The Algebraic Multigrid (AMG) method has over the years developed into an efficient tool for solving unstructured linear systems. The need to solve large industrial problems discretized on unstructured meshes, has been a key motivation for devising a parallel AMG method. Despite some success, the key part of the AMG algorithm; the coarsening step, is far from trivial to parallelize efficiently. We here introduce a novel parallelization of the inherently sequential Ruge-Stüben coarsening algorithm, that retains most of the good interpolation properties of the original method. Our parallelization is based on the Partitioned Global Address Space (PGAS) abstraction, which greatly simplifies the parallelization as compared to traditional message passing based implementations. The coarsening algorithm and solver is described in detail and a performance study on a Cray XC40 is presented.


For a long time, vaccination and herd immunity were considered to be the magic solution for controlling coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). However, the emergence of new variants altered people's expectations and prolonged the pandemic duration, especially the Omicron strain with substantially increased transmissibility and decreased vaccine efficacy. Therefore, we are in urgent need of a practical solution to resume regular life to some extent, while mitigating COVID-19 risks in the tight race between vaccine rollouts and virus variation. This commentary proposed that bubble strategy (or closed loop management), utilized in Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games and to be implemented in Beijing 2022 Winter Games, could serve as a novel technique of non-pharmaceutical interventions in coping with such a situation.


Background. Airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) is the characteristic functional abnormality of asthma, and previous studies have shown the potential for AHR to be influenced by psychological factors, yet the relationship between anxiety and/or depression and AHR remains unclear in patients with asthma. Objective. To explore the relationship between psychological status and AHR in asthma patients. Methods. In a cross-sectional study, 168 adult subjects were recruited with physician-diagnosed uncontrolled asthma and a positive result for AHR in methacholine (Mch) challenge test. Psychological status, asthma control, and asthma quality of life were assessed using Zung self-rating anxiety/depression scale, asthma control test (ACT), and asthma quality of life questionnaire (AQLQ), respectively. AHR severity was evaluated and quantified by the provocative concentration of Mch, which evoked a given decrease of 20% in FEV1. Results. A total of 70.23% of recruited patients (n = 118) met the diagnostic criteria for anxiety and/or depression. There was a trend between negative psychological status and AHR in asthma patients that did not reach statistical significance, but no independent effects of negative mood states (anxiety, depression, or both) on AHR were established. Further, analyses revealed that only anxiety is associated with worse asthma control (p = 0.029), and a significant interaction effect of depression and anxiety accounted for lower asthma-related quality-of-life scores (p < 0.001). Conclusions. AHR and psychological status are loosely related to each other even if in uncontrolled asthma.


Low-grade glioma is characterized by slow growth, infiltrative pattern through white matter tracts and progression to a malignant tumour type. The traditional classification is newly replaced by molecular stratification. This reorganisation gathers glioma with similar prognosis and treatment protocols. The preferential location of that tumour in eloquent areas constituted, over time, a real challenge regarding the best surgical approach. Because of the high risk of postoperative neurological deficits initially a more conservative management was adopted. Once with the development of preoperative and intraoperative functional assessment techniques, a higher degree of resection was possible in the limits of corticosubcortical eloquence, being well known that this is a statistically significant factor for survival. We present in this paper the natural evolution of low-grade glioma, their new molecular classification, prognostic factors and the various approach proposed for


This study investigated the preparedness of Nigerian Universities in mainstreaming Gender education as a general studies (GSS/GST) course. The study tried to provide data on benefits of mainstreaming gender education and strategies for successful mainstreaming of gender education. Cross River University of Technology, Calabar – Nigeria and University of Calabar, Calabar – Nigeria were used for the study. Subjects for this study were one hundred and thirty eight (138) lecturers, fifty (50) of which were heads of department. In addition, one hundred and sixty two (162) students were used making a total sample of three hundred (300). The questionnaire used sought the opinions of administrators/HODs, lecturers and students on the benefits or otherwise of inclusion of Gender Studies in tertiary institutions in Nigeria. Frequency counts and percentages were used to analyze the data. Findings show that the inclusive of Gender Studies in the GST/GSS program would be a welcome idea because it will help bridge the gab between inequalities as well as promote general development.


In the course of an experiment designed to investigate the effect of certain dietary factors on the development of tar cancer, a strikingly high percentage of lymphoblastic tumors appeared in one of the strains of mice used. The present report is an analysis of this material and of further experiments carried out on the same strain. The relationship between leukemoid states and carcinogenic chemical agents is an interesting one. A sufficient number of reports has appeared in the literature to make it certain that a relationship of some sort exists. Yet the very occasional nature of such reports makes it clear that this relation is not the direct and sequential one which exists between carcinogenic agents and epithelioma or sarcoma, or between certain substances and hepatoma (2, 3). Leukemia has been observed following the administration of benzol. Lignac (4) noted lymphoid hyperplasia in the spleen following injections of benzol in oil, and subsequently (5) observed eight leukemias in 54 mice similarly injected; 3 of these were lymphatic in type. Hess (6) obtained similar results. Forkner (7) cites a few reports of human leukemia following industrial exposure to benzol. Leukosis in the fowl has been seen, usually concurrently with sarcoma, after tar injections. (8) Bernard (9) reported erythroleukemia following injection of tar into the bone marrow of rats, and Barnes and Furth (10) have described an atypical leukemia produced by the injection of benzpyrene in lard into the mouse spoken, the type cell here appeared to be the megakaryocyte. Injections of indol into mice (11) and of hydroxylamine hydrochloride into rabbits (12) have been followed by leukemia; in the former instance most of the cases were myeloid in type and were preceded by a leukopenic phase, as in the case of benzol treatment.


AVarious techniquies (see references) which have been utsed suiecessfully in demonstrating bacterial capsules on other organisms w-ere not found entirely satisfactory for showing the presence of a capsule on cells of Pastlurella mastitidis, an organism consistently found in mastitis of ewes ('Marsh, 1932). A modification of the Hiss (1905) method, which depends on the fixing action of phenol on the capsule, enabling the latter to be demonstratedI in films of IJ. mastitidis and other gram-negative organisms, follows. The amount of culture that can be picked up by a fine, straight platinuim w^ire from a colony oran agar slant is suspended in a loopful of phyrsiological saline containing 0.5 to 1 per cent phenol and 10 per cent blood serum, an(l spread into a thin film on a clean polished slide. To fix the dried film, the slide is dipped r-apidly into methyl alcohol, drained, and flamed to burn off the excess alcohol. The preparation can then be stained for 30 seconds to 1 minute with any of the common bacterial stains, and washed wvith water. No particular advantage wi-as found in washing the slide wvith 20 per cent copper sulphate solution, as in Hiss's method. With crystal -violet (prepared as in Hucker's modification of the gram stain) the organisms stain dark blue to black, wvhereas the background takes a light blue or purple stain and the capsule appears as a distinct colorless halo around the organism (figures 1, 2). The capsules can also be demonstrated in a preparation stained by the gram method, using dilute carbol fuchisin as a counterstain, if the film is prepared and fixed as described above. With cultures of P'. mastitidis, it wvas found that the organisms from the iridescent peacock-blue (smooth) colonies w-ere 90 to 100 per cent encapsulated, whereas those from the translucent grey to opaque (rough) colonies showed little or no encapsulation. Capsuiles have also been demonstrated by this method in smooth cultures of Pasteurella septica, Salmonella pullorum, Salmonella suipestifer, Escherichia coli, Eberithella typhosa, Shigella gallinarum, and Bruitcella abortus.


We propose a cross-layer-model based adaptive resource-allocation scheme for the diverse quality-of-service (QoS) guarantees over downlink mobile wireless networks. Our proposed scheme dynamically assigns power-levels and time- slots for heterogeneous real-time mobile users to satisfy the variation of statistical delay-bound QoS requirements. To achieve this goal, we apply Wu and Negi's effective capacity approach to derive the admission-control and power/time-slot allocation algorithms, guaranteeing the statistical delay-bound for heterogeneous mobile users. When designing such an algorithm, we study the impact of physical-layer issues such as adaptive power-control and channel-state information (CSI) feedback delay on the QoS provisioning performance. Through numerical and simulation results, we observe that the adaptive power adaptation has a significant impact on statistical QoS-guarantees. In addition, the analyses indicate that our proposed resource-allocation algorithms are shown to be able to efficiently support the diverse QoS requirements for various real-time mobile users over different wireless channels. Also, in an in-door mobile environment, e.g., the widely used wireless local-area networks (WLAN), our proposed algorithm is shown to be robust to the CSI feedback delay.


Based on the daily data sets of 17 meteorological factors during the period of 1954-2005 for 60 gauge stations distributed over Gansu Province of China and the corresponding dust storm records, the dust storm probabilities related to different classes of each factor have been calculated and analyzed. On the basis of the analysis, a meteorological descriptor quantifying the daily dust storm happening probability for each station, which is referred to as the dust storm occurrence probability index (DSOPI), has been effectively established. According to the statistical characteristics of DSOPI for each station, a feasible judging criterion for a dust storm event, which can greatly contribute to forecasting dust storms and filling up the unavailable historic dust storm records, has been determined. The average daily dust storm probability related to each factor on the dust storm day has been specially analyzed for all the stations, indicating that, generally, the more significant one factor's influence on dust storms, the greater its contribution to them; each factor's contribution greatly varies from place to place; among all the involved 17 factors, the maximum and mean wind speeds, the maximum-speed wind direction, the sunny hours, evaporation, the mean and smallest relative humidity, the lowest surface air pressure and the vapor pressure contribute to dust storm events in Gansu Province most greatly in order.


We show that a combination of various types of nanorobots will prove to be more important as we attend to enhance targeting in the smallest blood vessels found in the human microvasculature. As such, various interdependent concepts for the implementation of these different types of medical bio-nanorobots including nanorobots propelled in the microvasculature by flagellated bacteria to target deep regions in the human body are presented. Through experimental results and theoretical formulations, we also showed the advantages of integrating biological components and more specifically Magnetotactic Bacteria (MTB) for the development of hybrid (made of synthetic and biological components) nanorobots adapted to operate in the human microvasculature. We also show a method capable to track using MRI as imaging modality, steerable microbeads and MTB that could be integrated in the implementation of future sophisticated bio-nanorobots operating inside the complex vascular network. As such, we show that these nanorobots including the ones propelled by a single flagellated bacterium could be guided or controlled directly towards specific locations deep inside the human body. We also show experimentally that flagellated bacterial nanorobots could be propelled and steered in vivo through the interstitial region of a tumor for enhanced therapeutic results.


The Polarimetric Cloud Analysis and Seeding Test (POLCAST) was a cloud seeding research experiment that was conducted to help determine if hygroscopic seeding could be detected directly by polarimetric radar observations or through derived polarimetric parameters. The operational phase of the program, a cooperative study between the North Dakota Atmospheric Resource Board (NDARB), University of North Dakota, Weather Modification Inc., and Ice Crystal Engineering, was conducted from 10 July – 5 August 2006. The study was centered on the measurements recorded by the University of North (UND) C-Band polarimetric Doppler Radar (NorthPol). Hygroscopic flares, deployed on a Weather Modification Incorporation (WMI) aircraft, were used in the study. Ice Crystal Engineering provided these flares. From the polarimetric radar observations, liquid water content, rainfall rates and hydrometeor type were analyzed. The radar-estimated liquid water content retrievals indicated an increase in 7 of the 8 cases after hygroscopic seeding. In correspondence, the rainfall rates were also higher along with the durations of the cells in the seeded cases. The differential reflectivity decreased after seeding, which is anindication that rain drops were decreasing on average in size. The reflectivity also increased after seeding except at cloud base where there was a decrease in reflectivity after seeding. The hydrometeor identification results were in good agreement with the trends observed in reflectivity and differential reflectivity fields.


We sought to prospectively assess the role of transesophageal (TEE) and intracardiac echocardiography (ICE) in detecting potential technical difficulties or failures in patients submitted to interatrial shunts percutaneous closure. We prospectively enrolled 46 consecutive patients (mean age 35+/-28, 8 years, 30 female) referred to our center for catheter-based closure of interatrial shunts. All patients were screened with TEE before the intervention. Patients who met the inclusion criteria underwent ICE study before the closure attempt (40 patients). TEE detected potential technical difficulties in 22.5% (9/40) patients, whereas ICE detected technical difficulties in 32.5% (13/40 patients). In patients with positive TEE/ICE the procedural success (92.4% versus 100% and, P = ns) and follow-up failure rate (7.7% versus 0%, P = ns) were similar to patients with negative TEE/ICE, whereas the fluoroscopy time (7 +/- 1.2 versus 5 +/- 0.7 minutes, P < 0.03), the procedural time (41 +/- 4.1 versus 30 +/- 8.2 minutes, P +/- 0.03), and technical difficulties rate (23.1% versus 0%, P = 0.013) were higher. Differences between ICE and TEE in the evaluation of rims, measurement of ASD or fossa ovalis, and detection of venous valve and embryonic septal membrane remnants impacted on technical challenges and on procedural and fluoroscopy times but did not influence the success rate and follow-up failure rate.


The purpose of this study is to investigate whether consumers' negative emotions (loss and deterrence emotions) toward new e-banking technology influence their behavioral intention to adopt new emerging e-banking technology. This thesis tries to integrate the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) with emotion as a non-cognitive factor and perceived risk as a well-known influential factor in the banking context. The Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was used for analyzing its conceptual model and hypotheses. To test the hypotheses and model of this paper, a sample of 109 students as young consumers of new emerging e-banking technology was collected in Sweden. The findings support the negative relationship between loss emotions and effort expectancy as one of the cognitive factors of the UTAUT. Loss emotions could impact consumers' behavioral intentions through consumers' effort expectancy and performance expectancy. Moreover, the results show that perceived risk and performance expectancy are the strongest predictors of consumers' behavioral intention to adopt new emerging e-banking technology respectively while social influence and hedonic motivation do not show a statistically significant impact on consumers' behavioral intention. The present study contributes to previous research by examining the influence of a broad range of negative emotions on consumers' behavioral intention to adopt new e-banking technology. To the best of the author's knowledge, there exists no other study referring to this issue neither in the banking industry nor with the Swedish environment.


Refeeding syndrome (RFS) is an underappreciated, yet common and potentially dangerous, constellation of metabolic derangements that can occur upon reinstitution of any type of nutritional intervention. The typical patient who experiences RFS has been malnourished for days to weeks and develops hypophosphatemia and, occasionally, hypokalemia and hypomagnesemia when administered a carbohydrate load in the form of glucose-containing fluids, total parenteral nutrition (TPN), tube feedings, or an oral diet. The pathophysiology of RFS is complex but mainly results from an acute intracellular shift in electrolytes, increased phosphate demand during tissue anabolism, and formation of high-energy phosphate bonds. Potential complications of RFS include fatal cardiac arrhythmia, systolic heart failure, respiratory insufficiency, and hematologic derangements. Because supportive care of the cancer patient often involves nutritional and metabolic support, any clinician involved with providing acute or palliative oncologic care should be familiar with the risks, manifestations, and treatment of RFS.


To enhance our understanding we usually read books or surf the net, but it is more fun to go out and visit the past by seeing the buildings where events unfolded. To learn about the history of health care in England, there is no better place than London. It was in London that most of the key developments in health care took place and it was there that the key battles over healthcare policies were fought, where conflicts were resolved, and where many innovations occurred. Some of the important buildings in the history of health care have been destroyed, but many still remain.

Walking London's Medical History aims to inspire and educate through a series of seven walks in central London.1 These walks help to tell the story of how health services developed from medieval times to the present day. The walks also help to preserve our legacy by informing us of the original function of healthcare buildings as increasingly they are being converted into hotels, offices, residences, and shops. Finally, the walks help to increase our understanding of the challenges to improving health care in the 21st century. To give you a flavour of the walks, let us consider the one through Soho.

At the heart of London lies an island, a foreign land in a sea of Englishness. Since its development in the 17th century, Soho has always been different from the districts surrounding it. The region has challenged and threatened the rest of London while at the same time enticed and nourished it. The reasons are bound up with its origins.

Until the 1660s the Soho area was hunting country. Development close to London was forbidden for fear of contagious diseases spreading to within the city walls. When the great fire of 1666 left around 100 000 …


For some time, one line of research on trust in government has stressed that trust results from evaluations of the institutions of government. Here, trust reflects public sentiments toward the responsiveness of the political process. Another line of research has alternatively countered that trust tends to be a reflection of political leaders. But this research has been largely unable to demonstrate that the performance of authorities matters relative to evaluations of the political process. Changes in partisan control of Congress and the presidency, however, provides us with a natural experiment where authorities change while the political process is constant. Here, partisans should trust government more when their party controls Congress, the presidency, or both. I find that trust does respond to changes in partisan control of the Congress and presidency, which demonstrates that the effect of authorities matters relative to evaluations of the political process.


We construct analytical and numerical vortex solutions for an extended Skyrme-Faddeev model in a $(3+1)$ dimensional Minkowski space-time. The extension is obtained by adding to the Lagrangian a quartic term, which is the square of the kinetic term, and a potential which breaks the SO(3) symmetry down to SO(2). The construction makes use of an ansatz, invariant under the joint action of the internal SO(2) and three commuting U(1) subgroups of the Poincar\'e group, and which reduces the equations of motion to an ODE for a profile function depending on the distance to the $x^3$-axis. The vortices have finite energy per unit length, and have waves propagating along them with the speed of light. The analytical vortices are obtained for special choice of potentials, and the numerical ones are constructed using the Successive Over Relaxation method for more general potentials. The spectrum of solutions is analyzed in detail, specially its dependence upon special combinations of coupling constants.


Everyone in society is affected by the characteristics of the built environment and its actors; it can for example be as a landlord, an employer or by the aesthetics in the neighbourhood. The sector is accounted for approximately 40 % of society's environmental impact and resource usage. The environmental impact comes from consumption of energy, water and materials. The environmental impact from this sector sometimes neglected since local emissions from the buildings are very limited. The construction of the buildings might be the first that springs to mind when thinking about building and the environment.
It has however been established that most of the environmental impact occurs during the use phase of the buildings, as much as 85 % of the environmental impact in some cases. This report is focused on the usage of buildings. The activities in the use-phase are diverse and involve a number of actors. A division between residential and commercial property is often made, here the focus is on commercial property. A reason for this is that traditionally, most research efforts have concerned residential buildings and construction. However, the environmental impact and particularly the potential for environmental improvements have been shown to be large in commercial properties and at the same time less researched.
The commercial property sector is described from both a general perspective as well as an environmental perspective in this report. The aim is to link management aspects of the sector to its environmental aspects. These two are often separated, both in publications and within the organisational structures in property companies. Some synergy effects might be reached if they are combined.
Research about the commercial property sector is often concerned with financial aspects of the sector e.g. market development, vacancy rates, levels of rents and investment prospects. Another strand of research, more technical, is concerned with the construction of the actual buildings. Typical topics are for example construction elements and the equipments in the buildings e.g ventilation and cooling machines. Research that includes the humans using the buildings combined with the financial and technical aspects are rare and are not associated with the word research in the property sector. An investigation of the research present in the sector today is presented as a part of this report.
The major difference between the residential and the commercial property sector is that contract arrangements and rent levels are controlled in the residential part, while the commercial only has minor restrictions. The difference between the two sectors plays an important role for how the companies in the different sectors act. The report explains this difference and also some other differences of importance.
To further understand the property sector some of the financial aspects of the commercial property sector are described, as well as size, important actors, their ownership relations and current market situation and trends in Sweden in general and in Gothenburg in particular. A description of different trades that are involved in a building's life is also presented. The description of the different types of actors involved gives the reader a good idea of the complexity and diversity of the actors involved in a commercial property's life.
The main environmental aspects of the commercial property sector are identified; these are energy consumption, usage of building material, quality of indoor air quality and waste management. From an international review it is interesting to note that similar issues are identified in different places in the world. The environmental initiatives in the sector, such as sector initiatives for green buildings and concept houses are described. A review of common methods for working with the environment is also presented.
Since most of the environmental impact from a building comes from its use-phase the management and maintenance becomes interesting to study. It is clear that different organisational structures and different strategies for the management of the maintenance of buildings are present. It is not yet possible to say what the environmental consequences are for the different ways of managing and maintaining the buildings but this is being identified as an important task for further research.
A recent trend in the sector is analysed with regards to its environmental significance. During the past 15 years outsourcing of management services and the ownership of buildings has increased.
This trend increases the number of actors and makes the actor relationships around a property more complex. This leads to that the incentives for environmental improvements are more difficult to explain than before. Many researchers and other people advocating for environmental change in buildings do not take this change in to consideration. An example of such a situation is when energy efficient equipment is being promoted with the argument that it saves energy and money. With this new trend is it no longer certain that the actor investing in the energy efficient equipment is the one getting a lower energy bill.
In order to improve environmental performance of the sector there is a need for a link between the different research topics relating to buildings. Another conclusion is that there are many interesting fields and issues to study from an environmental researcher's perspective in the commercial property sector. The environmental aspects in this sector are rather unexplored and the area is accountable for a large part of the society's environmental impact this combination make up an important and interesting field for further environmental research studies.


There are many interconnect buses that are widely used in the industry like AMBA, Wishbone, CoreConnect, Avalon etc. AMBA is most proffered among all of them because it has a hierarchy of buses with AHB (Advance high performance bus) can be connected to high performance peripherals and APB (Advance Peripheral Bus) that can be connected to low performance peripherals. AHB can be used in high performance and high bandwidth system because of its high performance features like burst transfer and split transaction. Today, major time in ASIC design flow is spent on verification. So there is a need of a robust and reusable verification. Universal Verification Methodology was introduced just to fulfill that need. More over it is supported by all three major simulator vendor in industry. So in this paper the process of developing verification environment for AMBA AHB master and slave component is shown.Index Terms: AMBA, AHB, System on chip , AHB master, AHB Slave, UVM


This study aimed to examine the psychometric values of a Farsi-translated version of the International Index of Erectile Function among a population sample of Iranian men. A community sample of 2,345 healthy men and a clinical sample of 421 men with diagnosed erectile function from 2 cities of Iran participated in the study. Participants were asked to complete the International Index of Erectile Function, the Life Satisfaction questionnaire, and a demographic questionnaire at baseline. Four weeks later, both samples were asked to recomplete the International Index of Erectile Function. The response rates were 84% (n = 1,969) and 98% (n = 412) for healthy men and men with erectile function, respectively. The retest reliability of the International Index of Erectile Function showed excellent intraclass correlation coefficients for both the healthy and patient samples. The International Index of Erectile Function subscales correlated significantly with the scores resulting from the clinical rating of erectile function conducted by urologists. Men with erectile function, as diagnosed by urologists, had significant lower scores in all subscales. The results of the exploratory factor analysis indicated that the International Index of Erectile Function could be summarized into a 5-component solution.The Iranian version of the International Index of Erectile Function was found to be a highly valid and reliable instrument to be used for the assessment of erectile function in clinical and population samples.


The management of an anterior open bite can be quite challenging and in some cases necessitate a multidisciplinary approach. In this case report, a patient presented with an anterior open bite with an ankylosed central incisor due to previous trauma. The open bite was corrected using conventional orthodontics, and the ankylosed incisor was repositioned in the correct tridimensional position using a segmental osteotomy. The repositioned bone block required 5 months of stabilization, and the prosthetic rehabilitation of the anterior maxilla was completed using lithium-disilicate crowns. At 24 months the outcome was stable with no relapse and had an excellent pink and white esthetic score.


Marrying nanochemistry with optics has opened a new gateway to design and fabricate novel nanostructures that can interact with light in unprecedented manners. Self-assembled colloidal photonic crystal is one of the emerged nanostructured photonic materials, which possess well-defined, highly ordered structure and periodicities of light wavelength. Various 2D and 3D ordered structures have been fabricated through self-assembly methods by employing latex colloidal particles, or functionalized latex particles with more sophisticated structural features such as core-shell and anisotropy. The unique ordered structure and light-interactive properties have afforded them versatile functionalities in light manipulation, catalysis, sensing, and light harvesting. In this book chapter, we review recent research progress on hierarchical colloidal photonic crystals: the preparation methods, structural properties and applications. By introducing a hierarchy of interconnected structures at different length scales, the surface-to-volume ratio can be dramatically increased and the materials properties tailored accordingly. Moreover, the band-gap features of the photonic crystals may also be adjusted by the structure hierarchy.


Abstract. This paper presents two avalanche forecasting applications NXD2000 and NXD-REG which were developed at the Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Re-search (SLF). Even both are based on the nearest neighbour method they are targeted to different scales. NXD2000 is used to forecast avalanches on a local scale. It is operated by avalanche forecasters responsible for snow safety at snow sport areas, villages or cross country roads. The area covered ranges from 10 km2 up to 100 km2 depending on the climatological homogeneity. It provides the forecaster with ten most similar days to a given situation. The observed avalanches of these days are an indication of the actual avalanche danger. NXD-REG is used operationally by the Swiss avalanche warning service for regional avalanche forecasting. The Nearest Neighbour approach is applied to the data sets of 60 observer stations. The results of each station are then compiled into a map of current and future avalanche hazard. Evaluation of the model by cross-validation has shown that the model can reproduce the official SLF avalanche forecasts in about 52% of the days.


Abstract Background: Disabled individuals have poorer health compared to non-disabled individuals and they exhibit a higher prevalence of chronic diseases, such as hypertension (HTN) and diabetes mellitus (DM). We explored how effectively blood pressure (BP) and fasting plasma glucose (FPG) level, factors influencing development of HTN and DM, were controlled in disabled and non-disabled individuals over the age of 40 years. We hypothesized that control of BP and FPG levels in disabled individuals would be lower than that in non-disabled participants. Methods: Records of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) were analyzed and the health screening program database was examined between the years 2007 and 2009. We identified patients who had used healthcare services to treat HTN or DM. Health-related information that might influence effective control of both BP and FPG levels in those with or without physical disabilities were examined. Results: The extent of effective BP and DM control did not differ between people with and without disabilities, but plasma glucose levels were slightly better controlled in individuals with disabilities than those without disabilities. HTN and DM control was more closely associated with female gender, age, grade of disability, non-smoking and non-drinker status, engagement in physical activity, presentation for health examinations, and frequent tertiary hospital visits for HTN management. Conclusions: Our paper is significant because of our focus on differences between disabled and non-disabled individuals. Our results and future data from NHIS health screening programs can be used to regularly monitor population health status and to evaluate information relevant to the management of HTN and DM control.


Abstract : Military decision making is influenced by a commander's perception of the physical environment. The information presented in the physical domain and how it is processed may be altered to persuade an adversary into making predetermined decisions. Prepersuasion social influence tactics may be used to structure a situation to establish a favorable climate for influence. Examples of how prepersuasion influence has impacted the military decision making process have been demonstrated in several international conflicts. One goal of prepersuasion influence is to have an adversary choose a predetermined course of action, on his own accord, that best suits the needs of the communicator. A second goal is to have an individual use prepersuasion to influence a large audience to support their decisions. Prepersuasion influence has been used effectively in the past because communicators, individuals or groups, have successfully impacted their audience's cognitive domain and shaped their perceptions. The ability to identify and resist the social influence tactics used to influence the military decision making process will benefit future commanders. What impact do prepersuasion influence tactics have on the military decision making process? This paper will answer this research question and offer recommendations on how military decision makers can resist prepersuasion influence.


In service-oriented architecture (SOA), actual quality of service (QoS) is not known until the service is executed since the internals of the service are hidden to service consumers. Hence, quality management of services before publishing is important in SOA environment. To ensure that a qualified service is published, defining metrics for evaluating the QoS is a prerequisite. Therefore, this paper proposes a set of QoS metrics for service providers especially considering the consumer's concern. We first identify unique features of SOA and define quality attributes and metrics. To show the applicability and usefulness of the QoS metrics, we perform a case study for hotel reservation service.


Abstract Recently genetic algorithms (GAs) are a great success in solving combinatorial optimization problems. In this paper the performance issues related to the genetic search in the context of the grey pattern problem (GPP) are discussed. The main attention is paid to the investigation of the solution recombination, i.e. crossover operators, which play an important role developing robust genetic algorithms. We implemented seven crossover operators within the hybrid genetic algorithm (HGA) framework, and carried out the extensive experiments in order to test the influence of the recombination operators on the genetic search process. The results obtained from the experimentation with GPP test instances (benchmarks) demonstrate promising efficiency of so‐called multiple parent crossover which is based on a special type of recombination of several solutions‐parents.


male and female teachers of middle and primary schools coming from 4 provinces, 6 states and 4 cities of China, Britain and the United States were tested on their value orientations by the Revised Ennis VOI 2. The results indicated that the characteristics of the value orientation of the Chinese, American and British PE (physical education) teachers were similar. The percentages of the DM (discipline major) and SA (self-actualizaton) value orientation were also similar in teachers of the three countries, but the rest three kinds of value orientation were different greatly. All kinds of value orientation of the American and British teachers were alike. The Chinese teachers showed higher preferences in LP (learning progress) and EI (ecological identity) values than the American and British teachers. They preferred SR (social responsibility). In the above three indexes the differences between the Chinese and the American and British teachers were significant, but the difference between the American and the British teachers was of no statistical significance. It is worth to note that the Chinese teachers whose length of teaching was under 20 preferred LP and EI, but those of the American and British teachers preferred SR. There was no significant difference among the value orientations of the three countries' teachers with the length of teaching more than 20. It was found that the PE teachers of the three countries believed that to acknowledge the students' potentials in teaching, to developed the student's self respect and to strengthen the students' confidence in study are the teachers' duty, which were not influenced by the cultural difference of the countries. However, LP, EI and SR reflected intensive influences of different culture, different social system and social conception on value orientation, which may be the reflection of social order and social standards in those three countries of two different social systems.


Being obese or gaining excessive weight during pregnancy can increase health risks for mother and baby. Adopting a healthy diet and increasing physical activity reduces these risks and has long-term health benefits for women. Despite this, women do not always maintain a healthy lifestyle during pregnancy.To explore the factors that encouraged and prevented a diverse group of women to maintain a healthy lifestyle during pregnancy.A total of 12 women participated in semi-structured qualitative interviews, underpinned by the theory of planned behaviour. Interviews were audio recorded, transcribed verbatim then subject to deductive thematic analysis.Four themes emerged: women's knowledge of a healthy lifestyle, sociocultural influences, physical health and health professional support. These influenced women's intentions and actual behaviours during pregnancy.Enhanced health professional advice may motivate women to adopt a healthy lifestyle during pregnancy. This could be through new means such as health technology.


This paper presents a modified land-atmosphere interaction process model to estimate the net primary productivity (NPP) of grassland in Poyang Lake wetland, China. The model is developed on the basis of an atmosphere-vegetation interaction model (AVIM), with two important improvements reflecting the impact of water level of wetlands on plant growth. Thus, a new module that estimates dynamic changes of the water level is proposed in the physical process model (LPM) component and another important controlling factor of plant physiological processes is introduced in the plant growth model (PLT) component. The daily NPP of grassland in 2006 was estimated using the modified AVIM and agreed well with the validation datasets of the observed biomass. According to the results, the NPP of grassland varies from 1250 to 2000 DM•m-2•a-1. The correlation analysis shows a significant relationship between NPP and the grassland elevation, and the NPP is highest in an elevation zone of 14.0~14.5 m. Another significant relationship between NPP and temperature or humidity was also found. In spring, the plant growth is affected by temperature, whereas in fall, it is mainly affected by humidity.


BACKGROUND
Differences in the interindividual response to dietary intervention could be modified by genetic variation in nutrient-sensitive genes.

OBJECTIVE
This study examined single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in presumed nutrient-sensitive candidate genes for obesity and obesity-related diseases for main and dietary interaction effects on weight, waist circumference, and fat mass regain over 6 mo.

DESIGN
In total, 742 participants who had lost ≥ 8% of their initial body weight were randomly assigned to follow 1 of 5 different ad libitum diets with different glycemic indexes and contents of dietary protein. The SNP main and SNP-diet interaction effects were analyzed by using linear regression models, corrected for multiple testing by using Bonferroni correction and evaluated by using quantile-quantile (Q-Q) plots.

RESULTS
After correction for multiple testing, none of the SNPs were significantly associated with weight, waist circumference, or fat mass regain. Q-Q plots showed that ALOX5AP rs4769873 showed a higher observed than predicted P value for the association with less waist circumference regain over 6 mo (-3.1 cm/allele; 95% CI: -4.6, -1.6; P/Bonferroni-corrected P = 0.000039/0.076), independently of diet. Additional associations were identified by using Q-Q plots for SNPs in ALOX5AP, TNF, and KCNJ11 for main effects; in LPL and TUB for glycemic index interaction effects on waist circumference regain; in GHRL, CCK, MLXIPL, and LEPR on weight; in PPARC1A, PCK2, ALOX5AP, PYY, and ADRB3 on waist circumference; and in PPARD, FABP1, PLAUR, and LPIN1 on fat mass regain for dietary protein interaction.

CONCLUSION
The observed effects of SNP-diet interactions on weight, waist, and fat mass regain suggest that genetic variation in nutrient-sensitive genes can modify the response to diet. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT00390637.


This investigation seeks to explore the role of Humane Orientation (HO) – one of the cultural dimensions outlined in the GLOBE framework – in responses to advertisements containing corporate social responsibility (CSR) messages among consumers in Japan and the U.S. The academic literature examining Japanese consumer responses to CSR messages in marketing communications is particularly sparse. The model of cross-cultural consumer responses to HO appeals in advertising developed by Diehl, Terlutter, and Mueller (2015) is tested using structural equation modelling in the two countries. A non-student sample of 251 Japanese was compared with data previously collected in the U.S. Results revealed the model to be valid for Japan as well. The higher the perceived degree of HO in an ad, the more positive was the evaluation of the ad, and the more likely subjects were to evaluate the advertiser as being socially responsible. These two variables positively influenced attitude toward the product and subsequent purchase intention. Individual HO values were lower in Japan than in the U.S., and HO paths were found to be lower as well. In summary, despite the lower but still significant influence of HO on ad effects in Japan, results suggest that international advertisers may pursue a standardized campaign in multiple markets when incorporating humane-oriented ad appeals.


This paper develops a structured method from the perspective of value to organise and optimise the business processes of a product servitised supply chain (PSSC). This method integrates the modelling tool of e 3 value with the associated value measurement, evaluation and analysis techniques. It enables visualisation, modelling and optimisation of the business processes of a PSSC. At the same time, the value co-creation and potential contribution to an organisation's profitability can also be enhanced. The findings not only facilitate organisations that are attempting to adopt servitisation by helping avert any paradox, but also help a servitised organisation to identify the key business processes and clarify their influences to supply chain operations.


In this article I revisit Herbert Marcuse's 1964 work One-Dimensional Man with the goal of reactivating Marcuse's critique of one-dimensional society but in regard to the current practice and discipline of history. On my reading, it is in the field of history that the dangers of one-dimensionality are felt most acutely today. Especially in the ways that historians and philosophers of history continue to render history as a mausoleum to warehouse an entombed and inactive past. In what follows, I offer a willful and intentional reading of the role and place of philosophy of history in One-Dimensional Man in order to demonstrate the ways that history and historians have now become key proponents of one-dimensionality. I then marshal Marcuse's analysis, though shorn of the speculative teleology that characterizes the two-dimensional history of Marcuse's dialectic, in order to reactivate history as a multi-dimensional force to enact change in the future.


OBJECTIVE
To describe changes in a semen analysis before getting a spontaneous pregnancy.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
In an observational, descriptive, longitudinal and retrospective study a semen analysis of the first evaluation of 96 patients was compared with the exam accomplished before getting a spontaneous pregnancy. A descriptive analysis of the semen exam was performed and the results of both exams were compared by means of at Student test with statistical significance for p < 0.05.

RESULTS
In the first analysis, the volume, density, mobility, normal morphology, total number of mobile cells and total number of mobile cells with normal morphology (TNMCNM) were 2.45 +/- 1.39 mL, 79 +/- 43 million/mL, 40 +/- 21%, 27 +/- 14%, 84 +/- 84 million and 23 +/- 29 million, respectively, and in the final analysis were 2.6 +/- 1.26 mL, 79 +/- 42 million/mL, 43 +/- 21%, 28 +/- 14%, 97 +/- 98 million and 28 +/- 33 million, respectively. None of them were different. In four patients with low testosterone and a LH/FS > or = 1 ratio, volume increased from 1 +/- 0.31 to 1.65 +/- 0.17 mL and normal morphology from 22 +/- 7 to 31 +/- 5. Both variables were different. In six patients with high prolactine and low testosterone or low FSH, density increased from 56 +/- 21 to 114 +/- 18 million/mL and TNMCNM from 14 +/- 12 to 46 +/- 32 million. Both variables were different.

CONCLUSION
Only those patients with low testosterone and a LH/FSH > or = 1 rate had an increase of semen volume and normal morphology. Those with high prolactine-low testosterone or high prolactine-low FSH had an increase of the total mobile cells and the total mobile cells with normal morphology. There were not changes in any semen variable of the other patients.


We discuss the possibility of discriminating between different supersymmetric see-saw models by improving the experimental sensitivity to charged lepton flavour violating processes. Assuming a hierarchical neutrino mass spectrum, we classify see-saw models according to how the hierarchy ∆m⊙ ≪ ∆m 2 atm is generated, and study the predictions of each class for the branching ratios of τ → μγ and μ → eγ. The process τ → μγ is found to be a particularly promising tool to probe the fundamental see-saw parameters, and especially to identify the origin of the large atmospheric mixing angle. Predictions for μ → eγ are more model-dependent. We point out that, even with an improvement of the experimental sensitivities by three orders of magnitude, both τ → μγ and μ → eγ could escape detection in models where ∆matm is determined by one of the lightest right-handed neutrinos. E-mails: firstname.lastname@example.com, firstname.lastname@example.com, email@example.com. Laboratoire de la Direction des Sciences de la Matière du Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique et Unité de Recherche Associée au CNRS (URA 2306). The smallness of neutrino masses with respect to charged fermion masses and the by now robust observation of at least one large mixing in the leptonic sector [1, 2, 3] suggest that the mechanism responsible for the generation of neutrino masses is different from the one at work for charged fermions. Presumably neutrinos are Majorana particles and their mass is linked to lepton number violation. The see-saw mechanism [4] emerges as the most elegant explanation of the smallness of neutrino masses. At least in the supersymmetric case, it is also very suggestive as the scale of lepton number violation appears to be near the gauge coupling unification scale. With three right-handed neutrinos the light neutrino effective mass matrix then reads 3 Mν = Y T M R Y v 2 u = U diag(m1, m2, m3) U † , (1) where Y and MR are 3 × 3 matrices in flavour space representing respectively the neutrino Dirac Yukawa couplings and the Majorana right-handed mass matrix, vu is the appropriate Higgs vacuum expectation value and U is the neutrino mixing matrix. Unless otherwise stated we always work in the flavour space basis where the mass matrix of charged leptons and MR are both diagonal, so that MR = diag(M1, M2, M3) with |M1| < |M2| < |M3|. It is clear that, even if we precisely knew Mν by measuring U and the light neutrino masses, it would not be possible to disentangle from it the structure of the Dirac and Majorana mass matrices . For instance, the knowledge of U does not provide direct access to the mixings which are present in Y . With Y = VRdiag(Y1, Y2, Y3)V † L , the identification VL = U holds in a very special case, namely, if Y Y † and MR can be simultaneously diagonalised. Even for small right-mixings in VR and/or a small hierarchy among right-handed Majorana masses, U can be significantly different from VL. So, contrary to what happens in the quark sector, neutrino masses do not provide direct access to the left-mixings in the Yukawa couplings. Nevertheless, as discussed later, one can already identify phenomenologically acceptable patterns for Y and MR from the data on Mν . The aim of this letter is to investigate which additional information could be extracted from improving the bounds on or measuring the branching ratios of the charged lepton flavour violating (LFV) processes τ → μγ and μ → eγ, in the framework of supersymmetric models. At present these bounds are BR(τ → μγ) < 1.1 × 10 [6] and BR(μ → eγ) < 1.2 × 10 [7]. In the Standard Model, such flavour violating processes in the charged lepton sector are predicted to be much below the experimental bounds and negligible with respect to the analogous ones occurring in the quark sector, due to the smallness of neutrino masses [8]. On the other hand, one of the major open problems of low-energy supersymmetry is to justify the fact that flavour violating processes have not already been found at a rate substantially larger than predicted by the Standard Model. Indeed, some amount of flavour dependence is generically expected in the soft mass terms. Then loops containing sleptons give rise to LFV because of lepton flavour mixing in the slepton mass matrices [9, 10, 11]. These non-diagonal mass matrix elements are in turn strongly bounded by the experimental limits on LFV transitions. We adopt the convention of writing Dirac mass terms as R̄mDL. CP violating phases will be neglected. 4 A detailed discussion of these ambiguities is presented in [5].


Several lines of evidence are presented which support a tentative model of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) of the rat. The serologically defined (SD), lymphocyte defined (LD) and immune response (Ir) loci are separate but linked, and there are probably two loci controlling the serologically defined antigens. The MHC in the rat appears to resemble that in the human more than that in the mouse.


Questionnaires were distributed among 1500 heat treatment metallurgic workers and 612 workers engaged in normal temperature working conditions. The former group had a markedly higher level of gastroduodenal damages. The risk-factors, apart from the behavioral ones, included working in shifts, irregular nutrition. The major diseases were gastroduodenitis with ulcerous clinical manifestations, and high-degree acid formation and consequent pathologic developments in the antral section of the stomach and the duodenal bulb.


In synaesthesia certain external stimuli (e.g., music) trigger automatically internally generated sensations (e.g., colour). Results of behavioural investigations indicate that multisensory processing works differently in synaesthetes. However, the reasons for these differences and the underlying neural correlates remain unclear. The aim of the current study was to investigate if synaesthetes show differences in electrophysiological components of multimodal processing. Further we wanted to test synaesthetes for an enhanced distractor filtering ability in multimodal situations. Therefore, line drawings of animals and objects were presented to participants, either with congruent (typical sound for presented picture, e.g., picture of bird together with chirp), incongruent (picture of bird together with gun shot) or without simultaneous auditory stimulation. 14 synaesthetes (auditory–visual and grapheme-colour synaesthetes) and 13 controls participated in the study. We found differences in the event-related potentials between synaesthetes and controls, indicating an altered multisensory processing of bimodal stimuli in synaesthetes in competition situations. These differences were especially found over frontal brain sites. An interaction effect between group (synaesthetes vs. controls) and stimulation (unimodal visual vs. congruent multimodal) could not be detected. Therefore we conclude that multisensory processing works in general similar in synaesthetes and controls and that only specifically integration processes in multisensory competition situations are altered in synaesthetes.


ABSTRACT:This article argues that since fulfillment of social rights is dependent on the availability of resources we must look beyond the field of international human rights, to economics, to provide a stylized way of thinking about measuring compliance. Using conditional rights as a starting point, this article argues that there are certain normative and practical factors that limit social rights, and it is in allowing for these factors that gives rise to the maximum resources dilemma: How can the content of social rights be determined if it is allowed to differ across resource contexts, and how can compliance be measured if the content is not determinate? It argues further that the empirical tools of microeconomics offer a systematic way to deal with the dilemma and outlines a methodological sketch for measuring compliance.


Introduction
 The current gold standard molecular method for minimal residual disease (MRD) assessment is RQ-PCR for detection of leukemia-associated immunoglobulin (IG) and T cell receptor (TR) rearrangements, which must be identified beforehand in the diagnostic material. Conventional screening of IG/TR rearrangements in the diagnostic sample consists of several multiplex PCRs followed by Sanger sequencing.
 Recently, the EuroClonality-NGS Consortium (www.euroclonalityngs.org, coordinated by AW Langerak) developed a set of assays for next-generation sequencing-based marker identification in lymphoid malignancies (Brüggemann, Haematologica, 2017). We have been using this approach in routine diagnostics since 2016 and herein we provide an overview of markers detected in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) patients.
 Material & Methods
 Between 02/2017 and 06/2018, 471 ALL samples were screened employing the EuroClonality-NGS assay. The assay consists of 5-8 multiplex PCRs, depending on the type of malignancy [IGH-VJ, IGH-DJ, TRB-VJ, TRB-DJ, TRG, TRD, and IGK-VJ-Kde (and intron-Kde) tubes] followed by a 2nd-step PCR in which barcodes and sequencing adaptors are introduced. The resulting libraries were sequenced on the Illumina MiSeq, producing 2×250bp reads, aiming to reach at least 3000 reads per sequencing library. Rearrangements with an abundance ≥ 5% were considered to be leukemia-associated.
 Out of the 471 investigated samples, 453 were diagnostic (dx) and 18 were relapse (rel) samples. If available, bone marrow samples (BM) were investigated (n=370), otherwise peripheral blood (PB) samples were used (n=101). For B-ALL patients (n=344) all PCRs were performed, whereas for T-ALL (n=127) the IGH-VJ and both IGK tubes were omitted.
 Results
 At least one leukemia-associated marker was detected in 244/253 (96%) B-ALL dx BM samples (Fig. 1A), 237 (94%) of patients carried two or more rearrangements. On average we detected 5.1 markers per patient (range 0-10). The majority of patients carried at least one complete IGH (168; 66%), TRG (155; 61%), TRD (154; 61%), or IGK (142; 56%) rearrangement (Fig. 1B).
 In dx BM T-ALL samples at least one leukemic marker was detected in 88/100 (88%) cases, and in 80 cases (80%) two or more were detected (Fig. 1C). On average 3.6 markers per patient were detected (range 0-10). The majority of patients carried TRG (67; 67%), TRD (65; 65%), or complete TRB (52; 52%) rearrangements (Fig. 1D).
 In dx PB samples at least 1 marker was detected in 74/75 (98%) B-ALL (on average 5.2 markers per patient), and 23/25 (92%) T-ALL samples (on average 3.7 markers per patient).
 Out of 18 rel samples (17 BM, 1 PB; 16 B-ALL, 2 T-ALL), 14 (78%) carried at least 1 rearrangement and 13 (72%) at least two rearrangements. On average 3.7 markers per patient were detected.
 Conclusions
 The EuroClonality-NGS assays detected at least 1 leukemic marker in 443/471 (94%) patients in our cohort. The number of patients with no marker was higher in the T-ALL cohort (15/127; 12%) compared to the B-ALL cohort (13/344; 4%). Only 3/100 (3%) dx PB samples had no marker detected, which is surprising considering the usually lower leukemic infiltration of PB in B-ALL, but can be attributed to the higher sensitivity of NGS.
 Besides higher sensitivity, NGS-based marker identification brings along other benefits: the turn-around time is shorter and it is possible to detect multiple markers per tube without laborious cloning, or splitting the multiplex PCRs into singleplex.
 Overall, EuroClonality-NGS assays have been shown to be robust, sensitive, and routinely applicable in a clinical diagnostic setting.

 Goekbuget: Kite / Gilead: Consultancy; Celgene: Consultancy; Novartis: Consultancy, Other: Travel support, Research Funding; Pfizer: Consultancy, Other: Travel support, Research Funding; Amgen: Consultancy, Other: Travel support, Research Funding. Brüggemann:PRMA: Consultancy; Pfizer: Speakers Bureau; Roche: Speakers Bureau; Regeneron: Research Funding; Affimed: Research Funding; Amgen: Consultancy, Research Funding, Speakers Bureau; Incyte: Consultancy.


A retrospective chart review of 600 general hospital patients, of whom 200 had been admitted to a medical-psychiatric unit, 200 to a conventional psychiatric unit and 200 to medical-surgical units, and for whom psychiatric consultation had been requested, disclosed significant differences in the patient populations of these services. The data suggest that consultation psychiatry and medical-psychiatric units serve two different subgroups of patients with combined physical and psychiatric illness. A comprehensive model of clinical psychosomatic medicine encompassing consultation psychiatry, liaison psychiatry, medical-psychiatric units and after-care medical-psychiatric clinics, is proposed.


Deep neural networks (DNNs) are becoming increasingly important components of software, and are considered the state-of-the-art solution for a number of problems, such as image recognition. However, DNNs are far from infallible, and incorrect behavior of DNNs can have disastrous real-world consequences. This paper addresses the problem of architecture-preserving V-polytope provable repair of DNNs. A V-polytope defines a convex bounded polytope using its vertex representation. V-polytope provable repair guarantees that the repaired DNN satisfies the given specification on the infinite set of points in the given V-polytope. An architecture-preserving repair only modifies the parameters of the DNN, without modifying its architecture. The repair has the flexibility to modify multiple layers of the DNN, and runs in polynomial time. It supports DNNs with activation functions that have some linear pieces, as well as fully-connected, convolutional, pooling and residual layers. To the best our knowledge, this is the first provable repair approach that has all of these features. We implement our approach in a tool called APRNN. Using MNIST, ImageNet, and ACAS Xu DNNs, we show that it has better efficiency, scalability, and generalization compared to PRDNN and REASSURE, prior provable repair methods that are not architecture preserving.


One of the main conditions in which the birth of new museums is observed are the museums that are implemented during the urban revitalization process. If what is intended with these initiatives is to give "new life" to areas that were previously considered "degraded", it is worth asking what role these institutions should play in these processes. In view of the fact that in Brazil, in the late twentieth century and in the beginning of the current century, several urban regeneration proposals and projects were developed, we selected the process of implementation of the Museu de Artes e Oficios (Museum of Arts and Trades – MAO) as the target of the present investigation, as well as its connection with the urban revitalization process of part of the central region of the city of Belo Horizonte.


Social media serves as a unified platform for users to express their thoughts on subjects ranging from their daily lives to their opinion on consumer brands and products. These users wield an enormous influence in shaping the opinions of other consumers and influence brand perception, brand loyalty and brand advocacy. In this paper, we analyze the opinion of 19M Twitter users towards 62 popular industries, encompassing 12,898 enterprise and consumer brands, as well as associated subject matter topics, via sentiment analysis of 330M tweets over a period spanning a month. We find that users tend to be most positive towards manufacturing and most negative towards service industries. In addition, they tend to be more positive or negative when interacting with brands than generally on Twitter. We also find that sentiment towards brands within an industry varies greatly and we demonstrate this using two industries as use cases. In addition, we discover that there is no strong correlation between topic sentiments of different industries, demonstrating that topic sentiments are highly dependent on the context of the industry that they are mentioned in. We demonstrate the value of such an analysis in order to assess the impact of brands on social media. We hope that this initial study will prove valuable for both researchers and companies in understanding users' perception of industries, brands and associated topics and encourage more research in this field.


Street life is a challenge for survival, even for adults, and is yet more difficult for children. They live within the city but are unable to take advantage of the comforts of urban life. This study focused primarily on access to health and education in street children from 6 to 18 years old in the Indian metropolises of Mumbai and Kolkata. The study also aimed to assess the role of social work interventions in ensuring the rights of street children. A combination of quantitative and qualitative research methodologies was used. Convenience sampling was used to recruit 100 children. Data were collected on a one-to-one basis through semi-structured interview schedules and by non-participant observation. Findings revealed that extreme poverty was the primary cause for the increasing numbers of street children. Lack of awareness among illiterate parents regarding educational opportunities kept most children away from school attendance. Factors such as lack of an educational ambience at home made it difficult for the children to work on their lessons outside the premises of the institution. It was evident that those living with their parents had better access to health care facilities than did those living on their own; however, nongovernmental organizations made significant efforts to redress this imbalance, setting up health check-up camps at regular intervals. Although exposure to harsh reality at an early age had resulted in a premature loss of innocence in most, making them sometimes difficult to work with, the nongovernmental organizations were striving to ensure child participation and the growth of individual identity. The interventionists therefore focused on developing a rights-based approach, rather than a charitable one.


A switching-type noise thermometer is used for the determination of the ratio of thermodynamic temperatures of two resistances, one having a value of 10 kΩ and maintained at a temperature in the range 90 to 100 K and the other, regarded as the reference, of 3 kΩ maintained slightly above room temperature (298 K). The various instrumental errors are analysed and it is shown that operation with the instrument simultaneously balanced in two different frequency ranges results in the automatic elimination of some of these, allowing a precision of 1 in 105, equivalent to 1 mK at 100 K, to be approached, subject to the requirement of lengthy averaging for the reduction of statistical uncertainty. Preliminary results, based on the assumption of negligible difference between the IPTS-68 and the thermodynamic scale at the reference temperature, show the difference T - T68 to be + 3 mK at 90.17 K and + 8 mK at 97 K. The standard deviations of these differences are 3 mK and 4 mK respectively. Recent gas thermometry at NBS indicates that the IPTS-68 temperature may be significantly higher than the corresponding thermodynamic one at the reference temperature and if this is taken into account the noise thermometer result is in close numerical agreement with the IPTS-68 value for the oxygen boiling point.


Objective: To determine the clinical presentation of congenital adrenal hyperplasia and short- term response to treatment.
Background: Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) is a genetic disorder which usually presents with life threatening emergencies. Awareness of physicians regarding these presentations is an essential for early diagnosis and lifesaving treatment. In view of the prevalence of the condition as reported from tertiary care centers within the country and other parts of the globe, we had carried out a study in the paediatric department of Shaheed Mohtrama Benazir Bhutto Medical University Larkana.
Material and Methods: The study was conducted over a period of one year from July 2012 to June 2013. All infants presenting with vomiting, dehydration, shock, failure to thrive and ambiguous genitalia were examined and investigated thoroughly. The diagnosis was based upon a raised level of serum 17 OHP in a child with suggestive clinical features.
Results: A total of 40 children were diagnosed to have CAH during the study period. The major presenting features were vomiting in 13 (32.5%), ambiguous genitalia 17 (42.5%), vomiting and ambiguous genitalia 10 (25%), shock 5(12.5%) and failure to thrive in 13 (32.5%) of cases. All the patients were followed up after initiation of treatment and good response was observed to short-term treatment.
Conclusion: This study highlights the importance of common clinical features like vomiting, unreasonable dehydration, shock and ambiguous genitalia being the presenting features of CAH and the effectiveness of replacement therapy in amending life threatening emergencies due to this condition.


Question
Can repeat (time-lapse) photography be used to detect the phenological development of a forest stand, and linked to temporal patterns in root nutrition for Hedysarum alpinum (alpine sweetvetch) an important grizzly bear food species?

Location
Eastern foothills and front ranges of the Rocky Mountains in Alberta, Canada. The area contains a diverse mix of mature and young forest, wetlands and alpine habitats.

Methods
We deployed six automated cameras at three locations to acquire daily photographs at the plant and forest stand scales. Plot locations were also visited on a bi-weekly basis to record the phenological stage of H. alpinum and other target plant species, as well as to collect a root sample for determination of crude protein content.

Results
Repeat photography and image analysis successfully detected all key phenological events (i.e. green-up, flowering, senescence). Given the relation between phenology and root nutrition, we illustrate how camera data can be used to predict the spatial and temporal distribution and quality of a key wildlife resource.

Conclusions
Repeat photography provides a cost-effective method for monitoring vegetation development, food availability, and nutritional quality at a forest stand scale. Since wildlife responds to the availability and quality of their food resources, detailed information on changes in resource availability helps with land-use management decisions and furthers our understanding of grizzly bear feeding ecology and habitat selection.


Abstract We investigate performance effects for China's listed firms when there is a change in the controlling shareholder. These changes include ownership transfers from one state entity to another state entity and from a state entity to a private entity. We find positive performance effects when control is passed to a private entity. In contrast, when the transfer is made to another branch of the state, there is little change in performance. The stock market responds positively to a change in control, with the largest effect observed for private transfers. Our results suggest the Chinese government should continue to sell down its share ownership in listed firms as the transfer of control to private owners enhances corporate profitability and efficiency. Moreover, to help ownership reform, China should encourage an active market for corporate control.


UV radiation is known to induce the premature aging of human skin and to contribute to the occurrence of different skin cancers. High doses of UVA (which is able to penetrate through the epidermis into the dermis) and/or UVB radiation (which only affects the epidermis) lead to cellular oxidative damage compromising the recovery of the normal functions of the cells. This cellular damage is mainly driven by the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) that alter the redox status of the intracellular milieu, affecting the cellular metabolic activity, leading to DNA damage, apoptosis and, consequently, to a drastic decrease in the number of live cells, compromising the function of the skin. A series of polyphenolic fractions were extracted from the outer bark (cork) of Quercus suber L., and tested for their capacity to reduce the cellular damage promoted by the ROS produced during UV exposure. This was evaluated after exposing L929 fibroblasts to UV radiation in the presence and absence of the cork extracts. In all the cases the extracts at the concentration of 75 μg ml−1 demonstrated the capacity to preserve cell metabolic activity and their typical morphology, as well as to avoid DNA fragmentation after exposure to UV radiation. We were also able to correlate these findings with the intracellular reduction of ROS species and the presence of higher proportions of castalagin and vescalagin in the extracts. Our data prove that cork is a relevant source of antioxidant compounds able to act in the cellular environment, protecting cells against oxidation, reducing the number of ROS species and limiting the negative impact of UV radiation. These extracts can be further exploited in the preparation of anti-UV formulations for skin protection.


The present study aims at deciphering the effect of a high-intensity interval exercise on cognitive processes involved in perceptual decision-making through computational modelling. To that end, participants performed a perceptual decision task (RDK) before and after a high-intensity interval exercise (8 × 5min, 85 ± 8 % HRmax). Cognitive processes were measured by best-fitting parameters of a drift diffusion model (DDM) to behavioral data (accuracy and response times). Drift Diffusion modeling revealed faster non-decisional time and more efficient drift rate suggesting a better sensory encoding, a greater allocation of attentional resources and a faster processing speed following acute exercise.


We present a high-power white supercontinuum (SC) all-fiber laser source with average power of 67.9 W, spectrum ranging from 500 to 1700 nm, and spectral width exceeding 1000 nm for spectrum with flatness below 10 dB (except pump wavelength). Also, the visible waveband power (below 850 nm) occupies about 21% of the total SC power. A 145 W high-power picosecond pulse fiber laser is specially designed with high repetition frequency of 656 MHz to reduce nonlinear effects. Meanwhile, a homemade high-power mode field adaptor that can operate stably at hundreds of watts of pulse power has high coupling efficiency of 82%. To our knowledge, the 67.9 W white SC fiber laser source we achieved is the highest reported with such a wide and flat optical spectrum.


Abstract. Laboratory experiments on rock samples have shown electric signal emissions when the samples are subjected to temporal stress increase especially when the samples approach failure. These electric signals are attributed to the generation and propagation of microcracks that guide the sample to mechanical failure. In this work the temporal evolution of electric charge release is studied for marble samples subjected to stress at a constant rate up to fracture and it is correlated to the respective recordings of the yielded strain. The results exhibit a systematic linear correlation between electric charge and deformation, with a constant proportionality factor independent of stress rate magnitude. This linear correlation, which is in accordance with the Moving Charged Dislocations (MCD) model, exists from the instant that the marble samples are driven to the non-linear region of mechanical behaviour due to the applied stress, and more precisely to the Crack Propagation Zone (CPZ) up to the pre-failure phase.


FELTON, GRIMWADE AND BICKFORD'S exhibit included a number of additions to the "D·H·A" range of medical products. The drug teroptertn, which was stated to have given promise of having some value in the management of malignant disease, was introduced for the first time into Australia. A method of injecting penicillin-oil-wax mixtures ("Transjector" pack, D'H'A) without transferring the mixture to a syringe was demonstrated. This is done by means of a "Transjector" holder (patent applied for). Tablets of the mixed alkaloids of belladonna for the treatment of Parkinsonism were displayed under the name of "Dhasolan"; the strength was said to permit the gradual decrease or increase of dosage. The fatty acid treatment of tinea by means of undecylenic acid and zinc undecylenate was featured in the form of "Derrnecyl" ointment and powder. "Rutin" (D'H-A) is produced wholly in Australia and is available in tablets of 20 and 50 milligrammes. Interest was shown in a liver extract, "Hepadyn", said to be pleasantly flavoured, and in the arrangements of "Soluvac" apparatus for the intravenous administration of fluids. OXYGE:'oIAIRE (AUSTRALIA) PROPRIETARY, LIMITED, in association with OXYGENAIRE (LONDON), LIMITED, designers and manufacturers of oxygen tents and auxiliary equipment, displayed for the inspection of the Australian medical profession newly imported British oxygen therapy equipment, including the Wigmore oxygen tent, the Queen Charlotte tent for infants up to nine weeks old, and the "Oxyair" lightweight plastic oxygen mask. The "Oxycillin" oxygen-penicillin atomizer, which was said to present a new and improved method of administering oxygen and penicillin in aerosol form, attracted interest. It was stated that all equipment had been produced by Oxygenaire, Limited, following clinical research and collaboration with specialists and hospitals in England, and was now. available in Australia through the sole distributors, Oxygenaire (Australia) Proprietary, Limited, of Sydney, and their appointed agents in other States.


Mixed-criticality systems (MCS) combine real-time components of different levels of criticality - i.e. severity of failure - on the same processor, in order to obtain good resource utilisation. They must be able to guarantee deadlines of highly-critical threads without any dependence on less-critical threads. This requires strong temporal isolation, similar to the spatial isolation that is traditionally provided by operating systems, without unnecessary loss of processor utilisation. We present a model that uses scheduling contexts as first-class objects to represent time, and integrates seamlessly with the capability-based protection model of the seL4 microkernel. We show that the model comes with minimal overhead, and supports implementation of arbitrary scheduling policies as well as criticality switches at user level.


The Southern Ocean plays a key role in global ocean circulation by connecting the major ocean basins with the intense Antarctic Circumpolar Current and as a formation region for abyssal water masses of the global ocean. Understanding the diapycnal mixing processes that link these abyssal waters to the overlying layers is essential both for ocean modelling and for predicting future climate change. In the Southern Ocean, deep reaching currents impinge on rough topography and create highly energetic internal lee waves. The dissipation of the energy of these internal lee waves is the main candidate for explaining the high mixing rates between waters of different densities observed at these latitudes. The purpose of this study is to understand the fate of the internal lee wave energy and how it affects the circulation and diapycnal mixing in the abyssal ocean. We first study the impact of internal lee waves on deep mixing with the combination of field expertise, two-dimensional non hydrostatic numerical simulations and theoretical developments. Over the range of parameters studied, an enhanced bottom turbulent kinetic energy dissipation is observed in the bottom 1000 m, typically reaching $sim$ 20 mW.m$^{-2}$. We further show that internal lee waves undergo non-dissipative wave-wave interactions that can be rationalized as resonant triad interactions between the bottom emitted internal lee waves, inertial oscillations and linear combinations of these two waves. We then build a three-dimensional model configuration and specific diagnostic methods that pave the way for future investigations in three dimensions. Preliminary results with the three-dimensional numerical configuration show that the meridional confinement of the topography notably reduces the emission of internal lee waves.


▪ Abstract A fracture mechanics framework has been developed for predicting crack initiation and growth in full-scale components and structures from test specimen data. Much knowledge has also been gained about the mechanisms by which fracture occurs in a variety of materials. However, the development of quantitative connections between models of the physical processes of fracture and macroscale measures of fracture resistance is still at an early stage. A key difficulty is that fracture spans several length scales from the atomistic to the macroscopic scale. In this paper, some analyses are reviewed that use micromechanical modeling to predict fracture toughness from the physics of separation and plastic flow processes. Attention is confined to fracture by cleavage in metal crystals, under both monotonic and cyclic loading conditions. The role of models at the dislocation size scale in bridging the gap between atomistic and continuum descriptions is highlighted.


Recent studies by our group and others have shown that T-type Ca2+ channels play a reinforcing role in cancer cell proliferation, cell cycle progression and apoptosis evasion. We have demonstrated drug cooperativity between T-type Ca2+ channel inhibitor, mibefradil and carboplatin in vivo in ovarian cancer xenografts. To investigate the molecular mechanism by which T-type Ca2+ channels affect tumor growth, we used a panel of ovarian cancer cell lines together with mibefradil or small interfering RNA (siRNA) to silence the T-channels gene expression. Inhibition of T-type Ca2+ channels with mibefradil or by silencing expression resulted in growth suppression in ovarian cancer with simultaneous increase in apoptosis and decrease in expression of the anti-apoptotic gene survivin (BIRC5). Combining carboplatin with mibefradil resulted in increased apoptosis. Analysis of intracellular signaling revealed T-type Ca2+ channel inhibitors induced changes in the levels of FOXO proteins, which regulate BIRC5 gene expression. Mibefradil treatment caused greater nuclear retention of FoxO1 and FoxO3a, two transcription factors that repress BIRC5 expression, while protein expression of the transcription factor that activates BIRC5 expression, FoxM1, decreased. Chromatin immunoprecipitation of FOXO proteins from mibefradil treated ovarian cancer cells demonstrated binding of FoxM1 and FoxO1 within the BIRC5 (survivin) promoter. Together, the data show that T-type Ca2+ channels support ovarian cancer cell cycle, proliferation and regulate pro-survival pathways through the FOXO-survivin signaling axis, which has been reported to be deregulated in ovarian cancer. Moreover, our results provide the rationale for future use of T-type antagonists as sensitizing agents in combination with standard chemotherapeutics. Citation Format: Barbara Dziegielewska, Eli V. Casarez, Wesley Z. Yang, Jaroslaw Dziegielewski, Jill K. Slack-Davis. T-type Ca2+ channel inhibitors sensitize ovarian cancer to carboplatin through downregulation of survivin gene expression. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 5407. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-5407


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TM-pass polarizers are pivotal components of photonic integrated circuits (PICs), especially those intended for biosensing applications. In the literature, several silicon TM-pass polarizers have been proposed, designed and experimentally demonstrated, but their insertion loss is not compatible with the current trend of silicon photonics aimed at exponentially increasing the component density within PICs. Herein, we propose and design a TM-pass polarizer whose insertion loss is carefully minimized to 0.05 dB at wavelength 1.55 μm by utilizing a combination of an asymmetric directional coupler and a mode evolution section. The adoption of appropriate technical solutions makes this record insertion loss value compatible with a high extinction ratio equal to 38 dB. With a device footprint of only 2.5 × 20 μm2, the design exhibits an insertion loss less than 1.7 dB and extinction ratio better than 30 dB over a large bandwidth of 200 nm. The design assumes the constraints of a typical silicon photonics open-access technological process and a standard 220 nm silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer. A very low sensitivity of the achieved performance to reasonable fabrication inaccuracies is demonstrated, with a worst-case insertion loss of only 0.32 dB at wavelength 1.55 μm.


Objective: The aim of this study is to develop an automated classification algorithm for polysomnography (PSG) recordings to detect non-apneic and non-hypopneic arousals. Our particular focus is on detecting the respiratory effort-related arousals (RERAs) which are very subtle respiratory events that do not meet the criteria for apnea or hypopnea, and are more challenging to detect. Methods: The proposed algorithm is based on a bidirectional long short-term memory (BiLSTM) classifier and 465 multi-domain features, extracted from multimodal clinical time series. The features consist of a set of physiology-inspired features (n = 75), obtained by multiple steps of feature selection and expert analysis, and a set of physiology-agnostic features (n = 390), derived from scattering transform. Results: The proposed algorithm is validated on the 2018 PhysioNet challenge dataset. The overall performance in terms of the area under the precision-recall curve (AUPRC) is 0.50 on the hidden test dataset. This result is tied for the second-best score during the follow-up and official phases of the 2018 PhysioNet challenge. Conclusions: The results demonstrate that it is possible to automatically detect subtle non-apneic/non-hypopneic arousal events from PSG recordings. Significance: Automatic detection of subtle respiratory events such as RERAs together with other non-apneic/non-hypopneic arousals will allow detailed annotations of large PSG databases. This contributes to a better retrospective analysis of sleep data, which may also improve the quality of treatment.


The elastic constant tensor of Sim / Gen superlattices with different modulation wavelengths has been determined by Brillouin light scattering spectroscopy. The C 11 elastic constant obtained for Sin / Gen (where bilayers are built up by an equal number of Si and Ge monolayers) and Sin / Ge4n superlattices are 13% above the predictions of the continuum elasticity theory, using the Cij values of bulk Si and Ge. On the other hand, the elastic constant tensor of Si4n / Gen and Si3n / Gen superlattices matches perfectly the predictions. A structural analysis by extended x-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy of the interfaces has been carried out and the unexpected different elastic behaviour can be explained by the observed strains at the superlattice interfaces.


Diacylglycerol at 1 or 6% was added into refined bleached and deodorized palm oil (RBDPO) and crystallized from the melt in a thermally controlled water bath at 22°C for 90 min. Slurries were withdrawn after 5, 15, 30, 60 and 90 min of crystallization for solid fat content (SFC) and crystal morphology studies. Crystallization was also performed in a similar manner using a Labmax reactor connected to a FBRM detector to obtain the information on crystal count and size distribution during crystallization. SFC of the slurries increased with increase in crystallization time up to a certain level followed by a plateau. SFC of RBDPO added with DAG was also higher with the increase in percentage of DAG added and no induction time was observed to initiate crystallization in RBDPO added with DAG. The addition of DAG caused rapid crystallization of RBDPO as observed by enhance nucleation and larger crystal size with increase in the percentages of DAG added.


In view of the significantly different proton charge radius extracted from muonic hydrogen Lamb shift measurements as compared to electronic hydrogen spectroscopy or electron-scattering experiments, we study in this Letter the photoproduction of a lepton pair on a proton target in the limit of very small momentum transfer as a way to provide a test of the lepton universality when extracting the proton charge form factor. By detecting the recoiling proton in the γp→l^{-}l^{+}p reaction, we show that a measurement of a ratio of e^{-}e^{+}+μ^{-}μ^{+} over e^{-}e^{+} cross sections with an absolute precision of 7×10^{-4} would allow for a test to distinguish, at the 3σ level, between the two different proton charge radii currently extracted from muonic and electronic observables.


This paper deals with the effects of elenoside, (3-hidroxymethyl-1-methoxy-5,6-methylene-dioxy-4-(3,4-methylenedioxyphenyl)-2-naftoic acid lactone-beta-D-glucoside) an arylnaphthalene lignan with broad spectrum cytotoxicity in a human tumor cell line panel, isolated from Justicia hyssopifolia (Acanthaceae) grown in the Canary Islands (Spain), on isolated cardiac auricle of rabbits, urinary excretion of rats, and on isolated rat ileum. These effects, using a vehicle (propylene glycol-ethanol-plant oil-Tween 80 (40:10:50:2) as a standard, are presented. Elenoside at concentrations of 3.2x10(-4), 6.4 x 10(-4), and 1.2 x 10(-3) M produced an increase in the contraction force of auricles in a concentration-dependent way. At doses of 25 and 50 mg/kg, an antidiuretic effect and a decrease in sodium excretion were observed. Elenoside at concentrations of 3.2 x 10(-4), 6.4 x 10(-4) and 1.2 x 10(-3) M produced an increase in the contraction force of ileum in a concentration-dependent manner. Elenoside produced the concentration dependent inhibition of 86Rb uptake. These results indicate that elenoside has digitalis-like activity similar to mammalian lignans. Moreover, this lignan has an irritant effect on the gastrointestinal tract.


Abstract: Paper provides comparative analysis of basic regulations governing design of systems of cathodic protection of underground metal structures against corrosion based on both Russian and international materials. The following basic parameters for evaluation of cathodic protection system performance are accepted: "need for applying cathodic protection systems", "values characterizing security of underground metal structures against corrosion in the presence of electrochemical protection", "density of protective current" and "magnitude of protective current". Carried out analysis identified the need to improve Russian system of cathodic protection systems design for all listed characteristics and above all in the direction of reducing the quantities of protective current and its density.


We have carried out a topological data analysis of gene expressions for different databases based on the Fermat distance between the z scores of different tissue samples. There is a critical value of the filtration parameter at which all clusters collapse in a single one. This critical value for healthy samples is gapless and smaller than that for cancerous ones. After collapse in a single cluster, topological holes persist for larger filtration parameter values in cancerous samples. Barcodes, persistence diagrams and Betti numbers as functions of the filtration parameter are different for different types of cancer and constitute fingerprints thereof.


This article presents a concept and a measurement of managers' change-oriented behavior related to the initiation and implementation organizational change. It is argued that managers have an optimal potential for achieving organizational changes if they have the change-centered leadership style, are intuitive, recognize demands for change, and have power-motivated behavior. Public and private managers are significantly different in relation to change-oriented behavior based on data from 343 managers in two public organizations and one private. One result was unexpected: public managers are more change-oriented than managers in business organizations. As expected, there is no significant difference in change-oriented behavior among managers in public agencies. Possible explanations for these outcomes are presented.


Magic angle spinning (MAS) NMR has been used to investigate the location and orientation of five serotonin receptor 1a agonists (serotonin, buspirone, quipazine, 8-OH-DPAT, and LY-163,165) in single component model lipid and brain lipid membranes. The agonist locations are probed by monitoring changes in the lipid proton chemical shifts and by MAS-assisted nuclear Overhauser enhancement spectroscopy, which indicates the orientation of the agonists with respect to the 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine lipids. In the single component bilayer, the membrane agonists are found predominantly in the top of the hydrophobic chain or in the glycerol region of the membrane. Most of the agonists orient approximately parallel to the membrane plane, with the exception of quipazine, whose piperazine ring is found in the glycerol region, whereas its benzene ring is located within the lipid hydrophobic chain. The location of the agonist in brain lipid membranes is similar to the 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine lipid bilayers; however, many of the agonists appear to locate close to the cholesterol in the membrane in preference to the phospholipids.


This article traces the trajectory of party Euroscepticism in Greece drawing upon theories of issue competition. It demonstrates that the economic dimension of the multiple crises facing the European Union (EU) contributed to a Eurosceptic shift in public opinion, the electoral success of Eurosceptic parties, new parties populating the Europhile end of the spectrum, and the formation of a coalition government united not by ideological affinity but by a common Eurosceptic and anti-austerity agenda. Mainstream parties maintained their pro-EU agendas and challenger parties offered both pro- and anti-EU policy options to the electorate. The prospect of power resulted in the progressive softening of Euroscepticism among challenger parties. EU issue salience was relatively high across the party system and remained so during the crisis. Although Greek parties justified their pro- and anti-EU attitudes using a number of frames, economic arguments were prevalent at the height of the crisis and challenger parties of the left intensified their claims of the EU interfering in national politics. The findings have implications for our understanding of the evolving nature of Euroscepticism and the ways in which it may feature in domestic party politics.