Surgical ablation of tumors within the oral cavity results in a three‐dimensional defect and a potential puzzle for the reconstructive surgeon. Although a myriad of papers discussing the relative advantages and disadvantages of various methods of reconstruction are readily available for consultation, very few publications have provided the surgeon with a guide either to visualization of the defect or to how to reconstruct a three‐dimensional defect with an essentially two‐dimensional flap. Our intention is not to provide the answer for every oral reconstructive problem—after all, no two patients are alike—but we will demonstrate that an appreciation of the defect in three‐dimensions, together with an understanding of oral function, provides a template for flap design and inset. This is achieved by simplifying the complex anatomical shape of the oral cavity into a geometric form from which a series of simple, easily recognisable shapes can be derived and assembled as necessary into a pattern that reproduces the defect, providing a template for flap design and inset. © 1994 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


This research focused on examining the possibility of using three kinds of plant leaves i.e . Acacia mangium Willd , Persea americana Mill and Psidium guajava as tannin source to signal grass ( Brachiaria brizantha ) silage. The silages were made from the first cut of signal grass harvested at 50 days. Four treatment silages were TA: grass ensiled without tannin as control, AM: grass ensiled with A. mangium (6 g tannin /kg fresh weight), PA: grass ensiled with P. americana (6 g tannin /kg fresh weight), and PG: grass ensiled with P. guajava (6 g tannin/kg fresh weight). After mixing, the materials were packed into glass bottle silos (225 g capacity), in triplicate, which were ensiled for 30 days. The results showed that dry matter, organic matter and crude protein concentrations in signal grass silage mixed with tannin of A. mangium were higher (P<0.01) compared to other silages. Degradations of dry matter, organic matter and crude protein during ensiling were the lowest in silage with A. mangium tannin additive. This data was supported by good fermentation quality of that silage e.g. low pH value, NH 3 -N and VFA concentrations, and high lactic acid concentration and Fleigh point as compared to other silages.  It is concluded that addition of tannin from A. mangium leaf at rate of 6 g/kg fresh weight improved fermentation quality and has potential as protein protection agents during the ensilage of signal grass. Key Words : Fermentation, Silage, Tannin, Signal Grass


Abstract : This matrix provides data on the communications satellites that are being developed or are now being used in international, domestic and military satellite communications systems. The matrix contains information on the spacecraft performance (weight, prime power), the communications transponder (EIRP, G/T etc.) and operational status at the time of publication. The information contained in the matrix is the most accurate and up-to-date at the time of publication. (Author)


This study first illustrates how intercultural communicative competences (ICC) may be modelled through tasks and then focuses on the question of how teachers of English may develop the process competences needed to support ICC with their learners. For this, we draw on data from a three-year collaboration with secondary EFL teachers and their classrooms who have developed, taught and reflected the competences needed to do so. Classrooms cover all types of school and our experiences highlight the challenges of developing ICC with heterogeneous groups. We will exemplify teachers' competences with the case study of one teacher and will refer to a recent publication for a structured survey of teaching competences needed to introduce, support and evaluate ICC.


The behaviour of the subband structure of AlGaAs/GaAs single quantum well structures due to interdiffusion shows that the variations of the allowed interband transitions with interdiffusion are determined by confinement and compositional energy changes in the quantum well. The understanding of these is interrelated, and they are strong functions of the as-grown well width. In particular, our results demonstrate that the higher-order transitions are more sensitive to interdiffusion than the ground state transitions during the early stages of interdiffusion.


This paper discusses the implementation details and silicon result of a 1.6 GHz dual-core Cortex-A9 on a low power High-K Metal Gate 32nm CMOS Bulk Process [1]. The implementation is based on a fully synthesizable flow utilizing ARM Standard Cell and Memory IP. The completed design includes power gating and Dynamic Voltage Frequency Scaling capabilities for low static and dynamic power consumption and achieves beyond GHz+ nominal operating frequency. This paper will outline the chip architecture, discuss the implementation and challenges encountered during design and present results measured from the functional silicon.


Jeremy Bentham, the founder of utilitarianism, ordered in his will of 1832 that his body was to be dissected, and his skeleton with his mummified head was to become the basis of the so-called Auto-Icon. Bentham's Auto Icon can be seen now in the University College of London The paper presents an attempt to reconstruct the motives which guided Bentham – this issue leads to the broader questions concerning the protection of human corpses from the point of view of the utilitarian legal thought. On the one hand, the Benthamian concept of autoicon is rooted in utilitarian doctrine created by the philosopher. Bentham wanted to propose such a solution so that the body of a deceased man could serve the living persons to the greatest possible extent. Therefore, he urged that the so-called soft tissues (except a head) of a deceased person were to be dissected, and thus may be useful for the development of medicine and education of future physicians. Auto-icon could in turn be useful because it could recall the memory of the deceased and alleviate the fear of death in the living individuals, and simultaneously Piotr Szymaniec – Doczesne szczątki Jeremy'ego Benthama a zasada użyteczności... 771 it could serve the much more "mundane" purposes, e.g. it can be exposed to public view and thus confer benefits to the owners. Therefore, Bentham wrote that auto-icons would be a new kind of property resembling the literary property. On the other hand, the Bentham's idea is strongly connected with his attitude to religion, particularly Christianity. The founder of utilitarianism recognized only the usefulness of religion as a kind of instrument of social engineering and desired the secularization of society, but he did not entirely renounce the Christian idea of immortality. The concept of auto-icon reflects this idea. Bentham's intention was to create a kind of pantheon of the greatest individuals for the new, secular society implementing the principle of utility. Moreover, Bentham ranked himself among those "saints" for a utilitarian society. In this respect, the Benthamian idea of auto-icon seems to anticipate the project of Vladimir Lenin's cult.


This paper compares mathematical models for automated market makers including logarithmic market scoring rule (LMSR), liquidity sensitive LMSR (LS-LMSR), constant product/mean/sum, and others. It is shown that though LMSR may not be a good model for Decentralized Finance (DeFi) applications, LS-LMSR has several advantages over constant product/mean based automated market makers. However, LS-LMSR requires complicated computation (i.e., logarithm and exponentiation) and the cost function curve is concave. In certain DeFi applications, it is preferred to have computationally efficient cost functions with convex curves to conform with the principle of supply and demand. This paper proposes and analyzes constant circle/ellipse based cost functions for automated market makers. The proposed cost functions are computationally efficient (only requires multiplication and square root calculation) and have several advantages over widely deployed constant product cost functions. For example, the proposed market makers are more robust against front-runner (slippage) attacks.


Introduction: Oral malodor or halitosis is a common problem in the general population throughout the world. Results of previous research findings suggest that there is a relationship between oral malodor and social anxiety disorder. Halitosis can be very damaging to someone psychologically due to the social stigma. In this study, we tried to assess the social stigma related to halitosis and compare that in Saudi and British population. Methodology: A pretested questionnaire was distributed among Saudi and British population. Responses were obtained from 308 (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) and 304 (United Kingdom) participants. The purpose of this study was explained to the participants before distributing questionnaire form and the information was collected accordingly. Results: A total of 612 participants, 308 (Jeddah and Abha) and 304 (Cardiff, Edinburgh, and Glasgow) were selected and all the participants were aware of their halitosis. Selected Saudi population assessed their halitosis as mild (50.6%), moderate (30.12%) and severe (19.28%). Selected British population assessed their halitosis as mild (39.71%), moderate (36.76%), and severe (23.53%). 71.2% of the Saudi population selected and 56.6% of the United Kingdom population selected responded that they encountered individuals with halitosis. 76.9% of Saudi population selected and 55.8% of United Kingdom population selected encountered social embarrassment due to halitosis. Conclusion: Considerable amount of stigma associated with halitosis persists in both countries. Though there are no significant differences in the social stigma attached with halitosis between the United Kingdom and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, it is still a matter of concern.


Eight years ago, in an article entitled 'A prehistoric invasion of England', Mr O. G. S. Crawford put forward the hypothesis that 'towards the close of the Bronze Age the British Isles were invaded by the first wave of Celtic-speaking peoples bringing with them leaf-shaped bronze swords, many other entirely new types of bronze objects, and at least two types of pottery new to these islands'. It may perhaps be said that this view, with certain qualifications, notably as regards chronology, has met with general acceptance. A comparative study of types of bronze implements over a wide geographical field, while yielding corroborative evidence in support of the invasion theory, has also raised important problems in other directions; and it is my present object to give the results of an enquiry into the origins and distributions of certain type-specimens of the late Bronze Age cultures of western Europe.


This report emphasizes high-income countries' responsibility to lead by example in pursuing more open markets and in supporting the Least Developed Countries to raise their export competitiveness. It proposes concrete and practical steps that governments and international agencies can undertake to bring trade to bear on development. The report has been prepared by a group of leading experts who contributed in their personal capacity and volunteered their time to this important task. I am very grateful for their thorough and skilled efforts, and I am sure that the practical options for action in this report will make an important contribution to achieving the Millennium Development Goals. I strongly recommend it to anyone who is interested in how to mobilize trade for development.


The balance between water use for hydropower and irrigation, sustaining ecosystem services and preventing flood risk is essential to consider in water management for sustainable use. One rising concern is the conflict between the environment and agriculture mainly in lowland areas, where total base flows are abstracted for irrigation without compromising ecological conservation. Hence, it is important to understand the water balance and quantify the dominant components in a watershed to allocate water for all purposes.Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model was used to understand the hydrological process of the Upper Awash River Basin with the emphasis on analyzing surface runoff generation using the Soil Conservation Service (SCS) curve number method. SWAT incorporates two methods for estimating the retention parameter (S) for SCS curve number method; allowing S to vary with soil profile moisture content (SM) and to let S vary with accumulated plant evapotranspiration (PT). The PT method being more dependent on forcing data than soil data provides another dimension of applicability for data limited watersheds. The results were analyzed by visual comparison of the observed and simulated hydrographs and model performance measures. The hydrographs comparison indicated that the PT method was better in peak flow prediction while SM method outperformed in simulating the low flows. The performance measures (Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiency, Coefficient of Determination and Percent Bias) indicate better prediction by PT method. While the methods agree on predicting the hydrographs, they contradict in the annual water balance assessments. After evapotranspiration, base flow is the dominant component in SM method whereas surface runoff is the foremost in PT method. The results from the PT method agree with the outcome discussed in previous study. Furthermore, it has the advantage of governing by a single parameter that could be calibrated separately to control the base flow and surface runoff contribution to the total flow.The analysis shows that care must be taken in selecting a way for quantifying, especially for ungauged catchments where validation of model result is unattainable.


Marriage has become an increasingly important topic in academic and policy research. A burgeoning literature suggests that marriage may have a wide range of benefits, including improvements in individuals' economic well-being, mental and physical health, and the well-being of their children. This brief focuses on recent research evidence concerning one of these potential benefits of marriage—its effects on health. The brief provides an overview of what is currently known about the relationship between marriage and health; it also suggests directions for future research.


This paper deals with how reasonable it is to accept the pure expectations hypothesis as a guide to the expected future development of the economy as indicated by the expected future short rate. At this aim it tries to extract short rate expectations from the observable term structure of interest rates, short rate volatility and market prices of bund-futures options within the framework of an extended version of Vasicek's prominent 1977 one-factor-no-arbitrage model. Doing so has its merits in teaching too because it allows to precisely disentangle the interwined concepts of the market price of zerobond price risk on the one hand and term or liquidity premium on the other.


Surface temperature (T s ) is vital to the study of land-atmosphere interactions and climate variabilities. However, observed T s data are still very scarce in humid tropical region. There is therefore a need to parameterize and improve the representation of Ts in Global Climate Models using available meteorological data. Six land surface temperature parameterization approaches (Force restored, Liebethal, Holtslag, Equilibrium Gradient, Tracy and Gottsche approaches) were validated with actual measurements using the Nigeria Micrometeorological Experiment (NIMEX) surface layer observations. The Liebethal approach showed the best agreement with the measured data with average coefficient of determination, mean bias error and root mean square error of 0.96 ± 0.01, 0.08 ± 0.04 o C and 0.85 ± 0.14 o C, respectively, in simulated T s . The results also showed that the Force restored and Tracy approaches are applicable for land surface temperature parameterization in this region. Keywords : Surface Temperature, Climate Change, Humid, Parameterization, Mean Bias Error


Recently, the covariance region descriptor [1] has been proved robust and versatile for a modest computational cost. It enables efficient fusion of different types of features. Based on the covariance descriptor and the metric on Riemannian manifolds, we develop a robust Bayesian tracking framework via fragments-based representation in this paper. In this framework, the template object is represented by multiple image fragments or patches. Every patch votes on the possible state of the object in the current frame, by comparing its covariance descriptor with the corresponding image patch model. Tracking is then led by the Bayesian state inference framework in which a particle filter is used for propagating sample distributions over time. The weight of each particle is formulated by combining the votes of the patches using a robust statistic. Further, we extend the fast covariance computation to the Bayesian tracking problem, which makes the tracking procedure more efficient. We present extensive experimental results on challenging sequences, which demonstrate the robust tracking achieved by our algorithm.


Partial evaluation is a technique popular in the programming languages community. It is applied here as a methodology for personalizing Web content. PIPE (Personalization is Partial Evaluation) is able to personalize Web resources, without enumerating the interaction sequences beforehand. It supports information integration, and varying levels of input by Web visitors. PIPE models personalization as a form of partial evaluation, a technique that uses incomplete input information to specialize programs. This article describes the PIPE methodology and presents experimental results demonstrating its effectiveness in two different domains.


to recover. Bennett could also have elaborated on Donald L Horowitz's work on fostering interethnic cooperation, which informs his theoretical framework. Nonetheless, the book is an essential compendium of Dayton's few successes and many failures for experts and policymakers interested in spearheading a debate about how Bosnia can move beyond the current system. It will also be of interest to students of the Balkan region as well as practitioners in the field of post-conflict reconstruction and development in divided societies, who will find the Bibliographical Note (pp. 325–334) particularly useful.


This research aims to isolate the crude extract amylase of sprouted seeds jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus Lam) and determine the specific activity. Determination of total protein concentration and amylase activity of enzyme crude extract on seed germination jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus Lam). Determination of total protein concentration using the method of Bradford, whereas the determination of amylase activity was performed using dinitrosalisilat acid method (DNS). The results showed a total protein concentration of the enzyme crude extract of sprout seeds jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus Lam) is 319,47 ug / mL, amylase activity of 13,96 U / mL and specific activity is 1748,05 U / mg.


Experimental studies have shown that tea and tea polyphenols have anti-carcinogenic properties against breast cancer. A number of epidemiologic studies, both case-control and cohort in design, have examined the possible association between tea intake and breast cancer development in humans. This meta-analysis included 13 papers which examined populations in eight countries and provided data on consumption of either green tea or black tea, or both in relation to breast cancer risk. Summary odds ratios (ORs) for highest versus non/lowest tea consumption level were calculated based on fixed and random effects models. Heterogeneity between studies was examined via the Q statistics. For green tea, the combined results from the four studies indicated a reduced risk of breast cancer for highest versus non/lowest intake (OR = 0.78, 95% CI = 0.61-0.98). For black tea, conflicting results were observed in case-control versus cohort studies. The combined results from the eight case-control studies showed a minor inverse association between black tea consumption and risk of breast cancer (OR = 0.91, 95% CI = 0.84-0.98). This inverse association was stronger in hospital-based (OR = 0.77, 95% CI = 0.50-1.19) than population-based case-control studies (OR = 0.94, 95% CI = 0.81-1.09). Five cohort studies demonstrated a modest increase in risk associated with black tea intake (OR = 1.15, 95% CI = 1.02-1.31). The results of this meta-analysis indicate a lower risk for breast cancer with green tea consumption. Available data suggest a possible late-stage, promotional effect of black tea on breast carcinogenesis.


We present a thermodynamic model of solid-state amorphization based on a generalization of the well-known Lindemann criterion. The original Lindemann criterion proposes that melting occurs when the root-mean-square amplitude of thermal displacement exceeds a critical value. This criterion can be generalized to include solid-state amorphization by taking into account the static displacements. In an effort to verify the generalized melting criterion, we have performed molecular dynamics simulations of radiation-induced amorphization in NiZr, NiZr[sub 2], NiTi and FeTi using embedded-atom potentials. The average shear elastic constant G was calculated as a function of the total mean-square atomic displacement following random atom-exchanges and introduction of Frenkel pairs. Results provide strong support for the generalized melting criterion.


The disparity between willingness to accept (WTA) health risks and actual health risks arising from environmental pollution has not been demonstrated well in the literature. This study provides evidence on WTA for bearing existing health risks arising from environmental pollution caused by the Limestone Industry in Sri Lanka. It compares mean WTA with monthly average health expenditure as well as the opportunity cost of health risk. The study finds that the average monthly health expenditure, averting expenditure and lost earning per person were Rs. 168, Rs. 85 and Rs. 262 respectively. Accordingly, opportunity cost of the health damage was Rs. 515 while mean willingness to accept was Rs. 792 per person. Results clearly show that mean WTA estimates tends to overestimate the true cost. The study also summarizes reasons for the disparity and then discusses some of the key implications of the analysis. Sri Lankan Journal of Agricultural Economics Vol.(14-15)No. 1 (2012-2013) pp. 43-58


Quantitative structure–activity relationships (QSARs) for metal bioconcentration factors (BCF) and median acute lethal water concentrations (LC50) were developed for two species of mollusks, Perna viridis and Mytilus edulis. These endpoints were related to four metal ion characteristics, the covalent index (χ2mr) (r represents the ion radius in Å), the softness index (σp), the hydrolysis constant (Koh) and the ionic index (Z2/r). The BCF and LC50 were significantly correlated to χ2mr. The coefficients of determination r2 for the relationships with other metal descriptors were much lower. Critical body residue (CBR) QSARs were derived by multiplying the χ2mr‐based BCF and LC50 regressions. The CBRs were independent of the covalent index χ2mr, as BCF and LC50 scaled to χ2mr with slope that had opposite signs. Comparison of the estimated CBRs with independent empirical values confirmed the predicted trends, but substantial deviations were noted too.


The aim of this study is to design and implement cloud-based learning environment for subdivision of university based ownCloud. Objectives of the study is to analyze the existing approaches to constructing cloud-based learning environments, forming requirements cloud-based learning tools, the selection on the basis of the requirements of cloud ICT training and experimental applications to build a cloud-based learning environment for subdivision of university. The object of research is the process of operation of a single subdivision of high school, including the simulation and software department. The subject of research is the use of cloud ICT training in organizational, scientific and educational activities of the simulation and software department.In this work the analysis and systematization of research on the use of cloud-based ICT in education, research and organizational activities of the university, experimental implementation of the designed cloud-based environment for the subdivision of university using open source software. To assess the effectiveness of the use cloud-based learning environment created a separate department university planned to hold teaching experiment. Results of the study is planned to summarize the development of recommendations for the design of general cloud-based university environment.


In the first half of the 19th century, the international interdenominational organization the Religious Tract Society in London provided financial support for the publication of religious books in the native languages of the people of the Kingdom of Prussia: German, Polish, Sorbian and Lithuanian. The branch of the Prussian Religious Tract Society established in Klaipėda, an important trading city of the time, took care of the translations of short books into Lithuanian along with their publishing and distribution. Wilhelm Andreas Rhenius (1753–1833), the inspector of the Bachman's estate, the follower of the Moravian movement, who managed compilations, worked for the Klaipėda branch. This article aims to reveal the ties of Rhenius, the member of the Society, with the international organization in London, and his participation in educational activities in Klaipėda. Lithuanian translations of religious English texts patronized by the Religious Tract Society in London are also discussed, including an anonymous small volume book, The Warning Voice (Graudénimo Balsas, 1818), published in Tilsit, the Prussian Lithuania, in 4,000 copies, and the collected sermons Sixteen Short Sermons (Sźeßolika trumpi Kalbesei, 1820, Tilsit) by the British author Thomas Tregenna Biddulph (1763–1838), the minister of St. James's Church in Bristol.


ABSTRACT This article examines why the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda has been so challenging to implement and argues that the political economy of war and peace, driven by a complex network of power, is a deterrent to sustainable and gender-just peace. However, peace initiatives are not a zero-sum game. They are dialectical, offering possibilities for both regressive and transformative change. Although inclusion of women and gender concerns in current peace processes lags behind expectations, the WPS agenda has been instrumental in changing the negotiation landscape and empowering women beyond the peace table. It has also exposed the need for a paradigm shift in the understanding of peace and security that effectively responds to power asymmetries and the neo-liberal environment that shapes policy and practice. Given their marginalised positioning vis-à-vis hegemonic power structures, women stand to contribute towards this end.


The implication of beta-adrenoreceptor-mediated noradrenalin action on the reactive morphodynamic response of light pinealocytes (LP) to an injection act, conceived as a short-lasting stress attack, is reported. An injection act, realized by saline-injection, was manifested in the occurrence of clustered "dusk" and "bright" cells--the representative forms of functionally activated LP. The time-related incidence of these cells entities--the appearance of "dusk" and "bright" cells at 5 min, transitory domination of "bright" cells and the nadir of "dusk" cells at 20 min, sporadic recognition of "bright" cells, lack of "dusk" cells at 45 min and the absence of both cell forms at 180 min--displayed that LP-reactive response promptly appeared and rapidly ceased. The injection of beta-adrenoreceptor antagonist, propranolol, did not considerably alter the pattern of LP-reactive response proper for saline-injected rats at 5 min. The constant presence of "dusk" and "bright" cells, structurally changed in all the following time periods under investigation, showed that this drug disordered the course of LP-reactive response to an injection act. On the contrary, LP of resting state was not found to be affected. Estimating functionally, the present results indicate that beta-adrenoreceptor-mediated noradrenalin action is required to promote, maintain and accomplish the LP-reactive response to a short-lasting stress inducement.


The role of white matter of brain has always been neglected by scholars.With the development of neuroimaging technology,the role of white matter has attracted increasing attention.Perioperative neurocognitive disorders have been a hot issue in the research on anesthesia,and recent studies have suggested that white matter may be involved in the effects of general anesthetics on cognitive function.This paper reviews the progress in the relationship between white matter,general anesthesia,and cognitive function from clinical practice and research,aiming to provide new ideas for the research on the mechanism.


In this thesis, we mainly concentrate on the implementation of sequential and parallel algorithms for solving block bidiagonal linear system arising from the discretization of boundary value problems for linear ordinary differential equations. It consists of two parts. In Part I, several sequential algorithms, the Alternate Row and Column Pivoting Algorithm, the Structured QR Algorithm, the Structured LU Algorithm and the Least Square Algorithm, are implemented and some stability issues of these algorithms are considered. Numerical results are presented. In Part II, the corresponding parallel algorithms, except the Parallel Alternate Row and Column Pivoting Algorithm, are implemented on INMOS T800 Transputers, a microcomputer with multiprocessors. To abstract the application from the system function calls, we use a template based on a simple software system with master-slave technique as the interface with the application. The description of those parallel algorithms and numerical results are presented. Only the case with separate boundary conditions is considered here. Among all the sequential algorithms, we can say that the Alternate Row and Column Pivoting Algorithm is the most efficient algorithm with no fill-ins, while the Structured QR Algorithm is the most stable algorithm. Though the Structured LU Algorithm is much faster than Structured QR Algorithm in the sequential case if the block size is greater than 3, the absolute run times of both parallel algorithms are almost the same because the Parallel Structured QR Algorithm obtains better speedup.


In general metabolic rates tend to be higher in NBL than in flight: a) Restraint method dependant; b) Significant differences between the NBL and flight for BRT and APFR (buoyancy effects). c) No significant difference between NBL and flight for free float and SRMS/SSRMS operations. The total metabolic energy expenditure for a given task and for the EVA as a whole are similar between NBL and flight: a) NBL metabolic rates are higher, but training EVAs are constrained to 5 1/2 hours. b) Flight metabolic rates are lower, but the EVAs are typically an hour or more longer in duration. NBL metabolic rates provide a useful operational tool for flight planning. Quantifying differences and similarities between training and flight improves knowledge for preparation of safe and efficient EVAs.


Many AI system designers grapple with how best to collect human input for different types of training data. Online crowds provide a cheap on-demand source of intelligence, but they often lack the expertise required in many domains. Experts offer tacit knowledge and more nuanced input, but they are harder to recruit. To explore this trade off, we compared novices and experts in terms of performance and perceptions on human intelligence tasks in the context of designing a text-based conversational agent. We developed a preliminary chatbot that simulates conversations with someone seeking mental health advice to help educate volunteer listeners at 7cups.com. We then recruited experienced listeners (domain experts) and MTurk novice workers (crowd workers) to conduct tasks to improve the chatbot with different levels of complexity. Novice crowds perform comparably to experts on tasks that only require natural language understanding, such as correcting how the system classifies a user statement. For more generative tasks, like creating new lines of chatbot dialogue, the experts demonstrated higher quality, novelty, and emotion. We also uncovered a motivational gap: crowd workers enjoyed the interactive tasks, while experts found the work to be tedious and repetitive. We offer design considerations for allocating crowd workers and experts on input tasks for AI systems, and for better motivating experts to participate in low-level data work for AI.


This book is an interrogation of humanity's new potentials and threats brought by technology when the question of social change is becoming more crucial than ever.

Collected in the course of 2010-2012, the selected essays in this anthology confront questions from a wide-ranging perspective that evoke the postmodern idea of the cyborg to illuminate recent phenomena from global warming, Wikileaks, to the Occupy movements. Multiple disciplines from music to psychoanalysis to journalism to anthropology collaborate to examine the way we shape the world from behind our ubiquitous screens to taking to the streets in mass protests.

What does the increasing omnipotence of networked machines ultimately mean? What do social networks do to our sense of self, others and society? Does P2P technology foster new ethics and spiritualities? What potentials does posthumanity have to bring about social change?

Featuring essays from Robert Barry, Siri Driessen & Roos van Haaften, Bonni Rambatan, Dustin Cohen, Jacob Johanssen, Michel Bauwens, Aliki Tzatha, Zakary Paget, Stefen Baack, Alessandro Zagato, Peter Nikolaus Funke, Glenn Muschert, and Jung-Hua Liu.


This study seeks to identify, describe, and analyze the setting, characteristics, and trends of the library sector in Colombia, emphasizing the occupational and educational aspects of the labor force. Given the fact that the objective of this research project was to shed light on a particular phenomenon or ecosystem, the study as it was carried out was observational, that is, descriptive, in the collection of specific information on the technological, educational and occupational settings of the sub-sectors analyzed. A survey was developed and applied in the libraries. The study revealed marked differences in the development of educational programs in the library sector compared to other sectors in information science and documentation, as well as a high concentration of educational programs in the principal cities (Bogota, Medellin, Ibague, Tunja, Cali, Bucaramanga, Cartagena, Barranquilla). Along the same lines, the study showed a stratification in the curriculum to the degree that demand was located far from these centers. In some regions, the only offerings of this type are not formal and in most cases are taught in public institutions. Finally, this study identified useful means of defining the job competencies of library personnel, which is also fundamental to the analysis of the evolution of knowledge in librarianship and in the understanding of educational development associated with the information disciplines, as well as the demand for qualified personnel in this professional field.


This paper discusses the dynamics of punishment for khalwat perpetrators which is habitually inclined to implement the rule of law underlined in Aceh. The aim of this research is to analyze the provision of legal sanctions carried out by Acehnese for khalwat perpetrators based on the maqashid sharia perspective. This study was conducted by using empirical juridical research with law sociology approach, and the source of the main data was an interview which was completed by supporting data such as significant articles related to the khalwat cases in Aceh. The results of this study point out that normatively the provision of sanctions for khalwat perpetrators in Aceh are regulated into two forms, namely Jinayat Law Qanun , and the Development of Traditional Life and Custom Qanun . Each of these regulations has differences in the provision of law sanctions for the khalwat perpetrators that cause law dualism. Practically, the sanctions determined by Acehnese for the khalwat perpetrators are various depending on each region. There are four kinds of sanctions enforcement, namely; First: Jinayat Law Qanun , Second: Customary Law, Third: the sanction of punishment in the name of customary law, Fourth: persecution. Based on maqashid al sharia aspect, some of these punishments are considered not in accordance with sharia principles, law of persecution, and in the name of customary law. Indeed, these regulations tend to be decided arbitrarily and even followed by torture.


minimize the chances of stenosis are described. If the bile-duct available for anastomosis is long enough, intrajejunal anastomosis is one method of ensuring


This paper presents the effect of Young's modulus of fiber coating layers on microbending loss and refractive index changes in the presence of temperature rise and hydrostatic pressure. It is shown that The increase of Young's modulus of primary coating would lower the microbending loss and refractive index changes and in the secondary coating layer, the .parameters values increase. We have shown that the temperature rise affecting on the fiber, makes the microbending loss and refractive index decrease, linearly.


Popular sovereignty was presented in modern constitutional discourse as a mode of collective action. It was supposedly manifest in the power to constitute, control and dismantle governments. Important strands of contemporary constitutional theory, notably legal constitutionalism and deliberative democracy, have taken leave of this tradition. They have severed the connection between sovereignty and action. What remains of popular sovereignty is fundamental rights and values, or dispersed networks of deliberation. This is based on the the idea that the place of power is 'empty' and legitimised on the principle of including 'All‐Affected‐Interests'. The very concept of sovereignty thus becomes unpopular. This contribution aims to re‐establish the link between popular sovereignty and action by examining sovereignty's emancipatory telos, its majoritarian mode of operation and its dependence on political citizenship.


It seems to be an opposition between development and climate protection because Industrial Revolution and its resulted lifestyle are the initial cause of Global Warming. Human History has shown that development is strongly related to greenhouse gas emission. For that reason it sounds inappropriate to involve developing countries in the fight of global warming. So, this book examines the climate policy of Togo to see if it really hinders development. In that regard, the development process of Togo has been analyzed. The analysis reveals that the handicaps of the development of Togo lie in other spheres. The mere exportation of raw materials is insufficient to trigger an economic development. Moreover, in the era of Global Warming, raw materials are going to be reduced considerably. Thus, for African countries to develop and protect the global climate at the same time, sustainable development approaches must be applied. Job creating policies have to be conceived and set into action, the CFA currency must be abolished in the French speaking countries, and cleavages along ethnic lines have to be healed.


Two patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) that developed serious infectious complications following anti-TNFalpha therapy (infliximab) are reported. Patient 1 developed tuberculosis with high fever, refractory diarrhea and mediastinal lymphadenopathy. Trans-bronchial needle biopsy was useful to confirm the diagnosis. Patient 2 showed sudden onset of dyspnea with diffuse bilateral lung infiltration caused by pneumocystis jiroveci pneumonia and the diagnosis was confirmed by broncho-alveolar lavage. Physicians should be alerted to infectious complications with atypical presentation and rapid progression in infliximab-treated patients. Invasive diagnostic procedures including fiber-optic bronchoscopy may be necessary early in the course for such cases.


Abstract A finite-difference scheme for solving the linear shallow water equations in a bounded domain is described. Its time step is not restricted by a Courant–Friedrichs–Levy (CFL) condition. The scheme, known as Israeli–Naik–Cane (INC), is the offspring of semi-Lagrangian (SL) schemes and the Cane–Patton (CP) algorithm. In common with the latter it treats the shallow water equations implicitly in y and with attention to wave propagation in x. Unlike CP, it uses an SL-like approach to the zonal variations, which allows the scheme to apply to the full primitive equations. The great advantage, even in problems where quasigeostrophic dynamics are appropriate in the interior, is that the INC scheme accommodates complete boundary conditions.


Ultraviolet (UV) radiation has been identified as one of the most critical factors for the degradation of photovoltaics (PVs). Besides that, the UV spectral regime (∼0.28-0.4 µm) is less efficient for silicon-based PVs owing to the excess of the energy of the incident UV photons relative to the semiconductor's bandgap; thus, a large part of the UV photon energy is transformed into heat, increasing the PV temperature and decreasing its efficiency. Therefore, it is crucial to investigate in detail and evaluate the UV radiation impact on the temperature and efficiency of realistic photovoltaic modules. Here we perform this investigation for crystalline silicon-based photovoltaics that operate outdoors. The investigation is performed by employing a thermal-electrical modeling approach, which takes into account all the major intrinsic processes affected by the temperature variation in the photovoltaic devices. We show that effectively reflecting UV radiation, i.e., up to a cut-off wavelength, which depends on the environmental conditions, results in a reduction of the overall operating temperature and enhancement of the PV cell's efficiency. Additionally, blocking the high energy UV photons prolongs the lifetime of the PV and its performance in the long term.


MOTIVATION
Finding a small subset of most predictive genes from microarray for disease prediction is a challenging problem. Support vector machines (SVMs) have been found to be successful with a recursive procedure in selecting important genes for cancer prediction. However, it is not well understood how much of the success depends on the choice of the specific classifier and how much on the recursive procedure. We answer this question by examining multiple classifers [SVM, ridge regression (RR) and Rocchio] with feature selection in recursive and non-recursive settings on three DNA microarray datasets (ALL-AML Leukemia data, Breast Cancer data and GCM data).

RESULTS
We found recursive RR most effective. On the AML-ALL dataset, it achieved zero error rate on the test set using only three genes (selected from over 7000), which is more encouraging than the best published result (zero error rate using 8 genes by recursive SVM). On the Breast Cancer dataset and the two largest categories of the GCM dataset, the results achieved by recursive RR are also very encouraging. A further analysis of the experimental results shows that different classifiers penalize redundant features to different extent and this property plays an important role in the recursive feature selection process. RR classifier tends to penalize redundant features to a much larger extent than the SVM does. This may be the reason why recursive RR has a better performance in selecting genes.


The study examined the influence of students and teachers attitudes on students' enrolment in Physics in secondary schools in Imenti South constituency of Meru County. This study was premised on the component theory of attitudes and self-efficacy theory. The study adopted a descriptive survey design. The target population was composed of 138 physics teachers 1,864 students and 61 principals from 61 public secondary schools in Imenti South Constituency. Purposive sampling was used to select six principals whereas simple random sampling was used to select 14 Physics teachers and 220 students, yielding a total of 240 respondents. The instruments used in this research were questionnaires for students and Physics teachers as well as interview guidelines for principals in the selected schools. The main finding was that both female and male students had a positive attitude towards Physics and were capable of performing well in the subject. The major challenge thwarting students' enrolment in Physics was the inadequacy of teaching and learning resources that limited the range of instructional techniques used by teachers to teach the subject effectively. The study recommended that the Government of Kenya, through the Ministry of Education, should ensure that Physics teachers are provided with adequate instructional resources to facilitate adoption of more learner-friendly teaching methods that attract more students to enrol in the subject. [217 words]


It has recently been shown that highly uniform thin layers can be etched in a small well‐defined region of a silicon wafer and that good quality thin piezoelectric films such as zinc‐oxide can be deposited along with the electrodes to form high frequency trapped energy resonant device structures. The accompanying analytical work has been for pure thickness vibrations only. In this work an analysis of essentially thickness‐extensional trapped energy modes in the thin piezoelectric film on silicon composite structure is performed. It is shown that for small wavenumbers along the plate the dispersion equation is isotropic in the plane of the plate even though the silicon is severely anisotropic in that plane. From the resulting dispersion relation an asymptotic differential equation describing the mode shape along the surface of the composite plate vibrating in the vicinity of a thickness‐extensional resonance is obtained along with the associated edge conditions. Since the mode is essentially thickness‐exte...


Ultraviolet (UV) radiation has recently become an important topic in relation to the loss of stratospheric ozone. High doses of UV radiation have a negative effect on many organisms. This paper focuses on the UV index (UVI), which expresses the risk of UV radiation on human health. The aim of the paper is to describe the definition of UVI, and its measurement, and to summarize geographical parameters and meteorological conditions affecting the values of UVI. The effect of sun elevation, cloudiness, and altitude is demonstrated using observed data from the Hradec Králové, Košetice and Labská bouda stations during the period 2011–2017. The results show a strong effect of both sun elevation and cloudiness. The highest values of UVI (up to 8) are generally observed on sunny days around midday from May to July. The reduction of the UVI caused by clouds, fog, and rain is, on average, 85% of values typical for sunny days. The effect of altitude is distinctly weaker; a rise of UVI with increasing altitude is 0.4 per 1 km for clear sky and the surface without snow cover.


The early detection of infectious disease outbreaks is a crucial task to protect population health. To this end, public health surveillance systems have been established to systematically collect and analyse infectious disease data. A variety of statistical tools are available, which detect potential outbreaks as abberations from an expected endemic level using these data. Here, we present supervised hidden Markov models for disease outbreak detection, which use reported outbreaks that are routinely collected in the German infectious disease surveillance system and have not been leveraged so far. This allows to directly integrate labeled outbreak data in a statistical time series model for outbreak detection. We evaluate our model using real Salmonella and Campylobacter data, as well as simulations. The proposed supervised learning approach performs substantially better than unsupervised learning and on par with or better than a state-of-the-art approach, which is applied in multiple European countries including Germany.


This paper treats the problem of chaos synchronization
for uncertain Lorenz system via single state variable information of the master
system. By the Lyapunov stability theory and adaptive technique, the derived
controller is featured as follows: 1) only single state
variable information of the master system is needed; 2) chaos
synchronization can also be achieved even if the perturbation is occurred in
some parameters of the master chaotic system. Finally, the effectiveness of the
proposed controllers is also illustrated by the simulations as well as rigorous
mathematical proofs.


This article offers a critical account of the concept of "citizen-consumer" in the context of smart cities. This hybrid concept emerged in the 1990s with the New Labour Movement in the setting of the liberalization and privatization of public infrastructures to refer to the consumption of public goods and services. The notion of "citizen-consumer" recently reappeared in the literature on smart cities as public bodies collaborate closely with private actors to offer more responsive, efficient, and data-driven public services to their residents and visitors. In this modern form of privatization, public bodies treat citizens as consumers of data-driven services. In this article, I argue that treating citizens as consumers can be problematic for four reasons: (i) citizenship and consumer protection have different political and economic foundations; (ii) it relies on the heavy collection of personal data by both public bodies and private companies; (iii) it assumes—often incorrectly—that citizen-consumers in cities have choices and can refuse to give their consent to the data collection underlying the provision of smart public services; (iv) it excludes citizens who are less tech-savvy, do not fit in the vision of smart cities or wish to remain offline. Drawing on an interdisciplinary analysis of the literature on the liberalization of public services, smart cities and consumer protection, this article aims to contribute to the legal literature by shedding new light on the concept of "citizen-consumer" and its implications for the inclusiveness of public services.


The C-Terminal Domain (CTD) of the large subunit (Rpb1) of RNA Polymerase II has a Tyrosine-Serine-Proline-Threonine-Serine-Proline-Serine repeat structure in many eukaryotes. Chemical modifications of these residues play a central role in the regulation and coordination of the events of transcription. However, substantial variability in the presence and regularity of repeat arrays exists between eukaryote taxa. Following a survey of CTD structure from diverse eukaryote species, two hypotheses were tested relating to repeat structure and the action of selection on the CTD. First, it was found that degenerated repeat structure is associated with lower serine and proline frequencies in some eukaryote taxa but not in others. Second, maximum likelihood models of the evolution of Rpb1 in a number of species groups found that purifying selection on the non-repetitive CTD of several Leishmania species was substantially lower than for the rest of Rpb1, whereas purifying selection in a number of species groups containing repeat arrays was usually as high or nearly as high as for the rest of Rpb1. Characterization of CTD structure for a larger number of species than has been completed previously also revealed a greater diversity of CTD structures in eukaryotes than previously known, along with loss of repeat structure in the animals and fungi, two taxa where it has not previously been known. These results suggest that loss of CTD repeat structure has been an important aspect of RNA Polymerase II evolution in diverse eukaryotes.


Bipartite networks provide an insightful representation of many
complex systems, ranging from mutualistic species interactions
in ecology to financial investment portfolios of banks.
In order to unveil genuine properties of real-world structures,
statistical comparisons with appropriately defined null models
are necessary. Among other frameworks, entropy-based
null models have proven to perform satisfactorily in providing
benchmarks for testing evidence-based hypotheses, showing
the desirable feature that the resulting graph probability
distributions are generally unbiased and often analytically
tractable. Moreover, applying these models to empirical data
permits to reveal "second-order" phenomena by discounting
selected topological properties. In this thesis, we present
the bipartite exponential random graph formalism and develop
a novel method for obtaining unbiased and statistically validated
monopartite projections from bipartite networks, the
so-called grand canonical projection algorithm. We apply our
methods to the social MovieLens database and the International
Trade Network, and show that nontrivial communities
can be detected in the projections. In particular, in the
trade network our approach succeeds in distinguishing between
countries of different economic developments and detects
a signal of specialization among the general tendency of
export diversification. The formalism developed here is general
and promises applications in other fields where bipartite
structures are present.


Objective Motor symptom in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) are related to reduced motor inhibitory ability (proactive and reactive inhibition). Although exercise has been shown to improve this ability, its effects on different levels of motor inhibition have not been determined. Materials and methods Sixty patients with PD aged 55–75 years were allocated randomly to 24-week exercise interventions [Wu Qin Xi exercise (WQX) and stretching exercise (SE)]. The stop signal task and questionnaires were administered pre and post interventions. Twenty-five age-matched healthy controls were recruited to obtain reference values for inhibition. Results Compared to healthy controls, patients with PD showed motor inhibition deficits in reactive inhibition, but not in proactive inhibition. Post-intervention, the WQX group showed significant improvement in reactive inhibition compared to the SE group. In both the WQX and SE groups, movement speed was improved post-intervention, accompanied by reduction in negative emotions, stable improvement of sleep quality, and high self-reported satisfaction levels. Conclusion This study demonstrated that Wu Qin Xi exercise can improve the reactive inhibition of patients with PD. Our results provide theoretical support for the formulation of reasonable and effective exercise prescriptions for PD rehabilitation. Clinical trial registration [http://www.chictr.org.cn], identifier [ChiCTR2000038517].


Abstract. Nomenclatural changes are presented here to bring generic circumscriptions in line with recent advances in the understanding of phylogenetic relationships within Samydaceae and with the conservation of the name Casearia Jacq. over Samyda Jacq. and Laetia Loefl. ex L. Names of species formerly recognized in Hecatostemon S. F. Blake, Laetia sect. Laetia, Laetia sect. Casinga (Griseb.) Warburg, Samyda, and Zuelania A. Rich. are provided combinations or new names in Casearia, and the appropriate names for species of Casearia sect. Piparea (Aubl.) Benth., when recognized as the separate genus Piparea Aubl., are clarified. One new combination is also provided for Piparea.


Nonlinear systems of equations in complex plane are frequently encountered in applied mathematics, e.g., power systems, signal processing, control theory, neural networks, and biomedicine, to name a few. The solution of these problems often requires a first- or second-order approximation of nonlinear functions to generate a new step or descent direction to meet the solution iteratively. However, such methods cannot be applied to functions of complex and complex conjugate variables because they are necessarily nonanalytic. To overcome this problem, the Wirtinger calculus allows an expansion of nonlinear functions in its original complex and complex conjugate variables once they are analytic in their argument as a whole. Thus, the goal is to apply this methodology for solving nonlinear systems of equations emerged from applications in the industry. For instances, the complex-valued Jacobian matrix emerged from the power flow analysis model which is solved by Newton-Raphson method can be exactly determined. Similarly, overdetermined Jacobian matrices can be dealt, e.g., through the Gauss-Newton method in complex plane aimed to solve power system state estimation problems. Finally, the factorization method of the aforementioned Jacobian matrices is addressed through the fast Givens transformation algorithm which means the square root-free Givens rotations method in complex plane.


In this paper, we present a framework for performing automatic analysis of Land Use Zones based on Location-Based Social Networks (LBSNs). We model city areas using a hierarchical structure of POIs extracted from foursquare. We encode such structures in kernel machines, e.g., Support Vector Machines, using a new Tree Kernel, i.e., the Hierarchical POI Kernel (HPK), which can take the importance of the individual POIs into account during the substructure matching. This way, HPK projects structures in the space of all their possible substructures such that each dimension corresponds to a semantic structural feature, weighted according to the discriminative power of POIs . We generated four different datasets for the following cities: Barcelona, Lisbon, Amsterdam and Milan, where we trained and tested our models. The results show that our approach largely outperforms previous work and standard baseline built on simple features, such as counts of different POIs. Finally, we apply a mining algorithm to extract the most relevant features (tree fragments) from the implicit TK space according to the weights the kernel machine assigned to them. Our approach can produce an explicit set of representative features that can be used to classify and characterize urban areas.


A 4.2-mm diameter silicon rotor has been operated in a controlled and sustained manner at rotational speeds greater than 1.3 million rpm and power levels approaching 5 W. The rotor, supported by hydrostatic journal and thrust gas bearings, is driven by an air turbine. This turbomachinery/bearing test device was fabricated from single-crystal silicon wafers using micro-fabrication etching and bonding techniques. We believe this device is the first micro-machine to operate at a circumferential tip speed of over 300 meters per second, comparable to conventional macroscale turbomachinery, and necessary for achieving high levels of power density in micro-turbomachinery and micro-electrostatic/ electromagnetic devices. To achieve this level of peripheral speed, micro-fabricated rotors require stable, low-friction bearings for support. Due to the small scale of these devices as well as fabrication constraints that limit the bearing aspect ratio, the design regime is well outside that of more conventional devices. This paper focuses on bearing design and test, and rotordynamic issues for high-speed high-power micro-fabricated devices.


Cadets (n = 395) of the Hellenic Army NCO Academy completed measures of Positive and Negative Affect, General Health and Resilience. Analysis revealed that positive emotions significantly correlate with higher level of resilience and better psychosomatic health, while negative emotions correlate with lower level of resilience and poor psychosomatic health. Furthermore, resilience strongly correlates with better psychosomatic health. Results also suggest that women cadets and freshmen are using positive emotions and develop resilience, as an adaptive strategy for coping with the high physical and mental demands of the Military Academy. These results contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between positive affections and resilience as well as the effect of these variables on psychosomatic health, in an eminently stressful environment such as Military Academies.


Background Nephrology trials assessing the impact of interventions on "standard" outcomes, such as doubling of creatinine, end-stage renal disease (ESRD), and/or death, are difficult to conduct given the time required for endpoints to accrue. The objective of this study was to determine if using lesser declines in kidney function would alter the interpretation of a previous randomized controlled trial. Methods This study was a secondary analysis of a kidney transplant trial comparing the use of a 40% or greater, 30% or greater, or 20% or greater decline in estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) as a substitute for doubling of serum creatinine. Declines in eGFR were determined relative to baseline. This trial enrolled 212 kidney transplant patients with proteinuria and assessed the clinical impact of ramipril versus placebo on a primary outcome of doubling of serum creatinine, ESRD, or death. In this analysis, the declines in eGFR replaced doubling of creatinine in the composite endpoint. Results Mean trial follow-up was 41 months. A time-to-event composite of death, ESRD, or a 40% or greater, 30% or greater, or 20% or greater eGFR decline occurred in 45 (26 placebo vs 19 ramipril), 68 (35 vs 33), and 99 (50 vs 49) patients, respectively. Substituting these eGFR declines for doubling of serum creatinine resulted in an increase of 12, 35, and 66 endpoints compared with the original trial. In all 3 eGFR declines, ramipril treatment was not associated with any statistically significant differences despite the increase in events. Conclusions Substituting doubling of serum creatinine for lesser eGFR percentage decline thresholds did not alter trial interpretation but did increase the number of events.


Endotracheal intubation in mice is necessary for experiments involving intratracheal instillation of various substances, repeated pulmonary function assessments and mechanical ventilation. Previously described methods for endotracheal intubation in mice require the use of injection anaesthesia to immobilize the animal during the intubation procedure or the use of a volatile anaesthetic prior to intubation for immobilization. With these methods, the control of anaesthetic depth during the intubation procedure is absent. We describe a method for simple and rapid intratracheal intubation in mice for mechanical ventilation, using a self-built plastic support to facilitate the intubation procedure. General anaesthesia is maintained by means of inhalation through a non-rebreathing circuit connected to the plastic support. This set-up gives the operator control of anaesthetic depth and sufficient time to perform the intubation procedure. A purpose-made laryngoscopic blade is used to facilitate the intubation tube entering the trachea. The blade of the purpose-made laryngoscope is constructed as a retraction guide and is curved for easy handling. Under direct vision, the epiglottis is gently lifted by the laryngoscopic blade while the intubation tube is pushed into the trachea. Following this novel intubation technique, we were able to mechanically ventilate mice for at least 2 h without severely disturbing blood gases. Histological evaluation of the lungs and microscopic evaluation of the trachea and larynx showed no signs of trauma related to the intubation technique or mechanical ventilation.


ABSTRACT The objective of this article is to examine the Israeli perceptions towards the Bologna Process as well as outline its reactions to it. Specifically, the article investigates the landscape of interests among Israeli policy-makers (from both political and institutional levels) in relation to the European higher education reforms. Through interviews with policy-makers and a qualitative analysis of official documents and political discussions, the article also follows how the response to Bologna in Israel has developed, and how the Bologna Process was perceived in Israel. Relying on the theoretical frameworks of normative power and external perceptions, the article elaborates how the Bologna Process' trajectory in Israel reflects a wider picture of EU-Israeli relations, and Israeli perceptions of Europe and the EU. The study contributes to the discussion of the use of European higher education policies as a tool in foreign policy, as part of the tool kit of Europe's normative power. Thus, the article calls to enhance research of higher education and other 'soft policy' areas in the study of foreign policy and international relations.


Employee performance is paramount in achieving goals. Employees will achieve work when they have the
discipline and motivation to perform their job well. The purpose of this research is to analyze the effect of
work discipline on the performance of employees of the Tanimbar islands district health office. This research
uses a type of quantitative research and cross-sectional design. Data collection is done by observation,
questionnaire, and document study. The samples in this study were 61 officers of the Health office of the
Tanimbar Islands regency. A sampling of this research used total sampling. The collected data is processed
using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences program. The results showed the value of P = 0,537
means that there is no influence between the work discipline to the performance of employees of the District
Health Office of Tanimbar Islands. Therefore, the health office of the Tanimbar Islands District needs to
discipline employees through a better surveillance process.


Abstract By the late 1990s, so-called 'authentic' visual representations of Cuba, and specifically Havana, had acquired a 'distinct aesthetic quality' (Hernández-Reguant 2009). This was the product of a proliferation of Cuban images on a global scale, presented predominantly by western image-makers, which threatened to suffocate arguably more realistic depictions of the island and its capital city. In order to explore this phenomenon, this article will discuss three music documentary films produced by western filmmakers: Our Manics in Havana (2001), Out of Exile (2005) and Simply Red – Cuba! (2005). This article argues that these filmic texts are emblematic of a type of spatial narration that confines the viewer to a restricted view of select tourist sites and sights in Havana, which are recognizable only as a result of the recurrence of pre-existing images that have continued to shape these locations in the global imaginary. In turn, by scrutinising the production, inscription and consumption of these different visual narratives, it will consider their respective representations of Havana, and propose that these films have contributed to the construction of a problematic, fetishistic, and ultimately reductive image of the city that bears little relation to the geographic real.


Particles were collected from the dilute portion of neutrally buoyant hydrothermal plumes from four Mid-Atlantic Ridge sites (MARK, 23°N; TAG, 26°N; Broken Spur, 29°N; Lucky Strike, 37°N). Comparison of data from proximal portions of the TAG (Atlantic) [German et al., 1991; this study] and North Cleft (Pacific) [Feely et al., 1994] plumes show that oxyanion (e.g., V) scavenging is more efficient at TAG, possibly due to a higher proportion of Fe removed as sulfides at North Cleft and/or the more vigorous mixing in the high energy TAG buoyant plume. Chalcophile elements (e.g., Cu) show two stage removal. They are precipitated as sulfides during initial mixing of vent fluids with seawater and are sedimented from the buoyant plume. In the dilute plume they are scavenged from seawater by Fe oxyhydroxides. The REE show continued scavenging in the neutrally buoyant plume and lower levels in 1993 samples, compared to 1988 samples [German et al., 1990] suggesting that the amount of scavenging is related to particle recycling.


This research aims to analyze the benefits of advertising strategy of Poundland. The method used is a qualitative approach because its ability to produce an in-depth description to obtain an authentic understanding of the experience of the people concerned. The study found that Poundland conducted intensive advertising by utilizing important moments such as Halloween, Christmas, Mother Day, etc using Internet media, social media, and e-mail sent 1-2 times per week. Poundland also employs other media such as word of mouth spread among students. Catalog is also used as the print media to reach the consumers. Poundland uses communication technology and take advantage of important moments for advertising strategy. This description can be a reference for retail businesses in Indonesia to pay attention to important events in Indonesia such as national moments and utilizing non-traditional communication technologies as an advertising strategy.


AIMS
Altered activities of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been implicated in the regulation of microRNAs. microRNA-27a (miR-27a) upregulation has been shown to induce endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress podocyte injury in diabetic nephropathy (DN). Herein, we aim to interrogate the mutually regulated network of miR-27a with long intergenic noncoding RNA 1619 (LINC01619) and the target gene.

RESULTS
LINC01619 downregulation was found in human DN renal biopsy tissues and contributed to proteinuria and diminished renal function. LINC01619 was expressed in podocyte cytoplasm and involved in ER stress signaling pathway. LINC01619 exerted biological function by serving as a "sponge" for miR-27a, which negatively targeted forkhead box protein O1 (FOXO1) and activated ER stress. In diabetic rats and high-glucose cultured podocytes, LINC01619 triggered oxidative stress and podocyte injuries as demonstrated by increased apoptosis, diffuse podocyte foot process effacement, and decreased renal function. Innovation and Conclusion: This study demonstrates that LINC01619 functions as a competing endogenous RNA and regulates miR-27a/FOXO1-mediated ER stress and podocyte injury in DN. Antioxid. Redox Signal. 29, 355-376.


This chapter contains the main deenitions used in the rest of the book. It also presents some basic results about words that are of constant use in the sequel. In the rst section are deened words, free monoids, and some terms about words, such as length and factors. Section 1.2 is devoted to submonoids and to morphism of free monoids, one of the basic tools for words. Many of the proofs of properties of words involve a substitution from the alphabet into words over another alphabet, which is just the deenition of a morphism of free monoids. A nontrivial result called the defect theorem is proved. The theorem asserts that if a relation exists among words in a set, those words can be written on a smaller alphabet. This is a weak counterpart for free monoids of the Nielsen-Schreier theorem for subgroups of a free group. In Section 1.3 the deenition of conjugate words is given, together with some equivalent characterizations. Also deened are primitive words, or words that are not a repetition of another word. A very useful result, due to Fine and Wilf, is proved that concerns the possibility of multiple repetitions. The last section introduces the notation of formal series that deal with linear combinations of words, which will be used in Chapters ??-?? and ??. A list of problems, some of them diicult, is collected at the end. Two of them (1.1.2 and 1.2.1) deal with free groups; their object is to point out the existence of a combinatorial theory of words in free groups, although the theory is not developed in the present book (see Lyndon and Schupp 1977). Two others (1.1.3 and 1.3.5) deal with the analysis of algorithms on words. Let A be a set that we shall call an alphabet. Its elements will be called letters. (In the development of this book, it will often be necessary to suppose that the alphabet A is nite. Because this assumption is not always necessary, however, it will be mentioned explicitly whenever it is used.)


A medical provider's summary of a patient visit serves several critical purposes, including clinical decision-making, facilitating hand-offs between providers, and as a reference for the patient. An effective summary is required to be coherent and accurately capture all the medically relevant information in the dialogue, despite the complexity of patient-generated language. Even minor inaccuracies in visit summaries (for example, summarizing "patient does not have a fever" when a fever is present) can be detrimental to the outcome of care for the patient.This paper tackles the problem of medical conversation summarization by discretizing the task into several smaller dialogue-understanding tasks that are sequentially built upon. First, we identify medical entities and their affirmations within the conversation to serve as building blocks. We study dynamically constructing few-shot prompts for tasks by conditioning on relevant patient information and use GPT-3 as the backbone for our experiments. We also develop GPT-derived summarization metrics to measure performance against reference summaries quantitatively. Both our human evaluation study and metrics for medical correctness show that summaries generated using this approach are clinically accurate and outperform the baseline approach of summarizing the dialog in a zero-shot, single-prompt setting.


The Covid-19 pandemic has seen emerging debate about a possible shift in 'anti-welfare commonsense' i.e. the orthodoxy previously described in this journal as solidifying negative public attitudes towards 'welfare'. While a shift in attitudes might be ascribed to the circumstances of the crisis it would still be remarkable for such a strongly established orthodoxy to have changed quite so rapidly. It is appropriate, therefore, to reflect on whether the 'anti-welfare' orthodoxy was in fact as unequivocal as claimed? To address this question, challenges to the established orthodoxy that were emerging pre-pandemic are examined along with the most recently available survey data. This leads to discussion of broader issues relating to understanding attitudes: methodology; 'messiness' and ambivalence of attitudes; attitudes and constructions of deservingness; and following or leading opinion. It is argued that the 'anti-welfare' orthodoxy has always been far more equivocal than claimed, with consequent implications for anti-poverty action and re-setting debate.


This paper presents a modification to the classical Model Predictive Control (MPC) algorithm and its application to active power filters. The proposed control is able to retain all the advantages of a finite control set MPC while improving the generated waveforms harmonic spectrum. In fact, a modulation algorithm, based on the cost function ratio for different output vectors, is inherently included in the MPC. The cost function-based modulator is introduced and its effectiveness on reducing the current ripple is demonstrated. The presented solution provides an effective and straightforward single loop controller, maintaining an excellent dynamic performance despite the modulated output and it is self-synchronizing with the grid. This promising method is applied to the control of a shunt active filter for harmonic content reduction through a reactive power compensation methodology. Significant results obtained by experimental testing are reported and commented, showing that MPC is a viable control solution for active filtering systems.


In recent years, there has been a lot of interest in the database community in mining time series data. Surprisingly, little work has been done on verifying which measures are most suitable for mining of a given class of data sets. Such work is of crucial importance, since it enables us to identify similarity measures which are useful in a given context and therefore for which efficient algorithms should be further investigated. Moreover, an accurate evaluation of the performance of even existing algorithms is not possible without a good understanding of the data sets occurring in practice. In this work we attempt to fill this gap by studying similarity measures for clustering of similar stocks (which, of course, is an interesting problem on its own). Our approach is to cluster the stocks according to various measures (including several novel ones) and compare the results to the "groundtruth" clustering based on the Standard and Poor 500 Index. Our experiments reveal several interesting facts about the similarity measures used for stock-market data.


Funds collected as insurance premiums are very important for the development and deepening of the national economies. These premiums paid to insurance companies provide funds for capital markets by creating savings sources. The objective of this study is to investigate how and in what direction the insurance premium volume affects the economic growth of these 25 countries. For this purpose, Johansen Cointegration, Kao cointegration, panel FMOLS, Dumitrescu and Hurlin (2012) Panel Granger Causality methods were used. Cointegration tests show that economic growth and insurance premium volume variables have long-term cointegration relationships. As stated in Panel FMOLS test results, a 1% of increase in insurance premium volumes leads to a rise of 0.113% in economic growth. In accordance with Dumitrescu and Hurlin (2012) panel Granger causality analysis, there is unidirectional causality from insurance volumes towards economic


Calcium-sodium exchange on Wyoming bentonite in methanol, ethanol and acetone-water systems were investigated at 0.03 N Cl and at room temperature. Calcium-sodium exchange isotherms were plotted at cosolvent concentrations ranging from 0 to 70% wt./wt. using Ca and Na ionic activities before and after correction for CaCl+ formation. In both cases and in all treatments, a greater selectivity of bentonite surfaces for Ca ions was observed. When compared to water, different trends were observed among and within cosolvents. These trends varied depending on whether or not CaCl+ formation was accounted for. Ignoring the formation of CaCl+, the preference of bentonite for Ca increased in methanolwater systems with increased percent methanol at low equivalent Ca fraction (<0.2). At higher Ca fractions, this preference matched that of water. In ethanol-water, no increased preference of the surface for Ca was observed. In acetone-water, increasing cosolvent concentration decreased the preference of the surface for Ca. The magnitude of this decrease was larger at low equivalent Ca fraction (<0.2). After correction for CaCl+, both in solution and on the surface, the preference of bentonite for Ca2+ was larger in methanol- and ethanol-water systems. In acetone-water, increased surface preference for Ca was only apparent at low acetone fractions (<50%). At higher acetone fractions, there was evidence of increased Na loading but no increase in Ca2+ selectivity. Clearly, ion-pair formation and its effects on Ca-Na exchange reactions cannot be ignored in mixtures of aqueous-organic solvents. After accounting for this effect, Ca-Na exchange in the studied solvents appears to be more of a surface- than a solution-controlled phenomenon that involves both electrostatic and specific solvent-surface types of interactions that have not been elucidated.


RNA labeled with [methyl-3H]methionine and/or [32P]orthophosphate was isolated from the polyribosomes of herpes simplex virus (HSV) types 1-infected cells and separated into polyadenylylated [poly(A+)]and non-polyadenylylated [poly(A-)] fractions. Virus-specific RNA was obtained by hybridization in liquid to either excess HSV DNA or filters containing immobilized HSV DNA. Analysis in denaturing sucrose gradients indicated that HSV-specific poly(A+) RNA sedimented in a broad peak, with a modal S value of 20. The ratio of [3H]methyl to 32P decreased with increasing size of RNA, suggesting that each RNA chain contains a similar sumber of methyl groups. Further analysis indicated an average of one RNase-resistant structure of the type m7G(5')pppNmpNp or m7G(5')pppNmpNmpNp per 2,780 nucleotides. The following components were identified in the 5'-terminal oligonucleotides of polyribosome-associated HSV-specific poly(A+) and poly(A-) RNA: 7-methylguanosine, N6,2'-O-dimethyladenosine, and the 2'-O-methyl derivatives of guanosine, adenosine, uridine, and denosine, and the 2'-O-methyl derivatives of guanosine, adenosine, uridine, and cytidine. The most common 5'-terminal sequences were m7G(5')pppm6Am and m7G(5')pppGm. An additional modified nucleoside, N6-methyladenosine, was present in an internal position of HSV-specific RNA.


Although conventional hybrid breeding has paved the way for improving cotton production and other properties, it is undoubtedly time and labor consuming, while the cultivation of male sterile line can fix the problem. Here, we induced male sterile mutants by simultaneously editing three cotton EXCESS MICROSPOROCYTES1 (GhEMS1) genes by CRISPR/Cas9. Notably, the GhEMS1 genes are homologous to AtEMS1 genes, which inhibit the production of middle layer and tapetum cells as well, leading to male sterility in cotton. Interestingly, there are necrosis-like dark spots on the surface of the anthers of GhEMS1s mutants, which is different from AtEMS1 mutant whose anther surface is clean and smooth, suggesting that the function of EMS1 gene has not been uncovered yet. Moreover, we have detected mutations in GhEMS1 genes from T0 to T3 mutant plants, which had necrosis-like dark spots as well, indicating that the mutation of the three GhEMS1 genes could be stably inherited. Dynamic transcriptomes showed plant hormone pathway and anther development genetic network were differential expression in mutant and wild-type anthers. And the lower level of IAA content in the mutant anthers than that in the wild type at four anther developmental stages may be the reason for the male sterility. This study not only facilitates the exploration of the basic research of cotton male sterile lines, but also provides germplasms for accelerating the hybrid breeding in cotton.


Understanding the links between climate change and human migration and culture is an important theme in Quaternary archaeology. While oxygen and hydrogen stable isotopes in high-latitude ice cores provide the ultimate detailed record of palaeoclimate extending back to the Middle Pleistocene, groundwater can act as a climate archive for areas at lower latitudes, permitting a degree of calibration for proxy records such as lake sediments, bones and organic matter. Not only can oxygen and hydrogen stable isotopes be measured on waters, but the temperature of recharge can be calculated from the amount of the noble gases neon, argon, krypton and xenon in solution, while residence time can be estimated from the decay of the radioisotopes carbon-14, chlorine-36 and krypton-81 over timescales comparable to the ice core record. The Pleistocene–Holocene transition is well characterised in aquifers worldwide, and it is apparent that isotope–temperature relationships of the present day are not necessarily transferable to past climatic regimes, with important implications for the interpretation of proxy isotope data. Groundwaters dating back to one million years, i.e. to beyond the Middle Pleistocene, are only found in major aquifer basins and information is relatively sparse and of low resolution. Speleothem fluid inclusions offer a way of considerably increasing this resolution, but both speleothem formation and large-scale groundwater recharge require humid conditions which may be relatively infrequent for areas currently experiencing arid climates. Both types of record therefore require caution in their interpretation when considering a particular archaeological context.


This chapter documents the diversity within Arab-led activism for Palestinians, through detailed case studies of two different activist groups, Adalah-NY and Al-Awda NY. While Al-Awda draws its membership and discourses from the recently-immigrated communities of New York and New Jersey, Adalah-NY is oriented towards international discourses of solidarity and social justice. The different ways that identities (such as Arab, Palestinian, Muslim, American, and Jewish) are used by these organizations represent different responses to the problems of political engagement that Arab Americans and their political allies face.


Reliable multicast is realized in a scalable way by tree based approaches, where the receivers are organized in an ACK tree. Usually, expanding ring search (ERS) is used to create such ACK trees. However ERS has some shortcomings like poor scalability, strong dependency on the multicast routing protocol and the need for bidirectional multicast capable network, which makes it difficult to use ERS as the Internet standard mechanism. In this paper we propose the token repository service (TRS), which is based on a token repository and a modification of ERS. The TRS stores tokens, which represents the right for a joining node to connect to a certain parent node in the ACK tree. Performance evaluations show that the TRS approach has several advantageous compared to ERS, like improved scalability and independence of the routing protocol.


Previous empirical studies of secondary market discounts for developing countries have ignored important creditor country factors. The empirical evidence in this paper indicates that, after controlling for repayment indicators of borrower countries, bank exposure and capital are important determinants of secondary market discounts: an increase in the exposure of large banks to a particular country leads to a decrease in the secondary market discounts on the debt of that country, while an increase in the capital of large banks leads to an increase in secondary market discounts. Among the repayment indicators of developing countries, only debt ratios are found to be significant determinants of the discounts. We suggest that the impacts of exposure and capital can be explained by the presence of deposit insurance. The evidence presented on the stock market pricing of lender banks supports this view.


Early age creep and shrinkage are primary factors that influence premature cracking of concrete affecting the durability and performance of concrete structures. Shrinkage of concrete causes tensile stress development while tensile creep works as a stress relaxing mechanism and relieves part of the stress developed due to shrinkage. Shrinkage Reducing Admixtures (SRA) have been effectively used to reduce the potential for cracking, particularly at early age. However, the effects of SRA on stress development and tensile creep require more testing. This study provides experimental data on early age creep and shrinkage of normal and high performance concrete. Concrete mixtures with and without SRA were tested using a uniaxail test configuration that allowed to measure creep and shrinkage under constant load as well as under increasing load (restrained condition). Concrete containing a Shrinkage Reducing Admixture (SRA) has been evaluated using a constant load creep-shrinkage test. SRA was added at a dosage rate of 3.71 l/m3 (0.75 gal/yd3). The results showed that the SRA at the tested dosage significantly reduced the early age shrinkage of concrete. The results also indicated that the SRA influenced the shrinkage and creep in a different manner.


Introduction The county wide sexual health service has been integrated long-term as regards health care worker (HCW) training and governance. Service delivery still remains in some units geared to towards either contraception (C+RHC) or sexually transmitted infections (STIs) management although all patient needs are addressed holistically. Is there equitable service delivery in all units? Methods Audits of both chlamydia management and emergency contraception provision was carried out across all subunits regardless of subspecialisation. Results In the chlamydia audit, standards were achieved for offering anti-chlamydial treatment (100% achieved) and partner notification verified by HCW (0.47 in STI units, 0.58 C+RHC units). Standards were suboptimal for a) the offer of written information (45% for STI units 18% for C+RHC units and b) offer of retesting for under 25s (61% for STI units, 68% for C+RHC units.) Emergency contraception audit standards were achieved in offering quick start contraception (96%) but suboptimal a) for IUCD offer (73% for STI based units, 57% for C+RHC units), b) documentation of hours since last unprotected sex (58% for STI units 89% for contraception based units), c) documentation of day of cycle (69% for STI units, 89% for contraception units and d) offer of STI screens (82% in STI based units, 76% in contraception units) Discussion Although variation between units exists it is noteworthy that partner notification was best delivered in C+RHC unit setting and IUCD offer in STI unit setting. Emphasis on documentation was made to staff with reaudit planned.


Purpose
The relationship between organisational innovativeness (OI) and company performance has been studied extensively, and the associations found have mostly been positive. However, as OI is a multidimensional concept, more nuanced research is needed to identify which dimensions of innovativeness companies should focus on. The purpose of this paper is to longitudinally investigate the links between dimensions of OI and company financial performance, based on a sample of Finnish and Estonian pharmaceutical biotechnology companies.

Design/methodology/approach
Interviews inquiring about OI were conducted in 26 biotechnology companies and then their performance was measured over three subsequent years using objective financial data. Due to limited sample size, qualitative comparative analysis is employed in addition to non-parametric statistical tests.

Findings
Overall, OI did not decisively influence financial performance in the studied sector. There were, however, dimensions related to human resource policies that appeared to have more potential to positively impact financial performance, whereas the strategic dimension was actually aversive to certain performance indicators.

Research limitations/implications
The study limitations are a small sample, possible managerial bias in the assessment of OI, and focus on financial measures only.

Practical implications
The study demonstrates that OI is a multidimensional construct and not all dimensions play an equal role in financial performance. Innovation-supportive human resource policies and strategic flexibility contributes to financial performance in the pharmaceutical biotechnology sector.

Originality/value
The contribution of the study is the analysis of a specific sector with a longitudinal approach by bridging quantitative and qualitative approach.


Three major sulfide zones containing platinum group elements (PGE) have been identified in the upper part of the ultramafic sequence of the Great Dyke. The PGE are at the bases of the sulfide zones; the lower two have sparse sulfide mineralization over a thick interval; the upper zone contains higher grade in a thinner stratigraphic layer. None of the current models for the formation of stratabound sulfide deposits in layered intrusions adequately accounts for the mineralization. The two lower sulfide zones are interpreted as resulting from progressive fractional segregation of sulfide from the silicate magma, whereas the upper zone may have resulted from mixing of a relatively primitive magma at the base of the chamber with an evolved liquid derived from near the roof.


This work describes the development of a cost-effective, easy-to-use, portable immunoanalytical platform technology with sufficient sensitivity for use in the detection of physiologically important targets. Biotin, also known as vitamin H, was selected as the model analyte. The detecting system employs biotin-tagged, potassium ferrocyanide-encapsulated liposomes as the signal amplifier and PAH (poly allylamine hydrochloride)-modified, nanosized-Au particles assembled screen-printed electrode (nanoAu-SPE) as the working electrode. The diagnostic procedures are based on selective immunoanalytical recognitions and sensitive electrochemical detection. The model analyte biotin was determined based on a "competitive-type" immunoassay in which competition occurs between the analyte biotin and potassium ferrocyanide-encapsulated, biotin-tagged liposomes for a limited number of anti-biotin antibody binding sites, which were immobilized on the PAH/nanoAu/SPE surface. The nanostructured Au SPE surface was covalently bonded to the PAH layer, which subsequently interacted with anti-biotin antibodies. The ferrocyanide released from ruptured bound-liposomes was finally measured using square-wave voltammetry. The calibration curve for biotin had a linear range of 10(-11)-10(-2) M, covering nine orders of magnitude. The detection limit of this immunodetecting system was as low as 9.1 pg of biotin (equivalent to 4.5/microL of 8.3 x 10(-9) M).


Smart spaces system equipped with sensors to collect data that can be used to generate insights about its environmental conditions. Those collected data is then transmitted to the applications to enhance the comfort, quality of life, and security of the space. Long Range (LoRa) technology provides long distance coverage and consumes low energy which makes it suitable for smart space application. There are six virtual channels to transmit data in LoRa, however network faces the interference problem when nodes transmitted data at the same time. The interference problem makes LoRa less suitable for time-critical applications. To mitigate the interference problem, a spreading factor should be allocated in an optimal way. This paper assigns the spreading factor to the LN using Rate-Monotonic scheduler to ensures data transmission within deadline with minimum energy consumption. To quantify delay in receiving the information, we use the 'Age of Information' metric. The proposed approach is validated using Network Simulator-3 and results show that it effectively reduces delay and energy and prolongs the network utility.


The majority of drugs are prescribed on the premise that their desired and undesired effects are well characterised. However, the mechanisms underlying these effects can be elusive and are of interest to the pharmaceutical industry in terms of rational drug design. G protein-coupled receptors are a significant class of drug target that are capable of influencing multiple signalling processes, and downstream effects, simultaneously through a variety of effectors, such as G proteins or –β-arrestins. The effector activated by a given receptor is often a function of the ligand. This is termed functional selectivity and can contribute to adverse drug effects. Understanding functional selectivity in a mammalian setting is hindered by cross-talk between many competing signalling components. The Sc. cerevisiae pheromone response can be modified to isolate individual mammalian receptor- G protein interactions. Therefore, this simple organism represents an excellent tool to study functional selectivity. Further, the simplicity of this organism allows this pathway to be mathematically modelled. By applying mathematical models to mammalian GPCR signalling in yeast it is possible to extract experimentally inaccessible quantitative parameters underlying functional selectivity. This interdisciplinary approach to pharmacological mechanisms is an example of systems pharmacology. Here a systems pharmacology approach is applied to adenosine receptor signalling in yeast with a view to understanding the contribution of the ligand, receptor and G protein to functional selectivity.

The first stage of this process was expression and characterisation of adenosine A1R, A2AR, A2BR and A3R subtypes in yeast. Here, the A1R and A2R subtypes were shown to be functional in yeast, but the A3R response was limited. The A1R signals through G proteins representing the inhibitory G αi family in yeast, while the A2AR and A2BR signal through both inhibitory and stimulatory G protein equivalents. Here ligand bias is quantified but further extended to describe adenosine receptor selectivity. Further, the yeast system was used to inform novel fluorescent compound development. Fluorescent ligand-binding rates would ultimately inform modelling studies.

A minimal mathematical framework was developed to described A1R signalling in yeast. Ordinary differential equation models recreate dynamic cellular processes. Here an ODE model was applied to experimental time course data to predict rate constants throughout the yeast G protein cycle in the presence of the mammalian A1R. This model predicts that G protein subtype influences the ligand-receptor-G protein interactions of the A1R in yeast. Further modification of the system and fluorescent technologies may help validate these predictions.


We report 4 urogenital Neisseria gonorrhoeae isolates recovered from 3 patients that demonstrated resistance to penicillin, tetracycline, and ciprofloxacin and reduced susceptibility to cefixime. This report of the first 3 patients in the United States identified with this multidrug-resistant strain may portend an emerging problem for clinicians and public health officials.


Seed germination involves complex physiological and biochemical mechanisms. The cultivation of amaranth, of great food importance, lacks information about this process. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of temperature, light and different substrates on the germination of amaranth seeds. The experimental design was entirely randomized in a trifactorial scheme, with two temperatures, two conditions of light and four substrates, with four repetitions of 100 seeds each. The percentage of seed germination was evaluated until 24 days of implementation and the cumulative germination at 07, 14 and 24 days. The germination began on the fourth day for the substrate between sand and for the other substrates it began on the eleventh day, stabilizing in the fourteenth day. There was triple significant interaction among temperature, light condition and substrate factors used on the germination test. The best condition for amaranth seed germination is at a 25 oC temperature, in the absence of light and on paper roll substrate, with 87% of germination. These conditions can be used in germination tests for seed lots, to test its quality.