As one effort to estimate the global soil moisture distribution, the Global Soil Wetness Project (GSWP) was conceived. Under the GSWP, the global soil moisture distribution on 1x1 mesh for 1987 and 1988 was simulated in an offline mode by 11 land surface models (LSMs). Even though the forcing conditions are mostly based on observations, validation studies are necessary because LSMs may not simulate accurately the partitioning of water at the surface of the earth between runoff, evaporation, and changes in soil moisture. A gridded 1x1 global river channel network, named Total Runoff Integrating Pathways (TRIP) is used to calculate mean runoff estimated by the LSMs for drainage areas upstream of 250 operational gauging stations. Runoff observations from these stations in 150 major river basins of the world have been collected for 1987 and 1988, and were compared with the LSM products. It was found that LSMs estimated annual runoff fairly well, with a relative root mean square error of 40% for drainage areas with a fairly high density of raingauge observations (>30/106km2), which was used to prepare the forcing precipitation. The error corresponds to approximately 18% of annual evapotranspiration. LSMs are also found to have a tendency to underestimate the annual runoff. This may be caused by underestimation of raingauges under strong wind conditions, especially for snow, because all of the LSMs underestimated the runoff for most of the drainage areas located in higher latitudes. A linear river routing model was applied for the global runoff products from the LSMs and analyzed at 250 gauging stations. The correlations between observed and simulated monthly runoff were improved for most of the LSMs by introducing the routing. River runoff information was found to be effective for the validation of water cycles on the continental scale.


We report a facile synthetic approach to create stable radical block copolymers containing a secondary fluorinated block via anionic polymerization using a bulky, sterically hindered countercation composed of a sodium ion and di-benzo-18-crown-6 complex. The synthetic conditions described in this report allowed for controlled molecular weights and dispersity (<1.3) of both homopolymers: poly(2,2,6,6-tetramethyl-1-piperidinyloxy-methacrylate) (PTMA) and poly(2,2,2-trifluoroethyl methacrylate) (PTFEMA) as well as their block copolymers (PTMA-b-PTFEMA). The stable radical concentration of the polymers was determined by electron spin resonance (ESR) and showed radical content above 70%. An analysis of the microphase morphologies in PTMA-b-PTFEMA thin films via atomic force microscopy (AFM) and grazing incidence small angle X-ray scattering (GISAXS) showed clear evidence of long-range ordering of lamellar and cylindrical morphologies with 32 and 36 nm spacing, respectively. The long-range ordering of the morphologies was developed with the aid of two separate neutral layers: PTMA-ran-PTFEMA-ran-poly(hydroxyl ethyl methacrylate) (PHEMA) and poly(isobutyl methacrylate) (PiBMA)-ran-PTFEMA-ran-PHEMA, which helped us corroborate, along with the Zisman method, the surface energy estimation of PTMA to be 30.1 mJ/m2.


The piezoelectric stick-slip (PZT-SS) actuator is known to achieve motion with a theoretically unlimited range yet high resolution (several nanometers). In this type of actuator, friction plays an active role in producing a meaningful stick-slip motion. However, friction is a source of heat which may cause significant temperature rise, affecting the dynamic performance of the actuator. Our study aimed to measure temperature rise in the stick-slip motion and to understand whether such a rise could significantly affect the displacement of the stick-slip motion. In this study, a temperature measurement system was developed using the off-the-shelf components, with which the temperature rise up to 0.436 degrees C was successfully measured on a proprietary PZT-SS actuator. The experiment further shows that the temperature rise affects the displacement of the actuator when operating voltage is at the low end (approximately 6 V). Therefore, one of the design recommendations for such an actuator system is that the operating voltage should be at the high end (approximately 30 V). The study also measured the temperature rise (approximately 0.263 degrees C after the system worked for 6300 s) at the friction interface due to the piezoelectric element which is a part of the whole PZT-SS actuator. This means that temperature rise is due to both the friction at two interacting surface and the operation of the piezoelectric element.


Radical hysterectomy for uterine cervical cancer was performed on 469 patients without metastasis in either the parametrium (P) or pelvic node (N). In 225 of the patients, the tumor had invaded deeply, with the remaining non-invaded myometrium being less than 5 mm deep. In 54 of the patients, the tumor had invaded the vagina. These two sets of cases (postoperative advanced Ib and IIa) were the subjects of the present examination. Eighty-three of the 225 patients were given postoperative irradiation, and 142 were not. The 5-year survival rates were 84% (70/83) in patients with irradiation and 92% (131/142) in those without irradiation (p less than 0.10). Eight patients with irradiation died of causes which might be attributable to the irradiation. The rates of recurrence were similar in both groups (8.4%, 7/83 vs 9.2%, 3/142). However, there was a significant difference (p less than 0.025) between these two groups (1.2%, 1/83 vs 2.8%, 4/142) in the recurrence rate when only the areas of irradiation were considered. In the 54 patients with IIa cancer, the 5-year survival rates and the rates of recurrence were not significantly different for those patients with irradiation from those without irradiation. Therefore, these results indicate that postoperative irradiation may not be essential for P(-)N(-) patients.


A recent spate of legislation in Australia with sloganeering titles raises questions about the interrelationship of political, parliamentary, and legislative language. This article traces the history and functions of legislative titling. Titling came to serve an essentially descriptive function, through the use of bland, bureaucratic language which exhibited indifference to the politics of law-making. The short title, however, in an age of political spin-doctoring, could become a site for image conscious 'motherhood' statements. Reasons to lament such a trend are proposed, as well as factors to explain its appearance. The Australian examples are examined with a view to understanding their motivations. Historical and comparative precedents are also considered. In conclusion, the article seeks to locate the trend in the broader context of naming conventions in a media conscious age.


Advanced critical care practitioners are a new and growing component of the critical care multidisciplinary team in the United Kingdom. This audit considers the safety profile of advanced critical care practitioners in the provision of central venous catheterisation and transfer of ventilated critical care patients without direct supervision and supervised drug assisted intubation of critically ill patients. The audit showed that advanced critical care practitioners can perform central venous cannulation, transfer of critically ill ventilated patients and intubation with parity to published UK literature.


This project deals with design and simulation of cooling channel for designing n.vo
plate mould of body hair dryer part by using CA TIA software and transfer the 30
model into Autodesk Moldflow Insight software. The objective of this project is to
design a new architecture of cooling channel and simulate by using Autodesk
simulation Moldflow Insight 2014. Other than that is to compare between
conventional straight cooling channel and the new architecture of the cooling
channel. The design of the product will be analysed using Autodesk simulation
Moldflow Insight 2014 to reduce the defect that appears during the injection
moulding process. Besides, in the injection moulding process, the cooling channel
performance is one of the most crucial factors because it has a significant effect on
both production rate and the quality of the plastic part. In order to reduce the cycle
time, and control the uniform distribution of temperature, it is necessary to create the
new architecture cooling channels, which conform to the shape of the mould cavity
and core. This project presents a simulation study of different types of cooling
channels in an injection moulded plastic part and compares the performance in terms
of time to reach ejection temperature, volumetric shrinkage, temperature profile,
circuit coolant temperature and part defect determine which configuration is more
appropriate to provide uniform cooling with minimum cycle time. Autodesk
simulation Moldflow Insight 2014 software is used to examine the results of the
cooling channel performance.


We analyze how the provision of an explicit numerical inflation target provides a focal point for agents' expectations when information is imperfect. Communicating a target and a tolerance band around it provides a clear framework with which to evaluate monetary policy outcomes. We show how inflation targeting exploits the self-reinforcing loop between success and credibility to help the Central Bank endure large and long lasting shocks. Last, we derive the optimal band width around the target, which exploits the benefits of providing a focal point while maximizing the probability of success.


Taking Landsat7 ETM+as the data source and using "de- interfered anomalous principal component thresholding technique,i. e.,DAPCTT",the authors extracted weak mineralization and alteration remote sensing information( i. e. hydroxyl and iron- stain remote sensing anomaly information) in Guizhou Province. As this kind of information contains large quantities of discrete data and uses the grid file form,the authors used the density weighted method to process the surface interpolation of the discrete outliers and drew the contour maps. The contour maps show that the remote sensing anomaly distribution has certain regularity and is in good agreement with the formation,structure and distribution of mineral resources. In combination with geochemical element anomaly distribution map,high resolution remote sensing images and field measured alteration zone data,the comparison and verification were made for the remote sensing anomalies,and the results show that the weak mineralization and alteration remote sensing information extracted by these methods is reliable and can reflect the basic relationships between geological structures,rocks and mining fields. In addition,it can supply new clues to the evaluation of mineral resources potential in Guizhou Province.


This thesis investigates the role of customer emotions in a call center setting. Three empirical studies are presented: 1. An exploratory qualitative study shows that emotions play an important role in a call center encounter. A measurement scale is developed using the negative emotions reported: frustration, anger, powerlessness, discouragement and stress, and positive emotions: happiness and relief. 2. A survey of 1440 customers of a French call center and subsequent Structural Equation Modeling shows that emotions have a significant effect on satisfaction and loyalty. 3. A follow-up qualitative study indicates that emotions change during the process of a call, and are accompanied by appraisals of reduced certainty and control. Frustration is shown to be a major customer emotional experience due to the set-up of call center services which generate reduced certainty and control, attributions of employee or company responsibility and appraisals of goal-blocking. The main theoretical contributions come from a) the finding that emotions have a stronger effect on loyalty than does satisfaction, b) empirical testing of a widely acknowledged (but not explicitly tested) notion that negative emotions decrease loyalty more than positive emotions increase it. In a call center context callers begin the call with some negative emotional 'baggage' which may enhance the effect on loyalty as compared to positive emotions, c) empirical support for Barrett et al. (2007) and Elfenbein (2007) who suggest that an emotional process characterizes emotional experience better than emotions alone. Managerial implications are a) that the call center industry needs to move away from its traditional performance-metrics basis for measuring customer satisfaction and take customer emotions into account, and b) that to ensure loyalty call center managers should focus more strongly on strategies for avoiding negative customer emotional states than for promoting positive emotions.


ABSTRACT The bacteriophage Mu strong gyrase site (SGS), required for efficient phage DNA replication, differs from other gyrase sites in the efficiency of gyrase binding coupled with a highly processive supercoiling activity. Genetic studies have implicated the right arm of the SGS as a key structural feature for promoting rapid Mu replication. Here, we show that deletion of the distal portion of the right arm abolishes efficient binding, cleavage, and supercoiling by DNA gyrase in vitro. DNase I footprinting analysis of the intact SGS revealed an adenylyl imidodiphosphate-dependent change in protection in the right arm, indicating that this arm likely forms the T segment that is passed through the cleaved G segment during the supercoiling reaction. Furthermore, in an SGS derivative with an altered right-arm sequence, the left arm showed these changes, suggesting that the selection of a T segment by gyrase is determined primarily by the sequences of the arms. Analysis of the sequences of the SGS and other gyrase sites suggests that the choice of T segment correlates with which arm possesses the more extensive set of phased anisotropic bending signals, with the Mu right arm possessing an unusually extended set of such signals. The implications of these observations for the structure of the gyrase-DNA complex and for the biological function of the Mu SGS are discussed.


Antimony telluride (Sb2Te3) compounds are well known as excellent thermoelectric materials and have been recently confirmed as three-dimensional topological insulators. In this letter, we have investigated the anisotropic magneto-transport properties of p-type Bi-doped Sb2Te3 bulk single crystals over a broad range of temperatures, degrees and magnetic fields. Giant magnetoresistance (MR) of up to 230% was observed, which exhibits quadratic field dependences in low fields and becomes linear at high fields without any trend towards saturation. The giant MR also shows strong anisotropy with anisotropy ratio up to 210% in angle-dependent measurements. The giant MR might result from strong intervalley and intravalley scattering of holes and the strong anisotropy is attributable to the anisotropy of hole mobility, relaxation time and effective mass in the Fermi surface. The observed giant anisotropic MR could find applications in Sb2Te3-based anisotropic magneto-electronic devices.


Sarcoidosis or Leprosy? SIR,—In the May 1964 edition of your journal Professor R, Kooij of the Netherlands, discusses the differential diagnosis between sarcoidosis and leprosy, referring to earlier publications concerning sarcoidosis " which were probably or certainly leprosy ". As an example he mentions the first case in Caesar Boeck's (1916) publication : Nochmals zur Klinik und zur Stellung des " benignen Miliarlupoids ", and in his comment on this case he states : " There is little doubt that this was a case of tuberculoid leprosy in reaction ". May I be permitted to draw the author's attention to the fact that together with the pathologist Dr. Hval I published a re-examination of this patient in 1936. Twenty-nine years after Boeck's examination he still had sarcoidosis and no signs or symptoms of leprosy ! (The patient died of cancer and a thorough post-mortem was performed). When Professor Kooij mentions that " probably Boeck made more of these errors ", I would like to add that I had the opportunity to make a re-examination of the very first of Boeck's patients. This patient was 80 years old in 1940, he had no signs or symptoms of either sarcoidosis or leprosy, but the Kveim reaction was still positive. I am of the opinion that there is in fact no evidence to support Prof. Kooij's statement in his summary that " the diagnosis of sarcoidosis was made wrongly in the past in cases of leprosy by Boeck . . . "


Electrides are ionic substances in which the anionic species is stoichiometrically replaced with localized electrons that reside within crystal voids. Originally discovered in 1983, the past decade has seen a sharp rise in the number of known electride materials, most notably the isolation of the first air- and water-stable electride. As the presence of localized interstitial electrons cannot be directly detected experimentally, researchers have turned to density-functional theory (DFT) to discover new electrides. In this work, we survey eight common theoretical descriptors of electrides for their efficacy in identifying these materials. Illustrative examples are presented for all classes of electrides: organic, inorganic, 2D, elemental, and molecular electrides. In general, density-based descriptors such as the electron localization function (ELF) and localized-orbital locator (LOL) are shown to be the most consistently reliable. Limitations of DFT treatments of electrides are also discussed.


(1) Time allocation of the kestrel in the Netherlands was established by dawn to dusk observation of focal birds. Time budgets were analysed with respect to time of year, phase of the breeding cycle, sex and weather conditions. (2) The common vole, Microtus arvalis L., was the major food source (92% of food items caught) with minor additions, especially in summer, of common shrews, Sorex araneus L., songbirds and juvenile waders. (3) Flight-hunting and perching were the two main foraging modes. Flight-hunting yielded, on average, 2.2 small mammals h-1 in winter and 4.7 in summer. Perching yield dropped from 0.3 mammals h-1 in winter to below 0.1 in summer. Flight-hunting yield reflected seasonal variations in food availability, perching yield did not. (4) There was no stage in the annual cycle where available daylight limited the daily flight-hunting time. There were no weather conditions where daily flight-hunting exceeded an average of 3.6 h or 20% of the active day. Stringent periods, in the sense that all buffer time is used for foraging, were found neither in winter, when food was scarce, nor in summer when food demand was highest. (5) Experimentally increased hunger of the brood led to increased male parental effort in terms of time spent flight-hunting plus flying, with a recorded maximum of 60% of the active day. Flight-hunting yield did not increase. (6) In winter, kestrels minimized energy expenditure, not foraging time, by using the low-cost low-profit technique of perch-hunting. In summer they maximized daily energy gain within limits probably set by their rate of food assimilation.


Introduction: Drug repurposing involves finding new therapeutic uses for already approved drugs, which can save costs as their pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics are already known. Predicting efficacy based on clinical endpoints is valuable for designing phase 3 trials and making Go/No-Go decisions, given the potential for confounding effects in phase 2. Objectives: This study aims to predict the efficacy of the repurposed Heart Failure (HF) drugs for the Phase 3 Clinical Trial. Methods: Our study presents a comprehensive framework for predicting drug efficacy in phase 3 trials, which combines drug-target prediction using biomedical knowledgebases with statistical analysis of real-world data. We developed a novel drug-target prediction model that uses low-dimensional representations of drug chemical structures and gene sequences, and biomedical knowledgebase. Furthermore, we conducted statistical analyses of electronic health records to assess the effectiveness of repurposed drugs in relation to clinical measurements (e.g., NT-proBNP). Results: We identified 24 repurposed drugs (9 with a positive effect and 15 with a non-positive) for heart failure from 266 phase 3 clinical trials. We used 25 genes related to heart failure for drug-target prediction, as well as electronic health records (EHR) from the Mayo Clinic for screening, which contained over 58,000 heart failure patients treated with various drugs and categorized by heart failure subtypes. Our proposed drug-target predictive model performed exceptionally well in all seven tests in the BETA benchmark compared to the six cutting-edge baseline methods (i.e., best performed in 266 out of 404 tasks). For the overall prediction of the 24 drugs, our model achieved an AUCROC of 82.59% and PRAUC (average precision) of 73.39%. Conclusion: The study demonstrated exceptional results in predicting the efficacy of repurposed drugs for phase 3 clinical trials, highlighting the potential of this method to facilitate computational drug repurposing.


Objectives. The propofol infusion syndrome (PRIS), a rare, often fatal, condition of unknown etiology, is defined by development of lipemic serum, metabolic acidosis, rhabdomyolysis, hepatomegaly, cardiac arrhythmias, and acute renal failure. Methods. To identify risk factors for and biomarkers of PRIS, a retrospective chart review of all possible PRIS cases during a 1-year period was conducted at a level 1 trauma hospital in ICU patients over 18 years of age receiving continuous propofol infusions for ≥3 days. Additional study inclusion criteria included vasopressor support and monitoring of serum triglycerides and creatinine. Results. Seventy-two patients, 61 males (84.7%) and 11 females (15.3%), satisfied study inclusion criteria; and of these, 3 males met the study definition for PRIS, with 1 case fatality. PRIS incidence was 4.1% with a case-fatality rate of 33%. The mean duration of propofol infusion was 6.96 days. A positive linear correlation was observed between increasing triglyceride levels and infusion duration, but no correlation was observed between increasing creatinine levels and infusion duration. Conclusions. Risk factors for PRIS were confirmed as high dose infusions over prolonged periods. Increasing triglyceride levels may serve as reliable biomarkers of impending PRIS, if confirmed in future investigations with larger sample sizes.


Hundreds of interesting remediation technologies for soil and groundwater have been developed over the past two decades. As one who has gone to dozens of hazmat shows, I have file folders full of various specialty vendor brochures and pamphlets for numerous technologies. My bookshelves have numerous U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) reports detailing various technologies and remedial strategies. However, locating the specific technology information in a short period of time is sometimes difficult, and available information is frequently incomplete or outdated. For those having a need for a decent reference of remediation technologies indexed to major contaminant chemicals and chemical groups, which can be accessed quickly, the solution is relatively simple. John Wiley & Sons published the Wiley's Remediation Technologies Handbook: Major Contaminant Chemicals and Chemical Groups by Jay H. Lehr. The book is …


Bergman and converse Bergman rules, amongst others, describe latitudinal variation in size of organisms, including flying ectotherms like butterflies. However, geographic clines in morphological traits of functional significance for flight performance and thermoregulation may also exist, although they have received less attention within a biogeographical context. Variation in flight-related morphology has often been studied relative to landscape structure. However, the extent to which landscape effects interact with latitudinal clines of phenotypic variation has rarely been tested. Here we address the effect of latitude, landscape type and the interaction effect on body size and flight-related morphology in the speckled wood butterfly Pararge aegeria. Male adult butterflies were collected from two replicate populations in each agricultural and woodland landscape types along a 700 km cline in six latitudinal zones. Overall size, adult body mass and wing area increased with latitude in line with Bergmann's rule. Forewing length, however, decreased with latitude. As predicted from thermoregulatory needs in ectotherms, the basal wing part was darker to the north. Latitudinal trends for flight-related morphological traits were opposite to redictions about flight endurance under cooler conditions that were observed in some non-lepidopteran insects, i.e. wing loading increased and wing aspect ratio decreased with latitude. Opposite trends can, however, be explained by other aspects of butterfly flight performance (i.e.mate-location behaviour). As predicted from differences in environmental buffering in woodland landscapes along the latitudinal gradient, significant landscapelatitude interaction effects indicated stronger latitudinal clines and stronger phenotypic variation for size and flight morphology in the agricultural landscape compared to the woodland landscape. In agreement with significant interaction effects, morphological differentiation increased with latitude and was higher between population pairs of agricultural landscape than between population pairs of woodland landscape. These results demonstrate that landscape, latitude and their interaction contribute to the understanding of the complex geographic variation in P. aegeria adult phenotypes across Europe.


Abstract Although bacterial biofilms have been studied in detail, adhesion of Candida albicans and non-albicans species to an intrauterine contraceptive device (IUD) is not clear. The objective of this study was to evaluate aspects of imaging of the ultrastructure and viability of vaginal yeasts adhered to different parts of an IUD, through scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and confocal scanning laser microscopy (CSLM). We studied yeasts isolated from different patients with vulvovaginal candidiasis: C. albicans, C. glabrata, C. guillermondii, C. parapsilosis, C. tropicalis, and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. A suspension of the each yeast was prepared and incubated with IUD parts (tail, without copper, and copper-covered). SEM and CSLM showed that all the vaginal yeasts adhered to all the parts of the IUD and demonstrated viability, including 30 days after contact for C. albicans. Possibly irregularities of IUD surface contribute to the adherence process. Although all of the IUD parts contribute to retention of yeasts in the genital tract, high concentration of yeast cells on the tail may indicate the importance of this segment in maintaining the colonization by yeast cells because the tail forms a bridge between the external environment, the vagina that is colonized by yeast cells, and the upper genital tract where there is no colonization.


The objective of this paper is to introduce fuzzy set theory and develop fuzzy mathematical models to assess sustainable development based on context-dependent economic, ecological, and societal sustainability indicators. Membership functions are at the core of fuzzy models, and define the degree to which indicators contribute to development. Although a decision-making process regarding sustainable development is subjective, fuzzy set theory links human expectations about development, expressed in linguistic propositions, to numerical data, expressed in measurements of sustainability indicators. In the future, practical implementation of such models will be based on elicitation of expert knowledge to construct a membership function. The fuzzy models developed in this paper provide a novel approach to support decisions regarding sustainable development.


Background and objectives. The analysis of the main shortcomings of modern forecasting of innovative development of textile enterprises shows the need to build a well-functioning system for forecasting innovative development; development of a methodology for forecasting promising areas of innovative development, taking into account the peculiarities of the functioning of textile enterprises. Therefore, an urgent problem arises of finding effective mechanisms for objectively identifying the weak and strong aspects of the innovative activity of textile enterprises, establishing further priorities for the formation and development of the innovative potential of enterprises, determining the main vectors of innovative development, taking into account the competitiveness and results of R&D (research and development work). Methods: The methods used: factor analysis – to identify the most significant indicators that affect the level of use of innovative potential; cluster analysis of Kmeans – for a reasonable division of enterprises into groups according to the levels of integrated business performance / use of innovation; taxonomy method – to determine the boundary value of the levels of development of innovative potential as a result of the integration of individual business objects for each of the clusters into one structure; discriminant analysis – for object recognition for deciding which business objects to integrate into the business structure. Findings: As a result of predicting the level of development of the innovative potential of textile enterprises, groups of factors were identified that stimulate and discourage the development of the innovative potential of textile enterprises. Conclusion: To improve the efficient operation of textile enterprises, it was proposed to use special tools for managing innovation potential: active expansion of business activities, attraction of innovations, containment of achieved market positions, search for effective methods of using innovations, selective growth of certain types of activities, differentiated attraction of innovations, and revision of certain activities.


Conflict management in public authorities is a system of management measures for the diagnosis, prevention, overcoming and neutralization of crisis situations and manifestations, as well as their causes in various government structures. Such an activity involves prediction of the degree of danger of crisis manifestations in public authorities, study of its symptoms, as well as measures to reduce the negative effects of the crisis and usage of its features for subsequent development. Each management to a certain extent has a place to be anti-crisis or begins to become so in degree of entry of the organization into the period of crisis development. Neglect of such a situation entails rather negative consequences, while its consideration contributes to an effective way out of different crisis situations [1].The research methodology 1 Kazan Federal University. e-mail: email@example.com. Tel.: 89053168812. 2 Kazan Federal University. e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com. Tel.: 89053168812. 3 Kazan Federal University. e-mail: email@example.com. Tel.: 89053168812. involves a thorough analysis of crisis management, as well as the conflict essence in government structures. The article attempts to distinguish between the concepts of "crisis" and "conflict", "management" and "settlement". The theory of conflict acts as a methodological basis. Crisis management in government bodies has an impact subject represented by crisis factors, that is, all factors of exacerbation of contradictions, causing the risk of its extreme manifestation, the onset of a serious crisis. The paramount importance and priority of crisis management in various state bodies reflects the need for any organization and person to overcome, resolve and setlle crisis situations, to make possible mitigation of its consequences, and to use its potential. Understanding of crisis and conflict as a natural and inevitable Periódico do Núcleo de Estudos e Pesquisas sobre Gênero e Direito Centro de Ciências Jurídicas Universidade Federal da Paraíba V. 8 No 06 Ano 2019 – Special Edition ISSN | 2179-7137 | http://periodicos.ufpb.br/ojs2/index.php/ged/index 33 phenomenon in the process of development of the organization determines the relevance of constant research, creation, improvement of crisis management mechanisms.


In given article use of simple n-rectangular features for realization of object detection algorithm on images is considered. Among all set of attributes get out a few strongest which are expedient for using at initial stages of search of object for rejection of the big number of background images. Necessity and validity of restriction of the sizes of attributes for decrease influence of noise is considered. An example works of the multistage qualifier on test set is given.


This is a collaborative research project where I worked alongside the Tonga Leitis' Association to conduct semi-structure interviews with 20 leiti into the causes of, and solutions to housing insecurity. I set out to follow a PAR (participatory action research) methodology but was constrained in fully implementing this due to constraints of the project timeline. This project draws on the principles of PAR as well as other indigenous research theories.
This project contributes to the academy's understanding of the life and challenges experienced by leiti. It shows that housing insecurity cannot be viewed in isolation but is influenced by many aspects of people's lives. This is especially true for 'vulnerable' minorities such as leiti. This project revealed that leiti experience marginalisation in many ways and showed that they are often survivors of significant levels of violence.
This study includes a range of recommendations which are driven from the participant interviews. These actions should create change which would ensure that Tongan society is more inclusive of leiti and would provide leiti with a safe space to reside if they experience violence or oppression.


The susceptibility of ultracold gases to precise manipulation via external fields makes them ideal systems to study fundamental quantum mechanical phenomena. Various regimes, which are not possible to reach in condensed matter or nuclear physics, can be probed with these quantum gases. Especially the tunability of the interactions and confining potentials make that these ultracold gases offer unique possibilities to explore and study universal behavior. The tunability of the dominant two-body interactions in dilute ultracold atomic gases stems from the presence of Feshbach resonances. Via these resonances pairs of ultracold atoms can be associated to form ultracold molecules. In fact, measurements of Feshbach resonance positions can be used to reveal part of the underlying molecular structure. Vica versa, accurate molecular Born-Oppenheimer potentials can be used as input for full numerical coupled-channels calculations to reliably predict Feshbach resonances. For most of the heteronuclear mixtures currently studied however, the relevant molecular potentials are not accurate enough. As the coupled-channels method is often too elaborate and too time consuming to be used to fit the measured data to enable the construction of more accurate potentials, a need for accurate models which complement this established method is created. In this thesis we have developed a simplified model for resonant scattering of two ultracold atoms which fulfills this need. The asymptotic bound-state model (ABM) is a hierarchical model which can be systematically increased in complexity and accuracy. In its most simple form, the ABM only needs two parameters to predict the position and strength of Feshbach resonances: Two binding energies corresponding to the least bound state of the two molecular potentials involved. We demonstrate that this model, although it is solely based on bound states, can incorporate threshold effects. Additionally, the model can be extended to include: Multiple vibrational levels, overlapping resonances, and magnetic dipole-dipole interactions. This versatile model allows for a description of Feshbach resonances in a large variety of systems without accurate knowledge of the relevant molecular Born-Oppenheimer potentials. Being computationally light, the ABM can be used to analyze measurements of Feshbach resonances and hereby expose the basic underlying molecular structure. Additionally, the ABM is well suited to map out all available Feshbach resonances in a system. This ability is particularly useful when an optimal resonance is required for a certain experiment. For the 6Li-40K mixture we have utilized this ability to experimentally observe a strong Feshbach resonance which offers promising perspectives to reach the strongly interacting universal regime in a mass-imbalanced Fermi gas. By analyzing the various inelastic decay processes and the accuracy of the ab initio Born-Oppenheimer potentials, we predict a strong resonance in a mixture of metastable bosonic and fermionic helium atoms. For the homonuclear (bosonic as well as fermionic) helium gas we do not find strong resonances. For an ultracold gas of 40K atoms, an elaborate combined theoretical and experimental effort is presented to map out the Feshbach resonance structure. On the experimental side we observed 36 Feshbach resonances, 31 of which where observed for the first time. These observations are in excellent agreement with coupled-channels calculations which use unmodified Born-Oppenheimer potentials as input. On the theoretical side, we present a comparison between different simplified models of resonance scattering and the full numerical coupled-channels calculations. We have developed the resonant state model (RSM) to describe the resonant scattering of two ultracold atoms. This model is founded on resonant states, the natural (eigen) frequencies of the two-body system, and their non-trivial properties. Threshold effects are implicitly build into the RSM. The RSM can describe the effect of the continuum of scattering states, states which are neglected in the ABM, on the position and strength of a Feshbach resonance by only a few resonant states. Especially when a low-energy resonance is embedded in the continuum of scattering states, the effect of these states on the Feshbach resonance cannot be neglected. The RSM can be viewed as the natural generalization of the ABM. As the RSM can be based on just a few resonant states, it retains the computational simplicity of the ABM. Using the tunability of two-body interactions induced by a Feshbach resonance, we describe a crossover for a rotating Fermi gas between two strongly-correlated many-body states. We demonstrate that the correlation induced long-range interaction will shift the crossover with respect to the non-rotating case.


Divergent polysemy is a formidable translation problem; especially in L1-L2 translation. In the paper the case of the Slovene-English pair of items namrec and namely was used to illustrate the most frequent polysemy-triggered translation errors and their corrections. The hypothesis of full transferability of semantic structures from L1 into L2 was identified as one of the sources of errors. Since dictionaries turned out to be of limited use; electronic corpora were consulted to shed more light on the matter; they revealed huge differences in patterns of use between the two terms; which in turn determined the proposed plan of action. Bilingual lexicography; EFL teaching and translator education are key factors in improving the current situation.


The liquid waste of the tofu industry contains high organic contaminants, such as proteins and amino acids. These organic compounds causes liquid waste of tofu industry to contain high BOD, COD, and TSS so that it can pollute the environment. Therefore, tofu liquid should be removed first by electrocoagulation method. This method has the potential to purify tofu liquid waste and decrease the content of COD, BOD, TSS, and pH contained without the addition of coagulants. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of voltage and flow rate to neutralize pH, and reduce levels of COD, BOD, and TSS in tofu liquid waste. The parameters tested included COD, BOD, TSS, and pH. The electrocoagulation process uses electrical power that flows in the direction of the electrode. The electrocoagulation reactor was paired with a cable connected to the power supply then connected to an electric current with voltage and flow rate variations. The results of this study found that optimum conditions were obtained at current of 12 V and flow rate of 0.087 L/min with increasing pH from pH from 3.5 to 6.7,  percent removal of COD 72.17%, percent removal BOD 71.53% , and percent removal TSS 90.90%.


Federal and state decision makers have considered a number of energy-conservation policies dealing with the use and supply of energy resources. The major contribution of this research is the development of a dynamic structure modeling the transportation/energy interactions in urban areas. The modified TRANSIT1 simulation model is developed and implemented to test a wide range of transportation-related energy conservation policies and evaluate their impacts across time. The two major objectives of this research study were to: (1) determine ways in which dynamic energy conservation policies act to conserve energy and influence resident mobility and transportation system economic performance both in the short-term and long-term and (2) develop dynamic methodologies to evaluate these energy conservation policies in terms of their impacts through time. A four-step research plan was formulated to address these objectives and this plan is discussed in this report.


Incremental structure from motion (ISfM) has been widely used for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) image orientation. Its efficiency, however, decreases dramatically due to iterative bundle adjustment (BA). Although the divide-and-conquer strategy has been used for efficiency improvement, cluster merging becomes difficult or depends on seriously designed common image poses or 3-D points. This article proposes an algorithm to extract the global model for cluster merging and designs a parallel ISfM solution to achieve efficient and accurate image orientation. First, based on vocabulary tree retrieval, match pairs are selected to construct an undirected weighted match graph, whose edge weights are calculated by considering both the number and distribution of feature matches. Second, an algorithm termed weighted connected dominating set (WCDS) is designed to achieve the simplification of the match graph and build the global model, which incorporates the edge weight in the graph vertex selection and enables the successful reconstruction of the global model. Third, the match graph is simultaneously divided into compact and nonoverlapped clusters. After parallel reconstruction, cluster merging is conducted with the aid of the global model. Finally, using three UAV datasets that are captured by classical oblique and recent optimized views photogrammetry, the validation of the proposed solution is verified through comprehensive analysis and comparison. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed parallel ISfM can achieve 17.4 times efficiency improvement and comparative orientation accuracy. In absolute BA, the geo-referencing accuracy is approximately 2.0 and 3.0 times the ground sampling distance (GSD) value in the horizontal and vertical directions, respectively. For parallel ISfM, the proposed solution is a more reliable alternative.


In this article, we suggest that using R, a statistical software environment, is advantageous for quantitative researchers in applied linguistics. We first provide a brief overview of the reasons why R is popular among researchers in other fields and why we recommend its use for analyses in applied linguistics. In order to illustrate these benefits, we report recent works and developments in quantitative data analysis seeking to move the field toward more appropriate practices, many of which take advantage of the flexibility and functionality of R. Finally, in order to facilitate the use of R, we also introduce an R-based web application developed by the first author.


We study relaxation dynamics of the mean field of many point vortices from quasi- equilibrium to equilibrium. Maximum entropy production principle implies four con-sistent equations concerning relaxation-equilibrium states and patch-point vortex models. Point vortex relaxation equation coincides with Brownian point vortex equation in micro-canonical setting. Mathematical analysis to point vortex relaxation equation is done in accordance with the Smoluchowski-Poisson equation.


Background: The MUC1 gene encodes glycoproteins attached to cell membrane that play a protective role in gastric cancer and protect epithelial surfaces against external factors such as H. pylori. H. pylori infection can induce a cascade of innate and acquired immune responses in gastric mucosa. This study investigated the relationship between rs4072037G>A polymorphism of MUC1 gene and increased susceptibility to H. pylori infection in patients with gastric cancer in Mazandaran province, northern Iran.Method: A case-control study was conducted in 99 patients with gastric cancer (H. pylori positive and negative) and 98 controls (H. pylori positive and negative) without gastric cancer (confirmed by pathological biopsy samples obtained during endoscopy). H. pylori infection was diagnosed by histological examination using Giemsa staining. Genomic DNA extracted from peripheral blood was analyzed by PCR-RFLP technique.Results: Analysis of all genetic models showed no significant relationship between rs4072037G>A polymorphism and risk of gastric cancer (GC). We investigated the relationship between H. pylori infection and rs4072037G>A polymorphism in increasing the susceptibility to gastric cancer in both positive and negative H. pylori groups (including case and control groups). The genetic model of GA/GG and H. pylori- positive versus GA/GG and H. pylori-negative showed a significantly increased susceptibility to gastric cancer (OR=0.251, CI: 0.128-0.493, p=0.000).Conclusion: These findings indicate that rs4072037G>A polymorphism may interact with H. pylori infection to increase the risk of GC.


This is a sociological study of Bellingham, a border market town. This community is an evolved aggregation of institutions and naturally occurring social groups. Whilst it has a certain territorial affinity and characteristics which are attributable to local history and evolved standards and values associated with this, its most obvious traits are the persisting sense of belonging generated in its members and the peculiar dynamic social system it supports. Constant change and adjustment take place in response to overlapping multi-directional chain reactions arising from nation wide extrinsic influences and internal development.
Work in its broadest sense is the primary focus of this research and a qualitative approach is adopted, seventy-two current members being interviewed, using a semi structured interview technique. However, participant observation, questionnaires, a local survey and documentary evidence including archival material are also valuable source material. The changing make up of household groups, local kinship patterns, unpaid work, including caring and employment are examined in depth.
It was found that there is a strong controlling effect on the members, the majority of whom were born there. Primary socialization tends to induce women to accept their role as wives and mothers. Household groups of origin continue to give support as long as they exist and whilst the last member used to be incorporated into a younger household group, he/she tends to be supported by a combination of state aid, kin help and neighbour support within his/her own home, today. Markedly patrilineal for most of this century, longevity and employment patterns have brought change to a society which is marginally matrilineal, today. Unmarried children live within their household group of origin until marriage.
Employment together with changes in transport have brought about greater stability within household groups and less geographical movement of families. Members of the community tend to live and work in/from the village today, professional members being the most likely to be geographically mobile.


Drawing on the growing literature on Muslim women ' s activism, this paper explores grammars of action that frame political mobilizations of Muslim women in the UK. By taking a broad view of political activism, we identify acts and practices of citizenship through which Muslim women activists engage with, reinterpret and challenge social norms. The article critically engages with dominant readings of post-migration minorities ' political mobilization through the lens of citizenship regimes and draws attention to more processual and agency-centred perspectives on citizenship. We focus on two salient themes that Bristol-based Muslim activists were concerned with: mobilizing against violence against women, manifested in the anti-FGM campaign by Integrate Bristol, and attempts to re-negotiate the terms of participation in religious spaces, manifested in claims for more inclusive mosques. In both instances, mobilization was not confined to the local community or national level, but supported by and embedded in related transnational struggles.


Indonesian food such as Rawon, Soto, Rendang, and others are food which cannot be served immediately, commonly it is complicated in making and couldn't be served quick. One supporting tool for Indonesian food lover to serve quick and easy is by using ready-ingredient package which has paste form. Food Additional Material is a material added into food to influence characters or food shapes. Preservative in grilled spice are much and spread. By reviewing main ingredients which are more expensive per kilo, there are many household wives turn by buying ready-spice in market.The research purpose is finding out preservative in Market of Malang city, considering highest rate for preservative in various grilled spice, according to Minister of Health Decree No. 033/Menkes/IX/2012 about additional food material, and developing this research as biology learning material. The research is descriptive qualitative. The research uses various spice (A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H, and I) and 3 repeats. Data analysis uses one-way variants analysis in significant rate 0.05 and additional test which is Duncan test. Research shows that average rate of preservative 247 mg/kg in spice F in spice I is the highest rate from tested spice. ANAVA test shows difference in preservative difference in various grilled spice in  Malang city. Duncan test shows each grilled spice has significant average rate. Comparison for preservative rate in various grilled spice with Ministry of Health decree no. 033/Menkes/IX/2012 shows the average of preservative is still below standard or still consumable.


Backgraund and aims: In Ukraine frequency of Rotavirus infection (RI) contain 35–75% of all cases of acute intestinal infections. Methods We investigated 90 children with rotavirus infection (age 1–5years), which used treatment in the infectious hospital during 2011 year. The group of children with RI distributed by gender signs: boys — 47 (52.2%), girls — 43 (47.8%). And by age: 1–3 years - 60 (66.6%), 3–4 years - 20 children (22.2%), after 4 years - 10 children 11.1%). Results 12 children (13.3%) were hospitalized during the first days, in the first 3 days — 32 children (35.5%). In 90 children (100%) was identificate the antigen of rotavirus. Most frequency of RI in the children was identificated in age 1–3 years. The syndrome of gastroenteritis developed in 1–3 day per acute period of disease Frequency of stool was 2–15 times per days. In the 20 children (22.2%) RI was associated with pathogenic flora: St. aureus (7.7%), Proteus(10%), Pseudomonas (4.4%). In the our contingent there were a decline of levels of copper of blood serum, zinc and iodine, at the insignificant increase of level of iron. Research of mineraluria in children gave the reference level of all investigated oligoelementss and phosphorus. In the patients with RI was identificated the disbalance of minerals of blood serum with association of their unchanged elimination. Conclusions This dates presents the necessity of mineral ocorrection in the patients with RI.


The relationship between social media use and youth's political participation has been extensively studied. However, explanations for youth's online collective political activism have been less explored. Previous studies have used the concept of internal political efficacy to examine the relationship between social media and political participation. However, this concept only explains individual political participation, while many political actions are performed collectively. Based on Social Cognitive theory this study propounds the concepts of online political selfand collective efficacy and explores their relationship to online collective political activism. Findings of a survey of members of three activist groups of a US Mid-Western university (n = 222) suggest that a correspondence exists between efficacy perceptions and the level of agency at which the political activities are performed online. Also, online collective efficacy perceptions influence individuals' participation in online collective actions, but this relationship is moderated by the perceived interdependence of the actions.


Previous reports indicate that Japanese quail are hyporesponsive to such conventionally used antigens as sheep red blood cells and bovine serum albumin. In this study the immune responsiveness of Japanese quail to several erythrocyte antigens was investigated. The quail produced higher antibody titers when immunized with chukar red blood cells than when immunized with sheep, turkey, or pheasant red blood cells. It is concluded that Japanese quail are capable of producing HA titers comparable in magnitude to those demonstrated by other laboratory animals, when the quail are immunized with an appropriate antigen. Chukar red blood cells are such an antigen.


: Aging process is associated with behavior change and continuous decline in physical and cognitive abilities. Therefore, early detection of behavior change is major enabler for providing adapted services to elderly people. Today, different psychogeriatric methods target behavior change detection. However, these methods require presence of caregivers and manual analysis. In this paper, we present our technological approach for early behavior change detection. It consists in monitoring and analyzing individual activities using pervasive sensors, as well as detecting possible changes in early stages of their evolution. We also present a first validation of the approach with real data from nursing home deployment.


It is well established that paresis is favorably influenced by treatment with malaria. This influence from the clinical standpoint is so marked that in many cases the patient reaches a condition of complete remission or social recovery. Clinical and serologic data of the results of this special treatment may be found in the series of articles of Kirby and Bunker, 1 from cases in the Psychiatric Institute, and in my own papers in collaboration with Fong 2 from those of St. Elizabeth's Hospital, Washington, D. C. In this paper it is my purpose to consider exclusively the histologic changes following treatment with malaria. While numerous papers have been written on the clinical aspects of this new type of treatment, comparatively few authors have paid special attention to the histologic changes. In this country, only two papers have been published, one by Lewis, Hubbard and Dyar 3 dealing with four cases


Traditionally, architecture in its design process employs physical matter, requires physical presence and relies on real world environment using conventional methods of 2D depictions such as paper and pen or 3D representations such as physical models and communicates design ideas in verbal or text-based form. The conventional design process, for example an interior design, a residential house, a commercial complex or even urban design projects, follows the same hierarchy of activities. Efforts are made to the satisfaction of both parties to give the ideas of a physical shape through sketches, drafts and models which may take weeks, even months. Finally the project gets its final shape in a working drawing, 3D visualisation or model making. This process is time consuming and somewhat redundant. In recent years technology has offered architects a new tool—the virtual environment. Architects use virtual environment increasingly as device of communication and presentation of design intensions. Virtual environment enables users to interact in real-time with design but unfortunately has not been used widely in the process of architectural design. The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between present design process and the emerging technology of virtual reality, establish a relationship between the two and its influence on architecture to form a new translated design process and communication, an interface between architect and client. Information technology, in its process of evolution, is influencing all creative art defining new tools and environments. The process of architectural design is also facing the challenge of the new technology resulting in tremendous collaboration with different disciplines that mediate between technology and the humanities, between science and arts. Also the requirement of interaction becomes expensive and troublesome for both client and architect if they are located geographically in different parts of the world. Various issues have been reported on successful implementation of virtual environment in architectural design such as technology overhead, quality of design and communication and collaboration. It has been noted that the quality of design and their outcomes are directly linked to the communication and collaboration between designers and between designer and clients (Kruijff, 1998; Kvan, 2000). Therefore, an emergence is felt for a happy marriage between the evolving technology and architecture. Enable the client to describe the space in terms of a set of parameters and the architect to translate the space into virtual world utilizing digital data. These digital data are descriptions of space in the virtual environment. This is the challenge of the time where we need to define whether virtuality is a new design metaphor for architecture and other creative arts.


Sexual assault perpetrated by older adults is still an underreported crime and is not fully understood. To describe a series of cases of sexual assault by Brazilian older adults and discuss the associated factors based on the literature. This is a cross‐sectional descriptive analysis of five cases of older adults accused of sexual assault in the Forensic Psychiatry sector of the Medical Legal Institute (Coroner's Office) in the City of Belo Horizonte'. This review focuses on five cases involving male defendants with a mean age of 59.75 years; two with previous psychiatric treatment, and one with a previous criminal record. Their victims were prepubescent children, four of them female. Psychiatric conditions related to forensic diagnosis included dementia, schizophrenia, alcohol‐related substance use disorder, paraphilia, and one without a psychiatric diagnosis. The final forensic report on all five cases found that two of the older adults diagnosed with a mental disorder in two were considered to have a mental illness that completely impaired the cognitive and volitional domains; two other adults were diagnosed with mental health disturbance that partially impaired these domains; and the last adult was diagnosed and found without mental health impairment. While the incidence of sexual crimes committed by older adults is low, the absolute number of cases has expected to rise due to population aging. Assessing the factors related to this type of crime is therefore an initial step to understanding and formulating preventive strategies.


A CW multi-line He-Cd+ laser is described which uses a geometry of alternating hollow cathode and annular anode elements. Operating parameters are measured systematically to optimise the efficiency of the laser and its spectral output. The laser emits on up to seven transitions simultaneously, and balanced white-light emission has been achieved. The role of different mechanisms for the population of some of the upper laser levels is clarified.


Theory to predict selection response in traditional livestock breeding programs has been well developed, validated and implemented in software in the past decades, for example in SelAction (Rutten et al. 2002), which has been successful as a tool to predict selection response in traditional livestock breeding programs for a wide range of population structures and selection strategies. This software used standard quantitative genetics theory and selection index theory to develop deterministic recursive equations, which model changes of trait means and variance-covariance structures to predict asymptotic response to multiple trait selection using best linear unbiased prediction (BLUP) estimated breeding values (EBV). Nowadays genetic improvement can further be enhanced by genomic predictions, which provide more accurate estimates of breeding values of animals in their earlier life and can improve the efficiency of breeding programs. While statistical methods to estimate genomic breeding values are now widely available, optimizing the use of genomics in practical livestock breeding programs is limited due to the lack of computer software that implements available theories. We're hereby to present a computer program that extends SelAction. Genomic information is included as the average phenotype of groups of individuals with both genotypic and phenotypic information following Wientjes et al. (2016). The heterogeneity of genomic information is considered in terms of the degree of relationship between selection candidates and the individuals that are both genotyped and phenotyped (van der Werf et al., 2015). This software can be used by breeders to reliably compare alternative breeding programs and for investment decisions for breeding programs that include genomic information.


Special educators serve a diverse population of students with unique strengths and needs, and adaptive interventions that account for individual differences before and during the intervention are an important tool to moving the field toward more individualized practices. The purpose of this article is to detail the conceptualization and application of tailoring the sequential multiple assignment randomized trial (SMART) design approach to developing and evaluating deeply tailored adaptive interventions through the application of secondary analyses to account for individual differences at multiple time points. This conceptual paper provides an overview beyond the basic SMART design components by describing the tactics, design options, and analyses currently available to further refine a SMART study into a more personalized intervention to account for individual differences at multiple points throughout the intervention and individual response to treatment.


Background Interferon regulatory factor 5 (IRF5) is a transcription factor regulating interferon secretion and was proved to be implicated in the pathogenesis of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in several studies. The purpose of this case-control study was to investigate whether IRF5 gene polymorphism is involved in the genetic predisposition to SLE in the Algerian population. Methods IRF5 rs729302 (A/C) polymorphism was analyzed in 120 SLE patients and 98 age and sex matched controls by real time- polymerase chain reaction. Results Significant association was observed for AA and AC genotypes of IRF5 between patients and healthy subjects (60% vs 73%; 40% vs 27%, p =0.025, respectively). Patients with SLE had more frequent C allele compared to controls (20% vs 13%, P = 0.041). However, the allele and genotype frequencies did not show any difference in patients with nephritis in comparison to those without nephritis. Conclusion The rs729302 C allele and AC genotype can be considered as risk factors for the development of SLE in Algerian patients.


The Balanced Scorecard is the most popular business performance measurement concept. The BSC concept balances the measurement of the performance of a business organization that has so far been considered too skewed in financial performance. This performance measurement is suitable if applied in conventional companies. However, there are still many studies that measure the business performance of Islamic financial institutions with conventional methods (BSC). This is the cause of the performance of sharia-based business can not be measured accurately. Develop a BSC model with a new model namely Maṣlaḥah Scorecard (MaSC) which is used to measure the benefit of an organization or business that does not limit only to the financial perspective. The method used to determine the comparison between performance assessment of sharia entities using the Balance Scorecard and Malahah Scorecard uses comparative analysis. thus the sharia entity is expected to apply the Maṣlaḥah Scorecard (MaSC) by considering the elements that are an advantage of measuring the performance of the sharia entity using the Maṣlaḥah Scorecard (MaSC) which is able to measure the performance of company management covering material aspects and spiritual aspects. Adjusting to the real purpose of human life which is to get safety and success in life for the world and the hereafter. Nothing is eternal in this world as well as in the company so it is also necessary to think of the responsibility to Allah for provision in the Hereafter.


Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organize for Reproductive Justice by JAEl SIllImAn, mARlEnE GERbER FRIEd, loREttA RoSS, and ElEnA R. GutIéRREz. boston: South End Press, 2004; Policing the National Body: Race, Gender, and Criminalization, ed. JAEl SIllImAn and AnAnnYA bhAttAchARJEE. cambridge, mass.: South End Press, 2002; and Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide. AndREA SmIth. boston: South End Press, 2005.


We have investigated the potential for using genetic programming to evolve compiler parsing and translation routines for processing arithmetic and logical expressions as they are used in a typical programming language. Parsing and translation are important and complex real-world problems for which evolved solutions must make use of a range of programming constructs. The exercise also tests the ability of genetic programming to evolve extensive and appropriate use of abstract data types - namely, stacks. Experimentation suggests that the evolution of such code is achievable, provided that program function and terminal sets are judiciously chosen.


The Mediterranean diet (MD) has beneficial effects on cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and mortality. Although various attempts have been made for estimating adherence to the MD using diet quality indices, few studies involving validated questionnaires for estimating adherence have been performed in Asian populations. We aimed to develop and validate the Korean version of the Mediterranean Diet Adherence Screener (K-MEDAS) by including 211 participants that visited health check-up centers and 116 participants with overweight or hypercholesterolemia that visited obesity clinic. The participants completed both the K-MEDAS and a 106-item food frequency questionnaire (FFQ). We translated 13 questions and developed 1 question. Considering the agreement between the K-MEDAS and FFQ, nine of the 14 questions showed moderate or high kappa values (≥0.4). The total MD scores measured by the K-MEDAS and FFQ showed substantial concordance (intraclass correlation coefficient = 0.678, 95% confidence interval: 0.520, 0.785). Multiple linear regression analyses revealed significant inverse associations between MD score and the levels of serum total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, after adjusting for confounding variables. We found that K-MEDAS is valid tool for assessing adherence to the MD in the Korean population.


The effort to clarify the meanings of the terms 'clay', 'clays', and 'clay minerals' was the subject of the joint nomenclature committees (JNCs) of the Association Internationale pour l'Etude des Argiles (AIPEA) and the Clay Minerals Society (CMS). The JNCs have proposed the term a class of hydrated phyllosilicates forming the fine-grained fraction of rocks, sediments, and soils and have defined 'clay' as ''a naturally occurring material composed primarily of fine-grained minerals, which is generally plastic at appropriate water contents and will harden when dried or fired'' [1]. According to this definition synthetic clays and clay-like materials are not regarded as clay even though they may be fine grained, and display the attributes of plasticity and hardening on drying and firing.


The results from a hysterographic study on women with bicornuate uterus are discussed. It is established that its frequency is 2.2% of 1623 performed hysterosalpingographies. A detailed analysis is made on the form and dimensions of the cornua [correction of corns], total isthmic part and cervical canal. Some metric parameters (height and width, sizes of the isthmus the an angle between the corns) are given with the purpose of greater precision of roentgenological interpretation.


Base-pair formation between two hairpin loops--a "kissing" complex--is an RNA-folding motif that links two elements of RNA secondary structure. It is also a unique protein recognition site involved in regulation of ColE1 plasmid DNA replication. The trans-activation response element (TAR), a hairpin and bulge at the 5' end of the untranslated leader region of the human immunodeficiency virus 1 mRNA, enhances the transcription of the virus and is necessary for viral replication. Gel electrophoresis and absorbance melting curves indicate that a synthesized RNA hairpin (Tar*-16) with a loop sequence complementary to the TAR loop sequence (CUGGGA) associates specifically with a 16-nucleotide TAR hairpin (Tar-16) to form a stable complex. RNase T1 probing indicates that the three guanines in the Tar-16 loop become inaccessible in the complex. NMR imino proton spectra reveal that 5 base pairs are formed between the two hairpin loops (Tar-16 and Tar*-16); only the adenine at the 3' terminus of the TAR loop does not form a base pair with the 5'-terminal uracil of the complementary loop. A 14-nucleotide hairpin [CCUA(UCCCAG)UAGG] with a loop sequence complementary to the TAR loop is conserved within the gag gene of human immunodeficiency virus 1. A synthesized RNA hairpin corresponding to this conserved sequence also binds to the Tar-16 hairpin with high affinity. It is possible that the same RNA loop-loop interaction occurs during the viral life cycle.


At the University of South Australia, we train health professionals to handle and analyse blood and blood products. Approximately 250 students annually use blood products. Most of these students are inexperienced blood handlers and it is a priority to minimise their exposure to infectious agents. Approximately 65 students per year are enrolled in immunohaematology course. The Australian Red Cross Blood Service in Adelaine (ARCBS) is the source of plasma used to teach red cell antibody screening and identification. Currently, we are using plasma obtained from donors collected after 1991 and stored at –70°C. Before plasma is used in practical classes, the titre and specificity of antibodies to red cell antigens are tested. Commercial reagents may be added to adjust the antibody titre. Because antibody-containing plasma is a finite resource, any plasma mixture surplus after the class is pooled and stored at –70°C for use in subsequent classes. The frozen plasma stock includes plasma collected since 1991 that is currently used for practical classes, and plasma collected between 1972 and 1991 on which only limited screening for infectious agents had been performed. We submitted aliquots of all of our stored plasma to ARCBS for screening for infectious agents.


The implantation of the Boston Keratoprosthesis (KPro) requires a corneal button, which is usually taken from a donor. Scarcity of donor tissue has been a major limiting factor in transplant surgery. Recently, autologous recipient cornea has been reported as support for the KPro. We report the successful use of an ipsilateral failed corneal graft as the carrier tissue for a patient requiring combined pars plana vitrectomy and KPro implantation.


Numerical results for particle acceleration at multiple oblique shocks are presented. We calculate the steady state spectral slope of test particles accelerated by the first order Fermi process. The results are compared to analytical treatments, for parameters, where the diffusion approximation does apply. Effects of injection and finite shock extend are included phenomenologically. We find the spectrum of accelerated particles to harden substantially at multiple oblique shocks and discuss the influence of the number of shocks compared to the obliquity itself.


The paper contains the results of research on the impact of the number of factors used to build the Day-Ahead Market model at Polish Power Exchange S.A. Five models with a different number of factors influencing the model were tested. To test the quality of models according to the adopted evaluation criteria, i.e., mean square error and the coefficient of determination for the weighted average prices sold in a given hour of the day, the influence of weather factors, socio-economic factors and energy demand were adopted. The results obtained from the analysis show a relatively high correctness of the simplest of the adopted models, which differs slightly from the best model.


Over the past 30 years, a significant increase in the prevalence of insulin resistance (IR) has been observed. It is associated with more frequent occurrence of impaired glucose tolerance, diabetes, excessive weight, cardiovascular diseases, and endocrine disorders. The results of current studies do not indicate a necessity to exclude dairy products from the diet of insulin-resistant individuals. In addition, it has been found that moderate amounts of alcohol as part of a balanced, low-energy diet do not have a negative effect on insulin sensitivity. The authors of recent studies emphasize the importance of reducing the intake of simple sugars, especially from sweet drinks, sweets and excessive fruit juice consuption. Many studies have demonstrated the beneficial effects of consuming complex, low-glycemic-index carbohydrates that are rich in dietary fiber. An insulin-resistant patient's diet should be rich in whole grains and high amounts of non-starchy vegetables and raw fruit. The beneficial effect of the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH diet) and the Mediterranean diet has been confirmed. The positive correlation between low-carbohydrate and very-low-carbohydrate diets requires confirmation in long-term studies with the participation of insulin-resistant patients. Research shows the benefits of increased calorific intake during the first half of the day, especially from a high-energy and low-glycemic-index breakfast. Furthermore, many researchers indicate that slow and mindful eating is a significant component of an appropriate diet for insulin-resistant individuals.


The clinical course of 459 treated hypertensive patients who wore the Remler M-2000 patient-activated, semi-automatic, portable blood pressure recorder was reviewed in order to determine whether the average awake ambulatory blood pressure was better able than office blood pressure and standard risk prognosticators to predict the development of cardiovascular morbid events. The patients who developed events were older, had higher office blood pressures and more evidence of target-organ damage, and were more likely to have suffered a clinical cardiovascular event before entry into the study. Ambulatory pressures were lower than office blood pressure in 78% of patients; the correlation coefficients were 0.67 for systolic pressure and 0.60 for diastolic pressure. Each patient was classified according to whether his observed ambulatory blood pressure was greater than or equal to 10/6 mmHg above, within 9/5 mmHg or greater than or equal to 10/6 mmHg below the level derived from his or her office blood pressure and the regression line derived from the scatter plot of ambulatory blood pressure on office blood pressure for the entire sample. Using life-table analyses to record the rate of development of a first cardiovascular event, and log rank tests to compare curves, significant differences in outcome were found between patients whose observed ambulatory blood pressure was above the regression line compared with those whose ambulatory blood pressure was below the regression line. We conclude that ambulatory blood pressure measurements can provide additional prognostic information to that available from office blood pressure and from the standard prognostic indicators, age and severity of disease.


OBJECTIVE
Macrolide antibiotics have anti-inflammatory properties in lung diseases. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of clarithromycin in pulmonary cellular inflammatory response in mice.

METHOD
Eight adult Swiss mice were studied. All animals received an intranasal challenge (80 micro L) with dead Pseudomonas aeruginosa (1.0 x 10(12) CFU/mL). Bronchoalveolar lavage was performed 2 days later, with total cell count and differential cell analysis. The study group (n = 4) received clarithromycin treatment (50 mg/kg/day, intraperitoneal) for 5 days. Treatment was initiated 2 days before intranasal challenge.

RESULTS
There was no significant difference in total cell count between the groups (mean: 2.0 x 10(6) and 1.3 x 10(6), respectively). In both groups, there was a predominance of neutrophils. However, the study group had a higher percentage of lymphocytes in the bronchoalveolar lavage than the control group (median of 19% vs 2.5%, P =.029).

CONCLUSION
Clarithromycin alters the cytological pattern of bronchoalveolar lavage of Swiss mice with neutrophil pulmonary inflammation, significantly increasing the percentage of lymphocytes.


Molecular routine diagnostics for BCR‐ABL1‐negative myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN) currently focusses on mutations in JAK2, CALR and MPL. In recent years, recurrent mutations in MPNs have been identified in several other genes. We here present the validation of a next generation sequencing (NGS)‐based 28‐gene panel and its use in MPN. We analysed the mutation status of 28 genes in 100 MPN patients [40 essential thrombocythaemia (ET), 30 primary myelofibrosis (PMF), 30 polycythaemia vera (PV)] and found two or more mutated genes in 53 patients. Moreover, significantly more mutated splicing genes (SF3B1, SRSF2 and U2AF1) were present in PMF (0·60 mutated genes/patient) compared to ET (0·15) while no mutations in splicing genes were found in PV. Additionally, chromatin modification genes (ASXL1 and EZH2) were frequently mutated in PMF patients (0·50) and, to a significantly lesser extent, in ET (0·13) and PV (0·07). Contrarily, DNA methylation genes (DNMT3A, IDH1, IDH2 and TET2) were mutated most often in PV (0·5) and less frequently in ET (0·23) and PMF (0·20), but without reaching statistical significance. Our results demonstrate the feasibility and utility of NGS‐based panel diagnostics for MPN. With 53% of the patients bearing two or more mutated genes, their prognostic relevance needs further studies.


Failure in unidirectional organic composites, loaded longitudinally, usually originates within fibres, which makes their failure kinetics a key parameter for failure modelling. Correctly capturing fibre strength statistics and failure kinetics is crucial to the success of composite stochastic strength models. The characterization of fibres is challenging, as the fibre diameter can be just a few microns. Nevertheless mechanical testing of single fibres is the only unambiguous means of characterising fibres or exploring their morphologies. Despite great progress in characterisation techniques, many obstacles remain to obtain accurate fibre strengths. Most studies have acknowledged the difficulty in obtaining fibre strength data which can accurately represent the entire fibre population in a given application. In this study an automated single fibre tensile testing machine has been used which overcomes most obstacles usually faced during fibre strength determination. Advanced statistical data processing techniques have been implemented to determine the reliability of the obtained results. Such analysis permits the calculation of confidence/accuracy associated with the generated fibre strength data. This may be used to extract more useful information from the limited resources available. The inadequacy of the popular statistical distributions for representing fibre strength has been highlighted. It is shown that inclusion of a trunca-tion parameter in the Weibull distribution could help in estimating the strength behaviour of a given fibre population.


As the ecology and distribution of most tree species remain poorly understood, biogeographical maps offer spatial surrogates for analysis of biodiversity patterns. We used a 1 : 250,000 potential natural vegetation map to compare the current indigenous tree species composition of 250 0.5-ha quadrats surveyed around Mount Kenya (1999– 2004) with the original species composition of ten potential natural vegetation types (PNVTs). The original 1960 vegetation map was based on intensive fieldwork and detailed aerial photographs by Trapnell et al. For each PNVT, we compiled original species lists from literature and herbarium voucher information. The percentage of species that overlap between the current list and the original list ranged from 30% to 75% for seven frequent PNVTs, but was only above 45% for dry Combretum savanna (DC). When only investigating the six to ten species with highest frequencies, these species were shared 70–100% for the four forest PNVTs, 90% for lowland Acacia-Commiphora, 67% for evergreen and semi-evergreen bushland and 50% for DC savanna. To promote agroecosystem diversification, ecological and socio-economic reasons for low current frequencies of most indigenous tree species need to be better understood.


A new exponent characterizing the rounding of crystal facets is found by mapping a crystal surface onto the asymmetric six-vertex model (i.e. with external fields h and ) and using the Bethe ansatz to obtain appropriate expansions of the free energy close to criticality. Leading order exponents in , are determined along the whole phase boundary and in an arbitrary direction. A possible experimental verification of this result is discussed.


Implementation of Scrum Elements in a Cultural Institution

Since March 2020, managers of cultural institutions have had to dynamically adapt their methodologies for teamwork, project management, and ongoing institutional tasks to the COVID-19 restrictions and guidelines handed down by public authorities. Following the initial downtime in the spring season and the reopening in June 2020, the Pod Atlantami Municipal Library in Wałbrzych took vigorous measures to adapt its cultural project management to the new conditions, drawing on the experience of the broadly understood business sector. These measures included the implementation of certain elements of Scrum as an agile framework for project management. The goal of the paper is to showcase the pilot implementation of Scrum elements in project management in the selected cultural institution. The analysis relied on structured questionnaires and open questions, visualisation meetings, and semi-structured interviews. Data analysis showed the applicability of backlog management, iterative planning, and iterative task execution to projects pursued by cultural institutions, along with potential for winning the employees' approval. However, a properly executed implementation is necessary, in which regard this paper offers a set of recommendations arising from the analysis.


Rifampicin is an essential drug in the present treatment of tuberculosis. On some occasions, it cannot be used due to severe adverse effects. Rifabutin is a drug of the same family, with a similar activity and difference adverse effects. This study describes the beneficial results of the substitution of rifampicin with rifabutin in patients with severe toxicity.


Summary form only given. Efficient broadcasting protocol design is an important issue in mobile ad hoc networks, because the broadcasting technique has been widely used in various applications involving route searching and message distribution. A problem with the original broadcasting protocol flooding is the excessive retransmissions that cause packet collisions and lead to bandwidth reduction. Various improved techniques have been proposed in the literature to alleviate this problem, while most of them are designed for networks with static topology, and their performance is often compared by means of numerical simulations. Recently, we have constructed mathematical models for several broadcasting protocols in one-dimensional and two-dimensional topology, and have proposed the close-form expressions to clearly reveal some new relationships between performance metrics and network parameters. In another recent contribution, we have also taken a preliminary step to address the mobility issue. That is, we intend to improve the existing broadcasting protocols, which do not perform very well under highly-mobile situations. Our proposed mobility-sensitive mechanisms adaptively increase broadcast redundancy when the nodal mobility is detected. Neighbor information, instead of location information, is employed in one of our algorithms, which has been shown preferable in ad hoc networks when node locations are not available. As a third research effort we have carried out, we recently focus on the design of broadcasting protocols with a specific application: route searching. In on-demand ad hoc routing protocols, route searching is an essential part in network layer to establish a path between a pair of nodes that wish to exchange information. Based on the observation that unnecessary retransmissions can be further reduced by combining various broadcasting protocols with some specific features of route searching, we propose a method to reduce redundancy after the required route is found. The simulations have shown the efficiency of this technique on improving protocol performance in terms of the decreased number of nodes that receive the broadcasted packet.


The contamination of trace elements (TEs) in freshwater sources has become an alarming issue globally. This study evaluates the contamination level of TEs, their spatial distributions, and the health risks in the Ghodaghodi Lake complex, Nepal. Altogether, ten water samples were collected, and As, Ba, Cd, Co, Cr, Cs, Cu, Li, Mn, Ni, Pb, Rb, Sc, Sr, Ti, Tl, V, Y, and Zn were determined by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. The results revealed that Sr, Zn, Cu, As, Sc, and Rb were dominated TEs, contributing to the contamination. The principal component analysis and correlation matrices demonstrated both the geogenic and anthropic origin of the TEs in the lake. The water quality index (WQI=10.08) and hazard indices <1 exhibited that the TEs pose a low risk to human health and, hence the water of the lake was suitable for drinking purposes. However, exposure risk assessment results suggested that children are relatively more vulnerable compared to adults. The outcome of this study will provide new insights to local people and the concerned authorities for the sustainable management of Ramsar listed Ghodaghodi Lake complex.


The effects of castration with/ without testosterone replacement in male rats, and ovarectomy with oestrogen replacement in female rats, on serum lipids were studied. Simultaneous feeding with diets fortified with 20% weight/ weight (w/ w) soybean oil (Sb) or palm oil (P0) were done to determine the influence of these oils on serum lipids in castrated and sex hormone replaced rats. Two month old male and female Rattus norwegicus rats were given the above treatment for 4 months, and their sera assayed for lipid profile. Castration increased HDL-cholesterol (HDLchol) and total cholesterol (Tchol) concentrations. Testosterone or oestrogen replacement in male and female rats respectively increased HDLchol and decreased LDL-cholesterol (LDLchol) concentrations. Testosterone replacement also decreased Tchol concentration back to noncastrated levels, and reduced serum triglycerides (TG) to lower than non-castrated levels. Addition of Sb or P0 to the diet increased the LDLchol in the testosterone or oestrogen replaced male and female rats, but there was no difference between the two groups. P0 raised serum TG of the testosterone replaced group compared to control and Sb groups. In conclusion, testosterone and oestrogen were found to have favourable effects on serum lipids. Sb and P0 did not differ in their effects on lipoprotein cholesterol and Tchol, but P0 raised serum TG as compared to Sb.


The RIKEN Accelerator Research Facility (RARF) has been further upgraded since 1991, according to the shortand middle-term improvement programs. Beam currents of 135 MeV/nucleon light ions routinely exceed 200 pnA; the maximum record has reached 500 pnA. A polarized deuteron beam of 270 MeV has been successfully obtained. Beam currents of RILAC-injected heavy ions have been improved by a factor of 2-3, by newly installing a second-harmonic buncher on the injection beam line of the RILAC. The current status of the improvement programs including these achievements are given. A future plan of the facility presently under discussion is also briefly presented.


The South American genus of mailed catfishes Loricaria Linnaeus, 1758 is reviewed. Almost all primary type-material and additional specimens are examined. Descriptions, tabulated morphometric and meristic data, and illustrations are presented of eleven species: Loricaria cataphracta Linnaeus, 1758 (syn.: Plecostomus flagellaris Gronovius, ed. Gray, 1854, and Loricaria carinata de Castelnau, 1855), L. lata Eigenmann & Eigenmann, 1889, L. simillima Regan, 1904, L. parnahybae Steindachner, 1907 (syn.: L. piauhiae Fowler 1941), L. piracicabae Von Ihering, 1907, L. clavipinna Fowler, 1940, L. nickeriensis Isbrucker, 1979, L. tucumanensis Isbrucker, 1979, L. apeltogaster Boulenger, 1895, L. prolixa Isbrucker & Nijssen, 1978, and L. lentiginosa Isbrucker, 1979. The nomenclatural history of L. cataphracta is revised: contrary to the author's previous (1972) assumption, two syntypes of this species are still in existence. Definitions are presented of the tribe Loricariini, the subtribe Loricariina, the Loricariaand Pseudohemiodon-groups, and of the Loricaria cataphracta species complex. In addition, the Pseudoloricariina (new subtribe), the Ricolina (new subtribe), and the Planiloricariina are defined. A key to the genera of Loricariinae with filamentous lip structures is given. A list of species originally proposed as representatives of the genus Loricaria, now excluded, is added together with their current identification.


World Wide Web is a rich source of information and continues to expand in size and complexity. To capture the features of the Web at a higher level to realise the information classification and efficient retrieval on the Web is becoming a challenge task. One natural way is to exploit the linkage information among the Web pages. Previous work such as HITS in this area is based on a set of retrieved pages to get a Web community that is a bunch of pages related to the query topics. Since the set of retrieved pages may contain many unrelated pages (noise pages) to the query topics, the obtained Web community sometimes is unsatisfactory. In this paper, we propose an innovative algorithm to eliminate noise pages from set of retrieved pages and improve its quality. This improvement will enable existing community construction algorithms to construct good quality Web page communities. The proposed algorithm reveals and takes advantage of the relationships among concerned Web pages at a deeper level. The numerical experiment results show the effectiveness and feasibility of the algorithm. This algorithm could also be used solely to filter unnecessary Web pages and reduce the management cost and burden of Web-based data management systems. The ideas in the algorithm can also be applied to other hyperlink analysis.


Abstract The dark-spotted frog (Pelophylax nigromaculatus) belongs to Ranidae. This species is known from the Russian Far East, central, northern and north-eastern China, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the Republic of Korea, and Japan. In this study, the complete mitochondrial genome of P. nigromaculatus was sequenced. The mitogenome was 17 567 bp in length, consisting of 13 protein-coding genes, 22 transfer RNA (tRNA) genes, 2 ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes, and a non-coding control region. As in other vertebrates, most mitochondrial genes are encoded on the heavy strand, except for ND6 and eight tRNA genes which are encoded on the light strand. The overall base composition of the P. nigromaculatus is 29.2% A, 27.4% T, 28.4% C, and 15.0% G. Phylogenetic analysis showed P. nigromaculatus was closely related to P. plancyi and P. chosenicus. The complete mitogenome of P. nigromaculatus can provide important data for the studies on phylogenetic relationship and population genetics to further explore the taxonomic status of this species.


OBJECTIVES: Outdoor air pollution has consistently been shown to predict mortality. The finding that this association is stronger in infants than in children or adults raises the question whether air pollution could also be related to pregnancy outcomes--such as birthweight and stillbirth. The association between outdoor air pollution and stillbirths and low birthweight in the Czech Republic, where air pollution was high, was examined. METHODS: An ecological study was conducted, with routinely collected data on stillbirths and low birthweight (< 2500 g), air pollution (total suspended particulates, sulphur dioxide (SO2), and nitrogen oxides (NOx)), and socioeconomic factors (mean income, car ownership, divorce rate, etc). The analyses were restricted to 45 districts on which data on air pollution were available for the period 1986-8. The effects of exposure variables on frequency of pregnancy outcomes were estimated by logistic regression with district-years as the units of analysis. RESULTS: Stillbirth rate (4.2/1000 births in monitored districts) was not significantly associated with any indicator of air pollution, and was weakly related to mean income and proportion of births outside marriage. Crude prevalence of low birthweight (prevalence 5.5%) showed highly significant associations with several socioeconomic factors; after controlling for these, odds ratios (ORs)/50 micrograms/m3 increase in pollutant were: 1.04 (95% confidence interval (95% CI) 0.96 to 1.12) for total suspended particles, 1.10 (1.02 to 1.17) for SO2, and 1.07 (0.98 to 1.16) for NOx. When all pollutants were included in one model, SO2 remained related to low birthweight (OR 1.10 (1.01 to 1.20), p = 0.033). CONCLUSION: These results are consistent with a recent study in China where birthweight was also associated with total suspended particles and SO2 but ecological studies must be interpreted cautiously. Residual confounding by socioeconomic factors cannot be ruled out. The association between air pollution and birthweight requires further investigation.


Functional consequences to which vertebrate GATA transcription factors contribute in the adult brain remain largely an open question. The present study examines how human GATA-1 and GATA-2 (hGATA-1 and hGATA-2) are linked to neuronal differentiation and depressive behaviors in rats. We investigated the effects of adeno-associated viral expression of hGATA-1 and hGATA-2 (AAV-hGATA1 and AAV-hGATA2) in the dentate gyrus (DG) of the dorsal hippocampus on dendrite branching and spine number. We also examined the influence of AAV-hGATA1 and AAV-hGATA2 infusions into the dorsal hippocampus on rodent behavior in models of depression. Viral expression of hGATA-1 and hGATA-2 cDNA in rat hippocampal neurons impaired dendritic outgrowth and spine formation. Moreover, viral-mediated expression of hGATA-1 and hGATA-2 in the dorsal hippocampus caused depressive-like deficits in the forced swim test and learned helplessness models of depression, and decreased the expression of several synapse-related genes as well as spine number in hippocampal neurons. Conversely, shRNA knockdown of GATA-2 increased synapse-related gene expression, spine number, and dendrite branching. The results demonstrate that hGATA-1 and hGATA-2 expression in hippocampus is sufficient to cause depressive like behaviors that are associated with reduction in spine synapse density and expression of synapse-related genes.


This paper studies the issue of input saturation in tracking control of differential drive robots. Although the structure of control strategy is a determinant factor for the occurrence of saturation phenomena, having a trajectory for the robot that is compatible with the bounds on the inputs is a necessary condition for avoiding saturation. In this study, analytic conditions for determining the compatibility of a trajectory with the input constraints are derived. Moreover, the problem of refining an incompatible trajectory to make it consistent with the input constraints is studied. This paper also proposes a novel control strategy for trajectory tracking of differential drive robots which can guarantee tracking and preservation of the input constraints provided that the desired trajectory satisfy compatibility conditions. In case of incompatibility of desired trajectory the proposed controller can simultaneously refine the trajectory and use the adjusted version for robot control, guaranteeing convergence of the robot to the geometric profile of trajectory. To demonstrate the power of developed theory, the problem of cooperative load carrying for two input-constrained differential robots has been studied. Simulation results show the validity of the derived control strategy.