Study Design. Case report. Objectives. To describe a rarely reported type of upper thoracic spinal cord injury without vertebral bony lesion in two cases with multiple trauma. Summary of Background Data. Because it is supported by the stiffness of the rib cage, the upper thoracic spine has greater stability than the cervical and lumbar regions, and thus its fracture or fracture dislocation is less frequent. Nevertheless, when fracture or fracture dislocation of upper thoracic spine occurs, spinal cord involvement and severe concomitant injuries are frequently associated. Methods. Two cases who were suspected to have thoracic spinal cord injuries were referred to our emergency center: a 19-year-old girl presented with paraparesis after her motorcycle collided with a truck, and a 63-year-old male involved in an industrial accident presented with paraplegia. Results. Radiograph and computed tomography scan showed no abnormality or dislocation in the vertebral bodies in these two cases, although the upper thoracic spinal cord injuries were suspected by clinical features. Magnetic resonance images detected abnormal signals, suggesting spinal cord injuries, and these signals each emanated from levels that coincided with the observed clinical features. Conclusions. Transient subluxation or displacement might have caused the upper thoracic spinal cord injuries after the support of the rib cages was temporarily lost on application of excessive force, although such findings could not be confirmed by imaging procedures.


One of the most important and useful ideas in 2D computer graphics is the fill. Simple in concept but powerful in practice, filling is so basic a technique that there's a fill tool in just about every 2D drawing system sold today. Probably one of the first important uses of fills was to color in 2D cartoon characters, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. It's hard to know who wrote the first fill routine, but it may have been Dick Shoup, who implemented a fill technique for his Superpaint system in the mid-1970s. The next big step was Alvy Ray Smith's 24-bit flood-fill algorithm, which also included tint fill. Change came fast after that point, culminating in the sophisticated filling tools we have today. In this article, I discuss some fill techniques that I've cooked up over time to solve different jobs. I focus on techniques for identifying fill pixels.


The scintillation properties of pure SrI2 and SrI2 doped with 0.5%, 0.86%, 2%, and 5% europium were studied. Different techniques were used to measure γ-ray excited pulse-height and scintillation decay time spectra, and to perform X-ray excited and optically excited emission spectroscopy. Eu2+ emission and trapped exciton (TE) emission was observed in SrI2:Eu2+ samples. These emissions were studied as a function of temperature, Eu concentration, and sample size. A spectral overlap was observed between Eu2+ excitation and emission spectra, the amount of overlap depends on temperature. The light yield, energy resolution and luminescence decay profiles reveal also a dependence on temperature, sample size, and Eu concentration. The observations were analyzed and interpreted in terms of two separate models. One model consists of the relation between TE and Eu2+ emission and the other deals with self absorption processes.


Estes, Wellman & Woolley (1989) have shown that children as young as 3 years of age can distinguish between mental entities such as an image or dream of an object and a real object. Nevertheless, children often show persistent fear of imaginary creatures, particularly monsters (Jersild, 1943). To find out what conception children have of such imaginary creatures, 4- and 6-year-olds were questioned about three types of item: real items (e.g. a cup), ordinary imagined items (e.g. an image of a cup) and supernatural imagined items (e.g. an image of a monster). In two experiments, both age groups sharply differentiated the real items from both types of imagined item. Despite this apparently firm grasp of the distinction between fantasy and reality, two further experiments showed that 4- and 6-year-olds are not always certain that a creature that they have imagined cannot become real. Having imagined a creature inside a box, they show apprehension or curiosity about what is inside the box, and often admit to wondering whether the creature is actually inside. The experiments suggest that children systematically distinguish fantasy from reality, but are tempted to believe in the existence of what they have merely imagined.


The ratio of accommodative convergence to accommodation (AC/A ratio) was tested in five normal subjects and nine patients with intermittent A- or V-patterns to determine whether or not the accommodative convergence relationships varied in different vertical positions of gaze and thus could be considered of etiological significance in this condition. No difference was found between the AC/A ratios in upward and downward gaze in the normal group or in any of the nine patients studied. In those with V-exotropia, the ratios ranged from abnormally high to abnormally low values. The A-exotropes had normal or slightly high values. The one patient with V-esotropia had AC/A ratios within the normal range.


Context Acute pancreatitis is a protean disease with wide and varied presentation from mild to critical with no accurate predictors of severity available. Objective Since pancreatic and leucocyte proteases are the early markers to rise in acute pancreatitis, we hypothesised that these mediators may be early predictors of pancreatitis severity. Methods The literature was searched for all studies that evaluated proteases, protease precursors, anti-proteases and protease-anti-protease complex in the prediction of acute pancreatitis severity from January 1985 to December 2014. A study was included in this systemic review if it had a prospective design and provided sensitivity, specificity or allowing the derivation of true positive, false positive, false negative and true negative results. A random-effects model was used to calculate the pooled estimates. Results There were 44 studies with 9 different serological protease-related markers with seven of these studies yielding data on more than one marker. Serum polymorphonuclear elastase at 24 hrs had a diagnostic odds ratio of 70.4 (21-235.7) with a positive predictive value of 80% followed by serum carboxypeptidase activation peptide with diagnostic odds ratio of 18.4 (5.1-66.7) and positive predictive value of 66%. Conclusions Serum polymorphonuclear elastase may be a very early and sensitive predictive marker of acute pancreatitis severity.


Several studies have shown that blood vitamin levels are low in alcoholic patients. In effect, alcohol use abuse is considered a chronic disease that promotes the pathogenesis of many fatal diseases, such as cancer and liver cirrhosis. The alcohol effects in the liver can be prevented by antioxidant mechanisms, which induces enzymatic as well as other nonenzymatic pathways. The effectiveness of several antioxidants has been evaluated. However, these studies have been accompanied by uncertainty as mixed results were reported. Thus, the aim of the present review article was to examine the current knowledge on vitamin deficiency and its role in chronic liver disease. Our review found that deficiencies in nutritional vitamins could develop rapidly during chronic liver disease due to diminished hepatic storage and that inadequate vitamins intake and alcohol consumption may interact to deplete vitamin levels. Numerous studies have described that vitamin supplementation could reduce hepatotoxicity. However, further studies with reference to the changes in vitamin status and the nutritional management of chronic liver disease are in demand.


NGST ISIM will certainly contain an IR wide-field camera and a spectrograph as well as one or more instruments working at MIR and/or visible wavelengths. Owing to their very nature, and to the scientific requirements they are supposed to meet, all instruments rely on a significant number of intermediate read-outs in order to achieve very low read-noise. Back of the envelope calculations show that, even under the most optimistic downlink scenarios it will be "impossible" to send all the intermediate readouts to the ground station(s), thus calling for substantial on-board data processing and compression. Assuming a comprehensive model payload operated following the most demanding read-out strategy, we have analyzed possible ways to co-add intermediate read-outs and compress the resulting images in order to significantly reduce the data rate to be transmitted to the ground, while maintaining the science output of the NGST instrument. The final aim of this study is to define the On-board Data Management architecture and assess its feasibility with respect to the NGST schedule. The presentation of the work is available at http://astro.estec.esa.nl/NGST/.


Dynamics model learning is challenging and at the same time an active field of research. Due to potential safety critical downstream applications, such as control tasks, there is a need for theoretical guarantees. While GPs induce rich theoretical guarantees as function approximators in space, they do not explicitly cope with the time aspect of dynamical systems. However, propagating system properties through time is exactly what classical numerical integrators were designed for. We introduce a recurrent sparse Gaussian process based variational inference scheme that is able to discretize the underlying system with any explicit or implicit single or multistep integrator, thus leveraging properties of numerical integrators. In particular we discuss Hamiltonian problems coupled with symplectic integrators producing volume preserving predictions.


Both uremia and HD process cause immunosuppression in HD patients. There was significant increase of total serum IgG and IgM levels found in patients with chronic HCV compared with healthy controls. There is evidence pointing to direct effect of rHuEPO upon B cells. High doses of recombinant human erythropoietin (rHu EPO) enhanced in vitro Ig production and proliferation of various plasma cell lines, as well as human plasma cells generated in vitro. Study was conducted at hemodialysis Unit of Shubra Municipal hospital between August 2010 to February 2011. 30 HCV positive patients on regular hemodialysis were included in study, using bicarbonate dialysate and polysulfone membrane dialyser, for 4 hours 3 times weekly. Patients were divided into 2 groups: first group: 15 patients on EPO therapy. 4000 IU/week and second group not taking EPO for all patients full clinical examination was done, CBC, BUN, serum creatinine, ALT, AST, serum albumin and serum IgM by ELISA (quantitative assay), were done.
There was no significant difference between 2 groups as regards age, sex distribution, WBC count, ALT, AST, serum creatinine, BUN and IgM serum level. First group had borderline significant higher Hgband Hct than second group (p = 0.056). Females didn't have higher serum IgM level thanmales (p = 0.403). All correlations of IgM serum level to other parameters of study were irrelevant. Uremia seems to protect ESRD patients on regular HD from complications of HCV and also EPO effect on Ig serum levels.


This study aims to test the performance of agricultural markets in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Over the last few years, the price of cassava has increased considerably, from US$ 72 per ton in 2007 to US$ 123 per ton in 2009.The value chain analysis and a market integration analysis were performed to identify critical issues to identify critical issues and constraints that undermine cassava market development,The results indicated the poor value chain status of cassava, which leads to the stagnation of this crop as a semi-commercial cropand restrains its absorption into the mainstream market chain in local, national and regional markets. The results from the error correction mechanism (ECM) suggest that on average about 30 % of past deviations from the long run are corrected each month.


Normally, contractual conceptions of intergenerational justice regard the responsibility held by each generation as symmetrical. This article argues that the late modern society has created an asymmetry because of its unprecendented instrumental and destructive capacity. Historically unique risks such as thermonuclear destruction, global ecological deprivation, and resource depletion all point at this asymmetry and unequal distribution of responsibility between generations. Extending one contractual device used by John Rawls in line with what Brian Barry has suggested, this article analyzes the roots of the asymmetry and presents two political strategies to end it. The first strategy resembles the traditional deep ecological programme whereas the second holds an imaginative vision of a human future in space. Both strategies seek to reduce the influence present generations exercise on the level of opportunity available to future generations. The key normative argument is that intergenerational justice requires spatial and temporal limits on political action.


Studies suggest that staphylococcal enterotoxin B (SEB) is initially harbored in the kidney by binding to digalactosylceramide molecules in the proximal tubular cells. However, little is known in regard to the peptide motif within SEB that binds to these cells and imparts toxic effects. Herein, using human kidney proximal tubular cells (PTs) we have performed a systematic study on the binding of various peptides and peptide analogs of SEB and demonstrate a structure-functional relationship. Using [125I]labeled SEB peptides, we show a high affinity and displaceable binding of SEB 191–220 to human PT cells. Binding was mitigated by the use of antibody against SEB, by digalactosylceramide (the putative receptor), and by the use of endoglycoceramidase, which selectively removes the oligosaccharide backbones from glycosphingolipids. Our structure/ functional studies revealed that peptide 130–160 induces a concentration-dependent increase in programmed cell death/ apoptosis in human proximal tubular cells. Mechanistic studies further suggest that SEB/SEB peptide (130–160) impart apoptosis via the activation of neutral sphingomyelinase, which hydrolizes sphingomyelin to ceramide and phosphocholine. SEB 130–160 mediated apoptosis was mitigated by preincubation of cells with antibody against SEB and an SEB 130–160 antibody.


Abstract The aim of the study was to discuss breeding of pigs of the Puławska breed, which is included in a Genetic Resources Conservation Programme, and to analyse performance parameters that are useful in domestic pig production. The Puławska breed is the oldest native breed of pig in Poland. Since 1996 it has been protected by a genetic resources conservation programme, owing to breeding traditions and the production traits characteristic of the breed. The use value of these pigs is currently at the level of maternal breeds: number of live piglets born per litter – 10.54; number of piglets reared per litter – 9.37; daily weight gains – 569 g for breeding boars and 562 g for breeding gilts; meat content – 54.6% for breeding boars and 54.9% for breeding gilts. An important element in favour of the use of this breed in domestic production of fresh pork and pork products is its meat quality parameters. The mean values for physical traits (WHC 22.42%, pH45 6.47, pH24 5.63) and chemical parameters (protein 22.70%, fat 2.65%) are characteristic of meat of normal quality. The Puławska breed can be used to produce high-quality fresh meat and meat products, including traditional and regional ones. Puławska pigs are bred and reared according to the principles of sustainable agriculture, which reduces the negative impact of pig production on the natural environment.


Carbon nanomaterials such as carbon nanotube and graphene are promising candidates for next-generation flexible electronics. However, the practical application of carbon electronics requires controlled fabrication of those materials with micro-patterned structures on flexible substrate at wafer-scale and low cost. Inspiring from the conventional photolithography process and pyrolysis of photoresist, herein, we demonstrate the synthesis of high-quality micro-patterned high crystallinity carbon. The method employed pre-patterned pyrolyzed photoresist as carbon precursors, in order to minimize the mobility of carbon during the high temperature growth, which results into high quality carbon patterns with a lateral resolution up to ~2 µm. The flexible carbon electronics are demonstrated by transferring the as-patterned high crystallinity carbon patterns to the flexible substrate, and showing asymmetric tensile-compressive response with high output resolution. These results will pave the way to the next-generation carbon-based flexible electronics and mechanical sensors.


The objective was to identify the perception of the elderly about sexuality in a Basic
Health Unit of the municipality of Aracoiaba, Brazil. It was an exploratory descriptive
study with a predominantly qualitative approach. We interviewed 30 elderly users of
the Basic Health Unit, in the period of September and October 2018. Data were
collected through a semi-structured questionnaire that covered general
characteristics of participants and issues related to sexuality. The analysis was
performed using the Collective Subject Discourse technique where it was verified that
the concept of sexuality covers elements that go beyond the sexual act. It was also
observed that age-related diseases, lack of partner and lack of companionship
between couples negatively interfere in the sexuality of the elderly.


In this paper, we study a fluctuating potential barrier system with correlated spatial noises. Study shows that for this system, there is the resonant activation over the fluctuating potential barrier, and that the correlation between the different spatial noises can enhance (or weaken) the resonant activation.


This interim report summarizes the findings to date from the Foundation Expenses and Compensation Study, a partnership of the Urban Institute, the Foundation Center, and GuideStar. Examining the expense and compensation patterns of the nation's 10,000 largest independent, corporate, and community foundations (by giving) circa 2001, this report documents how major differences in operating styles affect the expenses of philanthropic foundations. The findings suggest that, along with foundation type and size, the missions and goals of foundations that lead to different staffing levels and types of expenses should be considered when assessing foundation expenditures.


Galactic model plays an important role in the microlensing field, not only for analyses of individual events but also for statistics of the ensemble of events. However, the Galactic models used in the field varies, and some are unrealistically simplified. Here we tested three Galactic disc dynamic models, the first is a simple standard model that was widely used in this field, whereas the other two are more realistic taking into account the radial dependence of the velocity dispersion, and in the last model, the asymmetric drift. We found that for a typical lens mass $M_L=0.5M_\odot$, the more accurate dynamical models predict $\sim41\%$ or $\sim27\%$ less long-timescale events ($t_{\rm E}>300$ days) and $\sim 1\%$ and $\sim 12\%$ more short-timescale events ($t_{\rm E} 1$ mas) and large microlensing parallax ($\pi_{\rm E}>0.3$) events are expected to be more common. The more advanced models also have an impact on the total microlensing event rate. This result will also to some degree affect the Bayesian analysis of individual events, so we recommend that modelers should be more careful when choosing the Galactic model. Additionally, we find the asymptotic power-law behaviors in both $\theta_{\rm E}$ and $\pi_{\rm E}$ distributions, and we provide a simple model to understand them.


Uncovering factors that shape variation in brain morphology remains a major challenge in evolutionary biology. Recently, it has been shown that brain size is positively associated with level of parental care behavior in various taxa. One explanation for this pattern is that the cognitive demands of performing complex parental care may require increased brain size. This idea is known as the parental brain hypothesis (PBH). We set out to test the predictions of this hypothesis in wild populations of threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus). These fish are commonly known to exhibit (1) uniparental male care and (2) sexual dimorphism in brain size (males>females). To test the PBH, we took advantage of the existence of closely related populations of stickleback that display variation in parental care behavior: common marine threespine sticklebacks (uniparental male care) and white threespine sticklebacks (no care). To begin, we quantified genetic differentiation among two common populations and three white populations from Nova Scotia. We found overall low differentiation among populations, although FST was increased in between-type comparisons. We then measured the brain weights of males and females from all five populations along with two additional common populations from British Columbia. We found that sexual dimorphism in brain size is reversed in white stickleback populations: males have smaller brains than females. Thus, while several alternatives need to be ruled out, the PBH appears to be a reasonable explanation for sexual dimorphism in brain size in threespine sticklebacks.


Antigen-specific CD8+ T cell differentiation in response to infection is associated with specific changes in the chromatin landscape resulting in acquisition of the lineage-specific effector functions required for pathogen clearance. Lysine (K)-specific demethylase 6B (KDM6b) is a histone demethylase that specifically recognizes and removes methyl groups from K27 tri/dimethylation on histone 3. This histone modification is associated with a repressive transcriptional state, or, in combination with the active H3K4me3 mark, a bivalent epigenetic state. Resolution of bivalency at fundamental transcription factor loci has been shown to be a key mechanism for the initiation of CD8+ T cell differentiation. To begin to address the role of KDM6b in regulating H3K27me3 demethylation in CD8+ T cell responses to infection, a model whereby KDM6b levels can be modulated is needed. To address this, we developed a conditional short hairpin RNA (shRNA) mouse model targeting KDM6b. Here we demonstrate that KDM6b knockdown results in diminished naive, CD4+ and virus-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cell response in response to influenza A infection. To address the molecular mechanism, we demonstrate that KDM6b knockdown resulted in reduced H3K27me3 removal from the Tbx21 bivalent promoter, compared to luciferase hairpin controls. Surprisingly, this did not necessarily impact T-BET expression, or resolution of other bivalent transcription factor promoters. These data suggest that KDM6b knockdown resulting in diminished IAV-specific CD8+ T cell responses may reflect a demethylase independent function.


This paper empirically explores the validity of the Kaldorian insights into economic growth and development. In doing so, we examine the three laws outlined in Kaldor's analysis and test their relevance to the Greek economy for the period 1970–2006. We employ the ARDL method to analyse the long-run and short-run relationships among the variables. The empirical results confirm Kaldor's proposition about the importance of the demand side of the economy and thus provide the necessary theoretical and empirical ground for innovative economic policies in these difficult times for Greece.


The collection of weapons in the National Museum of Banat includes two 19th century Hungarian ceremonial swords which feature many design and ornamental elements that can mislead the laymen in the field of old heritage weapons. Made in accordance with the tendencies of the historical style, the two pieces imitate the design of the end of the Middle Ages Transylvanian princely swords. Moreover, representations and inscriptions dedicated to the Transylvanian princes Gabriel Báthory (prince between 1608–1613) and Gheorghe Rákóczi I (between 1630–1648) are preserved on both sides of the blades.The two swords from the NMoB collection are part of a larger series of pieces inscribed with the names of Transylvanian princes, similar swords having been identified both in the online bibliography and in two other museum collections in our country: at the National Museum of Romanian History (Gabriel Báthory) and in the collection of the National Military Museum "King Ferdinand I" in Bucharest (Gabriel Báthory and Gheorghe Rákóczi II). The common element of all these swords is the blade, the basic component of the weapon, which is identical in all these pieces, from a typological point of view: it has a curved shape, with a wide fuller placed under the blunt edge, on both sides, more than two-thirds of the length of the blade. The decorative motifs and inscriptions are engraved in identical layout in all the analyzed pieces. Regarding the arrangement of the engraved decoration, it must be emphasized that it is laid out on superimposed registers, perpendicular to the length of the blade, in the same order on all the swords examined. As regards the inscriptions present on these blades, especially the princely portraits, we can appreciate that the main source of inspiration was the Transylvanian princely numismatic heritage, preserved to this day in museums or private collections. The princely portraits present on the blades of the swords are copies of representations present on the obverse of the vintage coins. The princely bust and the official title, which appear on the obverse of the coins, are elements shown on the reverse side of the blades, while the princely coat of arms, present on the reverse of the coins, is engraved on the reverse side of the swords.The swords from the NMoB collection were analyzed with an XRF spectrometer, and the results obtained show a very high similarity between the two blades: a very high concentration of iron and an insignificant presence of other related chemical elements. The other components of the swords are of different types and shapes and the materials used range from solid gilded silver to plain brass. Based on the results offered by the XRF spectrometer, we can conclude that the blades used on the two swords were made in the same time interval, using modern metal processing techniques. The differences found in the other components of the swords indicate a ranking of the pieces according to value, which corresponds to the social status of the sponsors.From a chronological point of view, the two bladed weapons from the NMoB collection date from the second half of the 19th century, possibly the last decades of that century. We agree to this point of view, given the evolution and impact of the historical style in this space, an artistic current which the two analyzed weapons represent.The lack of information on the origin of the two swords negatively contributed to the long process of identifying and documenting the parts. The two swords were registered in the museum's inventory on January 8, 1959, being part of a swords lot which also includes that of the noble Osztoics family from Șemlacu Mare and Șemlacu Mic. Given the uncertainty surrounding the origin of the swords, we hope that future research will elucidate this mystery and will be able to identify the sponsors of the pieces.


Heavy‐chain deposition disease (HCDD) is characterized by tissue deposits of a truncated monoclonal immunoglobulin heavy‐chain (HC) on basement membranes. Diagnosis is usually made on kidney biopsy, showing nodular glomerulosclerosis with HC deposits which can be missed, resulting in delay in diagnosis. We report four γ1‐HCDD patients presenting with cutis laxa, hypocomplementemia and hypoalbuminemia. In two patients, unsuspected HCDD was revealed by cutis laxa and diagnosis was made on skin biopsy. In all patients, serum albumin and complement represented surrogate markers for disease monitoring. In γ‐HCDD, extrarenal manifestations such as cutis laxa may precede renal injury and are precious tools for an early diagnosis, which is crucial to avoid progression of irreversible renal and elastic tissue damage.


With no known treatments or vaccine, COVID-19 presents a major threat, particularly to older adults, who account for the majority of severe illness and deaths. The age-related susceptibility is partly explained by increased comorbidities including dementia and type II diabetes. While it is unclear why these diseases predispose risk, we hypothesize that increased biological age, rather than chronological age, may be driving disease-related trends in COVID-19 severity with age. To test this hypothesis, we applied our previously validated biological age measure (PhenoAge) composed of chronological age and nine clinical chemistry biomarkers to data of 347,751 participants from a large community cohort in the United Kingdom (UK Biobank), recruited between 2006 and 2010. Other data included disease diagnoses (to 2017), mortality data (to 2020), and the UK national COVID-19 test results (to May 31, 2020). Accelerated aging 10-14 years prior to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with test positivity (OR=1.15 per 5-year acceleration, 95% CI: 1.08 to 1.21, p=3.2x10-6) and all-cause mortality with test-confirmed COVID-19 (OR=1.25, per 5-year acceleration, 95% CI: 1.09 to 1.44, p=0.002) after adjustment for demographics including current chronological age and pre-existing diseases or conditions. The corresponding areas under the curves were 0.669 and 0.803, respectively. Biological aging, as captured by PhenoAge, is a better predictor of COVID-19 severity than chronological age, and may inform risk stratification initiatives, while also elucidating possible underlying mechanisms, particularly those related to inflammaging.


Cancer screening involves trade-offs. Screening offers the potential benefit of avoiding advanced cancer and subsequent cancer death. It also produces the harms of false alarms, overdiagnosis and unnecessary treatment. Because different individuals value these benefits and harms differently, there is no single calculation to answer the question of what to do. The trade-off of benefits and harms is present in screening mammography. The reduction in breast cancer mortality identified in the original randomized trials has likely been diminished by subsequent – and substantial – improvements in treatment. The rate of false positives can be high – particularly in the United States. Less familiar is the harm of overdiagnosis: the detection of early cancers that are not destined to ever cause clinicaldisease. Because women given the diagnosis of "cancer" are generally treated, overdiagnosis is rarely directly observed. Instead, inferences about overdiagnosis are based on indirect evidence: long-term follow-up of randomized trials and changes in stage-specific incidence over time. There is no single "right" number to describe the magnitude of either the benefits or harms of screening mammography and there is no single "right" value to assign to the various outcomes. Consequently, screening mammography is a choice – not a public health imperative. Citation Information: Cancer Res 2013;73(24 Suppl): Abstract nr PL01.


Fat-storing cells and other non-parenchymal cells (endothelial and Kupffer cells) were isolated from rat liver by a combined pronase-collagenase procedure and subsequent Visotrast-370 density gradient centrifugation. The lactate dehydrogenase isoenzyme pattern of fat-storing cells was found different from that of other non-parenchymal liver cells. Fat-storing cells contain LDH-4 as the main isoenzyme and do not contain LDH-1, whereas the other non-parenchymal cells have all five lactate dehydrogenase isoenzymes, among which LDH-5 is dominating. All non-parenchymal liver cell populations contain the M-type pyruvate kinase. The alkaline phosphatase of fat-storing cells has the same electrophoretic mobility as that of the other non-parenchymal cells.


This paper presents a modified Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm for the Job Shop Scheduling Problem (JSSP) with makespan criterion. The traditional ACO algorithms can be simplified with the elimination of pheromone unimportant to the JSSP solution. Also, this paper suggests a new priority rule served as the heuristic information of the proposed algorithm. In order to improve the convergence and solution qualities of the proposed algorithm, the local search procedure based on the neighborhood of the JSSP is introduced. The experimental results indicate that the modified ACO algorithm in this paper is more concise and more effective than ACO algorithms. Furthermore, this paper discloses the existing problems of ACO algorithms for the JSSP.


Thiolated functional nucleic acid-gold nanoparticle conjugates (FNA-AuNPs) are the core recognition elements in biosensors. The long-term functional stability (LTFS) is critical for their practical applications and, however, has been overlooked. Here we report on the huge effects of multiple experimental factors on LTFS, including spacer- and buffer-composition, secondary structures of FNAs, and surface blocking. We quantitatively determined these effects by measuring the relative hybridization capacity (RHC, the relative amount of complementary DNA hybridized with the same amount of conjugates) for linear DNA-AuNP or the relative signal change generated by their function (RSC-F) for molecular beacon (MB)- and G-quadruplex (G4)-AuNPs. There is a positive relationship between the spacer affinity [oligoadenine (A10) > oligothymine (T10) > oligoethlyene glycol (EG18)] of the linear DNA probes and the LTFS. The LTFS of linear DNA-AuNP in phosphate buffer (PB) was much better than that in Good's buffers such as HEPES, Tris, and MES. The secondary structure of FNAs also strongly impacted the LTFS, showing the substantially decreased LTFS from G4- to linear DNA- to MB-AuNPs, where EG18 spacer was used for all these conjugates. The surface blocking of FNA-AuNPs greatly improved the LTFS. We experimentally determined that the LTFS of FNA-AuNPs was directly related to the dissociation of DNAs caused by the in situ generated H2O2 due to the oxidase activity of AuNP and thereby oxidation of Au-thiol bonds. The oxidase activity of AuNP was favored at high temperature, low pH, high AuNP concentration, high Good's buffer concentration, and high salt concentration, corresponding well with the positive effects of high affinity spacer, PB, and surface blocking on the LTFS of FNA-AuNPs. Our study has implications on both fundamental surface science and practical applications.


Background: Waste management is a societal problem because of its environmental impact and public health implications. Solid waste handlers have a high incidence of occupational health issues, with respiratory morbidities being the most common. Aim: To assess the prevalence of respiratory morbidities, obstructive lung pattern and its associated factors among municipal solid waste management workers in Puducherry. Materials and Methods: This community-based cross-sectional study was carried out in May and June 2018 among 264 solid waste management workers selected by simple random sampling. They underwent a semi-structured interview schedule capturing their sociodemographic characteristics, work profile, presence of respiratory symptoms, and morbidities followed by lung function tests using a portable spirometer. The data was entered using Epidata entry client and analyzed using SPSS (v16). Results: The mean age of the workers was 47.1 (±8.87) years. The majority were females (85.6%), working as waste collectors (86%) on day duty (73.5%). More than two in five workers had either respiratory morbidity (42.8%) or obstructive lung pattern (44%). Higher age, occupation as waste collector, night shift duty, not using face mask on duty, and not receiving training on waste handling were the factors significantly associated with the respiratory morbidities and obstructive lung function. Conclusion: The prevalence of respiratory morbidities and obstructive lung disease were high among municipal solid waste handlers. Measures are needed to improve the work environment of waste handlers by ensuring the availability of protective gears and adequate training on work handling based on ergonomic principles.


We study the electronic structure and transport properties of zigzag and armchair monolayer molybdenum disulfide nanoribbons using an 11-band tight-binding model that accurately reproduces the material's bulk band structure near the band gap. We study the electronic properties of pristine zigzag and armchair nanoribbons, paying particular attention to the edges states that appear within the MoS$_2$ bulk gap. By analyzing both their orbital composition and their local density of states, we find that in zigzag-terminated nanoribbons these states can be localized at a single edge for certain energies independent of the nanoribbon width. We also study the effects of disorder in these systems using the recursive Green's function technique. We show that for the zigzag nanoribbons, the conductance due to the edge states is strongly suppressed by short-range disorder such as vacancies. In contrast, the local density of states still shows edge localization. We also show that long-range disorder has a small effect on the transport properties of nanoribbons within the bulk gap energy window.


OBJECT
to study the medical history of N.A. Nekrasov and to determine the nature of his urological disease. The work was carried out from 1977 till 2021. He studied 2616 sources related to the biography of N.A. Nekrasov and medical history. The work was carried out in the archives of Moscow, St.Petersburg, Yaroslavl, Karabikha from 1998 till 2020. The Russian poet N.A.Nekrasov had an illness, which ended in death, during 3 years, from December 1874 till December 27, 1877. He was treated by famous doctors S.P. Botkin, N.V. Sklifosovsky, E.I. Bogdanovsky, N.A. Belogolovy and an operation was performed by Theodore Bilroth. Retrospective analysis revealed the following diagnosis of N.A. Nekrasov: rectal cancer at the stage of T4NXMOP4 with invasion of the sacrum, bladder and compression of the pelvic parts of both ureters, bilateral ureterohydronephrosis with the loss of the left kidney function, chronic renal failure, purulent cystitis, partial intestinal obstruction, suppuration of the wound after colostomy performed on April 12, 1877, Acute purulent paraproctitis, paranephritis, phlegmon of the left retroperitoneal space, purulent effusion to the thigh, phlegmon of the buttock area and the left thigh, sepsis, cerebral stroke. Urological complications of the rectal cancer accelerated the lethal outcome of the poet N.A. Nekrasov who died of sepsis and uremia.


This paper shows that an adequate use of vectorfields can solve most inconsistencies related to texture mapping that appear in current animation and rendering systems based on implicit objects. The method used is based on the concept of a virtual skin. A skin with its own texture mapping is spread over an implicit object and is constrained to stick to the deformation of the implicit object. A vectorfield is used to compute the relationship between the motion of the skin and the deformation of the object. Visual and implementation issues are discussed with respect to typical applications of implicit objects in computer graphics.


Monoclonal antibodies were used in the indirect immunofluorescence test to assay the antigenic features of lymphoid cells in patients with lymphosarcoma. Some patients with progression of lymphoblastic lymphoma showed an increased content of T lymphocyte expressing early activation antigens, antigens of early hemopoietic progenitors, and CALLA-antigens.


The purpose of this study is to determine the specificity, or lack thereof, of the Duquenois-Levine (D-L) field test kit in the identification of marijuana. Out of the forty-two samples tested, patchouli, spearmint, and eucalyptus tested positive for marijuana using the D-L field test. From these results, it can be concluded that the test is non-specific and can yield false positives. Therefore, it cannot be legitimately used for the prosecution or conviction of an individual for violations of the anti-marijuana laws as it does not provide proof beyond a reasonable doubt of the presence of marijuana. In fact, law enforcement personnel and the test kit manufacturer claim that the D-L field test is a specific, identification test with near perfect accuracy. In court, police officers testify falsely to the identification of marijuana in a seized substance based solely on the D-L test and other non-specific, screening tests leading to convictions. The result is the denial of the Constitutionally-guaranteed right to a fair trial, due process and countless wrongful marijuana convictions.


Introduction: Grief is defined as 'the internal experience of a person to the loss of something loved and valued'. It is a normal and expected reaction to loss. While anticipatory grief is defined as 'an emotional response that is experienced before a true loss', a concept focusing on that a person might experience grief when the loss of a close loved one was anticipated, but had not yet occurred.
Description from history: The history of Abu Bakr r.a. was reviewed especially from the period of a few months before and recently after the death of the prophet s.a.w. It was noted that he appeared strong while others were down grieving upon the news of the prophet s.a.w.'s death. It was also noted that Abu Bakr r.a. has been grieving when he anticipated that the prophet was going to die.
Discussion: Literatures on anticipatory grief were reviewed. Evidence are conflicting on the role of anticipatory grief. Factors that lead to these differences will be reviewed. And the factors in Abu Bakr r.a. that helped maintain his composure after the death of prophet Muhammad s.a.w. and later led him to be the pledged as the first caliph of the Muslim nation will be discussed.


Frances Abele, George Comninel, and David McNally have written about the life of Neal Wood who founded the Graduate Program of Social and Political Thought at York University and influenced generations of scholars with his commitment to socialism and his intellectual rigour. Wood applied a social-historical approach to the study of political thought, especially the study of liberalism, acknowledging its achievements while probing its limitations, particularly its class blindness and callousness toward the poor. He, too, was concerned with "the practice of political theory and the analysis of the most urgent political matters of our time."


Cells and the tissues they form are not passive material bodies. Cells change their behavior in response to external biochemical and biomechanical cues. Behavioral changes, such as morphological deformation, proliferation and migration, are striking in many multicellular processes such as morphogenesis, wound healing and cancer progression. Cell-based modeling of these phenomena requires algorithms that can capture active cell behavior and their emergent tissue-level phenotypes. In this paper, we report on extensions of the subcellular element model to model active biomechanical subcellular processes. These processes lead to emergent cell and tissue level phenotypes at larger scales, including (i) adaptive shape deformations in cells responding to slow stretching, (ii) viscous flow of embryonic tissues, and (iii) streaming patterns of chemotactic cells in epithelial-like sheets. In each case, we connect our simulation results to recent experiments.


Network traffic demands are forecast to increase for the foreseeable future, with the challenge being to meet the demand while maintaining or lowering network costs. Simply increasing capacity will not be sufficient; overall bandwidth utilization also needs to improve. A combination of improved transport capacity through increased spectral efficiency and bit rate along with better network utilization by integrating subchannel electrical grooming into the transmission system will be required. Smarter ways to utilize optical capacity are key since transmission costs have been decreasing slower than grooming and switching costs. Integrated transport and switching can improve the efficiency of the client network using techniques such as port virtualization and transit traffic reduction. The baseline for transport networks will be 100 Gb/s PM-QPSK using 50 GHz channel spacing. Moving from a fixed DWDM channel arrangement to support flexible grid and super channels will allow tighter channel (carrier) spacing and should increase capacity by 30 to 50 percent. For shorter distances higher-order modulation such as 16-QAM can double network capacity. To better optimize network efficiency, an architecture that flexibly combines lower rate (sub-100 Gb/s) clients to form channels (carriers) and then superchannels will be required.


The purpose of this page is to identify quality, dependable marine-related reference source. Professional organizations and standards have been added to this guide.


Floods are the costliest natural hazard events in the United States in terms of lives and property losses. The financial costs of flood disasters are unsustainable, especially for the national government, which assumes the most costs while state and local governments have the greatest ability to avoid great losses due to their influence over land use, economic policy, and other areas that can help mitigate floods and reduce the high costs of relief and recovery. This article summarizes the types, causes, and occurrence of floods in the United States and their unsustainable economic and social costs. It explains that the growing burden to taxpayers from disaster response and recovery has resulted in increased interest by national decision makers in shifting more disaster responsibilities and costs to state and local governments. The article reviews the broad tool kit of mitigation strategies available to local governments and their residents in taking greater responsibility for the impacts of flood events.


Refsum's disease is a rare, autosomal recessive neurometabolic disease, characterised biochemically by accumulation of phytanic acid in blood and tissues.1 This is due to deficiency of the peroxisomal enzyme phytanoyl-CoA-hydroxylase (PAHX), caused by mutations of the PAHX gene on chromosome 10.2 As phytanic acid is exclusively of exogenous origin, patients with Refsum's disease are treatable by a diet low in phytanic acid and the phytanic acid precursor.3 A clinical tetrad of peripheral neuropathy, retinitis pigmentosa, cerebellar syndrome, and increased CSF protein concentration was reported in most patients with Refsum's disease.1 4

We present long term clinical and biochemical findings in an Arabian patient, finally diagnosed as having Refsum's disease. In 1991, this 34 year old man from Egypt presented with progressive gait disorder and visual field constriction. Born in Souhag, he descended from a consanguineous union. At 19 years of age, he sustained thyphoid fever; since then he had noted hyposmia. At 31 years of age, he emmigrated to Austria. Symptoms started insidiously 1 year later. Neurological examination showed bilateral sickle form restriction of temporal visual fields, wasting of leg muscles with foot drop, absence of tendon reflexes, and loss of proprioceptive sensation. Laboratory findings were normal, except for mild neutropenia (white cell count 3.2 g/l) and raised …


This study used biochemical and quantitative ultrastructural approaches to examine the roles that insulin receptor beta subunit kinase activity, the NPEY motif in the juxtamembrane region, and tyrosine phosphorylation within that domain plays in insulin-accelerated receptor-mediated insulin internalization in CHO cells. Internalization of insulin in cells that expressed kinase-deficient receptors (CHOA1018) or receptors lacking the NPEY Ala954-Asp965 domain (CHO delta 960) was reduced by 80% compared to cells expressing wild-type human insulin receptors (CHOHIRc). Ultrastructural analysis revealed that the decreased internalization in CHOA1018 cells was due to the reduced ability of the kinase deficient receptor to migrate from the microvilli of cultured cells and aggregate on the cell surface. Deletion of the NPEY motif in the juxtamembrane region of the beta subunit severely reduced receptor migration, interfered with the normal aggregation of receptors on the cell surface, and virtually eliminated accumulation of the occupied receptors in the coated invaginations. Replacement of Tyr960 in the NPEY domain/with phenylalanine (CHOF960) had no significant effect on insulin internalization, receptor mobility, aggregation or accumulation in coated invaginations. In contrast, replacement of Tyr960 with alanine (CHOA960) decreased insulin internalization, slowed migration, receptor aggregation and accumulation in coated invaginations. These studies document that kinase activity is required, but not sufficient, for receptor movement from the microvilli and aggregation of occupied receptors on the non-villous surface. An intact NPEY motif or surrounding amino acids, but not the phosphorylation of Tyr960 plays a role in receptor mobility and aggregation and is essential for the accumulation of insulin receptors in coated invaginations.


An extensive, laryngeal tumor was identified in a nine-year-old, spayed female, mixed-breed dog. Clinical staging of the tumor included computed tomography. Six days prior to surgery, a percutaneous gastrostomy tube was placed under endoscopic guidance. Surgical treatment included total laryngectomy and permanent tracheostomy. The histologic diagnosis of the tumor was rhabdomyosarcoma. There were no major postoperative complications, and there have been no signs of local recurrence, metastatic disease, or long-term complications associated with the surgical procedure during an 18-month follow-up period.


Bronchoscopic treatment modalities such as lasers, electrocautery, cryotherapy, photodynamic therapy, and brachytherapy are potentially curative for patients with very-early-stage non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in the central airways. Previously, studies had primarily focused on the effectiveness of surgery, surgical bronchoplasty, and photodynamic therapy. The cure rate of intraluminal bronchoscopic treatment is strongly related to the patient's functional status and tumor stage. Intraluminal tumors are curable bronchoscopically when they are accessible to the fiberoptic bronchoscope, strictly intraluminal, and superficial with visible proximal and distal tumor margins. Early-stage cancer infiltrating deeper into the bronchial wall may already harbor metastases to the regional lymph nodes; hence, curative intraluminal treatment is not feasible. The use of new diagnostic tools (eg, high-resolution computed tomography, autofluorescence bronchoscopy, and endobronchial ultrasound) may improve staging to select the category of patients in whom intraluminal bronchoscopic therapy with curative intent is appropriate. An accurate intraluminal tumor staging will improve our ability to exploit the curative potential of many bronchoscopic techniques for complete tumor eradication in patients with very-early-stage intraluminal NSCLC in their central airways. The use of bronchoscopic treatment as a less morbid alternative than surgical resection will benefit patients most when tumor is detected at the earliest stage possible.


The objective of this paper is to analise the demand in markets with durable and differentiated products, and in addition, with a high number of product varieties. The methodology to develop this study draws on dynamic discrete choice models. This work is a theoretical approach that gives the structural expressions for a nested dynamic model. These expressions can be a suitable support to discuss and develop further empirical work on durable and differentiated product markets.


Young animals in a broad range of taxa solicit care from their parents with begging displays, which are used at least partly for competition among brood or litter mates. The effect of other begging offspring on an individual's own begging display varies across studies, however, increasing its intensity in some, but not changing, or even decreasing it, in others. One possible reason for this discrepancy is that the potential pay-off for more intense begging depends not only on how intensely an individual's brood or littermates are begging, but also on how long that individual has been without food. Surprisingly, however, no studies have focused on how begging responses vary when both factors are varied simultaneously. We therefore examined how nestling tree swallows, Tachycineta bicolor, respond to nestmates in relation to both their own hunger levels and the begging intensity of nestmates. During a period of food deprivation, we played focal nestlings parental contact calls either alone (control) or with the begging calls of a nestling deprived of food for 30–50 (low intensity) or 100–110 min (high intensity). Nestlings called for longer in response to the low-intensity playback, but, surprisingly, not in the high-intensity playback, in which they instead delayed the onset of their calling. All these responses to nestmates were independent of how long the responding nestling had been deprived of food. Thus, even in the seemingly intensely competitive environment of a passerine brood, offspring do not necessarily respond to nestmates with escalation. This may be because de-escalation is the best competitive option in some circumstances, or because begging has other functions besides advertisement of individual need and competition over food allocation. Certainly, the results illustrate the need for studies of how nestmate interactions vary across a broad range of contexts.


BACKGROUND AND AIMS
Previous research has pointed to the potential of workplace interventions addressing alcohol consumption. However, there is still no systematic overview of the effects of these interventions. Therefore, we aimed to quantify the effectiveness of workplace interventions addressing alcohol use by conducting a meta-analysis.

METHODS
A systematic literature search for randomized controlled trials of workplace alcohol interventions published between 1995 and 2020 was conducted in five databases. Studies were included if they were performed in the workplace and reported universal or selective interventions aiming for alcohol use reduction. Primary outcomes were any measures of alcohol use. Standardized mean effect sizes were used to calculate the meta-analytic random-effects-model. Additional analyses were carried out to identify potential moderators and to examine the amount of heterogeneity and publication bias.

RESULTS
Twenty studies with 4484 participants were integrated into the meta-analysis. Results revealed a significant overall mean effect indicating a reduction of alcohol use in favor of the treatment group (d = -0.16, 95% CI = [-0.2715; -0.0511]). Heterogeneity within the data structure was found to be moderate to substantial (I2  = 75.9%, Q-test P < 0.001, τ2 = 0.0375). Additional moderator analyses only showed a significant effect for length of measurement period (P = 0.049).

CONCLUSIONS
Alcohol-related prevention programs conducted in the workplace have a statistically significant and favorable effect on alcohol consumption. Although the overall mean effect is considered to be small, it underlines the effectiveness of workplace interventions targeting a reduction in alcohol use.


An urban mental health service undertook a quality improvement programme to involve staff in the identification and resolution of cross-cultural issues. The programme involved clinical file audits, staff survey and workshops, and a focus group for consumers and their carers. It was found that non-English speaking patients received a different spectrum of services from English speaking patients. Non-English speaking patients were found to receive more pharmacological treatments and less cognitive behavioural therapy. In seeking to address these issues and improve their service delivery to all patients, the mental health service is now in the process of developing cross-cultural training; revising policies and procedures; and engaging bilingual mental health counsellors in a revision of their roles, particularly to increase their availability to staff as cultural consultants.


The problem of epistemological and methodological status and the function of sociology is a centuries-old, complex theme of interest. Sociological studies on the religious international movement Sōka Gakkai (SG) and the related Kōmeitō political party mirror the complexity of this problem. Developing a comprehensive survey on critical literature regarding SG and Kōmeitō offers a parallel, and equally interesting, thematisation of sociology's epistemologicalprocedural problems. By offering concrete examples of analysis and problematisation, this paper aims to underline the importance of articulate sociological investigation, including finalised theoretical research that applies doctrinal and philosophical elements to the procedure.


MC-CDMA(Multi Carrier Code Division Multiple Access) plays an important role in modern wireless communications. Modern communication required an efficient spectrum usage and capacity and throughput.MC-CDMA provided the solution of these problems. MIMO refers to links with multiple antennas at the transmitter and receiver side. CDMA systems combined with multiple antennas is a promising technique, beyond 3G and 4G wireless communications. MIMO provides spatial diversity, which mitigates the fading. The usage of multiple antennas can significantly improve the performance of wireless communication system. This work also derives simulation through MATLAB of average bit error rate verses bit energy to noise ratio of multicarrier code division multiple access over Rayleigh channel using QPSK modulation additive white Gaussian noise.


SUMMARY

The T-matrix approach of quantum scattering theory is used here to place many long-wavelength equivalent-medium approximations for porous composites, polycrystals and cracked media on a common footing and to indicate their limitations, but also to derive some new results based on two-point statistics. In this way, we have obtained an insight into the difficult problem of elastic inclusions at finite concentrations, which is of foremost relevance when estimating the effective material parameters of porous/cracked shales, involving stacks of more or less horizontally aligned clay platelets, mixed together with more rounded silt minerals, and with fluid filling the spaces. A rather involved perturbative analysis of the effects of interactions between (or structural correlations among) the various inclusions (minerals and cavities) making up a real shale of hexagonal symmetry was performed in an attempt to obtain a better match between theoretical predictions (based on a combination of coherent and optical potential approximations) and experimental results (recovered from ultrasonic wave speeds) for the effective elastic stiffness tensor. For the particular data set considered in this study, the T-matrix approach was able to match the data better than the approach of Hornby et al., but the match was not completely satisfactory. Further progress in theoretical shale modelling may come from a better knowledge of the elastic properties of pure clay minerals, a more detailed knowledge of the microstructure of shales, the incorporation of constraints obtained from comparisons between theoretical predictions and experimental results, as well as a continuing development of the T-matrix approach. Numerical results (also for the effect of bedding parallel microcracks on the elasticity of such a real shale) have value in illustrating the importance of taking into account the effects of spatial distribution when trying to deal with non-dilute mixtures of highly contrasting material properties.


In this paper, we propose an efficacious memory array design method for low temperature poly-silicon technique. According to the four steps of our suggested method, we can draw a regular layout form of memory array. The regular property allows both ready calculation of the layout area and easy design of the memory controller. Since our proposed method does not leave any gaps in our layout, it is a powerful way to save area in the LTPS technique. It is also suitable for an electronic design automation (EDA) tool to implement a memory compiler with systematic and required size memory IP. Since the true single phase clock (TSPC) master-slave latch (MSL) is a fast and simple structure to implement a clocked storage element, we use TSPC-MSL as our memory cells to increase working frequency by a wide margin. Furthermore, according to our oblique memory array design method, we propose a verification formula to double-check whether our design is optimal or not at any time.


Abstract : The Air Force Global Engagement vision and Expeditionary Air Force (EAF) strategy focus on the Agile Combat Support (ACS) core competency as the foundation for the rapid projection of light, lean, and lethal aerospace power forces. This research examines the evolution of Air Force logistics doctrine, the linkage between doctrine, strategy, tactics, and training programs, and the corresponding application of logistics employment and sustainment functions in a deployed environment. To do so, this research analyzes the USAF's diverse logistics officer training programs to determine if there is a deficiency in interdisciplinary logistics employment and sustainment training. It ascertains if that training shortfall reveals a gap between Air Force logistics doctrine and EAF combat strategy. It also investigates the Air Force transition to the Aerospace Expeditionary Force (AEF) operational employment concept as the force projection mechanism for the EAF and the reliance on ACS has the primary enabler to identify specific areas where the absence of integrated logistics training impacts or potentially degrades mission success. After these factors have been adequately analyzed and interpreted, this research highlights the Army logistics officer-training philosophy as a benchmark to gauge the effectiveness of integrated logistics training on expeditionary strategy and logistics officer professional career development. The origins, course development, and utility of the USAF Weapons School are presented as an historical reference for creating congruency between doctrine, tactics, and training. The Red Flag training exercises are offered as a model for operational requirements driven training and as an example of the opportunity to integrate logistics employment training in existing combat exercises.


Moth-eye surfaces can prevent reflection with minute unevenness structure of nanometer size. A nano-imprinting process, which generates minute patterns of polymers using a mold, is a promising candidate for a high-throughput patterning process. In the present report, first of all, I describe the nano-imprinting processes based on the highly ordered anodic porous alumina. Anodic porous alumina, which is formed by the anodization of Al in acidic solution, is a typical naturally occurring ordered material. The anodic porous alumina can be formed even on the curved surface. We have been researching a continuous manufacturing process of the moth-eye surfaces on polymer films with the roll molds. Second, I mention optical characteristics of the moth-eye surfaces. Third, I report multi-functionalities of the moth-eye surfaces.


A microstrip-fed printed monopole antenna having bandnotch characteristics is proposed. The fullband antenna introduces 2.5-10.6 GHz bandwidth covering the FCC frequency band for UWB applications. Six inverted L-shaped stubs on the bottom of the substrate, which are connected to the radiating patch through via pins, are used to create flexible multi-band filtering function. Using this technique it is possible to reject one to six different frequency bands.


In this study, we investigate community structure in day geckos (genus Phelsuma) in the Indian Ocean. Much of what we know about communities of diurnal arboreal lizards comes from studies of Caribbean Anolis. Phelsuma in the Indian Ocean are ecologically similar to Anolis but not closely related. Using field observations and an experiment, we test three hypotheses for Phelsuma communities, all derived from work on Anolis: (1) Phelsuma species richness will be correlated with the diversity of available perches, (2) sympatric species will partition their habitat use, shifting their habitat use depending on which other species of Phelsuma are present, and (3) experimentally removing individuals of one species will lead to changes in the microhabitat use and/or abundance of sympatric congeners. We find support for all three hypotheses. We also describe some unique aspects of Phelsuma communities, such as partitioning of palm vs. non-palm trees. This study identifies some potentially general features of diurnal arboreal lizard communities, and suggests that some aspects of community assembly might be repeatable.


This article considers the law, of New Zealand and England and Wales, relating to determinations whether P consented in various kinds of interaction with D. (The interactions considered are between persons old enough to validly consent to the conduct at issue and who are capable of evaluating and reflecting upon the consequences of their actions.) In the context of sexual interactions, the law in both jurisdictions is in a process of fitful change—from a regime in which consent could be vitiated only by threatened or actual force, impersonation, or radical misunderstanding, towards a position where the question of consent is less categorical and at large. A contrast is drawn between sexual and other interactions, including offences against the person and, especially, commercial misconduct. In the former cases, the central concern is justice between the parties. By contrast, in delineating the boundaries of what amounts to lawful commerce, it is permissible to consider what a ruling about consent may entail for the commercial system as a whole: something that can lead to a very thin conception of what makes for valid consent. The most general lesson that goes with this argument is that consent in law is not a pre-legal phenomenon.


The Vita del povero et humile servo de Dio Francesco is a fourteenth-century compilation, the volgarizzamento of some latin franciscan sources including the Liber Chronicarum written by Angelo Clareno. It was probably assembled in the circles of the friars called "fraticelli": after the declarations of Pope John XXII, they were persecuted and declared heretics for their profession of absolute poverty. The text did not have great success in the world of Franciscan studies. This article aims to retrace its editorial history and propose new hypotheses about its genesis and circulation methods, starting from the analysis of the manuscript tradition – which counts four manuscripts. The purpose is to reconsider this compilation in the light of the most recent studies about medieval translation and the history of dissidence, in order to reconstruct an historical-literary framework born under the influence of Angelo Clareno and Pietro di Giovanni Olivi.


Cranes have often a freely hanging load or tool that starts easily swaying. Anti-sway control requires that the angles and angular velocities of the swinging object are measured. Some cranes can also rotate the tool with a hydraulic motor, and in many cases this rotator angle should also be known. Instrumenting all three axes, two swaying and one rotating axis, with traditional rotary encoders can be challenging. We propose an extended Kalman filter based system using two inertial measurement units. This system can measure the swaying in both directions and estimate the rotator angle. Computer vision system is used as reference. The initial results show that the error is approximately 5 degrees in the rotator angle and 2 degrees in the sway angles. The observer runs at 100 Hz on an embedded microcontroller.


AbstractRecently the use of antibacterial agents to clean and dry the stump of the newborns' umbilical cord (UC) after birth has been abandoned by many neonatal units in favor of dry cord care. Aim of this study was to compare the occurrence of adverse events (AEs) and time to cord separation among newborns treated with dry cord care versus 70% alcohol in an Italian Academic Hospital (AH).From December 2014 to March 2015, 239 infants were born at the AH. The number of eligible infants was 200 and they were equally assigned to either case group (dry cord care) or control group (70% alcohol, standard procedure). Standard cord care consisted in 1 application of 70% alcohol at birth followed by other 2 times a day, while experimental dry cord care procedure was executed by the only application of a sterile gauze around the base of the UC at the 1st day of life and after the cord has been exposed to air off the diaper edge. The time to UC separation and any AEs such as local and systemic infections, hemorrhage, and granuloma formation were reported by mothers.We found a significant difference in the mean cord separation time between the 2 groups (dry cord care: 10.1 days [standard deviation, SD = 4.0] vs 70% alcohol: 12.0 days [SD = 4.2]; P < 0.001), while no significant AEs resulted. Incidence rate of granuloma was 0.67 × 1000 days of life in dry cord care group.Dry cord care is an easy, straight-forward, and safe method of handling the UC in healthy newborn infants born in a high-income hospital setting.


BACKGROUND
Low sensitivity (LS) to alcohol's acute effects is a known risk factor for heavy drinking and its negative consequences. However, LS could be protective due to LS drinkers being less impaired at a given level of consumption. Here, we tested whether LS is associated with differences in men's and women's reports of alcohol-related regretted sex.

METHODS
Eight hundred and one young adults (393 women) aged 21 to 35 (M = 23.11 years) recruited for a study of alcohol's effects on cognition completed self-report measures of alcohol sensitivity, typical alcohol use, and alcohol consequences (including regretted sex).

RESULTS
Participants whose alcohol sensitivity scores classified them as LS were more likely to experience alcohol-related regretted sex than were high-sensitivity (HS) participants. However, when controlling for typical alcohol use and experience of alcohol consequences in general, alcohol sensitivity was negatively associated with risk of alcohol-related regretted sex, but only among women.

CONCLUSIONS
At a given level of consumption, and controlling for experience of alcohol consequences other than regretted sex, reduced sensitivity to certain effects of alcohol may be a protective factor for women against risk for alcohol-related regretted sexual situations. This study provides insight on the unique risks of drinking among LS and HS women.


With respect to discourse organization, the most basic way of signaling the speaker's or writer's intentions is to use explicit lexical markers: so-called discourse markers or discourse connectives. While a lexicon of discourse connectives associated with the relations they express can be very useful for researchers, especially in Natural Language Processing, few projects aim at collecting them exhaustively, and only in a small number of languages. We present LEXCONN, a French lexicon of 328 discourse connectives, collected with their syntactic categories and the discourse relations they convey, and the methodology followed to build this resource. The lexicon has been constructed manually, applying systematic connective and relation identification criteria, using the FRANTEXT corpus as empirical support. Each connective has been associated to a relation within the framework of Segmented Discourse Representation Theory. We make a case for a few refinements in the theory, based on cases where no existing relation seemed to match a connective's usage.


An adenomatoid odontogenic tumour (AOT) is a rare odontogenic tumour that is often misdiagnosed as an odontogenic cyst. To acquire additional information about AOT, all reports regarding AOT that had been cited in 'Pub Med' since 1990 onwards were reviewed. AOT accounts for about 1–9% of all odontogenic tumours. It is predominantly found in young and female patients, is located more often in the maxilla, and in most cases is associated with an unerupted permanent tooth. The differential diagnosis between AOT and other odontogenic tumours such as ameloblastoma should be well made to avoid extensive ablative surgery. However, AOT frequently resembles other odontogenic lesions such as dentigerous cysts or ameloblastoma. Immunohistochemically, AOT is characterized by positive reactions with certain cytokeratins. For illustration a rare case of an AOT in the mandible is presented that had atypical findings such as buccolingual cortical perforation and resorption with displacement of adjoining teeth. Keywords: adenomatoid odontogenic tumor, dentigerous cyst, odontogenic tumor, paediatric case


Objective Diagnosis and treatment of Ménière's disease remains a significant challenge because of our inability to understand what is occurring on a molecular level. MicroRNA (miRNA) perilymph profiling is a safe methodology and may serve as a "liquid biopsy" equivalent. We used machine learning (ML) to evaluate miRNA expression profiles of various inner ear pathologies to predict diagnosis of Ménière's disease. Study Design Prospective cohort study. Setting Tertiary academic hospital. Subjects and Methods Perilymph was collected during labyrinthectomy (Ménière's disease, n = 5), stapedotomy (otosclerosis, n = 5), and cochlear implantation (sensorineural hearing loss [SNHL], n = 9). miRNA was isolated and analyzed with the Affymetrix miRNA 4.0 array. Various ML classification models were evaluated with an 80/20 train/test split and cross-validation. Permutation feature importance was performed to understand miRNAs that were critical to the classification models. Results In terms of miRNA profiles for conductive hearing loss versus Ménière's, 4 models were able to differentiate and identify the 2 disease classes with 100% accuracy. The top-performing models used the same miRNAs in their decision classification model but with different weighted values. All candidate models for SNHL versus Ménière's performed significantly worse, with the best models achieving 66% accuracy. Ménière's models showed unique features distinct from SNHL. Conclusions We can use ML to build Ménière's-specific prediction models using miRNA profile alone. However, ML models were less accurate in predicting SNHL from Ménière's, likely from overlap of miRNA biomarkers. The power of this technique is that it identifies biomarkers without knowledge of the pathophysiology, potentially leading to identification of novel biomarkers and diagnostic tests.


ABSTRACT
 Assessing wildlife management action requires monitoring populations, and abundance often is the parameter monitored. Recent methodological advances have enabled estimation of mean abundance within a habitat using presence—absence or count data obtained via repeated visits to a sample of sites. These methods assume populations are closed and intuitively assume habitats within sites change little during a field season. However, many habitats are highly variable over short periods. We developed a variation of existing occupancy and abundance models that allows for extreme spatio-temporal differences in habitat, and resulting changes in wildlife abundance, among sites and among visits to a site within a field season. We conducted our study in sugarcane habitat within the Everglades Agricultural Area southeast of Lake Okeechobee in south Florida. We counted wintering birds, primarily passerines, within 245 sites usually 5 times at each site during December 2006—March 2007. We estimated occupancy and mean abundance of birds in 6 vegetation states during the sugarcane harvest and allowed these parameters to vary temporally or spatially within a vegetation state. Occupancy and mean abundance of the common yellowthroat (Geothlypis trichas) was affected by structure of sugarcane and uncultivated edge vegetation (occupancy = 1.00 [95% C = 0.96–1.00] and mean abundance = 7.9 [95% C = 3.2–19.5] in tall sugarcane with tall edge vegetation versus 0.20 [95% C = 0.04–0.71] and 0.22 [95% C = 0.04–1.2], respectively, in short sugarcane with short edge vegetation in one half of the study area). Occupancy and mean abundance of palm warblers (Dendroica palmarum) were constant (occupancy = 1.00, 95% CI = 0.69–1.00; mean abundance = 18, 95% C = 1–270). Our model may enable wildlife managers to assess rigorously effects of future edge habitat management on avian distribution and abundance within agricultural landscapes during winter or the breeding season. The model may also help wildlife managers make similar management decisions involving other dynamic habitats such as wetlands, prairies, and even forested areas if forest management or fires occur during the field season.


AbstractBackground: The incidence of spontaneous spondylodis-citis is increasing per year and this attributed to an aging population, increasing prevalence of immunodeficiency and improving radiological technique.Aim of Study: To evaluate the results of conservative versus surgical treatment of spondylodiscitis as regard efficacy, complications and functional outcomes.Patients and Methods: This is a prospective randomized clinical trial study included 16 patients with spontaneous spondylodiscitis presented only with axial spinal pain. They were divided into 2 groups: One managed conservatively and the other surgically.Results: 9 patients were managed conservatively and 7 were managed surgically. After complete course of treatment; only 3 patients of conservative group and 4 patients of surgical group showed fusion assessed by imaging. There was no significant statistically difference between two groups in final clinical outcome using visual analogue scale and MacNab's outcome criteria.Conclusion: Both conservative and surgical methods are sufficient for achieving the goals of treatment of spontaneous spondylodiscitis as both are safe, feasible, and effective procedure in relieving pain.


. Chronic non-infectious inflammation of low intensity is the most important mechanism of development and progression in atherosclerosis. Under the conditions of persistent non-resolving inflammation observed in the vascular wall and atherosclerotic plaque (ASB), permanent tissue damage occurs, thus leading to increased formation of endogenous danger-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs). The non-histone chromosomal protein HMGB1 may be regarded as a prototypical DAMPs. HMGB1 acts as a DAMP if entering the extracellular space, causing inflammation by its binding to pattern-recognizing receptors (TLR2, TLR4, RAGE, CD36, etc.). A number of clinical studies have revealed higher HMGB1 levels in the blood of patients with coronary heart disease and atherosclerotic disease of the lower limb arteries, as well as its interrelations with the burden of coronary artery atherosclerosis. Currently, the mechanisms of HMGB1-mediated atherosclerosis progression are studied only fragmentary. The aim of our study was to investigate relationships between the serum HMGB1 level and subsets of circulating monocyte subpopulations in patients with subclinical atherosclerosis. The study enrolled patients aged 40-64 years with subclinical atherosclerosis of peripheral arteries. Serum HMGB1 concentration was determined using enzyme immunoassay kits (Human HMGB1/HMG-1 ELISA Kit, NBP2-62766, Novus Biologicals, USA). The serum HMGB1 threshold was 18.75 pg/ml, whereas the measurement range was 31.25 to 2000 pg/ml. Phenotyping of the blood monocyte subpopulations was performed by flow cytometry using Navios 6/2 device (Beckman Coulter, USA). An increase in serum HMGB1 concentration was associated with decreased number of classical M2 monocytes, and an increase in intermediate and M1 monocytes. Moreover, an increase in HMGB1 concentration was associated with higher numbers of classical, intermediate, and non-classical monocytes expressing CD36 and TLR2. Increased HMGB1 concentration (from Q1 to Q4) correlated with higher numbers of classical (p = 0.001) and intermediate monocytes (p = 0.006) but not with non-classical phenotypes (p = 0.147). Upon increase of HMGB1 concentration (Q1 to Q4), we have found an increase in the number of classical (p < 0.0001), intermediate (p < 0.0001), and non-classical (p < 0.0001), CD36-expressing monocytes. An increased number of intermediate (p = 0.022; p 1, 4 = 0.034) and non-classical, TLR2-expressing monocytes was also revealed (p = 0.002; p 1, 4 = 0.035). By mean of correlation analysis, IL-1 β concentrations showed direct correlation with the number of M1 monocytes (r = 0.268; p = 0.035) and inverse relation with the number of M2 monocytes (r = -0.376; p = 0.003). Increased serum HMGB1 concentration in patients with subclinical atherosclerosis was associated with decreased numbers of classical and M2 monocytes, as well as higher numbers of intermediate and M1 monocytes, like as with increased contents of intermediate and non-classical monocytes expressing CD36 and TLR2. IL-1 β levels directly correlated with HMGB1 concentration and the number of M1-monocytes.


Lipids and essential fatty acids, particularly the highly unsaturated fatty acids, 20:5n-3 (eicosapentaenoic acid; EPA), 22:6n-3 (docosahexaenoic acid; DHA) and 20:4n-6 (arachidonic acid, AA) have been shown to be crucial determinants of marine fish reproduction directly affecting fecundity, egg quality, hatching success, larval malformation and pigmentation. In Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua L.) culture, eggs from farmed broodstock can have much lower fertilization and hatching rates than eggs from wild broodstock. The present study aimed to test the hypothesis that potential quality and performance differences between eggs from different cod broodstock would be reflected in differences in lipid and fatty acid composition. Thus eggs were obtained from three broodstock, farmed, wild/fed and wild/unfed, and lipid content, lipid class composition, fatty acid composition and pigment content were determined and related to performance parameters including fertilization rate, symmetry of cell division and survival to hatching. Eggs from farmed broodstock showed significantly lower fertilization rates, cell symmetry and survival to hatching rates than eggs from wild broodstock. There were no differences in total lipid content or the proportions of the major lipid classes between eggs from the different broodstock. However, eggs from farmed broodstock were characterized by having significantly lower levels of some quantitatively minor phospholipid classes, particularly phosphatidylinositol. There were no differences between eggs from farmed and wild broodstock in the proportions of saturated, monounsaturated and total polyunsaturated fatty acids. The DHA content was also similar. However, eggs from farmed broodstock had significantly lower levels of AA, and consequently significantly higher EPA/AA ratios than eggs from wild broodstock. Total pigment and astaxanthin levels were significantly higher in eggs from wild broodstock. Therefore, the levels of AA and phosphatidylinositol, the predominant AA-containing lipid class, and egg pigment content were positively related to egg quality or performance parameters such as fertilization and hatching success rates, and cell symmetry.


Coherent parity check (CPC) codes are a new framework for the construction of quantum error correction codes that encode multiple qubits per logical block. CPC codes have a canonical structure involving successive rounds of bit and phase parity checks, supplemented by cross-checks to fix the code distance. In this paper, we provide a detailed introduction to CPC codes using conventional quantum circuit notation. We demonstrate the implementation of a CPC code on real hardware, by designing a [[4, 2, 2]] detection code for the IBM 5Q superconducting qubit device. Whilst the individual gate-error rates on the IBM device are too high to realise a fault tolerant quantum detection code, our results show that the syndrome information from a full encode–decode cycle of the [[4, 2, 2]] CPC code can be used to increase the output state fidelity by post-selection. Following this, we generalise CPC codes to other quantum technologies by showing that their structure allows them to be efficiently compiled using any experimentally realistic native two-qubit gate. We introduce a three-stage CPC design process for the construction of hardware-optimised quantum memories. As a proof-of-concept example, we apply our design process to an idealised linear seven-qubit ion trap. In the first stage of the process, we use exhaustive search methods to find a large set of [[7, 3, 3]] codes that saturate the quantum Hamming bound for seven qubits. We then optimise over the discovered set of codes to meet the hardware and layout demands of the ion trap device. We also discuss how the CPC design process will generalise to larger-scale codes and other qubit technologies.


With few exceptions, spontaneous crossing over does not normally occur in male Drosophila. Drosophila ananassae males show considerable amounts of crossing over. In wild males of D. ananassae from Asian (2008) and Brazilian populations (1986 and 2007) variable frequencies of meiotic crossing over, estimated from chiasmata counts, suggested the existence of factors controlling male crossing over in these populations. To corroborate for such prediction, we present data on spontaneous recombination in F1 males of D. ananassae heterozygous for chromosomes of the same Brazilian populations (1986) and marker chromosomes using three testers stocks. Mean recombination value was low, although high variability existed between individual frequencies. Recombination frequencies between lines in each tester stock were not significantly different, excepting when the 3ple-px and 3ple-cy testers were compared (p < 0.05). These two testers differ in respect to the regional distribution of crossovers. The occurrence of recombination in chromosomes 2 and 3 in F1 males tested with e(65) se; bri ru was not related, suggesting they are under independent genetic control. Our data are consistent with proposed genetic factors controlling male crossing over in the tester stocks and to the presence of enhancers and suppressors of male crossing over segregating in the Brazilian populations (1986).


Carpal tunnel release is one of the most commonly performed upper extremity procedures. The majority of patients experience significant improvement or resolution of their symptoms. However, a small but important subset of patients will experience the failure of their initial surgery. These patients can be grouped into persistent, recurrent, and new symptom categories. The approach to these patients starts with a thorough clinical examination and is supplemented with electrodiagnostic studies. The step-wise surgical management of revision carpal tunnel surgery consists of the proximal exploration of the median nerve, Guyon's release with neurolysis, the rerelease of the transverse retinaculum, evaluation of the nerve injury, treatment of secondary sites of compression, and potential ancillary procedures. The approach and management of failed carpal tunnel release are reviewed in this article.


1. Oxygen and carbon dioxide tensions were determined in the lungs and in blood from the dorsal aorta, pulmonary vein, pulmonary artery and inferior vena cava in the intact, free swimming, Amphiuma . At 15° C this animal was submerged for a large part of the time and surfaced briefly to breathe at variable time intervals, the mean period being 45 min. 2. Oxygen tensions in the lungs and in all blood vessels oscillated with the breathing cycles, falling gradually during the period of submersion and rising rapidly after the animal breathed. The absolute level of oxygen tension did not appear to constitute the effective signal beginning or ending a series of breathing movements. 3. A small oxygen gradient existed between lungs and blood in the pulmonary vein immediately after a breath. The gradient increased in size as an animal remained submerged due, it is suggested, to lung vasoconstriction increasing the transfer factor. 4. Blood in the dorsal aorta had a lower oxygen tension than that in the pulmonary vein. A right-to-left shunt occurred as blood moved through the heart. The degree of shunting increased as the animal remained submerged and pulmonary vasoconstriction occurred. Left-to-right shunt was relatively insignificant since oxygen tensions in the inferior vena cava and pulmonary artery were very similar. 5. Carbon dioxide tensions were relatively constant during the breathing-diving cycle since Amphiuma removed almost all of this gas through the skin.


The origins of mediastinal masses could be traumatic, infectious, degenerative, or neoplastic origin. Occasionaly substernal goiters could grow into the mediastinum leading to giant mediastinal masses. We report a case of a 55-year-old female patient admitted to our clinic with major complaints of chronic cough and dyspnea. Mass that extended from the posterior mediastinum and multiple nodules in the left thyroid lobe were detected in thorax computed tomography which lead to operation . As in our case The development of a giant mediastinal mass in recurrent thyroid patients after thyroidectomy could occur rarely.


As an Introduction to the present issue, this article explores the workings of discourse and dialogue in
 communicating unity and diversity through language in vast social and cultural contexts. In what
 follows, discourse analysis is presented as a dialogue-oriented field that arose at the crossroads of linguistics and social
 sciences to overcome the limitations of traditional, autonomous linguistics. The dialogic profile of discourse analysis is
 demonstrated along three exploratory vectors that recognise dialogism as an inseparable criterion in the study of discourse.
 Accordingly, it will be shown that dialogicity is what lies at the core of discourse organization, discourse practice and
 discourse worlds. The discussion of the dialogic provenance and orientation of discourse (analysis) is closed by the volume
 presentation.


OBJECTIVE
To study the clinical and pathological features of Denys-Drash syndrome (DDS).

METHOD
Three DDS cases who were treated in our department from December 2009 to June 2011 were subjected to this study by reviewing of literature.

RESULT
Both case 1 and case 2 were female, with karyotype 46, XX. Case 3 was male with bilateral cryptorchidism. The ages of nephropathy onset of the three cases were 1 year and 9 months, 2 years and 8 moths, and 3 months respectively. Proteinuria in case 2 and case 3 were evidenced to be resistant to steroid. Case 1 was partially responsive to tacrolimus, plasma albumin and cholesterol were improved, although proteinuria was persistent after Tacrolimus was administered. Remission was achieved in case 2 after administration of cyclosporine A and later tacrolimus, and her renal function remains normal till present (4 years and 9 months). Residue renal histology revealed diffused mesangial sclerosis (DMS) in all three patients. All of the three patients had developed right unilateral Wilms tumor. A novel WT1 missense mutation exon 9 c.1213C > G was detected in case 1. WT1 exon 9 c.1168C > T nonsense mutation and exon 8 c.1130A > T missense mutation were detected in case 2 and case 3, respectively.

CONCLUSION
The clinical manifestation of nephropathy in DDS is variable. The majority present with early onset nephropathy and reach renal failure before the age of 4 years. But in a few patients, nephropathy can also be present much later and progress slowly. Proteinuria in DDS is resistant to steroid but is responsive to calcineurin inhibitors, including Cyclosporine A. The effectiveness of tacrolimus was also observed in this study. DDS is evidently caused by WT1 mutation. DMS is the characteristic renal pathological change in DDS.


The climatology of mean bias errors (relative to 1‐day forecasts) was examined in a 20‐year hindcast set from version 1 of the Climate Forecast System (CFS), for forecast lead times of 2, 4, 8, 16, … 256 days, verifying in different seasons. Results mostly confirm the simple expectation that atmospheric model biases should be evident at short lead (2‐4 days), while soil moisture errors develop over days‐weeks and ocean errors emerge over months. A further simplification is also evident: surface temperature bias patterns have nearly fixed geographical structure, growing with different time scales over land and ocean. The geographical pattern has mostly warm and dry biases over land and cool bias over the oceans, with two main exceptions: (1) deficient stratocumulus clouds cause warm biases in eastern subtropical oceans, and (2) high latitude land is too cold in boreal winter. Further study of the east Pacific cold tongue‐Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) complex shows a possible interaction between a rapidly‐expressed atmospheric model bias (poleward shift of deep convection beginning at day 2) and slow ocean dynamics (erroneously cold upwelling along the equator in leads > 1 month). Further study of the high latitude land cold bias shows that it is a thermal wind balance aspect of the deep polar vortex, not just a near‐surface temperature error under the wintertime inversion, suggesting that its development time scale of weeks to months may involve long timescale processes in the atmosphere, not necessarily in the land model. Winter zonal wind errors are small in magnitude, but a refractive index map shows that this can cause modest errors in Rossby wave ducting. Finally, as a counterpoint to our initial expectations about error growth, a case of non‐monotonic error growth is shown: velocity potential bias grows with lead on a time scale of weeks, then decays over months. It is hypothesized that compensations between land and ocean errors may cause this behavior.


Hospice admission assessment is a pivotal encounter for patient/family and hospice representative. For patient/family, the admission is the threshold by which a particular level of care can commence and, symbolically, a certain marker in health status trajectory is reached. For hospice representative, the admission episode is an occasion to inaugurate an ambience that can serve to frame future hospice care experiences for the patient/family. Through a narrative lens, hospice admission assessment can be seen as experiential time and space, where patient's and family's stories are mindfully and deliberately witnessed and explored. Through the practice of narrative mining, the hospice representative can better understand others' offered stories of reality, which will better inform the plan of palliation and hospice care.


70 2-parent families with 12-month-old infants and 67 2-parent families with 18-month-old toddlers participated in the study. Mothers and fathers participated in separate interviews and filled out questionnaires on family and child behaviors. Mothers and their children participated in the Ainsworth Strange Situation, and the families were observed for a total of 4 hours in their homes. Families were compared on composite measures of family environment variables, parents' perception of their children, and on process variables from home observations. Family differences in environmental stress and marital adjustment showed no effects for attachment classifications, although parents of 12-month-olds reported greater marital adjustment and more pleasure in parenting than parents of 18-months-olds. Both mothers and fathers reported that children classified as resistant were more difficult on several temperament measures. During home observations, 12-month-old children received more positive responses from mothers, and 18-month-old children received more instructions and directions from both parents. Insecure boys (both avoidant and resistant) received the least instructions and directions from both parents, but insecure-avoidant girls received the most instruction from fathers.


The magnitude of the startle eyeblink response is diminished when the startle-eliciting probe is shortly preceded by another stimulus. This so called prepulse inhibition is interpreted as an automatic sensorimotor gating mechanism. There is substantial support for prepulse inhibition deficits in subjects suffering from schizophrenia spectrum disorders and in psychosis-prone normals as well. Thus, prepulse inhibition deficits may reflect vulnerability on the hypothesized psychopathological continuum from "normal" to "schizophrenia." The present experiment investigated the amount of prepulse inhibition in a sample selected for "belief in extraordinary phenomena," an attitude related to measures of psychosis-proneness. Believers and skeptics were tested in an acoustic prepulse-inhibition paradigm. As expected, presentation of prepulses clearly diminished magnitude of startle response, with greatest inhibition effects gained by lead intervals of 60 and 120 msec. Patterns of response were identical for believers and skeptics, i.e., attitude towards extraordinary phenomena did not seem to be related to functional information-processing deficits as has been observed in psychosis-prone normals.