Abstract Objectives: We set out to review all admissions from the criminal justice system to the Central Mental Hospital from January 1997 to December 2003, with particular attention to patient diagnoses, offences, source of admission, length of stay, and patterns of discharge. This study was undertaken to assist with future service planning and determination of resource needs. Methods: The service maintains a combination of electronic and handwritten records of all admissions. Information was extracted concerning all admissions from January 1, 1997 to December 30, 2003. The data was analysed using a statistical package, SPSS 11.0 for Windows. Results: Nine hundred and eighty-six admissions of 780 individuals from the criminal justice system were recorded from January 1997 to December 2003. There has been an increase in the proportion of patients admitted suffering with severe mental illness. There has also been a significant shift in the pattern of discharges, with a higher proportion of patients leaving to return to their local hospital. The proportion of admissions returned to prison has fallen from 91.1 % in 1999 to 64.7% in 2003, while 3.3% of individuals admitted became new long-stay cases. Conclusions: A shift in the profile of patients admitted in recent years reflects changes within the National Forensic Mental Health Service. An increased provision of regular and structured psychiatric input to the prisons has facilitated the identification of prisoners with mental illness. The shift from prison liaison to diversion from the Criminal Justice System to mental health services is however in its early stages.


We give a necessary and sufficient smoothness condition for the scheme parameterizing the n-dimensional representations of a finitely generated associative algebra over an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero. In particular, our result implies that the points M of the above scheme, satisfying Ext^2_A(M,M)=0, are regular. This generalizes well-known results on finite-dimensional algebras to finitely generated algebras


It is well-known that the enormous increase in fatigue strength of case hardened steel is due to the high compressive residual stress in the material and to the doubled hardness caused by heat treatment, and that the effect of the residual stress on the endurance limit can be accounted for by taking it as the mean stress.In this paper the fatigue test results which were obtained of the carburized and induction hardened steel, have been re-examined from the viewpoint of crack propagation process. It appears that the fatigue strength of case hardened steel can be regarded as resistance against fatigue crack propagation in the specimen having minute flaw, because, in highly hardened material, the micro inclusions and metallurgical discontinuity can be taken as the origins of fatigue cracks.


Abstract. The flow of fluids through porous media such as groundwater flow or magma migration is a key process in geological sciences. Flow is controlled by the permeability of the rock; thus, an accurate determination and prediction of its value is of crucial importance. For this reason, permeability has been measured across different scales. As laboratory measurements exhibit a range of limitations, the numerical prediction of permeability at conditions where laboratory experiments struggle has become an important method to complement laboratory approaches. At high resolutions, this prediction becomes computationally very expensive, which makes it crucial to develop methods that maximize accuracy. In recent years, the flow of non-Newtonian fluids through porous media has gained additional importance due to, e.g., the use of nanofluids for enhanced oil recovery. Numerical methods to predict fluid flow in these cases are therefore required. Here, we employ the open-source finite difference solver LaMEM (Lithosphere and Mantle Evolution Model) to numerically predict the permeability of porous media at low Reynolds numbers for both Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids. We employ a stencil rescaling method to better describe the solid–fluid interface. The accuracy of the code is verified by comparing numerical solutions to analytical ones for a set of simplified model setups. Results show that stencil rescaling significantly increases the accuracy at no additional computational cost. Finally, we use our modeling framework to predict the permeability of a Fontainebleau sandstone and demonstrate numerical convergence. Results show very good agreement with experimental estimates as well as with previous studies. We also demonstrate the ability of the code to simulate the flow of power-law fluids through porous media. As in the Newtonian case, results show good agreement with analytical solutions.


In the field of the application of HTS in electrical motors, most prototypes are made using superconducting coils based on tape and located in the position where copper coils work in a similar conventional motor. Other prototypes use superconducting bulks (usually disk-shaped) in those positions where normal magnets should work in similar conventional motors. But it is very unusual to find designs using electrical coils based on bulks. This is a challenge whose main problem is the difficulty in machining the superconductor bulks to get the proper shape because of the impossibility of bending the material to wind coils. The design of a bipolar single-turn coil made from a superconducting YBCO disk was proposed by the group of Electrical Application of Superconductors, at the University of Extremadura, several years ago to be an element for the design of a modular two-phase inductor for an air core axial-flux motor. The shape of each coil looks like an 'S'. When a current flows through the circuit, two opposite magnetic fields appear in the upper and lower halves of the piece. Until now, attempts to get a good superconducting circuit by cutting a YBCO disk into the required shape have failed because of cracks appearing in the crystal during the process. Last year, our group at the University of Extremadura began to work with ATZ GmbH who have improved the machining process and made the coils. In this paper we present the coil and the first tests carried out.


The concepts of controlled frames and it's dual in n-Hilbert spaces and their tensor products have been introduced and then some of their characterizations are given. We further study the relationship between controlled frame and bounded linear operator in tensor product of n-Hilbert spaces. At the end, the direct sum of controlled frames in n-Hilbert space is being considered.


Application of the threshold mode allowed us to use the quartz resonator (quartz crystal microbalance, QCM) as a highly sensitive gas sensor measuring the forces of the rupture of adsorbed gas components from the resonator surface oscillating with increasing amplitude. This procedure allows one to analyze different gas components using the same surface modification, just varying the rupture threshold by varying the amplitude of shear oscillations. The sensitivity of the threshold measurements is 2 to 3 orders of magnitude higher than for the gravimetric procedure. It is demonstrated that the QCM operating as an active element can be used as a gas sensor. This procedure seems to be promising in investigating the reactivity of the surface or the interactions of gaseous components with the surface containing various functional groups, thus contributing to the surface chemistry.


ABSTRACT:From Rob Nixon to David Simpson, many of the best contemporary literary critics emphasize aspects of slowness as a potential antidote to the seemingly accelerated pace of daily life. But if, as this essay contends, the premium placed on slowness is not new, what are the implications of the longer history of slow time for our understanding of eighteenth-century thought? Is slow time a lode bearing concept, one that might help us better to understand both eighteenth-century narrative and poetry as spaces for the representation of slowness and as offering reading experiences that promote a slow and immersive mode of engagement? In response to these questions, the essay offers neither an explicit elaboration of slow time nor a direct statement of what it does for us as a literary critical concept; instead, it approaches the implications of slow time as a critical concept through a series of seven intentionally contradictory propositions.


Fine to ultrafine materials, such as spherical particles and fibers with their diverse applications ranging from cosmetics, cleaners and composites to nanomedicine are increasingly ubiquitous in the air we breathe. For example, the unique lung deposition patterns of nanoparticles and their ease-of-migration into the blood stream may cause severe health problems, as discussed by Oberdoerster et al. (2005). In contrast, multifunctional nanoparticles as well as micron fibers are also being used as drug carriers for cancer treatment (Zhang et al., 2011). While the transport and deposition of spherical nanoparticles has been analyzed (Kleinstreuer and Zhang, 2010; among others), the fate of ellipsoidal particles in subject-specific lung airways has hardly been addressed.In this study, the Euler-Lagrange fluid-particle modeling approach (i.e., the Discrete Phase Method solver) has been employed in Fluent 13.0 (ANSYS, Canonsburg, PA). User-supplied C-programs have been added to simulate ellipsoidal fibers transport and orientation effects. The computer simulation model has been validated for fiber transport and deposition in a circular tube (Tian et al., 2012). Additionally, transitional airflow patterns were analyzed and local deposition efficiencies compared for spherical particles and fibers in a realistic human respiratory system. The capability of ellipsoidal fibers migrating into deeper lung regions was indicated and fiber deposition "hot spots" were discussed. The numerical results expand the basic understanding of the dynamics of non-spherical particles in realistic shear flows, and can be used to investigate the fate of inhaled toxic or therapeutic materials.Copyright © 2012 by ASME


A method for deriving respiratory rate from smartphone-camera-acquired pulse photoplethysmographic (SCPPG) signal is presented. Our method exploits respiratory information by examining the pulse wave velocity and dispersion from the SCPPG waveform and we term these indices as the pulse width variability (PWV). A method to combine information from several derived respiration signals is also presented and it is used to combine PWV information with other methods such as pulse amplitude variability (PAV), pulse rate variability (PRV), and respiration-induced amplitude and frequency modulations (AM and FM) in SCPPG signals. Evaluation is performed on a database containing SCPPG signals recorded from 30 subjects during controlled respiration experiments at rates from 0.2 to 0.6 Hz with an increment of 0.1 Hz, using three different devices: iPhone 4S, iPod 5, and HTC One M8. Results suggest that spontaneous respiratory rates (0.2–0.4 Hz) can be estimated from SCPPG signals by the PWV- and PRV-based methods with low relative error (median of order 0.5% and interquartile range of order 2.5%). The accuracy can be improved by combining PWV and PRV with other methods such as PAV, AM and/or FM methods. Combination of these methods yielded low relative error for normal respiratory rates, and maintained good performance at higher rates (0.5–0.6 Hz) when using the iPhone 4S or iPod 5 devices.


The -10 and -35 regions of E. coli promoter sequences are separated by a spacer region which has a consensus length of 17 base-pairs. This region is thought to contribute to promoter function by correctly positioning the two conserved regions. We have performed a statistical evaluation of 224 spacer sequences and found that spacers which deviate from the 17 base-pair consensus length have nonrandom sequences in their upstream ends. Spacer regions which are shorter than 17 base-pairs in length have a significantly higher than expected frequency of purine-purine and pyrimidine-pyrimidine homo-dinucleotides at the six upstream positions. Spacer regions which are longer than 17 base-pairs in length have a significantly higher than expected frequency of purine-pyrimidine and pyrimidine-purine hetero-dinucleotides at these positions. This suggests that the nature of the purine-pyrimidine sequence at the upstream end of spacer regions affect promoter function in a manner which is related to the spacer length. We examine the spacer sequences as a function of spacer length and discuss some possible explanations for the observed relationship between sequence and length.


A 12-year-old spayed female Shiba Inu dog was referred to our hospital for a suspected mast cell tumor (MCT) of the bone marrow (BM). Laboratory abnormalities included severe nonregenerative anemia (packed cell volume or PCV: 12.5%; reference interval (RI): 37.3-61.7%; reticulocytes: 35.1 × 103 /µL; RI: 10-110 × 103 /µL), and a few mast cells were visualized in the blood smear examination. The BM was hypercellular with hematopoietic cells, a decreased myeloid:erythroid (M:E) ratio (0.77; RI, 0.9-1.8), and no dysplastic hematopoietic cells. Mast cells accounted for 11.5% of the total nucleated BM cells. Neoplastic mast cells and histiocytes phagocytizing erythroid progenitor cells were occasionally noted. The dog was diagnosed with precursor-targeted immune-mediated anemia (PIMA) concurrent and a stage IV MCT infiltrating the BM. Multimodal treatment included toceranib, imatinib, vinblastine, lomustine (CCNU), prednisolone, cyclosporine, mycophenolate mofetil, and a blood transfusion. The dog died due to MCT progression lasting 139 days after the initial BM examination. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of a dog presenting with PIMA and a stage IV MCT infiltrating the BM.


Prospective randomised trials are required to evaluate response adapted treatment algorithms in lymphoma featuring decision making based on positron emission tomography (PET). Trial recruitment is likely to be optimised if patients can be scanned close to home but consistency in quality control (QC), scan acquisition and interpretation is needed for results to be comparable when scans are performed at different locations and to validate the eventual clinical results of the trial. We describe the arrangements for QC of PET imaging in an ongoing randomised controlled trial (RAPID) involving patients with clinical stages IA/IIA HL and 13 PET Centres across the UK. The aim of the trial is to test whether 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose PET can identify patients cured by chemotherapy who can therefore avoid consolidation radiotherapy (RT) and involves a randomisation between involved field RT and no further treatment in pts who are PET 'negative' (-ve) after 3 cycles ABVD. When 400 PET -ve patients have been randomised the trial is powered to reliably exclude a 7% difference in progression free survival between the trial arms. All PET Centres wishing to take part in RAPID had to have a fixed-installation PET scanner and were visited by a physicist from the 'core lab' in London who performed a phantom acquisition, validated data anonymisation and transfer, and confirmed adherence to a specific QC protocol. Phantom data were assessed to ensure consistency of image quality and reconstruction across all scanners. Scans are reviewed at the core lab by the same two nuclear medicine specialists using visual assessment and scored according to a 5 point scale (1, no disease; 2, probably no disease; 3, possibly disease; 4, probably disease; 5, definitely disease). For the purposes of the trial, centrally reviewed scores of 1 and 2 are considered 'negative' and these patients are randomised. Scores of 3, 4 and 5 are considered 'positive' and these patients receive a 4 th cycle of ABVD and involved field RT. 331 patients who have completed initial chemotherapy have had PET scans centrally reviewed with central review scores returned to the clinical centre and trial office within 72 hours of receipt of images at the core lab. Scans have been acquired 7–15 days after day 15 of cycle 3 ABVD in 69.5% pts, 1–6 days after in 14.5% and 16 or more days after in 16%. One scan was unsatisfactory and had to be repeated because a site of original disease in the olecranon fossa was not included. The proportion of scans scored as 'negative' has been consistent over successive 6 month periods, varying between 72% and 85%. We conclude that central review of PET imaging can be successfully co-ordinated across multiple centres in real time using a central Core Lab featuring agreed methods for QC and image interpretation. This methodology, which can easily be applied to other clinical trial settings, provides quality assured PET data and ultimately allows robust conclusions to be drawn from trial results.


The clearance of overloaded amyloid-β (Aβ) species, especially the toxic aggregates, was thought to be an attractive and promising strategy for Alzheimer's disease (AD) therapy in the past decade. In this work, an active Aβ inhibitor decapeptide RR was used to transform mature Aβ fibrils (fAβ) into nanorod-like Aβ assemblies (rAβ) as well as loosen the β-structure of rAβ. Compared with fAβ, rAβ could be engulfed by PC12 cells more efficiently and showed a 1.46-fold difference. More importantly, the rAβ was colocated with lysosomes after endocytosis, and in vitro study illustrated that rAβ were easily degraded by lysosome protease cathepsin B when compared with the fibrils. Thus, our study indicated the potential application of RR in Aβ fibrils clearance by a cell-participated and enzyme-mediated pathway.


A torsional wave (TW) sensor prototype was employed to quantify stiffness of the cervix in pregnant women. A cross-sectional study in a total of 18 women between 16 weeks and 35 weeks + 5 days of gestation was performed. The potential of TW technique to assess cervical ripening was evaluated by the measurement of stiffness related to gestational age and cervical length. Statistically significant correlations were found between cervical stiffness and gestational age (R2=0.370, p=0.0074, using 1 kHz waves and R2=0.445, p=0.0250, using 1.5 kHz waves). A uniform decrease in stiffness of the cervical tissue was confirmed to happen during the complete gestation. There was no significant correlation between stiffness and cervical length. A stronger association between gestational age and cervical stiffness was found compared to gestational age and cervical length correlation. As a conclusion, TW technique is a feasible approach to objectively quantify the decrease of cervical stiffness related to gestational age. Further research is required to evaluate the application of TW technique in obstetric evaluations, such as prediction of preterm delivery and labor induction failure.


Near-wall velocity of oscillating electroosmotic flow (OEOF) driven by an AC electric field has been investigated using a laser-induced fluorescence photobleaching anemometer (LIFPA). For the first time, an up to 3 kHz velocity response of OEOF has been successfully measured experimentally, even though the oscillating velocity is as low as 600 nm/s. It is found that the oscillating velocity decays with the forcing frequency ff as ff-0.66. In the investigated range of electric field intensity (EA), below 1 kHz, the linear relation between oscillating velocity and EA is also observed. Because the oscillating velocity at high frequency is very small, the contribution of noise to velocity measurement is significant, and it is discussed in this manuscript. The investigation reveals the instantaneous response of OEOF to the temporal change of electric fields, which exists in almost all AC electrokinetic flows. Furthermore, the experimental observations are important for designing OEOF-based micro/nanofluidics systems.


On April 25, 1974, everyday Portuguese citizens transformed a military coup into collective popular resistance, thus initiating a revolutionary process that marked an end to the Estado Novo. Image-makers, aware of the historical event unraveling in plain view, occupied public plazas and roamed city avenues to document a popular uprising that marked a clear end to Portugal's Fascist project. In this impetus to record radical change, film and its associated technologies promised not only to document, capture, and freeze history in the making but also to make it material, to transform the push and pull of the revolutionary project into something that could be preserved and kept. The article questions the notion that digitization produces a straightforward dematerialization of the analogue print by proposing the concept of digital (im)materiality. This (im)materiality, it argues, not only allows the transformation of revolutionary images into heritage but also makes possible their (re)activation in ways that both speak to the past and reinvent the future. Attending to the (im)materiality of Portuguese militant cinema makes it possible to approach these images not as texts to be interpreted but as social artifacts through which meaning, knowledge, and memories are made. Following Morgan Adamson's call to consider how "images of resistance endure" and how "enduring images resist," the article traces the (im)materiality of Portugal's revolutionary filmic images with the aim of thinking across temporalities. So while, on one hand. the text unpacks how images of the Portuguese Revolution were produced and, subsequently, transformed into heritage, it also reflects on the author's own engagement with the Revolution's visual archives and her co-direction of the film essay A revolução (é) provável (The Revolution [Is] Probable, 2022), where splicing, cutting, and juxtaposing digitized images makes it possible to interrogate the material texture of history while also producing other forms or knowledge and knowing.


We consider a standard result of customer market theory: if firms have stable customer relations and face financial frictions, they may keep prices relatively high in times of low demand and vice versa. Indeed, during recessions, when firms have low cash flow and greater difficulty in raising external funds, they may set higher prices on their locked-in shoppers to maintain short-term profits at the expense of future market shares. We extend this theoretical framework so that the countercyclical behaviour of price margins is strengthened by the expected persistence of the downturn and the procyclicality of competitive pressures. We test these predictions for Italian firms participating in the 2014 Wage Dynamics Network Survey. All things being equal, financially constrained firms charge higher markups when faced with low demand; this behaviour is more evident when demand is perceived as being persistent. Our findings suggest that the severity of financial constraints in Italy was one of the causes of the sustained growth of prices in 2010-2013, notwithstanding the considerable slack in the economy.


In recent years, public administration scholars investigated the relationship between employee turnover and public sector performance in settings where tasks are routine and frequently executed. This research builds on that foundation by investigating the contribution of organizational memory to the execution of infrequent and extraordinary tasks, theoretically distinguishing it from routine and ordinary tasks. Using a panel of administrative state employee payroll data collected from 45 states, this research tests the relationship between state health department employee turnover, retention, and performance in response to an emergency: the COVID vaccination campaign of 2021. Results show that recent health department turnover rates are a more substantive predictor than retention of employees with previous SARS H1N1 experience or the employment of managers from that era. Estimates indicate a one percentage point increase in employee turnover rates reduce the two-dose adult vaccine take-up rate by about 0.5 percentage points, a result largely driven by high vaccination rates among senior citizens. The results are robust to alternative specifications and a placebo investigation using transportation department employee turnover rates. I estimate from this data that a 1 percent reduction in turnover would cost about $1.6 billion in additional compensation to state health departments and would produce reduced mortality benefits of $2.1 billion.


The fine structure of two thalamic nociceptive relay nuclei, the nucleus submedius (Sm) in the cat, and the posterior region in the owl monkey, was investigated using anatomical tract tracing techniques, immunohistochemical staining for neuroactive substances, and threedimensional reconstructions of synaptic circuitry. Ascending lamina I axons, labeled by anterograde transport of Phaseolus vulgaris leucoagglutinin, gave rise to two different types of termination in Sm: large, compact clusters of numerous boutons were predominant in the dense focus of the terminal field after a tracer injection at the site of nociceptive-specific neurons in lamina I, and boutons-of-passage type terminations were conspicuous in the periphery of a lamina I terminal field in Sm and predominant following a tracer injection at the site of thermoreceptive-specific neurons in lamina I. Three-dimensional reconstructions of a sample of these terminations, generated from series of ultrathin sections by using special software on a computer workstation, showed that all boutons of each cluster made synaptic contact with protrusions and branch points on a single dendrite. These contacts involved presynaptic dendrites (PSDs) in triadic arrangements. In contrast, the boutons-of-passage type terminations were generally characterized by contacts with PSDs, and some of the passing varicosities made simple such synaptic contacts. However, an intermediate termination pattern was also found in which boutons-of-passage fanned synaptic complexes with dendritic appendages involving PSD contacts. Postembedding immunogold-labeling techniques showed that the spinal and trigeminal terminals in Sm contained synaptic vesicle-associated glutamate, suggesting that glutamate is an excitatory neurotransmitter in these terminals. Corticothalamic tract terminals were also glutamatergic. Immunoreactivity to gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) was observed in PSDs originating from GABAergic intrinsic neurons and in axon tenninals supposed to originate from the reticular thalamic nucleus. A similar organization of glutamatergic and GABAergic elements was seen in the posterior thalamic region of owl monkeys. The different types of synaptic organization seen in Sm are consistent with the possibility that modality-selective nociceptive and thermoreceptive lamina I neurons terminate differentially in this nucleus and suggest a functional integration of cold and pain activity. The presentfindings provide evidence that such activity is transmitted by the excitatory amino acid glutamate and is modulated by inhibitory GABAergic mechanisms. Glutamate and GABA are also involved in the processing of ascending information in the posterior thalamic region of owl monkeys, showing that these substances are important for pain transmission in primates as well.


Recent Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs) are remarkable in vision-language tasks, such as image captioning and question answering, but lack the essential perception ability, i.e., object detection. In this work, we address this limitation by introducing a novel research problem of contextual object detection -- understanding visible objects within different human-AI interactive contexts. Three representative scenarios are investigated, including the language cloze test, visual captioning, and question answering. Moreover, we present ContextDET, a unified multimodal model that is capable of end-to-end differentiable modeling of visual-language contexts, so as to locate, identify, and associate visual objects with language inputs for human-AI interaction. Our ContextDET involves three key submodels: (i) a visual encoder for extracting visual representations, (ii) a pre-trained LLM for multimodal context decoding, and (iii) a visual decoder for predicting bounding boxes given contextual object words. The new generate-then-detect framework enables us to detect object words within human vocabulary. Extensive experiments show the advantages of ContextDET on our proposed CODE benchmark, open-vocabulary detection, and referring image segmentation. Github: https://github.com/yuhangzang/ContextDET.


P2P networks are generally used for file sharing applications. In this paper, we argue that existing methods of building heterogeneous unstructured peer-to-peer (P2P) networks has joining process and the rebuilding process which does not make effective load balancing. Since the joining process is to use random walk to assist new incoming peers, but it does not decide whether the new peer can be used for processing the workload. Similarly the rebuilding process specifies how the nodes should react when they lose links, that is it leaves the network safely without affecting the existing performance, but the peer machine that is leaving the network does not allocate its work to the remaining peers. So we have proposed a simple protocol for building heterogeneous unstructured peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. Our new protocol consists of two parts - the Allocating process and the Reallocating process. The basic idea for the Allocating process is to use random walk to assist new incoming peers in selecting their suitable neighbors in terms of capacity and connectivity to achieve load-balancing and also to decide whether that peer can be used for processing the workload of the network based on its capacity. The Reallocating process specifies how the node allocates its work to the remaining peers when they leave the network. Our protocol provides a guideline to optimize a P2P network by achieving effective load balancing.


There are many levels of government that have a vested interested in the Tourism Industry. As one of the fastest growing global industries, tourism generates significant revenue for not only the governments involved, but also the communities and destinations that provide the service and experiences that attract visitors. However, today, more than ever before, governments are looking at alternative methods of funding tourism development and marketing programs, as well as regional tourism governance organizations. This study looks at the tourism industry in the province of New Brunswick, Canada, and assesses the impact that proposed government hotel levy legislation will have on the governance structure of the various industry associations in the province.


Polysilicon nanowire (poly-Si NW) based biosensor is integrated with the wireless acquisition circuits in a standard CMOS SoC for the first time. To improve detection quality, a chopper DDA-based analog front-end with features of low noise, high CMRR, and rail-to-rail input range is implemented. Additional temperature sensor is also included to compensate temperature drift of the biosensor. The results indicate that the detection limit is as low as 10fM. The capability to distinguish one base-pair mismatched DNAs is also demonstrated.


This study aimed to analyze whether there is influence between the love of money, ethical behavior, and organizational commitment to the tendency of accounting fraud by gender moderation. This research basically developed with quantitative approach. The study population includes all students Tier 1 Department of Accounting and Management Faculty of Economics at the University of Indo Global Mandiri Palembang. Samples were taken using the method of data collection is called purposive sampling. The samples used were 81 participants from 86 participants overall. Data collection techniques used is through questionnaires. Data analysis techniques were analyzed with descriptive statistics, classical assumption (normality test, multicollinearity, heteroskedasitisitas), t-test and ANOVA. Results showed hypothesis 1 is accepted because there is a positive and significant relationship, then there is an interaction Love of Money (LOM) against the tendency of Cheating Accounting (KKA). Testing the hypothesis is accepted because there are two positive and significant relationship between the perception of ethical (PE) by gender on Accounting Fraud Trends (KKA). While the hypothesis 3 are positive and significant relationship Organizational Commitment (KO) against the tendency of Cheating Accounting (KKA). Thus, the third hypothesis is accepted.


After independence, the focus of the Government of India was to frame the major policies based on equity along with growth in the agriculture sector. Being an agrarian country, many efforts been made towards economic and social stabilization over the past decades, but not much progress has been achieved in the growth of the agro industrial sector. Farmers lack access to adequate agricultural technology inputs, funding and commercial farming skills have put the quality under the threat. The productivity may be increasing, but better quality not been achieved. With the increase in agricultural production, there is a need to have the proportionate growth in the agro-processing industry. In the recent past most of the farmers are becoming real estate owners by giving their fertile land to edifice industry, because they are unable to meet the expenditure spent on cultivation, high rates of interests taken from landlords, commission agents, banks and financial institutions, few among them committed suicide, the rate of suicide cases was out of control. Government from time to time taking steps to eradicate the effects in agriculture but they confined only to paper. In Dharmapuri, Karimnagar District of Andhra Pradesh farmers came forward to start their own associations to meet their problems without government intervention. This paper focuses on the farmers those who became entrepreneurs to Agri-preneurs, studies about the profile of agricultural entrepreneurs i.e. agri-preneurs and their socio cultural background in Dharmapuri in Andhra Pradesh.


Smart, adaptable and inclusive solutions can help improve and support independent life throughout the course of life, regardless of age, gender, disabilities, cultural differences and personal choices.A holistic approach that optimizes social and physical environments, supported by digital tools and services, allows to provide better health and social care, promoting not only independent living, but also equity and active participation in society. This approach follows the United Nations' line-up, with the Sustainable Development Goals (in particular Objectives 3 and 11), stating that sustainable environments for all ages represent the basis for ensuring a better future for the entire population.The challenges of different sectors, such as ICT, the building industry and urban planning and the health and social care, as well as those of citizens and their communities are interlinked. Responding to these challenges will foster awareness and support for the creation and implementation of smart, healthy and inclusive environments for present and future generations.From this insight, a new concept was developed and well received: Smart Healthy Age-Friendly Environments (SHAFE). The by the EC approved Thematic Network of 2018 evolved into a Stakeholders Network of about 170 organisations and it is represented in several European projects and networks. COST Action NET4Age-Friendly brings together over 320 researchers from 46 countries. Capacity building to support the implementation of SHAFE is present in Erasmus+ projects.
The presentation will give an overview of relevant development and insights to support the building of smart, inclusive societies.


Abstract 4689

Background: Supportive care for dying hemato-oncological patients in the hospital remains an unmet need. The Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP) has been developed in Europe for patients in the final 24–72 h of life to help physicians and nurses in the end-of-life care (ELC). We evaluated appropriately timed cessation of treatment in a Hemato-Oncology Department after integration of a modified LCP in a tertiary Munich cancer center. The End-of-life Care Pathway was modified to suit local conditions. The aim of the trial was to include over 40% of dying patients in the ELC. The effectiveness of symptom control which included termination of not necessary drugs, sufficient pain relief, control of agitation, bronchial fluid secretion, dyspnoea, nausea and emesis was compared with a control group (CG). The ELC was in accordance to local ethics. Nurses and physicians were trained. The ELC was periodically reviewed by a local multidisciplinary steering group for improvements.

Patients and Methods: From 01/10 until 06/11 a total of 228 cancer deaths were observed. Criteria for entry onto the ELC were that the multidisciplinary team agreed the patient was dying, and was at least two of the following: bedbound; semi-comatose; only able to take sips of fluid; no longer able to take tablets. 96 pts (41 male/55 female) went on the ELC (42%), while 132 dying cancer pts were not enrolled due to a variety of reasons (e.g. lack of informed consent, rapid deterioration). The mean age was 72,6 ys (range 33 to 91 ys). The median duration of ELC use was 41,3 hours (range 0.5 to 189 h). Six patients improved after they had entered the ELC and left the ELC consecutively. Out of these four patients reentered the ELC and died, one of these six patients died without being reentered on the ELC. Symptom control (ELC/CG in %) was achieved in pain in 92/50%; agitation 89/50%, nausea 96/40%, dyspnoea 92/55% while unnecessary medication was terminated in 95/90%. All patients had current medication assessed and non-essential drugs were discontinued. Inappropriate interventions with antibiotics (85/65%), blood tests (95/75%), iv fluids (90/70%) were terminated more often when pts entered the ELC.

Conclusion: Integration of an ELC in a hematology unit provides a better symptom control for dying patients. Inappropriate interventions could be reduced. Appropriate template design and supervision are the keys to success for end-of-life care in cancer patients.

Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


Poly-ADP ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitors are currently used in the treatment of several cancers carrying mutations in the breast and ovarian cancer susceptibility genes BRCA1 and BRCA2, with many more potential applications under study and in clinical trials. Here, we discuss the potential for extending PARP inhibitor therapies to tumours with deficiencies in the DNA damage-activated protein kinase, Ataxia-Telangiectasia Mutated (ATM). We highlight our recent findings that PARP inhibition alone is cytostatic but not cytotoxic in ATM-deficient cancer cells and that the combination of a PARP inhibitor with an ATR (ATM, Rad3-related) inhibitor is required to induce cell death.


ABSTRACT This paper argues for an expanded conceptualization of narrative as a tool for research in critical military studies (CMS). Narrative provides a means of studying the human experience of war as simultaneously 'embodied' and 'storied', but only if the underpinning conceptual framework can address both aspects. The paper introduces a conceptual synthesis of war, narrative, and the body that aims to bridge existing work on narrative within CMS with nascent research on war and embodiment. Drawing on the socio-narratology of Arthur Frank, three core ideas are offered as the basis for an embodied study of narrative in CMS. Together, these ideas demonstrate the value of narrative inquiry for providing detailed, contextualized, and nuanced analyses of war and post-war experiences. Stories are performative: they do things. War and post-war stories have personal and political consequences that affect how individuals and societies deal with war's legacy and approach future conflicts. What kind of story we tell about war therefore matters deeply. Studying narrative in the form of embodied war stories expands CMS's resources for critically engaging with matters of war, violence, and military experience.


The relationship between electrically and mechanically induced reflex responses in the rectified, averaged surface electromyogram of the first interosseus dorsalis muscle was examined in 18 healthy human subjects. Both methods evoked identifiable short and long latency reflex responses. The onset latencies for short latency reflexes with electrical and mechanical stimulations were 30.6 ms (+/- 2.2 ms) and 28.9 ms (+/- 2.2 ms) and for long latency reflexes 50.0 ms (+/- 2.8 ms) and 51.2 ms (+/- 5.2 ms), respectively. The correlation of the onset latencies of the reflexes revealed significant correspondence between the electrical and mechanical methods implying at least partly mutual mechanisms.


Interspecies Drosophila hybrids of the virilis group were used to study the maternal effect (expression of the recessive glossy mutation when females of D. virilis strains carrying this mutation are crossed with D. littoralis males of the wild type) at low temperatures. The maternal effect was found to be intensified by a factor of four at 17 degrees and there was also an increase in the incidence of haplo-6 individuals (95%, as against 26% at 25 degrees), apparently as a result of the increased frequency of elimination of the 6th D. littoralis chromosome during cleavage division I.


This article presents a numerical simulation of three-dimensional flow and heat transfer in a channel with a backward-facing step. Flow was considered to be steady, incompressible, and laminar. The flow medium was treated as radiatively participating. Governing momentum, energy, and the radiative transfer equations were solved by a finite-volume method. Extensive validation studies were carried out. The SIMPLE algorithm was used to link pressure and velocity fields. The combined convective-radiative heat transfer was studied by varying optical thickness (τ H = 0.1, 0.2, and 0.4) and scattering albedo (ω = 0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, and 1). Variation of thermophysical properties with temperature was considered in this study. Effects of those radiative parameters on velocity, bulk temperature, and Nusselt number are presented in detail. The study goes further to investigate the variation of reattachment length with radiative parameters. The thermal penetration decreased with a decrease in optical thickness and an increase in scattering albedo. Thermal penetration increased with increasing optical thickness and decreasing scattering albedo. The reattachment length varied with temperature as a result of variation of thermophysical properties with temperature.


We draw attention on a particular configuration of supersymmetric particle masses, motivated by naturalness and flavour considerations. All its relevant phenomenological properties for the LHC are described in terms of a few physical parameters, irrespective of the underlying theoretical model. This allows a simple characterization of its main features, useful to define a strategy for its discovery.


Concerns the control of a mechanical system described by Euler-Lagrange equations to follow a desired trajectory in the presence of uncertainties. A fuzzy logic system (FLS) is used to approximate the unknown dynamics of the system. Based on the a priori information, the premise part of the FLS as well as a nominal weight matrix axe designed first and are fixed. A compensation signal to the weight matrix error is designed based on Lyapunov analysis. To further reduce the tracking error due to the function reconstruction error, a second compensation signal is also synthesized. By running two estimators on-line for weight matrix error bound and function reconstruction error bound the implementation of the proposed controller needs no a priori information on these bounds. Exponential tracking to a desired trajectory up to a uniformly ultimately bounded error is achieved with the proposed control. The effectiveness of this control is demonstrated through simulations. The simulations also show that by incorporating a priori informations about the system, the fuzzy logic control can result good tracking behavior using a few fuzzy IF-THEN rules.


Osteoporosis is a recognized health problem and the burden of the disease is mostly associated with the occurrence of hip and vertebral fracture.This study was aimed at evaluating the prevalence of osteoporosis in Italian postmenopausal women, defined by DeFRA calculation as a 10 years fracture risk equal or higher than 20%.This is a monocenter cohort study evaluating 1850 post-menopausal women aged 50 years and older. All the participants were evaluated as far as anthropometrics. Defra questionnaire was administered and calculated with bone mineral density (DXA) measured at lumbar spine and femoral neck.The prevalence of osteoporosis as assessed by DeFRA was 29.8% in the whole population, according to literature. The frequency of a risk fracture equal or higher than 20% varied from 7.9% in the group aged 50-59 years to 35% in subjects aged >80. Among clinical risk factors for fracture, the presence of a previous fracture (spine primarily) was the most commonly observed.Our data showed that about one third of post-menopausal women aged 50 and older in Italy has osteoporosis on the basis of DeFRA algorithm, with a high 10 years fracture risk. A previous fracture is the most common risk factor. The data should be considered in relation to the need to increase prevention strategies and therapeutic intervention.None declared


The ever increasing urban energy consumption has always been an important issue of urban energy security. Citizen plays critical role in shaping the energy consumption. Therefore, citizen perspective can give significant impact to urban energy security evaluation. This research aims to provide a systematic framework to measure urban energy security taking into account the perspective of citizen and showcase its implementation in a case of Bandung city. The proposed framework is a straight five stages process as follow; (1) establishing the urban context, (2) defining energy security relevant to the context, (3), determining dimensions of energy security , (4) determining indicators and and metrics, and (5) the final stage is calculating energy security. The implementation case shows Bandung's energy security is at Middle Low status. It also verify that the framework is operationally viable and it can capture the significance of citizen perspective.


This paper uses exploratory research to conduct research in Final Disposal Site and Waste Management STT-PLN Jakarta. Keep questioning and interviewing students and officers at Final Disposal. The research team is also on reference books, research results and national journals and legislation discussing with waste management. The problem in this paper is dilipatbelangi with increasingly creating the number of Indonesian population until in 2011 reached 259,940,857 people who cause people who do business to produce works of real standard of living that has a positive and negative impact. Negative impact on the environment is very prominent problem of pollution. The most common contamination is garbage. Therefore, agar-agar can help the tasks in the necessary and very high effective difficulties in handling waste and vice versa, the efforts required will produce even more. To achieve the things necessary for proper ways and technologies and from waste sources. In addition, it also needs legal aspects to be a Guidebook-Regulations related to waste and the environment in order to cope with environmental pollution caused by garbage.


Occupational medicine is based on scientific ideas of Ivan Mikhailovitch Sechenov, the first Russian researcher of bioelectric activity of brain. Contemporary neurophysiologic methods of formalized quantitative evaluation of homeostasis in higher brain structures enable to optimize early etiologic diagnosis and prevention of central nervous and cardiovascular systems stress under exposure to multiple occupational hazards.


OBJECTIVE
To analyze a case of supernumerary marker chromosome (SMC) with combined genetic techniques and explore its correlation with the clinical phenotype.

METHODS
The SMC was analyzed with G-banded karyotyping, multiplex ligation dependent probe amplification (MLPA), fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), and single nucleotide polymorphism array (SNP-array).

RESULTS
G-banding analysis indicated that the patient has a karyotype of 47,XX,+mar. MLPA showed that there were duplications of proximal 15q. FISH assay using D15Z4 probes indicated that the SMC was a pseudodicentric chromosome derived from chromosome 15. And SNP-array revealed that there were two extra copies of 15q11-13 region spanning from locus 20 161 372 to 29 071 810.

CONCLUSION
The duplication of Prader-Willi/Angelman syndrome critical region probably underlies the abnormal phenotype of the inv dup(15) case with a BP3:BP3 rearrangement.


PURPOSE
To characterize the training of Community Health Workers in the field of child hearing health.

RESEARCH STRATEGY
A systematic literature review on Biblioteca Virtual em Saúde (BVS) and Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações of USP databases was performed.

SELECTION CRITERIA
The search strategy was oriented by the specific question: "How have the Community Health Workers been trained to work in the field of child hearing health?" The study selection criteria involved consistency with the proposed theme, belonging to the category of scientific papers, dissertation or thesis, and publication in Brazilian Portuguese.

DATA ANALYSIS
A total of 2,687 studies were found. After analyzing the title and abstract, eight studies were chosen for full reading, however, only four of them met the proposed criteria and were included in the review.

RESULTS
The studies indicated live and virtual classes with the use of video conferencing or CD-ROM as training strategies for Community Health Workers. Trainings were effective. Only one questionnaire about hearing and language monitoring was described. Different possibilities for the activities of Community Health Workers were identified.

CONCLUSION
Different learning methodologies have been used for training the Community Health Worker in the field of child hearing health, and all of have proven effective for knowledge acquisition. Community Health Workers play an important role in promoting and monitoring child hearing health.


The subject of the research is a mathematical model of authentication of the transmitted message
based on the McEliese scheme on shortened and elongated modified elliptic codes using the
modified UMAC algorithm. The aim of this work is to develop such a scheme for the information
exchange over Internet commverification and integrity of the transmitted information, taking into account the prevention of an
increase in the costs of the actions taken. Tasks: analysis of existing ways to increase the
resistance to hacking of transmitted messages over telecommunication networks; analysis of a
message transfer scheme using blockchain technology; formalized description of a mathematical
model for providing clear text authentication using a modified UMAC algorithm, as the formation
of key data, a crypto-code construction (CCC) is used on the McEliese scheme on modified elliptic
codes (MEС); development of data encryption and decryption algorithms using CCC based on
McEliese on the MEC and UMAC algorithm. Аn approach was proposed to verify the
authentication and verification of the information packet during transmission and reception via
telecommunication channels, which allows using already known hashing methods to compare
generated codegrams and transmitted messages for their correspondence, which increases the
level of cryptographic stability of the transmitted data and the reliability of the received data. The
developed schemes of algorithms for generating codеgrams and their decryption using the
proposed approach make it possible to gradually demonstrate the implementation of procedures
for generating codegrams and their hash codes using both shortening and lengthening the code.
Further research should prove from a practical point of view the effectiveness of using this
approach when transmitting a message regarding the preservation of its integrity and
authenticity. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a test system that should implement the
proposed approach, as well as evaluate the results obtained.unication channels, which would ensure the proper level of


Eelgrass Zostera marina L. distribution patterns in the mid-Atlantic region of the USA have shown complex changes, with recovery from losses in the 1930s varying between the coastal lagoons and Chesapeake Bay. Restoration efforts in the coastal bays of Virginia introduced Z. marina back to this system, and expansion since 2005 has averaged 66% yr �1 . In contrast, Chesapeake Bay has experienced 2% expansion and has undergone 2 significant die-off events, in 2005 and 2010. We used a temperature-dependent light model to show that from 2005 to 2010 during daylight periods in the summer, coastal bay beds received at least 100% of their light requirements 24% of the time, while beds in the lower Chesapeake Bay only met this 6% of the time. Summer light attenuation (Kd) and temperatures from continuous monitoring at 2 additional Chesapeake Bay sites in 2010 suggest that the greater tidal range and proximity of the coastal bays to cooler ocean waters may ameliorate influences of exposure to stressful high water temper- ature conditions compared to Chesapeake Bay. A temperature difference of 1°C combined with a Kd difference of 0.5 m �1 at 1 m depth results in a 30% difference in available light as a proportion of community light requirements. These differences are critical between survival and decline in these perennial populations growing near the southern limits of their range. Without an increase in available light, Chesapeake Bay populations may be severely reduced or eliminated, while coastal bay populations, because of their proximity to cooler Atlantic waters, may become the refuge populations for this region.


The next project responds to the need to develop a transfer policy as a tool to manage the workspace rotation of public servants of INPEC, in order to guarantee work and family stability as a primary pillar in compliance with the institutional mission. The National Penitentiary and Prison Institute administers correctional facilities geographically located in remote areas where access to means of transport is difficult, there is instability in the provision of health services, education, recreation and public order alters the everyday, by this reason, the prison administration should improve the working conditions of public servants assigned to such units through a transfer policy, where its permanent rotation is ensured. It is necessary that the prison administration has a tool that will allow compliance with the institutional mission in each of the prisons of the country, without violating the interests of public servants and mission processes of the National Penitentiary and Prison Institute.


Infant botulism is a rare disease that affects infant less than 12 months of age. The illness results from absorption of botulinum toxin produced in situ by neurotoxigenic clostridia that can temporarily colonize the intestinal tract of infants. To date, all inhabited continents except Africa have reported cases of infant botulism. Recognition of cases seem directly related to physician awareness and clinical suspicion. This review summarizes microbiological, clinical and epidemiological features of infant botulism.


Owing to a virtual lack of a 'basic adverbs' word class in Northern Sotho, the objective of this article is to investigate some language strategies which are exploited to express adverbial meanings in this language. In popular Northern Sotho grammar books, it is clearly stated that adverbs in Northern Sotho are usually derived from other parts of speech. Important language strategies, such as the use of auxiliary word groups and ideophones in expressing adverbial meanings are, to a great extent, neglected in most popular Northern Sotho grammars. Owing to the fact that in most cases, no one-to-one lexical equivalence exists between Northern Sotho and for instance English adverbs, the compilers of Northern Sotho-English dictionaries find it difficult to accommodate the different strategies in these dictionaries. In this article, various ways of conveying adverbial expressions in Northern Sotho are illustrated, with the focus mainly on auxiliary word groups and ideophones. The aim of this article is not to do a grammatical analysis of the adverb and ideophone word classes as such, but rather to focus on the descriptive function of these words in certain Northern Sotho contexts.


Mediation analyses can help us to understand the biological mechanism in which an exposure or treatment affects an outcome. Single mediator analyses have been used in various applications, but may not be appropriate for analyzing intricate mechanisms involving multiple mediators that affect each other. Thus, in this article, we studied multiple sequentially ordered mediators for a dichotomous outcome and presented the identifiability assumptions for the path‐specific effects on the outcome, that is, the effect of an exposure on the outcome mediated by a specific set of mediators. We proposed a closed‐form estimator for the path‐specific effects by modeling the dichotomous outcome using a probit model. Asymptotic variance of the proposed estimator is derived and can be approximated via delta method or bootstrapping. Simulations under a finite sample showed the validity of our method in capturing the path‐specific effects when the probability of each potential counterfactual outcome is not small and demonstrated the utility of a computationally efficient alternative to bootstrapping for calculating variance. The method is applied to investigate the effects of polycystic ovarian syndrome on live birth rates mediated by estradiol levels and the number of oocytes retrieved in a large electronic in vitro fertilization database. We implemented the method into an R package SOMM, which is available at https://github.com/roqe/SOMM.


Nurses are not averse to applying research findings to their clinical practice; however, there appears to be a number of barriers to achieving this. Generally, barriers include lack of time and the need to provide more education surrounding the use of research. While these are both valid points, the authors suggest that perhaps the solution to the problem is looking at how research is 'sold' to practitioners. For example, the use of jargon in research is off-putting to many practitioners, which creates an impression that research is associated with academia, rather than a tool for practitioners. Also, there may be an unrealistic expectation of what 'using research' might mean. Research is seen as the pinnacle of evidence, and not a part of evidence-based practice. In this article, the authors propose that teaching and expectations of research should focus on the application of research to practice. Reviewing and critiquing of research should serve the purpose of helping to make decisions about its practical applications, rather than for academic use.


The consultation on what makes the ideal nurse by the prime minister's Commission on the Future of Nursing and Midwifery received more than 2,000 responses.


Individual level models (ILMs) are a class of models that can be applied to epidemic data to help in the understanding of the spatio-temporal dynamics of infectious diseases. Typically, these models are analyzed in a Bayesian framework using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methodology. Here, we test the effect of misspecifying the latent and infectious period in such a model. We do this by simulating data from a simple spatial ILM, and then fitting various misspecified models to the simulated data. The fitted models serve as a basis for investigating the effect of the misspecification of latent and infectious periods on model parameter estimates, as well as estimates of the basic reproduction number.Additionally, we analyze how a given preventative control strategy, optimized via simulation from a fitted model with assumed latent and infectious periods, is affected by such misspecification. We observe bias in the estimation of model parameters as latent and infectious periods become more misspecified, as well as a significant deviation in estimates of the basic reproduction number from those observed under the true model. Where the misspecification results in a higher basic reproduction number estimate, we also find that a more stringent control policy is required to achieve a given policy goal.


Abstract Growth of the aging population warrants a commitment to teaching students to work effectively with older adults. In an online university course focused on inclusive music practices, students engaged in an extensive service-learning project to enhance course learning objectives and increase sensitivity to disability, social justice, and inclusion issues across the lifespan. Based on community needs, one student aimed to reduce isolation among older adults living in a long-term care facility. The student selected this target and population because of the detrimental effects of isolation on psychosocial, cognitive, and physical well-being; and reduced access to interactive programs and services among older adults living in residential facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Components of the project included a service-learning proposal, an annotated bibliography, an interview with the community partner, three activity designs, and a reflective essay. Based on existing research regarding interventions used to reduce isolation among older adults, the three activities the student designed were music bingo, interactive singing, and stretches to music. Throughout the service-learning process, the student consulted the community partner to ensure relevance of the activities. Principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), such as providing multiple visual and auditory means to engage with materials, enhanced accessibility of the activities. In this presentation, the student and course instructor will reflect on this case experience and the value of service-learning to foster professional skill development, engaged citizenship in working effectively with older adults, and an appreciation of the need for justice, equity, and fairness for all community members.


Background: Ewing sarcoma (ES) is an aggressive and metastatic tumor of bone and soft tissue that primarily affects children and adolescents. The primary cause of tumor-related death in patients with ES is metastatic disease. In epithelial-derived cancers metastasis is dependent on phenotypic transition of cells from epithelial- to mesenchymal-like states (EMT). In addition, Rho signaling pathways are primary mediators of cancer cell motility and can induce cell migration and invasion, in part through transcriptional activation of MKL/SRF target genes. The mechanisms of metastasis in non-epithelial tumors such as ES remain to be elucidated. Objective: We sought to determine whether phenotypic plasticity between non-invasive and invasive states is also a feature of ES and to determine the molecular mechanism underlying this transition. Methods: ES cell lines were subjected to serum deprivation and phenotypic differences measured using scratch assays, transwell studies, and the xCelligence system. qRT-PCR, Western blot and immunofluorescence were used to quantitate or visualize changes in gene and protein expression, respectively. Results: Serum deprivation induced ES cells to rapidly adopt a more aggressive phenotype, reflected by changes in cell shape and increased motility, while proliferation was inhibited. Serum replenishment rapidly reverted these phenotypic changes. Mechanistically, markers of EMT were largely unaffected indicating that the observed phenotypic plasticity in ES cells was not mediated by classic EMT-MET transitions. Instead, activation of Rho-MKL signaling was apparent as evidenced by nuclear localization of MKL and upregulation of the metastasis-associated MKL/SRF target gene MYL9 in serum-deprived conditions. Exposure of ES cells to a small molecule antagonist of Rho-MKL signaling inhibited ES cell motility. Conclusions: Serum deprivation causes reversible transformation of ES cells to a more migratory phenotype. This is associated with nuclear translocation of MKL and induction of MYL9, a gene that encodes a regulatory light chain required for myosin stability. We propose a model of ES metastasis in which changes to the microenvironment that result in growth-factor deprivation (e.g. increased tumor size or cytotoxic therapy) induce expression of Rho-MKL transcriptional targets that contribute to cell migration and invasion. The Rho-MKL axis may thus be a novel therapeutic target for prevention of ES metastasis. Citation Format: Merlin Airik, Melanie Krook, Christopher Scannell, Andrew Haak, Richard Neubig, Elizabeth Lawlor. Serum deprivation induces Ewing Sarcoma cells to adopt a more invasive phenotype and to upregulate RHO-MKL transcriptional activity. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 5030. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-5030


Background:The quality of life might have been decreased owing to the social disruptionsin daily life and basic functioning afterCoronavirus Disease (COVID-19) pandemic. This study aims to examine the relationship between job changes, family conflicts, and quality of life among parents during COVID-19 in China.Methods:We recruited 1209 adultsthrough an online cross-sectional survey in China during the COVID-19 lockdown from April 21st to April 28th, 2020.Convenient and cluster sampling methods were used to recruit parents. The global health items in the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) were used as a measurement forquality of life. Data were mainly analyzed by multiple linear regression with SPSS.Results:Both marital conflict (β=-0.243, P<.001) and parent-child conflict (β=-0.119, P=.001)were negatively associated with the quality of life among parents during the lockdown.While job changes moderatedthe relationship of marital conflict and quality of life(β=-0.256, P=.022). Besides, the interaction effects of job changesand family conflict on quality of life only significantly amongfathers andone child families.Conclusion:This study indicated the familyconflictwas acrucialfactorcorrelatedwithqualityoflifeamongyoungparents in the backdrop of COVID-19 lockdown. Job changes could interact with marital conflict and parent-child conflict on quality of life.


unconscious dynamics of the group); and in the use of an alternate session, in which the group meets without its therapist on alternate occasions. The reasoning behind this still remains unclear and unsubstantiated for me. I found this a disappointing book which did not arouse interest or stimulate reflection. Much could have been made of the unconscious elements in the interchanges themselves by suitable commentary including the matter in the final and dissolving session when a topic raised was the poor review of a previous book written by the father-figure of the group.


Results of surgical treatment of 9 patients with postembolic chronic pulmonary hypertension, to whom thrombendarterectomy of the pulmonary artery branches was performed, using artificial blood circulation method, were studied up. Indications for conduction of operative treatment, including the heart--lungs complex transplantation, were made more precise. The ways of improvement of the surgical treatment results in patients, suffering this complication, were outlined.


In the air transport industry, decisions are made based on perceptions and predictions. Airlines order air crafts when they believe the conditions to upgrade their fleet are appropriate in terms of profitability and market opportunities. However, the financial performance of an airline can be easily affected by several variables. Many types of delays are decisive in the income and expense structure of the organization. Fleet renewal, for instance, is a very lengthy process, since deliveries usually take five years from the date the order is placed. This paper uses System Dynamics to evaluate the performance of different strategies concerning fleet renewal in a commercial airline, taking into account the complex interdependence between variables and the delays involved in the process. The simulation model is absolutely based on real information retrieved from databases of aviation authorities and actual airlines in Colombia.


Hooded Gunn rats which have low-activity of 4-nitrophenol uridine diphosphate-glucuronosyltransferase (GT) and defect in bilirubin GT were crossed with albino LA Wistar rats with a defect in androsterone GT. From F2 and F3 progeny were selected Gunn-LA Wistar rats which have defective bilirubin and androsterone GTs and low-active 4-nitrophenol GT. These rats had either hooded or albino coat color. In order to establish a uniform genetic background, albino male Gunn-LA Wistar rats were crossed with heterozygous albino female Gunn-LA Wistar rats in terms of bilirubin GT. The offsprings were all albino and were classified to Gunn-LA Wistar rats and heterozygous Gunn-LA Wistar rats by assaying their hepatic GT activities or by the appearance of jaundice. The linkage relationships between GT and coat color genes are discussed.


One of the most important parameters related to soil salinization is the direct evaporation from the groundwater (phreatic evaporation). If the groundwater table is sufficiently close to the surface, groundwater will evaporate through capillary rise. In recent years, several methods have been suggested to map evapotranspiration (ET) on the basis of remote sensing images. These maps represent the sum of both transpiration of vegetation and evaporation from the bare soil. However, identifying the amount of phreatic evaporation is important as it is the dominant flux in the salt balance of the soil. The interpretation of stable isotope profiles at nonirrigated areas in the unsaturated zone allows one to quantify phreatic evaporation independently of the transpiration of the vegetation. Such measurements were carried out at different locations with a different depth to groundwater. The benefit is twofold. (1) A relation between phreatic evaporation rates and the depth to groundwater can be established. (2) By subtracting the measured values of phreatic evaporation from remotely sensed values of ET, vadose ET consisting of transpiration and excess irrigation water in the unsaturated zone can be estimated at the sampling locations. A correlation between the normalized differential vegetation index and the calculated vadose ET rates could be established (R2 = 0.89). With this correlation the contribution of phreatic evaporation can be estimated. This approach has been tested for the Yanqi basin located in western China. Finally, the distribution of phreatic evaporation was compared to a soil salinity map of the project area on a qualitative basis.


Following the United States withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in 2017, the remaining states agreed to suspend a number of provisions and conclude the agreement between themselves. The new agreement was renamed the Compressive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and was signed in March 2018. One of the most controversial aspects of the agreement is the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism (ISDS), which allows investors to bring arbitration claims against contracting states. At the time the agreement was signed, New Zealand agreed to five bilateral 'side- letters' with certain member states agreeing to limit the application of the ISDS clause.

This paper explores New Zealand's shift from a bilateral approach to international investment agreements to a multilateral approach, then back to a form of bilateralism within the multilateral CPTPP. The side letters can be characterised as subsequent agreements which modify a multilateral agreement between some of the parties, under art 41 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. While this paper concludes that the mechanism is legally valid, the practical effectiveness is undermined by New Zealand's overlapping previous agreements, the possibility of treaty shopping and the prospects of further countries acceding to the CPTPP.


The objective of this paper is to apply the load ratio method to the measurement of the crack length of the real scale pipe specimen. The load ratio method was modified and finite element analyses were performed to derive the relationship between the normalized compliance and the normalized crack length for the pipe specimen. In order to measure the crack length, the direct current potential drop method and the modified load ratio method were applied to the pipe test. The applicability of the modified load ratio method was confirmed by comparing the calculated crack length with the measured crack length from the pipe experiment.


Abstract We evaluated the prevalence of Lawsonia intracellularis infection in three wild animal species in Korea; the Korean water deer (Hydropotes inermis), Siberian roe deer (Capreolus pygargus), and raccoon dogs (Nyctereutes procyonoides). We collected 136 sera and 109 fecal samples from individuals in 10 Wildlife Rescue and Conservation Centers. Serum samples were tested for anti–L. intracellularis antibodies using a blocking enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (bELISA), and fecal samples were subjected to a real-time PCR assay for L. intracellularis. Thirty-five (25.7%) sera and 36 (33.0%) fecal samples were positive. We found a higher proportion of positive sera (64.7%, χ2=15.439, P<0.01) and feces (58.8%, χ2=6.126, P<0.05) in raccoon dogs (χ2=11.855, P<0.01) than in the other species (20% positive sera and 29% positive feces in Korean water deer; 20% positive sera and 25% positive feces in Siberian roe deer). Our data indicate infection by L. intracellularis in Korean water deer, Siberian roe deer, and raccoon dogs throughout the country. It is imperative to know whether these infected animal species are natural hosts for L. intracellularis in addition to domestic pigs (Sus scrofa domesticus).


A massive melanocratic amphibolite, (MMA) occurs in Ilesha schist belt within a series of muscovite schists and amphibolite gneiss. Though metamorphosed, MMA shows no obvious textural deformation. Actinolite, tremolite, hornblende and boitite constitute the major minerals in MMA. Minor minerals in MMA include calcite, plagioclase and pyroxene while monazite, zircon and apatite form the accessory minerals. Chemical studies revealed that MMA contains low K2O and Na2O. Its Mg1, Cr and Ni contents are considerably lower than those of similar basalts derived from purely primitive mantle. Enrichment of LREE, negative Eu/Eu* anomaly and occurrence of monazite in its mineralogy are all indications that the precursor magma of MMA contains a sedimentary input. The plots of immobile trace (Zr, Ti, Nb, Y) and rare earth elements during the greenschist-amphibolite metamorphic grade for MMA show that it was derived from a low-K-Tholeiitic magma in a volcanic geotectonic setting (back arc basin). Global Journal of Pure and Applied Sciences Volume , No 1 January (2001) pp. 85-90


Collodaria are the only group of Radiolaria that has a colonial lifestyle. This group is potentially the most important plankton in the oligotrophic ocean because of its large biomass and the high primary productivity associated with the numerous symbionts inside a cell or colony. The evolution of Collodaria could thus be related to the changes in paleo-productivity that have affected organic carbon fixation in the oligotrophic ocean. However, the fossil record of Collodaria is insufficient to trace their abundance through geological time, because most collodarians do not have silicified shells. Recently, molecular phylogeny based on nuclear small sub-unit ribosomal DNA (SSU rDNA) confirmed Collodaria to be one of five orders of Radiolaria, though the relationship among collodarians is still unresolved because of inadequate taxonomic sampling. Our phylogenetic analysis has revealed four novel collodarian sequences, on the basis of which collodarians can be divided into four clades that correspond to taxonomic grouping at the family level: Thalassicollidae, Collozoidae, Collosphaeridae, and Collophidae. Comparison of the results of our phylogenetic analyses with the morphological characteristics of each collodarian family suggests that the first ancestral collodarians had a solitary lifestyle and left no silica deposits. The timing of events estimated from molecular divergence calculations indicates that naked collodarian lineages first appeared around 45.6 million years (Ma) ago, coincident with the diversification of diatoms in the pelagic oceans. Colonial collodarians appeared after the formation of the present ocean circulation system and the development of oligotrophic conditions in the equatorial Pacific (ca. 33.4 Ma ago). The divergence of colonial collodarians probably caused a shift in the efficiency of primary production during this period.


Aromaticity is one of the most important concepts in organic chemistry to understand the electronic properties of cyclic π-conjugated molecules. Over a century, different aromaticity rules have been developed and validated. For planar monocyclic conjugated polyenes (also known as [n]annulenes), they will be aromatic if they contain [4N + 2] π electrons according to Hückel's rule, or antiaromatic if they have [4N] π electrons. Topological change from a planar to a half-twisted Möbius strip will lead to [4N] ([4N + 2]) aromaticity (antiaromaticity), which is just inverse to Hückel's rule. When the molecules are excited into the first triplet excited state, the Hückel (anti)aromaticity observed in the ground state will become reversed according to Baird's rule. Strictly speaking, these basic rules are only applicable for monocyclic conjugated systems, but some polycyclic systems such as porphyrinoids may also follow these rules if there is a dominant [n]annulene-like conjugation pathway. On the other hand, all-benzenoid polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons usually display local aromaticity with π electrons predominantly localized at certain benzene rings according to Clar's aromatic sextet rule. In recent years, some proaromatic and antiaromatic molecules with even number of paired electrons have been found to exhibit open-shell diradical character and unique optical, electronic, and magnetic activities. One of the major driving forces is their intrinsic tendency to become aromatic in the open-shell diradical/polyradical forms. A number of stable diradicaloids and linear polyradicaloids have been successfully synthesized by using thermodynamic and kinetic stabilizing strategies. Herein, our particular interest is a type of macrocyclic polyradicaloid in which multiple frontier π-electrons are antiferromagnetically coupled with each other in a cyclic mode. Formally, these free electrons may behave like normal π-electrons in the [n]annulenes, and thus, it raises questions about their possible global aromaticity and which rule they will follow. In the past 5 years, our group has synthesized a series of macrocyclic polyradicaloids and systematically investigated their global aromaticity and electronic properties. Some important findings include: (1) global (anti)aromaticity is generally observed, but there is a balance between local aromaticity and global aromaticity; (2) most of these molecules follow Hückel's rule in the singlet state and display respective (anti)aromatic characteristics; (3) in some special cases, both Hückel's rule and Baird's rule can be applicable, and a unique annulene-within-an-annulene super-ring structure was demonstrated for the first time; (4) global antiaromaticity in the transition state is also important and a slow valence tautomerization process was observed in a supercyclobutadiene tetraradicaloid. These studies demonstrate how these open-shell macrocyclic polyradicaloids adapt their geometry and spin state to reach the lowest-energy state (aromatic). In this Account, we will mainly discuss their synthesis, global aromaticity, and the fundamental structure-radical character-aromaticity-properties relationships. Various experimental methods (e.g., NMR, X-ray crystallographic analysis, and electronic absorption spectroscopy) and theoretical calculations (e.g., anisotropy of the induced current density, nucleus independent chemical shift, and isochemical shielding surface) have been used to elaborate their (anti)aromatic character. At the end, a perspective on the possible three-dimensional global aromaticity in fully conjugated cagelike diradicaloids or polyradicaloids will be also discussed.


Understanding enzymes and their catalytic mechanisms is very important in order to develop more effective drugs having little to no side effects. In order to decipher the catalytic behavior of enzymes, different approaches such as QM, MM-MD, and QM/MM can be used and their results can be correlated. The main aim of this thesis is to get a deeper understanding of the mechanistic insights of the reactivity and of the dynamics of the pyridoxal-5-phosphate (PLP) dependent enzyme y-aminobutyric acid aminotransferase (GABA-AT). Because GABA-AT resembles many other PLP-dependent enzymes, understanding it could be of importance for the broad community of biochemists and computational chemists who study such class of proteins. Our work has consisted of five stages to pursuit the comprehension of GABA-AT. First, the reaction and the preferred binding mode of the natural substrate GABA has been elucidated with different isomers by means of model systems with DFT. Second, the dynamics and the behavior of the enzyme has been studied with MM-MD through the use of apoenzyme, holoenzyme and holoenzyme with an inactivator. Third, the effect of the active site residues in the inactivation mechanism has been investigated with the modelling of clusters at the QM level involving key residues. Fourth, new diagonalization routines for the SEBOMD (SemiEmpirical Born-Oppenheimer Molecular Dynamics) approach implemented in the Amber suite of programs, have been incorporated using LAPACK and SCALAPACK libraries, tested and evaluated to optimize the diagonalization procedure of the Fock matrix. Fifth, reaction free energies of PLP containing systems have been investigated with SEBOMD simulations


When there is strategic complementarity of consumption between neighbors in a social network, we find that certain consumers may have a bigger impact than other consumers on the market demand and therefore the equilibrium price. The influence that a particular consumer has on the market demand depends on the network structure and the consumer's location in the network. This analysis may, for example, shed light on the segment of consumers that should be the target of selective advertisements or promotions.


Aerosol from aircraft can affect the environment in three ways: First, soot aerosol has been implicated to cause Icing-tern ozone depletion at mid-latitudes in the lower stratosphere at a rate of approx. 5% per decade. This effect is in addition and unrelated to the polar ozone holes which are strongly influenced by heterogeneous chemistry on polar stratospheric clouds. Second, the most obvious effect of jet aircraft is the formation of visible contrails in the upper troposphere. The Salt Lake City region experienced an 8% increase in cirrus cloud cover over a 15-year period which covariates with an increase in regional commercial air traffic. If soot particles act as freezing nuclei to cause contrail formation heterogeneously, they would be linked to a secondary effect to cloud modification that very likely is climatologically important. Third, a buildup of soot aerosol could reduce the single scatter albedo of stratospheric aerosol from 0.993+0.004 to 0.98, a critical value that has been postulated to separate stratospheric cooling from warming. Thus arises an important question: Do aircraft emit sufficient amounts of soot to have detrimental effects and warrant emission controls? During the 1996 SUCCESS field campaign, we sampled aerosols in the exhaust wake of a Boeing 757 aircraft and determined emission indices for sulfuric acid (EI(sub H2SO4) = 9.0E-2 and 5.0E-1 g/kg (sub FUEL) for 75 and 675 ppm fuel-sulfur, respectively) and soot aerosol (2.2E-3 less than EI(sub SOOT) = l.lE-2 g/kg (sub FUEL)). The soot particle analysis accounted for their fractal nature, determined electron-microscopically, which enhanced the surface area by a factor of 26 and the volume 11-fold over equivalent-volume spheres. The corresponding fuel-sulfur to H2SO4 conversion efficiency was 10% (for 675 ppmm fuel-S) and 37% (for 75 ppmm fuel-S). Applying the H2SO4 emission index to the 1990 fuel use by the worlds commercial fleets of 1.3E11 kg, a conversion efficiency of 30% of 500 ppmm fuel-S would have led to an annual contribution to the atmospheric sulfur budget by aircraft of 2.E7 kg H2SO4. This is about one part in 1.E4 of anthropogenic sulfate from other sources. The soot emission index given above yielded a 1990 injection of soot aerosol by aircraft of 1.E6 kg. Thus, soot amounts to only five percent of the aerosol generated by aircraft. Its reactivity with ozone would have to be 20 times that of sulfuric acid particles to make it chemically significant. Nevertheless, the findings, of stratospheric soot loadings commensurate with aircraft fuel consumption, based on the emission index given above and the assumption of stratospheric residence times of the order of one year implicate aircraft as stratospheric polluters. A trend similar to soot of H2SO4 aerosol loading could not be deciphered, neither from in situ measurements nor SAGE II satellite extinction, against the "noise" due to volcanic eruptions. Observation of soot particles at 20 km altitude which, if emitted by aircraft were generated at 10-12 km altitude, suggests a displacement of those particles against gravity. Because eddy mixing is virtually absent in the lower stratosphere and isentropic mixing explains lofting to only about 15 km, radiometric forces acting on morphologically and chemically asymmetric soot particles must be considered a possibility. The consequence could be an extended residence time of soot against that of sulfuric acid aerosol that would lower the single scatter albedo with time.


Limburg artist Marianne van der Heijden left behind a remarkably diverse oeuvre. She rose to fame in the 1950s and 1960s for the monumental mosaics she created for the Catholic Church. The mosaics in the chapel of the Jesuits in Maastricht (now part of Maastricht University) are by far her most prestigious. She also made wall hangings, illustrations and paper collages. Despite her diverse career, she is not included in any overviews of Dutch art. This dissertation uses her legacy to explore the reasons for this and advocates a biographical approach within art history and the inclusion of artists' archives, such as this one, in heritage institutions.


The paper considers the implications of the rational expectations - New Classical Macroeconomics revolution for the "rules versus discretion" debate. The following issues are covered 1) The ineffectiveness of anticipated stabilization policy, 2) Non-causal models and rational expectations, 3) optimal control in non-causal models -the inconsistency of optimal plans. I established the robustness of the proposition that contingent (closed-loop or feedback) rules dominate fixed (open-loop) rules. The optimal contingent rule in non-causal models - the innovation or disturbance-contingent feedback rule - is quite different from the state-contingent feedback rule derived by dynamic stochastic programming


Background: The increased incidence of diabetes rapidly globally at an alarming rate. The presence of microvascular complications has been shown to have a negative impact on patient's quality of life. There are few clinical studies in this direction but most of them lack sufficient power and are focused only towards one specific complication. Subjects and Methods: An observational single arm cross sectional study done in 100 cases of type 2 diabetes mellitus in department of medicine, Government Medical College Bharatpur, Rajasthan. Each subject underwent detailed history and complete clinical examination. Diabetes was diagnosed according to American Diabetes Association (ADA) revised criteria. Blood glucose level estimation was done by glucose oxidase method in venous blood. Glycosylated haemoglobin (HbA1C) was measured by ion-exchange chromatography method. Results: The overall male to female ratio was approx 1:1 in our study. Our study showed that the maximum patients were suffering from retinopathy 12 (66.66%) in more than 10 years duration of diabetes. Mostly patients suffering from diabetic neuropathy 28 (90.32%) were occurred in more than 10 years & 5-10 years of duration of diabetes. Maximum cases of nephropathy 21 (50%) were seen in 5-10 years of duration of diabetes. So proportion of neuropathy, retinopathy & nephropathy significantly increases, when duration of diabetes increased in our results. Conclusion: Duration of diabetes was found to be a main culprit of micro vascular complication. Screening with some simple test such as ECG, fundoscopy, biothesiometer and biochemical tests namely, lipid, protein and fat profile for all cases of diabetes is essential to identify the complications at an early age.


This dissertation focuses on the modelling of vaporization and combustion of sprays. A general twocontinua formulation is given for the numerical computation of spray flows, including the treatment of the droplets as homogenized sources. Group combustion is considered, with the reaction between the fuel coming from the vaporizing droplets and the oxygen of the air modeled in the Burke-Schumann limit of infinitely fast chemical reaction, with nonunity Lewis numbers allowed for the different reactants. Linear combinations of the conservation equations for species and energy are used to formulate the gas-phase problem in terms of coupling functions satisfying chemistry-free conservation equations that contain sources associated with the vaporizing droplets. The resulting set of gas-phase conservations equations are accompanied by a Eulerian description of the liquid phase, with appropriate conservation equations written for the number density, velocity, temperature, and radius of the droplets. The formulation, which can be used in general in direct numerical simulations of spray diffusion flames and may also serve as starting point in modelling strategies of turbulent flows, is employed for the analysis of two different spray problems. First, the two-continua formulation is used to investigate by numerical and asymptotic methods the group vaporization of a monodisperse fuel-spray jet discharging into a hot coflowing gaseous stream for steady flow. The jet is assumed to be slender and laminar, as occurs when the Reynolds number is moderately large, so that the boundary-layer form of the conservation equations can be employed in the analysis. Two dimensionless parameters are found to control the flow structure, namely, the spray dilution parameter αc, defined as the mass of liquid fuel per unit mass of gas in the spray stream, and the group vaporization parameter ε, defined as the ratio of the characteristic time of spray evolution due to droplet vaporization to the characteristic diffusion time across the jet. It is observed that, for the small values of ε often encountered in applications, vaporization occurs only in a thin layer separating the spray from the outer droplet-free stream. This regime of sheath vaporization, which is controlled by heat conduction, is amenable to a simplified asymptotic description, independent of ε, in which the location of the vaporization layer is determined numerically as a free boundary in a parabolic problem involving matching of the separate solutions in the external streams, with appropriate jump conditions obtained from analysis of the quasisteady vaporization front. Separate consideration of dilute and dense sprays, corresponding, respectively, to the asymptotic limits αc 1 and αc 1, enables simplified descriptions to be obtained for the different flow variables, including explicit analytic expressions for the spray penetration distance. Second, the general formulation is employed for the analysis of the combustion of a typical hollow cone spray issuing from a pressure swirl atomizer for injection conditions such that the breakup length from the injector is comparable to the vaporization length. The characteristic Reynolds number is large enough for the resulting flow to be slender, thereby enabling the boundary-layer approximation to be employed. Numerical computations are used to investigate the dependence of the solution on the two parameters mainly controlling the flow, namely, the characteristic dilution parameter, αc, and the ratio of the atomization-to-vaporization lengths, lBU, both assumed to be or oder unity. iii Abstract The highly simplified flow configurations investigated here facilitate understanding of the underlying physical phenomena involved in the vaporization and combustion of sprays. Despite the associated simplifications, it is expected that many of the results obtained, such as influences of dilution, apply qualitatively also to realistic configurations. Besides, by replacing the molecular diffusivity by an appropriately selected turbulent diffusivity, quantitative information, including for instance penetration distances, could also be extracted for direct use in evaluating overall combustion properties of spray flames.The highly simplified flow configurations investigated here facilitate understanding of the underlying physical phenomena involved in the vaporization and combustion of sprays. Despite the associated simplifications, it is expected that many of the results obtained, such as influences of dilution, apply qualitatively also to realistic configurations. Besides, by replacing the molecular diffusivity by an appropriately selected turbulent diffusivity, quantitative information, including for instance penetration distances, could also be extracted for direct use in evaluating overall combustion properties of spray flames.


Scientific evidence suggests that there is room for eradicating poverty and hunger by increasing food production through the adoption of modern agricultural practices by farmers. This study aimed, first, to explore the relationship between the farmers' awareness and adoption of improved wheat varieties. Second, it aimed to find the key factors that govern the farmers' awareness and adoption of extension-recommended innovations in the rainfed cropping system of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Data were collected from 395 respondents. A binary logit model was used to analyze the effect of the farmers' socioeconomic and farm-specific characteristics on their awareness and adoption of the extension-suggested wheat varieties. Moreover, qualitative data from 40 key informants were collected for in-depth analysis. The results show a strong association between the farmers' awareness of a technology (improved wheat varieties) and its adoption. The results of the logit model show that their extension contacts, income from agriculture, and access to credit positively affected the farmers' awareness, whereas their education and household sizes negatively affected their awareness. Moreover, the factors that positively influenced the farmers' decision to adopt the technology included the extension contact, the confidence in the extension, the risk-bearing attitude, and the credit access, whereas the household size and education negatively affected it. The results of the key informant interviews reveal that the high incidence of poverty, the low soil fertility, the farmers' inability to make effective decisions, the lack of accurate weather predictability in the rainfed farming system, the lack of government interest, and the asymmetric information in the inputs markets contributed to the farmers' low levels of awareness and to their poor adoption of improved agricultural technologies. These results indicate that any intervention aimed at the awareness and adoption by farmers of improved technologies, such as new wheat varieties, should recognize the heterogeneity in the farmers' socioeconomic and farm-specific characteristics.


A novel technique utilizing samples of human distal ileum removed at surgery was used to study magnesium (Mg) absorption. Specimens of isolated absorptive mucosa were obtained by careful dissection of the tissue to remove the muscle layers, and were mounted in flux chambers. Mean tissue Mg concentration in human isolated intestinal mucosa was found to be within the postulated normal range for human tissue. Mucosal to serosal Mg transport was unaffected by ouabain or 2,4-dinitrophenol and sodium fluoride. Overall, the data indicate Mg absorption in distal ileum to be passive in nature, although a minor active transcellular component cannot be excluded.


OBJECTIVE
To identify the genes differentially expressed in development of human glioma, and to study the expression of some genes in different grade gliomas.

METHODS
Oligonucleotide microarray (including 218 genes related to neural system development) was adopted and hybridized with probes which were prepared from the total RNAs of glioma specimens and normal brain tissues. Differentially expressed genes between the normal tissues and glioma tissues were assayed after scanning oligonuceltide microarray with ScanArray 4000, and some of these genes such as smad1, Hmp19 and TRIP3 were verified by real-time quantitative PCR(real-time-Q-PCR) method.

RESULTS
In comparison with the genes in the normal brain tissue, 5 down-regulated and 5 up-regulated genes in glioma specimens were revealed by means of microarrays, and the expression of smad1, Hmp19 and TRIP3 were verified by real-time-Q-PCR assay.

CONCLUSION
Multiple genes play important roles in development of glioma. cDNA microarray technology is a powerful technique in screening for differentially expressed genes between glioma tissues and normal brain tissues. This study is helpful for judgement of invasion and prognosis of gliomas, and provides more target genes for targeted therapy.