ABSTRACT A growing number of studies on students' intercultural interactions and learning in higher education contexts have placed cosmopolitanism and agency at the centre of conceptual and empirical inquiry. The concept of 'cosmopolitan agency' has been proposed as a hallmark of intercultural relationships, such as friendships, between international and domestic university students, which are found difficult to develop in many countries. However, the literature has not established the conditions necessary for the (non-)emergence of this student agency. This paper fills this knowledge gap by presenting an ecological and person-in-context conceptual framework of cosmopolitan agency in intercultural student interactions on campus and beyond. Drawing on multidisciplinary literature (e.g. higher education, psychology, sociology, cosmopolitanism, urban and disability studies), the paper submits a theoretical proposal that cosmopolitan agency (as present practice) emerges at the dynamic experiential interface between cosmopolitan capital (as an individual resource built on past experience) and affordances in convivial proximity (as the environment triggering future projection). This proposal is elaborated through the empirical illustration of four (i.e. amicable, critical, latent and inactive) states of cosmopolitan agency that manifest different forms of intercultural interactions. The paper is expected to advance theoretical inquiry into the issues of power, privilege, morality and reflexivity in students' engagement in intercultural interactions, and to support a third option for interactions between passive presence and fully-fledged relationships. The directions for future conceptual and empirical research that are ultimately expected to serve for the improvement of student experience are also provided.


The proliferation of Web-based learning objects makes finding and evaluating online resources problematic. While established Learning Analytics methods use Web interaction to evaluate learner engagement, there is uncertainty regarding the appropriateness of these measures. In this paper we propose a method for evaluating pedagogical activity in Web-based comments using a pedagogical framework, and present a preliminary study that assigns a Pedagogical Value (PV) to comments. This has value as it categorises discussion in terms of pedagogical activity rather than Web interaction. Results show that PV is distinct from typical interactional measures, there are negative or insignificant correlations with established Learning Analytics methods, but strong correlations with relevant linguistic indicators of learning, suggesting that the use of pedagogical frameworks may produce more accurate indicators than interaction analysis, and that linguistic rather than interaction analysis has the potential to automatically identify learning behaviour.


Abstract The aim of this paper is to evaluate the long-term trend in breeding abundance of Black-headed Gull (Chroicocephalus ridibundus) at the Chomoutov lake, Czech Republic. In the period 1978-2014 (always between April 22 and May 10), we conducted 14 nest counts in the bird colony using the direct nest search method. In total, we counted 57,860 nests, from which 2,174 nests were found in the initial year 1978, the maximum number of nests (8,371) in 1993 and 3,304 nests in the last counting year 2014. The nests were located on the ground on an island elevated 2-3 m above the water level. In 1997, we found an unusually located nest on a nesting pad in a poplar tree (Populus sp.), 821 cm above the water level. In this paper, we point out the long-term decline in breeding abundance of Black-headed Gull in major breeding colonies in the Czech Republic, where the abundance declined by up to 95%, while numerous colonies have vanished completely. We discuss factors influencing the negative population trend of Black-headed Gull on the monitored site and in the entire Czech Republic.


A case report is presented of an 18 1/2-year-old girl with Turners syndrome who developed cystic glandular endometrial hyperplasia after 4 1/2 years of .1-mg ethinyl estradiol daily for 3 out of 4 weeks per month after an initial daily hormone dose for 9 months. Cystic glandular hyperplasia is considered to be a precancerous lesion. 4 out of 7 other patients with dysgenetic gonads treated with ethinyl estradiol alone also showed changes of cystic glandular hyperplasia; the average duration of therapy was 3.9 years. It is concluded that these data affirm previous evidence that prolonged unopposed estrogenic stimulation of the endometrium has adverse effects and is an iatrogenic model of cancer induction in the endometrium. Low-dose cyclic estrogen therapy with cyclic progesterone therapy is recommended.


The doped nonlinear optical crystal, ytterbium: yttrium aluminum borate, Yb3+:YAl3(BO3)4, has been grown with good optical quality in a high-temperature solution from K2Mo3O10 and B2O3 fluxes. Room- and low-temperature absorption and fluorescence spectra have been measured, and spectral parameters have been calculated. The ground-state energy-level splitting is 581 cm-1. The emission lifetime, the absorption cross section, and the peak emission cross section are 0.68 ms, 3.4×10-20 cm2, and 0.8×10-20 cm2, respectively. In comparison with established laser crystals, the results for the cross sections, lifetime, and energy splitting suggest that this crystal has potential as an efficient self-frequency-doubled laser operating in the green.


A simple "engineering" method was formulated for computing the axial load vs. axial shortening relationship of pin-ended tubular members damaged by a dent and/or out-ofstraightness. The method predicts the preand post-ultimate load-shortening response, and can be used in analyzing the strength and behavior of offshore platform frames containing such damaged members. The method was developed from a parametric study and regression analysis of a database containing load-shortening data from published tests results on small-scale damaged specimens (31 load-deformation curves) and data generated from a finite element analysis (56 load-deformation curves). The effects of geometric nonlinearity and elasto-plastic material property were included in the finite element analysis of the preand post-ultimate response of damaged tubular columns. Prior to generating data for the parametric ·study and -regression analysis, the finite element model was verified by comparing calculated (finite element) loadshortening responses with small-scale test data. In order to develop a regression model to be used as a basis for the simplified engineering method, a parametric study was conducted to determine the influence of each independent variable on the axial behavior of damaged members. The object of the study was to select the shortest suitable approximating (coordinate) function for each independent variable. The variables considered were: column slenderness, D/t ratio, dentdepth to diameter ratio, out-of-straightness, yield stress, and axial shortening. The regression analysis of the load-shortening relationships in the database resulted in a set of 96 constants which is reduced to a four-term approximating function for the load-shortening response, once specific values are given for the member geometry, material and damage. The procedure is illustrated with some examples and a comparison with test results. The method is valid for member geometries and material properties typically found in fixed offshore platforms with the limitation that relatively thick-walled members should have sustained significant damage. This limitation is based on the exclusion of members which exhibit a sharply peaked load-deformation relationship. ·


ABSTRACT Objective COVID-19 has presented threats to adolescents' psychosocial well-being, especially for those from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. This longitudinal study aimed to identify which social (i.e., family conflict, parental social support, peer social support), emotional (i.e., COVID-19 health-related stress), and physical (i.e., sleep quality, food security) factors influence adolescents' same- and next-day affect and misconduct and whether these factors functioned differently by adolescents' economic status. Method Daily-diary approaches were used to collect 12,033 assessments over 29 days from a nationwide sample of American adolescents (n =546; M age = 15.0; 40% male; 43% Black, 37% White, 10% Latinx, 8% Asian American, and 3% Native American; 61% low-income) at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Results Peer support, parent support, and sleep quality operated as promotive factors, whereas parent-child conflict and COVID-19 health-related stress operated as risk factors. Although these links were consistent for adolescents irrespective of economic status, low-income adolescents experienced more conflict with parents, more COVID-19 health-related stress, less peer support, and lower sleep quality than higher-income adolescents. Food insecurity was connected to decreased same- and next-day negative affect for low-income adolescents only. Low-income adolescents also displayed greater negative affect in response to increased daily health-related stress relative to higher-income adolescents. Conclusion These results highlight the role of proximal processes in shaping adolescent adjustment and delineate key factors influencing youth psychosocial well-being in the context of COVID-19. By understanding adolescents' responses to stressors at the onset of the pandemic, practitioners and healthcare providers can make evidence-based decisions regarding clinical treatment and intervention planning for youth most at risk for developmental maladjustment.


Introduction Estimation of health-related utility is a vital component of the evaluation of relative cost effectiveness of healthcare interventions. The correlation between different measures of quality of life and health related utility in hepatic encephalopathy (HE) has not been explored. The aim of this study was to characterise for the first time the relationship between scores for Chronic Liver Disease Questionnaire (CLDQ) and health-related utility as measured by the EQ-5D index in patients with HE. Methods Data were available from a phase three trial of rifaximin-α in patients with recurrent HE. Corresponding CLDQ and SF-36 scores were recorded at monthly visits. EQ-5D scores were derived using the SF-36 using a recognised mapping technique. Generalised, linear, mixed modelling methods were used to examine for any association in order to allow for repeated measures. Results 202 of 299 patients with 920 corresponding observations were included. The average age of the cohort was 57 years and 133 (65.8%) were males with an average baseline MELD score of 13.8. The average time since diagnosis of HE was 25.6 months. Figure 1 illustrates the observed and predicted utility scores derived from CLDQ with an r-squared value of 0.835, indicating a strong relationship. Abstract PWE-154 Figure 1 Observed versus predicted EQ-5D index values using generalised linear mixed modelling to allow for repeated measures. Conclusion This is the first time that a direct association between the EQ-5D index and the CLDQ score has been reported. The r-squared value of this association suggested that liver-related morbidity may explain the majority of differences in health-related utility in these subjects. Disclosure of Interest E. Berni Consultant for: Norgine, C. Bannister Consultant for: Norgine;, C. Poole Consultant for: Norgine, P. Conway Employee of: Norgine, K. Nanuwa Employee of: Norgine, C. Currie Consultant for: Norgine.


Abstract The worldwide poultry industry provides a substantial proportion of the nutritional requirement of the human population. To keep pace with the increasing demand for the high-quality, low-cost protein source that poultry provides, intensive rearing practices have been developed within the past few decades. For example, chickens are housed routinely in crowded environments under adverse conditions, and genetic strains have been selected for rapid growth, high protein-to-fat content and superior egg-laying characteristics. A major negative consequence of these practices has been an increase in the incidence of diseases. Enteric diseases in particular have emerged as a major problem threatening the future viability of the poultry industry. A variety of methods have been used to combat avian diseases in the commercial setting, including improved farm management practices, the use of antibiotic drugs, the selection of disease-resistant strains of chickens, and the manipulation of the chicken's immune system. In the latter category, the development of vaccines against the major avian diseases has become a priority in the poultry industry. This review will highlight recent progress in vaccine development against three major avian enteric pathogens: Eimeria, Cryptosporidium and Salmonella.


We provide a comprehensive study of the valuation consequences to meeting/beating analysts' forecasts (MBE) versus missing expectations conditioned on the forecast revision path prior to the earnings announcement. We find that investors reward firms that walk down forecasts to achieve a positive earnings surprise and penalize firms that walk up forecasts to achieve a negative earnings surprise. The reward and penalty are not justified by subsequent cash flow performance and the post-event return reversal suggests that investors were partially misled by strategic motives belying the forecast revisions. There is higher insider net selling and more new issues for walk down firms, and higher insider net buying and more repurchases for walk up firms. The capital market incentives for selling and MBE reward disappear in recent periods, suggesting that investors learn to discount a walk down. However, the walk up penalty and capital market incentives to depress prices for buying by insiders and the firm remain even in recent years.


Crosstalk noise becomes one of the critical issues gating design closure for nano-meter designs. Pessimism in noise analysis can lead to significant additional time spent addressing false violations. Taking logic correlation into consideration, noise analysis can reduce pessimism significantly by eliminating false noise signals [1]-[3][5]-[7][10]-[13]. Eliminating the aggressors from the aggressor candidate set that can not switch simultaneously restricted by the logic exclusivity (LE) relationship among them can save simulation time as well. The LE problem, being proved as NP-complete, is basically to determine the subset (possibly multiple equivalent subsets) of a given aggressor candidate set which has the largest combined weight out of all possible subsets governed by logic exclusivity constraints. This paper presents a new approach in resolving the LE problem, which employs a gain guided backtrack search technique that does not require exhaustive search of all the binary paths to reach an optimal solution. We first prove that under certain conditions, if the gain at each level is non-negative, then the result will be optimal. Based on this theorem, a new algorithm is developed. The experimental results demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of this approach. The algorithm can quickly find the optimal solutions for most cases from industry designs and outperforms other methods.


This research was carried out in the oil palm plantation of PT. MuliaSawitAgro Lestari (PT. MSAL) Gunung Mas Regency Central Kalimantan Province for three months starting in January 2019 until March 2019. The purpose of this study was to identify the potential of microorganisms as biofertilizers from palm oil mill effluent (PKS). This research is an exploratory study conducted in the Laboratory of the Faculty of Health Sciences of the Muhammadiyah University of Palangka Raya. This study used 3 (three) media used to identify the potential of microorganisms for biofertilizer from palm oil liquid waste by calculating the number of bacterial colonies namely Carboxy Methyl Cellulose (CMC), pykovskaya media and Yeast Extract Mannitol Agar (Yema) media. The results of the analysis also showed that PKS liquid waste contained potential microorganisms found were phosphate solvent bacteria, cellulite fungi and nitrogen-fixing bacteria with an average bacterial colony of 1,700,000 cells/mL. Potential microorganisms from the proportion obtained showed the ability of bacteria found in PKS liquid waste to degrade the oil. The first and second samples of bacterial forms identified were in the form of bacilli and were gram-positive bacteria, while the samples of the three bacteria were in the form of coccus and the bacteria were gram-negative bacteria.


It is the aim of the present study to assess factors associated with time spent in class among working college students. Eighty-two working students from 21 to 26 years old participated in this study. They were enrolled in an evening course of the University of São Paulo, Brazil. Participants answered a questionnaire on living and working conditions. During seven consecutive days, they wore an actigraph, filled out daily activity diaries (including time spent in classes) and the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale every three hours from waking until bedtime. Linear regression analyses were performed in order to assess the variables associated with time spent in classes. The results showed that gender, sleep length, excessive sleepiness, alcoholic beverage consumption (during workdays) and working hours were associated factors with time spent in class. Thus, those who spent less time in class were males, slept longer hours, reported excessive sleepiness on Saturdays, worked longer hours, and reported alcohol consumption. The combined effects of long work hours (>40 h/week) and reduced sleep length may affect lifestyles and academic performance. Future studies should aim to look at adverse health effects induced by reduced sleep duration, even among working students who spent more time attending evening classes.


A flexible file format for Solid Freeform Fabrication data is presented which significantly improves on the de-facto industry standard STL format. The new format removes the redundancy present in STL files and can contain topological information. Its specification flexibility allows users to balance storage and processing costs. Since facet boundary models currently provide the greatest common denominator for data exchange between many CAD systems, they are supported by this format. Additionally, representation of CSG primitives is provided, as are capabilities to represent multiple instances of both facet and CSG solids. Format extensibility, without obsoleting existing programs, is made possible by interleaving the format schema with the data. User data can be added to existing entities, or new entities can be created. This allows the addition of NURBS based geometries in the future.


Background: The identification of the factors related to adoption of skin cancer preventive behaviors in adolescents plays a significant role in the appropriate design and implementation of relevant educational approaches. Objectives: The aim of present study was toinvestigate the factors associated with skin cancer preventive behaviors in the male high school students of Isfahan, using the protection motivation theory (PMT). Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted on 311 male high school students of Isfahan in 2018. A reliable questionnaire was used for data collection, whose validity and reliability had been confirmed before. The data were analyzed, using the SPSS software (version 20), Pearson's correlation coefficient, multiple linear regression, one-way ANOVA, independent t test, and Spearman's correlation coefficient. Results: Pearson's correlation coefficient indicated that the score of skin cancer preventive behaviors was inversely associated with response cost score (P < 0.001), while it was directly related to perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, self-efficacy, response efficacy, fear, and protection motivation (P < 0.001). The multiple linear regression model showed that among the constructs of the PMT, the scores for self-efficacy, response cost, and perceived susceptibility were significant predictors of skin cancer preventive behaviors, respectively, in order of importance. Conclusions: This study showed that the PMT constructs were associated with the skin cancer preventive behaviors, which could be promoted by designing and implementing educational studies based on the constructs.


Aluminum hydroxide gel (ALG) has been effective for ameliorating acidosis associated with phosphatemia caused by hemodialysis. However, aluminum accumulation in the body causes severe side effects. As substitute for ALG, a new type of aluminum oxide hydroxide (tentatively named PT-A) was prepared with the hope of future clinical use. PT-A has a microcrystalline structure with a high resistance to pH change and has more phosphate-binding efficacy than ALG. It was tested for possible interaction with protein by adsorption test, zeta-potential analysis, X-ray diffraction, and scanning electron microscopy. Bovine serum albumin (BSA) was chosen as a model protein. The interaction of BSA with PT-A depended on the amount of adsorbent. Protein adsorption occurred rapidly and reached the maximal level at near neutral pHs. Phosphate adsorption was not affected by the presence of BSA, but the interaction of BSA with PT-A was significantly reduced by the presence of phosphate. Zeta-potential changes on the surface of PT-A indicated that the positively charged surface of PT-A was covered with negatively charged phosphate ions that repelled negatively charged BSA molecules. X-ray diffraction patterns indicated no observable structural alteration caused by adsorption of BSA or phosphate, and scanning electron microscopy revealed that BSA covered the outer surface of PT-A but did not cover small pores, where phosphate can freely penetrate.


since it would otherwise look hopelessly incomplete, we have traced anti-apartheid opinion through to the 1990s . . ." (xi). One does not have to subscribe to either postcolonial or Marxist views to see the value of analyzing the influence of social or class imperatives on politics. as the authors occasionally seem to imply. This reader wondered, for instance, to what degree non-white immigration to Britain in the post-war era forced the British government to reassess its stance on Nationalist South Africa, an issue on which the authors only touch. If the focus on high politics occludes the role o f broader social forces, it nonetheless results in a much fuller picture of South Africa's role in the Commonwealth, and Britain's declining role as a world power. Indeed, the authors present the most plausible case to date as to why Britain struggled so greatly with her prodigal imperial son. Rejecting the predominant economic determinism of historians such as Shula Marks, Hyam and Henshaw convincingly demonstrate that geopolitical interests-protecting the High Commission Territories, maintaining military power in the southern hemisphere, resisting United Nations interference in imperial affairs-accounted for Britain's continued interest in South Africa. The broader conclusion, left unstated, is that in the long run the game was not worth the candle. The Commonwealth ceased to be a political institution of significant standing, and official temporizing over South Africa, especially Margaret Thatcher's unwillingness to condemn the apartheid regime, garnered Britain international opprobrium. The Lion and the Springbok is an expertly researched account of this tortured relationship, and will make a fine addition to the shelf of any imperial scholar.


We consider the problem of localizing multiple narrow-band stationary signals using an arbitrary time-varying array such as an array mounted on a moving platform. We assume a Gaussian stochastic model for the received signals and employ the generalized least squares (GLS) estimator to get an asymptotically-efficient estimation of the model parameters. In case the signals are a-priori known to be uncorrelated, this estimator allows one to exploit this prior knowledge to its benefit. For the important case of translational motion of a rigid array, a computationally-efficient spatial-smoothing method is presented. Simulation results confirming the theoretical results are included.


Objective: The optimal preclinical models in new targeted drug development are patient-derived tumor xenografts (PDXs) models with definite molecular signatures, which will be excavated and validated in this study. Methods: The genomic profiles of 50 PDXs from advanced gastric cancer (AGC) were analyzed by targeted next-generation sequencing. The Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection, microsatellite instability (MSI) status, and expressions of EGFR, HER3, c-Met, PTEN and c-Myc were determined by in situ hybridization and immunohistochemisty, respectively. Results: A total of 581 non-synonymous single nucleotide variations (SNV), 513 Indels, and 225 amplifications were identified in 50 PDXs. Pathway analysis revealed recurrent alterations in the MAPK signaling, ErbB signaling, VEGF signaling, mTOR signaling and cell cycle pathway. The ErbB family amplified in 8% (EGFR), 10% (ERBB2), 2% (ERBB3) and 2% (ERBB4) of the 50 PDXs respectively. Meanwhile, several activating mutations in EGFR (L858R and G719S), ERBB3 (P1212S) and ERBB4 (R1174Q) were also detected in our study. Moreover, we detected 7 PDXs harboring PIK3CA activating mutations (E545K, Q546K, H1047R) and 2 PDXs with PTEN loss. Whether PI3K/Akt/mTOR inhibitors could turn over the primary or acquired resistance of anti-HER2 therapies remains further researches. Genes in the cell cycle pathway altered in 70% of the 50 PDXs. The mutation rates of TP53, BRCA1 and BRCA2 were 28%, 8% and 14%. We also detected amplifications of CCNE1, CCND1 and MYC in 16%, 6% and 20% of the xenografts. In this study, 9 PDXs (18%) were EBV positive, with frequent alterations of ARID1A but rare mutations of TP53, and a robust expression of PD-L1. However, we didn't observe any loss of MMR protein expressions. Conclusions: Several potential therapeutic targets were identified based on the molecular signature of PDXs in advanced gastric cancer, which will provide evidences for drug development. Citation Format: Zuhua Chen, Jing Gao, Lin Shen. Excavation of therapeutic targets based on the molecular signature of patient-derived tumor xenografts in gastric cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2017; 2017 Apr 1-5; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 3855. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-3855


Circumstellar disks from early accretion stages to debris disks motivate an active theoretical and observational research. Their physics is quite complex and implies the study of various domains such as the physics of grains, radiative transfert at various wavelengths, collisional and radiative destructive processes, dynamics, long term evolution... Such disks provide valuable information on the conditions of exoplanet formation, but also on the interaction between disks and already formed planets; they may be in some cases the indicators of the presence of planets or, on contrary, they may prevent from direct planet detections depending on the observational technique. We review the current most critical issues relative to disk studies, and discuss the need and interest for various observational techniques. We conclude on the importance for high dynamic observations and typical specifications.


The water jet impingement cooling with boiling is one of the techniques to remove heat from high heat flux equipments. The configuration of surface roughness is one obvious condition of affecting the performance on heat transfer in nucleate boiling. The present study investigates the water jet impinging single-phase convection and nucleate boiling heat transfer for the effect of surface roughness to enhance the heat transfer in free surface and submerged jet. The distributions of the averaged wall temperature as well as the boiling curves are discussed. Jet velocities are varied from 0.65 to 1.7㎧. Surface roughness by sand blast and sand paper varies from 0.3 to 2.51㎛ and cavity shapes on surface are semicircle and v-shape, respectively. The results showed that higher velocity of the jet caused the boiling incipience to be delayed more. The incipient boiling and heat transfer increase with increasing surface roughness due to a large number of cavities of uniform size.


Summary:
 Solitary plants of the putative intergeneric cross Oreocereus celsianus × Echinopsis tarijensis were found on two independent occasions in the same general region of S Bolivia (Dept. Potosí). The plants are described and illustrated. They are intermediate in general appearance and flower characters between the supposed parents, and appear to be sterile. The importance of intergeneric and interspecific crosses in the evolution of Cactaceae is briefly discussed, and the relative ease with which intergeneric hybrids can be artificially obtained in cultivation is contrasted with the apparent rarity of naturally occurring intergeneric hybrids. Based on available evidence, the impact of natural intergeneric hybridization on cactus evolution appears to be limited.


In this paper, a novel class of nonlinear filters, called rank conditioned fuzzy selection (RCFS) filters, is proposed to improve the filtering performance and adaptive capability of rank conditioned rank selection (RCRS) filters. The output of this new class of nonlinear filters is determined by the center of gravity of a selected fuzzy rank which is a fuzzy set of the ranks of the observation samples. Since the membership functions in each fuzzy rank of the RCFS filters are trained by neural learning, they are more adaptive for noise filtering. The computer simulation shows that the RCFS filters have better filtering capability than the RCRS filters and other conventional filters.


Most vision-and-language pretraining research focuses on English tasks. However, the creation of multilingual multimodal evaluation datasets (e.g. Multi30K, xGQA, XVNLI, and MaRVL) poses a new challenge in finding high-quality training data that is both multilingual and multimodal. In this paper, we investigate whether machine translating English multimodal data can be an effective proxy for the lack of readily available multilingual data. We call this framework TD-MML: Translated Data for Multilingual Multimodal Learning, and it can be applied to any multimodal dataset and model. We apply it to both pretraining and fine-tuning data with a state-of-the-art model. In order to prevent models from learning from low-quality translated text, we propose two metrics for automatically removing such translations from the resulting datasets. In experiments on five tasks across 20 languages in the IGLUE benchmark, we show that translated data can provide a useful signal for multilingual multimodal learning, both at pretraining and fine-tuning.


National statistics reveal that in the year 1975 over 20 000 young persons met death as the result of automobile accidents. Daily accounts in the news appall us, and there are few of us whose lives have not been touched, directly or indirectly, by such tragedy. We are still living the history of the motorcar, within the intricate phenomena of its use and abuse, and the vital place it has had in our economy. Automobilization has, in half a century, instrumented great changes in our lifestyle and influenced our culture; it has altered our concepts of time and distance, our terrain and atmosphere, and revolutionalized commercial enterprise. The immediacy of the auto, its gratifications, its utility, have tended to overwhelm and obscure thoughtful consideration of even the most significant vital implications of its use.


OBJECTIVE
To analyze mutations of SLC26A4 gene and explore their origins for a patient with enlarge vestibuar aqueduct syndrome.

METHODS
Clinical data and peripheral venous blood samples were collected from the patient and her parents. Genome DNA was extracted from the peripheral blood. All of the 21 exons of the SLC26A4 gene were amplified with PCR and subjected to directly sequencing.

RESULTS
The patient was found to have carried two mutant alleles of the SLC26A4 gene, namely c.1522A to G and c.1229C to T, which were inherited from her father and mother, respectively.

CONCLUSION
SLC26A4 c.1522A to G is likely to be a pathogenic mutation. Above results may facilitate genetic counseling and prenatal diagnosis for this family.


In this paper we provide case study from the Slovak Financial (Tax) Directorate, showing how difficult performance management is. We planned to include situation in the Czech Republic and compare both the countries, but after we had addressed questions on definition of performance and performance evaluation and management to responsible employees from the General Financial Directorate in informal way, we received the following answer: "Performance is measured on continual basis, has been developed and changed during time. Our performance measurement model represents know-how of financial administration and we do not provide more specific information. It is purely internal matter." We prepared a formal request based on Freedom of Information Act, but did not receive any answer before finalization of this paper.


Even though opening endothelial tight junctions is an efficient way to up-regulate brain drug delivery, the extravasation of blood-borne components from the compromised tight junctions can result in adverse consequences such as edema and neuronal injuries. In this work, we developed a nanoagonist that temporarily opened tight junctions by signaling adenosine 2A receptor, a type of G protein-coupled receptor expressed on brain capillary endothelial cells. Magnetic resonance imaging demonstrated remarkable blood–brain barrier permeability enhancements and significantly increased brain uptakes of both small molecular and macromolecular paramagnetic agents after nanoagonist administration. Gamma ray imaging and transmission electron microscope observed tight junction opening followed by spontaneous recovery after nanoagonist treatment. Immunofluorescence staining showed the unspoiled basal membrane, pericytes and astrocyte endfeet that enwrapped the vascular endothelium. Importantly, edema, apoptosis and neuronal injuries observed after hypertonic agent mediated tight junction-opening were not observed after nanoagonist intervention. The uncompromised neurovascular units may prevent the leakage of blood-borne constituents into brain parenchyma and accelerate tight junction recovery. Considering blood–brain barrier impermeability is a major obstacle in the treatment of central nervous system diseases, nanoagonist-mediated tight junction opening provides a promising strategy to enhance brain drug delivery with minimized adverse effects.


SECTION 1. INTRODUCTION TO WRITING-FROM WORDS TO SENTENCES 1. Writing Principles and Reference Tools. 2. Spelling Guidelines. 3. Classifying Words as Parts of Speech. 4. Grouping Words into Sentences. 5. Sentence Patterns, Sentence Types, and Sentence Analysis. SECTION 2. WORDS THAT NAME. 6. Nouns: Classes, Functions, and Properties. 7. Nouns: Plurals and Possessives. 8. Personal Pronouns and Pronoun Types. 9. Pronoun Usage. SECTION 3. WORDS THAT ASSERT. 10. Verbs: Types, Principal Parts, Regular and Irregular. 11. Verbs: Voice, Mood, Tense. 12. Subject-Verb Agreement Verbals. SECTION 4. WORDS THAT MODIFY AND CONNECT. 13. Adjectives. 14. Adverbs and Prepositions. 15. Conjunctions. SECTION 5. SENTENCE MECHANICS: The Writing Process. 16. Capitalization and Writing Numbers. 17. Commas. 18. Semicolons and Colons, End Punctuation, Dashes. 19. Other Punctuation and Word Division. SECTION 6. THE WRITING PROCESS. 20. Overview of the Writing Process. Appendix: Business Letters and Memos. Index.


Recently, the motion averaging method has been introduced as an effective means to solve the multi-view registration problem. This method aims to recover global motions from a set of relative motions, where the original method is sensitive to outliers due to using the Frobenius norm error in the optimization. Accordingly, this paper proposes a novel robust motion averaging method based on the maximum correntropy criterion (MCC). Specifically, the correntropy measure is used instead of utilizing Frobenius norm error to improve the robustness of motion averaging against outliers. According to the half-quadratic technique, the correntropy measure based optimization problem can be solved by the alternating minimization procedure, which includes operations of weight assignment and weighted motion averaging. Further, we design a selection strategy of adaptive kernel width to take advantage of correntropy. Experimental results on benchmark data sets illustrate that our method has superior performance on accuracy and robustness for multi-view registration. What's more, it can be applied to robot mapping.


Social disadvantage extends beyond a lack of income and basic necessities, to being deprived of the material and social resources required to lead a happy, healthy and fulfilling life. The focus of this study is on the role of social connections in relation to health, in a context of social disadvantage and ethnic diversity.
In this thesis I aim to study the associations between ethnic density, social capital and health for Pakistani and White British mothers and infants in the Born in Bradford study.
Data from the Born in Bradford cohort were linked with area-level data to create a multilevel dataset of 4,357 Pakistani and 3,869 White British mother-infant pairs.
While own ethnic density was not associated with birth weight or preterm birth, higher South Asian density was associated with lower odds of smoking for both Pakistani and White British women. Although levels of social capital seemed to be low and levels of social disadvantage were high, different indicators of social capital were associated with health outcomes for Pakistani and White British mothers and infants. There was some evidence to suggest that social capital provides health benefits especially to those in disadvantaged circumstances.
Social disadvantage for Pakistani women and infants in particular proved hard to capture with measures of individual socioeconomic status and area deprivation, and social gradients in health were attenuated for Pakistani women and infants in the Born in Bradford study and the Millennium Cohort Study.
The associations between social resources and health vary by ethnic group, social status, and health outcome, and there is no strong evidence that the promotion of social capital is a useful public health strategy. Greater social equality together with the social inclusion of minority groups are likely to provide the ideal context in which social capital can thrive, regardless of the social or ethnic composition of neighbourhoods.


There are five generally accepted carcinoid histologic growth patterns, i.e., insular, trabecular, glandular, undifferentiated, and mixed. To determine their possible prognostic significance, a panel of pathologists studied the growth patterns of 138 carcinoids collected from an Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group carcinoid advanced stage disease chemotherapy investigation. Survival times were measured from date of initial pathologic diagnosis of carcinoid disease to date of either death or last follow‐up. Significant differences were observed in survival times between the five major growth patterns (P < 0.001). Within the mixed growth pattern group, significant differences in survival time were also observed (P ≤ 0.05). In decreasing order of median survival time in years, the growth patterns ranked as follows: mixed insular plus glandular, 4.4; insular, 2.9; trabecular, 2.5; mixed insular plus trabecular, 2.3; three pooled low incidence rate mixed growth patterns, 1.4; glandular, 0.9; and undifferentiated, 0.5. Histologic growth patterns are recommended as a stratification factor in future studies of this disease.


Existing literature on the relationship between ride-hailing (RH) and transit services is limited to empirical studies that lack real-time spatial contexts. To fill this gap, we took a novel real-time geospatial analysis approach. With source data on ride-hailing trips in Chicago, Illinois, we computed real-time transit-equivalent trips for all 7,949,902 ride-hailing trips in June 2019; the sheer size of our sample is incomparable to the samples studied in existing literature. An existing Multinomial Nested Logit Model was used to determine the probability of a ride-hailer selecting a transit alternative to serve the specific O-D pair, P(Transit|CTA). We find that 31% of ride-hailing trips are replaceable, whereas 61% of trips are not replaceable. The remaining 8% lie within a buffer zone. We measured the robustness of this probability using a parametric sensitivity analysis and performed a two-tailed t-test. Our results indicate that of the four sensitivity parameters, the probability was most sensitive to the total travel time of a transit trip. The main contribution of our research is our thorough approach and fine-tuned series of real-time spatiotemporal analyses that investigate the replaceability of ride-hailing trips for public transit. The results and discussion intend to provide perspective derived from real trips and we anticipate that this paper will demonstrate the research benefits associated with the recording and release of ride-hailing data.


2 Abstract: This paper reports on a survey of customer satisfaction with a credit company's services in Khorasan Jonobi, Iran. We followed Mihelis et al. (1) in using their five dimensions and their measures. Some researchers have begun to call for segmentation analysis based on satisfaction and we have done that here. There are four distinct segments. One has high satisfaction across all dimensions, one was relatively low on all of them. Two segments were midway on most dimensions, but one was positive about the personnel, one negative. These results show that the managerial problem here is not entirely about upgrading service operations. Rather, it is a targeting and positioning problem for marketing.


We used a new expert system for interpretation of lung function tests to check the differences between four investigators. The data base of the program system consists of vectors which yield statistical informations concerning the decisions of the users.


Objective: We sought to determine whether in the absence of clinical stroke, people with atrial fibrillation experience faster cognitive decline than people without atrial fibrillation. Methods: We conducted a longitudinal analysis in the Cardiovascular Health Study, a community-based study of 5,888 men and women aged 65 years and older, enrolled in 1989/1990 or 1992/1993. Participants did not have atrial fibrillation or a history of stroke at baseline. Participants were censored when they experienced incident clinical stroke. Incident atrial fibrillation was identified by hospital discharge diagnosis codes and annual study ECGs. The main outcome was rate of decline in mean scores on the 100-point Modified Mini-Mental State Examination (3MSE), administered annually up to 9 times. Results: Analyses included 5,150 participants, of whom 552 (10.7%) developed incident atrial fibrillation during a mean of 7 years of follow-up. Mean 3MSE scores declined faster after incident atrial fibrillation compared with no prior atrial fibrillation. For example, the predicted 5-year decline in mean 3MSE score from age 80 to age 85 was −6.4 points (95% confidence interval [CI]: −7.0, −5.9) for participants without a history of atrial fibrillation, but was −10.3 points (95% CI: −11.8, −8.9) for participants experiencing incident atrial fibrillation at age 80, a 5-year difference of −3.9 points (95% CI: −5.3, −2.5). Conclusions: In the absence of clinical stroke, people with incident atrial fibrillation are likely to reach thresholds of cognitive impairment or dementia at earlier ages than people with no history of atrial fibrillation.


Purpose: The purpose of the study was to identify nursing students' stress and sleep quality during clinical practice and to determine effects of white noise on levels of stress and sleep quality. Methods: This pretest-posttest randomized experimental study included a total 44 nursing students (22 for experimental group, 22 for control group). The study was conducted for 2 months. White noise intervention was applied to experimental group; all participants measured levels of stress and sleep quality two times before randomization and at the end of the study. Data was analyzed using SPSS 28.0 program. Results: The mean age of the participants was 22.9±0.4 years, and a majority of them were female (70.%), and junior (97.7%). The mean levels of stress during clinical practice were 2.6±0.6 out of 5. The majority of participants (79.5%) had sleep disturbance; the mean sleep duration and sleep efficiency were 5.8 hours and 90.6%, respectively. There were no significant differences in levels of stress and sleep quality between experimental group and control group after intervention. Conclusion: The participants of the study had relatively lower levels of stress than previous studies, but they had severe sleep disturbances. In this study, there was no significant effects of white noise on sleep quality and stress, but it could be caused by differences in clinical duty, work environment, intervention compliance among students. Further research considering those factors as control variables is recommended.


An aqueous and carbon-free metal-oxide precursor route is used in combination with a UV irradiation-assisted low-temperature conversion method to fabricate low-voltage ZnO transistors with electron mobilities exceeding 10 cm(2) /Vs at temperatures <180 °C. Because of its low temperature requirements the method allows processing of high-performance transistors onto temperature sensitive substrates such as plastic.


A new velocity formula, in the form of a modified Manning equation, is proposed for flow prediction in alluvial channels. The study shows that the flow resistance complies with a single law in the lower flow regimes for l < θ/θ cr < 250. where θ is the Shields parameter and θ cr is its critical value. When 7.5 < θ/θ cr < 250, the upper and lower regimes follow different resistance laws. A new criterion to demarcate the upper and lower regimes is proposed. The method is direct and involves input parameters that are readily available in practice. The main advantage of this method is that we need not know the velocity or flow depth a priori once the flow discharge is known. The new velocity formula is used in conjunction with these resistance laws and it incorporates directly the bed geometry on flow resistance. The validity of the formula is tested with 4824 sets of flume and field data covering the entire flow regimes. The computed and measured velocities are in good agreement where the mean normalized error and standard deviation for the predicted velocities are 10.6% and 9.6%, respectively.


In today's society it seems to be essential to invest in education for an active citizenship that favors social cohesion, through the global development of the person. In this sense, educational agents have the responsibility to promote active learning that puts the importance of socio-emotional skills at the forefront. In this direction, socio-emotional education -oriented to learn to know, to do, to live together, to be- seems to offer the tools for the full development of the person. The main objective of this article is to deepen the current situation of socio-emotional competences in school contexts. For this, a pilot study has been carried only in two Secondary Education Institutes of Seville, where the final participant sample has reached 44 professors. It should be noted that this study is being carried out within the framework of the secondary school research project (Baccalaureate) in Morocco and Spain, funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.


— An electric vehicle (EV) aggregator, as an agent between power producers and EV owners, participates in the future and pool market to supply EVs' requirement. Because of uncertain nature of pool prices and EVs' behavior, this paper proposed a two stage scenario-based model to obtain optimal decision making of an EV aggregator. To deal with mentioned uncertainties, the aggregator's risk aversion is taken into account using conditional value at risk (CVaR) method in the proposed model. The proposed two stage risk-constrained decision making problem is applied to maximize EV aggregator's expected profit in an uncertain environment. The aggregator can participate in the future and pool market to buy required energy of EVs and offer optimal charge/discharge prices to the EV owners. In this model, in order to assess the effects of EVs owners' reaction to the aggregator's offered prices on the purchases from electricity markets, a sensitivity analysis over risk factor is performed. The numerical results demonstrate that with the application of the proposed model, the aggregator can supply EVs with lower purchases from markets.


Nearest neighbor-based techniques provide an approach to acoustic modeling that avoids the often lengthy and heuristic process of training traditional Gaussian mixturebased models. Here we study the problem of choosing the distance metric for a k-nearest neighbor (k-NN) phonetic frame classifier. We compare the standard Euclidean distance to two learned Mahalanobis distances, based on large-margin nearest neighbors (LMNN) and locality preserving projections (LPP). We use locality sensitive hashing for approximate nearest neighbor search to reduce the test time of k-NN classification. We compare the error rates of these approaches, as well as of baseline Gaussian mixture-based and multilayer perceptron classifiers, on the task of phonetic frame classification of speech from the TIMIT database. The k-NN classifiers outperform Gaussian mixture models, but not multilayer perceptrons. We find that the best k-NN classification performance is obtained using LPP, while LMNN is close behind.


Labels as part of narratives are instrumental in the process of organising, particularly in megaprojects that seek to garner legitimacy and support of external stakeholders. While organisation scholars acknowledge that the process of labelling is contested, research on how different organisations navigate these labels remain limited. Within megaproject settings, labels such as largest, sustainable, efficient, etc., are frequently exercised and there is currently a dearth in megaproject management literature on how these labels come into becoming, are contested, and are maintained. Using the case study of the shaping phase of the High Speed Two Limited (HS2) megaproject in the UK, this research explores the multiple labels given to the megaproject, people, and practice by the promoters and protesters, and the ways labels play a role in shaping organisational identity. The processes that maintain and contest the labels such as using the same label, using other labels, explaining the label, and using labels in the title of the organisation are discussed. Thus, labels exist in megaproject arenas as a labyrinth with multiple labels for megaproject, people, and practices, from different agencies, which are then contested and maintained through more labels. This research therefore theorizes label creation, maintenance, and contestation in megaproject settings.


A newborn infant born to consanguineous (first cousin) parents was noted to have complex congenital heart defect and minor anomalies suggestive of trisomy 18. Blood lymphocyte and skin fibroblast karyotypes were normal. He died in the neonatal period of postoperative complications. On interphase fluorescence in-situ hybridization (FISH) using autopsy specimens, a significant number of cells in the liver (17%) were trisomic for chromosome 18, compared to normal control liver tissue. However, interphase FISH analyses of blood lymphocytes, skin fibroblasts, and kidney tissue were normal. It is our opinion that this apparent mosaicism for trisomy 18 in the patient's liver may be spurious, though it brings into focus the issue of possible tissue/organ-specific mosaicism. The anomalies in this infant do not resemble a previously described malformation syndrome. Parental consanguinity raises the possibility that this represents a new autosomal recessive malformation syndrome.


Two independently conducted surveys on sustainability - one into the 'views and values' of NHS 'leaders', and the other questioning the public about the importance of the 'green agenda' in the NHS, and their opinions on how the service might most effectively reduce its carbon footprint, form the basis of Sustainability in the NHS: Health Check 2012, a new NHS Sustainable Development Unit (NHS SDU) publication. As HEJ editor Jonathan Baillie reports, the new document also presents updated data on the 'size' of the carbon footprint of the NHS in England, showing that, although good work by a number of Trusts in the past two years has seen healthcare-generated carbon emissions start to 'level off', the biggest contributors have been the current health service spending review, and the increased national availability of renewable energy.


Genetic testing companies have come under fire
lately for an array of reasons. Many direct-to-consumer outfits are
being challenged by the federal regulatory authorities, by the
physicians' community and by the public itself. The desire to
derive utility from the existing mass of genetic research is only
outpaced by the sheer amount of new information being added to our
understanding daily. These genetic testing companies are
simultaneously trying to apply the existing knowledge, build a base
for further study and be credible, going concerns from a business
perspective. It is a worthy but difficult objective. The
direct-to-consumer genetic initiatives face resistance from
physicians who are the traditional intermediaries between medical
insight and application of this insight. The companies also face a
strong adversary in a government that wants to protect its
constituents from fraudulent marketing claims and misinformation.
Recent, informal studies have also exposed flaws in the product
offerings and delivery of information by these companies. Finally,
these are all for-profit entities which are struggling to become
profitable. The objective of this thesis is to identify an
attractive consumer base and opportunity that would allow for
successful deployment of genetic diagnostic capability. I postulate
that the success of a direct-to-consumer company would depend on
finding a customer that values the genetic insight deeply and is
able to take action from such insight. Based on those two
fundamental criteria-perceived value and actionable utility-I build
a profile of place, person and disease to test my hypothesis.
Driven by the findings of my research, I anchored my hypothesis
around an Indian consumer who pays for health care out-of-pocket,
is vulnerable to certain genetic diseases due to narrow, endogamous
customs and has grown up in a culture of arranged marriages. If
this individual's religious and moral code forbids early
termination of pregnancy or if financial and logistical
circumstances make abortion impossible, I posit the desire for this
cohort to use pre-marital genetic testing will increase. My
research showed that people born in India and people who had
considered arranged marriage as a viable option (the two groups
overlapped but not completely) did display a greater likelihood of
using genetic tests at the pre-marital and pre-natal stage to make
informed decisions about family planning. These groups also showed
a greater inclination towards early termination of pregnancy as
well as reconsidering partner choice based on the outcome of
genetic testing. However, the data also showed that those groups
that did not believe in abortion still did not preferentially want
a pre-marital genetic test.


Background. Studies have found that spinal stabilization exercises improve lumbar deep muscle function and reduce back pain. Spinal mobilization and manipulation reduce disability and pain in the treatment of chronic back pain. However, there are not enough studies to show a greater or lesser effect of different manual therapies in the treatment of lower back pain.
            Research aim was to determine the effect of different manual therapy methods and spinal stabilization exercises on pain and functional status in individuals experiencing lower back pain.
            Methods. The study included 18 subjects experiencing chronic nonspecific lower back pain. The subjects were randomly divided into two groups. One group underwent spinal vertebral mobilization with movement (sustained natural apophyseal glides – SNAG's) and spinal stabilization exercises, and the other group underwent non-specific lumbar spine manipulation and spinal stabilization exercises. Before and after the intervention back pain (SAS), functional status and disability, abdominal muscle static endurance, back muscle static endurance, lateral trunk muscle static endurance, and spine mobility were assessed.
            Results. All subjects had statistically significant (p < 0.05) changes in results related with pain, disability and functional status, lumbar spine mobility, and lumbar muscle static endurance, comparing them before and after the intervention. The results of the study before and after the intervention did not differ significantly between the groups.
            Conclusion. Spine mobilization with movement and core stability exercises as well as non-specific lumbar-sacral spine manipulation and core stability exercises were found to reduce low back pain and improve functional status; the effects did not differ between different manual therapy methods.
            Keywords: low back pain, spinal stabilization exercises, manual therapy.


Abstract Industrial designers make sketches and physical models to start and develop ideas and concept designs. Such representations have advantages that they support fast, intuitive, rich, sensory exploration of solutions. Although existing tools and techniques provide adequate support where the shape of the product is concerned, the exploration of surface qualities such as material and printed graphics is supported to a much lesser extent. Moreover, there are no tools that have the fluency of sketching that allow combined exploration of shape, material, and their interactions. This paper evaluates Skin, an augmented reality tool designed to solve these two shortcomings. By projecting computer-generated images onto the shape model Skin allows for a "sketchy" tangible interaction where designers can explore surface qualities on a three-dimensional physical shape model. The tool was evaluated in three design situations in the domain of ceramics design. In each case, we found that the joint exploration of shape and surface provided creative benefits in the form of new solutions; in addition, a gain in efficiency was found in at least one case. The results show that joint exploration of shape and surface can be effectively supported with tangible augmented reality techniques and suggest that this can be put to practical use in industry today.


The authors report an unusual complication following sugery for decompression of the Gasserian ganglion. Eight years postoperatively this patient developed a left temporal lobe granuloma caused by a piece of wood used to plug the foramen spinosum at surgery. The patient's clinical and radiological findings were suggestive of a glioma involving the temporal lobe.


Extracellular vesicles (EVs) have been identified as key messengers of intracellular communication in health and disease, including the lung. EVs that can be found in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) are released by multiple cells of the airways including bronchial epithelial cells, endothelial cells, alveolar macrophages, and other immune cells, and they have been shown to mediate proinflammatory signals in many inflammatory lung diseases. They transfer complex molecular cargo, including proteins, cytokines, lipids, and nucleic acids such as microRNA, between structural cells such as pulmonary epithelial cells and innate immune cells such as alveolar macrophages, shaping mutually their functions and affecting the alveolar microenvironment homeostasis. Here, we discuss this distinct molecular cargo of BALF-EVs in the context of inducing and propagating inflammatory responses in particular acute and chronic lung disorders. We present different identified cellular interactions in the inflammatory lung via EVs and their role in lung pathogenesis. We also summarize the latest studies on the potential use of BALF-EVs as diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers of lung diseases, especially of lung cancer.


Information on the history of National Hispanic Heritage Month as well information on the events taking place at Berkeley College in recognition of the month.


This paper presents a centralized multivariable control strategy for the control of the DFIG wind turbine. Model of one-mass wind turbine with DFIG is represented by a third-order model. Model predictive control is applied in order to compensate inaccuracies and measurement noise. The optimization problem is recast as a Quadratic Program (QP) which is highly robust and efficient. In order to bring the problematic voltages as closely as possible to the desired values, multi-step optimization is introduced. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated for a variable speed wind turbine.Copyright © 2014 by ASME


Most people die when they are old, but predicting exactly when this will occur is unavoidably uncertain. The health of older people is challenged by multimorbidity, disability and frailty. Frailty is the tendency to crises or episodes of rapid deterioration. These are often functional or non-specific in nature, such as falls or delirium, and recovery is usually expected. Health-related problems can be defined in terms of distress and disability. Distress is as often mental as physical, especially for people with delirium and dementia. Problems can be addressed using the principles of supportive and palliative care, but there is rarely a simple solution. Most problems do not have a palliative drug treatment, and the propensity to adverse effects means that drugs must be used with caution. Geriatricians use a model called comprehensive geriatric assessment, including medical, functional, mental health, social and environmental dimensions, but also use a variety of other models, such as the acute medical model, person-centred care, rehabilitation, alongside palliative care. Features such as communication, family engagement and advance planning are common to them all. These approaches are often consistent with each other, but their commonalities are not always recognised. The emphasis should be on making the right decision at a given point in time, taking account of what treatment is likely to deliver benefit, treatment burden and what is wanted. Choices are often limited by what is available and feasible. Palliative care should be integrated with all medical care for frail older people.


The author demonstrates that the phenomenon of acceleration of sexual maturation is more frequent in urban areas. The factors having a part in determining this process are multiple: psychoemotional and audio-visual ones, and have an important role. The acceleration of sexual maturation has rather negative consequences, due to the significant increase of puberal menstrual troubles.


Elderly people are prone to drug-induced adverse events (AEs), which often manifest as an atypical clinical picture. The differential diagnosis of any new symptom or alteration in the general state of health in the elderly must, therefore, include AEs. This article offers a practical tool designed to help clinicians to rapidly identify which drugs may induce which kind of frequent symptoms or syndromes.


The aim of this literature review is to evaluate current data on laparoscopic and open appendicectomy in order to establish a new gold standard in surgery. The authors have reviewed 4190 appendicectomies, 3322 laparoscopic appendicectomies (LA) and 868 open appendicectomies (OA), from 22 studies published between February 1992 and June 1994. Four studies dealt exclusively with pediatric patients (n = 1558). The analysis compares surgical technique, operating time, pathological findings, major and minor complications, postoperative pain and costs. The strongest arguments against LA are the increased rate of major complications, the increase of overall cost and the negative effect of the learning curve. The argument in favour of LA are the significant reduction of minor complications, the shortening of the postoperative hospitalization and of the time to resume full activity. The benefit of LA regarding the amount of analgesia requirement and the time needed to resume normal feeding after surgery is still controversial. The authors have reached the conclusion that LA might emerge as the first choice for appendicectomy. More studies are necessary to confirm this trend.


This paper is essentially epistemological and methodological and is aimed at designing the hyper-citizen methodological tool kit. It is not merely through an indicator based approach but also on a modelling based approach and a metatheoretical one (Stepanic et al., 2005: 858). Conceptually, it evolves by reframing the key global changes of our times under the emergence of hyper-citizenship from a multidimensional convergence among different kinds of citizenship (Pitasi, 2013; Pitasi-Angrisani , 2013): cosmopolitan (Beck, 2006), scientific (Nowotny, 2008), societarian (Donati, 1993), entrepreneurial (I evolved by reinterpreting Audretsch, 2007 who, properly, copes with the entrepreneurial society not the entrepreneurial citizenship). The four dimensions are shaped systemically (Luhmann, 1990, 1997) through a social free energy/social entropy coding (Stepanic et al., 2005: 860).


The effects of white light and UV light on chromosome endoreduplication, chromatin conformation and RNA synthesis were analysed in the hypocotyl cortical cylinder of the cv UC-105 of tomato and its isogenic mutant aurea, deficient in photoactive phytochrome A at the etiolated stage. Short white light or UV irradiations were administered to 4-day-old seedlings grown in the dark. White light had no effect on the mean ploidy level in the cv UC-105, but it increased the ploidy level in the aurea mutant. This is explained by hypothesizing that phytochrome inhibits endoreduplication, while cryptochrome stimulates it. UV light produced a higher ploidy in both genotypes, possibly because of residual action of cryptochrome at this wavelength or of specific UV-responsive photoreceptor. White light or UV light transiently increased heterochromatin amounts in the diploid nuclei of cv UC-105, and produced higher levels of RNA transcription than continuous dark. It is suggested that these responses were mediated by phytochrome, because they were lacking in the aurea mutant.


Sample efficiency and exploration remain major challenges in online reinforcement learning (RL). A powerful approach that can be applied to address these issues is the inclusion of offline data, such as prior trajectories from a human expert or a sub-optimal exploration policy. Previous methods have relied on extensive modifications and additional complexity to ensure the effective use of this data. Instead, we ask: can we simply apply existing off-policy methods to leverage offline data when learning online? In this work, we demonstrate that the answer is yes; however, a set of minimal but important changes to existing off-policy RL algorithms are required to achieve reliable performance. We extensively ablate these design choices, demonstrating the key factors that most affect performance, and arrive at a set of recommendations that practitioners can readily apply, whether their data comprise a small number of expert demonstrations or large volumes of sub-optimal trajectories. We see that correct application of these simple recommendations can provide a $\mathbf{2.5\times}$ improvement over existing approaches across a diverse set of competitive benchmarks, with no additional computational overhead. We have released our code at https://github.com/ikostrikov/rlpd.


In this paper, the problem of the stability for mutually delay-coupled semiconductor lasers system is investigated. By analyzing the associated characteristic equation, linear stability is investigated and Hopf bifurcations are demonstrated. The new phenomena such as stability switch is found. The equivariant property and the existence of multiple periodic solutions is also discussed. Numerical simulations are presented to illustrate the results in the paper.


Exposure to repetitive subconcussive head impacts (RSHI), specifically soccer heading, is associated with white matter microstructural changes and cognitive performance impairments. However, the effect of soccer heading exposure on vestibular processing and balance control during walking has not been studied. Galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS) is a tool that can be used to probe the vestibular system during standing and walking. The purpose of this study was to investigate the association of soccer heading with subclinical balance deficits during walking. Twenty adult amateur soccer players (10 males and 10 females, 22.3 ± 4.5 years, 170.5 ± 9.8 cm, 70.0 ± 10.5 kg) walked along a foam walkway with the eyes closed under 2 conditions: with GVS (∼40 trials) and without GVS (∼40 trials). Outcome measures included mediolateral center-of-mass (COM), center-of-pressure (COP) separation, foot placement, mediolateral ankle modulation, hip adduction, and ankle push off. For each balance mechanism, a GVS response was calculated (GVS, mean [without GVS]). In addition, participants completed a questionnaire, reporting soccer heading exposure over the past year. A linear regression model was used to determine if vestibular processing and balance during walking were related to RSHI exposure. Both foot placement (R2 = 0.324, p = 0.009) and hip adduction (R2 = 0.183, p = 0.50) were predicted by RSHI; whereby, greater exposure to RSHI was associated with greater foot placement and hip adduction responses. However, COM-COP separation (R2 < 0.001, p = 0.927), ankle modulation (R2 = 0.037, p = 0.417), and push off (R2 < 0.001, p = 0.968) were not related to RSHI exposure. Individuals who were exposed to greater RSHI were more perturbed by vestibular stimulation during walking, suggesting that there may be vestibular dysfunction and balance impairments with frequent heading; specifically, individuals with greater exposure to RSHI responded with larger foot placement and hip adduction responses to GVS.


This study evaluates the influence of hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) or slow pyrolysis (SP) process conditions on the physicochemical properties of precursor biochars and activated carbon (AC). The AC is achieved through a direct or a two-step method with subsequent chemical activation using KOH. A theory is developed on the biochar propensity to be chemically activated based on the lignocellulosic structure composition. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy elemental analysis shows that the O/C ratio decreases after chemical activation for HTC biochar but remains the same for SP biochar. X-ray powder diffraction indicates that the SP biochar and all ACs have broad amorphous carbon peaks, whereas corn stover and the HTC biochar have distinct cellulosic crystalline peaks. Vanillin adsorbent experiments were performed on various ACs with up to 98% reduction shown. The best adsorbent for vanillin was the AC produced directly from corn stover, followed by AC HTC and then AC SP.


Khaled M. Khan is the Graduate Program Coordinator in the department of Computer Science and Engineering at Qatar University. Prior to these, Khaled also served the University of Western Sydney as Head of postgraduate programs in computing. His research interests include secure software engineering, cloud computing, measuring security, trust in computer software, and software evolution. He has taught computing more than twenty years at various universities in Asia, Europe, Africa, and Australia. Khaled received his BS and MS in Computer Science and Informatics from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. He received his PhD in Computing from Monash University, Australia. He also holds a second Bachelor's degree from the University of Dhaka (Bangladesh). He's the Editor-inChief of the International Journal of Secure Software Engineering. Khaled has published more than seventy technical papers, and edited four books.


In this article we present results of a research concerning the theme "History teachers' continuing education and multiculturalism". The objective of the research was to analyze the following issues: Do teachers of History major "in" and "for" a multicultural perspective? Which cultural perspective is explicit and implicit in the National Curriculum Parameters of the teaching of History? Do the training institutions work in the perspective of cultural plurality in their formal and active curricula? To answer these questions, written documents and oral interviews were analyzed. The study was carried out with teachers of the courses of History of Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais and Universidade Federal de Uberlândia, and was based on the methodology of the thematic oral history. This article aims at socializing analyses produced on the basis of this investigation.


In the context of a growing literature on the connection between cultural variables and accounting regulations, the general objective of the paper is to provide a theoretical framework and empirical evidence on the recent trends in financial reporting and on their impact on the dynamics of the social output. Thus, the specific objectives are: 1) to provide an operational definition of culture; 2) to advance a model of the interactions between culture, design of accounting regulations and the economic growth; 3) to test some of these interactions at the European based on an empirical pool data model. The dependent variable are: a dummy aiming to capture the specificity of the IFRSs endorsement in EU; the average real GDP rates of growth; and the explanatory variables which are represented by the cultural descriptors derived from World Values Survey questions. The main results of the paper consist in the following theses: the culture is relevant for the national characteristics of IFRSs implementation in European Union; and the accounting framework matters for the outcomes of social decisions.


The results obtained at Instituto de Ciencias e Engenharia de Materiais e Superficies- ICEMS on the development of W-S-C coatings are reviewed and compared with literature data on the same system. The coatings have been deposited by r.f. magnetron sputtering using several approaches including reactive and co-sputtering processes. The chemical composition, structure and morphology of the coatings were analyzed and correlated with the mechanical properties. A complete detailed tribological characterization was performed by pin-on-disk tests varying the applied load, the humidity ratio and the temperature. The most important result achieved was the significant increase in the hardness with C addition that allows expecting a higher loading bearing capacity. From the tribological point of view, the coatings with C content close to 40 at.% showed a remarkable thermal stability up to 400 °C, with friction coefficients lower than 0.05 and 0.1 in dry and room environments, respectively.


FCCU main fractionator is a complex system with multivariable, nonlinear and uncertainty. Its modeling is a hard nut to crack. In this work, the gray wolf optimization with bubble-net predation (GWO_BP) is proposed for solving this complex optimization problem. In order to enhance the global search ability and accelerate the convergence speed, the bubble-net predation of whale search scheme is applied to update the head wolf position. And the improved Lé vy flight is used to update the positions of wolfpack for overcoming the disadvantage of easily falling into local optimum. The GWO_BP is compared with basic GWO, PSO with some typical test functions and the parameter estimation of FCCU main fractionation model. The experiment results show the effectiveness of the GWO_BP.


ABSTRACT
 The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia includes fauna from three zoogeographic regions: the Afrotropical, Oriental, and Palaearctic regions. To study the mosquito (Diptera: Culicidae) fauna of these regions in Saudi Arabia, larval collections were made at 15 sites during 2005–2006. Thirty-three species representing nine genera were found. Six species, Anopheles culicifacies Giles s.l., Anopheles subpictus Grassi s.l., Culex arbieeni Salem, Culex simpsoni Theobald, Culex univittatus Theobald, and Ochlerotatus detritus Haliday are reported for the first time for Saudi Arabia. An annotated checklist and an illustrated key to the fourth-instar larvae of the 33 species are presented, along with some remarks about problematic species. Eleven species of genus Anopheles Meigen, five species of tribe Aedini, 13 species of genus Culex L., two species of genus Culiseta Felt, one species of genus Lutzia Theobald, and one species of genus Uranotaenia Lynch Arribálzaga were recorded during the study.


This paper seeks to contribute to the debate concerning the current and future state of human geography by focusing on its changing treatment of the past. I argue that, while contemporary human geography has experienced a welcomed explosion in terms of its thematic breadth, it has also suffered from a considerable narrowing of the time periods that inform its empirical and conceptual studies. The paper begins by demonstrating the changing temporal focus of the subdiscipline over the past 50 years, drawing particular attention to its temporal narrowing over the past 20 years. Following this, I seek to suggest possible reasons for the foreshortening of the times studied in the subdiscipline. I then illustrate the benefits of extending our temporal frame of reference to discuss earlier times. I conclude by arguing that the project of lengthening the timeframes that we use to structure our geographical research has the potential to enable us to tell different stories about the geographical past and present.


The current study was carried out in the southern part of the old Meroe city in Sudan. A magnetic gradient reconnaissance survey revealed the presence of fairly clear archaeological building structures, with small dipole anomalies in the magnetic image due to the presence of fired-brick buildings. 10 closely spaced (1 m) parallel resistivity imaging sections in profiles selected on the basis of magnetic results were used to confirm the magnetic anomalies and to provide complementary information about the variation of the sandstone anomalies in depth. Resistivity imaging profiles were also used to demonstrate the feasibility and reliability of combining 2D resistivity profiles in a 3D data set for inversion using a 3D resistivity inversion code. Inversion results of the 3D resistivity data set are displayed in form of horizontal slices, vertical slices and a 3D block diagram.


Investigation was carried out to study the effect of spacing and fertilizer on growth, yield and soil health in pigeonpea hybrid during 2007-08 and 2008-09. The results obtained showed significantly highest grain yield with row spacing of 90 cm (1371 kg/ha) followed by 75 cm (1329 kg/ha) over 60 cm (1193 kg/ha) and plant to plant spacing of 30 cm found superior over 20 cm, however, similar trend was obtained with net return. Application of different fertility levels recorded significantly higher grain yield and net return over control, however, difference between them remained at par, therefore, application of 20:45:20:20:15 kg NPKSZnSO4/ha was found economical. Soil fertility status after harvest of pigeonpea hybrid was significantly influenced due to spacing and fertility levels over initial status. Interaction effect due to different levels of fertilizer, FYM and biofertilizer were found to be non significant. The results show that sowing at 75 x 30 cm with application of 20:45:20:20:15 kg NPKSZnSO4/ha are essential for obtaining high grain yield as well as net return of pigeonpea hybrid.


In the late 1960s people were talking about the promise of programs that verify the correctness of other programs. Unfortunately, it is now the middle of the 198Os, and, with precious few exceptions, there is still little more than talk about automated verification systems. Despite unrealized expectations, however, the research on program verification has given us something far more valuable than a black box that gobbles programs and flashes "good" or "bad''-we now have a fundamental understanding of computer programming. The purpose of this column is to show how that fundamental understanding can help programmers write correct programs. But before we get to the subject itself, we must keep it in perspective. Coding skill is just one small part of writing correct programs. The majority of the task is the subject of the three previous columns: problem definition, algorithm design, and data structure selection. If you perform those tasks well, then writing correct code is usually easy.


The main objective of life testing is to obtain information concerning failure. This information should then be used in order to quantify reliability, improve product reliability, and to determine whether safety and reliability goals are being met. The amount of time available for testing directly at use conditions, that is, with practical test times and realistic (relatively) small test sample sizes, could be considerably less than the
component's expected lifetime. To overcome such a problem, there is the life-testing alternative aimed at forcing components to fail by testing them at much higher than the intended application conditions. By doing this, we will get failure data that can be fitted to life distribution models. To go from the failure rate obtained at high stress to what a product or service is likely to experience at much lower stress, under use conditions, we will need additional modeling. These models are known as acceleration models. The accelerated life testing concept is such that a component, operating under predetermined (correct) levels
of increased stress, will have exactly the same failure mechanism as observed when used at normal stress levels. For example, if the time of testing is measured in cycles, then the time squeezing may only require increasing the number of cycles per unit of time. In this study, we will develop an accelerated life-testing model in which the underlying sampling distribution is the three-parameter Weibull model. We will be assuming a linear acceleration condition. An example will illustrate the application of the proposed accelerated life-testing model.


We discuss the structure of local gravity theories as resulting from the idea that locally gravity must be physically characterized by tidal acceleration, and show how this relates to both Newtonian gravity and Einstein's general relativity.


In this issue, Paul Menzel and M. Colette Chandler-Cramer propose a novel advance directive. Besides giving competent people the opportunity to refuse future life-prolonging medical interventions, they say, advance directives should give people the opportunity to refuse ordinary food and water if they later experience severe dementia.

This proposal is both appealing and unsettling. It is appealing because it offers some relief to people seeking to avoid the prolonged decline and extreme incapacity they have witnessed in relatives and friends with advanced dementia. But does it sufficiently protect patients? Menzel and Chandler-Cramer want to empower competent persons to impose potential discomfort and distress on a later self who cannot understand the reasons for that choice. In this situation, the price of respecting autonomy is paid by a frail incapacitated patient who has no idea why food and water are no longer offered to her.


Epithelioid sarcoma is a rare but distinctive soft tissue tumor showing characteristic histologic features associated with a typical course, but there is still some debate as to its histogenesis. Two cases of this unique tumor were analyzed using the electron microscope. Light microscopically the diagnostically relevant cell type is oval to polyhedral exhibiting a dense eosinophilic cytoplasm. In such epithelioid cells the cytoplasm may sometimes be completely filled with an inclusion-body like hyaline eosinophilic material. Ultrastructurally the most striking feature are abundant intermediate-type filaments in these eosinophilic cells. While none of the electron microscopic findings is specific, the accumulation of the intermediate-type filaments in conjunction with the other cellular features described in sufficiently consistent and distinctive and can thus be used for confirming the diagnosis. In formalin-fixed specimens the electron microscopical investigation may be helpful in everyday diagnosis. The suggestion from the literature that epithelioid sarcoma is related to the synovial sarcoma can not be supported by our ultrastructural findings.


Alkali silica reaction (ASR) is a long-term reaction between certain aggregates containing amorphous silicate phases and the alkalis from the cement paste. These silicates react with the alkalis present in the pore solution of the cement paste and form an expansive gel in the presence of water, resulting in the macroscopic expansion and cracking of concrete. Supplementary cementitious materials (SCM), replacing a part of the Portland cement (PC) in blended pastes, are known to reduce or even stop expansion due to ASR. Studies indicate that the main reason for this is the decrease in alkalinity of the pore solution of the cement paste, which in turn is attributed to the change in composition of the C-S-H, the main cement hydrate. However, knowledge on the effect of SCMs on ASR control is incomplete, especially the role of aluminium. The first part of this work focuses on the effect of aluminium and silicon incorporation in C-S-H, provided by SCMs, on the composition of the pore solution of blended pastes. It was found that, contrary to the common idea, the incorporation of aluminium in C-S-H does not increase its alkali fixation capacity, suggesting that the greater effectiveness of SCMs containing alumina is due to other reasons. In a second part, it is proposed that the additional aluminium acts directly on the reactive phases of the aggregates. Marine chemistry and geology theories about the dissolution mechanisms of amorphous silicates were applied to cementitious systems. Aluminium species, provided by certain SCMs and present in the pore solution, are incorporated in the silica surface and limit the dissolution of amorphous silica of the aggregates, limiting ASR. The effect of aluminium was shown through a study of reactive aggregates in simulated pore solutions. The mechanism was explained through a more fundamental study with pure amorphous silica plates put in simulated pore solutions. Finally, the impact of various alkali cations on ASR was studied to better understand the reactions inducing gel formation.


1. A modification of the Waugh-Ruddick test for increased coagulability of the blood is described, which employs the use of recalcifled plasma in the place of whole blood.

2. Using this modification, studies were carried out on a series of patients undergoing operation. It was found that there was an increased coagulability of the blood present within 24 hours following operation, and that this condition lasted for a week or so. In all cases, the coagulability had returned to normal by the end of two weeks.

3. It is felt that the change is due to an increase in the circulating thromboplastin, presumably derived from damaged tissue in the operative area.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT I wish to make grateful acknowledgment to Dr. T. R. Waugh for his advice and assistance during the course of this work and in the preparation of the manuscript.


The Th cell response elicited by an HIV-1 env plasmid DNA vaccine was assessed in rhesus monkeys by isolation of gp120-specific, MHC class II-restricted CD4+ T cell lines from PBL of vaccinated animals. The Env-specific CD4+ T cell lines recognized epitopes located in the second hypervariable region and in the carboxyl terminus of HIV-1 gp120. These cell lines proliferated in response to APC in the presence of recombinant gp120, as well as to APC expressing virally encoded Env. All of the CD4+ T cell lines responded to Env peptide by secreting IFN-gamma and TNF-alpha without appreciable IL-4 production. Recombinant gp120 stimulation of PBL from these vaccinated monkeys elicited the secretion of a similar profile of cytokines. Demonstration of a nucleotide vaccine eliciting a Th1-like immune response is consistent with the well documented ability of naked DNA vaccines to induce durable CD8+ CTL responses.


Time-variations in the gravity field as observed by the GRACE mission provide for the first time quantitative estimates of the terrestrial water storage (TWS) at monthly resolution over one decade (2002–2011). TWS from GRACE is applied here to validate three different ensemble sets of decadal hindcasts performed with the coupled climate model MPI-ESM within the German research project MiKlip. Those experiments differ in terms of the applied low (LR) and medium (MR) spatial resolution configuration of MPI-ESM, as well as by the applied ensemble initialization strategy, where ocean-only (b0) is replaced by atmosphere and ocean (b1) anomaly initialization. Moderately positive skill scores of the initialized hindcasts are obtained both with respect to the zero anomaly forecast and the uninitialized projections in particular for lead year 1 in moderate to high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. Skill scores gradually increase when moving from b0-LR to b1-LR, and less prominent also for b1-LR to b1-MR, thereby documenting improvements of the MPI-ESM decadal climate prediction system during the most recent years.


2011 was an important year for Turkish domestic politics in terms of government and Kurdish minority relations. In the beginning of the year, influenced by the Arab Spring, the Kurdish people started their "civilian disobedience" movement in order to demand more cultural rights. The minority-focused Peace and Democracy Party led the movement (Fraser, 2011). . The high election threshold level in Turkey is the reason for not defending Kurdish rights in the parliament. According to Council of Europe, "the national 10 per cent threshold was the highest of all the thresholds applied in the member states of the Council of Europe."[1] In general elections of June 2011, 35 party members were elected as independent deputies because the threshold was not applicable to independent candidates. However, some days after the election, the Supreme Election Board decided to block one of the Kurdish politicians' right of being a member of the Parliament because of his "past terrorism-related convictions" (Zıbak, 2011). The prevention of minority participation in Turkish politics increased the tension in the country. The Turkish police's repressive actions against the protesters made the demonstrations more aggressive and, as a result, the Kurdish deputies decided to boycott the new parliament's "oath-taking" ceremony (Watson & Tüysüz, 2011).


The introduction of the capacitance in series with the line reactance adds certain complexities to the effective application of impedance based distance relays. The paper reviews series compensated line protection challenges and proposes the state of art relay with an integrated scheme in harmony with the present power system scenarios Development of the proposed scheme is in the specific area of incorporating the adaptive features like adaptive Relay setting as the compensation level changes in the series compensated lines of the transmission system for optimum reliability. Upon extensive testing on different data set of fault cases with fault resistance and varying percentage compensation level , performance of the developed method ensures that the proposed scheme overcomes the overreach / underreach problem of the distance relay in series compensated lines and is found to be quite promising.


360-degree video is the main content type of Virtual Reality, providing users with immersive viewing experience. In this paper, we propose a novel adaptation method for 360-degree video streaming over HTTP/2, which can provide high viewing experience to users under time-varying network conditions and time-varying user head movements. The proposed method utilizes Scalable Video Coding to solve the trade-off between network adaptivity and user adaptivity. An optimal tile layer selection algorithm is provided. To cope with sudden throughput drops, the delivery of late layers is terminated using HTTP/2's stream termination feature. Also, a tile layer updating scheme is proposed to deal with viewport estimation errors. Experimental results show that the proposed method can improve the average bitrate of viewport by 16-17% compared to a reference method.


We present the experimental realization of optimal symmetric and asymmetric phase-covariant 1-->2 cloning of qubit states using fiber optics. The state of each qubit is encoded into a single photon which can propagate through two optical fibers. The operation of our device is based on one- and two-photon interference. We have demonstrated the creation of two copies for a wide range of qubit states from the equator of the Bloch sphere. The measured fidelities of both copies are close to the theoretical values and they surpass the theoretical maximum obtainable with the universal cloner.


Mosquitoes transmit serious human diseases and cause millions of deaths every year. Natural products obtained from plants are good alternative sources for mosquito control. The aim of the present study was to assess the larvicidal and repellent activities of extracts from Tylophora indica against Culex quinquefasciatus and Aedes aegypti. Three solvents viz., hexane, ethyl acetate and methanol were used to prepare the extracts from shadedried leaves of T. indica. The results of larvicidal activity clearly showed that the hexane extract was the most potent larvicide against both vector mosquitoes. The lethal concentrations varied? LC50 value of 324 ppm was recorded for Cx. quinquefasciatus and LC50 value of 619 ppm for recorded Ae. aegypti. At 5mg/cm2 concentration, the hexane extract presented the highest repellent duration against Cx. quinquefasciatus up to 187 min. At this same concentration, the hexane extract gave a protection time of 122 min against Ae. aegypti. The hexane extract of T. indica can be probed further for isolation of active principles against Cx. quinquefasciatus and Ae. aegypti.


Cardiac, metabolic and growth response of early-stage chicken embryos to perturbations in yolk environment was investigated. Also, effects of parental hypoxia exposure on hypoxia resistance, thermal tolerance and body length of zebrafish larvae were investigated. In the first study, thyroxine, triiodothyronine and testosterone produced differential effects on heart rate and development rate of chicken embryos during the first 4 days of development. Triiodothyronine caused a dose-dependent increase in heart rate when applied at 40 or 70 hours of age, while thyroxine caused a dose-dependent increase in heart rate when applied at 40 hours only. Testosterone and propyl-thiouracil (deiodinase antagonist) did not have an effect on heart rate. Development rate was not changed by thyroxine, triiodothyronine, testosterone or propyl-thiouracil, which suggested that heart rate changes did not result from changes in embryo maturity. In the second study, chicken embryos exposed to yolks of different bird species during early-stage embryonic development showed changes in heart rate, mass-specific oxygen consumption and body mass that scaled with the egg mass, incubation period length, and yolk triiodothyronine and testosterone levels of the species from which yolk was derived. In the third study, this phenomenon was investigated between layer and broiler chickens. Heart rate, oxygen consumption and body mass of broiler and layer embryos were significantly changed by a breed-specific change in yolk environment. Yolk triiodothyronine and testosterone concentrations of broiler and layer eggs did not suggest that these hormones were responsible for physiological and morphological changes observed. The final study demonstrated that hypoxia resistance and body lengths, but not thermal tolerance of zebrafish larvae was increased by parental hypoxia exposure.


A fenvalerate-degrading bacterial strain F-7 was isolated from long-term contaminated sludge. Based on morphological, physiological and biochemical characterization, and phylogenetic analysis of 16S rRNA gene sequence, strain F-7 was identified as Sphingomonas sp. The bacterium could utilize fenvalerate as the sole source of carbon. An amount measuring 100 mg L−1 fenvalerate was completely degraded within 72 h and 3-phenoxybenzoic acid (3-PBA) was detected as a major metabolite. The result indicates that S. sp. F-7 might metabolize fenvalerate by hydrolysis of carboxylester linkage. It was capable of degrading permethrin, fenpropathrin, beta-cypermethrin, cyhalothrin, deltamethrin, bifenthrin and 3-PBA. Further studies demonstrated that the strain was multi-resistant to heavy metals and antibiotics. In addition, degradative enzymes involved were confirmed as intracellular distributed and constitutively expressed. Furthermore, application of the strain was found to accelerate the removal of fenvalerate in soil. This is the first report of fenvalerate degrading strain isolated from S. sp. These results might help with future research in better understanding of pyrethroid biodegradation and highlight S. sp. F-7 might have potential for practical application in bioremediation of fenvalerate-contaminated sites.