Ancient Chinese people paid attention to walking like the wind, sitting like a clock, lying like a bow, and standing like a loose man. This was the standard for a good posture. They did not blindly pursue "thin" to show a person's physical beauty. Our posture had an invisible impact on our health and temperament. Modern people, due to the accelerated pace of life, the popularity and application of electronic products, especially in today's rapid development of information technology, had many factors that caused people to hunchback, neck, splayed feet Bad posture, such as high and low shoulders, not only affects people's physical beauty, but also has a certain impact on their health. This paper analyzes the impact of bad posture on people's body and mind from the perspective of ergonomics, discusses the importance of posture management, and shows the comparison between normal posture and wrong posture by using pictures from three aspects of standing posture, sitting posture, and walking posture. At the same time, on the basis of ergonomics, To explore the muscle structure of people from the front, side, back and three sides when they are upright in normal posture, and to study the corrective action of bad body posture according to the characteristics of body joints. On the basis of the theory of human science, through the research of body movements, we will explore the professional movement methods and practical methods to change the body posture, so as to change the original bad body posture, make the body more upright, and improve the body beauty and body beauty.


This paper explores Chilean pre-service teachers' perceptions about the provision of corrective feedback in a wiki environment during the collaborative writing of an argumentative essay. After conducting a semi-structured interview on 22 participants, the data were processed through the content analysis technique. The results show that students have positive perceptions about corrective feedback, provided through a wiki virtual environment, which in turn facilitates feedback provision and impacts language learning effectively. Some of the positive perceptions about virtual feedback refer to permanent access, efficiency, simultaneous revision and immediacy. It would then be advisable to integrate wikibased feedback as a methodology for the language classroom and collaborative writing tasks. Keywords—Argumentative essay, focused corrective feedback, perception, wiki environment.


A variable inlet guide van (VIGV) type convertible engine that could be used to power future high-speed rotorcraft was tested on an outdoor stand. The engine ran stably and smoothly in the turbofan, turboshaft, and dual (combined fan and shaft) power modes. In the turbofan mode with the VIGV open fuel consumption was comparable to that of a conventional turbofan engine. In the turboshaft mode with the VIGV closed fuel consumption was higher than that of present turboshaft engines because power was wasted in churning fan-tip airflow. In dynamic performance tests with a specially built digital engine control and using a waterbrake dynamometer for shaft load, the engine responded effectively to large steps in thrust command and shaft torque. Previous mission analyses of a conceptual X-wing rotorcraft capable of 400-knot cruise speed were revised to account for more fan-tip churning power loss than was originally estimated. The new calculations confirm that using convertible engines rather than separate lift and cruise engines would result in a smaller, lighter craft with lower fuel use and direct operating cost.


Background and Purpose: The European date mussel (Lithophaga lithophaga) is widespread along the whole Mediterranean rocky coastline where it is frequently but illegally harvested. It is well known that the growth of the date mussel is very slow; however, patterns of recolonization of exploited surfaces have been scarcely investigated. The objective of this study is to assess colonization patterns of the date mussel on limestone boulders which have been in the sea for 19 years. These results could be useful in predicting the reconstitution of natural populations of the date mussel after harvesting. Materials and Methods: Limestone breakwater boulders were placed along the dike of the Marina of Rovinj (northern Adriatic, Istrian peninsula, Croatia) in 1984. Sampling was carried out in summer 2003 by SCUBA diving from six habitats of different inclination and topography: horizontal, inclined, vertical, sheltered, vaults, and whole stones. The abundance and biomass of L. lithophaga at the Marina were compared with those in natural control locations. Results: At the Marina, no date mussels were found on the horizontal and inclined sides of the boulders, and very few date mussels were found on the vertical side. On the contrary, sheltered and vault sides of boulders and whole stones were intensively colonized by L. lithophaga. In vaults, the abundance was similar to that in nature. In these habitats, L. lithophaga biomass was generally lower than in nature. However, large date mussels, of lengths from 50 to 70 mm, were already present on boulders of the Marina. They amounted to 35% in the sheltered habitat, 24% in vaults, and 3% of the total number in whole stones. Conclusions: An unexpected high colonization rate and growth of date mussels was detected in certain unexposed rocky habitats at the boulders of the Marina. However, on the natural rocky Istrian coast, the date mussel was mostly collected on exposed inclined and vertical rocky surfaces where repopulation after harvesting may require very long periods.


Background. We studied the effect of combined application of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid concentrate, based on seals fat, with parenteral administration of brain cortex polypeptide preparation on cognitive-research reactions and adaptation of rats under experimental hyperlipidemia. The composition of the myelin sheaths of neurons is represented by a protein-lipid complex, which is a part of the cell membrane, the imbalance of which leads to a number of neurological diseases. The aim of the study was to confirm experimentally that the combined use of drugs, based on essential polyunsaturated fatty acids and polypeptides, would influence more effectively on neurometabolic processes in neurons, compared to their application separately. Materials and methods. Wistar rats were used. They were on a special atherogenic diet to build the model of hypercholesterolemia. The pharmacological effects of drugs were evaluated in the Open Field and Morris Water Maze tests. Results. The study found that in rats, who received a combination of polyunsaturated fatty acids concentrate with Cortexin injections, and undergoing atherogenic diet, the overall motor activity increased significantly in the Open field test, at the same time the number of acts of defecation and grooming decreased. The Morris Water Maze test results indicated an increase in the level of spatial memory and orientation, which shows a high level of adaptability and adaptation to new conditions, a decrease in the level of anxiety. Conclusions. The results demonstrated a more pronounced and prolonged nootropic and adaptogenic action of the complex use in comparison with the use of the studied agents as monotherapy.


A significant number of active duty Army personnel request reassignment based on the psychiatric condition of a family member. Often the attending physician predicts dire consequences if the request is not granted. Lack of awareness of current Army policy for judging these requests leads to much false hope and to resultant anger and disappointment.


For a couple of years, linguists in Nigeria have proposed language-based solution(s) for social integration and national development in Nigeria. However, to the best of our knowledge, none has suggested such for peace and security, especially in the turbulent and crises-ridden North-Eastern Nigeria, where Boko Haram insurgency has been the order of the day for some time now. This paper therefore explores the possibility of harnessing our linguistic resources through aggressive language planning to tackle this problem, with a view to attaining peace and security in Nigeria. The socio-linguistic theory of language planning which sees language as a national resource that can be used in improving social life, forms the theoretical framework for this paper. Data were collected from existing literature and interactions with students and lecturers from different geo-political zones in Nigeria. Knowing fully well that ethnicity-induced problem is invariably tied to the language question, a number of proposals are prescribed along this dimension. Some of them are an aggressive language planning, backed up  by strong political will; the use of mother tongue as medium of education; the recognition of regional lingua francas and languages of Local Government Areas as official languages of government business; provision of compulsory pass in a second Nigerian language at WASCE; a deliberate policy of reward for scientific and technological research in local languages and the implementation of an obligatory language learning component as part of the mandate of the NYSC scheme. Rather than seeing our multilingual complexity as a curse from the tower of Babel, our languages should be seen as natural resources with which Nigeria is blessed for peace, security and national development. Keywords: Boko Haram, North Eastern Nigeria, Language-based Solution, Peace and Security


We calculate the momentum and energy flux of ions measured by the Ion Composition Analyzer (ICA) on the Rosetta mission at comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. We find that the total ion energy and momentum flux stay roughly constant over the mission, but the relative contribution of solar wind ions and cometary ions changes drastically depending on the spacecraft position in the ionosphere and distance from the comet to the sun. We also see that the magnetic pressure, calculated from the magnetic field measured by the Rosetta magnetometer, is on the order of the total ion momentum flux and roughly corresponds with the cometary ion momentum flux. Near both the beginning and end of the mission, solar wind momentum and energy flux are roughly two orders of magnitude larger than the corresponding heavy cometary ion fluxes. When the spacecraft enters the solar wind ion cavity near the comet's periapsis, the solar wind energy and momentum flux drop drastically, mainly due to reduced density. Meanwhile, the cometary energy flux increases to be roughly equal to the solar wind flux earlier in the mission and the cometary momentum flux as measured by ICA becomes roughly an order of magnitude higher than previous and later solar wind fluxes. We also examine the changes in flux on two excursions, one on the dayside and one on the nightside of the comet, and see that during the nightside excursion, the cometary ion fluxes drop off roughly with the square of the distance from the comet. During the dayside excursion the flux was approximately constant, indicating that the excursion distance was small compared to the region where the observed ions were produced. ICA does not measure the lowest energy ions, so we also discuss the energy and momentum of the full ion population based on density estimates from the LAP and MIP instruments.


AIMS
In this work, we have evaluated the ability of targeted lipoplexes to enhance transgene expression in EGF receptor (EGFR) overexpressing tumor cells by using lipoplexes.

MATERIALS & METHODS
We prepared DOTAP/cholesterol liposomes modified with EGF at 0.5/1, 1/1, 2/1 and 5/1 lipid/DNA (+/-) charge ratio by sequentially mixing the liposomes with the ligand and adding the reporter or the therapeutic plasmid gene, pCMVLuc (pVR1216) or pCMVIL12, respectively. HepG2, DHDK12proB and SW620 cells were used for in vitro experiments, which were performed in the presence of 60% serum.

RESULTS
The characterization of EGF-lipoplexes indicated a size close to 300 nm and a variable net surface charge as a function of the amount of EGF associated to the cationic liposomes. EGF-lipoplexes, which showed an increased transfection activity, were positively charged, noncytotoxic and highly effective in protecting DNA from DNase I attack. Transfection activity in vitro resulted in an enhancement in the luciferase and IL-12 expression by EGF-lipoplexes compared with those without ligand (plain-lipoplexes) and to naked DNA. The results observed in SW620 cells, which are deficient in EGFR, confirmed that DNA uptake was predominantly via EGFR-mediated endocytosis. In vivo transfection activity was confirmed by luciferase imaging in living mice. Bioluminiscence could be detected mainly in the lung with a maximum signal 24 h after application. The resulting EGF-lipoplexes significantly increased the level of gene expression in mice compared with control or naked DNA.

CONCLUSION
These findings indicate that these nanovectors may be an adequate alternative to viral vectors for gene therapy.


There is an increasing need to better understand how and why invasion impacts differ across heterogeneous landscapes. One hypothesis predicts invader impacts are greatest where the invader is most abundant (the mass ratio hypothesis; MRH). Alternatively, invader impacts may be greatest in communities where the nutrient acquisition strategies of the invader are most dissimilar from those of native species (the nutrient economy dissimilarity hypothesis; NEDH). We tested whether the effects of an invasive grass, Microstegium vimineum, on soil biogeochemistry were best explained by MRH, NEDH, or both. At three locations (Indiana, North Carolina, and Georgia), invaded and reference plots were established across a nutrient economy gradient. Plots varied in the relative abundance of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) vs. ectomycorrhizal (ECM) associated overstory trees, reflecting gradients in biotic nutrient acquisition strategies and edaphic factors. At two locations, we found NEDH predicted invader effects on soil conditions. The net effect of M. vimineum homogenized soil properties across the nutrient economy gradient towards conditions consistent with AM-dominated stands; as such, the nutrient economy gradients observed in uninvaded plots were mostly absent in invaded plots. At one location with high N availability and intermediate acidity, both ECM-dominance (NEDH) and invader abundance (MRH) predicted differences in soil moisture, pH, and nitrification rates. Collectively, these results suggest the biogeochemical consequences of M. vimineum depend, in part, on pre-invasion soil nutrient economies. Where pre-invasion conditions are known, we provide a scalable and predictive approach to determine where impacts on biogeochemical cycling of C and N may be greatest.


The Overseas Chinese, the Chinese Commonwealth, or the Chinese Web, consists of companies formed by Chinese who are found outside of China and inside other countries, such as, the United States, Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia. These Chinese entrepreneurs work under a set of familial, cultural, and relationship values. They help one another and protect each others businesses. Non‐Chinese companies are now realising the potential growth of this unofficial Chinese economy. This network was first formed by family relationships. However, foreign companies outside this web may find it easier to enter by linking themselves into joint ventures, marriages, political opportunities or just by having some common culture. This Chinese economy is starting to grow approximately by 5% each year. These Chinese entrepreneurs are not cluttered in a single region, as it is in the case of North America, Europe, and Japan. But yet, these potential marketers are failing to realise the importance and the power of this growing economy.


This thesis investigated the development, consistency and facilitators of children's innovation in the physical, tool-use domain. Despite gaining increasing interest in developmental psychology, understanding of the ontogeny of innovation remains in its infancy. Following the formulation of an operational definition of innovation and associated criteria in Chapter 2, the innovatory ability of 4- to 9-year-old children was examined using the Multiple-Methods Box (MMB): a novel puzzle box from which a reward can be extracted using different tools, access points and exits. Findings reported in Chapter 3 demonstrated that few children innovated in the aftermath of social demonstrations of tool use (akin to innovation by modification); rather, they largely relied on the observed task solution. However, instances and rates of children's innovation were seen to increase in response to inefficacious social information (Chapter 3) and when provided with additional time and explicit instructions/prompts to explore the MMB (Chapter 6). Individual differences in children's innovative or imitative behaviour appeared largely independent of their performance on a battery of tasks assessing constructs related to innovation, as explored in Chapter 4. However, this study revealed some behavioural consistency in puzzle-box contexts, suggestive of consistent individual differences in children's propensity, or preference, to engage in asocial/individual learning. Finally, in the intervention study of Chapter 5, individual achievement goals appeared of greater salience than cues to conventionality of innovative behaviour, which did not differentially enhance 8- to 9-year-olds' innovation when presented with the MMB task in the absence of social demonstrations. Together, the thesis findings highlight the value of the dual study of imitation and innovation, in discovering adaptive trade-offs between the two, and the need to consider innovation in its various forms, owing to likely disparities in developmental trajectories, cognitive requirements, and primary difficulties. The educational applications and cultural implications are discussed.


Polymer flooding in oil reservoir simulation is considered in two space dimensions. The wave structures associated with such a process give rise to interesting phenomena in the nonlinear regime which have direct bearing on the efficiency of oil recovery. These waves influence and can prevent surface instabilities of the fingering mode. In this paper we resolve these waves by a front tracking method. We consider the fingering problem and the issue of oil recovery for the polymer flood. The details of these two phenomena depend on the separation between the waves and upon the viscosity contrast between the oil, water and polymer. We identify a nonlinear transfer of instability between adjacent waves and a nonlinear enhancement of recovery due to successive waves. The conclusions produced by this work are also pertinent to tracer flooding.One interesting conclusion applies to polymer injection followed by pure water injection. In this case the instability is transferred to the polymer-water interface, and th...


Author(s): Avalos Cisneros, Natalie | Advisor(s): Talamantez, Ines | Abstract: Struggles for decolonization are not only national but also transnational and global. While decolonization projects are diverse, they generally call for both the undoing of colonization as a structure and the amelioration of its psychological and ideological effects. Native American communities have been waging resistance to settler societies in various ways for over 500 years. In the last 50 years, Tibetans in exile have mobilized a global project to resist Chinese occupation through the 'Tibet movement.' Native American religious traditions are rooted in a sacred relationship to the land, one's community and the spirit world. The spirit world consists of the dynamic 'life force' immanent in all natural phenomena. Native American peoples cite an interdependent relationship to all natural phenomena as the fundamental logic driving the protection of sacred sites, sustainable ways of living and nationhood. Tibetan Buddhism combines land-based conceptualizations of relatedness to Buddhist philosophical concepts of 'dependent origination' –meaning that all phenomena are inextricably 'dependent' on one another—to theorize a unique form of interdependence. Buddhist ethics rooted in interdependence encourage empathy and compassion for all others, since they are ultimately an extension of one's self. This dissertation analyzes the role of religion in the decolonization movements of transnational Native Americans and Tibetan communities living in the U.S. A core focus of many decolonization movements is resisting culture erasure through religious revitalization—the logic being religion constitutes the core values and traditions of a given community. When cultural identity is strengthened these communities are better able to resist colonial advances as well as practices of extermination. I ask, how does interdependence as a 'lived' tradition resist colonization as both a structure and ideology? In addition, how are these religious traditions informing global movements for decolonization? I argue that cultural regeneration—centrally in the form of religion practice—is a driving factor in resistance, if not sometimes the very practice of resistance. This research demonstrates that religious praxis not only resists cultural erasure and assuages colonization's psychic/psychological effects but also regenerates Tibetan and Native peoplehood, contributing to their projects of sovereignty. Religious praxis heals and strengthens these communities but is also understood to create the material conditions for liberation—in essence, spiritual phenomena re-configures the material world—for example, through the ritual purification of karma or the purification of one's body in the sweat lodge. The dynamic intersection of religion and politics in these movements provides a new perspective on social justice and humanitarianism, illustrating that the just and humane treatment of others is necessitated in world in which others are an extension of one's self.


The rapid growth of the Hispanic population in the United States, particularly those of the second generation, who have automatic rights of citizenship, could be expected to result in increased influence and representation in politics for this group. We show that the effect of a sheer growth in numbers at the national level is diminished by several factors: low probabilities of naturalisation by Hispanic immigrants; non-participation in voting, especially by the US-born generations; and concentration of growth in Congressional Districts that already have Hispanic Representatives. It is a challenge for public policy to reduce the lag between population growth and political representation.


The online version of the "Estimation of body height from head length among dental students of a dental college"(Manandhar B, Shrestha R. Estimation of body height from head length among dental students of a dental college. J Nepal Med Assoc. 2018 Feb;56(213):861-5) has been updated according to the respective authors' reply published in JNMA 216 Issue.The following lines were found to be missing in methods section below sample size calculation: The head length was measured with the help of spreading caliper from glabella to inion when the student was sitting in a chair in a relaxed state. Glabella is the most prominent point on the frontal bone above the root of the nose. Inion is the most prominent point on external occipital protuberance on head in mid-sagittal plane. Body height was measured with the help of a standard height measuring instrument as the vertical distance from vertex to the floor with the student standing barefoot, erect, on an even floor in the Frankfurt's Horizontal Plane. Vertex is the highest point on the head in mid-sagittal plane.


Glutamine metabolism plays a critical role in promoting multiple biosynthetic pathways necessary for tumor growth. Therefore we endeavored to create a small molecule inhibitor that would block multiple pathways of glutamine metabolism as opposed to blocking one enzyme. Previous studies employing the non-specific glutamine antagonist 6-diazo-5-oxo-L-norlecuine (DON) have achieved this goal however, with much toxicity. To this end we devised a novel prodrug of DON (JHU-083) with distinct distribution and cellular partitioning properties. When dosed on an equimolar basis, JHU-083 retains the antitumor efficacy of DON but is devoid of the gut toxicity and morbidity/mortality. To this end Wild-type mice were injected subcutaneously EL4 T-cell lymphoma cells. The tumors were allowed to engraft and treatment was initiated on day 5 with either vehicle, DON or JHU-083. After 7 days of treatment there was complete tumor regression in both the DON and JHU-083 treated mice, while tumors continued to grow in the vehicle treated mice. Importantly, after 7 days of treatment the DON treated mice appeared ill with lethargy and ruffled fur and even death as a result of treatment toxicity. Alternatively, the JHU-083 treated mice remained healthy and vibrant. Based on these studies in a lymphoma model we next tested JHU-083 in 2 models of colon cancer. To this end we injected wild-type mice subcutaneously with MC38 or CT26 cells. Again, similar to the EL4 lymphoma experiments, we observed that JHU-083 resulted in complete regression of MC38 and CT26 tumors after 4 and 7 days of treatment respectively. The tumor microenvironment, which promotes immune evasion, is very much influenced by tumor metabolism. Thus, we wanted to determine the effect of inhibiting glutamine metabolism on the tumor immune microenvironment. To this end mice injected with B16 melanoma cells were treated for 3 days with DON during which time the tumors decreased in size. Interestingly, there was also a concomitant decrease in the percentage of Foxp3+ cells and an increase in the CD8:Foxp3+ T cell ratio amongst the TILS. Overall our studies demonstrate the principle of cellular selectivity based upon demand. That is, a non-selective inhibitor of glutamine metabolism can robustly inhibit tumor growth while demonstrating minimal side effects based on the differential demand of cancer cells versus normal cells. Furthermore, our studies suggest that sequencing anti-metabolic therapy with immunotherapy might prove to be a novel means of broadening and enhancing the role of immunotherapy for the treatment of cancer. Citation Format: Judson Englert, Chih-Hsien Cheng, Robert Leone, Pavel Majer, Rana Rais, Barbara Slusher, Jonathan Powell. Targeting glutamine metabolism with the novel inhibitor JHU-083 inhibits tumor growth and alters the tumor immune microenvironment. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 1035.


Remotely reporting the local environment within hydrogels using inexpensive laboratory techniques has excellent potential to improve our understanding of the nanometer-scale changes that cause macroscopic swelling or deswelling. Whilst photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy is a popular method for such studies this approach commonly requires bespoke and time-consuming synthesis to attach fluorophores which may leave toxic residues. A promising and more versatile alternative is to use a pre-formed nanogel probe that contains a donor/acceptor pair and then "dope" that into the gel during gel assembly. Here, we introduce green-emitting methacrylic acid-based nanogel probe particles and use them to report the local environment within four different gels as well as stem cells. As the swelling of the nanogel probe changes within the gels the non-radiative energy transfer efficiency is strongly altered. This efficiency change is sensitively reported using the PL ratiometric intensity from the donor and acceptor. We demonstrate that our new nanoprobes can reversibly report gel swelling changes due to five different environmental stimuli. The latter are divalent cations, gel degradation, pH changes, temperature changes and tensile strain. In the latter case, the nanoprobe rendered a nanocomposite gel mechanochromic. The results not only provide new structural insights for hierarchical natural and synthetic gels, but also demonstrate that our new green-fluorescing nanoprobes provide a viable alternative to custom fluorophore labelling for reporting the internal gel environment and its changes.


The aim of this study was to examine the effects of bovine follicular fluid (bFF) on mitochondrial activity in in vitro-matured (IVM) oocytes and to assess its importance for fertilisation and embryo development. Bovine follicular oocytes were subjected to IVM in medium supplemented either with polyvinylpyrrolidone, bovine serum albumin, calf serum or bFF. Nuclear maturation, cumulus expansion, mitochondrial distribution and ATP content in oocytes were compared between groups along with subsequent in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and embryo development. Compared with other supplements, bFF generated significantly enhanced re-distribution of active mitochondria in oocytes and this effect was associated with elevated intracellular ATP content. Furthermore, bFF significantly improved cumulus expansion, which was associated with improved fertilisation rates when cumulus-enclosed oocytes were subjected to IVF; however, its promoting effect was neutralised when denuded oocytes were inseminated. Elevating ATP content in oocytes by bFF did not affect maturation or embryo development but promoted fertilisation when mitochondrial electron transport was blocked in oocytes before IVF by Rotenone. In conclusion, supplementation of IVM medium with bFF promotes sperm penetration both by the improvement of cumulus expansion and by enhancing ATP levels in oocytes, which maintains their ability to be fertilised after mitochondrial stress.


This qualitative study explored preschool teacher beliefs and practices in relationship to observed classroom quality and student outcomes.  A phenomenological approach framed the design of the research collected from seven preschool teachers in a large urban school district in Western NY.  Teachers were asked two questions about student learning and excellence in teaching.  Findings suggest that high performing preschool teachers believe it is important to establish nurturing relationships with their students, foster positive relationships with the families of the children they work with in the classroom, and nurture the social-emotional development of their children in the classroom.  Pedagogically, differentiated instruction emerged as a theme in which teachers' described their teaching practice to meet the needs of all their students.  Future research should be focused on the impact professional development has on the quality of instruction provided in preschool classrooms.


Noting the progress made since 1991 towards achieving the international targets for 2005, the acceleration of efforts following the establishment of the Stop TB Partnership in response to resolution WHA51.13, and more recently following resolution WHA58.14 encouraging Member States to ensure availability of sufficient resources to achieve the internationally agreed goal relevant to tuberculosis contained in the United Nations Millennium Declaration by 2015;


1. The political symbolism of health 2. Banana medicine: the United Fruit Company 3. The international imperative: foreign aid for health in Costa Rica 4. The primary health care movement and the political ideology of participation in health 5. Participation in Costa Rica: dissent within the state 6. La Chira: participation in a banana-growing community 7. The political economy of participation.


INTRODUCTION AND AIMS
In recent years there has been growing concern about new psychoactive substances (NPS) designed to mimic the effects of established illicit drugs. This paper explores the patterns and correlates of NPS use in a sample of Australian students.

DESIGN AND METHODS
A cross-sectional survey was conducted in Australia in 2014. Data were collected from 1126 students (mean age: 14.9 years) from 11 secondary schools. Students completed a self-report questionnaire assessing NPS use and knowledge, beliefs and intentions to use these substances. NPS users were compared with non-users and illicit drug users, who had not used NPS, in terms of gender, binge drinking, tobacco use, psychological distress and self-efficacy to resist peer pressure.

RESULTS
Of the 1126 students, 3% reported having ever tried NPS, 2.4% had used synthetic cannabis and 0.4% had used a synthetic stimulant. Analyses revealed that NPS users were more likely to have had an episode of binge drinking in the past 6 months, tried tobacco and had higher levels of psychological distress and lower perceived self-efficacy to resist peer pressure than non-users, but did not significantly differ from users of other illicit drugs.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
NPS use appears to be uncommon among Australian school students. Although adolescents that do use these substances did not differ from students that had used traditional illicit drugs, both appear to be higher-risk groups of students than non-users. Our findings suggest that universal education about NPS be incorporated into existing drug prevention programmes, and that targeted NPS prevention may also be warranted among high-risk adolescents. [Champion KE, Teesson M, Newton NC. Patterns and correlates of new psychoactive substance use in a sample of Australian high school students. Drug Alcohol Rev 2016;35:338-344].


The taxonomic literature is one of the largest resources of information on biodiversity, both current and in the past. Unlike many scientific disciplines this literature remains perpetually relevant as successive taxonomic work builds upon those earlier foundations. Projects such as the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) have greatly increased access to that literature, as have numerous independent digitisation efforts by museums, herbaria, and publishers. But the focus of this access has been human readers, with limited use of text mining tools, mostly focussed on extracting taxonomic names. This talk explores other kinds of data that can be extracted from text on BHL and elsewhere, focusing on taxonomic names, geographic localities and specimen codes in the context of the BioStor project (https://biostor.org, Page 2011).
 The problem of finding taxonomic names in text has been well studied (e.g., Akella et al. 2012), and new BHL content is continuously indexed by names. Despite this, there is only weak linkage between taxonomic name databases and BHL. Even projects that create these links (e.g., BioNames, Page 2013) do not enable links in the reverse direction. In other words, a BHL reader is unaware whether the appearance of a name on a page is the first publication of that name, nor are they told of the fate of a name in subsequent research. The absence of these links reduces the value of BHL to working taxonomists.
 In addition to taxonomic names, a typical taxonomic paper often contains specimen codes. Extracting these from text and linking them to digital representations, such as occurrence records in GBIF, opens up the possibility to provide detailed provenance for occurrence data, as well as citation-based metrics for the utility of natural history collections.
 Taxonomic papers are also often rich in geographic information. A simple method for extracting locality information from text is to search for latitude and longitude coordinates, and BioStor currently does this. To date some 83,000 individual point localities have been extracted (Fig. 1 ). These are used to provide a simple geographic search interface in BioStor, and are also harvested by JournalMap (Karl et al. 2013). But these localities are not linked to the original location in the source text, nor are they linked to any associated specimens, so they cannot be interpreted as occurrences that could be harvested by GBIF. If the goal is to contribute to GBIF then we need tools that can parse locality information and link that to associated specimens.
 A general framework for handling data on taxonomic names, specimens, and geographic localities in text is to treat them as annotations (Batista-Navarro et al. 2017). By modelling annotations using the Web Annotation Data Model (https://www.w3.org/TR/annotation-model/ ) we can incorporate these annotations into biodiversity knowledge graphs (Page 2016). We can also combine these annotations with new standards for describing digitised content, such as the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF, https://iiif.io). The implications of this approach for developing new interfaces to the biodiversity literature will be discussed.


We present here line of sight communication between a person and his neighbour with the help of optical signal produced by a laser torch which act as a carrier. It is therefore a wireless communication and the transmission can go up to 500 meters. We used photodiode to receive the signal at the receiver. The transmitter circuit comprises condenser microphone transistor amplifier BC547 followed by an op-amp stage built around µA741. When we give a voice signal from the mike, it converts the voice signal into the electrical signal. This electrical signal is fed to IC741 (op-amp) for amplification. The gain of the op-amp can be controlled with the help of 1-mega-ohm potentiometer. The AF output from IC is coupled to the base of a class B amplifier which, in turn, modulates the signal. The transmitter uses 5V power supply. However, the 3-volt laser torch (after removal of its battery) can be directly connected to the circuit-with the body of the torch connected to the class B. The photodiode converts the optical signal into electrical signal and again this signal is amplified using IC741 and a combination of class B push pull amplifiers. The receiver circuit uses an NPN photodiode as the light sensor that is followed by a two-stage transistor preamplifier and IC741 based audio Power amplifier. The receiver does not need any complicated alignment. Just keep the photodiode oriented towards the remote transmitter's laser point and adjust the volume control for a clear sound. The sensor must not directly face the sun.


Middle Marrat resrervoir of Jurrasic age is a tight carbonate reservoir with vertical and horizontal heterogeneous properities. The well placement over deep elonogted anticline with steep dips, geosteering and lowering of production liner are challenging, therefore the field is being developed using horizontal wells cutting across multiple reservoir layers to maximize reservoir contact and driange
 The low clay content in Marrat reservoirs gives low gamma ray counts, which makes the identification of reservoir layers identification difficult. In addition, the high-resistivity responses from hydrocarbon-bearing pay-zones and from the tight layers make the identification of the reservoir sweet spots difficult as well. Slim-hole magnetic resonance (NMR) logging was deployed in wash-down mode for identifying reservoir sweet-spots as a lithology-independent porosity and formation fluid characterization tool.
 Magnetic resonance was acquired with dual wait time enabled T2 polarization to differentiate between moveable water and hydrocarbons. After acquisition, the standard deliverables were porosity, the effective porosity ratio, and the permeability index to evaluate the rock qualities. Porosity was divided into clay-bound water (CBW), bulk-volume irreducible (BVI) and bulk-volume moveable (BVM). Rock quality was interpreted and classified based on efftective porosity and permeability index ratios. The ratio where a steeper gradient was interpreted as high flow zones, a gentle gradient as low flow zones, and a flat gradient was considered as tight baffle zones.
 Based on the MR flow units and fluid types (CBW, BVI and BVM), the drilled interval was classified into six compartments of high flow, one compartment of low flow, and five tight baffle zones. Accordingly, the perforation plan was optimized to fit the high flow units only. Comparing to the conventional log analysis, NMR excluded approximately 1000 ft of non-productive reservoirs, leading to a significant cost savings (250,000 USD) in perforationand production optimization.
 The well was drilled with a distance-to-bed boundary tool; however, enormous potential exists to use this slim MR tool as a non-radioactive sourceless solution for geosteering through reservoir sweet spots while delivering wells that are more productive safely.


An economic evaluation of intercropping maize, kenaf and African yambean was carried out based on agronomic data emanating from an intercrop trial conducted in the lowland rainforest agro ecological zone of Southwest Nigeria. The agronomic yield data indicated that maize yield was significantly higher under sole cropping for the two years. However, there was no significant difference in kenaf seed yield under sole and intercrops except for maize/kenaf/African yambean intercrop which gave the lowest kenaf seed yield while African yam bean grain yield was significantly higher under intercrops than sole cropping. The partial budget analysis however indicated that net benefit were higher for Maize/kenaf ( 193, 800 and 198, 480) and kenaf/African yambean intercrop ( 186, 970 and 188, 050) in 2003 and 2004 respectively than for any of the other treatments. Also, sole Kenaf and Kenaf/African yam bean intercrop yielded promising Marginal Rate of Return (MRR) of 1096 and 640.5% respectively for year 2003 while sole Kenaf, Kenaf/African yam bean and maize/Kenaf intercrops gave MRR of 1104.4, 620 and 71.9%, respectively in year 2004. In addition, the minimum rate of return analysis suggests that even under worst situations, Kenaf/African yam bean intercrop has the potential of generating acceptable returns on investment with a MRR of 700%. This performance is also not affected by possible fluctuation in input and output prices as shown by the sensitivity analysis in which the MRR was higher than the 50% minimum criterion under all considerations. Hence farmers stand to gain better when they intercrop Kenaf with African yam bean.


Osteolytic lesions are rapidly progressive during the terminal stages of myeloma, and the bone pain or bone fracture that occurs at these lesions decreases the patients' quality of life to a notable degree. In relation to the etiology of this bone destruction, it has been reported recently that MIP-1alpha, produced in large amounts in myeloma patients, acts indirectly on osteoclastic precursor cells, and activates osteoclasts by way of bone-marrow stromal cells or osteoblasts, although the details of this process remain obscure. In the present study, our group investigated the mechanism by which RANKL expression is induced by MIP-1alpha and the effects of MIP-1alpha on the activation of osteoclasts. RANKL mRNA and RANKL protein expressions increased in both ST2 cells and MC3T3-E1 cells in a MIP-1alpha concentration-dependent manner. RANKL mRNA expression began to increase at 1 h after the addition of MIP-1alpha; the increase became remarkable at 2 h, and continuous expression was observed subsequently. Both ST2 and MC3T3-E1 cells showed similar levels of increased RANKL protein expression at 1, 2, and 3 days after the addition of MIP-1alpha. After the addition of MIP-1alpha, the amount of phosphorylated ERK1/2 and Akt protein expressions showed an increase, as compared to the corresponding amount in the control group. On the other hand, the amount of phosphorylated p38MAPK protein expression showed a decrease from the amount in the control group after the addition of MIP-1alpha. U0126 (a MEK1/2 inhibitor) or LY294002 (a PI3K inhibitor) was added to ST2 and MC3T3-E1 cells, and was found to inhibit RANKL mRNA and RANKL protein expression in these cells. When SB203580, a p38MAPK inhibitor, was added, RANKL mRNA and RANKL protein expression were increased in these cells. MIP-1alpha was found to promote osteoclastic differentiation of C7 cells, an osteoclastic precursor cell line, in a MIP-1alpha concentration-dependent manner. MIP-1alpha promoted differentiation into osteoclasts more extensively in C7 cells incubated together with ST2 and MC3T3-E1 cells than in C7 cells incubated alone. These results suggested that MIP-1alpha directly acts on the osteoclastic precursor cells and induces osteoclastic differentiation. This substance also indirectly induces osteoclastic differentiation through the promotion of RANKL expression in bone-marrow stromal cells and osteoblasts. The findings of this investigation suggested that activation of the MEK/ERK and the PI3K/Akt pathways and inhibition of p38MAPK pathway were involved in RANKL expression induced by MIP-1alpha in bone-marrow stromal cells and osteoblasts. This finding may be useful in the development of an osteoclastic inhibitor that targets intracellular signaling factors.


BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
Previous studies observed the downregulation of microRNA (miR)-195 in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) tissues, confirmed cell division cycle 42 (Cdc42) as one target gene of miR-195, and demonstrated that miR-195 may act as a tumor suppressor in ESCC by regulating Cdc42 expression. This study aimed to explore the association of miR-195 and Cdc42 combined expression with clinicopathologic factors and prognosis.

METHODS
Expression of miR-195 and Cdc42 mRNA in 98 pairs of ESCC and paracancerous tissues were detected using real-time quantitative RT-PCR.

RESULTS
miR-195 downregulation and Cdc42 upregulation were both prevalent in ESCC tissues, and negatively correlated with each other. In addition, miR-195 expression negatively correlated with TNM stage (P=0.008) and lymphatic metastasis (P=0.022), while Cdc42 expression positively correlated with TNM stage (P=0.011) and tumor differentiation (P=0.024). Moreover, combined expression of miR-195 and Cdc42 (miR-195/Cdc42) was found to be prognostic indicators for progression-free survival and overall survival of ESCC patients both in univariate and multivariate analyses.

CONCLUSION
The main findings of this study indicate the involvement of miR-195-Cdc42 axis in the progression of ESCC and suggest that the combined aberrant expression of miR-195 and Cdc42 mRNA can serve as a promising unfavorable prognostic biomarker in ESCC.


This study aimed at elucidating the role of anticoagulation in the genesis of late pericardial effusion and tamponade after cardiac surgery. Using serial 2-D echocardiography, 141 patients undergoing surgery for coronary artery bypass (56), valvular (69) or congenital (16) [corrected] heart disease were studied postoperatively. Group 1 (74 patients) received full anticoagulation (warfarin 73; heparin 1) and group 2 (67 patients) received either antithrombotic agents (aspirin plus dipyridamole), or no treatment. Fifty percent (70/141) of patients developed effusion. There was no significant difference between the two groups in the incidence of either effusion in general (43/74; 58% vs 27/67; 40%, respectively) or small or medium sized effusion. However, a large effusion was significantly more common in group 1 than in group 2 (32% vs 4%, P < 0.005). Twelve patients (12/141; 8.5%) developed late tamponade, 7 to 33 (15 +/- 7.3 mean +/- SD) days after surgery. All had a large effusion demonstrated by echo, drained by pericardiocentesis, and none died. All 12 patients with tamponade belonged to group 1 (P < 0.001). Excess anticoagulation was detected at least once in 41 of the 74 group 1 patients (55%). When compared to properly anticoagulated patients, excessively anticoagulated patients had a similar overall incidence of effusion and a similar incidence of small or moderate effusion, but a higher incidence of large effusion (18% vs 44%, [corrected] P < 0.05) and tamponade (3% vs 27%, P < 0.025). We conclude that, unlike small or medium-sized effusions, large pericardial effusions and tamponade are more likely to occur among anticoagulated patients, especially if they are excessively anticoagulated.


In this paper, the design of a biological sensor is proposed in order to rapidly test for the presence of potential pathologic and bioterrorism agents (zoonotic microorganisms) both in specimens as well as in the environment. The sensor uses an electromagnetic detection mechanism to measure changes in the number of magnetically tagged microorganisms which are placed at the surface of an integrated circuit (IC) chip. Measured magnetic effects are transformed into electronic signals used to count the number and type of organisms present. The whole system is integrated on single chip, which makes the sensor small-sized, portable, high speed, and low cost. This novel design of the sensor head achieves ultra-sensitivity with simulation results indicating a preliminary maximum error of 2.6%. Design refinements promise to reduce this error even further.


Expanded Criteria Donor (ECD) organs are being used more often in clinical setting. The regenerative ability of the organs might be able to restore the organ to full functionality ex vivo. For long term kidney stabilization, optimization and monitoring an organ incubator is preferable. However, it is unclear which available parts would work best in synergy. A Normothermic Machine Perfusion (NMP) setup and a Mathematical Windkessel Model were created as a first step in a larger project of prolonged preservation of ECD organs. While the current NMP setup was found adequate for academic research, it can only be used for simple studies using water. Several fundamental improvements need to be made before the setup can be used as a fully functioning NMP setup for kidneys. Key improvements would be the addition of a Windkessel and a different cardiac pump.


Evaluators is an educational tool that lets instructors in computer language implementation courses generate video games from collections of exercises concerning language processing tasks. For this purpose, the tool adopts attribute grammars as a central model of syntax-directed translation and uses a simple metaphor to map attributed syntax trees and semantic evaluation into videogames. These games provide students with an immersive experience which helps them to better comprehend the fundamental concepts behind attribute grammars. This paper describes Evaluators and reports on its assessment with students in a Compiler Construction course at the Complutense University of Madrid (Spain).


Serial phenotyping of human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) cultured with pokeweed mitogen (PWM) demonstrated an excess of T8+ cells after stimulation. Preferential expansion of the T8+ cell compartment was a result of T8+ cell blast transformation while T4+ cells generated fewer blasts and tended to remain as small resting cells. When the proliferative behavior of T cell subsets in PWM-stimulated PBMC with physiologic proportions of T4+ and T8+ cells was compared with that of cultures depleted of T4+ or T8+ cells, two levels of regulation of proliferation were found: without T4+ cell help, T8+ cells were unable to divide; however, in the presence of T4+ cells, PWM-stimulated T8+ cells became potent feedback inhibitors of T4+ cell proliferation. The mechanism of suppression by PWM-activated T8+ cells of T4+ cell proliferation, not only to PWM, but also to tetanus toxoid, was pursued by measuring decreased interleukin 2 (IL2) recovery from cultures containing suppressors. Although passive absorption of IL2 by PWM-activated cells could contribute to the suppression of fresh proliferative responses, as shown directly with isolated T4+ cells induced by PWM to express IL2 receptors, a much more profound suppression was mediated by PWM-activated T8+ cells. The regulation of proliferative responses of helper and suppressor T cell subsets may determine the magnitude of their subsequent interactions and thus control the ultimate outcome of in vivo physiologic and pathologic immune responses.


Mojokerto is an industrial city which accounts for as much as 40% of the total female employees of reproductive age in the East Java region. The health status of pregnant women in industrial areas is something that must be considered in order to produce a superior Indonesian generation. The research design used the "Quasi-experimental pre post design" method. The sample of this study was 51 pregnant women in industrial areas. Treatment is in the form of nutrition education for pregnant women after the mother has confirmed knowledge of knowledge, nutritional behavior and Hb (hemoglobin) levels. The results showed that the knowledge of pregnant women increased 73% after increasing behavior, 78% increased behavior and increased mean Hb from 11.64 to 12.14 This study proves that the nutrition education model for pregnant women in industrial areas has a positive correlation with maternal nutritional knowledge, nutritional behavior and Hb levels of pregnant women.


An artificial retina is a plane circuit, consisting of a matrix
of photocaptors; each has its own memory, consisting in a small
number of cells (3 to 5), arranged in parallel planes. The
treatment consists in logical operations between planes, plus
translations of any plane: they are called "elementary
operations" (EO). A retina operator (RO) is a transformation of
the image, defined by a specific representation of a Boolean
function of n variables (n is the number of neighboring cells
taken into account). What is the best way to represent an RO by
means of EO, considering the strong limitation of memory? For
most retina operators, the complexity (i.e., the number of EO
needed) is exponential, no matter what representation is used,
but, for specific classes, threshold functions and more generally
symmetric functions, we obtain a result several orders of
magnitude better than previously known ones. It uses a new
representation, called "Block Addition of Variables." For
instance, the threshold function T 25,12 (find if at least 12
pixels are at 1 in a square of 5×5) required 62 403 599
EO to be performed. With our method, it requires only 38 084
operations, using three memory cells.


Ambisyllabic consonants are thought to be shared between two syllables and form both a coda and an onset while not being notably longer than singleton consonants. This thesis attempts to determine whether these ambisyllabic consonants pattern durationally like onset, codas, or neither through a production experiment using nonce words. This not only provides evidence for how the words are actually syllabified, it also may give insight into why such consonants are perceived as being shared by two syllables by many speakers. A production experiment finds that "ambisyllabic" consonants pattern durationally like onsets. This strongly suggests that they are onsets and speaker intuition is based on something other than the syllabification.


If a weak tone precedes an intense tone, then the acoustic startle eyeblink reflex elicited by the stronger stimulus is inhibited. It has been suggested that the leading stimulus gives rise to a protective middle ear reflex that attenuates the effective intensity of the second. This hypothesis was tested and disproved. In seven subjects intense tone bursts sufficient to elicit both intratympanic and eyeblink responses were presented sometimes alone and sometimes preceded at various lead times (25 to 400 msec) by a weak tone. The weak tone inhibited the amplitude of the eye blink to the strong tone, maximally at intervals of 100 to 200 msec, but was never seen to produce any of the anticipatory impedance changes that would be characteristic of middle ear reflex activity during the interval between the two stimuli.


The article deals with the question about the place of Islam in the space of the Altai Mountains. Muslims visited this territory with the caravans coming from Central Asia or the Volga region. But Altai tribes were not interested in their religion, since archaic beliefs were strong. Besides, there were Manichean cloisters, representing powerful religious direction. The entry of this territory into the "zone of Islam" is connected both with political changes of a continental nature – the disappearance of the Dzungar Khanate, the confrontation between China and Russia, and the fate of the nomads – Altai and Kazakhs. The latter (who, having migrated to these lands, began to consider it "Ata Zhurt") were precisely the bearers of Islam, but with a "tinge" of the old archaic worldview. In addition, some Kazakhs converted to Orthodoxy, preserving their native language and culture. The author believes, that centuries later these features turned out to be a powerful anti-radical potential.


This research is aimed to describe: 1) What aspects of culture taught in Cross Cultural
Understanding Classroom and 2) What are the students' perceptions toward the cultural
aspect taught in Cross Cultural Understanding Classroom. The data of this study are collected
from documentation and questionnaire. From the documentation, the researcher analyzed the
syllabus and the textbook used in the classroom of Cross Cultural Understanding. Beside,
data from questionnaire used in order to find students' perception towards cultural aspects
taught in the classroom. The aspects of culture which analyzed by the researcher is divided
into 3 categories which is included the aspect of culture related to things and products owned
owned, cultural aspect related to attitudes and habits, cultural aspect related how to
communicate verbally and non-verbally. After analyzing the data from syllabus, textbook,
and questionnaire, concluded that From the result and finding that have been explained, we
may conclude that aspects of culture should be taught in Cross Cultural understanding (CCU)
class are: 1) Aspects of culture related to attitude and habits which I included: a) Institution
system, b) Family life, c) Meeting People, d) Goal of life, and d) Work custom 2) Aspects of
Culture Things and Products which is included a) Food b) Transportation c) Clothes 3)
Aspects of Culture Related to Language which is included verbal communication such as
word choice, intonation in speaking and non-verbal communication such as hand gesture,
facial expression, eyes contact. Moreover, students' perception toward the aspects of culture
that have been taught and have not been taught is positive proven by all of the percentage of
students' perception is in important and very important. Meanwhile, students' perception
toward the aspects of culture which have not been taught is some of them considered to be
important and some considered to be very important. In the aspects of culture related to
products or thing (transportation, food, and clothes considered to be important), while (art are
considered to be not important). Furthermore, in the aspects of culture related to attitude and
habits, men and women treatment and table manner considered being important while leisure
activity and humor considered being not important.


In order to correctly recognize the current state of equipment for preventing equipment farther degradation and occurrence of failure, a new method of equipment degradation state recognition based on wavelet correlation feature scale entropy(WCFSE) and hidden semi-Markov models (HSMM ) was proposed. Firstly, the gathered vibration signal of equipment was processed by the way of the wavelet transform correlation filter (WTCF), in order to get the high Signal-to-Noise scales wavelet coefficients, the conception of WCFSE was presented based on integration of information entropy theory and WTCF, and then constructed WCFSE eigenvectors of signal. Those WCFSE eigenvectors were inputted to the HSMM for training, running states classified model of equipment based on HSMM was constructed to recognize the equipment degradation states. A roller bearing was taken as an example and several states of roller with normal state and different fault severity states were recognized by the proposed method, Experiment results show that this proposed method is very effective.


El- Mex Bay is a relatively large coastal embayment west of Alexandria. The bay is an important fishery ground as well as recreation area. It includes both the Western Harbor and Dekhaila Harbor. It is one of heavily polluted areas on the Egyptian Mediterranean coast, receiving huge amount of agricultural, industrial, and sewage wastes from the adjacent Lake Mariut through El- Umoum Drain. According to different estimations in literatures the volume of the wastewaters varied between 7 × 10 6 and 8 × 10 6 m 3 day -1 , which is supposed to increase with the growing population density of Alexandria city. These conditions cause pronounced eutrophication and drastic changes. Eutrophication-related problems in El- Mex Bay of Alexandria were studied seasonally from autumn 2011 to autumn 2012. Geographical information system (GIS) and remote sensing techniques were used together with the ground-based surveys to assess the vulnerability of the most important physical and eutrophication parameters along El- Mex Bay coast. As a result of increasing population and industrial development, poorly untreated industrial waste, domestic sewage, shipping industry and agricultural runoff are being released to the bay. With the rapid increase in the industries and population, changes in water quality would have potential consequences for the large rapidly growing population of the Alexandria region. Recom-mendations for environmental recovery and restoration are proposed for preservation of El- Mex Bay and harbors in order to facilitate development of environmental and tourist activities. Key words: El- Mex Bay, recreation area, El- Umoum drain, geographical information system (GIS), remote sensing, eutrophication, and restoration.


1 Interdisciplinary Center for Quantum Information, State Key Laboratory of Modern Optical Instrumentation, ZJU-Hangzhou Global Scientific and Technological Innovation Center, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China 2 International Joint Innovation Center, Key Lab. of Advanced Micro/Nano Electronic Devices & Smart Systems of Zhejiang, The Electromagnetics Academy of Zhejiang University, Zhejiang University, Haining 314400, China 3 School of Physics and Innovation Institute, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China 4 Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117583, Singapore


We use Kriström's simple spike model to assess the factors influencing consumers' willingness to pay a premium for a variety of certified wood products. A survey of over 1,600 Pennsylvania and Tennessee residents found that approximately 35% were willing to pay some positive "premium" for environmentally certified wood products. For three types of wood products (a $28.80 shelf, a $199 chair, and a $799 table), we find the estimated market premiums to be $3.74, $15.94, and $45.07, respectively.


Analytical methodology is described for determining residues of the synthetic anabolic steroid trenbolone acetate (TBA) and its hydrolysis product trenbolone (TBOH) in admixture in animal chow, human urine, and wastewater. Benzene extracts of the substrates are subjected to liquid-liquid partitioning, further cleanup on a column of silica gel, and direct analysis by high pressure liquid chromotography or derivatization with pentafluoropropionic anhydride and analysis by electron capture gas chromatography. Satisfactory recoveries were obtained with both compounds from all three substrates. Residue levels of TBA and TBOH as low as 0.32 and 0.04 ppm, respectively, could be detected in chow; about 0.6 ppb of each compound could be detected in urine and wastewater. Thin layer chromatographic behavior of the two compounds in 7 solvent systems and other ancillary analytical data are also presented.


This paper proposes a novel transient stability assessment tool for networked microgrids based on neural Lyapunov methods. Assessing transient stability is formulated as a problem of estimating the dynamic security region of networked microgrids. We leverage neural networks to learn a local Lyapunov function in the state space. The largest security region is estimated based on the learned neural Lyapunov function, and it is used for characterizing disturbances that the networked microgrids can tolerate. The proposed method is tested and validated in a grid-connected microgrid, three networked microgrids with mixed interface dynamics, and the IEEE 123-node feeder. Case studies suggest that the proposed method can address networked microgrids with heterogeneous interface dynamics, and in comparison with conventional methods that are based on quadratic Lyapunov functions, can characterize the security regions with much less conservativeness.


Biochemically atypical strains classified as Vibrio cholerae were characterized by biochemical reactions, serology, antibiotic susceptibility testing, and deoxyribonucleic acid relatedness. Strains with the following atypical reactions were shown to be V. cholerae: mannose negative, mannitol negative, lysine decarboxylase negative, no growth in the presence of 5% NaCl, salicin and cellobiose positive. Sucrose-negative strains were shown to constitute a new species, Vibrio mimicus, whose type strain is 1721-77 (ATCC 33653). In addition to its negative sucrose reaction, V mimicus was differentiated from V. cholerae by its negative Voges-Proskauer, corn oil, and Jordan tartrate reactions and by its sensitivity to polymyxin. V. mimicus was isolated from shellfish and water, as well as from human diarrheal stools and ear infections. Most strains were typable with antisera against V. cholerae. Strains from three serogroups produced either a heat-labile or a heat-stable enterotoxin.


This exploratory study serves to investigate the perceptions of fast moving private label brands in the South African grocery food sector. Successful positioning of these brands has been achieved globally, most notably in developed markets. However, in a South African context this does not appear to be the case. To this end, research has been undertaken in order to better understand the current position these brands occupy in the minds of South African consumers. Included in the study is the consideration of critical branding elements such as trust, availability, pricing, packaging, etc. The knowledge gained through this research should ideally facilitate the process of advancing private label brand research in an academic context and improving brand positioning, increasing market share and optimizing profit extracted from private label brands in a managerial context.

 Key words: Private label, store brand, own label, supermarket, grocery, perceptions, South Africa.


Three dimensional structure of the first ninety two residues of histone like protein from Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Hlpmt) and histone of Clostridium pasteurianum (DBHclopa) are obtained here, on the basis of amino acid sequences of the two proteins, making use of secondary structure prediction programs, sequence search and HOMOLOGY based modeling tools available on Internet. The proteins were docked to a 35 base paired GC rich U bend DNA (U35DNA). Structures of proteins Hlpmt and DBHclopa; U35DNA; and complexes: Hlpmt-U35DNA and DBHclopa-U35DNA were optimized by molecular mechanics (MM) and simulated for 260 pico seconds (ps) in vacuum by molecular dynamics (MD) technique using AMBER 4.0 package with Cornell et al force field. The proteins, when simulated alone, showed compaction. DBHclopa showed larger compaction compared with Hlpmt. U35DNA when simulated alone straightened out and assumed a B-form. In the complexes, Hlpmt showed same order of compaction as in absence of DNA, while DBHclopa showed reduced compaction. In the presence of Hlpmt two ends of helicoidal axis of U35DNA came closer, but slightly out of plane, indicative of its role in overwinding and packaging double stranded DNA. DBHclopa did not give rise to DNA overwinding. The results show architectural role of Hlpmt and DBHclopa in DNA packaging and its sequence dependence.


Military and intelligence services use different types of energy weapons. Application of these energy weapons falls in wide range including, synthetic telepathy, modifying military personnel mode and behavior in their or enemy troops. The behavior changes could be inducing fear and anxiety in enemy troops by weapon mounted in helicopter, air planes, installed on ground or on satellites rotating earth. Inducing modes such has increasing brevity or self-confidence for their own troops during wars can be their goals too. All of them are done by sending ULF signals to skull and body to manipulate neural system according to their objective. Brain enclosed in skull which contains calcite minerals especially with crystals by high resonance potential in ears section. They can use voice to skull technology from far distance to communicate between military personnel by synthetic telepathy. Brain itself can produce lots of electrical signals which can be seen in EEG test of brain. By resonating skull, ear bones and agitating body neural system and changing brain natural electrical frequency they can even induce synthetic dreams or nightmare in targeted personals for mind control purpose by programming the individual for upcoming day. Apart from these energy weapons they developed other types which I call them Super weapons and can be used for triggering earthquakes, erupting volcanoes, triggering landslide, and sinkhole or snow avalanches. Also they can resonate structures mainly built with concrete which contains resonant sand and gravel crystals inside the concrete and finally collapse concrete building by fracturing it. Most important task here is obtaining building collapse resonance frequency considering applied steel bars in them to collapse individual building. Main focus of this paper is about application of super weapons for Earth disasters induced by superweapons.


The use of electron beams for the direct pumping of lasers for fusion applications requires the generation of large area beams in appropriate geometries. Two geometries which are of particular interest are rectangular electron beams with planar anodes and radially converging beams with cylindrical anodes. The generation of such beams requires the management of electron trajectories in a complex combination of applied and self-generated electric and magnetic fields. The beam's self-electric field limits the emitted current, and the deflection of the electron in the self-magnetic field (beam pinch) limits the beam area that can be generated from a single cathode. A simple analytic model is used to derive a scaling relationship for beam pinch in both geometries of the form V1/2 w/d = α, where V is the diode voltage, w the beam width, d the anode-cathode spacing, and α is a weak function of the geometry. Numerical calculations are presented to show the effects of nonuniform electric fields encountered in typical geometries together with supporting experimental measurements.


People with cryoglobulinaemic vasculitis (CV) have an increased risk of infections, attributed to different causes: impairment of the immune system due to the disease itself, comorbidities, and immunosuppressive therapy. Therefore, these patients may be at high risk for a more severe course of COVID-19, including hospitalisation and death. Concerns about efficacy, immunogenicity and safety of vaccines, as well as doubts, not yet fully clarified in patients with systemic autoimmune diseases, represent other important factors for a low vaccination rate in people with (CV). Indeed, providing an expert position on the issues related to SARS-CoV-2 vaccination in patients suffering from CV is of critical relevance in order to help both patients and clinicians who are treating them in making the best choice in each case. A multidisciplinary task force of the Italian Group for the Study of Cryoglobulinaemia (GISC) was convened, and through a Delphi technique produced provisional recommendations regarding SARS-CoV-2 vaccination in cryoglobulinaemic patients.


Fingertips of human hand play an important role in hand-based interaction with computers. Identification of fingertips' positions in hand images is vital for developing a human computer interaction system. This paper proposes a novel method for detecting fingertips of a hand image analyzing the concept of the geometrical structural information of fingers. The research is divided into three parts: First, hand image is segmented for detecting hand, Second, invariant features (curvature zero-crossing points) are extracted from the boundary of the hand, Third, fingertips are detected. Experimental results show that the proposed approach is promising.


IN THE SECTION on Dermatology of the American Medical Association (AMA), we try to have a diversified program. Papers are accepted which deal with new drug evaluations, and it is always hoped that these are controlled studies. New or improved treatment approaches will be given a place on the program. An attempt is made to appeal to clinicians as well as basic science investigators in the field of dermatology. A rather large number of papers are reviewed and it is our purpose to try to judge these on quality as best possible. We also endeavor not to overbalance the program with a single individual or institution. National geographic distribution is taken into consideration with all papers. The section feels that this meeting gives another opportunity for the relatively unknown individual to present his work for review.


It has been found out, that under exposure to atmospheric discharge from chemical and oil-chemical enterprises school-age, children shown disorganization of the activity of nicotineamidadenindinucleotidediaphorase, cytochrome oxidase, acid and alkaline phosphatase in leucocytes, damage of lysosomal membranes of these cells, changes in erythrocytic system and in blood coagulation, shifts in total body sizes and subskin fat deposition in certain age-sex groups, disturbance in the structure of correlational interrelations of enzymocytochemical, hematological and anthropometric + indices etc. The observed deviations in school-age children health status are considered to be prepathological disturbances.


The effects of the arginine modifying reagent phenylglyoxal (PGO) on solute transport was studied in two cellular systems: protoplasts isolated from the mesophyll of Vicia faba L. and XD cell suspension culture of Nicotiana tabacum L. cv. Xanthi. The solutes in the case of the protoplasts were the non-metabolizable glucose analog 3-O-methyl-D-glucose (MeG), and a non-metabolizable amino acid analog α-aminoisobutyric acid (AIB), whereas the solutes for the cell suspension were AIB and nitrate. Solute transport in both systems was rapidly inhibited by PGO. Exposure of the protoplasts to light enhanced the initial rate of MeG uptake. PGO rapidly inhibited MeG uptake in both the light and the dark, the half-time for inactivation being less than 3 min. Flux analysis of double-labeled MeG showed that initial MeG uptake was mediated mainly by the plasma membrane transport system and that it was inhibited by PGO. Maximal inhibition of initial MeG uptake rate was observed at PGO concentrations of 1 mM and above. PGO treatment altered rapidly the equilibrium distribution of the ΔpH probe dimethyloxazolidine (DMO) in both cellular systems, indicating dissipation of ΔpH between cell and medium. In the protoplasts, PGO inhibited both DMO and MeG uptake at pH 5.5; however, at pH 7.0, where ΔpH is minimal, only MeG uptake was inhibited. Our results suggest that PGO has two effects on glucose uptake: an indirect effect through ΔpH dissipation and a direct effect through interaction with essential arginyl residues in the glucose transporter.


This article describes a method used to provide mathematics students in colleges of engineering in Japan with supplementary exercises to aid in their learning. The impact of this effort is also described. An online support function enables instructional personnel to individualize the exercise for students whose abilities vary widely. Individualizing exercises helps students to understand a mathematical method used to solve a problem and also the mathematical idea or concept upon which the method is based. The program described here consists of activities that supplement those in the regular lesson. They are designed to help those students who failed to meet certain course objectives or to solve the problems given in the lesson. Students using the individualized program are allowed to select the problems from among the problem exercises available based on the course objectives that they have not yet satisfied. The online support function of the learning environment that the authors developed assists teachi...


Recent scaling up of POMDP solvers towards realistic applications is largely due to point-based methods which quickly converge to an approximate solution formedium-sized problems. Of this family HSVI, which uses trial-based asynchronous value iteration, can handle the largest domains. In this paper we suggest a new algorithm, FSVI, that uses the underlying MDP to traverse the belief space towards rewards, finding sequences of useful backups, and show how it scales up better than HSVI on larger benchmarks.


Body positions that minimize aspiration include the reclining position, chin down, head rotation, side inclination, the recumbent position, and combinations of these. Patients with severe dysphagia often use a 30° reclining position. But in reality, the patient must be more than 60° higher than a supine position in order to eat without assistance. There are 3 types of "chin down" positions: head flexion, neck flexion, and compound flexion (head flexion neck flexion). Patients whose pharynx are more paralyzed on either side can turn their head toward the paralyzed side to narrow the piriform fossa on the paralyzed side or use the force of gravity from a side-lying or recumbent position to guide a food bolus to the non-paralyzed side. Training methods include cervical range of motion exercises, thermal-tactile stimulation, supraglottic swallow, the Mendelsohn maneuver, head raising exercises, balloon training, respiratory physiotherapy, training for activities of daily living, and physical strength training. There is no one best body position or training method that is effective for all patients, so it is crucial that effectiveness be confirmed before use.


Traditional plant breeding has boosted yields of popular crops considerably, but the gains have stagnated at less than 1% per year because plant growth is now limited by the efficiency of photosynthesis itself. Researchers have contemplated streamlining an aspect of photosynthesis called photoprotection, in which plants guard themselves from bright light at the cost of reducing photosynthesis in the shade. Now, plant biologists have cleverly manipulated plants to adjust more quickly to shade. These genetically engineered tobacco plants had up to 20% more biomass. The big question is whether similar manipulations in food crops will mean more consumable yield. Boosting photosynthesis could help researchers answer critics of plant biotechnology who note that genetically modified plants have not boosted harvests.


A number of studies have indicated that Self-Affirmation (SA) manipulation plays a role in decreasing an attention bias toward threatening information, especially when there is a threat to the self. Despite this, to date no studies have investigated if SA can mitigate the attention bias toward socially threatening stimuli that is exhibited in individuals high in social anxiety. The aim of the current study is to explore the possible moderating effects of SA manipulation on the attention bias in individuals with high social anxiety. 150 participants completed the study, 8 of which were excluded based upon poor accuracy on the emotional Stroop task. This left a sample of data from 142 participants (aged 18-71 years, M=26.66, SD=l0.94). Participants were required to complete a number of measures online, including the Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale (Leary,1983) and the Beck Depression Inventory- 2nd edition (Beck, Steer & Brown, 1996) as well as undergo a SA manipulation or control condition similar to that used in previous SA studies (Armitage, Harris and Arden, 2011). The independent variables were social anxiety group (high, low) and experimental condition (SA manipulation, control). The dependent variable was emotional interference score as identified by latency times to identify print colour for social threat and control words presented in an emotional Stroop task. A 2 by 2 (Social anxiety: high, low; experimental condition: SA, control; covariate: depression score) ANCOV A was run on the data and revealed no significant main effects for social anxiety group or experimental condition (p>.05). The social anxiety group x experimental condition interaction was also not significant (p>.05). Unfortunately, the aim of the study could not be tested due to no significant differences in emotional interference scores between those high and low in social anxiety. This raises questions about the presence of an attention bias toward socially threatening words by individuals high in social anxiety in an online environment.


. We introduce new finite-dimensional spaces specifically designed to approximate the solutions to high-frequency Helmholtz problems with smooth variable coefficients in dimension d . These discretization spaces are spanned by Gaussian coherent states, that have the key property to be localised in phase space. We carefully select the Gaussian coherent states spanning the approximation space by exploiting the (known) micro-localisation properties of the solution. For a large class of source terms (including plane-wave scattering problems), this choice leads to discrete spaces that provide a uniform approximation error for all wavenumber k with a number of degrees of freedom scaling as k d − 1 / 2 , which we rigorously establish. In comparison, for discretization spaces based on (piecewise) polynomials, the number of degrees of freedom has to scale at least as k d to achieve the same property. These theoretical results are illustrated by one-dimensional numerical examples, where the proposed discretization spaces are coupled with a least-squares variational formulation.


1. Seven patients who had suffered unilateral leg fracture were studied after removal of immobilizing plaster casts. 2. Leg volume measured anthropometrically was reduced by 12% in the injured leg (5-68 +/- 1-05 litres) compared with the uninjured (6-43 +/- 0-87 litres). Associated with this loss was a similar reduction in the net maximum oxygen uptake achieved in one-leg cycling, from 1-89 +/- 0-21 1/min in the uninjured leg to 1-57 +/- 0-18 1/min in the injured. 3. Measured by a percutaneous needle biopsy technique, a reduction of 42% was found in the cross-sectional area of the muscle fibres sampled from the vastus lateralis of the injured compared with the uninjured leg. 4. Staining for myosin adenosine triphosphatase activity showed that both type I and II fibres were affected, being reduced respectively from 3410 to 1840 micronm2 and from 3810 to 2390 micronm2 cross-sectional area. 5. Possible reasons and implications are discussed for the discrepancy between the magnitude of the difference observed in the gross measurement of leg function (maximum oxygen uptake) and structure (leg volume) as compared with the cellular level (cross-sectional fibre area).


Many downstream applications are using dependency trees, and are thus relying on dependency parsers producing correct, or at least consistent, output. However, dependency parsers are trained using machine learning, and are therefore susceptible to unwanted inconsistencies due to biases in the training data. This paper explores the effects of such biases in four languages - English, Swedish, Russian, and Ukrainian - though an experiment where we study the effect of replacing numerals in sentences. We show that such seemingly insignificant changes in the input can cause large differences in the output, and suggest that data augmentation can remedy the problems.


The life of severely burned patients nowadays is endangered especially by infections and septic complications deriving from the wounds. This danger can be obviated only by early excision of all deep necrotic areas and immediate wound closure, ideally with autografts. The correct estimation of the depth of burn is decisive for effective local surgical therapy, which is guided mainly by visible criteria. Conservative treatment is employed for first-degree and superficial second-degree burns, while operative therapy is needed for deep second-degree and third-degree burns. The required immediate wound closure with autografts is problematic after necrectomy of burns larger than 40% TBSA. To extend the limited skin reserves, autografts are meshed or combined with homografts. Defects can be covered temporarily with vital or non-vital homografts until donor sites for split-thickness skin grafts are healed. Cultured epithelial autografts at present are not suitable for routine use. After deep burns, no matter what kind of operative treatment is used, scars are left. The scars raise difficulties with regard to aesthetics and function. Permanent pressure in the early stages of aftercare is an effective method of accelerating the maturation of scars and improving their appearance.


Summary In the article, we continue the formalization of the work devoted to Tarski's geometry - the book "Metamathematische Methoden in der Geometrie" by W. Schwabhäuser, W. Szmielew, and A. Tarski. After we prepared some introductory formal framework in our two previous Mizar articles, we focus on the regular translation of underlying items faithfully following the abovementioned book (our encoding covers first seven chapters). Our development utilizes also other formalization efforts of the same topic, e.g. Isabelle/HOL by Makarios, Metamath or even proof objects obtained directly from Prover9. In addition, using the native Mizar constructions (cluster registrations) the propositions ("Satz") are reformulated under weaker conditions, i.e. by using fewer axioms or by proposing an alternative version that uses just another axioms (ex. Satz 2.1 or Satz 2.2).


This study was performed to investigate the surface properties and cell toxicity of the anodized and hydrothermally treated Ti, Ti-6Al-4V alloy and Ti-6Al-7Nb alloy. Bioactivity was evaluated from the surface activation layers formed on the surface of specimens in simulated body fluid (SBF) for a period of 30 days. Cell toxicity was evaluated based on the optical density of the survival cell. The porous oxide films were formed on all of the specimens by anodic oxidation. The oxide films of Ti were composed of strong anatase peaks without rutile peaks, Ti-6Al4V alloy was composed of weak anatase peaks and weak rutile peaks and Ti-6Al-7Nb alloy was composed of strong anatase peaks and weak rutile peaks. The oxide films of all of the specimens exhibited an increase in the intensity of anatase peaks after hydrothermal treatment. The surface activation layers were formed only on the oxide films of Ti-6Al-7Nb alloy, also this alloy presented a significantly higher optical density than Ti and Ti-6Al-4V alloy on the MTT assay for cell toxicity evaluation. [doi:10.2320/matertrans.47.2033]


Recurrent Clostridium difficile disease (CDD) is a difficult clinical problem because antibiotic therapy often does not prevent further recurrences. In a previous study, the biotherapeutic agent Saccharomyces boulardii was used in combination with standard antibiotics and was found to be effective in reducing subsequent recurrences of CDD. In an effort to further refine a standard regimen, we tested patients receiving a regimen of a standard antibiotic for 10 days and then added either S. boulardii (1 g/day for 28 days) or placebo. A significant decrease in recurrences was observed only in patients treated with high-dose vancomycin (2 g/day) and S. boulardii (16.7%), compared with those who received high-dose vancomycin and placebo (50%; P=.05). No serious adverse reactions were observed in these patients. Comparison of data from this trial with data from previous studies indicates that recurrent CDD may respond to a short course of high-dose vancomycin or to longer courses of low-dose vancomycin when either is combined with S. boulardii.


Software radio terminals must be able to process many various communications standards. These standards are generally based on different master clock rates and thus employ different bit/chip rates. The most obvious solution to cope with the diversity of master clock rates in one terminal is to provide a dedicated master clock for each standard of operation. Not only too costly, this kind of solution limits the applicability of a realized terminal. Hence, it is much more elegant to run the terminal on a fixed clock rate, and perform digital sample rate conversion controlled by software.


CDMA2000 1/spl times/EV-DV has been proposed as one of the global standards of third-generation (3G) networks, which adopts TDM/CDM and adaptive modulation and coding (AMC) techniques to enhance the data rate. The current CDMA2000 1/spl times/EV-DV standard specifies all possible combinations of system parameters, but there is no any further specification in the standard on how to dynamically change the system parameters to support the quality-of-service (QoS) requirements imposed by the upper-layer applications. In the meantime, one of the major deficiencies of previous research work done in this area is that they all are based on the channel models of physical layer such as Rayleigh model, which is unable to capture the link-layer QoS parameters such as queueing delay. Since the dynamic resource allocation usually resides in the data link layer, a wireless channel model at the link layer would be desirable to handle the QoS requirements. In this paper, we develop a dynamic resource allocation scheme using the effective capacity link model to support delay-bounded multimedia services in CDMA2000 1/spl times/EV-DV networks. Extensive simulations have been set up and the simulation results show that the proposed dynamic resource allocation scheme significantly improves the delay and throughput performance for all types of application traffic with various QoS requirements.


n this study, it was aimed to examine the compliance of nurses with isolation precautions during the COVID-19 pandemic. A descriptive and cross-sectional study design was used. The data were collected in a university hospital between April 21 and August 1, 2020, using the "Personal Information Form" and the "Scale Compliance with Isolation Precautions" by electronic questionnaire (Google form). 109 nurses (62.4% in the 18-29 age group, 67% female, 75.2% bachelor's degree, and 37.6% of them have a professional working period of 5-9 years) participated in the study. It was determined that the total mean score of the nurses' compliance with isolation precautions was 80.31±13.14. There was no statistically significant difference between nurses' scale total score averages and age, gender, previous use of isolation methods, compliance with isolation precautions, and their characteristics for the COVID-19 pandemic (The situation of receiving training on COVID-19 before starting to work in the relevant unit, following the developments regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, and having problems in applying isolation precautions while providing care to the COVID-19 patient) (p>0.05). However, it was found that the difference between the education level and the duration of working in the profession and the total score averages on the scale was statistically significant (p<0.05). Conclusion: It was determined that the level of compliance of nurses with isolation precautions was high in the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it was seen that the characteristics of the nurses for the COVID-19 pandemic and the level of compliance with the isolation precautions were not related.


We describe a liveborn infant with uniparental disomy (UPD) with trisomy 15 mosaicism. Third trimester amniocentesis yielded a 46,XX/47,XX,+15 karyotype. Symmetrical growth retardation, distinct craniofacies, congenital heart disease, severe hypotonia and minor skeletal anomalies were noted. The infant died at 6 weeks of life. Peripheral lymphocyte chromosomes were "normal" 46,XX in 100 cells. Parental lymphocyte chromosomes were normal. Skin biopsy showed 47,XX,+15 in 80% of fibroblasts and results were equivalent in fibroblasts from autopsy lung tissue. Molecular analysis revealed maternal uniparental heterodisomy for chromosome 15 in the 46,XX cell line. We describe an emerging phenotype of trisomy 15 mosaicism, confirm that more than one tissue should be studied in all cases of suspected mosaicism, and suggest that UPD be considered in all such cases.


Occupational therapists need a brief tool to identify the potential for functional cognitive deficits leading to impaired occupational performance. The objective is to establish the sensitivity and specificity, concurrent and known-group validity of the Menu Task by comparison with performance on the Weekly Calendar Planning Activity (WCPA). Using a cross-sectional design, we administered the Menu Task and the WCPA to a community-dwelling convenience sample of 287 adults aged from 55 to 93 years. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis estimated sensitivity and specificity. Concurrent and known-group construct validity was examined by comparing scores on the Menu Task with the WCPA scores. As a result, a new cutoff score of 9 was established for the Menu Task (area under the curve [AUC] = 0.80, sensitivity = 0.89, 95% confidence interval [CI] = [0.73, 0.97]; specificity = 0.58, 95% CI = [0.52, 0.64]). Both concurrent and construct validity were supported. The Menu Task demonstrates sensitivity to functional cognitive impairments in a community sample.


A certain class of new physics models includes long-lived particles which are singlet under the Standard Model (SM) gauge group.A displaced vertex is a spectacular signature to probe such particles productions at the high energy colliders, with a negligible SM background. In the context of the minimal gauged $B-L$ extended SM, we consider a pair creation of Majorana right-handed neutrinos (RHNs) at the high energy colliders through the production of the SM and the $B-L$ Higgs bosons and their subsequent decays into RHNs. With parameters reproducing the neutrino oscillation data, we show that the RHNs are long-lived and their displaced vertex signature can be observed at the next generation displaced vertex search experiments, such as the HL-LHC, the MATHUSLA, the LHeC, and the FCC-eh.We find that the lifetime of the RHNs is controlled by the lightest light neutrino mass, which leads to a correlation between the displaced vertex search and the search limit of the future neutrinoless double beta-decay experiments.


Honey bees, bumble bees, and stingless bees have related gut microbial communities that are shaped by host evolutionary history. The highly social (eusocial) corbiculate bees, comprising the honey bees, bumble bees, and stingless bees, are ubiquitous insect pollinators that fulfill critical roles in ecosystem services and human agriculture. Here, we conduct wide sampling across the phylogeny of these corbiculate bees and reveal a dynamic evolutionary history behind their microbiota, marked by multiple gains and losses of gut associates, the presence of generalist as well as host-specific strains, and patterns of diversification driven, in part, by host ecology (for example, colony size). Across four continents, we found that different host species have distinct gut communities, largely independent of geography or sympatry. Nonetheless, their microbiota has a shared heritage: The emergence of the eusocial corbiculate bees from solitary ancestors appears to coincide with the acquisition of five core gut bacterial lineages, supporting the hypothesis that host sociality facilitates the development and maintenance of specialized microbiomes.


Abstract : 2-D Fourier transforming acoustooptic signal processors, for simultaneous direction finding (DF) and spectrum analysis of radar signals over a wide instantaneous bandwidth, are shown to be useful for Radar Electronics Support Measures (ESM) applications. A comprehensive treatment on the analysis and design of two general 2-D acoustooptic architectures is provided. In one architecture, a linear antenna array is employed, and in the other a novel circular antenna array with a Butler matrix beamformer is used. Emphasis is placed on the DF characteristics of both architectures. The effects of scaling factor, acoustic transducer height, Gaussian laser illumination profile, RF input noise, amplitude and phase tracking errors on the DOA pattern produced by each architecture are addressed. Design criteria and comparison between the two architectures are also provided.


We study how the COVID-19 pandemic, alongside the severe mobility restrictions that ensued, has impacted information access on Wikipedia, the world's largest online encyclopedia. A longitudinal analysis that combines pageview statistics for 12 Wikipedia language editions with mobility reports published by Apple and Google reveals massive shifts in the volume and the nature of information seeking patterns amidst the pandemic. Interestingly, while we observe a transient increase in Wikipedia's pageviews volume following mobility restrictions, the nature of what people seek for was impacted in the long run. These changes are most pronounced for language editions associated with countries in which the most severe mobility restrictions were implemented. We also find that articles belonging to different topics behaved differently, e.g., attention towards entertainment-related topics is lingering and even increasing, while the interest in health- and biology-related topics was either unsubstantial or transient. Our results highlight the utility of Wikipedia to study how the pandemic changed information seeking behavior regarding shifting needs, interests, and concerns.


This report discusses the employment effects of Michigan's auto industry shifting from internal combustion engine vehicle manufacturing to electric vehicle manufacturing, with a focus on supporting a just transition for workers and communities. Using economic modeling from 2024 to 2040, the report highlights the importance of Michigan seizing the opportunities electrification presents. Additionally, it presents policy recommendations to help Michigan attract and retain good jobs, support workers and ensure local communities benefit from the transition.