Critical Software was hired by AgustaWestland to update DGS, an application used by the Royal Danish Air Force to monitor the health and usage of its EH-101 Merlin helicopter fleet. The purpose of this update is to make the aplication work with their new maintenance management system. This project consists of developing the library responsible for the communication with the new system using Web Services, called SOAP Adaptor, also supporting the use of a local database, without changing the way DGS works. Also included in the project is an application, SOAP Client, whose purpose is to test the communication library and to create the local database, populating it with data retrieved from the maintenance management system. The project was developed on top of the .NET platform, in C#, using Microsoft Visual C# 2008. Due to its interface designer, this greatly simplified the development of SOAP Client's graphical interface. The project's outputs were tested using the acceptance tests specified for the previous version of DGS, ensuring its functionality remains unchanged. Since the SOAP Client was more of a support tool than a formal project deliverable, it was tested informally during the project's development. The project developed at a good pace in spite of a minor delay entering the test phase. This, however, did not affect the final deadline. It was concluded that a Service-Oriented Architecture is a good way to achieve systems integration and that Web Services are a good technology to implement this type of architecture. This is mainly because Web Services do not bring any new technologies into the arena, using instead existing and proven technologies to achieve a new goal. In spite of this, Web Services are not the definitive solution for integration problems. This was demonstrated by the fact that some changes were necessary for the developed library to be able to interact with the client's Web Service, which was supported by BEA WebLogic, a J2EE application server. The SOAP Client application turned out to be extremely useful to test for flaws in the developed code as well as in the Web Service itself. Using only DGS, these flaws would have been very difficult to track down. In terms of future work, there are two possible approaches. One is to experiment with the use of REST instead of SOAP as the Web Service's message exchange protocol. REST looks promissing especially because of its performance gains and the simplicity of the code required. The other possibility is redesigning the local database's schema. By eliminating some data redundancy, a number of operations would be simplified, with a likely improvement in performance.


Speech styles reflect not only the relationship between speakers but also the formality of an interaction. In many languages, Asian in particular, speech style is encoded in a complex pronominal and honorific system. Which speech style speakers choose depends on social factors such as age, status, type of relationship, and the situation. Speakers are expected to choose the appropriate style, particularly in formal situations, because the use of incorrect style can incur social consequences. However, momentary shifts of speech styles have been observed in casual and formal Japanese interactions even though all social factors remain the same. This study looks at such speech style shifts used in radio phone-in programs and demonstrates that they are strategically used to conduct the program in an informative and engaging way. These findings provide a different perspective for viewing speech style: not as an exclusive encoder of social relationships, but as psychological and discourse functions particular to 'institutional' broadcasting settings.


Interleukin (IL)-1 family member cytokines are likely pivotal as interfaces between innate and adaptive immune responses. IL-33, an IL-1 family member, is implicated in airway Th2-type responses, including eosinophilia, increased mucus production and hyperresponsiveness. Our goal was to elucidate the immunological mechanisms involved in IL-33-mediated Th2-type responses in the lungs. Airway exposure of naïve BALB/c mice to IL-33 resulted in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) eosinophilia and increased lung levels of IL-5 and IL-13, but not IL-4 or IFNγ. Naïve Rag1-/- mice showed similar airway eosinophilia and cytokine responses as wild-type mice, suggesting a role for innate immune cells. By FACS analysis, IL-5-producing lung cells lacked CD3, B220 and other lineage markers (i.e. Lin-), but they expressed CD44 and CD25; markers for NK cells, mast cells, basophils and eosinophils were undetectable. FACS-sorted Lin-CD25+CD44+ lung cells expressed GATA-3 and the IL-33 receptor, T1/ST2, and responded to IL-33 by producing IL-5 and IL-13; morphologically, these lung cells resembled lymphocytes. In vitro blockade of CD25+ cells with anti-CD25 mAb (PC61) abrogated IL-33-induced Th2 cytokine production. Thus, mouse lungs contain a novel subset of innate immune cells that respond to IL-33. These airway cells may initiate early Th2-type immune responses and induce asthma and other allergic diseases.


The paper discusses three flint inventories of the Globular Amphorae culture from the site in Wilczyce located on the Sandomierz Upland (Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, Lesser Poland). The said inventories were collected during the exploration of settlement-type pits. The paper also includes a functional analysis of all tools and blades and the collection of selected flakes. The raw material structure of the discussed inventories shows that the Late Neolithic communities from Wilczyce primarily used Świeciechów flint, while based on the analyses of microdamage it was established that the dominating activity was treating and processing plants, whereas other organic materials such as hides, wood, and bone and antler were less often treated at that site. According to 14C dates, communities of the Globular Amphorae culture settled in the Wilczyce microregion in the earliest phase of that culture's expansion on the Sandomierz Upland area.


Purpose – Since nonprofits operate without the feedback provided by profits and losses, their need for a vision is acute.Design/methodology/approach – McKinsey & Company consultants report on their experience facilitating vision development in nonprofits. They extrapolate best practices.Findings – Most effective visions comprise a compelling, easy‐to‐understand description of how the nonprofit would like the world to change in the next three‐to‐five years, what role the organization will play in that change, and how the nonprofit will measure the success of its role.Research limitations/implications – The sample of cases described is small. Surveying a larger sample of nonprofit leaders to ask whether their vision has had positive results would provide valuable insight.Practical implications – Developing a vision can keep an organization focused, increase the ease of performance measurement, help track successes and identify early warning signs of ineffective programs. Clear visions also highlight gaps in...


A single-gate UTB SOI MOSFET was fabricated using tunnel epitaxy to form the silicon channel as thin as 6.3 nm. Experimental electrical measurements were conducted on a variety of devices, and the results are summarized. Low leakage currents were measured including gate leakage of 15 pA and device leakage of 1.1 pA. Measured I/spl square/V characteristics also included subthreshold slopes of 67 mV/dec., DIBL of 10 mV/V, and drive currents up to 280/spl square/A.


The comparative study of mountain populations has become a major focus of attention in the last decade (Sacherer, 1973; Rhoades and Thompson, 1975; Brush, 1976; Pawson andJest, 1978; Thomas, 1979; Novoa and Posner, 1981; L'homme et son environnement, 1982). Researchers steeped in the ethnology of a mountain area have begun to discover intriguing similarities in the cultural patterns of other mountain areas, and these discoveries have led to a search for explanations of the parallels. Furthermore, it is increasingly being recognized that mountains are fragile environments in which human intervention may create serious resource degeneration in the form of erosion, landslides, silting of rivers, and the loss of soil fertility. This potential for environmental collapse is most apparent in the Nepal Himalaya (Eckholm, 1976; Cronin, 1979:198-222; Ives, 1979:13-14). Because of this new awareness, mountain areas are being monitored for evidence of impending environmental breakdown. Anthropologists are playing a key role in this effort: the fact that the inhabitants of these areas are often non-Western, tribal or peasant, and "exotic" leads environmental scientists to request assistance in analysing local resource and crisis management (Unesco, 1977; Novoa and Posner, 1981; Glaser and Celecia, 1981). Such analysis has shown that the relationship between human intervention and environmental breakdown is complex. Comparative study of the impact of human intervention on mountain environments is helpful in isolating the major variables involved. The shift to a comparative frame of reference has not been an easy one, for several reasons. First, most studies of mountain populations have been particularistic, focusing on an individual village or herding unit and avoiding generalization (Rhoades and Thompson, 1975). When generalization occurs, too often it is of the "micro-macrocosm" variety. For example, in both the Central Andes and the Himalaya, sophisticated computer simulations have been based on a single well-documented, quantified ethnogra hic study of a rural community (Blankenship and Thomas, 1977; Banskota, 1979; McRae, 1979; Brandt et al. 1981), and these simulations have been taken to represent the whole range of rural communities and proposed as bases for policy That the part can stand for the whole in these cases must be erified empirically rather than s mply assum d. Second, the few attempts to generalize to he regional or a higher level have flaws that become critical wh n cross-cu tural models of mountain adaptations are gen rated. Third, the search for an explanation of a cult ral pattern found to be common across a range of mountain populations often calls for revision of an accepted explana ion of the cultural pattern in a particular context. For example, if a particular pattern of marriage or kinship is discovered to be common to widely separated mountain populations, then one may be forced to rethink an explanation based on superstructural factors, which under the circumstances might imply an extreme form of diffusionism or an argument for the psychic unity of mankind. Partly as a result, a materialist perspective has emerged in recent comparativ work on mountain populations: much as in studies of Arctic societie , a fragile, low-yielding environment is seen to play a major though not ultimately determining role. In this paper, I will attempt to assess past statements conc rning the nature of cultural adaptations to mountains and bring recent research to bear on a new approach. The ethnographic literature on the Central Andes and the Himalaya will provide the basis for the discussion. These a e both regions of high mountains located in the tropical and sem -tropical latitudes, the location of the highest human settlements. While the conclusions put forward in this paper apply primarily to tropical high mountains, it is increasingly being recognized that the optimal units of comparison in moun ain studies are vertical zones defined in terms of land use rath r than entirely on the basis of elevation (Brush, 1976; Soffer, 1982). Thus, future comparative work should make it possible to test these conclusions on mountain populations in the temperate zones of the northern and southern hemispheres as well as in other tropical high mountains. 'Originally published in Current Anthropology, Vol. 24, No. 5, 1983, pp. 561-574.


We designed circular Acoustic emission (AE) array (consisting of 8 element sensors uniformly spread over a circle of 12 cm) to detect internal structural damage from cracks propagating during the concrete. Uniform circular array acoustic emission array beamforming characteristics ( adaptive beamforming and conventional beamforing)were analyzed in simulation. Then the pencil break tests were carried on a concrete deck to discuss the AE array for damaging sources location performance. The concrete acoustic emission signal sources location was affected by the propagation mode characteristic and noise. The MVDR (Minimum varivance distortionless response) and multiple signal classification (MUSIC) methods are used to estimation circular array direction of arrival (DOA) performance. The experiment results show that the proposed method used in circular array improves the acoustic emission damaging sources location accuracy and gains good performance in limited area


AIMS
A survey was undertaken to find out why only 46% of eligible women had taken the opportunity to join the South Canterbury mammography screening programme in the first 22 months of operation.

METHODS
One hundred and sixty seven randomly chosen women, aged between 40 and 65 years, who had not had a mammogram, were questioned about their knowledge of, and attitudes to, mammography screening.

RESULTS
The answers showed that apathy, lack of concern and lack of perceived need were reasons quoted for nonattendance by almost half of respondents. Other important barriers to mammography screening were: (1) fear of a positive screen result (admitted by 39%); (2) lack of encouragement by some general practitioners (quoted by 19%); and (3) lack of knowledge about screening mammography (one third did not know that mammography was a screening and not just a diagnostic procedure). The current cost is a major deterrent for many unscreened women with only 28% saying they would be willing to pay more than $55.00, but only 10% unwilling to pay at all and only 5% quoting cost as their reason for nonattendance.

CONCLUSION
Strategies to improve attendance are suggested.


Several antioxidant compounds have been previously identified from sword brake fern (Pteris ensiformis Burm.) by DPPH bleaching and Trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity (TEAC) analyses. Among the isolates, 7-O-caffeoylhydroxymaltol 3-O-beta-D-glucopyranoside and hispidin 4-O-beta- D-glucopyranoside [6-(3,4-dihydroxystyryl)-4-O-beta-D-glucopyranoside-2-pyrone] were two new compounds. The aim of this study is to elucidate the possible effect of the aqueous extract of sword brake fern (SBF) and these two compounds in preventing atherosclerosis. The results demonstrated that SBF and these two compounds strongly inhibited Cu2+-mediated low-density lipoprotein (LDL) oxidation measured by thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances assay (TBARS), conjugated diene production, and relative electrophoretic mobility. The commercial antioxidant dl-alpha-tocopherol showed lower antioxidant activity than these two compounds at the same molecular concentration. SBF and these two compounds also suppressed N-formylmethionyl-leucylphenylalanine (fMLP)-stimulated reactive oxygen species (ROS) production in human polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMN). These findings indicate that sword brake fern may prevent atherosclerosis via inhibition of both LDL oxidation and ROS production.


18 patients with obstructive benign prostatic hypertrophy were studied. A 5-day treatment with gestonorone caproate (200 mg daily and 200 mg on alternate days) and cyproterone acetate (300 mg daily) suppressed the plasma LH and serum LH levels. Subsequently, H3-testosterone was injected intravenously and its elimination from plasma and uptake and metabolism in the BPH tissue studied. The elimination of total radioactivity and H3-testosterone from plasma was not altered after the 3 treatment regimens as compared to the control group. The uptake of total radioactivity into BPH tissue and its intraprostatic metabolism particularly to dihydrotestosterone was significantly suppressed in the patients with daily injections of gestonorone. Cyproterone acetate and gestonorone caproate on alternate days did not cause this effect.


Parallelism for gray participating media radiation heat transfer may be placed in two primary categories: spatial and angular domain-based parallelism. Angular, e.g., ray based, decomposition has received the greatest attention in the open literature for moderate sized applications where the entire geometry may be placed on processor. Angular based decomposition is limited, however, for large scale applications (O(10{sup 6}) to O(10{sup 8}) computational cells) given the memory required to store computational grids of this size on each processor. Therefore, the objective of this work is to examine the application of spatial domain-based parallelism to large scale, three-dimensional, participating-media radiation transport calculations using a massively parallel supercomputer architecture. Both scaled and fixed problem size efficiencies are presented for an application of the Discrete Ordinate method to a three dimensional, non-scattering radiative transport application with nonuniform absorptivity. The data presented shows that the spatial domain-based decomposition paradigm results in some degradation in the parallel efficiency but provides useful speedup for large computational grids.


This article is an overview of the state of scholarship in South African Public Administration. It begins by looking at the state of Public Administration research internationally. This is followed by an analysis of the literature on the state of the field in South Africa which focuses on empirical studies undertaken of the quality of articles both in local Public Administration journals and PhDs in the field. The findings of these studies were that Public Administration research in South Africa in respect of both journal articles and doctoral theses is of a low quality. The article suggests that Politikon along with the South African Political Science community needs to cultivate closer links with those in the Public Administration community who are interested in doing critical research on public bureaucracies.


Zero-order filter for diffractive focusing of de Broglie matter waves The manipulation of neutral atoms and molecules via their de Broglie wave properties, also referred to asde Broglie matter wave optics, is relevant for several fields ranging from fundamental quantum mechanics testsand quantum metrology to measurements of interaction potentials and new imaging techniques. However, there are several challenges. For example, for diffractive focusing elements, the zero-order beam provides a challenge because it decreases the signal contrast. Here we present the experimental realization of a zero-order filter, also referred to as an order-sorting aperture for de Broglie matter wave diffractive focusing elements. The zero-order filter makes it possible to measure even at low beam intensities. We present measurements of zero-order filtered, focused, neutral helium beams generated at source stagnation pressures between 11 and 81 bars. We show that for certain conditions the atom focusing at lower source stagnation pressures (broader velocity distributions) is better than what has previously been predicted. We present simulations with the software ray-tracing simulation package MCSTAS using a realistic helium source configuration, which gives very good agreement with our measurements.


DO NOT HAVE THIS CASEA second-year MBA business school student jettisons his plan to work for a strategic consulting firm in his native country of Brazil after his 1999 graduation when he realizes that the Internet market in Brazil and Latin America had boomed since he left in 1998. Armed with the knowledge that these new venture-capital firms are copying successful U.S. business models and his knowledge of Brazil's market, he decides to open his own Internet company there instead. From his use of a framework with B2B, B2C, C2B, and C2C segments in researching U.S. Internet markets and business models, students should learn how to analyze companies and answer the question: what should the business be?


Passive filters are widely used in electrical system for power quality improvements. Their first installations from 1940 s and their advantages make them an attractive and standard solution up to nowadays. However, passive filters have their filtering characteristics deteriorated due to parameter variation caused by aging or temperature. In addition, a capacitor bank for power factor correction is designed for specific loads and may not supply the right amount of reactive power when loads keep being added or changed. When these issues make the passive filter and the capacitor bank incapable to keep the system operating within acceptable level of power quality, an inconvenience arises and a solution must be provided. A common one is to replace both of them either by new elements or by active power compensators. However, replacing the passive filter and the capacitor bank may not be economically feasible, because they belong to a past investment. This paper presents a solution to overcome such inconvenience keeping the passive filter and the capacitor bank installed and unchanged. It consists of installing two shunt compensators specially designed for performing what the passive filter and the capacitor bank are incapable to do. The result is a reduced processed power in the compensators. The generation of the references is based on conservative power theory (CPT). A case study is presented to prove the compensators' efficacy and the power quality improvement.


A novel MEMS-based concept for tunable optical filters, essential components for monitoring and reconfiguration of optical wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) networks, is presented. The device is based on a Fabry-Perot interferometer employing a silicon cavity and silicon-based dielectric Bragg mirrors and is fabricated as a freestanding membrane. Wavelength tuning is achieved through thermal modulation of the resonator's optical thickness. The present concept features low power consumption and fast thermal modulation. Measurements of optical filter performance and tunability are presented. The thermal behavior of the heater configuration is compared with numerical simulation results. By varying the resonator-length of a Fabry-Perot etalon, the transmission wavelength may be tuned.


Organosilica membranes have recently attracted much attention due to excellent hydrothermal stability which enables their use in the presence of water. In particular, during humid-gas separations at moderate-to-high temperatures, these membranes have shown excellent water permeance and moderate water selectivity, which has been a breakthrough in separation performance. In the present work, we found that aluminum doping into the bis(triethoxysilyl)ethane (BTESE)-derived organosilica structure further improves water selectivity (H2O/N2, H2O/H2) while maintaining a level of water permeance that reaches as high as several 10−6 mol (m−2 s−1 Pa−1). Single-gas permeation and nitrogen adsorption experiments have revealed that aluminum doping promotes densification of the pore structure and improves molecular sieving. In addition, water adsorption and desorption experiments have revealed that aluminum doping enhances water adsorption onto the pore walls, which blocks permeation by other gasses and significantly improves water permeation selectivity during the separation of humid gases. Our results provide a strategy for the fabrication of a membrane that provides both a high level of water permeance and enhanced water selectivity.


BACKGROUND: Wearing elastic compression stockings is of considerable significance for patients with chronic venous disease (CVD), since their physiological effect is to improve venous hemodynamic parameters, making them a good treatment option that can impact on patients' quality of life. OBJECTIVE: To assess quality of life in patients with chronic venous disease who do or do not wear elastic stockings. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional observational study assessing a sample of 50 CVD patients of both sexes, divided into two groups, one who wear elastic stockings and another who do not. Primary variables were the domains of the SF-36 (Medical Outcomes Study Short-form 36) and AVVQ (Aberdeen Varicose Veins Questionnaire) and secondary variables were: age; sex; physical activity; educational level; profession; wearing elastic stockings (frequency, pressure and type); elevation of lower limbs; itching and CEAP classification. The SF-36 and AVVQ quality of life questionnaires were administered to patients. Statistical significance was set at p<0.05. RESULTS: Wearing elastic stockings proved beneficial for the quality of life of people with chronic venous disease. For the AVVQ disease-specific questionnaire the greatest improvements were in overall score (p=0.0028) and the extent of varicosity domain (p=0.000). The SF-36 domains role emotional (p=0.017) and functional capacity (p=0.000) both improved. CONCLUSIONS: Wearing elastic stockings is an effective treatment for CVD that improves disease-specific quality of life and also leads to improvements in general quality of life.


The article attempts to identify the social groups in the Russian communities, which are characterized by the highest degree of real and potential civil society participation. It outlines the data of sociological monitoring conducted in the region of Tver over the period from 2009 to 2014. The data sample consisted of people living in urban and rural settlements. The study was conducted by formalized interviewing. It allowed us to identify a system of indicators for analyzing self management potential of the population. The article also outlines a level of engagement and main forms of the Russian citizens' participation in the present system of local self-government practices, and considers people's potential willingness to civic participation. It reveals the constraints on participation of citizens in local self-government. In view of the aspects described, four differentiated categories of respondents, who represent the values of subject and activist types of political culture, were defined: inactive, potentially active, active and initiative citizens. The last two categories reveal a higher level of self-management potential unlike the two previous ones, and so potentially they constitute a support base and the driving force for local self-government in Russia. Keywords: local self-government in Russia, civic and political participation, local self-management potential, the values of subject and activist types of political culture, the constraints to the participation of citizens in local self-government. JEL Classifications: R38, R50, Z13


Abstract. This study developed a microfluidic platform for replicating and detecting DNA in real time by integrating a laser and a microfluidic device composed of polydimethylsiloxane. The design of the microchannels consisted of a laser-heating area and a detection area. An infrared laser was used as the heating source for DNA replication, and the laser power was adjusted to heat the solutions directly. In addition, strong biotin–avidin binding was used to capture and detect the replicated products. The biotin on one end was bound to avidin and anchored to the surface of the microchannels, whereas the biotin on the other end was bound to the quantum dots (Qdots). The results showed that the fluorescent intensity of the Qdots bound to the replicated products in the detection area increased with the number of thermal cycles created by the laser. When the number of thermal cycles was ≥10, the fluorescent intensity of the Qdots was directly detectable on the surface of the microchannels. The proposed method is more sensitive than detection methods entailing gel electrophoresis.


1,8-Oxybis(ethyleneoxyethyleneoxy)anthracene-9,10-dione with a reduced cavity size, due to the presence of a carbonyl oxygen within the crown, has been shown by X-ray crystallography to encapsulate a hydronium ion. Hydrogen bonds between the hydronium ion and the crown oxygens are particularly strong, averaging 2.56 A. The polyether ring also exhibits a pronounced folding to optimize encapsulation of the hydronium ion. The hydronium hydrogen atoms have been unequivocally observed, indicating near ideal pyramidal geometry, due to the absence of hydrogen-bonding disorders previously observed in other [H3O·18-crown-6]+ structure analyses. Intense luminescence is concurrently observed with complexation of the hydronium ion within the polyether ring. Common oxoacids acids, such as HNO3, H2SO4, HClO4, and CF3SO3H, result in luminescent intensities approximately 40 times larger than that of 1,8-oxybis(ethyleneoxyethyleneoxy)anthracene-9,10-dione alone, which also correlates with the pKas of these acids. This cap...


The levels of antibodies (Ab) to bacterial antigens of gram-negative enterobacteria (Reglicolipid), Streptococcus agalactiae polysaccharide, Staphylococcus aureus teichoic acid, native and denatured DNA and renal proteins in healthy pregnant women and in those with renal pathology (chronic and gestation pyelonephritis) were studied. The study revealed that the combination of an elevated levels of Ab to bacterial antigens with the elevated titers of Ab to DNA and renal proteins is indicative of acute inflammation in kidneys, and but the combination of an elevated levels of Ab bacterial antigens with the low level of Ab to DNA and renal proteins is indicative of healthy carrier state with respect to a given infective agent.


The role gap junction channels play in the normal and abnormal functioning of the vascular wall is the subject of much research. The biophysical properties of gap junctions are an essential component in understanding how gap junctions function to allow coordinated relaxation and contraction of vascular smooth muscle. This study reviews the properties thus far elucidated and relates those properties to tissue function. We ask how biophysical and structural properties such as gating, permselectivity, subconductive states and channel type (heteromeric vs homotypic vs heterotypic) might affect vascular smooth muscle tone.


CIAIR, Nagoya University, has been compiling an in-car speech database since 1999. This paper discusses the basic information contained in this database and an analysis on the effects of driving status based on the database. We have developed a system called the Data Collection Vehicle (DCV), which supports synchronous recording of multi-channel audio data from 12 microphones which can be placed throughout the vehicle, multi-channel video recording from three cameras, and the collection of vehicle-related data. In the compilation process, each subject had conversations with three types of dialog system: a human, a "Wizard of Oz" system, and a spoken dialog system. Vehicle information such as speed, engine RPM, accelerator/brake-pedal pressure, and steering-wheel motion were also recorded. In this paper, we report on the effect that driving status has on phenomena specific to spoken language


The Economic Community of West African States (also known as ECOWAS from its name in French: Union Economique et Monetaire Ouest-Africaine) is composed of eight countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo. This study is restricted to ECOWAS because it stems from a survey mission headed by the second author and aims to characterize the climate of the territory as a basis for better land use by improving agricultural activities. The climate classification systems proposed by Koppen (1900) and Thornthwaite (1948) were used to carry out the study. As expected, most of the territory belonging to ECOWAS was classified as arid. With respect to the improvement of agricultural management, the climate classes found for the territory give a gross idea of the potential of each country for agricultural exploitation. The climate diversity over relatively short distances obligates detailed studies on land adaptability for growing food crops, which is in practice not made based on scientific criteria. This study shows that there is still room for an expansion of the area for agricultural purposes, and in this way, increasing food production.

 Key words: Africa, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), agriculture, crops.


The design and synthesis of 20 peptide p-nitroanilides is described. The nitroanilides are used as thrombin substrates that share uncommon properties. These substrates are tested for their applicability to measure thrombin generation in activated plasma. This technique requires substrates that must slowly but selectively be hydrolyzed by thrombin. To ensure selectivity, thrombin's natural substrate and its most potent inhibitor were used as lead compounds. Eighteen peptide p-nitroanilides were synthesized using human fibrinogen A alpha [7-16] decapeptide as lead structure since this fragment constitutes the minimal sequence which binds to thrombin with high affinity. Two other chromogenic substrates were designed using 5-amino-2-nitrobenzoic acid as the chromophore. A peptide giving subsite interactions with the fibrinogen recognition exosite was coupled to the carboxylic function. As the peptide segment, the carboxyl terminal part of hirudin (residues 50-65) was chosen to ensure highly specific thrombin recognition. From the 20 nitroanilides synthesized, we indeed obtained a number of compounds which can be used as substrate in the thrombin generation assay.


Objectives
The aim of this study is to test the hypothesis that the lower risk of myocardial infarction (MI) associated with alcohol intake is through its effect on raising high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol.

Methods
This study included 81,827 Chinese men and women (mean age: 51 ± 12 yr.) from the Kailuan Study who were free of cardiovascular disease in 2006 (at baseline) and were followed up to Dec. 2016. At baseline, alcohol consumption was assessed via a questionnaire and the concentration of HDL cholesterol was measured. Incident MI at follow up was a first MI event, confirmed by medical record review. Multivariable Cox regression was used to model the association between habitual alcohol intake and risks of MI, adjusting for potential covariates including age, sex, education, monthly income, occupation, smoking status, physical activity, body mass index, waist circumferences, hypertension, diabetes and total cholesterol. Mediated effect through HDL cholesterol was assessed using a causal mediating analysis (SAS macro).

Results
During an average of 9.6 years of follow-up, we documented 1095 incident cases. The adjusted hazard ratio (HR) for MI was 0.64 (95% confidence interval (CI), 0.54-0.76) for current alcohol drinkers compared with never or former. The ratio changed very slightly, to 0.65 (95% CI, 0.55-0.76) after further adjustment of HDL cholesterol concentration. Mediation analysis showed that HDL cholesterol concentrations mediated a small, non-significant proportion (1.8%) of the effect of alcohol on MI.

Conclusions
Alcohol consumption was associated with a lower risk for MI incidence in a large Chinese cohort. Our results suggest that the benefits associated with moderate alcohol consumption is not related to the effects of alcohol on HDL cholesterol.

Funding Sources
Start-up grant from Penn State College of Health and Human Development, and Penn State CyberScience Seed Grant Program.


INTRODUCTION
This systematic scoping review protocol outlines current research into care planning processes and highlights the need to synthesise the knowledge base available since the latest Cochrane review. Review results will underpin the formation of a future intervention designed to successfully optimise care planning consultations for musculoskeletal (MSK) physiotherapists, supporting shared decision-making processes and consequently influencing health care practices for the betterment of patient care.

AIM
To systematically gather and synthesise the existing knowledge base surrounding personalised care planning approaches for long term conditions which may be informative for MSK care planning in the future.

OBJECTIVES
1. Following the Cochrane review in 2015, to synthesise new evidence available to inform personalised care planning interventions for patients with long-term conditions. 2. Of the identified studies providing strong evidence, to determine what high-quality training resources are available to support clinicians in delivering personalised care planning interventions.

PIO FRAMEWORK
Population - Adults with long-term health conditions. Intervention - Personalised care planning. Outcome - Any subjective or objective heath improvement.

DATABASES
1. Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL). 2. MEDLINE & MEDLINE In-process (Ovid). 3. EMBASE (Ovid). 4. PsycINFO (Ovid). 5. Trial registers (clinicaltrials.gov). 6. WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform.

DISSEMINATION
Social media platforms including Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook will be used to maximise the viewership of the protocol. An abstract of the review will be submitted to present at relevant conferences. The review findings will also be presented to MSK stakeholders interested in MSK care planning approaches.


In molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, an equilibration phase is used to bring the system to the desired conditions (e.g. temperature and pressure) before collecting data in more extensive production phases. Ideally, the equilibration phase would bring the system to the correct equilibrium ensemble appropriate for the target thermodynamic conditions. Many studies give relatively little attention to details of the equilibration protocol as long as the system eventually reaches stabilization at the correct temperature, pressure, volume, etc. However, in a previous study we found a surprising instability of two ligands in a binding site. That led us to study the origin of this instability more, and in the present work we have traced it to details of the equilibration protocol. We found for the studied system, different equilibration schemes caused dramatic differences in sampled configurations of the system in production runs, highlighting the importance of careful consideration of equilibration schemes in MD simulations.


In recent years there has been much interest in collective memory and commemoration. It is often assumed that when nations celebrate a historic day, they put aside the divisions of the present to recall the past in a spirit of unity. As Billig and Marinho show, this does not apply to the Portuguese parliament's annual celebration of 25 April 1974, the day when the dictatorship, established by Salazar and continued by Caetano, was finally overthrown. Most speakers at the ceremony say little about the actual events of the day itself; and in their speeches they continue with the partisan politics of the present as combatively as ever.

To understand this, the authors examine in detail how the members of parliament do politics within the ceremony of remembrance; how they engage in remembering and forgetting the great day; how they use the low rhetoric of manipulation and point-scoring, as well as high-minded political rhetoric. The book stresses that the members of the audience contribute to the meaning of the ceremony by their partisan displays of approval and disapproval. Throughout, the authors demonstrate that, to uncover the deeper meanings of political rhetoric, it is necessary to take note of significant absences.

The Politics and Rhetoric of Commemoration illustrates how an in-depth case-study can be invaluable for understanding wider processes. The authors are not content just to uncover unnoticed features of the Portuguese celebration. They use the particular example to provide original insights about the rhetoric of celebrating and the politics of remembering, as well as throwing new light onto the nature of party political discourse.


The defatted ethanolic extract of the fresh flowers of Pancratium maritimum L. yielded the four known alkaloids lycorine, maritidine, lycoramine, and galanthamine. The structures of the isolated alkaloids were determined mainly through spectroscopic studies including one- and two-dimensional NMR (COSY, NOESY, DEPT, HETCOR, and HMBC) and CD techniques. Some spectral data are newly reported or revised.


Spain is one of the countries with the lowest social spending within the EU-15, and its welfare state has developed later and with less intensity. At the end of the 20th century, Spain became an immigration country, reaching 5.7 million immigrants in 2011. This article explores how the definition of migrant 'integration' is based more on a concept of universal rights and social cohesion by the main actors (political parties, trade unions, third sector organizations and immigrant associations) than on a notion of a cultural type. We will also analyze how the influence of European policies and restrictive liberalism have led to the implementation of programmes which aim to make civic integration compulsory for the renewal of residence and work permits. The empirical evidence for this article stems from 60 qualitative interviews with social actors in migrant integration policies during 2010 and 2011. The impact of the economic crisis on the foreign population, especially regarding its position in the labor market, will also be considered, explaining the reduction of specific and general policies targeting the migrant population. This cut in social spending has involved a deinstitutionalization of this particular policy field.


Previous work has reliably demonstrated that when people experience more subjective ambivalence about an attitude object, their attitudes have less impact on strength-related outcomes such as attitude-related thinking, judging, or behaving. However, previous research has not considered whether the amount of perceived knowledge a person has about the topic might moderate these effects. Across eight studies on different topics using a variety of outcome measures, the current research demonstrates that perceived knowledge can moderate the relation between ambivalence and the impact of attitudes on related thinking, judging, and behaving. Although the typical Attitude × Ambivalence effect emerged when participants had relatively high perceived knowledge, this interaction did not emerge when participants were lower in perceived knowledge. This work provides a more nuanced view of the effects of subjective ambivalence on attitude impact and highlights the importance of understanding the combined impact of attitude strength antecedents.


Abstract Real-time, temperature-resolved synchrotron powder X-ray diffraction data and Rietveld refinements were used to investigate the behavior of the todorokite structure from 100 to 820 K. At 298 K, the lower valence cations, such as Mn3+, occupy large octahedral sites at the edges of the triple chains, and four water/cation sites are in the tunnels. In our heating experiments in vacuum, todorokite began to break down at ~450 K and fully decomposed by 620 K, at which point hausmannite started to form. Our results suggest that the loss of O2 accompanied the reduction of Mn4+ to Mn3+ and Mn2+, and these reactions impelled a breakdown of the octahedral framework and the subsequent release of the tunnel water molecules. Rietveld refinements revealed a gradual thermal expansion of the todorokite structure to ~450 K. At higher temperatures, the unit-cell volume gradually decreased, primarily as a result of a decrease in c, and the decline in β with increasing temperature was accelerated. A mechanism for forming the inverse spinel hausmannite structure from todorokite is presented.


Objective Evidence on the relationship between ambient temperature and morbidity of different stroke subtypes in China is limited. This study aimed to assess the influence of ambient temperature on stroke risk in Shenzhen, China. Methods From 1 January 2003 to 31 December 2014, 114 552 stroke cases in Shenzhen were collected. A generalised additive model with quasi-Poisson regression combined with a distributed lag non-linear model was applied to evaluate the temperature effects on stroke subtypes. Furthermore, this study explored the variability of the effects across sex, age and education. Results The immediate heat effects on ischaemic stroke (IS) and the persistent effects of ambient temperature on intracerebral haemorrhage (ICH) were significant. Overall, the cold-related relative risks (RRs) of IS, ICH and subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH) were 1.02 (0.97–1.07), 1.16 (1.04–1.30) and 1.12 (0.61–2.04), whereas the heat-related RRs were 1.00 (0.97–1.04), 0.80 (0.73–0.88) and 1.05 (0.63–1.78), respectively. For IS, a weakly beneficial cold effect was found among men while a detrimental heat effect among both men and women, the elderly and higher-educated population at lag0. However, regarding ICH, the temperature effects in men, the young and higher-educated population are stronger at lag0–4, lag0–7 as cold reveals threat and heat reveals protection. Conclusion Responses of diverse stroke subtypes to ambient temperature varied. Effective measures should be taken to increase public awareness about the effects of ambient temperature on stroke attack and to educate the public about self-protection.


We show that recombinases form joint molecules over very short regions of homology. When these molecules are deproteinized the three strands are in a structure that is surprisingly resistant to dissociation by branch migration, even at elevated temperatures. The joint molecules dissociate at temperatures comparable to those required to melt DNA duplexes of the same length and sequence. We also show that nonenzymatically formed structures of the same length and sequence, which have a free third strand ready to branch migrate, dissociate at much lower temperatures. These results provide compelling evidence that the three DNA strands in the region of pairing are hydrogen bonded to each other. Our observations suggest that such a novel three-stranded DNA molecule, or a structure very similar to it, may be the intermediate in general recombination that is used in the recognition of sequence homology. We discuss some of the structural features implicit in this molecule containing any base sequence and compare them with those manifest in true DNA triple helices containing special sequence motifs.


This working paper gives the preliminary results of a research project on the uses of notarized powers of attorney in four large French commercial cities in the 18th and 19th centuries. Powers of attorney are often considered as symptoms of trust. We use them to test hypotheses on the embeddedness of commercial relationships. We find little support for the idea of an evolution from embedded to anonymous relationships. We therefore explore alternative hypotheses centered on the complementarity between embeddedness and formality; the importance of repeated interactions; and a broad homophily driving merchants to choose fellow merchants as proxies.


Motion objects detection is a process of segmenting the motion objects or regions from the rest of the sequent images. This paper presents an approach to motion objects detection by applying wavelet clustering with frame difference, which satisfies some requirements of rapid motion objects detection. By analyzing adjacent frame difference results and utilizing multi-resolution property of wavelet clustering analysis, we can identify arbitrary shape multiply motion objects. Experiment results show that good accuracy of proposed algorithm was obtained.


We report the successful electrochemical intercalation of F-ions into a densely packed perovskite oxide from a liquid electrolyte at room temperature. Using galvanostatic oxidation and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy coupled with operando X-ray diffraction, we show that roughly 0.5 equivalents of F-ions can be inserted onto the vacant A-site of the perovskite ReO3. Density functional theory calculations indicate that the intercalated phase is thermodynamically unfavorable compared to other less densely packed polymorphs of ReO3F. Pairing X-ray spectroscopy, neutron total scattering measurements, and magic-angle spinning 19F NMR confirms a rapid decomposition of the product on removal from the cell but nevertheless, these results clearly demonstrate that small anions like fluoride can be intercalated into solids as readily as alkali cations at room temperature, which opens new opportunities to electrochemically fluorinate many new materials.


Over the years, supercontinuum generation in fibers are studied extensively. Photonic crystal fiber technology detailed these studies by allowing the change of dispersion parameter. Nowadays, multimode fibers attracted huge attention by enabling spatiotemporal nonlinearities and multimodal interactions. Recently, with graded-index multimode fibers, researchers reported new nonlinear dynamics such as cascaded Raman scattering [1], spatiotemporal instability [2,3], self-beam cleaning [4], multimode solitons [5].


The increasing spate of fluctuations in the world price of crude oil and the global food crisis in recent years have been issues of concern to policymakers the world over. Since the first oil shock in 1974, oil has annually produced over 90 per cent of Nigeria's export income. In 2000, Nigeria received 99.6 per cent of its export income from oil, making the world's most oil-dependent country. Despite the huge earnings from oil Nigeria remains one of the most food insecure countries in the world. In addition, one of the thorniest issues in Nigeria's policy arena today is how to provide food for her teeming population. Oil price shocks have also had profound effects on Nigeria's domestic sector. This paper thus analyses the dynamic relationship between oil prices and food insecurity in Nigeria using a VAR approach. The results of the estimation reveal that the over dependence on oil resulted in the neglect of the agricultural sector, hence decline in the production of food for the teeming population in Nigeria. The variance decomposition also shows high imports of food have contributed significantly to shocks in food supply, but not significant in determining food security There is therefore an urgent need for policies that will enhance domestic production of staple foods and reduce the over dependence on oil resource in Nigeria. Key words : oil Resource, food insecurity, VAR, Nigeria


The burgeoning field of political anthropology has as its essential purpose examining the relationship between the exercise of power and the uniqueness of cultural forms. Culture and Political Change emphasizes interdisciplinary semiotic and phenomenological approaches to the relationship between political change and the durability of such cultural forms as drama, symbol, myth, ritual, and religion. Leading anthropologists and political scientists present case studies illuminating the complex causes and nature of political change.


Informal STEM education (ISE) organizations, especially museums, have used evaluation productively but unevenly. We argue that advancing evaluation in ISE requires that evaluation capacity building (ECB) broadens to include not only professional evaluators but also other professionals such as educators, exhibit developers, activity facilitators, and institutional leaders. We identify four categories of evaluation capacity: evaluation skill and knowledge, use of evaluation, organizational systems related to conducting or integrating evaluation, and values related to evaluation. We studied a field‐wide effort to build evaluation capacity across a network of organizations and found it important to address individuals' evaluation capacities as well as capacities at the organizational level. Organizational factors that support ECB included redundancy of evaluation capacities across multiple people in an organization, institutional coherence around the value of evaluation, and recognition that ECB can be led from multiple levels of an organizational hierarchy. We argue that the increasing emphasis on evaluation in the ISE field represents an exciting opportunity and that, with targeted strategies and investments, ECB holds great promise for the future of ISE and ISE evaluation.


PURPOSE
In optical tracking system (OTS), ghost marker (GM) limits users' flexibility in marker placement and can lead to incorrect patient setup or system execution failure. This work aims to model the phenomenon of GM and propose robust algorithms for GM prediction, detection and elimination.

METHODS
Two GMs occur when two markers and two sensors of the OTS are coplanar. However, when one marker gradually moves out of the plane and breaks the coplanar condition, both GMs briefly remain before they completely disappear. To explain this effect, we expanded line-line intersection definition and the coplanar condition: two lines intersect when their distance is less than threshold Ω and involved points are said to be coplanar within Ω. We fixed one marker and moved the other through the plane with a 0.1 mm step length. Sensor positions were calculated using a back projection method when coplanar condition was strictly satisfied. Ω was determined as line-line distance when ghost marker first appeared. The prediction algorithm checks whether any two given markers are coplanar with the two sensors within Ω; the detection algorithm checks whether any marker is near the intersection of lines connecting sensors and two other markers. A backtracking pattern matching algorithm matches markers to reference markers and eliminates unmatched ones as GMs. The algorithms were validated with two phantoms and 40 SBRT patients using 5~8 markers.

RESULTS
The prediction success rates were 97.7% and 89.6% and the detection success rates were 100% on the two phantoms (1544 ' 2045 samples). The matching success rates were 100% on both phantoms and patients.

CONCLUSION
The proposed model precisely explains the phenomenon of GMs in marker-based OTS. The proposed detection and matching algorithms guarantee complete elimination of GMs, thus avoiding errors in SBRT tracking and providing user maximum flexibility in marker placement.


Mixture of xenobiotics in Olusosun landfill leachates (OSL) induced somatic and germ cell genotoxicity in eukaryotic cells. However, whether the DNA-damaged germ cells can increase reproductive failure, embryotoxicity and/or teratogenicity during fertilization remained unclear. The study herein investigated reproductive toxicity and embryotoxic effects of OSL in mice using abnormal sperm morphology and dominant lethal mutation assays. Six mice per group were exposed to 0.5 mL of 5, 10, 25, and 50% OSL (v/v, leachate/distilled water) for 5 consecutive days. Similar treatment was giving to distilled water and cyclophosphamide (20 mg/kg body weight), as negative and positive control groups, respectively. At 35 day post-treatment, the mice were sacrificed and examined for cauda epididymal abnormal sperm morphology, testicular weight change and histopathological lesions. Male mice were mated to untreated nulliparous females (1 treated male per 2 untreated females) until vaginal plugs were observed. Pregnant females were sacrificed on 14th day post-mating and uterine content examined for number of implants per female, resorptions, and live and dead fetuses. OSL significantly increased teratozoospermia by 31.02% with amorphous sperm head having the highest frequency and sperm with two heads, the least. Histology of the testes revealed congestion of the interstitial blood vessels, spermatid retention and disorganization of the germinal epithelium from the basal compartment. OSL insignificantly increased absolute and relative testes weights but reduced body weight of exposed mice. There was insignificant induction of dominant lethal mutation, although low fertility was observed in the treated mice. The analyzed physico-chemical parameters and heavy metals/metalloids in OSL were higher than permissible limits. The metals, physico-chemical parameters and other unanalyzed substances in OSL induced abnormal sperm morphology, altered testes pathology, but did not significantly induce dominant lethal mutation in mice. Constituents of OSL are toxic to the male reproductive organs in mice and suggests harmful impact on public health. Indiscriminate disposal of solid wastes in the environment should be prevented.


The study investigated the health information-seeking behaviour of students at the Federal University of Technology, Akure in Nigeria. Information resources exploited by university students to meet health information needs were also examined. The study made use of the descriptive survey design, randomly sampling respondents' opinions on reasons for seeking health information and factors that militate against the effective use of health information. Of 377 respondents, 239 (63.4%) of them were disposed to seeking information on physical fitness or exercise and cold or flu. Newspaper (283 or 75.1%) was identified as respondents' commonest source of health information. For university students, a major inhibitor of health information seeking outside the library is the high cost of accessing health information for personal use (318 or 84.4%). But within the library, the uncooperative attitude of library personnel (240 or 63.7%) was identified as respondents' major hindrance in accessing health information in the library. The study recommended adequate provision of health information resources for students' use and regular library personnel training to improve professional skills required for effective dissemination of health information, particularly to university students. Keywords: information, information need, health information, health information-seeking behaviour, university students, library personnel DOI: 10.7176/JIEA/10-2-03 Publication date: March 31 st 2020


Summary DNA metabarcoding is an emerging monitoring method capable of assessing biodiversity from environmental samples (eDNA). Advances in computational tools have been required due to the increase of Next-Generation Sequencing data. Tools for DNA metabarcoding analysis, such as MOTHUR, QIIME, Obitools, and mBRAVE have been widely used in ecological studies. However, some difficulties are encountered when there is a need to use custom databases. Here we present PIMBA, a PIpeline for MetaBarcoding Analysis, which allows the use of customized databases, as well as other reference databases used by the softwares mentioned here. PIMBA is an open-source and user-friendly pipeline that consolidates all analyses in just three command lines. Availability and Implementation https://github.com/reinator/pimba Contact firstname.lastname@example.com and email@example.com.


Interrelation between pregnancy and epilepsy is one of the pressing problems of current neurology. Those mechanisms, which suppress or amplify the seizure reactions in pregnancy, have not been yet determined experimentally. Investigation of the interrelation between the epileptic fits and pregnancy in women is complicated by the bioethical considerations, as well as by the antiepileptic therapy. Therefore, in order to solve this problem, an implementing the animal models seems expedient; moreover that this problem is scarcely investigated so far. The goal of present work was investigation of impact of gestation and the postpartum period on initiation and development of convulsive reactions in the experimental animal model. Epileptic reactions were significantly suppressed during gestation (2 and 3 weeks). The data on the changes are concerned behavioral reactions and EEG seizure activity. Therefore, generalization of the seizure activity is blocked during pregnancy.


In this paper the applicability of using activities instead of concentrations in kinetic expressions has been investigated using the reaction of CO2 with various hydroxide solutions as a model system. For this system it is known that when the reaction rate constant is based on the use of concentrations in the kinetic expression, this "constant" depends both on the counter ion in the solution and the ionic strength. Using the data of Pohorecki, it could be revealed that the use of activities reduces the influence of the ionic strength on the derived rate constant to a very large extent. Hence the kinetic constant using the activity based approach seems much more like a real constant than the "constant" using the traditional kinetic expression using concentrations. Besides this, the absolute values of the rate constants for the three different counter-ions also moved closely together. This points out that applying one fixed rate constant, independent of the counter-ion or the ionic strength, might be sufficient for describing the reaction rate in the studied system. A large advantage of using activities in kinetic expressions is that the fundamental description of kinetics and thermodynamics is consistent which each other so that at equilibrium the net reaction rate (based on the kinetic expression) is indeed zero.


A taxonomic key, based on restriction enzyme analysis of the second internal-transcribed spacer (ITS-2) in the nuclear ribosomal DNA gene, was developed for identification of 17 Ixodes tick species in the United States. This key includes: Ixodes affinis Neumann, Ixodes angustus Neumann, Ixodes baergi Cooley and Kohls, Ixodes brunneus Koch, Ixodes cookei Packard, Ixodes dentatus Marx, Ixodes jellisoni Cooley and Kohls, Ixodes kingi Bishopp, Ixodes minor Neumann, Ixodes muris Bishopp and Smith, Ixodes pacificus Cooley and Kohls, Ixodes scapularis Say, Ixodes sculpularis Neumann, I. spinipalpis Hadwen and Nuttall, Ixodes texanus Banks, Ixodes uriae White, and Ixodes woodi Bishopp. A 900-bp fragment of the ITS-2 was amplified using the polymerase chain reaction. This fragment was then digested with the restriction enzymes MspI and CfoI, and the digested fragments were size fractionated on a 2.5% high-resolution agarose gel. A dichotomous key was developed based on digested fragment sizes relative to a standard set of size markers. Little intraspecific variation in restriction fragment banding patterns was detected.


The Born-Lande equation has been used to calculate the lattice energy and bulk modulus of twenty one ionic crystals. These computations were carried out by means of a FORTRAN code, whose basic inputs are the name of crystal, the Born exponent, the number of charges and the lattice constant The lattice energies obtained are in close agreement with both the theoretical and the experimental reported values. It has been found that as the ionic radii of either the cations or anions increases the lattice energy decreases. Simalarly, ionic crystals consisting of divalent ions have much larger lattice energies than those with monovalent ions .


The article concerns social functioning of women with Turner syndrome, focusing particularly on their family life (relations with parents, siblings, partner and children), and relations with others (friends, acquaintances, workmates and members of TS support organizations). The author also tries to find correlations between growth hormone treatment, sex hormones treatment, age of TS diagnosis, karyotype and social functioning of TS women. Turner Syndrome is a quite common (1 in every 2500 live female births) human genetic disorder which affects only females. Females with TS lack all or part of one of two sex X chromosomes. The phenotype of TS women includes short stature and ovarian failure (which usually causes infertility) specific anatomic abnormalities (such as a short neck with a webbed appearance, a low hairline at the back of the neck, and low-set ears) and characteristic neurocognitive profile, which usually does not include mental retardation. The treatment of TS girls includes growth hormone and sex hormones therapy. 71 women took part in the study (30 from Poland and 41 from other countries – USA, Australia and United Kingdom). Researches indicated that generally women with TS showed relatively good functioning in relations in family of origin (with parents and siblings) and in social environment (quite high professional activity, good functioning in relations with friends and acquaintances). Relations with parents, especially with mothers, were usually very close, but often revealed overprotective parents' attitude towards TS women (even in their adult life). Relations with fathers were slightly worse, more often revealing lack of fathers' acceptance towards TS women. Relations with siblings were rather close, but again revealed overprotective siblings' attitude towards TS sisters. Researches also revealed relatively weak functioning of TS women in relations in family of procreation (with partner and children).


Medication errors compromise patient safety and cost £500m per annum in the UK. Patients who forget the name of their medication may describe the appearance to the doctor. Nurses use recognition skills to assist in safe administration of medications. This study quantifies healthcare professionals' accuracy in visually identifying medications. Members of the multidisciplinary team were asked to identify five commonly prescribed medications. Mean recognition rate (MRR) was defined as the percentage of correct responses. Dunn's multiple comparison tests quantified inter-professional variation. Fifty-six participants completed the study (93% response rate). MRRs were: pharmacists 61%; nurses 35%; doctors 19%; physiotherapists 11%. Pharmacists' MRR were significantly higher than both doctors and physiotherapists (P 0.05). The majority of healthcare professionals cannot accurately identify commonly prescribed medications on direct visualization. By increasing access to medication identification resources and improving undergraduate education and postgraduate training for all healthcare professionals, errors may be reduced and patient safety improved.


Long-term temporal fusion is a crucial but often overlooked technique in camera-based Bird's-Eye-View (BEV) 3D perception. Existing methods are mostly in a parallel manner. While parallel fusion can benefit from long-term information, it suffers from increasing computational and memory overheads as the fusion window size grows. Alternatively, BEVFormer adopts a recurrent fusion pipeline so that history information can be efficiently integrated, yet it fails to benefit from longer temporal frames. In this paper, we explore an embarrassingly simple long-term recurrent fusion strategy built upon the LSS-based methods and find it already able to enjoy the merits from both sides, i.e., rich long-term information and efficient fusion pipeline. A temporal embedding module is further proposed to improve the model's robustness against occasionally missed frames in practical scenarios. We name this simple but effective fusing pipeline VideoBEV. Experimental results on the nuScenes benchmark show that VideoBEV obtains leading performance on various camera-based 3D perception tasks, including object detection (55.4% mAP and 62.9% NDS), segmentation (48.6% vehicle mIoU), tracking (54.8% AMOTA), and motion prediction (0.80m minADE and 0.463 EPA). Code will be available.


[Excerpt] I came late to the academy and am still more of a trade unionist than a scholar, so I am going to start my remarks from this perspective. When Jim wrote Values and Assumptions I was in my earlier life as a union staffer with the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), a great, democratic, independent left-wing union. Like everyone else on the union staff, I was a generalist and an itinerant. I received organizing and bargaining assignments in New England, the Carolinas, and Baltimore, corporate campaign assignments in South Dakota, Pennsylvania, and California, political and legislative assignments in Washington, and a dozen other projects. It was nonstop action from the time I started working for the UE after finishing law school in 1973.


In the present investigation zooplankton diversity was studied during February 2010 to January 2011. Different zooplanktons were noticed during study period, amongst them rotifers are more dominant group than others. In the present study 17 genera recorded from rotifera and genus Brachionus is abundant and more common to both the ponds. The variation in diversity and density of rotifer is observed in different months and seasons.


In this study, a phase-preserving limiter based on injection locking a semiconductor laser is fully investigated as an amplitude limiter for 10 Gb/s constant envelope phase encoded signals. A theoretical analysis on the modulation bandwidth and the modulation transfer function of the injection locked laser is carried out targeting to identify the operational characteristics and the regeneration properties of the proposed amplitude limiter. The theoretical analysis demonstrates the potential of the specific limiter to amplify 25 Gbaud phase modulated signals with simultaneous regeneration of its amplitude properties. Subsequently an experimental investigation demonstrates the performance of the proposed regenerator and addresses its potential exploitation in future optical networks. The specific limiter exhibits significant amplitude noise squeezing capability and extreme implementation simplicity.


Although many assume that conducting cutting-edge research in a particular field is synonymous with leadership, I challenge this assumption. I believe it is fair to say that just as many managers are not leaders, neither are all researchers. For many people, trying to learn the research process and to complete that first (or seventh) study seems to be an overwhelming task. In the world of research, completing the study is just the first step ... making the research come alive and using it to build capacity for future science and scientists and to tell stories that capture policymakers' attention and ultimately lead to policy change, are what it is all about. Over the years, I have come to understand that leadership in research is about building relationships. Initially my relationships were with thesis supervisors and other deities whose words and mentoring were sacred. Later, as the playing field began to balance and I had some research successes of my own, my collaborative relationships expanded to include colleagues engaged in research and future researchers. In the past several years, these relationships have developed further to include individuals who are challenged to use the scarce information from research to make decisions or to guide discussion of alternative policy choices. Each step of the way has brought new learning and clearer insight into what my role in the relationship should and should not be. Understanding myself and my individual quirks has helped me learn how to manage myself (most of the time) so that my behaviors do not encumber building these relationships. Without realizing it, I have been influenced by the leadership principles hypothesized by Kouzes and Posner (1997). The five leadership principles include: modeling the way, inspiring shared vision, challenging the process, enabling Leadership in Research: About Building Relationships


Diversified agencies may provide a broad range of services, such as private-duty nursing, hospice, and infusion therapy. How can such an agency make sure amidst complicated operations that it is operating at peak efficiency?


The study deals with evaluation of pulmonary function status in fifty normal pregnant women tested monthly. The parameters studied were Vital Capacity (VC) Forced Vital Capacity (FVC) and Forced Expiratory Volume in 1st second (FEV1) using Vitalograph Spirometer; tidal volume (VT), inspiratory capacity (IC) and expiratory reserve volume (ERV) using Expirograph and resting minute ventilation (VE) using Tissot's spirometer. Control values were obtained in the same subject 8-10 weeks after delivery. The increase seen in VT, VE and IC was very highly significant. The small increment in frequency of respiration is significant and the declining trend observed in ERV is very highly significant. VC and FVC were maintained by the rise in IC and a concomitant fall in ERV. Rise in VC is attributed mainly to rise in VT than rise in frequency. The results suggest that though pulmonary function is altered during pregnancy, it is not compromised and hence does not induce any mechanical stress on the respiratory efficiency of the pregnant woman.


The performance assessment in radiosonde observation on the special observation program (ProbeX-2009) is performed and the characteristics of precipitation using Auto Weather System (AWS) and radiosonde data in 2009 at the Ulleungdo are investigated. The launching time, observation time, and maximum altitude of radiosonde are satisfied with the regulation from Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) and World Meteorological Organization (WMO) but the duration of observational time of radiosonde is much shorter than that of the ProbeX-2007 because the altitude of launching site is higher than others in 2007. From the analysis of trajectories of radiosonde, most radiosondes at the Ulleungdo tend to move into the east because the westerly prevail at the middle latitude. However, when the Okhotsk high is expanded to the Korean peninsula and the north-westerly winds strengthen over the East Sea as the subtropical high is retreated, radiosonde tends to move into the south-west and south-east, respectively. Maximum distance appears at the end of observation level before May but the level of maximum distance is changed into 100 hPa after June because the prevailing wind direction is reversed from westerly to easterly at the stratosphere during summer time. The condition of precipitation was more correlated with the dynamic instability except Changma season. Precipitation in 2009 at the Ulleungdo occurred under the marine climate so that total precipitation amounts and precipitation intensity were increased and intensified during nighttime. The local environment favorable for the precipitation during nighttime was while the wind speed at the surface and the inflow from the shoreline were strengthened. Precipitation events also affected by synoptic condition but the localized effect induced by topography was more strengthened at the northern part of Ulleungdo.


ABSTRACT This article provides an overview of the etiology, epidemiology, and first-line treatment options for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The subject of treatment-resistant and treatment-refractory OCD is the discussed, including a definition of these often-debated terms, and the latest treatment options delineated. This includes a review of the latest research concerning the pharmacological agents that have been studied as monotherapy or augmenting agents for the treatment of OCD, the use of experimental medications and procedures, treatment with reversible, minimally invasive procedure, such as vagal nerve stimulation and transcranial magnetic stimulation, invasive but the potentially reversible deep brain stimulation, and irreversible lesioning with ablative psychosurgery. A discussion of the role of psychotherapy in the treatment of OCD is also included.


The paper presents a proposal to ensure Closed-Loop Manufacturing from CNC machines to CAM systems. The main goal is to manage knowledge from the CNC machine and to reuse it in the CAM system. This proposal aims to help CAM programmers for programming new machining sequences by choosing the best CNC machines parameters. The main contribution of this paper focuses on how to provide guidelines extracted from past CNC programs to the CAM programme for future cases. Although STEP-NC standard enhances bidirectional exchanges in the digital chain, from CAD systems to CNC machines, it does not allow the management of manufacturing knowledge. To achieve the information feedback from CNC machine to CAM system, Closed-Loop Manufacturing approach sets up a manufacturing loop using PLM systems supported by OntoSTEP-NC – an ontology based on STEP-NC. Centred on the Manufacturing Process Management platform Closed-Loop Manufacturing is a three-step process: (1) capitalisation of cutting parameters, the manufacturing features and the material to fill the Manufacturing Process Management database, (2) validation of last machining sequences and (3) manufacturing feature recognition to have the most relevant information integration from the Manufacturing Process Management in the CAM programming stage.


Central retinal artery occlusion is a rare ocular emergency
 condition that can lead to a total blindness. Hereby we
 report a 30-year-old woman with a sudden visual loss of
 the left eye after being injected by hyaluronic acid filler at
 the dorsum nasal area for cosmetic purpose. Visual acuity
 was light perception while anterior segment and
 intraocular pressure were within normal limit. Partial
 ophthalmoplegia include restriction to the nasal gaze
 were found. Funduscopic examination revealed total
 retinal edema with a cherry red spot at the fovea. Ocular
 massage was performed as initial management followed
 by humor aqueous paracentesis. All procedures were
 done within 90 minutes. The patients discharge with the
 visual improvement to hand motion and the Partial
 ophthalmophlegia has been improved after being
evaluated less than a month.


The New Brunswick Department of Transportation and Infrastructure is responsible for the rehabilitation and maintenance of approximately 19,650 km of provincially designated highways and roads. Nearly 85 percent of this network is hard surfaced including 9800 km of designated local highways and roads. Maintaining this local network at an acceptable standard requires a significant investment that has become increasingly challenging given current economic and fiscal constraints. Available funding is most often directed towards higher priority projects, while many low volume local asphalt roads are deteriorating with escalating rehabilitation costs. The Department's Long Term Investment Projection estimates an average of 300 km of asphalt rehabilitation is required annually over the next ten years to sustain the paved highway network. However, New Brunswick like other the provinces is implementing measures to reduce annual deficits and achieve spending efficiencies. In response, the Department undertook a study to develop a policy to ensure that the most appropriate surface type is selected in the future based on clearly defined and transparent level of service criteria that considered engineering suitability, least life-cycle cost, and functional / service characteristics. This paper documents the development of a multi-staged, screening pavement preservation decision making framework that will support the province to achieve a stronger position for achieving infrastructure sustainability. (A) For the covering asbtract of this conference see ITRD record number 201211RT334E.


Not only an indispensable reference resource, "Grammar of Septuagint Greek" is also an ideal reader for anyone wishing to study the Septuagint in the original language. A reprint of the standard Septuagint grammar originally titled "Selections from the Septuagint," this invaluable volume includes: an extensive introduction to the origin, inspiration, date, supremacy, and Greek of the Septuagint; the grammar proper with major sections covering accidence and syntax; and extensive selected readings with in-depth introductions and full textual and grammatical notes" especially helpful for the student of New Testament Greek wishing to develop language skills through reading less familiar texts. Helpful improvements to this new edition include: new, updated indexes of ancient sources and significant Greek words from the readings; a convenient and complete vocabulary with definitions; and an alphabetical list of proper nouns from the readings, with translations.


Background The use of opioid drugs for controlling pain during and after surgery is a common but complicated procedure in neonatal anesthesia. This study compared the analgesic effect of acetaminophen with fentanyl after abdominal and chest surgery in Iranian newborns. Materials and Methods This randomized, double-blind clinical trial was conducted in two hospitals; in the NICU of Shahid Motahari hospital in Urmia and Namazi hospital in Shiraz, Iran. Sixty-six patients were randomized sequentially and assigned in two groups. One group of patients received acetaminophen dose of 10 mg/kg every six hours, and another group received fentanyl 6 µg/Kg every six hours for 48 hours (9 doses). For all patients, pain was assessed using the "Neonatal Infant Pain Scale (NIPS)" at first time, 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, 42 and 48 hours (9 measurements). If necessary, fentanyl 1 µg/Kg was injected to the patients. Finally, all the information was recorded and analyzed using SPSS software (version 21.0). Results The mean age of the fentanyl group was 16.79 ± 15.57 days and 16.67 ± 15.77 days in the acetaminophen group (P>0.05). The mean weight in the fentanyl group was 3460 ± 737 gr and in the acetaminophen group was 3228.548 ± 32.28 gr (P>0.05). Results showed that the mean scores of pain in all periods of time were not significantly different between the two groups (P>0.05). No drug complications were seen in the acetaminophen group. Conclusion Based on the results, mean score of pain in fentanyl and acetaminophen groups was not statistically significant. Acetaminophen did not control pain as well as fentanyl in neonatal surgeries.


Background: Progesterone belongs to a class of neurosteroids used for the reduction of seizure frequency in patients with refractory epilepsy. However, the pharmacokinetics of progesterone and its active derivative, allopregnanolone, have never been studied in these patients. Objectives: This study was aim to explore the pharmacokinetic parameters of progesterone 400 mg every 12 h, for 3 months, in patients with refractory epilepsy as an add-on therapy to control seizures. Phoenix® WinNonlin® was used to analyse the pharmacokinetic parameters. Results: Twelve patients were recruited. From a therapeutic drug monitoring, the serum progesterone and allopregnanolone levels after taking the first dose of progesterone were characterised by a time to maximum concentration (Tmax) median of 1 and 2.5 h, a maximum concentration (Cmax) median of 274.97 and 3.81 ng/mL, and a minimum concentration (Cmin) median of 56.93 and 1.06 ng/mL, respectively. The median values of the pharmacokinetic parameters of progesterone and allopregnanolone during the steady state were as follows: t1/2 of 2.4 and 2.0 h, Cmax of 964.35 and 8.92 ng/mL, and Cmin of 64.67 and 1.86 ng/mL, respectively. By examining the relationship between the progesterone or allopregnanolone concentrations with seizure-controlling ability, we could identify a responder patient group with 6- to 7-fold higher serum concentrations of progesterone and allopregnanolone than the non-responders. Conclusions: We could establish higher serum levels of both progesterone and allopregnanolone, which could consequently relate to lowering the seizure frequency in patients with refractory epilepsy. The suggested progesterone dose was 400 mg orally every 12 h against refractory epilepsy Trial registration: This study has been registered on the Thai Clinical Trials Registry (No. TCTR20200710005, 10 July 2020)


Now that WEEE legislation has been implemented across Europe, there is significant interest in adopting more sustainable electronics manufacturing processes and materials. The changes may lead to alternative failure modes, and hence maintaining performance is key issue for the introduction of new materials. This work studies the performance of specific favoured materials to qualify the failure mechanisms and the effective stress screening regimes.
Flexible thermoplastic printed circuit assemblies based on printed polymer thick film inks and direct write copper on PET, were assembled using electrically conductive adhesives and tested using damp heat, thermal cycling, and combinations of these. Three generic interconnect styles were investigated.
For the majority of conductive adhesive/component combinations, damp heat conditioning was found to develop the most damage, and is typical of industrial environments. Where degradation was observed, conductive adhesive joints developed high resistance failures. Separation occurred along the component/adhesive interface. It is speculated that this is a combination of a cohesive failure of the epoxy binder in the conductive adhesive, plus an adhesive failure in the vicinity of the oxide film formed on the surface of the component, which could be adhesive to oxide or oxide to metal failures.


Background and aims The treatment of newborns with congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH) is still actual problem. Changing management tactics has led to an improvement in results last decade. The mini-invasive surgical procedure was developed and introduced in clinic adding new abilities. The goal is to determine the effectiveness of thoracoscopy in treatment of CDH in newborns. Methods The retrospective analysis of treatment of 127 infants with CDH during the period from 1993 to 2013 in Paediatric Surgery Centre of Minsk, Belarus was conducted. From 1993 to 2006, the newborns were operated on 1–2 day admission. Traditional methodslaparotomy and thoracotomy applied in 59 of 65 children in this group, 16 patients died. Post operativelethality was 27.1%, the overall mortality rate30.7%. Postoperative complications have demanded 18 (30.5%) reoperations in 13 patients, including 4 hernias relapse. From January 2007 operation are produced only in children with stable condition on the 6–8 day of life. The main method from December 2009 is thoracoscopic plastic. The 62 children have been treated. Operations were performed in 54 children: 16 children by traditional methods and 38 completed mini-invasive intervention. Results Four patients (7.4%) died postoperatively and overall mortality amounted to 12.9%. Reoperations took place in 10 patients (18.6%), 5 children have recurrent hernia after thoracoscopic plastic. One child relapse marked twice in 6 months. All children repeatedly operated with thoracoscopy, in four cases patches were applied. No complications were revealed postoperatively. Conclusion Thoracoscopy for the treatment of CDH is effective method.


This case reports the concomitant and unexpected finding of carcinoid tumour within a Meckel's diverticulum presenting as an acute abdomen due to gangrenous appendicitis in a young adult male. Both Meckel's diverticula and carcinoid tumour are rare clinical entities, and carcinoid tumours occurring within a Meckel's diverticulum are even more uncommon. The initial clinical presentation of carcinoid tumours occurring in a Meckel's diverticulum is usually similar to that of appendicle carcinoids.Carcinoid tumours are the most common primary tumour of the small bowel. They resemble appendicle carcinoids to the extent that they are usually small, single, and asymptomatic. Surgical treatment of Meckel's diverticula is recommended procedure. By presenting this case we wished to stress the value of systematic identification and removal of the diverticulum during laparotomy and to underline the importance of exploration the Meckel's diverticulum particularly in case of young adult subjects.


How plants recognize pathogens and activate defense is still mysterious. Direct interaction between pathogen avirulence (Avr) proteins and plant disease resistance proteins is the exception rather than the rule. During infection, Cladosporium fulvum secretes Avr2 protein into the apoplast of tomato leaves and, in the presence of the extracellular leucine-rich repeat receptor-like Cf-2 protein, triggers a hypersensitive response (HR) that also requires the extracellular tomato cysteine protease Rcr3. We show here that Avr2 binds and inhibits Rcr3 and propose that the Rcr3-Avr2 complex enables the Cf-2 protein to activate an HR.


The chemical changes which occur in living matter are said to be profoundly influenced, and even may be said to be controlled by enzymes and their actions (1). Thus different enzymes in different parts of a living organism may produce different products from one and the same substrate supplied to the different parts. A systematic study of certain of the enzymes of various human and mammalian tumors as well as of normal tissues has shown that the enzyme actions of a definite material represent certain properties of that material (2). For the present study a large amount of pancreatic tumor was obtained from a specimen removed at operation. The tumor was of an unusual type in that it was a very large, solid, parenchymatous adenocarcinoma occupying the tail and much of the body of the pancreas (Figs. 1 and 2). Despite its large size the tumor was not necrotic and no metastases were found. This pancreatic tumor was studied from the physiological point of view and its enzyme content was compared with that of the normal human pancreas. For the latter purpose three normal organs, to be referred to as 1, 2, and 3, obtained at autopsy, were employed.


【With the common objective to improve process productivity and product quality, statistical process control (SPC) and engineering process control (EPC) have been widely used in the discrete-parts industry and the process industry, respectively. The major focus of SPC is on process monitoring, while that of EPC is on process adjustment. The emergence of the hybrid industry necessitates a synergistic combination of the two methods for an effective process control. This paper investigates the existing studies on SPC, EPC, and the integration of the two methods. This paper also presents future research issues in this field.】


Exercise‐induced left bundle branch block is rare and can be demonstrated with exercise testing. When the heart rate reaches a certain threshold, the QRS widens into left bundle branch block. This paper describes a patient with exercise‐induced left bundle branch block related angina and dyspnea, who responded to cardiac resynchronization therapy. We documented the potential benefits of cardiac resynchronization therapy with a left ventricular rapid pacing study prior to its implantation. Although exercise‐induced left bundle branch block is not a current indication for cardiac resynchronization therapy in patients such as ours, it could be considered when conventional drug therapy fails.


1 Sir Lawrence Wackett Centre for Aerospace Design Technology, Department of Aerospace Engineering, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, GPO Box 2476V, Melbourne, Victoria, 3001, Australia 2 Cooperative Research Center for Advanced Composites structures Limited 506 Lorimer Street, Fishermen's Bend, Victoria, 3207, Australia Department of Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, University, Bundoora East Campus, PO Box 71, Bundoora, Victoria, 3083, Australia


Title of Document: IMPACTS OF INTERMEDIATE WATER FORMATION IN THE NORTH PACIFIC ON INDONESIAN THROUGHFLOW AND EQUATORIAL THERMOCLINE DEPTH: A HIGH LATITUDE CONTROL FOR ENSO VARIABILITY? Elizabeth Kaye Brabson, Master of Science, 2008 Directed By: Professor James Farquhar Department of Geology Long-term variability in the strength and frequency of the El Niño – Southern Oscillation (ENSO) may be attributable to changes in background climatology. During times of cold climate events in the high latitudes, El Niño conditions may have been more persistent in the equatorial Pacific. In this study, a numerical ocean model was used to examine the role oceanic circulation may play in linking these two regions. The simulation of an intermediate body of water of 10 Sv in the North Pacific results in an overall decrease in flow of 29% across the Indonesian Seaways. No change in the overall structure of the thermocline was observed; however the model predicted warming of the surface water in the western and eastern tropical Pacific. It is, therefore hypothesized that a sinking water mass in the North Pacific could have fueled either more permanent El Niño – like conditions or more frequent/intense ENSO events. IMPACTS OF INTERMEDIATE WATER FORMATION IN THE NORTH PACIFIC ON INDONESIAN THROUGHFLOW AND EQUATORIAL THERMOCLINE DEPTH: A HIGH LATITUDE CONTROL FOR ENSO VARIABILITY?


This paper highlights the framework and discusses the results of an action research network which aimed to promote academic access in two general educational settings within which a pupil with blindness and a deaf pupil were educated respectively. The persons involved in this collaborative scheme were general teachers, a school counsellor, academic staff and student teachers. The findings of the study indicate that the implementation of the action research network resulted in the development of inclusive and collaborative thinking and the adoption of relevant teaching practices which promoted the children's access to the curriculum and supported the teachers' and student teachers' professional development. The outcomes of this action research network raise concerns about the access and the status of membership of children with special needs in general educational classroom and provide insights for the pivotal role of action research in understanding educational contexts and situations from a number of different perspectives.


OBJECTIVES
To study the relationship between Helicobacter pylori infection, gastric inflammatory scores, and fasting gastrin and pepsinogen A and C concentrations, and to evaluate the effect of treatment on these parameters.

METHODS
Gastrin and pepsinogen A and C concentrations were measured in 36 patients with gastritis, 10 gastric ulcer patients, 12 duodenal ulcer patients, and in 15 subjects with normal gastric mucosa, by standard radioimmunoassay techniques. Fifteen patients with H. pylori infection underwent triple therapy (bismuth subsalicylate, amoxicillin, metronidazole) and were reassessed 1 month later.

RESULTS
Fasting gastrin and pepsinogen A and C concentrations were significantly higher in H. pylori-positive gastritis and peptic ulcer patients than in subjects with normal mucosa and in patients with H. pylori-negative gastritis. There was a significant correlation between inflammatory scores and serum gastrin (r = 0.45, p < 0.0001), and pepsinogen A (r = 0.33, p < 0.006) and pepsinogen C (r = 0.55, p < 0.0001) concentrations. Neither sex nor age affected basal gastrin and pepsinogen concentrations. Eradication of H. pylori infection was successful in 12 patients and resulted in a significant fall in serum gastrin and in pepsinogen A and C concentrations, and in a concomitant improvement of the inflammatory scores. Serum peptide levels and gastritis scores were unchanged in those patients in whom H. pylori infection persisted.

CONCLUSIONS
These findings suggest that hypergastrinemia and hyperpepsinogenemia are secondary to H. pylori infection and are related to mucosal inflammation.


Tests were carried out to determine the bending moment capacities of L-shaped mortise and tenon furniture joints under both compression and tension loadings. The effects of wood species (Turkish beech and Scotch pine), adhesive type (polyvinylacetate and polyurethane), and tenon size (width and length) on the static bending moment capacity of joints under the same loading conditions were investigated. The results of the tests indicated that the moment capacity increased as either tenon width or length increased. The results also indicated that tenon length had a greater effect on the moment capacity than tenon width. In both compression and tension tests, Turkish beech joints were stronger than Scotch pine joints, and PU joints were stronger than PVA joints. An empirically derived expression was developed to estimate the average ultimate bending moment capacity of joints under compression and tension loads as functions of the wood species, the adhesive type, and the tenon size.


Enterprise Resource Planning system (ERP) is a highly integrated and coordinated system that enables an organization not only to enhance its operational efficiency but also improve its market responsiveness and innovativeness. However, ERP adoption does not guarantee increase in organizational performance. In response to the increasing needs to identify causes for ERP adoption failure, this study examines factors that influence ERP system adoption decision and effect of ERP adoption on organizational performance. The mediating roles of users' satisfaction and system usage on the relationship between ERP system adoption and organizational performance are also examined. The economic transaction cost theory and the institutional theory are the underlying theories used to explain factors that impact ERP system adoption.The DeLone and McLean performance model was adopted to analyze the impact of users' satisfaction and system usage on the relationship between ERP adoption and organizational performance. In conducting this study, data were collected through a questionnaire survey of all companies listed in Bursa Malaysia, as well as 200 companies systematically selected from the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) database. Responses from 136 organizations were analyzed. The results indicate that perceived operational benefits, perceived strategic benefits and mimetic pressure have significant influence on ERP system adoption decision. However, managerial benefits, normative pressure and coercive pressure are not significant in the ERP adoption decision deliberation. As hypothesized, ERP adoption has a significant and positive relationship with organizational performance. The results also show that only system usage mediates the relationship between ERP adoption and organizational performance. The result of this study suggest that careful evaluation and justification processes are appropriately undertaken as evidenced by the significant emphasis on both operational benefits and strategical benefits prior to the adoption of ERP system. The significant effect of mimetic pressure on ERP adoption further indicates that organizations are keen to be at par with their competitors' technologial capabilities. In addition, organizations also need to promote effective usage of ERP system to ensure improvement in organizational performance could be attained.