Previous studies performed in intertidal fish (Girella laevifrons),as well as marine fish (Isacia conceptionis), showed that acetylcholine (ACh) produced contractions mediated by cyclooxygenases that were dependent on the area and potency of contraction in several arterial vessels. Given that the role of nitric oxide is poorly understood in fish, the objective of our study was to evaluate the role of nitric oxide in branchial afferent (ABA), branchial efferent (ABE), dorsal (DA) and mesenteric (MA) arterial vessels from both Girella laevifrons and Isacia conceptionis. We studied afferent and efferent branchial, dorsal and mesenteric arteries that were dissected from 6 juvenile specimens. Isometric tension studies were done using dose response curves (DRC) for Ach (10-13 to 10-3 M) and blockade with L-NAME (10-5 M), and DRC for sodium nitroprusside (SNP, a donor of NO). L-NAME produced an attenuation of the contractile response in the dorsal, afferent and efferent branchial arteries and a potentiation of the contraction in the MA. SNP caused 70% dilation in the mesenteric artery and 40% in the dorsal artery. Our results suggest that Ach promotes precarious dilatation in MA mediated by NO; data that is supported by the use of sodium nitroprusside. In contrast, in the vessels DA, ABA and EBA our results support that the pathway Ach-NO-relaxation is absent in both species.


When using benzyl ethers as permanent protecting groups in oligosaccharide synthesis selective oxidative debenzylation with NaBrO(3) + Na(2)S(2)O(4) under biphasic conditions is efficient and compatible with anomeric azides and many other functions.


BACKGROUND
Group singing for people with Parkinson's disease (PD) is an established intervention not only to improve voice and speech difficulties but also for emotional and social benefit. Less is known about the experiences of group singing on the couple-the person with PD and their spouse or partner together-and studies have not specifically tracked impact through time or in combination with songwriting.

AIMS
To understand the impact of group singing/songwriting on couples (participants with PD and their spouses) to unpack whether this broader view might help explain why such interventions are reported as beneficial. Using a trajectory approach, a form of longitudinal research and focused ethnography, the research sought a deeper appreciation of participation through time for the couple in a singing/songwriting group.

METHODS & PROCEDURES
Four couples attending a singing/songwriting programme were observed for 10 weeks, and interviewed formally and informally weekly. Data were analysed thematically across-case through framework analysis but also within-case to explore the couples' experiences and narratives over time.

OUTCOMES & RESULTS
The theme of 'improved relationships' between the couples was new and extended previous studies' findings of positivity, physical benefit, sense of self and social opportunity. The stories of each couple highlighted the importance of musical reminiscence and emotional respite, and demonstrated changes with time through the singing and songwriting group.

CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS
The benefits of offering singing/songwriting groups may be felt not only by participants with PD but also by their spouses/partners even if they choose not to attend themselves. Such benefits may include improved relationships related to the shared joy of music, musical reminiscence and emotional respite. The addition of songwriting encourages creativity and agency. A longitudinal trajectory approach is one way to appreciate how these benefits may unfold over time for participants.

WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS
What is already known on the subject Group singing for people with PD has been shown to have physical, emotional and social benefits as measured on mainly pre-post-assessments of vocal, speech, respiratory function and quality of life questionnaires. What this study adds to the existing knowledge This study adds three new aspects: studying the benefits for the couple (both people with PD and their spouse/partner); taking an in-depth focused ethnographic approach over time to collect couples' narratives and experiences; and exploring the potential for adding songwriting to the intervention. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? A qualitative trajectory approach may help clinicians understand why such interventions are experienced as beneficial. Clinicians running singing groups for people with PD should offer attendance to spouses/partners because of the potential for such groups to improve relationships and build new points of connection for the couple, as well as provide peer support for spouses. Songwriting is a useful addition for creativity, cognitive flexibility and self-expression.


Prior to 1960, educational research and development in Britain was relatively small-scale. In the period reviewed, public funding expanded at an unprecedented rate, until research became an integral part of administration and policy. Government control over research grew as a consequence of increased funding. In the 1960s autonomy of research was seen as a bulwark of democracy, but by 1975 this claim had been set aside. The article reviews this shift of attitude through quotations from speeches and publications, reminding us of principles once held to be important.


Yoghurt is consumed worldwide for its nutritional and health benefits. The research was conducted to prepare fruit yoghurt with different level of fruit juice (5%, 10% and 15%) of different fruits (strawberry, orange and grape). Different physico-chemical and microbiological characteristics were analyzed to assay the quality of the yoghurts. Yoghurts fortified with 10% orange juice was the best in quality among the others. The smell and taste, body and consistency and color and texture of the fruit yoghurts were equally acceptable. 10% and 15% strawberry fruit yoghurt contain more acid and its texture was cracked down in refrigeration temperature. The moisture and acidity content of fruit yoghurts were increased than plain yoghurt because of high content of these in the fruits. The fat, protein, carbohydrates and ash content of strawberry and orange fruit yoghurt were decreased than normal plain yoghurt. But the carbohydrates content of grape yoghurt were increased because grape contains more sugar than milk and other two fruits. Statistical analysis showed that yoghurt with 10% orange juice was more acceptable than others comparing all quality characteristics. The microbiological quality of the fruit yoghurts was also acceptable because of acid content of the fruits. In case of strawberry yoghurt, fruit juice concentration more than 5% was not suitable for fruit yoghurt because that are highly acidic and curd was cracked down at refrigerated condition. This formulation and quality findings will be helpful to set up fruit yoghurt industry.


This article proposes a design of double video signal based location and stereo video signal generation system for humanoid robot. The traditional location method is introduced in this article. Then the improved method which is based on double video signal is proposed. This article also proposes the hardware design on the platform of TMS320DM642. At the end of this article, some discussions are made to introduce more method in robot location.


Face frontalization provides an effective and efficient way for face data augmentation and further improves the face recognition performance in extreme pose scenario. Despite recent advances in deep learning-based face synthesis approaches, this problem is still challenging due to significant pose and illumination discrepancy. In this paper, we present a novel Dual-Attention Generative Adversarial Network (DA-GAN) for photo-realistic face frontalization by capturing both contextual dependencies and local consistency during GAN training. Specifically, a self-attention-based generator is introduced to integrate local features with their long-range dependencies yielding better feature representations, and hence generate faces that preserves identities better, especially for larger pose angles. Moreover, a novel face-attention-based discriminator is applied to emphasize local features of face regions, and hence reinforce the realism of synthetic frontal faces. Guided by semantic segmentation, four independent discriminators are used to distinguish between different aspects of a face (i.e., skin, keypoints, hairline, and frontalized face). By introducing these two complementary attention mechanisms in generator and discriminator separately, we can learn a richer feature representation and generate identity preserving inference of frontal views with much finer details (i.e., more accurate facial appearance and textures) comparing to the state-of-the-art. Quantitative and qualitative experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of our DA-GAN approach.


Over the past 50 years it has been pointed out with increasing frequency that our traditional Linnaean system of classification and nomenclature is incompatible with a phylogenetic system which recognises only monophyletic groups. Dividing up an evolutionary tree into mutually exclusive families, genera, and species which are all monophyletic is a logical impossibility. Darwin had emphasised that evolution is descent with modification. The rise of cladistic thinking in the last 40 years has promoted an obsession with monophyletic taxa, with classification based solely on descent at the expense of modification. Despite strong psychological pressures on a generation of biologists who have been brought up on the dogma of monophyly, the Hennigian view of classification is now increasingly seen as illogical and out-of-date. Some are therefore supporting the PhyloCode, which is based on a logical position but is impractical for general purpose classification and communication since it recognises no ranks and abandons binomials. Others still cling to the nonsensical concept of recognising families, genera, species, etc., and all being monophyletic. Linnaean classification is the optimal tool for cataloguing biodiversity and will inevitably be maintained, but this requires recognition of paraphyletic taxa and some rethinking of the practice and purposes of biological classification. Those who want a classification to recognise only monophyletic taxa should adopt an appropriate nomenclatural system such as is offered by the PhyloCode. To do otherwise will tend to lead to bad taxonomy.


AbstractMost studies have focused on the prevalence of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and acute exacerbation in Caucasian populations. DVT is supposedly less likely to occur among Asians than Caucasians, and the primary purpose of this study was to determine the actual incidence of DVT in patients with COPD in Asian populations.We enrolled patients over the age of 40 with a diagnosis of COPD (International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision [ICD-9]: 490–492, 496; A-code: A323 and A325) between 1998 and 2008. The index date was the date of first-time COPD diagnosis. We excluded the patients who had been diagnosed with COPD and DVT (The International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification [ICD-9-CM]: 453.8) before index date. The control group was frequency-matched according to age (3-year stratum), sex, and the year of admission, at a 2:1 ratio. Patients were followed from index date to when either a diagnosis of DVT was made, death occurred, December 31, 2009 was reached, or when the patients withdrew from the National Health Insurance program.The overall incidence rate of DVT was 18.78 per 10,000 person-years in patients with COPD, and the adjusted hazard ration of DVT in patients with COPD was 1.38 (95% confidence interval 1.06–1.80), which was greater than patients without COPD after adjusting for age, sex, atrial fibrillation, hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, cerebrovascular accident, congestive heart failure, lower leg fracture or surgery, and cancer.Asian patients with COPD had a higher incidence of DVT than non-COPD patients.


Stripe rust, caused by Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici, is a devastating fungal disease in common wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) worldwide. Chinese wheat cultivars 'Lumai 21' and 'Jingshuang 16' show moderate levels of adult-plant resistance (APR) to stripe rust in the field, and they showed a mean maximum disease severity (MDS) ranging from 24 to 56.7% and 26 to 59%, respectively, across different environments. The aim of this study was to identify quantitative trait loci (QTL) for resistance to stripe rust in an F3 population of 199 lines derived from 'Lumai 21' × 'Jingshuang 16'. The F3 lines were evaluated for MDS in Qingshui, Gansu province, and Chengdu, Sichuan province, in the 2009–2010 and 2010–2011 cropping seasons. Five QTL for APR were detected on chromosomes 2B (2 QTL), 2DS, 4DL and 5DS based on mean MDS in each environment and averaged values from all three environments. These QTL were designated QYr.caas-2BS.2, QYr.caas-2BL.2, QYr.caas-2DS.2, QYr.caas-4DL.2 and QYr.caas-5DS, respectively. QYr.caas-2DS.2 and QYr.caas-5DS were detected in all three environments, explaining 2.3–18.2% and 5.1–18.0% of the phenotypic variance, respectively. In addition, QYr.caas-2BS.2 and QYr.caas-2BL.2 colocated with QTL for powdery mildew resistance reported in a previous study. These APR genes and their linked molecular markers are potentially useful for improving stripe rust and powdery mildew resistances in wheat breeding.


The specific focus of this paper is exegesis of the critique of pity in AC 2-7 by means of the autobiographical account in Ecce Homo of the destructive intrusion of pity on him in Wise/4. There he lists three cases of pity's intrusions: into his great destiny, into his solitude of recovering from wounding in (spiritual) warfare, and into his privileged right to a heavy guilt. As we trace these three cases back to their locations in the chapter where they are first introduced, it can be seen that all are cases of his evolution to Mehrleben, thus to make his critique of pity's intrusion the criticism that it vengefully sought to thwart his evolutionary development. He states that his experience from these cases gives him the right to make a generlization about pity.  These cases then become the autobiographical foundation of his criticism of pity in AC 7 that it is hostile to life in thwarting evolutionary development. The more general aim of the paper is to fix the relationship of EH to AC as introduction as the relationship of autobiography as epistemology to the unmasking psychology of Christianity in AC, in this case and several other cases cited.  This is to bring the relationship into line with what Nietzsche himself  claims for it in his letter to Naumann of November 6, 1888 and to counter the view that the relationship is merely instrumental in EH serving to secure a good reception for AC and, accordingly, was a work of less importance to Nietzsche than was AC.


To the Editor.— In the June 27, 1986, QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS section,1Frank K. Thorp stated that "a child heterozygous for galactosemia-Duarte has a greater level of enzyme than the heterozygous parents of a child with galactosemia, who manifest no toxic reaction to dietary galactose or lactose." He further states that restriction of dietary carbohydrates is not necessary and that there is no need to monitor the child's progress on a normal diet. The statement regarding the enzyme values in Duarte galactosemia (D/G) compound heterozygotes is incorrect. The activity for persons who are D/G-compound heterozygotes is lower than that in persons who are galactosemia normal (G/N) heterozygotes, with 20% to 25% of normal activity for D/G compared with 50% of normal activity for G/N.2 We cannot agree, at this time, with his recommendation that all persons with galactosemia-Duarte compounds require no dietary treatment. It is appreciated that most,


This essay describes the rituals of childbirth in the Tigrigna traditions of Ethiopia starting with the onset of labor up until circumcision of the baby at day 12. If labor lasts for more than 1 day shots are fired from the womans room to induce birth by shock. After the cutting of the unbilical cord the cord from the mother is tied to her leg to prevent the cord and placenta from slipping back into the uterus. The midwife massages the womans abdomen with butter to accelerate delivery of the placenta; if it does not have a smooth surface it is considered incomplete and the midwife presses a water jar down on the abdomen until all the remains are discharged. The baby is expected to sneeze as soon as it is born; if it does not a thread is used to tickle the nostrils. Childbirth is associated with uncleanliness; those present cannot enter a church for 20 days if the baby is a boy and 40 days if it is a girl. On the 7th day the woman makes either a spear and shield (for a boy) or a sieve (for a girl) and is offered fasting food containing no meat or dairy products. Then the women present close the door and dance and sing songs to make the new mother laugh and forget labor pains. On the 12th day the child is circumcised and garlic and rice are sprinkled on the blood which is then mixed with kohl and used as a wound dressing.


Nanostructured materials and devices will play an important role in a variety of future technologies, including magnetics. We describe a method for nanostructure fabrication based on the use of laser light to focus neutral atoms. The method uses neither a mask nor a resist, but relies on the direct deposition of atoms to form permanent structures. Since the atomic de Broglie wavelength is of picometer order, the size of structures produced is not significantly limited by diffraction, as in optical lithography. Lines as narrow as 38 nm full width at half maximum spaced by 213 nm have been produced and we have demonstrated the production of a two‐dimensional array of dots. The highly parallel process of nanostructure formation and the intrinsic accuracy of the optical wavelength that determines structure spacing suggest a number of interesting applications, including calibration standards for various types of microscopy, lithography, and micromeasurement systems. Possible magnetic applications include the production of arrays of magnetic elements, laterally structured giant magnetoresistive devices, and the patterning of magnetic media.


Land use is an important global issue in terms of preserving the soils, agricultural crop production and farmers' economy as well as the other usage purposes. There are many useful approaches and tools for efficient determination of the land use types. In this study, distribution of different field crops and citrus orchards were monitored and determined for land use types (LUTs) using the low cost ASTER satellite images and GIS in Akarsu Irrigation District of Lower Seyhan Plain (9495 ha) in southern Turkey. Prior to parceling in the field, study area maps of 1:5000 scale were digitized by using ArcGIS software. The enhanced satellite images were overlaid onto the digitized parcel map for ground observations. The images were printed and checked for all crops of the fields. Commonly grown different field crops and orchards were mapped during the field work. A database for this research was established after an intensive field work. The crop types and their coordinates were determined and recorded during the field works. Five LUTs were identified in the study area, and corn and citrus were the most planted LUTs. Furthermore, suitability of soil series for LUTs was investigated; Canakci and Mursel soil series in the study area were found to be highly suitable for all LUTs. It was concluded that cost effective ASTER images could be potentially used for the determination of different crops and orchards which have different reflection values. However, the images must be obtained during the appropriate time period.


This study was to evaluate the growth potential of E. coli O157:H7 in lettuce leaf extracts and on lettuce leaf surface at various temperatures. The pathogen can survive and multiply in the extracts and leaf surface of lettuce. The population of E. coli O157:H7 in the lettuce extracts reached to 4.79 log CFU/mL at 37oC. The multiplication of pathogen in lettuce extracts initiated within 10 hours of inoculation over 15oC conditions. And it can survive in the lettuce leaf extracts at 4oC for 100 hours at least. And this pathogen can multiply on lettuce leaf surface and the population of pathogen on the lettuce leaf surface increased to 1.82 log CFU/g at 25oC. At 37oC, the pathogen density increased to 1.53 CFU/g within 3 days after inoculation. At all temperature, irrespective of the inoculation level, similar trends in growth of E. coli O157:H7 were observed. These results emphasize the growth potential of E. coli O157:H7 in lettuce leaf extract and on lettuce leaf surface. To reduce the risk of outbreak, it is important to maintain the cold chain system during storage before the consumption.


This article focuses on Nintendo's influential and much-celebrated 1998 videogame The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (hereafter OoT). In particular, it explores the often unexpectedly creative and wholly transformative ways in the game is played by 'speedrunners.' Seeking to race through the game as quickly as possible, speedrunners play in a distinctive way that combines mastery of performance execution with a deep knowledge of the game's operation and how its systems may be exploited. Speedrunning performances are creative because they involve astonishingly detailed investigations of the minutiae of game behaviors. They are transformative because they disrupt and even invert much-vaunted aspects of the game as sequences that slow down progress are circumvented. As such, what would otherwise class as crucial moments in the storyline, key character development and even locales, are not only raced through but are actively skipped. Compared with the game's narrative, the connectivity of its spaces, and the complex but clearly mapped passage of time as set out in Nintendo's officially-endorsed 'Strategy Guides' (see Buchanan et al 1998; Hollinger et al 1998; Loe and Guess 1998), the OoT speedrun constructs an altogether different game with vastly altered priorities. And so, the offer to, 'Join legendary hero Link as he journeys across Hyrule, and even through time, to thwart the plans of Ganondorf.' (Nintendo 2017), is recast as a breakneck dash to the closing credits sequence evading and avoiding all but the essential moments of gameplay.


This paper concentrates on characterizing energy, latency and capacity trade-offs in multi-hop wireless ad-hoc networks. Therefore, a multiobjective framework is proposed to derive the Pareto-optimal set of solutions with respect to these three criteria. The work presented in this paper assumes a linear network where transmission powers and relay positions are optimization variables. We study the asymptotic state where the distance between source and destination is very high such that the number of hops tends to infinite. Two types of traffic are considered in the following. First, low rate traffic is analyzed by characterizing the multiobjective performance of a single packet transmission using an interference free multi-hop relaying strategy. Second, a continuous flow of packets from a unique source is considered. In the first case, we show an important theorem which states that all Pareto optimal solutions with respect to delay and energy metrics provide the same target SNR at the receiver side. In the second case, our analytical results highlight how the energy/delay Pareto front moves when considering a capacity constraint and the optimal re-use factor is derived.


The aim of this study is to evaluate the influence of intra-uterine growth retardation (IUGR), as well as it's types and severity on the development of respiratory distress among low-birth-weight infants. A total of 673 neonates were studied, the small-for-dates infants (SFD), 40% of total, were divided according to the type of IUGR, in proportionate and disproportionate, and according to the severity, in birth weight below 3rd and between 3rd and 10th percentile. Respiratory distress was more frequent among the appropriate for gestational age (57.3%) compared to the SFD infants (33.7%), (p < 0.0001), and among males (52.6%) compared to females (47.4%) (p = 0.01). There was an inverse relationship between gestational age, as well as birth weight and respiratory distress. It occurred in 90.6% of very-low-birth-weight infants and in 39% of the others, with a predominance among the appropriate for gestational age newborns. Respiratory distress occurred in 80% of neonates below 34 weeks of gestational age and in 26% of the neonates above it (p < 0.0001). Regarding to the small-for-dates infants, respiratory distress occurred more frequently among the disproportionate (42.5%), when compared to proportionate infants (28.1%) (p = 0.03). The severity of IUGR had no influence on these results. The authors concluded that among low birth weight infants, the groups with increased risk for respiratory distress are the appropriate for gestational age and, among small-for-dates and disproportionate infants, those weighing less than 1500 g.


Dual AV nodal pathway physiology is described as two different wavefronts that propagate from the atria to the His bundle. By using His electrogram alternance on 5 rabbit preparations, we have developed a mathematical model of atrioventricular conduction that incorporates dual AV nodal physiology. The ability to predict AV conduction time and the interaction between FP and SP wavefronts has been analyzed during regular and irregular atrial rhythms. In addition, the role of dual AV nodal pathway wavefronts in the generation of multimodal ventricular response patterns during AF has been evaluated. The presented model can help in understanding some of the intriguing AV node mechanisms and should be considered as a step forward in the studies of AV nodal conduction.


Abstract The paper reconsiders the theoretical motivation for studying the housing market by means of the concept "housing services." The analysis uses a model of consumer behavior that takes into full account the heterogeneity of housing. An assumption about the hedonic price function allows the researcher to define a scalar indicator of housing quality, that can be interpreted as the quantity of housing services available at a constant price per unit if a second assumption about the hedonic price function is made. The central result can be considered as an extension of Hicks' composite commodity theorem to cases in which expenditure on a bundle of characteristics is a nonlinear function of the quantities of these characteristics. The assumptions needed for aggregation impose testable restrictions on the hedonic price function, and a procedure for testing their validity is proposed. The basis of this approach is an econometric method for estimating functions with discrete explanatory variables without imposing assumptions about their functional form. This allows one to test the validity of the aggregation conditions essentially without joint assumptions. The method is applied on the basis of data for the two largest Dutch cities. The conditions for a constant price per unit of housing services are violated. Aggregation of bundles of housing characteristics into a scalar measure, which may alternatively be inter_preted as a quantity of housing services available at a varying price per unit, appears to be possible for the data used. However, the concept housing services loses much of its convenience if it cannot be used in combination with a constant price per unit.


We revisit the classic problem of the structure of the isotropic-nematic interface within Ginzburg-Landau-de Gennes theory, refining previous analytic treatments of biaxiality at the interface. We compare our analysis with numerical results obtained through a highly accurate spectral collocation scheme for the solution of the Landau-Ginzburg-de Gennes equations. In comparison to earlier work, we obtain improved agreement with numerics for both the uniaxial and biaxial profiles, accurate asymptotic results for the decay of biaxial order on both nematic and isotropic sides of the interface, and accurate fits to data from density-functional approaches to this problem.


Although heuristic search is one of the most successful approaches to classical planning, this planning paradigm does not apply straightforwardly to Generalized Planning (GP). This paper adapts the planning as heuristic search paradigm to the particularities of GP, and presents the first native heuristic search approach to GP. First, the paper defines a program-based solution space for GP that is independent of the number of planning instances in a GP problem, and the size of these instances. Second, the paper defines the BFGP algorithm for GP, that implements a best-first search in our program-based solution space, and that is guided by different evaluation and heuristic functions.


Security questions are one of the techniques used to recover passwords. The main limitation of security questions is that users find strong answers difficult to remember. This leads users to trade-off security for the convenience of an improved memorability. Previous research found that increased fun and enjoyment can lead to an enhanced memorability, which provides a better learning experience. Hence, we empirically investigate whether a serious game has the potential of improving the memorability of strong answers to security questions. For our serious game, we adapted the popular "4 Pics 1 word" mobile game because of its use of pictures and cues, which psychology research found to be important to help with memorability. Our findings indicate that the proposed serious game could potentially improve the memorability of answers to security questions. This potential improvement in memorability, could eventually help reduce the trade-off between usability and security in fall-back authentication.


We report an investigation of the electronic structure and chemical bonding of AuH2− using photoelectron spectroscopy and ab initio calculations. We obtained vibrationally resolved photoelectron spectra of AuH2− at several photon energies. Six electronic states of AuH2 were observed and assigned according to the theoretical calculations. The ground state of AuH2− is known to be linear, while that of neutral AuH2 is bent with a ∠H–Au–H equilibrium bond angle of 129°. This large geometry change results in a very broad bending vibrational progression in the photoelectron spectra for the ground-state transition. The electron affinity of AuH2 is measured to be 3.030 ± 0.020 eV. A short bending vibrational progression is also observed in the second photodetachment band, suggesting a slightly bent structure for the first excited state of AuH2. The linear geometry is a saddle point for the ground and first excited states of AuH2, resulting in double-well potentials for these states along the bending coordinate. Spectroscopic evidence is observed for the detachment transitions to the double-well potentials of the ground and first excited states of AuH2. Higher excited states of AuH2 due to detachment from the nonbonding Au 5d electrons are all linear, similar to the anion ground state. Kohn–Sham molecular orbital analyses reveal surprising participation of H 2p orbitals in the Au–H chemical bonding and an unprecedented weak Au 5dπ to H 2pπ back donation. The simplicity of the linear AuH2− anion and its novel spectroscopic features make it a textbook example for understanding the covalent bonding properties and relativistic effects of Au.


E-commerce is widely being used in nowadays generation where the business entrepreneur from small to large institution, has widely taken advantage on the internet to promote business and deliver information about their product. Consumer trust is an important aspect of e-commerce, and understanding its antecedents and consequences is a prime concern. This research designed to find out the influence of Perceived Information Security, Privacy, Risk and Institutional Trust on Consumers Trust in E-Commerce at Manado. The location of this research took place in Manado and focused on the people who do online shopping or e-banking as their tools. The method used to analyze the data is the Multiple Regression Analysis which enables the researcher to analyze the influence of the independent variables to the dependent variable, which is Consumer Trust in E-commerce. The independent variables in this research are Perceived Information Security, Information Privacy, Risk and Institutional Trust. While the sample size are 100 respondents who have ever buy or exchange product thru internet. The result of this research shows that there is significant simultaneous and partial influence of Perceived Information Security, Privacy, Risk and Institutional Trust on Consumers Trust in E-commerce. Therefore, to enhance the Consumer Trust in E-commerce at Manado these are the proponents should be considered intensively. Keywords: perceived information security, consumer trust, e-commerce


We have developed model S40RTS of shear-velocity variation in Earth's mantle using a new collection of Rayleigh wave phase velocity, teleseismic body-wave traveltime and normal-mode splitting function measurements. This data set is an order of magnitude larger than used for S20RTS and includes new data types. The data are related to shear-velocity perturbations from the (anisotropic) PREM model via kernel functions and ray paths that are computed using PREM. Contributions to phase delays and traveltimes from the heterogeneous crust are estimated using model CRUST2.0. We calculate crustal traveltimes from long-period synthetic waveforms rather than using ray theory. Shear-velocity perturbations are parametrized by spherical harmonics up to degree 40 and by 21 vertical spline functions for a total of 35 301 degrees of freedom. S40RTS is characterised by 8000 resolved unknowns. Since we compute the exact inverse, it is straightforward to determine models associated with fewer or more unknowns by adjusting the model damping. S40RTS shares many characteristics with S20RTS because it is based on the same data types and similar modelling procedures. However, S40RTS shows more clearly than S20RTS the abrupt change in the pattern of shear-velocity heterogeneity across the 660-km phase transition and it presents a more complex patern of shear-velocity heterogeneity in the lower mantle. Utilities to visualise S40RTS and software to analyse the resolution of S40RTS (or models for different damping parameters) are made available.


Blood pressure readings obtained by the physician in his office and ambulatory blood pressures recorded with the semi-automatic Remler device, were compared during a controlled antihypertensive drug trial. Either timolol or methyldopa was administered in in double-blind fashion to 30 patients with uncomplicated essential hypertension. All exhibited a diastolic office blood pressure greater than 95 mmHg at the end of a four-week placebo period. All patients then received a combination of hydrochlorothiazide (25 mg/day) and amiloride (2.5 mg/day). After four weeks of diuretic therapy, timolol (10 mg/day, n = 14) or methyldopa (250 mg/day, n = 16) were added randomly for six weeks. The dose of all antihypertensive agents was doubled after two weeks of therapy with diuretics combined with timolol (n = 7) or methyldopa (n = 16) because of the persistence of diastolic blood pressure levels greater than 90 mmHg at the office. When assessed in the office, the antihypertensive effect of timolol and methyldopa was similar. During ambulatory blood pressure monitoring, however, pressure levels were lower in the patients given timolol (P less than 0.05 for the diastolic). With both regimens, the blood pressure response measured outside the clinic during usual daily activities could not be predicted from that observed with office blood pressure readings. Furthermore the magnitude of the drug induced blood pressure decrease was more reproducible in time when determined outside the clinic. These data suggest that ambulatory blood pressure monitoring is more precise in evaluating the efficacy of antihypertensive therapy than office blood pressure measurement.


Risk for complications and mortality among patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D) is heterogenous. Different trajectories can be identified in the prediabetic state, which comprises heterogenous metabolic clusters. It is not known whether such pathophysiologic clusters of prediabetes and diabetes affect survival in at-risk persons being evaluated for coronary heart disease. The LURIC Study recruited patients referred for coronary angiography at a median age of 63 (IQR 56-70) who have since been followed-up for a median of 14.5 (IQR 9.6-17.7) years. Clustering of 1269 subjects without diabetes was performed with oGTT-derived glucose and insulin; fasting triglyceride, high-density lipoprotein, BMI, waist and hip circumference. Patients with T2D (n=794) were clustered using age, BMI, glycemia, homeostasis model assessment, and islet autoantibodies. Associations of clusters with mortality were analyzed using Cox regression. Individuals without diabetes were classified into six subphenotypes, with 884 assigned to subjects at low-risk (cluster 1,2,4) and 385 at high-risk (cluster 3,5,6) for diabetes. We found significantly increased mortality in clusters 3 (hazard ratio (HR) 1.42) , 5 (HR 1.43) and 6 (HR 1.46) age-, BMI-, HbA1c- and sex-adjusted. In the T2D group, 5were assigned to mild age-related diabetes (MARD) , 183 to severe insulin-resistant diabetes (SIRD) , 84 to mild obesity-related diabetes (MOD) , to severe insulin-deficient diabetes (SIDD) . Compared to the low-risk nondiabetes group, crude mortality was not different in MOD. An increased mortality was found for MARD (HR 2.2) , SIRD (HR 2.2) and SIDD (HR 2.5) . Metabolic clustering successfully stratifies survival even among persons already undergoing invasive coronary diagnostics. Novel clustering approaches based on glucose metabolism can identify persons who require special attention as they are in danger of increased mortality

 K.Prystupa: None. G.Delgado: None. A.P.Moissl: None. M.E.Kleber: Employee; SYNLAB Holding Deutschland GmbH. M.Heni: Advisory Panel; Boehringer Ingelheim International GmbH, Research Support; Boehringer Ingelheim International GmbH, Sanofi, Speaker's Bureau; Amryt Pharma Plc, Boehringer Ingelheim International GmbH, Novo Nordisk. A.L.Birkenfeld: None. A.Fritsche: Advisory Panel; Boehringer Ingelheim International GmbH, Novo Nordisk, Sanofi-Aventis Deutschland GmbH. W.Maerz: None. R.Wagner: Advisory Panel; Akcea Therapeutics, Daiichi Sankyo, Sanofi-Aventis Deutschland GmbH, Speaker's Bureau; Lilly, Novo Nordisk, Sanofi-Aventis Deutschland GmbH.

 German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) (01GI0925)


Nanopore-based devices have recently become popular tools to detect biomolecules at the single-molecule level. Unlike the long-chain nucleic acids, protein molecules are still quite challenging to detect, since the protein molecules are much smaller in size and usually travel too fast through the nanopore with poor signal-to-noise ratio of the induced transport signals. In this work, we demonstrate a new type of nanopore device based on atomic layer deposition (ALD) Al2O3 modified track-etched conical nanochannels for protein sensing. These devices show very promising properties of high protein (bovine serum albumin) capture rate with well time-resolved transport signals and excellent signal-to-noise ratio for the transport events. Also, a special mechanism involving transient process of ion redistribution inside the nanochannel is proposed to explain the unusual biphasic waveshapes of the current change induced by the protein transport.


Over recent years, photovoltaic systems have become increasingly popular for the installation on buildings' rooftops. One of the main questions for investors is to find which rooftop is suitable for photovoltaic system installation in order produce maximum electrical energy. This paper presents Geographic Information System (GIS) for the solar and photovoltaic potential estimation for a whole municipality. The presented GIS consists of a server environment, web application, and mobile application. The developed application was successfully deployed within a regional project for the Municipality of Beltinci in Slovenia. Keywords-GIS; Solar Potential Estimation; Web Application; Geoserver; LiDAR


A cheminformatics procedure for a partitioning model based on 135 natural compounds including Flavonoids, Saponins, Alkaloids, Terpenes and Triterpenes with drug-like features based on a descriptors pool was developed. The knowledge about the applicability of natural products as a unique source for the development of new candidates towards deadly infectious disease is a contemporary challenge for drug discovery. We propose a partitioning scheme for unveiling drug-likeness candidates with properties that are important for a prompt and efficient drug discovery process. In the present study, the vantage point is about the matching of descriptors to build the partitioning model applied to natural compounds with diversity in structures and complexity of action towards the severe diseases, as the actual SARS-CoV-2 virus. In the times of the de novo design techniques, such tools based on a chemometric and symmetrical effect by the implied descriptors represent another noticeable sign for the power and level of the descriptors applicability in drug discovery in establishing activity and target prediction pipeline for unknown drugs properties.


On 6 September 1994, an isolated thunderstorm over southern Virginia split into separate left-moving and right-moving thunderstorms with respect to the mean 0-6 km wind. The leftmover maintained its strength longer than the right-mover, and each storm produced large hail along their respective storm paths. An analysis of the structure of the thunderstorms was pel/ormed through an examination of products from the Weather Surveillance Radar-1988 Doppler located in Wakefield, Virginia. The structure of the thunderstorms, with respect to base reflectivity and internal wind structure, indicated characteristically high reflectivity returns, cyclonic rotation in the right-moving storm and anticyclonic rotation in the left-moving storm. However, the leftand right-moving storms also exhibited oppositely rotating regions within each respective thunderstorm, possibly induced by each storm's stronger dominant rotation. Also, low-le vel rotational velocities associated with the thunderstorms were indicative of possible tornadic activity yet tornadoes or funnel clouds were not observed. The absence of tornadic activity was most likely due to an unfavorable vertical wind profile in the storm-scale environment and the lack of depth of the circulations.


Purpose Available but insufficient evidence shows that changes may occur in the immune system following coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The present study aimed at evaluating immunological changes in patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus‐2 (SARS-CoV-2) pneumonia compared with the control group. Method The present study was performed on 95 patients with COVID-19 (32 severe and 63 moderate cases) and 22 healthy controls. Relationship between immune cells, disease severity and lung involvement was assessed. Binary logistic regression and ROC curve tests were used for statistical analysis. Results A significant decrease was observed in CD20+ cell counts of the patients. To differentiate patients from healthy individuals, the cutoff point for the CD4+ cell count was 688 /μL, sensitivity 0.96, and specificity 0.84. An increase in CD4+ cells reduces the odds of severe disease (odds ratio = 0.82, P = 0.047) and death (odds ratio = 0.74, P = 0.029). CD4+ cells play a pivotal role in the severity of lung involvement (P = 0.03). In addition to CD4+ cells, Fc gamma receptor III (FcγRIII) (CD16) also played a significant prognosis (odds ratio = 0.55, P = 0.047). In severe cases, C-reactive protein, Blood urea nitrogen, and Creatine phosphokinase levels, as well as neutrophil counts, were significantly higher than those of moderate ones whereas lymphocyte count in severe cases was lower than that of moderate ones. Conclusion The number of total T-cells and B-cells in patients with COVID-19 was lower than that of controls; however, their NK cells increased. FcγRIII and CD4+ cells are of great importance due to their association with COVID-19 prognosis.


Land conversion due to human activities produces distinctive spatial patterns across the landscape. It remains unclear, however, how particular spatial arrangements of remnant habitat patches influence species persistence. We present a conceptual model of landscape change that focuses explicitly on habitat spatial arrangement. Four sequences, characterized as shrinkage, bisection, fragmentation, and perforation, differ qualitatively in the spatial arrangement of intact habitat and differ quantitatively in boundary length, amount of interior area, and connectivity. We tested the predictions of this conversion sequence model in a microlandscape field experiment with insects in a native grassland habitat. The four conversion sequences significantly influenced the species composition of the above-ground insect community, and insect species groups varied in their responses. Four patterns were evident from the field experiment: (1) as habitat decreased, insect density rose sharply on small dispersed patches of the bisection and fragmentation sequences, an effect less evident in the large remnant patch of the shrinkage sequence; (2) species richness declined only in the case of shrinkage, whereas richness increased in the fragmentation sequence; (3) most individual species examined responded similarly to the community as a whole: and (4) large rare species were concentrated in remaining habitat of the shrinkage and fragmentation sequences. Overall, the shrinkage and perforation sequences, which had high connectivity, were similar to one another in species composition, while the bisection and fragmentation sequences, which had low connectivity, were similar to one another. Based on these results, we conclude that a spatial pattern of land conversion that maintains one or more large, closely spaced remnant patches of native vegetation is essential for species persistence.


Sweet corn-mung bean milk can be used to helping increasing the nutrition status of the society . This research was aimed to find the formulation of sweet corn and mung bean that produce sweet corn-mung bean milk with the best physical, chemical and sensory characteristics and is accepted by consument. The experiment was arranged in a completely block randomized design (CBRD) withy one factor and three replications. The treatments were five  formulations of sweet corn and  mung bean , they were 3:1 (F1), 2:1 (F2), 1:1 (F3), 1:2 (F4), and 1:3 (F5) (w/w). The data were analysed using analysis of variance, and then continued with 1 % and 5 % Least Significant Different Test. The determinination of the water addition that produced mung bean-sweet corn milk that is compliance with the total solid in SNI (11.5 %) was done in the preliminary research. The preliminary research result showed that mung bean sweet corn milk has total solid of 15-19% for all of formulations, while the best favorable milk was  milk with the formulation: water that is at 1:10. The result of the main research showed that the stabilityobjectively, protein content, and organoleptic characteristic were not significanly different among sweet corn and mung bean formulations, but the stability visually, the viscosity, soluble total solid and fat content were significanltly different among sweet corn and mung bean formulation. According to the SNI (soluble total solid, protein and fat contents) are the formulation that have met the soy milk quality standard, but the best formulation was found in  F2, with the protein content of 3,183% , fat content of 3,667%, and the most favourable formulation was  F2 formulation with 1, 893 score. The result of amino acid analysis on the best mung bean-sweet corn milk showed that five types of essential amino acid (threonine, valine, isoleucine, leucine and lysine) have not met the amino acid standard yet by FAO (1973). In conclusion, the combination of sweet corn and mung bean become mung bean sweet corn milk has not overcome the lack of lysine on corn and methionine on mung bean yet. Keywords : ,Amino acid,  sweet corn, mung bean


Malaria caused by Plasmodium falciparum remains a major public health threat, especially among children and pregnant women in Africa. An effective malaria vaccine would be a valuable tool to reduce the disease burden and could contribute to elimination of malaria in some regions of the world. Current malaria vaccine candidates are directed against human and mosquito stages of the parasite life cycle, but thus far, relatively few proteins have been studied for potential vaccine development. The most advanced vaccine candidate, RTS,S, conferred partial protection against malaria in phase II clinical trials and is currently being evaluated in a phase III trial in Africa. New vaccine targets need to be identified to improve the chances of developing a highly effective malaria vaccine. A better understanding of the mechanisms of naturally acquired immunity to malaria may lead to insights for vaccine development.


This paper presents a model predictive control (MPC) approach for dc-dc boost converters. A discrete-time switched nonlinear (hybrid) model of the converter is derived, which captures both the continuous and the discontinuous conduction mode. The controller synthesis is achieved by formulating an objective function that is to be minimized subject to the model dynamics. The proposed MPC strategy, utilized as a voltage-mode controller, achieves regulation of the output voltage to its reference, without requiring a subsequent current control loop. Furthermore, a state estimation scheme is implemented that addresses load uncertainties and model mismatches. Simulation and experimental results are provided to demonstrate the merits of the proposed control methodology, which include a fast transient response and a high degree of robustness.


This study aims to look at the role of the practice of excellence strategies in education in achieving sustainable competitive advantage for the Higher educational institutions of the faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at Al-Azhar University in Gaza, a model, and the study considered the competitive advantage of educational institutions stems from the impact on the level of each student, employee, and the institution. The study was based on the premise that the development of strategies for excellence in education, and its implementation is a vital important prerequisite to achieve sustainable competitive advantage in higher educational institutions. The study followed a systematic exploratory descriptive methodology through review of the theoretical literature, and the adoption of the experience of the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at Al-Azhar University in Gaza as a model for its unique experience in the field of excellence in education. The study results showed that the most important are: There is a strong correlation between the level of exercising excellence strategies in education and the achievement of higher educational institutions to the sustainable competitive advantage. The results include a general required number of important sub results on the subject of the model Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at Al-Azhar University in Gaza as follows: The student considered the academic focus of the operation in the development process of the workers' skills, particularly academics at the university helps to distinguish students and increase the employment rate after graduation. The existence of consistency in development efforts and quality improvement for all three levels (student, employee, and the university), and this contributes to the Faculty excellence. The Faculty has been able to achieve competitive advantages by offering excellent services without harming the efficiency, and this alone is a Mazen J. Al Shobaki, IJDPT VOL||01||ISSUE||02 Page 135 IJDPT VOL||01||ISSUE||02||FEBRUARY 2017 great success because improving service properties requires great investments, which negatively affect the continued institutional development. The study also reached a set of recommendations as follows: The need to exercise excellence strategies in education, excellence reward at the national level, and those higher educational institutions follow the criteria for measuring the competitive advantages of its institutions always. There is a need to increase efforts to implement programs of excellence, the allocation of adequate time, reward outstanding efforts as well. There is a necessity for each faculty to achieve competitive advantage and sustainability, using the general philosophies of competitive advantage, but with a different strategically content from what is in the private commercial sector, it reflects the Faculties mission and objectives, depending on making improvements and excellence in processes that ensure the safety of its outputs. As well as the need to find a balance between the work of teaching and research work of the faculty members, this has important implications regarding the criteria used in the process of excellence evaluation. The study recommended the adoption of strategies for excellence in education on a national public policy level mainly in the processes of change in higher education institutions. The need to support the existence of a common understanding of the efforts of excellence to create a general culture that appreciates excellence in faculties and universities. This underlines the need for transparent, fair rewards systems, to encourage innovation in education. The need to conduct a comprehensive surveys on the graduates of faculties and universities including the areas of employment and skills, because that will give accurate indications of the graduates and will help to establish a link to a more precise about the relationship of excellence strategies with the competitive advantages.


Three-dimensional (3D) printing is spreading in hand surgery. There is an increasing number of practical applications like the training of junior hand surgeons, patient education, preoperative planning, and 3D printing of customized casts, customized surgical guides, implants, and prostheses. Some high-quality studies highlight the value for surgeons, but there is still a lack of high-level evidence for improved clinical endpoints and hence actual impact on the patient's outcome. This article provides an overview over the latest applications of 3D printing in hand surgery and practical experience of implementing them into daily clinical routine.


The purpose of this study was to investigate attitude differences between violent and nonviolent offenders. A random sample of 136 male prisoners in Oregon completed the Right-Wing Authoritarianism scale, the 16-item Social Dominance Orientation scale, and the Multiple Stimulus Tolerance for Ambiguity scale to assess authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, and tolerance for ambiguity, respectively. The MarloweCrowne Social Desirability Scale, Form C, was also included as a validity measure. Results indicated no significant differences between violent and nonviolent offenders on the three attitude measures. However, violent offenders scored significantly higher than nonviolent offenders on the social-desirability measure, suggesting that the lack of significant findings may reflect a desire to respond in a socially desirable way.


An investigation was carried out separately for each year to examine the relationship of cold stress effect on grain yield and yield component characters respective to the parents and progenies of a cold sensitive plant. For the 3 consecutive years the seeds were sown in the month of June and the plants were allowed to expose in clod stress condition at maturity. Influence of temperature effect on days to flowering and maturity was determined by correlation analysis. Unexplained variability in first year registered high for yield (average weight of head). Number of seeds per spikelet had significant positive contribution on determining the yield of finger millet during second and third year. The correlation study indicated that sensitivity of cultivars to different temperature might be responsible to produce unexplained variability in the population through the appearance of new combinations, disappearance and re-appearance of some old combinations of characters.


The objective of this study is to assess the evidence about the demographic transformation of the Down Syndrome population, with a specific focus on prenatal testing, and to identify sources frequently used for demographic assessment of Down Syndrome in the world. We reviewed existing studies on demographic transformations in the population with Down Syndrome, specifically birthrate indicators, under the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) Statement. The searches were made in Medline (via EBSCO Host), Academic Search Complete (via EBSCO Host), PsycINFO (via EBSCO Host), Web of Science (Core Collection), Public Health Database (via ProQuest), and The Cochrane Library. The terms were developed through Medical Subject Headings (MESH) and American Psycological Asociation Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms (APA). Full texts were reviewed if information was given regarding location and birthrate for a range of three years or more, and if the first and last year considered was within 1960 and 2019. We found 22 references with a period of study between 1960 and 2019 following the global spread of prenatal testing for Down Syndrome. We found a consistent association between prenatal diagnosis and birthrate, enough to explain the significant fall in the prevalence of Down Syndrome, a somewhat rising incidence of Down Syndrome related to increased maternal age and extension of fertility services in healthcare systems, a generalized use of specific congenital birth defect registries as the primary source of data, and an unclear influence of socio-cultural and territorial variables. Our findings can inform research, policy, and practice to improve the reproductive health and quality of life of the population with Down Syndrome.


ABSTRACT Normative data on phonological acquisition of a language are a prerequisite for evaluating children's speech sound competences. To date, these data are not sufficiently available for Italian. This study, therefore, aimed to describe the phonological development of 183 typically developing monolingual Italian-speaking children aged 3;0–4;11 (four 6-months age bands). Participants were assessed through a picture naming task, and performances analysed in terms of number of phonological variations (Tokens), Types and percentage of occurrence of patterns, and number of infrequent variants (InfrVar) as a measure of stability in speech production. Two cut-off criteria to distinguish InfrVar from phonological patterns were applied. Results showed a gradual reduction of all measures with increasing age. Twenty-two patterns generally in line with previous Italian and cross-linguistic studies were observed, with only five patterns and two phonetic distortions occurring across all age groups. Eight patterns only emerged when applying the lower cut-off criterion, while further seven patterns only occurred with very low frequency or in isolated age groups. These findings highlight the influence of the selected cut-off criterion on the identification of patterns and raise the question of whether some patterns should rather be considered InfVar. Data on younger children are still needed to clarify whether low-frequency patterns are patterns of younger typically developing children that have almost resolved in the age groups assessed. At least half of the phonological variation Tokens fell into the category of InfrVar, indicating a need to pay more attention to this so far ignored measure.


textabstractThe extended backward differentiation formulas (EBDFs) and their modified form (MEBDF) were proposed by Cash in the 1980s for solving initial-value problems (IVPs) for stiff systems of ordinary differential equations (ODEs). In a recent performance evaluation of various IVP solvers, including a variable-step-variable-order implementation of the MEBDF method by Cash, it turned out that the MEBDF code often performs more efficiently than codes like RADAU5, DASSL and VODE. This motivated us to look at possible parallel implementations of the MEBDF method. Each MEBDF step essentially consists of successively solving three nonlinear systems by means of modified Newton iteration using the same Jacobian matrix. In a direct implementation of the MEBDF method on a parallel computer system, the only scope for (coarse grain) parallelism consists of a number of parallel vector updates. However, all forward-backward substitutions and all righthand side evaluations have to be done in sequence. In this paper, our starting point is the original (unmodified) EBDF method. As a consequence, two different Jacobian matrices are involved in the modified Newton method, but on a parallel computer system, the effective Jacobian-evaluation and the LU-decomposition costs are not increased. Furthermore, we consider the simultaneous solution, rather than the successive solution, of the three nonlinear systems, so that in each iteration the forward-backward substitutions and the righthand side evaluations can be done concurrently. A mutual comparison of the performance of the parallel EBDF approach and the MEBDF approach shows that we can expect a speedup factor of about 2 on 3 processors.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
Microalbuminuria predicts graft loss and death in the renal transplant population. Measurement of the urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio (UACR) is recommended for its detection. There is uncertainty regarding the optimal UACR cutoff values. Few studies have examined the accuracy of UACR in the general population and none have been conducted in renal transplant recipients. The aim of this study is to determine the performance of UACR in the renal transplant population.

DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS & MEASUREMENTS
Renal transplant recipients with a daily urinary albumin excretion rate of up to 300 mg accurately carried out a 24-hour urine collection and provided a morning urine sample for the measurement of albuminuria and UACR. The performance measures of UACR for the detection of microalbuminuria (30 to 300 mg/d) were calculated using different cutoffs.

RESULTS
Median albuminuria was 23 mg/d, and median UACR was 17 mg/g. The area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve was 0.94 in men and 0.98 in women. The optimal cutoff was 21 mg/g in men and 24 mg/g in women. In men, the 30-, 17-, and 21-mg/g cutoffs provided a sensitivity of 0.79, 0.89, and 0.87. In women, the 30-, 25-, and 24-mg/g cutoffs provided a sensitivity of 0.90, 0.97, and 1.0.

CONCLUSIONS
These data show that in the renal transplant population, lower gender-specific cutoffs should be used for the detection of microalbuminuria than the recommended 30-mg/g cutoff. These data support the need for a reappraisal of the 30-mg/g cutoff for the detection of microalbuminuria.


Background: Hyperglycemia and hypertension are known to be risk factors for the development of proteinuria in patients with diabetes, which leads to progression of end stage renal disease. Objective: To study the effect of various factors on progression of diabetic nephropathy in type 2 diabetic patients. Material and Methods: We investigated factors affecting progression of nephropathy by measuring serum creatinine (s-Cr), glomerular filtration rate (GFR) level in 70 (45 men and 25 women) type 2 diabetes mellitus patients on antihypertensive treatment. Results: The survey was done for 6 months during which 40 (Group 1) uncontrolled type 2 diabetes mellitus having S. Creatinine <1.2 mg/dl compared with 30 (Group 2) uncontrolled type 2 diabetes mellitus having S. Creatinine ≥1.2 mg/dl. Mean S. Creatinine 2.1mg/dl, mean SBP 141.37mmHg, mean duration of diabetes mellitus 9.26years, mean HbA1c 9.0%, mean Serum cholesterol 215.63 mg/dl and mean GFR 36.75 ml/min was seen in group 2 patients. In group 2 mean SBP, Duration of DM, HbA1c and serum creatinine were significantly higher and GFR significantly lower than group1 (P < 0.05). Conclusion: hyperglycemia (HbA1c), duration of DM and hypertension are the risk factors that lead to progression of diabetic nephropathy with decline in GFR.


Both open-channel flows and density currents are able to create supercritical-flow bedforms. The morphodynamics of these supercritical-flow bedforms are, however, still poorly understood. This is mainly due to a lack of measurements of flow processes occurring within these types of flows. Cyclic steps have successfully been simulated in open-channel flow using a depth-resolved numerical model. The equilibrium conditions at which certain supercritical-flow bedforms are stable are investigated. The temporal variation in Froude number is indicative of at which conditions cyclic steps are in a macroscopic equilibrium at a variability of grain sizes, discharges and sediment concentrations. The depth-resolved model provides insight into the dynamic interaction between velocity structure, shear stresses, and sediment concentrations within the flows and resulting erosion and deposition patterns, which, in their turn affect the flow-properties again. The velocity structure downstream of a hydraulic jump displays highest flow velocities near the bed, whilst lowest or even negative velocities are located at the top of the flow, causing the flow to remain exerting shear stresses on the bed even after the hydraulic jump. The sediment concentrations within the flow only decrease after a 30 second, or half a meter lag, causing most of the deposition to take place at the last two-thirds of subcritical region of the flow. The resulting depositional pattern consists of upstream-dipping backset laminations deposited on the stoss-side of the bedform, cross-cut by the erosive surface of the lee-side of the cyclic step, this interplay between erosion and deposition also causes an upstream migration of the cyclic steps. __________________________________________________________________________________ Introduction Unidirectional fluid flow over an erodible bed usually leads to the formation of bedforms due to the morphodynamic interaction of a flow and a sedimentary bed, such bedforms have been observed in both open-channel flows as well as in density currents. Two main types of bedforms can also be created by an overall supercritical-flow; antidunes and cyclic steps. Supercritical-flow bedforms have been modelled in flume experiments in both open-channel as well as density flows (Jorritsma, 1973; Taki & Parker, 2004; Alexander et al., 2010; Spinewine et al., 2009; Cartigny et al., 2013). Additionally there are field observations of these bedforms in free-surface flows (Simons et al., 1965; Grand, 1997; Fielding, 2006). Bedforms with similar geometries and internal structures have also been


The morphometry (diameters, length, and angles) of coronary arteries is related to their function. A simple, easy, and accurate image-based method to seamlessly extract the morphometry for coronary arteries is of significant value for understanding the structure-function relation. Here, the morphometry of large (> or = 1 mm in diameter) coronary arteries was extracted from computed tomography (CT) images using a recently validated segmentation algorithm. The coronary arteries of seven pigs were filled with Microfil, and the cast hearts were imaged with CT. The centerlines of the extracted vessels, the vessel radii, and the vessel lengths were identified for over 700 vessel segments. The extraction algorithm was based on a topological analysis of a vector field generated by normal vectors of the extracted vessel wall. The diameters, lengths, and angles of the right coronary artery, left anterior descending coronary artery, and left circumflex artery of all vessels > or = 1 mm in diameter were tabulated for the respective orders. It was found that bifurcations at orders 9-11 are planar ( approximately 90%). The relations between volume and length and area and length were also examined and found to scale as power laws. Furthermore, the bifurcation angles follow the minimum energy hypothesis but with significant scatter. Some of the applications of the semiautomated extraction of morphometric data in applications to coronary physiology and pathophysiology are highlighted.


Background: Ischemic heart disease is the major cause of death in developed countries and infarct size is the major determinant of prognosis. Ischemic postconditioning (IPostC), a sequence of short reperfusion-ischemia episodes after a prolonged ischemic period, has been proposed as a useful approach to reduce infarct size in all species, including humans, but its clinical utility remains unclear.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate the efficacy of IPostC in protecting the human myocardium and the role played by the protocol applied and by the clinical conditions.

Methods: The right atrial appendage was obtained from patients undergoing elective cardiac surgery. The muscles were subjected to 90min of simulated ischemia followed by 120 min of reoxygenation and then randomized to different protocols of IPostC. In study 1, the role of the time of ischemia (30, 60, 90 and 120sec) for IPostC was investigated, whereas in studies 2 and 3 the importance of the number of cycles (1, 2, 3 and 4 cycles) using two different total times of ischemia (60 and 120sec) was examined. Muscles were also subjected to ischemic preconditioning (IPreC), the most effective protocol in this in vitro model. The released of lactic dehidrogenase acid (LDH) into the media during the reoxygenation period and the assessment of tetrazolium bromide (MTT) in muscle at the end of the experimental period were determined as index of tissue injury and cell viability, respectively.

Results: IPostC increased the LDH and decreased the MTT mean values from those of control (ischemia/reoxygenation alone) in all the studies independently of the protocol investigated, varying from 25% to 150%. Despite this, between 20 and 40% of the cases showed better values than the respective control, with 90 and 120sec of ischemia and 1 cycle of ischemia being the most protective. Conditions such as diabetes and mitral and tricuspid valve disease, and treatments such as statins and steroids resulted in further IPostC-induced injury. In contrast, IPreC significantly improved LDH and MTT mean values with 77% of the cases exhibiting benefit.

Conclusions: Overall IPostC increases myocardial injury and exhibits some degree of cardioprotection in only 20-40% of the cases. The efficacy depends on the protocol used, with a period of 120sec of total ischemia and 1 cycle of ischemia being the most protective. In addition, conditions like diabetes and mitral and tricuspid valve disease and also treatment with statins and steroids result in reduced cardioprotection. These results question the clinical utility of IPostC.


This paper describes optical short pulse generation at over 100 GHz using semiconductor mode-locked lasers integrated with electroabsorption modulators. Active mode locking at 102 GHz is performed by a half-frequency modulation technique. The phase noise of a generated pulse train is evaluated by means of an opto-electrical down conversion technique using a unitraveling-carrier photodiode. A low-timing jitter of 0.23 ps is obtained for 102-GHz 2.4-ps pulses.


Objective: Pharmacological interventions combined with behavioral treatment have been associated with better outcomes for children with ADHD. Yet, as children age into adolescence and gain autonomy, they may choose not to adhere to taking a prescribed medication. The purpose of the current study was to examine school outcomes among adolescents with ADHD who take medication breaks versus resisting medication with respect to grades and school behaviors. Method: We statistically controlled for a variety of variables such as the child's age, sex, the presence of side effects, and parent's relationship with child. Approximately half of the sample of adolescents with ADHD exhibited some form of medication nonadherence. Results: The results of the current study suggest that more positive school outcomes in terms of behaviors and grades are associated with adolescents taking breaks from their ADHD medication rather than resisting their medication. Conclusion: This result would indicate that not all forms of medication nonadherence have the same association with school outcomes in terms of grades and behaviors.


BACKGROUND
Foodborne disease outbreaks are one of the main health problems globally, having an extensive impact on human welfare. The World Health Organization considers them as the main cause of morbidity and mortality in developing countries, and responsible for high levels of loss of productivity in developed countries.

AIM
To describe the epidemiology of foodborne disease outbreaks according to data contained in an automated surveillance system.

METHOD
Descriptive observational study of notified outbreaks from the surveillance system, between 2005 and 2010 in Chile. The information was based on etiology, temporal and spatial distribution, and epidemiologic description of outbreaks during this period.

RESULTS
There were 5,689 notified outbreaks. Most of them occurred during 2006 (1,106 outbreaks, rate 6.7 per 100,000 inhabitants) and 2008 (1,316 outbreaks, rate 7.9 per 100, 000 inhabitants) with an increase during summer. Fifty four percent occurred in the Metropolitan region. The group aged 15 to 44 years old, was the most affected one. Sixty four percent of the outbreaks had the food involved registered, of which fish and fishery products reached 42%. An 81% of the outbreaks did not have a precise etiologic diagnosis. Of all patients involved, 97% were outpatients, 3,2% were hospitalized patients, and 0,1% died. Only 49% of the outbreaks had information about the lack of food safety, with a 34,1% related to food handling procedures.

CONCLUSIONS
Through the information on the epidemiology of foodborne diseases obtained by the Chilean surveillance system, appropriate control measures could be taken.


In this paper we present computer calculations of the ideal strength of crystals of sodium chloride and argon, for a variety of modes of homogeneous deformation. As models of the interatomic binding we employ the simple, two-body, central-force Born-Mayer and Lennard-Jones potentials respectively. The calculations for argon are appropriate to absolute zero, those for sodium chloride to room temperature. The results indicate a very marked anisotropy of the ideal tensile strength for sodium chloride, with a pronounced minimum at <100>, which is consistent with the observed cleavage on this plane. The ideal tensile strength of argon is shown to be much less dependent on orientation, which accords with the lack of any obvious cleavage plane in this material. We also make some estimates of the ideal shear strength, and find this to be a minimum for {111} <112> shear for both argon and sodium chloride.


Spectral element methods based on Hermite interpolation have a number of unique properties. First of all, the stabilization inherent in the interpolation process is sufficient to suppress nonlinear instabilities observed with other discretization schemes and leads to accurate linear transport of nonsmooth solutions. Second, and most important, they allow purely local time-stepping procedures limited only by geometric domain-of-dependence requirements. Thus high-order Hermite methods maximize the computation-to-communication ratio and therefore they admit highly efficient implementations on multicore processors. In this talk we focus on the application of Hermite methods to simulate unsteady compressible flows. Examples will include the direct simulation of the aeroacoustics of a low Reynolds number subsonic jet, as well as studies of more basic sound radiating flows. The latter will illustrate the coupling of Hermite methods with more standard discontinuous Galerkin discretizations to handle physical boun...


HealthConnect is a proposed national electronic health record system, centred on electronic health event summaries, that capture all health encounters of those patients and health care professionals who "opt in" to the system. This article reports on key findings of an analysis of HealthConnect's data principles, systems and business architecture, from a records continuum perspective, and from recordkeeping requirements of reliability and authenticity. It concludes that HealthConnect lacks critical recordkeeping functionality and that inadequate policy with regard to ownership, consent and privacy impacts on the business and systems architecture, and consequently its ability to deliver trustworthy records.


The clinical and biochemical characteristics of metachromatic leukodystrophy (MLD), true adult forms and late juvenile forms which are still living at adulthood, are reviewed as they both are observed in adult Neurology and Psychiatry departments. Mental deterioration is often the first symptom, evolving progressively; and dementia finally occurs. The latency before the appearance of neurological objective symptoms may be long and extend for several years. In many cases, the behavioral abnormalities are the first symptoms. Some of these forms have been diagnosed as schizophrenia. Very seldom, neurological symptoms, especially ataxia, occur without cognitive or psychiatric disturbances. Most of these cases have pyramidal and cerebellar symptoms, at diverse degrees. Seizures can also occur which is some cases can be early symptoms associated to mental deterioration. The association of central and peripheral neurological symptoms is very characteristic of MLD. The peripheral neuropathy is not generally clinically evidenced, but is rarely missing electrophysiologically. Arylsulfatase A determination should be performed for diagnosis as a first step, and confirmed by the accumulation of sulfatide, either by quantitative determinations in urine or by the sulfatide loading test. It is as yet not clear why certain forms have a rather rapid evolution in 5 years, and others have a very protracted course during decades.


With the introduction of minimally invasive surgery (MIS), the patient experiences the benefits of less pain, a more rapid recovery and a shorter stay in hospital. However, MIS provides many challenges to surgeons and they need extensive training to acquire this new technique. This training consists of developing cognitive, clinical, and technical skills. However, acquiring full training ''on the job'' is not always possible because of patient safety and restrictions of residents' working hours. This situation led to the development of surgical skills centres or laboratories. These skills laboratories can offer a protected, mistake-free training environment and validated surgical training curriculum that allows surgical trainees to practice in a safe and controlled preclinical environment before operating on actual patients. In addition, following the example of the aviation and military industries, surgical simulation is now being widely used to train surgical trainees from basic tasks to cognitively demanding tasks. The overall aim of this thesis is to define the optimal ergonomic settings and conditions needed to provide an optimal environment for effective training in MIS. This environment should allow training resembling actual laparoscopic surgery in a real OR. In order to achieve this, the study included an elaborate literature review, experimental investigation and design cases. This thesis is divided into three parts referred to as Parts A, B and C. Part A (Chapters 2 and 3) focuses on the review of ergonomic factors during laparoscopic surgery and training; Part B (Chapters 4, 5 and 6) describe a portable Ergo-Lap simulator and the validation of this simulator with laparoscopic specialist and surgical trainees. And finally, Part C (Chapter 7) focuses on distractions and interferences during the intro-operative procedure. Part A deals with ergonomic factors during laparoscopic surgery and training. Chapter 2 investigates ergonomic factors that can influence the task performance, and evaluates the effect of these ergonomic factors on task performance and trainees' posture during laparoscopic surgery training. Posture analysis showed that subjects can keep a much more neutral posture under optimal conditions than under non-optimal conditions. The subjects experienced less joint excursion and less discomfort in their necks, shoulders, and arms under optimal conditions. Significant differences of task performance showed that the group trained under the optimal ergonomic setting performed significantly better than that the group trained under a non-optimal setting. It can be concluded that surgeons' learning skills are affected by the ergonomics of simulation setting. Chapter 3 investigates ergonomic factors that can influence surgical training efficiency in several aspects by adopting the ergonomic guidelines for the OR and MIS procedures, performing observations in the OR and in the skills lab as well as interviewing expert surgeons on their opinion of the optimal ergonomic setting in general of skills lab. This chapter also discusses a case study of designing a surgical training table. The aim of this case study is to design an optimal table to meet multiple training requirements, particularly for laparoscopy surgical training. Part B focuses on design and validation of a portable ergonomic laparoscopic simulator (Ergo-Lap simulator). Chapter 4 describes the scientifically-based development of an inexpensive and portable multi-task Ergonomic Laparoscopic Skills (Ergo-Lap) simulator. The design of this Ergo-Lap simulator and related training task panel was based on scientific research regarding the representative skills and the ergonomic guidelines for laparoscopic surgery. A user-centred design approach was followed. Chapter 5 is intended to verify the face and content validity of the new portable Ergonomic Laparoscopic Skills simulator (Ergo-Lap simulator) and to assess the construct validity of the Ergo-Lap simulator in four basic skills tasks. This Ergo-Lap simulator with multiple tasks was rated as a useful training tool that can distinguish between various levels of laparoscopic expertise. Chapter 6 evaluates the face validity of the Ergo-Lap simulator for training basic single-incision laparoscopic surgical skills (SILS). The Ergo-Lap simulator was taken to the 20th International Congress of the EAES 2012 in Brussels. During the congress, the simulator was assessed by 13 general surgeons with different levels of SILS experience using a standardized questionnaire to determine the usability of the Ergo-Lap simulator training for basic SILS skills. For SILS skills training, this inexpensive and portable Ergo-Lap simulator offers a feasible training opportunity to help trainees to practice their SILS skills. Part C focuses on distractions during the intra-operative procedure. Chapter 7 contains a systematic literature search conducted to review the literature on distractions and interruptions during intra-operative phase of different surgical procedures in both the real OR and skills lab setting. In total, 27 articles were included in this review. Twelve observational studies were carried out during the OR to observe interruptions and distractions during the procedure. In addition, 11 experimental studies used a surgical simulator with simulated distractions and interruptions to investigate the effect of distracting events on the task performance. In four qualitative studies the surgical team was interviewed to investigate the influence of intra-operative distractions on their performance. Surgeons face multiple distractions and interactions during surgery, most of which can cause stress to the surgeon and may disrupt the surgical flow, potentially resulting in adverse events. Thorough analysis of interruptions and the way surgeons cope with them could potentially contribute to the positive outcome of procedures. Analysis of experimental studies focusing on the effects of disruptions and interrupting events both in the OR and skills lab setting provide evidence for the need to develop an effective, comprehensive training programme in an environment similar to the OR. Finally, Chapter 8 recapitulates all the research findings and discusses these in a wider range. Factors which are relevant for surgical training efficiency are discussed. The recommendations for the setting up of the skills lab and future research are described.


The tumour necrosis factor (TNF) stimulates in cultured JAR choriocarcinoma cells the biosynthesis of hCG, including the free alpha and beta chain and the holo-hCG. Although elevated serum TNF levels have been shown by Balkwill et al. (1987) in about 50% of tumour patients, we were unable to confirm these data in the 10 examined patients, who had a choriocarcinoma. Despite its excellent in-vitro action, INF could not be confirmed to exercise an influence on the regulation of hCG in choriocarcinoma patients.


ABSTRACT As the world's second-largest economy, China faces great challenges in educational equality and equity. This article examines the evolution of discourses surrounding educational equality by focusing on how Chinese central governments from the 1980s to the 2010s have formulated this issue. Through key national policy documents and drawing upon Espinoza's equality–equity model, we analyse the sociopolitical context of changes in China's educational discourse and come to the conclusions that in the 1980s, shifting the government's agenda to economic reforms, national poverty subsumed the issue of educational equality. In the 1990s, according to the inherited political rationale, the government treated educational inequality as a 'necessary process' of Chinese socialist market economy. Since the 2000s, equality and equity has become an 'urgent issue' as the government's agenda has shifted focus to stabilizing the nation's economy and society. We propose labelling these three stages of equality–equity discursive departure in the 1980s, continuity and rupture in the 1990s, and prioritization since the 2000s.


Development of environments for distributed systems is a tedious and time-consuming iterative process. The reproducibility of such environments is a crucial factor for rigorous scientific contributions. We think that being able to smoothly test environments both locally and on a target dis-tributed platform makes development cycles faster and reduces the friction to adopt better experimental practices. To address this issue, this paper introduces the notion of environment transposition and implements it in NixOS Compose, a tool that generates reproducible distributed environments. It enables users to deploy their environments on virtualized (docker, QEMU) or physical (Grid'5000) platforms with the same unique description of the environment. We show that NixOS Compose enables to build reproducible environments without overhead by comparing it to state-of-the-art solutions for the generation of distributed environments (EnOSlib and Kameleon). NixOS Compose actually enables substantial performance improvements on image building time over Kameleon (up to 11x faster for initial builds and up to 19x faster when building a variation of an existing environment).


The new development of three rice planthopper species, including small rice planthopper, brown planthopper, and whitebacked planthopper, and historical profiles of relevant environmental factors in rice ecosystems in China were analyzed. The results indicated that the changes in cropping system and increase in susceptible hybrid varieties, fertilizers, pesticides, and temperature created vulnerable rice ecosystems, which increased initial populations and growth rates and resulted in high population sizes and frequency of outbreaks. The main parameters for higher initial population are earlier starting time, longer immigration period, and higher immigration size; those for higher growth rate are higher fecundity, more generations, and lower mortality; and those for lower control efficiency are changes in species structure, genetic structure, and temporal structure. The approaches for improving planthopper management by modifying cropping systems, building up system resistance, developing new control strategies, and strengthening international collaboration were discussed.


The radiation-induced bystander effect (RIBE) is the initiation of biological end points in cells (bystander cells) that are not directly traversed by an incident-radiation track, but are in close proximity to cells that are receiving the radiation. RIBE has been indicted of causing DNA damage via oxidative stress, besides causing direct damage, inducing tumorigenesis, producing micronuclei, and causing apoptosis. RIBE is regulated by signaling proteins that are either endogenous or secreted by cells as a means of communication between cells, and can activate intracellular or intercellular oxidative metabolism that can further trigger signaling pathways of inflammation. Bystander signals can pass through gap junctions in attached cell lines, while the suspended cell lines transmit these signals via hormones and soluble proteins. This review provides the background information on how reactive oxygen species (ROS) act as bystander signals. Although ROS have a very short half-life and have a nanometer-scale sphere of influence, the wide variety of ROS produced via various sources can exert a cumulative effect, not only in forming DNA adducts but also setting up signaling pathways of inflammation, apoptosis, cell-cycle arrest, aging, and even tumorigenesis. This review outlines the sources of the bystander effect linked to ROS in a cell, and provides methods of investigation for researchers who would like to pursue this field of science.


Traditional western conceptions of pain have commonly associated pain with the inability to communicate and with the absence of the self. Thus pain, it seems, must be avoided, since it is to blame for alienating the body from subjectivity and the self from others. Recent work on pain, however, has began to challenge these assumptions, mainly by discerning between different kinds of pain and by pointing out how some forms of pain might even constitute a crucial element in the production of subjectivity. This article deals with the specific form of pain that is labour pain. Pain in labour has been investigated in medicine and lately, copiously, within the social sciences. Analyses from a more philosophical perspective are still very much missing, however, and in developing such analyses, de Beauvoir's ideas on subjectivity as inherently embodied, as situated, and as profoundly ambiguous when authentically lived, appear to be of significant use.


A review is presented of the state of the art of conducting polymers. Special attention is given to the high electrical conductivity of highly ordered doped polyacetylene, to the attempts to reproduce σ-values above 105 S/cm, and to efforts to correlate the electrical conductivity with other physical parameters (European Brite/Euram Project HICOPOL).


As modern electronics become miniaturized with high power, thermal management for electronics devices has become significant. This motivates the implementation of new cooling solutions to dissipate high-heat levels from high-performance electronics. Evaporative cooling is one of the most promising approaches for meeting these future thermal demands. Thin-film evaporation promotes heat dissipation through the phase change process with minimal conduction resistance. In this process, it is important to design surface structures and corresponding surface properties that can minimize meniscus thickness, increase liquid–vapor interfacial area, and enhance evaporation performances. In this study, we investigate thin-film evaporation by employing nanotextured copper substrates for varying thermal conditions. The liquid spreading on the nanotextured surfaces is visualized using a high-speed imaging technique to quantify evaporative heat transfer for various surfaces. The permeability is calculated using an enhanced wicking model to estimate the evaporation effect combined with the mass measurements. Then, infrared (IR) thermography is employed to examine two-dimensional temporal temperature profiles of the samples during the evaporative wicking with a given heat flux. The combination of optical time-lapse images, evaporation rate measurements, and temperature profiles will provide a comprehensive understanding of evaporation performances using textured surfaces.


This contribution reports on a project aiming at exploring the possibilities of developing a modularised and sustainable light vehicle transportation system, as a part of a self-supporting system for third world markets. By developing a product demonstrator, the project will set up and explore the design space for such a vehicle. Furthermore, the departure from a single vehicle, designed for a performance corner, i.e. maximum load, range, acceleration and speed, can provide a high increase in the lifecycle efficiency of the product. Consequently, a much bigger vehicle than needed is seldom used, and a family can gradually expand their transport system, with their needs, and economic capabilities. To achieve such properties of a vehicle a modular system is proposed.


This study examined cannabis use motives in individuals with anxiety disorders and compared motives between infrequent and frequent cannabis users. It was hypothesised that coping motives would be endorsed at a significantly higher rate than other motives, and that frequent cannabis users would endorse coping motives significantly more than infrequent users. Participants were 144 adults seeking clinical services for anxiety disorders who reported using cannabis. Cannabis use was categorized by infrequent (n = 54) and frequent (n = 90) use. Anxiety symptoms were assessed and deemed clinically significant. Participants completed measures of cannabis use motives, cannabis use patterns, and cannabis use disorder symptoms, cross-sectionally. Cannabis use motives were examined for the entire sample and compared between frequent and infrequent users. In general, cannabis users endorsed coping (i.e., use for managing distress) and enhancement (i.e., use for fun, pleasant feeling, or the high) motives at equal rates (p = .265) and more than other motives (p < .001). Frequent users reported using cannabis for coping and expansion motives (i.e., use to change one's thinking) significantly more than infrequent users. These results indicate that individuals with anxiety disorders use cannabis for various reasons, some of which may not be directly related to their mental health symptoms. Future research is needed to compare motives for cannabis use in those with anxiety disorders, other mental health populations, and the general population, as well as examine motives for cannabis use within specific anxiety disorders.


I test the stock market efficiency with respect to the information in the texts of annual reports. More specifically, I examine the implications of corporate annual reports' risk sentiment for future earnings and stock returns. I measure the risk sentiment of annual reports by counting the frequency of words related to risk or uncertainty in the 10-K filings. I find that an increase in risk sentiment is associated with lower future earnings: Firms with a larger increase in risk sentiment have more negative earnings changes in the next year. Risk sentiment of annual reports can predict future returns in a cross-sectional setting: Firms with a large increase in risk sentiment experience significantly negative returns relative to those firms with little increase in risk sentiment in the twelve months after the annual report filing date. A hedge portfolio based on buying firms with a minor increase in risk sentiment of annual reports and shorting firms with a large increase in risk sentiment generates an annual Alpha of more than 10% measured using the four-factor model including the Fama-French three factors and the momentum factor.


The practicability of using 120-volt d-c power in large airplanes has been a subject of discussion for some time. This paper describes the 120-volt d-c system and the equipment used on the Navy flying boat Mars, the service requirements, and the problems incidental to development and design of the components of the system. Calculated weights for several arrangements of generating equipment including the installed system are tabulated for comparison and the weight of the installed 120-volt d-c system is compared with the weight of the 28.6-volt d-c system. A summary report on flight tests and service operations provides the basis for conclusions relative to the practicability of 120-volt direct current for large aircraft.