to determine the level of patient knowledge about anesthesia procedures through informed consent at the Central Surgical Installation of Jatiwinangun Purwokerto Special Surgical Hospital. Methods: This study used a quantitative descriptive design with a cross sectional approach. The sampling technique used consecutive sampling of 108 respondents. The measuring instrument used was a questionnaire sheet. Analysis test using univariate test. Results: The analysis showed that the most dominant age of respondents was in the range of 36-45 years (23.4%), with the last education having a high school background (35%) and male (59.3%). Conclusion: An overview of the patient's knowledge level about anesthesia procedures through informed consent in the central surgical installation of Jatiwinangun Purwokerto Special Surgical Hospital, the majority have a sufficient level of knowledge.


A commercial finite-element analysis code is used to calculate axisymmetric transient temperature fields, current density distributions and energy fluxes in the cathode of a high-intensity discharge lamp powered by a unipolar current I(t). The calculation is based on a sheath model of the near-cathode layer and the assumption that the resulting cathode fall voltage U(t) is spatially constant. So a calculation of the fields in the arc region is not necessary. Depending on the electrode dimensions and the frequency of I(t) hysteresis-like periodic transitions between the diffuse and spot modes of arc attachment are observed in the numerical solutions for 0.62 MPa mercury discharges with pure, as well as thoriated, tungsten cathodes. These findings are compared with measurements from the literature. The simulation shows that the latent heat has negligible influence on spot formation and that the average cathode power loss can be smaller for a time-varying current than for the direct current with equal mean value. The presented method can be used as a guide to better electrode geometries and current forms.


The second data release from the Gaia mission (DR2) provides a comprehensive and unprecedented picture of the motions of astronomical sources in the plane of the sky, extending from the solar neighborhood to the outer reaches of the Milky Way. I present proper-motion measurements based on Gaia DR2 for 17 ultra-faint dwarf galaxies within 100 kpc of the Milky Way. I compile the spectroscopically confirmed member stars in each dwarf bright enough for Gaia astrometry from the literature, producing member samples ranging from two stars in Triangulum II to 68 stars in Boötes I. From the spectroscopic member catalogs, I estimate the proper motion of each system. I find good agreement with the proper motions derived by the Gaia collaboration for Boötes I and Leo I. The tangential velocities for 14 of the 17 dwarfs are determined to better than 50 km s−1, more than doubling the sample of such measurements for Milky Way satellite galaxies. The orbital pericenters are well constrained, with a mean value of 38 kpc. Only one satellite, Tucana III, is on an orbit passing within 15 kpc of the Galactic center, suggesting that the remaining ultra-faint dwarfs are unlikely to have experienced severe tidal stripping. As a group, the ultra-faint dwarfs are on high-velocity, eccentric, retrograde trajectories, with nearly all of them having space motions exceeding 370 km s−1. A large majority of the objects are currently close to the pericenters of their orbits. In a low-mass (Mvir = 0.9 × 1012 M⊙) Milky Way potential, eight out of the 17 galaxies lack well-defined apocenters and appear likely to be on their first infall, indicating that the Milky Way mass may be larger than previously estimated or that many of the ultra-faint dwarfs are associated with the Magellanic Clouds. The median eccentricity of the ultra-faint dwarf orbits is 0.79, similar to the values seen in numerical simulations but distinct from the rounder orbits of the more luminous dwarf spheroidals.


DC microgrids can offer many advantages for an installation in commercial applications like data centers or in private homes. In this paper, future expansion of such grids towards a bipolar architecture (e.g. ±380 VDC) is evaluated. The focus lies on various fault situations, their effects on the grid and possible solutions to maintain grid safety. For this purpose, a laboratory scale bipolar test grid is set up and subjected to ground faults, loss of neutral and load shedding.


Monolithic diode grid were fabricated on 2-cm/sup 2/ gallium-arsenide wafers in a proof-of-principle test of a quasi-optical varactor millimeter-wave frequency multiplier array concept. An equivalent circuit model based on a transmission-line analysis of plane wave illumination was applied to predict the array performance. The doubler experiments were performed under far-field illumination conditions. A second-harmonic conversion efficiency of 9.5% and output powers of 0.5 W were achieved at 66 GHz when the diode grid was pumped with a pulsed source at 33 GHz. This grid had 760 Schottky-barrier varactor diodes. The average series resistance was 27 Omega , the minimum capacitance was 18 fF at a reverse breakdown voltage of -3 V. The measurements indicate that the diode grid is a feasible device for generating watt-level powers at millimeter frequencies and that substantial improvement is possible by improving the diode breakdown voltage. >


Quality assurance has been a long-standing concern for research in higher education. However, empirically substantiated analyses of higher education quality assurance policies, drawing on public policy implementation theory, have been rather sparse. Aiming at reducing such scarcity, the book analyses the implementation of Czech system-level policy on higher education quality assurance in the period from 1990 until 2010. By the application of the instrumental approach to policy implementation, attention is paid to the rationale, functioning, and effects of several implementation instruments in combination – the point often missed in policy implementation literature. More specifically, the enquiry undertaken in the book identifies the stick-carrot-sermon instrument set-up as a distinct implementation style. Due to the recognition of a number of shortcomings of the policy in question and the formulation of recommendations how to ameliorate them in policy practice, the book is of interest for a broad range of higher education stakeholders, including researchers, managers, administrators, and decision-makers.


Shish kebab structure of cis-1 , 4-polybutadiene has been obtained by quiescent solution crystallization at suitable temperature. The morphology and growth mechanism of formation of shish kebab structure have been studied in detail.The higher the molecular weight the faster the sample crystallizes.


Resistance to vancomycin and high level aminoglycosides are common among Enterococcus spp. and are being increasingly reported from different parts of the world. These resistance phenomena in enterococci have limited the therapeutic options to treat the infections caused by them. The objective of our study was to determine the antimicrobial resistance patterns of Enterococcus spp. (n=60) isolated over a year from clinical specimens received from patients visiting Nepal Medical College Teaching Hospital, Kathmandu, Nepal. All enterococci were subjected to antimicrobial susceptibility testing, high level gentamicin resistance testing by disc diffusion method and minimum inhibitory concentration of vancomycin by agar dilution method. Prevalence of high level gentamicin resistance among enterococci was 55%. None of the isolates were resistant to vancomycin by both disc diffusion and agar dilution method. However 8.3% of them were intermediate to vancomycin. All of these vancomycin intermediate isolates were from samples from hospital admitted patients and resistant to ampicillin, ciprofloxacin, erythromycin and high level gentamicin. Present findings were suggestive of possible emergence of vancomycin resistant enterococci in the hospital if immediate and adequate control measures are not implemented.


2-Hydroxyglutarate (2-HG) is an unconventional oncometabolite of α-ketoglutarate. Isocitrate dehydrogenase mutation is generally acknowledged to be the main cause of 2-HG accumulation. In isocitrate dehydrogenase mutant tumors, 2-HG accumulation inhibits α-ketoglutarate/Fe(II)-dependent dioxygenases, resulting in epigenetic alterations. Recently, the increase of 2-HG has also been observed in the cases of mitochondrial dysfunction and hypoxia. In these cases, 2-HG not only inhibits α-ketoglutarate/Fe(II)-dependent dioxygenases to regulate epigenetics but also affects other cellular pathways, such as regulating hypoxia-inducible transcription factors and glycolysis. These provide a new perspective for the study of 2-HG.


. This work focuses on indoor air quality evaluation of commercial buildings in Kuantan. Some buildings have been selected to monitor indoor air quality. The research has been carried out only in Kuantan, which focused on hotels and government buildings. Some sample measurements were taken which include air temperature, relative humidity, and air movement, carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2), ozone (O3), respirable particulate matter (PM 10), formaldehyde and total volatile organic compound (TVOC). In addition, questionnaires were conducted on a number of workers in each building to determine the level of health and illness caused by air in the building where they work. Hence, this study has analyzed the link between the questioner results and the results of indoor air measurements that were carried out. From surveys, it appears there are four buildings that have low air flow, four buildings have a lot of dust and five buildings have a high temperature. In contrast, four buildings have a good indoor air quality.


It is commonly-believed that education is a good thing for individuals. Yet its correlation with subjective well-being is most often only weakly positive, or even negative, despite the many associated better individual-level outcomes We here square the circle using novel Japanese data on happiness aspirations. If reported happiness comes from a comparison of outcomes to aspirations, then any phenomenon raising both at the same time will have only a muted effect on reported well-being. We find that around half of the happiness effect of education is cancelled out by higher aspirations, and suggest a similar dampening effect for income.


Today researches all over the world are focusing on ways of utilizing either industry or agricultural wastes as a source of raw materials for the construction industry. These wastes utilization would not only be economical, but may also help to create a sustainable and pollution free environment. The main objective of our project is to develop environment friendly and energy saving bricks from Sugarcane bagasse ash (SCBA), Rice husk ash (RHA) and Coconut Fibre (CF). In this study SCBA & RHA are mixed in particular proportion (0%,7%,12%,17%) and coconut fibre (2%) is provided as the replacement of red soil in the production of bricks. The use of SCBA-RHA-CF-RED SOIL combination bricks is lighter in weight, durable, non hazardous energy efficient and additional strength are gains.


Though it is generally accepted that steroids are able to affect the sex ratio in many teleost species, the role of androgens in the sex determination/differentiation process in fish species with temperature-dependent sex determination systems (T sD) has not been established. We investigated the androgen synthesis capacity of the gonads, kidneys and liver of immature and adult pejerrey Odontesthes bonariensis, a species with strong TSD, and observed that 11-oxygenated androgens are mainly produced by the testis, and in some extent by the kidneys. We were not able to detect 11-oxygenated androgens in the ovaries and liver. This information lead us to study the androgen potentiality in the gonads and trunks of pejerrey during the TsD period.


Android smartphones are ubiquitous all over the world, and organizations that turn profits out of data mining user personal information are on the rise. Many users are not aware of the risks of accepting permissions from Android apps, and the continued state of insecurity, manifested in increased level of breaches across all large organizations means that personal information is falling in the hands of malicious actors. This paper aims at shedding the light on privacy leakage in apps that target a specific demography, Arabs. The research takes into consideration apps that cater to specific cultural aspects of this region and identify how they could be abusing the trust given to them by unsuspecting users. Dynamic taint analysis is used in a virtualized environment to analyze top free apps based on popularity in Google Play store. Information presented highlights how different categories of apps leak different categories of private information.


Chordoma is considered to be a malignant, fatal tumor. According to most authors it constitutes between 1-4% of all malignant bone tumors. In 50% of the cases it is located in the sacrum, in 35% in the cervical spine and skull, and in 15% in the thoracic spine and elsewhere. It is an aggressive, locally invasive, slowly-growing tumor. Although metastases are rare, when they occur they are of an anaplastic type, especially in the lungs, liver, regional lymph nodes, skin and muscles. Chordoma is a rare tumor, and its location and slow growth often result in delayed diagnosis. Complete excision of the chordoma was formerly considered impossible. There is often local recurrence, and often, by its very nature, excision results in neurological defects. Lately, there is more optimism regarding complete cure, due to more advanced surgical methods. We present a 66-year-old man in whom a tumor developed in the sacrococcygeal area and the right buttock. The tumor was diagnosed by CT, MRI and biopsy as a chordoma of the sacrum, without intra-abdominal infiltration. He was operated through a posterior approach, with complete resection of the tumor, including almost the whole sacrum and the coccyx. We consider this approach simpler than the abdominal-dorsal approach, which in cases of intra-abdominal infiltration is necessary. We regard this simple incision as a significant advance in the treatment of this condition.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


Astronauts live and work in highly unusual and challenging environments where they must withstand multiple stressors. Their abilities to maintain positive psychological outlooks and good interpersonal relations are crucial for personal well-being and mission success. From the inception of the space program, psychologists, psychiatrists, human factors experts, and other professionals have warned that the psychological stressors of space should be treated as a risk factor and that the risk would increase as missions involved larger, more diversified crews undertaking increasingly long flights. Thus, they called for research leading to the development and application of effective countermeasures. Although psychology played a significant role at the inception of the space program, for many years thereafter certain areas of psychology all but disappeared from NASA. Interest in psychosocial adaptation was rekindled in the mid-1990s when astronauts joined cosmonauts on the Russian space station Mir. NASA's recognition of the field of behavioral health and its links to performance opened the door to many kinds of research that were formerly overlooked. Focusing on the underutilized areas of personality and social psychology, the chapters that follow discuss psychology's struggle for acceptance, the history of astronaut selection and psychological support, the use of analog environments and simulators for research and training, space tourism, the psychological rewards of viewing Earth from space, crew composition and group dynamics, and cross-cultural aspects of international missions. This book concludes with a summary, integration, and evaluation of the role of psychology in space exploration.


X-ray phototelectron spectra of Crs and O,s lines in various carbonate minerals illustrate that, as covalency increases, the O,5 binding energies also increase in calcite, magnesite, and otavite, but decrease in aragonite, strontianite, and witherite. No increase in binding energy could be detected for possible 2P-2P,pi bonding in aragonites and no increase in line-width was detected for O or C from the two sites in dolomite'


Knowledge of the up-to-date network topology (i.e. Layer 2 & Layer 3) is crucial for efficient network management. Issues like congestion avoidance, resource management, resource discovery, root-cause analysis and event correlation require accurate information of the topology map. Due to dynamic nature of today's IP networks, keeping track of topology information manually is a daunting task. Thus efficient algorithms for automatically discovering physical network topology are necessary. The earlier work has typically concentrated on discovering topology either using completely SNMP-MIB or ICMP echo request/reply, DNS, Trace route, etc. Our proposed algorithm does not rely totally on SNMP-MIB information as it is not usually supported by all devices in the network. Instead we propose an approach where SNMP agent should only be enabled on the routers and managed switches. Rest of the network computers/hosts need not have SNMP agent enabled. We propose an efficient algorithm not only to find available computers/hosts but also to find appropriate timeouts and delays in the network. The experimental results validate our approach, demonstrating that our algorithm discovers accurate physical topology.


BACKGROUND
Recent studies have suggested a possible association between Chlamydia pneumoniae infection and coronary heart disease.

OBJECTIVES
To determine titers of antibodies to C. pneumoniae in patients with acute myocardial infarction compared with titers in several control groups.

METHODS
This prospective case-control study investigated 209 individuals. We assessed the serum IgG antibody titers to C. pneumoniae in 57 consecutive patients admitted with AMI to our intensive coronary care unit during a 4 month period. A serum sample was drawn upon admission and after 6 weeks. Results were compared with those of four control groups: a) patients admitted with community-acquired pneumonia (n = 18), b) patients with community-acquired urinary tract infection (n = 42), c) patients with angiographically normal coronary artery disease (n = 44), and d) patients with stable coronary artery disease (n = 48). Serum immunoglobulin G antibody titers to C. pneumoniae were determined using standard micro-immunofluorescence technology.

RESULTS
Of 57 patients with AMI, 32 (56%) had a high IgG titer to C. pneumoniae (> or = 1:256) on the initial test, which remained unchanged (62%) after 6 weeks. The percentage of patients with high titers was significantly lower in the control groups: 5 of 18 patients (28%) in the pneumonia group (P < 0.01), 11 of 42 (26%) in the urinary tract infection group (P < 0.01), 11 of 44 (25%) with normal coronary arteries (P < 0.01), and 17 of 48 (35%) with stable chronic ischemic heart disease (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSION
The detection of high titers of IgG antibodies to C. pneumonia in many patients with AMI, compared to control groups, suggests that chronic Chlamydia pneumoniae infection plays a role in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis and acute ischemic events.


Understanding the dynamics during freezing of nanofluid droplets is of importance from a fundamental and practical viewpoint. While the freezing of a water droplet has been extensively studied, little information is available about the characteristics of freezing a nanofluid droplet. Here, we report unique shape changes observed during the freezing process of a nanofluid droplet. Instead of forming a pointy tip on the frozen deionized water droplet, we found that the top of a frozen nanofluid droplet exhibits a flat plateau shape and such plateau becomes larger with increasing nanoparticle concentration. We ascribe this characteristic shape change to an outward Marangoni flow which moves liquid from the droplet interior to its vertexes, thus engendering the volume redistribution and shape changes. Moreover, we also observed a particle ring pattern formed during freezing of a nanofluid droplet, which is similar to the well-known coffee stain phenomenon occurring during evaporation of a water droplet with dispersed particles. We believe our reported phenomena are not only of fundamental interest but have potential applications in the freezing of nanofluids for energy storage and developing nanofluid based new microfabrication methods.


In this paper a unified shape optimum design scheme, combining the material derivative and boundary parametrization is presented to find the optimal cross-sectional shapes of elastic hollow bars. Performance criteria can be the bending stiffness, the torsional rigidity, or the weight of the bar. The existence of a keyway (an example of geometric irregularity) can be considered as well. Material property can be either isotropic or anisotropic. Various numerical examples have been provided to show the validity of the presented approach.


Thirty psychotic children (mean age 4.5 years) with severe speech retardation and withdrawal from social relations were examined by a specific language scale we developed. This scale assesses developmental speech level (morphology) and communicativeness (function). Reliability and validity studies measured against more global clinical scales are presented. The initial examination was compared to a short-term and long-term follow-up language examination. This molecular study of speech behavior shows that psychotic children may be subdivided with respect to retardation (using intelligibility norms) and then further divided into more and less communicative groups. These groupings have a relative stability after the second examination. Retrospective evaluation of factors that effect communicativeness suggests that this instrument can be used to make accurate prognoses at 3.6 years of age rather than at 5 years as formerly presented.


This study focused on the characteristics of complex MnS inclusions in advanced high strength steels. The effect of metal chemistry (Al and N) and the cooling rate of steel were evaluated by analyzing the inclusions present in five laboratory produced steels. The observed complex MnS inclusions contained Al2O3-MnS, AlN-MnS, and AlON-MnS. An increase in Al content from 0.5% to 6% increased the number of complex MnS inclusions by ~4 times. In comparison, a decrease of ~80% was observed due to the increased N content of steel from <10 ppm to ~50 ppm. MnS precipitation ratio was used to determine the potency of different inclusions forming complex MnS inclusions due to heterogeneous nucleation. It was found that the MnS precipitation ratio of the observed inclusions was related to their misfit with MnS, and it decreased in the order of AlN > AlON > Al2O3. Moreover, it was determined that AlN particles could be easily engulfed at the solidification front relative to Al2O3, which resulted in a higher MnS precipitation ratio for Al2O3 under slow cooling conditions.


There are available metrics for predicting fault prone classes, which may help software organizations for planning and performing testing activities. This may be possible due to proper allocation of resources on fault prone parts of the design and code of the software. Hence, importance and usefulness of such metrics is understandable, but empirical validation of these metrics is always a great challenge. Random forest (RF) algorithm has been successfully applied for solving regression and classification problems in many applications. This paper evaluates the capability of RF algorithm in predicting fault prone software classes using open source software. The results indicate that the prediction performance of random forest is good. However, similar types of studies are required to be carried out in order to establish the acceptability of the RF model.


OBJECTIVE
To determine the utility of immunohistochemical staining for p53 in cell block material for distinguishing reactive mesothelium from borderline or low grade ovarian carcinoma.

STUDY DESIGN
Paraffin-embedded cell blocks from paracentesis and pelvic wash fluid of 44 cases of ovarian carcinoma and 20 cases containing only reactive mesothelium were immunostained for p53 using monoclonal antibody DO-7. Tumor grades ranged from borderline to high grade and were serous papillary (33), clear cell (3), mucinous (2), endometrioid (2), mixed serous papillary/clear cell (3) and undifferentiated (1). The three authors independently evaluated the staining, including estimation of the percentage and intensity of positive nuclear staining.

RESULTS
A separation of positive from negative cases was seen when staining intensity was considered the critical parameter; moderate to strong staining was considered truly positive. Seventy-three percent (8/11) of borderline tumors, 80% (8/10) of low grade tumors and 65% (15/23) of intermediate to high grade tumors showed moderate to strong positivity. Percentage of staining was a less-reliable parameter as 25% of negative cases were positive by this assessment.

CONCLUSION
p53 Immunohistochemistry, using monoclonal antibody DO-7 combined with standard morphologic evaluation, may be useful in distinguishing benign reactive mesothelium from borderline or low grade ovarian carcinoma.


As an energy-saving building material, transparent wood (TW) is highly attractive because of the advantages of high optical transmittance, excellent mechanical properties, and good thermal insulation. However, the current research is limited to fabricating small-size samples in the laboratory because thick or large-size transparent wood is almost impossible to be achieved. A method that can easily and efficiently produce transparent wood with any size and any thickness is desirable for practical applications. Transparent wood made from wood fibers as a substrate allows the cell walls to bind more tightly to the impregnated polymer, resulting in high light transmittance. Compared with wood prepared by using previously reported approaches, the transparent wood prepared by this new method not only retains the same advantages but also has higher preparation efficiency and is suitable for large-scale production. Under a simulated real environment, the retainability of indoor temperature by a sample house utilizing the transparent wood reveals excellent thermal insulation of the fiber-based transparent wood owing to its low thermal conductivity, showing significant benefits in saving thermal energy.


New kinds of media are emerging that extend the functionality of available technology. The growth of advanced recording technologies has led to systems for photographing and reproducing environments in motion. This lends itself to new forms of interactivity for the viewer, including the ability to explore a photographic scene and interact with its features. The three-dimensional qualities of objects in the scene can be displayed by the use of stereo vision. The data types and image bandwidth needed for this type of media experience may require especially efficient formats for representation, coding and transmission. An overview is presented here of the MPEG activity exploring the need for standardization in this area to support these new applications, under the name of 3DAV (for 3D Audio-Visual).


This study aims to investigate the mediating effect of affective commitment in the relationship between perceived organizational support and turnover intention. Data were collected using paper-and-pencil survey on inbound Customer Service Officers (CSO) of a Contact Center X in Jakarta operating in service of electricity needs by phone calls (N = 96). Data were analyzed using Hayes PROCESS macro on SPSS software. Results showed that perceived organizational support was negatively related to turnover intention and positively related to affective commitment. Results also showed that affective commitment was negatively correlated with turnover intention. The mediation analysis showed that affective commitment fully mediated the relationship between perceived organizational support and turnover intention. The theoretical and practical implications of the study were further discussed.


This paper describes the contribution to the Millennium Development Goals in the context of the social development of civil society organizations supported by the social co-investment program in the period 2009-2012 through recurring projects. It is found that such projects foster focusing efforts, encouraging a greater specialization and attention to social problems, so that their contribution to the MDGs is potentially high.


This article provides a description of the role of a research institute director in implementing policy, program, and management changes. The importance of modifying a peer review system to improve funding decisions is emphasized. The needs of individuals with disabilities for pragmatic solutions to their problems and the interests of the rehabilitation research community are discussed in the context of program development. The perspective is a personal review provided by a former Director of the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research.


BHandHLYP/6-311G** and BHandHLYP/DZP computations of the potential surface of Si-, Ge-, and Sn-radical cyclizations onto the imine double bond reveal that these reactions proceed through simultaneous SOMO --> pi*, LP(N) --> SOMO, and LP(N) --> sigma* interactions. Such multicomponent orbital interactions are responsible for the regioselectivity in these radical cyclizations, where the nucleophilic radical unexpectedly attacks the more electron-rich end of the pi system. Less nucleophilic heteroatoms, for example, the nitrogen atom in nitriles or the oxygen atom in carbonyl compounds, show reduced LP interactions with the radical center in the respective transition states, so that these reactions predominantly occur in the "classical" fashion and with the expected regioselectivities of nucleophilic radicals through SOMO --> pi* interactions. This supports the hypothesis that Si-, Ge- and, to a lesser extent, Sn-radicals are ambiphilic in nature and that the unpaired electron is not necessarily the most reactive site in a radical but can act as an observer of a nucleophilic attack at the radical center.


Understanding why volunteers join an emergency service and why they stay is critical to developing more effective recruitment and retention strategies. Subsequently, this study examines the roles of age, motivations and values in satisfaction among New Generation (aged below 35 years) and Traditional Generation (aged 35 years and above) volunteers. The research conducted an online survey of 252 State Emergency Service (SES) volunteers. The results indicate a mix of similarities and differences across the generations. First and foremost though, the primary reasons for joining and staying with the service are the same for both age groups - and those reasons revolve around serving the community. Younger volunteers do have an extended range of reasons for joining and staying but the areas of difference point to stage-in-life considerations as opposed to generational changes. The discussion identifies and examines the key implications for emergency service managers.


Herein, we synthesize three new stable Fe(ii) coordination polymers, {[Fe3(tttmb)4(OH)(NCS)5]2CH3OH·H2O}n (1), {[Fe3(tttmb)4(NCS)6]·3H2O}n (2), and {[Fe3(tttmb)2Cl6(H2O)6]·5H2O}n (3) (tttmb = 1,3,5-tris(triazole-1-ylmethyl)-2,4,6-trimethyl-benzene) under the regulation of KSCN and solvents and use them as green heterogeneous catalysts in aryl homo-coupling reactions. The catalytic experiments show that 1 and 3 exhibit high efficiency for aryl homo-coupling reactions under an air environment with a yield of up to 80%. Furthermore, the crystal structure analysis reveals that 1 and 3 have coordinated water molecules and OH-, which are easily removed from the host materials during the reactions. In contrast, no unsaturated coordination sites are generated in 2 during the reaction process. In addition, the variable temperature magnetic susceptibilities of 1-3 prove that the metal centers of these polymers are bivalent and all of them exhibit a weak antiferromagnetic effect.