To investigate effects of recombinant human granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (rhGM-CSF) on lymphoid cells in vivo, we monitored changes in absolute lymphocyte counts, plasma concentrations of soluble interleukin-2 receptor (sIL-2R) and soluble cytotoxic/suppressor (sCD8) antigens, and phenotypic changes of surface membrane antigens of peripheral mononuclear cells from 14 patients with malignant lymphoma treated with rhGM-CSF. Eight of the 14 patients had relapsed or had refractory non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) and received rhGM-CSF after intensive chemotherapy with novantrone (NO) and high-dose Ara-C (AC) (NOAC) as salvage regimen. Six other patients with NHL or Hodgkin's disease (HD) were in complete remission and treated with rhGM-CSF to enhance peripheral hematopoietic progenitor cell harvest for autografting. An increase in absolute lymphocyte count at the zenith of leukocyte elevation and a drastic increase in concentration of sIL-2R from a median of 565 U/mL to 6,700 U/mL on rhGM-CSF infusion were found in all patients. There was also a moderate increase in sCD8 levels from a median of 277 U/mL to 470 U/mL. Ten patients were available for serial studies of phenotypic changes in surface membrane antigens. A significant increase in CD25+ (IL-2R+) (P = .0020) and CD4+ (P = .0137) lymphocytes was observed in all patients, but no significant change in CD3+, CD8+, TCR delta 1+, or CD19+ cells. Elevations in absolute lymphocyte counts or in concentrations of sIL-2R or sCD8 were not observed in four other patients during recovery from intensive chemotherapy without rhGM-CSF support. Our results provide evidence that administration of rhGM-CSF might activate lymphocytes in vivo. The impact of this activation on the remission rate and duration, as well as survival in patients with NHL, warrants further investigation.


Alicia Bewicke Little (1845-1926) was one of the earliest English writers who traveled deep into the interior of China during the late imperial period. She was also the most active feminist campaigning for the abolition of the old Chinese custom of footbinding. Her travelogue In the Land of the Blue Gown (1901) meticulously records such events as her sojourn in rural Sichuan, the anti-foreign riots in West China, and her anti-footbinding tours around China, offering us precious first-hand accounts of the early encounter between East and West. The ethics of travel is a promising new topic in travel literature studies, as yet little discussed in Taiwan. The present paper tries to find concrete examples from Little's book for an engaging discussion of cross-cultural negotiations, focusing particularly on moments of unease when cultural alterity is intensely felt and exploring its ethical implications. In recent years, owing to the influence of postcolonial theory, Anglo-American travel writing scholarship has tended to adopt a more rigid approach to ethical issues, often sacrificing the more nuanced understanding of moral complexities and ambiguities for pointed ideological critiques. This paper seeks to redress the balance by attending to the more confusing and aporetic kinds of travel experience. The major themes to be discussed include the civilizing mission, social sympathy, self-preservation, tolerance, and the importance of intercultural communication.


We examine the relationship between housing equity and wage earnings. We first provide a simple model of wage bargaining where failure leads to both job loss and mortgage default. Moreover, foreclosure generates disutility beyond selling a home. We test this prediction using nine waves of the national American Housing Survey. Employing a rich set of time and place controls, individual fixed effects and an instrumental variable strategy, we find that people with an underwater mortgage command a significantly lower wage than other homeowners. This finding survives a number of robustness checks. We also include other determinants of "house lock" such as a favorable mortgage interest rate relative to the current rate and a capped property tax assessment, but do not find these factors lower earnings. We conclude that negative equity matters because default is unpleasant or costly, not because it precludes out-of-state job search.


Objective: To describe a clinical syndrome of upper airway obstruction in 5 cats due to inflammatory laryngeal disease.

Series Summary: Medical records of 5 cats with upper airway obstruction and a histopathologic diagnosis of inflammatory laryngeal disease were reviewed. Historical findings included: dyspnea, anorexia, voice change, and gagging/non-productive retching. Thoracic radiographs revealed a bronchial pattern in 2 cats, with consolidation of the right middle lung lobe in one cats. Laryngeal examinations typically revealed severe swelling and erythema which could not be grossly distinguished from neoplasia. Histopathologic examination of laryngeal biopsies revealed neutrophilic (n=5) and lymphoplasmacytic (n=4) inflammation. All of the cats were treated with corticosteroids and 4 cats received antibiotics. Two cats died while hospitalized, one was discharged and lost to follow-up, and 2 are doing well 7 months and 4 years later, respectively.

New information provided: Inflammatory laryngeal disease in cats may present as an acute upper airway obstruction. These cases may respond to corticosteroids and antibiotics, and some cases may have an excellent long-term prognosis.(J Vet Emerg Crit Care 2001; 11(3): 205–211)


Objective: To identify associations between lifestyle counselling quality and adherence to lifestyle changes during the 12-month period after discharge. Setting: Neurology unit. Subjects: Stroke and transient ischaemic attack (TIA) patients (n = 98). Design: Longitudinal explorative study that utilized data initially collected for quasi-experimental study. Main measures: The exploratory measures of Counselling Quality were collected at the hospital on the day of discharge between January 2010 and October 2011, and the outcome measures of Adherence to Lifestyle Change and clinical values were collected 3, 6 and 12 months after discharge. Results: There were significant associations between the exploratory and outcome measures over time. Three of the counselling quality parameters, counselling interaction, advantages and resources, were found to be significantly associated with adherence to lifestyle change. In particular, counselling interactiveness was positively associated with physical activity at 3 (B = 0.31, SD = 0.10, P = 0.004) and 12 (B = 0.29, SD = 0.13, P = 0.030) months, as was advantages of following the advice at 3 (B = 0.33, SD = 0.11, P = 0.006) and 12 (B = 0.34, SD = 0.14, P = 0.021) months. Counselling resources were associated with lower body mass index throughout the entire follow-up period, that is, at 3 (B = −0.06, SD = 0.02, P = 0.006), 6 (B = −0.05, SD = 0.02, P = 0.040) and 12 months (B = −0.05, SD = 0.02, P = 0.022). Furthermore, all aspects of counselling quality were positively related to support from nurses. Conclusion: Adherence to lifestyle change is more likely to be attained if lifestyle counselling is interactive, the advantages of following the given advice are perceived as beneficial and the counsellor has sufficient resources.


Four PTFE/Al/Bi2O3 ternary reactive materials with different Al contents were prepared by molded sintering method to obtain the influence of Al content on the mechanical properties and impact reaction characteristics of PTFE/Al/Bi2O3 ternary reactive materials, and their mechanical and reaction properties were tested by drop-weight test and the shock induced reaction phenomena were observed by high-speed camera. The results show that the characteristic drop height first decreases and then increases as the Al content increases from 24% to 48%, and the reaction delay time remains unchanged, and the reaction duration first increases and then decreases. When the Al excess is doubled, its reaction is the most intense, the duration is the longest, and the reactivity reaches the strongest. The results of the study can provide some reference for the engineering application of PTFE/Al/Bi2O3


Enforcement of trademark law has been in evolution for decades in Pakistan. Pakistani laws dealing with trademark and its enforcement procedures are Trade Marks Ordinance 2001, Trade Marks Rules 2004, Intellectual Property Organization of Pakistan Act 2012 and relevant provisions of Pakistan Penal Code 1860 and Specific Relief Act 1877. Civil procedure is dealt in Pakistan as per Code of Civil Procedure 1908 and criminal procedure as per Code of Criminal Procedure 1898. This article is qualitative method of research analyses trademark and its enforcement procedures of Pakistan as per relevant trademark laws of Pakistan under the light of relevant provisions of Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and Paris Convention. Paris Convention is the first International Convention containing trademark and its enforcement provisions (6-9) as TRIPS is the first International Agreement containing exhaustive provisions on trademark and its enforcement procedures (15-21, 41-61). Part III of TRIPS deals with enforcement of trademark including civil procedure, administrative procedure, provisional measures, border measures and criminal procedure of trademark enforcement. Trademark Registry established under section 9 of Trade Marks Ordinance 2001 and works under Intellectual Property Organization of Pakistan (IPO-Pakistan) which is a statutory body established under section 3 of Intellectual Property Organization of Pakistan Act 2012. The registered trademark owner in Pakistan can avail civil procedure, criminal procedure, administrative procedure as well as provisional and border measures for enforcement of his registered trademark right in Pakistan. TRIPS and Paris Convention have been ratified by Pakistan, but ratification of International Convention and its implementation are two different things. Better enforcement of trademark law may take years to achieve as per relevant provisions of International Conventions therefore designated authorities of Pakistan are required to establish more Trademark Registry branches, more IP Tribunals, appoint and induct more IP experts, examiners in-charge of registration and spread IP awareness throughout Pakistan for betterment of trademark law enforcement in Pakistan.


We develop a rank tracking method for spherical subspace trackers. The method adaptively sets a threshold based on the averaged noise eigenvalue. The signal eigenvalues are then compared with the threshold to reach a decision on the subspace rank. The threshold itself is chosen to balance the error probabilities due to rank underfitting and overfitting. Simulation results show that our method performs as well as (and, for very low SNRs, even better than) information theoretic criteria.


For the first time Baylis–Hillman adducts derived from nitro olefins have been conveniently transformed into a novel class of building blocks, (E)-(3-chloro-2-nitroprop-1-enyl)benzene. The large second order optical nonlinearities, short transparency cut-off wavelength and stable physiochemical performance, which are needed in the realization of most of the recent electronic applications, are also considered in the present study.


This paper combines two studies: a topological semantics for epistemic notions and abstract argumentation theory. In our combined setting, we use a topological semantics to represent the structure of an agent's collection of evidence, and we use argumentation theory to single out the relevant sets of evidence through which a notion of beliefs grounded on arguments is defined. We discuss the formal properties of this newly defined notion, providing also a formal language with a matching modality together with a sound and complete axiom system for it. Despite the fact that our agent can combine her evidence in a 'rational' way (captured via the topological structure), argument-based beliefs are not closed under conjunction. This illustrates the difference between an agent's reasoning abilities (i.e. the way she is able to combine her available evidence) and the closure properties of her beliefs. We use this point to argue for why the failure of closure under conjunction of belief should not bear the burden of the failure of rationality.


Background: Cognitive impairment is a potential side-effect of breast cancer (BC) treatment. Estrogen is an important neuromodulator that affects cognition. Estrogen depletion by oophorectomy or GnRH agonists may adversely affect cognition in non-oncological settings, but there are few data regarding the cognitive effects of ovarian function suppression (OFS) in women with breast cancer. Patients and Methods: Between November 2003 and January 2011, 3066 premenopausal women with hormone receptor-positive BC were randomised on the SOFT trial to 5 years of adjuvant endocrine therapy with tamoxifen alone, tamoxifen+OFS or exemestane+OFS. OFS was achieved by the GnRH agonist triptorelin, oophorectomy or ovarian irradiation. Prior chemotherapy was allowed, provided women had premenopausal estradiol levels at enrolment. Women eligible for Co-SOFT must not have received any prior adjuvant endocrine therapy. At study entry (t1), and approximately 1 year after SOFT randomisation (t2), objective cognitive function was assessed with a brief computerized test battery comprising 7 tasks (CogState Ltd: cogstate.com). Subjective cognitive function, psychological distress, fatigue, insomnia and quality of life were also assessed. Co-SOFT recruited 86 of a planned 321 patients from 27 of 426 SOFT centres between November 2007 and January 2011, when Co-SOFT was closed as the SOFT trial completed accrual. The protocol-specified primary comparison was the change in the composite score of the CogState tasks over 1 year for women randomised to tamoxifen versus tamoxifen+OFS. However, due to low accrual this was modified, prior to any analysis, to compare the tamoxifen versus the pooled tamoxifen+OFS and exemestane+OFS groups. Cognitive test scores were standardized according to age-specific norms, averaged to compute the composite score and then change between t1 and t2 calculated; a negative change in composite score indicates deterioration in cognitive function. Change in composite score was compared using Wilcoxon rank sum test. Results: Of 86 Co-SOFT enrolled patients, 74 underwent both t1 and t2 CogState testing and were included in the primary analysis (7 withdrew consent/declined assessment, 5 missed testing due to scheduling). Of these 74 women, 20 were randomised to tamoxifen and 54 to OFS+tamoxifen (28) or OFS+exemestane (26). Baseline characteristics were well balanced between the 2 groups. During the first year 49 women utilised GnRH alone for OFS, 4 had GnRH followed by oophorectomy and 1 had oophorectomy alone. There was no significant difference in the changes in the CogState composite scores from t1 and t2 for patients randomised to tamoxifen alone compared with OFS+oral endocrine therapy (median, -0.057 versus -0.146 respectively, p=0.51). There were no significant between-group differences in the changes from t1 and t2 for any of the 7 individual cognitive tasks comprising the composite score. Conclusions: The results of this 1-year longitudinal substudy suggest that the addition of OFS to oral endocrine therapy does not significantly affect cognitive function in the setting of adjuvant BC treatment. Co-SOFT was limited by small sample size, so further investigation of the impact of OFS on cognitive function in BC patients is warranted. Citation Format: Kelly-Anne Phillips, Yang Feng, Karin Ribi, Jurg Bernhard, Fabio Puglisi, Meritxell Bellet, Simon Spazzapan, Per Karlsson, Daniel R Budman, Khalil Zaman, Ehtesham A Abdi, Susan M Domchek, Meredith M Regan, Alan S Coates, Richard D Gelber, Paul Maruff, Frances Boyle, John F Forbes, Gini F Fleming, Prudence A Francis. Co-SOFT: The cognitive function substudy of the suppression of ovarian function trial (SOFT) [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Thirty-Seventh Annual CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium: 2014 Dec 9-13; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(9 Suppl):Abstract nr P1-12-06.


Free radical formation evoked by proinflammatory cytokines has been suggested to be involved in the destruction of beta-cells in the course of type 1 diabetes development. However, there is no direct evidence to support this hypothesis. In this study, we used electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy in conjunction with spin-trapping methodology to directly determine whether cytokines give rise to free radical formation in the islets. Our results demonstrate that direct, in vivo administration of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (1,000 units), interleukin-1beta (1,000 units), and interferon-gamma (2,000 units) into the rat pancreas through a bile duct cannula leads to the formation of lipid-derived free radicals in this tissue. These free radicals most likely are generated by the beta-cells because previous depletion of these cells by streptozotocin abolished the cytokine-induced free radical formation. Furthermore, macrophage depletion was found to decrease the production of free radicals. Inhibition of the enzyme inducible cyclooxygenase (COX-2) and the transcription factor nuclear factor-kappaB (NF-kappaB) significantly diminished the free radicals' signal intensity, implicating these factors in the formation of free radicals. We have also demonstrated that cytokine treatment leads to the activation of NF-kappaB in the pancreatic islets of the rats.


Author(s): Driscoll, Laura Rebecca | Advisor(s): O'Neill, Katherine M. | Abstract: In the last decade, high-volume industrial production of fresh leafy greens including spinach and romaine lettuce has become increasingly linked to outbreaks of dangerous foodborne pathogens such as E. coli O157:H7. Current approaches to food safety risk management seek to prevent the introduction of pathogens at field level, through wildlife exclusion practices and the removal of habitat near farms, which can damage environmental conservation efforts. Farmers must balance multiple overlapping requirements coming from government regulation and privately-operated food safety standards, in which food safety concerns may be given priority over environmental sustainability. Improving food safety in fresh leafy greens without compromising environmental health will require policy solutions that consider the structural roots of food safety problems, and how food safety regulation impacts farmers. This dissertation presents an international comparative policy case study of leafy greens production in the United States and the United Kingdom, in which I evaluate public and private risk management mechanisms that have combined to shape national approaches to food safety, in the context of current political and regulatory trends. Deepening traditional comparative politics literature, this study draws on a structural comparison of public and private standards and interviews with leafy greens producers in both nations to illuminate the social and environmental impacts of various regulatory mechanisms. I demonstrate that food safety standards containing a balance of process-oriented and prescriptive requirements, and a balance between food safety and environmental concerns, are correlated with more environmentally friendly agricultural practices and more favorable farmer perceptions of food safety regulation. From a perspective situated at the convergence of agri-food studies, regulatory practice, and comparative policy, I suggest regulatory changes and supply chain solutions for balancing food safety and environmental sustainability.


The health crisis has had a strong impact on intensive care units. The objective of this study was to investigate the experience of resuscitation physicians during the COVID-19 health crisis to understand the associated determinants of quality of life, burnout, and brownout. This qualitative, longitudinal study covered two periods (T1, February 2021, and T2, May 2021). The data were collected in individual semi-directed interviews with 17 intensive care physicians (ICPs) (T1). Nine of the latter also participated in a second interview (T2). The data were examined using grounded theory analysis. We identified a multiplication of burnout and brownout indicators and factors already known in intensive care. In addition, burnout and brownout indicators and factors specific to the COVID-19 crisis were added. The evolution of professional practices has disrupted the professional identity, the meaning of work, and the boundaries between private and professional life, leading to a brownout and blur-out syndrome. The added value of our study lies in identifying the positive effects of the crisis in the professional domain. Our study revealed indicators and factors of burnout and brownout associated with the crisis among ICPs. Finally, it highlights the beneficial effects of the COVID-19 crisis on work.


Presented as the story of David and Helen Bruening and their family, A Cold War Odyssey carries us across three continents. Against a backdrop of national and international events, we follow the Bruenings through five decades as David's governmental and academic assignments take them to many corners of the world. With each succeeding episode, our understanding of the causes and consequences of this international struggle is deepened through the Bruening family's experiences.


Abstract:An Italian intellectual knows less about Southern Italy than about the Amazonian forest or the Siberian tundra. In recent years, the South (Rome and below) has been the location of political and social upheavals that have gone largely unnoticed: depopulation, deindustrialization, massive emigration to the North of Italy and Europe. At the same time, there has been growing immigration from Africa, developing forms of subjectivity and of mixed cultures, the invention of a new Southern tradition, which seems to renounce nostalgia and regret. In Italy, the "new" is born in the South. A monstrous new, obviously, but the new is monstrous, or else it is not new. Monstrous because the new is an "agencement" that puts together pieces from distant worlds that have previously seemed unrelated. This essay presents a number of films that show in their content (scenarios never before seen in Italian cinema) but above all in their (paratactic) style, the new of the Italian South.


Exchange of Na, K, Ca, and Cl in the tubular segment (mucosa inside) of guinea pig ileum was studied. Influx and efflux of K were estimated by the method of Keynes and Lewis to be 1.36 and 4.00 pmole cm –2 sec –1 , respectively, which are in agreement with those given by general transfer equation. In the case of Na and Cl, fluxes estimated by both methods were not consistent with each other. This fact, as well as time course of Ca inflow, indicates a complex type of exchange of these three ions, and did not permit an accurate estimation of fluxes. Pilocarpine (5 x 10 –6 m) caused a temporary increase in K efflux, temporary decrease in K influx, and little or no effect on Na exchange during the initial 30-min interval and, after a 10-min delay, a temporary decrease in Cl efflux. The drug increased the rate of Ca exchange, presumably by releasing Ca from a bound form in the tissue. This effect is believed to be the molecular basis of pilocarpine-induced contraction.


The VUV spectra of the Pd-like Xe IX, Cs X, Ba XI, La XII and Ce XIII ions were analyzed. The cascade 4d95s–4d95p–4d95d–4d95f transitions were classified in Ba XI, La XII and Ce XIII ions for the first time. The analysis of the 4d95s–4d95p transitions in Cs X ion was revised and the 4d95p–4d95d–4d95f transitions were classified in Xe IX and Cs X ions. The complete energy structures of the 4d95s, 4d95p and 4d95d configurations and most of the 4d95f energies were determined in every investigated ion. The energy structures of the 4d94f configurations were established by the analysis of the 4d94f–4d95d transitions in Ba XI, La XII and Ce XIII ions for the first time in a Pd I sequence. The experimental results were confirmed by semi-empirical calculations in the frames of Cowan code and Generalized Least-Squares techniques.


A proportion of users cannot achieve adequate brain-computer interface (BCI) control. The diversity of BCI modalities provides a way to solve this emerging issue. Here, we investigate the accuracy of a somatosensory BCI based on sensory imagery (SI). During the SI tasks, subjects were instructed to imagine a tactile sensation and to maintain the attention on the corresponding hand, as if there was tactile stimulus on the skin of the wrist. The performance across 106 healthy subjects in left- and right-hand SI discrimination was 78.9±13.2%. In 70.7% of the subjects the performance was above 70%. The SI task induced a contralateral cortical activation, and high-density EEG source localization showed that the real tactile stimulation and imagined tactile stimulation shared similar cortical activations within the somatosensory cortex. The somatosensory BCI based on SI provides a new signal modality for independent BCI development. Moreover, a combination of SI and other BCI modalities, such as motor imagery, may provide new avenues for further improving BCI usage and applicability, especially in those subjects unable to attain adequate BCI control with conventional BCI modalities.


In Reply.— I agree with Mr Stryker that confidentiality is the preferred line of defense against the harms of disclosure, and I applaud efforts to make it effective. The thrust of the article was not to advocate antidiscrimination laws "instead, " but to argue that efforts to shore up confidentiality face severe legal obstacles and in themselves are not enough. Dr Natale is incorrect in the view that I was "ascribing AIDS discrimination to a set of legal principles" that aim to preserve free communication and advocating a "disease-specific statutory codification." Discrimination against AIDS was not presented as being induced or justified by the law. Dr Natale fails to address the courts' growing acceptance not just of limitations on confidentiality in the public interest but of a duty to warn individuals at risk that outweighs patients' interests in privacy. The Supreme Court, inSchool Board of Nassau County, Florida v Arline


In this paper, we study the reflection coefficient of a periodic Bragg reflecting structure in which there exists both an index-of-refraction grating as well as a gain grating. Most past studies have assumed that these two gratings were in phase with each other. In the present work we investigate the effects that arise when a phase shift is purposely introduced between the two gratings. We use a normal coupled-wave analysis to calculate the reflection coefficient as a function of the detuning away from the Bragg frequency when this grating phase difference is varied from 0 to 2/spl pi/. We find particular phase difference values for which essentially a single-line reflection coefficient results, which in turn should produce narrow-band, single-mode operation of any device utilizing this Bragg structure for distributed feedback purposes. >


This paper explores and provides substantiated evidence on the usage patterns of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) by female users at Vhembe District in LimpopoProvince, South Africa. The study presents a comprehensive picture on the usage of ICTs from female users' perspective. The significance of this study stems from the need to assess the role, relevance and usage patterns of ICTs such as smartphones, computers, laptops, and iPods, the internet and social networking sites among females following the developments of new media technologies in society. The objective of the study is to investigate the usability and accessibility of ICTs to empower female users in South Africa. The study used quantitative and qualitative research methods to determine the major ideas, perceptions and usage patterns of ICTs by users. Data collection involved the use of structured selfadministered questionnaire from two groups of respondents who participated in this study. Thus, (n=50) female students at the University of Venda provided their ideas and perceptions about the usefulness and usage patterns of ICTs such as smartphones, the Internet and computers at the university level, whereas, the second group were (n=50) learners from Makhado Comprehensive School who provided their perceptions and ideas about the use of ICTs at the high school level. The researcher also noted that the findings of the study were useful as a guideline and model for ICT intervention that could work as an empowerment to women in South Africa. It was observed that the central purpose of ICTs among female users was to search for information regarding assignment writing, conducting research, dating, exchanging ideas and networking with friends and relatives. This was demonstrated by a high number of females who used ICTs for e-learning (62%) and social purposes (85%). Therefore, the study revealed that most females used ICTs for social purposes and accessing the internet rather than for entertainment, a gesture that provides an opportune space to empower rural women in South Africa. Keywords—Female users, Information and Communication Technologies, Internet, Usage patterns.


Brain single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) is a well-established and reliable method to assess brain function through measurement of regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF). It can be used to define a patient's pathophysiological status when neurological or psychiatric symptoms cannot be explained by anatomical neuroimaging findings. Though there is ample evidence validating brain SPECT as a technique to track human behavior and correlating psychiatric disorders with dysfunction of specific brain regions, only few psychiatrists have adopted brain SPECT in routine clinical practice. It can be utilized to evaluate the involvement of brain regions in a particular patient, to individualize treatment on basis of SPECT findings, to monitor the treatment response and modify treatment, if necessary. In this article, we have reviewed the available studies in this regard from existing literature and tried to present the evidence for establishing the clinical role of brain SPECT in major psychiatric illnesses.


Representation in the media has, to a great degree, shaped people's views of communities they have not had personal interaction with. With growing awareness about the lives and rights of transgender individuals, a concern is raised about how they are showcased in media. This research study aims to evaluate the impact of depicting gender and related themes in media on the lives of urban transgender Indian youth belonging to the age group of 15 to 19 years old. This was accomplished through conducting focus group sessions to understand the participants' views furthermore thematic analysis was carried out to interpret and thematise the findings. The study illuminated feelings of alienation, from the rest of the community and from society as a whole. The participants showed signs of internalised transphobia that linked to the vision of them shown in the media. While moving forward, media seeking to represent the transgender, or any minority, community need to consider the impacts of their representation. In particular, having members from the community oversee their work and be involved in the production of the same would ensure authentic and relatable representation. This would create job opportunities for transgender individuals in the film industry, thereby increasing their livelihood and leading to betterment in the functioning of the industry. In addition, it would help secure the place of gender minorities in a society that currently either refuses to acknowledge their existence or has a warped perception of them.
Keywords - transgender, representation, media, internalised transphobia, nonbinary


This volume contains papers from the IFAC Workshop on Real-Time Programming. The aim of the Workshop was to bring together academic practitioners and industrialists involved in this important and expanding area of interest in order to exchange experiences on recent advances in this field. It includes topics such as: dependability and safety for real time systems; real-time programming techniques; software requirement engineering; control systems design; software design; and software engineering and complex engineering systems.


Background Developing Internet+home care (IHC) services is a promising way to address the problems related to population aging, which is an important global issue. However, IHC services are in their infancy in China. Limited studies have investigated the willingness and demand of nurses in municipal hospitals to provide IHC services. Objective This study aims to investigate the willingness and demand of nurses in municipal hospitals in China to provide IHC services and analyze the factors to promote IHC development in China. Methods This cross-sectional study used multistage sampling to recruit 9405 nurses from 10 hospitals in 5 regions of China. A self-designed questionnaire with good reliability and validity was used to measure nurses' willingness and demand for providing IHC services. Data analysis used the chi-square test, Welch t test, binary logistic regression analysis, and multiple linear regression analysis. Results Nurses were highly willing to provide IHC services and preferred service distances of <5 km and times from 8 AM to 6 PM. An individual share >60% was the expected service pay sharing. Job title, educational level, monthly income, and marital status were associated with nurses' willingness to provide IHC services in binary logistic regression analysis. Supervising nurses were 1.177 times more likely to express a willingness to provide IHC services than senior nurses. Nurses with a bachelor's degree had a 1.167 times higher likelihood of expressing willingness to provide IHC services than those with a junior college education or lower. Married nurses were 1.075 times more likely to express a willingness than unmarried nurses. A monthly income >¥10,000 increased the likelihood of nurses' willingness to provide IHC services, by 1.187 times, compared with an income <¥5000. Nurses' total mean demand score for IHC services was 17.38 (SD 3.67), with the highest demand being privacy protection. Multiple linear regression analysis showed that job title, monthly income, and educational level were associated with nurses' demand for IHC services. Supervising nurses (B=1.058, P<.001) and co-chief nurses or those with higher positions (B=2.574, P<.001) reported higher demand scores than senior nurses. Monthly incomes of ¥5000 to ¥10,000 (B=0.894, P<.001) and >¥10,000 (B=1.335, P<.001), as well as a bachelor's degree (B=0.484, P=.002) and at least a master's degree (B=1.224, P=.02), were associated with higher demand scores compared with a monthly income <¥5000 and junior college education or lower, respectively. Conclusions Nurses in municipal hospitals showed a high willingness and demand to provide IHC services, with differences in willingness and demand by demographic characteristics. Accordingly, government and hospitals should regulate the service period, service distance, and other characteristics according to nurses' willingness and demand and establish relevant laws and regulations to ensure the steady and orderly development of IHC services.


PurposeCompanies are concerned about the well-being of workers in their supply chains, but conventional audits fail to uncover critical problems. Yet, if the happy worker – productive worker thesis is correct, it would benefit factories in fast-developing countries, particularly China which is key to many global supply chains, to ensure the well-being of their workers. The authors set out to better understand the relationship between well-being and performance in four Chinese factories.Design/methodology/approachOver 12-months the authors collected digital diaries from 466 workers in four factories, and monthly data about the performance of their factories. The authors used this data to gain insights into the well-being of workers in these factories; to design experimental interventions to improve this; and to consider any effects these had on factory performance.FindingsThe experiments showed that training interventions to improve workers' well-being through their work relationships and individual skills improved not just a factory's general worker well-being, but also some aspects of its performance and worker retention. Thus, it brought benefits not only for the workers but also for the factory owners and their client companies.Originality/valueWhile there is a significant body of research investigating the happy worker – productive worker thesis, this was not conducted in Chinese factories. The authors' work demonstrates that in this and similar environments, workers' eudaimonic well-being is more important than might be assumed, and that in this context there is a relationship between well-being and performance which can be practically addressed.


The tyrosine and dual-specificity phosphatases are involved in signaling, cell growth and differentiation, and the cell cycle. The enzymes share a common catalytic mechanism mediated by an active site cysteine, arginine and aspartic acid. Supplementary domains assist in targeting and substrate specificity.


In this paper, we explore the role of emotion in the interpretation and memory of sexual encounters. We consider situations likely to generate negative emotions during sex, and the mechanisms through which the experience of negative emotions can lead to false memories of coercion and mislabeling of an encounter as sexual assault. Specifically, we consider the role of emotion in directing attention during a sexual encounter and the effects of emotion as context for interpretation at the time of the encounter, and for retrieval and interpretation when the encounter is later recalled and reported. Our intent is to provide a greater understanding of the processes of interpretation and memory through which false claims of sexual assault might arise, if and when they do arise.


Obesity is a complex disease that involves an excessive amount of body fat. It is a medical problem that increases the risk of other diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and certain cancers. Although there are genetic, behavioral, metabolic and hormonal influences on body weight, obesity occurs when you take in more calories than you burn through exercise and daily activities that is when energy intake exceeds energy expenditure. Diet plays an important role in the pathogenesis of obesity; fatty foods are energy dense and gives 9calories per gram compared to carbohydrate and protein that gives 4calories per gram. Also, if physical activity is inadequate, excess consumption of fat can results into weight gain. It does not take as much energy (about 3%), to convert and store dietary fat as it does to convert and store glucose. Fats are easily stored by the body. The aim of this chapter is to provide an understanding of physiological causes and effects of obesity as this will help to promote positive food choices. It is probable that an understanding of dietary patterns and how it relates to obesity will go a long way in the treatment of this complex problem.


The premise of this study is that an ultimate objective in planning an exhibition space is visitors" experiences created by a result of their first-hand experiences and responses within an exhibition space, and this result can be recognized in the visitors" movement. Thus, the exhibition layout that can directly affects viewers" main line of flow and movement patterns was examined vis--vis a mutually complementary relation in a triangular composition with the structure of exhibition space and the exhibition contents. The main indicators used are: 1. Attraction power: Indicates the relative incidence of people who have stopped in front of an object/exhibit during the exhibition tour. It is calculated by dividing the number of people who stop by the total number of people who have visited the museum or gallery. 2. Holding power: measures the average time spent in front of an information/communication element. It is calculated by dividing the average time of stay by the time "necessary" to read an element. 3. Sweep Rate Index (SRI): this index is calculated by dividing the total size of the exhibition in square meters by the average time spent by visitors within this exhibition area. It is used to calculate if visitors move slowly or quickly through the exhibition. 4. Diligent Visitor Index (DVI): this index is obtained by calculating the percentage of visitors who have stopped in front of more than half the elements that make up the exhibition. As the result of research and analysis as above, this research could induce conclusions as follows. That is, from the point of view of plan, zoning of space that divides the space for general contents of exhibition and the space for specialized contents for exhibition based on the speciality of the viewing areas may be suggested. Also, it is expected that logical bases for the issues of establishment of location of orientation function that will provide informations to visitors as to where to go and where they are located, identification of nature of exhibiting spaces, selection of appropriate space suitable to accomodate diversified functions and publicity etc will be prepared.


Diabetes has become a global emergency because of its high prevalence, morbidity and mortality while the available hypoglycaemic drugs possess various adverse effects and are expensive. This has necessitated a continuous search for cheaper antidiabetic agents of plant origin with fewer or no side effects. The study evaluated the antihyperglycaemic activities of the methanol extract of Sansevieria liberica Gerome and Labroy (Agavaceae) rhizome. Both the partitioned and column fractions were tested on glucose-induced hyperglycaemic rats while their in vitro antioxidant effects studied using 1,1-diphenyl-2-dipicrylhydrazyl radical scavenging (DPPH), ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP), total antioxidant capacity (TAC), hydroxyl radical scavenging activity (HRSA) as well as the  total phenolic content (TPC) and total flavonoid content (TFC) assays. Glibenclamide (5 mg/kg) and appropriate anti-oxidant standard drugs were used as positive controls. The estimated median lethal dose (LD50) of the methanol extract was 3,808.0 mg/kg; at 100, 200 and 400 mg/kg, it gave comparable (p>0.05) antihyperglycaemic activity to glibenclamide at 5 mg/kg. Its ethyl acetate fraction at 200 and 400 mg/kg gave the highest antihyperglycaemic activities of 49.5 and 53.9%, respectively, the highest antioxidant activities in all the models used. The highest antihyperglycaemic and antioxidant values were observed in the column fractions, C3, C4 and C7 of the ethylacetate partitioned fraction. The comparable antihyperglycaemic activity to glibenclamide of the methanol extract of S. libericarhizome in this study has justified its ethnomedical claims as antidiabetic agent. The consistently high antihyperglycaemic and antioxidant activities of the extract and its partitioned and column fractions would suggest a direct relationship between the two biological activities investigated.

 Key words: Diabetes mellitus, Sansevierialiberica, anti-hyperglycaemic activity, antioxidant activity.


A study was performed to analyze the dynamics of chemical, biochemical and microbial parameters during composting of herbal pharmaceutical waste. All the parameters were analyzed at three different intervals of composting (1st, 15th and 60th days). Temperature of the compost pile was initially high (46.2 °C) and on 60th day it dropped to 33.3 °C. The pH of the sample was initially acidic (2.39) and with the progress of decomposition gradually changed to neutrality (7.55). Electrical conductivity (EC) value was high (3.8 mS) during last day of composting compared to other stages. The activity of degradative enzymes namely amylase, invertase and urease were initially high (4.1, 4.79 mg of glucose/g/h and 0.19 mg of ammonia/g/h respectively) while it decreased with composting. The beneficial microbial load was initially low and very high at the last stages of decomposition. The bioassay studies using compost extracts revealed that the 60th day old sample was not phytotoxic in nature.


We tested the utility of the modelling program Genetic Algorithm for Rule-set Prediction (GARP) for modelling ecological niches to make accurate predictions of geographical distributions for 25 bird species across Mexico. Specimen-based point-occurrence data were entered into the algorithm in the form of geographical coordinates, and related to digitized maps of environmental variables, including mean annual precipitation, elevation, mean annual temperature, and potential vegetation. Two Mexican states were used as test areas by withholding their points from model construction; these points were later overlaid on predictions to measure model performance. Statistically, most models (78‐90%) were significantly more powerful than random models in predicting occurrences in test states; model failures were most often due to low sample size for testing, rather than an inability to model distributions of particular species. The success of this test indicates that ecological niche modelling approaches such as GARP provide a promising tool for exploring a broad range of questions in ecology, biogeography and conservation.


Conductive, electroactive polymers provide a unique platform upon which to construct intelligent materials. These polymers are capable of monitoring and respond ing to the chemical environment in which they are operational. They have properties which simplify the design and development of sensors, based on the principles of molec ular recognition. The conductive nature of the materials enables a range of electrical sig nals to be produced and this inherent electroactivity provides a unique means of triggering chemical responses. This article reviews the accomplishments of various workers in this field to demonstrate that conductive, electroactive polymers provide a basis for intelligent chemical systems.


The human prion protein (PrP) is a glycoprotein with a glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI) anchor at its C‐terminus. Here we report alternative splicing within exon 2 of the PrP gene (PRNP) in the human glioblastoma cell line T98G. The open reading frame of the alternatively spliced mRNA lacked the GPI anchor signal sequence and encoded a 230 amino acid polypeptide. Its product, GPI‐anchorless PrP (GPI− PrPSV), was unglycosylated and soluble in non‐ionic detergent, and was found in the cytosolic fraction. We also detected low levels of alternatively spliced mRNA in human brain and non‐neuronal tissues. When long‐term passaged T98G cells were placed in a low‐oxygen environment, alternatively spliced mRNA expression increased and expression of normally spliced PrP mRNA decreased. These findings imply that oxygen tension regulates GPI− PrPSV expression in T98G cells.


This document describes the current state of the Adversary Dynamics Modeling (ADM) project currently under development. Given the dynamic nature of the terrorist threat, the purpose of this modeling effort is to increase current understanding of adversarial decision-making processes and possible behavior in order to help guide countermeasure technology decisions and deployment. The system dynamics approach is used to capture the underlying systemic structure responsible for adversarial activity.


Introduction Three-dimensional (3D) imaging in small-bowel capsule endoscopy (SBCE) is not currently feasible due to hardware limitations. However, there has been increasing use of software algorithms to enable 3D reconstruction in this setting. The aim of this study was to explore a) whether innovative software offers accurate 3D reconstruction of monocular images and b) if its application leads to enhanced lesion visualisation in SBCE. Methods Feasibility study; first, a phantom was designed to test the accuracy of 3D reconstruction by comparing images of red, yellow and white phantom models to their 2D counterparts. Thereafter, a total of 192 SBCE images (84 PillCam®/108 MiroCam®; vascular: n = 50; inflammatory: n = 73; protruding structures/lesions: n = 69) were reviewed with the aid of a purpose-built 3D reconstruction software. Seven endoscopists rated visualisation improved or non-improved (compared to original 2D images) (Figure 1). Finally, the following sub-group analyses were performed: type of finding (vascular vs inflammatory vs protruding), colour of finding and SBCE equipment used (PillCam® vs Mirocam®). Abstract PTU-021 Figure 1 Results Overall, phantom experiments showed that the 3D reconstruction software was accurate in predicting the protruding or non-protruding nature for 90% of red, 70% of yellow and 45% of white phantom models. Furthermore, it offered enhanced visualisation for 56% of vascular, 23% of inflammatory and < 10% of protruding structures/lesions (P = 0.007, 0.172 and 0.008, respectively). Lastly,when the images were categorised according to the predominant colour of the lesion, 3D software application enhanced 29/54 (53.7%) of red, 12/55 (21.8%) of white, 5/29 (17.3%) of red+white and 5/54 cases (9.2%) of lesions with colour similar to that of the surrounding mucosa, P < 0.0001. Conclusion Application of a 3D reconstruction software in SBCE leads to image enhancement for a significant proportion (56%) of vascular, but less so for inflammatory and protruding lesions. Its integration, as adjunct tool, in CE reviewing software is desirable. Disclosure of Interest A. Koulaouzidis Grant/Research Support from: Research support from Given Imanging Ltd, A. Karargyris: None Declared, E. Rondonotti: None Declared, J. Plevris: None Declared


Objective The intracarotid amobarbital procedure (IAP) is the current "gold standard" in the preoperative assessment of language lateralization in epilepsy surgery candidates. It is, however, invasive and has several limitations. Here we tested a simple noninvasive language lateralization test performed with magnetoencephalography (MEG). Methods We recorded auditory MEG responses to pairs of vowels and pure tones in 16 epilepsy surgery candidates who had undergone IAP. For each individual, we selected the pair of planar gradiometer sensors with the strongest N100m response to vowels in each hemisphere and—from the vector sum of signals of this gradiometer pair—calculated the vowel/tone amplitude ratio in the left (L) and right (R) hemisphere and, subsequently, the laterality index: LI = (L–R)/(L+R). In addition to the analysis using a single sensor pair, an alternative analysis was performed using averaged responses over 18 temporal sensor pairs in both hemispheres. Results The laterality index did not correlate significantly with the lateralization data obtained from the IAP. However, an MEG pattern of stronger responses to vowels than tones in the left hemisphere and stronger responses to tones than vowels in the right hemisphere was associated with left-hemispheric language dominance in the IAP in all the six patients who showed this pattern. This results in a specificity of 100% and a sensitivity of 67% of this MEG pattern in predicting left-hemispheric language dominance (p = 0.01, Fisher's exact test). In the analysis using averaged responses over temporal channels, one additional patient who was left-dominant in IAP showed this particular MEG pattern, increasing the sensitivity to 78% (p = 0.003). Significance This simple MEG paradigm shows promise in feasibly and noninvasively confirming left-hemispheric language dominance in epilepsy surgery candidates. It may aid in reducing the need for the IAP, if the results are confirmed in larger patient samples.


Autonomy and responsibility are interrelated concepts crucial to the moral analysis of professional persons, organizations and institutions, and for the purpose of this paper, I focus on the persons, organizations, and institution of journalism. My papers thesis hinges on the notion that the confluence of the concepts of autonomy and responsibility creates a natural conceptual foundation for understanding moral praise and blame. Though in moral philosophy this notion has long been accepted, it has not yet been carefully applied to the practice of journalism. Applying these concepts to journalism, I will argue, is crucial for accurately determining moral praise and blame, as it adds a structure to evaluating ethical behavior in a way that has not yet been put forward.


High throughput screening (HTS) programs based on diverse collections of compounds can rapidly identify leads for potential drug candidates. In cases where the compound collection is truly diverse, one may only identify a few compounds of interest. However, where a large number of hits are identified, it becomes necessary to examine the structures to determine the true number of compound classes involved so that follow-up studies may be conducted as efficiently as possible. In this case, cluster analysis is applied to determine the structural relationship among HTS hits. To efficiently expand around the region of the hit (or a class of hits) in chemical space, we have applied nearest neighbors analysis to select additional compounds from collections of a large number of commercial vendors, achieving an average hit rate in excess of 15%. Applying these techniques in a number of different cases, we obtained results that are useful for subsequent investigations of hits from HTS and other relevant molecular structures from the literature.


Aquaculture waste water was a major sewage resource, and recirculating aquaculture is an important mode of aquaculture development. Potassium ferrate is a novel sewage treatment agent and the use of potassium ferrate as a aquaculture recirculating water purification agents had a very important significance in the theoretical and practical application. When the amount of potassium ferrate is 8mg / L, the removal rate of the total number of colonies is 98.8%, the removal rate of COD is 92.16%, 98.78%, and sulfide is 98.42%. For the total amount of ammonia and nitrite also has a certain effect, when the amount of potassium ferrate is 12mg / L, the nitrite removal rate was 44.61%, total ammonia nitrogen removal rate was 23.61%.


The mechanisms and predictors of insulator degradation and erosion by pulsed high-current surface discharges are presented and discussed. Erosion and degradation depend on the insulator material, the electrode material, the ambient gas, and the presence of UV stabilizers in, or on the surface of, the insulator. Insulator degradation is the result of material decomposition into conductive metal or carbon species and is measured by a decrease in the surface breakdown voltage. Insulator erosion is measured by the material's mass loss. The performance of a large group of ceramic, polymeric, and elastomeric materials tested with graphite and molybdenum electrodes is presented in this investigation. The insulators are exposed to repetitive 300-kA 20-mus-long surface discharges. Tests are performed in atmospheric air and pure nitrogen. Various methods to rank insulators in terms of holdoff voltage degradation, mass erosion, and holdoff voltage conditioning (HVC) using the material's thermochemical properties are presented and discussed. HVC is characterized by an initial increase in surface holdoff voltage. The ranking method developed by the authors characterizes the insulator according to the holdoff degradation resistance (HDR), mass vaporization coefficient (MVC), and HVC figures of merit calculated by the material's thermochemical properties. The investigation also shows the relationship between the HDR, MVC, and HVC figures of merit.


Nowadays, one the most prevalent arrhythmia is the atrial fibrillation (AF). The affection associated with AF can lead from problems like hypertension, to life threatening problems such as thromboembolic events. It can be identified using a routine electrocardiogram (ECG) investigation and is characterized by the chaotic-like oscillations, f-waves, which replace the P wave. In the present paper the evaluation of a previously proposed method is performed on simulated data sets which include noise components with different signal to noise ratios (SNR).


Abstract This paper reinterprets Rousseau's theory of political and economic development through the lens of time. In his governmental plan for Corsica, Rousseau sees an infirm political body about to heal, grow, and prosper under changing conditions, not a static experiment of autarkic agrarianism. Therefore, Rousseau's prescriptions of a hybrid economy, intergenerational office-holding, and future-oriented defence are themselves designed to evolve over time. Rethinking Rousseau's concept of time clarifies long-running debates over the seemingly conflicting images of the philosopher. Neither 'founding' nor 're-founding' Corsica, Rousseau legislates in the interim, aiming for the longevity, not the immortality, of a healthy political economy.


This study aims to observe the product XYZ holistically and assess the performance of current production processes in PT BCD, then solicit the best alternative to improve the production. There is a gap between the productions of XYZ with the potential demand in the market. Production of XYZ showed constant production in the last 5 years, while number of demand increased implicitly due to several factors. So the company needs alternative to increase the production. For solicit alternatives, this study used OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) method for analysis the production process. OEE is used in order to produce a comprehensive understanding of the process because it considers availability, performance, and quality aspects at once. The result of observation, OEE of heated drying machine is 78,76% and folding machine is 83,76%, lower than OEE World Class (85%). That result makes this study focus to the both of machines. Alternative to improve the heated drying machine's OEE is preventive action to prevent element wires of heater breaking, replace the blower when damage occurred, and specify the optimal temperature and time for drying process. While the alternative to improve the folding machine's OEE is change the layout process and replace the person in charge of machine's damage. Analysis of the yield improvement can increase production and profits PT BCD. Alternative to improve yield, include: facilitate the lifting of amylum while weighting process; improve the cleaning procedure on the process granulation, sieving, and drying; and reduce the suction power of vacum cleaner during tableting process. Directors need to assess the future strategy and sales forecast from marketing. If the implementation of OEE and improvement of yield are still not sufficient, it is necessary to choose other alternatives below gradually depending on the value of the desired output. Alternative to increased production from drying process is add employees work shift and a non heated drying cabinet; add a non heated drying cabinet and a heated drying cabinet; use Fluidized Bed Dryer (FBD). Alternative to the other process is add employess work shift or make employees overtime in tableting, stripping, folding catch cover, and sealing process or in the process of mounting the strip to catch cover.


Background: Despite their widespread clinical use in both acne vulgaris and rosacea, the effects of tetracyclines on sebocytes have not been investigated until now. Sebaceous glands are central to the pathogenesis of acne and may be important in the development of rosacea. Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the effects of doxycycline on the immortalized SZ95 sebaceous gland cell line as a model for understanding possible effectiveness on the sebaceous glands in vivo. Methods: The effects of doxycycline on SZ95 sebocyte numbers, viability, and lipid content as well as its effects on the mRNA levels of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors α and γ, in comparison to the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ agonist troglitazone, were investigated. Results: Doxycycline reduced the cell number and increased the lipid content of SZ95 sebocytes in vitro after 2 days of treatment. These doxycycline effects may be explained by an upregulation of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ mRNA levels at 12 and 24 h, whereas troglitazone already upregulated peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ levels after 6 h. Both compounds did not influence peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor α mRNA levels. Conclusion: These new findings illustrate a previously unknown effect of doxycycline on sebocytes, which may be relevant to their modulation of disorders of the pilosebaceous unit, such as acne vulgaris and rosacea.


The spatial and temporal variations in global precipitation associated with the annual cycle (AC), the tropospheric quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO), and the Southern Oscillation (SO) are studied using 80 years (1901–1980) of global station rainfall data. The spatial scale and migration of the major climatological precipitation regimes are identified from the zeroth and first harmonic of the rainfall data. From the annual mean anomaly it was found that the dominant global precipitation pattern fluctuates irregularly, with 2- to 5-year periods associated with the SO. This pattern is characterized by a center of action in the form of an east-west dipole located over the equatorial central Pacific and the maritime continent of Indonesia. The occurrence of an El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) corresponds to an extreme phase of this dipole anomaly. Viewed in terms of the total rainfall amount (including the AC), the large rainfall anomalies that occurred during ENSOs represent major dislocations of the normal global rainfall pattern, affecting regions of the western Pacific/maritime continent and, to a lesser extent, China, Brazil, Argentina, southeast Africa, and southeast United States. Using the monthly rainfall anomaly, the same pattern again emerges as the dominant mode of variation. However, the temporal variation shows, in addition to the SO time scale, a distinct QBO signal. Using various time series analyses techniques, it was found that the QBO appears to be well correlated with the square of the SO signal. This result is also confirmed by bispectral analyses. The best correlation appears to occur during ENSO, with an apparent phase locking between the QBO and SO. A nonlinear interaction mechanism consistent with these results is illustrated by a conceptual model. The model suggests that the QBO may be an even more fundamental long-term oscillation of the tropical ocean-atmosphere system than the SO. ENSO-like cycles can arise from a basic 2 year oscillation in the tropical ocean-atmosphere system through its lagged effect from one year to the next. In addition, long-term trends and amplitude modulation of the QBO can also arise from this effect. The role of the possible influence of the AC and other factors involved in this QBO–SO interaction is also discussed.


Forms and quantities of organic carbon (C) fluxes at the soil surface, and organic C exports from four small (1–2 ha) headwater catchments were quantified and contrasted in the seasonally dry southern Amazon for 1 year to compare C fluxes within the terrestrial ecosystem with exports to the aquatic ecosystem. At the soil surface, the flux of litterfall C was 43 times greater than the dissolved organic carbon (DOC) flux in throughfall, with the highest rates of C deposition during the dry season. The form and timing of organic C was reversed for watershed exports, where DOC comprised 59% of the annual total organic C export, and exports were greatest during the 4‐month rainy season (63% of total annual exports). Fine particulate organic carbon (FPOC) in streamwater was a substantially larger flux than coarse particulate organic carbon (CPOC), representing 37 and 4% of total annual organic C exports, respectively. Particulate organic C exports exhibited substantial seasonal variability, with FPOC and CPOC mobilized primarily in the rainy season and strongly connected to storm events. Storm flow comprised 6% of total streamflow for the year studied, and 10% of streamflow during the rainy season. In the rainy season, over 90% of FPOC exports were transported by storm flow, while only 32% of DOC exports were exported by storm flow during this period. Streamwater DOC concentrations were found to increase linearly with increasing terrestrial litterfall during the dry season (r2 = 0·92, p < 0·001), indicating that in‐stream processing of allochthonous litterfall is an important source of DOC during the dry season. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


The present study aimed to examine the mediating influence of prosocial behavior between gratitude and mental health among adults. Sample size was justified from A-priori sample size calculator for structural equation modeling (Soper, 2021). The sample comprised of 420 adults who were purposefully selected with an age range of 18-26 years. Data were collected from major cities of Punjab (Lahore, Multan and Faisalabad) through online google form survey. Three questionnaires were employed; The Gratitude Questionnaire-GQ-6 (McCullough, 2013), depression and anxiety subscales from Mental Health Inventory-MHI-18 (Veit & Ware, 1983) and Prosocial Tendencies Measures-PTM (Carlo & Randal, 2002). After collecting the data for desired sample size, results were analyzed through SPSS (24.0), which revealed that there was a significant correlation between gratitude, prosocial behavior, and mental health among adults. Moreover, the results also found that there is a significant impact of gratitude on mental health through mediation of prosocial behavior among adults. This study will be helpful for adults, students, and consultants to recognize the precipitating and perpetuating factors to improve their mental health.


Nowadays, the problem of aging and its complications is very important, because for many years this group of people experiences a significant increase. The major problems of this cortex are psychological and depression from loneliness and lack of good leisure has caused many psychological problems in the elderly. Therefore, the aim of this review study is to investigate the issue of leisure time in the elderly and its impact on depression. In this overview, articles published in domestic and foreign journals in the Google Scholar, ProQuest, Elsevier, Pubmed, ISI (Web of Science), Iran Medex, Scopus, Shahbalaghi databases, years 1990 to 2018. Searching for articles was mainly done using the keywords of the elderly and the aging, leisure, depression and the equivalent of their English, Elderly and aging, Leisure, Depression. At the end of the search, 100 articles were obtained and finally 9 articles were included in the review. The stroke criterion was used to evaluate the quality of the articles. In this review study, 9 articles were investigated. In these articles, at first leisure time and its activities were examined and a complete definition of this variable was introduced. Then, considering the factors influencing the creation of better conditions for leisure time, its impact on depression in the elderly was discussed and the experiences of the elderly in this period were expressed to relieve depression. The results showed that the first issue faced by the elderly is the issue of passing old age. Because they have a lot of empty time ahead. So the theme of leisure is very important to them. Various methods have been developed to cover this period, according to the results of this study, the selection of new social responsibilities, the sharing of their experiences with others, narrative therapy, physical activity and regular exercise, the use of capabilities, the creation of activity New ones are the ones that fill the vacuum caused by leisure and reduce psychological problems and depression in this valuable community.


It is generally recognized that there are significant differences in the geometry of folded chain molecules from sector to sector in diamond shaped polyethylene single crystals. Single crystals of this type were deformed on a Mylar substrate in order to determine the effect of changes in fold geometry on the operative deformation processes. A marked dependence of the operation of stress induced slip, twinning and martensitic transformation with fold geometry was observed. The differences in the deformation behaviour of adjacent fold sectors could be explained simply in terms of the orientation of the molecular folds with respect to the tensile axis.


Social media platforms have been witnessing a significant increase in posts written in the Tunisian dialect since the uprising in Tunisia at the end of 2010. Most of the posted tweets or comments reflect the impressions of the Tunisian public towards social, economical and political major events. These opinions have been tracked, analyzed and evaluated through sentiment analysis systems. In the current study, we investigate the impact of several preprocessing techniques on sentiment analysis using two sentiment classification models: Supervised and lexicon-based. These models were trained on three Tunisian datasets of different sizes and multiple domains. Our results emphasize the positive impact of preprocessing phase on the evaluation measures of both sentiment classifiers as the baseline was significantly outperformed when stemming, emoji recognition and negation detection tasks were applied. Moreover, integrating named entities with these tasks enhanced the lexicon-based classification performance in all datasets and that of the supervised model in medium and small sized datasets.


Radio frequency identification (RFID) systems are emerging as the primary object identification mechanism, especially in supply chain management. However, RFID naturally generates a large amount of duplicate readings. Removing these duplicates from the RFID data stream is paramount as it does not contribute new information to the system and wastes system resources. Existing approaches to deal with this problem cannot fulfill the real time demands to process the massive RFID data stream. We propose a data filtering approach that efficiently detects and removes duplicate readings from RFID data streams. Experimental results show that the proposed approach offers a significant improvement as compared to the existing approaches.


PtNi alloy catalysts have excellent catalytic activity and are considered some of the most promising electrocatalysts capable of replacing pure Pt for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). For PtNi alloys, Ni-doping can improve performance by changing the electronic and structural properties of the catalyst surface and its interaction with reaction intermediates. However, to date there is no direct spectral evidence detecting or identifying the effect of Ni on the ORR in PtNi alloy catalysts. Herein, we introduce a surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopic (SERS) "borrowing" strategy for investigating ORR processes catalyzed by Au@PtNi nanoparticles (NPs). The bond vibration of adsorbed peroxide intermediate species (*OOH) was obtained, and the effect of Ni on the interaction between surface Pt and *OOH was studied by varying the Ni content in the alloy. The frequency of the *OOH spectral band has an obvious red-shift with increasing Ni content. Combined with density functional theory (DFT) calculations, we show that Ni-doping can optimize *OOH surface binding on the Pt surface, achieving more efficient electron transfer, thus improving the ORR rate. Notably, these results evidence the SERS borrowing strategy as an effective technique for in situ observations of catalytic processes.


Chemical reduction of ferric acetylacetonate (Fe(acac)3) and platinum acetylacetonate (Pt(acac)2) using polyol as a reducing agent as well as an effective surfactant, has successfully yielded monodisperse FePt nanoparticles with a size of approximately 2 nm. When annealed samples were compared to FePt nanoparticles synthesized using oleic acid and oleylamine as the surfactants under identical conditions, nearly 30% increase in coercivity (Hc) was achieved with the new, simple and economic method.


Roadway traffic safety is a major concern for transportation governing agencies as well as ordinary citizens. Data Mining is taking out of hidden patterns from huge database. It is commonly used in a marketing, surveillance, fraud detection and scientific discovery. In data mining, machine learning is mainly focused as research which is automatically learnt to recognize complex patterns and make intelligent decisions based on data. Globalization has affected many countries. There has been a drastic increase in the economic activities and consumption level, leading to expansion of travel and transportation. The increase in the vehicles, traffic lead to road accidents. Considering the importance of the road safety, government is trying to identify the causes of road accidents to reduce the accidents level. The exponential increase in the accidents data is making it difficult to analyse the constraints causing the road accidents. The paper describes how to mine frequent patterns causing road accidents from collected data set. We find associations among road accidents and predict the type of accidents for existing as well as for new roads. We make use of association and classification rules to discover the patterns between road accidents and as well as predict road accidents for new roads.


This paper presents the development of the 2014 Cambridge University conversational telephone Mandarin Chinese LVCSR system for the DARPA BOLT speech translation evaluation. A range of advanced modelling techniques were employed to both improve the recognition performance and provide a suitable integration with the translation system. These include an improved system combination technique using frame level acoustic model combination via joint decoding. Sequence trained deep neural network (DNN) based hybrid and tandem systems were combined on-the-fly to produce a consistent decoding output during search. A multi-level paraphrastic recurrent neural network LM (RNNLM) modelling both alternative paraphrase expressions and character sequences while preserving a consistent character to word segmentation was also used. This system gave an overall character error rate (CER) of 29.1% on the BOLT dev14 development set.


Chromosomal abnormalities are found in a considerably high percentage of cases of male infertility, in particular azoospermia. We report a case of the XYY syndrome and review the literature. A 36-year-old man, a factory hand, presented with infertility. He was safely delivered at term as a fourth child when his father was 41 years old and his mother 38. He had no delinquent or criminal record. His height was 179 cm, weight 75 kg and distance of extended hands 184 cm. No gynecomastia was noticed. Both testes were 8ml in size and growth of pubic hair and penis were normal. Severe oligozoospermia was identified in semen analysis. Seminal vesiculography showed pathological dilatation of the seminal vas end. The testicular biopsy specimens revealed spermatogenic arrest for the most part. Chromosomal analysis showed 47, XYY karyotype; and, two Y-chromatin was revealed in cultured lymphocytes. Though plasma gonadotropin levels were high, testosterone, estradiol, prolactin, TSH, GH, T3 and T4 levels were within normal limits. Pituitary reserve function for secreting gonadotropins and Leydig cell reserve function to secrete testosterone have been found to be almost normal.


This enthralling and provocative book provides a new grounding for the understanding of sexual rights. It argues that all varieties of sexuality under capitalism are materially constructed out of the complex interrelationship between the market and the state. The examples of different sexual rights and lack of rights that it examines include the experience of male homosexuals, bisexuals, transvestites, transsexualists and children. Meticulous, focused and challenging, it will be required reading for anyone interested in modern human sexualities.


: It is, by now, well known that McIntyre's localized carrier-multiplication theory cannot explain the suppression of excess noise factor observed in avalanche photodiodes (APDs) that make use of thin multiplication regions. We demonstrate that a carrier multiplication model that incorporates the effects of dead space, as developed earlier by Hayat et al. provides excellent agreement with the impact-ionization and noise characteristics of thin InP, In/sub 0.52/Al/sub 0.48/As, GaAs, and Al/sub 0.2/Ga/sub 0.8/As APDs, with multiplication regions of different widths. We outline a general technique that facilitates the calculation of ionization coefficients for carriers that have traveled a distance exceeding the dead space (enabled carriers), directly from experimental excess-noise-factor data. These coefficients depend on the electric field in exponential fashion and are independent of multiplication width, as expected on physical grounds. The procedure for obtaining the ionization coefficients is used in conjunction with the dead-space-multiplication theory (DSMT) to predict excess noise factor versus mean-gain curves that are in excellent accord with experimental data for thin III-V APDs, for all multiplication-region widths.


The paper presents the results of the modeling and measurement study of the differential pressure transducer MP45 series made by the Validyne/sup TM/ Corp. This research is necessary during the construction of the device for identification of the human airducts model using the time method. The transducer parameters in the manufacturer's model are significantly different from the parameters calculated after the measurement study. This paper presents verification of models and frequency range of transducer. A new, more accurate model is proposed. The results obtained show that it is necessary to make a correction of the dynamic properties of this pressure sensor. The effects of this correction using first- and second-order correctors are presented and analyzed.


This essay reads Dickinson's six 1862 poems about autumn through the dual lenses of Keats's ode "To Autumn" and the Civil War, particularly the representations of Civil War battlefields she would have encountered in newspapers and other periodicals. Kohler argues that these six poems resound with ironic, often satirical echoes of both Keats's ode and war reportage, rearticulating "'Autumn'" in ways that draw attention to its rhetorical constructedness and revealing a fundamental concern with the ways language conditions how we think about seasonality, death, and national landscapes. Moreover, whereas Keats removes disease and distress from his imagery in order to present a decidedly temperate English autumn, Dickinson's poems reverse this impulse, aggressively reintroducing pathology to an autumnal discourse that has been de-pathologized. The essay concludes with an extended analysis of "The name - of it - is 'Autumn'" (Fr465), a poem which strangely heightens its own rhetorical shifts amidst its account of a dying, bloody landscape; the poem's bathos parodies not only Keats's surreptitious shifts but also the abrupt shifts in autumnal rhetoric in New England periodicals during the War.


The aim of this study was to evaluate the incremental improvement in mouth opening following coronoidectomy. Twenty-three patients with unilateral temporomandibular joint (TMJ) ankylosis (Sawhney types I-III) were assessed preoperatively; physical and radiological examinations were done (panoramic radiography and computed tomography). Data including demographic and clinical parameters were recorded. Patients with bilateral ankylosis, recurrent cases, and those with Sawhney type IV TMJ ankylosis were not included. The improvement in mouth opening was measured after ostectomy, after ipsilateral coronoidectomy, and after contralateral coronoidectomy. The improvements in mouth opening at each stage were analysed using the Student's t-test and Pearson's correlation coefficient. There was a marked improvement in maximal incisal opening (MIO) from 5.7 4.2 mm to 23.7 5.9 mm after removal of the ankylotic bony mass. MIO was significantly increased after ipsilateral coronoidectomy (31.6 7.4 mm), and after contralateral coronoidectomy, a mean MIO of 39.4 11.2 mm was achieved. At more than 1 year of follow-up, all patients showed improved mouth opening. In conclusion, coronoidectomy plays an important role in improving mouth opening in the treatment of TMJ ankylosis.


Pregnancy with pulmonary hypertension (PH) seriously threatens the life and safety of mothers and infants. Here, the long-term effect of maternal PH on the postpartum growth of rat offspring was focused for the first time, as well as explored the role of Myadm in PH rats before pregnancy based upon the previous findings. Patients with PH are prone to hypoxemia, leading to insufficient placental structure and function, which affects the organ function of fetuses, followed by evidence that differently expressed genes (DEGs) existed in the heart of maternal PH newborn rats and enriched in pathways related to cardiac and nerve development on human infants with similar birth outcome: low birth weight (LBW). LBW was one of the possible birth outcomes of pregnancy with PH, especially severe PH, accompanied by evidence that offspring derived from mothers with PH presented lower birth weights and slower growth rates than those derived from normal control mothers in a rat model. Besides, maternal PH rat offspring showed cardiac remodeling and a significant elevation of the expression levels of hypoxia- and inflammation-related markers in the cerebral cortex at both 10 and 14 weeks of age, respectively. What is more, the previous studies found that the overexpression of Myadm could result in the remodeling of the pulmonary artery. And targeting Myadm to intervene PH before pregnancy could alleviate sustained low weight growth in maternal PH rat offspring, and the pathological changes of the cardiac–cerebral system caused by maternal PH, including enlarged right heart cavity, loss of cardiomyocytes, abnormal heart index, as well as cerebral cortex hypoxia and the inflammatory state as they grew up to a certain extent. The findings show the pathological significance of maternal PH on offspring growth and the cardiac–cerebral development in a rat model, as well as point out the potential treatment target, which may provide a further reference for pregnancy outcomes in women with PH and healthy development of offspring to some extent.


An investigation method is described by which microcalorimetry and continuous density measurement are used to show the antibacterial efficiency of chemotherapeutics. Oleandomycin, erythromycin, both macrolide antibiotics, and doxycycline, a tetracycline, blockers of the protein synthesis, have the same effect on the microcalorimetric curve of a staphylococcus strain. Among the aminoglycosides tobramycin and gentamicin influenced the microcalorimetric activity of a growing E. coli strain in the same way, spectinomycin produced different curves. Penicillins interfere with the synthesis of the cell membrane by blocking the enzyme transpeptidase. Epicillin, penicillin, ampicillin, oxacillin, carbenicillin, and azlocillin influence the microcalorimetric activity of staphylococci in a typical way which is different from that of the blockers of the protein synthesis.


Optimization of up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor operation for treatment of a composite fermentation and distillation wastewater was achieved using a locally available thickened municipal sludge instead of imported commercial anaerobic granulated sludge. Over the first 12 days, a fed batch start-up operation was maintained and anaerobic stable sludge granules with 11.2% of extra cellular polymers (ECP) were successfully developed and further used for long-term continuous operation. Two types of granules were developed within the reactor but with very different characteristics. Granules grown in the bottom part of UASB reactor were more compact and tense than those that occurred in the upper part. The latter were fragile, irregular in shape and with much lower methanogenic activities. Bottom granules were dominated by both Methanosarcina spp. and Methanosaeta spp. whereas upper granules harbored only Methanosarcina spp. During continuous anaerobic treatment of composite fermentation and distillation wastewater with organic load of 24 g.l -1 of chemical oxygen demand (COD), a removal efficiency of up to 84% was achieved. Moreover, biogas was produced with a production rate of o.52 m 3 /Kg COD removed. Keywords: Composite wastewater, up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB), anaerobic biological treatment, biogas, granulated anaerobic sludge, industrial wastewater. African Journal of Biotechnology , Vol. 13(10), pp. 1136-1142, 5 March, 2014


Background: Patients undergoing treatment for advanced cancer often experience multiple symptoms. These symptoms occur with varying frequency, intensity, and impact. Pain, fatigue, insomnia, anorexia and dyspnea are consistently among the 10 most prevalent symptoms associated with cancer and its treatment. We conducted a multivariate analysis to investigate the impact of cancer symptoms on patient quality of life (QoL) in breast cancer.Material and Methods: A consecutive series of 226 breast cancer patients treated at the Cancer Treatment Centers of America at Southwestern Regional Medical Center between Jan 2001 and Nov 2006. Cancer symptoms were assessed using the symptom subscales of European Organization for Research Treatment of Cancer - Quality of Life Questionnaire (QLQ-C30). Symptom scores range from 0-100 with lower scores indicating better while higher scores indicating worse symptoms. QoL was assessed using Ferrans and Powers Quality of Life Index (QLI). QLI measures overall QoL and QoL in 4 major subscales: health/physical, social/economic, psychological/spiritual, and family. QLI scores range from 0-30 with higher scores indicating better QoL. The relationship between QLQ-C30 symptoms and QLI was evaluated using multivariate linear regression.Results: Of 226 patients, 98 were newly diagnosed while 128 had failed prior treatment before coming to our hospital. The mean age was 52.5 years (range = 27-82 years). We found that every 10 unit increase in fatigue (p=.004) and pain (p=.001) was significantly associated with 0.65 and 0.66 unit decline in QLI health/physical subscale after controlling for age, treatment history, stage at diagnosis and other cancer symptoms. Similarly, every 10 unit increase in insomnia (p=.02) was significantly associated with 0.35 unit decline in QLI family subscale. Finally, every 10 unit increase in pain (p=.01) and insomnia (p=.03) was significantly associated with 0.34 and 0.21 unit decline in overall QoL.Discussion: We found fatigue, pain and insomnia to be independent predictors of QoL after controlling for each other, age, treatment history and stage at diagnosis. Recognition and timely treatment of symptom clusters could result in improved QoL in patients with breast cancer. Citation Information: Cancer Res 2009;69(24 Suppl):Abstract nr 5043.


This paper introduces an integrated data collecting system based on DSP, which can be used to measure voltage, current, power factor, power, temperature, torque and rotate rate of electrical machines. The paper also deals with principles of measuring system as well as design of hardware and software circuit. The system can be adopted to measure electrical machine parameter quickly and accurately as well as analyse measuring data, so it can be used in electrical machine control and intelligent protection.


The sacrum offers several possibilities for fixation that, when combined, appear to provide a secure foundation for a dorsally-placed, transsacrally-fixed implant. The dorsal sacral landmarks, particularly the first and second dorsal foramina, are readily identifiable and relate in a consistent manner both qualitatively and quantitatively to the major mass of sacral bone, which is located ventrally to the vital structures of the sacrum. The authors have utilized these findings in the design of a new implant for direct sacral fixation.


The left–right scale is widely used to measure ideological orientation. Relying on Freeden's approach to political ideology as a 'conceptual morphology', we argue that the meaning of 'left' and 'right' may change, but these changes are more likely for peripheral than core concepts. To test this argument, we analyze open-ended questions on the meaning of 'left' and 'right' included in two waves of surveys of German parliamentary candidates collected before and after the 2015 European migration crisis. The empirical results based on Structural Topic Models show that the candidates' party affiliation colours the connotations of political concepts. In particular, we find that the core concepts ascribed to the meaning of left and right remained stable, while changes occurred with one peripheral concept in particular, namely, 'Racism', which is most often ascribed to the term 'right'. We conclude that morphological analysis can help better understand the concurrency of change and stability in ideological orientations and provides a fruitful linkage between electoral research and political theory.


Background: Undernutrition has a direct correlation with the prevailing feeding practices. Early years are crucial in determining the rate and extent of growth and mainly depend on the level of nutrition and care provided. The first episode of growth faltering occurs mostly in children <2 years of age that often goes unnoticed. Objective: The objective of this study was to explore the faulty feeding practices, their determinants, and association with nutritional status in children <2 years of age. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study using mixed (qualitative and quantitative) methods was conducted in a sample of 187 mothers and their children at the mother and child health (MCH) clinic of a rural medical college. Results: Only 144 (77%) of the study children had received colostrum. 47 (25.1%) of the mothers had used prelacteal feeds. Although breastfeeding (BF) was universal, only 133 (71.1%) of the mothers were exclusively breastfeeding (EBF) their children. The duration of each feed was an issue; in 49 (32.4%) of the children, the duration of each feed was <10 min with almost all the mothers swapping the baby to other breast during one episode of feeding. Not giving colostrum, not giving EBF, duration of feeds <10 min, swapping the breasts during each feed, and decreased frequency of feeding during illness were found to be significantly associated with poor nutritional status. Conclusion: In our study, we found out that although practice of BF was universal, there is definite scope for further improving the practices. A definite gap between knowledge and practice was observed, which was associated with adverse nutritional outcomes.


Summary The deepwater biogenic gas discoveries in the Eastern Mediterranean have unique characteristics, especially due to the Messinian Salinity Crisis (MSC) between 5.96 and 5.33 Ma during which most of the Mediterranean and connected basins lost all or most of their water coverage. This resulted in geologically rapid changes in depositional environments and in the surface and subsurface conditions. The role of the MSC in the formation and preservation of hydrocarbon accumulations in the area is an ongoing discussion. What are the relationships, if any, to the MSC? Are there features that are unique and limited to areas affected by the MSC? How does the event control the risks associated with the generation, migration, accumulation, preservation and loss of the hydrocarbons? What do we know about the charging conditions and mechanisms? Are there controlling processes that occur on very short geological time scales? We use analogues and petroleum systems modeling to investigate hypotheses related to the generation, migration and entrapment of biogenic gas fields in connection with the MSC. A conceptual 2D petroleum systems model of the Zohr discovery is constructed based on publicly available data, and used to constrain our understanding of the properties and processes in the petroleum systems.


This study is designed to gather information on historical exploitation and ongoing HCC; recent distribution and ecology of crocodile and genetic relationship of crocodile population in Sarawak, to aid sustainable crocodile management and finding solutions for mitigating the HCC. Historical data saw a connection between the exploitation of crocodile with decreasing trend of HCC in Sarawak from the Rajah Brooke era (1900 – 1941) until the post-war period (1946 – 1979), and an increasing trend of HCC from 1980 until 2017 in response to the recovery of the animal populations. Since 1900, crocodile attacks had been occurred in 22 major river basins (RB) in Sarawak, suggesting that the reptile has been widely dispersed throughout all major river basins in the state. For 118 years (1900 – 2017), the highest number of crocodile attacks were recorded in Lupar RB (22.2%) and the attacks had happened up to the inland areas of Belaga and Pelagus in Rajang RB. Further analysis of incidents show crocodile attacks were associated with the human activities pattern, where more attacks involved male victims (84.4%) and adults from age 31 to 40 years old (19.3%). The data also revealed that crocodile attacks in Sarawak could happen anytime regardless of the time, month, season, lunar cycle or tidal. However, more attacks were recorded during the daylight, in the months of March and April, during the Northeast monsoon, at the nights of the first quarter of the lunar cycle and at the time of high tide. Furthermore, fishing (25.2%) and bathing (24.4%) possess the highest risk of crocodile attack in Sarawak, clearly showed that crocodiles are more likely to attack when the victim is in water. Crocodile survey in selected tributaries in Rajang RB showed the distribution of the reptiles throughout the river basin with higher crocodile density at the lower region, the highest density was in Igan River (1.37 individuals/km); while in the middle and upper regions had recorded relatively low density with the lowest density recorded was in Katibas River (0.06 individuals/km) and no crocodile was spotted in Kanowit River. Four out of eight surveyed rivers in Rajang RB recorded increase in the density of crocodile compare to previous survey suggesting that the crocodile population in the river basin is experiencing recovery. The presence of crocodile in different regions (lower, middle and upper) of Rajang RB indicated that C. porosus in Sarawak live in wide range of habitats; from large salt water river system and small tidal tributaries (near to estuary) in lower region into hypo-saline or fresh water non-tidal tributaries in the middle and upper regions. Variation in term of density and distribution of crocodile between the different regions are mainly influenced by the saline characteristic of the river, habitats and the abundance of food sources for crocodile. Based on the analysis of DNA microsatellite sequence data, distinctive subpopulations of C. porosus according to geographical area (river basin) could be observed. High gene flow (Nm) among the crocodile subpopulations suggests frequent movements of the reptile happen across the river basins throughout Sarawak. In general, populations of C. porosus in Sarawak are experiencing expansion as supported by the mismatch distribution and evolutionary neutrality test data, suggesting that populations of crocodile in Sarawak are panmictic population. The findings of the present study imply that increasing of crocodile attacks is associated with the recovery and increased distribution of the reptile in Sarawak, thus crocodile management should emphasis on mitigating HCC and simultaneously continue the efforts for conservation of crocodile and its habitat.

Keywords: Crocodylus porosus, human-crocodile conflict, recovery, expansion.