The Drosophila inflated (if) gene encodes the alpha PS2 subunit of the PS integrins. We describe the generation of new if mutations, their lethal embryonic phenotype, and experiments that examine the spatial and temporal requirements for integrins in adult wing morphogenesis. Embryos hemizygous for either new allele, ifA7 or ifB2, make reduced amounts of alpha PS2. In a variety of genetic tests, these alleles behave similarly to ifk27e, which makes no detectable alpha PS2, and all three alleles display the same embryonic phenotype. We therefore conclude that all of the lethal alleles retain little or no wild-type alpha PS2 function. As seen for strong mutations at the myospheroid (mys) locus, which encodes the beta PS integrin subunit, if mutants show extreme defects in somatic muscle attachments and in midgut morphogenesis. Unlike mys, however, there is no dorsal herniation of the if mutant embryos. With respect to wing morphogenesis, clonal analysis experiments demonstrate that if+ function is required only in cells of the ventral wing surface. We have rescued the wing blister phenotype of double mutants for the hypomorphic mysnj42 and if3 alleles using a heat shock-inducible mys+ transgene. By varying times of transgene induction, we find that integrin function is required from very early in metamorphosis until at least the last 24-48 hr of wing development.


Abstract Apateon, a small temnospondyl from the Permian freshwater-lake deposits of the Saar-Nahe Basin (SW Germany), is known by exceptionally well-preserved material. Here we report the first palaeohistological analysis of Apateon that focuses on its life-history traits and palaeoenvironments. Different samples (different localities and horizons) of Apateon caducus and Apateon pedestris have been analysed. Their stylopod histology shows different growth rhythms that might be correlated to changes in palaeoecosystems: food availability and/or presence of predators. Palaeoenvironmental influences are also recognized during the limb-bone osteogenesis by the expression of simple and/or double patterns of Lines of Arrested Growth (LAG). A double-LAG pattern expresses hibernating and aestivating arrests of growth in extant newts. The fossil samples from the two stratigraphically oldest horizons preserved a similar double-LAG pattern, suggesting that they may have hibernated and aestivated every year because of harsh climatic conditions. The Saar-Nahe lake system probably passed from a higher altitude zone into a lower one, possibly because of subsidence and/or erosion. It could also be correlated to the size of the lakes that differs from one locality to another, inducing different responses of the organisms to the climatic variations.


A 16-yr-old boy who was receiving amiodarone for ventricular arrhythmias developed a Reye's syndrome-like illness several days after an upper respiratory infection. Liver biopsy revealed microvesicular fat and spotty hepatocellular necrosis, typical of Reye's syndrome. Recovery was complete. This case report suggests that medications other than aspirin may predispose to Reye's syndrome, and that children receiving amiodarone should receive prophylaxis against influenza B and chicken pox.


Definition and Statistical Monitoring of Environmental Industry Increased Competitiveness for the Environmental Sector. Commissioned by The Finnish National Fund for Research and the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Etlatieto Ltd conducted a study to define environmental business activities and develop industry statistics. The project aims to set up a national monitoring system to evaluate the extent of environmental business activities and their international competitiveness. The report presents a system for monitoring environmental business activity. Based on the current definitions of the environmental sector and taking into account the characteristics of Finnish industry, a new classification for environmental business clusters was introduced. A new comprehensive database consisting of 3,500 enterprises was constructed. With the defined business clusters and the company database, a pilot questionnaire survey on the environmental industry was conducted. The survey evaluates the size and growth of companies in the industry. Utilizing the results of the empirical work, the study provides a recommendation on how to maintain and administer the company database. Another part of the environmental business monitoring system is the statistical side, for which a recommendation on its maintenance was also offered in the study.


W A variety of approaches are tried out in order to examine three questions. How did the major Swedish tax reform of 1991, which implied lower tax rates and a sharp increase in real after-tax borrowing rates, affect aggregate consumption? How did the tax reform affect household savings composition? To what extent did the portfolio adjustments differ across taxpayers? Our main conclusions are as follows. Although the tax reform coincided with the exceptional consumption bust of the early 1990s, tax factors most likely played a minor role. To the extent that the tax reform mattered, capitalisation effects in the housing market is the most plausible mechanism. However, on the asset side there was a strong incentive to shift from non-financial to financial savings outlets, and aggregate data suggest that households responded to these incentives. Our microeconomic evidence, building on survey data on the asset holdings of individual households, indicates somewhat surprisingly that most tax clientele effects had already vanished prior to the tax reform. H


INTRODUCTION
Mental health issues are common among women in homelessness, alongside undertreated chronic physical conditions leading to serious and unnecessary complications. Even though homelessness and risks of impaired health have been researched, broader perspectives of health are absent.

AIM
To describe reflections on health among women with experiences of homelessness.

METHOD
We conducted thirteen interviews with women in homelessness using researcher-driven photo elicitation. Together with an advisory board of women with lived experience of homelessness, researchers were guided by the DEPICT model for collaborative data analysis and performed a thematic analysis.

FINDINGS
Women with experiences of homelessness emphasized three main resources for achieving health and well-being: feelings of having a home, being involved in authentic relationships and experiences of preserved dignity.

IMPLICATION FOR PRACTICE
Healthcare needs to integrate the perceived resources for health and well-being when caring for women in homelessness. It is imperative since women will return to the healthcare setting only if they feel safe and secure, and only if dignity is preserved or restored. The results promote utilization of an integrative nursing approach; understanding that the health of women in homelessness is inseparable from their environment and social determinants for health, such as housing and social integration.


Abstract Cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum L.) is a winter annual weed that presents a serious obstacle to rangeland restoration in the Intermountain West. The objective of this study was to evaluate factors regulating the size and persistence of cheatgrass carryover seed banks on semiarid sites in western Utah. We prevented current-year seed production in each of four habitats, then tallied emerging seedlings over the next 4 yr. Two iterations of the study were conducted during consecutive years. One year before initiation of each iteration, we estimated seed rain at each site. Above-average precipitation in 1998–1999 resulted in relatively high seed rain (13942 seeds·m−2) for the first iteration, whereas seed rain for the second iteration averaged only 3567·m−2 because of drought conditions in 1999–2000. Mean total number of seedlings emerging from carryover seeds for the first and second iterations were 1304 and 270 seedlings·m−2. Seedling emergence from carryover seed was positively correlated with production-year seed rain (R2 = 0.69). The fraction of seed rain that carried over tended to be lower when precipitation the year following production favored fall emergence of the transient seed bank. First-year emergence of carryover seeds averaged 96% of total emergence, whereas third-year emergence averaged < 1% and was zero for six of eight cases. Carryover seeds persisted somewhat longer at the xeric black greasewood site than at more upland sites. Our study shows that cheatgrass seeds rarely persist beyond the second carryover year even on semiarid sites. Emergence from the carryover seed bank can be predicted from site attributes and precipitation patterns in previous years.


The primary objectives of this study were i) systematic evaluation of the differences in basal autophagic activity between melanocytes and malignant melanoma cells to determine whether these differences may be selectively targeted using the ROS inducer, Nexrutine (NX); ii) determination of NX selectivity in inhibiting melanoma cell survival and iii) specific involvement of autophagy signaling protein, SQSTM1/p62 in NX-mediated autophagic cell survival. NX is obtained from the bark of the cork tree, Phellodendron amurense. A panel of melanocyte and melanoma cells was evaluated for basal autophagy level and effect of NX treatment, including protein levels and turnover of p62 and LC3B (+/- CQ), and number of autophagic puncta per cell. Trypan blue, MTT, and Annexin V-APC were used to evaluate the effect of NX on cell death, proliferation and apoptosis. Genetic approach using siRNA for p62 and overexpression using HA-p62 followed by survival, proliferation, and autophagy measurements were used to further evaluate the possibility of p62 as a molecular target for inhibition of autophagy seen using NX. We found that i) melanoma cells displayed high autophagic flux compared with melanocytes, ii) NX treatment a) inhibited autophagy in melanoma cells, b) inhibited melanoma cell survival, and c) induced apoptosis in melanoma cells, iii) knockdown of p62 resulted in a lesser inhibition of cell viability and autophagy after NX treatment in high p62-expressing melanoma cells, and iv) overexpression of p62 sensitized low p62-expressing normal melanocytes and melanoma cells to NX-mediated cell death and autophagy inhibition, suggesting that p62 is a bonafide molecular target of NX. Overall, we show that Nexrutine is able to inhibit the inherent high level of pro-survival autophagy in melanoma cells, leading to loss of cell viability and induction of apoptosis, while melanocytes remain unaffected by NX at the same doses. Further, SQSTM1/p62 was found to be a critical mediator of the NX-mediated inhibition of autophagy and cell viability. This study demonstrates that NX maybe a promising novel, non-toxic agent for melanoma. Supported by R21 CA125719 & ACRCF (RG); NIDCR T32 DE14318/COSTAR (HGH) Citation Format: Heather G. Hambright, Addanki P. Kumar, Rita Ghosh. Inhibition of melanoma cell survival through p62/LC3B autophagic signaling. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 3534.


Boltysh was of particular interest due to its chronological proximity to the Cretaceous- Palaeogene (K-Pg) boundary, but also due to the silicic melt rock that is known to decrease argon mobility, and therefore make impact melt rocks susceptible to extraneous 40Ar, causing older measured ages and/or discordant age spectra. For the first time, impact melt rocks from the Boltysh impact structure were analysed under the same experimental conditions as sanidine from the K-Pg boundary in Montana (IrZ sanidine), to provide the first high-resolution chronologic comparison of the Boltysh impact event and the K-Pg boundary. Results from Boltysh yielded a refined 40Ar/39Ar age of 65.47 ± 0.21 Ma. This age is three times more precise than the previously accepted 40Ar/39Ar age of 65.80 ± 0.64 Ma. It is also ~0.6 Ma younger than the palynologically derived age that suggested Boltysh predated the K-Pg boundary by 2-5 ka. The new 40Ar/39Ar age of 65.47 ± 0.21 Ma is ii preferred compared to previous ages, as it was reproducible across two samples in this study, is within uncertainty of the previous 40Ar/39Ar age, and is in agreement with the predicted cratering rate of ~1.2 impacts ≥ 20 km in diameter on land every million years. Therefore, the Boltysh impact event occurred 0.573 ± 0.231 Ma after the K-Pg boundary (66.043 ± 0.086 Ma).

Chicxulub was an intriguing target for 40Ar/39Ar geochronology due to its temporal association with the K-Pg boundary. Impact melt rocks from the peak-ring, which were recently recovered by IODP-ICDP Expedition 364, were analysed under the same experimental conditions as IrZ sanidine and Chicxulub-related impact melt glass spherules from Beloc, Haiti and Gorgonilla, Colombia. This sample set provides the first high resolution chronologic comparison of material from within the Chicxulub impact structure, associated spherules, and the K-Pg boundary. Step-heating experiments on these samples yielded five age groups: 1) ~66 Ma (K-Pg age), including IrZ sanidine and all impact melt spherules; 2) a spread between ~66 and ~62 Ma; 3) ~62 Ma; 4) ~61 Ma; and 5) ~49 Ma. These age groups are interpreted to represent the impact age (~66 Ma) followed by cooling of the hydrothermal system in at least two stages (~61-62 Ma), and a post-impact thermal event (~49 Ma). The hydrothermal system at Chicxulub therefore lasted approximately 6 Ma, three times longer than previously predicted by models (~2 Ma).

The techniques refined in this thesis show that 40Ar/39Ar geochronology is an excellent technique for age determination of terrestrial impact structures, and can be applied with great efficacy even in challenging lithologies. It is therefore of great utility for deconstructing the thermal histories of extraterrestrial samples. Exploring the surfaces of other planets, particularly Earth's Moon and Mars, is a primary goal of space agencies the world over. Increasing our knowledge of hypervelocity impact processes will not only help us to better understand Earth's history, but will prepare us to study samples returned from Mars, Earth's Moon, and asteroids, thereby increasing the scientific return of planetary exploration – which will be one of the most important and rewarding scientific endeavors over the coming decades.


Based on their carbohydrate specificity, the jacalin family of lectins can be divided into two groups: galactose-specific and mannose-specific. The former are cytoplasmic proteins, whereas the latter are localized in the storage vacuoles of cells. It has been proposed that the post-translational modification in some of the lectins that splits their polypeptide chains into two may be crucial for galactose specificity. The mannose-specific members of the family are single-chain proteins that lack the above modification. Although the galactose-specific and the mannose-specific jacalin-type lectins differ in their sequences, they share a common fold: the beta-prism I fold, which is characteristic of Moraceae plant lectins. Here, two crystal structures of a jacalin-related lectin from Artocarpus hirsuta, which is specific for galactose, in complex with methyl-alpha-D-galactose are reported. The lectin crystallized in two orthorhombic forms and one hexagonal form under similar conditions. The crystals had an unusually high solvent content. The structure was solved using the molecular-replacement method using the jacalin structure as a search model. The two orthorhombic forms were refined using data to 2.5 and 3.0 A resolution, respectively. The structures of the A. hirsuta lectin and jacalin are identical. In orthorhombic form I the crystal packing provides three different micro-environments for sugar binding in the same crystal. The observed difference in the specificity for oligosaccharides between the A. hirsuta lectin and jacalin could only be explained based on differences in the molecular associations in the packing and variation of the C-terminal length of the beta-chain. The observed insecticidal activity of A. hirsuta lectin may arise from its similar fold to domain II of the unrelated delta-endotoxin from Bacillus thuringiensis.


The purpose of this paper is to highlight the relation between the loan-to-value (LTV) ratio and the price-rent (PR) ratio. The paper intends to relate the PR-ratio to housing return and the potential for a leverage gain in housing investments by considering the funding structure of housing investments.,Combining a PR-ratio approach with the housing return in the case of mortgage-financed housing, as presented by Borgersen and Greibrokk (2012), this paper relates LTV to the PR-ratio.,When formalising the relationship between leverage and housing return, as given by Muellbauer and Murphy (1997), the paper finds the effect of a higher LTV on the user cost of housing as the net effect of a higher borrowing cost and the associated leverage gain. The latter depends on the relationship between house price growth and the mortgage rate and, because the leverage gain has an ambiguous effect on the user cost of housing, the relation between the LTV-ratio and the PR-ratio is context-specific.,The paper aims to contribute to the literature on PR ratios in two ways. First, by explicitly including the LTV-ratio in the user cost of mortgage financed housing and, correspondingly, in the PR-ratio derived from the user cost. Second, by including the funding structure of housing investments the expression for the capital gain, which often is discussed in the PR-ratio literature, is related to the funding structure and includes both a price gain and a leverage gain.


A new kind of instrument and method for simultaneous and real-time collection of multi-object spectra by using multi-fiber coupling and Optical Multi-channel Analysis (OMA) was reported. The spectral signals of one object, three objects and five objects were collected successfully in experiments. The spatial resolution of 0.5 mm and detected spectral range of 200-1100 nm were reached, and at most twenty objects could be collected on the image plane of 1 cm2 area with OMA 4 system. The design of the coupling lens's light path was discussed to guarantee enough light energy to enter the instrument and little effect on the resolution of spectral instrument. The instrument can be applied widely to the areas of supervising and controlling the quality of light beam in transmission and in the time-resolved and spatial-resolved spectral measurement.


The study of transnationalism has largely bypassed refugees, or in rare cases has focused specifically on their political activities. Proceeding from recent perspectives in international migration studies which suggest that there may be at best only a blurred conceptual distinction between refugees and other migrants, this article subjects two refugee groups - Eritreans and Bosnians in various European countries - to the type of transnational analysis more commonly found among labour migrants. It extends the focus from political activities to show how refugees can become involved in a range of economic, social and cultural transnational activities. At the same time, the paper identifies a range of obstacles which differentially influence the desire and capacity of the study populations to participate in these activities. On the basis of this empirical evidence, we make the case for a fuller incorporation of refugees in the contemporary study of transnationalism. At a more conceptual level, the paper charts the evolution of transnational characteristics among the study populations. The implication, which extends beyond the refugee context alone, is that transnationalism is not a 'state of being', as is sometimes implied by the existing literature, but rather that transnationalism is a dynamic process.


The breakdown mechanism of oxide grown on Czochralski (Cz) silicon wafers was studied using a combination of copper decoration and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) observation. Recently, crystal defects with octahedral voids were found on the surface and in bulk silicon of as-grown Cz wafers. This result led researchers to infer that oxide breakdown occurs due to oxide thinning at the corner of the octahedral structure or heavy metal gettering at the void. Our study, however, does not support those models. We propose a new model that the crystal defect in the silicon wafer is filled with an "imperfect silicon", not a void, and that the oxide breakdown occurs due to the formation of degraded oxide which is made of the imperfect silicon, during oxidation.


The log-Lindley distribution was recently introduced in the literature as a viable alternative to the Beta distribution. This distribution has a simple structure and possesses useful theoretical properties relevant in insurance. Classical estimation methods have been well studied. We introduce estimation of parameters from Bayesian point of view for this distribution. Explicit structure of stress-strength reliability and its inference under both classical and Bayesian set-up is addressed. Extensive simulation studies show marked improvement with Bayesian approach over classical given reasonable prior information. An application of a useful metric of discrepancy derived from stress-strength reliability is considered and computed for two categories of firm with respect to a certain financial indicator.


Abstract The increasing ground‐level ozone (O3) pollution resulting from rapid global urbanization and industrialization has negative effects on many plants. Nonetheless, many gaps remain in our knowledge of how ornamental plants respond to O3. Rose (Rosa hybrida L.) is a commercially important ornamental plant worldwide. In this study, we exposed four rose cultivars ("Schloss Mannheim," "Iceberg," "Lüye," and "Spectra") to either unfiltered ambient air (NF), unfiltered ambient air plus 40 ppb O3 (NF40), or unfiltered ambient air plus 80 ppb O3 (NF80). Only the cultivar "Schloss Mannheim" showed significant O3‐related effects, including foliar injury, reduced chlorophyll content, reduced net photosynthetic rate, reduced stomatal conductance, and reduced stomatal apertures. In "Schloss Mannheim," several transcription factor genes—HSF, WRKY, and MYB genes—were upregulated by O3 exposure, and their expression was correlated with that of NCED1, PP2Cs, PYR/PYL, and UGTs, which are related to ABA biosynthesis and signaling. These results suggest that HSF, WRKY, and MYB transcription factors and ABA are important components of the plant response to O3 stress, suggesting a possible strategy for cultivating O3‐tolerant rose varieties.


The procedure of design and manufacture of sub-scale combustor using bipropellant swirl injector with external mixing for a liquid rocket engine are described. The results of cold flow test, ignition test and combustion test of the sub-scale combustor are also given in this paper. The sub-scale combustor uses liquid oxygen(LOx) and kerosene as propellants and has a injector head, an ablative material combustor wall and a water cooled nozzle. The injector head has Lax manifold, fuel manifold, fire face plate, one center swirl injector and 18 main swirl injectors. The cold flow, ignition and combustion tests were successfully performed without damage of combustor. Results of hot firing tests show that combustion efficiency meets the target of design and operations of start and stop cyclogram are stable and high frequency combustion instability does not occur.


Trefoil domains are protein structures characterized by six cysteines, which form a three-loop structure by disulfide bridges. Between the loops, a hydrophobic groove builds a binding pocket for carbohydrates or proteins. The porcine zona pellucida protein ZP4 contains such a trefoil domain (TFD); therefore we suggested a potential sperm receptor function. Sperm-egg interaction is known to be a multistep event; thus the aim of the study was to analyze the interaction of porcine TFD with boar sperm cells at several levels which reflect the most important steps of the fertilization cascade. We tested by Far Western blot and surface plasmon resonance whether a synthetic porcine TFD (pTFD) was able to interact with sperm cell lysates and by immunocytochemistry if it is able to bind sperm cell membranes. No interaction could be shown, although we previously demonstrated the threedimensional folding of the synthetic pTFD by a trypsin resistance assay. Furthermore, we determined the ability of pTFD to affect sperm capacitation or to induce the acrosome reaction. An influence was not measurable for capacitation or for the induction of acrosome reaction. We also investigated the influence of porcine TFD on sperm-ZP binding. In contrast to an anti-pZP antibody, the pTFD was not able to inhibit sperm binding to oocytes. In summary, the sperm receptor function of TFD within pig zona pellucida could not be proven. Further research is necessary to identify the function of TFD within zona pellucida; a structural role during oviduct passage is suggested.


Language and music are two human-unique capacities whose relationship remains debated. Some have argued for overlap in processing mechanisms, especially for structure processing. Such claims often concern the inferior frontal component of the language system located within 'Broca's area'. However, others have failed to find overlap. Using a robust individual-subject fMRI approach, we examined the responses of language brain regions to music stimuli, and probed the musical abilities of individuals with severe aphasia. Across four experiments, we obtained a clear answer: music perception does not engage the language system, and judgments about music structure are possible even in the presence of severe damage to the language network. In particular, the language regions' responses to music are generally low, often below the fixation baseline, and never exceed responses elicited by non-music auditory conditions, like animal sounds. Further, the language regions are not sensitive to music structure: they show low responses to intact and structure-scrambled music, and to melodies with vs. without structural violations. Finally, in line with past patient investigations, individuals with aphasia who cannot judge sentence grammaticality perform well on melody well-formedness judgments. Thus the mechanisms that process structure in language do not appear to process music, including music syntax.


I explore the effect of M&A on the patenting quantity and quality of the firms involved in a deal. Three measures of quality are considered: impact, generality, and originality. The impact of a patent denotes its influence on future inventions. Generality refers to a patent's applicability across technological fields. Finally, the originality of a patent indicates the extent to which an invention synthesizes diverse technological inputs. Applying a matching estimator to data from the U.S. 'medical devices and photographic equipment' industry from 1988 to 1996, I find that M&A have a positive effect on patenting output, but decrease patent impact, originality, and generality. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


When constructing buildings and structures for industrial and civil purposes, it is important to ensure safe working conditions for the tower crane operator and contractors of construction and installation works on the construction site, since these conditions largely determine the performance of the tower crane and the pace of construction in general. Accidents associated with the use of lifting equipment in construction often lead not only to injuries and death within the construction industry, but also affect passers-by who find themselves in the danger zone due to the noncompliance of the construction organization project with the requirements of existing codes of rules containing requirements for labor protection and industrial safety in construction. The article analyzes the causes of accidents in construction that result from the operation of tower cranes, as well as ways to ensure their reliable and safe operation. The theoretical substantiation and engineering and technical solutions of safety during construction and installation works during the construction of objects due to the improvement of the design of the tower crane cabin and its equipment are offered. The results of theoretical and experimental studies of sensorimotor activity of the operator of the construction machine, which are the basis for engineering solutions developed at the level of inventions of tower cranes cabins of increased visibility and their equipment, are presented.


Increasingly, clinicians are under a moral duty to report errors to the patients who are injured by such errors. The sources of this duty are identified, and its probable impact on malpractice litigation and criminal law is discussed. The potential consequences of enforcing this new moral duty as a minimum in law are noted. One predicted consequence is that the trend will be accelerated toward government payment of compensation for errors. The effect of truth-telling on individuals is discussed.


This paper proposes innovative multi-channel bayesian estimators in the feature-domain for robust speech recognition. Both minimum-mean-squared-error (MMSE) and maximum-a-posteriori (MAP) criteria have been explored: the related algorithms extend the multi-channel frequency-domain counterparts and generalize the single-channel feature-domain MMSE solution, recently appeared in the literature. Computer simulations conducted on a modified AURORA2 database show the efficacy of the frequency-domain multi-channel estimators when used as a pre-processing stage of a speech recognition engine, and that the proposed multi-channel MAP approach outperforms single-channel estimators by at least 3 % on average.


The lazy-wave riser is an input and output riser for a flexible development system, which is widely used in all the riser and pipeline systems. Because of the influence of various factors, its configuration description, control and motion which have a strong nonlinear character are complex during the running process of the lazy-wave riser. Reference to the specific structure and environmental parameters of a certain lazy-wave risers system with a 300 thousand tons FPSO, with the basis of the specific process of the flexible riser system at work, the lazy-wave risers were discretized into lumped mass models, combined with AQWA, the simplified dynamic model of the whole system at the depth of 2100m has been established by the large hydrodynamic analysis software OrcaFlex. The dynamic response characteristics of the lazy-wave risers have been given by using time domain coupling method. With and without the consideration of the 2nd wave drift load in the simulation process, the effects of the 2nd wave drift load on the results are obtained. The simulation results reveal the difficulty of simulation convergence caused by a large number of risers and flexible components. The 2nd order wave drift loads have a significant effect on the riser system, resulting in the increasement of the effective tension at each end of each riser. To counteract the magnitude of the FPSO response caused by such loads, the number of mooring lines needed to be increased or combined with dynamic positioning techniques to optimize the design.


Gas Distribution Benchmarking of Utilities from Slovenia, the Netherlands and the UK: an Application of Data Envelopment Analysis This paper carries out non-parametric relative efficiency comparisons using an international sample of gas distribution utilities from two old and one new EU members, namely the Netherlands, the UK, and Slovenia. By conducting DEA on a cross-sectional sample of gas utilities, we discover that, on average, Slovenian utilities perform less efficiently than UK and Dutch utilities. To a large extent, this is due to the less extensive regulation of the Slovenian gas industry as seen in the past. The incentive-based price-cap regulation recently introduced in Slovenia could help close this efficiency gap over time. The authors also find out that different model specifications lead to very similar efficiency scores and rankings, implying that benchmarking can be employed as a useful complementary instrument for monitoring utility performance. In this way, the informational asymmetry between distribution utilities and regulatory authorities can be significantly mitigated. For the wider and more successful implementation of international benchmarking in the future, it is also important that coherent regional and international data is made available to regulators.


The tubes illustrated are designed for removing small amounts of secretions from the nose, throat or ears. They are made of glass and are fitted to a suction pump. Near the angle the glass is blown into a bulb into which the secretion will run. Just beyond the angle is a small hole so that even though the pump is turned on no suction is created until this hole is closed by the finger. In order to clean the tubes, water is run through them and then the excess of secretion is cleaned out by attaching the tube to the compressed air apparatus. If this does not succeed, one may start suction and thus draw water through them until they are perfectly clean. These tubes are readily boiled and are more durable than one would suppose. 11 West Eighty-First Street. Tuberculosis in Europe. —Tuberculosis statistics show that in Europe about


Field experiments were conducted using entireleaf morningglory seed collected from areas of adaptation throughout the United States to determine whether biotypes or ecotypes exist and whether differences in susceptibility to acifluorfen exist. Initiation of first flower for the entireleaf morningglory populations ranged from 63 to 81 d after emergence. The interval between emergence and initiation of first flower decreased 2.8 d for each increase in degree of latitude from which the seed was collected. Plants originating from southern latitudes remained in the vegetative phase longer and tended to produce more total dry-weight biomass than plants originating from northern latitudes. Thus, ecotypes do exist for entireleaf morningglory because of adaptation to a specific environment. The adaptation allows ecotypes to utilize the length of the growing season associated with the area of origin. Trichome density on the adaxial leaf surface ranged from 147 to 206 cm−2 across the ecotypes and was not correlated with latitude or differences in acifluorfen susceptibility. Ecotypes differed in susceptibility to acifluorfen, but resistance among ecotypes was not evident.


Intelligent surfaces exert deterministic control over the wireless propagation phenomenon, enabling novel capabilities in performance, security and wireless power transfer. Such surfaces come in the form of rectangular tiles that cascade to cover large surfaces such as walls, ceilings or building facades. Each tile is addressable and can receive software commands from a controller, manipulating an impinging electromagnetic wave upon it by customizing its reflection direction, focus, polarization and phase. A new problem arises concerning the orchestration of a set of tiles towards serving end-to-end communication objectives. Towards that end, we propose a novel intelligent surface networking algorithm based on interpretable neural networks. Tiles are mapped to neural network nodes and any tile line-of-sight connectivity is expressed as a neural network link. Tile wave manipulation functionalities are captured via geometric reflection with virtually rotatable tile surface norm, thus being able to tunable distribute power impinging upon a tile over the corresponding neural network links, with the corresponding power parts acting as the link weights. A feedforward/backpropagate process optimizes these weights to match ideal propagation outcomes (normalized network power outputs) to wireless user emissions (normalized network power inputs). An interpretation process translates these weights to the corresponding tile wave manipulation functionalities.


As China faces a wave of debt renegotiations on the Belt and Road Initiative, the importance of examining what factors cause the depletion of participant countries' debt servicing capacity arises. This paper empirically studies the importance of 5 financial indicators in determining the debt servicing capacity of participant developing countries based on the probability of rescheduling. Using logistic regression analysis and more than 500 observations, the reserves to imports ratio is found to be the most important indicator of whether a country would reschedule its debt obligations. Countries are thus encouraged to hold a higher level of international reserves relative to their imports as it will substantially increase their capacity to service debt. Moreover, in a world of rising external debt levels, this finding implies that the same will improve a country's resilience to shock. As creditors are equally required to maintain debt sustainability, China must increase its debt transparency and provide sound debt management assistance if it wishes its project to proceed to completion.


In this paper, we consider the Drinfeld double $\D$ of a $12$-dimensional Hopf algebra $\C$ over an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero whose coradical is not a subalgebra and describe its simple modules, projective covers of the simple modules and show that it is of wild representation type. Moreover, we show that the Nichols algebras associated to non-simple indecomposable modules are infinite-dimensional. In particular, for any object $V$ in $\CYD$, if $\BN(V)$ is finite-dimensional, then $V$ must be semisimple. Finally, we describe the Nichols algebras associated to partial simple modules in terms of generators and relations. As a byproduct, we obtain some Hopf algebras of dimension $72$ without the Chevalley property, that is, the coradical is not a subalgebra.


As there is a resurgence of interest in plants as promising sources of new active pharmaceutical constituents, the present study has been designed to establish the preliminary biological activities of Blumea clarkei Hook.f. leaves. Here, the crude methanol extract of the leaves along with its organic and aqueous soluble fractions were subjected to different in vitro and in vivo assays. The ethyl acetate soluble fraction exhibited the highest total phenolic content (71.59 mg of GAE/gm of extract) and DPPH free radical scavenging (IC50 value 19.25 μg/ml) whereas another polar fraction; the aqueous soluble extractive showed the maximum cytotoxicity (LC50 value of 18.60 μg/ml) in the brine shrimp lethality assay. In membrane stabilizing activity evaluation, the inhibition of hypotonic solution and heat induced hemolysis were revealed maximum by the DCM (30.64%) and aqueous soluble fraction (39.15%), respectively while the crude methanol extract exhibited the highest thrombolytic potential (30.47% clot lysis). The central analgesic activity of the crude extract significantly increased the latent response time in tail-immersion method (p<0.001) at doses 200 and 400 mg/kg of body weight after 90 minutes of administration when compared to the control group. In acetic acid-induced writhing method, the plant extract showed prominent peripheral analgesia (p<0.001) with 47.54% and 65.57% inhibition at 200- and 400-mg/kg of body weight, respectively. In addition, a dose dependent hypoglycemic and antidiarrheal activities were also observed by the crude extract.
Bangladesh Pharmaceutical Journal 24(2): 149-158, 2021


The linear theory stability of different collisionless plasma sheath structures, including the classic sheath, inverse sheath and space-charge limited (SCL) sheath, is investigated as a typical eigenvalue problem. The three background plasma sheaths formed between a Maxwellian plasma source and a dielectric wall with a fully self-consistent secondary electron emission condition are solved by recent developed 1D3V (one-dimensional space and three-dimensional velocities), steady-state, collisionless kinetic sheath model, within a wide range of Maxwellian plasma electron temperature $T_{e}$ . Then, the eigenvalue equations of sheath plasma fluctuations through the three sheaths are numerically solved, and the corresponding damping and growth rates $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FE}$ are found: (i) under the classic sheath structure (i.e. $T_{e}\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FE}_{1}>\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FE}_{2}>\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FE}_{3}$ ) for most cases, but there is only one growth-rate solution $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FE}$ when $T_{e}\rightarrow T_{ec}$ due to the inhomogeneity of sheath being very weak; (ii) under the inverse sheath structure, which arises when $T_{e}>T_{ec}$ , there are no background ions in the sheath so that the fluctuations are stable; (iii) under the SCL sheath conditions (i.e. $T_{e}\geqslant T_{e\text{SCL}}$ , the second threshold), the obvious ion streaming through the sheath region again emerges and the three damping solutions are again found.


Considerable interest has focused on levels of exhaust emissions in the cabins of diesel-powered school buses and their possible adverse health effects. Significantly different policy and engineering issues would be raised if compelling evidence found that in-c-cabin contamination was due to self-pollution from bus emissions, rather than ambient pollution, neighboring vehicles, and/or re-entrained road dust. We identified 19 reports from 11 studies that measured diesel exhaust particulate in the cabins of 58 school bus of various type. Studies were evaluated in light of their experimental design, their data quality, and their capacity to quantify self-pollution. Only one study had a true experimental design, comparing the same buses with and without emission controls, while four others used intentional tracers to quantify tailpipe and/or crankcase emissions. Although definitive data are still lacking, these studies suggest that currently available control technologies can nearly eliminate particulate self-pollution inside diesel school buses.


This paper introduces a real-time image processing algorithm based on run length encoding (RLE) for a vision-based intelligent controller of a Humanoid Robot system. The RLE algorithms identify objects in the image, providing their size and position. The RLE Hough transform is also presented for recognition of landmarks in the image to aid robot localization. The vision system presented has been tested by simulating the dynamics of the robot system as well as the image processing subsystem


In screening for breast cancer, the discovery of screening positive cases can be carried out either with screening mammographic examination, with breast physical examination, or with breast self-examination. The screening positive cases should be examined with diagnostic mammographic examination. In BSE-screening, one-way communication about BSE does not influence health behaviour like e.g. monthly BSE-performance, followed by self-referral to a physician if breasts change from normal. Aimed at behavioural change, two-way communication strategies are needed in comprehensive program designs. The finnish Mama Program Screening is based on delivery of the message with two-way communication and the use of specially designed Mama-calenders for follow-up of the health behaviour of the participants during the continuous program. In a cohort, exposed to the Mama Program, compliance with BSE increased from 2% to 55% monthly performance. Two percent self-referred to the diagnostic mammographic examinations arranged within public health care facilities. In a 14 years follow-up of the complying women, 20% more breast cancers were detected than expected and mortality from breast cancer was 29% less than expected in all age groups. The Mama Program Screening has been implemented in public health care in Finland on a voluntary basis as an easy and inexpensive basic screening for women in all ages. It can be implemented in different PHC and private health care systems.


This article reviews the phenomena involved during the annealing of cold worked austenitic stainless steels. Initially the cold worked state is discussed, with special emphasis on the formation of deformation induced martensites. Following, the phenomena of martensite reversion, recovery, recrystallization and grain growth are discussed. The interactions between primary recrystallization and precipitation and between precipitate dissolution and secondary recrystallization are dealt with in detail. Finally, the textures resulting from hot and cold working, and from primary and secondary recrystallization, are presented.


Because the rain gauges of tipping bucket type can easily use the digital signal, the rain gauges are widely used for the meteorological observation. In gener al, the resolution of rain gauges of tipping bucket type can be categorized by the 0.1mm, 0.5mm, and 1.0mm classes. But, the error of the tipping bucket rain gauges is made by the intensity of rainfalls and is expected to make the standard calibration method for error measurement. Thus, we developed the hardware of standard calibration facility for rain gauges by weighting measurement method and proposed the standard procedure by rainfall intensity in this study Also, we calculated the error for the rainfall intensity and obtained useful result through the proposed calibration method.


Dentistry has witnessed tremendous advances in all its branches over the past three decades. With these advances, the need for more precise diagnostic tools, especially imaging modalities, has become mandatory. Many advanced imaging modalities like CT, MRI, CBCT, PET imaging are available which has made diagnostic imaging very accurate. Some of these modalities give a very good anatomic location and extent of the pathology, while others are able to image the pathology when the organ is in function. But, when both ie the precise anatomic location and functional imaging are required, than fusion of images made by more than one advanced imaging modality is required. This is where fusion imaging plays a significant role.
"Fusion Imaging is the process of registering and combining multiple images from single or multiple imaging modalities to improve the imaging quality and reduce randomness and redundancy to increase the clinical applicability of medical images for diagnosis and assessment of medical problems". It was designed to overcome the disadvantages of anatomic and functional imaging modalities and attempts to provide inputs that improve the image quality by combining the advantages of anatomic and functional imaging modalities for improvising treatment plans.
The fusion imaging information is ultimate and it allows not only better understanding of various physiological and disease process but also helps in monitoring & predicting the course of the treatment and predicting the prognosis.

Keywords:Fusion Imaging, PET-CT, PET-MRI, F18-FDG


This research is focused on the issue of supervision of Qanun as a realization of Central Government authorithy over special autonomy in Nangroe Aceh Darussalam. This research uses analytic descriptive method which gives illustration on scope and opinion of the Central Government supervision over Qanun in Nangroe Aceh Darussalam. This research used juridical normative method as well through legislation approach. This research concludes that for the purpose of supervisory, Central Government may suspend or annul Qanun in the event of contradiction to the related legislation. Preventive supervision is performed on the Regional Government policy which regulates revenue budget and regional expenditure, regional tax, and other regulation that may cause high economical cost.


In the carotenoid biosynthesis pathway, phytoene synthase (PSY) catalyzes the dimerization of two molecules of geranylgeranyl pyrophosphate (GGPP) to phytoene and has been shown to be a rate-limiting enzyme for the synthesis of carotenoids. In this study, a PCR approach was used to isolate a phytoene synthase cDNA from flower of Osmanthus fragrans. It contained a 1314 bp CDS. The predicted protein (49.4 kDa) displayed a sequence of 438 amino acid residues. Phylogenetic analysis demonstrated that the O. fragrans PSY gene (OfPSY) clustered with Gardenia jasminoides, Coffea canephora, Lycium barbarum and Mespilus germanica. Moreover, the OfPSY sequence relates closely with other PSY sequences of higher plants. We detected flower's carotenoid content and analysed OfPSY and carotenoid cleavage dioxygenase genes (OfCCD1 and OfCCD4) in two cultivars of O. fragrans with varied coloration, including O. fragrans "Yingui" (light yellow) and "Dangui" (orange) at different floral stages. We observed that "Dangui" can accumulate carotenoids when OfPSY transcript was already constant, and this showed that the OfPSY does not play a role in the accumulation of total carotenoid in this cultivar. However, the transcripts of OfCCD4 in "Yingui" flower petals were clearly higher than that in "Dangui". This was consistent with the ionone content in "Yingui" flower petals, which was significantly higher than that in "Dangui". This response could contribute to explain the different accumulation of carotenoids in petals of the 2 cultivars.


The electron density profile of a plasma in a magnetospheric dipole field configuration was measured with a multi-chord interferometry including a relativistic correction. In order to improve the accuracy of density reconstruction, a 75 GHz interferometer was installed at a vertical chord of the Ring Trap 1 (RT-1) device in addition to previously installed ones at tangential and another vertical chords. The density profile was calculated by using the data of three-chord interferometry including relativistic effects for a plasma consisting of hot and cold electrons generated by electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECH). The results clearly showed the effects of density peaking and magnetic mirror trapping in a strongly inhomogeneous dipole magnetic field.


We review our work on the use of animated computer graphics for examination of numerical calculations in the theory of ion-atom collisions. The basic tool is given the name hypergram. Geometrical aspects of the wavefunction development during the collision are visualized. A simple model for alignment of excited p-states, originating from the graphics studies, is presented.


"Digitalisation" is the buzzword of many societal as well as social changes. Participation in society is increasingly realized digitally, which is why it is important to be involved in these processes and to participate in the digital world. The UN CRPD also assigns an important role to (digital) technology as a prerequisite for inclusion and participation. Universal design, accessibility, assistive technology, and reasonable accommodation should help to avoid exclusion for people with disabilities. People with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities (PIMD), who often have complex communication needs (CCN) in addition to severe cognitive impairments, have fundamentally limited opportunities for participation. These are also visible in the context of digitalisation. At the same time, digital media also offer specific opportunities, particularly for people with PIMD and CCN. Among other things through the combined use of assistive technologies, digital media can significantly facilitate their daily lives. The present paper examines the significance, requirements and challenges as well as the potentials of digital participation and digital education in the lives of adults with PIMD and CCN and presents considerations for the design of digital education for adults. Finally, a conceptual framework for digital education for people with PIMD is presented.


Recovering a sparse signal from its low-pass projections in the Fourier domain is a problem of broad interest in science and engineering and is commonly referred to as super resolution. In many cases, however, Fourier domain may not be the natural choice. For example, in holography, low-pass projections of sparse signals are obtained in the Fresnel domain. Similarly, time-varying system identification relies on low-pass projections on the space of linear frequency modulated signals. In this paper, we study the recovery of sparse signals from low-pass projections in the Special Affine Fourier Transform domain (SAFT). The SAFT parametrically generalizes a number of well-known unitary transformations that are used in signal processing and optics. In analogy to the Shannon's sampling framework, we specify sampling theorems for recovery of sparse signals considering three specific cases: 1) sampling with arbitrary, bandlimited kernels, 2) sampling with smooth, time-limited kernels, and 3) recovery from Gabor transform measurements linked with the SAFT domain. Our work offers a unifying perspective on the sparse sampling problem which is compatible with the Fourier, Fresnel, and Fractional Fourier domain-based results. In deriving our results, we introduce the SAFT series (analogous to the Fourier series) and the short-time SAFT, and study convolution theorems that establish a convolution–multiplication property in the SAFT domain.


Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a complex psychiatric disorder characterized by the intrusive re-experiencing of past trauma, avoidant behavior, enhanced fear, and hyperarousal following a traumatic event in vulnerable populations. Preclinical animal models do not replicate the human condition in its entirety, but seek to mimic symptoms or endophenotypes associated with PTSD. Although many models of traumatic stress exist, few adequately capture the complex nature of the disorder and the observed individual variability in susceptibility of humans to PTSD. In addition, various types of stressors may produce different molecular neuroadaptations that likely contribute to the various behavioral disruptions produced by each model, although certain consistent neurobiological themes related to PTSD have emerged. For example, animal models report traumatic stress-induced and trauma reminder-induced alterations in neuronal activity in the amygdala and prefrontal cortex, in agreement with the human PTSD literature. Models have also provided a conceptual framework for the often-observed combination of PTSD and comorbid conditions such as alcohol use disorder. Future studies will continue to refine preclinical PTSD models in hope of capitalizing on their potential to deliver new and more efficacious treatments for PTSD and associated psychiatric disorders.


An infulence of asphyxia and central hypercapnia was studied. It was shown that the vagal cardiac baroreflexes are enhanced in these conditions. Central hypercapnia exerts some influence on the investigated reflex independly on the peripheral baroreceptors. Modulation of the reflex during respiratory cycle became lower under conditions of asphyxia despite the marked increase in the respiratory drive. The last fenomen was interpreted on the basis of Zieliński -- Btocki model of the neuron.


In the tridentate ligand 2,6-bis(1-benzyl-1H-1,2,3-triazol-4-yl)pyridine, C(23)H(19)N(7), both sets of triazole N atoms are anti with respect to the pyridine N atom, while in the copper complex aqua[2,6-bis(1-benzyl-1H-1,2,3-triazol-4-yl)pyridine](pyridine)(tetrafluoroborato)copper(II) tetrafluoroborate, [Cu(BF(4))(C(5)H(5)N)(C(23)H(19)N(7))(H(2)O)]BF(4), the triazole N atoms are in the syn-syn conformation. The coordination of the Cu(II) atom is distorted octahedral. The ligand structure is stabilized through intermolecular C-H...N interactions, while the crystal structure of the Cu complex is stabilized through water- and BF(4)-mediated hydrogen bonds. Photoluminiscence studies of the ligand and complex show that the ligand is fluorescent due to triazole-pyridine conjugation, but that the fluorescence is quenched on complexation.


This study was designed to investigate the relationship between self–concept and students' achievement in Mathematics and to find out the predictive strength of self–concept on academic achievement among secondary school students. The sample consisted of 205 girls and 245 boys randomly selected from four girls' schools and four boys' schools in Ekiti State. In order to determine the degree of relationship between students' achievement in Mathematics and self concept, stepwise multiple regression analyses was computed at 0.05 significant levels. The results of the study show that there is a significant relationship between self–concept and Mathematics achievement of secondary school students and that Mathematics achievement could be predicted moderately by self–concept measures. This study seems to have created yet another conflict of result with the common view that self concept and achievement patterns of individuals may be positively and highly correlated. Hence, there is need for counselling programmes both at individual and group level focusing on enhancing emotional and social comfort and the holistic self–concept of college students.


Objective To develop a highly efficient expression T-vector to rapidly clone and express target gene.Methods pcDNA3 plasmids were digested with restriction enzyme EcoR V,the 3' terminal of the linearized plasmids were added a single deoxythymidine(dTTP) by annealing reaction.Enhanced green fluorescent protein gene(EGFP) and Chinese marmot interferon alpha gene(cwIFNA5) were cloned into this T-vector after gene amplification,EGFP and cwIFNA5 were expressed in Siha cells and BHK cells respectively.Results The expression of T-vector was constructed successfully.EGFP and cwIFNA5 were expressed efficiently,and IFN-α possessed high biological activity.Conclusion The expression T-vector not only could be used to clone target gene,but also to highly efficient repress target gene.


To understand the consequences of soil pollution on higher levels of biological organization, the chain of effects of cadmium on several interrelated responses was studied in a chronic toxicity experiment using the collembolan species Folsomia candida (Willem) in an artificial soil. The individual parameters survival, growth, and number of offspring were determined after different time intervals up to 9 weeks. The accumulation of cadmium in springtails and the population increase during the experimental period were also determined. By combining all the mentioned parameters and their development in time, a detailed picture of the action of cadmium on F. candida was obtained. In order of decreasing sensitivity the EC50 values for Von Bertalanffy growth, number of offspring, population increase, and survival were 256, > 326, 475, and 850 micrograms Cd/g dry soil, respectively. The ultimate LC50 value and also the equilibrium body burden were reached after about 20 days. Reproduction started later because of retarded growth, but was not affected directly and eventually reached the control level. The results are discussed in light of the seemingly contradictory ideas of Halbach (1984, Hydrobiologia 109, 79-96) and Meyer et al. (1987, Environ. Toxicol. Chem. 6, 115-126) about the sensitivity of individual and population parameters. It appears to be very important to know how individual parameters develop in time so that the most sensitive parameter and the consequences for higher levels of biological organization can be determined.


Background
Previous studies have hypothesized that intracranial aneurysm (IA) morphology interacts with hemodynamic conditions. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) provides a single image modality solution for both morphological and hemodynamic measurements for IA. This study aimed to explore the interaction between the morphology and hemodynamics of IA using black-blood MRI (BB-MRI) and 4D flow MRI.

Methods
A total of 97 patients with unruptured IA were recruited for this study. The IA size, size ratio (SR), and minimum wall thickness (mWT) were measured using BB-MRI. Velocity, blood flow, pulsatility index (PI), and wall shear stress (WSS) were measured with 4D flow MRI. The relationship between hemodynamic parameters and morphological indices was investigated by linear regression analysis and unpaired two-sample t-test. To determine the independent interaction, multiple linear regression analysis was further performed.

Results
The findings showed that mWT was negatively correlated with IA size (r=-0.665, P<0.001). Maximum blood flow in IA (FlowIA) was positively correlated with IA size (r=0.458, P<0.001). The average WSS (WSSavg) was negatively correlated with IA size (r=-0.650, P<0.001). The relationships remained the same after the multivariate analysis was adjusted for hemodynamic, morphologic, and demographic confounding factors. The WSSavg was positively correlated with mWT (r=0.528, P<0.001). In the unpaired two-sample t-test, mWT, WSSavg, and FlowIA were statistically significantly associated with the size and SR of IAs.

Conclusions
There is potential for BB-MRI and 4D flow MRI to provide morphological and hemodynamic information regarding IA. Blood flow, WSS, and mWT may serve as non-invasive biomarkers for IA assessments, and may contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the mechanism of IA.


Exploring tumor heterogeneity with the goal of improving outcome has led to the need to glean as much information as possible at an individual cell level from these valuable specimens. Traditional approaches to solid tumor analyses fail to reveal the diverse range of cellular compartments beyond tumor cells that comprise the tumor microenvironment. A comprehensive approach to tumor interrogation requires efficient tissue dissociation to facilitate analysis at the single-cell level. Compared to current methods, single-cell analysis of tumor derived cell suspensions by flow cytometry has the potential to provide a more thorough understanding of the many subpopulations within the tumor microenvironment and the cell-to-cell interactions that govern this space. Here, we demonstrate an efficient workflow that enables comprehensive cell analysis of solid tumors from breast cancers. After dissociating human breast cancer biopsies from primary tumors into cell suspension, we analyzed the immune compartment and the cancer/stromal cell compartment by multicolor flow cytometry, using 26 markers. A comprehensive analysis of this data set reveals the heterogeneity within the tumor microenvironment on a phenotypic level, which might have potentially significant correlations to the clinical status and molecular phenotype of the cancer. These results encourage the expansion of the use of flow cytometry as a means of solid tumor biopsy analysis, highlighting the potential clinical value of this approach in disease management. Citation Format: Aaron J. Middlebrook, Peter Llontop, Mary Beth Hanley, Warren Porter, Friedrich Hahn, Eileen Snowden, Rainer Blaesius, Smita Ghanekar. Deep phenotyping of dissociated solid tumor cells from breast cancer specimens. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 2423.


On using the surface treated materials, properties such as corrosion resistance and mechanical properties depend on chemical composition of the surface layer, which are effected strongly by treatment condition and kinds of base metal , The resistance of pitting and Strees Corrosion Cracking (SCC) of SUS 304 in chloride solution was improved remarkably by using Chromize, Application of Cu/Ni composite plating on SUS 304 improved crevice corrosion and SCC, And Ni-Fe-Cr-Mo layer which was produced by diffuision heat treatment after Ni plating on high purity ferritic stainless steel prevented SCC . And resistance of local corrosion was improved by PVD, laser, metalspraying method.


Description of the impact characteristics of different types of balls has a great importance in sport science and in engineering. The primary objective of the present paper is to investigate the effect of the temperature on the impacts of different types of squash balls from a given company. The shots were performed using a self-built air-cannon. The impacts were recorded by a high-speed camera and the recorded videos were analyzed by an image-processing method based on a background subtraction technique. Summarizing the main dynamical parameters, we can conclude that increasing the initial speed will decrease the contact time, the coefficient of restitution (COR) and the rebound resilience, whereas these parameters increase at elevated temperatures. The compression tests revealed that within the low velocity range the deformation of the ball's material and not the compression of the inner gas is the main contribution in the force needed to compress the ball. However, when the ball suffers large deformations, the internal air pressure has a huge effect on the rebound behavior. The measurements revealed that there is an optimal initial velocity distinct from the maximum one where the rebound velocity of the ball is higher than in all other cases. From the results we can state that the ball's overall stiffness grows as the temperature increases.


This report describes a 38-year-old patient with prolactinoma, without adrenal or thyroid insufficiency, with syndrome of inappropriate secretion of vasopressin due to downward resetting of the hypothalamic osmoreceptors. Random measurements of plasma and urine osmolality revealed an inappropriately high urine osmolality for a given plasma osmolality. Simultaneous plasma vasopressin levels were within normal limits. Urine dilution after water load was normal. During infusion of hypertonic saline, the osmotic threshold was demonstrated at plasma osmolality of 267 mosmol/kg, which is markedly lower than the normal 287.3 +/- 3.3 mosmol/kg. Thirst sensation seemed to be intact. The defect in the osmoreceptor function might have been induced by the tumor mass or by chronic hyperprolactinemia.


Abstract : Often turbomachinery airfoils are designed with aerodynamic performance foremost in mind rather than component durability. However, future aircraft systems require ever increasing levels of gas-turbine inlet temperature causing the durability and reliability of turbine components to be an ever more important design concern. As a result, the need to provide improved heat transfer prediction and optimization methods presents itself. Here, an effort to design an airfoil with minimized heat load is reported. First, a Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) flow solver was validated over different flow regimes as well as varying boundary conditions against extensive data available in literature published by the Von Karman Institute (VKI). Next, a nominal turbine inlet vane was tested experimentally for heat load measurements in a shock tube linear cascade with special attention paid to leading edge and suction side characteristics and used to validate the flow solver further at the experimental conditions. The nominal airfoil geometry was then redesigned for minimum heat load by means of both design practice and two types of optimization algorithms. Finally, the new airfoil was tested experimentally and heat load trends were compared to design levels as well as the nominal vane counterpart. Results indicate an appreciable reduction in heat load relative to the original vane computationally and experimentally providing credible evidence to further bolster the practice of preliminary design of turbine components solely with respect to heat transfer using computational models and methods traditionally employed purely by aerodynamicists.


OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to investigate the behavioral intention to use (BIU) regarding a virtual system for practicing instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs) among people with stroke.

METHOD
Fourteen people who had sustained a stroke used a virtual world-based system over four sessions to participate in virtual occupations of preparing meals and putting away groceries. To investigate intention to use the technology, participants responded to a questionnaire based on the Technology Acceptance Model and were interviewed about the experience.

RESULTS
Analysis of questionnaire responses revealed favorable attitudes toward the technology and statistically significant correlations between these attitudes and positive BIU. Analysis of qualitative data revealed four themes to support system use: Use of the affected arm increased, the virtual practice was enjoyable, the technology was user-friendly, and the system reflected real-life activities.

CONCLUSION
This study shows that participants reported a positive BIU for the virtual system for practicing IADLs.


The use of millimeter techniques with lasers has resulted in the stabilization of a laser to an absolute frequency standard. Also, a high resolution infrared spectrometer with the characteristics of a microwave spectrometer has been developed.


The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between student influence, students' strategic approaches to studying and academic achievement, and to examine differences between students in a Master's programme in Engineering with conventional teaching and one based on problem‐based learning in a sample of 268 students. A version of the Approaches and Study Skills Inventory for Students and a questionnaire measuring students' attempts to influence their study environment were used. The results showed that informal strategies for influencing the study environment and academic achievement were related to the strategic approach to studying, and that students in the programme based on problem‐based learning employed more informal and social strategies to influence their studies. These findings indicate that an informal influence strategy is an aspect of the strategic approach to studying, and that problem‐based learning could improve teacher–student relationships, increase the students' involvement and their use of strategic approaches to studying.


Wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) is advantageous for fabricating large-scale metallic components, however, a high geometric accuracy as that of other AM techniques cannot be achieved because of the deposition process with a large layer. This study focuses on the WAAM process based on gas metal arc welding (GMAW). To clarify the in�uence of shielding gas used to protect a molten metal during fabrication on the geometric accuracy of the built part obtained via the GMAW-based WAAM process, the in�uence of the metal transfer behavior on the geometry and surface roughness of the fabricated structures was investigated via visualization using a high-speed camera when single and multilayer depositions were performed under different heat inputs and gases. However, when using Ar gas, the heat �ux from an arc to the workpiece is relatively low, limiting the depth of the molten pool during welding. The effect of its characteristics on the stair steps that are inevitably produced on the side face of the multilayer structure in the WAAM process was veri�ed, and for a heat input of 1.17 kJ/cm under Ar gas, a higher geometric accuracy of the multilayer structure was obtained without interlayer cooling. The short circuit between the metal droplet and the fabricated surface, where the molten pool is insu�ciently formed, resulted in a hump formation. Further, the metal transfer under Ar gas reduced the surface irregularities on the fabricated structure.


The leukemogenic effect of 1-propyl- and 1-butyl-1-nitrosourea (PNU and BNU) was studied in Donryu and Sprague-Dawley rats, which received the chemical in their drinking water. BNU produced leukemia in 42 out of 46 (91%) of the Donryu rats, and the majority of the induced leukemia were myeloblastic type. In the Sprague-Dawley rats, the incidence of leukemia was 70% (47/67), of which 37%(13/35) were myelocytic leukemia, although the development of myeloblastic leukemia was still predominant (54%, 19/35). The leukemogenic activity of PNU was slightly lower than that of BNU; it produced leukemia in 64% (61/95) of the Donryu rats. The predominant type of induced leukemia was myelocytic leukemia (59%, 36/61). Therefore, it was demonstrated through the series of experiments using BNU and PNU that the strength of leukemogenic activity has a close relationship to the types of leukemia induced in animals. Both BNU and PNU, however, provide excellent disease models of myelogeneous leukemia in the human being.


This thesis examines the counterfactuals, both syntactic and structural, of Virgil's Aeneid. These are alternative stories presented by speakers (primary narrator and characters) as conceivable but only partly or not at all materialized; they clash with the more visible story of the fated advent of Rome and Augustus. The purpose of the study is to envisage some alternatives to the Aeneid as readable from the actualization, in some cases already under way, of the counterfactuals scrutinized; these include the universe and the text not starting or collapsing, Troy surviving, the Greeks losing the Trojan war, Aeneas repeatedly failing to carry out his mission, and Turnus defeating him. Virgil's counterfactual language and images are examined in relation to a number of obvious sources as well as developments contemporary to Virgil, as relevant to the individual case: Homer (particularly if not constructions in the Iliad: A would have happened, if not B), pre-Stoic and Stoic studies of conditionals, linguistic changes in Latin (uses of the indicative / subjunctive and coordination / subordination), the practice of comparison between pairs of differently actualized entities in Livy and earlier historians (synkrisis) and political language in Horace. The main strands of modern thought on counterfactuality from logical, linguistic, narratological and psychological viewpoints are also taken into consideration. An attempt has been made to examine all syntactic counterfactuals spoken in the Aeneid, including some but not all cases of possible counterfactuals, such as wishes, and two types of structural counterfactuals: those which become such when characters are saved through the diversion of weapons, and those which depict partial Troys. The different types of analyses have been as far as possible integrated. My conclusion is that Virgil was revealing but also deflecting alternative stories to that of the destiny of Rome and Augustus as well as those of Aeneas' career circulating at the time.


Materialized views (or Automatic Summary Tables—ASTs) are commonly used to improve the performance of aggregation queries by orders of magnitude. In contrast to regular tables, ASTs are synchronized by the database system. In this paper, we present techniques for maintaining cube ASTs. Our implementation is based on IBM DB2 UDB.


The elution characteristics of lead from the printed circuit boards in the MD players were investigated, and it was confirmed that the amount of lead eluted from the printed circuit board using Sn96- Ag2.5-Bi1.0-Cu0.5 solder was smaller than that from the printed circuit board using Sn63-Pb37 solder. The elution of elements (tin, bismuth, silver, copper and lead) from five kinds of lead-free solders and the lead solder were measured under various pseudo-environments (pure water, 3.5 wt% salt solution and pH 3 acid solution) . These results indicated that the amount of each element eluted from several solders was especially large under the acid solution.


We examine the statistical properties of the output signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) of a spatial combiner where the spatial weights used are either the Maximal Ratio Combiner (MRC) weights or the Optimal Combining (Wiener Hopf) weights. The channels are modeled as slow flat Rayleigh fading channels and multiple interferers are assumed present. In particular, the modified F-distribution is introduced to provide an exact characterization of a MRC receiver and to bound the performance of the OC receiver. Simulation results are provided to support the analytical results and to provide insight.


Tobacco is an important cash crop cultivated in rabi season of India. It provides employment to about 36 million people and contributes as much as Rs. 8,000 crores through excise duty and Rs.1362 crores in terms of foreign exchange to the national exchequer. Among the tobacco growing states, particularly FCV, Andhra Pradesh occupied the first place in area and 2nd place in production. Besides to its economic potential and labour absorption area under tobacco (including all types of varieties) has been decreasing significantly. The reasons for declining of tobacco cropped area are mainly diminishing of market prices, high cost of production, decline of tobacco demand and prices in international market etc. in addition to. this, the government policies, particularly, health policies at international level has one of the main reason for the deterioration of tobacco cultivation-in India. Thus adequate knowledge of cost structure of major crops has become essential for providing suitable incentives to the farmers and also assesses the relative competitiveness of respected season in the important tobacco growing states like Andhra Pradesh. In view of this, an attempt has been made in this paper to examine the economics of tobacco compare with other competing crops under different sizes at micro level that is at village level. The field study was conducted during 2007 and 2009 in the selected villages. This study found that the paddy and bengalgram are more profitable crops than the tobacco. In both the villages, an inverse relationship has been found between the size of holding and cost of production in all crops cultivation. At the end it can be concluded that the cultivation of bengalgram and paddy is more lucrative than the tobacco cultivation in the selected villages. At present the central and state governments are planning to discourage tobacco cultivation and its consumption in the health point of view. Thus the government may disseminate the economics of these rabi crops and motivate the farmers to drop the tobacco cultivation slowly. However precaution should be taken to preserve the labour employment as the tobacco is more labour intensive crop than bengalgram and paddy.


In 1947, the United States of America launched the European Recovery Programme to support the post-war reconstruction of Europe. The Marshall Plan, as it became known after U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall, was one of the major success stories of US foreign policy in the twentieth century. The notion of an EU Recovery Programme for Ukraine provoked interest – and division in Ukraine. The enlargement of the EU in 2004 and 2007 demonstrated the EU's capacity to mount grand economic and political projects. However, since then, the EU has faced difficulties exerting influence and constructing a coherent narrative of its role in the European neighbourhood and the wider world. Would a more transformative aid and development programme for its Ukrainian neighbour offer an opportunity for the EU as well as Ukraine? In this article we use a series of elite interviews conducted across Ukraine in 2016-17 to explore how such a notion is understood. We find that Ukrainian elites have mixed feelings about existing EU aid programmes; many respondents resented the conditions the EU imposes, but nor do they want or expect aid to be given unconditionally. Whilst many aspire for Ukraine to reach EU standards of law and prosperity, Ukrainian elites favour self-help in their efforts to forge a stable sovereign state. Both the EU and Russia are understood as metonymies – as standing for two sets of values and geopolitical futures – and neither quite fit what Ukrainians seek. We conclude that whilst a Marshall Plan-style action could have benefits, it is not desired as a basis for a shared narrative and basis of cooperation and development.


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Of all problems confronting the cancer student that of carcinoma of the breast is perhaps of the most far-reaching importance; for nowhere else in the morphology of neoplasms is it so difficult to solve the many knotty problems which confront the clinician. The question would be simple indeed were one able to know whether or not the pathological process was limited to the area of the breast structure. Then and then only is surgery the master treatment. Nevertheless, there are not a few instances where success has followed prompt surgical removal even when one or more chains of lymphatic glands have been found cancerous. Yet how many unfortunate individuals, considered good operable risks, have submitted to careful and scientific surgery only to have rapid metastases supervene. It is in such cases that the keenest clinical knowledge tempered with good judgment is demanded, and this unfortunately is not always to be found when required. There still exists in the minds of many eminent surgeons a difference of opinion as to what constitutes an operable case of carcinoma of the breast. A number of these have freely expressed the opinion that any tumor which could be removed mechanically should be considered operable. It is this point which the writer desires to emphasize, for he believes that if the error of this attitude received more open medical discussion, it would result in fewer useless operations.


Background The present study aimed to evaluate the effect of nanocurcumin and curcumin on liver transaminases, lipid profile, oxidant and antioxidant system, and pathophysiological changes in aluminium phosphide (ALP) induced hepatoxicity. Material and Methods. In this experimental study, thirty-six male Wistar rats were randomly divided into six groups curcumin (Cur), nanocurcumin (Nanocur), ALP, ALP+Cur, and ALP+Nanocur. All treatments were performed by oral gavage for seven days. After treatment, animals were sacrificed, and liver and blood samples were taken. Serum levels of aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine transaminase (ALT), alkaline phosphatase (AP), total bilirubin, cholesterol, triglyceride, high-density lipoprotein (HDL), low-density lipoprotein (LDL), and very-low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) were measured by photometric methods. Total antioxidant capacity (TAC) and malondialdehyde (MDA) as parameters of oxidative stress and mRNA expression of the nonenzyme protein including Sirtuin 1 (STR1), Forkhead box protein O1 (FOXO1) and protein O3 (FOXO3), catalase (CAT), and glutathione peroxidase (GPX) as the enzyme protein in homogenized tissues have been investigated. A histologist analyzed liver tissue sections after staining with hematoxylin-eosin. Results In the aluminium phosphide group, there was a significant increase in MDA, ALT, AST, and AP and total bilirubin, cholesterol, triglyceride, LDL, and VLDL; AST, ALT, total bilirubin, LDL, VLDL, cholesterol, and MDA were significantly decreased; and HDL and TAC were significantly increased compared to ALP (P < 0.05). In the ALP+Nanocur group, ALT, AST, ALP, total bilirubin, cholesterol, LDL, VLDL, triglyceride, and MDA were significantly decreased and HDL and TAC were increased significantly (P < 0.05). The effect of nanocurcumin on controlling serum levels of LDL, VLDL, triglyceride, and MDA in ALP-poisoned rats was significantly more than curcumin (P < 0.05). The ALP group had significant changes in genes SIRT1, FOXO1a, FOXO3a, CAT, and GPX compared to healthy controls (P < 0.05). Nanocurcumin mice expressed more SIRT1, FOXO1a, CAT, and GPX genes than controls, and curcumin-treated mice expressed more SIRT1 and FOXO1a genes (P < 0.05). Histopathological findings also indicated a more significant protective effect of nanocurcumin relative to curcumin against ALP-induced hepatotoxicity. Conclusion Nanocurcumin significantly protects the liver against aluminum phosphide toxicity. It is suggested that nanocurcumin-based drugs be developed to reduce the toxic effects of ALP in poisoned patients.


Presently, the difficulty in managing illumination over the face recognition techniques and smooth filters has emerged as one of the biggest challenges. This is due to differences between face images created by illuminations which are always bigger than the inter-person that usually be used for identities' recognition. No doubt, the use of illumination technique for face recognition is much more popular with a greater number of users in various applications in these days. It is able to make applications that come with face recognition as a non-intrusive biometric feature becoming executable and utilizable. There are tremendous efforts put in developing the illumination and face recognition by which numerous methods had already been introduced. However, further considerations are required such as the deficiencies in comprehending the sub-spaces in illuminations pictures, intractability in face modelling as well as the tedious mechanisms of face surface reflections as far as face recognition and illumination concerned. In this study, few illuminations have been analyzed in order to construct the taxonomy. This covers the background and previous studies in illumination techniques as well the image-based face recognition over illumination. Data was obtained from the year of 1996 through 2014 out of books, journals as well as electronic sources that would share more on the advantageous and disadvantageous, the current technique's performance as well as future plan.


ABSTRACT Worldwide carbon dioxide emissions continue to increase driven by fossil fuel consumption and industrial discharges. Progress on carbon emission reduction requires firms to adopt clean technologies which minimize material and energy consumption. Technological change is particularly required in developing countries, where industrial emissions often lead to chronic urban pollution problems. In this study, we explore the antecedents of clean technology strategy by firms in developing countries. We combine the contingent natural resource-based view with the relational view to examine how network embeddedness, market incentives and slack resources influence adoption of clean technology. The empirical support for our hypotheses comes from data obtained from 342 firms that operated in the carbon-offset market during the years 2007 to 2009. We find that a firm's relational network structure influences adoption of clean technologies, particularly when market incentives are low. Contrary to one of the hypotheses, the results of our paper suggest a negative relationship between a firm's slack resources and its clean technology strategy. Our study highlights the benefits of networks in fostering adoption of clean technology in developing countries. Furthermore, we find that high market incentives (carbon price) decrease the probability of clean technology adoption, so adding to the view that firms respond to carbon-offset rules to realize high carbon revenues at the lowest cost. Key policy insights High market incentives (carbon price) decrease the probability that firms in developing countries will adopt clean technology. This adds to concerns about the capability of the Clean Development Mechanism to deliver sustainable development. Even where market incentives are low, firms in developing countries are more likely to adopt clean technologies when they are embedded in a closed network of connected partners. To stimulate adoption of clean technology in developing countries, policy makers should focus on initiatives to facilitate partnerships between organizations operating in the carbon market and create opportunities for knowledge sharing and learning. By changing the policy focus to networks of organizations, the carbon market can bring about positive change in terms of shifting the firm behaviour.


The newly formed corpus luteum of many species is refractory to the lytic action of prostaglandin F2alpha (PGF2alpha). This phenomenon was studied utilizing porcine, bovine and human granulosa-luteal cells in tissue culture. The steroidogenic potential of the granulosa-luteal cells was critical in determining whether PGF2alpha could inhibit progesterone production. Since the steroidogenic potential of the granulosa-luteal cell is related to the amount of LH bound to the cell, the bound LH may protect the granulosa-luteal cells from the lytic action of PGF2alpha. Finally, a 'see-saw' type of interaction between LH and PGF2alpha is postulated to account for the resistance of the newly formed corpus luteum to PGF2alpha.


INTRODUCTION: Excessive maternal gestational weight gain (GWG) is a risk factor for maternal and fetal complications. The lipid profile changes physiologically during pregnancy. Weight gain can affect lipid metabolism. The hypothesis of the study was that apoB levels early in pregnancy are associated with excessive GWG and predictive for adverse outcomes. METHODS: Out of 547 patients there were 95 women with inadequate GWG, 171 with adequate GWG, and 281 with excessive GWG. Out of 581 patients there were 14 patients with pregnancy-induced hypertonus/pre-eclampsia, 67 with small-for-gestational-age (SGA) infants, and 7 with fetal growth restriction (FGR). ApoB levels were measured by ELISA. RESULTS: There was no significant difference in apoB levels between the different GWG groups. We found significantly higher levels of apoB in overweight and obese patients compared to those with normal BMI. Smoking was correlated with higher apoB levels. There were no differences either between women with PIH/PE and normotensive women or between SGA/IUGR and pregnancies without. Women with pre-existing hypertension showed significantly higher apoB levels than the control group. CONCLUSIONS: ApoB cannot be used as a marker for identifying the risk of excessive GWG or adverse pregnancy outcomes early in pregnancy. However, it may be involved in the pathophysiology of adverse pregnancy outcomes in high-risk patients.


Background: This pilot study was used to evaluate safety and subjective outcomes in a small series of Peyronie's disease patients using a combination of autologous stromal vascular fraction (SVF) and penile shock wave treatments. SVF can be procured and deployed into Peyronie's plaques, enabling the surgeons to procure and mobilize significant numbers of both adult mesenchymal stem cells and antiinflammatory cytokines released from the adipose collagen matrix after collagen digestion. Penile shock wave therapy stimulates targeted tissues and may activate stem cells found in the SVF and promote healing and fibrosis mitigation. Methods: SVF isolated from lipoaspirate was deployed by injection into 11 patients with Peyronie's plaques in combination with a series of shock wave treatments. Subjective outcomes tests performed at baseline and at 6 months included the Erectile Hardness Grading Score and the Peyronie's Disease Questionnaire (Questions 1–6). Results: All patients noted subjective improvement in curvature and subjective reduction in plaque size. Seven patients reported improvement in erectile function. Mean Erectile Hardness Grading Score increased from 2.7 to 3.5, and mean Peyronie's Disease Questionnaire scores decreased from 15.0 to 8.7. Conclusions: SVF is known to have scar mitigation, antiinflammatory, immunomodulatory, and regenerative effects, and it has been used for a variety of conditions on an investigational basis. SVF containing mesenchymal stem cells can be procured in a closed surgical system from lipoaspirate in a same-day setting and deployed directly into Peyronie's plaques in combination with penile shock wave therapy resulting in plaque mitigation.


Given the breach of trust that the justice system in Portugal is facing, it is fundamental to analyse the reasons why the judicial system is considered inefficient. This study contributes to the identification of the underlying factors that contribute most to the inefficiency of justice in Portugal by analysing the frequency of the most relevant contents enunciated by the participants. The survey consists of two parts: the first consists of the following socio-demographic variables: occupation, region, age, gender and remuneration; the second consists of an open question, to which participants can state which factors contribute most to the ineffectiveness of justice in Portugal. The answers obtained were submitted to a content analysis with the aim of identifying the content underlying the inefficiency of justice in Portugal, with 18 subcategories emerging according to the contents expressed by the participants. In this way, the way above all of simplification, justice will go to what really matters: efficiency, celerity and transparency.


Applications such as real-time animation and scientific visualization demand high performance for rendering complex 3D abstract data models into 2D images. As large applications migrate to highly parallel supercomputers, how can we exploit the available parallelism to keep the rendering on the supercomputer? To answer this question, we developed a parallel polygon renderer for general-purpose MIMD distributed-memory message-passing systems. It exploits object-level and image-level parallelism, and can run on systems containing from one processor to a number bounded by the number of scan lines in the resulting image. Unlike earlier approaches, ours multiplexes the transformation and rasterization phases on the same machine. This reduces memory usage and network contention, and overlaps computation and communication.<<ETX>>


ABSTRACT Factors contributing to sleep timing and sleep restriction in daily life include chronotype and less flexibility in times available for sleep on scheduled days versus free days. There is some evidence that these two factors interact, with morning types and evening types reporting similar sleep need, but evening types being more likely to accumulate a sleep debt during the week and to have greater sleep extension on weekend nights. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the independent contributions of circadian phase and weekend-to-weekday variability to sleep timing in daily life. The study included 14 morning types and 14 evening types recruited from a community-based sample of New Zealand adults (mean age 41.1 ± 4.7 years). On days 1–15, the participants followed their usual routines in their own homes and daily sleep start, midpoint and end times were determined by actigraphy and sleep diaries. Days 16–17 involved a 17 h modified constant routine protocol in the laboratory (17:00 to 10:00, <20 lux) with half-hourly saliva samples assayed for melatonin. Mixed model ANCOVAs for repeated measures were used to investigate the independent relationships between sleep start and end times (separate models) and age (30–39 years versus 40–49 years), circadian phase [time of the dim light melatonin onset (DLMO)] and weekday/weekend schedules (Sunday–Thursday nights versus Friday–Saturday nights). As expected on weekdays, evening types had later sleep start times (mean = 23:47 versus 22:37, p < .0001) and end times (mean = 07:14 versus 05:56, p < .0001) than morning types. Similarly on weekend days, evening types had later sleep start times (mean = 00:14 versus 23:07, p = .0032) and end times (mean = 08:56 versus 07:04, p < .0001) than morning types. Evening types also had later DLMO (22:06 versus 20:46, p = .0002) than morning types (mean difference = 80.4 min, SE = 18.6 min). The ANCOVA models found that later sleep start times were associated with later DLMO (p = .0172) and weekend-to-weekday sleep timing variability (p < .0001), after controlling for age, while later sleep end times were associated with later DLMO (p = .0038), younger age (p = .0190) and weekend days (p < .0001). Sleep end times showed stronger association with DLMO (for every 30 min delay in DLMO, estimated mean sleep end time occurred 14.0 min later versus 10.19 min later for sleep start times). Sleep end times also showed greater delays on weekends versus weekdays (estimated mean delay for sleep end time = 84 min, for sleep start time = 28 min). Comparing morning types and evening types, the estimated contributions of the DLMO to the mean observed differences in sleep timing were on weekdays, 39% for sleep start times and 49% for sleep end times; and on weekends, 41% for sleep start times and 34% of sleep end times. We conclude that differences in sleep timing between morning types and evening types were much greater than would be predicted on the basis of the independent contribution of the difference in DLMO on both weekdays and weekend days. The timing of sleep in daily life involves complex interactions between physiological and psychosocial factors, which may be moderated by age in adults aged 30–49 years.


Gradually, anchor is in the working state of tension, but its stress becomes rather complicated when influenced by some external factors such as water, ground loads, etc. Aiming at the problems that ground additional load or coupling action of water and the additional load are forced on soil slope, the axial strain distributions of anchor tendons were obtained by model test. The change rules of axial strain at anchor head, near to slip plane, and end of the anchorage were analyzed respectively. The results show that under ground loads, the strain of anchor is biggest at the anchor head, and it gradually decreases from outer to inner. Under combined water and ground load, the stress state of the anchor system changes from tension to bending, and the upper anchors are most urgently affected. The experimental results can supply a reference for design and research of soil anchor with similar conditions.


This paper presents the development of a Body Sensor Network, called the meditBSN, for health monitoring applications. It is designed around a MSP430F1611 micr meditBSN ocontroller and a CC1101 433 MHz ISM band transceiver IC. A Bioimpedance Spectroscopy measurement condition monitoring application has been developed using the meditBSN. It incorporates three 3-D accelerometers and a skin temperature probe. Additionally, a PDA software was developed to control BIS measurements as well as to analyze and save the data from the meditBSN.