We offer a simple general equilibrium model to analyze how economy-wide forces (i.e. shocks to terms of trade, technology and endowments) will affect the intensity of social conflict over the distribution of resources. Examples of conflict activities range from crime to civil war. We show that not all favorable shocks to an economy will reduce conflict, even when they could make society richer. Rather, positive shocks to labor intensive industries will raise wages and diminish social conflict, while positive shocks to capital intensive industries will do just the opposite. The key requirement is that the appropriation activity be more labor intensive than the average of the productive industries. Our model can account for the curse of natural resources, it explains why aid in kind to war ridden societies may have perverse effects, and how international trade policy should be debated if civil conflict in poorer countries is a concern. Including appropriation activities into a canonic general equilibrium model introduces a social constraint to policy analysis. Thus, we can also account for "optimal populist" policies, and "national development" strategies (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.) (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)


Smart electrecity or prepaid electricity is introduced by PLN as program that has many goals namely; for customer need fulfilment, citizen, and PLN. On the customer level, goal establishment determinants are complex, one of them is customer perceptions on smart electrical fitting performance. This research is aimed at revealing concumer perception on some atributes they are: performance, feature, reliability, conformance, durability, service ability, and perceived quality. Research method use survey that used descriptive and qualitative approach. Research result shows that atributes generally has high score, and highest one is servicisability (4.16). Hence, smart electricity attibutes is perceived good by customers. Future related research on smart electricity is how is the household involevement and communication model that build by PLN to increase the customers. Key W ords: Prepaid, KwH, Selfcustom and Region


The next generation of aerial robots will be utilized extensively in real-world applications for different purposes: Delivery, entertainment, inspection, health and safety, photography, search and rescue operations, fire detection, and use in hazardous and unreachable environments. Thus, dynamic modeling and control of drones will play a vital role in the growth phase of this cutting-edge technology. This paper presents a systematic approach for control mode identification of JetQuads (gas turbine-powered quads) that should be satisfied simultaneously to achieve a safe and optimal operation of the JetQuad. Using bond graphs as a powerful mechatronic tool, a modular model of a JetQuad including the gas turbine, electric starter, and the main body was developed and validated against publicly available data. Two practical scenarios for thrust variation as a function of time were defined to investigate the compatibility and robustness of the JetQuad. The simulation results of these scenarios confirmed the necessity of designing a compatibility control loop, a stability control loop, and physical limitation control loops for the safe and errorless operation of the system. A control structure with its associated control algorithm is also proposed to deal with future challenges in JetQuad control problems.


Prostate cancer can significantly shorten the lifetime of a patient, even if he is diagnosed at an early stage. The development of minimally-invasive focal therapies such as photodynamic therapy to reduce the number of neoplastic cells while sparing delicate structures is extremely advantageous for treating prostate cancer. This study investigates the effect of photodynamic therapy performed in prostate tissue samples in vitro, using quantitative magnetic resonance imaging and histopathological analysis. Prostate tissue samples were treated with oxygenated solutions of Rose Bengal (RB) or protoporphyrin IX disodium salt (PpIX), illuminated with visible light, and then analyzed for changes in morphology by microscopy and by measurement of spin–lattice and spin–spin relaxation times at 1.5 Tesla. In the treated prostate tissue samples, histopathological images revealed chromatin condensation and swelling of the stroma, and in some cases, thrombotic necrosis and swelling of the stroma accompanied by pyknotic nuclei occurred. Several samples had protein fragments in the stroma. Magnetic resonance imaging of the treated prostate tissue samples revealed differences in the spin–lattice and spin–spin relaxation times prior to and post photodynamic action.


Abstract Systems medicine is a promising new paradigm for discovering associations, causal relationships and mechanisms in medicine. But it faces some tough challenges that arise from the use of big data: in particular, the problem of how to integrate evidence and the problem of how to structure the development of models. I argue that objective Bayesian models offer one way of tackling the evidence integration problem. I also offer a general methodology for structuring the development of models, within which the objective Bayesian approach fits rather naturally.


Growth curves of the foliose lichen Parmelia conspersa (Ehrh. Ex Ach.)Ach. Were obtained by plotting radial growth (RGR, mm yr-1) of the fastest measured lobe, the slowest measured lobe, a randomly selected lobe, and by averaging a sample of lobes from each thallus against thallus diameter. Growth curves derived from the fastest-growing lobe and by averaging lobes were asymptotic and could be fitted by the growth model of Aplin and Hill. Mean lobe width increased with thallus size, reaching a maximum at approx. 4.5 cm thallus diameter. In four out of six thalli, radial growth of lobes over four months was positively correlated with initial lobe width or area. The RGR of isolated lobes was unaffected until the base of the lobe was removed to within 1-2 mm of the tip. The concentration (micrograms mg-1 biomass) of ribitol, arabitol and mannitol was greater in the marginal lobes of large than in small thalli. The results suggested that the growth curve of P. conspersa is determined by processes that occur within individual marginal lobes and can be explained by the Aplin and Hill model. Changes in lobe width and in the productive capacity of individual lobes with thallus size are likely to be more important factors than the degree of translocation within the lobe in determining the growth curve.


Proceedings: AACR 104th Annual Meeting 2013; Apr 6-10, 2013; Washington, DC

In spite of the decreasing lung cancer incidence recently observed in some countries, its mortality has remained high due to late presentation and limited chemotherapy effectiveness. Even for EGFR mutant cancers initially responding to tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI), long term patient survival has not been achieved due to the almost universal occurrence of TKI resistance. Tumor initiating cells (TIC) are a subpopulation of cancer cells believed to be capable of self-renewal leading to tumor perpetuation, metastasis and treatment resistance. To identify self-renewing cells in lung cancer and investigate their regulatory pathways, tumor cells with differential expression of the combined CD44 and ALDH1 markers were isolated by flow cytometry for functional comparison. The results showed in established lung cancer cell lines and early passage clinical lung cancer cells, the CD44high/ALDHhigh population had the strongest, while CD44low/ALDHlow the weakest in-vitro cell sphere formation and in-vivo serial xenograft transplantation capacities. The CD44high/ALDHhigh population also showed higher matrigel invasion ability, pluripotency genes expression, cell cycle regulator expression, as well as resistance to tyrosine kinase inhibitor and/or cisplatin treatment. TKI treatment led to increased CD44high/ALDHhigh cell proportions. Simultaneous down-regulation of CD44 by si-RNA and enzymatic inhibition of ALDH1 suppressed stem/progenitor genes expression including OCT4, SOX2 and NANOG, and attenuated cell sensitivity to TKI and cisplatin treatment in different lung cancer cells, indicating CD44 and ALDH were not only surface markers for TIC, but also had functional roles in TIC maintenance. To investigate for phenotypic differences and potential regulatory pathways involved in the maintenance of the two cell populations, the expression microarray profiles of isolated TIC (CD44high/ALDHhigh) and non-TIC (CD44low/ALDHlow) populations were compared. The results showed differential expression of various cell adhesion molecules, HLA markers, and signaling proteins involved in the Sonic Hedgehog (e.g. GLI1, GLI3) and Notch (e.g. DLL4, JAG1) pathways. Differential expression of selective molecules was independently validated by quantitative RT-PCR in an expanded panel of lung cancer cell lines. Pharmacological inhibition of the Hedgehog pathway using cyclopamine decreased TIC proportion in a dose dependent manner and sensitized lung cancer cells to TKI treatment, while Notch inhibition led to less prominent effects. Taken together, these findings indicated that CD44high/ALDHhigh expression characterized a subpopulation of self-renewing and tumorigenic cells in lung cancer. Therapeutic targeting of the Hedgehog pathway might be useful for disrupting TIC and help to achieve lung cancer control.

Citation Format: Maria Pik Wong, Jing Liu, Zhi-jie Xiao. The CD44high/ALDHhigh cell population mediates tumor initiating cell properties through the sonic Hedgehog pathway in lung cancer. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr LB-271. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-LB-271


The functional response study of the ten most common arthropod predators of cotton bollworm (Helicoverpa zea) eggs was conducted in the laboratory. Crab spider (Misumenops spp.) and assassin bug (Zelus renardii) did not consume any bollworm eggs under laboratory conditions and the scymnus lady beetle (Scymnus loewii) consumed very few (avg. 0.5 eggs per beetle) bollworm eggs in a 24-hour period. Functional response was measured by offering varying densities of bollworm eggs for each predator species and the functional response was recorded for 24 hours. Soft-winged flower beetle (Collops spp.), minute pirate bug (Orius spp.), hooded beetle (Notoxus spp.) and damsel bug (Nabis spp.) showed Type-I response, while lady beetle (Hippodamia convergens) adult, lady beetle larva, and green lacewing larva (Chrysoperla spp.) showed Type-II response; big-eyed bug adult (Geocoris spp.) showed Type-III functional response. Among the predators with TypeI functional response, the Collops beetle had the highest slope. Lady beetle larva had the highest handling time (0.185 h) followed by lady beetle adult (0.14 h) and green lacewing larva (0.08 h). Lady beetle adult and green lacewing larva showed a significantly higher attack rate or searching rate compared to lady beetle larva.


Shallow soil mercury surveys are an inexpensive and effective exploration tool for geothermal resources. In a geothermal system at depth, mercury is leached from the country rock and transported to the surface by the geothermal fluids. The mercury is fixed by clays and organic material in the soil above the geothermal system and can be detected by analyzing the near-surface soil. Surface mercury surveys can be used in regional reconnaissance to discriminate prospective from nonprospective areas. Closely spaced mercury surveys over individual prospects typically enhance the structural understanding of the prospect and show which structures are important as migration pathways. The use of probability graphs greatly enhances the interpretation of mercury geochemical data. Probability graphs have a logarithmic ordinate scale versus a cumulative percentage abscissa scale. This graph is arranged such that a typical lognormal population plots as a straight line on the graph. Deviations from a straight line show deviations in the data from a standard lognormal population distribution. The mercury data are easily plotted on the graph and can be evaluated visually. Anomalous and background populations can be separated consistently even when considerable overlap occurs between populations. In Nevada and California, soil mercury surveys have detected up to four distinct mercury populations in one area. These populations are related to background End_Page 952------------------------------ over different bed-rock types and to variations in leakage from the geothermal system at depth. An interpretation of the mercury populations in light of the available geologic and structural characteristics of a prospect can significantly increase the understanding of the geothermal resource. End_of_Article - Last_Page 953------------


Although prolonged diaphragm denervation (DNV) produces myofiber atrophy and a loss of type I myosin heavy chain (MHC) expression, short-term DNV leads to significant diaphragm hypertrophy. The purpose of this study was to explore the regulation of MHC isoform expression and muscle remodeling during DNV hypertrophy of the diaphragm. Both unilateral and bilateral DNV led to similar changes, with a significant increase in total RNA content and muscle mass but no change in dry-to-wet weight ratio. Sarcomere number was also increased in diaphragm myofibers after DNV (∼20%), suggesting an adaptive response to muscle stretch. There was hypertrophy of type I myofibers and increased coexpression of type I and type II MHCs within single myofibers by immunocytochemistry as well as increased type I MHC (25-46%) and decreased type IIb MHC (14-39%) by SDS-PAGE. Contractility parameters were also consistent with a type II-to-type I MHC phenotype transformation. Importantly, DNV-induced modulation of MHC isoform mRNA transcript levels did not correspond to changes in their cognate proteins, suggesting a major degree of posttranscriptional control. We conclude that DNV hypertrophy of the diaphragm is associated with reciprocal changes in type I and type II MHC isoforms that are directly opposed to the type I-to-type II MHC phenotype transformation reported in the diaphragm DNV atrophy model. Furthermore, in contradistinction to most hypertrophy models, control of MHC gene expression and myofibrillar remodeling after short-term DNV appears to entail major involvement of posttranscriptional regulatory mechanisms.


Objective To assess psychological symptoms in injured children (aged 8–17 years) and their parents after emergency department (ED) care to examine the relationship between posttraumatic stress and depression symptoms, co-occurrence of symptoms within families, and the relationship of these symptoms to parent-reported overall recovery. Methods Children and parents (n = 263 child-parent dyads) were enrolled during ED treatment for unintentional injury. Approximately 5 months later, children and parents (n = 178 dyads) completed standardized measures of posttraumatic stress and depression symptoms and parents reported on child overall recovery. Results Follow-up assessments found significant posttraumatic stress symptoms in 15% of children and 5% of parents, significant depression symptoms in 13% of children and 16% of parents, and problematic overall recovery in 17% of children. For both children and parents, posttraumatic stress and depression symptom severity were strongly associated. Child and parent symptoms were only modestly associated with each other, and there were few families in which both child and parent had significant posttraumatic stress or depression. Parent symptoms, but not child symptoms, were inversely associated with children's overall recovery. Conclusions For about 1 in 6 children and parents, unintentional injury treated in the ED can be associated with negative psychological sequelae and suboptimal recovery. Within families, child and parent responses may differ; their relative association with overall recovery deserves additional research. To promote emotional recovery, ED clinicians should be aware of the potential psychological impact of unintentional injury, provide timely evidence-based anticipatory guidance, and communicate these concerns to primary care clinicians.


Abstract. The address is quasi geospatial data representing the location. There are various ways of address formats, addressing and managing addresses around the world. The Korean address system has been changed from the area-based address system to the street-based address system, which has been implemented since 2014. According to the Ministry of the Interior and Security of Korea, the street-based address aims at the convenience of directions, rapid response to emergencies, reduction of logistics costs, and strengthening national competitiveness. However, there are limitations in Korea's street-based address system. In this study, we define the components of address systems and analyse the street-based address system of Korea based on the defined elements.


The exact validation of streaming XML documents can be realised by using visibly push-down automata (VPA) that are defined by Extended Document Type Definitions (EDTD). It is straightforward to represent such an automaton as an Abstract State Machine (ASM). However, creating a whole VPA is not an efficient validation approach. In this paper it is shown, how the VPA construction can be avoided by using a refined ASM that only requires knowledge of the EDTD. In a second step this approach is extended to approximate validation of streaming XML documents taking at most k updates to the document into consideration.


Glauconite was first named in 1828, but in spite of repeated studies and numerous analyses its exact manner of formation and composition have remained in doubt. Chemical analyses obtained from magnetically and microscopically purified samples, from widely separated localities, show that the composition of glauconite can be expressed by a definite formula which in its simplest form may be written as follows: $$KMgFe_{3}Si_{6}O_{18}\cdot 3H_{2}O$$. The principal variables in its composition are $$Fe_{2}O_{3}$$ and $$Al_{2}O_{3}$$. The ferric iron content varies from 16 to 30 per cent, and the alumina from 10 per cent down to less than 2 per cent. Glauconite is optically negative and biaxial with a small optic angle. Both the indices of refraction and the birefringence vary with the ferric iron content. Modern glauconite is essentially the same as the glauconite of the older rock formations both optically and chemically. The X-ray patterns of the samples of glauconite studied show that glauconite is a definite mineral, and not a mixture of various substances.


Purpose. To understand the dynamics of aesthetic conception as representative of the main directions of philo-sophical anthropology, identifying their contribution to the development of aesthetics and expand its research field. The condition of the study of the problem is the evolutionary process of adequateness, authenticity and alternative-ness in determination of both the phenomenon of "aesthetic" and its role in philosophical and anthropological con-vention. Methodology. Both the measurements of aesthetic as a unique, peculiar, specific and aesthetic dimensions of philosophical anthropology /systems of philisophy/ have in sight the necessity to solve the same problem the identification of new methodological basis. Theoretical results. The experience of theoretical researches of con-temporary domestic and foreign philosophical and aesthetic schools іs generalized. The content of phenomenologi-cal and existential breakthrough in modern age of aesthetics іs revealed. The essence of "anthropological turn" in European philosophy of 20th century as philosophical paradigm of the modern age and its impact on development of aesthetic theories of post-classical period was investigated. Conclusion. Philosophical and anthropological stu-dies have amounted the "methodological synthesis" that appeared as the theoretical principles of the understanding of aesthetics due to its polystylistics.


With deepening of international competitions of science and technology, China wakes up to the importance of National Critical Technology in economic development, social progress and national defense security, and regards independent innovation capability of National Critical Technology as the core of national competitiveness. Therefore, China's urgent tasks is to research and develop national critical technologies based on independent innovation. This paper adopts real option method, sequential investment decisions theory and NPV method to create the investment value assessment model of independent innovative national critical technology based on income approach, and conducts some tentative researches on the theory and method of the independent innovation model.


As cardiovascular diseases have been increasingly endangering the health and quality of life of Chinese residents, all relevant parties have been actively looking for policies and measures to effectively control the risk factors of the diseases. Hypertension and diabetes have been included in the National Basic Public Health Service Project since 2009; however, as one of the most crucial risk factors for cardio-cerebrovascular diseases, dyslipidemia has not yet been covered by the project due to various reasons. The prevalence of dyslipidemia in China increased rapidly from 18.6% in 2002 to 40.4% in 2012 (1), whereas the management of dyslipidemia has been lagging behind and become the "short board" in the prevention and control of cardiocerebrovascular diseases. The International Health Exchange and Cooperation Center (IHECC) of the National Health Commission (NHC) has integrated resources from various parties and has been carrying out the Pilot Project of Dyslipidemia Health Management Services in Chinese Adults since 2013 (2), aiming to explore a pathway to build a model of comprehensive prevention and control for cardio-cerebrovascular diseases at the community health center/township hospital level, as well as to make policy recommendations to include dyslipidemia into the National Basic Public Health Service Project and provide evidence for the national plan of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), ultimately to promote the equalization of basic public health services.


Novel biomarker discovery plays a crucial role in providing more sensitive and specific disease detection. Unfortunately many low-abundance biomarkers that exist in biological fluids cannot be easily detected with mass spectrometry or immunoassays because they are present in very low concentration, are labile, and are often masked by high-abundance proteins such as albumin or immunoglobulin. Bait containing poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (NIPAm) based nanoparticles are able to overcome these physiological barriers. In one step they are able to capture, concentrate and preserve biomarkers from body fluids. Low-molecular weight analytes enter the core of the nanoparticle and are captured by different organic chemical dyes, which act as high affinity protein baits. The nanoparticles are able to concentrate the proteins of interest by several orders of magnitude. This concentration factor is sufficient to increase the protein level such that the proteins are within the detection limit of current mass spectrometers, western blotting, and immunoassays. Nanoparticles can be incubated with a plethora of biological fluids and they are able to greatly enrich the concentration of low-molecular weight proteins and peptides while excluding albumin and other high-molecular weight proteins. Our data show that a 10,000 fold amplification in the concentration of a particular analyte can be achieved, enabling mass spectrometry and immunoassays to detect previously undetectable biomarkers.


Microwave exposure has been reported to affect various components of the immune system. In this study, we examined the effect of a single whole-body exposure of hamsters to microwave (mw) energy (2.45 GHz; 5-25 mW/cm2; 1 h) on the IgM antibody (Ab) response of spleen cells to sheep red blood cells (SRBC). MW-exposed, sham-exposed, and cage-control hamsters were immunized with SRBC and plaque-forming cells (PFC) in spleens assayed using the direct hemolytic plaque assay. In cage-control hamsters the Ab response was highest between days 4 and 5, returning to baseline by day 9. MW exposure (25 mW/cm2 for 1 h) significantly augmented PFC response only on days 4 and 5 postimmunization, causing approximately a 4.3- and 3.5-fold increase over controls, respectively. Exposure to 15 mW/cm2 caused a lesser, but significant increase in PFC. Exposure to intensities below 15 mW/cm2 for 1 h did not produce any increase in Ab response. Immunization with different concentrations of SRBC following 1 h of 25 mW/cm2 MW exposure revealed a stimulation in PFC at all concentrations ranging from 5 X 10(7) to 5 X 10(8) SRBC. Pretreatment of hamsters with MW radiation prior to immunization showed that the animals retained an increased sensitivity to SRBC for as long as 4 days after MW exposure. In contrast, exposure of hamsters to MW energy on different days after immunization showed an effect of the PFC response only if given between 0 and 1 day after immunization. These results suggest that MW exposure augments the primary IgM response to SRBC by affecting some early event in the immune response process. The various possible explanations for this phenomenon are discussed.


In this thesis we provide an overview of themes in geometric mechanics and apply them to the study of adjoint and coadjoint orbits of a semidirect product, and to the two-body problem on a sphere.
Firstly, we show the existence of a geometrically defined bijection between the sets of adjoint and coadjoint orbits for a particular class of semidirect product. We demonstrate the bijection for the examples of the affine linear group and the Poincare group. Additionally, we prove that any two orbits paired between this bijection are homotopy equivalent.
Secondly, a correspondence is found between the two-body problem on a three- dimensional sphere and the four-dimensional Lagrange top. This correspondence establishes an equivalence between the two problems after reduction, and allows us to treat both reduced problems simultaneously. We implement a semidirect product reduction by stages to exhibit the reduced spaces as coadjoint orbits of a special Euclidean group, and then reduce by a further symmetry to obtain a full reduced system. This allows us to fully classify the relative equilibria for both problems and describe their stability.


Abstract We investigated feasibility and accuracy of an interferon-γ release assay (IGRA) for detection of T-cell responses to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Whole blood IGRA accurately distinguished between convalescent and uninfected healthy blood donors with a predominantly CD4+ T-cell response. SARS-CoV-2 IGRA may serve as a useful diagnostic tool in managing the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic.


The BaBar experiment has accumulated many terabytes of data on particle physics reactions, accessed by a community of hundreds of users. Typical analysis tasks are C++ programs, individually written by the user, using shared templates and libraries. The resources have outgrown a single platform and a distributed computing model is needed. The grid provides the natural toolset. However, in contrast to the LHC experiments, BaBar has an existing user community with an existing nonGrid usage pattern, and providing users with an acceptable evolution presents a challenge. The ' Alibaba' system, developed as part of the UK GridPP project, provides the user with a familiar command line environment. It draws on the existing global file systems employed and understood by the current user base. The main difference is that they submit jobs with a 'gs ub' command that looks and feels like the familiar 'qs ub'. However it enables them to submit jobs to computer systems at different institutions, with minimal requirements on the remote sites. Web based job monitoring is also provided. The problems and features (the input and output sandboxes, authentication, data location) and their solutions are described.


In this paper, we extend fundamental notions of control theory to evolving compact subsets of the Euclidean space as states without linear structure. Dispensing with any restriction of regularity, shapes can be interpreted as nonempty compact subsets of the Euclidean space $\mathbb{R}^N$. Their family $\mathcal{K}(\mathbb{R}^N)$, however, does not have any obvious linear structure, but in combination with the popular Pompeiu-Hausdorff distance $d\!l$ it is a metric space. Here Aubin's framework of morphological equations is used for extending ordinary differential equations beyond vector spaces, namely to the metric space $(\mathcal{K}(\mathbb{R}^N),d\!l)$. Now various control problems, such as open-loop, relaxed, and closed-loop control problems, are formulated for compact sets depending on time, each of them with state constraints. Using the close relation to morphological inclusions with state constraints, we specify sufficient conditions for the existence of compact-valued solutions. Finally, this framework is applied to image segmentation and provides a region growing method without regularity restrictions.


Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) provide much promise in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and, thus, are a focal point of research and development. Existing on-board charging capacity is effective but requires the use of several power conversion devices and power converters, which reduce reliability and cost efficiency. This paper presents a novel three-phase switched reluctance (SR) motor drive with integrated charging functions (including internal combustion engine and grid charging). The electrical energy flow within the drivetrain is controlled by a power electronic converter with less power switching devices and magnetic devices. It allows the desired energy conversion between the engine generator, the battery, and the SR motor under different operation modes. Battery-charging techniques are developed to operate under both motor-driving mode and standstill-charging mode. During the magnetization mode, the machine's phase windings are energized by the dc-link voltage. The power converter and the machine phase windings are controlled with a three-phase relay to enable the use of the ac-dc rectifier. The power converter can work as a buck-boost-type or a buck-type dc-dc converter for charging the battery. Simulation results in MATLAB/Simulink and experiments on a 3-kW SR motor validate the effectiveness of the proposed technologies, which may have significant economic implications and improve the PHEVs' market acceptance.


Lignocellulosic biomass is an alternative raw material for the production of biofuels. The conversion of biomass to biofuels begins with pretreatment to produce amorphous cellulose which can be hydrolysed to sugars. The use of ionic liquids has been described as a new potentially viable development in this area. Nevertheless, phase equilibria with biomass-derived compounds and also sugars, is still lacking in the literature. To overcome the lack of experimental data on phase equilibria of biomass carbohydrates in ionic liquids, the solubility of fructose, sucrose and lactose in ionic liquids was measured within a temperature range from 280 K to 390 K. Solubility data were successfully correlated using NRTL and UNIQUAC thermodynamic models. In this work, the possibility of extracting carbohydrates from ionic liquids using ethanol has also been evaluated. Results indicate that ethanol could be used as an antisolvent to separate sugars from ionic liquids.


Magnetic hyperthermia using magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) has attracted considerable attention as one of the promising tumor therapy. The study has been developed under single magnetic field. Recently, we found that the immobile MNP may generate more heat under two synchronous ac magnetic fields than traditional single and circular polarized fields based on model simulation result. According to this finding we constructed an orthogonal synchronized bi-directional field (OSB field). The system contained two LC resonant inverters (L: inductor, C: capacitor) and both vertical and transverse ac magnetic fields were generated by two Helmholtz coils. To reduce the interference, the axis directional of two coils were arranged orthogonally. The experiments showed that the heating ability of aggregated MNPs is greatly enhanced under this newly designed OSB field without increasing the strength of magnetic field. The OSB field system provides a promising way for future clinical hyperthermia.


This paper analyzes whether labor institutions affect the design of firm hierarchies. We rationalize the role of workplace employee representation (ER) within an otherwise standard knowledgebased model of hierarchies as developed by Garicano (2000), where the firm's optimal choice of hierarchical layers depends on the trade-off between communication and knowledge acquisition costs. To explore the empirical validity of our framework, we rely on establishment-level data on a sample of more than 18000 private-sector workplaces in Europe. We uncover a set of novel descriptive facts regarding the structure and change in corporate hierarchies under the presence of employee representatives. In particular, ER is positively correlated with the depth of hierarchy (number of vertical layers), while there is no significant association between ER and delayering. These relationships appear to be mediated by firm size. We also document that delayering does not translate into greater worker empowerment, although the presence of ER reduces the probability of functional centralization among delayered establishments. Moreover, the presence of ER correlates with the frequency of staff meetings and the accumulation of noncodifiable productive knowledge through job training and skill development. The analysis of managers' perceptions suggests the higher frequency of meetings in firms with ER does not lead to more delays in the implementation of organizational changes. Taken together, our findings indicate that the effect of ER on the firm hierarchy is driven by a reduction in communication costs rather by an increase in knowledge acquisition costs, facilitating the flow of information to top decision makers possibly through skip-level reporting. JEL Classification: J51, L23, M11


The homeodomain zipper family (HD-ZIP) of transcription factors is present only in plants and plays important role in the regulation of plant-specific processes. The subfamily IV of HDZ transcription factors (HD-ZIP IV) has primarily been implicated in the regulation of epidermal structure development. Though this gene family is present in all lineages of land plants, members of this gene family have not been identified in banana, which is one of the major staple fruit crops. In the present work, we identified 21 HDZIV encoding genes in banana by the computational analysis of banana genome resource. Our analysis suggested that these genes putatively encode proteins having all the characteristic domains of HDZIV transcription factors. The phylogenetic analysis of the banana HDZIV family genes further confirmed that after separation from a common ancestor, the banana, and poales lineages might have followed distinct evolutionary paths. Further, we conclude that segmental duplication played a major role in the evolution of banana HDZIV encoding genes. All the identified banana HDZIV genes expresses in different banana tissue, however at varying levels. The transcript levels of some of the banana HDZIV genes were also detected in banana fruit pulp, suggesting their putative role in fruit attributes. A large number of genes of this family showed modulated expression under drought and salinity stress. Taken together, the present work lays a foundation for elucidation of functional aspects of the banana HDZIV encoding genes and for their possible use in the banana improvement programs.


Indonesia has biodiversity in ornamental fish commodities. ). One of the ornamental fish that has the potential to be developed is the discus fish. The hatchery of discus fish is an important activity in the aquaculture process. This study aimed to determine the performance of discus fish hatchery in Joel Nararya Farm, Sukarame, Bandar Lampung. This study observed 2 broodstock of hatchery prouction, code A (Female Pigeon x Male Pigeon) and B (Female Pigeon x Male Blue Turqoise). This study showed that the fecundity was 153 eggs for A and 160 eggs for B. The fertilization rate showed a value of 73% for codes A and B. The hatching rate value indicated a value of 15% for code A and 64% for code B. The performance of discus fish hatchery was not optimum. The farm should use 2:2 ratio male and female to increase the eggs production. The code A hatchery aquarium was also too close to the passing places of broodstock so that they were easily stressed and affected the hatching rate. It need to be replaced to proper location.


Polydactyly of the hands or feet is a common birth deformity. We recently encountered a female infant with a case of a crossed type 1 polydactyly with a mixed polydactyly of the feet. A mixed and crossed polydactyly is a rare finding with only one other reported case. This is the first report of crossed and mixed polydactyly of the feet presenting with 7 complete toes on each foot without syndactyly. In addition to a discussion of the treatment, this case has lead us to propose a more complete and less confusing classification system.


An experimental system was developed to measure flow rates and pressure drops across hyaluronic acid solutions. The solutions were contained by membranes in a test cell, and solvent was perfused through the cell at flow rates comparable to physiological conditions. The pressure drop was found to be proportional to a steady flow rate for concentrations up to 1.5%, confirming that Darcy's Law for porous media is valid for hyaluronic acid solutions (and indicating that the polymer chains did not pile up at one end of the test cell). From the flow data, the hydrodynamic permeability of each solution was calculated and found to be 50 times higher that whole tissue having the same hyaluronic acid concentration; hyaluronic acid on its own, therefore, is not the source of resistance to flow in tissue. The results for hyaluronic acid were then used to show that all the glycosaminoglycans together cannot cause the high resistance of ground substance in tissue, and it is argued that mucoproteins are the most likely source. A hydrodynamic model of the polymer chains was developed to predict solution permeability; the theoretical values agree closely with the experimental data.


Simulated moving bed (SMB) chromatography has become a widely used separation technology in the pharmaceutical and fine chemical industries. However, operation of SMBs at their economic optimum is still an open issue because of the absence of proper process control schemes. This work proposes an on-line optimization-based control concept to avoid the tradeoff between the robustness and productivity of the process and to accelerate the development of SMB separations. The control concept requires minimal information on the system, i.e., Henry's constants and the average porosity of the columns. This paper illustrates how a controller that is based only on the linear adsorption isotherm parameters can find the correct operating conditions for the SMB applied to a system characterized by a nonlinear competitive isotherm in order first to fulfill the product specifications and then to optimize the economics of the operation. The performance of the controller is assessed for several scenarios addressing the main challenges in SMB operation.


Northern coastal Peru, including the area of International Petroleum's La Brea-Parinas field, is a region of marked subsurface structural relief. This relief consists of a complex series of basement highs and lows which, in general, have retained their respective high or low tendencies at least as far back as the early Tertiary, and therefore have influenced in varying degrees, the nature and distribution of faunal and sedimentary facies deposited here since that time. Production is almost entirely from Eocene sands which occur both in lenticular and blanket-type deposits. However, because of intercalated shales, different degrees of cementation, and faulting contemporaneous, or nearly so, with deposition, the oil has had virtually no opportunity to migrate. Accordingly, his region is an excellent place in which to study the relationships among the occurrence of oil, the structure, and the sedimentary facies. From such study, the following observations have been drawn--1. The oil is of local origin, greatest migration being probably less than a mile. 2. Sedimentary facies are of prime importance in the control of oil occurrence. 3. Structure is important chiefly in the way it has controlled the deposition of source beds in relation to reservoir beds, rather than in simply providing closure by which to trap migrating oil. 4. For best results, the oil should be sought in areas where reservoir and source beds have been developed on the basis (sand-shale ratio) of about one to two, or one to three. These areas occur more commonly on the flanks of active stru tures rather than on top of them, or deep in the basins.


The area and culture most affected by AIDS is in sub-Saharan Africa, where 74 percent of the total number of people infected resides. In January 2005 data was collected through the nursing intervention classification (NIC) survey of twenty parish nurses in Swaziland, Africa. In May 2006 additional ranking surveys were completed and interviews were conducted. By ranking this data in comparison to data collected from United States parish nurses few similarities in the daily nursing interventions but many similarities in the core nursing interventions are found. From this comparison it is concluded that daily interventions are unique based on the population served such as in Swaziland where the majority of patients are affected by HIV/AIDS. The similarities in the core nursing interventions demonstrate that the fundamental practice of parish nursing is not defined by culture or population. By incorporating these daily and core nursing interventions into the current curriculum, future parish nurses in Swaziland can gain a better understanding of this important nursing practice.


Abstract We present hydrogen bonds with toroidal densities of the protons, called toroidal hydrogen bonds, in systems with cylindrical symmetry e.g. triatomic molecules AHB or ions AHB+ or AHB–. These may be prepared by excitation of the degenerate bending vibrations and related pseudorotation such that the hydrogen atom (or the corresponding proton) is no longer located on the symmetry axis between atoms A and B, but – classically speaking – it rotates around that axis. Quantum mechanically, the toroidal hydrogen bond is represented by an excited nuclear eigenstate with nuclear wavefunction and corresponding nuclear density which have toroidal shapes around the central nodal line which conincides with the AB symmetry axis. The properties of these bonds are analyzed, including the pseudorotational angular momentum. Toroidal hydrogen bonds may be excited by means of circularly polarized infrared (IR) laser pulses. The results are demonstrated exemplarily for the oriented model system FHF–, by means of combined quantum chemistry calculations of the potential energy and dipole surfaces (adapted from L. González, G. Pérez-Hernández, J. González-Vázquez, (2008), submitted), calculations of the vibrational and pseudorotational states in the frame of Watson's isomorphic Hamiltonian for linear molecules (J. K. G. Watson, Mol. Phys. 19 (1970) 465), and quantum dynamics simulations of the laser driven nuclear dynamics, analogous to recent applications to CdH2 (I. Barth, J. Manz, P. Sebald, Chem. Phys. 346 (2008) 89).


In metropolitan cities an efficient integrated public transportation system is unavoidable to restrict unsustainable growth of private and intermediate transport modes. Well-designed feeder routes and coordinated schedules to minimize transfer time from the main transit to feeder buses play an important role. Past literature reveals that a heuristic approach had been popular for design of routes and had been applied successfully in a variety of network design problems. Nontraditional optimization techniques, especially genetic algorithms, are also found to be very effective in the generation of optimized feeder routes and schedules. In this research the genetic algorithm first develops feeder routes and then a specialized heuristic algorithm works as a repair algorithm to satisfy the demand of all the nodes. Thus, the advantages of both genetic algorithms and specialized heuristic algorithms are obtained in this method. The developed feeder route structure is found to be better in terms of load factors in buses, satisfaction of demand, and waiting time for feeder buses as compared to existing scenarios and earlier approaches adopted for the same study area.


Habitat selection by a group of vervet monkeys (Cercopithecus aethiops) living on the savanna peninsula of St. Kitts was investigated by the intensive sampling of 12 transects. The vervets exhibited nonrandom use of habitats. Examination of 20 ecological variables in each of the habitat types revealed that the vervets preferentially used areas of secondary growth characterized by high density and diversity of tall food plants. It is suggested that the preferential use of secondary growth habitat can be attributed to the fact that these areas have high levels of plant productivity and that they have a large proportion of their productivity available for consumption.


Originally published in Contemporary Psychology: APA Review of Books, 1996, Vol 41(2), 191. Ranging over a wide field of philosophic inquiry, Singer investigates age-old questions about self-interest and the ability and/or duty to live ethically. Singer describes the collective good, various percept


A book review of Consumer Kids: How Big Business is Grooming Our Children for Profit, Ed Mayo and Agnes Nairn, Constable, 2009


This paper presents a sequential model suited to analyze transitions between equilibria. Disequilibrium dynamics are obtained from a standard monopolistic competition model, by introducing a sequential structure and reasonable hypotheses about technology, finance constraints, expectation formation, and the wage setting mechanism. The response to shocks crucially depends on the institutional features of the economy, and on the monetary policy stance. In particular, some degree of wage stickiness proves necessary to avoid explosive paths. This feature of the model makes it a good candidate for the reappraisal of Keynes' arguments on wages and unemployment.


Though primarily decentralized, California has proposed a biennial Inspection/Maintenance Program that is a hybrid of the decentralized and centralized concepts of vehicular pollution inspections. Private repair garages will volunteer to become licensed by the State in order to conduct inspections and repairs. This novel approach greatly enhances motorist convenience but also results in lesser inspection and repair accuracy than seen in the typical centralized approach. Several features have been built into the proposed program that protect the motorist and minimize decisions on the part of the mechanic. Equipment and quality assurance measures are comparable to those typically found in a centralized approach. The major features of the program will be discussed in this paper.


The 29 individuals found in 27 graves at Nagycenk were buried there in the time period between 2000–1700 BC, according to radiocarbon dates – i.e. at the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age in Hungary. The cemetery is of unique importance, both because of the richness of burial assemblages (altogether 30 bronze objects, 5 gold jewelries) and the scarcity of known Gata–Wieselburg cemeteries. 15 percent of the ca. 180 burials in total, which relate to this culture in Hungary, are in this cemetery, and because of the few published burial sites, the cemetery at Nagycenk represents about one fourth of the materials published so far in the whole distribution area of the culture. Pottery style, typology and raw material of metal artefacts, as well as the radiocarbon dates (with the earliest among the published radiocarbon dates in context of this culture) support the dating of the cemetery section to the early phase of the Gata–Wieselburg culture. The oval arrangement of burials around grave 55 and grave 1 suggest that each of these correspond to a household of high status men representing a few generations of the population living in the settlement excavated in the vicinity of Nagycenk.


Mirror twin grain boundary (MTB) defects, being a special type of high-symmetry one-dimensional (1D) defects in two-dimensional atomically thin transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs), have received considerable interest due to their unique structures and intriguing 1D properties. However, formation and distribution of MTBs in hybrid TMDC materials such as heterojunction remain scarcely studied. Herein, we investigate the spatial distribution, lattice registry and formation mechanism of MTBs in molecular beam epitaxy grown monolayer WSe2–MoSe2 lateral heterojunctions using atomic-resolution annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy (ADF-STEM). MTBs manifest a much higher density in MoSe2 than in WSe2 domains with a few of them spanning coherently across the domain interface. Compositionally, a Mo-dominant rather than W-dominant configuration was observed in those MTBs located in WSe2 domains and its origin can be attributed to the preferable Mo substitution to W along the MTBs occurring at the later MoSe2 growth period. This proposed mechanism is supported by ab-initio density functional theory calculations and substitution dynamics captured by in-situ ADF-STEM. The present study deepens our understanding of MTBs in heterostructured TMDCs, which may also serve as an excellent platform for the exploration of intriguing 1D physics.


Background Collateral ventilation has been proposed as a mechanism of compensation of respiratory function in obstructive lung diseases but observations of it in vivo are limited. The assessment of collateral ventilation with an imaging technique might help to gain insight into lung physiology and assist the planning of new bronchoscopic techniques for treating emphysema. Objective To obtain images of delayed ventilation that might be related to collateral ventilation over the period of a single breath-hold in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Methods Time-resolved breath-hold hyperpolarised 3He MRI was used to obtain images of the progressive influx of polarised gas into initially non-ventilated defects. Results A time-series of images showed that 3He moves into lung regions which were initially non-ventilated. Ventilation defects with delayed filling were observed in 8 of the 10 patients scanned. Conclusions A method for direct imaging of delayed ventilation within a single breath-hold has been demonstrated in patients with COPD. Images of what is believed to be collateral ventilation and slow filling of peripheral airspaces due to increased flow resistance are presented. The technique provides 3D whole-lung coverage with sensitivity to regional information, and is non-invasive and non-ionising.


There is an increasing focus within healthcare on the need for professionals to be able to work effectively in multi-professional teams. This requires each professional to have some understanding of the nature of the other professions. There has also been much discussion on the value of inter-professional learning (IPL) and its contribution to better healthcare (see for example Clifton, Dale and Bradshaw 2006, Faresjo 2006 and Barr and Low 2013). These discussions raise the question of whether different professions should learn together in more targeted ways than relying on learning whilst working together in multi-professional teams and whether those with responsibility for healthcare education from one professional area are equipped to support those from another. One argument against this position is that the individual health professions are distinctive and learners need to learn in different ways, which would make teaching them together difficult. However, there has been no systematic investigation into how learning is perceived within each professional area and whether in fact there are great differences. This study was commissioned by the pan-London Multiprofessional Faculty Development team to investigate how understandings of learning are perceived within each healthcare area and how they compare across professions. It is hoped that the findings will also assist in developing an online tool for educators trying to promote more inter-professional approaches to teaching and learning. This study is to be read alongside the recently commissioned 'Review of qualifications and training for clinical educators in the healthcare professions' (Austerberry and Newman 2013), which sets out how supervision of students and trainees takes place within each healthcare profession.
The report is structured as follows: discussion of the methods used, presentation of the findings and discussion of the implications.


The <2-mm size range in soils may contain aggregates as well as primary particles. We investigated the breakup of aggregates <2 mm after applying different chemical and physical agents to 10 samples. Mass-size distributions were obtained by combining wet sieving and x-ray centrifugation after five treatments: water dispersion, chemical dispersion, organic matter removal, physical dispersion, and all of the above combined. The <2-mm range was subdivided into 20 size classes and the fragment production was evaluated with respect to water dispersion. Cluster analysis helped identify similar fragmentation patterns among samples for each determination method. The effectiveness of the single methods differed considerably among samples. Only their combination resulted in pronounced permanent dispersion. An empirical effectiveness index was developed to provide a quantitative assessment of the overall effectiveness of each method. This index indicated that both organic and inorganic binding agents contribute to topsoil aggregation in the <2-mm size range.


This paper introduces a family of link-based ranking algorithms that propagate page importance through links. In these algorithms there is a damping function that decreases with distance, so a direct link implies more endorsement than a link through a long path. PageRank is the most widely known ranking function of this family.The main objective of this paper is to determine whether this family of ranking techniques has some interest per se, and how different choices for the damping function impact on rank quality and on convergence speed. Even though our results suggest that PageRank can be approximated with other simpler forms of rankings that may be computed more efficiently, our focus is of more speculative nature, in that it aims at separating the kernel of PageRank, that is, link-based importance propagation, from the way propagation decays over paths.We focus on three damping functions, having linear, exponential, and hyperbolic decay on the lengths of the paths. The exponential decay corresponds to PageRank, and the other functions are new. Our presentation includes algorithms, analysis, comparisons and experiments that study their behavior under different parameters in real Web graph data.Among other results, we show how to calculate a linear approximation that induces a page ordering that is almost identical to PageRank's using a fixed small number of iterations; comparisons were performed using Kendall's τ on large domain datasets.


Development is a process that is full of uncertainties, and even more so is the process of transition from the planned economy to a market oriented one. Because of the uncertainties and country specificity, development must be a process of learning, selective adaptation, and augmentation and upgrade. This paper attempts to distill lessons from China's reform and opening up process, and to investigate the underlying reasons behind China's success in trade expansion and economic growth. Started with home-grown and second best institutions, China has embarked on a long journey of reform, experimentation, and learning by doing, transforming from the Comparative Advantage-Defying (CAD) strategy to the Comparative AdvantageFollowing (CAF) strategy. Further, China is catching up quickly through augmenting its factor endowments and upgrading industries; but this has been only partially successful. Even though China is facing several difficult challenges including rising inequality, an industrial structure that is overly capitaland energy-intensive, and related environmental degradation, it is better positioned to tackle them now than thirty years ago. This paper reviews the drivers behind China's learning and trade integration and provides both positive and negative lessons to developing countries with diverse natural endowments, especially those in Sub-Saharan Africa. JEL No. F13, F14, O50, O53


Given a dataset of points in a metric space and an integer $k$, a diversity maximization problem requires determining a subset of $k$ points maximizing some diversity objective measure, e.g., the minimum or the average distance between two points in the subset. Diversity maximization is computationally hard, hence only approximate solutions can be hoped for. Although its applications are mainly in massive data analysis, most of the past research on diversity maximization focused on the sequential setting. In this work we present space and pass/round-efficient diversity maximization algorithms for the Streaming and MapReduce models and analyze their approximation guarantees for the relevant class of metric spaces of bounded doubling dimension. Like other approaches in the literature, our algorithms rely on the determination of high-quality core-sets, i.e., (much) smaller subsets of the input which contain good approximations to the optimal solution for the whole input. For a variety of diversity objective functions, our algorithms attain an $(\alpha+\epsilon)$-approximation ratio, for any constant $\epsilon>0$, where $\alpha$ is the best approximation ratio achieved by a polynomial-time, linear-space sequential algorithm for the same diversity objective. This improves substantially over the approximation ratios attainable in Streaming and MapReduce by state-of-the-art algorithms for general metric spaces. We provide extensive experimental evidence of the effectiveness of our algorithms on both real world and synthetic datasets, scaling up to over a billion points.


Electronic health record (EHR) coding is the task of assigning ICD codes to each EHR. Most previous studies either only focus on the frequent ICD codes or treat rare and frequent ICD codes in the same way. These methods perform well on frequent ICD codes but due to the extremely unbalanced distribution of ICD codes, the performance on rare ones is far from satisfactory. We seek to improve the performance for both frequent and rare ICD codes by using a contrastive graph-based EHR coding framework, CoGraph, which re-casts EHR coding as a few-shot learning task. First, we construct a heterogeneous EHR word-entity (HEWE) graph for each EHR, where the words and entities extracted from an EHR serve as nodes and the relations between them serve as edges. Then, CoGraph learns similarities and dissimilarities between HEWE graphs from different ICD codes so that information can be transferred among them. In a few-shot learning scenario, the model only has access to frequent ICD codes during training, which might force it to encode features that are useful for frequent ICD codes only. To mitigate this risk, CoGraph devises two graph contrastive learning schemes, GSCL and GECL, that exploit the HEWE graph structures so as to encode transferable features. GSCL utilizes the intra-correlation of different sub-graphs sampled from HEWE graphs while GECL exploits the inter-correlation among HEWE graphs at different clinical stages. Experiments on the MIMIC-III benchmark dataset show that CoGraph significantly outperforms state-of-the-art methods on EHR coding, not only on frequent ICD codes, but also on rare codes, in terms of several evaluation indicators. On frequent ICD codes, GSCL and GECL improve the classification accuracy and F1 by 1.31% and 0.61%, respectively, and on rare ICD codes CoGraph has more obvious improvements by 2.12% and 2.95%.


Given the structure of our Electoral College, there are places in the United States in which votes simply matter more. Many Americans believe the Electoral College is unfair, antiquated, and in desperate need of reform. However, alternative electoral proposals designed to reform our current system may not provide the benefits we seek from an ideal electoral process. In my thesis, I compare and contrast the current winner-takes-all method of allocating a state's electoral votes to one of its most similar and realistic alternatives—the district plan. I compare the two systems against several criteria that are vital to a wellfunctioning and healthy democratic process: legitimacy, inclusiveness, neutrality, simplicity, equality, participation, and feasibility. Overall, my results demonstrate that while the district plan might offer certain advantages—for example, increased electoral legitimacy, an expanded campaigning map, and the possibility for higher rates of voter turnout nationwide—these benefits are neither numerous nor profound when considering the immense hurdle of passing an electoral reform amendment. Ultimately, the future of electoral reform rests either on an emphatic embrace of the current system or an abolishment of the Electoral College and complete restructuring of the electoral process—no in-between compromise is worth the price. This article is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/ppe_honors/45 We the People, in Order to Form a More Perfect... Electoral College An analysis into electoral reform problems, proposals, and possibilities


Most performance evaluation models in the operations management literature implicitly assume that tasks possess standardized completion criteria. However, in many systems, particularly service and professional work, judgment is frequently required to determine how much time to allocate to a task. In this paper, we show that introducing discretion in task completion adds a fourth variability buffer, quality, to the well-known buffers of capacity, inventory and time. To gain insight into the managerial implications of this difference, we model the work of one- and two-worker systems with discretionary task completion as controlled queues. After characterizing the optimal control policy and identifying some practical heuristics, we use this model to examine the differences between discretionary and nondiscretionary work. We show that in systems with discretionary task completion, (i) adding capacity may actually increase congestion, and (ii) task variability in service time can improve system performance. This implies that it may be suboptimal to expect shorter delays as a result of a capacity increase, and that task variability reduction may not be an appropriate goal in systems with discretionary task completion. We also find that the benefit of queue pooling is smaller in systems with discretionary task completion than in systems with nondiscretionary task completion.


Objective—Although atherosclerosis is associated with systemic risk factors such as age, high cholesterol, and obesity, plaque formation occurs predominately at branches and bends that are exposed to disturbed patterns of blood flow. The molecular mechanisms that link disturbed flow–generated mechanical forces with arterial injury are uncertain. To illuminate them, we investigated the effects of flow on endothelial cell (EC) senescence. Approach and Results—LDLR−/− (low-density lipoprotein receptor−/−) mice were exposed to a high-fat diet for 2 to 12 weeks (or to a normal chow diet as a control) before the assessment of cellular senescence in aortic ECs. En face staining revealed that senescence-associated &bgr;-galactosidase activity and p53 expression were elevated in ECs at sites of disturbed flow in response to a high-fat diet. By contrast, ECs exposed to undisturbed flow did not express senescence-associated &bgr;-galactosidase or p53. Studies of aortae from healthy pigs (aged 6 months) also revealed enhanced senescence-associated &bgr;-galactosidase staining at sites of disturbed flow. These data suggest that senescent ECs accumulate at disturbed flow sites during atherogenesis. We used in vitro flow systems to examine whether a causal relationship exists between flow and EC senescence. Exposure of cultured ECs to flow (using either an orbital shaker or a syringe-pump flow bioreactor) revealed that disturbed flow promoted EC senescence compared with static conditions, whereas undisturbed flow reduced senescence. Gene silencing studies demonstrated that disturbed flow induced EC senescence via a p53-p21 signaling pathway. Disturbed flow–induced senescent ECs exhibited reduced migration compared with nonsenescent ECs in a scratch wound closure assay, and thus may be defective for arterial repair. However, pharmacological activation of sirtuin 1 (using resveratrol or SRT1720) protected ECs from disturbed flow–induced senescence. Conclusions—Disturbed flow promotes endothelial senescence via a p53-p21–dependent pathway which can be inhibited by activation of sirtuin 1. These observations support the principle that pharmacological activation of sirtuin 1 may promote cardiovascular health by suppressing EC senescence at atheroprone sites.


Seven different transition metal oxides (TiO2, ZnO, V2O5, Fe2O3, Co3O4, MnO2, and CuO) have been investi- gated for oxidation of diesel particulate matter (PM) under plasma discharge conditions. The experiments were carried out by measuring PM oxidation rates over each catalyst using a batch-type dielectric barrier discharge reactor. It was found that TiO2, ZnO, V2O5, and Fe2O3 can promote PM oxidation, among which Fe2O3 is a most desirable catalyst for PM oxi- dative removal as PM oxidation rate promoted by Fe2O3 is highest under plasma discharge conditions. The mechanism of PM catalytic oxidation over the metal oxides has been suggested to follow the redox catalytic cycles from the correlation of the catalytic oxidation rates with the formation enthalpies per oxygen atom of the catalysts. O atoms generated by plasma discharges may play an important role in promoting the re-oxidation of the catalysts. The highest catalytic activity for the PM oxidation with Fe2O3 has been suggested to be due to the balance between the reduction rate and the re- oxidation rate within the redox catalytic cycles.


Clinical and pathological data on 25 fatal cases of tropical malaria were obtained from several hospitals in a retrospective survey. The patients originated, without exception, from non-malaria endemic regions (non-immunes). Death occurred in nine patients despite elimination of the parasitaemia with schizontocides. Life threatening complications were complex and apparently interacting. Manifestations of the disease included (1) initial acute renal failure, (2) disturbance of water and electrolyte balance, (3) cerebral oedema resulting in microhaemorrhages, (4) lung oedema, and increasing respiratory insufficiency even after elimination of the parasitaemia (in 4 cases there was histological evidence of shock lung), (5) myocarditis (histological evidence of cellular myocardial infiltration obtained in 4 cases), (6) hepatocellular damage, (7) complications associated with intensive-care treatment in 2 cases. The data allow no conclusions on the intensity and nature of blood clotting disturbances. According to this analysis the clinical manifestations of advanced malaria resemble protracted shock conditions having other aetiologies. However, specific cerebral and cardiac complications and homeostatic disturbances do apparently occur, the treatment of which requires experience with the clinical syndrome.


The marsh frog (Pelophylax ridibundus sensu lato) is the number one amphibian invader in Western Europe. In Switzerland, marsh frogs were introduced in the 1950-1960s and progressively colonized most of the northern parts of the country. We investigated this invasion using molecular tools. We mapped the cryptic presence of three monophyletic mitochondrial lineages (P. ridibundus, P. kurtmuelleri and P. c. f. bedriagae from southeastern Europe) consistent with registered importations by a local frog-leg industry. High nuclear diversity supports that invasive frogs probably originated from genetically-rich import batches and patterns of population differentiation confirm that multiple independent introduction sites were involved. Moreover, several lines of evidence suggest occasional hybridization with local hybridogenetic water frogs. This invasion emphasizes the issues of frequent amphibian releases and translocations at the international and regional scale for commercial and recreational purposes, and stresses for more adequate legislation, control and information to the general public. Given the parallel invasion by alien pool frogs (i. e., the Italian P. bergeri has replaced the local P. lessonae), the situation of water frogs in Switzerland is critical. The water frog complex makes an alarming symbol of the anthropogenic mark left on wildlife diversity and distributions.


The energy metabolism of the right ventricle (RV) in vivo has been largely unexplored. The goal of this study was to develop and implement techniques for in vivo 31P nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy of the RV free wall. A two-turn, crossover-design elliptical surface coil was constructed to provide high sensitivity across the thin RV wall but minimal sensitivity in the blood-filled RV cavity. In 36 open-chest, anesthetized pigs, 31P spectroscopy of the RV free wall was performed with this coil at a field strength of 2 Tesla. Spectra were obtained from 800 acquisitions in 24 min with an average signal-to-noise ratio of 13.2 for phosphocreatine (PCr). The PCr-to-ATP (PCr/ATP) ratio of porcine RV was 1.42 +/- 0.05 (mean +/- SE), uncorrected for saturation at a repetition time of 1.8 s. With the use of literature values of the time constant of longitudinal relaxation (T1) to correct for partial saturation, the RV PCr/ATP was estimated to lie between 1.7 and 2.3. Decreased RV PCr/ATP was observed during RV ischemia and pressure overload. Thus in vivo 31P spectroscopy of the RV is readily accomplished with an appropriate surface coil and can provide new information about RV energy metabolism.


Asian contextual theology tends to define globalization as a contemporary form of colonialism. Realizing the failure of past evangelization and contemporary American-oriented Evangelicalism in honoring the dignity and interests of local people, Asian contextual theologians reside in the antiglobalization camp. They locate themselves there for sound theological reasons, but their position does not reflect a complete account of the experiences of Asian people. These theologians should listen more carefully to people involved in the business sector and include those experiences in their interpretation of the context.


OBJECTIVE
To determine the regulatory role and mechanism of nitric oxide (NO) in the development and hatching of mouse blastocysts.

METHODS
The Kunming female mice were superovulated and then mated with mature male mice. On the day 2.5 of their pregnancy, morulae were flushed from their uterine horns with culture media. Morulae were cultured in different concentrations of N-nitro-L arginine methyl ester (L-NAME), sodium nitroprusside (SNP), or the combination of L-NAME and SNP in culture media for 48 hours. The development and hatching of blastocysts were examined on day 4 and day 5 and the total numbers of blastocyst cells and cysteinyl aspartate specific proteinase 3 (caspase 3) were observed under confocal laser scanning microscope.

RESULTS
With the increase of the concentration of L-NAME or SNP, the hatching rate of blastocysts and the total number of blastocyst cells were significantly reduced. The addition of 10 nmol/L SNP in culture media with 5 mmol/L L-NAME significantly increased the development of blastocysts and promoted hatching of blastocysts. However, with increase of SNP concentration in culture media with 5 mmol/L L-NAME, the development and hatching rates of blastocysts were significantly decreased. L-NAME had no obvious effect on the expression of active caspase 3 in blastocyst cells. However,when being above 500 nmol/L,SNP significantly increased the expression of caspase 3 in blastocyst cells.

CONCLUSIONS
NO plays an important role in development and hatching of mouse blastocysts. Excessively high or low NO can damage the division of blastomeres, resulting in the failure of the blastocyst development and hatching. Also, excessively high NO can lead to the apoptosis of the blastocyst cells.


The electronic conduction mechanism in polycarbazole (PCz) films was investigated. Electropolymerization was used to fabricate PCz thin films. The current density versus the electric field J(E) indicated an ionic polarization. Ions were (1) quenched by the effect of a high hydrostatic pressure or (2) eliminated by dipping PCz in de-ionized water. The electronic conduction was characterized by J(E) measurements at different temperatures and by impedance spectroscopy, and was modelled as a Schottky-type injection. A comparison of the results obtained following treatments 1 and 2 indicated a large difference in the model parameters. This disparity was interpreted in terms of differences in the effective mass due to interface modification.


Mutational status of immunoglobulin variable region genes (VH-genes) is known as the strongest predictor of long term prognosis in B-CLL. However, applications in the routine clinical practice are time consuming, and therefore some other predictions are required. In this study, we have compared prognostic values of real time PCR quantification of the expression levels of four genes previously shown to be differentially expressed in VH-unmutated and mutated B-CLL subtypes: ZAP-70, ZBTB20, DMD and LPL. The study included 134 B-CLL patients. Expression levels of LPL and DMD genes were significantly correlated to mutational status, while expression levels of of ZAP-70 gene correlated only in CD19+ selected cases (N = 40). No correlation was observed for ZBTB20 gene. Expression levels of LPL and DMD predicted overall survival in the entire cohort of patients. Prognostic values of LPL gene expression levels were significant even for CLL patients with stage A. Quantitative RT-PCR assays for measuring LPL gene expression are robust enough to be introduced into routine clinical practice.


We consider the problem of verifying context-aware, pervasive, interactive systems when the interaction involves both system configuration and system use. Verification of configurable systems is more tightly coupled to design when the verification process involves reasoning about configurable formal models. The approach is illustrated with a case study: using the model checker SPIN and a SAT solver to reason about a configurable model of an activity monitor from the MATCH homecare infrastructure. Parts of the models are generated automatically from actual log files.


In light of calls to examine, elaborate, and improve pedagogies in teaching and learning Islam, thematic analysis was conducted on literature in English on pedagogies derived from the primary-source texts, the Qur'an and Sunnah. Three themes were constructed, each capturing a distinct pedagogic principle, to suggest an expansive framework of principled, flexible, situated, holistic, and transformative pedagogies. First, Relational Pedagogies center learning and developing in warm human relationships. Second, Pedagogies of Mutual Engagement include doing, speaking, and inquiring together in participatory processes of making meaning. Third, Pedagogies of Conscious Awareness aim to make visible purposes, reasons, and principles behind Islamic practices. These three themes were then used as sensitizing concepts in examining data gathered in a sociocultural study on Muslim educators' perspectives and practices at a mosque school in Canada. Reflections of the themes in the data—and contradictions—suggest that educators passionately but partially draw from primary-source pedagogies to inform their praxis in a pedagogic diaspora where interpretation and application vary. Further research is required to examine whether the developmental potential of these primary-source pedagogies might be optimized when they are employed together, as a balanced group, and how they might address pedagogical criticisms in teaching and learning Islam.


Application servers (ASs) are actively used by various companies as a basis of distributed systems supporting remote user access to some application functions. Developing multi-user software seems a non-trivial problem for the necessity of providing parallel process interaction. The geoinformation AS (Markov and Ostrast, 1999) is of the following structure of process interaction. For each user connected, a session is created as a process. Each session has a time limit, after expiration of which the unused session is deleted. The main process carries out process creation/deletion and processing of the global session list. A lump of processes and the necessity of their synchronization have required modeling AS software for validating its correctness. The formalism of PS-nets has been used by the authors as the model of representing the parallel processes (Markov et al., 1997). With its help, the problems of validating AS software correctness have been analyzed.


Proceedings: AACR 103rd Annual Meeting 2012‐‐ Mar 31‐Apr 4, 2012; Chicago, IL

Breast cancer is the most frequent neoplasm in females as it affects 1:10 women. In populations of early breast cancer subsequent brain metastases develop in 5%, while in metastatic breast cancer (mBC), the incidence of CNS-metastases reaches 10-16% [Ann Oncol 2006; 17:935]. The incidence is particularly high (30%-50%) in patients (pts) with HER2-positive mBC [Ann Oncol 2008; 19:1837]. Similarly, the incidence of CNS-metastases is high in pts treated with taxanes for mBC [Ann Oncol 2001; 12:353]. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the role of taxanes on CNS metastases in a murine breast cancer model using the MDA-MB-231BR cell line which has a tropism to metastasize into the CNS upon intracardiac injection [J Natl Ca Inst 2008;100:1092]. Groups of Balb/c nude mice were injected intravenously with docetaxel at a dose of 10mg/kg every 2 weeks for 5 injections (long tax, N=17) or with only 2 similar injections (short tax, N=16) or no injection (control, N=14). Two weeks later MDA-MB-231 BR tumor cells (500′000 cells in 0.1mL PBS) were injected into the left ventricle. Four weeks after that, animals were sacrificed for collection of organs and analysis by histology. The main finding was that metastatic foci were significantly increased in long-tax mice (median number of foci 52, range 0-76) compared to control mice (median number of foci 20, range 0-52; p=0.015). In short-tax animals an intermediate incidence of foci was found (median 30, range 0-79), with a trend, but not a significant difference compared to untreated animals (p=0.7) Histologically we observed a mainly perivascular intraparenchymal infiltration pattern while superficial metastases or a spread to the cerebrospinal fluid was only rarely seen. We therefore assessed changes of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) by ultrastructural approaches. However, we have not found obvious differences in the BBB configuration after taxane treatment. In summary, our results provide evidence that taxane treatment might facilitate spread of breast cancer cells into the CNS, however underlying mechanisms remain to be determined.

Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 103rd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2012 Mar 31-Apr 4; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2012;72(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 1395. doi:1538-7445.AM2012-1395


ABSTRACT Introduction: Sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) receptor modulators, of which one has received marketing approval and several others are in clinical development, display promising potential in the treatment of a spectrum of autoimmune diseases. Areas covered: Administration of S1P1 receptor modulators leads to functional receptor antagonism triggering sustained inhibition of the egress of lymphocytes from lymphoid organs. First-dose administration is associated with transient cardiovascular effects. We compiled and discussed available pharmacokinetic, pharmacodynamic, and safety data of selective and non-selective S1P receptor modulators that were investigated in recent years. Expert opinion: The safety profile of S1P receptor modulators is considered better than other classes of immunomodulators and was further improved by the development of up-titration regimens to mitigate first-dose effects. S1P receptor modulators display similar pharmacodynamic effects but have very different pharmacokinetic profiles. Drugs with a rapid elimination are of interest in case of opportunistic infections or pregnancy, whereas the need of re-initiation of up-titration in case of treatment interruption can present a challenge.


The common approach for the localization of acoustic emission sourcesin a beam requires at least two measurements at different positions on the structure. The acoustic emission event is then located by evaluating the time-differenceof the arriving elastic wave at two positions. This paper introduces a new method, which allows the detection and localization of multiple acoustic emission sources with only a single, one point, unidirectional measurement. The method makes use of the time reversal principle and the dispersive propagation behavior of the first bending mode. Whereas time of arrival (TOA) methods struggle with the distortion of elastic waves due to phase dispersion, the presented method uses the dispersive behavior to locate the origin of the acoustic emission event. Therefore, the localization algorithm depends solely on the measured wave form and not on arrival time estimation. The method combines an acoustic emission experiment with a numerical simulation, in which the measured and time reversed displacement history is set as the boundary condition. It is shown, that geometrical effects such as thickness changes or geometrical discontinuities do not affect the detection of acoustic emission events. In this paper, the method is described in detail and the feasibility is experimentally demonstrated by investigating acoustic emission events which are produced by breaking pencil leads on an aluminum beam according to ASTM E976 (Hsu-Nielsen source). The relative error in localizing the acoustic emission sources was found to be below 1%.


Entities in physics involve either mass or energy or both. Projectiles combine both rest mass and kinetic energy (velocity). But an inertial rest mass is all mass and no kinetic energy (no velocity) whereas the photon is all kinetic energy and no (rest) mass. The inertial rest mass and the photon are therefore pure entities in that they feature, respectively, mass without kinetic energy, or kinetic energy without (rest) mass.. Pure entities may be compared at the ontological level (for form, progression in a dimension, extension in a dimension and storage). From this analysis it is shown that Einstein's second postulate of special relativity (constant speed of light) is actually derivative from a more fundamental attribute of all pure entities. Part two of this essay focuses on the space contraction and time dilation of moving physical objects. Arguments against attributing these changes to space and time itself (Minkowski) are offered. Instead, the roles of kinetic energy and of de Broglie wave effects are presented as a better explanation. The famous twin's paradox is discussed in an appendix.


Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) have brought spectacular improvements in several fields of machine vision including object, scene and face recognition. Nonetheless, the impact of this new paradigm on the classification of fine-grained images—such as colour textures—is still controversial. In this work, we evaluate the effectiveness of traditional, hand-crafted descriptors against off-the-shelf CNN-based features for the classification of different types of colour textures under a range of imaging conditions. The study covers 68 image descriptors (35 hand-crafted and 33 CNN-based) and 46 compilations of 23 colour texture datasets divided into 10 experimental conditions. On average, the results indicate a marked superiority of deep networks, particularly with non-stationary textures and in the presence of multiple changes in the acquisition conditions. By contrast, hand-crafted descriptors were better at discriminating stationary textures under steady imaging conditions and proved more robust than CNN-based features to image rotation.


F ALSTAFF : If I had a thousand sons, the first human principle I would teach them should be, to forswear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack. Specific design principles underlie the design and implementation of mechanisms for supporting security policies. These principles build on the ideas of simplicity and restriction. This chapter discusses those basic ideas and eight design principles. Saltzer and Schroeder [865] describe eight principles for the design and implementation of security mechanisms. The principles draw on the ideas of simplicity and restriction. Simplicity makes designs and mechanisms easy to understand. More importantly , less can go wrong with simple designs. Minimizing the interaction of system components minimizes the number of sanity checks on data being transmitted from one component to another. E XAMPLE : The program sendmail reads configuration data from a binary file. System administrators generated the binary file by " freezing, " or compiling, a text version of the configuration file. This created three interfaces: the mechanism used to edit the text file, the mechanism used to freeze the file, and the mechanism sendmail used to read the frozen file. The second interface required manual intervention and was often overlooked. To minimize this problem, sendmail checked that the frozen file was newer than the text file. If not, it warned the user to update the frozen configuration file. The security problem lies in the assumptions that sendmail made. For example, the compiler would check that a particular option had an integer value. However, sendmail would not recheck; it assumed that the compiler had done the checking.


Let R(A) denote the rank (also called the bilinear complexity) of a finite-dimensional associative algebra A. A fundamental lower bound for R(A) is the so-called Alder-Strassen (1981) bound: R(A) /spl ges/ 2 dim A-t, where t is the number of maximal two-sided ideals of A. The class of algebras for which the Alder-Strassen bound is sharp, the so-called "algebras of minimal rank", has received wide attention in algebraic complexity theory. We characterize all algebras of minimal rank over perfect fields. This solves an open problem in algebraic complexity theory over perfect fields [as discussed by V. Strassen (1990) and P. Bu/spl uml/rgisser et al. (1997)]. As a by-product, we determine all algebras A of minimal rank with A/rad A /spl cong/ k/sup t/ over arbitrary fields.


The spring‐layer interface model is widely used in describing some imperfect interfaces frequently involved in materials and structures. Typically, it is appropriate for modelling a thin soft interphase layer between two relatively stiff bulk media. According to the spring‐layer interface model, the displacement vector suffers a jump across an interface whereas the traction vector is continuous across the same interface and is, in the linear case, proportional to the displacement vector jump. In the present work, an efficient three‐dimensional numerical approach based on the extended finite element method is first proposed to model linear spring‐layer curved imperfect interfaces and then applied to predict the effective elastic moduli of composites in which such imperfect interfaces intervene. In particular, a rigorous derivation of the linear spring‐layer interface model is provided to clarify its domain of validity. The accuracy and convergence rate of the elaborated numerical approach are assessed via benchmark tests for which exact analytical solutions are available. The computated effective elastic moduli of composites are compared with the relevant analytical lower and upper bounds. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Objective: The study was planned to determine the home care needs of patients undergoing coronary artery bypass graft surgery. Materials and Methods: The sample of this descriptive study consisted of 90 patients who had undergone coronary artery bypass graft surgery in a university hospital, were given home care for at least six months after discharge, and applied to the outpatient clinic for routine control. In the questionnaire form, which was used to collect study data, there were questions about patients' introductory information, activities of daily living, and home care needs. In order to evaluate the obtained data, number, percentage and chi-square analyzes were performed using the Statistical Package for Social Science. Results: 86.7% of the patients included in the study stated that they did not have any need during home care. 4.9% of the patients stated that they had self-care needs, 4.4% social, 2.2% psychological and 1.8% physiological needs. It was determined that 91.1% of patient relatives helped with their home care. Conclusion: Determining the individual characteristics and learning needs of patients undergoing CABG surgery, taking into account the family member who is planned to assist in home care, planning and applying discharge education in the areas they need the most will contribute to the conduct of their home care.


Apricot kernel oil is a rich source of MUFA and PUFA, including mainly oleic (about 70%) and linoleic acids, respectively. In addition, apricot kernel oil could be considered as a good source of bioactive compounds such as tocopherols and phytosterols consisting mainly of the γ-isomer and βsitosterol, respectively. Given to its high content of oleic acid, apricot kernel oil is considered as a healthy supplement in diet. In the present study, we investigated the effects of apricot kernel oil supplementation on cholesterol and malondialdehyde (MDA) levels and glutathione peroxidase (GPx) and catalase (CAT) activity in hypercholesteremic rats. Hypercholesteremia was produced by feeding rats with a semisynthetic diet that contained high cholesterol and cholic acid. A high cholesterol diet caused a decrease in CAT and GPx activity, while apricot kernel oil caused a significant activity increase of these enzymes (P < 0.05). The group fed with apricot kernel oil supplementation showed higher enzyme activities than sunflower oil groups irrespective of cholesterol (P < 0.05). Results of the present study indicate that apricot kernel oil causes improvement in liver antioxidant status of rats in comparison to sunflower oil which is a commonly consumed vegetable oil.


The influence of sleep state on the transient (i.e., initial 60 s) and steady-state ventilatory responses to 2% CO2 inhalation was studied in 19 healthy full-term infants. A nasal mask pneumotachometer was used to measure ventilation and end-tidal CO2 partial pressure (PCO2) and enabled abrupt changes in the inspired gas concentration to be made. The magnitude of the change in minute ventilation for both the transient and steady-state responses to CO2 was not statistically different between active (AS) and quiet (QS) sleep. Nonetheless the greater variability in minute ventilation during AS compared with QS continued throughout the period of CO2 inhalation and was associated with a more variable change in ventilation in the individual infants during AS. There was a greater increase in end-tidal PCO2 over the first 60 s during AS (3.3 +/- 0.3 vs. 2.6 +/- 0.2 Torr, in AS and QS, respectively, P less than 0.03). This may indicate a smaller initial increase in alveolar ventilation, relative to CO2 delivery to the lungs, in response to CO2 inhalation during AS. Asynchronous chest wall movements were more common during AS than QS (P less than 0.005) and did not change with CO2. The inconsistent transient ventilatory response to CO2 during AS compared with QS may be important in the behavior of infants to spontaneous episodes of hypercapnia occurring during AS.


The Next-Generation Ecosystem Experiments (NGEE Arctic) project is committed to implementing a rigorous and high-quality data management program. The goal is to implement innovative and cost-effective guidelines and tools for collecting, archiving, and sharing data within the project, the larger scientific community, and the public. The NGEE Arctic web site is the framework for implementing these data management and data sharing tools. The open sharing of NGEE Arctic data among project researchers, the broader scientific community, and the public is critical to meeting the scientific goals and objectives of the NGEE Arctic project and critical to advancing the mission of the Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Science, Biological and Environmental (BER) Terrestrial Ecosystem Science (TES) program.


The Problem In Brazilian business organizations, talent development (TD) programs are often based on models borrowed from Western countries. However, there are significant cultural barriers to successful implementation of such transplanted models. Research on TD in Brazil is scarce, especially, research on adoption of imported models and frameworks. The Solution This article is based on a case study of TD practices of a large Brazilian steel company that has a long history of human resource development (HRD) and a unique organizational culture. Our study suggests that this Brazilian company's TD system is based on a combination of several well-known North American models. However, the implementation of the TD system that is based on meritocratic principles does not fully align with an organizational culture characterized by high power distance, paternalism, collectivism, and the emphasis on personal relationships over merit. We suggest ways of addressing the identified misalignments and point out the necessity of tropicalizing the implementation of TD models, which implies embracing Brazilian cultural traits and contexts. The Stakeholders The main audience for this article includes executives, managers, and HRD professionals executing TD strategies in organizations from emerging market economies and/or in firms doing business in emerging markets. In addition, the article will be of interest to scholars specializing in international HRD and talent development.


We study infinite dimensional optimization problems where the constraint mapping is given as the sum of a smooth function and a generalized polyhedral multifunction, e.g. the normal cone mapping of a convex polyhedral set. By using advanced techniques of variational analysis we obtain first-order and second-order characterizations, both necessary and sufficient, for directional metric subregularity of the constraint mapping. These results are used to obtain second-order optimality conditions for the optimization problem.


Abstract This paper proposes a method that discovers various sequential patterns from sequential data. The sequential data is a set of sequences. Each sequence is a row of item sets. Many previous methods discover frequent sequential patterns from the data. However, the patterns tend to be similar to each other because they are composed of limited items. The patterns do not always correspond to the interests of analysts. Therefore, this paper tackles on the issue discovering various sequential patterns. The proposed method decides redundant sequential patterns by evaluating the variety of items and deletes them based on three kinds of delete processes. It can discover various sequential patterns within the upper bound for the number of sequential patterns given by the analysts. This paper applies the method to the synthetic sequential data which is characterized by number of items, their kind, and length of sequence. The effect of the method is verified through numerical experiments.


Research on polymorphism of ghrelin (GHRL), an acylated peptide that stimulates the release of growth hormone from the pituitary, has shown that it is associated with some essential growth genes in chicken, hence veritable in genomic selection. There is porous information on the polymorphism of GHRL genes among Nigerian chickens. The objective of this study was to determine polymorphism of ghrelin gene among four Nigerian chicken populations. Blood sample (0.5 ml) was collected from the wing vein of 102 birds for DNA extraction. Tested PCR products were sequenced following Macrogen INC. The SNPs were determined using the sequence alignment program, CLUSTAL W, implemented in MEGA software. The sequence results showed 25 SNPs. The Nigerian chickens varied in polymorphic sites from Ogun chickens (348 and 535) to Nsukka chickens (558 and 696) at the GHRL 1 and GHRL2 loci respectively. Polymorphic sites and diversity were higher among the Nsukka chicken than other populations of the Nigerian chickens. SNPs common to one geographic varied in another. The result revealed that genomic selection based on ghrelin SNPs may yield higher predictive accuracy, while Nsukka chickens could be useful for the creation of more superior lines for the global poultry industry. Since past studies have revealed that ghrelin gene stimulates the pituitary and hypothalamus for releasing growth factor (GF) hormone and have strong effect on many organs, we suggest an association study of ghrelin gene and growth traits.