Metal-phenolic networks (MPNs) have shown promising potential in biomedical applications since they provide a rapid, simple and robust way to construct multifunctional nanoplatforms. As a novel nanomaterial self-assembled from metal ions and polyphenols, MPNs can be prepared to assist the theranostics of cancer owing to their bio-adhesiveness, good biocompatibility, versatile drug loading, and stimuli-responsive profile. This Critical Review aims to summarize recent progress in MPN-based nanoplatforms for multimodal tumor therapy and imaging. First, the advantages of MPNs as drug carriers are summarized. Then, various tumor therapeutic modalities based on MPNs are introduced. Next, MPN-based theranostic systems are reviewed. In terms of in vivo applications, specific attention is paid to their biosafety, biodistribution, as well as excretion. Finally, some problems and limitations of MPNs are discussed, along with a future perspective on the field.


Abstract Restoration of abandoned agricultural lands to create resilient ecosystems in arid and semi-arid ecosystems typically requires seeding or transplanting native species, improving plant–soil–water relations, and controlling invasive species. We asked if improving water relations via irrigation or surface mulch would result in negative tradeoffs between native species establishment and invasive species competition. We examined the effects of sprinkler irrigation and straw mulch on native seed mixtures planted in two consecutive years in an abandoned agricultural field in a cold desert shrubland in southwestern Nevada, USA. Restoration effects differed among years because of contingency effects of growing season conditions. Precipitation was low during the first year and seeded plant density and biomass increased in response to irrigation. Precipitation was relatively high during the second year, seeded plant densities and biomass were generally high, and irrigation had inconsistent effects. Mulch increased native plant cover in the absence of irrigation during the dry year. Invasive plant biomass and cover also were influenced by year, but irrigation increased invasive plants regardless of precipitation. Positive effects of irrigation on seeded plant density, cover, and biomass outweighed negative tradeoffs of increases in invasive plants. In ecosystems with highly variable precipitation, the most effective restoration strategies will most likely be adaptive ones, requiring determination of timing and amount of irrigation based on precipitation, native plant establishment, and invasive species composition and abundance. Nomenclature: 2, 4-D; dimethylamine salt of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid. Management Implications: Restoration of abandoned agricultural land to native plant communities can increase soil stability, reduce the spread of invasive species, and enhance the conservation value of the land. In cold desert shrublands where irrigation systems are still in place, irrigation can promote native species establishment despite also increasing invasive species. Irrigation must be sufficiently frequent during initial establishment of the seeded species to maintain the soil drying front above the depth of active root growth. Periodic watering may be required through the second year to allow plants to survive the generally low precipitation and highly variable weather conditions that characterize cold desert shrublands. In cases where irrigation systems are not available, mulch may be a viable alternative for improving water relations and increasing plant cover, especially during dry years. Larger seeded species, such as the grasses Indian ricegrass, squirreltail and needle and thread are likely to establish at higher rates than smaller seeded species like sagebrush and many native forbs. Flexible restoration strategies that adapt the timing and amount of irrigation to soil water availability are most likely to succeed.


This study investigates the elastic paving material coated on the floor surfaces of athletic facilities. The concentrations of Pb and DEHP(Di-(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate)) in 13 samples obtained from the flooring of an outdoor basketball court were analyzed. Additionally, a risk assessment for the human exposure was conducted. The average concentration of Pb was 2,357.5 mg/kg and ranged from 3.1 mg/kg to 13,465.4 mg/kg. The Pb concentration of 7 out of 13 samples exceeded the KS standard for Pb, which is 90 mg/kg. The largest contribution of DEHP was caused by phthalates, which measured an average concentration of 53,546.6 mg/kg in 13 samples. The hazard quotient (HQ) estimated from the Pb concentrations obtained from 10 samples taken from the surface of the palm after one hour of activity on the basketball court ranged from 0.0001 to 0.0600 and 0.0001 to 0.0550 for teenagers and adults, respectively. An increase in the HQ value was observed when evaluating the upper 95% concentrations, more specifically, 0.0006 to 0.4470 for teenagers and 0.0006 to 0.4090 for adults. The estimated excess cancer risk (ECR) of DEHP was 10 and 10 for the mean concentration and the upper 95% levels, respectively. These results suggest that there is an inherent health effect when exposed to the elastic paving materials of sports facilities. Therefore, it is necessary to set standards for elastic paving materials with a particular focus on indoor sports facilities where hazardous pollutants can easily accumulate due to the lack of ventilation.


We study the density of states (DOS) as a function of the interaction U in the half‐filled simplified Hubbard model in a magnetic field. This model is considered on the Bethe lattice in the limit of high dimensions. We show that the DOS can be calculated exactly, and that many of its properties have an astonishingly simple form. In particular, the DOS can be investigated explicitly in the limits of weak and strong coupling and near the metal‐insulator transition. E.g., we find an explicit result for the critical value Uc, at which the metal‐insulator transition occurs, as a function of the magnetization. The relation between the magnetization and the magnetic field is calculated numerically. An important result is that the metal‐insulator transition, occurring in the model with B = 0, is continuously connected to the metal‐insulator transition in the subspace of single spin flips.


Atopic dermatitis is a disease of early childhood. Most children are infected with the herpes simplex virus at this age. The changes in  the congenital and adaptive immunity in  children with atopic dermatitis create precondition for the development of infectious complications, including those caused by herpes viruses. The authors of the article discuss details of various clinical manifestations of herpes infection in children with atopic dermatitis and they carry out differential diagnostics. Particular attention is paid to herpes eczema – the severe complication of atopic dermatitis in the course of disseminated herpes infection. Conflict of interest: The authors of this article confirmed the lack of conflict of interest and financial support, which should be reported.


How responsible are patients for adhering to treatment plans designed to optimize the treatment of their health-problem? This thesis analyses and explores a variety of ways in which this question can be understood, and how it links to the way in which health care decision-making is organized today. The analysis thus touches not only on issues of moral responsibility in health care ethics and health policy, but just as much on what reasons there are for patients to prefer certain organizational forms over others in the light of how these may impact their moral responsibility for the planning, execution and outcome of care. These issues also relate to health care professional ethics, as any responsibility ascribed to patients may still be more or less shared with health professionals. The content of this essay will be of interest for anyone who has ever reflected upon the sharing and division of responsibility within health care practice.


This work presents a semantic level no-reference image sharpness/blurriness metric under the guidance of top-down & bottom-up saliency map, which is learned based on eye-tracking data by SVM. Unlike existing metrics focused on measuring the blurriness in vision level, our metric more concerns about the image content and human's intention. We integrate visual features, center priority, and semantic meaning from tag information to learn a top-down & bottom-up saliency model based on the eye-tracking data. Empirical validations on standard dataset demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model and metric.


Recurrent Respiratory Papillomatosis (RRP) is a rare but severe manifestation of human papillomavirus (HPV). As our knowledge about HPV infections has expanded, it has become possible to understand the course of RRP disease and unravel plausible efficient methods to manage the disease. However, the surge in reports on HPV has not been accompanied by a similar increase in research about RRP specifically. In this paper, we review the clinical manifestation and typical presentation of the illness. In addition, the pathogenesis and progression of the disease are described. On the other hand, we discuss the types of treatments currently available and future treatment strategies. The role of vaccination in both the prevention and treatment of RRP will also be reviewed. We believe this review is essential to update the general knowledge on RRP with the latest information available to date to enhance our understanding of RRP and its management.


A number of deep learning based algorithms have been proposed to recover high-quality videos from low-quality compressed ones. Among them, some restore the missing details of each frame via exploring the spatiotemporal information of neighboring frames. However, these methods usually suffer from a narrow temporal scope, thus may miss some useful details from some frames outside the neighboring ones. In this paper, to boost artifact removal, on the one hand, we propose a Recursive Fusion (RF) module to model the temporal dependency within a long temporal range. Specifically, RF utilizes both the current reference frames and the preceding hidden state to conduct better spatiotemporal compensation. On the other hand, we design an efficient and effective Deformable Spatiotemporal Attention (DSTA) module such that the model can pay more effort on restoring the artifact-rich areas like the boundary area of a moving object. Extensive experiments show that our method outperforms the existing ones on the MFQE 2.0 dataset in terms of both fidelity and perceptual effect. Code is available at https://github.com/zhaominyiz/RFDA-PyTorch.


The State of Rio Grande do Sul has a complex Precambrian/Cambrian shield, which has been investigated for four decades. This complexity involves ages ranging from 2.55 Ga (possibly 3.3 Ga) to 550 Ma (and even 470 Ma). The three major juvenile accretionary episodes occurred at 2.55 Ga, 2.26-2.02 Ga and 900-700 Ma, while a continental-scale crustal reworking (collisional) orogeny occurred from 780 to 550 Ma. The three accretionary orogenies are known as the Jequie, Transamazonian and Brasiliano Cycles, respectively. The Brasiliano Cycle includes the collisional orogeny. Magmatism was tholeiitic low-K bimodal basic-acid in the Archean (Santa Maria Chico granulites), and evolved to tonalitic-trondhjemitic-granodioritic in the Paleoproterozoic (Encantadas Complex). During the Paleoproterozoic/Archean transition, komatiites and basalts were formed in greenstone belts (Passo Feio Sul Formation). The end of the Transamazonian Cycle was the beginning of a long period of tectonic quiescence, and the region remained in the interior of the Atlantica Supercontinent until the beginning of the Brasiliano Cycle at ca. 900 Ma (Passinho Diorite). This Neoproterozoic cycle displays two classical orogenic types, namely the Sao Gabriel accretionary orogeny in the western part of the State and Dom Feliciano collisional orogeny in its eastern part. Accretion generated juvenile tonalite-trondhjemite-granodiorite associations with related ophiolites (Cerro Mantiqueiras Ophiolite), while the collision formed the voluminous and mostly peraluminous and high-K calcalkaline granites of the Dom Feliciano orogeny. The waning stages of the orogeny were responsible for the outpouring of a very expressive silica-saturated volcanism and eventually finished with the Rodeio Velho basalts at 470 Ma. Comparable Paleoproterozoic/Neoproterozoic Precambrian terranes surround the shield in Uruguay, in Santa Catarina and in western Africa. Comparable Neoproterozoic juvenile and reworked terranes occur in NE Africa. Widespread indications of metals are a good sign of possible deposits, but the two major types of deposits are the orogenic epizonal Bossoroca gold deposit and the distal magmatichydrothermal Lavras/Camaqua copper-gold deposits.


The aim of this work is the development of a fast and reliable method for geomechanical parameters evaluation while drilling using surface logging data. Geomechanical parameters are usually evaluated from cores or sonic logs, which are typically expensive and sometimes difficult to obtain. A novel approach is here proposed, where machine learning algorithms are used to calculate the Young's Modulus from drilling parameters and the gamma ray log. The proposed method combines typical mud logging drilling data (ROP, RPM, Torque, Flow measurements, WOB and SPP), XRF data and well log data (Sonic logs, Bulk Density, Gamma Ray) with several machine learning techniques. The models were trained and tested on data coming from three wells drilled in the same basin in Kuwait, in the same geological units but in different reservoirs. Sonic logs and bulk density are used to evaluate the geomechanical parameters (e.g. Young's Modulus) and to train the model. The training phase and the hyperparameter tuning were performed using data coming from a single well. The model was then tested against previously unseen data coming from the other two wells.
 The trained model is able to predict the Young's modulus in the test wells with a root mean squared error around 12 GPa. The example here provided demonstrates that a model trained with drilling parameters and gamma ray coming from one well is able to predict the Young Modulus of different wells in the same basin. These outcomes highlight the potentiality of this procedure and point out several implications for the reservoir characterization. Indeed, once the model has been trained, it is possible to predict the Young's Modulus in different wells of the same basin using only surface logging data.


Each year, numerous species thought to have disappeared are rediscovered. Yet, do these rediscoveries represent the return of viable populations or the delayed extinction of doomed species? We document the number, distribution and conservation status of rediscovered amphibian, bird, and mammal species globally. Over the past 122 years, at least 351 species have been rediscovered, most occurring in the tropics. These species, on average, were missing for 61 years before being rediscovered (range of 3–331 years). The number of rediscoveries per year increased over time and the majority of these rediscoveries represent first documentations since their original description. Most rediscovered species have restricted ranges and small populations, and 92% of amphibians, 86% of birds, and 86% of mammals are highly threatened, independent of how long they were missing or when they were rediscovered. Under the current trends of widespread habitat loss, particularly in the tropics, most rediscovered species remain on the brink of extinction.


We review the recent development in the representation theory of the $W_{1+\infty}$ algebra. The topics that we concern are, Quasifinite representation, Free field realizations, (Super) Matrix Generalization, Structure of subalgebras such as $W_\infty$ algebra, Determinant formula, Character formula. (Invited talk at ``Quantum Field Theory, Integrable Models and Beyond", YITP, 14-17 February 1994. To appear in Progress of Theoretical Physics Proceedings Supplement.)


The effects of IFN-gamma and TNF-alpha on intracellular multiplication of Listeria monocytogenes in a murine enbryonic hepatocyte cell line (ATCC TIB 73) were investigated. Neither IFN-gamma nor TNF-alpha alone (10, 25, or 100 ng/ml) significantly inhibited intracellular multiplication of L. monocytogenes. In contrast, addition of both IFN-gamma and TNF-alpha (10, 25, or 100 ng/ml) significantly inhibited intracellular listerial multiplication. The anti-listerial effects of IFN-gamma and TNF-alpha were not blocked by adding aminoguanidine or catalase. Nor did IFN-gamma and TNF-alpha treated hepatocyte monolayers produce detectable amounts of nitric oxide or hydrogen peroxide. These findings suggest that the effects of IFN-gamma and TNF-alpha may be independent of reactive oxygen (ROI) and nitrogen (RNI) intermediates.


We aimed to Examine the safety and effectiveness of HF-rTMS in a treatment-refractory bipolar I patient in a mixed affective episode. Our case illustrates that "combative" HF-rTMS therapy could be a safe and valid treatment alternative for refractory bipolar I patients in mixed episode, not successfully treated with ECT.


This paper is in response to recent calls to conceptualize and articulate Canadian perspectives and experiences in international social work, given that the Canadian standpoint has been lacking in international social work literature. This paper contends that it is imperative, first of all, to critically examine and unpack our 'Canadian' identity in order to practice international work that is socially just and anti-imperialist. Drawing on the work of post-colonial authors, critical race theorists, and those who study national myth-making, this essay revisits Canadian identity because it is this identity that Canadian social workers often carry into their international work.


The nation's children's hospitals are in the midst of a building boom, moving into dazzling new spaces, adding an array of amenities and boosting research.


3D symmetric sampling introduced in the 1990s is characterized by dense sampling of two of the four spatial coordinates. The two sparsely sampled coordinates determine the periodicity of the geometry and the dimension of the offset-vector tiles that can be used to generate pseudocommon-offset-vector gathers. These gathers turn out to be useful for prestack processing applications, such as regularization, migration velocity analysis, and azimuthal anisotropy analysis. Although single-point acquisition is the ideal acquisition method, it is not necessarily better than array-based acquisition. Field arrays are still useful in suppressing noise and need not harm signal in most practical cases. In hybrid geometries three spatial coordinates are sampled densely. In all published cases at least two of the three are sampled quite coarsely and may not provide the best quality for the given trace density. Coil geometry (sailing in circles) is a special case of wide-azimuth towed streamer acquisition. It is essentially a random geometry that should be modifiable into a geometry with regularly sampled midpoints, absolute offsets and azimuths. Despite recent technological developments, the basic idea of 3D symmetric sampling still is a highly useful principle for the design of land and marine 3D seismic surveys.


In this paper we specify five abstract algorithms for the parallel execution of production systems on the DADO machine. Each algorithm is designed to capture the inherent parallelism in a variety of different production system programs. Ongoing research aims to substantiate our conclusions by empirically evaluating the performance of each algorithm on the DAD02 prototype, presently under construction at Columbia University.


Machine learning models are increasing in popularity in many domains as they are shown to be able to solve difficult problems. However, selecting a model to implement when there are various alternatives is a difficult problem. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves are useful for selecting binary classification models for real world problems. However, ROC curves only consider the misclassification cost of the classifier. The total cost of a classification system includes various other types of cost including implementation, computation, and feature costs. To extend the ROC analysis to include this additional cost information, the ROC Convex Hull with Cost (ROCCHC) method is introduced. This method extends the ROC Convex Hull (ROCCH) method, which is used to select potentially optimal classifiers in the ROC space using misclassification cost, by selecting potentially optimal classifiers using this additional cost information. The ROCCHC method is tested using three binary classification data sets, each of which include real feature costs as the additional cost information. Competing classifiers are created with the CART algorithm by using each combination of features or sensors for each data set. The ROCCHC method reduces the classifier decision space to 4%, 9%, and 0.02%. These results are compared to the current ROCCH method, which misses 91%, 58%, and 6% of potentially optimal classifiers because the method does not include the additional cost information.


The Niger Delta is said to be the world.s largest wetland. The oil and gas in that region represents 97% of Nigeria.s foreign exchange earnings and this accounts for a major chunk of the wealth of the country. The Niger Delta has for some years been the site of major confrontations between the people and the Nigerian government.s security forces, resulting in extrajudicial executions, arbitrary detentions, and draconian restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression, association, and assembly. To proffer solution, Federal government came up with post-amnesty program. Based on this, the study sought; (i) To determine the level of effectiveness of the implementation of the Post Amnesty Programme since its inception in 2009, (ii) determine how effective evaluation method can sustain Post Amnesty programme beyond Amnesty peace agreement in Niger Delta. The research design was descriptive survey method. The population of the study was 4,798,519 million youths [15-39years][last Census2006] in Delta state, Bayelsa state and River state. The study made use of qualitative and quantitative data analyses. The sample size was 400 using Taro Yamane formula. Purposive sampling technique was used to select the respondents in each of the states, while hypothesis one was tested using Friedman Chi-Square test statistics, hypothesis two was tested using One Sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov (Z) test. Effective evaluation method significantly maintains the Post Amnesty Programme in Nigeria (X 2 (friedman) cal = 137.098 > X 2 Z critical = 1.96, p < 0.05). The study recommended that the Amnesty International and all other agencies involved in peace building and in managing conflict in Niger Delta should borrow a leaf from other countries. management techniques such as in Canada and USA.


Known prions (infectious proteins) are self-propagating amyloids or conformationally altered proteins, but in theory an enzyme necessary for its own activation could also be a prion (or a gene composed of protein). We show that yeast protease B is such a prion, called [beta].[beta] is infectious, reversibly curable, and its de novo generation is induced by overexpression of the pro-protease. Present in normal cells but masked by the functionally redundant protease A, [beta] is advantageous during starvation and necessary for sporulation. We propose that other enzymes whose active, modified, form is necessary for their maturation might also be prions.


A range of halogenated aromatics and heteroaromatics bearing a primary amine group are shown to be suitable substrates for Suzuki cross-coupling reactions with arylboronic acids and pyridylboronic acids under standard conditions, without the need for protection/deprotection steps. New amino-substituted arylpyridines, bipyridines, and pyrazinopyridines have thereby been obtained. Conditions for the efficient syntheses of 2-methoxy-5-pyridylboronic acid 1 and 2-methoxy-3-pyridylboronic acid 2 in ca. 75 g batches have been defined. A 2-fold reaction of 2-amino-5-bromopyrazine with 2,5-dimethoxy-1,4-benzenediboronic acid affords 1,4-dimethoxy-2,5-bis[2-(5-aminopyrazyl)]benzene 31. The X-ray crystal structures of 1 and 31.DMF are reported.


Argumentation is an essential task in every scientific discipline. The development of strong and convincing argumentation as well as the analysis of existing argumentation structures is important in the field of humanities, and especially in the field of jurisprudence. Judicial argumentation requires sophisticated intellectual effort and the knowledge of as much potentially relevant background information as possible. Considering that the fulfillment of this task is limited by the natural human information processing capacity, the field of digital humanities investigates how such information-intensive and time-consuming tasks can be supported by computers. Against the background of the ever-growing availability of different corpora of jurisdiction in Germany, a software prototype supporting automated identification, analysis and recommendation of argumentation structures in electronically available corpora of jurisdiction is currently developed in the project ARGUMENTUM. In this article, we present the basic concept for the preparation and processing of the decision corpus of the German Federal Constitutional Court which shall provide the basis for the future ARGUMENTUM prototype.


Key issues causing hospital employees to seek unionization include wages and benefits, job security, supervision, staffing, and interprofessional relationships. The board should address these issues through board policy, and it should monitor the implementation of that policy in several key areas.


Digital platforms have become essential tools for the operational transformation of organizations over the last few decades. Governments have realized their advantages and are making progress in incorporating them into their infrastructure, especially during the COVID-19 era. This paper examines digital government platforms (DGPs), their value, and their characteristics. Previous research has identified a variety of factors that affect e-government or DGPs in differentiated cases and regions. The lack of a general list of elements that influence DGSs led to the creation of a general framework of factors that may contribute to a successful launch and operation. These 16 factors were categorized into 3 segments, information technology, government, and user. Their relationship is based on coordination/support, interaction, and feedback. In order to initially evaluate the proposed framework, it was tested through the application on the Greek public sector platform Gov.gr, and initial findings were presented. A contemporary mapping of Greece's digital status and the Greek government's efforts for a modern digital state were presented. Gov.gr is Greece's official master platform that offers a significant number of governmental services to citizens and companies quickly, remotely, and efficiently. The utilization of the framework that is developed in this paper against Gov.gr offers valuable conclusions about DGP's operation and its focus on bureaucracy reduction, accuracy, and satisfactory service. The paper concludes with research limitations and the identification of future research pathways.
Keywords: digital government pPlatforms, factors, framework, Greece, Gov.gr


This review focuses on the recent developments in our understanding of active layer morphologies for organic photovoltaic cells and approaches to obtain active layer morphologies for high power conversion efficiencies. The evolution of active layer morphologies, as studied by high resolution electron microscopy, X-ray and neutron scattering, and dynamic secondary ion mass spectrometry, is covered, along with strategies including the use of small molecule additives, polymer nanowires and polymer nanoparticles to realize active layer morphologies. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys, 2012


The ability of d-glucose/d-galactose-binding protein (GGBP) to reversibly interact with its ligands, glucose and galactose, makes this protein an attractive candidate for sensing elements of glucose biosensors. This potential is largely responsible for attracting researchers to study the conformational properties of this protein. Previously, we showed that an increase in the fluorescence intensity of the fluorescent dye 6-bromoacetyl-2-dimetylaminonaphtalene (BADAN) is linked to the holo-form of the GGBP/H152C mutant in solutions containing sub-denaturing concentrations of guanidine hydrochloride (GdnHCl). It was hypothesized that low GdnHCl concentrations might lead to compaction of the protein, thereby facilitating ligand binding. In this work, we utilize BADAN fluorescence spectroscopy, intrinsic protein UV fluorescence spectroscopy, and isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) to show that the sub-denaturing GdnHCl concentrations possess osmolyte-like stabilizing effects on the structural dynamics, conformational stability, and functional activity of GGBP/H152C and the wild type of this protein (wtGGBP). Our data are consistent with the model where low GdnHCl concentrations promote a shift in the dynamic distribution of the protein molecules toward a conformational ensemble enriched in molecules with a tighter structure and a more closed conformation. This promotes the increase in the configurational complementarity between the protein and glucose molecules that leads to the increase in glucose affinity in both GGBP/H152C and wtGGBP.


To obtain high-resolution depth maps, some previous learning-based multi-view stereo methods build a cost volume pyramid in a coarse-to-fine manner. These approaches leverage fixed depth range hypotheses to construct cascaded plane sweep volumes. However, it is inappropriate to set identical range hypotheses for each pixel since the uncertainties of previous per-pixel depth predictions are spatially varying. Distinct from these approaches, we propose a Dynamic Depth Range Network (DDR-Net) to determine the depth range hypotheses dynamically by applying a range estimation module (REM) to learn the uncertainties of range hypotheses in the former stages. Specifically, in our DDR-Net, we first build an initial depth map at the coarsest resolution of an image across the entire depth range. Then the range estimation module (REM) leverages the probability distribution information of the initial depth to estimate the depth range hypotheses dynamically for the following stages. Moreover, we develop a novel loss strategy, which utilizes learned dynamic depth ranges to generate refined depth maps, to keep the ground truth value of each pixel covered in the range hypotheses of the next stage. Extensive experimental results show that our method achieves superior performance over other state-of-the-art methods on the DTU benchmark and obtains comparable results on the Tanks and Temples benchmark. The code is available at https://github.com/Tangshengku/DDR-Net.


The paper will analyse the role of rural tourism for the development of rural areas on the comparison of two regions with different types of rural tourism. One area is of with highly diversifi ed rural tourism with wide range of tourist products (rafting, hiking, cycling, farm tourism, skiing, ...). The tourism offer in the second area is much more uniform (mainly farm tourism and some spa). The study analysed how the two different types of tourist product diversifi cations infl uence the development possibilities of studied rural areas. We analysed how different systems are able to maintain its functions in the context of identifi ed perturbations (socio-economic and geophysical). We analysed the infl uence of different factors on systems stability, its resilience, robustness and integrity. The gained results show that only the higher level of diversifi cation is not a guarantee for systems higher stability, resilience, robustness and integrity, but there also other factor which infl uence the outcome as: size of the area, diversity of actors involved, type of governance, ...


Until 1942 cultivation of pepper P. nigrum L. in Sarawak produced relatively small but regular yields. High demands after 1945 and restricted use of "burnt earth" compelled farmers to abandon the application of this traditional fertilizer. Instead, "fool proof" manufactured fertilizers of mainly organic origin were successfully applied in massive volumes and large yields were obtained. In 1954 and following years a sharp fall in price induced a decline in production, in part owing to much reduced applications of fertilizer. As a result the economic crop cycle of some 16 years was limited to some 1-3 years; the bulk of the total yield was obtained in the first year of production. An initial survey on leaf symptoms and die-back indicated unbalanced and inadequate mineral nutrition of the crop. The current system induced severe deterioration of plant appearance in the period of monsoon rains, which coincide with berry expansion. During this time no fertilizers are applied as a rule. A method has been worked out to diagnose the nutritional demands of N, P, K, Ca and Mg by chemical foliar analysis. Major aspects involved in the establishment of a sampling procedure were systematically studied. The effect on chemical concentrations was investigated of the portion of the vine, the presence of fruit, the branch, the age of the leaf, the presence of the petiole, leaf size, leaf thickness, sunshine, different stems on a plant, location of fertilizer dressings and the number of leaves to be sampled per vine. Similarly, the influence of the mode of cleaning of the leaves, of the drying temperature on loss of N and the effect of length of storage on the content of N were studied. Studies on the error of bulk sampling and the effect of appropriate stratification of the different leaves in the canopy on the reduction of this error showed that suitable division into strata reduced the number of vines to be included in a bulk sample up to 16 times as compared with random sampling, assuming the same degree of precision. Furthermore the inclusion Of 4 appropriately stratified leaves from each of 60-70 vines in each bulk sample obtained from homogeneous areas, would represent chemical concentrations with a precision of 10% of the population mean (P = 0.05) irrespective of physiological condition. Data on seasonal variation indicated declining levels of N and K within the monsoon; this was accompanied by gradually rising levels of leaf P and leaf Ca. Leaf Mg tended towards constancy. Bivariate ratios showed, on most occasions, a regular relationship with time, but constant values were observed only occasionally. A sand experiment on deficiencies of nutrients showed characteristic discolourations due to nutrient shortage. Concurring foliar concentrations and ratios associated with full nutrients, partial or complete deficiency of a single element allowed tentative registration of normal, fair, critical and deficient threshold values in the leaves for each element (table 18). Single and multiple deficiencies could be recognized by using an appropriate grouping of concentrations and their ratios. Application of these values to random field data showed a satisfactory power of discrimination. The ratio values gave a good indication of the order of importance in the case of multiple deficiencies. The influence was studied of dressings of NPK fertilizers on leaf concentrations and ratios. It was observed that increasing dressings of N, P, and K were directly reflected in risising concentrations of leaf N, leaf Pand leaf K, respectively. Simultaneously, N- P "antagonism" and "antagonism" between bases was also operative. Apparently, considered balancing of applications of different fertilizers is essential. The ratios between elements gave some indication of priorities of different dressings. It was also observed that under the influence of the very heavy, early applications leaf concentrations of N, K and Mg fall to deficiency levels. This indicates that the distribution in time also requires adjustment. The development of physiological exhaustion could be attributed to an inadequate net supply of N, K and Mg to the leaves during translocation processes of nutrients in the period of fruit development. Stability of yield at a high level of production can be maintained by preventing development of nutrient shortages and ensuring fair to normal concentrations of N, P, K, Ca and Mg in the leaves throughout the year. Threshold values, independently obtained from field vines corroborate the tentative values for the normal levels found in the pot experiment. The latter may therefore be considered as fundamentally correct. Rather complicated interactions of "antagonisms" and "synergisms" may become operative if foliar levels fall below these normal levels. The data have also shown convincingly that the values for log N/P can be used as a satisfactory control for abundance of flowers at a specific potential for flowering. Finally, the agricultural implications of these findings are discussed in Ch. 10. The data allowed a plausible interpretation of crop behaviour and crop performance under the traditional system of cultivation before 1942 and that in the period after 1945. By integrating the leaf data of this work with information concerning factors affecting the supply of nutrients to the plant, it was shown that foliar diagnosis furnished a suitable foundation to devise an appropriate fertilizer policy for pepper.


The uptake of 14C-alpha-aminoisobutyric acid (AIB) by human placental villi from smokers and nonsmokers was measured. Washed placental villi of smokers exhibited higher uptake capacity for AIB than those of nonsmokers. The higher uptake capacity in smokers was due to increase in Vmax. Smoking increased Km and decreased affinity to AIB. This is possibly due to decreased fluidity of the plasma membrane of the villus during maternal smoking. These observations suggest that placenta utilizes its ability to increase the accumulation of amino acids during the adverse environmental conditions produced by maternal smoking.


Rosen, D. E. (Department of Ichthyology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, New York 10024) 1978. Vicariant patterns and historical explanation in biogeography. Syst. Zool. 27:159-188.-Geographic coincidence of animal and plant distributions to form recognizable patterns suggests that the separate components of the patterns are historically connected with each other and with geographic history. To seek evidence of these historical connections, cladograms of geographic areas, representing sequences of disruptive geologic, climatic, or geographic events, may be compared with biological cladograms, representing sequences of allopatric speciation events in relation to those geographic areas. Such comparisons, when they meet the minimum requirements of being among dichotomized threetaxon cladograms, can resolve similar or dissimilar historical factors; two-taxon statements do not distinguish between groups with different histories. Congruence of biological and geological area-cladograms at a high confidence level (such as congruence of a five-taxon cladogram or four three-taxon cladograms with a geological cladogram, where the confidence level can be shown in cladistic theory to be 99%o) means that specified events of paleogeography can be adopted as an explanation of the biological patterns. In such a cause and effect relationship, where the earth and its life are assumed to have evolved together, paleogeography is taken by logical necessity to be the independent variable and biological history, the dependent variable. Drawing a mathematical simile, the biological cladogram y (dependent variable), is a function of the geological cladogram x (independent variable), as in a simple regression of effect y on cause x where we are given no free choice as to which is the independent variable. Such a view implies that any specified sequence in earth history must coincide with some discoverable biological patterns; it does not imply a necessary converse that each biological pattern must coincide with some discoverable paleogeographic pattern, because some biological distributions might have resulted from stochastic processes (chance dispersal). Determining that all discoverable biological patterns conflict with a given corroborated or observed sequence of geologic, climatic, or geographic change (i.e., that y is not a function of x), in theory, therefore should falsify vicariance biogeography. Because dispersal biogeography presupposes stochastic processes, and any failure to meet the expectation of a postulated dispersal is explained by an additional dispersal, dispersal biogeography is immune to falsification. Without resort to paleontology or earth history, whether a given historical relationship implied by congruence of biological area-cladograms is the result of dispersal or vicariance can also be thought of in terms which minimize the number of necessary assumptions: did the sedentary organisms disperse with the vagile ones or did the vagile organisms vicariate with the sedentary ones? Cladistic congruence of a group of sedentary organisms with a group of vagile ones rejects dispersal for both. Hence, distributions of sedentary organisms have the potential to falsify dispersal theories as applied to vagile organisms, but distributions of vagile organisms cannot falsify vicariance theories as applied to sedentary ones. The problems that arise in various kinds of historical explanation are exemplified by several specific distributions of fishes and other organisms in North and Middle America and in the larger context of Pangaean history, and are discussed in relation to current species concepts. [Vicariance; species concepts; biocladistics; biohistory; geocladistics; geohistory; Neotropics; Gondwanaland.]


BACKGROUND: Morphine can inhibit inflammatory edema in experimental animals. The mechanisms and sites by which opioids exert this effect are still under debate. Since the spinal level is a site for modulation of the neurogenic component of inflammation, we investigated the effect of intrathecal (IT) administration of morphine, and the involvement of spinal nitric oxide (NO)/cyclic-guanosine monophosphate-GMP pathway in carrageenan (CG)-induced paw edema. METHODS: Male Wistar rats received IT injections of drugs (20 &mgr;L) 30 min before paw stimulation with CG (150 &mgr;g). Edema was measured as paw volume increase (mL), and neutrophil migration was evaluated indirectly by myeloperoxidase (MPO) assay. RESULTS: Morphine (37, 75, and 150 nmol) inhibited inflammatory edema, but had no effect on MPO activity. Coinjection with naloxone (64 nmol) reversed the effect of morphine. The corticosteroid synthesis inhibitor, aminoglutethimide (50 mg/kg, v.o.), administered 90 min before morphine injection did not modify its antiedematogenic effect. Low doses of the NO synthase inhibitor, N&ohgr;-nitro-l-arginine (L-NNA; 10 and 30 pmol) increased, while higher doses (3 and 30 nmol) inhibited edema. The guanylate cyclase inhibitor 1H-oxadiazolo[4,3-a]quinoxalin-1-one (ODQ; 21 and 42 nmol) increased, while the phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitor sildenafil (0.15 and 1.5 nmol) inhibited paw edema. Coadministration of a subeffective dose of L-NNA (3 pmol) or ODQ (10 nmol) with morphine prevented its antiedematogenic effect, but sildenafil (0.15 nmol) rendered a subeffective dose of morphine effective (18 nmol). ODQ also prevented the antiedematogenic effect of the NO donor S-nitroso-N-acethyl-penicilamine. CONCLUSION: These results support the idea that morphine can act on opioid receptors at the spinal level to produce antiedematogenic, and that the NO/cGMP pathway seems to be an important mediator in this effect.


Background. Patients are referred to a specialized oncologic hospital with diagnosis of gastric cancer, which has been already established. Under this condition it is important to determine the clinical problems in which CT plays a crucial role. The aim of the study is the systematization of the major clinical challenges being addressed by CT in patients with gastric cancer treated at the radio-oncological hospital. Methods. A total 120 patients with gastric cancer at the different phases of combination therapy were included in our study: 91 patients underwent preoperative CT for the tumor staging; 70 patients underwent CT topometry; 40 patients were examined with CT in order to the post-therapy control. Results. The role of computed tomography in the study of gastric carcinoma is mainly represented by the staging of tumor according to the TNM system; CT topometry; assessment of response to neoadjuvant therapy; evaluation of postoperative complications and the post-therapy control. Conclusion. In a specialized hospital, CT plays a key role in the management of gastric cancer. CT has important impacts on clinical decisions and allows solving specific clinical problems.


The A [(2)B1] <--X [(2)A2] band system between 380 and 420 nm was observed in a supersonic jet expansion. The allyl radical was found to dissociate following electronic excitation, releasing a hydrogen atom. Monitoring the appearance of the hydrogen atom photoproduct as a function of the excitation laser wavelength, similar spectral features are observed as in earlier absorption experiments. Time- and frequency-resolved photoionization of the hydrogen atom product provides information on the unimolecular dissociation dynamics. The measured dissociation rates and kinetic energy releases of both allyl radical, C3H5, and partially deuterated allyl radical, C3DH4, suggest direct loss of the central hydrogen atom, leading to allene as the major product.


ABSTRACT PCNA is monoubiquitinated in response to DNA damage and fork stalling and then initiates recruitment of specialized polymerases in the DNA damage tolerance pathway, translesion synthesis (TLS). Since PCNA is reported to associate with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) DNA during its replication, we investigated whether the EBV deubiquitinating (DUB) enzyme encoded by BPLF1 targets ubiquitinated PCNA and disrupts TLS. An N-terminal BPLF1 fragment (a BPLF1 construct containing the first 246 amino acids [BPLF1 1-246]) associated with PCNA and attenuated its ubiquitination in response to fork-stalling agents UV and hydroxyurea in cultured cells. Moreover, monoubiquitinated PCNA was deubiquitinated after incubation with purified BPLF1 1-246 in vitro. BPLF1 1-246 dysregulated TLS by reducing recruitment of the specialized repair polymerase polymerase η (Polη) to the detergent-resistant chromatin compartment and virtually abolished localization of Polη to nuclear repair foci, both hallmarks of TLS. Expression of BPLF1 1-246 decreased viability of UV-treated cells and led to cell death, presumably through deubiquitination of PCNA and the inability to repair damaged DNA. Importantly, deubiquitination of PCNA could be detected endogenously in EBV-infected cells in comparison with samples expressing short hairpin RNA (shRNA) against BPLF1. Further, the specificity of the interaction between BPLF1 and PCNA was dependent upon a PCNA-interacting peptide (PIP) domain within the N-terminal region of BPLF1. Both DUB activity and PIP sequence are conserved in the members of the family Herpesviridae. Thus, deubiquitination of PCNA, normally deubiquitinated by cellular USP1, by the viral DUB can disrupt repair of DNA damage by compromising recruitment of TLS polymerase to stalled replication forks. PCNA is the first cellular target identified for BPLF1 and its deubiquitinating activity.


A new member of the murine origin recognition complex (ORC) related to Saccharomyces cerevisiae ORC3 has been cloned. Transcription of ORC3 is not suppressed in mouse NIH3T3 fibroblasts made quiescent by serum starvation. The transcription level of the ORC3 gene is constantly high in all phases of the cell cycle. Murine ORC3 protein contains a putative nuclear localization signal and a non-basic helix-loop-helix motif. Both motifs are conserved in eukaryotes. A potential dimerization partner of ORC3p in the murine ORC complex is ORC1p which also contains an HLH motif. This HLH motif is also highly conserved in all eukaryotic ORC1 proteins. Comparison of murine ORC3p with other ORC3-related proteins shows high amino acid homology and motif conservation leading to the conclusion that ORC3p is part of the initiation machinery conserved in eukaryotes. The mouse ORC3 gene Orc3 was assigned to mouse chromosome 4A3 by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) analysis.


A disturbed energy metabolism in pancreatic acinar cells is discussed as factor contributing to the development of acute pancreatitis (AP). In this study, we investigated to what extent the mitochondrial ATP producing capacity is impaired in the pancreatic tissue of rats with experimental AP. For preparation of mitochondria from rat pancreas, routine isolation procedures (tissue homogenization and differential centrifugation) were applied. Mitochondria were isolated from rats with edematous pancreatitis produced by hyperstimulation with caerulein, and from rats with mild necrotizing acute pancreatitis. The latter form of AP was induced by a temporary occlusion of the biliary pancreatic duct accompanied by a simultaneous intravenous injection of caerulein plus secretin and an intraabdominal administration of ethanol. As functional parameters of oxidative phosphorylation, the respiration rate, the mitochondrial membrane potential, and the activity of the complex I of the respiratory chain were determined. Mitochondria from rats with caerulein AP showed an enhanced respiration (61% vs. saline control) and a diminished membrane potential (-17 mV) if respiring with succinate in the non-phosphorylating state. This indicates an increased proton leak across the mitochondrial inner membrane. In the mild necrotizing AP, mitochondria were characterized by a decreased respiration with NAD(+)-linked substrates (-33% vs. sham-operated animals). This inhibition of respiration was confirmed by the reduced activity measured for the NADH-cytochrome c reductase (-32%). In both models of experimental AP the potency of mitochondria to produce ATP was significantly diminished. The stronger impairment of mitochondrial functions were found in the necrotizing form of AP. Reactive oxygen species may lead to the observed alterations--to the enhanced permeability of the mitochondrial inner membrane as well as to the inhibition of the complex I of the respiratory chain.


The mercury sphygmomanometer is the undisputed gold standard for the indirect measurement of blood pressure. Some public health advocates have recently expressed concern about the use of mercury in medical practice.(2) This concern has prompted many medical facilities to replace mercury manometers with aneroid devices. The present report examined the performance of 282 aneroid sphygmomanometers in outpatient medical practices. Results were examined for predetermined end points within +/-3 mm Hg from the reference values and to indicate zero at no pressure. Ninety-three devices (33%) failed to perform at > or = 1 pressure levels. Most (76%) of the failures were due to low readings. Only 7 of the 93 failing units did not rest at zero, making this an unreliable indicator of accuracy. Inaccurate readings of aneroid sphygmomanometers may result in a failure to diagnose and treat hypertension, thereby placing hypertensive patients at risk for end-organ damage and cardiovascular events.


Lectins are sugar-binding proteins widely distributed in nature with many biological functions. Although many lectins have a remarkable biotechnological potential, some of them can be cytotoxic. Thus, the aim of this study was to assess the toxicity of five lectins, purified from seeds of different species of Canavalia genus. In order to determine the toxicity, assays with Artemia nauplii were performed. In addition, a fluorescence assay was carried out to evaluate the binding of lectins to Artemia nauplii. In order to verify the relationship between the structure of lectins and their cytotoxic effect, structural analysis was carried out to evaluate the volume of the carbohydrate recognition domain (CRD) of each lectin. The results showed that all lectins exhibited different toxicities and bound to a similar area in the digestive tract of Artemia nauplii. Concerning the structural analysis, differences in spatial arrangement and volume of CRD may explain the variation of the toxicity exhibited by each lectin. To this date, this is the first study that establishes a link between toxicity and structure of CRD from Diocleinae lectins.


Since the early 1970s, many U.S. businesses have implemented worksite health promotion programs to help contain employer health-care costs; improve employees' health status, productivity, and morale; reduce absenteeism and employee turnover; and provide a convenient setting for screening and education. Because approximately 130 million persons in the United States work, the worksite is an effective location for offering health screening and educational programs otherwise unaccessible to at-risk persons. From the late 1980s to the early 1990s, the prevalence of worksite health promotion activities increased in the United States. To characterize more recent national practices in worksite-based cancer screening programs, CDC examined data from two national probability surveys--the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotions's (ODPHP's) 1992 National Worksite Health Promotion Survey and CDC's 1995 Worksite Benchmark Survey. This report summarizes the results of the analysis, which indicate that, in contrast to previous findings about worksite health promotion in the 1980s, the prevalence of worksites offering cancer screening declined from 1992 to 1995.


Although liposuction is considered to be a relatively safe procedure, several deaths and nonfatal serious complications such as sepsis, toxic shock syndrome, thromboembolic disease, fat emboli, and adult respiratory distress syndrome have been reported. In the present study, we have investigated a wide variety of components belonging to the coagulation, fibrinolytic, plasma kallikrein-kinin, and complement systems in 22 patients undergoing syringe-assisted liposuction using the superwet or tumescent technique. In spite of a relatively high mean aspirate volume (2,648 ml), only small changes over time well within the normal range were found for the different parameters. In nine randomly selected patients, we also measured interleukin 6 and tumor necrosis factor-alpha. The size of the interleukin-6 peaks was found to be of the same order of magnitude as those measured in patients undergoing hernia repair or percutaneous cholecystectomy but lower than those in patients undergoing open cholecystectomy, breast reduction, or breast reconstruction. Tumor necrosis factor-alpha was not detected in any sample in any of the patients. We conclude that syringe-assisted liposuction with the present aspirate volumes using the superwet or tumescent technique represents a small to moderate surgical trauma without clinical significant activation of the cascade systems.


Enrichment of rare circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in blood is typically achieved using antibodies to epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM), with detection using cytokeratin (CK) antibodies. However, EpCAM and CK are not expressed in some tumors and can be downregulated during epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition. A micro-fluidic system, not limited to EpCAM or CK, was developed to use multiple antibodies for capture followed by detection using CEE-Enhanced (CE), a novel in situ staining method that fluorescently labels the capture antibodies bound to CTCs. Higher recovery of CTCs was demonstrated using antibody mixtures compared to anti-EpCAM. In addition, CK-positive breast cancer cells were found in 15 of 24 samples (63%; range 1–60 CTCs), while all samples contained additional CE-positive cells (range 1–41; median = 11; P = .02). Thus, antibody mixtures against a range of cell surface antigens enables capture of more CTCs than anti-EpCAM alone and CE staining enables the detection of CK-negative CTCs.


Quadratic Optimization (QO) has been studied extensively in the literature due to its application in real-life problems. This thesis deals with two complicated aspects of QO problems, namely nonconvexity and uncertainty. A nonconvex QO problem is intractable in general. The first part of this thesis presents methods to approximate a nonconvex QP problem. Another important aspect of a QO problem is taking into account uncertainties in the parameters since they are mostly approximated/estimated from data. The second part of the thesis contains analyses of two methods that deal with uncertainties in a convex QO problem, namely Static and Adjustable Robust Optimization problems. To test the methods proposed in this thesis, the following three real-life applications have been considered: pooling problem, portfolio problem, and norm approximation problem.


Abstract Colloquial Singapore English, or Singlish, exists in an environment characterised by strong language planning aimed at demoting it in favour of Standard English, as well as in a linguistic ecology featuring a number of languages that have had an impact on its current form. An actual definition of Singlish, beyond scholarly linguistic analyses, is less than straightforward, and this article sets out to address this. Chinese Singaporeans were asked to define Singlish, and elements of Hokkien (one of the major substrate languages involved in the emergence of the contact variety) in conjunction with Singlish were subjected to attitudinal ratings. The results call for a redefinition of Singlish not in terms of a clear set of features that set it apart from other varieties, but rather as a combination of linguistic resources that combine to create a stylistic repertoire appropriate for the expression of, among other stances, local identity.


This paper discusses about Multimodal Biometric System which are used to overcome some of the problems of unimodal systems like noise in sensed data, intra-class variations, distinctiveness, and spoof attacks. Multimodal biometrics is the combination of two or more modalities such as signature and speech modalities. In this work an online signature verification system and speaker verification system are combined as these modalities are widely accepted and natural to produce. Although this combination of multimodal enhances security and accuracy, yet the complexity of the system increases due to increased number of features extracted out of the multiple samples and suffers from additional cost in terms of acquisition time. So these days the key issue is at what degree features are to be extracted and how the cost factor can be minimized, as the number of features increases the variability of the intra-personal samples due to greater lag times in between consecutive acquisitions of the sample also increases. Increase in variability of the system will further increase FAR. Thus to resolve these issues an effective fusion level and fusion mode is required. This paper presents a novel user authentication system based on a combined acquisition of online pen and speech signals.


The on-product overlay roadmap demands an aggressive overlay requirement in the advanced node. Currently the on-product overlay is dominated by effects coming from wafer processing and overlay target detectability. Processing effects such as symmetric stack variation and asymmetric overlay target deformations are expected to become limiting for accurate overlay measurements in future nodes . Increased accuracy requirements and overall complexity in product stacks require a sensor with a higher flexibility. To address this an advanced metrology system is introduced in the fab, providing full flexibility in the selection of measurement wavelengths. On top of the wavelength flexibility, the increased wavelength switching speed enables the use of asymmetry robust recipes by combining multiple wavelength measurements at each overlay target. In this paper we will introduce a method to select the most accurate multi-wavelength recipe that provides significant improvement in accuracy compared to the best single wavelength recipe. We will introduce KPIs to monitor the health of the multi-wavelength measurement. The KPIs are reported per site indicating the accuracy for every measured point. Additionally we will show our steps towards the recovery of the points flagged by multi-wavelength KPI by a combination of measuring more wavelengths and an accuracy guided region of interest selection.


This paper is a theoretical study of solitons in multidimensions, also known as optical bullets, that is governed by the nonlinear Schrodinger's equation in 1 + 3 dimensions. The parameter dynamics of such multidimensional solitons has been obtained. The study is extended to obtain the adiabatic evolution of soliton parameters in presence of the perturbation terms. Furthermore, the parameter dynamics for the vector multidimensional solitons and including the presence of the perturbation terms has been obtained.


How do foreigners, who come to Luxembourg for work, discover the city through sport? This is one of the questions asked during ethnographic research focusing on a sports group in two research organisations employing a large percentage of foreigners.The inductive approach of grounded theory was developed for the exploration of the working migrants' sensitive experience of integration into the new country. The concepts of interaction and integration, borrowed from the Chicago School, were the theoretical tools for analysis of the data collected through observations, interviews, and maps of the working environments. The article discusses the integration of its members into the city, as well as their interaction with the spaces outside their work in various degrees and explores how, through the sports group at work, foreigners working in the country discover places that are otherwise limited to outside of their working space. The analysis concludes by showing how running in/with the group serves as a medium through which people interact with the city and its history and build their own story in the city.


Summary The influence of number and date of pregnancies, births, and spontaneous and induced abortions on body shape, age at menopause and menopausal symptoms have been studied for 110 postmenopausal Viennese women. A significant correlation between fertility and age at menopause was not found, but several menopausal symptoms showed statistically significant correlations with fertility. With a higher number of pregnancies the individual symptoms became more severe.


We previously developed sans spike-in quantitative chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing (siQ-ChIP), a technique that introduces an absolute quantitative scale to ChIP-seq data without reliance on spike-in normalization approaches. The physical model of siQ-ChIP predicted that the IP step of ChIP would produce a classical binding isotherm when antibody or epitope was titrated. Here, we define experimental conditions in which this titration is observable for antibodies that recognize modified states of histone proteins. We show that minimally sequenced points along an isotherm can reveal differential binding specificities that are associated with on- and off-target epitope interactions. This work demonstrates that the interpretation of histone post-translational modification distribution from ChIP-seq data has a dependence on antibody concentration. Collectively, these studies introduce a simplified and reproducible experimental method to generate quantitative ChIP-seq data without spike-in normalization and demonstrate that histone antibody specificity can be analyzed directly in ChIP-seq experiments.


This paper reviews previous work from our laboratory concerning the role of resistance vessel abnormalities in the pathogenesis of high blood pressure both in man and in the spontaneously hypertensive rat. In both man and rat, a number of resistance vessel characteristics differ between those from hypertensive individuals and those from normotensive controls, including vascular structure and the sensitivity of the noradrenaline concentration-response curve to cocaine (expressed as a "cocaine-shift", and possibly being a marker for amount of sympathetic innervation). In essential hypertensive patients who had been treated for about 1 year, or in rats which were treated from age 4 weeks to 24 weeks, neither vascular structure nor "cocaine-shift" were fully normalized. Failure to obtain full regression of vascular structure could have important consequences concerning the hemodynamics of treated hypertensive individuals.


Purpose:Sorafenib is an oral multikinase inhibitor of the vascular endothelial growth factor receptor, the platelet-derived growth factor receptor and Raf with demonstrated efficacy as first-line therapy for patients with inoperable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). We reported the preliminary results of this treatment to evaluate its safety, tolerability, and efficacy in patients with inoperable HCC.
Patients and Methods: Patients with inoperable HCC and a Karnofsky performance status (KPS) of ≥70, Child-Pugh (CP) score of A or B, an elevated alphafetoprotein (AFP) level and adequate hematologic, renal and hepatic functions; were enrolled. No Prior therapy was permitted. The regimen was sorafenib at a dose of 400 mg bid, given 7 days per week. Treatment was maintained until disease progression or unacceptable toxicity.
Results:Twenty one patients with a median age of 53 years (range, 39-73 years) were accrued at Clinical Oncology Department, Faculty of Medicine, Tanta University Hospital, Egypt and King Abd-Elaziz Hospital, Gedah, KSA. Previously, no Prior therapy was permitted. All patients who were entered on the study were assessable for toxicity and response of sorafenib. There were 2 clinical responses (9.5%) and another 8 (38.1%) had stable disease. Disease control rate was 47.6%. No Grade 3-4 hematologic toxicities were recorded. The most common grade 3-4 non-hematological toxicities were fatigue in 3 patients (14.3%), hand-foot skin reaction (HFS) in 2 patients (9.5%) and Diarrhea in 2 patients (9.5%).The estimated median progression-free and median overall survival times were 4 and 9 months, respectively, and the 1-year overall survival rate was 38.1%. There was no treatment-related death.
Conclusion: The results of this study suggested that, in the population with inoperable HCC, daily sorafenib regimen had good clinical activity with an acceptable toxicity.


Background The aim of this study was to identify predictors of repeated admission to the intensive care unit (ICU) of patients who underwent cardiac surgery procedures. Material/Methods This retrospective study analyzed 169 patients who underwent isolated coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) between January 2009 and December 2010. The case group contained 54 patients who were readmitted to the ICU during the same hospitalization and the control group comprised 115 randomly selected patients. Results Logistic regression analysis revealed that independent predictors for readmission to the ICU after CABG were: older age of patients (odds ratio [OR] 1.04; CI 1.004–1.08); body mass index (BMI) >30 kg/m2 (OR 2.55; CI 1.31–4.97); EuroSCORE II >3.9% (OR 3.56; CI 1.59–7.98); non-elective surgery (OR 2.85; CI 1.37–5.95); duration of operation >4 h (OR 3.44; CI 1.54–7.69); bypass time >103 min (OR 2.5; CI 1.37–4.57); mechanical ventilation >530 min (OR 3.98; CI 1.82–8.7); and postoperative central nervous system (CNS) disorders (OR 3.95; CI 1.44–10.85). The hospital mortality of patients who were readmitted to the ICU was significantly higher compared to the patients who did not require readmission (17% vs. 3.8%, p=0.025). Conclusions Identification of patients at risk of ICU readmission should focus on older patients, those who have higher BMI, who underwent non-elective surgery, whose operation time was more than 4 hours, and who have postoperative CNS disorders. Careful optimization of these high-risk patients and caution before discharging them from the ICU may help reduce the rate of ICU readmission, mortality, length of stay, and cost.


Observation techniques for measuring the small vibration of a single microcapsule of tens of nanometers in an acoustic standing wave field are discussed. First, simultaneous optical observation of a microbubble vibration by two methods is investigated, using a high-speed video camera, which permits two-dimensional observation of the bubble vibration, and a laser Doppler vibrometer (LDV), which can observe small bubble vibration amplitudes at high frequency. Bubbles of tens of micrometers size were trapped at the antinode of an acoustic standing wave generated in an observational cell. Bubble vibration at 27 kHz could be observed and the experimental results for the two methods showed good agreement. The radial vibration of microcapsules with a hard plastic shell was observed using the LDV and the measurement of the capsule vibration with radial oscillation amplitude of tens of nanometers was successful. The acoustic radiation force acting on microcapsules in the acoustic standing wave was measured from the trapped position of the standing wave and the radial oscillation amplitude of the capsules was estimated from the theoretical equation of the acoustic radiation force, giving results in good agreement with the LDV measurements. The radial oscillation amplitude of a capsule was found to be proportional to the amplitude of the driving sound pressure. A larger expansion ratio was observed for capsules closer to the resonance condition under the same driving sound pressure and frequency.


This paper examines the determinants of visitors' expenditure behaviour at cultural events. The authors analyse visitors' expenditure at the micro-level, dividing it into expenditure on accommodation and expenditure on food and beverages. The explicative variables taken into account are socio-demographic, economic, psychological and trip–related attributes. An ad hoc survey was conducted on the three most famous Christmas markets in the north of Italy in December 2008 and 2009. To achieve their aims, the authors use the robust double-hurdle model. The results indicate that travel purpose, region of origin, perception of the event, length of stay and age are significant factors influencing both the propensity to spend and the amount of money actually spent during visits. The findings will provide destination managers and tourism businesses with practical knowledge useful for destination marketing, event development and customer service.


Choosing reference electrodes for nonaqueous electrochemical measurements, especially in energy storage research, is challenging due to lengthy experiments (>1 day), the lack of alternatives to the commonly used Ag/Ag+ reference electrode (RE), the introduction of junction potentials, and the possibility of sample contamination. Often, quasi-reference electrodes (QREs) such as Ag wires and Li metal strips are used. However, small changes in electrolyte composition can cause large potential drifts, and their surfaces may be reactive to the solution. Here, we propose an alternative QRE based on polypyrrole electrodeposited on Pt wire (PPyQRE) encased in a glass tube with the open end sealed with commercial frits. While freestanding PPyQRE wires have been reported in the literature, simple encasing of the PPyQRE overcomes the above-mentioned drawbacks of QREs while providing a reliable reference potential that is closer to the performance of an RE. During cyclic voltammetric and bulk electrolysis testing of a redox mediator in solution, the encased PPyQRE exhibited stable reference potentials over multiple charge/discharge cycles with minimal drift (∼5 mV) after ∼2.25 days of operation. We also tested the reliability of our reference during the testing of multilayer graphene Li-ion anodes, which often involve cycling samples at highly reducing potentials (<-3 V vs Fc/Fc+) over long durations (>1 day). In the same testing conditions, the Ag/Ag+ electrode led to observable Ag deposits on the graphene and large potential drifts (∼50 mV), while the PPyQRE exhibited no measurable drift and revealed changes in voltammetric features that were obscured by reference drift when using Ag/Ag+. Minor reference drifts of ∼30 mV over long usage of the PPyQRE (∼2 months) can be addressed by calibration with a ferrocene couple at the end of experiments. These results highlight the advantages of using an encased PPyQRE as a simple and practical reference electrode for electrochemical measurements in the field of nonaqueous energy storage research.


. The purpose of this research is to find Indonesian multiculturalism in animated film characters. Fictional characters are human copies of the real world. Characters are positioned to live life in the world of animation. The relationship between characters is manifested when there is an attachment of cultural identity. The characterizations in Indonesian animated films show the complexity of creation. This concept refers to the view that the more complex the characters are, the more memorable the audience will be. This research uses ethnographic method, given that the characters have a cultural identity. Characters are placed as objects that have mental and motivational qualities. In addition, there is the use of cultural symbols, which indicates multiculturalism. The identity of the characters refers to the unified heuristic of Stets and Burke's theory of identity. Meanwhile, the apparent multiculturalism refers to Ricardo L. Garcia's theory of multiculturalism. The condition of Indonesia, which has been based on pluralism from the start, really understands the existence of differences. So that consciously accept the occurrence of cultural syncretism. The results of this study indicate that Indonesian animated film characters tend to show the application of multiculturalism. And, multiculturalism has become an identity. Multiculturalism is proof of acceptance of this condition, and is manifested through animated film characters.


Hajiboland R., Amirazad H. , 2010. Drought tolerance in Zn-deficient red cabbage ( Brassica oleracea L. var. capitata f. rubra) plants . Hort. Sci., 37: 88–98. Effects of Zn deficiency were studied in red cabbage plants under well-watered or drought conditions. Impairment of growth due to Zn deficiency was higher under drought compared with well-watered conditions. Drought stress caused a drastic decline in Zn content and led to a damage of photosynthetic apparatus in Zn-deficient but not Zn-sufficient leaves. Net assimilation and transpiration rate were strongly reduced under Zn deficiency and drought conditions fol lowing reduction of stomatal conductance. Activity of antioxidant enzymes, with the exception of superoxide dismutase, increased under Zn deficiency conditions, while drought enhanced activity of all studied enzymes concomitant with accumulation of malondialdehyde and H 2 O 2 . The intensifying effect of drought on Zn-deficient leaves could be explained by impaired leaf photochemical events, reduction of whole plant photosynthesis and imbalance between production and scavenging of reactive oxygen species. Water use efficiency, water and osmotic potential of drought-stressed plants were higher under low compared with adequate Zn supply, however, these parameters were not critical for plant growth response under combinative effect of drought and Zn deficiency.


A RTD (resistive temperature device) high temperature sensor was developed for exhaust gas temperature measurement. Extensive modeling and optimization was used to supplement testing in development. The sensor was developed to be capable of withstanding harsh environments (-40° to 1000°C), typical of engine applications, including poisons, while maintaining high accuracy (< 0.5% drift after 500 hrs of aging at 950°C). The following sensor characteristics are presented: resistance-temperature curve, accuracy, response time, and long-term durability. In addition, a system error analysis program was developed with representative results.


It is important to understand the distribution of recoil-implanted atoms and the impact on device performance when ion implantation is performed at a high dose through surface materials into single crystalline silicon. For example, in ultralarge scale integration impurity ions are often implanted through a thin layer of screen oxide and some of the oxygen atoms are inevitably recoil implanted into single-crystalline silicon. Theoretical and experimental studies have been performed to investigate this phenomenon. We have modified the Monte Carlo ion implant simulator, UT-Marlowe (B. Obradovic, G. Wang, Y. Chen, D. Li, C. Snell, and A. F. Tasch, UT-MARLOWE Manual, 1999), which is based on the binary collision approximation, to follow the full cascade and to dynamically modify the stoichiometry of the Si layer as oxygen atoms are knocked into it. CPU reduction techniques are used to relieve the demand on computational power when such a full cascade simulation is involved. Secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIM...


There are, as yet, no standard radiobiological methods for devising compensation for unscheduled interruptions to fractionated radiotherapy. For the foreseeable future it is likely that the concept of biologically effective dose (BED) will play an important role in the intercomparison of treatment regimes, and in the examination of the options available for dealing with unscheduled treatment interruptions. However, comparison of the BEDs associated with different treatment options does not provide an intuitively obvious indication of the magnitude of any associated differences in biological effect--an important consideration in the case of those treatments which are designed to deliver near-tolerance doses. This article reviews the implications which derive from this complication, and discusses the desirable properties of possible "one-number" treatment scoring systems which could utilize the BEDs of both the tumour and the critical normal tissue. One possible form of such a scoring parameter is suggested, and applied to some clinical examples. No special "robustness" is claimed for the proposed scoring system, but the method nevertheless allows the ranking of treatment options such that the least satisfactory may be identified and rejected.


The trimeric protein LamB of E. coli K12 (maltoporin) specifically facilitates the diffusion of maltose and maltooligosaccharides through the outer membrane and acts as a non-specific porin for small hydrophilic molecules. LamB serves also as a specific cell surface receptor for phages, including phage lambda. Each monomer consists of an eighteen-stranded antiparallel beta-barrel with nine surface loops (L1 to L9). Three loops fold into the beta-barrel, with loop L3 constricting the channel about half way. Monomers bind sugars independently of each other. Structural studies of maltoporin in complex with maltodextrin showed that the binding site, located at the channel constriction, was composed of : i) a "greasy slide", a left-handed helical arrangement of aromatic residues extending along the channel providing a hydrophobic path to the glycosyl moieties; and ii) an "ionic track", found on both sides of the channel constriction zone, providing residues available for forming hydrogen bonds with the sugars. The participation of the surface loops that cover the entry of the pore to phage binding and to sugar binding and transport has also been thoroughly investigated. Genetic and biochemical analyses suggest that some of the surface loops participate directly in the orientation and entry of maltooligosaccharides into the channel and, thus, control access to the binding site.


Most imaging modalities image an object's interior while all instrumentation, including sources and receivers, is externally located. One notable exception is ultra-sound (US), which can be miniaturized sufficiently to locate a US transducer within an object and gather data for image reconstruction. Another is cross-borehole geophysical imaging. The goal of any internal imaging modality is to provide images of greater fidelity while avoiding interfering structures. Due to the bulkiness of multi-coil magnetic induction tomography (MIT), transmitting and receiving coils are never placed within small targets (e.g., a human body). Here, we demonstrate a novel implementation of single-coil MIT that performs a scan all while the coil is located within the interior of a small, labcreated phantom consisting of salt-doped agarose. Phantom geometry is annular, consisting of a 6.0 cm diameter channel of depth 5.5 cm surrounded by a 3.0 cm thick cylindrical wall. An embedded, centrally located agarose gel annulus, 2.0 cm thick, is doped with sufficient NaCl to elevate its conductivity above that of surrounding agarose. The resulting nearly axisymmetric phantoms consist of material having conductivity ranging from 0.11 to 10.55 S/m. A scan is accomplished robotically, with the coil stubmounted on the positioning head of a 3-axis controller that positions the planar circular loop coil into 360 or 720 preset internal positions. Image reconstruction from gathered data is shown to correctly reveal the location, size and conductivity of the approximately axisymmetric inclusion.


PEKAREK, RYAN ANDREW. Evaluation of a 'Caliente' Mustard Cover Crop, Smetolachlor, Imazosulfuron, and Thifensulfuron-methyl for Weed Control in Bell Pepper. (Under the direction of David W. Monks.) Bell pepper production has relied on pre-plant fumigation with methyl bromide under polyethylene mulch for weed control. With the pending loss of methyl bromide under the Montreal Protocol and the lack of registered herbicides to control yellow nutsedge and broadleaf weeds, new weed management strategies for bell pepper are needed. Studies were conducted near Clinton, NC, in 2007 and 2008 to evaluate effects of a 'Caliente' mustard cover crop in four vegetable cultural systems on weed and nematode populations. Cultural systems included a flat seed bed (TILL), a raised bed with no mulch (RAISED), low density polyethylene mulch (LDPE), and virtually impermeable film (VIF) mulch. The 'Caliente' mustard cover crop did not reduce weed populations. The mulched treatments (LDPE and VIF) reduced yellow nutsedge populations compared to the non-mulched (RAISED and TILL). No differences between the two polyethylene mulches were detected. More large crabgrass, goosegrass, and smooth pigweed were present in the RAISED compared to the TILL treatments. The 'Caliente' mustard cover crop generally had no effect on nematode populations, but ring and bacterivore nematode populations increased compared to bareground. The polyethylene mulches generally did not affect nematode populations. However, polyethylene mulched treatments increased ring nematode populations compared to non-mulched treatments. Omnivore, root-knot, and spiral nematode populations were unaffected by treatments. Greenhouse and field studies were conducted to evaluate bell pepper tolerance imazosulfuron and thifensulfuron-methyl. Imazosulfuron was applied postemergence-over-the-top (POST-OTT) at 56, 112, 224, 336, or 448 g ai/ha. Thifensulfuron-methyl was applied POST-OTT at 2.6, 5.3, 10.5, 21.0, or 31.6 g ai/ha. In the greenhouse over 2 years, bell pepper injury from imazosulfuron POSTOTT ranged from 12 to 27%. Reductions in plant height were generally minor. Injury due to thifensulfuron-methyl POST-OTT ranged from 41 to 61% in the greenhouse. Similar trends were observed for leaf chlorosis and distortion. Thifensulfuron-methyl tended to decrease numbers of buds, flowers, and fruits in the greenhouse. In the field at 3 locations, bell pepper injury from imazosulfuron applied postemergence-directed (POST-DIR) was less than 10% at all ratings. Height and yield were not reduced. Total and marketable yield averaged 40,300 and 35,810 kg/ha, respectively, across locations. Bell pepper injury from thifensulfuron-methyl applied POST-DIR in the field was less than 20% with all rates and below 10% when rates below 10.6 g ai/ha thifensulfuron-methyl were applied. Thifensulfuron-methyl did not reduce stand or height. Thifensulfuron-methyl did not affect total bell pepper yield (39,310 kg/ha across locations), however, reductions in Fancy yield were observed. No. 1 and cull yield grades tended to increase with increasing thifensulfuron-methyl, apparently compensating for lost Fancy grade yield. Studies were also conducted at 4 site-years in North Carolina in 2007 and 2008 to evaluate the effects of 'Caliente' mustard cover crops, bareground, S-metolachlor preemergence (PRE), and imazosulfuron POST-DIR on weed control, bell pepper height, injury, stand, and yield. Smetolachlor injury to bell pepper was generally less than 15% at all sites except 3 WAT at HRCS 2007. S-metolachlor provided greater than 88% control of fall panicum, goosegrass, and large crabgrass. Control of carpetweed, common and pink purslanes, and hairy galinsoga ranged from 42 to >90%. Yellow nutsedge control with S-metolachlor and imazosulfuron ranged from 15 to 63% and 76 to 84%, respectively. Imazosulfuron did not injure pepper. S-metolachlor at 1.6 kg ai/ha reduced yield of bell pepper in some instances, although, overall yield reductions were minor. 'Caliente' mustard did not routinely increase weed control and only increased Fancy grade yield at HCRS 2007. 'Caliente' mustard reduced Fancy grade bell pepper yield at the MHCRS site compared to a bareground check. Benefits of the 'Caliente' mustard cover crop were transient to non-existent. Evaluation of a 'Caliente' Mustard Cover Crop, S-metolachlor, Imazosulfuron, and Thifensulfuron-methyl for Weed Control in Bell Pepper


The current trend towards more mobility will increasingly affect the gaming market over the next years. Location-based mobile massive multiplayer online games (MMMOG) will be a new paradigm in the gaming industry. Since building a game for a massive amount of mobile players is a challenging task, we have created a reusable architecture for location-aware mobile massive multiplayer online games. In this paper we describe our approach and present the Geobashing game, a location-based MMMOG implemented using our architecture. We evaluated our architecture to show its applicability.


: In small animals, urinary incontinence is mainly a problem of dogs, particularly bitches. The following descriptions relate to canine incontinence although comparisons will be made, where appropriate, to similar conditions in the cat. The investigative procedures commonly employed have been summarized previously but contrast radiographic techniques are essential.


In this paper, we show that redshifts, which appear in some pedagogical examples, can be expressed in terms of the Doppler–Fizeau effect. For this purpose, we use, as suggested by Weyl, the worldline elements of two physical events: the emission and the reception of a monochromatic wave. The redshift in special relativity and its Galilean approximation are derived in a simpler way than is usually done. In general relativity, the cosmological redshift can be obtained with the general Weyl formula in three important cases of gravitational fields, even though the gravitational redshift, due to bodies running away from each other, cannot be reduced to a simple kinematic effect.


Genetically modified dendritic cell (DC) has been extensively studied and numerous phase I and II clinical trials evaluating the efficacy of DC-based vaccine have been initiated. Among different methods for gene delivery, vectors based on a human parvovirus, the adeno-associated virus (AAV), have attracted much attention mainly because of the non-pathogenic nature of this replication deficient virus, and its ability to mediate long-term, sustained therapeutic gene expression. Successful transduction of different subsets of DC by different commonly used serotypes of AAV was demonstrated in recent studies and the potential advantage of an AAV-based antitumor vaccine was discussed. However, further improvement of gene transfer by rAAV to DC in terms of specificity and transduction efficiency should be made to have a significant impact in the choice of vector used as an antitumor vaccine. Serine/threonine protein kinases, such as p-38 MAPK, are involved in a wide variety of cellular processes such as differentiation, transcription regulation and development of many cell types including immune cells. Such kinases can also negatively regulate efficiency of rAAV-mediated gene transfer by phosphorylating serine or threonine surface exposed residues on viral capsid and target virus for proteasome-mediated degradation. In present studies we show that pre-treatment of cells with selective p-38 MAPK inhibitors prior to AAV infection significantly increased the transduction by AAV2 vectors. We hypothesized that prevention of phosphorylation of the surface-exposed serine residues might allow the vectors to evade phosphorylation and subsequent ubiquitination and, thus, prevent proteasomal degradation. The AAV2 capsid contains 50 serine residues in the VP3 region, of which 15 residues (S261, S264, S267, S276, S384, S458, S468, S492, S498, S578, S658, S662, S668, S707, S721) are surface-exposed. Each of the fifteen serine (S) residues was substituted with valine (V), and each S-V mutant vector was evaluated for transduction efficiency in moDC. We identified that single serine residue (S662) substitution to valine leads to increased transduction efficiency of moDC up to 6 times. We next evaluated the possibility whether S662V-AAV vectors could be used for generating antigen-specific cytotoxic T-cells (CTLs). To this end, S662V-AAV2 vectors encoding a truncated human telomerase (hTERT) gene were generated, and used to stimulate CTLs against a human immortalised myelogenous leukaemia cell line, K562. Our data show that S662V-AAV2-hTERT-transduced DCs resulted in rapid (within one week), specific T-cell clone proliferation and generation of robust CTLs. A killing curve was generated and specific cell lysis was determined by fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) analysis of live/dead cell ratios. These results suggest that high-efficiency transduction of moDCs by capsid-modified AAV vectors is feasible, which supports the potential utility of these vectors for future human DC-based vaccine studies. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference: Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics; 2011 Nov 12-16; San Francisco, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Mol Cancer Ther 2011;10(11 Suppl):Abstract nr C240.


This paper seeks to gain understanding of what processes influence the cloud fraction of altocumulus clouds. Our starting point is a cloud system observed on 25 June 1996 during the CLEX-1 field experiment. This two-layered system comprised a partly cloudy cumuliform layer located about 500 meters below an overcast stratiform layer. This cloud system was documented with aircraft data and simulated in three dimensions with high resolution using the COAMPS-LES model. Given observed initial atmospheric profiles, the model successfully simulates the qualitative structure of the layered system, although the modeled cumuliform layer has less cloud fraction, liquid water, and turbulence than the observations. Next, sensitivity studies were performed using the COAMPS-LES model. These gave evidence that partial cloudiness in our simulations is caused primarily by conditional instability and the consequent vertical motions of air parcels within the layer. This mechanism is complicated by the presence of radiative heating and cooling. When the lower cloud layer is heated radiatively throughout its entire depth, it becomes conditionally unstable and partly cloudy. This is true even if the layer is initially overcast and absolutely stable, and even if the radiative heating rates are small. However, the entire lower layer heats only if there is an upper cloud layer above. If the upper layer is removed, then the lower layer cloud top cools strongly to space, and the lower layer remains overcast. Through this radiative effect, the presence or absence of an upper layer influences the cloud fraction of a lower layer, even though the two layers are spatially separated and have little dynamical interaction.


The yield of Bambara groundnut [Vignasubterranea L. (Verdc.)] is extremely low and unpredictable. Erratic yields have been attributed, at least in part, to variable or poor field establishment due to seedling emergence. The aim of this study wasto evaluate under field conditions, the effects of genotype and environment on seedling emergence in Bambara groundnut. Field experiment was conducted with 15 landraces in Northern and Southern regions of Cote dIvoire. A randomized complete block design with five replications was used in each environment. Estimated variables included number of day for emergence (DFE), mean emergence time (MET), emergence index (EI), time to 50% emergence (T50) and seedling emergence percentage (EP). Analysis of variance revealed significant (P < 0.05) differences between genotypes, locations and the interaction genotype x location for all traits studied. Location x year x genotype interactions were only significant for DFE, EI and EP.The highest DFE and T50 and MET were observed with the genotype Ci7. The least DFE, MET and T50 were obtained with genotypes Ci1, Ci2, Ci10, Ci11, Ci12, Ci13 and Ci22. Highest seedling emergence percentage was recorded with genotype Ci15 (93.29%) in Korhogo and Ci4 in Korhogo (90.85%) and Abidjan (89.59 %). Lowest EP was observed with the genotype Ci3 (42.33%).Correlations indicated that genotype with higher emergence percentage, emerged faster (low DFE, MET, T50) and exhibited higher emergence index (EI). AMMI analysis showed that Ci1, Ci4, Ci7, Ci11, Ci14 and Ci15 were the ideal genotypes because they expressed high and stable EP.


Increased intra-epididymal pressure due to obstruction causes a breach in the epididymal lining exposing the highly antigenic sperms to the interstitium. When the exposure is small and intermittent, it is likely to induce a local humoral response which may affect sperm maturation and also react with the epididymal epithelium producing irreversible histological changes. The present study on 30 patients of primary obstructive infertility found direct and indirect evidence of the production of antisperm antibodies locally. ELISA for antisperm antibodies was positive in the epididymal fluid in 16/30 (53%) of the patients. Indirect evidence of the role of local antigen-antibody reaction in the epididymis is apparent in 22/30 (73%) patients who had a lymphocytic infiltrate. The local presence of antisperm antibodies in the epididymal fluid correlated well with the presence of lymphocytic infiltration in the interstitium (p < 0.05). In our study 16/30 patients had a positive ELISA for antisperm antibody and all these patients had interstitial lymphocytic infiltration. In addition eight patients with a negative ELISA also showed interstitial lymphocytic infiltration. Thus 22/30 (73%) patients had an evidence of a local immune reaction directly in the form of a positive ELISA for antisperm antibodies in the epididymal fluid and / or indirect evidence in the form of lymphocytic infiltrate in the interstitium. None of the five controls had either a positive ELISA or lymphocytic infiltrate, this difference was found to be statistically significant (p < 0.005).


The addition of oleylamine coated Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS) nanoparticles to solutions of an organic semiconductor used to fabricate organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) has been investigated. The oligothiophene-based small molecule 5T-TTF and the polymer poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) were each applied in the transistors with various concentrations of CZTS (5–20%). Atomic force microscopy (AFM) was applied to characterise the surface morphology of the OFETs. The use of 5 and 10 wt% of the CZTS nanoparticles in 5T-TTF and P3HT solutions, respectively, appears to be a simple and effective way of improving OFET performance.


Background: The number of people with diabetes mellitus in Indonesia is increasing every year. The data in 2016 showed that 1 of 11 adults could have diabetes mellitus. Uncontrolled and untreated diabetes mellitus can cause complications. Objectives: This activity aimed to determine the group of age that have a potential risk of hypertension and diabetes so that it could minimize the prevalence of disease and optimize human productivity. Methods: (1) Counseling about hypertension and diabetes, (2) Screening the people with a potential risk of hypertension using tensimeter and diabetes prediction using point-of-care testing (POCT) and urine dipstick. Results: The data were collected from 75 respondents with characteristics about 85,33% female and 14,67% male. About 25 respondents (33,33%) were suspected of hypertension. Based on age group, it showed that the highest incident rate of hypertension was found in the age group of 41-60 years (41,86%), followed by the age group of 61-80 years (20%), 21-40 years (13,33%), and age under 20 years and above 80 years (0%). The majority of respondents had a normal glucose level(90,67%). Based on gender, there was 1 male respondent (9,09%)and5female respondents  (7,81%) having a glucose level higher than normal value (hyperglycemia). Conclusion:  The age group with the highest potential risk for hypertension was 41-60 years, while for diabetes was 61-80 years. This activity provided information to prevent the potential risk leading to hypertension and diabetes.