One of the most important elements in carrying out construction activities is the maintenance of the status of availability of construction materials at the construction site. If it fails to be prepared and maintained, the workers will not be able to perform their tasks. In fact, the motivation to perform a task will be lost and it will take a long time to return. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to identify the critical success factors of material availability at the construction site. A qualitative study in the form of interviews was conducted to thirty-eight construction contractors, including fifteen suppliers who met the selection criteria of this study. The results of the study revealed six critical success factors of material availability on the construction site. These factors include the contractor's current financial status; relationship (tolerance) between contractor and supplier; work planning and scheduling; good communication between main contractors and sub-contractors, and suppliers; availability of building materials in supplier's storage; and the availability of machines, machinery and trucks. All these critical success factors that have been obtained support the findings of previous studies in the context of the availability of materials at the construction site.


This work was developed by an OI referencial center, involving studies of pacients during the treatment between 1995 and 2005. Fifteen pacients' records were selected, the average of their age was 8,2 years old. As a result, we got eleven females and four males, six of them held the type I of OI; five, the type III; and four, types IV. In seven cases the broken bones occurrence was higher with the three-year-old children. Cases of OI ancestors were found in different levels of kinship: six of them could walk and nine had difficulty walking or simply could not. Regarding the deformities, 13 of them had bluish sclera; nine, dentinogenesis imperfecta; one, visual accuracy problems; and five had no deformities.


Theory is developed for calculating cylindrically averaged diffraction from an ensemble of finite two-dimensional distorted lattices. The two-dimensional lattices are distorted in three dimensions, and the correlations between displacements of different lattice sites are described by an imposed correlation field. Expressions for diffraction by lattices with circularly symmetric statistics are derived that permit efficient numerical calculation of cylindrically averaged intensities. The motivation for this investigation is to develop a model for describing disorder in, and diffraction by, polycrystalline fibres in which the constituent crystallites are randomly rotated about the fibre axis, and the molecules in the crystallites are subject to correlated displacements. The approach adopted, however, is also applicable to systems without rotational disorder. The diffraction properties of distorted lattices are investigated by numerical calculation. The profiles and distribution of sharp 'Bragg' reflections throughout reciprocal space are examined as functions of site variances, correlation lengths and crystallite size. The results show that certain distinct combinations of these parameters (different crystallite sizes and kinds of disorder) can lead to diffraction patterns that are almost identical. The results have implications for the analysis of disorder and molecular structures in polycrystalline fibres using X-ray diffraction analysis.


Total synthesis of four callyspongiolide stereoisomers led to unambiguous assignment of relative and absolute stereochemistry of the natural product. Key features of the convergent, fully stereocontrolled route include the use of Krische allylation, Kiyooka Aldol reaction, Kociénski-Julia olefination, Still-Gennari olefination, Yamaguchi macrocyclization, and Sonogashira coupling reaction. Biological evaluation of the synthesized compounds against an array of cancer cells revealed that the stereochemistry of the macrolactone core played an important role.


Objective: The aim of the study was to find the hypolipidemic effect of natural herbs such as Curcuma longa, Fenugreek leaves and Lemon on the cholesterol level of the body for prevention against atherosclerotic plaques. Materials & Methods: In this study, we have compared the hypolipidemic effects of Fenugreek, Curcuma longa, and Lemon. The study was conducted at Jinnah Hospital Lahore-Pakistan from August to December 2018. Ninety hyperlipidemic patients of age group 19years to 70years were included in the study. Diabetic, alcoholics, hypertensive patients and those with impaired renal or liver functions were excluded from the study. After taking consent from all the participants. their base line lipid profile was taken in the biochemistry laboratory of the hospital. They were divided into three groups i.e. 30 patients in each group. Group-I was advised to take 500 mg of Curcuma longa (haldi) mixed in fresh milk without cream, thrice daily for two months. Group-II patients were advised to take 100 grams of Fenugreek leaves mixed with salad in each meal (thrice daily) for a period of two months. Group-III patients were advised to take 40 ml of fresh lemon juice mixed with 40 ml mineral water thrice daily for two months. They all were advised not to take heavy meal rich with any type of fat, etc. One hour daily brisk walk was advised to all participants. 15 days follow up visit was scheduled for them. After two months their lipid profile was re-determined. Results: When results were compiled and statistically analyzed by applying paired 't' test, it revealed that Curcuma longa decreased total cholesterol, TG, LDL cholesterol 16.10, 20.01, and 17.59 mg/dl respectively. Fenugreek decreased total cholesterol, TGs, and LDL cholesterol 14.70, 17.33, and 17.06 mg/dl respectively. Lemon in two months therapy decreased total cholesterol, TGs, and LDL cholesterol 15.45, 10.13, and 11.97 mg/dl respectively. None of the above mentioned herbs raised HDL cholesterol significantly. Conclusion: It can be concluded from this research work that Curcuma longa, Fenugreek leaves and Lemon are mild to moderately effective hypolipidemic herbs to lower total plasma cholesterol, triglycerides, and LDL cholesterol.


Worldwide regulations currently set very stringent emissions standards for new on-road heavy-duty diesel engines (HDDE's). For example, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) require 2010 and subsequent HDDE and vehicles to emit less than 0.2 g/bhp-hr (0.27 g/kW-hr) NOx and 5.0 g/bhp-hr (6.7 g/kW-hr) CO in addition to other strictly regulated pollutants. Diesel or biodiesel fired Microturbine engines are in use in hybrid electric vehicular (HEV) urban bus applications because of their extremely low emissions. In Capstone's model years 2001 through 2003, liquid fueled gas turbines were certified by CARB for on-road heavy duty engine use, including urban bus applications. The engines achieved a low emission level of 0.7 g/hp-hr (0.94 g/kW-hr) NOx, 0.2 g/hp-hr (0.27 g/kW-hr) CO and 0.01 g/hp-hr (0.013 g/kW-hr) PM, which met emissions compliance levels for EPA and CARB regulations until 2010. To meet the upcoming 2010 EPA and CARB HDDE regulations, continuous research and development efforts have been taken at Capstone Turbine Corporation for its C30 family engines to further reduce the criteria pollutant emissions. Pollutant emissions were measured and analyzed for a Capstone C30 engine using ultra low sulfur diesel (ULSD) and five other opportunity fuels to obtain their actual cycle emissions for a typical New York City M60 route. By injector modification alone, the C30 engine was able to achieve 62% reduction in NOx emission. Additionally, an adjustment of turbine exit temperature was able to further reduce NOx. It was predicted that the liquid-fueled C30 engines would be able to demonstrate the compliance to the 2010 EPA/CARB new ultra-low emission standards.Copyright © 2009 by ASME


Abstract. Sugarcane improvement has traditionally been conducted by nationally focussed breeding programs, with some exchange of elite cultivars among some programs. It has been generally assumed by breeders that genotype × country interactions are large, and therefore selection trial data in one country may be of limited relevance to another. However, no studies quantifying clone × country interactions have been reported to our knowledge. In research reported here, a common set of mostly unselected sugarcane genotypes was evaluated in commercial production environments in Australia and China. Consistent with past studies, genotype × site interaction was an important source of variation within each country. Overall a moderate to high genetic correlation existed between production environments in China and Australia for cane yield and sugar content (0.77 for both traits). This suggests that despite difference in environmental conditions and crop management in production environments between countries, that selection trials in China have some relevance for selecting clones for Australian environments and vice versa. It also supports the hypothesis that regular exchange of selected germplasm from effective breeding programs between countries will have mutual benefits.


The paper is devoted to the role of the history of political and legal ideas in state construction, science and education. In this aspect, the problems related to amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation initiated by the President of the Russian Federation are considered. According to the author, these initiatives are a logical continuation of the planned changes in the political system, the mechanism (apparatus) of the state, the system of local self-government, contained in the most general form in the annual address of the President of the Russian Federation to the Federal Assembly. Such an early date for the address, the subsequent submission of the draft Federal Law to the State Duma without delay, and the work on implementing the provisions contained in it, leave no doubt that there is some strategy for Russia's political development in the near future. In this regard, an assessment of the political situation in modern Russia is given and suggestions are made regarding the further evolution of the institutions of society and the state. The dialectical relationship between the national development model and its ideological justification is argued. The author emphasizes the special role of ideas in the history of Russian statehood. In addition, the paper reflects the assessment of the history of political and legal doctrines in the system of social sciences and legal education in the Soviet and post-Soviet period. There is evidence of the need to increase the role of theoretical and historical disciplines in the context of modern "hybrid" war and the strengthening of global competition for major geopolitical projects. The idea of reorienting Russian legal education from the study of legislation, which is changing so quickly that it does not actually take the form of knowledge, to the study of law in all its manifestations as a universal regulator of public relations.


Stiff vacuum extrusion has been applied for the agglomeration of the iron ore concentrate and fine coal. The products of agglomeration– extrusion briquettes (BREX) were subjected to the high temperature reduction. Under the conditions similar to the ITmk3 process in general. It has been demonstrated that the iron ore and coal BREX could be considered as the alternative to the iron and coal pellets for the high temperature reduction in furnaces like Rotary Hearth Furnace (RHF).


A construction ofW-symmetries is given only in terms of the nonlocal fields (parafermions �), which take values on the homogeneous space G/U(1) r , where G is a simply connected compact Lie group manifold (its accompanying Lie algebra G is a simple one of rank r). Only certain restriction of the root set of Lie algebra on which the parafermionic fields take values are satisfied, then a consistent and non-trivial extension of the stress momentum tensor may exist. For arbitrary simple-laced algebras, i.e. the A −D −E cases, a more detailed discussion is given. The OPE of spin three primary field are calculated, in which a primary field with spin four is emerging.


In order for the interconnect effects due to process-induced variations to be applied to the designs in 0.13 μm and below, it is necessary to determine and characterize the realistic interconnect worstcase models with high accuracy and speed. This paper proposes new statistically-based approaches to the characterization of realistic interconnect worstcase models which take into account process-induced variations. The Effective Common Geometry (ECG) and Accumulated Maximum Probability (AMP) algorithms have been developed and implemented into the new statistical interconnect worstcase design environment. To verify this statistical interconnect worstcase design environment, the 31-stage ring oscillators are fabricated and measured with UMC 0.13 μm Logic process. The 15-stage ring oscillators are fabricated and measured with 0.18 μm standard CMOS process for investigating its flexibility in other technologies. The results show that the relative errors of the new method are less than 1.00%, which is two times more accurate than the conventional worstcase method. Furthermore, the new interconnect worstcase design environment improves optimization speed by 29.61–32.01% compared to that of the conventional worstcase optimization. The new statistical interconnect worstcase design environment accurately predicts the worstcase and bestcase corners of non-normal distribution where conventional methods cannot do well.


The family of $n$-bit Toffoli gates, with the two-bit Toffoli gate as the figurehead, are of great interest in quantum information as they can be used as universal gates and in quantum error correction, among other things. We present a single-step implementation of arbitrary $n$-bit Toffoli gates (up to a local change of basis), based on resonantly driving a single qubit that has a strong Ising coupling to $n$ other qubits. The setup in the two-qubit case turns out to be identical to the universal Barenco gate. The gate time and error are, in theory, independent of the number of control qubits, scaling better than conventional circuit decompositions. We note that our assumptions, namely, strongly coupling $n+1$ qubits and a driving frequency that scales with $n$, may break down for large systems. Still, our protocol could enhance the capabilities of intermediate-scale quantum computers, and we discuss the prospects of implementing our protocol on trapped ions, Rydberg atoms, and superconducting circuits. Simulations of the latter platform show that the Toffoli gate with two control bits attains fidelities of above 0.98 even in the presence of decoherence. We also show how similar ideas can be used to make a series of controlled-not gates in a single step. We show how these can speed up the implementation of quantum error correcting codes and we simulate the encoding steps of the three-qubit bit-flip code and the seven-qubit Steane code.


Measurements of combustion response function of a non-metalized composite solid propellant have been carried out using two different type transient L* burners at comparatively low pressure condition. A rubber ball has been utilized to change the nozzle throat area abruptly in a pulse-like manner or in a step-like manner. Experimental data on induced transient pressure have been processed to obtain the combustion response function by either the direct Fourier transform method or curve fitting method based on quasi-steady combustion model. The transient L* burner results agree rather well with those obtained by the modulated L* burner tests in the low frequency range below 100Hz. Furthermore if standard three parameter expression of response function is adopted, the curve fitting method works well in broader frequency range.


Microchemical analysis of calcified structures of fish is a modern technique for determining the origin of fish species and ontogenetic reconstructions of their habitat that can be applied for such tasks as stocks separation in mixed samples, tracking of fish migrations, determining of spawning, feeding or wintering areas, differentiation of fish of artificial and natural origin, growth analysis, age evaluation, etc. The approach is based on analysis of trace elements concentration between the center and periphery of a calcified structure, or precise measurement of the elements and their isotopes concentration in certain sites of sample. The calcified structures most often used for analysis are otoliths, skeleton bones, scales, and also statoliths of lampreys or beaks and statoliths of cephalopods. Specifics of the method application are described with examples of its use for solving diverse tasks of fundamental and applied science, in particular in complex studies of biological resources in the Amur River basin.


We examine genetic differentiation of Lesser Flamingo Phoeniconaias minor, a colonial and vagrant waterbird confined to four populations in the Old World, in order to provide a first insight into geographic connections between the two major breeding populations. Sixty-nine flamingos, sampled from Lake Bogoria (Kenya) and Rann of Kachchh (Gujarat, India), were analysed by sequencing mitochondrial markers (cytb and ND2) and genotyping six nuclear loci. We globally found low levels of polymorphism, revealing congruent patterns of starburst radiation around the most frequent haplotypes. We estimated that average demographic expansion of the African and Indian populations was around 141 000 years ago. Analyses of nuclear DNA highlighted lack of population genetic structure and asymmetric gene flow, precluding genetic isolation between the breeding sites. Here, we showed that limited numbers of individuals (2-3 migrants per generation) may move between Kenya and Gujarat (and vice versa) providing genetic evidence that supports the observations of occasional birds along Indian Ocean and Arabian peninsula coastline countries and that the Lesser Flamingo population in the Rift Valley acts as a 'centre of connectivity' between the remote populations. The Lesser Flamingo is considered Near Threatened, so this knowledge may be important for future management of conservation strategy plans.


Applications of whispering-gallery-mode (WGM) dielectric resonators in the millimeter and submillimeter frequency range are discussed. A summary of the main peculiarities of these resonators is given, and a method to obtain approximate analytical expressions of electromagnetic field components is developed. Problems connected with the excitation by far infrared (FIR) laser radiation are examined. The analysis of electromagnetic propagation in different structures drives the best choice for the transmission line (metallic and dielectric waveguides), and the same theoretical analysis allows to face the basic problem of optimizing the matching between transmission-line and WG resonators; the role in this application of dielectric waveguides with variable diameter is discussed. All of the predictions are obtained in a unified theoretical picture. The experimental characterization of a WG resonator at 240 GHz involved the measurement of the effectiveness of the coupling between the transmission line and the resonator, the determination of the merit factor and free spectral range for the different resonance families in different resonators. Accurate measurements were carried out to acquire knowledge of the field distribution in both axial and radial directions; to this purpose, dielectric antennas with high directivity were used to sense the field intensities for different resonance modes. The good agreement between the experimental results and the theoretical predictions is carefully discussed.


A facile and efficient Cu(I)-catalyzed cross-coupling method is reported for the preparation of N-alkynyl or N-bromoalkenyl heteroarenes from bromoalkynes. Generally superior yields and functional group tolerance were obtained with microwave (MW) irradiation using imidazole, benzimidazole, pyrazole, and indazole substrates and poly(ethylene glycol) 400 (PEG400) as an additive. We speculate that PEG400 acts as both a Cu(I)-stabilizing ligand as well as a phase transfer solvent.


Abstract
We study a microfounded search model of exchange in the laboratory. Using a within-subjects design, we consider exchange behavior with and without an intrinsically worthless token object. While these tokens have no redemption value, like fiat money they may foster greater exchange and welfare via the coordinating role of having prices of goods in terms of tokens. We find that welfare is indeed improved by the presence of tokens provided that the economy starts out with a supply of such tokens. In economies that operate for some time without tokens, the later surprise introduction of tokens does not serve to improve welfare. We also explore the impact of announced changes in the economy-wide stock of tokens (fiat money) on prices. Consistent with the quantity theory of money, we find that increases in the stock of money (tokens) have no real effects and mainly result in proportionate changes to prices. However, the same finding does not hold for decreases in the stock of money.


This paper presents an optimization strategy for supermarket refrigeration systems. It deals with one special condition when the extremely high outdoor temperature causes the compressor to saturate, and work at its maximum capacity. In a traditional control, refrigerated foodstuffs inside display cabinets will suffer from a consequential higher temperature storage, which is detrimental to the food quality, and in worst cases they have to be discarded according to the regulation from authorities. This will cause a big economic loss to the shop owner. By utilizing the thermal mass of foodstuffs and their relative slow temperature change, Model Predictive Control (MPC), foreseeing this situation, it will use more compressor power to cool down the foodstuffs in advance, preventing the high temperature storage from happening, thus saving them from being discarded.


PURPOSE
Awareness of the cancer patient's terminal state decreases the risk of psychological morbidity of the bereaved. We wanted to determine whether male spouses of cancer patients who died from their disease had received information that the illness was incurable and to determine their preferences of disclosure.

PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS
The study included 907 widowers whose wives had died of cancer. In an anonymous questionnaire, we asked whether the widower had received information that his wife's illness was incurable and about his attitudes towards receiving this information.

RESULTS
Six hundred ninety-one widowers (76%) participated. Eighty percent of the widowers reported that they were told [corrected] that the wife's cancer was incurable, and 21% reported that they had been informed within 1 week before the patient's death. Although 14% of the widowers did not think the next of kin should be told immediately when the patient's cancer is beyond cure, 39% of the men did not want the patient to be immediately informed. Furthermore, 71% of the men who were never informed about the incurable illness believed that the next of kin should receive that information immediately.

CONCLUSION
Although a large majority of men prefer an immediate disclosure about the incurable stage of their wife's illness, 41% of the husbands received this information during the last week of the patient's life or not at all. These findings indicate that there is room for improvement in the level of communication between health providers and the husbands of women with incurable cancer.


Cardiac vagal tone, as indexed by abnormalities in the level and/or reactivity of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), has been related to psychiatric impairment, including risk for depression. Longitudinal studies of depression have focused on RSA levels and have found mixed support for the hypothesis that low RSA levels predict a more pernicious course of depression. The current investigation focuses on the relation between RSA reactivity and the course of depression. We measured depressed persons' RSA reactivity to sadness-, fear-, and amusement-inducing emotion films and reassessed participants' diagnostic status 6 months later. Depressed persons who exhibited a higher degree of vagal withdrawal to the sad film were more likely to recover from depression. Implications for the study of RSA in depression are discussed.


This document describes both hardware and software specifications and practical functions of the humanoid robot Strider Pro, developed by team Tsinghua Hephaestus as a platform for research in bipedal locomotion, robot selflocalization and machine learning in real robotic appication. The robot will also be used to participate in AdultSize competition in Humanoid League of RoboCup 2016, Leipzig.


Aneurysms of the superior mesenteric are very rare and comprises 5.5% of all visceral artery aneurysms. A 60-year-old male was admitted to the General and Vascular Surgery Department due to the superior mesenteric artery (SMA) aneurysm, diagnosed in angio CT. Due to wide neck of the aneurysm and its localization in the mid-die segment of the SMA, a decision to implant a stentgraft was made. After surgical exposure of the right common femoral artery, a stentgraft Viabahn was implanted into the SMA. Control angiography revealed total aneurysm exclusion and patent SMA. Periprocedural course was uneventful. Follow-up CT scan 2 year after the procedure revealed no contrast filling of the aneurysm and patent SMA. A stentgraft implantation is a effective method of treatment of the wide-necked SMA aneurysms.


: In the system of a vascular-cellular complex of cartilage epiphyses the perivascular cells exhibited the highest proliferative activity, as revealed by autoradiography with labelled DNA precursor (3H-thymidine). The constant loss of cells after division in this population is probably associated with their differentiation and transition into another state. This phenomenon is strongly pronounced at the centre of enhondral ossification, and perivascular cells could be considered as one of possible sources of histogenesis developed in cartilage epiphyses.


ABSTRACT Individual variation in acoustic signals can be used for discrimination or identification purposes as a valuable supplement to radio-tagging and visual recognition. In this study, 721 hoo-calls from captive and free-ranging African wild dogs Lycaon pictus (n=9) were investigated for individual acoustic cues. The investigation applied a computer-aided sound analysis that allowed measurement of 93 parameters for each hoo-call. Discriminant function analyses demonstrated that the individuals differed in their call parameters primarily measured on the fundamental frequency. Additional discriminant analyses were run in order to find out if individuals can be re-identified once their hoo-calls are recorded and catalogued into a voice library. This procedure yielded an overall 67% correct assignment for the test data (ranging from 37% to 98% per individual), suggesting an above chance level re-recognition of individuals. The results establish the capability of re-identifying wild dogs using specific acoustic characteristics of their hoo-call, and suggest that this technique can be a useful tool in conserving this highly endangered species.


ABSTRACT Precocious cone production in Fraser fir (Abies fraseri) results in substantial economic losses for Christmas tree growers in the United States. Cone removal often represents the second highest labor expense, after shearing. Gibberellins (GAs) regulate both reproductive development and shoot elongation, and are used to enhance cone production in conifer seed orchards. We identified plant growth regulators (PGRs) that inhibit GA biosynthesis – paclobutrazol, applied by foliar spray (PBZ-foliar) or soil injection (PBZ-soil), and chlormequat. We evaluated the effects of PGR treatments on cone production and vegetative growth in three tree size classes (small, medium, and large) at four locations over a three-year period. PGRs were applied in spring 2013, but did not affect growth until 2014, nor did they affect cone production until 2015. In 2014, PBZ reduced leader length by 21–29% across size classes and sites, while also increasing bud density by 11–20%. In 2015, PBZ-soil reduced average cone density (cones/tree) in small, medium, and large trees by 33%, 54%, and 40%, respectively. PBZ-soil also reduced leader length by 20–29% and increased bud density by 16–25%, making it the most effective PGR at controlling height growth and cone production in Fraser fir.


1. We tested the predictions of two models of the saccadic burst generator by electrically stimulating sites in primate superior colliculus (SC) immediately following visually guided movements. 2. The amplitude and direction of stimulated saccades depend systematically on the amplitude and direction of preceding visually guided saccades, and that effect decays exponentially with a time constant of approximately 45 ms. The saccadic system, then, displays an amplitude-dependent non-stationarity that follows an exponential time course during the intersaccadic interval (ISI). 3. These results are consistent with a variant of the eye displacement model proposed by Jurgens et al. but not with Robinson's classic model of the burst generator. Moreover, since all models of saccadic control must predict either stationary or nonstationary behavior during the ISI, these results provide a powerful new constraint on those models. 4. Finally, the success of the displacement model in accounting for our data suggests a new explanation for the results of colliding saccade experiments.


This paper proposes and analyzes the performance of streaming video transmission over IEEE 802.11 WLAN. A simple but robust bandwidth allocation method is proposed to enable dynamic update of transmission schedule on the AP (access point). With a continuous trace of status of each video stream channel, the proposed scheme can efficiently reclaim and reallocate the network bandwidth, leading to minimizing the wasteful transmission on the bad channel, without jeopardizing the timely transmission of other active streams. Simulation result shows that the proposed scheme can keep the actual packet error rate less than 5%


A new Neidium species was observed from a wet-wall in Shiwan Mountains National Forest Park, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, in the Southwest of China. This region of China has not had much previous attention focused on the biodiversity of freshwater algae. The new species, Neidium convolutum Y.Liu & Kociolek, is very distinctive compared with other known Neidium species, having torsion of the valves along the apical axis, large linear valves with wedge-shaped apices, oblique striae and volate occlusions in the areolae. We present a formal description of this species based on both light and scanning electron microscopic observations, and compare it with other, morphologically-similar species.


Background A polymorphism (rs35705950) 3 kb upstream of MUC5B, the gene encoding Mucin 5 subtype B, has been shown to be associated with familial and sporadic idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). We set out to verify whether this variant is also a risk factor for fibrotic lung disease in other settings and to confirm the published findings in a UK Caucasian IPF population. Methods Caucasian UK healthy controls (n=416) and patients with IPF (n=110), sarcoidosis (n=180) and systemic sclerosis (SSc) (n=440) were genotyped to test for association. The SSc and sarcoidosis cohorts were subdivided according to the presence or absence of fibrotic lung disease. To assess correlation with disease progression, time to decline in forced vital capacity and/or lung carbon monoxide transfer factor was used in the IPF and SSc groups, while a persistent decline at 4 years since baseline was evaluated in patients with sarcoidosis. Results A significant association of the MUC5B promoter single nucleotide polymorphism with IPF (p=2.04×10–17; OR 4.90, 95% CI 3.42 to 7.03) was confirmed in this UK population. The MUC5B variant was not a risk factor for lung fibrosis in patients with SSc or sarcoidosis and did not predict more rapidly progressive lung disease in any of the groups. Rather, a trend for a longer time to decline in forced vital capacity was observed in patients with IPF. Conclusions We confirm the MUC5B variant association with IPF. We did not observe an association with lung fibrosis in the context of SSc or sarcoidosis, potentially highlighting fundamental differences in genetic susceptibility, although the limited subgroup numbers do not allow a definitive exclusion of an association.


Since 1982, AGU has developed and maintained position statements to provide scientific expertise on significant policy issues. All members are encouraged to help inform the policy-making process in their home and research locales with thoughtful presentation of scientific viewpoints. To aid in this task, AGU members may use an AGU position statement as an official statement of the Union in discussion with policy makers. Position statements are published on the AGU science policy Web page, where they can be viewed by scientists, policy makers, media, and the general public.


Proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) experiences inevitably performance decay due to various mechanisms. Among those, carbon corrosion is extremely detrimental. In this study, an accelerated stress test (AST) is conducted to a single cell to mimic the conditions when carbon corrosion occurs. The cell performance is characterized intermittently, and the experiment results show although electrochemical active area (ECA) decreases continuously from beginning‐of‐life (BOL) due to carbon corrosion at catalyst layer (CL), kinetic degradation is not apparent until AST 3 h. After that, kinetic loss increases progressively, while ohmic loss increases continuously. However, due to decrease of water generation under voltage‐controlled condition, or enhancement of water removal by phase change induced flow (PCI) under current‐controlled condition, the mass transport is slightly improved at later period of AST. To confirm such variation of mass transport loss, cell performance and EIS are measured at reduced air relative humidity (RHc) and reduced air flow rate. Both cell performance and EIS results show that in a degraded fuel cell, reduced air RHc and higher air flow rate are beneficial to cell performance. Hence, more sophisticated water management strategies for PEMFCs is recommended for different periods in their lifetime for a fuel cell stack.


Abstract : Parasites of the family Onchocercidae, commonly referred to as filarial worms, can cause severely devastating conditions such as elephantiasis and blindness. While there are programs currently in place to try to control or eradicate these diseases through mass drug administration, there are no vaccines available to prevent infection with these pathogens. There has been an interest in vaccination with hidden antigens, antigens to which the host does not mount an adaptive immune response during infection, in helminths. We found that the soluble fraction of the intestine (GutAg) of L. sigmodontis exhibits some hidden qualities, in that IgG antibody titers to these antigens are much lower than to the soluble fraction of the whole worm (LsAg), and that cytokine production by splenocytes is lower in response to GutAg than to LsAg. However, immune responses associated with allergy, including IgE titers and Basophil activation, were similar in response to LsAg and GutAg. Furthermore, vaccination with GutAg and CpG/Alum was not protective against challenge infection. Similarly, a vaccination protocol using LsAg and CpG/alum did not protect against challenge infection. However, vaccination with irradiated larvae results in around 80% protection, yet this method of vaccination is not practical in humans. We hypothesized that comparing the immune responses in the irradiated larval vaccinated mice compared to the LsAg vaccinated mice may provide some insight into future methods of vaccination. We found that while vaccination with irradiated larvae (iL3) and LsAg with CpG/Alum induced similar IFN- production in response to LsAg, IL-4 production was much higher in the iL3 vaccinated mice. Vaccination with LsAg adsorbed to alum induced strong IL-4 responses to LsAg, but again did not result in a protective immune response.


Power amplifier (PA) design for 160-GHz applications in an advanced SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) technology with saturated output power (Psat) in excess of 10 dBm is presented. The architecture is based on a three-stage pseudodifferential configuration that was implemented in SiGe HBT evaluation technology with fmax of 400 GHz. At saturation, a PA breakout circuit delivers 10 dBm with 20-dB gain. From 150 to 170 GHz, the small-signal gain is within 20-32 dB and the output referred 1-dB compression point (P1 dB) is 8.5 dBm at 160 GHz. High output power was possible due to optimum device sizing, efficient layout, and accurate EM modeling. To our best knowledge, this is the highest output power reported for silicon PAs operating beyond 120 GHz.


Abstract India generates 126.6 and 42 million tons of Rice straw (RS) and Rice husk (RH) annually, respectively. These agro-processing wastes feedstock are dumped in landfills or burnt, releasing toxic gases and particulate matter into the environment. This paper explores the valorization of these wastes feedstock into sustainable, economic products. We compare these wastes as matrices for lipase immobilization. These matrices were characterized, different parameters (pH, temperature, ionic strength, and metal ion cofactors) were checked, and the selected matrix was analyzed for reusability and hydrolysis of vegetable oils. Lipase immobilized Rice straw (LIRS) showed the highest activity with 72.84% protein loading. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) demonstrated morphological changes after enzyme immobilization. FTIR showed no new bond formation, and immobilization data was fitted to Freundlich adsorption isotherm (with K = 12.18 mg/g, nF  = 4.5). The highest activity with protein loading, 91.05%, was observed at pH 8, 37 °C temperature, 50 mM ionic strength, and lipase activity doubled in the presence of Mg2+ ions. The LIRS retained 75% of its initial activity up to five cycles and efficiently hydrolyzed different oils. The results reflected that the LIRS system performs better and can be used to degrade oily waste. Graphical Abstract


AbstractRecurrent manic-like episodes can be induced by hyponatremia possibly due to empty sella syndrome. In the present case, the patient was proven to have syndrome of inappropriate antidiuretic hormone (SIADH) secretion with manic symptoms that resolved after the normalization of the plasma sodium level.To our knowledge, this is the first case of hyponatremia-induced manic symptoms in a patient with empty sella syndrome. More attention should be paid to late-onset mania, because it may be the sign of a more serious medical problem.


In recent years, convolutional neural network has shown good performance in many image processing and computer vision tasks. However, a standard CNN model is not invariant to image rotations. In fact, even slight rotation of an input image will seriously degrade its performance. This shortcoming precludes the use of CNN in some practical scenarios. Thus, in this paper, we focus on designing convolutional layer with good rotation invariance. Specifically, based on a simple rotation-invariant coordinate system, we propose a new convolutional operation, called Rotation-Invariant Coordinate Convolution (RIC-C). Without additional trainable parameters and data augmentation, RIC-C is naturally invariant to arbitrary rotations around the input center. Furthermore, we find the connection between RIC-C and deformable convolution, and propose a simple but efficient approach to implement RIC-C using Pytorch. By replacing all standard convolutional layers in a CNN with the corresponding RIC-C, a RIC-CNN can be derived. Using MNIST dataset, we first evaluate the rotation invariance of RIC-CNN and compare its performance with most of existing rotation-invariant CNN models. It can be observed that RIC-CNN achieves the state-of-the-art classification on the rotated test dataset of MNIST. Then, we deploy RIC-C to VGG, ResNet and DenseNet, and conduct the classification experiments on two real image datasets. Also, a shallow CNN and the corresponding RIC-CNN are trained to extract image patch descriptors, and we compare their performance in patch verification. These experimental results again show that RIC-C can be easily used as drop in replacement for standard convolutions, and greatly enhances the rotation invariance of CNN models designed for different applications.


AMERICA IS ELSEWHERE: THE NOIR TRADITION IN THE AGE OF CONSUMER CULTURE Erik Dussere. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014, 299 pp.That Erik Dussere, in his new book, has come up with a different take on what some call the critic-created genre of noir is fairly noteworthy. This new take is based on Dussere's own unusual if not unique reading of the whole form: "I read noir as a response not to crisis but to affluence and national consolidation" (4). This response, he argues, is an attempt to portray a new American authenticity that runs counter to the postwar consumerist America.In framing his argument, Dussere draws heavily on the conception of authenticity begun by Trilling-that authenticity is at heart a negation of an "other" that is false or at least compromised. Thus, Dussere argues that the noir hero, in rejecting the blandishments of the femme fatale and the bribery of the crime boss, is in essence rejecting consumerism. The fact that the noir hero usually ends up doomed-or, in the best case represented by Philip Marlowe, dispossessed and disillusioned-supports the idea that this authenticity can be found only outside what actually exists.Other critics have recognized this perpetual alienation of the noir hero as an existential issue. Dussere takes his argument a step further in arguing that the omnipresence of consumer culture in postwar America has actually created an environment in which the authentic America itself is, as the title says, "elsewhere," not contained in or represented by any actual physical space. In other words, through its commercial success, America has created a national crisis for itself; whatever the "authentic" America is, it must exist in opposition to the "real" America, since commercialism has occupied the national landscape. Noir, Dussere asserts, has been striving against this consumerist inauthenticity at least since Chandler's "The Simple Art of Murder" in 1944. This manifesto of hard-boiled fiction posited noir as a reaction not only to the British classical detective story, but also to the commercialism of American fiction of the day. Whatever the differences among the films that have been catalogued as noir or the resulting amorphousness of the genre, Dussere maintains that this reaction is at the heart of noir.In demonstrating this reaction, Dussere's work takes another unusual turn. Rather than look at the bar, the nightclub, or the other spaces so often noted by other critics, Dussere directs his focus to the use of paradigmatically mainstream American commercial spaces in noir. Dussere's long introduction explores the depiction of the supermarket in Double Indemnity (1944), The Long Goodbye (1973), and The Big Lebowski (1998). This is one of the strongest sections of the book. In his analysis of Wilder's Double Indemnity, for example, Dussere notes that the director carefully uses the blocking of the actors and the movement of the camera to place his protagonists on opposite sides of a shelf stacked high with groceries. Although the symbolism of their increasing emotional estrangement is obvious, Dussere goes beyond that in noting that the aisle is stacked so high with mass-produced foodstuffs that the camera must move up to look down at the woman from the doomed hero's perspective; it is literally consumerism that is keeping the two antiheroes apart, and our hero literally "looks down" on that. Dussere also notes that the murderous couple, who would not have drawn a second glance in the typical noir milieu, are astonishingly out of place in the brightly lit, spotlessly clean, and scrupulously organized supermarket. It seems impossible to believe that their hardboiled guises and conspiratorial behavior would not have attracted attention-except that, as Dussere points out, all of the "normal" shoppers are so lost in their own consumer-alienated worlds that they give the criminals not even a second glance. On the other hand, Elliot Gould as Philip Marlowe fits in as well in his era's supermarket as he does anywhere-which is to say, not very well at all. …


In the last decades several markers of pancreatic neoplasia have been proposed to obtain a diagnosis as earlier as possible. Prerequisites of a good tumor marker are high sensitivity and specificity. Among the various substances, serum determination of pancreatic enzymes has been found of no utility in early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, due to its lack in sensitivity and specificity. Similar results with ribonuclease and deoxyribonuclease. Oncofetal antigens (CEA and POA) have been initially considered promising indices; however, further studies showed their limits. In particular CEA is greatly influenced by the presence of hepatic metastases; therefore, serum levels are detectable only in advanced stages. TPA is characterized by a high sensitivity, but lacks in specificity and its use is now avoided. A real progress in the field of tumor markers has been made in the last years with the monoclonal antibody technique: among them CA 19-9 showed a good sensitivity and a satisfactory specificity as regards the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. However, it cannot be considered as absolute aid, since it is influenced by several factors, as tumor spread, jaundice and liver dysfunction.


Ras protein regulation by G-protein-coupled receptors has been thought to occur through transactivation of receptor tyrosine kinases. New evidence suggests that these two receptor types independently control different pathways leading to Ras activation in response to lysophosphatidic acid (LPA). Epidermal growth factor receptor function is needed for basal nucleotide exchange on Ras, whereas the LPA receptor controls an inducible exchange activity.


Outlines a design methodology for realising finite impulse response digital filters with fixed coefficients. The technique is based on the use of a primitive operator graph, which represents the filter multipliers using a minimum or near-minimum number of addition/subtraction operations. Vertex rearrangement, retiming and edge elimination techniques are then applied to form a logical graph with an efficient allocation of pipeline registers. An example of this process is given for a bit-serial realisation employing a bit-level pipeline. >


In this article, we explore how religion claims its space in the city of Bishkek. The growing community of practicing Muslims asserts the right to be in the city, live according to its religious ideals, and create Islamic urban spaces. Such claims do not remain uncontested and, because religious identity has strong visual manifestation, religious claims become the subject of strong public debate. This contestation overlaps with socially constructed gender hierarchies—religious/secular claims over the urban space turn into men's claims over women with both sides (religious and secular) claiming to know what women should wear. Yet research shows that Kyrgyz women in Bishkek do not really need fashion advice. The Islamic revivalist movement among women in the Kyrgyz capital has since the 1990s created a strong momentum that has a life of its own and is fairly independent. Muslim women wearing a hijab have become very visible and influential urban actors with their own strong claims for the city.


Striatocapsular infarction has recently been described as a distinct stroke entity and forms an important subgroup of subcortical infarctions. In a prospective study of 50 consecutive patients over a 10 yr period with this syndrome, clinical and neuropsychological features, pathogenesis and outcome were studied to provide information concerning management and prognosis. The most common clinical presentation was that of a stroke affecting mainly the upper limb with cortical signs such as dysphasia, neglect or dyspraxia. Evidence from EEG, angiographic and neuropsychological data supported a vascular/haemodynamic basis for the presence of the acute neuropsychological changes, while the chronic changes were more likely to be due to diaschisis. A study of risk factors and cerebral angiography enabled 4 pathophysiological subgroups to be identified: (1) cardiac emboli to the origin of the middle cerebral artery; (2) severe extra-cranial cranial carotid artery occlusive disease with presumed embolism to the same site and/or involvement of haemodynamic factors; (3) proximal middle cerebral artery abnormalities causing occlusion of multiple lateral striate arteries at their origins; (4) normal angiography where pathogenesis was uncertain. The risk factors of cardiac disease and smoking were significantly increased as compared with age and sex-matched controls with other forms of ischaemic stroke. Stroke or vascular death rate was 2.7% per yr during a mean follow-up period of 2.25 yrs. Predictors of an excellent recovery with return to normal lifestyle were younger age, only brachial or brachiofacial weakness with absence of cortical signs at presentation and minimal change on angiography. This stroke entity deserves particular recognition in the spectrum of subcortical infarctions because of its specific pathogenesis, distinct neuropsychological features and reasonable prognosis.


Abstract:  It has been assumed that strategies for estuarine and marine conservation must be substantially different than those for terrestrial conservation because the seas are all publicly owned. This is an unfortunate misconception. We explored the leasing and ownership of submerged lands as tools for marine conservation and provide examples of the implementation of these tools from The Nature Conservancy's work in Texas, Washington, and New York (U.S.A.). We found that the leasing and ownership of submerged lands are viable new tools for marine conservation. There is a significant amount of submerged land available for lease and ownership in the United States and other countries that includes a diverse array of ecosystems (e.g., kelp forests, marshes, seagrass meadows, oyster reefs, tidal flats, clam beds, scallop beds, sponge, and coral reefs). From our review of policy and experience in practice, we have identified some key benefits and considerations for the use of these tools. Conservation benefits for the leasing and ownership of submerged lands include opportunities to restore ecologically and economically important species, protect diversity in sanctuaries, draw on substantial terrestrial experience in leasing and ownership, buy land cheaply, develop ecologically sustainable harvest practices, partner with fishers and local communities to improve water quality, create control areas for research, and partake in local management forums as a direct stakeholder. Bivalve shellfish are particularly amenable to conservation with these tools because existing policy is well established for leasing and ownership rights to sessile animals that exist on the sea floor. Conservation buyers need to consider that community sentiment does not always favor private rights to submerged lands, conservation interest in submerged lands could affect prices, association with incompatible aquaculture practices will be detrimental, enforcement of restrictions can be difficult, and there may be concerns about setting the precedent of paying for conservation of submerged lands. Policy makers should be encouraged to include more opportunities for conservation and not just exploitation of natural resources on submerged land leases.


The concept of corporate social responsibility constantly adapts to the needs of global business. Given the recent development of corporate social responsibility and sustainability ideologies, along with methodologies and criteria used to meet the standards of a "responsible" company, it becomes necessary to examine their realization in practice, by focusing on those responsible for the trends: the fortune 500 companies. This article addressed both of these needs by comparing the corporate social responsibility reports of Fortune Magazine's Top 50 companies. The article tried to evaluate each company's performance against a defined set of criteria in order to test for the didactic nature of the competitive relationships between Fortune's Top companies and their influence on smaller companies. It then tried to answer three important related questions concerning corporate social responsibility now and in the future: 1) to what extent have Fortune's Top 50 companies embraced the concept of corporate social responsibility? 2) What is their understanding of corporate social responsibility? 3) What are the current trends of corporate social responsibility? The article concluded with analyses of future trends that may assist companies to develop their corporate social responsibility practices on an ongoing basis.


Even as progress has been made in extending access to safe water and sanitation under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), substantial disparities in water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services persist in high-income countries around the world. These gaps in service occur disproportionately among historically marginalized, rural, informal, and Indigenous communities. This paper synthesizes results from a side session convened at the 2020 University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Water and Health conference focused on knowledge gaps, challenges, and approaches to achieve SDG 6 among marginalized communities in high-income countries. We provide approaches and next steps to advance sustainable WASH services in communities that have often been overlooked.


Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text. Pharmacological treatments for preventing abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) rupture or slowing aneurysm progression remain a challenge. It is increasingly recognized that sympathetic activity might play a role in the pathogenesis of AAA; however, the impact of this pathway remains unclear. Here, we show that the expression of tyrosine hydroxylase (TH), dopamine β-hydroxylase (DBH), and the norepinephrine transporter SLC6A2 is upregulated in abdominal aorta samples from AAA patients and in the aneurysmal aorta from 2 animal models susceptible to Ang II (angiotensin II)–induced AAA: the apolipoprotein E-deficient (ApoE−/−) model and a transgenic mouse that overexpresses the human nuclear receptor NOR-1 (neuron-derived orphan receptor-1) in the vascular wall (TgNOR-1VSMC). TH localizes to sympathetic nerves innervating the local vasculature, but also to inflammatory cells, and scattered vascular smooth muscle cell in human and mouse AAA. Interestingly, the preventive effect of doxycycline on AAA formation in Ang II–treated TgNOR-1VSMC mice was associated to the normalization of vascular Th expression. Moreover, the TH specific inhibitor α-methyl-p-tyrosine protected against Ang II–induced AAA formation, limiting the progressive increase in aortic diameter without affecting blood pressure. The drug normalized MMP2 (matrix metalloproteinase 2) expression and MMP activity, preserving elastin integrity, attenuated the Ang II–mediated rise in vascular oxidative stress and inflammatory markers and reduced the inflammatory infiltrate. Finally, NOR-1, whose expression correlated with that of TH in human AAA, was able to drive human TH transcriptional activity in transient transfection assays. Therefore, the upregulation of the TH pathway could be critical in the pathophysiology of AAA, supporting the potential of pharmacological strategies targeting TH for AAA management.


Four strategies designed to promote active learning and student satisfaction were employed with two classes of undergraduate students, one day and one evening, in a course in adolescent development. They included the use of small group collaborative testing; face-to-face interviews with adolescents and oral presentations of the results; naturalistic field observations with reports and discussion; and PowerPoint slide presentations with handouts. The students anonymously rated each of the strategies using a likert-type scale at the end of the semester. The evaluations were very positive with 89% to 97% of the students rating the strategies as "liked it very much" or "liked it" for all of the strategies. The average grade achieved in both classes was a "B". Means for the day class were compared to the evening class and no significant differences were found, suggesting similar positive ratings by both classes. Findings add support to the literature regarding student preferences for the use of active learning methods, involvement in cooperative learning activities, and collaborative test taking compared to lectures "straight from the podium" and individual testing.


In this work, we study the rheology of hydrate slurries in a mixture of water and THF (tetrahydrofuran, C4H8O). This hydrocarbon is miscible in water, and forms hydrates at ambient pressure and temperatures above 0 °C. Rheological tests, constant shear rate, flow curve, creep, and oscillatory, are carried out for different concentrations. Transient and steady-state results are obtained, suggesting that the rheology is strongly affected by agglomeration and breakage of hydrate crystals that seem to happen simultaneously, when the slurry is sheared during hydrate formation.


The increased availability and accuracy of multi-sources data enhance the simulation quality of natural disasters (hazard). Moreover, it enables a better prediction of their impact on the territory (vulnerability). Numerical representation of relief (DTM) is a prime necessity in risk simulation, in particular in flood study. Integrating 2D objects into a DTM significantly improves the relief representation around each object. The aim of this paper is first to enrich the relief accuracy with the altimetric attributes of 2D vector objects, and then to assess the impact of these modifications within the context of a rise in the water level and its consequences on the road network vulnerability. The first part focuses on the integration of 2D vector data (e.g. roads) on a 2.5D digital terrain model. The integration of 2D vector data on a DTM usually raises data consistance issues. These data often stem from different acquisition modes ; moreover, their scale and their dimension (2D, 2.5D, 3D) vary according to their nature and the data capture. In order to overcome these problems, our approach consists in converting 2D vector data in 2.5D vector data by assigning them a width and computing their elevation. Then, these latter are integrated into the DTM and make it sharper, especially on the former interpolated areas. In a second part, we analyze the floods effects on the running of the road network in Orleans (France). In addition to the direct damages caused by the physical action of the water, the flood also leads to functional disruptions on the road network by forcing users to take detours. In a risk preventive viewpoint, the network administrator has first to consider a given flood scenario and consequently to identify the network components to be protected as a priority, in order to reduce to the minimum the costs induced by the detours. On account of both levels of precision considered in the original DTM and in the enriched DTM, we have to compare two damaging scenarios of the road network for a given flood hazard. To that end, we quantify the functionality of the network components with centrality measures and we compare the efficiency of the different configurations of damaged network with accessibility measures. The results of this study prove how much the flood of the road network, the induced functional disruptions and the associated preventive actions depend on the adopted precision in the representation of the terrain.


Ischemic postconditioning (IPoC) involves a series of brief rapid intermittent ischemic episodes applied at the onset of reperfusion in the previously ischemic tissue or organ. Previous studies have demonstrated that IPoC attenuates tissue damage induced by ischemia and reperfusion (I/R) injury. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether IPoC has a beneficial effect on inflammation in a rat model of renal I/R injury. Wistar rats were subjected to 45 min of ischemia followed by 24, 72 or 120 h of reperfusion (I/R group). In the IPoC group, rats subjected to I/R were treated with six cycles of 10 sec reperfusion followed by a 10-sec ischemic episode. Blood samples were collected for the determination of blood urea nitrogen (BUN) and creatinine (Cr) levels. Furthermore, histological examination and immunohistochemical staining for the localization of nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) were performed. In addition, quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) analysis was used to determine the expression levels of intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1), interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), while western blot analysis was used to detect the protein expression levels of NF-κB. The results indicated that the BUN and Cr levels increased significantly in the I/R group, while the IPoC rats showed evidently reduced renal damage. Immunohistochemical analysis revealed that the expression levels of NF-κB were decreased by IPoC. In addition, the qPCR results revealed that IPoC significantly inhibited the increased mRNA expression levels of ICAM-1, IL-6 and TNF-α, induced by I/R injury. Western blot analysis indicated that the expression levels of NF-κB were upregulated in the I/R group, while IPoC was shown to inhibit the expression. In conclusion, IPoC was demonstrated to exhibit potent anti-inflammatory properties against renal I/R injury.


Distributed arithmetic filters have been shown to be an effective method of implementing linear shift-invariant filters. In this paper, the overall roundoff error budgets of admissible distributed arithmetic filter structures are compared to conventional lumped parameter and to each other. In addition, dynamic range considerations are also introduced into the study.


Quinoline is a hepatocarcinogen in rats and mice and a well-known mutagen in bacteria after incubation with rat liver microsomes. The specific cytochrome P450 enzymes involved in quinoline metabolism in human and rat liver microsomes were determined using cDNA-expressed cytochrome P450s, correlations with specific cytochrome P450-linked monooxygenase activities in human liver microsomes and inhibition by specific inhibitors and antibodies. CYP2A6 is the principal cytochrome P450 involved in the formation of quinoline-1-oxide in human liver microsomes (correlation coefficient r = 0.95), but is formed in only minute quantities in rat liver microsomes. CYP2E1 is the principal cytochrome P450 involved in the formation of 3-hydroxyquinoline (r = 0.93) in human liver microsomes and is involved in the formation in rat liver microsomes. A high correlation coefficient (r = 0.91) between CYP2A6 activity and quinoline-5,6-diol formation in human liver microsomes was observed, but this most likely reflects the involvement of CYP2A6 in the formation of quinoline-5,6-epoxide, from which the quinoline-5,6-diol is formed, as conversion of quinoline-5,6-epoxide to quinoline-5,6-diol on incubation of the epoxide with CYP2A6 could not be demonstrated. A cDNA-expressed human microsomal epoxide hydrolase, however, efficiently converted the epoxide to the diol and the microsomal epoxide inhibitor cyclohexene oxide inhibited quinoline-5,6-diol formation in rat liver microsomes. A preliminary kinetic analysis of quinoline metabolism in human liver microsomes was carried out and Eadie-Hofstee plots indicate that the formation of quinoline-5,6-diol is monophasic, while that of quinoline-1-oxide and 3-hydroxyquinoline is biphasic.


The frequency of multiple paternity in 21 moor frog ( Rana arvalis ) egg clutches from one Swedish breeding locality was investigated using nine microsatellite loci. By genotyping on average 24 fertilized eggs per female, two different analyzes revealed multiple paternity in 14% and 29% of the egg clutches examined, respectively. In the multiply sired broods, approximately 23% of the individual eggs belonged to a second male. The observed frequency of multiple paternity was relatively high and in line with earlier amphibian studies. The evolutionary significance and proximate reason (active multiple mating or sperm leakage at communal lek) for the observed patterns remain unclear.


We propose a subspace-based blind channel estimation method for distributed multi-input single-output systems, where one side of the link constitutes a largely spaced antenna array. The proposed approach does not necessarily require that the number of receive antennas should be no less than that of transmit antennas and reduces the computational complexity. Sufficient identifiability conditions are established for the distributed channel up to an ambiguity matrix. Simulation results demonstrate the channel estimation performance is influenced by the difference of channel delays for neighboring transmit antennas to the receive antenna, and the increase of difference can result in estimation performance improvement


Dietary lipids are rapidly hydrolysed and biohydrogenated in the rumen resulting in meat and milk characterised by a high content of saturated fatty acids and low polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), which contributes to increases in the risk of diseases including cardiovascular disease and cancer. There has been considerable interest in altering the fatty acid composition of ruminant products with the overall aim of improving the long-term health of consumers. Metabolism of dietary lipids in the rumen (lipolysis and biohydrogenation) is a major critical control point in determining the fatty acid composition of ruminant lipids. Our understanding of the pathways involved and metabolically important intermediates has advanced considerably in recent years. Advances in molecular microbial technology based on 16S rRNA genes have helped to further advance our knowledge of the key organisms responsible for ruminal lipid transformation. Attention has focused on ruminal biohydrogenation of lipids in forages, plant oils and oilseeds, fish oil, marine algae and fat supplements as important dietary strategies which impact on fatty acid composition of ruminant lipids. Forages, such as grass and legumes, are rich in omega-3 PUFA and are a useful natural strategy in improving nutritional value of ruminant products. Specifically this review targets two key areas in relation to forages: i) what is the fate of the lipid-rich plant chloroplast in the rumen and ii) the role of the enzyme polyphenol oxidase in red clover as a natural plant-based protection mechanism of dietary lipids in the rumen. The review also addresses major pathways and micro-organisms involved in lipolysis and biohydrogenation.


This study examines how and why investors change the use of their information sources in valuation between book value and earnings after mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in both pre‐ and post‐SFAS 141(R) periods. We find that investors generally put less weight on earnings but more weight on book value after M&A than before M&A, and that such a change is particularly strong after the adoption of SFAS 141(R). By looking at goodwill, other intangible assets and other balance sheet accounts that SFAS 141(R) amended, we further find that SFAS 141(R) improves the value relevance of book value components after M&A.


The Bahama Islands contain many abandoned dissolution caves at elevations between two and seven metres above current sea level. The development of dissolution caves in tropical carbonate islands is dependent on the position and nature of the freshwater lens. Lens position is controlled by sea level, which in stable carbonate platforms like the Bahamas is a function of glacioeustatic sea level still stands. Caves in the Bahamas that are currently subaerial must have developed during past higher sea levels. During the Late Quaternary, sea levels higher than present have been relatively short-lived, and that limits the amount of time that a freshwater lens could be situated at the elevation required for the cave formation. The Bahama Islands are low-lying landforms where only aeolian ridges extend to elevations higher than six metres above current sea level. Past high sea level events greatly reduced the exposed land area of the Bahama Islands, thus also limiting both the catchment for and size of freshwater lenses. Caves must be younger than the rock in which they are developed; most subaerial Bahamian caves are found in limestones that are less than 150000 years old. Development of large dissolution caves under these limitations of time and lens size requires a powerful dissolutional mechanism. The mixing of discharging freshwater with tide-pulsed incoming marine water under the flanks of emergent dune ridges may have produced the conditions necessary. Bahamian caves formed by this process are phreatic chambers with complex interconnections and blind tubes. Their presence demonstrates that significant dissolution can occur rapidly as a result of the mixing of fresh and marine waters beneath small carbonate islands.


Corporate social responsibility activities have environmental, economic and social contribution on a society. The challenge for the firms is to establish to what extend do CSR activities on internal stakeholders' impact on the performance. This study is on influence of CSR activities on the firm performance of Kenya Commercial Bank in Kenya. The objective of the research study is to determine the effects of CSR activities on internal stakeholders of KCB on firm performance. The study was steered by the following research objectives: to examine the influence of medical financing for internal stakeholders on firm performance, to assess the influence of education financing for internal stakeholders on firm performance and to establish the influence of benevolent assistance for internal stakeholders on firm performance. The study was guided by four theories which have been classified as: instrumental, political, integrative and ethical. The premise of the theories is that corporations, in their efforts to prosper, should take into account not only the needs of shareholders, but also the needs of a wide variety of stakeholders, thus having a multi-stakeholder perspective. The research was conducted through a case study research design which involved interviewing KCB employees and managers. The study targeted the employees and managers of KCB based in their head office. The sample size was 309employees of Kenya Commercial Bank. Stratified sampling was used to classify the respondents. For the top management and the middle level management, purposive sampling was employed. The study then used simple random sampling to pick other employees. The collected data was analyzed with the help of SPSS version 23.0 to generate descriptive statistics in frequencies, means and percentages. The findings indicated that majority (86 %) of the respondent strongly agreed that the medical financing given to their dependants was satisfactory,(88 %) of the respondent strongly agreed that the employer provides sufficient access to personal growth through educational financing and majority (86 %) of the respondents strongly agreed that they were satisfied with the benevolent support which the employer gives a bereaved employee. Based on the findings, it was concluded that medical financing, education financing and benevolent financing influence the performance of the firm. It is conclusive thus that the bank should strive to provide such things to its employees. The researcher made the following recommendations: The bank should come up with better medical scheme for its employees, it should train its employees regularly and the bereaved employees and those with other related problems should be assisted by the bank.


AIMS
Aortic elasticity is an important determinant of left ventricular performance and coronary blood flow. Moreover, it has been shown that aortic elastic properties deteriorate in patients with coronary artery disease. However, the predictive role of aortic elasticity in the occurrence of coronary events, has not been addressed so far. Therefore, we set out to test prospectively the hypothesis that invasive as well as non-invasive measures of aortic elastic properties, assessed at rest from pressure-diameter relationships, could predict the development of recurrent coronary events.

METHODS AND RESULTS
Clinical variables and measures of aortic function were assessed in 54 normotensive patients with coronary artery disease. The aortic pressure-diameter relationship was derived invasively with a high-fidelity Y shaped catheter (developed in our Institution) for aortic diameter measurements, simultaneously with a Millar catheter for aortic pressure measurements. Aortic root distensibility was assessed by non-invasive techniques. During an average of 3 years follow-up, 12 of 54 patients either developed unstable angina (n=8) or acute myocardial infarction (n=4). By multivariate Cox model analysis, aortic stiffness was the strongest predictor of progression to any end-point (relative risk: 3.24, CI: 1.79 to 5.83;P=0.000). When aortic stiffness was not considered, aortic distensibility was the only independent predictor for acute coronary syndromes (relative risk: 0.37 CI: 0.21 to 0.65;P=0.000).

CONCLUSION
In patients with coronary artery disease, aortic elastic properties are powerful and independent risk factors for recurrent acute coronary events.


A great part of protocols for password-based authenticated key exchange system are designed for a single- server environment where all the information about legitimate users is stored in one server. Therefore, a credential weakness is existed in this approach because the user's password is exposed if this server is ever compromised. In 2006, Yang et al. proposed a practical two-server authenticated key exchange system which split user's password into two and store them into the servers respectively. They also extended the basic two-server model to an architecture in which multiple service servers were supported by single control server, but they didn't demonstrate an adequate protocol in the extended model. In this paper, we present a protocol which is suitable for the extended model. In addition, we describe that our proposed protocol is robust against various known attacks and has a user-friendness.


The detection of methicillin resistance was examined in 51 strains of Staphylococcus aureus and 135 strains of coagulase negative staphylococci using Isosensitest, Diagnostic Sensitivity Test (DST), Mueller-Hinton (MH), Columbia, and Sensitest agars. MH agar with 5% added sodium chloride incubated at 35 degrees C was the most effective in detecting resistance in S aureus, and Columbia agar with 5% added sodium chloride incubated at 35 degrees C was most effective for coagulase negative staphylococci. For clinical purposes, a provisional report of sensitivity for S aureus could be issued after 18 hours; with coagulase negative staphylococci, only resistant strains could be reported at this time. For definitive results cultures must be examined after 40 hours of incubation.


IT is well recognized that in the optic nerves and brain stem tumours of the glioma group frequently give rise to a general enlargement of the area involved, rather than a localized tumour formation. In such cases the new growth is diffuse and infiltrating, and there is considerable variation in the size, shape, and type of the tumour cells, so that classification of these tumours on an embryological basis has proved difficult. Similar types of growth may involve the optic thalamus. Here, however, they have been less frequently studied, although diffuse glioma of the brain stem generally extends to some degree into the optic thalamus. It is possible that cases in which the thalamus is predominantly involved are not common, and it is therefore proposed in this paper to describe three such cases, and to discuss their pathology and relationship to gliomas in general. The appropriate literature will be referred to after the general discussion.


Changes in whole-body protein turnover rate in young chicks were measured during very early stages of chicken growth. Day-old single comb White Leghorn male chicks were fed an adequate purified diet. Whole-body protein turnover was determined weekly for 4 wk. Fractional rates of protein synthesis (percent/day) in the whole body decreased from 1 to 4 wk of age while those of degradation remained unchanged. When expressed in terms of body weight per se, no significant change in absolute protein turnover rate (grams/day) was found during the experimental period; however, when expressed in terms of metabolizable body weight (kilograms 0.75), turnover rates increased slightly. Thus, during the first 4 wk of life no decrease in the whole-body protein turnover rate was found in chickens on the basis of units or metabolic body size. Twenty to 28% of the total heat production was accounted for by the energy expenditure due to whole-body protein synthesis.


This paper investigates the coloniality of contemporary digital nomadism, an identity that numerous Western tech workers use to describe lifestyles of location independence in which they travel the world while maintaining Silicon Valley salaries. Specifically, I assess colonial genealogies of digital nomads and more problematically defined "digital Gypsies." It was during the height of 19th-century Western European imperialism that Romantic Orientalist texts proliferated, celebrating the racial and sexual "free and wandering Gypsy." This deracinated figure was used to allegorize colonial desires and imperial violence alike. As I suggest, nomadic racial fantasy undergirds contemporary freedom desires today emergent from the heart of a new empire—that of Silicon Valley. In describing Silicon Valley imperialism and its posthuman digital avatar, I assess how nomadic fantasy transits technologies of gentrification into new frontiers. For instance, sharing economy platforms such as Airbnb celebrate the digital nomad, bolstering contexts of racial dispossession while continuing to deracinate Roma lifeworlds. Might nomad exotica in fact index coloniality and its ability to traverse time and space? How has this fantasy been abstracted over time, also entangling with posthumanist nomadic onto-epistemologies?


Extreme working conditions affect material used as friction components in transportation field: they rapidly reach their limits and critical parts require to be regularly replaced. Alternative solutions withstanding higher operating conditions imply to find innovative materials. Stellite matrix composites including various solid lubricants, WS2 and h-BN, able to admitextreme conditions were developed using a Spark Plasma Sintering technique, which makes possible the formation of new microstructures out of reach by conventional means. Sliding tests were conducted using a pin-on-disc tribometer in air at 450°C, with a velocity of 0,25 m/s and various normal load ranged from 2.5 to 40 N. Influence of solid lubricant content and sensitivity to test parameters were studied in terms of friction and wear responses of the contacting materials. Friction properties are equivalent to Stellite ones and sometimes lesseffective. A reduction of wear is quantified for many composites, and the best behavior is observed for those that contain WS2. In agreement with the third body approach, interpretations are proposed to describe the interphase dynamics within the contact.


This article summarizes Developing Early Literacy: Report of the National Early Literacy Panel, which was published in 2008. That report provides an extensive meta-analysis of approximately 300 studies showing which early literacy measures correlate with later literacy achievement. It also provides a series of meta-analyses of a comprehensive collection of experimental and quasi-experimental studies of ways of teaching early literacy (preschool and kindergarten) that have been published in refereed journals. These analyses examine the effects of code-based instruction, shared book reading, home/parent interventions, preschool/kindergarten interventions, and early language teaching.


The production of ligninolytic enzymes including laccase, manganese peroxidase and lignin peroxidase from Pleurotus ostreatus was studied under different parameters using solid state fermentation. Maximum production of enzymes was observed after 7 days in solid state fermentation (SSF) medium containing 5 g wheat straw (66% w/w moisture) in a still culture SSF. Different parameters had a significant effect on enzyme production. Maximum laccase (455.11 U/mL), manganese peroxidase (210.77 U/mL) and lignin peroxidase (54.50 U/mL) were produced when wheat straw (5 g) at 66% moisture (w/w) was used with 4 mL inoculum at pH 4.5 and 30°C in the presence of 1% (v/v) glycerol as carbon source, 0.2% w/w urea as nitrogen source, 1% (w/v) 2, 2 azinobis 3-ethylbenzthiazoline 6 sulphonate (ABTS) as an inducer for laccase and 1% (w/v) MnSO 4 for manganese peroxidase,1% (w/v) CuSO 4 as metal ion for laccase and Mn + for manganese peroxidase. Both enzymes laccase and manganese peroxidase produced by Pleurotus ostreatus were partially purified by ammonium sulphate precipitation followed by gel filtration chromatography. Additionally, the protein content of the recovered supernatants was also noted. Purification results showed an increase in purity up to 3.37 and 3.07 fold for laccase and manganese peroxidase, respectively. The Michaelis constant, KM was 62 and 33 µM for laccase and manganese peroxidase, respectively. Lignin peroxidase was not produced during solid state fermentation of ligniocellulosic material by P. ostreatus because this fungus is a laccase producer. The activators ABTS and MnSO 4 proved good for laccase and MnP production. This shows that SSF parameters had a significant influence on catalytic activity of ligninolytic enzymes produced by P. ostreatus under still conditions.


Nitrous oxide (N2O) is a potent greenhouse gas (GHG) and ozone destructing agent; yet global estimates of N2O emissions are uncertain. Marine N2O stems from nitrification and denitrification processes which depend on organic matter cycling and dissolved oxygen (O2). We introduce N2O as an obligate intermediate product of denitrification and as an O2‐dependent by‐product from nitrification in the Bern3D ocean model. A large model ensemble is used to probabilistically constrain modern and to project marine N2O production for a low (Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP)2.6) and high GHG (RCP8.5) scenario extended to A.D. 10,000. Water column N2O and surface ocean partial pressure N2O data serve as constraints in this Bayesian framework. The constrained median for modern N2O production is 4.5 (±1σ range: 3.0 to 6.1) Tg N yr−1, where 4.5% stems from denitrification. Modeled denitrification is 65.1 (40.9 to 91.6) Tg N yr−1, well within current estimates. For high GHG forcing, N2O production decreases by 7.7% over this century due to decreasing organic matter export and remineralization. Thereafter, production increases slowly by 21% due to widespread deoxygenation and high remineralization. Deoxygenation peaks in two millennia, and the global O2 inventory is reduced by a factor of 2 compared to today. Net denitrification is responsible for 7.8% of the long‐term increase in N2O production. On millennial timescales, marine N2O emissions constitute a small, positive feedback to climate change. Our simulations reveal tight coupling between the marine carbon cycle, O2, N2O, and climate.


'Usual' blood pressure (BP) levels are known to be directly related to cardiovascular (CV) risk in the general population and patients with essential hypertension. However, there is increasing evidence that, apart from usual BP, BP variability across visits may also be an important risk factor for death and CV events in healthy subjects and in essential hypertensive patients. In chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients the relationship between hypertension and clinical outcome is still controversial. Moreover, high visit-to-visit BP variability was very recently found to predict death and CV events in this high-risk patient population. This review focuses on the available evidence about the link between high visit-to-visit BP variability and clinical outcomes in CKD patients and describes some hypothetical mechanisms that could explain such a relationship.


Isolating RNA is easy and fun. This regular paper is available in Fungal Genetics Reports: https://newprairiepress.org/fgr/vol33/iss1/2 Akins, R.A., A.R. Kubelik and We reported previously the development of a general method for cloning Neurospora nuclear genes A.M. Lambowitz by sib selection, using a library of N. crassa genomic DNA fragments in plasmid pRAL1 (Akins Map of Plasmid pRAL1 and Lambowitz Mol. Cell. Biol. 5:2272-2278, 1985). Fig. 1 is a revised map of plasmid pRAL1. The size of the plasmid is measured more accurately as 4.7 kb, rather than 4.4 kb reported previously. In addition, the position of the EcoR1 site in the qa-2^+ gene was indicated incorrectly in the previous map. The sizes of the EcoR1 fragments are 2.8 and 1.85 kb. We and others have now cloned at least ten genes using the pRAL1 library: nic-1 and inl (Akins and Lambowitz, Molec. Cell. Biol. 5:2272-2278, 1985), cyt-18 (Akins and Lambowitz, unpubl.), cyt-(297-24) Kuiper, de Vries, Akins and Lambowitz, unpubl.), cyt-4 (Serizawa, Akins and Lambowitz, unpubl.), cyt-(289-4) (Kubelik and Lambowitz, unpubl.), his-2 (Akins, Lambowitz and Kinsey, unpubl.), van (Mann, Metzenberg, Akins and Lambowitz, unpubl.), cys-3 (Paietta, Marzluf, Akins and Lambowitz, unpubl.) and met-7 (Dr. M. Case, University of Georgia, personal communication). The library is available to all investigators. This work supported by NIH grant GM23961. Dept. of Biochemistry, St. Louis University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63104 Chambers, J.A.A. and V.E.A. Russo We have found that the common phenol or guanidium thiocyanate based procedures for isoIsolating RNA is easy and fun lating RNA simply do not repay the effort for the yields involved (0.2-0.3 mg total RNA per g fresh weight with guanidium salts). A number of observations led us to examine and slightly modify a procedure originally developed for tissue culture cells (Auffray and Rougeon, 1979, Eur. J. Biochem. 107:303). This somewhat unusual procedure is based upon lithium chloride/urea solubilization of the cellular contents and the ultimate precipitation of RNA at high ionic strength. The combination of effective solubilization, inhibition of RNAse activity, effective precipitation of RNA, and a minimum of handling results in higher yields (0.5-1 mg RNA per g fresh wt.) for much less effort.


We present an extensive study of the quantum dynamics of molecular hydrogen trapped within the nanocavities of two hydrate structures at low temperatures, namely, clathrate structure II and filled ice structure C1. By inelastic neutron scattering measurements, we investigate a (i) simple H₂ hydrate in clathrate structure II at ambient and high pressure and different temperatures, (ii) binary He–H₂ hydrate in clathrate structure II at high pressure and different temperatures, (iii) simple D₂ hydrate in clathrate structure II at ambient pressure and different temperatures, and (iv) simple H₂ hydrate in structure C1 at high pressure and different temperatures. Molecular quantum rotations and translations, as well as combinations of these are identified in the spectra for hydrogen molecules in the small and large cages of clathrate structure II and in the channels of structure C1 and their energy is provided.


Service control is the ability of the user, home environment or serving environment to determine what a particular service does, for a specific invocation of that service, within the limitations of that service. The paper concentrates on the opportunities for service control in beyond third generation (B3G) networks. In particular, the focus is on all-IP networks. The subject is covered in three parts. First, the forthcoming new changes and requirements on service architecture and service control for B3G networks are discussed. Second, the paper proposes a novel service control framework and describes how it is being pursued for service control in B3G. Finally, a policy based end-to-end service control mechanism is discussed.


Since cold exposure confers cardioprotection, the present study attempted to determine the role of opioid receptors (OR). Stress with cold exposure and restraint for 3 h, shown previously to induce peptic ulcer in a synergistic manner, attenuated infarct size induced by myocardial ischemia and reperfusion in the isolated perfused rat heart from 36.64 ± 1.8 to 22.85 ± 2.6%. This is similar to protecting the rat with morphine at 8 mg/kg, which also attenuated the infarct size from 36.26 ± 1.6 to 20.30 ± 2.1%. The effects of cold-restraint or morphine were abolished by naloxone, a non-selective OR antagonist; nor-binaltorphimine, a selective ĸ-OR antagonist; naltrindole, a selective δ-OR antagonist, or CTOP, a selective µ-OR antagonist. The effects were also attenuated by blockade of protein kinase C or the mitochondrial KATP channel. The finding is first evidence that all three OR subtypes mediate cardioprotection of cold-restraint stress in the rat.


Polyaniline (PANI) nanoparticles with uniform morphology and good dispersion were prepared by using the task-specific Ionic Liquid (IL) 1-ester-3-methyl-imidazolium tetrafluoroborate ([EAMIM]BF4) as a soft template by chemical oxidation in a water-IL medium. The morphological, structural and electronic properties of polyaniline (PANI) products, controlled by the IL [EAMIM]BF4, were synthesized and investigated. Products were characterized by SEM, FT-IR and the measurements of conductivity. The addition of [EAMIM]BF4 strongly influenced the morphology, uniformity, and conductivity of the PANI. Depending on the [EAMIM]BF4:ANI ratio, various nanostructures of PANI could be prepared and the dominant morphologies are the rod-like and fiber-like elongated structures under most experimental conditions. Samples prepared in the presence of IL [EAMIM]BF4 show uniform morphology, good dispersion and good electrochemical performance. At the current density of 0.5 A/g, the specific capacitance of PANI was 396 F.g-1. Compared with the PANI without ionic liquids, the specific capacitance was increased by 165 F.g-1. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ms.25.3.19145


A coplanar waveguide (CPW) fed Ultra Wideband (UWB) slot antenna with reconfigurable rejection bands is presented. Specific band of the rejection is achieved by placing switching diodes over the rectangular slot in the ground plane at a position of effective length of λ/2 for the center frequency of the rejection band. The rejection of WiMax, IEEE 802.11a and HYPERLAN/2 bands can be achieved by switching the diodes. The simple configuration and low profile of the proposed antenna leads to easy fabrication that may be used in any wireless UWB device applications where reconfigurable rejection bands are required.


One of the most popular fuzzy clustering techniques is the fuzzy K-means algorithm (also known as fuzzy-c-means or FCM algorithm). In contrast to the K-means and K-median problem, the underlying fuzzy K-means problem has not been studied from a theoretical point of view. In particular, there are no algorithms with approximation guarantees similar to the famous K-means++ algorithm known for the fuzzy K-means problem. This work initiates the study of the fuzzy K-means problem from an algorithmic and complexity theoretic perspective. We show that optimal solutions for the fuzzy K-means problem cannot, in general, be expressed by radicals over the input points. Surprisingly, this already holds for simple inputs in one-dimensional space. Hence, one cannot expect to compute optimal solutions exactly. We give the first (1+eps)-approximation algorithms for the fuzzy K-means problem. First, we present a deterministic approximation algorithm whose runtime is polynomial in N and linear in the dimension D of the input set, given that K is constant, i.e. a polynomial time approximation scheme (PTAS) for fixed K. We achieve this result by showing that for each soft clustering there exists a hard clustering with similar properties. Second, by using techniques known from coreset constructions for the K-means problem, we develop a deterministic approximation algorithm that runs in time almost linear in N but exponential in the dimension D. We complement these results with a randomized algorithm which imposes some natural restrictions on the sought solution and whose runtime is comparable to some of the most efficient approximation algorithms for K-means, i.e. linear in the number of points and the dimension, but exponential in the number of clusters.


with the individual myocardial cell and the concept of the myocardial fibre as an elementary electrical circuit, emphasis being given to the contributions of electronmicroscopy to our presentday understanding of the structure of the fibre itself. Next he describes the heart as an electrical generator. Finally the human body is considered as a volume conductor and its special characteristics described. The spatial vectorial concept is explained in relation to what is called the electrical circuit of the 'heart-human body'. The main recording systems in vectorcardiography are considered individually and their validity discussed, special mention being made of the lead field concept of McFee and Johnston and of the three dimensional resistor network of Rijlant. For those interested in the basic theory of the vectorcardiogram and the electrocardiogram this book will prove invaluable, although it is doubtful how useful it will prove to the clinician since clinical interpretation of the electrocardiogram is beyond the scope of the book.


Fallo's tetrad one of the most often found congenital heart disease. The relevance of a problem of complications after cardiac operations at the Fallo's tetrad remains acute for today. The analysis of results of expeditious treatment and complications will allow to solve problems of timely diagnostics, treatment and prevention of the reasons of an unsatisfactory clinical condition of patients at all stages of postoperative maintaining. Objective: Studying the structure of postoperative complications, determination of the causes of postoperative complications at a hospital stage at patients after a definitive and palliative repair of Fallo's tetrad definition of diagnostic and medical tactics in the postoperative period. Material and methods: The studied patients with Fallo's tetrad (126 children aged from 2 days till 9 years, from them boys 64, girls 62) were distributed on 2 main groups: after the definitive repair of defect (DRD) and after the palliative correction of defect (PCD). The complex assessment of postoperative complications at patients with TF was carried out with use of clinical-laboratory research methods. Results: Complications at a hospital stage arose in 38 (45.2%) cases from 84 (100%) patients after a definitive repair and in 17 (50%) cases from 34 (100%) – after palliative correction of Fallo's tetrad. The structure of complications after a definitive and palliative repair of defect is defined. The reasons and risk factors of development of postoperative complications after surgical correction of Fallo's tetrad are defined. Features of a clinical current of complications after a definitive and palliative repair of Fallo's tetrad are noted. Optimum tactics in treatment of postoperative complications at a hospital stage after a definitive and palliative repair of Fallo's tetrad is defined.


AIMS
To estimate the effect on drug misuse treatment completion of a pilot scheme to pay service providers according to rates of recovery.

DESIGN
A controlled, quasi-experimental (difference-in-differences) observational study using multi-level random effects logistic regression.

SETTING
Drug misuse treatment providers in all 149 commissioning areas in England in the financial years 2011-12 and 2012-13.

PARTICIPANTS
Service users treated in England in 2011-12 and 2012-13.

INTERVENTION AND COMPARATORS
Linkage of provider payments to performance indicators in eight pilot commissioning areas in England compared with all 141 non-pilot commissioning areas in England.

MEASUREMENTS
Recovery was measured by successful completion of treatment (free from drugs of dependence) and engagement with services was measured by rates of declining to continue with treatment.

FINDINGS
Following the introduction of the pilot scheme, service users treated in pilot areas were 1.3 percentage points [odds ratio (OR) = 0.859; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.788, 0.937] less likely to complete treatment compared with those treated in comparison areas. Service users treated in pilot areas were 0.9 percentage points (OR = 2.934; 95% CI = 2.094, 4.113) more likely to decline to continue with treatment compared with those treated in comparison areas.

CONCLUSIONS
In the first year of the pilot 'Payment by Results for Drugs Recovery' scheme in England, linking payments to outcomes reduced the probability of completing drug misuse treatment and increased the proportion service users declining to continue with treatment.