The objective of the present article is the evaluation of the scientific literature on the evolution of operated transsexual people and the consequences of the hormonal and surgical treatments. It seems crystal clear that both treatments produce much more positive effects than expected by the physicians and the psychologists in the past. Together with an appropiated follow-up and a correct assessment of the psychological vulnerability, these elements make acceptable the demand of sex change. Studies on the "psychological risk profile" are necessary to evaluate the factors of further adaptability and also to propose preventive steps at the beginning of the hormonal and surgical treatment.


This article discusses an innovative system for traffic management that is presently under installation in the city of Valencia. Key features of the system are to exploit open source software components and use MPEG-4 video streaming over an Internet protocol. The video streaming management is particularly sophisticated, resulting in a flexible, efficient, and reliable service. Another important element is the communication network design. In this case, the main issues to address were flexibility, scalability, and fault tolerance. The authors successfully addressed these issues by using a hierarchical network structure, with physical redundancy, based on spanning tree protocols. The overall system is specifically for urban traffic control, but some of its characteristics could make it easily reconfigurable to different contexts and environments.


Stenotrophomonas maltophilia (S. maltophilia) is an important Gram-negative, non-fermentative, multidrug resistant (MDR) nosocomial organism. We evaluated the isolation of S. maltophilia from the seven blood culture specimens received from the Paediatric Emergency Department (PED) of BP Koirala Institute of Health Sciences (BPKIHS) over the duration of two weeks. The suspicion of a possible outbreak was raised and the hospital infection control team investigated the source and found the hand of one healthcare provider harbouring a similar organism. All six steps of hand hygiene were subsequently strictly enforced after which the same bacteria were no longer isolated. Infection control measures should be rigorously adopted for the control of such nosocomial bacteria.


Abstract Metanatroautunite, Na[(UO2)(PO4)](H2O)3, from the Lake Boga granite, Victoria, Australia, has tetragonal symmetry, space group P4/ncc, with the unit-cell parameters: a = 6.9935(7), c = 17.5101(12) Å, V = 856.40(13) Å3, and Z = 4. The crystal structure has been solved and refined to R1 = 0.0398 for 368 unique reflections [F > 4σ(F)] and 0.0456 for all 496 unique reflections. Metanatroautunite has an almost identical corrugated polyhedral sheet to meta-autunite-group minerals, consisting of corner-sharing uranyl square pyramids and phosphate tetrahedra. Hydrogen bonds (and cation-oxygen bonds) link the water molecules in the interlayer into square-planar sets, which are connected together creating 8-membered arrays. Metanatroautunite is identical to synthetic Na[(UO2)(PO4)](H2O)3.


A sudy was conducted to develop a rapid and reliable method for the collection and incorporation of biofiltration air samples containing volatile organic compounds (VOCs) into the Microtox™ toxicity testing system. To date, no method exists for this type of assay. A constant stream of VOCs was generated by air stripping compounds from a complex mixture of petroleum hydrocarbons (PHCs). Samples were collected on coconut charcoal ORBO (Supelco, Inc.) tubes and the VOCs extracted with methylene chloride. The compounds extracted were then solvent exchanged into dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) under gaseous nitrogen. The resulting DMSO extract was directly incorporated into the Microtox toxicity testing system. In order to determine the efficiency of the solvent exchange, the VOCs in the DMSO extract were then extracted into hexane and subsequently analyzed using gas chromatography (GC) with a flame ionization detector (FID). It was determined that all but the most volatile VOCs could be effectively transferred from the ORBO tubes to DMSO for Microtox testing. Potential trace amounts of residual methylene chloride in the DMSO extracts showed no adverse effects in the Microtox system when compared to control samples.


Digital environment offers teachers and students with a plethora of information and resources for learning. Nowadays, students who are mostly digital natives are used to utilizing technology in their daily life. This condition should make teachers as technology leaders responsible to provide a good learning environment where the students are involved in their own learning and that best suits to them in in a particular context. Therefore, this study aimed at developing local culture based digital comics for narrative reading comprehension and inserting local culture of Banyuwangi in English language teaching. This study followed the research and development design adapting the pattern developed by Borg and Gall. Based on the result of need analysis administered to students in class VIII of SMPN 1 Kalipuro, Banyuwangi, the product were developed by inserting local culture content into narrative texts in the form of digital comics. The digital comics had two titles: The Dance Competition and The Legend of Banyuwangi. The product was validated by the experts and tried out to the students. The result showed that the local culture based digital comics were applicable to be used in the teaching and learning narrative text reading comprehension.


Fifteen patients with relapsed (10) or primarily refractory (5) acute nonlymphocytic leukemia were treated with a combination of cytosine arabinoside (3 g/m2 i.v. every 12 h, 12 doses, days 1-6), 6-thioguanine (100 mg/m2 orally every 12 h, 12 doses, days 1-6) and daunomycin (60 mg/m2 i.v. on days 5 and 6 only). Complete remission was achieved in 11 patients. Eight of 10 relapsed patients and 3 of 5 primarily refractory patients entered remission. Median remission duration was 7.5 months (2-36+ months). Ten of the 11 remissions resulted from a single induction course. The time to hematologic recovery was comparable to that seen with 'standard'-dose cytosine arabinoside regimens. Nonhematologic toxicity, although considerable, was not greater than that seen with high-dose cytosine arabinoside alone. The most significant problem was gastrointestinal toxicity with diarrhea occurring in the majority of patients. Mild neurologic toxicity (reversible cerebellar dysfunction) occurred in 2 patients.


In recent years the peasant household has become a central focal point of social history. This is true not only because the peasant represents the major element of European society through the nineteenth century, but also because many of the main issues in modern historical debate can be studied within the sphere of the peasant family. This book deals with the European peasant family during the period of transformation from agrarian to industrial society, the time called by some the period of protoindustrialisation. The essays in this volume explore some of the major issues concerning the influence of the economy, society and institutions on the peasant household and, conversely, the influence of the peasant household on the outside world. Themes dealt with include the ways in which the physical environment and the economy may make for very different family structures and even affect intra-family relationships; the effects of inheritance, marriage and kinship strategies, as well as social pressure, on peasant family structure and demography; the debate about changing gender roles and status; the debate over the manner and effects of class formation; questions of social and political agency; the nature of gender and parent-child relations; the validity of protoindustrial theory; and, the role of peasants in initiating industrialisation as consumers, producers and as a labour force. In examining these themes, the essays provide both case studies and innovative analysis by preeminent international scholars in the fields of family and women's history, economic history and demography.


Background: We previously found that the Na+/H+ exchanger 3 (NHE3) is localized in the apical membrane of the rat renal proximal tubule and thick ascending limb of Henle. In the present study, we examined the direct effect of glucagon on the opossum kidney P (OKP) cell Na+/H+ antiporter, encoded by NHE3. Methods: Na+/H+ antiporter activity was measured as the rate of cell pH recovery from an acid load using 2′,7′-bis(carboxyethyl)-5(6)-carboxyfluorescein. Northern blot and Western blot analyses were performed using OKP NHE3 cDNA and anti-OKP-NHE3 antibodies. Results: Glucagon (1 ng/ml) acutely (1 h) inhibited, but chronically (24 h) activated NHE3 activity in OKP cells. These effects were blocked by either KT5720 or RpcAMP [protein kinase A (PKA) inhibitors], and mimicked by 10–4M dibutyryl-cAMP. Both NHE3 mRNA and protein abundance increased with the 24-hour incubation in glucagon or dibutyryl-cAMP. Cycloheximide did not prevent a significant increase in NHE3 activity at 24 h. We therefore examined NHE3 protein abundance in the surface membrane by the biotinylation mehtod. cAMP or glucagon significantly increased NHE3 protein abundance in the surface membrane when incubated with cycloheximide for 24 h. Conclusions: Glucagon acutely inhibits but chronically activates NHE3 activity in OKP cells via a PKA-dependent pathway. Both protein-synthesis-dependent and -independent mechanisms play important roles in the chronic activation of NHE3.


In improving the achievement of students in science lessons, especially in the discussion of animals and plants in my home environment, the fourth grade students at SD Negeri Tombo 02 were selected using the discovery learning method. Discovery learning method is a teaching method that focuses on the activities of students in learning. In the learning process with this method, the teacher only acts as a guide and facilitator who directs students to find concepts, arguments, procedures, algorithms and the like. Thus students are encouraged to be more actively involved in learning materials and develop critical thinking skills in fourth grade students of SD Negeri Tombo 02, Bandar District, Batang Regency, 2020/2021 school year. After analyzing the value of the science learning process and results, the authors summarize the problems that occur in online learning, including: a. Students are less able to mention animals and plants, b. Students are less able to explain the parts of plant functions for humans, c. Students' perspectives are less able to explain the Indonesian landscape. From the results of the problem analysis above, it can be analyzed, including: Is the problem caused by inappropriate media or learning devices, learning materials that are not in accordance with the interests of students, or learning methods do not attract students.


We introduce a new approach to normalizing words written with an electronic stylus that applies to all styles of handwriting (upper case, lower case, printed, cursive, or mixed). A geometrical model of the word spatial structure is fitted to the pen trajectory using the expectation-maximisation algorithm. The fitting process maximizes the likelihood of the trajectory given the model and a set a priors on its parameters. The method was evaluated and integrated to a recognition system that combines neural networks and hidden Markov models.


We show how random testing, model checking and interactive proving can be combined for functional program verification in dependent type theory.
We extend the proof assistant Agda/Alfa for dependent type theory with a tool for random testing of functional programs, thus combining proving and testing in one system. Testing is used for debugging programs and specifications before a proof is attempted. Proving is used to decompose a goal into subgoals that can be subjected to testing before attempting to make a proof. Proving can guide the testing strategy to test all branches of a case statement and thus make it possible to localize the source of a bug more precisely. We show how some classic data structure algorithms (binary search tree insertion and AVL-tree insertion) are verified in the system. As a further case study, we show how the correctness of a BDD-algorithm written in Haskell is verified by testing properties of component functions.
We then augment the proof assistant Agda/Alfa with a simple tool for model checking boolean formulas using binary decision diagrams. We show two applications of this tool. The first is to prove Urquhart's U-formulas using a combination of interactive proving and testing. The second one is the verification of a sorting algorithm (bitonic sort) using a combination of interactive proving, model checking, and random testing.
Our tool uses test data generators which are defined inside Agda/Alfa. We can therefore use the type system to prove properties about them, in particular surjectivity stating that all possible test cases can indeed be generated. We discuss how surjective generators can be written for a class of inductively defined dependent types by using the correspondence between inductive definitions and logic programs. As an example, we give a generator for theorems in propositional logic.
The last part of the thesis is an advanced case study in formalisation and proving. We describe a formalisation of a reduction-free normalisation function nf for the typed lambda calculus. To extract the normalisation function nf, we develop a constructive category theory, which is called P-category theory, and a formalisation of the typed lambda calculus. From this we prove numerous properties of the typed lambda calculus. Two different approaches to formalising the typed lambda calculus are presented in ALF. Properties of the typed lambda calculus are organised in a categorical way, using the notion of categories with families. It is proved that the two approaches are equivalent as categorical structures.


The Algorithm Testing and Evaluation Program for Coordinate Measurement Systems (ATEP-CMS) is a Special Test Service offered under the NIST Calibration Program. ATEP-CMS evaluates the performance of geometric fitting software used in coordinate measurement systems. It is a Special Test because it is a new type of NIST service, experimental in nature and unsupported by historical data. This report documents and explains the rationale of the performance measures used in ATEP-CMS and analyzes the uncertainties of those measures.


Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a common cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. There is little therapy for advanced disease and recurrence rates can be as high as 50% following resection. Evidence in several tumor types suggests that cancer stem cells (CSCs) contribute to tumorigenicity, therapeutic resistance and recurrence, however the HCC CSC phenotype remains to be completely defined. HCC recurrence is influenced by the degree of immune response in the tumor microenvironment. Therefore, we aimed to characterize HCC-CSCs phenotype and investigate the interaction between CSCs and immune cell subsets. To identify a dominant CSC population in HCC, we examined several putative CSC markers, including CD44, CD90, CD133 and EpCAM on primary human resected HCCs (n=6), HCC xenografts (n=2), and HCC cell lines (n=3) using flow cytometry. Cells from all sources consistently showed discrete populations of CD44 + cells (2-40%), while other common CSC markers showed significant heterogeneity. CD44 + cells isolated from HCC xenografts or HepG2 cells by fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) demonstrated enhanced tumorigenic potential with as little as 100 cells implanted into NOD-SCID/IL-2Rg null mice compared to no tumor from 100 CD44 − cells. CD44 + cells were also able to produce heterogenic tumor mass in vivo. Moreover, CD44 + cells demonstrated increased sphere forming capacity in serum free media (2 fold, p + HCC cells were resistant to effector cytokines such as IFNγ and TNFα and effector responses during co-culture with anti-CD3/anti-CD28 activated T cells from healthy donor PBMCs. CD44 + HCC cells had 2-fold increased expression of B7-H1, a co-inhibitory molecule for T cells, when compared to non-CSCs during exposure to activated T cells or effector cytokine IFNγ, suggesting a possible mechanism of resistance to immune effectors in the HCC microenvironment. In conclusion, CD44 discriminates for the HCC CSC as evidenced by CD44 + subset demonstrating enhanced tumorigenicity, sphere forming capacity and resistance to chemotherapeutic agents. CD44 + CSC are also resistant to activated T cells and effector cytokines suggesting that microenvironmental factors related to immune response may be important for HCC recurrence or progression. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 102nd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2011 Apr 2-6; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2011;71(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 2450. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2011-2450


Interest in stipitate hydnoid fungi of the genera Bankera, Hydnellum, Phellodon and Sarcodon has increased due to the decline in numbers of sporocarps in Europe. Conservation of these fungi is hindered by a lack of understanding of their basic ecology. In particular, a better understanding of their belowground ecology is required. Real-time PCR in conjunction with spatially explicit sampling was used to quantify the relationship between sporocarps and mycelium of Hydnellum peckii and Phellodon tomentosus. Species-specific DNA of the target species was quantified in 100 soil samples collected on a 360 x 360 cm grid at five locations where sporocarps were present. All sporocarps within the grid and up to 2 m around the grid were mapped. Sporocarp production did not occur over the whole extent of the belowground mycelium of these two species, and mycelium extended up to 330 cm away from the immediate site of sporocarp production. Spatial analyses using Kernel-smoothing and Moran's I correlograms showed that, with a single exception, there was no quantitative relationship between sporocarp distribution and the belowground abundance of mycelium. These findings have important implications for the conservation of this rare group of fungi.


The human cancer antigen 125 (CA125) is over-expressed in epithelial ovarian cancer cells and it plays a role in the pathogenesis of ovarian cancer. This protein presents a repeat region containing up to sixty tandem repeat units. The anti-CA125 monoclonal antibodies have been previously classified into three groups: two major families, the OC125-like antibodies and M11-like antibodies, and a third group, the OV197-like antibodies. A model in which a single repeat unit contains all the epitopes for these antibodies has been also proposed, even if their exact position is still undetermined. In the present work, the affinities of the monoclonal antibodies, representative of the three families, have been investigated for different CA125-recombinant repeats through Western blot analysis. Different patterns of antibody recognition for the recombinant repeats show that CA125 epitopes are not uniformly distributed in the tandem repeat region of the protein. The minimal region for the recognition of these antibodies has been also individuated in the SEA domain through the subcloning of deleted sequences of the highly recognized repeat-25 (R-25), their expression as recombinant fragments in E. coli and Western blot analysis. Obtained data have been further confirmed by ELISA using the entire R-25 as coating antigen.


Studies have been carried out on the purification of biogas from sulfur compounds, carbon dioxide and water vapor for subsequent use in micronizer burners. The possibility of bringing it to the parameters of natural gas of the following composition: methane (CH4) – 85 % vol., carbon dioxide СО2 – 11 % vol., water vapor – 9 mg/m3, hydrogen sulfide H2S - 20 mg/m3 with minimal energy costs for its preparation is demonstrated. The basic relationships are obtained for assessing the design and technological parameters of the infrared radiation burners operation. Experimental studies of the flame stability limits on perforated ceramic nozzles have shown that flashback through them is possible when the thermal power is increased to a certain critical value. In this case, the thermal power depends on the type of gas and the air content in the combustible mixture. The heat balance equations have been derived to optimize the designs and operation modes of infrared radiation burners. The design of 40 gas burners was improved by changing the geometric dimensions and shape for a uniform distribution of biogas supplied and sustainable combustion over the entire area of the burner. It was established that the temperature of the heating surface of the GIK-8 burner on gas mixtures with a CO2 content of 18-34 % is 900-950 ° C, which does not differ from the nominal temperature when operating on natural gas. The infrared heating system was modernized, adapted for burning purified biogas with methane content up to 98 %, in particular, the biomethane feed and control system, the additional biogas input system, and the automatic burner control system were improved.


A two-dimensional fixed-bed catalytic reactor model for acrolein production has been developped. The reactor and kinetic models have been identified by using both laboratory-scale and pilot-scale measurements. Many operating conditions such as coolant temperature, feeding rate, inlet pressure and temperature have great influence on the yield of acrolein and also on the bed temperature which are two very important parameters. More specifically, the coolant temperature and feeding rate are the two most important parameters for the acrolein production. With a set of different feed rates, the coolant temperature and the reactor inlet temperature were optimized to maximise the yield of acrolein for a given reactor length and inlet pressure. There was an optimal feeding rate for the maximum yield of acrolein. The study of the influence of number of the cooling sections with different temperatures shows that there was no significant improvement in the yield of acrolein.


The history of man has been marked with interactions both at the level of individuals and politics. Nations have been known to be in a continuous interaction so that man at the centre world achieves his chief goal, which is true happiness and fulfilment. Thus, the continuous interaction of man at all levels has lent credence to the popular saying that 'no man lives in isolation'. Therefore, nations interact with one another for the benefit of mankind and as well to assist and support in areas some nations are deficient and incapacitated. The foregoing bears fang on the long standing relationship existing between China and Nigeria since 1970's, but specifically the period 2007 - 2009. To this end this paper attempts an appraisal of the Sino-Nigerian Economic Relations from 2007-2009, the benefits, matters arising and the prospect of these relations.


By feeding of rabbits with cholesterol a hyperlipoproteinaemia (HLP) was created and the changes of the cholesterol and triglyceride (TGL) level were compared with the changes of the portions of the pre-beta- and beta-lipoproteins. The electrophoresis with a gel of agar-agarose are more suitable for the densitometric evaluation than electrophoresis with cellulose acetate films. Tests with Evan's blue of the angiopermeability of rabbits feeded with cholesterol showed that the permeability of the cutaneous vessels decreased strikingly during test period, while a change of the permeability of the aorta was not to be proved under the conditions of our tests. HLP patients had been treated with clofibrinic acid, nicotinic acid derivatives and metabolism basic diet for 3 years. The cholesterol and TGL values as well as the pre-beta-/beta-lipoprotein quotients have been determined before and after treatment. The pre-beta-/beta-lipoprotein quotient has proved as suitable complementary parameter for pursuit of the therapeutic result with HLP patients. The changes of the quotients corresponded well with the found changes of the HLP types. The decrease of the TGL content of HLP patients of the type IV or IIb being treated with metabolism basic diet or clofibrinic acid may be estimated (with nearly constant cholesterol level) from the per cent decrease of the pre-beta-/beta-quotient.


A study on the histological features of breast and thigh muscles of commercial broilers and native chickens as affected by age and type of management was conducted. The myofibrillar protein contents of these muscles in chickens raised under range management and in confinement at 6 and 16 weeks of age were also determined using the biuret method. The results were subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA) following a 2x2x2x2 factorial in completely randomized design (CRD) using SAS. Differences in treatment means were tested for significance using least square means. Results showed that myofibrillar protein content was significantly affected by the type of management and the kind of muscle used. The thigh muscle has significantly higher myofibrillar protein content than the breast muscle. Likewise, native chickens raised under range management have significantly higher myofibrillar protein content than broilers. The higher myofibrillar protein content of thigh muscle of native chickens raised under range conditions is attributed to increased muscular activity since they are more exercised as they move around the field to forage for their own food. The increased myofibrillar protein content contributed to the increased degree of firmness in thigh muscle of native chicken, which makes it more acceptable to the consumers.


Wind turbines are the largest rotating machines on the planet, operating in some of the most remote and hostile areas. During a lifespan of several decades, they have to withstand storms, waves, and gusts (and preferably produce electricity in the process). Yet, designers cannot make them too strong. Every additional kilogram of mass has to be manufactured, transported, and installed, and has a price tag that is directly added to the cost of energy. Optimizing structures, however, is very challenging. It requires designers to predict the highest loads on wind turbines, after they have spent decades in a turbulent wind climate. This PhD research focused on extreme wind gusts, which are among the most severe events that a wind turbine can encounter. The concept of a gust is extended from its common perception to a complete mathematical model of three-dimensional velocity fields. These fields have proven to be very valuable to the design process, since they offer a unique insight into the conditions in which high loads are triggered. Moreover, they can be used to efficiently predict the long-term loads with low uncertainty. At the same time, this physical gust model helps to answer an important question for future wind turbines: what happens when rotor blades outgrow the size of the most severe gusts in the atmosphere?


Due to very good compressive strength of concrete, it is used widely in all over the world during three decades. The Formulation of Concrete is through combination of Cement, stone aggregate, sand and water according to their design mix based on the ultimate strength required for the structural component. The Mixing of concrete is as mortar, the layer of cement, sand and water is wrapped around the aggregate. When the load is applied to the concrete, the weaker zone i.e. mortar of cement, sand is weaker than stone aggregate, damage by formulation of crack before crack in aggregate. The Damage behavior of Concrete is thus to be analyzed according to their fatigue behavior.
Strain Based approach in Fatigue Damage Modelling of Brittle Material in Concrete is presented to describe the behavior and failure of con-crete by utilizing Damage Mechanics approach. Stiffness degradation and inelastic deformation are the essential features of concrete that develop due tothe formation of multitude of microcracks in the fatigue environment. Microcracking, which is anisotropic in nature, destroys the bond between material grains, and affects the elastic properties resulting in the reduction of material stiffness in elastic as well as plastic stage. This paper presents an anisotropic fatigue damage model for plain concrete subjected to cyclic tension. The model is developed, in strain space, using the general framework of internal variable theory of continuum thermodynamics and Damage Mechanics. It is argued that within the damage surface of given strain states the unloadingreloading cycles (fatigue loading) stimulate the nucleation and growth microcracks in concrete, which will result in stiffness degradation and inelastic deformation, and hence material is termed as damaged. Damage is reflected through the fourthorder stiffness tensor involving a damage parameter whose increment is governed by the consistency equation associated with a cycle dependent damage surface in strain space. The model is capable of predicting stiffness degradation, inelastic deformation and strength reduction under fatigue loading and compared against experimental result.
By increasing the number of loading cycles, the strength of concrete gradually decreases and the limit surface is allowed to contract and form new curves representing residual strengths. The magnitude of loading, load range, and the load path are known to influence the fatigue life and hence are addressed in this formulation. In this paper, a strength softening function is proposed in order to address the re-duction in the strength of concrete due to fatigue. Separate softening functions are also proposed to account for the deformation characteristics in concrete under cyclic loading. Numerical simula-tions predicted by the model in both uniaxial and biaxial stress paths show a good correlation with the experimental data available in the literature.


Total artificial hearts (TAHs), available in today's market, have the disadvantage of wear-prone components. Thus, their expectation of life is limited and the devices can only be used for temporary and not destination therapy. Durability- and wear-free operations are the critical requirements, as failure is an immediate threat to the patient's life. These attributes are combined in linear motors. In this paper, the potential of a linear motor as TAH's drive is shown by a prototype. On the basis of this prototype, different motor concepts are employed. The dimensions of each concept's geometry are first roughly determined by analytical optimization, and in a second step, more finely tuned by means of finite-element (FE) calculations. After optimization, two concepts achieve the requirements, provided by the natural heart of the human body. The first motor consists of moving coils and static permanent magnets, which are embedded in a flux concentrating geometry. To avoid the disadvantage of wear-prone power connection of the coils, the other concept consists of static coils and moving permanent magnets, arranged in a Halbach array. After constructing and testing both concepts in laboratory, animal experiments will follow to identify the superior one.


Quantitative models of the species-area-distance relation, based on equilibria between immigration and extinction rates, have been tested against data for birds on 52 Solomon islands. Biologically reasonable models account for 98% of the variance in species number. The data are adequate to permit determination of immigration and extinction curves and the values of seven associated parameters. The resulting curves are very concave. Extinction rates vary almost exactly as the reciprocal of area, but the effect of area on immigration rates is slight. Recognition of major differences among species in immigration and extinction rates and in dispersal distances proves essential to a successful model.


A novel approach with fewer technical and analytic limitations in liquid solvent-bitumen diffusion studies is used in this article. The Taylor dispersion technique was selected for its convenient short run time experiments and reliable data analysis to find mutual diffusion coefficients in a hexane + bitumen mixture. For the first time, the infinite-dilution molecular diffusion coefficients of bitumen in hexane were measured in both the presence and relative absence of asphaltene particles in the solution at atmospheric pressure and temperatures of 303.15, 310.15, and 317.15 K. The polydisperse nature of bitumen was clearly revealed. Results were compared with common predictive tools. Also, the asphaltene surface charge in the hexane precipitating solvent was demonstrated. Through concentration dependency investigations at atmospheric pressure and 303.15 K, it was determined that the mutual diffusion coefficients monotonically decrease as the viscosity of mixture increases within the studied 0–34% volumetric concentration of bitumen. The Taylor dispersion technique shows great potential for diffusion studies of liquid solvent-bitumen systems. © 2014 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 60: 2670–2682, 2014


OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to quantify the influence of some of the predisposing, enabling, and healthcare need variables on dental health services utilization (DHSU) among Mexican adolescents.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
This is a cross-sectional analytical study including 1,538 Mexican teenagers 12 and 15 years of age. The dependent variable was DHSU in the previous 12 months. Data were collected through a questionnaire and included demographic, socioeconomic, and behavioral factors. The study included an oral examination. The analysis included nonparametric statistics and a logistic regression model.

RESULTS
Of the 1,538 adolescents, 688 were 12 years old and 850 were 15 years old. Girls accounted for 49.9%. The prevalence of DHSU was 15%. In the final model we found that having moved at least once from the community in which the child was born was associated with DHSU (OR: 1.24; 95% CI: 1.10-1.40; p > 0.05), just as it was observed for purchasing purified water for home consumption instead of relying on piped water supplies (OR: 1.52; 95% CI: 1.03-2.25), higher educational attainment of the mother (OR: 1.39; 95% CI: 1.02-1.91) and of the father (OR: 1.87; 95% CI: 1.09-3.19). Having more sound teeth (OR: 0.96; 95% CI: 0.94-0.98), and having at least one tooth with caries (OR: 1.10; 95% CI: 1.01-1.18) were also associated with DHSU (p > 0.05).

CONCLUSION
The percentage of subjects with DHSU in the prior 12 months was low compared with other studies. Our identification of the variables associated with DHSU (often surrogates of socioeconomic position) indicated the existence of oral health inequalities and the need to develop strategies to reduce the gaps identified.


In this paper, we design a cognitive crawler to dramatically reduce the website crawling cost and extract nsefnl content from web pages in an unsupervised procedure. The main idea of reducing the crawling cost is to retrieving those lately modified pages and newly added pages only. However, in reality, it is impossible for traditional crawler to judge whether a page has been modified or newly added without doing a whole crawling. We propose a method to predict those lately modified pages and newly added pages without do any actual crawling; we also find a feasible and stable feature "structure pattern" to better indicates the modified probability of certain page. In the meanwhile, we develop a hybrid clustering method combined with K-means and agglomerative hierarchical clustering to automatically find all the structure patterns in certain website. Using structure pattern, we developed an unsupervised algorithm to generate website's templates; using templates, crawler can extract useful information of web pages much more easily and precisely. We also introduce feasible formulas to predict pages' modified probabilities and crawling time intervals. To evaluate the performance of an incremental crawling algorithm, we proposed three new indicators. Using the algorithm proposed, we could extract content of pages with high performance. The experimental results illustrate that structure pattern is very useful and the performance of this cognitive crawler is quite promising and it can save huge amount of bandwidth and is qualified for different websites of various scales.


We discuss the problem of soft errors in asynchronous burst mode machines (ABMMs) and we propose two solutions. The first solution is an error tolerance approach, which leverages the inherent functionality of Muller C-elements, along with a variant of duplication, to suppress all transient errors. The proposed method is more robust and less expensive than the typical Triple Modular Redundancy (TMR) error tolerance method and often even less expensive than previously proposed concurrent error detection (CED) methods, which only provide detection but no correction. The second solution is an error mitigation approach, which leverages a newly devised soft error susceptibility assessment method for ABMMs, along with partial duplication, to suppress a carefully chosen subset of transient errors. Three progressively more powerful options for partial duplication select among individual gates, complete state/output logic cones, or partial state/output logic cones, and enable exploration of the trade-off between the achieved soft error susceptibility reduction and the incurred area overhead.


In the study of Lie groups, topological groups, and H- spaces, one common problem involved finding characterizations of spaces whose mod p homology is commutative, and in the case that it is not commutative, one could ask what kinds of commutators occurred in the mod p homology. A common theme in H-space theory is trying to extend results for Lie groups to H-spaces by creating new techniques and finding new proofs. As such, our dissertation stems from recent work in characterizing Lie groups whose mod p homology is commutative using a tool called the adjoint action of the Lie group on its loop space. Our main contribution starts with defining and studying the adjoint action, along with similar maps like the commutator, for a generalization of compact simply- connected Lie groups called finite simply-connected HA- spaces, and the homomorphism it induces on mod p cohomology (p odd). After finding a formula for the induced homomorphism in terms of the coproduct, we proceed to several applications. Given a finite simply-connected HA-space X, we use the adjoint action, along with similar maps, and their induced homomorphisms to characterize HA- spaces whose mod p homology is commutative. This generalizes earlier work by showing that X does not need the full structure of a Lie group; it can be weakened to an HA-space structure. For our second application, given a finite simply-connected HA-space X, we study the free loop space of X and use the adjoint action and related maps to compute products in the mod p homology of the free loop space. Finally, given a finite simply-connected HA-space X, we demonstrate how to use the commutator on X in order to construct a new multiplication map on X which induces a commutative algebra structure in mod p homology


Proceedings: AACR 104th Annual Meeting 2013; Apr 6-10, 2013; Washington, DC

Background: Non-small cell lung cancer is a mosaic, comprising several distinct molecular subtypes driven by somatic mutations in so-called cancer genes. Several of these oncogenic mutations confer dependence on HSP90 e.g. EML4-ALK, BRAF, KRAS, KIT. Inhibition of Hsp90 induces apoptosis and can exploit this dependence. Ganetespib (G) is an Hsp90 inhibitor with single agent activity in molecularly defined disease, including EML4-ALK rearrangement, KRAS mutations, HER2 amplification and BRAF mutations. Circulating free DNA (cfDNA) is present at low levels in plasma of healthy individuals allowing detection of somatic mutations by deep sequencing. The aim of this work was to determine the mutational spectrum of patients enrolled into the GALAXY trial using this liquid biopsy strategy.

Methods: We performed a prospective exploratory analysis to identify plasma-borne somatic mutations as predictors of clinical outcome with G in GALAXY, a randomized trial, comparing G + docetaxel (D), to D alone in 2nd line advanced NSCLC patients. Plasma samples were collected from approximately 200 patients with adenocarcinoma at baseline prior to initiation of treatment, and during cycles 1 and 2. cfDNA samples were evaluated using the Ion AmpliSeq™ Cancer Panel on the Ion Torrent |PGM platform to survey 739 amplicons in 46 cancer genes at up to 6000x depth.

Results: CfDNA targeted sequence analysis of the first 38 patients revealed multiple concurrent mutations in client proteins including the HSP90 client proteins BRAF, PDGFR and KIT, demonstrating the feasibility of this method. Sequencing of a larger cohort is underway. Longitudinal sampling of plasma has been conducted to monitor temporal evolution of the penetrance of mutations.

Summary: Ultra-deep re-sequencing of multiple somatic mutations in circulating cfDNA is feasible, and can potentially enable identification of G sensitive subgroups. This represents a new approach to biomarker discovery in the context of phase II trials.

Citation Format: Dean Anthony Fennell, L. Miguel Martins, Iman El-Hariry, Vojo Vukovic, Florentina Teofilovici, Vienna L. Reichert, Jacqui Shaw. Ultra-deep sequencing of circulating free DNA to identify predictive, mutated HSP90 clients in the GALAXY TrialTM ([NCT01348126][1]): a randomized phase IIB/III study of ganetespib (STA-9090) in combination with docetaxel versus docetaxel alone in subjects wit [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 2012. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-2012

 [1]: /lookup/external-ref?link_type=CLINTRIALGOV&access_num=NCT01348126&atom=%2Fcanres%2F73%2F8_Supplement%2F2012.atom


The article traces the recognition of Scotland within constitutional arrangements. It argues that Scotland is best regarded as a nation, within the union state of the United Kingdom. Historically, Scotland was a separate nation state before 1707. After the union, as part of the United Kingdom, Scotland retained its own legal system and was treated differently in several ways. Since 1885 particularly, measures of devolution have been used in order to appease demands, or accommodate Scottish identity within the union. The Scotland Act 1998, which creates a separately elected Parliament and executive for Scotland is therefore not the first step in that process. The reform is a calculated gamble, and there are grounds to doubt whether the latest accommodation will satisfy.


We studied the steady state and the regulation of intracellular Cl− activity (aCl−i) and the mechanisms of KCl uptake in cultured oligodendrocytes from mouse spinal cord using Cl−‐selective microelectrodes. The majority of oligodendrocytes actively accumulated Cl− above passive distribution (2–3 mM), few cells showed a passive Cl− distribution. To identify the carriers mediating Cl− uptake, oligodendrocytes were maintained in a solution with low extracellular Cl− concentration ([Cl−]0) which resulted in a rapid decrease in aCl−i. The recovery of aCl−i above its passive distribution in normal [Cl−]0 was blocked in the absence of Na+ or in the presence of furosemide and of bumetanide, which has been reported to inhibit Na+/K+/Cl− cotransport. We therefore conclude that Cl− uptake is primarily due to the activity of a Na+/K+/Cl− transport system. Cl− uptake above passive distribution was not affected in HCO3−‐free solution or in the presence of SITS and DIDS, indicating that Cl−/HCO3− exchange is not involved in Cl− uptake by oligodendrocytes. Elevation of [K+]0 induced an increase in aCl−i and, as shown earlier, intracellular K+ activity. This K+‐induced Cl− uptake was not blocked by bumetanide, furosemide, SITS, or DIDS, suggesting that under conditions of raised [K+]0 the combined uptake of K+ and Cl− is not mediated by a carrier, but can be explained by the entry through channels driven by Donnan forces.


Knowledge of the spatial patterns of genetic variation in wild populations has significant implications for in situ conservation and the determination of conservation order. To study the levels of genetic diversity, spatial genetic structures, and genetic distances in Glycine soja, 11 natural populations in northern China were analyzed by estimating genetic coefficients using inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) fingerprints via mixed sampling strategies. Sixteen ISSR primers generated 98 reproducible polymorphic amplification banding patterns of 172 scored, accounting for 56.98% of the polymorphisms among the populations. The dendrogram based on Nei's genetic distance showed that distinct genetic differentiation occurred in G. soja. The Unweighted Pair-Group Method with Arithmetic Mean cluster analysis indicated two broad groups, and one contained all of the populations except three from Chengde, which formed the smaller second group. The spatial genetic structure evident in the wild soybean populations may be attributed to restricted seed dispersal and the dominant breeding system of this species. The detection of genetic structures in wild soybean populations could be a significant index for the effective conservation of many wild populations, and it could be exploited by soybean breeding programs to increase production.


India's largest passenger car company Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL), formerly Maruti Udyog Limited, a subsidiary of Suzuki Motor Corporation of Japan, is India's largest passenger car company. Maruti Suzuki accounts for around 50 percent of the car market in India. That represents a yearly turnover of $6 billion, one million+ cars sold annually and more than 800 sales dealerships in 555 cities. The company offers 14 brands and more than 80 variants of these brands. Its product line extends from practical to powerful and from hatchback to SUV. With its corporate office in New Delhi and 16 regional offices across India, production facilities in Gurgaon and Manesar, and more than 7,000 employees, Maruti Suzuki faced a number of imminent business challenges.


There are several studies on the procedural aspects of the judicial decision. However, only few of them have examined a key aspect of such decision: the psychological conviction of the judge. We focus, firstly, on the procedure aspects which compose the judgment, such as its elements, its nature, evidence and its evaluation principles; arriving, finally, to the logic judgment itself. From a substantial view, we pass through different elements which are closely related with the conviction of the judge and its limits; such as neutrality, discretionality and assessment when delivering the decision. Throughout different reflections and case law analysis, including a brief study on common law, we conclude that judicial subjectivity is much appreciated in our system. As well, we consider through this paper, possible mechanisms that assure control on such an abstract element, always taking into consideration its main purpose: bring justice.


Mobile devices (MDs) change the way of teaching and learning. However, not every student can appreciate the value of MDs. Thus, it is necessary to consider individual differences. Among various individual differences, cognitive styles particularly affect student learning because they refer to individuals' information processing habits. In this vein, this study aimed to compare the effects of desktop computers (DCs) and MDs on student learning from a cognitive style perspective. The results demonstrated that students in the MD scenario showed more positive reactions than those in the DC scenario. Students in the MD scenario generally performed better than those in the DC scenario. In addition, Holists and Serialists performed differently in the DC scenario, while they demonstrated similar performance in the MD scenario. However, they spent a similar amount of time for completing the tasks, regardless of the DC scenario and MD scenario.


This study reports the results of stable isotope analyses (carbon, nitrogen and sulphur) of human bone collagen from the Sunhung mural tomb from the Three Kingdoms Period of Korea (AD 300–668). The stable isotope data indicate that the main source of protein in the diet of the interred seven Sunhung individuals came from C3-based terrestrial resources, and there was an isotopic variation between individuals at this site. To investigate dietary patterns in the Three Kingdoms period, we compared our results with reported isotopic data from other southeastern Three Kingdoms sites (Imdang-dong, Songhyeon-dong and Yean-ri). We found that the Sunhung individuals had similar isotope ratios to the people from these other sites. However, there was noticeable isotopic difference among individuals from each study site, although much of the dietary protein in each site was mainly from terrestrial sources. We propose that the most parsimonious explanation for this isotopic pattern is variation in social status during this time period. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Strong asymptotic completeness is shown for a pair of Schrödinger type operators on a cylindrical Lipschitz domain. A key ingredient is a limiting absorption principle valid in a scale of weighted (local) Sobolev spaces with respect to the uniform topology. The results are based on a refined version of Mourre's method within the context of pseudo-selfadjoint operators.


Background and aims: Domestic violence is a public cultural and health-related problem that its prevalence varies among different societies and affects pregnancy outcomes in direct and indirect fashions. The aim of this study was to compare domestic violence and its related factors in rural and urban pregnant women in Zarand. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 400 pregnant women referred to Zarand's urban and rural healthcare centers during 2014 were included by simple (convenient) sampling method. Demographic and CTS-2 questionnaires were given to the samples. Data was analyzed by means of the independent t-test, Kruskal-Wallis and Friedman's statistical tests. Results: The study results showed that domestic violence the mean of violence in urban and rural pregnant women was 1.82±2.86 and 1.00±1.60 in physical domain, 2.93±1.61 and 2.04±1.46 in psychological domain, 3.87±2.93 and 1.99±2.89 in sexual domain, and 1.43±1.89 and 2.29±2.36 in injury-resulted violence, respectively. A significant difference between urban and rural groups in physical, psychological and sexual violence was observed (P<0.01), but there was no statistically significant difference in injury-resulted violence between two groups. Woman's age, spouse's age and education level, economic (financial) status, number of pregnancies and children, marriage duration and spouse's addiction (drug/substance abuse) were significantly related to the types of domestic violence (P<0.05). Conclusion: According to project results about high domestic violence, it is recommended screening violence in the all health and therapy centers.


Silicon nitride bearing balls of 12.7 rom diameter were used to evaluate the wear and friction reducing characteristics of admixtures of paraffin oil with 0.5% w/v solution of 1,5-di-p-methoxyphenyl- 2,4-dithiomalonamide and 3,5-di-p-chIorophenrlimino-l ;2,4-dithiazolidine in a four ball test. Both the additives were found to be quite active in reducing wear-scar diameter and friction coefficient viUues and exhibited higher values of flash temperature parameter and load wear index. A comparative EP activity evaluation of both the additives using silicon nitride and alloy steel balls was undertaken to assess better applicability of silicon nitride balls in a four ball tel!t.


The rapid processes of globalization affect a lot of spheres of social life. They are assessed as ambivalent; the challenges of the contemporary epoch are especially painfully accepted by national cultures. The European Union policy does not attempt to level the variety of cultural expressions of its member countries. These processes occur spontaneously due to the increase in citizens' mobility. This paper is a discourse on what could be the present strategy of reinforcing the fundaments of the state. Has nationality, which is being instilled in public education as ethnic culture, lost its meaning for that purpose? The conclusions state that the reinforcement of ethnic culture is a goal of national importance and it has to be efficiently implemented in the institutions of education and culture. This is also important in the schools of national minorities in pursuance of closer cooperation and integrity of the society. The paper also contains insights about a slightly different view on integration in region's cultural space, held by ethnic minorities in Lithuania. A representative study (involving 1030 respondents), conducted in 2016, revealed that the youth is still interested in the history of Lithuanian nation / ethnic culture. People of other nationalities, e.g. Polish, Russian, etc., living in Lithuania are also interested in history of Lithuanian nation / ethnic culture.


This book celebrates the work and career of the internationally renowned art historian, David Bindman, and is a tribute to him from his former students and colleagues. With essays on sculpture, drawings, watercolours and prints, the volume reflects the extraordinary range of Bindman's knowledge of works of art and his impact through his teaching and research on the understanding of British and European artistic developments from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. The artists discussed here include Hogarth, Blake, Roubiliac, Thorvaldsen and Canova, all subjects of books by David Bindman, as well as Morland, Rowlandson, Gillray, Millais, Munch, Nevinson, and Heartfield.


This paper firstly proposes a methodology to reconstruct the agricultural GHG emissions and the consequent Carbon Footprint (CF) at the farm level. This allows investigating how the emission performance of Italian farms evolves over time, distinguishing among typologies of farms and territories. Secondly, the paper attempts to put forward some hypotheses explaining the observed heterogeneous evolution of the farm-level CF. In particular, the attention focuses on the possible role of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The empirical analysis concerns a balanced panel of Italian FADN (Farm Accountancy Data Network) farms observed over years 2003-2007. Results, although interesting and encouraging, deliver unclear and ambiguous evidence on the role of the CAP on the observed CF performance and evolution. Several improvements seem needed to achieve more conclusive evidence to make this assessment more sound and robust, in order to inform the debate and the decisions about the proper policies to mitigate agricultural GHG emission.


Preface How Members of the New York Stock Exchange Gained the Right to Sell Shares in Their Firms to the General Public Despite the Opposition of a Majority of the Members How The Central Certificate System Was Introduced And Other Early Bumbling With Computers The Hair-Raising Way Brokerage Accounts Came To Be Insured The Desirability of Permanent Capital Negotiating a Merger Obstacles To The Merger How and Why Ross Perot Saved The New York Stock Exchange From Possible Collapse How The New York Stock Exchange Came Much Closer--Much, Much More Closer--to Collapse The Second Time How A Giant Investment Firm Very Nearly Went Bankrupt in 1971 Potentially Causing Investors To Lose Millions of Dollars Despite the Existence of the Securities Investors Protection Corporation The Importance of Management Style The Reality of US Government Employment How the US Government Has Tried to Prevent Insider Trading--And Why It Has Failed The Twists and Turns Toward the Reorganization of the New York Stock Exchange How NYSE Commissions, Traditionally Fixed and High, Became Competitive and Low, Despite the Opposition of Members of the New York Stock Exchange An Unintended Consequence of the Imposition of Competitive Commission Rates: A Boom in Soft Dollars How a Defiant Stockbroker Virtually Single-Handedly Enabled All Members of the New York Stock Exchange To Sell Annuities The Biggest Stock Fraud in the District Attorney's Memory A Cliff-Hanging Merger Meeting Deja Vu How and Why Discrimination Based on Class and Religion Declined on Wall Street The Different Reasons for the Decline in Racial and Gender Discrimination on Wall Street Significance Aftermath: The Perils of Partnerships Appendix Stock, Prices, Volumes and Fails 1968-1973 Some Statistics Affecting Stock Prices and Volumes 1965-1975 Bibliography Index


ABSTRACT Mouse mammary tumor viruses express a superantigen essential for their life cycle. It has been proposed that viral superantigens (vSags) require processing by prohormone convertases (PCs) for activity. We now observe, using a panel of mutant forms of potential PC cleavage sites and in vitro cleavage assays, that only the CS1 (position 68 to 71) and CS2 (position 169 to 172) sites are utilized by furin and PC5. Other members of the convertase family that are expressed in lymphocytes are not endowed with this activity. Furthermore, mutant forms of two different viral superantigens, vSag7 and vSag9, which completely abrogated in vitro processing by convertases, were efficient in functional presentation to responsive T-cell hybridomas. This effect was observed in both endogenous presentation and paracrine transfer of the vSag. Processing by convertases thus appears not to be essential for vSag function. Finally, we have identified the purified endosomal protease cathepsin L as another protease that is able to cleave convertase mutant vSag in vitro, yielding fragments similar to those detected in vivo, thus suggesting that proteases other than convertases are involved in the activation of vSags.


In Reply.— Progestins are probably useful adjuncts to estrogen in preventing postmenopausal osteoporosis. Lindsay et al 1 showed that the progestin gestronol hexanoate (not available in the United States) prevents bone loss from the metacarpals, and the efficacy of other progestins is currently being evaluated by measuring the mineral content of vertibral spongiosa by computed tomography, as described by Genant et al. 2 Of the progestins available in the United States, hydroxyprogesterone caproate and the compounds mentioned by Dr Nadjafi seem to be effective (Gilbert S. Gordon, MD, oral communication, 1983). The safety of these compounds in the treatment of patients who have had breast cancer, however, has not been established. After all, estrogens are also used to treat breast cancer, so Dr Nadjafi's argument for their use is tenuous. I would agree, however, that the risk is small and acceptable if the patient is adequately informed.


......................................................................................................................................................... i Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................................... ii Table of Figures ............................................................................................................................................ iv Table of Tables .............................................................................................................................................. v 1.0 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 1 2.0 Background ............................................................................................................................................. 3 2.1 Muscles of Mastication ....................................................................................................................... 3 2.2 Human Bite Force................................................................................................................................ 4 2.3 Review of Mastication Simulators ...................................................................................................... 5 2.3.1 Teeth ............................................................................................................................................ 5 2.3.2 Force Measurement ..................................................................................................................... 7 2.3.3 Texture Profile Analyzers ............................................................................................................. 8 3.0 Objectives.............................................................................................................................................. 11 4.0 Fixture Design ....................................................................................................................................... 12 5.0 Methodology ......................................................................................................................................... 23 5.1 Fixture Calibration ............................................................................................................................. 23 5.2 Sample Preparation .......................................................................................................................... 23 5.3 Sample Testing .................................................................................................................................. 23 5.4 Data Analysis ..................................................................................................................................... 23 6.0 Journal Paper, Design of a Fixture for the Dynamic Evaluation of Forces During Mastication ............ 25 7.0 Journal Paper, Dynamic Evaluation of Texture in Chocolate ................................................................ 34 8.0 Conclusions ........................................................................................................................................... 42 9.0 Works Cited ........................................................................................................................................... 44 10.0 Appendix ............................................................................................................................................. 47 10.1 Brittle Foods .................................................................................................................................... 48 10.2 Highly Viscoelastic Foods ................................................................................................................ 50 10.3 Lightly Viscoelastic Foods ................................................................................................................ 52 10.4 Sample Masses ................................................................................................................................ 58


Interaction forces between a silica sphere and an alpha-alumina substrate at various pH values were measured by atomic force microscopy (AFM). As expected, at pH values of 10.8 and 10.2 when the surfaces are similarly charged, a repulsive force was observed. On the other hand, at pH values of 5.5, 6.4, and 8.6 when the surfaces are oppositely charged, attractive forces were observed. Experimental force vs separation distance curves were found to be in good agreement with theoretical predictions based on electrostatic and van der Waals interactions. Interestingly, when the force/radius values at a particular separation distance were plotted against pH, the transition from an attractive to a repulsive force occurred at pH 9.3, which is very close to the point of zero charge (pzc) of alpha-alumina as determined from electrophoresis experiments. These results suggest that AFM force measurements can be used to estimate the pzc of materials. This method may be of particular significance for soluble salt minerals where conventional electrophoretic measurements are not possible at high ionic strengths. Finally, results from transmittance studies further confirmed the interaction between silica and alpha alumina particles in suspensions at various pH values as would be expected based on the results from atomic force microscopy measurements.


Gnathodynamometric methods prove to be the oldest means available of obtaining an objective quantitative evaluation of masticatory efficiency. On the basis of data collected using these methods static methods were later introduced and in early 20th century functional dynamic methods were first applied. Referring to dental literature records, the authors' objective was to provide a review of available historical facts about the origin, development and application of gnathodynamometers in the study of masticatory function.


We combine numerical diagonalization with semianalytical calculations to prove the existence of the intermediate nonergodic but delocalized phase in the Anderson model on disordered hierarchical lattices. We suggest a new generalized population dynamics that is able to detect the violation of ergodicity of the delocalized states within the Abou-Chakra, Anderson, and Thouless recursive scheme. This result is supplemented by statistics of random wave functions extracted from exact diagonalization of the Anderson model on ensemble of disordered random regular graphs (RRG) of N sites with the connectivity K=2. By extrapolation of the results of both approaches to N→∞ we obtain the fractal dimensions D_{1}(W) and D_{2}(W) as well as the population dynamics exponent D(W) with the accuracy sufficient to claim that they are nontrivial in the broad interval of disorder strength W_{E}10^{5} reveals a singularity in D_{1,2}(W) dependencies which provides clear evidence for the first order transition between the two delocalized phases on RRG at W_{E}≈10.0. We discuss the implications of these results for quantum and classical nonintegrable and many-body systems.


A Capital Asset Pricing Model of a stock market economy is examined under different corporate governance structures in which the objectives of managers and entrepreneurs in choosing the risk composition of their firms' returns are not aligned with those of shareholders and investors because of moral hazard. It is shown that incentive compensation, by exposing managers and entrepreneurs to unhedgeable firm-specific risk, induces them to change the stochastic properties of firm cash flows. Since they can trade in markets for aggregate risk but not for firm-specific risk, managers and entrepreneurs produce excessive aggregate risk compared to the first-best allocation. This results in a diversification externality for the stock market investors who cannot share the aggregate risks amongst each other as well as they can the firm-specific risks. The optimal incentive compensation designed to address such diversification externality is fully characterized and it is demonstrated that financial markets interact with the stock market in important ways in determining the effectiveness of incentive contracts in controlling the negative welfare effects of diversification externality.


This paper presented a double cylindrical magnetic shield with nonoriented silicon steel plate rings. The total weight of cylinders was about 14 kg, and its corresponding material cost was less than 50 USD. A relatively low magnetic noise of 2 pT/Hz/sup -1/2/ at 10 Hz and 20 pT/Hz/sup -1/2/ at 1 Hz was measured with a HTS dc-SQUID sensor inside the shield. The transverse shielding factor was measured with a fluxgate sensor, and the value was about 500 when the ranges of frequency and amplitude were 10 Hz-1 kHz and 100 nT-10 /spl mu/T. The value dramatically improved to as high as 20 000 by magnetic shaking enhancement. If magnetic shaking was not applied to the inner cylinder, this cylinder would reduce the leakage field of the magnetic shaking from the outer cylinder to less than 300 nT. The cost performance of the multicylindrical shield was also discussed. To provide the most outer cylinder with magnetic shaking allowed the cost performance to be twice as good as cylinders that did not use magnetic shaking.


This research aims to examine on cooling efficiency of different type natural based material as a cooling pad for evaporative cooling system. Efficiency of direct evaporative cooling system mostly depends on the cooling pad and hence, the material used in the cooling pad plays a very vital role. Here, two types of natural based materials (activated carbon foam and luffa pad) were selected to be used as cooling pad. Those materials pad are then fabricated to fit into the evaporative cooling setup. Temperature, and humidity are the most important data in this experimental analysis. The readings of these terms are taken for each type of cooling pad using data logger and also, the further calculations are done based on these readings. The material of the cooling pad and the air flow rate are varied to observe the effect on their cooling efficiency. From the analysis, the ACF cooling pad shows better cooling efficiency compared to that of luffa pad.


The purpose of this study was to qualitatively examine factors related to physical activity adherence to understand why women continue to participate in long-term exercise after completing a structured exercise program. Data were collected from focus groups, interviews, and e-mails, and analysis used grounded theory. The central category related to physical activity adherence was self-worth. Motivation, activity enjoyment, priorities, body image, ability to access support, and self-regulation skills had an impact on the self-worth of nonadherers and adherers. Women must value themselves enough to continue to participate in physical activity once they start. Exercise and fitness professionals are encouraged to use strategies to increase self-worth and long-term adherence to physical activity. Some recommended strategies include (a) increasing motivation and enjoyment relative to activity, (b) making activity a high priority in a woman's life, (c) improving or deemphasizing body image, (d) increasing a woman's ability to access support, and (e) facilitating the use of self-regulation strategies. This study is the first to examine qualitative perspectives of exercise adherence among women who completed a structured exercise program. Several concepts related to adherence presented in the quantitative literature are confirmed and enhanced in this study.


With a continuous and steep increase in life experiences, Korean society is expected to enter the aged society by year 2020. And as the number of elderly increases, the burden of medical and health care expenses for them becomes greater in every developed society. Hence, the preventive approach for chronic degenerative diseases remains to be the best solution for the above-mentioned problem and warranting optimal nutrition would be one of the most important approaches. We performed a nutrition survey on 585 older adults of 50 years of age and older, residing in 3 metropolitan areas including Daejun, Daeku and Kwangju. Anthropometry, including body composition analysis based on the bioelectrical impedance analysis using Inbody 3.0 and dietary intake survey by semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaires, were used in collecting data. As one of the most important factors affecting the health and nutritional status of the elderly, we focused on living arrangements. Analyses were performed on the data from 550 subjects only, after excluding statistical outliers. Three hundred and sixty-eight of them(66.9%) were female and the number of elderly(65 years of age and older) was 485. According to the statistical analyses, the female elderly were more vulnerable to malnutrition than the male elderly. And the older they became, the less adequate they were in nutrient intake. In addition to this, the elderly living alone showed the poorest patterns of nutrient intake and anthropometry. Although the exact effect of living alone could differ among different sex-age groups, the fact that the elderly living alone is vulnerable to mulnutrition would remain concrete. This raises the utmost necessity of nutrition intervention to be divised and directed to the targeted population, namely the living-alone elderly from the government level. The intervention may include nutrition education, nutrition counseling and support in forms of meal service by networking the efforts of central as well as local governments to ensure the good health of the Korean elderly. (J Communication Nutrition 3(2) : 103~109, 2001)


The objective of the study was to measure the level of HIV/AIDS related anxiety among hospital nursing staff and identify its determinants. Data were obtained through anonymous self administered questionnaire distributed to 222 nurses. The rasge anxiety and the HIV/AIDS attitudes were the most determinants of the anxiety level in the participants. Specifically, negative HIV/AIDS attitudes was associated with raise in state anxiety level, as well as high level of rasge anxiety was associated with high level of state anxiety. In conclusion, it is necessary to provide to the participants update trainings that included different aspects of HIV infection, as well as, anxiety management when caring for persons with HIV/AIDS.


Short‐read 16 S rRNA gene sequencing is the dominating technology to profile microbial communities in different habitats. Its uncontested taxonomic resolution paved the way for major contributions to the field. Sample measurement and analysis, that is, sequencing, is rather slow–in order of days. Alternatively, flow cytometry can be used to profile the microbiota of various sources within a few minutes per sample. To keep up with high measurement speed, we developed the open source‐analyzing tool FlowSoFine. To validate the ability to distinguish microbial profiles, we examined human skin samples of three body sites (N = 3 × 54) with flow cytometry and 16 S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing. Confirmed by sequencing of the very same samples, body site was found to be significantly different by flow cytometry. For a proof‐of‐principle multidimensional approach, using stool samples of patients (N = 40) with/without inflammatory bowel diseases, we could discriminate the health status by their bacterial patterns. In conclusion, FlowSoFine enables the generation and comparison of cytometric fingerprints of microbial communities from different sources. The implemented interface supports the user through all analytical steps to work out the biological relevant signals from raw measurements to publication ready figures. Furthermore, we present flow cytometry as a valid method for skin microbiota analysis.


This paper describes a method for estimating the internal state of a user of a spoken dialog system before his/her first input utterance. When actually using a dialog-based system, the user is often perplexed by the prompt. A typical system provides more detailed information to a user who is taking time to make an input utterance, but such assistance is nuisance if the user is merely considering how to answer the prompt. To respond appropriately, the spoken dialog system should be able to consider the user's internal state before the user's input. Conventional studies on user modeling have focused on the linguistic information of the utterance for estimating the user's internal state, but this approach cannot estimate the user's state until the end of the user's first utterance. Therefore, we focused on the user's nonverbal output such as fillers, silence, or head-moving until the beginning of the input utterance. The experimental data was collected on a Wizard of Oz basis, and the labels were decided by five evaluators. Finally, we conducted a discrimination experiment with the trained user model using combined features. As a three-class discrimination result, we obtained about 85% accuracy in an open test.


High-field magnetization and low-temperature specific heat of the nearly ferromagnetic compounds Lu(Co1-xGax)2 have been investigated. A sharp metamagnetic transition has been observed in these compounds. The critical field Hc decreases with increasing x and becomes lower than 1 T at x=0.12. However, no spontaneous magnetization is confirmed even above x=0.15. With increasing x, the electronic specific heat coefficient gamma increases and reaches 36 mJ K-2 mol-1 for x=0.12 in 0 T, being 1.5 times as large as that of LuCo2. Such a mass enhancement is discussed in terms of the spin fluctuation. The gamma value of the ferromagnetic state for the specimen with x=0.12 in a magnetic field of 14.6 T is reduced about 50% compared with that of the paramagnetic state in zero field. This means that the metamagnetic transition results in a drastic reduction of the spin fluctuation in the compound.


Pyruvate decarboxylase (PDC), an enzyme central to homoethanol fermentation, catalyses the non-oxidative decarboxylation of pyruvate to acetaldehyde with release of carbon dioxide. PDC enzymes from diverse organisms have different kinetic properties, thermal stability and codon usage that are likely to offer unique advantages for the development of desirable Gram-positive biocatalysts for use in the ethanol industry. To examine this further, pdc genes from bacteria to yeast were expressed in the Gram-positive host Bacillus megaterium. The PDC activity and protein levels were determined for each strain. In addition, the levels of pdc-specific mRNA transcripts and stability of recombinant proteins were assessed. From this analysis, the pdc gene of Gram-positive Sarcina ventriculi was found to be the most advantageous for engineering high-level synthesis of PDC in a Gram-positive host. This gene was thus selected for transcriptional coupling to the alcohol dehydrogenase gene (adh) of Geobacillus stearothermophilus. The resulting Gram-positive ethanol production operon was expressed at high levels in B. megaterium. Extracts from this recombinant were shown to catalyse the production of ethanol from pyruvate.


The purpose of this review was to unearth the challenges of postdoctoral research fellows who are classified neither as staff nor students. It provokes research to rethink measures to support this group of academics who have been neglected. Three central questions guided this review: What are the common themes in literature and research on PRDF? What social justice issues arise from the PDRF literature? How can this literature and conceptualisation inform management of PDRFs in terms of social justice? A total of 45 publications were reviewed. The full text of the systematically identified studies were stored in a marked folder on a computer desktop and screened through examining topics and abstracts. Each of the studies was analysed to come up with six themes which were discussed through the lens of social justice, followed by a suggestion for further discussion in the field. The literature portrays a culture that has undermined issues and concerns of social justice. Universities are required to imagine new directions for future research, challenged to become activists and take a pro-justice stance to transform the culture, practices and procedures to benefit the marginalised. Universities can utilise these suggestions as a guide to evaluate their efforts and programmes.


This is a continuation of prior work by same author, where the idea is to tie two traditions together: public planning related land use regulation and property price development in a given area during a given time-period. The main idea is to distinguish between cases where price is affected, either negatively or positively, by a planning related measure and that price trend is confirmed to be caused by scarcity (or abundance), quality improvement (reduction) or something more oriented towards changes in the relevant institutional circumstances. Here a number of different traditions can be connected with such as the US based tradition of equilibrium urban and land economics, UK based tradition of descriptive analysis of price trajectories observed vis-a-vis land use constraints, or other tradition such as particular analyses carried out in countries with traditionally strong land policy such as Netherlands, Finland or Hong Kong. The empirical part of the study examines price and neighbourhood quality changes in residential areas undergoing urban regeneration, based on target vs. comparative group analysis and site visits in downtown Budapest (Hungary).


This paper describes the design and implementation of an ARM based embedded operating system micro kernel developed on Linux platform with GNU tool chain in technical details, including the three-layer architecture of the kernel (boot layer, core layer and task layer), multi-task schedule (priority for real-time and round-robin for time-sharing), IRQ handler, SWI handler, system calls, and inter-task communication based on which the micro-kernel architecture is constructed. On the foundation of this micro kernel, more components essential to a practical operating system, such as file system and TCP/IP processing, can be added in order to form a real and practical multi-task micro-kernel embedded operating system. Keywords-embedded operating system; micro kernel; ARM; multi-task schedule; inter-task communication


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Objectives Functional status assessments of activities of daily living may improve prognostic precision during initial diagnostic evaluations in young and middle-aged adults with cancer. However, the association between pretreatment functional status and survival in these patients is poorly understood. This study aimed to evaluate the prognostic value of functional status in young and middle-aged patients with cancer. Design Multicentre retrospective cohort study. Setting We used a cancer registry from Osaka Prefecture, Japan. The data were linked to administrative claims data from 35 hospitals in the same prefecture. Participants Patients aged 18–69 years who received new diagnoses of gastric, colorectal or lung cancer between 2010 and 2014. Main outcome measure Cox proportional hazards models of 5-year all-cause mortality were developed to examine the prognostic impact of pretreatment functional status, which was categorised into three levels of functional disability (none, moderate and severe) based on Barthel Index scores. The models controlled for age, sex, comorbidities, cancer stage and tumour histology. Results We analysed 12 134 patients. Higher mortality risks were significantly associated with moderate functional disability (adjusted HR 1.44 (95% CI 1.18 to 1.75), 1.35 (95% CI 1.08 to 1.68) and 1.74 (95% CI 1.50 to 2.03) in patients with gastric, colorectal and lung cancer, respectively) and severe functional disability (adjusted HR 3.56 (95% CI 2.81 to 4.51), 2.37 (95% CI 1.89 to 2.95) and 2.34 (95% CI 2.00 to 2.75) in patients with gastric, colorectal and lung cancer, respectively). Conclusion Accounting for functional status at cancer diagnosis may improve the prediction of survival time in young and middle-aged adults with cancer. Functional status has potential applications in survival predictions and risk adjustments when analysing outcomes in patients with cancer.


Introduction Alternatives to carbapenems are needed in the treatment of third-generation cephalosporin-resistant Enterobacterales (3GCR-E). Temocillin is a suitable candidate, but comparative randomised studies are lacking. The objective is to investigate if temocillin is non-inferior to carbapenems in the targeted treatment of bacteraemia due to 3GCR-E. Methods and analysis Multicentre, open-label, randomised, controlled, pragmatic phase 3 trial. Patients with bacteraemia due to 3GCR-E will be randomised to receive intravenously temocillin (2 g three times a day) or carbapenem (meropenem 1 g three times a day or ertapenem 1 g once daily). The primary endpoint will be clinical success 7–10 days after end of treatment with no recurrence or death at day 28. Adverse events will be collected; serum levels of temocillin will be investigated in a subset of patients. For a 10% non-inferiority margin, 334 patients will be included (167 in each study arm). For the primary analysis, the absolute difference with one-sided 95% CI in the proportion of patients reaching the primary endpoint will be compared in the modified intention-to-treat population. Ethics and dissemination The study started after approval of the Spanish Regulatory Agency and the reference institutional review board. Data will be published in peer-reviewed journals. Trial registration number NCT04478721.


The unusual case of spontaneous hypoliquorrheic headache reported here was clinically identical to that originally described by Schaltenbrand. This is the first case to be studied by radioisotope cisternography, which showed that the cerebrospinal fluid flow was essentially normal. However, the radioactivity counts percent decreased rapidly, with simultaneous appearance of high isotope concentration in the urinary bladder. Scan images did not show cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leakage at the puncture sites. Our data suggest that this postural headache syndrome is not caused by decreased CSF production, but by a very rapid absorption or unusual CSF leakage.


Cylindrical specimens of cast polycrystalline nickel base superalloy Inconel 713 LC and Inconel 792-5A were cyclically strained under total strain control at 23 and 700 °C. Morphology and volume fraction of γ´ precipitates are different in both materials. Cyclic hardening/softening curves, cyclic stress-strain curves, and fatigue life curves were obtained at both temperatures. The cyclic hardening/softening curves depend both on temperature and plastic strain amplitude. The cyclic stressstrain curves can be fitted by power law. Experimental data of fatigue life curves can be approximated by the Manson-Coffin and Basquin laws. Dislocation structure was studied in transmission electron microscope. Planar dislocation arrangements in the form of bands parallel to {111} planes were identified in both superalloys at both temperatures. Stress-strain response and fatigue life characteristics are compared at both temperatures and discussed in relation to dislocation arrangement and structural parameters of the materials studied.


Recurrence of perineal hernias is frequent, and is associated to poor identification of anatomical structures during surgery, inadequate suture placement, and failure of physical support of the pelvic diaphragm after surgical reconstruction. The objective of this work is to describe a novel surgical technique for reinforcement of the pelvic diaphragm after performing the internal obturator transposition technique in dogs with perineal hernia.


This paper designed the evaluation test for oilseed rape "3414" fertilizing effect in Qianjiang, Hubei province. The results showed that N2P2K2 was the best recommended formula, nitrogen 133.2 kg/hm^2, pentoxide 53.4 kg/hm^2, potassium 50.8 kg/hm^2 was the best fertilization program by this experiment.


In this paper, we present a circuit-level analysis of deep voltage-scaled FPGAs, which operate from full supply to sub-threshold voltages. The logic as well as the interconnect of the FPGA are modeled at the circuit level, and their relative contribution to the delay, power and energy of the FPGA are studied by means of circuit simulations. Three representative designs are studied to explore these design trade-offs. We conclude that the energy and delay-minimal FPGA design is one in which both the interconnect and logic are curtailed from scaling below a fixed voltage (about 550mV in our experiments). If power is a more important design factor (at the cost of delay), it is beneficial to operate both the logic and interconnect between 300mV and 800mV.


To use a laser fluorescence device to assess the qualitative changes in interproximal enamel after enamel reduction
(interproximal stripping). Methods: Fifty-three patients (32 females and 21 males) with an average age of 15.6 years
took part in the investigation. Five hundred and thirty-five tooth surfaces of upper and lower anterior teeth were
reassessed at three days, ten days, and one month after enamel reduction using a laser fluorescence method
(DIAGNOdent pen). Remineralisation was promoted by the application of fluoride gel and control of oral hygiene.
Results: The results showed that there is no risk for developing caries after stripping in cases where intact enamel surfaces
registered values of between 0 and 3 when measured with the laser fluorescence method used in this study. Enamel
reduction appeared to be appropriate even for surfaces with initial demineralisation of the outer enamel, with values
between 4 and 6, because after fluoride application the enamel status returned to within a normal range (0-3).
Conclusion: The results from this study demonstrate that with correct diagnosis, as well as selection of intact or even
slightly demineralised enamel surfaces, successful implementation of enamel reduction within enamel is possible. This
technique, precisely planned, correctly executed, and followed by remineralisation procedures, eliminates the risk of
enamel demineralisation.


Leveraging the compositional nature of our world to expedite learning and facilitate generalization is a hallmark of human perception. In machine learning, on the other hand, achieving compositional generalization has proven to be an elusive goal, even for models with explicit compositional priors. To get a better handle on compositional generalization, we here approach it from the bottom up: Inspired by identifiable representation learning, we investigate compositionality as a property of the data-generating process rather than the data itself. This reformulation enables us to derive mild conditions on only the support of the training distribution and the model architecture, which are sufficient for compositional generalization. We further demonstrate how our theoretical framework applies to real-world scenarios and validate our findings empirically. Our results set the stage for a principled theoretical study of compositional generalization.


Purpose : To study of the effect of garlic on rabbit's lungs, with the aid of perfusion scintigraphy, after experimentally-induced pulmonary embolism. Methods : Twelve adult rabbits were anesthetized. Prepared macroaggregated albumin- technetium 99m (99mTc-MAA) radiopharmaceutical was injected into the ear vein at a dose of 1.5 mCi. Perfusion scintigraphic images of the healthy rabbits' lungs were taken, and pulmonary embolism was experimentally induced by injection of autologous blood clots. Again, lung perfusion scintigraphic images of the rabbits' lungs were obtained. The animals were divided into two groups. The first group received normal saline and the other group received garlic tablet medication for seven days. Thereafter, perfusion scintigraphic images of the lungs were generated. Results : The symmetric accumulation of radiotracer in the right and the left lobes of the lungs were observed in the scintgraphic images of the healthy animals. In embolic status scans, non-symmetric accumulation of the radiopharmaceutical was seen while in the scintigrams of garlic-treated group with pulmonary  embolism, symmetric absorption of radioisotope was observed, similar to the perfusion lung scans of healthy animals. Conclusion : The results obtained show that garlic may help to dissolve the blood clots that cause pulmonary embolism in rabbits. Keywords : Garlic, Pulmonary embolism, Blood clots, Rabbit, Perfusion scintigraphy, Radioisotope


It was surveyed how consumers choose their lunch in the
cafeteria. The survey was conducted in The Military University
of Ground Forces in Vyskov. The questionnaire was distributed
to the consumers, students of military and civil department,
their teachers (soldiers and civil employees). The respondents
choose their meal according to their instant appetite. The food
appearance is not important for the majority of soldiers and
military students, but for the majority of civil students and
their teachers´ appearance of food is always important. In
cafes and restaurants smell and appearance are the most
important for both military and civilian students, while for
both military and civilian teacher the most important is price.
Intensity of work that a person expects after lunch affects the
choice of lunch at military students only sometimes, for
military and civilian teachers and civilian students rarely or
never. All groups of respondents agreed that they sometimes
choose the unpopular meal.


In this paper, we constructed the noise robust content-based music retrieval system. The performance of the proposed system was verified with ZCPA feature, which is known to have noise robust characteristic in speech recognition application. In addition, new indexing and fast retrieval method were proposed to improve retrieval speed about 99% compare to exhaustive retrieval for large music DB. From the computer simulation results in noise environment of 15dB − 0dB SNR, we confirmed the superior performance of the proposed system about 5% – 30% compared to MFCC and FBE (filter bank energy).


Background: Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection remains a global public health concern. According to data in 2018, 37.9 million people in the world are infected with HIV. In Indonesia, the three most risky populations of HIV infection were injecting drug users (56%), homosexual men (18%), heterosexual (17%), and the others (9%), from April to June 2019. The reported data from the Integrated Biological and Behavioral Survey (IBBS) in 2015 showed that the significantly increased number of 2.5 times in the prevalence of HIV infection among homosexual men compared to the data from 2013. This study aimed to investigate the evaluation of HIV-AIDS prevention program in homosexual men in Jambi. Subjects and Method: This was a qualitative study conducted at Kanti Sehati Sejati Foundation, Jelutung, Jambi, from April to July 2020. The study informants were head of the foundation, head of population outreach program, field accessor of the population outreach program, and assisted homosexual client. The data were collected by in-depth interviews and document reviews. The data were analyzed by reduction, displaying, and drawing conclusions/ verification. Results: The input of the HIV-AIDS prevention was systematically programmed, including education on the used of lubricants and protection/ condoms, budget monitoring and evaluation, and counseling to homosexual men. The process of program had been implemented in accordance with the existing program implementation guidelines. The inhibiting factor of the program was the stigma of homosexual men families not supporting to seek health services. The output of the HIV-AIDS prevention program showed that homosexual men had improved the awareness of not changing partners, using condoms while having sex, and finding new cases of HIV. Conclusion: HIV-AIDS prevention programs have been well implemented based on input, process, and output system approach. Peer group support is needed to persuade understanding of families from homosexual men to overcome the inhibiting factor of the program implementation. Keywords: HIV-AIDS, prevention program, homosexual men Correspondence: Hubaybah. Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universitas Jambi. Jl. Letjend Soeprapto No 33 Telanai Pura Jambi. Email: email@example.com. Mobile: +628117453224. DOI: https://doi.org/10.26911/the7thicph.02.34


This paper reports on a qualitative research study that aimed at determining the impact of user training on the information literacy level of users of the Capes Portal of EJournals, focusing mainly on the methodological aspects of the study. Initially, the paper presents the Capes Portal of E-Journals, a digital library of scientific journals, and the actions promoted by the UFMG University Library to promote access to and use of the Portal's information resources. A brief presentation of fundamental concepts for the study follows. The methodology was mostly qualitative and used tests, interviews and observation. Data collection was conducted in two stages: pre-instruction and postinstruction. 14 students who enrolled voluntarily in a training program offered by the university library to the UFMG community formed the sample, in the first stage - preinstruction. After the pre-instruction test, the students went through a training session. In the second stage of the research, post-instruction test and interviews, seven of the 14 students present at the initial stage participated. Data was collected through tests and observation with computer screen recording in the pre-instruction stage and, two weeks after, in the post-instruction stage. In the post-instruction stage interviews were also used. Data was obtained and analyzed based on the second standard of the ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education. Results led to the conclusion that participation in training sessions can positively influence the development and achievement of information literacy competencies related to the second standard of the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education (ACRL, 2000).