Binding of coated vesicle assembly proteins to clathrin causes it to assemble into regular coat structures. The assembly protein fraction of bovine brain coated vesicles comprises AP180, auxilin, and HA1 and HA2 adaptors. Clathrin heavy chains, separated from their light chains, polymerize with unimpaired efficiency when assembly proteins are added. The reassembled coats were purified by sucrose gradient centrifugation and examined for composition by SDS-PAGE and immunoblotting. We found that all four major coat proteins are incorporated in the presence and absence of light chains. Moreover, each of the purified coat proteins is able to associate directly with clathrin heavy chains in preassembled cages as efficiently as with intact clathrin. We conclude that light chains are not essential for the interaction of AP180, auxilin, and HA1 and HA2 with clathrin.


Fabrication of vascular networks is essential for engineering three-dimensional thick tissues and organs in the emerging fields of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. In this study, we describe the fabrication of perfusable vascular-like structures by transferring endothelial cells using an electrochemical reaction as well as acceleration of subsequent endothelial sprouting by two stimuli: phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA) and fluidic shear stress. The electrochemical transfer of cells was achieved using an oligopeptide that formed a dense molecular layer on a gold surface and was then electrochemically desorbed from the surface. Human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs), adhered to gold-coated needles (ϕ600 μm) via the oligopeptide, were transferred to collagen gel along with electrochemical desorption of the molecular layer, resulting in the formation of endothelial cell-lined vascular-like structures. In the following culture, the endothelial cells migrated into the collagen gel and formed branched luminal structures. However, this branching process was strikingly slow (>14 d) and the cell layers on the internal surfaces became disrupted in some regions. To address these issues, we examined the effects of the protein kinase C (PKC) activator, PMA, and shear stress generated by medium flow. Addition of PMA at an optimum concentration significantly accelerated migration, vascular network formation, and its stabilization. Exposure to shear stress reoriented the cells in the direction of the medium flow and further accelerated vascular network formation. Because of the synergistic effects, HUVECs began to sprout as early as 3 d of perfusion culture and neighboring vascular-like structures were bridged within 5 d. Although further investigations of vascular functions need to be performed, this approach may be an effective strategy for rapid fabrication of perfusable microvascular networks when engineering three-dimensional fully vascularized tissues and organs.


We propose new succinct representations of ordinal trees, which have been studied extensively. It is known that any n-node static tree can be represented in 2n + o(n) bits and a large number of operations on the tree can be supported in constant time under the word-RAM model. However existing data structures are not satisfactory in both theory and practice because (1) the lower-order term is Ω(n log log n/ log n), which cannot be neglected in practice, (2) the hidden constant is also large, (3) the data structures are complicated and difficult to implement, and (4) the techniques do not extend to dynamic trees supporting insertions and deletions of nodes.
 We propose a simple and flexible data structure, called the range min-max tree, that reduces the large number of relevant tree operations considered in the literature to a few primitives, which are carried out in constant time on sufficiently small trees. The result is then extended to trees of arbitrary size, achieving 2n + O(n/polylog(n)) bits of space. The redundancy is significantly lower than in any previous proposal, and the data structure is easily implemented. Furthermore, using the same framework, we derive the first fully-functional dynamic succinct trees.


"Is Toronto Burning? Three Years in the Making (and Unmaking) of the Toronto Art Scene takes the reader on a journey through a period rich in the invention of new artistic forms. Punk, semiotics and fashion were equally influential, not to mention transgressive sexuality. Large-scale photographic blow-ups appropriated the language of advertising. Video and performance were aligned in simulations of television production, as the 'underground' mimicked the models of the mainstream for its own critical or satiric purposes. With no guiding movement, and the influence of New York in decline, anything was possible—even the new idea of an art community as a fictional creation. " -- Publisher's website.


Large scale model tests and numerical analyses were performed in order to investigate the stress distribution on the base of pillar during two-arch tunnel excavation in the regularly jointed rocks. It was observed that the stress was irregularly distributed on pillar and the angle of discontinuities seriously influenced on the stress distribution on the pillar base in the discontinuous rock mass. In the numerical analyses results, It was shown that the stress level of pillar was greatly changed depending on the excavation sequences of two-arch tunnel. It was also observed that stress distributed eccentrically at the pillar as well as at the base of pillar. It is necessary to consider this point for the design of two-arch tunnel.


Many literary critics have noted a distinct genre of ritualized texts about mourning in Victorian America. Authors such as Lydia Sigourney, Fanny Longfellow, and Frances Osgood, for example, inscribe an image of mourning that is excessive, sentimentalized, and embedded within an aspiration toward middle-class, genteel society. Yet, as this essay will show, this excessive, textualized, ritualized grief was but one of a number of strategies that women used to write about loss. Nineteenth-century diaries and letters written by women bound for the West on the Overland Trail represent grief in an equally ritualized fashion. These writers repeatedly suppress and minimize grief over the deaths of husbands, children, and friends in order to construct an image of westering women as tough, durable, and forever moving forward. However, this alternative, but equally ritualized, pattern of textual mourning becomes apparent only when we read the gaps and silences of these women's narratives. GENERIC DIFFERENCES: WOMEN WRITERS AND THE DETAILS OF TEXTUAL PRODUCTION What might account for these different textual representations of bereavement? The specific details of textual production--when and how a text is produced and for whom--impact the way genres evolve. So the actual circumstances of slowly composing a poem at home, as time and leisure allow, versus quickly inscribing the day's events in a diary or letter along the Overland Trail may produce significant differences in the category and type of text that results. (1) Women in settled communities would have different outlets for grief than women who penned narratives in environments where they often lacked the time, materials, and rituals that mark--and mitigate--grief in more settled communities. Questions of audience play an important role in any text's production. For example, as Sandra Zagarell notes, Lydia Howard Huntley Sigourney wrote for a large audience and for "popular consumption" (2681). Her writings, as did those of many other middle-class writers in the antebellum period, helped contribute to the popular phenomenon of the sentimental cult of mourning--or, as Ann Douglas calls it, "the domestication of death" (200). Their texts, like Victorian practices of keeping locks of hair, daguerreotypes of deceased infants, death masks, and other mementos, arguably helped preserve, even immortalize, the departed. As Gary Laderman points out, these mourning rituals also were part of the bourgeois ideologies of grieving families (39-41). Likewise, Elizabeth A. Petrino maintains that sentimental writers tailored their poems of motherhood, death, and Heaven (often portrayed as a domestic, "actual place") to readers with "middle-class aspirations to [gentility]"; thus the texts, for both writers and readers, "reaffirmed social position" and "[reflected] the coalescence of Victorian sentimentalism with bourgeois aspirations" (320). In settled, class-based, well-to-do communities, the deceased often served as a permanent "centerpiece" of sorts, whether as the subject of a text or as the focus of photographs, a death mask, or similar mementos. The presence of the text or material artifact encouraged readers, family, and friends to gather around and to grieve openly and sometimes excessively. Thus, the grieving ritual ultimately reinforced middle-class identity and community. In addition to contributing to the culture of sentiment and its class-based underpinnings, New England writers also created ideologically appropriate models of maternal and textual grieving for a national audience. According to Cathy Davidson, technological advancements in the printing press after the Revolution, coupled with an increasing public demand for written material, meant that by 1830 texts--especially novels--often were produced in press runs of as many as thirty thousand copies (17). Authors within this burgeoning print culture reached a much larger readership than did women on the Overland Trail. …


In this paper, a new loading device was employed to conduct a mixed-mode fracture test. Therefore, disadvantages detected in the previous mixed-mode fracture toughness test methods can be avoided. The new fixture has perfect symmetry which provides a uniform stress state, creates the pure plane strain conditions and eliminates the unwanted mode-III loading conditions. The values of non-dimensional stress intensity factors for pure mode-I, pure mode-II, and pure mode-III were obtained using 3D models of new loading device and modified Arcan method in order to compare the results and investigate the variation of fracture parameters. Furthermore, the values of correction factors for pure mode-III in various loading angles were studied for both fixtures and it was resulted that in modified Arcan device there was a larger contribution of unwanted third mode loading conditions and therefore the values of mode-I and mode-II non-dimensional stress intensity factors were affected. In the present study, in order to compare the results, the fracture toughness values of ABS (Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) polymeric material were determined experimentally for both fixtures and a full range of mixed-mode loading conditions including pure mode-I and pure mode-II loading were created and tested. The differences in critical stress intensity factors of the fixtures were found about 7.00% and 42.65% in mode-I and mode-II loading conditions, respectively.


News AnalysisThe new Republican leadership of the House of Representatives, due in part to the success of Tea Party activists, is quite different from its predecessors. And that difference could put a damper on hopes that the next Congress will deliver on a long-promised expansion of federal spending on research and education outlined in a 2005 National Academies' report that has been embraced by both parties, because the new leadership has declared its intent to re-embrace the core Republican principle of limited government.


This study investigated the effect of graphite nanoplatelet (GNP) size and dispersion on the thermal conductivities and tensile strengths of epoxy-based composites. GNPs of four different platelet sizes, ranging from 1.6 to 3 µm, were derived by mechanically exfoliating and breaking expanded graphite (EG) particles using high-energy bead milling and sonication. The GNPs were used as fillers at loadings of 0–10 wt%. As the GNP size and loading amount increased, the thermal conductivities of the GNP/epoxy composites increased, but their tensile strengths decreased. However, interestingly, the tensile strength reached a maximum value at the low GNP content of 0.3% and thereafter decreased, irrespective of the GNP size. Our observations of the morphologies and dispersions of the GNPs in the composites indicated that the thermal conductivity was more likely related to the size and loading number of fillers, whereas the tensile strength was more influenced by the dispersion of fillers in the matrix.


The aim of the present paper is to shed some light on the main reasons which make idiomatic expressions such a thorny issue, not only for learners of English, but also for translators. To overcome this difficulty, three strategies have been suggested; making it possible for the translator to adopt the one he sees most suitable in the given text under translation. However, emphasis is given to cultural substitution in which the meaning is given priority over the form in favour of preserving the cultural flavour of the target language.


Abstract Objective: To evaluate fracture strength of veneered translucent zirconium dioxide crowns designed with different porcelain layer thicknesses. Materials and Methods: Sixty crowns, divided into six groups of 10, were used in this study. Groups were divided according to different thicknesses of porcelain veneer on translucent zirconium dioxide cores of equal thickness (0.5 mm). Porcelain thicknesses were 2.5, 2.0, 1.0, 0.8, 0.5 and 0.3 mm. Crowns were artificially aged before loaded to fracture. Determination of fracture mode was performed using light microscope. Results: Group 1.0 mm showed significantly (p ≤ .05) highest fracture loads (mean 1540 N) in comparison with groups 2.5, 2.0 and 0.3 mm (mean 851, 910 and 1202 N). There was no significant difference (p>.05) in fracture loads among groups 1.0, 0.8 and 0.5 mm (mean 1540, 1313 and 1286 N). There were significantly (p ≤ .05) more complete fractures in group 0.3 mm compared to all other groups which presented mainly cohesive fractures. Conclusions: Translucent zirconium dioxide crowns can be veneered with minimal thickness layer of 0.5 mm porcelain without showing significantly reduced fracture strength compared to traditionally veneered (1.0–2.0 mm) crowns. Fracture strength of micro-veneered crowns with a layer of porcelain (0.3 mm) is lower than that of traditionally veneered crowns but still within range of what may be considered clinically sufficient. Porcelain layers of 2.0 mm or thicker should be used where expected loads are low only.


With 3 figures and 3 tables

Abstract
Fragrance is an important quality trait of rice, which is mainly controlled by loss-function of the betaine aldehyde dehydrogenase gene (badh2) on rice chromosome 8. Two deletion mutations of Badh2 have been reported to associate with fragrance in rice. Allelic test showed that the fragrant gene of 'Zaimiaoxiangnuo' is allelic to badh2-E7 (8 bp deletion in exon 7 of Badh2). Sequencing and BLAST analysis showed that the allele in 'Zaimiaoxiangnuo' is a new mutation, i.e. deletion of 803 bp between exons 4 and 5. A marker FMbadh2-E4-5 was developed for the detection of the new deletion site of fragrant gene. FMbadh2-E4-5 and the two previously reported functional markers were used to genotype the fragrant genes of four non-fragrant and 22 fragrant rice varieties. The deletions were absent in all non-fragrant rice varieties, but present in all fragrant rice varieties. Eight fragrant rice varieties were positive for the FMbadh2-E4-5 marker. These findings are useful in the breeding of fragrant rice varieties.


Collection of accurate wind speed data is one of the more problematic elements in conducting wind turbine power performance tests. IEC 61400-12 specifies meteorological tower placement between two and four rotor diameters upwind of the test turbine. However, use of an upwind meteorological tower can be difficult at some sites. In some cases, complex terrain near the turbine may make placement of an upwind tower impossible. In addition, purchase and erection of a meteorological tower can be expensive, particularly as the hub height of large turbines increases. Because of these concerns, wind farm owners and turbine manufacturers have expressed interest in the use of turbine nacelle-mounted anemometers for collection of wind speed data. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)-Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) Wind Turbine Verification Program (TVP) has performed data collection and power performance tests at wind energy facilities located in the United States. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the data gathered from the Big Spring, Texas; Algona, Iowa; and Springview, Nebraska, facilities to determine whether a meaningful relationship can be derived between meteorological-tower and nacelle-anemometer wind speed measurements for Vestas V47 and V66 turbines (Big Spring) and Enron Z-50 turbines (Algona and Springview).


The term "precancerous" needs a new definition since it includes still malignant diseases like Morbus Paget of the nipple, Morbus Bowen and Erythroplasie Queyrat. The degree of malignancy of these disorders is analyzed. Precancerous conditions in the sense of benignant disorders which necessarily develop into malignant tumors are Melanosis circumscripta praeblastomatosa Dubreuilh and actinic keratoses. Potential precanceroses may be X-ray-atrophy, Leukoplakia and oral papillomatosis. Some actinic, chemic and cytostatic cancerogens are mentioned. Reference is made to the diagnosis, differential diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of precancerous skin lesions. The problem of potential malignancy of nevi is considered in detail. Prevention of cancer needs regular careful clinical control of skin and mucous membranes at least after the 50th year of life.


In this paper, we provide the basic guidelines towards the detection and linguistic analysis of events in Kannada. Kannada is a morphologically rich, resource poor Dravidian language spoken in southern India. As most information retrieval and extraction tasks are resource intensive, very little work has been done on Kannada NLP, with almost no efforts in discourse analysis and dataset creation for representing events or other semantic annotations in the text. In this paper, we linguistically analyze what constitutes an event in this language, the challenges faced with discourse level annotation and representation due to the rich derivational morphology of the language that allows free word order, numerous multi-word expressions, adverbial participle constructions and constraints on subject-verb relations. Therefore, this paper is one of the first attempts at a large scale discourse level annotation for Kannada, which can be used for semantic annotation and corpus development for other tasks in the language.


The workshop activity outlined in this article is an introduction to theater with the topic of the body and its relevance to water empowerment for the citizens of Ponggok (Klaten) and surrounding areas. The workshop was motivated by a reaction to the need to titrate Ponggok residents to conserve natural resources in their villages. The provision of a medium for Ponggok Village residents in particular and GLC19 festival participants in general to be able to understand the importance of community survival water can help them experience an understanding of the sustainability of Ponggok Village's natural resources. The method used is to provide an introduction to the body's exercise in relation to respect for the existence and function of water in life. The activity was carried out on one occasion, in two stages: (1) an introduction to theater and theater functions for character education and introduction to the natural surroundings, and (2) the practice of theatrical approach through bodybuilding movements by empowering water. The result obtained is that this medium creates a creative space for participants to instill the values of understanding about the importance of water through theater approach.


An automatic programme is presented for evaluating somatosensory evoked potentials after double stimuli. The advantage of the programme is the computer-assisted procedure, the possibility of effecting changes at any time, and the imaging of both subtraction and addition curves. A variation of the programme for other modalities is possible.


Proceedings: AACR Annual Meeting 2014; April 5-9, 2014; San Diego, CA

Late stage drug attrition rates in oncology remain higher than other therapeutic areas. To reduce attrition, it is critical to identify appropriate drug targets and pre-clinical models. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) is poised to accelerate the discovery of new drug targets through identification of genomic markers of response and identification of models to characterize candidate drivers. To maximize the value of NGS, it is imperative to develop data analysis/interpretation solutions that accurately assess genomic aberrations, delineate driver alterations from passengers, annotate alterations for clinical relevance and integrate alterations by gene and pathway.

Here, we present our framework for the systematic analysis of thousands of clinical NGS samples as well as expertly curated oncology data for the purpose of identifying candidate drug targets. Our methodology was developed through a systematic interrogation of genomic aberrations in a training set of gold standard oncogenes such as EGFR and PIK3CA, and tumor suppressors such as TP53 and PTEN. The resulting platform was used to rank genes through an assessment of driver genomic aberrations, associations with patient survival, and potential clinical actionability. Using this framework, we found supporting evidence implicating NFE2L2 as an oncogene.

Recurrent NFE2L2 mutations were found in multiple cancer types and associated with poor outcome in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. Recurrent mutations were identified in: 14.0% of squamous cell lung carcinoma, 12.5% of hepatocellular carcinoma, 11.1% of infiltrating bladder urothelial carcinoma, 7.7% of cervical squamous carcinoma, and 4% of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. We also investigated KEAP1, a repressor of NFE2L2 activity. Mutations in KEAP1 tended to localize within the NFE2L2 binding domains and displayed evidence of mutual exclusivity with NFE2L2 recurrent mutations. KEAP1 mutations were identified in 14% of lung adenocarcinoma, 13.5% of squamous cell lung carcinoma, 7.4% of infiltrating bladder urothelial carcinoma, and 4% of hepatocellular carcinoma. Genes up-regulated in patients with mutations in either NFE2L2 or KEAP1 in squamous cell lung carcinoma included many direct NFE2L2 target genes (e.g. GCLC, GCLM, NQO1). Genes up-regulated in NFE2L2 or KEAP1 mutant patients significantly associated with genes up-regulated in cell lines resistant to chemotherapy. Using Oncomine™ database curated data and cell line exome data we were able to identify cell lines that were representative of clinical populations containing these mutations.

We have provided proof of concept identification of a potentially clinically relevant candidate driver gene using a novel systematic analysis of cancer genomic data.

Citation Format: Sean Eddy, Mary Ellen Urick, Mark Tomilo, Armand Bankhead, Dan Rhodes, Emma T. Bowden. Rapid drug target ranking system developed from a systematic analysis of cancer genomic data from the Oncomine™ knowledgebase identifies an oncogenic role for the NFE2L2 pathway in multiple cancer types. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2014 Apr 5-9; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2014;74(19 Suppl):Abstract nr 2779. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2014-2779


UNLABELLED
Targeted therapies interfering with specifically one protein activity are promising strategies in the treatment of diseases like cancer. However, accumulated empirical experience has shown that targeting multiple proteins in signaling networks involved in the disease is often necessary. Thus, one important problem in biomedical research is the design and prioritization of optimal combinations of interventions to repress a pathological behavior, while minimizing side-effects. OCSANA (optimal combinations of interventions from network analysis) is a new software designed to identify and prioritize optimal and minimal combinations of interventions to disrupt the paths between source nodes and target nodes. When specified by the user, OCSANA seeks to additionally minimize the side effects that a combination of interventions can cause on specified off-target nodes. With the crucial ability to cope with very large networks, OCSANA includes an exact solution and a novel selective enumeration approach for the combinatorial interventions' problem.

AVAILABILITY
The latest version of OCSANA, implemented as a plugin for Cytoscape and distributed under LGPL license, is available together with source code at http://bioinfo.curie.fr/projects/ocsana.


A sensitive triple resonance NMR experiment is presented for the measurement of the protein backbone dihedral angle ψ based on cross-correlated spin relaxation between 13Cα−1Hα and 15N−1HN dipolar interactions in 15N,13C-labeled proteins. In general, as many as four ψ values can be consistent with a single cross-correlation rate. However, in many cases, the ambiguity can be significantly reduced (for example, from four to two) when a combination of cross-correlation relaxation rates are employed. This is illustrated by considering rates derived from 13Cα−1Hα/15N−1HN dipolar and from 13Cα−1Hα dipolar/carbonyl chemical shift anisotropy relaxation mechanisms for the proteins ubiquitin and CheY. Using a database of ψ values obtained from high-resolution X-ray structures, it is shown that for values in the range −50° ≤ ψ ≤ 40° a single ψ can be obtained to high probability.


Well logs are used to measure acoustic, nuclear, or conductive properties of the subsurface. In turn, these properties are interpreted based on some physical correlations to compute essential reservoir characteristics such as porosity and water saturation. Most of these physical calculations require a pre-knowledge of the reservoir fluid and rock properties as well as domain knowledge experts and petrophysicsts. This process could also be time consuming and inconsistent due to measurement anomalies and expertise bias. Recent advances in artificial intelligence have produced a paradigm shift in the industry from using traditional physics-based methods to adopting modern data-driven models to reduce physical complexity, improve speed and accuracy. Many research aspects are now focused towards using machine and deep learning models to improve well logs analysis covering many aspects including: detecting anomalies, classification of lithology and automated prediction of reservoir parameters. This paper presents a modern approach of using machine learning modeling workflow for well log interpretation combining both unsupervised and supervised learning technique. The presented model is capable of efficiently predicting several reservoir properties including, water saturation, volume of shale and porosity, without the pre-knowledge of complex physical rock and fluid characteristics.


InSb films with various thicknesses were deposited by magnetron sputtering on SiO2/Si substrates and subsequently irradiated with 17 MeV Au+7 ions. The structural and electronic changes induced by ion irradiation were investigated by synchrotron and laboratory based techniques. Ion irradiation of InSb transforms compact films (amorphous and polycrystalline) in open cell solid foams. The initial stages of porosity were investigated by transmission electron microscopy analysis and reveal the porous structure initiates as small spherical voids with approximately 3 nm in diameter. The evolution of porosity was investigated by scanning electron microscopy images, which show that film thickness increases up to 16 times with increasing irradiation fluence. Here we show that amorphous InSb films become polycrystalline foams upon irradiation with 17 MeV Au+7 ions at fluences above 1014 cm−2. The films attain a zincblende phase, with crystallites randomly oriented, similarly to the polycrystalline structure attained by thermal annealing of unirradiated films.


Two widely used orthogonal corrected 3-lead system - the Frank and the McFee systems - were studied in order to evaluate whether a significant difference in diagnostic performance could be observed; in the case of a positive answer, we would be able to advocate one system instead of the other. No such overall difference was noticed. Although +/- 17% discrepancies were found on the individual classification level (a patient correctly classified with system A and missed with system B and conversely), the practical implication is negligible since each system is responsible for +/- half of these discrepancies. Multivariate analysis, as already largely proved by Pipberger's group, drastically ameliorates the diagnostic results. Special caution has been given to the number of selected discriminators in order to enhance repeatability of the results; the reproducibility, using the approach developed by Cornfield, was found excellent. Some particular features as to the choice and location of the best discriminators were found somewhat puzzling by the autors but no deterministic explanation could be offered: the selection of the variables, indeed, rested on statistical bases and not on the (sometimes fragmentary) knowledge of what is going on in the heart and how these events relate to surface waveform patterns.


The phase diagram of the uranium-ruthenium system was constructed from data obtained by thermal analysis, metallographic examination, and x-ray diffraction. The system is characterized by five intermetallic compounds: U2Ru, formed peritectically near 937 °C; "URu," melting congruently near 1158 °C; U3Ru4, formed peritectically near 1163 °C; U3Ru5, formed peritectically near 1182 °C; and URu3, formed peritectically at about 1850 °C. "URu" has a solid-state transition at about 795 °C. One eutectic occurs near 886 °C and 18.5 atomic percent (a/o) ruthenium, and a second at about 1148 °C and 49 a/o ruthenium. The maximum solid solubilities are about 7.5 a/o ruthenium in uranium and near 1.3 a/o uranium in ruthenium. Ruthenium lowers the gamma-uranium transformation to near 691 °C and the beta-transformation to near 625 °C.


Our analysis of the social and economic relationship in the tourism of Mozambique besides our personal relationship was motivated by the exploration of the potential hidden in the tourism targeting developing countries. In the analysed country the percentage contribution of travel-tourism sector to the overall GDP from 2008 to 2018 started to increase again after plummeting during 2011 and 2012 but has stagnated since 2015. In the medium term the sector output has been increasing continually since 2008 except for the period 2011-2012 (2017: 455.9 million USD) and according to the data revealed by WTTC in 2018 it is expected to increase 1.5 times. However, the 2017 figure places the country in the 136 position in the world ranking lagging well behind the world average (21.5 billion USD). In our research we analyse the social and economic causes of the country's small competitiveness. We also unfold the tourism supply elements, the role played by the sector in the economy of Mozambique. We sought answer to the question whether the society sees opportunities for engaging efficiently in tourism and what experiences it has had in the process of welcoming tourists. In answering the economic questions we have compared secondary data and information. In our primary research we have prepared a questionnaire for ordinary citizens and institutions operating in the tourism sector. In these questions we have asked their opinions, attitude, formal education level and their willingness to engage in tourism in the future. We believe these two themes are crucial for boosting tourism in the country. This research, as the first step, also aims to build an international research relationship in the future. PEOPLE: International Journal of Social Sciences ISSN 2454-5899 617


The effect of mixed starter cultures on biogenic amine production was examined during the ripening process of dry camel meat sausage. Changes in pH, moisture content, proteolysis, microbial counts and lipid oxidation were also studied. The combination of three amine-negative bacteria, resulted in a drastic reduction of biogenic amine production. The highest total free amino acid concentration was observed in batches manufactured with mixed starter cultures. The bactericidal properties of L. sakei improved the hygienic quality of sausages by decreasing the number of Enterobacteriaceae. Inoculation of sausages with a mixture of strains, significantly delayed lipid oxidation and enhanced sensory characteristics.


An algorithm for detection of masses in digitized mammograms is developed. In the first step, the algorithm employs a segmentation method based on the idea of fuzzy sets to divide a mammogram into different regions and produces some mass candidates. In the second step, some discrete texture features are calculated for the area of each mass candidate. Two of those feature were sufficient to produce a 94% true-positive detection rate with a low 0.24 false-positives per image for a data set of 35 mammograms with a malignant mass in each.


Abstract Pratylenchus vulnus was discovered in nematode-distributing fields from symptomatic seedling roots and corresponding rhizosphere soil on strawberry farms in Taiwan. Microscopic measurements and scanning electron microscope observations of both sexes of the nematode coincided with the general morphological descriptions of the species. Four different types of female tail termini were observed, including pointed, digitate, smooth and tapering. Molecular analysis of the ribosomal RNA sequence (SSU, ITS and LSU regions) and the mitochondria COI gene sequences confirmed the species identification. Phylogenetic analysis suggested no specific geographic linkage of the Taiwan population to other previously reported populations.


High-resolution x-ray-photoemission valence-band spectra (0-45 eV binding energy) of cleaved single-crystal PbS, PbSe, and PbTe are reported. The spectra are compared with available band-theory results. Relativistic orthogonalized-plane-wave results exhibit the best over-all agreement with experiment. Empirical-pseudopotential-method (EPM) results show similar agreement for all but the most tightly bound valence band. The uppermost peak, corresponding to the three least tightly bound bands, shows detailed structure in good agreement with the EPM predictions. The PbTe valence-band spectrum can be synthesized from the x-ray-photoemission valence-band spectra of Pb and Te.


A discussion is made on connotation and framework of the digital approach to catchment hydrological modeling.Meanwhile,a brief review is made on automated extraction of drainage network from grid digital elevation model (DEM).The Digital Elevation Drainage Network Model (DEDNM),developed by Martz and Garbrecht,is introduced,including model structure and computational procedure such as identification and treatment of depression or sink in DEM,raster based flow vector determination containing flat areas,sub watershed delineation,drainage network generation,numbering of network and subcatchment,and production of topological relation of river network structure.Then,the DEDNM is applied to the Shiguanhe River Basin of an area of 5930 km 2,the intensified observation field for the HUBEX/GAME.The result shows that the drainage system generated by the DEDNM is acceptable as compared with that on 1∶100?000 topography map.That provides a solid foundation for development of digital hydrological model.Digital rainfall runoff model can be established by use of the principle of Xin′anjiang Model over each subcatchment produced and numbered by the DEDNM.Finally,runoff is routed from each subcatchment to the catchment outlet by the digital network routing model on the basis of topological relation of river network structure produced by the DEDNM.The digital hydrological model works very well when used to simulate hourly and daily flood hydrograph in the Shiguanhe River Basin during the plum rainy period of 1998.


Geodynamical variability is a cause of different natural disasters, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, earthflows and seismic sea spillages. Natural disasters can activate technogenic catastrophes (building and construction failures, coal-mine explosions, dam integrity disturbance etc.). Technogenic catastrophes, in their turn, are able to originate such natural disasters as dam lake occurrence; the Earth crust's surges with hazard consequences can be provoked by oil and gas extraction performance.Examples of natural disasters and technogenic catastrophes, factors of their origin, the phenomena prediction and avoidance recommendations have been shared in the following article.


Based on field research carried out over the last two decades, this article analyzes the labile nature of the relationship between religion and politics in Georgia. It aims to understand not only the rational and deliberate processes in which elites engage for political ends but also to grasp the diversity of actors and patterns of religion mobilization. It argues that three main types of articulations have developed since the 1990s: the mobilization of Orthodoxy (1) in the service of nation-building; (2) in the construction of an anti-elite popular identity; and (3) as a moral crusade. Each type of articulation involves specific social actors, organizational forms, and relations with political institutions.


We have developed the criteria allowing to determine the distance of a gunshot from limited-range firearms (an IZh-79-9TGM pistol with the elastic bullet cartridges) based on the morphological characteristics of the wound and the results of inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. The method has been developed for the quantitative determination of barium, lead, and antimony in the targets depending on the gunshot distance.


Steelbar Quantity Surveying System developed in this research is an effective method to verify the calculated result than the existing unsystematized method of steelbar Quantity surveying and preparation for estimation sheet. Also it can be applied to the construction mangement for steelbar replacement, providing the optimization of the steelbar quantity ordered on the basisof the calculated results.


The Brown v. Board of Education (1954) Supreme Court decision ruled that segregated schools were unequal and unconstitutional. Since Brown's ruling, scholars have questioned whether African American children have benefi tted from school desegregation and subsequent school reform initiatives. In spite of several post-Brown school reform movements, the achievement gap persistently impacts African American learners including those with, or likely to be labeled with, disabilities. Thus, this article examines several legal and policy fi ctions inherent in Brown, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and the No Child Left Behind Act (2001). After discussing the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) data, strategies are identifi ed to eradicate legal and policy fi ction in school reform for African American learners.


SgrS is an Hfq-binding small RNA that is induced under glucose phosphate stress in Escherichia coli. It forms a specific ribo nucleo protein complex with Hfq and RNase E resulting in translational repression and rapid degradation of ptsG mRNA, encoding the glucose transporter. Here, we report translational silencing of ptsG mRNA in a defined in vitro system. We demonstrate that SgrS and Hfq are the minimum components for translational silencing to faithfully reproduce the reaction in cells. We show that ptsG-SgrS base pairing is sufficient to cause translational repression when the ptsG mRNA is forced to base pair with SgrS without the help of Hfq. The extent of translational repression correlates with the extent of duplex formation. We conclude that base pairing itself but not Hfq is directly responsible for translational silencing and the major role of Hfq in gene silencing is to stimulate the base pairing between SgrS and ptsG mRNA. This simple mechanism is in striking contrast to miRNA action in eukaryote in which the RNA is believed to act only as a guide of protein partners.


Synchronous text communication is becoming recognized as a valuable workplace communication medium yet some studies of group text chat indicate that its properties can lead to interactional incoherence. We consider this issue through a detailed analytic examination of text chat transcripts by showing how participants manage their interactions through considering multiple threads, turn taking and topic change. We reveal the routine practices that participants employ to create and manage coherent interaction. These practices arise from the turn taking system in operation, which facilitates straightforward repair of misunderstandings. We conclude by considering the implications of this for design and for the organisation and management of interactions of various forms.


Few events in history have received as much real-time exposure as the atrocities in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Few dilemmas have perplexed peacekeepers and negotiators as has the victimization of Muslims in the former Yugoslavia. With the memories of the Jewish holocaust so freshly etched in people's memories, could such genocide have happened again? What catalysts vault nationalism across the threshold into inhumanity? In this compelling and thorough study, Norman Cigar sets out to prove that genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina is not simply the unintentional result of civil war nor the unfortunate by-product of rabid nationalism. Genocide is, he contends, the planned and direct consequence of conscious policy decisions taken by the Serbian establishment in Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Its policies were carried out in a deliberate and systematic manner as part of a broader strategy intended to achieve a defined political objective--the creation of an expanded, ethnically pure Greater Serbia. Using testimony from congressional hearings, policy statements, interviews, and reports from the western and local media, the author describes a sinister policy of victimization that escalated from vilification to threats, then expulsion, torture, and killing. Cigar also takes the international community to task for its reluctance to act decisively and effectively. "The longer the world did nothing concrete about Bosnia-Herzegovina, the more unlikely it became that the situation would be reversed, as the country was torn apart or its population scattered or killed." "Genocide in Bosnia" provides a detailed account of the historical events, actions, and practices that led to and legitimated genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina. It focuses attention not only on the horror of "ethnic cleansing" and the calculated strategy that allowed it to happen but also offers some interesting solutions to the problem. Cigar's book is important reading for anyone interested in the inherent violence of overzealous nationalism--from Rwanda to Afghanistan and anywhere else.


When Narendra Modi was elected Prime Minister of India in 2014, he promised to push through key reforms and bring about the massive economic development needed for the "world's largest democracy" to win its place among global superpowers. With over 1.3 billion citizens, India is soon to become the world's most populous country, and more than one quarter of the people joining global workforce during the next decade will be Indian. The poorest of the world's 20 largest economies, India's potential for catch-up growth is enormous. And so are the limits and contradictions India must overcome for Modi's vision to gain momentum. What has his government achieved so far? How likely is Modi's "Minimum government, maximum governance" strategy to deliver the expected outcomes? Is India, often described as a "reluctant superpower", now closer to becoming a regional leader? In a crucial year for local elections, and with the Prime Minister ready to run for a second term in 2019, this volume investigates the economic, political and diplomatic trajectories of Modi's India in its quest for a global role.


A millimeter-wave CMOS on-chip stacked Marchand balun is presented in this paper. The balun is fabricated using a top pad metal layer as the single-ended port and is stacked above two metal conductors at the next highest metal layer in order to achieve sufficient coupling to function as the differential ports. Strip metal shields are placed underneath the structure to reduce substrate losses. An amplitude imbalance of 0.5 dB is measured with attenuations below 6.5 dB at the differential output ports at 30 GHz. The corresponding phase imbalance is below 5 degrees. The area occupied is 229μm × 229μm.


A radioreceptor assay that specifically measures the affinity and concentration of glucagon receptors on the surface of broiler adipocytes was used to determine whether down-regulation of glucagon receptors is involved in the mechanism whereby glucagon induces desensitization of its ability to acutely stimulate lipolysis. Adipocytes from abdominal fat of 42- to 49-d-old female broilers were preincubated in vitro with 0 to 8 nM glucagon for 0 to 24 h before removal of glucagon by washing and assessment of lipolysis during a subsequent 1 h incubation at 37 C and binding of ([125I]iodo-Tyr10) glucagon during an ensuring 6 h incubation at 12 C. In Experiment 1, pretreatment of adipocytes with 0 to 8 nM glucagon for 24 h reduced lipolysis 70% with a preincubation dose of glucagon (ED50) of 0.4 +/- 0.04 nM, whereas glucagon binding was decreased 75% with an ED50 of 0.7 +/- 0.1 nM. In Experiment 2, pretreatment of adipocytes with 5.4 nM glucagon for 0 to 2 h decreased lipolysis 60% with a time of preincubation with glucagon (T1/2) of < 1 min, whereas glucagon binding was reduced 40% with a T1/2 of 2 +/- 0.6 min. In Experiment 3, detailed analysis of lipolysis and glucagon binding to adipocytes pretreated with 5.4 nM glucagon for 5 min, 2 h, or 24 h revealed that sensitivity of adipocytes to acute stimulation of lipolysis by glucagon and the number of glucagon receptors on the adipocyte surface were decreased by glucagon pretreatment. The assay concentration of glucagon (EC50) for glucagon stimulation of lipolysis, a measure of adipocyte sensitivity, increased 0.8-fold at 5 min, 1.6-fold at 2 h, and 4.9-fold at 24 h of preincubation. The number of low-affinity glucagon receptors decreased 12% at 5 min, 20% at 2 h, and 50% at 24 h of preincubation with glucagon. Throughout this study, decreased glucagon binding was closely associated with reduced lipolysis, implicating down-regulation of cell-surface glucagon receptors in the mechanism whereby glucagon induces desensitization of its ability to acutely stimulate lipolysis in broiler adipocytes.


The number, size and shape of polymorphic plant mitochondria are determined at least partially by mitochondrial fission. Arabidopsis mitochondria divide through the actions of a dynamin-related protein, DRP3A. Another plant-specific factor, ELM1, was previously shown to localize DRP3A to mitochondrial fission sites. Here, we report that mitochondrial fission is not completely blocked in the Arabidopsis elm1 mutant and that it is strongly manifested in response to cold treatment. Arabidopsis has an ELM1 paralogue (ELM2) that seems to have only a limited role in mitochondrial fission in the elm1 mutant. Interestingly, cold-induced mitochondrial fragmentation was also observed in the wild-type, but not in a drp3a mutant, suggesting that cold-induced transient mitochondrial fragmentation requires DRP3A but not ELM1 or ELM2. DRP3A: GFP localized from the cytosol to mitochondrial fission sites without ELM1 after cold treatment. Together, these results suggest that Arabidopsis has a novel, cold-induced type of mitochondrial fission in which DRP3A localizes to mitochondrial fission sites without the involvement of ELM1 or ELM2.


Pretreatment with Bordetella pertussis was determined to increase significantly the hypovolemia induced by intravenous injections of histamine either alone or in mixture with serotonin in a total of 26 different strains of mice. Two factors affecting the mortality rates observed by challenge after B. pertussis treatment were: the sensitivity of the strains to vasoactive amines before B. pertussis treatment, and their resistance to acute hypovolemic shock. Appropriate crosses and backcrosses between resistant and susceptible strains failed to demonstrate a clear pattern of inheritance of the susceptibility to B. pertussis effects.


Temperature drift errors are a problem that affect the accuracy of measurement systems. When small amplitude signals from transducers are considered and environmental conditions of conditioning circuits exhibit a large temperature range, the temperature drift errors have a real impact in systems accuracy. In this paper, a solution to overcome the problem of temperature drift errors of conditioning circuits is proposed. As an example, a thermocouple-based temperature measurement system is considered, and the stability of its conditioning circuit (AD595) is analyzed in two cases: with and without temperature drift error compensation. An Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is used for data optimization and a Virtual Instrument, using GPIB instrumentation, is used to collect experimental data. Final results show a significant improvement in the accuracy of the system when the proposed temperature drift error compensation technique is applied to compensate errors caused by temperature variations.


PurposeThis paper contains a theoretically inspired discussion of recent Norwegian controversies related to the management of public library space as a civil public sphere.Design/methodology/approachThis study engages with theories of civil public spheres and their application within a Nordic context. The theories are applied in discussions of recent controversies related to the management of Norwegian public libraries as civil public spheres, as represented in professional journals and press articles.FindingsThrough the discussion, it becomes apparent that the value of neutrality and librarians' inclusive practices on the part of societal minorities might be conflicting when managing public libraries as civil public spheres.Originality/valueThis paper engages with recent library controversies in Norway and discusses them in light of recent scholarly work on library activism in a Nordic context, as well as recent theorizations of civil public spheres in the Nordic countries. It thus connects ongoing discussions among Norwegian librarians with recent library research and ongoing theorization of civil public spheres within the Nordic model.


Verification of nonlinear functional dependences of the Grigoryan soft soil medium model that characterize the soil resistance to shear deformation – i.e., the dependences of the yield strength on pressure and the shear modulus on density, is carried out. The equations of the Grigoryan soil environment model are modified to account for the variability of the shear modulus. An example of numerical implementation of the obtained equations in Lagrange variables based on the technology of integrating user material into the dynamic strength module of the LOGOS software package is given.An analytical solution is obtained that represents the loading path in the element of the ground medium on the plane of the main stresses during loading and unloading under uniaxial deformation. The linear dependence of the yield strength on pressure and the linear dependence of the shear modulus on density were assumed. It was assumed that the volume compressibility curves for loading and unloading are known. Calculations are performed and a good correspondence between the results of numerical calculations and the analytical solution is shown. Calculations are performed showing the influence of the parameters of the pressure-dependent yield strength and the density-dependent shear modulus on the loading curve on the plane of the main stresses.The parameters of nonlinear functional dependences of the Grigoryan model of the soil environment are determined on the example of known experimental data on the deformation of a sample of dry sandy soil in a bounding cage using The Hopkinson split rod system and the Kolsky method. A fractional-rational dependence of the yield strength on pressure and a bilinear dependence of the shear modulus on density were assumed. It is shown that the use of linear dependencies allows us to obtain a correspondence of the calculation results with experimental data only in special cases with the appropriate selection of parameters. The use of a nonlinear dependence of the yield strength on pressure with a single set of parameters provides a good agreement with the experimental data of various authors for stresses up to 125 MPa.


Objective: To assess the prevalence of Primary drug resistance in Punjab Introduction/ Methods: Tuberculosis is a serious public health problem. Pakistan ranks 6th in terms of TB burden with a WHO estimated incidence rate of 181 per 100,000 persons. This study was a cross-sectional prevalence study, evaluating the prevalence of drug resistance among new TB patients, using a non-probability convenience sampling methodology. The sample size was calculated according to the population & WHO's estimated incidence of smear positive tuberculosis in the province/country. Sputum samples were obtained from 430 newly diagnosed patients of pulmonary tuberculosis from various centres in Lahore, Rawalpindi & Multan. Results: Sensitivities were performed by proportion method which showed the following resistance values in 387 eligible patients. 42 (10.8 %) samples showed primary resistance to one or more drugs. 28 (7.2%) of the isolates tested were resistant to a single drug, 8 (2.0%) were resistant to 2 drugs, 2 (0.5%) to 3 drugs, 3 (0.75%) to 4 drugs while one (0.25%) to all 5 first line agents. ______________________________________________________________________ *Department of Pulmonology, PGMI, Lady Reading Hospital Peshawar, ** King Edward Medical University Lahore, ***Nishtar Medical College Multan, +Allama Iqbal Medical Lahore, ++Gulab Devi Hospital Lahore, ++National TB Control Program, ++++Department of Microbiology Agha Khan University Hospital Karachi. 2 Resistance to Streptomycin (10μg/ml) was seen in 19 (5.9%), Isoniazid (1μg/ml) in 27 (7.0%), Rifampicin (5μg/ml) in 5 (1.2%), Ethambutol (10μg/ml) in 9 (2.3%) and Pyrazinamide in 7 (1.8%) samples. Primary Multidrug resistance was in 4 (1.0 %) patients (Isoniazid 1μg/ml, rifampicin 5 μg/ml with or without other drugs). Conclusion: This study from province wide samples suggests that prevalence of MDR amongst untreated patients in Punjab is 1.0%, which is a cause of concern and should be addressed through effective TB control programs with DOTS strategy.


The electrochemical properties of solid materials such as organic
compounds, irrespective of their electrical conductivity, can be studied
via the use of submicron sized particles mechanically attached
to electrode surfaces immersed in aqueous media containing different
electrolytes. In this study the reduction of solid indigo in buffered
and non-buffered aqueous media has been investigated. Data are compared
to those obtained from a voltammetric study of indigo dissolved in
dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), N,N-dimethylformamide
(DMF) and in pyridine and the interpretation of results is
facilitated by in situ EPR, in situ UV–VIS
spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy (AFM) studies. For the
reduction of solid indigo two distinct types of reduction processes,
'surface-type' and 'bulk-type', have been
observed. The latter process has been found to be associated with the
reductive dissolution of indigo. The 'surface-type'
responses which occur in a microphase at the electrode/solid/solution
interface are reversible 2H+-2e- reduction
and oxidation processes with a corresponding 60 mV shift in half wave
potential per pH unit in buffered electrolyte media over the pH range 4
to 11. The 'bulk-type' reduction process is proposed to be
associated with the electroinsertion of cations into the solid indigo
particles, thereby producing a reduced material and causing the loss of
material from the electrode surface under convective flow conditions.
The electrochemical solubilization of indigo occurred in non-buffered
aqueous media even at neutral pH values.


This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of Anapalsma and piroplasmid species infecting buffaloes with regard to season, age and sex. To achieve this aim, blood samples from a total of 530 apparently healthy and clinically suspected buffaloes in Qualyubia governorate, Egypt were collected throughout the period from June 2013 to May 2014. The blood samples were smeared, stained with Giemsa and examined by conventional microscope. Moreover, PCR assay was applied to amplify DNA of Babesia and Theileria sp. in 100 microscopically negative buffaloes' blood samples. The microscopic investigation identified the infection in 37.92% of the examined buffaloes. Anaplasma marginale was the most prevalent species (30.94%) followed by Babesia sp. (26.60%) and Theileria annulata (2.08%). The most frequent clinical signs observed during the course of disease, in addition to the effect of seasons, age and sex on the prevalence of infection were presented in the study. PCR assay proved to be the most reliable method for the diagnosis of piroplasmid infections as compared to light microscopy, where it was able to detect Babesia and Theileria sp. DNA in 25% and 12% with 5% mixed in the microscopically negative blood samples of buffaloes respectively. The high prevalence of infection in buffaloes highlights the need for establishment of a consolidated control program to overcome the economic losses caused by these parasites.


During the most recent funding period the authors obtained results important for helical confinement systems and in the use of modern computational methods for modeling of fusion systems. The most recent results include showing that the set of magnetic field functions that are omnigenous (i.e., the bounce-average drift lies within the flux surface) and, therefore, have good transport properties, is much larger than the set of quasihelical systems. This is important as quasihelical systems exist only for large aspect ratio. The authors have also carried out extensive earlier work on developing integrable three-dimensional magnetic fields, on trajectories in three-dimensional configurations, and on the existence of three-dimensional MHD equilibria close to vacuum integrable fields. At the same time they have been investigating the use of object oriented methods for scientific computing.


Wireless LAN product architectures have evolved from single autonomous
access points to systems consisting of a centralized Access Controller
(AC) and Wireless Termination Points (WTPs). The general goal of
centralized control architectures is to move access control, including
user authentication and authorization, mobility management, and radio
management from the single access point to a centralized controller.
This specification defines the Control And Provisioning of Wireless
Access Points (CAPWAP) Protocol Binding Specification for use with the
IEEE 802.11 Wireless Local Area Network protocol. [STANDARDS-TRACK]


A new method for two-dimensional (2D) photolithography simulation is proposed. Lightwaves in photoresist are assumed to be polarized, and the layer beneath the photoresist is assumed to be a perfect conductor. In order to analyze lightwave behavior in a 2D region, Maxwell equations for electromagnetic fields are simplified into a Helmholtz equation which is solved in the photoresist region, taking lightwave damping in the infinite vacuum region surrounding the photoresist into account. The finite-element method and boundary-element method are used in the calculations. The bleaching model proposed by Drill et al. is applied to describe photoresist behavior on irradiation by exposure light. When this simulation is applied to a photoresist system on a reflective stepped surface, the simulated photoresist image is found to be in reasonably good agreement with an actually developed profile.


Measurements of substrate coupled noise in a mixed-signal test IC are presented. This IC was manufactured with different types of wafers, and noise levels measured in heavily-doped epi wafers are about three times larger than those obtained in lightly doped ones. It is determined that, due to package parasitics, noise at the supply lines will easily be the major contributor to substrate-coupled disturbances, both at the digital and at the analog ends. Supply lines interact with the substrate mainly through the substrate contacts of both of the circuit core and the ring of pads. The measurements contribute to establishing a list of priorities in the actions to reduce the noise that reaches the analog section.


The dye, Grey BL was adsorbed on an adsorbent prepared from mature leaves of the Pungan tree (Pongamia glabra). A batch adsorption study was carried out with variable adsorbate concentration, adsorbent amount and pH. Ninety three percent of the dye could be removed by 2 g of the derris leaf powder from 1 L of an aqueous solution containing 25 mg of the dye at 300 K. The adsorption followed pseudo first order kinetics with a mean rate constant of 3.73 ×10-3 min-1 and an intraparticle diffusion rate constant of 6.36 x10-2 mg g-1 min-0.5. A possible mechanism of adsorption was suggested on the basis of concurrently operating surface adsorption and pore diffusion. The experimental data yielded excellent fits with Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm equations. The Langmuir monolayer capacity had a mean value of 8.27 mg g-1. The results indicated that the dye, Grey BL, strongly interacts with a biomass-based adsorbent, the Derris (Pongamia glabra) leaf powder.


The author presents the experience of the Bonoua community television. This experience is a community one only in the sense that it operates in and for a limited community with members of this community. In 1975-6, the idea of offering a closed television network to the Bonoua population was developed. The Bonoua population is responsible for the realization and broadcasting. The equipment was provided by Unesco. The diffusion of the Bonoua television is regular (2 evenings per week). The population has become use to this public television and feels concerned with its existence and future. There is no financial nor technical support, except for maintenance. This television serves the function of communication through social, cultural, religious, economic and political reports. It is faced mostly with organization, production, maintenance and financing problems. This experience has succeeded to accomplish a harmony between the desire of the public and the programs broadcasted. The Bonoua TV will probably change more or less radically in the next months. A deep transformation will take place, and its consequences, both financial and institutional, will come from the community: the desire of endogeneity is very strong in Bonoua.


The Drosophila Pax gene gooseberry (gsb) is required for development of the larval cuticle and CNS, survival to adulthood, and male fertility. These functions can be rescued in gsb mutants by two gsb evolutionary alleles, gsb-Prd and gsb-Pax3, which express the Drosophila Paired and mouse Pax3 proteins under the control of gooseberry cis-regulatory region. Therefore, both Paired and Pax3 proteins have conserved all the Gsb functions that are required for survival of embryos to fertile adults, despite the divergent primary sequences in their C-terminal halves. As gsb-Prd and gsb-Pax3 uncover a gsb function involved in male fertility, construction of evolutionary alleles may provide a powerful strategy to dissect hitherto unknown gene functions. Our results provide further evidence for the essential role of cis-regulatory regions in the functional diversification of duplicated genes during evolution.


MEK2 is a kinase that activates extracellular regulated kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2) and links Raf to ERK via phosphorylation. Wang et al. (p. 10271–10283) demonstrate that MEK2 acts as an E2-interacting partner and positively regulates the replication of classical swine fever virus (CSFV), a member of the Pestivirus genus within the Flaviviridae family, through inhibition of the JAK-STAT signaling pathway. These findings reveal a function of MEK2 in pestivirus infection and shed light on mechanisms by which flaviviruses interact with the host cell.


The dnaK gene from Pseudomonas syringae pv. glycinea PG4180 was cloned and sequenced. The dnaK coding region was 1,917 bp and contained a putative sigma 32 heat shock promoter 86 bp upstream of the translational start site. grpE, another heat shock gene, was found immediately upstream of the putative dnaK promoter. The predicted amino acid sequence of dnaK showed relatedness to the ATPase and substrate binding domains commonly found in heat shock proteins, as well as the highly conserved signature sequence motifs belonging to the Hsp70 protein family. Furthermore, the PG4180 dnaK gene complemented an Escherichia coli dnaK mutant for growth at temperatures above 37 degrees C, indicating that a fully functional dnaK homologue had been cloned from P. syringae pv. glycinea. All attempts to eliminate dnaK function by insertion mutagenesis failed, possibly because DnaK performs essential functions in P. syringae pv. glycinea. Expression of dnaK in P. syringae pv. glycinea PG4180 was investigated by constructing dnaK::uidA transcriptional fusions; expression of dnaK increased markedly when cells were preincubated at 18 degrees C and then shifted to 35 degrees C. An anti-DnaK monoclonal antibody was used to detect DnaK; in P. syringae pv. glycinea race 4, DnaK levels followed cell density during a 6-h incubation at 26 degrees C. When cells were shifted from 26 degrees C to either 32 or 38 degrees C, DnaK levels increased transiently, and then decreased rapidly. Although the cells continued to grow when incubated at 32 degrees C, growth was not supported at 38 degrees C. Our results indicate that P. syringae pv. glycinea responds to heat shock by producing DnaK, but DnaK does not aid in acclimation to sustained elevated temperatures.


ABSTRACT Following Brunsson's [1989. The Organization of Hypocrisy: Talk, Decisions, and Actions in Organizations. Chichester: Wiley] neo-institutional approach to differentiate between talk, decision and action, this article analyses discourses on and related practices of diversity incorporation within political parties in Germany. In the light of demographic change political parties in Germany have begun to step up to immigrants and propagate diversity as potential. While still underrepresented as a whole, politicians with migration background are becoming more prominent and visible in leading positions. However, their roles appear manifold: They are expected to function as "bridge-builders" between the immigrant population and the supposed "majority". Ethnicization takes place in various contexts. Discourses on diversity within parties are contradictory and reflect contested concepts of homogeneity and diversity. How do parties and their members negotiate these various discourses? Can parties actively open themselves to diversity, and how do they deal with the ensuing power struggles and issues of representation?


Developing a means for true bottom-up, selective-area growth of two-dimensional (2D) materials on device-ready substrates will enable synthesis in regions only where they are needed. Here, we demonstrate seed-free, site-specific nucleation of transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) with precise control over lateral growth by utilizing an ultra-thin polymeric surface functionalization capable of precluding nucleation and growth. This polymer functional layer (PFL) is derived from conventional photoresists and lithographic processing, and is compatible with multiple growth techniques, precursors (metal organics, solid-source) and TMDs. Additionally, we demonstrate that the substrate can play a major role in TMD transport properties. With proper TMD/substrate decoupling, top-gated field-effect transistors (FETs) fabricated with selectively-grown monolayer MoS2 channels are competitive with current reported MoS2 FETs. The work presented here demonstrates that substrate surface engineering is key to realizing precisely located and geometrically-defined 2D layers via unseeded chemical vapor deposition techniques.


The main disadvantage of backpropagation neural networks has been the slow training rate in real-time situations where extensive training patterns and fairly extensive nets are the rule. Instead of training one huge net on the whole character set, the authors propose to implement parallel modular nets, each training on a very small character set. This approach can take full advantage of the distributed method of computing of the neural nets, will reduce the complexity of the nets, and will save a substantial amount of time otherwise required in training complex nets. The system is for the moment only applicable to a limited character set, such as the Roman alphabet.<<ETX>>


A new method is described for recording the emotion-induced decrease in skin resistance area, which is known as the skin-resistance response (SRR). The method employs a simple current source and a new type of tetrapolar electrode in which the SRR is measured with the non-current-carrying electrodes. The signal produced can be recorded with a standard electrocardiograph. Typical SRRs from two subjects are presented.


During the training of a welder, either novice or professional, most activities are focused on the acquisition of wrist-hand motion skills. In the basic welding training, trainees initially required hand-on practices to acquire the skills of wrist hand motion to maintain the distance of electrode tip to a base metal such that the welding arc was continuously flaming. Secondly, trainees were practices of manipulating hand motion to follow seam tracking for joining two metals within defined speed & torch height. These practices were then continued for various types of weld joints. The result of acquiring this skill level was then assessed by inspecting the visual appearance of the weldment. In this study, an effort was undertaken to monitor and assess the progress of acquiring wrist-hand motion skills using wearable sensors: accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer. Then, the record of those sensors was plotted as a time series signal compared with those performed by the training instructor. Their achievement of skills grade was analyzed using the Supervised Vector Machine (SVM) Learning Method. The result has indicated that this proposed method can assist in assessing welder trainees' efforts to improve their skills.


This paper sought to address the use of technologies aimed at enhancing mathematical learning at the university level. We sought to identify impacts of the GAMA project initiatives: Mathematics Support Group of the Federal University of Pelotas - UFPel that use Digital Information and Communication Technologies (TDIC) to create and make available audiovisual support resources and collaborative virtual spaces. The first part of this study reports the project experience in the production of pedagogical videos. Among other aspects, a presentation was made of the process of elaboration and availability of the videos in the referred channel, as well as their use in GAMA activities. The second part of the work reported on the project experience with the WhatsApp groups, which were created with the goal of providing collaborative virtual spaces. In particular, we present the result of an investigation that analyzed the content of 3,647 messages posted by students, scholars and teachers in the two existing groups. The research results allow us to conclude that the resources recently added to GAMA activities represented important alternatives to enhance the teaching / learning process in mathematics, resizing and resignifying the space traditionally assigned to the classroom.


A fast, simple and easily automated method was developed for the simultaneous determination of pesticide residues in tea using accelerated solvent extraction (ASE) with in-cell cleanup and gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (GC-MS/MS). This method integrates extraction and cleanup processes into a single step, by adding a clean-up sorbent along with the sample into the extraction cell. The efficiency of this method was characterized in terms of its recovery (with values ranging from 90 to 98%), repeatability along with intermediate precision (showing relative standard deviations less than 15%), and sensitivity (providing detection limits between 0.001 and 0.007 μg g−1). The concentration range of the pesticide residues found in the sample is from 0.008 to 0.161 μg g−1. The relative expanded uncertainty achieved for this method ranged from 24% to 34%. The results indicate that the proposed method is easy and reliable for the determination of pesticide residues in tea, and it is suitable for use in routine analysis.


Background: Occupational burnout is a response to chronic stressors in work, and among nurses it can reduce the efficiency and quality of nursing care and increase hospital costs. Objectives: This study aimed to examine the relationship between gender and employment status with occupational burnout in the nursing staff of armed forces of Zahedan. Methods: In this descriptive correlation survey, 145 nursing staff were selected based on the Morgan's table and through random sampling from the nursing staff of the armed forces in hospitals of Nabi Akram and the Prophet of Azam in Zahedan, with 230 individuals in the community. A researcher-made questionnaire was used to collect demographic information. Another questionnaire for measuring job burnout was the Maslach and Jackson (1981) burnout inventory. In order to measure the reliability, 30 questionnaires were distributed to the respondents. After collecting the questionnaire and entering data, SPSS software, we calculate the Cronbach's alpha coefficient, which was 0.80. Data were analyzed using chi-square (χ2) with the significance level of 5% through SPSS software version 25. Results: Data analysis showed that there was a significant relationship between gender and burnout (P value = 0.01). In this regard, burnout was higher in women. The relationship between the type of employment and job burnout was significant (P value = 0.01), and burnout was higher in the contractual frame. Conclusions: Nurses are in the first line of health care provision. With regard to the results obtained, it is recommended that managers and authorities, especially for female and contracted nursing staff, place women in wards that are fitted with their mental capacity and refrain from placing them in wards with high levels of stress. On the other hand, by communicating with those who have a contractual employment status, they will be aware of their concerns and, by using other sources of support, could reduce the stress caused by uncertainty in the contractual situation.


Total parenteral nutrition (TPN) can be life-saving for many patients with short-bowel syndrome (SBS). However, chronic TPN administration is associated with nutritional deficiencies, septic complications, high health care costs, and life-threatening organ failure. In an effort to rehabilitate SBS patients so they may achieve enteral autonomy, investigators have attempted to stimulate the adaptive response following extensive small-bowel resection. Intestinal adaptation may include: 1) morphological changes of the residual bowel which increase the absorptive surface area; 2) functional changes that increase the absorptive capacity of individual enterocytes and colonocytes; and 3) changes in colonic production and absorption of short-chain fatty acids which improve intestinal vitality and maximize efficiency of energy and fluid absorption. Several peptides, nutrients, cytokines, and other factors promote intestinal adaptation in animals. These "growth" factors may predominantly affect one aspect of the adaptive response while having little or no effect on other physiologic or morphologic parameters. In addition, combined administration of stimulatory agents may be necessary to enhance adaptation. Dietary constituents may have profound positive and negative effects on adaptation and must be considered in developing an overall plan for treatment of the SBS patients. Only a few clinical studies have been performed to evaluate therapeutic regimens for SBS beyond standard supportive care and TPN administration. The combined administration of growth hormone, glutamine and a modified diet to over 225 adults has been shown to eliminate or decrease TPN dependence in 80% of patients receiving this therapy. Further study is required to optimize the treatment of humans with intestinal failure and to determine which patients are most likely to benefit from medical therapy. The authors conclude that the intestinal length to body weight index may be one predictive factor useful for determining which SBS patients will benefit from a trial of pharmacologic manipulation before attempting alternative, potentially more invasive therapies.


WD repeat domain 5 (WDR5) is a member of the WD40-repeat protein family that plays a critical role in multiple processes. It is also a prominent target for pharmacological inhibition in diseases such as cancer, aging, and neurodegenerative disorders. Interactions between WDR5 and various partners are essential for sustaining its function. Most drug discovery efforts center on the WIN (WDR5 interaction motif) site of WDR5 that is responsible for the recruitment of WDR5 to chromatin. Here, we describe the discovery of novel WDR5 inhibitors for the other WBM (WDR5 binding motif) pocket on this scaffold protein, to disrupt WDR5 interaction with its binding partner MYC by high-throughput biochemical screening, subsequent molecule optimization, and biological assessment. These new WDR5 inhibitors provide useful probes for future investigations of WDR5 and an avenue for targeting WDR5 as a therapeutic strategy.


Protein and virus crystals commonly grown in the laboratory on earth have also been grown in a microgravity environment on the US Space Shuttle. Two techniques for growth of the crystals were investigated: vapour diffusion and direct liquid-liquid diffusion. Crystals produced in microgravity, although generally isomorphous with earth-grown crystals, frequently show positive changes in habit, size and degree of perfection. X-ray diffusion analyses of crystals grown free from gravity usually show an improvement in the intensity-to-background ratio for all resolution ranges, and in some cases an extension of the resolution of the diffraction patterns to a higher limit. Both findings suggest an overall improvement in the quality of macromolecular crystals grown in space. A possible source of this improvement is the formation of depletion zones around crystals growing in microgravity that remain stable in the absence of convection and thereby allow more self-regulated growth. This in turn may be manifested as a more uniform and general ordering of the molecules in the crystal lattice and/or a reduction in gross crystal imperfections. Some illustrative results obtained in two kinds of macromolecular crystal growth experiments on International Microgravity Laboratory-1 are described.


BACKGROUND
population ageing contributes to increased cancer cases and deaths and has profound implications for global healthcare systems. We estimated the trends of cancer cases and deaths in ageing populations at global and regional levels.

METHODS
using data from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019, we analysed the change in cancer cases and deaths associated with population ageing, population growth and epidemiological factors from 1990 to 2019 using decomposition analysis. Additionally, we estimated the proportions of people aged 65 years and over accounting for total cases and deaths, and investigated relationships between the proportions and the Sociodemographic Index (SDI) using the Pearson correlation coefficient.

RESULTS
from 1990 to 2019, there was an increase of 128.9% for total cases and 74.8% for total deaths in all cancers combined; the percentages of older people increased from 48.6% to 56.4% for cases and from 52.0% to 61.9% for deaths. Population ageing contributed to the largest increase in global cancer occurrence, with 56.5% for cases and 63.3% for deaths. However, the changes attributed to epidemiological factors was 5.2% for cancer cases and -33.4% for cancer deaths. The proportions of total cases and deaths of older adults were positively correlated with socioeconomic development of the country.

CONCLUSION
our findings revealed that the main contributor to increased cancer cases and deaths has changed from comprehensive epidemiological factors to demographic shifts. To respond to the rapidly growing occurrence of cancer in ageing populations, the global health priority should focus on meeting the rising demand for cancer diagnosis, treatment and care services for older people.


It is well established that gene expression patterns are substantially altered in cardiac hypertrophy and heart failure, but the reasons for such differences are not clear. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short noncoding RNAs that provide a novel mechanism for gene regulation. The goal of this study was to comprehensively test for alterations in miRNA expression using human heart failure samples with an aim to build signaling pathway networks using predicted targets for the miRNAs and to identify nodal molecules that control these networks. Genome-wide profiling of miRNAs was performed using custom-designed miRNA microarray followed by validation on an independent set of samples. Eight miRNAs are significantly altered in heart failure of which we have identified two novel miRNAs that are yet to be implicated in cardiac pathophysiology. To gain an unbiased global perspective on regulation by altered miRNAs, predicted targets of eight miRNAs were analyzed using the Ingenuity Pathways Analysis network algorithm to build signaling networks and identify nodal molecules. The majority of nodal molecules identified in our analysis are targets of altered miRNAs and are known regulators of cardiovascular signaling. A heart failure gene expression data base was used to analyze changes in expression patterns for these target nodal molecules. Indeed, expression of nodal molecules was altered in heart failure and inversely correlated to miRNA changes validating our analysis. Importantly, using network analysis we have identified a limited number of key functional targets that may regulate expression of the myriad proteins in heart failure and could be potential therapeutic targets.


Interfacial water structures of aqueous dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and methanesulfonic acid (MSA) were studied by Raman, infrared, and conventional and phase-sensitive vibrational sum frequency generation (VSFG) spectroscopies. Through isotopic dilution, we probed bulk water hydrogen bonding strength using the vibrational frequency of dilute OD in H(2)O. As indicated by the frequency shift of the OD frequency, it is shown that DMSO has little influence on the average water hydrogen bonding strength at low concentrations in contrast with an overall weakening effect for MSA. For the water structure at the surface of aqueous solutions, although conventional VSFG spectra suggest only slight structural changes with DMSO and a red shift of hydrogen-bonded water OH frequency, phase-sensitive VSFG reveals more thoroughly structural changes in the presence of both DMSO and MSA. In the case of DMSO, reorientation of interfacial water molecules with their hydrogens pointing up toward the oxygen of the S=O group is observed. For MSA, the interfacial water structure is affected by both the dissociated methanesulfonate anions and the hydronium ions residing at the surface. Both the methanesulfonate anions and the hydronium ions have surface preference; therefore, the electric double layer (EDL) formed at the surface is relatively thin, which leads to partial reorientation of interface water molecules with net orientation of water hydrogens up. Surface DMSO molecules are more effective at reorienting surface water relative to MSA molecules.


quadrispinulatum, and O-radiatum (Nematoda: Strongyloidea) DTU Orbit (10/11/2019) Morphological variation of the corona radiata in Oesophagostomum dentatum, O-quadrispinulatum, and O-radiatum (Nematoda: Strongyloidea) The anterior end of 76 adult and of several juvenile Oesaphagostomum dentatum, of 75 adult O. quadrispinulatum, and of 70 adult O. radiatum (Strongylida, Nematoda) was investigated by scanning electron and light microscopy. Both an external and an internal ring of buccal leaves (corona radiata externa and interna) are present in O. dentatum and O. quadrispinulatum, whereas a single ring of buccal leaves occurs in O. radiatum. Remnants of external buccal leaves indicate that the single ring of leaves found in the latter species is homologous to the corona radiata interna of O. dentatum and O. quadrispinulatum. The number of buccal leaves of the corona radiata varies remarkably in adults of all 3 species. There are 9-12 external leaves in O. dentatum, 9-11 external leaves in O. quadrispinulatum, and 30-40 internal leaves in O. radiatum. Nine leaves are most common in both O. dentatum and O. quadrispinulatum, but the former species shows a higher frequency of individuals with more than 9 leaves. In O. radiatum, buccal leaves usually occur in even numbers and very rarely in odd numbers. Small, regularly arranged protuberances outside the ring of buccal leaves may indicate reduced leaves of the corona radiata externa. Juveniles of O. dentatum do not possess buccal leaves, but a thin cuticular velum in the fourth stage and neither a corona nor a velum in the second and first stage.


Use of rotationally invariant parameters derived from the magnetotelluric impedance tensor avoids problems with identification of electrical strike. However, quantitative analysis of an invariant must be used with caution. Layered models from inversion of invariant sounding curves accurately estimate the structure, as does one‐dimensional inversion of an invariant parameter, if the site is away from conductive three‐dimensional (3‐D) heterogeneities. Inversions at sites both above and away from a resistive heterogeneity and above a conductive heterogeneity result in errors. The errors are most serious at sites above a finite conductor. A section created by interpolation of layered models derived from invariants should always be modeled with multidimensional programs to verify the section's accuracy. The above conclusions hold regardless of the type of invariant parameter used. We found no advantage to using the determinant over the arithmetic mean of the impedance tensor, or vice versa.


The morphological variation of the sulcal development and shell outline in large Permian neospiriferine brachiopods including Fasciculatia Waterhouse, 2004 is investigated using geometric morphometrics. The sulcal tongues of spiriferide brachiopods can be, in a qualitative sense, categorized into three types according to the degree of their development: short sulcal tongue, long sulcal tongue and geniculated sulcal tongue. All three types have been noted within Fasciculatia striatoparadoxa, regardless of the nature of the substrate which they originally inhabited. To quantify its morphological variation both in sulcal development and shell outline, 51 brachiopod shells were scanned with a three-dimensional (3-D) surface imaging device, and their 3-D models were reconstructed. Using two landmarks and 58 semilandmarks designated on the surface of the reconstructed 3-D models, a landmark-based morphometric analysis was performed. Our result demonstrates a significant intraspecific variation of sulcal development in F. striatoparadoxa and its relatives. Local environmental factors, especially the intensity of ambient water flow, are invoked as the most likely cause for this intraspecific variation. Additionally, this study also shows that there are considerable interspecific distinctions in shell outline among Fasciculatia species, independent of the high variation in the sulcal development. The strong stability of overall shell outline at species level implies a decoupled morphological development between sulcal tongue and whole shell outline. The 3-D morphometric approach applied here demonstrates its great utility as a tool for quantifying and analysing the morphological variation of highly convex brachiopod shells.


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Climate change causes both temporal (e.g., advancing spring phenology) and geographic (e.g., range ex pansion poleward) species shifts, which affect the photoperiod experienced at critical developmental stages (`experienced photoperiod'). As photoperiod is a common trigger of seasonal biological responses-affecting woody plant spring phenology in 87% of reviewed studies that manipulated photoperiod-shifts in experienced photoperiod may have important implications for future plant distributions and fitness. However, photoperiod has not been a focus of climate change forecasting to date, especially for early-season (`spring') events, often assumed to be driven by temperature. Synthesizing published studies, we find that impacts on experienced photoperiod from temporal shifts could be orders of magnitude larger than from spatial shifts (1.6 hours of change for expected temporal versus one minute for latitudinal shifts). Incorporating these effects into forecasts is possible by leveraging existing experimental data; we show that results from growth chamber experiments on woody plants often have data relevant for climate change impacts, and suggest that shifts in experienced photoperiod may increasingly constrain responses to additional warming. Further, combining modeling approaches and empirical work on when, where, and how much photoperiod affects phenology could rapidly advance our understanding and predictions of future spatio-temporal shifts from climate change.


Progesterone is one of the physiological inducers of the acrosome reaction in mammalian spermatozoa. The receptor that responds to progesterone is not yet identified, and its properties differ in many aspects from the properties of the classic nuclear progesterone receptor, suggesting the participation of a novel or non-classic receptor. In this study, we investigated the expression of a novel progesterone-binding protein (hmPR1/PGMRC1) and its ortholog (hmPR2/PGMRC2), which have previously been identified in liver microsomes and are considered receptor candidates, along with the nuclear progesterone receptor. The purification procedure was optimized with special emphasis on the control of leukocyte contamination in single donor samples. The results indicate that all three proteins are expressed in human sperm, as transcripts have been detected in 46 %, 42 % and 37.5 % of individual samples, respectively (n = 24).


The hemodynamic modifications induced by vincamine and by one of its derivatives, apovincaminic acid ethylester (RGH-4405), have been studied in anesthetized and conscious dogs. The two alkaloids induced peripheral vasodilatation in all the experimental models, but their action on systemic blood pressure and heart rate was clearly influenced by anesthesia and was different according to the anesthetic used. In the conscious animals an increase of both heart rate and systemic blood pressure was observed, concomitantly with an increase in femoral and vertebral blood flow and a decrease in renal blood flow. In the renal vascular bed a subsequent decrease in resistance was shown, when all the other measured hemodynamic parameters had returned to control values. The greater increase of vertebral blood flow than of femoral blood flow for the same increment of cardiac output was taken as an indirect demonstration of the selectivity of the two drugs for the cerebral circulation.


During the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, readers of modernist literature have often been reminded of the flu epidemic of 1918-1920. Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain (1924) anatomizes pre-war bourgeois society as represented by the inmates of a tuberculosis asylum in Davos, Switzerland. The novel typifies a concern in modernist fiction with the proper rites for the burial of the dead, which I explored in an earlier study, Religious Experience and the Modernist Novel. This essay argues that that Mann sees the novel, as a genre, as having a particular ability to represent the process of mourning because of its powers of ironic distancing: it can represent both the public ritual of the funeral service and the private thoughts of the mourner, which may or may not accord with official sentiment. More generally, the modern novel shows how we project our own desires and fears onto the dead.


Splenomegaly is an unusual finding among North Americans, but is commonly seen in many parts of the world. Increasingly, it can be encountered locally among recent immigrant and refugee populations. A broad differential diagnosis is required. We report the case of a 33-year-old refugee with multiple potential causes for splenomegaly. Empiric treatment of one of the infectious contributors to his splenomegaly resulted in a significant improvement of his quality of life, illustrating the importance of a thorough evaluation of potential causes of splenomegaly, especially in refugee and immigrant populations.


We propose a trade-off between the Lipschitz constants of the position and momentum probability distributions for arbitrary quantum states. We refer to the trade-off as a quantum reciprocity relation. The Lipschitz constant of a function may be considered to quantify the extent of fluctuations of that function and is, in general, independent of its spread. The spreads of the position and momentum distributions are used to obtain the celebrated Heisenberg quantum uncertainty relations. We find that the product of the Lipschitz constants of position and momentum probability distributions is bounded below by a number that is of the order of the inverse square of the Planck's constant.


sensitive detection techniques. Typical near-IR transition line strengths of to cmpl have been measured. The BRD enables this high sensitivity without the need for highfrequency modulation approaches, yet maintaining sensitivities equivalent to those obtained with FM techn iq~es .~ ,~ The operational, electronic, and mechanical simplifications afforded by room-temperature, near-IR lasers (versus cryogenic mid-IR lasers) in combination with the BRD circuit will allow detection limits of a few ppm/meter in standard atmospheric pressure, room temperature air. Higher sensitivity will be achieved by use of compact multi-pass cells. The initial investigations of the application of near-IR diode laser absorption spectroscopy to the detection ofVOCs have concentrated on the recording of Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectra of the species of interest. Because the near-IR transitions are typically orders of magnitude weaker than the mid-IR transitions, there are few references available in the spectroscopic literature. Figure 1 is an example FTIR spectrum of methanol in the 1.34 to 1.44 micron region. This spectrum was recorded at a neat methanol pressure of 5.2 torr, with an absorption pathlength of 5 meters achieved by use of a white cell. Similar spectra of additional VOCs have been recorded to quantify the wavelengths and strengths of the absorption transitions. These spectra are used as guides for the application of diode laser absorption spectroscopy. During this talk we will also present preliminary diode laser absorption spectra of VOCs. These spectra are recorded with use of DFB and external-cavity diode laser systems. We will report on absorption strengths and potential interferences for the identification of optimum spectral regions for the development of compact, electro-optic, VOC sensors. 1. P. C. D. Hobbs, SPIE Laser Noise 1376, 216-221 (1990). 2. M. G. Allen, K. L. Carleton, S . J. Davis, W. J. Kessler, K. R. McManus, presented at the 25th Plasmadynamics and Laser Conference, A I M paper 94-2433 (1 994). M. G. Allen, K. L. Carleton, S. J. Davis, W. J. Kessler, C. E. Otis, D. A. Palombo, D. M. Sonnenfroh, Appl. Opt. 34, No. 18, 3240-3249 (1995). 3.


A mobile system that can handle high bandwidth consuming data efficiently without a large investment in infrastructure is the need of the hour. This paper proposes a new architecture extending the existing cellular system with the commercial airline network to achieve this end. The broad functionality of the system architecture is explained.