PURPOSE: The purpose of this article was to describe a process followed in developing and evaluating a model to facilitate authentic learning (AL) in nursing education.

METHOD: A qualitative and theory generative research designs were used to develop the model. The four steps of theory generative research design namely concept analysis, construction of conceptual relations, the description of a model and the description of the guidelines for operationalisation were employed. The model was then developed and evaluated.

DISCUSSION: A model development was done based on the following structure: (1) an overview of the model; (2) the purpose of the model; and (3) the structure of the model, which further includes the following: (3.1) the assumptions of the model, (3.2) the concept definitions, (3.3) the relational statements, and (3.4) the nature of the structure; as well as (4) the process description. A schematic presentation, which depicts the six elements of practice theory namely the context, agent, recipient, dynamic, process and procedure, and terminus or outcome of AL in nursing education was shown.

CONCLUSION: The described model is a framework that can be used to guide nurse educators in educating, training and producing a 21st century graduate who has higher order thinking skills, make astute clinical reasoning, judgment and rational decisions therefore will be able to deliver comprehensive, holistic care in line with the dynamic, highly-demanding interdisciplinary global healthcare system.


The argument about the limits of Free Trade or Protectionism rages throughout the world to this day. Following the Repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, free trade became one of the most distinctive defining features of the British state, and of British economic, social, and political life. While the United States, much of the British Empire, and the leading European Powers turned towards protectionism before 1914, Britain alone held to a policy which had seemingly guaranteed power and prosperity. This book seeks to explain the political history of this tenacious loyalty. While the Tariff Reform opponents of free trade have been much studied, this is the first substantial account, based on a wide range of printed and archival sources, which explains the primacy of free trade in nineteenth- and early-twentieth century Britain. It also shows that by the centenary of the Repeal of the Corn Laws in 1946, although British free traders lamented the death of Liberal England, they heralded, under American leadership, the rebirth of the liberal international order.


Analysis of satellite altimeter data reveals anomalously high Eddy Kinetic Energy (EKE) in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) during the period 2000–2002. Around 2–3 years earlier (1998), the circumpolar eastward wind stress (as quantified by the Southern Annular Mode; SAM) showed a significant positive peak, and we have shown previously that the ACC peaked around 1998 in response. An eddy‐resolving ocean model is used to investigate the delay between wind forcing and the eddy response, and demonstrates that the lag is due to the time taken to influence the deep circulation of the ACC. Winds over the Southern Ocean have shown a strong climatic increase over the past few decades. If this increase in winds is also reflected as an increase in eddy activity (as our analysis suggests it might), then the increased poleward heat flux may have played a significant role in the observed warming of the Southern Ocean.


The role of Chlamydia trachomatis in the pathogenesis of Pelvic inflammatory disease and majority of cases of salpinigitis are well acknowledged in women. A total of 213 sera from infertile women were tested for antibodies to Chlamydia trachomatis by using an indirect solid phases enzyme Immuno absorbent commercial ELISA test. Women with confirmed Hysterosalpinographic report suggesting tubal occlusion (tubal factor infertility) had 92 (43.2%) followed by 63 (29.6%) infertile women with infertile male partner and 58 (27.2%) were having unexplained infertility. Out of the tubal factor (TF) infertile women 40 (18.8%) were seropositive for Chlamydia trachomatis antibodies, as against 19 (8.9%) in the group of women with normal patent tubes and 10 (4.6%) women with infertile male partner. In this study there was a statistical significant correlation between the infertile women with tubal factor infertility in relation to seroevidence of Chlamydia trachomatis infection with p<0.05. There was no age bias in the serodetection of Chlamydia trachomatis antibodies. The seropositivity of Chlamydia trachomatis is an indication that the organism may be an independent risk factor in the development of an inflammatory process leading to scaring of the uterine tubes in women and thereby causing infertility.


A weakly nonlinear but numerically tractable model (to third order in amplitude and including bandwidth effects) has been developed for the ablative Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) instability. Model results clearly show growth reduction from linear ablative RT values and even amplitude saturation in some realistic cases. For excitation of a band of wave numbers near the cutoff for growth, the behavior is dominated by the mode with the largest linear growth rate, and not by the mode with the largest initial amplitude. This type of model is likely to be important for the future assessment of the RT effects on specific target designs of the inertial confinement fusion.


In this paper, we consider a relaying system which employs a single relay in a wireless network with distributed sources and destinations. Here, all source, destination and relay nodes are equipped with multiple antennas. For amplify-and-forward relay systems, we confirm the achievable sum rate through a joint multiple source precoders and a single relay filter design. To this end, we propose a new linear processing scheme in terms of maximizing the sum rate performance by applying a blockwise relaying method combined with geometric programming techniques. By allowing the global channel knowledge at the source nodes, we show that this joint design problem is formulated as a standard geometric program, which can guarantees a global optimal value under the modified sum rate criterion. Simulation results show that the proposed blockwise relaying scheme with the joint power allocation method provides substantial sum rate gain compared to the conventional schemes.


System of temperature control are used in many facility such as room temperature control, quality control of food and drink, electronic equipment control and etc. control of temperature can be done by using microcontroller as a media processing and process the changes of temperature that occured to the voltage. One of supporting component on the microcontroller to detect the change of temperature is temperature sensor LM 35 which in this study we will focus on the temperature sensor LM 35 for detect of change of temperature on the sea water in a small scale. the purpose of this study is to determine the ability and performance of temperatur sensor LM 35 for detect the changes of temperature sea water and check the condition of temperatur sensor LM 35 in use on the sea water. The results show that the temperature sensor of LM 35 can be used to measure the changes of temperatur sea water without have higher difference on the actual value and experiment results. the range of difference is smaller and the temperature sensor of LM 35 can be used to measured the change of temperature of sea water. Keywords: LM 35 Sensor, Microcontroller ATmega 8535, Sea Water Temperature


A general theory is developed to describe multichannel amplification in semiconductor laser amplifiers. It includes the effects of both gain saturation and carrier-density modulation. The carrier-density modulation, occurring as a result of beating among the neighboring channels, is responsible for nondegenerate four-wave mixing. This nonlinear phenomenon not only unequalizes the channel gains but also generates new sidebands on both sides of the boundary channels. The effects of four-wave mixing on multichannel amplification are illustrated by considering the 30-channel case in detail. The theory is useful for quantifying the amplifier-induced crosstalk and identifying the operating conditions for reducing such crosstalk in multichannel coherent communication systems. >


Aspects of information technology has influenced the business processes of all types of organizations, including the educational institutions. Educational institutions have implemented a digital campus technology trends. At present many digital campus infrastructure technology brings cloud computing. With cloud computing as part of the IT strategy, an organization can increase their capacity to concentrate on running the business process without thinking of investing in large-scale IT as IT investment before the era of cloud computing.The implementation of cloud computing, based on virtualization technology. Previous research has established that the application of virtualization technology offers ease in data center management and reduce problems may arise when technology brings physical servers in the data center. This paper will discuss the application of virtualization technology in the data center an educational institution. It will calculate and discuss about total cost of ownership through application of virtualization technology on data center


Objective Test if therapy dogs reduce anxiety in emergency department (ED) patients. Methods In this controlled clinical trial (NCT03471429), medically stable, adult patients were approached if the physician believed that the patient had "moderate or greater anxiety." Patients were allocated on a 1:1 ratio to either 15 min exposure to a certified therapy dog and handler (dog), or usual care (control). Patient reported anxiety, pain and depression were assessed using a 0–10 scale (10 = worst). Primary outcome was change in anxiety from baseline (T0) to 30 min and 90 min after exposure to dog or control (T1 and T2 respectively); secondary outcomes were pain, depression and frequency of pain medication. Results Among 93 patients willing to participate in research, 7 had aversions to dogs, leaving 86 (92%) were willing to see a dog six others met exclusion criteria, leaving 40 patients allocated to each group (dog or control). Median and mean baseline anxiety, pain and depression scores were similar between groups. With dog exposure, median anxiety decreased significantly from T0 to T1: 6 (IQR 4–9.75) to T1: 2 (0–6) compared with 6 (4–8) to 6 (2.5–8) in controls (P<0.001, for T1, Mann-Whitney U and unpaired t-test). Dog exposure was associated with significantly lower anxiety at T2 and a significant overall treatment effect on two-way repeated measures ANOVA for anxiety, pain and depression. After exposure, 1/40 in the dog group needed pain medication, versus 7/40 in controls (P = 0.056, Fisher's exact test). Conclusions Exposure to therapy dogs plus handlers significantly reduced anxiety in ED patients.


This document contains the details comments and recommendations of John Kyriazoglou (credentials at the end of this document) as the result of reviewing the 2011 COSO Draft Exposure, available at: http://www.ic.coso.org/provide-feedback.aspx. These relate to a variety of issues, such as: Comparison of new COSO (2011 version) to COSO 1992 Model, Using and applying new COSO framework, Strategy, Importance of strategy, Strategic and operational control, Objectives, Objective setting and internal control, General business goals, Business objectives, Principles, Internal Control Activities, Preventive and Detective controls, The role of the board in strategy, Lines of Defense, Performance Measures, Performance and risks, Role of board and management in performance, Role of board and management in accountability for internal control, Role of data privacy officer, Technology general controls, General IT Controls, Application Systems Controls, Safeguarding of assets, Audit trail, Compliance measurement, Business process control activities and Glossary.


This article draws from the experience of the ongoing drafting of the Regional Plan of the Centre Region of Portugal, and the empirical application of the Social Vulnerability Index proposed by Susan Cutter. It consists in the construction of an index of social vulnerability to natural and technological hazards and to social risks for all the municipalities of the region. Methodologically, it extends the vulnerability analysis to technological hazards and social risks, as a more encompassing view is necessary for the elaboration of prevention and civil protection policies. The results confirm the interactive nature of social vulnerability, and they also reflect the diffuse urbanisation and industrialisation patterns that characterise Portugal. The scattered nature of social facilities and security and health infrastructures pose specific challenges to planners concerning risk prevention and mitigation, and the elaboration of effective risk communication strategies adapted to specific hazards and risks in the studied municipalities. The article concludes with some reflections on the need to revise established paradigms of disaster analysis and emphasise the importance of pre‐event planning and the social cartography of vulnerable populations for effective prevention and security policies that take into account social inequalities and citizenship rights.


In the present essay, I want to suggest that the public dimension is a crucial issue in Kaprow's un-artistic art theory, and that this shift from art to "nonart" literally occurs as a transition from private to public: from private contemplation of "complete" paintings to artistic experience publicly performed and shared. Primarily, I will focus on his troubled relationship with painting. Then, I will concentrate on his ground-breaking reflections on framing and unframing. After that, I will analyse his most relevant theoretical achievements, environment and happening, emphasizing the active role of publicity in his personal idea of performance art. Finally, I will discuss his distinctive interpretation of "nonart", by comparing it with other substantial variations on the "post-art" theme, offered by different authors, either modernist or post-modernist. In the end, the Kaprowian un-artistic theory will emerge re-configured as a singular, and someway "aerial", utopian proposal for public art.


Vascular endothelial injury is the initial stage of atherosclerosis (AS). Stimulating and activating the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)/protein kinase B (Akt) signaling pathway can regulate the expression of vascular endothelial cytokines, thus affecting the occurrence and development of AS. In addition, the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway can regulate the polarization and survival of macrophages and the expression of inflammatory factors and platelet function, thus influencing the progression of AS. In recent years, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been widely recognized for its advantages of fewer side effects, multiple pathways, and multiple targets. Also, the research of TCM regulation of AS via the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway has achieved certain results. This study aimed to analyze the characteristics of the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway and its role in the pathogenesis of AS, as well as the role of Chinese medicine in regulating the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway. The findings are expected to provide a theoretical basis for the clinical treatment and pathological mechanism research of AS.


Since 1948 the World Health Organization (WHO) has established an international network of laboratories for the surveillance of influenza viruses. Currently, the Global Influenza Surveillance Network (GISN) includes 128 National Influenza Centers (NICs) distributed in 89 countries. Among their attributions the NICs are responsible for collecting and receiving specimens and virus isolates from patients suspected of being infected with influenza viruses and conducting preliminary laboratory analysis. Representative virus isolates are then selected and shipped to one of four specialized WHO Collaborating Centers (WHOCCs) for reference purposes and for advanced antigenic and genetic influenza analysis. Based on the results of this, the WHO makes an annual recommendation on influenza vaccine composition. NICs also alert the WHO to unusual outbreaks of influenza or influenza-like illness, and they detect non-subtypable and low-reacting virus isolates using the WHO diagnostic reagents provided through the GISN. Under the agreed terms of reference (www.who.int/csr/disease/ influenza/TORNICs.pdf), NICs must disseminate the generated data in FluNet (www.who.int/flunet), a webbased tool for the support and coordination of national and global influenza surveillance and reporting.


In this paper, we derive a new geometrical blind corner scattering model for vehicle-to- infrastructure (V2I) communications. The proposed model takes into account single-bounce and double- bounce scattering stemming from fixed scatterers located on both sides of the curved street. Starting from the geometrical blind corner model, the exact expression of the angle of departure (AOD) is derived. Based on this expression, the probability density function (PDF) of the AOD and the Doppler power spectrum are determined. Analytical expressions for the channel gain and the temporal autocorrelation function (ACF) are provided under non-line-of-sight (NLOS) conditions. Moreover, we investigate the impact of the position of transmitting vehicle relatively to the receiving road-side unit on the channel statistics. The proposed channel model is useful for the design and analysis of future V2I communication systems.


Paleoseismic data from 11 trenches at seven sites excavated across the southern Johnson Valley, Kickapoo, and Homestead Valley faults that ruptured in the 1992 Landers earthquake, as well as the northern Johnson Valley fault which did not fail in 1992, indicate that the return period for large surface rupturing events in this part of the eastern California shear zone is in the range of 5-15 ka. The inferred slip rates, based on their respective recurrence intervals, are in the range of 0.2-0.6 mm/yr for each of the faults studied. A previous large earthquake ruptured the southern Johnson Valley and Kickapoo faults about 5 ka B.P. The northern Johnson Valley fault also failed at about this time at 5.8 ka B.P. and may have been part of the same rupture. In contrast, the penultimate large earthquake that we identify on the Homestead Valley fault occurred about 15 ka B.P., much earlier than other faults involved in the 1992 rupture. From these observations, combined with paleoseismic work by others after the 1992 earth- quake, it appears that previous events along the southern Johnson Valley and Kick- apoo faults were different than those of 1992 and may have involved other fault segments. It has been over 5 ka since the most recent rupture on the northern Johnson Valley fault. Therefore, it is surprising that it did not fail in the 1992 rupture. From our observations, dextral shear appears to be distributed across the entire eastern California shear zone, with individual faults taking only a small proportion of the overall slip. Release of this regional strain appears to occur in temporal clusters of large (?) earthquakes, with the 1992 event apparently the most recent of a sequence of late Holocene (0-1 ka) earthquakes that have ruptured the nine faults we have trenched in the southwestern Mojave desert. Previous clusters of earthquake activity occurred in the early (8-9 ka) and middle (5-6 ka) Holocene, and possibly the latest Pleistocene (15 ka).


The number of elderly and multi-morbid patients on the list for kidney transplantation has increased rapidly over the past decade. The presented case is about a 64-year old patient, suffering from chronic kidney disease due to benign nephrosclerosis. After eight years on list for kidney transplantation, a 43-year old deceased donor was accepted and the patient was assigned for kidney transplantation. Intraoperatively the kidney transplantation turned out to be unexpectedly challenging due to severe arteriosclerosis of the recipient iliac vessels while the donor graft quality was excellent. The kidney transplantation was stopped after the second attempt due to repeated intima dissection of the iliac artery. The kidney graft was reperfused with UW-solution after each attempt. After the second attempt the flow of the iliac vessels was compromised. In order to maintain the arterial flow of the iliac vessels, a crossover bypass was required, which was performed without any impairment of the lower extremities' blood perfusion. The patient could be discharged 12 days after the surgery. The remaining kidney-graft, with total cold ischemic time of 25 hours and total warm ischemic time of 85 (25+35+25) minutes, was transplanted to a 61-years old female patient. The primary graft function was excellent with decreasing serum creatinine level and sufficient diuresis. The doppler-duplex scanning showed good perfusion of the graft. The patient was discharged eight days after transplantation. On the 10-years follow-up, the patients had still an excellent graft function with creatinine value of 1.5 mg/dl. Although one case is not enough to make conclusions, it shows that the transplantation of such kidneygrafts with multiple cold and warm ischemic times to another patient should be considered as an option in these situations.


Abstract When government agencies interact with nonprofit organizations they have various effects on the organization's capacity. But, it is unclear how a particular agency's environment-both internal (i. e. organizational culture) and external (i. e. resource dependency)-determines whether government's influence on that agency will be positive or negative. Using data from a survey of child welfare nonprofits, this paper examines to what extent a nonprofit's relationship with government improves or hinders their capacity. Evidence suggests that the nonprofit's organizational culture, dependency on government funds, and relational contracting has a significant impact on the perception that governmental interaction has made capacity better or worse. Contrary to expectations, there are improvements in management activities as government funding and contracts increases.


Pregnancy has long been associated with the first presentation of clinical leprosy or aggravation of the existing disease. In Germany leprosy has been diagnosed in 107 patients since 1980. A 27-year-old Singhalese female, gravida 2 at 14 weeks' gestation was admitted with well defined, elevated, erythematous lesions on her cheeks and nose. Clinical examination revealed central anaesthesia in the lesions. No further signs of leprosy in the skin, the mucosae and the peripheral nerves were found. Fite-Faraco staining of the skin biopsy showed sporadic acid-fast bacilli and confirmed an active subpolar tuberculoid leprosy (TTs). Outpatient treatment was immediately initiated with oral rifampin 600 mg monthly and dapsone 100 mg daily. During the 4-month treatment cycle the skin lesions vanished completely. Additional leprosy reactions did not occur and the medication was well tolerated. However, in the 32nd gestational week the patient was readmitted with premature labour and 3 weeks later Caesarean section was performed because of cardiotocographic pathology. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for M. leprae of placental tissue was negative. Antibodies against phenolic glycolipid 1 (PGL 1) of M. leprae (IgM-Elisa and Dot-Elisa) from cord blood, maternal and newborn blood were not found. On the fifth postpartal day the healthy mother and her baby were discharged. In conclusion, leprosy in pregnancy can be treated safely and successfully by combined drug therapy.


Correlated trait–correlated method minus one was used to evaluate convergent and discriminant validity of Social Competence Behavior Evaluation questionnaire (Social Competence, Anger-Aggression, Anxiety-Withdrawal) between multiple raters. A total of 369 children (173 boys and 196 girls; Mage = 55.85, SDage = 11.54) were rated by their mothers, fathers, and teachers. Results showed more convergence between parents than parent-teacher ratings. Mother-teacher share a common view of child behavior that is not shared with father. Parents had more difficulty distinguishing internalizing and externalizing behaviors (especially fathers). Measurement invariance across child sex was explored, results imply that differences between boys and girls were not due to measure. Girls (compare to boys) were described as more social competent by their fathers and teachers, while boys as more aggressive by mothers and teachers.


Millions of reproductive-age U.S. women experience premenstrual symptoms with varying degrees of severity. The large number and variety of premenstrual symptoms reported have made premenstrual disorders difficult to characterize. A number of mechanisms have been proposed to explain the etiology of premenstrual symptoms. Some women appear to have a genetic predisposition toward severe premenstrual symptoms or to have vulnerability traits that increase their risk. It has been suggested that 1 or more neurotransmitters and/or neurohormonal systems in certain women may have an abnormal response to normal fluctuations in gonadal hormones across the menstrual cycle. Premenstrual disorders can have a significant negative impact on a woman's quality of life and work productivity.


The last few years have witnessed the emergence of RFID system in a lot of application fields. However, a key issue that affects the universal deployments of the RFID system is the the tag collisions, which are caused by that multiple tags tries to transmit their digital identifiers through the air interface simultaneously. In this paper, a biased query tree protocol to resolve the collision occurred in the multiple access channel is proposed, and the performance of this protocol is well analyzed. Based on the discussion, a biased bi-slot binary query tree protocol for the efficient and complete resolution of memory less RFID tags is presented. Numeric evaluations verify that this protocol performs a little better than the binary query tree and modified query tree protocols.


In this reading we discuss counting. Often, we are interested in the cardinality of some finite set. For example in discrete probability theory, which we won't get to in this course, we want to count the size of the set of "good" outcomes and then related to the size of the set of all possible outcomes. We begin with some basic counting techniques which we illustrate on multiple examples. After that, we generalize some of the basic techniques and give examples of their applications.


The influence of external interference on neuromagnetic source reconstruction by adaptive beamformer techniques was investigated. In our analysis, we assume that the interference has the following two properties: First, it is additive and uncorrelated with brain activity. Second, its temporal behavior can be characterized by a few distinct activities, and as a result, the spatio-temporal matrix of the interference has a few distinctly large singular values. Namely, the interference can be modeled as a low-rank signal. Under these assumptions, our analysis shows that the adaptive beamformer techniques are insensitive to interference when its spatial singular vectors are so different from a lead field vector of a brain source that the generalized cosine between these two vectors is much smaller than unity. Four types of numerical examples verifying this conclusion are presented.


Confidential self-report data obtained on 107 adult male child sexual abusers were analyzed to test theoretical propositions concerning the role of attachment problems in the onset of sexual offending. Offenders' parent–child attachment relationships were most frequently characterized by affectionless control, reflecting low parental care and high overprotection and control. Offenders reported significantly less secure attachment with their fathers than with their mothers. Overall, weak continuity from childhood attachment to trait (general) adult attachment was found, with insecure attachment more stable than secure attachment. Childhood attachment problems, particularly with fathers, were more clearly reflected in state adult attachment (i.e., in the month preceding sexual offending onset) than in trait adult attachment. Offenders who were in an adult intimate relationship prior to their onset sexual offense reported significant state increases in attachment avoidance, and their onset offenses were more likely to involve a female familial victim. Offenders who were not in a relationship prior to offending onset were younger, and their onset sexual offenses occurred in much more diverse circumstances. These findings provide tentative evidence that directly and indirectly implicates offenders' attachment problems specifically in the onset of their sexual abuse behavior. Implications for developmental prevention and early intervention, situational prevention, and offender treatment are discussed.


We introduce relaying utilization statistical metrics to quantify the contribution of a relay node to the overall relaying process in cooperative diversity systems. Motivated by the second order statistics of the relay fading channel, the following metrics are defined: i) the average relaying selection rate, ii) the average relaying utilization time, and iii) the average relaying waiting time. These metrics are important for the cooperative systems' design, especially for applications where power consumption and delay are major concerns. As an application, we present exact analytical expressions of these parameters in an amplify-and-forward relaying system with selection diversity and diamond topology over Rayleigh fading channels.


An essay reflecting on the work of artist and influential teacher David Bomberg, in the context of simultaneous exhibitions in London in late 2012: one focusing on a circle of artists taught by Bomberg at Borough Polytechnic in the late 1940s; the other showing early works of Bomberg's best-known student, Frank Auerbach. The essay goes on to consider how Glenn Brown's appropriation of Bomberg's images retroactively alters perceptions of this milieu.


In order to prevent hip fracture among the elderly , hip protectors are expected to be one of the most effective methods. In the present paper , we performed dynamic finite element analyses to elucidate the mechanism of hip fracture prevention by hip protectors and to suggest a design guide . Firstly, we constructed an elderly Japanese female finite element model . The femur, soft tissue of thigh and the other body segments were incorporated into the model . Then various types of protectors were modeled, and the analyses to simulate fall were carried out by using them . The results of the simulations showed that a hollow structure pad was effective for fracture prevention , and that the mechanism of fracture prevention is not only the attenuation of impact by hip pad , but also the reduction of load on the greater trochanter due to load distribution to the surrounding soft tissue.


In today's overwhelming world of data, ultra-wideband communication systems are the inevitable parts of the communication society that has faced scientists with challenging and new problems. Appearance of nonlinear effects in optical fiber communication systems due to wideband data transmissions with the aid of ultra-short pulses has recently attracted a lot of publicity. In this paper, a thorough study of nonlinear effects both in time and frequency domain has been carried out to analyze the propagation of super-Gaussian ultra-short pulses in nonlinear optical fibers. The results show different behavior of nonlinear optical fibers at specific lengths, frequency and levels of nonlinearity. Moreover, with the aid of negative third order dispersion parameter, the frequency shift in the output profile has been successfully compensated.


Of all the major plant groups, the grasses, with the complete genomes of five species, are the best positioned to take advantage of comparative genomics to obtain insight into functional genetic elements. Of all the grasses, maize is the best characterized in terms of genetics, development, and evolution. We provide several examples of how the web-based comparative genomics system CoGe may be used to aid in the interpretation of the maize genome sequence. These examples include verifying gene models, identifying differences between genome assemblies, identifying conserved non-coding sequences, identifying syntenic regions between species and polyploidies, and identifying homeologs within maize and orthologs between maize and other grass genomes. In addition, a comprehensive list of orthologous gene sets is provided between maize and Sorghum, foxtail millet, rice, and Brachypodium.


As the population of patients undergoing orthotopic heart transplantation increases, more patients are likely to develop surgical complications unrelated to the transplant procedure. This article reviews 38 extracardiac surgical complications sustained in 18 of 48 patients undergoing orthotopic heart transplantation at our institution over a 4-year period. Twenty-seven complications (71.1%) required operative intervention most commonly in an urgent or emergent manner (59.3%). Three patients underwent six laparotomies. Infection was the cause in almost half of all complications and in 65% of those requiring surgery. Gastrointestinal hemorrhage was common and successfully managed nonoperatively in all cases. The overall operative mortality was 11% with only two deaths related to a surgical complication. The satisfactory outcome in these patients can be attributed to the early diagnosis of complications, timely therapeutic intervention, careful adjustment of immunosuppressive agents, and close patient follow-up with the transplant institution.


An important open question in the area of vertex sparsification is whether $(1+\epsilon)$-approximate cut-preserving vertex sparsifiers with size close to the number of terminals exist. The work Chalermsook et al. (SODA 2021) introduced a relaxation called connectivity-$c$ mimicking networks, which asks to construct a vertex sparsifier which preserves connectivity among $k$ terminals exactly up to the value of $c$, and showed applications to dynamic connectivity data structures and survivable network design. We show that connectivity-$c$ mimicking networks with $\widetilde{O}(kc^3)$ edges exist and can be constructed in polynomial time in $n$ and $c$, improving over the results of Chalermsook et al. (SODA 2021) for any $c \ge \log n$, whose runtimes depended exponentially on $c$.


Introduction: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second leading cause of cancer deaths despite a survival rate of over 90% when detected early. Currently, less than half of guideline eligible individuals are screened regularly for CRC, highlighting a need for improved non-invasive methods of early detection. We previously identified and validated a blood-based biomarker, Septin 9, which identifies methylated DNA in plasma from all stages of CRC. We have now conducted a genome-wide screen to identify additional blood-based biomarkers that either augment the performance of Septin 9 for CRC detection or perform individually as well as Septin 9. Methods: Differential methylation hybridization (DMH) via customized high-density microarrays with >50,000 features was used to explore methylation differences between Septin 9 (-) CRC (n = 13), Septin 9 (+) CRC (n = 14), normal adjacent to tumor (NAT, n = 11) and whole blood (n = 8) DNA. Significant probesets were identified using a Benjamin-Hochberg false discovery rate of 0.25 and ranked by t statistic. The top 65 DMH and 62 literature candidates were chosen for real-time PCR assay development and validated using tissues from 51 Septin 9 (-) CRCs, 147 Septin 9 (+) CRCs, 8 NATs and 14 normal colon epithelia in addition to 94 other disease and normal tissues. Ten of these candidates were chosen for HMO assay development and the performances of the four most promising candidates were evaluated in plasma from 136 CRC patients and 170 colonoscopy-verified controls using a case-control study design. Results: 7026 statistically significant probesets for all CRC tissues versus NAT and whole blood and 7280 significant probesets for Septin 9 (+) CRC versus Septin 9 (-) CRC were identified. Comparison of the top 150 candidates for Septin 9 (-) CRC versus whole blood and versus Septin 9 (+) CRC yielded 224 unique candidates. Results of real-time PCR analysis validated 26 of 45 biomarker candidates, with significant overlap between those CRC tissues identified by Septin 9 and those identified by the new candidates (all Spearman R values > 0.48). Using HM real-time PCR analysis in DNA extracted from plasma, Septin 9 detected 85/136 CRC patients (63%) and 27/170 controls (16%). The four new biomarkers detected from 54/136 CRC patients (40%) to 74/136 CRC patients (54%) and from 18/170 controls (11%) to 42/170 controls (25%). Conclusions: By using a systematic screen, we identified 26 biomarkers that specifically discriminated CRC from normal colon tissues, although complementarity to Septin 9 was limited. Plasma-based, highly sensitive real-time PCR assays were successfully developed for four of these biomarkers. All biomarkers identified a similar subset of CRC patient plasmas, with slight variations in sensitivity and specificity. Septin 9 remains the best biomarker for maximizing sensitivity and specificity on plasma DNA. Citation Information: In: Proc Am Assoc Cancer Res; 2009 Apr 18-22; Denver, CO. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; 2009. Abstract nr 1326.


Paleoenvironmental studies provides crucial long-term data to study both anthropogenic disturbance and/or climate changes, and their effects on the environment. We used a multi-disciplinary approach to reconstruct past landscapes in Lake Anterne watershed (Haute-Savoie, French Alps) over the Holocene. In a previous study, DNA metabarcoding approach was carried out to evidence the important role of livestock farming on erosion processes (Giguet-Covex et al. submitted). Here, we focus on impact of climate changes and human activities on plant cover. DNA extracted from lacustrine archives was amplified with universal primers for plants and sequenced using high-throughput sequencing. For each period, we selected ecologically informative taxa (i.e. taxa specific of particular conditions : plant community, soils, land-use…) in the aim to obtain an image of the environment at this time. These results combined with previously obtained geochemical and sedimentological approaches allowed to reconstruct past landscapes and to determine drivers of changes.


Soybean emergence, grain yield, seasonal water use, water use efficiency (WUE), and irrigation water use efficiency (IWUE) were compared for four irrigation methods and five irrigation rates during the 2005 season. The irrigation methods were mid-elevation spray applicators (MESA), low-elevation spray applicators (LESA), low energy spray applicators (LEPA), and subsurface drip irrigation (SDI). Irrigation rates were 0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% of the full crop water requirement. Soybean emergence was less with SDI compared with MESA, LESA, and LEPA for all irrigation rates. Grain yield, WUE, and IWUE were greater for SDI at the 25% and 50% irrigation rates, but MESA resulted in greater grain yield, WUE, and IWUE at the 100% irrigation rate. Near-surface soil temperatures were also measured for each irrigation method but at the 50% and 100% irrigation rates only. Soil temperatures were compared in terms of cumulative soil heat units (CSHU). Early season CSHU were significantly greater for SDI at both the 50% and 100% irrigation rates. At the 50% rate, CSHU for MESA and LESA became greater than SDI by V4 to V6 stage, possibly because SDI plants had greater vigor and increased soil shading. At the 100% rate, CSHU for SDI was greater than MESA or LESA throughout the season. LEPA resulted in the least CSHU at the 50% rate, but had the greatest CSHU at the 100% rate. However, the LEPA results may have been affected by run on and run off of irrigation water due to furrow dike erosion.


We study the two lowest-energy isomers of the Ge(111)-(2 x 1) surface, by a state-of-the-art first-principles calculation of their optical spectra, including the electron-hole interaction effects. A comparison of our results with the available experimental data suggests that, at difference with the silicon case, the stablest isomer differs from the standard "buckled Pandey chains" reconstruction. This conclusion is supported by accurate total-energy results.


Summary.  Objective: To elucidate the mechanism and the binding regions of monoclonal antibodies (MA) that interfere with thrombin‐activatable fibrinolysis inhibitor (TAFI)/activated thrombin‐activatable fibrinolysis inhibitor (TAFIa) activity. Results: Of 42 MA, 19 interfere with the TAFI activation/TAFIa activity resulting in an inhibition of up to 92%. Characterization of the mechanism of inhibition revealed that 14 MA blocked the activation of TAFI by thrombin/thrombomodulin completely whereas five MA interfered directly with the enzymatic activity of TAFIa. Surprisingly, the former, except one, induced a significant reduction of clot lysis time whereas the latter did not. Affinity studies using a human/murine TAFI chimer revealed that the binding region of the 14 activation blocking MA is located between AA1 and AA67. MA that inhibit exclusively the activation of TAFI by thrombin/thrombomodulin bind to Gly66. A MA that inhibits the activation of TAFI by both thrombin/thrombomodulin and plasmin binds to Val41. The MA that interfere with the enzymatic activity bind to the TAFIa moiety. Conclusions: The current study reveals at least three different putative molecular targets in the search for pharmacologically active compounds to modulate TAFIa activity.


Abstract Although museums of all kinds have become increasingly concerned to reflect cultural difference within their collections and displays, museum practice remains selective and inconsistent. One area that has been especially neglected is the representation of disabled peoples' lives. This paper presents the findings of a research project undertaken by the Research Centre for Museums and Galleries, which set out to explore the hidden history of disability. The research found that wide-ranging collections of all kinds contain a wealth of relevant material although this is rarely displayed in a way which directly acknowledges its link to disability. Where material is displayed, this can sometimes be interpreted in ways which echo negative stereotypical representations of disabled people prevalent in other media. The paper argues that museums have the capacity to challenge understanding of what disability has meant to society in the past and could mean in the future by contesting reductive stereotypes, addressing the'difficult stories' surrounding disability history and presenting the diversity of disability experience.


State-of-the-art fault localization tools provide a ranked list of suspicious code elements to aid the user in this debugging activity. Statistical (or Spectrum-Based) Fault Localization (SFL/SBFL) uses code coverage information of test cases and their execution outcomes to calculate the ranks. We propose an approach (called iFL) in which the developer interacts with the fault localization algorithm by giving feedback on the elements of the prioritized list. Contextual knowledge of the user about the current item (e. g., a statement) is exploited in the ranked list, and with this feedback larger code entities (e. g., a whole function) can be repositioned in the list. In our initial set of experiments, we evaluated the approach on the SIR benchmark using simulated users. Results showed significant improvements in fault localization accuracy: the ranking position of the buggy element was reduced by 72% on average, and iFL was able to double the number of faults that were positioned between 1-5.


This report is based on the basic postulate that if the overall goal of anatomy departments is to function as vigorous academic and scholastic communities welcoming research and innovative thinking, there will be implications for the nature of anatomy teaching. In developing this theme, perceptions about the meaning of the term "anatomy" are explored, as are the repercussions of teaching anatomy entirely within the context of a medical curriculum. There have been a variety of responses to the perceived demise of anatomy, resulting in a discipline that is heterogeneous, both in terms of teaching and research emphases. The options open to university departments are assessed by way of the model of third‐wave departments, with their characteristics of excellence, flexibility, planning, networking, and risk‐taking. The consequences of this model for anatomy departments include the importance of a research emphasis, a close conceptual link between teaching and research, and a structural base for the research. In view of these consequences, three distinct forms of teaching are recognized: undergraduate teaching to medical and other health science students, undergraduate teaching to science students, and postgraduate teaching. Some of the distinctive features of the two forms of undergraduate teaching are explored. Various central contentions (myths) regarding anatomy departments and anatomy education are rejected. Clin. Anat. 10:34–40, 1997 © 1997 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


The Summer Island area of the Pleistocene Mackenzie Delta, western Canadian Arctic, is thought to have been last glaciated during the Early Wisconsinan (>35 ka), with a suggested Late Wisconsinan (~13 ka) glacial limit located ~80–100 km to the south. Cryostratigraphic observations in the Summer Island area identify eolian and fluvial sediments overlying an erosion surface. On Summer Island, eolian sand occurs within sand wedges, the tops of which are contiguous with an eolian sand sheet deposited on a formerly bare ice surface. This paleo-ice surface is attributed to fluvial erosion, and that in turn is attributed to proglacial meltwater activity. The age of erosion is inferred to be shortly before ~14 ka, determined by optical dating (using infrared stimulation of luminescence from feldspar) of the eolian sand wedges. This ~14 ka meltwater erosion is significantly north of the generally accepted limit of Late Wisconsinan glaciation in this coastal area, suggesting that ice last covered the whole of Rich...


ABSTRACT Increasing the number of women in the STEM labour market has been presented by policymakers and industry representatives as an opportunity to address purported skill shortages in the sector. National governments have spent considerable sums on initiatives aimed at increasing the proportion of girls and women who study science and work in STEM jobs, with a particular focus on increasing the number of female STEM graduates. Although there is a considerable literature on gendered patterns of STEM education, the employment of recent STEM graduates, and gender pay gaps in the STEM workforce, there are important gaps in our knowledge about the position of STEM graduates. We combine several high-quality large-scale data sets to provide a comprehensive overview of the relationship between gender, STEM degree subjects and employment destinations in the first decade of this century. We found that labour market destinations were closely linked to undergraduate STEM subject choice but that gendered differences persisted within subject areas. Throughout their early and mid-career years, women with STEM degrees were more likely than their male peers to be employed in 'caring' professions, such as health and education, be employed in 'lower status' associate professional positions, and less likely to hold managerial positions.


Plant regeneration of maize genotypes known to be resistant to leaf-feeding by the fall armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda (J. E. Smith), was attempted via somatic embryogenesis. Successful regeneration from callus tissue cultures was achieved for the maize genotypes `Antigua 2D-118', `MpSWCB-4', `Mp496', and some selected single crosses. Progeny from these regenerates were evaluated under laboratory and field conditions for their levels of resistance to fall armyworm leaf-feeding as compared to their respective non-regenerated parental lines. Significant differences in resistance to leaf-feeding by the fall armyworm were observed between the regenerated and non-regenerated lines. Differences were of a positive as well as a negative nature in regards to the levels of resistance in the regenerates as compared to their non-regenerated parental line. This is further evidence of the potential of somaclonal variation for obtaining agronomically useful traits for crop improvement, in this instance plant resistance to insect attack.


We present a single neural network architecture composed of task-agnostic components (ViTs, convolutions, and LSTMs) that achieves state-of-art results on both the ImageNav ("go to location in") and ObjectNav ("find a chair") tasks without any task-specific modules like object detection, segmentation, mapping, or planning modules. Such general-purpose methods offer advantages of simplicity in design, positive scaling with available compute, and versatile applicability to multiple tasks. Our work builds upon the recent success of self-supervised learning (SSL) for pre-training vision transformers (ViT). However, while the training recipes for convolutional networks are mature and robust, the recipes for ViTs are contingent and brittle, and in the case of ViTs for visual navigation, yet to be fully discovered. Specifically, we find that vanilla ViTs do not outperform ResNets on visual navigation. We propose the use of a compression layer operating over ViT patch representations to preserve spatial information along with policy training improvements. These improvements allow us to demonstrate positive scaling laws for the first time in visual navigation tasks. Consequently, our model advances state-of-the-art performance on ImageNav from 54.2% to 82.0% success and performs competitively against concurrent state-of-art on ObjectNav with success rate of 64.0% vs. 65.0%. Overall, this work does not present a fundamentally new approach, but rather recommendations for training a general-purpose architecture that achieves state-of-art performance today and could serve as a strong baseline for future methods.


Ginger is a treasured preservative, spice and flavoring agent. It is used at length in pickles, sauces, cakes, cookies, jams and marmalades, brine, candies, ginger ale, ginger beer, curries, tea and many other food items. In addition, Ginger has been appreciated as therapeutic spice from ancient times. Ginger, one of the most known emerging cash crops with high business and marketing potentiality has been under cultivation since time immemorial in Lower Dibang Valley district of Arunachal Pradesh due to its conducive climate. However, it is interesting to know that, at the beginning; it has been used as local spice, and was considered an inevitable object in performing cultural rituals. It has been widely used in different cultural and social occasions like marriage ceremony, festival, offering and sacrifice to Good and devil spirits. From early 1990, saga of ginger cultivation took a new turn, as large-scale cultivation and thereby, commercialization had picked up momentum in lower Dibang valley district of Arunachal Pradesh. Significant percentages of about 60% of every household undertake ginger cultivation, and on average 25% of dry cultivable land are used for it in Lower Diba.


Endometritis is frequently encountered in brood mare practice and is one of the main causes of infertility. Several methods, including among others cytology, bacteriology and histopathology, are used for diagnosis, however, even the combined use of these methods may not produce a definitive result. The objective of this study was to make an assessment of the diagnostic efficiency of centrifuged liquid-based cytology (LBC) in comparison to the determination of: 1) the presence of polymorphonuclear cells (PMNs) in the uterine epithelium and stratum compactum by histopathology; 2) the presence of PMNs by cytology and 3) the presence of uterine infection by microbiology. Fifty mares of varying age, which belonged to the Jockey Club of Turkey, were used in this study. Endometrial samples were harvested using the cytobrush (CB) and endometrial biopsy (EB) techniques for microbiological, Cytological and histopathological examinations. The comparison of liquidbased cytology (LBC) with histopathological diagnosis (HD), which is considered to be the best standard, showed that the sensitivity (SE), specificity (SP), predictive value of positive test (PVP), and predictive value of negative test (PVN) of LBC were 0.5000, 0.4000, 0.7692 and 0.6087, respectively. No coherence was detected between the results of these two methods (P = 0.0166). Furthermore, it was ascertained that LBC failed in detecting degenerative and fibrotic alterations in the endometrial glands. LBC slides provide sharp images of well-dispersed cells, and enable greater diagnostic sensitivity and certainty. Thus, as the area examined is small, the identification of the target cells is relatively easy.


An FIR (finite impulse response) predictor based approach is presented to increase the highest possible velocity sampling rate of a cycle-length measuring based velocity feedback system. The proposed method improves the slow-speed characteristics of optical pulse encoders in applications where the angular velocities down to about 0.5 RPM are of interest. The proposed principle works well in elevator control applications where the approximate shape of the low-speed curve is a second order polynomial. However, the same principle with an appropriate set of predictor coefficients can be applied to more general velocity sensing applications, as well. >


Deregulation of the electricity market in North America has resulted in many new challenges for electrical utilities, their regulators and the national laboratories that provide calibration and traceability for their equipment. The deregulated marketplace now allows small distributed generation installations often connected in rural distribution networks where power quality is more likely to be an issue. It is therefore important to know what impact the increased level of harmonics will have on measuring equipment, particularly equipment used in revenue billing applications and for the safe operation and control of the new "smarter" power grid. This paper discusses some of the research and development initiatives undertaken at the National Research Council of Canada to address the changing test and calibration requirements of the electrical power industry.


Abstract This study investigated factors that enhanced and constrained the career development of six teachers, who had graduated from the same university teacher education program, in their induction years (Woods & Earls, 1995) and again later in their career cycles. Three participants were physical education teachers (PETs), and three were former physical education teachers (FPETs). Fessler's (1985) Teacher Career Stage Model provided the theoretical framework. Data sources were: interviews with teachers and their teacher educators and direct observations of lessons. Results indicated that the PETs continued to have skill development as their primary teaching objective. The teachers maintained many of their teaching skills, and shifted between the career cycles of "competency building" and "enthusiastic and growing." All three FPETs left their physical education positions during the career frustration stage and at the time of publication were in the career exit stage.


Holistic driving scene understanding is a critical step toward intelligent transportation systems. It involves different levels of analysis, interpretation, reasoning and decision making. In this paper, we propose a 3D dynamic scene analysis framework as the first step toward driving scene understanding. Specifically, given a sequence of synchronized 2D and 3D sensory data, the framework systematically integrates different perception modules to obtain 3D position, orientation, velocity and category of traffic participants and the ego car in a reconstructed 3D semantically labeled traffic scene. We implement this framework and demonstrate the effectiveness in challenging urban driving scenarios. The proposed framework builds a foundation for higher level driving scene understanding problems such as intention and motion prediction of surrounding entities, ego motion planning, and decision making.


CONTEXT
Childhood depression is a serious and relapsing psychiatric disorder. However, to date studies have focused mostly on children aged 6 years and older. Validation for depression in preschool children has been provided by 2 independent study samples. While several studies have demonstrated stability and poor outcomes of internalizing symptoms in preschoolers, there has not yet been longitudinal data available to inform the course of preschool depression and whether it shows homotypic continuity into early childhood.

OBJECTIVE
To examine the 24-month course of preschool depression and whether it showed homotypic vs heterotypic continuity or was a developmentally transient phenomenon.

DESIGN
Blindly rated, prospective, 24-month, longitudinal follow-up study.

SETTING
Community sites. Patients Three hundred six preschoolers aged 3 to 6 years recruited from community sites and oversampled for symptoms of depression. Main Outcome Measure Recurrence/stability of depression and predictors of course.

RESULTS
Preschoolers with depression at baseline had the highest likelihood of subsequent depression 12 and/or 24 months later compared with preschoolers with no baseline disorder and with those who had other psychiatric disorders. Preschoolers with depression at baseline were more likely to have later depression rather than other psychiatric disorders. Findings from a logistic regression analysis indicated that when controlling for demographic variables, risk factors, and comorbid disorders, depression during the preschool period and family history of affective disorders were the most robust and significant predictors of later depression.

CONCLUSIONS
Preschool depression, similar to childhood depression, is not a developmentally transient syndrome but rather shows chronicity and/or recurrence. Homotypic continuity of preschool MDD during a 24-month period was found. These results underscore the clinical and public health importance of identification of depression as early as preschool. Further follow-up of preschoolers with depression is warranted to inform the longitudinal course throughout childhood.


Because a resonator with perfect electrically conducting (PEC) walls has no complications with absorbing boundary conditions and, for canonical geometries, the resonant frequencies are trivial to find, resonators are often used for analyzing the performance of finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) methods. However, when testing the performance of boundary implementations in an FDTD scheme, one should compare to the resonant frequencies of a "perfect" discretized resonator (not to the mode frequencies in the continuous world). On the other hand, when testing the dispersion properties of a method, the resonant frequencies for some structures can be obtained directly from the dispersion relation, thus obviating the need for any simulation. Here, we demonstrate how the dispersion relation can be used to obtain all the resonant frequencies of a rectangular resonator modeled with the Yee algorithm. Furthermore, it is shown that modes that are degenerate in the continuous world can split into distinct modes in FDTD resonators, while modes that are separate in the continuous world can combine in FDTD resonators, thus yielding extra or missing modes. Analytic results are verified using numerical simulations.


Background
Neonatal health remains a thrust area of public health, and an increased out-of-pocket expenditure (OOPE) may hamper efforts toward universal health coverage. Public spending on health remains low and insurance schemes few, thereby forcing impoverishment upon individuals already close to poverty line.

Objective
To determine catastrophic health expenditure (CHE) in neonates admitted to the government neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and factors associated with of out-of-pocket expenditure.

Methods
This cross-sectional study was conducted in a governmental NICU at Agra from May 2017 to April 2018. A sample of 450 neonatal admissions was studied. Respondents were interviewed for required data. OOPE included costs at NICU, intervening health facilities, and transport as well. SPSS version (23.0 Trial) and Epi Info were used for analysis.

Results
Of the 450 neonates analyzed, the median total OOPE was Rs. 3000. CHE was found among 55.8% of cases with 22% spending more than their household monthly income. On binary logistic regression, a higher total OOPE of Rs. 3000 or more was found to be significantly associated with higher odds of residing outside Agra (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 1.829), delay in first cry (AOR = 1.623), referral points ≥3 (AOR = 3.449), private sector as first referral (AOR = 2.476), and when treatment was accorded during transport (AOR = 1.972).

Conclusions
OOPE on neonates amounts to a substantial figure and is more than the country average. This needs to be addressed sufficiently and comprehensively through government schemes, private enterprises, and public-private partnerships.


Existing time-dependent blood viscosity models that involve aggregation dynamics are mainly based on structural variables and/or viscoelastic models in order to describe the bulk mechanical properties of the fluid, but the implications of important characteristics of blood microstructure, such as the time- and flow-dependent characteristics of the red blood cell network developed due to aggregation at low shear rates, have not been thoroughly investigated. In this paper a time-dependent blood viscosity model is developed based on an energy-rate model previously proposed (Skalak et al., Biophys. J. 35 (1977), 771-781), which describes the total work needed to overcome the various forces developed between aggregated cells, including the adhesive, elastic and dissipative forces. Novel formulations of the forces acting on the fluid are developed and implemented in a volume-averaged version of the energy-rate model. The calculation of the viscosity is based on the relationship between the rate of energy changes and shear stress per unit volume of the fluid. The results show that network characteristics may significantly influence the viscosity blood at low shear rates and exhibit good agreement with experimental observations.


Samples with a nominal composition of Bi2-xSbxSr2CaCu2Oy were synthesized by the standard solid state reaction. In this paper, a new phase in these samples is identified by selected-area electron diffraction and the X-ray energy dispersive spectrum. The new phase, with composition Bi6Sr5(Ca,Sb)5Oz, belongs to the monoclinic system, A-base centred lattice, with cell dimensions a=21.73 AA, b=5.76 AA, c=19.32 AA, beta =95.0 degrees . The influence of the monoclinic phase on the improvement of superconductivity is also discussed.


This article discusses the transformation of Islamic education in the early period, that is from the epoch of the prophet Muhammad. In the period of the prophet Muhammad, Islamic education activity took place in its simple form, centered on the companions residents. Prophet Muhammad as uswatun hasanah and rahmatan lil 'alamin for those expecting the grace and the coming of the Day of Judgment is the first and foremost educators in the world of Islamic education. The transformation process of science, spiritualism internalization of values and emotional guidance of the Prophet Muhammad is incredible miracles and ordinary man may not be able to do so. Implementation of guidance of Islamic education in the time of Prophet Muhammad conducted in two phases which of Mecca, as the initial phase of guidance of Islamic education and the phase of Medina, as the improvement phase guidance of Islamic education.


In order to make the most use of the available light in glasshouse crops, measurements of light penetration, leaf photosynthesis, respiration and transpiration were performed at five levels in a sweet paper canopy at two commercial farms, from July to November 2004. Light response curves of leaf photosynthesis showed that photosynthesis, transpiration respiration decreased from top to bottom in the canopy. These reductions in gas exchange lower in the canopy likely result from adaptation to lower ambient light conditions as well as leaf aging. At a low light intensity of 50 µmol m-2 s-1 above the canopy, the net photosynthesis in the top 25% of the leaves (2 m2 m-2 ) was positive, while at a higher light irradiance, 200 µmol m-2 s-1, the top 50% (4 m2 m-2) was positive. From the middle of August onwards, the net photosynthesis of the lower half of the crop was negative. Based on these measurements, the contribution of each leaf level to the net crop photosynthesis and transpiration was calculated. On an annual basis, the lower half of the crop made a 0.5% negative contribution to net photosynthesis, while making a 10% positive contribution to crop transpiration. Thus, removal of leaves from the lower levels might increase the efficiency of energy utilization. In this contribution, participation of leaves from different part of the canopy in crop photosynthesis and transpiration were quantified and discussed in relation to growth, production and energy utilization


Umbilical cord blood transplantation has many potential advantages over Bone Marrow Transplantation using other donor sources to patients in need of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Collecting of Umbilical cord blood is a technically simple procedure that poses no foreseeable health risks to the mother or the fetus. The results achieved during the last 10 years of the European Transplantation Centers define this new technology as vanguard and perspective, alternative treatment of the patients obtained oncological disorders.


I. Introduction, and Description of Area. The Geological Survey Map (Sheet 78 N.E.) of the district lying immediately south of the town of Conway reveals an outcrop of Tarannon Shales, which is curious as regards its relation to the associated formations, since the Tarannon Shales are represented as being both underlain and overlain by rocks of Wenlock age. This circumstance led us to examine this special area; and our attention having already been directed to the occurrence of graptolitic shales below the Tarannons in other parts of Wales, we thought it' possible that they might also be present in the Conway district. Our observations in that district have extended over a fairly wide region, including the greater part of the valley of the Afon Gyflin between Conway and Y–Ro; but the only area which we have mapped in anything like detail lies immediately south of the town of Conway itself, and occupies the hill opposite Conway Castle and the railway. This area is bounded on the east by the River Conway, and on the west by a fault (' boundary–fault,' as we term it in the following pages) which brings a calcareous grit of Bala age against Silurian beds.The northern limit of the area is formed by the Afon Gyffn, a' tributary stream of the River Conway, which it joins just below the Castle. The southern limit has been taken, for convenience, at the beginning of the dense woods belonging to Benarth Asylum. In other places higher up the valley,


This paper presents a general, nonlinear version of existing multifactor models, such as Longstaff and Schwartz (1992). The novel aspect of our approach is that rather than choosing the model parameterization out of "thin air", our processes are generated from the data using approximation methods for multifactor continuous-time Markov processes. In applying this technique to the shortand long-end of the term structure for a general two-factor diffusion process for interest rates, a major finding is that the volatility of interest rates is increasing in the level of interest rates only for sharply, upward sloping term structures. In fact, the slope of the term structure plays a larger role in determining the magnitude of the diffusion coefficient. As an application, we analyze the model's implications for term structure pricing, focusing on the conditional distribution of interest rates and the term structure of term premiums and volatilities.


A method and apparatus are provided for detecting a RADAR signal. RADAR channel data in a frequency range is received, where the frequency range is divided into a plurality of equally wide channels. The received RADAR channel data is digitally processed and analyzed to identify a signal in the RADAR channel data in the frequency range. The frequency range is advanced to a next channel of the plurality of channels, where the frequency range of the next channel of the plurality of channels is nonsequential with the frequency range of the first channel. The steps of receiving, processing, and analyzing are repeated for the next channel of the plurality of channels.


Manipulating gut bacteria in the microbiome, through the use of probiotics and prebiotics, has been found to have an influence on both physical and emotional wellbeing. This study uses a dietary manipulation 'The Gut Makeover' designed to elicit positive changes to the gut bacteria within the microbiome. 21 healthy participants undertook 'The Gut Makeover' for a four week period. Weight and various aspects of health were assessed pre and post intervention using the Functional Medicine Medical Symptoms Questionnaire (MSQ). Paired sample t-tests revealed a significant reduction in self-reported weight at the end of the intervention. Adverse medical symptoms related to digestion, cognition and physical and emotional wellbeing, were also significantly reduced during the course of the dietary intervention. The intervention, designed to manipulate gut bacteria, had a significant impact on digestion, reducing IBS type symptoms in this non-clinical population. There was also a striking reduction in negative symptoms related to cognition, memory and emotional wellbeing, including symptoms of anxiety and depression. Dietary gut microbiome manipulations may have the power to exert positive physical and psychological health benefits, of a similar nature to those reported in studies using pre and probiotics. The small sample size and lack of control over confounding variables means that it will be important to replicate these findings in larger-scale controlled, prospective, clinical trials. This dietary microbiome intervention has the potential to improve physical and emotional wellbeing in the general population but also to be investigated as a treatment option for individuals with conditions as diverse as IBS, anxiety, depression and Alzheimer's disease.


Background: Physicians' lack of comfort and skill in communicating about hospice care results in deficits and delays in hospice referrals. Preclinical exposure to hospice may lay a foundation to improve medical students' knowledge and comfort with hospice care. Objective: To understand how preclinical medical student (MS)-2s respond both educationally and emotionally to a required hospice care experience (HCE). Design: Accompanied by hospice clinicians, MS-2s spent 3 hours seeing inpatient or home hospice patients followed by a 1-hour debriefing. Students submitted written reflections to e-mailed educational and emotional prompts. Setting/patients: Two hundred and two MS-2s from 2 academic cohorts completed the HCE at 1 of 2 hospice sites. Measurements: Written reflective responses were analyzed qualitatively, where salient themes extracted and responses were coded. Results: Ninety-two students submitted 175 responses to Prompt #1 (educational impact) and 85 students entered 85 responses to prompt #2 (emotional impact) of the HCE. Eleven themes were identified for prompt #1, most frequently focusing on hospice services and goals and hospice providers' attitudes and skills. Prompt #2 elicited a diverse spectrum of emotional responses, spanning positive and negative emotions. Most often, students reported "no specified emotional reaction," "sad/depressed," "difficult /challenging," "heartened/encouraged," and "mixed emotions." Conclusion: In an HCE, preclinical students reported learning core aspects of hospice care and experiencing a broad spectrum of emotional responses. These findings may assist educators in the planning of HCEs for preclinical students, including debriefing sessions with skilled clinicians and opportunities for triggered reflection.


We report a prolonged coherence time of the collective spin wave of a thermal $^{87}\text{R}\text{b}$ atomic ensemble in a paraffin-coated cell. The spin wave is prepared through a stimulated Raman process. The long coherence time is achieved by prolonging the lifetime of the spins with paraffin coating and minimize dephasing with optimal experimental configuration. The observation of the long-time-delayed-stimulated Stokes signal in the writing process suggests the prolonged lifetime of the prepared spins; a direct measurement of the decay of anti-Stokes signal in the reading process shows the coherence time is up to $300\text{ }\ensuremath{\mu}\text{s}$ after minimizing dephasing. This is 100 times longer than the reported coherence time in the similar experiments in thermal atomic ensembles based on the Duan-Lukin-Cirac-Zoller and its improved protocols. This prolonged coherence time sets the upper limit of the memory time in quantum repeaters based on such protocols, which is crucial for the realization of long-distance quantum communication. The previous reported fluorescence background in the writing process due to collision in a sample cell with buffer gas is also reduced in a cell without buffer gas.


An efficient method to assess the upper bound on the number of DC solutions is presented. It decomposes the original circuit into successive subcircuits by implementing a partitioning procedure, which is based on a topological analysis of the circuit. In a further step the uniqueness of the DC operating point is determined, and how many operating points can occur. Because the obtained subcircuits contain fewer nonlinearities, this process can be carried out in an efficient manner, resulting in a significant saving in the number of calculations. In addition, the circuit is described by a linear transformation of the well known MNA representation. This allows the method to be easily implemented in a simulation environment.


Tamoxifen reduced the risk of invasive breast cancer by 49% among women at increased risk for breast cancer in the Breast Cancer Prevention Trial P-1, and raloxifene reduced breast cancer incidence by more than 70% in the Multiple Outcomes of Raloxifene Evaluation osteoporosis trial. These findings led the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project to design and launch the Study of Tamoxifen and Raloxifene. Risk-eligible women are = 35 years of age and postmenopausal; they have either lobular carcinoma in situ (LCIS) or a 5-year risk of invasive breast cancer of at least 1.67% as determined by the Gail model. Participants are randomly assigned to receive either tamoxifen 20 mg or raloxifene 60 mg daily. The trial opened for accrual on July 1, 1999. After 32 months of recruitment at 194 clinical centers in North America, risk assessments have been performed in 107,855 women (83.8% white, 9.4% black, 3.8% Hispanic, 3.1% other race/ethnic groups). Of the eligible patients, 12,637 have been randomized (20.9% of risk-eligible women); the median age is 58 years (mean, 58 years), and the median 5-year risk of breast cancer is 3.3% (mean, 4.0%). LCIS was reported in 8.4% of women prior to randomization. Gail model risk was = 3.0% in 5 years for 59.3% of white women, 45.0% of black women, and 44.5% of Hispanic women. The trial will recruit a total of 22,000 postmenopausal women and is powered to demonstrate superior efficacy of either agent or their equivalence in reducing the incidence of primary breast


The availability of datasets with large numbers of variables is rapidly increasing. The effective application of Bayesian variable selection methods for regression with these datasets has proved difficult since available Markov chain Monte Carlo methods do not perform well in typical problem sizes of interest. We propose new adaptive Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms to address this shortcoming. The adaptive design of these algorithms exploits the observation that in large-$p$, small-$n$ settings, the majority of the $p$ variables will be approximately uncorrelated a posteriori. The algorithms adaptively build suitable nonlocal proposals that result in moves with squared jumping distance significantly larger than standard methods. Their performance is studied empirically in high-dimensional problems and speed-ups of up to four orders of magnitude are observed.


The technique of magnetic resonance imaging microscopy holds promise of bringing the full capabilities of NMR to arbitrarily specified positions within spatially inhomogeneous systems, including biological cells, yet the possibilities are limited by the need for adequate sensitivity and spatial resolution. We report proton magnetic resonance images obtained by combining advances in receiver coil sensitivity, gradient strength, and pulse/gradient sequence design. We achieve resolution of 3.7 +/- 0.4 microm by 3.3 +/- 0.3 microm by 3.3 +/- 0.3 microm for a volume resolution approximately 40 femtoliters (corresponding to approximately 3 x 10(12) proton spins).


This essay proposes bringing together what we might call Desert Studies with the Sea Studies at the heart of traditional maritime history research. Sea and desert bear to each other relations of comparability as well as adjacency or contingency. Both are geopolitically overwritten, strategically important spaces that may at first sight appear empty to those unfamiliar with their intricate ecosystems. Both are hostile environments for humans to inhabit, requiring specific kinds of knowledge for survival. Both are crisscrossed by trade routes, rendering their negotiation strategically valuable. Aesthetically, both sea and desert provoke experiences of the sublime and have inspired rich traditions of writing, painting, music, cinema, and other media. Both are 'horizontal' rather than 'vertical' spaces, encouraging forms of sociality that might be understood as less hierarchical and more egalitarian than those bred by other localities. Grasping the desert as a space comparable with the sea in the early modern period requires understanding not only the mechanisms of trade, such as the social and economic organisation of caravans, and camel, donkey, and horse power, but also the immense symbolic importance of horses and horse culture within the desert regions of North Africa and the Middle East. One of the prime commodities of the Mediterranean trade-routes linking Europe, Africa, and Asia was the Eastern blood horse. Desert studies, although not limited to a focus on the equine and equestrian, would be seriously incapacitated without such a focus. Sea Studies as a truly interdisciplinary enterprise has much to gain from attending to the sandy shores where land meets sea, enabling maritime research to be networked explicitly with its hinterlands.


Abstract Geographic variation in body size may reflect adaptations to local environments, and sexual size dimorphism (SSD) arises from ultimate and proximate factors acting differently on males and females in those environments. The Painted Turtle (Chrysemys picta) is a wide-ranging North American freshwater turtle species with known female-biased SSD. We hypothesized that, in more seasonal environments, the disparity between adult female and male body size would be more pronounced (i.e., the sexual dimorphism index [SDI, female body size/male body size] would be higher) than in more moderate environments because selective pressures on females to maximize reproductive output would result in relatively larger body sizes (fecundity advantage hypothesis) in extreme environments. We predicted that the SDI would be higher in populations at northern latitudes and middle longitudes than in southern and coastal populations. We conducted linear and nonlinear regression analyses using data from the literature and museum records, extrapolated data, and unpublished data on adult male and female carapace and plastron lengths from 65 locations. In contrast to our prediction, SDI decreased with increasing latitude. With respect to longitude, the trend supported our prediction in that the SDI was slightly higher for interior populations and lower for coastal populations; however, the relationship was not significant. Future research should examine sex differences in carapace height and body volume which may more directly reflect selective pressures on female fecundity than straight-line shell lengths.


In this paper, we endorsed expending in VAT should be implemented step by step. Then we select the transportation industry as the breakthrough point, by combining qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis methods and analyze tax pass-through effect, enterprise behavior effect and resource allocation effect between sales tax and VAT. It is made some correction based on the traditional measurement indicators and analyzed the current situation of our transportation industry's tax burden, description the necessity of changing transportation industry form business tax to VAT and the feasibility of this change. It is analyzed the taxpayer identity, tax rate and tax preference after the reform in the basis of TOPSIS. On the basis of simulation and transportation industry characteristics, we get a logical VAT rate. We analyze the economic effects and financial income because of transportation industry business tax into VAT.


In Korea, some dual-earner married couples, where both husbands and wives have careers, live separately because their workplaces are located too far for a daily commute. These "commuter couples" are on the rise all over the world. In general, physical closeness is important for the quality of the relationships; thus, marital satisfaction is one of the most important issues in the literature on commuter couples. While some studies found a lower quality of relationships among commuter couples, others found cohesive and trustful relationships in these couples. However, the existing studies were conducted mainly with convenience samples of specific occupational groups in developed countries. Using a recent representative sample of commuter couples in Korea, this study found that commuter couples report lower levels of marital satisfaction compared to typical dual-earner couples. Additionally, this study found that in commuter couples, wives feel less marital satisfaction compared to their husbands.


In addition to its regulatory effect on bone mass, calcitonin has been shown to relieve pain and alleviate peripheral circulatory disturbance in patients with Raynaud's syndrome and complex regional pain syndrome. In the present study, we investigated whether calcitonin ameliorates diminished blood flow and enhanced arterial contraction in response to noradrenaline in chronic constriction injury (CCI) of the sciatic nerve in rats. Following surgically induced CCI, laser Doppler flowmetry studies showed a significant decrease in plantar skin blood flow of the ipsilateral hind paw compared to the contralateral side. A subcutaneous bolus injection of elcatonin (20 U/kg), a synthetic derivative of eel calcitonin, significantly improved decreased skin blood flow in the ipsilateral side. In vitro analysis of plantar arteries isolated from the ipsilateral hind paw 7–13 days after the CCI procedure showed higher sensitivity to noradrenaline than the plantar arteries from the contralateral side. Elcatonin (0.1–10 nm) significantly reduced noradrenaline‐induced contraction in the arteries of the ipsilateral side, whereas it had little effect on those of the contralateral side. These results suggest that calcitonin selectively ameliorates enhanced arterial contractility in CCI neuropathic rats, thus leading to its alleviating effect on peripheral circulatory disturbance.


ABSTRACT:  Retinoids are biologic regulators of differentiation, proliferation, apoptosis, and immune response. Retinoids (all‐trans retinoic acid, 13‐cis‐retinoic acid, and the synthetic analogs isotretinoin, etretinate, and acitretin) have been used for years as monotherapy and/or in combination for treatment of cutaneous T‐cell lymphomas (CTCL). Orally administered bexarotene, the first synthetic highly selective retinoid X receptor retinoid to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration for CTCL, was shown to be active against the cutaneous manifestations of all stages of CTCL. The topical gel formulation was also effective for early cutaneous manifestations of CTCL or as an adjunct to systemic or phototherapy. Use of retinoids in future long‐term clinical trials and their eventual application in CTCL regiments will require strategies to decrease the side effects of existing retinoids, identify novel receptor subtype‐selective retinoids with better therapeutic index, and explore biologically based synergistic combination therapies with other active agents.


Abstract. In Australia, Sonchus oleraceus has been emerging as a major weed in conservation agricultural systems. The effect of environmental factors on germination and emergence of S. oleraceus was assessed on populations collected from Gatton (SOG) and St. George (SOS) regions of Australia, which are high and low rainfall regions respectively. Germination of both populations responded similarly to various environmental factors studied. Although S. oleraceus seeds germinated under a broad range of temperatures (15/5, 20/10, 25/15 and 30/20°C day/night), germination was lower at 15/5°C. There was only 47–53% germination under dark conditions compared with 62–87% under alternating light–dark. Germination was only 2 and 3% at –0.8 MPa osmotic potential for SOG and SOS populations respectively, and no germination occurred at –1 MPa. Germination was 6 and 8% at 200 mM NaCl for SOG and SOS populations respectively. Although S. oleraceus seed germination exceeded 80% for pH 6–7, germination was reduced at pH outside this range. Germination was 83 and 87% for SOG and SOS populations respectively at the soil surface; and emergence decreased with increasing depth, with none from seeds buried at 6 cm depth. Wheat residue amount within the range of 0–2000 kg ha–1 did not alter germination; however, germination was significantly reduced when the crop residue amount increased to 4000 kg ha–1 and the lowest germination was at 6000 kg ha–1. The potential to germinate under diverse environmental conditions correlates with the widespread occurrence of this weed in the northern region of Australia. High residue amounts and occasional tillage leading to deep burial of seeds may reduce its emergence and incidence.


Objective The aim of this study was to clarify the role of MRI in the diagnosis and classification of perianal fistula and to evaluate the additional clinical value of preoperative MRI and its benefit to the surgeon. Background An anorectal abscess originates from an infection arising in the cryptoglandular epithelium lining of the anal canal that can penetrate through the internal sphincter. Extension of the infection can involve the intersphincteric space, ischiorectal space, or even the supralevator space. Patient and methods This prospective study included 20 (15 men and five women; age range: 19–59 years; mean age: 36.85 years) patients selected from 34 patients referred to the Radiodiagnosis Department with clinically suspected perianal fistula. The study was conducted between March 2013 and November 2015 after preoperative clinical examination. Pulse sequences used were STIR, T2WI, T1WI, and T1WI after contrast with fat suppression sequences in axial, coronal, and, sometimes, sagittal planes. Results MRI revealed six (30%) patients with grade 1 simple linear intersphincteric fistula, five (25%) with grade 2 intersphincteric fistula with abscess or secondary track, three (15%) with grade 3 trans-sphincteric fistula, four (20%) with grade 4 trans-sphincteric fistula with abscess or secondary track, and two (10%) with grade 5 supralevator and translevator disease. One of the two supralevator fistulae showed horseshoe extension. MRI findings were concordant with the surgical findings in 18 (90%) patients (P = 0.003). Fallacies of MRI were observed in two (10%) patients, which proved to be sinus at surgery. Conclusion Our results support that MRI is the imaging technique of choice for preoperative evaluation of perianal fistulae, providing a highly accurate, rapid, and noninvasive means of performing presurgical assessment as it displays the anatomy of the sphincter muscles orthogonally with a background of good contrast resolution.


Diabetes mellitus is a global problem nowadays due to increase the disease cases all over the world, in both the developed and developing countries which may affect the quality of life (QOL ) of diabetic patients. This study was conducted to assess the quality of life of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) and to determine some selected clinical and sociodemographic factors that affect the quality of life of these patients in Al Hila city-Iraq. This was a cross sectional study in which 100 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus attending diabetic outpatient clinics of Merjan Teaching Hospital-Al Hila. To assess the quality of life of those diabetic patients, the World Health Organizations Quality of Life Assessment (WHOQOL) was applied, but in a short version questionnaire and abbreviated form called (WHOQOL-BREF).
Concerning the results of this study, it was found that the patients responded fairly well on the questionnaire used, 39% had good score, 47% had fair score and 14% had poor score. For physical health domain 17% had poor score, for social domain 22% had poor score, for psychological domain 19% and environmental domain 18% had poor score.
It was concluded from the results that although it supports previous reports in which QOL of patients with DM were fairly good but this disease is significantly affects physical health, social relations and environment. Furthermore, there is association with marked impairment in aspects of quality of life relating to mental health and psycho-social functioning and at least some aspects of physical health. Given this, and given its high prevalence, greater attention is needed to watch DM as a public health problem. The fact that DM is "normative" should not be taken to infer that it is benign.
Keywords: Diabetes mellitus, Quality of life.


In the year 2002, the population of Mexico was approaching 103 million inhabitants. Approximately 74% of them live in the cities with a continuous migration from rural to urban areas. Genetic departments are concentrated in the capital and other big cities. In this paper we review the current status of genetic departments in Mexico City, emphasizing the main areas of genetic services offered to the public and involved in research. We also comment on the deficiencies identified and suggest recommendations to improve the quality of the genetic services offered to the Mexican population.


This work presents successful implementation of Taguchi experimental design integrated with artificial neural networks (ANN) to develop a robust and efficient method of analyzing and predicting the erosion wear response of a new class of metal-glass coatings prepared by plasma spraying. Plasma spray technology utilizes the exotic properties of the plasma medium to effect physical, chemical or metallurgical reactions to produce new materials or impart new functional properties to conventional materials. Titania(TiO2 )are preferred as the coating material over irregular ones due to low surface area to volume ratio, high density, free flowing ability and close sizing etc. Coatings of this titania are deposited on mild steel substrates at various input power levels of the plasma torch. Erosion wear characteristics of these coatings are investigated following a plan of experiments based on the Taguchi technique, which is used to acquire the erosion test data in a controlled way. The study reveals that the impact velocity is the most significant among various factors influencing the wear rate of these coatings. An ANN model based on experimental data that performs self-learning by updating weightings is proposed in this work. It takes into account training and test procedure to predict the erosion performance under different erosive wear conditions. This technique helps in saving time and resources for a large number of experimental trials and successfully predicts the wear rate of the coatings both within and beyond the experimental domain.


Although polyester is well known for smelling strongly after wear, little is known about the propensity of nylon to retain and emit body odor. In this study, we investigated whether odor intensity differed between nylon and polyester fabrics. A secondary aim was to compare odor on fabrics frozen prior to sensory assessment with fabrics stored at room temperature. Eight participants wore T-shirts with fabrics in the underarm. Odor intensity was rated by 13 assessors. Odor reduction rate (ORR) was measured using ISO 17299-3. Overall, no differences were found in odor intensity between nylon and polyester. Any differences found between the two fabrics were likely dependent on the individual who wore the fabric. The ORR was higher for nylon than polyester, indicating that nylon absorbed more odorants. There was some evidence to suggest that odor intensity could increase on nylon fabrics stored at room temperature, but this was less apparent for polyester.


Maya Slater has drawn attention to the stylistic importance of accent distribution within the phrase for the reading of La Fontaine's Fables. Linguistic opinion is currently divided on the nature and function of this accent in verse, the dominant view being that metre in French is nothing but conserved syllable-count and that accent within the hemistich/line is free, that is, non-metrical. The Fables present a particular problem for this view, since La Fontaine's free alternation of the canonical alexandrine and decasyllable with lines of seven or eight syllables violates the principle of isosyllabic recurrence fundamental to the isosyllabist thesis. It is, however, possible to 'save the phenomenon': evidence is presented here that intraphrasal accent occurs in this verse in rule-governed form, which in turn suggests that it has a 'metrical' ('measuring') role, compensating for the absence of isosyllabic equivalence. The resulting accent distribution, moreover, serves as a raw material for the creation of La Fontaine's highly personal poetic meaning. A close analysis of three texts shows how La Fontaine's 'free verse' organizes the accentual resources of his language to create his characteristic effects, exciting our awareness of the physical nature of our response to his poetry.


The National Diabetes Prevention Program (National DPP) is a partnership of public and private organizations working together to build a nationwide infrastructure to deliver a lifestyle change program proven to prevent or delay onset of type 2 diabetes in adults with prediabetes. Much variability exists in the number of days participants stay in the 12-month program. Of the 217,585 eligible participants enrolled in in-person and online organizations as of October 2019, the average length of stay in the program was 163 days (210 for in-person, 134 for online) with interquartile range of 238 (231 for in-person, 161 for online). The reasons for leaving the program are not collected; only information such as participant demographics, type of program delivery (in-person or online), and date of the first session attended can be assessed. To determine whether retention is related to the time of year a participant enters the program, a seasonal model was applied, where the response variable was the number of days a participant stayed in the program. Separate models were run for all participants, and by sex and delivery mode, to look at the impact of start date on retention. Overall, participants who started the program on day 267 (September) were predicted to stay in the program longest: 178 days (95% CI: 176, 179). The range of predicted days was 137-178. Longest predicted number of days in the program for men and women was 161 (158, 164) and 182 (180,184), respectively, and was also associated with September start dates. In-person participants who started on day 270 (September) were predicted to have the longest stay, 218 (216, 220) with range of 192-218. Estimates for online participants showed a maximum of 142 days (140, 144), which was associated with start dates in June (day 163) and had a range of 128-142. All models predicted that the shortest stay in the program was associated with starting in November. Retention is strongly associated with enrollment timing; this information may be helpful as organizations plan future classes. Disclosure E. Ely: None. M. Bell: None.


Benzaldehyde (BA) occurs naturally in a number of plants, including cherry, fig and peach fruit and carnation flowers at therapeutic doses. In addition, it is used in cosmetics, personal care products and food as a preservative. In this study, we aimed to determine the cytotoxic and apoptotic effects of different concentrations of BA on cultured human lymphocytes using lactate dehydrogenase assay, cell proliferation (water-soluble tetrazolium salts-1) assay and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) test (apoptotic test) as a group of cytotoxicity tests at 6th and 24th h on human lymphocyte cell culture. The cytotoxicity increased when cells were treated with 10, 25 and 50 μg/mL concentrations of BA (p < 0.05). Moreover, treatment of the cells with the same concentrations significantly decreased the cell number at the 6th and 24th hours (p < 0.05). TUNEL assay results also show that the concentration of BA at 10, 25 and 50 μg/mL caused DNA damage significantly (p < 0.05). According to our results, the toxic and genotoxic effects of BA have to be further evaluated before using in cosmetic and food products.