BACKGROUND
The purpose of this study was to determined the functional outcome of surgically treated head and neck cancer patients who required more than "standard" microsurgical reconstruction.

METHODS
Data concerning all patients with head and neck cancers, who underwent free-tissue transfers in our institution between January 1, 1994 and August 31, 1999 were reviewed. The cases of tumor recurrences and those with micro-surgical complications were excluded. Among 68 primary microsurgical reconstructions, we identified five cases where limitations in speech and/or swallowing required additional flap procedures. An objective assessment of speech and swallowing could be performed in four patients.

RESULTS
In these five patients up to three consecutive additional procedured including three free-tissue transfers in one case, had to be performed mainly because of secondary contraction of the surrounding irradiated tissue. A total of 13 pedicled and free flaps were transferred to the head and neck. Three patients underwent two consecutive free tissue transfers. The additional reconstructions were requested to improved tongue mobility in three patients and to enlarge the upper digestive tract in two patients. The mean follow-up was 23 months (range : 9-53 months). Functional evaluation was rated average in three patients and poor in one patient. One patient died before functional evaluation could be performed because of disease. The four patients judged the final cosmetic result as satisfactory.

CONCLUSION
We report five cases of head and neck microsurgical reconstructions where additional flap procedures were requested because of inadequately restored speech or nutrition capabilities. We show that, maybe because of extensive fibrosis, only limited improvement in the functional outcome can be expected despite the use of even sophisticated microsurgical reconstructions. This paper supports the idea that every effort should be put in the initial reconstruction, as further procedures are of poor functional prognosis.


The phase transition of gallium phosphide (GaP) from zinc-blende (ZB) to a rocksalt (RS) structure is investigated by the plane-wave pseudopotential density functional theory (DFT). Lattice constant a0, elastic constants cij, bulk modulus B0 and the pressure derivative of bulk modulus B′0 are calculated. The results are in good agreement with numerous experimental and theoretical data. From the usual condition of equal enthalpies, the phase transition from the ZB to the RS structure occurs at 21.9 GPa, which is close to the experimental value of 22.0 GPa. The elastic properties of GaP with the ZB structure in a pressure range from 0 GPa to 21.9 GPa and those of the RS structure in a pressure range of pressures from 21.9 GPa to 40 GPa are obtained. According to the quasi-harmonic Debye model, in which the phononic effects are considered, the normalized volume V/V0, the Debye temperature θ, the heat capacity Cv and the thermal expansion coefficient α are also discussed in a pressure range from 0 GPa to 40 GPa and a temperature range from 0 K to 1500 K.


The influence of linearly and circularly polarized laser fields on the dynamics of fast electron-impact excitation in atomic helium is discussed. A detailed analysis is made in the excitation of 2 1 S, 3 1 S and 3 1 D dressed states of helium target. By using a semiperturbative treatment with the Sturmian basis expansion, we take into account the target atom distortion induced by a laser field. Important differences appear between the angular distributions depending on the different states of polarization, in particular the circular polarization presents an experimental interest. We give new features (intermediate resonances) for both polarizations, concerning the n = 2 states of helium for emission and the n = 3 for the absorption, in term of laser frequency. Qualitative differences from the case of laser-assisted elastic collisions have been evidenced.


Complications associated with equine castration are the most common cause of malpractice claims against equine practitioners in North America. An understanding of the embryological development and surgical anatomy is essential to differentiate abnormal from normal structures and to minimise complications. Castration of the normal horse can be performed using sedation and regional anaesthesia while the horse is standing, or under general anaesthesia when it is recumbent. Castration of cryptorchid horses is best performed under general anaesthesia at a surgical facility. Techniques for castration include open, closed and half-closed techniques. Failure of left and right testicles to descend occurs with nearly equal frequency, however, the left testicle is found in the abdomen in 75% of cryptorchid horses compared to 42% of right testicles. Bilateral cryptorchid and monorchid horses are uncommon. Surgical approaches described for the castration of cryptorchid horses include an inguinal approach with or without retrieval of the scrotal ligament, a parainguinal approach, or less commonly a suprapubic paramedian or flank approach. Laparoscopic castration of cryptorchid horses has recently been described but the technique has limited application in practice at this time. A definitive diagnosis of monorchidism can only be made after surgical exploration of the abdomen, removal of the normal testis and hormonal testing. Hormonal assays reported to be useful include analysis of basal plasma or serum testosterone or oestrone sulphate concentrations, testosterone concentrations following hCG stimulation, and faecal oestrone sulphate concentrations. Reported complications of castration include postoperative swelling, excessive haemorrhage, eventration, funiculitis, peritonitis, hydrocele, penile damage and continued stallion-like behaviour.


Two series of amide-containing phenylacetylene macrocycles (PAMs) were prepared and self-assembled through a gelation process in an organic solvent. Their gelation properties along with their molecular arrangements in the xerogel state, their morphological features and their reactivity toward the topochemical polymerization of the butadiyne units embedded within the structure were studied with respect to the amide configuration. The PAMs of series 1 with the nitrogen atom of the amide function directly attached to the phenyl groups of the PAMs (acetanilide derivatives) showed less organized molecular organization and less reactivity toward topochemical polymerization than the PAMs of series 2 with the inverted amide configuration (benzamide derivatives). The importance of the amide configuration in the gelation process was confirmed by theoretical calculations at the density functional theory level. Moreover, the computed architecture for molecules of series 1 was shown to be incompatible with topochemical reaction in agreement with experimental observation. The actual combination of experiments and calculations allows the design of larger covalently linked, rigid organic nanotubes.


Read retry is one of the most effective methods to reduce retention errors caused by charge loss. A novel valley search algorithm for fast read retry method is proposed in this paper, which can reduce read operations to two times from at least three by conventional valley search algorithm [1, 8]. Experimental results illustrate that raw bit error rate (RBER) after read retry is reduced to 0.0344% using the novel valley search algorithm, which is within 4.41% of BCH(9088,8192,64) error correcting code (ECC) [2, 3] error correction capability.


Similarly Sir Kenneth Noad's letter (page 1091) about the newly formed Committee for Australian-Indonesian Cooperation in Medicine is both salutary and encouraging. It is salutary because it reminds us of the huge medical problems still faced by our next-door neighbour and of the fact that we can do much to help. It is encouraging because it shows that lessons have been learnt from well-intentioned but inadequately controlled efforts of the past, and that the practising medical profession in Australia is facing its responsibilities. With the experience of the Australian Postgraduate Federation in Medicine to guide it, this new venture promises well. We commend it to all who are concerned to cooperate with our Indonesian colleagues in their efforts to raise the standards of health and medical care in their country.


We calculate the ${\alpha'}^4$ corrections to the non-Abelian DBI action on the D8-brane in the holographic dual of large N_c QCD proposed by Sakai and Sugimoto. These give rise to higher derivative terms, in particular, four derivative contact terms for the pion field with the coupling uniquely determined. We calculate the pion-pion scattering amplitude near threshold. The results respecting unitarity are in qualitative agreement with the experimental curves.


BACKGROUND
External ear canal exostoses are usually bilateral and broad-based, secondary to external ear canal chronic cold exposure, especially water.

OBJECTIVES
The objectives were to analyze the influence of the surgeon's experience on the 3-year recurrence and on the complication. We also studied the influence of prolonged exposure to cold water on the incidence of recurrence.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
This monocentric retrospective study included 98 ears operated for canalplasty between 2009 and 2016 by nine different operators including one senior, a junior, and seven beginner surgeons. Senior, Junior, and Beginner groups were compared.

RESULTS
3-year recurrence rate was higher in the Beginner and Junior groups than in the Senior group (69% and 38% vs 18%, P = .001). Although there was a difference between the Beginner (69%) and Junior (38%) groups, it was not significant (P = .407). Among the recurrences, 48% had continued exposure to cold water while only 7% of the ears without recidivism were still exposed (P < .001, OR = 1.25 [4.4; 36.1]). The complication rates were similar between groups, concerning pain (8% vs 30% vs 12%), per procedure perforation (17% vs 10% vs 16%), scarring disorders (25% vs 20% vs 13%), and osteitis (8% vs 0% vs 1%). Hearing was unaffected.

CONCLUSIONS
This is the first study evaluating the risk of recurrence of external ear canal exostoses after canalplasty based on the surgeon's experience. This risk of recurrence seems to decrease with the surgeon's experience. There was no difference in complication rates.


ABSTRACT Objective: This study assessed injection site pain following subcutaneous (SC) administration with a continuous erythropoietin receptor activator (C.E.R.A.), compared with darbepoetin alfa in healthy adults. Methods: In a randomized, placebo-controlled, single-centre, single-blind, three-way crossover study, subjects received one of six treatment sequences (ABC/ACB/BAC/BCA/CBA/CAB) involving SC injection of (A) C.E.R.A. 50 μg, (B) darbepoetin alfa 50 μg, or (C) placebo on days 1, 29, and 57. An initial pilot phase (n = 12) was used to determine the sample size for the confirmatory phase (n = 72), and data were combined for the final analysis (n = 84). Main outcome measures: The primary endpoint was pain on the 100 mm visual analog scale (VAS) immediately after dosing. Secondary endpoints included VAS at 1 hour after dosing and pain on the six-point verbal rating scale (VRS) immediately and at 1 hour after dosing. Results: C.E.R.A. was associated with significantly less pain immediately after SC injection compared with darbepoetin alfa: least squares mean VAS 21.5 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 17.5, 25.5) versus 33.4 (95% CI: 28.4, 38.4) ( p < 0.0001). Incidence of pain on the VRS was lower with C.E.R.A. compared with darbepoetin alfa immediately after dosing ( p < 0.0001). One hour after administration, most subjects had no VRS pain. A study limitation is the small sample size and the findings need to be confirmed in a large trial of chronic kidney disease patients. Conclusions: SC injection with C.E.R.A. is significantly less painful than SC darbepoetin alfa in healthy adults. Treatment of anemia in chronic kidney disease with SC injection of C.E.R.A. may provide a lower pain burden compared with darbepoetin alfa.


A review of literature, reporting values of cytoplasmic/cytosolic [NO 3 -] in plant cells, identified two major areas of disagreement: (1) disparity in the absolute values within the same system, and (2) constancy versus variability in cytoplasmic/cytosolic [NO 3 -] with varying [NO 3 -] o . These differences are related to the techniques used by the different authors. Estimates of cytoplasmic [NO 3 -] by compartmental analysis and by cell fractionation were consistently higher than the estimates by NO 3 -selective microelectrodes and by techniques based upon in vivo and in vitro nitrate reductase activity (NRA). A model recognizing more than one cytoplasmic ionic pool would satisfactorily reconcile the differences in both aspects, i.e. absolute values and constancy. Compartmental analysis and cell fractionation techniques may measure the amount of NO,- in the cytoplasm as a whole (including organelles); by contrast, NO 3 -selective microelectrodes and NRA estimate only the cytosolic NO 3 - and, hence, may result in lower estimates. Thus, variable organellar pool(s) may maintain a constant cytosolic pool as estimated by microelectrodes. However, certain observations remain at odds with the notion of a constant cytosolic [NO 3 -].


Human motion segmentation in time space becomes attractive recently due to its wide range of potential applications on action recognition, event detection, and scene understanding tasks. However, most existing state-of-the-arts address this problem upon an offline and single-agent scenario, while there are a lot of urgent requirements to segment videos captured from multiple agents for real-time application (e.g., surveillance system). In this paper, we propose an Online Multi-task Clustering (OMTC) model for an online and multi-agent segmentation scenario, where each agent corresponds to one task. Specifically, a linear autoencoder framework is designed to project motion sequences into a common motion-aware space across multiple collaborating tasks, while the decoder obtains motion-aware representation of each task via a temporal preserved regularizer. To tackle distribution shifts problem between each pair of tasks, the task-specific projections are further proposed to align representation across the motion segmentation tasks. By this way, significant motion knowledge can be shared among multiple tasks, and the temporal data structures are also well preserved. For the model optimization, an efficient and effective online optimization mechanism is derived to solve the large-scale formulation in real-time applications. Experiment results on Keck, MAD and our collected human motion datasets demonstrate the robustness, high-accuracy and efficiency of our OMTC model.


The belief propagation approximation, or cavity method, has been recently applied to several combinatorial optimization problems in its zero-temperature implementation, the max-sum algorithm. In particular, recent developments to solve the edge-disjoint paths problem and the prize-collecting Steiner tree problem on graphs have shown remarkable results for several classes of graphs and for benchmark instances. Here we propose a generalization of these techniques for two variants of the Steiner trees packing problem where multiple 'interacting' trees have to be sought within a given graph. Depending on the interaction among trees we distinguish the vertex-disjoint Steiner trees problem, where trees cannot share nodes, from the edge-disjoint Steiner trees problem, where edges cannot be shared by trees but nodes can be members of multiple trees. Several practical problems of huge interest in network design can be mapped into these two variants, for instance, the physical design of very large scale integration (VLSI) chips. The formalism described here relies on two components edge-variables that allows us to formulate a massage-passing algorithm for the V-DStP and two algorithms for the E-DStP differing in the scaling of the computational time with respect to some relevant parameters. We will show that through one of the two formalisms used for the edge-disjoint variant it is possible to map the max-sum update equations into a weighted maximum matching problem over proper bipartite graphs. We developed a heuristic procedure based on the max-sum equations that shows excellent performance in synthetic networks (in particular outperforming standard multi-step greedy procedures by large margins) and on large benchmark instances of VLSI for which the optimal solution is known, on which the algorithm found the optimum in two cases and the gap to optimality was never larger than 4%.


Electric discharge experiments have been performed in a plausible primitive earth atmosphere consisting of methane, nitrogen, and water over an aqueous phase of an ammonia-ammonium buffer solution. In some experiments, ions of metal elements, calcium, magnesium, zinc, iron and molybdenum were introduced. Gas phase products and amino acids in the liquid phase were analyzed by gas chromatography. With trace metal ions, less organic compounds in the gas phase and larger amounts of amino acids were obtained than without them. The results have shown the possible importance of trace elements in chemical evolution and the origin of life on the earth.


Nucleophilic alkylating agents such as bis-chloroethylamines and sulphides ('mustards'), bis-epoxides and others, and their monofunctional analogues, have been found to elicit characteristic responses when administered to suitable biological systems. These include inhibition of cellular proliferation, the production of abnormal chromosome configurations and mutations, and the initiation of malignant transformation. From these observations and allied chemical investigations it has been supposed that deoxyribonucleic acids are the primary sites of attack by such reagents. The present communication reports the results of a study of the inactivation of T2 bacteriophage by a representative group of mono- and bifunctional alkylating agents conducted as a preliminary to an investigation of their effects upon the host/virus complexes. It was found that, with both mono- and bifunctional compounds, inactivation continued after removal of the agent. In the case of monofunctional compounds this was due to a dose-dependent and acid-catalyzed breakdown of the alkylated particles. With bifunctional compounds the delay in inactivation was occasioned largely by the necessity for reaction of the second functional groups of the attached residues. Some evidence was obtained suggesting a subsequent breakdown of the phage material though, if this occurred, it was more rapid than in the case of monofunctional compounds. The dose/survival curves were revealed as exponential, and thus similar to those obtained with radiations, when these reactions were allowed to go to completion. The interpretation of these results is discussed and their possible relevance to the biological response to alkylating agents in other systems considered.


Mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) is an aggressive B cell lymphoma with a poor prognosis. It is characterized by the t(11;14)(q13;q32) translocation, resulting in overexpression of CCND1. Morphologically, MCL is categorised into two types: classical MCL (cMCL) and aggressive MCL (aMCL), with a proportion of cMCL progressing to develop into aMCL. miRNAs are currently considered to be important regulators for cell behavior and are deregulated in many malignancies. Although several genetic alterations have been implicated in the transformation of cMCL to aMCL, the involvement of miRNAs in transformation is not known. In an effort to identify the miRNAs related to the transformation of MCL, miRNA microarray analyses were used for cMCL and aMCL cases. These analyses demonstrated significant differences in the expression of seven microRNAs based on a t-test (p-value <0.05); miR-15b was greatly upregulated in aMCL. Locked nucleic acid in situ hybridization showed increased staining of miR-15b in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded sections of aMCL. These results correlated well with the microRNA microarray analysis. Although the molecular functions of miR-15b are largely unknown, it has been found to be associated with the cell cycle and apoptosis. However, the physiological significance of increased miR-15b in MCL is still unknown. Our present findings suggest that the upregulated expression of miR-15b is likely to play an important role in the transformation of cMCL to aMCL.


Diabetes care guidelines recommend more relaxed glycemic targets for patients with specific chronic conditions because they are thought to have an increased risk of hypoglycemia, limited life expectancy, and/or high clinical complexity. These include dementia, end stage renal disease (ESRD), stages 3-4 chronic kidney disease (CKD), myocardial infarction, heart failure, cerebrovascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cancer, arthritis, urinary incontinence, falls, depression, hypertension, cirrhosis, proliferative retinopathy, and peripheral neuropathy. The rates of severe hypoglycemia among patients with these conditions are unknown. We quantified rates of hospital and emergency department care for hypoglycemia among 216,839 adults (mean 65.5 years old) with diabetes in 2015 using the OptumLabs Data Warehouse (administrative database of >100 million commercially-insured and Medicare Advantage beneficiaries). Hypoglycemia rates varied widely: 10.6/1000 person-years (PY) in patients with hypertension, 26.9/1000 PY with CKD, 26.8/1000 PY with cirrhosis, 37.7/1000 PY with dementia, and 58.3/1000 PY with ESRD. Hypoglycemia was rare among patients with no conditions (2.0/1000 PY). After adjustment for all conditions, prior hypoglycemia, age, sex, race, HbA1c, and diabetes medications, the risk of severe hypoglycemia was significantly increased for all conditions except arthritis, incontinence, and cancer. Hypoglycemia risk increased rapidly with the number of comorbidities: OR 1.8 (95% CI 1.4, 2.2) for 2 conditions, 7.7 (6.2, 9.64) for 5, 16.6 (13.1, 21.1) for 7, and 25.6 (30.4, 32.2) for ?8 conditions compared with ?1 condition. Severe hypoglycemia is common among patients with chronic conditions. Rates vary between conditions but increase dramatically in patients with multiple comorbidities. These data can help inform decisions about glucose-lowering therapy for patients with comorbidities. Disclosure R.G. McCoy: None. H. Van Houten: None. K.J. Lipska: Other Relationship; Self; Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Research Support; Self; National Institutes of Health. N. Shah: None.


The objective of this research was to investigate the high cycle fatigue behavior of a titanium alloy using an ultrasonic fatigue system. Fatigue testing up to one billion cycles under fully reversed loading conditions was performed to determine the ultra-high cycle fatigue behavior of Ti-6Al-4V. Endurance limit results were compared to similar data generated on conventional servohydraulic test systems and electromagnetic shaker systems to determine if there are any frequency effects. In addition, specimens were tested with and without cooling air to determine the effects of temperature on the fatigue behavior. Results indicate that the fatigue strength determined from ultrasonic testing was consistent with conventional testing. However, preliminary results indicate that cooling air may increase the fatigue limit stress at very long lives.


In the published literature on circuit theory and signal processing, the maximally flat FIR filters are commonly attributed to O. Herrmann. It is the purpose of this paper to elucidate the status of these filters before and after Herrmann's paper. Our survey shows that both the formula and the shape of the magnitude response of these filters had been known to actuaries and mathematicians before the publication of Herrmann's paper. We provide a broad outline of the contributions made by actuaries and mathematicians on this class and other related FIR filters. Some recent developments and extensions are also reviewed.


Abstract What can Better Work offer producers in a country like Nicaragua to alleviate the burden caused by the heavily trade-dependent nature of the industry's development, and how do the relatively high-level institutional development and work-place protections in the country affect the willingness of manufacturers to cooperate with Better Work Nicaragua? Drawing on data collected by the authors during fieldwork in Nicaragua, as well as from secondary literature, this working paper explores the contemporary context of the Nicaraguan industry, outlining the opportunities and challenges confronting the country's apparel sector. Nicaragua is the first and only Central American country to participate in Better Work. The second poorest country in the hemisphere, its manufactured exports are heavily concentrated in apparel. While Latin America's share of the US apparel import market has declined in recent years, Nicaraguan export growth has remained robust. Nicaragua's strong performance relative to other regional exporters reflects the special benefits it has received under the Dominican Republic–Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) with the US, namely the tariff preference levels (TPLs) that permit apparel exports from Nicaragua to enter the US market duty-free even when these garments do not meet CAFTA rules of origin (RoO). Although these preferences have enhanced Nicaragua's competitiveness vis-a-vis other regional exporters, the TPL programme is set to expire in 2014. Better Work Nicaragua is thus being implemented during a period of uncertainty, therefore it is critical to understand what local stakeholders in both the public and the private sectors believe will be the consequences of this change in the regulatory regime, and how they are trying to respond to it. This paper concludes that there is a crucial need to craft a programme that reflects the specific conditions that characterize Nicaragua and differentiate it from other Better Work countries.


Introduction: Although research has established a link between socioeconomic status (SES) and neuroimaging measures, weaker SES effects are shown for Blacks than Whites. This is, in part, due to processes such as stratification, racism, mineralization, and othering of Black people in the US. Purpose: This study had two aims: First to test the association between household income and the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) resting-state functional connectivity with the Default Mode Network (DMN) in children, and second, to investigate racial heterogeneity in this association. Methods: This cross-sectional study used data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study. We analyzed the resting-state functional connectivity data using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (rsfMRI) of 7903 US pre-adolescents who were between ages 9 and 10 years old. The main outcome was the NAcc resting-state functional connectivity with DMN. The independent variable was household income. Age, sex, and family structure were the study covariates. Race was the moderator. Mixed-effects regression models were used for data analysis with and without interaction terms between household income and race. Results: Higher household income was associated with higher NAcc resting-state functional connectivity with DMN. Race showed a statistically significant interaction with household income suggesting that the NAcc resting-state functional connectivity with DMN was significantly weaker for Black compared to White pre-adolescents. Conclusions: In line with Minorities' Diminished Returns (MDRs), the association between household income and pre-adolescents NAcc resting-state functional connectivity with DMN is weaker in Black than in White children. This result is of interest because DMN's functional connectivity with NAcc may have a role in cognitive flexibility and reward processing. The weaker links between SES indicators and neuroimaging findings for Blacks than for Whites may reflect the racialization of Black people in the US. Social stratification, racism, and discrimination may minimize the returns of SES for Black families, who have been oppressed for centuries.


Introduction COVID-19 has had significant impacts on the provision of pre-hospital care. Media and academic reports have heavily covered the impacts of Covid-19 on society and health care but have primarily focused on the densely packed urban environments which were hardest hit. This study examines the impact of COVID-19 on pre-hospital care outside of major urban centers. Methods The electronic patient care records (ePCR) of 3 Ontario paramedic services were compared for 365 days starting March 13 (start of lockdown for Ontario in 2020) for Historic (2018-2019), PreCOVID (2019-2020) and COVID (2020-2021) periods. Demographics were examined using t-Tests and proportion (Goodness of Fit) tests. Call counts in temporal categories were analysed using Chi-Squared tests of goodness of fit, while changes in the distribution of call time intervals were examined using a LR test for equivalence. Ethics for the study was approved by the Trent University Ethics Review Board. Results 89,126 ePCRs were examined (Historic: 30,070; PreCOVID: 30,576; COVID: 28,480). Small but statistically significant differences between COVID and PreCOVID were found in the gender and primary problem of patients (p < 0.01) as well as in all temporal fields (p < 0.03), except day-of-the-week (p = 0.87). In time interval comparison, time-on-scene and time-to-patient-contact were significantly increased in the COVID-19 era while time-to-offload (in the ER) was much shorter. Response times were found to be marginally slower, while transport-time-to-ED was found to be significantly faster during COVID. PreCOVID versus Historic comparisons found no significant difference, except in age and CTAS, which had significant differences in both the COVID vs PreCOVID and PreCOVID vs Historic periods (p < 0.001 for both). Conclusion COVID-19 has had many impacts on prehospital care. However, the practical significance of COVID on rural pre-hospital care may not be as large as that reported in higher density area.


The specificity of the development of the geographical and cultural space of Egypt in the poetry of the Silver Age at the time when the "Russian" poetic Egypt was born as a system of leitmotifs, imagestopos and a specific lexicon is described. It is noted that in modern literary criticism, in comprehending the geopoetics of a regional text, works devoted to the European continent, in particular, geopoetic regional models of Russian literature, have been most fully investigated. The relevance of the study is seen in the need to comprehend and analyze the geopoetics of Egypt and, more broadly, Africa as a sacred geocultural space. The textual fragments of poetic works by K. Balmont, V. Bryusov, I. Bunin, N. Gumilyov, V. Khlebnikov, representing stable geospatial images and symbols of Egypt, are analyzed. The authors come to the conclusion that the poetry of the Silver Age combines geocultural images and symbols with mythological motives, which gives the topos of Egypt a geosophical meaning. The analyzed material made it possible to show the generalized artistic structure of the geopoetic representation of Egypt in the poetics of the Silver Age and to highlight the spatial geocultural dominants: the  Nile, Africa, the desert, the Sphinx, Egyptian heroes as images-topos, the Arab East.


Ordered layered organic‐inorganic nanostructure composed of zinc layered hydroxide‐4‐chlorophenoxy acetate (ZLH‐4CPA) was prepared by reaction of an organic anion, 4‐chlorophenoxy acetate (4CPA) with ZnO under aqueous environment. The concentration of 4CPA was found to be a controlling factor in determining the formation of phase pure, well ordered nanolayered hybrid material. At lower concentration of 4CPA (0.05 M), a mixed phase was observed in which ZnO co‐existed with the nanohybrid. At 0.01 M, a pure phase is obtained with high crystallinity but a well ordered nanolayered structure is lacking. A pure phase, well ordered nanolayered hybrid can be clearly observed at 0.2 M 4CPA. ZnO shows well defined grain structure of various sizes at nanometer scale range. Direct reaction between ZnO and 4CPA under aqueous environment resulted in the formation of 4CPA‐ZLH nanohybrid with flake‐like fibrous structure. On heating at 500° C for 5 h under atmospheric condition, the nanohybrid was transformed back to well defined grain structure, as previously observed for the starting materials, ZnO. This shows that the nanohybrid has "memory effect" property. Well ordered nanolayered hybrid with up to 5 harmonics, from which the average basal spacing of 19.03 A of the material was deduced, showing long range order of the layer packing.


The description of the new Virtual Scanning Algorithms (VSA), providing sub-pixel resolution, is presented. VSA are developed specially for EМ-6029B and EM-6329 die-to-database reticle and photomask inspection systems of UE"KBTEM-OMO" Minsk, Belarus. For the effective building of these algorithms into the inspection system the special two-level dynamic model of optical image was created. This model allows to perform the precise alignment of optical image (collected from the reticle) with a reference image (generated from the design data), and to perform the analysis of optical image to get optimum mutual position of the digitization grid of the inspection system and detected defects position. VSA calculate the second level of this model. Both the VSA and the second level of dynamic model of optical image are presented the Virtual Scanning sub-System (VSS). VSS allows to increase the detection capability of automatic reticle inspection system by means of achievement sub-pixel resolution. During detection of semi-transparent defects, VSA allow to get maximum available amplitude contrast of the CCD-signals on the image model. VSA allow also the inspection system to work without using maximum sensitivity settings with the same detection capability. Result is the reduction of the risk of false or nuisance defects detection while keeping maximum sensitivity to printable defects. The VSS design and test results are discussed. Ill. 3, bibl. 5 (in English; summaries in English, Russian and Lithuanian).


This paper examines the effect of tradable services growth on non-tradable services across Indian districts. We use a shift-share "Bartik-type" instrumental variable, that relies on changes in foreign demand shocks for tradable services, weighted by the initial district employment shares in tradable services. Using multiple rounds of the Indian Economic Censuses, we find that an increase in tradable services employment leads to an increase in non-tradable services employment and increases the number of firms in non-tradable services. Our evidence suggests that this positive impact is due to an increase in consumer demand for local non-tradable services that results from the growth in tradable services employment, and not due to sectoral linkages between tradable and non-tradable services sectors. The employment impact is much larger for female workers compared to male workers, and for the number of female-owned firms relative to male-owned firms. Further, the employment impact is only significant for small non-tradable service firms.


Collective bargaining and antitrust law emancipated players. The advent of free agency and related contractual provisions created a battle line over splitting revenues. Work stoppages can foster players' resisting or employers' enforcing "salary restraint mechanisms." Each major sport had a major showdown and corresponding turnaround in "survival bargaining." My framework adds "litigious and other maneuvers" as backups to the traditional strategic choices of "reconfiguring" versus "forcing" or "resisting change." It expands on Walton and McKersie's "sanction as an investment device," "intra-organizational bargaining," and "attitudinal structuring" (1965). In each major turnaround management eventually achieved a stable contractual formula consistent with a three-pronged formula: (1) demonstrate a performance gap, (2) play on worst fears via sanctions or their threat, and (3) provide incentives to settle or change.


To our knowledge, no investigations have been undertaken to determine whether depression impacts performance on two commonly used tests to detect malingering of cognitive symptoms, the Rey 15-item Memorization Test and the Rey Dot Counting Test. This is a critical issue because of the high rate of depressive symptoms in patients with neurological conditions. It was hypothesized that depressed individuals, especially those with more severe depression, might be at risk for failing the tests, because these patients exhibit mild deficits in mental speed, visual perceptual/spatial skills, and visual memory, abilities required for successful completion of the malingering tests. However, examination of test performance in 64 older participants with major depression generally revealed very low false positive rates for most test scores, and severity of depression was unrelated to test scores. These results add to accumulating data supporting the validity of these cognitive malingering tests by documenting few false positive identifications.


Common Spatial Patterns (CSP) is a feature extraction algorithm widely used in Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) Systems for detecting Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) in multi-channel magneto/electroencephalography (MEG/EEG) time series data. In this article, we develop and apply a CSP algorithm to the problem of identifying whether a given epoch of multi-detector Gravitational Wave (GW) strains contains coalescenses. Paired with Signal Processing techniques and a Logistic Regression classifier, we find that our pipeline is correctly able to detect 76 out of 82 confident events from Gravitational Wave Transient Catalog, using H1 and L1 strains, with a classification score of $93.72 \pm 0.04\%$ using $10 \times 5$ cross validation. The false negative events were: GW170817-v3, GW191219 163120-v1, GW200115 042309-v2, GW200210 092254-v1, GW200220 061928-v1, and GW200322 091133-v1.


Data is presented comparing Gaussian Minimum Shift Keying (GMSK) to Frequency Shift Keying (FSK) for use in the UHF land mobile radio band at 800 MHz. The FSK system uses a Gaussian premodulation filter set at one half the bit Pate. Deviation is set at 0.41 times the bit rate. The FSK receiver has an IF bandwidth of 1.0 times the bit rate and uses discriminator detection. The GMSK system uses coherent detection. Data is presented on the effect of premodulation cutoff frequency and receiver bandwidth on system sensitivity and spectral efficiency. From this data a relationship between channel spacing, frequency stability, IF bandwidth, and transmitter spectrum is derived. Additional data on the performance of the FSK and GMSK systems in Rayleigh fading is presented.


Begins by critically reviewing Vicker's list of reasons why business competition is likely to lead to productive efficiency, and then argues that traditional economic concepts of competition and productive efficiency need to be broadened to take account of dynamics and uncertainty, and of the importance of economic interdependence which is not based on competition. The structuralist approach to competition policy is examined and particular attention is given to the 'structure - conduct- performance' paradigm. It is suggested that competition policy in practice tends to emphasize structure rather than conduct and is highly static in orientation. Although earlier, most members of the Chicago School e.g. Stigler, supported a structuralist approach to competition policy, more recently several Chicago economists have proposed the "efficiency defense" of market concentration, namely that dominance in an industry is almost always a result of superior efficiency. This evolutionary Darwinian-type defence is based on dynamics and converges towards the Schumpeterian view. Hayek, like Schumpeter, had an interest in competitive processes but the competitive models of these two Austrian-trained economists are very different. The model of Schumpeter is open whereas the system of Hayek is relatively closed and unable to take account of the competitive complexities of modem economic systems. Despite Hayek's interest in processes, his recommended competition policy is structuralist in character and similar to Stigler's.


Model-based tutoring systems are driven by an abstract domain model and solver that is used for solution validation and student guidance. Such models are robust but costly to produce and are not always adaptive to specific students' needs. Data-driven methods such as the Hint Factory are comparatively cheaper and can be used to generate individualized hints without a complete domain model. In this paper we explore the application of data-driven hint analysis of the type used in the Hint Factory to existing modelbased systems. We present an analysis of two probability tutors Andes and Pyrenees. The former allows for flexible problem-solving while the latter scaffolds students' solution path. We argue that the state-space analysis can be used to better understand students' problem-solving strategies and can be used to highlight the impact of different design decisions. We also demonstrate the potential for data-driven hint generation across systems.


This thesis approaches a body of 1,428 6x6 cm gelatin silver acetate negatives in the Tibet Museum's photographic archives in Dharamsala, India. This material, labelled "not important" by an archivist at their collecting institution, contains images of the Tibetan community in exile, made by the Tibet Photo Service (TPS) studio between 1962 and 1987. The practical component of this project involves arranging and rehousing the negatives for accessibility and preservation purposes. The theoretical component of this project provides a contextual framework for the TPS medium format negatives, unpacking the reasons behind their exclusion from care and display. Additionally, it engages the negatives as sites of "articulation and aspiration" of the Tibetan exile community. The objects and their images are recontextualized from material that is "not important" to social and political documents that serve as a subjective historical record of the foundational years of the Tibetan community in India.


This study provides a better understanding of small-scale farmers New Product Development (NPD) processes, what activities farmers undertake within and how they work with NPD processes. NPD plays a crucial role in creating and maintaining competitiveness in many industries and its importance has grown over the years due to changing market conditions, also in the agricultural sector. One of the most critical and most important tasks for a firm is the launch and development of new products, moreover, the high frequency of failure of the development of new food products, 72-88% fail at launch, shows that the knowledge of practices for developing new food products needs to be expanded. There is a great potential for the Swedish lamb production to conduct NPD processes, with an animal that produces three different base materials; wool, meat and sheepskin, and having an increased demand for newly developed products.
Previous studies have focused on NPD in large firms and on mostly industrial products. The food product sector has been neglected, which has resulted in a paucity of studies on how small firms can incorporate and work with NPD practices. Moreover, previous research has tried to identify success factors and "the best practices". In those studies, the firm context is treated as static and over-simplified, however, this study sheds light on the matter of NPD processes through a farmers' perspective, fulfilling a gap of knowledge on NPD in the agricultural context. The findings from this study can provide empirical insights that might be valuable to fulfil government's and policymakers' wishes to increase the innovation rate in the agricultural sector of Sweden.
A conceptual framework was developed based on the stage-gate model and a literature review of factors for success when firms engage in innovation projects. By using a qualitative approach based on semi-structured interviews, a multiple case study was conducted on eleven lamb producers on the island of Gotland in Sweden. A conclusion is that the interviewed farmers are most engaged in the activities; development, testing and validation, and consumer relationship when launching the product, and less engaged in scoping, building a business case and post launch review. Moreover, the farmers are more involved in processes within firm- and productrelated factors and are less involved in activities that relate to project- and market-related factors.


An exploration of why companies decline and why so few of the top 500 companies in the US 10 years ago have kept their place. Pascale approaches the question partly by looking at Japanese companies which have remained successful (particularly Honda), partly by a close look at big American companies like Ford and General Electric. His conclusions are that American and British companies tend to be run by small cliques of people who, no matter how hard they work and how determined they are, eventually run out of ideas. He sees that Japanese companies are much more democratically managed and that Honda, for example, positively encourages conflict by divisionizing.


ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to compare the effect of elastic tape (Kinesio tape) to placebo tape or static stretching on delayed onset muscle soreness. Fifty-one untrained female healthy volunteers were randomly assigned into three groups (n = 17/group), elastic tape, placebo tape and stretching group. Muscle soreness was induced by 4 sets of 25 maximal isokinetic (60°.s−1) eccentric contractions of dominant quadriceps on an isokinetic dynamometer. Compared with placebo tape, the elastic tape participants had less muscle soreness at 72 h post-exercise (p = 0.01). The elastic tape also increased isometric strength at 72 h post-exercise compared with the placebo (p = 0.03) and stretching group (p = 0.02). However, there was little effect between groups for changes in thigh circumference, jumping, pressure pain threshold, rate of perceived exertion, creatine kinase activity and joint motion. Elastic taping increased muscle strength recovery and reduced muscle soreness after intensive exercise.


Synchronous messages are usually generated periodically and each of them is required to be transmitted before the generation of the next message. Due to the inherent deficiency in its Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol, an FDDI token ring can use at most one half of its ring bandwidth to transmit such synchronous traffic. This deficiency greatly reduces the FDDI's capability of supporting multimedia applications like real-time voice/video transmissions. In this paper, we show how a few simple modifications to the FDDI's MAC protocol can remove this deficiency and double a ring's ability of supporting synchronous traffic. The modified protocol, called FDDI-M, preserves all other good features of an FDDI network and can also achieve a higher throughput for asynchronous traffic than the standard FDDI and the FDDI-II, thus making it useful even for those networks without heavy synchronous traffic.


Diagnosis of endocrine pancreatic tumor syndromes is based on the characteristic spectrum of symptoms and the demonstration of inappropriately high serum levels of the tumor's secretory products. Available imaging methods cannot visualize pancreatic tumors with a diameter of less than 1 cm and are diagnostic in 50 to 60% only. With the introduction of endoscopic sonography and somatostatin receptor scintigraphy, detection of tumors has been improved. Therapeutic principles include surgical extirpation, primarily in the absence of metastases, and medical control of symptoms. In the case of metastatic disease, tumor growth and symptoms can be controlled by a variety of procedures including somatostatin analogs with and without additional alpha-interferon, polychemotherapy, embolization, surgical tumor debulking and liver transplantation.


Data protection laws are under strain to respond to the continuing advances in information and communications technologies, including now AI technologies. How strictly they regulate the handling of personal information and its effects for human identity varies between jurisdictions, despite efforts to achieve international harmonisation. One such area of disparity between existing data protection laws is on the question of whether some types of data, designated 'sensitive', or 'special', should be subject to stricter legal or practical protection. In this article, we consider the basis on which some categories of data are accorded enhanced protection as sensitive (or special) in modern data protection regimes, and why the categories themselves may vary between jurisdictions. The blurring of the boundaries between 'ordinary' personal data and these sensitive categories through the potential to draw inferences from intensive data processing facilitated by developments in artificial intelligence (and more specifically machine learning), raises important new questions for policymakers.


WHIRLY1 is a chloroplast-nucleus located DNA/RNA-binding protein with functions in development and stress tolerance. By overexpression of HvWHIRLY1 in barley, lines with a 10-and two lines with a 50-fold accumulation of the protein were obtained. In these lines, the relative abundance of the nuclear form exceeded that of the chloroplast form indicating that over-accumulating WHIRLY1 exceeded the amount that chloroplasts can sequester. Growth of the plants was shown to be compromised in a WHIRLY1 abundance-dependent manner. Over-accumulation of WHIRLY1 in chloroplasts had neither an evident impact on nucleoid morphology nor on the composition of the photosynthetic apparatus. Nevertheless, oeW1 plants were found to be compromised in the efficiency of photosynthesis. The reduction in growth and photosynthesis was shown to be accompanied by a decrease in the levels of cytokinins and an increase in the level of jasmonic acid. Gene expression analyses revealed that already in non-stress conditions the oeW1 plants had enhanced levels of pathogen response (PR) gene expression indicating activation of constitutive defense. During growth in continuous light of high irradiance, PR1 expression further increased in addition to an increase in the expression of PR10 and of the gene encoding phenylalanine lyase (PAL), the key enzyme of salicylic acid biosynthesis in barley. The activation of defense gene expression in oeW1 plants coincided with an enhanced resistance towards powdery mildew, which in barley is independent of salicylic acid. Taken together, the results show that over-accumulation of WHIRLY1 in barley to levels of 10 or more, amplified the tradeoff between growth and stress resistance.


Vibration is one of the most common faults for hydropower units; traditional signal processing methods can not effectively extract the eigenvectors of the fault signals. In this paper, using wavelet packet analyze the spectrum of the vibration signals for hydropower units, extracting the frequency eigenvectors of the signal and use them as the classification data, taking good advantage of the feature of the data and extracting the quantified values of the contribution which the indicators made to classifications, what's more, taking the weighted distances in place of Euclidean distances, establishing the iterative algorithm to search optimal representative points. Therefore, we can apply this algorithm to diagnosis the fault for hydropower units. The experiment results shows that it is very appropriate for us to use the proposed method to diagnosis the vibration fault for hydropower units. Keywords-Wavelet packe; Data-driven; Hydropower units; Vibration; Fault diagnosis


An updated and annotated checklist of the spiders of Iraq, currently comprising 104 species in 75 genera and 29 families is presented, including six endemic and four subendemic species. Twenty-three records are considered misidentifications and therefore omitted from the checklist. Where possible, the misidentified records are attributed to other species based on their distribution and morphology; as a result of this, three species are recorded in Iraq for the first time: Dictis striatipes L. Koch, 1872 (Scytodidae), Hippasa deserticola Simon, 1889 (Lycosidae) and Latrodectus cinctus Blackwall, 1865 (Theridiidae). The history of studies and the geographical distribution of records are reviewed and discussed. The list is dominated by members of the families Gnaphosidae, Lycosidae, and Salticidae, comprising 15.4%, 13.5% and 10.6% of the total number of species, respectively.


The case study is a very popular pedagogical tool in management education, especially in international business, marketing and strategy courses. Substantial literature exists about the effectiveness of case studies, but there is a lack of studies on empirical evaluation of their effectiveness in the classroom and subsequent contribution to learning. This study explores how case studies perform in meeting the twin deliverables of providing a theoretical framework and also student engagement. This study evaluates the role of Theoretical Breadth (TB) and Student Engagement (SE) in contributing to learning in a case-based pedagogy. The paper argues that the TB and SE leads to perceptions of learning and influences learning effectiveness. Using data collected from 176 MBA students, the paper conducts a PLS-SEM analysis to investigate these effects. Results indicate that TB and SE are critical course design elements, which influence the overall learning of marketing courses using case methods. Instructors must aim to provide greater TB and better opportunities for SE in order to make marketing courses more fruitful to students.


This study examined the impact of after sales service on customer satisfaction and retention with special reference to LG electronics in Ibadan, Nigeria. The population of the study covered selected distributors and customers of LG Electronics in Ibadan.The sample size for this study was sixty (60) respondents who were randomly selected from ten (10) LG electronics distributors and fifty (50) of their customers respectively. The instrument used in this study is a close-ended questionnaire that was designed by the researchers.Ordinary least squares multiple regression analysis was used to analyze the data. The result showed that the predictor variables (i.e Product delivery, installation and warranty) were significantly joint predictors of customer satisfaction and retentionwith( F( 3, 57) = 123.32; R = 0.875; P<.05). The predictor variables jointly explained 87.5% of customer satisfaction and retention, while the remaining 12.5.% could be due to the effect of extraneous variables. Subsequently, recommendation was made to the management of LG electronics to set up more after sales service departments to the existing ones with experience staff with the view of developing long term relationship with the customers.


We describe the case of a 36-year-old man presenting with cognitive impairment and personality change. General paresis of the insane, the chronic cerebral parenchymatous form of neurosyphilis, was diagnosed. MRI showed the typical severe frontotemporal atrophy. Despite antibiotic treatment his mental state further declined. General paresis is rare and diagnosis is difficult because of the non-specific neuropsychiatric symptoms. Early diagnosis and treatment are important.


The spread of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has claimed millions of lives. Automatic segmentation of lesions from CT images can assist doctors with screening, treatment, and monitoring. However, accurate segmentation of lesions from CT images can be very challenging due to data and model limitations. Recently, Transformer-based networks have attracted a lot of attention in the area of computer vision, as Transformer outperforms CNN at a bunch of tasks. In this work, we propose a novel network structure that combines CNN and Transformer for the segmentation of COVID-19 lesions. We further propose an efficient semi-supervised learning framework to address the shortage of labeled data. Extensive experiments showed that our proposed network outperforms most existing networks and the semi-supervised learning framework can outperform the base network by 3.0% and 8.2% in terms of Dice coefficient and sensitivity.


In art diagnostics it is often needed to compare and integrate different sets of information, coming from different sources, and stored in different images. In order to successfully integrate these data, images corresponding to the same areas need to be registered, that is a geometrical transformation that aligns points in one picture with corresponding points in another picture needs to be found and applied. In this paper we present an automatic registration technique for multispectral images, based on the computation of mutual information. We applied this method to obtain RGB images from multispectral data, and derive a (undersampled) spectral signature per pixel of the painting.


Background Cross-sectional studies have shown an independent association between receptive anal sex and active syphilis among men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender women (TW). This study sought to evaluate the relationship between role in anal sex and incident syphilis in a cohort of MSM/TW in Lima, Peru. Methods We are conducting an observational cohort study of MSM/TW recruited from two STI clinics. In quarterly follow-up visits, participants provide behavioural data, and serologic testing is performed for HIV and syphilis. Participants' roles in anal sex reported at baseline were categorised as insertive, receptive or versatile. Participants with active syphilis (i.e. RPR titer ≥1/16 and TPPA ≥1:80) were treated according to CDC guidelines. We evaluated the relationship between anal sex role and incident syphilis with a multivariate logistic regression model using generalised estimating equations for longitudinal data. Results At baseline, among the 401 participants, mean age was 31.6 years (SD 9.6); when asked about their role in anal sex, 32%, 46% and 22% reported being receptive, versatile and insertive, respectively. Prevalence of active syphilis was 22% at baseline; incidence was 18% and 23% at the third and sixth follow-up visits, respectively. In multivariate analysis, after controlling for age, education, employment, income, gender identity, number of sexual partners, alcohol/drug use, unprotected sex, and HIV, the odds for incident syphilis were higher among people who had defined their anal sex role as receptive (aOR = 2.48 (95% CI 1.23–5.02)) or versatile (aOR = 2.38 (95% CI 1.27–4.47)) as compared to the insertive role. Conclusions MSM/TW who defined their role in anal sex as receptive or versatile showed a significantly higher syphilis incidence in this longitudinal analysis. Further research is needed to assess whether this association can be explained by behavioural/sexual networking patterns, the existence of a biological substrate, or both. Disclosure of interest statement All authors declare no conflicts of interest.


This paper deals with the filtering problem for discrete-time fuzzy stochastic systems with sensor nonlinearities. There exist time-varying parameter uncertainties and random noise depending on state and external-disturbance. The characteristic of nonlinear sensor is handled by a decomposition method. By means of the parallel distributed compensation technique, the design method of the robust H_ filter is presented. Sufficient conditions for the stochastic stability of the filtering error systems are derived such that the filter parameters can be explicitly obtained. Simulation results are given to illustrate the proposed method.


The purpose of the study was to determine the development progress towards teachers in the Medan Aviation Management Vocational School. To determine the effect of competence on the performance of teachers in SMK Flight Management Medan. To find out career development and competence on teacher performance in SMK Flight Management Medan. The population is all teachers obtained by 41 people. The sampling technique is total sampling. The research results obtained from positive and significant career development on teacher performance. Positive competence does not significantly influence teacher performance. Improved teacher performance significantly and significantly to teacher performance.


Energy transfer dynamics pertinent to Ho:Tm lasers are modeled in two steps: a calculation of the parameters controlling the energy transfer process and a calculation of the population densities of all manifolds influencing the laser process. Energy transfer parameters are modeled with the classical dipole-dipole approximation, but several important changes are implemented to better describe laser materials such as Ho:Tm laser materials. This approach was used to calculate energy transfer parameters using measured energy levels coupled with quantum mechanical calculations although spectroscopically measured parameters could be used in principle. Given the energy transfer parameters, a rate equation approach is used with the eight manifolds required for an accurate description of the Ho:Tm laser. Population densities of all eight manifolds can be predicted as a function of time whether or not lasing occurs. Results of the modeling process are compared with experimental results for both Ho:Tm:YAG and Ho:Tm:YLF with different concentration and a variety of different mirror reflectivities and different pump pulse lengths in a companion paper.


Research on situated multiagent systems (situated MAS) investigates decentralized architectures for software systems that have to deal with highly dynamic operating conditions. To realize the system requirements, the agents of a situated MAS have to coordinate their behavior. The agent environment provides a means to mediate (i.e., enable and constrain) agents' activities in the system. Laws embedded in the agent environment allow to define application specific constrains on agents activities. In this paper, we declaratively specify the semantics of laws for perception, action, and communication in situated MAS. We illustrate the laws with concrete examples in an automated transportation system that we have developed. Mediation of agents' activities via the agent environment improves separation of concerns in MAS and helps to manage complexity, especially in open and pervasive environments.


The main purpose of this study is to present a methodology for mapping and monitoring temporal signatures of Mediterranean crops over several years in irrigated areas, and to study their inter‐annual dynamics. These goals were achieved by remote sensing using 36 Landsat images from 2002 to 2005. Four crop maps, one for each year, with six agricultural categories and a thematic accuracy of 93%, 95%, 96% and 94% were obtained using a hybrid classifier. A mean of nine images produced these highly accurate results, but the absence of one image in the growth period of 2002 resulted in lower accuracies, particularly in fruit trees (85% of user accuracy). This highlights the importance of a multi‐temporal approach based on a relatively large number of images. After the classification results were validated, two parameters were used to characterize the dynamics of the four crops (rice, maize, alfalfa and fruit trees): greenness, extracted from the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), and wetness, calculated from the Tasselled Cap Wetness (TCW) Index. In order to differentiate the wetness origin of crops, an analysis of local daily precipitation (which could cause significant anomalies in the TCW coefficients) and water stored in the Susqueda reservoir (which may result in farmers making important management decisions when water is limited) was conducted during this four‐year period. After applying statistical analysis, the results showed that, of the four crops analysed, rice, alfalfa and fruit trees had more stable dynamics than maize, which was planted later in case of water deficit at the beginning of the irrigation campaign (in 2002) and earlier when the deficit occurred later (in 2005).


A controllable heterostructure consisting of ZnO nanorod arrays with attached Ag nanoparticles at only one end has been synthesized via a facile and convenient galvanic reduction method. Scanning electron microscopic images of these nanostructures showed good selectivity of Ag deposition on the tip of ZnO nanorod arrays. The formation of these regular AgZnO heterogeneous nanorod arrays can be explained by a localization of the electrons at the ends of the ZnO nanorods after the electron transfer step. By tuning the reaction time and the concentration of silver nitrate, the density of Ag nanoparticles on the tip of ZnO nanorods can be well controlled. Owing to the introduction of Ag nanoparticles with different densities, the resulting AgZnO heterogeneous nanorod arrays have been proved to be a versatile substrate for surface-enhanced Raman scattering not only for common organic molecules but also for label-free protein detection. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


The paper presents the author's views on one underlying cause of the current financial crisis: the erroneous assessment of risk by market participants. We argue that besides other convincing explanations of the causes behind the recent financial turmoil such as loose government and central bank policies, the process of market liberalization, investors' appetite for risk and excessive financial modeling, we need to recognize the fact that underassessment of risk by market participants and policy makers is a major cause for the current crises, as for previous ones. This underestimation of risk comes largely as a result of two realities: first, risk magnitude was not entirely known by market participants, due to an interlinking of securities, structures, and derivatives built around the subprime mortgages; second, market participants ignored these risks to a large extent, in a world were access to financial markets was as easy as never before.


This paper considers the design of cross-layer opportunistic transport protocols for stored video over wireless networks with a slow varying (average) capacity. We focus on two key principles: 1) scheduling data transmissions when capacity is high; and 2) exploiting knowledge of future capacity variations. The latter is possible when users' mobility is known or predictable, for example, users riding on public transportation or using navigation systems. We consider the design of cross-layer transmission schedules, which minimize system utilization (and, thus, possibly transmit/receive energy) while avoiding, if at all possible, rebuffering/delays in several scenarios. For the single-user anticipative case where all future capacity variations are known beforehand, we establish the optimal transmission schedule in a generalized piecewise constant thresholding (GPCT) scheme. For the single-user partially anticipative case where only a finite window of future capacity variations is known, we propose an online greedy fixed horizon control (GFHC). An upper bound on the competitive ratio of GFHC and GPCT is established showing how performance loss depends on the window size, receiver playback buffer, and capacity variability. We also consider the multiuser case where one can exploit both future temporal and multiuser diversity. Finally, we investigate the impact of uncertainty in knowledge of future capacity variations, and propose an offline approach as well as an online algorithm to deal with such uncertainty. Our simulations and evaluation based on a measured wireless capacity trace exhibit robust potential gains for our proposed transmission schemes.


AIM
Dependence of the melatonin-evoked potentiation of the rat tail artery neurogenic reactivity on degree of the change in the reactivity was studied.

METHOD
Electrical field stimulation-evoked contractile response of the juvenile rat tail artery segment under isometric conditions was recorded. 0.1 mum melatonin was administered after the change in the response produced both spontaneously and by acidification (pH 6.6) or alkalinization (pH 7.8) of the solution.

RESULTS
During the course of experiment, the contraction force continuously declined, being reduced by 12 +/- 5, 24 +/- 7 and 32 +/- 6% at 20, 70, and 170 min after beginning of experiment, respectively. Melatonin applied at these time points increased the contraction by 20 +/- 5, 41 +/- 10, and 48 +/- 8%, respectively, relative to control. This increase in potentiating effect of melatonin during the course of experiment was not because of sensitization of the segment to the hormone. Acidosis-induced considerable decline in neurogenic contraction was counteracted by melatonin, while after alkalosis-induced augmentation in the contraction the hormone was not effective. Melatonin increased the artery response to 0.1 mum noradrenaline.

CONCLUSION
These data suggest that melatonin can restore an attenuated neurogenic reactivity of the juvenile rat tail artery. The effect is more pronounced with further decrease in reactivity and might be due to a change in sensitivity of the post-junctional membrane to noradrenaline.


Northern peatlands are typical nitrogen-limited ecosystems, which are sensitive to global climate change and human activities. The increases of endogenous available nitrogen caused by climate warming and exogenous nitrogen input caused by human activities changed the nitrogen availability of northern peatlands, and would affect carbon and nitrogen cycling and carbon sink function of peatland. Here, we review the influence factors of carbon accumulation rate and carbon sink function in northern peatlands. The effects of nitrogen deposition, freezing and thawing, fire and other factors on nitrogen availability of northern peatlands were reviewed. The responses of plants and soil microorganisms to changes in nitrogen availability were elaborated from carbon fixation and carbon emission processes, respectively. The research related to carbon sink function of peat ecosystems under the influence of glo-bal change was prospected, aiming to help the implementation of the 'double carbon' goal.


To assess the feasibility of the clinical use of 3 Tesla and 7 Tesla Magnetic Resonance Imaging for early (cT1) glottic carcinoma, including structural assessment of technical image quality and visibility of the tumor; and if feasible, to correlate MRI findings to routine diagnostics.


Purpose

To examine how art is shaped by war, outside of the official commemorative projects of the First World War. The purpose of this paper is to examine the experience of a surgeon/artist who knew first-hand the horror of industrial scale of destruction. It speculates on how his medical education and surgical knowledge in the treatment of the casualties informed his art and considers how such scientific discourses may have contributed to a new modernist language.

Design/methodology/approach

The double career of J.W. Power – a surgeon then an artist – provides a case study to probe such questions. The paper speculates about the connections between these different careers, and considers the implications of becoming an artist for someone who had pre-war university-training, medical expertise and experience as a war surgeon. In particular, consideration is given to how surgical knowledge and contemporary medical debates may have informed a group of later paintings.

Findings

A group of J.W. Power's late paintings stand apart from his other subjects as they suggest states of physical or psychological damage. Indeed by the 1930s shell shock was recognised as a war-related psychological injury. These paintings then may not only be an act of remembrance, but also potentially a reflection on that new discourse.

Research limitations/implications

It remains a compelling idea that by the 1930s Power had found a modern abstract language capable of revisiting the traumatic subject of his hospital sketches. The implications of the war-time surgery on his art was delayed and remains highly ambiguous, however it invites, indeed encourages, such speculation.

Originality/value

The paper is the first to examine the cultural impact of the medical career of the artist J.W. Power. His medical training and experience as a war-time surgeon is shown to have been significant to his later painting, for he knew the regenerative powers of modern surgery, of how such knowledge had the power to repair and to heal.


The author of the article examined the mechanisms of bird settlements in the park territories of Kazan for the first time. Earlier such researches on the territory of the Republic of Tatarstan were not realized. In this work species composition of birds is defined seasonally from the first days of creation of the land-scape. The author analyses vegetation change and succession processes which demonstrate vegetation communi-ties and avifauna from their evolution from formation to steady condition.


We use unitarity techniques to compute the two-loop non-planar corrections to the Sudakov form factor and the four-point amplitude in ABJM theory. We start by reconstructing non-planar integrals from two-particle cuts in three dimensions. This causes ambiguities, due to the one-loop four-point amplitude being subleading in dimensional regularization. We provide a prescription to circumvent them and show that it leads to the correct results, as checked against the recent Feynman diagram computation. For the amplitude we point out an alternative basis of integrals, including a non-planar double-box with a numerator inspired by color-kinematics duality. We reproduce the result using a combination thereof with the coefficients fixed by generalized unitarity. For BLG theory we propose that this gives the form of the amplitude satisfying color-kinematics duality. Finally, we compute the complete two-loop amplitude of three-dimensional N = 8 SYM, and the corresponding four-point amplitude in N = 16 supergravity as a double copy.


Vemurafenib is an inhibitor of BRAF and is used to treat patients with metastatic melanoma who carry a V600E BRAF mutation. Recently, four patients have been described in the literature who developed a neutrophilic panniculitis following treatment with a BRAF inhibitor. We present an additional case and review the clinical findings of the cases reported to date.


Objectives: Response shift refers to the changes in the meaning of self-evaluation of quality of life (QoL) as a result of changes in internal standards of measurement (recalibration), changes in relative importance of component domains of quality of life (reprioritisation) or redefinitions of QoL (reconceptualisation). Response shift can therefore undermine the comparison of QoL within individuals over time and between individuals, for example when assessing treatment effects. The aim of this research was to investigate response shift in people with dentine hypersensitivity (DH).
Methods: Two studies were conducted. A quantitative study investigated recalibration and its influence on the assessment of treatment effect in 114 participants of an 8-week randomised controlled trial of mouthwashes for DH. Two approaches: the THEN TEST and a novel approach; the IDEALS were incorporated into the Dentine Hypersensitivity Experience Questionnaire (DHEQ) to assess recalibration. A qualitative study longitudinally explored response shift and its underlying psychosocial mechanisms in 20 individuals with self-reported DH. Two semi-structured interviews were conducted 6-9 months apart and Framework analysis was used to analyse the transcripts.
Results: The quantitative study found recalibration in the treatment groups. The THEN TEST indicated a downward shift in participants' internal standards of measurement whereas the IDEALS suggested a shift upwards. Individuals shifted upwards, downwards and not at all. Additionally, recalibration was similar in the treatment and placebo groups. Accounting for recalibration reduced the apparent treatment effect in all groups. In the qualitative study two main findings emerged. First, the study described adaptation to DH and its influence on the assessment of oral health related quality of life (OHQoL). Second, a modified model of response shift emerged that distinguished between the influence of adaptation and measurement error on the assessment of QoL.
Conclusion: The two studies described response shift, its psychosocial determinants and influence on the assessment of treatment effects in people with DH as an example of a mild health condition. Moreover, the two studies challenged the current conceptualisation and the dominant approach to the measurement of the phenomenon. A modified model of response shift was proposed and a novel way of its assessment, the IDEALS was initially validated.


Context. Relativistic models of light propagation adopted for high-precision astrometry are based on the parametrised post-Newtonian formalism, which provides a framework for examining the effects of a hypothetical violation of general relativity on astrometric data. Astrometric observations are strongly affected by the post-Newtonian (PPN) parameter γ describing the strength of gravitational light deflection. Aims. We study both analytically and numerically how a deviation in the PPN parameter γ from unity, which is the value predicted by general relativity, affects the parallax estimations in Gaia -like astrometry. Methods. Changes in the observable quantities produced by a small variation in PPN γ were calculated analytically. We then considered how such variations of the observables are reflected in the parallax estimations, and we performed numerical simulations to check the theoretical predictions. Results. A variation in the PPN γ results in a global shift of parallaxes and we present a formula describing the parallax bias in terms of the satellite barycentric distance, the angle between the spin axis and the direction to the Sun, and the PPN γ uncertainty. Numerical simulations of the astrometric solutions confirm the theoretical result. The up-to-date estimation of PPN γ suggests that a corresponding contribution to the Gaia parallax zero point unlikely exceeds 0.2 µ as. The numerical simulations indicate that the parallax shift is strongly dependent on ecliptic latitude. It is argued that this effect is due to an asymmetry in the Gaia scanning law and this conclusion is fully validated by additional simulations with a reversed direction of the precession of the spin axis around the direction to the Sun.


SUMMARY: An oligotrich protozoon identified as Eudiplodinium medium was separated in pure culture and inoculated into the rumen of an isolated ciliate-free buffalo (Bos bubalus L.) calf to act as a continuous source of the organism. Analysis of the protozoa showed that a single organism contained on average 3.35 + 0.003 μg. protein; the carbohydrate fraction (49.1% of dry matter) gave on hydrolysis 60.4% glucose. Growth rate of the protozoa in vitro was dependent on food concentration. The number of protozoa was doubled in 2 hr at a substrate concentration of 0.23 mg./protozoon; at lower concentrations the doubling time was greater; at higher concentrations (0.32 mg./protozoon) the organisms burst.
Eudiplodinium medium did not metabolize simple sugars; it utilized starch, amylopectin, amylose and showed highest activity with hemicelluloses. Xylans were degraded faster than arabans; xylans gave relatively lower amounts of volatile acids than did arabans; acetic and butyric acids predominated, formic acid and traces of propionic and lactic acids were found but no succinic acid. No cellulose digestion took place during incubation for 12 hr; with longer periods of incubation with cellulose the organisms died. Ammonium salts, urea and amino acids were not used by the protozoa; proteolytic activity was observed towards gelatin, casein and gluten in descending order of activity. Cell-free extracts of E. medium showed activities towards carbohydrates as did whole organisms; xylanase activity was greatest. This enzyme was purified 28-fold; it had an optimum pH of 7.5 and an optimum temperature of 43°.


It was shown that microscopic fungi isolated in plague foci had an antagonistic effect on the plague causative agent. In the majority of the cases it was associated with their insecticidal activity against plague-transmitting fleas. It is expedient to consider the relations revealed between the burrow biocenosis components in investigation of plague enzootic aspects and development of new biological insecticides for control of the infection carriers.


Gemcitabine and paclitaxel are new cytotoxic agents that have been used both as single agents and in combination, particularly with cisplatin, in the therapy of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with promising results. The lack of overlapping toxicities and different mechanisms of action of gemcitabine and paclitaxel make the combination of these drugs appealing in the treatment of NSCLC. A number of phase I and II trials are evaluating the use of this combination of cytotoxic agents as first-line therapy and as second-line therapy in patients with advanced NSCLC. In ongoing phase II trials using a 21-day schedule, the combination of gemcitabine and paclitaxel therapy appears to be well-tolerated, with response rates ranging from 29% to 58% and hematologic toxicities that are mild to moderate in severity. Other reported toxicities included alopecia, fatigue, and flu-like symptoms, which were also mild to moderate. However, grade 2/3 neurotoxicity was also reported. In conclusion, preliminary results from these early phase II trials of gemcitabine/paclitaxel combination therapy in advanced NSCLC are encouraging.


The current study was conducted to determine the risk of adverse outcomes among patients with monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS) of the IgM class. Two hundred thirteen patients with IgM MGUS were identified in southeastern Minnesota from 1960 to 1994. The primary end point was progression to lymphoma or a related disorder assessed by the Kaplan-Meier method. Patients were followed for a total of 1,567 person-years (median, 6.3 years per subject). Seventeen patients developed lymphoma (relative risk [RR], 14.8) and six progressed to Waldenstrom's macroglobulinemia (RR, 262), while three developed primary amyloidosis (RR, 16.3) and three others had chronic lymphocytic leukemia (RR, 5.7). The relative risk of progression was 16-fold higher in the IgM MGUS patients compared to the white population of the Iowa Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program. The risk of progression of MGUS of IgM type to lymphoma or related disorders averaged 1.5% per year throughout the period of observation.


The identification of B-cell epitopes that elicit an antigen-specific immune response is essential for a variety of immunodetection and immunotherapeutic applications, including the development of safe and high efficacy vaccines. Identifying diagnostically or therapeutically useful epitopes is a difficult, time-consuming, and resource-intensive procedure. In silico prediction of B-cell epitope has gained immense attention in recent years due to its low cost, fast results, and less labor-intensive method compared to NMR spectroscopy and 3D X-ray structural analysis of antibody-antigen complexes. However, one of the major problems that most established models confront is gathering huge volumes of data. Moreover, most models do not achieve high levels of accuracy. The current work is the first to propose the 'Fuzzy' approach to in silico B-cell epitope prediction. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated on severely imbalanced and limited datasets through several experiments. The results show that using the proposed method enhances both accuracy and precision when compared to existing approaches. Further, the model is tested on the SARS-CoV-1 antigen-antibody PDB complex. The proposed approach outperforms state-of-the-art machine learning (ML) models trained on the same dataset. Results obtained indicate that applying the proposed method improves the prediction compared to the other approaches.


An unexpected rotational distribution of the ground electronic state OH(X 2Π) was observed by laser-induced fluorescence in a surface barrier discharge in contact with a liquid water interface. Analysis assuming a Boltzmann distribution yielded an unrealistically high rotational temperature above 600 K in the post-discharge phase. This is interpreted as a quasi-Boltzmann rotational distribution that is not in equilibrium with the translational temperature of the background gas. While the peculiarities of rotational distribution of excited OH(A 2Σ+) are known, the presented results show that even the ground electronic state OH(X 2Π) does not always have to be a reliable indicator for spectroscopic thermometry in plasmas containing water. A series of similar observations challenges the usual approach in kinetic models, when the rotational distribution is assumed to follow the Boltzmann function with the temperature of surrounding gas.


Multiple-glycosylated glycosides are a major source of bioactive leads. However, most of the currently reported glycosyltransferases (GTases) mainly catalyze glycosylation of aglycones without sugar group substitution. GTases accepting diverse glycosides as substrates are rarely reported. In this article, a new GTase UGT71BD1 was identified from Cistanche tubulosa, a desert herb plant abundant with various phenylethanoid glycosides (PhGs). Interestingly, UGT71BD1 showed no activity toward the aglycone of PhGs. Instead, it could catalyze the further glycosylation of PhG compounds to produce new phenylethanoid multiglycosylated glycosides, including the natural rarely separated tetraglycoside PhGs. Extensive assays found the unprecedented substrate promiscuity of UGT71BD1 toward diverse glycosides including flavonoid glycosides, stilbene glycosides, and coumarin glycosides, performing further mono- or diglycosylation with efficient conversion rates. Using UGT71BD1, six multiglycosylated glycosides were prepared and structurally identified by NMR spectroscopy. These products showed enhanced pharmacological activities compared with the substrates. Docking, dynamic simulation, and mutagenesis studies identified key residues for UGT71BD1's activity and revealed that the sugar modules in glycosides play crucial roles in substrate recognition, thus partly illuminating the unusual substrate preference of UGT71BD1 toward diverse glycosides. UGT71BD1 could be a potential enzyme tool for glycosylation of diverse glycosides.


Media File Jacking (MFJ) is one security threat that affects media file usages within apps. Media files include image files, voice/audio files, video files and document files like pdf, docs, excel sheets, text files, etc. and these files easily find its place within our devices. The primary symptom of a Media File Jacking attack is that it will manipulate the media files, on transferring between users or apps. This type of malwares mainly targets mobile devices. The researchers from Symantec reported that this vulnerability has already found its way into the two top social media messaging apps namely, WhatsApp and Telegram. Not just limited to this, media file jacking can easily target mobile functioning's whilst managing affected media files and its managed media chat apps. This analysis in detail tries to understand the vulnerabilities that devices are left exposed to via Media file jacking and how can protect Android based mobile devise with the help of existing, upcoming, configurable or programmable features. We try to cover in detail on i.) What Media file jacking attack is? ii.) How this vulnerability is created? iii.) Under which scenario this will happen iv.) What are the different types of attacks? iv.) What are the implications of this attack? v.) what are precautionary measures and how we can mark safe our mobile devices from this attack. This study mainly help to Android media app users and app develops to get a glance about the precautionary measures from media file jacking attack


Our natural bone and tooth tissues are based on a complex hierarchical structure utilizing collagen fibers bundled together with proteins and reinforced with ceramic mineral crystals such as hydroxyapatite. Furthermore, fine-tuning of the composition and structural features allows building layered structures such as cancellous porous bone covered by a high-density hard cortical bone or an elastic dentine core of a tooth with a hard enamel surface layer. These lead to optimal performance. In modern restorative dentistry, the aim is to match properties of the restoration and the tooth to achieve good long-term performance. Multicomponent composites are developed with biomimetic scope, i.e. to mimic natural tooth structure and function. Conventionally particulate filler composites (PFC) are used but more recently such as short fiber-reinforced composites (SFRC) and nanofiller composites have been developed. Furthermore, current composites utilize light, chemicals or their combination for curing. By composite approach several advantageous properties of biomaterials have been achieved such as greater stiffness, higher elastic limits, higher fracture resistance and lower wear.Different materials and composites have emerged in 3D-printing techniques in medical industry and even clinical practice allowing producing well-controlled designs with complex structure, composition and shapes. 3D printing is currently used to fabricate, e.g. surgical tools and guides, patient-specific surgical models, removable dentures, splints, scaffolds, facial prostheses and orthodontic aligners. The use of these materials and products is slowly moving from temporary to permanent restorations.


This study aims to obtain empirical evidence that explains the influence of the Ministry's Financial Performance on BPK Opinion. The dependent variable of the Republic of Indonesia BPK Opinion is proxied to be WTP, WDP, TW, and TMP while the independent variable is proxied into four Financial Performance indicators consisting of Income Effectiveness, Efficiency Expenditure, Liquidity Ratio and Solvability Ratio. This study uses linear regression analysis. The population in this study were 34 Audited Financial Reports and BPK Audit Report on Ministries in Indonesia from 2015 to 2017. The samples in this study amounted to 102 Audited Financial Reports at 34 Ministries in Indonesia. The research data was obtained from the publication of the BPK RI Information and Documentation Management Officer. The results provide that Income Effectiveness, Liquidity Ratio and Solvability Ratio did not significantly influence on BPK Opinion. While efficiency of ministry expenditure has a significant effect on the provision of BPK Opinion on the Ministry's Financial Statements in Indonesia.


Natural killer (NK) cells can mediate effector functions as cytokine production and degranulation dependent cytotoxicity against cells that have become aberrant by mutagenesis or by infection. As part of the innate immunity, the NK cells are most important in the direct early defense against infections, and also in indirect shaping of the later adaptive response. NK cells monitor cells by the use of inhibitory and activating receptors which interact with MHC class I and other ligands, some of which can be induced during cellular stress or by infections. The net outcome of the signals transduced via the inhibitory and activating receptors will either lead to activation of the NK cells and delivery of effector functions, or if the inhibitory signals predominate the NK cell will leave the target cell unaffected and continue to screen other cells. The most important ligands for NK cell inhibitory receptors are the major histocompability complex (MHC) class I molecules. One important feature of the system is that the NK cell in its quest of seeking out and destroying aberrant cells does not kill or harm cells which are healthy, a mechanism that is referred to as NK cell self-tolerance. Tolerance is in part maintained by the expression of self MHC class I molecules on normal cells which NK cells interact with continuously. However, upon an infection, cellular mutagenesis or dysfunction, the MHC class I expression can be impaired, rendering cells susceptible to NK cell attack. This is referred to as missing self recognition. NK cells can also attack cells from other individuals, e.g. after haematopoetic transplantation. Even though allogeneic cells express MHC class I molecules, they often fail to present the "self" MHC class I molecules that the NK system has been educated to scan for. Many, but not all, tumors downregulate MHC class I expression or upregulate activating ligands for NK cells. Tumor cells are therefore often not recognized as aberrant cells by the NK cells. The first studies in this thesis have utilized mice expressing different single MHC class I genes in order to characterize the quantitative and qualitative impact that different MHC class I alleles have on the education of missing self recognition by NK cells. In particular, these studies focused on the influence of host MHC on expression of inhibitory NK cell receptors in the Ly49 family. A second set of studies addressed whether, once tolerance has been established by MHC guided education, it is possible to break it by antibody blockade of inhibitory Ly49 receptors in such a way that tumor rejection is induced or enhanced, while tolerance is maintained towards healthy cells? The focus was then set on NK cell inhibitory receptors in interactions with dendritic cells (DCs). These studies addressed whether NK cells can discriminate between mature and naive DCs, and in particular the role played by the non-classical MHC molecule Qa-1 on dendritic cells in interactions with NKG2A NK cells? A final series of studies addressed whether two main effector functions, IFNsecretion and degranulation (associated with cytotoxicity), are coordinately regulated during NK cell maturation and under different conditions of stimulation Different MHC class I alleles exerted different educating impact for missing self recognition (the strength by which NK cells reject cells missing the relevant MHC gene). Furthermore, the observations suggested some rules for how this impact is affected when two or more MHC class I alleles are expressed together. The data also suggested that the educating impact of each MHC gene depends on the number of educated NK cells as well as the efficacy state that each NK cell has been educated to by the gene. Regarding attempts to interfere with NK cell tolerance, the studies demonstrated that blockade of the inhibitory NK cell Ly49C/I receptors in B6 mice induced NK cell mediated elimination of MHC class I expressing tumor cells without breaking of tolerance towards autologous healthy haematopoetic cells. This effect persisted during continuous receptor blockade for two week. Tolerance of NK cells towards mature autologous DCs depended on the interaction of the inhibitory receptor NKG2A and the ligand Qa-1 on the DCs. Last but not least, studies at the single cell level demonstrated that secretion of IFNand degranulation in response to different stimuli are not coordinately regulated within the total NK cell population. The effector response was influenced by activation status as well as maturation stage, the latter defined by different expression patterns of the surface markers CD27 and Mac-1.


Abstract:Samuel Fosso's self-portrait as The Chief: He Who Sold Africa to the Colonists is one of the artist's most iconic works. Shot in 1997, Fosso created this photograph just a few years after his rise to international fame, at a time when the larger discursive category of "contemporary African art" was taking shape in the global art world. This article explores how, in this context, The Chief's satirical content became entangled with the idea of "selling Africa" that is expressed in its title. In this image, Fosso thoroughly satirizes the notion of "selling Africa" through his shrewd manipulation of multiple figural stereotypes. However, key moments in the afterlife of this image suggest that this work was mobilized to perform exactly that function of "selling Africa," which it so insistently parodies.


The zinc-finger transcription factor Senseless is co-expressed with basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) proneural proteins in Drosophila sensory organ precursors and is required for their normal development. High levels of Senseless synergize with bHLH proteins and upregulate target gene expression, whereas low levels of Senseless act as a repressor in vivo. However, the molecular mechanism for this dual role is unknown. Here, we show that Senseless binds bHLH proneural proteins via its core zinc fingers and is recruited by proneural proteins to their target enhancers to function as a co-activator. Some point mutations in the Senseless zinc-finger region abolish its DNA-binding ability but partially spare the ability of Senseless to synergize with proneural proteins and to induce sensory organ formation in vivo. Therefore, we propose that the structural basis for the switch between the repressor and co-activator functions of Senseless is the ability of its core zinc fingers to interact physically with both DNA and bHLH proneural proteins. As Senseless zinc fingers are ∼90% identical to the corresponding zinc fingers of its vertebrate homologue Gfi1, which is thought to cooperate with bHLH proteins in several contexts, the Senseless/bHLH interaction might be evolutionarily conserved.