The aim of this project was to construct a measurement setup to be able to measure the decoherence time of optical phonons. Optical phonons lose coherence by decaying to intermediate phonons and eventually to acoustic phonons which can carry heat, which is why measuring the coherence time of optical phonons is important to characterizing heat flow on short time scales. Ultrashort laser pulses were produced with a Ti:Sapphire laser oscillator and a Michelson interferometer was constructed to split the pulses into pairs and introduce a time delay between the two pulses. To measure the decoherence time the first pulse excites optical phonons in the material and the second pulse probes how much coherence is left in the system by measuring the visibility of the spectral interference fringes on the Raman peak. By varying the delay on the interferometer, the coherence for different pulse delays can be measured and thereby also the amount of coherence left after this time. The measurements were done using a Raman microscope which focused the beam into a 10 μm small spot size on a diamond sample. The motivation for constructing this particular measurement setup is that a Ti:Sapphire laser oscillator with a sufficiently short pulse duration was already constructed close to a Raman microscope. (Less)


The monomethylaluminum complexes 1 and 2, bearing pyrrolylpyridylamido as dianionic [−NNN–] tridentate ligands with general formula [NNN]AlMe, were synthesized and tested as initiators in the ring-opening polymerization (ROP) of e-caprolactone, l-lactide, and d,l-lactide. In the presence of 1 equiv of alcohol, compounds 1 and 2 were highly active initiators in the ROP of e-CL (TOF up to 4000 molCL molAl–1 h–1), and they showed moderate activity in the ROP of lactides (TOF up to 1.7 molLA molAl–1 h–1). The polymerization processes proceeded with a living mechanism; moreover, the obtained PLAs resulted isotactic-enriched with Pm values up to 76%. More interestingly, this class of catalysts promoted the random copolymerization of e-caprolactone and lactides. In particular, compound 1 allowed excellently controlled random copolymerization of e-caprolactone and d,l-lactide as indicated by both the values of the reactivity ratios of the two monomers (rLA = 1.17; rCL = 1.36) and the average lengths of the caproy...


Purpose: To report on the use of immunomodulatory therapy (IMT) in a group of patients with Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada disease (VKH) and to compare the outcomes with those of another group of patients with VKH who were treated for prolonged periods with corticosteroids. Methods: Treatment regimens and their respective outcomes (visual acuity) were compared for the following groups: prolonged steroid with or without delayed addition of IMT (Group 1) and relatively prompt IMT with or without steroid (Group 2). Results: The average duration of follow-up in Group 1 was 28.9 months and in Group 2 23.4 months. In Group 1, visual acuity deteriorated in three of the five patients (60%) and improved in one (20%). The fifth patient showed improvement in visual acuity in one eye, but decreased visual acuity in the other eye. In Group 2, seven of the eight patients showed improvement in their visual acuities (87.5%); visual acuity deteriorated in one patient (12.5%). Conclusions: The results suggest that IMT as first-line therapy for VKH is associated with a superior visual outcome when compared to steroid as monotherapy or with delayed addition of IMT.


An intention of MapReduce Sets for Binning expressions analysis has to suggest criteria how Binning expressions in Binning data can be defined in a meaningful way and how they should be compared. Similitude based MapReduce Sets for Binning Expression Analysis and MapReduce Sets for Assignment is expected to adhere to fundamental principles of the scientific Binning process that are expressiveness of Binning models and reproducibility of their Binning inference. Binning expressions are assumed to be elements of a Binning expression space or Conjecture class and Binning data provide "information" which of these Binning expressions should be used to interpret the Binning data. An inference Binning algorithm constructs the mapping between Binning data and Binning expressions, in particular by a Binning cost minimization process. Fluctuations in the Binning data often limit the Binning precision, which we can achieve to uniquely identify a single Binning expression as interpretation of the Binning data. We advocate an information theoretic perspective on Binning expression analysis to resolve this dilemma where the tradeoff between Binning informativeness of statistical inference Binning and their Binning stability is mirrored in the information-theoretic Binning optimum of high Binning information rate and zero communication expression error. The inference Binning algorithm is considered as an outlier object Binning path, which naturally limits the resolution of the Binning expression space given the uncertainty of the Binning data.


The presumed involvement of paired box gene 5 (PAX5) in B-lymphomagenesis is based largely on the discovery of Pax5-specific translocations and somatic hypermutations in non-Hodgkin lymphomas. Yet mechanistically, the contribution of Pax5 to neoplastic growth remains undeciphered. Here we used 2 Myc-induced mouse B lymphoma cell lines, Myc5-M5 and Myc5-M12, which spontaneously silence Pax5. Reconstitution of these cells with Pax5-tamoxifen receptor fusion protein (Pax5ER(TAM)) increased neoplastic growth in a hormone-dependent manner. Conversely, expression of dominant-negative Pax5 in murine lymphomas and Pax5 knockdown in human lymphomas negatively affected cell expansion. Expression profiling revealed that Pax5 was required to maintain mRNA levels of several crucial components of B cell receptor (BCR) signaling, including CD79a, a protein with the immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motif (ITAM). In contrast, expression of 2 known ITAM antagonists, CD22 and PIR-B, was suppressed. The key role of BCR/ITAM signaling in Pax5-dependent lymphomagenesis was corroborated in Syk, an ITAM-associated tyrosine kinase. Moreover, we observed consistent expression of phosphorylated BLNK, an activated BCR adaptor protein, in human B cell lymphomas. Thus, stimulation of neoplastic growth by Pax5 occurs through BCR and is sensitive to genetic and pharmacological inhibitors of this pathway.


Introduction. The glycocalyx is a gel-like layer covering the membrane of many cells, especially cells of epithelial tissue. It consists of membrane-bound proteoglycans, glycosaminoglycan chains, glycoproteins, and adjacent proteins. Glycocalyx is necessary in maintaining the permeability of vessels, modulation of inflammatory responses and interactions between cells. It is also involved in cell adherence, mobility, mechanotransduction, regulation of the cell cycle and cell. Abnormalities in the structure and function of the glycocalyx underlie many diseases and disorders such as dry eyes disease, diabetes and its complications as well as sepsis. Aim. In this review, we present the current view on the role of glycocalyx in human diseases. Material and methods. This review was performed according to latest literature from the following databases: EBSCO, PubMed, Science Direct, and Springer Link. Analysis of the literature. Pathological mechanisms such as disruption of the glycocalyx barrier and decreased hydration of the ocular epithelial surface cause dry eye disease. During hyperglycaemia, glycocalyx dysfunction occurs, which leads to its dysfunction and activation of the prothrombotic system. Moreover, the increase in the concentration of hyaluronidase leads to increase in the plasma hyaluronan levels and promotion of endothelial dysfunction. Additionally, degradation of glycocalyx in sepsis prevails over increased synthesis of its components strongly favors its enhanced enzymatic degradation. Conclusion. A better understanding of glycocalyx impairment in disease could alter therapeutic strategies to improve patient outcomes.


Abstract Two multi-ship XBT surveys have acquired data on the mesoscale temperature structure in the region of the Kuroshio Extension. Thermal sections and maps illustrate cold features in the thermocline near 31°N and warm ones near 37°N. Isotherm displacement spectra exhibit a plateau of order 103 m2 per cycle per kilometer for scales longer than 500 km, and they roll off between the second and third inverse power of the wavenumber for shorter scales. There is a significant decrease in spectral amplitude south of about 31°N.


The effects of perinatal lead administration on developing rat brain were studied by using cerebellar grafts in oculo. With 1% lead acetate in the drinking water, little change was seen in the histological organization of the graft. In marked contrast, virtually all Purkinje cell spontaneous discharge was absent in these grafts. This was seen even though 4-5 months had elapsed between the recording and the cessation of lead treatment. There was no alteration in electrophysiological properties of transplant Purkinje cells from sodium acetate-treated animals. Moreover, host in situ cerebellar Purkinje cells in both groups of animals discharged normally. These data indicate that lead administration, to elicit blood levels of 450-550 micrograms/liter, produces a long-lasting selective electrophysiological deficit in developing brain in oculo.


In this paper, we analyze and optimize the PGC demodulation algorithm for optical interferometers in order to extend its usage in low-cost all digital schemes. In our low-cost system, we choose heterodyne interferometer and direct modulation on Distributed FeedBack (DFB) laser and optimize the algorithm, as well as some of the system parameters in order to have the best linearity and noise performance. We first analyze the influence of low-pass filters (LPF) in the PGC-DCM algorithm. A detailed theoretical model of LPF is deduced and reveals that a nonideal LPF is the major limit of linearity in digital systems. Experimental results show that the PGC-atan algorithm will have a 40-dB higher linearity than PGC-DCM one with a 60-order digital FIR filter. Then we analyze the influence of the intensity modulation in PGC-atan algorithm, the main source of the nonlinearity in PGC-atan algorithm, and propose a simple but effective modification. Experiment results verified that it can reduce the influence of intensity modulation by about 20 dB. Further, the impact of Light Intensity Noise (LIN) and circuit noise on the output noise level is analyzed. Equations are derived to calculate the Power Spectrum (PS) of output noise caused by LIN or circuit noise. Simulations show that the theoretical analysis is of high accuracy-less than 0.5 dB. With these equations, a new parameter-Noise Transfer Factor-is defined for better discription of the noise performance of PGC. The results show that the modulation depth C and the DC work point Phi = mean(phi(t)) have great impact on the output noise level. By changing C and Phi , the output noise may decrease as much as about 20 dB. Then three examples show how to choose the system parameter according to the characteristics of LIN or circuit noise. As well, the noise performance of PGC-DCM is analyzed. The result reveals a turning point at the output noise base, which worsens its noise performance at lower frequency. PGC-DCM has the same NTF at frequency higher than the turning frequency. A parameter Frequency Conversion Coefficient is introduce to calculate the turning point.


Augmented reality video games combine the elements of a virtual application with that of the real world. With the recent advances in technology, this type of digital content is easily available to users. The player experience is enhanced by bringing the virtual experience to the world around us, and new interaction techniques emerge. We propose a video game in which the user controls a virtual drone which interacts with objects situated in the real environment. We present the development methodology that we followed in order to bring this project to life, from the early stages of topic selection, to implementation details, and finally to the evaluation stage.


An acute awareness of the profound social and medical costs associated with heroin and opiate addiction in New Mexico has led a group of advocates from public health, state and local governments, corrections, academia, and community activists to collaborate for the purpose of increasing access to medication-assisted therapy (MAT) with buprenorphine and methadone in New Mexico. This paper describes these collaborations, with a focus on the evolution of harm reduction approaches to substance abuse disorders and successful efforts to make MAT available to incarcerated persons.


The movement of a rock glacier located at the bottom of the Foxfonna
glacier, Svalbard, Norway, was studied through the use of photogrammetry
and feature tracking software, between the years of 2017-2019, as well
as elevation changes between 2009 and 2019. This could aid in further
knowledge about the rapid velocity changes of rock glaciers in a continuous
permafrost environment. It was found that the front part of the rock glacier
moved approximately 2m between 2017 and 2018, and up to 2.5m/y between
2018-2019. The elevation changes showed a large accumulation of mass in
its frontal area over the years, where some features have moved around 20m
since 2009. Further south on the upper part of the rock glacier, movement
changes were few, but elevation changes still occurred. Factors, such as icing,
internal hydrology, permafrost changes, that could influence the movement
of the rock glacier have been discussed and suggestions for future studies,
including ground penetrating radar (GPR) and temperature measurements,
have been made.


The thirty papers which comprise this volume are selected from those delivered at the summer and winter conferences of the Ecclesiastical History Society in 1971 and 1972. The volume opens with three important, wide ranging surveys of the nature and types of religious orthodoxy and dissent in the early Christian centuries. A further group of papers considers the emergence and treatment of earlier medieval heresies, while a number of contributions concerned with Lollardy have their focus in M. J. Wilks' examination of relations between Wyclif and Hus. For developments in more modern times K.T. Ware supplies a wider perspective to a rich and varied series of papers on more familiar matters in British, Continental and American history. In this volume, considerable attention is paid to the relationship of movements of protest and dissent to their social, intellectual, cultural and political backgrounds: in this many of the authors reflect the interest in 'religious sociology' which characterises much contemporary Continental work in the field of ecclesiastical history.


The flowfield around a gust generator device, an airfoil/rotat ing slotted cylinder (RSC) system, is numerically simulated using the general-purpose finite element program FIDAP. The flow is assumed to be quasisteady, turbulent, incompressible, and two dimensional. The turbulence is modeled far from the walls by a high Reynolds number k-e model. In the near-wall region, which includes the viscous sublayer, the mixing length concept is used to model turbulence. The numerical analysis treats the time-varying flow around the gust generator device as quasisteady and solves the flow position-by-position as the RSC rotates. The variation of lift and drag as a function of the rotation angle and as a function of the gap between the airfoil and the rotating slotted cylinder is calculated. CD CL


The field of textile and fashion is regard to be sensitive to trend, however, the professional fashion information planning company for trend forecasting has not settled down in Korea. This study was designed to propose systemizing for fashion trend information planning in domestic fashion information service market. The empirical research was conducted by analysing in-depth interview data and news-scrap contents about each fashion information planning company. The result are as follows; First, fashion information service showed a little difference according to the type of fashion information companies, but they provided not only general fashion trends but also external market environmental information, survey-based consumer information and various segmented market research reports including academic information. Second, the fashion information planning process is largely divided into 3 stages; trend analysis, trend forecasting, trend application. The trend application step is the stage which connects the fashion information service industry to the fashion business. Thirdly, as a result of the competitive power evaluation for fashion information planning, the domestic fashion information planning companies came to reveal the fact that the possibility of carrying out and information analysis power were weak, however, how to present trend information had a relatively competitive. Consequently, this study is expected to play a role in understanding the importance of fashion trend information, and further ahead it would be helpful to organize the curriculum of fashion information planning subject in order to educate the future fashion executives.


Consolidation in the U.S. airline industry following deregulation has been partly to achieve cost economies. Estimates of airline costs for two different periods after deregulation show economies of scope and traffic density but not economies of scale. The evidence indicates that the extent of the cost economies has changed during deregulation. There is some justification for mergers on the basis of achieving economies of scope and density.


'Below the radar' has become a short-hand term for small community groups who are either not registered with the Charity Commission or other regulatory bodies and or are registered but lack a regular, substantial annual income. Much of the existing research into the Third Sector has focused on formal, larger, organisations leaving gaps in the knowledge base around the nature and function of small groups and more informal activities which happen at a community level.
The following working paper is based on interviews with representatives from national community sector organisations, development agencies, members of policy fora and academics with a background in community based research. It explores the scale, scope and functions of 'below the radar' activity in the Third Sector, why people become active within their community and the factors which both help and hinder community based action. Finally the paper explores the strengths and weaknesses of 'below the radar' action, issues of accountability and asks the question – are their features that make more informal community organisation and activity distinctive.


BACKGROUND Peripheral ulcerative keratitis (PUK) is a destructive inflammatory disease of the juxta-limbal corneal stroma that is caused by various infectious and non-infectious ocular and systemic diseases. Certain morphologic and immunologic characteristics of peripheral cornea make it more vulnerable to inflammatory reactions and necrosis. Early diagnosis and prompt treatment prevent blindness due to this devastating inflammatory condition. We wanted to study the aetiology, clinical features and outcome of various treatment modalities of peripheral ulcerative keratitis of non-infective aetiology. METHODS 54 eyes of 40 patients with peripheral ulcerative keratitis of non-infective aetiology were evaluated and treated with either medical or surgical therapy or both in a tertiary care centre and were followed up. The total study duration was 12 months. RESULTS 60 percent of cases were males (24 / 40). The most common age group affected was 60 - 70 years (32.5 %) and the mean age in our study group was 57.7 ± 18.33 years. 65 % were unilateral (26 / 40). In our study 15 eyes (27.77 %) had meibomitis. 13 % of eyes had mild involvement, 40.8 % eyes had moderate involvement, 46.2 % eyes had severe involvement. Severe involvement was the most common presentation. The incidence of perforated PUK in the study group was 20.37 % (11 / 54 eyes). 45 % were found to have unknown aetiology. Of the remaining, the most common aetiology was Mooren's ulcer (32.5 %) followed by rheumatoid arthritis (20 %) and Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (2.5 %). Among 54 eyes, the resolution of signs of active PUK was seen in 50 eyes (92.59 %) after treatment. Visual acuity improvement noted on comparison of mean of pretreatment visual acuity 0.90 with standard deviation 0.39 and the mean of post treatment visual acuity 0.62 with standard deviation 0.37 logarithm of minimum angle of resolution units with P value is < 0.001 which is significant. For perforated peripheral ulcerative keratitis eyes, patch graft was found to be successful in 87.5 %. Peritomy was successful in 100 % and peritomy with amniotic membrane graft was successful in 70 %. CONCLUSIONS In our study, male patients were more than female and the commonest presentation was unilateral. Most common aetiology was idiopathic followed by Mooren's ulcer, rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus. Mild to moderate cases respond well to medical management. Severe cases need immunosuppressants. Perforated cases needs surgical intervention especially patch graft which is better in achieving good anatomical integrity and enhanced visual acuity. Early referral of patients with peripheral ulcerative keratitis to a tertiary care centre helps in early treatment which is beneficial in avoiding blindness. KEYWORDS Peripheral Ulcerative Keratitis, Non Infective, Immunosuppressants, Patch Graft


The management of patients with low back pain (LBP) problems by primary care physicians or even spine specialists differ significantly and little is known about treatment strategy. This review is to present the clinical profile and to assess the most common treatment modalities of patients with low-back pain in order to improve the clinical judgment of the treating physician. Data were obtained from a midline literature search of articles in English. A manual revision of original articles was done and demonstrative figures from patients at our institute were added. LBP is an extremely common problem. It is characterized by attacks, remissions and exacerbations. It is best managed by a multidisciplinary team. Primary coordination of treatment may depend on the patient's need and the awareness of the treating physician of the importance of history and physical examinations. The following suggested protocol may help to identify red flags that denote more serious conditions.


Nine small artificial dams located in different climatic regions of Kenya were studied. The local communities use the stored water for various purposes, such as irrigation, domestic use, watering of livestock and cage fish farming. Such intense use is commonly accompanied by eutrophication, including fast growth of cyanobacteria, which at times produce cyanotoxins threatening human and animal life. We studied the pelagic community, analysed abiotic variables and identified microcystins by means of high performance liquid chromatography and ELISA kits at monthly intervals over a period of one year. Mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) was used to identify structural variants of microcystins by their protonated masses (M + H). Three dams contained microcystins, with the highly toxic Microcystin-LR being identified as the most prominent substance. Cell content of the toxin varied from 7.2 to 686.7 fg cell−1. Basic limnological variables that indicate the probability of toxin presence were also recorded. Non-parametric Mann–Whitney U-test revealed significant differences in soluble reactive phosphorous, nitrate-N, water depth, total hardness and post-Nauplii stages sampled between toxin-producing and non-toxin-producing dams. Although most of the samples did not contain high amounts of cyanobacteria, the cyanotoxin-problem was evident, suggesting the need for regular cyanotoxin monitoring programs.


This paper compares three thermally sprayed coatings with different carbide types in a NiCr matrix (25% by volume) with regard to their erosion, corrosion, and wear resistance. The three types of carbide are WC, chromium carbide, and TiC. The coatings were sprayed with the Sultzer-Metco Diamond-Jet 2600 equipment. All coatings were produced with the same spray parameters. If the sand particles hit the surface at high angles of impact, the WC coating is better than the other two coatings in terms of erosion/corrosion resistance. Micro-abrasive wear tests also showed the WC coating was superior (slightly better than the TiC coating). The corrosion properties of the coatings were almost the same. Paper includes a German-language abstract.


In seasonal environments animals organize their behaviour around annual cycles of resource availability. Wild black-capped chickadees are most likely to hoard food in autumn. At this time of year chickadees are also reported to have a larger hippocampus, a brain area important for spatial memory. This study examined how photoperiodic condition affects these seasonal changes. Captive chickadees were exposed to one of three treatments. Photorefractory birds were held on long days (19:5 h light:dark) and had small gonads. Photosensitive birds were held on short days (LD 9:15 h) and also had small gonads. Photostimulated birds were switched from short to long days and quickly entered breeding condition with large gonads. Photosensitive birds (on short days) stored more seeds than photorefractory birds (on long days). Photostimulated birds stored seeds at a high rate when on short days, but reduced storing when transferred to long days. These results indicate that long days inhibit storing regardless of gonadal condition. There were no differences between groups in hippocampal volume, indicating that photoperiod can produce changes in food-storing behaviour without affecting hippocampal size.  2003 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd on behalf of The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.


Vaccination is a pressing public health issue. We hypothesize that impatience (discounting future benefits of current actions) leads to lower vaccination rates and worse attitudes toward vaccines. In preregistered individual-level Study 1 ( N = 2,614), we document a positive and quantitatively small association (standardized coefficient = 0.06) between patience and attitudes toward vaccines. In Study 2 ( N = 76), national-level patience accounts for 21% of the global variation in COVID-19 vaccinations; patience's effect is small-to-moderate (standardized coefficient = 0.19). In duration models (Study 3; 4,180 ≤ N≤ 9,973), more patient countries more quickly reach high COVID-19 vaccination thresholds. The results generalize beyond COVID-19: Patience among European subnational regions predicts better attitudes toward vaccination against the 2009 swine influenza (Study 4: Nregions = 138; Ncountries = 17). Finally (Study 5, N = 75), our results are not specific to pandemics: National patience explains the global variation in infant vaccinations.


The first in-depth study on the use of electrocardiogram and electrooculogram for subject-dependent classification in driver sleepiness/fatigue under realistic driving conditions is presented in this work. Since acquisitions in simulated environments may be misleading for sleepiness assessment, performing studies on road are required. For that purpose, the authors present a database resulting from a field driving study performed in the SleepEye project. Based on previous research, supervised machine learning methods are implemented and applied to 16 heart- and 25 eye-based extracted features, mostly related to heart rate variability and blink events, respectively, in order to study the influence of subject dependency in sleepiness classification, using different classifiers and dealing with imbalanced class distributions. Results showed a significantly worse performance in subject-independent classification: a decrease of ~40 and 20% in the detection rate of the `sleepy' class for two and three classes, respectively. Since physiological signals are the ones that present the most individual characteristics, a subject-independent classification can be even harder to perform. Transfer learning techniques and methods for imbalanced distributions are promising approaches and need further investigation.


We report in-situ measurement of the conductivity during the synthesis of C60-filled single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs), so-called fullerene peapods. The synthesis was performed in a sealed quartz tube at 773 K by using the sublimation of C60 into the hollow space of the SWNTs. The change in the resistance in the SWNT buckypaper was monitored during the C60-filling process, and the temperature dependence of the resistance was compared to that for empty SWNTs and fullerene peapods. The SWNT networks became more metallic due to the encapsulation of C60, and a reduced temperature dependence of the resistivity was observed in the peapods, with an overall decrease in the resistivity. The interaction between the SWNT and C60 molecules, changing the electronic properties of SWNTs, can provide a way to functionalize the SWNTs.


Indonesia is a country rich in tribes, nations, customs, culture, natural resources and also tourist villages. Tourism village in Indonesia spread in various regions from Sabang to Merauke, and this tourist village has each characteristic in accordance with the region, one example is one village in the village of batik gedhog that is in Ngluwuk hamlet, Kedungrejo village, Kerek District, Tuban Regency, East Java which has a distinctive cultural identity and building typology. The study of house typology in Ngluwuk gedhog batik village Tuban is using descriptive-qualitative method with typology approach. The criteria of samplings selection are based on authenticity of building shape aspect and recommendation from local society. Through this study the authors can identify the characteristics of the typology of village tourist architecture in Ngluwuk Hamlet. The shape and appearance of the house building in Ngluwuk Hamlet is a traditional tropical-style building with facade design using ornaments and the proportion of the facade and the inner room tend to be symmetrical, using the roof "tekuk lulang", Through this study it is expected the local government can educate people who have a house with the shape which is still unique would be able to maintain its authenticity. By maintaining and preserving a typical home typology, it will increasingly attract tourists to visit and enjoy the village atmosphere and buy gedhog batik from the villagers.


Introduction: Polynomial functions over finite fields are important in computer science and electrical engineering in that they present a mathematical representation of digital circuits. The validity of circuit designs can be tested abstractly using polynomial representations of circuits instead of physical testing the circuits post-construction. Toward this end, we aim to find necessary and sufficient conditions for polynomial functions with coefficients in a field of characteristic p, when restricted to a subfield, to map from the restricted domain to a different subfield of the original field. This problem is of particular interest in the aforementioned context when p = 2 due to the relationship between fields of characteristic 2 and binary structures.


In late middle age, individuals may face competing demands on their time and financial resources from elderly parents and young adult children. This study uses the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to examine changes over time in the probability of having children and living parents for women age 45 to 64. We compare two cohorts: those born in the 1920s and 1930s and those born in the 1940s and 1950s. We find that there has been a dramatic increase in the probability of having children and living parents and that this increase has been driven mainly by changes in life expectancy of the parent generation. We further examine transfers of money and co-residence for women in the later cohort. We find that while women may not give to parents and children concurrently, approximately thirty percent of them have provided support to both parents and children at some point in the past.


Solitonic characteristics are revealed in the diffusion process of a hump or a notch wave packet in a one-dimensional Bose–Einstein condensate. By numerically solving the time-dependent Gross–Pitaevskii equation, we find completely different spreading behavior for attractive or repulsive condensates. For the attractive condensate, a series of bright solitons are continuously generated one after another at the wave front and they nearly stay at the positions where they are generated in the whole diffusion process. In contrast, for the repulsive condensate, the initial wave packet splits at the beginning into a series of grey solitons that travel at different velocities. The moving velocity of the grey soliton depends on nonlinear interaction strength, as well as the shape of a particular grey soliton.


We test how informed investors with local expertise can affect cross-border deal success using a comprehensive dataset of corporate acquirers' share registers. We posit that deals in which long-term investors have a high level of expertise in the target firm's region are more likely to perform better than if the deal is 'naked', i.e. when such regional expertise amongst the investors is low. We show that the strength of this effect depends upon an index of country-level M&A maturity which measures the relative divergence between acquirer and target countries. Specifically, we investigate whether acquirers investing in countries with low M&A maturity gain greater benefit from investors with regional expertise. We present evidence which confirms the hypothesis that acquirers in cross-border corporate transactions are more likely to be successful if the acquirer's investors have a higher level of expertise in the target region, and that this effect is strongest when the maturity for corporate transactions of the target country is low. This provides a specific setting which is consistent with earlier theoretical work that argues in general that information flows should not just be from firms to capital markets but also in the opposite direction, and that this flow of information is particularly important whenever information is dispersed.


Previously, we proposed a scheduling algorithm that is capable of providing rate guarantees for input-buffered crossbar switches. The algorithm is based on a decomposition result by Birkhoff (1945) and von Neumann (1953) for a doubly substochastic matrix. An input buffered crossbar switch that uses such an algorithm is called the Birkhoff-von Neumann switch in this paper. For the Birkhoff-von Neumann switch, the rate guarantees are uniformly good for all non-uniform traffic, and it does not require framing or internal speedup. Our objective of this paper is to make the Birkhoff-von Neumann switch more complete and practical. We do so by addressing three topics: providing best-effort services in the Birkhoff-von Neumann switch, hardware implementation of the switch fabric, and multistage Birkhoff-von Neumann switches.


The power system cost model include wind turbine were studied by using simulated annealing genetic algorithm. The advantages and disadvantages of genetic algorithm were presented. Annealing algorithm was improved using the Simulated Annealing. The power system cost model include a wind turbine was established, and the example case was analyzed by using simulated annealing genetic algorithm. The calculation was elucidated, demonstrating that with the wind power generation cost coefficient decreasing, the increase of wind power generating capacity will reduce the cost of power systems, and the existence of environmental costs of thermal power will be advantage to wind power.


India's prowess in the service sector has been recognised the world over. Sustaining services exports is important not only to sustain India's high growth rate but also to compensate for a consistent deficit in merchandise trade and to maintain stability on the external sector. In this context, we analyse the factors of India's performance in services exports over the past three decades. The results reveal that endowment factors such as human capital, improvement in physical infrastructure and financial development are key drivers for India's surge in services exports along with world demand, exchange rate and manufacturing exports. While factors such as institutions, R&D expenditure, telecommunication, foreign direct investment and financial development significantly impact the export of modern services, traditional services exports are more dependent on infrastructure development, manufacturing exports, world demand and exchange rate. India's economic reforms in the financial sector, FDI, communication so far have helped the services exports, but India needs to focus on supply-side factors to improve the competitiveness – and thereby volume – of services exports.


A minute amount (0.01–0.3 wt %) of ally isocyanate functionalized hyperbranched 2,2-bis (hydroxymethyl) propionic acid (bis-MPA) polyester-16-hydroxyl (HBP) was incorporated covalently into polyurethane acrylate-based holographic polymer dispersed liquid crystals (HPDLCs), and its effects on the compound viscosity, grating kinetics, morphology, diffraction efficiency (DE), and electro-optical properties of the HPDLC films were examined. HBP at low concentrations (0.01–0.05%) reduced the compound viscosity and domain size of liquid crystal (LC) significantly and augmented the cure rate and saturation DE by up to threefold compared to the HBP-free compound. At high concentrations (0.10 and 0.30%), HBP increased the compound viscosity and decreased the rate of grating formation, giving rise to distorted LC-polymer interfaces, which caused a significant decrease in the threshold and operating voltages. The rise and decay time showed a minimum and maximum, respectively, when the compound viscosity was a minimum at 0.03% HBP. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem, 2013


Cursive script word recognition is the problem of transforming a word from the iconic form of cursive writing to its symbolic form. Several component processes of a recognition system for isolated offline cursive script words are described. A word image is transformed through a hierarchy of representation levels: points, contours, features, letters, and words. A unique feature representation is generated bottom-up from the image using statistical dependences between letters and features. Ratings for partially formed words are computed using a stack algorithm and a lexicon represented as a trie. Several novel techniques for low- and intermediate-level processing for cursive script are described, including heuristics for reference line finding, letter segmentation based on detecting local minima along the lower contour and areas with low vertical profiles, simultaneous encoding of contours and their topological relationships, extracting features, and finding shape-oriented events. Experiments demonstrating the performance of the system are also described. >


In order to facilitate epidemiological investigations a subdivision of Staphylococcus aureus strains belonging to the 94,96 complex by means of two experimental phages, 16 and 47A, was performed. These phages were selected from the nine experimental phages initially examined because they gave the greatest discrimination. On the basis of reactions with these two phages, 2199 isolates which reacted with phages 94 and 96, and 773 isolates which reacted with phage 96 alone, were each subdivided into two major and two minor groups. Strains with different phage patterns were in a few cases (2/64) isolated from the same deep body site in a patient, and lysogenisation experiments suggested that differences in phage patterns were determined by the presence of prophages. Strains with the phage patterns 94/96 and 96 were found to be unevenly distributed throughout Denmark. This regional distribution suggested that particular strains might predominate in some areas. The extended phage patterns with the experimental phages did not give any retrospectively useful epidemiological information. It is proposed that in future phages 16 and 47A be used for specific investigations into the sources and relatedness of strains involved in small incidents.


Abstract
What causes adolescents to develop consumer' ethical beliefs? Prior research has largely focused on the negative influence of peers and negative patterns of parent–child interactions to explain risky and unethical consumer behaviors. We take a different perspective by focusing on the positive support of parents and peers in adolescent social development. An integrative model is developed that links parental and peer support with adolescents' self-worth motives, their materialistic tendencies, and their consumer ethical beliefs. In a study of 984 adolescents, we demonstrate support for a sequential mediation model in which peer and parental support is positively related to adolescents' self-esteem and feelings of power, which are each associated with decreased materialism as a means of compensating for low self-worth. This reduced materialism is, in turn, associated with more ethical consumer beliefs.


There has been increasing attention paid to non-communicable disease risk factors including tobacco, diet, alcohol and a lack of physical activity. The tobacco control model has moved from largely supply side, 'harm regulation' measures of the 1950s and 1960s (e.g. 'safe' cigarettes, education, self-regulation) to demand side, neo-prohibitionism in the 1980s (e.g. mandatory restrictions) with the increased attention paid to second hand smoke issues. Obesity as well as alcohol remain in the 'harm regulation' model although there have been attempts to move toward a more demand side model. Despite the attractiveness of the tobacco control model for obesity policy change, progress has been slow. We analyse the prospects for moving obesity policy towards a neo-prohibitionist model.


Beauveria bassiana serves as a main source of global fungal insecticides, which are based on the active ingredient of formulated conidia vulnerable to solar ultraviolet (UV) irradiation and restrained for all-weather application in green agriculture. The anti-UV proteins Rad1 and Rad10 are required for the nucleotide excision repair (NER) of UV-injured DNA in model yeast, but their anti-UV roles remain rarely exploredin filamentous fungi. Here, Rad1 and Rad10 orthologues that accumulated more in the nuclei than the cytoplasm of B. bassiana proved capable of reactivating UVB-impaired or UVB-inactivated conidia efficiently by 5h light exposure but incapable of doing so by 24 h dark incubation (NER) if the accumulated UVB irradiation was lethal. Each orthologue was found interacting with the other and two white collar proteins (WC1 and WC2), which proved to be regulators of two photolyases (Phr1 and Phr2) and individually more efficient in the photorepair of UVB-induced DNA lesions than either photolyase alone. The fungal photoreactivation activity was more or far more compromised when the protein–protein interactions were abolished in the absence of Rad1 or Rad10 than when either Phr1 or Phr2 lost function. The detected protein–protein interactions suggest direct links of either Rad1 or Rad10 to two photolyase regulators. In B. bassiana, therefore, Rad1 and Rad10 tied to the photolyase regulators have high activities in the photoprotection of formulated conidia from solar UV damage but insufficient NER activities in the field, where night (dark) time is too short, and no other roles in the fungal lifecycle in vitro and in vivo.


The current investigation was performed with an aim to improve the aqueous solubility, dissolution rate, and thus the biological activity of apigenin (APG) using the solubilizers hydroxypropyl beta-cyclodextrin (HPβCD) and chitosan (CTSN). A binary and ternary inclusion complexes of APG with HPβCD and CTSN were prepared by physical mixing, fusion, and solvent evaporation methods. The liquid state characterization of the APG, the solubilizers, and the physical and chemical interactions between them was done through phase solubility approach. The solid-state characterization was performed by proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H-NMR), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and X-ray diffractometry (XRD). The in vitro dissolution test and antioxidant activity and in vivo anti-inflammatory activity of the ternary inclusion complex in albino rats were performed to assess the performance of the APG. Phase solubility study results revealed a remarkable increase in apparent stability constant (Kc) and complexation efficiency (CE) of HPβCD in presence of CTSN in ternary complex with above 8 folds more increment in solubility of APG than its binary complex. The in vitro dissolution rate, antioxidant activity, and the anti-inflammatory effect of the APG ternary inclusion complex were found to be significantly higher than that of pure APG. Solid state characterization confirmed the formation of a ternary inclusion complex. 1H-NMR study gave more insight at molecular level into how different groups of APG were responsible for complex formation with the HPβCD and how CTSN was significantly influencing on the APG-HPβCD complex formed. Nevertheless, pharmacokinetic and histopathological studies of our APG-HPβCD-CTSN ternary complex would yield much rewarding results.


Objectives: We present a case of a patient with a right subclavian artery injury due to a gunshot, treated by endovascular approach in our clinic in Kielce, Poland. Case report: A 35-year-old male, presented with a penetrating injury of the right supraclavicular region due to a shotgun slug. The patient was hemodynamically unstable. Both chest radiograph and CTA (Computed Tomography Angiography) imaging presented an injury of the right subclavian artery, multisegmental rib fractures of ribs I-III and a hemo-pneumothorax. Endovascular repair of the subclavian artery was performed, followed by insertion of a Redon wound drain and right-sided pleural drain. The patient was then transported to the thoracic surgery unit, where further therapy, including a removal of the bullet from the thoracic wall, was performed. Upon a 4 months follow-up visit, the patient was in a good condition and a CTA scan performed at this time confirmed the patency of the right subclavian artery. Conclusions: Endovascular repair presents a viable alternative option for treating subclavian artery injuries, even in hemodynamically unstable patients.


Up to now, over 1,000 experimental treatments found in cells and rodents have been difficult to translate to human ischemic stroke. Since ischemia and reperfusion, two separate stages of ischemic stroke, have different pathophysiological mechanisms leading to brain injury, a combination of protective agents targeting ischemia and reperfusion respectively may obtain substantially better results than a single agent. Normobaric hyperoxia (NBO) has been shown to exhibit neuro- and vaso-protective effects by improving tissue oxygenation when it is given during ischemia, however the effect of NBO would diminish when the duration of ischemia and reperfusion was extended. Therefore, during reperfusion drug treatment targeting inflammation, oxidative stress and free radical scavenger would be a useful adjuvant to extend the therapeutic window of tissue plasminogen activator, the only United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved treatment for acute ischemic stroke. In this review, we discussed the neuro- and vaso-protective effects of NBO and recent finding of combining NBO with other drugs.


We study the elliptic fibrations of some Calabi–Yau threefolds, including the Z2×Z2 orbifold with (h1,1,h2,1)=(27, 3), which is equivalent to the common framework of realistic free-fermion models, as well as related orbifold models with (h1,1,h2,1)=(51, 3) and (31, 7). However, two related puzzles arise when one considers the (h1,1,h2,1)=(27, 3) model as an F theory compactification to six dimensions. The condition for the vanishing of the gravitational anomaly is not satisfied, suggesting that the F theory compactification does not make sense, and the elliptic fibration is well defined everywhere except at four singular points in the base. We speculate on the possible existence of N=1 tensor and hypermultiplets at these points which would cancel the gravitational anomaly in this case.


In 1946 the great geologist R.A. Daly published an important paper in which he discussed a great many problems concerning the Moon and its features and origin. His paper was almost completely ignored by the scientists of the day and was "lost" for nearly half a century. The present paper marks an attempt to outline Daly's contributions to the interpretation of these lunar problems, in particular the origin of the Moon. One of the major ideas, which probably was the incentive for him to write the paper, was that the Moon was born as a result of a very early glancing collision of the Earth and a planet-sized body. Other subjects covered are the origin of the craters from Earth fragments, although meteoritic impact is also presented; the nature of the maria as lava from the body of the Moon; and origin of the lines of small craters as produced by gas escaping from the Moon. Daly rejected all non impact models for crater origin except for the tiny gas-made aligned pits. He vigorously stated that the Moon was largely created from the body of the Earth and discussed three methods by which this could be accomplished, one internal and two external, before settling on the glancing collision model. Daly clearly was the pioneer in presenting the impact model of the origin of the Moon. Much later, works by others have modified the hypothesis, but this is only natural evolution. Two other "lost" papers will be mentioned to show that this is an all too frequent occurrence. In 1893 Gilbert wrote a milestone paper that was generally unrecognized for more than 50 years. He espoused the impact theory of the origin of lunar basins and craters. He was wrong about the mechanism involved, but he was right about the impact idea. Similarly, Opik in 1916 showed that impact craters must be formed by explosions due to the high energies of striking meteorites. He showed that such impacts, even at low angles of fall would result in circular craters, thus correcting Gilbert, whom he did not mention. His paper also "disappeared" for many years. Early recognition and understanding of these three papers would have advanced lunar studies by many years.


A complex of enzymes was isolated in a preparation derived from the digestive tract of sea cucumber, Stichopus japonicus . Hydrolysis of chitosan using this enzyme preparation decreased its molecular weight (Mw), increased its water solubility and produced water-soluble chitosan (WSC). The conditions for hydrolysis were optimized to pH 6.0, temperature 45°C, 16 mg enzyme preparation (22.08 U of chitosanase activity) in a reaction solution (500 ml) containing 5 g chitosan and total reaction time of 3 h. The Mw of hydrolyzed chitosan was 1260 Da, and the WSC content in the resulting product and the yield were 96.7 and 95.4% (w/w), respectively. The structure of WSC was characterized using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. Key words : Water-soluble chitosan, complex enzyme preparation, sea cucumber Stichopus japonicus , hydrolysis.


Ecosystem restoration is a global priority. Large-scale restoration programs have been recently launched with ambitious goals for forest restoration in fragmented tropical regions. Although cleared sites are being reforested in these regions, degraded forest remnants are often neglected regarding their restoration. We discuss why degraded forest remnants should be incorporated in the agenda of tropical forest restoration programs in currently fragmented regions, and the main challenges to make that an effective restoration strategy. Despite lower biodiversity and biomass, degraded forests are important for biodiversity conservation and human wellbeing in fragmented landscapes. Besides, the long-term sustainability of restoration sites embedded in fragmented landscapes depends on these forest fragments as biodiversity sources. Advances are necessary to consolidate the practice of restoring degraded forests. Lianas cutting, enrichment plantings and other restorations techniques need to be validated and policies to incentive restoration of those degraded forest need to be discussed with stakeholders involved in restoration. 1 Departamento de Biotecnologia e Produção Vegetal e Animal, Universidade Federal de São Carlos, Araras, SP, Brazil. 2 Departamento de Ciências Florestais, ESALQ Universidade de São Paulo, Piracicaba, SP, Brazil Corresponding author: firstname.lastname@example.com Ricardo Augusto Gorne Viani1 | Felipe Nery Arantes Mello2 | Isaí Euán Chi1 Pedro Henrique Santin Brancalion2 While reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) initiatives are more common in less fragmented landscapes, in older human-modified tropical landscapes, forest restoration programs are focused on recovering forests where they were cleared and substituted by other land uses. Meanwhile, restoration of several small and degraded forest remnants in those landscapes have been neglected (Brancalion et al. 2012). Thus, our objective is to discuss 1) why degraded forest remnants should be incorporated in the agenda of tropical forest restoration programs, and 2) the main challenges to make restoration of degraded forest remnants an effective strategy to reinforce biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services provisioning in fragmented regions of the tropics. Why should we be concerned about restoring forest remnants in fragmented landscapes? Forest fragmentation (forest areas are cut down in previously continuous forest habitats leaving small patches) have converted many tropical regions in landscapes with small and isolated forest fragments (Haddad et al. 2015). Following fragmentation, many tropical forests have faced degradation by selective logging, fire, grazing and/or other disturbances (Hosonuma et al. 2012). Both forest fragmentation and degradation affect species composition and ecosystem services provisioning in the remaining forest patches (Aguirre and Dirzo 2008; Pütz et al. 2011; Ferraz et al. 2014; Pütz et al. 2014). Remarkably, degraded tropical forest fragments experience an increase in abundance and biomass of some specific plant groups, such as bamboos (Lima et al. 2012) or, more commonly, climbers (Schnitzer and Bongers 2011). Climbers strongly compete with trees by water, nutrients and light, thus affecting trees physiological performance, growth, fecundity and survival (Schnitzer et al. 2005). As a result, degraded forest remnants have a strong reduction in tree species richness (Schnitzer and Carson 2010) and carbon stocks (Duran and Gianoli 2013). Consequently, degraded forests have constrains for provision of ecosystem P er sp ec ti ve


People are remarkably good at remembering photographs. To further investigate the nature of the stored representations and the fidelity of human memories, it would be useful to evaluate the visual similarity of stimuli presented in experiments. Here, we explored the possible use of convolutional neural networks (CNN) as a measure of perceptual or representational similarity of visual scenes with respect to visual memory research. In Experiment 1, we presented participants with sets of nine images from the same scene category and tested whether they were able to detect the most distant scene in the image space defined by CNN. Experiment 2 was a visual variant of the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm. We asked participants to remember a set of photographs from the same scene category. The photographs were preselected based on their distance to a particular visual prototype (defined as centroid of the image space). In the recognition test, we observed higher false alarm rates for scenes closer to this visual prototype. Our findings show that the similarity measured by CNN is reflected in human behavior: people can detect odd-one-out scenes or be lured to false alarms with similar stimuli. This method can be used for further studies regarding visual memory for complex scenes.


As a basis for his suggestions for psychotherapy for women who have suffered perinatal loss, Dr Leon begins with a discussion of the psychology of pregnancy. The approach is primarily a psychoanalytic one with emphasis on Freudian concepts including oral incorporation, penis envy, and oedipal conflicts. These basic concepts are said to play a large role in the pregnant woman's identification with her own mother. Dr Leon does not neglect the tenets of self psychology such as object seeking, the idea of the conceptus as an intimate part of the mother's own body and that of her husband, and the sense of narcissistic damage that occurs with the death or malformation of the fetus. The narcissistic injury impacts on the mother's body image, sexuality, and feeling of competence as a mother. The remaining 110 pages of the book deal with individual cases, suggested interpretations, and therapeutic emphases. These 20 persons


Empirical studies support the hysteresis hypothesis that recessions have a permanent effect on the level of output. We analyze the implications of hysteresis for fiscal policy in a DSGE model. We assume a simple learning-by-doing mechanism where demand-driven changes in employment can affect the level of productivity permanently, leading to hysteresis in output. We show that the fiscal output multiplier is much larger in the presence of hysteresis and that the welfare multiplier of fiscal policy - the consumption equivalent change in welfare for one dollar change in public spending - is positive (negative) in the presence (absence) of hysteresis. The main bene.t of accommodative fiscal policy in the presence of hysteresis is to diminish the damage of a recession to the long-term level of productivity and, thus, output.


This report investigates an outbreak of acute gastrointestinal illness, microbiologically and epidemiologically linked to an aged-care facility and seeks to determine if there was a point source of infection. A register of cases that included onset date and time of illness and symptoms was maintained by nursing staff. Faecal specimens were tested for conventional gastrointestinal pathogens and for human calicivirus (HuCV). There were 81 cases reported. Specimens were received for testing from 25 cases. Twenty-three of the 25 (92%) specimens were positive for HuCV RNA by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The 2 negative samples contained RT-PCR inhibitors. Descriptive epidemiology suggested that staffing practices were important in prolonging the outbreak. No point source of infection was identified. Instead environmental contamination, aerosol transmission and work practices that fail to take account of the natural history of HuCV infection probably contributed to the size (81 cases) and duration (3 weeks) of this outbreak among the residents, staff and visitors of an aged-care facility and their contacts. Institutional outbreaks caused by HuCV, formerly called Norwalk-like or small round structured viruses, are extremely difficult to control. Infected staff may contribute significantly to the amplification of outbreaks. Rapid confirmation of HuCV infection is now routinely possible using polymerase chain reaction diagnostics but progress in laboratory technology has not yet translated into faster or more effective interventions.


Thermoresponsive amphiphilic Pluronic F127 triblock copolymer solutions have been widely investigated in smart biomaterial applications due to the proximity of its critical gel temperature to human body temperature. Meanwhile, cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) have quickly become the focus of many drug delivery and tissue engineering applications due to their biocompatibility, abundance, ability to conjugate with drug molecules, and superior rheological properties. Herein, we investigate the phase behavior and thermo-rheological properties of the composite hydrogels containing cellulose nanocrystals (up to 5% by weight) and the temperature responsive Pluronic F127. Our results revealed an unprecedented role of CNC network formation on micellization and gelation behavior of the triblock copolymer. Linear and nonlinear rheological analysis suggest that at low and moderate nanocrystal loadings (1-3% by weight), the composite gel remarkably becomes softer and deformable compared to the neat Pluronic F127 gels. The softening effect results from the disruption of the close packed micelles by the rodlike CNCs. At high concentrations, however, the nanocrystals form their own network and the micelles are trapped within the CNC meshes. As a result, the original (neat F127) hard-gel modulus is recovered at 4 to 5% nanocrystal loading, yet the composite gel is much more deformable (and tougher) in the presence of the CNC network. Our temperature sweep experiments show that the CNC addition up to 3% does not change the rapid thermal gelation of the F127 solutions; therefore, these composites are suitable for smart drug delivery systems. On the other hand, at higher CNC concentrations, abrupt viscosity transition is not observed, rather the composite gels smoothly thicken with temperature in contrast to thermal thinning of the aqueous neat CNC. Thus, they can be used as smartly adaptive biolubricants and bioviscostatic materials.


In modern times, significance of mobile service sector progressed so fast in the world and it is major phenomenon in the development of telecommunications field. Wireless technology has got the ability to develop new communications systems, multimedia services and others. Related to the continued growth of the vehicular industry and the increasing needed of road safety a new concept in the communications field was born: vehicular ad hoc networks (VANET). Vehicular sensor network (VSNET) is a promising technology, which combines wireless communication offered by vehicular ad hoc networks (VANET) with sensing devices installed in vehicles. VSNET generates opportunity to develop the road-side sensor infrastructure of current Traffic Monitoring Systems (TMS). VANETs are getting more and more attention from car manufacturers and governments both because of the wide-range of applications and services they can provide, such as car assistance, road safety systems, crash avoidance, Internet access, etc. This paper provides a simulation and emulation study of the proposed platform design which focuses on the possibility of the use of simulation tools to help build and develop an effective traffic monitoring system, so this system provides useful information for both: the vehicle driver and the authorized person at the traffic control center in order to contribute reduce the negative effects of traffic congestion. A web application design and the simulation and emulation process is presented and open source simulator tool is used for this study namely-NCTUns6.0 (National Chiao Tung University Network Simulator).


For a learning task, data can usually be collected from different sources or be represented from multiple views. For example, laboratory results from different medical examinations are available for disease diagnosis, and each of them can only reflect the health state of a person from a particular aspect/view. Therefore, different views provide complementary information for learning tasks. An effective integration of the multi-view information is expected to facilitate the learning performance. In this paper, we propose a general predictor, named multi-view machines (MVMs), that can effectively include all the possible interactions between features from multiple views. A joint factorization is embedded for the full-order interaction parameters which allows parameter estimation under sparsity. Moreover, MVMs can work in conjunction with different loss functions for a variety of machine learning tasks. A stochastic gradient descent method is presented to learn the MVM model. We further illustrate the advantages of MVMs through comparison with other methods for multi-view classification, including support vector machines (SVMs), support tensor machines (STMs) and factorization machines (FMs).


Proceedings: AACR Annual Meeting 2014; April 5-9, 2014; San Diego, CA

Background: Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) represents the most common type of leukemia in adults and is associated with high morbidity and mortality. Targeted therapy represents a promising approach in AML with the potential for increased efficacy and reduced toxicity. Because recent studies have demonstrated that certain inflammatory cytokines known to suppress normal hematopoiesis have the opposite effect (ie. enhancing proliferation) on cell growth of AML cells, we systematically assessed the functional relevance of 90 cytokines and their receptors in primary human AML cells. Here we present a novel role of Interleukin-1 (IL-1) signaling in aberrant regulation of AML cell growth.

Methods and Results: To identify functionally important cytokine signaling pathways in leukemia pathogenesis we took a two pronged approach. First, we quantified the growth of 45 primary AML patient samples against graded concentrations of 90 cytokines. Second, we employed a functional siRNA screen targeting 188 cytokine receptors that were found highly expressed in 140 primary leukemia samples by gene expression analysis. Using this approach we identified that IL-1 signaling had the most dramatic effect. Forty percent of AML samples exhibited a 5-25 fold increase in growth in the presence of IL-1α/β. Paradoxically, IL-1 suppressed growth of normal CD34+ cells. Silencing the IL-1 receptor, IL1R1, reduced the viability of these AML primary samples by 60%. Most IL-1 sensitive AML samples exhibit monocytic and myelomonocytic features; however, no correlation with specific somatic mutations has thus far been observed. IL-1 responsive samples are from patients with abnormally increased serum IL-1β levels (5 fold). Consistent with this, conditioned media from the mononuclear cells of these samples promote the growth of AML CD34+ cells. Deep sequencing of primary AML samples indicated that genes encoding signaling molecules of IL-1 pathway (IL1R1, IL1RAP, MYD88, TRAF6, IRAK, IKK, cJUN, NFκB and p38) are normal. We confirmed the importance of IL1R1 using a genetic model. We found that the absence of IL1R1 in murine bone marrow leads to significant ablation of clonogenic potential (80% reduction) of oncogene-induced leukemic cells (AML1-ETO9a, NRASG12D and MLL-ENL) when compared to oncogene-induced leukemic cells from wild type mice. However, no effect on colony growth was observed with empty vector controls. These results suggest that multiple genetic drivers of leukemia share a dysfunctional IL-1 pathway. Mechanistically, IL-1 promotes CD34+ AML cell survival by increasing p38 phosphorylation that is significantly inhibited with IL1R1 knockdown or p38 kinase inhibitors such as Doramapimod. No toxic effect of Doramapimod was observed on normal cell growth.

Conclusion: These results demonstrate a novel role for IL-1 signaling in promoting oncogenesis in AML and provide evidence that targeting this pathway might be beneficial to AML patients.

Citation Format: Anupriya Agarwal, Alyssa Carey, Elie Traer, Jeffrey Tyner, Grover C. Bagby, Brian J. Druker. Targeted suppression of interleukin-1 signaling inhibits growth of primary human acute myeloid leukemia cells. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2014 Apr 5-9; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2014;74(19 Suppl):Abstract nr 5248. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2014-5248


Abstract Cooperation about safety and joint responsibility between managers and workers is one of the cornerstones of health and safety work. However, attempts at ensuring safety in the workplace run the risk of focussing on formalities and compliance rather than on joint engagement in safety. Drawing on an understanding of safety as practice, this study attempts to empirically unpack the difference between cooperation as engaging with local knowledges and the disciplining of unsafe behaviour. The research involved an ethnographic study at two large construction sites in Denmark and follows empirical examples of how safety breaches are identified, catalogued, and revealed later on at safety meetings. Managers saw this as an attempt to engage the workers. However, the workers saw this as a punitive way of criticizing their work at a distance. They felt that this practice of moving safety from the construction site and in to meeting rooms ran counter to aims of establishing engaging and effective safety practices close to the work. Efforts to engage workers in safer ways of working should therefore acknowledge the integrated nature of safety practice and the value placed on independence, discretion and negotiation when developing cooperation about workplace safety.


The environmental pollution by toxic metals occurs through agricultural and industrial processes, consequently waste disposal cause large environmental impact, economic and health problems. So, environmental regulations require the removal of heavy metals from waste water. Low cost agricultural by-products such as coconut shells were applied as symmetric membranes for radioactive isotopes removal of Cd, Cr and Fe from synthetic waste water. Especially membrane process offers high quality technique when compared to other techniques used in heavy metal removals. The treated coconut shells dried at 100 0C/48h were analyzed using energy dispersive x-ray (EDX) for elemental analysis, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) for chemical characterization, Hg-porosimetry for average pore diameter measurements. Coconut shells thermally treated at 120-300 0C/2h were analyzed using Brunauer-Emmet-Teller (BET) method for specific surface area measurements, scanning electron microscope (SEM) for microstructural investigations. Membrane performance studies were conducted for radioactive isotopes of Cd, Cr and Fe separation from synthetic waste water solution where the transport of different ions and/or their separations through the selected membranes were interpreted using flux measurements. Also, selectivity measurements were studied in order to achieve the goal of obtaining high selective symmetric membranes with good separative properties.


As typical multiferroic materials with a large magnetoelastic effect, which is based on giant caloric effects, Ni–Mn–Sn ferromagnetic shape memory alloys are regarded as potential environmentally friendly solid-state refrigeration materials. The significant brittleness of these alloys and their low martensitic transformation temperatures limit their practical applications. We propose a new means of performance tuning, which shows that replacing Sn by Cu in Ni47Mn38Sn15−xCux magnetic shape memory alloys can simultaneously tune their martensitic transformation behavior and magnetic and mechanical properties. When 6 at% Cu is added, a maximum compressive strength of 546 MPa with a fracture strain of up to 23.4% can be achieved at room temperature. The substitution of Cu for Sn also markedly increases the martensitic transformation temperature from 22.2 °C to 167.9 °C, which is crucial for actual applications. Moreover, using first-principles calculations, we clarify the effect of the substitution of Cu for Sn on the martensitic transformation behavior. On the basis of the above idea, we anticipated that a high-temperature magnetic shape memory alloy with excellent mechanical properties would be obtained by doping with Cu and another element simultaneously. This design method will solve a bottleneck in the development of high-temperature magnetic memory alloys.


Abstract. To analyze the relation between seawater uptake and calcification, we incubated juveniles of the benthic foraminifer Ammonia tepida with various fluorescent probes and visualised them afterwards with confocal laser scanning microscopy. Vesicle membranes, Ca ions and vacuole fluids were followed with various tracers and showed for the first time that endocytosis of seawater is part of the calcification process in Ammonia tepida. Data on the intracellular Ca ion cycling allowed for calculating a preliminary cellular Ca budget during foraminiferal calcification. This showed that the free calcium involved in the production of a new chamber cannot be sufficient and suggests that foraminifera may precipitate their calcite from an amorphous precursor.


In the asymmetric doubly excited states of the two-electron atom one electron is excited much more than the other. The characteristic separation of the strongly excited electron from the atomic nucleus significantly exceeds that for the weakly excited electron . The electron - electron interaction is approximated by the first non-trivial (dipole) term of its expansion over . The same approach is easily extended to the general Coulomb three-body problem with the particles of arbitrary mass and charge. The dynamics of three-body states with and symmetry is analysed in quantum, semiclassical and classical approximations in comparison with the S and states considered previously. Mathematically, the problem is reduced to two coupled three-term recursion relations which were not studied previously. The exact and approximate (semiclassical) degeneracies of the levels with different values of the total orbital momentum L are revealed, and the energies of the `planetary atom' states are estimated.


A recently developed model chemistry (jun-Cheap) has been slightly modified and proposed as an effective, reliable, and parameter-free scheme for the computation of accurate reaction rates with special reference to astrochemical and atmospheric processes. Benchmarks with different sets of state-of-the-art energy barriers spanning a wide range of values show that, in the absence of strong multireference contributions, the proposed model outperforms the most well-known model chemistries, reaching a subchemical accuracy without any empirical parameter and with affordable computer times. Some test cases show that geometries, energy barriers, zero point energies, and thermal contributions computed at this level can be used in the framework of the master equation approach based on the ab initio transition-state theory for obtaining accurate reaction rates.


We study CEO turnover - both internal (board driven) and external (through takeover and bankruptcy) - from 1992 to 2005 for a sample of large U.S. companies. Annual CEO turnover is higher than that estimated in previous studies over earlier periods. Turnover is 14.9% from 1992 to 2005, implying an average tenure as CEO of less than seven years. In the more recent period since 1998, total CEO turnover increases to 16.5%, implying an average tenure of just over six years. Internal turnover is significantly related to three components of firm performance - performance relative to industry, industry performance relative to the overall market, and the performance of the overall stock market. Also in the more recent period since 1998, the relation of internal turnover to performance is more strongly related to all three measures of performance in the contemporaneous year. External turnover is not significantly related to any of the measures of stock performance over the entire sample period, nor over the two sub-periods. We discuss the implications of these findings for various issues in corporate governance.


BackgroundLandscape aesthetic service is a crucial ecosystem service in subalpine forests of the mountain and ravine regions of the Tibetan Plateau; it can provide important ecological and economic value, improving the livelihood of the local people. Canopy gap is recognized as the key mechanism in the maintenance of species diversity and forest stability and is known to further affect ecosystem service functioning. However, the mechanisms and interactions of forest stability maintained by gap formations and forest aesthetic service functioning via gap dynamics are not fully understood. We used very high-resolution images to quantify gap characteristics and examined the effects of canopy gaps on autumn colour-leaved tree species diversity, colour-leaved patch structure characteristics, and landscape aesthetic service in 21 subalpine autumn colour-leaved forest plots in southwestern China. We then used path analysis to determine the relationships between these factors.ResultsThe number of gaps and total gap area were the key gap characteristics affecting landscape aesthetic service; particularly, medium canopy gaps (51–100 m2) played a more important role. The path model showed that increasing the total gap area along with the number of medium canopy gaps had direct positive effects on autumn colour-leaved tree species diversity, colour-leaved patch diversity, and total colour-leaved patch area, thus improving the landscape aesthetic service.ConclusionCanopy gaps indirectly improve landscape aesthetic service by significantly affecting colour-leaved species diversity, colour-leaved patch diversity, and colour-leaved patch area. Our results suggest that forest managers may be able to manipulate the numbers and proportion of medium canopy gaps to protect and preserve autumn colour-leaved tree species diversity and colour-leaved landscapes, promoting the landscape aesthetic service of subalpine autumn colour-leaved forests and, in turn, ensuring the coordinated development of economic, social, and ecological benefits for the underdeveloped rural montane areas of southwestern China.


In vast regions of the universe highly charged ions (HCI [1, 2]) are the predominant form of visible matter. Their importance extends to high-temperature terrestrial plasmas, such as those used in fusion research. Yet, accurate prediction of their electronic structure remains a challenge for theory due to the strong electromagnetic field in which the remaining bound electrons dwell. Experimental accuracy has now reached the performance limits of conventional photon spectroscopy in the soft and hard x-ray regions. In this work [3], we report on the resonant laser excitation of the 22S1/2—22P1/2 transition of the Li-like Fe22P1/223+ ion at 48.6 eV, an energy range hitherto unattainable with powerful lasers. The HCI stored in an electron beam ion trap (EBIT [4]) were resonantly excited by ultra-brilliant radiation generated at the Free electron LASer in Hamburg (FLASH [5]). While yielding a relative statistical error of only 2.2·10−5, and extending laser spectroscopy on HCI from the near ultraviolet [6] to the soft X-ray region, this novel experiment demonstrates immediate potential to push the current limits of precision by orders of magnitude. Such experiments allow to verify predictions of quantum electrodynamics (QED) in a strong field environment where perturbation theory [7, 8] fails. Future EBIT experiments at upcoming x-ray free electron lasers (X-FEL) like the Stanford Linear Coherent Light Source (LCLS) or the European X-FEL will pave the way for laser spectroscopy into the hard x-ray region.


This study explored whether parental directions about location differ by socioeconomic status (SES) and whether children's performance is associated with parental spatial directions. We designed a task in which parents hid a toy in one of five identical boxes in a small-scale space, and then verbally guided their children's search. Middle-SES(MSES) parents employed more language in general than low-SES(LSES) parents. However, groups used the same amount of spatial terms, suggesting that providing effective spatial directions is probably a matter of quality than quantity. Parents differed in the use of frames of reference; withLSESparents scarcely using them, which resulted in ambiguous reference.MSESparents showed a higher rate of person frames of reference and proximity terms, and their children performed better in the task. Our results suggest that spatial communication including person frames of reference combined with proximity information might be an effective strategy to communicate location.


Background and Objective: Chronic neurologic diseases due to associated disabilities and high cost of their medical services are considered as a crisis for patients and family. The stress caused by these problems can jeopardize the health of the caregivers. Thus, the aim of this study was to determine the general health status of neurologic patients ' caregivers and the related factors. Material and Methods: In this cross-sectional study conducted in 2009, the caregivers of the patients with neurological disorders (n=200) were selected via convenience sampling. The data was gathered by a demographic checklist and general health questionnaire (GHQ-28) completed by caregivers and analyzed by descriptive statistic, Pearson correlation coefficient and chi square, using SPSS-16. Results: The mean age is 31.78 ± 9.94 and 59.5% of the subjects are males. The caregivers (72.5%) general health is disturbed (Score more than 23 based on GHQ-28 cut of point). General health of male and female caregivers is significantly different (P<0.05). Between the subscales of GHQ-28, female caregivers compared to males have higher depression score, which is significant (P<0.05). The caregivers ' general health are correlated with (P<0.05) the patient ' s care dependency and the income of family. There is no significant relationship between general health and demographic variables such as marital status, history of the disease and educational level. Conclusion: Based on the results, significant percent of caregivers of the patients with neurological disorders suffer from disrupted general health. Thus, the presence of supportive resources and effective coping skills can be effective in improving the health.


This study is presenting a non-local closed-form solution for interfacial stress/strain and the warpage deformation for thin trilayer plate structures under thermal cycling.
 Based on the theory of geometric scale dependency of the material behavior, the material properties of a thin multi-layer inter-bonded structures substantially differ from those determined based on the bulk material samples. Hence the real mechanical properties for such thin layers are often unavailable and difficult to obtain.
 This paper puts forward a method to provide a solution for thermomechanical behavior of trilayer constituents with high accuracy at real scale. Present study demonstrates that the constitutive behavior of multilayer plate's constituents can be inversely determined so long as the plate's global deformation can be made available by measurement.
 To achieve most accurate determination of the material properties, measurements with high accuracy is required. The paper also presents the advanced method of shadow moiré that have applied to obtain warpage deformation of real life trilayer test specimens under thermal cycling.
 Using this method, the experimentally determined global deformation (warpage) of a trilayer structure were correlated with the analytical model solved for warpage deformation. The correlation was then progressively optimized to result in material properties of the constituents. The bonding layer properties are called determined, once the correlation reaches over 85%.
 There exist a variety of different multilayer bonded structures, which are usually made with advanced manufacturing processes. Regardless of design layout and materials constitutive relations, the application can be implemented in characterizing multiply stacked trilayer structures.


Yearly multiple sclerosis MRI follow-ups require the tedious and time-consuming manual comparing and counting of multiple demyelinating lesions, which can reach hundreds in some cases. We evaluated a semi-automatic software for the efficient assessment of such images, and found that a significant increase in the number of reported new multiple sclerosis lesions can be achieved in two-and-a-half minutes reading on average per case. In contrast, current standard reports missed 80% of the new lesions. In addition, The Jazz software permits the efficient reporting of slowly evolving lesions, an entity growing in clinical relevance and typically overlooked in current reporting.


Solving a reasoning problem not only requires representing a set of premises and deriving conclusions from it but also requires interpreting the premises. This latter point has been rarely taken into account by traditional approaches to human reasoning. This article presents how linguistic pragmatics helps to understand the way premises used typically in reasoning tasks are interpreted. It provides several theoretical frameworks and presents a detailed review of studies revealing the influence of pragmatic factors in reasoning. Consequently, the analysis shows that some erroneous answers observed in many tasks are not due to a deficiency in reasoning but result from a discrepancy between the interpretation of the participant and that of the experimenter.


Various stabilizer types are used in the industry, such as bladed stabilizers with straight or spiral blades, roller-reamers, and other emergent forms. Their designs are proved, via many in-field measurements, to have a significant impact on vibration levels. Although experimental data is extremely valuable to rank the available design options, testing the different stabilizers can be costly and sometimes risky. In addition, in-field conditions can be difficult to control making the comparisons between stabilizers even more complicated. Assessing the design impact using numerical simulations represents an interesting alternative to provide objective comparisons based on tests in a controlled environment.
 When a stabilizer is rotating, the contact forces between its different blades and the wellbore are transient. A static approach like torque and drag or directional models is then insufficient to properly investigate the stabilizer's design characteristics. Therefore, a time-domain dynamics approach is adopted in this work. A detailed modeling of bladed stabilizers including the blade geometry (number of blades, spirality, and blade width) and friction characteristics are introduced in an existing time-domain model. These characteristics are used to compute the contact forces between the wellbore and each individual blade.
 This numerical model is applied to quantify the effect of stabilizer design in terms of vibration, from straight blades to highly spiraled blades. First, a parametric study of blade design and wellbore inclination effects on stabilizer vibrations is presented by considering different stabilizers in straight well conditions. Simulations of an actual drill string configuration in an unconventional well is discussed. For vertical, curved, and horizontal sections, the acceleration levels, contact forces, and rotation speeds are investigated. These analyses can constitute guidelines about stabilizer design to minimize vibrations.
 The novelty of this work is to introduce the geometry details of the stabilizers in the time-domain dynamics to differentiate designs in terms of likelihood to trigger vibrations.


Within the general framework of Jacques Lacan's Psychoanalytical views and using a Semiotic approach, it is contended that the signification "objet-that-is-lost' (disapeared for ever), is not an empirical, first-hand, immediate reproduction of perceptual data. Far from it, it is the result of a complex process, leading to the building up of the concept. The contention is based upon the following hypothesis: A. the "object-representation-mnemic trace", in its diadic (interchangeable) value, belongs to the imaginary-specular register, where he object missing can only be registered as absence, and neve as a loss or as an impossiblity of reappearance...


Osteogenesis imperfecta (OI) represents a group of rare connective tissue disorders characterized by excessive bone fragility. Type 3 is a rare form with new mutations; osteopenia and bone fragility are significant with numerous fractures, continuous and severe deformity of the spine, and long bones. Our case study concerns a 10-year-old male child admitted to the pediatric department of the State University of Haiti Hospital. OI type 3 was diagnosed based on both clinical and radiological assessments. Multidisciplinary care was initiated. Although the evolution was still unsatisfactory, characterized by intermittent episodes of dyspnea and left lung hypoplasia, he was stabilized after 28 days of hospitalization and referred to the orthopedics department for follow-up care.


Rosie is a spotted sausagey hound who belongs to a young brother and sister, and who's the subject of six very short picture-book stories involving concepts and opposites. In each story, Rosie experiences or exemplifies the two opposites, so in "Rosie Day and Night," "Rosie runs and plays and runs and plays ALL DAY!" and "sleeps and dreams and sleeps and dreams ALL NIGHT"; every story ends with a reminder that whether she's in or out, good or bad, she's loved. The streamlined text is scaffolded with repetition, and the affectionate direct address will make for a comradely lapsit readaloud; Rylant also cleverly includes some concrete references ("Have you LOST a ball? Have you LOST a bone? Have you LOST a friend?") that add point-and-name possibilities for little listeners. Digital art in sweet popsicle colors is cut-out simple, and while its flatness makes it harder to identify details at times, there's a visual throughline to the scenery (the bunny in the yard, the toy giraffe, etc. appear repeatedly even when they're not textually featured) that provides audiences with some motif-spotting joy. The chapter format makes this easy to break up to suit teeny toddler attention spans (and brief adult opportunities), and kids will happily return to follow the exploits of Rosie. DS


This paper present a modified modulation strategy based on a triangular carrier wave for the three-level neutral-point-clamped (NPC) voltage source inverter (VSI). The switch states of each leg are determined by comparison between the modulation signals and a triangular carrier wave, which is used only of one triangular carrier wave for generate the gating pulses in three-level NPC VSI. The feasibility of the proposed modulation technique is verified by simulation and experimental results. These results show that a proposed carrier-based PWM technique can be easily implemented are provided to verify the proposed modulation strategy.


Since last few years, the tiny size of MOSFET, that is less than tens of nanometers, created some operational problems such as increased gate-oxide leakage, amplified junction leakage, high sub-threshold conduction, and reduced output resistance. To overcome the above challenges, FinFET has the advantages of an increase in the operating speed, reduced power consumption, decreased static leakage current is used to realize the majority of the applications by replacing MOSFET. By considering the attractive features of the FinFET, an ALU is designed as an application. In the digital processor, the arithmetic and logical operations are executed using the Arithmetic logic unit (ALU). In this paper, power efficient 8-bit ALU is designed with Full adder (FA) and multiplexers composed of Gate diffusion input (GDI) which gained designer's choice for digital combinational circuit realization at minimum power consumption. The design is simulated using Cadence virtuoso with 20nm technology. Comparative performance analysis is carried out in contrast to the other standard circuits by taking the critical performance metrics such as delay, power, and power delay product (PDP), energy-delay product (EDP) metrics into consideration. Keywords—8-bit ALU, EDP, FinFET, Full Adder, GDI, PDP, Static leakage current.


The present work shows the first results of a monitoring campaign performed at the Ingelsberg slope in Bad Hofgastein (Austria). The Groung-Based Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (GBInSAR) was used to create displacement maps, providing information on the location and magnitude of the phenomena studied. These information provide a significant support to decision makers during landslide emergencies, allowing the civil protection authorities to assess the risk and to manage an efficacious emergencies response. In detail, the landslide assessment and the correlation of the GBInSAR data with meteorological data and those obtained by other monitoring instruments are discussed highlighting the open problems related to data acquisition, processing and analysis.


We here present new data on sedimentation at and near the steep north-slopes of southern Lake Baikal. Short sediment cores were taken at 550 m and at 1366 m water depth, within 3600 m offshore Cape Ivanovskii at the station of the Baikal Deep Underwater NEUTRINO Telescope . The sediments within 3600 m off the northern coast of Southern Lake Baikal are dominated by pelagic deposition. Our data reveal surprisingly little influence from terrigenous material from adjacent coastal areas, tributaries and their catchment. At the shallow-water site (at 550 m water depth, 700 m off shore) just 27 cm thick homogenous sediments have accumulated during the Holocene on top of Pleistocene deposits resulting in Holocene sedimentation rates of 0.003 cm a -1 . The very low rates are caused by long-term persistent winnowing of fine particles caused by week contour currents along the slope. The uppermost sediments are oxidized down to 22 cm. Very low concentrations of C org , Si bio and N tot in Pleistocene sediments increase dramatically within the Holocene. The heavy mineral fraction of the shallow-water sediments contains up to 33.6 % olivine and up to 2.4 % spinel. These rare minerals originate from white marbles of the nearby coastal outcrop Belaya Vyemka of the Early Precambrian Sharyzalgaiskaya Series . At the deep-water site (at 1366 m water depth, 3600 m off shore) Holocene sedimentation rates are 10-times higher (0.036 cm a -1 ). Sediment oxidation occurs just within the uppermost 2 cm. Of the two rare type minerals of the Sharyzalgaiskaya Series spinel does not occur at all and olivine is represented by very diminished concentrations. This indicates insignificant influx of terrestrial material from the nearby shore to the deep-water site . Distal turbidites of far-off sources are intercalated to pelagic sediments at the deep-water site. Breakdown events of deltas at the SE- and S-coast of the basin are suggested to be responsible for the formation of the turbidites. They contain terrestrial (deltaic) material, low amounts of biological material (diatoms, spiculae, chrysophyte cysts), low concentrations of Si bio , C org and N tot and occur at approximate recurrence rates of 300 years.


SUMMARY Poliomyelitis is an important problem of public health in warm-climate countries. Studies of serological responses to vaccination in these countries have given conflicting results but in many investigations the rates have been considerably less than in countries with temperate climates. In this study three possible factors influencing sero-conversion were investigated – the season of the year when vaccine was given, the social status of the mother (as indicated by the number of years of schooling) and the presence of non-poliomyelitis viruses (NPV) in the gut when vaccine was given. Over 200 children about 2 months of age were included in the study. Each was given three doses of trivalent vaccine at 6-week intervals. The sero-conversion rates of the groups fed in winter were excellent but were slightly less good in summer. The differences were greatest in children in the lower socio-economic groups and in children excreting other enteroviruses. The conclusions are that, provided a potent vaccine is used, the factors which diminish the effectiveness of immunization in warm-climate countries can be overcome: (1) by giving three doses of trivalent vaccine; (2) by beginning vaccination at the earliest possible age (when enteroviruses are fewest); (3) by concentrating special attention on the lower socio-economic groups and if necessary by giving a reinforcing dose several months after the third dose has been given – preferably in the colder months.


In a digital receiver the adaptation processes of the adaptive equalizer and the decision-directed timing synchronizer are coupled. As a consequence these circuits interact and the sampling phase and the equalizer coefficients are drifting slowly. This interaction can give rise to a performance degradation of the receiver. In this paper the adaptive circuits of the equalizer and of the synchronizer are described as control loops and the coupling mechanisms are explained by means of loop-equivalent models. We propose a new solution to the interaction problem that can be implemented as a simple circuit. Timing-phase information that is contained in the equalizer coefficients is fed into the timing-control circuit. In this way the synchronization and the equalization processes can be coordinated.


BACKGROUND
From middle childhood onward, there is often a negative link between empathy and externalizing behavior problems. Patterns at younger ages are still unclear, with mixed findings of no association, negative associations, and positive associations. This study examines links between empathy and externalizing problems, beginning in infancy.

METHODS
A community sample of infants (N = 165) was assessed for empathy at 3, 6, 12, 18, and 36 months, using behavioral observations. Externalizing problems were reported at 18 months (by mothers) and 36 months (by mothers and daycare teachers).

RESULTS
Boys showed more externalizing problems than girls. For boys, negative associations between empathy and externalizing appeared, particularly with teacher reports. For girls, there were positive associations between empathy and externalizing, which weakened with age. For both genders, empathy at ages 3, 6, and 18 months appeared to protect against increases in externalizing from 18 to 36 months.

CONCLUSIONS
The role of empathy in the development of early externalizing depends on both gender and age; toddler boys' externalizing may more typically stem from low empathy, whereas girls' early externalizing appears to be underlain by heightened sensitivity and unregulated or assertive approach attempts.