Patients diagnosed with early stage head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) have a high risk of developing second primary tumors (SPT) or recurrence following curative purpose therapy. To prevent these occurrences, several chemoprevention agents have been developed, including 13‐cis‐retinoid acid (13‐cRA). However, results from clinical trials have remained inconclusive and suggest that biomarkers may be needed to select patients who will receive benefit from therapy. The mTOR signaling pathway plays a major role in the regulation of cell growth, cell survival, and apoptosis. We hypothesized that genetic variation in this pathway may serve as prognostic factors for the development of SPT/recurrence and affect response to chemoprevention therapy. We genotyped 137 SNPs from genes within this pathway in 450 HNSCC patients who received 13-cRA or placebo as part of the Retinoid Head and Neck Second Primary Trial. Genotypes were then analyzed for association with risk of SPT/recurrence to identify biomarkers for prognosis and treatment response. Twenty‐two genetic loci were significant prognostic factors for SPT/recurrence in the placebo treatment group. Of these, nine were SNPs within the tuberous sclerosis 1 (TSC1) gene and most often resulted in an increased SPT/recurrence risk for the majority of patients carrying the wild‐type genotype. Two of these alleles (rs4962225 and rs7035940) were in strong linkage disequilibrium and resulted in a high risk of SPT/recurrence (HR: 1.92, 95% CI: 1.15–3.23) and a significant 18 month survival disadvantage (Log‐rank P = 0.026) in those carrying the wild‐type genotype. These results indicate that this locus may be a potential target for chemoprevention. Intriguingly, although 13‐cRA did not show a reduction in SPT/recurrence risk overall, response to this therapy was significantly different depending on the patient9s genetic background for these potential targets. A significant modulation of SPT/recurrence risk in those who received 13‐cRA was observed for seven of the prognostic TSC1 SNPs. The majority of the population with the wild‐type genotype were conferred the protective effect of 13‐cRA, indicating that the high‐risk group for SPT/recurrence were being effectively treated by this chemoprevention intervention. Individuals carrying the wild‐type genotype for either TSC1 rs4962225 or rs7035940 were at a 43% reduced risk (95% CI: 0.37–0.88). However those who carried at least one variant allele did not receive the benefit of 13‐cRA treatment and were at an increased risk (HR: 1.91, 95% CI: 1.10–3.32). These results indicate that genetic variation within the mTOR pathway, particularly TSC1, could potentially be used to better identify patients who are at high‐risk of SPT/recurrence and also those who are candidates for chemoprevention therapy based on their favorable genetic background. Citation Information: Cancer Prev Res 2010;3(1 Suppl):B94.


Hyperglycemia, a primary symptom in diabetes mellitus, is associated with difficulties in wound healing and regeneration. This condition is due to the length of the inflammatory phase and free radicals. Furthermore, there is evidence that molecular pathogenesis is involved in impaired wound healing in diabetics. As an animal model, zebrafish have many shared orthologous genes with human that are involved in protein regulation of wound healing and regeneration. Little is known about natural drugs that may be used to treat complications of wound healing in diabetes. Propolis, however, is known to consist of various organic compounds such as phenols and flavonoids with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities. This research aims to study propolis' effect on caudal fin regeneration and relative expression of several genes belonging to Hedgehog, bone morphogenetic protein (BMP), and Wnt signaling hyperglycemic (HG) zebrafish. GC-MS analysis and antioxidant activity testing were performed on ethanolic extract of propolis (EEP). Caudal fin regeneration was analyzed using ImageJ; blood glucose levels were measured; and relative gene expression analysis of shha, igf2a, bmp2b, and col1a2 was performed by the real-time polymerase chain reaction method with the β-actin housekeeping gene. Impairment of caudal fin regeneration in zebrafish hyperglycemia was characterized by a low percentage of regeneration and decreased relative gene expression. EEP at 15 ppm could increase the percentage of caudal fin regeneration and the expression of shha, igf2a, bmp2b, and col1a2. Based on the results, it appears that phenols and flavonoids from the EEP can improve the caudal fin regeneration of HG zebrafish.


Hypoxic fractions (HF) and reoxygenation of various murine tumors were studies using a paired survival assay. All irradiations were given to whole-body of mice without anesthesia or physical restraint, both of which can increase HF artificially. HF's of 4 different tumors of 1 cm in diameter were between 4.5% and 14%. Thus, variation of HF due to tumor type was quite small. HF was roughly correlated with tumor size and proportion of necrotic areas. Reoxygenation was examined in two tumor systems, and it occurred rapidly (within 1 hr after radiation) in one tumor but rather slowly in another.


Two electrophoretic variants for each of the human keratins K4 and K5 that are expressed in squamous nonkeratinizing epithelia lining the upper digestive tract could be distinguished on SDS-PAGE. Based on a sampling size of 1,299 unrelated individuals, calculation of allele frequencies showed the alleles to be in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. The genetic basis of this variation was confirmed by both quantitative gene dosage dependence and the transmission of the variants as Mendelian traits in two families. Thus the human keratin genes K4 and K5 are polymorphic, and each presents with two codominant alleles (a and b).


Experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) is characterized by appearance of anti-myelin autoantibodies in the blood and with the increased expression of MHC (major histocompatibility complex) class I and II antigens in the brain tissue. Although there is an evidence of possible linkage between influenza vaccination and development of autoimmune processes, the precise mechanisms of action of this vaccine on EAE-induction is still unclear. In this study, effects of influenza vaccine on clinical sign, antimyelin antibody titer in the blood by ELISA test and expression of MHC class I and II molecules immunohistochemistry were examined in the brain of C57BL mice with EAE. EAE was induced by MOG35–55 protein in 16 of 32 mice. Influenza split vaccine was administered to eight MOG-induced EAE mice and to eight previously nontreated mice. A significant increase of anti-influenza antibody was detected in vaccinated mice compared to nontreated mice. Also, significant increase of antimyelin antibodies was detected in mice with EAE compared to vaccinated group without EAE and control group, respectively. In EAE-influenza vaccinated mice, a mild but not significant increase of antimyelin antibodies was detected, compared to EAE mice. High expression of MHC-II and mild expression of MHC-I were detected in the brain of mice with EAE. No expressions were detected in vaccinated and normal intact brains. Similar staining was found between EAE-vaccinated and EAE group in both MHC-I and MHC-II expression. The results obtained show that influenza vaccine has no significant influence on EAE induction and severity of autoimmune processes.


Taking a view of joining by welding the IN713C to SCM440 and SCM415 steel in production of turbochargers, the frictin welding process may be utilized as a new approach for joining them of other conventional welding processes. It is because the friction welding has more technical and technical and economic advantages than the other welding processes. As this welding process has the characteristics such as curtaliment of production time and materials and cost reduction, etc.. So, this paper deals with determining the preper friction welding condition and analyzing various mechanical properties of friction welded joints of the super heat resisting steel to alloy stee(IN713C to SCM440 and SCM415). And the in-process real-time weld quality evaluation technique by acoustic emission during friction welding of IN713C to SCM440 and SCM415 steels with higher confidence and relibility has been much required even though it might be the first trial approach for developing it. Then, this first study aimed to develop the optimization of dissimilar friction welding of heat resisting steels (INC713 to SCM440, SCM415) for turbine, considering on strength and toughness.


A qualitative study of aquatic macroinvertebrates and birds associated with sewage stabilization ponds was carried out on the campus of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. Thirteen macroinvertebrate species were recorded out of which Ephemeroptera, Chironomus larvae, mosquito larvae and pupae and Notonecta sp. accounted for 95.4% of the total number of macroinvertebrates. All were found within the littoral region except Chironomus which occurred in both littoral and benthic samples. They serve as food, either directly or through the cyprinodont fish and tadpoles found in the receiving stream, for the twenty-nine bird species belonging to sixteen families that were identified. Ten of these were palaearctic visitors and African migrants. The dry season comparatively favoured increased number of bird species as opposed to lower numbers of aquatic macroarthropods recorded during the same period. The absence of predators on birds, little disturbance to the surrounding habitat and the traditional aversion man has for human sewage coupled with the offensive odour has created a relatively safe haven for the birds in and around the sewage stabilization ponds.


Integer Linear Programming Problem (ILPP) is a special case of Linear Programming Problem (LPP) in which a few or all the decision variables are required to be non-negative integers. For solving ILPP, normally Gomory cutting plane or Branch and Bound technique is used. In this paper, for implementation of the problem in neural network we have taken a new and simple hybrid (primal-dual) algorithm which finds the optimal solution for a class of integer linear programming problems. Normally for solving ILPP Gomory method or Branch and Bound technique is used. This new algorithm does not use the simplex method unlike Gomory cutting plane method and Branch and Bound techniques. The algorithm was considered for implementation with Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and the result shows a great improvement in prediction of results. Literature shows that ILPP occurs most frequently in transportation problems, assignment problems, traveling salesman problems, sequencing problems, routing decisions etc. Thus the implementation of the neural network on the new algorithm will provide comprehensive results when applied with any of the said problems.


A general overview, focusing on new trends in the different techniques used in restructured seafood product processing has been described in this work. Heat-induced gelation has been more widely studied in scientific literature than cold gelation technology. This latter technology includes the use of hydrocolloids (alginates and glucomannan) or enzymes (microbial transglutaminase) for making both raw and cooked restructured products. In restructuration processes, fortification processing with some functional ingredients is studied, giving as a result extra value to the products as well as increasing the variety of new seafood products. The process of alleviating heavy metals and organic pollutants from the raw material used has also been reviewed in the present paper.


Privatizing data is a useful strategy for increasing parallelism in a shared memory multithreaded program. Independent cores can compute independently on duplicates of shared data, combining their results at the end of their computations. Conventional approaches to privatization, however, rely on explicit static or dynamic memory allocation for duplicated state, increasing memory footprint and contention for cache resources, especially in shared caches. In this work, we describe CCache, a system for on-demand privatization of data manipulated by commutative operations. CCache garners the benefits of privatization, without the increase in memory footprint or cache occupancy. Each core in CCache dynamically privatizes commutatively manipulated data, operating on a copy. Periodically or at the end of its computation, the core merges its value with the value resident in memory, and when all cores have merged, the in-memory copy contains the up-to-date value. We describe a low-complexity architectural implementation of CCache that extends a conventional multicore to support on-demand privatization without using additional memory for private copies. We evaluate CCache on several high-value applications, including random access key-value store, clustering, breadth first search and graph ranking, showing speedups upto 3.2X.


There are many studies that dealt with  the Holy Qur'an starting from the Ist century A.H. till the present day. Throughout this study of the commentary of Al Jawahir Al Hisan bu Abu Zaid Al Tha'aliby (decd. 875 A.H.), and my tackling many issnes concerning the reasons of Qur'anic expressions, I noticed some topics that came in this blessed interpretation which is considered one of the important commentaries as well as an important reference of language as it carries various inclinations such as the influential, the linguistic and the stylistic inclinations. Therefore, I decided,  among many options, to choose the study of structures. Hence, this research includs four topics; first: reasons of preference in sentences, second: reasons of preferences in Qur'anic citations, third: reasons of preferences in parsing and fourth: reasons of preferences in starting and stopping.


ABSTRACT Introduction: To assess the efficacy of desvenlafaxine (administered as desvenlafaxine succinate) in outpatients with major depressive disorder. Methods: A meta-analysis of individual patient data was performed on the complete set of registration trials (nine randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled 8-week studies) of desvenlafaxine. Patients received fixed (50, 100, 200, or 400 mg/day; n = 1,342) or flexible doses (100–400 mg/day; n = 463) of desvenlafaxine or placebo (n = 1,108). The primary efficacy variable was the 17-item Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HAM-D17); the primary intent to treat analyses used the last-observation-carried-forward method. Results: Significantly greater improvement with desvenlafaxine versus placebo on the HAM-D17 total score was observed for the full data set (difference in adjusted means: −1.9; P<.001), each fixed-dose group (all P<.001), and the flexible-dose group (P=.024). Overall rates of HAM-D17 response (≥50% decrease from baseline score: 53% vs 41%) and remission (HAM-D17 ≤7: 32% vs 23%) were significantly greater for desvenlafaxine versus placebo (all P<.001). Discontinuation rates due to adverse events increased with dose (4% to 18%; placebo: 3%). Conclusion: Desvenlafaxine demonstrated short-term efficacy for treating major depressive disorder across the range of doses studied. No evidence of greater efficacy was observed with doses >50 mg/day; a strong dose-response effect on tolerability was observed.


The article contributes to the literature on multi-level welfare governance and public accountability in the context of recent European hospital reforms. Focusing on the changing dynamics between regional and central governance of hospitals in Germany, Norway and Denmark, we raise concerns about the reshaping of traditional public accountability mechanisms. We argue that, triggered by growing financial pressures, corporatization and professionalization have increasingly removed decision-making power from regional political bodies in hospital funding and planning. National governments have tightened their control over the overall trajectory of their hospital systems, but have also shifted significant responsibility downwards to the hospital level. This has reshaped public accountability relationships towards more managerial or professional types embedded within multi-level forms of governance. Points for practitioners Our study may be taken to suggest that if reforms are responses to policy pressures, the accompanying changes in accountability relationships and arrangements in turn contribute to altering the pressures and constraints that form the context for administrative, managerial and professional work. As reforms in Norwegian, Danish and German healthcare contribute to corporatization, centralization and economization, there is reason to expect that what officials are held accountable for, and how, is also likely to change and to accentuate the span between policy aims and actual managerial and professional performance.


Docetaxel has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of many cancer types, including breast cancer, head and neck cancer, lung cancer, and prostate cancer. Many severe to life-threatening side effects (Grades 3–5) of docetaxel have been reported in clinical trials, case reports, and Food and Drug Administration Adverse Events Reporting System. These include anaphylactic reactions, febrile neutropenia, fluid retention, acute respiratory distress, pleural effusion, pneumonia, and peripheral neuropathy. There were fewer cardiac toxicities reported for docetaxel as compared to paclitaxel, which were less severe. In this report, we present a clinical case of docetaxel-induced cardiac-respiratory arrest in a 62-year-old Hispanic male patient with stable chronic atrial fibrillation, who has been recently diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer. The cardiac event developed within 15 min of docetaxel infusion during the second cycle of chemotherapy despite using recommended premedication with corticosteroids.


While China's economic and social reforms have gained much attention internationally, the CCP regime's efforts at political structural reform (zhengzhi tizhi gaige) initiated by Deng Xiaoping have been widely ignored by China scholars so far. Political reforms that do not aim at abolishing one-party rule to the benefit of some form of Western liberal (multi-party) democracy are not taken seriously by most observers of China's modernisation process. This article hypothesizes that these reforms do actually affect regime legitimacy in a positive way and should therefore be carefully analysed in order to explain the "authoritarian resilience" of Communist one-party rule. It is argued that political reform in its limited sense of enhancing cadre efficiency and accountability (instead of empowering the demos vis-à-vis the state) may, indeed, help to effectively prolong one-party rule in contemporary China.


Title Assessing Maternal Morbidity in India, Pakistan, Kenya and Malawi. Background For every woman who dies during pregnancy and childbirth, many more suffer ill-health, the burden of which is highest in low- and middle-income countries. The PhD study sought to assess the extent and type of maternal morbidity in these settings. Methods A descriptive observational cross-sectional study was conducted to assess physical (infectious and medical/obstetric), psychological and social morbidity. Socio-demographic factors, education, socioeconomic status, reported symptoms, clinical examination and laboratory investigations, quality of life, and satisfaction with health were assessed. Relationships between morbidity and maternal characteristics were investigated using logistic regression analysis. Findings 11454 women were assessed in India (2099), Malawi (2923), Kenya (3145), and Pakistan (3287). Almost 3 out of 4 women had ≥1 symptom (73.5%), abnormalities on clinical examination (71.3%) or laboratory investigation (73.5%). In total, 9.0% of women had an identified infectious disease (HIV, malaria, syphilis or chest infection) and 23.1% had signs of early sepsis with an identifiable source of infection in 43%. HIV positive status was highest in Malawi (14.5%) as was malaria (10.4%). Overall, 47.9% of women were anaemic, 11.5% had other medical or obstetric conditions, 25.1% psychological and 36.6% social morbidity. Infectious morbidity was highest in Malawi (40.5%) and Kenya (38.5%), psychological and social morbidity was highest in Pakistan (47.3%, 60.2%). Morbidity was not limited to a core at risk group; only 1.2% had a combination of all four morbidities. Age, socioeconomic status, educational, previous pregnancies, and adverse maternal or neonatal outcomes were associated with different types of morbidity per country, but there was no consistent direction of strength of association. For each country, women with medical/obstetric morbidity was more likely to report psychological and infectious morbidity, apart from Malawi. Women with an infectious morbidity were more likely to report medical/obstetric, psychological and social morbidity in Pakistan and Malawi. Women with psychological morbidity were more likely to report social morbidity in Pakistan and Kenya. Conclusion Despite women reporting that they have a good quality of life and are satisfied with their health, there is evidence of a significant burden of infectious, medical/obstetric, psychological, and social morbidity in women during and after pregnancy. At present available antenatal and postnatal care packages do not include comprehensive screening for all forms of ill-health. This study demonstrates that women have health needs, beyond simply the physical aspects of health and includes psychological and social well-being. To ensure all women have the right to the highest attainable standard of health and well-being, current antenatal and postnatal care packages need to be adapted and improved to provide comprehensive, holistic care in a way that meets a woman's health needs.


Bone function requires a good repair system. The quantitative role of each healing component, mainly periosteum and bone marrow/endosteum and of their interactions is not clearly known. To evaluate more precisely the role of periosseous tissues in bone formation, we chose a bone lengthening model in rabbits.
Nineteen purebred immature male New Zealand white rabbits were fitted with a femoral lateral external fixator and randomly assigned to 4 intervention groups: 1) Periosteum (PS) and bone marrow (BM) preservation; 2) PS preservation and BM destruction; 3) PS destruction and BM preservation; 4) PS and BM destruction. Animals were killed on day 30 and histology showed different bone regeneration modes.
The most frequent ossification in the centre of the distraction gap was enchondral ossification. For bone formed between cortices only group 1 showed a difference (p=0.034). Density of the formed bone at the periosteal site showed a positive effect only with PS preservation, with an interaction of BM and PS. Density of group 4 was different from groups 1 (p=0.028), and 2 (p=0.001).
No difference was present between groups at the endosteal sites. PS had a positive effect on the thickness of the formed bone at the periosteal site, with an interaction between PS and BM, but not at the endosteal site. A difference in thickness was noted between group 2 and 4 (p=0.018).
Periosteum forms more bone and more likely to spread than bone marrow, but for restoration of the cortical wall, preservation of both shows optimal density results. Bone does not seem to form from surrounding tissues when both periosteum and bone marrow are destroyed.


Single cathode particles for lithium-ion batteries are analyzed during cycling The redox-active materials in lithium-ion batteries have relatively poor electronic and ionic conduction and may experience stress from charge-discharge volume changes, so their formulation into structures with nanosized features is highly desirable. On page 566 of this issue, Lim et al. (1) characterize individual nanoparticles of the positive electrode material LiFePO4 during charging and discharging. This "in operando" technique ensures that all particles experience the same voltage. The current and lithium concentration are then inferred for individual particles via the change in Fe oxidation state measured during the transformation from LiFePO4 to FePO4 and back.


This paper presents a multiple channel active noise control system using the simultaneous equations method based on the different principle from the filtered-x algorithm. The simultaneous equations method can automatically recover the noise reduction effect degraded by acoustic path changes. In this paper, we apply the method to multiple channel active noise control systems and verify the performance of the systems by computer simulations.


OBJECTIVES
To address the scarcity of comprehensive, theory-based research in the Australian context, this study, using a theory of planned behaviour (TPB) framework, investigated the role of personal and social norms to identify the key predictors of adult Australians' sun-safe intentions and behaviour.

DESIGN
The study used a prospective design with two waves of data collection, 1 week apart.

METHODS
Participants were 816 adults (48.2% men) aged between 18 and 88 years recruited from urban, regional, and rural areas of Australia. At baseline, participants completed a questionnaire assessing the standard TPB predictors (attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioural control [PBC]), past behaviour, behavioural intention, and additional measures of group norm for the referent groups of friends and family, image norm, personal norm, personal choice/responsibility, and Australian identity. Seventy-one per cent of the participants (n = 577) reported on their sun-safe behaviour in the subsequent week.

RESULTS
Via path modelling, past behaviour, attitude, group norm (friends), personal norm, and personal choice/responsibility emerged as independent predictors of intentions which, in turn, predicted sun-safe behaviour prospectively. Past behaviour, but not PBC, had direct effects on sun-safe behaviour. The model explained 61.6% and 43.9% of the variance in intention and behaviour, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS
This study provides support for the use of a comprehensive theoretical decision-making model to explain Australian adults' sun-safe intentions and behaviours and identifies viable targets for health-promoting messages in this high-risk context. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject? Identifying determinants of sun-safe behaviour is vital in high-risk cancer areas like Australia. For young Australians, friendship group norm is a key influence of intentions and behaviour. Little is known about drivers of sun safety, especially norms, among Australian adults in general. What does this study add? This study drew on qualitative data and reconceptualized norms for Australians' sun-safe decisions. Friendship group norm and personal norm, not family group norm, influence sun-safe intentions. Perceived responsibility and choice to be sun safe also impact on people's intentions.


One of the most important environmental problems faced by the world today is waste handling and due to variation in waste water with respect to homes. The two main treatment used here are the aerobic and the anaerobic treatment process. The processes are brought to increase the efficiency of the plant. The plant has the capacity of treating the wastewater with high chemical oxygen demand (COD), biological oxygen demand (BOD), settleable and nonsettleable solids coupled with some other impurities. It was achieved by introducing some microorganism in its granular form into the up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) tank and aerator at the sequence batch reactor (SBR) tank so that the non-settleable solids could settle at the settling tank. From the analytical result of ten samples used, it was observed that seven out of ten have high COD (red in colour) while the remaining samples had the normal COD range for domestic waste. The average COD removal efficiency at the UASB was 64% while that at the SBR was 14%. Thus, the general performance efficiency of the plant is 78.4% which is the average COD removal efficiency at 100% evaluation. Keywords: Influent tank, Equalization tank, UASB, SBR, Settling tank, Biodegradation process.


The heterogeneous catalysis of African pear seed oil (APO) and modelling of some thermo-physical properties of the biodiesel was carried out. The oil was extracted with petroleum ether solvent and characterized with Association of Analytical Chemist (AOAC). The catalysts were synthesized by thermal, acid and alkaline activation of clay. The catalysts were characterized and used to transesterify the APO. The biodiesel produced were characterized using American Society for Testing Materials ASTM D6571 and some the thermo-physical properties such as density, kinematic viscosity and cetane number were modelled using multilinear regression analysis of Polymath version 5.0. The 52% yield of oil from the African pear seeds using the petroleum ether was comparable with yields obtained from other nonedible seeds. The transesterification of the oil was significantly affected by increase in process variables but the yield of methyl ester decreased beyond 3 h reaction time, 3 wt% catalyst concentration, 10:1 methanol/oil molar ratio, 60 oC reaction temperature and 300 rpm agitation speed. The physicochemical properties of the biodiesel produced meet the ASTM standard and were within the acceptable limits. The biodiesel produced via transesterification of APO using thermally, acid and alkaline activated catalyst have similar properties and can be blended to form a homogeneous fuel. The coefficients of determination are close to 1 while the root mean square value is less than 0.2. This shows that the multilinear regression can model the thermo-physical properties of the biodiesel.


Corrosion protection by anodization and conversion treatment in phosphate solution was studied by microstructural and electrochemical analysis. Both the anodized and the conversion-treated layers showed sacrificial protection in a solution of sodium chloride. The corrosion current or the dissolving rate of the anodized layer was smaller than that of the conversion-treated surface. The modified layers had another mode of protection to form protective films on magnesium substrate where the original modified layers were mechanically lost. Since the state of magnesium in the anodized layer is close to magnesium oxide, phosphorus in the layer is considered to have an important role in these properties concerning the above corrosion protection.


The mechanism of the para-antiferroelectric phase transition at 353 K in has been investigated by coherent elastic and inelastic neutron scattering. The structural phase transition is shown to arise from the condensation of a diffusive mode to which a low-frequency zone boundary (at the S point ) soft mode is coupled. The existence in of a weakly dispersive low-frequency optic branch along the direction, which may be attributed to rigid-body librations, may be regarded as an explanation of the appearance in the homologue of a pseudo-proper ferroelastic transition, already characterized by previous structural studies.


The role played by cell addition, cell enlargement, and matrix deposition in the endochondral growth of the condyle was assessed in weanling rats by four approaches making use of the light microscope: morphometry, 3H-thymidine radioautography, 3H-proline radioautography, and immunostaining for the cartilage-specific type II collagen. From the articular surface down, the condyle may be divided into five layers made up of cells embedded in a matrix: 1) the articular layer composed of static cells in a matrix rich in fibers presumed to be of type I collagen, 2) the polymorphic cell layer including the progenitor cells from which arise the cells undergoing endochondral changes, 3) the flattened cell layer in which cells produce a precartilagenous matrix devoid of type II collagen while undergoing differentiation in two stages: a "chondroblast" stage and a short "flattened chondrocyte" stage when intracellular type II collagen elaboration begins, 4) the upper hypertrophic cell layer, in which cells are "typical chondrocytes" that enlarge at a rapid rate, actively produce type II collagen, and deposit it into a cartilagenous matrix, and 5) the lower hypertrophic cell layer, composed of chondrocytes at a stage of terminal enlargement while the cartilagenous matrix is adapting for mineralization. 3H-thymidine radioautographic results indicate that the turnover time of progenitor cells in the polymorphic cell layer is about 2.9 days. The time spent by cells at each stage of development is estimated to be 1.4 days as chondroblasts, 0.5 days as flattened chondrocytes, 2.3 days as the chondrocytes of the upper hypertrophic cell layer, and 1.1 days as those of the lower hypertrophic cell layer. Calculations referring to a 1 x 1-mm square-sided column extending from the articular surface to the zone of vascular invasion provide the daily rate of cell addition (0.0077 mm3), extracellular matrix deposition (0.0127 mm3), and cell enlargement (0.0302 mm3). Hence the respective contribution of the three factors to condyle growth is in a ratio of about 1:1.6:4. This result emphasizes the role played by cell enlargement in the overall growth of the condyle.


SUMMARY The isolation genetic analysis of a new class of mutants of the mould Aspergillus nidulans is described. The mutants were detected by their inability to utilize specific carbohydrates as sole carbon source for growth. All of the mutants are recessive analysis of 27 mutants has resulted in the description of 10 new loci concerned with the utilization of carbohydrates in the organism; the loci have been allocated to linkage groups and 6 were mapped meiotically. Two loci which control lactose utilization are not linked and neither are 5 loci which control the utilization of galactose. A series of sorbitol mutants is unusual in that they are all non-complementary when combined in heterokaryons, although certain pairs of mutants complement in the corresponding heterozygous diploids.


In this paper we present our work on designing and implementing an NS3 model for MultiPath TCP (MPTCP). Our MPTCP model closely follows MPTCP specifications, as described in RFC 6824, and supports TCP NewReno loss recovery on a per subflow basis. Subflow management is based on MPTCP's kernel implementation. We briefly describe how we integrate our MPTCP model with NS3 and present example simulation results to showcase its working state.


New and still preliminary measurements of the nucleon structure function derived from muon scattering experiments at Fermilab are presented. The data are displayed in such a way as to emphasize the departures from exact Bjorken scaling. Parameters describing the scale breaking are extracted from simple power law fits to the data. 16 references.


This report provides recommendations for HR practices that can be implemented specifically to support the service differentiation strategy. Managing (new) employees involve clear target setting through cascading down overall company goals. These goals can consists of a combination of hard and soft targets to aid in the implementation of the service strategy (including e.g. customer satisfaction and team cooperative behavior). Development plans must be provided to in order to equip employees with the right knowledge and skills aimed at meeting client expectations. Creative problem solving capabilities and communicative skills and specific branch knowledge could be considered here with the aim of increasing responsibility for the client and taking ownership. Monitoring results and progress is managed differently in a service strategy type of organization then for a cost-leadership type or organization. The latter emphasizes quantity for instance output per person of work that is usually more standardize. For a service strategy type of company quality, further defined by the client also plays a role. Regular feedback to monitor quality and to devise new strategies to reach speed and quality are desirable for a service type of organization. More control type of management can be at the expense of flexibility, feelings of freedom in how to achieve results and the willingness to assume responsibility for the client and the job/task. Finally performance management is about evaluating former set targets through regular performance appraisals during the year and rewarding accordingly. Reward schemes can facilitate increased ownership by rewarding own acquisition proving good services from the past.


This paper focuses on the use of web-based technology in the course Introduction to Environmental Engineering (CE 280). An extensive website, web-based quizzes and homework assignments, and tutorials have been developed and are available on the course website (www.egr.msu.edu/classes/ce280). In 1999, web-based quizzes and tutorials were introduced. In 2001, homework assignments were computerized using the CAPA (Computer Assisted Personalized Approach) software developed at Michigan State University. As with the homework assignments, all examinations were individualized. After completing the CAPA examinations, the students were given their CAPA-correction examinations. The correction-examination followed the same format as the in-class examination except that the multiple-choice problems had a different selection of choices and the quantitative problems had different numbers. The students were required to complete the entire correction-examination in order to obtain additional examination points.


Although there is a close association between Langerhans cell histiocytosis and malignant neoplasms, simultaneous occurrence of lymphoblastic lymphoma and Langerhans cell histiocytosis in the same lymph node is an extremely rare finding. Herein, we describe such a case in a 26-year-old woman who presented with progressive cervical lymphadenopathy. The lymphoma cells have an immature T-cell phenotype (terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase(+), HLA-DR(+), CD34(+), CD38(+), and CD7(+)) with expression of both CD3 and CD79a on immunohistochemical stain. The Langerhans cells are present focally with the characteristic morphologic features and immunophenotype (CD1a(+) and S100(+)). The significance of CD79a coexpression in T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma and the association between lymphoblastic lymphoma and Langerhans cell histiocytosis are discussed.


This article explores how Elizabeth Bowen's novel The Last September relies on a spatial aesthetic to convey interpersonal and political tensions, corresponding with the novelistic trend toward greater historical and political engagement that recent scholars have deemed "late modernism." Bowen's spatial aesthetic in turn insists on a related spatial interpretative practice, which is consistent with theoretical developments in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s that consider how space and time cooperate in the configuration of narrative. Her poetics destabilizes time and linear plot as the primary constituents of narrative and undermines the ostensible authority of the "narrator" in service of representing focalizers' internal experiences. Her experiments with spatiality and focalization are less overtly radical than those of high modernist or avant-garde fiction writers. Instead, her subtly indeterminate narrative discourse uses space and time cooperatively and incorporates variable focalization to propel narrative in service of an engagement with the historico-political context. The subtlety with which the poetics expresses its politics conveys the experience of the historical moment even to a reader to whom the political outcome is known. Thus Bowen's changes to narrative discourse produce a tension between the focalized present and the project of looking back at history, conveying an ambivalent mixture of lamentation, critique, and tentative responsibility that characterizes the ongoing experience for many Anglo-Irish of her generation. Bowen's early regional novel is of its own moment, historical, political, and also aesthetic, at the forefront of the broader trend in midcentury aesthetics that we now call late modernism.


Cystic fibrosis (CF) is an inherited disorder most prevalent in the Caucasian population, characterized by a functional abnormality of the transmembrane conductance regulator protein that leads to a wide array of complications, including chronic lung infections. Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA) is a frequently acquired microbe in CF patients and is associated with deterioration in pulmonary function and increased mortality. Inhaled anti-infective agents are an established curative therapy for CF airway infections, especially with chronic PA lung disease. Amongst them, aztreonam lysine for inhalation (AZLI) is an aerosolized monobactam antibiotic aztreonam, approved for use in CF patients nearly a decade ago. This literature review aims to explore studies based on the efficacy, safety, and tolerability of AZLI use in CF patients with pulmonary infections. We searched for all the relevant articles present in PubMed, Google Scholar, Cochrane Library, EMBASE, ClinicalTrials.gov, and Journal of Cystic Fibrosis for our data collection from 2000 to 2020. The use of AZLI has substantially improved lung function, respiratory symptoms, and remarkably reduced sputum PA density in CF patients, thereby improving the patient's overall quality of life. The adverse effects reported were compatible with CF lung disease. Hence, inhalational therapy with AZLI is highly efficacious and safe in the management of chronic airway infections. More clinical trials need to be conducted in the future to assess its long-term clinical benefits and adverse events as well as to explore the role of AZLI in the setting of acute lung infections.


This paper proposes a two-stage linear model for the regression relationships between a time series and a set of time-dependent covariates when the relationships change according to a seasonal pattern. The first stage consists of a piecewise constant autoregression model for these relationships. The second stage models the piecewise coefficients with harmonic equations to examine for seasonal trends. This approach models the seasonal trends in time series regression relationships in the presence of non-constant autoregression, non-constant residual variance, and stochastic variation in the regression effects across time. Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) time series data illustrate the methodology. I model the seasonally changing regression relationships between the change in daily sunlight (from the previous day) and depressive mood and between the change in daily temperature and depressive mood for a SAD patient, and I employ an empirical Bayes method to obtain efficient month-specific estimates for these relationships.


1. a. The erythrocytic stages of the malarial parasite, Plasmodium gallinaceum , were treated continuously with large amounts of either sulfadiazine or quinine and observed at frequent intervals to determine the rate of action of these drugs. b. Quinine completely inhibited growth and development of the parasites almost immediately in four out of five birds and in the fifth bird did not permit development beyond the four-nucleate stage. c. With sulfadiazine the first detectable retardation of growth occurred by 24 but not by 12 hours. Development of the first treated generation proceeded to segmentation, but the average number of merozoites produced per segmenter was only 12.7 as compared to 20.3 for the untreated controls. These merozoites invaded erythrocytes but did not develop beyond the four-nucleate stage before complete inhibition occurred. d. With quinine the parasites never increased in number and by the second day had dropped below the initial count. With sulfadiazine there was a four-fold increase in parasitemia in the first two days, compared to fifteen-fold in the controls. The parasitemia declined to the initial level by the third or fourth day and dropped below it on the fifth day. 2. The compound, 2-sulfanilamido-5-bromopyrimidine, also acts slowly 3. Sulfanilamides may also act slowly in sporozoite-induced infections since more than two days of treatment were required for maximum effects. 4. It is suggested that the length of time required for effective inhibition by sulfanilamides and other slowly acting compounds increases as the growth rate of the organism decreases. This may have practical implications in chemotherapeutics trials.


Shortage of water resource has become one of the major factors limiting wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) production in North China. Irrigation plays an important role to obtain high grain yield. Currently, studies on water consumption characteristics and the physiological basis of yield formation in wheat are seldom reported. In this study, three wide planted cultivars, Jimai 20, Taishan 23, and Taishan 22 were used in two independent experiments in 2004–2005 and 2005–2006 growing seasons. There were four irrigation treatments in both experiments, i.e., no irrigation (W0), soil water plus one irrigation at jointing stage (W1), soil water plus two irrigations at jointing and anthesis stage (W2), soil water plus three irrigations at jointing, anthesis, and grain-filling stage (W3). Each irrigation supplied water of 60 mm. In the 2004–2005 growing season, the highest grain yields of Jimai 20 and Taishan 23 were obtained in W2 treatment with water consumptions of 429.8 and 453.0 mm, respectively, which were higher than those of W1 treatment (402.9 and 416.6 mm). However, the irrigation efficiency of W2 treatment was lower than that of W1 treatment. The water use efficiencies (WUE) of W1 and W2 treatments were both higher than those of other treatments in the two cultivars. In Jimai 20, there was no significant difference between W1 and W2 treatments, whereas in Taishan 23, W1 had higher WUE than W2. In the 2005–2006 growing season, Jimai 20 yield the highest in W1 treatment, and Taishan 22 in W2 treatment, with water consumptions of 451.3 and 459.2 mm, respectively. The highest and the lowest WUE were in W0 and W3 treatments in both Jimai 20 and Taishan 22, respectively. In Jimai 20, the WUE was higher in W1 than in W2, whereas there was no significant difference between W1 and W2 in Taishan 22. With the increase of irrigation amount, the percentage of soil water supply amount and precipitation to total water consumption amount decreased and the percentage of irrigation amount to total water consumption amount increased. Compared with W1, W2, and W3 treatments, W0 treatment had lower flag leaf photosyn-thetic rate and sucrose phosphate synthase activity at medium and late grain-filling, but at early grain-filling, there was no signifi- cant difference between W0 and W1, W2, W3, and the transfer of sucrose from flag leaf to grain was more favorable in W0 than in W1, W2, and W3, thus, Jimai 20 obtained the highest grain weight in W0 treatment. In wheat production under conditions similar to this study, the optimal irrigation regimes are suggested as 60–120 mm for Jimai 20 and Taishan 23 at jointing or at jointing and anthesis stages without irrigating base water, and 60 mm for Jimai 20 at jointing or 60–120 mm for Taishan 22 at jointing or at jointing and anthesis stages with irrigating base water 60 mm .


In this study, an intelligent video surveillance (IVS) system is designed based on the particle filter. The designed IVS system can gather the information of the number of persons in the area and hot spots of the area. At first, the Gaussian mixture background model is utilized to detect moving objects by background subtraction. The moving object appearing in the margin of the video frame is considered as a new person. Then, a new particle filter is assigned to track the new person when it is detected. A particle filter is canceled when the corresponding tracked person leaves the video frame. Moreover, the Kalman filter is utilized to estimate the position of the person when the person is occluded. Information of the number of persons in the area and hot spots is gathered by tracking persons in the video frame. Finally, a user interface is designed to feedback the gathered information to users of the IVS system. By applying the proposed IVS system, the load of security guards can be reduced. Moreover, by hot spot analysis, the business operator can understand customer habits to plan the traffic flow and adjust the product placement for improving customer experience.


Abstract Human–wildlife conflict is emerging as an important topic in conservation. Carnivores and birds of prey are responsible for most conflicts with livestock and game but since the mid 1990s a new conflict is emerging in south-west Europe: the presumed killing of livestock by griffon vultures Gyps fulvus. Lack of scientific data and magnification of the problem by the media are increasing alarm amongst the public, and political pressures to implement management decisions have not been based on scientific evidence. We compiled information on 1,793 complaints about attacks by griffon vultures on livestock, lodged with Spanish authorities from 1996 to 2010. Spain is home to the majority (95%) of griffon vultures and other scavengers in the European Union. Most of the cases occurred in areas of high livestock density, affected principally sheep (49%) and cows (31%), and were associated with spring birthing times (April–June). On average 69% of the complaints made annually were rejected because of a lack of evidence about whether the animal was alive before being eaten. The total economic cost of compensation was EUR 278,590 from 2004 to 2010. We discuss possible ways to mitigate this emerging human–wildlife conflict. These need to include the participation of livestock farmers, authorities, scientists and conservation groups.


OBJECTIVE
To report a case of verrucous carcinoma of the penis with a long evolution, with special reference to the immunohistochemical study.

METHODS
A 64-year-old male consulted for an exophytic lesion in the penis that he had noted 10 years ago. Physical examination showed no regional adenopathy. The diagnosis of benign papillomatous lesion versus carcinoma was considered. The tumor was excised.

RESULTS
The histological analysis demonstrated verrucous carcinoma with a very well-differentiated surface and dysplastic basal nests with a tendency to microinvasion. Immunohistochemical studies showed a greater proliferative activity of the Nests (Ki67), but no overexpression of p53 protein.

CONCLUSIONS
Verrucous carcinoma may have a long evolution. Immunohistochemical studies of the Ki67 antigen could be useful to detect microinvasion through a better definition of the more proliferative nests.


The Regional Rural Banks were established "with a view to developing the rural economy by providing, for the purpose of development of agriculture, trade, commerce, industry and other productive activities in the rural areas, credit and other facilities, particularly to small and marginal farmers, agricultural labourers, artisans, and small entrepreneurs and for matters connected there with and incidental thereto". The necessity of rural finance was felt to provide protection & reliance to rural people who rely highly on informal source of finance like moneylenders, landlords & traders etc. but they exploit farmers and small entrepreneurs by charging exorbitant rate of interest & force farmers to sell their product at low price to them. Rural people also face the risk of unpredictable production of crops due to high dependency on monsoon. The problems of finance suffer from lack of seeds, fertilizers, water supply and other facilities which lead to rural ineptness. Rural bank are providing finance to the weaker sections of society like small farmers, rural artisans, small producers, rural labourers etc, to provide finance to cooperative societies, primary credit societies, Agricultural marketing societies, Enhance & Improve banking facilities to semi urban, rural& other untapped market. The Regional Rural Banks help the rural people to come out from the financial problems and secured the financial assistance to agriculture in India. The study concentrated on Vidharbha Gramin Bank and Maharashtra Gramin Bank situated in Maharashtra to provide financial support to agriculture and performance of the bank in various Identified potential areas. This bank focused on the rural development, reaching the uncovered and being farmer friendly.


Offering products or services through advertisements has been carried out by
mankind since 3000 BC. Advertising is one of the ways that product owners can
use to introduce products to consumers. The Internet presence in the 1980s
provide product owners an alternative to advertise using relatively new media,
even though Internet advertising had only developed in the 1990s.
This study is qualitative research with a case study approach. This research
provides an overview of the advertising process and changes in patterns of
interaction between the advertising industry players that take place on the
YouTube platform. This study refers to the Media Ecology theory which is
famous for the phrase the medium is the message, which means that the medium
used to convey the message also affects society, not only because of the message
carried by the media, but also by the characteristics of the medium itself
(McLuhan in Griffin, 322: 2012). The internet is a medium to convey messages,
but the Internet as a medium does not only act as a messenger, but its presence
also has an impact on the Internet users themselves, with the Internet the way
humans communicate and access information are very different than before its
presents.
In addition to Media Ecology, this study also refers to Disruption
Innovation theory, as stated by Christensen, that Disruptive innovation occurs
when a product is created to meet the needs of two types of markets where both
markets are ignored by the industry incumbent. The two types of markets that
Christensen intended were low-end footholds and new-market footholds
(Christensen, 2015). YouTube initially attended the new-market footholds, where
it did not deal directly with TV stations as competitors, even though it had the
same type of content, namely audio visual.
The research findings illustrate how YouTube channel endorsement as part
of information technology bring changes in interaction patterns and production
processes carried out by advertising industry players. The advertising campaign
carried out on the YouTube platform using YouTube channel endorsement also
gave rise to new players in the advertising industry who had not previously
appeared in the conventional advertising industry. The new player is the Multi
Channel Network / MCN, which acts as the manager of the YouTubers both in
managing content or when dealing with advertiser clients


Turkana South Sub-County falls in the arid and semi-arid lands of Kenya, which are characterized temperatures of 20°C to 41°C with an average of 30.5°C and precipitation in the range of 52 mm to 480 mm per year. The area has limited availability of water resources. The area has a land surface of 18,000 km2 and lies between Longitudes 35°10'00" and 36°45'00" East and between Latitudes 1°0'00" and 3°0'00" North. The study area faces immense difficulties in trying to meet its water requirements for her rapidly increasing populace, livestock needs and other developmental programmes. Surface water in the area is becoming unobtainable, thus the choice of groundwater exploitation. Indeed with the snowballing demand necessitated by energy, agricultural and livestock production needs in this area, there is an appeal into investigation for groundwater in this greatly remote and extensive area. Thus, the success in the exploration, development and management of groundwater in such a large area calls for such methods that can easily be used to zero down to exploitable targets. Given the expansiveness of the study area, remote sensing (RS) has been used to map lineaments which in turn have been used to deduce faulting affecting the geology of the area. The mapping by RS helped in identifying weathered zones, the fracture systems and fault zones sign of deeper weathered zones which are interpreted to be potential areas since mainly water is stored within fractures and the weathered zones in subterranean and in hard rocks. In the field topographic expressions of faults and fractures which include; joints, fractures, scarps, river channels and slope breaks were mapped and it was observed that there was a comparison of the features to the coincidence raster and aspect interpreted lineaments. The earmarked points were later investigated using vertical electrical sounding (VES) to establish their feasibility for groundwater availability and extraction. The investigated VES points in areas of high lineament density revealed decreasing resistivity with increasing depth of investigation, a confirmation of faulting. The data presented curves, type KH, type KK, and type Q. Further investigation was done in points of low lineament density, considered to be least affected by faulting and deep weathering, which turned out to be having increasing resistivity with increasing depth of investigation, an indication of layered lithology. The zones of low lineament density are represented by a type A curve, a type H curve, type HH. There is a good agreement in the results of remote sensing data and VES data models generated where the high lineaments density points concur with areas of good groundwater potential.


Background: Corticosteroids as dexamethasone are used for treating non-specific inflammatory diseases, however, may result in delayed wound healing due to its catabolic effects in skin. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of quercetin on delayed wound healing in dexamethasone-treated rats. Materials and Methods: In this experimental study, 40 male Wistar rats were used. After dermal incisions within a distance of 1.5 mm to the spinal column (30 mm length), rats were treated with 0.17 mg/kg dexamethasone, 50 mg/kg quercetin or both until 21 days. Wound healing was evaluated by measuring surface area, percentage of healing, wound length, duration of healing, and wound tensile strength. Results: Our results showed that the duration of wound healing was significantly increased in dexamethasone treated rats in comparison with control group. In contrast, the rate of healing and skin tensile strength in dexamethasone treated rats receiving quercetin was significantly greater than dexamethasone treated group. In addition, the duration of wound healing in the dexamethasone treated group receiving quercetin was less than dexamethasone group. Conclusion: This study provides some evidence to support the use of quercetin to accelerating wound healing in dexamethasone treated animals. However, Further research is needed to determine the quercetin mechanisms in acceleration of wound healing.


Using critical frequencies, f0F2 from the Lannion, Slough, Poitiers, Garchy, Dourbes, Rome, Juliusrud, Gibilmanna, Pruhonice, Uppsala, Kaliningrad, Miedzeszyn, Sofia, Athens and Kiev ionosonde stations, the possible effects of the orientation of the Interplanetary Magnetic Field (IMF) on mid-latitude ionosphere are further investigated. This time, only the southward polarity changes in IMF Bz with seasonal effects were considered. The same method of analysis was employed to facilitate a comparison between the recent results presented here with those which appeared in the preceding papers in the series. That is, the regular diurnal, seasonal and solar cycle variations in the f0F2 data were removed by subtracting the mean of the f0F2 for the same UT on all magnetically quite days (Ap < 6) within 15 days around the IMF Bz turnings (Tulunay, 1994). This last paper also includes the seasonal effects on the ionospheric data. The results confirm that much of the day-to-day variability of the mid-latitude ionosphere may be related to the orientation of the southward IMF Bz , characterized by the ionospheric winter anomaly. Day-to-day ionospheric variability becomes more significant towards higher latitudes.


In this paper we examine the use of multi faceted recommendations to aid users while carrying out exploratory video retrieval tasks. These recommendations are integrated into ViGOR (Video Grouping, Organisation and Retrieval), a system which employs grouping techniques to facilitate video retrieval tasks. Two types of recommendations based on past usage history are utilised, the first attempts to couple the multi-faceted nature of explorative video retrieval tasks with the current user interests in order to provide global recommendations, while the second exploits the organisational features of ViGOR in order to provide recommendations based on a specific aspect of the user's task.


Abstract A new species of Etropus, E. ciadi, is described, and it is characterized by the following combination of characters: small size (maximum 92.7 mm SL); body depth generally more than 50% SL (47.1–60.6%, only 1.6% of 243 specimens less than 50%); head relatively small (22.1–26.6% SL); deciduous scales without small accessory scales on exposed surface; teeth feeble and mobile; 66–79 and 52–62 dorsal-and anal-fin rays, respectively; 36–43 lateral-line scales; pelvic-fin rays nearly always 6; gill rakers 2–7 + 5–10 on first arch; dark brown speckles on body and dorsal-and anal-fin rays. Of its eastern Pacific congeners, E. ciadi is most similar to E. crossotus. Etropus ciadi is endemic to the Gulf of California and lives on soft bottoms in shallow depths (8–40 m), from Rocas Consag, Baja California, (31°18.2′ N, 114°25.0′ W) to Bahia Altata, Sinaloa (ca. 24°36′ N, 107°55′ W).


Abstract Interferon ɛ (IFNɛ) is a unique type I IFN that has been implicated in host defense against sexually transmitted infections. Zika virus (ZIKV), an emerging pathogen, can infect the female reproductive tract (FRT) and cause devastating diseases, particularly in pregnant women. How IFNɛ contributes to protection against ZIKV infection in vivo is unknown. In this study, we show that IFNɛ plays a critical role in host protection against vaginal ZIKV infection in mice. We found that IFNɛ was expressed not only by epithelial cells in the FRT but also by immune and stromal cells at baseline or after exposure to viruses or specific Toll-like receptor (TLR) agonists. IFNɛ-deficient mice exhibited abnormalities in the epithelial border and underlying tissue in the cervicovaginal tract, and these defects were associated with increased susceptibility to vaginal but not subcutaneous ZIKV infection. IFNɛ deficiency resulted in an increase in magnitude, duration, and depth of ZIKV infection in the FRT. Critically, intravaginal administration of recombinant IFNɛ protected Ifnɛ−/− mice and highly susceptible Ifnar1−/− mice against vaginal ZIKV infection, indicating that IFNɛ was sufficient to provide protection even in the absence of signals from other type I IFNs and in an IFNAR1-independent manner. Our findings reveal a potentially critical role for IFNɛ in mediating protection against the transmission of ZIKV in the context of sexual contact.


Various hematological abnormalities including fall in serial values of hemoglobin or hematocrit, coagulation factor abnormalities, leukocytosis, acute hemolytic anemia, thrombocytopenia, and thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura or hemolytic uremic syndrome have been reported in patients with acute pancreatitis. Similarly, abnormalities of blood coagulation factors consistent with disseminated intravascular coagulopathy (DIC) have also been noticed in patients with pancreatitis. We report a case of a 33-year-old female with acute pancreatitis who presented with one episode of epistaxis and abnormal prothrombin time and partial prothrombin time. Coagulation work-up revealed thrombin time 24.3 s fibrinogen 110 mg/dl, D-dimers >1 and < 2, and fibrin degradation products >22. Pancultures did not show any evidence of infection. The patient maintained a normal renal and mental status during her illness. Her D-dimers continued to decrease with resolution of acute pancreatitis as evidenced by decreased abdominal pain, relief of nausea, control of vomiting, and decrease in serum amylase and lipase levels. This case report suggests that coagulation abnormalities are encountered in patients with acute pancreatitis. It is hypothesized that such hemostatic abnormalities may be related to early intravascular consumption of coagulation factors secondary to circulating pancreatic enzymes, particularly trypsin, or secondary to vascular injury. Recognition of these hematological complications including DIC is paramount. Physicians caring for these patients should be aware of such a complication of acute pancreatitis.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate the efficacy of polyethylene glycol (PEG)-interferon α (PEG-IFNα) in treating HBeAg-positive chronic hepatitis B (CHB) and explore the relationship between hepatitis B virus (HBV) genotypes and the effect of interferon α (IFNα) therapy.

METHODS
A total of 199 CHB patients with known genotypes were given subcutaneous injection of PEG-IFNα-2a or PEG-IFNα-2b once a week for 48 weeks, with another 24 weeks follow up. The seroconversion of HBeAg influenced by HBV genotypes were analyzed after discontinuation of treatment.

RESULTS
In local area, genotype C was the major genotype [64.32% (128/199) ]. Except serum ALT and AST level, the differences in gender, age, liver inflammation, degree of liver fibrosis, HBeAg level and HBV DNA level between genotype B and C were not statistically significant (all P > 0.05). The seroconversion rate of HBeAg in patients with genotype B at early stage of therapy (3 months) was significantly higher than that of patients with genotype C [26.76% (19/71) vs 10.16% (13/128), χ(2) = 9.330, P = 0.002]. While at the end of follow-up, seroconversion rate of HBeAg in patients with genotype B (followed up for 6 months) was higher than that of patients with genotype C [39.44% (28/71) vs 30.47% (39/128)], but the difference was not statistically significant (χ(2) = 1.645, P = 0.200). By univariate analysis based on log-rank test, the time of HBeAg seroconversion in patients with genotype B was much earlier than that of genotype C [(13.99 ± 0.67) months vs (15.47 ± 0.41) months], but the difference was not statistically significant (P = 0.150).

CONCLUSIONS
The seroconversion rate of HBeAg in patients with genotype B treated with PEG-IFNα was significantly higher than that of genotype C in early stage of therapy (3 months), while similar at the end of therapy.


Bio Additive Manufacturing (BAM), an interdisciplinary field of Additive Manufacturing (AM) and Tissue Engineering (TE), aims to manufacture the customised bone scaffold for bone re-placement. One of the current challenges in bone tissue engineering is to create customised scaf-folds with suitable mechanical properties, high porosity, full interconnectivity and suitable pore size. In this paper, the patient's CT scan data in DICOM format is exported into MIMICS soft-ware to convert the 2D images into 3D IGES data. The customised bone scaffolds with pore size of 0.8mm and inter pore distance ranging from 0.6 mm to 1 mm are developed in modeling soft-ware and porosities of customised bone scaffolds are determined. The customised bone porous scaffold and ASTM standard compressive specimens were fabricated through AM technique. Fi-nite element analysis (FEA) was carried out to study the mechanical properties.


It has been exciting for scientists to postulate all sorts of derangements to explain the numerous observations regarding the disease of MRL-lpr/lpr mice. Until recently, our imaginations have had almost free reign, unconstrained by any true knowledge. Now, however, it has been found that the lpr gene represents a mutation which causes a defect in a cell surface molecule, Fas. Since the normal Fas is thought to be important in programmed cell death, apoptosis, the lpr-associated defect in Fas is thought to interfere with normal apoptosis. Therefore, we are forced to reconsider all hypotheses regarding lpr/lpr mice in terms of a defect in Fas. This paper represents such an attempt. It suggests that failure of peripheral apoptosis of CD4+ cells allows self-reactive helper T cells to persist and drive autoantibody production. Failure of apoptosis of self-reactive CD8+ cells leads to down-regulation of CD8 and persistence as CD4-, CD8- T cells which contribute to the lymphadenopathy.


The Maillard reaction is the key process in protein modification during pathologies connected with carbonyl stress. It was shown in system modeling that Maillard reaction interaction of L-lysine (L-lys) with methylglyoxal (MG) led to the formation of compounds reducing methemoglobin (metHb). Under the above conditions and in the presence of S-nitrosoglutathione (GSNO), metHb nitrosylation took place. Processes of metHb reduction and nitrosylation had the lag phase that was dependent on the presence of oxygen (O2) in the reaction mixture. Oxygen interacting with organic free radicals of the Maillard reaction inhibited hemoglobin (Hb) reduction and hence Hb nitrosylation during the first minutes of the reaction. It was also shown that the yield of organic free-radical intermediates of the L-lys with MG was increased in the presence of GSNO and metHb. All effects described could be a result of the formation of active red-ox GSNO derivates in the Maillard reaction. These derivates are probably mediators of one-electron oxidation of dialkylimine by MG. Anion radicals of S-nitrosothiols can function as such mediators.


The coronavirus epidemic 2019-nCoV in China has already led to a slowdown in the country's economic growth and the fall of the yuan exchange rate on the stock exchanges. The Russian government has banned visa-free tourist trips between Russia and China and the issuance of work visas to Russia for Chinese citizens; Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Pakistan, and Italy have imposed similar bans. Great Britain, South Korea, Singapore and New Zealand have imposed quarantine for arrivals from China. Military aircrafts of Russia, India and Thailand take their citizens out of China. The US authorities have declared public health emergency and ban on the entry of all foreign citizens who have visited China over the past two weeks. This article gives forecast, how these measures of the governments will affect on global academic mobility and economic growth.


Science process skills are one of the indicators to know the level of achievement of physics teaching goals. This research examines the influence of guided inquiry models through virtual laboratories on students' science process skills. The research was a quasi-experiment conducted at the senior high school in Mataram, Lombok. The samples were class XI students, as many as 58 people divided into two sample groups: experimental and control groups. The guided inquiry model through the virtual laboratory was applied to the experimental group and the conventional model for the control group. The instrument used was a performance sheet. A t-test was used to analyze the effect of learning model on science process skill. The results of this study found that the achievement of science process skills for the experimental group was higher than the control group. The guided inquiry models through virtual laboratory have a significant effect on science process skills, especially on skills: hypothesizing, practicing, and communicating. These findings contribute significantly to the current knowledge about the effectiveness of guided inquiry models through virtual laboratories to improve students' science process skills in physics teaching.


Abstract : An advanced multiple gas analyzer based on Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy has been used to successfully measure the exhaust composition from a gas turbine engine combustors rig at the Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC), Arnold Air Force Base (TN). The advanced FT-IR multigas analyzer was able to demonstrate its ability to not only measure the species traditionally measured at the facility (water, CO2, CO, NO, NO2, and total hydrocarbons), but also to measure many other species, including sulfur dioxide, formaldehyde, ethylene, propylene, methanol, formic acid, and nitrous acid. A side by side comparison of the single gas analyzers currently employed by AEDC and the FT-IR Multigas analyzer showed good agreement. The capability of a single relatively low-cost, small sized Multigas analyzer to measure most of the important products of combustion makes it an attractive alternative to existing emissions measurement systems. The Multigas analyzer may he used to measure the exhaust gas composition of aircraft engine combustors that are regulated by the FAA as well as stationary source engines that are regulated by the EPA.


This is a chapter in a forthcoming Research Handbook on Mergers and Acquisitions. It asks to what extent should law and regulation treat business transactions — that differ in form, but are economically equivalent — in the same way? And what justifies the imposition of different costs across different transactional forms? The chapter considers equivalence by assessing the effect of different business acquisition forms on corporate stakeholders. It sets out factors that may be used to determine equivalence, as well as considering the extent to which different forms merit the same or different legal and regulatory treatment. There very well may be reasons to impose different requirements on different transactional forms — for example, based on differences in statutes, stakeholders, and judicial scrutiny, as well as the practical realities that make legal or regulatory equivalence difficult to achieve — but by starting with equivalence, we can begin to assess the relative merits of those differences. The chapter also begins to explore the limits of equivalence, suggesting that the computational skills needed to fully assess equivalence around business acquisitions have not yet caught up with the business lawyers' ability to use different forms to achieve the same substantive results.


Background Thiopurines are widely used for maintenance of remission in Crohn's disease (CD). Published data report >50% of patients stop thiopurines due to therapeutic failure, hepatitis or side effects. In this situation, many UK clinicians start biologics in CD patients. This has significant cost implications. An alternative strategy is low dose thiopurine and allopurinol (LDTA) co-therapy. We report the annual cost savings from adopting this strategy at our centre. Methods Patients with CD treated with LDTA in preference to biological therapy were identified using a prospective local inflammatory bowel disease database. The annual drug cost of treatment with LDTA compared with biologic therapy was calculated. Cost of attending the day unit for an infusion was not included. Results 26 patients with CD who failed standard dose thiopurine and were treated with LDTA were identified over a 12-month period and followed up for 1 year. 12 patients failed LDTA and progressed to biological therapy. The remaining 14 patients entered sustained clinical remission on LDTA. The cost savings achieved using the LDTA strategy in this group of patients was £146 413 per year with an average saving of £10 458 per patient per year. Conclusions This study has identified a significant annual cost savings with this treatment strategy through the prevention of escalation to biologics. These cost savings are likely to be even more significant in the long term since a significant proportion of patients treated with biological therapy require dose escalation. We believe adopting this strategy more widely could lead to significant healthcare savings.


Elastic registration is a difficult problem in image registration technology. An elastic point registration method using the Hausdorff distance is presented in this paper. With B-splines as the deformation model, the proposed method is able to handle elastic deformations between the images to be registered. Since no correspondence is required to be established between two point sets, the method is robust to outliers. In addition, a sequential updating strategy is introduced to further speed up the elastic registration method by dividing the source image and the grid of control points into separate blocks. The performance of the proposed method is demonstrated and validated in three experiments, a synthetic image registration experiment, a hand-drawn character registration experiment, and a brain MRI image registration experiment. While these results are somewhat preliminary, they clearly demonstrate the applicability of our method to real world tasks involving feature-based elastic registration.


PURPOSE
Recent reports have shown that ischemic preconditioning induces strong protection against retinal damage by subsequent prolonged ischemia and that this protection is mediated by mechanisms involving the adenosine A1 receptor. This study was designed to evaluate quantitatively the effects of ischemic preconditioning on leukocyte-mediated reperfusion injury after transient retinal ischemia and to define the role of the adenosine A1 receptor in these effects.

METHODS
Transient retinal ischemia was induced in male rats by temporary ligation of the optic nerve. Ischemic preconditioning (5 minutes of ischemia) was induced 24 hours before 60 minutes of ischemia. The adenosine A1 receptor antagonist 8-cyclopentyl-1,3-dipropylxanthine (DPCPX) was administered intramuscularly immediately after ischemic preconditioning. Leukocyte behavior in the retina after 60 minutes of ischemia was evaluated in vivo with acridine orange digital fluorography.

RESULTS
Ischemic preconditioning inhibited leukocyte rolling. The maximum number of rolling leukocytes was reduced to 3.0% at 12 hours after reperfusion (P < 0.01). Subsequent leukocyte accumulation was also decreased with ischemic preconditioning. The maximum number of accumulated leukocytes was reduced to 22.6% at 24 hours after reperfusion (P < 0.01). These inhibitory effects were suppressed by administration of DPCPX (P < 0.0001). The numbers of rolling leukocytes at 12 hours after reperfusion and accumulated leukocytes at 24 hours after reperfusion were 102.7% (NS) and 83.4% (P < 0.01), respectively, compared with the number without ischemic preconditioning.

CONCLUSIONS
The present study demonstrates the inhibitory effects of ischemic preconditioning on leukocyte rolling and subsequent leukocyte accumulation during retinal ischemia-reperfusion injury. Furthermore, the adenosine A1 receptor may play an important role in these inhibitory effects.


Which are the main frictions and driving forces of business cycle dynamics in a small open economy? To answer this question we extend what is becoming the standard new Keynesian model in three dimensions. First, we incorporate frictions in the financing of the capital stock. Second, we model employment frictions in the labor market using a search and matching framework, allowing for endogenous job separations. Third, we extend the model into a small open economy setting. We estimate the model using Bayesian techniques on Swedish data. Our main results are: i) A financial shock to entrepreneurial wealth is pivotal for explaining business cycle fluctuations accounting for substantial amounts of the variance in investment and GDP. ii) The marginal efficiency of investment shock has very limited importance when we match financial market data. iii) Our model does not need any high frequency wage markup shocks to match the data. Furthermore, the labor supply shock is unimportant in explaining GDP. iv) The data indicates that there are costs of hiring, but no costs of vacancy postings per se.


Buying airline tickets is an ubiquitous task in which it is difficult for humans to minimize cost due to insufficient information. Even with historical data available for inspection (a recent addition to some travel reservation websites), it is difficult to assess how purchase timing translates into changes in expected cost. To address this problem, we introduce an agent which is able to optimize purchase timing on behalf of customers. We provide results that demonstrate the method can perform much closer to the optimal purchase policy than existing decision theoretic approaches for this domain.


The nutritional compositions of leaves from eight different forage species were analyzed. The forages include: Dalbergia sisso, Ziziphus mauritania , Khaya senegalensis, Lephatadenia hastala, Ziziphus var-spinachristi, Acacia hoskii and Dichrostachys cineria . The forages were analyzed for Dry Matter, Crude Protein, Crude Fiber, Ether Extract, Neutral Detergent Fiber, Acid Detergent Fiber and Nitrogen of their leaves. The dry matter content of the selected forage plants ranged from 94.99% to 97.34% and 89.72% to 97.77% with a mean value of 96.42% and 94.55% in wet and dry season, respectively. The crude protein content ranged from 9.44% to 23. 56% and 9.21% to 18.87with mean value of 16.99% and 15.27% in wet and dry season respectively. The ash contents ranged from 4.23% to 7.99% and 3.49% to 6.28% with a mean of 5.98% and 4.84|% in wet and dry season. The ether extract content obtained in this study ranged from 0.94% to 7.96% and with the mean value of 4.18% in the wet season and 1.03% to 7.66% with a mean of 4.04% in dry season. The crude fiber content ranged from 26.54% to 38.22% and a mean value of 31.21% in wet season and 22.63% to 36.40% with the mean value of 28.8%. These differences in the composition of the forage plants were attributed to the soil type and plant components such as pod, leaf, stem, and season at which the plants were harvested.


In this article, we show that the radio frequency (rf) dynamical characteristics of a very strongly hysteretic superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) ring, coupled to a rf tank circuit resonator, display relaxation oscillations. We demonstrate that the overall form of these characteristics, together with the relaxation oscillations, can be modeled accurately by solving the quasiclassical nonlinear equations of motion for the system. We suggest that in these very strongly hysteretic regimes, SQUID ring-resonator systems may find application in logic and memory devices.


Biomass burning is an important source of greenhouse gases (GHG) and air pollutants (AP) in developing countries. In this research, a bottom-up method was implemented for the estimation of emissions, emphasizing the validation process of aerial biomass products (AGB), which it has not been sufficiently approached from the point of view of the quantification of emissions. The most recent results on the validation of burned area (AQ) products and the analysis of uncertainty were also incorporated into the process of estimating the emissions of gases that directly or indirectly promote the greenhouse effect, such as CO₂, NO₂, CO, NH₃, and Black Carbon (BC). In total, 87.60 Mha were burned in the region between 2001 and 2016, represented in a 57% by pasture lands a 23% by savannas, an 8% by savanna woodlands, an 8% by mixed soils with crops and natural vegetation, a 3% by evergreen broadleaf forests, and a 1 % in the region´s remaining types of land cover. With 35480 reference polygons, a model based on the uncertainty of AQ was generated, which served to find the calibration factor of the FireCCI5.0 in all the studied species. The total emissions (minimum and maximum) and the average of the same in the study period were the following: 1760 Tg CO₂ (765.07-2552.88; average 110 Tg), 68.12 Tg of CO (27.11-98.87; average 4.26 Tg), 3.05 Tg of NO₂ (1.27-4.40; average 0.19 Tg), 0.76 Tg of NH₃ (0.33-1.12; average 0.05 Tg), and 0.44 Tg of Black Carbon (0.015-0.64; average 0.03 Tg).


We propose a wavelet-based technique for the nonparametric estimation of functions contaminated with noise whose mean and variance are linked via a possibly unknown variance function. Our method, termed the data-driven wavelet-Fisz technique, consists of estimating the variance function via a Nadaraya-Watson estimator, and then performing a wavelet thresholding procedure which uses the estimated variance function and local means of the data to set the thresholds at a suitable level. We demonstrate the mean-square near-optimality of our wavelet estimator over the usual range of Besov classes. To achieve this, we establish an exponential inequality for the Nadaraya-Watson variance function estimator. We discuss various implementation issues concerning our wavelet estimator, and demonstrate its good practical performance. We also show how it leads to a new wavelet-domain data-driven variance-stabilising transform. Our estimator can be applied to a variety of problems, including the estimation of volatilities, spectral densities and Poisson intensities, as well as to a range of problems in which the distribution of the noise is unknown.


The growing demand for heterogeneous integration is driven by the 5G market. This includes smartphones, data centers, servers, high-performance computing (HPC), artificial intelligence (AI) and internet of things (IoT) applications. Next-generation packaging technologies require tighter overlay to accommodate larger package sizes with fine-pitch chip interconnects on large-format flexible panels. Heterogeneous integration enables device performance gains by combining multiple silicon nodes and designs inside one package. The package size is expected to grow significantly, increasing to 75mm x 75mm and 150mm x 150mm, within the next few years. For these requirements, an extremely large exposure field fine-resolution lithography solution was proposed to enable packages well over 250mm x 250mm without the need for image stitching, while exceeding the overlay and critical uniformity requirements for these packages.One of the challenges of extremely large exposure field fine-resolution lithography is to achieve an aggressive overlay number. Formation changes experienced by the panel as a result of thermo, high-pressure and other fan-out processes shift the design location from nominal coordinates; this causes inaccurate overlay and low-overlay yield in the lithography process. Addressing this critical lithography challenge becomes an important task in heterogeneous integration.In this paper, a 515mm x 510mm Ajinomoto build-up film (ABF)+copper clad laminate (CCL) substrate is selected as the test vehicle. We will analyze the pattern distortion of an ABF+CCL substrate to understand the distribution of translation, rotation, scale, magnification, trap, orthogonality and other errors in the substrate, and then use extremely large exposure field fine-resolution lithography to address the pattern distortion of the substrate. This demonstration will provide an analysis of panel distortion and detail how the extremely large exposure field fine-resolution lithography solution addresses panel distortion to achieve an aggressive overlay number.


AN INTERVIEW SURVEY OF 1200 RESPONDENTS IN THREE CITIES IDENTIFIED 12 VEHICLE TYPE/NOISE SOURCE/ OPERATING MODE SITUATIONS CAUSING VARIOUS DEGREES OF ANNOYANCE. EACH SITUATION WAS ASSIGNED TO ONE OF THREE CATEGORIES OF ANNOYANCE SENSITIVITY DEPENDING UPON THE ATTITUDINAL FACTORS RELATED TO THE SOURCE. EACH CATEGORY HAD A LINEAR RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NOISE INTENSITY AND ANNOYANCE. NOISE MEASUREMENTS INDICATED THAT THE RESPONDENT, IN GENERAL, PROPERLY IDENTIFIED THE TYPES AND MAGNITUDES OF NOISE SOURCES FOUND AT THEIR SITES. /AUTHOR/


Book description: At a time when a radical reorientation of UK broadcasting policy is underway, this book offers a critical assessment of the current state of Public Service Broadcasting. Sir Alan Peacock's seminal 1986 report into the financing of PSB has been credited with reshaping the broadcasting policy landscape and changing the way we think about the provision of broadcast goods in our society - Ofcom has been dubbed the 'child of Peacock'. This volume looks at the origins, conduct and impact of the report and offers scenarios for the future of broadcasting in a digital media ecology. It will introduce readers to thinking from the report's principal authors, Sir Alan Peacock, Sir Samuel Brittan and Peter Jay, alongside leading media historians.


An iterative method of power synthesis for reconfigurable arrays of arbitrary geometry is presented, which is based on the method of successive projections. The algorithm allows to synthesize a number of desired patterns, each reconfigurable into any of the others by phase-only control. The excitation amplitudes are optimized, and their dynamic range ratio (DRR) is reduced below a given threshold. Furthermore, the radiated field can be reduced below a prescribed level in a given region close to the antenna. As a particular important case, the method allows to perform a "discrete" phase controlled beam-scanning.


One of the main factors that affect the performance of the sparse matrix–vector product (SpMV) is the low data reuse caused by the irregular and indirect memory access patterns. Different strategies to deal with this problem such as data reordering techniques have been proposed. The computational cost of these techniques is typically high because they consider all the nonzeros of the sparse matrix in order to find an appropriate permutation of rows and columns that improves the SpMV performance. In this paper, we analyze the possibility of increasing the locality of the SpMV using incomplete information in the reordering process. This partial information comes as a consequence of considering only a subset of the nonzero elements of the matrix. These nonzeros are obtained from the original matrix through a sampling process. In particular, two different sampling methods have been considered: a random sampling and an event‐based sampling using hardware counters. We have detected that a small number of samples is enough to obtain quality reorderings. As a consequence, using sampling‐based reorderings leads to noticeable performance improvements with respect to the non‐reordered matrices, reaching speedup values up to 2.1 × . In addition, an important reduction in the computational time required by the reordering technique has been observed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Though current evidence suggests that racial–ethnic inequities in dental caries persist over time and across space, their magnitude is currently unknown from a global perspective. This systematic review aims to quantify the magnitude of racial/ethnic inequities in dental caries and to deconstruct the different taxonomies/concepts/methods used for racial/ethnic categorization across different populations/nations. This review has been registered in PROSPERO; CRD42021282771. An electronic search of all relevant databases will be conducted until December 2021 for both published and unpublished literature. Studies will be eligible if they include data on the prevalence or severity of dental caries assessed by the decayed, missing, filled teeth index (DMFT), according to indicators of race-ethnicity. A narrative synthesis of included studies and a random-effects meta-analysis will be conducted. Forest plots will be constructed to assess the difference in effect size for the occurrence of dental caries. Study quality will be determined via the Newcastle–Ottawa Scale and the GRADE approach will be used for assessing the quality of evidence. This systematic review will enhance knowledge of the magnitude of racial/ethnic inequities in dental caries globally by providing important benchmark data on which to base interventions to mitigate the problem and to visualize the effects of racism on oral health.


The effects of bleaching and dyeing condi- tions on abrasion resistance, tear strength, and whiteness of silk fabrics were studied. Different crosslinking agents at various concentrations were introduced into the silk fabrics under various dyeing temperatures and pH. The results indicated that the oxidatively bleached silk fabric exhibited better mechanical properties than those of reductively bleached silk fabric. Sodium citrate was found to be the most suitable crosslinking agent for enhancing the abrasion resis- tance and tear strength of the silk fabrics with no significant effect on the whiteness. The mechanical property improve- ments of sodium citrate- dyed silk fabric were attributed to a chemical reaction between -COOH groups and amino acid side chains in silk fabric, the mechanism proposed in this work. Increasing sodium citrate resulted in improved me- chanical properties and whiteness, but the opposite trend was found with increasing dyeing temperature. An opti- mum pH for dyeing the silk fabric in this work was 5.5. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 91: 1000 -1007, 2004


This paper presents an incentive scheme to control agricultural non-point-source pollution. The analysis is based on a nested agent framework with three parties; farmers, a country's government, and the governments of all countries that affect each other's environmental quality. Unlike previous analysis of incentive schemes to control agricultural pollution, we suggest non-individual contracts between farmers and a regulating authority as a solution to the domestic pollution problem. Our incentive scheme proposes collective penalties as a way to control pollution. To solve the international problem of pollution management of a common (water) resource, we propose an international agency with authority to write and enforce contracts in each of its member countries. We show that the information requirement on a country's government can be substantially reduced if contracts can be made non-individual.


Mobile social networks give online social networking sites the abilities to extend their services to mobile device users. Smart phones and tablets allow users to interact with others when they are moving. Policy-based management simplifies the management of interaction functionalities by establishing policies to control various activities involved in these functionalities. To detect and resolve potential dynamic conflicts between the rules and configurations from different administrative domains, a knowledge-based policy analysis framework is proposed this paper. It incorporates relationships between different elements in policy rules into temporal logic using a semantic extension, which makes dynamic policy conflict analysis more accurate. A prototype system for mobile social networks is implemented to illustrate the capability of this framework.


This document is a self-contained summary of all of the equations and algorithms used to solve the model and transition dynamics. Equations in the code have a comment to reference the corresponding equation numbers in this document. Achdou et al. (2017) and its technical appendix provide many of the details on the upwind finite difference methods used here. While using these techniques to discretize the "spatial" dimension, we make several changes to the general approach taken by many economists to solve PDEs: (1) after discretizing the spatial dimension of the PDE to make them ODEs, we stack in further equilibrium equations into the ODEs to make them a system of DAEs; and (2) instead of discretizing the spatial dimension with finite differences and the time-dimension with a homegrown time-stepping (e.g. backwards euler), we instead rely on the underlying ODE/DAE solvers to do numerically stable, efficient, and often adaptive–time-stepping. Hence, we concentrate on specifying the full set of ODE/DAE equations, which are then handed over to industrial strength solvers.


During the concept phase of the industrial design process drawings are used to represent designer's ideas. More specifically, the designer's goal is to put the characteristics of ideas on paper so that they can later act as pivotal points in the development of a project. Sketching is also the ideal tool to continue developing an idea: because it is imprecise, the sketch guarantees a high degree of freedom, allowing for changes to made and new ideas to be added.
 Another possibility is to translate ideas into sketches on computer tools. This approach can allow the designer to use the created 3D model as the basis for further developing ideas. At the present moment, however, this type of solution is not extensively used by designers during the concept phase. Some researchers have identified technical problems as the reason why these instruments have been unsuccessful on the market, while for others this is related to systems still too rigid to be adapted to the often-diverse needs of designers.
 The research presented in this position paper aims at analyzing what has so far been understood with respect to the process of generating ideas, their initial representation in the concept phase and the tools that have been developed so far to support this phase. Consequently, a discussion on these themes and some hypotheses from which develop new research lines will be presented.


The objective of this study was to teach digital gaming skills to children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) using a SMART board with a graduated guidance teaching method in a small-group instructional format, to determine the participants' levels of learning by observation, and to determine the views of their families on the conducted instruction. For this purpose, a multiple probe design across behaviors was used and replicated across four students who received training at a university practice unit and were diagnosed with ASD. In addition to the effectiveness data collected to determine the effects of the utilized instructional package on the levels of digital gaming and observational learning of the participants with ASD, reliability and social validity data were also collected. The effectiveness data analyzed with graphical analysis. Findings demonstrate that small-group instruction with graduated guidance was effective in teaching digital gaming skills to children with ASD. It was also observed that the children acquired a high level of accuracy at non-directly targeted gaming skills via observational learning.