A wide band damper system has been developed for the Brookhaven Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS). The system consists of two sets of PUE pickups, analog and digital processing electronics, four 500 Watt wide band power amplifiers, and two pairs of strip line deflectors. The system is currently used to damp transverse coherent instabilities and injection errors, in both planes, for protons and all species of Heavy Ions. This paper discusses the system design and operation, focusing on the engineering considerations and problems encountered in the actual implementation. Operational data from both protons and Heavy Ion beams is presented.


Prescribing pattern of various drugs prescribed in coronary artery disease was studied. It is a prospective, observational study in the Department of Cardiology at Global Hospital, Hyderabad conducted from January 2012 to September 2012. Pattern of different drugs prescribed in coronary artery disease were analyzed. 170 patients were included in the study. Out of these, 124 (72.94%) were male patients and 46 (27.06%) were female patients. Most of the patients diagnosed with coronary artery disease were of the age group of 46-66 (72.36%). The most common co-morbid conditions were hypertension in 110 (64.71%) and diabetes in 66 (38.82%) patients. The prescription pattern of various cardiovascular drugs were found to be as – antiplatelet drugs 169 (99.41%), antihyperlipidemic drugs 162 (95.29%), antibiotics 158 (92.94%), anti-anginal drugs 137 (80.59%), antihypertensives 110 (64.71%), anticoagulants 110 (64.71%), diuretics 106 (62.35%) and bronchodilators 31 (18.24%). Non-cardiological drugs use was also recorded. The average number of drugs per prescription was found to be 9.68 and the percentage of drugs prescribed by generic name was found as 1.76%. The percentage of encounters with an antibiotic prescribed was 92.94%. The most commonly prescribed drug classes in coronary artery disease were antiplatelet drugs followed by antihyperlipidemics and antibiotics. This was followed by anti-anginal drugs, antihypertensives and anticoagulants. Polypharmacy (9.68 drugs per prescription) was noticed. Very few drugs were prescribed by generic name. The prescribing pattern could be improved by reducing the number of drugs per prescription and by prescribing generic drugs to reduce the economic burden of the patients.


The scope of this research is to characterize and optimize the vibration-assisted ball burnishing of additively manufactured 18% Nickel Maraging steel for tooling applications. We evaluate the suitability of vibration-assisted ball burnishing as an alternative method to post-process additively manufactured tool steel. To do so, we assessed a single pass post-processing technique to enhance surface roughness, surface micro-hardness, and residual stress state. Results show that ultrasonic burnishing after age hardening functionalizes additively manufactured surfaces for tooling applications creating a beneficial compressive residual stress state on the surface. The surface micro-hardness (HV1) varied between 503 and 630 HV1, and the average surface roughness (Ra) varied between 1.31 and 0.14 µm, depending on process parameters with a maximum productivity rate of 41.66 cm2/min making it an alternative approach to functionalize additively manufactured tool components.


The resilient packet ring (RPR) IEEE 802.17 standards is under development as a new high-speed technology for metropolitan backbone networks. A key performance objective of PRP is to simultaneously achieve high utilization, spatial reuse, and fairness, an objective not achieved by current technologies such as SONET and Gigabit Ethernet or legacy ring technologies, such as FDDI. The core technical challenge for RPR is the design of a fairness algorithm that dynamically throttles traffic to achieve these properties. The difficulty is in the distributed nature of the problem, that upstream ring nodes must inject traffic at a rate according to congestion and fairness criteria downstream. This article provides an overview of the RPR protocol with a focus on medium access and fairness.


The early 1930's, or "Kiangsi soviet" period in the history of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is one of the most obscure in the entire development of the communist movement. The major significance of the two National Congresses of 1931 and 1934 is that using them as a focal-point for analysis provides new information on the inter-related themes of political processes and power-relations during this period. In 1930, the CCP leader Li Li-san attempted to convene the First Congress. The attempt proved abortive when Li fell from power in November 1930. The "Returned Student group", as the new Party leadership, continued to press for a Congress in order to assert their authority over that of Mao Tse-tung in the soviet areas. Many of the new leaders moved to the soviet areas from Shanghai prior to the First Congress of November 1931, but although they were successful in gaining control of the CCP organisation in the soviet areas, the Congress, and the governmental apparatus produced by it, remained under the control of the Maoists. Mao did little during 1931 to provide an efficient governmental administrative apparatus for the soviet areas, preferring to use military organisations, a situation which was rectified by the "Returned Students" after the First Congress. By 1933, they had asserted their dominance over Mao in the military sphere, and by the summer of that year, they had sufficiently eroded his influence in the governmental sphere to permit them to convene the Second Congress of January 1934, which formalised their authority in the government. The "Returned Student group" then controlled all three power structures in the soviet areas - Party, army and government. Mao and his followers, in order to retain some influence, publicly agreed with what they considered to be the incorrect policies of the "Returned Student" leaders. In spite of a lack of success in mobilising the support of the local population, the establishment of a formal government of the Chinese Soviet Republic institutionalised the shift of CCP operations from the cities to the countryside, and in addition, created a potential national government, which was a victory for the communists in their drive to represent an "alternative way" to that of the Kuomintang.


Out of hospital cardiac arrest is a major cause of death worldwide. The outcome from out of hospital cardiac arrest remains poor, thus requiring immediate emergency medical intervention and high-quality cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Ambulance drivers are part of the prehospital care team and therefore play a critical role in providing cardiopulmonary resuscitation to cardiac arrest patient. As present, there is no study that has been developed to assess the knowledge, attitude and confidence regarding cardiopulmonary resuscitation among ambulance drivers. Thus, this study has developed a reliable and validated a questionnaire called AmKAC to evaluate their knowledge, attitude and confidence. The questionnaires are available in two languages, English and Bahasa Malaysia, in view of different educational background. The content validity was then assessed by content experts. Subsequently, the questionnaires underwent face validity which were pretested among 10 ambulance drivers to check for the understanding, language and readability. Afterwards, the refined questionnaires were administered to 108 ambulance drivers from the emergency trauma department of six different hospitals. The process was repeated one week after for the retest. This study reviewed reliable questionnaires in measuring knowledge, attitude and confidence among ambulance driver with Cronbach's alpha of 0.685, 0.703 and 0.905, respectively. In addition, the questionnaire also showed good test-retest reliability and correlation between the items, by using Spearman's rho and intraclass coefficient, respectively. In conclusion, the developed, validated AmKAC can be used in future to provide better insights of the ambulance drivers knowledge, attitude and confidence level regarding cardiopulmonary resuscitation permitting organization of courses and training.


Background Achilles tendinopathy (AT) is associated with severe pain and is the cause of dysfunction and disability that are associated with significant reduction in social and economic benefits. Several potential risk factors have been proposed to be responsible for AT development; however, the results of observational epidemiological studies remain controversial, presumably because the designs of these studies are subject to residual confounding and reverse causality. Mendelian randomization (MR) can infer the causality between exposure and disease outcomes using genetic variants as instrumental variables, and identification of the causal risk factors for AT is beneficial for early intervention. Thus, we employed the MR strategy to evaluate the causal associations between previously reported risk factors (anthropometric parameters, lifestyle factors, blood biomarkers, and systemic diseases) and the risk of AT. Methods Univariable MR was performed to screen for potential causal associations between the putative risk factors and AT. Bidirectional MR was used to infer reverse causality. Multivariable MR was conducted to investigate the body mass index (BMI)-independent causal effect of other obesity-related traits, such as the waist-hip ratio, on AT. Results Univariable MR analyses with the inverse-variance weighted method indicated that the genetically predicted BMI was significantly associated with the risk of AT (P=2.0×10-3), and the odds ratios (95% confidence intervals) is 1.44 (1.14−1.81) per 1-SD increase in BMI. For the other tested risk factors, no causality with AT was identified using any of the MR methods. Bidirectional MR suggested that AT was not causally associated with BMI, and multivariable MR indicated that other anthropometric parameters included in this study were not likely to causally associate with the risk of AT after adjusting for BMI. Conclusions The causal association between BMI and AT risk suggests that weight control is a promising strategy for preventing AT and alleviating the corresponding disease burden.


Twenty one repeat breeding cows were screened for subclinical endometritis and they were assigned equally to one control group and two treatmentgroups. Cows in the control group were infused with 50 ml of normal saline intra-uterine. Out of the two treatment groups, cows in group I were treated with 20 ml of colostrum as intra uterine medication. Cows in treatment group II were infused with 10 ml of non pathogenic E.coli (pure attenuated culture obtained from Himedia Product code - ATCC 25922). C-reactive protein concentrations and total immunoglobulin concentrations were calculated on day 0, day 7 th , day 14 th and day 21 st of estrus cycle from the blood sample. The estimation of C-reactive protein in all the experimental groups revealed a range between1.2 - 4.8 mg/dl with the negative values obtained for 21 day of estimation indicating improvement of uterine health. Comparison of immunoglobulin values for different days in all the treatment protocol revealed a significant (p<0.05) difference within various days of sampling.


We analysed vegetation dynamics in Tierra del Fuego steppes using Normalized Difference Vegetation In- dex (NDVI) data provided by advanced very high-resolution radiometer (AVHRR) on board the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) polar satellite. Our objective, at a regional scale, was to analyse the spatial variability of NDVI dynamics in relation to parent material and geographic location, representing the fertility and cli- mate gradients respectively; at a local scale, it was to analyse the inter-annual variability associated with climate and its relation with sheep production indices. The general pattern of NDVI dynamics was analysed with Principal Component Analysis. We found that the geographic location was more important than landscape type in explaining NDVI dynamics despite the fact that the variation in landscape type reflects a fertility gradient strongly associated with floristic composi- tion and secondary productivity. Discriminant Analysis was performed to identify the vari- ables that better distinguish geographic units. The Northern region (with the lowest precipitation and the highest tempera- tures) had lower NDVI values over the year. In the Central region, NDVI reached the highest value of the season, surpass- ing both other regions. The Southern region (the coldest and moistest) had its growth pattern displaced towards the sum- mer. For the Central region we analysed 10 years of monthly NDVI data with PCA. We found that precipitation from Au- gust to December and winter temperature are the most impor- tant determinants of overall NDVI values. Lamb production was correlated with spring and early summer NDVI values. Sheep mortality is affected by low NDVI values in late sum- mer and high annual amplitude. Satellite information allowed us to characterize the vegetation dynamics of three ecological areas across the Fuegian steppe.


Dermal melanocytosis is characterized by the presence of spindle-shaped melanocytes in the dermis. The most common form is Mongolian spots. A 15-month-old girl from Azerbaijan had a systematized dark blue-gray hyperpigmentation on her shoulder, back and extremities. The hyperpigmentation was also found on both sclera and choroidal areas, without any other facial involvement. On histopathological examination, dense melanocytes were found on the intermediate and deep dermis. Her physical and mental development was normal. This association of blue macules and involvement of both sclerae does not represent a distinct entity and cannot be categorized as an example of nevus of Ota.


The vernacular magical, divinatory, and healing practices associated with the Afro-American Gulf South, alternately called "Hoodoo" or "Conjure," offer a window into an intriguing world of "everyday esoterica." Practitioners envision a world of competing human desires, which move and are moved by an array of malign and benign spiritual forces. They cope with this world with a pharmacopeia of symbolically powerful physical substances, but also through works of bodily discipline, prayer, meditation, and other practices aimed at the cultivation of will, self-awareness, and self-regard. These latter tools and techniques comport closely with Michel Foucault's concept of technologies of the self. Exploring Hoodoo ritual through Foucault's lens offers opportunities to re-imagine American Hoodoo as an esoteric system that enables practitioners to manipulate and transform themselves as well as their circumstances. This examination serves to increase our appreciation for the sophistication of these traditions, while simultaneously enlarging and enriching Foucault's paradigm – offering new ways to consider the techniques by which one might come to know and understand oneself. This inquiry addresses a lacuna in the scholarship of Hoodoo and Conjure and also situates these traditions more firmly (and accurately) within the wider corpus of Gnostic Studies and Western Esotericism.


Background: Obesity among type 2 diabetic patients has proven to have adverse effects in management and control of diabetes and a considerable proportion of type 2 diabetic patients have been reported to be obese in different settings, which increase the risk of microvascular complications among them. Objectives: To estimate the prevalence of and define determinants of obesity among type 2 diabetic patients. Subjects and Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted at Al-Aziziyah Al-shargiah primary health care center, Makkah among a random sample of type 2 diabetic patients registered in the chronic disease clinic. Self-administrated validated questionnaire was used for data collection. It composed of two sections; socio-demographic and personal characteristics of the participants as well as factors associated with obesity. Additionally, the body mass index (BMI) was calculated by an expert nurse. Results: Overall, 160 patients were enrolled for the study with a response rate of 91.4%. Their age ranged between 38 and 85 years with mean±SD of 51.5±9.2 years. Most of them (72.5%) were females and majority were Saudis (90%). Aalmost two-thirds of the respondents (63.8%) were obese. Results of multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that compared to single persons, divorced were at 9-folds risk for obesity (AOR=9.0; 95% CI=1.19-106.0, p=0.017). Participants who didn`t stop aerobic exercise for two consecutive days or more per week were at lower risk for obesity compared to those did that always (AOR=0.05; 95% CI=0.001-0.74, p=0.029). Type 2 diabetic patients who treated with insulin were at higher significant risk for obesity compared to those treated with tables only (AOR=8.11; 95% CI=1.01-65.24, p=0.019). Conclusion: Obesity is highly prevalent among type 2 diabetic patients. Some modifiable risk factors were identified. Multidisciplinary effort is warranted to reduce obesity among type 2 diabetic patients.


We consider teratologic studies in which the aim is to compare the survival rate of animals in a treatment group to the corresponding rate in a control group. The design of such studies often involves the allocation of intact litters of animals to treatment, invalidating the application of standard statistical methods. We review the strengths and weaknesses of several approaches for dealing with this problem including methodology recently developed for the analysis of clustered binary data. A simulation study is conducted in which litter sizes are generated from a distribution having specified mean and degree of imbalance. It is recommended on the basis of this study and on theoretical considerations that the choice of method should depend on whether the comparison of interest is experimental or observational. For experimental comparisons, involving the random assignment of litters to different treatment groups, methods based on the adjustment of standard chi-square statistics are recommended unless the number of litters in each group is very large.


ter situations. One could even plan to set other laws and regulations aside. Furthermore, to some, the term "disaster" is equal to "alarming hospital employees" and the term is not connected directly to treating patients. I call for a clarification of terms by the authorities that have defined them, and also on what these terms mean during a preparedness situation. This should be done in the form of a regulation. I envision that, as a starting point, we should describe the normal situation, when the emergency preparedness is tailored to normal needs, and the service level is adequate. The crisis could be defined as a situation in which the demand is increased to a level that implies reorganization of resources and calls for assistance, but where it still is possible to meet the population's need for necessary health services according to normal criteria of adequacy and within the framework of laws and regulations. The term "disaster" is reserved for situations in which one is unable to give necessary treatment despite reorganization and other efforts within crisis circumstances, and where it is necessary to apply for exceptions from various laws and regulations that secure an adequate health system during normal circumstances.


School mathematics textbooks are used in varying ways and to varying degrees by teachers and schools. The presentation of exercises and activities suggests a sequence for instruction and often accompanying teacher notes provide more specific details of how to tailor the lesson to given activities. Some textbooks provide details of investigative tasks to promote conceptual understanding of topics of focus. With teachers taking varied approaches to the use of textbooks, there is great potential for mismatch between the pedagogical intent of the textbook materials and the actual classroom practice that is enacted. In this paper, we report on a study into the use of one textbook series in elementary schools. We present interview data from the textbook authors who describe the pedagogical intent of their textbook series. We combine this with classroom observations of teacher practice to compare textbook pedagogical intent and practice.


A fault stability study constitutes a fundamental element of any subsurface injection project that involves faults within a storage complex, yet the transient geomechanical effects introduced due to CO2-rock chemical interactions are rarely considered. This paper presents a review of the published work investigating the potential alteration of rock properties due to short to long term CO2-host rock chemical interactions during commercial scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) operations. Furthermore, the authors of this paper are attempting to highlight the potential significance of these mechanical-chemical effect on the fault reactivation potential for a commercial scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) operation.
 The reactive nature between CO2 dissolved in formation water and the storage reservoir can significantly alter the hydraulic and mechanical properties of the host rock, which could in turn affect the storage potential of the target reservoir. Alteration of the host rock mineralogy due to chemical interactions with CO2 have been well studied (Farquhar et al. 2015), but little is available in the published literature on the resulting changes in rock elastic properties (i.e. Young's modulus and Poisson's ratio) due to these reactions. Some recent experimental studies have suggested significant changes in rock properties occur. When we incorporated the geomechanical effects, induced by the rock elastic property changes documented in these published cases, into both 1D analytical and 3D numerical models based fault stability analyses for a Surat Basin reservoir, we observed significant modification of the reservoir storage capacity prior to reaching fault reactivation criteria.
 Based on our review of the published literature and our fault stability analyses, we conclude that the chemical effects of CO2 interaction with host rock needs to be experimentally tested to confirm if these effects are significant. If yes, then these effects should constitute an integral part of the geomechanical study for any large scale CO2 injection exercise if there is a critically stressed fault as part of the storage complex.


We consider the problem of low-complexity channel estimation in digital ultra-wideband receivers. We extend some of our recent sampling results for certain classes of parametric non-bandlimited signals and develop several methods that take advantage of transform techniques to estimate channel parameters from a low-dimensional subspace of a received signal, that is, by sampling the signal below the Nyquist rate. By lowering the sampling rate we reduce computational requirements compared to current digital solutions, allow for slower A/D converters and potentially significantly reduce power consumption of digital receivers. Our approach is particularly suitable for indoor wireless sensor networks, where low rates and low power consumption are required. One application of our framework to high-resolution acquisition in ultra-wideband localizers is also presented.


PurposeThe detrimental influence of perceived work–family conflict (WFC) on employees' job-related attitudes has been examined in individualistic cultures. However, this relationship needs to be studied in collectivist societies, where the "family" is a salient social institution with family-centric work ethics. This study empirically investigates the role of nurturant task leadership (NTL) behavior in attenuating (1) the negative direct effect of perceived WFC on job satisfaction and (2) the negative indirect effect of perceived WFC on job satisfaction, mediated through affective commitment (AC) on a sample of employees from a public sector bank in India.Design/methodology/approachThe study adopts a cross-sectional research design, and the data were collected from 244 executives working in the banking sector of India. The direct, indirect and moderated effects were analyzed using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression.FindingsNTL behavior was found to moderate the negative direct relationships between perceived WFC and job satisfaction as well as the negative indirect relationship between perceived WFC and job satisfaction, mediated through AC.Research limitations/implicationsThe study contributes to existing literature on WFC by introducing an important boundary condition in NTL behavior, thus providing impetus to further research in this direction through research designs that allow for causal inference and generalizability.Practical implicationsFindings from this study can provide useful pointers to organizations dealing with employee performance challenges owing to WFC. Results indicate that leaders who exhibit NTL behavior are more likely to attenuate the negative influence of WFC on employee attitudes and performance.Originality/valueThis study is among the first empirical examination of the effectiveness of NTL behavior in mitigating the negative effects of perceived WFC on job satisfaction.


ABSTRACT A social work administration class that used a problem-based learning approach was evaluated using text analysis of students' reflection papers. In the class project, students worked with a group of individuals who don't have homes to develop a formal organization. The text analysis yielded seven themes related to student learning: ethics, administration concepts, myself, application versus theory, structure, difficult details, and internal conflict.


To determine whether hydralazine (H) a systemic vasodilator, inhibits hypoxic pulmonary vasoconstriction (HPV) we studied in a canine model of lobar atelectasis (LA) the circulatory changes during the following interventions: a) control 1 (LA = HPV), b) during the acute effect produced by opening bilateral arteriovenous fistulas (OF), c) after the closure of the fistulas (CF) (control 2), d) after infusing H (0.33 mg/kg) and e) bleeding the animal at the end of the experiment (control 3). Once HPV was stabilized (control 1), both opening the fistulas and infusing H produced a similar and significant increase in cardiac output and a decrease in resistance (p less than 0.05). Mixed venous oxygen tension (PvO2) closely followed the changes in cardiac output (Qt). Intrapulmonary shunt (Qs/Qt) significantly increased (p less than 0.05) with the fistulas open and with H infusion. CF and bleeding the animal at the end of the experiment reversed the changes in Qt and Qs/Qt. The similar increases in Qt and Qs/Qt by OF or infusing H seems to be related to the levels of pVO2. Our data suggest that hydralazine inhibits pulmonary vasoconstriction probably by raising the level of pVO2 although a direct pulmonary vasodilatory effect of the drug could not be ruled out.


Historically it has been very hard to change the structure of caste politics in India. More recently however, there has been a flux in caste politics, mainly caused by economic liberalization in India. This upsurge in lower-caste empowerment was accompanied in some regions by a spike in the level of corruption. This was partly due to lower caste perceiving development programs and rule of law as tools used by the upper caste to subjugate lower castes. More contemporary India, however, has seen the influence of caste start to decline. This is partly due to the spread of education to all castes which has had a democratizing effect on the political system. However, this "equalizing" of the playing field has not been without controversy. The Mandal commission and its quotas system has been a particularly sensitive issue. Caste in Indian society refers to a social group where membership decided by birth.


Anycasting has recently become an important research topic, especially for replicated servers. With anycasting, applications can request the "nearest" server for provision of desired (multimedia) service. In this paper, we study efficient distributed admission control (DAC) for anycast flows. We focus on algorithms that perform destination selection and efficient path establishment. Taking advantage of anycasting, our distributed algorithms differ from each other in their dependence on system status information. Performance data obtained through mathematical analysis and simulations show that, in terms of admission probabilities, DAC systems that are based on local status information have performance levels close to those that utilize global and dynamic status information. This renders our DAC algorithms useful not only for the network layer, but also for the application layer admission control for anycast flows.


Research on food abounds, from the history of differing types of fare to the relationship between provisioning and culture, gender roles, and eating disorders. In disciplines concerned with health and nutrition, few studies focus on the metaphorical aspects of alimentation; while many ethnographic works do deal with the symbolic nature of gastronomy, they tend to emphasize eating as commensality and food as an expression of identity in ethnic, regional, and religious groups. Symbolic discourse involving cuisine is pervasive and complex, however, manifesting itself in a wide variety of contexts and exhibiting multiple meanings that may be ambiguous, conflicting, or pernicious. Understanding how messages are conveyed through culinary behavior requires an examination not only of victuals but also of the preparation, service, and consumption of food—for all are grist for the mill of symbolization. Here, I bring together a number of ideas about the iconic nature of cooking and eating: what is fodder for symbol creation, how and why meanings are generated, and what some of the effects of food-related representations are. I also problematize identity as it relates to food. My goal is to suggest directions for future research on foodways as well as applications in fields concerned with nutrition education, counseling, and dietary change.


Canadian forests are naturally dynamic ecosystems, changing species composition and abundance as the ecosystem evolves through succession or reacts to disturbances, such as wind and insects. Pollution and climate change will be the largest stressors to Canada's forests in the future. Their future impact on the health of Canada's forests remains speculative. Lichens have been identified as valuable indicators of forest health; however, there are no comprehensive datasets on which lichens are indicative of forest health in Canada. An analysis of the existing literature reveals a large number of lichens that can be used to monitor levels of various pollutants (general pollution: 51 species; sulphur dioxide: 42 species; photochemicals: 23 species; fluoride: 18 species; heavy metals: 3 species; acid precipitation: 8 species; sulphite: 2 species; nitrate: 2 species). The use of lichens as indicators of climate change is also reported in the literature but, there are insufficient data to monitor the effects of climate change on lichen communities in North America. While various provincial and federal government departments and industries have been monitoring lichen communities across Canada for up to nearly three decades, there exists no standard monitoring protocol for lichens in Canada, which makes comparisons among studies challenging. The development of a standard monitoring protocol would allow integration of the various initiatives into a nationwide lichen monitoring program.


Importance: Medical Imaging Professionals (MIP's) providing imaging services exposed to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) could be psychologically stressed.Objective: To assess the magnitude of the perceived mental health outcomes among MIP's providing imaging services to patients exposed to COVID-19. We examined the psychological stress, depression and anxiety, experienced by MIP's in the midst of the outbreak. Background: During the first week of March,2020 the surge of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases reached all over the globe with more than 150,000 cases. Healthcare national and international authorities have already initiated awareness and lockdown activities. Design, Settings, and Participants: This cross-sectional, web survey-based study collected demographic data and mental health measurements from 250 MIP's from April 29, 2020, to May 15, 2020. MIP's working during the pandemic in hospitals for patients with COVID-19 were eligible. An online sample of MIPs was successfully recruited via the authors' networks in India using data collection tool – write google forms. A DASS21 online questionnaire was completed by the participants and then their mental health was assessed.Results: Of 400 invited MIP's, 314 (78.5%) participated in the study; and 187 (59.5%)were included as per inclusion criteria. Hundred and three (55.08%) participants screened positive for depression, 105 (56.14%) for anxiety, and 80 (42.78%) for stress. However, 25 (13.36%), 18 (9.62%) and 16 (8.55%) screened positive for extremely severe for depression, anxiety and stress respectively.Conclusion and Relevance: In this web survey of MIP's during COVID-19 pandemic, participants reported experiencing high rates of psychological depression, anxiety and stress, especially frontline MIP's directly engaged in the imaging procedures for patients with COVID-19.


Background. It is normal for parents to experience a range of emotions and changes in behaviour while their newborn infant is in the NICU. The stress experienced by these parents during their infant's hospital stay is found to affect the parent-infant relationship and their ability to bond reciprocally. Several studies have pointed out that support from family and friends can be useful for parents' mental distress in this situation. Some differences are found between mothers' and fathers' experiences of the support. The aim of the current study is to examine parents' perceived mental distress when their infant is admitted to a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and factors important for their support. The relationship between parents perceived mental distress and satisfaction with NICU care are spare researched. Methods. A multicentre prospective cohort study. A total of 568 parental participants from six different NICUs geographically spread throughout Norway. Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and Impact of Events Scale-Revised (IES-6) were used to collect data. All the responses were rated and analysed using parametric analysis methods, descriptive statistics, logistic regression, factor analyses and linear regression analyses.Results. A total of 275 mothers reported receiving support from family and friends compared with 232 fathers. Younger parents had a higher OR of reporting anxiety compared with that of older parents. Parents with a primary or high school education level showed a higher OR of satisfaction than did parents with a college or university education level.Conclusion. There are differences in mothers' and fathers' responses to their experiences of various distress symptoms related to their children being in the NICU, as well as their received support from family and friends. There are also outcome differences between the age and education level of the parents and their experience of stress in the NICU. Mothers are more distressed and have more anxiety and depression than do fathers have.Trail registration: This project was first presented to the Regional Committees for Medical and Health Research Ethics which reported that the project was outside its mandate (2015/386). The project is approved from the Norwegian Data Protection Officials.


Background Compliance problems occur in most chronic diseases, especially in children. Facilitate adherence is an important issue. A positive perception of the parents for the treatment can help to improve the observance of their children, and to improve the control of the disease. Objectives This study describes the views of parents of patients with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) on different conventional treatments received by their children. Methods Forty seven patients with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) were included in a cross-sectional study. The diagnosis of JIA was made according to the criteria of the International League of Association of Rheumatology (ILAR). Information on disease activity, quality of life, sex, age, age at diagnosis, and duration of medication use were collected by use of a standardized questionnaire. Parents of children with JIA were surveyed. Questionnaires asked about patients' use of different therapies in the past 30 days, their perceived helpfulness (0 = not helpful; 3 = very helpful), perceived side effects (0 = none; 3 = severe), and whether each therapy would be recommended to other patients with JIA (Yes, No, Not sure). Results Forty seven children with JIA were included (28 male, 19 female); the median of age of the patients was [5-16] years. AINS were used by 29 (53.7%) by patients, Corticosteroids in 25.9% of cases and DMARDs (Disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs) in 18.5%. Biologic medications were the most appreciated (50% of patients judge that it very efficient), monitoring of steroid treatment in 36.4% of cases, the non steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) in 34.5%, and DMARDs in 22.2%. For the side effects, the biologic medications weremore tolerated, tracking des DMARD's in 66.7%, NSAIDs in 63.6% and corticosteroids in 45.5% of cases. Paradoxically, Corticosteroids and NSAIDs were more recommended to others families in 63.6% of cases, tracking des DMARDs. Conclusions This study suggests that parents of children with JIA viewed some symptomatic medications as being more helpful than some DMARD's. Disclosure of Interest None Declared


Dr. Laurence Richard DeBuys of New Orleans, the seventh President of the American Academy of Pediatrics, died at his home on June 20, 1957, at the age of 78 years. Dr. DeBuys died of a heart attack in his office while talking to his personal physician on the telephone.
 A native of New Orleans, Dr. DeBuys gained international reputation as a pediatrician and was one of the organizers of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which he served as president in 1936-37.
 Dr. DeBuys was graduated from Tulane University School of Medicine in 1904 and practiced general medicine in Houma for 2 years following his graduation. He went to New Orleans in 1910 after doing postgraduate work at the Harvard Medical School and limited his practice exclusively to pediatrics.


A magnet for trade and travellers from all over the world, stylish, cosmopolitan Amsterdam is a city not only of dreams and nightmares, of grand civic architecture and legendary beauty, but also of civil wars, bloody religious purges, and the tragedy of Anne Frank. In this fascinating examination of the city's soul, part history, part travel guide, Geert Mak imaginatively recreates the lives of the early Amsterdammers, and traces Amsterdam's progress from waterlogged settlement to a major financial centre and thriving modern metropolis.


Urbanization results in the phenomenal shift of human population towards urban centers, affecting the urban environment quality and standard of life. Urban growth along with the increased impervious built infrastructure, determines the climate in cities resulting in a distinct climatic condition termed the "Urban Heat Island". Tropical cities characterized by high temperatures and humidities, suffer extensively due to the urban heat island effect and urban climate studies are crucial in improving the thermal comfort outdoors. Therefore, this paper aims to analyze the impact of urbanization on thermal comfort conditions in the hot humid city of Chennai, India. Although, urban climate studies have gained significant attention globally, in India, climate studies are restricted to the investigations of the intensity of urban heat island and are primarily conducted by the India Meteorological Department. Scientific research correlating the link between climate and comfort trends are often neglected, but are essential in improving the comfort conditions in urban areas. The impact of urbanization on climate trends were studied using the historic climate records from the two meteorological stations, Nungambakkam and Meenambakkam for 20 year period from 1988 to 2008. The thermal comfort trends in Chennai Metropolitan Area were then analyzed in terms of Temperature Humidity Index and Relative Strain Index. The study revealed significant decrease in the thermal comfort conditions due to urbanization. Also, the results indicated the increasing discomfort in daytime temperatures over years. The climate aspects in planning regulations are generally ignored due to the lack of scientific assessments. This study was aimed at providing the scientific knowledge on the link between urbanization and thermal comfort and would aid in evolving climate-responsive design guidelines.


In the process of experiential learning, students acquire skills and values as the consequence of a direct experience. Experiential learning draws on senses, emotions, and cognition and appeals to learners' entire being. Such learning, by nature, enables the development of a variety of capabilities, such as planning, teamwork, coping with stressful situations, responsibility, and leadership. Experiential learning has many different definitions; it is referred to here as a "sequence of events that include one or more specific study objects requiring active involvement of learners in various stages of the process" (Walter & Marks, 1981, p. 1). This definition perceives the process of experiential learning as an active practice in which learners leave the conventional situation of mediated learning in favor of unmediated learning through practice. Experiential learning is based mainly on the behavioral-cognitive approach, which contends that change on the cognitive level might occur amidst an experience and project onto behavioral and emotional aspects as well. In the current article, an academic project, Mathematical Debate, which is an integrative part of the strategy and process of experiential learning is presented. The strategy of experiential learning is part of the perception of planning courses guided by a learning-focused approach, which emphasizes the formulation of learning outcomes. Planning a course in a learning-focused approach helps create dialogue between the academic faculty and students and leads to compatibility between the learning outcomes (course goals) and the teaching methods and goals of evaluation. The purpose of this article is to present the need for paradigmatic change and the transition from planning a content-focused course to planning a course that is focused on learning and on the experience of learning. This article shall present a case study of a course in the "backward design" method, which is compatible with the learning-focused paradigm. The challenges posed by this method will be discussed as well.


Abstract: Soybean protein content is a valuable quantitative trait controlled by multiple genes. The epistatic interaction of these genes can increase protein content observably. In this study, we used the multifactor dimensionality reduction method and a soybean high-density genetic map including 5308 markers to identify stable loci controlling protein content in soybean across 23 environments. In total, 31 897 046 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) – protein interaction pairs were detected. Among these, 46 stable SNP interaction pair associations with soybean protein content were identified under multiple environments, with 2 and 44 SNP pairs stably detected across four and three environments, respectively. Hot spot regions for interaction pairs were detected on linkage groups Gm17, Gm06, and Gm03, consistent with previous quantitative trait locus mapping. The epistatic effects and contributions of the stable interaction pairs ranged from 0.0008 to 0.5483 and 0.0003 to 0.5126, respectively. Eight SNP epistatic interaction subnets were constructed. Ten candidate genes from these interaction subnets showed a relationship with seed protein storage or amino acid biosynthesis and metabolism. The results of this study provide insights into the genetic architecture of soybean protein content and can serve as a basis for marker-assisted selection breeding.


This paper presents an axiomatic approach for the construction of spaces of almost periodic functions (Poincar\'e, Bohr, Besicovitch \cite{2}  and \cite{3}; all these spaces are classical in the theory of almost periodic functions). Other known spaces, like Stepanov's or Weyl's, could be also treated in this framework. But Stepanov's space is part of Besicovitch's, while Weyl's space does not appear in applications (mechanics, physics etc.), to the best of our knowledge. This approach to oscillation theory is applicable in more general cases than almost periodicity, as indicated in our paper [8]. The space constructed there is more general than other spaces of oscillatory functions (for instance, the spaces of Osipov, V.F. or Zhang Chuanyi, also in the list of references). Our approach, which also relies on principles of functional analysis, establishes a more direct connection between function and associated series, than in the classical framework. This fact is illustrated by some applications to functional equations in several papers of this author and his former students Y. Li and Mehran Mahdavi.


Image compression is one of the most widespread techniques for applications that require transmission and storage of images in databases. In this paper we discuss about the image compression techniques, their need for compression, their characteristics, principles, and classes of compression and various algorithm of image compression. This paper discuss about available image compression algorithms based on Wavelet, JPEG/DCT, Vector Quantizer and Fractal compression. We also sum up the advantages and disadvantages of these algorithms for compression of grayscale images.


This paper proposes a novel dewarping technique for document images based on digital cameras, from which images are warped on the curve surface of the book bound volume. Our technique transforms pixels in the curve coordinate system into the planar coordinate system. In the experiments,the test document images composed various font styles and size sprinted in common text books. The validity of our methods compares with the program's curvature correction of Abby FineReader Professional 9.0. Our technique outperforms the other up to 49 percent for word and character precisions. Nevertheless, our technique is independent on document contents, page layout, and font styles. The concept of our approach is based on dewarping the whole document pages by using the function obtained from experiments.


High pressure testing and operation of industrial tools and equipment can be hazardous to personnel and property in the event of an accidental mechanical failure or release of contained pressure. Hazard barricades are commonly installed around equipment to protect nearby personnel or property from projectile impacts or overpressure. The ASME Standard PCC-2 "Repair of Pressure Equipment and Piping" allows the use of hazard barricades for this purpose when a safe standoff distance cannot be satisfied, but it currently provides minimal guidance for engineered design. Other references provide guidance for preventing projectile perforation of a barricade. While perforation prevention is a key component of shield design, properly anchoring a shield and inter-connecting the shield components will make the difference between an effective barricade application and a barrier that could potentially compound the consequences of an accidental failure.
 This paper investigates the importance of engineered structural connections and consideration of global structural response in the design of protective barricades. The structural models focus on impact loading of steel plates and bolted connections, and the results are directly compared to test results in terms of effective barrier response.


Statins have been proven to be clinically effective in both the prevention and treatment of coronary artery disease. Coronary artery disease is a common and serious condition due to an underlying pathology of atherosclerosis, which is caused mainly by increased levels of low-density lipoprotein that accumulate in the walls of the coronary arteries. The main treatment option for high cholesterol levels is a group of cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins. They act mainly on the liver enzymes responsible for cholesterol synthesis, reducing the production of cholesterol. This has been proven to be very effective in decreasing the morbidity and mortality associated with coronary artery disease, as evidenced in a number of clinical trials and studies using statins.


Often it is assumed that scores from different cultural groups and/or language groups on a certain measurement scale or a certain item can be compared in a direct and straightforward way. However, this is not necessarily so. After all, such a direct comparison presupposes a certain degree of equivalence of the measurement scale or the item in question. This article evaluates to what extent scores of Flemish and Walloon respondents on a certain attitude scale are comparable. We investigate whether the measurement scale measures the same concept in both groups. We also account for a certain method effect (acquiescence), which allows us to evaluate the cross-cultural equivalence of the constructs more adequately and to find out whether respondents from both groups are equally prone to this type of method effect. Finally, an item bias evaluation is performed on the individual items of the measurement scale. These analyses lead us to conclude that it is justified to compare scores of Flemish and Walloons in a direct manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]; Copyright of Mens en Maatschappij is the property of Amsterdam University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)


The business world has witnessed the popularity of online shopping industry and has also seen the emergence of e commerce in other areas which has ultimately given rise to Digital Marketing. Digital is touching the urban India in lot many aspects and still holds tremendous potential which can multiply the opportunities for business enterprises. The rapidly emerging digital economy is challenging the relevance of existing marketing practices and radical redesigned of the marketing curriculum consistent with the business needs of the 21st century is required. Digital marketing has gained a lot of popularity with large and medium sized business creating their online presence and preventing their services and products through numerous social media channels and sites. This paper reveals the list of some of the most reliable digital marketing trends for the current year, challenges associated with the new age of marketing and suggestions to overcome it.


The purpose of this study was to identify the participation motives, goal orientation,
preferred coaching styles of the Malaysian Sports Schools' athletes and their respective
coaches' coaching styles. This study also examined the relationship between all the
variables and their influence on the athletes' performance. Instruments used in this study
were Motives for Sports Participation (MPS), Task and Ego Orientation in Sport
Questionnaire (TEOSQ), athlete's preferred and perceived version of the Leadership
Scale for Sport (LSS). The whole population of the two Malaysian Sports Schools for the
year 2007 (N = 854; SSBJ = 409, SSBP = 445) were recruited for this study. Results of
the study showed the motives for participation ranked accordingly, were Pride for the
Family, Improving Skill, Health and Physical Fitness, Doing the Country Proud, Yearn
for Challenges, Better Future, Eager to Succeed, Emotional Stability and Self Pride. The
findings also revealed that the athletes were more inclined toward Task orientation rather
than Ego. Coaching styles preferred by the athletes were Training and Instruction,
Democratic, Social Support and Positive Feedback. The present coaching styles practiced
by the coaches were similar to the styles preferred by the athletes. Autocratic behaviour
was the least preferred coaching style and seldom practiced by the coaches themselves.
T-test and ANOVA analyses revealed significant differences for participation motives,
goal orientation, preferred and present coaching styles based on gender, age and types of
sports. Canonical correlation showed relationships existed between participation motives,
preferred and present coaching styles. Multiple regression analysis showed that athletes
who chose participation motives for Skill Improvement and preferred Positive Feedback
coaching style are more likely to become successful athletes. However athletes who
chose extrinsic motives such as Doing the Country Proud and Better Future as their main
motives will negatively affect their achivements. In conclusion, to improve the
commitment and achievement of the young athletes in sports the authorities involved in
the development and planning of the sport programme should know in depth on what
motivates the athletes and provide training climate that can cultivate the intrinsic
motivation within them. Several implications and suggestions were highlighted for future
research.


Higher Education has become highly competitive and challenging. The goal of apt alumni association is to build affinity with the institution alumni and pride in its community, and to inform the public that prominent local business and civic leaders are institution's aluminous. Posters, direct mail, radio spots, and the web are the communication methods to build a strong aluminous group. Through quality professional alumni and their innovative ideas institution can provide quality education and services to the society in general and students in particular. The significance of apt alumni association is discussed by considering three factors namely (1) best practices used in the formation of the apt alumni association or in improvement of the existing one, (2) Active involvement or contribution to Alumni Association from apt alumni members and (3) Alumni Related Activities that are beneficial to the social cause. An empirical study on factors affecting in the enhancement of the brand name of the Institution through an apt alumni association is carried out by developing some hypothesis. The hypotheses are tested using primary data collected through questionnaire method, are analyzed and the results are discussed.


In a totally reconfigurable network, base stations can be viewed as amorphous entities that are dynamically configured to an optimal combination of radio access technologies based upon the time-varying user density and QoS requirements of the application traffic that they present or will present to it. In such a network, admission control is typically useful in providing load balancing and hotspot mitigation functionalities. In this paper, we propose to use a Measurement-based Admission Control (MBAC) to manage the allocation of baseband processing bandwidth in a multi-standard base station. Using realistic Voice and Video traffic traces, we highlight the MBAC performance in both homogeneous and heterogeneous traffic environments.


Abstract
The purpose of this chapter is to review and synthesise the available evidence for the health benefits of walking. It follows a non-systematic evidence review and finds that the evidence base for the health benefits of walking is growing. Increasingly we are finding strong evidence for the beneficial effects of walking for both individuals and populations. More evidence is required on how to better understand the health outcomes associated with walking and how to promote long term increases in walking behaviour. Systematic reviews of specific health benefits remain rare. Walking should be promoted in all population groups regardless of age or sex. There are currently few existing integrative syntheses of the physical and mental health outcomes associated with walking and this chapter aims to help fill that gap.


This paper introduces a new three-phase harmonic decomposition technique to extract voltage/current harmonics for use in grid-connected converters, such as for active power filters (APFs). The main function of this technique is to detect a selective order of harmonics for control purposes. This feature is useful when elimination of certain harmonics is of concern. Moreover, the proposed method can successfully detect and track the variations in the frequency of the signal and extract the time-varying harmonics. The theoretical analysis is presented and the performance of the method is experimentally evaluated. The methodology is applicable for a wide range of equipment such as uninterruptible power supplies, regenerative converters, active power filters, etc., as a basis for the detection of the reference signals.


The reflection of fundamental acoustic waves propagating in a thin piezoelectric plate by a periodic array of conducting strips of finite thickness or grooves has been theoretically and experimentally investigated. The analysis has shown that electrical shorting and mass loading affect the relationship of neighboring region impedances in a contrary manner. In some cases, these effects are comparable, and there exists a certain strip thickness for each piezoactive fundamental plate mode at which the reflection coefficient can become zero. A high efficiency of grooved reflector for plate acoustic waves was theoretically revealed. Experimental results for mass loading and grooved reflections, which have been obtained for an SH/sub 0/ wave propagating in the Y-X lithium niobate plate, are in a good agreement with the theory. They show a high efficiency of such reflectors and confirm the validity of using a model based on an equivalent circuit for the analysis of their operation. Investigations indicate that nearly 100% reflection of the SH/sub 0/ wave in the lithium niobate plate can be obtained with the use of a mass loading reflector containing 10 silver strips of thickness d/h=0.08 or a grooved reflector containing eight grooves of depth d/h=0.25. Here h is the plate thickness and d is the reflector thickness or depth.


In this paper it is presented one approach for creating testing environment of devices based on touch screens. Focused subject is testing of Android based devices, precisely required software to perform it. Android application has been developed that detects touches on screen, then packs them in formatted messages and sends them to central point where they are interpreted. Beside this paper proposes model of complete testing environment that would proved fast, inexpensive automated solution for verification of touch screen devices. Base for this paper is previous research done on stimulation boards that provide fast and controlled way of simulation touch events based on electric capabilities of capacitive touch screen. Implemented environment has been tested using commercial Android mobile phone to confirm software functionality and to analyze behavior of stimulation boards.


OBJECTIVE
To study the association between disease activity and complement activation prospectively in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Twenty-one SLE patients were examined monthly for 1 yr. Disease activity, autoantibodies, conventional complement tests and the following complement activation products were investigated: C1rs-C1inh complexes, C4bc, Bb, C3a, C3bc, C5a and the terminal SC5b-9 complement complex (TCC).

RESULTS
Modest variation in disease activity was noted. None of the patients had nephritis. Flare was observed at 27 visits. Four patients had anti-C1q antibodies in conjunction with modestly low C1q concentrations. The complement parameters were rather constant during the observation period. Slightly to moderately decreased C4 (0.05-0.10 g/l) was found in 10 patients and severely decreased C4 (<0.05 g/l) in seven patients. Decreased C4 was not associated with increased complement activation. Complement activation products were either normal or slightly elevated. TCC was the only activation product correlating significantly with score for disease activity at flare. None of the variables tested predicted flares.

CONCLUSION
Complement tests are of limited importance in routine examination of SLE without nephritis, although TCC is suggested to be one of the most sensitive markers for disease activity.


This short report summarises the scientific content and activities of a student-led event, the 1st student symposium by the UK Regional Student Group of the International Society for Computational Biology. The event took place on October 2014.


The subject of this study is the religious sect and lineage of Buu Son Ki Huong in Vietnam, with an emphasis on the Tu An Hieu Nghia sect that preserved many mandarin texts. The four characters Buu Son Ki Huong stand for the sect's lineage. The identity of Buu is still uncertain. "Son" refers to Doan Minh Huyen, who established the Buu Son Ki Huong sect. "Ki" is the founding leader of Tu An Hieu Nghia, Ngo Loi. Huong is unanimously considered to be Ta Ponl. Although Phat Giao Hoa Hao founded by Huynh Phu So is not identified here, the followers claimed themselves to belong to the same lineage. Their claim is rejected by the Tu An Hieu Nghia followers. However, when we examine them according to their Buddhist notions, we find the doctrines of Phat Giao Hoa Hao closely resemble that of Doan Minh Huyen's Buu Son Ki Huong. Within the Tu An Hieu Nghia sect, the followers have kept several morality books written in mandarin Chinese. This deserves scholars' attention, especially because the sect worships Lord Guan as their major deity. Their practice of filial piety is different from that of Chinese patrilineal society. In the followers' houses, sacrifices are offered to both patrilineal and matrilineal ancestor tablets. This is a feature of the Tu An Hieu Nghia sect. Linh Son Hoi Thuong Kinh is the primary scripture of Tu An Hieu Nghia. Its content integrates the cult of Guanyin, the incantation of Esoteric Buddhism, and Vietnamese folk religion. It shows that Buddhism is the very substance of Tu An Hieu Nghia. Because its doctrines and rituals are full of traces of syncretism, its religious concept is more complicated than that of Buu Son Ki Huong when it was first founded by Doan Minh Huyen.


Compositionally graded Al-SiCp composites were fabricated using pressureless infiltration process. Microstructure was examined and thermal properties were characterized for Al-SiCp composites. Al-SiCp composites with fairly uniform distribution and compositional gradient of SiC reinforcement in the Al matrix though the thickness direction was successfully fabricated. The thermal conductivity of Al-SiCp composites was measured at room temperature, 200°C and 400°C using laser flash method. Thermal conductivity of Al-SiCp composites increases non-linearly with decreasing the volume fraction of SiC. Cyclic thermal shock fatigue tests were performed by immersing Al-SiCp functionally graded materials(FGM) into water from the various heating temperatures of 400°C , 300°C and 200°C , repeatedly. After cyclic thermal shock fatigue tests, micro-hardness was measured and formation of cracks was investigated.e fati


With the global human population growing rapidly, agricultural production must increase to meet crop demand. Improving crops through breeding is a sustainable approach to increase yield and yield stability without intensifying the use of fertilisers and pesticides. Current advances in genomics and bioinformatics provide opportunities for accelerating crop improvement. The rise of third generation sequencing technologies is helping overcome challenges in plant genome assembly caused by polyploidy and frequent repetitive elements. As a result, high-quality crop reference genomes are increasingly available, benefitting downstream analyses such as variant calling and association mapping that identify breeding targets in the genome. Machine learning also helps identify genomic regions of agronomic value by facilitating functional annotation of genomes and enabling real-time high-throughput phenotyping of agronomic traits in the glasshouse and in the field. Furthermore, crop databases that integrate the growing volume of genotype and phenotype data provide a valuable resource for breeders and an opportunity for data mining approaches to uncover novel trait-associated candidate genes. As knowledge of crop genetics expands, genomic selection and genome editing hold promise for breeding diseases-resistant and stress-tolerant crops with high yields.


The time course of biodistribution of PET radiopharmaceuticals, when analyzed by appropriate models, can be used to image molecular differences between tumors and normal tissues. Understanding important molecular differences and how they change during treatment should lead to better characterization of tumor biology and ultimately better treatment outcome. Four examples will show the value of PET to image specific aspects of the tumor phenotype. Proliferation imaging started with [C‐11]‐thymidine and later with our development of [F‐18]‐FLT. The salvage pathway provides a robust measure of the growth rate of tumors. As an example, standard therapy for newly diagnosed glioblastoma multiforme is 60 Gy RT plus concurrent temozolomide. Many patients who complete therapy show MRIs consistent with tumor progression but they improve on continued TMZ. This pseudoprogression is an important problem; clinicians armed with MRI alone may wrongly conclude that standard treatment is failing. Misdiagnosing tumor progression could risk entering patients into trials of new agents, leading to falsely positive outcomes. FLT PET may help clarify this dilemma since preliminary studies have shown promise in distinguishing radionecrosis from recurrent disease. In these studies, we assessed FLT flux and transport as well as SUV and MRI and found that only FLT flux was an independent variable to distinguish the two groups. Anthracycline based therapy continues to be a mainstay for solid cancers but many of these tumors have variable levels of multiple drug resistance. Pglycoprotein is a membrane pump to exclude anthracyclines from intracellular accumulation. We use PET to quantify Pgp activity using a transporter substrate, [C‐11]‐verapamil. Pilot studies of sarcoma patients showed a range of uptake kinetics in tumors before treatment compared with after exposure to chemotherapy. Our initial data shows that the extent of acquired MDR measured by PET correlates with survival. Hypoxia is an important resistance factor in treatment. [F‐18]‐FMISO is an imaging agent that accumulates in hypoxia but not in necrosis. In outcomes studies of patients with brain tumors, FMISO was an independent predictor of outcome. Glioma patients with hypoxic volumes >15 cc had a median survival of ∼4 mo while patients with less hypoxia had a median survival of ∼15 mo compared to 12–14 mo with current standard therapy. These data argue that better treatments directed at hypoxic disease deserve serious attention. We have also imaged recurrent malignant gliomas before and after treatment with bevacizumab plus irinotecan and correlated FMISO changes with survival. Our preliminary results argue that anti‐angiogenic therapy may reduce hypoxia and lower resistance to radiotherapy and chemotherapy. We are imaging estrogen receptors using [F‐18]‐fluoroestradiol to select breast cancer patients for targeted therapy. FES predicts response to endocrine therapy in metastatic breast cancer. It shows a pharmacodynamic difference between two ER blocking agents, tamoxifen and fulvestrant. We are beginning to explore the value of FES PET in novel therapy intended to re‐express ER in breast cancer tumors refractory to endocrine therapy using a HDAC inhibitor. Citation Information: Mol Cancer Ther 2009;8(12 Suppl):A230.


Model-based reinforcement learning (RL) is regarded as a promising approach to tackle the challenges that hinder model-free RL. The success of model-based RL hinges critically on the quality of the predicted dynamic models. However, for many real-world tasks involving high-dimensional state spaces, current dynamics prediction models show poor performance in long-term prediction. To that end, we propose a novel two-branch neural network architecture with multi-timescale memory augmentation to handle long-term and short-term memory differently. Specifically, we follow previous works to introduce a recurrent neural network architecture to encode history observation sequences into latent space, characterizing the long-term memory of agents. Different from previous works, we view the most recent observations as the short-term memory of agents and employ them to directly reconstruct the next frame to avoid compounding error. This is achieved by introducing a self-supervised optical flow prediction structure to model the action-conditional feature transformation at pixel level. The reconstructed observation is finally augmented by the long-term memory to ensure semantic consistency. Experimental results show that our approach is able to generate visually-realistic long-term predictions in DeepMind maze navigation games, and outperforms the prevalent state-of-the-art methods in prediction accuracy by a large margin. Furthermore, we also evaluate the usefulness of our world model by using the predicted frames to drive an imagination-augmented exploration strategy to improve the model-free RL controller.


The present research features the genre of internet appeal as a dialogic conflict process. The paper focuses on the internet appeal as an element of conflict communication and a form of open dialogue between the state and society. The linguaconflictological approach was determined by communication strategies and intentional attitudes of the sender and recipient of the internet appeal. The authors proved that the internet appeal is a special sub-genre of the complaint and explained how conflict manifests itself in this genre. The analysis of strategies and tactics revealed conceptual ideas of internet users who applied for help to officials institutions. The empirical basis of research was obtained from the internet page of the Governor of Kemerovo region. The analysis showed the effect of various factors on speech strategies and tactics and revealed communicative intentions. The internet appeal is characterized by a set of specific strategies and tactics of conflict communication, determined by the gap between the intentional attitudes of the sender and the recipient.


In this paper we investigate the motion of molecules in crowded environments for two dramatically different types of molecular transport. The first type is realized by the dynamic lattice liquid model, which is based on a cooperative movement concept and thus, the motion of molecules is highly correlated. The second one corresponds to a so-called motion of a single agent where the motion of molecules is considered as a random walk without any correlation with other moving elements. The crowded environments are modeled as a two-dimensional triangular lattice with fixed impenetrable obstacles. Our simulation results indicate that the type of transport has an impact on the dynamics of the system, the percolation threshold, critical exponents, and on molecules' trajectories.


This paper deals with Russia's banking sector in 2014. The author focuses on relationship between banks and corporate customers, foreign transactions in the banking sector, banking regulation


Ada 83 has numerous shortcomings for concurrent systems: it requires additional tasks, adding overhead and increasing interrupt latency, and it has difficulty handling asynchronous transfer of control. Ada 95 offers features that address these shortcomings and simplify concurrent implementation: protected units, interrupt handlers, priority entry queuing, dynamic task priorities, and asynchronous select statements. Using their Flexible Manufacturing System, the authors demonstrate how these features improve Ada and promote efficiency.


(1) This review aims to evaluate the effectiveness of treatments with virtual reality systems (VRSs) on the functional autonomy of older adults versus conventional treatment. (3) Methods: Systematic review and meta-analysis. An electronic data search was carried out, following the PRISMA statement, up to February 2020. We combined results from clinical trials using VRSs for the improvement of basic and instrumental activities of daily living. The guidelines of the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions were followed for calculations and risk of bias. The Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) was used to assess the quality of evidence. (4) Results: The final analysis included 23 studies with a population of 1595 participants. A moderate, but clinically significant, effect was found for basic activities of daily living (BADLs), (Standard Medium Deviation, SMD 0.61; 95% CI: −0.15–1.37; P < 0.001). A small effect was found for instrumental ADLs (Instrumental Activities of daily living, IADLs) (SMD −0.34; 95% CI: −0.82–0.15; P < 0.001). Functional ambulation was the BADL which improved the most (SMD −0.63; 95% CI: −0.86, −0.40; P < 0.001). (5) Conclusion: The use of VRSs is an innovative and feasible technique to support and improve the functional autonomy of community-dwelling older adults. Due to the very low quality of the evidence for our main outcomes, the effects of a VRS on the BADLs and IADLs are uncertain. Clinical trials of a higher methodological quality are necessary to increase the level of knowledge of its actual effectiveness.


This paper studied how to make the digital library safer. Therefore, the traditional information access methods were being supplanted with and increasingly displaced by new digital methods, information accessibility is no longer completely dependent on location. Digital libraries further extended this by providing access to organized collections over the Internet. Security, therefore, was very crucial in the management of these libraries, security could not however be addressed in a consistent way without integrating some form of access control. Therefore, we proposed a context-sensitive access control model called Role Based Access Control Manager (RBACM). The association of a policy with a user and specific material did not occur until the user wished to access the material. The enforcement of copyright rules in the general security framework of the digital library was part of the over all design of the system. Then we used the .NET Framework to develop Role Based Access Control Manager, it provided an access control scheme that can address the unified security needs of a digital library system. The architecture of RBACM was based on a Role Based Access Control that used the capabilities of XML and on current Role Based Access Control principles.


Different approaches have been developed for the introduction of macromolecules, proteins and DNA into target cells. Viral (retroviruses, lentiviruses, etc.) and nonviral (liposomes, bioballistics etc.) vectors as well as lipid particles have been tested as DNA delivery systems. However, all of them share several undesirable effects that are difficult to overcome, such as unwanted immunoresponse and limited cell targeting. The discovery of the cell penetrating peptides (CPPs) showing properties of macromolecules carriers and enhancers of viral vectors, opened new opportunities for the delivery of biologically active cargos, including therapeutically relevant genes into various cells and tissues. This review summarizes recent data about the best characterized CPPs as well as those sharing cell‐penetrating and cargo delivery properties despite differing in the primary sequence. The putative mechanisms of CPPs penetration into cells and interaction with intracellular structures such as chromosomes, cytoskeleton and centrioles are addressed. We further discuss recent developments in overcoming the lack of cells specificity, one of the main obstacles for CPPs application in gene therapy. In particular, we review a newly discovered affinity of CPPs to actively proliferating cells. IUBMB Life, 58: 7 ‐ 13, 2006


In April 1902, on the Caribbean island of Martinique, La Commission sur le Vulcan convened to make a fateful decision. Mt. Pelée was sending smoke aloft and spreading ash across the capital city of Saint-Pierre. Comprising physicians, pharmacists, and science teachers, the commission debated the danger of an eruption and the burden of evacuation, and judged the safety of the city's population to be "absolutely assured." Weeks later, Mt. Pelée erupted and approximately 30,000 residents died within minutes, leaving only two survivors. Environmental crises require pivotal decisions, and such decisions need timely, credible scientific information and science-based advice. This requirement is the focus of a report released last month by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences*, calling attention to improvements in the operation and delivery of science during crises.


ABSTRACT The history of the body is of course contested territory. Postmodern interpretations in particular have moved it from a history of scientific knowledge of its structure and function toward histories of the various meanings, identities and experiences constructed about it. Underlying such interpretations have been large and important claims about the unfortunate consequences of the rise of a political economy associated with capitalism and medicalisation. In contradistinction, this paper offers a view of that historical process in a manner in keeping with materialism rather than in opposition to it. To do so, it examines a general change in body perceptions common to most of the literature: a shift from the body as a highly individualistic and variable subject to a more universal object, so that alterations in one person's body could be understood to represent how alterations in other human bodies occurred. It then suggests that one of the chief causes of that change was the growing vigour of the market for remedies that could be given to anyone, without discrimination according to temperament, gender, ethnicity, social status or other variables in the belief that they would cure quietly and effectively. One of the most visible remedies of this kind was a 'specific', the Peruvian, or Jesuits' bark. While views about specific drugs were contested, the development of a market for medicinals that worked universally helped to promote the view that human bodies are physiologically alike.


This article reports the results of a mixed-method study that examined processes and outcomes of parent-worker engagement in child welfare. Knowledge gained from a qualitative exploration of engagement at one neighborhood-based child welfare agency informed the gathering of quantitative data from 74 different parent-worker dyads in this sequential exploratory design. Seven themes instrumental to engagement emerged: (a) clear, collaborative goal setting; (b) hopefulness; (c) parent acknowledgment of their situations; (d) motivation; (e) respect for cultural differences; (f) honest and straightforward communication; and (g) persistent and timely efforts by all. Quantitative analyses yielded little relationship between engagement and either visitation rate or case disposition by 9 months post placement. Although these data provide support for the clinical benefits of working to improve parent-worker engagement in child welfare services, they fail to provide evidence of a relationship between engagement and improved case outcomes.


Since backlight dimming widely used for power reduction of mobile devices degrades the image quality in brightness and contrast, image enhancement is exploited to compensate the degradation. In this paper, we propose a novel backlight power reduction scheme using an efficient image compensation algorithm that scales discrete cosine transform (DCT) coefficients of image in the compressed domain. To reduce the computational burden of the conventional backlight dimming method where decompression is performed prior to image compensation in the spatial domain, we introduce a computationally efficient image compensation algorithm that processes only dominant DCT coefficients of images using a mapping function in the DCT domain. Experimental results indicate that our proposed method provides higher visual quality with reduced complexity as compared to conventional image compensation schemes.


The issue of deriving cross-scale aggregation rules has been extensively investigated over the last two decades. A widely used approach consists of formulating grid-scale surface radiances using the same equations that govern the patch-scale behavior but whose arguments are the aggregate expressions of those at the patch-scale. This approach derives the area-averaged or effective radiative surface temperature as might be observed using low spatial resolution satellite data. The problem however is that such satellite data exhibit large directional effects and no study has addressed this issue. The present work tackles this problem in the thermal infrared domain. The directional effects are studied by modeling. Thus, an infrared sensor observing a two-dimensional (2-D) heterogeneous plane surface is modeled. The 2-D heterogeneous plane surface is simulated by a grid with two homogeneous elements (vegetation-bare soil). The angular properties of the local surfaces, assumed homogeneous, are calculated by a multiple scattering model. The equivalent angular radiance of the complete heterogeneous scene is then determined by applying the aggregation method. This radiance is very sensitive to the surface heterogeneity, especially when the spatial variation of the surface temperature is significant and when the directional behavior of the surface is non-Lambertian. As a result, an angular variation of 6% on radiance was obtained on a heterogenous surface between a zenith angle of 70/spl deg/ and on-nadir measurements.


Koperasi Produsen Syariah Industri Kreatif is a cooperative sharia which has a role to improve the quality of life member through the efforts of  Small and Medium Enterprise (SME). SME  that exist in Koperasi Produsen Syariah Industri Kreatif is engaged in the field of industry creative. While maqashid sharia is an Islamic law that has the intent and purpose is important in the life of man, namely obtaining the benefit. Through the concept, among others: 1) the absorption of knowledge and increased education of members; 2) conveying a sense of justice for the community, especially members; 3) the realization of member welfare. The method that is used in the article it is a method of qualitative were then analyzed by descriptive qualitative. Analisis maqashid syariah pada Koperasi Produsen Syariah Industri Kreatif di Bojonegoro runs according to the concept and purpose, namely that the educational process obtained by members is very positive for members of the Koperasi Produsen Syariah Industri Kreatif, the availability of batik, convection and screen printing materials makes it easier for members to increase production, increase finances family as well as the ability to utilize technology for the members' creative industry businesses which are increasingly growing. As the function of the sharia cooperative itself is to encourage people's lives to prosper and benefit.


An absolute increase in bone marrow CFU-S was observed within 4 hours after intraperitoneal administration of 3 mg PHA-M or 250 microgram PHA-P. At that time, there was no increase in spleen CFU-S, while a pronounced decrease in the number of circulating CFU-S was noted. A two to fourfold increase in bone marrow CFU-C was found within 12 hours after intraperitoneal administration of a similar dose of PHA-M or PHA-P. Addition of PHA-M or PHA-P at small concentrations resulted in a marked inhibition of granulocytic colony formation whereas macrophage colony growth became depressed only at very high concentrations.


To effectively display hyperspectral imagery for visualization purposes, the three RGB channels should be selected or extracted from a hyperspectral image under the criteria of maximum information or maximum between-class separability. Seven band selection (OIF, SI, Cl, divergence, transformed divergence, B-distance, JM-distance) and five feature extraction (principal component analysis, linear discriminant analysis, class-based PCA, segmented PCT (SPCT), independent component analysis) methods and their variations are examined and compared using CASI hyperspectral imagery with the goal of detecting Centaurea solstitialis (yellow starthistle or YST), an invasive weed, in an annual grassland in California. Three indicators, information index (Infodex), separability index (Sepadex) and average correlation coefficient (ACC) are proposed to evaluate the quality of the generated images. The results suggest that both the combination of the three SPCT channels and the combination of the second PCA channel with the positive and negative of the first LDA channels (PCA2, LDA1, -LDA1) can enhance our ability to visualize the distribution of YST in contrast to the surrounding vegetation.


The quality of online services highly depends on the accuracy of the recommendations they can provide to users. Researchers have proposed various similarity measures based on the assumption that similar people like or dislike similar items or people, in order to improve the accuracy of their services. Additionally, statistical models, such as the stochastic block models, have been used to understand network structures. In this paper, we discuss the relationship between similarity-based methods and statistical models using the Bernoulli mixture models and the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm. The Bernoulli mixture model naturally leads to a completely positive matrix as the similarity matrix. We prove that most of the commonly used similarity measures yield completely positive matrices as the similarity matrix. Based on this relationship, we propose an algorithm to transform the similarity matrix to the Bernoulli mixture model. Such a correspondence provides a statistical interpretation to similarity-based methods. Using this algorithm, we conduct numerical experiments using synthetic data and real-world data provided from an online dating site, and report the efficiency of the recommendation system based on the Bernoulli mixture models.


The Hubble Space Telescope has imaged the central part of M87 over a 10 week span, leading to the discovery of 32 classical novae (CNe) and nine fainter, likely very slow, and/or symbiotic novae. In this first paper of a series, we present the M87 nova finder charts, and the light and color curves of the novae. We demonstrate that the rise and decline times, and the colors of M87 novae are uncorrelated with each other and with position in the galaxy. The spatial distribution of the M87 novae follows the light of the galaxy, suggesting that novae accreted by M87 during cannibalistic episodes are well-mixed. Conservatively using only the 32 brightest CNe we derive a nova rate for M87: novae yr−1. We also derive the luminosity-specific classical nova rate for this galaxy, which is . Both rates are 3–4 times higher than those reported for M87 in the past, and similarly higher than those reported for all other galaxies. We suggest that most previous ground-based surveys for novae in external galaxies, including M87, miss most faint, fast novae, and almost all slow novae near the centers of galaxies.


In this study, the ethanol extract of the inner bark of the Syderoxylum obtusifolium (EESob) was tested in the model of cyclophosphamide-induced hemorrhagic cystitis. Male Wistar rats were submitted to the injection of cyclophosphamide, 1 h after the treatment with EESob (200 or 400 mg/kg) or vehicle. After 24 h, the urinary bladder was excised and the edema, myeloperoxidase activity and malondialdehyde formation were measured. Also, myeloperoxidase activity and malondialdehyde formation in lung, spleen and liver and leukocyte counts in the peripheral blood were evaluated. Injection of cyclophosphamide increased myeloperoxidase activity and edema. The former was inhibited by the EESob at 400 mg/kg, but the latter was not affected. Although cyclophosphamide did not alter the bladder malondialdehyde formation, pre-treatment with EESob at both doses markedly increased this parameter. Lung and liver parameters or leukocyte counts were not altered by EESob. The spleen myeloperoxidase activity and malondialdehyde formation were not affected by cyclophosphamide, but were increased by the treatment with EESob. These results suggests that EESob administration to rats decrease myeloperoxidase activity in bladder tissue, but is accompanied by lipoperoxidation in this tissue, as well as in spleen, which do not support the use of EESob to treat cystitis.


This brief presents a frequency tracking loop (FTL) to realize a crystalless wireless sensor node (WSN) for wireless body area network (WBAN). By tracking a remote wireless RF reference for system clock calibration, the proposed FTL allows WSNs to tolerate a large-frequency error from on-chip CMOS oscillators. Moreover, to achieve energy-efficient transmissions in crystalless, a sufficiently accurate convergence clock is required to enable burst overmegabits-per-second system throughput with minimized operation duty cycle. For the dedicated purpose, a comparison-based binary-search tracking scheme, which ensures accurate and robust convergence against noisy wireless channel, is further developed to manage the operation of FTL. The intermediate frequency back-end part of FTL is implemented in 90-nm CMOS process. Measurement results show that the FTL extends an initial tolerance of system clock error to ±3% and achieves a final quartz-crystal comparable ±50-ppm accuracy. This enables 4.85-Mb/s wireless links and improves 79% energy efficiency by RF operation-time reduction, giving a power-saved and miniaturized WSN device for WBAN applications.


Research universities seeking to promote community-engaged scholarship (CES), defined here as research of mutual benefit to community and academic interests, will discover that it requires capacity building and institutional support. At the University of California at Merced, our 7-year experience in building a new public research university that integrates CES into the fabric of the campus has benefited from the lessons of pioneers in the field. We have also gained valuable experiences that can serve those who wish to integrate CES into their research and problem-solving activities. In this article, we extend Blanchard et al.'s (2009) useful guide for faculty development in CES. By adding reference to the competencies that can guide community participation in and support of CES, the expanded guide encompasses both academic and community interests and highlights best practices necessary for supporting CES in our universities and communities.


In the Netherlands, small amounts of cannabis can be lawfully sold to consumers in so-called coffee shops. Many communities in the country do not have coffee shops, and users under 18 years of age are not allowed to enter coffee shops. A field sample of 773 current cannabis users were interviewed in seven Dutch cities, two without any coffee shop, five varying in coffee shop density. The vast majority (n = 665; 86.0%) buy their own cannabis, and more than 70% of the cannabis is bought in licensed coffee shops. In logistic regression analyses, three variables were significantly and independently associated with buying from unlicensed suppliers: coffee shop density, age, and sex. With higher coffee shop density it was less likely to buy outside of coffee shops. Under-age buyers were more than twice as likely to buy their cannabis from unlicensed dealers. Males were more likely to buy their cannabis from unlicensed sellers than females. A substantial proportion of unlicensed suppliers sell other drugs as well, thereby increasing the risk of being offered hard drugs when buying soft drugs. This risk is greater for minors than for adults, since a higher proportion of minors use unlicensed selling points.


Necrobiosis Lipoidica (NL) is a granulomatous dermatosis, mainly affecting people with diabetes due to collagen degeneration. Although there are different treatments, all have little response. Among the options, the Intense Pulsed Light (IPL) and the Laser Erbium-YAG enhance the production and remodeling of the collagen treating the atrophy, besides reducing the erythema by the coagulation of blood vessels. We report a case of a 24-year-old woman with type I Diabetes Mellitus who underwent NL treatment on her left forearm in seven sessions with the association of IPL and 2940 nm Erbium-YAG laser. We observed improvement in central atrophy and erythema.


Nutritional assessment and requirements of patients with carcinoma of the esophagus treated by surgery are based on three series of patients: 1) the nutritional state of 22 assessed on admission, using recognized nutritional markers, the majority of whom were found nutritionally deficient; notably 72% were in negative nitrogen (N) balance. 2) Another series of 52 patients was based on the relationship between dysphagia and loss of weight and negative N balance; 48% were severely dysphagic and had lost an average 8.5% of their usual weight, and 89% were in negative N balance. Thus, the association between the two clinical markers and the N balance was clearly indicated. 3) Postoperative calorie and N requirements necessary to maintain a positive N balance were assessed and found to be 40 to 45 kcal/kg body wt and 0.2 to 0.25 g N/kg body wt.


This paper starts with the observation that liberal and discursive perspectives have been dominant in academic analyses of the role of technology in the future of democracy. The perspective of democracy as a participatory practice is largely ignored by academic investigations of electronic democracy. This paper argues that new technologies increasingly enable citizens to organize their own forms of public value production in a Do It Yourself DIY State: governance without government. The DIY State should not be seen as utopia. Although the DIY State may reflect the hippy ideal of a supportive community, it could also take the form of a 'jungle' where only the fittest survive. A further understanding of this form of democracy, of the way it is affected by new technologies, and of the remaining role for government, is needed to inform public debate and practices.


Road plays an important role to the development of any region. Accessibility is the main factor which impact to the distribution of many factors like population, market centers, educational centers, entertainment facilities etc. West Vidarbha is the part of Vidarbha region in Maharashtra state and found averagely development of road network.Present paper has attempts the evaluation of accessibility of main road network in the study region.


Wastewater from oil is the main residue of the oil industry. Studies have shown that wastewater, or produced water, can be treated and used as an alternative source for the irrigation of oilseed crops. The aim of this work was to evaluate the effect of treated produced water on the biological properties of soil cultivated with the castor bean cv. BRS Energy and the sunflower cv. BRS 321 respectively, for two and three successive cycles of grain production. The first cycle in the sunflower and castor bean corresponds to the dry season and the second cycle to the rainy season. The third crop cycle in the sunflower relates to the dry season. The research was carried out from August 2012 to October 2013, in the town of Aracati, in the State of Ceara (Brazil), where both crops were submitted to irrigation with filtered produced water (FPW), produced water treated by reverse osmosis (OPW), or groundwater water from the Acu aquifer (ACW), and to no irrigation (RFD). The treatments, with three replications, were evaluated during the periods of pre-cultivation and plant reproduction for soil respiration (Rs), total organic carbon (TOC) and the population density of bacteria (Bact) and filamentous fungi (Fung) in the soil. In the sunflower crop, these soil attributes are sensitive to the irrigation water used. Irrigation of the castor bean affects soil respiration. Under the conditions of this study, irrigation with FPW may be a short-term alternative in the castor bean and sunflower crops.


A questionnaire was designed to describe and understand the role of the registered nurse in patient teaching as perceived by nurses. The questionnaire was distributed to 1355 nurses working in an acute care tertiary teaching hospital. The data indicated most nurses expressed strong agreement with the majority of items relating to their skill and educational preparation to teach patients. Selected questions relating to the nurse's role as a patient educator showed nurses viewed their patient education role as satisfying and expected by their patients. Needs relating to their patient education role included: additional time to teach patients, more educational materials, peer feedback regarding teaching effectiveness, and sufficient medical information. Additionally, the majority of nurses perceived that patients did not have sufficient knowledge to care for themselves after leaving the hospital and that too much information about their condition was withheld from them. Summary scales showed significant differences in area of work and position with the nurse's perception of the health educator role.