Land Surface Temperature (LST) is a key variable used across various applications, including irrigation monitoring, vegetation health assessment and urban heat island studies. While satellites offer moderate-resolution LST data, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) provide high-resolution thermal infrared measurements. However, the continuous and rapid variation in LST makes the production of orthomosaics from UAV-based image collections challenging. Understanding the environmental and meteorological factors that amplify this variation is necessary to select the most suitable conditions for collecting UAV-based thermal data. Here, we capture variations in LST while hovering for 15–20 min over diverse surfaces, covering sand, water, grass, and an olive tree orchard. The impact of different flying heights and times of the day was examined, with all collected thermal data evaluated against calibrated field-based Apogee SI-111 sensors. The evaluation showed a significant error in UAV-based data associated with wind speed, which increased the bias from −1.02 to 3.86 °C for 0.8 to 8.5 m/s winds, respectively. Different surfaces, albeit under varying ambient conditions, showed temperature variations ranging from 1.4 to 6 °C during the flights. The temperature variations observed while hovering were linked to solar radiation, specifically radiation fluctuations occurring after sunrise and before sunset. Irrigation and atmospheric conditions (i.e., thin clouds) also contributed to observed temperature variations. This research offers valuable insights into LST variations during standard 15–20 min UAV flights under diverse environmental conditions. Understanding these factors is essential for developing correction procedures and considering data inconsistencies when processing and interpreting UAV-based thermal infrared data and derived orthomosaics.


OBJECTIVES
Ethmoidal cancers are rare and are mostly primitive adenocarcinomas. Sinuso-nasal metastases from adenocarcinoma occurring in other localisations are exceptional. We report a case of a patient presenting with an ethmoidal metastasis revealing a pulmonary adenocarcinoma.

CASE REPORT
A 57 years-old patient consulted for a right fronto-orbital pain which had appeared 3 weeks prior, associated with a central scotoma of the right eye and a third and fifth cranial nerve palsy. MR-imaging revealed a right ethmoidal tumour invading the orbit. Pathology results were in favour of a metastasis from a secondary adenocarcinoma. The CT-scan disclosed a pulmonary tumour of the right apex with liver and spleen metastasis.

CONCLUSION
Ethmoidal metastases are rare and often diagnosed in patients presenting with a previously known tumour. We report the first case of a pulmonary adenocarcinoma revealed by an ethmoidal metastasis. We emphasize the point that in ethmoidal tumours, pathological investigations are important for diagnosis.


Based on an empirical study of Danish expatriates, this article explores how the social representations of domestic work are transmitted, shared, and negotiated in the expatriate community in Delhi. Domestic work belongs to the informal economy in India, which is largely unregulated. Expatriates often inherit domestic workers directly from each other, copying and re-constructing their predecessor's contracts. What is also passed on, along with the workers and their contracts, are social representations and norms linked to being an expatriate employer in India. These social representations and norms are central for the newcomers' ability to navigate the unfamiliar and difficult situation of managing domestic staff. Furthermore, the inheritance and sharing of social norms may protect the expatriate community from major changes and critiques. Thus, although the individual expatriate is only in India for a limited time, core structures of the work relationship and employment standards are continued and re-created by the ever present—but constantly changing—group of expatriates.


The evolution of pre-rupture undulations at the liquid-air interface of thin non-wetting liquid films spread on a solid substrate was monitored in real time by non-perturbative interference microscopy. The spatial distribution of the incipient undulations is non-random and characterized by a typical wavelength, as predicted for van der Waals unstable films, despite the fact that the system is expected to be vdW-stable, and that ultimate dewetting of films appears to take place via a heterogeneous nucleation mechanism.


This pictorial submission presents some initial reflective observations from a project that is exploring transition and transformation that results from the design and build of a new hospital building and the psychiatric facilities in particular. Care is the fundamental guiding principle of this research, of the hospital development and the day to day practices of patients, hospital staff and associated care givers. This is realized as care for the unwell though processes, treatment and


Vehicle platooning is an enabler technology for increasing road capacity, improving safety and reducing fuel consumption. Platoon control is a two-layered system where each layer runs under a different communication standard and rate – (i) the upper-layer operates under a specific V2V communication standard such as IEEE 802.11p and (ii) the lower-layer operates over high-speed in-vehicle communication networks such as FlexRay, CAN. The upper-layer, under 802.11p, uses periodic Cooperative Awareness Messages (CAMs) for exchanging vehicle motion information (i.e., acceleration, velocity and so on), the rate of which is adapted depending on the network congestion level. With over 70% channel load, the CAMs experience significant delay and packet loss, jeopardizing the stability of the platoon control. Under such high congestion, the European Telecommunications Standard Institute (ETSI) proposes to engage Decentralized Congestion Control (DCC) to control the channel load. We propose a platoon control and DCC scheme to tackle this scenario. Our contribution is three-fold. First, we propose a multi-layer platoon model explicitly augmenting the communication delay in the state-space. Second, the augmented delay-aware platoon model is integrated in the state-of-the-art multi-layer multi-rate model predictive control (MPC) for the upper-layer. Third, we adopt a message-rate congestion control scheme to keep the channel load under a given threshold. We use the proposed delay-aware MPC scheme under the message-rate congestion control scheme which may lead to switching under dynamic network conditions. Using the proposed technique, we show that platoon performance can be maintained under high network congestion while maintaining string stability.


This paper presents a new slope stability analysis regarding rainfall-induced landslides by coupling a saturated-unsaturated seepage analysis and a rigid plastic finite element method (RP-FEM). Currently, a more valid and reliable disaster prevention system detecting the risk of slope instability due to sudden intense rainfall is required in Japan. However, conventional slope stability methods often fail to predict this new type of landslides. Therefore, the aim of this study is to propose the new slope stability analysis method in the context of rainfall infiltration. This method introduces the effect of seepage force, an increase of unit weight and a reduction of apparent cohesion due to the change in soil suction to obtain the slope stability load factors and collapse mechanisms. Consequently, this method can provide the relatively accurate and valid analysis results, which can be well compared with experimental data. Moreover, it is ascertained that this method can evaluate the different type of slope failure mechanisms: an initial small failure at the toe of the slope caused by the seepage forces and a large-scale failure due to the degradation of the soil apparent cohesion


Objective The purpose was to compare the accuracy of extraprostatic extension (EPE) grade on MRI predicting EPE with Partin tables, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center nomogram (MSKCCn), and combined models and to analyze the clinical incremental value of EPE grade. Materials and Methods 105 prostate cancer patients confirmed by pathology after radical prostatectomy in our hospital from 2017 to 2021 were selected. The clinical stage, PSA, Gleason score, number of positive biopsy cores, and percentage of positive biopsy cores were recorded. Evaluate EPE grade according to EPE grade criteria, and calculate the probability of predicting EPE with Partin tables and MSKCCn. EPE grade is combined with Partin tables and MSKCCn to construct EPE grade+Partin tables and EPE grade+MSKCCn models. Calculate the area under the curve (AUC), sensitivity, and specificity of EPE grade, Partin tables, MSKCCn, EPE grade+Partin tables, and EPE grade+MSKCCn and compare their diagnostic efficacy. The clinical decision curve was used to analyze the clinical net income of each prediction scheme. Results The AUC of EPE grade was 0.79, Partin tables was 0.50, MSKCCn was 0.78, the EPE grade+Partin table model was 0.79, and the EPE grade+MSKCCn model was 0.83. After EPE grade was combined with Partin tables and MSKCCn, the diagnostic efficiency of clinical model was significantly improved (P < 0.05). There was no significant difference in the diagnostic efficacy of the combined model compared with the single EPE grade (P > 0.05). The calibration curve of the combined model shows that it has a good calibration degree for EPE. In the analysis of the decision curve, the net income of the EPE grade is higher than that of Partin tables and MSKCCn and is equal to the EPE grade+Partin tables and is slightly lower than that of EPE grade+MSKCCn. The clinical net income of the combined model is obviously higher than that of individual clinical models. Conclusion The accuracy of EPE classification in predicting prostate cancer EPE is high, and combined with the clinical model, it can significantly improve the diagnostic efficiency of the clinical model and increase the clinical benefit.


Abstract : Significant political, economic, and social change can dramatically impact the international security environment and hence U.S. security. For example, the revolutions that have unfolded across the Middle East and North Africa over the last several years have impacted American interests such as the security of Israel and the spread of democracy. Likewise, the less revolutionary but equally impactful changes that have unfolded across Latin America over the last 15 years have affected American interests such as free and open trade and access to reliable energy sources. In response to these changes, American leaders will wield diplomacy, development, and defense tools to safeguard U.S. interests and to fulfill broader policy objectives. Whether and how those leaders choose to wield Landpower--a critically important element of the defense toolbox--is subject to significant debate these days in light of sequestration's continuing impact and the post-war drawdown impacting the U.S. Army in particular. For these reasons, it seemed appropriate and necessary to examine the changes--revolutionary as well as evolutionary--that have unfolded across two disparate but vital regions of the globe, namely the Greater Middle East and Latin America, and how the United States might respond with all the tools at its disposal, including the U.S. Army. That was the task given to a panel of experts convened by the U.S. Army War College at the 24th annual Strategy Conference in April 2013 in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The panel addressed the nature of the changes occurring in the Greater Middle East and Latin America, potential American responses, and the utility of Landpower as a tool to safeguard U.S. interests and advance U.S. objectives. The chapters in this edited volume are based upon the presentations at the Strategy Conference.


Background: The high level of HIV infection in Phayao province has led to an increased interest in understanding the determinants of sexual activity among university students. The present study examined socio-demographic, sexual behavior, knowledge, attitudes, perceived efficacy, sexual risk behavior communication in the family, and prevention behavior towards sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and risk of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) among university students. Methods: This cross-sectional study was carried in University of Phayao. A total of 550 students (aged 18-21 years) were recruited in this study by purposive sampling. The researcher collected data by using the self-administered questionnaire. Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics including Chi-square were used. Results: Only 19.4% reported ever having sex. Sexual risk behavior was associated with various factors including past sexual experience, sexual status, sexual activities experienced, and frequency of condom use when having sex (p<0.001).  Most of them (60.0%) had low level of knowledge, attitude, perceived self-efficacy, sexual risk behavior communication in the family, and prevention behavior towards preventive STDs/HIV. Conclusion: Improved sexual education and HIV prevention, life skills are needed among university students in Thailand. Prevention programs should address the risks faced by university students using culturally sensitive strategies and materials.


Cryopreservation using an aluminium cryo-plate was successfully applied to in vitro-grown strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa Duch.) shoot tips. The shoots were cold-hardened at 5°C for 3 weeks with an 8-h photoperiod. The shoot tips (1.5–2.0 mm × 0.5–1.0 mm) were dissected from the shoot and pre-cultured at 5°C for 2 d on Murashige and Skoog medium containing 2 M glycerol and 0.3 M sucrose. The pre-cultured shoot tips were placed on the aluminium cryo-plate containing ten wells embedded in alginate gel. Osmoprotection was performed by immersing the cryo-plates in a loading solution (2 M glycerol and 0.8 M sucrose) for 30 min at 25°C. Dehydration was performed by immersing the cryo-plates in plant vitrification solution 2 for 50 min at 25°C. Then, the cryo-plate with shoot tips was transferred into an uncapped cryotube that was held on a cryo-cane and directly immersed into liquid nitrogen (LN). After storage in LN, shoot tips attached to the cryo-plate were directly immersed into 2 ml of a 1 M sucrose solution for regeneration. Using this procedure, the average regrowth level of vitrified shoot tips of 15 strawberry cultivars reached 81%. This new method has many advantages and will facilitate the cryostorage of strawberry germplasm.


Soybean is one of the important agriculture commodities in Indonesia after rice and corn. The increasing domestic soybean consumption exceed its production. To fulfill domestic needs, Indonesia import the soybean. One of the industries that have a dependent to the imported soybeans is Tempe production. The rising prices of imported soybean caused the increasing price of production factor and affecting the revenue of Tempe entrepreneur. DKI Jakarta is one of the provinces that have a large population of Tempe industries and use the imported soybean as a raw material of its production. One of the regions is Semper, North Jakarta. The result of estimation factors that influenced the Tempe production is the amount of soybeans (kg/production process). The total cost of Tempe production is increasing 19,80 percent and the cash cost is increasing 19,89 percent. The revenue of the cash cost and total cost is decreasing 53,62 percent and 54,04 percent. The amount of R/C ratio upon the total cost after the rising prices of soybean is 1,19. The activity of Tempe production is still giving revenue although there is rising prices of the soybean because the revenue is positive and the amount of R/C ratio is more than one.


The purpose of this study is to research a specific material characteristics of top down concrete at column joint and to reduce column joint opening. Based on the established top down study, the experiment to apply an real construction case is performed. When the concrete placed into joint of top down column, raised air bubble is left as opening. This study is examined the incomplete packing reason in the top down column and found to air deflation method. The result of study is below (1) As the method to minimize column opening caused from confined air, it is required that an air exhaust port installation in joint column. (2) From air exhaust port installation, most of air bubble in column part is exhausted. As the concrete placing height is going up, air bubble size is going smaller.


Background There is a shortage of data on the accuracy of statistical methods for the prediction of N-acetyltransferase 2 (NAT2) haplotypes in the mixed ancestry population of the Western Cape. Objective This study aimed to identify the NAT2 haplotypes and assess the accuracy of PHASE version 2.1.1 in assigning NAT2 haplotypes to a mixed ancestry population from the Western Cape. Methods This study was conducted between 2013 and 2016. The NAT2 gene was amplified and sequenced from the DNA of 100 self-identified mixed ancestry participants. Haplotyping was performed by molecular and computational techniques. Agreement was assessed between the two techniques. Results Haplotypes were assigned to 93 samples, of which 67 (72%) were ambiguous. Haplotype prediction by PHASE demonstrated 94.6% agreement (kappa 0.94, p < 0.001) with those assigned using molecular techniques. Five haplotype combinations (from 10 chromosomes) were incorrectly predicted, four of which were flagged as uncertain by the PHASE software. Only one resulted in the assignment of an incorrect acetylation phenotype (intermediate to slow), although the software flagged this for further analysis. The most common haplotypes were NAT2*4 (28%) followed by NAT2*5B (27.4%), NAT2*6A (21.5%) and NAT2*12A (7.5%). Four rare single nucleotide variants (c.589C>T, c.622T>C, c.809T>C and c.387C>T) were detected. Conclusion PHASE accurately predicted the phenotype in 92 of 93 samples (99%) from genotypic data in our mixed ancestry sample population, and is therefore a suitable alternative to molecular methods to individualise isoniazid therapy in this high burden tuberculosis setting.


In this paper we introduce a generalization of Fisher-Rao's discriminant analysis and its application in a human-computer interaction scenario: a sensing chair. Our algorithm shows to be able to successfully estimate the underlying distributions of the pressure maps data of the sensing chair. Other linear discriminant techniques, such as LDA, had been found to be inadequate for the job; typically yielding inferior results than PCA. We compare our approach to several template-based approaches and show that the new discriminant function is comparable to the best approach classifier. This is important because generally each application tends to prefer a different algorithm. Fortunately, our new algorithm is usually the top one (or comparable to the top one). In this paper we will however restrict our study tothe classification of sitting postures.


In order to overcome the shortcoming of traditional methods of monitoring oil wells, a design of remote monitoring system based on ARM and GPRS was presented. And then the hardware and software design methods of RTU, system networking method and the design method of background monitoring center were detailed. Using GPRS module and relying on GPRS wireless network and Internet, RTU distributed in different geographic locations can communicate with the background monitoring center. This system broke through the geographical restrictions of oil wells, provided some functions such as oil wells' data collection, remote data transmission, real-time monitor and oil wells' information release, and improved the level of automation in oil production management. The experiment showed that the system could achieve the goal of real-time monitoring of oil wells by the existing mobile communication network.


In this paper, we propose a multimodal unsupervised video learning algorithm designed to incorporate information from any number of modalities present in the data. We cooperatively train a network corresponding to each modality: at each stage of training, one of these networks is selected to be trained using the output of the other networks. To verify our algorithm, we train a model using RGB, optical flow, and audio. We then evaluate the effectiveness of our unsupervised learning model by performing action classification and nearest neighbor retrieval on a supervised dataset. We compare this triple modality model to contrastive learning models using one or two modalities, and find us-ing all three modalities in tandem provides a 1.5% improvement in UCF101 classification accuracy, a 1.4% improvement in R@1 retrieval recall, a 3.5% improvement in R@5 retrieval recall, and a 2.4% improvement in R@10 retrieval recall as compared to using only RGB and optical flow, demonstrating the merit of utilizing as many modalities as possible in a cooperative learning model.


OBJECTIVE
To describe the construction of a disease model incorporating both genetic an environmental factors in the etiology of Alzheimer's disease (AD), using data generated from the Indianapolis-Ibadan dementia project (I-IDP).

METHOD
The I-IDP is a longitudinal comparative study of the prevalence and incidence o dementia in 2 communities: elderly African Americans living in Indianapolis, Indiana, an Yoruba living in Ibadan, Nigeria.

RESULTS
African Americans are more than twice as likely as Yoruba to develop AD. Possible explanations for this finding include genetic factors: the possession of the apolipoprotein E epsilon4 allele does not increase risk for AD among Yoruba but confers a sligh increase in AD risk for African Americans. As well, environmental factors may play a role: African Americans have a higher risk of vascular risk factors than do Yoruba.

CONCLUSIONS
International comparative studies, particularly those involving population from developing and developed countries, offer a unique opportunity for applying new in formation regarding population genetics to traditional AD risk factor research.


Split liver transplantation allows 2 recipients to receive transplants from one organ. Comparisons of predicted lifetimes for two alternatives (split liver for an adult and pediatric recipient vs. whole liver for an adult recipient) can help guide the use of donor livers. We analyzed mortality risk for 48 888 waitlisted candidates, 907 split and 21 913 whole deceased donor liver transplant recipients between January 1, 1995 and February 26, 2002. Cox regression models for pediatric and adult patients assessed average relative wait list and post‐transplant death risks, for split liver recipients. Life years gained compared with remaining on the waiting list over a 2‐year period were calculated. Seventy‐six splits (152 recipients) and 24 re‐transplants resulted from every 100 livers (13.1%[adult] and 18.0%[pediatric] 2‐year re‐transplant rates, respectively). Whole livers used for 93 adults also utilized 100 livers (re‐transplant rate 7.0%). Eleven extra life years and 59 incremental recipients accrued from each 100 livers used for split compared with whole organ transplants. Split liver transplantation could provide enough organs to satisfy the entire current demand for pediatric donor livers in the United States, provide more aggregate years of life than whole organ transplants and result in larger numbers of recipients.


Abstract A new Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set for the period 1854–1979 will soon become available for studies of secular climate changes in ocean surface heat flux. Of the observed variables from which heat flux is calculated, wind speed and sea surface temperature have undergone indeterminate spurious changes due to modifications in estimating and measuring. Analysis of a summertime ocean data set for the Philippine Sea revealed unacceptably large increases in air temperature and dew point readings resulting from daytime heating of the ship. Differences between ocean skin temperatures and subsurface temperatures lead to positive heat flux errors with light winds. Computing heat fluxes for individual ship reports and then averaging them improves matters. These errors, as well as those arising from spatial and temporal inhomogeneities of individual monthly averages, require that studies of ocean climate change first be confined to the most heavily traveled ship routes. Criteria of consistency, pat...


"Now I Lay Me" functions as a kind of subtext for two other related Nick Adams tales, "A Way You'll Never Be" and "Big Two-Hearted River," both of which revisit, with a similar emotional intensity, the material of childhood memories, conjured by the young soldier Nick in "Now I Lay Me" as a means of keeping his soul in his body. In all three stories, as Nick composes to avoid decomposition, the reader witnesses the indissoluble link between life, death, and the practice of fiction.


For many reasons smaller spacecraft are becoming more ap- pealing. Because of their lower inertias, these spacecraft are more sen- sitive to disturbances and likely to have more attitude jitter than the larger units. These jitter levels are unacceptable for some scientific instruments and need to be compensated. In the case of line-of-sight type instru- ments, the attitude jitter can be mitigated by incorporating a fast steering mirror into the system. To take full advantage of these devices, the spacecraft attitude must be measured at sufficiently high bandwidth, well beyond what is commonly provided by inertial reference units. Various ways to obtain higher bandwidth attitude measurements for the purpose of jitter control are explored and a practical solution to the problem is proposed. © 1997 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers. (S0091-3286(97)02807-9)


This clinical vignette discusses the recommendations for the management of heart failure with reduced ejection fraction. Unlike the old guidelines, it is currently indicated to start all pharmacological treatments that have proven to be effective in terms of morbidity and mortality at the same time and as quickly as possible. The titration remains necessary and the maximum tolerated doses should be reached.


Brucella spp. replicate and survive in lympho-proliferative tissues and cells, thus effective treatment of brucellosis requires the combined and long term use of intracellularly active antibiotics. Elimination of the microorganism largely depends on the reactive oxygen and nitrogen intermediates released by activated macrophages. In this study we aimed to determine the in vitro activity of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2; reactive oxygen intermediate) and acidified sodium nitrite (ASN; reactive nitrogen intermediate) alone and in combination with rifampicin (RIF) and tetracycline (TET) against four clinical isolates of Brucella melitensis. Initially minimal inhibitory concentrations of RIF and TET were determined by microbroth dilution susceptibility test. The activity of 2 and 5 mM H2O2 and 3 and 6 mM ASN was tested against each isolate by direct colony count from the agar plates inoculated with bacterial suspensions treated with H2O2 or ASN. The last step in the assay was to determine the combined effectiveness of RIF and TET plus H2O2 and ASN. From each three rolls of assay apparatus samples were taken at 0., 1., 6. and 24. hours and inoculated on Brucella agar. The plates were incubated at 37 degrees C for 48 hours and colonies were counted. While RIF alone or in combination with H2O2 supressed the growth of bacteria even in the first hour, TET alone did not show any effect in 24 hours. However, in combination with reactive oxygen and nitrogen intermediates TET affected bacterial growth starting from six hours. In conclusion, further explanation of the interactions between antibiotics and the substances produced by the immune system of the host during the infections caused by intracellular pathogens, might have an important impact on the determination of the treatment protocols and the measures to prevent relapses.


Marie Nyswander was the co-discoverer of methadone maintenance. In the 1960s she and Vincent Dole carried out clinical trials and established the first officially sanctioned methadone clinics, which became models for maintenance programs throughout the world. In 1967 she and Dole theorized that heroin addicts had undergone a permanent metabolic change. They needed narcotics in a visceral way, which explained why abstinence was not a realistic goal-a claim that remains hotly disputed. Nyswander's work in the 1960s marked an abrupt shift in her thinking about addiction. Her previous approach had been centered on psychoanalysis. Her embrace of methadone maintenance and the metabolic theory amounted to an intellectual conversion. Nyswander was prepared for that conversion by years of patient relapse; she was frustrated with orthodox therapy. At the same time the success of such drugs as chlorpromazine suggested that psychiatric disorders might yield more readily to chemotherapy than talking therapy. Her own heavy smoking may have led her to question whether addiction was a psychiatric disorder in the first place. Finally, Nyswander had a long history of self-reinvention, having previously changed her politics, her medical specialty, and even her name. She was temperamentally suited for a conversion experience.


Current evidence suggests that reduced placental transport of amino acids regulates fetal growth. We determined the association between fetal nutrition and the insulin-IGF axis by measuring the plasma concentrations of amino acids, insulin, IGF-I and IGF-binding protein-1 (IGFBP-1) in maternal and cord blood from gestational age-matched dichorionic (DC) twins with (n = 10) and without discordant birth weights (n = 10). In the growth-restricted (IUGR) twins, fetal concentrations of total essential (P < 0.01), nonessential (P < 0.01), and branched chain amino acids (P < 0.01) were lower than those in the appropriate for gestational age co-twins and concordant twin pairs. The IUGR twins had lower fetal concentrations of insulin (P < 0.001) and IGF-I (P < 0.05) and higher concentrations of IGFBP-1 (P < 0.01) than their appropriate for gestational age co-twins. In the discordant group, fetal IGFBP-1 had a negative association with fetal insulin (r = 0.71; P < 0.001), total essential amino acids (r = 0.78; P < 0.001), and branched chain amino acids (r = 0.64; P < 0.01). There was a positive correlation between total essential amino acids (r = 0.63; P < 0.001) and branched chain amino acids (r = 0.58; P < 0.01) and plasma insulin. However, there were no associations among fetal insulin, IGFBP-1 and nonessential amino acids. These data demonstrate the link between the reduction in certain essential and nonessential amino acids and alterations in fetal circulating levels of insulin and IGFBP-1, in growth-restricted twins.


The recent drought in the Western Cape Province in South Africa has been marked as the worst since 1904.  The drought impacted severely on the availability of bulk water supply in many parts of the Western Cape Province, particularly the Cape Town Metro and surrounding districts. In order to alleviate water scarcity, wastewater recycling (water reuse) has been identified to have the potential to augment water supplies in the province. This paper argues that although water recycling has the potential to contribute towards alleviating water scarcity, studies have shown that public perceptions greatly influence the outcome of any water recycling scheme. The study collected data using face-to-face interviews, focus group discussions, and the application of the Story with a Gap participatory exercise. One of the key findings is that residents have to trust the municipal competencies and systems, and this can be achieved through meaningful engagement between the municipality and residents. We argue that rolling out a water reuse scheme by starting with affluent areas increases the likelihood of acceptance among low-income communities.


In working life, ageing and retiring staff and managers are being replaced by younger generations which come from different working life cultures. This may give rise to different management expectations. As a result, this creates a need to assess how the concept of appreciative management is implemented in health care. The aim was to develop a valid and reliable instrument to assess appreciative management. A multi-phase, mixed-method and psychometric evaluation of the Appreciative Management Scale (AMS) was conducted. A concept analysis and systematic literature review were carried out. The instrument's development employed a two-phase Delphi study approach including essays, survey iteration rounds and expert panel evaluation. The instrument was pre-tested and tested empirically in a survey completed by staff respondents and managers. AMS 1.0 has 83 items that are categorised into Systematic Management, Equality, Appreciation of Know-How, and the Promotion of Wellbeing at Work. The instrument was found to be valid and reliable. The AMS 1.0 scale needs to be tested internationally in order to conduct evaluative surveys of appreciative management in other countries. By using the AMS 1.0 instrument to assess managers' management practices, managers receive valuable feedback on their own management skills and also the skills of workers.


The common sense notion in science and, indeed, everyday life, is that the "individual" is a concrete conception. We work constantly with such notions, and divide our world into parts such as individual objects, organisms, animals, and people. However, upon further philosophical consideration, these prima facie ideas become increasingly convoluted and we are led to wonder, what, if anything, constitutes an individual? This paper discusses some of the conceptual problems inherent in notions of individuality across time, and concludes that such subjective notions are too vague and uncertain for rigourous scientific purposes. Scientific investigation should, therefore, abandon such conceptions of individuality because they are not real features of the world about us; rather, they are pragmatic constructions of the mind that serve only to categorize our observations. If science, therefore, purports to objectively analyze the world as it is, then it should be free from subjective, mental constraints imposed upon it by our limited human perspective.


The new analytic approach to the behavior of ciliates represented by the ethogram was used to study the locomotion of Oxytricha bifaria at different temperatures, isotropically applied according to a new protocol. It was shown that under these experimental conditions as the temperature dropped in stages from 24°C to 19°C to 14°C to 9°C, the general mobility of experimental populations decreased, as indicated by 1) the decreasing percentage of mobile organisms, 2) their decreasing velocity, 3) their prolonged backward creeping, and 4) the increasing length of their immobilization periods. The ethogram more particularly revealed that decreasing temperatures induced 1) the appearance of rightward arcs (several of them being travelled by specimens sliding on the substrate). 2) the reduction of both the radius and the velocity along the normal leftward arcs (A‐) and the segments (S), and 3) the symmetric increase of both the central angle and the duration of the A‐ and S. These changes were reversibly induced: they disappeared when the temperature returned to 24°C. Moreover. a new behavioral pattern, the prolonged Side Stepping Reaction, was found. Helicoidal swimming, occurring only at 14°C, was analyzed. Among all of the behavioral parameters, nine were shown to change dramatically between 14°C and 9°C, demonstrating that the linear cooling of the populations induced clear non‐linear effects.


PURPOSE
to determine if morphological differences exist between vasculature shown to decompensate, ie, skeletal muscle (SM) and vasculature that maintains the compensatory effort, ie, cutaneous (C).

METHODS
dogs were anesthetized and subjected to a Wiggers hemorrhagic shock protocol. SM and C flows were monitored using electromagnetic flowmeters. Gracilis (SM) and saphenous (C) arterial segments were removed during: prehemorrhage control, compensation, and decompensation. Segments were fixed at in vivo intraluminal pressures. Both light and EM sections were made from each sample.

RESULTS
During the compensatory phase, both SM and C showed signs of strong vasoconstriction. Even though the amount of endothelial folding was comparable, the C did and the SM did not sustain the vasoconstriction. Vascular diameters of the SM but not C increased during decompensation. Ultrastructural changes consisted of extreme folding of the internal elastic lamina (IEL) during compensation and subsequent flattening out of the IEL during decompensation in the SM but not the C tissues. Cell deformation, damage, and exfoliation were seen in both SM and C tissues.

CONCLUSION
The data are consistent with the theory that SM vasculature, specifically endothelium, synthesizes an inhibitor of NE release, probably prostaglandins.


The authors describe a iatrogenic cerebrospinal fluid fistula into the pleural cavity, a rare and unusual complication of thoracic surgery. The importance of considering this diagnosis in patients who suffer from headache and altered mental status after thoracotomy and the early surgical repair of this potentially fatal complication are stressed.


Calcific tendinopathy is most commonly seen around the shoulder joint. Only a few cases of quadriceps calcific tendinopathy (QCT) were reported. This study compares pain, function, clinical examination results, and ultrasonographic findings among primary knee osteoarthritis (KOA) patients with or without ultrasonography-detected QCT. A cross-sectional study was conducted on 214 patients with knee OA. Ultrasonography (US) of knee joints was performed according to the EULAR guidelines. Kellgren-Lawrence radiographic grading was used to score OA. Pain and functional status were assessed using the visual analog scale (VAS), the Health Assessment Questionnaire-II (HAQ-II), and the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC). QCT was detected in 50 out of 428 knees (11.6%), i.e. in 46 out of 214 patients (21.49%). Most cases of QCT were detected in the following sites: 36 in the vastus lateralis (72%), 10 in the vastus intermedius (20%), and only 4 in the vastus medialis (8%). QCT was found mainly in advanced KOA stages: 44 cases of QCT were found in patients with grade 4 KOA and 6 cases in grade 3 KOA. The presence of QCT showed a statistically significant association (p<0.05) with VAS, HAQ-II, WOMAC subscales, synovitis, and effusion detected by US. In knees with ultrasound-detected QCT, ultrasonographic features of CPPD were found in 31 knees (62%). QCT was found in cases with advanced KOA and mainly with ultrasonographic findings of CPPD disease. QCT could be considered an independent poor prognostic finding regarding pain, functional activity, and response to NSAIDs.


Functional capacities of the lungs and thorax in beagles taken to high altitude as adults for 33 mo or in beagles raised from puppies at high altitude were compared with functional capacities in corresponding sets of beagles kept simultaneously at sea level. Comparisons were made after reacclimatization to sea level. Lung volumes, airway pressures, esophageal pressures, CO diffusing capacities (DLCO), pulmonary blood flow, and lung tissue volume (Vt) were measured by a rebreathing technique at inspired volumes ranging from 15 to 90 ml/kg. In beagles raised from puppies we measured anatomical distribution of intrathoracic air and tissue using X-ray computed tomography at transpulmonary pressures of 20 cm H2O. Lung and thoracic distensibility, DLCO, and Vt were not different between beagles that had been kept at high altitude for 33 mo as adults and control subjects kept simultaneously at sea level. Lung distensibility, DLCO, and Vt were significantly greater in beagles raised at high altitude than control subjects raised simultaneously at sea level. Thoracic distensibility was not increased in beagles raised at high altitude; the larger lung volume was accommodated by a lower diaphragm, not a larger rib cage.


The CO2 reforming of methane by the combination of catalysts with a dielectric-barrier discharge is investigated as an alternative approach to the conventional pure catalytic process. It is shown that the use of nickel or calcium-promoted nickel catalysts in combination with the discharge leads to an increase in the CO yield of 20 to 40%. The identified products are CO, H2, water, ethane and ethylene, propane, n-butane and methanol. In addition to the experimental investigation, extensive kinetic modeling was performed. Besides a good description of the plasma reactions by a set of 308 reactions and 57 species, the programs used offered the possibility of identifying the main reaction routes towards the different products. To get an insight into the mechanistic aspects of the catalyst–plasma interaction, the gas phase was investigated with optical emission spectroscopy (OES) during the experiment. Special emphasis was placed on the
interpretation of differences in the emission spectra from experiments with and without a catalyst in the discharge. A significant difference was observed for the CH A 2Δ–X 2Π band. Therein, the intensity of the signal was proportional to the activity of the catalysts used, in the sense that the CH signal was higher for a more active catalyst. Based on these results, a tentative reaction scheme is proposed that explains the enhancing effects of the catalysts in the CO2 reforming reaction. It starts with the adsorption of methane and methane fragments from the gas phase, followed by their gasification by oxygen and oxygen-containing species supplied by the discharge plasma.


Migration into Europe affects the Alps in various ways. The recent influx of refugees and a higher number of asylum requests has presented governance challenges for mountain communities. In Italy, the responsibility of regions to host asylum seekers increased when a national system was implemented to distribute asylum seekers throughout the country. This study explored the impact of current distributions through the analysis of 2 rural mountain municipalities in the northeast Italian Alps in the Autonomous Province of Bolzano (also known as South Tyrol) in which reception facilities for asylum seekers have been established. A qualitative research approach offered empirical insights into the functioning of the reception system and governance in these communities. Our social network analysis of the research data, focusing on the labor integration of asylum seekers, indicated that stronger relational linkages among actors in rural mountain communities may facilitate access to the labor market for asylum applicants.


The aerospace industry is moving towards a new paradigm for the statement of reliability specifications. This paradigm is not a technical metric inherent to a system in isolation, but rather encompasses the wider objectives, operational profile and logistic priorities of its customer. This customer focus is encapsulated in the metrics Failure Free Operating Period and Maintenance Free Operating Period. These metrics describe the duration of effective system operation, in the first case for systems where faults and maintenance are permitted and in the second for systems where faults may not be repaired. As part of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) funded Aerospace Project for Insertion of Reliability (ASPIRE) research programme, which itself is part of the Ultra Reliable Aircraft (URA) programme, representatives of leading aerospace companies were interviewed about their opinion n how this new reliability paradigm and associated concepts would affect their way of doing business and their engineering processes. It would appear that the aerospace industry is ready for a move to a more realistic set of reliability metrics and away from the old style MTBF based metrics. This sea change would most likely be welcomed by customers, but as yet the manufacturing companies are unconvinced that such a radical move would be a good thing. Much of the resistance to change is due to old‐fashioned, but well entrenched, beliefs in the traditional way of doing things. A move away from this would bring freshness to the industry and lead to cost and time savings as the traditional approach is dropped in favour of a more planned and thought out approach. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


The Colegio de Ciencias y Humanidades (CCH) is a high school system of the National University of Mexico (UNAM) that has a population of seventy thousand students. Our educational goal is to form conscientious citizens well prepared for positive interaction with the social, politic, economic and natural environment, and with a solid knowledge that will enable them to continue their studies.


On December 15, 1851, Andrew Jackson Davis—self-styled Harmonial philosopher and noted scion of the spiritualist world—sent a public letter. Addressed through the Hartford Times to the controversial Congregationalist minister Horace Bushnell, the message concerned the first of a series of lectures Bushnell was delivering at his North Church. Davis, who at the time claimed Hartford, Connecticut, as his base, was clearly excited. The announced topic—"On the Naturalistic Theories of Religion as Opposed to Supernatural Revelation"—already gave Davis "much pleasure," suggesting a position "entirely unlike any other ever assumed by the clergy of Christendom." More than that, Bushnell's way of approaching the subject and defining his position was "considerably unlike the method pursued by most clergymen," since Bushnell relied on his own "reason or judgment" to address "the corresponding faculty in the mind of the hearer." Davis went on to propose that, with so important an issue, better to move the lectures from Bushnell's North Church pulpit to a different location and to invite "all parties interested" to "analyze and examine before the same audience the various positions."


Cancer has long been understood as a somatic evolutionary process, but many details of tumor progression remain elusive. Here, I will talk about computational methods to infer evolutionary pathways leading to tumor heterogeneity. I will start by discussing how to quantify intra-patient heterogeneity by rigorous analysis of copy-number profiles from multiple patient samples. Using a study in ovarian cancer I will describe how summary statistics of phylogenetic quantification of genetic heterogeneity can predict patient survival. Then, I will present a probabilistic framework to reconstruct intra-tumor evolution from data obtained by bulk bisulfite sequencing of mixed tumor samples or single cell genomes. Our approach jointly estimates the number and composition of clones in the sample as well as the most likely tree connecting them. I will finish by describing ongoing work to reconstruct patterns of clonal evolution from single cell sequencing data. Citation Format: Florian Markowetz. Quantifying patterns of tumor evolution. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference on Tumor Metastasis; 2015 Nov 30-Dec 3; Austin, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(7 Suppl):Abstract nr IA20.


Background RBC transfusion is the mainstay of therapy for resuscitation of patients with hemorrhagic shock. Ex-vivo storage of RBCs for transfusions is associated with a storage lesion which decreases erythrocyte deformability and increases their adhesiveness to vascular endothelium. This may impair microcirculatory flow with deleterious effects on oxygen delivery post-transfusion. The objective of this study was to determine whether transfused stored rat blood impairs the microcirculation following resuscitation from hemorrhagic shock Methods Donor Sprague Dawley rat RBCs were collected and stored in CPDA-1 under standard blood bank conditions. RBCs were labelled with FITC (fluorescein isothiocyanate) 24 hours before the experiment. RBCs stored for less than 24 hours (fresh) RBCs (n=3) were compared to RBCs stored for 7 days (n=3). To induce shock, forty percent of blood volume was removed from male Sprague Dawley rats. Animals were then resuscitated by injecting 1.5mL of labelled packed RBCs and sufficient saline to restore blood volume via arterial line. The number of adherent labelled RBCs in the extensor digitorum longus muscle (EDL) was detected using intravital video microscopy (20X magnification). RBC velocity, capillary diameters, capillary Hct (hematocrit), arterial Hct, and lactate data was collected at three time points (baseline, shock and resuscitation). Results Lactate levels increased significantly during shock in both the fresh and stored groups. Arterial Hct decreased in shock and was restored to baseline levels with resuscitation. The stored group had an increased number of stopped cells in the microcirculation compared to their fresh counterparts (p=0.004). There was no statistical significant difference in capillary diameters between groups or time points. Both groups showed an increase in RBC velocity from baseline to resuscitation (stored group doubled, fresh group tripled). Capillary Hct did not change in the fresh group but doubled in the old group from baseline to resuscitation. Conclusion In our shock model, transfusion of stored RBCs resulted in an increased number of stopped cells and lower RBC velocity in capillaries as compared to fresh RBCs. Stored RBCs also had an increased capillary Hct from baseline to resuscitation and a diminished hyperemic response as compared to fresh RBCs. We conclude that stored RBCs following transfusion behave differently than native or fresh transfused cells in the microcirculation. Further studies are needed to determine the impact of these microcirculatory changes on oxygen availability in transfusion.


Nine infants less than 2 months of age with group B streptococcal (GBS) osteomyelitis or septic arthritis, or both, were seen from January 1975 through January 1978. The infants had local joint signs, usually in the absence of systemic signs. The bones and joints involved were equally distributed between proximal humerus and proximal and distal femur. An infant had involvement of the talus. Treatment consisted of two to three weeks of parenteral antibiotics, arthrotomy in infants with arthritis, and bone decompression in infants with osteomyelitis. Clinical follow-up showed normal growth and function of the affected joint. Of the organisms, five were typed: four were type III and one was type Ib. Group B streptococcal osteomyelitis and/or septic arthritis was the second most common late-onset GSB infection, being surpassed only by meningitis.


In this paper, we present a method of detecting the range and Doppler phase of a point target using multiple antennas. As a key illustrative example, we consider a 4 × 4 system employing a unitary matrix waveform set, e.g., formed from Golay complementary sequences. When a non-negligible Doppler shift is induced by the target motion, the waveform matrix formed from the complementary sequences is no longer unitary, resulting in significantly degraded target range estimates. To solve this problem, a novel Doppler estimation and compensation scheme based on a clever application of DFT is developed that provides notable improvements, both in detection performance, and processing times. Proof-of-concept simulations are presented verifying the efficacy of the proposed Doppler compensation and estimation technique for our unitary waveform matrix designs.


First-principles calculations of structural, electronic, optical, elastic, mechanical properties, and Born effective charges of monoclinic HfO2 are performed with the plane-wave pseudopotential technique based on the density-functional theory. The calculated structural properties are consistent with the previous theoretical and experimental results. The electronic structure reveals that monoclinic HfO2 has an indirect band gap. The analyses of density of states and Mulliken charges show mainly covalent nature in Hf-O bonds. Optical properties, including the dielectric function, refractive index, extinction coefficient, reflectivity, absorption coefficient, loss function, and optical conductivity each as a function of photon energy are calculated and show an optical anisotropy. Moreover, the independent elastic constants, bulk modulus, shear modulus, Young's modulus, Poisson's ratio, compressibility, Lame constant, sound velocity, Debye temperature, and Born effective charges of monoclinic HfO2 are obtained, which may help to understand monoclinic HfO2 for future work.


The conservative German publicist and political theorist, Constantin Frantz (1817-1891), occupies an ambiguous place in German intellectual history. Some, such as Friedrich Meinecke, located him within the rich intellectual tradition of German federalism, highlighting his hostility to the idea of the "nation-state" and the traditions of nationalism, Realpolitik and militarism. Others, by contrast, have situated him within a long genealogy of German fascism, identifying his remarkable 1852 work, Louis Napoleon, as a kind of precursor or antecedent of twentieth-century fascist ideology. This interpretation raises broader questions about the historiography on Bonapartism and Caesarism, which has often been motivated by an interest in the intellectual origins of modern fascism. The present article supplies a reinterpretation of Frantz's thinking about Bonapartism (Napoleonismus) and Caesarism by focusing on a much broader range of his intellectual output and by tracking the development of his view of Bonapartism's significance between 1851 and the early 1870s. The main outcome is not just to question Frantz's place in the "prehistory" of fascism, but also to show how deeply nineteenth-century debates about Bonapartism were connected to concerns about liberalism, democracy, nationalism and imperialism.


The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of adding virginiamycin to either mineral mixture or multiple supplement on intake, digestion, ruminal fermentation profile, rumen microbial production, blood metabolites, and liver metabolism of zebu heifers fed a high-quality tropical forage. Eight Brahman heifers were assigned to a replicated 4 × 4 Latin Square design. The treatments were: mineral mixture, mineral mixture with virginiamycin, multiple supplement, and multiple supplement with virginiamycin. The basal diet consisted of a high-quality Tifton 85 hay (Cynodom sp.) chopped at 10-cm particle size and fed twice daily. The mineral mixture was provided daily at 120 g/animal. The multiple supplement was formulated to provide 300 g of crude protein (CP)/kg as fed, contained mineral mixture, corn grain, and urea: ammonium sulfate, and was daily provided at 200 g/animal. The mineral mixture and multiple supplement provided the same daily amount of minerals. The amount of supplemental virginiamycin was based on a maximum theoretical response on animal performance (50 mg/100 kg body weight) and daily mixed to the supplements types. The treatments were compared according to a 2 × 2 factorial arrangement (mineral mixture and multiple supplement, with or without virginiamycin). The virginiamycin supplementation did not alter either voluntary intake or digestibility (P≥0.44). Using the multiple supplement decreased forage (P<0.05) and digested organic matter (DOM, P<0.10) intake, but increased dietary CP : DOM ratio (P<0.01). The multiple supplement increased the ruminal ammonia concentration (P<0.04) and the acetate-to-propionate ratio (P<0.06). Virginiamycin increased urinary nitrogen (N) when provided along with multiple supplement (P<0.05). Fecal N was decreased by multiple supplement (P<0.06). Despite these effects, no effect was verified on either body N accretion (P≥0.48) or microbial N production in the rumen (P≥0.27). Virginiamycin decreased the blood IGF-1 (P<0.07). The hepatic gene expression for propionyl-CoA carboxylase was increased by virginiamycin (P<0.01). Virginiamycin increased the hepatic gene expression of both citrate synthase and pyrivate carboxylase when mineral mixture was provided (P<0.01), but decreased it when animals were fed multiple supplement (P<0.04). Using a low-intake multiple supplement with a high CP content for cattle fed high-quality forage causes a substitutive effect on forage intake, but keeps nitrogen accretion unchanged. That pattern indicates an improvement in feed efficiency. On the other hand, virginiamycin supplementation seems to cause some post-prandial influences, which may vary according to the type of supplement. Those influences apparently improve animal efficiency.


A calculation of the Dalitz decay in next-to-leading order in chiral perturbation theory of two flavour case extended by virtual photons is presented. The whole kinematic sector is covered and realistic experimental situation is discussed.


Symptomatology of Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV) is known to have great inter-divisional variability and different impact on patients' quality of life (QoL). It has been observed that subjects suffering from pre-existing Motion Sickness (MS) experience more severe symptoms at the onset of the disease and have a worse course despite the success of the treatment with the canalith repositioning procedure (CRP). The aim of this study was to verify whether the BPPV symptomatology is different in patients with pre-existing MS and how much this condition adversely affects QoL. To recognize and quantify the presence of the pre-existing MS, the Motion Sickness Susceptibility Questionnaire-short (MSSQ-short) was proposed; to quantify the QoL, the Italian version of the Dizziness Handicap Index (DHI-I) questionnaire was proposed. We selected 43 patients with unilateral idiopathic BPPV who responded positively to a single CRP. Based on the responses of the MSSQ-short, 17 patients had a moderate degree MS. The data collect from these patients was compared with those from 26 patients without MS. The average DHI-I score of MS patients collected in the first evaluation before the CRP was 55.4 (min 20 and max 92), while in patients without MS it was 37.5; the difference was statistically significant (p = 0.014). Both groups showed a significant reduction in the total DHI-I score after the successful CRP, although the scores in the two groups remained significantly different (p 0.004). The differences in the DHI-I values between the two groups after 15 and 30 days were not statistically significant. The results of this study show that patients suffering from MS in our sample had a more intense symptomatology compared to patients not affected by pre-existent MS. Therefore, we suggest identifying MS during the anamnestic data collection, as for these patients the CRP may not be able to fully alleviate the dizzying symptoms. These conclusions have implications for the therapeutic and pharmacological strategy aimed at controlling MS, and at intervening more effectively on BPPV symptoms.


Mutants ofMutants of Azotobacter chroococcum which showed unusually O2-sensitive N2 fixation when grown on sugars were isolated following mutagenesis with nitrosoguanidine or the transposon Tml. These mutants we called Fos- (inability to fix N2 on sugars). Aerotolerant growth of Fos- mutants was, in general, restored by carboxylic acids, Ca2+ or a combined-N source. Two main group of mutants were distinguished: (1) regulatory mutants which failed to synthesize nitrogenase under aerobic conditions and which were complemented by the Klebsiella pneumoniae nifA gene product; (2) mutants affected at different steps in intermediary metabolism. The latter strains exhibited low respiration rates or high apparent K
s(O2) values (when grown on sucrose) compared with the parent strain. They seemed to be defective in respiratory protection of nitrogenase. The restoration of aerotolerant N2-dependent growth of Fos- mutants by carboxylic acids was correlated with their ability to induce a decrease in the apparent K
s(O2) value; however, in both the mutant and the parent strains maximum respiration rates did not change significantly. The Ca2+ requirement for diazotrophic growth in A. chroococcum seems to be related to the capability of these organisms to fix N2 in air. Ca2+ might be required for high fluxes in the tricarboxylic acid cycle and might act at the level of phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase, which is involved in the replenishment of the tricarboxylic acad cycle and or at the level of tricarboxylic acid cycle enzymes per se. It is suggested that respiratory protection requires the maintenance of high respiratory rates even at low O2 tension.


In the recent years, vibrational spectroscopies (infrared spectroscopy) have been developed for all sorts of analysis in microbiology. Important features of these methods are the relative ease with which measurements can be performed. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) is a technique that has been used over the years in chemical analysis for the identification of substances and is one that may be applied to the characterization of microorganisms. Infrared spectroscopy is based on the measurement of the molecular bond vibration compounds, excited by radiation of a suitable frequency, when given the conditions for energy absorption by the molecules. Here, we review the potential application of vibrational spectroscopies for use in biology. It can be concluded that vibrational spectroscopy show high potential as novel methods. Key Words : Fourier Transforms Infrared Spectroscopy, Microorganisms, Identification, Classification, Discrimination.


Nowadays alopecia areata is considered an autoimmune disease with genetic substrate. The clinical, histopathological, therapeutic and possible physiopathological mechanisms are discussed. The therapeutic approach, especially for the severe forms is considered with emphasis on the methods based on immunomodulation by drugs, diphenylcyclopropenone and squaric acid dibutylester and its possible mechanisms of action are discussed.


The state-transition feature that considers the transition between states is an important feature used in Conditional random fields (CRFs). However, integrating the state-transition feature into the CRF model always results in a long training time. It is believed that there is no study focusing on this problem. Therefore, this paper proposes a path-constrained Viterbi algorithm to substitute the use of the state-transition feature, where the core idea involves pruning the paths (or state transitions) that does not exist in real-world data in the Viterbi decoding process. The proposed method is simple but effective. The experimental results obtained for four natural language processing (NLP) tasks, i.e., Chinese word segmentation (CWS), Named Entity Recognition (NER), text chunking, and part-of-speech (POS) tagging, demonstrate that the proposed method achieved performance close to that using state-transition feature, and hence saving as much as half the training time in total.


PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between a foreign firm's likelihood to exit a host country and the population density of foreign firms in its industry in that county, as well as the moderating influences of this relationship. The authors hypothesize that a foreign firm's likelihood to exit has a U-shaped relationship with foreign firms' population density in the industry and this relationship will be weakened when: the foreign firm is located in a region where foreign firm presence is high; the foreign firm is in an industry that has a longer history of foreign direct investment; the firm has a longer tenure in the host country; and the firm is more adapted to the market and institutional environments of the host country.Design/methodology/approachThe authors test the hypotheses using a data set containing over 45,000 foreign firms in China between 1998 and 2007.FindingsThe results show that the exit likelihood of a foreign firm has a U-shaped relationship with foreign firms' population density in the firm's industry in the host country. Furthermore, this relationship is moderated by the population density of foreign firms in the region where the firm resides, the length of time since the first foreign entrant in the industry and the extent of the focal firm's local adaptation.Originality/valueThe study contributes to organizational ecology theory and the international business literature by extending the density-dependence model to the study of foreign firm survival/exit. Whereas a foreign firm's fate in the host country is heavily influenced by the population density of foreign firms in its industry, it can borrow legitimacy from other sources, or try to create legitimacy through its own actions, to reduce the impact of such density effects.


The process by which massive galaxies transition from blue, star-forming disks into red, quiescent galaxies remains one of the most poorly understood aspects of galaxy evolution. In this investigation, we attempt to gain a better understanding of how star formation is quenched by focusing on a massive post-starburst galaxy at z = 0.747. The target has a high stellar mass and a molecular gas fraction of 30%—unusually high for its low star formation rate (SFR). We look for indicators of star formation suppression mechanisms in the stellar kinematics and age distribution of the galaxy obtained from spatially resolved Gemini Integral-field spectra and in the gas kinematics obtained from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). We find evidence of significant rotation in the stars, but we do not detect a stellar age gradient within 5 kpc. The molecular gas is aligned with the stellar component, and we see no evidence of strong gas outflows. Our target may represent the product of a merger-induced starburst or of morphological quenching; however, our results are not completely consistent with any of the prominent quenching models.


The paper aims to explore the effects of centrality of university spin-offs (USOs) in their meso-level network on firm performance. In detail, it has been hypothesised that degree centrality, closeness centrality and betweenness centrality can have a positive influence on the USOs' performance in terms of natural logarithm of total assets and sales growth. Based on a sample of 144 Italian USOs from nine universities associated with the PNICube, the results suggest that degree centrality and betweenness centrality have an effective and positive impact on the USOs' performance only in term of natural logarithm of total assets, while closeness centrality seems not to have significant effects on both performance measures used. The empirical evidence highlights that in the USOs' context the centrality of the firm assumes just a partial role - however significant - in the accomplishment of higher business performance. The paper offers some contributions to the literature and extends the understanding of the social networks dynamics of USOs.


The purpose of this study was to analyze the mediating role of capacity building of Dubai police force between e-learning training program and organizational performance. For the said purpose, initially, detailed literature has been reviewed. After reviewing the literature, the ambiguities in the current available literature have been identified and new framework has been developed. The framework has been tested based on the established instruments and the data was collected from the employees of Dubai Police Force who have received e-trainings. Initially using SPSS 25 descriptive statistics have been measured and after ensuring the descriptive. Smart PLS 3 has been used to check the reliability and validity of the instrument and finally the proposed framework has been analyzed. The results of the data obtained from employees of Dubai police force revealed that e-learning and training program has a significant impact over organizational performance. Furthermore, the findings also revealed that capacity building of the employees mediates the relationship between e-learning training program and organizational performance. The findings have practical as well as theoretical significance as it opens the horizons of new research to be conducted by applying the same framework over different sectors and also guides the policy makers to work on capacity building of the employees.


We measured muscle strength after curved periacetabular osteotomy, one form of abductor-sparing periacetabular osteotomy, and then investigated the factors influencing postoperative muscle strength recovery. Curved periacetabular osteotomy was performed for acetabular dysplasia on 24 hips in 22 patients. All patients were females, with a mean age of 34.4 years. We based the severity of hip disease on the Tönnis classification. Isokinetic muscle strengths of the hips were measured preoperatively and 6 months and 12 months postoperatively. At 12 months postoperatively, the mean muscle strength (percentage difference to preoperative value) of the abductor was 42.2 Nm (129.6%), adductor 39.4 Nm (131.4%), flexor 48.4 Nm (121%), and extensor 45.8 Nm (130.5%), all of which exceeded the preoperative values. The 12-month postoperative muscle strength of patients with Grade 0 disease based on the Tönnis classification was greater in all directions than that of patients with Grades 1 and 2 disease. The preoperative stage was thought to be an essential factor in postoperative muscle strength recovery.Level of Evidence: Prognostic study, Level II (lesser quality prospective study-eg, patients enrolled at different points in their disease or < 80% followup). See the Guidelines for Authors a complete description of levels of evidence.


Targeted gene knockdown has become one of the most powerful tools in
molecular biology and holds substantial promise in therapeutic
applications. While existing technologies such as siRNAs, CRISPRi, and
ASOs effectively and specifically reduce gene expression, few can be
used to first discover the genes that influence a particular phenotype
and then directly transition to being used as oligonucleotide
therapeutics. Thus, a tool that could help bridge the gap between target
discovery and the development of therapeutic leads would benefit the
scientific community. Here, we present hnRNPA1 recruiting
oligonucleotides, or AROs, as single-stranded RNA (ssRNA) molecules that
knockdown transcript levels of target genes. AROs target specific
pre-mRNA transcripts via sequence homology and leverage the ubiquitous
and abundant endogenous RNA-binding protein hnRNPA1 to degrade target
transcripts. Using RT-qPCR, we show that AROs effectively knock down
target genes when delivered via a plasmid and expressed using a Pol II
promoter or when delivered directly as single-strand RNAs. Additionally,
as proof of principle, we use a ssRNA ARO to knockdown KRT14 in squamous
cell carcinoma and show reduced invasive potential. We believe AROs fill
an important niche in the scientific toolbox by taking advantage of
endogenous RNA binding machinery for RNA knockdowns.


Background Despite suffering from poor prognosis, progressive exercise intolerance, and impaired quality of life (QoL), effective therapeutic strategies in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) are sparse. Exercise training (ET) improves physical QoL in HFpEF, but the effects on other aspects of QoL are unknown. Methods The multicentre, prospective, randomized, controlled Exercise training in Diastolic Heart Failure Pilot study included 64 HFpEF patients (65 ± 7 years, 56% female). They were randomized to supervised endurance/resistance training in addition to usual care (ET, n = 44) or usual care alone (UC, n = 20). At baseline and after 3 months, QoL was assessed (36-item Short-form Health Survey (SF-36), Minnesota Living With Heart Failure Questionnaire (MLWHFQ), and Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9). Results Exercise improved the following SF-36 dimensions: physical functioning (p < 0.001, p = 0.001 vs. UC), bodily pain (p = 0.046), general health perception (p < 0.001, p = 0.016 vs. UC), general mental health (p =  0.002), vitality (p = 0.003), social functioning (p < 0.001) physical (p < 0.001, p = 0.001 vs. UC), and mental component score (p = 0.030). ET did not improve role limitations due to physical and emotional problems. The MLWHFQ total scale (p < 0.001) and the MLWHFQ physical limitation scale (p < 0.001, p = 0.04 vs. UC) also improved with ET. The MLWHFQ emotional limitation scale did not change with ET. With ET, also the PHQ-9 total score improved significantly (p = 0.004, p = 0.735 vs. UC). Conclusions In patients with HFpEF, exercise training improved emotional status, physical and social dimensions of QoL as well as symptoms of depression from pre to post test. Physical dimensions of QoL and general health perception also improved significantly with exercise in comparison to usual care.


Ultrasonic cavitation is the formation of vapour cavities within a liquid due to the action of an ultrasound source. It is widely used for homogenization, dispersion, deagglomeration, erosion, cleaning, milling, emulsification, extraction, disintegration and sonochemistry. On the other hand, the so-called cavitation number is used to assess the likelihood of cavitation in fluid flows within a conduit or around a hydrofoil but it is not valid in ultrasonic cavitation since there is no fluid flow. A recently formulated number predicts the cavitation in case of sudden accelerations. The tip surface of an ultrasonic probe is subjected to a continuous repetition of alternating accelerations at high frequency. Therefore, the use of the recently formulated number in ultrasonic cavitation is explored here. Simulations of the ultrasonic probe in water just at the condition of cavitation onset have been performed for a combination of probe diameters from 0.2 to 100 mm and frequencies 20, 30, 40, 100 and 1000 KHz. The recently formulated number is applied to these combinations and it is found that can be used to predict ultrasonic cavitation. Consequently, the dimensionless number can be used to decide the conditions to avoid or generate cavitation when a fluid is sonicated and to increase reproducibility in such conditions.


Chronic back pain affects 20% of the adult population in the United States and is a significant source of disability and healthcare expenditure. One of the most common causes of chronic back pain is spondylosis. These changes result from age-related degeneration of the lumbar spine. As a result of this degeneration, spondylolisthesis can develop. Spondylolysis is a fracture of the pars interarticularis. It affects younger patients and is more prevalent in adolescents and elite athletes. It can be a debilitating condition that may force athletes into retirement as well as impair them with chronic pain and disability. Traditional treatment options include conservative management such as medications, rest, physical therapy, and rehabilitation. Surgery is reserved for patients who do not respond to conservative measures. Here we present the case of a 39-year-old mixed martial arts fighter with bilateral L4 pars interarticularis fractures and chronic low back pain. After failing conservative treatment options, this patient finally obtained significant relief with steroid injections at the level of the defect. The patient continues to do well with occasional injections and is able to maintain his mixed martial arts career. This case report provides evidence that injection therapy is a feasible alternative to surgery in patients who fail conservative therapy.


The actor-critic (AC) algorithm is a popular method to find an optimal policy in reinforcement learning. The finite-sample convergence rate for the AC and natural actor-critic (NAC) algorithms has been established recently, but under independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) sampling and single-sample update at each iteration. In contrast, this paper characterizes the convergence rate and sample complexity of AC and NAC under Markovian sampling, with mini-batch data for each iteration, and with actor having general policy class approximation. We show that the overall sample complexity for a mini-batch AC to attain an $\epsilon$-accurate stationary point improves the best known sample complexity of AC by an order of $\mathcal{O}(\frac{1}{\epsilon}\log(\frac{1}{\epsilon}))$. We also show that the overall sample complexity for a mini-batch NAC to attain an $\epsilon$-accurate globally optimal point improves the known sample complexity of natural policy gradient (NPG) by $\mathcal{O}(\frac{1}{\epsilon}/\log(\frac{1}{\epsilon}))$. Our study develops several novel techniques for finite-sample analysis of RL algorithms including handling the bias error due to mini-batch Markovian sampling and exploiting the self variance reduction property to improve the convergence analysis of NAC.


This study examined the efficacy of a progressive resistance exercise program, using equal concentric/eccentric (CE) or greater eccentric/concentric (GE) workloads, for increasing strength and improving functional abilities of community-dwelling older adults. Sixty men and women were randomly assigned to one of three groups: CE, GE, or control. All strength testing and training took place on six Lifecircuit machines. Functional tests included a bas carry, weighted stair climb, shelf task 1-RM, and static balance. Significant interactions in strength tests were noted for the chest, back, and shoulder exercises. GE improved in shoulder strength more than CE and control For functional measures, all weight trainers were grouped and compared to controls. A significant interaction occurred for the stair climb and balance with the exercise groups decreasing stair climb time by 11% and increasing balance time by 26%. Relative improvements by weight trainers of 12% for the shelf task and 7% for the bag carry were ...


Background: Hypertension is worldwide health burden. The major concern about hypertension is that it is usually asymptomatic until it causes end organ damages. The management of hypertension usually starts with monotherapy which fails in achieving targeted BP control in many patients. Therefore, they are switched to combination therapy. Fixed combination therapy is proven to be more effective in controlling hypertension than free combination therapy. Exforge-HCT is a fixed combination drug consisting of Amlodipine, Valsartan and Hydrochlorothiazide. Its effectiveness is not known in Omani hypertensive patients. Aim: To evaluate the role of exforge-HCT in control of blood pressure in Omani hypertensive patients attending SQUH and its effectiveness based on gender. Method: This is a retrospective study. Data was gathered using HIS from January 2013 to June 2016. Patients taking Exforge-HCT were screened for eligibility for the study. Blood pressure measurements before and after using Exforge-HCT were recorded. Patients were grouped according to gender, number of co-morbidities and number of medications used before EXFORGE-HCT into two groups; group one: those who were on triple free drug combination therapy and group two: those who were on dual free drugs. P value of less than 0.05 was considered significant. Results: Total number of patients was 115 with female being 57% and male being 42%. The Level of control of hypertension increased from 22% to 33%. Over all Significant reduction in blood pressure was observed, but there was no gender difference in response to Exforge-HCT. There was significant difference in the response to Exforge-HCT between the medication groups but the response according to gender in each group remains the same. Response to Exforge-HCT was the same regardless the number of co-morbidities in both gender. Conclusion: Exforge-HCT showed significant reduction in BP but no gender difference in response. There was significant difference in the response between the two medication groups. However, the response between genders remains the same in each co-morbidity and medication group. Further prospective study is needed to confirm these findings.


In the present work, an effort has been made to optimize the external magnetic field (EMF) for mechanical properties of magnesium alloy AZ31B weld. Magnesium alloys have the potential to replace cold-rolled carbon steel (CRC) and hot- rolled carbon steel (HRC) from automotive manufacturing industries. It has good specific strength and low density compare to aluminum (Al) and iron (Fe). Its low melting and boiling point are the difficulties to get sound weld joints in high heat input fusion welding process. The design of experiments (DOE) based on the central composite design (CCD) has been used for analysis and optimization of the gas metal arc welds of magnesium alloy AZ31B. The effect of the external magnetic field(EMF) on the yield strength(YS), microhardness(H) and microstructure of weld samples studied. The optimal solutions of direct effect and interaction effect of process parameters like wire feed rate, welding speed, gas flow rate and external magnetic field are obtained by using Minitab-17 software. The insignificant terms related to the direct effect of process parameters or their interaction were removed from the mathematical model by backward elimination method. The change in microhardness at weld center is also critically analyzed. The direct effect of EMF on yield strength in comparison to other process parameters is 1% to 4%. The EMF 120 Gauss showed significant improvement in yield strength. At 120 Gauss; predicted optimum yield strength as 138 MPa and experimentally obtained mean yield strength is 137 MPa i.e. 96% of base metal with the significant increase in microhardness up to 100 HV at the weld center. The other variables kept constant as 5.7 m min−1 wire feed rate, 700 mm min−1 welding speed and 11 Ltr min−1 as gas flow rate. The study of changes in surface morphology is analyzed using field emission scanning electron microscopy. The fine grains with no traces of weld cracks and porosity are observed under the effect of the external magnetic field.


So far the static properties of hadrons have been introduced in various models. The static properties of hadrons (charge radius, magnetic moment, etc.) are useful for understanding the quark structure of hadron. In this work we have introduced the hypercentral constituent quark and isospin dependent potentials. Here constituent quarks interact with each other via a potential in which we have taken into account the three body force effect and standard two-body potential contributions. According to our model the static properties of hadrons containing u, d, and s quarks are better than the other models and closer to the experiment. The two key ingredients of this improvement are the effective quark-gluon hypercentral potentials, the hyperfine interaction and isospin-dependence potential. PACS index12.39 .Ba, 12.39. Ki, 12.39. Pn,


We propose a novel method to regularize a normal vector field defined on a digital surface (boundary of a set of voxels). When the digital surface is a digitization of a piecewise smooth manifold, our method localizes sharp features (edges) while regularizing the input normal vector field at the same time. It relies on the optimisation of a variant of the Ambrosio‐Tortorelli functional, originally defined for denoising and contour extraction in image processing [ AT90 ]. We reformulate this functional to digital surface processing thanks to discrete calculus operators. Experiments show that the output normal field is very robust to digitization artifacts or noise, and also fairly independent of the sampling resolution. The method allows the user to choose independently the amount of smoothing and the length of the set of discontinuities. Sharp and vanishing features are correctly delineated even on extremely damaged data. Finally, our method can be used to enhance considerably the output of state‐of‐the‐art normal field estimators like Voronoi Covariance Measure [ MOG11 ] or Randomized Hough Transform [ BM12 ].


Abstract New imaging tools have been developed in recent years to rapidly and accurately diagnose life-threatening diseases associated with high mortality rates, such as acute coronary syndromes, acute aortic dissection, or pulmonary embolism. The concept of using computed tomographic (CT) assessment in emergency settings is based on the possibility of excluding multiple acute pathologies within one scan. It can be used for patients complaining of acute chest pain of unclear etiology with the possible association of acute coronary dissection or pulmonary embolism, but only a low to moderate risk of developing an acute coronary syndrome. One of the benefits of this protocol is the possibility of decreasing the number of patients who are hospitalized for further investigations. The technique also allows the rapid triage of patients and the safe discharge of those who show negative results. The aim of this review is to summarize the current medical literature regarding the potential use of CT for the triple rule-out (TRO) of coronary etiologies.


Four brain-stimulation phenomena elicited from both dorsal brain stem and hypothalamic sites were investigated with the following results: (a) intracranial self-stimulation rate-intensity functions for dorsal brain stem and hypothalamic sites yielded very high (over 1,000 responses/15 min.) to moderate (201-500 responses/15 min.) response rates; (b) d-amphetamine produced higher response rates than either l-amphetamine or saline at both dorsal brain stem and hypothalamic sites, indicating that noradrenergic dorsal brain stem fibers (or cell bodies) support intracranial self-stimulation; (c) dorsal brain stem and hypothalamic self-stimulation sites reliably produced escape behavior; (d) simultaneous stimulation of dorsal brain stem and hypothalamic sites at subthreshold intensities interacted to produce suprathreshold response rates.


Due to the importance that this research revolves around improvement and satisfaction with the services provided to customers, it has been escalating recently by using human factors engineering to give sustainability in the processes of improving service quality by providing optimal service in a systematic framework to reduce losses and customer complaints. Therefore, this research is the use of the Monte Carlo method to predict the opinions of customers by using a random sample representing a community receiving services in supermarkets by taking a sample of units that represent these services such as supermarkets, fast food and health care. Through the results, this research was able to predict what the customers' opinions will be when the customers reach 10,000 visitors from customers who frequent visit these integrated malls. Therefore, this research lays down a systematic plan to improve the quality and service of customers when customers increase to a huge number.


My particular interest in the size of operable cancers has been stimulated by the impression that the medical profession is not making notable progress in the recognition of the early stages of cancer. Sufficient time has already elapsed since the beginning of extensive "cancer campaigns" by our leading medical organizations for the results to become apparent. In 1917 I began the routine measurement of all resected or excised cancers from all parts of the body; in this presentation I shall show the results only in cancers of the breast, stomach, and large intestine.

I have chosen the breast because special attention has been given to that organ for over thirty years by the medical profession; radical surgery has long been the practice in treating this, the most visible and palpable harborer of cancer. The stomach, the most common site of this disease, has only recently come within the realm of modern methods of diagnosis and standardized surgery; the large intestine is an organ or series of organs even more recently approached by modern methods. Of all of these organs, the breast and rectum are the most accessible to unaided clinical examination; the stomach and the large intestine, with the exception of the rectum, require the assistance of expert and highly technical roentgenology. There may be some reason for failure to recognize early cancers in the cecum, ascending, transverse, and descending colon, the sigmoid, splenic, and hepatic flexures, and perhaps in the stomach, but very little excuse in the breast and rectum.


In some recorder applications there is a demand for both high data rates and high capacity. Radio astronomy is an example of such an application, and the longitudinal recorder has been developed for an array of radio telescopes known as the Very Long Baseline Array. The advantages, limitations, and future potential of this system are discussed in the light of new technologies for large arrays of heads, and extremely thin magnetic tapes. >


The incidence of Covid-19 cases continues to increase from day to day so that health workers, especially nurses as the front line, are getting extra work, this causes increased pressure and demands in the workload so that it is feared that the health and fitness of the nurses will decrease. The purpose of this community service is to improve the fitness of nurses during this pandemic. This service is carried out once a week for 8 meetings, followed by 15 participants representing nurses at the Padang City Covid-19 referral hospital. Through yoga, participants can improve their physical fitness and feel the benefits of yoga. Suggestions for the next activity, participants can do yoga regularly and on a scheduled basis.


Hosting Capacity (HC) of distribution grids is the maximum level of Distributed Generation (DG) that can be connected at each bus, taking into account technical requirements, in order to guarantee a reliable and secure operation of the system, in compliance with power quality prescriptions. Although HC is usually related to active users, nevertheless, in the perspective of distribution system operators, it is of great importance to make the best use of the existing network facilities, without the need for reinforcement, also with respect to the growing energy request of passive users. In this direction, the paper proposes the use of an AC Optimal Power Flow-based mathematical model with the aim of comparing the available hosting capacity, for active users, with the loading margin, for passive users, in order to define the overall correct operation of a distribution network.


Since the success of "Philadelphia, Here I Come!" in 1964, Brian Friel has written over twenty plays, successively confirming his reputation as a major dramatist of the twentieth century. But Friel had written plays and short stories before that, giving up his teaching job to become a full-time writer in 1960 and living for part of that time in the United States. This collection of essays, diary extracts and interviews from 1964 to 1999 delves into his work and life both before and after his landmark play. Highlighting his working processes and analyzing the work in relation to both social and political sensibilities, the volume offers a wealth of material in celebration of a writer described by the Observer as "the most profound and poetic of contemporary Irish dramatists."


Purpose: In this descriptive study, we determined the perceptions of patient safety culture among health professionals, including nurses, doctors, medical technicians, and hospital administrative staff. Methods: A questionnaire survey was used to collect data; specifically, we distributed questionnaires to 317 health professionals working for P National University Hospital in B Metropolitan city and P National University Hospital in Y City. The mean and standard deviations of the degree of awareness of patient safety culture were analyzed using t-tests and ANOVAs. Post-hoc comparisons were made with Scheffé's test. Results: The mean score for perception of patient safety culture among study subjects was 3.43 out of 5, indicating that it was in the average range. When analyzing by position, nurses, medical technicians, and administrative staff tended to have better perceptions of patient safety culture than did doctors (F=22.13, p<.001). Furthermore, perceptions among health professionals appeared to vary by their age, education level, years of working in the current hospital, weekly work hours, work unit, attendance of safety education in the past year, number of patient safety education sessions attended in the past year, and awareness of the importance of accurate reporting procedures for safety accidents. Conculsion: As this study confirms, medical professionals' prior experience with patient safety education, number of training sessions attended, and awareness of the reporting procedures for safety accidents influence their perceptions of the patient safety culture. Therefore, patient safety education should be promoted in line with the characteristics of each occupation. Additionally, it is recommended that cultures encouraging health professionals to actively attend the necessary training be established in hospitals.


This article deals with a question of sport politics: the fight for female participation in the most popular running competition in Norway between 1972 and 1975. The focus is on the process from doxa (what we take for granted), through heterodoxa (the effort to challenge the doxa) and finally `winning the game'. Most research in sport politics has concentrated on formal politics in sports organizations and official political aims of the state, but not, as in this article, on informal counter-cultural movements and `ad-hoc groups'. This is also an example of how private experiences become official stories. The approach used is that of the life story (my own personal account of a particular experience), with some elements of life history (in the sense that I am placing my story into a particular cultural, social and political context). In addition to Bourdieu's concepts of doxa, heterodoxa and symbolic power, Mary Douglas's symbolic systems of purity and dirt are used in the analysis. The article demonstrates, through the life-history method, how sport interlinked with gender politics and wider political alliances can challenge the sports establishment.


The mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) have been shown to regulate skeletal muscle function. Previously, we showed that MAPK phosphatase-5 (MKP-5) negatively regulates myogenesis and regeneration of skeletal muscle through inhibition of p38 MAPK and c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK). However, the identity and contribution of MKP-5-regulated MAPK targets in the control of skeletal muscle function and regenerative myogenesis have not been established. To identify MKP-5-regulated MAPK substrates in skeletal muscle, we performed a global differential phospho-MAPK substrate screen in regenerating skeletal muscles of wild type and MKP-5-deficient mice. We discovered a novel MKP-5-regulated MAPK substrate called guanine nucleotide exchange factor for Rab3A (GRAB) that was hyperphosphorylated on a phospho-MAPK motif in skeletal muscle of MKP-5-deficient mice. GRAB was found to be phosphorylated by JNK on serine 169. Myoblasts overexpressing a phosphorylation-defective mutant of GRAB containing a mutation at Ser-169 to Ala-169 (GRAB-S169A) inhibited the ability of C2C12 myoblasts to differentiate. We found that GRAB phosphorylation at Ser-169 was required for the secretion of the promyogenic cytokine interleukin 6 (IL-6). Consistent with this observation, MKP-5-deficient mice exhibited increased circulating IL-6 expression as compared with wild type mice. Collectively, these data demonstrate a novel mechanism whereby MKP-5-mediated regulation of JNK negatively regulates phosphorylation of GRAB, which subsequently controls secretion of IL-6. These data support the notion that MKP-5 serves as a negative regulator of MAPK-dependent signaling of critical skeletal muscle signaling pathways.


The serum amyloid A (SAA) protein has been implicated in the pathogenesis of several chronic inflammatory diseases. Its induction mechanism in response to a chronic inflammatory condition was investigated in rabbits following multiple s.c. injections of AgNO3 over a period of 35 days. During unremitting exposure to inflammatory stimulus, a persistently higher than normal level of SAA2 expression was seen in multiple tissues. Induction of SAA was correlated with higher levels of several transcription factor activities. Increased SAA-activating factor (SAF) activity was detected in the liver, lung, and brain tissues under both acute and chronic inflammatory conditions. In the heart, kidney, and skeletal muscle tissues, this activity remained virtually constant. In contrast, CCAAT enhancer binding protein (C/EBP) DNA-binding activity was transiently induced in selective tissues. Higher than normal NF-kappa B DNA-binding activity was detected in the lung and to a lesser extent in the liver and kidney tissues under both acute and chronic conditions. This result suggested that C/EBP, SAF, and NF-kappa B are required for transient acute phase induction of SAA whereas SAF and NF-kappa B activities are necessary for persistent SAA expression during chronic inflammatory conditions.


Giant magnetoresistance (GMR)in Co/Cu metallic multilayers was measured with a current perpendicular to the plane (CPP) at room temperature. Micro-pillar structures with a height of 1.0μm and widths ranging from 15 to 25 μm, fabricated by using optical lithography and Ar ion etching techniques, were used for the measurement. The CPP MR in Co (3 nm)/Cu (2 nm) multilayers was found to be 2.5 times larger than the MR with a current in the film plane (CIP).


The most important weathering reaction that neutralizes incoming atmospheric acidity in the South Cascade Lake basin is weathering of calcite, which occurs in trace amounts in veins, on joint surfaces, and as a subglacial surficial deposit. Although the basin is underlain by igneous and high-grade metamorphic rocks, weathering of plagioclase is quantitatively negligible; the principal silicate weathering reaction is alteration of biotite to vermiculite. These conclusions are based on mass-balance calculations involving runoff compositions and on mineralogical observations. For predictive modeling of the effects of increased acid deposition, it is essential to identify the relevant weathering reactions. Feldspar weathering is commonly not an important source of solutes in alpine basins underlain by granitic rocks. 30 references, 2 figures, 1 table.