Biomechanical models of the spine have traditionally assumed that workplace lifting conditions (weight, posture, motion, etc.) precisely dictate the magnitude of individual muscle forces necessary to maintain a biomechanical balance within the trunk. However, because there are a large number of muscle groups within the trunk there is also an infinite number of possible combinations of muscle forces that can satisfy this biomechanical balance requirement for a given condition. Currently there are no methods available to predict this possible variability in muscle activity. Such variability in a multiple muscle system can result in variations in spinal loading. To quantitatively capture this trunk muscle variability during bending motions, such as those involved in lifting, a stochastic (probabilistic) model of trunk muscle activation was developed. The model was based on a simulation of experimentally derived data and predicted the possible combinations of time-dependent trunk muscle coactivations that could be expected given a set of trunk bending conditions. These simulated muscle activities were then used as input to an electromyographically assisted biomechanical model so that the magnitude and variability of the spine reaction forces could be estimated. This procedure allows one to assess the range of spinal loads that would be expected with a particular task. Significant variability in muscle activities was observed for each specific lifting condition and explained biomechanically. The results indicated that the variability in trunk muscle force had a small effect on spinal compression variability (+/- 7% of the mean compression), but greatly influenced both lateral (+/- 90% of mean) and anteroposterior shear forces (+/- 40% of mean). A validation study confirmed that the model predictions were reasonable estimates of muscle activity variability under previously untested conditions. This work could help explain how some repetitive lifting motions could increase the risk of acquiring a low back disorder and the simulation model could help drive electromyographically assisted models without the need for recording actual electromyographic activity.


The isomorphous title compounds, [Tr(S4O6)(C12H12N2)2]·2C3H7NO (Tr = Cd(II) and Zn(II)), consist of metal centres to which one tetrathionate and two 4,4'-dimethyl-2,2'-bipyridine chelating ligands bind. The structures are completed by two symmetry-related dimethylformamide solvent molecules. Each metal-centred complex is bisected by a twofold axis running through the metal centre and halving the chelating tetrathionate dianion through the central S-S bond. The ancillary symmetry-related 4,4'-dimethyl-2,2'-bipyridine ligands act as chelates. This results in a distorted six-coordinate geometry, with similar Tr-O/N distances but central angles differing substantially from 90 and 180°. Both ligands are basically featureless from a geometric point of view, with torsion angles in both coordinated tetrathionate groups suggesting a trend linking metal size (covalent radius) and ligand `openness'. Packing is directed by (C-H)aromatic···O bridges and π-π offset stacked interactions defining chains along [001], further linked by weaker (C-H)methyl···O bridges, some of them mediated by the dimethylformamide solvent molecules.


Managing personal meetings and events is a complicated task. It becomes more problematic when a person has numerous meetings or events in their schedule. One of the challenges of managing meetings is to find a proper meeting time when a conflict occurs. This paper presents negotiation strategies for an agent-based meeting scheduling system to automatically solve meeting conflicts. These relieve the user from having to find free meeting times manually. The agent will utilize these negotiation strategies to find an acceptable time slot that best fits the constraints and preferences for its user. A prototype is implemented and demonstrated


In this work, we demonstrate the the enhancement of two type hybrid QD dual-junction solar cell. The green QD520 sample, shows better performance than blue QD450 sample in current density and power conversion efficiency. The enhancement of short-circuit current and power conversion efficiency for green QD450 sample are 4.43% and 3.77% and the blue QD520 samples are 9.44% and 5.78%. For short wavelength, the enhancement can mainly be attributed to the photon downshift effect and antireflection, for long wavelength, it only the antireflection effect.


The impact of winter cover crops prior to no-tillage corn on aggregate stability was evaluated throughout the agricultural year of May 1991 - May 1992, in a Hapludalf (Red-Yellow Podzolic). The experiment was carried out at the Federal University of Santa Maria-RS, using the following winter cover crops as treatments: Lathyrus (Lathyrus sativus L.); Lupine (Lupinus angustifolius L.); hairy vetch (Vicia sativa L.); black oat (Avena strigosa Schieb) and winter bare soil. Water aggregate stability, organic carbon, microbial activity, soil moisture and soil cover were measured monthly from the start of the winter cover crop seeding until corn harvesting. For each plot, composed samples at 0 to 5 cm depth were used in duplicate to measure aggregate stability and in five replications to measure microbial activity and soil moisture. The winter cover crops induced a temporal variation of aggregate stability throughout the measured period. Black oat induced higher aggregate stability throughout winter or cover crops growing season and lupine induced higher values during summer months or corn growing season. These were attributed to oat root system and to decomposition rate of lupine straw imposing favorable conditions for aggregation effected by roots, soil cover, organic carbon addition and conservation of soil moisture favoring soil microorganism action. These effects certainly induced formation and conservation of soil aggregates.


The synthesis and characterization of novel palladium complexes bearing N-heterocyclic carbenes (NHCs) and 1,4,7-triaza-9-phosphatricyclo[184.108.40.206]tridecane (CAP) are reported. These organometallic complexes can be easily obtained using two different synthetic strategies that involve either the substitution of the pyridine ligand from trans-[Pd(NHC)(Py)Cl2] or by simple addition of the CAP ligand to dimeric species [Pd(NHC)Cl2]2. The mixed NHC/CAP complexes were tested as pre-catalysts in the Buchwald-Hartwig aryl amination coupling, showing good catalytic activity, especially in the case of cis-[Pd(IPr)(CAP)Cl2].


The fundamental promise of imaging spectroscopy is to provide surface mineralogy based on remotely-acquired, gridded reflectance spectra of comparable quality to those from high resolution laboratory and field spectrometers. For regulatory and environmental monitoring, validating imaging spectrometer data is a major issue with this emerging technology. In this paper we validate 1997 Airborne Visible-Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) reflectance spectra covering 0.4 mu m-2.4 mu m at a stable, flat, manmade target at Ray Mine, Arizona, for EPA/NASA assessment of the utility of remote sensing for monitoring acid drainage from an active open pit copper mine. For validation, we a) compare qualitatively, laboratory and field reflectance spectra with corresponding AVIRIS spectra; b) compare quantitatively, mineralogically diagnostic statistics from field spectra with the same statistics from field spectra with the same statistics from AVIRIS spectra; and c) demonstrate a methodology for validating imaging spectrometer data for environmental applications.


Integral floating display is a recently proposed three-dimensional (3D) display method which provides a dynamic 3D image in the vicinity to an observer. It has a viewing window only through which correct 3D images can be observed. However, the positional difference between the viewing window and the floating image causes limited viewing zone in integral floating system. In this paper, we provide the principle and experimental results of the location adjustment of the viewing window of the integral floating display system by modifying the elemental image region for integral imaging. We explain the characteristics of the viewing window and propose how to move the viewing window to maximize the viewing zone.


Although both Siganus luridus and Siganus rivulatus have been reported from the Maltese Islands in the literature, and on internet sites and databases, there do not seem to be any specific records of S. rivulatus from these islands. In order to address the question whether both or only one of these alien siganids occur in the Maltese Islands, all records of siganids collected or photographed in Maltese waters were evaluated. Thirteen records comprising at least 33 specimens supported by photographs or specimens and 25 records of 48 individual rabbitfish identified in the field were all S. luridus . This suggests that S. rivulatus does not occur in Maltese waters.


Education is a public good, indispensable and irreplaceable, a right of everyone and a duty of the State. It is the duty of the State to create and offer effective conditions to achieve this, with the essential and appropriate amplitude, quality and sustainability. As a public good, education must be of quality. This is the basis of discussion about democratization and affirmative policies. In turn, democratization and affirmative policies of higher education, as part of a much wider move- ment, impose the discussion of a concept of social quality, related to relevance, in opposition to scientific concepts and definitions committed to market. An educational institution is committed to the strengthening of democracy and must practice daily the contents and forms of democratic life. The limits of the public and private realms are not very precise and there is no established consensus about their consequences in higher education. Therefore it is necessary that they be discussed. In a special way, it is important to examine the limits and impacts of inclusion in higher education of traditionally excluded groups, due to very few possibilities of choice of programs with high social and economic value, as well as conditions of permanence, conclusion with quality and good employment prospects. The inclusion of these groups is accompanied by feelings of gains and losses. It serves an essential social function of including contingents of people traditionally excluded, but also it can be contaminated by a phenomenon that can be named "exclusion into" the education system. Some of the main conclusion of this text is to affirm that democratization


This paper is a country case study for the Universal Health Coverage Collection, organized by WHO. Gemini Mtei and colleagues illustrate progress towards UHC and its monitoring and evaluation in Tanzania. Please see later in the article for the Editors' Summary


In this paper, the influence of large shareholders on earnings management in family-owned firms is analyzed using a sample of firms from nine European countries. How contests for control for the largest shareholder and the existence of a controlling coalition in family-owned firms affect earnings management is considered. It was found that increases in the contestability of control by the largest shareholder reduce earnings management in family-owned firms. The results also show that in firms in which the largest shareholder is a family member, a second or third family shareholder increases discretionary accruals.


Examines the changing role of popular politics in the early republic During the mid-1790s, citizens of the newly formed United States became embroiled in a divisive debate over a proposed commercial treaty with Great Britain. Long regarded as a pivotal event in the history of the early republic, the controversy pitted protreaty Federalists against anti-treaty Jeffersonian Republicans. Yet as Todd Estes argues in this perceptive study, the year-long debate over the ratification of the Jay Treaty represented more than a clash over foreign policy between two nascent political parties. It also marked a significant milestone in the role played by public opinion in the young nation's political culture. Drawing evidence from a broad range of sources - petitions and newspaper polemics, crowd gatherings, as well as rhetorical exchanges on the floor of Congress - Estes shows how both sides in the Jay Treaty debate mounted extensive and unprecedented campaigns to marshal popular support for their positions. Although many Americans initially opposed the treaty, the Federalists proved particularly skillful at courting the public and eventually prevailed over their opponents, just as they had won earlier battles over neutrality, democratic societies, and the Whiskey Rebellion. But the Republicans, Estes points out, learned from the experience, and in the long run they would become even more adept than the Federalists at shaping public opinion. Even at the time, amid the fierce political rhetoric and colorful street demonstrations that characterized the Jay Treaty debate, participants recognized that important changes were taking place. Not only did the dispute solidify party allegiances, it also legitimized and advanced popular involvement in the political process. While some welcomed the emergence of this new, more democratic political culture, Estes concludes, others were much more ambivalent.


100 samples of recycle solvent were obtained from continuous opera-tion (50 days) of 1 ton/day coal liquefaction plant at Kimitsu. Phenanthrene and anthracene derivatives in the recycle solvents were analyzed in detail by the technique of selective ion measurement GC/MS. According to the replacement of the initial solvent by coal-derived products, the amounts of phenanthrene derivatives decreased remark-ably, while those of anthracene derivatives decreased slightly. For phenanthrene deriv-atives, octahydrophenanthrenes play an important role as hydrogen donors by releasing eight hydrogen atoms in the recycle solvent, on the other hand for anthracene deriva-tives, tetrahydroanthracene plays an important role by releasing four hydrogen atoms. This results indicate that hydrogen donatable ability of phenanthrene derivatives is twice as large as the ability of anthracene derivatives.


ABSTRACT Objectives: to investigate the impact of age, motor dysfunction and neuropsychiatric symptoms on the quality of life of people with multiple sclerosis in comparison to healthy peers. Methods: a total of 141 participants were tested in a single session. The assessments were composed by general questionnaires applied in both groups and by specific instruments restricted to multiple sclerosis. Multiple regression models were applied to assess relationships between predictors and outcome. Results: age, motor dysfunction and neuropsychiatric symptoms explained 56.6% of quality of life of the multiple sclerosis group. Age and neuropsychiatric symptoms explained 36.6% of quality of life in the control group. Age impacted more the multiple sclerosis group than the control group. Neuropsychiatric symptoms affected both groups similarly. Motor dysfunction impacted 21.9% of the quality of life in multiple sclerosis. Conclusions: the predictors explained considerable variance of quality of life in multiple sclerosis, which should guide public health policies.


PTP1C, an SH2 domain-containing protein-tyrosine phosphatase, is predominantly expressed in hematopoietic cells, in which it negatively regulates cellular signaling. However, this enzyme is also expressed in many non-hematopoietic cells. We demonstrate here that in non-hematopoietic 293 cells, overexpression of a catalytically inactive mutant of PTP1C strongly suppressed the stimulatory effects of the epidermal growth factor or serum on cell proliferation, early gene transcription, and DNA synthesis. Similarly, the phosphorylation of the mitogen-activated protein kinase and mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase activity was markedly inhibited by overexpression of mutant PTP1C. The inhibitory effect of mutant PTP1C was overcome by cotransfection with wild-type PTP1C, but not with the structurally related PTP2C. Furthermore, expression of the mutant phosphatase resulted in hyperphosphorylation on tyrosine of a 95-kDa protein that was co-immunoprecipitated with the mutant, but not with the wild-type protein. These results suggest that, unlike in hematopoietic cells, PTP1C in 293 cells plays a positive role in epidermal growth factor- or serum-activated mitogenesis. Thus, PTP1C participates in multiple signaling pathways, where the enzyme, depending on its target molecules, may function as either a positive or negative mediator.


The relationship between construction activities and the natural environment is symbiotic. Natural resources such as land, water and trees feed into construction activities while waste from construction activities are given back to the natural environment. Construction activities can therefore not be sustained when natural resources are depleted. Sustainable methods and technologies must therefore be adopted by stakeholders in the construction industry in order to preserve our ecosystem for today and future generations. In view of this, this paper investigates into how sustainable construction principles and technologies are applied by construction professionals on a construction project at the design and construction stages in order to promote sustainable construction in the Ghanaian Construction Industry. Through a case study approach, interviews and field observation were conducted. Qualitative examination of the primary data obtained was carried out. The results indicate that the level of compliance to the principles of sustainable construction principles and application of sustainable technologies were very low on the hostel construction project selected for the study.


Large-dose methylprednisolone has been advocated to lessen neurologic deficits in spinal cord injury for nearly a decade despite confounding statistical results in the Second National Acute Spinal Cord Injury Study (NASCIS-2). Recent retrospective studies found lack of significant functional improvement, increases in the incidence of infectious complications and an increase in ventilated and intensive care days in steroid-treated groups. We report on five cases with severe hyperglycemia and nonketotic metabolic acidosis in otherwise non-diabetic patients with multiple blunt injuries and an associated spinal cord injury. Those adverse effects were induced by epinephrine and aggravated by methylprednisolone. We conclude that high-dose methylprednisolone should be avoided in multiple injured or otherwise compromised patients potentially needing catecholamine support.


The weekly Die Zukunft is among the most ambitious Franco-German media projects and collective organisers with European repercussions during the final crisis of the inter-war period from the Munich Agreement in September 1938 until May 1940 and the German occupation of France during the Second World War. The reading of the political-cultural journal as a unique, last 'anti-fascist intermediate empire' before the outbreak of the war and the efforts made by its editor, Willi Munzenberg, to unite the transnational anti-Hitler oppositionist networks contributes to an innovative perspective on the history of the German-speaking political emigration and German-French relations. New insights require major adjustments in the history of European strategies and the anti-Stalinist shift expressed by Die Zukunft after the conclusion of the Stalin-Hitler Pact contributes to a deeper understanding of the crisis of the political exile and the first stages of World War Two. According to Munzenberg's concept of the future, democracy and socialism were to be rethought as a European task, against the division and the dismemberment of Germany and Europe after Hitler, against the reconstruction under conditions of capitalism and against the international and domestic political arrangements of the Stalinist Soviet Union. Henceforth "peace and freedom" had to be (…) "defended against Hitler and Stalin" and further neo-imperialist arrangements. Nevertheless, the Zukunft could not prevent the definite failure of exile and resistance, which was rooted in the catastrophic defeat of the German Labour Movement in 1933, the sectarian refusal of a popular resistance of all social strata and the ties with Western democracies and their political apparatuses.


Although many temporal models have been proposed in the literature, there is still need for a conceptual model capturing the essential semantics of time-varying information that is free of implementation concerns. This paper first discusses important criteria to be considered when assessing the OconceptualO quality of a temporal model. Then, it presents the main temporal features of MADS, a spatio-temporal conceptual model. The focus is on identifying issues that are either open or controversial, and discussing alternatives, if any. Finally, it is shown how the model may be implemented on top of either TSQL2 or a traditional, non-temporal data model.


The authors report a study performed on the ECG findings in patients affected by polycythemia rubra vera. Clinicopathological correlations are made on the basis of autopsic examinations of 11 of these patients (out of the 21 subjects studied). The clinical investigation was performed on the ECG findings according to the Minnesota Code; pathologic investigation pointed out some particular lesions of myocardial district, as myocardium sclerosis, acute infarction, post-infarction scars, vascular lesions of the macro- and microcirculation. The results showed that ECG and the pathological findings in polycythemia vera appear to have a physiopathologic background although the latter is not linked to a well-defined anatomopathologic picture.


The aims of this study was to determine the right time for breeding after hormonal induction with the application of Artificial Insemination to increase pregnancy. The research material were 20 local goat. Estrous synchronization technique is performed using an intravaginal implant of EAZI-BREED ™ CIDR®, then injecting Pregnecol TM serum Gonadotrophin 400 IU intramuscularly 48 hours before the removal of EAZI-BREED ™ CIDR®. The length of intravaginal implant of EAZI-BREED ™ CIDR® is divided into two groups, 8 (A) and 16 (B) days. To analyze the hormone progesterone (P) blood samples are taken once every twelve hours to 72 hours after the removal of EAZI-BREED ™ CIDR®. Artificial insemination is done by cervical technique using frozen semen. The results of the research showed that estrous synchronization with the duration of intravaginal implant EAZI-BREED ™ CIDR® in the two groups was not significantly difference in terms of response, onset or duration of estrus. However, the percentage of pregnancy rate after insemination was different, where the pregnancy rate in group A was lower than group B (37.50 vs 50.00%).


OBJECTIVE
Tuberculosis (TB) is the most common cause of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS)-related deaths worldwide. The purpose of this study was to identify genes that are significant for the mechanisms involved in Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) co-infection.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
We selected 113 HIV/TB and 109 HIV/LTBI (latent TB infection) genes from GSE37250 and GSE69581 datasets. The Database for Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery (DAVID) was used for Kyoto Encyclopedia of Gene and Genome (KEGG) pathway and gene ontology (GO) analyses. The protein-protein interaction (PPI) network of common differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were visualized using Cytoscape software with Search Tool for the Retrieval of Interacting Genes (STRING).

RESULTS
A total of 83 DEGs were found to be common to both datasets. These included 64 up-regulated genes and 19 down-regulated genes. The PPI network was analyzed, and 12 up-regulated genes were identified. Re-analysis using DAVID found no significant signaling pathways enriched by these twelve genes (CAMP, CTSG, DEFA1, DEFA1B, DEFA3, DEFA4, ELANE, HP, HPSE, OLFM4, PGLYRP1, TCN1).

CONCLUSIONS
Twelve significantly up-regulated DEGs that may be potential therapeutic targets for HIV/TB were identified using a series of bioinformatics analytical methods.


The application of ultrasonic spectroscopy for particle-size measurements was investigated during the batch crystallization of (L)-glutamic acid α-polymorph from an aqueous solution. The technique, based on measurements of the attenuation of ultrasonic waves through the suspension, was applied using a prototype ultrasonic spectrometer with a flow-through cell. High-precision measurements of ultrasonic attenuation in the frequency range 7-110 MHz were performed, the deconvolution of which enabled in-process measurement of crystal size distribution and solid concentration throughout the crystallization process. In addition to evincing secondary nucleation, growth and crystal breakage on-line in real time, the experimental results were used to obtain kinetic parameters essential for process design, including secondary nucleation rate and growth rate.


Everyone has a different perception in response to a stimulus. Positive perceptions need to be built by the manufacturer, for products to attract consumers' attention. It is expected that consumers have the intention to buy the product. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine whether there is a relationship between perceptions of quality products with the intention of buying Honda motorcycles. Perception of product quality is consumer ratings of product quality as a whole, with regard to the expected product characteristics. While the intention to buy is the intention of consumers to obtain, define, and use the product. This study uses a quantitative approach through the type of research explanative. The population in this research are people who come to the Honda dealer to find information about Honda motorcycles in Malang. The sampling technique used was accidental sampling, with sample size 50. The instrument used to retrieve data is the scale of perception of product quality and purchase intentions scale. Data collected and analyzed by product moment correlation method using computer program SPSS for Windows version 10.0. The results of data analysis showed a positive correlation is significant between the perceived quality of products with the intention of buying Honda motorcycles. With the value of correlation coefficient (r) of 0.540 and p of 0.000. The donation efeltif of perceived quality of the intention to buy is 29%, while the remaining 71% who are not influenced by other variables studied.


Maintaining the integrity of the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) in a light-water-cooled nuclear power plant is crucial in preventing and controlling severe accidents that have the potential for major contamination release. The RPV is one of only two more safety-related components of the plant for which a duplicate or redundant backup system does not exist. It is therefore imperative to understand and be able to predict the capabilities and limitations of the integrity inherent in the RPV. In particular, it is vital to fully understand the degree of irradiation-induced degradation of the RPV`s fracture resistance that occurs during service. For this reason, the Heavy-Section Steel Irradiation (HSSI) Program has been established at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) under sponsorship of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The primary goal of this major safety program is to provide a thorough, quantitative assessment of the effects of neutron irradiation on the material behavior (in particular, the fracture toughness properties) of typical pressure-vessel steels as they relate to light-water-reactor pressure-vessel integrity. The program centers on experimental assessments of irradiation-induced embrittlement (including the completion of certain irradiation studies previously conducted by the Heavy-Section Steel Technology Program) augmented by detailed examinations and modeling of the accompanying microstructural changes. Effects of specimen size; material chemistry; product form and microstructure; irradiation fluence, flux, temperature, and spectrum; and postirradiation annealing are being examined on a wide range of fracture properties.


Purpose of review Amphotericin B (AmpB) is considered the first-line treatment for visceral leishmaniasis in areas in which resistance to antimony is prevalent. This review describes recent advances in clinically available and novel drug delivery systems of AmpB to treat visceral leishmaniasis. Recent findings Over the past two decades, lipid-based AmpB formulations developed to tackle the toxicity of AmpB have been used clinically for the treatment of visceral leishmaniasis. Liposomal AmpB (AmBisome) has been the most successful lipid formulation, and recent clinical studies on visceral leishmaniasis have shown the potential of single-dose AmBisome treatment as well as its use in short course combinations with other antileishmanial drugs. Current research is focussed on the development of more stable and affordable nonlipid formulations of AmpB. Although a diverse range of nonlipid-based AmpB formulations have been evaluated, none have yet reached the clinic. Summary Liposomal AmpB (AmBisome) has become a standard treatment, by intravenous infusion, for visceral leishmaniasis and the basis for new short course treatments. There have been extensive efforts to develop new AmpB formulations on the basis of polymers, lipids or physical aggregates of AmpB to replace the costly lipid-based formulations. However, no nonlipid-based AmpB delivery systems have yet reached the clinic.


Background Only a few medications have been approved for the prevention and treatment of digital ulcers in Japan. Ethnicity has been reported to affect the severity and occurrence rate of digital ulcers, which are potentially caused by more common autoantibody prevalence in the systemic sclerosis (SSc) patients of some ethnic groups; however, information on Japanese and Asian patients is limited. In the present study, the adverse events and development of digital ulcers were investigated when bosentan was administered to Japanese SSc patients. We focused on liver function test abnormalities, which are one of the characteristic adverse events of bosentan, baseline patient characteristics, and the onset/resolution time of the associated adverse events. The occurrence and healing of digital ulcers over time in each patient were also examined. Methods Twenty-eight (28) patients were enrolled in 9 study sites in Japan. This was a multi-center, single arm, open-labeled study conducted in order to investigate the safety and efficacy of bosentan in Japanese patients who had or had a previous history of SSc-related digital ulcers. The safety of the drug was monitored and the clinical course of digital ulcers was assessed up to Week 52 of the treatment. Results The adverse events observed in ≥5% of patients, i.e., at least two patients during the 52-week treatment period, were upper respiratory tract infections (14/28, 50.0%), liver function test abnormalities (12/28, 42.9%), the development of new digital ulcers (7/28, 25.0%), anemia (5/28, 17.9%), peripheral edema (4/28, 14.3%), diarrhea (3/28, 10.7%), urinary tract infections (2/28, 7.1%), arthralgia (2/28, 7.1%), constipation (2/28, 7.1%), and herpes zoster (2/28, 7.1%). Of the 12 patients (42.9%) with liver function test abnormalities, 4 (14.3%) showed AST and/or ALT elevations >3 × the upper limit of normal, occurring before Week 16 for two patients and after Week 16 for the other two. All elevated liver enzymes normalized upon withdrawal of the drug. During the 52-week observation period, 25% (7/28) of patients developed new digital ulcers, the mean (± SD) number of which was 0.6±1.3. Conclusions The adverse events observed in the present study were similar to those previously reported with the use of bosentan, demonstrating the safety of the drug for Japanese patients; however, 4 out of 28 patients had adverse events associated with liver function disorders, which are one of the characteristic adverse effects of bosentan. These results indicate that liver function needs to be monitored regularly in patients treated with bosentan. Disclosure of Interest None declared


Carbonate binders from mortars and plasters as well as charcoal fragments sampled at the ancient settlement of Hippos (Sussita) have been subjected to radiocarbon dating by gas proportional counting (GPC) and accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS). Hippos is situated on the east coast of the Sea of Galilee (32°46′N, 35°39′E) at the top of a hill in the Golan Heights area, Israel. According to historical-archaeological data, the town had functioned since the 3rd century BC until AD 749, when it eventually crumbled into ruins after an earthquake. The appropriate sample selection and preparation based on the results of petrographic observations permitted us to distinguish different phases involved in the expansion of the settlement. More than 200 samples were taken from the settlement and subjected to petrographic and chemical analyses. Of the 200 total samples, about 20 were selected for dating. Here, we present the first 10 results of 14C dating carried out for Hippos. The oldest sample dated thus far gave an age corresponding with the 2nd century BC to 1st century AD—probably indicating an old Roman temple, on the base of which the North-West church (NWC) was later erected. The next dates extend up to the 8th century AD, the age related to the last phase of settlement inhabitation. Research is continuing as new excavations take place.


Microscopic traffic simulation models offer virtual reproduction of full-scale traffic networks with individual vehicle and driver resolution. However, relevant behavioral aspects, such as route-choice behavior, are based on some theoretical assumptions. Alternatively, driving simulators allow for direct testing of real subjects. However, the virtual driving environment is typically a fairly rudimentary representation of the road network and traffic conditions, focusing on the immediate surroundings of the test vehicle. As such, both tools were integrated to create a mixed reality traffic analysis environment. The objective is to enhance the credibility of in-lab-simulated route-choice experiments under various intelligent transportation system applications. The mixed reality system allows a human subject to "drive" a vehicle in a microscopic traffic simulation model of an actual physical network. An externally controlled driving capability was integrated into the widely used Quadstone Paramics microscopic traffic simulator. The developed mixed reality platform was used at the Toronto (Canada) Intelligent Transportation System Centre to test subjects while driving in a simulated model of a main downtown Toronto corridor. Drivers were given descriptive and prescriptive traffic information while their reactions were monitored. For comparative purposes, they were also tested using a more classical map-based point-and-click route-choice procedure. Results of the analysis highlight the potential of the developed mixed reality platform to enhance the realism of in-lab-simulated route-choice experiments and hence improve the credibility of collected data. Both the virtual reproduction of the choice environment and the tangible consequences of choice decisions contribute to an enhanced experimental environment.


Abstract We construct a relativistic Hamiltonian model for Higgs resonance. Resonance trajectories are studied as a function of the parameters of the model. The possibility of a narrow width Higgs resonance in 1 TeV region cannot be ruled out from general considerations. Our model may serve as a phenomenological guide in the search for Higgs resonance.


FAIR will deliver primary beam intensities of up to 5 × 1011 ions/s of 238U at energy of 1.5 GeV/u, which will make possible to produce secondary beams with a factor up to 10000 in intensity over present. Rare isotopes of all elements up to uranium will be produced via fission/fragmentation, spatially separated within a few hundred nanoseconds, and delivered to different experimental branches of the Super-FRS. For radioactive ion beams at velocities β = 0.8–0.9 a time-of-flight resolution below 50 ps is necessary in order to resolve mass number A ≈ 200. In order to face the present technical challenges, i.e. high intensity and high resolution, a solution based on diamond focal plane detectors is presently under investigation as timing detection system of the Super-FRS.


Free (FL) and bound lipids (BL) of germinated quinoa seeds were extracted sequentially with n-hexane and hot water-saturated butanol (WSB), respectively. The total lipid contents containing these free and bound lipids were 8.4% (6.0 and 2.4%) for 0 hr (control), 8.1% (6.0 and 2.1%) for 24 hr, 7.2% (4.3 and 2.9%) for 48 hr and 8.8% (4.0 and 4.8%) in 72 hr of germination. The nonpolar lipids (NL), glycolipids (GL) and phospholipids (PL) in the bound lipids changed to: 50.0-61.0%, 23.4-30.4% and 26.5-8.7%, respectively. The ratio of NL to POL (GL + PL) was 1.04, 1.13, 1.56 and 1.56 for control, 24, 48 and 72 hr of germination, respectively. Linolenic acid (18:3) was the major fatty acid of GL for the control quinoa, but linoleic (18:2), and oleic (18:1) and palmitic (16:0) acids were the major fatty acid of NL, GL and PL during the germination. During germination, oleic acid increased, but linoleic acid decreased in NL, GL and PL. The ratio of saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids of NL, and PL approached 3:4:3. After 72 hr germination, the ratio of ω3/ω6 became 0.25 in GL.


The present study was performed with the aim to demonstrate and quantify the influence of several different calcium antagonists (CA) on hemodynamic parameters in the guinea pig heart lung preparation (HLP). In paced HLP the following parameters were recorded: dp/dt max; cardiac output (CO); left ventricular pressure (LVP), and aortic pressure (AoP). In separate experiments the influence of the CA on heart rate (HR) was established in spontaneously performing HLP. All CA studied reduced or depressed dp/dt max, CO, LVP, AoP and HR. Nifedipine and verapamil showed the strongest depressant influence on dp/dt max and CO, whereas diltiazem caused a moderate reduction of these parameters. Lidoflazine, flunarizine and bepridil proved considerably less potent than nifedipine, verapamil and diltiazem. Bepridil proved least potent with respect to the influence on LVP and AoP. The strongest reduction on HR was caused by nifedipine greater than verapamil greater than diltiazem, and to a lesser degree by lidoflazine. Bepridil and flunarizine only caused a mild reduction of HR. From the calculated ratio EC20(HR)/EC20(dp/dt max) it is obvious that nifedipine, verapamil and bepridil display a much stronger influence on contractility than on HR. dp/dt max proved the most sensitive indicator for contractility in the HLP as used in our experiments.


Summary: An important lesson that philosophy can learn from the Turing test and computer science more generally concerns the careful use of the method of levels of abstraction (LoAs). The purpose of this paper is to summarize the method and apply it to the paper, modelling and analysis of phenomenological and conceptual systems showing its principal features and main advantages. The constituents of the method are "observables", collected together and moderated by predicates restrain-ing their "behaviour". The resulting collection of sets of observables is called a "gradient of abstractions" (GoAs) and it formalises the minimum consistency conditions that the chosen abstractions must satisfy. Two useful kinds of GoA – disjoint and nested – are identified. It is then argued that in any discrete (as distinct from analogue) domain of discourse, a complex phenomenon may be explicated in terms of simple approximations organised together in a GoAs. Thus, the method replaces, for discrete disciplines, the dif-ferential and integral calculus, which form the basis for understanding the complex analogue phenomena of science and engineering. The result formalises an approach that is rather common in computer science but has hitherto found little application in philosophy. So the philosophical value of the method is demonstrated by showing how making the LoA of discourse explicit can be fruitful for phenomenological and conceptual analysis. To this end, the method is applied to the Turing test, the concept of agenthood, the definition of emergence, the notion of artificial life, quantum observation and decidable observation. This paper applies the method of abstraction to the paper, modelling and analysis of phenomenological and conceptual systems showing its principal features and main advantages. It is hoped that this treatment will promote the use of the method in certain areas of the humanities and especially in philosophy.


The authors reviews 239 cases of child sensorineural deafness (478 ears studied both separately and in correlation with the controlateral ear) to try and identify the evolutionary trend of the tone curves throughout the follow-up period, which spanned nearly 20 years in some cases. The difficulties encountered in this study were due to several factors, namely the problem involving very accurate assessment in very young children, the high incidence of tubotympanal disease in the very young, the hard to obtain definition and quantitative evaluation of the notion of progressiveness, as well as the need to analyze the evolutionary patterns in global terms (mean hearing loss), from one frequency to the next and from one ear to the other, since such tone loss patterns are not always symmetric. The authors state their opinion derived from a large number of cases regarding a situation, which characterizes a relatively frequent (over 25% of cases) aggravation of perceptive hearing loss in children.


"Acountry within sight of Italy about which less is known than the interior of America." Edward Gibbon's comment of 200 years ago still applies to Albania, Europe's poorest nation. The country's economic and intellectual isolation was imposed by Enver Hoxha, its xenophobic, paranoid, Marxist dictator. After his death in 1985 minor liberalisation was attempted, but pressure for change became unstoppable. Many fled the country—especially to Italy. Finally, in 1992 the Democracy party, led by a cardiologist, established a fragile government.

I had visited Albania as a tourist in 1990 when it was still controlled by the Party of Labour, but during the trip met some doctors and wrote about the experience in a personal view (BMJ 1991;302:1088). I never expected to return, but had an opportunity to revisit in 1994. Changes in the four years were staggering. Gone were the statues of Hoxha and the party slogans and the red flags. Roadside stalls were everywhere, satellite dishes sprouted from every building, and huge numbers of ancient cars roared along the ill kept roads—private cars had been banned by the regime as bourgeois.

People looked poorer; clearly the move to a market economy had benefited a few, but the majority were worse off. Factories were devastated and land untilled. With the loss of state authority law and order had broken down and crime was rampant. Unemployment was at least 50% and there was an air of menace in the crowded streets. There may have been some advantages in the previous regime; at least everybody was …


Background: Tens of glycemic variability (GV) indices are available in the literature to characterize the dynamic properties of glucose concentration profiles from continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) sensors. However, how to exploit the plethora of GV indices for classifying subjects is still controversial. For instance, the basic problem of using GV indices to automatically determine if the subject is healthy rather than affected by impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) or type 2 diabetes (T2D), is still unaddressed. Here, we analyzed the feasibility of using CGM-based GV indices to distinguish healthy from IGT&T2D and IGT from T2D subjects by means of a machine-learning approach. Methods: The data set consists of 102 subjects belonging to three different classes: 34 healthy, 39 IGT, and 29 T2D subjects. Each subject was monitored for a few days by a CGM sensor that produced a glucose profile from which we extracted 25 GV indices. We used a two-step binary logistic regression model to classify subjects. The first step distinguishes healthy subjects from IGT&T2D, the second step classifies subjects into either IGT or T2D. Results: Healthy subjects are distinguished from subjects with diabetes (IGT&T2D) with 91.4% accuracy. Subjects are further subdivided into IGT or T2D classes with 79.5% accuracy. Globally, the classification into the three classes shows 86.6% accuracy. Conclusions: Even with a basic classification strategy, CGM-based GV indices show good accuracy in classifying healthy and subjects with diabetes. The classification into IGT or T2D seems, not surprisingly, more critical, but results encourage further investigation of the present research.


Abstract Spectra of vertical and horizontal velocity, air temperature and humidity fluctuations were analyzed from measurements made over a well-watered alfalfa crop under conditions of sensible heat advection. Vertical velocity and air temperature spectra as well as cospectra of momentum, sensible heat and water vapor were found to be dependent on atmospheric thermal stratification. These spectra and cospectra were shifted toward higher frequencies under advective as compared to lapse conditions. These results indicate that the predominant eddy sizes are relatively smaller under advective conditions. Humidity spectra, on the other hand, were independent of daytime thermal stratification conditions but were influenced by conditions of the crop. The humidity spectra over a transpiring crop were shifted toward lower frequencies as compared to those over a less well-developed crop canopy.


In currently developed engine condition monitoring systems, most field engine maintenance engineers have difficulties to use them in fields due to complexity, unpractical use, lack of understanding, etc. Therefore a practical usable engine condition monitoring system must be needed. This work proposes a practical performance condition monitoring of a small turbojet engine through comparing between the on-line performance monitoring data and the initial clean performance data calculated by the base engine performance model. Moreover the proposed monitoring system checks the gas path components' on-line health condition through comparing the component performance characteristics between the running engine represented as a deteriorated engine or a degraded engine and the base engine performance model represented as a clean engine. The proposed condition monitoring system is coded in a friendly GUI type program for easy practical application by a commercial tool, MATLAB/SIMULINK and LabVIEW.


Across many languages, multiple sluicing obeys a clausemate constraint. This can be understood on the empirically well-supported assumption that covert phrasal wh-movement is clause-bounded and subject to Superiority. We provide independent evidence for syntactic structure at the ellipsis site and for locality constraints on movement operations within the ellipsis site. The fact that the distribution of multiple sluicing is substantially narrower than that of multiple wh-questions, on their single-pair as well as their pair-list reading, entails that there must be mechanisms for scoping in-situ wh-phrases that do not rely on covert phrasal wh-movement. We adopt the choice-functional account for single-pair readings. For pair-list readings, we develop a novel functional analysis, argue for the functional basis of pair-list readings, and present a new perspective on pair-list readings of questions with quantifiers.


In Brazil, the discussion about the replacement of analog television signals to digital and its impact on society, in media companies and government began in the 90s. Embryonic steps towards digitalisation of the television signal ground were the government of Fernando Collor de Mello (1990-1992), with advances during the government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1994-2001) and in the government of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2002). The academy starts the discussion in 1996. This article aims to bring to light the results obtained from the survey "Digital television: a historical perspective", which received the support of CNPq for funding of two scholarships for scientific initiation between August 2008 and July 2009. The project sought to identify what has been published on the subject in the field of Social Sciences and from three macrodescritores (information management, public policy and value chain), providing the lifting of a virtual collection Zotero bibliographic innovative platform. The mapping serves to show the growing interest and development of research in the country during the period - when the number jumped to three works in the first seven years (1995-2001) to 198 in the last seven years (2002-2008). The research sought to identify the major authors and works related to digital television and published in the country. The survey took into account books, articles published in books, journals, Annals of Compos and Intercom, and dissertations and theses. Data and reflections on the survey are contained in this communication.


The primary healthcare system is at a turning point in Saudi Arabia. However, the sustainability of family medicine as the core element of that system is increasingly being called into question because of lack of family physicians. In keeping view this problem; a postgraduate diploma program in family medicine has started in 2008. A validated measure of educational environment i.e., Dundee Ready Education Environment (DREEM) questionnaire consisting of 50 questions having five domains of perception was administered to all 13 trainees of the diploma course at the completion of the program to check their perception about learning evironment. The trainees comprised of 4 males (40%) and 6 females (60%). The overall score showed more positive than negative side (147/200). There is no significant difference (P > 0.05) in the mean scores of five different domains of perception. The subclasses of five domains showed that teaching perceived as positive by 50%, moving towards right direction by 80%, feeling more positive by 50%, positive attitude by 80% and the 70% scored the course as not too bad. The overall high score and positive attitude towards the course assures the better teaching environment. However, there are areas to improve and it requires continuous evaluation.


BACKGROUND
The Lathyrus genus includes 160 species, some of which have economic importance as food, fodder and ornamental crops (mainly L. sativus, L. cicera and L. odoratus, respectively) and are cultivated in >1·5 Mha worldwide. However, in spite of their well-recognized robustness and potential as a source of calories and protein for populations in drought-prone and marginal areas, cultivation is in decline and there is a high risk of genetic erosion.

SCOPE
In this review, current and past taxonomic treatments of the Lathyrus genus are assessed and its current status is examined together with future prospects for germplasm conservation, characterization and utilization. A particular emphasis is placed on the importance of diversity analysis for breeding of L. sativus and L. cicera.

CONCLUSIONS
Efforts for improvement of L. sativus and L. cicera should concentrate on the development of publicly available joint core collections, and on high-resolution genotyping. This will be critical for permitting decentralized phenotyping. Such a co-ordinated international effort should result in more efficient and faster breeding approaches, which are particularly needed for these neglected, underutilized Lathyrus species.


The paper presents a semi-empirical wide-range equation of state (EOS) for platinum with account for melting, evaporation, and ionization. The equation is based on a wide spectrum of experimental and calculation data. Parameters for the EOS were adjusted using a genetic algorithm which proved to perform well for optimizations in big data processing. In the regions where no experimental data were available, we used results of first-principles and average-atom model calculations. The EOS was used to calculate the melting curve of platinum to pressures above 1 TPa, sound velocities along the Hugoniot curve, parameters of melting under shock compression, and parameters of the critical point. An improved model is proposed for the shear modulus in (V, T) coordinates and its variation along the shock adiabat is calculated.


The physical, chemical and total heterotrophic bacteriological parameters (THBP) bacterial population were measured at three sampling stations namely Upper Anicut (S1), Chinthamani road bridge (S2) and Grand Anicut (S3) for a period of three month January to March 2007 in the river Kaveri, Tiruchirappalli. The pH ranged from 6.7 to 7.8, the level of solids and total hardness was high in station S2 when compared to other stations. Station 2 registered a minimum level of DO (3.6 mg l(-1)), and the BOD and COD varied from 3.47 to 4.27, 20.67 to 41.47 mg l(-1) respectively. THBP colony count was found to be high in S2 (8.16 x 10(2) CFU ml(-1)) and a lowest level in S1 (2.64 x 10(2)) and S3 (1.80 x 10(2)). It was observed in the present study that in reservoir (anicut) stations factors like pH, TDS, TSS, Hardness and THBP were at lower level than for the water at Chinthamani road bridge (S2), probably due to the mixing of municipal sewage at this point.


In the context of a modern theory of images, the question has been raised how the discursive paradigm and the visual paradigm, or the linguistic turn and the visual turn, relate to each other in the social and cultural sciences. In other words, has the "culture as text" metaphor been replaced or only supplemented by the "culture as image" metaphor? Do the two metaphors exclude or complement each other (see also Bachmann-Medick 2006: 351)? This paper seek to answer these questions by drawing on ethnographic experiences from my research in Indonesia.


Modern spatial transcriptomics methods can target thousands of different types of RNA transcripts in a single slice of tissue. Many biological applications demand a high spatial density of transcripts relative to the imaging resolution, leading to partial mixing of transcript rolonies in many pixels; unfortunately, current analysis methods do not perform robustly in this highly-mixed setting. Here we develop a new analysis approach, BARcode DEmixing through Non-negative Spatial Regression (BarDensr): we start with a generative model of the physical process that leads to the observed image data and then apply sparse convex optimization methods to estimate the underlying (demixed) rolony densities. We apply Bar-Densr to simulated and real data and find that it achieves state of the art signal recovery, particularly in densely-labeled regions or data with low spatial resolution. Finally, BarDensr is fast and parallelizable. We provide open-source code as well as an implementation for the 'NeuroCAAS' cloud platform. Author Summary Spatial transcriptomics technologies allow us to simultaneously detect multiple molecular targets in the context of intact tissues. These experiments yield images that answer two questions: which kinds of molecules are present, and where are they located in the tissue? In many experiments (e.g., mapping RNA expression in fine neuronal processes), it is desirable to increase the signal density relative to the imaging resolution. This may lead to mixing of signals from multiple RNA molecules into single imaging pixels; thus we need to demix the signals from these images. Here we introduce BarDensr, a new computational method to perform this demixing. The method is based on a forward model of the imaging process, followed by a convex optimization approach to approximately 'invert' mixing induced during imaging. This new approach leads to significantly improved performance in demixing imaging data with dense expression and/or low spatial resolution.


The fate of the Atlantic Water within the North Icelandic Irminger Current has long been questioned. The North Icelandic Irminger Current flows along the Icelandic shelf area to the west and north of Iceland, bringing warm saline water to the area. The Atlantic Water has a great importance on the climate and biological conditions north of Iceland. The data record used is received from the Marine Research Institute on Iceland, consisting of 18 years of data, collected quarterly per year. Four repeated hydrographic sections have been used to cover the west and north Icelandic shelf, Látrabjarg, Kögur, Siglunes and Langanes. Salinity, temperature, cross sectional area, geostrophic velocities and the transport of the Atlantic Water have been examined. Mean annual sections of salinity and temperature were examined, showing an annual presence of Atlantic Water at two out of four sections. A clear seasonal and interannual variability within the inflowing Atlantic Water was observed. The Kolbeinsey Ridge, a ridge situated on the northern Icelandic shelf, was found to be crucial point, where the flow of AW was topographically steered offshore from the coast. The highest temperatures and salinities were observed during summer, and during 2003 the whole northern shelf was found to be covered by Atlantic Water. Atlantic Water was also observed in the central Iceland Sea at three occasions, which might have an importance on a newly discovered current believed to be a significant part of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation.


Based on a depressed-clad index profile design, a PM Yb-doped large mode area (LMA) fiber with an effective mode area of 450 μm2 was designed and fabricated. The fiber was used to amplify 10-ns pulses at 1064 nm with a repetition rate of 100 kHz, and an output energy higher than 200 μJ was obtained, within a bandwidth of 0.5 nm. The fiber was coiled on a 12-cm diameter mandrel to obtain a single-mode output having a measured M2 value of 1.04. The output polarization extinction ratio was higher than 20 dB. The photodarkening excess loss of the Ytterbium//Phosphorus Aluminum co-doped fiber was measured to be a factor 5 lower than that of a reference Ytterbium/Aluminum co-doped fiber. It is shown how a depressed-clad index profile design can improve higher-order mode filtering while keeping the coiling diameter practical for compact fiber amplifier packaging.


The metabolism of fungicide benzoic acid, 1,3-dithiolan-2-ylidenehydrazied (Yekuling) was studied quantitatively in rat liver microsomes and liver soluble fractions pretreated with phenobarbital (PB) and 3-methylcholanthrene (3-MC) by high pressure liquid chromatography. The experimental results indicated that the major metabolic pathway of Yekuling in vitro was hydrolysis. PB can enhance amidase activity to increase formation of benzoic acid and 1,3-dithiolan-2-ylidenehydrazine. 3-MC treatment elevated rat liver microsomal cytochrome P-448, enhancing S-oxidation of Yekuling. On the other hand, S-oxidation of Yekuling by rat liver microsomal MFO was NADPH-dependent.


A modified Strong Tracking Filter (STF) is used to develop a new approach to sensor fault tolerant control. Generic Model Control (GMC) is used to control the nonlinear process while the process runs normally because of its robust control performance. If a fault occurs in the sensor, a sensor bias vector is then introduced to the output equation of the process model. The sensor bias vector is estimated on-line during every control period using the STF. The estimated sensor bias vector is used to develop a fault detection mechanism to supervise the sensors. When a sensor fault occurs, the conventional GMC is switched to a fault tolerant control scheme, which is, in essence, a state estimation and output prediction based GMC. The laboratory experimental results on a three-tank system demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed Sensor Fault Tolerant Generic Model Control (SFTGMC) approach.


Cardiopulmonary and acid-base variables recorded during long-term balanced anesthesia lasting between 12.5 and 16.9 h were evaluated retrospectively in 15 healthy foxhounds that underwent experimental bulla osteotomy with implantation of hearing aids. After premedication with propionylpromazine (0.11 +/- 0.02 mg/kg of body weight) and L-methadone (0.71 +/- 0.06 mg/kg) intravenously (i.v.) and induction with pentobarbital sodium (6.02 +/- 0.83 mg/kg i.v.), anesthesia was maintained with halothane (end-tidal concentration; ETHAL: 0.4 to 1.5%) in nitrous oxide (2 L/min) and oxygen (1 L/min). Because of positional changes from sternal to right lateral recumbency after presurgical brain stem electric response audiometry and differences in duration of surgery, data obtained between 4 (baseline) and 14 h after induction of anesthesia were analyzed. Arterial (PaO2) and alveolar (PAO2) O2 tensions, arterial-to-alveolar O2 tension ratio (PaO2/PAO2), and arterial O2 content (CaO2) remained relatively stable throughout anesthesia. Arterial carbon dioxide tension (PaCO2) was significantly increased above baseline (39, 33 to 46 mm Hg [median, range]) between 7 (39.8, 36.5 to 48.9 mm Hg) and 9 (42, 37.5 to 49.5 mm Hg) h after induction. Because changes in PaCO2 were accompanied by significant increases in body temperature from baseline (36.3, 34.6 to 37.4 degrees C) between 8 (37.1, 35 to 38 degrees C) and 11 (37.6, 35.3 to 38.1 degrees C) h after anesthesia induction as well as by slight increases in arterial blood pressure, the PaCO2 increase may have been caused by increase in metabolic CO2 production and enhanced drainage of CO2 from the tissues into systemic circulation. Furthermore, mild metabolic acidosis (pHa: 7.31, 7.26 to 7.38; HCO3-: 18.9, 16.7 to 21.8 mEq/L; base deficit [BD]: -6.3, -8.5 to -3.4 mEq/L) already existed at 4 h after induction and was related in part to tissue hypoperfusion. Small increases in pHa during the course of anesthesia were accompanied by significant increases in HCO3- concentration and significant decreases in BD between 5 and 10 h after induction. Minor circumscribed swelling of the dependent triceps or masseter muscle was noticed on the first postoperative day in two dogs, and marked tissue swelling with hematoma formation at the medial side of one hind limb was noticed in a third dog. All dogs recovered completely and were submitted to follow-up studies. The anesthetic protocol and extent of monitoring used were adequate to provide safe long-term anesthesia for an experimental surgical procedure with a 100% survival rate and uneventful recovery in most of the dogs.


Background and purpose: An increasing emergence of multidrug resistance among Klebsiella pneumoniae nosocomial isolates has limited the therapeutic options for treatment. The beta-lactamases are the major defense of gram-negative bacteria against antibiotics. The aim of this study was the detection of ESBLs and Amp-C enzymes and MOX, FOX, and ACT genes in K.pneumoniae strains isolated from hospitalized patients in Tehran hospitals during 2011-2013. Materials and methods: This study was conducted in 120 K. pneumoniae isolates from Imam Hossein, Taleghani and Mofid Children's hospitals in Tehran, Iran. Antibiotic susceptibility tests were performed using Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion and Broth Microdilution methods. The detection of Amp-C and ESBLs enzymes was carried out according to CLSI guidelines. The MOX, FOX, and ACT genes were detected by PCR and sequencing methods. Results: Among 120 K. pneumoniae strains, 24 (20%) and 68(56.8%) were Amp-C and ESBL positive, respectively. In this study colistin and tigecycline were found more active than other antibiotics. ACT, FOX, and MOX genes were detected in 16 (13%), 46 (38.33%) and 43(35.83%) of the isolates, respectively. Conclusion: The prevalence of antibiotic resistance genes detected in this study is of great concern and highlights the need for infection control measures including antibacterial management and identification of resistant isolates.


Product defects have been predicted by numerical simulations in cold forging. Various ductile fracture prediction equations have been proposed, some of which have already been implemented in commercial finite element codes. However, there are still some cases where the fractured region of actual products cannot be predicted using the existing ductile fracture prediction equations. In the present paper, a new equation for predicting ductile fracture was proposed, which can improve the prediction accuracy of ductile fracture was proposed. The proposed equation was expressed as a second-rank symmetric tensor, which is a product of the stress tensor and strain increment tensor. The effectiveness of the proposed equation was confirmed in a uniaxial tension test of a notched round bar. Next, the proposed equation was applied to the cold forging of a hollow shaft. As a result, the calculated most-damaged region was corresponded to the actual fractured region of the product.


A method is presented for efficient and reliable object recognition within noisy, cluttered, and occluded range images. The method is based on a strategy which hypothesizes the intersection of the object with some selected image point, and searches for additional surface data at locations relative to that point. At each increment, the image is queried for the existence of surface data at a specific spatial location, and the set of possible object poses is further restricted. Eventually, either the object is identified and localized, or the initial hypothesis is refuted. The strategy is implemented in the discrete domain as a binary decision tree classifier. The tree leaf nodes represent individual voxel templates of the model. The internal tree nodes represent the union of the templates of their descendant leaf nodes. The union of all leaf node templates is the complete template set of the model over its discrete pose space. Each internal node also references a single voxel which is the most common element of its child node templates. Traversing the tree is equivalent to efficiently matching the large set of templates at a selected image seed location. The process is approximately 3 orders of magnitude more efficient than brute-force template matching. Experimental results are presented in which objects are reliably recognized and localized in 6 dimensions in less than 60 seconds within noisy and significantly occluded range images.


Inspiration and Authority: Nature and Function of Christian Scripture, by Paul J. Achtemeier. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1999. x + 166 pp. ISBN: 156563-363-6. TheMajestyof Man: The Dignity of Being Human, by Ronald B. Allen. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2000. 217 pp. ISBN: 0-8254-2139-X. A Journey Through Christian Theology: With Textsfrom theFirst to the TwentyFirst Century,by William P. Anderson and Richard L. Diesslin. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2000. x + 228 pp. ISBN: 0-8006-3220-6. Silent Conversations: Reading the Bible in Good Company, by William Apel. Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 2000. xi -174 pp. ISBN: 0-8170-1320-2. An Introduction to Wisdom Literature and the Psalms: Festschrift Marvin E. Tate, ed. by H. Wayne Ballard, Jr. and W. Dennis Tucker, Jr. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2000. xii + 242 pp. $19.95. ISBN: 0-86554-652-5. Judges, Ruth: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture (New American Commentary), by Daniel I. Block. Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1999. 767 pp. $29.95. ISBN: 0-8054-0106-7. Consequences: Morality, Ethics, and theFuture, by James H. Burtness. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1999. ix + 173 pp. ISBN: 0-8006-3092-0. 13 Crucial Questions Jesus Wants to Ask You, by Tom Carter. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1999. 144 pp. ISBN: 0-8254-2359-7. Greed: Economics and Ethics in Conflict, by James M. Childs, Jr. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2000. vii + 152 pp. ISBN: 0-8006-3230-3. TheMysticalMind: Probing the Biology of Religious Experience, by Eugene G. d'Aquili and Andrew B. Newberg. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1999. ix + 228 pp. ISBN: 0-8006-3162-3. Religion and The Continental Congress 1774-1789: Contributions to Original Intent, by Derek H. Davis. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2000. xiv + 309 pp. $39.95. ISBN: 0-19-513355-2. The Globalization of Pentecostalism: A Religion Made to Travel, eds. Murray W. Dempster et al. Irvine, CA: Regnum Books International, 1999. xvii + 406 pp. ISBN: 1-870345-29-0. The Spiritual Woman: Ten Principles of Spiritualityand Women Who Have Lived Them, by Lewis & Betty Drummond. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1999. 300 pp. ISBN: 0-8254-2469-0. 1 and 2 Samuel, NIBC, by Mary J. Evans. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2000. xiv + 267 pp. ISBN: 1-56563-579-5. Journey Into Day, Meditations for New Cancer Patients, by Rusty Freeman. Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 2000. xi 221 pp. ISBN: 0-8170-1350-4 Spiritual Care for Children Living in Specialized Settings: Breathing Under Water, by Michael F. Friesen. New York, NY: The Haworth Pastoral Press, 2000. xiii149 pp. $19.95. ISBN: 0-7890-0630-8 SimpleHeuristics That Make Us Smart, by Gerd Gigerenzer, et al. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1999. xv + 416 pp. $35.00. ISBN: 0-19-512156-2.


The photoelectron emission from thin films of lightly doped polythiophene was investigated in the ultraviolet and vacuum ultraviolet spectral region. Absolute quantum yields rising from 4*10-6 at 5 eV to 3*10-3 at 10.5 eV were measured. The photoemission threshold was determined to be Eth=5.06+or-0.05 eV. The films were produced electrochemically with perchlorate ions as the dopant.


Application of a full-field detection approach to a biological sample separation scheme known as capillary isoelectric focusing (cIEF) has yielded detailed spatial and temporal information about the transport processes associated with this technique, as well as the efficiency of this separation scheme. The full-field cIEF detection technique utilizes an illumination source such as blue light emitting diodes or a mercury arc lamp, microscope objectives, and a charged-coupled device (CCD) camera to image fluorescently labeled proteins and peptides. Interest in this approach arises from the ability to collect, in real time, information from the entire length of the separation channel. This full-field detection eliminates the need for flow mobilization and aids in the empirical analysis of the separation process. In an effort to optimize a miniaturized cIEF system, the full-field detection approach was used as a diagnostic to gauge the effect of varying the channel wall surface charge distribution.


We present long-term photometric observations of the young open cluster IC 348 with a baseline time-scale of 2.4 yr. Our study was conducted with several telescopes from the Young Exoplanet Transit Initiative (YETI) network in the Bessel R band to find periodic variability of young stars. We identified 87 stars in IC 348 to be periodically variable; 33 of them were unreported before. Additionally, we detected 61 periodic non-members of which 41 are new discoveries. Our wide field of view was the key to those numerous newly found variable stars. The distribution of rotation periods in IC 348 has always been of special interest. We investigate it further with our newly detected periods but we cannot find a statistically significant bimodality. We also report the detection of a close eclipsing binary in IC 348 composed of a low-mass stellar component (M & 0.09 M ) and a K0 pre-main sequence star (M ≈ 2.7 M ). Furthermore, we discovered three detached binaries among the background stars in our field of view and confirmed the period of a fourth one.


This study aims to characterize the genetic diversity of two populations of Garcinia kola using five RAPD markers in order to contribute to the development of sustainable management and conservation strategy for this species. Genomic Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) extracted from leaf fragments of 94 trees from two agroecological (south and west) zones according to Cethyl Trimethyl Ammonium Bromide (CTAB) protocol was analyzed. The mean number of alleles was ranged from 14.2 to 21.2 and the effective number of alleles ranged from 8.62 to 9.44. The average Shannon diversity index was ranged from 2.08 to 2.59 and the average genetic diversity was estimated to be 0.80. A total of 58 polymorphic bands were identified with a polymorphism rate of 100%. According to analysis of molecular variance the most important component of the genetic variation was obtained within population (94%). The analysis of the genetic diversity of all the trees revealed the existence of two groups composed of the trees from the two populations. In addition, genetic differentiation between the two populations was relatively moderate (Fst = 0.061). Sustainable management of G. kola trees should be achieved through in situ conservation. But for ex situ conservation it would be more practical to take as many individuals as possible within populations.


Background: ADEM, although relatively uncommon, is probably under-recognized.
Objectives: To spotlight on the clinical profile and therapeutic outcome of children with ADEM.
Methods: This is a prospective study of patients with ADEM who were admitted to the Pediatric Departments in Aladan and Alfarawanya Hospitals in Kuwait, from January 2009 to January 2011. Clinical, microbiological, radiological and therapeutic data were analyzed.
Results: Of 48 patients presented with acute neurological symptoms and signs, 21 patients fulfilled criteria for ADEM. 80.95% of cases were presenting in winter and spring, 57% of patients had a history of upper respiratory tract illness. The commonest presentations were motor deficits, convulsions followed by altered conscious. CSF virology studies showed Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV) and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) in 3 patients whereas nasal and nasopharyngeal swab showed evidence of influenza H1N1 virus in 1 patient. Brain MRI was performed in all patients and revealed multiple hyperintense supratentorial brain lesions on T2/FLAIR images. 85.7% of patients had cortical and/or subcortical white matter lesions which were bilateral and asymmetric in location and size. Most of the patients were treated with steroids alone, 3 patients received high-dose intravenous methylprednisolone and 6 patients received both steroids and intravenous immunoglobulin.


BACKGROUND
The GORE® EXCLUDER® Iliac Branch Endoprosthesis (IBE) is designed to treat iliac aneurysms with preservation of blood flow through the internal iliac artery (IIA). Little is known about the influence of IBE placement on the IIA geometry. This study aimed to provide detailed insights in the dynamic behavior and geometry of the common iliac artery (CIA) and IIA trajectory and how these are influenced after treatment with an IBE.

METHODS
Pre- and postoperative electrocardiogram-gated computed tomography angiography (ECG-gated CTA) scans were acquired in a prospective study design and analyzed with in-house written algorithms designed for aorto-iliac and endoprosthesis deformation evaluation. Cardiac pulsatility-induced motion patterns and pathlengths were computed by tracking pre-defined locations on the aorto-iliac tract. Centerlines through the CIA-IIA trajectory were used to investigate the static and dynamic geometry, including curvature, torsion, length and tortuosity index (TI).

RESULTS
Fourteen CIA-IIA trajectories were analyzed before and after IBE placement. Cardiac pulsatility-induced motion and pathlengths increased after IBE placement, especially at mid IIA and the first IIA bifurcation (P≤0.04). After IBE placement, static and dynamic curvature, length and TI decreased significantly (P<0.05). Furthermore, the average dynamic torsion increased significantly (P=0.030). The remaining geometrical outcomes were not statistically significant.

CONCLUSIONS
The placement of an IBE device stiffens and straightens the CIA-IIA trajectory. Its relation with clinical outcome is yet to be investigated, which can be done thoroughly with the ECG-gated CTA algorithms used in this study.


The hydrothermal reaction of 2-(quinolin-8-yloxy)acetonitrile and Cd(ClO(4))(2) yielded the noncentrosymmetric coordination complex tetrakis[μ-2-(quinolin-8-yloxy)acetato]tetrakis[μ-2-(quinolin-8-yloxy)acetonitrile]tetracadmium tetrakis(perchlorate) dihydrate, [Cd(4)(C(11)H(8)NO(3))(4)(C(11)H(8)N(2)O)(4)](ClO(4))(4)·2H(2)O. The local coordination environment around the Cd(II) cation can be best described as a capped octahedron defined by two N atoms and five O atoms from three ligands. The Cd(II) cations are linked by the ligands with Cd-O-Cd and Cd-O-C-C-O-Cd bridges, forming tetranuclear units, there being two independent tertranuclear units in the structure. The fourfold rotoinversion centre sits at the centre of each Cd(4) core. The two perchlorate anions in the asymmetric unit are linked by the water molecule through O-H...O hydrogen bonds.


. The phase state of the dense stellar matter is an exciting topic in the area of nuclear astrophysics. It may be probed by observed properties of neutron stars from, for example, the currently operating satellites (NICER, Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer) and the gravitational-wave laser interferom-eters (Advanced LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA). Based on our recent constrained parameter spaces of the equation of states of neutron stars and quark stars from LIGO / Virgo and NICER, we discuss the important role of an even-accurate de-termination of the stellar radius for distinguishing possible quark stars from neutron stars and our understanding of the QCD phase transition at finite density.


Caspase-9 (casp-9) is an initiator caspase and plays a central role in activating apoptotic cell death. Control of all caspases is tightly regulated by a series of phosphorylation events enacted by several different kinases. Caspase-9 is the most heavily phosphorylated of all caspases, with phosphorylation of at least 11 distinct residues in all three caspase-9 domains by nine kinases. Caspase-9 phosphorylation by the non-receptor tyrosine kinase c-Abl at Tyr-153 reportedly leads to caspase-9 activation. All other phosphorylation events on caspases have been shown to block proteolytic function by a number of mechanisms, so we sought to unravel the molecular mechanism of the putative caspase-9 activation by phosphorylation. Surprisingly, we observed no evidence for Tyr-153 phosphorylation of caspase-9 in vitro or in cells, suggesting that Tyr-153 is not phosphorylated by c-Abl. Instead, we identified a new site for c-Abl–mediated phosphorylation, Tyr-397. This residue is adjacent to the caspase-9 active site but, as a member of the second shell, not a residue that directly contacts substrate. Our results further indicate that Tyr-397 is the dominant site of c-Abl phosphorylation both in vitro and upon c-Abl activation in cells. Of note, phosphorylation at this site inhibits caspase-9 activity, and the bulk of the added phosphate moiety appeared to directly block substrate binding. c-Abl plays both proapoptotic and prosurvival roles, and our findings suggest that c-Abl's effects on caspase-9 activity promote the prosurvival mode.


The complex dielectric permittivity of ionic plastic crystal KNO 2 was measured in the frequency range 20-10 6 Hz and the temperature range 22-300 K. A small step-like anomaly of the static dielectric permittivity appeared at the rhombohedral (phase II) to monoclinic (phase III) transition (T tr2 = 264.1 K). In phase III, the static dielectric permittivity decreased gradually on cooling over a wide temperature range 50-264 K. These results indicate that the orientation of the NO ion is still disordered at high temperatures in phase III and becomes ordered gradually with decreasing temperature. The dielectric dispersion associated with this motion occurred in the temperature range 70-150 K. From these data and the previously reported 15 N NMR data, we propose a model of the motion of NO - 2 in phase III in which the anion undergoes 180 -flip motion about the axes perpendicular to the molecular C 2 axis in an asymmetric double-minimum potential.


In this study, a range of carbon nanotube yarn (CNTY) architectures was examined and controlled by chemical modification to gain a deeper understanding of CNTY load-bearing systems and produce lightweight and superstrong CNTYs. The architecture of CNTY, which has polymer layers surrounding a compact bundle without hampering the original state of the CNTs in the bundle, is a favorable design for further chemical cross-linking and for enhancing the load-transfer efficiency, as confirmed by in situ Raman spectroscopy under a stress load. The resulting CNTY exhibited excellent mechanical performance that exceeded the specific strength of the benchmark, high-performance fibers. This exceptional strength of the CNTY makes it a promising candidate for the cable of a space elevator traveling from the Earth to the International Space Station given its strength of 4.35 GPa/(g cm-3), which can withstand the self-weight of a 440 km cable.


Of the oldest printed song-book in the Netherlands: Dit is een suuerlijc boecxken (SB), six editions have been known still to exist. Four editions of SB appeared under this title: one published by A. van Berghen at Antwerp in 1508, one by W. Vorsterman also at Antwerp in 1540, and two undated ones - probably late 16th-century - by H.J. Muller at Amsterdam. Two other editions, equally undated but probably also late 16th-century were published under the title: Dit is een schoon suyverlyck Boecxken (SSB) by Th. Baert at Antwerp (Alkmaar?) and C. Claesz at Am-sterdam respectively (approbations of 17.11.1570). Of each of these editions there are provided a photograph of the title-page, the collation, a depository with classification number, and the main bibli-ography. To the above-mentioned editions a completely unknown 16th-century edition has now been added: Dit is een suyuerlijck boecxken, published by Jan II van Ghelen at Antwerp in 1565. This collection comprises 58 spiritual songs, 23 of which have an air indication, and 48 of which had already appeared in print before 1565.


The mackinawite mineral was prepared as a carbon steel corrosion product in sulfidogenic waters at 90 °C after 2 months. The tetragonal crystal structure of the material was confirmed by Rietveld refinement of X-ray diffraction (XRD) data, and vibrational modes were analysed by micro-Raman spectroscopy. Despite a large number of studies on the formation and the stability of tetragonal mackinawite, the interpretation of the Raman spectra remains uncertain. In the present study, we report on the first calculation of the Raman-active vibrational modes of mackinawite using Density Functional Perturbation Theory and direct methods with BLYP + dispersion correction. Based on the comparison between calculated and experimental results, the four fundamental vibrational modes were assigned as 228 cm−1 (B1g), 246 cm−1 (Eg), 373 cm−1 (A1g) and 402 cm−1 (Eg).


Near-field models of coherent beam combination (CBC) with different beam channels and fill factors are employed, and the influences of tip/tilt phase errors on CBC are studied. The key device for tilt-error correction, named adaptive fiber optics collimator(AFOC), is introduced. A MOPA-configuration fiber laser CBC system compensating both piston and tip/tilt phase errors is designed. Then, the dynamic courses of tilt-error correction using stochastic parallel gradient descent (SPGD) algorithm in a seven-channel system are simulated, and the effects of CBC at different tilt-error amplitudes and frequencies are investigated. Experimental results show that the tilt-error should be corrected to improve CBC effects, and algorithm's control ability drops off when tilt-error amplitude and frequency increase. The results in this paper present a reference for multi-channel high power fiber laser CBC systems in real atmospheric environments.


Tsunami-induced wave pressure and tsunami force acting on containers on an apron are investigated with a threedimensional numerical simulation based on MARS (Multi-interface Advection and Reconstruction Solver) as well as hydraulic model experiments for the measurements of runup height on the apron and tsunami force acting on the containers. It is consequently found that the numerical method allows the good estimations of both the runup height on the apron and tsunami force acting on the containers. It is also revealed that the maximum runup height in front of the containers gives the maximum wave pressure on the containers with hydrostatic pressure approximation, however impact pressure on the lower part of the containers may exceed this hydrostatic water pressure.


In graph neural networks (GNNs), message passing iteratively aggregates nodes' information from their direct neighbours while neglecting the sequential nature of multi-hop node connections. Such sequential node connections e.g., metapaths, capture critical insights for downstream tasks. Concretely, in recommender systems (RSs), disregarding a larger neighbourhood and focusing only on the immediate neighbours leads to inadequate distillation of the collaborative signals. In this paper, we employ collaborative subgraphs (CSGs) and metapaths to form metapath-aware subgraphs, which explicitly capture sequential semantics in graph structures. We propose metaPath and Entity-Aware Graph Neural Network (PEAGNN), which trains GNN to perform metapath-aware information aggregation on such subgraphs. The information from different metapaths is then fused using attention mechanism. To leverage the local structure of CSGs, we introduce entity-awareness that acts as a contrastive regularizer on node embedding. Moreover, PEAGNN can be combined with prominent layers such as GAT, GCN and GraphSage. Our empirical evaluation shows that our proposed approach outperforms competitive baselines on three public datasets. Further analysis demonstrates that PEAGNN also learns meaningful metapath combinations from a given set of metapaths.


DNA synthesis and contents of reduced glutathione (GSH) and oxidized glutathione were determined every 4 hours during a 24-hour period in 70 human bone marrow samples from 10 healthy males. The mean GSH contents during the sampling periods were low, varying from 1.94 to 3.27 nmol/mg protein between the subjects; the mean values for all samples were 2.54 +/- 0.06 nmol/mg protein. The GSH content varied markedly within the individual according to circadian stage (31.0% to 90.2%; mean, 51.4%). Between individuals the mean percentage of cells in DNA synthesis varied from 10.6% to 14.5%, but there was an intraindividual circadian stage-dependent variation, ranging from 48.9% to 274.0% (mean, 126.6%), relative to the lowest value. After adjustment for a slight phase difference between GSH content and DNA synthesis observed for some of the subjects, a statistically significant correlation was found between the GSH content and the fraction of cells in DNA synthesis. The myelosuppressive effect of many chemotherapeutic agents assumed to be detoxified by GSH-dependent mechanism(s) should be considered in the light of the low GSH content in human bone marrow, the circadian variation of DNA synthesis, and the circadian stage-dependent relationship of the GSH content and DNA synthesis.


Fasting is known to decrease sulfate incorporation as well as other growth functions in cartilage. The present study compared corneal sulfation in vivo and in vitro, with sulfation in cartilage of rats undergoing total food deprivation for 48 hours and refeeding for periods up to 28 days. Sulfate incorporation by cartilage decreased both in vivo and in vitro during the fast and recovered to normal values by 7 days of refeeding. Corneal sulfation increased in vivo during the fast. After 7 days of refeeding corneal sulfation in vivo dropped below the control value and remained below the control level. At later recovery periods corneal sulfation in vivo was normal. Corneal sulfation in vitro decreased during the fast. Normal cartilage showed a decrease in sulfate incorporation in vivo and in vitro with increasing age. Corneal sulfation in vitro followed this pattern, but corneal sulfation in vivo did not. We conclude that the effect of fasting on sulfate metabolism of corneal stroma is qualitatively different from that of cartilage.


This study examines foreign language prospective teachers' levels of anxiety in their professional field in terms of a number of variables. In line with purpose of the study the research population was composed of students attending the Foreign Languages Education Department (that is to say, German Language Teaching, French Language Teaching, and English Language Teaching sections) of Gazi Faculty of Education of Gazi University. The research data were collected via personal information form in addition to the "Prospective Teachers' Anxiety Scale" developed by the researcher. The data were then put to analysis on the SPSS 16 statistical package programme, and having interpreted the findings, attempts were made to determine the prospective German, French and English teachers' levels of anxiety in terms of "anxiety domains" (self-centred, task centred and student-centred anxiety). The numerical data obtained were interpreted in the conclusions part. Prospective teachers' professional concerns were analysed on the basis of such variables as gender, age, and the branch of study (section); and it was found whether or not there were any significant differences on the basis of those variables. Keywords: foreign language, professional concern, teacher candidate, anxiety level


In the current study, simulating residual stress distributions has been investigated for an AISI 316H austenitic stainless steels weld header and compared to actual measured residual stresses. These welds connect the outlet nozzle to the archetypal header 1B1/1 which was ex-serviced from Heysham power plant in UK. Finite element (FE) analyses of different load and boundary conditions have been performed to predict the optimum stress distribution around the cracking region to compare with available measured residual stress distributions in the literature. The FE predictions show that a remote displacement control tensile load on the nozzle with fixed vertical movement of cylinder can best fit the measured residual stress distribution.Hardness profile across the weld cross section indicates that the hardness gradually decease from HV 210 in weld metal to HV 160 in base metal, however, in the fusion away from 3 mm, the hardness were over HV 240. The facts indicate that the primary crack is likely to initiate at high hardness boundary and propagate in the direction of the highest principal stress regardless of the material hardness. Hypothesis of mechanism to the crack propagation is considered and proposals to predict damage and cracking in the header using FEM are presented.Copyright © 2013 by ASME


ABSTRACT:This personal essay speaks to the life-altering impact of adoption, even in the case of a carefully planned and successful open adoption. The essay describes the experience of a birthmother over the course of twenty-two years in an open adoption.


Current collaborative software usually have no or limited support for ad-hoc collaboration. SharedMind supports synchronous collaboration, i.e. real-time collaboration, and asynchronous collaboration, i.e. the merging of local instances of a document modified by different users after dis- and reconnects to a group of collaborators. SharedMind is completely decentralized and supports ad-hoc collaboration for interconnected (sub)groups. It demonstrates the confluence of social media and tools for computer supported collaborative works.


Allogeneic mesenchymal stromal cells (allo-MSC) are a promising "off-the-shelf" therapy with 23 anti-inflammatory and pro-repair properties. This study investigated humoral immune 24 responses to intramuscular (IM) injections of allo-MSC. Total and isotype-specific anti-donor 25 IgG and donor-specific complement-mediated lysis were determined in sera from healthy 26 mice two weeks after single or repeated IM injections of fully-MHC-mismatched allo-MSC with 27 comparison to mice receiving syngeneic MSC, allogeneic splenocytes or saline. In mice 28 subjected to hind limb ischemia (HLI), anti-donor IgG was analysed following IM allo-MSC 29 injection with and without administration of the T-cell immunosuppressant tacrolimus. 30 Recipients of single and repeated IM allo-MSC developed readily-detectable anti-donor IgG. 31 Serum anti-donor IgG levels were similar to those of allo-splencoyte recipients but had higher 32 IgG1/IgG2a ratio and variable capacity for complement-mediated lysis of donor cells. The 33 induced anti-donor IgG bound readily to allo-MSC and this binding was increased following 34 allo-MSC pre-treatment with interferon gamma. In mouse with HLI, IM injection of allo-MSC 35 into the ischemic limb was also associated with induction of anti-donor IgG but this was 36 abrogated by tacrolimus. The results indicate that allo-MSC are inherently immunogenic when 37 delivered intramuscularly to healthy and ischemic mouse hind limb but induce an IgG1- 38 skewed humoral response that is suppressed by tacrolimus.


Complex software systems that support organizations are updated regularly, which can erode system architectures. Moreover, documentation is rarely synchronized with the changes to the software system. This creates a slew of issues for future software maintenance. To this goal, information extraction tools use exact approaches to extract entities and their corresponding relationships from source code. Such exact approaches extract all features, including those that are less prominent and may not be significant for modularization. In order to resolve the issue, this work proposes an enhanced approximate information extraction approach, namely, fact extractor system for Java applications (FESJA) that aims to automate software modularization using a fact extraction system. The proposed FESJA technique extracts all the entities along with their corresponding more dominant formal and informal relationships from a Java source code. Results demonstrate the improved performance of FESJA, by extracting 74 (classes), 43 (interfaces), and 31 (enumeration), in comparison with eminent information extraction techniques.


In this thesis, a measurement set-up has been developed to characterize high frequency medical ultrasound transducers using a pulse echo set-up. This work is a continuation of an earlier project. The aim of this project is to improve the instrumentation to get more reliable, repeatable and consistent results. The transducer used in this project was a 20MHz annular array transducer with 8 elements. Parameters such as the electroacoustic transfer function and reflection coefficients of element 1 and 2 have been found for a sinusoidal burst excitation and a Gaussian excitation, to give examples for the estimation of these parameters. Developing the right instrumentation for the pulse echo set-up and transducer for pulse echo measurements has been emphasised, where a transducer holder and reflector have been constructed for characterization of elements 1-5. A cylindrical water resistant reflector with a curved top was designed giving certain degrees of freedom as opposed to the pure spherical reflector concerning positioning of the reflector with respect to the transducer. A slanted bottom was included in the design of the reflector causing reflections from the bottom to diffract and thus stopping these from interfering with the reflections of interest happening at the top of the reflector surface. A transducer holder was also designed and custom made for the transducer used in the project, where both mechanical and electrical considerations have been taken, as the holder makes alignment of the transducer with respect to the reflector easier and coaxial cables have been introduced to get more control over the signals going to and from the transducer array. Coaxial cables were chosen as these are easy to model, and have clear specifications in addition to having the property of shielding noise signals. Alignment of the transducer has been emphasised to make radiation into the focus of the reflector easier, although the design of the reflector also allows the reflector to be tilted in the allocation of its focus point. By taking detailed lateral scans of echoes received by the transducer using a robot, in addition to varying the distance between the transducer and the reflector with an increment of 0.2 mm, the reflection coefficients were found to be very sensitive to lateral positioning, and to some extent sensitive to axial positioning of the transducer with respect to the reflector. The elimination of propagation delay due to the signals travel in waterpath and electrical transmission and reception chain leading to the transducer ports has also been compensated for, as these delays will effect the complex values of the transfer function. The electrical propagation delay is eliminated by using a simulation program, and analysis of the time between two consecutive echoes is done in order to find the physical time delay in the water path the pulses travelled. The electro acoustic transfer function has also been found for element 1 and element 2, but with a much greater time delay than what was expected. An uncertainty budget of the obtained parameters has also been done to see the impact of laboratory equipment on the meaurements. Estimation schemes to obtain reflection coefficients and the electro acoustic transfer function have been developed, which are repeatable for further characterization for the whole transducer array. Existing MATLAB codes have been modified in simulations and some new codes have been written for analyzing measurement based estimation of transfer functions, reflection coefficients and effects of various filters on their characteristics. Different types of filters have been used on the recorded echo signals to eliminate noise from the estimated reflection coefficients. A better control of the parasitic inductances due to the non coaxial cables in the system should perhaps be evaluated, and for further characterization of the transducer, the mechanical admittance can also be found by using the estimated reflection coefficients and electro acoustic transfer function.