This comparative international case study of cyber warfare provides a context for considering the evolution of cyber technologies as elements of hybrid warfare capable of creating confusion, disrupting communications, and impacting physical infrastructure such as power grids and satellite-based communications and weapons systems. Expanding an unpublished paper recognized by the ASIS Foundation in its 2012 international student writing competition concerning global security, which compared the cyberattacks against Estonia in 2007 and the United States in 2012, this study re-examines and updates the original data in a broader analysis that primarily includes the cyberattacks against Ukraine during the 2013-2015 conflict, but also considers other incidents on the timeline of digitization. The study shows how cyber warfare, first reported in the 1990s, has become an integral component of war today for both state and non-state actors who use zombies and robot armies to penetrate national boundaries and firewalls via satellites.


A general overview of nonlinearity measurement techniques is presented. For each technique, its accuracy, flexibility, and efficiency are studied analytically, assuming a recording system having only nonlinear transition shift and partial erasure. To distinguish partial erasure from nonlinear transition shift, a new frequency domain method is proposed. The test method was applied to study write current optimization, semi-contact recording and MR playback. Finally, a correlation factor, that relates the nonlinear measurement result to the optimal write precompensation level, is given based upon spinstand experiments. This correlation factor is then verified quantitatively utilizing an analytical model which includes only nonlinear transition shift.


The purpose of this study was to report severe cutaneous reactions in two patients related with leflunomide. A 13-year-old girl was treated with leflunomide for systemic lupus erythematosus. Three months later a progressive generalized blistering formation occurred and epidermolysis appeared on her skin. Methylprednisolone pulse therapy and intravenous immunoglobulin were used to control the severe cutaneous reactions. The patient recovered within 18 days. Another case is a 63-year-old woman who was treated with leflunomide for primary Sjögren's syndrome. Four months later widespread prunosus skin rash appeared on her skin. Methylprednisolone pulse therapy was also used to control the severe cutaneous reactions. The patient was recovered 11 days later. Our report suggests that an association between leflunomide intake and severe cutaneous reactions in rheumatic disease patients should be considered.


TiO2 nanoparticles can be used to improve the performance of carbon fiber-reinforced epoxy resin composites. In this study, the effect of the size of TiO2 nanoparticles on the mechanical properties of carbon fiber-reinforced epoxy resin composites was investigated. The size of the TiO2 nanoparticles was easily controlled using heat treatment. The size of the TiO2 nanoparticles for this study were20nm, 100nm, and 200nm. Three types of carbon fibers with different diameters we re also used in this study. The carbon fiber-reinforced epoxy resin composites with 20-nm TiO2 powder showed the highest tensile strength compared to the other types of CFRP, regardless of the fiber maker or fiber diameter. The size of the TiO2 powder and the diameter of the carbon fiber strongly affected t he interfacial properties of all kinds of CFRP in this study.


Steady hydromagnetic Couette flow of class-II of a viscous incompressible electrically conducting fluid in a rotating system
with non-conducting walls is studied. Exact solution of the governing equations is obtained in closed form. Expressions for the shear stress at the lower and upper plates due to primary and secondary flows and mass flow rates in primary and secondary flow directions are also derived. Asymptotic behavior of the solution for fluid velocity and induced magnetic field is analyzed for small and large values of rotation parameter K2 and magnetic parameter M2 to gain further insight into the flow pattern. Heat transfer characteristics of the flow are considered taking viscous and Joule dissipations into account. The numerical solution of energy equation and numerical values of rate of heat transfer at both plates are obtained with the help of MATLAB software. The numerical values of fluid velocity, induced magnetic field and fluid temperature are depicted graphically versus channel width variable c for various values of M2 and K2 while numerical values of primary and secondary shear stress at the lower and upper plates, mass flow rates in primary and secondary flow directions and rate of heat transfer at the lower and upper plates are presented in tabular form for various values of K2 and M2.


The ability of organizations to learn is critical for success. Implementing organizational learning in engineering cultures can be difficult due to a focus on technology instead of people and imbalances among cultures within an organization. A project to transform a medium-sized engineering organization into a learning organization is reported, and the degree, nature, and causes of its success are evaluated. An implementation team developed skills in five disciplines of a learning organization. However the underlying organizational learning concepts were not embraced by the organization at large or incorporated into regular operations. Success was constrained by the organization's ability to share and utilize the knowledge acquired by the implementation team to generate organizationwide commitment to organizational learning. The dominance of the engineering culture and the lack of organizational learning infrastructures and development process experimentation suggest that organizations with a balance amon...


The limited efficacy and significant clinical toxicity of combination interferone and ribavirin therapy have generated strong interest in developing novel inhibitors of hepatitis C virus (HCV) replication. Recently, a growing understanding of the structure and function of critical viral enzymes and the development of HCV replicons have accelerated the development of highly specific candidate antiviral agents. In the life cycle of HCV, enveloped virions bind and penetrate into host cell using viral envelope glycoproteins. In the cytoplasm, the viral RNA genome serves as mRNA, and produces viral protein as a long polyprotein that is cleaved by both host and viral proteases. Progeny virions assemble by budding into ER/Golgi apparatus, where the glycoproteins maturate, and are released at the cell surface. All stages of replication cycle from the attachment of virus to the release of progeny should be antiviral targets. We have searched for antiviral candidates from natural resources for about 20 years. So far, we have found several classes of compounds with unique antiviral action. Among them, anionic substances interfere with virus attachment and/or entry, several substances inhibit the maturation of virus-specific glycoproteins, low molecules can inhibit the virus release from infected cells, glycerol derivatives reduce the pathogenicity of virus, and some compounds exert virucidal action that impairs the ability of virus to infect host cells. These substances might be worthy to be evaluated as novel anti-HCV agents by using HCV replication systems in cultured cell lines.


Context, Text and Reader is an investigation of the way that members of a young audience use magazine and television advertisements to help them develop an understanding of technology and technological development. The thesis' main argument is that understanding the relationship between context, text and reader is the key to understanding how an audience uses advertising images to help it come to terms with the world. A combination of methodologies is employed, including semiotic analysis, content analysis, attitude surveys and group discussions. The study is divided into four main sections. The first, Context, provides a framework into which the empirical findings can be loosely fitted. Two important areas are looked at: the changes taking place in what is often referred to as the communications revolution and secondly, the role that advertising plays in the generation of social and cultural meaning. The second section, Text, includes a semiotic analysis of selected television and magazine advertisements for technology products. This is followed by a review of a number of published content analysis studies and then by a discussion of two empirical studies of television and magazine advertisements using a content analysis methodology. The third section moves on to investigate the reader's response to technology. The findings of three empirical investigations are outlined and discussed. These are an exploration of attitudes to, firstly, technology in general; secondly, a television commercial for a domestic personal computer and thirdly a commercial for a television set. The final section of the thesis, Context, Text and Reader, brings together the three different elements of the study with, first of all, an outline of the issues involved in what are called "Reception Studies", then by an analysis of two group discussions of the television commercials for a domestic personal computer and a television set, used earlier in the study.


Pancreatic cancer has been identified as one of the most common malignant causes of upper gastrointestinal obstruction. Most common sites of obstruction include the pyloric region and second and third portions of the duodenum. If surgical gastrojejunostomy is not a viable option, metallic stent placement may be performed either by transoral or transgastric approach. Transgastric technique is considered to be more invasive and is often employed only in failed attempts to insert a stent using transoral technique. This report presents a 70-year-old patient with pancreatic cancer involv-ing the proximal jejunum. Although this is a rarely described location for stenting, the patient was successfully treated using transgastric technique.


The observable bio-phenomenal events are oscillatory. Bio-oscillations are ubiquitous in nature including many in human beings. Homeodynamic Bio-Oscillations (HBOs) are correlated with both biophysical and psychological processes. They can be mechanical, chemical, electrical, and magnetic. In fact, there is a certain specificity between the HBO energy patterns and the correlated human behavior experience. With the same understanding and the current scientific evidence, one can be aware of, not only one's objective behaviors, but also one's subjective feelings and experiences, both conscious and subconscious. Behaviors are highly dependent on the presence of appropriate HBOs in the living organisms and their surroundings. Our verbal and cognitive communications involve bio-frequencies and energies of 10 Hz to 20,000 Hz. Many large animals such as whales, elephants, rhinoceroses, giraffes, and alligators communicate by infrasonic signals (<20 Hz) at long distances up to several miles. Finally, it is proposed that our objective as well as subjective experiences of self and surroundings are highly correlated with the underlying complex and HBO energy and activity patterns. We are what we are now in existence. There is an intrinsic unity or wholeness in ourselves and the natural world that we are in. We are an integral part of existence. Nirvana, Samadhi, Turiya, and Transcendence are the actual states of self-actualization of this truth. The well-established human HBOs and the correlated behaviors – experiences are listed. The characteristic features of human consciousness, self, and Nirvana are listed.


This production study investigates the interaction of prosody, word order and information structure with respect to whconstituents in Urdu. We contrasted immediately preverbal wh-constituents with immediately postverbal ones. The preverbal position is the default focus position in Urdu; the appearance of wh-constituents in the immediately postverbal position within the verbal complex is not well understood. In order to test various possible factors governing the appearance of immediately postverbal wh-constituents, target sentences with wh-constituents in both preand postverbal positions were presented in different pragmatic contexts and given to native speakers to pronounce. The results show a clear difference in prosodic realization between the preand the postverbal position. The preverbal position is consistent with focus prosody, the postverbal wh-phrases appear to occur when the verb is in focus.


Simulation and evaluation study of the three Water Supply Reservoirs in
the Notwane Catchment was undertaken using a hybrid modelling approach linking
the reservoir simulation model (HEC-ResSim) model and a reservoir reliability
analysis (RRA) model. It was used to understand the management challenges and
operation aspects facing the recent failure and declining water supply from
three reservoirs in Gaborone and the surrounding areas, a typical arid and
urbanized environment where current and future water supply reliability is
challenged by both climate and anthropologic factors. The model was analysed
for a calibration period of ten years (1993-2002), and verification period of
eight years (2003-2010) and then simulation period of 40 years (2011-2050). The
simulation period up to the year 2050 was considered to include the year 2035,
which is the planning horizon of the National Water Master Plan. The model
calibration and verification results are satisfactorily accepted for the fit of
the daily water levels. The values of R2 and the Nash-Sutcliffe
model efficiency criteria for the calibration period, are 0.81/60%, 0.62/27%
and 0.54/39% for the Bokaa dam, Gaborone dam and Nnywane dam, respectively.
Various scenarios were considered to determine the plausible sources of uncertainty
and challenge for operation and management of the water supply reservoirs
considering: population and urbanization, sedimentation, seepage, climate
change, operational aspects, among others. From the RRA model, it was found
that Gaborone dam, which is the largest of the three dams has lower resilience,
lower reliability and higher vulnerability associated with increasing
population pressures, urbanisation and climatic factors. Climate change,
sedimentation, seepage, operational rules, contributing to the operation and
management of the dams could have accelerated the drying up of the reservoirs
and the prevailing water supply situation, which might continue to be the
future possible challenges of water supply in the area.


Existing speech recognition systems are typically built at the sentence level, although it is known that dialog context, e.g. higher-level knowledge that spans across sentences or speakers, can help the processing of long conversations. The recent progress in end-to-end speech recognition systems promises to integrate all available information (e.g. acoustic, language resources) into a single model, which is then jointly optimized. It seems natural that such dialog context information should thus also be integrated into the end-to-end models to improve recognition accuracy further. In this work, we present a dialog-context aware speech recognition model, which explicitly uses context information beyond sentence-level information, in an end-to-end fashion. Our dialog-context model captures a history of sentence-level contexts, so that the whole system can be trained with dialog-context information in an end-to-end manner. We evaluate our proposed approach on the Switchboard conversational speech corpus, and show that our system outperforms a comparable sentence-level end-to-end speech recognition system.


Psychometric personality questionnaires were used to test 100 patients with symptoms of urinary incontinence. The following findings were recorded: Accumulation with significance of increased psychasthenic values in patients with normal urogynaecological status was higher than that recordable from patients in pathological conditions. The group of patients with mere stress incontinence differed from the group with urge or combined urge-stress incontinence by statistically secured differentiated between means values recordable from neurosis-relevant, test scales, including psychosomatic disorders, depression, neuroticism, social introversion, and phobic disorders. Reference is made to psychogenic factors and their role within a set of multifactorial conditions conducive to functional urinary incontinence of women. Consequences regarding diagnosis and therapy are discussed.


Background: At different cambial ages, trees experience changes in their structure and interactions with environmental conditions. Reciprocal mechanisms between tree age and physical resources, photosynthetic rates, and xylem production may influence hydraulic resistance and plant water stress. However, it is yet uncertain how these mechanisms are associated with changes in growth sensitivity to biophysical drivers, especially climate. Aim: To establish age-associated climate – growth relationships in growth rings of Araucaria araucana trees from the temperate xeric zones of northern Patagonia, Argentina. Methods: We analysed the growth in 211 A. araucana trees from four sampling sites, in three age classes: young (≤120 years), mature (121–275 years), and old (≥276 years). We explored the correlations between the signal strength of tree growth and climate, based on comparisons between each age-class chronology and monthly mean surface air temperature, total precipitation, and the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) index. Results: The young trees showed higher correlations when their growth was compared with precipitation, air temperature, and the SAM index during austral spring and summer months of the same year. In contrast, growth in mature and old trees showed higher correlations with summer temperatures of the previous growing season. Conclusions: The sensitivity of the radial-growth response of A. araucana to climate varies with age and is strongest in the rings of young trees.


A rhizosphere bacterial strain coded as Streptomyces goshikiensis YCXU with broad spectrum antifungal activity was isolated from a cucumber field infested with Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. niveum. The strain YCXU showed antagonism to a broad range of phyto-pathogenic fungi and bacteria as well as strain YCXU produced volatile organic compounds that could reduce the fungal growth up to 40% compared to control, concluding that it can be used as biocontrol agent. Because of little information about the newly isolated strain, we further characterized the strain YCXU. The strain YCXU showed maximum growth on glucose containing yeast-malt extract (YME) medium at pH 7 and pink spores were produced after 7 days of incubation at 28°C. The strain YCXU exhibited nitrate reduction, melanin production, blood hemolysis, and casein, gelatin, starch, tyrosine, and hypoxanthine hydrolysis. This characterization will aid further research regarding the strains of S. goshikiensis.


Nominate a chemistry-based start-up for C&EN's 10 Start-Ups to Watch in 2019. The program, which launched in 2015, highlights start-up companies and their founders who are developing and bringing to market world-changing chemistry innovations that span the breadth of the chemical enterprise. C&EN also seeks to highlight the diversity of the founders of these start-up firms, including women, underrepresented minorities, and those working outside the US. Nominate a start-up by Aug. 1 at cenm.ag/startups-2019.


Annular packed bed structures have the potential to overcome limitations of conventional fully packed bed types by offering radial distribution of airflow within them to enhance fluid-solid contact during adsorption and also to minimize pressure drops. In this paper, Z-annular flow configuration is experimentally investigated to evaluate its potential to enhance adsorption. Three typical diametrical ratios (Do/Di) corresponding to 2, 2.35 and 3.08, inferred from literature were used to investigate the adsorption performance of the Z-annular flow arrangement and compared with adsorption performance of a conventionally configured fully packed bed system of similar dimensions. The results showed the Z-annular flow configurations did perform better by achieving bed temperature reductions averaging between 4.22-5.47°C than conventional configuration types. Pressure drops were however observed to be relatively higher in the Z-annular flow configuration bed types than the conventional fully packed bed type due to the endplate in the Z-annular flow configuration impeding the airflow and subsequently causing flow reversal. Overall, the Z-annular flow configuration was found to have the potential to enhance the adsorption capacity of packed beds however further investigation on optimum parameters for this enhancement may be required.


a thousand years in Japan and have become one of its most recognized icons. In the city of Kameoka, which lies just over the western mountains of Kyoto City (figs. 2, 3), mica pseudomorphs after complex cordierite-indialite intergrowths that resemble cherry blossoms are found (fig. 1) (Rakovan 2005). As with the real blossoms, these stones, known as sakura ishi (cherry blossom stones), are also revered by mineralogists and mineral collectors in Japan. The cordierite-indialite Figure 1. Sakura ishi (cherry blossom stones) colored by minor hematite, Kameoka, Japan. Masutomi Museum specimens.


The presence of high copy number plasmid DNA has been described for several independent wild isolates of the lower eukaryote Dictyostelium discoideum, a model organism in developmental biology. The function of these plasmids has remained unclear so far. To understand the possible functions of the plasmids we have analyzed the transcription of one plasmid, Ddp1, in the wild strains NC4 and V12. The plasmid is transcribed in an identical fashion in both strains. Ddp1 codes for three RNA species in growth‐phase cells, at least two of which are present in the poly(A)+ fraction. RNA isolated from cells of different developmental stages revealed the existence of five more transcripts, the majority of them being found in the poly(A)+ fraction. These transcripts are present at distinct time points during development. Both growth‐phase and development‐specific transcripts were found exclusively in Ddp1‐containing strains. Mapping of the transcripts to the plasmid showed that some of them originated from the same area. These results indicated an overlapping of their coding regions.


Percutaneous cardiopulmonary support (PCPS) was used in 5 patients (4 males and 1 female); 70.2 +/- 10.8 years old) who underwent open heart surgery and failed to wean from the extracorporeal circuit because of profound heart failure unresponsive to maximal doses of catecholamines and intra-aortic balloon pump support. Duration of PCPS was 6975 +/- 5516 min, and the average flow was 1.51 +/- 0.26 l/min/m2. Heparin-coated circuit including the oxygenator was used to minimize the necessary dose of heparin, and activated clotting time (Celite ACT) was maintained between the range of 130 and 200 seconds. Despite this low-dose heparinization, mediastinal hematoma formation and subsequent cardiac tamponade occurred in 4 patients. Weaning from PCPS was successful in 3 patients for whom reexploration to remove hematoma was performed, and 2 of these 3 achieved long-term survival. During the use of PCPS, ipsilateral femoral artery, through which part of the pump flow was actively perfused. Owing to this maneuvering, limb ischemia did not occur in any case. From these findings, we could conclude that reexploration for mediastinal hematoma should be performed in weaning from PCPS for postoperative patients, even when low-dose heparinization was employed, and that active perfusion through the 18g catheter downstream to the ipsilateral lower limb is effective in preventing limb ischemia during relatively long time PCPS.


Cloud gaming applications have gained great adoption on the Internet particularly benefiting from the wide availability of broadband access networks. However, they still fail to meet users' quality requirements when accessed using cellular networks due to common wireless channel degradations. Machine Learning (ML) techniques can be leveraged to detect such anomalies during users' cloud gaming sessions. In this respect, unsupervised ML approaches are particularly interesting since they do not require labeled datasets. In this work, we investigate these approaches to understand their performance and their robustness. Our dataset consists of game sessions played on the public Google Stadia Cloud Gaming servers. The game sessions are played using a 4G network emulation replicating the capacity variations sampled on a commercial 4G network. We compare different models ranging from traditional approaches to deep learning and we evaluate their default performance while varying the level of contamination in their training datasets. Our experiments show that Auto-Encoders models achieve the best performance without contamination while the OC-SVM and the Isolation Forest are the most robust to data contamination.


In directed diffusion rooting protocol, interest and exploratory data are disseminated by flooding, which will bring broadcast storm resulting in substantial energy consumption of wireless sensor networks. Grid-based directed diffusion rooting protocol can improve energy efficiency where geographic grids are constructed by self-organization of nodes using location information. Flooding of interest and exploratory data is limited in grid head nodes. But grid-based directed diffusion rooting protocol considers less about security. To adapt to environments with high security requirements, traffic attack detection and secure data aggregation schemes are added to grid-based directed diffusion rooting protocol. Simulation shows that the proposed schemes can real-time predict traffic attacks and improve accuracy of data aggregation results when networks are under attacks. At the same time, the protocol consumes less energy and extends lifetime of networks.


The effect of complexing agents on the titration of chromium(VI) and copper(II) with iron(II) was studied. In general, iron(III) forms more stable complexes than iron(II), so that the potential of the system Fe(III)/ Fe(II) is lower in the presence of a complexing agent than in its absence. Thus the addition of a complexing agent increases the sharpness of the end point of titration with iron(II). The presence of pyrophosphate improves the potential break at the equivalence point of chromium(VI) with iron(II). The use of neocuproine together with pyrophosphate is very effective in the titration of copper(II) with iron(H).


Well-defined fluorinated brush-like amphiphilic diblock copolymers of poly[poly(ethylene glycol)methyl ether methacrylate] (P(PEGMA)) and poly(pentafluorostyrene) (PPFS) have been successfully synthesized via atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP). The self-assembly behavior of these polymers in aqueous solutions was studied using (1)H NMR, fluorescence spectrometry, static and dynamic light scattering and transmission electron microscopy techniques. The micellar structure comprised of PPFS as the core and brush-like (hydrophobic main chain and hydrophilic branches) polymers as the coronas. The hydrodynamic radius (R(h)) of the micelles in aqueous solution was in the nanometer range, independent of the polymer concentration, consistent with a closed association model. Diblock copolymers with a longer P(PEGMA) block formed micelles with smaller R(h) and lower aggregation numbers consistent with an improved solubilization of the core. The micelles possessed a thick hydration layer as verified by the ratio of the radius of gyration, R(g) to the hydrodynamic radius, R(h). The aggregation number and ratio of R(g) to R(h) were observed to increase with temperature (20-50 degrees C), while the R(h) of the micelle decreased slightly over the same temperature range. An increase in temperature induced the brush-like PEG segments in the corona to dehydrate and shrink while forming micelles with larger aggregation numbers.


The contribution of ammonium, nitrate and N 2 to the nitrogen demand of summer phytoplankton has been estimated in two basins of Lake Balaton. The uptake rates of ammonium and nitrate were determined using 15 N methodology. N 2 -fixation rates were measured by the acetylene-reduction technique. The light dependence of uptake and N 2 -fixation was described with an exponential saturation equation. The decrease of I k values from mid-summer to autumn coincided with an increasing contribution of cyanobacteria to the algal population, suggesting a relatively lower light requirement than that of other species. The dark uptake velocity of ammonium and nitrate were 30-63 % and 1-40 % of light saturated uptake, respectively. The contribution of ammonium to the daily nitrogen supply of algae varied between 50-90%. Nitrate uptake was much less important with a maximum of 40 %. Nitrogen fixation was significant only in the western basin at the time of highest primary production and greatest N 2 -fixing cyanobacterial contribution. Nitrogen uptake experiments and loading data suggest, that nitrogen regeneration is by far the most important process in establishing and supporting the standing crop of phytoplankton in the lake during summer.


The phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) signaling pathway is deregulated in many human diseases including cancer, diabetes, obesity, and autoimmunity. PI3K consists of a p110 catalytic protein and a p85α regulatory protein, required for the stabilization and localization of p110-PI3K activity. The p110-PI3K enzyme generates the key signaling lipid phosphatidylinositol 3,4,5-trisphosphate, which is dephosphorylated by the PI3-phosphatase PTEN. Here we show another function for the p85α regulatory protein: it binds directly to and enhances PTEN lipid phosphatase activity. We demonstrate that ectopically expressed FLAG-tagged p85 coimmunoprecipitates endogenous PTEN in an epidermal growth factor dependent manner. We also show epidermal growth factor dependent coimmunoprecipitation of endogenous p85 and PTEN proteins in HeLa cells. Thus p85 regulates both p110-PI3K and PTEN-phosphatase enzymes through direct interaction. This finding underscores the need for caution in analyzing PI3K activity because anti-p85 immunoprecipitations may contain both p85:p110-PI3K and p85:PTEN-phosphatase enzymes and thus measure net PI3K activity. We identify the N-terminal SH3-BH region of p85α, absent in the smaller p55α and p50α isoforms, as the region that mediates PTEN binding and regulation. Cellular expression of p85ΔSH3-BH results in substantially increased magnitude and duration of pAkt levels in response to growth factor stimulation. The ability of p85 to bind and directly regulate both p110-PI3K and PTEN-PI3-phosphatase allows us to explain the paradoxical insulin signaling phenotypes observed in mice with reduced PI3K or PTEN proteins. This discovery will impact ongoing studies using therapeutics targeting the PI3K/PTEN/Akt pathway.


Cancer survivorship is a process with both positive and negative aspects. Although much is known about survival rates and complications of therapy for gynecologic cancers, the issue of quality of life has been addressed only recently. The results of preliminary studies only prove how complex the issues are and how difficult they are to quantify. Quality of life is a concept that is at once obvious and ephemeral. There are as many definitions as there are observers. Factors contributing to a quality life also vary across the lifetime of an individual and take into account various physical, intellectual, and economic opportunities and limitations. Quality of life is influenced by outside forces and intrinsic capabilities. Human beings are enormously adaptable. An individual given major changes in life circumstances finds that what was once unacceptable becomes manageable and what was unappreciated takes on new meaning. That incredible ability to adapt is what makes life so precious and measuring its quality so difficult.


The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of a 12-week selective aerobic exercise trial in water on bone density in obese postmenopausal women.Twenty obese post-menopausal women as subject to participate in this study. Subjects randomly divided into an experimental and control group. The experimental group performed selective aerobic training in water for 3 month, first month: 3sessions/wk, second month: 4 sessions/wk and last month: 5 sessions/wk. Each session lasted 90 min with the exercise intensity 65-75% of HRmax in all of sessions. Control group did not participate in any physical activity program during study period. Bone density of lumbar spine and femur were measured in both groups in before and after exercise training period by densitometry method. Also, calcium and phosphorus was measured in same times. Data analyzed with paired and independent samples T-Test. The results of this study indicate that there was a significant increase in femoral bone density in experimental group compared with control group in end of study period (P<0.05). Also, the lumbar spine bone density was increased moderately, but not significantly, in experimental group. On the other hand, calcium and phosphorus levels were not different significantly between experimental group and control group in end of study period(P<0.05). The results of this study indicate that one period of selective aerobic exercise trial in water enhanced femoral and lumbar spine bone density in obese postmenopausal women.


With the coming of knowledge economy, intellectual capital plays increasingly important role in enterprises. Compared with physical resource, intellectual capital which is just like enterprise knowledge has made increasingly contributions to create corporate value and it is considered the resource as well as core in creating corporate value in the New Century and is critical to prove core competitive and to make extra profit. Therefore, it is vital to make a three-dimension quantitative analysis of intellectual capital's impact on corporate value based on time, industry and capital so as to make more effectively use of intellective capital to enhance corporate value.


The way of commerce transactions has changed from traditional ways to new ones with the use of new technologies. E-commerce has rapidly developed abroad, while in Greece has been developed more slowly. The present paper focuses on the e-commerce in Greece. For that purpose, an empirical research has been conducted from November to December 2015 and 100 valid questionnaires were selected. The study empirically investigates the consumer behaviour, the trust and safety in transactions and the advantages of e-commerce. Under this framework, the results of the empirical research are presented and the relevant findings are discussed.


For many years, the widening use of digital imaging products, e.g., digital cameras, has given rise to much attention in the market of consumer electronics. However, it is important to measure and enhance the imaging performance of the digital ones, compared to that of conventional cameras (with photographic films). For example, the effect of diffraction arising from the miniaturization of the optical modules tends to decrease the image resolution. As a figure of merit, modulation transfer function (MTF) has been broadly employed to estimate the image quality. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to design and implement an accurate and cost-effective MTF measurement system for the digital camera. Once the MTF of the sensor array is provided, that of the optical module can be then obtained. In this approach, a spatial light modulator (SLM) is employed to modulate the spatial frequency of light emitted from the light-source. The modulated light going through the camera under test is consecutively detected by the sensors. The corresponding images formed from the camera are acquired by a computer and then, they are processed by an algorithm for computing the MTF. Finally, through the investigation on the measurement accuracy from various methods, such as from bar-target and spread-function methods, it appears that our approach gives quite satisfactory results.


We consider random vectors drawn from a multivariate normal distribution and compute the sample statistics in the presence of non-stationary correlations. For this purpose, we construct an ensemble of random correlation matrices and average the normal distribution over this ensemble. The resulting distribution contains a modified Bessel function of the second kind whose behavior differs significantly from the multivariate normal distribution, in the central part as well as in the tails. This result is then applied to asset returns. We compare with empirical return distributions using daily data from the Nasdaq Composite Index in the period from 1992 to 2012. The comparison reveals good agreement, the average portfolio return distribution describes the data well especially in the central part of the distribution. This in turn confirms our ansatz to model the non-stationarity by an ensemble average.


Proteins that use cysteine residues for catalysis or regulation are widely distributed and intensively studied, with many biomedically important examples. Enzymes where cysteine is a catalytic nucleophile typically generate covalent catalytic intermediates whose structures are important for understanding mechanism and for designing targeted inhibitors. The formation of catalytic intermediates can change enzyme conformational dynamics, sometimes activating protein motions that are important for catalytic turnover. However, these transiently populated intermediate species have been challenging to structurally characterize using traditional crystallographic approaches. This review describes the use and promise of new time-resolved serial crystallographic methods to study cysteine-dependent enzymes, with a focus on the main (Mpro) and papain-like (PLpro) cysteine proteases of SARS-CoV-2 as well as other examples. We review features of cysteine chemistry that are relevant for the design and execution of time-resolved serial crystallography experiments. In addition, we discuss emerging X-ray techniques such as time-resolved sulfur X-ray spectroscopy that may be able to detect changes in sulfur charge state and covalency during catalysis or regulatory modification. In summary, cysteine-dependent enzymes have features that make them especially attractive targets for new time-resolved serial crystallography approaches, which can reveal both changes to enzyme structure and dynamics during catalysis in crystalline samples.


The thermomechanical behavior of passivated thin copper films is studied. Stresses in copper films of thickness ranging from 125 to 1000 nm, deposited on quartz or silicon substrates and passivated with silicon oxide, were measured using the curvature method. The thermal cycling spans a temperature range from2196 to 600 °C. The measured mechanical behavior was found to be rate insensitive within the heating/cooling rate range of 5–25 °C/min. It was observed that the passivated films do not exhibit a significant stress relaxation at elevated temperatures that is normally found in unpassivated films. Furthermore, a significant strain hardening during the course of thermal loading was noted. Simple continuum plasticity analyses show that the experimentally measured stress– temperature response can only be rationalized with a kinematic hardening model. Analytical procedures for extracting the constitutive properties of the films that were developed on the basis of such a model are presented. The initial yield strength is higher and tends to be less temperature dependent in thinner films. The strain hardening rate is found to increase with decreasing film thickness. ©2003 American Institute of Physics. @DOI: 10.1063/1.1535731 #


Two-dimensional (2D) Ti3C2 MXene has attracted great attention in electrochemical energy storage devices (supercapacitors and lithium-ion and sodium-ion batteries) due to its excellent electrical conductivity as well as high volumetric capacity. Nevertheless, a previous study showed that multivalent Mg2+ ions cannot reversibly insert into MXene, resulting in a negligible capacity. Here, we demonstrate a simple strategy to achieve high magnesium storage capability for Ti3C2 MXene by preintercalating a cationic surfactant, cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB). Density functional theory simulations verify that intercalated CTA+ cations reduce the diffusion barrier of Mg2+ on the MXene surface, resulting in the significant improvement of the reversible insertion/deinsertion of Mg2+ ions between MXene layers. Consequently, the MXene electrode exhibits a desirable volumetric specific capacity of 300 mAh cm-3 at 50 mA g-1 as well as outstanding rate performance. This work endows MXene material with an application in electrochemical energy storage and, simultaneously, introduces magnesium battery materials as a member.


In the first part of this thesis, we exploit wireless broadcast across different layers in wireless networks. The wireless channel is distinguished by its broadcast nature. Wireless broadcast provides a fertile ground to improve the efficiency of existing wireless networks and design new ones. Specifically, we first consider relaying strategies for memoryless two-way relay channels at the physical layer. We generalize networking layer network coding operating on a finite field to physical layer network coding, which is a mapping from the relay's received signal to its transmitted signal. We analyze the symbol-error performance of several relay strategies, and optimize the relay function via functional analysis. Our results indicate that the interference caused by wireless broadcast can be exploited to improve the spectrum efficiency. We then develop a cross-layer framework with wireless broadcast, which integrates rate control, network coding and scheduling in transport, network and link layers. Under the primary interference model, we show that the link scheduling problem is the maximum weighted hypergraph matching problem, which is NP-complete. We propose several distributed approximation algorithms and bound their worst case performance. Next, we describe a new class of medium access control (MAC) protocol, which uses successive interference cancelation to resolve packet collision due to wireless broadcast. Each user is allowed to transmit at different data rates chosen randomly from an appropriately determined set of rates. We characterize the throughput of the proposed protocol compared to that with a centralized controller. A game-theoretic framework along with the dynamic algorithms is proposed to achieve the desired throughput optimal equilibrium, which provides a valuable perspective to understand existing MAC protocols and a general framework to design new ones to improve the system performance. In the second part of this thesis, we consider the problem of secure transmission in the presence of a wiretapper. Due to wireless broadcast, wireless signals are particularly easy to jam and intercept. We derive the secrecy capacity region for the case when the location of the wiretapped links is known and propose several achievable strategies for the case when such information is unknown. We give an example to show that the secrecy capacities of the two cases are generally unequal and show that in both cases computing the secrecy capacity is NP-complete.


The belligerent us-versus-them divide typical of populism is central to the expression of contemporary politics. Political leaders and their social media entrepreneurs, however, are increasingly embracing nonantagonistic measures to embolden their appeals to different publics. Using the concept of mediation, banal populism represents a complex bundle of nonconflictual and fun practices that target the personal and political sensibilities of the digital publics. Through an analysis of vlogs of Philippine leaders Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Sara Duterte, this article presents the narratives of local politics, light moments, sectoral people, and golden years and unity, and traces the implications of these accounts on the affordances and democratic limits of networked platforms. Banal populism seductively captures the shared sentiments of the digital publics much as it portends a spoiling impact on free speech and political participation.


Although many studies have examined the metabolism of catecholamines and cardiovascular responsiveness to norepinephrine in essential and various experimental hypertension, the role of sympathetic nervous system in the pathogenesis of hypertension has not been elucidated. In this study, therefore,the role of sympathetic nerve activity related to platelet alpha 2-adrenoceptor was investigated to clarify the mechanism in which sympathetic nervous system augments the blood pressure elevation in patients with essential hypertension (EHT). Tritiated yohimbine binding was used to estimate platelet membrane alpha 2-adrenoceptor characteristics in 27 hospitalized patients with mild to moderate EHT and 27 normotensive subjects (NT) receiving a regular diet containing 120mEq/day of sodium and 75mEq/day of potassium. In this study, mean arterial pressure (MAP) and plasma norepinephrine concentration (pNE) was significantly higher in EHT than those in NT. Total binding sites (Bmax) and dissociation constant (Kd) for 3H-yoshimbine in EHT was also significantly higher than those in NT. There was a significant positive correlation between Bmax and age in NT, but not in EHT. A significant positive correlation was observed between the pressor response to infused norepinephrine (NE-R:increments in MAP induced by i.v. infused 0.2 micrograms/kg/min of NE) and Bmax both in NT and EHT. On the other hand, no significant correlation was found between NE-R and Kd in NT and EHT. In addition, Bmax was correlated inversely with PNE in both NT and EHT. These findings suggest that down-regulation mechanism exists in platelet alpha 2-adrenoceptor number responded to PNE levels. Moreover, the increased density of alpha-adrenoceptor might have something to do with the augmented NE-R in EHT, indicating an important pathophysiological role of this receptor in the hypertensive mechanisms in EHT.


Segregation distortion was observed in inheritance of progressive rod-cone degeneration (prcd) in a colony of Miniature Poodle dogs. Breeding results, from both retrospective records and prospectively planned matings, were classified into five mating types: (1) affected to affected, (2) homozygous normal sire to any dam, (3) heterozygous to heterozygous, (4) heterozygous sire to affected dam, and (5) affected sire to heterozygous dam. For all but the last category, results were in accord with mendelian expectations for autosomal-recessive inheritance. However, litters of mating type 5 had fewer affected pups (20/77) than expected. The observed segregation ratio for this mating type (0.26) was significantly (P less than 0.001) less than the expected (0.50). The segregation distortion could not be accounted for by either pre- or postnatal loss of affected pups, as litter size and litter survivability were uniform among litters of different mating types. Either the prcd locus, or a linked locus, would appear to influence either gametic or zygotic fitness in the heterozygous mother. Comparison is drawn to the inheritance of retinitis pigmentosa in humans, in which decreased segregation ratios are also recognized.


At present, the issues regarding multi-center clinical trials of new drugs of traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) remain: the lack of agreement on the content and scope of the ethical review among the ethics committee members of the center and the participating units results in repeated review, which leads to a time-consuming ethical review process. Moreover, the review capabilities of the ethics committees of various research centers are uneven, which is not necessarily beneficial to the protection of subjects' rights and safety. In view of the existing problems, to improve the efficiency of ethical review of multi-center clinical trials of new drugs of TCM and avoid repeated reviews, the TCM Clinical Evaluation Professional Committee of Chinese Pharmaceutical Association organized experts to formulate the "Consensus on collaborative ethical review of multi-center clinical trials of new drugs of TCM(version 1.0)"(hereinafter referred to as "Consensus"). The "Consensus" is formulated in accordance with the requirements of relevant documents such as but not limited to "the opinions on deepening the reform of the evaluation and approval system to encourage the innovation of pharmaceutical medical devices", "the regulations of ethical review of biomedical research involving human subjects". The "Consensus" covers the scope of application, formulation principles, conditions for the ethics committee of the center, sharing of ethical review resources, scope and procedure of collaborative review, rights and obligations, etc. The aims of the "Consensus" is to preliminarily explore and establish a scientific and operable ethical review procedure. Additionally, on the basis of fully protecting the rights and interests of the subjects, a collaborative ethical review agreement needs to be signed to clarify the ethical review responsibilities of all parties, to avoid repeated review, and to improve the efficiency and quality of ethical review in multi-center clinical trials of new drugs of TCM.


Traditionally near maximal isometric effort has been used to elicit the beneficial facilitations and inhibitions associated with PNF and modified PNF techniques.
There is little evidence regarding concentric contraction speed and resistance levels necessary to elicit an augmented neuromuscular response. This study addresses the question of speed and resistance specificity and its subsequent PNF effects on bench press (agonist) strength and power outputs. This was accomplished through the use of a double acting concentric dynamometer (DACD). Based on our limited subject pool, it appears as though a low resistance, fast speed of antagonistic contraction is more effective in increasing an agonistic strength and power response.


Cloud Computing is advanced technology for resource sharing through network with less cost as compare to other technologies. Cloud infrastructure supports various models IaaS, SaaS, PaaS. Today the most important technique used in cloud computing is the concept of virtualization. By using virtualization, more than one operating system is supported with all resources on single hardware. In addition, the virtualization technology has limit security capabilities in order to secure wide area cloud environment. Sharing of one database to many tenants is known as Multi tenancy. Multi-tenancy is achieved by utilizing virtualization and allowing resource sharing where Multi-tenancy is seen differently from different service models. To secure cloud infrastructure a hypervisor based virtualization is used. This paper describes the various virtual machine security attacks and analysis the various attacks based on hypervisor security in virtualization environment.


This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of metformin as an adjunct to scaling and root planing (SRP) in the treatment of chronic periodontitis. Electronic searches were conducted in databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials and Cochrane Oral Health Group Trials Register databases) up to August 2017. Randomized clinical trials with data in comparison between adjunctive locally delivered metformin use to SRP and placebo in each group and a follow-up period of at least 6 months, were included. Primary outcomes included clinical attachment level, while secondary outcomes were bone defect (BD) fill and reduction in probing depth. The weighted mean differences (WMD) of outcomes and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for each variable were calculated using the random effects model. Five clinical studies were included in the qualitative synthesis and 3 studies were included for meta-analysis. All the included studies showed significant BD fill, probing depth reduction and clinical attachment level gain with adjunctive locally delivered metformin compared to SRP alone. Considering the effects of adjunctive metformin as compared to SRP, a high degree of heterogeneity for BD fill (Q value = 7.03, P = .02, I2  = 71.55%) was noticed among both the groups. Meta-analysis showed a statistically significant clinical attachment level gain (WMD = -2.83, 95% CI = -3.32 to -2.34, P < .001), BD fill (WMD = -2.96, 95% CI = -3.99 to -1.93, P < .001) and probing depth reduction (WMD = -3.11, 95% CI = -3.63 to -2.59, P < .001) for SRP + metformin treatment vs SRP. Adjunctive use of metformin delivery in periodontal treatment appears to be effective in BD fill, reducing probing depth and gain in clinical attachment level. Further multicentered randomized clinical trials are warranted in future to prove additional benefits of metformin as an adjunct to SRP in the treatment of chronic periodontitis.


In the last years stem cells (SC) have generated huge expectations and have become a new hope for the development of novel cell therapies in the context of regenerative medicine. So far, the hypothetic therapeutic effects of SC, both of embryonic and adult origin, have been demonstrated only in a very few cases. Embryonic SC are pluripotential and have, in theory, more plasticity to differentiate into a wide range of cell or tissue types. However, the society still has to decide on the ethics of its use. Regarding adult SC, they are readily available and are fully matched. However, whether their potential will translate into therapeutic benefits in humans needs to be determined as yet. This article is intended to give a general overview on this field, based on the current scientific knowledge.


Digitised Cultural Heritage (CH) items usually have short descriptions and lack rich contextual information. Wikipedia articles, on the contrary, include in-depth descriptions and links to related articles, which motivate the enrichment of CH items with information from Wikipedia. In this paper we explore the feasibility of finding matching articles in Wikipedia for a given Cultural Heritage item. We manually annotated a random sample of items from Europeana, and performed a qualitative and quantitative study of the issues and problems that arise, showing that each kind of CH item is different and needs a nuanced definition of what ``matching article'' means. In addition, we test a well-known wikification (aka entity linking) algorithm on the task. Our results indicate that a substantial number of items can be effectively linked to their corresponding Wikipedia article.


Human activity recognition (HAR) is the process of classifying a person's actions, and it is an essential task for many human‐centered applications. Multi‐instance learning (MIL) is a special case of machine learning where the training examples are bags containing many instances, and a single class label is assigned for an entire bag of instances. In this study, we integrated these two concepts by introducing a novel approach: "human activity recognition based on multi‐instance learning", called HAR‐MIL. Unlike previous studies, the proposed HAR‐MIL method represents human activities differently: as a bag of various wearable sensors (gyroscope, magnetometer, accelerometer, and linear acceleration). HAR‐MIL presents an applicable and flexible model by providing multi‐instance representation and eliminating the restrictions of traditional single‐instance representation. Therefore, the adverse effects of missing data, defective sensors, and biased measurement on activity classification performance were minimized. This study is the first to investigate the performance of two MIL algorithms (SimpleMI and MIWrapper) on HAR. In this study, we explored the effect of four main factors (sensor positions, sensor types, base learners, and single or multiple participants) on the multi‐instance representation of relevant human daily activities. The effectiveness of the proposed HAR‐MIL method was demonstrated on 50 participant‐based and sensor‐position‐based activity recognition datasets. The experimental results showed that HAR‐MIL is effective for wearable sensor‐based HAR with high classification accuracy (99.32%). Furthermore, the results showed that the proposed method outperformed the state‐of‐the‐art methods by 10% on average on the same dataset.


Two surface wave plasma columns, generated by microwave power in argon at gas pressures of 0.05 torr to 330 torr, interact in the same discharge tube to form standing surface waves. Radial electric field Er and azimuthal magnetic field H¿ outside the discharge tube are measured to be 90° out of phase with respect to axial position and to decay exponentially with radial distance from the tube axis. Maximum light emission occurs at the position of maximum H¿, and minimum Er. Electron temperature and density are measured at low pressures with double probes inserted into the plasma at a null of Er. Measured electron densities compare well with those predicted by Gould-Trivelpiece (GT) surface wave theory. Measured electron temperatures are the same order of magnitude as temperatures predicted by positive column theory.


Precision agriculture (PA) refers to a series of practices and tools necessary to correctly evaluate farming needs and a high density of soil sensors is an essential part of this effort. The accuracy and effectiveness of PA solutions are highly dependent on accurate and timely analysis of the soil conditions. Traditional soil measurements techniques, however, do not provide real-time data and hence, cannot fully satisfy these requirements. Moreover, the use of wired sensors, which usually must be installed and removed frequently, impacts the deployment of a high density of sensor nodes for a certain area. In this paper, a novel cyber-physical system (CPS) is developed through the integration of center pivot systems with wireless underground sensor networks, i.e., (CPS)2 for precision agriculture (PA). The Wireless Underground Sensor Networks (WUSNs) consist of wirelessly connected underground sensor nodes that communicate untethered through soil. A CP provides one of the highest efficient irrigation solutions for agriculture and the integration of WUSNs with the CP structure can provide autonomous irrigation capabilities that are driven by the physical world, i.e., conditions of the soil. However, the wireless communication channel for the soil-air path is significantly affected by many spatio-temporal aspects, such as the location and burial depth of the sensors, the soil texture and moisture, the vegetation canopy, and also the speed of the center pivot engine. Due to the high number of real-time parameters to be considered, a cyber-physical system (CPS) must be developed. In this paper, as a proof-of-concept, the results of empirical experiments with these components are provided. The main characteristics of a precision agriculture CPS are highlighted as a result of the experiments realized with a WUSN built on top of a real-life center pivot system. The experiment results show that the concept of (CPS)2 is feasible and can be made highly reliable using commodity wireless sensor motes. Moreover, it is shown that the realization of (CPS)2 requires non-trivial management due to stochastic real-time communication constraints. Accordingly, guidelines for the development of an efficient (CPS)2 solution are provided. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work that considers a CPS solution based on WUSNs for precision agriculture.


Purpose: To evaluate the efficiency of totally percutaneous endovascular aortic aneurysm repair in a large cohort of patients and to define risk factors for failure with a 10-F vascular closure system. Methods: A prospective study examined the feasibility and safety of percutaneous femoral artery closure with a single Prostar XL 10-F vascular closure device applied in conjunction with the preclose technique. Between January 2004 and December 2005, 535 consecutive patients were treated for aortic aneurysmal disease. Thirty-five patients were excluded, leaving 500 patients (417 men; mean age 72±6.6 years) treated for aortic aneurysms using the Talent or Zenith stent-graft delivered through sheaths measuring 14-F (191, 21.2%), 16-F (33, 3.7%), 18-F (179, 19.8%), 20-F (2, 0.2%), 22-F (228, 25.2%), and 24-F (271, 29.9%). Primary clinical success was defined as the freedom from additional early or late procedures to treat any complication at the access site. Data were analyzed to reveal any correlation of access site complications or early/late repairs to operator experience or risk factors (obesity, extensive femoral artery calcification, and previous interventions/scars in the groin). Results: Primary success was achieved in 96.1% of all percutaneous approaches. Twenty-three patients developed early (n=16) or late (n=7) complications at the access vessel; in 12 cases, hemostasis was achieved using pledgets with the Prostar sutures. No wound complications were recorded. The need for early conversion to an open access correlated with CFA calcification (OR 74.5, 95% CI 17.8 to 310.7; p<0.001) and operator experience (OR 43.2, 95% CI 9.8 to 189.0; p<0.001). The risk of late access site repairs was significantly higher in the presence of a groin scar (OR 48.8, 95% CI 9.2 to 259.0; p<0.001). Correlation of sheath size with early conversion to open access was weaker compared to all the other factors (OR 1.2, CI 95% 1.0 to 1.4; p<0.05). Obesity was not a risk factor for any complication. Conclusion: Percutaneous EVAR using the Prostar XL is safe, with minimal early and late complications. Operator experience is one of the most significant predictors of success. Anterior wall calcification and severe fibrosis of the access vessel are also predictors of primary failure, whereas obesity and sheath size are not.


Although community-based research is intended to be culturally sensitive, more advanced consideration of the impact of race, gender, and class is needed for health disparity research involving women of color. Research processes must permit the simultaneous disclosures of the racial, gender, and class identities among women of color that are assumed and imposed. The authoritative knowledge that women of color have about their lives and their health should form the basis for collaboration between researchers and study participants. The dissemination of research findings to study participants, and dialogue on those findings, is imperative for the development of sustainable interventions.


This letter investigates networks of interconnected systems and introduces the notion of "scalable input-to-state stability" (sISS). This concept is based on input-to-state stability (ISS) and can be interpreted as an extension of the well-known concept of string stability from simple line graphs to general graphs. It guarantees that the trajectories of all states are bounded at all times independently of the network's size and structure and can hence be regarded as an important performance notion. Further, sufficient conditions are derived to guarantee sISS of homogeneous networks with well-defined interconnection structures. In fact, the conditions depend on local ISS Lyapunov functions but guarantee the global condition of sISS. Hence, a first step is made towards developing suitable extensions of string stability to general networks. Two examples are discussed to illustrate the theoretical result.


In this study, a downscaling algorithm to disaggregate the radiometer Brightness Temperature (TB) using the radar backscatter observations for SMAP (Soil Moisture Active and Passive) was developed. The algorithm is based on the spectral downscaling which combines both phase and amplitude information in Fourier domain. Using the information from radar measurements at finer resolution, a new way to estimate the Fourier phase was proposed. The algorithm has been successfully applied to the PALS datasets from SMEX02 producing better results than radiometer-only inversions. The RMSE (Root-Mean-Square-Error) of the downscaling Brightness Temperature are 3.26K and 6.12K for V and H polarization, respectively. Then medium resolution soil moisture was retrieved from disaggregated/downscaled TB. The accuracy (RMSE) of the downscaling soil moisture retrievals is 0.0459m3/m3, which is very close to SMAP science requirement of 0.04. The results indicate that the downscaling algorithm presented in this study is a promising approach to achieve finer resolution and more accurate soil moisture retrievals for the future SMAP mission.


Tensile properties of API 5L large diameter pipes are typically determined with the use of full thickness flattened strap samples extracted in the transverse direction with respect to the longitudinal pipe axis (TPA) [1, 2, 3, 4]. It has been well established that the process of sample flattening has a significant influence on determination of the yield strength of the pipe [5, 6]. The flattening process is sensitive to a number of variables such as method of flattening, equipment used, number/sequence of strokes, and operators conducting the flattening. As a result, issues with repeatability are frequently encountered and despite several efforts, the industry lacks any type of official standard for universal use.
 Historically, the industry has been focused on ensuring that the actual strength of pipes was safely higher than the specified minimum. Recently, there has been interest to also establish an upper limit on pipe strength particularly in the longitudinal direction with respect to the pipe axis (LPA) in order to avoid under matching between pipe and girth weld properties. These new requirements create the need for enhanced process control to minimize the variation due to flattening.
 Samples obtained from longitudinally welded (SAWL) and helically welded (SAWH) seam Grade X70M line pipe of various nominal wall thickness to diameter (t/D) ratios were flattened using different procedures, measured for curvature, and tensile tested, all in controlled laboratory environments with minimized repeatability variation. Special attention was given to the definition and measurement of different types of curvatures observed through the range of different t/D ratios and effort was made to assess criteria for curvature measurement prior to testing. Additionally, non-flattened specimens were tensile tested using round bar and full ring expansion test methods, and a comparison between the results obtained from both flattened and non-flattened specimen methods was made.
 The sample transverse yield strength results confirmed the expected variation between samples flattened by different methods. In addition, a much greater variation was observed when comparing the yield strength results between flattened and non-flattened samples. Considerations of extending the use of non-flattened specimens as a production test and benefits or limitations associated with such practice are discussed.


The uses of breeding programs for the Pacific white shrimp [Penaeus (Litopenaeus) vannamei] based on mixed linear models with pedigreed data are described. The application of these classic breeding methods yielded continuous progress of great value to increase the profitability of the shrimp industry in several countries. Recent advances in such areas as genomics in shrimp will allow for the development of new breeding programs in the near future that will increase genetic progress. In particular, these novel techniques may help increase disease resistance to specific emerging diseases, which is today a very important component of shrimp breeding programs. Thanks to increased selection accuracy, simulated genetic advance using genomic selection for survival to a disease challenge was up to 2.6 times that of phenotypic sib selection.


Objective: To determine the diagnostic sensitivity of transvaginal ultrasonography and sonohysterography compared with hysteroscopy in patients with infertility. Design: Descriptive study. Setting: Procrear Fertility Clinic, Lima, Peru. Participants: Women with infertility. Methods: Between January and December 2 013 patients studied for infertility underwent surgical hysteroscopy; corresponding transvaginal ultrasound and hysterosonography prior to surgery were analyzed for most frequent diagnoses and sensitivity of the studies. Analysis was done using SPSS 15 software. Main outcome measures: Sensitivity of hysteroscopy, transvaginal ultrasound, and hysterosonography. Results: One hundred and eighteen surgical hysteroscopies were performed. Prior transvaginal ultrasound had sensitivity of 44.9% (53/118) for any abnormalities in regards to hysteroscopy, and sonohysterography had sensitivity of 95.7% (113/118). Hysteroscopic findings were endometrial polyp in 74 (62.7%), uterine synechiae in 30 cases (25.4%), submucosal fibroids in 12 (10.2%) and other in 2 cases (1.7%). In relation to uterine synechiae, transvaginal ultrasound alone had sensitivity of 10% and hysterosonography sensitivity of 86.6%, and transvaginal ultrasound had sensitivity of 45.3% and hysterosonography sensitivity of 93% for endometrial polyps along with submucosal fibroids. Conclusions: Hysterosonography had better sensitivity than transvaginal ultrasonography for detecting endometrial pathology affecting fertility. It also assessed endocervical permeability, suggesting its value in the study of women with infertility.


This paper tells a story of shifting normativities, from tradition to modernity and back, regarding the recognition of legal parenthood in non-traditional families created through crossborder surrogacy. The cross-border nature of the surrogacy is often forced as most domestic legal frameworks in Europe still restrict the creation of non-traditional families through assisted reproductive technologies. Once back home, these families struggle to have birth certificates recognized and establish legal parenthood. The disjuncture between social reality and domestic law creates a situation of legal limbo. In its recent case law, the European Court of Human Rights has pushed for domestic authorities to rectify this situation but, at the same time, has filled the legal limbo with genetic essentialism and allowed for gender discrimination when recognizing legal parenthood. While giving full effect to a genetic father's foreign birth certificate based on identity and best interests arguments, the Court accepts that a genetic mother must adopt to establish a legal parent-child relationship. The paper critically addresses this intriguing imbalance. It deconstructs the Court's genetic essentialism encouraging a biologically determined view of parenting, which sidelines the social (i.e., non-genetically related) parent and contradicts the purpose of assisted reproduction to overcome biological barriers. The paper concludes by rejecting the gender-discriminatory element of power and control over legal motherhood imposed by the procedural step of adoption.


Purpose: The objectives of this study were to determine whether an educational program could improve compliance with resuscitation bundles and the outcomes of patients with severe sepsis or septic shock and to evaluate which resuscitation bundle end points were associated with in-hospital mortality.

Materials and methods: This was a retrospective observational study of 366 patients with severe sepsis or septic shock who presented to the emergency department between May 2007 and July 2009. Compliance with resuscitation bundles and achievement of the corresponding end points were compared before and after the three-month educational program.

Results: Compliance with central line insertion and monitoring of central venous pressure (CVP) (29% vs. 67%, p < 0.001) and central venous oxygen saturation (ScvO2) (25% vs. 68%, p < 0.001) was significantly improved after the educational program. The achievement of target ScvO2 within the first six hours was significantly improved (62% vs. 88%, p < 0.001). In-hospital mortality was independently associated with adequate fluid challenge (OR, 0.161; 95% CI, 0.046 – 0.559) and the achievement of target mean arterial pressure (MAP) (OR 0.056; 95% CI, 0.008 – 0.384) and ScvO2 (OR, 0.251; 95% CI, 0.072 – 0.875) among the five sepsis resuscitation bundles.

Conclusion: An educational program can improve compliance with resuscitation bundles and achievement of their corresponding end points.


Apart from high capacity and high energy density, fast kinetics and thus low barriers for lithium diffusion are essential for the functioning of Li-ion batteries. Recent studies have shown that disordered rock salt (DRS) compounds can meet these requirements, which is surprising as disordered materials typically are assumed to exhibit low ion mobility. In our computational study, we investigate the structural stability as well as the diffusion kinetics of Li-rich transition metal (TM) oxides and oxyfluorides with a special focus on vanadium- and titanium-based compounds. By investigating different model systems, we move from α-layered LiTMO2 type compounds to the disordered rock salt structures of Li-rich Li2TMO3 and Li2TMO2F, proving that the DRS oxides can only be stabilized by Li-excess. High fluorine contents, on the other hand, are found to call for a certain degree of ordering to avoid unfavorable TM–F bonds. In Li-rich DRS phases, we find that diffusion barriers may, in spite of having the same local environment, differ strongly, consequently pointing towards important factors beyond the so-called gate site configuration. Moreover, the substitution of oxygen by fluorine in DRS-type structures is observed to have a rather negative impact on the kinetics, in contrast to expectations from oxidation state arguments. The diffusion barriers in DRS-type materials turn out to be non-trivial quantities that are determined by the exact configuration, extending beyond the gate site occupancy.


Numerous manufacturing processes, including the drawing of plastic films, have a major impact on mass transport. These functionalities necessitate the solution of the Falkner–Skan equation and some of its configurations when applied to various geometries and boundary conditions. Hence, the current paper discusses the impact of unsteady hybrid nanofluid flow on a moving Falkner–Skan wedge with a convective boundary condition. This problem is modeled by partial differential equations, which are then converted into ordinary (similar) differential equations using appropriate similarity transformations. The bvp4c technique in MATLAB solves these ordinary differential equations numerically. Since more than one solution is possible in this paper, stability analysis is conducted. Thus, it is found that only one stable solution is identified as reliable (physically realizable in practice). The skin friction coefficient and heat transfer rate, along with the velocity and temperature profile distributions, are examined to determine the values of several parameters. The findings reveal that dual-type nanoparticles and wedge angle parameters improve thermal efficiency. A lower value of the unsteadiness parameter reduces the efficiency of hybrid nanofluids in terms of heat transfer and skin friction coefficient, whereas increasing the Biot number of the working fluid does not affect the critical point in the current analysis.


Defensins are phylogenetically ancient antibacterial polypeptides found in plants and animals. Isolation of the cDNA and genomic sequences encoding the scorpion (Leiurus quinquestriatus hebraeus) defensin revealed similarity to scorpion neurotoxins in gene organization (two exons and a phase I intron) and intron characteristics (conserved acceptor, donor and putative branch sites). This commonality, alongside a similar core structure, protein sequence and bioactivity suggest that arthropod defensins and scorpion neurotoxins share a common ancestor. Interestingly, phylogenetic analysis of defensins and scorpion neurotoxins illuminates for the first time a putative evolutionary trajectory for scorpion sodium and potassium channel neurotoxins. Copyright © 2004 European Peptide Society and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


[Purpose] The purpose of this study was to examine the association between the radiographic stages of knee osteoarthritis and measurements of symptoms. [Subjects] One hundred eighty-three patients with radiographs of varying degrees of osteoarthritis of the knee and 35 healthy subjects with no osteoarthritis of the knee were assessed. [Methods] The participants were assessed using the Hospital for Special Surgery score, pain score, sit-to-stand test, manual muscle test, goniometry and the Kellgren-Lawrence score. [Results] While pain scores of grades I and II in the Kellgren-Lawrence score were similar to each other, they were less than the pain scores of grades III and IV. Muscle strength, function scores and range of motion of grades I and II were similar and they were also higher than the values of grades III and IV. Pain scores of grades III and IV were similar whereas muscle strength, range of motion and function scores of grade IV were lower than those of grade III. While there was no difference between the functional levels of grade II and III, they were both lower than the values of grade I but higher than the values of grade IV. [Conclusion] The radiological findings did not show very strong relationships with other symptoms and signs of the disease in osteoarthritic patients.


Abstract. Based on an ongoing qualitative and collaborative research project led in partnership with the Innu community of Pessamit, this paper brings into focus some specific issues regarding memories recollection and representation in a context of deterritorialization. The Innu First Nation has a specific historical and political context related to resources exploitation. Since their traditional lands have been the site of several large-scale hydroelectric projects, they have been intimately – and to a large extent, forcibly – involved in the economic transformation of Quebec since the 1950s. It should be noted, however, that their ancestral occupation has never been formerly recognized by the federal and provincial governments, a political and legal context partly responsible for the material and cultural losses they had to deal with. Through interviews we have conducted with the elders that travelled the rivers before the floods, we tried to rebuild, in some way, the cultural heritage embedded in those submerged lands. We used different cartographic tools and materials in a way to support and trigger the personal narratives the elders were remembering and sharing. This cultural mapping process revealed three main issues I would like to focus on. First, as the cartographic representations were getting closer to the landscapes the elders perceived and experimented as kids and young adults, the localization of significant places and the creation of personal narratives became easier and fluid. Secondly, we found, through that inquiry, how important an enhanced visibility of innu's flooded heritage can be on a political level. Finally, we came to the conclusion that mapping should be considered more as a conversation than a visual representation only.


New results of the investigations critical current problems in the high temperature oxide superconductors are presented, basing on the flux pinning analysis. Model of the pinning interaction of the nanosized centers with pancake vortices is proposed, while comparison of the received results concerning the dependence of the potential barrier versus transport current with other pinning forces approaches is presented. Special attention is devoted to the investigations of the influence the initial position of the vortex captured at pinning center on the current–voltage characteristics and critical current.


In lieu of an abstract, below is the essay's first paragraph. "The sign reads private road, 5 mph, as I make a quick left off the Ontario State Parkway and am welcomed by a sailboat mural marked Sandy Harbor Lane. My eyes run across the cluster of bird house mailboxes stalling on number 19--Riners. The pond on my left remains covered in a thick blanked of seaweed and cattails jut up through the water refusing to advance to dry ground. The smell of seaweed and the cool lake breeze attack me as I close my driver side door and advance to the back of the house. Awfully quiet, I think, the only sounds that touch my ears are the light waves and squawking seagulls awaiting their morning handout of week old


Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. ( Anon ) In the past it may have been true that Stephen Senn's (2003) analogy was right. Paraphrasing his words for the sake of moderate language: scientists regarded statistics as the one-night stand: the quick fix, avoiding long-term entanglement . This analogy is no longer apt. Statistical procedures now drive many if not most areas of current astrophysics and cosmology. In particular the currently understood nature of our Universe is a product of statistical analysis of large and combined data sets. Here we briefly describe the scene in three areas dominating definition of the current model of the Universe and its history. The three areas inextricably tie together the shape and content of the Universe and the formation of structure and galaxies, leading to life as we know it. While these sketches are not reviews, we show by cross-referencing how frequently our preceding discussions play in to current research in cosmology. The galaxy universe The story of galaxy formation since 1990 is based on two premises. Firstly, it was widely accepted that the matter content in the Universe is primarily cold and dark – CDM prevails. The recognition of dark matter was slow, despite Zwicky (1937) demonstrating its existence via the cosmic virial theorem. The measurements of rotation curves of spiral galaxies (e.g. Rubin et al. , 1980) convinced us.


Charged droplets undergo periodic convulsive disruption during evaporation. This makes their behavior fundamentally different from that of uncharged droplets. During the disruption, a number of small "sibling" droplets (about 15¿m diameter) are released and carry 5 percent of the mass and about 25 percent of the charge. An analytical model of this process which is based on a "macroscopic" approach is presented. The model predicts characteristics of the final, postdisruption state (e. g., charge and mass ratios, number of droplets produced) which are in good agreement with experimental data for droplets having initial sizes less than about 100-pm diameter. A most interesting result of this analysis is the prediction that a limited number of sibling droplets (about seven) can be produced.


Finding out what may lead to increased job performance is a central issue for the resort industry, as increased job performance will also lead to higher levels of customer satisfaction. The study aimed to determine the employee empowerment and job performance in the resort industry in Nasugbu, Batangas.  Descriptive study design with questionnaire as the main data gathering instrument was used to survey 208 rank-and-file employees of the various resorts.  The data gathered were tallied, analyzed and interpreted using frequency, percentage, mean and Pearson's correlation coefficient.  The result of the study showed that employee empowerment practices are applied and practiced in the resort industry through participation, empowerment through involvement and empowerment through delayering.  The study also revealed that there is a significant relationship between employee empowerment practices and the job performance of the employees.  Based on the findings of the study, it is recommended that resort establishments continue practicing employee empowerment for it has a significant effect on the performance of the employees that may also enhance the organizational performance.


Ischemic stroke is a complicated disease, and its pathogenesis has been attributed to the occurrence of genetic polymorphisms. Evidence has suggested that the microRNA let-7a is involved in the pathogenesis of ischemic stroke. Pri-miRNA is the primary transcript, which undergoes several processing steps to generate pre-miRNA and, later, mature miRNAs. In this case-control study, we analyzed the distribution of pri-let-7a-2 variants in patients at a high risk for ischemic stroke and the interactions of pri-let-7a-2 variants and environmental factors. Blood samples and clinical information were collected from 1086 patients with ischemic stroke and 836 healthy controls between December 2013 and December 2015 at the First Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University. We found that the rs1143770 CC genotype and the C allele were associated with a decreased risk of ischemic stroke, whereas the rs629367 CC genotype was associated with an increased risk for ischemic stroke. Moreover, these two single-nucleotide polymorphisms were in linkage disequilibrium in this study sample. We analyzed gene-environment interactions and found that rs1143770 exerted a combined effect on the pathogenesis of ischemic stroke, together with alcohol use, smoking, and a history of hypertension. Therefore, the detection of pri-let-7a-2 polymorphisms may increase the awareness of ischemic stroke risk. This study was approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee of the First Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University, China (approval No. 2012-38-1) on February 20, 2012, and was registered with the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (registration number: ChiCTR-COC-17013559) on December 27, 2017.


The effects of particlesize and heating temperature of magnesium oxide (MgO), calcium oxide (CaO), and zinc oxide (ZnO) powders on the antibacterial activities of their slurries were studied by the conductance method. An increase in particle size of the powders reduced their antibacterial activity. The variation of activity against Staphylococcus aureus was smaller than that against Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhimurium, and Bacillus subtilis. This difference depended on the shape of the bacteria, but not their character, such as the structure of the cell walls. The antibacterial activity of these powder slurries decreased with an increase in heating temperature of the powders. For the ZnO powder slurry, the decrease in antibacterial activity were much larger than those of the MgO and CaO powder slurries. It was suggested that these decreases in the antibacterial activity was concerned with stabilization of the surface of the powders heated at high temperature.


Federation. The COVID‑19 pandemic has essentially jeopardized the internationalization process-es in higher education. International travel restrictions, financial insecurities, and the introduction of distance learning formats have been posing serious challenges for international students. The present study is based on data obtained in a countrywide survey of Russian university students conducted in June–July 2021 as part of the project Research and Instructional Design Support for the Development of a Quality Measurement System in Higher Education During the COVID‑19 Pandemic and Beyond. International students' perceptions of distance learning, its quality and challenges are analyzed. Judging from international students' responses to the questionnaire, the process of their adaptation to the new study conditions has been routinized. Among the benefits of online learning, international students name the logistic ones such as mobility, relative cost‑effectiveness, and optimization of time. Perceptions of the communication constraints related to learning from a distance are largely negative. In addi-tion, international students perceive themselves as a more vulnerable category compared to Russian students and obviously gravitate toward in-person learning. For the most part, international students are ready for blended learning, but remote formats of communication and learning should be applied to them with more caution than with Russian


An extensive review of the publications on primary hyperparathyroidism (pHPT) is presented in this report. It has strongly been emphasized in the literature that patients with pHPT may present either with the classical symptomatology or with asymptomatic disease, emerged due to biochemical screening. The clinical and epidemiological presentation of pHPT in western countries has changed profoundly during the past few decades, and bone disease is nowadays a distinct rarity. The introduction of serum calcium screening for osteoporosis and the technological advances in the laboratory assessment of parathyroid hormone have played important roles in early diagnosis. Subsequently, the disease is increasingly being detected as asymptomatic hypercalcaemia without guiding signs or symptoms. A third type of disease, the normocalcaemic variant, has been recently described in the literature. However, the potential diagnosis of pHPT should always be on the orthopaedics' list of differential diagnoses in female or elderly patients with vertebral fractures and nephrolithiasis, either symptomatic or asymptomatic, as well as when solitary or multiple osteolytic lesions are encountered on the radiographs.
 Additionally, a middle aged woman with parathyroid adenoma and subsequent brown tumors detected on the pelvic radiographs is reported. Her initial laboratory findings indicated a minimal increase of the serum calcium, a mild increase of the erythrocyte sedimentation rate, and a significant increase in total serum alkaline phosphatase. Finally, the detection of elevated parathyroid hormone levels indicated the diagnosis of pHPT and necessitated imaging studies of the parathyroid glands, which indicated a parathyroid adenoma. Following successful excision of the parathyroid adenoma, the patient suffered from the hungry bone syndrome. After a follow-up of 20 years, the patient had normal calcium, vitamin D, and parathyroid hormone serum levels, while a pelvic radiograph indicated no significant changes in the appearance of the brown tumors.


In this work, detection of the fire location behind a wall by using microwave techniques is illustrated. According to Planck's Law, Blackbody emits electromagnetic radiation in the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum. This emitted waves penetrates all materials except that metals. These radiated waves can be detected by using directional and high gain antennas. The proposed antenna consists of a simple microstrip patch antenna and a 2×2 microstrip patch antenna array. FIT based simulation results show that 2×2 array antenna can absorb emitted power from a fire source which is located behind a wall. This contribution can be inspirational for further works.


Nowadays, it is well accepted that inflammation is a critical player in cancer, being, in most cases, the main character of the process. Different types of tumor arise from sites of infection or chronic inflammation. This non-resolving inflammation is responsible for tumor development at different levels: it promotes tumor initiation, as well as tumor progression, stimulating both tumor growth and metastasis. Environmental factors, lifestyle and infections are the three main triggers of chronic immune activation that promote or increase the risk of many different cancers. In this review, we focus our attention on tumor onset; in particular, we summarize the knowledge about the cause and the mechanisms behind the inflammation-driven cancer development.


Poly(A)-containing RNA isolated from bovine and mouse pituitaries and a mouse pituitary thyrotropic tumor was translated in a wheat germ cell-free biosynthetic system. A precursor of the glycoprotein hormone alpha subunit, "pre-alpha," was immunoprecipitated from the translation mixtures with antiserum against bovine luteinizing hormone (LH; lutropin) alpha. The specificity of the immunoprecipitation was shown by competition with authentic bovine LHalpha and lack of competition with bovine thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH; thyrotropin) beta. Bovine and mouse pre-alpha subunits migrated identically in sodium dodecyl sulfate gradient polyacrylamide slab gels with an apparent molecular weight of about 17,000. Pre-alpha comprised 2-3% and 20-30% of the total proteins translated with pituitary and pituitary tumor mRNA, respectively. Microanalysis of amino acid sequence of the pre-alpha subunits containing various radiolabeled amino acids gave the following partial sequence for mouse tumor pre-alpha: [Formula: see text] Met was also found in positions 1, 14, and 17 in mouse pituitary pre-alpha but only in residue 1 of the bovine pituitary pre-alpha subunit. Leu was found in identical positions in bovine pituitary pre-alpha, with an additional Leu in position 17. Leu in the common positions (12, 15, 19, and 22) has also been found in human choriogonadotropin pre-alpha subunit [Birken, S., Fetherston, J., Desmond, J., Canfield, R. & Boime, I. (1978) Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 85, 1247-1253]. The data demonstrate that pituitary as well as placental glycoprotein hormone alpha subunits are synthesized with an amino-terminal hydrophobic extension, in accord with the "signal hypothesis" for secreted proteins. Furthermore, the positions of the hydrophobic amino acid Leu have been strictly conserved in pre-alpha subunits from various species and in two different tissues, the pituitary and placenta.


The availability and sufficiency of financial resources is a crucial element for the success of any business. Entrepreneurs always find it problematic to get the needed capital through classic sources of funds like banks or angel investors. This challenge expedited the development of new financial tools, for instance, crowdfunding, which has become a viable alternative for entrepreneurs in many case. Among various angles of studying the phenomenon of crowdfunding, understanding reasons for people's participation becomes vital for constructing a uniformed body of knowledge about this phenomenon. This study, undertaken in the context of Russia, is aimed to identify possible reasons of funders' participation so as to explain why people are ready to give their money for underdeveloped projects and ideas by just relying on promises of entrepreneurs without major guarantees on future success. A thematic analysis of in-depth interviews with users of a Russian crowdfunding platform Planeta has been undertaken to provide a scenario of potential reasons for participation in this activity. The received data allows dividing them into two main groups - external and internal - depending on their relevance to project characteristics or personality of users.


This paper presents the deformation and fracture behavior of stator windings under cyclic bending loading. In this study, two different kinds of stator windings, which are impregnated with epoxy and polyester resins, are examined. The flexural stiffness and tan¿ characteristics of the stator windings are measured, applying cyclic loading to the stator nd-windings of up to 107 load cycles. Their variations are revealed under various strain amplitudes, and the failure mechanism of the stator windings under cyclic loading is discussed. The breakdown voltage is also measured in the last stage of each test, and the correlation between the reduction rates in the breakdown own voltage and the flexural stiffness is clarified. The failure criterion on the mechanical strength of the stator windings under cyclic loading is proposed.


Most final-year engineering students find the research project extremely daunting. This is mainly because, for most of them, it is the first time that they are not learning passively, and they are not adequately prepared for the challenge of executing a research project. During the first three years of their undergraduate studies the students are not prepared sufficiently for the difficult tasks the research project requires of them. Their time is largely spent sitting passively in classes listening to lecturers who have prepared the syllabi, provided notes and textbooks, and who coach them towards passing an exam. Universities traditionally teach mostly content. Students are overwhelmed by the amount of knowledge they are confronted with, and tend to retain just enough for just long enough to complete their examinations.


Variation in karyotype may be associated with the phenotype of patients with Turner syndrome (TS). Our objective was to identify these associations between karyotype and phenotype in TS patients. This study was part of the European multicentre dsd-LIFE study. We evaluated the associations between different karyotypes of TS patients and age at diagnosis, Turner stigmata, cardiac/renal involvement and gonadal function. Information was available for 328 TS patients. Participants had a monosomy 45,X (46%), mosaicism 45,X/46,XX (10%), karyotype with isochromosome (18%), or other karyotype (26%). The clinical signs of TS were the most severe in patients with monosomy 45,X and the least severe in patients with mosaicism 45,X/46,XX. Patients with isochromosome and y-material showed an intermediate phenotype. Despite the more severe features in patients with monosomy 45,X, the median age at diagnosis was only slightly lower compared to patients with other karyotypes, which suggests opportunities for improvement of knowledge and diagnostics.


Guangzhou, or Canton as it is sometimes known, is the major urban settlement in south China. Guangdong is the province of which Guangzhou is the capital. Guangzhou and Guangdong have a long settlement history that can be traced to the Zhou dynasty, eight centuries before the Christian era. TheHistorical Dictionary of Guangzhou (Canton) and Guangdong is a comprehensive, up-to-date dictionary of the geography, politics, and society of this premier city in south China and its surrounding province. TheDictionary focuses upon the contemporary history of Guangzhou and Guangdong. The authors present the Dictionary in two distinct sections: the first is for the city of Guangzhou, the second for the province of Guangdong. Though the city and province are two distinct entities, it is impossible to fully understand one without understanding the other. The dictionary is an alphabetical listing of the people, places, events and cultural activities significant to the modern history of Guangzhou and Guangdong. There is an introductory essay for each of the two sections to provide context for what follows. Two bibliographies follow the dictionary, primarily made up of English-language sources.