Reactivity of 3-acetyl-4-methylthioquinolin-2(1H)-one (1) towards 1,2and/or 1,4-diazanucleophiles has been studied under different reaction conditions. Condensation of key compound 1 with hydrazine, phenylhydrazine, hydroxylamine hydrochloride, semicarbazide and thiosemicarbazide was carried out in different media. It was found that the nature of products is extremely dependent on both reactivity of the reagent and the ambient conditions. Accordingly, the reaction regioselectivety led to different [1,2]diazolo and or [1,2,4]triazepino[b or c]quinoline derivatives in addition to open chain condensates which were transformed to either annellated heterocyclo[b or c] quinolines, in good yields. The structure of new products was established on basis of their analytical and spectral data.


OBJECTIVES
To define the epidemiologic features of persistent acute otitis media (PAOM) and modifications of these features during the past 15 years and to investigate for possible differences in bacterial resistance between acute otitis media (AOM) and PAOM.

DESIGN
Retrospective patient series.

SETTING
Academic tertiary care center.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Persistent acute otitis media was defined as AOM lasting longer than 3 weeks despite 1 or several courses of antibiotic therapy, with the persistence of clinical and otoscopic signs of AOM. From 1982 to 1997, 475 children with PAOM were seen in our department. Every patient had 1 or several specimens of aspirations or swabs of spontaneous otorrhea (or both). Microbiologic characteristics of the isolated strains (including antibiotic susceptibility) were analyzed. Four successive series of specimens were analyzed-group 1: from October 1, 1982, to June 30, 1986 (136 patients); group 2: from January 1, 1987, to December 31, 1989 (165 patients); group 3: from January 1, 1992, to April 30, 1993 (73 patients); and group 4: from January 1, 1994, to January 31, 1997 (101 patients). During the same study periods, the bacteriologic results of patients with AOM in the same geographic region were recorded.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
A longitudinal comparison between the groups of patients with PAOM and a cross-comparison within each group between patients with PAOM and those with AOM.

RESULTS
Obtaining repeated and multiple specimens from patients with PAOM led to a progressive decrease in the rate of sterile specimens, from 35.3% (group 1, 48 patients) to 14.9% (group 4, 15 patients) (P<.01). During this period, the prevalence of Streptococcus pneumoniae increased in patients with positive culture results, from 18.2% (group 1, 16 of 88 patients) to 44.2% (group 4, 38 of 86 patients) (P<.001). These strains rapidly and dramatically became resistant to penicillin (amoxicillin) (0% through 1989, 76.2% [16 of 21 patients] in 1993, and 97.4% [37 of 38 patients] in 1996) (P = .01). The overall prevalence of Haemophilus influenzae remained stable (between 31.4% [27 of 86 patients] and 45.4% [40 of 88 patients]), but the proportion of beta-lactamase-producing strains increased from 30.0% (group 1, 12 patients) to 55.6% (group 4, 15 patients) (P=.04). The prevalences of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus did not vary significantly (from 23.1% [group 2, 30 patients] to 10.7% [group 3, 6 patients] and from 10.2% [group 1, 9 patients] to 4.6% [group 4, 4 patients], respectively). Comparing data from patients with PAOM with those with AOM revealed that the increased resistance of H influenzae and, in particular, of S pneumoniae was more rapid and more marked in patients with PAOM than in those with AOM (highest rate of resistance in AOM: 36.0% [271 of 753 specimens] and 50.6% [398 of 787 specimens] for H influenzae and S pneumoniae, respectively; P<.001 for S pneumoniae).

CONCLUSIONS
The increase in bacterial resistance frequently encountered during otitis media is even more marked in patients with PAOM. The identification of the organism is essential when the otitis does not resolve, especially in patients with PAOM. Obtaining repeated specimens helps to decrease the rate of sterile cultures.


In underwater sensor network, security becomes a primary concern in order to provide protected communication. In this paper, we present a novel network simulation component, wormhole attack, in NS2, for underwater sensor networks, after analyzing the current methods of simulating wormhole attack. The core idea of wormhole implementation is making a "tunnel" between two malicious nodes. If this "tunnel" is built on normal wireless or wired channel, there would be some unexpected channel loss. So in order to solve the problem, we selected the existing wired object Link, in the NS2 wired simulation package, to simulate the "tunnel" by copying the local packets and directly sending them to the wormhole object installed in a remote node. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the wormhole components in NS2 worked smoothly and comply with the actual.


Internal income distribution in university and college embody the market competition principle of "more pay for more work". Though this spirit inspire enthusiasm of university teacher, it makes the growing income gap between teachers more. The main reasons are the emphasis on salary, the evaluation guide for universities and the desire to quickly changing into a best university in the world. This paper suggests, colleges and universities in the reform of the income distribution should control income gap reasonably; reform of college teacher evaluation methods, using multiple mechanism of evaluation in order to accomplish the functions better; internal income distribution policy formulated in moderate to young people inclined, stimulate their enthusiasm and creativity. Keywords—Universities and Colleges, Internal income distribution, Teachers' Salary


In recent decades, in addition to the traditional grain storage in dry conditions, the technology of grain storage without access of air - in hermetic conditions has gained a widespread in polymeric grain bags (silobags). The aim of the research was to study the regularities of the physiological processes of respiration in maize grain when stored in hermetic conditions, which would determine the terms of safe storage of different humidity grain in polymeric grain bags and reduce the costs of its processing and storage. The object of research is the technology and processes of freshly harvested corn grainstorage. As the main subject of the study, a dent-type hybrid of corn DKS 3705 was used, which, according to its botanical and agronomic properties, was better for use on food and non-food needs and for export. On the basis of the conducted researches it was established that with an increase in initial moisture of grain from 14% to21% and subsequent storage in hermetic conditions at constant temperatures the natural losses of dry matter of grain increase in comparison with losses of dry matter of grain with standardhumidity (14%), in particular, at a temperature of 18 ºС by 112%, at a temperature of 11 ºС by 296% and at a temperature of 4 ºС by 123%. Thus, it is shown that the decrease of the temperature regimes of grain storage of maize with different initial humidity under hermetic conditions contributes to the reduction of the intensity of thenatural physiological processes in it and, consequently, the natural losses of its dry matter. It has been established that during storage of corn grain for three months and reduction of temperature storage conditions from 18 ºС to 11 ºС in samples of grain with an initial humidity of 14% decrease: the absorption rate of oxygen by 34%, carbondioxide emissions, loss of dry matter and the production of thermal energy by 66%. For a grain with an initial humidity of 21%, the reduction in intensity under the same conditions is: for absorption of oxygen 22%, the production of carbon dioxide 28%, losses of dry matter 37% and the production of thermal energy 23%. Reducing the storage temperatures of corn from 11 ° C to 4 ° C in samples of grain with an initial humidity of 14% reduces the intensity: absorption of oxygen by 79%, carbon dioxide generation by 60%, dry matter loss by 60%, and the generation ofthermal energy by 60%. For grain with an initial moisture content of 21% under the same conditions, the intensity decreases: oxygen absorption by 28%, carbon dioxide generation by 77%, dry matter loss by 77%, and heat generation by 77%. Established regularities of the physiological processes in corn grain with different initial humidity when stored in hermetic conditions at different temperatures, it is possible to predict the characteristics of gas exchange processes in the grain mass, natural losses of dry matter and the generation of heat during storage of grain.


Deteriorated cottonseeds containing large amounts of free fatty acids in the oil were reported in a previous work (Mayne, 1956) to contain or to carry on their surfaces large numbers of lipolytic microorganisms. It was noted also that certain kinds of lipolytic organisms were found in the samples of deteriorated seed (rarely on the samples of prime seed), while other lipolytic types were found in both kinds of seed. In an effort to find any differences in the activity of these types, a program involving quantitative measurements of lipolysis was carried out on cultures of 42 bacterial and 43 mold isolates from cottonseed. Two types of quantitative measurements of lipolysis have been reported in the literature: One involves the use of enzyme preparations (Ramakrishnan and Banerjee, 1952; Fodor and Chari, 1949; Fiore and Nord, 1949), and the other depends on measurements of the total titratable acidity developing in a culture of the microorganisms (Mukherjee, 1951; Goldman and Rayman, 1952). The latter workers developed a method for making a stable emulsion of minute oil globules of uniform size. This technique was an important contribution since the ease of lipolysis is influenced by the availabilitv (surface area) of the fat. It was thought that a more exact knowledge of fat decomposition would be gained by measuring only the acidity in the extracted fat, as distinguished from total titratable acidity, developing in a culture of the microorganisms in question. Such a test was developed for this study to reveal any differences among the various species of microorganisms in their use of fat and in the acidity of the fat extractable from the cultures. These differences might explain then the occurrence of some types of lipolytic organisms in seed with little free fatty acid.


Ginger was cultivated in under Bamboo (Dendrocalamus strictus) plantation and in open i.e. without tree, atresearch farm of Indira Gandhi Krishi Vishwavidyalaya, Raipur (C.G.) in 2018-19. The experiment was laidout in Factorial RBD with four replications in 24 plots of 6 x 3m size. The growth performance of gingershowed that maximum number of tillers was recorded in open (10.44) as compare to AFS (4.41) at 150 DAS.The maximum average crop height was recorded in AFS (62.47 cm) as compare to open (41.42 cm) at 180DAS. The maximum collar diameter was recorded in AFS (7.61 mm) at 90 DAS and open (6.59 mm) at 120DAS. The maximum number of leaves was recorded in open (127.28) at 180 DAS and AFS (50.11) at 150DAS. The maximum leaves length was recorded in AFS (21.19 cm) at 90 DAS and open (15.75 cm) at 150DAS. The maximum leaves width was recorded in AFS (2.15 cm) as compare to open (1.71 cm) at 60 DASwith statistically significant variation. The yield of fresh ginger was received 22.12 q ha-1 from open ascompare to agroforestry systems (18.46 q ha-1).


Stereo matching is one of the important basic tasks in the computer vision field. In recent years, stereo matching algorithms based on deep learning have achieved excellent performance and become the mainstream research direction. Existing algorithms generally use deep convolutional neural networks (DCNNs) to extract more abstract semantic information, but we believe that the detailed information of the spatial structure is more important for stereo matching tasks. Based on this point of view, this paper proposes a shallow feature extraction network with a large receptive field. The network consists of three parts: a primary feature extraction module, an atrous spatial pyramid pooling (ASPP) module and a feature fusion module. The primary feature extraction network contains only three convolution layers. This network utilizes the basic feature extraction ability of the shallow network to extract and retain the detailed information of the spatial structure. In this paper, the dilated convolution and atrous spatial pyramid pooling (ASPP) module are introduced to increase the size of receptive field. In addition, a feature fusion module is designed, which integrates the feature maps with multiscale receptive fields and mutually complements the feature information of different scales. We replaced the feature extraction part of the existing stereo matching algorithms with our shallow feature extraction network, and achieved state-of-the-art performance on the KITTI 2015 dataset. Compared with the reference network, the number of parameters is reduced by 42%, and the matching accuracy is improved by 1.9%.


The self-designed indoor simulated rainfall device was used to rain on five types of pavement structures with 4 types of rainfall intensity (2.5 mm/min, 3.4 mm/min, 4.6 mm/min, and 5.5 mm/min). The effect of rainfall intensity on the surface runoff, the relation between the subgrade soil moisture content changes, and the influence of initial soil water content on rain infiltration rate are studied. The test results show that the surface runoff coefficient of densely asphalted pavement is greater than 90% in drainage pavements and it has little influence on the reducing and hysteresis of the flood peak. The surface runoff coefficient of large-void asphalt pavement (permeable) is less than 40%. Although the large-void asphalt pavement (permeable) can reduce a small amount of surface runoff, it has no obvious effect on the reduction and hysteresis of the flood peak. In semipermeable pavement, with the increasing of the thickness of base (graded gravel), the surface runoff coefficient decreases at different rainfall intensities, parts of the surface runoff are reduced, and the arrival of flood peaks is delayed. In permeable roads, almost no surface runoff occurred. As time continued, the soil moisture content quickly reached a saturated state and presented a stable infiltration situation under the action of gravity and the gradient of soil water suction. As the initial moisture content increases, the initial infiltration rate decreases and the time to reach a stable infiltration rate becomes shorter. The drier the soil, the greater the initial infiltration rate and the higher the soil moisture content after infiltration stabilization. Permeable roads can greatly alleviate the pressure of urban drainage and reduce the risk of storms and floods.


Nutrition plays an important role in the development of a child, particularly in low‐ and middle‐income countries where malnutrition is often widespread. The relation between diet, hemoglobin, nutritional status, motor development, stimulation and mental development was examined in a cross‐sectional sample of 1,079 children 12–18 months of age living in rural Bihar, India. Path analysis revealed associations between (a) length‐for‐age z‐scores and motor development, standardized β (β) = .285, p < .001, and (b) motor and all mental development outcomes (language: β = .422; personal‐social: β = .490; memory: β = .139; and executive function: β = .072, all p < .001). Additionally, stimulation was significantly associated with language scores and hemoglobin concentration with memory. These findings inform interventions aimed at improving child development in Northern India.


Neuromorphic spiking information processing based on neuron-like excitable effect has achieved rapid development in recent years due to its advantages such as ultra-high operation speed, programming-free implementation and low power consumption. However, the current physical platforms lack building blocks like compilers, logic gates, and more importantly, data memory. These factors become the shackles to construct a full-physical layer neural network. In this paper, a neuromorphic regenerative memory scheme is proposed based on a time-delayed broadband nonlinear optoelectronic oscillator (OEO), which enables reshaping and regenerating on-off keying encoding sequences. Through biasing the dual-drive Mach-Zehnder electro-optic modulator in the OEO cavity near its minimum transmission point, the OEO can work in excitable regime, where localized states are maintained for robust nonlinear spiking response. Both simulation and experiment are carried out to demonstrate the proposed scheme, where the simulation results and the experimental results fit in with each other. The proposed OEO-based neuromorphic regenerative memory scheme exhibits long-term response ability for short-term excitation, which shows an enormous application potential for high-speed neuromorphic information buffering, optoelectronic interconnection and computing.


Graph evolution - evolving a graph or network to fit specific criteria - is a recent enterprise because of the difficulty of representing a graph in an easily evolvable form. Simple, obvious representations such as adjacency matrices can prove to be very hard to evolve and some easy-to-evolve representations place severe limits on the space of graphs that is explored. This study fills in a gap in the literature by presenting two scalable families of benchmark functions. These functions are tested on a number of representations. The first family of benchmark functions is matching the eccentricity sequences of graphs, the second is locating graphs that are relatively easy to color non-optimally. One hundred examples of the eccentricity sequence matching problem are tested. The examples have a difficulty, measured in time to solution, that varies through four orders of magnitude, demonstrating that this test problem exhibits scalability even within a particular size of problem. The ordering by problem hardness, for different representations, varies significantly from representation to representation. For the difficult coloring problem, a parameter study is presented demonstrating that the problem exhibits very different results for different algorithm parameters, demonstrating its effectiveness as a benchmark problem.


Creative computational systems have often been largescale endeavors, based on elaborate models of creativity and sometimes featuring an accumulation of heuristics and numerous subsystems. An argument is presented for facilitating the exploration of creativity through small-scale systems, which can be more transparent, reusable, focused, and easily generalized across domains and languages. These systems retain the ability, however, to model important aspects of aesthetic and creative processes. Examples of extremely simple story generators are presented along with their implications for larger-scale systems. A case study focuses on a system that implements the simplest possible model of ellipsis.


The Memi Baba Dervish Lodge was located in 22 km away from the east of Kozani, just between thevillages of Koseler (Thimaria) and Sofular (Kapnachori). The part of land in which the dervish lodgesituated is a part of Kozani according to the current administrative organization in Greece. Thanks tothe famous account by Evliya Celebi, we now know that it was one of the biggest dervish lodges inOttoman Europe with its public hall, tomb, dervish cells, a grand kitchen and a cellar. To learn moreabout the dervish lodge, we made a visit on June 2, 2018. Setting off with old maps, we found thepoint where the dervish lodge was situated, only to witness that there survived just the tomb, out ofall the grounds mentioned above. Following the exchange of population, the tomb was turned into achurch dedicated to Agios Georgios similar to many other Turkish buildings in the region. Thoughthe architectural features and outlook of the piece have been changed, the ceiling still retains its decoration.Despite the fact that the tomb is now used as a church, the Memi Baba Tomb is surely a signand representing piece of the Turkish presence in modern day Greece. The purpose of this paper is todiscuss the Tomb of Memi Baba, one of the Turkish buildings inside the Ottoman borders convertedinto a church in terms of its architectural structure.


OBJECTIVES
There is growing interest in the use of bilateral internal thoracic arteries (BITAs) for myocardial revascularization. This study sought to compare the balance between early benefits and long-term outcomes of skeletonized or non-skeletonized conduits and to determine whether differences in outcomes are affected by other patient risk factors.

METHODS
BITAs were used in 1504 cases with either SK or NSK conduits. Propensity matching was completed using 22 covariates identifying 441 pairs of patients. The primary outcomes are the sternal wound infection in the short term and the composite outcome of all-cause mortality, myocardial infarction, revascularization and congestive heart failure. Outcomes were assessed using paired analysis techniques and Cox proportional hazards regression models stratified using the matched pairs.

RESULTS
Incidences of in-hospital mortality and perioperative myocardial infarction were similar in both groups. There were fewer sternal wound infections in the SK group (5.4 vs 9.1%, P = 0.033). Homogeneity testing of the relative risk estimates confirmed that there was a protective effect of skeletonization in men that was not demonstrated in women (P = 0.020). SK had a protective effect in diabetics not seen in non-diabetics (P = 0.048). The composite outcome of all-cause mortality, myocardial infarction, revascularization and congestive heart failure at a median of 5.6 years was comparable in both groups (hazard ratio 0.81, 95% confidence interval 0.57-1.15).

CONCLUSION
Skeletonization results in better perioperative outcomes and comparable cardiac outcomes in patients undergoing BITA with the greatest benefit in men and patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.


Background : Large inter-individual variability has been reported for vancomycin pharmacokinetics in pediatric patients. On the other hand, the pharmacokinetic parameters of vancomycin should be known in order to individualize its dosage regimen. Therefore, this study was designed and conducted to assess the steady-state vancomycin serum concentration and pharmacokinetics in a population of Iranian pediatric patients. Methods : Vancomycin serum concentration at steady-state was determined in 62 children who were treated with vancomycin intermittent intravenous infusion. Also individual steady-steady pharmacokinetic parameters (total body clearance, apparent volume of distribution and elimination half-life) were determined in 30 patients who had both peak and trough vancomycin levels assuming one-compartment model. Calculated pharmacokinetic parameters were compared among patients with different underlying diseases and also with the results of similar studies that used one-compartment pharmacokinetic model for description of serum concentration of vancomycin at steady-state. Results : More than half of the measured vancomycin serum concentrations were outside the recommended therapeutic range. Median trough concentration was significantly lower in critically ill patients as compared to patients of other disease categories. Although critically care patients showed greater values of apparent volume of distribution and also vancomycin clearance, no statistically significant difference of the calculated pharmacokinetic parameters could be detected among different groups of patients. While calculated volume of distribution for patients of this study was greater than those of similar studies, this difference could not be considered statistically significant in the majority of disease categories Conclusion : It may be concluded that design of vancomycin dosage regimens according to the recommended and general guidelines in literature (e.g. based on patient creatinine clearance) could not result in the desired therapeutic serum concentrations in the study population.


1 Corresponding author: firstname.lastname@example.com; 608-781-6339; FAX 608-783-6066 2 Current address: 2206 River Rd., Maumee, OH 43537 ABSTRACT: Floodplain forests rival all other habitat types in bird density and diversity. However, major successional changes are predicted for floodplain forests along the Mississippi River in the coming decades; young forests may replace the existing mature silver maple (Acer saccharinum L.) forests in some areas. We wanted to assess how the breeding bird community might respond to these changes. We studied stands of young forests along the middle Mississippi River, comparing the breeding bird assemblages among three stages of forest succession: shrub/scrub, young cottonwood (Populus deltoides Marshall) and willow (Salix nigra Marshall) forests, and mature silver maple dominated forests. We recorded a total of 54 bird species; the most frequently observed species were the indigo bunting (Passerina cyanea), red-winged blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus), and yellow-billed cuckoo (Coccyzus americanus). Bird species richness differed among the habitat types, with mature forests supporting the largest number of species and the most species of management concern. The shrub/scrub and mature forest bird assemblages were distinct and shared few species, but the young forests had no identifiable bird species assemblage, sharing species found in both of the other habitat types. The bird assemblages we observed in young forests may become more prevalent as aging floodplain forests are replaced with younger stages of forest succession. Under this scenario, we would expect a temporary local decrease in bird species richness and habitat for species of management concern.


The application of permanent stents in the urinary tract followed their success in the vascular system. Permanent metal stents have been used in the treatment of urethral stenosis, bladder outlet obstruction secondary to benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), and detrusor-sphincter dyssynergia. In addition, stents are used in the ureter for ureteroileal strictures and malignant obstruction. Despite the favorable early results, concerns have been raised about their biocompatibility, hyperplastic tissue response, encrustation, and carcinogenicity. This paper reviews the long-term data on permanent stents, primarily the Urolume device, which has been studied extensively in multicenter trials in North America and was recently approved for use in the urethra and for the treatment of bladder outlet obstruction secondary to BPH.


OBJECTIVES
To investigate the profile of autoimmune markers and to evaluate the status of vitamin D in the autoimmune process in brucellosis.

STUDY DESIGN
Descriptive study.

PLACE AND DURATION OF STUDY
Department of Rheumatology and Microbiology-Basic Immunology, Balikesir Ataturk City Hospital, Turkey, between June 2017 and December 2020.

METHODOLOGY
Brucella seropositive patients (mean age 46.58 ± 15.43 years, 43.7% females) were investigated retrospectively in terms of clinical manifestations, rheumatoid factor (RF), anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide (anti-CCP), antinuclear antibody (ANA), and vitamin D (25OHD) levels. Patients were grouped as low Brucella (<1/160), high Brucella (≥1/160) titers, and the control group consisted of Brucella negative patients. Clinical manifestations, RF, anti-CCP, ANA, and 25 OHD levels were compared among the three groups. Correlation analysis was performed between autoimmune markers and 25OHD levels.

RESULTS
The most common symptom among all Brucella seropositive patients was polyarthralgia (57.7%). RF positivity was found higher in two patient-groups than the control group (p = 0.008). Anti-CCP positivity was found higher in patient-groups than the control group (p <0.001). ANA levels were similar among the three groups (p = 0.077). Median 25OHD levels were found significantly lower in patient-groups than the control group (p <0.001). No correlation was found among vitamin D, RF, anti-CCP, and ANA levels (p = 0.501, p = 0.613 and p = 0.616, respectively).

CONCLUSIONS
Increased rates of RF, anti-CCP; and decreased 25OHD levels in Brucella seropositive patients. It is important to consider brucellosis in the differential diagnosis of patients with rheumatologic manifestations in the presence of autoimmune markers.

KEY WORDS
Anti-nuclear anti-body, Anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide, Brucella, Rheumatoid factor, Vitamin D.


While some students need more writing instruction than others, The Politics of Remediation reveals how that need also pertains to the institutions themselves. Mary Soliday argues that universities may need remedial English to alleviate their own crises in admissions standards, enrollment, mission, and curriculum, and English departments may use remedial programs to mediate their crises in enrollment, electives, and relationships to the liberal arts and professional schools. Following a brief history of remedial English and the political uses of remediation at CCNY before, during, and after the open admissions policy, Soliday questions the ways in which students' need for remedial writing instruction has become widely associated with the need to acculturate minorities to the university. In disentangling identity politics from remediation, she challenges a powerful assumption of post-structuralist work: that a politics of language use is equivalent to the politics of access to institutions.


The purpose of this paper is to analyze the implication of wetland construction for the cost-effective design of a pesticide charge. A model is developed in order to show that, for a given target, the introduction of wetland construction can reduce overall abatement costs and can lower the input charge asked to the farmers. This result remains true as long as the cost of constructing a wetland is not too high. A numerical illustration is carried out in order to simulate pesticide regulations in a wine catchment in North-East of France.


To study the protective effect of Danqi Piantan capsule ( DPC) and its antelope horn substitution (DPCAS) on the cerebral ischemia, in order to preliminary study the possibility of replacing antelope horn with artificial bezoar. In this study, the left middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) was adopted. Totally 150 SD rats were randomly divided into 5 groups: the sham operation group, the model group, the Danqi Piantan capsule (DPC) group (0.246 g x kg(-1) x d(-1)), the Danqi Piantan capsule without antelope horn (DPCRA) group (0.246 g x kg(-1) x d(-1)), the Danqi Piantan capsule without antelope horn and with double artificial bezoar (DPCDB) group (0.246 g x kg(-1) x d(-1)). The MCAO model was prepared 1 h later after the administration on the 5th day. At 24 h after the operation, the inner canthus blood was collected to determine the serum superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity and the endothelin (ET) content. At 72 h after the operation, the cerebral infarct size and the cerebral index were determined by TTC-staining. The fluorescent quantitative PCR method was used to detect brain Bcl-2, Caspase-3, IL-1β, P-selectin, E-selectin, ICAM-1 mRNA expressions. The mmunohistochemical method was used to detect ICAM-1, IL-1β, TNF-α, IL-6 expressions in ischemic penumbra. According to the results, compared with the model group, DPCDB and DPC groups showed almost consistent results, indicating both of the two group can significantly improved cerebral infarction index and cerebral index (P < 0.05), increase the serum SOD activity (P < 0.05), decrease the serum ET level and Caspase-3 expression, IL-1β, P-selectin, E-selectin, ICAM-1 mRNA expressions in brain tissues (P < 0.05) and expressions of ICAM-1, IL-1,6, TNF-α, IL-6 positive cells in ischemic penumbra (P < 0.05) and increase the Bcl-2 expression (P < 0.05). The DPCRA group showed much lower impacts on indexes than DPCDB and DPC groups. This suggests that DPCDB and DPC reveal similar efficacies and antelope horn in Danqi Piantan capsule can be substitutes by artificial bezoar.


Background: The growth of fish farming in Brazil has been noticeable over the past few years, and the Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) is the most bred species in the country. Studies on the physiology of these animals are necessary so that the production continues to grow and to improve its rates. However, very discrepant data are still found in the area of blood biochemistry. The aim of this study was to evaluate the physiological variations in serum concentrations of proteins, metabolites, electrolytes and serum enzymes in Nile tilapias bred in net cages in Cachoeira Dourada, state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, during summer and winter. Materials, Methods & Results: During the year of 2016, samples from 100 Nile tilapias were collected during summer (January and February) and samples from 100 Nile tilapias were also collected during winter (July and August). Only one blood sample was collected by caudal venipuncture of each fish, just before the slaughter, always in the morning. The serum samples obtained were then analyzed for serum concentrations of proteins, metabolites, electrolytes, lipids and serum enzymes. Serum concentrations of total proteins, globulins, triglycerides, high density lipoprotein (HDL), alkaline phosphatase, sodium and chloride were significantly higher during winter in comparison to summer, while the serum concentration of uric acid was significantly lower during winter in comparison to summer. Discussion: Due to the lower temperature of water during winter, tilapias reduced food intake and became more susceptible to diseases, which led to an increase in circulating globulins. In that same season, there was an increase in serum concentrations of sodium and chloride as a result of adding sodium chloride to the water in order to stimulate mucus secretion on the fishes' skin and gills to prevent pathologies. Triglycerides, HDL, and uric acid are considered indicators of nutritional status of animals. The increase in serum concentrations of triglycerides and HDL indicates that tilapias are mobilizing energy reserves, however, when the increase in serum concentrations of uric acid is observed, it is fair to assume there has been an increase in food intake, raising protein catabolism. The increase of serum concentration in alkaline phosphatase is caused by the presence of multiple forms of enzymes that are induced by the action of endogenous corticosteroids, which are produced as a result of the stress suffered by tilapias during the fishing process and during winter, when the water temperature is lower than the ideal for this species. It can be concluded that the season has influence on some serum biochemical constituents of Nile tilapias bred in net cages, and that the predominant variations happen during winter due to immunity decline and during summer due to the increase in food intake and, consequently, in the metabolism of tilapias.


The final energy use can be divided mainly in four sectors: commercial, industrial, residential, and transportation. The trend in final energy consumption by sector plays as a most straightforward way to provide a wide indication of progress for reducing energy consumption and associated environmental impacts by different end use sectors.The average share of end use energy for residential sector in the world was nearly 20% until 2011, in Germany a higher proportion is between 25% and 30%. However, it remains less studied than energy use in other three sectors as well its impacts on climate and environment. The reason for this involves a wide range of fields, including the diversity of residential construction like different housing building design and materials living or energy using behavioral patterns, climatic condition and variation as well other social obstacles, market trend potential and financial support from government. This paper presents an extensive and in-depth analysis of the manner by which projects researched and operated by authors in the fields of energy efficiency primarily from the perspectives of both technical potential and initiative energy saving consciousness in the residential sectors especially in social housing buildings. Keywords—Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy, Retro commissioning, Social Housing, Sustainability.


This article scientifically describes the methods of developing the sociolinguistic competence of high school students by reading country study texts in English classes.For the formation of sociolinguistic competence, we consider it expedient to single out particular methodological (proper methodological) principles: These principles reflect the peculiarities of teaching a foreign language as an academic discipline. Considering the structure of sociolinguistic competence,  the methodology for the formation of sociolinguistic competence should contain knowledge of the main features of official, neutral and unofficial communication registers; etiquette formulas of address, greetings, exclamations, farewells, congratulations, expressions of polite requests,wishes, gratitude, regret; stable expressions, phraseological units, proverbs, sayings, tongue twisters; as well as general knowledge about science and art, history and religion, geographical location, culture of the speakers of the target language.


Site-specific management (SSM) of cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) fields under risk of southern root-knot nematode [M. incognita] (RKN) infection may offer producers better management of on-farm resources and optimization of profitability. However, it requires the study of RKN spatio-temporal variability and the identification of surrogate data spatially correlated with its occurrence. The objectives of this study were (i) determine the magnitude, extent, and changes through time on the spatial variability of RKN at the field scale, (ii) establish the relationship between RKN occurrence and the spatial variability of soil physical and chemical properties, and (iii) delineate areas at risk for RKN based on surrogate data. The spatial relations between soil physical properties (soil electrical conductivity - ECa, slope, and elevation) and soil chemical properties (P, K, Ca, Mg, and soil pH) on RKN population density were studied in two cotton fields planted in southern Georgia, USA, in 2006. The spatio-temporal variability of the RKN was studied through semivariograms. The spatial correlation between RKN and soil properties was studied through canonical correlation and cross-correlograms. Soil properties highly correlated with RKN population density were entered into an ordinary logistic regression model to create a map of probability risk for RKN population density over a specific threshold value. The aggregated pattern of the RKN facilitated the segregation of RKN risk areas based on low values of ECa.


Background. Endocardial laser revascularization (ELR) is a new technique to treat patients with severe coronary artery disease (CAD) in a percutaneous approach. The results show a significant improvement of symptoms, but the mechanism of action is still unknown. One main theory is the angiogenesis for which Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF) is the keypromotor. We investigated immunohistochemically the VEGF-expression after ELR in porcine hearts over a timeperiod of four weeks. Methods. ELR was performed with a single-pulse Thulium:YAG laser. 15 pigs were treated with ELR and the hearts were harvested at five timeperiods: directly (group I), 3 days (group II), 1 week (group III), 2 weeks (group IV) and 4 weeks (group V) after ELR. Each group consisted of three pigs. Immunohistochemically the VEGF-expression was assessed by staining with a polyclonal antibody against VEGF and cellcounting using an expression index (VEGF-EI) Results. A maximum of VEGF-expression was found three days (group II) after ELR with a VEGF-EI of 97%. At 1 week (group III) the VEGF-EI was similar high with 93%. Along the timecourse the index decreased to 22% at 4 weeks (groupV). Conclusions. Our findings show that ELR leads to an local upregulation of VEGF around the channels. The resulting angiogenesis could be the mechanism for the relief of angina.


Raman spectroscopy on the radial breathing mode is a common tool to determine the diameter d or chiral indices (n,m) of single-wall carbon nanotubes. In this work we present an alternative technique to determine d and (n,m) based on the high-energy G(-) mode. From resonant Raman scattering experiments on 14 highly purified single chirality (n,m) samples we obtain the diameter, chiral angle, and family dependence of the G(-) and G(+) peak position. Considering theoretical predictions we discuss the origin of these dependences with respect to rehybridization of the carbon orbitals, confinement, and electron-electron interactions. The relative Raman intensities of the two peaks have a systematic chiral angle dependence in agreement with theories considering the symmetry of nanotubes and the associated phonons.


The High-Flux Solar Furnace (HFSF) at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has a faceted primary concentrator and a long focal-length-to-diameter ratio (due to its off-axis design). Each primary facet can be aimed individually to produce different flux distributions at the target plane. Two different types of attenuators are used depending on the flux distribution. A sliding-plate attenuator is used primarily when the facets are aimed at the same target point. The alternate attenuator resembles a venetian blind. Both attenuators are located between the concentrator and the focal point. The venetian-blind attenuator is primarily used to control the levels of sunlight failing on a target when the primary concentrators are not focused to a single point. This paper will demonstrate the problem of using the sliding-plate attenuator with a faceted concentrator when the facets are not aimed at the same target point. We will show that although the alternate attenuator necessarily blocks a certain amount of incoming sunlight, even when fully open, it provides a more even attenuation of the flux for alternate aiming strategies.


The goal of the present study was to investigate the children's social representation about old people and aging. The social representation theory by Serge Moscovici was used as theoretical support. Drawing, semi-structured interviews and oriented children play were employed to investigate 31 children, 11 aged between eight and ten years old and 20 between five and six years old. The results indicated a diversified social representation about old people, in which themes like physical characteristics, grandparents, illness, death, physical disabilities, employment, activities and heterogeneity are present. The children regarded aging as the passage of time, a process to which everyone is subjected.


This paper proposes a novel low complexity nonlinear active noise control (ANC) system. The nonlinear controller is composed of an adaptive Legendre neural network (LeNN), updated using a filtered-l least mean square (FlLMS) algorithm. The computational complexity of the proposed scheme has been further reduced by incorporating the principle of partial update adaptive algorithms. Simulation study demonstrates comparable performance of the new ANC method with that of the conventional nonlinear ANC schemes, with reduced computational complexity.


A new vector phase-locked loop (PLL) for joint tracking of carrier phase from all satellites on multiple frequencies is presented. It increases the robustness to ionospheric scintillations, carrier phase multipath and interference from jammer. The tracking error is split into a position error, a clock offset, ionospheric, and tropospheric errors which are filtered individually. The filter coefficients are optimized with orthogonal projections of the tracking error that eliminate the nuisance parameters. The tracking performance is determined recursively, and a significant reduction of the tracking error is observed during strong ionospheric scintillations with deep amplitude fades.


Catheter ablation of an accessory atrioventricular pathway was attempted in six patients with recurrent tachyarrhythmias resistant to medication (four to five trials). Localization of the accessory pathway was performed by potential recordings with an electrode catheter from the region of the tricuspid and mitral valve rings during orthodromic supraventricular tachycardia (n = 4), during sinus rhythm (n = 1), and during ventricular pacing (n = 1). Using this mapping technique, the site of earliest atrial or ventricular activation through the accessory pathway was localized in the anterior septal (n = 2), right free wall (n = 2), posterior septal (n = 2), or left free wall (n = 1) region of the atrioventricular valve rings. The shortest ventriculo-atrial (VA) and atrio-ventricular (AV) intervals measured in the local electrograms ranged from VA = 45-70 ms, and AV = 45-65 ms, respectively. The accessory pathway responsible for the arrhythmia demonstrated exclusive retrograde (n = 4) or bidirectional (n = 2) conduction properties. A total of 13 direct-current transcatheter shocks (one to three per patient) of 20-200 J each were aimed at the site of the accessory pathway. Thereby, conduction through the accessory pathway was abolished (n = 5) or modified (n = 1) and the patients were freed from their syncope and disabling arrhythmias (follow-up: 4.6-5.9 years). The procedure was well tolerated without complications. Mapping-guided catheter ablation of accessory pathways is an effective treatment of refractory supraventricular tachyarrhythmias in selected patients.


Propranolol (β-blocker) was administered to five guinea pigs in doses of 6 mg/day for ten days; five uninjected animals were used as controls. The first or second tracheal ring was cut in round slices. The number of overall epithelial cells facing the airway and the epithelial cells with peroxidase were counted. The mean percentage of peroxidase-positive cells to total epithelial cells was 49% in the control and 11% in animals after the administration of propranolol. This result apparently meant that the peroxidase activity was decreased by the administration of propranolol. The relationship between allergic diseases and the synthesis of peroxidase is discussed.


To study a-Methylacyl coenzyme A racemase (AMACR) expression in gastric intestinal-type adenocarcinoma and its precursors, we performed an immunohistochemical assay (using an avidin-biotin-peroxidase complex method) on 106 paraffin-embedded gastric mucosal biopsy samples and 25 gastrectomy samples (37 negative for dysplasia; 30 indefinite for dysplasia; 22 low-grade dysplasia; 25 high-grade dysplasia; and 34 invasive intestinal adenocarcinoma). The results showed that AMACR staining was uniformly negative in the groups negative for dysplasia and indefinite for dysplasia. Only 1 of 22 (4.5%) low-grade dysplasia showed weak staining for AMACR. In the groups of high-grade dysplasia and invasive intestinal-type adenocarcinoma, however, 19 of 25 (76%) and 18 of 34 (52.9%) were positive for AMACR respectively. Expression of AMACR was not correlated with location, H. Pylori infection or intestinal metaplasia. These results suggested that AMACR may play a role in the intermediate stage of gastric carcinogenesis. The high level expression of AMACR in high-grade dysplasia and carcinoma suggests that it may be a useful biomarker in distinguishing high-grade dysplasia and carcinoma from low-grade dysplasia.


A "poverty belt" surrounding Beijing has formed, consisting of 2.7 million rural residents who live below the poverty line residing in nearly 4,000 villages of 32 Hebei counties adjacent to Beijing. This study examined disparities in dietary habits and anthropometric indicators between Chinese students living in Beijing metropolitan area and those in the rural "poverty belt" surrounding Beijing. Multivariate linear, negative binomial, and logistic regressions were conducted to estimate differences in dietary habits and anthropometric indicators between urban and rural students. Students (N = 646) from four primary and middle schools were surveyed, two located in Beijing metropolitan area and the other two within the rural "poverty belt" surrounding Beijing. Rural students on average consumed fruit and vegetables 1.93 times less than their urban counterparts in the past week; whereas they consumed sugar-sweetened beverages 1.30 times and junk foods 4.98 times more than their urban counterparts in the past week. The waist-to-hip ratio of rural students was on average 0.04 higher than that of their urban counterparts. In subgroup analysis by sex, no urban-rural differences in body mass index, overweight/obesity rate, waist circumference, waist-to-hip ratio, or body fat percentage were identified among boys; whereas the waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio of rural girls were on average 5 cm and 0.06 higher than urban girls, respectively. In conclusion, rural students had noticeably poorer dietary habits and worse weight-related health indicators than their urban counterparts. Improving diet quality among Chinese rural students is essential in reducing rural-urban health disparities.


The article is aimed at tracing the origin of Roman pendants (referred to as 'charms' in Baltic archaeology), dating them and, if possible, determining their semantic meaning. The analysis of these artefacts, found among the antiquities from the mouth of the Vistula River and south-eastern Baltic states, leads to the following conclu-sions. Hellenistic glass pendants in the form of amphorisks were supposedly the predecessors of charm pendants in question. In the early Roman time, German masters began to imitate them in the form of amber 8-shaped pen-dants. On the western edge of the Baltic world, these pendants appeared in phase C1b. In the Masurian Lake District, bronze charm pendants of the subtypes Mączyńska 530a, 530 spread somewhat earlier. They were a symbol of the divine power of Donar/Heracles, displaying his club. Pendants in the form of pinheads, occasionally found among the antiquities of the Aesti in the final phase of Roman time, are genetically ascending to these finds. Presumably, they can be associated with Scandinavian two-eyed hollow pendants, which were used to keep incense. In the Merovingian era, the tradition of using these types of pendants among the Prussians faded.


THE DEVELOPMENT OF A DIETITIAN SELECTION SCALE AND A COMPARISON OF THERAPEUTIC AND ADMINISTRATIVE DIETITIANS PATRICIA ANN MILLER HODGES, R.D., Ed.D. The College of William and Mary in Virginia, 1981 Chairman: Curtis H. O'Shell, Ed.D. The purposes of this research project were to develop a Dietitian Selection Scale (DSS) and to compare the personality profiles of female therapeutic and administrative dietitians. Both purposes were investigated using the California Psychological Inventory (CPI), and the second purpose, the comparison, was also, investigated using the Vocational Preference Inventory (VPI). Holland's (1973) theory of career selection served as the theoretical base for this study. Subjects for this study were 250 female registered dietitians. The control group consisted of 145 female registered dietitians attending a state meeting in Virginia, while 105 were respondents from a randomized mailing to female registered dietitians across the nation. The hypothesis that there would be a significant difference in the response pattern of female registered dietitians and women in general as measured by the empirically developed DSS was accepted. The hypothesis that female therapeutic dietitians would exhibit a significant difference in response pattern from female administrative dietitians as measured by a scale analysis of the VPI was rejected, but one scale on the CPI did differentiate the two groups significantly. The results indicated that female dietitians can be differen tiated from women in general by response pattern to specific items on the CPI and that therapeutic dietitians can be differentiated from administrative dietitians on the scale of Dominance on the CPI.


The habitats present in research sites across Amazonia have usually been characterized only very broadly, for example, as inundated or non‐inundated (terra firma) forests. However, within each of these categories there is considerable variation in soil properties and floristic composition. This variation is likely to determine habitat quality for animal populations through its effects on primary productivity and food availability, thereby affecting carrying capacity. Therefore, comparison of edaphic properties across sites could provide new insight into which factors affect animal foraging patterns, population densities, and home‐range sizes. We provide an example from Estación Biológica Quebrada Blanco in Peruvian Amazonia, where behavioral studies on primates (especially tamarins) have been conducted for more than three decades but little is known about the edaphic or floristic characteristics of the forest they occupy. We used indicator plant species to estimate and map soil base cation concentration and its variability at Estación Biológica Quebrada Blanco. We found that soils in the study area are relatively cation‐poor in a western Amazonian context, which probably translates into low primary productivity. Some differences in soils among the home‐ranges of three tamarin groups were also observed, illustrating the usefulness of the method for detailed habitat mapping.


Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste as well as the philosophy of art. With the collapse of Christian theology in 12th and 13th century Europe, the tendency of society at that time to Aristotelian rationalism amplified. In the meantime, a Christian Saint named Thomas Aquinas attempted to promote the teachings of Christianity with Aristotelian rationalism in order to prevent the decline of Christianity. The current research, which was carried out in a descriptive-analytical manner, seeks to investigate the connection between religion and Aristotelian philosophy from the perspective of Thomas Aquinas and its influence on Italian architecture. Studies have shown that Thomas Aquinas transformed and completed Aristotle's philosophical thoughts within the framework of Christian teachings, and finally, he reconciled the Christian faith with Aristotle's philosophy. Aquinas make an attempt to create a rational and tangible face for the socio-political events of that time which arose from the practice of the church and its politics. According to Aristotle's philosophy, there are two actual (divine) and potential intellects. Relying on this philosophy of Aristotle, Aquinas knew that Christian religious teachings emerge from the actual intellect, that is, God, from which human rationality is an inspiration. In fact, Thomas Aquinas believed in two knowledge systems: the divine system based on faith and the philosophical system based on human reason. The aesthetics of Italian architecture is divided into two categories: external (symbolic) and internal (identity). In the external domain, it is divided into factors such as light and color, and in the internal domain, it is distributed into factors such as religion and culture.


There was a need in the field of Spirit hermeneutics for a solid, biblically grounded, and centered contribution, and Craig Keener has filled this gap more than sufficiently. This review highlights the following elements within Spirit Hermeneutics as being particularly significant: first, the identification of the connection between the original shape of the biblical text and its contemporary implications; second, the argument that a Spirit-directed epistemology must underpin a Spirit hermeneutic; and third, the inclusion of confessional elements. This review questions whether the role of prophecy (especially in connection with the original context and contemporary implication) could have featured more prominently in the book.


On-chip routers are power hungry components. Besides exploiting current CMOS-based power-saving techniques, it is also desirable to investigate the power saving potential enabled by new technologies and devices. This paper investigates the potential of exploiting the emerging spin-electronics based MTJ (Magnetic Tunnel Junction) devices with application to on-chip router modules, in particular, buffers and crossbars. To this end, we build MTJ models, design circuits based on mixed MTJ-CMOS devices, and evaluate their switching power consumption, using their pure CMOS counterparts as the baseline. Our study shows that the new technology can significantly improve power efficiency for buffers but the gain for crossbars is less clear.


The aim of this research was to evaluate the effect of soil sprays of the entomopathogens Beauveria bassiana and Metarhizium anisopliae on coffee berry borer (cbb) adults, Hypothenemus hampei , emerging from fallen berries through time. Each fungus was applied to a plot 5000 m 2 in size of the Colombian variety in the third harvest year. The experimental plot was formed with 9 trees, and the experimental unit was the central tree. In this tree all the green uninfested berries were left and the whole tree covered with a screen cage to avoid further cbb infestation or escape. Nine treatments replicated ten times were arranged in a complete randomized design. Conidia of each fungus were suspended in emulsified oil and water and applied on the base of the trees at a dosage of 1 ́ 10 9 conidia/tree. Under each experimental tree 350 cbb-infested coffee berries were placed on the soil to serve as a source for aerial infestation of the trees. Infested berries were applied the same day of the spray and at 2, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 days after fungus application. Results showed that infection levels of both fungi on cbb were the highest during the first five days after application, reaching nearly 30% for B. bassiana and 11% for M. anisopliae . However, the infection decreased for 20 days but peaked again at 25 days post-treatment with 24.3% for B. bassiana and 7.7% for M. anisopliae. These results are explained by the formation of propagules in the soil by these fungi, due probably to the accumulation of infective conidia on infected insects which infect other insects leaving the fruits. The two species were recovered from the soil even after two months and fluctuation in numbers of colony forming units was attributed to the rainfall during the study period and the fungus conidiation. B. bassiana was shown to be more infective than M. anisopliae , considering that the latter is more frequently associated to soil habitats. The authors believe efficiency of these fungi can be increased if improvements are made to the formulations, e.g., using a granulated formulation to avoid leaching of the conidia from the soil during heavy rainy seasons. During this study it was found that H. hampei is a new host of Paecilomyces lilacinus .


The genus Eucalyptus belongs to the predominantly southern hemisphere family Myrtaceae. The family
comprises approximately 155 genera and over 3000 species. Approximately 75 of the genera occur in
Australia, predominantly in the wetter regions (Chippendale 1988). Traditionally the eucalypts have included
one large genus Eucalyptus and a smaller genus Angophora (Pryor and Johnson 1981; Chippendale 1988).
However, there is considerable debate concerning the taxonomic treatment of Eucalyptus and Angophora (see
Ladiges and Humphries 1983; Sale et al. 1993). Johnson and Briggs (1983) have partitioned the subfamily
Leptospermoideae into seven alliances, including the Eucalyptus alliance (Fig. 1.1) which is believed to be
monophyletic with the Eucalyptopsis alliance. The latter alliance includes the distinctive genus Arillastrum
(Johnson and Briggs 1983) which occurs in New Caledonia. The genus Eucalyptus contains over 500 species, most of which are endemic to Australia. Six Australian
eucalypt species extend to New Guinea with a seventh endemic there. Three species extend beyond the
Australian and New Guinean mainland (E. alba, E. urophylla and E. deglupta) to parts of Malesia and the
Phillipines. Its distribution appears to follow the full extent of the Australian tectonic plate during the late
Teriary (Barlow 1981; Fig. 1.1) but does not cross Huxley's Line (Eldridge et al. 1993). Barlow (1981)
considers that the genus is of ancient Australian origin, although it does not appear in the fossil record in
Australia until the Miocene (Holmes et al. 1982; Hill 1994). However, there are reports of fossils with
affinities to Eucalyptus from Miocene deposits in both South America (Frenguelli 1953) and New Zealand
(Pole 1989) and their is the possibility that major lineages had differentiated by the mid-Miocene (Holmes et al. 1982). If correct, these fossils indicate a wider past distribution and possibly a more ancient, Gondwanic
origin of the genus. Nevertheless, the dramatic increase in Eucalyptus pollen in Pleistocene and more recent
deposits (Singh et al. 1981) suggests that the genus has recently undertaken a rapid spatial, and possibly
major evolutionary radiation in the last 200,000 years as a response to increasing aridity, more seasonal
climates and an increase in the occurrence of fire in Australia. They currently dominate nearly all vegetation
types in Australia except rainforest and allied mesic types and only in the arid interior of Australia are
eucalypts generally lacking in dominance.


Studies on food insecurity in West Africa are still often based on deterministic or accounting presumptions whereby the role of actors, the logics of action and the perceptions, or even the sociohistorical contexts, appear to be minimised. In this text, we attempt, using the theoretical framework of the « grain-game », to trace the entire complexity in order to draw some lessons relevant to a policy for the reduction of food insecurity. The cooperation between actors hence appears as a mean for enabling a more efficient and equitable sociopolitical regulation of the food system.


Electrochemical investigation of catechol using square wave voltammetry with anthraquinone modified carbon paste electrode was found to be very sensitive. Compared with the unmodified carbon paste electrode, the anthraquinone modified electrode remarkably increases the peak currents of catechol, and greatly lowers the peak potential separation. Two varieties of tea, namely green, and black variety: Wush Wush tea, from Ethiopia, known by its brand name were investigated. Responses for the extracts using ethanol: water (1:4) % v/v showed green tea to be superior in catechol content. Optimization of different variables such as pH of working solution, modifier composition and square wave parameters such as frequency, amplitude and step potential were made to improve the method efficiency during the experiment. The reproducibility for the nine repeated analysis of 80 μmol·L-1 of catechol gave a relative standard deviation of 3.65% and linear calibration plots were obtained in the range 6 to 80 μmol·L-1 with (R = 0.998) and the detection limit with (S/N = 3) was as low as 2.155 x 10-7 mol·L-1.


Using panel data for twenty-seven post-communist economies between 1987-2003, we examine the nexus of relationships between inequality, fiscal capacity (defined as the ability to raise taxes efficiently) and the political regime. Investigating the impact of political reform we find that full political freedom is associated with lower levels of income inequality. Under more oligarchic (authoritarian) regimes, the level of inequality is conditioned by the state???s fiscal capacity. Specifically, oligarchic regimes with more developed fiscal systems are able to defend the prevailing vested interests at a lower cost in terms of social injustice. This empirical finding is consistent with the model developed by Acemoglu (2006). We also find that transition countries undertaking early macroeconomic stabilisation now enjoy lower levels of inequality; we confirm that education fosters equality and the suggestion of Commander et al (1999) that larger countries are prone to higher levels of inequality.


Misdiagnosed Periocular Pyoderma Gangrenosum Requiring Ectropion Repair With Development of Second Lesion of Pyoderma Gangrenosum at Graft Site Pyoderma gangrenosum (PG) is a rare ulcerating inflammatory skin disease diagnosed after exclusion of infection, neoplasia, thrombophilia, and other inflammatory conditions. The incidence is between 3 to 10 patients per million and affects slightly more women than men in the second through fifth decades of life.1 The pathogenesis of PG is multifactorial and involves neutrophilic dysfunction, inflammatory mediators, and a genetic predisposition. Considering the diagnosis of PG for nonhealing ulcers that show a predominance of neutrophils on pathologic analysis is important to prevent unnecessary morbidity.


Pulmonary benign metastasizing leiomyoma (BML) is a rare event characterized by benign soft-tissue tumors that occur when uterine leiomyomas metastasize to the lung. The present study reports the case of a 47-year-old female patient who presented with multiple bilateral pulmonary nodules on a chest X-ray during a health checkup nine years after a hysterectomy due to uterine fibroids. Chest computed tomography (CT) revealed multiple well-defined nodular shadows in the lung. One tumor of the left upper lung was resected by thoracoscopic surgery. Pathologically, the resected lesion consisted of benign spindle cells and was diagnosed as BML. The post-operative course was uneventful. Other lung nodules have been meticulously monitored at follow-up, and repeat CT two years later showed that these nodules had not increased at all in size and that no new lobe nodules had appeared. The present study indicates that pulmonary BML occurs in a low proportion of female with a history of uterine leiomyoma and treatment methods for it are diverse and controversial.


We studied factors associated with oral contraceptive (OC) use among 1,855 premenopausal women who were admitted to hospital with conditions unrelated to OC use. Among this group, 15 per cent reported having used OCs within the preceding year and 35 per cent reported having last used them more than a year previously. A higher estrogenic dose (more than 60 micrograms) was reported by past users; the relationship of numerous other variables to past and present OC use is reported.


Abstract. For the development of control algorithms that allows good flight performance and stability of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) it is necessary to have accurate and validated flight dynamic models of these aircrafts. The parameters of this flight dynamic models are obtained by different techniques of parameter estimation, among them is high featured the aerodynamic modeling by flight test. In order to realize the flight parameter identification it is necessary to monitor several flight parameters such as altitude, speed, attitude and anemometric data and the deflection of the control surfaces. This paper presents the integration and test of a flight test data acquisition system (Icasim), as well as the development of subsystems that allow data acquisition and processing of flight data of the Vector-P, which is a medium-sized UAV.


The moiré pattern formed between a two-dimensional (2D) material and the substrate has played a crucial role in tuning the electronic structure of the 2D material. Here, by using scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy, we found a moiré-pattern-dependent band gap and work function modulation in hexagonal boron nitride (hBN)/Cu(111) heterostructures, whose amplitudes increase with the moiré pattern wavelength. Moreover, the work function modulation shifts agree well with the conduction band edge shifts, indicating a spatially constant electron affinity for the hBN layer. Density functional theory calculations showed that these observations in hBN/Cu(111) heterostructures mainly originated from the hybridization of the N 3p z orbital and Cu 4s orbital in different atomic configurations. Our results show that the twist-angle dependence of moiré patterns in hBN/Cu(111) heterostructures can be used to tailor the electronic properties including band gap and work function.


Power incident upon square detectors in the focal plane of diffraction-limited optical systems with obscured circular pupils is computed as a function of the line-of-sight position on the detector. The results are applied to an analysis of the dependence of the signal-to-noise ratio on detector size for obscuration ratios of 0, 0.25, and 0.5 and for line-of-sight position on the detector.


Genetic transformation of Arabidopsis thaliana with the Arabidopsis TT2 MYB transcription factor resulted in ectopic expression of the BANYULS gene, encoding anthocyanidin reductase, AHA10 encoding a P-type proton-pump and TT12 encoding a transporter involved in proanthocyanidin biosynthesis. When coupled with constitutive expression of PAP1, a positive regulator of anthocyanin biosynthesis, TT2 expression in Arabidopsis led to accumulation of proanthocyanidins, but only in a subset of cells in which the BANYULS promoter is naturally expressed. Ectopic expression of the maize Lc MYC transcription factor weakly induced AHA10 but did not induce BANYULS, TT12 or accumulation of proanthocyanidins. However, high-level combined expression of TT2, PAP1 and Lc resulted in proanthocyanidin synthesis throughout young leaves and cotyledons, followed by death of the plants 1 to 2 weeks after germination. We discuss these results in relation to engineering proanthocyanidins to improve the quality of food and forage plants.


Hematoma volume is a major determinant of outcome in spontaneous intracerebral haemorrhage (ICH) and its secondary expansion occurs frequently and early with the potential sequelae of rostrocaudal deterioration or death. Therefore, early restriction of ICH volume is of paramount importance. Although few indications appear to be available for neurosurgical measures, nonsurgical measures such as reduction of hypertension and normalisation of altered coagulation seem to be beneficial. However, the routinary use of coagulation factors outside of anticoagulant-associated spontaneous ICH cannot generally be recommended at present. Future trials on recombinant coagulation factor VIIa with stricter selection criteria of inclusion time window, ICH and intraventricular haemorrhage volume, and age of patients are needed.


An important issue for scholars in public administration has been providing the appropriate motivation needed to increase public employees' work performance. This study aims to clarify the inconclusive relationship between performance-related extrinsic rewards, public service motivation, and the work performance of public employees. This study also aims to ascertain whether senior civil servants respond to the two types of motivation differently than junior civil servants do. Data for this study come from a 2015 survey of the 569 civil servants of Taipei City Government, Taiwan. Our analysis indicates that public service motivation seems to be a powerful incentive that can effectively enhance work performance, while extrinsic rewards in public organizations tend to have little effect in bolstering work performance. In addition, the use of extrinsic rewards may have similar effects on work performance for both senior and junior civil servants, as do intrinsic rewards.


Purpose: The instability of legal regulation in transition countries (or as they are also called "transit States"), leads, sooner or later, to claims and litigation in the provision and protection of fundamental (fundamental) human rights, sometimes as part of several lawsuits simultaneously. And as a rule, lawsuits concerning the same parties have clear, systemically important relationship between themselves. We set a goal and intend to reveal under this Article the procedural and substantive aspects of the implementation of indirect access to constitutional justice through the institution of preliminary inquiries of ordinary courts regarding the constitutionality of law. Methodology. The interdisciplinary methods, such as method of analysis, systematic and other methods developed the basis for the establishment of systemically important relationship between civil and constitutional litigation. Dispositive method and the method of complex analysis were used to emphasize the equality of court proceedings and the transition of one court procedure into another one based on the implementation of these preliminary requests of the courts. The integrative method was used to verify the data integrity obtained in this process. The Main Results of the Study. The authors state that the preliminary request of the courts is a special element of the systemically important relationship (dynamic and static) between civil and constitutional proceedings. They are a fact of the limits of the due process as the basic constitutional basis of judicial protection. We form the conclusion that the preliminary request of the courts forms the systemically important relationship between civil and constitutional justice. The authors also highlight the static systemically important relationship regarding the impact of the finalized constitutional process on the finalized civil proceedings (resumption of the civil process in connection with newly discovered or exceptional circumstances).


This is a report of tests on the hardness and ability to adhere of materials which are recommended for the correction of cracked ceramic facings. The test for adhesiveness was carried out on three typical baked alloys and on a ceramic mass. Further tests were carried out to determine the influence of three Cyanoacrylate glues and a special adhesive agent. Results showed that all materials, especially the cyanoacrylate glues (excepting the adhesive agent) suffer from lowering of their adhesive capacity through the influence of moisture.


OBJECTIVE
There are over 160,000 persons receiving methadone maintenance treatment in the United States. Surveys indicate that 5% to 6% of these patients are older than age 55. Authors hypothesized, from a survey of methadone programs, that methadone patients older than age 55 would have higher rates of medical and psychiatric problems and higher rates of unemployment, and would do less well in treatment, as compared with their younger counterparts.

METHODS
Authors reviewed 759 consecutive admissions to a Midwestern methadone-maintenance program.

RESULTS
It was unexpectedly found that patients older than age 55 (N=54) were not different from their younger counterparts in terms of medical and psychiatric problems or employment; they were more likely to be married, and did significantly better in treatment.

CONCLUSIONS
Older methadone patients may, in fact, have fewer problems and do well in treatment. This finding has implications regarding allocation of resources for methadone programs serving these patients.


Guinea pig cardiac myocytes were loaded with the fluorescent dye indo 1, and cell contraction was measured by a video edge-detection system. Ca2+ was released from the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) by rapidly cooling the myocytes or by rapid application of 10 mmol/L caffeine. Estimates of the amount of Ca2+ released from the SR after different rest intervals (ie, under different loading conditions) were obtained by measuring the current evoked by rapid application of 10 mmol/L caffeine, which we call Na+/Ca2+ exchange current. This current is completely inhibited by removal of extracellular Na+ and Ca2+ or by application of 5 mmol/L Ni2+. SR Ca2+ release after rest intervals of 5 to 120 seconds (assuming cell volume to be 30 x 10(-12) L) was estimated to be 57.8 +/- 5.7 to 25.7 +/- 4.5 mumol/L accessible cell volume, respectively, equivalent to 23 to 10 mumol/kg wet wt, respectively. There was an exponential decline in Ca2+ release from the SR after rest intervals of 2 to 120 seconds (rate constant, 0.029 s-1; t1/2, 24 seconds); thereafter, there remained a portion (56%) of Ca2+ releasable to caffeine application. We found a similar exponential decay (rate constant, 0.020 s-1; t1/2, 35 seconds) of the size of rapid cooling contractures with increasing rest intervals. The time to peak of the Na+/Ca2+ exchange current in the presence of caffeine slowed at long rest intervals, ie, at smaller SR loads. A decrease in SR load of 50% increased the time to peak of the exchange current by 213 +/- 37% (n = 6).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


Abstract : This study forms part of a larger study to develop a MEMS scale turbomachinery based vacuum pump. This would allow very high vacuum to be drawn for handheld mass spectroscopy. This thesis concentrates on the roughing portion of the turbo pump where flow can still be treated as a continuum but the no slip boundary condition is not accurate. The first portion of this thesis investigates flow at Knudsen numbers ranging from 0.001 to 0.1. By using a first order analysis, the wall shear stress can be specified in a commercial computational fluid dynamics code allowing slip flow to occur. This method was validated against a basic Poiseuille flow at these higher Knudsen numbers where slip flow was present. This demonstrated that it was possible to use a commercial code to model Knudsen number flows between 0.001 to 0.1. The second part of the thesis focused on the design of a roughing pump stage consisting of three blade rows: a stationary inlet and outlet surrounding the rotor blade row. The no slip condition was not imposed as the simulated stage was assumed to be the outlet stage, and thus operating at a very low Knudsen number. A two dimensional analysis was developed to define the initial blade shape to achieve a maximum pressure ratio. A three dimensional simulation was developed to investigate the effects of tip leakage losses. The simulations are able to predict pressure ratio and power consumption of a particular stage of a MEMS scale turbopump. The final predicted pressure ratio of a stage with tip clearance is 1.0722 with power consumption of 0.4648 watts.


TiO2 nanoparticles were in situ generated in one-dimensional poly(methyl methacrylate) PMMA nanohybrid fibers with excellent dispersion by using electrospinning combined with a sol-gel method followed by a mild hydrothermal treatment that preserves the properties of the polymer to the maximum degree. Detailed information of the preparation method, synthesis route, structure and properties of TiO2/PMMA nanohybrids is revealed. The possible rationale for the uniform formation of TiO2 nanoparticles in the PMMA matrix is discussed with respect to the role of the acid solvent trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) as well as the electrospun fiber structure in the sol-gel and hydrothermal process. The use of TFA in the preparation of electrospun precursor/PMMA solutions induces full hydrolysis of titanium alkoxide. The rapid electrospinning process suppresses the condensation reaction of the precursor. The strong hydrogen bonding interaction between hydrolyzed inorganic precursor and the polymer results in stable precursor/PMMA nanohybrids at ambient conditions. The solid fibrous polymer structure facilitates the generation and homogeneous distribution of nanosized TiO2 particles within the PMMA matrix at hot water conditions, which are ready to be used in biomedical and optical applications. (Less)


Females of many vertebrate species are territorial. However, few studies have been performed on territorial aggression and its hormonal bases in females. The present study determined whether dwarf hamster females (Phodopus campbelli) display territorial aggression and the role that estradiol (E2 ) and progesterone (P4 ) play in this behavior. Two experiments were carried out. First, 28 virgin females were mated with sexually inexperienced males. The females were submitted to oviduct ligation 2 weeks before mating to prevent pregnancy. After 15 days of mating, 16 out of 28 females were submitted to resident-intruder tests, whereas the remaining 12 females were nonconfronted. Blood samples were collected 30 min after the aggression tests to determine E2 and P4 by ELISA. In the second experiment, 40 females were mated with vasectomized males. Thirty days after mating, 30 dwarf hamsters were subjected to ovariectomy; 10 were nontreated, 10 were treated with E2 , and 10 with P4 . The remaining 10 were sham-operated. All females were submitted to resident-intruder tests, and blood samples were taken to quantify E2 and P4 . In the first experiment, 87.5% of dwarf hamster females displayed territorial aggression, and in the second, 100% of females were aggressive. Ovariectomy and ovariectomy plus E2 or P4 replacement did not affect aggressive territorial behavior. These results showed that this species' females are territorial, and this behavior is not dependent on ovarian steroid hormones.


Neutron scattering in combination with the H/D contrast variation technique has been applied to the study of compositional fluctuations and lateral organization of the binary-lipid mixture dimyristoyl/distearoyl-phosphatidylcholine (DMPC/DSPC) 1:1 as a function of temperature and pressure. No indications of significant non-random long-range lateral lipid distribution are observed in the all-fluid and all-gel state of the lipid mixture at ambient pressure. The morphology of the concentration fluctuations observed within the two-phase coexistence region of the lipid mixture can be characterized as a complex heterogeneous network of coexisting clusters with fractal-like properties. The particular morphology might be due to interfacial wetting effects. A pressure increase of 1000 bar leads to a 22 °C shift of the two-phase region to higher temperatures. Slight differences in local organization of the lipid mixture at the higher pressure are observed. Indications of less uniform mixing behaviour are found in the high-pressure gel phase, and the fractal exponent of the heterogeneous mixture in the two-phase coexistence region changes slightly at 1000 bar.


This study applies a Lagrange Multiplier (LM) test for the AutoRegressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (ARCH) effects and an Exponential Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity-in-Mean (EGARCH-M) model to assess whether regional house prices in Canada exhibit financial characteristics similar to stock indices. Volatility clustering, positive risk-return relationships, and leverage effects are empirically shown to exist in the majority of provincial housing markets of Canada. These volatility behaviors, which reflect regional idiosyncrasies, are further found to differ across provinces. More densely populated provinces exhibit stronger volatility clustering of house prices. The existence of these volatility patterns similar to stock indices has important implications ranging from proper portfolio management to government policy.


In order to determine the impact of flexibility on the results in swimming, we conducted a study on a sample of 50 female patients aged 11 to 14. The study included 50 female participants with an average body weight of 51.9±7.1 kg and an 163.9±10.5 cm. Their average age was 12.7±1.1 years, training experience was 3.7±0.66 years, and the body mass index (BMI) was 19.3±1.9. The participants all took part in the training process in the swimming clubs "Niš 2005" and "Sveti Nikola", Niš, Serbia. The study was applied to 17 measuring instruments that were divided into three groups: Measuring instruments for the assessment of flexibility (11); Measuring instruments for the assessment of swimming results (4); Measuring instruments for the evaluation of morphological characteristics (2). A canonical-correlation analysis was used to determine the relation between flexibility and performance in swimming, and the regression analysis determined the impact of flexibility on the results in swimming. The canonicalcorrelation analysis did not demonstrate a single significant feature that would allow, without reservation, the confirmation of the assumptions about the significant relations between flexibility and performance in swimming. The regression analysis did not confirm the assumption that there is a statistically significant effect of flexibility variables on the results in swimming for female swimmers.


The problem of short-range (contact) interactions between chiral molecules is modelled by that of intramolecular interaction within a molecule formed by combining chiral moieties. The example used is 2,3-dicyanobutane in its active and meso isomers. The energy difference between the two conformational minima, which is the analogue of the intermolecular discrimination energy, is found by ab initio molecular orbital calculations to be 3.1 kJ mol-1 in favour of the meso species. A simpler calculation with the help of a pairwise additivity scheme (see Craig, Radom & Stiles 1975, preceding paper) gives 2.9 k J mol-1. These discriminations are much greater than any found previously for dispersive and electrostatic forces, but on account of the stronger binding of the chiral moieties are expected to be greater than in intermolecular contacts.


"Frenzied Finance," pro and con, of late has so filled the air that to many the question arises: Does mining really exist? With all her disadvantages, Butte still demonstrates mining as a reality. With her annual production of 250,000,000 pounds of copper, not to mention her silver and gold, her many miles of underground tunnels extending nearly half a mile below the surface, and her thousands of miners using tons of powder daily, Butte offers for our study a subject worthy of consideration. Eissler 1 says: In no department of human industry has more rapid progress been made of late years than in explosives. The ablest chemists and the best engineers have found in the study of explosives a fruitful field, and the results of their labors are to be seen in the perfected explosives of to-day—explosives which are marvels of chemical perfection; which are so modified and varied in


Acetylcholinesterase (AChE) plays a key role in cholinergic transmission. At the neuromuscular junction of vertebrates, for example, it allows a fine temporal control of muscle contraction. The presence of AChE in tissues devoid of cholinergic function is also well known and raises the question of its role. In particular, AChE is abundant in the venoms of Elapid snakes, except mambas. AChE purified from snake venom consists of soluble, hydrophilic monomers. Cloning of cDNA of the AChE from Bungarus fasciatus venom showed that its C-terminal peptide is very different from those of other AChEs. The partial sequence of the Bungarus fasciatus AChE gene shows that this peptide is encoded by a new alternative exon, called S for soluble and snake. It is a short very basic peptide of 15 residues. Analysis of the venom enzyme and in vitro expression experiments showed that the last eight residues are removed in the mature protein. AChEs from snake venoms vary in their sensitivity to peripheral site inhibitors, notably to fasciculins from mamba venoms. While Ophiophagus AChE is as sensitive as Torpedo enzyme (IC50 around 10(-10) M), Naja and Heamacatus AChEs are insensitive to the toxin up to a concentration of 10(-6) M Bungarus AChE has an intermediate IC50 of 10(-8) M. Analysis of its sequence reveals two major differences in the peripheral site region, compared to Torpedo or mammalian AChEs: at position 70 it contains a methionine instead of a tyrosine, and at position 285 it contains a lysine instead of an acidic residue (glutamic or aspartic acid). Modification of these residues by site-directed mutagenesis, and enzymatic analysis of modified recombinant enzymes, confirmed that these two residues are implicated in the properties of the Bungarus AChE peripheral site. The presence of an alternative exon, which generates a soluble form of AChE in venoms, raises interesting evolutionary questions: Does it exist in snakes whose venom does not contain AChE, e.g., mambas? Did this exon pre-exist, for expression in other contexts? Snake venom AChEs offer an exceptional system for analyzing the mechanism of peripheral site inhibition, because of their wide range of activities.


The nuclear pore complex (NPC) regulates the selective transport of large biomolecules through the nuclear envelope. As a model system for nuclear transport, we construct NPC mimics by functionalizing the pore walls of freestanding palladium zero-mode waveguides with the FG-nucleoporin Nsp1. This approach enables the measurement of single-molecule translocations through individual pores using optical detection. We probe the selectivity of Nsp1-coated pores by quantitatively comparing the translocation rates of the nuclear transport receptor Kap95 to the inert probe BSA over a wide range of pore sizes from 35 nm to 160 nm. Pores below 55 ± 5 nm show significant selectivity that gradually decreases for larger pores. This finding is corroborated by coarse-grained molecular-dynamics simulations of the Nsp1 mesh within the pore, which suggest that leakage of BSA occurs by diffusion through transient openings within the dynamic mesh. Furthermore, we experimentally observe a modulation of the BSA permeation when varying the concentration of Kap95. The results demonstrate the potential of single-molecule fluorescence measurements on biomimetic NPCs to elucidate the principles of nuclear transport.


Matched-field source localization methods attempt to estimate the range and depth of a source in an acoustic waveguide. These methods give good results when the waveguide parameters are known precisely; however, matched-field methods have been shown to be very sensitive to model mismatch resulting from errors in the assumed environmental parameters. In this paper, we describe an approach which minimizes model mismatch by estimating the environmental parameters and source location together. We propose an efficient way to initialize the maximum-likelihood search by projecting the received data onto subspaces corresponding to regions in parameter space.


India's rise in Africa has been largely overlooked, despite the important implications of the growing presence of Indian corporations and a rise in New Delhi's political ties with the continent. Not only are Indian actors providing much-needed investment and capital, but Indo-African connections represent a further important diversification of Africa's international relations, something which reflects a major development for the continent. Indian activity in Africa may be said to constitute a middle ground between China's profit-maximizing and largely statist approach and the much-resented intrusive conditionalities associated with western policies. It is evident that India's growing activity in Africa has the potential to help African companies become more efficient by exposing them to competition, new advances in technology and modern labour skills. African governments could potentially use the opportunity of an increased Indian corporate presence in Africa as sources of appropriate technology, skills and advice for economic development. However, if not handled correctly, any goodwill that India possesses in Africa will quickly be squandered and/or India will become just another actor in Africa. It is up to Africans to negotiate with Indian actors to ensure that the benefits accrued from Indo-African ties are evenly shared and that Indian interest in the continent, alongside that of others, may help to serve as a catalyst for economic revitalization. The key issue is how African leaders can seek to leverage newfound Indian investment and interest in Africa so that Africa's place in global trade networks becomes more proactive and beneficial to the continent's citizens.


Introduction: There is a dearth of data on effectiveness-assessment of community interventions regarding the adherence improvement among children with epilepsy (CWE) in outreach financially-poor settings. This study was therefore designed to determine the impact of integration of childhood epilepsy into primary care to improve the level of adherence to antiepileptic drugs and the factors that are associated with nonadherence.
Objectives: This study was designed to determine the effectiveness of interventions through free community childhood epilepsy center aimed at improving adherence to antiepileptic medication in CWE in an outreach financially constrained district.
Methods: During this interventional study, 240 children (160 children being treated and followed in the free community primary care childhood epilepsy center and 80 children not being treated at this center) aged 4 months to 18years, diagnosed with epilepsy and treatment initiated with at least 1 AED for the past 3 months, were selected for data collection. The childhood epilepsy camps were held at local community centers provided open access, and no user fees or charges for medication were made. Local physicians, who were provided with special training and visiting pediatric neurology fellows carried out screening to help the three visiting pediatric neurologists confirming the diagnoses for data collection. Data was collected by a questionnaire divided into three parts: 1) demographical information about patients 2) information about medication adherence profile using the Morisky Medication Adherence Scale-8 (MMAS-8), and 3) data on intervention-effectiveness of the community childhood epilepsy center (CCEC) on antiepileptic drug adherence. Ethical approval was obtained from the institutional ethics committee.
Results: Among the 240 children and adolescents with epilepsy who fulfilled the inclusion criteria, 160 (66.6%) reported seeking treatment from TDBUCEC and 80 (33.4%) were seeking AED(s) from other sources. The age range was 04 months - 18 years while the male to female ratio was 1.26:1. Adherence to antiepileptic drugs by self-report was found to be 85% (was 42% in 2014 without community intervention) among the children being treated, provided free AEDs with consultations and followed at the epilepsy center, whereas adherence was 37.5% among the children not being intervened by this center. There was no statistical difference in age and gender among these two groups.
Conclusion: Majority of children had good adherence levels when supported and given free treatment in their own community. The best intervention strategy to improve adherence to antiepileptic medication among CWE is integration and implementation of childhood epilepsy in primary health care to provide free uninterrupted anti-epilepsy drugs (AEDs) and pediatric epilepsy consultations in outreach resource-constrained districts in Pakistan.


As critical components of individual well-being, nutrition and physical activity have important physical and psychological implications. Veterinary students face demanding schedules and potentially high rates of psychological distress. Though veterinary students' strategies for healthy eating have been explored, factors influencing their ability to achieve a healthy diet are less understood. This study assesses incoming veterinary students' perceived attitudes to their dietary habits and physical activity levels. Incoming students (n = 322) at five Canadian and five randomly selected US veterinary schools completed a questionnaire inquiring about demographic information, dietary attitudes and habits, and activity levels. More than half (58%) of students perceived their diet to be moderately healthy. A desire to feel better and have more energy was the most reported (79%) motivating factor to modifying personal eating habits and was significantly associated with improved odds of having a perceived healthy diet (OR = 2.22, p < .024). A busy lifestyle was perceived as a barrier to changing current eating habits by 92% of respondents. Students reporting a desire to maintain their health (OR = 3.42, p < .001) and moderate (OR = 2.81, p < .003) or high (OR = 2.30, p < .044) routine physical activity levels were also more likely to perceive their diet as healthy. Findings show that incoming veterinary students' perceptions may influence their goals of achieving a healthy lifestyle. An understanding of incoming veterinary students' barriers and motivators could be applied in future research to assist students in achieving personalized goals.


Commodity futures markets carry out two important marketing functions with respect to agricultural products: (1) a price discovery role and (2) a price risk management role. The relative effectiveness with which futures markets fulfill these two roles is dependent on the efficiency of the futures market and its ability to provide unbiased forecasts of subsequent futures prices at contract maturity. Our results indicate that futures price returns for live cattle, hogs, corn, rice and soybean meal violate the standard OLS assumption of normality. However, nonparametric statistics results did not materially conflict with our OLS parametric results. Further modeling indicated live cattle, hogs and soybean meal futures returns are better specified using GARCH type models, which allow for a non-constant error variance over time.


We established low-carbon city evaluation index system including low-carbon production,low-carbon consumption,low-carbon environment and low-carbon urban planning.This index system was applied to analyze the Beijing's low-carbon development from 2004 to 2009.Finally,comprehensive quantitative evaluation results were got.


Eighteen to twenty years ago (1997–1999), the "Laurisilva project" collected many caddisflies systematically and intensively from springs and streams in the laurel forests in the Madeira Archipelago. The Trichoptera fauna of Madeira has been well known for a long time, but unexpectedly this collection included a series of specimens belonging to a new species, which is described here as Synagapetus laurisilvanicus n. sp. This new species is related to the Madeiran endemic Synagapetus punctatus (Hagen 1859), but these two species are readily distinguished by their wing venation and several genital characters, especially by the morphology of the inferior appendages and the aedeagus.