The recent understanding of the key role of adhesion molecules in the pathogenesis of chest allergy in parasitic infections may provide a pharmacological target for the associated asthmatic symptoms. Circulating levels of the endothelial cell adhesion molecules (CAMs): sICAM-1, sVCAM-1 and sE-selectin in sera of 18 allergic asthmatic patients. 16 fascioliasis cases (acute & chronic), 24 fascioliasis cases with allergic chest manifestations and 10 apparently healthy control subjects were estimated by ELISA method. Also, IL-4 serum level was evaluated in all groups. Chest allergy in association with fascioliasis included mainly bronchial asthma, beside eosinophilic bronchitis, persistent wheezing and chronic cough. The study provided evidence that adhesion molecules expression is up regulated in acute and chronic fascioliasis cases with allergic chest manifestations. sVCAM-1 seemed to be an early indicator of asthma development in human fascioliasis. IL-4 cytokine was suggested to be responsible for the increased expression especially in the chronic phase of the disease, yet the role of other cytokines cannot be excluded.


Abstract This study sought to develop a system for observing dance activities in the classroom environment (SODANCE) based on the system for observing fitness instructional time (SOFIT). SODANCE utilizes direct observation to quantify the physical activity intensity of dance activities. Female students aged 11–17 years participated in an activity protocol of SOFIT and common dance activities to identify appropriate coding categories. Each student wore a heart rate monitor and accelerometer while performing the following activities: lying, sitting, standing, walking, running, single-leg balances, leg swings, pirouettes, and leaps. Ultimately, heart rate reserve output was determined to be the best assessment, followed by accelerometry-based vector magnitude output, and expert opinion. Chi squared tests were used to determine if there were significant differences in the proportion of subjects whose heart rate reserve data classified the activity as light vs. moderate vs. vigorous. In conclusion, the dance activities were coded as follows: single-leg balances = 4, leg swings = 4, pirouettes = 5, and leaps = 5. The developed SODANCE instrument may be used by researchers and practitioners to assess physical activity intensity during dance classes in the public schools.


In a laboratory experiment, we investigated the impact of procedural explanations and demographic group membership on dependent measures of diversity program support. Our analysis took one important perspective: the examination of work-force-diversity programs from the perspective of multiple beneficiary (i. e., targeted) demographic groups. The experiment's design used 99 student volunteers in a 3 × 3 (Explanation × Demographic Group) factorial design. Our findings reveal that both adequate explanation and demographic group membership have a significant impact on how potential work-forcediversity program beneficiaries expect their coworkers to perceive them. In addition, group membership was a significant predictor of potential beneficiaries' attitudes toward the diversity program and their self-perceptions of competence. Finally, we discuss implications for future research and diversity practice.


Even if there is fluctuation in fish species diversity and relative abundance of the species, Lake Ziway provides numerous environmental and/or ecosystem services. Despite to its importance, the Lake faces numerous threats because of its public good characteristics. Following the exponentially increased demand for fishes and the resource being public good, magnificent number of individuals are participated in capture fisheries in order to secure their livelihood. Free access to the fisheries, illegal fishing gears and environmental degradation are among the main reasons of decline in fish species and degradation of the Lake. From the current stock assessment survey, the study showed decline in biomass of fish over time. These negative trends in the Lake Ziway fisheries and poor water quality led to loss of livelihoods of many households who are directly or indirectly dependent on the Lake. Therefore, management of Lake Ziway fishery becomes very essential to manage the resource efficiently in a way that maximize fishers present and future benefits otherwise, the fish resource will disappear in the near future. Concerning management practices, most of the fishery regulations in this Lake put emphasis on the restriction of fishing gear, but the application of this instrument with its restrictions is almost zero. Moreover, Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs) foster greater transparency and accountability for the management and enhancement of fishery resources by quota owners. In this regard, since it generates a sense of ownership and its versatility in providing a stable and productive market, ITQs are more effective than gear restrictions and in fact, it has major social benefits by controlling overharvesting. Due to this, to ensure the nutritional and food security of the country currently and in the near future, there is a need to enforce fishing gear restriction and set ITQs. Furthermore, there must be strong effort on studying the current stock of fish, and numbers of legal and illegal fishers to set Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs) and Total Allowable Catch (TAC) for sustainable fishery management of Lake Ziway.


Incompatible, i.e., nonjointly measurable quantum measurements are a necessary resource for many information processing tasks. It is known that increasing the number of distinct measurements usually enhances the incompatibility of a measurement scheme. However, it is generally unclear how large this enhancement is and on what it depends. Here, we show that the incompatibility which is gained via additional measurements is upper and lower bounded by certain functions of the incompatibility of subsets of the available measurements. We prove the tightness of some of our bounds by providing explicit examples based on mutually unbiased bases. Finally, we discuss the consequences of our results for the nonlocality that can be gained by enlarging the number of measurements in a Bell experiment.


Fibre properties may be an important source of information to identify, conserve and protect intraspecific diversity within culturally significant fibre plants such as harakeke (Phormium tenax, New Zealand flax). Māori weavers recognise differences in whītau * (fibre aggregate prepared using traditional practices) extracted from leaves of different harakeke cultivars. However, tensile properties of fibre aggregates are reportedly highly variable. The aim of this study was to investigate variation in fibre aggregate physical and mechanical properties among leaves harvested from different fans within two bushes representing different cultivars of harakeke. Tenacity, extension to maximum load, specific modulus and specific energy to maximum load of fibre aggregates differed between the bushes, and also among leaves within each bush. Leaf width and thickness were weakly correlated with fibre aggregate properties suggesting that wider, thicker leaves yield tougher and more pliable fibre aggregates. Variability among leaves differed according to the property measured, and was highest for fibre aggregate length and lowest for specific energy to maximum load. Although fibre aggregate tenacity (or strength) is commonly used to compare intra and interspecific fibre properties, specific modulus, extension at maximum load and specific energy to maximum load were all more appropriate for identifying intraspecific differences in harakeke fibre properties.


The effect of glucocorticoid on cell proliferation, the expression of glucocorticoid receptor, and the relationship between inhibition of cell growth and apoptosis were investigated in four established neuroepithelial tumor cell lines (KNS42, T98G, A172, and U251MG). Glucocorticoid receptor expression was located in the cytoplasm of untreated cells, but translocated into nuclei after treatment with dexamethasone in KNS42, T98G, and A172 cells. U251MG did not express glucocorticoid receptors. Dexamethasone significantly inhibited the growth of KNS42 and T98G cell lines, at high concentrations in contrast to growth stimulation at low concentration. Dexamethasone inhibited proliferation of A172 cell line at all concentrations from 10(-4) M to 10(-7) M. These were prevented by RU38486, a specific glucocorticoid antagonist. Apoptosis did not occur in any cell lines after dexamethasone treatment. There was no response to glucocorticoid by U251MG cells. Dexamethasone treatment of neuroepithelial tumor cells expressing glucocorticoid receptors causes translocation into the nucleus to modulate cell proliferation upon binding of different concentrations of dexamethasone in vitro. Dexamethasone inhibits proliferation of some neuroepithelial cell lines, not by glucocorticoid-induced apoptosis. The bimodal potential of glucocorticoid to stimulate or suppress proliferation of neuroepithelial tumor cells expressing glucocorticoid receptor must be considered in clinical trials.


Fresh leaves from khat trees ( Catha edulis Celestrasae ) are chewed daily by over 20 million people in Yemen and East African countries. Chewing khat (qat) is a popular social habit which has spread to Yemeni, Somali or East African communities in the USA and UK.1 The pleasure derived from khat chewing is attributed to the euphoric actions of S-(−)-cathinone, a sympathomimetic amine with properties similar to amphetamine.2 Although cathinone is restricted in the UK under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, khat possession and use are not.1 Cathinone increases blood pressure and heart rate through noradrenaline (norepinephrine) release from peripheral neurones similar to amphetamine.2 Controlled studies in human volunteers have shown increases in blood pressure after chewing khat coinciding with raised plasma cathinone concentrations.3 Cardiovascular complications from cathinone abuse may therefore be similar to those of amphetamine. We have noticed increasing numbers of patients presenting with acute heart attack in the evening either during or after a khat chewing session. This prospective study was therefore undertaken to examine whether khat chewing has a role in precipitating acute myocardial infarction.

One hundred and fifty seven patients of Arabian origin admitted to the intensive care unit of Al-Thawra hospital, Sanaa, Yemen with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) between November 1995 and November 1997 underwent history …


The common deterioration of civil infrastructure systems and the threat of extreme loadings require facility managers to improve their knowledge regarding the health of the structures that they manage. A dense array of wireless sensors installed in a structure could provide ample amounts of empirical data for monitoring structural health. In addition to being a low cost alternative to traditional cable-based monitoring systems, wireless sensor networks offer a distributed computing paradigm that allows sensors to self interrogate structural response data. In this paper, improvements are made to an existing wireless sensing unit to enhance its measurement accuracy and to render it better suited for in-network data processing. In particular, the proposed wireless sensor is an improvement over previous designs since it is constructed using a compact four layer printed circuit board. Furthermore, the wireless sensor utilizes an implementation of the IEEE 802.15.4 standard for wireless networks allowing it to participate in scalable, peer-to-peer communication that is adaptable to network changes without requiring reprogramming.


Perhaps the most valuable section of the book is on the establishment, maintenance, and enforcement of sanitary practices among workers, an aspect of foodhygiene which has received too little emphasis in the past, and to which too little attention is being directed in these days of compulsory or voluntary pasteurization of such diverse products as egg-pulp and coconut and the use of antibiotic dips to preserve the store life of meat and fish. All too often the effect of installing expensive plant or the use of costly additives is neutralized in practice by the sloppy behaviour of unhygienic operatives whose excuse is that the food product is being disinfected anyway. As perhaps might be expected the section of the book dealing with microbiological hazards to food production is less fully dealt with than would have been the case had one of the authors been medically qualified, but if the advice given elsewhere in the book is followed a marked improvement in microbiological standards should follow. Though the legal aspects of food hygiene standards and their enforcement are dealt with solely in the light of United States law in these matters, we in Great Britain, and even more those people in the less well developed parts of the world who are coming to rely on the export of partly or completely processed foods for their trade, still have much to learn from the American pioneers in the field, and this, book will prove an excellent guide. It has a copious bibliography of the jungle of literature, and is to be welcomed as a useful compendium on which improved standards of practice can be soundly based. W. H. H. MERIVALE.


A thermosiphon is utilized as a thermal shunt to reduce the cool-down time of a cryogenic system cooled by a two stage cryocooler. The cool-down time reduction by the thermosiphon is determined by the type of working fluid which is directly related to the operating temperature range of the thermosiphon. A mixed working fluid has a potential to widen the operation temperature range of the thermosipohon. In this study, the thermosiphon using N and CF mixture as the working fluid is fabricated and tested to verify its transient heat transfer performance. The thermosiphon with the mixed working fluid has no noticeable reduction of cool-down time compared with that of the thermosiphon with pure working fluid in this experiment. However, it seems that the thermosiphon with mixed working fluid may have an advantage according to the cooling capacity of a cryocooler, the cooling target temperature and the size of a cooling object.


Introduction: Since 1950s surgical treatment of extracapsular hip fractures is done using a variety of different implants. Unstable fractures are fractures with lateral wall or posteromedial comminution,fractures with reverse obliquity patterns and fractures extending into the femoral neck or subtrochanteric regions. These types are not well controlled by the sliding compression hip screw and side plate and are associated with a high rate of fixation failure when treated with dynamic hip screw. Theoretical biomechanical advantages of intramedullary nails over screw and plate fixation are attributed to a reduced distance between the hip joint and the implant. Success of Proximal femoral nail for the treatment of such fractures is based on biomechanical principles,cadaver studies and clinical series. Although it is seems that nail fixation is superior to sliding compression hip screw and side plate fixation for the treatment of unstable fractures, this point is not well proven till date. Orthopedic literature does not support the superiority of intramedullary nail fixation over sliding hip screw fixation for the treatment of intertrochanteric femoral fractures and intramedullary nail fixation is associated with a higher complication rate. Till date the debate over superiority of extramedullary fixation versus intramedullary implants continues especially in unstable intertrochanteric fractures. This article highlights the advantages and disadvantages of proximal femoral nail in intertrochanteric fractures with review of literature.


The environmental impact and potential health challenges resulting from artisanal mining in Shango area of Minna, North Central Nigeria was put into perspective. The methodology adopted for the research includes field work and laboratory analysis. Results of field observation reveal that mining activity resulted in physical environmental impact such as land degradation, destruction of vegetation, erosion of soils and degrading water quality. Results from the laboratory analyses show that soils are contaminated with elements such as Cu (27.7ppm), Cd (0.6 ppm), Hg (0.62 ppm) and Ag (0.35 ppm) and generally show high status when compared to published standard for upper continental crust. While, Zn (14.8ppm), Ni (7.17ppm), Mn (207ppm), Pb (0.58ppm), As (0.4ppm), Co (0.55ppm), Mo (0.16ppm), and Zr (129.8ppm) are rated low in line with the published standard; other determined elements such as Cr (37.8ppm), Fe (31.1ppm) and Au (0.2ppm) are high. These elements can easily be absorbed by plants and subsequently accumulate in their tissues. When such plants are eventually eaten by man, it may lead to different health problems such as slow growth rate, liver and kidney problem. High concentration of these elements in plant tissues may causes different problems.


In this study, a new active circuit building block, namely the dual-X differential difference current conveyor (DXDDCC) is proposed to obtain flexibility in analog IC design. The proposed device is an extension of the differential difference current conveyor (DDCC). Unlike the DDCC which has only one X terminal, DXDDCC has two X terminals in order to achieve an electronic tuning scheme. In order to prove the versatility of the proposed element, a KHN biquadratic filter is designed using the proposed device and simulated with SPICE simulation program. Simulation results clearly show that the proposed circuit building block can be used to design filters with linearly tunable characteristics.


Background

Few studies have reported psychosomatic-prone functional damage in cancer patients. Because psychosomatic diseases are pathological conditions, it is difficult to identify their degrees. The armchair sign is a test used to assess voluntary muscle relaxation. This study aimed to evaluate the frequency of psychosomatic-prone functional damage in cancer patients and its association with the armchair sign.
Methods

This was a secondary analysis of a prospective, multicenter, observational clinical study. We evaluated the frequency of psychosomatic-prone myofascial pain syndrome (MPS) in patients with incurable cancer who were at the start of palliative care and how it is associated with the armchair sign. Moreover, we assessed the usefulness of the armchair sign for the diagnosis of psychosomatic-prone MPS.
Results

A total of 101 patients were enrolled from March 2018 to December 2018, of whom 44 met MPS diagnostic criteria. Of these, 27 patients (61.3%) had psychosomatic-prone MPS. There was a significant association between the armchair sign and psychosomatic-prone MPS (p = 0.002). Sensitivity and specificity were 40.7% (95% confidence interval: 18.0–63.4) and 100.0%, respectively. The area under the curve score was 0.704 (95% confidence interval: 0.553–0.855).
Conclusions

MPS in patients with incurable cancer has a high frequency of psychosomatic pathology. The armchair sign may be useful as an ancillary test for the diagnosis of psychosomatic-prone MPS.
Trial registration:
 UMIN000031338. Registered 16 February 2018.


Coronary heart disease (CHD), the most common form of cardiovascular disease, is a chronic, multifactorial disease. With significant advances in our understanding of the pathophysiological process of CHD in recent years, more and more drug targets have been identified and adopted in drug discovery for CHD. Purpose and methods: In this review, a comprehensive perspective of pathological and pharmacological development of CHD was introduced through searching in multiple bibliographic sources. Results: CHD related signal pathways (including 412 proteins), drug targets (including 101 proteins) and pharmacological interventions were summarized and visualized. Conclusions: The knowledge of these signal pathways and drug targets may facilitate new drug discovery and medicine intervention for CHD in the future.


Evidence abounds to support the view that economy of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has been growing in recent times, but there is considerable concern that the growth has not been accompanied by economic transformation. The lack of economic transformation is traceable to low level of investment in transformation activities especially raw material processing industries occasioned, at least in part, by the fact that sub-Saharan Africa has the highest cost of doing business in the world with cost of infrastructure services making up a disproportionately large part of production and trade costs. This is a reflection of serious deficit in the three dimensions of infrastructure, namely quality, quantity and access. Against this background, it was considered topical to devote the plenary session of December 2007 to the issue of infrastructure and economic development in Africa. This volume, therefore, contains the three papers presented at that plenary session. The first paper by Cesar Calderon and Luis Serven on infrastructure and economic development in SSA focused on analysing the linkages between infrastructure and economic development pointing out that the literature on effects of infrastructure on economic development is inconclusive. Noting that physical infrastructures are rarely homogenous and analysing a large panel data for 136 countries, they found that infrastructure development is associated with both higher growth and lower inequality. They also found that while infrastructure made a large contribution to reducing inequality in East and South Asia, the impact was relatively modest in SSA due to poor quality of infrastructure. They concluded that corruption adversely affect impact of infrastructure on productivity and growth stressing, among other things, the importance of independent regulation agencies in offsetting some of the consequences of corruption on infrastructural services. Kennedy K. Mbekeani, in the second paper, presented a review of international experience in infrastructure, trade expansion and regional integration and lessons for Africa. Delving into the relationships between trade, infrastructure and regional expansion, he asserted that improvements in productivity lead to increased trade and can foster regional integration through improved intra-regional trade and industrial relocation. There is persuasive evidence that adequate infrastructure provision is a key requirement for trade liberalisation to achieve its intended objective of efficient resource reallocation and export growth. The paper concluded by providing a summary of some Africa's infrastructure programmes that have the potential to lead to trade expansion and regional integration. Finally, the paper by Mthuli Ncube on financing and managing infrastructure in Africa presents arguments on the relationship between infrastructure investments and economic growth in Africa. Infrastructure encompasses transport, telecommunications, water and sanitation, power and gas, and major water works, and also focuses on quantity versus quality of infrastructure. Ncube also found that, in the literature, the causal nexus between infrastructure capital and economic growth and development, in general, has been ambiguous. However, it does seem one thing is clear, namely that sustainable high economic growth often occurs in an environment where there is a meaningful infrastructure development, although it is not obvious which leads the other. The paper presents the various financing strategies, around Public--Private partnerships (PPPs) and examples of PPP-type arrangements in Africa. Ncube concluded the paper by exploring policy implications of the state of infrastructure and economic growth in Africa. Copyright The author 2010. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Centre for the Study of African Economies. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: email@example.com, Oxford University Press.


In the present work, a procedure based on a dispersive medium for carbon black (CB) isolation from soil samples for analysis was proposed for the first time. Polymeric and biological dispersants and a sequential use of both dispersants were assayed. Asymmetrical flow field flow fractionation with dynamic light scattering detector (AF4-DLS) and sedimentation field flow fractionation with multi-angle light scattering detector (SdF3-MALS) were used for CB quantitation and characterization in the achieved dispersions. Soil samples contaminated with CB were processed, and CB isolation depended on the solid size distribution and composition and dispersant nature. More quantitative isolations were achieved for the four soils treated by the biological dispersant. As the organic matter percentage is higher in soil, the CB isolation was better, varying between 75 and 99% with standard deviation (s) ⩽ 2% for all soils. A soil contaminated with a CB-based pigment paste was analyzed, achieving (99 ± 2)% expressed as expanded uncertainty (K = 2) of dispersive isolation by the biological dispersant, and the sampling was scaled to 250 g of soil with positive results. The procedure was completed by CB recovery to obtain a solid residue able to be reused if necessary. For the filter-aided recovery step, different membranes (fiberglass, nylon, and Teflon) with a pore size between 0.1 and 5 μm were tested. The quantitation of the CB retained in the filter was measured by diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. Teflon (0.10 μm) provided better results for CB recovery, and its re-dispersion was also studied with suitable results. Determination of CB from the filters by diffuse reflectance spectrometry provided the same results than AF4 for CB dispersions.


This study aimed to explore the experiences of obstetric care in Scotland among women who
have undergone FGM. The study adopted a qualitative approach and data were collected
using tape recording interviews. Interviews were conducted with seven African women who
have undergone FGM and experienced obstetric care needs in Scotland. Findings of the study
indicate that the women interviewed had unsatisfactorily experiences in Scotland during the
obstetric period, particularly in relation to communications. The study concludes that FGM is
not being addressed adequately during obstetric care and there is a lack of communication on
the subject between healthcare professionals and women who have undergone the procedure.
The study identifies the need to educate health care professionals about the issue of FGM,
using more culturally sensitive methods.


A growing body of recent research suggests that verbal categories, particularly labels, impact categorization and perception. These findings are commonly interpreted as demonstrating the involvement of language on cognition; however, whether these assumptions hold true for grammatical structures has yet to be investigated. In the present study, we investigated the extent to which linguistic information, namely, grammatical gender categories, structures cognition to subsequently influence categorical judgments and perception. In a nonverbal categorization task, French-English bilinguals and monolingual English speakers made gender-associated judgments about a set of image pairs while event-related potentials were recorded. The image sets were composed of an object paired with either a female or male face, wherein the object was manipulated for their conceptual gender relatedness and grammatical gender congruency to the sex of the following target face. The results showed that grammatical gender modulated the N1 and P2/VPP, as well as the N300 exclusively for the French-English bilinguals, indicating the inclusion of language in the mechanisms associated with attentional bias and categorization. In contrast, conceptual gender information impacted the monolingual English speakers in the later N300 time window given the absence of a comparable grammatical feature. Such effects of grammatical categories in the early perceptual stream have not been found before, and further provide grounds to suggest that language shapes perception.


Abstract:  Gastrointestinal serotonin (5‐HT) and melatonin are two closely related neuromodulators which are synthesised in the enterochromaffin cells of the intestinal epithelium and which have been shown to be involved in the physiopathology of the gastrointestinal tract. The effects of 5‐HT depend on 5‐HT availability which is, in part, modulated by the serotonin transporter (SERT). This transporter provides an efficient 5‐HT uptake after release and is expressed in the membrane of the enterocytes. Although the origin and effects of 5‐HT and melatonin are similar, the interrelationship between them in the gastrointestinal tract is unknown. The main aim of this study was to determine whether melatonin affects SERT activity and expression, and, if so, to elucidate the mechanisms involved. Caco‐2 cell line was used to carry out the study as these cells have been shown to endogenously express SERT. The results showed that melatonin inhibits SERT activity by affecting both Vmax and kt kinetic constants although SERT synthesis or intracellular trafficking did not appear to be affected. The melatonin effect seemed to be independent of melatonin receptors MT1 and MT2 and protein kinase C and cAMP intracellular pathways. Our results suggest that the inhibition of SERT might be due to a catalytic effect of melatonin on the allosteric citalopram‐sensitive site in SERT. This study shows, for the first time, that melatonin modulates SERT activity, thus demonstrating the feedback system between melatonin and the serotoninergic system in the gastrointestinal tract.


We present a Bayesian hierarchical model for quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) data, aiming at relative quantification of DNA copy number in different biological samples. The model is specified in terms of a hidden Markov model for fluorescence intensities measured at successive cycles of the polymerase chain reaction. The efficiency of the reaction is assumed to depend on the abundance of the target DNA through fluorescence intensities, and the relationship is specified based on the kinetics of the reaction. The model incorporates the intrinsic random nature of the process as well as measurement error. Taking a Bayesian inferential approach, marginal posterior distributions of the quantities of interest are estimated using Markov chain Monte Carlo. The method is applied to simulated data and an experimental data set.


Summary: We compared the formation of 14CO2 from [I-14C]fatty acids in homogenates of cultured skin fibroblasts and white blood cells from 25 patients with adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD) and from 24 controls. The ALD group included 16 boys with childhood ALD, five men with adrenomyeloneuropathy (AMN), and two boys and two girls with neonatal ALD. The substrates were unbranched saturated fatty acids ranging in chain length from 16-26 carbons. From C24:0, the radioactive CO2 production by homogenates of ALD fibroblasts and white blood cells was 17% and 37% of control, respectively, and from C26:0 it was 17% of control in ALD fibroblasts. The CO2 evolution from palmitate (C16:0) in the ALD was identical to the control group; for C18:0, the value for ALD cells was 76% of control, and fatty acids with chain lengths between C18:O and C24:0 gave intermediate results. Results for childhood ALD patients were similar to those for the AMN patients. More limited studies with cultured amniocytes of fetuses with childhood ALD gave results similar to those obtained with cultured skin fibroblasts, and results with neonatal ALD patients appeared to be the same as for childhood ALD and AMN. Studies of three women who were carriers for childhood ALD gave values intermediate between ALD and control. The total C26:0 levels in ALD cultured skin fibroblasts and white blood cells were 4-6 times that of control; the total C24:0 levels were increased 10-30%, whereas the C22:0 levels were unchanged.The results suggest that ALD patients have a defect in the oxidation of very long chain fatty acids (C24:0 and longer) but not for the degradation of fatty acids with a chain length of 18 carbons or less. Such a defect could account for the accumulation of the very long chain fatty acids in a variety of tissues and lipid moieties. The accumulation of these fatty acids, coupled with the metabolic data presented here, suggests that normal catabolism of very long chain fatty acids involves a metabolic pathway which is distinct from that for other fatty acids, and that this pathway is genetically deficient in patients with ALD.


The combining abilities for yield, drought tolerance and quality related traits inCamellia sinensis were estimated using a 4 x 4 full diallel mating design. There was significant phenotypic variation for the nine traits measured among the progeny and their parents. Generally, parents with good combining ability produced progeny with above average performance for all the traits evaluated. The general combining ability (GCA) effects were significant for all but one black tea quality trait, TF:TR, while specific combining ability (SCA) effects were significant for fermentability, pubescence and bud weight. All the traits but TF:TR however were predominantly governed by additive gene effects. Strong maternal influence for all traits was evident except for thearubigins and bud weight signifying the importance of the choice of female parents in tea breeding programmes targeting yield, abiotic stress related traits and processing of black tea and special tea products like the silvery tips. Significant non-additive effects were demonstrated by all traits apart from yield, TF:TR and bud weight. However, only drought tolerance, TF and pubescence exhibited unidirectional dominance effects. The results show that the assessed traits are highly heritable and guided breeding and judicious clonal selection would lead to further tea improvement. Although no trait can be treated singly, utilization of open pollinated seed targeted towards improvement of yield and black tea quality traits particularly high levels of total polyphenols and pubescence aimed at developing a designer clone for specialty tea product would suffice given judicious choice and inclusion of suitable progenitors in seed orchards. It is inferred that the basic information about combining abilities is valuable for breeding of elite cultivars.


Extreme heterogeneity of breast cancer (BC) is considered to be one of the reasons that affects the success of treatment. According to current classifications, there are 4 molecular subtypes (MS). The basis for subtypes division is immunohistochemical testing of tumor cell receptors estrogen (ER), progesterone (PR), HER2-neu and Ki-67. The doctrine of the tumor MS was the basis for the individualization of therapeutic tactics in patients with breast cancer. It was studied that luminal A subtype is the most common and the most favorable, with hormone therapy being a highly effective treatment method. Luminal B subtype, HER2 positive and triple negative MS is characterized by a high aggressiveness, worse survival rate of patients and better prognostic effect of chemotherapy. The importance of determining the level of Ki-67 for assessment of tumor aggressiveness was revealed. Significant differences in receptor status of the primary tumor and metastases were proven. Data on the impact of changes in receptor status of the tumor prognosis are ambiguous and need further study. The use of targeted agents in the treatment of HER2 + patients can significantly improve treatment outcomes, turning this MS from historically aggressive subgroup to quite favorable.


American social media platforms can affect the political systems of different states in varying ways. The effect varies both between and within democratic and authoritarian states and depends mainly on three political actors: domestic opposition, external forces, and the governing regime. Depending on how these three actors use social media, as well as on a state capacity and political regime type, there are four different effects that social media can have: It can have a weakening effect on strong democratic regimes, an intensifying effect on strong authoritarian regimes, a radicalizing effect on weak democratic regimes, and a destabilizing effect on weak authoritarian regimes. There are a number of possible approaches U.S. policymakers can take to decrease the effects of social media platforms and to guarantee citizens the right to freedom of opinion based on reliable, pluralistic, and objectively sourced information.


Clinical observations show that the HIV infection is often associated with affections of the skin. In order to examine the involvement of the epidermal immune system in the HIV infection, we determined accessory cell function of epidermal cells from HIV-1-infected patients. For this we measured the proliferative response of enriched CD(4+)-T-lymphocytes from HIV-infected patients and noninfected controls to stimulation with anti-CD3 and IL-2 in the presence of epidermal cells; the enhancement of the response is dependent on the presence of functionally intact accessory cells. The capacity of epidermal cells to increase the anti-CD3-stimulated T-cell proliferative response was significantly enhanced in HIV patients (CDC III/IVA) as compared with noninfected donors. It is discussed, whether the increased activity of epidermal cells from HIV-infected patients may be responsible for several of the dermal lesions in the course of an HIV infection as due to an enhanced production and release of epidermal cell-derived cytokines.


This work demonstrates the fabrication of a hydrogel-based dual drug carrier, its capability to sequential release of dual protein drugs and its impact on neovascularization at the chick chorioallantoic membrane.


The aim of the present work is to propose and describe a complete photovoltaic DC source model that can supply grid connected inverters, which are usually employed in distributed generation plants as interconnection to the power system. The main advantage of this model is that all non ideal characteristics of the photovoltaic (PV) source are taking into account, and complex weather conditions patterns can be included in the model to simulate, study and predict the effects of increasing penetration of PV generators in the grid. The model includes: A photovoltaic array consisting of 34 photovoltaic modules with total peak power of 7412 Wp and a boost-buck DC-DC converter that operates to assure maximum power extraction by using a maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithm based on the incremental conductance method.


This paper focuses on distinguishing obstacles from free regions towards navigation of the visually challenged. This is an important and challenging research problem due to the unconstrained navigating environment containing diverse obstacles. It is necessary to detect if any obstacles are lying ahead in advance with high precision which will result in a warning to the person. We first implement Ulrich's classical obstacle detection method and find its detection accuracy to be high. However, the higher false positive rate for free path detection motivates us to improve the method. Instead of just comparing reference area with region of interest, we embed the saliency information after adaptive computation of histogram-based saliency threshold. The weightage of initial obstacle map with thresholded saliency information results in a much accurate and desirable obstacle map. The experimental results with a newly created database of unconstrained indoor and outdoor images support the claims made in the paper.


Numerous neurological lesions and tumors of the paranasal sinuses and oral cavity may spread into the middle and posterior cranial fossae through the anatomical apertures. For the appropriate management of these pathologies, many extensive surgical approaches with a comprehensive overview of the anatomical landmarks are required from the maxillofacial surgery's point of view. The surgical significance lies in the fact that iatrogenic injury to the petrous segment of the temporal bone including the carotid artery, sigmoid sinus, and internal jugular vein, can lead to surgical morbidity and postoperative pseudoaneurysm, vasospasm, or carotid-cavernous fistula. To simplify understanding complex anatomy of the temporal bone, we aimed to review the surgical anatomy of the temporal bone focusing on the associations between the surface landmarks and inner structures. Also, breaking down an intricate bony structure into smaller parts by compartmental approach could ease a deep concentration and navigation. To identify the anatomic architecture of the temporal bone by using reference points, lines and compartments can be used to supplement anatomy knowledge of maxillofacial surgeons and may improve confidence by surgical trainees. Especially, this systematic method may provide an easier way to teach and learn surgical spatial structure of the petrous pyramid in clinical applications.


Single-node plantlets were evaluated as a model system for experiments on grapevine trunk diseases. Experiments were conducted to determine how to grow the plantlets, how Botryosphaeria sp. and Eutypa lata symptoms were expressed in the plantlets compared with field-grown plants, and how the detached single-node plantlets (from living canes) responded compared with canes attached to vines under controlled conditions. Single-node plantlets could be grown in distilled water for up to 6 months. Under controlled conditions, significantly longer lesions formed on the single-node plantlets than on attached canes, suggesting that the single-node system may be more sensitive to infection than whole vines. The system shows promise for use in initial experiments on trunk diseases, before field experiments are conducted, but further work is required to validate the method.


ObjectiveTo determine if measurements of gastric intramucosal pH have prognostic implications regarding ICU mortality. DesignProspective comparison of outcome. SettingGeneral adult ICUs in two teaching hospitals. PatientsEighty consecutive patients age 18 to 84 yrs (mean 63.4), 50 men and 30 women, 55% in the medical and 45% in the surgical services. MethodsGastric intramucosal pH was measured on ICU admission and again 12 hrs later. A value of ≥7.35 was used to differentiate between normal and low gastric intramucosal pH. Measurements and Main ResultsFifty-four patients had a normal gastric intramucosal pH and 26 patients had a low gastric intramucosal pH on ICU admission. The mortality rate was greater in the low gastric intramucosal pH group (65.4% vs. 43.6%; p < .04). The frequency of sepsis and the presence of multisystem organ failure also were greater in the low gastric intramucosal pH group (p < .01 ). Further stratification of patients according to gastric intramucosal pH measured 12 hrs after admission showed a greater mortality rate in patients with persistently low gastric intramucosal pH when compared with patients with normal gastric intramucosal pH during the first 12 hrs (86.7% vs. 26.8%; p < .001). ConclusionsMeasurements of gastric intramucosal pH on ICU admission, and again 12 hrs later, have a high specificity for predicting patient survival in this ICU patient population (77.8% to 80.6%). Furthermore, given its relative noninvasive nature, tonometrically measured gastric intramucosal pH may be a useful addition to patient monitoring in the ICU.


Soil-moisture information plays an important role in disaster predictions, environmental
monitoring, and hydrological applications. A large number of research papers have
introduced a variety of methods to retrieve soil-moisture information from different types of
remote sensing data, such as optical data or radar data. We evaluate the most robust methods for
retrieving soil-moisture information of bare soil and vegetation-covered soil. We begin with an
introduction to the importance and challenges of soil-moisture information extraction and the
development of soil-moisture retrieval methods. An overview of soil-moisture retrieval methods
using different remote sensing data is presented-either active or passive or a combination of
both active and passive remote sensing data. The results of the methods are compared, and
the advantages and limitations of each method are summarized. The comparison shows that
using a statistical method gives the best results among others in the group: a combination of
both active and passive sensing methods, reaching a 1.83% gravimetric soil moisture (%GSM)
root-mean-square error (RMSE) and a 96% correlation between the estimated and field soil
measurements. In the group of active remote sensing methods, the best method is a backscatter
empirical model, which gives a 2.32-1.81%GSM RMSE and a 95-97% correlation between the
estimated and the field soil measurements. Finally, among the group of passive remote sensing
methods, a neural networks method gives the most desirable results: a 0.0937%GSM RMSE
and a 100% correlation between the estimated and field soil measurements. Overall, the newly
developed neural networks method with passive remote sensing data achieves the best results
among all the methods reviewed.


Proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) are promising devices for clean power generation in fuel cell electric vehicles applications. The further request of high-efficiency and cost competitive technology make high-temperature proton exchange membranes utilizing phosphoric acid-doped polybenzimidazole be favored because they can work well up to 180 °C without extra humidifier. However, they face quick loss of phosphoric acid below 120 °C and resulting in the limits of commercialization. Herein UiO-66 derived carbon (porous carbon-ZrO2 ), comprising branched poly(4,4'-diphenylether-5,5'-bibenzimidazole) and polyacrylamide hydrogels self-assembly (BHC1-4) membranes for wide-temperature-range operation (80-160 °C) is presented. These two-phase membranes contained the hygroscopicity of polyacrylamide hydrogels improve the low-temperature proton conductivity, relatively enable the membrane to function at 80 °C. An excellent cell performance of BHC2 membrane with high peak power density of 265 and 656 mW cm-2 at both 80 and 160 °C can be achieved. Furthermore, this membrane exhibits high stability of frequency cold start-ups (from room temperature to 80 °C) and long-term cell test at 160 °C. The improvement of cell performance and stability of BHC2 membrane indicate a progress of breaking operated temperature limit in existing PEMFCs systems.


This report is concerned with designs for field intervention studies utilized in operations research. Beginning with an overview of the objectives of operations research, the authors go on to review the difficulties associated with using "true experimental" designs. Proposed guidelines for designing quasi-experimental studies are then discussed. The guidelines focus on using multiple sources of data, multiple measurements over time, and multiple replications of the study intervention. Finally, an example is presented of one ongoing operations research study in Sri Lanka.


Nonvolcanic tremors (NVT) have been observed across the Aleutian arc. The tremorlike events are observed over a large region spanning seismic networks on several volcanoes and are therefore unlikely to be related to any one volcanic complex. Although locating the events is not possible at the present time, we provide general locations based on move-out times and amplitudes across multiple networks. The majority of NVT events are recorded in regions where the subducting Pacific plate is inferred to be locked or transitioning from creeping to locked. One NVT event was recorded during a time of increased seismic and volcanic activity in the area near the Rat and Andreanof Islands. Similar simultaneous increases have been observed in the Aleutians in the past and are hypothesized to be caused by large regional stress changes, possibly caused by slow-slip events. A prominent recent NVT event was recorded on the Korovin and Great Sitkin seismic networks approximately one hour after the onset of the 12 July 2008 eruption of Okmok volcano. NVT does not appear sporadically across the Aleutian arc but seems to concentrate in a few regions. With 2500 km of subduction zone, we have an opportunity to examine these regions and compare them to regions not producing NVT in an attempt to identify factors that may play a role in its creation.


Objectives: Hypothenar hammer syndrome (HHS) is a rare vascular disease caused by blunt trauma of the hypothenar region. The optimal therapeutic strategy remains debatably since no large comparative studies are available yet. We want to evaluate the effectiveness of intra-arterial thrombolysis on angiographic and clinical outcome parameters in patients with HHS by performing a systematic review of the existing literature. Methods: A literature search of PUBMED/MEDLINE and SCIENCE DIRECT databases was performed up to May 2021. Results: In total, 16 manuscripts with 43 patients were included in the systematic review. Intra-arterial thrombolysis led to angiographic improvement in 29 patients (67.4%) and to clinical improvement in 34 patients (79.1%). Deterioration of arterial perfusion or clinical symptoms after thrombolysis were absent. Post-interventional complications were reported in only one patient (2.3%) without any bleeding complication. Logistic regression analyses demonstrated that a combined administration of fibrinolytics and heparin was associated with a significantly improved arterial patency [OR 12.57 (95% CI 2.48–97.8), p = 0.005] without significant amelioration of clinical symptoms [OR 3.20 (95% CI 0.6–18.9), p = 0.172]. The use of rt-PA compared to other fibrinolytics and a prolonged thrombolysis duration of more than 24 h did not show statistically significant effects. Intra-arterial thrombolysis was significantly less effective in patients who had undergone thrombolysis with a delay of more than 30 days regarding clinical improvement [OR 0.07 (95% CI 0.00–0.54), p = 0.024]. Conclusions: Intra-arterial thrombolysis with a combination of fibrinolytics and heparin is an effective and safe therapeutic option in patients with acute HHS.


A case with unilateral hypoplasia of the internal carotid artery was reported. The rerouting of anomalous vessels in the middle ear, visualized by otoscopy, was demonstrated with CT and MRI. Associations with internal carotid hypoplasia, the intercarotid collaterals, both anomalous middle ear arteries and the enlarged internal maxillary artery were confirmed with MRI. MR images were helpful to diagnose not only the anomalous vessels but also the multiple anastomoses.


The prediction properties of models used in the dual response approach to robust parameter design are studied, and two procedures that improve the performance of the approach are proposed. The first procedure suggests scaling of the noise variables to reduce the expected mean squared error of the variance model, based on the concept that the range of the noise variables used in the experimental design should contain most of their distribution. Naturally, the scaling improves the fit of the part of the model associated with the noise factors. However, it is shown that such scaling does not alter the variance contribution of the noise factors, which is fundamental for robust parameter design. The second procedure combines the variance due to the noise factors with the variance due to the prediction error of the fitted model (i.e., it looks at the variance of the predictions), thus considering all sources of variability present in the problem. An unbiased estimator of this combined variance is developed. Two examples are given for each procedure. The second proposed approach is compared with the dual response approach recommended in the literature by means of the prediction intervals of the responses, as recently discussed by Myers et al. (1997). It is found in the examples that the new procedure gives narrower intervals (50% and 12% percent smaller) where the degree of improvement depends, as expected, on the goodness of fit of the response surface model. The resulting solutions thus obtained are robust to both noise factor and parameter estimation uncertainty. Negative variance values, possible in the usual dual response approach in the literature, are avoided in the new formulation.


Rationale: Spasticity is a major complication after stroke, and botulinumtoxin A (BoNT-A) injection is commonly used to manage focal spasticity. However, it is uncertain whether BoNT-A can improve voluntary motor control or activities of daily living function of paretic upper limbs. This study investigated whether BoNT-A injection combined with robot-assisted upper limb therapy improves voluntary motor control or functions of upper limbs after stroke. Patient concerns: Two subacute stroke patients were transferred to the Department of Rehabilitation. Diagnoses: Patients demonstrated spasticity in the upper extremity on the affected side. Interventions: BoNT-A was injected into the paretic muscles of the shoulder, arm, and forearm of the 2 patients at the subacute stage. Conventional rehabilitation therapy and robot-assisted upper limb training were performed during the rehabilitation period. Outcomes: Manual dexterity, grip strength, muscle tone, and activities of daily living function were improved after multidisciplinary rehabilitation treatment. Lessons: BoNT-A injection in combination with multidisciplinary rehabilitation treatment, including robot-assisted arm training, should be recommended for subacute spastic stroke patients to enhance appropriate motor recovery.


Abstract In order to better understand the microstructural evolution in steel welds, in-situ experiments using time-resolved X-ray diffraction (TRXRD) and laser scanning confocal microscopy (LSCM) are performed and the phase transformations that occur during welding of C–Mn–Al steels are directly observed. Ferrite and austenite phases are identified and quantified in the fusion zone (FZ) using the real time TRXRD and LSCM data. The results show non-equilibrium peritectic transition during rapid cooling, in contrast to the equilibrium δ-ferrite solidification that occurs under slow cooling conditions. Austenite nucleates along δ-ferrite grain boundaries during the δ→γ transformation, whereas during the γ→α transformation, the microstructures change from Widmanstatten ferrite (WF) to intragranular bainitic ferrite in the rapidly and slowly cooled welds, respectively. Using these real time observations, important kinetic information about phase transformations during steel weld solidification can be determined.


A series of novel ladder-type poly(azomethine amide)s (PAMs) were
prepared from new azomethine containing carboxylic acid monomer (TCA) with
simple aromatic diamines and aromatic diamines with thiourea groups (TDAs) by means of
phosphorylation polycondensation reaction. Molecular weights of the polyamides
were evaluated viscometrically, and the inherent viscosities were in the range of 0.31 - 0.58 g/dl. These
ladder-type polymers were not freely soluble in common organic solvents.
Structure of monomers and polymers were confirmed using FT-IR, 1H-NMR
and 13C-NMR spectroscopic analysis. Removal of Cu2+ and
Cd2+ from aqueous solutions by adsorption onto the polyamides was
investigated. The effect of pH, initial metal ion concentrations and contact
time were studied in batch experiments. The polyamides were found to be highly
effective adsorbents for the removal of Cu2+ and Cd2+ metal ions from aqueous solutions. In a mixture of metal
ions, the selectivity order was found to be Pb(II) > Cu(II)
> Cr(IV) > Cd(II).


The role and social impact of universities is present in the analysis of researchers, politicians and leaders worldwide increasingly. The main objective of this article is to describe the main inter-university networks and international initiatives that have contributed to the strengthening of university social responsibility in recent decades, developed a review of literature and web pages associated with each of the instances identified. In the first part, the main dependent global initiatives of international organizations are analyzed, while in the second examples of inter-university networks developed in Latin America are exposed. The main conclusion is that the influence of UNESCO in incorporating social responsibility at university level has been instrumental in the past ten years, despite which most Latin American university systems do not incorporate socially responsible behavior as a variable explicit operation.


This paper argues that shifts in the focus of human services – and, in particular, what counts as a successful outcome of such provision – reflect wider societal trends in values and concerns. The current ascendance of 'quality of life' (QoL) as a metric of service outcome is noted. The core functions of QoL assessments are identified and related to underlying qualities reflected in the majority of QoL assessments: comprehensiveness, context independence and the capability to reflect personal subjectivity. The attractiveness of these qualities is linked to current trends in philosophical thought, underpinning contemporary culture and social policy. It is proposed that the pre-eminence of QoL assessment as an approach to service planning and evaluation reflects the capacity of the QoL concept to accommodate tensions between modernist and postmodernist expectations, and serve as a basis for transparent resource allocation between competing priorities for restricted public spending. QoL may thus be seen as a successful 'meme' which has reproduced in a social and intellectual climate to which it is well adapted. The consequences of this for the use and abuse of QoL assessments within services for persons with intellectual disabilities are discussed and practical implications noted.


The purpose of this investigation was to define the action of each of the thenar muscles and to correlate their individual actions with the action of the group as a whole.

The attachments of the thenar muscles to the extensor expansion has been emphasized because extension at the distal joint of the thumb is an important part of their action. The explanation given for the dynamic flexion deformity of the distal thumb joint, or Froment's sign, that appears with ulnar-nerve paralysis, is based upon the failure of the muscles innervated by the ulnar nerve to extend the distal phalanx of the thumb during pinch.

The actions of the abductor brevis, flexor brevis, and opponens muscles in producing similar movements of the thumb, but to different degrees, are described in order to simplify the analysis of the disability that arises following division of the median nerve.


Introduction POSTTRAUMATIC conductive hearing loss, caused by interruption of the ossicular chain as a result of indirect trauma, has recently been the subject of several reports in the literature (Andersen et al, 1 Escher, 2 Hough 3 ). In the past few years we had occasion to observe 15 cases of this kind in the Utrecht University Clinic. The increasing frequency of accidents (especially traffic accidents) may well have had something to do with this. In many cases the consulting otologist will have to describe a posttraumatic hearing loss as perceptive. Hearing defects of the mixed type or almost purely conductive hearing defects are not uncommon, however. A longitudinal petrosal bone fracture, although not always demonstrable, is the most probable cause of this type of hearing defect. So far as the auditory organ is concerned, the lesions associated with this fracture are confined to the middle ear, while the capsule of


This paper presents the analysis of five events where simultaneous lightning currents were registered in different wind turbines of a wind farm with lightning monitoring equipment installed. Measurements from current monitoring devices installed at the wind turbines and observations from auto-triggering video cameras were correlated with data from the U.S. National Lighting Detection Network. In all five events, the correlation showed that a cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning stroke with high peak current struck the ground within 10 km of the affected turbines at the time of the currents in the wind turbines. The polarity of the CG discharges was negative in two events and positive in the three remaining events, which were also accompanied by small intracloud pulses. According to the analysis of the data for each event, the simultaneous discharges at the wind turbines are most likely caused by the nearby CG strokes, involving mechanisms that vary depending on the polarity of the associated CG stroke. The analysis also suggests that the event of upward lightning from wind turbines triggered by nearby lightning activity occurs very often and therefore it should be considered carefully in the processes of assessing the lightning exposure of the wind turbines, designing the lightning protection, and defining validation tests.


AIMS
The mitochondrial respiratory chain is recognized today to be arranged in supramolecular assemblies (supercomplexes). Besides conferring a kinetic advantage (substrate channeling) and being required for the assembly and stability of Complex I, indirect considerations support the view that supercomplexes may also prevent excessive formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) from the respiratory chain. In the present study, we have directly addressed this issue by testing the ROS generation by Complex I in two experimental systems in which the supramolecular organization of the respiratory assemblies is impaired by: (i) treatment either of bovine heart mitochondria or liposome-reconstituted supercomplex I-III with dodecyl maltoside; (ii) reconstitution of Complexes I and III at high phospholipids to protein ratio.

RESULTS
The results of our investigation provide experimental evidence that the production of ROS is strongly increased in either model, supporting the view that disruption or prevention of the association between Complex I and Complex III by different means enhances the generation of superoxide from Complex I.

INNOVATION
Dissociation of supercomplexes may link oxidative stress and energy failure in a vicious circle.

CONCLUSION
Our findings support a central role of mitochondrial supramolecular structure in the development of the aging process and in the etiology and pathogenesis of most major chronic diseases.


Modelling Self-managing Multi Agent Systems (MSMAS) is a software development methodology that facilitates designing and developing complex distributed systems based on the multiagent systems paradigm. MSMAS uses a declarative modelling style to capture system requirements by specifying four types of what we call system norms over: the system goals, the system roles, the business activities, and communications. MSMAS utilises system norms to capture system requirements in a formal language which can subsequently be monitored and verified at runtime. In this paper we present the main elements of MSMAS and introduce MSMAS defined norm types. We model the life cycle of MSMAS norms as non-atomic activities and formally express them as Event Calculus (EC) theories. Our acclimatisation of MSMAS system norms as first-order EC allows for reasoning with a metric time representation which we illustrate through a monitoring example of two execution traces to verify the system compliance with its intended design requirements and show how to detect any violation of norms.


We present extensive experimental results on our static analysis and source-level transformation [12, 11] that adds explicit memory-reuse commands into ML program text.
 Our analysis and transformation cost is negligible (1,582 to 29,000 lines per seconds) enough to be used in daily programming. The payoff is the reduction of memory peaks and the total garbage collection time. The transformed programs reuse 3.4% to 93.9% of total allocated memory cells, and the memory peak is reduced by 0.0% to 71.9%. When the memory peak reduction is large enough to overcome the costs of dynamic flags and the memory reuse in the generational garbage collection, it speeds up program's execution by up to 39.1%. Otherwise, our transformation can slowdown programs by up to 7.3%. The speedup is likely only when the portion of garbage collection time among the total execution time is more than about 30%.


This book provides a deep understanding of state-of-art methods for simulation of heterogeneous crowds in computer graphics. It will cover different aspects that are necessary to achieve plausible crowd behaviors. The book will be a review of the most recent literature in this field that can help professionals and graduate students interested in this field to get up to date with the latest contributions, and open problems for their possible future research. The chapter contributors are well known researchers and practitioners in the field and they include their latest contributions in the different topics required to achieve believable heterogeneous crowd simulation.


This paper presents a new method that can solve the integrated problem of combined location routing and inventory problem (CLRIP) efficiently. The CLRIP is used to establish facilities from several candidate depots, to find the optimal set of vehicle routes, and to determine the inventory policy in order to minimize the total system cost. We propose a mathematical model for the CLRIP with budget constrained. Because this model is a nonpolynomial (NP) problem, we propose a endosymbiotic evolutionary algorithm (EEA) which is a kind of symbiotic evolutionary algorithm (SEA). The heuristic method is used to obtaining the initial solutions for the EEA. The experimental results show that EEA perform very well compared to the existing heuristic methods with considering inventory control decisions.


During the past decade we have developed OCA, an ontology dedicated to complex artifacts. OCA has been applied extensively within the domain of communication systems and has proven a valuable tool for building models of both products and processes. Today, OCA is tightly integrated with a modeling method called MacroModelingTechnique (MMT). OCA-based MMT has increased the effectivness of model building particularly during the early phases of an industrial engineering process where numerous technical and non-technical aspects need to be considered and shared by diverse experts. This paper discusses and assesses the design of OCA. Much of OCA's design hinges on a technique to construct key concepts in a principled rather than in an ad-hoc manner. In fact, much of OCA's design is determined by "ontological principles".


Background: Spontaneous co-occurrence of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and acute lower extremity arterial embolism (ALEAE) has rarely been reported.Case presentation: A 44-year-old male with a history of 4 years of type1 diabetes was admitted to hospital when he suddenly experienced severe pain in his right lower limb and felt tightness in the left anterior chest area. Ultrasonography revealed distal occlusion of the right superficial femoral artery. ECG showed acute anterior interstitial myocardial infarction. After conservative treatment for 2 days, the patient had severe necrosis of lower limbs and secondary injury of multiple organs. Hemodialysis and heparin anticoagulant therapy were performed before amputation. Twelve days after the operation, the patient's condition was stable and he was transferred out of ICU.Conclusions: Emergency amputation and multidisciplinary approaches may offer a chance for survival if patents lost the opportunity for early treatment.


This article reviews findings of sleep, growth hormone (GH), and cortisol measures from a number of separate controlled studies of prepubertal and adolescent depression carried out by Puig-Antich and colleagues since 1978. New data are presented comparing 24-hour GH measures in adolescents with major depressive disorder (MDD) (N = 44; mean age = 14.8 +/- 2.0) to normal control adolescents (N = 37; mean age = 15.3 +/- 1.5). There were no significant overall group differences in summary GH measures between MDD and normal controls. Splitting the MDD group on the basis of suicidality (definite plan or attempt) (N = 20), revealed a significant blunting of sleep GH compared to the nonsuicidal group (N = 24). These results are discussed in the context of the other sleep and neuroendocrine findings in this population, with evidence for dysregulation around sleep onset. The influences of development on sleep and GH regulation are also considered.


The Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology of the Republic of Korea introduced the 'School Sport Club' scheme to reinforce the extracurricular physical activities (PA) in schools. The effectiveness of the intervention was examined, and the results indicated that the students in SSPG schools had higher satisfaction with the programme and higher future intention to participate in the programme. Also, students' future intention was found to be influenced by the indirect effect of intrinsic motivation which was mediated by their perceived satisfaction with the programme. Thus, it is important to provide a quality programme for promoting students' participation in extracurricular PA programme.


We report on the measurements of the electrical and dielectric properties of Na1/2La1/2Cu3Ti4O12 (NLCTO) ceramics prepared by high energy ball-milling and conventional sintering without any calcination steps. The x-ray powder diffraction analysis shows that pure perovskite-like CCTO phase is obtained after sintering at 1025 °C–1075 °C. Higher sintering temperatures result in multi-phase ceramics due to thermal decomposition. Scanning electron microscope observations reveal that the grain size is in a range of ∼3 μm–5μm for these ceramics. Impedance spectroscopy measurements performed in a wide frequency range (1 Hz–10 MHz) and at various temperatures (120 K–470 K) are used to study the dielectric and electrical properties of NLCTO ceramics. A good compromise between high ε′ (5.7 × 103 and 4.1 × 103 at 1.1 kHz and 96 kHz, respectively) and low tan δ (0.161 and 0.126 at 1.1 kHz and 96 kHz, respectively) is obtained for the ceramic sintered at 1050 °C. The observed high dielectric constant behavior is explained in terms of the internal barrier layer capacitance effect.


The purpose of the study was to examine the differences in academic growth rates as demonstrated on the TAKS test among students based on those who received free lunches, those who received reduced-price lunches, and those not economically disadvantaged. Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) for reading and mathematics scale scores were obtained from five Texas public school districts for students who were in 3rd grade in 2003, 4th grade in 2004, 5th grade in 2005, and 6th grade in 2006. The sample included almost 10,000 students. The data were analyzed using SPSS and HLM. SPSS was used to identify descriptive statistics. Due to the nested nature of the data, HLM was used to compare data on three levels- the test level, student level, and district level. Not economically disadvantaged students scored the highest on both TAKS reading and mathematics exams with a mean scale score of 2357 and 2316 respectively in 2003. Compared to the not economically disadvantaged students, students receiving reduce-priced lunches scored approximately 100 points lower, and lowest were the students receiving free lunches, scoring another 50 points below students receiving reduced-price lunches. The results revealed that while gaps in achievement exist between SES levels, little difference exists in the growth rates of the SES subgroups. The results of this study support the need for continued effort to decrease the gap between students who are not economically disadvantaged and those receiving free or reduced-price meals.


Software automated testing is one of the critical research subjects in the field of computer application. In this paper, a novel design of architecture called automated testing system (ATS) is proposed. Based on techniques relating to J2EE including MVC design pattern, Struts framework, etc, ATS can support any black-box testing business theoretically with relevant APIs programmed using Tcl script language beforehand. Moreover, as the core of ATS is built in Java, it can work in different environments without being recomplied. The efficiency of the new system is validated by plenty of applications in communication industry and the results also show the effectiveness and flexibility of the approach.


Autistic disorder, also known as early infantile autism, is a developmental disorder of unknown etiology. However, there is some evidence to suggest that abnormalities of the immune system mediate the pathophysiology of autistic disorder. Cytokines, which play a pivotal role in initiating and maintaining immune responses, have been implicated in the etiopathogenesis of major neuropsychiatric disorders including autism. Cytokines are synthesized in the periphery, as well as in the central nervous system, and exert their effects by binding to their receptors in the nervous tissues. It is suggested that, in genetically predisposed individuals, overproduction or decreased synthesis of certain cytokines may result in neurodevelopmental arrest and/or neurotoxicity.


Abstract. Three common hypotheses about disproportionate Black and Hispanic unemployment among metropolitan males are tested, using data from the 1980 Population and the 1977 Economic Censuses. It is found that Black and Hispanic male unemployment is higher relative to that of Whites where jobs are most suburbanized and the minority population least so. This supports the view that segregation which separates minorities from job location elevates minority unemployment. It is also found that relative levels of Black, but not Hispanic, unemployment correlate positively to the minority percentage in metropolitan populations. This is consistent with the view that potential White gains from discrimination are greater where the Black (but not Hispanic) population is larger. Finally, both Blacks and Hispanics experience more disproportionate unemployment where their percentage of high school graduates is low relative to Whites, though this is less true for areas with larger Black populations. This suggests that job skill differentials also play some role in disproportionate minority unemployment.


The recent advances in information management systems coupled with machine learning algorithms paved the way for a significant revolution in animal healthcare industries. However, the data in such systems suffer from various challenges such as security, reliability, and convenience, to name a few. Traditional systems are not useful to meet these critical issues because these systems have not a consistent structure for data security and reliability policies. Therefore, a new solution is required to enhance data accessibility and should regulate government security policies to ensure the accountability of the usage of the medical records system. Moreover, it is also required to analyze historical data of veterinary clinic using data mining and machine learning techniques to predict the future appointments scheduling requests, which is essential for veterinary management to drive better future decisions, for instance, future demands of medical supplies and to plan veterinary medical staff, etc. This paper aims to fill the gap by proposing a novel blockchain-based reliable and intelligent veterinary information management system (RIVIMS) using smart contract and machine learning techniques. The proposed RIVIMS consists of two main modules; blockchain-based secured veterinary information management, data and predictive analytics modules. First, a blockchain-based secure and reliable veterinary clinic information management system is developed using Hyperledger Fabric. Second, a smart contract enabled data, and predictive analytics modules are developed using permissioned blockchain framework. The data and predictive modules aim to analyze veterinary clinic patients appointments data in order to discover underlying patterns and build a robust prediction model using machine learning algorithms. The data and predictive helps veterinary management to drive better future business decisions to provide better healthcare services to veterinary patients. Hyperledger Caliper is used as a benchmark tool to evaluate the performance of the developed blockchain-based system in terms of transaction per second, transaction success rate, transaction throughput, and transaction latency. Furthermore, machine learning performance measures have utilized, such as MAE, RMSE, and R2 score to evaluate the overall performance of the prediction model. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed RIVIMS.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the performance characteristics of direct and capture ELISA for the detection of PR3-ANCA in Wegener's granulomatosis (WG) in international ANCA reference laboratories.

METHODS
Serum samples were derived from patients with histological and clinical diagnosis of WG (n = 60), rheumatoid arthritis (RA) (n = 30) and healthy controls (n = 30). Each of them was tested for the presence of ANCA by indirect immunofluorescence technique (IFT), direct and capture ELISA in six international reference laboratories (Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston; Wieslab AB, Lund; University of Maastricht; University Hospital Groningen; Mayo Clinic, Rochester; Rheumaklinik Bad Bramstedt/University of Schleswig-Holstein Campus Lübeck). Each centre tested the sera according to their house protocols of IFT and ELISA. The diagnostic performance of each test was estimated by receiver operating characteristic curve analysis and sensitivity and specificity in detection of ANCA/PR3-ANCA were calculated for the respective methods.

RESULTS
In patients histologically and clinically known as WG, the detection of ANCA by IFT varied between 52 and 83% among the participating centres. PR3-ANCA positivity with the different ELISAs ranged from 53 to 80% in direct ELISA and from 72 to 76% in capture ELISA. While most capture ELISAs successfully detected PR3-ANCA, there were significant differences between IFT and direct ELISA results between laboratories. ROC curve analysis demonstrated that in five of six laboratories the overall diagnostic performance of capture ELISA was superior to IFT and direct ELISA, respectively.

CONCLUSION
Capture ELISA is a highly sensitive assay for detection of PR3-ANCA in WG and should be used in conjunction with compatible clinical picture and histological evidence.


A 2 in.-diameter free-standing m-plane GaN wafer was fabricated through in situ self-separation using HCl chemical reaction etching (HCRE) in hydride vapor-phase epitaxy (HVPE). A 2 μm-thick m-plane GaN layer was directly grown on m-plane sapphire, followed by HCRE to form multiple voids at the interface between the m-plane sapphire and m-plane GaN. Void formation was attributed to preferential etching at high-defect regions (HDRs) such as stacking faults (SFs) and threading dislocations (TDs) in the m-plane GaN layer. After regrowth of an approximately 200 μm-thick m-plane GaN layer, self-separation was achieved during the cooling process. The free-standing m-plane GaN wafer was almost crack-free as a result of strain relief by the in situ self-separation process, which was confirmed by room-temperature Raman and photoluminescence measurements. It is supposed that the novel HCRE process can be applied to fabricate high-quality free-standing non-polar GaN wafers in the future.


Many problems encountered by engineers developing code for specialized Symbian subsystems boil down to a lack of understanding of the core Symbian programming concepts. Developing Software for Symbian OS remedies this problem as it provides a comprehensive coverage of all the key concepts. Numerous examples and descriptions are also included, which focus on the concepts the author has seen developers struggle with the most. The book covers development ranging from low-level system programming to end user GUI applications. It also covers the development and packaging tools, as well as providing some detailed reference and examples for key APIs. The new edition includes a completely new chapter on platform security. The overall goal of the book is to provide introductory coverage of Symbian OS v9 and help developers with little or no knowledge of Symbian OS to develop as quickly as possible. There are few people with long Symbian development experience compared to demand, due to the rapid growth of Symbian in recent years, and developing software for new generation wireless devices requires knowledge and experience of OS concepts. This book will use many comparisons between Symbian OS and other OSes to help in that transition. Get yourself ahead with the perfect introduction to developing software for Symbian OS.


Automatic recognition and interpretation of engineering drawing plays an important role in computer aided engineering. Detecting the positional relation between entities is an important topic in this research field. In this paper the concepts of adjacent relativity and container window of drawing entities were proposed. By means of container window, the adjacent irrelative entities can be detected quickly and effectively, which speeds up the process of adjacent relativity detection. Meanwhile, the algorithm of adjacent relativity detection was discussed.


The design of new protocols and features, e.g., in the context of organizations such as the IETF, produces a flow of novel standards and amendments that lead to ever changing implementations. These implementations can be difficult to test for security vulnerabilities because existing tools often lag behind. In the paper, we propose a new methodology that addresses this issue by recycling test cases from several sources, even if aimed at distinct protocols. It resorts to protocol reverse engineering techniques to build parsers that are capable of extracting the relevant payloads from the test cases, and then applies them to new test cases tailored to the particular features that need to be checked. An evaluation with 10 commercial and open-source testing tools and a large set of FTP vulnerabilities shows that our approach is able to get better or equal vulnerability coverage than the original tools. In a more detailed experiment with two fuzzers, our solution showed an improvement of 19% on vulnerability coverage when compared with the two combined fuzzers, being capable of finding 25 additional vulnerabilities.


Based on two years flight experience with the first battery powered glider, the advantages and limitations of electric drive units as well as the practice of electric flying is discussed. Electric launch systems can offer a single quiet launch plus a reserve for cross-country flying before the battery has to be recharged. Using NiCd batteries, rapid charge allows several starts per day, at moderate costs and a very high reliability. Simple in handling and almost maintenance free, the electric unit is highly comfortable and a very suitable system for gliders. Due to its limited capacity, it does not offer retrieval from extended crosscountry flights.


AN 11-month-old girl, severely retarded both physically and mentally, has a karyotype exhibiting 46 chromosomes normally paired except for the 4-5 group. In this group one normal pair of chromosomes is identifiable. The other pair comprises one chromosome of normal length and an outsized partner as long as the chromosomes of pair 1. Report of a Case This patient was being treated by one of us (E. W.) for a chronic urinary infection. Nine months old at the time, she did not smile, did not grasp objects, and did not vocalize. She was unable to turn from the supine position to the prone and could not sit up. Her height was 24 inches (61 cm) and her weight, 13 lb 9 oz (6,152 gm). Her head was long and narrow, measuring 16⅞ inches in circumference. Her palate was high and arched. Epicanthal folds were present. She had short, stubby hands


Leaf curl disease of tomato caused by Tomato Leaf Curl New Delhi Virus (ToLCNDV) inflicts huge economical loss. Disease symptoms resemble leaf developmental defects including abnormal vein architecture. Leaf vein patterning related TORNADO1 gene's ( SlTRN1 ) transcript level is augmented in virus-infected leaves. To elucidate the molecular mechanism of the upregulation of SlTRN1 in vivo we have deployed SlTRN1 promoter-reporter transgenic tomato plants and investigated the gene's dynamic expression pattern in leaf growth stages and infection. Expression of the gene was delimited in the vascular tissues and oppressed in growing leaves. Methylation-sensitive PCR analyses confirmed the accumulation of CHH methylation at multiple locations in the SlTRN1 promoter in older leaves. However, ToLCNDV infection reverses the methylation status and restores expression level in the leaf vascular bundle. The virus dampens the level of key maintenance and de novo DNA methyltransferases SlDRM5 , SlMET1 , SlCMT2 with concomitant augmentation of two DNA demethylases, SlDML1 and SlDML2 levels in SlTRN1 promoter-reporter transgenics. Transient overexpression of SlDML2 mimics the virus-induced hypomethylation state of the SlTRN1 promoter in mature leaves. Further, in line with the previous studies, we confirm the crucial role of viral suppressors of RNA silencing AC1 and AC4 proteins in promoting DNA demethylation and directing it to reinstate activated transcription of SlTRN1 in silenced tissues for possible modification of leaf venation architecture, leaf curling and easy vector acquisition of viral particles.


Incorporating imperfect detection when estimating species richness has become commonplace in the past decade. However, the question of how imperfect detection of species affects estimates of functional and phylogenetic community structure remains untested. We used long-term counts of breeding bird species that were detected at least once on islands in a land-bridge island system, and employed multi-species occupancy models to assess the effects of imperfect detection of species on estimates of bird diversity and community structure by incorporating species traits and phylogenies. Our results showed that taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity were all underestimated significantly as a result of species' imperfect detection, with taxonomic diversity showing the greatest bias. The functional and phylogenetic structure calculated from observed communities were both more clustered than those from the detection-corrected communities due to missed distinct species. The discrepancy between observed and estimated diversity differed according to the measure of biodiversity employed. Our study demonstrates the importance of accounting for species' imperfect detection in biodiversity studies, especially for functional and phylogenetic community ecology, and when attempting to infer community assembly processes. With datasets that allow for detection-corrected community structure, we can better estimate diversity and infer the underlying mechanisms that structure community assembly, and thus make reliable management decisions for the conservation of biodiversity.


This article analyses the knowledge integration in problem-solving situations which requires a high level of interaction and trust among workers. Literature review explores the main barriers associated to knowledge integration and use and even if most problem situations are solved in an unconscious way, automatically and in a few seconds, others situations requires more time, effort, teamwork, collaboration and extensive abstract knowledge. This research goal is to analyses the perceptions of the workers from Alpha Organisation. The research findings allow us to conclude that depending on the complexity of the workstation, the Operator decides if he has the knowledge and the tools to solve the problem or if he needs help from Managers. The use and share of employees' knowledge is an important factor to solve problems and strengthen performance. However, several organisational and individual barriers condition the process.


Centre for High Performance Computing, Joint Engineering Research Center for Health Big Data Intelligent Analysis Technology, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Shenzhen, China, Department of Computer Science, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR China, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, PA, United States


We report characteristics of GaAs quantum well intermixing using a buried Al-oxide layer. The band gap blue shifts about 59 meV when annealed at 950/spl deg/C for 120 seconds. The photoluminescence around the interface clearly shows anisotropic carrier diffusion to the lower energy region.


The Baltic Sea is one of the most human-impacted sea areas in the world and its ecosystems are exposed to a variety of stressors of anthropogenic origin. Large changes in the environmental conditions, species and communities of the Baltic Sea are predicted to occur due to global climate change, but the extent and magnitude of the future changes are challenging to estimate due to the multiple stressors simultaneously impacting the system. As an additional threat, future ocean acidification will play a role in modifying the environmental conditions, and these CO2-induced changes are predicted to be fast in the Baltic Sea. This is especially of concern for the species-poor, but functionally essential benthic communities where key species such as bivalve Macoma balthica live at the limits of their tolerance range, and are already regularly disturbed by environmental stressors such as hypoxia. Currently, only very limited knowledge about the effects of future ocean acidification exists for this species. The overall aim of my thesis was to develop an understanding of the effects of CO2 increase on the vulnerability of Baltic Sea key species, and how this is related to other effects of climate change, e.g. an increase in bottom-water hypoxia. Specifically, I investigated how different life stages of the infaunal bivalve M. balthica could be affected by future ocean acidification. Survival, growth, behaviour and physiological responses were assessed in a combination of laboratory and mesocosm experiments by exposing different life stages of M. balthica to different pH levels over different time periods depending on the life stage in question. While some life stage-based differences in vulnerability and survival were found, the results indicate that reduced pH has a negative effect on all life stages. In larval M. balthica, even a slight pH decrease was found to cause significant negative changes during that delicate life stage, both by slowing growth and by decreasing survival. Other observed impacts included delayed settling of the post-larvae and increasing energetic demand of adult bivalves. The results suggest consistent negative effects at all life stages with potential major implications for the resilience of M. Balthica populations, which are currently under threat from a range of anthropogenic stressors such as increasing hypoxia. The kind of experimental studies conducted in this thesis are useful for pinpointing mechanisms, but they are always simplifications of reality, however, and are usually conducted over time scales that are short in relation to the time scales over which ocean acidification is affecting populations, communities and ecosystems. To fully understand and to be able to estimate how the complex ecosystems are about to change in the future, incorporating more of the biotic interactions, impacting stressors and relevant environmental conditions are needed for increasing the level of realism in the experiments.


The geospatial work has been performed using combination of the Google Earth imagery, Landsat TM images and Erdas Imagine GIS software. The advantage of utilizing Google Earth scenes with Landsat TM satellite imagery, along with GIS techniques and methods, for inventorying land cover types has been demonstrated for landscape studies. Combination of land cover type characteristics and landscape changes enabled to analyse landscape dynamics, as well as applicability of Google Earth service for thematic mapping. The used data included Landsat TM and ETM+ multi-band imagery covering area in Izmir, western Turkey. The image processing was per- formed using supervised classification in Erdas Imagine software. The Google Earth web service technologies were applied to test the accuracy of mapping via the available module of Erdas Imagine «Linking with Google Earth».


CADASIL is the most common form of hereditary stroke disorder. Currently no treatment is available to patients, in part, due to a poor understanding of the basic pathological mechanism. CADASIL is caused by stereotyped mutations in NOTCH3, expressed highly in vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC), pathology therefore is most striking in the VSMC but there is also deficiency in the endothelium ability to sense and respond to shear stress and maintain capillary structures. It is therefore critical to understand cross-talk between these two cell types to grasp the aetiology of CADASIL. Current transgenic murine models do not recapitulate the disease fully and are not amenable to high throughput screening of therapeutic molecules. We have derived multiple CADASIL patient and non-effected sibling (control) iPSC lines. These iPSCs have been characterised for differentiation to the three germ layers, chromosomal normality and presence of the NOTCH3 mutation. We have developed highly reproducible, defined differentiation protocols to differentiate multiple pluripotent cell lines to endothelium (iPSC-EC), with 38% efficiency of VE-CADHERIN and PECAM-1 positive cells. We have also developed a differentiation protocol for deriving neuroectroderm-derived VSMCs, with ˜80% efficiency (iPSC-VSMC). The endothelial cells have the ability to form tube like structures in-vitro that can be used to model the capillary structures that commonly degenerate in CADASIL patients. By co-culturing these tube structures with patient and disease iPSC-VSMC we can observe changes in how CADASIL VSMC differentially supports endothelial capillary-like structures. This simple in-vitro model can act as a cellular assay for screening drugs that can restore VSMC function in a high throughput manner. This model can also be used to define early signalling involved in recruitment and cell adhesion between EC-VSMC that may be altered by mutations in NOTCH3.


Recent studies have shown that extracted soil has the potential to enhance microalgae growth. An experiment was conducted, and a kinetic model was developed to understand and predict the growth rate of Dunaliella primolecta with consideration of soil extract effects. Dunaliella primolecta was cultured and mixed with extracted soil from the Raja Musa Forest Reserve, Malaysia. At present, no model of microalgal growth associated with the soil extract effect has been developed to predict cell density and growth rate. A mathematical model was derived to describe the growth rate and cell density production of microalgae with soil extract in the cultured microplate. The prediction model of microalgae concentration agrees with the experimental data, with R2 ranging from 0.94 to 0.98. Culturing microalgae with 1% of soil extract concentration yielded a significant increment of growth rate. However, the growth rate remained constant at a higher concentration, suggesting the percentage as an optimal value. Thus, the soil extract acts as a growth enhancer that doubles the growth rate of cultured microalgae. A parametric study was conducted to characterize the light intensity and temperature effect on the growth model concerning soil extract effect.


This essay explores the way in which twinning the words, 'sensible' and 'stage' mobilises both a recognition of the entanglement of bodies in and with the world through their common capacity for sensation, and the structure that acts to delimit movements, relations and becomings that is evoked through the image of the stage. This movement of simultaneous expansion and contraction suggests a doubling that is at the heart of theatre in which there is tension between the experience of commonality and estrangement, immersion and separation, affection and distance, action and passivity. Put very simply, this is the distinction between being immersed in sensing the world, and the representation of that experience set apart upon the stage. This sense of immersion can be connected to the affective and expansive capacities of the body that we find within Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's notion of 'becoming animal', (Deleuze and Guattari 2001) and also to the dense networks of vibrant matter that Jane Bennett introduces us to in her work. (Bennett 2010) States of entanglement, inter-connectivity and the affective nature of the body prevail in these philosophical scenarios. The figure of the stage suggests the opposite movement where – as well as providing an opening up to imaginary, fictional worlds – space and time are confined to a specific point (and I have elsewhere connected this to the philosopher, Alain Badiou's work). And finally, in a very different way, the notion of the sensible as it is used here finds some connection with Jacques Ranciere's commonality of the sensible in which we are conjoined through a common capacity for sensation but also divided in spheres of action. The 'sensible stage' therefore becomes a way of exploring some of these philosophical tendencies though contemporary art practice.


A laser was constructed in which the active medium was a crystal of calcium lithium niobium gallium garnet activated with Nd3+ ions. An acoustooptic modulator made of an LiNbO3 crystal and a passive LiF switch with F2 colour centres were used in this laser. The combination of active mode locking and Q switching made it possible to generate laser pulses of 10–15 ps duration at the wavelength λ = 1061.2 nm with a peak power of about 15 MW.