Study Design. To evaluate the ability of single-rod anterior instrumentation to save or preserve fusion levels and improve thoracic hypokyphosis in patients with adolescent idiopathic thoracic, thoracolumbar, or lumbar scoliosis. Objective. To provide indications for single anterior rod instrumentation for the treatment of adolescent idiopathic scoliosis and demonstrate effectiveness in properly selected cases. Summary of Background Data. Posterior multisegmented dual rod instrumentation is the most commonly used instrumentation for the surgical treatment of adolescent idiopathic scoliosis. The issue of longer fusion levels and inability to correct hypokyphosis with posterior instrumentation continues to be debated in the literature. Anterior instrumentation has the ability in certain curve patterns to preserve distal and proximal levels as well as correct thoracic hypokyphosis. Methods. A brief discussion of the Lenke adolescent idiopathic scoliosis classification system is presented. Surgical treatment options for each of the curve types are discussed in detail. Results. Single-rod anterior instrumentation for adolescent idiopathic scoliosis will predictably save levels in Type I curves without hyperkyphosis as well as Type 5 curves; however, it is usually contraindicated in Type 2, Type 4, and Type 6 curves. Single-rod anterior instrumentation can occasionally be utilized in Type 3 curves if the magnitude of the lumbar curve is significantly less than the thoracic curve and the flexibility of the lumbar curve approaches 25° on the side-bending radiograph. Conclusions. Single-rod anterior instrumentation will often saved one to three distal fusion levels when treating isolated major thoracic, thoracolumbar, or lumbar curves. Fusion levels should include upper to lower Cobb levels. Additionally, anterior single-rod instrumentation because its kyphogenic nature will predictably correct hypokyphosis of the thoracic spine.


Alternative cropping systems can improve resource use efficiency, increase corn grain yield, and help in reducing
negative impacts on the environment. A 6-yr (1993 to 1998) field study was conducted at the Iowa State University's
Northeastern Research Center near Nashua, Iowa, to evaluate the effects of non-traditional cropping systems [strip inter
cropping (STR)-corn (Zea mays L.)/soybean (Glycine max L.)/oats (Avina sativa L.)]; alfalfa rotation (ROT)-3-yr (1993 to
1995) alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) followed by corn in 1996, soybean in 1997, and oats in 1998), and traditional cropping
system (corn after soybean (CS) and soybean after corn (SC) on the flow weighted average nitrate-nitrogen (NO3-N)
concentrations and NO3-N leaching losses with subsurface drainage water. The soils at the research site are loamy with 3%
to 4% organic matter and are underlain by subsurface drainage system. The data collected from four experimental treatments
were analyzed as an unbalanced incomplete block design using F-test and T-test among treatments and within treatments,
respectively. When averaged across 6-yr, non-traditional cropping systems reduced flow weighted average NO3-N
concentrations in subsurface drain water with highly significantly effect (P < 0.01) in comparison with traditional cropping
system (6.5 vs. 11.2 mg L-1). Similarly, the strip inter cropping system increased corn grain yields by 5% (9.03 vs. 8.6 Mg ha-1)
and reduced NO3-N leaching losses by 6% (12.6 vs. 13.5 kg-N ha-1) and showed no difference in soybean yields when
compared with traditional cropping system. Results of the study indicate that strip inter cropping and alfalfa rotation systems
have the potential to reduce NO3-N leaching into the shallow groundwater system and possibly can become one of the better
sustainable farming systems in Midwestern agriculture.


The current research aims to propose a competency-based succession planning model with respect to adjusting role of organizational culture in Telecommunication Infrastructure Company of Iran (TICIR). This study was conducted as an applied research in terms of objective and it was assumed as a descriptive survey by taking approach toward interpretative structural modeling. The statistical population of this study included two groups of experts and directors (Directors general, chairmen of offices, responsible experts and experts of TICIR Company). Primarily, in order to determine sample size for statistical population, 20 of experts were elected using non-randomized and selective sampling method and 340 members of the second statistical population were chosen by means of classified sampling technique including directors general, deputies of directors general, chairmen of offices, responsible experts and other experts of TICIR Company. The findings about succession planning model indicated that the variable of succession planning reached to a level higher than satisfactory rate therefore all of the related elements were placed higher than satisfactory level. Finally variable of organizational culture, as adjusting variable, was also placed at the level higher than satisfactory rate in this study. Hence, all of these variables reached to the level higher than satisfactory rate.


This paper focuses on Intermodal Freight Transportation broadly defined as a chain made up of several transportation modes that are more or less coordinated and interact in intermodal terminals to ensure door-to-door service. The goal of the chapter is to present intermodal transportation from both the supplier and the carrier perspectives, and identify important issues and challenges in designing, planning, and operating intermodal transportation networks, focusing on modeling and the contributions of operations research to the field.


Biodiesel is a green fuel diesel, which is used to fuel compression-ignition engines, same as petroleum diesel. By using waste cooking oil (WCO) as raw material, the production of biodiesel requires two-steps esterification-transesterification reactions involving acid catalyst and basic catalyst, respectively. Most researchers used strong acid (i.e. H2SO4) followed by a strong base (i.e. NaOH) to enhance the biodiesel products. However, apart from corrosion potential, these homogeneous catalysts also take extra time and cost for the purification process. To overcome this problem, a bi-functional catalyst is required so that the reactions can undergo simultaneously. In this research, WCO for the production of biodiesel was characterized. A bi-functional catalyst was produced by modification of montmorillonite K10 (MMT K10) clay with Al3+ ion creating Al-MMT K10 catalyst, followed by characterization of Al-MMT K10 using temperature-programmed desorption of ammonia (TPD-NH3) and scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (SEM/EDX). Lastly, the catalytic activity was examined by producing biodiesel known as fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) with conditions 10:1 to 14:1 (mol ratio of methanol : WCO), 2 to 4 wt. % of catalyst loading, 4 to 6 hours reaction time and 90 to 130 °C reaction temperature using GC-FID. After modification, the weight percentage of Al in MMT K10 was increased by 0.8 % and the acidity was increased by 1200.97 μmol/g NH3. By optimizing the parameters using 6 % Al-MMT K10 at 110 °C with 12:1 (methanol:WCO) within 6 hours reaction, 42.47 % acid conversion and 40 % of FAME yield was achieved. It is expected that up to 80 % of biodiesel can be achieved by optimizing the Al composition in MMT K10 clay. In conclusion, Al-MMT K10 was successfully acted as bi-functional catalyst for esterification and transesterification of WCO in biodiesel production.


Abstract. Multifunctional organic nitrates, including carbonyl nitrates, are important
species formed in NOx-rich atmospheres by the degradation of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). These
compounds have been shown to play a key role in the transport of reactive
nitrogen and, consequently, in the ozone budget; they are also known to be important
components of the total organic aerosol. However, very little is known about
their reactivity in both the gas and condensed phases. Following a previous
study that we published on the gas-phase reactivity of α-nitrooxy
ketones, the photolysis and reaction with OH radicals of
4-nitrooxy-2-butanone and 5-nitrooxy-2-pentanone (which are a β-nitrooxy ketone and γ-nitrooxy ketone, respectively) were investigated for the
first time in simulation chambers. The photolysis frequencies were directly
measured in the CESAM chamber, which is equipped with a very realistic
irradiation system. The jnitrate/jNO2 ratios were found to be (5.9±0.9)×10-3 for 4-nitrooxy-2-butanone and (3.2±0.9)×10-3 for 5-nitrooxy-2-pentanone under our experimental
conditions. From these results, it was estimated that ambient photolysis
frequencies calculated for typical tropospheric irradiation conditions
corresponding to the 1 July at noon at 40∘ N (overhead ozone column of 300 and albedo of 0.1) are (6.1±0.9)×10-5 s−1 and (3.3±0.9)×10-5 s−1 for 4-nitrooxy-2-butanone and 5-nitrooxy-2-pentanone, respectively.
These results demonstrate that photolysis is a very efficient sink for these
compounds with atmospheric lifetimes of few hours. They also suggest that,
similarly to α-nitrooxy ketones, β-nitrooxy ketones have
enhanced UV absorption cross sections and quantum yields equal to or close to
unity and that γ-nitrooxy ketones have a lower enhancement of cross
sections, which can easily be explained by the larger distance between the
two chromophore groups. Thanks to a product study, the branching ratio between
the two possible photodissociation pathways is also proposed. Rate
constants for the reaction with OH radicals were found to be (2.9±1.0)×10-12 and (3.3±0.9)×10-12 cm3 molecule−1 s−1,
respectively. These experimental data are in good agreement with rate
constants estimated by the structure–activity relationship (SAR) of Kwok and Atkinson (1995) when using the
parametrization proposed by Suarez-Bertoa et al. (2012) for carbonyl
nitrates. Comparison with photolysis rates suggests that the OH-initiated
oxidation of carbonyl nitrates is a less efficient sink than
photodissociation but is not negligible in polluted areas.


We describe the multiplier algebra of the noncommutative Schwartz space. This multiplier algebra can be seen as the largest ${}^*$-algebra of unbounded operators on a separable Hilbert space with the classical Schwartz space of rapidly decreasing functions as the domain. We show in particular that it is neither a $\mathcal{Q}$-algebra nor $m$-convex. On the other hand, we prove that classical tools of functional analysis, for example, the closed graph theorem, the open mapping theorem or the uniform boundedness principle, are still available.


A method for the production of a weblike material including a flocked substrate (F) is described, in which: on at least a first side of the substrate (F) is applied an adhesive (R); on said first face are distributed flock fibers (13); the fibers are anchored to the substrate by way of the adhesive. The quantity in weight of the fibers anchored to the substrate is between 0 and 30 gr/m^2; the adhesive is distributed in a non-continuous way on said first side of the substrate, to create zones with flock fibers and zones free of flock fibers.


Erigeron breviscapus and erigeron multiradiatus, belonging to compositae, have been widely used as "meiduoluomi" in traditional Tibetan medicine for treatment of heat-clearing and detoxicating. However, it is difficult to distinguish them because of similarity of morphology. Therefore, the chemotaxonomy method was established. FTIR fingerprint spectra of E. breviscapus and E. multiradiatus samples from 13 geographical origins were studied. The results demonstrated that they could be divided into 2 classes with principal component analysis (PCA). The classification was well correlated to their gene, geographical origins and weather. In the same class, the chemical components are similar to each other, which can be considered as the criterion for evaluating their quality. The results showed that their infrared spectra characteristic of the same species was similar in the range of 4 000-450 cm(-1), but varied significantly for different species. The method is rapid and simple, and could be applied to evaluate the quality of this traditional medicine.


Crystals of moxonidine and its hydrochloride were grown in polar solvents and subjected to single crystal X-ray diffraction. The free base crystallizes in the monoclinic C2/c space group and the hydrochloride salt crystallizes as a monohydrate in the orthorhombic Pbca space group. Protonation in the HCl salt occurs at the imino N-atom of the 2-imino-imidazolidine group and results in clear changes in the bond angles and bond distances from the neutral structure. Both structures adopt perpendicular conformations and exhibit a certain degree of similarity in the way the homo and hetero dimer units are connected. Moxonidine can exhibit tautomerism along the imidazolidine-N-aryl fragment, but only the imino tautomer is observed in the crystal. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations in the gas phase suggest the amino tautomer to be highly unstable by 5.74 kcal mol−1 over the imino tautomer and this perhaps leads to its rare occurrence. 180 Crystal structures bearing a (imidazole)imidazolidine-N-aryl(alkyl) fragment were gathered from the Cambridge structural database (CSD) to understand if there are any molecular features, which can be correlated with the tautomeric occurrence in the crystal. We noticed that conjugation had a pronounced effect on the tautomer stability and its occurrence. Structures are divided into four categories based on the location of double bond towards the endo or exocyclic N atoms. In category (i), the amino tautomer is stabilized with a 98.1% success rate, because double bonds participate in conjugation towards the endocyclic N atoms. Conversely, in category (ii), conjugation is established towards the exocyclic N atoms and stabilizes the imino tautomer with 93.1% success. When conjugation is allowed towards the endo and exocyclic N sides (category (iii)) or is absent (category (iv)), both amino and imino tautomers are observed. Other important factors such as intramolecular and intermolecular hydrogen bonding in the crystal have shown to influence the tautomeric existence and we illustrate these features through selected examples. Tautomer energy calculations were performed on selected examples from the four categories and their relative stabilities correlated with their observation in the crystals. We also demonstrate how the in-depth structural analysis of the CSD helps us to revise two incorrectly determined structures reported earlier. The amino tautomeric form of XIBPOO is corrected to its protonated form with its co-former formamide corrected as formate anion in its crystal lattice. Similarly, the amino tautomeric form of QABDON is corrected to its imino tautomer.


SINCE THE 1980s, THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT HAS ACTIVELY PROMOTED THE ROLE OF the private security industry within the criminal justice system. Privately run prisons, young offender institutions, and secure training centers for children aged 12 to 17 years old are now acknowledged components of the criminal justice landscape. Added to this, new immigration detention centers have been opened by commercial organizations to supplement their crime control interests and to create a broader market in incarceration. The electronic monitoring (EM) of offenders and, more recently, those subject to immigration controls represents another growth area m public-sector privatization and the extension of commercial forms of social control into domestic spaces. First used in 1989, over 16,000 people are now subject to a variety of forms of EM across England and Wales. Those subject to EM-based programs include bailees, adult offenders, juvenile offenders, terrorist suspects, those subject to immigration controls, and, potentially in the near future, those who refuse to pay child support. EM represents an expanding market, grounded in criminal justice privatization, that permits a much more diffuse future vision of social regulation and control. Many of the business areas where commercial criminal justice in England and Wales now flourishes are based upon original developments in the United States (Newburn, 2002) that have inspired the development of new commercial crime control markets across the globe. EM is now used in Canada, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Portugal, Italy, Argentina, Israel, and Scotland. Commercial crime control is an international business and EM, alongside other "techno-corrections," has become part of a global corrections-commercial complex (Lilly and Knepper, 1992). The processes of globalization have prompted a period of reconstruction within many Western governments through which the state sheds many of its peripheral functions to the commercial, voluntary, and statutory sectors. Across Britain, this growth has ensured that the private security industry now provides services to the value of 4 billion [pounds sterling] per annum to the public and private sectors and employs approximately 500,000 people (SIA, 2006). This article looks at the role of the commercial sector as service providers of EM. It reviews the history of EM and debates about the nature of security in relation to the struggle for sovereign control over populations and territory. Then it focuses on the way in which private security firms have become part of a new commercial-public hybrid mode of subcontracted sovereign governance through which the state generates the market space for commercial organizations to enter the crime control system. Subsequently, the article outlines how multinational corporations have come to dominate the commercial markets in technocorrections and incarceration. In the case of EM, Premier-Serco and Group 4 Securicor have isolated their competitors through the creation of a commercial duopoly. This raises questions about the procurement process within the realm of commercial crime control, in particular, about how commercial-public hybrids balance cost-effectiveness and the pursuit of profit with the delivery of a high-quality service. This brings up the issue of the future role of the commercial sector within the criminal justice system, particularly with the recent introduction of "contestability" into the National Offender Management Service (NOMS). A Brief History of EM The growth of the private security industry in the period after World War II and within criminal justice since the beginning of the 1980s arose as the result of rising demand for security alongside the growing importance placed upon the economic rationalities of crime control (Garland, 1999; Feeley, 2002). The end of the Cold War in 1989 provided a further boost to the industry as private security companies were accompanied by defense contractors keen to maintain profit margins in the absence of a clearly defined threat against the Western world. …


The first order perturbative approach has been applied and the finite-size nuclear corrections of order of the scaling factors, ξ, ξ 2 and ξ 3 for n = 1, n = 2 and n = 3 energy levels respectively for the hydrogen atom, have been computed. Results show that as the energy levels increases, the effects of the finite – size nucleus on the orbiting electron is diminishing. This procedure has shown that the concept of finite nuclear size model has an extremely small impact on the energy spectrum of the hydrogen atom. Electron – nucleus interactions, beyond the coulomb potential, modify the atomic property and due to the change from point-charge to finite-size nuclear model the energy level of nucleus is shifted upwards and thus the atomic spectral line for a finite-size nucleus will not coincide with that of its point-size nucleus. This gives us more information on the nuclear charge distribution. Another observation from this work is that with a higher probability of being farther from the nucleus of finite – size charge, the orbiting electrons feel the same effect as the effects due to the point – charge nucleus. Here the finite – size nuclear model have some relevance with the Schrodinger model of hydrogen atom at large distances from the nucleus. Keywords: Schrodinger; perturbation; Hamiltonian; wave function; nucleus; point-size; finite–size; potential energy


This essay presents a brief ethnography of a small Latino community in Tennessee and their interaction with local volunteers following a disastrous flood that occurred in July 2014. The ethnography, in this case in the form of a screenplay, depicts the overall intercultural sensitivity of the volunteers, the affected, and the interpreters. In the process, this essay also considers such creative analytic practice (CAP) ethnographies may help students involved in Spanish and community service-learning courses as well as communities bridge the "self"/"other" gap that so often distances Latino immigrants and locals.


Abstract This paper presents a new method for passive current compensation of a real multiharmonic power source with the use of a four-terminal network. In contrast to a two-terminal compensator, a four-terminal-network compensator can fully separate the supply circuit from the load. This ensures optimal operating conditions for the source while keeping the voltage and load current unchanged. The source's optimal working conditions mean that the source current reaches its minimal RMS value (becoming the so-called "active current") while it transmits the desired active power to the load.


Background: Extensive debate surrounds the practice of continuous sedation until death to control refractory symptoms in terminal cancer care. We examined reported practice of United Kingdom, Belgian and Dutch physicians and nurses. Methods: Qualitative case studies using interviews. Setting: Hospitals, the domestic home and hospices or palliative care units. Participants: In all, 57 Physicians and 73 nurses involved in the care of 84 cancer patients. Results: UK respondents reported a continuum of practice from the provision of low doses of sedatives to control terminal restlessness to rarely encountered deep sedation. In contrast, Belgian respondents predominantly described the use of deep sedation, emphasizing the importance of responding to the patient's request. Dutch respondents emphasized making an official medical decision informed by the patient's wish and establishing that a refractory symptom was present. Respondents employed rationales that showed different stances towards four key issues: the preservation of consciousness, concerns about the potential hastening of death, whether they perceived continuous sedation until death as an 'alternative' to euthanasia and whether they sought to follow guidelines or frameworks for practice. Conclusion: This qualitative analysis suggests that there is systematic variation in end-of-life care sedation practice and its conceptualization in the United Kingdom, Belgium and the Netherlands.


By Natalie Scott, Chemistry
 Advisor: David Smithrud
 Presentation ID: AM_D27
 Abstract: Rotaxanes are a new class of molecular machines. Their wheel can slide and pirouette around an axle without falling off due to the presence of blocking groups. Inner components of the machine are able to shift position on the molecule in response to certain stimuli, resulting in a new class of sensors. Recently, dis-assemblage rotaxanes have been constructed and investigated as possible sensors. For example, an external stimulus clips off a blocking group to release the wheel, separating the rotaxane components. These rotaxanes require at least one unique blocking group that is chemically sensitive to a stimuli. One problem with this approach is that the unique blocking group is usually insoluble in an apolar solvent needed to form rotaxanes. My project is to determine whether decreasing the polarity of an axle would increase the yield of rotaxane formation. The unique blocking group is more polar by being smaller than traditional blocking groups. High temperature will be the stimulus to dis-assemble the rotaxane with the wheel slipping over the unique blocking group. Synthesis of the rotaxane requires a multistep approach. 1H NMR analyses were used to assess the structures of intermediate components and final rotaxane.


Type 2 diabetes is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Given the contribution of platelets to atherothrombosis—which in turn is a major contributor to cardiac events, there may be cause to consider platelet function in management of diabetes. Despite the large body of research concerning the role of platelets in cardiovascular complications of type 2 diabetes, evidence from population-based studies of platelet aggregation in diabetes is limited. Mean Platelet Volume (MPV), a cell trait partially associated with markers of platelet activity, is more commonly available. We investigated the association of metabolic syndrome and diabetes with platelet aggregation to three physiological agonists, ADP, collagen, and epinephrine, in the Framingham Heart Study Offspring cohort. We further examined the relationship between MPV measured with Beckman Coulter LH750 instruments and self-reported diabetes as well as MPV and diabetes medication in the UK BioBank cohort, performing the largest such analysis to date. Increased platelet aggregation associated with prevalent diabetes was observed for low concentration epinephrine (0.1 μM) alone and only in analyses of participants stratified either by male sex and/or having metabolic syndrome. Other agonists and concentrations were not significant for prevalent diabetes, or in opposite direction to the main hypothesis (i.e., they showed lower platelet aggregation associated with diabetes). After a median of 18.1 years follow-up, no platelet aggregation trait was associated with increased risk of diabetes (n = 344 cases). As expected, increased MPV was significantly associated with diabetes (β = 0.0976; P = 8.62 × 10−33). Interestingly, sex-stratified analyses indicated the association of MPV with diabetes is markedly stronger in males (β = 0.1232; P = 1.00 × 10−31) than females (β = 0.0514; P = 7.37 × 10−5). Among diabetes medications increased MPV was associated with Insulin (β = 0.1341; P = 1.38 × 10−11) and decreased MPV with both Metformin (β = 0.0763; P = 1.99 × 10−6) as well as the sulphonylureas (β = 0.0559; P = 0.0034). Each drug showed the same direction of effect in both sexes, however, the association with MPV was nearly twice as great or more in women compared to men. In conclusion, platelet function as measured by aggregation to ADP, collagen, or epinephrine does not appear to be consistently associated with diabetes, however, MPV is robustly associated suggesting future work may focus on how MPV segments pre-diabetics and diabetics for risk prediction.


To determine if genetic diversity of Blastocystis hominis exists in Japan, we monitored 64 B. hominis-infected people: 39 asymptomatic people whose infections were detected during routine medical check-ups (32 Japanese and 7 non-Japanese) and 25 patients with gastrointestinal symptoms who visited the outpatient clinics of St. Luke's International Hospital (19 Japanese and 6 non-Japanese). We detected 6 known and 2 new riboprint patterns in isolates from the infected people. There were no differences in the distribution of ribodemes between isolates from Japanese and non-Japanese people, similar to that in other countries. However, we noted a possible relationship between ribodeme type and pathogenicity. The results suggest that ribodemes I, III, and VI may be responsible for gastrointestinal symptoms.


This study aimed to understand how the insertion of music in the work environment contributes to achieving Quality of Working Life (QWL), from the perspective of biopsychosocial and organisational well-being. The context where the study was conducted was the manufacturing area of a major textile company located in Natal, in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. The use of a case study was the research strategy adopted, with exploratory and descriptive objectives. The primary data was collected through the focus group technique and semi-structured interviews were used as an additional tool. Respecting the theoretical saturation criterion, four focus groups were formed, each comprising eight randomly selected participants from the seventy-six co-workers in the sector. The data was analysed qualitatively, using the content analysis technique. Twenty-eight QWL attributes were identified. It was concluded that musical insertion provides biological, social and, above all, psychological and organisational well-being to the co-workers, contributing to achieving QWL in the work environment researched.


In Czechoslovakia there are six units of Water-Water Power Reactor (WWER)-440 C type reactors (pressurized water reactor [PWR] type) incorporated with pressure vessel surveillance specimens. These sets of specimens are kept for carrying out static tensile testing, impact notch toughness testing, and static fracture toughness testing, and are supplemented by necessary sets of neutron flux monitors. Results of mechanical testing of these specimens evaluated after one to five years of reactor operation are summarized and discussed with respect to the effect of individual heats and welding joints, radiation embrittlement laws, and lead factor and pressure vessel lifetime assessment.


The concept of social quality has been operationalized in terms of four component dimensions: social inclustion, social cohesion, socio-economic security and social empowerment. This article argues that inclusion and cohesion are aspects of the same underlying social construct. Societies are cohesive to the extent that they are bound by relationships of solidarity; people are included when they are part of solidaristic social networks. Where there is cohesion, there is solidarity, and where there is solidarity, there is inclusion. It follows that the attempt to define social quality in terms of a formal distiction between inclusion and cohesion is doomed to failure. They cannot be treated as distict elements, and the attempt to distinguish them has led to double-counting.


The restoration of immune functions was followed in dogs for 101 days after fractionated total body irradiation and autologous transfusion of peripheral blood leukocytes (PBL) or bone marrow (BM) cells. Median numbers of 0.9 X 10(5) granulocyte-macrophage progenitor cells per kilogram of body weight were transferred in either group of recipients. The following parameters recovered more rapidly in PBL recipients as opposed to BM recipients: total blood lymphocyte, T- and B-cell counts, serum levels of immunoglobulins IgM and IgA, in vitro blastogenic responses after stimulation with concanavalin A and pokeweed mitogen, and in vitro plasma cell formation after polyclonal B-cell activation with pokeweed mitogen with or without lipopolysaccharide. No major differences were noted for the restoration of serum IgG levels. Circulating lymphocyte and T-cell numbers remained subnormal for more than three months in both groups, whereas B-cell numbers and serum levels of IgA continued to be depressed in BM recipients only. Thus, autologous PBL restored immune functions more rapidly than did BM. Transplantation of PBL, alone or in addition to autologous BM, might also shorten the period of immunodeficiency after cytoreduction in a variety of malignancies in man.


We report on the implementation and features of the Brain/MINDS Marmoset Connectivity Atlas, BMCA, a new resource that provides access to anterograde neuronal tracer data in the prefrontal cortex of a marmoset brain. Neuronal tracers combined with fluorescence microscopy are a key technology for the systematic mapping of structural brain connectivity. We selected the prefrontal cortex for mapping due to its important role in higher brain functions. This work introduces the BMCA standard image preprocessing pipeline and tools for exploring and reviewing the data. We developed the BMCA-Explorer, which is an online image viewer designed for data exploration. Unlike other existing image explorers, it visualizes the data of different individuals in a common reference space at an unprecedented high resolution, facilitating comparative studies. To foster the integration with other marmoset brain image databases and cross-species comparisons, we added fiber tractography data from diffusion MRI, retrograde neural tracer data from the Marmoset Brain Connectivity Atlas project, and tools to map image data between marmoset and the human brain image space. This version of BMCA allows direct comparison between the results of 52 anterograde and 164 retrograde tracer injections in the cortex of the marmoset.


Looking at the future of the wireless sensor networks and the applications which are likely to be deployed on it, the security is now becoming an evident feature. Lot many security architectures are proposed, but looking to the energy and memory constraints, the implementation still demands good amount of research. The simpler way seems is, to detect the intruder as early as possible and take the corrective steps for damage control. Here we propose an improved secured hash based IDS strategy using deployment knowledge. This knowledge and strategy can be used to prevent exterior and interior intruders using one way spatial and temporal hash functions.


This study is to analyze the temporal and spatial distributions of solar radiation in South Korea. Solar radiation data is observed every minute at 22 KMA (Korea Meteorological Administration) stations using pyranometer from January 2000 to August 2007. These data were calibrated using intensive comparative observation and solar radiation model. Intensive comparative observations are accomplished at 22 KMA stations between KNU (Kangnung (Gangneung-Wonju) National University) standard and station instruments during the month of August 2007. The solar radiation of a clear sky mainly is affected by precipitable water, solar altitude and geological height. Also old (raw) data is corrected by the solar radiation model only about clear day and is revised based on the temporal trend of instrument's sensitivity decrease. At all periods and all stations, differences between raw data (13.31 MJ/day) and corrected data (13.75 MJ/day) are 0.44 MJ/ day. So, the spatial distribution of solar radiation is calculated with seasonal and annual mean, and is the relationship with cloud amount is analyzed. The corrected data show a better consistency with the cloud amount than the old data.


In many time-domain single-photon measurements, wide dynamic range (more than 5 orders of magnitude) is required in short acquisition time (few seconds). We report on the results of a novel technique based on a time-gated Single-Photon Avalanche Diode (SPAD) able to increase the dynamic range of optical investigations. The optical signal is acquired only in well-defined time intervals. Very fast 200-ps gate-ON transition is used to avoid the undesired strong signal, which can saturate the detector, hide the fainter useful signal and reduce the dynamic range. In experimental measurements, we obtained a dynamic range approaching 8 decades in few minutes of acquisition.


The authors extend the analysis of systematic investment approaches to emerging market (EM) fixed income. They focus on hard currency bonds issued by emerging sovereign and quasi-sovereign entities. They find that systematic exposures linked to carry, defensive, momentum, and valuation themes are well compensated and lowly correlated in EM markets. A transaction-cost and liquidity aware long-only portfolio generates an information ratio above 1. They further show that an excess of benchmark returns for a broad set of EM managers is (i) largely explained by passive exposures to EM corporate credit excess returns and EM local currency returns, and (ii) has nontrivial macroeconomic exposures (growth, inflation, volatility, and liquidity). A systematic approach to EM debt may be a powerful diversifier. TOPICS: Emerging markets, currency Key Findings • We find that a systematic approach to active risk taking "works" in emerging market (EM) fixed income. Exposures linked to carry, defensive, momentum and valuation themes have been well compensated in EM markets. • We further find that an excess of benchmark returns for incumbent EM managers contains a lot of traditional beta and significant macroeconomic sensitivities. • There is potentially a large diversification benefit for a well-crafted systematic long-only portfolio of EM bonds.


Recent developments in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and their applications in various subjects are of interest to polar communities. Due to the harsh climate and dangerous environment, these regions pose challenges for the expedition teams. Several countries have tested the UAV technology to support Antarctic research and logistics. In this trend paper, we provide insightful reviews and discussions on such a prospective topic. Based on a comprehensive literature survey, we firstly summarize the key research progress of UAV in Antarctic studies. Then the examples of risk scenarios during the field exploration are given, after which several promising applications of the UAVs in safety guarantee are illustrated. In particular, we present a case of site-selection for the Chinese first ice sheet airfield, using the data collected in the 34th Chinese National Antarctic Research Expedition (CHINARE). In the end, we highlight the unique value of the UAVs in the popularization of polar science before concluding the advantages and limitations. Considering their excellent performance, we expect more innovations for UAV's applications in the following Antarctic expeditions. Citation: Li T, Zhang B G, Cheng X, et al. Leveraging the UAV to support Chinese Antarctic expeditions: a new perspective. Adv Polar Sci, 2021, 32(1): 67-74, doi: 10.13679/j.advps.2020.0018


Systemic functional linguistics, especially the variety associated with the name of Halliday, has been perhaps unique in explicitly and defiantly celebrating the inherent relations of theory and practice from its earliest stages (e.g. Halliday, 1960). The actual range of purposes for which sfl has been used is indeed remarkable (Appendix A; Halliday, 2008: 190ff; Hasan et al., 2005, 2007). But my aim here is not to join in praise or denigration; I wish instead to raise a basic question: what enables a linguistic theory to become appliable? Why do some theories such as sfl or Prague School linguistics become widely appliable?3 Why do other models, some with claims of elevated intellectual pedigree, remain above or below human use?


In a sequence of papers in the early 1990's, Comins, Hassell, and May investigated Nicholson-Baily dynamics in a spatial implementation with diffusion. They delineated four types of dynamic behavior: crystalline lattices, spatial chaos, spirals, and hard-to-start spirals. We revisit their results with current computational methods, and develop a sampling technique to estimate the Lyapunov spectrum. We find that spatial chaos, spirals, and hard-to-start spirals are not separate categories, but part of a spectrum of behavior. We more thoroughly investigate the crystalline structures. We show that the Lyapunov sampling method can be used to find bifurcation curves in parameter space, and demonstrate an interesting spatial chimera.


The project aimed to identify gaps between generations with regard to perceptions, attitudes and expectations of digital technology in relation to the learning and teaching of the moving image, and to help bridge any gaps and enhance communication between students, academic and support staff.
This ethnographic study includes a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods including digital video as research practice with 34 recorded interviews: 50% with students, 30% academic and 20% support staff at the University of Brighton and at the Royal College of Art, London.
We found that there is a gap between expectations and experiences of digital technology, attitudes to the learning and teaching of the moving image vary in complex ways between generations and perceptions of quality are in a state of flux.


Lung cancer invading the spine was previously considered unresectable and fatal and, consequently, there are few reports focusing on tumors located in the lower lung lobe and invading the spine. With the development of spinal instrumentation and surgical techniques, and wider acceptance of spondylectomy by surgeons, radical surgical resection has become feasible. Here, we present a case of a male patient with a left lower lung cancer invading thoracic vertebrae who underwent complete resection with sagittal en bloc hemivertebrectomy with video‐assisted thoracoscopy. A 60‐year‐old man complained of left chest pain for 3 months. Chest computed tomography and thoracic vertebrae magnetic resonance image revealed that a tumor in the left lower lung lobe had invaded the seventh and eighth thoracic vertebrae and the eighth rib. As no lymph node or distant metastasis was detected by positron emission tomography‐computed tomography, the patient was diagnosed with left lower lung cancer directly invading the seventh and eighth thoracic vertebrae and the eighth rib (T4N0M0, stage IIIA) instead of metastasizing to the thoracic vertebrae. An en bloc resection of the lung tumor and the involved vertebrae was performed by a thoracic surgeon and orthopaedic surgeon with video‐assisted thoracoscopy. Six months after the operation, there was no evidence of local recurrence, and the patient had recovered well. En Bloc resection with video‐assisted thoracoscopy for lung cancer invading thoracic vertebrae is a safe and feasible surgical method. This method can significantly improve the safety and convenience of this type of surgery.


User Authentication in computer systems is an important cornerstone in today's computer era. The concept of a login id and password is one of the easiest ways for authentication. It is not only the easiest way, but also cost effective and highly efficient. Authentication process to a any computing system is composed of two parts i.e. identification and verification. Login Id is used for identification and password is used for verification. It is very important to secure both the phases of authentication process. In this paper, a system is proposed where security is provided to both the phases of authentication process without the involvement of any specialized devices. In identification phase, concept called mindmetrics is implemented where personal secret data instead of login id is used to identify the user. In verification phase, the concept of two server password is implemented to prevent the password from getting hack. The proposed system does not make use of any hardware device and is cost effective.


A parcel delivery system with a unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and a public train is presented, where the train moves naturally as it is and the UAV can depart the train to deliver parcels. The UAV can travel with the train and replace its battery on the roof. An optimization problem is formulated to minimize the total delivery time and two algorithms are proposed. The exact algorithm gives the optimal schedule, but it is not scalable. The developed suboptimal algorithm is computationally efficient and achieves close performance to that of the exact algorithm. Realistic simulations are conducted to evaluate the proposed algorithms and they are compared with existing schemes.


The effect of four apple varieties on the development and reproduction of the European red spider mite Panonychus ulmi (Koch, 1836) (Prostigmata: Tetranychidae) was studied under the controlled conditions of 25 ± 1 °C, Relative Humidity of 65 ± 5 % and photoperiod of 16:8 (L:D). The age-stage two-sex life tables of P. ulmi on Golden Delicious, Red Shief, Jeromine and Gala varieties were constructed. Based on higher values of fecundities (38.5 and 35.1 eggs / female) and the intrinsic rates of increase (rm) of 0.1643 and 0.1521 day-1, Panonychus ulmi developed better on Golden Delicious and Red Shief among the varieties tested. Results show that the developmental time of female adults was shorter on Golden delicious and (11.2 days). Immature survival of P. ulmi was significantly higher on Golden delicious, Jeromine and Red Shief (79.1, 76.5 and 72.3 %,respectively), and lower on the Gala variety (64.5 %). In the light of these results, Panonychus ulmi develop and reproduce quickly on Golden Delicious and Red Shief varieties among the four varieties tested. Establishment of two-sex life tables of P. ulmi on apple varieties facilitates the rational management of this phytophagous mite according to the principles of integrated management.


In a 60 GHz fiber optic microwave transmission system the fiber dispersion of the link is compensated with a length adjustment in the dual wavelength source. The required precision of the length differences lies in the cm-range.


Colorimetry was introduced into the DIII-D tokamak to measure in situ the growth and erosion of transparent wall coatings (a-C:H) on the divertor. The colorimetric measurement system consisting of a halogen light source, a set of three filters and a black/white camera is described together with a first erosion measurement. An insertable graphite sample with a diameter of 4.7 cm was precoated with a 300 nm thick amorphous carbon film and was exposed in the divertor for several discharges with its surface coplanar to the surrounding graphite tiles. For each of the discharges the plasma strike point was moved onto the sample for 1 s to erode the coating. Between the discharges a camera signal with each filter was recorded and the film thickness was evaluated along a radial line across the DIMES sample. Thus it has been possible for the first time to measure erosion and deposition of divertor material in situ and shot-by-shot. The average peak heat flux with the strike point on DIMES was about 110 W . The measurement shows a strong decrease in the film thickness almost over the entire sample with an average erosion rate of .


The development of new methods for given speech and natural language processing tasks usually consists in annotating large corpora of data before applying machine learning techniques to train models or to extract information. Beyond scientific aspects, creating and managing such annotated data sets is a recurrent problem. While using human annotators is obviously expensive in time and money, relying on automatic annotation processes is not a simple solution neither. Typically, the high diversity of annotation tools and of data formats, as well as the lack of efficient middleware to interface them all together, make such processes very complex and painful to design. To circumvent this problem, this paper presents the toolkit ROOTS, a freshly released open source toolkit (http://roots-toolkit.gforge.inria.fr) for easy, fast and consistent management of heterogeneously annotated data. ROOTS is designed to efficiently handle massive complex sequential data and to allow quick and light prototyping, as this is often required for research purposes. To illustrate these properties, three sample applications are presented in the field of speech and language processing, though ROOTS can more generally be easily extended to other application domains.


SUMMARY: The effect of area: volume ratio and composition of medium on the accumulation of diazotizable amine ('amine') and hypoxanthine yeast 47 growing in biotin-deficient medium are reported. The 'amine', isolated from culture filtrates by mercury precipitation and separation on ion exchange resins, gave the Pauly reaction for imidazoles: on acid hydrolysis it yielded ribose, glycine, ammonia and formic acid, but no phosphate. These properties are consistent with the view that the 'amine' is 5-amino-imidazole riboside or a closely related compound. When the growth medium contained 500 μg. l-aspartic acid/ml., instead of 'amine' and hypoxanthine, substances accumulated which on hydrolysis yielded adenine as the only purine. 'Amine' accumulation by yeast 47 may be a symptom of a derangement of purine metabolism resulting from a biotin-conditioned block in aspartate synthesis.


The purpose of the article was to study the bone reparative regeneration in disorders caused by the dehydration of organism. Studies were conducted on 72 white laboratory young male rats. The structural and metabolic displays of reparative osteogenesis were studied by means of histological research of defected area, morphometry of histological preparations by means of the computer programs "Video Test 5,0" and "Video size 5,0". Quantitative disorders of regenerated cellular composition were found on the 3-rd day. Atypical granulation tissue was found on the 15-th day. The delay of regeneration - on the 24th day. It was concluded that the inhibition of reparative osteogenesis occurred under the influence of dehydration. The strongest impact on the process of bone regeneration was caused by an extracellular dehydration.


The biomodulation (BM) of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) by interferon (IFN) is reviewed both preclinically and clinically, stressing clinical relevance. A number of preclinical evaluations of a combination of 5-FU and IFN were performed before Wadler et al. developed an active biomodulation therapy with a combination of 5-FU and IFN. However, extensive preclinical investigations have been performed very recently showing that IFN can enhance cytotoxic effects of 5-FU through various mechanisms, not only by increased anabolism of 5-FU to 5-fluoro 2'-deoxyuridine monophosphate (FdUMP) or 5-fluorouridine (FUR), inhibition of thymidine kinase activity, possible alternation of pharmacokinetics of 5-FU, but also by biological response modification. Since a high response rate of 76.4% in patients with previously untreated advanced metastatic colorectal cancer was reported by Wadler et al., with the combination of 5-FU and IFN, consecutive extensive phase II studies of the combination have been undertaken and shown a modest response rate ranging from 25% to 43% for colorectal cancer. An attempt to add leucovorin (LV) to the combination of 5-FU and IFN has so far appeared less successful. It showed almost the same efficacy in terms of response rate and survival, but more significant side effects. A further study is warranted to evaluate the optimal dose and schedule of IFN in combination with 5-FU or the 5-FU and LV combination chemotherapy in the proper sense of biomodulation. The role of biomodulating chemotherapy of 5-FU by IFN or IFN and LV must also be investigated in the field of head and neck cancers, esophageal cancer, biliary tract cancer, all of which are relatively sensitive to the effector of 5-FU.


Volume 59 of the Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry series represents material prepared for a short course entitled 'Molecular Geomicrobiology' that was held at the University of California, Berkeley, on 3–4 December, 2005. This volume follows that published in 1997 (Volume 35 , Geomicrobiology: Interactions between Microbes and Minerals ). The title of the more recent volume reflects a new exciting stage of the research in this interdisciplinary field that came with the development of modern tools in genomics, biochemistry, analytical chemistry, physics and microscopy, and allows characterization of biogeochemical systems at a molecular level.

The authors' concept of such new opportunities brought to Geomicrobiology in the genomics era is summarized in Chapter 1 (by Banfield et al. ) of the volume. The important goal of Geomicrobiology is to understand the mechanisms of microbial–mineral transformations. With new tools, including high-resolution techniques for obtaining submicron-scale data for minerals and new genomic approaches for monitoring in situ microbial activity levels, it becomes possible to understand the physical chemistry and dynamics of natural environments, and microbial community organization and its response to changing environmental …


BACKGROUND
In Germany the prevalence of insect venom allergy in the population is about 5 %, 10-40 deaths are reported every year. With a success rate of 95 % venom immunotherapy (SIT) has a convincing protective effect. The purpose of this study was to investigate the safety of the original ultra-rush-protocol in children and reduce from 9 to 8 doses by avoiding a second application of 100 micro g insect venom.

METHODS
Nineteen children and adolescents with insect venom allergy were treated according to the modified ultra-rush-protocol. The first 5 children were hyposensitized according to the original protocol suggested by Brehler et al., the remaining 14 children (age 6-18 years) received only 8 injections (0.01/0.1/1/10/20/40/80/100 micro g). 5 patients were discharged on the second day four hours after the final application of 100 micro g insect venom.

RESULTS
Extensive reddening due to inflammation was found in injection spot in 5 patients. Four patients had an amplified wheal formation. No systemic reactions were observed. The maintenance therapy was well tolerated.

CONCLUSION
The modified ultra-rush-protocol increases compliance by short inpatient stay. In addition the modified hyposensitization was sure and well tolerated.


Oral health contributes physically and psychologically to quality of life. Objective: To investigate the relationship of oral health status with oral health related and general Quality of Life (QOL) in elderly. Methods: Subjects were 612 community dwelling Thai aged 60 years or older. A questionnaire was evaluate socio-demographics, general oral health assessment index (GOHAI) and world health organization quality of life (WHOQOL). Oral examinations assessed teeth present, decayed teeth, gingival bleeding, pocket depth, functional tooth units (FTUs) and salivary flow rate. Results: For dentate subjects (n=428), logistic regression showed that teeth present, decayed teeth, gingival bleeding, pocket depth, FTUs and saliva flow rate were associated with GOHAI (p<0.05). Regarding WHOQOL, teeth present, gingival bleeding and FTUs were associated with physical domain (p<0.05). Teeth present, decayed teeth, gingival bleeding and FTUs were related with psychological domain (p<0.05). Teeth present and FTUs were associated with environmental and social domain (p<0.05). For edentulous subjects (n=184), denture wearing was associated with GOHAI and all domains of WHOQOL (p<0.05). Conclusion: The number of teeth present, denture wearing and FTUs strongly affected GOHAI and general QOL. Dental caries, periodontal status and salivary flow rate also affected GOHAI and some domains of general QOL of elderly.


Applying a fued-percenmge tolerance band to compressor performance parameters is a common practice in the industry. While fmding the practice reasonable, its pitfalls are reviewed from the customer's as weU as the compressor DJllllufacturer's standpoint. Enefgy efficiency ratio needs to be controlled separately from capacity and input power, although it is derived from the two. Depending on the purpose, different levels of fixed pen;eotages are suggested. Statistically, a bivariate normal distribution can be assumed for typical performance pammeterS. A set of I 02 paired bivariate data for capacity and input power from an actual production audit has been statistically analyu:d to verify that actual data generally fit the suggested dhtribution. Correlation analysis shows a slight positive correlation between capacity and input power against the assumed theoretical randomness. INTRODUCI10N Besides cost, delivery, quality, and reliability factors, acceptance of a compressor at any given time is judged by its performance. Criteria or parameters for compressor perfOTDIBilCe are usually capacity (BTU's or calories per hour), input watts, energy efficiency ratio (EER), sound pressure level (SPL) and vibration. Among tbese, EER is not an independent parnmeter in the sense that it is derived indirectly as the ratio of capacity to input power. Among these criteria, the lim three are the most commonly used ones. PRACTICES IN THE INDUSTRY Product evaluation, production audit and quality control deal with these parameters for control purposes. Original equipment manufacturers use them in accepting product performance. In the compressor manufacturing industry, it is ComJIIOil practice to aUow a fixed-percentage toler.mce band to the published or nominal value of a given perfonnance parameter. Certainly, nothing is particularly wrong with the practice and it has served the industry fairly weU. Accepting the practice as a sound one, we should establish its theoretical basis and statistical significance verified with data generated in an actual production environment. CUSTOMERS• AND MANUFACTURERS• PERSPECTIVES Let us examine the fixed-percentage tolerance band not just fmm the manufacturer's point of view, but also fmm the customer's, First, from the manufacturer's point of view, the fixedpercentage tolerance band is a practical control tool in product 3SSUl11IlCC. The rule is simple enough to be popularly applied. Where product model proliferation is the case it is quite a convenient control scheme. On the other band, there are some pitfalls. One of the pitfaUs is the "as long as within ±. x percent" syndrome. As actual mean value deviates from the published nominal value, the risk of performance fallout increases. Another pitfall is that the fixed-percentage rule is nOl very flexible as nominal performance of mass produced compressors could have a cyclic trend. A oonnal production environment sees both short-and-long-term shifting trends. Application of the rule witbout respect to time ~ve is not a rntional approach.


This article proposes an adaptive pseudo-derivative feedback with a feed-forward gain controller based on the integrated iterative learning control for the permanent magnet synchronous motor servo system. At first, the improved just-in-time online model identification method is adopted to identify and linearize the nonlinear servo system to obtain the model information for the control strategy. Second, a model-based iterative learning control strategy is presented for the tracking control of permanent magnet synchronous motor servo system. Meanwhile, to guarantee the robust convergence of the iterative learning control system, a new tuning methodology considering the model uncertainties is proposed to select the weighting matrices of the iterative learning control. Third, to further improve control performance, an online generalized predictive control is integrated in the iterative learning control framework, referred to as integrated iterative learning control. By combining generalized predictive control and iterative learning control, the integrated iterative learning control can complement both control methods to obtain good performance, because online generalized predictive control can respond to disturbances immediately and iterative learning control can correct bias left uncorrected by the online controller. Finally, an adaptive pseudo-derivative feedback with a feed-forward gain controller is designed based on the integrated iterative learning control. Since the integrated iterative learning control can be expressed by the pseudo-derivative feedback with a feed-forward gain parameter, the design can achieve both performance improvement and simple controller structure. Experiments confirm the effectiveness of the proposed adaptive pseudo-derivative feedback with a feed-forward gain controller.


OBJECTIVE
The aim of this experimental study was to examine the effect of the antioxidant drug U-74389G in a rat model of hypoxia-reoxygenation using the previously established protocol. Effects of treatments were evaluated by magnesium (Mg2+) levels in blood.

METHODS
Non-randomized controlled study was performed. Mg2+ levels were determined in 60 min (groups A and C) and 120 min (groups B and D) after starting the reoxygenation. Groups A and B received no drugs, whereas rats from groups C and D were administered with U-74389G.

RESULTS
40 rats 16-18 weeks old of a mean weight of 2312 g were employed in the study. It is demonstrated that U-74389G administration did not alter the Mg2+ levels (decrease in Mg2+ concentration was 0.28±2.75%; p=0.917). Reoxygenation non-significantly increased the Mg2+ levels by 4.27±2.66% (p=0.107). Together, the U-74389G administration and reoxygenation non-significantly increased the Mg2+ levels by 0.36±1.64% (p=0.823).

CONCLUSION
U-74389G administration, alone or in concert with reoxygenation did not significantly affect Mg2+ level in blood after experimental hypoxia in rats.


Multisensor data fusion has many military and civilian applications due to its statistical advantages. In this work, we propose a heuristic to enhance cooperative detection of moving targets within a region that is monitored by a wireless sensor network. This heuristic is based on fuzzy dynamic weighted majority voting for decision fusion. It fuses all the local decisions of the neighboring sensor nodes and determines the number and types of moving targets. A fuzzy logic weights each local decision based on the signal to noise ratio of the acoustic signal for target detection and the signal to noise ratio of the radio signal for sensor communication. The spatial correlation among the observations of neighboring sensor nodes is efficiently utilized. In addition, a finite state machine is proposed to reduce the detection false alarm and to estimate the best time at which the cluster decisions should be reported to the sink or gateway. Simulation results show that there is an optimal sensor number for distributed detection of a random process. This work is compared with the normal majority voting algorithm for hard decision fusion. It shows that the fuzzy weighted majority voting for decision fusion has less detection error than the normal majority voting.


In this article we discuss statistical techniques for modeling data from cohort studies that examine long-term effects of air pollution on children's health by comparing data from multiple communities with a diverse pollution profile. Under a general multilevel modeling paradigm, we discuss models for different outcome types along with their connections to the generalized mixed effects models methodology. The model specifications include linear and flexible models for continuous lung function data, logistic and/or time-to-event models for symptoms data that account for misspecifications via hidden Markov models and Poisson models for school absence counts. The main aim of the modeling scheme is to be able to estimate effects at various levels (e.g., within subjects across time, within communities across subjects and between communities). We also discuss in detail various recurring issues such as ecologic bias, exposure measurement error, multicollinearity in multipollutant models, interrelationships between major endpoints and choice of appropriate exposure metrics. The key conceptual issues and recent methodologic advances are reviewed, with illustrative results from the Southern California Children's Health Study, a 10-year study of the effects of air pollution on children's respiratory health.


Triggering receptor expressed in myeloid cells (TREM2) is a member of the immunoglobulin superfamily and is expressed in macrophages, dendritic cells, microglia, and osteoclasts. TREM2 plays a role in phagocytosis, regulates release of cytokine, contributes to microglia maintenance, and its ectodomain is shed from the cell surface. Using both pharmacological and genetic approaches we report here that the main protease contributing to the release of TREM2 ectodomain is ADAM17, (a disintegrin and metalloproteinase domain containing protein, also called TACE, TNFα converting enzyme) while ADAM10 plays a minor role. Using mutational analysis, we demonstrate that the main cleavage site of the sheddases is located within the stalk region of TREM2 proximal to the plasma membrane. Complementary biochemical experiments reveal that cleavage occurs between histidine 157 and serine 158. Shedding is not altered for the R47H-mutated TREM2 protein that confers an increased risk for the development of Alzheimers disease. O-glycosylation is detected within the stalk region, but distant to the cleavage site. These findings reveal a link between shedding of TREM2 and its regulation during inflammatory conditions or chronic neurodegenerative disease like AD in which activity or expression of sheddases might be altered.


Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) is a brain tumor with a poor prognosis and low survival rates. GBM is diagnosed at an advanced stage, so little information is available on the early stage of the disease and few improvements have been made for earlier diagnosis. Longitudinal murine models are a promising platform for biomarker discovery as they allow access to the early stages of the disease. Nevertheless, their use in proteomics has been limited owing to the low sample amount that can be collected at each longitudinal time point. Here we used optimized microproteomics workflows to investigate longitudinal changes in the protein profile of serum, serum small extracellular vesicles (sEVs), and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in a GBM murine model. Baseline, pre-symptomatic, and symptomatic tumor stages were determined using non-invasive motor tests. Forty-four proteins displayed significant differences in signal intensities during GBM progression. Dysregulated proteins are involved in cell motility, cell growth, and angiogenesis. Most of the dysregulated proteins already exhibited a difference from baseline at the pre-symptomatic stage of the disease, suggesting that early effects of GBM might be detectable before symptom onset.


Purpose of the Study
Recent studies have shown that nursing homes adopting culture change are disproportionately not-for-profit and CCRC-affiliated, with greater quality of care. Through the lens of diffusion-of-innovation theory, we examined whether Kansas' Medicaid pay-for-performance program PEAK 2.0, which incents the adoption of person-centered care (PCC) and worker empowerment, succeeded in its goal of spreading adoption to atypical- as well as typical-adopting nursing homes.

Design and Methods
We conducted a retrospective cohort study of 349 nursing homes in the state during PEAK 2.0's existence, 2012-2016. We constructed a data set combining state program data, provider characteristics from CMS data sets, and other demographic information from the 2010 Census. With a series of logistic regression models, we tested whether program joiners differed from nonjoiners by profit status and other demographic factors, as well as quality-related and case-mix factors.

Results
We found that in PEAK 2.0's first year, 2012, adopters were more likely to be not-for-profit and part of a CCRC, with higher occupancy rates and greater quality. However, by 2013 these associations became marginal, and in 2014 and 2015, we found no differences between program joiners and nonjoiners.

Implications
The results show that by PEAK 2.0's third year, the program-with its large financial incentive and other potentially important characteristics-succeeded in attracting a large set of nursing homes whose demographics were representative of those in the state. This is important because other studies have found that the adoption of PCC is associated with improved health and well-being for residents.


A new bimetallic complex containing Zn and La was prepared from a salen ligand possessing methoxyl groups at the 3, 3′-positions. The structural feature is that one of nitrate groups is disordered and displaced between two metal centers. Crystal system: Triclinic space group:P-1, Z=2. a=0.82714(17) nm, b=1.3484(3) (1) nm, and c=1 3898(3) (1) nm, α=79.89(3)°, β=76.67(3)°, and γ=72.43(3)°. V=1 428 6(5) nm3, Dx=1.812 g·cm-3. (Δρ)max=1 510×10-3 enm3, (Δρ)min=-1.503×10-3 enm3. Accordingly, two water molecules occupy the metal centers in the apical positions via the syn-geometry.


Separation of the coccoid form of Vibrio fetus from cultures containing both the coccoid and vibrioid cell types has been accomplished using rate-zonal centrifugation.


Abstract The apparent inverse relationship between Eurasian mean winter snow cover extent and the following warm season Indian monsoon rainfall, described by Hahn and Shukla for the 1967–75 period, is substantiated by the addition of five subsequent years of data if known deficiencies in satellite snow observations are accommodated. In this respect, elimination of a bias due to under-observation of snow cover in the Himalayan region during 1967–74 was crucial for the attainment of statistically significant correlations. Nonsignificant correlations for a shorter period (1971–80) suggest that Eurasian and Himalayan region winter snow cover extent, as well as that of Eurasia less the Himalayan region, are all about equally well related to the subsequent Indian monsoon rainfall. Furthermore, Eurasian and Himalayan snow cover extent derived from satellite observations are found to be highly correlated.


An investigation was conducted on the design of layer steel liber reinforced concrete (LSFRC) pavement. Finite element method was applied to the analysis on the stress distribution in order to determine the thickness and segregation distance of LSFRC pavement slabs.


To the Editor.— I would like to comment on the CASE REPORT, "Food-Dependent, Exercise-Induced Anaphylaxis," by Buchbinder et al 1 published in a recent issue ofThe Journal. The episode of exercise-induced anaphylaxis reported by the patient-subject of this article on Aug 22,1982, after eating grapes and jogging for 2 1/2 miles was assumed by the authors to be related somehow to ingestion of the grapes despite the negative results of skin test to the fruit. At the same time, the patient gave a history of seasonal rhinitis and asthma while the skin testing performed by the authors revealed positive flare and wheal reactions to a variety of pollens. In my opinion it is more likely that this episode is an example of an inhalant-provoked anaphylaxis than a food-induced one. The most likely inhalant in this case is ragweed pollen, which is known to be abundant during that time of


The promise of GIS has always been that it would allow us to obtain better answers to our Questions. But this is only possible if we have tools that allow us to perform rigorous quantitative analyses designed for spatial data. GIS provides us with a suite of analysis and modeling tools, ranging from small building blocks that you can use to construct a sophisticated work-flow, to completely self-contained analysis programs. It has a greater range of analysis and modeling tools, supports batch processing, offers new graphing functionality, automatically records work-flows for future reference, supports geodatabases, and can be called programmatically. It consists of algorithms that detect movement or changes in live and recorded video to see whether the movement or changes mean a possible threat is about to occur, occurring, or has occurred. One can also monitor video footage for missing or unwanted objects. Objects that have been left behind (bag containing a bomb) can be detected when the video from a CCTV camera displays an object not part of the normal video scene. This causes it to trigger an alarm within your CCTV system. Video analytics can also do the reverse. When a camera within your CCTV system has a change in the video scene that shows that an object is missing an alarm can be triggered. A command and control user interface which leverages GIS technology can be used in emergency/crime responses to locate intruders and response vehicles and personnel on the geographic map as well. This enables security personnel to orchestrate a coordinated response.


BACKGROUND
Allergic rhinitis (AR) is a type I allergic reaction mediated by serum immunoglobulin E (IgE).

OBJECTIVES
This study aimed to investigate the basophil activation rate and serum expression of inflammatory factors in AR patients and rats. The involvement of the IgE-FcεRI-nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) signaling pathway in the pathogenesis of AR was also explored.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
Thirty patients with pediatric AR (or asthma; untreated) were enrolled in our hospital as the observation group. Fifteen healthy children were selected as the control group. The basophil activation and serum levels of interleukin (IL)-4, IL-5, IL-13, IgE, and prostaglandin D2 (PGD2) in 2 groups of children were detected. Forty-eight male Sprague Dawley rats were randomly divided into group A (AR model group), group B (AR model + IgE inhibitor), group C (AR model + omalizumab), and group D (control). The animal model was established by intraperitoneal injection of ovalbumin and nasal mucosa stimulation. The basophil activation rate, serum levels of IL-4, IL-5, IL-13, IgE, and PGD2 were analyzed.

RESULTS
In children with AR, the blood samples contained mainly activated basophils, whereas the healthy group showed mainly non-activated basophils. The levels of IL-4, IL-5, IL-13, IgE and PGD2 in the serum of the AR group were higher than those in healthy subjects (p < 0.05). In animal studies, the blood samples collected from group A were mainly activated basophils, while the samples of the other groups were mainly non-activated basophils. The serum contents of IL-4, IL-5, IL-13, IgE, and PGD2 in group A were significantly higher than those in groups B and C (p < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS
Patients with AR showed increased activation of basophils and elevated expression of IL-4, IL-5, IL-13, IgE, and PGD2. The upregulation of FcεRI and NF-κB was involved in the pathogenesis of AR.


Cochlear implants are at the present time the only possibility for rehabilitation of totally deaf people. In this article the pathophysiology of sensoneural hearing impairments, the way of functioning of cochlear implants and indication for their use are presented. The results as well as the differences in rehabilitation effect in prelingual and postlingual deaf are pointed out. The reasons of sometime unexpected good and sometime unexpected poor results are discussed. On the end some unsolved problems in rehabilitation of deaf children with this method are presented.


Abstract The present study provides insight into cross-language activation in hearing bimodal bilinguals by (1) examining co-activation of spoken words during processing of signs by hearing bimodal bilingual users of Dutch (their L1) and Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT; late learners) and (2) investigating the contribution of mouthings to bimodal cross-language activation. NGT signs were presented with or without mouthings in two sign-picture verification experiments. In both experiments the phonological relation (unrelated, cohort overlap or final rhyme overlap) between the Dutch translation equivalents of the NGT signs and pictures was manipulated. Across both experiments, the results showed slower responses for sign-picture pairs with final rhyme overlap relative to phonologically unrelated sign-picture pairs, indicating co-activation of the spoken language during sign processing, but no significant effect for sign-picture pairs with cohort overlap in Dutch. In addition, co-activation was not affected by the presence or absence of mouthings.


ABSTRACT This study compares the effects of substantive implementation and symbolic implementation of the ISO 14001 standard on benefits realised for firms and their satisfaction with the certification. Specifically, we examine whether top management commitment is a precursor to both modes of implementation styles. Also, we compare firms' benefits – environmental, economic and marketing – emanating from these two modes of implementation and whether they affect the satisfaction levels of firms with ISO 14001 certification. We test the research framework of this study using a dataset that was drawn from 328 firms in Australia and New Zealand. Our findings showed that top management commitment plays an important role as a driver for both symbolic and substantive forms of ISO 14001 implementation. Substantive implementation has wider and stronger effects on the benefits of ISO 14001 adoption than symbolic implementation. Finally, both economic and marketing benefits have a positive effect on the level of satisfaction while environmental benefit, surprisingly, does not.


Objective: Normative comparison is a method to compare an individual to a norm group. It is commonly used in neuropsychological assessment to determine if a patient's cognitive capacities deviate from those of a healthy population. Neuropsychological assessment often involves multiple testing, which might increase the familywise error rate (FWER). Recently, several correction methods have been proposed to reduce the FWER. However these methods require that multivariate normative data are available, which is often not the case. We propose to obtain these data by merging the control group data of existing studies into an aggregated database. In this paper, we study how the correction methods fare given such an aggregated normative database. Methods: In a simulation study mimicking the aggregated database situation, we compared applying no correction, the Bonferroni correction, a maximum distribution approach and a stepwise approach on their FWER and their power to detect genuine deviations. Results: If the aggregated database contained data on all neuropsychological tests, the stepwise approach outperformed the other methods with respect to the FWER and power. However, if data were missing, the Bonferroni correction produced the lowest FWER. Discussion: Overall, the stepwise approach appears to be the most suitable normative comparison method for use in neuropsychological assessment. When the norm data contained large amounts of missing data, the Bonferroni correction proved best. Advice of which method to use in different situations is provided.


In this paper, the reverse space cmKdV equation, the reverse time cmKdV equation and the reverse space-time cmKdV equation are constructed and each of three types diverse soliton solutions is derived based on the Hirota bilinear method. The Lax integrability of three types of nonlocal equations is studied from local equation by using variable transformations. Based on exact solution formulae of one- and two-soliton solutions of three types of nonlocal cmKdV equation, some figures are used to describe the soliton solutions. According to the dynamical behaviors, it can be found that these solutions possess novel properties which are different from the ones of classical cmKdV equation.


The studied system mainly represents a mono-inverter dual induction motor drive system for a railway traction locomotive bogie. It is proposed instead of the classical drive bogie system, where an inverter supplies only one motor. Moreover, four partial speed sensorless methods are applied in it. Then, a comparison between these applied operating structures in two different control strategies for parallel connected dual induction motors is presented in this paper. The system behavior comparison takes into account two internal motor parameter variations and one external perturbation. It is important to note that the system presents two important interactions. On one hand, an electrical coupling is established by the voltage inverter, which supplies both motors. On the other hand, the common load, here represented by the locomotive, is relied to the motors by the mechanical transmissions imposing a mechanical coupling. The system has been modeled using the SABER solver from Avant! Corporation.


Self-similarity of power law velocity profile of a simulated atmospheric boundary layer is studied experimentally. The results demonstrate that the self-similarity maintains very well along the streamwise direction for the same rough surface but changes significantly with the surface roughness at the same position. The self-similarity of the vertical velocity profiles is affected by enhancement of the free stream velocity when the roughness concentration is relatively denser.


We have developed a 4-h radiometric method to predict the bacteriostatic endpoint by the tube dilution method. A mixture of [U-14C] glucose, [guanido-14C] arginine, and [U-14C] glycine was used to monitor the metabolic activity of both gram-positive and gram-negative organisms. The tube dilution method and the radiometric method were performed in parallel in 18 clinical serum samples. In the radiometric method, the samples were separated into control and test portions and serially diluted in Mueller-Hinton broth. Antibiotics in the control portion were inactivated with penicillinase or cellulose phosphate or both. The radioactive mixture and a 1-h culture of the patient's infecting organisms were added to all vials. The 14CO2 production after a 3-h incubation at 37 degrees C was measured, and the percent inhibition was determined for each vial by using the control vials as reference (no inhibition). Radiometric dose-response curves obtained for all samples showed that, by using a greater than or equal to 60% inhibition at 1:8 dilution, the radiometric method correctly predicted the outcome of the tube dilution method in 16 or 18 clinical samples.


Differential force measurements between spheres coated with either nickel or gold and rotating disks with periodic distributions of nickel and gold are reported. The rotating samples are covered by a thin layer of titanium and a layer of gold. While titanium is used for fabrication purposes, the gold layer (nominal thicknesses of 21, 37, 47 and 87 nm) provides an isoelectronic environment, and is used to nullify the electrostatic contribution but allow the passage of long wavelength Casimir photons. A direct comparison between the experimental results and predictions from Drude and plasma models for the electrical permittivity is carried out. In the models the magnetic permeability of nickel is allowed to change to investigate its effects. Possible sources of errors, both in the experimental and theoretical sides, are taken into account. It is found that a Drude response with magnetic properties of nickel taken into account is unequivocally ruled out. The full analysis of the data indicates that a dielectric plasma response with magnetic properties of Ni included shows good agreement with the data. Neither a Drude nor a plasma dielectric response provide a satisfactory description if the magnetic properties of nickel are disregarded.


In 1930, Colman (1933) made a study of the zonation of common intertidal animals and plants on Blackstone or Church Reef, Wembury. Four lines were marked out across the reef, and three of these, which radiated from his so-called 'Central Rock', were resurveyed during the summer and autumn of 1973. Besides the authors, help was given in the 1973 survey by Mr P. G. Corbin, Dr P. E. Gibbs, Dr P. K. Probert, Dr A. J. Southward, Mr R. L. Barrett and Mr T. J. Perry. Mr G. A. W. Battin was responsible for surveying and levelling, and Mr D. Nicholson for the photography.


Abstract: One of the main causes for high rates land degradation and low productivity in farmer's oil palm plantation is diseases which attack farmer's plantation. In addition, lack of farmer's knowledge about this oil palm's diseases becomes a major problem for farmers who want to take control of the diseases. Furthermore, there is limitation of agriculture expert the area, since their location is in rural area. The tardiness of this disease control can lead to farmer's oil palm plantation damage and even died. From this farmer's lack of knowledge about how to diagnose the disease and limitation of agriculture expert , in this paper we develop an expert system for diagnosing diseases in oil palm plantation by utilizing the certainty factor (CF) method. This expert system will diagnose based on the symptoms that mentioned by the farmers. From every symptom will be adapted with the existing rules and combined with CF rule point from every symptom. Hereinafter, system will gives diagnose result and procedure how to control oil palm's disease. Result from this expert system shows that the system is able to diagnose the type of oil palm's disease with 91,7% accuracy. This result was acquired based on farmer's diagnose answer and compared by diagnose result that be done by oil palm specialists for 12 cases. Moreover, the system also produces advices how to control the disease for farmer based on type of the diseases.


The jumping plant-lice (Hemiptera: Sternorrhyncha: Psylloidea) of the island of Socotra (Yemen) are reviewed. A total of eight species are recorded, six of them for the first time from Socotra. Four species are described as new: Colposcenia dioscoridis sp. nov. (Aphalaridae), Diaphorina caliginosa sp. nov., D. hagherensis sp. nov. (both Liviidae: Euphyllurinae), and Pauropsylla jarmilarum sp. nov. (Triozidae). Males are described for the first time for Diaphorina elegans Burckhardt & Mifsud, 1998 and immatures for Pseudophacopteron verrucifrons Burckhardt & Harten, 2006 (Phacopteronidae). Two additional species, Cacopsylla sp. (Psyllidae) and Diaphorina sp., remain formally undescribed. Host plant, biological and distributional data (if available) are provided for each species and a key for identification of adults is supplemented. The jumping plant-louse fauna of Socotra is briefly discussed from a biogeographical viewpoint.


There is currently a great deal of interest in the development of efficient compact sources of terahertz (THz) radiation. There are many factors of device and materials design which are still under ongoing improvement with the aim of producing an efficient, high power, room-temperature THz signal emission device which is tunable over a practical THz frequency range. The recent advances in production of various room-temperature THz radiation sources are reviewed with particular emphasis on photomixer antenna devices, and recent patents on technology and methods relating to: pulsed and continuous wave (CW) THz generation via nonlinear crystals; quantum cascade lasers (QCLs); ultrafast diodes and photodiodes; and heterodyne sources are discussed.


Third party utility and pipeline crossings are common construction projects in the railroad industry. Trenchless construction methods are typically used for the installation of third party crossings within a railroad right-of-way. The American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association develops manuals which provides recommended guidelines for trenchless design and construction. All Class I railroads in North America have developed their own standards and processes for accommodating third party utility crossings within their right-of-way. Three case studies were examined to review historical utility and pipeline crossings within a railway right-of-way. The first case study provided an example of a well-executed microtunnelling crossing technique while the remaining two case studies provided examples of microtunnelling and guided boring techniques within the railway right-of-way. Best practices to minimize impacts due to third party crossings under railway tracks have been provided. The recommendations for best practices were mainly focused on improving controls related to soil investigations, settlement assessments, monitoring plans, site supervision and monitoring. These recommendations include implementation of the observational method, sufficient soil info at critical locations, standardized coordinate system for settlement trough monitoring at the base of the rails, minimum installation depth for utility crossings, vibration monitoring and consideration for surveying accuracy.


Bacteriophage phi 6 contains three segments of double-stranded RNA. The procapsid consists of proteins P1, P2, P4, and P7, which are encoded by the viral L segment. cDNA copies of this segment have been cloned into plasmids that direct the production of these proteins, which assemble into polyhedral procapsids. These procapsids are capable of packaging plus-sense phi 6 RNA in the presence of nucleoside triphosphate and synthesizing the complementary minus strand to form double-stranded RNA. In this article, we report the presence of a nucleotide-binding site in protein P4. The viral procapsid and nucleocapsid exhibit a nucleoside triphosphate phosphohydrolase activity that converts nucleoside triphosphates into nucleoside diphosphates.


It is commonly accepted that service industry is viewed as a gauge for market modernization. Many researches on service industry focus on the measurement of service quality. For hotel industry, one of general services industry, systematically theoretical research about the hotel service quality management is meaningful. This paper proposes a method to evaluate the hotel service quality in China. First, a questionnaire is designed after HSQ-CS Model. Moreover, AHP is employed to decide the weight of every variable in the questionnaire. With the survey data, a series of practical methods are utilized in the data analysis to measure the service quality based on customer satisfaction (CS). First, with the computation of Customer Satisfaction Degree (CSD), hotel service quality is measured. Secondly, with discriminant analysis and correlation analysis, etc., some insightful conclusions are reached. To name some, 1) Service quality of reception hall is most important for customer satisfaction compared with those of guestroom and restaurant. 2) "Technique of attendants", "Service initiative of attendants" and "Environment and decoration of reception hall" are key variables for customer satisfaction of reception hall. 3) For guestroom, "decoration of room", "safety of room" and "courtesy of attendants" own most powerful influences. 4) For restaurant, key variables are "Taste and variety of food", "service flexibility of waiters/waitresses" and "environment of restaurant".


The classifiction of heart beats is the foundation for automated arrhythmia monitoring devices. Support vector machnies (SVMs) have meant a great advance in solving classification or pattern recognition. This study describes SVM for the identification of premature ventricular contractions (PVCs) in surface ECGs. Features for the classification task are extracted by analyzing the heart rate, morphology and wavelet energy of the heart beats from a single lead. The performance of different SVMs is evaluated on the MIT-BIH arrhythmia database following the association for the advancement of medical instrumentation (AAMI) recommendations.


There have been many investigations of the mutual synchronization of oscillators. In this study we consider N oscillators which have the same natural frequency, mutually coupled by one negative resistor. In this system, according to the negative range of the coupling negative resistor, we can observe various interesting synchronization phenomena, because this system tends to minimize the power consumption in the coupling negative resistor. Especially when the I-V characteristics of the coupling negative resistor are not third-power, but linear and negative, this system tends to be stable by producing the power in the coupling one. The phase states are changed according to the negative range of the coupling negative resistor.<<ETX>>


With the increased sophistication of lasers used for patient positioning in radiotherapy comes increased possibilities for mistakes in installing the lasers, which can result in serious patient positioning errors. Two principles must be followed when mounting cross-projecting lasers: (1) the horizontal line must be on the same level as the treatment unit isocenter, and the vertical line must be coplanar with the gantry rotation, and (2) If one of the lines of the cross rotates, it must be the line which is perpendicular to the line joining the two holes from which the laser beams exit the laser casing.


Two new species of Rhodocybe, R. asanii and R. asyae (Entolomataceae), are described and illustrated from the East Black Sea coast of Turkey. The new species are known from two different localities in Trabzon Province. Diagnostic morphological and molecular (nrITS and nrLSU sequences) characters between the new species and their allies are compared and discussed. Rhodocybe asanii is easily distinguished from related species by its small, reddish beige, convex to plate, or irregular, fragile pileus; adnexed to sinuate lamellae; a pruinose stipe; small basidiospores; and unique sequences. Rhodocybe asyae is recognized well by a rather small, thin, salmon pink, smooth, dish or slightly cup-shaped pileus; decurrent lamellae; a small, pruinose stipe; and different sequences from R. asanii and allied taxa. Some notes on the ecology of the newly described species, a key to the thus far known Turkish Rhodocybe taxa, and phylogenetic trees are provided.


Children sometimes require minor procedures in the ED for which sedation is needed. Information from Victorian EDs indicated that processes for paediatric procedural sedation were variable, both within and between health services. The aims of this project were to improve safety and reduce variation in practice with respect to paediatric procedural sedation in EDs by rolling out a standardised paediatric sedation programme in Victorian EDs.


Montmorillonites saturated with Li+, Na+, K+, NH4+, Mg2+, Ca2+, Ba2+, or Ni2+ ions can form complexes with propylene carbonate (PC) by intercalation; the d(001) of montmorillonite expands to 19 Å. In the infrared absorption spectra of these complexes, the C=0 stretching band of the intercalated PC molecules shifts to lower frequencies, and the amount of the shift increased with the increase of the polarizing power of the interlayer cations. Water molecules were strongly bound to the cations. The PC molecules interacted with the cations by way of H2O molecules. With the removal of H2O, the PC molecules directly coordinate to the cations and the PC molecules show a much larger red-shift in the C=O frequency. The PC-montmorillonite complexes exhibited osmotic swelling, even in aqueous electrolyte solutions. This finding is interpreted in terms of the formation of thick electric double-layers consisting of PC and H2O between the 2:1 layers.


Emotional maturity refers to ability to understand, and manage, emotions. Emotional maturity enables to create the life desire. A life filled with happiness and fulfillment; define success in our own terms, not societies, and strive to achieve it. Emotional development is one of the major aspects of human growth and development. The aim of the present study is to examine the emotional maturity level among the students of higher secondary schools. Emotional Maturity Scale (EMS) developed and administrated by investigator self was used to measure emotional maturity of students. The study comprised to a small sample of 100 students of four Higher Secondary Schools from based on rural and urban areas in Bongaon Town, State of West Bengal. The reliability was calculated which were 0.72. After analysis of the results, it was found that all H.S. School students have emotionally matured. The results revealed that there is no significant difference in Emotional Maturity of H.S. School Level students based on their Gender and Location.


Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a skin inflammatory disease, characterized by itch, redness, swelling, oozing, thickening or dryness of skin. The condition typically starts from infancy with changing clinical severity in adolescence and adulthood. It bothers not only the health but also quality of life. The interactions between skin microbes and the skin conditions have been implicated in atopic dermatitis. However, the interplay between host immunity, gut and oral microbiota and clinical features in children remains unclear. In this study, we recruited 30 subjects (17 boys and 13 girls) with atopic dermatitis in a medical center in Taiwan. The mean age was 7.11±5.20 years old. The presentation of skin lesions included redness (73.3%), itch (66.7%), dryness (56.7%) and oozing (36.7%). Some of the patients have comorbidities of allergic rhinitis (30%) and asthma (10%). The mean SCORAD index was 55.33±16.96, with an involvement of 52.58±19.35% of body surface area. The mean eosinophil count was 12.01% and the total IgE was 5040.17 IU/mL. The gut and oral microbiomes were analyzed by using 16S rRNA gene and metagenome sequence analyses. Sterptococcal species are the major oral species and Bacteroides species are the major gut species associated with AD in children. Our data suggest that oral and gut microbiota may underlie the clinical features of AD. Further investigations on the interplay of microbiota, immunity and clinical features are warranted.


The purpose of this study was to improve vocabulary writing skills in grade II SDN Wukirsari students through the application of the Picture and Picture model assisted by google meet. The research conducted was a Classroom Action Research (PTK) with three cycles, with each cycle consisting of two meetings. The stages of each cycle are planning, implementing, observing and reflecting. Each meeting is carried out a pre test and post test to determine the progress of students. In the first cycle students who completed after carrying out the post test were 50%. In cycle II students who completed after carrying out the post test were 80%. These results indicate that the Picture and Picture learning model can improve student learning outcomes, especially Indonesian language muples at SD Negeri Wukirsari.


The stone-like otoliths from the ears of teleost fishes are involved in balance and hearing and consist of calcium carbonate crystallites embedded in a protein framework. We report that a previously unknown gene, starmaker, is required in zebrafish for otolith morphogenesis. Reduction of starmaker activity by injection of modified antisense oligonucleotides causes a change in the crystal lattice structure and thus a change in otolith morphology. The expression pattern of starmaker, along with the presence of the protein on the growing otolith, suggest that the expression levels of starmaker control the shape of the otoliths.


The genus Agelia Laporte and Gory is revised. It consists of two geographically isolated species groups, one occurring in the Afrotroplcal Region, the other in the Oriental Region. Nine species are recognized, one of which is described as new: A. petelii (Gory), A. lordi (Walker), A. obtusicollis Fairmaire, A. pectinicornis (Laporte and Gory), A. chalybea (Wiedemann), A. fasciata (Gory), A. limbata (Wiedemann), A. theryi Hoschek and A. burmensis spec. nov. Twelve new synonyms are proposed and one neotype is designated. Redescriptions, diagnoses, an identification key, distribution maps and detailed illustrations are provided for all species.