Glass Ceilings: Highlights from the International Archive of Women Architects . Virginia Center for Architecture, Richmond. 4 March–6 June 2010

Housed in a sprawling Tudor Revival mansion designed in 1916 by John Russell Pope for financier John Kerr Branch, the Virginia Center for Architecture in Richmond stands among the contentious memorials to Virginia-born Confederate heroes and Richmond native Arthur Ashe that dominate Monument Avenue. Set within this insistently masculine topography, the recent exhibition Glass Ceilings: Highlights from the International Archive of Women Architects recast this particularly potent site to challenge historical narratives built on male privilege (Figure 1). Showcasing twenty women drawn from the hundreds represented in the International Archive, the exhibition rewarded visitors with fresh materials and new discoveries. As the title suggests, however, the show advanced two ambitious, if ultimately competing, curatorial aims: to offer a critique of gender inequity within the architectural profession, as the fittingly architectural metaphor of the glass ceiling suggested, and to further the celebratory, recuperative project for which these archival collections were originally built.

Figure 1
Glass Ceilings (author's photo, courtesy Virginia Center for Architecture, Richmond)

Founded in 1985 by the Bulgarian-born architect Milka Bliznakov, the International Archive of Women Architects (IAWA) is now a joint project of Virginia Tech's University Libraries and College of Architecture and Urban Studies. Its stated mission is to "document the history of women's contributions to the built environment by collecting, preserving, storing and making available to researchers the professional papers of women architects, landscape architects, designers, architectural historians and critics, and urban planners, and the records of women's architectural organizations."1 While materials from the IAWA have been showcased in previous exhibitions, including Contributions of Women Architects …


Health surveillance of workers occupationally exposed to lung carcinogens calls for screening procedures which may not be fully justified, owing to current uncertainties about the outcome of early detection. Indeed, bias-free designs are difficult to set up, and the effects of lead time, length and screening biases can all result in an overestimation of the benefits of screenings, which certainly increase survival, but without any actual reduction of mortality. A major issue with modern imaging techniques is the very high incidence of discovery of lung nodules, usually false positive, but still calling for additional and sometimes painful examinations. Currently, the differential diagnosis is mainly based on additional imaging approaches, particularly positron emission tomography, which is very expensive and also shows limitations in terms of sensitivity and specificity. Therefore, purely morphological criteria seem to be insufficient to distinguish lung cancer at early stages from benign nodules with sufficient confidence. A molecular approach to the diagnosis of lung cancer through biomarkers measured by non-invasive means could greatly improve the specificity of imaging procedures. Extremely sensitive mass spectrometric techniques and polymerase chain reaction-based methods are available to detect, in accessible media, molecular alterations which characterise lung cancer at an early stage, thereby reducing the rate of false positives. The lessons learnt from decades of screening programmes based on imaging and the future prospects possibly enhanced by using biomarkers are briefly discussed in this overview. (www.actabiomedica.it)


AIM
Epilepsy is a common, serious neurological disease that causes recurrent episodes =but the molecular mechanism remains unclear. Abnormal miRNA expression is associated with epilepsy, including miR-451. This research was to investigate the role of miR-451 in seizure and the detail mechanism.

METHODS
The seizure mice model was induced by kainic acid (KA) injection to the right lateral cerebral ventricle. Behavioral changes of mice were observed and evaluated by the Racine Scale. The miR-451 knockout mice were established by adenovirus infection. The in vitro model was performed by miR-451 mimics transfected HEK-293 cells. The amount of neuronal death and morphological changes were evaluated by Nissl staining and H&E staining.

RESULTS
The results showed that miR-451 is up regulating in KA-induced seizure models and miR-451 knockout decreased the behavior score and improved the pathological changes of the hippocampus. Besides, MiR-451 knockout inhibited the apoptosis of hippocampal neurons. Bioinformatics studies have shown that glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) is a target gene of miR-451. MiR-451 could negatively regulate the expression of GDNF. GDNF overexpression could reverse the effect of miR-451 on KA induced brain injury and neuronal apoptosis.

CONCLUSION
This research demonstrates that miR-451 can affect the behavior of KA-induced epilepsy mice and hippocampal neuronal damage by regulating GDNF expression. The results would provide an experimental foundation for further research about the potential contribution of miRNAs to epilepsy pathophysiology.


PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate how the internet of things (IoT) contributes to manufacturers' advanced services development and delivery. To better understand the creation of these IoT contributions, the study adopts a socio-technical research perspective, which expands the scope of the investigation and integrates the technological, information and social factors that enable these IoT contributions.Design/methodology/approachA multiple-case research method was employed to investigate the IoT contribution scenarios of 15 manufacturers who offer advanced services and to examine their dependence on other non-IoT factors, using thematic analysis.FindingsThe analysis identified five advanced services value propositions, which are enabled by nine "IoT-enabled information systems (IS) artefacts" that specify the distinct interactions between the technological, information and social subsystems supporting the manufacturers' advanced services value propositions.Originality/valueThe study advances the servitisation research by demonstrating that IoT technology on its own is insufficient for the creation of the IoT contributions. It shows, instead, the need for close interactions with a diverse range of other factors, which are often not considered when developing an IoT strategy. The study also introduces the IS artefact notion as a unit of analysis that constitutes an alternative to the commonly adopted techno-centric perspective used to conceptualise IoT contributions. The study and its findings add to the development of a socio-technical perspective on the IoT in advanced services and thereby suggests a number of theoretical and practical implications.


Since the discovery of high temperature superconductivity, a large effort has been made by the scientific community to investigate this field towards a possible application of the new oxide superconductors to different devices like SMES, magnetic bearings, flywheels energy storage, magnetic shielding, transmission cables, fault current limiters, etc. However, all present day large scale applications using superconductivity in accelerator technology are based on conventional materials operating at liquid helium temperatures. Poor mechanical properties, low critical current density and sensitivity to the magnetic field at high temperature are the key parameters whose improvement is essential for a large scale application of high temperature superconductors to such devices. Current leads, used for transferring currents from the power converters, working at room temperature, into the liquid helium environment, where the magnets are operating, represent an immediate application of the emerging technology of high temperature superconductivity. The LHC, currently under construction at CERN, will transfer more than 3 million ampères of current through leads having high temperature superconducting sections, thus providing a unique opportunity to incorporate these materials into large scale systems. The status of this project and the cost-benefit consequence of its application will be reported.


Electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy has been used to investigate irreversible protonations of the nucleobase anions in gamma-irradiated frozen aqueous solutions of dGMP-dCMP, polyG-polyC, poly[dGdC].poly[dGdC], dAMP-dTMP, poly[dAdT].poly-[dAdT] and DNA itself. Analysis of the ESR spectra at a dose of 22 kGy shows that fractional conversion of total radicals to carbon-protonated species on annealing is in the order: dAMP-dTMP (43%) > pdAdT = DNA (23%) > dGMP.dCMP (15%) > poly-dGdC.polydGdC (6%) > polyG.polyC (3%). Two hydrogen addition radicals make contributions to the polyG.polyC, poly-[dGdC].poly[dGdC] and dGMP.dCMP spectra in H2O on annealing. They are those formed by protonations at C6 of the cytosine anion radical, C(C6)H., and at C8 of the guanine anion radical, G(C8)H.. Computer analysis reveals that anion protonation reaction in dGMP.dCMP results in mainly C(C6)H., whereas protonation reaction in polyG.polyC and poly[dGdC].poly-[dGdC] yields mainly G(C8)H.. In dAMP.dTMP and poly[dAdT].poly[dAdT] as in DNA itself, the only DNA base found to undergo an irreversible protonation at a carbon site is thymine, resulting in T(C6)H.. The conversion of DNA anion to T(C6)H. is found to be dependent on dose. At low doses (5 kGy), about 30% conversion to T(C6)H. is found, whereas at high doses (94 kGy), only 13% conversion is found. The dose dependence is ascribed in part to ion radical recombinations whose probabilities are increased at high doses. A consideration of the rates of protonations of the purine and pyrimidine anion radicals as well as the differences in electron affinities suggest carbon protonation reactions of DNA base anions in irradiated stacked double-strand DNA at 37 degrees C would be predominantly at thymine and perhaps guanine, whereas in single-strand DNA all bases would contribute.


Based on the minority stress model, this study examines the impact of general and gay-specific childhood teasing on adult high-risk sexual behaviour among gay and bisexual men, mediated by depression and social anxiety. High-risk sexual behaviour was operationalized as the number of acts of unprotected anal intercourse with a partner of opposite or unknown HIV status, and also as the number of partners of opposite or unknown HIV status with whom an individual engaged in unprotected anal intercourse. Depression, social anxiety, and retrospective self-report of childhood teasing were measured at baseline, and sexual behaviour was measured at 6-month follow-up. Results indicate that gay-specific teasing, but not general teasing, was indirectly associated with number of high-risk sex acts via depression. Additionally, both types of teasing were directly associated with number of high-risk sex partners after accounting for depression and social anxiety.


Introduction: Due to the widespread stromal involvement and sparse neoplastic populations in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) tumor biopsies, the discovery of novel biomarkers, subtypes, and therapeutic targets has been challenging. Previous work by our lab in the study of bulk tumors has established prognostic gene signatures of basal-like and classical tumor subtypes, and also normal and activated stromal subtypes. Leveraging the advances of microfluidics and single-cell RNA sequencing to digitally separate components of the tumor microenvironment (TME), we built a comprehensive single-cell atlas of human PDAC to better characterize the composition, pathology, and interactome of PDAC cells. Materials and Methods: Freshly resected human PDAC tissue is acquired immediately following resection. Bulk tissue is rapidly dissociated into single-cell suspension in order to reduce transcriptional artifacts of handling and time. Without manual phenotype preselection for specific cell types, suspension is processed and sequenced through 10X Chromium scRNA-seq and Illumina platforms. Seurat v3.0 and custom R packages were used for bioinformatic analysis. Results: Our single-cell human PDAC datasets recapitulate the highly desmoplastic composition expected from a PDAC tissue biopsy. Fibroblasts were most abundant alongside populations of preneoplastic cells, and neoplastic epithelial cells of both basal and classical subtypes. Both tumor subtype signatures were expressed within the same patient's biopsy, raising further questions about the dichotomy and origin of PDAC subtypes. We also analyzed transcriptional heterogeneity in endocrine, exocrine, myeloid, and immune cells to establish a comprehensive transcriptomic picture of human PDAC TME. Several cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) subtypes have been described. However, we observe enrichment of these gene signatures only in a subset of our fibroblasts, suggesting a broader landscape of fibroblast activity and differentiation may exist. Lastly, ligand and receptor interactions were mapped between cell types to highlight potential paracrine and autocrine mechanisms that potentiate the tumor microenvironment growth and maintenance. Conclusion: We present a comprehensive single-cell atlas of human PDAC with a focus on molecular subtypes in the TME at an unprecedented resolution. This offers novel insight into cell type heterogeneity, pathologic signaling, lineage trajectories, and specialized functions of TME components including macrophages, fibroblasts, and neoplastic cells leading to multi-axis pathways and interactions. Notably, we have found intrapatient heterogeneity in both the stromal and neoplastic tumor cell subtypes. Resolving the transcriptional heterogeneity of cells and the network of pathologic interactions within the TME allows for further revelations about cancer biology and potentially opens doors to novel combination therapies in the treatment of pancreatic cancer. Citation Format: Ki Oh, Manisha Rao, Mei Gao, Aaron Sasson, Georgios Georgakis, Joseph Kim, R. Scott Powers, Richard A Moffitt. Defining heterogeneity of molecular subtypes in human PDAC with scRNA-Seq [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference on Pancreatic Cancer: Advances in Science and Clinical Care; 2019 Sept 6-9; Boston, MA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2019;79(24 Suppl):Abstract nr A38.


This paper presents an application of modified PWM signals to enhance the efficiency of GaN HEMTs based HERIC inverter. Although application of GaN switches might increases the power density and overall efficiency of inverters due to the structure of GaN HEMTs, reverse conduction losses are increased during the second and fourth quadrant operation of the inverter. Hence, control of the inverter requires modifications to tackle additional losses introduced by GaN switches. Conventional PWM signals were designed to suppress the leakage current by keeping the voltage level constant at the switching nodes in all operating modes. However, modified PWM signals not only suppress the leakage current but also reduce the reverse conduction losses in GaN HEMTs. In this paper, proposed theory is validated by simulations based on spice models provided by the manufacturer of switches on LTspice. Simulation results validated the proposed solution and reported almost 50% reduction in reverse conduction losses. Practical prototype based on GaN HEMTs was also designed and tested. This study aids understanding the effect of the reverse losses on the device behavior and overall efficiency of the inverter.


The unstrained and strained flamelet closures for filtered reaction rate in large eddy simulation (LES) of premixed flames are studied. The required sub-grid scale (SGS) PDF in these closures is presumed using the Beta function. The relative performances of these closures are assessed by comparing numerical results from large eddy simulations of piloted Bunsen flames of stoichiometric methane–air mixture with experimental measurements. The strained flamelets closure is observed to underestimate the burn rate and thus the reactive scalars mass fractions are under-predicted with an over-prediction of fuel mass fraction compared with the unstrained flamelet closure. The physical reasons for this relative behaviour are discussed. The results of unstrained flamelet closure compare well with experimental data. The SGS variance of the progress variable required for the presumed PDF is obtained by solving its transport equation. An order of magnitude analysis of this equation suggests that the commonly used algebraic model obtained by balancing source and sink in this transport equation does not hold. This algebraic model is shown to underestimate the SGS variance substantially and the implications of this variance model for the filtered reaction rate closures are highlighted.


Abstract The origin of hydrous cordierite from a granulite-facies terrain in the Strangways Range, Central Australia, reported by Wilson (1978) is reviewed. In the light of geochemical and microstructural evidence for a metasomatic episode which affected the terrain subsequent to the growth of the cordierites, it is contended that the hydrous character of the cordierites results from hydration of the cordierite at this time. Extraneous argon also recorded in these cordierites may either have been incorporated into the cordierites at this time or at a later stage in the history of the terrain due to partial loss of radiogenic argon from micas which grew during the metasomatic episode. Furthermore, in view of the history of these cordierites, oxygen isotope values for the cordierites reported by Wilson are likely to be anomalous, and the isotopically light oxygen in the host granulites recorded by Wilson and Baksi (1978) probably reflects exchange with the metasomatic fluids which permeated the terrain.


The structural and ultrastructural organization of Mycobacterium rubrum cells was studied in the course of normal growth and in the conditions of irradiation. The cytomorphological differentiation of the bacterial membrane structure was shown as well as their functional role. Ionizing radiation was used as a tool for revealing the role of the membrane structures; the latter were found to be related to a certain cellular function. Damages of various, individually functioning membrane systems upon the action of ionizing radiation on the cell are described. Mesosomes are absent from the cells if the synthesis of peptidoglycan is inhibited, whereas hypersynthesis of the cell wall material is observed upon their hypertrophy. The content of mitochondrial analogs in the cell increases with the rate of metabolic processes. The function of cellular division is disturbed as a result of damages in the nucleoid DNA structure and degradation of nucleoidosomes. Changes in carbohydrate and lipid metabolism are also observed.


The main focus of this paper is the shape representation and registration using vector level set functions. This powerful representation is more flexible than conventional signed distance level sets since it enables us to control the shapes registration process by using more complicated transforms. Based on this model, a variational frame work is proposed for the rigid and non-rigid registration of shapes which can be extended to the higher dimensional case in a straightforward manner and also does not need any point correspondences. The optimization criterion presented can handle efficiently both the rigid and the non-rigid operations together. Experimental results in 2D for real shapes registration are discussed to show the efficiency of the approach with small and large global deformations of shapes.


Along with the increased number of internet shopping mall users, high quantities of reviews on products are often found in many shopping malls. In order to extract effective information from those reviews, many studies on opinion mining have been actively performed. Due to the various type of structure of shopping malls, it is difficult to apply a single web crawler on all the shopping malls, so proper web crawler models need to be implemented for each shopping mall. The core technique of constructing the appropriate web crawler is the Wrapper, and in this study, wrapper models for product reviewing web crawlers are suggested, designed, and implemented for four large shopping malls.


At the beginning of lactation, high-producing cows commonly experience an unbalanced energy status that is often responsible for the onset of metabolic disorders and impaired health and performance. Blood β-hydroxybutyrate (BHB) and nonesterified fatty acids (NEFA) are indicators of excessive fat mobilization and circulating ketone bodies. Recently, prediction models based on mid-infrared (MIR) spectroscopy have been developed to assess blood BHB and NEFA from routinely collected individual milk samples. This study aimed to estimate genetic parameters of blood BHB and NEFA predicted from milk MIR spectra and to assess their phenotypic and genetic correlations with milk production and composition traits in early-lactation Holstein cows. The data set comprised the first test-day record within lactation and spectra of individual milk samples (n = 22,718) of 13,106 Holstein cows collected from 5 to 35 d in milk (DIM). Blood BHB and NEFA were predicted from milk MIR spectra using previously developed prediction models. Genetic parameters of blood metabolites and milk traits were estimated for the whole observational period (5-35 DIM) and within 6 classes of DIM. Blood BHB and NEFA showed similar genetic variation across DIM, with the highest heritability in the first 10 d after calving (0.31 ± 0.06 and 0.19 ± 0.05 for BHB and NEFA, respectively). The genetic correlation between BHB and NEFA was moderate (0.51 ± 0.05). Genetic correlations of BHB with milk yield, SCS, protein percentage, lactose percentage, and urea nitrogen content were similar to, or at least in the same direction as, the correlations of NEFA with the same traits, whereas opposite correlations were observed with fat percentage and fat-to-protein ratio. Results of the current study suggest that blood BHB and NEFA predicted from milk MIR spectra have genetic variation that is potentially exploitable for breeding purposes. Therefore, they could be used as indicator traits of hyperketonemia in a selection index aimed to reduce the susceptibility of dairy cows to metabolic disorders in early lactation.


The Leptospira meyeri serovar semaranga metX gene was identified by complementation of an Escherichia coli metA mutant, i.e., devoid of homoserine O-succinyltransferase. However, the MetX protein exhibited a homoserine O-acetyltransferase activity in agreement with its similarity to homoserine O-acetyltransferases. Reverse transcription-PCR analysis demonstrated that metX is the second gene of an operon.


BACKGROUND
Lactobacillus acidophilus not only improves the intestinal flora balance but also inhabits the growth of undesirable microorganisms in intestine, which is benefit to the health of humans and animals. Plackett-Burman and steepest ascent experiment are the rapid and concise ways of screening the main effective factors. This study is aimed to select the main influence factors and optimize the medium for Lactobacillus acidophilus by Plackett-Burman experiment and steepest ascent experiment.

METHODS
The ideal carbon source was screened among glucose, maltose, lactose and whey powder, and the ideal nitrogen source was screened among casein hydrolysate, peptone, yeast extract powder, fish meal, carbamide, ammonium sulfate and sodium nitrate by single factor experiment. Plackett-Burman and steepest ascent experiment were applied to screen the main effective factors of Lactobacillus acidophilus among peptone, beef extract, yeast extract powder, glucose, K2HPO4, C6H14O7N2, CH3COONa, MgSO4 and Tween-80. Result. The results indicated that glucose (p = 0.01510) as negative factor and K2HPO4 (p = 0.02017) as positive effect were the significant growth factors of Lactobacillus acidophilus, CH3COONa (p = 0.09273) as positive effect was an important factor, and the optimized medium was as follows: glucose - 21 g/L, K2HPO4 - 3.5 g/L, CH3COONa - 6.5 g/L, peptone - 10 g/L, beef extract - 8 g/L, yeast extract pow.

RESULTS
nd. Lactobacillus acidophilus not only improves the intestinal flora balance but also inhabits the growth of undesirable microorganisms in intestine, which is benefit to the health of humans and animals. Plackett-Burman and steepest ascent experiment are the rapid and concise ways of screening the main effective factors. This study is aimed to select the main influence factors and optimize the medium for Lactobacillus acidophilus by Plackett-Burman experiment and steepest ascent experiment. Material and methods. The ideal carbon source was screened among glucose, maltose, lactose and whey powder, and the ideal nitrogen source was screened among casein hydrolysate, peptone, yeast extract powder, fish meal, carbamide, ammonium sulfate and sodium nitrate by single factor experiment. Plackett-Burman and steepest ascent experiment were applied to screen the main effective factors of Lactobacillus acidophilus among peptone, beef extract, yeast extract powder, glucose, K2HPO4, C6H14O7N2, CH3COONa, MgSO4 and Tween-80. Result. The results indicated that glucose (p = 0.01510) as negative factor and K2HPO4 (p = 0.02017) as positive effect were the significant growth factors of Lactobacillus acidophilus, CH3COONa (p = 0.09273) as positive effect was an important factor, and the optimized medium was as follows: glucose - 21 g/L, K2HPO4 - 3.5 g/L, CH3COONa - 6.5 g/L, peptone - 10 g/L, beef extract - 8 g/L, yeast extract powder - 8 g/L, C6H14O7N2 - 2 g/L, MgSO4 - 0.2 g/L and Tween-80 - 1 mL/L when the maximum viable count could achieve 2.72·109 cfu/mL.

CONCLUSIONS
The experimental model is reliable and the experimental results are of good stability. Variance analysis is performed to determine the adequacy and significance of the linear model. Thus, Plackett-Burman and steepest ascent experiment improve the veracity of optimization the medium for Lactobacillus acidophilus compared with the previous research.


It has been known that PSI and PSII supercomplexes are involved in the linear and cyclic electron transfer, dynamics of light capture, and the repair cycle of PSII under environmental stresses. However, evolutions of photosystem (PS) complexes from evolutionarily divergent species are largely unknown. Here, we improved the blue native polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (BN-PAGE) separation method and successfully separated PS complexes from all terrestrial plants. It is well known that reversible D1 protein phosphorylation is an important protective mechanism against oxidative damages to chloroplasts through the PSII photoinhibition-repair cycle. The results indicate that antibody-detectable phosphorylation of D1 protein is the latest event in the evolution of PS protein phosphorylation and occurs exclusively in seed plants. Compared to angiosperms, other terrestrial plant species presented much lower contents of PS supercomplexes. The amount of light-harvesting complexes II (LHCII) trimers was higher than that of LHCII monomers in angiosperms, whereas it was opposite in gymnosperms, pteridophytes, and bryophytes. LHCII assembly may be one of the evolutionary characteristics of vascular plants. In vivo chloroplast fluorescence measurements indicated that lower plants (bryophytes especially) showed slower changes in state transition and nonphotochemical quenching (NPQ) in response to light shifts. Therefore, the evolution of PS supercomplexes may be correlated with their acclimations to environments.


BACKGROUND
Hyperuricemia and left ventricular (LV) hypertrophy are prevalent in chronic kidney disease (CKD), but the association of uric acid (UA) and left ventricular mass index (LVMI) with renal outcomes in patients with CKD is unclear. We conducted a study to assess whether the combination of UA and LVMI is associated with renal outcomes in patients with CKD of stages 3-5.

METHODS
This longitudinal study enrolled 540 patients, who were classified into four groups according to sex-specific median values of UA and LVMI. The study investigated the associations of the study groups with progression to dialysis, rapid progression of decline in renal function (decline in estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) > 3ml/min/1.73 m(2)/year), and change in eGFR, using Cox proportional hazards modeling, logistic regression analysis, and linear mixed-effects modeling, respectively.

RESULTS
The follow-up period for the study was 33.4 (19.8-39.6) months. The average number of serum creatinine measurements during the follow-up period was 8 (range, 5-12). Multivariate analyses demonstrated an association of the group with a higher UA and LVMI with an increased rate of progression to dialysis (hazard ratio (HR), 1.830; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.007 to 3.326; P = 0.048) and with rapid progression of decline in renal function (odds ratio (OR), 2.231; 95% CI, 1.058-4.705; P = 0.04). Additionally, the linear mixed-effects model showed that the decrease in eGFR over time was more rapid in the group with a higher UA and LVMI than in the other groups (P < 0.04).

CONCLUSIONS
Our findings show that the combination of a higher UA and LVMI is a risk factor for progression to dialysis and rapid progression of decline in renal function in patients with CKD of stages 3-5.


There is evidence to propose a close microbe-nutrient-plant weave that functions as a mechanism to recycle and conserve nutrients in the mangrove ecosystem. Thirty two bacterial isolates representing the microbiome of mangrove community at Safaga, Koseir, Red Sea governorate were secured from sediment and water samples. Based on colony and cell morphology as well as physiological characteristics, the isolates were found to belong to twelve various genera. Nine salt tolerant isolates were further identified using 16S rRNA gene sequence and the phylogenetic tree was constructed which indicated that the majority of isolates are belonging to Bacillus besides the genera Kocuria, Nesiotobacter, Psychrobacillus, Salinivibrio, Serrratia and Vibrio. All strains shared more than 86 % identify with their closest phylogenetic relatives. They were examined for enzyme activities and biochemical reactions. The salt stress-tolerant enzyme activities for acid- and alkaline-phosphatases, amylase, nitrogenase, protease and urease were found variable among the isolates being 0.82 - 28.93; 0.07 - 37.01; 1.05 - 65.32; 0.42 - 0.54; 7.90 - 49.89 and 1.02 - 8.56 nmoles ml-1 culture h-1, respectively. The isolates did possess the ability to produce indole acetic acid (59.05 - 163.21 µmoles ml-1), gibbrillic acid (14.82 - 30.71 µmoles ml-1), exopolysaccharides (0.14 - 1.83 µmoles ml-1) besides solubilizing phosphates (1.15 - 11.62 µmoles ml-1) in 7.2 % NaCl-salted culture media. The pioneeric three halophilic candidates (Bacillus jeotgali, Bacillus oceanisediminis and Psycrobacillus psychrodurans) were experimented as biofertilizers for barley cultivated in soil irrigated with saline water. Salinity dramatically reduced plant growth and yield components. Total biomass decreased by ca. 70 % due to irrigation with saline water. Bacterial inoculation alleviated, to an extent, the toxic impact of high salinity, an effect that was inoculum-dependent. Inoculation significantly enhanced proline accumulation in barley tissues, the quantities in shoots exceeded those of roots being 34.9 and 68.9 mg g-1 Dw in average, respectively. The Na+ concentration significantly increased in saline water-irrigated plants, this was accompanied by decreases in K+ contents and wider Na+: K+ ratios. Salinity adversely affected leaf area, spike and 1000 grain weights. The triple-isolate inoculum seemed the superior in restricting the deleterious influence of high salinity on plant development.


Chaetomium globosum Krunze ex Fr. (Cg) has been identified as a potential antagonist of Bipolaris sorokiniana and Ascochyta rabei . This biocontrol agent has been found to be producing antifungal metabolites. Six different isolates of Cg were characterized for the production of antifungal metabolites. The quantitative estimation of crude extracts showed maximum production by isolate Cg3 (47.2μg/mg mycelium) followed by Cg2 (44.2μg/mg). Isolate Cgl produced minimum quantity of metabolites (7.44μg/mg). Crude extracts of secondary metabolites from all the isolates of C. globosum when resolved by thin layer chromatography showed that the isolate of Cgl produced only two compounds of R r value 0.17 and 0.48, while isolate Cg2 produced thirteen compounds, followed by 11 compounds produced by isolate Cg3, The metabolite from spore germination fluid of isolate Cg2, when resolved on TLC plate along with crude extracts from culture filtrate of Cg2, showed production of about same number of compounds. One of the purified compounds from isolate Cg2 when used for bioassay against Bipolaris sorokiniana, Rhizoctonia solani, Fusarium udum and Macrophomina phaseolina pathogens proved effective in inhibiting the growth up to 70 percent.


The performance of line scanning systems is analyzed in this paper. The results apply to systems such as infrared scanners, TV systems, and radar systems. The main objective of the analysis is to compare the performance obtainable when optimum two-dimensional processing of the data is used and the performance obtainable when only one-dimensional (along the lines) processing is used. Optimization under the constraint that only processing along the lines is available is a new and interesting problem in optimum filter theory, and the results are of practical importance since in most systems this constraint is imposed. Since it is possible to modify the systems to accommodate arbitrary two-dimensional processing at the expense of some system complexity, it is important to determine the corresponding performance improvement. The emphasis is on the general theory, and many special cases deserve quantitative treatment. In this paper quantitative comparisons are made for two cases; specifically, top hat and cone-shaped frequency responses of the aperture are considered. These characteristics occur in coherent and incoherent scanners in which the "resolution" is limited by the optical aperture of the scanner. Three performance criteria are used: least-squares error, maximum-peak signal to rms noise ratio, and minimum system resolution. Table I shows the improvement of arbitrary two-dimensional filtering over one-dimensional filtering along the lines.


Proceedings: AACR 102nd Annual Meeting 2011‐‐ Apr 2‐6, 2011; Orlando, FL

Background: Alcohol consumption has been reported as a risk factor for breast cancer. However, little is known about its importance for indigenous African population, among whom the prevalence of breast cancer is relatively low. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between alcohol drinking and breast cancer risk in Nigerian women.

Methods: The study was based on the Nigerian Breast Cancer Study, a case-control study of breast cancer conducted in Ibadan, Nigeria, between 1998 and 2010. In-person interviews were conducted with 1355 invasive breast cancer cases and 1132 community controls, using structured questionnaires to collect detailed epidemiologic data including alcohol drinking. Multivariate logistic regression was performed to estimate odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI), controlling for age, ethnicity, and type of questionnaire (we revised the questionnaire in the middle of study), with potential effect measure modifications tested.

Results: 5.8% controls and 11.3% cases reported drinking alcohol every week for at least 6 months, with crude OR=2.08 (95% CI: 1.54-2.82, p<0.0001). After adjusting for potential confounding variables, alcohol drinking remained statistically associated with breast cancer risk but the strength of association was attenuated (adjusted OR=1.56, 95% CI: 1.11-2.19, p=0.01). Among women who drink weekly, the average drinks per week were 1.7±0.8 in controls and 3.4±5.8 in cases, and there was a dose-response trend: the crude OR was 1.86 for women who had 1-2 drinks per week and 3.27 for those who had ≥ 2 drinks per week, compared with non-drinkers (p-trend=0.08). The age- and ethnicity-adjusted ORs for 1-2 drinks and ≥ 2 drinks per week were 1.20 (95% CI: 0.49-2.93) and 1.80 (95% CI: 0.36-8.87), respectively. The association between alcohol drinking and breast cancer was particularly stronger in overweight or obese women who have BMI ≥ 25 kg/m2 (adjusted OR=1.92, 95% CI: 1.23-3.01, p=0.004) than in normal weight women (adjusted OR=1.20, 95% CI: 0.71-2.02, p=0.5). Similar association was observed in pre-menopausal and post-menopausal women.

Conclusions: Our study showed that regular alcohol intake is uncommon among Nigerian women. However, regular alcohol drinking may increase breast cancer risk among the Nigerians, particularly overweight women.

Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 102nd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2011 Apr 2-6; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2011;71(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 3734. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2011-3734


OBJECTIVE
To determine clinical signs, radiographic and scintigraphic findings, and performance outcome of racing Standardbreds with tibial stress fractures.

DESIGN
Retrospective case series.

ANIMALS
13 racing Standardbreds with tibial stress fractures.

PROCEDURE
Information concerning clinical signs, diagnostic evaluation, and recommendations was obtained by review of the medical records. Performance information before and after diagnosis of the fracture was collected from racing records, and follow-up information was obtained from the owners or trainers by use of a telephone questionnaire.

RESULTS
Horses with tibial stress fractures were moderately lame, and diagnosis was made by nuclear scintigraphy and radiography. Fractures were more likely to occur in 2-year-old horses than in older horses. The fracture location was unique for Standardbreds; 11 of 13 developed stress fractures in the mid-diaphysis of the tibia, whereas fractures in Thoroughbreds are usually in the proximal caudal or caudolateral cortex. Fractures occurred in young horses that had raced or were in advanced race training. All horses were treated with rest alone, and 10 of 13 horses raced after injury. The horses that raced after injury were able to return to a level of performance that was equal to or better than the level raced before injury. 8 of 10 horses established a lifetime-best winning time after injury.

CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS
Tibial stress fractures are a cause of lameness in young racing Standardbreds. Diagnosis is aided by nuclear scintigraphy. The prognosis for return to previous level of performance after a tibial stress fracture is good.


With the simple, courageous act of refusing to relinquish her seat - Rosa Parks struck a blow against racial injustice. She showed what one person, without guns or violence, could do to change the course of history forever. Nelson Mandela claimed "she is who inspired us...to be fearless when facing our oppressors." Then, on December 1, 1955, she made a stand on an Alabama bus and her arrest mobilised the black community for a citywide bus boycott that led to a landmark Supreme Court decision and a move toward de-segregation. Award-winning author Ruth Ashby beautifully conveys Park's dignity and determination."Sterling Biographies" are packed with information and filled with unique images that include rare documentary photographs, artwork, maps and personal artefacts. Focusing on inventors and innovative thinkers, they present first-person accounts and dramatic events related in an intimate and accessible style.


Parallel, multithreaded Java applications such as Web servers, database servers, and scientific applications are becoming increasingly prevalent. Most of them have high object instantiation rates through the new bytecode that is implemented in a garbage collection subsystem typically. For aforementioned applications, traditional garbage collectors are often the bottleneck that limits program performance and processor utilization on multiprocessor systems. They suffer from long garbage collection pauses (stop-the-world mark-sweep algorithm) or inability of collecting cyclic garbage (reference counting approach). Generational garbage collection, however, is based only on the weak generational hypothesis that most objects die young. In this paper, a new multithreaded concurrent generational garbage collector (MCGC) based on mark-sweep with the assistance of reference counting is proposed. The MCGC can take advantage of multiple CPUs in an SMP system and the merits or light weight processes. Furthermore, the long garbage collection pause can be reduced and the garbage collection efficiency can be enhanced.


This article presents a flowchart to help managers determine whether the benefits of implementing a multiple-cost-driver system to improve the accuracy of reported unit costs will outweigh the implementa-tion costs. The flowchart disciplines decision makers to consider whether the firm produces multiple products, whether those products consume indirect resources in heterogeneous patterns, and whether the firm's competitive position truly depends on more accurately reported cost information. Careful use of this tool will increase the likelihood that investments in cost system accuracy will have positive net present values. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


The growth of the Internet has resulted in the rapid growth of using XML for data representation and exchange over the Web. Finding the similarity of XML documents is a significant research task in order to effectively control and retrieve information over the web. In this paper, we propose a new approach for determining similarity of XML documents by considering their content and structure. The similarity is computed by using the Sorensen–Dice's coefficient and fuzzy intersection. We experimentally demonstrate the accuracy of the similarity method using real data sets. Keywords-component; XML document similarity, fuzzy set, string matching.


A highly efficient and general protocol for traceless, directed C3-selective C-H borylation of indoles with [Ni(IMes)2] as the catalyst is reported. Activation and borylation of N-H bonds by [Ni(IMes)2] is essential to install a Bpin moiety at the N-position as a traceless directing group, which enables the C3-selective borylation of C-H bonds. The N-Bpin group which is formed is easily converted in situ back to an N-H group by the oxidiative addition product of [Ni(IMes)2] and in situ-generated HBpin. The catalytic reactions are operationally simple, allowing borylation of of a variety of substituted indoles with B2pin2 in excellent yields and with high selectivity. The C-H borylation can be followed by Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling of the C-borylated indoles in an overall two-step, one-pot process providing an efficient method for synthesizing C3-functionalized heteroarenes.


The study assessed the availability and dissemination of information to farmers using mobile phones by public extension agents in Delta state, Nigeria. Data were collected from 64 randomly selected public extension agents from the three agricultural zones in the state. Majority (98.4%) of the extension agents were not provided with institutional mobile phones to aid information dissemination to clientele. However, about 97% of the respondents affirmed that they possess personal mobile phones, which they (92%) use to disseminate information to farmers. Interactions with farmers were mainly through phone calls (84.4%) and short message services (SMSs) (71.9%). Mobile phones were frequently used in disseminating information on availability of new crop varieties (M = 2.1), and available markets for sale of crop produce (M = 2.0). The study points to the need for the public extension service to collaborate with network providers in dissemination of short programmed messages or calls that are beneficial to the farmers as well as creating a hotline desk that will readily provide answers to the immediate needs of farmers. This will facilitate the achievement of the agricultural transformation agenda (ATA) of the federal ministry of agriculture which aims at reaching the farmers with innovative agricultural information as well as agro inputs. Key words : Availability, Use, Mobile phone, Extension agents and Delta state agricultural development programme


Accurate assessment of disease activity and progression is essential in diseases with marked chronicity such as rheumatoid arthritis. It is not surprising that rheumatologists continue to seek improvement in old indices and to develop new ones. In the field of clinical indices, selection of data that contribute independently to the overall value of a compound assessment index will simplify trial methodology considerably. The trend is to reduce the number of tests done, but there is still a need to include functional indices and perhaps psychologic ones, because disability and self-image clearly affect prognosis. In the laboratory area, the trend is to develop methods to specifically assess different aspects of inflammation rather than to rely on overall nonspecific measures such as acute-phase proteins. Radiographs remain the simplest method for detecting scars of previous disease and the potential exists to improve and perhaps mechanize the reading of such films. Magnetic resonance imaging has the potential for assessment of the current state of inflammation if newer methodologies are used. Radionuclides may also have much to offer in joint assessment in the 1990s.


In this paper, both Seasonal ARIMA and Holt-Winters models are developed to predict the monthly car sales in South Africa using data for the period of January 1994 to December 2013. The purpose of this study is to choose an optimal model suited for the sector. The three error metrics; mean absolute error, mean absolute percentage error and root mean square error were used in making such a choice. Upon realizing that the three forecast errors could not provide concrete basis to make conclusion, the power test was calculated for each model proving Holt-Winters to having about 0.3% more predictive power. Empirical results also indicate that Holt-Winters model produced more precise short-term seasonal forecasts. The findings also revealed a structural break in April 2009, implying that the car industry was significantly affected by the 2008 and 2009 US financial crisis.


Summary form only given. This paper presents the performance analysis of two proposed cognitive selection mechanisms namely successive and comparative selection for real wireless LAN environments. The objective of this study is to investigate and identify the wireless network characteristics and behavior that will influence the performance of the selection mechanisms among user terminals and access points located in the office area as depicted. Received Signal Strength of the public access point is examined and the internet connection speed of the access point from end user's perspective is scrutinized. Correlation of an access point performance solely based on its received signal strength is under evaluation. Such notion has been criticized and likely to be refuted based on the findings. Having high received signal strength alone does not warrant a good internet connection speed since there are other influencing factors and parameters involved. Since classifying the behavior of an access point is not always straightforward, this study extends the monitoring of IEEE 802.11 Wireless Local Area Network behaviors from the perspective of access point users. It was found that, having such cognitive selection mechanism not only improve the user Internet connectivity quality but also offers a way to offload users from any congested access points with minimal complexity.


An optimization framework was developed as a step toward automating the design of explosive devices. The Sandia National Laboratory codes Dakota and CTH were coupled to optimize the kinetic energy output of a one dimensional exploding cylinder. Three configurations of TNT explosives were considered, an aluminum case with a variable outer radius and wall thickness, a composite aluminum-iron sandwich case with a fixed radius and variable wall thicknesses, and a model with varying wall material and thickness. Dakota successfully optimized each design using a suite of optimization algorithms. A energy-based nondimensionalization scheme was also developed to explore the CTH and Gurney equation models in more detail.


Research on the effects of specific off-job activities, such as social and physical activities, on employees' work life seems to be inconclusive. Therefore, we investigated how energy gained from off-job activities the previous day after work hours, rather than the involvement in or the time spent on specific activities, helps employees to be engaged in their work during demanding workdays (i.e., high workload). We hypothesized that workload becomes a challenge demand and, consequently, increases employees' engagement in their work on the days employees had high (vs. low) energetic resources from their previous day's off-job activities. Our participants were 37 employees working at an elementary school, who completed an online daily diary at the end of the workday for a period of two weeks (N = 37 employees × 7.16 days on average = 265 measurement points). The results of the moderation analysis supported our hypothesis, showing that employees were more engaged in their work on the days they experienced a high workload and when they gained high levels of energy from the activities they undertook the previous day during nonwork-hours. Our findings contribute to our knowledge on how off-job activities influence employees' work life, showing that it is not just the activity but the energy gained from these activities that is important to deal with daily workload.


The purpose of this article is to explain and solve the early stage of High-tech small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) development issue in Tianjin, specifically the so-called Valley of Death. The Valley of Death is used as a metaphor to describe the relative lack of resources and expertise in the area of development. In this article, the resources and expertise mainly refer to the financing and loans required by high-tech SMEs in the early stage. Through the analysis of the actual situation of developing high-tech SMEs in Tianjin, the article illustrates organizations can bridge the Valley of Death through coordination and institutional support. The literature review and normative analysis methodology used in this study gathered data from literature and second-hand materials with extensive experience to construct the framework model of early stage development of Tianjin high-tech SMEs. Results indicate that institutional support has been very effective in addressing the Valley of Death. Implications of these findings suggest local government must understand the challenges in the valley, must facilitate the development of skills for the SMEs, and must supply the resources to SMEs.


The goal of harmonic analysis on a (noncommutative) group is to de- compose the most "natural" unitary representations of this group (like the regular representation) on irreducible ones. The infinite-dimensional unitary group U(1) is one of the basic examples of "big" groups whose irreducible representations depend on infinitely many parameters. Our aim is to explain what the harmonic analysis on U(1) consists of. We deal with unitary representations of a reasonable class, which are in 1-1 corre- spondence with characters (central, positive definite, normalized functions on U(1)). The decomposition of any representation of this class is described by a probability measure (called spectral measure) on the space of indecomposable characters. The indecomposable characters were found by Dan Voiculescu in 1976. The main result of the present paper consists in explicitly constructing a 4- parameter family of "natural" representations and computing their characters. We view these representations as a substitute of the nonexisting regular representation of U(1). We state the problem of harmonic analysis on U(1) as the problem of computing the spectral measures for these "natural" representations. A solution to this problem is given in the next paper (BO4), joint with Alexei Borodin. We also prove a few auxiliary general results. In particular, it is proved that the spectral measure of any character of U(1) can be approximated by a sequence of (discrete) spectral measures for the restrictions of the character to the compact unitary groups U(N). This fact is a starting point for computing spectral measures.


A 1992 survey of doses to patients from CT scanning in New Zealand found that CT contributes 81 microSv per capita per annum, representing about 17% of the collective dose from medical irradiation. Because of the significance of CT, estimates of patient dose are now included in the National Radiation Laboratory (NRL) routine surveys of CT scanners. For some models of CT scanner, normalized organ dose data from Monte Carlo studies are available, enabling the calculation of the effective dose. For scanners for which there are no normalized organ dose data, it is shown that the computed tomography dose index (CTDI), determined at 1 cm depth in Perspex phantoms and normalized for mAs, may be used to estimate the effective dose. Estimates of effective dose derived from the CTDI may then be used to formulate reference dose levels, against which individual scanner doses may be compared.


Many trees in mature forests show intermittent reproduction. Intensive flowering and seed production occur only once in several years, often synchronized over a long distance. In a previous paper, we showed that the limitation of fruit production by the outcross pollen availability can bring about synchronized reproduction of trees in a constant environment, assuming that pollen availability depends on the mean flowering intensity of the trees. However, pollen exchange normally occurs within a distance much shorter than the extent of the whole forest. We studied a coupled map lattice, in which each tree engages in the chaotic dynamics of energy reserve level, but different trees are coupled by pollen exchange with neighbors. We first derived a relation between two statistics of spatial covariance (dynamic spatial covariance and snapshot spatial covariance). A strong synchronization of tree reproduction can develop over the whole forest that may be orders of magnitude larger than the distance of direct pollen exchange between trees. The fluctuation is close to a cycle with a period of two years. The model of local coupling always generates non-uniform spatial patterns, but the enhanced spatial covariance caused by the spatial heterogeneity is restricted to a short range, only a few times larger than the spatial range of direct interaction. When pollen exchange occurs beyond the nearest neighbors, the local spatial pattern becomes proportionally larger, but the condition for synchronization of the whole forest and its magnitude are the same as for the case with the nearest neighbor pollen exchange. When a fraction of the seeds are sired by globally dispersed pollen and the rest are sired by local pollen, long-range synchronization can occur for a wide-parameter region, and trees may engage in a fluctuation with a masting interval longer than two years. We discuss alternative explanations for the long-range synchronization of beech forests.


A circuit board (80, 100, 120, 142) in a mobile electronic device (10) has a microphone (96, 110, 126) and related amplifier and signal conditioning circuitry mounted thereon. A radio frequency (RF) shield (94, 108, 122) surrounds and isolates the microphone from electromagnetic interference (EMI). The RF shield together with the circuit board forms an acoustic chamber (81, 101) surrounding the microphone. An opening (99) in the RF shield permits acoustic energy to enter the acoustic chamber and reach the microphone.


Objective: To undertake a systematic review and meta-analysis of the effectiveness of play-based interventions compared to traditional therapy in rehabilitation of adults with adult-acquired brain injury. Data sources: The search was performed using Medline; Cinahl Plus; Health Source (Nursing/Academic Edition); Psychology and behavioural sciences collection; Biomedical reference collection (basic). Review methods: Studies included were randomised controlled trials that investigated the effect of play-based interventions on physical function of adults with adult acquired brain injury. Two independent reviewers identified eligible studies and assessed methodological quality using a modified Downs and Black. Meta-analysis compared standardised differences in means, to determine effect sizes for grouped functional outcome measures. The GRADE scoring system was used to determine the level of clinical evidence. Results: Thirty studies met the inclusion criteria, 13 were considered high quality and 17 moderate quality. Studies predominantly involved post-stroke participants, with only three studies including participants with traumatic brain injury. When compared to traditional therapy, dose-matched studies of play-based interventions showed a significant effect on independence (Effect size (ES) = 0.6) and physical performance (ES = 0.43), as measured using the Fugl –Meyer. For non-dose matched studies, play-based interventions showed a significant improvement for balance (ES = 0.76) compared with traditional therapy. In all studies that measured participant enjoyment, play-based therapy was rated as more enjoyable than traditional therapy. Conclusion: Play-based interventions for people with adult acquired brain injury are more effective in improving balance and independence, which may be due to them being more enjoyable than traditional therapy.


To know the structure of the attitudes toward disabled persons is of importance for practical rehabilitation work as well as for rehabilitation research. The hereby presented BESTT 83 (attitudes-toward-disabled-structure test 1983) comprises 15 factors of the attitude toward the disabled (integration climate). It makes use of pictures in order to be most realistic and to eliminate conscious and unconscious tendencies of distortion. The method can be used for individual tests as well as for group experiments. The test in its original setting has been checked by means of an expert rating and an empirical study (175 subjects aged between 10 and 90 years). The results show the reliability and validity of this method.


While the interaction of complement component C1q with cellular proteins is extensively studied, much less is known about the binding of the structurally related molecule, mannan‐binding lectin (MBL) to various cells. Here we show by cytofluorimetry that the interaction of MBL with immunocompetent cells is much more restricted than that of C1q. It is shown that under conditions of physiological ionic strength MBL binds to human monocyte‐derived macrophages (Mϕ) and monocytoid cell lines, but not to T and B lymphocytes, in contrast to C1q, which interacts with all these cells under the same conditions. As opposed to the binding of C1q, low ionic strength does not improve the interaction of MBL with Mϕ. No competition for cellular binding sites was found when MBL and C1q were added simultaneously to the cells. Studying the functional consequences of the interaction, we found that the release of TNF‐α from Mϕ is induced by C1q but not by MBL. Production of complement C3 by Mϕ is stimulated by C1q strongly, while the effect of MBL is much weaker. C3 produced upon C1q‐mediated triggering is shown to opsonize RBC, resulting in enhanced phagocytosis. These results suggest that cell membrane molecules binding MBL and C1q are not identical; moreover, biological functions exerted by these proteins are also markedly different.


Background: Assessing the height of an individual, from measurements of different parts, has always been of immense interest to forensic medicine experts. The study of foot measurement in personal identification has obvious significance in forensic sciences. Having this idea in mind we did our project. Aims: Aim of the present study was to estimate stature from foot length of both side and compare the correlation coefficient in both sexes. Materials and methods: This study was carried out on 500 medico-legal autopsies which were brought to Forensic Medicine Department, M. P. Shah Govt. Medical College, Jamnagar during the period of August 2012 to June 2013. We took the height by standard measuring tap and foot length by sliding vernier calliper. Result: The stature of males varied in range of 150 to 188 cm with mean of 167 + 4.58 cm and in females in the range of 139 to 171 cm with mean of 154 + 4.7 cm. Right foot length in males varied in range of 20.12 to 28.9 cm and in females 19.1 to 24.4 cm. Left foot length in males varied in range of 20.4 to 29.1 cm and in females 19 to 24.36 cm. Correlation co-efficient for both foot in both males and females are > 0.7. Conclusion: Males were taller and have longer feet than females. There is very large correlation between height and foot length in both males and females.  Correlation co-efficient for male for both foot are higher than females so, stature prediction from foot length is more accurate in males than females. Key words: Stature, Foot Length, Autopsy


Icing conditions are some of the critical operating phenomena that an aircraft engine can encounter within its flight envelope.22,000 feet is recognized in the industry as the upper limit for the existence of super-cooled liquid water. Above this level, the particles are no longer in liquid water form, but rather ice crystals, snowflakes, graupel or hail. In this thesis is tried to contribute to the research into the critical operating phenomenon by answering the following research question: How can heat transfer analysis of aircraft engine inlets in ice crystals conditions be improved by application of \acrlong{ml} algorithms?\\ This thesis takes as starting point the test results of a \acrfull{ge} component test with a sector inlet in icing conditions. The test was run through a \acrfull{doe} matrix with inputs variations of flow inlet parameters and heating of the component. The temperature measurements from the test are signals which are showing the behavior of the wall temperature given a combination of inlet conditions.\\Ice crystals which are induced in the inlet flow impinge on the wall and melt because of the heat flux through the wall. This process repeats itself until the energy delivered through the wall is not enough to melt all the ice particles which are impinging. At this moment ice starts to accrete. Two hypothesis where formulated. Both using different characteristics in the temperature signal to calculate an experimental factor $\zeta$. This experimental factor $\zeta$ is used to close the "5 heat equation" which describes the heat fluxes to the impinging ice crystals. This $\zeta$ is used as a target value in a \acrshort{ml} algorithm.\\The \acrshort{ml} algorithm uses data to extract a mapping function which maps the input variables to the target variable, referred to as training. The mapping function of hypothesis 1 was nonphysical. It showed unexpected relations between the input variables and $\zeta$. Therefore is hypothesis 1 rejected. The mapping function of hypothesis 2 was physical and this hypothesis is accepted. \\ Using this trained \acrshort{ml} algorithm, the tool was build and prediction could be made. Some zones within the inlet variables showed very accurate predictions other zones showed very poor predictions. An unsupervised learning algorithm, \acrfull{pca} was used, to look for relations between prediction accuracy and inlet variables. The foundings from the \acrshort{pca} let to the clear proof that the "5 heat equation" used by \acrshort{ge} explains the physics insufficiently. Another approach to the "5 heat equation" and further development of the tool are proposed.


Many researchers have discovered amygdalin or laetrile to be clinically inefficient in curing cancer, as well as potentially toxic or fatal when orally ingested due to cyanide poisoning. Nevertheless, hypotheses highlighted the role of amygdalin as an anticancer treatment causing programmed death in prostate cancer and human cervical cancer cells. Moreover, one study reported that amygdalin blocked bladder cancer cell growth by down-modulating the cell cycle regulating proteins cdk2 and cyclin A.


ABSTRACT Francisella tularensis is a zoonotic pathogen and the causative agent of tularemia. F. tularensis replicates to high levels within the cytosol of macrophages and other host cells while subverting the host response to infection. Critical to the success of F. tularensis is its ability to delay macrophage apoptosis to maintain its intracellular replicative niche. However, the host-signaling pathway(s) modulated by F. tularensis to delay apoptosis are poorly characterized. The outer membrane channel protein TolC is required for F. tularensis virulence and its ability to suppress apoptosis and cytokine expression during infection of macrophages. We took advantage of the F. tularensis ∆tolC mutant phenotype to identify host pathways that are important for activating macrophage apoptosis and that are disrupted by the bacteria. Comparison of macrophages infected with wild-type or ∆tolC F. tularensis revealed that the bacteria interfere with TLR2-MYD88-p38 signaling at early times post infection to delay apoptosis, dampen innate host responses, and preserve the intracellular replicative niche. Experiments using the mouse pneumonic tularemia model confirmed the in vivo relevance of these findings, revealing contributions of TLR2 and MYD88 signaling to the protective host response to F. tularensis, which is modulated by the bacteria to promote virulence. IMPORTANCE Francisella tularensis is a Gram-negative intracellular bacterial pathogen and the causative agent of the zoonotic disease tularemia. F. tularensis, like other intracellular pathogens, modulates host-programmed cell death pathways to ensure its replication and survival. We previously identified the outer membrane channel protein TolC as required for the ability of F. tularensis to delay host cell death. However, the mechanism by which F. tularensis delays cell death pathways during intracellular replication is unclear despite being critical to pathogenesis. In the present study, we address this gap in knowledge by taking advantage of ∆tolC mutants of F. tularensis to uncover signaling pathways governing host apoptotic responses to F. tularensis and which are modulated by the bacteria during infection to promote virulence. These findings reveal mechanisms by which intracellular pathogens subvert host responses and enhance our understanding of the pathogenesis of tularemia. Francisella tularensis is a Gram-negative intracellular bacterial pathogen and the causative agent of the zoonotic disease tularemia. F. tularensis, like other intracellular pathogens, modulates host-programmed cell death pathways to ensure its replication and survival. We previously identified the outer membrane channel protein TolC as required for the ability of F. tularensis to delay host cell death. However, the mechanism by which F. tularensis delays cell death pathways during intracellular replication is unclear despite being critical to pathogenesis. In the present study, we address this gap in knowledge by taking advantage of ∆tolC mutants of F. tularensis to uncover signaling pathways governing host apoptotic responses to F. tularensis and which are modulated by the bacteria during infection to promote virulence. These findings reveal mechanisms by which intracellular pathogens subvert host responses and enhance our understanding of the pathogenesis of tularemia.


Based on the results of our studies for the tidal triggering effect on the seismicity of the Hellenic area, we consider the confidence level of earthquake occurrence tidal period accordance p as an index of tectonic stress criticality for earthquake occurrence. In this paper, by the occasion of the recent catastrophic earthquake of Nepal, we investigate the variation of the index p for the South Himalaia Fault area. The preliminary results indicate positive correlation of the index p with seismicity, for all the tidal periods. We suggest that this compliance parameter p may be used as an additional element for the seismic risk assessment.


In this paper I present some highlights from the "Astroparticle Physics" session, which I had the honor and the privilege to summarize in the plenary session. The excellent quality of the session and the large number of talks reflect the amount of new results obtained in the last year in this branch of physics. It was possible to include in my talk only a small fraction of what has been presented; I offer a personal, biased, and probably very limited view. It is surely not the only way to read and discuss the most recent years of research in this field so, take it as an introduction, and refer to the material presented in this proceedings, which I am sure will follow the excellent quality of the talks, to extract more precise and detailed information. Here, I focus on three main aspects that I found particularly relevant: the synergy between experiments, which to me is the key for turning an observation to a discovery, the issues that are still open, which could serve as inspiration for future work, and the prospects for the future.


One of the main signatures of primordial non-Gaussianity of the local type is a scale-dependent correction to the bias of large-scale structure tracers such as galaxies or clusters, whose amplitude depends on the bias of the tracers itself. The dominant source of noise in the power spectrum of the tracers is caused by sampling variance on large scales (where the non-Gaussian signal is strongest) and shot noise arising from their discrete nature. Recent work has argued that one can avoid sampling variance by comparing multiple tracers of different bias, and suppress shot noise by optimally weighting halos of different mass. Here we combine these ideas and investigate how well the signatures of non-Gaussian fluctuations in the primordial potential can be extracted from the two-point correlations of halos and dark matter. On the basis of large N-body simulations with local non-Gaussian initial conditions and their halo catalogs we perform a Fisher matrix analysis of the two-point statistics. Compared to the standard analysis, optimal weighting and multiple-tracer techniques applied to halos can yield up to 1 order of magnitude improvements in f{sub NL}-constraints, even if the underlying dark matter density field is not known. In this case one needs to resolve allmore » halos down to 10{sup 10}h{sup -1}M{sub sun} at z=0, while with the dark matter this is already achieved at a mass threshold of 10{sup 12}h{sup -1}M{sub sun}. We compare our numerical results to the halo model and find satisfactory agreement. Forecasting the optimal f{sub NL}-constraints that can be achieved with our methods when applied to existing and future survey data, we find that a survey of 50h{sup -3} Gpc{sup 3} volume resolving all halos down to 10{sup 11}h{sup -1}M{sub sun} at z=1 will be able to obtain {sigma}{sub f{sub N{sub L}}}{approx}1 (68% cl), a factor of {approx}20 improvement over the current limits. Decreasing the minimum mass of resolved halos, increasing the survey volume or obtaining the dark matter maps can further improve these limits, potentially reaching the level of {sigma}{sub f{sub N{sub L}}}{approx}0.1. This precision opens up the possibility to distinguish different types of primordial non-Gaussianity and to probe inflationary physics of the very early Universe.« less


The genus Myotis is of interest to the evolutionist because of its diversity and because of its nearly cosmopolitan distribution. An understanding of the biology of this remarkable genus may provide insight into its success, as well as the success of other expansive groups of mammals. As part of an overall study of Myotis, I subjected measurements of 48 morphological traits from most of the described species to standard numerical taxonomic analysis. I hoped to delineate phenetic groupings in the genus, and to learn if these groupings provide insight into adaptive diversification of species, into the history of the genus, and into a replicable approach to its classification. Phenograms based on Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients and on coefficients of taxonomic distance were prepared, as was a three dimensional model depicting phenetic placement of the species with respect to the first three principal factors derived from a centroid factor analysis. The analysis was performed using the Numerical Taxonomy System of Multivariate Statistical Programs (NT-SYS) developed by F. James Rohlf, John Kishpaugh, and Ron Bartcher, at the University of Kansas in 1968. For methodology, see especially Sokal & Sneath, 1963, and Rohlf, 1968.


The economics literature has made huge progress over the past twenty years in extending our understanding on the benefits and costs of patent protection (GRANSTRAND, 2003). Nevertheless, the business literature has not followed the same pattern. Our knowledge as to how firms manage both patents and the patenting process to capture the benefits realised from innovative effort is still scant (WINTER, 2000). For the purposes of this research we consider the patenting process as a series of patent-related events which begin at the moment an invention comes out and continue until a patent is issued.


The literature on the business case for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has identified possible mechanisms for CSR to increase profits. Other parts of the CSR literature argue that any strategy yielding above-average profits will be imitated by competitors and profits driven down to industry average; consequently, CSR may only be a strategy for achieving average profits. The empirical research on the relationship between CSR and profits, consisting mostly of quantitative studies, has thus far proved inconclusive and many studies are challenged on methodological grounds. This paper presents the results of interviews with senior executives of 15 of the largest textile companies on the Norwegian market. The aim of the paper is to investigate the relationship between CSR and profits while avoiding the most important methodological pitfalls of the quantitative research and acknowledging the distinction between CSR as a strategy for achieving average profits and as a strategy for achieving above-average profits. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.


Spontaneous internal jugular thrombosis is a rare vascular disorder. It usually occurs as a result of external pressure due to a tumor, infection or as a result of damage to the vessel wall after trauma or central venous catheterization. We report a 35-year-old woman who suffered from severe pulmonary hypertension due to chronic cystic lung disease. She was admitted due to sudden, severe, right-sided neck pain. Internal jugular occlusion by a thrombus was demonstrated by ultrasound and CT-scans but no apparent cause was found. We postulated that the important factors in the development of her thrombosis were stasis due to pulmonary hypertension and high blood viscosity.


Piperazine, a secondary amine used as an anthelmintic drug, nitrosates rapidly in vitro to form two nitrosamines. Anhydrous piperazine and a drug formulation were found to have a content of 0.2-20 micrograms of the suspected carcinogen, N-mononitrosopiperazine, per gram of piperazine, but no detectable amount of the carcinogen, N,N'-dinitrosopiperazine. The possible nitrosation of the drug piperazine in man was investigated, with the following results. Thirty min after oral administration of 480 mg piperazine to four, fasting, healthy, male volunteers, gastric juice contained 0.14-0.23 micrograms/mL N-mononitrosopiperazine, as determined by gas chromatography-thermal energy analysis. The total amount produced in the stomach is estimated to have been 30-66 micrograms. The nitrosamine was not detected in blood, but was excreted in the urine, mainly during the first 8 h (0.8-2.5 micrograms). Half had appeared within 3 h. Acidification of the urine did not affect the excretion. N,N'-Dinitrosopiperazine was never found in gastric juice, blood or urine. Co-administration of 2 g ascorbic acid resulted in a significant, but incomplete and varying, inhibition of nitrosation in the stomach and of nitrosamine excretion in the urine.


The human gastrointestinal tract harbors most of the microbial cells inhabiting the body, collectively known as the microbiota. These microbes have several implications for the maintenance of structural integrity of the gastrointestinal mucosal barrier, immunomodulation, metabolism of nutrients, and protection against pathogens. Dysfunctions in these mechanisms are linked to a range of conditions in the gastrointestinal tract, including functional gastrointestinal disorders, ranging from irritable bowel syndrome, to functional constipation and functional diarrhea. Irritable bowel syndrome is characterized by chronic abdominal pain with changes in bowel habit in the absence of morphological changes. Despite the high prevalence of irritable bowel syndrome in the global population, the mechanisms responsible for this condition are poorly understood. Although alterations in the gastrointestinal microbiota, low-grade inflammation and immune activation have been implicated in the pathophysiology of functional gastrointestinal disorders, there is inconsistency between studies and a lack of consensus on what the exact role of the microbiota is, and how changes to it relate to these conditions. The complex interplay between host factors, such as microbial dysbiosis, immune activation, impaired epithelial barrier function and motility, and environmental factors, including diet, will be considered in this narrative review of the pathophysiology of functional gastrointestinal disorders.


This book presents the latest research in the battle against autism. According to numerous news reports, the increase in special needs children has reached epidemic proportions. Autism is a complex developmental disability that typically appears during the first three years of life. The result of a neurological disorder that affects the functioning of the brain, autism and its associated behaviours have been estimated to occur in as many as 2 to 6 in 1,000 individuals. Autism is four times more prevalent in boys than girls and knows no racial, ethnic, or social boundaries. Autism is a spectrum disorder. The symptoms and characteristics of autism can present themselves in a wide variety of combinations, from mild to severe. Although autism is defined by a certain set of behaviours, children and adults can exhibit any combination of the behaviours in any degree of severity. People with autism process and respond to information in unique ways. In some cases, aggressive and/or self-injurious behaviour may be present.


Abstract English academic discourse, which emerged in the 17th century as a vehicle for the new rationalist/scientific paradigm, was initially a vehicle of liberation from the stifling feudal mindset. Spreading from the hard sciences to the social sciences and on to the humanities, it gradually became the prestige discourse of the Anglophone world, due no doubt to its associations with the power structures of modernity (technology, industry and capitalism); today, mastery of it is essential for anyone wishing to play a role on the international stage. The worldview that this discourse encodes is essentially positivist; it privileges the referential function of language at the expense of the interpersonal or textual and crystallizes the dynamic flux of experience into static, observable blocs, rendering the universe passive, inert and devoid of meaning. Despite its obvious limitations for dealing with a decentred, multi-faceted, post-modern reality, its hegemonic status in the world today is such that other knowledges are rendered invisible or are swallowed up in a process of 'epistemicide'. This paper examines this process from the point of view of the translator, one of the primary gatekeepers of western academic culture. Drawing on surveys carried out in 2002 of Portuguese academics working in the humanities, it attempts to discover just what happens to the very different worldview encoded in traditional Portuguese academic discourse during the process of translation, and goes on to discuss the political and social consequences of the ideological imperialism manifest in editorial decisions about what counts as 'knowledge' in today's world.


Curvature of transitions recorded onto a magnetic disc has become more pronounced as tracks narrow. Curvature creates interference between adjacent transitions recorded at high bit density, and broadens the read back signal pulse. Curved transitions have a shape similar to that of the field contours that write them. A concave write pole trailing surface, or "U-pole", pushes the field contours near the pole edges farther down track. This straightens the contours by partially compensating for transition curvature. We used a track trimming technique to compare transition curvature of flat poles and U-poles, and verified that the U-pole reduced curvature by more than 30%. We also demonstrated that the more curved transitions written by flat poles generate ~ 1 nm more pulse broadening at the track edge relative to those written by U-poles. However, modeling predicts a ~ 10% loss in down track field gradient near the center of a U-pole. Measurements of bit error rate across the track confirm the corresponding loss in U-pole performance relative to a flat pole over all but the outer portions of a track.


Adoption of enabling technology is one beneficial and significant way countries can improve their developmental progress and achieve higher living standards. Many complex issues are involved in the consideration of information technology transfer. Some of those issues are not completely defined and studied, or cannot be precisely measured. Thus, a Delphi study was conducted in this research to investigate, identify and prioritise major issues for successful information technology transfer in developing countries from the perceptions of stakeholder groups in the Arab World. Responses were elicited from information technology academics, information technology practitioners, government officials and information technology suppliers. Valid questionnaires were returned from 73 respondents in the first round survey, providing a net response rate of 61% and yielded 410 perceived issues. Through two rounds of the Delphi survey, these issues have been synthesised and categorised into 10 major issue categories with 71 sub-issues. This study aims to assist in understanding the major issues surrounding information technology transfer success in the Arab World and to better realise the benefits of information technology transfer.


Proper management is one of key elements of the natural landscape protection
 strategy. Park-forests with protected and conserved natural elements
 represent attractive eco-tourism urban zones. Kosutnjak is the most visited
 park-forest in Serbian capitol Belgrade, unfortunately with increasing number
 of degraded and devastated areas as a consequence of negative human impacts
 in the past. In order to conserve natural values in this popular forested
 city area, and to improve its tourism potential, we found that in achieving
 that goal, it is meaningful to asses possible management practices and
 identify the most desired one by applying the analytic hierarchy process
 (AHP), scientifically sound multi-criteria decision making tool. Based on the
 obtained results, a recommended strategy is to renovate natural vegetation
 and to promote recreational and tourism offer in Kosutnjak with respect of
 the sustainability principle.


Author(s): Epperlein, Jonathan Peter | Advisor(s): Bamieh, Bassam | Abstract: This dissertation consists of three parts centered around the topic of spatially distributed systems.The first part treats a specific spatially distributed system, the so-called Rijke tube, an experiment illustrating the unstable interplay of heat exchange and gas dynamics. The experiment is described in detail and it is demonstrated how closed-loop system identification tools can be applied to obtain a transfer function model, before a spatially distributed model is developed and analyzed. The model in its most idealized form can be described in the frequency domain by a matrix of non-rational transfer functions, which facilitates analysis with classical methods such as the root locus.The second part considers the following problem: for a given plant and cost function, could there be a finite-length periodic trajectory that achieves better performance than the optimal steady state? Termed optimal periodic control (OPC), this problem has received attention over several decades, however most available methods employ state-space based methods and hence scale very badly with plant dimension. Here, the problem is approached from a frequency-domain perspective, and methods whose complexity is independent of system dimension are developed by recasting the OPC problem for linear plants with certain memoryless polynomial nonlinearities as the problem of minimizing a polynomial.Finally, the third part extends results for a special class within spatially distributed systems, that of spatially invariant systems, from systems defined on L_2 (square-integrable) spaces to systems whose state space is an inner-product Sobolev space as they arise when considering systems of higher temporal order. It is shown how standard results on exponential stability, stabilizability and LQ control can be generalized by carefully keeping track of spatial frequency weighting functions related to the Sobolev inner products, and simple recipes for doing so are given.


The authors introduce an approach to logical analysis and control of timed systems modeled by controlled time Petri nets (CTPNs), an extension of time Petri nets (TPNs). They extend an enumerative technique for TPNs to include control inputs, resulting in the control class graph (CCG), a complete representation of the logical behavior of the timed system. They show that under event feedback every state trajectory for a CTPN corresponds to a path in the CCG, and for any path in the CCG there exists some event feedback policy for the CTPN that generates the corresponding state trajectory. They illustrate the application of these results for an example of supervisory coordination in a simple manufacturing system.<<ETX>>


The upper Triassic Lockatong formation consists principally of hard massive gray to reddish-brown argillite and black shale and platy thin-bedded mudstone. The predominant minerals in the massive argillite which contains as much as 7 per cent soda and as little as 47 per cent silica, are analcime, dolomite, feldspar, and a 10 Å micaceous clay mineral. Quartz is very rare or absent. In the platy and shaly beds analcime is rare; dolomite, micaceous clay minerals, and feldspar are abundant; and scattered pyrite is common. Metamorphic effects of a diabase sill were restricted largely to converting poorly crystalline micaceous clay to well-crystallized biotite, analcime to albite, dolomite to calcite, and pyrite to pyrrhotite.


Identifying the origins of uranium ore concentrates (UOCs) has become a research hotspot in nuclear forensics. In the present study, a novel approach using the REE data of uranium ores instead of UOC samples was established to trace the origins of unknown UOCs with the help of iterative OLPS-DA. In this paper, a database was established by gathering published REE data of uranium ores from different countries. The data were transformed by a two-step pretreatment so that they could show stronger geographical and geological indications, and the REE patterns of uranium ores could be compared with each other, as well as those of the unknown UOCs. The efficiencies of different multidimensional statistical techniques in pattern recognition, including principal component analysis (PCA), partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) and orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA), were compared, and the results showed that the OPLS-DA was the most effective method when distinguishing uranium ores from different origins in the scatter diagrams. With the help of iterative OPLS-DA, samples from 10 different countries were totally distinguished within several iterations, and the discrimination orders formed a decision tree or an attribution strategy. The results indicated that it was feasible to attribute an unknown UOC to its country, deposit and type of uranium ore by comparing the unknown UOC with uranium ores from different origins according to the decision tree. Eventually, this study verifies that REE pattern is a powerful geographical and geological indicator when identifying the origin of UOC by analysing REE data of uranium ores from different origins with the help of iterative OLPS-DA, and OLPS-DA has better potential in nuclear forensics studies compared to PCA and PLS-DA, which provides support to fight against the illicit trafficking of nuclear materials.


Vitamin E is well known as an antioxidant, with 8 natural isoforms, such as α-, bgr;-, γ- and δ-tocopherols and α-, β-, gamma;- and δ-tocotrienols. It has been suggested that both tocopherols and tocotrienols have anti-tumor effects due to the antioxidant effect. The results of several studies have indicated that the tocotrienols may have a stronger bioactivity than the tocopherols. Both types have shown antiproliferative, proapoptotic and cyclooxygenase-2- inhibiting effects in in vitro studies. Several animal studies have demonstrated that vitamin E has cancer-preventing effects. However, clinical trials have not shown similar results for the cancer prevention effect of tocopherol. Although the Linxian Trials demonstrated that the supplementation of β-carotene, α-tocopherol and selenium reduced cancer risk, the beneficial effects of α- tocopherol on prostate cancer disappeared after several years in the Alpha-Tocopherol, Beta-Carotene Cancer Prevention Study. Vitamin E, especially tocotrienols, seems to be a potent agent for cancer prevention, however no large-scale clinical trial on the cancer prevention effect of tocotrienols has been conducted yet. Therefore it is expected that clinical trials overcoming the lower bioavailability of tocotrienols will be conducted, and it is urgently needed to assess the safety and the efficacy of the administration of the tocotrienols as a part of a cancer prevention regimen.


Tall buildings have been traditionally designed to be symmetric rectangular, triangular or circular in plan, in order to avoid excessive seismic-induced torsional vibrations due to eccentricity, especially in seismic-prone regions like Japan. However, recent tall building design has been released from the spell of compulsory symmetric shape design, and free-style design is increasing. This is mainly due to architects' and structural designers' challenging demands for novel and unconventional expressions. Another important aspect is that rather complicated sectional shapes are basically good with regard to aerodynamic properties for across-wind excitations, which are a key issue in super-tall-building wind-resistant design. The authors' group has conducted a series of wind tunnel experiments for super-tall buildings with various configurations. The present paper summarizes the main findings including variations in peak pressures, aerodynamic and response characteristics, wind load combination effects, and flow field characteristics by CFD. The results of these experiments have led to comprehensive understanding of the aerodynamic and response characteristics of super-tall buildings with various configurations and cross-sections.


This paper discusses the use of software methods to collect system trace for DEC Ultrix and 3.0 Mach on a DECstation 5000/200. We assert that software methods are a valuable tool for collecting system trace and understanding operating system and memory system behavior for modern workstation workloads. Software methods have some well documented shortcomings. We discuss how their impact was minimized in our system. We further support the validity of the software approach by comparing behavior predicted by our tracing/simulation system to measurements made with less intrusive methods.<<ETX>>


Hydropower is the largest single renewable electricity source globally. However, many 20th century hydropower projects were developed without sufficient regard for their adverse environmental and social impacts, resulting in diminished public acceptance of such projects. Although the construction of large dams remains a politically, environmentally and socially contentious issue, hydropower is likely to play a key role in helping countries across the world to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement target of limiting global warming to below 2oC. In this new context, it will be increasingly important to understand how to develop socially and environmentally sustainable hydropower projects, and how to finance them. The challenge of improved energy access that is compatible with the Paris Agreement objectives and the SDGs will affect developing countries in particular. The purpose of this Working Paper is to introduce the key terms and concepts that are relevant to finance for sustainable large hydropower projects in Non-OECD countries/emerging markets. It is designed to address the needs of readers with little or no prior knowledge of either finance or hydropower, as well as those with limited experience in one of the two topics, but extensive background in the other (such as a hydropower specialist with an engineering background, but limited familiarity with financial concepts and terminology). The three main parts of the paper provide an overview of hydropower development process, hydropower finance, and risk and risk mitigation. Each of the three sections identifies the key actors and instruments, and defines their roles and purpose. The paper does not seek to engage in any detailed analysis of the various and often complex, value-laden questions surrounding hydropower. Instead, it aims to serve as a reference document to help readers better engage with the complex material on hydropower development and finance.


The purpose of this research was to replicate and extend some of the findings of Hart and Risley using automatic speech processing instead of human transcription of language samples. The long-term goal of this work is to make the current approach to speech processing possible by researchers and clinicians working on a daily basis with families and young children. Twelve hour-long, digital audio recordings were obtained repeatedly in the homes of middle to upper SES families for a sample of typically developing infants and toddlers (N = 30). These recordings were processed automatically using a measurement framework based on the work of Hart and Risley. Like Hart and Risley, the current findings indicated vast differences in individual children's home language environments (i.e., adult word count), children's vocalizations, and conversational turns. Automated processing compared favorably to the original Hart and Risley estimates that were based on transcription. Adding to Hart and Risley's findings were new descriptions of patterns of daily talk and relationships to widely used outcome measures, among others. Implications for research and practice are discussed.


Abstract Reductive elimination is an elementary organometallic reaction step involving a formal oxidation state change of −2 at a transition‐metal center. For a series of formal high‐valent NiIV complexes, aryl–CF3 bond‐forming reductive elimination was reported to occur readily (Bour et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2015, 137, 8034–8037). We report a computational analysis of this reaction and find that, unexpectedly, the formal NiIV centers are better described as approaching a +II oxidation state, originating from highly covalent metal–ligand bonds, a phenomenon attributable to σ‐noninnocence. A direct consequence is that the elimination of aryl–CF3 products occurs in an essentially redox‐neutral fashion, as opposed to a reductive elimination. This is supported by an electron flow analysis which shows that an anionic CF3 group is transferred to an electrophilic aryl group. The uncovered role of σ‐noninnocence in metal–ligand bonding, and of an essentially redox‐neutral elimination as an elementary organometallic reaction step, may constitute concepts of broad relevance to organometallic chemistry.


Abstract:  Fiberoptic ductoscopy (FDS)‐guided intraductal biopsy is a minimally invasive technique developed to obtain pathologic diagnoses for patients with spontaneous nipple discharge. We performed biopsies of 53 intraductal lesions from March 2006 to April 2007 followed by surgical microdochectomy. FDS‐guided intraductal biopsy was shown to be a minimally invasive, safe, and convenient technique with a high ability (90.6%) to get adequate samples. Twenty‐seven solitary papillomas, 12 multiple intraductal papilloma, five ductal hyperplasia, three ductal carcinoma in situ, and one invasive ductal carcinoma were diagnosed. Compared with conventional microdochectomy, FDS‐guided intraductal biopsy can significantly increase the detection rate of solitary papilloma (40.7% versus 92.6%, p < 0.05). It should be a routine procedure after intraductal lesion found by screening FDS. Since it would underestimate all multiple intraductal papilloma and some (50%) cancer, microdochectomy is inevitable if biopsies show atypical ductal hyperplasia.