OBJECTIVE
To prepare the quercetin self-emulsified formulation and evaluate its quality.

METHOD
The quercetin self-emulsified formulation was optimized based on the quercetin solubility in different oils, and the self-microemulsified efficiency of various combinations of emulsifier and co-emulsifier evaluated using the pseudo-ternary phase diagram. The microemulsion of morphology, size and zeta potential were examined. The quercetin of solubility in self-emulsified system was tested and the formulation stability was investigated by accelerated experiment.

RESULT
The blank self-emulsified system was composed of ethyl oleate/Cremophor EUL/butanol with weight ratio of 10: 54: 36. After being dilutied with water, the morphology of microemulsion was homogeneous small spherical drops observed under the electro-microscopy. The particle size and the zeta potential were 16.3 +/- 4.6 nm and 2.1 +/- 0.8 mV, respectively. The solubility of quercetin in self-emulsifing system was (62.42 +/- 0.11) mg x mL(-1), increased 2 229 folds compared with that of in water. The quality of quercetin self-emulsified formulation was stable during the 3 months storage at 40 degrees C.

CONCLUSION
The solubility of quercetin is significantly increased in self-emulsified system and the formulation is stable and easy to prepare.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate the antitumor effects of a mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) kinase fusion protein, TAT-OSBP-MKK6E (MAP2K6-FP), and paclitaxel as single agents and in combination against HO8910 human ovarian cancer cells.

METHODS
We previously synthesized a MAPK kinase-recombinant fusion protein, MAP2K6-FP, that contains three domains: a protein transduction domain TAT, a human ovarian cancer HO8910 cell-specific binding peptide (OSBP), and a potential anti-tumor effector domain MKK6 (E). The HO8910 cells were exposed to MAP2K6-FP, paclitaxel, or both for 24 h. The antiproliferative effects were determined using the Cell Counting Kit-8 assay. Antitumor synergy was determined by computing the combination index. The in vivo antitumor effects of both drugs as single agents and in combination were tested using HO8910 cells implanted subcutaneously in female BALBC/c nude mice. TUNEL assay, immunohistochemical evaluation, and western blotting were performed to investigate the mechanism of action.

RESULTS
A synergistic anti-proliferative effect was observed between MAP2K6-FP and paclitaxel at multiple drug concentrations, resulting in combination indices ranging from 0.3-0.85. In vivo testing against HO8910 cells in a xenograft tumor model indicated that both drugs were effective as single agents and that MAP2K6-FP and paclitaxel in combination had a synergistic antitumor effect. The combination treatment resulted in significantly altered caspase-3, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), and proliferating cell nuclear antigen expression compared to treatment with the single agents (P<0.05).

CONCLUSION
Both MAP2K6-FP and paclitaxel can inhibit cell proliferation and induce apoptosis in ovarian cancer HO8910 cells. Interestingly, the combination of MAP2K6-FP and paclitaxel had a synergistic antitumor effect on HO8910 cells, which induced apoptosis by increasing caspase-3 expression and decreasing VEGF expression.


Proceedings of sessions of GeoShanghai 2010, held in Shanghai, China, June 3-5, 2010. Hosted by Tongji University, China; Shanghai Society of Civil Engineering, China; Chinese Institution of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, China. In cooperation with Alaska University Transportation Center, USA; Geo-Institute of ASCE, USA; Deep Foundation Institute, USA; East China Architectural Design and Research Institute Company, China; Georgia Institute of Technology, USA; Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan; Transportation Research Board, USA; University of Newcastle, Australia; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA; University of Kansas, USA; University of Tennessee, USA; Vienna University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Austria. This Geotechnical Special Publication contains 42 papers that examine a variety of topics in soil dynamics and earthquake engineering. Topics include: dynamic soil-structural interactions under seismic loads; dynamic properties of soils and rocks; and seismic zoning and earthquake hazard assessment. Papers cover important issues such as the dynamic responses of earth dams, piles and pile groups, soil nailing, tunnels, landfills, and shallow foundations.


This article examines the Roman Catholic concepts, rhetoric, and images that have helped shape histories of progress in postwar Guatemala. The specific interest here is in the Roman Catholic Church's Truth and Reconciliation Commission report and the progress narratives that this report helps to perpetuate. Titled Never Again (1998), the report documents Guatemala's genocidal civil war by paralleling Guatemala's passion to Christ's passion. And while much of this article contributes to an ever-growing critique of progress narratives, of modernity itself, most compelling for this reflection are the spatial politics that appear as the Church's progressive history proves increasingly uninformed (at best) and irrelevant (at worst).


Objective: Methods to identify and study safety risks of electronic health records (EHRs) are underdeveloped and largely depend on limited end-user reports. "Safety huddles" have been found useful in creating a sense of collective situational awareness that increases an organization's capacity to respond to safety concerns. We explored the use of safety huddles for identifying and learning about EHR-related safety concerns. Design: Data were obtained from daily safety huddle briefing notes recorded at a single midsized tertiary-care hospital in the United States over 1 year. Huddles were attended by key administrative, clinical, and information technology staff. We conducted a content analysis of huddle notes to identify what EHR-related safety concerns were discussed. We expanded a previously developed EHR-related error taxonomy to categorize types of EHR-related safety concerns recorded in the notes. Results: On review of daily huddle notes spanning 249 days, we identified 245 EHR-related safety concerns. For our analysis, we defined EHR technology to include a specific EHR functionality, an entire clinical software application, or the hardware system. Most concerns (41.6%) involved "EHR technology working incorrectly," followed by 25.7% involving "EHR technology not working at all." Concerns related to "EHR technology missing or absent" accounted for 16.7%, whereas 15.9% were linked to "user errors." Conclusions: Safety huddles promoted discussion of several technology-related issues at the organization level and can serve as a promising technique to identify and address EHR-related safety concerns. Based on our findings, we recommend that health care organizations consider huddles as a strategy to promote understanding and improvement of EHR safety.


We propose a method for natural language generation, choosing the most representative output rather than the most likely output. By viewing the language generation process from the voting theory perspective, we define representativeness using range voting and a similarity measure. The proposed method can be applied when generating from any probabilistic language model, including n-gram models and neural network models. We evaluate different similarity measures on an image captioning task and a machine translation task, and show that our method generates longer and more diverse sentences, providing a solution to the common problem of short outputs being preferred over longer and more informative ones. The generated sentences obtain higher BLEU scores, particularly when the beam size is large. We also perform a human evaluation on both tasks and find that the outputs generated using our method are rated higher.


We carried out molecular dynamics simulations of monatomic B and octadecaborane cluster implantations into Si. We obtained and analyzed the doping profiles, lateral straggling and the damage amount and morphology produced within the target, as well as its annealing behavior. Our simulation results indicate that the use of octadecaborane clusters for the fabrication of ultrashallow junctions shows several advantages with respect to monatomic B beams, mainly related to target self-amorphization which reduces channeling and the amount of residual damage at the end of range.


This thesis consists of two topics. The first topic is a performance assessment study of the flight operations in the North Atlantic Organized Track System. This study begins with the demand shortfall analysis of demand sets provided by the Federal Aviation Association (FAA). These sets were used to simulate OTS traffic for a number of scenarios that consider different separation minima. For this reason, algorithms were developed to modify the NAT OTS configuration applying reduced lateral separation between tracks and estimate the probability that any given flight that traverses the Atlantic will use the OTS. The preliminary results showed that the scenario with reduced lateral separation minimum (RLatSM) (25 nm) and the reduced longitudinal separation minimum (RLongSM) (8 nm) was the most optimal among all five that were simulated. The application of RLatSM also decrease the mean fuel consumption of flights that shift from traversing the OTS to flying random routes. The second topic is a noise study performed for the Chicago O'Hare International Airport. The contributions to this topic were three fold: 1) we analyzed data to understand the current operations at ORD airport 2) we verified the noise contours produced in 2002 by the FAA, Chicago Department of Aviation (CDA) and the engineering contractors 3) we produced noise contours for today's airport activity.


This study investigates the trends, patterns and prospects of youth involvement in agriculture in Ethiopia, by gender. It also analyses the determinants of youth labor supply in agriculture using household and youth sample survey data collected during 2010/11 and 2014/15 main agricultural seasons in Oromia, one of the designated high agricultural potential area of Ethiopia. Labor supply is measured as the total annual working days (in adult equivalent) of male and female youth members of the household allocated to on-farm and off-farm work. Based on this data the marginal products (shadow wages) of youth workers of each gender and net income (shadow income) are estimated, using a structural time-allocation models. Then the estimated shadow wages and shadow income are used as regressors in a structural model of youth labor supply. The results indicate that trends and patterns of youth involvement in agriculture vary across gender and work locations, and so do their marginal products. Whilst the on-farm participation of youth is declining across time irrespective of gender, the participation in off-farm agricultural activities is increasing for both. There is statistically no significant decrease in the total agricultural labor supply of both male and female youths. Further, we find that the effect of own shadow wage on labor supply is positive for male youth members, suggesting an upward sloping labor supply. However, the effect of own marginal product of female youth labor is negative, suggesting that female youth agricultural labor supply is backward bending. The findings challenge the presumption that youth are abandoning agriculture, at least in the survey areas. Policy implications of the results would be that changes in economic incentives such as shadow wages and shadow income matter for youth involvement in agriculture and off-farm agricultural employment opportunities could help to reduce youth underemployment.


Maps of local tissue compression or expansion are often recovered by comparing MRI scans using nonlinear registration techniques. The resulting changes can be analyzed using tensor-based morphometry (TBM) to make inferences about anatomical differences. Numerous deformation techniques have been developed, although there has not been much theoretical development examining the mathematical/statistical validity of each technique. In this paper, we propose a basic principle that any registration technique should satisfy: realizing unbiased test statistics under null distribution of the displacement. In other words, any registration technique should recover zero change in the test statistic when comparing two images differing only in noise. Based on this principle, we propose a fundamental framework for the construction and analysis of image deformation. Moreover, we argue that logarithmic transform is instrumental in the analysis of deformation maps. Combined with the proposed framework, this leads to a theoretical connection between image registration and other branches of applied mathematics including information theory and grid generation.


The main objective of this dissertation is to find the main factors of building spatial configuration that affecting the thermal summer environment, the possibility of occupants to achieve thermal comfort there in, and to propose a spatial design method as the passive cooling strategy for summer thermal comfort. In accordance with the objective, the research questions were put forward in section 1.5 of chapter 1. For every sub-question, there is a respective chapter to answer it, see figure 1.3 in section 1.6 of chapter 1. In chapter 8, some conclusions of part I of this dissertation were summarised. In this chapter, the research questions are answered. In addition, the limitation of this research and recommendations for future practice and research will be mentioned as well.


A BSTRACT . —Gravity lows over large portions of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains are a geophysical curiosity in the southern Rocky Mountains. The Sangre de Cristo Mountains are largely composed of Proterozoic basement and Paleozoic sedimentary rocks. The exposure of uplifted, presumably dense, Proterozoic basement in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains should be associ- ated with gravity highs, but this is not the case. In this study, we focused on two gravity lows in northern New Mexico-southern Colorado. One is centered over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in Colorado and northernmost New Mexico, and the other is located near Mora, New Mexico. The northern low can be attributed to Precambrian rocks being thrust over less dense Paleozoic rocks resulting in a rootless basement. In the Mora area, the low is attributed to unusually low-density Precambrian granitic rocks (the 1.68 Ga Guadalupita pluton) underlying a thick sequence of Late Paleozoic and younger sedimentary rocks.


Introduction to the profession of social work and its historical development; overview of the knowledge, values, skills, practice settings and groups served by social workers.


Background: Pediatric proptosis can often present with puzzling clinical features and needs a systematic approach to avoid diagnostic dilemma. Aims and Objectives: To study the clinical and etiological profile, management, and outcome of pediatric proptosis. Materials and Methods: This retrospective noncomparative study involved the analysis of record files of 41 cases of childhood proptosis, who presented in the eye outpatient department and oculoplastic clinic between January 2013 and December 2016. Results: There were a total of 41 children, age varied from 6 months to 15 years. The maximum number of cases 25 (61%) were in the age group of 0–5 years. Male:female ratio was 1.77:1. Unilateral cases were found to be 31 (76%) and bilateral cases be 10 (24%). Neoplastic lesions constituted 22 (54%) of which benign lesions were 3 (14%) and malignant were 19 (86%). Among malignant, primary were 11 (58%) and secondary were 8 (42%). Inflammatory/infective lesions were 8 (20%). Conservative/medical management was given to 11 cases (27%). Surgery with pre- or post-operative chemo- or radio-therapy was the treatment of choice. Conclusion: Neoplastic lesions were found to the most common cause of proptosis in this study. Apart from detail ocular and systemic examination, final etiological diagnosis is possible in certain cases only after investigations such as peripheral smear, bone marrow examination, histopathological examinations, ultrasonography B-scan, computed tomography scan, and magnetic resonance imaging. Timely diagnosis and management can save the vision and many a times lives.


Cloud computing enables rapid deployment of services on an on-demand basis in large scale. Public clouds are open to all users with identities from various domains, requiring the support of multiple identity providers and hybrid authentication protocols. The complexity of the authentication scenario brings a great burden to service providers. Service providers and users know only a small part of the complicated authentication network. This work explores a system view on the authentication network in cloud, allowing the authentication interaction and the trust relations to be explicitly described and analyzed. A cross-domain single sign-on model is proposed and the implementation details of the authentication architecture and protocol is presented.


Previous empirical research on the relationship between consumer confusion and customer satisfaction has largely neglected the role of choice goals. In a context of technologically complex products, the authors analyze the effect of selected choice goals on the consumer confusion-decision satisfaction link. The empirical findings, which are based on a field study of smart phone users, show that different sources of confusion have distinctive effects on choice goals, which in turn influence decision satisfaction. For example, while confusion caused by ambiguous information and choice overload is found to reduce choice confidence, perceived attribute similarity between products or brands increases choice confidence. Among the choice goals, evaluation costs and negative affect are found to increase decision satisfaction. The findings have important implications for marketers and consumer policymakers in terms of marketing communication and customer satisfaction. C � 2013


Abstract Purpose: To determine if the frequency of the MMP-2 (-1306 C/T) genotype has an influence on the development of early age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Methodology: The study enrolled 387 patients with early AMD and a random sample of 682 healthy persons (control group). The genotyping of MMP-2 (-1306 C/T) was carried out using the real-time polymerase chain reaction method. Results: The analysis of the MMP-2 (-1306 C/T) gene polymorphism did not reveal any differences in the genotype distribution between the patients with AMD and the control subjects. When the study population was divided into age groups, the C/C genotype was more prevalent in the AMD patients aged <65 years than those aged ≥65 years (65.19% versus 53.88%, p = 0.0294), and the C/T genotype was more frequent in the AMD patients aged ≥65 years when compared with the AMD patients aged <65 years (40.78% versus 26.52%, p = 0.0037). Moreover, in the female group younger than 65 years, the frequency of the C/C genotype was greater in the AMD group than the control group (75% versus 58.91%, p = 0.0232). Conclusions: This study showed a significantly greater prevalence of the C/C and C/T genotypes in the patients with AMD younger than 65 years and those aged ≥65 years, respectively. Moreover, the AMD women aged <65 years were the carriers of the C/C genotype significantly more frequently than their control counterparts.


Bacterial infection of biomaterials is a major concern in medicine, and different kinds of antimicrobial biomaterial have been developed to deal with this problem. To test the antimicrobial performance of these biomaterials, the airborne bacterial assay is used, which involves the formation of biohazardous bacterial aerosols. We here describe a new experimental set-up which allows safe handling of such pathogenic aerosols, and standardizes critical parameters of this otherwise intractable and strongly user-dependent assay. With this new method, reproducible, thorough antimicrobial data (number of colony forming units and live-dead-stain) was obtained. Poly(oxonorbornene)-based Synthetic Mimics of Antimicrobial Peptides (SMAMPs) were used as antimicrobial test samples. The assay was able to differentiate even between subtle sample differences, such as different sample thicknesses. With this new set-up, the airborne bacterial assay was thus established as a useful, reliable, and realistic experimental method to simulate the contamination of biomaterials with bacteria, for example in an intraoperative setting.


The execution of business processes generates a lot of data representing happenings (also called events) that may be utilized for process monitoring and analysis. This, however, is not supported by typical Business Process Management Systems (BPMSs). Especially, in manual executing business process environments, i.e., not driven by a BPMS, the correlation of events to processes for monitoring and analysis is not trivial. At design-time, Process Event Monitoring Points are used in process models to specify the locations, where particular events are expected. Therewith, occurring events can be assigned to a process during run-time. In this paper, we introduce an extension to BPMN, which implements this connection between process models and events. We show applicability of this extension by applying it to a logistics scenario taken from an EU project.


Abstract The paper contends that space envisioned in literature – which is always inextricably intertwined with time – has never been real. From the bucolic settings in Theocritus's idylls (which have a pronounced mythical component) to the town in the heart of America in Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, which is narrated in the past tense to be as "once a town"; from the Ptolemaic concept of heaven and hell in Dante's Divine Comedy to the "unreal cities" in Eliot's The Waste Land; from the thatched cottages and country churches besides the vanishing village greens in Chaucer, Blake and Austen to the goings-on in the imagined county of Wessex in Hardy's novels or the invented islands by Swift in Gulliver's Travels to the retreat to the Walden Pond, to, the fading away of institutional space – whether in the phenomenal world or the space within the human heart – as in Larkin's "Church Going", literature worth reading has always been a complex record of what we were (the vanished time-space) to what might become of us in the dystopic time-space narrated with all the horror on the screen that collapses the boundaries between the actual and the virtual. The paper attempts to contemplate on some of these points.


A survey of homework experiences was administered to 1,527 elementary and junior high students in regular (n = 1,242), resource (n = 234), and self-contained special education (n = 51) classrooms. The results found significant main effects for Group, Grade, and Group by Grade interactions for items related to amount of, type of, and time spent doing homework; opportunity to do homework at school; parents' assistance; students' beliefs about homework assignments and grading; and students' feelings about homework and school. The higher incidence of negative feelings and opinions from students in resource room programs suggests that students' understanding of assignments, the nature of the assignments, and the feedback given to students are important issues requiring closer evaluation. The results also suggest that changes in homework assignments and grading may make the transition from elementary to junior high school particularly difficult for students with special needs.


Online Action Detection (OAD) in videos is proposed as a per-frame labeling task to address the real-time prediction tasks that can only obtain the previous and current video frames. This paper presents a novel learning-with-privileged based framework for online action detection where the future frames only observable at the training stages are considered as a form of privileged information. Knowledge distillation is employed to transfer the privileged information from the offline teacher to the online student. We note that this setting is different from conventional KD because the difference between the teacher and student models mostly lies in input data rather than the network architecture. We propose Privileged Knowledge Distillation (PKD) which (i) schedules a curriculum learning procedure and (ii) inserts auxiliary nodes to the student model, both for shrinking the information gap and improving learning performance. Compared to other OAD methods that explicitly predict future frames, our approach avoids learning unpredictable unnecessary yet inconsistent visual contents and achieves state-of-the-art accuracy on two popular OAD benchmarks, TVSeries and THUMOS14.


Experimental measurements of the spectral responsivity of (100) and (111) orientated, p-type silicon has been made, using HF, HCl, HBr, H2O and CO2 lasers, in the 2.5-33 mu m range. The high responsivity observed at 33 mu m is explained by reference to the band structure of p-type silicon.


The Neutron Spectrometer (NS) on board NASA's MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft is sensitive to galactic cosmic ray (GCR) protons greater than 125 MeV. During the MESSENGER orbital mission of Mercury, which lasted from March 2011 to April 2015, the NS made continual measurements of GCR variations, which represent the first long‐term GCR measurements for solar distances less than 0.5 AU. These relative GCR variations are compared to GCR variations measured by the Cosmic Ray Telescope for Environmental Radiation (CRaTER) on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. The two data sets are highly correlated, with correlation coefficients ranging from 0.91 to 0.98 for time integrations ranging from 1 to 25 days. The MESSENGER NS and CRaTER measurements of GCR variations are used to investigate the GCR radial gradient within the inner solar system. We find that the GCR radial gradient is less than 10% per AU, which is consistent with GCR radial gradients measured for solar distances greater than 1 AU.


Two-dimensional (2D) turbulence measurement by using microwave imaging reflectometry (MIR) has been performed in the reversed field pinch (RFP) plasma in TPE-RX. In this work, the maximum entropy method (MEM) is used to estimate the 2D k-spectrum. The turbulences between the pulsed poloidal current drive (PPCD) and the high Θ plasmas are studied. The m = 1 modes are dominant in PPCD plasma, while in high Θ plasma the k spectrum expands to the high k range and the turbulence propagates in the electron drift direction. The preliminary result shows that PPCD plasma switches off the turbulence, and the high Θ plasma has strong turbulence.


ABSTRACT Paisley 5 Mile Point Caves, Oregon, U.S.A. offer a unique perspective on Native Americans living in the Great Basin during the Younger Dryas. The cave sediments are mixed with abundant, disaggregated, packrat coprolites. We developed a technique for processing these packrat coprolites. Using this technique, this study analyses fifteen packrat coprolite samples separated from sediments collected from the sidewall of a test unit within Paisley Caves #2. The results were then used to create a paleoenvironmental reconstruction of the region. This reconstruction was then compared to a previous reconstruction based on the fossil pollen in the sediment from the same site. The reconstructions were similar. However, we found that the packrat coprolites were prone to dietary biases that could mask the true paleovegetation of the area. By studying the differences and similarities of these two sample sets, we obtained a better understanding of how each set reflects the local environment.


In this paper, we consider a scenario where there are a group of clients and a database server, and a client wishes to query the database, but does not want to reveal her or his query to the server. Current solutions for this problem are based on oblivious transfer, which usually requires high communication overhead. To reduce the communication overhead, we propose three k-anonymous private query protocols. Our first protocol is based on blind signature, where the server cannot determine the identity of the querying client from the group. Our second protocol is based on k-anonymous oblivious transfer, where the server cannot tell which record the querying client wants from k records. Our third protocol is a combination of the first and second protocols. Our protocols can achieve k-anonymity and are practical in many real-life applications.


The development of distant metastasis is the most important predictor of death from thyroid cancer. KiSS-1 is a recently cloned human metastasis suppressor gene whose product, metastin, was recently identified as the endogenous agonist for a novel Gq/11 coupled receptor (metastin receptor). The expression and functional consequences of metastin and the metastin receptor have not been evaluated in thyroid cancer. We measured metastin and metastin receptor mRNA levels in 10 FCs and 13 papillary carcinomas (PCs), 2 benign non-functioning follicular adenomas (FAs), and 11 normal thyroid samples, and evaluated the signaling pathways activated by metastin in ARO thyroid cancer cells that express the metastin receptor endogenously. Paired normal and tumor samples were available for 4 PC and 3 PFC samples. Metastin mRNA was detected in 6/11 normal samples, and 0/2 FA, 2/10 FC, and 9/13 PC samples (p < 0.05 for PC vs. FC). Metastin receptor was not expressed in any normal thyroid or benign FA samples, and was expressed in only a minority (2/10) of FC samples. However, the receptor was expressed in the majority (10/13) of PCs (p = 0.002 for PC vs. normal tissue). Increased levels of metastin receptor were detected in all four PCs compared to adjacent normal tissue. Incubation levels of metastin receptor were detected in all four PCs compared to adjacent normal tissue. Incubation of metastin receptor expressing ARO thyroid cancer cells with metastin resulted in activation of ERK, but not Akt. Taken together, these data suggest a potential role for metastin and/or metastin receptors in modulating the biological behavior of thyroid cancers.


Abstract. Recent advances in solid-state technologies have enabled the development of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with favorable features such as long life expectancy, low-power consumption, and reduced heat dissipation. Visible-light communication (VLC) is a short-range wireless access technology that deploys LEDs as wireless transmitters in addition to their primary task of illumination. The major limitation for the design of high-speed VLC systems is the electrical (modulation) bandwidth of the LED. In this study, we investigate the electrical characteristics of a number of off-the-shelf LEDs. Specifically, we determine their frequency responses and match them to their small-signal models. The electrical bandwidths of measured LEDs vary from 250 kHz to 20 MHz and depend on the emitted color and internal circuitry. As a verification of our measurements, we use the sample LEDs as a transmitter in a VLC system setup and determine the supported data rates. The equivalent circuit model is utilized to compare with the measured modulation characteristic of the LED. Furthermore, the bias current effect on the modulation bandwidth is presented.


Digital RF control systems allow to change the type of controller by programming of the algorithms executed in FPGAs and/or DSPs. It is even possible to design a universal controller where the controller mode is selected by change of parameters. The concept of a universal controller includes the self-excited-loop (SEL) and generator driven resonator (GDR) concept, the choice of I/Q and amplitude or phase control, and allows for different filters (including Kalman filter and method of optimal controller synthesis) to be applied. Even timevarying mixtures of these modes are possible. The implementation of such a controller is presented.. The controller is optimized for pulsed operation with ms pulses which allow use of finite length tables for measurement and control.


We present an analytical model of salt- and water-ion transport across an ion-selective interface based on an assumption of local equilibrium of the water-dissociation reaction. The model yields current-voltage characteristics and curves of water-ion current versus salt-ion current, which are in qualitative agreement with experimental results published in the literature. The analytical results are furthermore in agreement with direct numerical simulations. As part of the analysis, we find approximate solutions to the classical problem of pure salt transport across an ion-selective interface. These solutions provide closed-form expressions for the current-voltage characteristics, which include the overlimiting current due to the development of an extended space-charge region. Finally, we discuss how the addition of an acid or a base affects the transport properties of the system and thus provide predictions accessible to further experimental tests of the model.


On the basis of Part I, Part II continues further research on the wear of tire tread rubber. A test scheme composed of various combined conditions that are widely ranged in energy dissipation is developed. The wear rate and temperature increase are described by exponential energetic models. Coupled with the unified friction model, a well-demonstrated wearing simulation of the rubber wheel is proposed. The wear rate for the rolling of axisymmetric structure is derived, and a nonequal wear increment is proposed according to the maximum allowable wear depth of the surface elements, which act as a criterion for calculating the increment size. In order to maintain high quality of the worn mesh, the boundary displacement method is employed to reposition the interior nodes of the finite element model as well as the surface elements. The computed wear rates are roughly in agreement with the test results. As a further illustration, the tread wear simulation of an axisymmetric tire containing only longitudinal grooves is conducted. For the first time, the evolution rules of wear contour of the axisymmetric tire are revealed, and the linear variation of worn mass with the rolling distance is consistent with the experimental results reported in literature.


SUMMARY Modular, self-reconfigurable robots are robotic systems that can change their own shape by autonomously rearranging the physical modules from which they are built. In this work, we are interested in how to distributedly execute a specified self-reconfiguration sequence. The sequence is specified using a simple and centralized scripting language, which either could be the outcome of a planner or be hand-coded. The distributed controller generated from this language allows for parallel self-reconfiguration steps and is highly robust to communication errors and loss of local state due to software failures. Furthermore, the self-reconfiguration sequence can automatically be reversed, if desired. We verify our approach and demonstrate its robustness in experiments using physical and the simulated ATRON modules, as well as simulated M-TRAN modules. Overall, the contribution of this work is the combination of the tractability of a centralized scripting language with the robustness and parallelism of distributed controllers in modular robots.


Democratisation is a complex process that includes crafting political institutions. These institutions reflect existing power relations at the critical juncture of their genesis, thus influencing the development of subsequent political processes. The study uses this perspective to examine the impact of electoral governance on democratisation with a focus on three southern African post-conflict states. Specifically, the paper investigates the role of electoral management bodies (EMBs) in accounting for the distinctive regime trajectories in Angola, South Africa and Mozambique. The analysis suggests that successful attempts by incumbents to redesign EMBs after the founding elections have led to the establishment of self-serving institutions of electoral governance. This has had a negative impact on the credibility of subsequent electoral processes and the nature of the emerging regimes in the countries under scrutiny.


An analysis of the mechanics of three‐body ion recombination is given. The relative efficiencies of various gases in promoting ion recombination are calculated and found to be in satisfactory agreement with experiment. The calculations lead to qualitative conclusions about how mass, relative velocity, and the nature of the deactivation criterion affect the magnitude of the recombination rate.


The number of car occupant fatalities in Great Britain rose in 2001 and 2002 after falling reasonably steadily since the mid-1970s, and the number of motorcyclist fatalities has risen steadily since 1996. Car occupants and motorcyclists together accounted for 68% of all accident fatalities in 2002, compared with 62% in the 1994-98 period. This report analyses the circumstances in which car occupants and motorcyclists died between 1994 and 2002. Car drivers who died in accidents were predominantly young: 41% of men and 31% of women who died were aged 16-29. Car passengers who died in accidents tended to be even younger; 32% of men and 18% of women were aged 16-19, while a further 32% of men and 15% of women were aged 20-29. Many fatal accidents were caused by drink/driving. The peak rates occurred at the weekend, when about 60% of drivers who died in accidents occurring between midnight and 3am and 40% of passengers who died in accidents occurring between 3 and 6am had been involved in drink/drive accidents. The number of motorcyclists who died when riding machines in the 501-1000cc range increased by 40% between 1997 and 2002, but the number who had been riding smaller or larger machines and who died in accidents scarcely changed. By 2002 63% of motorcycles registered were in the 501-1000cc range. The peak age group for motorcyclist fatalities was 30-34 years while the main increase between 1994-98 and 2000-02 occurred in the 30-49 age range. Older motorcyclists who died in accidents tended to have been riding more powerful machines.


This paper presents a new parallel distributed processing (PDP) approach to solve job-shop scheduling problem which is NP-complete. In this approach, a stochastic model and a controlled external energy is used to improve the scheduling solution iteratively. Different to the processing element (PE) of the Hopfield neural network model, each PE of our model represents an operation of a certain job. So, the functions of each PE are a little more complicated than that of a Hopfield PE. Under such model, each PE is designed to perform some stochastic, collective computations. From the experimental result, the solutions can be improved toward optimal ones much faster than other methods. Instead of the polynomial number of variables needed in neural network approach, the variables number needed to formulate a job-shop problem in our model is only a linear function of the operation number contained in the given job-shop problem.


Both aerosol radiative forcing and cloud-climate feedbacks have large effects on climate, mainly through modification of solar shortwave radiative fluxes. Here we determine what causes the long-term trends in the shortwave (SW) top-of-theatmosphere (TOA) fluxes (FSW ) over the North Atlantic region. The UK Earth System Model (UKESM1) and the Hadley Centre General Environment Model (HadGEM) simulate a positive FSW trend between 1850 and 1970 (increasing SW re5 flection) and a negative trend between 1970 and 2014. We find that the pre-1970 positive FSW trend is mainly driven by an increase in cloud droplet number concentrations due to increases in aerosol and the 1970-2014 trend is mainly driven by a decrease in cloud fraction, which we attribute mainly to cloud feedbacks caused by greenhouse gas-induced warming. Using nudged simulations where the meteorology can be controlled we show that in the pre-1970 period aerosol-induced cooling and greenhouse gas warming in coupled atmosphere-ocean simulations roughly counteract each other so that aerosol 10 forcing is the dominant effect on FSW with only a weak temperature-driven cloud feedback effect. However, in the post-1970 period the warming from greenhouse gases intensifies and aerosol radiative forcing falls, leading to a large overall warming and a reduction in FSW that is mainly driven by cloud feedbacks. Our results show that it is difficult to use satellite observations in the post-1970 period to evaluate and constrain the magnitude of the aerosol-cloud interaction forcing, but that cloud feedbacks might be evaluated. 15 Comparisons to observations between 1985 and 2014 show that the simulated reduction in FSW and the increase in temperature are too strong. However, analysis shows that this temperature discrepancy can account for only part of the FSW discrepancy given the estimated model feedback strength (λ= ∂FSW ∂T ). This suggests a model bias in either λ or in the strength of the aerosol forcing (aerosols are reducing during this time period) is required to explain the too-strong decrease in FSW . Both of these biases would also tend to cause temperature increases over the 1985-2014 period that are too large, which would 20 be consistent with the sign of the model temperature bias reported here. Either of these model biases would have important implications for future climate projections using these models. 1 https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2022-583 Preprint. Discussion started: 26 August 2022 c © Author(s) 2022. CC BY 4.0 License.


In archaeology, it is not always possible to identify bone fragments. A novel approach was chosen to assess the potential of histology as an identification tool. Instead of studying a few bones of different categories from many species, this study concentrated on the diaphyses of long bones in four species of comparable size which are relevant to archaeology; young humans, pigs, sheep and goats, to broaden the insight into variations in diaphyseal bone structure within and between these species. A general difference in the primary bone structure was found between children older than one year and the three medium-sized mammals, namely lamellar vs. fibro-lamellar primary bone. Although, the diaphyseal bone structure of children below the age of one year also showed (developing) fibro-lamellar bone, its composition was distinctive from the medium-sized mammals. A difference in the secondary bone structure was also observed. Connecting (Volkmann's) canals, giving the secondary bone a reticular aspect, were seen in the medium-sized mammals but not in the young human long bones. To confirm the validity and applicability of these observed histological differences, a blind test was conducted on 14 diaphyseal fragments of identified long bones from archaeological sites. The results were very promising. All the bone fragments were correctly attributed using the difference in primary bone structure, even when the bone was severely degraded.


The article examines the state of energy security in the Balkans, the level of regional gas interconnectivity and the role of trade in liquefied natural gas (LNG) in enhancing energy security in the region. The study shows that infrastructure investments are required in the Balkans. However, the small size of the Balkan market lowers investment incentives. In this context, the policy entrepreneurship of the EU Commission can increase solidarity and investments in the Balkans. Moreover, planned and existing pipeline-LNG projects in the periphery of the Balkans can enhance the energy security of these countries. Keywords: Liquefied Natural Gas; Energy Security; the Balkans; European Union


Abstract The Middle English Pearl is known for its mixture of genres, moods and various discourses. The textual journey the readers of the poem embark on is a long and demanding one, leading from elegiac lamentations and the erotic outbursts of courtly love to theological debates and apocalyptic visions. The heterogeneity of the poem has often prompted critics to overlook the continuity of the erotic mode in Pearl which emerges already in the poem's first stanza. While it is true that throughout the dream vision the language of the text never eroticizes the relationship between the Dreamer and the Pearl Maiden to the extent that it does in the opening lines, the article argues that eroticism actually underlies the entire structure of the vision proper. Taking recourse to Roland Barthes's distinction between the erotic and the sexual to explain the exact nature of the bond which connects the two characters, the argument posits eroticism as an expression of somatic longing; a careful analysis of Pearl through this prism provides a number of ironic insights into the mutual interactions between the Dreamer and the Maiden and highlights the poignancy of their inability to understand each other. Further conclusions are also drawn from comparing Pearl with a number of Chaucerian dream visions. Tracing the erotic in both its overt and covert forms and following its transformations in the course of the narrative, the article outlines the poet's creative use of the mechanics of the dream vision, an increasingly popular genre in the period when the poem was written.


A source voltage clamped resonant link (SVCRL) inverter is proposed to clamp the DC link voltage to the input source voltage and reduce the current rating of a resonant inductor. The current control of a permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) employing a predictive current control technique (PCCT) for the SVCRL inverter is also investigated to overcome the disadvantage of the current regulated delta modulation (CRDM) control technique. By employing the PCCT based on the discrete model of a PMSM and estimation of back EMF, the minimized current ripple with a small number of switchings can be obtained. Finally, the comparative experimental results are given to show the usefulness of the proposed technique.


Tibia ankle fractures and traumatic injuries of the ankle-tibia joint area are one of the most intractable problems in orthopedic and traumatic surgery. Because of the displacement of these fractures they require precise opening of the joint surface area to undertake the early repositioning in order to gain eficient walk. The objective of this paper was to evaluate and compare the final results of nonoperative and operative treament methods, specificlly the two most common prognosis values of tibia ankle fracture clasifications by Danis-Weber and Lauge-Hansen. This is the prognositic marking in the range of functional and radiological results dependant upon the method beeing applied. The repetetiveness and accordance of these two classifications has been evaluated as well. This research was conducted on the retrospective evalutaion based on the X-rays of 61 patients (28 women and 33 men) between the ages of 20-76 making the average age 49.5. The definition of accordance and repetitivenes was conducted by three doctors, who evaluated the x-rays from the standard fornt, back, and side projection of relaxed joint ankle.


The main purpose of this dissertation is to see how proponents of diaconia justified the establishment of three Swedish diaconal institutions: Diaconissanstalten 1851 (The Institution for Deaconesses, Stockholm, now Ersta diakonissallskap/Ersta Association for Diaconal Work), Stockholms Stadsmission 1853 (The Stockholm City Mission) and Svenska Diakonanstalten 1898 (The Swedish institution for Deacons, first in Gavle, from 1905 in Stockholm, now Stiftelsen Stora Skondal/The Stora Skondal Foundation). Included is also a study of how diaconal work was justified in Sweden in the post-war period, a time when religious neutrality within health care and education was high on the political agenda. An additional purpose is to discuss how these justifications are related to the modern discourse of social work. The primary source material consists of journals that voiced the opinions of the aforementioned diaconal institutions, Parliamentary records and newspaper articles. This material is culled for justificatory arguments. The set of justifications found in each setting is discussed from three angles: theology, ideology and gender roles. The dissertation shows that justifications for diaconal institutions have varied over time, but that all the initiatives have reformism in common. Diaconal institutions are vindicated as projects for social and ecclesial improvement and not merely as instruments for the material or spiritual well-being of individuals. This reformist stance contrasts with how responsibility for one's neighbour was justified in pre-industrial Sweden: as a duty performed within a static society. Reformism in diaconia is in this dissertation looked upon as an early example of modernisation. The justifications of diaconal work found in the source material are the following. In the 1850s diaconal work was justified theologically as a means of revival and evangelism. The ideological stance of its proponents was social conservative. Female diaconia was propagated because women were regarded as particularly apt for nursing and caring. Around the year 1900 diaconal work was mainly a question of reinforcing the Church of Sweden as the spiritual and moral foundation of Swedish society. Ideologically, diaconia (both male and female) was still social conservative. The justification of male diaconia was that supposedly male characteristics could be made useful in a lay ministry at the service of the Church of Sweden. In post-war Sweden the basis for justifications shifted to social liberalism and a theology of stewardship. (Less)


Résumé en anglais Microparticles (MPs), small membrane-derived fragments shed from various cell types during activation and/or apoptosis, represent a new class of biological information mediators. MPs generated from T lymphocytes undergoing activation and apoptosis exert a beneficial potential effect on the cardiovascular system through their dual capacity to increase nitric oxide and reduce reactive oxygen species production. This study investigated the effect of MPs on both the angiogenesis and apoptosis of human umbilical vein endothelial cells. MPs induced the formation of capillary-like structures in an in vitro model, by regulating cell proliferation. Both cell adhesion and expression of proteins involved in this process, such as Rho A, and phosphorylation of focal-activated kinase were increased by MPs, via a ROCK inhibitor-sensitive pathway. MPs increased mRNA and protein levels of pro-angiogenic factors as measured by qRT-PCR and western blot. MPs significantly attenuated the increase in reactive oxygen species (ROS) associated with Act D-induced apoptosis at early phase of apoptosis (2 h), by acting directly as ROS scavengers, owing to their ability to carry active antioxidant enzymes such as catalase and the 3 isoforms of the superoxide dismutase. Furthermore, the effects of MPs on the late phases of apoptosis were associated with the ability of these vesicles to increase the expression of manganese-superoxide dismutase through internalisation process. Interestingly, the effects induced by MPs on the formation of capillary-like structures, expression of adhesion molecules and pro-angiogenic factors and on apoptosis were reversed when Sonic Hedgehog signalling was pharmacologically inhibited with cyclopamine. These findings illustrate new mechanisms by which MPs from T lymphocytes exert their vasculo-protective effects by improving endothelial function under pathological conditions in which cell integrity is impaired.


Any adequate account of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda must acknowledge manipulation by external forces, domestic pressures and psychological factors. Even so, the nature of the Rwandan state must be seen as absolutely central. The genocide took place under the aegis of the state, and Rwandans were the main actors involved. Both precolonial legacies and colonial policies contributed to the formation of this state, whose increasingly autocratic and unpopular government was, by the early 1990s, facing serious threats to its hold on state power, for which genocide represented a last-ditch attempt at survival. Many of the mechanisms through which genocide was prepared, implemented and justified in Rwanda bore striking resemblances to those used during the twentieth century's other major genocide, the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews.


Continuous-time dynamics models, such as neural ordinary differential equations, have enabled the modeling of underlying dynamics in time-series data and accurate forecasting. However, parameterization of dynamics using a neural network makes it difficult for humans to identify causal structures in the data. In consequence, this opaqueness hinders the use of these models in the domains where capturing causal relationships carries the same importance as accurate predictions, e.g., tsunami forecasting. In this paper, we address this challenge by proposing a mechanism for mining causal structures from continuous-time models. We train models to capture the causal structure by enforcing sparsity in the weights of the input layers of the dynamics models. We first verify the effectiveness of our method in the scenario where the exact causal-structures of time-series are known as a priori. We next apply our method to a real-world problem, namely tsunami forecasting, where the exact causal-structures are difficult to characterize. Experimental results show that the proposed method is effective in learning physically-consistent causal relationships while achieving high forecasting accuracy.


Human beings are political animals. They are also articulate mammals. How are these two aspects linked? This is a question that is only beginning to be explored. The present collection makes a contribution to the investigations into the use of language in those situations which, informally and intuitively, we call 'political'. Such an approach is revealing not only for politics itself but also for the human language capacity. Each chapter outlines a particular method or analytic approach and illustrates its application to a contemporary political issue, institution or mode of political behaviour. As a whole, the collection aims to give a sample of current research in the field. It will interest those who are beginning to carry the research paradigm forward, as well as provide an introduction for newcomers, whether they come from neighbouring or remote disciplines or from none.


In 2 experiments we examined the influence of frontal lobe function on older adults' susceptibility to false memory in a categorized list paradigm. Using a neuropsychological battery of tests developed by Glisky, Polster, and Routhieaux (1995), we designated older adults as having high- or low-frontal function. Young and older adults studied and were tested on categorized lists using free report cued recall and forced report cued recall instructions, with the latter requiring participants to produce responses even if they had to guess. Under free report cued recall instructions, frontal lobe function was a strong predictor of false memories in older adults: Older adults who scored low on tests of frontal functioning demonstrated much higher levels of false recall than younger adults, whereas levels of false recall in high-frontal older adults were more similar to those of young adults. However, after forced report cued recall, high- and low-frontal older adults performed similarly to each other, and both demonstrated higher levels of false recall than young adults. On a final recognition test, high-frontal older adults in both the free report cued recall and forced report cued recall conditions were more successful than low-frontal older adults in using source information to reduce memory errors. The results indicate that older adults show higher levels of false recall than younger adults, but type of test (free report or forced report) and neuropsychological status of older adults mediate these effects. Low-frontal older adults are particularly susceptible to producing false memories on free report tests that entail source monitoring.


To produce environments suitable for cell culture, thin polymer films were deposited onto commercial PVC plates from radiofrequency acetylene-argon plasmas. The proportion of argon in the plasmas, PAr, was varied from 5.3 to 65.8%. The adhesion and growth of Vero cells on the coated surfaces were examined for different incubation times. Cytotoxicity tests were performed using spectroscopic methods. Carbon, O, and N were detected in all the samples using XPS. Roughness remained almost unchanged in the samples prepared with 5.3 and 28.9% but tended to increase for the films deposited with PAr between 28.9 and 55.3%. Surface free energy increased with increasing PAr, except for the sample prepared at 28.9% of Ar, which presented the least reactive surface. Cells proliferated on all the samples, including the bare PVC. Independently of the deposition condition there was no evidence of cytotoxicity, indicating the viability of such coatings for designing biocompatible devices.


Competition has been considered as an effective means to improve business and
economic competitiveness. However, competition in supply chain management
(SCM) can be viewed as a source of uncertainty. Most recommended collaboration
strategies in SCM literature tend to avoid the emergence of competition inside the
supply chain, but, in reality, these strategies do not lead all supply chains to success.
In addition, from strategic management perspective, these collaboration strategies
are not believed to encourage firms to improve their performance. Both competition
and collaboration are critical issues in achieving business success, but the effect of
both factors on the market has not been explored concurrently in the literature. The
complexity of this issue should be investigated using a comprehensive perspective,
and it is hard to undertake by using an empirical approach. [Continues.]


There is increasing agreement that minimally invasive biomarkers to monitor patients receiving targeted therapies have significant potential to facilitate personalized medicine. The rarity and heterogeneity of CTCs make them a technically demanding source of biomarkers but one that holds great promise as the technical challenges are met. Marker independent technology platforms are in development which will better assess CTC subpopulations, but none so far have been fully validated for clinical trial use and treatment decision-making. CTC enumeration with CellSearch (EpCam and cytokeratin positive CTCs) has prognostic significance in many epithelial tumors, and in diseases with prevalent CTCs such as small cell lung cancer (SCLC) the dynamic range of CTC number allows pharmacodynamic evaluation. Biomarkers based on multiplex protein analysis and FISH are also evaluable in CTCs if sufficient can be detected. Examples of CTC based biomarkers in clinical trials will be presented. Developments in single CTC isolation and genomic profiling are increasingly reported by allowing insight to the biology of invasive tumor cells, including cellular co-expression of cancer specific mutations. I will present our progress in DNA profiling of single SCLC CTCs, and how this approach may inform on inter- and intratumor heterogeneity, and via serial sampling, on mechanisms of drug resistance. Most recently, we developed lung cancer patient CTC derived mouse models (termed CDX). SCLC CDX models faithfully recapitulate patient drug responses and will be useful to test novel therapeutics. CDX are generated at patient presentation and for those patients who first respond and then relapse with drug resistant disease, the relapse blood sample can be used to generate a paired CDX. Alongside single CTC profiling, the CDX approach will allow a comprehensive analysis of acquired drug resistance to chemotherapy, the discovery of new drug targets and testing of targeted therapies and drug combinations. I will also describe recent research exploring vasculogenic mimicry (VM) in SCLC, whereby tumor cells adopt endothelial characteristics and form vessels to increase nutrient and oxygen delivery to tumor independent of host vasculature. SCLC VM may explain the prevalence of CTCs and the early dissemination of this dismal disease and VM pathways may provide novel therapeutic targets. Finally, I will present a case report on a NSCLC patient whose blood sample contained no CellSearch CTCs yet generated a CDX model. CTC filtration of this patients blood revealed a high proportion of mesenchymal CTCs consistent with Epithelial to Mesenchymal Transition (EMT). Citation Format: Caroline Dive. Using CTCs to improve outcomes in SCLC: Single cell profiling, ex vivo cultures, and mouse models. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference: Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics; 2015 Nov 5-9; Boston, MA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Mol Cancer Ther 2015;14(12 Suppl 2):Abstract nr CN07-01.


Abstract Social workers have historically been an advocate for vulnerable groups. One such vulnerable group is elderly patients who have been shown to have multiple, chronic health problems. The current fiscal environment favors shortened lengths of stay, potentially leaving these vulnerable patients at risk for adverse outcomes upon discharge, especially for those discharged home as opposed to institutional settings. The purpose of the study was to characterize the biopsychosocial risks for adverse outcomes in the elderly patients discharged home from Guelph General Hospital (Ontario, Canada). The objectives were to (1) estimate the number of elderly people who indicate biopsychosocial risk for adverse outcomes, (2) determine the specific risks and their severity, and (3) estimate the number of readmissions to hospital within three months after discharge. Standardized, self-reported scales were used to measure risks in elderly patients at discharge from acute care medical and surgical units. The sample included 62 patients with a mean age of 79 years. At discharge almost 40% of the patients were considered at risk for adverse outcomes, 11% indicated depression, 45% indicated psychological distress, 13% showed cognitive impairment, and 62.5% (35/56) had at least one nutritional concern. Over the three-month follow-up period, there were 23 readmissions, 8 ED visits (not mutually exclusive), and 7 outpatient visits. The mortality rate over the three-month period was 5% (3/62). Many elderly patients who were discharged from hospital to home experienced several challenges medically, psychologically and some also experienced social adversities. The implication is that these patients may benefit from a more comprehensive discharge plan than is currently practiced that addresses their challenges.


Water vapor in the stratosphere makes a significant contribution to global climate change by altering the radiative energy budget of the Earth's climate system. Although many previous studies have shown that the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) has significant effects on the water vapor content of the stratosphere in terms of the annual or seasonal mean, a comprehensive analysis of the seasonal evolution of these effects is still required. Using reanalysis data and satellite observations, we carried out a composite analysis of the seasonal evolution of stratospheric water vapor during El Niño/La Niña peaks in winter and decays in spring. The ENSO has a distinct hysteresis effect on water vapor in the tropical lower stratosphere. The El Niño/La Niña events moisten/dry out the tropical lower stratosphere in both winter and spring, whereas this wetting/dehydration effect is more significant in spring. This pattern is due to a warmer temperature in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere during the El Niño spring phase, which causes more water vapor to enter the stratosphere, and vice versa for La Niña. This delayed warming/cooling in the lower stratosphere during the El Niño/La Niña decay in spring leads to the seasonal evolution of ENSO effects on water vapor in the lower stratosphere.


Trajectory prediction of vehicles at the city scale is of great importance to various location-based applications such as vehicle navigation, traffic management, and location-based recommendations. Existing methods typically represent a trajectory as a sequence of grid cells, road segments or intention sets. None of them is ideal, as the cell-based representation ignores the road network structures and the other two are less efficient in analyzing city-scale road networks. In addition, most models focus on predicting the immediate next position, and are difficult to generalize for longer sequences. To address these problems, we propose a novel sequence-to-sequence model named D-LSTM (Direction-based Long Short-Term Memory), which represents each trajectory as a sequence of intersections and associated movement directions, and then feeds them into a LSTM encoder-decoder network for future trajectory generation. Furthermore, we introduce a spatial attention mechanism to capture dynamic spatial dependencies in road networks, and a temporal attention mechanism with a sliding context window to capture both shortand long-term temporal dependencies in trajectory data. Extensive experiments based on two real-world large-scale taxi trajectory datasets show that D-LSTM outperforms the existing state-of-the-art methods for vehicle trajectory prediction, validating the effectiveness of the proposed trajectory representation method and spatiotemporal attention mechanisms.


The fabrication of masks used in storage ring X-ray lithography is described. These masks consist of a gold absorber electroplated over a substrate formed by a thin boron-doped silicon membrane covered by a layer of polyimide. Measurement of the properties of the materials which are of concern in this application is also described.


Zinc is an essential element for plant growth which its high concentrations can cause pollution and toxicity in plant. In this study, the effects of sorghum cultivation on some indicators of microbial activity and its association with increased zinc concentrations in two soils with relatively similar physical and chemical properties, but different in concentration of heavy metals were investigated. In both soils zinc levels were added to obtain 250, 375 and 500 mg kg-1 (based on the initial nitric acid extractable) content. Using plastic boxes containing 8 kg of soil, growth boxes (Rhizobox) were prepared. The box interior was divided into three sections S1 (the rhizosphere), S2 (adjacent to the rhizosphere) and S3 (bulk soil) using nylon net plates. The results showed that at all levels of zinc in both soil types, BCF were bigger than units, so using this indicator, sorghum can be considered as a plant for accumulation of zinc. Microbial respiration and dehydrogenase activity was reduced in all sections adjacent to root in the polluted soil. It is generally understood that substrates and inhibitors (heavy metals) compete in the formation of substrate-enzyme and inhibitor-enzyme complexes, but the effects of sorghum cultivation in increasing biological and enzyme activity indexes in soil 1 (non-polluted) was higher than soil 2 (polluted), perhaps due to improvements in microbial activity in the vicinity of the roots, even in concentration higher than stress condition levels for zinc in soil.


Two hundred twenty-seven malignant melanomas, exclusive of malignant melanoma in situ, were diagnosed in the Dermatopathology Laboratory of the New York University Medical Center in a 7-month period. Of these, 143 had been suspected of being malignant melanomas by the clinicians who submitted them. These lesions had been biopsied in various ways by surgeons and dermatologists, of whom those trained more than 10 years ago were found more likely to have done scalpel excisions, whereas dermatologists trained within the past 10 years had more likely done shave or punch biopsies. All too often, dermatologists failed to perform satisfactory biopsies of lesions that they suspected to be malignant melanomas clinically.


This research aims to investigate morphological changes in urban patterns in urban renewal areas by using geographic information systems and to reveal pattern differences that occur before and after urban renewal processes by applying a morphological analysis. The concept of urban morphology is not involved in urban renewal and urban planning practices in Turkey. This situation destroys the structural characteristic of urban space which appears as a consequence of changes at city, street or plot level. Different approaches and renewal interventions to urban settlements, which are formed as a reflection of cultural issues, may have positive and negative results. A morphological analysis has been applied to an urban renewal area that covers 325 ha. in Konya, in which city urban renewal projects have gained speed with the increasing of economic investments in this study. The study mentions urban renewal and urban morphology relationship, varied academic approach on the urban morphology issue, urban morphology components, changes in lots pattern and numerical differences that occur on road, construction and green space ratios that are before and after the renewal project, and the results of the morphological analysis. It is seen that the built-up area has significant differences when compared to the previous situation. The amount of green areas decreased significantly in quantitative terms; the transportation systems has been changed completely; and the property ownership has been reconstructed without taking the previous situation into account. Findings show that urban renewal projects in Turkey are put into practice with a rent-oriented approach without making an indepth analysis. The paper discusses the morphological dimension of urban renewal projects in Turkey through a case study from Konya city. Keywords—Konya, pattern, urban morphology, urban renewal.


The article is devoted to the impact of Japanese aesthetics on European fashion. In the first part, I will present an outline of Japonism, a trend in 19th century fashion. It brought no significant changes then. The designers just used decorative ornaments originating in Japan or fabrics imported from Asia. At the turn of the century, influenced by reforms in clothing and inspired by the Japanese kimono, the feminine silhouette was radically modified. In the 1920s, these innovations were abandoned. The main part of the paper concerns Japanese designers who appeared on the Paris fashion scene in the second half of the 20th century. Kenzo Takada and Hanae Mori adapted to the European canons, introducing an aura of exoticism. It was only the emergence of such avant-garde designers as Issey Miyake, Rei Kawakubo, and Yohji Yamamoto, that was a turning point in fashion. It involved a confrontation between the Western aesthetics and the Japanese concept of beauty. The Japanese designers proposed a style completely different from what Europe was accustomed to. It featured asymmetrical, loose, often monochromatic clothing, sometimes without traditional trimmings, frayed. In time, the initial shock they provoked turned into a shift in the understanding of what clothing can be.


We provide a new view of global and regional monsoonal rainfall, and their changes in the 21st century under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios as projected by 29 climate models that participated in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5. The model results show that the global monsoon area defined by the annual range in precipitation is projected to expand mainly over the central to eastern tropical Pacific, the southern Indian Ocean, and eastern Asia. The global monsoon precipitation intensity and the global monsoon total precipitation are also projected to increase. Indices of heavy precipitation are projected to increase much more than those for mean precipitation. Over the Asian monsoon domain, projected changes in extreme precipitation indices are larger than over other monsoon domains, indicating the strong sensitivity of Asian monsoon to global warming. Over the American and African monsoon regions, projected future changes in mean precipitation are rather modest, but those in precipitation extremes are large. Models project that monsoon retreat dates will delay, while onset dates will either advance or show no change, resulting in lengthening of the monsoon season. However, models' limited ability to reproduce the present monsoon climate and the large scatter among the model projections limit the confidence in the results. The projected increase of the global monsoon precipitation can be attributed to an increase of moisture convergence due to increased surface evaporation and water vapor in the air column although offset to a certain extent by the weakening of the monsoon circulation.


Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) having high temperature processes, such as heat treating and melting, are socially and economically important for developing countries. Consequently, their competitiveness must thus be increased to guarantee their permanence in the market. As these companies are thermal energy intensive, their competitiveness is affected by obsolescence and the low efficiency of older combustion devices, thereby making research necessary and being open to and aware of new technologies. With this aim in mind, a review of the state of the art regarding oxygen-enhanced combustion (OEC) is presented, highlighting its productivity and environmental benefits. A brass melting process in a self-regenerative furnace is shown to account for its potential, in which 28%, 43% and 34% reductions in fuel consumption, process time and CO2 emissions were obtained, respectively, and a 30% increase in efficiency, by increasing the oxygen content in the oxidiser from 21% to 35%. However, increased O2 supply cost constitutes an obstacle to applying this technique in SMEs.


Sparse representations has become an important topic in years. It consists in representing, say, a signal (vector) as a linear combination of as few as possible components (vectors) from a redundant basis (of the vector space). This is usually performed, either iteratively (adding a component at a time), or globally (selecting simultaneously all the needed components). We consider a specific algorithm, that we obtain as a fixed point algorithm, but that can also be seen as an iteratively reweighted least-squares algorithm. We analyze it thoroughly and show that it converges to the global optimum. We detail the proof in the real case and indicate how to extend it to the complex case. We illustrate the result with some easily reproducible toy simulations, that further illustrate the potential tracking properties of the proposed algorithm.


ABSTRACT The emission of methane from wetlands is spatially heterogeneous, as concurrently measured surface fluxes can vary by orders of magnitude within the span of a few meters. Despite extensive study and the climatic significance of these emissions, it remains unclear what drives large, within-site variations. While geophysical factors (e.g., soil temperature) are known to correlate with methane (CH4) flux, measurable variance in these parameters often declines as spatial and temporal scales become finer. As methane emitted from wetlands is the direct, net product of microbial metabolisms which both produce and degrade CH4, it stands to reason that characterizing the spatial variability of microbial communities within a wetland—both horizontally and vertically—may help explain observed variances in flux. To that end, we surveyed microbial communities to a depth of 1 m across an ombrotrophic peat bog in Maine, USA using amplicon sequencing and gene expression techniques. Surface methane fluxes and geophysical factors were concurrently measured. Across the first meter of peat at the site, we observed significant changes in the abundance and composition of methanogenic taxa at every depth sampled, with variance in methanogen abundance explaining 70% of flux heterogeneity at a subset of plots. Among measured environmental factors, only peat depth emerged as correlated with flux, and had significant impact on the abundance and composition of methane-cycling communities. These conclusions suggest that a heightened awareness of how microbial communities are structured and spatially distributed within wetlands could offer improved insights into predicting CH4 flux dynamics. IMPORTANCE Globally, wetlands are one of the largest sources of methane (CH4), a greenhouse gas with a warming impact significantly greater than CO2. Methane produced in wetlands is the byproduct of a group of microorganisms which convert organic carbon into CH4. Despite our knowledge of how this process works, it is still unclear what drives dramatic, localized (<10 m) variance in emission rates from the surface of wetlands. While environmental conditions, like soil temperature or water table depth, correlate with methane flux when variance in these factors is large (e.g., spring vs fall), the explanatory power of these variables decline when spatial and temporal scales become smaller. As methane fluxes are the direct product of microbial activity, we profiled how the microbial community varied, both horizontally and vertically, across a peat bog in Maine, USA, finding that variance in microbial communities was likely contributing to much of the observed variance in flux. Globally, wetlands are one of the largest sources of methane (CH4), a greenhouse gas with a warming impact significantly greater than CO2. Methane produced in wetlands is the byproduct of a group of microorganisms which convert organic carbon into CH4. Despite our knowledge of how this process works, it is still unclear what drives dramatic, localized (<10 m) variance in emission rates from the surface of wetlands. While environmental conditions, like soil temperature or water table depth, correlate with methane flux when variance in these factors is large (e.g., spring vs fall), the explanatory power of these variables decline when spatial and temporal scales become smaller. As methane fluxes are the direct product of microbial activity, we profiled how the microbial community varied, both horizontally and vertically, across a peat bog in Maine, USA, finding that variance in microbial communities was likely contributing to much of the observed variance in flux.


High-performance InGaN light-emitting diodes consisting of 120 side-by-side and individually addressable microstripe elements have been successfully fabricated. Each stripe in these devices is 24 mum in width and 3600 mum long, with a center-to-center spacing between adjacent stripes of 34 mum. The emission wavelengths demonstrated range from ultraviolet (UV) (370 nm) to blue (470 nm) and green (520 nm). The devices show good uniformity and performance due to finger-pattern n-electrodes running between adjacent stripes. In the case of the UV devices for example, turn-on voltages are around 3.5 V and continuous-wave output powers per stripe ~80 muW at 20 mA. A major feature of these devices is their ability to generate pattern-programmable emission, which offers applications in areas including structured illumination wide-field sectioning optical microscopy


The seed of tree peony and herbaceous peony contained a variety of stilbenes which possess many pharmacological activities, such as antitumor, anti-inflammatory, allergy and neuraminidase inhibition. In order to develop and use peony seed resources, a simple and sensitive HPLC-DAD was developed for simultaneous determination of 10 stilbenes in peony samples, i.e.,suffruticosol A,suffruticosol B,suffruticosol C,trans-resveratrol,cis-ε-viniferin,trans-ε-viniferin,cis-suffruticosol D,cis-gnetin H,trans-suffruticosol D and trans-gnetin H. At the same time, the scavenging activity of DPPH free radicals was employed to evaluate their antioxidant effect. The results showed that the 10 stilbenes are mainly present in peony seed coat (total content of more than 16.7%) compared to peony seed kernel (total content less than 0.3%), and can be enriched in the extract of peony seed coat (total content of more than 75%) The extract of peony seed coat and 10 stilbenes exhibited significant antioxidant properties. This work provides a foundation for comprehensive utilization of the tree peony and herbaceous peony seed resources.


On one hand product market competition acts as an ultimate solution to align interests of managers and shareholders, and on the other hand, competition alone may not be sufficient because it may not prevent managers from expropriating the competitive return after the capital is sunk. These hypotheses motivate us to investigate the interaction between corporate governance and product market competition in India where predominance of owner-mangers might cause corporate governance reforms to have a slow impact. Using a cross section of 1350 firms we attempt to capture various attributes of corporate governance by constructing an index of corporate governance based on board structure, ownership structure, audit quality and investor information disclosure. The index is then used along with traditional measures of competition to analyze the question of whether corporate governance and competition are complements or substitutes. In general the empirical analysis suggests that relying on product market competition to improve corporate governance of firms may not be appropriate in the Indian setting and therefore, direct corporate governance reforms seem to be necessary and effective.


Flow-sensitive dynamic enforcement mechanisms for information flow labels offer increased permissiveness. However, these mechanisms may leak sensitive information when deciding to block insecure executions. When enforcing two labels (e.g., secret and public), sensitive information is leaked from the context in which this decision is taken. When enforcing arbitrary labels, additional sensitive information is leaked from the labels involved in the decision to block an execution. We give examples where, contrary to a common belief, a mechanism designed to enforce two labels may not be able to enforce arbitrary labels, due to this additional leakage. In fact, it is not trivial to design a dynamic enforcement that offers increased permissiveness, handles multiple labels, and does not introduce information leakage due to blocking insecure executions. In this paper, we present a dynamic enforcement mechanism of information flow labels that has all these three attributes. Our mechanism is not purely dynamic, since it uses a light-weight, on-the-fly, static analysis of untaken branches. We prove that the set of all normally terminated and blocked traces of a program, which is executed under our mechanism, satisfies noninterference, against principals that make observations throughout execution. ∗Supported in part by AFOSR grants F9550-16-0250 and grants from Microsoft. †Research supported by NSERC.


Tools exist that look at the usability of sites from a static perspective – for example, looking for broken links. Other tools analyse web server's logs to understand how users behave when using the site. While these tools are helpful, they can only be applied after development and deployment. This paper investigates how a model checking based approach can be applied to web sites' design to reason about their behavioral properties from the early stages of development. The goal is that analysis of possible interactions between users and a site might be performed before actual development and deployment of the site.


Mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) is a distinct subtype of B‐cell non‐Hodgkin's lymphoma. To the authors' knowledge, little is known regarding its incidence patterns and associated factors. The purpose of the current study was to examine the incidence of MCL over a period of 13 years and to identify the factors associated with the incidence patterns.


High-calorie diet, circadian rhythms and metabolic features are intimately linked. However, the mediator(s) between nutritional status, circadian rhythms and metabolism remain largely unknown. This article aims to clarify the key metabolic pathways bridging nutritional status and circadian rhythms based on a combination of metabolomics and molecular biological techniques. A mouse model of high-fat diet-induced obesity was established and serum samples were collected in obese and normal mice at different zeitgeber times. Gas chromatography/mass spectrometry, multivariate/univariate data analyses and metabolic pathway analysis were used to reveal changes in metabolism. Metabolites involved in the metabolism of purines, carbohydrates, fatty acids and amino acids were markedly perturbed in accordance with circadian related variations, among which purine catabolism showed a typical oscillation. What's more, the rhythmicity of purine catabolism dampened in the high-fat diet group. The expressions of clock genes and metabolic enzymes in the liver were measured. The mRNA expression of Xanthine oxidase (Xor) was highly correlated with the rhythmicity of Clock, Rev-erbα and Bmal1, as well as the metabolites involved in purine catabolism. These data showed that a high-fat diet altered the circadian rhythm of metabolic pathways, especially purine catabolism. It had an obvious circadian oscillation and a high-fat diet dampened its circadian rhythmicity. It was suggested that circadian rhythmicity of purine catabolism is related to circadian oscillations of expression of Xor, Uox and corresponding clock genes.


State-sponsored silences cloak topics, such as inequality, that are of considerable social significance. However, hegemonic processes protecting current power structures drive these subjects underground, making them resilient and resistant to exposure. This poses both methodological and epistemological dilemmas. The social forces that perpetuate these silences do not yield easily to researchers; scholars thus know little about the complex hegemonic mechanisms underlying these powerful social forces. In this article, based on my experience conducting ethnographic fieldwork in the context of Mexico's state-sponsored silence on racism, I illustrate how silence and silencing discourses function as mechanisms to reproduce hegemonic social relations. I detail the numerous barriers I faced when attempting to penetrate the silence on racism, and how these seemingly unproductive encounters ironically resulted in exposing various silencing mechanisms. I address the bigger question of why the Mexican populace goes to great lengths to keep racism hidden: in maintaining the invisibility of racism, they reaffirm their national and moral identities. I conclude by sharing my "methodological toolkit" for studying state-sponsored silences.


Regional pulmonary arterial blood flow may be effectively measured by the distribution of radioactive particles in the lung following an intravenous injection. The original method required use of iodinated I 131 serum albumin, aggregated (MAA 131 [Human]), which limited the total amount of injected radioactivity to a maximum of about 300μc. To increase the photon output while decreasing the radiation-absorbed dose, we labeled iron hydroxide aggregates with the short-lived nuclide, indium In 113m. This isotope may be obtained economically in the carrier-free state from a tin Sn 113-indium In 113m generator in the clinical radioisotope laboratory. The preparation of the particles takes 15 minutes, and they may be autoclaved prior to injection. These aggregates have suitable physical and biological characteristics for lung scanning, and permit better images in a shorter period of time than iodinated I 131 serum albumin, aggregated.


This study aimed to develop a practical tool to support quality of life in dementia. Group discussions including professionals, people living with dementia and other intereste lay people developed a dementia toolkit for effective communication (DEMTEC) which, once completed, will be available free, via the internet.


Poly(hydroxybutrate-co-hydroxyvalerate) (PHBV) fibrous membranes were fabricated through electrospinning. The effects of polymer solution properties including solution concentration and salt addition were investigated such that uniform fibers with diameters ranging from several hundred nanometers to a few micrometers were successfully produced. It was found that the fiber diameter increased with polymer solution concentration and drastically decreased with the addition of benzyl triethylammonium chloride. For each type of PHBV polymer solution, fibrous membranes with different fiber orientations such as random fibers, aligned fibers and double-layered structures consisting of aligned fibers were produced and the effect of solution properties on fiber alignment was analyzed. The mechanical properties of fibrous membranes with different fiber diameters and different fiber orientations were systematically investigated using tensile tests. The aligned fibers exhibited high tensile strength along the fiber direction.


The objective of this research is to investigate the effect of Accounting Information System (AIS)
alignments on non-financial performance in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The result of
this research is expected to help the owners of SMEs to understand the importance of AIS
alignment to achieve non-financial performance. AIS alignment is influenced by several factors
such as: organizational characteristics, owner commitment, and organizational strategies that
effect on SMEs performance. The effect of AIS alignment on performance is explored using data
collected from SMEs owners in the Special Administrative Region of Yogyakarta (DIY). The result
of this research shows that AIS sophistication, owner commitment, and external IT expertise have
significant effects on AIS alignment. AIS alignment also has significant effect on non-financial
performance.


The acute toxicity of phenol was determined to be 35.0 mg/l in Oreochromis mossambicus. The fish were exposed to two sublethal concentrations of phenol (2.3 and 3.5 mg/l) for 30 days. The effects of exposure were studied on the bioaccumulation and elimination of phenol from the kidney and biochemical parameters of liver, gill, and muscle at intervals of 10, 20, and 30 days. A statistically significant increase in phenol concentration was noted in tissues from all treated fish groups. Bioaccumulation and biochemical changes were dose and duration dependant. Recovery in fish after post exposure was observed after transferring these fish to normal tap water for 30 days. Elimination of phenol was noted, although the concentration of phenol remained significantly higher than the control after 30 days of the experiment. Total protein, total carbohydrate, and total lipids in the tissues of liver, gill, and muscle of fish decreased greatly. The longer the exposure time, the greater was the percentage reduction of organic matter of the fish exposed to the sublethal concentration of phenol.


Historical ties, geographical proximity and a labour force surplus made India the natural answer to the Arab Gulf states" manpower shortage in the 1970s. Rising oil and gas revenues enabled the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to invest heavily in their infrastructure, but forced them for demographic reasons to open their doors to manpower primarily from India. With more than five million migrants Indians represent the biggest expatriate community in the GCC region today. To attain a better standard of living for themselves and their families they incur heavy debts to take up employment on the Arabian Peninsula, only to be at the mercy of their kafīl (sponsor) after their arrival. The sponsorship system, which is differently applied in every country of the GCC, results in exploitation and harassment that has no equal. Dependent on the vast armies of blue-collar workers from South Asia but at the same time threatened by their growing numbers and demands the Arab Gulf states have so far resisted increasing pressure from the Indian and Western governments as well as international NGOs to address the migrants" grievances and to improve their working and living conditions.


A novel frequency-domain transconductance technique for the detection of deep trapping levels in GaAs MESFETS is described and the experimental results obtained on a particular GaAs MESFET are reported. The results show the presence of two separate trapping levels at the same energy position of 0.67 eV which may be interpreted as being associated with the complex nature of EL2 centres.


The notion of rare continuity was introduced by Popa. In the present paper, we introduce a new class of functions, called rarely sg-continuous func- tions and investigate some of its fundamental properties.


Although more knowledge might be better for a firm, not all technological knowledge can create and realize economic value. Firms must commercialize their knowledge or resources. Based on panel data of Bio-Pharm industry from 1987 to 2008 by combining USPTO Patent Assignment, NEBR, SDC, and Compustat database, 96 US-based technology public firms comprised the empirical base for testing the moderating role of commercialization capability on the relationship between external knowledge and firm performance. The results confirm the strategic role of a firm's commercialization capability for its competitive advantage. However, commercialization efforts do not have the same effects on all external knowledge resources. While the interaction effect of partnership-based knowledge and commercialization capability is found to be positive and significant on short-term and long-term performance, the interaction effect of transaction-based knowledge and commercialization capability contributes positively and significantly only to short-term performance. Therefore, a commercialization strategy is contingent on the characteristic of technological knowledge.


The study analysed the economics of yam production and marketing in Taraba State. Specifically, the study described the socio-economic characteristics of yam producers and marketers, determined cost and returns of producers and marketers. A multi-stage purposive and simple random sampling was employed in the study. Data were collected with the aid of structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, net farm income and regression analysis were used in analysing the data. The result of the analysis showed that the respondents have a mean age of 40 years for both producers and marketers. 77% were male for the producers while 66% were females for the marketer. 35% of the producers had a form of tertiary education, while 46% of the marketers had secondary education as the highest form of education. Both producers and marketers had N1.45 and 0.99 for wholesalers and retailers, respectively as the average rate of return on every naira invested while the producers had N1.25 indicating that yam production and marketing is highly profitable in Taraba State. The result of the simple regression indicates that seed, farm size, age and farming experience were significant at 5% while fertilizer and household size were significant at 10%. Major constraints faced by both producers and marketers include lack of capital, insecurity and poor road network amongst others. The study recommends that producers and marketers should form formidable cooperative to enhance possible assistance from the Governments, also Government should intervene by building more rural roads network for ease of accessibility for yam producers and marketer. Marketers can make use of local securities such as vigilantes and also seek government security officials both on the farm and at the market place.


ABSTRACT A d-xylulose 5-phosphate/d-fructose 6-phosphate phosphoketolase (Xfp) from the probioticBifidobacterium lactis was purified to homogeneity. The specific activity of the purified enzyme with d-fructose 6-phosphate as a substrate is 4.28 Units per mg of enzyme.Km values for d-xylulose 5-phosphate and d-fructose 6-phosphate are 45 and 10 mM, respectively. The native enzyme has a molecular mass of 550,000 Da. The subunit size upon sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (90,000 Da) corresponds with the size (92,529 Da) calculated from the amino acid sequence of the isolated gene (namedxfp) encoding 825 amino acids. The xfp gene was identified on the chromosome of B. lactis with the help of degenerated nucleotide probes deduced from the common N-terminal amino acid sequence of both the native and denatured enzyme. Comparison of the deduced amino acid sequence of the cloned gene with sequences in public databases revealed high homologies with hypothetical proteins (26 to 55% identity) in 20 microbial genomes. The amino acid sequence derived from the xfp gene contains typical thiamine diphosphate (ThDP) binding sites reported for other ThDP-dependent enzymes. Two truncated putative genes, pta andguaA, were localized adjacent to xfp on theB. lactis chromosome coding for a phosphotransacetylase and a guanosine monophosphate synthetase homologous to products of genes inMycobacterium tuberculosis. However, xfp is transcribed in B. lactis as a monocistronic operon. It is the first reported and sequenced gene of a phosphoketolase.


Critically ill patients require vigilant monitoring of tissue oxygenation, particularly oxygenation of the gut mucosa, because of the mucosa's fragile blood supply. With the advent of gastric tonometry, splanchnic tissue oxygenation can be measured in a minimally invasive and cost-effective manner. Requiring only a gastric tonometer (approximately $70) and facilities to measure arterial blood gases, this method allows early detection of covert compensated shock by determining pHi. Thus, early intervention and correction of deficits in tissue oxygenation are possible and may improve patients' outcome.