Analytical customer relationship management (CRM) systems, which can discover knowledge from huge amount of data, play a crucial role in decision support. However, while most researches in CRM mainly focus on data mining, relatively few research papers on detailed architectures for analytical CRM systems have been published. In this paper, a practical process driven architecture of building analytical CRM systems is proposed. This architecture is based on the typical CRM analysis process and integrates with multilevel secure (MLS) data model to ensure the efficiency and timeliness of provision of right information to the right users. Furthermore, through a case study of a real-world analytical CRM implementation project in the bank industry, an analytical CRM solution using the proposed architecture has been developed and received approvable ratings from our client, which demonstrates the feasibility of this architecture.


Summary form only given. The operation of a new coherent tunable FIR-THz source has been demonstrated. The device makes use of the electron beam in a scanning electron microscope (SEM) and a diffraction grating mounted in the e-beam focal region to produce the radiation. Distributed feedback is provided by the grating itself. A variation on the basic Smith-Purcell radiation theme, the source is described as a grating coupled oscillator (GCO).


Although massive multiplayer online games have been gaining most popularity over the years, real-time strategy (RTS) has not been considerate a strong candidate for using this model because of the limited number of players supported, large number of game entities and strong consistency requirements. To deal with this situation, concepts such as continuous consistency and location-awareness have proven to be extremely useful in order to confine areas with consistency requirements. The combination between these two concepts results on a powerful technique in which the player's location and divergence boundaries are directly linked, providing the player the most accurate information about objects inside his area-of-interest. The VFC model achieves a balance between the notions of continuous consistency and locationawareness by defining multiple zones of consistency around the player's location (pivot) with different divergence boundaries. In this work we propose VFC-RTS, an adaptation of the VFC model, characterized for establishing consistency degrees, to the RTS scenario. We describe how the concepts of the original VFC model were adapt to the RTS paradigm and propose an architecture for a generic middleware. Later, we apply our solution to an open source, multi-platform RTS game with full consistency requirements and evaluate the results to define the success of this work.


Total variation (TV) minimization has become an important tool for the sparse image reconstruction. In this study a realistic 3D digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) data was reconstructed and compared using two different forms of TV: (i) 2D reconstruction by applying TV layer by layer (ii) 3D reconstruction of the entire data. It can be assumed that a 3D reconstruction should perform better. However, in real DBT the resolution in z direction is about 10-15 times lower than the resolution in x-y plane. This study investigates the performance of the reconstruction when a TV term in z direction is added into the cost function of TV minimization.


Disulfide bonds play a critical role in the maintenance of the native conformation of proteins under thermodynamic control. In general, disulfide bond formation is associated with protein folding, and this restricts the formation of folding intermediates such as misbridged disulfide isomers or kinetically trapped conformations, which provide important information related to how proteins fold into their native conformation. Therefore, numerous studies have focused on the structural analysis of folding intermediates in vitro. However, isolating or trapping folding intermediates, as well as the entire proteins, including mutant proteins, is not an easy task. Several chemical methods have recently been developed for examining peptide and protein folding and for producing, e.g., intact, post‐translationally modified, or kinetically trapped proteins, or proteins with misbridged disulfide bonds. This overview introduces chemical methods for regulating the formation of disulfide bonds of peptides and proteins in the context of the thermodynamic and kinetic control of peptide and protein folding. Curr. Protoc. Protein Sci. 76:28.6.1‐28.6.6. © 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.


I HAVE much pleasure in presenting an experimental study by Dr. Paul Ferreyrolles on the power of certain medicinal waters to confer immunity against infective disease. Many facts pointing in this direction have long been familiar to hydrologists, although unfamiliar to the profession at large. Dr. Ferreyrolles' thesis is welcome, as it is the most complete series of observations as yet made upon this subject, and its publication in England is opportune and cannot fail to stimulate other workers. More than one class of natural waters are now known to possess these antitoxic properties, and it will be a comparatively simple matter to institute experiments in order to ascertain whether muriated or sulphur waters such as those of Llandrindod or Strathpeffer, have the same power. It is unnecessary to emphasize the extraordinary clinical interest that attaches to these investigations. Dr. Ferreyrolles' demonstration a few years ago before the Royal Society of Medicine, upon the colloidal constituents of medicinal springs [4], followed by the present study on immunity, mark a new departure in hydrological medicine. They show incidentally that hydrology is not concerned only with the actions of water per se and with thermal actions


ABSTRACT Over the last decade, New York State has experienced one of the greatest increases in opioid overdose deaths in the United States, particularly from heroin and synthetic opioids. This study investigated spatial patterns in the distribution of county-level rates of overdose deaths in New York State and associations between prescriptions for opioid pain relievers, race, and overdose deaths from 2013–2015. Global and local Moran's I tests for spatial autocorrelation examined Bayesian smoothed rates of overdose for clusters of counties with high and low rates of overdose mortality. Getis Ord* analyses identified local hotspots of high and low clusters of overdose. Model performance indicators selected the best-fitting spatial regression model to examine associations between prescriptions for opioid pain relievers, race/ethnicity (non-Hispanic White, Black, and Hispanic) after adjusting for spatial dependence in the data. Socio-demographic characteristics of clusters were examined. Findings suggest rates of opioid overdose deaths are clustered in New York. Rates of prescription opioids were associated with rates of overdose from any opioid, prescription pain relievers, and synthetic opioids. Greater populations of African Americans were associated with greater rates of heroin overdose death rates. Findings from this study inform public health opioid overdose prevention interventions and policies.


No historical treatment of the first decade of the British occupation of Egypt overlooks the abortive mission of Sir Henry Drummond-Wolff to Cairo and Istanbul from 1885 to the spring of 1887. Most, however, fail to discuss the diverse political interests within Egypt itself, which, in one fashion or another, stood to be affected by the mission and its objectives. Consequently, an entire segment of the negotiations which led to the 22 May 1887 convention setting the conditions for withdrawal, including an original draft article covering the future status of the capitulatory and mixed court regime in Egypt, has all but disappeared from the record. The circumstances behind this forgotten article demonstrate in capsule form the degree to which the issue of judicial reform indirectly dominated London's Egyptian policy in stages from 1876 to the Montreux Convention on the capitulations concluded by Nahhas Pasha in 1937.


In order to analyse the developmental characteristics of individual fir trees (Abies alba) in tri-dominant forests of beech, fir and spruce (Piceeto-Abieti-Fagetum s. lat.) on Mt. Ljubisnja, eight dominant fir trees were felled. Felling four trees from the experimental field that has been set near the village of Vrba (Vukodol site), which is on a limestone base, and four trees from experimental field in the vicinity of the mining village of Sula, situated on basic eruptives, together with further stem analysis of such trees, gave us important conclusions about the basic characteristics of fir growth in these forest communities. This provided insight into the relations and impact of habitat characteristics to the development of fir trees in mixed stands of beech, fir and spruce on Mt. Ljubisnja. By studying the pattern of development of those trees, it was determined that the slow growth (socalled vegetative time) period lasted longer in trees from the Vukodol site, on the limestone soils. The results confirmed that fir trees at a very advanced age could have a good height and volume increment. The average increment of fir culminated very late. These facts may be applicable in designing management goals for these and similar stands.


THE EFFECT OF ADSORBENT TYPE AND RATIO ON REMOVAL AND ISOTHERM ADSORPTION OF METHYLENE BLUE. Methylene Blue (MB) is one of the dye that are widely used in the textile industry. The wastewater from textile industry that contain MB can reduce the oxygen level in water bodies. This study aims to determine the efficiency of the adsorbent in MB removal and to analyze the isotherm adsorption. The variations conducted in this research was the type of adsorbent and its ratio. The activated carbon that used as adsorbent was fresh betel nut (Cyrtostachys lakka) activated carbon (A), regenerated betel nut activated carbon (B), and coconut shell activated carbon (Cocos nucifera) (C). The type of adsorbent was AB, AC, and BC with ratio of 1:1, 1:2, 1:3, 2:1, and 3:1. The MB concentration was analyzed by using UV-Vis spectrophotometer. Isotherm adsorption was calculated based on Freundlich and Langmuir. The best results showed that the combination of fresh and regenerated betel nuts (AB) with ratio of 3:1 can remove 97.77% of MB. The adsorption process of MB in aqueous solution followed the Langmuir model with regression over 0.99 and adsorption capacity in the range of 2.14 mg/g 3.53 mg/g.


Proper postnatal development of testis is prerequisite for acquisition of full functional potential of testis. The initiation and maintenance of spermatogenesis depend on testosterone, and the production of mature sperm is highly reliant on androgen activity in the testis. The goal of the study was to investigate the effect of exogenous testosterone on testicular biometry and histomorphometry, and seminiferous epithelium in Black Bengal goat during the postnatal development. A total of 42 Black Bengal goats were divided into two categories: control and testosterone-treated; and each group again subdivided into seven groups (n=3) according to age, viz. group-I (at birth or day 0; d0), group-II (1 week of age), group-III (2 weeks), group-IV (1 month), group-V (2 months), group-VI (4 months), and group-VII (6 months). Goat kids of testosterone-treated group were injected with testosterone hormone @ 125 mg/kid (0.5 ml of Testanon™ 250 Injection, IM, 250 mg/ml, Nuvista Pharma Ltd., Bangladesh) IM weekly until the sample collection. The testicular development was slow up to 2 weeks of age, and after that, in control goats, a quick growth of the testicles was seen. In contrast, a slow trend of testicular development was continuous throughout the study period (postnatal 6 months) in testosterone-treated goats. A continuous and gradual developmental process of testis was observed in control goats. Seminiferous tubules were shown to have a marked increase in diameter at 4 months indicates initiation of spermatogenesis at this age, and completion of the first wave of spermatogenesis, i.e. establishment of spermatogenesis was observed by 6 months of age as confirmed by the presence of all types of cells of spermatogenic lineage in the seminiferous epithelium including spermatozoa were found attached to the Sertoli cells at their ad luminal border, and in the lumen of the seminiferous tubules. Continuous administration of exogenous testosterone exerted a negative effect on the postnatal developmental process of testis of Black Bengal goats. The postnatal developmental process of testis was very slow, and the proliferation of spermatogonia and lumenization of the seminiferous tubules, also known as seminiferous epithelium stratification, were not seen in testosterone-treated goats until they were 6 months old indicates delayed postnatal testicular development and disrupts spermatogenesis.
J. of Sci. and Tech. Res. 4(1): 25-36, 2022


A study of a series of industrial and nonindustrial accident patients presenting the symptoms of a posttraumatic neurosis shows the small part that trauma plays in such a condition. When the individuals of this group are carefully studied, other facts are discovered that are vastly more important than the injury. Indirectly, this is proved by the great number of people who have sustained severe injury and who present no late neurotic symptoms. On the other hand, a trifling physical injury with no concomitant shock may be followed by a most deplorable psychic state. In short, there must be some peculiarity of the individual that causes him to react in an uncommon way after a greater or lesser injury. This is borne out by an increasing experience with patients who have been so classified. When one is able to obtain an eminently satisfactory history from the patient, his early life, his


A-esterases are calcium-dependent hydrolases that can detoxify the active metabolites (oxons) of organophosphorus insecticides such as chlorpyrifos and parathion. A-esterases from rat liver have previously been shown to hydrolyze chlorpyrifos-oxon but not paraoxon at low substrate concentrations. Two A-esterases were extracted by ammonium sulfate fractionation from solubilized rat liver microsomes followed by gel filtration chromatography and preparative scale isoelectric focusing. The proteins displayed similar characteristics and were difficult to separate; both had similar high molecular mass and isoelectric point range and exhibited A-esterase activity toward high and low concentrations of chlorpyrifos-oxon and high concentrations of paraoxon. Sufficient amounts of the higher molecular mass protein were obtained for kinetic studies, which yielded a Km of 0.93 mM toward high concentrations of chlorpyrifos-oxon and a Vmax of 369 nmoles product formed/mg protein-min. The protein hydrolyzed phenyl acetate, chlorpyrifos-oxon and paraoxon, suggesting that arylesterase and A-esterase activities are attributable to the same liver protein(s). Assays of purified protein and kinetic studies of microsomes suggested that the activity toward high (320 microM) and low (</=10(-5) M) concentrations of chlorpyrifos-oxon are due to the same protein(s), and that the activity toward low concentrations of chlorpyrifos-oxon is attributable to both a higher affinity and a higher Vmax (but primarily the latter) for chlorpyrifos-oxon than for paraoxon, which is not detectably hydrolyzed at low concentrations. The higher A-esterase activity with chlorpyrifos-oxon than paraoxon may be a major determinant in the observed lower acute toxicity of chlorpyrifos than parathion.


OBJECTIVE
To assess the role of granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) in autoimmune neutropenia (AIN).

DESIGN
Serum G-CSF levels were measured in 57 children with AIN. Two different G-CSF-dependent assays were used: a solid-phase "sandwich" enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and a proliferation assay. Sera from healthy persons and from patients with severe congenital neutropenia were used for negative and positive controls.

RESULTS
The median G-CSF level in healthy persons (n = 13) was low, 45.6 pg/mL (range <39 to 141 pg/mL). The median G-CSF level in patients with AIN (n = 57) was very similar, 45.5 pg/mL (range <39 to 2500 pg/mL). Forty-five (79%) of 57 patients with AIN had levels within the range of the control group. Seven (12%) had marginally increased G-CSF levels (141 to 400 pg/mL), and only 5 (9%) had levels higher than 400 pg/mL. The G-CSF levels measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay correlated well with levels measured by the proliferation assay, thus demonstrating that antibodies present in patient sera did not affect the biologic activity of G-CSF.

CONCLUSION
G-CSF production in AIN is not increased despite the low neutrophil count, similar to thrombopoietin in immune thrombocytopenic purpura.


Many tasks in music information retrieval, such as recommendation, and playlist generation for online radio, fall naturally into the query-by-example setting, wherein a user queries the system by providing a song, and the system responds with a list of relevant or similar song recommendations. Such applications ultimately depend on the notion of similarity between items to produce high-quality results. Current state-of-the-art systems employ collaborative filter methods to represent musical items, effectively comparing items in terms of their constituent users. While collaborative filter techniques perform well when historical data is available for each item, their reliance on historical data impedes performance on novel or unpopular items. To combat this problem, practitioners rely on content-based similarity, which naturally extends to novel items, but is typically outperformed by collaborative filter methods. In this paper, we propose a method for optimizing content-based similarity by learning from a sample of collaborative filter data. The optimized content-based similarity metric can then be applied to answer queries on novel and unpopular items, while still maintaining high recommendation accuracy. The proposed system yields accurate and efficient representations of audio content, and experimental results show significant improvements in accuracy over competing content-based recommendation techniques.


The current state of sustainability reporting lacks useful information for decision-making. Specifically, this paper examines the sustainability report of a major multinational organization from the perspective of accounting and the qualities of information as defined by the U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board and the Global Reporting Initiative. Fifty-eight graduate accounting students were assigned an exercise that involved analyzing Wal-Mart's 2013 Corporate Social Responsibility report within the context of the GRI's Principles of Quality Reporting. The results indicated that the Report failed to provide useful information for stakeholders and was more of an instrument of public relations. While the Report failed to meet many of the GRI's Principles, the students believed the most serious flaw was the absence of cost and segment information. Without mandates the only viable mechanism to improve sustainability reports is for GRI to certify those reports that strictly adhere to the Principles of Quality Reporting.


OBJECTIVE
To study the role of platelet-derived growth factor A (PDGF-A)/PDGF receptor-α (PDGFR-α) signaling pathway in the proliferation and transdifferentiation of fibroblasts (FB) into myofibroblasts (MFB) in the skin lesions of patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc).

METHODS
The primary FBs isolated from the skin lesions of SSc patients and normal adult skin cultured in vitro were examined for α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) using immunocytochemistry. The FBs were incubated with different concentrations of PDGF-AA and the changes in their proliferative activity were quantified with MTT assay. RT-PCR was used to determine the effects of transforming growth factor-β(1) (TGF-β(1)) and PDGF-AA, either alone or in combination, on the expression levels of PDGFR-α and α-SMA mRNA in the FBs.

RESULTS
Although the FBs of the two groups were morphologically similar, only FBs from the skin lesion showed positive staining for α-SMA. Below the saturated concentration of PDGF, the FBs in the two groups both proliferated in a dose-dependent manner (P<0.05), but the FBs from the SSc lesions always showed a significantly higher proliferative activity (P<0.05). PDGF-AA and TGF-β(1), alone or in combination, up-regulated the expression level of PDGFR-α and α-SMA mRNA in the FBs from SSc lesions; similar results were obtained in the control FBs, except that TGF-β(1) alone did not influence PDGFR-α mRNA expression. PDGFR-α and α-SMA mRNA always showed higher expressions in FBs in SSc lesions than in the control FBs with the same treatments (P<0.05). The expression levels of PDGFR-α and α-SMA mRNA increased in the order of untreated, PDGF-AA, TGF-β(1) and PDGF-AA plus TGF-β(1) groups and showed a strong positive correlation between them (r=0.925, P<0.05).

CONCLUSION
The FBs from the skin lesions of SSc patients have a distinct feature of transdifferentiation into MFB. Over-expression of PDGFR-α on the surface of FBs from SSc lesions can bind more PDGF-AA ligands to increase cell proliferation and promote transdifferentiation to MFB, and TGF-β(1) further enhances this effect .


The thesis examines the influence of external advice on domestic reform in a post-communist state following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. As an example of this, the research analyses the role of international assistance in the reform of public administration in Ukraine in the period 2000 to 2012, with particular reference to the relationship between the national and sub-national tiers of government. Two empirical case studies, on fiscal decentralisation and regional policy, are employed to provide an in-depth analysis of reform programmes introduced by the Government of Ukraine and an examination of the contribution of external advice to each. The thesis draws on concepts from Institutional Theory, Comparative Politics and Development Studies to explain the interaction between external donors and the domestic recipients of their advice. It is argued that international assistance to public administrative reform in Ukraine is a form of normative institutional isomorphism involving the deliberate transfer of models of state institutions from donor countries where they are regarded as good practice. The findings of the case studies indicate the narrow circumstances in which this transaction may lead to short-term progress with reform, through the establishment of a policy transfer network linking domestic and external actors. However the case studies also demonstrate that in the longer term both these attempts at reform, and the international advice which contributed to them, failed to achieve a sustained outcome. Employing the political economy analysis of development aid the thesis argues that the international community bears a large share of the responsibility for this owing to the technocratic nature of assistance programmes and their limited engagement with the political realities of reform processes.


In nineteenth-century London, a clubbable man was a fortunate man, indeed. The Reform, the Athenaeum, the Travellers, the Carlton, the United Service are just a few of the gentlemen's clubs that formed the exclusive preserve known as \u201cclubland\u201d in Victorian London-the City of Clubs that arose during the Golden Age of Clubs. Why were these associations for men only such a powerful emergent institution in nineteenth-century London? Distinctly British, how did these single-sex clubs help fashion men, foster a culture of manliness, and assist in the project of nation-building? What can elite male affiliative culture tell us about nineteenth-century Britishness? A Room of His Own sheds light on the mysterious ways of male associational culture as it examines such topics as fraternity, sophistication, nostalgia, social capital, celebrity, gossip, and male professionalism. The story of clubland (and the literature it generated) begins with Britain's military heroes home from the Napoleonic campaign and quickly turns to Dickens's and Thackeray's acrimonious Garrick Club Affair. It takes us to Richard Burton's curious Cannibal Club and Winston Churchill's The Other Club; it goes underground to consider Uranian desire and Oscar Wilde's clubbing and resurfaces to examine the problematics of belonging in Trollope's novels. The trespass of French socialist Flora Tristan, who cross-dressed her way into the clubs of Pall Mall, provides a brief interlude. London's clubland-this all-important room of his own-comes to life as Barbara Black explores the literary representations of clubland and the important social and cultural work that this urban site enacts. Our present-day culture of connectivity owes much to nineteenth-century sociability and Victorian networks; clubland reveals to us our own enduring desire to belong, to construct imagined communities, and to affiliate with like-minded comrades.


CEBAF has recently upgraded its accelerator control system to use EPICS, a control system toolkit being developed by a collaboration among laboratories in the US and Europe. The migration to EPICS has taken place during a year of intense commissioning activity, with new and old control systems operating concurrently. Existing CAMAC hardware was preserved by adding a CAMAC serial highway link to VME; newer hardware developments are now primarily in VME. Software is distributed among three tiers of computers: first, workstations and X terminals for operator interfaces and high level applications; second, VME single board computers for distributed access to hardware and for local control processing (complex sequences, limit checking, some process control); third, embedded processors where needed for faster closed loop operation. In some cases, multiple VME processors transparently access a single serial highway for improved performance. This system has demonstrated the ability to scale EPICS to controlling thousands of devices, including hundreds of embedded processors, with control distributed among dozens of VME processors executing more than 125,000 EPICS database records. To deal with the large size of the control system, CEBAF has integrated an object oriented database, providing data management capabilities for both low level I/O (calibration, alarm limits, etc.) and high level machine modelling (optics properties, etc.). A new callable interface which is control system independent permits access to live EPICS data, data in other Unix processes, and data contained in the object oriented database (extensible to other sources).


The objective of the present study was to evaluate the supply of a specific-male diet on rooster body weight, hatchability, and fertility. Two diets were supplied during the egg production period: treatment 1, diet formulated for females and containing, in average, 2,830 kcal ME/kg and 15% CP; and treatment 2, diet specifically formulated for male broiler breeders, containing 2,750 kcal ME/kg and 13.5% CP. In the experiment, 26 flocks, with approximately 7,000 females and 840 males each, belonging to the same broiler breeder commercial strain, were distributed into 26 houses (1200m 2 ) on the same farm, and submitted to the same management practices. Body weight was evaluated in 13 flocks per treatment and for five weeks (45, 50, 55, 60, 65), and hatchability and fertility in four incubation lots per treatment and for the same weeks. Data were evaluated by the analysis of mixed models for repeated measurements, using the PROC MIXED of SAS 9.3 (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, USA), and means were compared by the test of Tukey-Kramer at 5% significance level. The specific-male diet allowed body weight control during all analyzed weeks and promoted high hatchability and egg fertility. The increase in the number of chicks hatched demonstrates the economic viability of feeding a specific diet for male broiler breeders.


Sweet pepper cultivars Magali R and Magda Super under organic management were compared, intercropped or not with Crotalaria juncea, and submitted or not to pruning starting from the third branch. Average yield of commercial fruits was 37 t ha-1 with maximum value of 43 t ha-1. The hybrid Magali R produced heavier and longer fruits than cv. Magda Super. However, no significant difference of productivity was found between cultivars. Fruits of both Magali R and Magda Super reached more than 10 cm of average length, the minimum required for highest market standard. The number of fruits increased in plants not submitted to pruning regardless of the process used. Branch pruning also reduced the average basal diameter of fruits and increased their average weight, without effect on productivity. 15% of the hybrid Magali R plants presented mosaic symptoms at the end of the vegetative cycle compared to 38% of Magda Super. Intercropping with crotalaria resulted in higher yields, increase of average fruit weight and nitrogen content of pepper fruits as well as in the amount of that element exported at harvest.


In all our dealings with patients' questions, whether face-to-face, or by phone, technologists have a responsibility to answer the public in a professional manner. We must bear in mind the ethics and legalities of our profession, yet keep a high level of respect for the feelings and concerns of those we serve.


Game days, particularly football game days, at division one universities generate a great deal of waste. At the University of Mississippi, the amount of waste generated on home football game Saturdays has been increasing. Increasing recycling by spectators may decrease the amount of waste generated and reduce the negative environmental impact of game days. The purpose of this case study was to explore the development and evaluation of interventions that may be effective for increasing recycling behaviors. Various interventions were implemented at each game of the 2012 season. Recyclables were collected and waste was measured following each game. Games with only the use of education and direct prompting had the lowest recycling rates. There were higher rates of recycling found when more interventions were used. Higher rates were also found when incentives were available for recycling. The findings suggested that incentives may be a good motivator for behavior change among sports fans. The findings also suggest that universities should explore using a wide variety of recycling interventions simultaneously.


Human-machine interfaces require an efficient and reliable interaction under various con-ditions. Especially under conditions with high cognitive workload which require rapid situa-tion assessment, interfaces should reliably support the human perception. Here, research addresses gesture-based interfaces as a possible interface to enable intuitive interactions based on ingrained daily routines. Using spatial commands executed by the bare hand, one can recreate real world interactions like pushing a knob, turning a controller, or using a ges-ture as an input command. In comparison to real input devices gesture-based interfaces lack haptic feedback for the user. Tactile feedback is important as it indicates for example interaction borders (e. g. edge of the mouse pad) or provides feedback of a successful in-teraction (e. g. sensation of the pushed button). This helps to increase the usability of mid-air gestural systems. For the realisation of mid-air tactile feedback two technologies can be considered. Vortex-generators and ultrasound-based feedback utilise the bare hand and need no device attached to the hand. However, they provide weak feedback which can be influenced by airflow, hand posture, clothing, workload or other factors. To achieve the aforementioned benefits, users have to reliably perceive the tactile feedback – and to do so, perception of tactile mid-air feedback needs to be researched in more detail.We present a method for the analysis of influencing factors on the perception. A driving simulator was the basis for a standardised apparatus in which tactile feedback was pre-sented via a vortex-generator. For each influencing factor, participants were asked to do a driving task (Lane Change Task - LCT) and detect tactile stimuli in parallel. By the help of the method of constant stimuli, a psychometric function for each influencing factor was derived. On this function detection, thresholds of 50%, 90%, 95% and 99% were chosen to represent the most important values in terms of human-machine interaction. In compari-son to widely used methods like staircase procedures, this approach promises to give a better insight into the effects of the influencing factors as the whole psychometric func-tion can be analysed instead of one distinct value.Two experiments (N= 80; 31) were conducted to apply the approach and analyse the influ-ence of workload by a variation of speed and secondary task type. Also, one experiment (N= 16) investigated the influence of hand temperature on the perception of the feedback. Results show that increased speed and the addition of a secondary tasks significantly in-crease the perceived workload. Regarding the perception of tactile stimuli, slight differ-ences for different workload conditions and a cut-off for high workload conditions were found. Furthermore, the effect of temperature on the perception on tactile feedback could be shown. Based on the studies, advantages and disadvantages of the proposed approach are dis-cussed. Also, the impact of workload and temperature in terms of design recommenda-tions for human-machine interaction are examined. The presented approach suggests a promising method to investigate the impact of influencing factors on specific design ele-ments for human-computer interaction. Further studies should investigate the eligibility for other modalities and applications.


Density functional theory calculations on oxygen adsorption over gas phase and faujasite supported Au monomer has been studied using hybrid quantum mechanics∕molecular mechanics method, surface integrated molecular orbital molecular mechanics implemented in GAMESS package. Three different oxidation states of Au (0, +1, +3) and three different adsorption modes viz., top, bridge, and dissociative adsorption of oxygen have been considered in our calculations. Redshift in the ν(O-O) value from that in gas phase O(2) indicates activation of O(2) upon adsorption over faujasite supported gold monomer. The activation of O(2) is an important step in the catalytic oxidation of CO. The presence of adsorbed O(2) increases the interaction of the Au monomer with the faujasite support. In faujasite supported cationic Au monomer, O(2) preferably remains bridge bonded to Au rather than being dissociated.


Dispersed generation (DG) objects are usually connected to distribution grid. This-type of grid supposes to have power system automatics (PSA) that comprise emergency control system (ECS). ECS serves for normal power supply scheme recovery after fault elimination, fault development prevention and system parameters maintenance in acceptable limits within fault and post-fault conditions. Generating power connection to the grid causes significant power flow and current distribution change. This might become a reason of ECS automatics misoperation. This paper presents the results of DG objects influence analysis on PSA settings and function algorithms. Implemented analysis has allowed to define post-fault conditions envelopes that have to be analysed within DG objects grid connection design and provide the recommendations for PSA settings and function algorithms change.


Explanation-Based Generalization (EBG) has been recently a much-explored method of generalization. By utilizing domain knowledge, and knowledge of the concept being learned, EBG produced a valid generalization from a single example. Most EBG systems are currently provided with the concept being learned - or target concept- as a fixed input. A more robust generalization mechanism needs the ability to automatically formulate appropriate target concepts based on the purpose of the learning, since concepts learned for one purpose may not be appropriate for another. This paper introduced a technique and an implemented system that automatically formulate target concepts and their specialized definitions. In particular, the technique derives definitions of everyday artifacts (e.g. CUP), from information about the purpose for which agents intend to use them (e.g. to satisfy their thirst). Given two different purposes for which an agent might use a cup (e.g. as an ornament, versus to satisfy thirst), two different definitions can be derived.


(Methyl)(methoxy)-5,12-dioxocyclam 1 was alkylated on the secondary amines (capped) with 2,6-bis(bromomethyl)pyrazine. The resulting macrocycle was complexed to copper(II) to produce a five-coordinate complex 5a which was fully characterized by a range of spectroscopic methods (IR, UV-vis, ESR) as well as by X-ray crystallography. The structure of this complex is similar to the previously reported pyridine complex, with the five-coordinate copper having distorted square pyramidal geometry and a Cu-Pz bond length of 2.125 A. Attempts to prepare this same complex under microwave irradiation instead produced a trinuclear complex 6a having an octahedral copper(II) center complexed to two pyrazine-cyclam copper units through the amide carbonyl oxygen and the methoxyl group oxygen of the cyclam unit. The X-ray crystal structure of the trinuclear complex showed extensive distortion in the cyclam rings. The remote nitrogen of pyrazine-cyclam complex 5a was capable of coordinating an additional metal. Treatment with RuCl(2)(DMSO)(4) or Rh(2)(OAc)(4), respectively, produced trimetallic Cu-Ru-Cu complex 7 or tetrametallic Cu-Rh-Rh-Cu complex 8. The latter was fully characterized, including an X-ray crystal structure, and had two pyrazine-cyclam complexes bridged by a Rh(2)(OAc)(4) unit through the remote pyrazine nitrogens. There was little distortion in the pyrazine-cyclam copper units as compared to complex 5a: the four metals were collinear, and the two cyclam units were eclipsed. All of the copper complexes were subjected to cyclic voltametry measurements, and no reversible redox changes were observed. Magnetic measurements of 6a and 8 showed the copper atoms to be weakly antiferromagnetically coupled.


Shakespeare is widely believed to have received a grammar school education at Stratford, and this education would have included training on the three canons of rhetorical composition— inventio, dispositio, and elocutio (invention , arrangement , and style). Yet while we know a great deal about Shakespeare's uses of the tropes and figures (his elocutio ), much less is known about Shakespeare's uses of inventio . This paper will introduce the methods of inventio and distinguish between the "specific topics" of invention (related to particular modes of discourse) and the "universal topics" of invention that could be used for any subject. These universal topics were first systemized by Cicero's Topica (44 BCE), whose scheme of 16 topics included the topic of " notatio " (names), which asks writers to consider the name of the thing and the denotation of that name. While Shakespeare's interest in developing material around the theme of "names" has been noted, with some suggesting this relates to the philosophical nominalism prevalent in the medieval and renaissance periods, this paper argues that Shakespeare's interest is more consistent with the heuristic process of considering the topic of " notatio " (names) to invent material for a speech. This paper argues that when Juliet says, "What's in a name?" ( RJ, 2.2.43), and Falstaff says, "What is in that word "honour?"" ( 1HIV, 5.1.134), and Cassius says, "what should be in that 'Caesar?'" ( JC, 1.2.141), and the Countess says, "What's in 'mother'/ That you start at it?" ( AW, 1.3.138-9), these four passages were developed by the same method of considering the topic of names. Shakespeare's key sources will also be examined to help confirm that these passages were indeed his own, and it will be shown that Shakespeare appears also to use other topics alongside his treatment of "names"—helping to affirm the proposal that Shakespeare was trained in a fuller suite of topics and using them in his work. These findings provide new ways of understanding Shakespeare's text and his artistry whilst contributing to an under-researched field of Shakespeare studies—shedding light on how Shakespeare used his rhetorical training to help invent the argumentative flair of his expressions.


Abstract : In this report three problems are solved. First, the problem of a strong blast wave in a homogeneous medium including radiative effects is solved. Second, the problem of a strong blast wave in a slightly inhomogeneous medium including the radiative effects is solved. Finally, these results are used to construct the fireball configuration at pressure equilibrium time. An analysis of the expected errors and the range of applicability is given, along with a discussion of possible applications of the results to the study of fireball phenomenology and its application to military systems analysis.


Remote sensing, i.e. the technology that allows measuring object's properties from a distance, is currently undergoing tremendous advances in both precision and areas of applicability. Our study provides an overview of the recent developments in RS applications and their implications to the society. This was approached from three distinct directions, all with significant influence on the human's perception of the technology. First, we discuss how disaster prevention, reaction, and recovery can be supported by remote sensing. Next, we look at the popular view of remote sensing, as illustrated by media and commercial applications. Finally, we discuss legal implication of sensing technologies especially in the context of law enforcement, surveillance and security.


Value-added content resiliency services help to migrate the burden of resiliency provisioning and maintenance from service users, especially home users and small/medium organizations, who have difficulty in handling correlated failures that impact large areas. For service providers to achieve business success, however, the cost-effectiveness of their resiliency strategies is critical: while the content resiliency requirements specified by the end users have to be satisfied, excessive preventive operation costs caused by the over-reaction to potential risks should be avoided. In this paper, we study the problem of cost-effective configuration in content resiliency service networks under both independent and geographically correlated failures. We propose a new approach to modeling correlated failures in a representable, quantifiable and consistent way, which allows for both quantified availability guarantees and aggressive prevention cost optimization. We then formulate the cost-effective configuration problem in content resiliency services and develop both real optimal and heuristic-based algorithms for solving the problem. Our experiments show that with the help of good models for correlated failures, the operation cost of the services can be significantly reduced without impairing the user-specified content resiliency


This paper presents the modeling, sensing and control of an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) developed in order to perform pipeline following. The pipeline detection and the relative angular position of the vehicle with respect to the pipeline are obtained by an artificial vision algorithm. The Proportional-Derivative (PD) paradigm with gravity compensation is used for the control of the vehicle. An analysis of performances is presented on Real-time experiments.


At the first look it seems that the correction of the prism of the United Nation is not possible with the existence of terms of Articles 108 and 109 about some worldwide issues specially those which are against the benefits of the countries with veto rights. But forced or unintentionally interaction of the governments caused by the basic changes of the world and its transitions and today complex relationships and impressive  scientific advancement s in different fields and actions like establishing  international organizations and accepting immunity and benefits for international organizations employees  and admission to their independent corporate personality and more important than all founding united nation organizations and the existing procedural in UNO itself like the Union resolution for peace and establishing interim Committee and others like them, and attempts of some countries, especially developing countries for the obligation of obeying resolutions of General Assembly and apparatus use of some countries from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, establishing  people-based organizations, beside happenings  such as establishing International Criminal  Court and all the others show that the above assumption is not correct. Although the Charter Reform sovereignty-based by the consent and will of the state's interests to UN, is somehow difficult, but referred to the above reasons, it is not impossible and the present and future lawyers should drawing  inspiration  from  past experience and  looking forward to the future .


[Objective] To find out the proportion of death of a specific cause and its cisposition in residents in Yancheng City,and to analyze situations of lost of life,in order to provide the scientific basis for the control of chronic non-communicable disease in Yancheng.[Methods] The individual death cases of residents in 2008 collected by the system of death cause surveillance network,were entered and statistical analyzed by using Deathreg 2005,and were carried out to standardized rate with national population of China in 2000.At the same time,to analyze the life lost of major disease with PYLL,PYLL%,AYLL and other related indicators.[Results] In 2008,the mortality rate and of residents in Yancheng was 618.09 per 100 000,and the standardized mortality rate of the residents was 417.86 per 100 000;the first five death causes were tumor,circulatory system disease,respiratory disease,heart disease,injuries and poisonings,which accounted for 86.28% of all causes of death;the sorting of causes of tumor death was stomach cancer,esophageal cancer,lung cancer,liver cancer and anorectum tumor,which accounted for 77.92% in causes of tumor death;the first cause of life lost among residents was tumor,which caused 15.53 years life lost per thousand person;the AYLL due to injuries and poisonings was the highest,and was 27.68 years.[Conclusion] The major diseases which affect health of residents in Yancheng are tumor,cardiovascular disease and other chronic non-communicable disease;tumor,injuries and poisonings are diseases which caused more serious life lost.


Trichinella spiralis (T. spiralis) has been reported to induce angiogenesis and a supply of nutrients and to act as a reliable waste disposal system by induction of the expression of the angiogenic molecule vascular endothelial cell growth factor (VEGF) during nurse cell formation. However, the mechanism underlying the induction of VEGF in nurse cells by T. spiralis has not yet been defined. Some research has pointed to the possibility of hypoxia in nurse cells, but whether hypoxia occurs in infected muscle or nurse cells has not been studied. It is also a matter of debate whether hypoxia induces the expression of VEGF and subsequent angiogenesis in infected muscle. Recent studies showed that thymosin β4, a potent VEGF-inducing protein, was expressed at a very early stage of muscle infection by T. spiralis, suggesting that VEGF is induced at an early stage in nurse cells. Furthermore, hypoxia was not detected in any nurse cell stage but was detected in inflammatory cells. The findings suggest that induction of angiogenesis by VEGF in T. spiralis-infected nurse cells is mediated by thymosin β4 and unrelated to hypoxia.


Wi-Fi offloading is one of the most effective approaches to relieve the cellular radio access from part of the burgeoning mobile demand. To date, Wi-Fi offloading has been mainly leveraged in limited contexts, such as home, office or campus environments. In this paper, we investigate the scaling properties of Wi-Fi offloading, by studying how it would perform on a much larger scope than those considered today. To that end, we consider a real-world citywide scenario, built on data about actual infrastructure deployments and mobile traffic demand, and observe which amount of traffic could be accommodated by the existing pervasive Wi-Fi access infrastructure, were it opened to mobile users. We find that more than 80% of the mobile traffic demand in a large urban area may be easily served by Wi-Fi access points, under a wide range of system settings.


ABSTRACT Objective: Hypoxia is now established as a key factor influencing the pathophysiology of malignant growth. Hypoxia-induced changes in gene expression are coordinated mainly by the hypoxia-inducible factor-1(HIF-1α) and HIF-2α. The aim of this study was to determine whether HIF-2α expression is associated with survival and response to radiation in cervical cancer. Methods: After reviewing the medical records of 119 patients treated in our institution by primary radiotherapy for stage IIB-IVA cervical cancer, we performed a case-control study. Cases (n = 12) were selected from patients with local recurrence or radiation failure after primary radiation therapy with or without concurrent chemoradiation. For each case, we selected two controls from patients who showed no local recurrence. Using pretreatment paraffin-embedded tissues, we evaluated expression of HIF-2α by immunohistochemistry. Staining was scored based on intensity (Intensity Score (IS) 0- 3) and proportion (Proportion Score (PS) 0-100). Results were analyzed by Student t-test, Mann-Whitney U test, Fisher9s exact test, and Cox proportional hazards regression model. Results: HIF-2α expression representing degree of hypoxia has a relationship with poor response to radiotherapy. Conclusion: HIF-2α expression may have an important role in radioresistance in locally advanced cervical cancer. Key Words: Cervical neoplasm, Radiation, HIF-2α, Survival, Hypoxia Note: This abstract was not presented at the AACR 101st Annual Meeting 2010 because the presenter was unable to attend. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 101st Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2010 Apr 17-21; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2010;70(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 438.


ABSTRACT Productions of mono-/di-cyclic aromatic hydrocarbons as well as smaller stable species from extremely fuel-rich CH4/air mixtures (equivalence ratio of 1.7–6.0 and fuel-to-mixture ratio of 15–38 mol.%) near sooting limit in terms of temperature, were investigated using a micro flow reactor with a controlled temperature profile at maximum wall temperature of 1300 K. Species measurements of O2, H2, CO, CO2, CH4, C2H2, C2H4, C2H6, benzene, toluene, styrene and naphthalene were performed with GC and GC/MS analysis. One-dimensional computations were also conducted with several detailed chemical kinetics. Most of the mechanisms comparably well predicted the smaller species except C2H2 (acetylene), which was overestimated by all the mechanism especially at moderate equivalence ratio (Ø 3.0). There were large discrepancies between measured and computed mole fractions of benzene and naphthalene at high equivalence ratio (Ø 4.0). Reaction path analysis indicated that reaction pathway branched from C2H3 reacting with methyl radical, which competes with C2H2 production, showed relatively low contribution to benzene formation at moderate equivalence ratio. Therefore, improvements of chemical kinetics with further consideration of reactions with methyl radical are necessary for precise prediction of products where abundant amounts of methyl radical exist.


When confronted with an unwelcome reminder, people often inhibit the unwanted memory from awareness, a process that causes forgetting. This suppression-induced forgetting (SIF), also sometimes known as motivated forgetting, can be empirically measured by the Think/No-Think (TNT) task.
Chapter 1 reviews the literature on memory inhibition. Imaging work indicates suppressing retrieval engages the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (rDLPFC), which in turn may inhibit the retrieval processes within the hippocampus. This thesis, using a range of methods, aims to better understand the neuropsychology of motivated forgetting. Chapter 2 investigates whether the ability to inhibit
unwanted memories can be modulated through electrical stimulation. Stimulation methods do not appear to improve inhibition, at least in this cohort, one possible reason for this being the increased perceived thought control
ability. Chapter 3 reports the first ever adaptation of the TNT task in patients with unilateral frontal lesions. Pilot testing in Chapter 4 reports the study in patients with unilateral frontal lesions. The results suggested that patients with left frontal lesions showed a robust SIF, compared to those with right-frontal lesions who showed none. Finally, Chapter 5 attempted to identify the structural connectivity underlying inhibitory control of motivated forgetting. The results indicate that the DLPFC is connected to the hippocampus by a subset of the two
tracts, namely the anterior thalamic projection connecting the DLPFC to the caudate nucleus, and the fornix. Future directions to expand on the finding of this thesis are discussed in Chapter 6.


This papaer is intended to describe the structure of a story that includes the plots, characters and characterizations, and background, as well as describe and interpret psychological aberrations Nedena character in the novel Dadaisme. The method used in this research is descriptive qualitative method. Object of research is psychiatric aberration Nedena character in the novel Dadaisme. The theory used in this study is novel structural theory and psychology literature. The results of the structural analysis of novel Dadaisme character / characterization, plot, and background can be found that the strong aspects of the characterizations in figure Nedena experienced mental lapses Nedena figures. The existence of these mental lapses that required psychological theories of personality, Freud's personality structure which divides into three elements, namely the id, ego, and superego. The results showed an imbalance in the structure of personality (Id, Ego, and Superego) in figure Nedena causing abnormalities in kehidupannnya. Abnormalities in figure Nedena: depression, trauma, neorosis, schizophrenia and hallucinations. Nedena experienced abnormal behavior results in hallucinations friend who thinks there is an imaginary angel winged black one named Michail.


The Gang Resistance Education and Training (G.R.E.A.T.) program is a gang- and delinquency-prevention program delivered by law enforcement officers within a school setting. Originally designed in 1991 by Phoenix-area law enforcement agencies to address local needs, the program quickly spread across the United States. In this article, we describe the evolution of the program and its responsiveness to two independent national evaluations funded by the U.S. National Institute of Justice. The first evaluation revealed little program effect and contributed to a critical review and substantial revision of the G.R.E.A.T. "core" or middle-school curriculum. Preliminary findings from the ongoing second evaluation give an initial indication of the extent to which these changes have resulted in the achievement of G.R.E.A.T. program goals of helping youths to (a) avoid gang membership, violence, and criminal activity; and (b) develop a positive relationship with law enforcement.


ABSTRACT Thlaspi goesingense is able to hyperaccumulate extremely high concentrations of Ni when grown in ultramafic soils. Recently it has been shown that rhizosphere bacteria may increase the heavy metal concentrations in hyperaccumulator plants significantly, whereas the role of endophytes has not been investigated yet. In this study the rhizosphere and shoot-associated (endophytic) bacteria colonizing T. goesingense were characterized in detail by using both cultivation and cultivation-independent techniques. Bacteria were identified by 16S rRNA sequence analysis, and isolates were further characterized regarding characteristics that may be relevant for a beneficial plant-microbe interaction—Ni tolerance, 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid (ACC) deaminase and siderophore production. In the rhizosphere a high percentage of bacteria belonging to the Holophaga/Acidobacterium division and α-Proteobacteria were found. In addition, high-G+C gram-positive bacteria, Verrucomicrobia, and microbes of the Cytophaga/Flexibacter/Bacteroides division colonized the rhizosphere. The community structure of shoot-associated bacteria was highly different. The majority of clones affiliated with the Proteobacteria, but also bacteria belonging to the Cytophaga/Flexibacter/Bacteroides division, the Holophaga/Acidobacterium division, and the low-G+C gram-positive bacteria, were frequently found. A high number of highly related Sphingomonas 16S rRNA gene sequences were detected, which were also obtained by the cultivation of endophytes. Rhizosphere isolates belonged mainly to the genera Methylobacterium, Rhodococcus, and Okibacterium, whereas the majority of endophytes showed high levels of similarity to Methylobacterium mesophilicum. Additionally, Sphingomonas spp. were abundant. Isolates were resistant to Ni concentrations between 5 and 12 mM; however, endophytes generally tolerated higher Ni levels than rhizosphere bacteria. Almost all bacteria were able to produce siderophores. Various strains, particularly endophytes, were able to grow on ACC as the sole nitrogen source.


Most chapters include "Summary," "Endnotes," "Bibliography," and "Conclusion." Preface. 1.Child Welfare: A Generalist Perspective. Background. Values. Generalist. 2.Child Welfare History in the United States. The Child-Saving Movement: 1600-1700. The Child-Rescue Movement: 1800-1850. Inception of Youth Serving Agencies: 1860-1900. National Awareness of Children's Needs: 1900-1930s. The Great Depression: 1930-1940. The Growth of Public Child Welfare Services: 1940-1967. The Social Service Decade: 1960s. Children's Rights: 1960s to the Present. 3.The Continuum of Child Welfare Services. Why Are Child Welfare Services Necessary? Continuum of Care. Supportive Services. Supplemental Services. Substitute Services. 4.Child Welfare and African-American Families. Current Child Welfare Issues. Child Welfare Practice. Child Welfare Intervention. Current Trends and Concerns for the Future. 5.Child Welfare and the American Indian Community. Contextual Issues. Demographic Issues and Health Statistics. Cultural Considerations. Children's Issues. 6.Child Welfare: Asian and Pacific Islander Families. Diversity among Asian/Pacific Islanders. Demographic Profile. Cultural Variables. Child Welfare Issues. Practice Implications. Current Trends and Concerns for the Future. 7.Generalist Child Welfare and Hispanic Families. Socio-Demographic Synopsis of Hispanics in the United States. Who Are the Hispanics? Employment and Education. Poverty and Income. Hispanic Socio-Cultural Diversity. Biculturalism. Hispanic Children, Families, and Psychosocial Stress. Ethnic-Sensitive Child Welfare Practice. Maltreatment and Hispanic Children. 8.Child Abuse and Neglect. Historical Background. Defining Child Maltreatment. Abused Children. Scope of Child Abuse and Neglect. Social Service Intervention. Treatment. Problems. Trends. 9.The Practice of Child Welfare in the Rural Setting. America: A Rural or Urban Nation? Child Welfare Issues in the Rural Environment. Rural Child Welfare Practice Implications. Community Resources. Cultural Heritage. Interviewing. Small Group Work. Services to Juveniles. New Technologies in Rural Practice. 10.The Year 2000 and Beyond: Summary and Future Directions. Emerging Trends. Generalist Practice. AHEADS = Cultural Awareness. AHEADS = The Practice of Child Welfare in the Rural Setting. AHEADS = Child Maltreatment. Index.


Summary Formalin fixation of passive antibody to tumor cells was effective in modifying subsequently harvested antitumor serum so that the antiserum had diminished reactivity to determinants against which the passively administered antibody was directed. The process of formalin fixation of passive antibody to cells made antigen-antibody bonds more avid without producing nonspecific adherence of antibody and without altering the functional capacity or immunogenicity of the fixed antibody. The antitumor antiserum produced by this method of antiserum modification was further evaluated by means of an absorption with formalinized cells. The use of fixed cells was shown to be an effective means of absorbing antibody components and of providing a stable template from which the antibody could be eluted.


Ten years after hosting the First International Mammalian Genome Conference in Paris in 1986, Dr. Jean-Louis Guenet presided over the Tenth Conference at the Pasteur Institute, October 7--10, 1996. The 1986 conference was a satellite to the Human Gene Mapping Workshop and had approximately 50 attendees. The 1996 meeting was attended by 300 scientists from around the world. In the interim, the number of mapped loci in the mouse increased from 1,000 to over 20,000. This report contains a listing of the program and its participants, and two articles that review the meeting and the role of the laboratory mouse in the Human Genome project. More than 200 papers were presented at the conference covering the following topics: International mouse chromosome committee meetings; Mutant generation and identification; Physical and genetic maps; New technology and resources; Chromatin structure and gene regulation; Rate and hamster genetic maps; Informatics and databases; and Quantitative trait analysis.


The fabrication process and defect characteristics of thin-film silicon-on-insulator (SOI) devices prepared by the bond and etchback process (BESOI) utilizing diamond matching and noncontact polishing were studied. MOS devices were fabricated and were characterized electrically before and after radiation exposure. Analysis by TEM shows that a defect-free film is produced by the BESOI process. CMOS devices show high mobility and low leakage current (less than 1.0 pA/ mu m). The radiation responses of the top and edge oxide are comparable to those of bulk devices. Positive charge trapping and interface-trap generation were -0.8 and 0.8 V, respectively, at a dose of 10 Mrad (SiO/sub 2/). >


Goitrous thyroids of dogs are perhaps the most easily perfused of all organs under conditions at all physiological. The method of perfusion was primarily utilized to ascertain whether salts of iodin were held in the surviving gland in quantities far greater than in other surviving tissues similarly treated, and if this was true, whether one could not partially involute actively hyperplastic glands in vitro as we know invariably happens in vivo —the changes in the living animal's thyroid being recognizable in from 36 to 48 hours. We have demonstrated the former, but the latter involves the grave difficulties of maintaining nutrition and of getting rid of products of metabolism. The technical and aseptic problems are readily overcome. We have little doubt that eventually it will be possible to partially involute an actively hyperplastic gland by some such method.

The question of the absorption of other salts than iodin as for example bromides, arsenic, etc., has not been investigated. It is well known that following the administration of bromides the thyroid retains a part temporarily, but it produces none of the effects or activities of iodin.

These experiments have also given an indication that the elaboration of iodothyreoglobulin is a slow and probably complex process, and it is hoped that further study will lead to a definite conception of the minimum interval of time required for its production. Such knowledge for the iodin protein combination might be applicable to other protein compounds with inorganic substances whose chemical nature and function are little understood.

It was early recognized that the thyroid alone might not be able to transform KI into iodothyreoglobulin. This also is a subject for investigation.

The fact that it is possible to wash out very small amounts of the stored iodothyreoglobulin from surviving glands and very large amounts from dying glands is of interest in connection with the old controversy whether the thyroid secretion passes out through the lymphatics or blood vessels. With the technique we have used it was possible to separate the products of lymphatic drainage from those of the blood, because the thyroid was placed in a glass box filled with Ringer's solution and without any connection with the blood except for the accidental leaks. Seyeral of these perfusions have gone for two hours with out the escape of any blood into the organ box, although many torn lymphatic trunks opened directly into the box. In the washout experiments no iodin was detected in the "organ box fluid" in those glands free from leaks and surviving. This evidence favors the view that the iodothyreoglobulin is given up directly to the blood stream.


textabstractCross-national research on happiness is soaring, but doubts about the comparability of happiness remain. One source of doubt is the possibility of cultural measurement bias. Another source of doubt is the theory that happiness depends on standards of the good life that differ widely across cultures.
These qualms are checked using the available data on differences in average happiness across nations. It appears that cultural measurement bias is modest at best. The data show meaningful links with living conditions in nations. It is concluded that happiness is a good indicator of the livability of society.


Custom-molded earplugs (CMEPs) whose canal segments extend beyond the second bend of the ear canal can provide excellent attenuation but can sometimes be uncomfortable. Attenuation was measured for CMEPs whose canal segments were shortened in 2-mm increments. The within-subjects design permitted illustration of the form of the function relating attenuation to canal segment length for individuals. Reduction of attenuation due to canal segment shortening was generally more pronounced for frequencies ≤1000 Hz. Some regions of the canal segments were more critical than others in maintaining attenuation. The relationship between comfort and canal segment length was not straightforward.


Transmembrane protein 98 (TMEM98), known as a novel gene related to lung cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma, differentiation of T helper 1 cells and normal eye development, has no defined role reported in terms of atherosclerosis (AS). To investigate the potential involvement of TMEM98 during AS processes, its obvious secretion and expression has been initially characterized in hyperlipidemia patients' serum and AS mice's serum respectively. We then explored the possible role of TMEM98 in the pathogenesis of AS in vitro. IL-8, a pro-atherogenesis cytokine, was used to induce the expression of TMEM98 in both endothelial cells (ECs) and vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs). Collectively, TMEM98 expression significantly increased in ECs and VSMCs, both induced by IL-8. Additionally, the adhesion ability of monocytes to ECs as well as the proliferation and migration of VSMCs were all decreased after siRNA-TMEM98 treatment. Furthermore, siRNA-TMEM98 dramatically inhibited the expression of ICAM-1 in ECs and the expression of p-AKT, p-GSK3β and Cyclin D1 from VSMCs, and AKT agonist partially restored the proliferation and migration of VSMC after siRNA-TMEM98 treatment. Taken together, siRNA-TMEM98 inhibits IL-8 mediated EC adhesion by down-regulating the expression of ICAM-1. Additionally, it also hinders the proliferation and migration of VSMCs through suppressing the AKT/GSK3β/Cyclin D1 signaling pathway. Our study provides sufficient evidence to support that TMEM98 could be a novel gene associated with AS for the first time.


: This work proposes a multi-criteria decision-making approach to select suppliers in the olive oil sector. Besides several performance criteria required to the supplier, olive oil characteristics such as colour, smell, and density, as well as organoleptic tests are used. Hence, the assessment and selection of suppliers assumes a major importance and needs to be done yearly. The process of finding a set of suppliers to choose from involves two sequential stages, namely identification and elimination. The identification stage consists of finding a set of potential suppliers. Then, in the elimination stage, suppliers that are not able to meet the thresholds associated with some technical indicators are disregarded. Thus, only a small set of very promising suppliers need to be assessed. The assessment was performed by resorting to the Macbeth approach, resulting in a ranking. The results obtained were validated through sensitivity and robustness analyses.


Viral CD8+ epitopes are generated by the cellular turnover of viral proteins, predominantly by the proteasome. Mutations located within viral epitopes can result in escape from memory T cells but the contribution of mutations in flanking regions of epitopes in SARS-CoV-2 has not been investigated. Focusing on two of the most dominant SARS-CoV-2 nucleoprotein CD8+ epitopes, we identified mutations in epitope flanking regions and investigated the contribution of these mutations to antigen processing and T cell activation using SARS-CoV-2 nucleoprotein transduced B cell lines and in vitro proteasomal processing of peptides. We found that decreased NP9-17-B*27:05 CD8+ T cell responses to the NP-Q7K mutation correlated with lower epitope surface expression, likely due to a lack of efficient epitope production by the proteasome, suggesting immune escape caused by this mutation. In contrast, NP-P6L and NP-D103N/Y mutations flanking the NP9-17-B*27:05 and NP105-113-B*07:02 epitopes, respectively, increased CD8+ T cell responses associated with enhanced epitope production by the proteasome. Our results provide evidence that SARS-CoV-2 mutations outside the epitope could have a significant impact on antigen processing and presentation, thereby contributing to escape from immunodominant T cell responses. Alternatively, mutations could enhance antigen processing and efficacy of T cell recognition, opening new avenues for improving future vaccine designs. One Sentence Summary Natural mutations in the flanking regions of known immunodominant SARS-CoV-2 nucleoprotein epitopes can decrease CD8+ T cell responses leading to partial escape.


Foodborne infections are costly and almost preventable public health world problematic during 2015-2019, it was realized an epidemiological survey with selective observations for 203 Foodborne diseases appeared in Transylvania - Romania. It was obtained even a clinical study, many case interpretations and conclusions of all relevant appeared situations. The results, figured out that most cases appeared in adults with several chronic illnesses and male in 56%, from rural side 57%. The pathology was present after family events, when food contamination occurred probably at any point, from: production, processing, distribution, or any meals preparation with: eggs, milk and meat products. There were several disease forms, from simple one in 70%, middle one in 22%, to severe who arrived in totality to 8 % and needed even hospitalization days. Food- born infection were caused by: Salmonella spp in 67%, mostly Salmonella enteritidis in 29 % and 14% were determined by Staphylococcus aureus. To protect people from foodborne infections, there is important to survey correct each chain of food production, processing, transportation, handling, and all preparation steps. Correct hand washing means anywhere a lot, in the illness prevention activity.


Considering that the algorithm based on sparse component analysis cannot perfectly solve the problem about mixed images with noise, a new scheme utilizing feedback mechanism was presented to separate image sources blindly. Via sparse component analysis in wavelet domain and zero setting feedback mechanism, every channel of signal was extracted step by step. The experiment results showed that the proposed method does not need vast iteration and can separate all sources from the mixtures effectively. Compared to classic FastICA algorithm, the presented algorithm got higher accuracy.


Background : Knowledge translation (KT) describes any process that contributes to the effective and timely incorporation of evidence-based information into the practices of health professionals in such a way as to affect optimal health care outcomes and maximize the potential of the health care system. Emergency medicine offers a truly unique educational experience for medical students. The aim of this study: is to establish the extent to which newly graduated doctor in a medical program can translate their own knowledge to emergency practice. Method and Results : A descriptive cross sectional study conducted during the period from the first of January to the last day of September 2013 in Karbala Teaching Hospitals. The sample is composed of 49 Intern doctors (newly graduated) in Karbala teaching hospitals. The questionnaire consisted of two main domains, with 13 items. Section one (chick list) was designed to explore doctors' performance. The second section was designed to asses perceptions of doctors about emergency KT. Statistical Analysis Data was analyzed by Minitab 13.1 software was used for data entry and analysis. P-value ≤ 0.05 considered as significant. Results: Majority complete test with high score evidence. But reversed to that the majority (83.67%) show low evidences to call protocol, and about half of doctors (51.02%) failed to take consent. The majority of doctors (87.76%) did not incorporate guidelines and their implementation in clinical practice, and (69.39%) thought there are barriers to incorporate EBM. Conclusions and Recommendations ; Most of candidate show high technical tasks regarding pass exam corresponding to that, the majority show low evidences to call protocol, and instead of that they follow traditional procedures that learned in emergency rooms from older doctors (Role Model). While most of candidates agree about the benefit of K.T to improve medical emergency service. Current study revealed a lack of awareness of benefit toward Continuous Medical Education. Extra research projects can be designed around the K.T to determine the most effective ways to adhere doctor's optimal skills and ensure that they become efficient practitioners of evidence-based medicine (EM). Key wards: Knowledge translation, emergency medicine, Intern doctors


ABSTRACT In the Nano Aerosol Mass Spectrometer (NAMS), particles are irradiated with a high energy laser pulse to produce a plasma that quantitatively disintegrates each particle into positively charged atomic ions. Previous work with this method used electrodynamic focusing and trapping of particles 30 nm dia. and below. In the current work, an aerodynamic focusing inlet was used to study particles between 40 and 150 nm dia. The distribution of atomic ion charge states was found to be particle size dependent, shifting toward lower charges with increasing size. This shift also affected the calibration by which elemental composition was determined from atomic ion signal intensities. Size independent calibration could be achieved by restricting the analysis to particles that gave more than 90% of the total signal intensity as multiply charged ions. This approach worked best for particles smaller than about 100 nm dia. since most spectra met this criterion. For the nanoparticles studied, the elemental mole fractions of Group I and II metals, halogens, and low atomic mass nonmetals could be determined within 10% or less of the expected value when the mole fraction was at the 1% level or greater. Some transition and heavy metals could not be quantified, while others could. Quantification appeared to be dependent on the ability of the element to be vaporized. Elements with high melting and boiling points gave particle mass spectra similar to those obtained by laser desorption ionization—mostly singly charged ions with relative intensities strongly biased toward atoms with low ionization energies. Copyright © 2017 American Association for Aerosol Research


Background Whilst deficiencies in undergraduate rheumatology training may have, negatively, influenced the competence of general practitioners in dealing with musculoskeletal complaints, postgraduate education is likely to be even more crucial, whether as continuing medical education or as part of their vocational training. Local educational schemes provided by local rheumatologist with interest in medical education represent an "educational window" for training both the post-graduate as well as training general practitioners. It also raises their attention to the recent developments in the field of rheumatology and how to implement the new guidelines released into standard clinical practice. Objectives To assess whether an education program and a referral algorithm can improve the reliability of referral behavior to the early arthritis (EA) clinic. Also to assess the impact of this educational activity on the patients' management and the service provided. Methods An educational activity was launched in parallel with the setting up of a specialized early arthritis clinic. The target was to educate and train GPs to identify a subgroup of patients suffering from persistent joint pains suggestive of EA. The organized teaching program revived the local release scheme educational activity. All GPs received summarized guidelines for case definition and referral to the clinic as well as the clinic alogorithm for assessment and management of EA. Teaching adopted the problem based learning approach.Primary outcome: To assess whether an education program and a referral algorithm can improve reliability of referral behavior to the early arthritis clinic. Secondary outcome: 1. To assess whether there has been a change of the referral distribution of patients to the clinic per year reflected by the prevalence of inflammatory arthritis as a final diagnosis among the patients referred to the clinic over 3-years period (from 2008 till 2010/2011). 2. The impact of this development on the patients' management as well as the service provided. Results A proper educational program was reliable (Cronbach's alpha 0.87) and valid for identifying patients suffering from EA. There has been a steady and significant (p<0.01) increase in the number of the patients referred and assessed in the EA clinic. Analysis of the referral distribution revealed also a significant shift in the range of diagnoses over time. On comparing the year 2010 to the years 2009 and 2008, assessment of the number of diagnosis in time for each standard diagnosis registration category revealed a significant increase (p<0.01) of the EA as a definite final diagnosis, matching the GPs initial diagnosis of inflammatory arthritis, when the patient was first referred to the clinic. In response to the positive impact of the educational activity, the rheumatology department invested more, both in time and resources. More time was dedicated for the clinic and Musculoskeletal US was introduced to set up a one stop early arthritis clinic. Conclusions The GPs performance and the referral pattern can be improved significantly by an appropriate education program. Local educational schemes provided by rheumatologist with interest in medical education represent an "educational window" for training both the post-graduate as well as training general practitioners. Disclosure of Interest None Declared


This study proposes a Polarizable Transferable Anisotropic Mie (P-TAMie) force field for ethers and mixtures of ethers with n-alkanes and nitrogen. In our approach, polarizability is accounted for using a charge-on-spring model (also referred to as the Drude model or core-shell model) placed on every united-atom site. Parameters for polarizabilities are obtained from ab initio calculations, without the need to introduce empirical scaling factors. The van der Waals parameters and static partial charges are optimized to minimize deviations to experimental vapor pressure and coexisting liquid density data. Vapor-liquid phase equilibria are calculated using Monte Carlo simulations in the grand canonical ensemble, using a MC scheme with multiparticle moves. Correlation results for pure substances and predictions of mixture behavior obtained from the proposed polarizable force field (P-TAMie) are in good agreement with experimental data. We compare the polarizable force field with an analogous nonpolarizable force field, namely, the Transferable Anisotropic Mie (TAMie) force field, where both force fields share the same intramolecular force field and were parametrized using the same objective function. The comparison should thus single out the role of polarizability in predicting phase equilibria. The comparison of P-TAMie with the nonpolarizable TAMie force field, however, shows very similar results of both models. This study does not include water and aqueous mixtures or other pronounced polar substances.


Quantitative characterization of causal couplings from time series is crucial in studies of complex systems of different origin. Various statistical tools for that exist and new ones are still being developed with a tendency to creating a single, universal, model-free quantifier of coupling strength. However, a clear and generally applicable way of interpreting such universal characteristics is lacking. This work suggests a general conceptual framework for causal coupling quantification, which is based on state space models and extends the concepts of virtual interventions and dynamical causal effects. Namely, two basic kinds of interventions (state space and parametric) and effects (orbital or transient and stationary or limit) are introduced, giving four families of coupling characteristics. The framework provides a unifying view of apparently different well-established measures and allows us to introduce new characteristics, always with a definite "intervention-effect" interpretation. It is shown that diverse characteristics cannot be reduced to any single coupling strength quantifier and their interpretation is inevitably model based. The proposed set of dynamical causal effect measures quantifies different aspects of "how the coupling manifests itself in the dynamics," reformulating the very question about the "causal coupling strength."


We investigate the continuum and emission-line properties of 224 broad absorption line quasars (BALQSOs) with 0.9 ≲ z ≲ 4.4 drawn from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Early Data Release, which contains 3814 bona fide quasars. We find that low-ionization BALQSOs (LoBALs) are significantly reddened as compared with normal quasars, in agreement with previous work. High-ionization BALQSOs (HiBALs) are also more reddened than the average non-BALQSO. Assuming SMC-like dust reddening at the quasar redshift, the amount of reddening needed to explain HiBALs is E(B-V) ∼ 0.023 and LoBALs is E(B-V) ∼ 0.077 (compared with the ensemble average of the entire quasar sample). We find that there are differences in the emission-line properties between the average HiBAL, LoBAL, and non-BAL quasar. These differences, along with differences in the absorption-line troughs, may be related to intrinsic quasar properties such as the slope of the intrinsic (unreddened) continuum; more extreme absorption properties are correlated with bluer intrinsic continua. Despite the differences among BALQSO subtypes and non-BALQSOs, BALQSOs appear to be drawn from the same parent population as non-BALQSOs when both are selected by their UV/optical properties. We find that the overall fraction of traditionally defined BALQSOs, after correcting for color-dependent selection effects due to different SEDs of BALQSOs and non-BALQSOs, is 13.4% ± 1.2% and shows no significant redshift dependence for 1.7 ≤ z ≤ 3.45. After a rough completeness correction for the effects of dust extinction, we find that approximately one in every six quasars is a BALQSO.


The subsurface Tertiary and Mesozoic formations in the Jebissa area of northeastern Syria are correlative with those in northern Iraq. Formations older than Mesozoic have not been penetrated fully. Lithostratigraphic variations can be correlated with their equivalents in northern Iraq. The tectonic movements which affected the Jebissa area are believed to be the same that affected northern Iraq and the Arabian basin in general. The generation and accumulation of petroleum in the Tertiary and Mesozoic formations of northeastern Syria differ from those in northern Iraq as to source rocks and mode of migration.


Smart Manufacturing advances have recently emerged, focused on the integration of Digital Thread (DTh) and Digital Twin (DT). DTh-DT has been explored in additive manufacturing, aircraft production, and weapons. However, there is still an area of opportunity to explore DTh-DT in collaborative manufacturing cells, layouts, and specifically, in the creation of a system to make an intelligent robotic cell.
 This work provides a novel approach of a DTh-DT developed to function within a manufacturing robotic cell. A discrete event simulation (DES) was created with open-source programming software, representing the cell. Information is collected from the physical process and sent to a cloud service. The DES request the data from the cloud is executed and the results are received by a database, which works with a Server (Ignition 8.0). The Server receives data and displays results, working as the link between the DT and the Product Lifecycle. This work presents a quick look at a DTh applied to a robotic cell, an approach to a DT, and the use of different types of communications and platforms. The potential benefits of applying this type of configuration in an Industry 4.0 environment are described and critically reviewed.


In this study we compared 3 methods of conducting the preanesthetic visit. We prospectively studied 197 consecutive surgical patients who were to undergo general anesthesia. The patients were randomized to a routine preanesthetic interview, a brochure plus an interview, or a self-made documentary video plus an interview. After the preanesthetic visit, the degree of patient satisfaction and information gain was quantified by a questionnaire for each method. The questions on patient satisfaction were assessed on a six-point scale, and those on information gain were assessed on a multiple-choice basis. The video plus interview group showed the highest point scores (98% of the possible maximum sum point score in patient satisfaction and 93% of the maximum sum score in information gain). In contrast, the patients of the brochure plus interview group revealed 93% for patient satisfaction and 80% for information gain, and in the standard interview group, the corresponding figures were 91% and 72%, respectively. The maximum sum scores in patient satisfaction and information gain were significantly different between the interview and the video groups, but not between the interview and the brochure groups. Therefore, these data suggest that the use of a documentary video to supplement a preoperative interview may enhance patient satisfaction and maximize information gain.


OBJECTIVE
Compliance with the treatment of Latent Tuberculous Infection (ITL) is a determining factor in the control of tuberculosis. The objective of this study was to estimate the acceptance and compliance of the ITL treatment, and associated factors in contacts of patients with tuberculosis in Lleida.

METHODS
Epidemiological analytical observational study, of a retrospective cohort follow-up, since the 1 January 2015 to 31 December 2016. The Participants were contacts of patients with tuberculosis in Lleida. Variables of the index case and independent and dependent variables (acceptance and compliance of the treatment) of contacts were studied through univariate and bivariate analysis. The strength of association was studied with odds ratio (OR) and confidence interval (IC) of 95% they were adjusted by a multivariate regression model.

RESULTS
69.1% of tuberculosis cases had a contact study, and 47.5% had at least one contact with prescription of preventive treatment. The treatment was accepted by 94.5% of contacts, and only 70.3% finalized this treatment. The completion was more frequent in patients who knew the meaning of latent tuberculosis infection treatment (ORa: 2.0; CI: 95% 1.0-4.1).


In this paper, two authors have explored and demonstrated their own multi-dimensional positionality' in the manner of reflectively interpreting four meaningful scenarios relating to their encountered methodological challenges in a cross-border COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning) project. Throughout the construction of multi-dimensional positionality, the recognition of the subtle insider-outsider binarism encouraged these two authors to revisit the role of national cultures in the formation of researcher positionality and then to incorporate the idea of 'simplexity' into their understanding of the on-going positionality, which has resulted in the proposition of 'simplex multi-dimensional positionality.' Alluding to this concept, the two authors acknowledge the possible intervention of national cultures as their researcher positionality evolves and contend that it is the degree to which researchers tend to (not) make use of national cultures as resources that keep their positionality oscillating rather than the national cultures per se.


The globalisation of the labour market creates new challenges for organisations when hiring. This article addresses one such challenge that is rarely in the spotlight: the implications of the choice of a language proficiency test for non-native speakers by the hiring organisation. We use the UK National Health Service (NHS) recruitment practices as an example. With the help of a staged experiment, this practice-based study argues that the current international recruitment procedure to the NHS tends to underestimate some important differences between language as a formalised system of words and grammatical rules and discourse as 'language in action', causing the loss of staffing capacity. It follows from our analysis that when setting the requirements and objectives of a language test, the recruiting organisations need to consider more explicitly the social and cultural context in which their employees operate and the impact of this context on the communication demands faced by the staff.


Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) systems are one of the enabling technologies for the ubiquitous computing paradigm. At the moment, the EPCglobal organization leads the development of industry-driven standards for this field and has settled the EPC "Gen 2" as a reference standard. In this paper, we analyze the anti-collision procedure of EPC "Gen 2" to find the time needed to identify a population of tags, by means of the finite Markov-chain of the system. In addition, a UHF multi-reader prototype based on time division multiple access (TDMA) scheme is evaluated in this work. In this TDMA scheme, the reader time-slot duration is allocated according to the computations obtained from our analytical study. The main conclusions derived from this implementation are summarized in this work.


Abstract In teacher education, case-based learning with text-based cases is an efficient method to foster pre-service teachers' diagnostic competence. To adaptively utilize text-based cases, knowledge about effects of text characteristics and empathy on processing text-based diagnostic information is needed, but still scarce. Our study focuses on effects of two text characteristics, text style and text subject, and of empathy on the accuracy of case-based cognitive models. We examined this experimentally. 391 pre-service teachers read a case in psycho-narrative or externally focalised style (text style) about test anxiety or dyscalculia (text subject). We measured self-reported state- and trait-empathy and assessed cognitive models with a recognition and verification test. Regression analyses showed a main effect of text-style but not of text-subject, trait- and state-empathy, and moderation effects of text style and affective (but not cognitive) state-empathy. We draw implications for adaptively designing text-based cases and possible mechanisms of how empathy is involved in diagnostic judgement formation.


The study of monetary phenomena and an understanding of price determination in modern Europe are too often limited by scarcity of good-quality data sets on the evolution across time of such variables as money holdings, income, or wealth. In this article we show that information contained in probate inventories can be extremely useful in circumventing this problem. In particular, we combine a data set of 116 inventories from Palencia (in northern Spain) between 1750 and 1770 with census information (Catastro de Ensenada) in order to create a cross-section estimate of money demand, a first for any period before the nineteenth century. Results provide meaningful insights about relationships among money demand, wealth, urbanization and structural change in a pre-industrial economy; they also highlight the potential of probate inventories for improving our general understanding of the monetary history of modern Europe.


This paper summarises the requirements and criteria for assessment of childhood disabilities. It reviews recent research carried out in Jamaica and outlines procedures for medical and psychological assessment used in the International Epidemiological Study of Childhood Disability as well as local experience in community-based rehabilitation. While the medical assessment procedures were considered to be validated, there is an urgent need for local research and development in psychological assessment. These approaches, while not perfect as yet, bring the possibility of local community capability closer. They will require changes in professional attitudes, training of health and educational personnel, and changes in the service systems, so that screening and assessment can be integrated into existing services. However, although this will obviate the need for new, specialised administrations, improved linkages and lines of referral will be necessary.


To The Editor:

"Surgical Repair of Acute Traumatic Closed Transection of the Biceps Brachii" (2002;84:992-8), by Kragh and Basamania, caught our attention because of the mechanism of this injury. Transection of the biceps caused by entanglement of the upper arm with the static line has been reported only in studies involving United States military paratroopers 1-3 and in one study of a British paratrooper using United States Army equipment and procedures 4. In 1978, Heckman and Levine 2 showed that the risk of static line entanglement and consequent biceps transection is the result of misrouting of the static line caused by the rigging of the parachute equipment and procedures used in …


The consumption of animal by-products has continued to witness tremendous growth over the last decade. This is due to its potential to combat protein malnutrition and food insecurity in many countries. Shortly after slaughter, animal by-products are separated into edible or inedible parts. The edible part accounts for 55% of the production while the remaining part is regarded as inedible by-products (IEBPs). These IEBPs can be re-processed into sustainable products for agricultural and industrial uses. The efficient utilization of animal by-products can alleviate the prevailing cost and scarcity of feed materials, which have high competition between animals and humans. This will also aid in reducing environmental pollution in the society. In this regard, proper utilization of animal by-products such as rumen digesta can result in cheaper feed, reduction in competition and lower cost of production. Over the years, the utilization of animal by-products such as rumen digesta as feed in livestock feed has been successfully carried out without any adverse effect on the animals. However, there are emerging gaps that need to be further addressed regarding the food security and sustainability of the products. Therefore, the objective of this review highlights the efficacy and effectiveness of using animal by-products as alternative sources of feed ingredients, and the constraints associated with their production to boost livestock performance in the industry at large.