We demonstrate a sense in which the equivalence between blocks (subgraphs without articulation points) and biconnected components (subgraphs in which there are two edge-disjoint paths between any pair of nodes) that holds in ordinary graph theory can be generalized to hypergraphs. The result has an interpretation for relational databases that the universal relations described by acyclic join dependencies are exactly those for which the connections among attributes are defined uniquely. We also exhibit a relationship between the process of Graham reduction [6] of hypergraphs and the process of tableau reduction [1] that holds only for acyclic hypergraphs.


Double mode pulsation is a very pervasive phenomenon in stars all over the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. In order of increasing radius, examples are: ZZ Ceti stars, the sun, the delta Scuti stars, RR Lyrae variables, the ..beta.. Cephei variables and those related to them, Cepheids, and maybe even the Mira stars. These many modes have been interpreted as both radial and nonradial modes, but in many cases the actual mode has not been clearly identified. Yellow giants seem to be the most simple pulsators with a large majority of the RR Lyrae variables and Cepheids showing only one pulsation period. We limit this review to those very few cases for classical Cepheids and RR Lyrae variables which display two modes. For these we know many facts about these stars, but the actual cause of the pulsation in two modes simultaneously remains unknown.


This study examined whether gaining access to a new digital device enhanced the digital media literacy of young adults and what factors determine such change. Thirty-five young adults were given a mobile tablet device and observed for one year. Participants engaged in an online community, responding regularly to online surveys and discussion forums. Digital media literacy, using multidimensional scales, was measured at the beginning and end of the study. Usage was measured every month to track changes over time. When measured with multiple dimensional scales, the participants' digital media literacy levels increased over time. Those who used the tablet device for information access and social activities increased their digital media literacy in some dimensions. However, an increase in digital media literacy was not directly related to the time spent on the tablet.


use of unplastered walls and the tile filler-slab roof, the Department was rejecting almost the whole of the Committee's recommendations. This was not only because the roof was a major item of cost-saving. Even at present the Department constructed two or even three-storied dwellings using load- hearing masonry and not RC-frame walls; only the roof was RC-slab and, therefore, needed to he replaced. Also, if the light tile filler-slab roof were not introduced in preference to the heavy RC-slab roof some of the other crucial recommendations of the Committee, such as the use of country- burnt bricks and 4-1/2" walls would also go by default. The wall strength and thickness would need to he increased to take account of the heavy roof, and thereby the Committee's entire approach may be washed away.


Due to their relatively rapid spoiling, most of the premature vegetable varieties are left out of consideration for extended refrigerated storage. In this paper the authors studied the impact of extended storage (42 and 62 days) on maintaining quality of the well-known and popular premature potato variety "Cleopatra". The tubers were stored with (8 °C) and without refrigeration (18 °C) in regular and controlled atmosphere (CA) (12% O2+2% CO2+86% N2). The results are based on samples harvested in two following seasons. Best suited for the market are the potatoes that have been stored under refrigeration in a controlled atmosphere. Regarding colour and firmness of the tubers, no considerable changes were found. Neither is there a substantial change in the starch or sugar content. The minor decrease in flavour intensity and aroma suggests that the gas-composition of the atmosphere has to be refined and length of storage period has to be determined more precisely. Other varieties could be included in the inve...


BACKGROUND
The pattern of infection in cervical lesions with respect to HPV subtype has not been systematically studied in Thai women. The aim here was to determine HPV prevalence, genotype, and infection pattern in cervical lesions and to estimate the potential efficacy of an HPV prophylactic vaccine.

DESIGN
Formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded cervical tissue blocks of 410 Thai patients from 8 institutes in 4 regions of Thailand (northern, southern, north-eastern, and central) were studied. The samples included 169 low grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (LSILs), 121 high grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (HSILs), and 120 squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs). HPV-DNA was amplified by PCR using consensus primers GP5+ and GP6+. The HPV genotype was then determined by reverse linear blot assay that included 37 HPV-specific 5'-amino-linked oligonucleotide probes. Patterns of infection were classified as single infection (one HPV type), double infection (two HPV types), and multiple infection (three or more HPV types).

RESULTS
The mean age of the subjects was 42 years. The prevalence of HPV infection was 88.8%. The highest HPV prevalence was found in the southern region (97.1%) and the lowest in the central region (78.6%). HPV-DNA was detected in 84.6% of LSILs, 90.1% of HSILs, and 93.3% of SCCs. A total of 20 HPV genotypes were identified. The five most common high risk HPV were HPV16 (83.2%), HPV18 (59.3%), HPV58 (9.3%), HPV52 (4.1%), and HPV45 (3.8%). In double and multiple infection patterns, the most common genotypes were HPV16/18 (27.8%) and HPV11/16/18 (54.9%). HPV6 was found only in LSIL and never in combination with other subtypes. HPV11 was most common in LSIL.

CONCLUSION
There is no difference of HPV type distribution in women from 4 regions of Thailand with prominent HPV16 and HPV18 in all cases. The bivalent and quadrivalent vaccines have the potential to prevent 48.6 % and 74.5% of cervical cancers in Thai women. The potential of cancer prevention would rise to 87.6% if other frequent HR-HPV types (HPV58, 52, and 45) were also targeted by an HPV vaccine.


This study focuses on economic analysis of dental implants. The purposewas to analyse how optimal use of resources within dental care is affectedby the introduction of dental implants. This was done by i) discussing themost important methodological problems connected with assessment ofdental implants from theoretical standpoint; ii) elucidating methodological problems based on empirical economic assessments of treatment with dental implants as compared with another costly treatment; iii) elucidating the economic impact of a diffusion of dental implants; and iv) analysing economic incentives for an optimal use of dental implants. The scope of this study is mainly methodological. The economicproblem of dental implants is discussed. Based on a formal model theoptimal use of resources for investment in dental health for a rational,perfectly informed individual is analysed. The usefulness of cost-effectiveness, cost-utility and cost-benefitanalyses in the evaluation of dental implants is discussed. Whereas costbenefit analysis relies on welfare economics the theoretical foundations of cost-effectiveness and cost-utility analyses are unclear. Different interpretations are suggested. How to handle the cost for the patient in cost-effectiveness analysis is given special attention. The methodological issues in connection with measuring health is analysed. Empirical economic evaluations of treatment with dental implants forthe complete edentulous jaw and periodontal and prosthodontic treatment for patients with periodontitis are provided. Different strategies to handle increased demand for dental care aresuggested. Analyses are provided of the financing and reimbursementsystems.


A case of eruptive porokeratosis of Mibelli with diverse morphologic features, including circinate maculir, circinate plaque and verrucous varieties is presented. No matter how variable the clinical presentation may be, the histologic hallmark of porokeratosis, the cornoid lamellae, is always present. The cornoid lamellae vary in height in relation to how prominent the thready ridge of the clinical lesion appears. Our patient also had psoriasis which initially masked the porokeratotic lesions both elinically and histologically. Awareness of the various clinical expressions of porokeratosis of Mibelli would 1) make unnecessary the segregation of certain forms of porokeratosis into separate entities, and 2) help in the recognition of less classical forms of porokeratosis.


Abstract Although large-scale population studies have shown that non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) increase the risk of myocardial infarction, this is not confirmed in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Herein, we review the litterature on the differential effects of NSAIDs on cardiovascular risk in osteoarthritis (OA) versus RA and discuss possible explanations for this discrepancy. To assess a potential additive effect of age in non-RA populations, we compared weighted mean age between RA patients and unselected NSAID users included in cohort and case–control studies that estimate the cardiovascular risk of NSAIDs, assuming that the main indication for NSAID usage in elderly populations is OA. Our hypothesis that advanced age in osteoarthtitis compared to RA patients confounds the effect of NSAIDs on cardiovasular risk was not confirmed. Several other hypotheses that can be proposed to explain this counterintuitive effect of NSAIDs on the cardiovascular risk of RA patients are discussed. We conclude that patients with RA have a lower cardiovascular disease risk associated with the use of NSAIDs, probably due to the nature of their disease per se, until further research indicates differently.


An ac-based electrical capacitance tomography (ECT) system has been developed at UMIST, with sinusoidal excitation and phase-sensitive demodulation (PSD). In this article the overall system design is briefly described and then discussed in detail are the key design features, needed to achieve a high signal-to-noise ratio and a high data acquisition rate, including transient process analysis of the first stage, design of an analog Butterworth low-pass filter and optimization of the data acquisition process. The experiments show that the ac-based system has signal variance 19 times better than the previous design, the charge/discharge ECT system, and that a data acquisition rate of 140 frames per second is achieved for a 12-electrode system.


OBJECTIVE
To characterize the torsional structural properties of the feline femur and design a bone model surrogate for mechanical testing of feline orthopedic implants.

STUDY DESIGN
Experimental.

SAMPLE POPULATION
Paired feline femurs (n = 30) and bone models (8 materials, n = 4/group).

METHODS
Femurs were cyclically tested nondestructively in torsion and then loaded to failure. A generic femoral model was then designed from native femur dimensions and tested similarly by using 1 of 8 materials that were 3-dimensionally printed or machined. Outcome measures consisting of torsional compliance, angular deformation (AD), and torque to failure were compared by using Student's t test (P < .05). Failure modes are reported as descriptive statistics.

RESULTS
Torsional compliance (1.6 ± 0.3°/Nm, 2.0 ± 0.1°/Nm), AD (3.1 ± 0.6°, 3.8 ± 0.2°) and torque to failure (7.8 ±1.2 Nm, 8.1 ± 1.3 Nm) did not differ between feline femurs and short-fiber epoxy (SFE) models. Conversely, most printed materials displayed excessive TC and failed by plastic deformation (AD > 15-fold that of native femurs) rather than by fracture. Feline bone and SFE both failed by spiral fractures.

CONCLUSION
None of the outcome measures differed between the 4th generation SFE model and cadaveric femurs, but differences were identified between feline bone and printed materials.

CLINICAL IMPACT
Machined SFE can be used to create a surrogate bone model with torsional structural properties similar to those of feline femurs. In contrast, common printable materials appear unsuitable to produce a realistic feline bone surrogate.


This paper describes the development of a sensor designed to detect low concentrations of hydrogen fluoride (HF) in gas mixtures. The sensor employs a plastic optical fiber (POF) covered with a thin layer of glass- like material. HF attacks the glass and alters the fiber transmission capability so that the detection simply requires a LED and a photodiode. The coated POF is obtained by means of low-pressure plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition that allows the glass-like film to be deposited at low temperature without damaging the fiber core. The developed sensor will be installed in the recirculation gas system of the resistive plate chamber muon detector of the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment at the Large Hadron Collider accelerator of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN).


Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) presents actual problem in gynecology. In present time discussions on PCOS classification and diagnostics criteria are not completed. Criteria accepted by Rotterdam consensus experts in 2003 year are mostly used. According these criteria PCOS diagnosis is made in case when 2 of 3 following signs take place: symptoms of high activity or increased produce of androgens (clinical or biochemical); oligoovulation or anovulation; polycystic ovaries at ultrasound examination. Combined oral contraceptives (COC) play important role in treatment of PCOS. Its reasonable to use monophasic COC, containing the last generation progestogens, like drospirenone. Use of COCs with antiandrogenic activity is pathogenically reasonable and facilitates normalization of luteinizing hormone (LH) level, decreases androgens production in ovaries as well as their size and also has beneficial effect on PCOS symptoms like overweight, hirsutism and acne.


Herbivores eat the leaves that a plant needs for photosynthesis. However, the degree of antagonism between plant and herbivore may depend critically on the timing of their interactions and the intrinsic value of a leaf. We present a model that investigates whether and when the timing of plant defense and herbivore feeding activity can be optimized by evolution so that their interactions can move from antagonistic to neutral. We assume that temporal changes in environmental conditions will affect intrinsic leaf value, measured as potential carbon gain. Using optimal-control theory, we model herbivore evolution, first in response to fixed plant strategies and then under coevolutionary dynamics in which the plant also evolves in response to the herbivore. In the latter case, we solve for the evolutionarily stable strategies of plant defense induction and herbivore hatching rate under different ecological conditions. Our results suggest that the optimal strategies for both plant and herbivore are to avoid direct conflict. As long as the plant has the capability for moderately lethal defense, the herbivore will modify its hatching rate to avoid plant defenses, and the plant will never have to use them. Insights from this model offer a possible solution to the paradox of sublethal defenses and provide a mechanism for stable plant-herbivore interactions without the need for natural enemy control.


Climate change poses the most significant challenge facing the world today and should be more than sufficient to mobilize the world and its many communities to respond meaningfully and quickly. However, response must be made to conditions not yet fully realized, presenting the challenge of preparing instead of simply reacting. It is likely that only after global societies are restructured by human altered natural processes will we see the rise of a new focal point for our discipline. Most people, especially in the rich and powerful Northern countries, do not really feel like they are living on the edge. Environmental concerns have become and continue to be seen as no more than background noise.


Brains of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients are characterized in part by the formation of high molecular weight aggregates of amyloid-β (Aβ) peptides, which interfere with neuronal function and provoke neuronal cell death. The pyroglutamate (pGlu) modification of Aβ was demonstrated to be catalyzed by the enzyme glutaminyl cyclase (QC) and to enhance pathogenicity and neurotoxicity. Here, we addressed the role of QC in AD pathogenesis in human cortex. Two sets of human postmortem brain tissue from a total of 13 non-demented controls and 11 AD cases were analyzed by immunohistochemistry and unbiased stereology, quantitative RT-PCR, and enzymatic activity assays for the expression level of QC in temporal and entorhinal cortex. Additionally, cortical Aβ and pGlu-Aβ concentrations were quantified by ELISA. Data on QC expression and Aβ peptide concentrations were correlated with each other and with the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) of individual cases. In control cases, QC expression was higher in the more vulnerable entorhinal cortex than in temporal cortex. In AD brains, QC mRNA expression and the immunoreactivity of QC were increased in both cortical regions and frequently associated with pGlu-Aβ deposits. The analyses of individual cases revealed significant correlations between QC mRNA levels and the concentration of insoluble pGlu-Aβ aggregates, but not of unmodified Aβ peptides. Elevated pGlu-Aβ load showed a better correlation with the decline in MMSE than elevated concentration of unmodified Aβ. Our observations provide evidence for an involvement of QC in AD pathogenesis and cognitive decline by QC-catalyzed pGlu-Aβ formation.


The desertification assessment presented at the 1977 UN Conference on Desertification used the ratio of annual precipitation to potential evapotranspiration (P/PE) as a simple and appropriate index of humidity to define the drylands of the world. Using global data sets of temperature and precipitation an annual humidity index (HI) was calculated on a 5° resolution for two independent 30 yr periods, 1931-60 and 1961-90. PE was calculated from surface air temperature using the Thornthwaite method, adjusted using selected regional data sets of Penman PE estimates for Europe and Sudan. An assessment was made of the sensitivity of dryland boundaries in Africa to recent climatic change. Between 1931-60 and 1961-90, 7.3% of the continent has shifted into a drier moisture zone and only 1.7% into a wetter zone. The net areas of hyper-arid and arid lands in Africa have increased from 1931-60 to 1961-90 by 50 and 3 million hectares respectively.


Most evaluations of the contributions of possible alterations in serotonergic neurotransmission to the etiology and treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders preceded the recent explosion of information regarding multiple serotonin (5-HT) receptors and brain 5-HT subsystems. This review provides an appraisal of some examples where drugs acting at different 5-HT receptor subtypes have provided new treatment or have contributed to the development of knowledge regarding various neuropsychiatric disorders, including anxiety, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression, schizophrenia, alcoholism, migraine, sexual dysfunction, and Alzheimer's disease.


By February 2019, the Polish pharmaceutical industry, community and hospital pharmacies, wholesalers and parallel traders must all comply with the EU-wide Falsified Medicines Directive (FMD) legislation (2011/62/EU), to ensure that no medicinal product is dispensed to a patient without proper tracking and authentication. Here we describe how Poland is complying with the new EU regulations, the actions that have been taken to incorporate the FMD into Polish Pharmaceutical Law and whether or not these actions are sufficient. We found that Poland is only partially compliant with the FMD and further actions need to be undertaken to fully meet the Delegated Act (DA) requirements. Moreover, there is lack of awareness in Poland about the prevalence of falsified medication and the time scale required for implementation of the DA. Based on our findings, we suggest that a public awareness campaign should be started to raise awareness of the increased number of falsified medicines in the legal supply chain and that drug authorisation systems are implemented by Polish pharmacies to support the FMD.


Pulsed laser depositions of double-buffer and triple-buffer YBa2Cu3O7−y (YBCO)/Y2O3(YSZ)/CeO2 heterostructures have been performed in situ onto commercially available biaxially textured NiFe 50%/50% tape. The deposition in the forming gas (4% H2/Ar) from a CeO2 target and the deposition in vacuum from a CeO2:Pd composite target have been explored as two possible routes for cube-on-cube growth of the first buffer layer. The influence of the critical processing parameters on the texture is investigated and some of the issues involved in the reduction of NiO (111) and the formation of cube-on-cube NiO (200) growth are discussed. X-ray diffraction has been used for texture evaluation of the substrate and subsequent deposited layers. The substrate–buffer interface region has been studied by focused ion beam cross section electron microscopy. Both the buffers and YBCO layers show biaxial alignment with ω and scans having optimum YBCO full width at half maximum (FWHM) values of 4.3° and 8.8°, respectively. The morphology has been characterized using atomic force microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. The value of Tc (onset) has been measured at 90 K (ΔTc = 10 K). The critical current density, Jc, has been measured by transport measurements and magnetic measurements performed in a dc SQUID magnetometer.


UNATI (Open University of the Third Age), UNESP, Marilia campus, has offered subsidies for the development of this work aimed at researching the existing relationships between information mediation processes and technological devices, especially computers, assuming that reading practices and textual construction in online environments could help the "third age" population to have access to these devices, thus promoting digital inclusion in this group. Mediation was presented as an interventionist action that, by introducing an intermediate element in the learning process, causes a rupture in the ways of living and personal digital inclusion processes hitherto experienced. In the context of a workshop, we found out that there is a physical relationship between subjects and technological supports and such a contact proved to be necessary, considering that handling a computer required knowledge of procedures, thus furthering a logic of use. It turned out to be necessary to develop actions that would enable the handling of a computer so as to bring about acceptance of these supports. Accordingly, activities were developed so as to articulate reminiscent processes, memories of older adults, the writing down of such memories and the creation of a blog to bring enhanced visibility to the content produced by older people. Such actions have shown that remembering, writing down and posting can reshape not only social relations but somehow significantly promote digital inclusion among older adults.


Purpose: Evaluate the potential geometric and dosimetric improvements in image‐guidedradiotherapy of the cervix using deformable registration. Method and Materials: Weekly MR images obtained prior to and during radiotherapy for 29 women with cervix cancer were selected. The bladder, rectum, and GTV were contoured on each image following rigid, bony anatomy based registration. Deformable registration was performed using MORFEUS, a multi‐organ finite element model‐based deformable registration algorithm. The bladder and rectum were explicitly registered between planning and each week. The GTV displacement was estimated by the biomechanical model and the bladder and rectum displacement. The improvements using couch shifts based on deformable registration were assessed using 3 metrics: 1) improvement in localization of tumor COM, 2) improvements in GTV coverage by the PTV, and 3) improvements in the dosimetric coverage of the GTV and CTV accumulated over the treatment using deformable dose accumulation in ORBIT Workstation. Results: The average error in COM alignment of the tumor improved by 0.3, 2.1, and 1.1 mm in the LR, AP, and SI directions, respectively with deformable registration. Following bony registration, 69% of GTVs were at least 95% covered by the PTV, improving to 86% following deformable registration. Dosimetric coverage of the GTV improved from 93% of patients achieving 98% volume coverage by 4900 cGy to 100% following deformable registration‐based couch shift for tumor COM correction. CTV coverage improved from 83% of patients achieving 98% volume coverage by 4750 cGy to 93% following deformable registration‐based couch shift for tumor COM correction. Conclusion: A method has been developed to perform deformable registration of surrounding anatomy to calculate the COM of the tumor for application in volumetric image guidance where the tumor is not visible. Both geometric and dosimetric improvements were demonstrated. Supported by RaySearch Laboratories and National Cancer Institute of Canada — Terry Fox Foundation.


SUMMARY More product variants, the increase in government regulations and the use of stochastic and multidisciplinary optimization causes a drastic increase of the number of numerical simulations performed in the car design process. But the availability of the arising numerical data creates the opportunity to compare thousands of simulation variants with the aim to find optimal design variants (even from previous projects) or to evaluate the impact of specific design changes on the functionality of the car. The huge volume of data (large number of simulations and large data-sizes per simulation) and the diverse content of simulation data are major obstacles for the efficient post processing and analysis of such simulation bundles. Here, we propose a methodology that enables suitable processing. In particular, we extend the existing efficient post processing from one simulation to many hundred simulations. We study two types of realistic scenarios for the approach. The first one assumes that the simulation bundle is managed inside a specific SDM and the second one starts without this assumption, that is the information is supposed to be just saved in a repository in a specific simulation data format. The approach is demonstrated on a simplified frontal car simulation, where a set of geometrical variants is analyzed. A second example shows that the system is able to create a data management capability from simulation data in a specific car design phase.


Background: Coronary heart diseases (CHD) are considered to be as a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQL) test and assessment is considered as a major an important measuring tool of the disease effects results and other variables related to the patient's life. Objectives: The purpose of this observational study is to assess and compare the quality of life in patients with coronary heart disease. Materials and Methods: This study was conducted at Al-shaab Teaching Hospital, where 100 patients with definite diagnosis of CHD were responded. The data was collected using two quality of life assessment tools: the Seattle angina questionnaire (SAQ) (disease specific measuring tool) and the SF-36 questionnaire (generic measuring tool). Results: Based on the 1) SAQ, out of the 50 patients who were recruited, the patients physical functioning in terms of activities performed 58% said "not limited" and 42% said "limited" in case of chest pain 26% noted "much more often" while 10% "much less often" Based on the 2) SF-36, out of the 50 patients who were recruited, the patients physical functioning in terms of activates performed 26% said "no, not limited" and 74% said "limited". 34% had felt full of life "all the time" while 10% "none of the time". Conclusion: HRQL measurement gives health care providers an additional tool for the assessment of the impact of specific clinical decisions on the health status of patients. Of the SAQ and SF-36, the SAQ offers more reliable assessment of quality of life. Keywords: Coronary heart Disease, measuring assessment tools


to a case of a woman struck by lightning in an exposed part of the downs. I commenced artificial respiration forthwith, ordered an ambulance, and continued the artificial respiration until the ambulance reached hospital 9 miles (14 km.) away. Although it is difficult carrying out artificial respiration in an ambulance it can be done, particularly if the ambulance moves slowly. The point is, one feels one is approaching hospital aid-a very important point from the relatives' angle. One is also getting nearer to the sources of oxygen (which incidentally this ambulance (Seaford) does not carry) and an artificial respirator, the latter apparatus, which I need hardly add, permitting of continuous and prolonged artificial respiration and reducing the man-power required.I am, etc.,


This paper analyzes the rate-distortion-complexity of High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) reference video codec (HM) and compares the results with AVC reference codec (JM). The examined software codecs are HM 6.0 using Main Profile (MP) and JM 18.0 using High Profile (HiP). These codes are benchmarked under the all-intra (AI), random access (RA), low-delay B (LB), and low-delay P (LP) coding configurations. In order to obtain a fair comparison, JM HiP anchor codec has been configured to conform to HM MP settings and coding configurations. The rate-distortion comparisons rely on objective quality assessments, i.e., bit rate differences for equal PSNR. The complexities of HM and JM have been profiled at the cycle level with Intel VTune on Intel Core 2 Duo processor. The coding efficiency of HEVC is drastically better than that of AVC. According to our experiments, the average bit rate decrements of HM MP over JM HiP are 23%, 35%, 40%, and 35% under the AI, RA, LB, and LP configurations, respectively. However, HM achieves its coding gain with a realistic overhead in complexity. Our profiling results show that the average software complexity ratios of HM MP and JM HiP encoders are 3.2× in the AI case, 1.2× in the RA case, 1.5× in the LB case, and 1.3× in the LP case. The respective ratios with HM MP and JM HiP decoders are 2.0×, 1.6×, 1.5×, and 1.4×. This paper also reveals the bottlenecks of HM codec and provides implementation guidelines for future real-time HEVC codecs.


Introduction. The changes in the external and internal environment of the organization, the emergence of new organizations, new management paradigms and knowledge of human behavior necessitates the development and practical implementation of new models of organizational behavior. In a dynamic external environment can be effective organizations applying new behaviors that have changed the nature of the interaction«organization – the person» and «organization – the environment». Theoretical analysis. Оn the basis of summarizing the existing theoretical studies on the economic behavior of the organization in the article defined the behavior of the organization in an uncertain market environment, revealed its contents, system factors, as is the new models of organizational behavior is the organizational culture. Discussion of results. Result of the conducted research is identification the characteristics of the interaction of «organization – the person» in the new models of organizational behavior, which involves not only and not so much the implementation of the physical abilities of workers, as the realization of their personal qualities, intelligence, creativity and mental strength. In the new models of behavior is formed organizational culture, people-oriented, the basic values which are egalitarianism and respect for the individual, mutual trust, team work, organization development through personal development that enables an organization to survive in the long term.


Abstract The need for a better understanding of factors controlling the variability of soil water content (θ) in space and time to adequately predict the movement of water in the soil and in the interphase soil-atmosphere is widely recognised. In this paper, we analyse how soil properties, surface cover and topography influence soil moisture (θ) over karstic lithology in a sub-humid Mediterranean mountain environment. For this analysis we have used 17 months of θ measurements with a high temporal resolution from different positions on a hillslope at the main recharge area of the Campo de Dalías aquifer, in Sierra de Gádor (Almería, SE Spain). Soil properties and surface cover vary depending on the position at the hillslope, and this variability has an important effect on θ. The higher clay content towards the lower position of the hillslope explains the increase of θ downslope at the subsurface horizon throughout the entire period studied. In the surface horizon (0-0.1 m), θ patterns coincide with those found at the subsurface horizon (0.1-0.35 m) during dry periods when the main control is also exerted by the higher percentage of clay that increases downslope and limits water depletion through evaporation. However, in wet periods, the wettest regime is found in the surface horizon at the upper position of the hillslope where plant cover, soil organic matter content, available water, unsaturated hydraulic conductivity (Kunsat) and infiltration rates are higher than in the lower positions. The presence of rock outcrops upslope the θ sampling area, acts as runoff sources, and subsurface flow generation between surface and subsurface horizons also may increase the differences between the upper and the lower positions of the hillslope during wet periods. Both rock and soil cracks and fissures act disconnecting surface water fluxes and reducing run-on to the lower position of the hillslope and thus they affect θ pattern as well as groundwater recharge. Understanding how terrain attributes, ground cover and soil factors interact for controlling θ pattern on karst hillslope is crucial to understand water fluxes in the vadose zone and dominant percolation mechanisms which also contribute to estimate groundwater recharge rates. Therefore, understanding of soil moisture dynamics provides very valuable information for designing rational strategies for the use and management of water resources, which is especially urgent in regions where groundwater supports human consume or key economic activities.


Colombia is a country that is growing in technological and economical areas, but cultural diversity, armed conflict, and everyday violence are forces that lessen the progress. The Ministry of Education proposed in 2004 standards for citizenship competencies that intend to teach children and youths abilities to live peacefully and respect the others. These standards have encouraged multiple initiatives and innovation to achieve goal in social and citizenship competencies. A research group of Universidad de Caldas created and evaluated a serious virtual game to support this policy. The game is a multiuser virtual game called Civia that shows a metaphor of collective challenge. Peaceful interaction, participation and respect are values required for survival in the game. Players can take individual decisions that affect positively or negatively the collective status, but an overall positive balance is needed to maintain collective resources. It was expected that collective auto regulation led to the learning of patterns and competencies to live peacefully together. Currently, there is no consensus in the research community about what and how video games can take learning outcomes and behavioral effects. An evaluation of the game shows positive results; however, some concerns about the complexity of everyday life about social interaction and learning transferability arise. The authors discuss findings according to proposed theories and models about effects of video games in education and behavior.


MIL-STD-1553 has served the flight community well. However, in recent years several new high-speed bus standards have emerged that outperform 1553 in various respects such as data throughput and increased address space. During this time, mission requirements including video and audio have become more data intensive. Although some of these busses were not initially designed for the avionics industry (such as Ethernet, FireWire, and FibreChannel), they are potentially of interest as high-speed commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions for both set-up and data acquisition. These busses offer not only improved overall system performance, in terms of aggregate sampling rates, but also simplify existing data acquisition system architectures. They require fewer high-bandwidth links which can serve for both set-up and data. This paper examines some of these issues, focusing in particular on IEEE1394, better known as FireWire.


This article deals with the creation of a compact thermal model. In this aim, we apply some well-known methods such as FEM model reduction and identification of RC networks. To go further than already existing approaches, we also introduce the use of artificial neural networks (ANNs) to cope with nonlinearities which may appear in thermal phenomenons. A new hybrid model, trying to gather the advantages of ANNs and RC networks, is applied on a simple thermal problem. The need of samples will also lead us to carry out, in parallel, the FEM model reduction. The reduced FEM model will then be used to generate the required databases and validate the compact model results.


In Canada, governments have historically promoted economic development in rural regions by promoting exploitation of natural resources, particularly forests. Forest resources are an economic development driver in many of the more than 80% of native communities located in forest regions. But forests also provide aboriginal people with cultural and spiritual values, and non-timber forest amenities (e.g., biodiversity, wildlife harvests for meat and fur, etc.), that are incompatible with timber exploitation. Some cultural and other amenities can only be satisfied by maintaining a certain amount of timber in an old-growth state. In that case, resource constraints might be too onerous to satisfy development needs. We employ compromise programming and fuzzy programming to identify forest management strategies that best compromise between development and other objectives, applying our models to an aboriginal community in northern Alberta. In addition to describing how mathematical programming techniques can be applied to regional development and forest management, we conclude from the analysis that no management strategy is able to satisfy all of the technical, environmental and social/cultural constraints and, at the same time, offer aboriginal peoples forest-based economic development. Nonetheless, we demonstrate that extant forest management policies can be improved upon.


In the last few years, great attention has been paid to the mindful eating technique as an approach derived from mindfulness to address unhealthy eating behavior among adults. Eating while distracted (television, conversation, etc.) or under cognitive stress (studying, reading, and writing) has shown to increase food consumption, which can result in overeating. Mindfulness based approaches appear most effective in addressing binge eating, emotional eating and eating in response to external cues. Mindfulness encourages healthier weight and eating habits. Mindful eating can also help picky eaters overcome their poor eating by helping them enjoy more nutritious foods. Mindful eating has been utilized to reduce negative behaviors associated with overweight and obesity. Eating slowly and when hungry, stopping when full, reducing portion sizes, reducing distractions during meals, and savoring food are all principles of mindful eating. Each principle can be attempted individually or collectively with small, simple changes. Some practical ways of incorporating mindful eating include chewing food thoroughly before swallowing, drinking water between bites of food, savoring the aroma and taste of food, using smaller plates and bowls, turning off the television and computer while eating, and creating a pleasurable experience around food and eating. Present article describes mindful eating and offers ideas for how to teach the basics of this practice.


Computer-aided circuit analysis techniques are utilized to predict the performance of individual CMOS cells and combinations of such cells which might be found in medium scale integrated circuits. The predictions include statistical variations, thermal effects, loading effects, and radiation effects including variations due to applied bias. Experimental data from tests conducted on devices from a special test wafer are compared to the predictions to provide verification of results.


Lung cancer presents one of the leading causes of mortalities for people around the world. Lung image analysis and segmentation are one of the primary steps used for early diagnosis of cancer. Handcrafted medical imaging segmentation presents a very time-consuming task for radiation oncologists. To address this problem, we propose in this work to develop a full and entire system used for early diagnosis of lung cancer in CT scan imaging. The proposed lung cancer diagnosis system is composed of two main parts: the first part is used for segmentation developed on top of the UNETR network, and the second part is a classification part used to classify the output segmentation part, either benign or malignant, developed on top of the self-supervised network. The proposed system presents a powerful tool for early diagnosing and combatting lung cancer using 3D-input CT scan data. Extensive experiments have been performed to contribute to better segmentation and classification results. Training and testing experiments have been performed using the Decathlon dataset. Experimental results have been conducted to new state-of-the-art performances: segmentation accuracy of 97.83%, and 98.77% as classification accuracy. The proposed system presents a new powerful tool to use for early diagnosing and combatting lung cancer using 3D-input CT scan data.


OBJECTIVES
To assess the efficacy of anterior tagging of graft material with respect to graft uptake and hearing results, in type I tympanoplasty.

STUDY DESIGN
Prospective, randomised, cohort study.

METHODS
Sixty patients with chronic otitis media of the mucosal type, with pars tensa perforations, were included in the study. Patients were randomly allocated to two groups: group one underwent type one tympanoplasty with anterior tagging, while group two underwent type one tympanoplasty without anterior tagging. Follow up included evaluation of graft uptake and hearing improvement.

RESULTS
There were 33 patients in group one and 27 patients in group two. The overall incidence of successful graft uptake was 96.96 per cent in group one and 81.5 per cent in group two. Closure of central and posterior perforations was successful in 100 per cent of both groups. Closure of anterior and subtotal perforations was successful in 95.45 per cent of group one and 54.54 per cent of group two.

CONCLUSION
Type one tympanoplasty with anterior tagging of graft material is a suitable technique for anterior and subtotal perforations.


Medical care is vital for our life and health, but the waste generated from medical activities represents a real problem of living nature and human world. Improper management of waste generated in health care facilities causes a direct health impact. The present review article deals with the basic issues as definition, categories, problems relating to biomedical waste and procedure of handling and disposal method of Biomedical Waste Management. It also intends to create awareness amongst the personnel involved in health care unit.


Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cells are used for fermentation of high value proteins in the pharmaceutical- and biotechnology industry. During the fermentation process the cells are grown under specific conditions in a defined media. The CHO cells produce extra cellular proteins. Separation and purification of these proteins result in the final product of high value. The production steps utilized in any bio-pharmaceutical process must deliver the target protein with high purity and yield. The first step in the production process is the separation of cells from the rest of the fermentation broth. Currently, stacked depth filters are used in this separation. The disadvantages with this method are:- 1) low product yield (high hold-up/wetting volume) and 2) the messy "clean-up" that is inherent with stacked filters. One of the main process requirements is that the CHO cell removal be accomplished with low cell mortality. This eases the subsequent process steps to purify the target protein with high yields free of DNA and other intracellular proteins. Additionally, the CHO cells can be reused.


Extracellular biosynthesis of silver nanoparticles using five fungal species including Fusarium oxysporum and four others isolated from native lichens (Kerman, Iran) was investigated in this study. These fungal species were identified as Arctoparmelia incurva, Penicillium chrysogenum, Uncultured root-associated fungus, and Caloplaca arnoldii by using ITS rRNA sequence analysis. These species were then cultivated in four common industrial wastes, namely a combination of yeast and malt extract, sugar beet molasses, whey, and wastewater of beverage industry, prior to their use for biosynthesis. The synthesis of the nanoparticles was monitored by UV–visible spectroscopy. It was found to be significantly affected by both fungal species and their cultivation media. C. arnoldii cultivated in the yeast and malt extract resulted in the best performance regarding reaction kinetics, particle mean diameter and size distribution. The mean diameter and variance of the nanoparticles were determined to be about 11 nm and 24 by using transmission electron microscopy and powder X-ray diffraction techniques, respectively. The zeta potential of the nanoparticles was measured to be −21.5 mV confirming their long-term stability. These findings suggest a new biosynthetic route towards eco-friendly and inexpensive production of the nanoparticles in bulk.


The SOSTAR-X system is an advanced airborne ground surveillance radar system. This multi-mode radar demonstrator allows the acquisition of highly squinted and long range data in several SAR, Classification and MTI modes, as well as in simultaneous SAR/MTI modes. Furthermore, tracking functionalities are included. The radar raw data are processed onboard the aircraft on a real-time Radar Processor. The Radar Processor development was shared between the SOSTAR-X companies Dutch Space (NL), EADS (DE), Galileo Avionica (IT), Indra Sistemas (ES) and Thales (FR). Flight trials on a Fokker F100 aircraft were performed in 2006 and 2007. This paper presents the architecture of the SOSTAR-X Radar Processor and some spotlight SAR processing results from the flight trials.


In this contribution, adaptive rate transmissions are investigated in the context of direct-sequence code-division multiple-access (DS-CDMA) systems using variable spreading factors (VSFs). In the context of the recently established family of adaptive rate-transmission schemes, the transmission rate is typically adapted in response to the channel's fading-induced quality fluctuation. By contrast, in this contribution the transmission rate is adapted in response to the multiuser interference fluctuations encountered. We present the philosophy of the proposed adaptive rate-transmission scheme and analyze the effective throughput as well as the achievable bit error rate (BER) performance, when communicating over additive white Gaussian noise channels. Our study shows that by employing the proposed VSF-assisted adaptive rate-transmission scheme, the effective throughput may be increased by up to 40%, when compared to that of DS-CDMA systems using constant spreading factors. This increased throughput is achieved without wasting power, without imposing extra interference upon other users, and without increasing the BER.


As frequently observed in common life, a jet of a viscous liquid impacting on a horizontal surface does not remain straight but instead buckles and folds periodically. We report experiments with planar (ribbonlike) jets of silicone oil impacting the free surface of the same liquid and describe the way in which jet folds incorporate air. It is shown that air ingestion proceeds through different modes, each of them acting as a source of monodisperse bubbles and featuring a threshold in jet height. These sources result from the breakup of remarkable cuspidal structures, produced by the recession of air domains within liquid folds.


Summary. Th e purpose of work was studying dynamics of formation endotoxemia in a system blood fl ow and its contribution to development of insuffi ciency of a circulation in experimental acute poisonings by amitriptilin. Experiment is executed on white not purebred rats. Th ere have been registered arterial pressure, the electrocardiogram, and also integrated reogram from its fi rst derivative. Toxicity of blood investigated in 60 minutes aft er intraperitoneal preparation introductions in doses 2,5; 12,5 and 62,5 mg/kg, defi ning the maintenance of substances of low and average molecular weight (SLAMW) in plasma and on erythrocytes, and level of oligopeptides in blood serum. It is established that in acute amitriptilin poisoning sharp oppression of function of a cardiac muscle develops, there is a considerable decrease in such indicators of systemic hemodynamic as a shock index, a warm index and the specifi c peripheral vascular resistance combined with dynamical redistribution SLAMW between plasma and erythrocytes.


Gypseous soils are distributed in many regions in the world including Iraq, which cover more than (31%) of the surface area of the country. Existence of these soils, always with high gypsum content, caused difficult problems to the buildings and strategic projects due to dissolution and leaching of the gypsum caused by the action of water flow through soil mass. For the study, the gypseous soil was brought from Bahr Al-Najaf, Al-Najaf Governorate which is located in the middle of Iraq. The model pile was embedded in gypseous soil with 42% gypsum content. Compression axial model pile load tests have been carried out for model pile embedded in gypseous soil at initial degree of saturation of (7%) before and after soil saturation. Several criteria have been used to calculate the bearing capacity of the model bored pile through the results of the pile load tests. It was found that Shen's method gave almost an acceptable result for all model pile load tests. Large draw down in bearing capacity was observed when model pile has been loaded after it was subjected to soaking for (24) hours because of loss of cementing action of gypsum by wetting.


Objectives:Transpyloric feeding has been proposed as an alternative method for controlling gastroesophageal reflux, but there have been no pediatric studies to determine how transpyloric feeding affects reflux burden. The aim of the present study was to determine the reflux burden in patients receiving transpyloric feeds. Patients and Methods:We reviewed the multichannel intraluminal impedance tracings of patients who had persistent symptoms and were fed transpylorically during the multichannel intraluminal impedance recording. We compared the reflux profiles during feed and nonfeed periods. We also compared the number of reflux-related hospitalizations at Children's Hospital Boston in the year before and the year after the initiation of transpyloric feeds. Results:The mean number of reflux events per hour was 1.4 ± 1.3 and 0.8 ± 1.1 during feed and nonfeed periods, respectively (P = 0.06). There was no significant difference in the percentage of time that boluses were present in the esophagus during feed periods (1.0% ± 1.4%) compared with the nonfeed periods (0.6% ± 1.1%, P = 0.5). There was no significant difference in the mean number of reflux-related hospitalizations in the year before (1.2 ± 1.4) or after (1.4 ± 1.2, P = 0.7) the initiation of transpyloric feeds. Conclusions:There is more reflux during transpyloric feeding periods than nonfeeding periods, which may explain why some patients continue to have reflux-related hospitalizations even after the initiation of transpyloric feeds.


In this paper we proposed a new word sense disambiguation method, called multi-engine collaborative bootstrapping (MCB) that combines different types of corpora and also uses two languages to bootstrapping. MCB contains the bilingual bootstrapping as its kernel algorithm that leads to incremental knowledge acquisition. EM model is performed to train parameters in base learner. Feature translation model is improved by semantic correlation estimation. In addition we use multi-engine to produce qualified starting seeds from parallel corpora and monolingual corpora. Those seeds that are generated through unsupervised machine learning approaches can also ensure bootstrapping effectiveness in contrast with manual selected seeds in spite of their different selection mechanisms. Experimental results prove the effectiveness of MCB. Some factors including feature space and starting seed number are concerned in our experiments because EM algorithm is sensible to starting values. Limitation of resources is also concerned.


In this paper we propose a new and improved implicit vector field surface representation to perform mesh fusion in the reconstruction process of 3D objects from scanned data. This new representation is an extension of the implicit scalar field distance function of a mesh. We show our new vector field function is more accurate than the classic scalar field function by comparing both representations with an error metric evaluation. We adapt the fusion process previously performed on the scalar representation to this new implicit vector field function. The Marching Cube triangulation algorithm is also adapted to our new vector representation to correctly reconstruct the resulting explicit surface after fusion. Results show that using this new vector field representation, our mesh fusion and mesh triangulation algorithm designs outperform the previous processes based on the implicit scalar field function representation.


Carbon fiber composite laminates, consisting of highly anisotropic ply layers, are widely used in aerospace structures due to their good strength to weight ratio. However, due to poor interlaminar strength, composite components are prone to barely visible impact damage during aircraft operation. Sparse array guided wave imaging, using a network of distributed sensors, is an important Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) tool for the detection and localization of in-service damage in composite structures. However, the anisotropy of composite laminates influences guided wave scattering, impacting imaging performance. Defect characterization can be improved by considering the scattering characteristics of various damage types for the sparse array signal processing. Guided wave scattering (A0 Lamb wave mode) was investigated around an artificial insert delamination in a quasi-isotropic carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) panel. Permanent magnets, mounted on an undamaged region of the plate, were also used as scattering targets and compared to the delamination case. Full 3D Finite Element (FE) simulations were performed for both the delamination and magnet cases and compared to wavefield data obtained from non-contact laser measurements. Good agreement was found between the experimental measurements and simulations. Scattered guided wave amplitudes around each damage type show strong directional dependency with energy focusing along the fiber directions of the outer ply layers of the laminate. Distinct scattering behavior was observed for each damage type. A forward scattered wave was observed for the delamination, whereas the magnet blocked forward wave transmission. Implications of anisotropy and angular scattering on sparse array SHM of different defect types are discussed.


A new theory is proposed to explain spectral linewidth rebroadening in MQW-DFB LDs. This is based on the idea that spontaneous emission recombination in the SCH and barrier layers may cause excess spectral linewidth broadening. Theoretical and experimental studies show that excess spectral linewidth broadening is proportional to the recombination current in the SCH/barrier layers. This current increases monotonically as output power increases.<<ETX>>


Climate change caused by the increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, especially carbon dioxide (CO2), will directly and indirectly affect all human activities, mainly those that are closely dependent on natural factors, such as tourism. In this context, it is necessary to expand scientific knowledge about global and sectoral emissions (transport, means of accommodation, etc.) from tourism. Thus, this article analyzed the direct emissions of CO2 of accommodation facilities in the city of Parnaiba (PI), and its contribution to local emissions from tourism. Therefore, it was based on the characterization of the emission sources in the accommodation sector, being selected the categories of energy, cooking gas and water consumption, and the production of solid waste, with emphasis on the WTTC and the ITP manual (2016), and on the conversion values proposed by DEFRA (2012). The results indicated that CO2 emissions per capita were similar to the world average for domestic visitors in developing countries, ie 4.01 kg/CO2, and the main contributor was energy consumption, accounting for 94.7% of emissions. In addition, the possibilities of reducing such emissions were listed with managerial, technological and educational measures in the daily hospitality activities.


Nitric oxide (NO) is a widespread biological mediator involved in many physiological and pathological processes, eg, in the regulation of vascular tone and hypertension. Chronic inhibition of NO synthase by NG-nitro-l-arginine methyl ester (l-NAME) hydrochloride results in the development of hypertension accompanied by an increase in vascular responsiveness to adrenergic stimuli. Recently, we developed a novel sulfur-containing angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor: 3-(3-thienyl)-l-alanyl-ornithyl-proline (TOP). Our previous studies indicated a superior nature of the molecule as an antihypertensive agent in spontaneously hypertensive rats (showing the involvement of renin–angiotensin–aldosterone system) in comparison to captopril. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of TOP on NO pathway in l-NAME-induced hypertensive rats, and captopril was included as the standard treatment group. Treatment with both TOP (20 mg/kg) and captopril (40 mg/kg) prevented the development of hypertension in l-NAME model, but TOP showed better restoration of NO and normal levels of angiotensin-converting enzyme. In addition, in vitro vasorelaxation assay showed an improvement in endothelium-dependent vasodilation in both the cases. Further, the biochemical (malondialdehyde, alanine aminotransferase, and aspartate aminotransferase) and the histopathological effects of TOP on rat liver tissues revealed a protective nature of TOP in comparison to captopril in the l-NAME model. In conclusion, TOP at 50% lesser dose than captopril was found to be better in the l-NAME model.


Objective.To investigate whether single-nucleotide polymorphisms in the promoter regions of endotoxin-responsive genes CD14 and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) are associated with biliary atresia (BA) and idiopathic neonatal cholestasis (INC). Methods.We obtained genomic DNA from 90 patients with established diagnosis of BA and 28 patients with INC. Forty-two adult patients with hepatitis B–related cirrhosis and 143 healthy children served as control populations. The genotypes of CD14/C(−159)T and TNF-α/G(−308)A (G allele, TNF*1; A allele, TNF*2) were determined by using a restriction enzyme–based assay. Plasma soluble CD14 levels were determined in different disease stages and genotypes of BA. Results.The frequencies of T allele and T/T homozygosity of the CD14/−159 promoter polymorphism were significantly higher in patients with BA (T allele: 61.7%; T/T genotype: 42.2%) and in patients with INC (T allele: 67.9%; T/T genotype: 53.6%) but not in control populations. Decrease of plasma soluble CD14 from the early stage of BA when the patients received a Kasai operation to the late stage of liver cirrhosis was observed in carriers of the T/T and T/C genotypes but not in carriers of the C/C genotype. The TNF-α/−308 promoter polymorphisms (TNF*1 and TNF*2) were not associated with BA. Conclusion.These findings show that the single-nucleotide polymorphism at CD14/−159 is associated with the development of BA and INC. Endotoxin susceptibility may play a role in the pathogenesis of infantile cholestasis.


The experiments on Impact of Inorganic Chemicals on Growth and Yield Potential of Pleurotus sajor-caju were conducted during October–November 2018–2019 and 2019–2020 in Completely Randomized Design at Mushroom Research and Development Centre, Department of Plant Pathology, Chandra Shekhar Azad University of Agriculture and Technology, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India. Among all the treatments, minimum 11 days required for spawn running in the combination of Wheat straw+NPK 5 mg+CaCO3 6 mg. Similarly, the minimum number of days required for pin head formation and harvesting days were also noticed in T5 treatment (wheat straw+5 g NPK+6 g CaCO3), representing 15 and 20 days respectively. The treatment T5 produced maximum number of fruiting bodies where combinations were given as wheat straw+5 g NPK+6 g CaCO3.The maximum stipe length and width of pileus were also recorded maximum in treatment T5, showing 7.9 cm and 13.5 cm against 2.8 cm and 6.6 cm respectively in case of control. Yield potential, total yield and biological efficiency of Pleurotus sajor-caju were also found maximum in treatment T5, representing the values 500, 450, 370, 300 and 250 g yield bag-1 at 1st , 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th flushing stages, respectively. On the other hand, the maximum biological efficiency was recorded in T5 (wheat straw+5 g NPK+6 g CaCO3) treatment, showing 37.40% against 25.68% in case of treatment T1 (Control). Result showing that treatment T5 (wheat straw+5 g NPK+6 g CaCO3) performed better than all treatments.


The conceptual knowledge test is an efficient way to measure the conceptual knowledge of physics prospective teachers on electrical and magnetism topic. The employed instrument was physical questions in the form of multiple-choice options. The process of developing and validating the conceptual knowledge test consisted of 5 steps: (1) content analysis; (2) construction of multiple-choice items; (3) readability test and expert validation; (4) limited tryout; and (5) large-scale application. The instrument validation test through trials was conducted in order to obtain the data related to difficulty index, discriminating power, distractor functionality, and reliability coefficient value that was then analyzed using ITEMAN version 3.0 program. The participants were 215 physics prospective teachers of a University in Makassar city.  The instrument validation resulted in 40 items that consisted of 26 items for electricity and 14 items for magnetism. The instrument is called Conceptual Knowledge Test-Electricity and Magnetism (CKT-EM). The value of the reliability coefficient (α) (Alpha Cronbach) of 0.87 indicated that the instrument of conception test on electrical and magnetism topics was valid and sufficient to measure students' conception on electrical and magnetism topic.


The world of network science is fascinating and filled with complex phenomena that we aspire to understand. One of them is the dynamics of spreading processes over complex networked structures. Building the knowledge-base in the field where we can face more than one spreading process propagating over a network that has more than one layer is a challenging task, as the complexity comes both from the environment in which the spread happens and from characteristics and interplay of spreads' propagation. As this cross-disciplinary field bringing together computer science, network science, biology and physics has rapidly grown over the last decade, there is a need to comprehensively review the current state-of-the-art and offer to the research community a roadmap that helps to organise the future research in this area. Thus, this survey is a first attempt to present the current landscape of the multi-processes spread over multilayer networks and to suggest the potential ways forward.


Salmonid fishways have been used in many countries for non-salmonid fishes, including Australia, but generally with poor results. Trapping the entrance and exit of a 1:9 gradient salmonid fishway on the Murray River confirmed very poor passage of native fish, with <1% of the most abundant species ascending. Fifty years of fish passage monitoring showed the numbers of three native species declining by 95–100% and non-native fish becoming dominant. Fishways are now being designed for native fish and being quantitatively assessed, but daily flow management also needs to be addressed. The ecological model for passage of potamodromous fishes has changed from passing adults of a few species to one that incorporates the whole fish community, specifically: immature fish of large-bodied species that dominate numbers migrating upstream; a diverse range of movement strategies; and small-bodied species, crustaceans and low numbers of less-mobile species.


SUMMARY

This paper proposes a new method for transient stability analysis for electric power systems by extending our previous studies. A special feature different from the ordinary existing methods is that a minimization problem is formulated for obtaining critical clearing time for transient stability. The critical trajectory is defined as the trajectory that starts from a point on a fault-on trajectory at critical clearing time and reaches a critical point of losing synchronism. This paper studies the treatment of the critical condition and then proposes a new formulation for the transient stability problem. It will be demonstrated that the solution of the minimization problem successfully provides the exact critical clearing time that agrees with the conventional numerical simulation method. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


The recent international agreement on a minimum effective corporate tax rate marks a profound change in global tax arrangements. The appropriate level of that minimum, however, has been, and remains, extremely contentious. This paper explores the strategic responses to a minimum tax, which—–the policy objective being to change the rules of tax competition game–—are critical for assessing the design and welfare impact of, and prospects for, this fundamental policy innovation. Analysis and calibration plausibly suggest sizable scope for minima that are Pareto-improving, benefiting low as well as high tax countries, over the uncoordinated equilibrium.


Noble liquid detectors have become an attractive option for exploring physics beyond the standard model. Current experiments are using these detectors to search for dark matter interactions, neutrinoless double beta decay, and other phenomena. Improved energy resolution can be leveraged from an optimized combination of two detection channels: ionization and scintillation. Experimentally, a microscopic anti-correlation behavior between these signals has been observed, but it has not been described from first principles. Making measurements in a third channel would provide useful information about the microscopic anti-correlation phenomenon. Work is currently underway at Drexel University to develop solid argon and xenon bolometers, which would be able to utilize a heat channel in addition to ionization and scintillation. Present efforts are aimed at developing a method for growing small noble solid samples via vapor deposition onto a substrate over a wide range of temperatures down to 10 K. Understanding the sample growth is the first step to develop techniques for integrating detector components to measure ionization and scintillation signals. This will allow for improved characterization of noble solids as detector media. In the future, efforts will be focused on the growth of these detectors in the Drexel dilution refrigerator, where samples can be cooled to 20 mK to include bolometric measurements for the simultaneous readout of the three detection channels.


Part 1 Definitions: what do we mean by the culture of an institution? what is involved in cultural change? what do we mean by teaching? what do we mean by learning? what do we mean by including pupils with learning difficulties?. Part 2 Descriptions: what is involved in different types of teaching for teachers? what are the necessary conditions for change - flexible teachers, flexible learners? what is involved in different types of teaching for learners?. Part 3 Developments: how do teachers support learners and learning? can pupils support themselves and one another in the learning process? how can pupils become self-aware and self-directing as learners?. Part 4 Conclusions and implications: what is entailed in managing change? what is the significance of critical dialogue? what does the specialist sector have to offer?


To commemorate the Tricentennial, this year the History-Archaeology Section of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans organised an international congress entitled "Catalunya (i els Paisos Catalans) abans i despres de l'Onze de Setembre de 1714" (Catalonia [and the Catalan-Speaking Lands] Before and After the Eleventh of September 1714) which was held from the 24th to 27th of February 2014.


Author(s): Maich, Katherine Eva | Advisor(s): Ray, Raka | Abstract: Domestic workers' struggles for labor rights—both historically and currently—draw attention to the private sphere of the home as an unregulated site of gendered and racialized labor that has often been overlooked across historical moments and economic configurations. Usually performed by indigenous and immigrant women, domestic work tends to be undervalued via a lack of prestige, respect, labor protections, and sufficient pay, though it remains socially necessary work within the global economy. Yet the privacy of the home often masks the social relations of intimacy, power, love, and exploitation that take place inside of it, as domestic workers reproduce family life and the ideologies of home by cleaning, cooking, and caring for those who live there. This dissertation builds upon a large multidisciplinary body of scholarship that has focused on the intersectional inequalities of class, caste, gender, race, and ethnicity embedded within domestic employer-worker relationship in varying contexts, and yet has failed to fully theorize how those relationships change when legally regulated, and in what ways those laws then shape anew the household. Yet due to the entrenched nature of the dominant discourse around the home as separate from work, it is by definition more difficult to draw attention to the labor performed there. I ask, given the place of the home as constitutive of the private sphere, how do we regulate it as a workplace? How do we bring legislated labor protections into the home? And, once there, how do they shape the lives of the very domestic workers they were designed to protect? Through a global North/South comparison set in New York City and Lima, Peru, two large urban centers of migration with recent legislation for domestic workers, I focus on the home and show that in order to consider the home as a site of work, we must also understand it as a site of law. In both sites, I explore how household workers have been categorized, understood, and excluded by employing an analysis that brings history to bear upon our contemporary understandings of efforts to bring labor law into the space of the home. Drawing from 10 months of ethnography in Lima and 8 months in New York City, 120 in-depth interviews, legislative transcripts, and demographic survey data, I show how progressive labor laws for domestic workers are stifled by historically-entrenched patterns of racialization and labor informality. Drawing from 10 months of ethnography in Lima and 8 months in New York City, 120 in-depth interviews, legislative transcripts, and demographic survey data, I show how progressive labor laws for domestic workers are stifled by historically-entrenched patterns of racialization and labor informality. I find that the Peruvian law extends to household workers only half of the labor protections afforded to other occupations, codifying preexisting inequalities and shaping a labor regime of colonial domesticity around body, space, and time inside Lima's contemporary homes. In New York City, the law grants negligible protections and deliberately eschews language around immigration, thus establishing a labor regime of immigrant domesticity instead of improving working conditions. Separately and together, then, my fieldwork from both sites sharpens our understanding of how, despite important legislative victories for domestic workers, the home has not (yet) been democratized.


In recent years, the compact range has become very popular for measuring Radar Cross Section (RCS) and antenna patterns. The compact range, in fact, offers several advantages due to reduced size, a controlled environment, and privacy. On the other hand, it has some problems of its own, which must be solved properly in order to achieve high quality measurement results. For example, diffraction from the edges of the main reflector corrupts the plane wave in the target zone and creates spurious scattering centers in RCS measurements. While diffraction can be minimized by using rolled edges, the field of an offset single reflector compact range is corrupted by three other errors: the taper of the reflected field, the cross polarization introduced by the tilt of the feed and the aperture blockage introduced by the feed itself. These three errors can be eliminated by the use of a subreflector system. A properly designed subreflector system offers very little aperture blockage, no cross-polarization introduced and a minimization of the taper of the reflected field. A Gregorian configuration has been adopted in order to enclose the feed and the ellipsoidal subreflector in a lower chamber, which is isolated by absorbers from the upper chamber, where the main parabolic reflector and the target zone are enclosed. The coupling between the two rooms is performed through a coupling aperture. The first cut design for such a subreflector system is performed through Geometrical Optics ray tracing techniques (GO), and is greatly simplified by the use of the concept of the central ray introduced by Dragone. The purpose of the GO design is to establish the basic dimensions of the main reflector and subreflector, the size of the primary and secondary illuminating surfaces, the tilt angles of the subreflector and feed, and estimate the feed beamwidth. At the same time, the shape of the coupling aperture is initially determined.


In 1992, Bernardo Atxaga's Obabakoak, a collection of short stories about a mythical village in the Basque Country, was translated into English, to great acclaim. Nearly twenty years later, in January 2011, the announcement of a ceasefire by Basque Separatist group ETA has led to a number of articles, each accompanied by a picture of three masked figures, fists raised, in front of a poster emblazoned with ETA's motto, Bietan Jarrai ("Keep up on both"). While the 'mythology' of this image concentrates and accentuates elements of violence and hostility, Obabakoak offers a different perspective, one which encourages us, as readers, to look beyond the masks.


Background & Objective: Menopausal symptoms in women lead to decreased quality of life. Understanding this natural process in a woman's life during is important in effective control of their problems during this period. The purpose of this study was to determine the four (vasomotor, mental-social, physical and sexual) dimensions of quality of life of postmenopausal women in Tehran in 2007. Methods: In this descriptive-analytical study, sample size was determined by using the formula for estimating the proportion of a phenomenon and 700 postmenopausal women randomly selected in Tehran. The data gathering tool was Menopause-Specific Quality of Life Questionnaire (MENQOL). Data were analyzed in SPSS14 by using descriptive tests (such as mean, standard deviation, frequency, relative frequency) and analytical test (Chi- square) at the 0.05 significance level. Results: Quality of Life of women under study was moderate. The highest mean score was related to physical dimension (23.97±3.09) and the lowest mean score was related to vasomotor dimension (3.29±.84). A significant correlations between their quality of life and their occupation (p=0.04) and income (p=0.009) were also seen. It means postmenopausal women housewives and women with higher income had better quality of life to enjoy. Conclusion: The quality of life is not desirable in these women. Developing some interventions to improve their quality of life is necessary.


Bare and hydrogen passivated CdSe wurtzite molecules and nanostructures are investigated. The investigation is performed using wurtzoid structures that represent the wurtzite structure at the molecular and nanoscale region. The results show that the energy gap of bare and hydrogen passivated CdSe molecules is higher than and converges to the experimental bulk energy gap. Vibrational analysis of wurtzoid molecules shows that the experimental longitudinal optical mode is in between bare and hydrogen passivated CdSe molecules and very near to bare molecules. The stability of wurtzoid molecules against transition to CdSe diamondoids and cuboids that represent the molecular scale of diamond and rock-salt structures respectively is investigated. The results show that CdSe wurtzoids are the most stable followed by cuboids and diamondoids respectively according to their calculated Gibbs free energy. This order is different than the bulk order of wurtzite, zincblende, and rock-salt respectively. The stability of wurtzoids is attributed to their compact and symmetrical surface structure. The analysis also shows that dangling bonds on bare wurtzoids are responsible for the differences between bare and passivated molecules including lower energy gap, higher vibrational force constants, and lower vibrational reduced masses.


This paper addresses the South African Constitution's invitation to the Constitutional Court to "consider foreign law" in interpreting its provisions. Focusing on the education provisions found in Section 29 of the Constitution, I make two claims. First, contrary to the developing consensus, American state supreme court jurisprudence in school funding cases makes for a poor resource in interpreting the basic South African right to education, regardless of the quantum of education that the Constitutional Court decides the word "basic" encompasses. Second, however, certain aspects of these same American decisions, particularly the space they provide for a fiduciary approach to socioeconomic duties, could provide the Constitutional Court with a principled theory to undergird its ongoing rights-protective project that seeks to operationalize socioeconomic rights while also respecting institutional boundaries.


Microaggregation is a technique used by statistical agencies to limit disclosure of sensitive microdata. Noting that no polynomial algorithms are known to microaggregate optimally, Domingo-Ferrer and Mateo-Sanz have presented heuristic microaggregation methods. This paper is the first to present an efficient polynomial algorithm for optimal univariate microaggregation. Optimal partitions are shown to correspond to shortest paths in a network.


Recognizing human emotions from facial expressions is highly dependent on the quality of the referred facial expression features. Conventional methods often suffer from high computation time and serious influence of environment variations. In this paper, a triangular facial feature extraction method based on a Modified Active Shape Model (MASM) is proposed. This method features considering the interactions of all facial features, escaping from the affection of environment variations as well as noisy facial features, and reducing feature dimensions. MASM adopts the same shape representation and shape training procedures as ASM, but executes a different landmark searching procedure without using the gray level training procedure to avoid the affection from environment variations. Using the feature points extracted by MASM, two methods, one is based on statistical analysis and another one is derived from the genetic algorithm, are proposed to extract an optimal set of triangular facial features for emotion recognition. In the experiments with JAFFE database, a neural network classifier is employed to recognize emotions with those extracted triangular facial features. The experimental results show that based on the statistical analysis 65.1% recognition rate is achieved, and based on the genetic algorithm 70.2% recognition rate is achieved.


Teachers are a community, and the best communities are those with the capacity to learn from its experiences and the ability to use that learning to improve practice (Wenger et al., 2002). Peer review is a critical element of this process of learning and reflection and is essential towards enabling teachers to help one another as well as themselves become better practitioners of the teaching profession. This is a personal account of how it felt to be under peer review by


Seven of 8 Pacific sleeper sharks (Somniosus pacificus Bigelow and Schroeder, 1944) captured in Prince William Sound, Alaska, were actively infected, and all 8 had been at one time infected with the parasitic copepod Ommatokoita elongata (Grant, 1827) (Siphonostomatoida: Lernaeopodidae). Active infections consisted of adult females and chalimus larvae that had attached to the corneas of the sharks' eyes. This report documents a new host record and possibly the only reliable record of this parasite from a host other than the Greenland shark, Somniosus microcephalus (Bloch and Schneider, 1801). It also documents the first time O. elongata has been identified outside of the Atlantic Ocean or its locally adjacent straits and seas.


As the volume of data available from operational systems continues to grow, dimensional models are becoming an increasingly important analytic tool for enterprise reporting and analysis. Although there are a number of software packages specifically designed for transforming data from operational systems into dimensional models, many smaller organizations find themselves unable to make the significant investment in new technology and personnel necessary to utilize these tools. Many of these same organizations, however, do use Base SAS as an analytic tool. Especially for these organizations (but also for larger organizations with more sophisticated business intelligence systems), the current work provides an example of using PROC SQL, SAS/ACCESS®, and SAS hash objects to extract, transform, and load data from an operational system into a dimensional data model.


Over the past few years, large-scale genomic studies of patients with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) have unveiled recurrent somatic mutations in genes involved in epigenetic regulation (DNMT3A, IDH1/2, TET2, ASXL1, EZH2 and MLL) and the spliceosomal machinery (SF3B1, U2AF1, SRSF2, ZRSR2, SF3A1, PRPF40B, U2AF2, and SF1). The identification of these mutations and their impact on prognostication has led to improvements in risk-stratification strategies and has also provided new potential targets for the treatment of these myeloid malignancies. In this review, we discuss the most recently identified genetic abnormalities described in MDS and AML and appraise the current status quo of the dynamics of acquisition of mutant alleles in the pathogenesis of AML, during the transformation from MDS to AML, and in the context of relapse after conventional chemotherapy. Implications: Identification of somatic mutations in AML and MDS suggests new targets for therapeutic development. Mol Cancer Res; 11(8); 815–27. ©2013 AACR.


The increased accessibility of data that are geographically referenced and correlated increases the demand for techniques of spatial data analysis. The subset of such data comprised of discrete counts exhibit particular difficulties and the challenges further increase when a large proportion (typically 50% or more) of the counts are zero-valued. Such scenarios arise in many applications in numerous fields of research and it is often desirable to infer on subtleties of the process, despite the lack of substantive information obscuring the underlying stochastic mechanism generating the data. An ecological example provides the impetus for the research in this thesis: when observations for a species are recorded over a spatial region, and many of the counts are zero-valued, are the abundant zeros due to bad luck, or are aspects of the region making it unsuitable for the survival of the species? In the framework of generalized linear models, we first develop a zero-inflated Poisson generalized linear regression model, which explains the variability of the responses given a set of measured covariates, and additionally allows for the distinction of two kinds of zeros: sampling ("bad luck" zeros), and structural (zeros that provide insight into the data-generating process). We then adapt this model to the spatial setting by incorporating dependence within the model via a general, leniently-defined quasi-likelihood strategy, which provides consistent, efficient and asymptotically normal estimators, even under erroneous assumptions of the covariance structure. In addition to this advantage of robustness to dependence misspecification, our quasi-likelihood model overcomes the need for the complete specification of a probability model, thus rendering it very general and relevant to many settings. To complement the developed regression model, we further propose methods for the simulation of zero-inflated spatial stochastic processes. This is done by deconstructing the entire process into a mixed, marked spatial point process: we augment existing algorithms for the simulation of spatial marked point processes to comprise a stochastic mechanism to generate zero-abundant marks (counts) at each location. We propose several such mechanisms, and consider interaction and dependence processes for random locations as well as over a lattice.


Testing Human Resource Management (HRM)'s effect on organisational performance has been a core part of HRM research over the past 25 years. Whereas pioneering studies in the field neglected the mechanisms explaining this relationship, treating it as a 'black box', in the last decade the focus has been on examining the mediators of this relationship. Most recently, a series of reviews has been more critical of the field, particularly highlighting its diversity and underplaying of employee involvement, a concern central to its inception. This paper assesses these mediation studies in the light of these concerns, which provide criteria by which I summarise them and assess the extent to which they have advanced the field. The analysis demonstrates that the main problems of the black-box studies remain: the misalignment of the use of additive indexes and the theory of synergistic relationships, confusion over analysis methods, inadequate justification of the selection of practices in the empirical investigations, and under-representation of employee involvement. The researchers continue to present the field as a unified one. However, since the majority of studies are centred on high-performance work systems, there is a clear schism across them between these studies and those centred on high-involvement management. The paper reinforces the importance of this distinction, on the basis that a high-performance work system is a technology, a set of sophisticated personnel practices, whereas high-involvement management is a managerial philosophy or orientation towards fostering employee involvement. The paper concludes by suggesting ways of overcoming the recurring problems in HRM–performance research, and how these vary between the two perspectives.


A technique has been developed for obtaining the position and intensity of a diffraction maximum while increasing the temperature of the sample at a regular rate. A small furnace, mounted on the horizontal shaft of the North American Philips X-ray Diffractometer, holds and heats the sample while the goniometer is run back and forth across the maximum in an arc of about one degree two theta. The top of the resulting envelope represents the position and intensity of the maximum while the bottom represents the background. This technique has been applied to the study of the dehydration and dehydroxylation of clay and mica minerals by following the changes in the (001) spacings which take place on heating.


Angelo Mosso (1846-1910) was an Italian physiologist who significantly contributed to the development of all fields of modern physiology. Mosso believed that "with the graphical method the palpitation of the heart, the breathlessness of the breath, the tremor of the muscles, the velocity of the blood, the word, the perception they leave of themselves are indelible traces". Mosso's main aim was to exactly measure man's muscular work. In this way Mosso had constructed an instrument that could exactly measure the workman's muscle mechanics. He called this instrument the ergograph which means work recorder. He was a fervent promoter of the pedagogic importance of physical exercise and training in the psychophysical development of adolescents. For Mosso fatigue and training represented the basis of sports, and in the speech delivered at the Olympic games in Roma in 1905 he declared: "In muscle resistance to fatigue lies most of the future richness of our Country". Indeed, he wrote: "I believe that pedagogy, just like medicine, is an art and it serves to help nature". Importantly, Mosso tried to join philosophical and psychological studies with biological studies. This holistic approach is now commonly adopted in cognitive neuroscience, and it is resurging in exercise physiology. This "maestro" is a shining example of a great scientist, and his legacy will continue across future generations.


A cashless system brings forth numerous questions for various sectors in Indian economy. How a largely cash driven economy will adapt to this change and how industries will adapt to this new system? Demonetization seems to have created a lot of chaos but there is definitely a silver lining in every black cloud.  The step towards a cashless economy has led to some collateral damage also. One of the sectors that are majorly hit by the demonetization drive is the tourism and hospitality industry. This paper dwelt on the meaning of a cashless system for the hospitality industry and followed by the vision of industrial professionals. This study discusses the Impact of the cashless system in the hospitality industry and also revealed that hospitality industry is ready to embrace the new cashless economy policy despite glaring bottlenecks and cashless risks. The study also emphasizing innovative strategies introduced by hotels to encourage tourists to shift over to cashless payment methods with initiatives like loyalty points and other benefits. The author suggested some recommendations for proper implementation of the cashless economy. Keywords: Cashless Economy, Demonetization, Hospitality Industry, Hotels, Industrial Professionals .


As-deposited sputtered and thermally evaporated Au films are studied for Hg sensing with rectangular Si microcantilevers. Microcantilever deflection and frequency shifts in the first four thermally induced flexural modes are measured for each type of Au film as a function of Hg exposure. All thermally induced higher order modes show shifts in their frequencies for Hg exposures when the Au is sputter deposited whereas typically only the third and fourth order modes show frequency shifts when the Au is thermally evaporated. A technique is employed in order to vary Au coverage along a microcantilever surface. The shifts in the thermal microcantilever modes upon Hg exposure are thus studied as a function of fractional Au coverage along the microcantilever surface. Microcantilevers having various coverages of either sputtered or thermally evaporated Au films show a distinct response to Hg exposure. From both the deflection and spectral shifts it is observed that sputtered films give better response to Hg than ...


African Swine Fever (ASF) is a highly contagious viral hemorrhagic disease of swine, leading to enormous economic losses in the swine industry. However, vaccines and drugs to treat ASF have yet to be developed. African swine fever virus (ASFV) encodes more than 150 proteins, but 50% of them have unknown functions. Here, we present the crystal structure of the ASFV I73R protein at a resolution of 2.0 Å. Similar search tools based solely on amino acid sequence shows that it has no relationships to any proteins of known function. Interestingly, the overall structure of the I73R protein shares a winged helix-turn-helix fold, structural similarity with the Z-DNA binding domain (Zα). In accordance with this result, the I73R is capable of binding to a CpG repeats DNA duplex which has a high propensity for forming Z-DNA during the DNA binding assays. In addition, the I73R protein was shown to be expressed at both early and late stages of ASFV post-infection in PAM cells as an 8.9 kDa protein. Immunofluorescence studies revealed that the I73R protein is expressed in the nucleus at early times post-infection and gradually translocated from the nucleus to the cytoplasm. Taken together, these data indicate that the I73R could be a member of Zα family that is important in host-pathogen interaction, which paves the way for the design of inhibitors to target this severe pathogen. Further exploring the biological role of I73R during ASFV infection in vitro and in vivo will provide new clues for development of new antiviral strategies. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.


HIV broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs) recognize conserved regions of the HIV envelope trimer, are capable of neutralizing up to 90% of cross-clade HIV strains in vitro, and have auto- and poly-reactive specificities. Multiple bnAbs, with different specificities for HIV envelope, have been reported to recognize autoantigens, such as membrane phospholipids, histones, and human ubiquitin ligase 3. Further, bnAb CH98 has been identified in an HIV infected individual with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and was found to recognize both dsDNA and the CD4 binding site, as well as neutralize HIV strains of multiple clades in vitro. From this data, our lab hypothesized that both central and peripheral B cell tolerance checkpoints inhibit potentially neutralizing HIV-Ab responses, and that autoimmune prone individuals are capable of mounting neutralizing Ab responses. In order to further investigate this, we immunized age-matched, wild type and SLE prone strains of mice with HIV envelope proteins in adjuvant. We found that a subset of SLE prone mice neutralized multiple heterologous HIV strains 14 days post immunization, which was not observed in wild type mice. This neutralizing Ab response positively correlated with age and total serum IgM levels. SLE prone mice produced envelope-specific IgG of similar magnitude and isotypes as wild type mice, following envelope immunization. Using an array with 92 autoantigens, we found that the subset of SLE prone mice, which neutralize HIV, produce higher levels of histone H2A and dsDNA reactive IgM, as compared to the non-neutralizing SLE and wild type mice. Lastly, in vivo and in vitro studies show that activation of the autoimmune B cells by adjuvant is required for this neutralization activity.


This study investigates the risk–return spectrum of investment for going green and sustainability practice in India. This article analyses three sustainability focused index from Indian equity market viz. S&P BSE GREENEX, S&P BSE CARBONEX and S&P BSE ESG 100. Statistical and financial rates, ratios and latest five‐factor model of asset pricing are used for the said purpose. ESG 100 index turned out to be outperformer whereas the other two gave slightly less return than the market benchmark. Volatility is found to be similar to that of the market for all the indexes. Significant increment of wealth of green investors during and after the COVID‐19 pandemic period is another notable finding of the study. Results of this article indicate that investors are getting more return compared to market if they invest in stocks that perform well in sustainability criterion.


Telomerase activity is believed to be crucial for cellular immortality, which is considered to participate in the development of a majority of human cancers. Human telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) has recently been identified as a catalytic subunit of telomerase. We examined the expression of TERT and other telomerase components such as human telomerase RNA component (hTR, encoded by TERC) and human telomerase‐associated protein (TEP1) by reverse transcription‐polymerase chain reaction in human gastric carcinomas and non‐neoplastic mucosa, in addition to measuring the telomerase activity. Of 20 gastric carcinomas examined, 18 (90%) and 18 (90%) showed increased expression of TERT and higher telomerase activity in comparison with corresponding non‐neoplastic mucosa, respectively. Increased expression of hTR/TERC was also observed in 15 (75%) of the gastric carcinomas. Immunohistochemically, strong expression of TERT protein was detected in the nuclei of the tumor cells of all carcinoma tissues, while the expression of TERT in non‐neoplastic mucosal cells as well as stromal elements (except lymphocytes) was weak or negative. These findings suggest that increased TERT expression associated with telomerase activity may serve as a novel marker for the diagnosis of stomach cancer.