Food stuffs such as maize (Zea mays L.), rice (Oryza sativa), and groundnut (Arachis hypogaea) are important staple foods in sub-Saharan Africa. The aim of this study is to examine the effect of storage on food samples in plastic, polythene bag, and refrigerator, putting into consideration the weight and microbial load of the food products before and after storage. The samples were obtain from Oba market and subjected to storage for 28 days, after which isolate of fungi and bacteria were obtained. The results revealed the isolation of Rhizopus spp., Fusarium spp., Aspergillus flavus, and Aspergillus niger. Also the total bacteria count ranges from 1 – 48 colony forming unit (CFU). Conclusively, storage condition is important for cereal foods in order to increase the shelf-life of such. This study revealed that refrigeration is preferable for storage of food stuff. It is important to preserve food samples in normal storage condition, therefore refrigeration is recommended for storage of food sample, in order to increase the shelf-life of food products.


The purpose of this study is to find out how the role of educators in improving school management is and what challenges educators can face in school management. This is so that the author as a prospective teacher can find out what role he should have when he becomes a teacher. In this article, in obtaining data the author uses a descriptive qualitative research method. Because the data in this paper describes the importance of the role of educators in improving school management during the pandemic. Poor management will affect the development of schools, especially during a pandemic like today. The factor that influences the management is the backwardness of science and technology brought about by the current of globalization which results in a school having a quality performance that lacks direction, planning, and good conditioning and organization. As is happening in Indonesia today, which is experiencing problems in the world of education during the COVID-19 pandemic. In developing schools, school management is needed which will later support success in achieving the goals that have been set, but in its development it must pay attention to the principles of school management which consist of four principles, namely Equifinality, Decentralization, Self-Management System and Human Initiative.


Changes in labor productivity have been a source of puzzlement and paradoxical results for economists. We suggest that puzzles and paradoxes vanish once two simple regularities are properly acknowledged. Okun and Verdoorn's Laws explain 87 percent of all the variations in labor productivity. Also, our estimation method and our results suggest that conventional measures of Okun's Law have overestimated the value of the Okun coefficient, and accepted a greater degree of variability than is actually guaranteed by the empirical evidence. Okun's Law has been relatively stable through time, and there is no significant decrease in the value of the parameter since the 1960s.


An influence diagram is a graphical model of a Bayesian decision problem that is solved by finding a strategy that maximizes expected utility. When an influence diagram is solved by variable elimination or a related dynamic programming algorithm, it is traditional to represent a strategy as a sequence of policies, one for each decision variable, where a policy maps the relevant history for a decision to an action. We propose an alternative representation of a strategy as a graph, called a strategy graph, and show how to modify a variable elimination algorithm so that it constructs a strategy graph. We consider both a classic variable elimination algorithm for influence diagrams and a recent extension of this algorithm that has more relaxed constraints on elimination order that allow improved performance. We consider the advantages of representing a strategy as a graph and, in particular, how to simplify a strategy graph so that it is easier to interpret and analyze.


Systems with multiple sensors pose a problem of heterogeneity, i.e., different sensors have different outputs subject to the same excitation. To tackle this problem, this paper presents a calibration technique for multiple-sensor applications. An array of voltage-to-current converters, followed by a summing inverter, is employed to aggregate the responses of the system, which originated from heterogeneous sensors. The calibration method aims to normalize the output from each independent sensor, so that heterogeneity of the system, like positional error, could be reduced. The performance of the calibration technique had been tested by a prototype with multiple sensors, and the results were found to be satisfactory, which indicates that a reduction from 2% to 0.2% in positional error can be achieved. The proposed method can be implemented by adding only a minimal of passive components, which is suitable for cost-sensitive mass-production-type products.


Using a novel approach, we derive "shadow unrealized profit scores" as well as "shadow input-output prices" for each year and bank in the Turkish banking sector from 2002 to 2011. We demonstrate that these scores operationalize the Hicksian concept of "monopolistic quiet life." We show that the Turkish banking sector came closer to the "zero profit condition" over time. Similarly, the variances of "shadow prices" exhibit a significant decline over our sample period, indicating a closer approximation to the "law of one price". We conclude that there are differences in profit efficiency between banks with different ownership types and sizes. In particular, state-owned banks display the lowest inefficiency while foreign-owned banks the highest. Finally we find total asset and branch network sizes are positively related to profit efficiency, implying important scale and scope economies.


This paper describes a temperature analysis due to core and copper loss in switched reluctance motor (SRM) by both two-dimensional (2-D) and three-dimensional (3-D) finite-element analysis. The analysis is coupled with the loss distribution calculated by 2-D finite-element method. We discuss the effect of a convective heat exchange on the temperature rise. In particular, the calculation is implemented taking into account the heat transfer in the forced convection on condition that the temperature of the inside air of SRM is rising. As a result, it is clear that the consideration of temperature rise of inside air in SRM is necessary for more accurate calculations.


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Flow cytometry was used to study cell cycle recovery in X-irradiated Chinese hamster cells after action of novobiocin, an inhibitor of topoisomerase II. A prolonged treatment with 1 mM novobiocin (20-30 h) of intact cells results in the G2 + M delay. Novobiocin treatment of 5 Gy-irradiated cells results in a slight delay in cell exit from G1 into S phase and in a much longer G2-delay if compared with X-irradiated cells. These data allow to suggest an involvement of topoisomerase II in cell response to ionizing radiation.


While the majority of photoacoustic imaging systems used custom-made transducer arrays, commercially-available linear transducer arrays hold the benefits of affordable price, handheld convenience and wide clinical recognition. They are not widely used in photoacoustic imaging primarily because of the poor elevation resolution. Here, without modifying the imaging geometry and system, we propose addressing this limitation purely through image reconstruction. Our approach is based on the integration of two advanced image reconstruction techniques: focal-line-based three-dimensional image reconstruction and coherent weighting. We first numerically validated our approach through simulation and then experimentally tested it in phantom and in vivo. Both simulation and experimental results proved that the method can significantly improve the elevation resolution (up to 4 times in our experiment) and enhance object contrast.


This paper presents details of the challenges encountered when measuring 210Po and 210Pb, originally present in trace amounts in raw materials and then concentrates in the form of dusts during iron ore sintering, and validating radioanalytical methods in the absence of suitable reference materials. In-house radioanalytical methods for the measurement of these two radionuclides in a wide range of iron and steel-making materials including raw materials, waste dusts and emission samples have been developed. The methods have been validated and accredited by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) according to the International Standard Organisation (ISO) 17025.


Non-thermal plasma (NTP) is widely used in the disinfection and surface modification of biomaterials. NTP treatment can regenerate and improve skin function; however, its effectiveness on hair follicle (HF) growth and its underlying mechanisms need to be elucidated. Herein, we propose an air-based NTP treatment, which generates exogenous nitric oxide (eNO), as a therapeutic strategy for hair growth. The topical application of air-based NTP generates large amounts of eNO, which can be directly detected using a microelectrode NO sensor, in the dermis of mouse dorsal skin. Additionally, NTP-induced eNO has no cytotoxicity in normal human skin cells and promotes hair growth by increasing capillary tube formation, cellular proliferation, and hair/angiogenesis-related protein expression. Furthermore, NTP treatment promotes hair growth with adipogenesis and activation of CD34+CD44+ stem cells and improves the inter-follicular macroenvironment via increased perifollicular vascularity in the mouse hair regrowth model. Given the importance of the hair follicle (HF) cycle ratio (growth vs. regression vs. resting) in diagnosing alopecia, NTP treatment upregulates the stem cell activity of the HF to promote the anagen : catagen : telogen ratio, leading to improved hair growth. We confirmed the upregulation of increasing Wnt/β-catenin signaling and activation of perifollicular adipose tissue and angiogenesis in HF regeneration. In conclusion, these results show that the eNO from NTP enhances the cellular activities of human skin cells and endothelial cells in vitro and stem cells in vivo, thereby increasing angiogenesis, adipogenesis, and hair growth in the skin dermis. Furthermore, the results of this study suggest that NTP treatment may be a highly efficient alternative in regenerative medicine for achieving enhanced hair growth.


Abstract : In three patients with leptospirosis, improvement of clinical symptoms was closely associated with the appearance of agglutinating, complement-fixing, and hemolytic antibodies in the circulation. Elevations in the serum concentrations of IgG, IgA, and IgM were also demonstrated. In one patient, recurrence of fever and meningitis during the immune phase coincided with the appearance of agglutinins and increases in the levels of all three immunoglobulins in the spinal fluid. Ultracentrifugation of immune sera in sucrosedensity gradients showed that IgM was the predominant immunoglobulin involved in the agglutination, complement-fixation, and hemolytic tests. Although antibodies are important in the development of immunity during the septicemic phase, its role in the pathogenesis of clinical symptoms during the immune phase is still unclear.


We report a combined pressure-doping study in the nearly two-dimensional heavy fermion superconductor CeCoIn5 as its superconducting phase is driven to the normal state by Sn doping and/or applied pressure. Temperature-pressure-dependent electrical resistivity measurements were performed at the vicinity of a superconducting quantum critical point where Tc→0. A universal plot of the concentration- and pressure-dependent phase diagram suggests that for the concentrations studied a single mechanism is responsible for reducing Tc and bringing the system to the superconducting quantum critical point. A two-band model with hybridization controlled by pressure and doping provides a consistent description of the phase diagram and the suppression of the d-wave superconductivity in this material.


In previous publications, we showed that Maxwell's equations are an approximation to those of General Relativity when V<<c, where V is the velocity of the particle submitted to the electromagnetic field. This was demonstrated by showing that the Lienard-Wiechert potential four-vector A_u created by an electric charge is the equivalent of the gravitational four-vector G_u created by a massive neutral point when V<<c. In the present paper, we generalize these results for V non-restricted to be small. To this purpose, we show first that the exact Lagrange-Einstein function of an electric charge q submitted to the field due an immobile charge q_0 is of the same form as that of a particle of mass m submitted to the field created by an immobile particle of mass m_0. Maxwell's electrostatics is then generalized as a case of the Einstein's general relativity. In particular, it appears that an immobile q_0 creates also an electromagnetic horizon that behaves like a Schwarzschild horizon. Then, there exist ether gravitational waves constituted by gravitons in the same way as the electromagnetic waves are constituted by photons. Now, since A_u and G_u, are equivalent, and as we show, G_u produces the approximation, for V<<c, of g_u4 created by m_0 mobile, where the g_uv  are the components of Einstein's fundamental tensor, it follows that A_u+u_u produces the approximation, for V<<c, of Bet_u4 , where the Bet_uv created by m_0 and by q_0, generalize the g_uv.


Background and study aims: There are two types of endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) endoscope, the radial scanning (RS) and the curved linear array (CL). The type of EUS endoscope used at a first intent depends on local expertise, local habits and sometimes on how the examination is reimbursed. In Japan, RS is mainly used for observation, whereas CL is primarily used for histopathological diagnosis and treatment. We compared the imaging capabilities of RS and CL in evaluating the pancreaticobiliary region, a study which has not been performed previously. Patients and methods: This prospective and randomized trial included 200 patients undergoing endoscopic ultrasonography of the pancreaticobiliary region by RS (n = 99) or CL (n = 101). The primary end point was the basal imaging capability of each technique. Eleven pancreaticobiliary areas were assessed and scored (range, 0 – 2). Endoscopists evaluated each criterion, and a transcriber recorded the decisions in real time. Results: The mean imaging scores in the RS and CL groups were 18.39 and 19.62, respectively (significantly higher in CL, 95 %CI: 0.82 – 1.64). Although no significant difference in imaging capability for the pancreatic head, body, or tail was observed between CL and RS, the imaging capability of CL for the pancreatic head – body transition region was superior to that of RS. Although no significant difference in imaging capability for the middle and inferior bile duct or the cystic duct was observed between CL and RS, the imaging capability of RS for the major duodenal papilla and gallbladder was superior to that of CL. For the area from the hepatic portal region to the superior bile duct, the imaging capability of CL was superior. In the delineation of the branch area of the celiac and superior mesenteric arteries, CL was also superior to RS. Conclusions: The non-inferiority of the overall imaging capability of CL to that of RS was demonstrated. CL was superior in the delineation of the pancreatic head – body transition region, the area from the hepatic portal region to the superior bile duct, and the vascular bifurcation, whereas RS was superior in the delineation of the major duodenal papilla and gallbladder. Thus, for detailed evaluations of specific areas, the choice of scope should probably be considered.


Anti-cancer therapies based on synthetic lethality (SL) exploit tumor vulnerabilities for treatment with reduced side effects. Since simultaneous loss-of-function of SL genes causes cell death, tumors with known gene disruptions can be treated by targeting SL partners. Computational selection of promising SL candidates amongst all gene combinations is key to expedite experimental screening. However, current SL prediction models: (i) only use tissue type-specific molecular data, which can be scarce/noisy, limiting performance for some cancers; and (ii) often rely on shared SL patterns across genes, showing sensitivity to prevalent gene selection bias. We propose ELISL, Early-Late Integrated models for SL prediction using forest ensembles. ELISL models ignore shared SL patterns, and integrate context-specific data from cancer cell lines or tumor tissue with context-free functional associations derived from protein sequence. ELISL outperformed existing methods and was more robust to selection bias in 8 cancer types, with prominent contribution from sequence. We found better survival for patients whose tumors carried simultaneous mutations in a BRCA gene together with an ELISL-predicted SL gene from the HH, FGF, or WNT families. ELISL thus arises as a promising strategy to discover SL interactions with therapeutic potential.


Compactifications of type IIB string theory on AdS5 ⊗X5, where X5 is an Einstein space, can have one-fourth or half maximal supersymmetry for certain choices of X5. Some of these theories admit exotic domain walls arising from 5-branes wrapping 2-cycles in X5. We explore the relationship among these domain walls, fractional branes and branes stretched on intervals. World-volume fluxes in the wrapped branes play an important role in the analysis. We draw some parallels between the AdS background with exotic domain walls and N = 1 supersymmetric MQCD, and identify other extended objects on the AdS side in the dual brane construction. The process of brane creation is used to give an alternate derivation of the relationship between fractional branes and branes on intervals.


Based on Born approximation, we introduce a revised Bethe formula to calculate the excitation cross sections and rates conveniently for multi-electron atoms, whose generalized oscillator strength may have nodes and/or peaks. With the quasi-universal correction function, it can also be extended to low energy region.


The authors report on magnetotransport measurements on the solid solution Cd3(AsxP1-x)2 in stationary fields up to 17.3 T at liquid helium temperatures. The measurements are compared with those of Arushanov et al. (1982 Sov. J. Quantum Electron. 12 1256) on samples with electron concentrations about ten times higher and discussed with respect to possible models of the energy band structure. So at low carrier concentrations a four-ellipsoid model is proposed.


The literature on the activities of medical professionals during the tumultuous years of the Third Reich has, over the last decade, increased substantially. However, many questions remain unanswered and the subject is likely to receive further attention following recent access to previously restricted archival material in Eastern Europe. In this paper, based on the English language literature, the author explores the role of medicine, and in particular psychiatry, in defining the bio-medical vision that was central to Nazi ideology.


In the text-book model of dynamic Bertrand competition,
competing firms meet the same demand function every period. This is not a
satisfactory model of the demand side if consumers can make intertemporal
substitution between periods. Each period then leaves some residual demand
to future periods, and consumers who observe price under-cutting may correctly
anticipate an ensuing price war and therefore postpone their purchases.
Accordingly, the interaction between the firms no longer constitutes a repeated
game, and hence falls outside the domain of the usual Folk theorems.
We analyze collusive pricing in such situations, and study cases when consumers
have perfect and imperfect foresight and varying degrees of patience.
It turns out that collusion against patient and forward-looking consumers is
easier to sustain than collusion in the text-book model.


As recent experience all too clearly demonstrates, liquid markets do not exist for all financial assets at all times. In some respects, this can be thought of as a market failure. This paper addresses how best to promote asset market liquidity given this market failure, and the appropriate balance between the private and public sectors in establishing arrangements for dealing with liquidity problems. There are three main conclusions. First, improvements in the financial infrastructure – including arrangements for disclosure and post-trade processing – have a role to play in limiting the sharp rise in information asymmetries that can occur when conditions in financial markets are strained and at turning points in the financial cycle. Second, recent events have shown up shortcomings in the way that financial institutions manage their own liquidity, and these shortcomings need addressing. Third, it may be welfare-improving for the public sector to provide liquidity services when liquidity is strained. The central bank can smooth liquidity over the cycle, and the public sector can facilitate the change of ownership of assets from a troubled institution, which in extremis may include the public sector buying assets outright. If the public sector does actively provide liquidity services, then arrangements need to be put in place to ensure that the potential welfare gains from doing so are not undermined by financial institutions taking on greater risk than is warranted.


Summary form only given. The problem of searching for approximate occurrences of a pattern in a set of strings is called the approximate string searching problem. The recent interest in this problem comes from DNA sequence analysis: whenever a sequence investigator determines a new sequence, one of the first things he must do is to compare it with all available sequences to see if it resembles something already known. The authors provide a data structure for approximate string searching and discuss the searching algorithm.<<ETX>>


Jejunal diverticulosis is generally considered to be an innocuous condition, but serious complications can arise and lead to acute or chronic syndromes. In this report, we describe a case of jejunal diverticulitis presenting with an abdominal wall abscess. To our knowledge, this is the first documented case of jejunal diverticulitis complicated by fistula formation leading to the development of an abdominal wall abscess. Because jejunal diverticula generally localize at the mesenteric border and their perforation tends to result in intra-abdominal abscess formation, we speculate that the abdominal wall abscess described in our case here was due to adhesions of jejunal loops to the abdominal wall secondary to previous abdominal surgeries.


BACKGROUND: Gravad fish belong to a group of low-processed products obtained from fresh fish by rubbing fillets with a mixture of sugar and salt and then placing them in cold storage. Little is known about changes in the tissue during the production and storage of gravads. The aim of the present study was to investigate the microstructural and textural changes in rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) gravad during processing and vacuum storage at 3 °C and −30 °C.

RESULTS: Microscopic observations of gravad showed greater compactness of structure when compared with raw trout muscle, characterised by the disappearance of the divisions between adjoining myofibrils in gravad. Freezing, on the other hand, caused the myofibrils to again become more clearly distinguishable despite being partly agglomerated into lamellae. The above changes in structure were accompanied by changes in the textural and rheological properties of the product. It was observed that the texture profile (TPA) changed, resulting in an increase in the cohesiveness and chewiness of the gravads when compared to the raw fillets. There was also a lowering of stress decay during the relaxation test and a decrease in the value of the storage modulus (G′) as analysed by oscillatory rheometry. Further changes observed during storage were mainly concerned with an increase in the hardness and chewiness of gravads.

CONCLUSION: Gravading significantly changes the rainbow trout fillets by making the microstructure more compact. This process is accompanied by changes in texture and rheological properties, which next are running during the storage of a chilled or frozen product. These changes are significant enough for potential consumers to be made aware of the fact that the texture of the product changes considerably during its shelf life. Copyright © 2009 Society of Chemical Industry


Abstract –Global change will cause species range shifts, affecting species interactions. The 13 conservation implications of species range shifts are widely unknown. Through forming an 14 ecology-bioinformatics partnership at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center-Encyclopedia 15 of Life-Biodiversity Heritage Library Research Sprint, we developed an analytical pipeline to 16 test whether global trends are forcing shifts of mutually dependent species in different spatial 17 directions. We calculated potential overlap between dependent species across climate scenarios 18 within protected areas. We selected the Great Green Macaw (Ara ambiguus) and its nesting host 19 tree the Giant Almendro (Dipteryx panamensis) as a proof-of-concept species pair that will be 20 affected by range shifts. We demonstrate with modeling that the Great Green Macaw will lose 21 approximately 64.0% of suitable habitat in future scenarios, while the Giant Almendro will lose 22 59.7% of suitable habitat. Species habitat overlaps across 85.3 % of its currently predicted 23 distribution and 69.07% of the remaining habitat predicted in future scenarios. After accounting 24 for spatially explicit protected areas networks, only 20.3% and 40.2 % of remaining habitat 25 persists within protected areas across climate scenarios for the Almendro and Macaw, 26 respectively, and 19.9 % of that habitat overlaps between the species. Currently, we are 27 conducting a literature review to select and expand our list of species for use in the pipeline to 28 detect trends for climate readiness planning in protected areas networks. The analytical pipeline 29 will produce habitat suitability maps for multiple climate scenarios based on current 30 distributions, and these maps will potentially be embedded into the Encyclopedia of Life as free, 31 downloadable files. This is just one of several broader impact products from the research. This 32 work demonstrates that modeling the future distribution of species is limited by biotic 33 interactions and that conservation planning should account for climate change scenarios. 34 35


Coding algorithms usually compress independently the images of a collection, in particular when the correlation between them only resides at the semantic level, i.e., information related to the high-level image content. In this work, we propose a coding solution able to exploit this semantic redundancy to decrease the storage cost of data collections. First we introduce the multi-item compression framework. Then we derive a loss term to shape the latent space of a variational auto-encoder so that the latent vectors of semantically identical images can be aligned. Finally, we experimentally demonstrate that this alignment leads to a more compact representation of the data collection.


This paper presents an extension to a very low-resource parallel corpus collected in an endangered language, Griko, making it useful for computational research. The corpus consists of 330 utterances (about 2 hours of speech) which have been transcribed and translated in Italian, with annotations for word-level speech-to-transcription and speech-to-translation alignments. The corpus also includes morpho syntactic tags and word-level glosses. Applying an automatic unit discovery method, pseudo-phones were also generated. We detail how the corpus was collected, cleaned and processed, and we illustrate its use on zero-resource tasks by presenting some baseline results for the task of speech-to-translation alignment and unsupervised word discovery. The dataset will be available online, aiming to encourage replicability and diversity in computational language documentation experiments.


Mineral assemblages of fissure veins in pelitic rocks are a consistent function of metamorphic grade within a 1,700 km 2 area in and near Dutchess County, New York. The following vein assemblages are cb-served with increasing grade: quartz and quartz-calcite up to just above the staurolite isograd, with limited occurrence of quarrz-albite below the biotite isograd; quartz and quartz-plagioclase (An 20 to An 50 ) from the staurolite isograde up to the sillimanite-orthoclase isograd; and quartz, quartz-plagioclase, and quartz-plagioclase-orthoclase above the sillimanite-orthoclase isograd. Extreme deformation makes relative crosscutting relations of veins difficult to determine; however, late quartz veins are fairly common, and late quartz-calcite veins are seen in high-grade rocks near marble contacts. A tentative conclusion is that quartz and quartz-calcite, quartz-plagioclase, and quartz-plagioclase-orthoclase veins form in pelitic rocks at successively higher metamorphic grades from material derived from the surrounding matrix. This may happen during prograde and retrograde metamorphism and during successive metamorphic events.


This report addresses the total energy advantage of public transportation, considering both auto and transit energy consumption as well as residential energy consumption and residential mix. The relative modal efficiencies, spatial structure, and residential energy consumption are considered in some detail. The focus is on petroleum-based energy. Regional variations are noted.


s: The aim of the present study was to understand the effect of cold and i.c.v glucagon administration on plasma catecholamine. Cold exposure (+4°C) induces a 42% increase of arteriel plasma norepinephrine (NE) in thermoneutral (TN) ducklings. Thus, cold has a stimulatory effect on the sympathetic nervous system (SNS). 15min after i.c.v glucagon injection plasma epinephrine (E) increase in TN ducklings, (74%) whereas NE concentration decrease (23%) only in TN. Plasma NE remained in glucagon treated (GT). Injection of glucagon causes a decrease in heart rate (HR) in TN duckling whereas it has no effect on GT ducklings. In conclusion, large increase in E levels in TN ducklings may be due to a massive release of adrenal catecholamine in response to cold and i.c.v glucagon administration. Treatment with glucagon twice daily rendered ducks possibly insensitive to the effect of i.c.v glucagon injection.


The aim of this study was to investigate the cerebrovascular adaptability to 2 sequential pressor stimuli in elderly patients with isolated systolic hypertension. Ten healthy elderly normotensive subjects (68 to 82 years), 10 elderly subjects with isolated systolic hypertension (63 to 82 years), and 10 young normotensive subjects (24 to 40 years) took part in the study. A pressor reaction, using sequential cold pressor and handgrip stimulation, was induced. The cerebrovascular response to the pressor stimulation was measured by transcranial Doppler determination of the mean flow velocity in the middle cerebral arteries. In all of the subjects, blood pressure increased during handgrip (+12 mm Hg, P<0.001 in the young; +18 mm Hg, P<0.01 in the elderly normotensive subjects; +19 mm Hg, P<0.001 in the hypertensive patients versus baseline). In the hypertensive subjects, the pressure increase persisted well into the recovery period. The pressure increase caused a significant increase in mean flow velocity in the middle cerebral arteries only in the elderly subjects. Cold pressor test increased blood pressure in all of the subjects during stimulation and the first 2 minutes of the recovery period (at whole-curve ANOVA: F=22.03, P<0.001 in the young participants; F=18.3, P<0.001 in the normotensive elderly; and F=13.04, P<0.001 in the hypertensive elderly). Mean flow velocity in the middle cerebral arteries significantly increased only in the hypertensive subjects. In the elderly hypertensive patients, the cerebrovascular reaction to adrenergic stimuli was more impaired than in the elderly normotensive subjects. This event can amplify the pressure insult on cerebral hemodynamics and increase the predisposition to cerebral damage, such as vascular cognitive impairment or stroke.


Olive leaves are considered to have great potential as natural sources of antioxidants and phenolic compounds. In this study, dried olive leaves were extracted using four different solvents (water, methanol, ethanol, and 80:20(v/v) methanol-water) with ultrasonic-assisted extraction. The biochemical (total phenolics and flavonoids, total protein, free amino acids, total soluble, and reducing sugars) and antioxidant activities (CUPRAC, DPPH, FRAP, and FIC) of these extracts were evaluated. Total phenolics content was significantly affected by the different solvents and the highest total phenolics content was obtained in methanol-water (234 mg g-1) extraction. The highest total flavonoid (47 mg g-1) and total protein (5.1 mg g-1) content were obtained in methanol extraction. Yield of the free amino acids was lowest in ethanol (1.5 mg g-1), while it was highest in water (2.3 mg g-1) and methanol-water (2.2 mg g-1) extractions. The highest total soluble sugars were obtained from methanol-water (70.4 mg g-1) and ethanol (65.4 mg g-1) extractions, while the highest total reducing sugar contents were obtained from methanol (112.2 mg g-1) and methanol-water (111.6 mg g-1). While methanol-water extraction showed the highest antioxidant capacity with 0.63 mmol TR g-1 CUPRAC value, it also showed the strongest radical scavenging activity with 1.09 mmol TR g-1 DPPH radicals value and 0.065 mmol TR g-1 FRAP potential value. FIC capacity was higher in water than in other solvent extraction methods. Methanol and methanol-water solvents were the most effective solvents for measuring phenolic and antioxidant activities in olive leaves.


AKIN, OZDEMIR. Active Queue Management and Scheduling Methods for Packet-Switched Networks (under the supervision of Dr. J. Keith Townsend) To support the myriad of envisioned communication products of the future, there is a need to develop a network infrastructure that can provide larger bandwidth, with better control of quality of service (QoS). However, with increasing demand for applications running over packet networks, congestion at the intermediate nodes (e.g., routers and switches) can be a serious problem. Consequences include long delays, large delay variation and high packet loss rates. Different solutions requiring varying levels of modification to the currently used algorithms have been proposed both for responsive (e.g., TCP) and unresponsive (e.g., UDP) protocols. However, most of the solutions are either too complicated to implement in real life or not general enough to be applicable to an arbitrary network topology. In this thesis, we investigate two mechanisms — active queue management (AQM), and scheduling — that can improve QoS in the packet networks. AQM techniques attempt to prevent congestion and regulate the queue length by sending congestion signals (i.e., dropping and/or marking packets) in a proactive manner, which would eventually cause the senders to decrease their sending rates. We use an analytic model derived for TCP in the literature to develop an AQM scheme that not only controls the queue length at the intermediate nodes but also distributes the resources fairly between the users. We present two different schemes that have different levels of complexity and performance. We also propose a distributed networking scheme that improves the performance of our new AQM algorithms. Although AQM schemes work well with responsive protocols such as TCP, the performance degrades for unresponsive protocols since unresponsive protocols do not change their packet sending rate in response to the congestion notifications sent by the network. Scheduling algorithms can regulate both responsive and unresponsive flows and can also provide guarantees on some QoS parameters, such as latency and fairness. We propose a new scheduling algorithm that can guarantee a better latency and fairness bound than the previous schemes with a similar complexity. This new scheme uses different queues for each round to simplify the common sorting problem with the scheduling schemes. Also a new notion, virtual round, is used to time-stamp incoming packets. Active Queue Management and Scheduling Methods for Packet-Switched Networks


Abstract Small molecule inhibitors, including B-cell receptor antagonists and B-cell lymphoma - 2 inhibitors, have revolutionized the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). These agents have improved outcomes for patients of all prognostic backgrounds, thus securing their role in the frontline setting. Impressive activity has been demonstrated both with monotherapy and in combination with other targeted therapeutics. The most important remaining question is whether to administer small molecule inhibitors in a sequential fashion or in combination with each other and/or anti-CD20–directed therapy. Together, a number of retrospective and prospective clinical trials have provided insight into patient outcomes with different sequencing and combination strategies. While rituximab does not appear to provide significant additional benefit to ibrutinib, the incorporation of venetoclax appears to enable a deeper response and allow for a shorter duration of therapy. How durable of a response this produces and whether patients can be effectively retreated with venetoclax remain unclear. As various targeted therapy doublets and triplets are explored, it is important to investigate whether they produce significant long-term benefits over monotherapy and whether these approaches are appropriate for all patients.


We have used relativistic Convergent Close-Coupling method to perform calculations of electron scattering from cesium and gallium atoms. Differential, integrated and ionization cross sections and spin asymmetries have been calculated from 1 to 500 eV and compared with available experimental data and results of other calculations.


Leveraging an existing community health strategy, a contact tracing intervention was piloted under routine programmatic conditions at three facilities in Kisumu County, Kenya. Data collected during a 6-month period were compared to existing programmatic data. After implementation of the intervention, we found enhanced programmatic contact tracing practices, noting an increase in the proportions of index cases traced, symptomatic contacts referred, referred contacts presenting to a facility for tuberculosis screening, and eligible contacts started on isoniazid preventive therapy. As contact tracing is scaled up, health ministries should consider the adoption of similar contact tracing interventions to improve contact tracing practices.


The production of biofuels is considered to be a promising energy source for a sustainable energy mix and it is politically promoted in many countries. While many studies focus on the impacts of biofuels on direct and indirect land use change as well as the resulting greenhouse gas emissions and food prices, the effects on energy markets have mostly been neglected. Furthermore, most studies concentrate on the European and US biofuel mandates, ignoring the impacts of biofuel mandates in other countries around the world, such as those in Brazil, Argentina and India, which definitively influence the global demand and supply of biofuels. Therefore, this paper aims to analyse price changes in agricultural and energy sectors under a gradual and simultaneous implementation of national biofuel targets. Biofuel production is not only driven by government mandates, high oil prices or efforts to mitigate climate change but also by the availability and competition for arable land, which is highly influenced by demographic pressure. To capture the complex interactions between these global economic drivers, we use the new version of the Dynamic Applied Regional Trade (DART) model, which is a recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model capable to analyse the economy-wide impacts of land use changes on a global scale. The results highlight the central role of key parameters to be considered when modelling land use and first generation biofuels and their impact on agricultural and energy markets. The results suggest that a partial analysis of national biofuel targets and mandates lead to different outcomes and may underestimate the worldwide impact of biofuel policies. Land use changes and substitution of fossil energy sources with biofuels induced by national biofuel quotas have significant direct and indirect effects across sectors and countries. Domestic and world food and energy markets react inducing changes in regional welfare.


Rising health care costs have been an issue for decades, yet federal-level health care reform hasn't happened. Support for reform, however, has changed. Purchasers fear that health care cost growth is becoming unaffordable. Research on costs and quality is questioning value. International comparisons rank the United States low on important health system performance measures. Yet it is not these factors but the unsustainable costs of Medicare and Medicaid that will narrow the window for health care stakeholders to shape policy. Unless the health care system is effectively reformed, sometime after the 2008 election, budget hawks and national security experts will eventually combine forces to cut health spending, ultimately determining health policy for the nation.


SummaryCanine mammary tumors (CMTs) have been proposed to be a good animal model for human breast cancer. To provide a basis for the tumorigenic study of CMTs, cell lines were established using a modified cell culture technique. The epithelial morphology and immunostaining with cytokeratin 18 confirmed the epithelial origin of the cells. In an investigation of possible mammary tumorigenesis-related factors, the expression of Wnt signaling-related proteins was detected in cell lines. Secreted frizzled-related protein 2 (SFRP2) was abundantly expressed in CMT cells but not in normal canine mammary gland (MG) cells. Secrted frizzled-related protein 2 was secreted into the culture medium and was associated with the extracellular matrix. In addition, increased expressions of β-catenin and cyclin D1 were observed in cells overexpressing SFRP2. The marked differential expression of SFRP2 reveals that this protein may be a potential candidate marker for CMTs. The CMT cell line established in this study provides a useful tool and experimental model for understanding both the tumorigenesis of CMTs and the role of Wnt signaling in cancers.


Uniform fiber coverage and low surface roughness are typical characteristics of premium-coated paperboard. In a competitive market situation, papermakers have to make the best compromise between these two characteristics, since the former requires contour coating and the latter demands a more leveling coating process. This article demonstrates the possibility to obtain substantial improvements in print quality by simply changing the coating leveling elements (rods or blades) on a conventional coating head, without any costly investments. The most common leveling elements for coating of paperboard, namely smooth rods and steel blades (running in bent mode), are here compared to soft-tipped DUROBLADE and systematically evaluated in different combinations for pre-coat and topcoat operations. The measurement results of coating surface roughness, gloss and brightness have been evaluated and compared with the actual print quality. Somewhat astonishingly, and perhaps unexpected for many in the paper industry, the relationship between measured PPS, gloss and/or brightness is quite a poor indicator for the rating of printability and of the visual appreciation of the printed sheets. The used materials and methods, together with the trial conditions and resulting values are all described and presented in this article.


International data on pediatric caries epidemiology confirms that tooth decay remains a significant and consequential disease of childhood that is increasingly localized in a subset of at-risk children in both developing and developed countries. A conceptual schema is presented to characterize the occurrence of caries in child populations, and observations are made regarding the countervailing impact of simple sugars and fluoride in these populations. Temporal changes in caries distribution suggest that targeted dental caries management protocols are increasingly indicated to more effectively manage the particular risk and caries activity of individual children. Criteria for successful protocols are discussed in light of both caries pathogenesis and international recommendations to improve children's oral health.


Two cases of increased intracranial pressure associated with lumbar intraspinal tumours are reported. On the basis of protein investigations and constant flow infusion manometric tests, the pathophysiology of the increased intracranial pressure is discussed. It is demonstrated that protein macromolecules leak from the tumour into the cerebrospinal fluid and suggested that these are responsible for mechanical obstruction of the outflow channels for the cerebrospinal fluid.


The aspects of spatial planning have been aimed at supporting older people to stay healthy and active in their daily lives, as well as to improve their overall quality of life. Older people require accessible and functional venues and social environments that suit their emotional needs and goals. However, there has been limited study on the most significant characteristics of residential settings that impact the well-being of elderly inhabitants. This study aims to provide a comprehensive review of neighborhood residential environment elements and various Quality of Life (QOL) attributes, as well as their interrelationships, to encourage healthy aging. A framework for analyzing neighborhood features was developed as part of this critical analysis through extensive analysis of chosen articles. According to the review, social life is the most influential component of QOL, followed by neighborhood living settings and housing layouts that promote mobility features to participate in physical activities, generating a feeling of community and belonging and leading to a healthy life. Further research should be conducted to investigate the influence of these characteristics on the overall satisfaction level of the elderly in later life.

http://www.pertanika.upm.edu.my/resources/files/Pertanika PAPERS/JSSH Vol. 30 (4) Dec. 2022/05 JSSH-8549-2021.pdf


Objective The aims of this project were 1) to assess the validity of a surveillance case definition for identifying heroin overdoses (HOD) in a NEMSIS 3–compliant, state ambulance reporting system; and 2) to develop an approach that can be applied to assess the validity of case definitions for other types of drug overdose events in similar data state data systems. Introduction In 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funded 12 states, under the Enhanced State Opioid Overdose Surveillance (ESOOS) program, to utilize state Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and emergency department (ED) syndromic surveillance (SyS) data systems to increase timeliness of state data on drug overdoses. A key aspect of the ESOOS program is the development and validation of case definitions for drug overdoses for EMS and ED SyS data systems. Kentucky's ESOOS team conducted a pilot validation study of a candidate EMS case definition for HOD, using data from the Kentucky State Ambulance Reporting System (KStARS). We examined internal, face validity of the EMS HOD case definition by reviewing pertinent information captured in KStARS data elements; and we examined external agreement with HOD cases identified Kentucky's statewide hospital billing database. Methods From KStARS, we extracted EMS emergent transports by any ambulance service to hospitals in a single, large health care system in Kentucky. We included responses with dispatch dates between January 1, 2017 and March 31, 2017. From Kentucky's statewide hospital claims data system, we extracted inpatient discharges, ED visits and observational stays at the destination hospitals, with admit dates in the same range. We classified EMS cases as HOD based on specific combinations of the following criteria for EMS data elements: primary or secondary provider impression of heroin poisoning (T40.1X4), heroin-related keywords in the patient care narrative or chief complaint, and patient's response to naloxone as indicated in the medications list 1 . We used standard drug overdose case definitions for ICD-10-CM-coded hospital billing data 2 to classify hospital records from the destination facilities to the same categories. We produced descriptive analyses of the heroin overdose cases detected in both data sources, EMS and hospital. To assess the degree of overlap in the HOD cases identified by the two data systems, we matched the identified EMS HOD cases against the entire set of UKHC hospital cases. Finally, we assessed the validity of the classification of EMS cases as heroin overdoses by reviewing the EMS patient care narratives and related EMS data elements, as well as the ICD-10-CM hospital diagnostic codes for cases that matched to a hospital record. Results We identified 5,517 emergent EMS transports to the destination hospitals in the first quarter of 2017. Of these, 94 (17/1,000) were identified by our case definition as a HOD. We identified 29,631 unduplicated, emergent encounters at the destination hospitals (including inpatient discharges, ED visits, and observational stays; and excluding elective and newborn encounters). Of these, 105 (3.5/1,000) included a diagnostic code for HOD. Linkage of EMS and hospital cases indicated that 141 unique HOD cases were identified in the two files combined. Of these, 58 (41%) were identified as HOD in both systems. 23 HOD cases identified in EMS were matched to a hospital record that had no mention of a HOD; and 13 could not be matched to a hospital record. Additionally, 47 HOD cases identified in the destination hospitals were not matched to an EMS transport to those destination facilities. Overall, 76 out of the 94 (81%) EMS cases identified as heroin overdoses were judged likely to be true heroin overdoses, as indicated by either 1) positive response to naloxone and patient admission of recent heroin use, or 2) hospital diagnosis of heroin overdose, or both. For 2% of identified cases, there was evidence of a false positive finding. The remaining 17% of identified heroin cases were inconclusive: there was information suggestive of opioid overdose, but no clear evidence to suggest, nor to rule out, that the opioid was heroin. Generally, inconclusive cases were identified as heroin overdoses due to positive response to naloxone, combined with mention of the word "heroin" in the narrative that did not indicate an HOD. Examples of the latter include negations (patient denies heroin use) or a bystander who stated that the patient had a history of heroin use. Conclusions We assessed the performance of a straightforward case definition for heroin overdose for EMS data. Face validity of 81% of identified heroin overdoses was supported by clerical review of EMS records and/or hospital ICD-10-CM diagnostic codes. Some proportion of the other 19% of cases that were identified as heroin overdoses may have been overdoses involving opioids other than heroin, but we could not quantify that proportion based on the available information. Future work will consider sensitivity (true heroin overdoses that may fail to be captured by this case definition) and refinements to the basic definition that may yield improved results. Lessons learned from this pilot project will inform subsequent, larger-scale validation studies for EMS drug overdose case definitions. References 1. Rhode Island Enhanced State Opioid Overdose Surveillance (ESOOS). Case Definition for Emergency Medical Services. Aug 2017. 2. Injury Surveillance Workgroup 7. Consensus Recommendations for National and State Poisoning Surveillance. The Safe States Alliance. Atlanta, GA. April 2012.


Hub facility location problems involve the establishment of strategic hub facilities and allocation of demand nodes to them. Meanwhile, with the emergence of new transport and distribution networks with multi-level structures, the design of such networks has been evolved. The diversity in transportation system has added multimodality to these problems. Considering the strategic nature and long-term implications of decision-making in this field, the decisions shall be of high reliability. The present study is an attempt to consider reliability of communication paths in proportion to the volume of transaction through them while covering all of the above-mentioned issues in hub location problems at the same time. Incorporating hierarchical characteristics of the problem into the model, one can obtained a significantly enhanced model in terms of multimodality and reliability. A Lagrangian solution method was developed considering the strategic level of the problem and the importance of the solution accuracy. The model was then validated in terms of time and quality.


ABSTRACT The RecA protein in its functional state is in complex with single-stranded DNA, i.e., in the form of a RecA filament. In SOS induction, the RecA filament functions as a coprotease, enabling the autodigestion of the LexA repressor. The RecA filament can be formed by different mechanisms, but all of them require three enzymatic activities essential for the processing of DNA double-stranded ends. These are helicase, 5′–3′ exonuclease, and RecA loading onto single-stranded DNA (ssDNA). In some mutants, the SOS response can be expressed constitutively during the process of normal DNA metabolism. The RecA730 mutant protein is able to form the RecA filament without the help of RecBCD and RecFOR mediators since it better competes with the single-strand binding (SSB) protein for ssDNA. As a consequence, the recA730 mutants show high constitutive SOS expression. In the study described in this paper, we studied the genetic requirements for constitutive SOS expression in recA730 mutants. Using a β-galactosidase assay, we showed that the constitutive SOS response in recA730 mutants exhibits different requirements in different backgrounds. In a wild-type background, the constitutive SOS response is partially dependent on RecBCD function. In a recB1080 background (the recB1080 mutation retains only helicase), constitutive SOS expression is partially dependent on RecBCD helicase function and is strongly dependent on RecJ nuclease. Finally, in a recB-null background, the constitutive SOS expression of the recA730 mutant is dependent on the RecJ nuclease. Our results emphasize the importance of the 5′–3′ exonuclease for high constitutive SOS expression in recA730 mutants and show that RecBCD function can further enhance the excellent intrinsic abilities of the RecA730 protein in vivo.


Until recently, interpretation of seismic data in the workstation environment has been restricted primarily to horizon and attribute maps. Interpreters have not had the ability to make various types of notations on seismic data and subsequent map views as has been done for years on paper. New thinking in the industry is leading to the development of software which provides the geoscientist with a broader range of interpretive functionality on seismic and subsequent map views. This new functionality reduces the tedious bookkeeping tasks associated with seismic sequence stratigraphy and facies analysis. Interpreters may now perform stratigraphic analysis in more detail in less time by employing the power of the interpretive workstation. A data set over a deep-water fan illustrates the power of this technology.


Nonequilibrium radiation diffusion problems are described by the coupled radiation diffusion and material conduction equations. Because of the highly nonlinear, strong discontinuous, and tightly coupled phenomena, solving this kind of problems is a challenge. We construct two finite volume element schemes for the equations. One of them is monotone on many kinds of meshes, which is proved theoretically and verified by numerical tests. The other one is hard to satisfy the monotonicity, but this defect can be corrected by different repair techniques. Numerical results show that these new methods are practical and efficient on distorted meshes.Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Successes of law enforcement in apprehending offenders are often publicized events. Such events have been found to result in temporary reductions in offending, or "residual deterrence". We provide a theory of residual deterrence which accounts for the incentives of both enforcement officials and potential offenders. We do so by introducing to a standard inspection framework costs that must be incurred to commence enforcement. Such costs in practice include hiring specialized staff, undertaking targeted research and coordinating personnel. We illustrate how our model can be used to address a number of policy questions regarding the optimal design of enforcement authorities. JEL classification: C73, K42


This paper describes a model which can predict the temperatures on the cavity surfaces of a die. The time varying boundary conditions are averaged so that the process can be modelled as a steady state problem. Since the model considers only thin components, it is reasonable to assume that the melt has totally solidified before ejection, and therefore the quantity of heat energy entering the die over the casting cycle can be estimated. This and other assumptions relating to the boundary conditions also enable the value of thermal resistance between the melt and the die to be estimated.

Under certain conditions, subcooled nucleate boiling takes place in the cooling channels of the die. An iterative procedure is used to take account of this, which involves the repeated calculation of global heat transfer coefficients for the cooling channels, with the criteria that the total energy transferred through the channels is equal to that transferred due to boiling and convection.

The boundary element method is used to predict the cavity temperatures. In die casting, only the temperatures on the cavity surfaces are of interest since the surface quality of a component is related significantly to the temperature distribution over the cavity. Since only thin components are considered herein, it is not necessary to model the solidifcation process and discretize the cast. These factors make the BEM ideally suited for the work described in this paper.

To verify the model, the predicted temperatures for two components are compared with experimental values measured using thermocouples and a thermal imaging camera. It was found that there is fairly good agreement between the two sets of results.


We evaluated the main characteristics of 929 consecutive patients with chronic hepatitis B (HBV) and/or C (HCV) virus infection, who represented 79% (929/1177) of patients seen at our liver clinics between 2002-2007 Of the 929 patients,437 (47%) had chronic HBV infection, 485 (52%) chronic HCV infection and 7 (1%) chronic HBV and HCV co-infection from period A (2002-2004) to B (2005-2007), there was a trend for decrease in chronic HBV cases (50.4% vs 44.7%,P=0.10) with immigrants being responsible for 36.4% (Albanians:26.3%) of them and being more frequent in period B than A (30.6% vs 41.5%, P=0.022). In chronic hepatitis B (CHB), HBeAg-positive patients, who were more frequently immigrants than HBeAg-negative CHB patients (65.5% vs 29.5%, P<0.001), increased from period A to B (8.0% vs 17.6%, P=0.045). Intravenous drug use was reported by 41.2% of chronic HCV patients with its proportion increasing from period A to B (32.5% vs 47.4%, P=0.001). In conclusion, chronic viral hepatitis is still responsible for the majority (almost 80%0 of patients seen at Greek tertiary centers. Chronic HCV infection seems to represent the commonest cause mainly maintained by increasing numbers of intravenous drug users. There is a trend for decrease of patients with chronic HBV infection with an increasing proportion of immigrants,mostly Albanians, which results in increasing rates of HBeAg-positive CHB. Chronic hepatitis B (HBV) and C (HCV) virus infections represent two of the most common aetiologies of chronic liver diseases with their relative prevalence ranging widely from country to country.1Two to three decades ago, Greece was considered as a country of intermediate HBV endemicity with an overall prevalence of chronic HBV infection of 3-5%,2 but more recent studies demonstrated a reduction of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) prevalence to below 3%.3-6 In the nineties and after the development of reliable assays for the detection of antibodies against HCV (anti-HCV), Greece was found to be a country of relatively low HCV endemicity with an overall anti-HCV prevalence of below 2%.4,7 However, additional studies have shown that the anti-HCV prevalence is substantially higher exceeding 10% in some geographic areas8 and specific highrisk groups.9 The burden of a chronic disease on the health care system depends not only on the prevalence of this disease in the general population but on the proportion of diagnosed patients as well. The burden of a chronic disease on tertiary centers also depends on the proportion of diagnosed patients who are referred from the primary care setting. In Greece, the majority of chronic HBV and HCV patients are referred to tertiary centers for two main reasons: first, the initial confirmation of diagnosis that may require sophisticated laboratory methods or even liver biopsy cannot be made in the primary care, and second, all types of therapy for such patients are initiated at tertiary centers. In addition, many chronic HBV or HCV patients are directly seen at the outpatient clinics of tertiary centers without previous visits at primary care physicians. To date, the burden of chronic HBV and HCV infections at Greek tertiary centers, which may reflect most of the burden of these diseases in Greece has not been studied. Moreover, the effects of possible epidemiological changes associated with several factors including the arrival of great numbers of immigrants from countries of higher HBV and HCV endemicity have not been systematically examined. The aim of this retrospective study was to evaluate the burden and possible epidemiological changes of patients with the chronic HBV or HCV infection seen at our outpatient liver clinics during the last six years. In addition, changes in the use of invasive diagnostic procedures, such as liver biopsy, were also determined.


New filmmaking practices within European art cinema are responding to current socio-political realities of the European crisis with new cinematic images of the human body. Particularly since 2009, a group of young directors from Greece has produced a number of independent films that feature grotesque characters embedded within plots of comic absurdity. Dogtooth (Lanthimos, 2009), Attenberg (Tsangaris, 2010) and Alps (Lanthimos, 2011) are by now the core of what has been coined outside Greece "The New Weird Cinema".This thesis offers an aesthetic analysis of the films Dogtooth, Attenberg and Alps in the conceptualization of the weird body as a new image of the human body in contemporary arthouse cinema. It aims at introducing the weird body as a cinematic trope with which to address lived experience in the shadow of a contemporary societal crisis. In order to sustain its political and aesthetic power, this study will bring Deleuze and Guattari's theory of the body in dialogue with the phenomenological approaches of Vivian Sobchack and Laura U. Marks.


The receptor tyrosine kinase RET is implicated in the progression of luminal breast cancers (BC) but its role in estrogen receptor (ER) negative tumors is unknown. Here we investigated the expression of RET in breast cancer patients tumors and patient‐derived xenografts (PDX) and evaluated the therapeutic potential of Vandetanib, a tyrosin kinase inhibitor with strong activity against RET, EGFR and VEGFR2, in ER negative breast cancer PDX. The RT‐PCR analysis of RET expression in breast tumors of 446 patients and 57 PDX, showed elevated levels of RET in ER+ and HER2+ subtypes and in a small subgroup of triple‐negative breast cancers (TNBC). The activity of Vandetanib was tested in vivo in three PDX models of TNBC and one model of HER2+ BC with different expression levels of RET and EGFR. Vandetanib induced tumor regression in PDX models with high expression of RET or EGFR. The effect was associated with inhibition of RET/EGFR phosphorylation and MAP kinase pathway and increased necrosis. In a PDX model with no expression of RET nor EGFR, Vandetanib slowed tumor growth without inducing tumor regression. In addition, treatment by Vandetanib decreased expression of murine Vegf receptors and the endothelial marker Cd31 in the four PDX models tested, suggesting inhibition of tumor vascularization. In summary, these preclinical results suggest that Vandetanib treatment could be useful for patients with ER negative breast cancers overexpressing Vandetanib's main targets.


Mechanistic features of cholesterol esterase catalyzed hydrolysis of two thiophospholipids, rac-1-(hexanoylthio)-2-hexanoyl-3-glycerophosphorylcholine (6TPC) and rac-1-(decanoylthio)-2-decano-yl-3-glycerophosphorylcholine (10TPC), have been characterized. The hydrolysis of 10TPC that is contained in mixed micelles with Triton X-100 occurs strictly at the micellar interface, since the reaction rate is independent of the micelle concentration but depends hyperbolically on the mole fraction of the substrate in the micelles. This latter observation allows one to calculate the interfacial kinetic parameters V*max and K*m. The hydrolyses of 10TPC and p-nitrophenyl butyrate are similarly inhibited by the transition state analogue inhibitor phenyl-n-butylborinic acid, and therefore, physiological and nonphysiological substrates are processed at the same active site. The similarity of k*cat values for the acyl-similar substrates 10TPC and p-nitrophenyl decanoate indicates that the phospholipase A1 activity of cholesterol esterase is partially rate limited by turnover of a decanoyl-enzyme intermediate. Solvent isotope effects on V*max and V*max/K*m (which monitors acylation only) are approximately 2-3 and are consistent with transition states that are stabilized by general acid-base proton transfers. Proton inventories of V*max/K*m indicate that simultaneous proton transfers stabilize the acylation transition state, which requires a multifunctional acid-base machinery (perhaps a charge-relay system) in the cholesterol esterase active site. Similar results are obtained for the 6TPC reaction, both in the presence and absence of Triton X-100 micelles.


The effects of body condition at calving on milk yield, milk composition, lactation curve and body tissue mobilization patterns were evaluated in Holstein cows. Thirteen primiparous and 38 multiparous cows were assigned body condition scores at calving (BCC). Those with BCC equal to or greater than 3.25 were assigned to class 1; while those with BCC less than 3.25 constituted class 2. These BCC classes did not affect milk yield, milk composition (except for fat percentage) or lactation curve significantly in primiparous cows. In multiparous cows, however, class 1 individuals had higher total milk yield, higher peak milk yield, higher milk composition percentages and more effective mobilization of body tissue reserves than cows in class 2. Among those cows that had higher BCC, those with more effective mobilization of body tissue reserves at the beginning of lactation had higher milk yields. Cows with higher BCC were heavier at prepartum and at calving in comparison to cows with lower BCC. However, body weight at calving and change in body weight early in lactation were not related to body composition at calving and subsequent milk yield.


Abstract This article analyses the overall development of the endangered language around the world in reference to UNESCO's Atlas of World Endangered Languages and reflects on the local context. The focus to local context refers to the current territory of North Macedonia in which it is believed there are 7 endangered languages such as: Adyge, Aromanian, Gagauz (South Balkans), Megleno-Romanian, Judezmo, Romani and Torlak. These languages are classified as endangered but are still spoken in the country. The article also reflects on the status of the Albanian language in North Macedonia by drawing comparisons with two other language varieties such as Arberesh which spoken in Southern Italy and Arvanitika spoken in Greece. The challenges that these minority languages have faced in particular countries should serve as a guide in designing effective language policies in North Macedonia in order for the language not be endangered. In the last section the article report on the phenomena of Globalization in which English has become the global language and at the same time has accelerated the loss of many native languages around the globe.


This is the only detailed and comprehensive account of the policies, programs, and personalities of the powerful and influential Attlee government. Based on a vast range of previously unpublished material, personal papers, and recently released public records, the book provides in-depth portraits of key figures of the period and compares Britain during these years with other European nations after 1945. In conclusion, Morgan assesses the legacy of this crucial administration for Britain, the western world, the new Commonwealth, and the Labour Party itself.


IMPORTANCE
Whether cognition is influenced by arterial stiffness in the absence of vascular disease remains uncertain.

OBJECTIVE
To test the hypotheses that indirect measures of arterial stiffness are important predictors of cognitive performance and that this relationship varies depending on the presence of vascular disease.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS
Participants included 2573 noninstitutionalized US adults randomly selected from 2 cycles of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (1999-2002). The sample was stratified by groups based on the presence (VASC+) vs the absence (VASC-) of vascular variables negatively associated with cognition to assess the effects of indirect measures of arterial stiffness on cognitive performance. We used logistic regression to obtain odds ratios (ORs) and their 95% CIs. P < .05 was considered statistically significant.

MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES
The Digit Symbol Substitution Test score was used as a continuous variable, and the lowest quintile was designated as an indicator of poorer cognitive performance.

RESULTS
In the VASC+ group, poorer cognitive performance was more likely with increasing age (OR, 1.12 [95% CI, 1.08-1.17]; P < .001), a sedentary lifestyle (OR, 2.99 [95% CI, 1.62-5.55]; P = .002), and the use of dihydropyridine calcium channel blockers (OR, 9.24 [95% CI, 1.35-63.23]; P = .02). Poorer cognitive performance in the VASC+ group was less likely in women (OR, 0.37 [95% CI, 0.18-0.72]; P = .02), non-Hispanic white individuals (OR, 0.16 [95% CI, 0.09-0.26]; P < .001), those with higher educational attainment (OR, 0.23 [95% CI, 0.14-0.38]; P < .001), those with higher income levels (OR, 0.56 [95% CI, 0.72-0.76]; P < .001), and those who used renin-angiotensin system blockers (OR, 0.24 [95% CI, 0.07-0.79]; P = .02). In the VASC- group, the most important significant predictors of poorer cognitive performance were an ankle brachial index greater than 1.30 (OR, 18.56 [95% CI, 2.94-117.05]; P = .002) and increased blood pressure variability (OR, 3.49 [95% CI, 1.07-11.35]; P = .04). Among participants in the VASC- group who had both of these variables, the prevalence of poorer cognitive performance was greater (β = 16.65; P < .001).

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE
Two indirect measures of arterial stiffness, an ankle brachial index greater than 1.30 and increased blood pressure variability, are associated with poorer cognitive performance among adults 60 years or older without clinical atherosclerotic disease. Among those with vascular disease, factors capable of influencing arterial stiffness, such as exercise and the use of renin-angiotensin system blockers, may be protective against poorer cognitive performance.


Through this analysis, in the light of Greimas semiotic theory, we demonstrate how the theme of the elderly excluded from social life appears in the narrative of Luiz Vilela. To do so, we highlight "A volta do campeao," short story in which the protagonist, a sick man of nearly sixty years, spends his days bored and uninterested about everything, until he finds a group of boys playing marbles that makes him relive the emotions lost in his childhood. Despite finding a new direction for his life, family pressures make the character give up new friends. Occurs then the resignation of Edmund, who renounces the positive values responsible for his transformation. The family home represents the space from which came oppression. Even "tired", home is the place to which the subject recognizes to go back and to stay, after all is the space delegated by society for a man of sixty. In the short story, norms and behaviors place the elderly on the margins of social relationships and the narrator's voice, once he sympathizes with the loneliness that the elderly are relegated, is dissonant on the status quo.


Individuals vary in their innate behaviors, even when they have the same genome and have been reared in the same environment. The extent of individuality in plastic behaviors, like learning, is less well characterized. Also unknown is the extent to which intragenotypic differences in learning generalize: if an individual performs well in one assay, will it perform well in other assays? We investigated this using the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, an organism long-used to study the mechanistic basis of learning and memory. We found that isogenic flies, reared in identical lab conditions, and subject to classical conditioning that associated odorants with electric shock, exhibit clear individuality in their learning responses. Flies that performed well when an odor was paired with shock tended to perform well when other odors were paired with shock, or when the original odor was paired with bitter taste. Thus, individuality in learning performance appears to be prominent in isogenic animals reared identically, and individual differences in learning performance generalize across stimulus modalities. Establishing these results in flies opens up the possibility of studying the genetic and neural circuit basis of individual differences in learning in a highly suitable model organism.


This book reviews the evidence from across Europe that confirms nitrogen deposition as a major threat to European biodiversity, especially on the Natura 2000, including sensitive habitats and species listed under the Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC). It documents the information presented and discussed at an international workshop on 'Natura 2000 and Nitrogen Deposition', held in Brussels in May 2009, to review new evidence of nitrogen impacts, develop best practices when conducting assessments, and recommend options for consideration in future policy development.

The workshop was attended by 73 scientists, conservation practitioners and policy makers from 13 countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Netherlands and the UK. Delegates included representatives from the European Commission DG Environment, and Government departments from EU member states.

The workshop focused on 5 main themes:

1. Comparison of impact assessment and decision making approaches to determine the N deposition impacts of plans and projects in the context of Habitats Directive Article 6.3 obligations.
2. Comparison of approaches to assessing and reporting N deposition impacts on conservation status (Habitats Directive Article 17) and discussion of harmonising approaches for future reporting rounds.
3. New science on the effects of N deposition and concentrations on Natura 2000 sites, including bio-indicators, effects of N-form (e.g., NHx vs NOy), and the relationships between critical thresholds and biodiversity loss.
4. Approaches to modelling local N deposition and concentrations in the regulatory context of Natura 2000.
5. Options for future policy development to manage and mitigate the impacts of N deposition effects on the Natura 2000 network.


Objective  To investigate the effects of Nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) on ulcerative colitis induced by dextran sulfate sodium (DSS) in mice. Methods  DSS-induced ulcerative colitis mice were used to evaluate the effects of NMN. After NMN administration, the survival time, weight, disease activity index (DAI), colon tissue length and pathological changes of colon tissue slices were observed. Results  NMN did not cause significant changes in the survival time, weight, DAI, and intestinal morphology of ulcerative colitis mice. Conclusion  NMN has no significant effect on DSS-induced ulcerative colitis mice.


PURPOSE
Evidence suggests coverage has improved significantly for patients with cancer, particularly in the lower-income population, after the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Yet no study has examined changes in type of coverage or the resulting effect on spending and financial burden.

METHODS
Using 2011 to 2015 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey data, we examine changes in type of coverage, spending, and financial burden among lower-income (< 400% of federal poverty level [FPL]) individuals diagnosed with cancer after the ACA. To better understand the changes, we compare this sample to the lower-income patients without cancer and patients with cancer with a higher income (≥ 400% of FPL). All analyses were conducted in 2018.

RESULTS
In adjusted analyses, we found a decline in months uninsured (-0.78 months; P = .001) and an increase in months with Medicaid coverage (0.40 months; P = .059) among the lower-income patients with cancer. This change is similar to the lower-income patients without cancer. We found an increase in total expenditures ($3,020; P = .071) but a modest decline in the fraction of family income spent on health (-0.014; P = 0.099), although neither is statistically significant. For the higher income patients with cancer, we observed significant increases in both out-of-pocket premiums and medical financial burden.

CONCLUSION
After the ACA, lower-income people diagnosed with cancer experienced significant gains in coverage largely through Medicaid at rates similar to lower-income patients without cancer, but patients with cancer with incomes 400% or greater of FPL faced a higher financial burden.


The highly elliptical, 16-year-period orbit of the star S2 around the massive black hole candidate Sgr A* is a sensitive probe of the gravitational field in the Galactic centre. Near pericentre at 120 AU≈ 1400 Schwarzschild radii, the star has an orbital speed of ≈7650 km s−1, such that the first-order effects of Special and General Relativity have now become detectable with current capabilities. Over the past 26 years, we have monitored the radial velocity and motion on the sky of S2, mainly with the SINFONI and NACO adaptive optics instruments on the ESO Very Large Telescope, and since 2016 and leading up to the pericentre approach in May 2018, with the four-telescope interferometric beam-combiner instrument GRAVITY. From data up to and including pericentre, we robustly detect the combined gravitational redshift and relativistic transverse Doppler effect for S2 of z = ∆λ/λ≈ 200 km s−1/c with different statistical analysis methods. When parameterising the post-Newtonian contribution from these effects by a factor f , with f = 0 and f = 1 corresponding to the Newtonian and general relativistic limits, respectively, we find from posterior fitting with different weighting schemes f = 0.90± 0.09|stat ± 0.15|sys. The S2 data are inconsistent with pure Newtonian dynamics.


Energy is critical, directly or indirectly, in the entire process of evolution, growth and survival of all living beings and it plays a vital role in the socio-economic development and human welfare of a country. Energy has come to be known as astrategic commodity' and any uncertainty about its supply can threaten the functioning of the economy, particularly in developing economies. Achieving energy security in this strategic sense is of fundamental importance not only to India's economic growth but also for the human development objectives that aim at alleviation of poverty, unemployment and meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Holistic planning for achieving these objectives requires quality energy statistics that is able to address the issues related to energy demand, energy poverty and environmental effects of energy growth. Renewable energy represents an area of tremendous opportunity for India. Energy is considered a prime agent in the generation of wealth and a significant factor in economic development. Energy is also essential for improving the quality of life. Development of conventional forms of energy for meeting the growing energy needs of society at a reasonable cost is the responsibility of the Government. Limited fossil resources and associated environmental problems have emphasized the need for new sustainable energy supply options. India depends heavily on coal and oil for meeting its energy demand which contributes to smog, acid rain and greenhouse gases' emission. Last 25 years has been a period of intense activities related to research, development, production and distribution of energy in India.


The relationship between various dietary constituents and colon cancer has been demonstrated by previous research. This study was conducted to investigate the combined effects of several dietary constituents on the preneoplastic stage of azoxymethane (AOM)-induced colon cancer in rats. A nutritionally adequate, "low-risk" (LR) diet was formulated through the modulation of dietary fat, fiber, protein, vitamins A and E, and selenium. Female F344 rats were given three weekly subcutaneous injections of AOM and were maintained on either the LR diet or a "high-risk" (HR) diet. After 12 weeks, the rats were killed and the following parameters were determined: pH of colon contents, fecal beta-glucuronidase activity, tissue ornithine decarboxylase (ODC) activity, and colonic labeling index. The pH of the colon contents and incremental labeling index were lower in the group given the LR diet and treated with AOM compared with the group given the HR diet and treated with AOM; however, no statistically significant dietary effects were observed for beta-glucuronidase and ODC activities. The results of this study indicated that the colons of rats fed the LR diet exhibited different proliferative characteristics than did the colons of rats fed the HR diet.


We show that the Calabi homomorphism extends to some groups of homeomorphisms on exact symplectic manifolds. The proof is based on the uniqueness of the generating Hamiltonian (proved by Viterbo) of continuous Hamiltonian isotopies (introduced by Muller and Oh).


Recently, new resist criteria for low energy electron beam projection lithography (LEEPL) such as bi-layer, chemically amplified and silicon containing resists have been requested. In order to investigate the lithographic characteristics of each system, three chemically amplified resist samples consisting of silsesquioxane base polymer were prepared. It was found using a 50kV direct writing electron beam tool that the resist characteristics at 50nm film thickness indicated unique results compared with that of the 100nm, 150nm and 200nm film thickness in the resist screening. The screened resists presented around 80nm resolution with 180nm pitch in LEEPL imaging. However, the coating defect was detailed as a challenge for imaging ultra thin film resists.


BACKGROUND
Older trauma patients present with poor preinjury functional status and more comorbidities. Advances in care have increased the chance of survival from previously fatal injuries with many left debilitated with chronic critical illness and severe disability. Palliative care (PC) is ideally suited to address the goals of care and symptom management in this critically ill population. A retrospective chart review was done to identify the impact of PC consults on hospital length of stay (LOS), ICU LOS, and surgical decisions.

STUDY DESIGN
A Level 1 Trauma Center Registry was used to identify adult patients who were provided PC consultation in a selected 3-year time period. These PC patients were matched with non-PC trauma patients on the basis of age, sex, race, Glasgow Coma Scale, and Injury Severity Score. Chi-square tests and Student's t-tests were used to analyze categorical and continuous variables, respectively. Any p value >0.05 was considered statistically significant.

RESULTS
PC patients were less likely to receive a percutaneous endoscopic gastric tube or tracheostomy. PC patients spent less time on ventilator support, spent less time in the ICU, and had a shorter hospital stay. PC consultation was requested 16.48 days into the patient's hospital stay. Approximately 82% of consults were to assist with goals of care.

CONCLUSION
Specialist PC team involvement in the care of the trauma ICU patients may have a beneficial impact on hospital LOS, ICU LOS, and surgical care rendered. Earlier consultation during hospitalization may lead to higher rates of goal-directed care and improved patient satisfaction.


General anesthetics have been used to ablate consciousness during surgery for more than 150 yr. Despite significant advances in our understanding of their molecular-level pharmacologic effects, comparatively little is known about how anesthetics alter brain dynamics to cause unconsciousness. Consequently, while anesthesia practice is now routine and safe, there are many vagaries that remain unexplained. In this paper, the authors review the evidence that cortical network activity is particularly sensitive to general anesthetics, and suggest that disruption to communication in, and/or among, cortical brain regions is a common mechanism of anesthesia that ultimately produces loss of consciousness. The authors review data from acute brain slices and organotypic cultures showing that anesthetics with differing molecular mechanisms of action share in common the ability to impair neurophysiologic communication. While many questions remain, together, ex vivo and in vivo investigations suggest that a unified understanding of both clinical anesthesia and the neural basis of consciousness is attainable.


Bandung is one of the major city in Indonesia with high growth economic and population. Economic and population growth can effect to land use/land cover change. Information of land use/land cover changes is very important for planning and disaster mitigation. The land use/land cover changes can detected by satellite imagery. Object based classification system, a promising method for image classification. This paper discuss the application of Landsat satellite remote sensing image in 1994 until 2013 to identify land use/land cover changes using object based classification approach in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia. The methodology consist of satellite data acquisition, pre-processing, field survey, classification of land use/land cover using object based approach, ground check and analysis. The result shows the land use/land cover changes in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia.


Thanks to the Internet, musicians located in different countries can now aspire to play with each other almost as if they were in the same room. However, the time delays due to the inherent latency in computer networks (up to several hundreds of milliseconds over long distances) are unsuitable for musical applications. Some musical collaboration systems address this issue by transmitting compressed audio streams (such as MP3) over low-latency and high-bandwidth networks (e.g. LANs or Internet2) to constrain time delays and optimize musician synchronization. Other systems, on the contrary, increase time delays to a musically-relevant value like one phrase, or one chord progression cycle, and then play it in a loop, thereby constraining the music being performed. In this thesis I propose TablaNet, a real-time online musical collaboration system for the tabla, a pair of North Indian hand drums. This system is based on a novel approach that combines machine listening and machine learning. Trained for a particular instrument, here the tabla, the system recognizes individual drum strokes played by the musician and sends them as symbols over the network. A computer at the receiving end identifies the musical structure from the incoming sequence of symbols by mapping them dynamically to known musical constructs. To deal with transmission delays, the receiver predicts the next events by analyzing previous patterns before receiving the original events, and synthesizes an audio output estimate with the appropriate timing. Although prediction approximations may result in a slightly different musical experience at both ends, we find that this system demonstrates a fair level of playability by tabla players of various levels, and functions well as an educational tool. Thesis Supervisor: Barry L. Vercoe Title: Professor of Media Arts and Sciences


Oxygen consumption of the rat diaphragm is the same during incubation in each of these media: Krebs-Ringer-phosphate, calcium- and magnesium-free Krebs-Ringer-phosphate, a potassium-rich medium and a potassium-rich medium plus glucose, providing incubation is not interrupted by transfer of diaphragm to fresh media. When the diaphragm is manipulated (sham transfer) after an initial incubation there is a reduction of 10–15% in oxygen consumption. When, after an initial incubation, the diaphragm is transferred to fresh media there is a further decrease in oxygen consumption which is greatest in glucose-free media and least in the glucose-containing medium. When, after transfer and reincubation in a fresh flask, the diaphragm is returned to its initial flask and reincubated there is relative restoration of its oxygen consumption. These observations suggest that oxidizable endogenous substrates diffuse from the diaphragm during incubation.


This paper introduces two studies on the geopolitics and the conflicts in Latin America. The first part comprises a survey of the conflicts - most of which non-violent - which divide Latin America and oppose its states on an ideological basis, on a finality which would lead to hegemony, on territorial claims, or for reasons due to the impact of migration. The second part deals with the split between the Latin states and the new Anglophone states of the Caribbean, a split which has been bred by the differences in histories, institutions, and political representations, a split which has become apparent in the stands taken, namely in the Falkland crisis and in the border disputes between Venezuela and Guyana, and between Belize and Guatemala.


The French law (arrêté du 10 mai 2001) allows Assisted Reproductive Techniques (ART) in case of infection with human immunodeficiency virus, hepatitis C virus or hepatitis B virus. Our six years' experience is positive even if pluridisciplinary care needs specific equipment and human forces. Couples express high motivation. The wish to become a parent leads to a better care of the infection. ART results are excellent in case of male contamination, not as good when the female partner is infected but still encouraging. No contamination of the partner or the offspring occurred after ART. Data are already collected in France in this context. A European register should be constituted in an early future.


As first demonstrated by the characterization of the quantum Hall effect by the Chern number, topology provides a guiding principle to realize robust properties of condensed matter systems immune to the existence of disorder. The bulk-boundary correspondence guarantees the emergence of gapless boundary modes in a topological system whose bulk exhibits nonzero topological invariants. Although some recent studies have suggested a possible extension of the notion of topology to nonlinear systems such as photonics and electrical circuits, the nonlinear counterpart of topological invariant has not yet been understood. Here, we propose the nonlinear extension of the Chern number based on the nonlinear eigenvalue problems in two-dimensional systems and reveal the bulk-boundary correspondence beyond the weakly nonlinear regime. Specifically, we find the nonlinearity-induced topological phase transitions, where the existence of topological edge modes depends on the amplitude of oscillatory modes. We propose and analyze a minimal model of a nonlinear Chern insulator whose exact bulk solutions are analytically obtained and indicate the amplitude dependence of the nonlinear Chern number, for which we confirm the nonlinear counterpart of the bulk-boundary correspondence in the continuum limit. Thus, our result reveals the existence of genuinely nonlinear topological phases that are adiabatically disconnected from the linear regime, showing the promise for expanding the scope of topological classification of matter towards the nonlinear regime.


Should a person with history of drug addiction be categorically denied as a bone marrow donor? The answer to the question is controversial. We report a case of allogeneic bone marrow transplantation for refractory acute myeloid leukemia preceded by essential thrombocythemia. The donor used cocaine and marijuana the night before the bone marrow harvest.


This text poses a number of basic questions to the Computational Culture reader, and beyond, concerning the computation of human movement. The formulation of these basic questions (and broad problems) hinges on the need to better understand the nature of creativity, which according to this author, may be a key driver in the emergent field of research known as Movement Computing. These "basic questions" all gravitate around a prime concern, which is to critique the way in which machine computers affect movement-based creativity, and movement-based thinking. In addition to providing a general picture of critical literature orbiting this largely practice-driven field, and as well as introducing the reader to the two other essays and commentary section included in this issue of Computational Culture, this essay argues that Movement Computing is a mode of computation that embraces messy and open-ended work, and that it can be adopted as a framework for transdisciplinary research across a number of embodied and computer-based practices (beyond Dance and Computer Science). In this broadening context, the essay seeks to give more definition and priority to the critical and ethical perspectives, which according to this author are sometimes ignored in the Movement Computing research community.


Approaches to magnetic resonance (MR) image acquisition and computational modelling often exist in silo. The application of computational modelling to paediatric data is in its infancy. This collaborative study addresses this gap for multiple organ systems. State-of-the art MR imaging sequences were selected and refined to provide imaging data for the creation of subject-specific geometric models. The MR protocol and modelling outputs will underpin a longitudinal paediatric study set in Aotearoa New Zealand, generating normative data in healthy children, and identifying early biomarkers of pathological processes. This will enable the development of new personalised, predictive, and preventative models of care.


Summary

In the past, it was rare for services for people with learning disabilities to focus on meeting the emotional and personal development needs of their clients, concentrating instead on interventions that aimed to improve self-care, develop appropriate social skills and reduce challenging behaviours. However, recent work using psychotherapeutic interventions and art therapies has started to remedy this traditional shortfall. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the successful use of an art-based therapy, using literature (often termed Biblio-therapy and Poetry Therapy in published research) that has been hitherto generally overlooked with a client group of men with learning disabilities who have offended, on account of their lack of literacy skills and likely lack of understanding of the use of metaphor. The paper describes the background to the work, the preparation of materials, the presentation of the psychotherapeutically-based group work and it's effectiveness in encouraging the development of emotional maturity and self-expression within a mixed-ability client group of young men in a high security setting.


The effects of oxytocin on ovarian function have been studied in immature rats of 25 days of age. The hormone was injected subcutaneously daily for 5 days in two doses: 50 and 250 millimicrons per animal, to intact females, hysterectomized or injected simultaneously with indomethacin (2 mg/kg). Ovarian and uterine weights increased in all treated animals. Plasma estradiol 17 beta levels increased, while plasma progesterone level did not change. The relevance of this study was to precise the trophic role of oxytocin on ovary and uterus. The changes observed did not seem to be associated with prostaglandin E secretion.