Clinically significant gluten-sensitive enteropathy (GSE) can be associated with architecturally normal small bowel villi and evenly distributed increased intraepithelial T lymphocytes (IELs). This distribution pattern of IELs has been shown to be a sensitive feature of GSE but to be of relatively low specificity, thus limiting its usage as a diagnostic marker. We demonstrate herein the potential diagnostic role of IEL immunophenotyping. We show that a top-heavy distribution pattern of CD3+ IELs is a sensitive diagnostic feature of GSE. Despite overlap between GSE and non-GSE patients, the difference is underscored when using a tip-to-base ratio. Of the GSE patients, 87.5% showed a tip-to-base ratio >1.7 compared with only 12.5% of non-GSE patients and none in controls. This pattern was retained in 50% of treated GSE patients, although the CD3+ tip-IEL scores were significantly smaller. Conversely, CD8 immunostaining appears of limited diagnostic value. The discrepancy in distribution of CD3+ and CD8+ IELs between GSE and non-GSE patients can be explained by the presence of CD4− CD8− TCR-&ggr;&dgr;+ IELs which, have been reported in GSE. Since the immunophenotyping of T- IELs is feasible with readily available antibodies, and given the clinical benefits for patients with `latent' GSE, we advocate using CD3 immunostaining to triage patients with normal villi and increased IELs.


Forsythiae Fructus, as a traditional Chinese medicine, has been widely used both as a single herb and in compound prescriptions in Asia, mainly due to its heat-clearing and detoxifying effects. Modern pharmacology has proved Forsythiae Fructus possesses various therapeutic effects, both in vitro and in vivo, such as anti-inflammatory, antibacterial and antiviral activities. Up to now, three hundred and twenty-one compounds have been identified and sensitive analytical methods have been established for its quality control. Recently, the pharmacokinetics of Forsythiae Fructus and its bioactive compounds have been reported, providing valuable information for its clinical application. Therefore, this systematic review focused on the newest scientific reports on Forsythiae Fructus and extensively summarizes its phytochemistry, pharmacology, pharmacokinetics and standardization procedures, especially the difference between the two applied types—unripe Forsythiae Fructus and ripe Forsythiae Fructus—in the hope of providing a helpful reference and guide for its clinical applications and further studies.


Abstract The subject of the article is the concept of a universal language and a reflection on its importance for law. The starting point is a presentation of the history of the concept of a common language for all mankind, a concept that has always accompanied man – it is present in the Bible, in the ancient writings of Near Eastern peoples, it was alive in the Middle Ages and during the Renaissance, and it experienced its particular heyday – among other reasons because of the gradual abandonment of Latin as the language of science – in the seventeenth century, an age that was reformist by definition. Since its inception, the concept of a universal language has been inextricably linked with the idea of world peace and universal happiness for all people. It is significant that in most universal language designs, regardless of the era, there were, to a greater or lesser extent, references to the utility of such languages for law. The author, tracing the development of the concept of a universal language, focuses on its fullest contemporary development: Esperanto. Esperanto, like previous universal language designs, places particular emphasis on ideas linked to the concept of a universal language, especially the idea of peaceful coexistence and understanding between peoples. In this context, it is reasonable to ask what role Esperanto can play in the development of certain branches of law, especially international law. Given the position of English as the language of legal acts of international importance, the answer to this question is currently not clear.


The network security is getting more important because of increasing worms and network attacks. More and more security mechanisms are introduced to protect from attack, such as firewalls and intrusion detection systems (IDS). This paper proposes an active network programming model. Comparing to a traditional network, active network gives the nodes programmable ability. It adopts the active network technology. The response, service deployment and service update schemes rely on this technology. The proposed intrusion detection and response system (WRS) can stop attacks at the first line and respond as fast as possible to reduce the damage caused by intruders. It provides the abilities of detection, report and response. The proposed prototype system adopts the novel data mining technology-support vector machine to enhance the detection function.


The aim this study was to investigate the presence of anastomosis between the left and the right lingual artery, as well as their localisation and caliber. Thirty fresh preparations of the tongue, together with the floor of the oral cavity, were investigated. The following methods were used: corrosion, Spalteholz's method, histology (hamatoxylin-eosin and Van Gieson) and radiography of micropaque injected specimens. In each of the three injected specimens (of 30 studied by all these methods) one anastomosis of 0.5 mm in the diameter, was found. Two of the three were between the suprahyoid arteries, and one between the left and the right lingual artery. In all the India ink injected specimens contralateral small vesels were filled. This suggested the presence of capillary or arteriolar anastomoses. The number of these anastomoses gradually decreased in retrocaudal direction (from the apex to the base of the tongue).


The aim of the project was to explain problems with the methods used to make station pressure measured by Mobile Mesonet useful and to evaluate the performance of the vehicle platform while the vehicle is in motion. Tests were performed at Five Miles Flat and Highway 9 to evaluate GPS elevation and pressure ports. All three pressure ports were tested in this study. Also, a sample data was collected by a thunderstorm passing over University of Oklahoma to compare the data from the storm to those produced during tests. Overall, both silver and white port had unusual and unexpected errors in data when the vehicle was in motion. Yet, there is no meaningful data on black port yet due to human error. In case of GPS sensor, errant and previously unreported behavior in altitude data warranted a further investigation in quality of GPS altitude data. Therefore, there is more testing on pressure ports and GPS sensor that is necessary to resolve the issues with the instruments in question.


Forty-one girls consecutively admitted to a child psychiatric ward were compared with a similar series of boys. The girls were referred for somatic symptoms more often than the boys, and more often complained of spells, abdominal pain and loss of appetite. Fighting and poor concentration were more common among the boys. Fewer girls than boys were diagnosed as having conduct disorder, while more had anorexia nervosa. The combination of somatic complaints and conduct problems occurred only in the girls. The authors believe that some of these patients may have had hysteria. The backgrounds of the two groups were remarkably similar but conduct disorder in the girls was not associated with alcoholism or antisocial behavior in their parents. On the other hand more girls seemed to have experienced psychological stresses that might have precipitated their disorders.


The article refers to the way the recent TV drama Brexit: The Uncivil War deconstructs the inherent contradictions of modern capitalism. Historically, both Marx and the avant-garde believed that acceleration or deceleration will aggravate the contradictions to the point of the collapse of the system. British cultural theory further expounds this issue by adding a curious philosophical perspective of the way capital deals with the abstraction of the real in the digital era. Their take on accelerationism subsequently created two competing aesthetic and political concepts: the left wing that endeavours to exploit the dialectical negativity in order to re-purpose the technological speed away from capital's imaginary, and the right wing that embraces the acceleration of the forces of production to disclose the invasion of posthuman, machinistic Singularity.


Nitric oxide synthase (NOS) is a key regulator of angiogenesis and embryogenesis in the mammalian reproductive process. Here, we attempted to clarify the expression and localization of inducible and endothelial NOS (iNOS and eNOS) in the developing rabbit placenta. Real-time RT-PCR analysis indicated that iNOS mRNA was significantly upregulated till the complete development of the placenta (d18), and then significantly decreased at the end of fetal growth stage (d28) during successful pregnancy. The eNOS mRNA was also enhanced in the pregnant uteri and gradually decreased near the term of pregnancy. Western blot analysis also showed elevation of the iNOS and eNOS protein levels during the course of successful pregnancy till the functional maturation of the placenta (d18). Immunohistochemical study revealed distinct localizations of iNOS along the radial arteries and eNOS at the spiral arteries and arterial sinuses in the developing placenta. This may reflect that iNOS and eNOS participate in pregnancy success through placentation-specific vascular formation and by supporting adequate blood circulation in the rabbit placenta.


Organ graft rejection is caused by the recognition of allogeneic MHC molecules by recipient T cells by two different pathways. The indirect pathway of alloreactivity requires the presentation of MHC peptides from the graft by autologous APC, as with conventional antigen. The direct pathway, on the other hand, requires the recognition of foreign MHC on foreign cells. The regulatory mechanisms for this component of alloreactivity have not been extensively studied. We show here that the T cell response activated by alloantigens in the direct pathway is similarly constrained and modulated by cytokines, as has been shown for classic antigen presentation. Thus, the inclusion of IL-2 or TGF-beta in MLC performed with purified responder T cells resulted in outgrowth of cells secreting IL-2 and IFN-gamma, whereas addition of IL-4, IL-10, or anti-TGF-beta encouraged outgrowth of cells secreting IL-4 and IL-10. T cells alloactivated via the direct pathway and then cloned in IL-2 alone secreted IL-4 and IL-10 as well as IFN-gamma and IL-2 (Th0 phenotype). Established clones remained susceptible to cytokine modulation, such that IL-4 and IL-10 decreased their secretion of IL-2 and IFN-gamma, whereas TGF-beta suppressed IL-4 and IL-10 secretion. The first alterations of Th0 toward Th1 or Th2 phenotypes could already be observed after only a very brief exposure to cytokines of 48 hr, followed by extended culture with IL-2 alone. These results confirm that human T cells with Th1 and Th2 phenotypes, recognizing alloantigen via the direct pathway, derive from the same IL-2-secreting precursor and can be manipulated by cytokines in an analogous fashion to conventional antigen-reactive cells. These findings may have implications for manipulating the direct pathway of alloantigen recognition in human organ transplantation.


The 150 consecutive patients who were hospitalized for breast cancer at our department between September 1992 and November 1995 were enrolled in this open study after having given their informed consent. Patients were assigned randomly to receive ofloxacin in daily doses of 200 mg to be taken in a single dose or a total dose of 600 mg divided into three doses postoperatively for 5 days. Ten patients (8 found to be without malignancies) were excluded from evaluation. Wound infections developed in 8 (12%) of the 69 patients in the 200-mg group and 12 (17%) of the 71 patients in the 600-mg group. Postoperative wound care lasted a median of 19 days (25th and 75th percentiles, 15 and 29 days) for patients given 200 mg and 16 days (13 and 25 days) for those given 600 mg; the difference was not statistically significant (Wilcoxon's U test). Signs or symptoms suggesting ofloxacin toxicity were not observed, and several significant differences were found in laboratory test results between the two groups both before and after treatment. Abnormal changes after treatment were found in many individuals, but the rate of occurrence was similar in the two groups (U test). When ofloxacin is used for prophylaxis after breast surgery, we recommend a once-daily administration of 200 mg orally for financial reasons and increased patient compliance.


The present study was designed to investigate the acute relaxing effect of phytoestrogen resveratrol on isolated porcine coronary arteries and to determine the mechanisms underlying its vasodilatation. Rings of porcine coronary arteries were suspended in organ baths containing Krebs-Henseleit solution, and then isometric tension was measured. Resveratrol concentration-dependently relaxed arterial rings precontracted with 30 mM KCl. The IC(50) value of resveratrol was 38.67+/-3.21 microM. Incubation with N(omega)-L-nitro-arginine (L-NNA), endothelium removal or the presence of a potent inhibitor of protein tyrosine phosphatase sodium orthovanadate partly decreased the relaxation induced by resveratrol. However, the relaxation induced by resveratrol was unaffected by the estrogen receptor antagonist tamoxifen, the inhibitor of prostanoid synthesis indomethacin, the antagonist of beta-adrenoceptors propranolol or the protein synthesis inhibitor, cycloheximide. In addition, resveratrol significantly decreased the contractile responses of 5-HT, KCl and CaCl(2), and shifted their cumulative concentration-response curves to the right. These results suggest that the mechanisms of vasorelaxation induced by resveratrol are heterogeneous, two mechanisms participating partially in the relaxation of porcine coronary artery were detected in the study, one being the nitric oxide released from the endothelium, the other causing inhibition of Ca(2+) influx, but estrogen receptors were not involved in resveratrol-induced relaxation.


Series reactors are used in distribution grids to reduce the short-circuit fault level. Some of the disadvantages of the application of these devices are the voltage drop produced across the reactor and the steep front rise of the transient recovery voltage (TRV), which generally exceeds the rating of the associated circuit breaker. Simulations were performed to compare the characteristics of a saturated core High-Temperature Superconducting Fault Current Limiter (HTS FCL) and a series reactor. The design of the HTS FCL was optimized using the evolutionary algorithm. The resulting Pareto frontier curve of optimum solution is presented in this paper. The results show that the steady-state impedance of an HTS FCL is significantly lower than that of a series reactor for the same level of fault current limiting. Tests performed on a prototype 11 kV HTS FCL confirm the theoretical results. The respective transient recovery voltages (TRV) of the HTS FCL and an air core reactor of comparable fault current limiting capability are also determined. The results show that the saturated core HTS FCL has a significantly lower effect on the rate of rise of the circuit breaker TRV as compared to the air core reactor. The simulations results are validated with short-circuit test results. (6 pages)


Research projects talk about thousands of processing elements on an SoC. Various commercial companies talk about their specialised homogeneous or heterogeneous processing arrays. Graphics devices are being applied for solving a variety of computing problems outside their design domain. Finally, it seems that everyone, and their brother, is offering a multicore or multiprocessor programming model to bring all this technology under some control - and if we don't use it, we should all panic. This talk will focus on where we are and where we are likely to go with the evolution of processors and SoC architectures for embedded applications. Driven from a concrete industrial perspective, I will discuss some of the progress made in exploiting advances in processor technology and multiprocessor SoC. I will also discuss some possible future scenarios for evolution in these areas.


BACKGROUND
Tuberculosis (TB) is an important cause of mortality and morbidity in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection in Africa. The interaction between TB and HIV infections is reviewed.

METHODS
Literature on TB, HIV and their co-infection, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, including Nigeria, is reviewed.

RESULTS
Burden of TB is fueled by the HIV epidemic, and clinical presentation of TB may be atypical with co-infection. Recommendations on drugs and timing of antiretroviral therapy (ART) initiation are discussed. Use of cotrimoxazole prophylaxis (CPT) in co-infected patients reduces morbidity and mortality, while the principles of TB prevention in HIV infection can be summarized with the three I's: intensive TB case finding and surveillance, isoniazid preventive therapy (IPT) and infection-control measures; to these can be added a fourth 'I,' viz., instituting ART. Clinical complications like drug resistance, toxicity and drug interactions; and immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome (IRIS) with CPT, IPT and ART are highlighted. Emergence of drug-resistant- and nosocomial- TB in HIV infection poses serious challenges and potential consequences in Africa, and appropriate measures are recommended.

CONCLUSIONS
Many barriers exist for optimizing the care of the two diseases, but the aim should be strengthening capacities, collaborations, linkages and eventually integrating the services. Interventions for TB prevention in HIV infection should be widely implemented.


The human brain is the best memory that can record and keep a huge number of information for a long time. Words, their meanings, domains, relationships between different words, and the grammars of languages are well organized in the linguistic component of brain. While speaking or writing, we can generally express our thoughts and feelings by words without thinking for a long time what the correct words can be. But, sometimes things do not go like clockwork even for human brain. In our daily life, we can often forget or not remember a word that we use frequently and exactly know its meaning. While writing a document, talking with friends, or solving a puzzle, we can not remember which word to say or to write. When we face this problem, it will be of no use to attempt searching in a traditional dictionary to find the word that we can not remember. In such cases, there is a need for resources that can locate the word from its meaning. This thesis presents the design and the implementation of a Meaning to Word dictionary (MTW), that locates a set of Turkish words, which most closely matches the correct/appropriate one based on a definition entered by the user. The approach of extracting words from " meaning" s is based on checking the similarity between the user's definition and an entry of the Turkish dictionary without considering any semantics or grammatical information. MTW can be used in various application areas such as computer-assisted language learning, finding the correct words for the definition questions in solving crossword puzzles, and searching the one word representations or synonyms of a multi-word definitions in a reverse dictionary. Results on unseen data indicate that in 72% of the real users queries and 90% of different dictionaries queries, our system returns the correct answer in the first 50 results, respectively.


a place for frontier tales in the cultural economy of American entertainment. Marill presents readers with a comprehensive elaboration of televised Westerns, interrelating material typically covered in volumes focused on individual anthologies or production companies. However, the volume also offers Westerns scholars considerable frustration in its brief and sometimes superficial discussion of many of the topics covered. This uneven treatment works in the favor of wellknown, long-running series and made-for-TV movies but shortchanges many less-central topics, such as cartoons and Western-themed episodes, with some chapters as brief as six or eight pages. As might be expected, the brevity of these treatments leads to numerous omissions and, in many cases, citation, rather than the discussion afforded entries in other areas. While these chapters suggest that much ground exists to be explored in their respective topics, those explorations are not carried out thoroughly here. The information presented is, nonetheless, valuable to media scholars who approach the book with a careful eye toward making the most of the volume's strengths. The series and televised films covered are not only significant in their role as American entertainment—many of these are, as Marill points out, the cornerstones of popular culture—they are part of an ongoing web of intertextuality that includes adaptations, appropriations, visual and textual references, borrowings, and inspirations in literature, music, film, and, of course, television.


This study was aimed at finding relationship among students' mathematics Self-concept, Socio Economic Status (SES) and Achievement Goal Orientations (AGOs) at secondary level in Punjab. The population of study included secondary school students in the Punjab province. The sample was selected through multi-stage random sampling technique. An adapted questionnaire was used to get responses about achievement goal orientation of students. Mathematics Self-concept scale by Marsh (1948) was used to know students' academic selfconcept. "Socio Economic" Status was assessed through different demographic variables. Through SPSS, Pearson correlation coefficient was run to calculate correlation among students' self-concept in mathematics, SES, and their AGOs. Results showed significant correlation between students' self concept in mathematics and their AGOs. Correlation between SES and AGOs of students was not significant. On the basis of findings, it was recommended that teachers should use instructional strategies which tend to improve students' mathematics "self concept" to make them mastery goal oriented.


Systems and environments to support eLearning require detailed specification of learning needs, materials, activities and delivery methods and needs. The complexities of integration of the different ICT components according to these learning needs and sound pedagogical approaches, demand frameworks not too dissimilar to information systems design and development methodologies. These have been traditionally denominated Instructional Design (ID) methodologies. However, the term "Instructional" has strong connotations with the behaviourist school of thought and could indicate a focus on teaching centred approach rather then a less objectivist learner-centred view of education. This paper explores Educational Systems Design (ESD) as a thorough method of design of educational applications or environments and proposes and discusses the CSFs associated with such an approach.


When an explosive detonates underwater it creates a bubble of gas which performs damped radial oscillations of large amplitude. The usual theory of these oscillations treats the water as incompressible and yields undamped oscillations of constant period. We have modified this theory by taking account of the compressibility of the water. Our theory predicts damped oscillations of diminishing period. Comparison of the predicted and observed radius‐time curves for one particular case shows fairly good agreement. Radius‐time curves for four representative cases have been computed with a large number of periods in each case. These can be used to describe a variety of explosions.


An effective parallelization of a application code can significantly improve its the execution efficiency. This is an important parameter of the control application of mechatronic system, too. The subject of this paper is to find more efficient parallelized instance methods of a remote object of the distributed .NET application and comparing the results of execution effectiveness to serial methods of the same remote object of the same application. Parallelization of these methods is carried out by the method Parallel. For from the Task Parallel Library (TPL) and by data parallelism. Compared instance methods calculate the values of the definite integrals of the functions f1(x) = x2e-x^2, f2(x) = cos(x)/x, f3(x) = sin(x2) for which can not be expressed antiderivates as any algebraic combinations of elementary functions. One way to compute the values of definite integrals of these functions is to use numerical approximation methods. This is shown in the sample distributed .NET application developed using the .NET Remoting technology in the Microsoft Visual Basic 2010 and in the Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 development environment. Using the values of definite integrals can be calculated for example, centers of gravity and moments of inertia of homogeneous solids of revolution created by the revolution of curves of just such or similar functions as we presented above around the x axis. These may be important static and dynamic parameters of mechatronic system components, which need to be the most effectively determined by the control software of the system. The sample distributed .NET application can be a part of the control software of the mechatronic system. It can efficiently compute the values of definite integrals of mentioned or similar functions and to provide them to the control software that can compute by them values of these static and dynamic parameters of mechatronic system components.


In the peer disagreement debate, three intuitively attractive claims seem to conflict: there is disagreement among peers on many important matters; peer disagreement is a serious challenge to one's own opinion; and yet one should be able to maintain one's opinion on important matters. This article shows that contrary to initial appearances, we can accept all three of these claims. Disagreement significantly shifts the balance of the evidence; but with respect to certain kinds of claims, one should nonetheless retain one's beliefs. And one should retain them even though these beliefs would not be supported by the new total evidence if one didn't already hold them.


Using Global Entrepreneurship Monitor data for 29 countries this study investigates the (differential) impact of several factors on female and male entrepreneurship at the country level. These factors are derived from three streams of literature, including that on entrepreneurship in general, on female labour force participation and on female entrepreneurship. The paper deals with the methodological aspects of investigating (female) entrepreneurship by distinguishing between two measures of female entrepreneurship: the number of female entrepreneurs and the share of women in the total number of entrepreneurs. The first measure is used to investigate whether variables have an impact on entrepreneurship in general (influencing both the number of female and male entrepreneurs). The second measure is used to investigate whether factors have a differential relative impact on female and male entrepreneurship, i.e. whether they influence the diversity or gender composition of entrepreneurship. Findings indicate that – by and large – female and male entrepreneurial activity rates are influenced by the same factors and in the same direction. However, for some factors (e.g. unemployment, life satisfaction) we find a differential impact on female and male entrepreneurship. The present study also shows that the factors influencing the number of female entrepreneurs may be different from those influencing the share of female entrepreneurs. In this light it is important that governments are aware of what they want to accomplish (i.e. do they want to stimulate the number of female entrepreneurs or the gender composition of entrepreneurship) to be able to select appropriate policy measures.


The supervisory control theory is a conceptual framework to keep a discrete-event system in a desired state space by disabling controllable events. This paper introduces a new software tool to create supervisors for actual, physical plants in terms of a PLC code implementation. It points out the differences between SCT-synthesized supervisors and controllers and identifies a scenario in which practical applications can benefit from supervision. The presented tool provides a graphical user interface for the modeling and a template-based code generator. For safety specifications, a slightly altered automaton principle, called restricting specification, is used with the goal to decrease the manual modeling effort. Furthermore, event preemption is supported, which allows to permissively supervise controllers that react to uncontrollable events. This paper intends to give a brief overview of the key features of the tool.


We determine torsion class constraints for the supergravity background produced by D6-branes wrapping special Lagrangian cycles in a Calabi-Yau 3-fold. We employ a recently introduced method which involves probing the putative background by all possible supersymmetric brane configurations. We then lift this background to 11-dimensions to a product of 4-d Minkowski space and a 7-fold of G2-holonomy. The latter is a particular U(1) bundle over an almost complex manifold of SU(3) structure with specific torsion class constraints. We construct the closed 3and 4-forms which calibrate the 3and 4-cycles in the G2-holonomy manifold. HUTP-06/A0034 BCCUNY-HEP /06-04 hep-th/0608163 email: Ansar firstname.lastname@example.com email: email@example.com


A 55-year-old woman presented with a one-year history of painful muscle cramps and progressive flexion contractures of the arms, pelvic girdles and knees. Laboratory evaluation was summarized as follows: low plasma cortisol and ACTH levels, delayed response of plasma cortisol to ACTH administration, no response of plasma ACTH level to insulin administration, and normal plasma LH, FSH, GH, TSH and PRL levels. She was diagnosed as isolated ACTH deficiency. EMG was silent in contractured muscles at rest. Biopsy of the biceps femoris muscle revealed a marked reduction in fiber size, type 2 fiber atrophy and type 1 fiber predominance. The nerve conduction velocities of the peripheral nerves were found to be decreased. The biopsied specimen of the sural nerve revealed a loss of large myelinated fibers and segmental demyelination. Both flexion contractures and nerve conduction velocities were gradually improved with the replacement of hydrocortisone.


An efficient sub-optimal algorithm, called HIS (hyperplane intersection and selection) detection algorithm, is proposed to solve the problem of joint detection of K users in an MC-CDMA system. Compared to existing solutions, the proposed algorithm has three characteristics very attractive for practical. systems. Firstly, it has nearly optimal performance. Secondly, it has a low computational complexity - O(K/sup 2/) multiplications and O(K/sup 3/) additions. Third, the algorithm has an inherent parallelism. To our knowledge, the HIS algorithm is not just an add-on to an existing algorithm, but rather a new decoding technique based on a singular value decomposition of the channel matrix, H. After giving the equation of the MC-CDMA multi-user detection problem, the HIS algorithm is described. Its performance is compared to known existing algorithms (ZF, MMSE, PIC and sphere decoding). For a BER as low as 10/sup -4/, the HIS algorithm introduces only 0.2 dB degradation compared to the optimal sphere decoding algorithm for K=16 users against 3.8 dB for the PIC algorithm with two MMSE stages.


Time-domain reflectometry (TDR) can be used to predict the moisture content in porous materials, including soil, and is an exciting tool that could be used to measure the moisture content in wet-stored wood. Three-rod probes with 127 mm- or 152 mm-long rods were inserted into 62 loblolly pine and 34 sweetgum saturated bolts. The bolts were air dried over a span of five weeks. TDR waveforms and moisture content were periodically recorded. In total, 534 and 482 readings were taken for the loblolly pine and sweetgum bolts, respectively. An algorithm in R was written to automatically analyze the apparent length of the TDR rods. Calibration models were developed between moisture content and X (apparent length / actual rod length). A three-parameter logistic model was developed for loblolly pine (R2=0.64) and sweetgum (R2=0.84). The process was repeated using shorter bolts and 152 mm-long rods, resulting in improved models for loblolly pine (R2=0.99) and sweetgum (R2=0.97). Overall, TDR and the algorithm written to analyze the waveforms were accurate in predicting moisture content and could be used to monitor moisture in wet-decks.


Peroxidatic metabolism of benzo(a)pyrene-7,8-dihydrodiol by calcium containing extracts of rat uteri was investigated. Covalently bound and soluble metabolites of benzo(a)pyrene-7,8-dihydrodiol were quantitated by radiometry and high performance liquid chromatography, respectively. 1. Uterine extracts incubated with benzo(a)pyrene-7,8-dihydrodiol activated this proximate mutagen to protein binding metabolite(s). 2. Hydrogen peroxide increased the protein binding and yielded a substantial amount of benzo(a)pyrene-trans-anti-tetrahydrotetrol, suggesting the peroxyl-type free-radical epoxidation process. 3. The results indicate that rat uterine peroxidase is able to catalyze free-radical activation of benzo(a)pyrene-7,8-dihydrodiol by epoxidation to its 9,10-dihydrodiolepoxide, a known ultimate mutagen and carcinogen.


Working within the principles of open pedagogy (Wiley, 2013), educators can present learners with valuable opportunities to develop digital and collaboration skills, engage with real-world problems and showcase their work. For language learners in particular, global, multilingual online communities that allow users to engage as consumers and producers of content (Ritzer & Jurgenson, 2010) provide useful environments where language skills can be practiced and developed through participation in authentic tasks (Kiraly et al, 2016).

This presentation examines the benefits and challenges that participation in open communities brings to learners, particularly in enabling them to develop their digital and linguistic skills, whilst making a visible contribution to society. It reports on the evaluation of a task in which advanced language learners joined an online volunteer community to work on the translation of subtitles using open content and tools. Their motivation, expectations and concerns were recorded in a pre-course questionnaire, and a post-course questionnaire was used to gather information on their experiences. Feedback was also gathered independently from course designers and course facilitators.

Results from learners were very positive with almost all participants reporting that the task had improved their learning of the language, enjoyment during learning, and learning of new research and digital skills. Participants particularly valued having choices to select the content and tools used, and developing their learner autonomy. Negative aspects clustered around the steep learning curve required to familiarise themselves with the technology, information and support available to carry out the task.

One of the challenges for educators is to strike the right balance between providing guidance, support and sufficient scaffolding for learners, and allowing them enough room to engage in meaningful problem-solving and the development of their autonomy as learners (Martinez Carrasco, 2016). The enormous gains in learning and motivation reported by learners must be tempered by the need to develop the required participatory and digital skills that would enable learners to fully benefit from these opportunities (Beaven et al, 2014)

This contribution will consider the gains for learners and educators that an open pedagogy offers, and highlight the drawbacks and constraints, both ethical and pedagogical, that the implementation of such an approach poses for educators.


We examine whether bank credit-spread curves, engendered by subordinated debt, would help predict bank risk. We extract credit-spread curves for each bank each quarter and analyze the predictive properties of creditspread slopes. We find that credit-spread slopes are significant predictors of future credit spreads. We also find that credit-spread slopes provide significant additional information on future bank risk variables, over and above other bank-specific and market-wide information.


Public Sector Information management frameworks, usually in the form of ontologies and taxonomies containing controlled vocabularies and relevant metadata sets, appear as a key enabler that assists the classification and sharing of resources related to the provision of open data and efficient digital services towards citizen and enterprises. As different authorities typically use different terms to describe their resources and publish them in various data and service registries that may enhance the access to and delivery of governmental knowledge, but also need to communicate seamlessly at a national and panEuropean level, the need for unifying and inclusive digital public service metadata standards emerges. This paper presents the creation of an ontologybased extended metadata set that embraces public sectors services, documents, XML Schemas, codelists, public bodies and information systems. Furthermore, the paper presents experiences of application within the Greek Public Sector, as part of the National Interoperability Framework specification. Such a metadata framework is an attempt to formalize the automated exchange of information between various portals and registries and further assist the service transformation and simplification efforts, while it can be further taken into consideration when applying Web 2.0 techniques in governance.


children and therapeutic options including management of community acquired methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Int J Dermatol 2006 (in press). 9 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Four pediatric deaths from community acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus—Minnesota and North Dakota, 1997–1999. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 1999; 48:707–10. 10 Fridkin SK, Hageman JC, Morrison M et al. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus disease in three communities. N Engl J Med 2005; 352:1436–44.


Among ectopic pregnancies, ovarian ones are extremely rare and much less frequent with previous history of salpingectomy. Ultrasonographic diagnosis is feasible although differential diagnosis from the corpus luteum is difficult. The diagnosis includes medical history, physical examination, transvaginal ultrasonography with color and/or power Doppler and serum quantitative β-hCG levels. Monitoring of β-hCG levels and the accuracy of ultrasound diagnosis allowed conservative therapeutic strategy and proper postoperative course. This paper reports one case of right OEP with ipsilateral salpingectomy, and reviews the current concepts and the options for managing these rare types of ectopic pregnancies so to preserve the woman's potential fertility.


A review of relevant literature was undertaken because of concerns about a possible relationship between pet foods, development of periodontal disease, and secondary adverse effects on general health. It was concluded that, while changes in feeding methods in recent decades have arguably improved pet health by reducing or preventing diseases associated with nutritional deficiencies and excesses, periodontal disease remains a serious, diet-related problem. There is reasonable evidence that soft diets are associated with increased frequency and severity of periodontal disease, and that harder foods requiring vigorous prehension and mastication are preferable for dogs and cats. While it is plausible that periodontal disease could cause diseases in other organs and tissues, the evidence for this is limited at present. Further research is needed to better define the relationship between diet types and oral health. In the meantime, veterinarians and pet owners should pay attention to the physical qualities (textures, abrasiveness, 'chewiness') of foods they provide for dogs and cats, as well as to their nutrient content, and should consider additional methods to control plaque and prevent periodontal disease where necessary.


A new method for the determination of antioxidant capacity in lubricants has been utilized for the analyses of new and used engine oil samples. The results derived from these analyses were used for monitoring the antioxidant decay during laboratory and long drain fleet testing and in various correlation studies. The application of the method provided new insights into the nature of the oxidative deterioration of engine oils as a function of type and initial concentration of antioxidant additives, of type of base oil and of test or engine severity.


Biofilm is a microbial community that attaches to a surface and is enclosed in extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) matrix. Formation of biofilm often develops resistance towards a wide spectrum of antimicrobial agents. Since the biofilm-mediated diseases are commonly difficult to treat, there is a need to find new antibiofilm agent. The studies on antibiofilm activities of plant species have received a great deal of attention over the last few decades. In Malaysia, plant species have been used as alternatives to the conventional antimicrobial therapy. Several Malaysian plant species are known to control biofilm infection by inhibition of quorum sensing pathway, disruption of EPS matrix, alteration of cell permeability and reduction in cell surface hydrophobicity. This review demonstrates that Malaysian plant species may become excellent therapeutic agents in combating the biofilm infection.


The employment of the emerging trend of proactive caching leads to a trade-off between memory size and information rate. Due to the limited cache size only a limited number of demanded files might be available in the cache of the local server. Hence, the missing files need to be forwarded to the destinations. Now, the local server has the option to operate in either half-duplex or full-duplex mode. In half-duplex mode (HD), the demanded files are transmitted as soon as all files are provided to the local server. However, in a full-duplex mode (FD), the cached files can be communicated to the users, meanwhile receiving the missing files. Hence, by full-duplex operation, the local servers manage their cache (deplete/refill) in real-time adaptively which is beneficial from memory perspective. For both cases, i.e., HD and FD, the local server exploits decodeand-forward (DF) strategy. In this paper, we address these two strategies from the delivery-time perspective. As the worst link is the delivery-time bottleneck, fairness among users becomes of particular interest. Hence, we cast this problem as a min-max fair optimization problem. Moreover, we formulate the problem as a semi-definite relaxation (SDR) feasibility check problem after defining auxiliary variables to cope with non-convex constraints. The SDR comes along with bisection (over a single variable) and exhaustive search (over a few variables). Eventually, we compare the performance of half-duplex and full-duplex operations from the delivery-time perspective. Depending on the self-interference (SI) channel strength, the full-duplex operation can be beneficial from the delivery-time perspective up to almost 10% compared to the half-duplex counterpart.


Advances in photonics, silicon electronics and digital signal processing (DSP) have converged to enable highly efficient transmission across fiber optic channels. Single wavelength data rates of 112 Gb/s are sought for wide deployment based on QPSK transmission, coherent detection, and digital demodulation. Here we examine continuous phase modulation (CPM) as a means to enhance performance and reach of coherent optical links. We quantify the robustness of the constant amplitude CPM format to spectral filtering and nonlinearities in comparison to QPSK. The challenges of generating and receiving the CPM waveform are considered and a novel CPM transmitter architecture is proposed.


The magnetic Barkhausen noise (MBN) in low carbon steel (0.034%C) was examined for two situations: after deformation and after recrystalization. The steel sheets previously received 50% of cold rolling and were heat treated for time periods between 15 to 540 min, originating different grain sizes. It was found that the maximum amplitude of MBN decreases with annealing time. Electron back scattered diffraction (EBSD) shows that significant grain fragmentation occurred due to plastic deformation. The results are discussed with help of the Two Gaussian model for the MBN envelope. The major contribution for MBN in the deformed sample was elimination of 90° closure domains. Displacement of 180° domain walls was limited in the deformed sample, due to the grain fragmentation.


In this paper we present radiation studies performed on a low-noise, high-speed, large-area CMOS image sensor (CIS) based on the 0.18 μm CMOS process. The sensor has 2560(H) × 2160(V) pixels with a readout speed of 100 frames/sec and a readout noise of less than 2 e- rms. The sensor features 5T pinned photodiode pixels on a 6.5 um pitch. In order to measure the impact of radiation exposure on the sensor performance, the device was subjected to x-ray exposure of 50 kRads of incident radiation using a broad band 50 KVP x-ray source to assess Total Ionizing Dose (TID) sensitivity. The active area and the digital control block and amplification circuitry were separately irradiated to evaluate the damage to each. Dark data was captured as a function of radiation dose in order to measure dark current and offset changes in the signal.


Gardien du Temple is an interactive installation where the concealment or revelation of poems and images is achieved through diminished reality, a new approach to augmented reality using a projector-camera system. By capturing the environment with a camera and canceling parts of the scene by reprojecting inverted images, Gardien du Temple questions the control of our perception, of what is present or not. It reveals new perspectives for installations and performing arts aiming at erasing parts of the physical space.


Tendons are typically composed of two histologically different regions: the midsubstance and insertion site. We previously showed that Gli1, a downstream effector of the hedgehog (Hh) signaling pathway, is expressed only in the insertion site of the mouse patellar tendon during its differentiation. To test for a functional role of Hh signaling, we targeted the Smoothened (Smo) gene in vivo using a Cre/Lox system. Constitutive activation of the Hh pathway in the mid-substance caused molecular markers of the insertion site, e.g. type II collagen, to be ectopically expressed or up-regulated in the midsubstance. This was confirmed using a novel organ culture method in vitro. Conversely, when Smo was excised in the scleraxis-positive cell population, the development of the fibrocartilaginous insertion site was affected. Whole transcriptome analysis revealed that the expression of genes involved in chondrogenesis and mineralization was down-regulated in the insertion site, and expression of insertion site markers was decreased. Biomechanical testing of murine adult patellar tendon, which developed in the absence of Hh signaling, showed impairment of tendon structural properties (lower linear stiffness and greater displacement) and material properties (greater strain), although the linear modulus of the mutant group was not significantly lower than controls. These studies provide new insights into the role of Hh signaling during tendon development.


Consolidation in the global banking industry has resulted in the emergence of financial conglomerates that conduct an extensive range of businesses with a group structure. To date, few studies have investigated the performance features of such groups. This study aims to extend the literature by evaluating the cost and profit efficiency and productivity change of Italian financial conglomerates during the 1990s using both parametric and nonparametric approaches. The impact of diversification and growth strategies on cost and profit efficiency is also investigated. The results seem to indicate that Italian banking groups have benefited from a consistent improvement in profit efficiency, while they have not experienced a clear increase in cost efficiency. Indeed, profit efficient banking groups display a high risk-high return profile.


Introduction: The engineers of the medical radiology in radiotherapy are key professional group directly responsible for reliable delivery of radiation therapy treatment and the implementation of radiation protection measures in practice. Therefore, their knowledge and skills in this area need to be adequate and up to date. The aim of this research is the assessment of knowledge, attitudes and practice in the field of radiation protection among the engineers of medical radiology employed in radiotherapy centers within the public healthcare system in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Material and methods: The research was conducted on a sample of 30 engineers of medical radiology using a structured questionnaire which contains demographic data and sets of 10 questions related to radiotherapy devices, radiation protection in radiotherapy, risks and incidents related to use of ionizing radiation and the role of medical radiology engineers in radiation protection system. Results: The results of the research show optimal level of knowledge in the field of radiation protection (74.66%) and optimal level of awareness of the risks associated with the use of ionizing radiation (72%). The level of knowledge and awareness is significantly higher among respondents with longer working experience and those who have completed master's degree and postgraduate education in the field of radiation protection. The application of ionizing radiation protection measures in practice has been assessed as satisfactory (2,3). Respondents are not sufficiently involved in the work of regulatory bodies (26.7%), decisionmaking (23.3%), development of procedures (23.3%) and education of other employees in the field of radiation protection (2.7%). Conclusion: Engineers of medical radiology are not fully involved in the radiation protection system as educated and trained professionals. One of the most important professional interests of engineers of medical radiology is adequate influence on the processes in the field of radiation protection.


Purpose We aimed to assess factors influencing the occurrence of delayed hyponatremia after transsphenoidal surgery in patients with Rathke's cleft cysts (RCCs). Methods We retrospectively collected the clinical data of patients who underwent transsphenoidal surgery for RCCs from January 2014 to January 2022. Univariate and multivariate analyses were used to determine the factors influencing the occurrence of postoperative delayed hyponatremia. Results Of the 78 microscopic transsphenoidal surgery recipients with RCCs, 15 experienced postoperative delayed hyponatremia. There were 35 men and 43 women, and mean age was 43.75 ± 14.95 years. The clinical manifestations of RCCs were headache (62 cases, 79.5%), visual dysfunction (35 cases, 44.9%), endocrine dysfunction symptoms (12 cases, 15.4%). After transsphenoidal surgery, 93.5% (58/62) had improvements in headache, and 97.1% (34/35) had improved or resolved compressive visual symptoms. Delayed hyponatremia occurred on average on day 6.46 and lasted on average for 4.40 days. Logistic regression analysis showed that the independent influencing factor of delayed hyponatremia after transsphenoidal surgery in patients with RCCs was postoperative diaphragma sellae height. Conclusion Postoperative diaphragma sellae height was identified as an independent influencing factor for delayed hyponatremia after transsphenoidal surgery in patients with RCCs.


Objective Gout is a common form of inflammatory arthritis which characteristics by joint and surrounding soft tissues pain with sudden onset,fever,redness and swelling,caused by the monosodium urate crystals deposited.Studies have demonstrated that genetic factors occupies a certain role in the pathogenesis of gout.Therefore,in our study we aimed to explore the associations between the NLRP3 and IL-1β gene polymorphisms and gout susceptibility,in order to provide experimental basis for the diagnosis and treatment of gout furtherly.Methods We selected 715 Han individuals as our research object which included 267 male gout patients and 448 male healthy controls.Recorded demographic informations and collected blood samples.Then measured biochemical indicators and extracted the genomic DNA.The genotypes of NLRP3 gene rs7525979,rs3806268 and rs10754558 loci and IL-1β gene rs16944,rs1143623 and rs1143634 loci were detected through polymerase chain reaction(PCR) amplification technique.All data were analysised used Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 23.0(SPSS 23.0) software.Results The distribution of genotype and allele frequency were significant differences in gout patients and controls for rs3806268 of NLRP3 gene and rs1143634 of IL-1β gene(P༜0.05).NLRP3 gene rs3806268 loci AA genotype compared with GG genotype in additive model(OR = 0.58,95%CI:0.41–0.84) and AA genotype compared with GG + GA genotype in recessive model(OR = 0.61, 95%CI:0.44–0.85) and IL-1β gene rs1143634 loci AA + GA genotype compared with GG genotype in dominant model(OR = 0.45, 95%CI:0.24–0.84) could reduced the risk of gout.TC and LDL-C concentrations were significantly differences when gout patients were divided into AA + GA and GG genotype groups (P༜0.05).Conclusion There are some associations between rs3806268 of NLRP3 gene and rs1143634 of IL-1β gene and gout susceptibility.Rs3806268 and rs1143634 loci variants may be the protect factors of gout.


School vouchers are the most contentious form of parental school choice. Vouchers provide government funds that parents can use to send their children to private schools of their choice. Here we examine the empirical question of whether or not a school voucher program in Washington, DC, affected achievement or the rate of high school graduation for participating students. The District of Columbia Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP) has operated in the nation's capital since 2004, funded by a federal government appropriation. Because the program was oversubscribed in its early years of operation, and vouchers were awarded by lottery, we were able to use the "gold standard" evaluation method of a randomized experiment to determine what impacts the OSP had on student outcomes. Our analysis revealed compelling evidence that the DC voucher program had a positive impact on high school graduation rates, suggestive evidence that the program increased reading achievement, and no evidence that it affected math achievement. We discuss the implications of these findings in light of recent policy developments including the reauthorization of the OSP and the enactment or expansion of more than a dozen school voucher or voucher-type programs throughout the United States in 2011 and 2012. C � 2013 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.


Abstract Distance correlation has gained much recent attention in the data science community: the sample statistic is straightforward to compute and asymptotically equals zero if and only if independence, making it an ideal choice to discover any type of dependency structure given sufficient sample size. One major bottleneck is the testing process: because the null distribution of distance correlation depends on the underlying random variables and metric choice, it typically requires a permutation test to estimate the null and compute the p-value, which is very costly for large amount of data. To overcome the difficulty, in this article, we propose a chi-squared test for distance correlation. Method-wise, the chi-squared test is nonparametric, extremely fast, and applicable to bias-corrected distance correlation using any strong negative type metric or characteristic kernel. The test exhibits a similar testing power as the standard permutation test, and can be used for K-sample and partial testing. Theory-wise, we show that the underlying chi-squared distribution well approximates and dominates the limiting null distribution in upper tail, prove the chi-squared test can be valid and universally consistent for testing independence, and establish a testing power inequality with respect to the permutation test. Supplementary files for this article are available online.


Patients who were contracted with COVID-19 are reported to have a variety of symptoms affecting neuromuscular, psychological, cardiac, and respiratory systems. A significant proportion of patients present with prolonged symptoms even weeks to months including minor illness. The lung is the most common and important organ affected in COVID-19 and sequela can result in exertional breathlessness, cough, hypoxia, or pulmonary fibrosis. Along with medical and supportive therapy, a multidisciplinary pulmonary rehabilitation program is essential to improve the quality of life and reduce symptoms in post-COVID-19 patients. We report a case series of three cases who presented with diverse manifestations after COVID-19 recovery, who were treated with a multidisciplinary pulmonary rehabilitation program. This case series, with early experiences from Kerala which had its peak of COVID-19 pandemic in late October 2020, shows a substantial improvement of symptoms in patients even with initial rehabilitation sessions itself, which shows promising hope in post-COVID-19 management.


In this paper two types of initiation processes for female shamans (fujo iz) are introduced and analyzed. The first is one for a blind woman. After training under a master she has to undergo a ritual called kami tsuke 1-f. During this ritual she becomes possessed by a divine spirit. It means that she encounters her possessing spirit by means of a traditional and culturally established device. By this process she not only becomes the bride of a male spirit, she also becomes a "woman" and is established as a full member of society. For her, therefore, this ritual has the double significance of an initiation both as a shaman and as an adult woman. The other process is that of a woman with normal eyesight. Such a woman does not have to undergo a set ritual. On her way to becoming a shaman she experiences psychosomatic disturbances and states of spiritual exaltation due to being possessed by various spirits. In the process she establishes the spiritual authority of her possessing spirit. By this authority she grows out of the household and local society she married into and, while not completely relinquishing her role as housewife, she builds her religious authority and religious world in the midst of her everyday world.


Analysis and evaluation of land use patterns are of prime importance for natural resources management. Recent studies on land use allocation have been mainly based on linear programming optimization. Although these methods have the ability to solve multi-objective problems, spatial aspects of optimization are not considered when they are used for land use management. This study applied the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II) to optimize land-use allocation in the Taleghan watershed, northwest of Karaj, Iran. The four land use classes of irrigated farming, dry farming, rangeland, and other uses were extracted from the ETM+ image. The objective functions of the proposed model were erosion, economic return, suitability, and compactness-compatibility. A novel crossover operator called exchange randomly block (ERB) was used to exchange information between individuals. Results showed that the optimization model can find a set of optimal land use combinations in accordance with the proposed conditions. For comparison purposes, land use allocation was also done using the combined goal attainment-multi-objective land allocation (GoA-MOLA) approach. The results showed that NSGA-II performance acceptably when compared to GoA-MOLA.


No adverse effects were seen in 29 patients given an intravenous infusion of 6% hydroxyethyl starch solution. Platelet counts had fallen by eight hours after infusion, but had reached pretransfusion levels by 24 hours. Two patients developed unusual bleeding post-operatively, which was possibly due to the infusion. Further investigations on the first stage of coagulation and prothrombin generation in patients receiving hydroxyethyl starch are required.


In Canada, most jurisdictions have experienced stagnation or even increases in traffic injuries lately, leading to reconsider prevention strategies. The Swedish approach 'Vision Zero', as stated in its name, aims to reduce the number of fatal and serious road collisions to zero. First introduced 20 years ago, it represent a turning point in the way we view road safety around the world. In the last years, major Canadian cities and provinces adopted this approach. However, it is not clear how they will adapt it to the North American context, nor how stakeholders collaborate together within the Vision Zero framework to ensure the reduction in traffic injuries. This project explore the multi-sectoral content of Canadian Vision Zero initiatives using three sources: official documents from jurisdictions involved in VZ; content of a workshop held in 2017 on VZ implementation (discussions on: actors, data, indicators and methods needed, 50 participants); and interviews with key stakeholders in five cities (Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal). Preliminary results show that there is no consistent method to implement VZ plans or measure their impacts on road safety: while some jurisdictions have more formal action plans, targets and dedicated resources, other have included the VZ approach within their transportation plans. Despite the fact that participants suggested a wide range of actors (from provincial health authorities to cycling advisory groups and auto manufacturer) who should be involved, very few of the actual initiatives includes a broad range of actors outside the municipal level. Our research also confirms the need for more ccoordination between actors: the alignment of their data (including standardization and data sharing) and expertise around common indicators will be necessary to effectively meet the goals of Vision Zero.


In this paper we consider the modelling of diffracted stray light in heliospheric imagers. The emphasis is on the imagers proposed by RAL Space as part of the phase A/B1 study for ESA's Vigil (formerly called Lagrange) L5 monitoring mission. In order to handle the extreme diffraction angles, a one-dimensional version of the PROPER diffraction modelling library has been developed. This is used to compute patterns at the lens aperture, and the standard two-dimensional version is then used to continue propagation to the sensor plane. The effects of key instrument and modelling parameters are analysed with a view to optimizing accuracy of the modelling and the diffraction performance of the instrument.


Controlling noise is the primary effort in any amplifier. LNA (Low Noise Amplifier) will control the noise in front panel of amplifier stage as per FRISS law. Instead of single MOS in LNA , cascaded the MOS generates the stability factor in a better way in 850MHz RF frequency at load impedance of 50Ω. But additionally capacitor inserted cascaded MOS will pull down the stability factor. Cascasded MOS LNA have a stability factor of 1.387 and Noise Figure(dB) of 0.518


We study a generic spin-fermion model, where a two-level system (spin) is coupled to two metallic leads with different chemical potentials, in the presence of monochromatic driving fields. The real-time dynamics of the system is simulated beyond the Markovian limit by an iterative numerically exact influence functional path integral method. Our results show that although both system-bath coupling and chemical potential difference contribute to dissipation, their effects are distinct. In particular, under certain drivings the asymptotic Floquet states of the system exhibit robustness against a range of system-bath coupling strength: the asymptotic behaviors of the system are insensitive to different system-bath coupling strength, while they are highly tunable by the chemical potential difference of baths. Further simulations show that such robustness may be essentially a result of the interplay between driving, bath electronic structure and system-bath coupling. Therefore the robustness could break down depending on the characteristics of the interplay. In addition, under fast linearly polarized driving the quantum stochastic resonance is demonstrated that stronger system-bath coupling (stronger dissipation) enhances rather than suppresses the amplitude of coherent oscillations of the system.


C‐X‐C ligand (CXCL) chemokines exert major roles in the biologic aggressiveness of esophageal cancer. In the current study, the authors investigated temozolomide (TMZ)‐induced effects on activity of the CXCL chemokine network in human esophageal cancer cells. To the authors' knowledge, TMZ has not been investigated previously in experimental or clinical esophageal cancers.


This study aimed to investigate the effect of consciousness-raising method through video on EFL learners' cultural awareness of speech acts of complaint and compliment. To this end, the data were gathered from 32 Iranian EFL leaners. The data were elicited through a personal information form and a DCT through which the participants were asked to answer imaginative situations including complaint- and compliment-required situations through pretest and posttest. The DCT data were examined to see to what extent the formal teaching of the two speech acts affects the socio-pragmatic awareness of Iranian EFL learners. To do this, first the two groups were given an OPT to ensure the homogeneity, then the groups were administered the pretest, after that the participants in experimental group (EG) received the instruction focusing on the two speech acts and the participants in control group (CG) received placebo instruction, and finally all the two groups were given the posttest. Findings showed that Iranian EFL learners in EG performed better after receiving formal instruction through video clips. Findings of this study can be used by language teachers, learners, and curriculum developers.


We present photometric observations of transits of the southern exoplanets WASP 4b and WASP 46b using a 40 cm telescope. The obtained values of the orbital inclination, relative stellar radius and relative planet radius are well within the ranges of the previous solutions of the targets. The only exception is the bigger planet radius of WASP 4b that was necessary to reproduce the deeper transit observed by the TriG filter. Our data have a good time resolution and may be used for refinement of the ephemerides of WASP 4b and WASP 46b. The presented results confirmed that small telescopes can be used successfully for the study of exoplanets orbiting stars brighter than 13 mag.


INTRODUCTION
There is need to elucidate the histological developmental stages of various layers of retina, to understand the process better and provide clinically significant insights.

AIM
To study the details and chronology of in utero development of different layers of retina.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
To study time of appearance, differentiation and organization of all layers of central retina in different gestational age groups. Retina was studied histologically in 27 foetuses from18(th) to 34(th) weeks of gestation.

RESULTS
We found the period of mid gestation (19(th) -21(st) week of gestation) to be the defining time for retinal layers: The bruch's membrane was fully formed at 20(th) week of gestation; the photoreceptor layer became well defined at 21(st) week of gestation; both the nuclear layers and both the plexiform layers and the ganglion cell layer became distinct at 19(th) week of gestation. Before the 19(th) week, outer and inner neuroblastic zones separated by the neuropil were seen. Well defined nerve fibre layer and inner limiting membrane was present at 18(th) week. The outer limiting membrane was first appreciated at 32(nd) week of gestation. Foetal retinal pigment epithelium was cuboidal and filled with melanin granules while no trace of lipofuscin pigment was found under fluorescent microscope.

CONCLUSION
Detailed data on retinal histogenesis and its timeline might aid in directed differentiation of retinal cell types from stem cells for therapeutic purposes.


Objective: To assess the frequency of additional causes of distal sensory polyneuropathy (DSP) in patients with diabetes mellitus (DM). Methods: Retrospective review of patients with DM and DSP during a 5 year period. A quantitative sensory score (QSS) was determined at the initial evaluation and extensive laboratory and EMG studies were performed. Patients with one or more potential causes for DSP were compared to those with DM alone. Results: Fifty five patients (53%) had potential additional causes for DSP. These included: neurotoxic medications (seven), alcohol abuse (six), and B12 deficiency and renal disease (four each). The most common laboratory abnormalities were: abnormally low levels of vitamin B6 (11) or B1 (10), monoclonal gammopathy (eight), and hypertriglyceridaemia (eight). Twenty six (25%) subjects had more than one additional cause. Nine (9%) had three or more demyelinating features on EMG. There was a trend toward a lower QSS score (p = 0.05) and reduced mean amplitude of the sensory potentials in those with additional causes. Those with additional causes more often had upper limb sensory symptoms (p = 0.001) and sensory findings (p = 0.003). Conclusion: There was a high frequency of additional sources of DSP in patients with DM. These patients more often had sensory symptoms and findings in the hands. Tests that may be useful in the evaluation of DSP in diabetic patients include measures of vitamins B1, B6, B12, serum triglycerides, and immunofixation.


As most software reliability models do not clearly explain the variance in the mean value function of cumulative software errors, they might not be effective in deducing the confidence interval regarding the mean value function. In such cases, software developers cannot estimate the possible risk variation in software reliability by using the randomness of the mean value function, thus reducing the decision‐making reliability when determining an optimal software release time. In this paper, the method of stochastic differential equations is used to build a software reliability model, which is validated based on practical data previously used in six published papers. Moreover, the estimation of the parameters of the proposed model, which can be defined as the autonomous error‐detected factor and the learning factor, is also illustrated, and the results of model validation empirically confirm that the proposed model is able to account for a fairly large portion of the variance of the mean value function. Additionally, the confidence intervals of the mean value function regarding software faults are employed to assist software developers in determining the optimal release times at different confidence levels. Finally, a numerical example is given to verify the effectiveness of the proposed model. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Our new technology (unified statistics theory by MCMC) generates new knowledge as well as the computational tools to create that knowledge and forms new modern and emerging scientific field of information technology and of AI. Skillfully, the basic of finite Markov chains (all types and properties) for the great development of this book to form a comprehensive picture is presented. Three proposed algorithms are designed and executed in order to introduce a complete framework toward a new philosophy of a surely successful rigorous methods and theory of MCMC, of statistical inference about Markov chains, of multiple regression analysis, and of optimization. We propose the unified statistics (descriptive and inferential) theory by MCMC. Using this, we propose unique chromosomes method for optimization and obtain classification of chains, fixed points (nonparametric tests), all conditional multivariate normal distributions (parametric tests and multiple regression analysis) and stationary multivariate normal distributions. We can solve any too large dimensional deterministic and probabilistic (the grouping data, both continuous and discrete) problems and obtain all results as above.


An account is given of the determination of the stopping power of carbon, aluminium, water and bone for 14·5 MeV electrons. The experimental values obtained show that the stopping power of carbon is very similar to that of bone.


This study complements research indicating that content area novices judge importance in texts according to sentence type category (e.g., whether sentences are definitions, facts, equations, etc.). Subjects varying in expertise judged the importance of sentences in physics texts when they were presented in one of two forms: definitions or facts (Experiment 1), and equations or verbal formulae (Experiment 2). The two sentence versions were always identical in substantive content. Experts and subjects without physics training judged these variants similar or equal in importance. However, beginning physics students judged definition and equation versions as more important. Thus sentence form is a salient text feature for beginning-level students, who have developed general rules about what categories of information are important in physics. Sentence category is irrelevant for experts, who have rich content schemas allowing them to judge Importance directly. Sentence category also has little effect on people without physics training, who lack strong o expectations regarding what types of information are important. These results have theoretical implications for understanding content schema development, and practical .implications for textbook writers. . '


The uidA gene codifies for a glucuronidase (GUS) enzyme which has been used as a biotechnological tool during the last years. When uidA gene is fused to a gene's promotor region, it is possible to evaluate the activity of this one in response to a stimulus. Arabidopsis thaliana has served as the biological platform to elucidate molecular and regulatory signaling responses in plants. Transgenic lines of A. thaliana, tagged with the uidA gene, have allowed explaining how plants modify their hormonal pathways depending on the environmental conditions. Although the information extracted from microscopic images of these transgenic plants is often qualitative and in many publications is not subjected to quantification, in this paper we report the development of an informatics tool focused on computer vision for processing and analysis of digital images in order to analyze the expression of the GUS signal in A. thaliana roots, which is strongly correlated with the intensity of the grayscale images. This means that the presence of the GUS-induced color indicates where the gene has been actively expressed, such as our statistical analysis has demonstrated after treatment of A. thaliana DR5::GUS with naphtalen-acetic acid (0.0001 mM and 1 mM). GUSignal is a free informatics tool that aims to be fast and systematic during the image analysis since it executes specific and ordered instructions, to offer a segmented analysis by areas or regions of interest, providing quantitative results of the image intensity levels.


RESEARCH in personality development during the past three years was concentrated on a more manageable number of variables. Areas of particular concentration were (a) the motive-related responses of aggression, dependence, achievement, and sex-role identification and (b) the effects of parental control, affection, and personality on the development of the child's needs and patterns of social interaction. The influence of the peer group was also given consideration. This chapter will begin with a consideration of the research in the long-term stability of selected behaviors and will continue with a discussion of the influence of parents and peers on the behavior of the child and the adolescent.


The heart of the IBM PS/2 Image Adapter is a VLSI display controller and processor chip utilizing an advanced 1- mu m standard-cell CMOS technology. This chip is 9.4 mm square and contains the standard-cell equivalent of 40000 two-input NAND gates, organized as a matrix of 27000 wireable cells. It is packaged in a 194-pin IBM pin grid array and consumes approximately 1 W. The display controller and processor chip contains most of the digital logic which gives the Image Adapter its high performance and function. It provides a programmable adapter which can be personalized for image, text, or graphics simply by providing a new microcode load for the on-chip processor. The Image Adapter performs algorithms such as image compression and graphics rotation at rates comparable to hardware, while retaining the flexibility of programmable microcode. A complete set of tools is provided for the processor, including a C language compiler, assembler, linker, simulator, and debugger.<<ETX>>


We report results from a six-month seismological experiment in the area of the eastern Polochic-Motagua fault system (Guatemala) designed to both characterize the present seismicity and bring some constraints on the lithospheric structure. The seismic activity occurs in the upper 15 km of the crust, on the Polochic and the Motagua faults as well as in a NS-trending graben south of the Motagua fault and within the active folds north of the Polochic fault. From receiver function analysis the Moho discontinuity is found at about 35 km depth north of the Polochic fault and south of the Motagua fault, while the region in between is characterized by a 4-to-6-km thinner crust or by a 6–7% decrease of the Vp / Vs ratio.

The more than 2,000-km-long, mostly submarine, left-lateral strike-slip boundary between the North American and the Caribbean plates continues on land with the Polochic-Motagua fault system mainly located in Guatemala (Figure 1). This fault system accommodates 20 mm/yr of left lateral strike-slip movement ( e.g. , Lyon-Caen et al. 2006) and includes three major convex subparallel EW-trending faults which are, from north to south, the Polochic, the Motagua, and the Jocotan. Both the Polochic and Motagua faults show evidence of recent activity in their historical seismicity (Table 1; and see also Carr and Stoiber 1977; White and Harlow 1993; Ambraseys and Adams 2001) and their morphology ( e.g. , Burkart and Self 1985, Schwartz et al. 1979). South of the Motagua fault, a series of NS-trending grabens extends from the Honduras depression on the Caribbean Coast of Honduras to the Guatemala graben in the center of Guatemala. The last large earthquake ( Mw ∼7.5) in Guatemala occurred in February 1976, ruptured 230 km of the Motagua fault with an average slip observed at the surface of 1.4 m …


We performed expression, mutation, loss of heterozygosity (LOH) and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) analyses of the p73 gene in neuroblastomas (NBs). Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) using primers which can detect both the p73alpha and p73beta transcripts was performed on 30 fresh NBs and 22 NB cell lines. Aberrant expression of the p73 gene was found in 4 (25%) of 16 primary tumors found by mass screening and in 10 (71.4%) of 14 primary tumors found clinically. The rates of expression in these two types of tumors were significantly different (p=0.026, Fisher's exact test). The incidence of aberrant expression of the p73 gene was significantly higher in stage IV patients than in stages I, II, III plus IVS patients (p=0.0236, Fisher's exact test). No homozygous deletions or rearrangements of the p73 gene were found in any samples examined. In addition to the polymorphism in exon 2, a silent mutation (codon 336 GCC/GCT) was found in one primary tumor. LOH of the p73 gene was detected in 5 (15%) of 33 primary NBs using PCR-LOH analysis. FISH analysis showed that all 17 NB cell lines used in this study revealed allelic loss of the p73 gene, while most of them expressed the p73 gene. These results suggest that the p73 gene is not monoallelically expressed in NB. We conclude that the p73 gene is less involved in the development but involved in the progression of neuroblastoma.


Although design pattern is quite useful in software reuse, there are still many barriers when instantiating the design patterns, such as pattern overlapping, traceability, and difficulties in reusing the pattern code. A role-based approach for design pattern modeling and implementation is proposed. In this approach, roles of pattern are treated as the independent modeling elements and the RoleOf relationship is used to associate a role with an application class. This can improve the reusability of pattern. The meta-model of the RoleOf relationship for pattern instantiation and its semantics are proposed using UML extension mechanism. The stereotypes and tagged values used for identifying pattern information are provided, and it resolves the traceability and overlapping problem in pattern instantiation. The dynamic binding of application and role logic are implemented through the extension to Java language, called Rava. The approach proposed in this paper can effectively solve the problem such as pattern overlapping and traceability during the pattern instantiation, which improves the reusability of pattern logic and guides the software development using design patterns.


Pedometers are frequently used to measure habitual physical activity (PA). Howev- er, non-locomotive PA may constitute a substantial part of total PA in workers engaged in cer- tain occupations. The purpose of the present study was to examine the relative contribution of non-locomotive PA to total habitual PA in Japanese workers. Subjects were 177 Japanese males and females. Occupations of the subjects were preschool (kindergarten and nursery school) teachers, salespersons, drivers, licensed cooks, security guards, housewives, garbage collectors and office workers. Light PA, moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA) and step counts were assessed using a triaxial accelerometer (Active style Pro HJA-350IT, Omron Healthcare Co., Ltd), which allowed for an accurate discrimination between locomotive and non-locomotive PA. The non- locomotive component of MVPA predominated in licensed cooks and garbage collectors, while security guards displayed more locomotive MVPA. The non-locomotive component of light PA predominated in preschool teachers, salespersons, licensed cooks and housewives, while secu- rity guards displayed more locomotive light PA. Relative contributions of non-locomotive PA were different among occupations. The present study suggests that locomotor measurements alone might substantially underestimate habitual PA in workers engaged in certain occupations (e.g., licensed cooks and garbage collectors). Jpn J Phys Fitness Sports Med, 61(4): 435-441 (2012)


In orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems, for given total transmit power, insertion of the non-information bearing cyclic prefix (CP) will reduce the effective energy per information bit. Generally, the energy loss is proportional to the ratio of CP length to the symbol duration. If the CP is too long, the energy loss will be considerable high. In this paper, we propose an energy efficient transmission scheme for OFDM systems in Long Term Evolution (LTE) which is developed based on reduction of the CP energy. Simulation results show that the proposed method can save up to about 10% of the total energy, while keeping almost the same bit-error-rate (BER) performance in some applications.


A THESIS SUBMITED TO THE SCHOOL OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES, AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIRMENT FOR THE AWARD OF MASTERS DEGREE IN CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT
DEPARTMENT OF BUILDING
FACULTY OF ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN
AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA


Resistance breeding Plant breeding for resistance to stress factors has become extremely important with the development of new agricultural policies which decrease or prohibit the use of pesticides in agricultural production. The variety number of pear is inadequate, which has high-resistance to fire blight and fruit quality parameters are superior in the World. Laying out the garden with resistant rootstocks and varieties to fire blight is significant because the disease factor could reach to plants in all conditions. When the factor reaches the plant, main struggle occurs in the criterion of plants response. In this study, 15 pear genotypes, which were obtained as a result of different hybridization combinations, were evaluated with their two-year data. Hopeful genotypes were chosen with the weighted ranking method and total scores of genotypes were varied between 425 and 910. As a result of the method formed by the parameters which bring the commercial value of the genotypes to the forefront, 6 genotypes (II-15-61, II27-21, II-15-75, II-18-21, I-12-3, II-33-34) have been found to have the potential of being registrable and they were transferred to the advanced observation parcels. Superior 6 genotypes, considered to registration, could contribute to pear cultivation.


Musical rhythm, in all its cross-cultural diversity, exhibits several commonalities across world cultures. Traditionally, music research has been split in two fields. Some scientists focused on musicality, namely the human biocognitive predispositions for music, with an emphasis on cross-cultural similarities. Other scholars investigated music, seen as cultural product, focusing on the large variation in world musical cultures. Recent experiments found deep connections between music and musicality, reconciling these opposing views. Here we address the question of how individual cognitive biases affect the process of cultural evolution of music. Data from two experiments is analyzed using two different, complementary techniques. In the experiments, participants hear drumming patterns and imitate them. These patterns are then given to the same or another participant to imitate. The structure of these - initially random - patterns is tracked down to later experimental 'generations'. Frequentist statistics show how participants' biases are amplified by cultural transmission, making drumming patterns more structured. Structure is achieved faster than in transmission within, rather than between, participants. A Bayesian model approximates the motif structures participants learned and created. Overall, our data and model show that individual biases for musicality play a central role in shaping cultural transmission of musical rhythm.


This communication will adress three main issues:
-How to access an extreme environment ?
-How to cope with the extreme in practice during the research and the consequences on the researchers' participation ?
-How and why using video recording in order to complete an ethnography in extreme environment ?


The character of the functional output of a motor unit within skeletal muscle has been linked experimentally to the proteins found in the sarcomere, the smallest contractile unit of muscle fibre. Current mathematical models focus on either individual chemical reactions or the bulk properties of muscle with limited reference to the internal processes and structures within the muscle. Without an understanding of those internal properties, the normal function of muscle cannot be simulated and consequently muscular diseases and their treatments cannot be accurately modelled.

In this project, a mathematical model has been developed which relates the chemomechanical cycle of individual events (crossbridges) to the transfer of mechanical
energy through an actin filament, myosin cofilament and, by incorporating the protein titin, the mechanical properties of the interconnecting proteins in a section of
sarcomere. Evaluation and parameterisation of the model were made by comparison with in vitro test data from the published literature at the level of a single crossbridge
and single filaments. At the single filament level, the model was evaluated against two conditions: a low load high displacement (concentric contraction) and a high load low displacement (isometric contraction).

In isometric loading the peak force level per unit length of actin filament was higher than that observed in vitro, the difference being attributable to the greater compliance
in the substrate used in vitro to hold the myosin fragments (~37pN compared to ~12pN). The mean number of concurrent crossbridges was consistent between the model and in vitro data. Under low load the model demonstrated filament movement at speeds comparable to those measured in in vitro motility studies, although longer filaments in the model were required than those in vitro to reach the higher speeds (7μm vs. 2μm for ~8μm/s).

By making the pre-lever reaction duration of the crossbridge cycle strain dependent it was possible to obtain long reaction cycles in low load scenarios comparable to those observed for fragments in solution while generating the actin filament speeds observed
in vitro. It was necessary to have a distribution of attachment times across the filament in order to generate and maintain filament movement in the model; the variation being governed by the tension distribution in the filament. By applying a passive loading as generated by the titin protein the filaments moved more rapidly, with an increased contribution from each crossbridge to filament movement.

Initial results indicate examination of the strain dependency of the post-lever reaction duration may modify filament speeds and will increase the proportion of each crossbridge movement that contributes to the actin filament propulsion (increase crossbridge efficiency). Examination of a selection of the model's parameters gave an initial evaluation of how the model could be 'tuned' to change the number, reaction state and distribution in time of crossbridges to achieve changes in filament contraction speed, isometric force generation and the efficiency with which crossbridges are used; noting that one desired output may conflict with another.

The interaction of the passive components in the structure of the sarcomere with the strain dependent reaction cycle at each crossbridge demonstrated the potential limitations of scaling and averaging localised events without consideration of the passive structures present in the fibre and muscle bulk. The model provides a means to examine the mechanisms and parameters of the sarcomere's function and how those parameters may be adjusted to achieve different output characteristics. The model provides a foundation for the emulation of muscle fibres and a motor unit in health and disease.


We give an alternative, more convenient expression of the well known Cayley-Hamilton theorem when polynomial matrices of arbitrary degree are involved. Based on the results of a recently developed algorithm (Fragulis et al. 1991) for the computation of the inverse of a polynomial matrix, certain relationships among the coefficient matrices of the given polynomial matrix are obtained. We also propose two ways of finding the powers of a polynomial matrix: one in terms of its coefficient matrices and the other making use of the generalized Cayley-Hamilton theorem. These methods are of closed form and are easily implementable in a digital computer.


The International Centre for Diffraction Data is a non-profit scientific organization dedicated to collecting, editing, publishing, and distributing powder diffraction data for the identification of crystalline materials. Our mission is to continue to be the world center for quality diffraction and related data to meet the needs of the technical community. We promote the application of materials characterization methods in science and technology by providing forums for the exchange of ideas and information. We sponsor the Pharmaceutical Powder X-ray Diffraction Symposium (PPXRD), Denver X-ray Conference; its proceedings, Advances in X-ray Analysis; and the journal, Powder Diffraction. ICDD and its members conduct workshops and clinics on materials characterization at our headquarters in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania and at X-ray analysis conferences around the world.


A comprehensive evaluation, covering a range of strain rates and temperatures, has been undertaken into the applicability of hyperelastic material models in Finite Element (FE) packages for predicting the force-extension response of lap joints bonded using a flexible adhesive. Comparisons between measured and predicted lap joint responses have indicated that, for the adhesive studied, the FE models have poor accuracy. Many modelling and experimental factors that were thought to influence the accuracy of the predictions were investigated. The findings suggested that the models do not properly describe the adhesive material. However, there is a suspicion that the adhesive studied may not be representative of all flexible adhesives. A number of tools and statistical procedures have been developed in this study that can be used to validate further adhesives or models.
Some key findings were made regarding the provision of input material properties data and the performance of the FE modelling. It was found that using uniaxial tension and volumetric tests only to obtain the input data gave the best general quality of predictions. It would seem that the expensive planar and biaxial tension tests could be omitted without compromising accuracy. A method for obtaining volumetric properties from uniaxial tension tests has been described. Generalised plane strain elements were found to be better for representing the adhesive layer than standard plane strain elements.
The results point towards simpler, lower-order models such as Neo Hooke and Arruda-Boyce being better at representing the adhesive than more complex, higher-order models. The simpler models have the additional advantages that trends in the strain rate and temperature dependence of the fitted model coefficients can be predicted. Analysis of the stress distributions at the maximum loads sustained by the joints shows that peak values of peel stress and von Mises stress are comparable with the ultimate tensile stresses obtained for bulk test specimens. Thus, stress components may be suitable as failure criteria.


Watching Jazz: Encounters with Jazz Performance on Screen is the first systematic study of jazz on screen media. Where earlier studies have focused almost entirely on the role and portrayal of jazz in Hollywood film, the present book engages with a plethora of technologies and media from early film and soundies through television to recent developments in digital technologies and online media. Likewise, the authors discuss jazz in the widest sense, ranging from Duke Ellington and Jimmy Dorsey through the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey, Oscar Peterson, Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Charles Mingus to Pat Metheny.

Much of this rich and fascinating material has never been studied in depth before, and what emerges most clearly are the manifold connections between the music and the media on which it was and is being recorded. Its long association with film and television has left its trace in jazz, just as online and social media are subtly shaping it now. Vice versa, visual media have always benefited from focusing on music and this significantly affected their development. The book follows these interrelations, showing how jazz was presented and represented on screen and what this tells us about the music, the people who made it and their audiences. The result is a new approach to jazz and the media, which will be required reading for students of both fields.


A decolonial practice and understanding of education (whether theological or otherwise) requires engaging, subverting, deposing and reimagining a whole ecology of imaginaries, practices, structures, institutionalities, traditions, power asymmetries etc.: a task that is far beyond the capacities of any individual, community or even generation. Cognisant of this reality, the article foregrounds the question of pedagogy in theological education (but only as an integral part of the colonial/decolonial ecology of education) and argues that in so far as our pedagogies in theological education treat students primarily as 'thinking creatures', we are engaging in a dis-membering pedagogy that reproduces the coloniality of being. I identify a Cartesian anthropology ('ego cogito sum') – engendering a host of dualisms giving artificial supremacy to certain dimensions of reality over others – as a key animating source of dis-membering pedagogies. Drawing on the 'pedagogical excess' (i.e. underexplored pedagogical themes) in the theological anthropology of Simon Maimela in conversation with pedagogical visions that cohere and extend his anthropological commitments, I argue that a re-membering pedagogy is, at minimum: a pedagogy of performative action, embodiment and (community based) liminality. I argue throughout the article that in the work of re-sourcing our animating anthropologies and re-imagining our pedagogies, we are engaged in the healing work of re-membering that which coloniality has torn apart: theory and practice, mind and body, the individual and relationality, the student and the teacher, the theological school and society.Contribution: This article outlines my attempts to theoretically and theologically ground (and extend) my espoused pedagogical commitments forged at the intersection of my community work and teaching as a theological educator in an undergraduate BTh programme. This article invites other theological educators to become conscious of the theological anthropology that their espoused pedagogical commitments assume and reflect on the pedagogical commitments that their theological anthropology entails, especially as it relates to the ongoing calls for the Africanisation/decolonisation of theological education in South Africa.