Aquaphotomics is a young scientific discipline based on innovative knowledge of water molecular network, which as an intrinsic part of every aqueous system is being shaped by all of its components and the properties of the environment. With a high capacity for hydrogen bonding, water molecules are extremely sensitive to any changes the system undergoes. In highly aqueous systems—especially biological—water is the most abundant molecule. Minute changes in system elements or surroundings affect multitude of water molecules, causing rearrangements of water molecular network. Using light of various frequencies as a probe, the specifics of water structure can be extracted from the water spectrum, indirectly providing information about all the internal and external elements influencing the system. The water spectral pattern hence becomes an integrative descriptor of the system state. Aquaphotomics and the new knowledge of water originated from the field of near infrared spectroscopy. This technique resulted in significant findings about water structure-function relationships in various systems contributing to a better understanding of basic life phenomena. From this foundation, aquaphotomics started integration with other disciplines into systematized science from which a variety of applications ensued. This review will present the basics of this emerging science and its technological potential.


The literature shows that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the value relevance of earnings decreased. Traditionally, the literature measures value relevance using the relationship between stock returns and earnings. However, these tests are, in fact, "joint tests of relevance and reliability". This caveat can distort the measurement of relevance, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic where the exceptional level of uncertainty could have affected relevance and reliability to different extents. This study disentangles reliability and relevance by extending the value relevance test. We use this extended test to examine firm categories in two dimensions: profits versus losses and intensive versus scarce use of accounting estimates. The results show that reliability and relevance are complementary when both are sufficiently high, but reliability has no significant impact on the usefulness of earnings when relevance is weak.


Abstract Objective: To evaluate the long-term efficacy of out-patient neodymium-doped yttrium aluminium garnet laser photocoagulation surgery for patients with epistaxis. Methods: A retrospective clinical study was conducted. A total of 217 consecutive patients who presented with acute or recurrent epistaxis received neodymium-doped yttrium aluminium garnet laser photocoagulation treatment in an out-patient setting. Results: At three years, 94 per cent of acute epistaxis patients versus 88 per cent of recurrent epistaxis patients reported no bleeding. The outcome scores at 12 weeks and 3 years after treatment showed no significant differences between the 2 groups (p = 0.207 and p = 0.186). However, there was a significant difference in outcome scores at four weeks after treatment (p = 0.034). The median (and mean ± standard deviation) pain levels experienced during the laser operation (performed in an office setting) were 4.0 (3.75 ± 2.09) in the acute epistaxis group and 4.0 (3.83 ± 2.01) in the recurrent epistaxis group. Neither group had any complications. Conclusion: Neodymium-doped yttrium aluminium garnet laser photocoagulation is desirable in the treatment of both acute and recurrent epistaxis, and has long-lasting efficacy.


The extension of an intracardiac abscess causing complete heart block is a rare complication of infective endocarditis that is associated with a high mortality. Early identification of conduction abnormalities and a low threshold for suspecting infective endocarditis is crucial to provide prompt management to prevent intracardial extension of infection. We report a case of a patient presenting with complete heart block in the setting of profound hyperkalemia, and was then found to have enterococcal prosthetic valve endocarditis, which was complicated by an intracardiac aortic root abscess which led to asystolic cardiac arrest. The development of heart block in endocarditis serves as a marker for poor prognosis and can signify progression of infection. Management therefore requires immediate pacing, antibiotic delivery to lessen infectious burden, and evaluation for consideration of surgical options such as valve replacement. It is therefore recommended for patients with endocarditis complicated by conduction abnormalities or intracardial abscesses to be treated by a multi-disciplinary team consisting of cardiologists, cardiothoracic surgeons, and infectious disease specialists.


CONTEXT
Systematic reviews of the literature are an important resource for clinicians. Unfortunately, the few published strategies for identifying these articles involve MEDLINE interfaces not widely available outside of academic medicine. In addition, the performance of these strategies is unknown.

OBJECTIVE
To develop and evaluate a search strategy for identifying systematic reviews by using a publicly available MEDLINE interface (PubMed).

DESIGN
Diagnostic test assessment. DEFINITION OF SENSITIVITY: The proportion of recognized systematic reviews (indexed in the Cochrane Library's Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectiveness [DARE] or in ACP Journal Club) that are identified by the search strategy. DEFINITION OF POSITIVE PREDICTIVE VALUE: The proportion of articles identified in one of three sample searches (screening for colorectal cancer, thrombolytic therapy for venous thromboembolism, and treatment of dementia) that meet a minimum definition of systematic review.

RESULTS
Our PubMed search strategy identified 93 of 100 DARE-indexed systematic reviews, a sensitivity of 93% (95% CI, 86% to 97%). For the sample of systematic reviews drawn from ACP Journal Club (n = 103), the PubMed strategy achieved a sensitivity of 97% (CI, 91% to 99%). When the three sample search strings were used, approximately 50% of retrieved articles met our minimum definition of systematic review. In contrast, the similar precision of a PubMed search restricted to review-type articles (as indexed by MEDLINE) was less than 10%.

CONCLUSIONS
This search strategy identified most systematic reviews without over-whelming users with numerous false-positive results. A "single-click" filter based on this strategy is now available as part of the Clinical Queries feature of PubMed.


Abstract As taxation has become a prominent issue on the international development policy agenda, a growing body of research has focused on taxpayer perceptions and experiences of taxation. A strand of this research emphasises the importance of the historical, political and social context of taxation. We position ourselves in line with this research as we pay attention to the emic definitions of taxation in Africa across contexts, languages, and time periods. We explore how the conception of taxation in different contexts is closely interrelated with the language used to describe it, with language being a product of histories of colonialism, conflict, and extraction by social, traditional and political actors. We argue that studies of taxation, particularly survey-based research, need to be complemented, if not informed, by a deeper understanding of the diversity of tax landscapes and of the meanings ascribed to taxation in a given context. This will strengthen content and interpretive validity of taxpayer perception data as well as provide important nuances to the understanding of the dynamics of taxpayers' experiences of contemporary states and systems of taxation.


Mild gestational hyperglycemia is often associated with fetal overgrowth that can predispose the offspring to metabolic diseases later in life. We hypothesized that unfavorable intrauterine environment may compromise the development of placenta and contribute to fetal overgrowth. Therefore, we developed a rat model and investigated the effects of maternal dysglycemia on fetal growth and placental gene expression. Female rats were treated with single injection of nicotinamide plus streptozotocin (N-STZ) 1-week before mating and were studied at gestational day 21. N-STZ pregnant females displayed impaired glucose tolerance that is associated with a lower insulin secretion. Moderate hyperglycemia induced fetal overgrowth in 40% of newborns, from pregnancies with 10 to 14 pups. The incidence of macrosomia was less than 5% in the N-STZ pregnancies when the litter size exceeds 15 newborns. We found that placental mass and the labyrinthine layer were increased in macrosomic placentas. The expression of genes involved in placental development and nutrient transfer was down regulated in the N-STZ placentas of macrosomic and normosomic pups from pregnancies with 10 to 14 ones. However, we observed that lipoprotein lipase 1 (LPL1) gene expression was significantly increased in the N-STZ placentas of macrosomic pups. In pregnancies with 15 pups or more, the expression of IGFs and glucose transporter genes was also modulated in the control placentas with no additional effect in the N-STZ ones. These data suggest that placental gene expression is modulated by gestational conditions that might disrupt the fetal growth. We described here a new model of maternal glucose intolerance that results in fetal overgrowth. We proposed that over-expression of LPL1 in the placenta may contribute to the increased fetal growth in the N-STZ pregnancies. N-STZ model offers the opportunity to determinate whether these neonatal outcomes may contribute to developmental programming of metabolic diseases in adulthood.


Background : The delivery of higher education and professional development programs through a flexible online model has been increasing in popularity for education providers and students alike for some time [Chitkushev Et.Al 2014]. The delivery of these programs to military students comes with a unique set of challenges, especially in the field of health professions education. The University of Tasmania (UTAS) offers a wide range of courses through flexible delivery to military students, with the Bachelor of Paramedic Practice receiving increasing enrolments during the last 12 months. The current evidence base underpinning education delivery to military personnel is limited, with the majority of literature referring to the US military [Bunting 2013], which may have limited application in the Australian military context. Aim : To investigate the issues affecting military personnel engaged in online education, with the aim of improving the delivery of services to this specific student population. Methodology : The university undertook a review of any cohort specific challenges faced by students enrolled in the Bachelor of Paramedic Practice (Conversion) in the first semester of 2014. Results : Currently 20% of the students enrolled in the Bachelor of Paramedic Practice at UTAS come from the Australian Defence Forces. A review of communication with students over the first semester of 2014 has identified a range of challenges faced by both the student population and the university. These challenges can be summarised under five domains; communication; flexibility in content delivery; flexibility in assessment practices; access to technology; flexibility in enrolment policies and procedures. Discussion : Whilst there are a number of issues that can be resolved internally within the faculty, there are a number of areas that require the development of new or updated policy relating to military students. A similar process occurs in the United States under the Military Friendly Colleges [Lederman 2008] program. This initial review reveals the need to further investigate the barriers and enablers for military students in undertaking further education, taking into consideration the unique nature of the military professional environment. Conclusion : Universities face challenges in the provision of education to military personnel, due to their unique characteristics in comparison the wider student body. In order to better support the military student, it is important to fully investigate the issues facing this student cohort.


A diocesan synod is necessary so that it could express the common concern for being the Church and being in the Church, the key manifestation of which is the concern for identification with it. And this can be reached only by communal reflection about who we are as the Church and what our tasks in this field are. In December 2016, the Bishop of Tarnów decided to convoke the 5th Synod of the Diocese of Tarnów. Before this Synod was inaugurated, it was preceded by a preparatory stage. Therefore, this article presents the following issues connected with this important synodal stage in the Diocese of Tarnów: the announcement of synod convocation, the aims of synod preparatory stage, the establishment of the Preparatory Commission and its tasks and, finally, the results of works performed during the pre-synodal stage will be presented.


Propolis is a fragrant material produced by bees and is commonly used as an ingredient in food, beverage, and consumer goods industries. Application of a comparative aroma extract dilution analysis (cAEDA) to volatiles isolated from propolis over three consecutive years afforded 48 odorants with flavor dilution (FD) factors ≥ 4, including 21 compounds not previously reported in propolis. Despite differences in FD factors of some compounds, the overall temporal variation in the odorants was low. Compounds with FD ≥ 64 were quantitated by stable isotope dilution assays (SIDAs), and odor activity values (OAVs) were calculated. A total of 22 compounds showed OAVs ≥ 1, including ( E)-isoeugenol (clove; OAV 3700), linalool (floral; OAV 380), butanoic acid (sweaty, rancid; OAV 370), and 3-phenylpropanoic acid (floral; OAV 270). An odor reconstitution model prepared from deodorized beeswax and the 22 odorants in their natural concentrations closely matched the olfactory profile of authentic propolis. The results of this study will help to establish a basis for future research on the variability of propolis sourced from different geographical locations, produced by different bee species, and collected from different botanical sources, all of which are largely unknown.


Continuous Integration (CI) is a well-established process within software development, used to prevent problems with integration and to improve software quality. One part of the process is to test the code-base with automated tests and usually low-level tests are used for this purpose. Visual GUI Testing (VGT) was presented to complement the process of regression testing and has previously been shown to be a robust and flexible enough technique to be used as automated testing in industrial practice. This study shows that high level VGT tests works in a CI process in a small web-development environment with no prior automated testing. It also presents the advantages and disadvantages when introducing VGT as the only automated test technique. Furthermore, it presents that VGT tests can improve the business value of the application and code base, in this context.


LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After studying this article, the participant should be able to: (1) Describe features and clinical importance of Dupuytren diathesis. (2) Explain the difference between the new definition of recurrence used in collagenase studies compared with prior definitions of recurrence. (3) Compare and list the main advantage/main disadvantage of fasciectomy versus minimally invasive treatment (collagenase injection or needle aponeurotomy) of Dupuytren contracture.

SUMMARY
The large body of existing literature on Dupuytren disease is spread across many journals in many specialties. It is thus a daunting task for practitioners to follow trends and practice recommendations. It is also a testimony to the lack of an acceptable solution to this common problem. Recent publications provide evidence to highlight controversies and challenge some traditional teachings. Literature from 2010 to 2012 was reviewed with the intent of clarifying some of these issues.


There are different test methods to determine a bearing capacity of different types of soils. One of them is Plate Load Test. Plate load test is found to be useful in obtaining the necessary information about the soil with particular reference to design the foundation. For Plate load test three different methods are used, but Reaction Loading Method is mostly used. In this paper compilation of last 15 year's of Plate Bearing Test data is presented and discussed. Keywords— Bearing Capacity; Proving Ring; Soil; Fine grained; Coarse grained; Man Sand; U.B.C.; C ø; Direct shear test; Settlement.


As the number of observed brown dwarf outflows is growing it is important to investigate how these outflows compare to the wellstudied jets from young stellar objects. A key point of comparison is the relationship between outflow and accretion activity and in particular the ratio between the mass outflow and accretion rates ( ˙ Mout/ ˙ Macc). The brown dwarf candidate ISO-ChaI 217 was discovered by our group, as part of a spectro-astrometric study of brown dwarfs, to be driving an asymmetric outflow with the blueshifted lobe having a position angle of 20 . The aim here is to further investigate the properties of ISO-ChaI 217, the morphology and kinematics of its outflow, and to better constrain ˙ Mout/ ˙


This thesis describes new methods and knowledge-based systems for the analysis of technical and economic accounting data from the year-end records of individual dairy farms to support the management and, after adaptation, for policy analysis. A new method for farm comparison, the farm-adjusted standard, which makes it able to compare a dairy farm with similar farms, is described. Two methods for the acquisition, representation, and presentation of knowledge from experts are developed. These methods, IMAGINE and FUZZY-DETECTOR, can be used for different types of data and are especially characterised by fuzzy boundaries, compensatory mechanisms, and fast and easy knowledge acquisition. Two knowledge-based systems have been developed where these methods are used. GLOBAL-DETECTOR performs a global analysis of year-end results concerning aspects of gross margin. ENVIRONMENT-DETECTOR gives suggestions for a reduction of nitrogen surplus while maintaining the income. Proposed is a new method for sector responses on government options (APPROXI). A model is presented as an example of this method. The developed methods and knowledge-based systems for this thesis offer many opportunities for application in other domains.


Abstract We have successfully produced healthy piglets following cryopreservation of embryos derived from oocytes matured and fertilized in vitro. The appropriate timing of cryopreservation pretreatment (removal of cytoplasmic lipid droplets [delipation] and vitrification) was initially determined using parthenogenetic embryos derived from in vitro-matured (IVM) oocytes. Viable embryos were obtained at the highest rate when embryos were delipated at the four- to eight-cell stages (Day 2 of embryo culture) and were vitrified approximately 15 h later (Day 3) by means of the minimum volume cooling method. After cryopreservation of embryos derived from oocytes matured and fertilized in vitro under the most appropriate conditions, 401 embryos were transferred to five recipient gilts, and the recipients all became pregnant. At autopsy of one of the recipients, which had received 47 embryos, eight fetuses (17.0%) were found. Three recipients each gave birth to two to four piglets (1.4%–6.0%). These results demonstrate that normal offspring can be produced from vitrified porcine embryos derived from IVM oocytes by a strategic combination of delipation and vitrification at the early cleavage stages. This approach has great potential in the reproduction of micromanipulated porcine embryos, such as cloned and sperm-injected embryos, produced from IVM oocytes.


This paper compares beliefs about whiplash injury between individuals in simulated compensation/no compensation scenarios and actual litigant claimants. Comparisons between simulators and the clinical sample revealed that chronic patients reported significantly more symptoms than all simulator groups. The beliefs of the real compensation claimants in the acute phase of the condition were similar to those in the 'injury only' simulator group. The analyses identified a trend towards beliefs in the expected timeline of the illness becoming more negative with time, whilst feelings of control over the symptoms improve. The paper discusses indicators of malingering behavior and the possible involvement of litigation and treatment processes in the transition to a chronic state of ill health.


We investigated the influence of sentence elaboration on self-regulated learning in order to examine age differences in resource allocation to the construction of textbase- and discourse-level representations. Older and younger adults learned about a topic by reading a series of sentences varying in elaboration (from simple factoids to highly elaborated text) and manner of presentation (progressive change in elaboration vs. random change in elaboration). Younger readers were more likely to recall information from factoids; older adults, from highly elaborated text. Relative to young, older readers showed an advantage in the progressive presentation condition, which minimised frequent changes between textbase- and discourse-level processing. Older adults showed poorer memory monitoring for factoids and less elaborated discourse relative to young, but when passages were highly elaborated or presented progressively, age differences were eliminated. Results support the idea that textbase- and discourse-level encoding arise from functionally distinct systems whose regulation depends on text properties and reader age. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


The evolution of hospitalization for patients with HIV infections in Parisian public hospitals (Assistance Publique de Paris) can be analyzed from the data base containing discharge diagnoses and from the results of a cross-sectional survey "on a given day". At present, the activity associated with HIV infection represents more than 2% of the total activity of this institution. From 1982 to 1987, HIV-associated activity increased extremely rapidly, treating patients in acute care hospitals and clinical departments and concomitantly developing home care and day hospitalizations. The latter were responsible for the substantial decrease in the average length of hospitalization. Home care and day care hospitalizations for HIV infection continued to increase during 1988, while longer-term hospitalizations decreased.


GARCH models have been extensively used in risk modeling under the normal distribution. Although they generate highly significant coefficient estimates, these models are known to have poor forecasting power. It is therefore interesting to develop a different approach of risk modeling to improve forecasting results. By using the generalized t-distribution in modeling the changes in the distribution of stock indexes returns, the results show a significant improvement in the forecasting power. Moreover, Monte Carlo simulations have confirmed that the indexes returns are better explained by ARCH-type models.


In this dissertation the main focus area was to use one factor interest rate models in India to obtain the descriptive nature and risk profile of money markets in India. For the period of 2012-2020 we found that CIR (1985) model fits and describes the interest rate path for India much better than Vasicek model. Both of these models were calibrated to make each of their parameters pseudo time varying and maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) was used to find optimal model parameters. We used daily weighted average of call money market rates as input data for calibration. Under the assumptions of constant relative risk aversion (CRRA) and decreasing absolute risk aversion (DARA) of CIR model, we used the closed form solutions to obtain bond prices and yields on 3 month T-bill. Average 10 year yield curve for the period 2012-20 was also forecasted and it was observed that Indian yield curve has a hump shape, with higher yields on longer dated bonds. We find that there exists higher term premium for longer dated bonds, for example, term premium on 10 year G-Sec has increased at a faster rate, relative to shorter maturity bonds, with the trend getting stronger since 2016 with an exception in year 2019. For risk profiling, the paper uses Expected-shortfall (ES) and Value-at-Risk (VaR) on 3 month bonds. It was found that expected shortfall normalized for yield stood at 25% on average for the period 2012-20. This means that traders in the money market need to constantly look out for price risk, to hedge for this, we propose that the trader uses call options on bonds. We find that fair prices of call options for CIR distribution function under Blacks-Scholes model will be an expensive hedging strategy. But that said, the Greeks for these call options (Rho, Delta and Gamma) show that the call option will not be sensitive to interest rate and bond price changes and hence will be a stable hedging strategy. The paper concludes that this is because of very high speed of mean reversion and low volatility in interest rate paths. This result can be associated with credibility, transparency and clear policy decisions made by the Indian central bank and newly formed Monetary Policy Committee (MPC). It was also seen that MPC has been successful to lower volatility by 9 times since its inception while maintaining the same high levels of speed of reversion in interest rates.


INTRODUCTION: PROBLEMS CONNECTED WITH MAJOR GEOLOGIC FEATURES During the last quarter century, the Atlantic Ocean, more than any other region on earth, has given direction to new and fruitful lines of thought in geology. While it was destined by location to play this role among oceans, the impetus that started the new lines of investigation came to a large extent from the bold reasoning of Alfred Wegener, who challenged most of the concepts on which attempts to understand the dynamics of crustal deformation had so far been based. Thus a critical evaluation of Wegener9s ideas made it imperative that more accurate information on the topographic configuration of the sea floor be secured. The menace of the U-boat in the World War led to the development of sonic sounding methods simultaneously in the United States, in England, and in Germany. The new tool applied to the numerous shipping lanes soon made . . .


The development of speaking skills teaching materials is still needed. This is because there are still many students who are weak in speaking Arabic skills. Including students who memorize the Qur'an are also still weak in Arabic language skills. Even though the memorized verses of the Qur'an are Arabic sentences that are the most fluent and can improve and enrich vocabulary in Arabic. So this study aims to effectivity of teaching materials development for speaking skills through the Qur'anic texts for students of Ma'had 'Aliy Al Aimmah Malang, East Java. This study uses Research dan Development methods. The data obtained through the pretest and posttest of the students were then strengthened by the assessment of education experts and experts. The results of this study indicate that the application of this teaching material is statistically effective. Likewise, the education expert's assessment showed that 86% of these teaching materials were effectively applied, while the the Arabic Language and Al-Qur'an al-Kareem experts assessed that 89% of these teaching materials were feasible.


While atopic dermatitis (AD) usually presents early in life, few prospective studies focus on young children with AD. The objective of this study was to characterize, phenotypically and prospectively, young children with AD. From a community birth cohort of 2,256 children, consecutive children with AD (n = 221) were followed to 2 years of age, when they were re-examined and screened for atopic sensitization (skin-prick test to foods; Phadiatop). Ninety-nine controls were also examined. AD debuted during the first year in 88% of cases. At the 2-year examination, when the children had already undergone topical treatment, 157/221 (71%) had ongoing eczema ranging among mild (45%), moderate (53%) and severe (2%). Airway problems indicating asthma had occurred in 9% of cases and 6% of controls (not significant), and allergic rhinoconjunctivitis in 5% and 0%, respectively (p<0.05). The skin-prick test to common food allergens was positive in 27% of cases and Phadiatop was positive in 15%. In 67% both tests were negative. Eczema severity did not differ between sensitized and non-sensitized children. Positive Phadiatop was more common in boys than in girls with ongoing AD (22% vs 3%, p<0.01), and more boys than girls had ongoing AD (82% vs 59%, p<0.001); otherwise, no differences attributable to gender were found.


Growing evidences suggests that monocyte/macrophages play crucial role in cancer progression. Even though studies in transgenic mouse tumor models have demonstrated the role of myelomonocytic cells in various aspects of tumor progression, information on the role of these cells in human cancers is limited. We investigated the role of monocytes/macrophages in the progression of a human renal Cell Carcinoma (RCC). Gene expression studies have shown that RCC associated monocytes (RCC-Mo) under basal condition exhibit a proinflammatory and protumoral phenotype characterized by high expression of genes such as TNFA, IL6, VEGFA, IL8 and MMP9. Surprisingly, when these cells were exposed to inflammatory stimuli, such as Lipid A or TNF-α, they failed to show an up- regulation of proinflammatory cytokines such as TNFA, CCL3, IL6, and IL1B. This observation correlated to the tumor-induced immunosuppression observed in the patients. Signaling studies showed that the inflammatory/protumoral phenotype of TAMs under basal condition was regulated through NF-κB pathway.Further studies demonstrated defective NF-κB signaling was responsible for the "refractory state" of this RCC-Mo to further inflammatory stimuli. In vivo studies in a human RCC mouse model validated our above findings. In conclusion these results are the first to characterize the transcriptomal and functional phenotype of tumor associated monocytes/macrophages in human cancer which suggested their tumor promoting role.


Evolutionary principles inform central design features of human immune defenses and provide key insights into this complicated host defense system. This article explores the selection pressures and adaptive responses that have elaborated the immune system over the course of evolution and discusses their implications for understanding contemporary immune development and function. Special attention is given to the challenges posed by diverse, rapidly evolving pathogens and the mammalian response to these challenges. The process of lymphocyte diversity generation and subsequent clonal selection is quintessentially Darwinian: pathogens provide selection pressure that drives differential replication of host immune cell lines, resulting in changes in genetic frequencies within an individual's population of lymphocytes. The immune system also incorporates nongenetic transgenerational processes in the transfer of antibodies from mother to offspring through the placenta and breast milk. The consequences of these observations for human development, health, and the ecology of immune function are considered throughout the life cycle. Specifically, evolutionary processes provide insight into autoimmunity, thymic function, lymphocyte development, infectious disease risk, and lactation. While much work in evolutionary medicine focuses on the discordance between evolved biology and rapidly changing cultural environments, with respect to the immune system, evolutionary processes may be most revealing when applied within individuals. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 11:705–717, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


In order for us to begin to understand the effect of abusive experiences in childhood on young people's personality development and symptomatology, we have to draw upon a number of theories. The most important of these relate to attachment, mentalization, dissociation, trauma, and how abusive experiences affect the development of the individual and their developing brain. In this article I will share with you my attempts to understand the young people that come to stay on our intensive care unit and consider how these theories inform our understanding of them and the treatment approach that we try to provide.


Regional and total lung function measurements and chest radiographs were obtained from 18 patients with cancer of the breast from 3 months to 6.7 years after the start of treatment. A control group of 20 patients was studied before radiotherapy but after mastectomy. The functional parameter most affected by radiation was blood flow. In some cases in which the radiographic changes were mild the functional measurements indicated severe vascular damage. The radiation appears to reduce the number and efficiency of functioning lung units within the irradiated region.


Our work presented in this paper focuses on the translation of domain-specific expressions represented in semantically structured resources, like ontologies or knowledge graphs. To make knowledge accessible beyond language borders, these resources need to be translated into different languages. The challenge of translating labels or terminological expressions represented in ontologies lies in the highly specific vocabulary and the lack of contextual information, which can guide a machine translation system to translate ambiguous words into the targeted domain. Due to the challenges, we train and translate the terminological expressions in the medial and financial domain with statistical as well as with neural machine translation methods. We evaluate the translation quality of domain-specific expressions with translation systems trained on a generic dataset and experiment domain adaptation with terminological expressions. Furthermore we perform experiments on the injection of external knowledge into the translation systems. Through these experiments, we observed a clear advantage in domain adaptation and terminology injection of NMT methods over SMT. Nevertheless, through the specific and unique terminological expressions, subword segmentation within NMT does not outperform a word based neural translation model.


Abstract Context: Curcumin has been reported to have anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and hypoglycaemic properties, besides reducing mortality in sepsis. Objective: This study evaluates the biological activities of a curcumin dispersion formulated by spray-drying in experimental sepsis. Materials and methods: Male Wistar rats were subjected to sepsis by caecal ligation and puncture (CLP), controls were sham operated. The animals were treated with curcumin dispersion (100 mg/kg, p.o.) or water for 7 days prior to CLP and at 2 h after surgery. One group was used to analyze curcumin absorption through HPLC; another had the survival rate assessed during 48 h; and from a third group, blood was collected by decapitation to analyze metabolic and inflammatory parameters. Results: The plasma curcumin levels reached 2.5 ng/mL at 4 h, dropped significantly (p < 0.001) at 6 h (1.2 ng/mL), and were undetectable at 24 h in both groups. Curcumin temporarily increased the survival rate of the septic rats by 20%. Moreover, it attenuated glycaemia (p < 0.05) and volemia (p < 0.05) alterations typically observed during sepsis, and decreased the levels of the proinflammatory cytokines IL-1β and IL-6 in plasma (p < 0.001) and peritoneal lavage fluid (p < 0.05) of septic rats. Serum HSP70 levels were decreased (p < 0.01) at 24 h after CLP. Discussion and conclusion: Our results show that the curcumin dispersion dose employed was not detrimental to the septic rats. In fact, it temporarily increased their survival rate, improved important metabolic parameters, reduced proinflammatory cytokines and HSP70 production.


Thank you for reading new aspects of zirconium containing organic compounds. Maybe you have knowledge that, people have search hundreds times for their favorite readings like this new aspects of zirconium containing organic compounds, but end up in malicious downloads. Rather than enjoying a good book with a cup of tea in the afternoon, instead they juggled with some malicious virus inside their computer.


The aim of the current study was to assess the expression levels of c-Src and phosphorylated Src kinase in human breast cancers and to establish if these are linked to oestrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 status or patient survival. Tissue microarray technology was used to analyze 314 breast cancer specimens. Immunohistochemistry was performed using antibodies to c-Src, Y419Src, and Y215Src, and expression was assessed using the weighted histoscore method. High cytoplasmic c-Src kinase and high membrane phosphorylated activated Y419Src kinase was associated with decreased disease-specific survival. In contrast, phosphorylated activated nuclear and cytoplasmic Y215Src kinase expression levels were significantly associated with improved disease-specific survival. When the cohort was subdivided according to ER/PR/HER2 status, the ER-negative subgroup (105 patients) was associated with improved disease-specific survival and was found to be independent by multivariate analysis with a hazard ratio of 0.4 (interquartile range 0.2-0.8). High cytoplasmic c-Src expression was associated with decreased survival; high expression of activated c-Src (Y215) was associated with improved survival. This was potentiated in the ER/HER2-negative subgroup. Hence, administration of Src kinase inhibitors aiming to decrease phosphorylation should be approached with caution, especially in ER-negative patients. It is therefore essential to appropriately identify with the correct biomarkers which patients are most likely to respond to Src inhibitors.


In this cross-sectional study, the role of pharmacists in animal health care, particularly in the distribution of veterinary medicines in community pharmacies in Dar es Salaam was investigated. Using a semi-structured questionnaire a total of 260 pharmacists were interviewed. The study revealed that majority of the pharmacists play a very limited role in the dispensing of veterinary pharmaceutical products. Pharmacists and veterinary practitioners should compliment each other for the betterment of animal health care. The study highlighted the necessity for introducing veterinary pharmacy lectures in the pharmacy undergraduate curriculum in Tanzania. It further recommends that the Pharmacy Council and the Tanzanian Ministry of Health and Social Welfare enforce continuing professional development as a precondition for the renewal of practice licences for all practising pharmacists. Keywords: Pharmacist, veterinary medicines, veterinary surgeon East and Central African Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences Vol. 12 (2009) 34- 36


AIM
To develop the algorithm of optimal combination of conventional and minimally invasive procedures for surgical diagnosis and treatment of thoracoabdominal wounds (TAW).

MATERIAL AND METHODS
The most common borders of TAW were analyzed in 81 bodies of victims. Typical borders of costodiaphragmatic pleural sinus were assessed in 90 male cadavers. There were 81 victims with TAW who were divided into two groups. The first group included 40 patients who underwent newly developed methods of treatment. Group II consisted of 41 patients who were treated earlier.

RESULTS
The algorithm of invasive diagnosis of diaphragm wounds and the method of sequential determination of indications for conventional or endoscopic procedures were developed and applied in the first group. Minimally invasive operations alone or in combination with open surgery were applied in 80% of patients in group I and in 53.66% of patients in group II. Thirty-eight (97.5%) and 35 (85.37%) patients convalesced in groups I and II, respectively.

CONCLUSION
Thoracotomy was required in 34.29% of cases for TAW correction, laparotomy - in 71.43% of cases. Minimally invasive operations were sufficient in other cases.


An introduction is given to the dynamical properties of crystalline systems having lattice-translational symmetry in less than three dimensions. These include surfaces of and interfaces between crystals, layered structures (2D lattice periodicity), bars and wires (1D lattice periodicity), as well as crystallites and clusters that have no lattice translational symmetry at all. In addition, superlattices are covered as artificial materials, giving rise to interesting dynamical effects. Crystal surfaces and crystalline bars are considered in some detail. For these systems, changes of the atomic equilibrium positions in comparison to the corresponding bulk crystals are also discussed since they frequently affect the dynamical properties.


Cryptococcus neoformans is a pathogenic basidiomycete that causes meningitis in immunocompromised patients. In this paper, we demonstrate that a previously described oxidant-sensitive mutant, oxy1, has constitutive ferric reductase and iron uptake, similar to a ferric reductase regulatory mutant, frr1. Through meiotic genetic analysis, we show that the two mutations are allelic. By complementation of frr1 with a genomic library, we isolated a gene, MRS3/4. The encoded protein is a putative solute transporter of the inner mitochondrial membrane. Disruption of this gene led to high ferric reductase, iron uptake and iron content, as well as increased sensitivity to hydrogen peroxide and slow growth in low iron medium. The disrupted gene is allelic with oxy1 and frr1. We sequenced the oxy1 and frr1 alleles of MRS3/4 and found that the frr1 mutation results in a premature stop codon, while the oxy1 mutation results in the substitution of a highly conserved glutamate residue with lysine. The Mrs3/4 protein appears to be involved in mitochondrial iron transport in eukaryotes. Resistance to strong oxidants requires stringent control of iron metabolism.


The COVID-19 outbreak variably affected people's mental reactions worldwide but was only episodically investigated in healthy Italian teenagers. Our aim was to investigate the emotional responses of Italian middle and high school students to the pandemic. An anonymous 10-item questionnaire was distributed in pre-selected school samples. Responders had to score their perceived extent for each reaction from 0 (lowest perception) to 10 (highest perception). A group of adults was selected as control. Generalized linear models were used to estimate differences among adults and students, high school (HS) and middle school (MS) students, and urban (U) and rural (R) MS students. Comparisons were presented as mean difference (Δ) with a 95% confidence interval (CI). A total of 1512 questionnaires (635 adults, 744 HS, 67 UMS, and 66 RMS) were analyzed. Students appeared more indifferent (Δ = 1.97, 1.52–2.41), anxious (Δ = 0.56, 0.07–1.04), aggressive (Δ = 2.21, 1.72–2.70), and depressed (Δ = 1.87, 1.40–2.34) than adults did, and claimed a higher loss of interest in their activities (Δ = 1.21, 0.72–1.70). Students were less disbelieving (Δ = −0.93, −1.50–0.35) and feared for their loved ones (Δ = −0.89, −1.40–0.39). MS students were less affected by the outbreak than HS students were. Furthermore, R-MS students were significantly less aggressive and depressed, but more indifferent and disbelieving than U-MS. Female sex was an independent factor associated to almost all the questionnaire domains. The pattern of the psychological responses to the pandemic in Italian students proved multifaceted. In addition to anxiety, loss of interest in activities, and depression, aggressiveness emerged as the most characterizing mental attitude in response to the pandemic.


With the increasing popularity of convolutional neural networks (CNNs), recent works on face-based age estimation employ these networks as the backbone. However, state-of-the-art CNN-based methods treat each facial region equally, thus entirely ignoring the importance of some facial patches that may contain rich age-specific information. In this paper, we propose a face-based age estimation framework, called Attention-based Dynamic Patch Fusion (ADPF). In ADPF, two separate CNNs are implemented, namely the AttentionNet and the FusionNet. The AttentionNet dynamically locates and ranks age-specific patches by employing a novel Ranking-guided Multi-Head Hybrid Attention (RMHHA) mechanism. The FusionNet uses the discovered patches along with the facial image to predict the age of the subject. Since the proposed RMHHA mechanism ranks the discovered patches based on their importance, the length of the learning path of each patch in the FusionNet is proportional to the amount of information it carries (the longer, the more important). ADPF also introduces a novel diversity loss to guide the training of the AttentionNet and reduce the overlap among patches so that the diverse and important patches are discovered. Through extensive experiments, we show that our proposed framework outperforms state-of-the-art methods on several age estimation benchmark datasets.


The project reported here concerns an investigation into the environmental performance of modern passenger cars on four different fuels: petrol, diesel, automotive LPG and CNG. The objectives of the project were twofold: - To make a valid and useful comparison between modern vehicles fuelled by these four fuels, as a possible basis for governmental policy making. - To establish characteristic up-to-date emission factors for modern passenger cars, fuelled by these four fuels, that can be used in a variety of inventories, calculations and forecasts by various (semi-) governmental agencies. As such the project can be seen as an update of a similar project reported in 1993.


The interaction of vacancy with dislocations in Al is studied using the semidiscrete variational Peierls-Nabarro model with ab initio determined gamma surface. For the first time, we confirm theoretically the so-called vacancy lubrication effect on dislocation motion in Al, a discovery that can settle a long-standing controversy in dislocation theory for fcc metals. We provide insights into the lubrication effect by exploring the connection between dislocation mobility and its core width. We predict an increased dislocation splitting in the presence of vacancy. We find that on average there is a weak repulsion between vacancies and dislocations which is independent of dislocation character.


Although mediation is a topical research topic in construction management studies, building management dispute mediation is rarely reported in academic community. This study was conducted in the light of marked increase in the number of building management dispute settled by mediation. Within the context that the parties' behaviours during the course of the mediation would influence the outcome, the focus of the study is to examine the behaviours adopted by mediators and disputants. Data was collected with specially designed questionnaire and Relative Importance Index (RII) was used to rank the significance of the behaviours. The findings reveal that disputants often adopt aggressive approach to push their counterparts in defending their case as well as pressing for concessions. Mediators moreover, prefer establishing a trusting relationship with the disputants. In this regard, mediators seldom criticise and challenge disputants' point of view and argument. Instead, they would attempt to establish a harmonious environment by engendering heartfelt feeling and rational understanding. Mediators would refrain from responding inappropriately to the pressing behaviours of disputants. The research findings also suggest further research in building management disputes mediation would further provide insight to the public at large in understanding how building management disputes can be settled more effectively through mediation.


In this paper we present a new R package, called CoImp, which implements the copula-based imputation method due to Author 1 et al.. In the first part of the paper we describe briefly the method, while in the second part we illustrate how to handle the imputation through the R package CoImp. We will show with a simulated example how to use the main R commands to perform a fully developed imputation of multivariate missing data.


The static magnetic field of MRI scanners can induce a magneto-hydrodynamic stimulation of the vestibular organ (MVS). In common fMRI settings, this MVS effect leads to a vestibular ocular reflex (VOR). We asked whether – beyond inducing a VOR – putting a healthy subject in a 3T MRI scanner would also alter goal-directed spatial behavior, as is known from other types of vestibular stimulation. We investigated 17 healthy volunteers, all of which exhibited a rightward VOR inside the MRI-scanner as compared to outside-MRI conditions. More importantly, when probing the distribution of overt spatial attention inside the MRI using a visual search task, subjects scanned a region of space that was significantly shifted towards the right. An additional estimate of subjective straight-ahead orientation likewise exhibited an MVC-induced rightward shift. Hence, putting a subject in a 3T MRI-scanner induces a bias of spatial attention, which closely mimics that of stroke patients with spatial neglect.


Abstract Background and study aims Endoscopic drainage of walled-off pancreatic necrosis (WOPN) is feasible when contact with the gastric or duodenal wall is present; when WOPN cannot be accessed endoscopically, a percutaneous approach can be considered. Percutaneous use of esophageal self-expandable metal stents (SEMS) to establish access to a WOPN cavity was evaluated.


Consent has become an increasingly common legal justification for states wishing to intervene in internal strife. While the literature on this issue has increased exponentially in recent years, basic questions remain unanswered. In this brief piece, I will focus on two tricky issues: (a) Who can consent to the use of military force within a state? and (b) Under what circumstances can consent legalize forcible intervention? Concerning the latter question, this contribution identifies a missing link: usually, legal discourse deals with the issue of consent in disconnect from the question whether the internal resort to force was itself just. In this comment I suggest a preliminary way to mend this gap.


Scientific investigations involving collagen have inspired tissue engineering and design of biomaterials since collagen fibrils and their networks primarily regulate and define most tissues. The collagen networks form a highly organized, three-dimensional architecture to entrap other ingredients. Biomaterials are expected to function as cell scaffolds to replace native collagen-based extracellular matrix. The composition and properties of biomaterials used as scaffold for tissue engineering significantly affect the regeneration of neo-tissues and influence the conditions of collagen engineering. The complex scenario of collagen characteristics, types, fibril arrangement, and collagen structure-related functions (in a variety of connective tissues including bone, cartilage, tendon, skin and cornea) are addressed in this review. Discussion will focus on nanofibrillar assemblies and artificial synthetic peptides that mimic either the fibrillar structure or the elemental components of type I collagen as illustrated by their preliminary applications in tissue engineering. Conventional biomaterials used as scaffolds in engineering collagen-containing tissues are also discussed. The design of novel biomaterials and application of conventional biomaterials will facilitate development of additional novel tissue engineering bioproducts by refining the currently available techniques. The field of tissue engineering will ultimately be advanced by increasing control of collagen in native tissue and by continual manipulation of biomaterials.


Streptococcus pneumoniae is a leading cause of meningitis, bacteremia, pneumonia and otitis media in childhood. The diagnosis of pneumococcal infections still remains problematic. Binax NOW® is a rapid immunochromatographic test (ICT) that detects S. pneumoniae C-polysaccharide antigen in the urine. We evaluated the usefulness of ICT in the diagnosis of pneumococcal infections in children in our study. Fifty children with sepsis, pneumonia, otitis or meningitis (patient group) and 50 healthy children (control group) were enrolled in the study. Urine samples and nasopharyngeal cultures were obtained from all cases. Blood, transtracheal aspirate, urine and CSF (cerebrospinal fluid) cultures were also taken from the patient group when possible. We found urinary antigen positivity in 7 cases in the control group and 10 cases in the patient group. All the children who carried S. pneumoniae in their nasopharynx (1 in the control group and 2 in the patient group for a total of 3 cases) had positive ICT. We detected S. pneumoniae in 3 patients (1 blood culture and 2 CSF cultures) and ICT was positive in all. There was no effect of antimicrobial treatment, vaccination and acute phase reactant levels on the urinary antigen detection test. We concluded that this test is not useful in the diagnosis of pneumococcal infections in children as high carrier rates cause false positivity. This test can only be used with other conventional microbiological tests as a supplementary method.


Polar coding is the most recent encoding scheme in the quest for error correction codes that approaches the Shannon limit, has a simple structure, and admits fast decoders. As such, it is an interesting candidate for the quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol that normally operates at high bit error rates and requires codes that operate near the Shannon limit. This paper describes approaches that integrate Polar codes into the QKD environment and provides performance results of Polar code designs within the QKD protocol.


Coal pyrolysis and gasification are promising options for the future of Botswana as the country has large coal reserves with severe limitations in terms of export options. Coal characterization facilities will be required in order to harness its full potential and methods such as proximate, ultimate and chemical structure analysis (FTIR, Raman spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction techniques) were investigated. The paper presents a brief history of pyrolysis and gasification, typical types of the reactors as well as factors that influence product selection for Botswana coal. Coal pyrolysis and gasification are complex processes and it is difficult to define the mechanisms of product formation. However, there are several kinetic models that are relevant to the sub-bituminous coal of Botswana which were proposed by researchers to describe the formation of the compounds and mathematical models that were validated by other researchers on mass and heat transfer as also presented herein.


Sinkage and trim, which often occur to ships moving in shallow water, do not only have an effect on the ship-ship hydrodynamic interaction forces, but also increase the risk of grounding. An algorithm based on the potential theory has been devised for real-time simulation of the hydrodynamic interaction between two ships in shallow water accounting for sinkage and trim. The shallow water condition is modeled using the mirror image method; while the sinkage and trim are solved iteratively based on the principle of hydrostatic balance, where a mesh trimming procedure is performed when the waterline is changed. Simulations are performed with and without accounting for the sinkage and trim, and comparison with experimental results shows a fair agreement.


Research offers evidence that younger generations suffered the most psychologically from the COVID-19 crisis. In this article, we look at the onset of the pandemic to understand the reasons for this increased vulnerability. We use the COVID-19 Multifaceted Threat Scale to explore potential mechanisms underlying generational differences in psychological well-being. In a sample of 994 individuals (+18) obtained in the USA and India, we first assess levels of perceived psychological well-being across the generations. Thus, we measure cross-generational differences in the perceived levels of financial, relational, existential, health and lifestyle threats experienced by respondents seven months after the pandemic broke out. In accordance with earlier findings, the results confirm that people from Generation Z and Generation Y reported worse levels of psychological well-being than older adults. Our results suggest that the heightened existential threat, as reflected in a loss of meaning and feelings of being "trapped", mediate the association between younger generations and worse psychological well-being. No substantial intergenerational differences were found for other threat dimensions. The observed effects were consistent across both national contexts, hence stressing the importance of existential concerns as a mechanism underlying the psychological vulnerability of younger people in the historical contingencies of the COVID-19 pandemic.


Electrical and morphological properties of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) thin films electrodeposited on gold-on-silicon electrodes by galvanostatic, potentiostatic, and potentiodynamic methods have been determined using current sensing atomic force microscopic experiments. Surface morphologies and vertical conductivities of PEDOT films were affected by the experimental parameters including the preparation method, the current density, the potential, and the potentiodynamic cyclic number. Band gaps obtained from current-voltage curves of dedoped PEDOT were in excellent agreement with those obtained from absorption spectra. When the film thickness was increased on the gold-on-silicon electrode, the topographic images were not very well defined due to the high roughness but conductivities increased significantly in all the galvanostatically, potetiostatically, and potentiodynamically grown PEDOT films.


Background: Porcine sapelovirus (PSV) is a species of the genus Sapelovirus within the family Picornaviridae, which associated with facute diarrhoea, respiratory distress, reproductive failure, and severe neurological disorders in swine. The first isolate strian of PSV was reported in Hainan province, China in 2019. Results: We report the isolation, genomic sequence of PSV isolated from pig diarrhea samples. The PSV strain was correctly identified by RT-PCR, IFA, WB assays, which appeared spherical with a diameter of approximately 25 nm by TEM. We named the strain PSV HaN01-CH2019, and its full genomes were 7,551 bp nucleotides in length. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that PSV HaN01-CH2019 and Chinese HuN01 strain are related in comparing with other reference strains. Conclusions: We successfully isolated the first PSV strain in Hainan province and prepared polyclonal antibodies. It is evident that PSV infection has occurred in Hainan province, and therefore, active molecular and serological investigation is important to swine population. Moreover, veterinarians must pay attention to this diarrhoea and reinforce biosecurity measures to prevent PSV spread.


We determine the optical response of topological insulator thin films in the presence of a quantizing, external magnetic field. We explicitly take into account hybridization between the states of top and bottom surface. The interplay between hybridization and Zeeman energies gives rise to topological and normal insulator phases and phase transitions between them. The optical response in the two phases and at the phase transition point is investigated. We show that the difference in magneto-optical response can be used to distinguish the topological phase from the normal phase of the system. Further, the optical response also allows us to determine the gap generated by hybridization between top and bottom surface states of topological insulator thin films.


The Massawa gold project is situated on the Senegalese side of the highly prospective/productive Kedougou-Kenieba Inlier, which hosts several world-class orogenic gold deposits/districts in Western Mali (e.g. Loulo and Sadiola). Massawa is located in the Kounemba exploration permit along the eastern margin of the Palaeoproterozoic (Birimian) Mako volcano-sedimentary belt, with the Mineralisation focussed along splays off a major terrane-bounding sinistral shear known as the Main Transcurrent Zone (MTZ). The MTZ hosts other known Au deposits along strike including Sabodala to the NNW. The Massawa orebody is at least 8.5km long and has a current resource of 3.01 Moz of gold at an average grade of 3.96 g/t, with mining scheduled for 2011/2012.

The Massawa structure trends NE (030[degrees]) with high grade gold zones situated along N-S trending dilational shears that are interpreted as right-hand flexures developed during dextral reactivation. Exploration is currently focussed on the northern 4.5 km section of the structure where the deposit is split into two separate mineralised zones (Central and Northern). Host rocks strike sub-parallel to the main shear direction and consist of a package of low grade regionally metamorphosed volcaniclastic sediments (tuffs and ash-tuffs), quartz-feldspar and lithic wackes, carbonaceous shales, hydrothermal breccias, and gabbro and porphyry skills. These sediments have undergone pervasive silica alteration (Central zone) followed by a sericite-ankerite-dolomite alteration event related to the Mineralisation (both zones).

Two major styles of Mineralisation are recognized at Massawa from field and laboratory studies. The first stage of sulphide-Au Mineralisation is associated with disseminated arsenopyrite-pyrite, which follows shear bands in the sedimentary-igneous host rocks. The second stage consists of quartz-stibnite plus-or-minus tetrahedrite veining (confined to the Central zone) distinguished by coarse visible gold Mineralisation (100 [mu]m to a few mm). A distinctive trace assemblage is linked to stibnite formation including multiple Sb phases such as chalcostibite, zinkenite, roschinite, aurostinote, jamesonite and robinsonite. This Sb-Au Mineralisation is likely to represent a shallower (<6 km) late stage overprint according to the Groves model for orogenic gold. Shallow-level Mineralisation is also suggested by fluid inclusion studies on quarts-stibnite veins which show the predominance of low temperature (homogenisation temperatures between 115-252.8[degrees]C) H[sub]2O-NaCl fluids (<6 wt% NaCl equiv.).


Hospital is a regional government agency that provides public health services in each of their respective regions. One type of medical service given field in Natuna to public hospitals district is Outpatient Services which is one form of medical care that is simply the medical services provided to patients not in the form of hospitalization. The importance of quality of service sector in government and private agencies are lots impact good service to promote such an agency. The principal tasks Natuna District Hospital is carrying out measures to health by emphasizing healing, restoration carried out in harmony and integrated, with improved prevention and carrying out the references and experience high quality, affordable and appropriate professional standard hospital services. This study analyzed the quality of outpatient services in hospitals Natuna. Tjiptono theoretical concept in Hardiyansyah (2011: 40) There are six indicators to determine the quality of public services, namely: 1. Decision time service 2. Accuracy 3. Courtesy and hospitality services 4. Ease of getting care 5. Convenience in obtaining support services 6. Attribute servicing , This research is descriptive qualitative methods make use of more appropriate to examine the issues that require in-depth study. The purpose of this study is to identify and analyze the quality of outpatient services and to identify and analyze the factors that affect the quality of outpatient services in hospitals district Natuna. From the results of research and discussion is done about the quality of outpatient services in hospitals Natuna, it can be concluded outpatient services has set the standard operating procedures (SOP) of the hospital in Natuna regency, but not fully be undone optimally. It can be seen from several theories Tjiptono in Hardiyansyah (2011: 40) There are six indicators to determine the quality of service quality has not been done according to the needs of people who use services in hospitals Natuna. Quality of service is less than the maximum that could be used as a learning organization is an organization with all powers, jointly and continuously transforms itself to be able to collect, manage funds using knowledge for success in an organization. To the knowledge of those who want to learn to know the state of an organization both internally and externally to seek information through surveys and pay attention to deficiencies complained of by the community, employment is needed to create the organization's progress with the achievement of quality services. Keywords : Quality of Outpatient Services, Health Services, Hospital


[1] A flight of the balloon-borne version of the Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS-B) was performed from Kiruna (Sweden, 68°N, 21°E) on 20/21 March 2003 as part of the validation program of the chemistry instruments MIPAS, GOMOS, and SCIAMACHY aboard the European environmental satellite ENVISAT. The 15 hour long duration of this flight provided a good match with the Japanese Improved Limb Atmospheric Spectrometer (ILAS)-II sensor aboard the ADEOS-II satellite, launched in December 2002, in addition to the primary goal of ENVISAT validation. The MIPAS-B flight data coincided nicely with one of the early operational periods of the ILAS-II instrument, offering one of the sparse opportunities to validate the whole set of trace species measured by ILAS-II during its unfortunately short lifetime. Radiance spectra were observed by MIPAS-B at nearly the same location that was observed by ILAS-II about 5.5 hours prior to the sampling of MIPAS-B. The intercomparison of ILAS-II atmospheric target parameters (version 1.4) to profiles measured by MIPAS-B has shown that for the species O3, N2O, CH4 (below about 22 km), HNO3, ClONO2, and CFC-11 (CCl3F), a predominantly good consistency with MIPAS-B has been achieved within the combined errors. However, atmospheric parameters like temperature, H2O, NO2, and N2O5 are widely characterized by low biases compared to MIPAS-B results while CFC-12 (CCl2F2) exhibits a high bias in comparison to the balloon-borne observations. Therefore ILAS-II profile retrievals of temperature, H2O, NO2, N2O5, and CFC-12 cannot be assumed to be validated at the present time.


Micro-grating accelerometer detecting small displacement by an optical system can be widely applied in inertial navigation and seismic monitoring. We proposed a micro-grating accelerometer prototype with a proof mass of gram-scale to decrease the thermal mechanical noise, which is the fundamental limit of a high-resolution accelerometer. The theoretical model for the contrast ratio of a micro-grating accelerometer is established based on Gaussian beam theory, and the adjustment method based on a scanning slit beam profiler improves the contrast ratio of 0th order effectively. Compared to our former prototype, experiment results indicate the noise floor is decreased from 0.9 mg/√Hz to 137 ng/√Hz, and the bias stability is decreased from 0.35 mg to 3.1 µg.


In cats anesthetized with Dial or Nembutal, or in cats which have undergone decerebration or removal of the central nervous system, studies have been made on the effect of caffeine injected intra-arterially in doses of 0.007 to 0.035 gms. on : a) the contractions of skeletal muscles ; b) the neuromuscular synaptic mechanism; c) the superior cervical ganglion stimulated by acetylcholine. Caffeine produces an increase in the tension developed by muscle which is being stimulated indirectly (figs. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and Results, Section I). Caffeine can produce a development of tension in normal muscle (fig. 8) as well as in denervated muscle (fig. 9A). When denervated muscle is stimulated directly, caffeine can also increase the amplitude of contractions (fig. 9B, C, and D, and Results, Section II). Caffeine is able to augment not only the amplitude of contractions of a muscle stimulated by means of acetylcholine, but also those of the nictitating membrane similarly stimulated by the latter drug (fig. 10 and 11). The enhancing action of caffeine on the contractions of the nictitating membrane stimulated by acetyl-choline is due to the effect the caffeine exerts upon the ganglion (figs. 11 and 12 and Results, Section III). Caffeine is a decurarizing drug (fig. 13) and augments the action of prostigmine (fig. 13; Results, Sections IV and V). The mechanism of the action of caffeine on the neuromuscular junction is discussed and the conclusion is reached that it 1owers the excitatory threshold of acetylcholine. The similarities and differences between the pharmacological action on the neuromuscular junction of caffeine on the one hand and of eserine and prostigmine on the other, is discussed.


We present model calculations for the lattice dynamics of berlinite (AlPO4). The short-range potentials used for the calculation are based on the ones determined for quartz (SiO2). The polarizability of the oxygen ion is taken into account by an adiabatically moving shell. A good description both of the experimental frequencies and the high-frequency dielectric constants is obtained. Estimates of the ionic as well as effective charges of the constituent ions are given. The deduced charges in conjunction with the obtained polarizability indicate a similar charge state of the oxygen ion in quartz and berlinite. The ionic charges of phosphorus and aluminium differ strongly. The same observation is made for the short-range forces between the cations and oxygen. On the basis of these results the picture of an oxygen framework crystal is discarded. Special effort is devoted to the investigation of equilibrium conditions. The stability of the respective tetrahedra turns out to be of central importance for the dynamics of both quartz and berlinite. Consequences for the ( alpha - to beta -phase) transition are discussed.


In health research, one of the major tasks is to retrieve, and analyze heterogeneous databases containing one single patient's information gathered from a large volume of data over a long period of time. The main objective of this paper is to represent our ontology-based information retrieval approach for clinical Information System. We have performed a Case Study in the real life hospital settings. The results obtained illustrate the feasibility of the proposed approach which significantly improved the information retrieval process on a large volume of data over a long period of time from August 2011 until January 2012


Background It is widely accepted that advancing age is associated with worse COVID-19 outcomes. However, there is insufficient data analyzing the impact of COVID-19 in the older cancer population. The aim of the study is to establish if age has an influence on severity and mortality of COVID-19 in cancer patients. Methods We reviewed 306 oncology patients with PCR-confirmed COVID-19 from Guy's Cancer Centre and its partner Trust King's College Hospital, between 29 February - 31 July 2020. Demographic and tumor characteristics in relation to COVID-19 severity and death were assessed with logistic and Cox proportional hazards regression models, stratified by age (≤65 and >65 years). Severity of COVID-19 was classified by World Health Organization (WHO) grading. Results A total of 135 patients were aged ≤65 years (44%) and 171 aged >65 (56%). Severe COVID-19 presentation was seen in 27% of those aged ≤65 and 30% of those aged >65. The COVID-19 mortality rate was 19% in those aged ≤65 and 27% in those aged >65. In the older cohort, there was an increased incidence of severe disease in Caucasian ethnicity compared to the younger cohort (55% vs 43%) and compared to severe disease in Black and Asian ethnicities. There were increased co-morbidities in the older cohort including hypertension (54% vs 32%), diabetes (30% vs 12%) with increased rate of poly-pharmacy (62% vs 40%) compared to the younger cohort. In terms of cancer characteristics in the older cohort, there was a higher rate of patients with cancer for more than 2 years (53% vs 32%) and performance status of 3 (22% vs 6%). In terms of severity, Asian ethnicity [OR: 3.1 (95% CI: 0.88-10.96) p=0.64] had greater association with increasing COVID-19 severity in those aged >65. Interestingly, there were no positive associations between number of co-morbidities, treatment paradigm or performance status with severity of disease in the older group. The risk of mortality was greater in the elderly cohort with hematological cancer types [HR: 2.69 (1.31-5.53) p=0.85] and having cancer for more than 2 years [2.20 (1.09-4.42) p=0.28] compared to the younger cohort. Conclusions In our study we demonstrate that severity and mortality of COVID-19 did not significantly differ between the two age cohorts except in regards to Asian ethnicity, hematological malignancies and having cancer for more than 2 years. As expected, the older population had more co-morbidities and polypharmacy. Despite this, the incidence of severe COVID-19 was similar regardless of age. Further analyses for other geriatric presentations are ongoing to understand their interaction with COVID-19 in the cancer population.


On November 28, 2013, the National Assembly of Vietnam adopted the nation's new constitution, the culmination of a three-year constitution-making process. This study attempts to situate the Vietnamese experience within the global trend of constitution making in the twenty-first century. It argues that the constitution-making process in twenty-first century Vietnam is driven by an intricate interplay between global sources and norms and local and national concerns. The global sources and norms that inform the Vietnamese constitution-making process include: international pressures, the global emphasis on the significance of process in constitution making, universal constitutional questions, the international norm of public participation, and international involvement. At the same time, the Vietnamese constitution-making process is affected by the local context: the political context featuring the exclusive leadership of the Communist Party, the socioeconomic context featuring the long-term Đổi mới national program ("Renovation"), the institutional context featuring legislative supremacy, and the intellectual context featuring the prevailing socialist ideology. The interplay of global and local factors has resulted in a more open constitutional dialogue and a less authoritarian paradigm of constitutional imposition, which is constructive to constitutionalism in Vietnam. The Vietnamese experience suggests that more academic attention should be paid to the general relation of the constitution-making process to dialogic constitutionalism.


The incremental derivations of phase theory (Chomsky 2001, 2005: etc.) raise the question of the directionality of derivations (den Dikken 2018). In this squib, I outline some arguments for top-down generation, arguing that grammatical theory must treat as axiomatic the notion that derivations mirror actual structure-building processes in the brain; given the limited nature of temporary memory capacity (Cowan 2015), bottom-up generation does not survive long under such scrutiny. Next, I briefly review some theory-internal evidence (Phillips 1996, 2003, Chesi 2007, 2015) with respect to conflicting results from constituency tests. Finally, I seek to characterize the phases with respect to what Chomsky (2005, 2007) calls the 'duality of semantics', arguing that roots are inserted in the upper phase (CP) for discourse purposes, but are interpreted with respect to the core proposition in the lower phase (vP).


Lip balm is now one of useful cosmetics and the phenomena of well-being and LOHAS have extended to the area of cosmetics of which quality is assured. In this study, usability of Lithospermum erthrohizon (L. erthrohizon) investigated to natural cosmetic materials. Ethyl alcohol extract from L. erthrohizon was observed cytotoxicity, DPPH scavenging effect and antimicrobial activity. And lip balm made of 10% L. erthrohizon extract from ethyl alcohol and jojoba oil extract, and tested safety, usability and stability. In the result, fifty percent of fibroblast viability and brain cells were shown at the concentration of 128 mg/mL and 106 mg/mL of ethyl alcohol extracts. No extraordinary reaction or phenomena were detected like erythema (-) or allergy (-) when fore arms were patched for 48 hours with 10% lip balm made of ethyl alcohol and oil extracts. With regard to stability, there was little change in color but generation of alien substances and acidification from UV irradiation to 10% lip balm. Extremely positive responses were directed to lip balm in the order of color, feeling after application, applicability, fragrance and color reaction. DPPH scavenging activity was observed at the concentration of 5.0 mg/mL of ethyl alcohol extracts in comparison with the concentration 0.1 mg/mL of BHT as positive control material. Fractions of ethyl acetate and butanol from L. erthrohizon were measured at 12.5 mg/mL same scavenging effect as BHT. And antimicrobial activities revealed formation of clear zone with size of 9.5 mm against to S. aureus and 10 mm clear zone against to S. epidermidis at the concentration of 100 mg/mL. In conclusion, L. erthrohizon turned out to have excellent effects and antimicrobial activities as natural substance. And the lip balm made of L. erthrohizon is expected to suffice the 4 major requirements of cosmetics (safety, stability, effectiveness and usability), it is thought to be usefully employed in developing the products with natural substances that are verified of antioxidant effect and antimicrobial activity in the industry of cosmetics.


Background: Rabies is an acute fatal viral encephalitis that usually transmitted from animals to man followed by domestic and wild animal bites.

Objective: To identify the level of general awareness and knowledge of wound management and rabies among the cases of animal bite and to study the awareness of people about antirabies vaccines and health service utilization.

Materials and Methods: Cross-sectional institutional study was conducted in 406 animal bite victims presenting to the tertiary care hospital, Rewa, Madhya Pradesh. A pretested and structured oral questionnaire was used to elicit the required information regarding knowledge of animal bite victims about animal bite and rabies, its transmission, prevention, and control. Data were analyzed using graphpad software.

Result: All 406 animal bite victims knew about injury after animal bite. 54.9% victims knew about fatality of rabies, 63.7% victims knew that rabies is caused by biting of animal, and 17.4% knew that rabies is transmitted by saliva. Source of information was health facility for 48% victims. 85.5% victims knew about application of antiseptic solution on animal bite wound. 34% victims knew about correct number of injection, 40.4% knew about correct site, and 33.3% knew that ARV should be taken immediately. 57.9% victims knew that observation should be done in animal. 33.1% victims knew that local treatment should be taken as soon as possible.

Conclusion: This study has shown that the community level knowledge is satisfactory about rabies, its prevention, and control. Knowledge found to be low for the modes of rabies transmission, prevention methods after suspected animal bite, the first action taken in the home after bitten by a suspected animal and for ARV.


The virtual nature of digital money is fueling the conflict between usability, functionality and trust in the digital form. Institutional trust drivers should move forward in understanding the nature of confidence in digital money. Do central banks digital money (CBDC – central bank digital currency) and private cryptocurrencies demonstrate the same or different trust patterns? The paper used the general regression method to discover the relationship between trust in different forms of digital money and selected variables that may generate this trust. Simple empirical tests were sufficient to find the fundamental importance of age as a confidence driver relevant to CBDC and cryptocurrencies. It is found that traditional factors associated with the inflation history and quality of monetary order (central banks independence and rule of law) do not play a role in the case of CBDC, but are important in the case of cryptocurrencies. Structural features (like FinTech development or social trust) that should support trust in digital money are not found to be important. Societies with larger fraction of younger generations demonstrate higher confidence in centralized and decentralized forms of digital money. This challenges the traditional approach to money and calls into question the future role of monetary stability institutions in the digital age. Digitalization is perceived as an improvement in welfare only when fiat money institutions become fragile. The efficiency and credibility of central banks are not a bonus to confidence in CBDC. This is a challenge for the institutional design of the future digital-based monetary order.


The adsorption of bacteria onto the Na-montmorillonite (Na-MMT) was studied as a function of time, bacterial concentration, temperature and pH with the introduction of the organic and inorganic calcium sources. The results indicated that albeit revealing the same adsorption mechanism, the organic calcium (i.e., Ca(CH3COO)2) proposed in this study is more beneficial and environmentally friendly than the inorganic calcium (i.e., CaCl2) in terms of the adsorption of bacteria onto the Na-MMT surface, which can be ascribed to the formation of the denser aggregates in the Na-MMT with Ca(CH3COO)2. Meanwhile, the adsorption kinetics and isotherms followed the pseudo-second-order kinetic model and Langmuir Equation for both two calcium sources. Meanwhile, the adsorption bands of the water molecules on the minerals were observed to shift significantly after the bacterial adsorption, showing that the hydrogen bonding on the Na-MMT surface played an important role during this process. A value of ΔH0 > 0 indicated that the bacterial adsorption was affected by van der Waals force and hydrophobic interaction. Finally, the negative zeta potentials of the Na-MMT increased with the addition of Ca2+ ions, and the experimental data also showed that the adsorption of bacteria onto the Na-MMT was mainly determined by the electrostatic and non-electrostatic forces.


We measured the Raman spectra of GaAs wirelike crystals grown on porous silicon (PS) using two different excitation radiations which probe the near surface and the bulk. The transverse optic and longitudinal optic vibrational bands appear redshifted and broadened when compared to bulk GaAs, and with shoulders on their low frequency sides. These features are attributed to a disorder-induced relaxation in the selection rules for Raman activity arising from point defects. In addition, the bands show a strong frequency and bandwidth dependence on excitation energy. Differences in penetration depth together with a gradient in defect density are invoked to account for the observations. This analysis yields a picture in which there is a predominantly amorphous GaAs region buried at the PS–GaAs interface followed by microcrystalline GaAs cylindrical structures that become less defective as they grow farther from the interface. The near surface tends to approach the low defect density of crystalline GaAs.


Callystatin A is a prominent member of a class of natural products which display promising growth inhibition of cancer cells in their biological profile. The challenging structure and the interesting biological activity of (-)-callystatin A fueled our interest in the synthesis of this marine natural product. We achieved the total synthesis using a highly convergent approach joining four subunits together with a Wittig olefination, a selective Heck reaction and an aldol reaction as the pivotal steps. The aldol reaction as one of the final transformations during the synthesis opens fast access to a variety of structural analogues and circumvents tedious protecting group manipulations. Here we report an improved synthesis utilizing a modified vinyl iodide which shortens the synthesis by two steps. Additionally, first biological results will be reported.


The mean-field interaction in a Bose condensate provides a nonlinearity which can allow stable structures to exist in the mean-field wavefunction. We discuss a number of examples where condensates, modelled by the one-dimensional Gross - Pitaevskii equation, can produce grey solitons and we consider in detail the case of two identical condensates colliding in a harmonic trap. Solitons are shown to form from dark interference fringes when the soliton structure, constrained in a defined manner, has lower energy than the interference fringe and an analytic expression is given for this condition.


This study aims to quantify sensitivity of two atmospheric condition parameters: water vapour concentration (wv) and visibility in atmospheric correction processes in an operational processing chain. wv and visibility are important atmospheric condition parameters when retrieving surface reflectance from at-sensor radiance. To save cost, these parameters are often estimated using an image-based method. Their values are therefore uncertain, which in turn propagates to the surface reflectance in the atmospheric correction process. This study proposes an e-FAST based methodology that quantifies sensitivity of the two parameters in order to calculate their relative importance. The methodology is demonstrated with HyMap data. The results show that the two parameters have high sensitivity indices (> 0.8) and are dependent on the wavelength. This indicates that both parameters are important. The uncertainty in the parameters can possibly be further reduced by improving the estimation method.


This guide will assist you through the process for developing a data management plan, as well as helping you to identify and address research funders' requirements.


Single-step retrosynthesis is a crucial task in organic chemistry and drug design, requiring the identification of required reactants to synthesize a specific compound. with the advent of computer-aided synthesis planning, there is growing interest in using machine-learning techniques to facilitate the process. Existing template-free machine learning-based models typically utilize transformer structures and represent molecules as ID sequences. However, these methods often face challenges in fully leveraging the extensive topological information of the molecule and aligning atoms between the production and reactants, leading to results that are not as competitive as those of semi-template models. Our proposed method, Node-Aligned Graph-to-Graph (NAG2G), also serves as a transformer-based template-free model but utilizes 2D molecular graphs and 3D conformation information. Furthermore, our approach simplifies the incorporation of production-reactant atom mapping alignment by leveraging node alignment to determine a specific order for node generation and generating molecular graphs in an auto-regressive manner node-by-node. This method ensures that the node generation order coincides with the node order in the input graph, overcoming the difficulty of determining a specific node generation order in an auto-regressive manner. Our extensive benchmarking results demonstrate that the proposed NAG2G can outperform the previous state-of-the-art baselines in various metrics.


Bayesian Optimization is a sample-efficient black-box optimization procedure that is typically applied to problems with a small number of independent objectives. However, in practice we often wish to optimize objectives defined over many correlated outcomes (or"tasks"). For example, scientists may want to optimize the coverage of a cell tower network across a dense grid of locations. Similarly, engineers may seek to balance the performance of a robot across dozens of different environments via constrained or robust optimization. However, the Gaussian Process (GP) models typically used as probabilistic surrogates for multi-task Bayesian Optimization scale poorly with the number of outcomes, greatly limiting applicability. We devise an efficient technique for exact multi-task GP sampling that combines exploiting Kronecker structure in the covariance matrices with Matheron's identity, allowing us to perform Bayesian Optimization using exact multi-task GP models with tens of thousands of correlated outputs. In doing so, we achieve substantial improvements in sample efficiency compared to existing approaches that only model aggregate functions of the outcomes. We demonstrate how this unlocks a new class of applications for Bayesian Optimization across a range of tasks in science and engineering, including optimizing interference patterns of an optical interferometer with more than 65,000 outputs.


Design strategy through linking a driving pH oscillator (master system) to a pH sensitive complexation, precipitation, or protonation equilibrium (slave system) has been widely used to create and control concentration oscillations of chemical entities (e.g., monovalent cations, DNA, nanoparticles) not participating in the pH oscillatory system. No systematic investigation has been carried out on how the components of these equilibria affect the characteristics of the driving pH oscillators, and this feedback effect has been often neglected in previous studies. Here we show that pH sensitive species (hydrogen carbonate, EDTA) through a pH-dependent equilibrium could significantly affect the characteristics (time period and amplitude) of the driving pH oscillators. By varying the concentration of those species we are able to control the strength of the chemical feedback from slave system to master system thus introducing a transition from master-slave coupling to peer-to-peer coupling in linked chemical systems. To illustrate this transition and coupling strategies we investigate two coupled chemical systems, namely, the bromate-sulfite pH oscillator and carbonate-carbon dioxide equilibrium and the hydrogen peroxide-thiosulfate-copper(II) and EDTA complexation equilibrium. As a sign of the peer-to-peer coupling the characteristics of the driving oscillatory systems can be tuned by controlling the feedback strength, and the oscillations can be canceled above a critical value of this parameter.


In solid state physics, any symmetry breaking is known to be associated with emergence of an order parameter. However, the order parameter for molecular and crystal chirality, which is a consequence of parity and mirror symmetry breaking, has not been known since its discovery. In this article, the authors show that the order parameter for chirality can be defined by electric toroidal monopole G_0. By this definition, one becomes able to discuss external filed that can distinguish two different enantiomers only by physical fields. In addition, dynamics and fluctuations of the order parameter G_0 can be discussed, with which one can obtain fruitful insights on a spin filtering effect called CISS (Chirality Induced Spin Selectivity). Emergence of time-reversal-odd dipole M_z by time propagation of G_0 quantities is discussed to explain the enantioselective effect (chiral resolution) at a ferromagnetic surface.


The spectacular growth of economies in Asia over the past few years has amazed the economics profession and has evoked a torrent of books and articles attempting to explain the phenomenon. Since 1960 Asia, the largest and most populous of the continents has become richer faster than any other region of the world. Asian growth, like that of the Soviet Union in its high-growth era, seems to be driven by extraordinary growth in inputs like labor and capital rather than by gains in efficiency. Of course, this growth has not occurred at the same pace all over the continent. The eastern countries turned in a superior performance, although variations in achievement can be observed here too. This impressive achievement is, however, still modest compared with the phenomenal growth of Developed countries in the west. Strong Total Factor Productivity [TFP] rapid accumulation of physical and Human Capital and trade policy coupled with effective policy intervention played vital role in Asia's spectacular success. Naturally, sustainable growth performance and elimination of poverty demand greater role of institutional reforms industrial development and macro economic stability.


We present a platform for learning speech sciences which contains advanced tools allowing speech signal modifications, speech analysis, synthesis and speech enhancement. The paper presents some of the most interesting speech manipulations, such as the modification of prosody, the acoustic cue manipulations through the interface of the Klatt synthesizer, or the enhancement of speech segments. These modifications find interesting applications in the domains of learning of foreign languages, hearing aids and reeducation. They can be applied either automatically or manually, via their integration in a complex signal editor, WinSnoori. The transformations can be realised on the learner's voice, allowing him/her to better apprehend the target pronunciation.


Disagreement about stock valuation, combined with short-sales constraints, can increase asset prices. We build a model showing that, so long as investor beliefs are not perfectly correlated, investors disagree less about the value of a conglomerate than about each of its individual divisions. This generates a conglomerate discount with disagreement and short-sales constraints being complementary in explaining its cross-sectional variation. We test these predictions empirically and find substantial support: conglomerates have lower differences of opinion and lower short-sales constraints than pure-play firms. Furthermore, greater differences of opinion and tighter short-sales constraints are significant predictors of valuation differences between conglomerates and pure plays. This paper was accepted by Karl Diether, finance.


The relevance of scientific research is determined by the importance of the scientist's scientific heritage as a separate milestone in the history of Ukrainian linguistic science. The purpose of the scientific work is to determine the main facets of the scientific and scientific-methodical activity of the outstanding Ukrainian grammarian and linguodidact of the founder of the syntactic school of the Chernivtsi University Professor I. I. Slуnko. The research methodology is based on general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis, as well as on specific linguistic methods ‒ descriptive with methods of classification and generalization of linguistic facts, logical comparison. Conclusions. Scientific achievements of Professor I. I. Slуnko (19.06.1912–01.01.1994) played an indisputable role in the development of linguistic studies not only in Bukovina, but also in Ukraine. In particular, two directions in the creative heritage of the scientist - the field of modern and historical syntax - are interconnected and complement each other, expressing the genesis of the formation of the syntactic system of the Ukrainian language on a national basis and the author's desire to preserve Ukrainian identity in the system of means of expressing thought. Promising are further studies of the linguistic personality of Ilarion Ilarionovуch Slуnko in all its manifestations ‒ temporal, spatial, evolutionary, cultural and aesthetic, status and social, linguoculturological, etc.


The increased supply of ethanol fuel and its spread as an alternative to fossil fuels depend on the exploration of biomasses that can be regarded as alternatives to sugarcane and maize. In this study, the agricultural productivity and the potential for production of ethanol from roots and the aerial portion of twenty sweet potato genotypes were evaluated. The roots and branches were harvested 180 days after planting. Starch, hemicellulose, cellulose, lignin and soluble sugars from sweet potato roots or branches were determined and expressed as percentage of dry matter produced per hectare. The genotype UFVJM 28 stood out for the production of root and branches (fresh material), yielding 43.5 and 31.7 t ha-1, respectively. The roots of the Palmas, Batata Mandioca, Cariru Vermelha and UFVJM 45 genotypes had the highest total soluble sugar concentrations, between 4.1 and 5.4%. The enzymatic digestibility for starch contained in the roots ranged from 58.2 to 91.2%, and when related to the cellulose contained in the branches, it ranged from 14.2 to 42.4%. The estimates for the production of ethanol from the roots ranged between 1120 and 4940 L ha-1. The estimated production of bioethanol from sweet potato branches of the genotypes varied from 240 to 995 L ha-1. Considering the combined use of roots and branches, at least four sweet potatoes genotypes presented a potential for ethanol production greater than 4000 L ha-1 in a 180-day cycle.

 Key words: Ipomoea batatas, ethanol, biofuels, second generation ethanol, starch.