To the Editor: We read with great interest the article by Kasuya et al. (2) on the application of nicardipine prolonged-release implants for subarachnoid hemorrhage. They analyzed 97 consecutive patients and compared 69 treated patients with 28 untreated patients. The authors concluded that application of local nicardipine prolonged-release implants leads to a reduced incidence of a delayed ischemic neurological deficit. Although the rate of clinical vasospasm could be roughly reduced by 50%, we would have expected a more marked effect for a therapy with the potential of adding a new dimension to the current strategy of prevention and treatment of cerebral vasospasm. However, some shortcomings of the currently reported methodology and the study design still leave hope that local intrathecal therapy of cerebral vasospasm can become a significant step forward. This prospective nonrandomized Phase II-type study resulted in a comparison between two inhomogeneous patient groups concerning the known risk factors of cerebral vasospasm. The control group without local pharmacological treatment consisted of 16 Fisher Grade 2 patients, nine Fisher Grade 3 patients, and three Fisher Grade 4 patients. Therefore, the natural risk for vasospasm differed between the pharmacologically treated group with a great majority of Fisher Grade 3 patients and the control group with predominant Fisher Grades of 2 and 4 and, therefore, a lower risk of vasospasm (1, 4). Besides, it is important to emphasize, that an incidence of clinical vasospasm of 11% in the untreated group and 6% in the medical group seems unusually low for a patient group dominated by Fisher Grade 3 hemorrhages. The current report leaves some open questions with regard to pharmacokinetics and effectiveness of the clinical set-up. The patients received from 2 to 12 pellets, resulting in different dosages. There was no correlation done between the quantity of nicardipine and the incidence of vasospasm. Only a positive local effect as documented by angiography was available as control. There was no monitoring of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) levels of nicardipine. It seems unlikely that the released nicardipine could be sequestrated within the local cistern by the surrounding blood clots. In an animal study done on dogs, Pradilla et al. (3) documented an excellent diffusion of Evans blue dye from controlledrelease polymers throughout the subarachnoid space after experimental hemorrhage. In summary, we believe in the potential benefit of local therapy as a major step ahead in the treatment of vasospasm. Nicardipine may not be the optimum agent, or the dosing must be optimized. Perhaps a cocktail of several agents achieves a superior effect.


Allium species including garlic and leek exhibits a broad range of medicinal and nutritional properties. Therefore, this study investigates the physicochemical and biological activities of garlic (Allium sativum L.) and leek (A. ampeloprasum L. var. Porrum) oil extracts. The result indicated that physicochemical properties indicated that significantly higher oil yield (21.25%), ACV (2.66 mg/g), FFA (1.34%), and PV (4.10 meq/kg) and also antioxidant activities with respect to 2, 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl, DPPH (27.60 ± 1.55%), hydrogen peroxide (12.35 ± 0.92%) free radical scavenging activities, and ascorbic acid content (25.30 ± 3.25%) were obtained for leek leaf oil extract. Stronger antibacterial activity with a maximum zone of inhibition (16.00 mm), minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) (0.20 µg/ml), and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) (0.40 µg/ml) was recorded for leek oil extract against S. pyogenes. However, garlic oil has presented stronger antifungal activity with a maximum zone of inhibition (13.50 mm), MIC (0.40 µg/ml), and minimum fungicidal concentration (MFC) (0.75 µg/ml) against Candida albicans. It is concluded from the results of this investigation that oils extracts of garlic bulb and leek leaves demonstrated significant biological activities that can be used as sources for pharmaceutical and nutraceutical ingredients.


Food habits and infant feeding patterns of 45 newly resettled refugee families from Chile and the Middle East were studied in the suburbs of Stockholm. The social background of the sample was mixed and the level of maternal education high with the exception of the rural Kurds from Turkey. Children from rural Middle East areas had been breastfed for longer periods than the children from urban areas. Solid and semi-solid foods were introduced late in the Middle East. Chileans had a characteristic meal pattern, emphasizing lunch and often replacing dinner with a light meal. Resettled Chileans and Middle Easterners had a varied and well balanced diet with the characteristics of each culture. Foods containing sucrose were consumed frequently in both refugee groups.


Dr McNaught is right to point out examples of racism in the NHS (December 2004 JRSM1). But what to do about it? Maybe we can learn some lessons from the past.

Today there is an over-representation of black people in the mental health system but in the 1960s Irish people were over-represented.2 Psychiatrists thought that the prevalence of schizophrenia was high in people from the west of Ireland and invented a new syndrome 'western seaboard psychosis'.3 Anthropologists descended on the unsuspecting immigrants to ask them if their Catholic faith caused their minds to unbalance and psychiatrists followed to dole out antipsychotics. But then some proper research was done and it showed no excess of schizophrenia in Irish immigrants.4 The methods of case collection in the early studies were poor and cross-cultural comparisons were not properly thought through.3

Today Irish people are no more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia than anyone else. How did this happen? I would love to say that it was because of the new research or because of government initiatives. The research helped a bit but the main cures for anti-Irish discrimination were that the new immigrants were richer, better educated, better informed and more questioning. They would not be fobbed off with a misdiagnosis. An increasing understanding and appreciation of Irish culture also helped reduce anti-Irish discrimination generally. The most effective cure of all was time. A cynic would add that, nowadays, people have a new batch of immigrants (such as asylum seekers) to discriminate against.

So we need fewer new policy drives and more changes of heart. These will only come from changes in society. Blaming individuals or even the NHS will not help.


The ability of an agent to distinguish the ramification effects of an action from its direct effects adds value to the explainability of its decisions. In this work, we propose to encode the ramification effects of ontic and epistemic actions as single-point update models in an epistemic planning domain modeled with Kripkean semantics of Knowledge and Belief. We call them "mental actions". We discuss a preliminary approach to realize our idea, and we conclude by pointing out some optimizations as our ongoing pursuit.


Building cooling, heating and power (BCHP) systems should play an important role in achieving the goals of energy efficient use and environment protection in China. It will make big sense when this type of system shows a good performance energetically and economically. An on-site BCHP system being the first in the country was installed and put to use five years ago. As the first step to evaluate the project, computations were made based on thermodynamic and thermoeconomic theories to evaluate the system on full load and off-design conditions in summer. Discussion and analyses are made mainly in terms of exergetic efficiency and costs of unit amount of useful exergy produced in this paper.


The theoretical possibility of a new kind of diffusion-induced chemical turbulence is discussed. Here the nearly planar wavefront of a pulse or phase-boundary propagating through a more than one-dimensional medium is of our concern. By means of an asymptotic method an equation describing the behavior of a curved wavefront is first derived assuming that its spatial variation is slow. The method employed and the resulting equation are completely analogous to those encountered in the theory of turbulent phase waves presented earlier, although the physical situations considered are different. It turns out that if a spontaneous deformation of a planar wavefront occurs, this is immediately accompanied by turbulence provided that the system is well extended. The condition for this kind of instability is shown analytically to be fulfilled by a simple activator-inhibitor model.


Purpose: This research was done to determine and analyze the essence and meaning of life for elderly prostate
cancer patients based on their lived experiences during treatment. Methods: In-depth individual interviewers collected
data between June and August 2011. The interviewees were 11 elderly men with prostate cancer being
treated in K Hospital. A phenomenological methodology was used and Colaizzi's analysis method was applied
with the suggested, research question, "What is the lived experience of elderly men with prostate cancer?"
Results: The categories of the lived experience of elderly men with prostate cancer were identified as follows.
Placid adaptation, Life controlled by urination, Shrinking social life, Losing the meaning of life, Abandonment of
sexual life. Conclusion: Elderly men with prostate cancer show placid adaptation, but they have an uncomfortable
life experience because of urinary incontinence and sexual dysfunction. Finally they shrink from social life and
they feel all is lost. Therefore, nurses should provide excellent individual nursing care for these patients and make
efforts in multilateral approaches to expand their social support network.


Oil pollution is one of the most destructive consequences due to human activities in the marine environment. Oil wastes come from many sources and take decades to be disposed of. Satellite based remote sensing systems can be implemented into a surveillance and monitoring network. In this study, a multi-temporal approach to the oil spill detection problem is investigated. Change Detection (CD) analysis was applied to MODIS/Terra and Aqua and OLI/Landsat 8 images of several reported oil spill events, characterized by different geographic location, sea conditions, source and extension of the spill. Toward the development of an automatic detection algorithm, a Change Vector Analysis (CVA) technique was implemented to carry out the comparison between the current image of the area of interest and a dataset of reference image, statistically analyzed to reduce the sea spectral variability between different dates. The proposed approach highlights the optical sensors' capabilities in detecting oil spills at sea. The effectiveness of different sensors' resolution towards the detection of spills of different size, and the relevance of the sensors' revisiting time to track and monitor the evolution of the event is also investigated.


ABSTRACT To characterize the spectrum of mosaic RB1 pathogenic alleles and map the distribution of mutant cells in available tissues from mosaic patients. Next-generation sequencing was performed on blood samples from 263 retinoblastoma families to identify mosaic RB1 variant alleles. A variety of available tissues were sampled to determine tissue distribution and fraction of mutant cells in five mosaic patients who consented to participate in mosaic pathogenic allele research. Twelve identified mosaic RB1 variants were all "null" pathogenic alleles and displayed reduced expressivity. The use of next-generation deep sequencing increased the sensitivity of mosaicism detection to 0.03% in the case of tissue DNA. In the five mosaic participants, we observed coherent but uneven, bilateral asymmetrical distribution of mutant cells across various tissues. They all carried early-embryonic mosaic pathogenic alleles and had significantly higher variant fractions in blood than in other tissues. Variant fractions of ipsilateral tissue samples were not concordant higher or lower compared with the contralateral side. Only ipsilateral conjunctival and oral epithelial cells showed concordance in mosaicism levels. No associations were observed between the laterality of affected eyes and variant fractions of any tissue type. NGS allows the detection of low-level mosaicism. Mosaic RB1 pathogenic alleles are prone to occur at very early stages of human embryonic development. With respect to genetic counseling, risk prediction should take into account unrecognized mosaicism. The underlying tissue distribution patterns of mosaic RB1 variant alleles remain to be determined.


In recent years, many studies have applied wearable devices to capture psychophysiological data from software developers. However, the current literature lacks investigations that classify the studies and point out gaps to be explored. This article, therefore, seeks to present a comprehensive overview of the literature by classifying and creating a systematic map of the works. Besides, it seeks to pinpoint research gaps, challenges, and trends. Based on widely known guidelines, a systematic mapping of the literature was designed and run to answer eight research questions. After applying a careful filtering process, we selected 27 representative studies from a sample of 2,084 potentially relevant works retrieved from seven digital libraries. The main results are: a classification scheme of the published studies was produced; there is no predominance of the devices used to capture psychophysiological data; over 50% of the studies have explored indicators related to mental states and neural activity; and 80% have analyzed composite data to understand the cognitive load and in the context of understanding debugging programs and strategies. Our findings can benefit researchers and students by creating a systematic map of the literature, being a starting point for future research.


Integration of immigrants has been and continues to be a hotly debated issue in the Netherlands. Politicians from left to right, widely agree that if immigrants come to live in the Netherlands, they must integrate (inburgeren). However, there is no a consensus on how to best integrate the immigrants especially in terms of the values, manners and norms. Important concepts such as values and norms are often vague, and thus difficult to follow. But integrators are required to know these concepts together with manners in order to pass the KNM part of the integration exam (inburgeringsexamen). As a result, there is a need to investigate what the manners, norms and values are in the policy documents and how they are presented in the textbooks of KNM. In order to research the contents regarding manners, norms and values that integrators have to study for the KNM, textbooks of KNM is thus essential primary sources to analyze.


This study focuses on comparing the physiological effect and the mechanism of fatigue and discomfort during standing, sit/standing and standing with footrest conditions. Sixteen subjects were involved in the study, eight females and eight males with no previous lower extremity problems. The subjects sorted objects by picking them up and placing them on a grading table. This study showed that using the sit/stand stool and footrest reduced the perceived discomfort and %MVC. However, compared to using the footrest, using the sit/stand stool increased skin temperature and may lead to swelling. Ninety percent of the subjects preferred using the footrest if they had to work in the standing position again. It is recommended to apply the sit/standing position or to add the footrest to standing workstations. However, it is also preferable to add a footrest rather than use the sit/stand stool in prolonged standing work because it is more economical, and the posture assumed when using the footrest is not significantly different compared to the standing condition.


Background and Aims: Menstruation is a normal physiological process and a key sign of reproductive health in women in the reproductive age group. Poor menstrual hygiene affects the educational activities as well as the day to day activities of women. The objective of this study is to assess the practices of menstrual hygiene among women aged 15-49 years attending a tertiary care hospital in Kolkata and to assess their knowledge regarding menstrual hygiene. Materials and Methods: This was a hospital-based cross-sectional study conducted among the women belonging to the age group of 15-49 years attending the outpatient department of Gynaecology. Predesigned, pretested, semi-structured questionnaire was used as a study tool. Interview method was used for data collection after obtaining informed consent from the participants. Data were analysed by SPSS 20v software. Association between variables was checked by Chi-square test & P < 0.05 was considered as significant. Results: Mean age of respondents was 28.03 ± 7.01 years. The cause of menstruation as a normal body function constituted maximum response (43.5%) whereas the reason was unknown to many (37%). Regarding restrictions during menstruation, it was mentioned that avoiding worshipping was the commonest restriction (90.2%), followed by restriction in diet (32.6%). Use of readymade absorbents was found in most of the subjects (91%) followed by homemade reusable (6.5%) and homemade disposable (2.2%). Around 77.2% of them packed the napkins and disposed in garbage. Those who were aware about menstrual hygiene were found to be practicing satisfactory perineal cleaning (p < 0.05). Conclusion: Health education and awareness programme focusing on menstrual hygiene must be intensified. School curriculum can play a vital role in implementing health education.


The categorization of populations as black is an emerging policy tool in democracies concerned with multiculturalism and social cohesion. Under the paradigm of the fight against discriminations, policies have been designed in order to mitigate inequalities pervasive in race relations, thereby raising the question of how the Blacks, who have been constructed as a subordinate category in social representations and practices, may be specifically targeted by public action. France and Colombia here display very contrastive landscapes: while Colombia has adopted a multicultural constitution in the 1990s and publicly acknowledges ethnic minorities, France still very much operates within a Republican color-blind framework and uses territorial or socio-economic angles to target ethnic minorities. However, both countries offer a surprisingly similar situation vis-àvis the positioning of the Blacks at the center of political discourses on cultural diversity and its issues, even though the difficulty to provide a univocal definition of Blackness relates to specific historical patterns of colonization and migration in each country. Both France and Colombia also tend to frame policies targeting the Blacks in terms of citizenship, often claiming to facilitate the inclusion of otherwise excluded groups in the demos.


Exosomes are small extracellular vesicles (30–100 nm) derived from the endosomal system, which have raised considerable interest in the last decade. Several studies have shown that they mediate cell-to-cell communication in a variety of biological processes. Thus, in addition to cell-to-cell direct interaction or secretion of active molecules, they are now considered another class of signal mediators. Exosomes can be secreted by several cell types and retrieved in many body fluids, such as blood, urine, saliva and cerebrospinal fluid. In addition to proteins and lipids, they also contain nucleic acids, namely mRNA and miRNA. These features have prompted extensive research to exploit them as a source of biomarkers for several pathologies, such as cancer and neurodegenerative disorders. In this context, exosomes also appear attractive as gene delivery vehicles. Furthermore, exosome immunomodulatory and regenerative properties are also encouraging their application for further therapeutic purposes. Nevertheless, several issues remain to be addressed: exosome biogenesis and secretion mechanisms have not been clearly understood, and physiological functions, as well as pathological roles, are far from being satisfactorily elucidated.


A study of the vegetation of Dean Hills Nature Preserve in Fayette County, Illinois was undertaken to document the composition and structure of the vascular flora and to provide information for land management decisions. A total of 313 species in 85 families and 204 genera were collected at the 30-hectare preserve which occurs on a glacial kame and has a rugged ridge and ravine topography. Mature mesic and dry-mesic forest covers much of the preserve. The canopy is dominated by white oak (Quercus alba), red oak (Quercus rubra), and sugar maple (Acer saccharum). Data suggest that sugar maple is regenerating more successfully than the oaks. This same result has been found in several other studies of oak-hickory forests in Illinois. If management such as prescribed burning is not implemented, it is predicted that sugar maple will increase and oaks will decrease in dominance within the preserve.


The liver plays an important role in the production of haemopoietic hormones. It acts as the primary site of synthesis of erythropoietin (EPO) in the fetal stage, and it is the predominant thrombopoietin (TPO)-producing organ for life. In contrast to that of EPO and other liver proteins, the hepatic synthesis of TPO is influenced little by external signals. Hepatocytes express the TPO gene in a constitutive way, i.e. irrespective of the level of platelets in blood. Megakaryocytes and platelets remove the hormone from blood by means of their high-affinity TPO receptors. Normally, the plasma level of TPO is relatively low ( approximately 10(-12) mol/l). However, in thrombocytopenic states due to marrow failure or bleeding, the concentration of circulating TPO may increase greatly. The simple feedback regulation by TPO and its target cells is efficient in maintaining constant platelet numbers in healthy people. Persisting thrombocytopenia develops only in severe liver or marrow failure. On the other hand, an increase in circulating TPO and interleukin 6 (IL-6) may cause reactive thrombocytosis in inflammatory diseases, including cancer. The indications for recombinant human thrombopoietin (rHuTPO) therapy and its impact on transfusion medicine are still under investigation.


Air Power in UN Operations: Wings of Peace, W. Dorn (ed.), Ashgate Publishing, Farnham, UK. July 2014. (in press, publisher description online) Keeping Watch: Monitoring, Technology and Innovation in UN Peace Operations, United Nations University Press, Tokyo, 2011, 273 pp. (Info: UNU Press and book's website.) World Order for a New Millennium: Political, Cultural and Spiritual Approaches to Building Peace, A. Walter Dorn (ed.), St. Martin's Press, New York, and Macmillan Press, London, 1999, 288 pp. Treaty Compliance: Some Concerns and Remedies, Canadian Council on International Law and Markland Group (W. Dorn et al., eds.), Kluwer Law International, The Hague, 1998, 144 pp. Disarmament's Missing Dimension: A UN Agency to Administer Multilateral Treaties, Douglas Scott, George Alexandowicz, A. Walter Dorn, Michael Greenspoon, Jennie Hatfield-Lyon and Gerald Morris, Samuel Stevens, Toronto, 1990, 150 pp. Peace-keeping Satellites: The Case for International Surveillance and Verification, Peace Research Reviews, vol. X, Parts 5&6, July 1987, 184 pp.


The authors have implemented a real-time expert system as part of a supervisory and data acquisition system for the Public Utilities Board of Singapore, controlling its 22 kV distribution network. It works as an operator support tool by diagnosing network disturbances and device malfunctions, and by presenting a switching sequence which can be executed immediately to restore supply. The authors describe how the expert system is integrated into a large supervisory control and data acquisition system for power distribution networks. The necessary techniques to cover online processing of real-time data, intelligent alarm processing and network reconfiguration/restoration are discussed. The expert system is based on a hierarchic multilevel problem-solving architecture, integrating model-based, heuristic and algorithmic techniques acting on an object-oriented data structure. Techniques such as the automatic creation and update of the knowledge base, event filtering, online event processing, and structural and temporal focusing have been implemented to enable the system to perform its task online and in real time.


Decision Trees (DTs) have been recognized as one of the most successful formalisms for knowledge representation and reasoning and are currently applied to a variety of data mining or knowledge discovery applications, particularly for classification problems. There are several efficient methods to learn a DT from data. However, these methods are often limited to the assumption that data are complete.

In this thesis, some contributions to the field of machine learning and statistics that solve the problem of extracting DTs for learning and classification tasks from incomplete databases are presented. The methodology underlying the thesis blends together well-established statistical theories with the most advanced techniques for machine learning and automated reasoning with uncertainty.

The first contribution is the extensive simulations which study the impact of missing data on predictive accuracy of existing DTs which can cope with missing values, when missing values are in both the training and test sets or when they are in either of the two sets. All simulations are performed under missing completely at random, missing at random and informatively missing mechanisms and for different missing data patterns and proportions.

The proposal of a simple, novel, yet effective proposed procedure for training and testing using decision trees in the presence of missing data is the next contribution. Original and simple splitting criteria for attribute selection in tree building are put forward. The proposed technique is evaluated and validated in empirical tests over many real world application domains. In this work, the proposed algorithm maintains (sometimes exceeds) the outstanding accuracy of multiple imputation, especially on datasets containing mixed attributes and purely nominal attributes. Also, the proposed algorithm greatly improves in accuracy for IM data. Another major advantage of this method over multiple imputation is the important saving in computational resources due to it simplicity.

The next contribution is the proposal of three versions of simple probabilistic techniques that could be used for classifying incomplete vectors using decision trees based on complete data. The proposed procedure is superficially similar to that of fractional cases but more effective. The experimental results demonstrate that these approaches can achieve comparative quality to sophisticated algorithms like multiple imputation and therefore are applicable to all kinds of datasets.

Finally, novel uses of two proposed ensemble procedures for handling incomplete training and test data are proposed and discussed. The algorithms combine the two best approaches either with resampling (REMIMIA) or without resampling (EMIMIA) of the training data before growing the decision trees. Experiments are used to evaluate and validate the success of the proposed ensemble methods with respect to individual missing data techniques in the form of empirical tests. EMIMIA attains the highest overall level of prediction accuracy.


The causes of late diagnosis of congenital dislocation of the hip were examined retrospectively in a group of 49 children (56 hips affected). It appears that at neonatal examination as well as a further screening during the first year of life, the classical symptoms of this condition are not infrequently missed. The classical tests for the early diagnosis are described and the consequences of late diagnosis are studied. In spite of late detection, the final result of the treatment in most cases is quite favourable. However, this result can only be achieved by prolonged and intensive treatment, including hospitalization and surgery.


: Introduction: Birth weight or size at birth is an important indicator of the child's vulnerability to the risk of childhood illness and to predict the chances of survival. Low birth weight is defined by the world health organization (who) as weight at birth of less than 2.500gram. Low birth weight is considered as the single most important predictors of infant mortality, especially of deaths within the first month of life. Objectives: 1-To assess the existing knowledge of staff nurses regarding care of low birth weight baby.2-To assess the effectiveness of self-instructional module on knowledge regarding care of low birth weight baby.3-To find out the association between knowledge score with their selected demographical variables. Methodology: A pre-experimental research design with one group pre-test and post-test design with no control group. The present study was conducted in Rohilkhand medical college and hospital, in Bareilly, U. P. The target population of the present study includes The 40 staff nurses. Result: Findings regarding demographic variables showed majority were females in the age group of 31-35 years or 25-30 years. Findings related to effectiveness of SIM showed that the overall mean knowledge score in pretest is 37% and in post-test 76.4%. Significant at 9.433% level. Paired t test vale is 20.74. DF value is 39. Tabulated value is (chi-square) 2.023. Conclusion: This study concluded that SIM was effective in improving the knowledge of the staff nurses regarding care of low birth weight baby.


We present an initial study of the object features of Oracle 9i-the first of the market-leading object-relational database systems that supports a true object model on the server side as well as an ODMG-style C++ language binding on the client side.We discuss how these features can be used to provide persistent object storage in the HEP environment.


Sallis' philosophical reflections on the recent photographs and sculptural installations by Kipps foreground the radical difference between image and stone. The author also discusses concepts of originality, voice, and silence. Fleming situates the artist's photographs of gates and estate walls within the contexts of the 18th century landscape tradition, pastoralism and strategies of subversion/displacement. 5 bibl. ref.


In this paper, a family of zero-voltage-transition (ZVT) pulsewidth-modulated converters with synchronous rectifier (SR) is introduced. The SR decreases the conduction losses, while it increases the achieved soft switching range. In this family of converters, zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) condition is attained for the main and rectifier switches. Also, zero-current switching is achieved for the auxiliary switch. In addition, the applied ZVS technique can eliminate the reverse recovery losses of the rectifier switch body diode. The ZVT buck converter with SR is analyzed, and the presented experimental results confirm the theoretical analysis.


Abstract Governments' attempts to link the provision of welfare services to (more) responsible self-conduct of citizens (i.e. responsibilization) is seen as a distinctive feature of the post-welfare state. Responsibilization often requires welfare receivers to comply with specific duties or behavioural patterns (i.e. conditionality). Except for UK-based studies, little is known about responsibilization strategies of social housing tenants based on specific allocation policies or management approaches. To fill this gap, this paper examines recent cases of tenants' responsibilization through conditionality, i.e. allocation of housing on the condition that receivers regularly engage in supportive activities, in Utrecht (The Netherlands) and Milan (Italy). Through a qualitative methodology, this paper unpacks the use of conditionality as a means to increase tenants' responsibilization. The paper contributes by showing both innovative aspects, such as eligibility criteria, obligations, accountability measures, and potential pitfalls connected to diverging expectations between tenants and professionals, and to specific context-related factors.


In this article, a test statistic for testing the validity of the Lindley model based on the informational energy is proposed. Consistency of our test is shown. Through a simulation study, we obtain the critical values of the test statistic and then the power of the test is computed by Monte Carlo method against various alternatives. The performance of the proposed test with some competing tests is compared. Our results show that our test is superior to the classical nonparametric tests and can apply to a testing problem in practice. A real medical data set is presented and analyzed.


BACKGROUND
The autosomal dominant spinocerebellar ataxias (SCAs) are a clinically and genetically heterogeneous group of neurodegenerative disorders. Although molecular genetic studies have so far implicated 16 loci in the etiology of these diseases, approximately 30% of families with SCAs remain unlinked.

OBJECTIVES
To report the location of a gene causing a "pure" autosomal dominant cerebellar ataxia in one family and to describe the clinical phenotype.

PATIENTS
We have identified a 4-generation American family of English and Dutch ethnicity with a pure cerebellar ataxia displaying an autosomal dominant pattern of inheritance. The disease typically has its onset in the third and fourth decades of life, shows no evidence of anticipation, progresses slowly, and does not appear to decrease life expectancy. Clinical DNA testing excluded SCA1, 2, 3, 6, 7, and 8.

METHODS
A genome-wide linkage analysis at a 10 centimorgan (cM) level was performed with samples from 26 family members (11 affected, 10 clinically unaffected at risk, and 5 spouses).

RESULTS
Assuming 90% penetrance, we found suggestive evidence of linkage to chromosome 19, with a lod score of 2.49 for D19S571. More detailed mapping in this region provided a maximum 2-point lod score of 2.57 at theta = 0 for D19S254 and a maximum multipoint lod score of 4.72 at D19S926. By haplotype construction a 22-cM critical region from D19S601 to the q telomere was defined.

CONCLUSIONS
We have mapped a gene for an autosomal dominant SCA to chromosome 19q13.4-qter in one family. The critical region overlaps with the locus for SCA14, a disease described in a single Japanese family and characterized by axial myoclonus. Myoclonus was not seen in the family we studied, but it remains possible that the 2 disorders are allelic variants.


Aneurysms of the supra-aortic trunks are rare conditions that can cause peripheral neurological conditions or embolization resulting in stroke. The upper airways can even be affected and rupture is potentially fatal. We present a case of a patient with an aneurysm of the carotid bifurcation who was treated conventionally with reconstruction of the carotid bifurcation using a venous patch. Surgical treatment enabled accurate histopathological diagnosis and anatomic correction of the carotid bifurcation.


We present a novel hybrid spiking neuron that is a wired system of shift registers and behaves like an analog spiking neuron model. The presented neuron exhibits various bifurcation phenomena and response characteristics to an input spike train. We derive continuous discrete hybrid maps that can describe the neuron dynamics analytically. By using these maps, the typical mechanisms of bifurcations and responses are clarified. We also present a novel field-programmable gate-array-friendly online learning algorithm for the neuron. It is shown that the algorithm enables the neuron to reconstruct the response characteristics of another neuron with unknown parameter values. Typical learning functions are also validated by experimental measurements.


Theories of democratic government traditionally have relied on a model of organization in which officials act impartially, accept clear lines of accountability and supervision, and define their day–to–day activities through rules, procedures, and confined discretion. In the past 10 years, however, a serious challenge to this ideal has been mounted by critics and reformers who favor market, network, or "mixed–economy" models. We assess the extent to which these new models have influenced the work orientations of frontline staff using three alternative service types—corporate, market, and network—to that proposed by the traditional, procedural model of public bureaucracy. Using surveys of frontline officials in four countries where the revolution in ideas has been accompanied by a revolution in methods for organizing government services, we measure the degree to which the new models are operating as service–delivery norms. A new corporate–market hybrid (called "enterprise governance") and a new network type have become significant models for the organization of frontline work in public programs.


This volume collects together extended and improved versions of papers presented at the twentysecond Workshop on Logic, Language, Information and, Computation (WoLLIC 2015) held at the School of Informatics and Computing, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. WoLLIC is an annual international forum on inter-disciplinary research involving formal logic, computing and programming theory, and natural language and reasoning. Each meeting includes invited talks and tutorials as well as contributed papers. Contributions were invited on all appropriate subjects of Logic, Language, Information, and Computation, with particular interest in cross-disciplinary topics.


Purpose: While distinct soil microbiomes and individual soil microbial taxa can alter particular plant traits under highly controlled conditions, little is known about the role of particular microbial taxa and microbial functions within complex soil microbial communities for mediating plant phenotypes or if the strength of microbial mediation of plant phenotype varies among plant species or plant phenotypic traits. Examining how the plant phenotype spectrum is influenced by the taxonomic and functional composition of complex soil microbial communities allows for a more accurate understanding of the biotic environmental drivers of plant phenotype.Methods: Using rhizosphere soil collected from field sites, we conducted a microbiome transfer glasshouse experiment to test the hypothesis that the taxonomic and functional composition of different soil microbiomes would differentially shift growth, physiological or reproductive phenotypes of three Solidago species. Results: We found that soil microbiome inoculations influenced Solidago growth traits more than physiological and reproductive traits. We found that root growth of one of the Solidago species was negatively correlated with 77% of the indicator bacterial and fungal taxa from one of the soil microbiome treatments. Conclusions: Soil microbial mediation of plant phenotype varies by plant traits, is not universal across plant species, and can be associated with a small number of microbial taxa. This study illustrates that specific microbial taxa within a soil microbiome are associated with shifts in plant phenotype by pinpointing important individual microbial taxa from complex field soil microbial communities.


Background: Globally, pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PAAD) is a common and highly devastating gastrointestinal malignancy that seriously threatens human health. Pyroptosis refers to an emerging form of programmed cell death that has been discovered in recent years, and studies have demonstrated that long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) may act as a moderator in the pyroptosis process of cancer cells. However, relevant explorations about lncRNAs and pyroptosis are still insufficient in PAAD. Therefore, our research is designed to make a comprehensive analysis of the potential values of pyroptosis-related lncRNAs in PAAD. Methods: By integrating the RNA-sequencing, somatic mutation, and copy number variation (CNV) datasets, as well as the clinicopathological features, we established and validated a risk signature based on pyroptosis-related lncRNAs, and comprehensively analyzed its clinical significance and the potential connection with the tumor immune microenvironment (TIME). Consequences: The genetic variation landscape displayed that the somatic mutations were rare while CNV changes were general and mainly concentrated on copy number amplification of these 52 pyroptosis-related genes. Subsequently, a risk signature consisting of 10 lncRNAs (TRAF3IP2-AS1, LINC00519, LINC01133, LINC02251, AC005332.6, AL590787.1, AC090114.2, TRPC7-AS1, MIR223HG, and MIR3142HG) was constructed and patients were divided into different subgroups according to the median risk score; patients with high-risk scores presented worse outcomes compared to those with low-risk scores in the training, testing, and entire cohorts. Furthermore, patients at low-risk scores possessed a higher infiltration abundance of immune cells compared with high-risk patients, which was consistent with the expression levels of lncRNAs between the high/low-risk groups. Drug sensitivity analysis showed that low-risk scores were related to anti-cancer agents like AICAR and Axitinib, whereas high-risk scores were connected with certain drugs such as AUY922. These results demonstrated that our risk signature could be used for prognosis prediction; additionally, it was also related to the TIME that might act as a potential indicator to instruct immunotherapeutic strategies. Conclusion: This work explored the significance of the risk model constructed by pyroptosis-related lncRNAs in prognosis prediction and its internal link with the immune microenvironment of PAAD. The results are expected to assist in the diagnosis, prognostic assessment, and management of patients with PAAD.


The adenomatoid odontogenic tumor is a benign bony lesion of the maxilla and mandible, it represents 3% of all odontogenic tumors, and is more frequent in females in their second decade of life. It affects mainly the maxilla associated with embedded teeth, often canines, but it also occurs in the mandible, especially in the anterior region. It originates from epithelial cells of the dental lamina complex system, but the histologic feature with gland-like structures explains its name and classification. Clinically silent, it is often discovered during radiological examinations as a well defined unilocular radiolucent image. The definitive diagnosis is obtained by histological examinations, which allow the differential diagnosis from other bony lesions. Treatment must include close examinations, such as axial and coronal CT scanning and eventually 3D reconstruction. Histological examination with a preoperative biopsy suggests a conservative surgical treatment consisting of a simple enucleation for the low incidence of recurrence. A clinical case is presented with peculiar features different from that reported in letterature.


The concept of strategic management has been substantiated. The key tasks of strategic management of the state medical institution have been defined. The urgency of implementation of strategic management in public medical institutions has been proved. The structure of the strategic management process in the state clinical hospital has been substantiated. The main stages of the project of implementation of strategic management in the state clinical hospital have been defined, described and illustrated: setting the system of main goals, development of the strategic map, defi tion of indicators and target values of strategic objectives, development of operational plans for the implementation of strategic objectives. The tasks and practical activities of the strategic Committee as a body managing the development of medical institutions have been described.


Since the French and Dutch "no" to the Constitutional Treaty, EU institutions have made a priority of projects relating to "participatory democracy", "deliberation" and "Plan D". But before these tools to "encourage the emergence of a citizens' opinion" can be mainstreamed, they must be the subject of an in-depth analysis. This policy paper offers an assessment of the first participatory experiments to take place at EU level. It is based on a seminar-assessment organised by Notre Europe and Sciences-Po in 2010.


Ontologies play a key role in realizing the full power of etechnology. Ontologies allow for machine-understandable semantics of data, and facilitate the search, exchange, and integration of knowledge for B2B (business-to-business) and B2C (business-to-consumer) e-commerce. Ontology is defined as "the specification of shared knowledge" (Waterson & Preece, 1999). By using semantic data, the usability of e-technology can be facilitated. There are several languages like XML (extensible markup language), RDF (resource description framework), RDFS (RDF schema), DAML+OIL, and OWL. Many tools have been developed for implementing metadata of ontologies using these languages. However, current tools have problems with interoperation and collaboration. The primary goal of this survey is to introduce and understand several tools through their use. Therefore, we can develop a new generation of tools that not only support more capabilities, but also solve the problems of current tools.


Landscape change resulting from human activities continues to be a primary topic in geographic research. Many studies have focused upon human-induced changes in two dimensions, namely in land cover. However, those changes may include a corresponding transformation of the third dimension, or vertical component, of the landscape as expressed in the local surface topography. Some previous studies have estimated the total effects of human activity on the landforms and shape of the Earth's surface, but these studies have not emphasized the spatial component of the changes. The primary issue addressed by the research reported here is the need for more comprehensive information on the nature and extent of recent human geomorphic activity. The elevation information from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) paired with the historical topographic data in the U.S. Geological Survey's National Elevation Dataset (NED) allow for mapping and assessment of significant changes to the shape of the land surface across the conterminous United States. The NED supplied the historical elevation information that was subtracted from the more recently collected SRTM data to create an elevation difference grid that provided information about where topographic changes have taken place. The elevation difference information was filtered and refined to complete a national inventory of vertical landscape changes, and it represents a first ever accounting of topographic change across the United States. The inventory serves as a useful foundation for ongoing monitoring of topographic changes using recently collected high-resolution elevation data, including current work with airborne interferometric synthetic aperture radar data.


OBJECTIVES
We investigated health disparities among lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) adults aged 50 years and older.

METHODS
We analyzed data from the 2003-2010 Washington State Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (n = 96 992) on health outcomes, chronic conditions, access to care, behaviors, and screening by gender and sexual orientation with adjusted logistic regressions.

RESULTS
LGB older adults had higher risk of disability, poor mental health, smoking, and excessive drinking than did heterosexuals. Lesbians and bisexual women had higher risk of cardiovascular disease and obesity, and gay and bisexual men had higher risk of poor physical health and living alone than did heterosexuals. Lesbians reported a higher rate of excessive drinking than did bisexual women; bisexual men reported a higher rate of diabetes and a lower rate of being tested for HIV than did gay men. Conclusions. Tailored interventions are needed to address the health disparities and unique health needs of LGB older adults. Research across the life course is needed to better understand health disparities by sexual orientation and age, and to assess subgroup differences within these communities.


PURPOSE
The knee is the most frequently injured joint that physical examination and plain radiographies are limited to diagnose precisely the knee injuries. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been contributed great benefits to the accurate diagnosis by determining the injuries of menisci and ligaments in addition to bone structures. We evaluated MRI findings in traumatic knees and compare them to literature.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The patients with the knee injury who were admitted to orthopedic surgery service were reviewed. Of them, 49 patients (50 knees) correlated operatively, arthroscopically and clinically were included in our study population. If the diagnosis was not sufficient by using plain films and clinical evaluation, the patients underwent MRI examination.

RESULTS
Bone contusions were the most common finding in the injuries (n:33). The other findings were respectively, the anterior cruciate ligament injuries in 17 patients, meniscal tears in 12 patients, osteochondral fractures in 9 patients, collateral ligament injuries in 7 patients and bone fractures in 5 patients.

CONCLUSION
MR imaging-plays a major role in decisions on evaluation and management of traumatic knees, improves clinician diagnostic certainty and reduces the need for arthroscopy.


The extension of long term evolution (LTE) networks in unlicensed spectrum areas under the licensed assisted access concept aims at achieving higher transmission rates via the aggregation of the aforementioned bands along with the licensed ones within the 3G Partnership Project framework. A prospect carrier aggregation (CA) scheme should handle efficiently the coexistence of the LTE systems that compete for the same unlicensed spectrum areas along with their incumbent users (i.e., Wi-Fi). In this paper, a novel CA scheme is proposed for licensed/unlicensed MIMO LTE systems that allocates optimally the resources (power and resource blocks) of an evolved Node B to user equipments. Furthermore, the proposed approach handles the coexistence matters within the unlicensed bands with an efficient decentralized way. The new scheme involves the solution to a mixed integer nonlinear programming problem and thus, an optimal low complexity method is proposed based on the Lagrange dual decomposition. Furthermore, the proposed technique is extended to the imperfect channel state information (CSI) case. To that end, a novel listen-before-talk scheme is developed via which the required unlicensed bands CSI are estimated in a blind manner. The performance of all of the proposed techniques is verified via indicative simulations.


It is not easy to detect irregularities committed by employees in the Agency of Culture and Tourism of East Kutai Regency with actions for personal gain that can harm the agency. The current study offers an overview of the Agency of Culture and Tourism of East Kutai Regency employees' moral awareness in terms of ethical work climate and moral awareness during Covid-19. The study sample was supported by 149 informants through questionnaires. With the OLS method, the empirical findings presented that friendship, team play, personal morality, and rules and procedures positively affect moral awareness because the probability achievement is below 5%. On the one hand, two variables (company interest and self-interest) posed a negative influence. The policy implications that can be applied are the need for close supervision and support from superiors, academics, practitioners, and the public with an accurate system to increase their moral awareness. The study presents discussion and implications to guide future studies.


From antients times music therapy has been appreciated as a non medicine treatment. Studies on neuroscience shows that music can enhance neurological functions via eliciting the secret chemicals in stress. There is no culture without music on the earth. Since ancient times music was seen as a mystical phenomenon. NeuroMusic, located in the central nervous system and brain shell, thinking, learning, speech, body control is warned about the centers. Neuro Music has its own language and for this reason, has a universal dimension. In this scope Uskudar University Music Therapy and Research Center (MUTEM) conducted studies in NeuroMusic Therapy, developing methods of treatment using creative artistic methods. It is a therapeutic application of music to cognitive, sensory, and motor skills. Neuro Music Therapy in MUTEM is divided into receptive and active forms in medicine. In the world of NeuroScience music has been held again as a therapy instrument by behavioral sciences. Our research is progressing on this path.


P21-activated kinase (PAK) 2, a member of PAK family of serine/threonine kinases, plays an important role in physiological processes such as motility, survival, mitosis, and apoptosis. However, the role of PAK2 in chemotherapy resistance, as well as cell proliferation, is not clear. In this report, we showed that the protein expression level of PAK2 is higher in human breast cancer cell lines and human breast invasive carcinoma tissues compared with adjacent normal breast tissues. Importantly, we found that PAK2 can bind with caspase-7 and phosphorylate caspase-7 at Ser30, Thr173 and Ser239. Phosphorylation of caspase-7 decreases its activity, thereby inhibiting cellular apoptosis. Knocking down PAK2 expression can restore caspase-7 activity and promote apoptosis of MCF-7 breast cancer cells. Our data suggests that the highly expressed PAK2 mediates chemotherapy resistance in human breast invasive ductal carcinoma and that PAK2 is a novel target of chemotherapy for breast cancer. 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 1960. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2011-1960


The data relative to caries experience, provided dental care, periodontal condition, oral hygiene and pocket depth obtained from 158 patients with cheilognathopalatoschisis were recorded. According to age, the findings were subdivided into three groups: deciduous dentition, mixed dentition and permanent dentition group. The data obtained from the upper jaw were compared to those from the lower jaw. Furthermore, the data relative to the different types of tooth and the region of the cleft were compared to the findings from teeth non-neighbouring the cleft. The results permit to draw conclusions as to noteworthy aspects of the orthodontic and the general dental care of patients with cheilognathopalatoschisis.


The influence of thermal relaxation on the readback waveforms from perpendicular magnetic recording media was experimentally investigated in time-domain measurements. The signal decay rate at the magnetization transition was smaller than that in between the transitions, reflecting the demagnetization field distribution. The time dependence of the noise in the waveform was characterized as pulsewidth, transition jitter, and pulsewidth fluctuations. While the transition width decreased with elapsed time, the jitter and pulsewidth fluctuations were stable. These time-dependant results could be interpreted by considering the demagnetizing field distribution near the transitions and in between the transitions, which govern the random magnetization domain reversals.


At the Migration Research Workshop of the 52nd SEG Meeting in Dallas (1982), an elegant method of wave‐equation migration, known as reverse‐time migration, was presented by Whitmore. Shortly thereafter McMechan (1982, 1983) and Baysal (1982) described virtually identical approaches to migration. This, along with further development by Baysal et al (1983a,b) and Whitmore (1983), has sparked much interest and discussion. In May 1983, Loewenthal and Mufti also published a migration algorithm, quite different from the above, that they call "reversed time migration" and developed as early as 1977. In this short note I present a general principle underlying reverse‐time migration and discuss the various reverse‐time migration procedures in light of it.


GaAs nanowires were selectively grown by metal–organic vapour-phase epitaxy within a SiO2 mask window pattern fabricated on a GaAs(111)B substrate surface. The nanowires were 100–3000 nm in height and 50–300 nm in diameter. The height decreased as the mask window diameter was increased or the growth temperature was increased from 700 to 800 °C. The dependence of the nanowire height on the mask window diameter was compared with a calculation, which indicated that the height was inversely proportional to the mask window diameter. This suggests that the migration of growth species on the nanowire side surface plays a major role. Tetrahedral GaAs grew at an early stage of nanowire growth but became hexagonal as the growth process continued. The calculated change in Gibbs free energy for nucleation growth of the crystals indicated that tetrahedra were energetically more favourable than hexagons. Transmission and scanning electron microscopy analyses of a GaAs nanowire showed that many twins developed along the B direction, suggesting that twins had something to do with the evolution of the nanowire shape from tetrahedron to hexagon.


In this paper, we experimentally explore the transient negative capacitance effect in ferroelectric high-k gate stacks using multi-ferroelectric domain Si-doped HfO2 with and without the metal plane, MFMIS (TiN/Si:HfO2/TiN/SiO2) and MFIS (TiN/Si:HfO2/SiO2) respectively. With optimized 500ns pulsed measurements, we compare the reconstructed transient S-shaped P-E curves of the two gate stacks using ~100nm ferroelectric multi-domains and distinguish the non-switching hysteresis-free NC effect from unstable FE switching hysteretic phenomena. We experimentally validate that the use of a metal layer in between the ferroelectric and the dielectric can inherently destabilize NC due to domain formation. Furthermore, from P-E of both ferroelectric stacks using 10nm Si-doped HfO2, we extract the negative values of CFE and prove that the metal plane provides 60% higher values of the negative capacitance for MFMIS resulting in unstable hysteretic NC FET behavior. In contrast, the MFIS gate stack benefits from independent domain operation and achieves large and stable NC regions. We demonstrate that despite the smaller gain (amplification) of surface potential, the MFIS structure provides hysteresis-free stable performance boosting in all the regimes of operation of a 14nm UTB SOI MOSFET and can be recommended as performance booster advanced NC FETs.


Schizophrenic in-patients were rated on factor-derived symptom dimensions based on negative and positive symptom ratings. Participants were administered neuropsychological tests (digit span, digit vigilance, logical memory, and Trails A and B) and then instructed on how to improve performance on the tests. Follow-up tests were administered shortly after coaching. Comparisons of pre- and post-instruction test scores indicated that the patient group was able to improve significantly their performance on the tests after coaching. Symptom dimensions were predictive of improved post-instruction test performance beyond the impact of the level of pre-instruction scores. Symptoms of disorganization and negative symptoms were related to lack of ability to improve performance on one or more of the tests, and positive symptoms and premorbid adjustment were associated with improved post-instruction performance. The symptom dimensions provide a potentially useful approach to reducing heterogeneity within samples of schizophrenic patients.


A randomized encoding allows to express a "complex" computation, given by a function f and input x, by a "simple to compute" randomized representation f(x) whose distribution encodes f(x), while revealing nothing else regarding f and x. Existing randomized encodings, geared mostly to allow encoding with low parallel-complexity, have proven instrumental in various strong applications such as multiparty computation and parallel cryptography. This work focuses on another natural complexity measure: the time required to encode. We construct succinct randomized encodings where the time to encode a computation, given by a program Π and input x, is essentially independent of Π's time complexity, and only depends on its space complexity, as well as the size of its input, output, and description. The scheme guarantees computational privacy of (Π,x), and is based on indistinguishability obfuscation for a relatively simple circuit class, for which there exist instantiations based on polynomial hardness assumptions on multi-linear maps. We then invoke succinct randomized encodings to obtain several strong applications, including: Succinct indistinguishability obfuscation, where the obfuscated program IObf({Π}) computes the same function as Π for inputs x of apriori-bounded size. Obfuscating Π is roughly as fast as encoding the computation of Π on any such input x. Here we also require subexponentially-secure indistinguishability obfuscation for circuits. Succinct functional encryption, where a functional decryption key corresponding to Π allows decrypting Π(x) from encryptions of any plaintext x of apriori-bounded size. Key derivation is as fast as encoding the corresponding computation. Succinct reusable garbling, a stronger form of randomized encodings where any number of inputs x can be encoded separately of Π, independently of Π's time and space complexity. Publicly-verifiable 2-message delegation where verifying the result of a long computation given by Π and input x is as fast as encoding the corresponding computation. We also show how to transform any 2-message delegation scheme to an essentially non-interactive system where the verifier message is reusable. Previously, succinct randomized encodings or any of the above applications were only known based on various non-standard knowledge assumptions. At the heart of our techniques is a generic method of compressing a piecemeal garbled computation, without revealing anything about the secret randomness utilized for garbling.


Steroid cell tumours are rare type of sex cord-stromal tumour of the ovary, with the average age at diagnosis during the fourth decade of life. A 2-year-old girl presented with virilisation, precocious pseudopuberty and Cushing syndrome. Her morning cortisol level was elevated and there was left lower abdominal mass found in radiological examination. An explorative laparotomy followed by a left salpingo-oophorectomy was performed. Histopathological examination revealed an encapsulated solid yellow-tan tumour composed of polygonal cells arranged in nests/lobes, containing numerous vascular channels, with abundant, clear-to-granular eosinophilic cytoplasm, severe nuclear pleomorphism and no Reinke crystals present consistent with an ovarian steroid cell tumour (NOS). The tumours cells were diffusely positive with calretinin, weak focal positive for inhibin, melan-A, pankeratin, chromogranin and negative for AFP, HMB-45 and androgen receptors. Following the tumour removal, blood pressure regressed to normal. The patient was discharged and advised for outpatient care.


Criminologists have long recognized that whether one perceives a sanction as fair or unfair influences the deterrent success of sanctions and the legitimacy afforded to legal authority. Unfortunately, although several scholars have claimed that individual characteristics influence how sanctions are interpreted, very little research has explored the individual factors that influence how one perceives sanctions to be fair/unfair. In this study, we take Gottfredson and Hirschi's notion of self-control and use it to explain, in part, whether an individual perceives a sanction as fair/unfair. We also examine how sanction perceptions and low self-control influence the perceived anger that may result from being singled out for sanctioning and whether self-control conditions the relationship between perceptions and anger. Our results suggest that individuals with low self-control are more likely to perceive sanctions as unfair, that unfair sanctions and low self-control lead to perceived anger for being singled out for punishment and that self-control conditions the effect of unfair sanction perceptions on perceived anger. Future directions are outlined.


This study investigates the major factors affecting the demand for fats and oils under the possible influence of health information on fat and cholesterol in Japan. The fat and cholesterol information indexes based on diminishing effect schemes provide better measures of the changing health information on fat and cholesterol than the ad-hoc cumulative index. This study shows that increasing consumer health information appear to have reduced the consumption of hog grease, tallow, and palm oil, and increased the use of fish oil, but it has had no major impact on other vegetable oils yet. The issues of diet and health have become major concerns not only for consumers but also for those involved in the food industry. Scientific evidence increasingly suggests that poor diet plays an important role in chronic diseases, contributing to increased morbidity and premature mortality. In particular, diets high in total fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol are closely associated with an increased risk for coronary heart disease. Since researchers provided the initial link between saturated fat intake and the risk of coronary heart disease in the mid-1960s, vast medical and dietary studies have shown that high intakes of saturated fat and cholesterol raise serum (blood) cholesterol level, an important risk factor for coronary heart diseases. In particular, the 1988 report of the U.S. Surgeon General emphasized the positive correlation between dietary intake of saturated fat, increased serum cholesterol levels, and risk of coronary heart diseases (U.S. Department and Human Services 1988). An increasing amount of health information about the adverse effects of saturated fat and dietary cholesterol has become available to consumers through such sources as health professionals (doctors and nutritionists) and mass media (news and advertising). Furthermore, consumer education programs, such as the National Cholesterol Education Program launched in 1986, can increase consumers' health risk information on fat and cholesterol. In several demand studies of U.S. fats and oils (e.g., Yen and Chern 1992; Chern, Loehman, and Ven 1995), it has been found that the consumption of vegetable oils has been increasing while that of animal fats has been decreasing. Furthermore, increases in consumers' health risk information have induced significant substitutions of vegetable oils for animal fats. In contrast to the food consumption patterns in the U.S. and European countries, the Japanese diet has been heavily dependent on cereals (particularly rice), vegetables, and fish. This food consumption pattern indicates that Japanese consume relatively more carbohydrates and relatively less fat than American and European consumers. However, the Japanese diet has changed dramatically during the last three decades. With increasing westernization of eating habits and declining per capita rice consumption, nutrient fat intake, which traditionally was low, has been increasing, while the intake of carbohydrates, which was excessive in the past, has continu ed to decrease. Similar to the findings in the U.S., vast medical and dietary studies in Japan have indicated that such westernization of the diet, particularly high fat intake, has raised serum cholesterol levels, an important risk factor for coronary heart disease and stroke. Goto (1992) reported that serum cholesterol levels have significantly increased by an average of 15mg/dL during the last two decades. Also, serum cholesterol is higher in Japanese below age 30 than it is in Americans of the same age, while it is lower in Japanese above age 30 than it is in Americans of the same age. Goto also stressed that those findings are closely related to the fact that the Japanese mortality rate from cardiovascular diseases, particularly ischemic heart disease, has been greatly increasing. As shown in Figure 1, the consumption pattern of fats and oils in Japan is similar to that found in the U. …


A basic cell with winding-coupled inductors is proposed in this paper. Then a family of interleaved converters is deduced from the basic cell for high step-up/step-down DC/DC conversions. The passive lossless clamp scheme is derived from the active clamp scheme to recycle the leakage energy and to suppress the voltage spikes caused by the inherent leakage inductance of the winding-coupled inductors. Then a series of DC/DC converters with passive lossless clamp circuits are summarized to handle the leakage energy. An interleaved winding-coupled Boost converter with passive lossless clamp circuits is tested as an example to verify the effectiveness of the main ideal of this paper.


Several aspects of visual functioning deteriorate as part of the normal aging process. These include a reduction in luminance and color contrast sensitivity, an increase in sensitivity to glare, a reduction in visual accommodation capacity, and a reduction in the sensitivity to light. In combination these visual deficits can make reading instrument panel display symbols (i.e., lettering and graphics) difficult for the older driver. This report provides basic guidelines and references that can be considered when setting photometric guidelines for instrument panel displays that are designed to accommodate the older driver.


NAEGLE, ERIN ROCHELLE. Seed nitrogen content of soybean: mobilization of nitrogen reserves and its relationship to seedling growth. (Under the direction of Dr. Thomas Rufty.) Leguminous crops such as soybean are commonly grown in the relatively infertile soils of the southeastern U.S. The primary source of N for soybean growth and development in these environments is N2-fixation, which requires a symbiotic relationship that does not develop until 3 to 4 weeks after germination. Prior to N2fixation, plants are largely dependent on seed reserves and they often experience a period of N stress. The purpose of this thesis was to investigate mobilization of seed N and its impact on soybean seedling development. Sixteen soybean lines differing in seed N content were grown hydroponically for 27 days without external N. Higher seed N was associated with increased seedling growth and reduced expression of N deficiency symptoms. Three of the 16 lines were selected for detailed characterization of seed protein degradation and N mobilization, and their relationship with seedling developmental responses during progression into and recovery from N stress. Leaf expansion and initiation were restricted more severely in soybean lines with lower seed N content. Depressed canopy development was the primary factor leading to decreased shoot:root growth ratios in all 3 lines. The soybean line with the lowest seed N content had a higher S/R ratio as the N stress progressed. The shoot and root growth changes were different than those in previous N deficiency studies, where adjustments have been proportional to the severity of N stress. When external N was supplied to plants deprived of N for 15 or 23 days, the induction period of the nitrate uptake process was extended and growth recovery rates were correlated with initial seed N contents. There was no delay, however, in stimulation of leaf initiation rates, which responded rapidly to the presence of external N. Individual leaf expansion during the recovery from N stress was dependent upon a leaf's developmental stage. The majority of N was mobilized out of cotyledons within 12 days in three soybean lines with differing seed N contents. Mobilization was complete before differences in seedling growth were measurable. Mobilization rates were lower when external N was present, suggesting the involvement of source/sink relations on the mobilization process. Differences in proteolysis of glycinin and β-conglycnin, the main storage proteins in soybean seeds, between N treatments were not detectable. Storage protein content and proteolysis rates were proportional to differences in seed N content. SEED NITROGEN CONTENT OF SOYBEAN: MOBILIZATION OF NITROGEN RESERVES AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO SEEDLING GROWTH.


The European Union transborder regionalization politics have become an icon of its political geography regime. Border peripheries are getting into centrality as centers of construction of Europeanness; located in South Galicia- North Portugal, the Eurociudad Chaves-Verin will be the tool to expose and debate bordering practices, border re-signification at the EU, and as an example to advocate for a necessary border theory that may focuse in their comprehension as a multidimensional and paradoxical process.


Regression analysis is frequently used in the engineering field to develop mathematical models for a wide variety of applications. Of the several assumptions upon which regression is based, one of the most fundamental is that the X values are known exactly and that any error is associated only with the Y measurements. Since this is not the case for many engineering applications, a study was conducted to (a) determine the magnitude of this problem and to (b) develop and test a software package that incorporates a theoretical solution found in the literature. Computer simulation is used to demonstrate both the seriousness of the problem and the effectiveness of the solution. An example based on early-strength tests of concrete demonstrate the use of the new software. The complete Fortran coding for this program is contained in the Appendix.


The Mla pathway is believed to be involved in maintaining the asymmetrical Gram-negative outer membrane via retrograde phospholipid transport. The pathway is composed of 3 components: the outer membrane MlaA-OmpC/F complex, a soluble periplasmic protein, MlaC, and the inner membrane ATPase, MlaFEDB complex. Here we solve the crystal structure of MlaC in its phospholipid free closed apo conformation, revealing a novel pivoting β-sheet mechanism which functions to open and close the phospholipid-binding pocket. Using the apo form of MlaC we provide evidence that the Mla pathway functions in an anterograde rather than a retrograde direction by showing the inner membrane MlaFEDB machinery exports phospholipids and transfers them to MlaC in the periplasm. We confirm that the lipid export process occurs through the MlaD component of the MlaFEDB complex. This lipid export process is shown to be independent of ATP. Our data provides, for the first time, evidence of an apparatus for lipid export to the outer membrane.


The development of Malaysian comic industry can be witnessed throughout the years from the changes it has undergone and the availability of its varieties in the local market. A new market of the creative art has also emerged from fan conventions in Malaysia, where fans of Japanese popular culture participated to showcase and sell their (re)produced works including self-published comics. Few past studies have
 highlighted the presence of manga (Japanese comic) stylization in recent Malaysian comics. However, only one study has provided empirical evidence for such claim in the
 comics by one Malaysian Chinese artist, indicating cultural hybridity between manga and Malaysian comics. Such attribution in the comic production by other ethnicities is
 still unexplored. To further understand cultural hybridization in the production of selfpublished comics from the view of Malay fan artists of Japanese popular culture, a
 qualitative study was designed. For the data generation, in-depth interviews were conducted with ten Malay comic
 artists who were actively producing self-published original comics and engaged in Malaysian fan conventions. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed by
 employing thematic analysis. In addition, the comics of the selected artists were also acquired as the supporting data for the analysis. From the analysis, three main themes were developed, namely "Attribution to the Japanese Popular Culture", "Representations of Locality", and "Towards
 Transnationality". Firstly, the artists' comic production were found to be attributed to the Japanese popular culture. Their interests in drawing and producing comics were
 first initiated by their consumption of Japanese popular culture. They continued to develop their skills and got engaged in selling comics in Malaysian fan conventions
 through prosumption (simultaneous production and consumption). For the second theme, two ways of representations of locality were found in the artists' comics, namely realistic and fantastical representation. By these representations, the artists intended to portray the localities based on real life experiences or issues. For the final theme, the artists showed a progress towards transnational identification by three circumstances. They negotiated with the locals' criticisms to adapt to the local moralities and publication guidelines. Moreover, due to technical difficulties or conflict with personal interests or principles, they have created elements that are situated in-between of its respective references. They also expressed their preference for individual identification over national identification on the originality of their comics. The study concluded that cultural hybridization in the production of self-published comics by the Malay fan artists of Japanese popular culture is a development of transnational identification. Despite the artists were first initiated to draw by their consumption of Japanese popular culture, they did not intend to portray such attribution in their comics but portrayed the localities instead. The mixed references in their comics indicate displacement of fixed nationalities, leading to the artists' sense of originality belongs to neither their references' origins nor their own nation. Cultural hybridization in their comic production occurs not only at the global level among the nations, but also at the very individual level which could lead to more diversified cultural interpretations and understandings.


Chromatic dispersion (CD) equalization is one of the core tasks of the digital signal processing (DSP) chain in modern optical coherent receivers. A conventional impulse-invariant method for designing the CD equalization filter is revisited, improved by proper weighting, and reinterpreted as a Fourier series. To improve upon a direct evaluation of the passband least-squares (LS) approximation, we propose to design a CD equalization finite impulse response (FIR) filter based on a discrete LS approximation. The proposed method avoids numerical evaluation of nontrivial functions and relies only on Fourier transform. Its flexibility is corroborated by a filter design demonstration of joint matched filtering and CD equalization.


Most switch architectures for parallel systems are designed to eliminate only the worst kinds of unfairness such as starvation scenarios in which packets belonging to one traffic flow may not make forward progress for an indefinite period of time. However stricter fairness can lead to a more predictable and better performance, in addition to improving isolation between traffic belonging to different users. This paper presents a new easily implementable scheduling discipline, called Elastic Round Robin (ERR), for the unique requirements of wormhole switching, popular in interconnection networks for parallel systems. Despite the constraints of wormhole switching imposed on the design, our scheduling discipline is at least as efficient as other scheduling disciplines, and more fair than scheduling disciplines of comparable efficiency proposed for any other kind of network, including the Internet. We prove that the work complexity of ERR is O(1) with respect to the number of flows. We analytically prove the fairness properties of ERR, and show that its relative fairness measure has an upper bound of 3 m, where m is the size of the largest packet that actually arrives during an execution of ERR. Finally, we present simulation results comparing the fairness and performance characteristics of ERR with other scheduling disciplines of comparable efficiency.


Oxygen and strontium isotopic composition of sedimentary pore fluids obtained by drilling at the Chile Triple Junction have been used to obtain information on the diagenesis and transport mechanisms of fluids. Samples were collected from three sites located on an east-west transect of the pre-collision zone (Sites 859, 860, and 861) and from Site 863 located at the base of the trench slope at the point where the Chile Ridge is being subducted. Closer to the toe of the wedge (Sites 859 and 860), non-steady state depth profiles were obtained, whereas linear chemical and isotopic profiles at the upper trench slope (Site 861) are indicative of diffusion of solutes at this site. The nature of fluids from the sites located in the transect prior to ridge subduction is quite different from that observed after ridge subduction (Site 863). Even though in all cases oxygen and strontium isotopic fingerprint indicates alteration of volcanogenic sequences to form authigenic clay mineral, the reactions that modified the chemical composition at Sites 859, 860, and 861 occurred at low temperatures, while high temperature reactions are responsible for the isotopic composition of the fluids at Site 863. At this later site, the 18O of pore fluids show values as high as 0.7‰ SMOW and a 87Sr/8°Sr ratio as low as 0.706 in the interval from 400 to 500 mbsf, a sediment section characterized by the presence of a cementation front and steep chemical gradients in the pore fluids. These data suggest that the basal fluids (>400 mbsf) at this site are likely to have been influenced by the hydrothermal reactions occurring at high temperatures.


Objectives: To determine the etiology of Fever of Unknown Origin (FUO) in children. Study Design: Prospective Observational study. Setting: Department of Pediatric Medicine, The Children's Hospital, Lahore. Period: August 2019 to January 2020. Material & Methods: A total of 45 children aged between 01 to 180 months (15 years), having FUO were included. FUO was defined as a temperature of greater than 100.4ºF documented by a health care provider, persisting over a period of three weeks and for which no cause could be identified after at least 8 days of evaluation. All the study information was analyzed by using standard software SPSS 20. The quantitative variables like age and duration of fever before hospital admission were presented as mean and standard deviation. Qualitative variables like sex, antibiotic therapy use before definitive diagnosis and various diagnoses made were presented as frequencies and percentages. Results: The patient's age range was from 01 to 180 months with mean of 80±45.12 months and male to female ratio was 2.2:1. Definitive diagnosis was made in 37(82.2%) patients. Infections were the predominant cause of FUO (44.4%) followed by malignancy (24.4%). Tuberculosis was the most common infection while Acute Lymphoblastic leukemia dominated the malignancy. Systemic lupus erythematosus was the most commonly diagnosed connective tissue disorder.  There was a significant association between duration of fever and the ultimate diagnosis (p=0.01). Conclusion: Infectious diseases were the most common cause of FUO followed by malignancy, connective tissue disorders and miscellaneous causes.


Background: Rotator cuff tears (RCT) is the most common cause of shoulder dysfunction, however, its molecular mechanisms remain unclear. Non-coding RNAs(ncRNAs), such as long ncRNA (lncRNA), microRNA (miRNA) and circular RNA (circRNA), are involved in a variety of diseases, but little is known about their roles in RCT. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify dysregulated ncRNAs and understand how they influence RCT. Methods: We performed RNA sequencing and miRNA sequencing on five pairs of torn supraspinatus muscles and matched unharmed subscapularis muscles to identify RNAs dysregulated in RCT patients. To better comprehend the fundamental biological processes, we carried out enrichment analysis of these dysregulated mRNAs or the co-expressed genes of dysregulated ncRNAs. According to the competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) theory, we finally established ceRNA networks to explore the relationship among dysregulated RNAs in RCT. Results: A total of 151 mRNAs, 38 miRNAs, 20 lncRNAs and 90 circRNAs were differentially expressed between torn supraspinatus muscles and matched unharmed subscapularis muscles, respectively. We found that these dysregulated mRNAs, the target mRNAs of these dysregulated miRNAs or the co-expressed mRNAs of these dysregulated ncRNAs were enriched in muscle structure development, actin-mediated cell contraction and actin binding. Then we constructed and analyzed the ceRNA network and found that the largest module in the ceRNA network was associated with vasculature development. Based on the topological properties of the largest module, we identified several important ncRNAs including hsa_circ_0000722, hsa-miR-129-5p and hsa-miR-30c-5p, whose interacting mRNAs related to muscle diseases, fat and inflammation. Conclusion: This study presented a systematic dissection of the expression profile of mRNAs and ncRNAs in RCT patients and revealed some important ncRNAs which may contribute to the development of RCT. Such results could provide new insights for further research on RCT.


ABSTRACT This exploratory study used administrative data from the 2015 foster care file of the Adoption and Foster Care Reporting System to examine the experiences and outcomes of infants who had substance abuse indicated as their reason for removal. Logistic regression was used to explore the relationship between removal for substance abuse and race/ethnicity, placement setting, case plan goal, and discharge manner. T-tests were used to compare infants groups with respect to average placement duration. Separate analyses were conducted to compare outcomes for infants with substance abuse as their sole removal reason and for infants with substance abuse included as at least one removal reason amongst others. Nearly 17% of infants had substance abuse indicated as their sole removal reason and over 50% of infants had substance abuse included among multiple removal reasons. Infants removed due to substance abuse differed on a number of key outcomes compared to infants whose cases did not include substance abuse as a removal reason. Findings suggest that local child welfare systems would benefit from ongoing assessment of trends in substance abuse removals and that more attention to the long-term child welfare outcomes of children who were removed due to substance abuse as infants is warranted.


Objective. To investigate pregnancy outcome in relation to red blood cell (RBC) level of long-chain n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) in the first trimester of pregnancy and the influence of lifestyle factors on the RBC level of long-chain n-3 PUFA. Design and setting. Observational study in a community with traditional fish and cod liver oil consumption. Population. Seventy-seven healthy pregnant women. Methods. The PUFA composition of RBC was measured in the 11th to 15th week of pregnancy. The women answered food frequency and lifestyle questionnaires. Information on pregnancy outcome was collected from birth records. Main outcome measures. Placental weight, long-chain n-3 PUFA in diet and RBC, smoking. Results. Of all the pregnancy outcome variables tested, placental weight was the only one associated with longchain n-3 PUFA in RBC. Inverse association was found between the proportion of long-chain n-3 PUFA in RBC and placental weight, adjusted for birthweight (p 0.035). The proportion of long-chain n-3 PUFA in RBC was positively related to long-chain n-3 PUFA intake (pB0.001) and negatively related to smoking (p 0.011). Conclusion. The human fetus relies on maternal supply and placental delivery of long-chain n-3 PUFA for optimal development and function, particularly of the central nervous system. Given the importance of dietary n-3 PUFA during pregnancy, further studies are warranted to investigate the relationship between placental weight, maternal long-chain n-3 PUFA status and smoking.


Macrophages release cytokines that may contribute to the chronic inflammation observed in pulmonary conditions such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Thus, inhibition of macrophage cytokine production may have a therapeutic benefit. Human lung macrophages are a rich source of the proinflammatory cytokines, tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF), interleukin (IL)-6, and IL-8, that are elevated in the bronchoalveolar lavage and sputum of subjects with respiratory diseases. Cytokine production from both monocytes and macrophages is mediated by mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathways. This study compared the effects of a novel p38 MAPK inhibitor, N-cyano-N′-(2-{[8-(2,6-difluorophenyl)-4-(4-fluoro-2-methylphenyl)-7-oxo-7,8-dihydropyrido[2,3-d]pyrimidin-2-yl]amino}ethyl)-guanidine (PCG), and an extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) pathway inhibitor, 2-(2-amino-3-methoxyphenyl)-4H-1-benzopyran-4-one (PD098059), on cytokine release from lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated human monocytes, monocyte-derived macrophages (MDM), and lung macrophages. Lung macrophages, MDM, and monocytes were stimulated with LPS, and cytokine release was measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Immunoblots were performed to confirm p38 and ERK1/2 MAPK expression and activity. PCG inhibited TNF-α release more effectively from monocytes compared with MDM or macrophages (maximal inhibition was 99.3 ± 1.4, 62.7 ± 4.3, and 58.6 ± 6.6%, respectively; n = 7–9). PD098059 was less effective at suppressing TNF-α release from monocytes compared with MDM and lung macrophages (maximal inhibition was 37.4 ± 2.8, 70.1 ± 4.5, and 68.7 ± 5.1%, respectively; n = 7–9). The pattern of GM-CSF, IL-6, and IL-8 release was comparable with that of TNF-α. These data suggest a differential involvement for each of these MAPK pathways in macrophage cytokine production compared with monocytes.


Governmental and industry representatives have repeatedly claimed that Aotearoa New Zealand leads the world on animal welfare, largely based on an assessment by global animal protection charity World Animal Protection (WAP). New Zealand's leading ranking rested primarily on favourable comparisons of its animal welfare legislation with that of 50 other nations, within WAP's 2014 Animal Protection Index. Unfortunately, however, review of welfare problems extant within the farming of meat chickens and laying hens, pigs, cows and sheep, reveals the persistence of systemic welfare compromises within most New Zealand animal farming systems. These are contrary to good ethics, to our duty of care toward these animals, to the wishes of domestic and international consumers, and to the interests of New Zealand's animal production industries, which make an unusually large contribution to New Zealand's national economy. Accordingly, and despite progress to date, this study finds that significant further resource investment and policy reform within the field of animal welfare are clearly warranted within New Zealand.


This thesis explores aspects of Melville's presentation of both the whale and the human bodies in Moby-Dick and human bodies in other important novels. It argues that Melville uses his presentation of bodies to explore some of the versions of confinement those bodies experience, and by doing so, analyses the psychology which subtends that confinement. Throughout Melville's works bodies are confined, both within literal spatial limits and by the psychology which creates and/or accepts these spatial limits. The thesis argues that perhaps the most important version of bodily confinement Melville addresses is the impulse to conquer bodies, both that of the other and one's own. It adopts a largely psychoanalytic approach to interpreting bodies and their impulse to conquer, so that the body is seen to figure both in its actions and its external appearance the operations of the inner psyche. The figure of the body is equally prevalent in Melville's exploration of nationalist conquest, where, as with Manifest Destiny and antebellum expansionism, the psychological and physical lack experienced by characters can be read as motivating factors in the ideology of conquest. A final important strand of the thesis is its argument in favour of a gradual shift in Melville's interpretation of the value and possibility of genuine communion between human beings and between humans and the whale. One may read Typee as an attempt by Melville to explore the possibility of a this-worldly utopia in which human beings can return to a version of primitive interconnectedness. This exploration may be seen to be extended in Moby-Dick, particularly in Ishmael's attempts to find communion with others and in some moments of encounter with the whales. The thesis uses phenomenology as a theory to interpret what Melville is trying to suggest in these moments of encounter. However, it argues, finally, that such encounter, or 'intersubjectivity' is eventually jettisoned, especially in the works after Moby-Dick. By the end of Melville's life and work, any hope of an intersubjective utopia he may have harboured as a younger man have been removed in favour of a refusal actually to assert any final 'truth' about social, political or even religious experience. Billy Budd, his last body, is hanged, and his final word is silence.


Objective: To investigate breast imaging case number changes during the COVID-19 pandemic in comparison to same time periods in the years of 2019 and 2020 in our tertiary referral hospital. Materials and methods: Between April 2019 to July 2019 and between April 2020 to July 2020, total numbers for mammography, breast ultrasound and breast MRI cases that were obtained in breast imaging center of our hospital were noted for each month. Descriptive statistics of the data consisted of monthly case numbers for each breast imaging modality. Percentage changes of overall cases numbers and monthly case numbers for each breast imaging modality were calculated for the determined time periods (April to July) between the years of 2019 and 2020. Results: In April to July 2020, there was an apparent decline in case numbers for each breast imaging modality when compared to same timespan in 2019. The percentage decreases in overall case numbers for breast imaging modalities varied between 41.7% to 64.4%. Among breast imaging modalities, the sharpest decline in case numbers was detected on mammography. Conclusion: The current study revealed that COVID-19 pandemic caused a marked decrease in all breast imaging case volumes particularly in the first two months of the pandemic.


Abstract Vibration casting method was developed for making polyetherimide (PEI)/Cloisite 30B nanocomposite. Towards this, a vibration casting apparatus was designed and developed. Vibration casting apparatus provided vibrational energy and heat, simultaneously. The processing parameters were established for vibration casting in terms of frequency of vibration, temperature, time and viscosity of casting mixture. Casting mixture of PEI/Cloisite 30B/N,N-dimethyl acetamide (DMAc) was made by dissolving PEI in DMAc and then mixing Cloisite 30B in this solution. The viscosity of PEI/Cloisite 30B/DMAc mixture was optimized for casting by controlling the volume fraction of PEI in DMAc. Morphology of PEI/Cloisite 30B nanocomposite was examined by wide angle X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscopy and contact angle measurement. Mechanical and thermal properties of PEI/Cloisite 30B nanocomposite were also compared with that of neat PEI to ascertain the efficacy of vibration casting method.


The crashworthiness of an automobile and the survivability of its passengers in road accidents are of paramount importance to the automobile industry. Thus the designers in making automobiles have focused increased attention on designing a car, which provides greater protection for the drivers and the passengers in case of an accident. Before a new model is launched into the market, a complete collision analysis is carried out to check the damage reduction capabilities and impact protection of vehicles in case of an accident. The use of crash dummies, computer simulation and crash analysis of automobiles has enhanced the protection and safety features of automobiles. This research paper applies the techniques of bond graph theory to the analysis of an automobile-crash. The dynamic system is first converted into a bond graph. This bond graph represents a precise mathematical model of the dynamic system. The bond graph is then converted into the representative state-space equations. Both these steps are carried out in an automated computer program. This research work aims at an optimum design through parametric studies to evolve a safe design of an automobile to increase the chances of survivability of its passengers under crash conditions.


The calcium in ammonia-base spent sulfite liquor, unlike that in calcium-base spent liquor, is not available for growth of Sphaerotilus natans. It has not been possible to obtain a mixed slime with Sphaerotilus as the dominant organism in a continuous-flow apparatus fed spent sulfite liquor.


The leucine auxotroph Escherichia coli 2961 exhibited stringent control of net ribonucleic acid (RNA) synthesis during amino acid starvation. After leucine was exhausted from the medium, the rate of uracil incorporation into RNA rapidly decreased to 2 to 4% of the prestarvation value. Infection of the starved cells with T2 phage stimulated uracil incorporation to a level equivalent to that of unstarved, T2-infected cells. The RNA synthesized during leucine starvation of the T2-infected cells consisted of T2 and E. coli messenger RNA, but stable ribosomal RNA (23S and 16S) did not appear to be synthesized. It is concluded that one or more T2-specific proteins are required to shut off host messenger RNA synthesis. Furthermore, transcription of E. coli and T2 deoxyribonucleic acid is not necessarily coupled to the translation of messenger RNA during stringent control of net RNA synthesis.