A decision-maker observes sequentially a given permutation of n uniquely rankable options. He has to invest capital into these opportunities at the moment when they appear. At each step only relative ranks are known. At the end the true rank of the option, at which the investment has been made, is known. [Bruss and Ferguson(2002)] have considered such problems under the assumption that an investment on the very best opportunity yields a lucrative, possibly time-dependent, rate of return. Uninvested capital keeps its risk-free value. Wrong investments lose their value. In this paper we partially extend results by [Bruss and Ferguson(2002)]. We confine our study to linear utility but a wider range of payoffs is taken into account. Two cases are considered. The first-type payoff gives a positive rate of return if the investment is made on the best or the second best option. The second-type payoff pays when the investment is at the second best option. We motivate these payoff choices. A few examples are explicitly solved.


Due to a wide application of sterinol as a disinfecting agent in medicine and the alimentary industry, and to a resulting possibility of finding it in the waste waters as a composition effectively retarding the process of their biological purification, we undertook an effort to identify and quantify benzyldimethyllaurylammonium bromide. Quantification of BrBdLA was carried out by means of the argonometric determination of the bromium anion, employing the conductometric, potentiometric, and volumetric (i.e. the Mohr) method. BrBdLA was also determined by means of titration in two phases, with ues of sodium dodecyl sulphate against the rose bengal indicator. The ability of BrBdLA to dump the maximum of the oxygen wave was utilized for establishing the polarographic method of its determination. The discussed bromide forms an orange-colour associate with Chrome azurol S, giving two absorption maxima in the visible light region, and namely at 530 and 600 nm. We benefited from this property, when simply identifying ST, and when establishing a new spectrophotometrical method of BrBdLA quantification, which is the biologically active component of sterinol. We draw the calibration curve at lambda = 600 nm, its regression parameters being a = 0.021 and b = -0.027, and the correlation coefficient equal to 0.9993. The established method is simple and reliable, an it can be applied for determination of BrBdLA in the concentration range from 1 to 50 mg/dm3, both in the commercial ST samples and in the ST-containing waste waters, which is going to be the subject of our further studies.


The work is devoted to the study of the formation of structure and mechanical characteristics of the laminated composites of the system Ti-Al and Ti-Al-Me with high specific strength and moderate heat resistance. The investigation of a microstructure of the composite sample showed that it consists of a solid solution of aluminum in titanium, zirconium, and intermetallic layers Ti3Al, TiAl, TiAl2 and TiAl3. Results of short-term tests on 3 point bending showed that the average values of tensile strength of alloy composites are at the level 820 MPa and 993 MPa, and the doped composite – 952 MPa and 1352 MPa at temperatures of 20 and 700 °C, respectively.


We present Qibo, a new open-source software for fast evaluation of quantum circuits and adiabatic evolution which takes full advantage of hardware accelerators. The growing interest in quantum computing and the recent developments of quantum hardware devices motivates the development of new advanced computational tools focused on performance and usage simplicity. In this work we introduce a new quantum simulation framework that enables developers to delegate all complicated aspects of hardware or platform implementation to the library so they can focus on the problem and quantum algorithms at hand. This software is designed from scratch with simulation performance, code simplicity and user friendly interface as target goals. It takes advantage of hardware acceleration such as multi-threading Central Processing Unit (CPU), single Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) and multi-GPU devices.


Recent findings suggest that NK (Natural Killer) cells may directly modulate the antimicrobial immune responses. In this study, we performed immunophenotypic analysis of peripheral blood NK cells with regard to CD56, CD16, Nkp46, and CD25 markers, as well as IL‐10 levels quantification in the sera samples of asymptomatic, H. pylori (Hp)‐infected or uninfected individuals, and combined these results with our previous findings on lymphocyte cytotoxic activity. Twenty healthy volunteers [10 Hp(−);10 Hp(+)] were included in the study. The percentages of classic lymphocytes (CD3+) and NK cells (CD3−CD56+, CD3−Nkp46+, CD3−CD16+) with or without CD25 receptor were evaluated by fluorochrome‐conjugated monoclonal antibody staining and flow cytometry analysis. IL‐10 quantification was performed by enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay‐ELISA. Our study showed elevated levels of IL‐10 and higher NK cell numbers of both CD3−CD56+CD25+ and CD3−Nkp46+CD25+ phenotypes, as well as CD3+CD25+ classic lymphocytes in Hp(+) compared with Hp(−) individuals. No differences between Hp(−) and Hp(+) individuals were found either in total number of classic lymphocytes or NK cell subtypes. Our data suggest that in Hp(+) donors, there is a domination of lymphocytes and NK cells co‐expressing CD25 marker, which might be influenced by the regulatory IL‐10. This phenomenon may be a result of H. pylori adaptation to a changing environment in vivo leading to a chronic infection and lack of severe gastric pathologies.


This study examined self-discrepancy, a construct of theoretical relevance to eating disorder (ED) psychopathology, across different types of EDs. Individuals with anorexia nervosa (AN; n = 112), bulimia nervosa (BN; n = 72), and binge eating disorder (BED; n = 199) completed semi-structured interviews assessing specific types of self-discrepancies. Results revealed that actual:ideal (A:I) discrepancy was positively associated with AN, actual:ought (A:O) discrepancy was positively associated with BN and BED, and self-discrepancies did not differentiate BN from BED. Across diagnoses, A:O discrepancy was positively associated with severity of purging, binge eating, and global ED psychopathology. Further, there were significant interactions between diagnosis and A:O discrepancy for global ED psychopathology and between diagnosis and A:I discrepancy for binge eating and driven exercise. These results support the importance of self-discrepancy as a potential causal and maintenance variable in EDs that differentiates among different types of EDs and symptom severity. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and Eating Disorders Association.


Objective To investigate the association between high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), metabolic syndrome (MS) and the Brachial Ankle pulse Wave Velocity (baPWV). Methods A total of 5192 subjects were enrolled from the annual health checkup subjects. BaPWV were determined by VP-1000 (BP-203RPE III). Hs-CRP, blood pressure, fasting plasma glucose, waist circumference, triglyceride, high-density lipoproteins were measure with standard methods. The subjects were classified into three subgroups: baPWV change rates<13% (group 1), 13%≤baPWV change rates<26% (group 2) and baPWV change rates≥26% (group 3) to stratify and analyse the relationship between baPWV and the hs-CRP, metabolic syndrome and its components. Results (1) The hs-CRP values increased gradually as the change rates of baPWV increased. The level of hs-CRP was 1.34mg/dl vs1.71 mg/dl vs 2.16mg/dl (P < 0.01 = in three groups. (2) With increased metabolic components (220.127.116.11.5), baPWV values, baPWV change rates and hs-CRP values increased greatly. F values were 126.81, 101.58, 84.07respectively (P < 0.01). (3) Logistic regression showed that subjects with baPWV change rates≥26% demonstrated a close relationship with systolic pressure, diastolic pressure, fasting blood glucose, hs-CRP. OR values were 5.19, 3.82, 1.61, 1.51 respectively (P < 0.01). Conclusions The Brachial Ankle pulse Wave Velocity was closely related to C-reactive protein and metabolism syndrome and its components. Examination and analysis stratified of Brachial Ankle pulse wave velocity and C-reactive protein help to screen early arteriosclerosis in MS patients.


Herein we provide high precision validation tests of the latest GPU-accelerated free energy code in AMBER. We demonstrate that consistent free energy results are obtained in both the gas phase and in solution. We first show, in the context of thermodynamic integration (TI), that results are invariant with respect to "split" (e.g., stepwise decharge-vdW-recharge) versus "unified" protocols. This brought to light a subtle inconsistency in previous versions of AMBER that was traced to the improper treatment of 1-4 vdW and electrostatic interactions involving atoms across the softcore boundary. We illustrate that, under the assumption that the ensembles produced by different legs of the alchemical transformation between molecules "A" and "B" in the gas phase and aqueous phase are very small, the inconsistency on the relative hydration free energy ΔΔGhydr[A → B] = ΔG(aq)[A → B] - △G(gas)[A → B] is minimal. However, for general cases where the ensembles are shown to be substantially different, as expected in ligand-protein binding applications, these errors can be large. Finally, we demonstrate that results for relative hydration free energy simulations are independent of TI or multistate Bennett's acceptance ratio (MBAR) analysis, invariant to the specific choice of the softcore region, and agree with results derived from absolute hydration free energy values.


Background and Aims: The effect of a single intraoperative dose of steroids on perioperative blood sugar levels is uncertain. We hypothesised that a single dose of dexamethasone would not unfavourably alter the glucose levels of non-diabetic patients. This study aimed to evaluate the post-operative glycaemic profile after a single dose of intraoperative dexamethasone in non-diabetic patients. The presence of post-operative nausea and vomiting (PONV), pain, surgical site infection (SSI) and length of hospital stay were also evaluated. Methods: This randomised, double-blind, controlled study was done by recruiting 150 non-diabetic adult patients of the American Society of Anesthesiologists physical status I/II undergoing elective surgery. Patients in the study group were administered a single dose of dexamethasone (0.15 mg/kg). Blood glucose levels were assessed at various time points for up to 72 hours post-operatively using point-of-care testing. Secondary outcomes such as PONV, pain, fever and SSI were also documented. Data were compared and analysed using Student's t-test, Chi-square test, Mann-Whitney test and analysis of variance test. Results: There was an earlier, higher and prolonged elevation in blood glucose levels in patients receiving dexamethasone. The mean (standard deviation) of fasting/postprandial blood sugars on the first, second and third postoperative days respectively was significantly higher in the study group 98.04 (21.89)/139.16 (20.59), 96.64 (19.20)/138.17 (18.05), 96.60 (17.40)/138.32 (15.10) mg/dl as compared to control group 86.9 6 (10.28)/128.95 (10.53), 88.81 (8.87)/131.97 (9.68), 88.16 (8.50)/130.88 (9.48) mg/dl. About 10.7% of the patients who received dexamethasone had blood glucose levels greater than 180 mg/dl. There were no significant differences in the secondary outcomes. Conclusion: Even a single dose of dexamethasone in non-diabetic adults causes significant and prolonged postoperative hyperglycaemia.


A displacement sensor with controlled measuring force and its characteristics analysis are discussed in this paper. The displacement sensor consists of an electric induction transducer with high resolution and a voice coil motor (VCM). The measuring principles, structure of the sensor are discussed. Theory model, dynamic and static characteristics of VCM are analysed. A measuring system for surface topography with large measuring range is constructed based on the displacement sensor and 2D moving platform. Measuring force of the sensor in measurement process of surface topography can be controlled at μN level and hardly changes. It has been used in measurement of bearing ball,bullet mark, etc.


Fifteen Klebsiella pneumoniae clinical isolates showing non-susceptibility to carbapenems and resistant to colistin were collected in an Italian hospital. All isolates resulted negative to AmpC, MBL and ESBL production but positive to modified Hodge test, therefore were evaluated as KPC producers. The presence of blaKPC genes was verified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and sequencing. Furthermore, molecular typing was performed by multilocus sequence typing (MLST). PCR analysis and nucleotide sequencing revealed that all 15 isolates carried the blaKPC-3 gene. MLST analysis attributed the isolates from all patients to belong to the sequence type ST512. All isolates showed extensively drug-resistant (XDR) phenotype. The emergence of colistin-resistant K. pneumoniae underscores the implementation of strict control measures to prevent the dissemination of these organisms in hospitals.


Umbilical abnormalities in the calf can result from multiple underlying problems. Given the potential complicities of some of those conditions, umbilical growths can be daunting for some practitioners to handle in the field. A systematic approach to diagnosis utilizing palpation and ultrasound, along with aspiration in some cases, can allow for accurate diagnosis and successful first line treatment. Surgical evaluation is sometimes required to confirm the diagnosis and often necessary for resolution. This article will offer practical tips for the workup of umbilical disorders.


According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are 30.3 million Americans with diabetes mellitus (DM). It is estimated that more than 400,000 individuals with DM are using continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion (CSII) pumps as a method to maintain blood glucose control. An alternative to intermittent daily insulin injections, CSII more closely mimics normal physiologic insulin delivery. Maintaining glycemic control in the surgical patient using CSII requires a well-designed plan to minimize potential risks associated with this method of insulin delivery. A search strategy was formulated to examine the literature on CSII pumps use during the perioperative period as a method of maintaining glycemic control in surgical patients with DM. Seven potential sources were identified, which included a single case study and 3 retrospective cohort studies. Although methodologic concerns with the studies were found, the evidence suggests that CSII pumps can be safely utilized during the perioperative period when an established protocol is used. A multidisciplinary team at a large military medical center was formed to develop a decision-making algorithm to assist anesthesia providers in caring for patients with CSII pumps.


My Faith as an African By Jean-Marc Ela Maryknoll, Ny: Orbis Books; London, UK: Geoffrey Chapman 1988, n. 187 pp.. paper. $9.95 Reviewed by Patrick A. Kalilombe The essays in this book are the author's theological reflection on his long pastoral experience among the rural Kirdi population of Northern Cameroon. Those acquainted with Jean-Marc Ela's earlier works (cf. The Afi'cun Cry, 1986) will know that he represents a new trend in African theological reflection-liberational in its thrust, but also rooted in the cultural traditions of the African peoples. Culture here is the living one of present-day marginalized communities. especially in the rural areas, struggling under erratic attempts at modernization. often exploited and taken advantage of. Yet they represent the majority in the continent. The articles are grouped into three parts. Part One is a description of the author's personal itinerary in faith. As an academically trained pastor, he discovers that those he came to evangelize are already being worked upon by God's Spirit as they struggle with their traditional beliefs under the stress and strains of modem life. In Part Two. Ela relates the gospel to some crucial aspects of the Kirdi peasants' religious culture. It contains one of the most forceful statements in the book on liberation thinking. Part Three concludes with more general reflections about how Christianity should present itself to present-day Africa. Ela's basic argument is that "at a time when Africans. like other peoples. are facing the shock of technological and cultural modernity. liberation of the oppressed must be the primary condition for any authentic inculturation of the Christian message" (p. xvi). We have here an exciting breakthrough both in orientation and in methodology-a theology that deliberately starts from and returns to those on the "underside of history." A collection of past articles. such as this, is necessarily spotty and partial. One wishes some issues were given a fuller discussion. But all in all. this is another precious product of African Liberation Theology. It should be studied carefully. especially in the seminaries and theological institutes of Africa.


A liquid-crystal display device including a liquid-crystal display panel, a panel driver configured to drive the liquid-crystal display panel, a backlight section configured to be arranged on the rear face of the liquid-crystal display panel, a backlight driver configured to drive the backlight section, and a control section configured to control the panel driver and the backlight driver. When the liquid-crystal display device is powered on, the control section controls the backlight driver so that the backlight section is put into a backlight-on state in which the backlight section illuminates the liquid-crystal panel from the rear face. Then, after the elapse of a predetermined time from the setting of the backlight-on state, the control section controls the panel driver so that the liquid-crystal display panel is put into an image-display-on state in which the liquid-crystal display panel displays the image.


The authors present a novel, very fine grain associative architecture. This architecture maintains both a high degree of flexibility and fine graininess. This is done by reducing each processor to an associative memory cell. Unlike other associative memory processors, this architecture uses a two-dimensional interconnect and a physically compact memory structure. Arithmetic operations are based on the use of a redundant number system. These features provide a high level of performance. This is particularly true for certain two-dimensional problems which can be solved very efficiently on the proposed architecture. >


ABSTRACT There is increasing evidence for a role of early life gut microbiota in later development of asthma in children. In our recent study, children with reduced abundance of the bacterial genera Lachnospira, Veillonella, Faecalibacterium, and Rothia had an increased risk of development of asthma and addition of these bacteria in a humanized mouse model reduced airway inflammation. In this Addendum, we provide additional data on the use of a humanized gut microbiota mouse model to study the development of asthma in children, highlighting the differences in immune development between germ-free mice colonized with human microbes compared to those colonized with mouse gut microbiota. We also demonstrate that there is no association between the composition of the gut microbiota in older children and the diagnosis of asthma, further suggesting the importance of the gut microbiota-immune system axis in the first 3 months of life.


When a ball is shot through a spiral tube at high speed, the ball emerges in a straight path tangent to the ball's point of departure from the tube. However, past research has shown that many Ss believe the ball follows a curved pathway. In the 3 experiments described in this article, a ball traveling through a spiral tube was animated on a computer graphics screen. Ss' memory distortions for positions of the ball along each of 3 pathways were measured using a representational momentum paradigm. Retention interval was varied across the 3 experiments. The results from the 3 experiments reported here replicate retention interval results previously reported for representational momentum effects, and they suggest that the representational pathway of a ball exiting a spiral tube is spiral in shape. These findings may shed some light on why people have demonstrated naiveté on the spiral tube problem in past research.


The biological activity of many molecules which bind to double helical DNA is related to the sequence specificity of their binding. The development of new substances of this type is challenging; a general solution to the problem does not exist. A new mechanism for small molecule-duplex DNA interaction termed intercalative displacement is proposed. The approach is promising for the design of new substances which will recognize sequence information on DNA. Molecular mechanics calculations in the absence of solvent and counterions predict that the proposed model is structurally and energetically closely related to the well known process of standard intercalation. The implications of these calculations for experimental studies are discussed.


ticed at Imam Hossain Hospital. In the maneuvers, clinical cases first are delivered to the nursing sector for triage, and the triaged cases are diagnosed; remedial actions were described to the professors in different specialties. Problems were directed toward the administration for decision-making. The results of the exercises from the nursing, clinical, and administrative personnel were analyzed. In addition to assessing the results, the basic design, the scenario and triage protocol, several medical protocols and methods to improve the executive process are being discussed. The lack of medical protocols and proper training of hospital personnel were basic reasons for the errors in triage, diagnosis, treatment, and operations.


The crucial element in a disaster is the human component. In this paper, this human factor is discussed with reference to a group's vulnerability, which is a concomitant of certain important attributes such as the occupation/livelihood of a group. However, when a community or a group manages to survive disasters despite their vulnerabilities, it calls for a discussion on the various processes of resilience and coping that enabled their survival.


In this proposed work we have been presenting an efficient Hardware and Software Controller for controlling appliances of home using combination of network technology and speech recognition technology. For speech recognition Linear Predictive Coding (LPC) has been implemented for extraction of features from acoustic inputs while states are designed using Hidden Markov Models at backend processing. The proposed model is designed to control local as well as remote home appliances using parallel ports of computer hardware interface.


Abstract:  In this study, the authors proposed a classification of inflammatory breast disorders based on which a practical systematic scheme in diagnosis was applied aiming to differentiate simple forms of mastitis from more complicated and malignant forms. The study population included 197 female patients who were clinically or pathologically diagnosed as having mastitis. All patients underwent Ultrasound examination. Mammography was performed for 133/197 cases. Cases of simple mastitis and periductal mastitis were followed up to ensure complete resolution. Abscess cavities and postoperative collections were drained. Other cases were biopsied to confirm diagnosis and were managed accordingly by their treating physicians. Statistical analysis was performed by the Statistical Package for Social Science. Nominal Data were expressed as frequency and relative frequencies (percentage). Ultrasound and Mammography categorical results were compared using the Pearson Chi Square and Fisher's exact test. Patients were classified into three groups; infectious, noninfectious and malignant mastitis. Simple and malignant forms of mastitis showed many signs in common. The presence of ill defined collections and abscess cavities on ultrasound favored simple over malignant forms of mastitis while extensive skin thickening and infiltrated malignant nodes favored malignant forms. Interstitial edema, edematous fat lobules, abscess cavities, skin thickening seen on ultrasound examination were significantly lower in noninfectious than simple and malignant mastitis. Mammography signs were less discriminating. Diffuse skin thickening and increased density favored malignant mastitis while dilated retro areolar ducts and characteristic calcification patterns favored noninfectious forms. Simple mastitis showed nonspecific signs. Ultrasound examination in mastitis cases shows more specific signs in differentiating between the three forms of mastitis and is useful in monitoring treatment, excluding complications and guide for interventional procedures. Mammography should be performed whenever complicated, malignant and uncommon forms of mastitis are suspected.


The samarium(II) iodide mediated reaction of N,N-dibenzyl-protected (S)-alpha-amino aldehydes with (1S,2R)-N-methylephedrinyl acrylate gave the (4R,1'S)-gamma-(aminoalkyl)-gamma-butyrolactones in good yields with high diastereoselectivities (up to 80% de); (4R,1'S)-gamma-amino-(2-phenylethyl)-gamma-butyrolactone (6a), which should be a potent precursor for gamma-secretase inhibitors, was obtained with high de value.


In this paper, we study simplicial hyperplane arrangements in real projective 3-space. We give a precise condition for the characteristic polynomial to have only real roots, valid also for non-simplicial arrangements. As application, we obtain combinatorial inequalities which are satisfied for arrangements with splitting polynomial. This allows us to prove that there are only finitely many different isomorphism classes of simply laced simplicial arrangements whose characteristic polynomials split over R. We also provide an updated version of a catalogue published by Grünbaum and Shephard and review some conjectures of theirs.


The results of X-ray diffraction measurements of a lead magnoniobate single crystal-PbMg13/Nb23/O3, performed on a four-circle diffractometer with Mo K alpha radiation, are described. It is confirmed that even at relatively high temperatures lead ions are shifted from the high-symmetry position. It is shown that these shifts are random both in length and direction. A spherical layer model is proposed for the adequate description of the experimental data. The correspondence between the crystal structure and the physical properties of the crystal is discussed.


Five terrestrial techniques, i.e., sea level variations, repeated gravity surveys, tilt variations, repeated airborne terrain profiling, and repeated levelings appear to have sufficient accuracy to give useful information for detection of crustal movements of the order of a few centimeters. They are either being used already or have a clear potential of becoming useful, which cannot now be said of other available techniques, such as trigonometric heighting, barometric heighting, or photogrammetry.

The techniques generally adopted for analyzing the complex ocean signal are numerical filtering and regression analysis. The aim of such an analysis is to eliminate those components of the signal which can be interpreted as caused by tides, barometric pressure changes, wind stress, steric topography, and other phenomena associated with marine dynamics, thus leaving the remaining variations, both secular and episodic, available for study. In spite of the limited understanding of ocean processes a certain measure of success has been achieved in this field, so that given good quality data, at least the secular trend can be identified. The work of the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level in its current task of publishing mean sea level data in a new format should provide assistance in evaluating the eustatic contribution in the secular trend.


This article provides a framework to estimate the potential effects and benefits of the provision of market information in storable commodity markets. This framework is applied to the case of production forecasts for the soybean market. A rational expectations storage model of the global soybean market accounting for both inter‐annual and intra‐annual market dynamics is built. Shocks that occur between planting and harvesting affect the size of the potential harvest. Estimates of the size of these shocks are reported publicly and affect the market equilibrium through adjustments to stock levels. By varying counterfactually the observability of seasonal shocks, we can estimate the efficiency gains related to the availability of advance information. They are equivalent to 2% of storage costs; the reduction of stock levels being the main channel explaining the welfare gains. The presence of advance information has a limited effect on inter‐annual price volatility but redistributes price volatility during the season, increasing it just before harvest when almost all news has been received and stocks are tight and decreasing it after harvest. The effect of news shocks is stronger on higher order moments of the distribution with a strong decrease in skewness and kurtosis related to the lower frequency of price spikes.


In contrast to normal cells, cancer cells typically undergo metabolic reprogramming. Studies have shown that oncogenes play an important role in this metabolic reprogramming. CD38 is a multifunctional transmembrane protein that is expressed abnormally in a variety of tumor types. To investigate the effect and possible mechanism of CD38 in cervical cancer cells and to provide a new therapeutic target for the treatment of cervical cancer, the present study identified that CD38 is involved in regulating cell metabolism in cervical cancer cells. Liquid chromatography‑tandem mass spectrometry and bioinformatic analyses revealed that differentially abundant proteins in CD38‑overexpressed cervical cancer cells (CaSki‑CD38 and HeLa‑CD38) are predominantly involved in glycolytic pathways, oxidative phosphorylation and the NAD/NADH metabolic process. Further experiments using an ATP test kit and lactate test kit revealed that CD38 promotes glucose consumption, increases lactate accumulation and increases ATP production. In addition, CD38 increases the phosphorylation of phosphatidylserine/threonine kinase (AKT), mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) and phosphatidylinositol‑4,5‑bisphosphate 3‑kinase (PI3K), which play a key role in tumor metabolism. Furthermore, it was found that the energy metabolism of cervical cancer cells was inhibited following treatment with the mTOR inhibitor rapamycin. In conclusion, the results of the present study suggested that CD38 regulates the metabolism of cervical cancer cells by regulating the PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway, which may be a candidate target for the treatment of cervical cancer.


Diffused economism value since the industrial revolution, environmental load increases rapidly beyond the self cleaning capacity of the ecosystem. Surge of environmental impact, lead to the destruction of ecosystems. This was made to act as a factor again results in a reduced the life quality and crisis human survival. Environmental problems are spreading to the global problem, the international community has emerged as a new ideology. In order to 'true welfare' for human, All people enjoy prosperity can be guaranteed a clean environment, a concept based on the quality of life of the welfare of the environment. In this regard, recent studies have been performed. Subject to improvement of environmental welfare, foundation furtherance for environmental management and welfare of future is environmental welfare. However, Lay emphasis on inequalities of environmental welfare in various perspectives and sectors. This seems to be somewhat lacking on come up with an activation plan for environmental welfare. On the other hand, whether domestic environment welfare succeed, government of interest is also important. However, it can be different depending on whether the efforts of local governments. In other words, Regional environment welfare is satisfaction of sectoral environment that citizens feel would differ depending on the particularities of the region. In this study, attempts to type-specific analysis through the domestic and international environment welfare characteristics. Furthermore, evaluate the environmental welfare level of the region through the itemized evaluation of metropolitan city. Based on the results, suggest the direction for the development of future environmental welfare model.


Behavioral fight responses to desiccation risk are important to predict the vulnerability of terrestrial animals to climate change and yet, they have received little attention so far. In terrestrial ectotherms, behavioral regulation of the water balance (i.e., hydroregulation) is likely to be plastic and may trade-off with thermoregulation behavior because water loss rates are generally higher in warmer environments and body temperatures.
When low water availability and heat stress cause physiological dehydration, we expect to highlight a shift to behavioral water-conservation strategies including changes in activity patterns, microhabitat selection and thermoregulation strategies. Here, we compared the behavior of adult common lizards (Zootoca vivipara) in indoor arenas that either had a permanent access to water or underwent a one-week long experimental water restriction.
Water-restricted lizards reduced their behavioral activity, selected more often cooler and wetter refuges during daytime, and performed less accurate thermoregulation than control lizards. The activity of water-restricted gravid females shifted towards the cooler and wetter early hours of the day. In addition, they had lower body temperatures and preferred lower body temperatures at the end of the experiment (i.e., thermal depression). Water-restricted lizards suffered from a mild physiological dehydration, water-restricted females had lower mass change compared to control ones, and water-restricted males lost weight. Heat stress was simulated every second day, which led to a range of heat avoidance and water conservation strategies independent from water restriction. 5. Altogether, these results confirm that chronic water restriction and dehydration induce responses towards water conservation that conflict with thermoregulation accuracy.


This letter proposes a 4-kb/s multimode code-excited linear prediction (CELP) coder with pitch synchronous extended excitation. Three modes are used for the short-term excitation, namely algebraic, extended, or stochastic excitations, together with an adaptive codebook for the long-term excitation. Comparisons with the FS-1016 and ITU-T G.723.1 coders show a performance level between these standards.


Changing the curriculum has always been re garded as more difficult than moving a ceme tery. But Trenton High did it in English (be coming nationally famous), and will do it again in the social studies. Here's how.


In this paper, the Chebychev spectral collocation method is applied for the thermal analysis of convective-radiative straight fins with the temperature-dependent thermal conductivity. The developed heat transfer model was used to analyse the thermal performance, establish the optimum thermal design parameters, and also, investigate the effects of thermo-geometric parameters and thermal conductivity (nonlinear) parameters on the thermal performance of the fin. The results of this study reveal that the rate of heat transfer from the fin increases as convective, radioactive, and magnetic parameters increase. This study finds good agreements between the obtained results using the Chebychev spectral collocation method and the results obtained using the Runge-Kutta method along with shooting, homotopy perturbation, and Adomian decomposition methods.


Introduction: Schizophrenia is a profoundly debilitating disease that represents not only an individual, but a societal problem. Once characterized solely by the hyperactivity of the dopaminergic system, therapies directed to dampen dopaminergic neurotransmission were developed. However, these drugs do not address the significant impairments in cognition and the negative symptoms of the disease, and it is now apparent that disequilibrium of many neurotransmitter systems is involved. Despite enormous efforts, minimal progress has been made toward the development of safer, more effective therapies to date. Areas covered: The high preponderance of smoking in schizophrenics suggests that nicotine may provide symptomatic improvement, which has led to investigation for selective molecules targeted to individual nicotinic receptor (nAChR) subtypes. Of special interest is activation of the homomeric α7nAChR, which is widely distributed in the brain and has been implicated in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia through numerous approaches. Expert opinion: Preclinical and clinical data suggest that neuronal α7nAChRs play an important role in cognitive functions. Moreover, some, but not all, early clinical trials conducted with α7nAChR agonists show cognitive benefits in schizophrenics. These encouraging results suggest that development of compounds targeting α7nAChRs will represent a valuable tool to mitigate symptoms associated with schizophrenia, and open new strategies for better pharmacological treatment of these patients.


Unfortunately, undesirable sequelae occasionally follow all types of gastric surgery. Certain of these complications are known to occur with some frequency in a particular type of patient. Malnourished, labile, asthenic individuals will, for example, have a higher incidence of dumping and loss of weight than hearty, robust, younger patients, and some of the former type of patients will have the disturbing symptom, bilious vomiting. The original operative procedure adaptable to the one type of patient may be unsuitable for the other, and thus anticipation of these postgastrectomy complications influences the selection of the first procedure. Despite this, in rare cases troublesome symptoms may develop that require an additional operative procedure. The excellent results which followed a double jejunal-loop interposition in another patient who was vomiting small amounts of bile each day1seemed to warrant employment of a similar procedure2,3in the surgical management in the case which we


We propose two new algorithms to minimize the constant modulus (CM) criterion in the context of blind source separation. The first algorithm, referred to as Givens CMA (G-CMA) uses unitary Givens rotations and proceeds in two stages: prewhitening step, which reduces the channel matrix to a unitary one followed by a separation step where the resulting unitary matrix is computed using Givens rotations by minimizing the CM criterion. However, for small sample sizes, the prewhitening does not make the channel matrix close enough to unitary and hence applying Givens rotations alone does not provide satisfactory performance. To remediate to this problem, we propose to use non-unitary Shear (Hyperbolic) rotations in conjunction with Givens rotations. This second algorithm referred to as Hyperbolic G-CMA (HG-CMA) is shown to outperform the G-CMA as well as the Analytical CMA (ACMA) in terms of separation quality. The last part of this paper is dedicated to an efficient adaptive implementation of the HG-CMA and to performance assessment through numerical experiments.


The present invention provides a feedback (feedback), and feed-forward (feedforward) type of the variable-gain broadband amplifier and its purpose, In order to achieve this object, a variable-gain broadband amplifier of the present invention, input signal inverting amplifier of a feedback type of the inverting amplifier (Vin) 310; The non-inverting amplifier 320 for amplifying the non-inverting the input signal (Vin); A gain controlled current source 330 to control the gain of the non-inverting amplifier 130; And a gain control load unit 340 which is connected between the connection point of the supply voltage (VDD) terminal of each output stage, controlling the gain each of the amplification part of the inverting amplifier 310 and the non-inverting amplifier 320, including, by outputting the output signal of the output signal and the non-inverting amplifier 320, the inverting amplifier 310 via a single output terminal, the third-order cross-modulation frequency (IM3) generated by said each amplifier unit by attenuating made to amplify the desired frequencies (f1, f2) contained in the input signal. Broadband systems, low-noise amplifier, the variable gain amplifier, the wideband amplifier, the feed-forward


Let K' be a hyperbolic knot in S^3 and suppose that some Dehn surgery on K' with distance at least 3 from the meridian yields a 3-manifold M of Heegaard genus 2. We show that if M does not contain an embedded Dyck's surface (the closed non-orientable surface of Euler characteristic -1), then the knot dual to the surgery is either 0-bridge or 1-bridge with respect to a genus 2 Heegaard splitting of M. In the case M does contain an embedded Dyck's surface, we obtain similar results. As a corollary, if M does not contain an incompressible genus 2 surface, then the tunnel number of K' is at most 2.


The large number of tourists, students, and Muslim migrant workers in South Korea has prompted the South Korean government to start developing various kinds of halal tourism programs. These programs are very interesting and helpful for tourists, students and Muslim migrant workers to visit or live in South Korea. To find out the extent of the development of halal tourism in South Korea, this study was conducted using a descriptive -quantitative method with Indonesian people in South Korea as the object of this research. The object of this study was selected because of the large number of tourists, students, and Indonesian workers in South Korea and the majority of them as Muslim can represent other Muslim communities in South Korea. The results of this study indicate that Muslim-friendly facilities such as halal restaurants, halal food shopping applications, mosques, and prayer rooms in South Korea are quite numerous and scattered in various cities. This is certainly welcomed positively by tourists and the Muslim communities in South Korea. However, there are several things that Korean government still needs to pay attention to, especially related to the socialization of halal food that there is a standardization and process in it.
Keywords: Halal Tourism, South Korea, Tourism, Halal Korea, Halal Food


Chemokine receptors play a central role in directing leukocytes to various tissues around the body by recognising chemotactic cues called chemokines. Upon entry into a tissue, infiltrating leukocytes from the blood stream encounter tissue resident cells, and in the case of T lymphocytes scan antigen presenting cells (APCs). Following antigen recognition, signalling components can be recruited into micro-scale domains at the interface of the APC-T cell conjugate, forming a structure known as the immunological synapse (IS). The chemokine receptors CCR5 and CXCR4 have been implicated in promoting IS formation through their recruitment to the T cell side of human APC-T cell interfaces. However, this is based primarily on studies with immortalized cell lines transfected with GFP-tagged chemokine receptors and does not take into account what happens on the APC side of the IS. Hence, the behaviour of endogenous CXCR4 and CCR5 during the formation of IS between primary T cells and APCs needs to be clarified.

Live cell microscopy and flow cytometry were employed to examine a previously uncharacterised macrophage-CD4+ T cell IS, formed in vitro between primary human blood isolated T cells and monocyte-derived macrophages (MDMs) pulsed with a superantigen (sAg). Under these conditions, MDM-CD4+ T cell conjugates displayed elevated T cell intracellular calcium responses. A fraction of these conjugates showed T cell receptor capping as well as ICAM1 and relocation of the Golgi apparatus towards the cell–cell interface, which suggests that the interactions between MDMs and CD4+ T cells lead to the formation of synapses and possibly kinapses.

Endogenous T cell surface CCR5 and CXCR4 molecules were found to cap at the MDM-CD4+ T cell IS, albeit infrequently. Yet, intracellular pools of T cell CCR5 receptors were consistently reported facing the IS interface and showed partial overlap with a marker of the trans-Golgi network, implying that intracellular CCR5 may translocate to the IS as a cargo in the Golgi. In contrast, on MDMs, cell surface CCR5 did not accumulate at the IS interface. FRAP analysis revealed that CCR5 molecules are relatively mobile at the surface of MDMs, and that CCR5 movement is affected by depletion but not sequestration of membrane cholesterol. These findings suggested that the non-accumulation of MDM CCR5 at the IS interface was not due to the restriction of lateral movement. Importantly, this work highlights cell-type differences in the behaviour of endogenous CCR5 receptors.

This thesis brings new insights into the roles of endogenous chemokine receptors in human leukocytes during antigen-dependent interactions and informs future research aiming to bridge the gap between mouse and human systems to study immune synapses.


While written corpora can be exploited without any linguistic annotations, speech corpora need at least a basic transcription to be of any use for linguistic research. The basic annotation of speech data usually consists of time-aligned orthographic transcriptions. To answer phonetic or phonological research questions, phonetic transcriptions are needed as well. However, manual annotation is very time-consuming and requires considerable skill and near-native competence. Therefore it can take years of speech corpus compilation and annotation before any analyses can be carried out. In this paper, approaches that address the transcription bottleneck of speech corpus exploitation are presented and discussed, including crowdsourcing the orthographic transcription, automatic phonetic alignment, and query-driven annotation. Currently, query-driven annotation and automatic phonetic alignment are being combined and applied in two speech research projects at the Institut fur Deutsche Sprache (IDS), whereas crowdsourcing the orthographic transcription still awaits implementation.


The B-spline density functional method for the electronic continuum is employed to calculate the cross section and the asymmetry parameter profiles of valence and core photoionization in M@C60 (M = Be, Mg and Ca). For the valence photoionization significant differences are identified through the series and oscillations similar to those observed in the HOMO/HOMO-1 ratio in C60 have been calculated for Ca@C60. Core M 1s and Ca 2p ionizations are studied with the help of the `dipole prepared' continuum orbitals, which allows the identification of the leading mechanisms which give rise to the characteristic sharp and intense shape resonances, typical of these compounds.


1. Flexion contracture of the knee is a common deformity in the child with cerebral palsy. If surgical relief of this deformity is indicated, it should be directed at two deforming elements, the overactivity of the spastic hamstring muscles and the deficiency of the quadriceps mechanism with an elongated patellar tendon.

2. Twenty-six patients were treated by one of the following procedures: transfer of the hamstring tendons to the femoral condyles (Eggers), transfer of the medial hamstrings only, or the combined procedure of transfer of the hamstring tendons and advancement of the patellar tendon.

3. Transfer of the hamstring tendons above the knee relieves knee-flexion contracture and improves hip extension. Advancement of the patellar tendon after transference of the hamstring produces superior clinical results and facilitates independent walking. Striking clinical improvement was observed in six of the seven patients who had the combined procedure.

4. Transfer of the medial hamstring tendons only and lengthening of the biceps femoris tendon, followed by advancement of the patellar tendon, may prove to be a more advantageous procedure and is currently under study.


This paper describes a mixed simulation approach of electromagnetic (EM) macromodel and nonlinear circuit bilateral model to correct the output signal for a power amplifier (PA) and obtain an optimal radiation pattern for an active antenna array transmit (TX) chain. Various experimental results show the reliability of EM, nonlinear PA models and mixed simulation approach as well. The originality of this work is the elimination of isolators between PAs and antennas while maintaining a matched PA and a correct radiation pattern in regards to the antenna's high impedance mismatch.


Biological Characteristics of Lycorma delicatula and insecticidal activity of some insecticides against nymphs of L. delicatula was investigated. Nymph of L. delicatula had 4 instars, and color of body was black. There were white spots on the body of 1st-3rd nymph. Upper body became red at 4th nymph. Adult forewings were brownish, and had black spots. Color of hind wing were red. The egg mass was covered with a yellowish brown secretion. The adult of L. delicatula emerged once a year. Among test insecticides, deltamethrin 1% EC and fenitrothion 50% EC showed very quick and strong insecticidal activity against the 2nd-3rd nymphs of L. delicatula. Imidacloprid 4% SL and clothianidin 8% SC showed 100% insecticidal activity at 24h after treatment. Thiacoprid 10% SC revealed the weakest insecticidal activity among the insecticides tested.


Pregnancy is one of the happiest days of women's life and they focus on the joy that their new baby will bring. The majority of pregnant women put off thinking about the birth with minimal pain and intervention which is over in the shortest possible time. However, even if your birth goes well you can still sustain injuries which can have a life altering affect. The study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of an information booklet on knowledge among staff nurses regarding the prevention and management of perineal tear during normal delivery. An evaluative approach with one group Pre test Post test design was used for the study. 40 samples were selected using simple random sampling method. The present study was conducted in Justice K.S. Hegde Charitable hospital Mangalore. The collected data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. A significant difference between Pre test and Post test knowledge was found (t=23.09, p<0.05). The study findings showed that the information booklet was effective in improving knowledge of staff nurses. The literature provided in the book is beneficial for the primigravida mothers as well as to all the health professionals.


It has been variously suggested that chemical carcinogens interact with a protein regulator of cell growth, ultimately causing neoplastic cells to arise in which the protein target of the carcinogen is reduced or absent. As a test of the target reduction aspect of these hypotheses, the amount of the principal protein target of a hepatic carcinogen was determined immunologically in liver tumors caused by that carcinogen.

Specific antiserum against the principal liver protein target of a hepatic azocarcinogen was obtained by immunization with the highly purified liver azoprotein isolated from rats fed 3′-methyl-4-dimethylaminoazobenzene for 15 to 18 days. The amount of the target protein in serially diluted liver and liver tumor cytosols was measured by gel double immunodiffusion with a precision of 10% (S.D.) or less.

Little difference in the relative content of the principal target protein was found in the liver cytosols of normal rats and of those fed a diet containing or lacking the azocarcinogen for 15 to 18 days. In contrast, in 15 cytosols of primary liver tumors of 15 rats fed the azocarcinogen until sacrifice, the content of protein target of azocarcinogen was 6 to 31% (average, 18 ± 8% S.D.) of that present in normal rat liver cytosol. In 7 cytosols of livers around tumors, the quantity of target protein was 66 to 116% (average, 83 ± 19% S.D.).

An additional series of assays examined 4 types of transplanted hepatomas that were originally caused by fluorenyl amide and biphenyl amide carcinogens. These carcinogens probably have principal target proteins that are different from those of azocarcinogens. Three kinds of well-differentiated hepatomas had mean levels (85 to 98%) of the protein target of azocarcinogens like that of normal liver. One type of poorly differentiated hepatoma had < 3%.

The finding of a reduction in amount of principal protein target of a carcinogen in primary tumors caused by that carcinogen, and not in transplanted differentiated tumors caused by other carcinogens, suggests two alternatives, namely, either the reduction need be specifically that of the target protein of the carcinogen which caused the neoplasm or it is due to other causes, e.g. , tumor progression, and therefore is not essential for neoplasia per se . These alternatives are separate from the more basic question of the role (if any) of the carcinogen-protein interaction in chemical carcinogenesis, possibly as part of a mechanism not involving target protein depletion in tumors.


A combined transcranial and facial approach is recommended for antroethmoidal cancers which have invaded the cribriform plate area. This permits a complete enbloc excision of the ethmoid labyrinths. In most patients orbital exenteration was necessary because of tumour invasion. In the facial approach adequate exposure is achieved by mobilizing the entire nasal complex which is swung to the contralateral side. The surgical defect is repaired with a revascularized tensor fascia lata muscle and skin flap. The flap is tailored to support the cranial contents, provide muscle bulk for the orbitomaxillectomy cavity and skin for the face, nasal and palatal surfaces. Postoperative complications are few and most patients received their planned postoperative radiotherapy within a few weeks of the surgery. Since 1980, nine patients have been treated and six of these remain alive and free of disease.


With an intensive study of the existing density-sensitive distance measures, we proposed a new distance measure for graph-based semi-supervised learning. The proposed measure can not only effectively amplify the distance between data points in different high-density regions, but also reduce the distance among data points in a same high-density region. Then, a graph-based semi-supervised clustering algorithm is presented based on the proposed distance measure. Experimental results on some UCI data sets show that the proposed method has obvious advantages than the old one.


Computer tomography (CT) and densitometry (DXA) were used to study structure, density and mineral density (BMD) of lower limb bones in 32 patients with vitamin D-resistant rickets and in those with vitamin D-deficient rickets consequences. In patients with vitamin D-resistant rickets a roughly trabecular structure with trabeculae located in random way preponderated in epimetaphyseal bone parts, the least values of bone density were observed in femoral and tibial epiphyses (175 ± 85 HU and 174 ± 84 HU, respectively), there was bone age lagging behind the passport one, while in patients with vitamin D-deficient rickets consequences both epiphyses and metaphyses have fine cellular structure, zones of preliminary calcification are represented by isolated thin strips of sclerosis, bone age conforms to the passport one.


Abstract Home Truths about Child Sexual Abuse: Influencing Policy and Practice: A reader Catherine Itzin (4) Routledge, London, 2000. ISBN0415 15261 5 (hbk) f55.0O/f18.990415 152623 (pbk) £18.99 Child Sexual Assault: Feminist perspectives Pat Cox, Sheila Kenhaw andJoy Trotter (eds) Palgrave, London. 2000. 248pp. ISBN 0 333 77153 2. (hbk) £45.00 Athletes and Acquaintance Rape Jeffrey R Benedict Sage (Violence Against Women Series). London, 1998. 120pp ISBN 0 7619 0966 4 (hbk) f47.00 / 0 7619 0967 2 (pbk) £19.00 Whistleblowing in the Social Services: Public accountability and professional practice Geoffrey Hunt (ed.), Foreword by Allan Levy, QC Edward Arnold, London, 1998. 278pp. ISBN 0 340 65245 4 (pbk) £18.99


SUMMARY: The effect of a mutation at acrA, which alters the bacterial membrane, on plasmid stability was studied. F-gal
+ residing in the mutant was remarkably unstable in the presence of acridine dyes or at high temperature (42°C) as compared with wild-type (acrA
+) strains. Following suppression or back-mutation to acridine resistance, cells became capable of stably hosting the plasmid in the presence of acridine. Lipophilic substances, such as phenethyl alcohol and sodium dodecylsulphate, enhanced the curing-action of acridine in the F/acrA strain. Certain fatty acids promoted curing of the mutant bacteria in the absence of acridines. It is suggested that the stability of F-gal
+ may depend on some feature of the plasma membrane.


This work was carried out to evaluate the digestibility, using Cr2O3 and indigestible neutral detergent fiber (INDF), as markers, and also the degradability using ground ear corn (GEC). Six treatments were used in a factorial design, with three milling degrees (3/8", 9/16" and 3/4") of ground ear corn and peanut meal or corn gluten feed as protein sources. The milling degrees of ground ear corn did not have effect on pH, N-NH3 , digestibility (dry matter - DM, crude protein - CP, extract ether extract - EE, starch, neutral detergent fiber - NDF, acid detergent fiber - ADF) and ruminal degradability for DM and starch. Digestibility coefficients differed between two markers and were higher for Cr2O3. There was significant interaction for pH and N-NH3 between protein sources and milling degree, but only on 9/16", with lowest pH value for peanut meal and lowest N-NH3 concentration for corn gluten feed. There was no effect of milling degree on rumen degradability of dry matter, but there was protein sources effect, and the degradability was higher on corn gluten feed treatments. The starch degradability of GEC plus protein source did not differ between protein sources, but differed when only GEC on nylon bags was used, the starch degradability was higher in corn gluten feed treatments.


Background Technological, medical and public health advances in the past century have dramatically increased life expectancy in industrialised countries. The demographics of death in relation to age profile, cause of death and place of death have changed radically in that time. Sudden unexpected death is much less common than previously, with most people now dying, after a variable period of predictable decline, from chronic disease and frailty. Despite this hospital clinicians often cannot diagnose that that patient is dying, and it is often not until a clinical deterioration occurs that clear discussions and decisions are made regarding limitation of treatment and approaching death. Methods This presentation will discuss some approaches taken to address these issues at the Austin hospital, a large tertiary health service and university hospital in Australia. It will discuss the overlapping roles of various teams, including the rapid response team (medical emergency team), the advance care planning team, and the palliative care team, and provide practical guidance, especially in circumstances where prognosis is less clear. Some enablers and barriers, and recommendations will also be discussed briefly. Conclusions Improvements in coordination of care near the end of life can improve outcomes for patients who die in acute hospitals. These are important concerns for the population and the health care system, given the changing demographics of death in modern societies.


Visual codes such as QR codes provide a low-cost and convenient communication channel between physical objects and mobile devices, but typically operate when the code and the device are in close physical proximity. We propose a system, called QfaR, which enables mobile devices to scan visual codes across long distances even where the image resolution of the visual codes is extremely low. QfaR is based on location-guided code scanning, where we utilize a crowd-sourced database of physical locations of codes. Our key observation is that if the approximate location of the codes and the user is known, the space of possible codes can be dramatically pruned down. Then, even if every "single bit" from the low-resolution code cannot be recovered, QfaR can still identify the visual code from the pruned list with high probability. By applying computer vision techniques, QfaR is also robust against challenging imaging conditions, such as tilt, motion blur, etc. Experimental results with common iOS and Android devices show that QfaR can significantly enhance distances at which codes can be scanned, e.g., 3.6cm-sized codes can be scanned at a distance of 7.5 meters, and 0.5m-sized codes at about 100 meters. QfaR has many potential applications, and beyond our diverse experiments, we also conduct a simple case study on its use for efficiently scanning QR code-based badges to estimate event attendance.


Transmission electron microscopy has been used to investigate the 'free' layer reversal mechanism of a range of FeMn-biased spin-valves with parallel anisotropy. Fresnel imaging enabled three modes of reversal to be directly observed for different in-plane applied field orientations and interlayer coupling strengths. Low-angle diffraction has provided some quantitative information on the level of dispersion involved in the reversals. Comparison with a modified Stoner-Wohlfarth coherent rotation model is made and magnetic modelling of the free layer energy variation as a function of magnetization orientation is presented. This has helped provide a deeper understanding of the observed discrepancies between the model and experimental data. Finally, a qualitative description of the observed domain processes is given in relation to the free layer energy for the corresponding experimental conditions.


The existing paradigm for the major ca. 56–48 Ma subduction zone reorganization in the Pacific Northwest of North America is that: (1) the Siletzia large igneous province erupted offshore to the west of North America, forming an oceanic plateau; (2) Siletzia then collided with North America, clogging the Pacific Northwest segment of the Cordilleran subduction zone; and (3) the oceanic lithosphere west of Siletzia then ruptured to initiate the new Cascadia subduction zone. Oceanic lithosphere is strong and difficult to rupture, so this would represent a rare example of such a rupture initiating a new subduction zone. This paper explores an alternative hypothesis for the reorganization, a plume-induced subduction initiation (PISI) mechanism, which has previously been applied to the initiation of Caribbean plate subduction zones in the Cretaceous. In this PISI hypothesis, a newly formed, ~1200-km-diameter Yellowstone mantle plume head rose at ca. 55 Ma beneath western North America, generating Siletzia in situ on the North American margin, as well as generating the ~1700-km-long Challis-Kamloops volcanic belt ~600 km to the east of Siletzia. This destroyed the existing Cordilleran subduction zone and allowed the new Cascadia subduction zone to form by collapse of thermally weakened oceanic lithosphere over the hot western margin of the plume head. This PISI hypothesis provides an integrated framework for understanding Siletzia, the Challis-Kamloops belt, Eocene core complexes from Idaho (U.S.) to British Columbia (Canada), underplated mafic rocks beneath Oregon and Washington (U.S.), post–17 Ma manifestations of the Yellowstone plume, and geophysical characteristics of the lithosphere beneath the Pacific Northwest.


Objective: To evaluate the efficacy, safety and feasibility of pen-administered low-dose dasiglucagon for prevention and treatment of non-severe hypoglycemia in people with type 1 diabetes during free-living conditions.
 Methods: Twenty-four adults with insulin pump-treated type 1 diabetes completed a phase 2, randomized, open-label, 2-period cross-over study with 2-week periods. During the usual care (UC) and dasiglucagon (DASI) period, participants managed impending and manifest episodes of hypoglycemia with regular carbohydrate consumption or pen-administered low-dose (80 µg) s.c. dasiglucagon, respectively. Glycemic control was evaluated using continuous glucose monitoring (Dexcom G6) and event-registration of prevention and treatment episodes. Patient-reported outcomes (PRO) were collected following study completion.
 Results: Participants administered dasiglucagon (IQR: 7-15) times during the 2-week period. Compared with UC, the mean difference (±SEM) in time in range (70-180 mg/dL) was 2.4%-point (±1.5%) (UC: 61.5%, DASI: 63.9%, p=0.129) , difference in time below range (<70 mg/dL) was 0.5%-point (±0.4%) (UC: 3.1%, DASI: 2.6%, p=0.170) , while total daily carbohydrate intake was significantly reduced (UC: 192 g, DASI: 172 g, p=0.007) . Dasiglucagon use was safe and well tolerated with nausea being the most frequent adverse effect (no. of participants: UC: 4, DASI: 8, p=0.206) . PRO demonstrated that 96% (p<0.001) of participants were likely to include dasiglucagon as part of their future routine management of hypoglycemia.
 Conclusion: Utilization of pen-administered, low-dose dasiglucagon for prevention and treatment of non-severe hypoglycemia during free-living conditions was safe and efficacious while significantly reducing the total daily carbohydrate intake and yielding high treatment satisfaction.

 C.Laugesen: None. A.G.Ranjan: None. S.Schmidt: None. K.Nørgaard: Advisory Panel; Medtronic, Novo Nordisk A/S, Consultant; Novo Nordisk A/S, Research Support; Dexcom, Inc., Medtronic, Novo Nordisk A/S, Zealand Pharma A/S, Speaker's Bureau; Medtronic, Stock/Shareholder; Novo Nordisk A/S.

 SteDiabetes Center Copenhagen is the sponsor of this investigator-initiated trial. Zealand Pharma provided financial support to the conduct of the study and supplied the study medication.


A hybrid tactile displaying method of roughness, softness and friction senses is realized by use of ultrasonic vibrator and force display. Various realistic tactile senses are displayed by controlling multiple factors. First, a tactile display system was constructed for displaying roughness, softness and friction senses, simultaneously, by compensating the interference among multiple parameters of ultrasonic vibration and force feedback on multiple tactile senses. Second, the relationship between each control parameter and the tactile senses were quantified by conducting several sensory evaluation experiments. Finally, to verify the constructed system, tactile senses of six real materials were recreated, and reality and variety of the artificial senses were compared with the tactile senses of original materials. As a result, it was verified that the correlation coefficients between real materials and hybrid artificial tactile senses displayed using our system were quite large in the evaluation items on roughness, softness and friction sense.


McDonald's is a wonderful appetizing plant that has been successfully, strategically and advantageously transplanted in the Indian urban soil and for any busy man, it is a godsend centre of attraction that is welcome with open arms. McDonald's has a special affinity with Garden city, Bangalore and here at Forum mall, Koramangala, its first outlet is flowering like anything. Its products McVeggie, McPuff etc. made more tasty by the spices favored by Indians continued to be great crowd pullers. MvDonald's has rightly understood the Indian psyche and so has taken care to avoid Pork and Beef items. It does away with eggs in Soft Serves and McShakes and the outlet has earned a good name for its local vegetarian menu. McDonald's food chain in Bangalore comprises more than ten outlets with separate production lines for vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes. McDonald's has no doubt made untiring efforts for its successful adaptation in India. But what about the future? Will its global image of a fatty food co. affect its future in India? As for essential components, such as quality and responsibility for a balanced diet, a gap has been revealed. The co. must be very careful in determining the boarders of responsibility, i.e. responsibility to inform its customers on health related issues. It is opined that there is an imbalance between the quality of food and standards maintained by the co. as causing obesity among the youth. Certainly these issues are to be addressed properly. Because customer delight is the sine qua non for any service organization and this can be accomplished by maintaining minimum gaps between the expectations and experiences of the customers. The lesser the gap between the customer expectations and experiences, the more will be the customer satisfaction and loyalty.


Background Despite years of experience with vitamin K antagonist-associated bleeding events, there is still no evidence to help identify the optimal treatment with prothrombin complex concentrates. Variable dosing and fixed dose strategies are being used. In this observational prospective two-cohort study, we aimed to assess the non-inferiority of a low fixed PCC dose (1,040 IU Factor IX) compared to the registered variable dosing regimen based on baseline International Normalized Rate, bodyweight, and target International Normalized Rate, to counteract vitamin K antagonists in a bleeding emergency in a daily clinical practice setting. Design and Methods Non-inferiority of the fixed prothrombin complex concentrate dose was hypothesized with a margin of 4%. Main end points were proportion of patients reaching the target International Normalized Rate (< 2.0) after prothrombin complex concentrate treatment, and successful clinical outcome. Results Target International Normalized Rate was reached in 92% of the fixed dose patients (n=101) versus 95% of variable dose patients (n=139) resulting in a risk difference of -2.99% (90% CI: - 8.6 to 2.7) (non-inferiority not confirmed). Clinical outcome was successful in 96% and 88% of fixed versus variable dose, respectively, with a risk difference of 8.3% (90% CI: 2.7-13.9; non-inferiority confirmed). Conclusions Although a lower fixed prothrombin complex concentrate dose was associated with successful clinical outcome, fewer patients reached the target International Normalized Rate.


In wireless sensor networks (WSNs), sensor nodes with limited resource usually need to exchange information with neighbor nodes to collaboratively finish some tasks. Based on minimum error covariance trace principle, a class of distributed optimal Kalman filters (DOKF) is proposed to cooperatively process information in WSNs, where each sensor node communicates only to its neighbors. To reduce computation complexity, the other class of DOKF with uniform form is also proposed for collaborative information processing. The performance analysis of the two classes of filters shows they have high estimation accuracy, low communication traffic, and reduced computation complexity. Thus, the proposed filters are much suitable to large-scale WSNs. We apply the proposed algorithms to estimate and track the position of a moving target in WSNs. Simulation illustrates that the proposed algorithms have superior performance.


Each rockfall has a unique relationship with the particular geological and physical aspects of its location compared to other rockfalls. Particular attention is paid to an analysis using both rolling and bouncing rock calculations in the prediction of rockfall distribution. These measures help refine predictions involving the friction coefficient. They illustrate the importance of such factors in accurately managing rockfall in both rolling and bouncing trajectories. Solutions to rockfall problems were most economically dealt with by using settling ditches to dissipate the freefall energies of various rock sizes. This study applies analytical principles and remedial design to a slope with outcrop discontinuities in the Chunder area of Hualien. It was initially unclear what specific geomorphological factors contributed to the typical rockfalls in the area. Many stratigraphic environmental factors were examined and a few discrete variables (such as mechanical factors) proved to be predictive of rockfall dynamics.


The medical approach to disasters has been always a problematic issue for emergency departments. The authors of this paper reflect on possible efficient solutions for managing a massive influx of casualties in an Emergency Department, by analysing the responses to previous local catastrophic events, such as the collision of 'Segesta Jet', the great fire of Patti, the floods of Giampilieri/Scaletta and Saponara. The authors' point to a need for providing more extensive training of medical students in clinical aspects of disaster medicine.


Medicinal plants possess all the phytoconstituents which serves as a source of bioactive chemicals which are necessary for the significant pharmacological actions without any adverse effects. They can be used for the development of new classes of possibly safer drugs or medicines to cure various ailments. Eclipta alba is an herb which is widely used in traditional cuisine and in folk medicine for the treatment of various ailments. The present study was carried out to find out the preliminary phytochemical screening of Eclipta alba. The plant leaf samples were collected; powdered and bioactive substances were extracted with chloroform and acetone by water soxhelet extractor. Phytochemical analysis proved that the antibacterial activity of Eclipta alba is due to the presence of phytochemical compounds like alkaloids, flavonoids, steroids, triterpenes, phenolic compounds, saponins, carbohydrates, tannins and amino acids. The antimicrobial activity was determined by using agar well and disc diffusion method. Extracts with 1ml of dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) were added into the well. Chloroform, acetone and water extracted samples were tested against the most resistant microbial strain Salmonella typhi. The most susceptible gram positive bacterium, Bacillus subtilis which was inhibited by all extracts from Eclipta alba while Salmonella typhi and E. coli were highly resistant among the Gram negative bacteria. The plant leaves of Eclipta alba are used for various biological activities and used in the treatment of memory disorders, edema, fever, rheumatic joint pains, digestion, hepatitis, enlarged spleen and skin disorders.


The steady advance of nanotechnology from investigation to application and to manufacturing is increasing the demands on nanoscale metrology and lithography. As dimensions shrink to the nano-scale, the available metrologies, necessary for any advanced manufacturing process, become limited. Optical metrology faces resolution limits associated with the large size of the photon relative to the nanostructure. Interference techniques offer sub-wavelength resolution, but at the expense of experimental and signal processing complexity. Electron and ion microscopies (SEM, TEM, FIB, etc.) offer resolution but require high vacuum and are generally unavailable for in-line manufacturing applications. Scanning probe techniques such as atomic force microscopy (AFM), scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), and near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM) are very attractive, yet, still unreliable to produce ideal results. For example, AFM, commercial tips are often pyramidal, resulting in significant artifacts requiring complex and uncertain deconvolution of the data. For STM and STL (scanning-tunneling lithography), amorphous/polycrystalline metal tips are the dominant commercial technology but are subject to erosion and wear. For NSOM, metal tips require a complex alignment - optical fibers offer an alternative but are difficult to combine with AFM and STM functionality.
To overcome to the above-mentioned problems, we have developed a single nanowire probe systems, based on single crystal III-N semiconductors. Uniform GaN nanowire arrays, formed thought a combination of wet and dry etch of MOCVD GaN films, were achieved over a large area (>105 μm2) with an aspect ratio as large as 50, a radius as small as 17 nm, and atomic-scale sidewall roughness (<1 nm), allowing metrology of vertical structures with no artifact correction. Doping, during MOCVD film growth, controlled the conductivity of the GaN. Studies of the etching mechanism for different doping level are also reported. Optical emission properties of the 65 nm radius and 2 micron length GaN, mounted on an AFM tip shows a lasing at 365 nm with a line width of 0.15 nm and a Q-factor of 1139-2443.
Our results show that fabrication of high-quality GaN nanowire arrays with adaptable aspect ratio and large-area uniformity is feasible through a top-down approach using interferometric lithography and is promising for fabrication of III-nitride-based nanophotonic devices (radial/axial) on the original substrate. Indeed we will also present the state of the art results of these nanowires in AFM and STM metrology as well in field emission and scanning tunneling lithography and NSOM and demonstrate as, such a single wide-bandgap tip technology offers the functionality and versatility of several incumbent technologies in one single, universal, system.


In a recent paper, the authors succeeded in the inference of time‐variable gravity from orbit analysis of the CHAMP satellite. The authors demonstrated the potential of the adopted methods by validation against GRACE data and surface height changes from GPS ground stations. This paper presents the capability of orbit analysis for the spatiotemporal quantification of Greenland mass change trends. Based on CHAMP time‐variable gravity fields from January 2003 to December 2009, we estimated the ice mass loss over the entire of Greenland to 246±10 Gt/yr. This result is in line with the findings from GRACE data analysis (223±10 Gt/yr) over the same period; the trend estimates differ by only 10%. Moreover, for some areas, the spatial mass variation patterns are in good agreement, pinpointing dominant deglaciation along the Greenland coastline. We conclude that orbit analysis of low‐Earth orbiting spacecraft is suitable to assess Greenland mass balance in the absence of the GRACE satellites.


BACKGROUND
Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the arrhythmia with higher incidence in postoperative period after cardiac surgery. In individuals undergoing valve replacement surgeries (VRS) it occurs in about 64% and in individuals undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) it can occurs in about 30-40%. Its incidence in postoperative period can still be influenced by pre and perioperative risk factors.

AIM
To study the incidence of AF after cardiac surgery, its association with the type of surgery, cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB), and with the main pre and perioperative risk/predictive factors.

METHODS
Longitudinal retrospective observational study of individuals undergoing CABG and VRS in 2014, in a central hospital in the northern region. Cardiac rhythm was evaluated in four moments of postoperative period (end of CPB, Intensive Care Unit (ICU)/hospitalization, pre-hospital discharge, follow-up). The association of cardiac rhythm and preoperative risk/predictive factors (size of the atria, cardiomegaly, left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH)) and intraoperative risk factors (type of surgery, duration of CPB, aortic clamping time and cardioplegia administration) were explored through Odds ratio (OR).

RESULTS
We studied 416 individuals, 73.6 % male, mean age 66.8±10.5 years old. VRS showed incidence values of AF in all evaluation moments, and CABG only in ICU/internment and pre-hospital discharge. The incidence of AF was higher in ICU/internment in all types of surgery, ranging from 3.7% (CABG with CPB) to 71.4% (mitral VRS). Preoperative predictive factors with an OR>1 were age upper 65 years old (2.51 end of CPB, 10.62 pre-hospital discharge), dilation of the right atrium (RA) (1.08 follow-up, 3.41 pre-hospital discharge), and LVH (1.68 end of CPB, 2.78 pre-hospital discharge). Perioperative predictive factors with an OR>1 were CPB (2.74 ICU/interment, 3.37 pre-hospital discharge), and cardioplegia (2.93 ICU/internment, 5.40 pre-hospital discharge).

CONCLUSIONS
VRS were the type of surgery with higher incidence of AF. CABG had a higher incidence of AF in surgeries without CPB. Age upper 65 years old, RA dilation and LVH were the preoperative predictive factors with positive association with AF incidence in all evaluation moments.


The objective of this study was to develop a rapid, simple, cheap, sensitive, and specific assay for detection of Salmonella Enteritidis in food. The kit-prototype was developed by using indirect coagglutination technique with three main components, namely Staphylococcus aureus Cowan I, rabbit IgG anti-chicken Fc IgY and chicken IgY anti-S. Enteritidis. Isa Brown layer chickens were used to produce specific antibodies against S. Enteritidis. Monospecific antisera were prepared by absorption method. Staphylococcus aureus Cowan I was coupled with rabbit IgG anti-chicken Fc IgY and monospecific antisera anti-S. Enteritidis. Kit-prototype was compared with multiplex polymerase chain reaction to determine sensitivity and specificity of kit-prototype. Artificially inoculated food sample was used to determine the limit of detection of kit-prototype in a food sample. Indirect coagglutination kit-prototype was able to differentiate positive control from negative control without self-agglutination reaction. This assay has a high specificity to S. Enteritidis without significant cross-reactivity towards other bacteria. Kit-prototype was able to detect 108 CFU/mL of S. Enteritidis in the buffer and 1 CFU/mL of S. Enteritidis in a food sample after selective enrichment procedure. The application of this kit was able to give a fast result (reaction can be observed in 10 sec), to be applied in a sample without extraction in the preparation of antigen and to reduce detection time of S. Enteritidis in food until 4 days.


As the issue width and the number of function units of superscalar processors continue to increase, the fetch unit must support a large fetch bandwidth in order to fully utilise the datapath resources. This trend makes power issue worse in the fetch unit since the traditional instruction fetch mechanism is not optimised for power consumption. This paper explores the problem of extra power consumption in traditional instruction caches because of dynamic control flows. Capturing the dynamic paths/characteristics of code during the course of execution, trace caches provide a potential framework for power optimisation in the fetch unit. Our study shows that conventional trace caches (CTC) may increase power consumption in the fetch unit because of the simultaneous access to both the trace cache and the instruction cache, and sequential trace caches (STC) have the advantage of lower power consumption at the cost of a significant performance loss. In order to address this problem, we perform a detailed study of trace distribution and access locality. Based on this study, we first propose a new model, the selective trace cache (SLTC). SLTC uses both compiler and hardware support to selectively control trace cache lookup and update. Experimental evaluation shows that our selective trace cache achieves up to 42.2% power reduction over CTC and an additional reduction of up to 21.8% over STC, on the average, while only trading a performance loss of no more than 1.8% compared to CTC. Further, we propose a dynamic direction prediction based trace cache (DPTC), which eliminates the need for compilation and instruction set architecture (ISA) modification involved in SLTC. Powered by a fetch direction predictor, DPTC achieves competitive power efficiency. On the average, DPTC reduces the power consumption by up to 40.5% and 17.6% in the fetch unit compared to CTC and STC, respectively, by trading a performance loss of less than 2.4% to CTC.


This paper describes the reconstruction of Konrad Zuse's Machine Z3 by the author Horst Zuse from 2008. Konrad Zuse built the Z3 machine between 1939 and 1941 with some friends and a small amount of support by the government. The main idea for reconstructing the Z3 was to learn how this machine works and how much effort is necessary to build such a machine. Another main topic was to show this machine to the public.


Absent a clear case of an armed attack, the UN Charter severely restricts the ability of individual states to react to what they perceive as their national security risks, relegating such a task to the collective decision-making of the Security Council. Contemporary global security risks pose serious challenges to this regime. Stopping terrorist groups and rogue regimes from obtaining weapons of mass destruction or ending incidents of mass atrocities against civilian populations often require swift and resolute collective responses. Not all those who can respond to such threats are willing to do so, and the collective response of the Security Council frequently proves ineffective. As the stronger military power, the US has both the ability and the motivation to provide the public good of global security unilaterally, while other countries rely on international law to explain their inaction. The so-called `Bush Doctrine`, which asserts an authority to act unilaterally and pre-emptively, can thus be understood as an earnest effort to respond to these security challenges. But this doctrine upsets the existing UN regime, and in turn creates other risks to global stability. This essay seeks to lay out the prevailing global security risks as a collective action problem. It assesses the tensions that exist between existing legal constraints on the use of unilateral force and the proposals for their modification, and evaluates the ramifications of such proposals.


AIM
To stimulate spontaneous reporting of adverse drug reactions and to enable information sharing on drug's safety between Rennes Pharmacovigilance Regional Center and hospitals of its territory.

METHODS
After having outlined objectives of the network to 11 major public institutions, the network was launched. It is coordinated by a dedicated pharmacist thanks to animation of monthly videoconference and diffusion of a quarterly newsletter. It relies on a local correspondent in each hospital who disseminates information to healthcare professionals and becomes their local contact for pharmacovigilance.

RESULTS
The quality and usefulness of information sharing are emphasized by every one. We observed an increase in notifications and information requests multiplied by 3.4 and 2.4 % respectively between 2008 and 2013.

CONCLUSIONS
The existence of a dedicated coordinator and implication of the correspondents are key elements enabling the network to be efficient. The increase of spontaneous notifications is noteworthy. The next step is to officially enlarge the network to private hospitals.


Upper Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous sponge biostromes and bafflestone mounds were common and widespread in European temperate to tropical marine environments. They declined markedly during the Late Cretaceous. Most sponge frameworks were paucispecific and ecologically simple, with only basic levels of succession or tiering. The occurrence of ecologically complex, lithistid sponge biostromes and mounds in the Cenomanian Quadersandstein Member, Regensburger Grunsandstein of the Saal Quarry, Bavaria, is therefore of special significance. These are ecologically the most complex sponge frameworks yet reported from the Cretaceous. Their size, morphology and ecological organization compare favorably with shallow-water, sponge-dominated frameworks in modern seas. The Saal Quarry sponge frameworks are generally associated with firmgrounds and condensed intervals in the transgressive systems tract of the Cenomanian-Turonian, tectonoeustatic supercycle UZA-2. The lowest sponge frameworks are up to 1 m high bafflestone mounds consisting of large, irregular, sheet- and mound-like recumbent sponges overlain by diverse, cylindrical, pyriform, upward-branching forms of Jerea and Siphonia. These biostromes overlie a condensed interval or firmground which locally contains small, in situ pyriform sponges (Jerea pyriformis Lamouroux) as well as Middle Cenomanian Inoceramus etheridgei Woods. The upper sponge frameworks consist of bafflestone mounds up to 4.4 m wide and 1.3 m high, composed of six lithistid sponge morphotypes, possibly representing several species of Jerea and Siphonia. The occurrence of Rotalipora cushmanni in strata overlying the upper sponge framework indicates a Late Cenomanian age. Morphotypes preserve internal sponge morphologies and partially dissolved spicules surrounded by a diagenetic halo of silicified, pelletoid grainstone and/or packstone. Silica cements were derived from spicule dissolution. Different combinations of these morphotypes dominate three to four successional stages of sponge framework growth, and show vertical ecological tiering within communities. This ecological zonation is consistent among frameworks, and is partially or wholly repeated between storm-related disturbance events.


We examined whether attenuation of the hypercapnic increase of cerebral blood flow (CBF) associated with nitric oxide synthase (NOS) inhibition is related to local neuronal or aortic endothelial NOS activity or local endothelial/neuronal NOS-dependent vasodilation. Halothane-anesthetized rats were ventilated, and CBF was measured by laser-Doppler flowmetry over the parietal and cerebellar cortex. Intravenous N omega-nitro-L-arginine (L-NNA; 30 mg/kg) inhibited brain and aortic NOS activity by 67-70%. Topical L-NNA (1 mM) inhibited brain NOS activity by 91-94%, whereas aortic NOS activity remained constant. In contrast, intravenous L-NNA attenuated the hypercapnic CBF rise much more efficiently than topical L-NNA. 7-Nitroindazole, another NOS inhibitor, attenuated endothelial and neuronal NOS activity equally well and inhibited the hypercapnic CBF increase as effectively as L-NNA. Topical L-NNA and 7-nitroindazole abolished local endothelial NOS-dependent vasodilation after 15 min, whereas hypercapnic CBF was only slightly reduced. L-NNA injected into the tissue abolished neuronal NOS-dependent vasodilation, whereas hypercapnic CBF was unchanged. The findings suggest that local NOS activity, whether neuronal or endothelial, is unimportant for the hypercapnic rise of CBF.


The electron-ion scattering processes are very important in various scientific research fields such as astrophysical studies and inertial confinement fusion research. We report our recent development of an efficient method for providing such atomic data with spectroscopic precision. Based on the Breit—Pauli and the Dirac R-matrix theory, we develop two eigenchannel R-matrix codes, referred to as R-eigen (non-relelativistic eigenchannel R-matrix) and R-R-eigen (relativistic eigenchannel R-matrix), to directly calculate the physical quantities in multichannel quantum defect theory in the whole energy regions. From such physical quantities, we can obtain all energy levels and the related scattering cross sections with accuracies comparable with spectroscopic precision. The e+Kr+ system is used as an illustration example, the degrees of accuracies of scattering matrices are calculated within about 2%, which should be much more accurate than state-of-the-art scattering experiments.


To what extent do New Zealand firms choose to locate close to each other, and why? This paper summarises patterns of geographic concentration of firms in New Zealand between 1987 and 2003. We present a range of summary measures of own-industry concentration, and examine between-industry colocation. Overall, New Zealand employment is relatively highly concentrated, although only around 30 percent of employment is in highly concentrated industries. Around 60 percent of employment is in industries that are spread more or less in proportion to total employment. Geographic concentration across 58 Labour Market Areas (LMAs) has increased over the past 18 years, although industries have become more dispersed within LMAs. We find little evidence of a causal effect of geographic concentration of industries, or of diversity of local industry structure on employment growth or job flow rates. Rates of job creation, job destruction, and net employment growth are higher for industries that are more geographically concentrated, but the relationship disappears when we control for area and industry fixed effects. This suggests that it is not the concentration per se that is driving the high flows and employment growth, but other unobserved characteristics of areas and industries.


A distinction between an earlier and later Charles Taylor might be drawn between Charles Taylor the political activist versus Charles Taylor the intellectual. (1) Certainly the nature of the writing going on in a political tract like The Pattern of Politics (1970) (2) is at removes from intellectual forays into the malaise of modernity or the crisis of the self and identify. I won't attempt to square what an earlier Taylor says with a later Taylor. But Taylor's politics were local enough in the 1960s to make a book he wrote during that time pertinent 1o what I want to say about The Trotsky (2009), a film shot entirely in Montreal and engaged in its own way with "radical" Canadian politics. I am not applying a Taylorian reading to the film than suggesting that the film itself is a reading of this particular political text of Taylor's--that the movie ingests and thereby depicts some of us most pertinent lessons. Even if a later Taylor does not square with an earlier Taylor, what The Trotsky attempts is to make something like the politics of polarization matter once again, which is to say it attempts to reclaim some of the lessons put forward in The Pattern of Politics. One could also say this film attempts to reclaim the dialectic, in particular the notion that holds conflict (between clearly opposing viewpoints) as the lynchpin of social change. How the film reinterprets the dialectic will be considered here. The premise of the film that a young Montreal teenager, Leon Bronstein (Jay Baruchel), believes himself to be the living embodiment of Leon Trotsky reincarnated suggests it is not beyond the pale to think about things like having another's soul occupy one's body, and, from there, to consider whether the ontology of film facilitates a discussion of reincarnation (another's soul trapped in a body eerily present to us) or rather, something like the reverse (a different body occupying another's soul). I raise these examples in consideration of the ontological differences between what Cavell calls, simply, the "actor" (stage actor) and the "performer" (screen actor). What we might nowadays call 1960s (Canadian) "counterculture," auteuring a film explicitly aimed at the youth of Canada. Whether or not Pierre Trudeau is a galvanizing figure for today's youth or not, those who are curious to know him are likely to know him through Colm Fiore. I don't mean that Fiore's persona trumps Trudeau's. Indeed, Fiore interprets Trudeau the way a stage actor interprets a character. But Fiore, in interpreting Trudeau, is interpreting a star, or, say, Trudeau's star-like quality and not a character, To play the role of Trudeau, he must get his persona to match Trudeau's. Others may come along, not with "different" interpretations, but something like "better" impersonations. (4) Yet for a generation at least (or for a generation of Canadian youth interested in 1960s Canadian counterculture now), simply by having appeared to us as Trudeau on screen, Fiore's persona will invoke or be caught up with Trudeau (though not vice versa). Fiore is, or has achieved, a reincarnation of Trudeau. The [stage] actor's role is his subject (or study, and there is no end to it. But the screen performer is essentially not an actor at all: he is the subject of study, and a study not his own. (That is what the content of a photograph is--its subject.) On a screen the study is projected; on a stage the actor is the projector. An exemplary stage performance is one which, for a time, most fully creates a character. After Paul Scofield's performance in King Lear, we know who King Lear is, we have seen him in the flesh. An exemplary screen performance is one in which, at a time, a star is born. After The Maltese Falcon, we know a new star, only distantly a person. "Bogart" means "the figure created in a given set of films." His presence in those films is who he is, not merely in the sense in which a photograph of an event is that event; but in the sense that if those films did not exist, Bogart would not exist, the mane "Bogart" would not mean what it does. …


The Coccinellidae described or recorded by C. P. Thunberg between 1781 and 1820 are examined and identified using the Thunberg collections in the University of Uppsala, Sweden. The results are presented with the original species names and published localities set out in alphabetical order, followed in each case by the presently valid combination, known distribution, bibliographic references to any previously published change of name, type data and comment. 66 lectotypes are here dcsignated and three previous designations quoted. 21 new synonymies, and 12 new combinations are proposed.