The relationships between family and social support and early mother–child bonds are explored in two different cultural contexts with ten at-risk families with children under five years of age. Five families in the United States attended a family center program; five families in Ireland utilized a home visiting program. The experiences and perspectives of the ten participants inform the study. The findings of this study are rooted in the unique cultural contexts of the two family support programs and the ten participants' individual meanings, experiences, and understandings. A qualitative case study approach is used. In-depth interviews, observations, surveys, videotaping, and document analysis are the primary research methods used. From these data, the findings are presented using descriptions and contextual details to compile portraits of the participants' experiences and perspectives. Member checks and peer debriefing established trustworthiness. The case study findings suggest positive relationships between family social support and parent–child bonds. The social-support programs provided emotional support to families including non-judgmental relationships, opportunities to network and talk, and parenting models. Relationships and interactions with staff and other mothers helped to relieve their depression, reduce their sense of social isolation, foster communication, and provide social networks that positively affected maternal sensitivities and responsiveness to their children.


Using systematically a tricky idea of N.V. Krylov, we obtain general results on the rate of convergence of a certain class of monotone approximation schemes for stationary Hamilton-JacobiBellman equations with variable coefficients. This result applies in particular to control schemes based on the dynamic programming principle and to finite difference schemes despite, here, we are not able to treat the most general case. General results have been obtained earlier by Krylov for finite difference schemes in the stationary case with constant coefficients and in the time-dependent case with variable coefficients by using control theory and probabilistic methods. In this paper we are able to handle variable coefficients by a purely analytical method. In our opinion this way is far simpler and, for the cases we can treat, it yields a better rate of convergence than Krylov obtains in the variable coefficients case. Mathematics Subject Classification. 65N06, 65N15, 41A25, 49L20, 49L25. Received: September 11, 2001.


This research investigates the microbial and physicochemical characteristics of five local hand dug wells used for drinking and agricultural activities in Blama, Small-Bo Chiefdom, in the Kenema District, Eastern Province of Sierra Leone. These five local hand-dug wells were randomly selected based on the availability of water in them throughout the year. The physical characteristics examined are: pH, turbidity, conductivity, temperature, total dissolve solid (TDS); and the chemical characteristics, such as: Residual chlorine (R. Chorine), magnesium, potassium, nitrite, iron, fluoride, ammonia, copper; and the microbial characteristics include: Total coliforms, fecal coliform and non-fecal coliform. Samples were collected in 500 ml sterilized plastic containers and transported to the laboratory, within 30 min. The results analysed indicate that the physical and chemical characteristic are within the WHO guideline limits for safe drinking water. However, a large amount of non-Faecal coliform was recorded in all the water samples analysed which exceed the World Health Organization standard for non-faecal coliform ((<10), and with no presence of residual chlorine. It can therefore be concluded that the water sample analyzed was potable and fit for drinking and agricultural activities.


Abstract:  The histologic findings of confluent and reticulated papillomatosis include papillomatosis, hyperkeratosis, and minimal or no acanthosis. We present a patient with the clinical findings of confluent and reticulated papillomatosis who responded dramatically to azithromycin, but histologic examination did not reveal papillomatosis. We observed invagination of basket‐weave hyperkeratosis through the epidermis. We considered this finding may give a clue for the diagnosis of confluent and reticulated papillomatosis.


In this study, we examined changes in attachment style as measured by the Relationship Scales Questionnaire before and after six weeks of intensive group psychotherapy. We also investigated whether changes in attachment style were associated with changes in interpersonal functioning. Results indicated that participants showed increases in secure attachment and decreases in fearful attachment and, to a lesser degree, preoccupied attachment styles. Change was not found in the dismissive attachment style. Changes in Secure and/or Fearful (but not Preoccupied) attachment styles were related to changes in interpersonal functioning on seven of the eight subscales of the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems. Overall findings suggest intensive group psychotherapy programs show promise for reducing attachment pathology and improving interpersonal functioning. Assessing differential responsiveness to psychotherapy may help us align our interventions to better address differing attachment styles through modifications in focus and approach.


A theory of steady state, saturated, convective currents is presented which includes the transfer of heat and momentum by lateral diffusion as well as the systematic entrainment of environmental air. The system of equations governing the behavior of such convective currents is derived and numerically integrated for a variety of initial and environmental conditions. In agreement with basic physical principles, it is found that the cloud height, mass, vertical velocity, temperature excess over the environment, and liquid water content all increase with increasing (a) initial temperature, (b) environmental relative humidity, and (c) environmental lapse rate; but all decrease as the diffusion coefficient increases. Also the cloud height, vertical velocity, temperature excess, and liquid water content increase with increasing initial velocity: however, the total mass of air decreases with increasing initial velocity, reflecting a lower rate of entrainment. Even with frictional drag in the form of momentum loss by diffusion, the updraft overshoots the level of zero buoyancy in the upper part of the cloud, giving rise to cloud temperatures at the cloud top which may be several degrees colder than the environment. When applied to an upper-air sounding taken near the time and location of a thunderstorm, the model gives the right order of magnitude for the cloud height, vertical velocity, and temperature excess over environment for a diffusion coefficient of k, = .OOI sec-l. While the life cycle of a convective cloud is certainly not a steady-state phenomenom, the theory probably affords a fair approximation of the convective cloud during the updraft stage.


Abstract South Africa's private sector is vital to rhino conservation yet there is a lack of research into the attitudes of current and potential rhino owners towards rhino conservation and horn trade. We surveyed 169 members of the South African private wildlife ranching industry to examine these matters. We sought to understand: (1) ranchers' motivations for owning or not owning rhinos, (2) how rhino ownership affects ranchers' income and operations, and (3) the attitudes of wildlife industry members towards legalization of global rhino horn trade. Our findings indicate that all respondents recognize the risks of rhino ownership and tend to distrust national and provincial environmental departments. In addition to these concerns, rhino owners have substantial monthly security and management expenditures. We found positive attitudes overall towards global rhino horn trade. Rhino owners strongly agreed that legalization would benefit rhino owners and rhino conservation. Documenting the realities of private rhino ownership and the opinions of the wildlife industry is important for policy design and for informed debate about the legalization of the rhino horn trade.


Experiments were conducted to evaluate the possibilities of using treated wastewater for the production of unreinforced concrete blocks. Compressive strength, water absorption and morphology tests of concrete blocks, produced from different makeups of mixing water, drinking water, drinking water spiked with ammonium and phosphate, and the effluent of the city's wastewater treatment plant, were evaluated. Results showed that the compressive strength of blocks manufactured using treated wastewater was as high as of the blocks produced using drinking water. Ammonium, phosphate and chlorine were found not to have a negative effect on the strength of the blocks. Water absorption tests confirmed the results of the compressive strength, as lower humidity was found in cases of higher strength. In the process of cement hydration, crystals of calcium silicate and calcium hydroxide were observed by morphology tests. From the variability in the results, it could be concluded that the quality of the mixing water was not the only factor that influenced the strength of the unreinforced concrete blocks. The observed differences in strength could, for example, also be attributed to the manufacturing process.


A patient experienced a complication of vascular access device insertion, and his family brought charges of malpractice against the nurses and physicians involved in his care. Nurses can reduce the likelihood of being named in a lawsuit by maintaining clinical competency; communicating effectively; adhering to policies, procedures, and standards of care; and thoroughly documenting care.


In the nuclear power plant, emergency core coolant system (ECCS) is furnished at reactor coolant system (RCS) in order to cool down high temperature water in case of emergency. However, in this coolant system, thermal stratification phenomenon can occur due to coolant leaking in the check valve. The thermal stratification produces excessive thermal stresses at the pipe wall so as to yield thermal fatigue crack (TFC) accident. In the present study, effects of turbulence penetration on the thermal stratification into T-branches with square cross-section in the modeled ECCS are analysed numerically. Standard k-e model is employed to calculate the Reynolds stresses in momentum equations. Results show that the length and strength of thermal stratification are primarily affected by the leak flow rate of coolant and the Reynolds number of duct. Turbulence penetration into the T-branch of ECCS shows two counteracting effects on the thermal stratification. Heat transport by turbulence penetration from main duct to leaking flow region may enhance thermal stratification while the turbulent diffusion may weaken it.


IntroductionThe North Korean economy has been deteriorating since the 1990s because of food, energy, and raw material shortages, which were mainly driven by the disinteDepartment gration of the Soviet Union and the end of its economic assistance to North Korea.1 Although food shortages have symbolized North Korea's economic crisis, energy shortages have had a more direct impact on its economy. Energy shortages have damaged the operational capability of the country's industries, particularly its heavy industry,2 and crippled its agricultural sector by limiting the supply of chemical fertilizers (which are critical to the sector's production outcome), resulting in grain shortages.3Making matters worse, a number of natural disasters, including floods, droughts, and hailstorms, devastated the country in the mid-1990s. The economic crisis, combined with natural disasters, led to the collapse of the country's food-rationing system, which had played a key role in providing North Koreans with basic necessities, and this collapse in turn led to mass starvation. It is known that a large number of North Koreans died of starvation during this period and that many escaped to China and other countries. When the food-rationing system worked well, it was the main source of food and basic necessities for North Koreans; markets played only a minor role in the public distribution system. However, once the rationing system became dysfunctional, markets became the main distribution channel. Further, when the economic crisis continued, markets spread to all of North Korean society, and market-related rules and norms followed.The ongoing economic crisis has not only changed the North Korean economy as a whole but also had considerable influence on the development of the country's industrial enterprises. Because of the lack of energy and raw materials, the North Korean government no longer establishes economic plans. Instead, it has prioritized its limited resources for some strategic industries (e.g., the munitions industry) and distributed them mainly to enterprises of strategic importance,4 leaving enterprises in light industry and other less important sectors to survive on their own. Currently, various markets provide North Koreans with most of the items that the state-controlled public distribution system used to provide, and newly emerging private enterprises have been playing a key role in such markets. Private enterprises, despite being illegal, have become an integral part of North Korean society, and thus, the government would have considerable difficulty in prohibiting their commercial activity.Private enterprises are very different from collective enterprises, which used to be the primary actor in the socialist economy, in terms of their goals and management. Private enterprises pursue profits, hire workers, and sell products in markets that are not controlled by the state. Further, they follow market rules and norms. The purpose of this paper is to examine newly emerging private enterprises in North Korea-that is, shadowy private enterprises (SPEs)-by focusing on their activities. To analyze SPEs' roles and status in the North Korean economy, this paper takes the institutionalist perspective. In particular, the paper employs the concept of institutional entrepreneurship that some institutionalists have developed based on new institutionalism.Institutional Entrepreneurs and Shadowy Private Enterprises in North KoreaInstitutionalists examine not only institutional continuity but also the possibility of institutional change. Whereas the former is the very essence of institutionalism, the latter has relatively received little attention. Institutions, however, are not as stable as some institutional theorists claim.5 As a set of heterogeneous elements (not a single and coherent set), the institutional order tends to hold potential tension within itself because heterogeneous institutional elements established in different historical periods carry different interests and identities. …


The purpose of the article is an examination of plus trees clones based on growth study in the seed orchard. The studied clones differ with the characteristics of growth. The perspective clones were selected by using an integrated examination.


Much emphasis within Marxist political ecology has focused on the social production of nature. Less attention, however, has been paid to the ways in which an emergent, material nature is an actor in the dialectic of its own appropriation. This paper examines the attempt to capitalize, under simultaneous processes of production and consumption, two proximate yet different Minnesota lakes. Lakes Elysian and Frances represent biophysical nature as process. Yet, their contrasting apparent states of permanence emerge from their dynamic relationships with agriculture, further affecting residential construction on their shores and lake association politics. Information collected from lakes surveys conducted by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and personal interviews with lakes association members provide insight into relational processes that influence the appearance of these lakes. Using this investigation, efforts can be made to resist discourses and practices that reify the existence of "green" lakes as inevitable. It is suggested, then, that a new politics of lakes management should be mediated that is less dependent upon their capitalization.


With the rapid evolution of metaverse technologies, numerous metaverse applications have arisen for various purposes and scenarios. This makes interoperability across metaverses becomes one of the fundamental technology enablers in the metaverse space. The aim of interoperability is to provide a seamless experience for users to interact with metaverses. However, the development of cross-metaverse interoperability is still in its initial stage in both industry and academia. In this paper, we review the state-of-the-art cross-metaverse interoperability schemes. These schemes are designed for specific interoperating scenarios and do not generalize for all types of metaverses. To this end, we propose MetaOpera, a generalized cross-metaverse interoperability protocol. By connecting to the MetaOpera, users, and objects in metaverses that rely on centralized servers or decentralized blockchains are able to interoperate with each other. We also develop a proof-of-concept implementation for MetaOpera, evaluate its performance, and compare it with a state-of-the-art cross-metaverse scheme based on Sidechains. Simulation results demonstrate that the size of cross-metaverse proof and the average time of cross-metaverse transactions using the proposed solution are respectively about eight times and three times smaller than the Sidechains scheme. This paper also suggests a number of open issues and challenges faced by cross-metaverse interoperability that may inspire future research.


Objectives: The objective of this study was to make a qualitative comparison between tracheoesophageal speech with manual stoma occlusion and handsfree tracheoesophageal speech with the Provox FreeHands device. Patients/Materials and Methods: Both manual and handsfree tracheoesophageal speech were compared in 13 patients who were regular users of Provox FreeHands for at least four months. Evaluation of speech material consisted of objective analysis using the KayPentax CSL, perceptual ratings by a group of experienced listeners and patients own perceptual judgment. In addition, data concerning user-friendliness, additional values and inconveniences of the FreeHands device were gathered using questionnaires. The Voice Handicap Index (VHI) was used to evaluate the relation between voice related QOL and method of stoma occlusion. Therefore a control group of TE-speakers, who did not use handsfree speech, was selected. Results: Objective analysis revealed significant differences (p< 0.05) for parameters fluency (i.e. the number of syllables produced on one intake of breath) and maximal phonation time, to the detriment of handsfree speech. There were no significant differences found for the dynamic characteristics Perceptual judgments of running speech were rated higher in the manual occlusion condition for most patients, but there were interrater differences. Subjective impressions showed that the majority of patients preferred handsfree speech to manual stoma occlusion, noticeably for voice quality, fatigability, attractiveness and feelings of self-confidence. Major inconveniences of handsfree speech were a significantly decreased duration of sticker adhesion, the occurrence of disturbing noises and the need for continued effort. The VHI scores were significantly higher in the group of handsfree speakers compared to the control group. Evidence--based Voice and Speech Rehabilitation in Head and Neck Cancer (Invitational Round Table) Amsterdam, The Netherlands May 15--16, 2008 ISCAArchive http://www.isca-speech.org/archive


In this Letter, we report on the experimental characterization of the geometry of short-lived electronically excited states in organic solids by time-resolved x-ray diffraction. Here, the structure factor of the organic crystal is measured as a function of time. Since this technique gives complete structural information, it is a very useful tool for learning more about atom motions on the excited-state energy surface-"beyond" the broad band typical of conventional spectroscopy. Although we used molecular crystals rather than free molecules, the compounds show detectable transient structural changes on the ps to ns time scale in our study.


The lowest empty orbitals of the ground state of free ammonia, 4a1 and 2e, are quite diffuse Rydberg-type orbitals. Thus, one might expect that involvement of these orbitals in the final hole states would not lead to additional structure in the N1s core hole photoemission spectra of the adsorbed molecule. Model calculations on NiNH3 clusters show, however, that in the presence of the N1s core hole Rydberg orbitals can lead to a screening mechanism similar to the one proposed by Schonhammer and Gunnarsson for adsorbed CO and N2. In NiNH3 the different final states are similar in intensity and are separated by 1-1.5 eV. The XPS data for the NH3/Ni (110) system show a broad asymmetric N1s peak which, from the present study, can be interpreted as a superposition of at least two peaks stemming from unscreened and Rydberg screened final states of the core hole.


Proposes an objective criterion for determining if, given a specific circuit technology, a gate model is suitable for synthesis and verification. This is based on relating the analog circuit behavior to the digital model behavior using a formal definition of implementation. We illustrate the type of design errors which occur when the criterion is not satisfied, and introduce a gate model designed to satisfy the criterion.<<ETX>>


High rates of seed removal can impede forest recovery, but tropical seed removal studies are few and mainly from the neotropics. Little is known about the comparative influences of active restoration (i.e. planting) and passive restoration (i.e. protection of natural regrowth) on seed removal. We conducted an evaluation of seed removal in grasslands, natural forests (tropical moist semideciduous forest), and actively (21‐, 17‐, 16‐, 11‐, 8‐, and 6‐year‐old) and passively (21‐year‐old) restored forests in Kibale National Park, Uganda. We wanted to compare the effect of vegetation type, time since restoration and restoration actions (i.e. active vs. passive) on removal of seeds of five animal‐dispersed tree species during wet and dry seasons. Seeds were either fully exposed or placed in closed mesh cages or under a mesh roof. We used differential removal rates between these treatments to attribute seed removal to different animal taxa. Seed removal rate (percentage of seed removed over a 4‐day period) was highest in passively restored forests, compared with actively restored forests, grasslands, and natural forests. We detected no significant relationship between time since restoration and seed removal rates within actively restored sites. Seed removal rate from roofed treatments was not significantly different from removal from open treatments but was significantly higher than removal from closed treatments, which we interpret as reflecting the greater effect of small mammals versus insects. Smaller seeds tended to be removed at a greater rate than larger seeds. We discuss the implications of these findings for forest regeneration.


Anode materials with excellent properties have become the key to develop sodium-ion hybrid capacitors (SIHCs) that combine the advantages of both batteries and capacitors. Amorphous modulation is an effective strategy to realize high energy/power density in SIHCs. Herein, atomically amorphous Nb-O/N clusters with asymmetric coordination are in situ created in N-doped hollow carbon shells (Nb-O/N@C). The amorphous clusters with asymmetric Nb-O3 /N1 configurations have abundant charge density and low diffusion energy barriers, which effectively modulate the charge transport paths and improve the reaction kinetics. The clusters are also enriched with unsaturated vacancy defects and isotropic ion-transport channels, and their atomic disordering exhibits high structural stress buffering, which are strong impetuses for realizing bulk-phase-indifferent ion storage and enhancing the storage properties of the composite. Based on these features, Nb-O/N@C achieves notably improved sodium-ion storage properties (reversible capacity of 240.1 mAh g-1 at 10.0 A g-1 after 8000 cycles), and has great potential for SIHCs (230 Wh Kg-1 at 4001.5 W Kg-1 ). This study sheds new light on developing high-performance electrodes for sodium-ion batteries and SIHCs by designing amorphous clusters and asymmetric coordination.


One of the elementary processes in quantum magnetism is the propagation of spin excitations. Here we study the quantum dynamics of a deterministically created spin-impurity atom, as it propagates in a one-dimensional lattice system [1]. We probe the spatial probability distribution of the impurity at different times using single-site-resolved imaging of bosonic atoms in an optical lattice. In the Mott-insulating regime, the quantum-coherent propagation of a magnetic excitation in the Heisenberg model can be observed using a post-selection technique. Extending the study to the superfluid regime of the bath, we quantitatively determine how the bath affects the motion of the impurity, showing evidence of polaronic behaviour. The experimental data agree with theoretical predictions, allowing us to determine the effect of temperature on the impurity motion. Our results provide a new approach to studying quantum magnetism, mobile impurities in quantum fluids and polarons in lattice systems.


Bacteria are able to cope with the challenges of sudden increase of salinity by activating adaptation mechanisms. In this study, exponentially growing cells of the food-borne pathogen Bacillus cereus ATCC 14579 were exposed to both mild (2.5% NaCl w/v) and severe (5% NaCl w/v) salt stress conditions. B. cereus continued growth at a reduced rate when shifted to mild salt stress. Exposure to severe salt stress resulted in a lag period, and after 60 min cellular growth was resumed filamentously. Whole-genome expression analyses of cells exposed to 2.5% salt stress revealed an overlap with that of cells exposed to 5% salt stress, suggesting that the corresponding genes (n = 147) were involved in a general salt stress response. Up-regulation of osmolyte, Na+/H+ and di-/tripeptide transporters and activation of an oxidative stress response were important aspects of this general salt stress response. Activation of this response may confer cross-protection towards other stresses, and increased resistance to heat and H2O2 was indeed observed. Notably, a temporal shift was observed between the observed transcriptome and phenotype responses of severely salt-stressed cells including cellular filamentation, reduced chemotaxis performance, catalase activity and optimal oxidative stress resistance. The linkage of transcriptomes and phenotypic characteristics can contribute to a better understanding of cellular stress adaptation strategies and possible cross protection mechanisms.


Nowadays, trade liberalization is considered as development strategy policy to increase economic growth and reduce poverty in many countries, particularly in developing countries. It is reported that Indonesia has been actively joining many trade agreements in order to ease the distribution of goods and services to other countries. Hence, this study analyses the impact of trade liberalization on poverty reduction by using an Ordinary Least Square (OLS) method from 1984 to 2017. The Trade Openness Ratio (TOR) is used as a dependent variable in order to measure trade liberalization. Other variables such as GDP, exchange rate and labor force are considered as control variables. The empirical result shows that TOR and labor force have a positive impact on poverty, whereas GDP and exchange rate have a negative impact. This finding is different with previous researches, particularly where trade liberalization has been negatively affecting poverty. Such a result is justifiable because Indonesian firms are not ready to compete with foreign firms where high competitiveness exist.


This paper investigates the effects of China's New Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS) on health outcomes and health care expenditure of the elderly in rural China, using panel data from the 2005 and 2008 waves of the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey. We employ a strategy that combines propensity score matching with a difference-in-differences approach to address selection bias. We show for the first time in the literature that the NCMS has significantly improved the health status of the elderly enrollees. The beneficial health effects of the NCMS can be attributed to more adequate health care utilization among the insured. However, there is no evidence that the NCMS has reduced their out-of-pocket spending. Furthermore, the effects of the NCMS on elderly health are differentiated by socioeconomic status and by gender. In particular, we consistently find that the NCMS has had a significant positive impact on health outcomes for the elderly at the bottom of the income distribution, or in the relatively poor western region, which suggests that the NCMS helps reduce health inequalities among the rural elderly.


To characterize disease-causing mutations in the low density lipoprotein receptor (LDL-R) gene, COS cells are transfected with the mutant gene in an EBV-based expression vector and characterized by flow cytometry. Using antibodies against the LDL-receptor the amount of receptor protein on the cell surface is quantitated. The receptor activity is measured by incubating the cells with fluorescence labeled LDL (Dil-labelled LDL) at 37 degrees C and 4 degrees C. The transfected cells stained with anti-LDL-R antibodies can also be analysed by immunofluorescence microscopy allowing the study of the intracellular location of variants of the receptor. To evaluate these methods, we are analyzing four previously well-characterized LDL-R mutations, belonging to each of the classes 2 to 5. Preliminary data show that mutant genes belonging to class 3 and 4A give rise to receptor protein on the cell surface, but impaired LDL uptake, while mutant receptors belonging to class 2A and 5 can only be detected intracellularly. Expression of the class 2A mutation results in an ER staining pattern, whereas the class 5 mutation gives rise to an intracellular staining compatible with localization in the endosomal/lysosomal compartments. We conclude that this system is useful for a rapid functional analysis of newly discovered mutations in the LDL-R gene.


We have developed the magnetic probe with a diamond quantum sensor and electromagnetic coils to detect sentinel lymph nodes (SLNs), as the medical application of diamond quantum sensing. The probe magnetizes magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) accumulated in SLNs and detect the magnetic fields of magnetized MNPs. In this study, we designed a ferromagnetic core that has a unique shape and optimized the magnetic field generation system for improving the detection performance such as the magnetic sensitivity and detectable distance. The proposed magnetic core enhances an excitation magnetic field strength at a longer distance and suppresses a bias field strength at a location of the diamond quantum sensor. The increment of the excitation field is approximately 370% and the decrement of the bias field is approximately 45%. In addition to the proposed magnetic core, even applying a cancellation coil, the excitation field strength is tenfold compared with the coil only structure, suggesting the larger magnetization of MNPs generates the large magnetic field for longer detectable distance.


This paper proposes an analytical framework for the analysis of organizational cognition that borrows from distributed and ecological cognition. In so doing, we take a case study featuring a decision on the topic of agreeing on a set point in the agenda of a meeting. It is through the analysis of a few minutes of video-recording used in the case that enables us to demonstrate the power of applying distributed and ecological cognition to organizing processes. Cognitive mechanism, resources, and processes are identified within this combined framework. Mechanisms are described as "socio-material" (CM1)—where "people" and "artifacts" are the related cognitive resources—and as "conceptual" (CM2)—with "group" identity, "topic" understanding, meaning of "procedures," and perception of "time" as resources. Processes are defined as "coupling," "de-coupling," and "un-coupled" depending on the type of relation in place. Finally, the paper presents an agent-based computational simulation to demonstrate the potentials of operationalizing this approach.


Rhabdomyosarcomas arise from mesenchymal cells destined to form skeletal muscle, but they are often found at sites where skeletal muscle is typically not found. The parameningeal site has a poor prognostic risk, if it is associated with intra-cranial extensions and skull bone erosions. This is a case report of a fiveyear-old girl who presented with cranial nerve palsy, and later diagnosed as rhabdomyosarcoma of the mastoid and middle ear, with infiltration of the cerebellopontine angle of the brain. She did not respond to chemotherapy and rapidly deteriorated, succumbed to the disease within a short time following the diagnosis. Please download the full paper by clicking on the PDF file below...


The profound impact of digital technologies on human life makes it imperative for HCI research to deal with the most fundamental aspects of human existence. Arguably, insights from existential philosophy and psychology are highly relevant for addressing such issues. Building on previous attempts to bring in existential themes and terminology to HCI, this paper argues that Yalom's notion of "the givens of existence", as well as related work in experimental existential psychology, can inform the development of an existential inquiry framework in HCI. The envisioned framework is intended to complement current approaches in HCI by specifically focusing on the existential aspects of the design and use of technology. The paper reflects on possible ways, in which existential concepts can support HCI research, and maintains that adopting an existential framework in HCI would be consistent with the overall conceptual development of the field.


We conduct a limited cladistic analysis on 8 terminal Pterodactyloid taxa using both originally-scored traits and characters synthesized from previous analyses. Comparing our results to phylogenies proposed by Kellner and Unwin in 2003, we reject Unwin's close relationship between Germanodactylus and Dsungaripteridae while finding further support for his positioning of Nyctosaurus within Ornithocheiroidea. We also find weak evidence for his proposal of a monophyletic Lophocratia but require additional work to come to a confident conclusion on the matter. e lack of resolution of this polytomy leaves open the question of advanced Pterodactyloid diversification during the Cretaceous.


In this paper we propose a new adaptation technique for improved text-independent speaker verification with limited amounts of training data using Gaussian mixture models (GMMs). The technique, referred to as probabilistic subspace adaptation (PSA), employs a probabilistic subspace description of how a client's parametric representation (i.e. GMM) is allowed to vary. Our technique is compared to traditional maximum a posteriori (MAP) adaptation, or relevance adaptation (RA), and maximum likelihood eigen-decomposition (MLED), or subspace adaptation (SA) techniques. Results are given on a subset of the XM2VTS databases for the task of textindependent speaker verification.


Many studies have shown that alloplastic bone grafts are clinically stable and safe. Nevertheless, postoperative problems such as ankylosis and root resorption are associated with alloplastic bone grafts. This report examined two cases of ankylosis of nonresorbable hydroxyapatite (NHA) alloplastic grafts associated with recurrent periodontitis. There was no clear border between the NHA particles and dentin. The particles were irregularly shaped and had plaque on the surfaces. It is postulated that ankylosis of NHA particles and dentin is a contributing factor in recurrent periodontitis.


Unskilled and skilled subjects were asked to perform a variety of bimanual tapping tasks. Three major effects were seen. First, right-handers performed dual tasks better when the preferred hand took the "figure" and when the nonpreferred hand took the "ground" of the dual movement. This effect was not seen in left-handers. Second, subjects performed a simple slow/fast dual task better when they commenced the task with the fast rather than with the slow hand. This effect was seen in right- and lefthanders. Third, both unskilled and skilled subjects showed marked interdependence of movements such that performance of one hand was a function of movements in the other hand. The results are in agreement with a model that postulates the presence of a superordinate control mechanism that initiates action in subordinate control mechanisms, which in turn set the movement trajectories in the two hands. The results also show that attention is an important factor in the interaction between these two levels of control.


INTRODUCTION
This phase II trial evaluated the efficacy and toxicity of the combination of paclitaxel, carboplatin, bevacizumab, and erlotinib in the first-line treatment of patients with carcinoma of unknown primary site (CUP).

METHODS
Patients with previously untreated CUP (adenocarcinoma, poorly differentiated carcinoma, poorly differentiated squamous carcinoma) without clinical or pathologic characteristics of a well-defined treatable subset were eligible. All patients received paclitaxel, carboplatin, bevacizumab, and erlotinib. Treatment cycles were repeated at 21-day intervals. After four cycles, paclitaxel and carboplatin were discontinued; bevacizumab-erlotinib treatment was continued until tumor progression. Patients were initially evaluated for response after completion of two treatment cycles; re-evaluations occurred every 6 weeks thereafter.

RESULTS
Forty-nine of 60 patients (82%) completed four cycles of therapy, and 44 patients (73%) subsequently received maintenance bevacizumab and erlotinib. Thirty-two patients (53%) had major responses to treatment; an additional 18 patients had stable disease. After a median follow-up of 19 months, the median progression-free survival time was 8 months, with 38% of patients progression free at 1 year. The median survival time and 2-year overall survival rate were 12.6 months and 27%, respectively. Treatment was generally well tolerated, with a toxicity profile as predicted based on the known toxicities of each treatment component.

CONCLUSIONS
Empiric treatment with paclitaxel, carboplatin, bevacizumab, and erlotinib is effective and well tolerated as first-line treatment for patients with CUP. Further development of this regimen is warranted.


College students drink at high rates. More than 80% of college students drink alcohol and about 40% engage in occasions of heavy drinking. Heavy episodic drinking among college students is associated with multiple negative consequences, such as verbal confrontations, physical fights, unprotected sex, vandalism, and driving while under the influence. Goals constitute a broad cognitive context in which behaviors occur. As an established technology for studying goal constructs, personal projects (Little, 1983; 1989; 1998) assess both long-term and short-term goals, as well perceptions about the goals assessed. Aided by the assessment of personal projects, the present study examined the ability of goal constructs to explain variability in drinking among college students within an integrated social cognitive theory model. In prospective analyses, results indicated that alcohol self-efficacy, negative outcome expectancies, and drinking self-regulation strategies were significant predictors of drinking. In addition, the goal attribute variables of Involvement and Efficacy, incongruence, and avoidance accounted for unique variance in drinking after controlling for gender, self-efficacy, outcome expectancies and drinking self-regulation. Results add to the understanding of the motivational forces potentially important to drinking decisions and underscore the unique contributions of goal variables.


Verifying that complex systems such as power plants satisfy the requirements that ensure their proper operation, in particular with respect to safety, dependability and environmental regulations, is difficult due to the large number of potential situations to be explored in terms of initiating events and their chain of consequences on the behavior of the system. The paper presents a new framework for supporting a methodology that aims at reconciling innovation (ability to modify the system) and safety (ability to comply with regulatory requirements). The general principle is to produce independently formal models of the requirements, of the possible variants of the design, and of the dynamic behavior of the system for the possible designs, then assemble them together to simulate the full system's behavior to automatically detect possible violations of the requirements.


Nowadays, multi-source image acquisition attracts an increasing interest in many fields, such as multi-modal medical image segmentation. Such acquisition aims at considering complementary information to perform image segmentation, since the same scene has been observed by various types of images. However, strong dependence often exists between multi-source images. This dependence should be taken into account when we try to extract joint information for precisely making a decision. In order to statistically model this dependence between multiple sources, we propose a novel multi-source fusion method based on the Gaussian copula. The proposed fusion model is integrated in a statistical framework with the hidden Markov field inference in order to delineate a target volume from multi-source images. Estimation of parameters of the models and segmentation of the images are jointly performed by an iterative algorithm based on Gibbs sampling. Experiments are performed on multi-sequence MRI to segment tumors. The results show that the proposed method based on the Gaussian copula is effective to accomplish multi-source image segmentation.


Based on the conference held in Kaunas, Lithuania, 2011, Music and Technologies aims to augment discussion within the field of interdisciplinary music research developed currently at such important forums as the CIM and the ISMIR. The book consists of a collection of articles written by musicians and computer scientists, educators and mathematicians from all over the world. The main contemporary ideas in the field of music technologies are explored – estimating the process of automatic cognition, reconstruction and simulation, measurement and re-creation of different aspects of music practice – always with sound and its notation or scoring uppermost in the investigations.


The economic rise of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) inevitably leads to a redistribution of power in the international system. Chinese leaders today accord a considerable priority to this group, and there are elements of realism, liberalism/institutionalism and constructivism in their approach. This article intends to study China's policy towards BRICS and examine the above elements so as to better understand how the Chinese leadership perceives China's role in the international system, and how it seeks to articulate its interests and enhance its influence.


Aims: The aim of this study was to determine the prognostic value of CA 72-4 and CA 242 in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). Materials and Methods: From January 2006 to December 2007, a retrospective analysis of 192 consecutive patients with ESCC was carried out. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to evaluate the prognostic parameters. Results: The positive rates for CA 72-4 and CA 242 were 18.8% (36/192) and 7.3% (14/192), respectively. Patients with CA 72-4 ≤6 U/ml showed a significantly better 5-year overall survival than patients with CA 72-4 >6 U/ml (42.3% vs. 5.6%; p 10 U/ml (37.6% vs. 7.1%; p=0.011). Multivariate analyses demonstrated that differantiation (p=0.021), CA 72-4 (p=0.037), T grade (p=0.012) and N staging (p<0.001) were independent prognostic factors. Conclusion: CA 72-4 is an independent predictive factor for long-term survival in ESCC. CA 72-4 shows a higher accuracy in predicting T grades, N stagings and overall survival than CA 242. Although CA 72-4 and CA 242 show significant association with poorer prognosis, its low sensitivity limits the clinical application.


INTRODUCTION: Excess weight gain during pregnancy is a serious health concern affecting a significant proportion of pregnant US adolescents. This study aimed to characterize adolescents at highest risk for excess weight gain during pregnancy. METHODS: Using a nationally representative longitudinal database, The Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, we identified mothers age 15–24 at time of birth. Institute of Medicine guidelines were used to categorize each mother as gaining less than recommended, within recommended, or more than recommended during pregnancy. Multinomial logistic regression models were performed, with weight gain category as the outcome, controlling for confounders including age, race/ethnicity, federal poverty level (FPL), health status, and pre-pregnancy BMI. RESULTS: Among our weighted sample (n=1,248, N=241,232), the mean (SD) age was 21 (3) years, 32% were black, 47% Hispanic, 45% with income under the FPL, 44% were overweight or obese before pregnancy, and 59% gained more than recommended during pregnancy. Multinomial logistic regression showed that Hispanics were less likely to gain more than the recommended weight compared to non-Hispanics (RR 0.39, P=.029). Adolescents who were overweight and obese before pregnancy were more likely to gain more than the recommended weight than their normal weight peers (RR 3.82, P=.011; RR 3.27, P=.027). There were no other significant associations. CONCLUSION: Pre-pregnancy BMI and ethnicity are the primary factors that predict excess pregnancy weight gain among US adolescents age 15–24. Interventions and policies should focus on high-risk adolescents to prevent excess weight gain-related morbidity among these mothers and their children.


Persistent Vibrio-parahaemolyticus-associated vibriosis cases, attributed, in part, to the inefficient techniques for detecting viable-but-non-culturable (VBNC) Vibrio pathogens and the ingestion of undercooked seafood, is the leading cause of bacterial seafood-borne outbreaks, hospitalizations, and deaths in the United States. The effect of extreme heat processing on Vibrio biology and its potential food safety implication has been underexplored. In the present work, environmental samples from the wet market, lagoon, and estuarine environments were analyzed for V. parahaemolyticus recovery using a modified, temperature-dependent, two-step enrichment method followed by culture-based isolation, phenotype, and genotype characterizations. The work recovered novel strains (30% of 12 isolates) of V. parahaemolyticus from prolonged-heat-processing conditions (80 °C, 20 min), as confirmed by 16S rDNA bacterial identification. Select strains, VHT1 and VHT2, were determined to be hemolysis- and urease-positive pathogens. PCR analyses of chromosomal DNA implicated the tdh-independent, tlh-associated hemolysis in these strains. Both strains exhibited significant, diverse antibiotic profiles (p < 0.05). Turbidimetric and viable count assays revealed the pasteurization-resistant V. parahaemolyticus VHT1/VHT2 (62 °C, 8 h). These findings disclose the efficiency of Vibrio extremist recovery by the modified, two-step enrichment technique and improve knowledge of Vibrio biology essential to food safety reformation.


Summary  To investigate the clinical significance of red blood cell distribution width (RDW) and haemoglobin distribution width (HDW) in the elderly and their relationships with erythropoietin (EPO) secretion, we measured red cells parameters using a Technicon HI system and serum EPO using a radioimmunoassay in 247 elderly subjects (normal: n= 150; preanaemic iron deficiency: n= 24; iron deficiency anaemia: n= 8; senile anaemia: n= 65). RDW was slightly higher in the elderly subjects with preanaemic iron deficiency (14.1 ± 1.1%) than in the normal elderly subjects (13.5±0.7%). It was highest in iron deficiency anaemia (16.1 ± 1.3%), while the increase in senile anaemia was limited (13.9 ± 1.2%). The HDW increased only in iron deficiency anaemia. There was a strong positive relationship between EPO and RDW in iron deficiency anaemia (r= 0.817, P<0.01). Moreover, this correlation was also found in preanaemic iron deficiency (r= 0.456, P < 0.05), but not in senile anaemia, suggesting that bone marrow hypoactivity may partly play a role in the pathogenesis of senile anaemia. All the eight subjects with iron deficiency anaemia had a RDW ≥ 14.9% (mean + 2SD of normal subjects), while 55 (85%) of the 65 with senile anaemia had a RDW < 14.9%. Both the RDW and EPO levels of six anaemic subjects with high RDW values (≥ 14.9%) after oral iron therapy for 56–78 days decreased significantly. Our results suggest that RDW is useful to distinguish iron deficiency anaemia from senile anaemia, and may be a potential parameter of bone marrow stimulation by EPO.


Games have been used for a long time in teaching and learning. The increasing use of mobile phones makes it possible to link learning outside the classroom with augmented reality (AR). We tested how well the learning of conceptual models can be facilitated by AR games. We present a game designed for the in-service teacher-training workshop to model evolutionary and ecological relationships explicitly. The game, Parasite Race, models the life cycles of three different parasites and allows player to choose between two evolutionary strategies. We tested the game with experienced teachers and revealed a wide range of different gaming strategies: some of the teachers were able to reflect their game strategy and choose appropriate actions right away whereas some of the teachers did not and lost their motivation quickly. We reflect on the experience of programming a simple AR location-based game and on the usability of simple games in the educational context.


The Order of Malta Volunteers is a Roman Catholic charity best known for organising pilgrimages to Lourdes for disabled people. This article offers a personal account of the author's experiences as head nurse of the charity, in Lourdes and in the wake of last year's earthquake in Haiti.


SUMMARY: Changes in the amidase, nitrate reductase and phenolphthalein sulphatase activity of Mycobacterium smegmatis were observed following B1-lysogeny. These changes were more consistent in lysogenic derivatives of strains sn2 and sn14 than in those of strain sn10. Strains sn2 and sn14 appeared to differ from sn 10 only in that the former possessed a functional salicylamidase locus while the latter did not. Emergence of various phenotypes in the same strain and during the same lysogenic event were observed. Multiple sites of phage integration may have accounted for the variation of sn10 (B1) phenotypes.


Carbon contamination is a significant issue with extreme ultraviolet (EUV) masks because it lowers throughput and has potential effects on imaging performance. Current carbon contamination research is primarily focused on the lifetime of the multilayer surfaces, determined by reflectivity loss and reduced throughput in EUV exposure tools. However, contamination on patterned EUV masks can cause additional effects on absorbing features and can affect the printed images. In this work, various carbon contamination experiments were performed to study the impact between contamination topography and observed imaging performance. Lithographic simulation using calculated aerial images and experimentally determined resist parameters was performed and compared to the printing results to estimate the allowed carbon thickness with critical dimension compensation applied to the mask.


Olfaction is an underestimated sensory modality in terms of its predictive value as an indicator of disorders. It is a well-known phenomenon that a significant percentage of people afflicted with certain prevalent disorders causing degenerative neuropathology, progressive loss of memory and communication function, normal age-based decline of physiological functions, intellectual challenges, depressive and anxiety disorders as well as post-traumatic stress disorders, present with a range of olfactory deficits. Here, we review our understanding of these deficits and their relation to various clinical manifestations such as neurological and neuropsychiatric diseases and disorders. At the outset, we will briefly describe the olfactory pathway from olfactory sensory neurons in the nasal epithelium to the olfactory bulb and on to olfactory cortical and subcortical structures involved in olfaction such as the amygdala.


The magnetic fountain effect occurring in superfluid 3He A1 phase is a unique phenomenon in which the pressure and magnetic field gradients in the chemical potential are balanced. The effect has been applied extensively to investigate the intrinsic spin relaxation. We constructed a new improved sample cell. The new cell includes an inner detector and an outer reservoir chamber made of "Macor" which was helpful to reduce the heat release possibly arising from proton nuclei under high magnetic fields. The measured temperature difference between the two chambers was cut to less than 5 μK. The measured relaxation time τ of the fountain pressure decreases monotonically and smoothly as the temperature is decreased from Tc1 (normal- A1 boundary) towards Tc2 (A1- A2 boundary). As the temperature approaches Tc2, τ tends to vanish smoothly.


ABSTRACT The objective of this review is to provide a concise, descriptive global review of current food-based dietary guidelines (FBDG), and to assess similarities and differences in key elements of a healthy diet articulated across countries. Information was sourced from the FBDG repository of the FAO, which catalogs FBDG for all countries where they are available, including a description of the food guide (the graphic representation of the dietary guidelines), a set of key messages, and downloadable documents provided by the countries. FBDG are currently available for 90 countries globally: 7 in Africa, 17 in Asia and the Pacific, 33 in Europe, 27 in Latin America and the Caribbean, 4 in the Near East, and 2 in North America. The year of publication of current versions ranges from 1986 to 2017 (mean 2009). This review provides summaries of the key messages and food guides that are used to communicate national dietary guidance, organized by food group, and evaluates the extent to which each set of FBDG includes existing recommendations articulated by the WHO. Some guidance appears nearly universally across countries: to consume a variety of foods; to consume some foods in higher proportion than others; to consume fruits and vegetables, legumes, and animal-source foods; and to limit sugar, fat, and salt. Guidelines on dairy, red meat, fats and oils, and nuts are more variable. Although WHO global guidance encourages consumption of nuts, whole grains, and healthy fats, these messages are not universally echoed across countries. Future frontiers in FBDG development include the incorporation of environmental sustainability and increased attention to sociocultural factors including rapidly changing dietary trends. Steps toward regional and global dietary recommendations could be helpful for refinement of country-level FBDG, and for clear communication and measurement of diet quality both nationally and globally.


Introduction Natural myringostapediopexy is an infrequent abnormality, and studies about resulting hearing loss are scarce. In several cases, natural myringostapediopexy may function as a Type III tympanoplasty. Objective This study evaluated conductive hearing loss in myringostapediopexy. Materials and Methods This cross-sectional comparative study included a historical and current sample of 46 patients, one with bilateral myringostapediopexy, at a total of 47 ears. All underwent pure tone and speech audiometry and were divided according to age into a pediatric (younger than 18 yr) and an adult group. The Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) 10.0 was used for statistical analysis, and the level of significance was set at p lower than 0.05. Results Patient distribution according to sex was similar (53.2% male), and 57.4% were adults. Mean conductive hearing loss in ears with myringostapediopexy ranged from 14.13 to 21.28 dB according to the frequency assessed. Pure tone average was 18.46 dB. A conductive hearing loss equal to or lower than 25 dB at all frequencies was found in 53% of the patients. The 2,000 and 3,000 Hz frequencies had the greatest prevalence of clinically nonsignificant conductive hearing loss (87% and 91%). Sensorineural hearing loss was found in 14 patients (30%), all adults, and 43% of the cases were mild. The comparison according to age did not reveal any significant differences in conductive hearing loss at any of the frequencies. Conclusion Most patients with natural myringostapediopexy included in the study had clinically irrelevant conductive hearing loss. There were no differences in conduction loss between children and adults. The reconstruction of the ossicular chain and tympanoplasty, for purely functional reasons, are not justified in these cases, particularly not for patients with mixed hearing loss.


THIS IS A PARTICULARLY APPROPRIATE MOMENT FOR THE PUBLICATION OF A SPECIAL ISSUE on the European Union's External Energy Policy. With the rising price of fuel on the world market, over the past months energy supply security has become an issue of vital importance to many governments (if it had not been that already). The implications of the present 'crisis in oil prices', both for the individual citizen and the economy as a whole, and especially the fisheries sector, were extensively debated at the recent European Council (1920 June 2008) in Brussels. The crisis came as a shock to many, but analysts had already predicted that the inevitable emergence of a shortage of supplies on the global market would have severe economic consequences for many.


Topological defects in liquid crystals under confined geometries have attracted extensive research interests. Here, we perform molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the formation and transition of defect patterns in two-dimensional smectic Gay-Berne liquid crystals with a simple rectangular confinement boundary. Two typical types of defect patterns, bridge and diagonal defect patterns, are observed, which can be transformable continuously between each other over time. The transition usually starts from the line or point defect regions, and the competition between neighboring and opposite boundary effects induces the continuous realignments of the smectic layers to connect the neighboring or opposite walls. The relative stability of these two defect patterns can be controlled by changing the confinement conditions. These results deepen our understanding of transition kinetics of defect patterns in confined liquid crystals.


There have been various types of pretraining architectures including autoencoding models (e.g., BERT), autoregressive models (e.g., GPT), and encoder-decoder models (e.g., T5). However, none of the pretraining frameworks performs the best for all tasks of three main categories including natural language understanding (NLU), unconditional generation, and conditional generation. We propose a General Language Model (GLM) based on autoregressive blank infilling to address this challenge. GLM improves blank filling pretraining by adding 2D positional encodings and allowing an arbitrary order to predict spans, which results in performance gains over BERT and T5 on NLU tasks. Meanwhile, GLM can be pretrained for different types of tasks by varying the number and lengths of blanks. On a wide range of tasks across NLU, conditional and unconditional generation, GLM outperforms BERT, T5, and GPT given the same model sizes and data, and achieves the best performance from a single pretrained model with 1.25× parameters of BERT Large , demonstrating its generalizability to different downstream tasks.


This essay is one of six chapters, each written on individual works by Matisse in the Statens Collection.Perry's essay explores the relationship between between Matisse's technique, gender and the role of ;play' in his so called 'avant-garde practice. It argues that this still-life composition reveals Matisse as an aesthetic strategist, deploying complex formal devices and playful strategies, arguing that these were 'risky gambits' which helped to guarantee the artist's status as controbersial and 'avant-garde'. It also explores contemporary conventions for staging the still-life genre, and some of its gendered associations.


The demographic reality of a rapidly growing elderly population segment presents the practicing dentist with certain imperatives and challenges. Familiarity with the healthy aging process and common medical conditions of the aged is becoming increasingly essential. Customized treatment plans and modifications in techniques and home care aids require flexibility and creativity. In addition, it should not be overlooked that this demographic reality also presents the practicing dentist with new opportunities for practice-building as well as personal and professional satisfaction.


In the era of big data, data-driven methods have become increasingly popular in various applications, such as image recognition, traffic signal control, fake news detection. The superior performance of these data-driven approaches relies on large-scale labeled training data, which are probably inaccessible in real-world applications, i.e., "small (labeled) data" challenge. Examples include predicting emergent events in a city, detecting emerging fake news, and forecasting the progression of conditions for rare diseases. In most scenarios, people care about these small data cases most and thus improving the learning effectiveness of machine learning algorithms with small labeled data has been a popular research topic. In this tutorial, we will review the trending state-of-the-art machine learning techniques for learning with small (labeled) data. These techniques are organized from two aspects: (1) providing a comprehensive review of recent studies about knowledge generalization, transfer, and sharing, where transfer learning, multi-task learning, and meta-learning are discussed. Particularly, we will focus more on meta-learning, which improves the model generalization ability and has been proven to be an effective approach recently; (2) introducing the cutting-edge techniques which focus on incorporating domain knowledge into machine learning models. Different from model-based knowledge transfer techniques, in real-world applications, domain knowledge (e.g., physical laws) provides us with a new angle to deal with the small data challenge. Specifically, domain knowledge can be used to optimize learning strategies and/or guide the model design. In data mining field, we believe that learning with small data is a trending topic with important social impact, which will attract both researchers and practitioners from academia and industry.


Abstract: The study is focused the process of coining new words and new meaning of words in the language of the media through of politicians' and public figures' language. The hypothesis is that the changes of political discourse are reflected in the language used in the media, mainly through political jargon, which we find in titles and articles. The aim of the study is to investigate the transformation from political towards media discourse and the word formation means. These have an impact on creating differences and washing away the boundaries between political and media lexis. The new, post-1989, journalistic expression, is attractive and free of some ideologemes, totalitarian clichés and pompous slogans. It outpaces politicians' linguistic liberation. Prominent public figures take the initiatives in this field, during the decade that followed. Through their messages, they bring more expressiveness and spontaneousness in public communication. The results of the study demonstrate that, through media projection, scores of new words and collocations become part of reporters' and editors' language. Thus, some words become part of the canonical lexical structure, making it more diverse, nonhomogeneous and different from the traditional. The theme of otherness is explored in the Bulgarian media and political context, identifying manifestations at the linguistic and communicative levels. Politicians increasingly use expressive words and mix them with ideologeme that are part of political rhetoric. The media disseminate these expressive words and the informative function shifts. Thus, heterogeneity at the linguistic level creates grounds to speak of a political and media rhetoric of otherness. Keywords: political discourse, media discourse, media text, derivation, linguistic expressions, vocabulary.


The proportion of renewable energies in power generation has increased significantly in recent years according to the political aims. In low-voltage networks, these are mostly distributed intermittent generation systems such as photovoltaic systems that are connected through inverters to the network. Thus, the distribution networks have to meet hitherto unfamiliar technical challenges. A temporary reversal of the power flow can cause overvoltage problems. Traditional voltage regulation strategies cannot solve this problem. Consequently, regenerative sources need to be turned off temporarily or on the long term the network infrastructure has to be extended by the network operator. On-load tap changers (OLTC) offer the possibility to control the voltage in the entire network. This paper presents a control concept for OTLC in low-voltage distribution transformers. The proposed approach achieves sufficiently good voltage quality and enables the network operator to integrate more distributed generation. Moreover, a concept combining voltage control by both, OLTC and reactive power, as also presented in this paper offers various advantages.


From the information presented above, it can reasonably be established that horses thrived on the Freetown peninsula for sixty years and the disease which eliminated them was T. brucei. This disease was prevalent for at least 15 years although it eventually disappeared, probably before 1900. In addition, clearance of the forest, in three overlapping phases, was carried out prior to and during the outbreak. From the ecology of the three species of tsetse fly possibly implicated in the outbreak of the disease in Sierra Leone, it can be deduced that deforestation and the consequent regeneration and cultivation led to favourable conditions for the expansion of at least G. palpalis and G. longipalpis, and possibly also of G. morsitans. Taking into account the information currently available on the inter-relationships between tsetse fly and trypanosome species, it can also be suggested that G. longipalpis was probably the primary source of the disease but that the disease was sustained, particularly around Freetown itself, by G. palpalis and possibly by other biting flies. That G. longipalpis or even G. morsitans probably initiated the outbreak makes the eventual disappearance of the disease more understandable since both of these species relied upon regenerated forest and an abundance of game, resources which diminished as agriculture progressed. It is likely that these primary carriers infected horses and cattle moving between the provinces and Freetown, thereby providing the link in spreading the disease to the Colony. It appears therefore that the removal of the forest led to the outbreak of trypanosomiasis in horses. A different and more rational approach to forestry in Sierra Leone would have avoided this altogether. In fact it is fortunate that the consequences of this indiscriminate deforestation were not more serious since all three tsetse flies in question are carriers of the human sleeping sickness, T. gambiense. For some reason, however, this species of trypanosome, whilst common in the interior, is not prevalent in the coastal areas of West Africa, though there was in fact, an epidemic of this disease in the 1930s in the Kaiahun area, associated with G. palpalis. Since the horse is relatively sensitive to tsetse fly and its associated trypanosomes, this animal is a good indicator of the presence of trypanosomiasis. Dr McCoy in his memorandum mentions that horses thrive in the Gambia and at Lagos and that 'loin disease' was unknown in these places. He makes no reference, however, to horses in Ghana. The history of the horse in other parts of West Africa may therefore be worth pursuing in this respect.


Anthracyclines are essential adjuvant therapies for a variety of cancers, particularly breast, and gastric and esophageal cancers. Whilst prolonging cancer–related survival, these agents can in–duce drug–related cardiotoxicity. Spirulina, Reishi (Ganoderma Lucidum) and Moringa are three nutaceuticals with anti–inflammatory effects that are currently used in cancer patients to improve quality of life and fatigue.

 Female C57Bl/6 mice were untreated (Sham, n=6) or treated for 10 days with short–term doxorubicin i.p at 2.17 mg/kg (DOXO, n=6), Singo at 12 mg/kg (Singo, n=6) or doxorubicin combined to Singo (DOXO–Singo, n=6). Ejection fraction, radial and longitudinal strain were analyzed through transthoracic echocardiography (Vevo 2100, Fujifilm). Myocardial expression of NLRP3, DAMPs (galectine 3 and calgranulin S100) and 13 cytokines (IL–1α, IL–1β, IL–2, IL–4, IL–6, IL–10, IL–12, IL17–α, IL–18, IFN–γ, TNF–α, G–CSF, and GM–CSF) were quantified through selective mouse ELISA methods. Myocadial fibrosis, necrosis and hypertrophy were analyzed through Immunohistochemistry (IHC). Human cardiomyocytes (HFC cell line) were exposed to subclinical concentration of doxorubicin (200 nM) alone or in combination to Singo ( at 10, 25 and 50 µg/ml) for 24 and 48h. Cell viability studies were performed through MTS assay. Expression of NLRP3 and p65/NF–kB) were made through selective ELISA methods.

 In preclinical models of short–term DOXO cardiotoxicity, Singo improved significantly EF and FS and prevented the reduction of radial and longitudinal strain after 10 days of treatment with DOXO. A reduced expression of myocardial NLRP3 and NF–kB levels in cardiac tissues were seen in DOXO–Singo group compared to DOXO mice (p<0.05). Myocardial expression of pro–inflammatory cytokines were significantly reduced after treatment with Singo indicating anti–inflammatory properties. Myocardial levels of Cal–granulin S100 and galectine–3 were strongly enhanced in DOXO group; on the other hand their expression were reduced in Singo–DOXO group vs DOXO (p<0.05). Immunohistochemistry analysis indicates that Singo reduces fibrosis and hypertrophy in myocardial tissue of mice during exposure to DOXO.

 Singo is able to improve cardiac function and reduce biomarkers involved in heart failure and fibrosis. Cardioprotective properties of Singo are mediated by the reduction of lipid peroxidation products and expression of NLRP3–NF–kB –cytokine pathways.


Current efforts to characterize and study interstellar polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) rely heavily on theoretically predicted infrared (IR) spectra. Generally, such studies use the scaled harmonic frequencies for band positions and double harmonic approximation for intensities of species, and then compare these calculated spectra with experimental spectra obtained under matrix isolation conditions. High-resolution gas-phase experimental spectroscopic studies have recently revealed that the double harmonic approximation is not sufficient for reliable spectra prediction. In this paper, we present the anharmonic theoretical spectra of three PAHs: naphthalene, anthracene, and tetracene, computed with a locally modified version of the SPECTRO program using Cartesian derivatives transformed from Gaussian 09 normal coordinate force constants. Proper treatments of Fermi resonances lead to an impressive improvement on the agreement between the observed and theoretical spectra, especially in the C-H stretching region. All major IR absorption features in the full-scale matrix-isolated spectra, the high-temperature gas-phase spectra, and the most recent high-resolution gas-phase spectra obtained under supersonically cooled molecular beam conditions in the CH-stretching region are assigned.


Background. Hypokalaemia is a rare disorder among healthy pregnant women. Life-threatening muscle and cardiac malfunction may develop if it remains untreated. Objectives. This study was carried out to estimate the prevalence and risk factors of hypokalaemia among pregnant women in rural Eastern Cape (EC) Province, South Africa (SA), and to establish whether geophagia, a common practice, increases the risk. Methods. This cross-sectional analytical study included 188 participants with geophagia and 233 participants without geophagia enrolled at Mthatha Gateway Clinic, EC, SA. Data included sociodemographic characteristics, magnitude of geophagia, dietary patterns and serum potassium levels. The χ2 test for categorical variables, analysis of variance to compare means, multivariate logistic regression for independent risk factors and principal component analysis for latent variable patterns that were associated with hypokalaemia were carried out. P<0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results. Hypokalaemia among pregnant women in rural EC was five times higher than expected. Geophagia accounted for only 15% of the observed cases. The risk of hypokalaemia was higher among primigravidas aged <25 years with low meat, fruit and vegetable consumption who practised geophagia, with concurrent excessive cola or caffeinated soft-drink consumption. Conclusion. Hypokalaemia is disproportionally prevalent among pregnant women in the rural EC. Young age, primigravida, geophagia, diet deficiency in meat, vegetables and fruits and excessive consumption of soft drinks increased the risk of hypokalaemia. The association of geophagia with low meat, vegetable and fruit consumption may indicate an underlying iron deficiency, necessitating further investigation.


Cross‐sectional analyses of naturally occurring spinal osteoarthritis (OA) in primates have shown that age and body mass are significant predictors, but whether or not these relationships hold true in longitudinal evaluations remains unclear. Because spinal OA manifests similarly in humans and monkeys and macaque monkeys age >3 times the rate of humans, macaque models offer opportunities for longitudinal study that are difficult in humans. Our objective was to characterize the longitudinal development over 11 years of spinal OA in 68 Macaca mulatta (41 males, 27 females, aged 11–32 years). Average disc space narrowing (DSN) and osteophytosis (OST) scores were computed for the thoracolumbar spine (T8–L7). Our longitudinal analyses confirmed the cross‐sectional results: age and body mass (p < 0.001) significantly predicted 50% and 39% of the variability in OST and DSN, respectively. Rates of change in DSN, but not OST, were associated with age at first radiograph. This study represents the first long‐term longitudinal assessment of OA in primates and establishes that the relationship among the covariates in the cross‐sectional and longitudinal approaches is similar. © 2011 Orthopaedic Research Society Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Orthop Res 29: 1152–1160, 2011


Learning outcomes
The case will be useful in helping learners: to appreciate concepts in and develop the necessary understanding to apply relevant theories in crisis communications; to identify communications issues along with the evolution of a crisis; to understand the importance and role of a crisis communications team; and to develop skills in writing a crisis communications plan.

Case overview/synopsis
The case is a narration of the experiences of the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS) as it launched the Kenya drought appeal in March 2019, and the unexpected media and public backlash that ensued. The background is that of an unusual-yet-previously-predicted dry spell, consequent drought and famine, alleged famine-related deaths, mixed signals from the national and county government and a hitherto well-regarded institution (the KRCS) coming in to launch an appeal aimed at raising funds to help alleviate the effects of the prolonged drought and consequent famine in the northern parts of the country. Unfortunately, a major media and public backlash that was not foreseen by KRCS ensued, and it threatened the reputation and very existence of the organization. Drawing on interviews and secondary material in the public domain, the case focuses on how the KRCS navigates the media and public backlash that ensued following the funding appeal. The case is interesting because of the type of organization involved (a not-for-profit institution set up as auxiliary to the government and of good repute), the nature of the problem (reputational crisis and attendant risk management), the setting (a LMIC in sub-Saharan Africa) and the level of analysis (organizational rather than individual decision-making).[AQ1]

Complexity academic level
Masters level – MBA, Executive MBA, Master's in Public Management, Master's in Communication and/or similar courses.

Supplementary materials
Teaching notes are available for educators only.

Subject code
CSS 11: Strategy.


Replacement of normal urothelium by pre‐cancerous epithelium may explain the high recurrence rate of human bladder cancer. An in vitro model was designed in order to study the mechanisms of expansion of transformed urothelial cells at the expense of normal urothelium. For this purpose, mouse bladder explants were allowed to expand on a transparent porous membrane. Subsequently, cell sheets of the non‐tumorigenic mouse urothelial cell line NUC‐5, the tumorigenic mouse urothelial cell line NUC‐5 Py and the human bladder‐carcinoma cell line T24 were inoculated adjacent to the primary explant. Daily measurements of the outgrowth of the bladder explant were performed, and all cultures were terminated on day 24. At this time the post‐confluent primary urothelial cell outgrowths still showed proliferative activity, as demonstrated by bromodeoxyuridine incorporation. In due course the non‐tumorigenic NUC‐5 cells were replaced by the bladder outgrowth. T24 and NUC‐5 Py cells were able to inhibit the bladder outgrowth, or even infiltrate or replace the explant. This was confirmed by immunohistochemistry with (species‐specific) anti‐cytokeratin antibodies and by microscopic evaluation of cross‐sections of the porous membrane. This co‐cultivation model appears to be suitable for the in vitro study of the mechanisms of intra‐epithelial expansion of transformed urothelial cell lines.


Thanks to the use of geolocated big data in computational social science research, the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of human activities is increasingly being revealed. Paired with smaller and more traditional data, this opens new ways of understanding how people act and move, and how these movements crystallise into the structural patterns observed by censuses. In this article we explore the convergence between mobile phone data and more traditional socioeconomic data from the national census in French cities. We extract mobile phone indicators from six months worth of Call Detail Records (CDR) data, while census and administrative data are used to characterize the socioeconomic organisation of French cities. We address various definitions of cities and investigate how they impact the statistical relationships between mobile phone indicators, such as the number of calls or the entropy of visited cell towers, and measures of economic organisation based on census data, such as the level of deprivation, inequality and segregation. Our findings show that some mobile phone indicators relate significantly with different socioeconomic organisation of cities. However, we show that relations are sensitive to the way cities are defined and delineated. In several cases, changing the city delineation rule can change the significance and even the sign of the correlation. In general, cities delineated in a restricted way (central cores only) exhibit traces of human activity which are less related to their socioeconomic organisation than cities delineated as metropolitan areas and dispersed urban regions.


Most studies of the labor market impact of natural disasters report findings drawn from the observation of one or a few geographic areas. In this study, we provide large-sample evidence of the unemployment impact of disasters based on an empirical assessment of 320 counties affected by the 1993 Midwest flood, the costliest flood in the US history. We undertake a disaster economic impact analysis that combines quasi-experimental comparison group methods with econometric structural break point techniques. The combination of research designs offers advantages over the implementation of either impact evaluation design alone. We find that the flood caused unemployment rates to spike in heavily damaged counties but that the effects dissipated quickly. Unemployment rates dropped to below pre-flood levels shortly after the floodwaters receded. Temporary unemployment rate impacts in lightly damaged counties are detectable but were modest. Our findings are consistent with other macroeconomic studies which suggest that natural disasters in the United States have few persistent long-term negative effects on the economic trajectories of affected counties.


John Hope Franklin for me will forever be associated with the third edition of From Slavery to Freedom (1967), which I bought in August 1971 in New York City for all of $2.00 (list price was $3.45). (1) I was about to start my first full-time job in the United States at the University of Michigan-Flint and was trying to select books for my various courses, including a survey of African American history. The 700 plus page paperback had a plain black cover with white writing. I eventually did not use it as a required text, largely because I thought its length too much for my somewhat hurried one-semester survey. Over the years, though, I did assign various parts of it as required reading. I also continued to use that 1971 purchase as a sort of ready reference. Although I have some more recent editions of this book, somehow the 1971 purchase, pages now crumbling, has remained my "Franklin of first resort." Perhaps this is simply because it is the version that I carefully underlined and annotated. This book has remained the main basis for my evaluation of John Hope Franklin, though several times over the years I also used his Reconstruction After the Civil War as required reading for my survey course. (2) I did not know John Hope Franklin personally and had only limited exposure to him. I believe I heard him speak once on his biography of George Washington Williams. At the time he had been working on it for many years and it was still some years away from publication. I watched him being interviewed on television in his later years. I believe that someone may once have briefly introduced me to him, but this was merely a perfunctory act of courtesy. His book struck me as encyclopedic in scope and magisterial in tone. I thought I saw in it a Booker T. Washingtonian quality, which allowed him to win the respect of a young product of the 1960s like myself, while obviously winning the love and support of the mostly white historical establishment. I thought I saw in the book clear evidence of his early education, culminating in his bachelor's from Fisk University (also the alma mater of W. E. B. Du Bois.). Carter G. Woodson famously complained, and justifiably so, that too many of the African American schools of the segregated era either did not teach African American history at all, or did so through the interpretation of the "highly educated, but mis-educated." (3) Yet my feeling is that when the subject was taught well in the segregated schools, it was with a warmth, depth, sobriety, and honesty that I thought I saw in Franklin's book. Franklin started with a comprehensive survey of the achievements of ancient and precolonial Africa that was very much in the mainstream of pioneer 19th- and early 20th-century historians from around the African Diaspora. These included just about everybody from professionally trained historians such as W. E. B. Du Bois and Carter G. Woodson to a host of serious amateurs such as J. A. Rogers, John Edward Bruce, and Arthur Schomburg. (4) It included race activists from David Walker to Marcus Garvey. There was an effort here, sometimes as in Franklin's case restrained, sometimes as in the case of David Walker justifiably strident, to "vindicate the race" from the calumny and misrepresentation that had been heaped upon it as a result of the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans. The ultimate message of all these writers was always the same--the African race had a past as glorious as anybody else's and the historical record could easily prove this to the unprejudiced. (5) The first five chapters of this third edition accordingly followed African Diaspora history in Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America. It was not till page 71 that Franklin got down to "Slavery and Servitude in the Southern Colonies," his introduction to African America, narrowly defined. At various points thereafter he returned to substantial treatment of Africans in the Americas, including Canada. …


Gains and losses in ecosystem service values (ESV) in coastal zones in Zhejiang Province during rapid urbanization were analyzed in terms of land-use changes. Decision-making on coastal development based on ESV estimation is significant for the sustainable utilization of coastal resource. In this study, coastal land-use changes in Zhejiang Province during rapid urbanization were discussed based on remote-sensing derived land-use maps created in the years 1990, 2000 and 2010. The ESV changes in coastal zones in Zhejiang Province from 1990 to 2010 were estimated by using the established ESV estimation model. The analysis results demonstrate the following: (1) with the continuous acceleration of urbanization, land-use types in coastal zones in Zhejiang Province changed significantly from 1990 to 2010, demonstrated by considerable growth of urban construction land and reduction of forest land and farmland; (2) in the study period, the total ESV in coastal zones in Zhejiang Province continuously decreased in value from RMB 35.278 billion to 29.964 billion, a reduction of 15.06%; (3) in terms of the spatial distribution of ESV, the ESVs in coastal zones in Zhejiang Province were generally converted from a higher ESV to a lower ESV; (4) estimates of ESV for the three years 1990, 2000 and 2010 appear to be relatively stable; and (5) land-use intensity in coastal zones in Zhejiang Province continuously increased during the 20 years. The spatial distribution of land-use intensity was consistent with that of the ESV change rate. Disordered land-use changes from forestland and farmland to urban construction land was a major cause of ESV loss.


According to Hilary Putnam, natural realism is a form of direct realism in the philosophy of perception that promises to help see us past an irresolvable metaphysical dispute between realism and anti-realism. Illumination depends upon the claim that in perception that there is no interface between the cognitive powers of the mind and the causal powers of the world. In the present paper I aim to show that there is a hidden complexity in Putnam's notion of a perceptual interface. On a trivializing reading, Putnam intends only to reject a modern materialist version of the traditional 'veil of ideas'. On a richer reading, he intends also to reject the view that the intentional content of experience is autonomous with respect to the external world. I conclude by suggesting that natural realism is not mere common sense and that its fate is tied to its ability to respond to the skeptical threats that help to motivate the traditional options of realism and antirealism.


We study the asymptotic behavior of the sequence of the Nielsen numbers {N(fk)}, the essential periodic orbits of f and the homotopy minimal periods of f using the Nielsen theory of maps f on infra-solvmanifolds of type (R). We give a linear lower bound for the number of essential periodic orbits of such a map, which sharpens wellknown results of Shub and Sullivan for periodic points and of Babenko and Bogaty̌ı for periodic orbits. We also verify that a constant multiple of infinitely many prime numbers occur as homotopy minimal periods of such a map. Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary 37C25; Secondary 55M20.


Packed bed units generally, represent the most suitable storage units for air heating solar systems. In these systems the storage unit receives the heat from the collector during the collection period and discharges the heat to the building at the retrieval process. A method for sizing of packed- bed storage in an air heating system is represented. The design is based on the K-S curves, which have been generated for the storage used in the CSU solar House II through simulation. The complete simple solar heating system is simulated numerically during both the heating and retrieval processes. The simulation, which utilizes the hourly meteorological data, takes into account consideration of the principle parameters such as pressure drop across the bed, particle diameter, and mean voidage. The results are compared with the reported data from a real size of storage and also with the criteria of f- chart recommendation.


: To elucidate the role of the ribose moiety in substrate binding, various ATP derivatives modified in ribose moiety were studied as probes for the T4 RNA ligase first stage reaction. The kinetic parameters for competitive inhibition were determined. Inhibition experiments using substrate analogs demonstrated that the major binding determinants of ATP analogs were purine and triphosphate moieties of ATP; modification of the ribose moiety was not critical. Adenosine triphosphates attached to agarose were used as affinity adsorbent for purification of T4 RNA ligase. These derivatives had been successfully used in reversible binding of the enzyme. Best results were achieved with agarose coupled via N6 of the purine moiety of ATP.


The original objectives of rural banking sector were: • to extend credit to small farmers and businessmen especially small female farmers/business women; • to encourage group lending among borrowers; • to provide a more efficient institutional capacity for rural credit administration on a self sustaining and permanent basis; • to provide significant employment opportunities for rural men and women as well as improve nutritional standard of beneficiaries through improved productivity and higher income from the use of credit. In Cameroon, 51 % of the population is poor and 23 % very poor. 84 % of the poor live in rural areas, while 61 % of the rural population is considered as poor. During two decades after independence, financial repression practised by the government has undermined the evolution of a diversified financial sector with cost-effective services available to all segments of the population. The rural and urban poor have been the most affected. With the liberalisation of the economy in the early 90s, a new consensus on the importance of private rural finance institutions in the development process emerged. This period was characterised by the boom of micro banks all over the country (almost 800 institutions in 2000). However, in the environment in which they are operating, questions on the achievement of their objectives arise. Can they extend their outreach to the poorest while insuring the long-run-sustainability? The purpose of this research is to find out the segment of the population in which micro banks hired the biggest share of their clients. For this, the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is used to determine the poverty score of micro banks clients. Information's were collected in 2003 on 264 households' clients and non clients of micro banks. The results shows that just 14.9% of the clients are from the lowest group (poorest), while 50.8 % from the middle group (less poor), and 34.3% from the higher group (better off). Government, NGOs and donors then have to play an important role (rural infrastructures, reinforcement of micro banks capacity building) to enable micro banks to achieve their objective of targeting the poorest segment of the population.


Seventy-two joint arthroplasties undergoing total hip or total knee surgery were studied prospectively with plain radiographs, three-phase bone imaging (3PBI), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), aspiration of the joint for culture, and multiple intraoperative cultures at the time of revision. Intraoperative cultures and the operative appearance were used to form a diagnosis of definite infection (unequivocal microbiology and gross sepsis), possible infection (positive microbiology or gross sepsis), or no infection (neither positive microbiology nor gross sepsis). For the preoperative diagnosis of infection, as opposed to aseptic loosening, 3PBI alone had a sensitivity of 33% and a specificity of 86%. In conjunction with plain radiographs, minimal improvement in accuracy was seen. A preoperative ESR greater than 30 had low sensitivity (60%) and a specificity of (65%). However, the ESR was statistically significantly higher in the joints with definite infection as compared to those joints without infection. The preoperative joint aspiration had a sensitivity of 67% and a specificity of 96% and, therefore, appears to be the most useful single test in the workup of a painful total joint arthroplasty.


Prolonged inflammatory response and insufficient vascularization cause delayed and poor wound healing. In this study, we fabricated a supramolecular host-guest gelatin (HGM) hydrogel loaded with resveratrol (Res) and histatin-1 (His-1) to suppress inflammation and promote vascularization at skin burn wound sites. The HGM hydrogel showed good properties of shear-thinning and injectability, thereby allowing easy in situ injection and fast adaption to irregular wounds. Res and His-1 were demonstrated to enhance angiogenesis in vitro using cell migration and tube formation assays based on human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs). In an established rat burn wound model, HGM/Res/His-1 hydrogel treatment promoted wound healing by inhibiting expression of the pro-inflammatory factors of interleukin 6 (IL-6), interleukin 1β (IL-1β) and tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) and increasing the expression of transforming growth factor β1 (TGF-β1) and platelet endothelial cell adhesion molecule-1 (CD31). HGM/Res/His-1 hydrogel treatment showed comparable efficacy with that of the commercial dressing, Tegaderm™, and therefore shows promising potential for clinical translation.


The operation of distribution networks is becoming increasingly volatile, due to fast variations of renewables and, hence, net-loading conditions. To perform a reliable state estimation under these conditions, this paper considers the case where measurements from meters, phasor measurement units, and distributed energy resources are collected and processed in real time to produce estimates of the state at a fast time scale. Streams of measurements collected in real time and at heterogenous rates render the underlying processing asynchronous, and poses severe strains on workhorse state estimation algorithms. In this work, a real-time state estimation algorithm is proposed, where data are processed on the fly. Starting from a regularized least-squares model, and leveraging appropriate linear models, the proposed scheme boils down to a linear dynamical system where the state is updated based on the previous estimate and on the measurement gathered from a few available sensors. The estimation error is shown to be always bounded under mild condition. Numerical simulations are provided to corroborate the analytical findings.


The susceptibility of matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI-MS) to the presence of salts in a sample, especially salts of alkali metals, requires careful and often tedious desalting procedures which complicate and slow the throughput of MS-based methods. A novel approach to sample preparation was developed based on the extraction of DNA out of solution onto a solid surface with an attached DNA-binding polymer, such as polyethyleneimine or polyvinylpyrrolidone. The observed binding is strong enough to sustain washing, and, as a result, desalting and concentration can be performed in a single fast step. After DNA has been immobilized on the surface and supernatant solution removed, subsequent addition of MALDI matrix releases material from the surface, which co-crystallizes with matrix. The mass spectrometric analysis is then performed directly from this support. Analysis of oligonucleotides and three-fold multiplexed SNP typing reactions performed by this method shows improved sensitivity and excellent resolution for various DNA fragments, together with high tolerance to various buffer components, such as alkali metals and surfactants. Simplicity and speed make it attractive for high-throughput sample preparation and analysis of oligonucleotide mixtures by MALDI-MS.