When routing devices rely on modems to effect communications over
wireless links, they need timely and accurate knowledge of the
characteristics of the link (speed, state, etc.) in order to make
routing decisions. In mobile or other environments where these
characteristics change frequently, manual configurations or the
inference of state through routing or transport protocols does not
allow the router to make the best decisions. This document introduces
a new protocol called the Dynamic Link Exchange Protocol (DLEP), which
provides a bidirectional, event-driven communication channel between
the router and the modem to facilitate communication of changing link
characteristics.


With the increase of allergic conditions in South Africa, it is becoming more common for schools to have children in their care who suffer from asthma, allergic rhinitis, food allergies, insect allergies, anaphylaxis and atopic dermatitis. Unfortunately, inadequate guidelines exist for addressing the needs of such children and existing legislation does not cover many of the issues - being either vague or inadequate. Since children spend a large proportion of their time at school, it is inevitable that the schools will have to accommodate children with chronic-care needs and also encounter events where children experience allergy emergencies. School authorities have a responsibility to ensure that learners are able to achieve their full potential, despite barriers to learning, and that they are taught and cared for in a safe environment.
This article outlines a practical and implementable policy for use in schools which is aimed at reducing the impact on learning of children suffering chronic health conditions and ensuring the safety of children with severe allergies. The fundamental aspects of the policy include:
establishing an 'allergy action committee' (or 'chronic illness action committee') at each school;
ensuring every child with a chronic health condition is identified and has both a chronic and an emergency treatment plan signed by their doctor and that these include an ID photograph;
implementing measures to reduce potential exposure to identified allergens for those with severe allergies;
ensuring that emergency medication is available and accessible at all times;
training staff online in the identification and treatment of severe allergic reactions.


Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is one of the leading causes of mortality and morbidity. Early recognition of vascular changes, both structural and functional, may help to identify individuals at risk for CVD. Using modern ultrasound techniques – the echo-tracking technique for assessment of stiffness in large arteries and flow-mediated dilatation of the brachial artery as an indicator of endothelial function, we could demonstrate vascular changes in subjects who were otherwise healthy and who were or have been subjected to conditions with potential impact on their cardiovascular system. Furthermore, vessel wall properties were studied in female patients with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) who were void of manifest CVD.

Impaired endothelial function was present in normotensive pregnant women with bilateral uterine artery notches (sign of increased resistance in the uteroplacental circulation). Pregnant women with preeclampsia showed endothelial dysfunction as compared to controls; the dysfunction was most pronounced in women with bilateral uterine artery notches. Arterial stiffness was unaffected in both above mentioned groups. In adolescents who as fetuses suffered from intrauterine growth restriction with abnormal blood flow smaller vessel diameters of larger arteries, increased resting heart rate and a lower buffering capacity of the aorta were found, indicating both an alteration of vascular growth and function.

No major effect of six months of combined hormone therapy (HT) on arterial stiffness of healthy postmenopausal women could be demonstrated. Yet HT-users among women with SLE had a lower aortic stiffness than non-users. Furthermore, vascular changes, as manifested by increased arterial stiffness and vessel enlargement, were present in SLE patients who were void of CVD and significant atherosclerotic lesions.

The findings of vascular changes in the above mentioned groups of subjects may be of importance for the future cardiovascular health of these individuals since early identification provides a possibility for preventive interventions.


Various aluminum phosphates were prepared with phosphoric acid and aluminum hydroxide under different conditions. IR, XRD, Raman and SEM were used to study the structure difference and their change in heating process and particle morphology of obtained products and aluminum tripolyphosphate. The results show that the spectral characteristic change of phosphate from H2PO4-, PO4(3-), H2P3O10(3-) and PO3- can be seen when P/Al molar ratio = 3 or the condensation temperature is different. The PO symmetric stretching peaks shift to lower wavenumber and the bands widen along with the extent of polymerization. After aluminum tripolyphosphate is heated, the frequencies of stretching vibrational modes depend on the micro-structure units of phosphate and increase with the extent of polymerization. Both Raman and infrared spectra can characterize the pattern of the hydroxyl stretching vibrations. The laminated thickness of reaction product is increases and laminar boundary is vague until the clinker clew is formed.


The solution of the problem of organizing optimal communications in circulant networks of degree four is considered. For a family of optimal circulant networks with the minimum diameter and average distance for any number of nodes in a graph, we propose an optimal pair routing algorithm of constant complexity based on using the relative addressing of nodes in a network. The new algorithm is an analytical extension to any number of nodes in the network of the routing method proposed for dense Gaussian networks, and it does not use division operations, which are very expensive to implement in fixed-point format. This extension is based on the proposed scheme of transformations on the plane of geometrical patterns of optimal circulant networks. The developed routing algorithm is the basis for generating the series of routing algorithms for different subfamilies of the optimal two-dimensional circulants. The general routing algorithm and its modification for a separate subclass of circulants are implemented in the HDL NoC model with circulant topology. All the algorithm parameters important for networks-on-chip, including the consumption of memory, logical resources, and execution time are comprehensively investigated. The results of a comparative analysis of the new algorithms with other routing algorithms, previously implemented in the networks-on-chip, are presented.


Computer Graphics has evolved into a mature and powerful field that offers many opportunities to enhance different disciplines, adapting to the specific needs of each. One of these important fields is the design and analysis of Urban Environments. In this article we try to offer a perspective of one of the sectors identified in Urban Environment studies: Urbanization. More precisely we focus on geometric and appearance modeling, rendering and simulation tools to help stakeholders in key decision stages of the process.


Surface-relief gratings on optical materials are required for various telecommunication applications, as light couplers for planar optical waveguides, Bragg reflectors, or alignment grooves for liquid crystals. Vacuum-UV-laser ablation enables precise machining of fused silica. A comparison of ablation results obtained at 157 nm and 193 nm wavelength leads to the following conclusion: at 193 nm the surface properties (e.g. mainly roughness) have strong influence on the ablation behaviour. At 157 nm, the volume properties (e.g. mainly bulk absorption) are dominating instead. Though there are severe constraints concerning deep hole drilling at 193 nm, because irregular cracking can hardly be excluded, the generation of high resolution surface patterns is possible at this laser wavelength. As an example, sub-half-micron surface-relief gratings were fabricated on fused silica by laser ablation with nanosecond (ns) pulses at 193 nm from an ArF excimer laser. The grating relief was generated by imaging a transmission amplitude grating with a Schwarzschild objective of 25x demagnification. To provide high resolution in combination with high fluence, which is required for ablating fused silica, an off-axis mask projection scheme utilizing superposition of the zero order beam with the +1st diffraction order was applied.


Since its discovery in early times, thin films rapidly found industrial applications such as in decorative and optics purposes. With the evolution of thin film technology, supported by the development of vacuum technology and electric power facilities, the range of applications has increased at a level that nowadays almost every industrial sector make use of them to provide specific physical and chemical properties to the surface of bulk materials. The possibility to tailor the film properties through the variation of the microstructure via the deposition parameters adopted in a specific deposition technique has permitted their entrance from the simplest like protective coatings against wear and corrosion to the most technological advanced applications such as microelectronics and biomedicine, recently. In spite of such impressive progress, the connection among all steps of the thin film production, namely deposition parameters-morphology and properties, is not fully accurate. Among other reasons, the lack of characterization techniques suitable for probing films with thickness less than a single atomic layer, along with a lack of understanding of the physics have impeded the elaboration of sophisticated models for a precise prediction of film properties. Furthermore, there remain some difficulties related to the large scale production and a relative high cost for the deposition of advanced structures, i.e. quantum wells and wires. Once these barriers are overcome, thin film technology will become more competitive for advanced technological applications.


The purpose of this study is to prove the differential effect of administering the mangosteen Rind extract due to lowering the blood sugar levels of Winstar white male rats induced by streptozotosin (STZ). This study used a randomized design of the ramdomized posttest only control group design. The sample consisted of 4 groups with a sample size of 7 animals each group of rats. All samples were prepared STZ induction of diabetes with a single dose of 50 mg/Kg BW through intraperitoneal (IP). K0 (control group; given 1% CMC 1 cc/day), K1 (treatment group 1; given 0,054 mg glimepiride/200 grBW, K2 (treatment group 2; given mangosteen Rind extract 50 mg/Kg BW), K3 (treatment group 3; given the mangosteen Rind extract 100 mg/Kg BW). Timing of therapy in each group was for 7 days. Shapiro-Wilk normality test (=0.05) in the BW  variable data, pre-post STZ GDP and  GDP. Testing homogeneity used Levene's test. When data distribution was normal and homogenous, it used an ANOVA deferential test. When data distribution was normal and inhomogeneous, it proceed to apply T-test with 2 free samples. The results: 1) There were significant differences between K0  GDP with K1 (p=0.015), K0 to K2 (p=0.003) and group K0 to K3 (p=0.002), 2) Whereas no difference was shown in the K1 with K2 (p=0.442), K1 to K3 (p=0,401) and K2 to K3 (p=0.878). Conclusion: The administration of mangosteen Rind extract doses of 50 and 100 mg/kg bw/day did not differ in lowering blood sugar levels compared with glimepiride administration of a dose of 0.054 mg/200 grBW rat/day. Mangosteen Rind extract dose of 100 mg/kg bw/day and 50 mg/kg bw/day did not provide a significant difference in lowering blood sugar levels. (FMI 2016;52:241-245)


Smart home or smart home is a system that can facilitate and increase the comfort of the homeowner specifically in terms of controlling electronic equipment in the house so that it can reduce waste in the use of electronic equipment and provide security to the homeowner so that the electrical short circuit is used the owner is wet. This paper discusses the design of systems in smart homes that can activate or activate electronic equipment in this case only to the lights.

Keywords : Smart home, Easy VR, Arduino Uno, Voice Recognition


The uptake of electric vehicles (EVs) and heat pumps (HPs) have been identified as
means of cutting down on emissions in the transport and domestic sectors. Increasing
uptake of EVs and HPs must be managed to avoid unintended consequences on the
power system and the environment. This thesis describes an investigation of the
management of the load demand of EVs and HPs such that they would help achieve
the CO2 emission reduction targets in the most economic manner.
Policies encouraging uptake of EVs and HPs must be guided by facts. Therefore, an
algorithm for estimating reduction of emissions due to EVs replacing internal
combustion engine (ICE) cars was developed and tested on data from the United
Kingdom (UK). Results showed that a point could be reached when further uptake of
EVs might be counterproductive if the declining average gram of CO2 emitted per
kilometre driven of ICE cars was not matched by the increasing use of low-carbon
sources for the generation of electricity.
As the uptake of EVs increases, the impacts of their charging requirements and
charging patterns on the generating infrastructure in terms of capacity, scheduling of
resources, grid emission intensity and emission abatement cost must be understood.
To this effect, a dispatch model based on correlation between system load demand and
capacity factors of generating units was developed and tested on data from the UK
power system with 50% uptake of EVs under two charging patterns.
The low voltage (LV) distribution networks are the hosts of EVs and HPs, therefore,
their impacts on the LV distribution networks was investigated through a powerflow
simulation study of a typical urban LV distribution network in the UK hosting future
uptake number of EVs and HPs up to 2050 using GridLAB-D. The operating model
of domestic variable speed Air-Source HP for the provision of both hot water and space
heating was developed and used in the powerflow study. Results showed that
overloading of transformers was likely to be the first restricting factor to further uptake
of EVs and HPs.
Hence, distribution transformers, being the most expensive components of the LV
distribution network need to be optimally utilised to cost-effectively support high
xiv
uptake of EVs and HPs. In this regard, an adaptive thermal loading method of
distribution transformers was developed. The adaptive thermal loading method was
combined with a proposed load management technique in an optimisation objective
function. This was tested on a typical urban LV distribution network in the UK
characterised by significant uptake of EVs and HPs when carrying the future load
demand of the area up to 2050. Results proved that the transformer of a typical LV
distribution network area could support high uptake of EVs and HPs beyond 2050.


Silicon that was immersed in hydrofluoric acid can be etched photochemically by laser, and it is found to produce long and regular columnar structure if the laser power density is greater than 10 mW/mm2. Another criterion is that the laser wavelength should be at the blue end of the visible spectrum. Fine wires with diameter 300–200 nm were also observed at the top of these columns. The dimension of these fine wires is near to quantum confinement dimension and thus can be taken as supporting evidence for quantum confinement. The photoluminescence spectra full width half maximum was narrower than that from porous silicon fabricated from the conventional anodization method. The narrower full width was attributed to the uniformity of the porous silicon structure. A physical model is proposed to explain the observed strong directional etching. The model showed that once the etch sites have been randomly initiated, the etching rate becomes directional under the influence of the laser. The intensity of the lase...


Progressive Insurance faced a widespread public relations crisis when Matt Fisher took to his personal Tumblr site to post a scathing account of his family's experience with the company who insured his deceased sister. The blog entry went "viral" overnight, panning Progressive's use of their attorney to seemingly assist in the defense of the driver who collided into his sister's automobile, taking her life. This case examines the moral, economic, and legal views of business decision-making, as well as the social media consequences of a perceived imbalance between the three approaches. The question for Progressive Insurance is how to best mitigate the negative consequences of the current social media crisis and to avoid any recurrence.


In 2014-15 Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS), with supportive funding from the Ontario Arts Council, partnered with a local group of professional artists to develop a curriculum called Awakening Your Creative Power: a seminar series on creativity, compassion and play. In order to understand the feasibility and impact of this arts-based curriculum for healthcare personnel working within a hospital, HHS undertook a comprehensive program evaluation. Input from participants who attended the course was obtained in three ways: (1) weekly evaluation forms at the end of each session (2) a final evaluation that asked questions about the overall seminar series, and (3) a focus group discussion held 2 weeks after the seminar series ended. This paper reports on the outcomes of the evaluation and the evolution of the curriculum over the past 3 years, including its impacts on both participants and the arts partners. The evaluation data demonstrate that the course was successful in meeting its stated objectives which include: enhancing interpersonal skills, fostering self-reflection, deepening compassion, cultivating resilience, recognizing creative potential, applying intention and coping with daily stresses through the power of play. In addition, the course also: increased self-awareness, fostered a sense of community, emphasized the value of creativity for its own sake, empowered participants, provided participants with a sense of accomplishment and made participants feel valued by the institution. The paper concludes with some reflections on the potential of engaging arts professionals in health professional education.


A total of 226 subjects at three universities participated in five separate studies which measured the effect on individual risk taking of increased familiarity with the problem situation. The results of all five studies failed to replicate the finding that individuals will take increased risk after they are given an opportunity to become familiar with the problem. These failures to replicate cast doubt on the hypothesis that the increase in risk after a group discussion is due to increased familiarity with the problems rather than to the effect of group interaction.


The natural resources potential at Pangandaran has become strategic since its status as a district is definitive. Being a new district, Pangandaran has a number of challenges that must be faced in the era of free trade that is getting closer. That is, it requires qualified skills from the government officials. One of these skills is related to information management for the public. The purpose of this community service is to describe and explain how to improve the knowledge and skills of civil servants engaged in the field of information services in Pangandaran district, especially those related to information management techniques that have news value. The implementation of community service was conducted by lecture, question and answer, and simulation. The results of the activities show that state civil servants engaged in information services for the community in Pangandaran district did not appear to have sufficient knowledge and skills in terms of information management needed by the community. This is evident from the lack of information on the website in government agencies regarding the updating of activities in the district of Pangandaran. Based on our community service activities, we conclude that there has been an increase in knowledge and skills shown by the many questions and discussions of participants on how to find, manage and pack information into valuable news needed by the community. It is suggested that the implementation of community service activities should be in the form of assistance so that speakers would be able to inculcate the values of professionalism in the management of information that is important for the community in Pangandaran district through continuous capacity building and empowerment of professional civil servants in the field of communication.


The model systems for self-organized quantum dots formed from elemental and compound semiconductors, namely Ge grown on Si(001) and InAs on GaAs(001), are comparatively studied by scanning tunneling microscopy. It is shown that in both material combinations only two well-defined families of faceted and defect-free nanocrystals exist (and coexist). These three-dimensional islands, pyramids and domes, show common morphological characteristics, independently of the specific material system. A universal behavior is further demonstrated in the capping-passivation process that turns the nanocrystals in true quantum dots.


OBJECTIVE
The goal of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of involuntary outpatient commitment in reducing rehospitalizations among individuals with severe mental illnesses.

METHOD
Subjects who were hospitalized involuntarily were randomly assigned to be released (N = 135) or to continue under outpatient commitment (N = 129) after hospital discharge and followed for 1 year. Each subject received case management services plus additional outpatient treatment. Outpatient treatment and hospital use data were collected.

RESULTS
In bivariate analyses, the control and outpatient commitment groups did not differ significantly in hospital outcomes. However, subjects who underwent sustained periods of outpatient commitment beyond that of the initial court order had approximately 57% fewer readmissions and 20 fewer hospital days than control subjects. Sustained outpatient commitment was shown to be particularly effective for individuals with nonaffective psychotic disorders, reducing hospital readmissions approximately 72% and requiring 28 fewer hospital days. In repeated measures multivariable analyses, the outpatient commitment group had significantly better hospital outcomes, even without considering the total length of court-ordered outpatient commitments. However, in subsequent repeated measures analyses examining the role of outpatient treatment among psychotically disordered individuals, it was also found that sustained outpatient commitment reduced hospital readmissions only when combined with a higher intensity of outpatient treatment.

CONCLUSIONS
Outpatient commitment can work to reduce hospital readmissions and total hospital days when court orders are sustained and combined with intensive treatment, particularly for individuals with psychotic disorders. This use of outpatient commitment is not a substitute for intensive treatment; it requires a substantial commitment of treatment resources to be effective.


This study on poverty induced characteristics and their effect on the rural development was conducted in 45 rural communities in Imo State, Nigeria. Data were collected with structured questionnaire from 90 randomly selected community leaders and analyzed with frequency distribution and percentages. The- most pronounced poverty induced characteristic was found to be landlessness, while the most serious effect of poverty on rural development is insecurity of life and property. There is urgent need to identify the real poor people in the society and ensure that they benefit fully from the programs meant for them so as to reduce the level of insecurity in our society and achieve rural development. Keywords: Poverty, rural development, communities, Nigeria


OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study is to evaluate the skin microcirculation increase seen in healthy volunteers after a single exposure to polychromatic visible (pVIS) light, and to prove the role of nitric oxide (NO) in the development of this effect.

BACKGROUND DATA
Improvement of microcirculation is one of the most important effects of laser and pVIS light therapy; however, its mechanism of action remains unknown. A main role in the regulation of vascular tone is known to be played by NO. It is produced by NO-synthase (NOS) located in membranes of many cells, including endothelial and blood cells. NOS, a biopteroflavohemoprotein, absorbs pVIS light, resulting in its activation.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The central area of the dorsal side of the right hand (24 cm2) of 42 volunteers was irradiated for 5 min with pVIS light from a Q-light (385-750 nm, 95% polarization, 40 mW/cm2, 12 J/cm2). Then for 90 min, the blood flow rate (Qas) was measured eight times, both in the area of the irradiation (local effect) and in the non-irradiated left hand (systemic effect) by using a high-frequency ultrasound Doppler device, recording Qas in human skin to a depth up to 5 mm. In the central area of the right hand of 14 volunteers an NOS inhibitor, N-monomethyl-L-arginine (L-NMMA, 0.1% solution), was iontophoretically administered prior to exposure, whereas in 10 other subjects it was administered to the left hand with subsequent exposure of the right hand.

RESULTS
As soon as 2 min after exposure, Qas in the irradiated area rose on average by 32%, and in 20 min by 45%; it then decreased and in 90 min returned to the initial level. A statistically significant Qas increase in the non-irradiated hand was recorded in 5 min (+9%), and in 20 min it reached a maximum level (+39%), and 90 min later it decreased to the initial values. The presence of L-NMMA in the light-exposed area completely blocked the photoinduced rise of microcirculation, both in the irradiated and in non-irradiated hand; however, its administration to the non-irradiated hand did not prevent these effects.

CONCLUSION
The increase in skin microcirculation produced by pVIS light at the local and systemic levels is due to activation of NO synthesis in the irradiated area.


The capacity for crisis perception and to foresee risk is central to project management where responsibility for safety is a central component informing decision making. This article examines the absence of this capacity as a cause and consequence of corporate governance failure. The example of the Grenfell Tower fire is used to illustrate the multiple inflection points within governance structures where relatively minor errors of judgement or inattention to detail individually or collectively undermine their shared purpose. The consequences of minor deficiencies include the risk of compromising the governance framework, misaligning stakeholder objectives, normalising miscommunication, mismanagement and neglect, institutionalising discrimination and, ultimately, eroding the protection measures required to prevent catastrophic events.


This study compared the effects of following a pacer versus following a self-paced plan on psychological responses and pacing behavior in well-trained distance runners. Pacing in the present study was individually tailored where each participant developed a personal strategy to ensure their goal time was achieved. We expected that following a pacer would associate with goal achievement, higher pre-run confidence, positive emotions and lower perceived exertion during performance. In a mixed-design repeated-measures study, nineteen well-trained runners completed two 1600m running time trials. Ten runners had a pacer (paced group) who supported their individual pacing strategy, and nine participants self-paced running alone (control group). Both groups could check pace using their wrist watch. In contrast to our expectation, results indicated that the paced group reported higher pre-run anxiety with no significant differences in finish time, goal confidence, goal difficulty, perceived exertion, and self-rated performance between groups. We suggest that following a pacer is a skill that requires learning. Following a personalised pacer might associate with higher anxiety due to uncertainty in being able to keep up with the pacer and public visibility of dropping behind, something that is not so observable in a self-paced run completed alone. Future research should investigate mechanisms associated with effective pacing.


BACKGROUND
Cricopharyngeal achalasia (CA) is a rare cause of dysphagia in children presenting with non-specific symptoms such as choking, food regurgitation, nasal reflux, coughing, recurrent pneumonia, cyanosis, and failure to thrive. It results from failure of relaxation of the upper esophageal sphincter (UES) and may appea reither as an isolated lesion or in conjunction with other pathologies. Recognition and early diagnosis of this condition may minimize morbidity in children.

OBJECTIVES
To evaluate the clinical course of four children with cricopharyngeal achalasia presenting to our clinic.

METHODS
We conducted a 5 year retrospective chart review in a tertiary referral center.

RESULTS
Four children were diagnosed with primary cricopharyngeal achalasia between 2006 and 2010. Diagnosis was established by videofluoroscopy and all underwent uneventful cricopharyngeal myotomy. Three children recovered completely and one child showed partial improvement. For residual UES spasm in a partially improved patient, botulinum toxin was injected into the UES which led to further improvement. Dysphagia recurred in one child who was successfully treated with botulinum toxin injection.

CONCLUSIONS
Cricopharyngeal myotomy is a safe procedure in infants and young children. Botulinum toxin injection of the UES was found to be effective in refractory cases.


This paper proposes a hybrid control approach for distribution system critical load restoration, combining deep reinforcement learning (RL) and model predictive control (MPC) aiming at maximizing total restored load following an extreme event. RL determines a policy for quantifying operating reserve requirements, thereby hedging against uncertainty, while MPC models grid operations incorporating RL policy actions (i.e., reserve requirements), renewable (wind and solar) power predictions, and load demand forecasts. We formulate the reserve requirement determination problem as a sequential decision-making problem based on the Markov Decision Process (MDP) and design an RL learning environment based on the OpenAI Gym framework and MPC simulation. The RL agent reward and MPC objective function aim to maximize and monotonically increase total restored load and minimize load shedding and renewable power curtailment. The RL algorithm is trained offline using a historical forecast of renewable generation and load demand. The method is tested using a modified IEEE 13-bus distribution test feeder containing wind turbine, photovoltaic, microturbine, and battery. Case studies demonstrated that the proposed method outperforms other policies with static operating reserves.


Alterations in Ca2+ signaling may contribute to tumorigenesis and the mechanism of action of some anti-cancer drugs. The plasma membrane calcium-ATPase (PMCA) is a crucial controller of intracellular Ca2+ signaling. Altered PMCA expression occurs in the mammary gland during lactation and in breast cancer cell lines. Despite this, the consequences of PMCA inhibition in breast cancer cell lines have not been investigated. In this work, we used Tet-off PMCA antisense-expressing MCF-7 cells to assess the effects of PMCA inhibition in a human breast cancer cell line. At a level of PMCA inhibition that did not completely prevent PMCA-mediated Ca2+ efflux and did not induce cell death, a dramatic inhibition of cellular proliferation was observed. Fluorescence-activated cell sorting analysis indicated that PMCA antisense involves changes in cell cycle kinetics but not cell cycle arrest. We concluded that modulation of PMCA has important effects in regulating the proliferation of human breast cancer MCF-7 cells.


International law has made arrangements on piracy while for sea / armed robbery the authority of each country to regulate it. Known for the universal jurisdiction principle in combating this piracy, it has been affirmed in the 1982 Sea Law Convention (UNCLOS 1982) and Indonesia has ratified it with Law No.17 of 1985. But piracy and sea robbery are still unresolved issues. The high seas are all parts of the sea that are not included in the exclusive economic zone, territorial sea, inland waters of a country, or in the archipelagic waters of an archipelago country. The implications of this definition make the open sea an area open to every country and no country claims that the region is under its jurisdiction. A state may also impose or impose its domestic law outside its territorial territory, this is commonly applicable to an International crime in which the crime has been recognized as an International crime and each country shall combat such crimes. Finally, the state has the authority to try and give a judicial decision, this is to ensure the security and order of a country from unlawful acts committed by foreign nationals.

Keywords: Principles of Jurisdiction, Universal, Pirate, Indonesia

n

Hukum Internasional telah membuat pengaturan mengenai piracy sedangkan untuk sea/armed robbery merupakan kewenangan masing-masing negara untuk mengaturnya. Dikenal prinsip yurisdiksi universal dalam memberantas piracy ini, hal tersebut telah ditegaskan dalam Konvensi Hukum Laut 1982 (UNCLOS 1982) dan Indonesia telah meratifikasinya dengan Undang-Undang No.


A method far generating spin fluid solutions to the field equations in a Riemann- Cartan spacetime is presented. The method uses any general relativistic static perfect hid solution as input. The resulting RC solutions are irrotational and stationary They will support a non-zero spin density. The spin density has zero Fermi derivative and will not contribute to a circulation. PACS numbers: 0420, 0450


Abstract. By using multiple wind measurements when designing wind farms, it is possible to decrease the uncertainty of wind farm energy assessments since the extrapolation distance between measurements and wind turbine locations is reduced. A WindScanner system consisting of two synchronized scanning lidars potentially represents a cost-effective solution for multipoint measurements, especially in complex terrain. However, the system limitations and limitations imposed by the wind farm site are detrimental to the installation of scanning lidars and the number and location of the measurement points. To simplify the process of finding suitable measurement positions and associated installation locations for the WindScanner system, we have devised a campaign planning workflow. The workflow consists of four phases. In the first phase, based on a preliminary wind farm layout, we generate optimum measurement positions using a greedy algorithm and a measurement "representative radius". In the second phase, we create several Geographical Information System (GIS) layers such as exclusion zones, line-of-sight (LOS) blockage and lidar range constraint maps. These GIS layers are then used in the third phase to find optimum positions of the WindScanner systems with respect to the measurement positions considering the WindScanner measurement uncertainty and logistical constraints. In the fourth phase, we optimize and generate a trajectory through the measurement positions by applying the traveling salesman problem (TSP) on these positions. The described workflow has been digitalized into a Python package named campaign-planning-tool, which gives users an effective way to design measurement campaigns with WindScanner systems. In this study, the Python package has been tested on three different sites characterized by different terrain complexity and wind farm dimensions and layouts. With minimal effort, the Python package can optimize measurement positions and suggest possible lidar installation locations for carrying out resource assessment campaigns.


Objectives: The aim of this paper is to report a pilot study in which participants who had recently received a diagnosis of dementia were randomised to either a 10-week group intervention or a waiting-list control. Method: Memory clinic staff with limited previous experience of group therapy were trained to lead a 10-week group therapy intervention called 'Living Well with Dementia'. Fifty-eight participants, all of whom had received a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease, vascular or Lewy body dementia within the previous 18 months, were randomised to receive either the intervention or treatment as usual (waiting-list control). Data collection occurred at baseline, within two weeks after the intervention finished and at 10-week follow-up. Results: The study met its recruitment targets, with a relatively low attrition rate for the intervention arm. The acceptability of the intervention and research methods was examined qualitatively and will be reported on elsewhere. For the primary outcome, measure of quality of life in Alzheimer's disease (QoL-AD), and secondary outcome, self-esteem, there was some evidence of improvement in the intervention group compared to the control group. There was, also, evidence of a reduction in cognitive functioning in the treatment group compared to the control. Such reported differences should be treated with caution because they are obtained from a pilot and not a definitive study. Conclusion: This pilot study succeeded in collecting data to inform a future definitive cost effectiveness clinical trial of Living Well with Dementia group therapy.


In recent, deep learning-based feature representation methods have shown a promising impact in electroencephalography (EEG)-based brain-computer interface (BCI). Nonetheless, due to high intra- and inter-subject variabilities, many studies on decoding EEG were designed in a subject-specific manner by using calibration samples, with no much concern on its less practical, time-consuming, and data-hungry process. To tackle this problem, recent studies took advantage of transfer learning, especially using domain adaptation techniques. However, there still remain two challenging limitations; i) most domain adaptation methods are designed for labeled source and unlabeled target domain whereas BCI tasks generally have multiple annotated domains. ii) most of the methods do not consider negatively transferable to disrupt generalization ability. In this paper, we propose a novel network architecture to tackle those limitations by estimating mutual information in high-level representation and low-level representation, separately. Specifically, our proposed method extracts domain-invariant and class-relevant features, thereby enhancing generalizability in classification across. It is also noteworthy that our method can be applicable to a new subject with a small amount of data via a fine-tuning, step only, reducing calibration time for practical uses. We validated our proposed method on a big motor imagery EEG dataset by showing promising results, compared to competing methods considered in our experiments.


The article scans global and library trends to discuss the future of 21 st century libraries. In spite of both the importance and difficulty of addressing the future of libraries, there has been no shortage of attempts to do so. The author draws insights from leading futurist to articulate the relevance of libraries in Singapore. Libraries are important in the context of the evolving experience economy in capturing tacit knowledge and understanding learning patterns. The author posits that library education in the future would have to incorporate both tacit and explicit knowledge management.


In 1950, 113 million people lived in South America, in 2008, 385 million, more than three times. Half of them live in poverty. In 2050, about 485 million people will be living there. Contemporary population dynamics figures on a global average show that by each birth in a rich family there are 38 in poor families. Then it's necessary to think on new social, ecological and economic systems models to analyze and synthesize their possible sustainability from two perspectives: natural and artificial , and to research on how they are possible and behave. This paper shows the process of building, with the help of first and second order cybernetics tools, a theoretical and practical framework for modeling South America using Systems Dynamics and explores questions such as: Is it possible to reduce poverty following a sustainable path? What is the kind of steady state behind the sustainability ideas? In what sense is it possible to talk of artificial sustainability? What relationship can be found between the scales of space and time of the human perspective and of the sustainability and the dynamics of the new social equilibriums? How such exploration enriches the understanding of social systems and human behavior? What contributions can be offered from such analysis and synthesis to contribute to sustainability? How can the structure and dynamics of South America helps to answer those questions? The obtained results will serve to discover possible inconsistencies and counterintuitive behaviors in traditional conceptions of poverty, development and sustainability.


Phytoplankton usually responds directly and fast to environmental fluctuations, making them useful indicators of lake ecosystem changes caused by various stressors. Here, we examined the phytoplankton community composition before, during, and after a simulated 1-month heat wave in a mesocosm facility in Silkeborg, Denmark. The experiment was conducted over three contrasting temperature scenarios (ambient (A0), Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change A2 scenario (circa +3 °C, A2) and A2+ %50 (circa +4.5 °C, A2+)) crossed with two nutrient levels (low (LN) and high (HN)) with four replicates. The facility includes 24 mesocosms mimicking shallow lakes, which at the time of our experiment had run without interruption for 11 years. The 1-month heat wave effect was simulated by increasing the temperature by 5 °C (1 July to 1 August) in A2 and A2+, while A0 was not additionally heated. Throughout the study, HN treatments were mostly dominated by Cyanobacteria, whereas LN treatments were richer in genera and mostly dominated by Chlorophyta. Linear mixed model analyses revealed that high nutrient conditions were the most important structuring factor, which, regardless of temperature treatments and heat waves, increased total phytoplankton, Chlorophyta, Bacillariophyta, and Cyanobacteria biomasses and decreased genus richness and the grazing pressure of zooplankton. The effect of temperature was, however, modest. The effect of warming on the phytoplankton community was not significant before the heat wave, yet during the heat wave it became significant, especially in LN-A2+, and negative interaction effects between nutrient and A2+ warming were recorded. These warming effects continued after the heat wave, as also evidenced by Co-inertia analyses. In contrast to the prevailing theory stating that more diverse ecosystems would be more stable, HN were less affected by the heat wave disturbance, most likely because the dominant phytoplankton group cyanobacteria is adapted to high nutrient conditions and also benefits from increased temperature. We did not find any significant change in phytoplankton size diversity, but size evenness decreased in HN as a result of an increase in the smallest and largest size classes simultaneously. We conclude that the phytoplankton community was most strongly affected by the nutrient level, but less sensitive to changes in both temperature treatments and the heat wave simulation in these systems, which have been adapted for a long time to different temperatures. Moreover, the temperature and heat wave effects were observed mostly in LN systems, indicating that the sensitivity of phytoplankton community structure to high temperatures is dependent on nutrient availability.


BACKGROUND
Oral strip is very similar to thin strip of postage stamp in shape, size and thickness. The strip is designed to be placed on the tongue or any oral mucosal tissue which immediately gets wet and hydrated after being in contact with the saliva. Desloratadine is one of the better-known second-generation antihistamines that has been studied for being effective in relieving the allergic nasal and skin symptoms.

OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study is to develop desloratadine orodispersible film (ODF) with fast disintegration time and suitable mechanical strength to treat allergic symptoms in geriatric patients in order to increase compliance and convenience.

METHODS
Solvent casting method using hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC) as the film forming polymer was applied. Polyethylene glycol 400 (PEG 400) and glycerol (Gly) were used as the plasticizers and citric acid (CA) was used as saliva stimulating agent. The resultant films were evaluated for disintegration time, folding endurance, surface pH, weight variation, thickness, surface morphology using scanning electron microscopy, drug content, content uniformity, moisture loss, moisture uptake, and drug-excipient compatibility using DSC and FT-IR.

RESULTS
All the selected films started to disintegrate in less than 14 seconds. Selected optimum films exhibited good mechanical properties with a folding endurance value greater than 100. The uniformity in weight, thickness, and drug content in the selected films was obtained. Surface pH was within the normal range (6.4-6.8). A smooth surface of the films was obtained and drug-excipient compatibility was proved using DSC and FT-IR. The dissolution test was done for optimum film formulations by simulating the oral cavity physiological conditions using the conventional dissolution test apparatus. More than 87% of the drug was released by the 4th minute.

CONCLUSION
Orodispersible film of desloratadine was successfully prepared by solvent casting method in order to improve the disintegration/dissolution of the drug in oral cavity and hence better patient compliance and effective therapy.


Background: Acne is a cutaneous pleomorphic disorder skin disease most frequently occurring during the adolescent in ages of 12-24, with estimated  percentage ( 85%) . There are different ways to treat acne such as  using of antibiotics  , herpes , and mixing treatments .
Methods : Antibacterial activity  of  four concentrations (100,50,25,12.5)mg /ml of  alcoholic  and cold  aqueous  crude extracts of Cinnamon(Cinnamomum verum ), Henna (Lawsonia inermis ) , Lupine (Lupinus luteus) were studied against aerobic and  an aerobic bacteria isolated from inflamed and discharging pus  from thirty Iraqi acne vulgaris patients refer to dermatology unit  at AL-Kindy Hospital from December 2016  to March 2017.All information (age, sex ,diseases and using topical treatments) were recorded .The bacterial isolates  were identify using morphological characteristics, biochemical tests and  the  Vitek-2 compact system.
Results: Among (30 )Acne samples taken, 8 (26.7%) samples were from males age range (19-33) years and 22(73.3%) were from females within age (17-29)years . twenty five (83%) samples  were culture positive, and only  (17%) of samples revealed no growth .Most frequent  bacteria which isolated  (aerobically) from acne patients were  Staphylococcus aureus ( 60%), Staphylococcus epidermidis (20%),  Escherichia coli  (8% ),  Pseudomonas aeruginosa  (4%), and an aerobic bacterial isolates  were Propionibacterium acnes  (8%) isolates.

Antibiotic sensitivity tests were performed against, Ampicillin, Clindamycin, Gentamicin, Cotrimoxazole, Erythromycin, Vancomicine, Tetracycline, Doxycycline, and Azithromycin.All bacterial isolates were resistance to Ampicillin. Staphylococcus aureus and S. epidermidis were sensitive (100%) to Doxycycline and Azithromycin, P. acne were also highly sensitive to these two antibiotics (95.5%,97.1%) respectively, while E. coli and P. aeruginosa were (100%) resistance to these antibiotics. Gentamicin and tetracycline were susceptible by most of the study isolates except for P. aeruginosa which was very resistance to CN and TE (100%&94.8%) respectively.
The antimicrobial potential of cold water and alcoholic crude extracts of Cinnamon (Cinnamomum verum ), Hinna (Lawsonia inermis), and Lupine (Lupinus luteus), in concentrations (100,50,25,12.5) mg/ml against the gram positive and gram negative isolates were tested through a well-diffusion method.
Alcoholic extract of  Henna leaves in concentration  (100mg/ml) showed high inhibitory activity  to all isolates compared with the aqueous extract and the all concentration of cinnamon aqueous and alcoholic extracts ,while  lupine extracts  had no effect on all  bacterial isolates   .
Conclusion: Gram-positive bacteria were the most common microorganisms involved  in  acne infection. There are variations in the incidence of acne infection in relation to sex, age; Alcoholic extract of the Henna leaves could be used to treat acne.


Utilizing multiple small-sized automated guided vehicles (AGVs) in cooperatively transport large and heavy objects in manufacturing factories or logistics is an emerging research direction. Flexibility and efficiency can be enhanced by using multi-AGV comparing to a large AGV with higher capacity especially in clutter environments. In this paper, a multi-AGV system by using Mecanum wheels to provide omnidirectional movement is proposed for cooperative transportation. Accordingly, the proposed Mecanum-wheeled automated guided vehicles (MWAGVs) composed of Mecanum wheels and a rotary platform provides not only non-constrained movement but also planar displacement for allowance of distance errors. In the proposed MWAGVs, the formation control with fixed geometry during operation is significant especially with unknown object information, dynamic uncertainties, and external disturbances. Therefore, the passivity-based adaptive synchronizing control algorithm is developed to ensure stability and tracking performance with uncertain dynamic parameters. Simulations and Experiments show the efficacy of designed Mecanum-wheeled AGV.


The paper reports on the combination of cervix cerclage and tocolysis for treating imminent abortus and premature delivery. Up to now 59 patients have undergone treatment by this method. 37 children were delivered in good health at the approximate date of birth as estimated and survived. The number of survivals out of 15 prematures is 10, bringing the total number of survivals for these children whose life is in peril up to 47 (79,6%). The combined treatment of imminent abortus and premature delivery represents a reasonable alternative to other proven methods.


We present a 3D matching framework based on a many-to-many matching algorithm that works with skeletal representations of 3D volumetric objects. We demonstrate the performance of this approach on a large database of 3D objects containing more than 1000 exemplars. The method is especially suited to matching objects with distinct part structure and is invariant to part articulation. Skeletal matching has an intuitive quality that helps in defining the search and visualizing the results. In particular, the matching algorithm produces a direct correspondence between two skeletons and their parts, which can be used for registration and juxtaposition.


The purpose of this study was to investigate the plan qualities of various treatment modalities for the radiotherapy of cutaneous Kaposi's sarcoma developed on the skin of the foot. A total of six virtual targets were generated on the skin of the foot in CT images. Five types of treatment plans were generated using photon beams (PB), electron beams (EB), high‐dose‐rate (HDR) brachytherapy with a Freiburg flap applicator, intensity‐modulated radiation therapy (IMRT), and volumetric‐modulated arc therapy (VMAT) techniques. Plans for each of the six targets (single‐target plans) and also for the combined target consisting of the six single targets combined (multitarget plans) were generated. Dose‐volumetric analysis was performed for the targets and normal tissues. The averaged conformity index (CI) and homogeneity index (HI) values for each single target using PB, EB, HDR, IMRT, and VMAT techniques were 1.97, 2.39, 1.60, 4.60, and 0.80 and 1.05, 1.11, 1.52, 1.04, and 1.04, respectively. For the multitarget, the CI values were 3.99, 5.08, 1.38, 1.95, and 0.84, and the values of HI were 1.10, 1.36, 1.43, 1.06, and 1.04, respectively. The averaged mean doses to normal tissue were 2.5, 2.7, 3.6, 1.7, and 2.9 Gy for single‐target plans, and 21.3, 14.6, 14.2, 14.3, and 13.0 Gy for the multitarget plans, respectively. The VMAT demonstrated dosimetric advantages and better treatment efficiency over other techniques for the radiotherapy of multifocal skin disease of the feet. PACS number: 87.55.dk


Various studies have shown that people of Eurasian origin contain traces of DNA inherited from interbreeding with Neanderthals. Recent studies have demonstrated that these Neanderthal variants influence a range of clinically important traits and diseases. Thus, understanding the genetic factors responsible for the variability in individual response to drug or chemical exposure is a key goal of pharmacogenomics and toxicogenomics, as dose responses are clinically and epidemiologically important traits. It is well established that ethnic and racial differences are important in dose response traits, but to our knowledge the influence of Neanderthal ancestry on response to xenobiotics is unknown. Towards this aim, we examined if Neanderthal ancestry plays a role in cytotoxic response to anti-cancer drugs and toxic environmental chemicals. We identified common Neanderthal variants in lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCLs) derived from the globally diverse 1000 Genomes Project and Caucasian cell lines from the Children's Hospital of Oakland Research Institute. We analyzed the effects of these Neanderthal alleles on cytotoxic response to 29 anti-cancer drugs and 179 environmental chemicals at varying concentrations using genome-wide data. We identified and replicated single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from these association results, including a SNP in the SNORD-113 cluster. Our results also show that the Neanderthal alleles cumulatively lead to increased sensitivity to both the anti-cancer drugs and the environmental chemicals. Our results demonstrate the influence of Neanderthal ancestry-informative markers on cytotoxic response. These results could be important in identifying biomarkers for personalized medicine or in dissecting the underlying etiology of dose response traits.


A 5' Taq nuclease assay utilising minor groove binder technology and targeting the 16S rRNA gene was designed to detect Pasteurella multocida (the causative agent of fowl cholera) in swabs collected from poultry. The assay was first evaluated using pure cultures. The assay correctly identified four P. multocida taxonomic type strains, 18 P. multocida serovar reference strains and 40 Australian field isolates (17 from poultry, 11 from pigs and 12 from cattle). Representatives of nine other Pasteurella species, 26 other bacterial species (18 being members of the family Pasteurellaceae) and four poultry virus isolates did not react in the assay. The assay detected a minimum of approximately 10 cfu of P. multocida per reaction. Of 79 poultry swabs submitted to the laboratory for routine bacteriological culture, 17 were positive in the 5' Taq nuclease assay, but only 10 were positive by culture. The other 62 swabs were negative for P. multocida by both 5' Taq nuclease assay and culture. The assay is suitable for use in diagnosing fowl cholera, is more rapid than bacteriological culture, and may also have application in diagnosing P. multocida infections in cattle and pigs. 20


Abstract A single crystal of ordered strontium feldspar (SrAl2Si2O8) was used for in situ X-ray intensity data collection at T = 20, 160, 330, 510, and 670 °C. The crystal was synthesized from the melt and thermally treated at T = 1450 °C for 146 h (a = 8.379, b = 12.963, c = 14.245 Å, β = 115.46 °, V = 1397.0 Å3; Qod = 0.82). At room temperature 1517 reflections of a-type and 988 reflections of b-type with Fo ≥ 2σ (Fo) were observed with R = 4.0% for refinement in space group I2/c. The dimensions of the tetrahedra do not change significantly with increasing temperature implying that the Al-Si configuration remains unchanged throughout the experimentally investigated temperature range. The Sr-coordination polyhedron expands regularly with temperature. The linear coefficient of volume expansion (αv = 1.69 × 10-5 /°C) is close to that observed for the other feldspars. The thermal expansion ellipsoid shows a remarkable anisotropy and the main expansion occurs close to a*, as observed in the other monoclinic K-, Ba-, and Pb-feldspars. The variation along a* is related to the flexing of the double-crankshaft chains in response to the expansion of the Sr-polyhedron. As in Pb-feldspar, a progressive displacement of the non-tetrahedral cation towards the c-glide plane with increasing temperature is observed. However, in Sr-feldspar, the temperature increase does not cause the atoms of the M polyhedron to approach C2/m symmetry. These results suggest that the atoms of the Srpolyhedron retain I2/c symmetry at elevated temperatures and the Sr-polyhedron does not assume a configuration that may significantly favor Al-Si disorder.


HfSe2 field effect transistors are systematically studied in order to selectively tune their electrical properties by optimizing layer thickness and oxygen plasma treatment. The optimized plasma-treated HfSe2 field effect transistors showed a high on/off ratio improvement of four orders of magnitude, from 27 to 105, a field effect mobility increase from 2.16 to 3.04 cm2 V-1 s-1, a subthreshold swing improvement from 30.6 to 4.8 V dec-1, and a positive threshold voltage shift between depletion mode and enhancement mode, from -7.02 to 11.5 V. The plasma-treated HfSe2 photodetector also demonstrates a reasonable photoresponsivity from the visible to the near-infrared region of light.


We develop a simple theoretical framework for thinking about how geographic frictions, and in particular travel costs, shape scientists' collaboration decisions and the types of projects that are developed locally versus over distance. We then take advantage of a quasi-experiment—the introduction of new routes by a low-cost airline—to test the predictions of the theory. Results show that travel costs constitute an important friction to collaboration: after a low-cost airline enters, the number of collaborations increases between 0.3 and 1.1 times, a result that is robust to multiple falsification tests and causal in nature. The reduction in geographic frictions is particularly beneficial for high-quality scientists that are otherwise embedded in worse local environments. Consistent with the theory, lower travel costs also endogenously change the types of projects scientists engage in at different levels of distance. After the shock, we observe an increase in higher-quality and novel projects, as well as projects that take advantage of complementary knowledge and skills between subfields, and that rely on specialized equipment. We test the generalizability of our findings from chemistry to a broader data set of scientific publications and to a different field where specialized equipment is less likely to be relevant, mathematics. Last, we discuss implications for the formation of collaborative research and development teams over distance. This paper was accepted by Toby Stuart, entrepreneurship and innovation.


Glycerol is being produced on a massive scale as a byproduct of biodiesel. In this work, glycerol steam reforming was improved by CO2 abatement to obtain high-value gases. CaO and activated dolomite were used as sorbents, and these results were compared to reactions using Al2O3 and MgO. The effect of packing material was evaluated at 600, 700, 800, and 850 °C. Hydrogen production was promoted either in the presence of a sorbent at 600 °C or at higher temperatures with any of the packing material. Sorbents also affected the water gas shift reaction, decreasing the CO concentration. Simultaneous use of Ni/La2O3/Al2O3 and CaO improved gas production and hydrogen selectivity. The H2 percentage in the produced gas was close to 70% and around 5 mol of H2 was produced per mole of glycerol. Catalyst and sorbent were used for several reaction cycles.


The no-words selection is important in lexical decision task. The similarity between nowords and words determine the recognition time to no-words, when the no-words are similarity to high frequency words the response time is highter than in the opposite case. In this paper, we present a no-words base where the similar words number, the acumulative frequency from this one, and the similar words numbers by the changing letter, is shown.


A series of sydnone derivatives containing styryl ketone moiety, 4-[1-oxo-3-(substituted aryl)-2-propenyl]-3-(4-methylphenyl)sydnones (6a-i) has been synthesized and characterized by spectral data. The synthesized compounds have been screened for preliminary antibacterial activity by cup plate method and analgesic activity by the method of acetic acid induced writhing in mice. The chloro and nitro derivatives showed good antibacterial activity against both gram positive and gram negative bacteria while the chloro and furyl derivatives exhibited highest analgesic effect among the series.


Researchers examined how young people who are homeless conceptualize and interact with challenging circumstances, adopting a human agency focus rooted in the constructionist model of resilience. Thirty-five young people who were homeless in Ottawa participated in in-depth interviews and/or focus groups. Participants reflected upon their strategic decision-making and described how they solved problems in the midst of adversity, planned for the future, consciously altered their identities, and balanced the costs of engaging in certain behaviours. A constructionist approach to resilience allowed for insight into behaviour that is often seen as risky or outside social norms.


This book takes contrast, an issue that has been central to phonological theory since Saussure, as its central theme, making explicit its importance to phonological theory, perception, and acquisition. The volume brings together a number of different contemporary approaches to the theory of contrast, including chapters set within more abstract representation-based theories, as well as chapters that focus on functional phonetic theories and perceptual constraints.This book will be of interest to phonologists, phoneticians, psycholinguists, researchers in first and second language acquisition, and cognitive scientists interested in current thinking on this exciting topic.


This study examined the monetary and macroeconomic stability perspective for entering into monetary union, using data available on WAMZ countries. It tests the hypothesis that independent monetary and exchange rate policies have been relatively ineffective in influencing domestic activities (especially GDP and inflation), and that when they do, they are counter productive. Usiing econometric methods, regression result show that, erstwhile domestic monetary policy, as captured by money supply and credit to government hurt real domestic output of these countries. Indeed, rather than promote growth, it was a source of stagnation. It also confirms that there appear to be a two quarters lag in monetary policy transmission effect with regard to real sector output. The results also show that although expansion in domestic output dampened aggregate consumer prices (inflation), it was however, not adequate enough to dampen the fuelling effects of past inflation. This was accentuated by money supply variable (MS2) and aggravated by exchange rate variable which are mostly positive, confirming the a priori expectations that rapid monetary expansion and devaluations fuels domestic inflation. A country by country comparison of the single and simultaneous equations model results show that expansionary monetary policy contributed more to fuelling prices than it did to growth. It also shows that interest rates policy had adverse effects on GDP by exhibiting a positive sign contrary to the theoretical expectation of an inverse relationship. The results also show that exchange rate devaluations manifest mainly in domestic inflation and have no effect at all on the growth variable, in the short term. The study concludes that these countries would be better-off to surrender its independence over these policy instruments to the planned regional body under appropriate monetary union arrangements.


The Enlightenment was based on the use of reason, common sense, and "natural law," and was paralleled by an emphasis on feelings and the emotions in religious, especially Pietist circles. Progressive thinkers in England, France, and later in Germany began to assail the absolutism of the state and the orthodoxy of the Church; in Germany the line led from Leibniz, Thomasius, and Wolff to Lessing and Kant, and eventually to the rise of an educated upper middle class. Literary developments encompassed the emergence of a national theater, literature, and a common literary language. This became possible in part because of advances in literacy and education, especially among bourgeois women, and the reorganization of book production and the book market.This major new reference work provides a fresh look at the major literary figures, works, and cultural developments from around 1700 up to the late Enlightenment. They trace the 18th-century literary revival in German-speaking countries: from occasional and learned literature under the influence of French Neoclassicism to the establishment of a new German drama, religious epic and secular poetry, and the sentimentalist novel of self-fashioning.The volume includes the new, stimulating works of women, a chapter on music and literature, chapters on literary developments in Switzerland and in Austria, and a chapter on reactions to the Enlightenment from the 19th century to the present. The recent revaluing of cultural and social phenomena affecting literary texts informs the presentations in the individual chapters and allows for the inclusion of hitherto neglected but important texts such as essays, travelogues, philosophical texts, and letters. Contributors include: Kai Hammermeister, Katherine Goodman, Helga Brandes, Rosmarie Zeller, Kevin Hilliard, Francis Lamport, Sarah Colvin, Anna Richards, Franz M. Eybl, W. Daniel Wilson, Robert Holub. Barbara Becker-Cantarino is Research Professor in German at the Ohio State University.


The authors analyzed the sensitivity of preoperative diagnosis of Bile Duct Stones in 360 operated patients with Bile Duct Stones. They evaluated intravenous cholangiography, sonography, percutaneous transhepatic cholangiography (PTC) and endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) with the possibility of endoscopic operations. The authors recommend after evaluation of anamnestic data, physical examination and results of biochemical examination always to make a sonographic examination (sensitivity for Bile Duct Stones 60%), to use in some indicated cases ERCP with the possibility of endoscopic operations (sensitivity 91%) and finally peroperative examinations in operated patients. Intravenous cholangiography (sensitivity for Bile Duct Stones 41%) and PTC (sensitivity 93%) should be reserved for those patients where for technical reasons sonography and ERCP cannot be used.


A six –week feeding trial was set up to investigate the effect of feeding peeled, cooked, sundried sweet potato tuber meal on growth parameters and digestibility of nutrients by Japanese quail chicks. Five isonitrogenous (25%CP) diets were compounded. The control diet (A) had zero sweet potato tuber meal. In the other four diets (B, C, D, and E), 25, 50, 75 and 100% of maize (respectively) was replaced by peeled, cooked, sundried sweet potato tuber meal. Sixty birds were randomly assigned to each diet in a completely randomized design. The diets were replicated three times with twenty birds per replicate. Feed and water were given ad libitum . Parameters measured were feed intake, water intake, body weight gain, feed conversion ratio, and feed cost/gain. Others were protein intake and energy intake in the course of the study. Feed intake was significantly (p˂0.05) lower on diet C (14.05g/bird/day) than on diets D (14.87 g/bird/day) and E (14.79g/bird/day). Other differences were not significant. Water intake was significantly (p˂0.05) higher on diet D (27.40ml/bird/day) than on diets A (23.77 ml/bird/day), B (24.01 ml/bird/day) and C (24.66ml/b/d). Other differences were not significant. Protein intake was significantly (p˂0.05) higher on diet D (3.72g) than on diets A (3.55g), B (3.54g) and C (3.51g). Differences between diets D and E were not significant. None of the other parameters (weight gain, feed conversion ratio, feed cost/gain, energy intake) measured in the course of the study differed significantly (p˃0.05) from the control. Apparent digestibility of dry matter was significantly better (p˂0.05) by birds on diet A (control) than by birds on the sweet potato meal diets. Digestibility of crude protein was significantly better (p˂0.05) by birds on diet C than by those on diets A, B and E. Ether extract digestibility was significantly better by birds on diet E than by those on the control and other sweet potato diets. There was one hundred percent survivability as none of the birds died in the course of the study. Results of this study show that peeled cooked sundried sweet potato can completely replace maize in the diet of quail chicks without adverse effects on performance or on digestibility of nutrients. Key words : Japanese quail, sweet potato, feed intake, energy intake, digestibility


A new technique for improving the eeciency of propositional reasoning procedures is presented. The meta-search procedure, ND, is parameterized by a search procedure P and a real number for controlling the way in which P is applied to the given problem. Experiments using SATO Zha97] on the domain of Crossword Puzzle Construction (CPC) illustrate the potential for ND.


The purpose of this study was to examine the influences of long-term walking training and walking and jumping training on bone mineral density (BMD) and bone metabolism. Data from 28 healthy premenopausal women was assessed. The subjects were divided into the walking group (WG; 17 women mean+/-SE age 35+/-2 years), and the walking and jumping group (WJG; 11 women mean+/-SE age 39+/-1 years). BMD was measured in the lumbar spine and proximal femur using dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). As markers of bone metabolism, this study was to measure bone formation markers, bone-alkaline phosphatase (B-ALP: measured by enzyme immunoassay/EIA) and osteocalcin (BGP: by radioimmunoassay/RI) as well as bone resorption markers, parathyroid hormone (PTH: measured by/RI) and type I collagen cross-linked N-telopeptides (NTx: by EIA). Despite the significant decrease in body weight (p<0.05), no corresponding decrease in BMD was observed. Moreover, no significant difference in bone markers BGP, PTH, and NTx was observed. B-ALP was significantly increased (p<0.05) after one year, and the rate of this increase was greater in the WJG than in the WG. It is thus concluded that walking training for one year is beneficial for the promotion of bone formation, and that jumping stimulus maintain BMD effectively.


Bloch & Green (2006) provide an excellent overview of the ethical issues that are encountered in clinical psychiatry and the different available frameworks for understanding and resolving them. What is striking, however, is that this discourse is almost entirely without reference to God or religion. Such pragmatic atheism is, of course, not at all unusual these days. It is a reflection of the impact of the Enlightenment upon our understanding of the way in which public discourse on such matters should be conducted. Indeed, there are even avowedly religious writers (such as Bishop Richard Holloway) who consider that it is unhelpful to bring God into such debates (Holloway, 2000). However, it is still remarkable that an entire article of this kind fails even to mention the matter. It is remarkable, for example, that the important historical influence of Judaeo– Christian ethical thinking upon the culture in which we live is apparently entirely ignored. It is equally remarkable that the religious pluralism of contemporary Western culture is not addressed. The omission is remarkable also because religious belief and belonging to a faith community have such important influences upon the ethical thinking of both those who suffer from mental disorders and those who care for them. To imagine that ethical conversation can be had while entirely ignoring such influences makes it feel as though atheism is being imposed upon the debate. The omission is also remarkable because of the validity of at least some of the arguments of Richard Holloway and others with respect to the dangers of bringing God into the conversation. When we feel that we have God 'on our side', human beings can become very intransigent, ungenerous or even unreasoning. The need to understand how and why this is the case is therefore very important. The omission is also remarkable, however, because it avoids discussion of the possibility of a point of reference for both rule-based and character-based ethics which might actually transcend that of the human parties involved. Again, I recognise that there are those who will deny that such a point of reference exists – but surely the discussion about whether or not it exists, its potential impact and the plurality of views about its existence is rather important.


1921 to 1930, in an endeavor to determine the source of the capital funds employed, the methods of acquisition of such funds, their disposition, and the effects upon the financial structure of individual companies and the industry as a whole. The industry is divided into three groups: the manufacturing group, the auxiliary group, and the operating group. Each group then is studied and compared with the others. The author's data consist almost entirely of balance sheets and income statements of the various companies, and the method of inquiry may be termed that of financial analysis by means of a comparison of significant relationships existing between important items on the balance sheets. These relationships or financial ratios are computed, company by company, for a series of years, and changes in the ratios are noted


Despite billions of dollars invested, "getting to scale" remains a fundamental challenge for conservation donors and practitioners. Occasionally, however, a conservation intervention will "go viral," with rapid, widespread adoption that transforms the relationship between people and nature across large areas. The factors that shape rates and patterns of conservation interventions remain unclear, puzzling scientists and hindering evidence‐based policymaking. Diffusion of innovation theory—the study of the how and why innovations are adopted, and the rates and patterns of adoption—provides a novel lens for examining rates and patterns in the establishment of conservation interventions. Case studies from Tanzania and the Pacific illustrate that characteristics of the innovation, of the adopters, and of the social‐ecological context shape spatial and temporal dynamics in the diffusion of community‐centered conservation interventions. Differential trends in adoption mirrored the relative advantage of interventions to local villagers and villager access to external technical assistance. Theories of innovation diffusion highlight new arenas for conservation research and provide critical insights for conservation policy and practice, suggesting the potential to empower donors and practitioners with the ability to catalyze conservation at scale—and to do so at less cost and with longer‐lasting impacts.


This research aims at testing the effect of internal control system on the audit opinion. The type of this research is quantitative. The sample of this research was local governments in South Sulawesi of Indonesia. The data were analyzed using ordinal logistic regression. The result of this research found that internal control system identified through weaknesses in the accounting and reporting system, the control system of the implementation of revenue and expenditure budget, and the internal control structure, have negative effects on the audit opinion of financial statements. The higher the weaknesses found in the internal control system, the more difficult the local governments to obtain unqualified opinion


Chronic inflammation drives initiation of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), but the underlying mechanisms linking inflammation and tumor formation remain obscure. In this study, we compared the expression of interleukin (IL)-6 and cyclin D1 (CCND1) with the IL-6-induced homeobox gene ISX (intestine-specific homeobox) in 119 paired specimens of HCCs and adjacent normal tissues and also in paired specimens from 11 patients with non-HCCs. In pathologic analysis, ISX exhibited a tumor-specific expression pattern and a high correlation to patient survival time, tumor size, tumor number, and progression stage. Enforced expression of ISX accelerated cell proliferation and tumorigenic activity in hepatoma cells through CCND1 induction. In contrast, short hairpin RNA-mediated attenuation of ISX in hepatoma cells decreased cell proliferation and malignant transformation in vitro and in vivo. A high positive correlation existed in human hepatoma tumors between ISX and CCND1 expression. Together, our results highlight ISX as an important regulator in hepatoma progression with significant potential as a prognostic and therapeutic target in HCCs.


Ethanol dehydrogenation mechanism was investigated over catalysts containing Cu and Ni metals prepared by solution combustion synthesis. In situ DRIFTS studies were conducted on individual metals (Cu and Ni) as well as on CuNi alloy to understand the metal-metal interaction in bimetallic systems and their implications on reaction pathway. The catalyst synthesis parameters (such as fuel to oxidizer ratio, combustion temperature) were monitored and correlated with the synthesized materials properties. The amount of fuel content in the combustion solution was found to greatly affect the phase and microstructure of the synthesized catalysts. A change in reaction pathway was clearly observed over Cu and Ni catalysts. Cu mainly favors synthesis of acetaldehyde and acetate whereas Ni and CuNi both showed more tendency towards methane and carbon monoxide formation.


Vasculopathy is a hallmark of systemic sclerosis (SSc). Laser speckle contrast analysis (LASCA) is a research tool to assess peripheral blood perfusion (PBP) (1). At this moment, its reliability has been attested in SSc patients, but its predictive value for future ischemic digital trophic lesions (DTL) is unknown (1).To investigate in an unselected, prospective SSc cohort if baseline LASCA PBP measurements can discriminate between patients who will develop ischemic DTL (iDTL) and those who will not.Patients (fulfilling 2013 ACR/EULAR criteria and/or 2001 LeRoy and Medsger criteria) were recruited during the period of December 2017 to September 2018. LASCA was performed at baseline, in standardized conditions (1). Regions of interest (ROIs) (diameter 1 cm) were outlined at the 2nd-5thfingertip both volar and dorsal. The 'average PBP' of these ROIs was calculated (expressed in arbitrary perfusion units [PU]). A monthly telephone survey was conducted for 1 year to investigate DTL occurrence. DTL were considered 'ischemic' if not related to calcinosis. Logistic regression and ROC analysis were used to assess if average PBP is predictive of future iDTL.Of the 106 patients with complete follow-up (92 women [86,8%]; 18 limited SSc [17,0%], 82 limited cutaneous SSc [77,4%], 6 diffuse cutaneous SSc [5,7%]), 29 patients (27,4%) had a DTL history. Forty-nine patients (46,2%) were on vasodilator therapy. Only 7 patients developed at least 1 iDTL during follow-up (6,6%) (Figure 1a). Performing univariate logistic regression (ULR), average PBP was not predictive for future iDTL (Table 1). Of note, analyzing only the patients not taking vasodilators, average PBP in the 'iDTL group' (n = 3) was median 46,8 PU (min. 45,6 - max. 68,8) vs. median 141,4 PU (min. 24,4 - max. 269,5) in the 'no iDTL group' (n = 54) (Figure 1b). In this subgroup, all 3 patients who developed iDTL (100%) had an average PBP ≤ 70 PU whereas only 9 of the 54 patients without iDTL development (16,7%) had such PBP values.Table 1.Results of ULRSummary statisticsULRVariableiDTL cases(n = 7)Non-iDTL cases(n = 99)ParameterOR(95% CI)pROC AUC(95% CI)Average PBP (PU) mean (+/- SD)123,0 (74,6)142,9 (61,9)Average PBP (linear)0,995(0,982-1,007)0,4180,597(0,352-0,843)In this pilot study with an unselected day-to-day SSc population, where patients were allowed to continue vasodilators, there was an unexpected low iDTL incidence, undermining the power of our study. Even though, the observations in the subgroup of patients not taking vasodilators deserve future investigation to assess whether low PBP values, as measured by LASCA, are associated with a higher iDTL incidence.[1]Cutolo M, Vanhaecke A, et al. Autoimmun Rev. 2018;17(8):775-80.Figure 1.Distribution of 'average PBP' as measured by LASCA for 'no iDTL group' and 'iDTL group'Claire Debusschere: None declared, Amber Vanhaecke: None declared, Maurizio Cutolo Grant/research support from: Bristol-Myers Squibb, Actelion, Celgene, Consultant of: Bristol-Myers Squibb, Speakers bureau: Sigma-Alpha, Ellen Deschepper: None declared, Vanessa Smith Grant/research support from: The affiliated company received grants from Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO), Belgian Fund for Scientific Research in Rheumatic diseases (FWRO), Boehringer Ingelheim Pharma GmbH & Co and Janssen-Cilag NV, Consultant of: Boehringer-Ingelheim Pharma GmbH & Co, Speakers bureau: Actelion Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Boehringer-Ingelheim Pharma GmbH & Co and UCB Biopharma Sprl


Summary A simple and rapid method using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was developed to determine levels of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), adenosine diphosphate (ADP) and adenosine monophosphate (AMP) in litchi fruit pericarp tissue. This HPLC method used acetonitrile gradient elution and shortened the time required for determinations of adenosine phosphates. This analysis exhibited good repeatability (coefficients of variation 1.28–1.80 %) and recovery rate (94.7–97.1 %). The correlation coefficients of ATP, ADP and AMP with their peak areas at a range of 0–80 ng were 0.9946, 0.9994 and 0.9974, respectively. This method was applied to determine levels of adenosine phosphates in pericarp tissue of litchi fruit at harvest. There were 27.4 mg/g of ATP, 35.4 mg/g of ADP and 7.9 mg/g of AMP on a fresh mass basis.


One big challenge for the future of software engineering is to offer support for easier connecting different systems and permitting collaboration of different programs, domains or people and organizations of the same domain. This for example may include the definition of workflows across the systems and program boundaries and, especially for science, to include all steps of the scientific research chain into it. A technology that may help realizing that challenge is the service paradigm of software engineering called SOA, which not only is useful and promising for the business sector where it derives from, but also for a large range of different other domains as well. Our contribution towards that goal is a case study in the environmental modeling software domain, where we analyze how to offer water quality assessment models in a service oriented manner. With the lessons learned in this case-study we contribute to the research that is still needed in this area to determine the best practices, rules and patterns to effectively implement the SOA paradigm in scientific domains like environmental modeling. A general problem still is the complexity of the SOA world and the sheer number of technologies one has to make oneself familiar with in order to design a SOA based software system or just to get an overview. Many authors complain about that. Here, exemplary, a statement of Dave Thomas: "In the rush to create a middleware platform dependency larger than your current legacy platform dependency, vendors and their well-paid industry analysts push a plethora of complex technologies on organizations that just want to run their businesses. Some of the most talented technical experts I know find the complexity overwhelming when there are at least 5 different ways to do the same thing". Finally he concludes in the summary: "There is just too much stuff in the SOA for most developers to absorb. It is difficult to understand what is real and what is hype. Beyond that, it is difficult to understand the performance and inter-operability of different implementations approaches. Developers need guidelines for when and where to use XML, objects and BPEL and for how to make them play together" Apart from getting an overview over the confusing amount of competing technologies in the SOA domain, one furthermore has to find out the limits of what is supported by the current state of development in this area. For instance, the first problem that arose in our case was how to compose services into flexible workflows in an easy and natural way. We seemed to be able to choose from a variety of service composition languages and composing systems for that aim, thus, as a very suggesting choice for such composing system, we wanted to use scientific workflow management systems for that purpose. We noticed however, that existing ones for various reasons don't fit well into the SOA paradigm yet as for example they cannot be accessed as services from outside to integrate their workflows into own programs. Although most of them indeed are capable to integrate services, they nevertheless are not designed to fit well into a SOA. Trying to write services that are independent of concrete data sources we found out that despite the existence of numerous technologies in this problem field, none of them permits including new data sources by just defining new mappings as it was the initial idea. A third difficult question was the problem of incorporating the user into the service paradigm. How to do this properly? We need to create highly interactive workflows, while WS-BPEL, the most frequently used language for service orchestration, is most suitable for creating automated workflows with little user interaction like needed in the business sector. To now facilitate the understanding of how different SOA technologies and problem areas are related and where to put in mentioned problems and where to look for a solution, this thesis elaborates a theoretical fundament of SOA where the basic principles of SOA are put into the following two categories: technology agnostic design, and SoC techniques. Technology agnostic design means using the outstanding capabilities to bridge differences between different systems and platforms to overcome platform dependencies, which actually in most cases is the main reason for the decision for a SOA based approach. In this work we make clear that because every design decision may introduce some unwanted new platform dependencies, a design unaware of the dependency problem easily unmakes this main advantage of SOA, and introduces new dependencies on workflow management systems, data bases, concrete linked services and more. For a true SOA, it is necessary to carefully minimize dependencies at all levels. Technology agnostic design also includes data bases and data structures and the dependences deriving from them. Many of the current unsolved problems are a consequence from the data independence problem, and a solution for this maybe would be the biggest step forward towards an easier future for service cooperation: an uniform and in large parts automated forward and backward transformation of data to the required form coming from any kind of data sources. Even if in this work we cannot significantly contribute to solve this problem, our analyze comes to the conclusion that for true data independence two transformation steps are necessary to compensate for different data base models and second for data structured in different ways. None of existing data independence technologies however fully supports both transformation steps. Existing data independence technologies therefore only allow a certain grade of data independence like for instance design patterns like data access objects (DAO), what we finally used for our implementation. Here, all data access is performed via data access objects and encapsulated into a data access layer (DAL). A change of the data source requires rewriting the DAL, but does not affect the rest of the system. The second category of SOA principles are various SoC techniques that are compelling to be used in a service oriented architecture: A layered design, i.e. the SOA stack, the separation of interface and implementation(s), and the separation of components and composition. When trying to design a SOA stack, one will notice that there is no consensus of which layers a SOA stack has to consist of. Many different designs and approaches are reflecting different views and philosophies to the SOA idea as well as different conditions found in different companies and projects. This for example includes the role of the ESB. It is only clear that SOA extends the traditional two or three layered architecture by some additional layers and a more fine-grained layer design. It can be expected that the ongoing development of WS-* standards may change the view onto this topic as they may establish standard solutions for problems that today still need to be solved in an ad-hoc way for every SOA implementation. In the SOA stack we implemented, we concentrated in the main on the novel orchestration layer where service composition takes place, as well as the often neglected user interface layer, which with current technologies cannot be integrated seamlessly into the SOA stack in the same way than other services. In contrast to traditional programming, the user interface as all other parts of the SOA should be loose coupled to the system. The problem here is that the user interface is different from services by its platform dependent nature. To solve this problem, in this work we proposed the development and usage of some kind of service contracts for the user interface. A basic example was provided by the data viewers developed for NORTIFlow. The question of separating interfaces and implementations is about how pure interface based programming can and should be realized. Only interface based programming makes it possible to switch components and program parts later and this way contribute to gain the desired enhanced flexibility, adaptability and failure tolerance. This problem area of interface based programming furthermore includes finding a standard way of describing services with all metadata and semantic information necessary, to publish it in an easy way in public available distributed repositories from where it is easily possible to locate and use a suitable service when looking for it. The same is applicable for complete or partial workflow definitions. In NORTIFlow we adapt the interface based approach by describing workflows on the top level in a pure interface based way. Later, concrete services that implement the needed functionality are mapped to the interface nodes, which this way can easily be exchanged if alternative mappings are available. The second problem of finding and publishing services and workflows however is not tackled in this work any further, we only argue for using established SOA technologies like UDDI for that purpose. Finally the problem area of separating components and composition treats the already mentioned search for an appropriate composition mechanism for the orchestration layer. Here, this thesis still argues for graphical composition mechanisms as used by (scientifically) workflow management systems we wanted to use, allowing for defining workflows for everyone and not only expert programmers. For this issue, NORTIFlow was designed as a lightweight scientifically workflow management system that can be integrated into a SOA due to its service oriented design. NORTIFlow was subsequently used to launch the Norti-Online web portal, being well prepared for future extensions, the addition of new assessment models, workflows, viewers and data sources.


Drawing on Robinson's cognition hypothesis, the study attempted to examine how task conditions influence EFL learners' oral performance and whether learners' individual differences in terms of tolerance of ambiguity and self-efficacy mediate the effects of such conditions. To this end, 62 Iranian intermediate EFL learners from private language institutes in Tehran performed four dyadic decision-making tasks manipulated along task conditions of information distribution and goal orientation. Their performance was measured through complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF) indices. Their tolerance of ambiguity and self-efficacy were assessed using separate questionnaires. The results indicated that information distribution and goal orientation could significantly impact the participants' performance on the tasks. As to the CAF indices, it seemed that Skehan's (2016) trade-off hypothesis was a better fit than Robinson's (2015) cognition hypothesis since trade-offs were found between complexity and accuracy/fluency. The results of the correlations revealed that there were a number of significant positive relationships between tolerance of ambiguity and the CAF indices on the one hand and self-efficacy and the CAF indices on the other. While the former relationships did not confirm the specific prediction of the cognition hypothesis, the latter relationships did. Overall, the findings contribute to Robinson's hypothesis concerned with the effects of task conditions on oral performance and the mediating role of individual differences, and have implications for task sequencing and task-based teaching.


In the attempt to establish key therapy definitions and provide shared approaches to invasive fungal diseases in neutropenic patients, trials of empiric, preeemptive and targeted antifungal therapy (EAT, PAT and TAT) were reviewed, and a Consensus Development Conference Project was convened. The Expert‐Panel concurred that all antifungal treatments, including EAT, should always follow an adequate diagnostic strategy and that the standard definition of PAT may be misleading: being PAT guided by the results of a diagnostic work‐up, it should better be termed diagnostic‐driven antifungal therapy (DDAT). The Expert‐Panel agreed that radiological findings alone are insufficient for the choice of a TAT and that the identification of the etiologic pathogen is needed. The Consensus Agreement proceeded identifying which clinical and microbiological findings were sufficient to start a DDAT and which were not. Finally, an algorithm to rationalize the choice of antifungal drugs on the basis of clinical manifestations, antifungal prophylaxis, instrumental and laboratory findings was drawn up. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Background Interventional procedures via radial technique have progressively increased due to improved patient comfort, lower complication rates and reduced mortality in some scenarios. One area of interest is radiation exposure and ways of minimising it. Most studies focus on patient radiation risk with conflicting results, but there is reasonable consensus for increased operator exposure from the radial technique. The aim of this study was to evaluate radiological exposure under controlled radial and femoral access simulation tests, mapping radiation paths and developing a radiological protection device for the transradial technique. Methods and results Radiation exposure was simulated under controlled conditions for femoral and radial techniques using a pressurised ionisation chamber and water phantom. Different measurement points were defined according to standard positions to simulate radiation received by the operator in the gonads, thyroid and eyes at different angles during real procedures. The radial technique increased total exposure by 33% over the femoral technique. A protective device was developed and tested after radiation mapping. The protective device reduced cumulative radiation by 52% against the radial and 36% against the femoral technique. Conclusions In our study, operator exposure to cumulative ionising radiation was higher from the radial technique and the protective device reduced radiation exposure levels in the radial and femoral techniques. These results provided the basis for a clinical trial design to better define the impact of the protection device and radiation exposure during real world practice using different interventional techniques. Trial registration number http://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT02200783.


Biginelli three-component condensation of an aldehyde, β-keto ester, and urea proceeds smoothly on the surface of the silver salt of heteropolyacid (HPA), i.e. Ag3PW12O40, in water to afford the corresponding 3,4-dihydropyrimidinones in high-to-quantitative yields under mild conditions. The heterogeneous solid acid provides ease of separation of the catalyst and isolation of the products. The recovered catalyst can be recycled in subsequent reactions with consistent activity. Compared to the classical Biginelli reaction conditions, this new method has the advantages of improved yields, reusability of the catalyst, an eco-friendly solvent, ease of isolation of products, and simplicity in the experimental procedure. (© Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, 69451 Weinheim, Germany, 2004)