Background/introduction The British Association for Sexual Health and HIV (BASHH) standards provide clear targets for HIV testing in genitourinary medicine (GUM). BASHH state that 97% of people with 'needs relating to STIs' are offered an HIV test at first attendance; and that 80% are recorded to have an HIV test. Public Health England place testing figures for our fully integrated sexual and reproductive health service consistently below recommended standards. Aim(s)/objectives To establish true HIV testing rates within an urban sexual health clinic, and to explore factors contributing to our performance. Methods Electronic patient records from all attendances to GUM or contraception and sexual health clinics between 02/03/2015 and 06/03/2015 were analysed to establish rates and patterns of HIV testing. Results 282 patients were included in analysis; 253 (89.7%) were offered an HIV test, and 176 (62.3%) had a test. 77 patients refused an HIV test; the most common documented reason was self/clinician perceived low risk (22). Within the 'high risk' cohort (52) only four refused and the reason was clearly noted. If patients attending primarily for contraceptive care were excluded from analysis, 225 patients remained; of these 211 (93.7%) were offered an HIV test and 164 (72.9%) had a test. Discussion/conclusion We suggest that our lower testing rates, in part, reflect the inclusion of patients attending primarily for contraceptive care. In all sexual health/contraceptive clinics it remains important to risk assess patients, and offer HIV testing where appropriate, but our analysis begs the question: should the targets be amended for fully integrated services?


The purpose of this study was to investigate whether milk consumption (MC) could be used as a simple farmer-friendly indicator for providing advanced treatment to limited fed diarrhoeic neonatal calves. Complementarily, it was evaluated whether the standard indications for veterinary care (severe dehydration and/or acidosis-septicaemia) are associated with different patterns in MC. The MC and health records of 103 calves with diarrhoeathat were fed a milk replacer at the volume of 10% of their body weight were used in the study. The MC reduction rate (MCRR) was calculated after each feeding (MCt) during the diarrhoea course, based on the MC prior to the diarrhoea onset for each calf (MC0) using the formula MCRR = 100 × (MC0 − MCt)/MC0. The calves were assigned into the ST group (n = 58) if they only received the standard treatment (oral rehydration solutions between milk feedings) until recovery, and into the advanced treatment (VT) group (n = 45) if they needed advanced treatment (i.v. fluids ± antibiotics) directly or after the standard treatment. The calves in the VT group that only had dehydration, were further assigned into the DH subgroup (n = 22) and those with signs of acidosis-septicaemia with or without dehydration were assigned into the ASD subgroup (n = 23). The MC was practically stable in the ST group throughout the diarrhoea course. In the VT group, the MC was significantly reduced during the last 36 hours prior to the advanced treatment administration. This reduction was significantly higher in the ASD subgroup than the DH subgroup. The MCRR on the last meal prior to treatment administration was proven to be a very reliable indicator for the detection of diarrhoeic calves needing advanced treatment (cut-off: ≥ 24.5%; sensitivity: 95.6%; specificity: 98.7%) and of those with acidosis-septicaemia (cut-off: ≥ 29.6%; sensitivity: 91.7%; specificity: 99.1%). The results of the study show thatfarmers employing this feeding regimen should seek veterinary assistance when the milk consumption of calves is reduced by ≥ 24.5%.


The aim of this article is to investigate translation trainees' perceived difficulties and benefits of a post-editing oriented neural machine translation (NMT) error annotation and quality evaluation task which was carried out for the language pair English-Turkish and for two separate text types and domains, i.e., environmental blogs and movie/TV reviews, within the scope of an MA course on translation quality standards. The data to be analyzed were collected through a semi-structured questionnaire which was given to the trainees attending the course after the completion of the task. The questionnaire was prepared with the aim of understanding perceived difficulties and benefits of the task. Analysis of the answers revealed that most of the trainees were in the opinion that the task was difficult. Majority of the trainees also believed that the task was beneficial and enabled them to feel empowered to make decisions on human translation quality evaluation of machine translation (MT) and to carry out error annotation and post-editing activities in the future. According to a significant number of trainees, error annotation facilitated their post-editing process and reduced the effort in post-editing. Enhanced understanding of MT error annotation and enhanced ability to perform post-editing were the significant benefits stated by the trainees. The difficulties were associated with being introduced and assigned to perform tasks they were not familiar with. Yet, as displayed in the answers to the questionnaire, a considerable majority of the trainees were positive about the learning experience. The results have also shown that integration of MT-related activities into translator training with a focus on the empowerment of the human translator has its difficulties and benefits also for translation trainers. While the difficulties for the trainers concern the decisions on the design, implementation, and planning of the task and the responsibility to carry out the task in constant interaction and collaboration with the trainees, the benefits are the sense of fulfillment and enrichment brought by positive feedback from the trainees and the discovery of the fact that the so-called 'teaching experience' becomes a 'learning experience' for trainers as well as trainees.


Assisted reproductive technologies (ART) have made tremendous advances, in last years. Artificial insemination is a method for achieving slow genetic progress in populations of animals. Many large and small ruminants are bred by AI, and more than a half million embryos are transferred every year around the world. Most of the ruminants sires used for artificial insemination were derived from embryo transfer. Improvements of reproductive biotechnologies of controlling the estrous cycle and ovulation have resulted in more effective programs for AI, superovulation of donor, and the management of ET. In the ruminants, ET procedure is a timely alternative that can allow good conception rates to be obtained constant in a year. There have been great advances of this biotechnique with on aimed to intensify the genetic progress between generations of farm. The gains is possible with the development of advanced reproductive biotechnique. The best current strategy in applying biotechnology to farmers is to use AI with sexed semen, so farmers will enjoy and benefit. The use of ET together with cryopreserved sexed embryos has a very specific potential for donor replacement and genetic improvement of the herd. In this chapter, procedures of the MOET protocol were described step by step.


TiO2@CdSe/CdS core–shell hollow nanospheres solar paint was successfully prepared via hard template and ion exchange method considering the match of their band gap. The outer layer of TiO2 shell protects CdSe and CdS from decomposition and increases their stability. The diameters of the TiO2@CdSe/CdS hollow nanospheres were uniformly around 600 nm with a shell thickness of 70 nm. The visible light absorption onset of TiO2@CdSe/CdS hollow nanospheres is around 650 nm corresponding to a bandgap of 1.8 eV, showing a red-shift when compared with TiO2/CdS. TiO2@CdSe/CdS hollow nanospheres can be directly used as solar paint. The photoanode decorated by the solar paint performs a reliable photoelectric conversion efficiency of ∼0.79% and current density of 6.6 mA cm−2.


In August, 1992, we established a leukemic cell line (NS‐Meg) from a patient in megakaryoblastic transformation of Philadelphia chromosome‐positive chronic myeloid leukemia. The NS‐Meg cells were positive for α‐naphthyl acetate esterase and periodic acid‐Schiff (PAS) staining and for surface CD4, CD7, CD13, CD34, CD41a, and glycophorin A antigens. Ultrastructurally, the cells had α‐granules, demarcation membranes, and platelet peroxidase activity. The NS‐Meg cells spontaneously produced platelet‐like particles which contained α‐granules, mitochondria and dense bodles, strongly suggesting platelet production. Erythropoietin (Epo), granulocyte/macrophage colony stimulating factor(GM‐CSF), and interleukin 3 (IL‐3) promoted the growth of NS‐Meg cells. Phorbol‐12‐myristate‐13‐acetate increased the expression of both CD41a and CD61 antigens. Ten‐day exposure to Epo induced mature erythroblasts and red cells. These benzidine‐positive cells were positive for hemoglobin F staining. Untreated NS‐Meg cells expressed mRNA for the Epo receptor (EpoR), for GATA‐1, and for α1, α2 and γ globin genes. These results indicate that NS‐Meg cells undergo terminal differentiation of both megakaryocyte and erythroid lineages. This cell line should be a very useful tool for the investigation of both megakaryocytic and erythroid maturation.


The vestibular coriolis (or "cross-coupling") effect is traditionally explained by cross-coupled angular vectors, which, however, do not explain the differences in perceptual disturbance under different acceleration conditions. For example, during head roll tilt in a rotating chair, the magnitude of perceptual disturbance is affected by a number of factors, including acceleration or deceleration of the chair rotation or a zero-g environment. Therefore, it has been suggested that linear-angular interactions play a role. The present research investigated whether these perceptual differences and others involving linear coriolis accelerations could be explained under one common framework: the laws of motion in three dimensions, which include all linear-angular interactions among all six components of motion (three angular and three linear). The results show that the three-dimensional laws of motion predict the differences in perceptual disturbance. No special properties of the vestibular system or nervous system are required. In addition, simulations were performed with angular, linear, and tilt time constants inserted into the model, giving the same predictions. Three-dimensional graphics were used to highlight the manner in which linear-angular interaction causes perceptual disturbance, and a crucial component is the Stretch Factor, which measures the "unexpected" linear component.


This chapter outlines the context behind the ''Designing Empowerment'' initiative at the Industrial Design program at Virginia Tech. It makes a case for using design thinking and innovation as a catalyst for positive change in our society. With more than 4 billion of us living below poverty line, how do we even begin to make a sense of the challenges faced by majority of humans? What are the design opportunities, if there are any, and how do we go about creating a set of guidelines that can be used to do exploratory research and create compelling solutions? The chapter offers examples of initiatives that have worked, provides evidence of their effectiveness, and presents an argument for using design thinking and innovation as a tool to address some of the most pressing issues: alleviating poverty, providing better education, and improving basic health services for all human beings.


Spatial association rule is one of the upmost knowledge rules in the result of spatial data mining. It emphasizes particularly on confirming the relation of data in different fields. It tries to find out the dependence of data in multi-fields. As we know, in GIS the spatial database is often separated into several layers or tables according the type of the spatial object such as road layer, building layer, plant layer etc. In the relational database we often separate it into several tables which be associated by the primary key and foreign key according the normal form theory. Consequently, the spatial data is stored in different layers and tables. It is necessary and meaning to mining the knowledge and rules in multi-layer and multi-tables. And, It is inevitable to mining spatial association rules in multi-layer in some application. There is a problem in it, that is the number of the rules are magnitude. So, we point a new way by using the cell pattern of the rules which the user interested to reduce and simplify the operation. In this paper the concept of multi-layer spatial association rule is put forward. Then an algorithm of mining multi-layer spatial association rule is presented which based on cell pattern and spatial concept relation. It was called AP-MLSAM in the paper. Last, an example in GIS is given. In AP-MLSAM, First, it confirms the patterns and rules that the user is interested in. Second it counts the large itemsets according with the cell pattern in each data layer. Last, the spatial association rules are gained by the itemsets which be counted in the second step. From the experiment, it proved that AP-MLSAM is effective. It improved the efficiency by reducing the time of finding the large itemsets. It is a significance research field for mining multi-layer spatial association rules. There are many applications based on multi-layer spatial association analyse. For example: traffic flux analyse in city, weather pattern analyse, trend analyse for climate and plant. All these applications request mining the association rules in the mass data. It is necessary to improve the efficiency of the algorithm. And this paper offers a new way to mine multi-layer spatial association rule based on concept relation using cell pattern.


Introduction: Leiomyosarcomas are rare mesenchymal neoplasms characterized by a smooth-muscle differentiation pattern. Patients show poor disease-specific survival due to high recurrence rates and low response to chemotherapy and radiation. Development of novel chemotherapeutic regimens is the need of the hour. Epigenetic mechanisms such as hypermethylation of gene promotor regions lead to abnormal gene silencing and have been found to influence the initiation and progression of cancer. Epigenetic drugs have been approved for treatment of various malignancies such as myelodysplastic syndrome, acute myeloid leukemias, and subsets of lymphomas. This study aims to understand the potential efficacy of epigenetic drugs called DNA methyltransferease inhibitors (DNMTi) in the treatment of leiomyosarcomas. Methods: DNMTi used in this study include azacytidine (Aza), decitabine (Dac), and guadecitabine. Aza and Dac are antimetabolites, which get incorporated onto RNA and DNA, respectively, leading to inhibition of DNMT. Guadecitabine is a novel prodrug for Dac with a longer half-life. Various leiomyosarcoma cell lines (SK-UT1, SK-LMS, and MES) were treated with varying doses of guadecitabine (0.01-5 ug/ml), decitabine (Dac: 0.1 uM-5uM), or azacitidine (Aza: 0.1 uM-5 uM) and incubated for a maximum of five days. Cell viability was measured daily via MTT assay. To further characterize the mechanism(s) of drug induced cell death, Caspase Glo® Assay (G8090) was utilized as a measure of apoptosis by proxy of Caspase 3 and 7 activity. CellToxTM Green Cytotoxicity Assay was then employed to measure membrane integrity, thus quantifying nonspecific cell death. This would further measure the toxic effect of the demethylating drugs on leiomyosarcoma cell lines. We also studied the effect of guadecitabine (3 mg/kg, 2x/week) treatment in vivo, using subcutaneous xenografts in NOD/SCID mice. Statistical analysis was conducted using GraphPad Prism 6. Results: Decreased cell viability was observed in all three leiomyosarcoma cell lines upon exposure to demethylating agents. SK-UT1 showed the highest sensitivity to all three epigenetic drugs (IC50 values: guadecitabine-0.3 uM, Aza-2.1 uM, and Dac-2.3 uM), MES was sensitive to Aza and guadecitabine (IC50 values: Aza-3.2 uM, guadecitabine-6.14 uM, and Dac-11.77 uM), and SK-LMS was sensitive only to Aza (IC50 values: Aza-2.6 uM, guadecitabine-9.6 uM, and Dac-10.3 uM). To better understand the effect of guadecitabine and AZA on these cell lines, we measured the Caspase 3/7 activity of SK-UT1 and SK-LMS using a Promega kit as a readout for apoptosis. The Caspase activity measured in SKUT1 was remarkably higher in both drugs when compared to that of SK-LMS in presence of same drugs. The amount of necrosis measured in both cell lines in presence of guadecitabine and Aza was negligible. Considerable tumor growth inhibition was also observed after in vivo treatment with guadecitabine in both SK-UT1 and SK-LMS mice xenografts. Conclusion: The use of demethylating agents leads to substantial inhibition of tumor growth in leiomyosarcoma cell lines and xenograft models. Further studies are required to explore the potential therapeutic applications and precise mechanism of action of demethylating agents in leiomyosarcoma treatment. Funding supported by ASTEX Pharmaceuticals. Note: uM= Micromole Citation Format: Cynthia De Carvalho Fischer, Yue Hu, Jasvinder Singh, Maya Thakar, Manjusha Thakar, Nita Ahuja. Treatment with demethylating drugs inhibits tumor growth in leiomyosarcoma cell lines and xenograft models [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Conference on Advances in Sarcomas: From Basic Science to Clinical Translation; May 16-19, 2017; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Clin Cancer Res 2018;24(2_Suppl):Abstract nr A35.


© 2018 International Speech Communication Association. All rights reserved. In free speaking tests candidates respond in spontaneous speech to prompts. This form of test allows the spoken language proficiency of a non-native speaker of English to be assessed more fully than read aloud tests. As the candidate's responses are unscripted, transcription by automatic speech recognition (ASR) is essential for automated assessment. ASR will never be 100% accurate so any assessment system must seek to minimise and mitigate ASR errors. This paper considers the impact of ASR errors on the performance of free speaking test auto-marking systems. Firstly rich linguistically related features, based on part-of-speech tags from statistical parse trees, are investigated for assessment. Then, the impact of ASR errors on how well the system can detect whether a learner's answer is relevant to the question asked is evaluated. Finally, the impact that these errors may have on the ability of the system to provide detailed feedback to the learner is analysed. In particular, pronunciation and grammatical errors are considered as these are important in helping a learner to make progress. As feedback resulting from an ASR error would be highly confusing, an approach to mitigate this problem using confidence scores is also analysed.


Modifying metal electrodes with self‐assembled monolayers (SAMs) has promising applications in organic and molecular electronics. The two key electronic parameters are the modification of the electrode work function because of SAM adsorption and the alignment of the SAM conducting states relative to the metal Fermi level. Through a comprehensive density‐functional‐theory study on a series of organic thiols self‐assembled on Au(111), relationships between the electronic structure of the individual molecules (especially the backbone polarizability and its response to donor/acceptor substitutions) and the properties of the corresponding SAMs are described. The molecular backbone is found to significantly impacts the level alignment; for molecules with small ionization potentials, even Fermi‐level pinning is observed. Nevertheless, independent of the backbone, polar head‐group substitutions have no effect on the level alignment. For the work‐function modification, the larger molecular dipole moments achieved when attaching donor/acceptor substituents to more polarizable backbones are largely compensated by increased depolarization in the SAMs. The main impact of the backbone on the work‐function modification thus arises from its influence on the molecular orientation on the surface. This study provides a solid theoretical basis for the fundamental understanding of SAMs and significantly advances the understanding of structure–property relationships needed for the future development of functional organic interfaces.


The design and development of a universal robot control system (URCS) that would enable computation-intensive control algorithms to be implemented and modified is reported. This required shifting from hardware to software, using high-performance computing platforms. In general, multiprocessing has been found to be a cost-effective method for increasing performance, especially when the control algorithm can be composed into concurrent computational tasks. The URCS was developed using the University of Toronto Multiprocessor System (TUNIS) as the computing platform. One processor reads sensors, another calculates compensation signals and commands to the motors, a third is designated for operator requests, and the last is used for the operating system. An interface that allows the URCS to control the PUMA 560 robot was designed and built. >


Climate change will alter rainfall patterns. The effect of rainfall during seed development and maturation on wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) seed quality (ability to germinate normally; airdry longevity in hermetic storage at 40 o C with c. 15% moisture content) was investigated in field experiments (2011, 2012) by providing rain shelter or simulating additional rainfall. High ability to germinate was detected from mid seed filling until after harvest maturity. Subsequent longevity was more sensitive to stage of development. It increased progressively reaching maximum values during maturation drying at 53-56 DAA, 5-11 (2011) or 8-14 (2012) days beyond mass maturity; maximal values were maintained thereafter in 2011; longevity declined with further delay to harvest in 2012. Post-anthesis protection from rain had no major effect: in later harvests longevity was slightly greater than the control in each year, but in 2011 wetting treatments were also superior to the control. Wetting ears at all stages of development reduced longevity immediately, but considerable recovery in subsequent longevity occurred when seeds re-dried in planta for several days. The greatest damage to longevity from ear wetting occurred with treatments at about 56 DAA, with poorest recovery at 70 DAA (i.e. around harvest maturity) in absolute terms but at 56-70 DAA relative to gross damage. Hence, seed quality in highly-dormant wheat varieties was resilient to rain. Net damage was greatest from rain late in maturation. The phase of seed quality improvement in planta was dynamic with deterioration also occurring then, but with net improvement overall.


In many animals, primordial germ cells (PGCs) migrate through the embryo towards the future gonad, a process guided by attractive and repulsive cues provided from surrounding somatic cells. In Drosophila, the two related lipid phosphate phosphatases (LPPs), Wunen (Wun) and Wun2, are thought to degrade extracellular substrates and to act redundantly in somatic cells to provide a repulsive environment to steer the migration of PGCs, or pole cells. Wun and Wun2 also affect the viability of pole cells, because overexpression of either one in somatic cells causes pole cell death. However, the means by which they regulate pole cell migration and survival remains elusive. We report that Wun2 has a maternal function required for the survival of pole cells during their migration to the gonad. Maternal wun2 RNA was found to be concentrated in pole cells and pole cell-specific expression of wun2 rescued the pole cell death phenotype of the maternal wun2 mutant, suggesting that wun2 activity in pole cells is required for their survival. Furthermore, we obtained genetic evidence that pole cell survival requires a proper balance of LPP activity in pole cells and somatic cells. We propose that Wun2 in pole cells competes with somatic Wun and Wun2 for a common lipid phosphate substrate, which is required by pole cells to produce their survival signal. In somatic cells, Wun and Wun2 may provide a repulsive environment for pole cell migration by depleting this extracellular substrate.


The developed control valves, installed on the hot water distribution manifolds for the floor heating system, consist of the balancing valves and the shut-off valves. The balancing valve was designed to improve the flow control performance and to reduce the noise emitted from the valve by modification of the general V port. The port of the shut-off valve was designed with two ceramic plates, working by rotating upper plate, to improve the duration and to reduce the noise. For the evaluation of the new valves, the flow rate was measured and noise level test was carried out. The test results showed that the error of the flow rate accuracy test for the flow balance of each manifold circuit was less than ±3 % and the noise level was less than 35 ㏈(A).


The massive growth of self-supervised learning (SSL) has been witnessed in language, vision, speech, and audio domains over the past few years. While discrete label prediction is widely adopted for other modalities, the state-of-the-art audio SSL models still employ reconstruction loss for pre-training. Compared with reconstruction loss, semantic-rich discrete label prediction encourages the SSL model to abstract the high-level audio semantics and discard the redundant details as in human perception. However, a semantic-rich acoustic tokenizer for general audio pre-training is usually not straightforward to obtain, due to the continuous property of audio and unavailable phoneme sequences like speech. To tackle this challenge, we propose BEATs, an iterative audio pre-training framework to learn Bidirectional Encoder representation from Audio Transformers, where an acoustic tokenizer and an audio SSL model are optimized by iterations. In the first iteration, we use random projection as the acoustic tokenizer to train an audio SSL model in a mask and label prediction manner. Then, we train an acoustic tokenizer for the next iteration by distilling the semantic knowledge from the pre-trained or fine-tuned audio SSL model. The iteration is repeated with the hope of mutual promotion of the acoustic tokenizer and audio SSL model. The experimental results demonstrate our acoustic tokenizers can generate discrete labels with rich audio semantics and our audio SSL models achieve state-of-the-art results across various audio classification benchmarks, even outperforming previous models that use more training data and model parameters significantly. Specifically, we set a new state-of-the-art mAP 50.6% on AudioSet-2M for audio-only models without using any external data, and 98.1% accuracy on ESC-50. The code and pre-trained models are available at https://aka.ms/beats.


Pneumopathy embraces all diseases relating to the lungs. However, this name is more often used to refer to a lung infection. There are several types of lung disease: infectious, interstitial, inhalation and hypersensitivity. It should be noted that pneumopathies of infectious origin are the most frequent. Indeed, a pneumopathy designates an inflammation of the lungs and more generally the respiratory system. It can be of various origins, viral for example, but most of the time, it is bacteria ( pasteurella , streptococcus , pneumococcus , mycoplasma , etc.) that are involved. Globally, pneumonia remains the dominant pathology in small ruminants in sub-Saharan Africa. They generally evolve during the dry- cold and rainy season causing many mortalities. Although small ruminants contribute a lot to the national economy in African countries, their development is hampered by various infectious factors such as peste des petits ruminants, pasteurellosis, mycoplasma , etc. Apart from these factors there are also the non-infectious factors, namely climate change, stress, the farming method and the production system. In fact, small ruminants could contribute more to the well-being of pastoralists if they do not pay a heavy price for pathologies. The presence of respiratory pathology, where infectious agents are strongly involved, is reported all over Africa, but very little quantified assessment is made about its prevalence and even less about its economic impact. The objective of this manuscript is to summarize from bibliographic references the different respiratory pathologies of small ruminants, the factors contributing to their appearance, the different pathogens involved, their diagnosis, treatment and prophylaxis.


While the extended cognition (EC) thesis has gained more followers in cognitive science and in the philosophy of mind and knowledge, our main goal is to discuss a different area of significance of the EC thesis: its relation to philosophy of science. In this introduction, we outline two major areas: (I) The role of the thesis for issues in the philosophy of cognitive science, such as: How do notions of EC figure in theories or research programs in cognitive science? Which versions of the EC thesis appear, and with which arguments to support them? (II) The potentials and limits of the EC thesis for topics in general philosophy of science, such as: Can naturalism perhaps be further advanced by means of the more recent EC thesis? Can we understand "big science" or laboratory research better by invoking some version of EC? And can the EC thesis help in overcoming the notorious cognitive/social divide in science studies?


In recent years, social media as a medium that is widely used in communication in the community. The phenomenon of communication on social media is increasingly being used in political communication. Social networking site services like Twitter and Facebook are believed to have the potential to increase public participation in politics. Twitter is an ideal platform for voters, politicians, political parties, and political institutions to disseminate not only public information but also political opinions to the public through their networks. This research is related to the effectiveness of social media (Twitter) as a means of political communication used by the public, especially in the election of the Mayor of Makassar and other elections in Indonesia. This paper, using two methods for social media analysis on political communication. Support Vector Machine (SVM) to classify predictable words or sentences, and the K-Means method is used to classify words or sentences related to political communication. The results of this study can be used by voters, candidates, political parties, and political institutions, as information and also as a measurement aid in determining the choice of candidates.


A dynamic reservation multiple access (D-RMA) protocol for future third generation cellular mobile radio systems, which is explicitly designed for supporting multimedia traffic, is proposed and its behavior is investigated under variable traffic conditions. Its structure is based on traditional PRMA++ protocol. In addition to PRMA++, a dynamic adaptation of percentage of bandwidth to use for reservation within a frame to traffic condition, is permitted, this having the main goal to guarantee the required grade of service (GoS) to multimedia services. The goal is also achieved by providing for a suitable bandwidth allocation strategy, which assigns to different broadband services a different amount of frequency resource, and by coupling it with a suitable management scheme for the base station reservation buffer. Obtained results show that performance of D-RMA protocols are superior when compared with a traditional "non-dynamic" protocol, both in terms of offered GoS to carried services and number of activable connections in a microcell at the same time.<<ETX>>


Stopped flow corroborated by UV-vis measurements allowed for the calculation of the copigmentation constants of delphinidin 3-O-glucoside with the neutral (CP) and negatively charged CP(-) forms of chlorogenic acid. Solutions of delphinidin 3-O-glucoside in the absence and presence of the copigment were equilibrated at several pH values in the acidic region, pH < 6, and reverse pH jumps monitored by stopped flow were carried out by adding sufficient acid to give flavylium cation at pH ≤ 1. This procedure allows for the separation of three contributions: (i) all flavylium cation and quinoidal base species, (ii) all hemiketal species, and (iii) all cis-chalcone species. Reverse pH jumps can also be performed at fixed pH versus copigment addition. The contribution of trans-chalcone, minor species in the present system, requires reverse pH jumps from the equilibrium followed by a common spectrophotometer. The system was also studied by UV-vis as a function of the copigment addition at different pH values. A global fitting of all experimental data allowed for determination of the copigmentation constants with flavylium cation, KAH+CP = 167 M-1, KAH+CP(-) = 338 M-1; and quinoidal base, KACP = 1041 M-1, KACP(-)= 221 M-1. No significant copigmentation was observed for hemiketal and chalcones. Computational calculations confirm different geometries for the interactions of flavylium cation and quinoidal base with the neutral or the negatively charged forms of the copigment as well as predict identical relative order for the binding energies of the four adducts.


Either transurethral ureteroscopy (URS) or extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL) was the primary method of intervention in two series of patients presenting consecutively with stones located in the ureter distal to the radiological marking of the sacroiliac joint. Of 65 patients treated by URS, successful evacuation of the major part of the stone was achieved in 97% in one or two sessions. Of those subsequently attending for review, 93% proved stone-free but 3% required surgery for serious complications. In the ESWL series of 53 patients, successful stone fragmentation was recorded in 94%, with 2 patients requiring a supplementary endourological or surgical procedure. No significant complications were related to ESWL and 90% of those followed up after successful ESWL proved stone-free at 6 weeks. In uncomplicated cases, the mean procedure time for ESWL was one-third of that required for URS and the hospital stay one-half. It is suggested that ESWL should be the primary method of intervention in patients with distal ureteric stone, with URS reserved for the small number that prove refractory to such treatment.


We classify localising subcategories of the stable module category of a finite group that are closed under tensor product with simple (or, equivalently all) modules. One application is a proof of the telescope conjecture in this context. Others include new proofs of the tensor product theorem and of the classification of thick subcategories of the finitely generated modules which avoid the use of cyclic shifted subgroups. Along the way we establish similar classifications for differential graded modules over graded polynomial rings, and over graded exterior algebras.


The Bauddho-Vaishnavas are a sect of Hindus living chiefly within the limits of the Marátha country, though also scattered over Gujaráth, Central India, and the Carnatic, wherever the Marathas have formed settlements. People usually call them Vitthal-Bhaktas, because they worship Vishnu under the form of Pandurang or Vitthal, whose chief temple is at Pandharpur, on the right bank of the Bhima. They delight in calling themselves Vaishnava Vira, yet since there are others to whom this name is equally applicable, it will not serve for a characteristic epithet. But as the worshippers of Pandurang consider their god to be the ninth or Bauddha Avatár of Vishnu, the term Bauddho-Vaishnavas forms a convenient descriptive name for the sect, In the paper on the intermixture of Buddhism with Brahmanism in the religion of the Hindus of the Dakhan, I made particular mention of Vithobá, as this god is most frequently termed. In that paper, I based my observations mainly on oral communications and popular traditions; since that time, however, having had occasion to pay more attention to the literature of the Vitthal-Bhaktas, there appears enough of interesting matter in their writings to merit a particular notice of their religious opinions and history.


A uridine-based linker immobilized onto polystyrene beads at the 5' terminus via a phosphodiester group and then used as a universal DNA synthesis support gives post synthesis DNA cleavage in 8 hrs or less without alkali metal salts. DNA produced with the new support was analyzed by HPLC, MALDI mass spectroscopy and PAGE. Each analysis showed DNA of equivalent quality to that produced with standard CPG supports, without contaminating materials resulting from linker or support backbone decomposition.


Coherent beam combination techniques can increase the output laser power from a single gain medium. We demonstrate coherent beam combination using the general model-based wavefront error correction method. The experiments for wavefront error correction are performed by using a 7-segment deformable mirror. Both the general model-based method and the stochastic parallel gradient descent algorithm are used to correct the wavefront error generated by a turbulent simulator. The experimental results show that the residual error is obviously reduced in comparison with that by using the SPGD method.


Aim: Tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS together pose the greatest threat to human health. This study assessed the prevalence and socio-demographic variables of persons affected with TB and TB/HIV co-infections at the chest clinic of the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH), Enugu, Nigeria. Methods: A retrospective study of 726 patients treated at the chest unit, UNTH from 2003 to 2005 was conducted. A simple random sampling technique was used. Data proforma was used to extract information from the patient's folders, treatment cards and clinic registers. Level of significant was set at 5% confidence level. Results: The prevalence of pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) and TB/HIV co-infection were 85.7% and 14.3% respectively. The age group 20-39 years had the highest prevalence rate of 51.8% for PTB and 72.2% for TB/HIV co-infection.. Students, traders and civil servants had the highest occupational prevalence of 29.0%, 27.7%, 18.6% respectively for PTB and 22.1%, 35.6% and 15.4% respectively for TB/HIV co-infection. The prevalence of PTB was higher among male patients (59.6%) than female counterparts (40.4%) but the prevalence of TB/HIV co-infection was higher in the females (53.8%) than the males (46.2%). The observed differences in the prevalence rates were statistically significant (p=0.000). Conclusion: There is a corresponding high prevalence of PTB and TB/HIV co-infections among patients attended to in the chest unit of the UNTH for the period 2003 through 2005. Regular and targeted health education intervention on TB and TB/HIV co-infection is recommended for these patients in the future. Key Words: TB, TB/HIV, prevalence, UNTH


OBJECTIVES
Erythropoietin (EPO) induces angiogenesis and inhibits apoptosis through the phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase/Akt (PI3-K/Akt) pathway. Transplantation of mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC) has been shown to improve heart perfusion and function post myocardial ischemia. We investigated whether EPO enhances the therapeutic potency of MSC transplantation in rats with experimental myocardial infarction (MI).

METHODS
Wistar rats were divided into four groups (n=8 each): myocardial infarction (MI) group, EPO group, MSC group and MSC-EPO group. MI was made by ligating the anterior descending coronary artery. MSC was injected in the infarcted area immediately after ligation in MSC group and MSC-EPO group. EPO (3000 U/kg) was administered i.p. in EPO group and MSC-EPO group for 3 days post MI and on the 14th to 16th day post MI. Cardiac function was measured by echocardiography at 2 and 21 days after MI. MI size was measured, and the level of phosphorylated Akt was assessed by Western blot and immunohistology at 21 days post MI.

RESULTS
LVEF was significantly lower at 21 days than that at 2 days in MI group while significantly increased in other 3 groups, especially in MSC-EPO group at 21 days than that at 2 days. MI size was significantly lower (20.7%+/-2.3% vs. 24.0%+/-2.3%, 26.0%+/-0.9%, 28.1%+/-1.5%, all P<0.05), capillary density was significantly higher (12.95+/-2.11 vs. 10.78+/-0.99, 10.43+/-1.52 and 6.31+/-0.69, all P<0.05) in MSC-EPO group at 21 days than that in other groups and the ratio of phosphorylated Akt to total Akt measured by Western blot was also significantly higher in MSC-EPO group than other groups (0.36 vs. 0.32, 0.31 and 0.28, all P<0.05). Compared to other groups, Bcl-2 was significantly up-regulated and Bax down-regulated in MSC-EPO group.

CONCLUSION
Our results demonstrated that MSC transplantation and EPO infusion could improve cardiac function and EPO enhances the therapeutic potency of MSC transplantation via PI3-K/Akt pathways.


Few-shot object detection (FSOD) localizes and classifies objects in an image given only a few data samples. Recent trends in FSOD research show the adoption of metric and meta-learning techniques, which are prone to catastrophic forgetting and class confusion. To overcome these pitfalls in metric learning based FSOD techniques, we introduce Attention Guided Cosine Margin (AGCM) that facilitates the creation of tighter and well separated class-specific feature clusters in the classification head of the object detector. Our novel Attentive Proposal Fusion (APF) module minimizes catastrophic forgetting by reducing the intra-class variance among co-occurring classes. At the same time, the proposed Cosine Margin Cross-Entropy loss increases the angular margin between confusing classes to overcome the challenge of class confusion between already learned (base) and newly added (novel) classes. We conduct our experiments on the challenging India Driving Dataset (IDD), which presents a real-world class-imbalanced setting alongside popular FSOD benchmark PASCAL-VOC. Our method outperforms State-of-the-Art (SoTA) approaches by up to 6.4 mAP points on the IDD-OS and up to 2.0 mAP points on the IDD-10 splits for the 10-shot setting. On the PASCAL-VOC dataset, we outperform existing SoTA approaches by up to 4.9 mAP points.


We propose an analytically tractable approach to model compressed video traffic called C-DAR(1). The C-DAR(1) model combines an approach utilizing a discrete-time Markov chain with a continuous-time Markov chain. We show that this approach accurately models the distribution and exponential autocorrelation characteristics of video conferencing traffic. Also, we show that by comparing our analytical results against a simulation using actual video conferencing data, our model provides realistic results. In addition to presenting this new approach, we address the effects of long-range dependencies (LRD) in the video traffic. Based on our analytical and simulation results, we are able to conclude that the LRD have minimal impact on videoconference traffic modeling.


This paper investigates how the system of government grants affected individual life chances for students in the Netherlands from 1815 to today, focusing on the accessibility of academic education and opportunities for social mobility. Study grants for adolescents from lower class or low-income families can promote upward intergenerational social mobility, since they remove the financial barriers of continuing education and can lead to occupations of a higher standing. By investigating the social background and careers of a sample of grant students compared to the overall student populations, this paper uncovers to what extent study grants had an effect on an individual and societal scale. During the two centuries under study the aims and size of the grant system changed, causing concerns about the effectiveness of the grants. In the entire nineteenth century grants for university students were restricted to those already enrolled, minimizing the appeal for newcomers from low-income families. The limited number of grants available prevented the system from influencing the composition of the student population fundamentally. However, this changed when the grant system was extended in 1919, and again after 1945 when grant allocation was connected to parental income level. The rapid increase of educational participation and connected democratisation from the 1960s made the grant system influential, however costly. The grant system has been a subject of ongoing political debate during the last few decades, since the grants' effect on upward social mobility has been called into question.


Hand it to you Our ability to grab, hold, and manipulate objects involves our dexterous hands, our sense of touch, and feedback from our eyes and muscles that allows us to maintain a controlled grip. Billard and Kragic review the progress made in robotics to emulate these functions. Systems have developed from simple, pinching grippers operating in a fully defined environment, to robots that can identify, select, and manipulate objects from a random collection. Further developments are emerging from advances in computer vision, computer processing capabilities, and tactile materials that give feedback to the robot. Science, this issue p. eaat8414 BACKGROUND Humans have a fantastic ability to manipulate objects of various shapes, sizes, and materials and can control the objects' position in confined spaces with the advanced dexterity capabilities of our hands. Building machines inspired by human hands, with the functionality to autonomously pick up and manipulate objects, has always been an essential component of robotics. The first robot manipulators date back to the 1960s and are some of the first robotic devices ever constructed. In these early days, robotic manipulation consisted of carefully prescribed movement sequences that a robot would execute with no ability to adapt to a changing environment. As time passed, robots gradually gained the ability to automatically generate movement sequences, drawing on artificial intelligence and automated reasoning. Robots would stack boxes according to size, weight, and so forth, extending beyond geometric reasoning. This task also required robots to handle errors and uncertainty in sensing at run time, given that the slightest imprecision in the position and orientation of stacked boxes might cause the entire tower to topple. Methods from control theory also became instrumental for enabling robots to comply with the environment's natural uncertainty by empowering them to adapt exerted forces upon contact. The ability to stably vary forces upon contact expanded robots' manipulation repertoire to more-complex tasks, such as inserting pegs in holes or hammering. However, none of these actions truly demonstrated fine or in-hand manipulation capabilities, and they were commonly performed using simple two-fingered grippers. To enable multipurpose fine manipulation, roboticists focused their efforts on designing humanlike hands capable of using tools. Wielding a tool in-hand became a problem of its own, and a variety of advanced algorithms were developed to facilitate stable holding of objects and provide optimality guarantees. Because optimality was difficult to achieve in a stochastic environment, from the 1990s onward researchers aimed to increase the robustness of object manipulation at all levels. These efforts initiated the design of sensors and hardware for improved control of hand–object contacts. Studies that followed were focused on robust perception for coping with object occlusion and noisy measurements, as well as on adaptive control approaches to infer an object's physical properties, so as to handle objects whose properties are unknown or change as a result of manipulation. ADVANCES Roboticists are still working to develop robots capable of sorting and packaging objects, chopping vegetables, and folding clothes in unstructured and dynamic environments. Robots used for modern manufacturing have accomplished some of these tasks in structured settings that still require fences between the robots and human operators to ensure safety. Ideally, robots should be able to work side by side with humans, offering their strength to carry heavy loads while presenting no danger. Over the past decade, robots have gained new levels of dexterity. This enhancement is due to breakthroughs in mechanics with sensors for perceiving touch along a robot's body and new mechanics for soft actuation to offer natural compliance. Most notably, this development leverages the immense progress in machine learning to encapsulate models of uncertainty and support further advances in adaptive and robust control. Learning to manipulate in real-world settings is costly in terms of both time and hardware. To further elaborate on data-driven methods but avoid generating examples with real, physical systems, many researchers use simulation environments. Still, grasping and dexterous manipulation require a level of reality that existing simulators are not yet able to deliver—for example, in the case of modeling contacts for soft and deformable objects. Two roads are hence pursued: The first draws inspiration from the way humans acquire interaction skills and prompts robots to learn skills from observing humans performing complex manipulation. This allows robots to acquire manipulation capabilities in only a few trials. However, generalizing the acquired knowledge to apply to actions that differ from those previously demonstrated remains difficult. The second road constructs databases of real object manipulation, with the goal to better inform the simulators and generate examples that are as realistic as possible. Yet achieving realistic simulation of friction, material deformation, and other physical properties may not be possible anytime soon, and real experimental evaluation will be unavoidable for learning to manipulate highly deformable objects. OUTLOOK Despite many years of software and hardware development, achieving dexterous manipulation capabilities in robots remains an open problem—albeit an interesting one, given that it necessitates improved understanding of human grasping and manipulation techniques. We build robots to automate tasks but also to provide tools for humans to easily perform repetitive and dangerous tasks while avoiding harm. Achieving robust and flexible collaboration between humans and robots is hence the next major challenge. Fences that currently separate humans from robots will gradually disappear, and robots will start manipulating objects jointly with humans. To achieve this objective, robots must become smooth and trustable partners that interpret humans' intentions and respond accordingly. Furthermore, robots must acquire a better understanding of how humans interact and must attain real-time adaptation capabilities. There is also a need to develop robots that are safe by design, with an emphasis on soft and lightweight structures as well as control and planning methodologies based on multisensory feedback. Holding two objects in one hand requires dexterity. Whereas a human can grab multiple objects at the same time (top), a robot (bottom) cannot yet achieve such dexterity. In this example, a human has placed the objects in the robot's hand. PHOTOS: LEARNING ALGORITHMS AND SYSTEMS LABORATORY, EPFL Dexterous manipulation is one of the primary goals in robotics. Robots with this capability could sort and package objects, chop vegetables, and fold clothes. As robots come to work side by side with humans, they must also become human-aware. Over the past decade, research has made strides toward these goals. Progress has come from advances in visual and haptic perception and in mechanics in the form of soft actuators that offer a natural compliance. Most notably, immense progress in machine learning has been leveraged to encapsulate models of uncertainty and to support improvements in adaptive and robust control. Open questions remain in terms of how to enable robots to deal with the most unpredictable agent of all, the human.


BackgroundThis paper aimed to explore the average natural menopause age, the span of menopausal age, and the related factors that will probably affect the natural menopause age of Chinese women. MethodsA large-scale random sampling of menopausal women aged 32-75 years in 18 provinces or municipalities throughout China was conducted using paper questionnaire surveys to investigate the menopause age, menarche age, fertility status, illness history, and living habits. The SPSS 24.0 software package was used to carry out t test, chi-square test, logistic regression, and other statistical analyses. ResultsA total of 5852 questionnaires were collected. After excluding questionnaires having no menopause, questionnaires with incomplete or invalid information, and questionnaires that may directly affect the age of menopause, such as hysterectomy, oophorectomy, and other factors that may affect natural menopause, a total of 4426 effective questionnaires have been collected, and the average age of natural menopause was 49.49 ± 3.67 years old. ConclusionFactors that may affect the age of natural menopause are weight, menarche age, marital status, drinking tea or not (often and daily), eating supplements, oral contraceptive contraception, and safe contraception.


In this article, I intend to conduct a short literature review and discussion about paradigm shift in language teaching and language teacher education from Cartesian to the complexity paradigm. For that, I use the Kuhnian notion of scientific revolution to present a short compilation of works related to paradigm shift in different sciences, including psychology, linguistics and, more emphatically, applied linguistics. The main proposal is to show the evolutions of paradigm shift in language and social sciences and its impact on the emergence of the complexity paradigm in language teaching and language teacher education fields.


The present invention relates to an Escherichia sp. microorganism having L-tryptophan production capacity and, more specifically, to an Escherichia sp. microorganism having improved L-tryptophan production capacity by weakening or deactivating the activity of intrinsic 6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenase and 2-keto-3-deoxy-6-phosphogluconate aldolase. Furthermore, the present invention relates to a method for producing L-tryptophan using the Escherichia sp. microorganism.


To the Editor. —As a practicing geriatrician, I enjoyed reading Dr Lynn's discussion of Mrs J, an 88-year-old woman at the end of life. 1 I have under my care a 92-year-old woman with strikingly similar conditions, ie, severe aortic stenosis, coronary artery disease, and congestive heart failure (CHF). But, in contrast to Mrs J, 2 years ago my patient reversed her initial decision to have hospice care and underwent 2 balloon valvuloplasties. It appears that Mrs J 1 year before discussion was ready for more aggressive treatment. Otherwise why would she consent to cardiac catheterization? Open heart surgery was not a good treatment option, as Lynn commented. But what about valvuloplasty? A wide range of invasive treatment options can be successful, even in very elderly patients. 2 Regardless of decisions regarding invasive procedures or surgery, medical management of CHF should be optimized for the patient discussed by Lynn. Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors are a


Since the introduction of cinchophen (phenyl-quinoline-carboxylic acid) in 1908 by Nicolaier and Dohrn, 1 its use has become widespread as an analgesic, particularly in arthritis. The fact that it may be purchased without a physician's prescription and is usually the chief constituent of many so-called rheumatism cures has added to its increasing use. That the drug or its preparations may cause toxic symptoms was observed by von Muller, 2 Herrick 3 and Phillips. 4 In 1922, Schroeder 5 first drew attention to the toxic properties of the drug variously known as phenylcinchoninic acid, cinchophen, quinophan, atophan, agotan and phenoquin. He reported seventeen cases, chiefly of mild poisoning, consisting of headache, gastro-intestinal disturbances, and transient jaundice. Following Langdon-Brown's 6 communication in 1926, a dozen fatalities were reported by Evans, 7 Glover, 8 Willcox 9 and Wells. 10 In 1925, Cabot 11 reported the first death, from acute yellow atrophy of the


Augustine's exposition of Ps 41[42] is an exploration of the deer's "holy longing" to see God. I suggest that in Enarrat. Ps. 41 Augustine proposes a series of spiritual exercises—a program of rehabilitation—in order to train the soul to see God. Thus, Augustine's theological interpretation of the psalm develops an anagogical spirituality, acclimatizing the inductee to the vision of God. The bishop guides his congregants through this training regimen to sharpen their inner vision so that their longing to see God may be fulfilled. But Enarrat. Ps. 41 remains a psalm of groaning—at the conclusion of the exercises the soul still cannot see God. Although God remains unseen, Augustine suggests the psalm holds out hope: an ecclesially mediated, sacramental vision of God obtains in this life; it is a vision that anticipates, and, indeed, participates in the eschatological vision of God.


Background. The aim of this paper is to explore the trends of hospitalization and to analyse the main determining factors for over-hospitalization. Methods. The analysis is based on the Annual financial reports of the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) in Bulgaria, the Annuals of Public Health Statistics published by the National Centre of Health Informatics, and corresponding data for European countries the European Health for All Database for the period 2000-2009. Results. Conclusion . The main reasons for the enormous increase in hospital admissions have been mainly related to the increased induced demands for hospital services, ineffective referrals and treatment of chronic diseases in hospitals for acute diseases, patients' mistrust to outpatient care, low efficiency of primary health care, inadequate supervision and regulation by the National Health Insurance Fund. Improper and ineffective health policy and hospital management led to consumerist attitudes in health care that contribute more to health care providers than to the patients in need. Key words : over-hospitalization, induced demand, hospital services cost, hospital management. For a period of ten years, the expenditures for hospital services have increased by 390% while the GDP has grown in real terms only by 47%. The number of hospital admissions since 2004 to 2009 has increased more than twice (from 738 978 to 1 769 230). The critical point of increase was observed between 2005 and 2006 when all the financing of hospital services was totally undertaken by the NHIF. Changing the management and financing in Bulgarian health care system after 2000 led to many new problems in organization and management of medical activities, especially in hospital care, after the adoption of the Health Care Establishments Act in 1999. Serious problems in hospital care occurred in relation to the induced demands for hospital services which contribute to over-hospitalization and overexpenditures.


BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES
Regular blood donation can lead to pre-clinical iron deficiency as well as iron deficiency anaemia. There is a need to increase the national voluntary blood donation for safe blood supply. However, there is paucity of data in the country regarding impact of regular voluntary blood donation on iron status of donors. Hence, iron stores were evaluated by serum ferritin estimation in the voluntary blood donors at Chandigarh.

METHODS
400 voluntary blood donors included in the study were divided into four groups depending upon their periodicity of blood donations. Pre-donation haemoglobin assessment was done by copper sulphate method. Serum ferritin was estimated by indirect ELISA.

RESULTS
The number of female donors with deficient iron stores was more as compared to male donors. First time donors had higher mean serum ferritin levels than that in repeat donors. The frequency of donations per year was more predictive of decreased iron stores rather than the number of lifetime donations. An increase in donation frequency was accompanied by a significant decrease in serum ferritin; values <15 microg/l were found in 21 and 46 per cent of male and female donors respectively who donated once per year, in 29 and 27 per cent in those who donated twice per year and in 49 and 100 per cent in those who donated thrice per year.

INTERPRETATION & CONCLUSION
Haemoglobin estimation alone in regular blood donors may not be adequate; serum ferritin estimations may need to be done to detect pre-clinical iron deficiency states. Also, iron supplementation needs to be considered in regular, repeat voluntary blood donors.


At MET Norway, a small team - the Sandbox - are spending part of their working hours trying to improve the communication between the meteorologists and the audience. At the moment the Sandbox consists of seven forecasters, researchers, and communication advisors with backgrounds from both natural and social sciences. Over the past five years, this has been a proven format to address interdisciplinary and cross-departmental challenges. For example, the team has been working with ideas related to establishing an editorial team and a podcast. Suggestions from the Sandbox are delivered directly to the leadership who then decide what to follow up on or not.

This year, the team is working with two well-known and related challenges to the meteorological community: i) how can we help the meteorologists in the transition from mainly using deterministic model data, to mainly using probabilistic data from ensemble prediction systems?, and ii) how can we aid and develop more effective communication with respect to forecast uncertainty?

The work is set up as a one-year project, with a mix of two-day meetings working with a specific topic, and monthly two-hour follow-up meetings in between. A thematic plan related to uncertainties was agreed upon at the start of 2021 and covers a varied but coherent set of challenges, and includes a set of concrete aims and deliverables, and how to actually work together (with respect to methods as well as the Covid-19 restrictions). For the two-day meetings, the selected topics were 1. Insight into the existing mind-sets and tools/data the forecasters have, 2. Communication and language, 3. Technical insight in strengths and weaknesses of ensemble models and products, and 4. Communication and visualization. The main deliverables of the project are to provide a toolbox and a repository of knowledge regarding the operational use of ensemble data and communication of uncertainty. The toolbox and repository will be available for forecaster training and operations, as well as form a basis to develop future research and outreach activities.

At the annual EMS meeting September 2021 we will reflect on the work methods that the  Sandbox uses, and present first outcomes of the project, e.g. more concrete information about what the toolbox and repository of knowledge will look like.


The ability of private conservation organizations to remain financially viable is a key factor influencing their effectiveness. One‐third of financially motivated private‐land conservation areas (PLCAs) surveyed in South Africa are unprofitable, raising questions about landowners' abilities to effectively adapt their business models to the socioeconomic environment. In any complex system, options for later adaptation can be constrained by starting conditions (path dependence). We tested 3 hypothesized drivers of path dependence in PLCA ecotourism and hunting business models: (H1) the initial size of a PLCA limits the number of mammalian game and thereby predators that can be sustained; (H2) initial investments in infrastructure limit the ability to introduce predators; and (H3) rainfall limits game and predator abundance. We further assessed how managing for financial stability (optimized game stocking) or ecological sustainability (allowing game to fluctuate with environmental conditions) influenced the ability to overcome path dependence. A mechanistic PLCA model based on simple ecological and financial rules was run for different initial conditions and management strategies, simulating landowner options for adapting their business model annually. Despite attempts by simulated landowners to increase profits, adopted business models after 13 years were differentiated by initial land and infrastructural assets, supporting H1 and H2. A conservation organization's initial assets can cause it to become locked into a financially vulnerable business model. In our 50‐year simulation, path dependence was overcome by fewer of the landowners who facilitated natural ecological variability than those who maintained constant hunting rates and predator numbers, but the latter experienced unsustainably high game densities in low rainfall years. Management for natural variability supported long‐term ecological sustainability but not shorter term socioeconomic sustainability for PLCAs. Our findings highlight trade‐offs between ecological and economic sustainability and suggest a role for governmental support of the private conservation industry.


This thesis combines critical psychology, dialogic communication theory and innova-tion theory in orchestrating and carrying out a process of collaborative social innova-tion with the objective to create good conditions so that refugees living in Denmark can obtain a good life. The target of the innovation process is a citizen group of Bur-mese refugees living in the municipality of Odsherred.

In this thesis we adopt a collaborative research approach, which entails treating the social agents in the field of research as co-producers in a joint process of knowledge production. In continuation hereof we have invited Burmese refugees, employees at the municipality, professionals and volunteers working with refugees to participate in a collaborative process of co-producing knowledge.

In our analysis we focus on to what extent our orchestrating of the innovation process supports our objective to produce good conditions for refugees living in Denmark. On the basis of Martin Buber and Mikhail Bakhtin's theories of dialogue and the writing of Laura Black and Louise Phillips, we analyse how and to what extent processes of co-production in the form of dialogical meetings and/or in the form of meetings between different and contrasting perspectives take place. Furthermore, on the basis of critical psychology and theories of Klaus Holzkamp, Ole Dreier and Charlotte Hojholt we analyse the conditions, consisting of both possibilities and constraints, that take place in the social practice of the innovation process and how it becomes significant for the way the participants act and participate in the process. Moreover, we focus on possible ways that both refugees and individuals working with refugees can expand their spaces of action within the current social structures, and likewise, how they can change social practices so that they create good conditions for refugees in Denmark. We make use of Christian Bason's description of an innovation process as a frame for orchestrating the innovation process. Throughout the thesis, we adopt a critical reflexive approach on the possibilities, tensions and dilemmas that emerge.


ABSTRACT This paper engages with a dominant model of Islamophobia which gives race and racism primacy. It argues that such an approach is parochial, conceptually narrow and practically ineffective. I take as my case the UK's Muslim student awarding gap – Muslims are currently the worst performing religious group at UK universities. Existing work explains this problem in terms of racism/Islamophobia. These factors are correctly identified, but a lack of analytical precision around race and religion has led strategies to fall back on 'standard' and largely ineffective ideas. I argue that racial and religious disadvantage must be understood separately, though intersectionally, through Critical Race Theory and the concept of 'religification'. Such an analysis sheds light on how institutional approaches to race and religion play a key role in the structuration and perpetuation of educational disadvantage for Muslim students. It also paves the way for more effective strategies for eradicating the awarding gap.


Collagens make up the most abundant component of interstitial extracellular matrices and basement membranes. Collagen remodeling is a crucial process in many normal physiological events and in several pathological conditions. Some collagen subtypes contain specific carbohydrate side chains, the function of which is poorly known. The endocytic collagen receptor urokinase plasminogen activator receptor-associated protein (uPARAP)/Endo180 plays an important role in matrix remodeling through its ability to internalize collagen for lysosomal degradation. uPARAP/Endo180 is a member of the mannose receptor protein family. These proteins all include a fibronectin type II domain and a series of C-type lectin-like domains, of which only a minor part possess carbohydrate recognition activity. At least two of the family members, uPARAP/Endo180 and the mannose receptor, interact with collagens. The molecular basis for this interaction is known to involve the fibronectin type II domain but nothing is known about the function of the lectin domains in this respect. In this study, we have investigated a possible role of the single active lectin domain of uPARAP/Endo180 in the interaction with collagens. By expressing truncated recombinant uPARAP/Endo180 proteins and analyzing their interaction with collagens with high and low levels of glycosylation we demonstrated that this lectin domain interacts directly with glycosylated collagens. This interaction is functionally important because it was found to modulate the endocytic efficiency of the receptor toward highly glycosylated collagens such as basement membrane collagen IV. Surprisingly, this property was not shared by the mannose receptor, which internalized glycosylated collagens independently of its lectin function. This role of modulating its uptake efficiency by a specific receptor is a previously unrecognized function of collagen glycosylation.


Internal structures of surface blisters and their precursors in Si formed by H + , D + and He + irradiation were examined by cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy (XTEM). The skin structures of H + -D + - and He + -blisters reflected the difference in the damage accumulation, and chemical interaction between the implant ion and silicon. These differences had a direct influence on the defect structures of the damaged layer, which played essential roles in the blistering mechanisms. It was found that blister skin thickness derived by grazing incidence electron microscopy (GIEM) and electron energy-loss spectroscopy, (EELS) was underestimated compared to direct measurement by XTEM. The origin of this discrepancy is discussed.


Recent work in Machine Learning and Computer Vision has provided evidence of systematic design flaws in the development of major object recognition benchmark datasets. One such example is ImageNet, wherein, for several categories of images, there are incongruences between the objects they represent and the labels used to annotate them. The consequences of this problem are major, in particular considering the large number of machine learning applications, not least those based on Deep Neural Networks, that have been trained on these datasets. In this paper we posit the problem to be the lack of a knowledge representation (KR) methodology providing the foundations for the construction of these ground truth benchmark datasets. Accordingly, we propose a solution articulated in three main steps: (i) deconstructing the object recognition process in four ordered stages grounded in the philosophical theory of teleosemantics; (ii) based on such stratification, proposing a novel four-phased methodology for organizing objects in classification hierarchies according to their visual properties; and (iii) performing such classification according to the faceted classification paradigm. The key novelty of our approach lies in the fact that we construct the classification hierarchies from visual properties exploiting visual genus-differentiae, and not from linguistically grounded properties. The proposed approach is validated by a set of experiments on the ImageNet hierarchy of musical experiments.


This paper presents a novel low-complexity encoding algorithm for binary quasi-cyclic (QC) codes based on matrix transformation. First, a message vector is encoded into a transformed codeword in the transform domain. Then, the transmitted codeword is obtained from the transformed codeword by the inverse Galois Fourier transform. Moreover, a simple and fast mapping is devised to post-process the transformed codeword such that the transmitted codeword is binary as well. The complexity of our proposed encoding algorithm is less than ek(n-k)log2 e+ne(log22 e+log2 e)+ n/2 elog32 e bit operations for binary codes. This complexity is much lower than its traditional complexity 2e2(n - k)k. In the examples of encoding the binary (4095, 2016) and (15500, 10850) QC codes, the complexities are 12.09% and 9.49% of those of traditional encoding, respectively.


BACKGROUND
Allergen specific immunotherapy has long been a controversial treatment for asthma. Although beneficial effects upon clinically relevant outcomes have been demonstrated in randomised controlled trials, there remains a risk of severe and sometimes fatal anaphylaxis. The recommendations of professional bodies have ranged from cautious acceptance to outright dismissal. With increasing interest in new allergen preparations and new methods of delivery, it was time to conduct a systematic review of allergen specific immunotherapy for asthma.

OBJECTIVES
Allergen specific immunotherapy involves injecting an extract of the allergen under the skin. It is also known as hyposensitisation or desensitisation, and carries a risk of potentially fatal anaphylaxis. The objective of this review was to assess the effects of allergen specific immunotherapy for asthma.

SEARCH STRATEGY
We searched the Cochrane Airways Group trials register up to 1997, Dissertation Abstracts, WorldCat and ArticleFirst.

SELECTION CRITERIA
Randomised trials using various forms of allergen specific immunotherapy to treat asthma.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Eligibility of studies for inclusion was decided by three reviewers independently. Quality assessment of studies was performed by two reviewers independently.

MAIN RESULTS
Fifty-four trials were included. There were 25 trials of immunotherapy for house mite allergy; 13 pollen allergy trials; eight animal dander allergy trials; two Cladosporium mould allergy and six trials looking at multiple allergens. Concealment of allocation was assessed as clearly adequate in only 11 of these trials. Significant heterogeneity was present in a number of comparisons. Overall, there was a significant reduction in asthma symptoms and medication following immunotherapy. There was also a significant improvement in asthma symptom scores (standardised mean difference -0.52, 95% confidence interval -0.70 to -0.35). People receiving immunotherapy were less likely to report a worsening of asthma symptoms than those randomised to placebo (odds ratio 0.27, 95% confidence interval 0.21 to 0.35). People randomised to immunotherapy were less likely to require medication than those randomised to placebo (odds ratio 0.28, 95% confidence interval 0.19 to 0.42). Allergen immunotherapy reduced allergen specific bronchial hyper-reactivity, with some reduction in non-specific bronchial hyper-reactivity as well. There was no consistent effect on lung function.

REVIEWER'S CONCLUSIONS
Immunotherapy may reduce asthma symptoms and use of asthma medications, but the size of the benefit compared to other therapies is not known. The possibility of adverse effects (such as anaphylaxis) must be considered.


The invention relates to the field of type 2 diabetes mellitus related drugs, in particular to PTP (protein tyrosine phosphatase)1B inhibitors containing tetrazole structures, preparation methods of the PTP1B inhibitors and an application of the PTP1B inhibitors in preparation of drugs for treating type 2 diabetes mellitus. The general formula is shown in the specification, wherein R is selected from C1-C3 alkyl.


Historical records are incomplete templates for preparing for an uncertain future. The global utility of past ecological knowledge for present/future purposes is questioned as we move from Holocene to Anthropocene. To increase the adaptive capacity of today's societies, generalizable strategies must be identified for coping with uncertainty over a wide range of conditions and contingencies. We identify two key principles that increase adaptive capacities: diversification and precautionary heuristics. These sharply contrast with the present global state represented by the global production ecosystem characterized by: (1) homogenization and simplification of cultural practices and resource bases; (2) increased global connectivity and forced dissolution of cultural borders; and (3) centralization and intensification of modes of resource production and extraction. We highlight that responses of smaller-scale societies to risks and uncertainties are in many cases emulated by professionals in the high reliability management in today's critical infrastructures. This provides a modern template for managing unpredictability in the Anthropocene.


Rapidly-evolving genes which exhibit an increased rate of amino acid substitution, resulting in greater amino acid sequence difference, often provide insight into the mechanisms of adaptation and speciation. In this dissertation research, the evolution of rapidly-evolving genes under selection was examined. Homologues to the Arabidopsis APETALA3 (ASAP3/TM6) and APETALA1 (ASAP1) floral regulatory genes and the CHLOROPHYLL A/B BINDING PROTEIN9 (ASCAB9) photosynthetic structural gene were isolated from species in the Hawaiian silversword alliance, a premier example of plant adaptive radiation. The two floral homeotic genes are found in duplicate copies within members of the Hawaiian silversword alliance and appear to have arisen as a result of interspecific hybridization between two North American tarweed species. Molecular phylogenetic analyses suggest that the interspecific hybridization event involved members of lineages that include Carlquistia muirii (and perhaps Harmonia nutans) and Anisocarpus scabridus. Next, rates of regulatory and structural gene evolution in the Hawaiian species were compared to those in related species of North American tarweeds. Molecular evolutionary analyses indicate significant increases in nonsynonymous relative to synonymous nucleotide substitution rates in the ASAP3/TM6 and ASAP1 regulatory genes in the rapidly evolving Hawaiian species. By contrast, no general increase is evident in neutral mutation rates for these loci in the Hawaiian species. Finally, a group of potential rapidly-evolving genes were identified in Arabidopsis using a powerful evolutionary expressed sequence tag (EST) approach. One indicator of adaptive selection at the molecular level is an excess of amino acid replacement fixed differences per replacement site relative to the number of silent fixed differences per silent site (w = Ka/Ks). The evolutionary EST approach was used to estimate the distribution of w among 304 orthologous loci between Arabidopsis thaliana and Arabidopsis lyrata to identify genes potentially involved in the adaptive divergence between these two Brassicaceae species. Twenty-one of 304 genes (7%) were found to have an estimated w > 1 and are candidates for genes associated with adaptive divergence. A hierarchical Bayesian analysis of protein coding region evolution within and between species also indicates that the selection intensities of these genes are elevated compared to typical Arabidopsis thaliana nuclear loci.


Background: Quality maternal and newborn care is a reproductive right for women and their children. The Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Goal 3 Good Health and Wellbeing and Goal 5 Gender Equality, will not be achieved unless health systems recognise quality care as a basic obligation of every health system. Papua New Guinea (PNG) faces challenges in optimising the quality of maternal and newborn care.


One of the most important goals in early care of patients with acute myocardial infarction (MI) is providing effective treatment promptly. The GISSI study shows that the reduction in mortality is as high as 50% when patients are treated within the first hour of MI, hence the "golden hour". Many serious arrhythmias develop before hospitalization, even before the patient is monitored. At least 75% of patients with MI have an arrhythmia during the peri-infarct period. Inasmuch as two-thirds of deaths after acute infarction occur before the patient reaches a hospital, therefore it is very important to initiate effective treatment as early as possible after the onset of symptoms. Early reperfusion to salvage myocardium has a beneficial effect on in-hospital and late prognosis. But, some serious arrhythmias requiring treatment are also seen commonly following successful reperfusion. As a conclusion, it seems necessary for every community to establish a strategy to reach patients with suspected MI and transfer them rapidly to the nearest health care facility. If there is a delay during transportation, the ambulance team should be ready to administer thrombolytics and treat the arrhythmia, which might occur. In this review the treatment of arrhythmia, which may occur during transportation will be discussed.


To date, numerous studies have demonstrated beneficial properties of essential oils in the prevention and treatment of a variety of diseases. The current report evaluated, in vitro, the antibacterial activity of essential oil from the flowers of Hertia cheirifolia L. This oil was obtained by hydrodistillation using a Clevenger apparatus. The antibacterial activity of the water-distilled essential oil of H. cheirifolia L. was evaluated against Gram positive microorganisms, namely Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 6538, Bacillus subtilis ATCC 6633, Bacillus licheniformis and Gram negative bacterial strains, namely Escherichia coli ATCC 8739, Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC 9027, Salmonella enteric IPC 8039 and Salmonella typhimirium using the microdilution method in sterile 96- well microplates. The numerical values of minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) were also determined. Regarding the obtained results, the highest antibacterial activities of essential oils were found against Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 6538 and Bacillus licheniformis both having an identical MIC value of 0.078 mg/mL. Our study showed that the use of the essential oil of H. cheirifolia flowers could be considered as a natural source to inhibit the growth of tested pathogenic bacteria.


Leaf-fall, leaf-flush (newly expanded leaves), flowering and fruiting were recorded monthly between April 1982 and May 1985 in 703 individuals of 99 species of trees, shrubs and herbs in a logged lowland, complex rainforest. Weekly water availability and demand were modelled using pan evaporation, rainfall, and a range of estimated maximum soil water storage. The water balance model indicated that rainfall distribution was an inadequate measure of the seasonal availability of water for growth and reproduction. Intermittent shortages in available water were predicted between October and February, well into what is the wettest season of the year in terms of long-term rainfall averages. Adequate water was available in soil water stores through most of the August–October 'dry season'.

Leaf-fall, flowering, and fruiting all followed distinct seasonal patterns although appreciable levels of activity occurred in all months. Community leaf-fall increased rapidly following an annual low in the very wet, February–May period, to a peak in August. The rapid increase in leaf-fall activity was accompanied by pronounced depressions in flowering and leaf-flushing and coincided with the period of minimum temperatures and insolation. There was no evidence to suggest that this leaf-fall peak was accompanied or induced by drought. This 'winter' was followed by rising temperatures and insolation at a time when adequate soil water was usually available, and flowering activity (number of species, number of individuals, and total abundance) increased rapidly in August and peaked from September to October. The flowering peak was accompanied by a major leaf-flush. Leaf-flushing continued intermittently from October to February, a period characterized by maximum temperature, maximum insolation, and periods of predicted water stress when soil water stores were depleted during short, rainless periods. A second peak in leaf-flushing coincided with the wet in March-April. This was accompanied by a relatively small increase in leaf-fall activity. Fruiting showed a bimodal peak from October to April each year. Prediction of functional relationships between climate and species and individual behaviour from community phenological patterns was considered to be inappropriate.


In a stratified wave guiding system the propagation of electromagnetic waves is usually described by the use of modes. This method however involves summations which are a formidable task if many modes are excited and attenuated equally. A new theoretical method using path integrals is applied to this problem and avoids the use of modes. As a consequence large summations are avoided and in some cases compact analytical expressions for the field or the impulse response are obtained.


It has been shown that accumulation of free beta-catenin leads to mobility shift of adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) protein and that Axin facilitates this process. Here we show that the beta-catenin-mediated mobility shift of APC is due to phosphorylation of two domains of APC by casein kinase 1epsilon/glycogen synthase kinase 3beta and unknown kinase(s), respectively. Interestingly, our results suggest that this process does not require Axin. The phosphorylated APC showed higher affinity to beta-catenin in vivo, and fragments of APC containing the phosphorylated domains can inhibit beta-catenin/Tcf-mediated reporter activity regardless of their ability to reduce the level of beta-catenin. From our data we propose a new role of APC: accumulation of excessive cytoplasmic beta-catenin induces phosphorylation of APC and the phosphorylated APC retains beta-catenin in cytoplasm to prevent excessive beta-catenin signaling. The retained beta-catenin in cytoplasm by APC may be down-regulated by Axin 2, which is induced by beta-catenin/Tcf signaling.


Summary form only given. Over the last decade, InP technology and its related Materials have grown enormously in strategic importance as the technology has facilitated the explosive growth in optical fibre telecommunications, which in turn has spawned a huge communications revolution. In addition, InP based materials have been exploited for many other applications such as long wavelength IR detector arrays, gas sensing applications, imaging, solar cells, high speed HEMT and HBTs, high power FETs and several other mm and microwave devices.


Hole 504B is located in Panama Basin approximately 200 km south of the Costa Rica Rift within a tectonically undisturbed oceanic crust formed at the Costa Rica Rift spreading center. The hole was drilled in several Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP)/Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) legs, including ODP Leg 140. The 378.9 m of core drilled at Hole 504B during Leg 140 continues the dike complex recovered previously during DSDP Leg 83. All the rocks drilled during Leg 140 are fragments of variably metamorphosed dikes composed of olivine-plagioclase-clinopyroxene-, olivine-plagioclase-, and olivine-plagioclaseclinopyroxene-spinel-bearing basalts. We report results of determination of rare earth elements (REE) and large-ion lithophile (LIL) elements in 28 representative samples from the major units of the Hole 504B dike complex. Analyzed samples display relatively uniform REE patterns with only a slight difference in the extent of light REE depletion. LIL elements show large variations independent from other incompatible (Zr and Y), compatible (Cr, Ni, Co), and rare earth elements. Observed REE variations indicate that metamorphism has changed LIL distribution, but has not affected REE patterns. Variable REE depletions are believed to represent original magmatic characteristics of the Costa Rica Rift oceanic crust. LIL distribution favors Ba redistribution due to the fluid-rock interaction in the lower oceanic crust. REE systematics define various degree of depletion in Leg 140 diabase dikes consistent with their derivation from a variably depleted MORB-type source.


Principal Dawson, of Montreal,. Canada, has placed in my hands for description a remarkably interesting specimen, indicating a species of the genus Cephalaspis in transatlantic Silurio-Devonian beds. He writes, "The specimen was found by one of my assistants, Mr. G. F. Kennedy, B.A., when collecting with me, in a bed charged with remains of Psilophyton, on the north side of Gaspé Bay. The geological horizon is below the middle of the Gaspé Sandstones, but several hundreds of feet above their actual base, so that the specimen may be regarded as either Lower Devonian or Lower Middle Devonian.


Abstract Foreign body ingestion is a common condition in daily practice; fortunately, most cases do not require endoscopic or surgical treatment, as most foreign bodies pass through the intestine without injuring it. Although mainly seen in children, adults can also be affected, especially in accidental situations and suicide attempts. Therefore, the clinical history and the environment in which the event occurred are essential for a rapid diagnosis. This can be even more challenging as most adult patients are rarely aware of ingestion. Therefore, a high index of suspicion is necessary. Therapy will depend on the foreign body's size, shape and material; treatment should not be delayed if complications are detected. We present a case of a 34-year-old man who accidentally swallowed the mold of his teeth while undergoing a dental procedure. Subsequently, he presented with an intestinal obstruction that required surgery. Fortunately, he made a full recovery.


This report summarizes the. results of .studies conducted to date on the instrumentation of two pipe culverts under deep fill on Interstate 77 near Fancy Gap, Carroll County, Virginia. At this writing, both culvert pipes and essentially all of the instrumentation have been installed. Readings of strain and gross deformation are being obtained periodically on both pipes. The settlement of fill, both above and adjacent to the concrete pipe, is being monitored. Computer programs have either been written or obtained which will enable the researchers to analyze much of the data being collected. This analysis of data is currently under way and will be reported later.


Preservation of Neurospora stock cultures with the silica gel method for extended periods of time Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 License. This methods for stock preservation is available in Fungal Genetics Reports: http://newprairiepress.org/fgr/vol26/iss1/24 Jong, S.C. and E. E. D&s. Cryopreservotion of slime mutants of Neurospora cr(~sso. Cryogenic storage in the frozen stde at liquid nitrogen temperatures is the most satisfactory method to dote for long-term preservation of living fungi with maximol viability and genotypic stability. The American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) has employed this technique for conservation of a wide variety of fungisince 1960 (Hwong, S.-W. 1966 Appl. M Icrobiol. 14: 784-788). Three slime mutants of Neurospora cvxs(r, ariginolly described by Emerson (1963 Genetico 34: 162-182). were deposit-the ATCC and were designated ATCC 26187 (fz;%;e), ATCC 3 2 3 1 3 heterocoryon: (fz;sg;org-1, cr-I aur or-1 + al-2,nic-I ,Fs-3 or-l) and j J ATCC 32360 (fz;sg;os-I ,arg-I ,a-I our). I -,Since ATCC 26187 has survived ten yews (the length of the experimental period) in liquid nitrogen at -196C, d&oils of the procedure used at the ATCC ore given below. Cvltures are grown on Difco Neurosporo culture ogar (ATCC medium 331) plates for one week at room temperature. Three ogar discs containing the slime cells ore removed with o 5-mm sterile cork borer and placed in o sealable borosilicote ompaule of 1.2ml capacity. A volume of 0.4ml of 10% (v/v) glycerol in distilled water is added rx a cryoprotective agent. The ompoules ore cooled to +5C to prevent overheating during sealing, after being sealed, the ompoules ore placed onto prelobeled alumiwm canes in boxes which are then placed into the freezing chamber of a programmed freezer. The initial coaling is carried out at rate of 1' centigrade per minute from warn temperature to -35 C; subsequent cooling to below -100 C is rapid and uncontrolled. Then the ampoules are immediately transferred to storage in liquid nitrogen at -196 C or in liquid nitrogen vapor (temperature about -150 to -IBOC). Vapor-phase liquid nitrogen refrigerators ore used for routine storage of fungi ot ATCC. They can be used for both sealed and unsealed apoules. Ampoules immersed in liquid nitrogen require proper sealing 0s on improperly sealed amp&e permits entry of liquid and will explode at the time of thawing due to the sudden exponsian of the nitrogen into gas. The operator should wear a face mask to avoid possible injury from exploding vials. For recovery of the cultures frozen in liquid nitrogen, the frozen ompoules ore thawed rapidly in o 37C water bath with moderate agitation until the last trace of ice is dissipated. This usually takes about 40-60 seconds. The culture samples ore orepticolly transferred to appropriate medium. Recently Butterfield, Jong and Alexander (1978 Mycologia 70: 1122) reported the use of screw-cop polypropylene viols for storage in liquid nitrogen of many problem strains of fungi, which did not survive other freezing procedures. Like unsealed glass ompoules, they must be stored in the vapor phase of liquid nitrogen refrigerotorr becouse,if immersed,liquid nitrogen con enter the viol around the threads of the cop. The slime mutants ATCC 32313 and ATCC 32360 have been successfully stored in polypropylene vials since 1975. Mycology Deportment, American Type Culture Collection, 12301 Parklown Drive, Rockville, MD 20852.


Current projections for the need for nurses in Washington state are based on an increase in the need for health care, the aging of the population, and the inability of the nursing educational institutions to supply adequate numbers of graduates. Yet many new graduates are providing anecdotal evidence that they cannot find a job in nursing. This study gathered information regarding the employment of newly licensed registered nurses in Washington between May 2009 and August 2010. Questionnaires were administered to a randomly selected sample of 2,200 newly licensed nurses; 532 responses were returned. Nearly 81% reported current employment as a registered nurse and 69.5% reported that they were very or somewhat satisfied with their employment situation. The job search strategies, type of job sought, and factors contributing to their success are reported. Factors contributing to the success of their job search and to job dissatisfaction are explored.


Believing that a knowledge of the chemistry of medicines will tend to their more intelligent use in the treatment of disease, a brief account of the chemical behavior of some of the organic silver compounds proposed for use in medicine is here presented. While in recent years the country has been deluged with new organic remedies the information offered regarding them has been meager and, being almost exclusively furnished by the promoter of each new article, is not always clear and to the point. More particularly is there a dearth, especially in the English language, of systematic discussion of the many new remedies, the available literature consisting either of the incomplete statements found in books on chemistry or pharmacy, or else the rather more comprehensive treatises hastily compiled from the manufacturers' literature. It is, therefore, hoped that the following, while presenting nothing new, may contribute to some extent to a


Three disease-specific, health-related quality of life (HRQL) questionnaires have been introduced to assess patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD): the St. George's Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ), the Breathing Problems Questionnaire (BPQ), and the Chronic Respiratory Disease Questionnaire (CRQ). The purpose of the present study was to make comparisons between the SGRQ, the BPQ, and the CRQ in their discriminative properties, and to clarify the characteristics of each questionnaire. One hundred forty-three patients with mild to severe COPD completed pulmonary function tests, progressive cycle ergometer testing for exercise capacity, assessment of dyspnea, anxiety, and depression, and assessment of HRQL. The frequency distributions of the questionnaire scores showed that the SGRQ and the CRQ were normally distributed and that the BPQ was skewed toward low scores. Relationships between all dimensions of the three questionnaires were significant (correlation coefficients [Rs] = 0.74 to 0.86). The three questionnaires had significant but weak correlations (Rs = -0.24 to -0.36) with some physiologic variables (VC, FEV1, and DL(CO)/VA) and mild to moderate correlations with exercise capacity and assessment of dyspnea, anxiety, and depression. Stepwise multiple regression analyses revealed that the Baseline Dyspnea Index (BDI) score, anxiety by the Hospital Anxiety Depression Scale (HAD), and maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max) accounted for 61% of the variance in the SGRQ and that the BDI and anxiety of the HAD accounted for 53 and 49% of the variance in the BPQ and the CRQ, respectively. Dyspnea and psychologic status impacted the HRQL in patients with COPD. Although no substantial differences between the SGRQ, the BPQ, and the CRQ were evident in the correlations with physiologic parameters and the influential factors, the BPQ was found to be less discriminatory than the SGRQ and the CRQ in evaluating HRQL cross-sectionally.