Iodine intake varies with age and physiological status: in pregnant and lactating women, recommended iodine intake ranges from 200 to 250 mg/day. Recent epidemiological studies in France demonstrate the presence of moderate iodine deficiency in the majority of pregnant and lactating women. This iodine deficiency induces maternal thyroid hyperplasia and then development of goiter in women, as well as impaired thyroid parameters. Maternal hypothyroxinemia during the first trimester of pregnancy can be associated with abnormal cognitive development and intellectual outcomes in the newborn and the children. According to the recent World Health Organization recommendations for the prevention and control of iodine deficiency in pregnant and lactating women, systematic iodine supplementation is indicated in France: 100 microg/day for women of reproductive age and 200 microg/day in pregnant and lactating women in order to eradicate iodine deficiency during pregnancy and lactation, and prevent the maternal and fetal consequences.


We present a comparative study for the evolution of utilizing indium gallium (InGa) and aluminum gallium (AlGa) alloys fabricated on GaAs(100) by means of simultaneous and sequential droplet formation. The composite alloys reported using the sequential approach lack the ability to precisely determine the final alloy composition as well as consistency in the density of the droplets. Further, the composition of the InGa alloy is not uniform, as seen by the size distribution using an atomic force microscope (AFM). Although this approach may be acceptable for materials with similar surface kinetics, as in the case of AlGa, it is not acceptable for InGa. This investigation reveals that the simultaneous approach for fabricating composite alloys is the optimum approach for producing InGa alloys with better control on composition for plasmonic applications such as plasmonic waveguides.


Lecture given Wednesday, September 22, 2010, 10:00 AM at Abilene Christian University: "2 Peter, a letter in the form of a testament, remembers the life and ministry of "Simon Peter, a slave and apostle of Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 1:1) for believers coping with the delayed return."


Adaptive supply chain partnerships are a key factor in driving the ability of extended enterprise partners to achieve long-term goals in an environment characterized by disruptive environmental shifts. Adaptive extended enterprise arrangements allow participating enterprises to leverage their combined assets for collective exploration and exploitation. In the context of extended enterprises, where significant investments have been directed toward instituting common interfaces, this study examines the question: How does the use of standard electronic business interfaces (SEBIs) enable supply chain partnerships to become more adaptive?

This study conceptualizes the use of SEBIs as a boundary-spanning mechanism that helps overcome boundaries that impede knowledge transfer between enterprises in supply chains. SEBIs enables partners to gain insight into their broader environments, enriching each partner's perspective (enhanced bridging). SEBIs also help strengthen the cooperative ties between partners, motivating each partner to adapt for collective gain (enhanced bonding).

Our research model is empirically tested using data collected from 41 demand-side supply chain partnerships (between original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), distributors, and retailers) in the information technology (IT) industry. The results show that collaborative information exchange (CIE) between supply chain partners mediates the relationship between use of SEBIs and mutual adaptation (MA) and adaptive knowledge creation between supply chain partners. Interestingly, the use of SEBIs is found to be directly associated with MA but only indirectly associated with adaptive knowledge creation.

The study points out that the strategic impacts of SEBIs go well beyond the exchange of transaction information and process integration. It also shows that multilateral, quasi-open, and information exchange--and process linkage--oriented SEBIs can result in both bonding and bridging across supply chain partners without binding them inflexibly to specific partners. Based on the model and results, the study offers practical implications for how SEBIs should be developed, adopted, and used.


This paper presents a novel 4D printed tunable frequency selective surface (FSS) utilizing a multi-layer mirror-stacked "Miura-ori" structure that can be applied in numerous mm-Wave, IoT, RFID, WSN, 5G, and smart city applications. The prototype was fabricated with fully additive hybrid (3D and inkjet) printing processes to realize a flexible two-layer substrate with conductive traces on both top and bottom. The proposed multi-layer/multi-material manufacturing process features very significant strength improvement over paper-based origami structures, while enabling the realization of increasingly complex "morphing" designs that would be otherwise difficult to fabricate using traditional paper-based substrates. The proof-of-concept prototype demonstrates great frequency tunability, angle of incidence (AoI) rejection, and significantly improved insertion loss performance over simpler single-layer Miura-based designs as well as an operability up to much higher mm-wave frequencies up to at least 28 GHz.


Four Cosmological distances were determined in the light
of the closed cosmic model which was presented in a previous
study. Each of these distances was obtained in terms of the redshift of an
extragalactic object. It is found that the luminosity distance of the
extragalactic object in the closed cosmic model, the observed model and model are
approximately the same up to z = 0.1535.
However, the luminosity distance in the close cosmic model approximately agrees
with its value in the observed model up to z = 0.6442. Estimations of the horizon distance of the universe, the
total mass and the mass of matter within the horizon distance, the equivalent
numbers of the Milky Way-like galaxies and the Coma-like clusters of galaxies
to the mass of matter were computed in the closed cosmic model at the present
time.


JHAVEPOP is a program visualization tool specialized in elementary pointer and linked-list operations. It is a web-started application pre-packaged with ready-made programming exercises in both Java and C++. The only preparation needed by instructors to use JHAVEPOP is telling their students what URL to load in their browsers. Once there, students read the problem statement, enter their program, and interact with an automatically generated, visual representation of the state of memory during program execution. JHAVEPOP has been used at both the high school and college level. Student feedback indicates that JHAVEPOP is helping them debug their programs faster and with less frustration.


Forensic odontology involves dentists' participation in assisting legal and criminal issues. Formal teaching in forensic odontology has existed for over a 100 years. Over the last century, forensic odontology has evolved and, today, it is an integral part of undergraduate dental training in many countries. Dentists have been trained in the specialty, and dedicated departments established in institutes and universities around the world. A survey undertaken at five universities revealed that these centres have developed detailed curricula in forensic odontology, and a general standard exists in teaching forensic odontology, however, coverage of recent advances in forensic science may be lacking. While recognising that these programmes are not representative of teaching in forensic odontology worldwide, suggestions are made for an alternative approach to teaching the subject. Moreover, it is stressed that teaching be undertaken by qualified forensic odontologists.


The historical work The Huangshan Case in Tianqi Period by Cheng Yan - sheng collected a large quantity of historical documents with careful arrangement and annotation. It distinguishes Wu Yang - chun's case (ie. Huangshan Case) from Wu Huai - xian's case, and discovers the truth of the former. So it has great value in the study of the political situations in the late Ming Dynasty and Huizhou local history.


The aim of this study was to evaluate the predictive value of respiratory distress syndrome-RDS evidence using amniotic fluid diagnostic tests. 200 amniotic fluid samples obtained by amniocentesis were study to evaluate pulmonary tissue maturity status. The PG test was 30% specific and 100% sensitive; FLM test showed 50% specificity and 67% sensitivity. The Sbarr tests OD 400 and 650 showed high specificity, relatively 88% and 71% and a low sensitive of 21% and 29%. Woytoń test showed 62% specificity and 36% sensitivity. Foam test had 11% specificity and 100% sensitivity. None of these testes used alone cannot predict the newborn pulmonary tissue maturity status and therefore all these test should be used combined. In our study RDS appeared in 8.4% of study newborns, and there was no evidence of RDS in newborns born after 35 weeks of gestation.


Photolysis of a-(0-toly1)acetone (TA) in 2-propanol was reported not to produce the indanol product expected from &hydrogen abstraction and cyclization of the resulting 1,5-biradical. A reinvestigation of this reaction reveals that the photolysis of solutions of TA does produce an indanol, albeit as a minor product. Similarly, photolysis of benzene solutions of o-tolylmethyl benzyl ketone (TBK) and o-tolylmethyl cyclohexyl ketone (TCK) results in the formation of indanols as minor products (ca. 5-10%). However, the photolysis of mesitylmethyl benzyl ketone (MBK) yields an indanol in significant yield (ca. 40%). In all cases, the diphenylethanes (DPEs) expected from free-radical recombination of benzylic radicals produced by a-cleavage are produced as dominant products. In order to determine the synthetic limitations of indanol formation from the photolysis of a-(0-tolyl)acetones, the mechanism of these photolyses was investigated. Sensitization with triplet acetone generated from the thermolysis of tetramethyl-1,2- dioxetane at 70 OC, quenching of the disappearance of ketone by isoprene, and isoprene quenching of the formation of indanol and fluorescence demonstrate that a-cleavage occurs dominantly from the triplet state and that b-hydrogen abstraction occurs exclusively from the singlet state. Rates of quenching of acetone phosphorescence by dibenzyl ketone (DBK) and TBK in acetonitrile are found to be about 1 order of magnitude less than the rate of diffusion control. The yield of indanol can be enhanced by the introduction of methyl groups to the aryl ring, an increase in the reaction temperature, the addition of a triplet quencher to the reaction mixture, and, as previously reported, the use of microheterogeneous media. The quantum yield measurements for product formation show that the efficiency of a-cleavage drops by half from DBK to TBK and by a factor of 3 from TBK to MBK. We interpret this inefficiency to result from a radiationless deactivation of the singlet state which occurs when the o-tolyl group is attached to the a-position of a dialkyl ketone and this radiationless transition is induced by an incipient but incomplete b-hydrogen abstraction, as previously proposed for y-hydrogen abstraction.


The mutagenic effect of analgin was studied in germ and somatic cells of male mice Mus musculus. It was found that injection of analgin (20 and 40 mg per mouse) significantly increased the frequency of sperm head anomalies and chromosome aberrations in bone marrow cells. Immobilization of analgin in starch led to decrease in the drug immobilization.


This note presents a robust fault isolation scheme for a class of nonlinear systems with sensor bias type of faults. The proposed fault diagnosis architecture consists of a fault detection estimator and a bank of isolation estimators, each corresponding to a particular output sensor. Based on the class of nonlinear systems and sensor bias faults under consideration, the stability and learning properties of the fault isolation estimators are obtained, adaptive thresholds are derived for the isolation estimators, and fault isolability conditions are rigorously investigated, characterizing the class of nonlinear faults that are isolable by the proposed scheme. A simulation example is used to illustrate the effectiveness of the sensor bias fault isolation methodology.


We investigate the influence of the energy gap (Δ) of the color-flavor locked (CFL) quark phase on the bulk properties of hybrid stars. The relativistic mean field model is used for hadronic matter and the MIT bag model for CFL quark matter. In our calculation results, we find that with the increase of the CFL energy gap there exists a transition behavior, which goes from the hadron star range through the transition range into the CFL quark star range. The observation data of PRS J1614-2230 are in the hadron star range (with Δ < 40 MeV). We also find that with hyperons the equation of state (EOS) for the hybrid star matter with the CFL quark matter core has a small change, which can be disregarded.


In this paper, a composite buffer layer structure (CBLS) with multiple AlGaN layers and grading of Al composition/u-GaN1/(AlN/GaN) superlattices/u-GaN2 and InAlGaN/AlGaN quaternary superlattices electron-blocking layers (QSLs-EBLs) are introduced into the epitaxial growth of InGaN-based light-emitting diodes (LEDs) on 6-inch Si (111) substrates to suppress cracking and improve the crystalline quality and emission efficiency. The effect of CBLS and QSLs-EBL on the crystalline quality and emission efficiency of InGaN-based LEDs on Si substrates was studied in detail. Optical microscopic images revealed the absence of cracks and Ga melt-back etching. The atomic force microscopy images exhibited that the root-mean-square value of the surface morphology was only 0.82 nm. The full widths at half maxima of the (0002) and (101̅2) reflections in the double crystal X-ray rocking curve were ~330 and 450 respectively. The total threading dislocation density, revealed by transmission electron microscopy, was <; 6× 108 cm-2. From the material characterizations, described above, blue and white LEDs emitters were fabricated using the epiwafers of InGaN-based LEDs on 6-inch Si substrates. The blue LEDs emitter that comprised blue LEDs chip and clear lenses had an emission power of 490 mW at 350 mA, a wall-plug efficiency of 45% at 350 mA, and an efficiency droop of 80%. The white LEDs emitter that comprised blue LEDs chip and yellow phosphor had an emission efficiency of ~110 lm/W at 350 mA and an efficiency droop of 78%. These results imply that the use of a CBLS and QSLs-EBL was found to be very simple and effective in fabricating high-efficiency InGaN-based LEDs on Si for solid-state lighting applications.


This study investigates empirically the relationship between one of the major corporate governance attributes (family ownership) and the audit committee activity across a sample of 430 publicly traded firms in Saudi Stock Exchange for the period 2012-2019. Using the Pooled OLS regression, this study finds that family ownership is negatively associated with audit committee activity. This study provides insightful evidence to policy makers on the relationship of family ownership and audit committee activity.


Guided waves (GW) allow fast inspection of a large area and hence have received great interest from the structural health monitoring (SHM) community. Fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors offer several advantages but their use has been limited for the GW sensing due to its limited sensitivity. FBG sensors in the edge-filtering configuration have overcome this issue with sensitivity and there is a renewed interest in their use. Unfortunately, the FBG sensors and the equipment needed for interrogation is quite expensive and their number is restricted. In the previous work by the authors the number and location of the actuators was optimized for developing a SHM system with single sensor and multiple actuators. But through the use of the phenomenon of acoustic coupling, multiple locations on the structure may be interrogated with a single FBG sensors. As a result, a sensor network with multiple sensing locations and few actuators is feasible and cost effective. Hence this paper develops the optimization problem for designing an SHM network for use with FBG sensors making use of acoustic coupling. The optimization problem is implemented on a simple aluminum plate. The directionality, bond efficiency and the factors influencing the acoustic coupling are taken into consideration for optimizing the sensor network. A multi-objective optimization problem is defined and solved using non-sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA). The results indicate that indeed a multi-objective optimization is necessary and has potential to improve the SHM system performance.


Large-scale distributed computing platforms have become widely used due to improvements in hardware and software. To evaluate algorithms for those platforms, one usually conducts experiments in simulations. While simulation has been employed in various areas such as microprocessor design and network protocol design, simulation techniques for large-scale distributed applications are still in their infancy. In this thesis, we focus on network simulation, which is one of the most important components of simulation for large-scale distributed applications. We first investigate the trade-offs between simulation cost and accuracy for two commonly used network simulation methods, packet-level and analytical simulations. We do this by comparing three existing packet-level network simulation tools, GTNetS, SSFNet, and ns-2, with the analytical simulation models implemented in SIMGRID, a toolkit for simulating Grid applications. We find that the following three factors affect the accuracy of SIMGRID when compared to packet-level simulation: (1) the size of the data transfered by TCP flows, (2) the complexity of the network topology, and (3) the network contention. Our results provide a new understanding of the relative merit of analytical network simulation versus packetlevel simulation. We then integrate GTNetS into SIMGRID, in order to enable the SIMGRID users to switch between packet-level and analytical network simulations and make their own decision regarding the costl accuracy trade-offs. The two main challenges are the translation between simulation objects in the two simulators, and the addition of suspendable/resumable simulation and of speculative simulation capabilities to GTNetS. We address the latter by modifying the GTNetS source code, and address the former by implementing an API on top of the modified GTNetS. The end result for SIMGRID users is a new ability to switch easily (i.e., with no user code modification) between analytical and packet-level simulations.


This paper presents finite element models for the study of heating of the squirrel-cage rotor of the induction machines during motor startup. The transient magnetic and the magnetoharmonic models of the induction machine are used in the studies of squirrel cage adiabatic heating and magnetothermal rotor heating. The multiphysics model, which rigorously reflects the transient heating of the rotor, is a coupling between the transient magnetic model of the induction machine and the thermal transient model of the rotor heating.


OBJECTIVE
To assess the value of multiple quantitative fluorescence polymerase chain reaction (QF-PCR) approach for rapid prenatal diagnosis of common chromosomal aneuploidies.

METHODS
A total of 4760 amniotic samples from 4649 pregnant women were analyzed with QF-PCR for 21, 18, 13, X and Y aneuploidies, and the results were compared with those of karyotype analysis.

RESULTS
The overall success rate for QF-PCR was 98.4%. All the 48 cases of 21, 18, 13, X and Y aneuploidies (including 2 case of 46, XY, rob(13:21), +21; 4 trisomy 21 in 4 twins) were detected by QF-PCR, with the overall sensibility and specificity both reaching 100%. One mosaicism of trisomy 21 and 4 mosaicisms of sex chromosome (1 misdiagnosed by karyotype analysis) were also detected by QF-PCR. Four mosaicisms of sex chromosome were verified as missed diagnosis. All the 64 cases failed by karyotype analysis were successfully analyzed by the QF-PCR approach. The total consistency rate for QF-PCR and karyotyping has reached 98.3%.

CONCLUSION
QF-PCR approach can diagnose 21, 18, 13 as well as X and Y aneuploidies within 48 hours, in addition with a portion of mosaicisms. It is an efficient and reliable method for rapid prenatal diagnosis, and therefore provide an important supplement for karyotype analysis.


This study aimed to establish a business model of reproductive biotechnology in small ruminant. Sets of questionnaires were administered to interview 115 farmers from different regions in Thailand. Data including age, educational background, farm size and type, source of replacement breeders, breeding technology, farm problems and attitude toward the technology were collected. Logistic regression analysis along with neutral network analysis was used to identify factors associated technology interest with P < 0.05. Results showed that among 115 participants, 72.2% were interested in reproductive biotechnology. In univariate logistic regression analysis, farmer's age [OR=0.96, 95% CI (0.93,1.00)], educational background [OR=1.17, 95% CI (0.13,0.80)], production problems [OR=1.28, 95% CI (1.12,1.478)] and marketing problems [OR=1.40, 95% CI (1.18,1.67)] were independently associated with technology interest ( P < 0.05). Similar to the neural network analysis, farmer's age, overall farm problems, marketing problems, production problems and educational background were the primary factors influencing technology interest of farmers. Next, the data from 18 semi-structured interviews were interpreted to establish suggested business models of reproductive biotechnology package. This indicated that a single business model could not fit the expectation of all farmers. Thus, six business models were established and 2 models were initially implemented in 7 farms with a moderate successful rate. In conclusion, the implement of reproductive biotechnology in small ruminant farm should be addressed to the young farmers with high education to improve the animal genetic value and sustain their livelihoods. However, the different farm managements play a key role in the success of these business models.


Various online databases exist to make judgments accessible in the digital age. Before a legal practitioner can utilize state-of-the-art information retrieval features to retrieve relevant court rulings, the textual document must be processed. More importantly, many verdicts lack crucial semantic information which can be utilized within the search process. One piece of information that is frequently missed, as the judge is not adding it during the publication process within the court, is the so-called norm chain. This list contains the most relevant norms for the underlying decision. Therefore this paper investigates the feasibility of automatically extracting the most relevant norms of a court ruling. A dataset constituting over 42k labeled court rulings was used in order to train different classifiers. While our models provide F1 performances of up to 0.77, they can undoubtedly be utilized within the editorial publication process to provide helpful suggestions.


Creating reasonable AI for sidekicks in games has proven to be a difficult challenge synthetizing player modelling and cooperative planning, both being problems hard by themselves. In this paper, we experiment with designing around these problems: we propose a cooperative puzzle-platformer game that was designed to look similarly to the mainstream of the genre, but to allow for an easy implementation of a quality sidekick AI, letting us test player reactions to the AI. The game was designed so that it is easy for the AI to find optimal solutions while the problem is relatively hard for a human player. We gathered survey responses from players who played the game online (N=28). While the AI sidekick was reported as likeable and helpful, players still reported greater enjoyment of the game when they were allowed to control the sidekick themselves. These findings indicate that the AI itself is not the only obstacle to truly enjoyable gameplay with an AI sidekick.


This study was designed to determine the level of oxidative stress using the level of circulating C-reactive protein, malondialdehyde and absolute lymphocyte counts in pre and post-acute exercise as studies have shown that acute exercise enhances the immunological responses of stressed individuals. Twenty five (25) healthy young male undergraduate students with an average age of 24.3 ± 3 years and body mass index of 22.7 ± 1.8 (kg/m2) participated fully in the study. The levels of malondialdehyde and C-reactive protein were significantly higher at one hour, four hours and twenty-four hour post exercise when compared with the pre-exercise stage whereas the absolute lymphocyte count and absolute neutrophils count were significantly higher at one hour and four hours post exercise when compared with the pre-exercise stage. Absolute lymphocyte count, absolute neutrophils count, Creactive protein and malondialdehyde concentrations are increased in acute exercise which is an indication of an acute phase responses during stressful events.


Gold(I)-containing compounds have long been used in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), but the molecular mechanism of their action has remained largely unknown. In this paper we have demonstrated that gold(I) drugs selectively activate the DNA binding of a heterodimer consisting of the basic-leucine zipper transcription factors Nrf2 and small Maf. Once bound to its recognition DNA sequence termed antioxidant-responsive element or Maf-recognition element, Nrf2/small Maf induces a set of antioxidative stress genes, including heme oxygenase-1 and γ-glutamylcysteine synthetase, whose products have been demonstrated to contribute to the scavenging of reactive oxygen species and to exhibit anti-inflammatory effects. Our findings suggest that stimulation of antioxidative stress response through activation of Nrf2/small Maf may be a pharmacologically important part of the actions of gold(I) drugs for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. Alternatively, activation of Nrf2/small Maf may be a protective response of cells against toxic effects of the drugs.


The workability of fresh concrete should be characterized by its rheological properties based on material science approach to overcome the inadequacies of traditional empirical tests like slump test. Generally the rheological properties of fresh concrete are described by Bingham parameters in terms of two physical quantities, namely yield stress and plastic viscosity. Rheometers are used to find the two rheological parameters, which use high speed torque to shear the concrete and the stimulus provided during testing is dynamic. But, there is no concurrence in the measurement of rheological values by various rheometers. In this systematic study the Bingham parameters of normal concrete was found from using a specially fabricated new concrete shear box. The advantage of this test is the low shear rate applied on the specimen during testing which is similar to the condition the fresh concrete experiences in the field and the static condition of the test. The procedure is unique in that, after finding the peak shear stress, shear stress at zero normal stress and at zero displacement were found and finally finding the Bingham parameters. The water was varied from 160 to 190 l /m 3 and cement content from 300 to 450 kg/m 3 . Different displacement rates (5 to 25 mm/min) and normal stresses (0.015 to 0.035 N/mm 2 ) were used. Total number of tests considered was 324 and the mixes were prepared with and without Superplasticizer. The results show that the concrete shear box can be used as a new tool to measure the relative values of yield stress and plastic viscosity of fresh concrete effectively as a static test, with low shear rate. The values are higher but the trends are very similar to the studies using rheometers.


The transcription factor and proto-oncogene c-Myc is a central regulator of cellular proliferation, growth, metabolism and differentiation in many cell types including stem cells. Although it is known that c-Myc expression is tightly controlled and can drive tumorigenesis if de-regulated, the mechanisms of its transcriptional regulation remain largely elusive. Besides its promoter, which is not sufficient to account for endogenous c-myc expression, only a few cis-regulatory elements have been defined. The c-myc gene is located on mouse chromosome 15 within a 4 Mb-long gene-poor region, which coincides with a large topologically associating domain (TAD). At the distal end of this TAD, 1.7 Mb downstream of the mouse c-myc gene, we identified a cluster of enhancer-associated chromatin marks which were present only in hematopoietic tissues. A LacZ reporter gene inserted next to this cluster showed specific expression in hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and progenitor cells. Mice homozygous for a deletion of this enhancer region showed decreased myeloid and B cells, while HSCs, multipotent progenitors and megakaryocytes accumulated in the bone marrow. Mutant HSCs were non-functional, as they lost multipotency and showed differentiation defects at the progenitor level, which resulted in their accumulation in vivo. This phenotype closely mimicked the phenotype of mice in which the c-myc gene was conditionally deleted by the Cre/loxP technique in the adult hematopoietic system using MxCre (MxCre; c-mycflox/flox). Importantly, gene expression analysis showed that the deletion of this enhancer region led to a dramatic reduction of c-myc expression in HSCs, multipotent progenitors and most mature cell types. Furthermore, compound heterozygous mice with one allele carrying the enhancer deletion and a c-myc null allele on the other chromosome displayed hematopoietic defects highly similar to MxCre; c-mycflox/flox animals, demonstrating genetic allelism between the c-myc coding region and the newly identified enhancer region. Altogether, these data provide genetic evidence that this enhancer region directly controls, in cis, c-myc expression in HSC/progenitor cells. Within the 126 kb enhancer region 8 modules of sizes between 0.4 kb and 1.9 kb were identified and analyzed for relative enrichment of the enhancer-associated H3K27ac histone mark by ChIP/qRT-PCR. This was performed in different hematopoietic lineages and revealed that distinct enhancer modules differentially control c-myc expression in granulocytes or HSC/progenitors. Interestingly, this evolutionary highly conserved enhancer region was shown to be focally amplified in a number of tumor samples from patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), suggesting that this enhancer may be a critical component driving increased c-MYC expression found in certain leukemias. In summary, we identified a very distant hematopoietic and stem/progenitor specific enhancer region for c-myc and provide genetic data supporting its critical function as a key regulatory region in normal hematopoiesis and a putative role in human AML.


Abstract X-ray computed tomography (CT) is an established technique for non-destructively characterizing geological cores. CT provides information on sediment structure, diagenetic alteration, fractures, flow channels and barriers, porosity and fluid-phase saturation. A portable CT imaging system has been developed specifically for imaging whole-round cores at the drilling site. The new system relies upon carefully designed radiological shielding to minimize the size and weight of the resulting instrument. Specialized X-ray beam collimators and filters maximize system sensitivity and performance. The system has been successfully deployed on the research vessel JOIDES Resolution for Ocean Drilling Program's legs 204 and 210, at the Ocean Drilling Program's refrigerated Gulf Coast Core Repository, as well as on the Hot Ice #1 drilling platform located near the Kuparuk Field, Alaska. A methodology for performing simple densiometry measurements, as well as scanning for gross structural features, is presented using radiographs from ODP Leg 204. Reconstructed CT images from Hot Ice #1 demonstrate the use of CT for discerning core textural features. To demonstrate the use of CT to quantitatively interpret dynamic processes, we calculate 95% confidence intervals for density changes occurring during a laboratory methane hydrate dissociation experiment. The field deployment of a CT represents a paradigm shift in core characterization, opening up the possibility for rapid systematic characterization of three-dimensional structural features, and leading to improved subsampling and core-processing procedures.


Neurotological findings of two patients with chronic hepatitis C who developed ver-tigo after interferon therapy are described. The patients were a 62-year-old male who developed dizziness after intramuscular injections of interferon-α and a 55-year-old female who developed positional vertigo after intramuscular injections of interferon-α-2a. Down-beating positional nystagmus was observed in the supine and the supine head-down positions in both patients, but no gaze nystagmus or spontaneous nystagmus was noted. Signs and symptoms were relieved after reduction of the dose of interferon. Elec-tro-nystagmographic (ENG) studies were performed before and after an injection of in-terferon in the female patient. She exhibited hypermetric saccades and increased size of the down-beating positional nystagmus in ENG recorded 6 hours after the interferon in-jection. Several pathophysiological hypotheses about interferon-induced vertigo, in-cluding direct effects of interferon on the central nervous system, are discussed, but they are still to be proved by basic and clinical studies.


Although humans vary in their response to chemicals, comprehensive measures of susceptibility have generally not been incorporated into human risk assessment. The U.S. EPA dose-response-based risk assessments for cancer and the RfD/RfC (reference dose-reference concentration) approach for noncancer risk assessments are assumed to protect vulnerable human subgroups. However, these approaches generally rely on default assumptions and do not consider the specific biological basis for potential susceptibility to a given toxicant. In an effort to focus more explicitly on this issue, this article addresses biological factors that may affect human variability and susceptibility to trichloroethylene (TCE), a widely used halogenated industrial solvent. In response to Executive Order 13045, which requires federal agencies to make protection of children a high priority in implementing their policies and to take special risks to children into account when developing standards, this article examines factors that may affect risk of exposure to TCE in children. The influence of genetics, sex, altered health state, coexposure to alcohol, and enzyme induction on TCE toxicity are also examined.


Background: Understanding and addressing the needs of frail patients has been identified as an important strategy by the Nova Scotia Health Authority (NSHA). Primary care (PC) providers are in a key position to aid in the identification of, and response to frailty as part of routine care. Unlike singular chronic conditions such as diabetes and hypertension which garner a disease-based approach and identification as part of standard practice, frailty is only just emerging as a concept for PC. The web-based Frailty Portal was developed to aid in the identification of, assessment and care planning for frail patients in PC practice. In this study we assess the implementation feasibility and impact of the Frailty Portal by: (1) identifying factors influencing the Frailty Portal's use in community PC practice, and (2) examination of the immediate impact of the 'Frailty Portal' on frail patients, their caregivers and PC providers. Methods: A convergent mixed method approach was implemented among PC providers in community-based practice in the NSHA, Central Zone. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected concurrently over a 9-month period. A sample of patients who underwent assessment and/or their caregiver were approached for survey participation. Results: Fourteen community PC providers (10 family physicians, 4 nurse practitioners) completed 48 patient assessments and completed or begun 41 care plans; semi-structured interviews were conducted among 9 providers. Nine patients and 5 caregivers participated in the survey. PC providers viewed frailty as an important concept but implementation challenges were met, primarily with respect to the time required for use and lack of fit with traditional practice routines. Additional barriers included tool usability and accessibility, training and care planning steps, and privacy. Impacts of the tools use with respect to confidence and knowledge showed early promise. Conclusion: This feasibility study highlights the need for added health system supports, resources and financial incentives for successful implementation of the Frailty Portal in community PC practice. We suggest future implementation integrate the Frailty Portal to practice electronic medical records (EMRs) and target providers with largely geriatric practice populations and those practicing within interdisciplinary, collaborative primary healthcare (PHC) teams.


Abstract Purpose To test the performance of different algorithms that can be used in inter-laboratory comparisons based on dicentric chromosome analysis, and to evaluate the impact of considering a priori values different to calculate individual laboratory performance based on the ionizing radiation dose estimation. Methods Mean and standard deviation estimations in inter-laboratory comparisons are tested on simulated data and data from previously published inter-laboratory comparisons using three robust algorithms, Algorithm A, Algorithm B and Q/Hampel, all programmed in R-project language and implemented in a Shiny application. The simulated data were generated assuming three different probabilities to contaminate inter-laboratory comparisons samples with atypical dose values. Comparison between different algorithms was also done using published exercises where blood samples were irradiated at 0 and 0.7 Gy that represent a challenge for the assessment of an inter-laboratory comparison. Results The best performance was obtained with the Q/Hampel algorithm for the estimation of the dose mean and with the Algorithm B for the estimation of the dose standard deviation under the conditions tested in the simulations. The Q/Hampel algorithm showed the best performance when non-irradiated samples were evaluated and there was a high proportion of identical values. The presence identical values cause the Algorithm B to fail. Real examples illustrating the need to consider standard deviation priors, and the need to use algorithms resistant to a high proportion of identical values are presented. Conclusions Q/Hampel algorithm is a serious candidate to estimate the dose mean in the inter-laboratory comparisons, and to estimate both parameters when the proportion of identical values equals or higher than the half of the results. When the proportion of identical values is less than the half of the results, the Algorithm B should be considered as a candidate to estimate the standard deviation in the inter-laboratory comparisons with small number of laboratories. We remark that special attention is needed to establish prior definitions of standard deviation in the assessment of inter-laboratory dicentric assay comparisons.


The vitamin C content of foods was examined from two national databases and new values were obtained by HPLC. HPLC values were lower in four of the five highest vitamin C contributors to the US diet (orange juice, grapefruit, tomatoes and tomato juice, and potatoes), as well as in broccoli, red peppers, and cooked collard and mustard greens, compared with values from the other databases. When HPLC values were substituted in the Health Habits and History Questionnaire, the resulting estimates of dietary intake of vitamin C in two studies were lower. Despite these lower estimates of absolute intake, in one study the correlation between dietary vitamin C and plasma ascorbic acid was similar. In conclusion, the accuracy of the vitamin C content of foods is important for estimating the absolute amount of vitamin C intake in the population but may not change the ranking of people in epidemiological studies.


More sophisticated III-V devices and the challenge of integration require material growth over structured surfaces. Of particular interest are the Ga-In-As-P materials. Due to the surface selective growth in metalorganic molecular beam epitaxy a high degree of perfection in locally grown structures can be achieved. However, a clear picture of the growth mechanism on various crystal planes and structures helps optimizing the so-called selective area epitaxy. These mechanisms, in respect to relevant epitaxial parameters (V-III-ratio, rate, crystal orientation) with emphasis on lateral butt coupling structures into various crystal directions is discussed. Application of in situ grown lateral heterojunctions for e.g. laser-amplifier wave-guide integration are presented.


Author(s): Circella, Giovanni; Iogansen, Xiatian; Matson, Grant; Malik, Jai; Etezady, Ali | Abstract: Emerging transportation services, whose development and adoption have been enabled by information and communication technology, are largely transforming people's travel and activity patterns. This study investigates the emerging transportation trends and how they transform travel-related decision-making in the population at large through the application of a unique longitudinal approach. As part of this project, a second wave of data collection in 2018 was built with a rotating panel structure as a continuation of the research efforts that started with the collection of the 2015 California Millennials Dataset. This report focuses on the analyses of the data collected in this project, in particular on the differences in attitudes towards transportation and the environment among different generational groups, the adoption and use of shared mobility services, and their relationship with vehicle ownership, the interest in the adoption of alternative fuel vehicles, and the interest in the future adoption of connected and automated vehicles. Due to the small number of respondents who participated in both surveys, for the purposes of the analyses contained in this report, we treated the data as repeated cross-sectional and analyzed the data from each survey separately. The study helps researchers evaluate the complex relationship between observed/latent characteristics and individual travel-related choices and decision-making. The study highlights attitudinal and mode-choice differences across generations. It explores the factors impacting current adoption of and future interest in new transportation technology including alternative fuel vehicles, automated vehicles and shared mobility. Divergent consumer segments are witnessed within each of these markets, with distinctive socio-demographics, latent attitudes, built environment, and level of familiarity with new technologies, which shape the uniqueness of their vehicle ownership, residential location, travel behavior, activity patterns, and lifestyle.View the NCST Project Webpage


The theory of cognitive history elaborated by Olga M. Medushevskaia (1922-2007) has obviously been the most important and influential paradigm in Russian philosophy of history and historiography since the collapse of the official Soviet version of Marxist-Leninist methodology at the end of the 20 th century. In this regard the author analyzes the main intellectual roots of the paradigm, its structure and influence on inter-disciplinary debates on the possibility of the precise and verifiable reconstruction of historical past. The author emphasizes the fundamental role of the cognitive theory in the current process of paradigm-change in Russian historiography, in the creation of new research areas, pedagogical practices and the establishment of new professional ethics of academic community.


This paper analyses the policies of teacher training focalizing on the Directives on Teachers' Initial Training for Basic Education in Higher Education. This legal document can be seen as the materialization of the multiple facets of the training policies, from the definition of competence and skills to the assessment of performance and curricular organization. The theme of assessment is assumed as closely linked to the issue of teacher training mainly because of the policies of teacher training and the adoption of the model of competence in the definition of the Brazilian Directives on Teachers' Initial Training for Basic Education in Higher Education. The creation of a federative system of teacher competence certification indicates that we are experiencing the process of flexibilization of teacher work, which jeopardizes the historical fight of educators for the professionalization of teacher training.


Vincent Van Gogh, Dutchman painter, is a forerunner but also a spokesman of the expressionism. His life was short and sad, marked by a psychic instability. In his paintings the color is subordinated of some subjective motivations. Van Gogh uses complementary colors to get a maximum intensity of the overlapped tones. The chromatic increase serves to obtain some strong emotions. In his landscapes the special distances are suggested through tonal distances. The increase of the pure tones through complementary contrast, the cancel of the imitation colors through sensation-colors, the explosive chromatic are characteristic of her painting. In his singular creation, Vincent Van Gogh created his suffering ego.


This essay examines the idea of traitorhood and how it contributes to the formation of cosmopolitanism in Japan. Specifically, it traces the biographies of two historical figures from wartime Japan who have been remembered as traitors or heroes at different historical time periods in post-war Japan. Then it discusses the shifting interpretive frames that informed the specific modes of remembering their biographies, demonstrating the processes through which the figure of a cosmopolitan becomes visible and recognisable in a given society.


Purpose To assess the impacts of area-level socioeconomic and environmental measures on reduced visual acuity (VA). Methods This ecological study used the nationally representative cross-sectional data from the Chinese National Survey on Students' Constitution and Health in 2014 (CNSSCH 2014), which included 261,833 participants aged 7 to 22 years randomly selected from 30 mainland provinces in China. Area-level socioeconomic measures assessed included gross domestic product (GDP), population density, density of hospital beds, and nighttime light data measured as the mean digital number (DN) of each region; environmental factors assessed included latitude, annual sunlight duration, and park green space density. The main outcome measure was the prevalence of reduced VA in each province of Mainland China. Results GDP (coefficient: 0.221; P < 0.001), mean DN (coefficient: 0.461; P < 0.001), latitude (coefficient: 0.093; P < 0.001), and annual sunlight duration (coefficient: 0.112; P < 0.001) were positively associated with the prevalence of reduced VA, while population density (coefficient: −0.256; P < 0.001), park green space per 10,000 people (coefficient: −0.145; P < 0.001), and number of hospital beds per 10,000 people (coefficient: −0.146; P < 0.001) were negatively associated with reduced VA prevalence. Factor analysis indicated a marginally nonsignificant positive correlation between socioeconomic factors and the prevalence of reduced VA (coefficient: 0.034; P = 0.07). Conclusions Increased GDP and mean DN, which reflect economic development, were associated with a higher prevalence of reduced VA, while larger park green space and number of hospital beds per 10,000 people seemed to play a protective role, which could be targeted to design preventive strategies for myopia.


BACKGROUND
Arabinogalactan proteins (AGPs) are ubiquitous in green plants. AGPs comprise a widely varied group of hydroxyproline (Hyp)-rich cell surface glycoproteins (HRGPs). However, the more narrowly defined classical AGPs massively predominate and cover the plasma membrane. Extensive glycosylation by pendant polysaccharides O-linked to numerous Hyp residues like beads of a necklace creates a unique ionic compartment essential to a wide range of physiological processes including germination, cell extension and fertilization. The vital clue to a precise molecular function remained elusive until the recent isolation of small Hyp-arabinogalactan polysaccharide subunits; their structural elucidation by nuclear magentic resonance imaging, molecular simulations and direct experiment identified a 15-residue consensus subunit as a β-1,3-linked galactose trisaccharide with two short branched sidechains each with a single glucuronic acid residue that binds Ca(2+) when paired with its adjacent sidechain.

SCOPE
AGPs bind Ca(2+) (Kd ∼ 6 μm) at the plasma membrane (PM) at pH ∼5·5 but release it when auxin-dependent PM H(+)-ATPase generates a low periplasmic pH that dissociates AGP-Ca(2+) carboxylates (pka ∼3); the consequential large increase in free Ca(2+) drives entry into the cytosol via Ca(2+) channels that may be voltage gated. AGPs are thus arguably the primary source of cytosolic oscillatory Ca(2+) waves. This differs markedly from animals, in which cytosolic Ca(2+) originates mostly from internal stores such as the sarcoplasmic reticulum. In contrast, we propose that external dynamic Ca(2+) storage by a periplasmic AGP capacitor co-ordinates plant growth, typically involving exocytosis of AGPs and recycled Ca(2+), hence an AGP-Ca(2+) oscillator.

CONCLUSIONS
The novel concept of dynamic Ca(2+) recycling by an AGP-Ca(2+) oscillator solves the long-standing problem of a molecular-level function for classical AGPs and thus integrates three fields: AGPs, Ca(2+) signalling and auxin. This accounts for the involvement of AGPs in plant morphogenesis, including tropic and nastic movements.


Objective: To determine if perinatal outcome is affected by the route of delivery in breech-breech and breech-transverse twin gestations. Design: Prospective observational study. Setting: Umtala General Hospital, a referral hospital for approximately 32 rural hospitals throughout the former Transkei. Subjects: Twin gestations with breech-breech and breech-transverse presentations. Main outcome measures: Birth weights, 5-minute Apgar scores and neonatal mortality rates among 41 women who underwent vaginal delivery were compared with those of 27 who underwent transverse lower-segment caesarean sections. Results: A total of 68 women were involved in the study. Forty-one were delivered vaginally and 27 underwent transverse lower-segment caesarean sections. The vaginal delivery group consisted of 35 breech-breech and 6 breech-transverse twin gestations, while the caesarean section group comprised 25 breech-breech and 2 breech-transverse presentations. Both twin I and twin 11 in the caesarean section group were bigger than their respective counterparts delivered vaginally (P < 0.02 for twin I and P < 0.01 for twin 11). There were no statistically significant differences in either 5-minute Apgar scores or neonatal mortality rates between the two groups. Conclusion: Vaginal delivery of breech-breech and breech-transverse twin gestations appears a reasonable option provided criteria for vaginal breech delivery are adhered to. S Afr Med J 1996; 86: 1196-1200


Abstract Given the possible benefits of phytoextraction, this study evaluated the potential of nine plant species for phytoaccumulation/co-accumulation of selected nutrients, rare earth elements, germanium, and potentially toxic elements. Plants were grown on 2 kg potted soils for 12 weeks in a greenhouse, followed by a measurement of dry shoot biomass. Subsequently, elemental concentrations were determined using inductively coupled mass spectrometry, followed by the determination of amounts of each element accumulated by the plant species. Results show varying accumulation behavior among plants for the different elements. Fagopyrum esculentum and Cannabis sativa were better accumulators of most elements investigated except for chromium, germanium, and silicon that were better accumulated by Zea mays, the only grass species. F. esculentum accumulated 9, 24, and 10% of Copper, Chromium, and Rare Earth Elements in the mobile/exchangeable element fraction of the soils while Z. mays and C. sativa accumulated amounts of Cr and Ge ∼58 and 17% (for Z. mays) and 20 and 9% (for C. sativa) of the mobile/exchangeable element fraction of the soils. Results revealed co-accumulation potential for some elements e.g., (1) Si, Ge, and Cr, (2) Cu and Pb, (3) P, Ca, Co, and REEs based on chemical similarities/sources of origin. NOVELTY STATEMENT This is a novel study because it focuses on evaluating plant species not only the accumulation behavior but the possibilities of co-accumulation of elements comprising selected nutrients, PTEs and CRMs (Ge and REEs) by plants. It provides new information on the biomass production and accumulation behavior of some plant species for some elements, some of which have not been previously studied. It also provides information on the possibility of predicting species accumulation behavior for some elements based on similarities in the source of origin, chemical similarities, or antagonism.


5339 The purpose of this study was to investigate potential molecular mechanisms underlying the anti-cancer effects of the thiol-containing antioxidant N-acetyl-L-cysteine (NAC). The insulin-like growth factor I receptor (IGF-IR) and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) are overexpressed in colon tumors and contribute to autocrine growth, resistance to apoptosis and angiogenesis. NAC has been shown to have anti-proliferative, anti-angiogenic and anti-metastatic properties both in vitro and in vivo. It also augments the efficacy of chemotherapeutic agents in a mouse model of colorectal cancer. However the molecular mechanisms underlying these effects are poorly defined. We investigated if NAC had any effect on expression levels of IGF-IR and EGFR on a panel of colorectal cancer cell lines (HT29, SW480, KM12SM and LoVo). Methods: We analyzed the effect of NAC on expression of IGF-IR and EGFR at a range of concentrations and a range of timepoints by a combination of western blotting and flow cytometry. The effects of a range of other antioxidants were also tested. Semi-quantitative RT-PCR and reporter assays were performed to determine if NAC had any effect on the transcription of the growth factor receptors. The effect of NAC on cellular proliferation was also assessed. Results: Treatment with NAC produced a dose-dependent decrease in IGF-IR and EGFR levels in the four cell lines. The decrease in receptor levels was detectable at 10mM NAC with almost total ablation of receptor expression at concentrations > 20mM. The downregulation began immediately and was maximal between 8 and 24 hours. Following NAC removal receptor levels began to recover immediately, with normal levels returning within 48 hours. Reduced glutathione (GSH) − which is formed from NAC − also downregulated levels of IGF-IR and EGFR in a dose- and time-dependent manner. However, GSH synthesis is not necessary for NAC's effect. Of the other antioxidants tested, only those containing a free –SH group were capable of downregulating the growth factor receptors. Semi-quantitative RT-PCR and reporter assays indicate that NAC's effect on EGFR and IGF-IR expression is mediated at the transcriptional level. NAC inhibited growth factor-induced proliferation of the colorectal cancer cells. Conclusion: Treatment of colorectal cancer cell lines with NAC results in a dose- and time-dependent decrease of IGF-IR and EGFR. This effect occurs at the level of transcription. Other –SH containing antioxidants have a similar effect. NAC-mediated growth factor receptor downregulation inhibits the proliferation of colorectal cancer cell lines. These data demonstrate a potential molecular mechanism underlying NAC's anti-cancer properties.


Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a disorder characterized by a persistent pattern of inattention and/or hyperactivity/impulsivity that occurs in academic, occupational, or social settings. Though the number of men having this disorder increases gradually all over the world, the treatment for ADHD is limited to stimulant medications or a cognitive behavioral treatment. This fact caused us to develop the newly system for treatment of ADHD using Virtual Reality technology. Psychotherapy using VR has some advantages that it is safer and more effective than conventional therapeutic methods. We divided subjects into control group and VR group depending on whether they will have VR therapy with HMD & Tracking system. And we compared the results of CPT (Continuous Performance Test) between before and after the experiments. So we will show the effect of this VR system and the possibility VR technology can contribute greatly to the treatment of ADHD in this paper.


Background Study of drug-target interaction networks is an important topic for drug development. It is both time-consuming and costly to determine compound-protein interactions or potential drug-target interactions by experiments alone. As a complement, the in silico prediction methods can provide us with very useful information in a timely manner. Methods/Principal Findings To realize this, drug compounds are encoded with functional groups and proteins encoded by biological features including biochemical and physicochemical properties. The optimal feature selection procedures are adopted by means of the mRMR (Maximum Relevance Minimum Redundancy) method. Instead of classifying the proteins as a whole family, target proteins are divided into four groups: enzymes, ion channels, G-protein- coupled receptors and nuclear receptors. Thus, four independent predictors are established using the Nearest Neighbor algorithm as their operation engine, with each to predict the interactions between drugs and one of the four protein groups. As a result, the overall success rates by the jackknife cross-validation tests achieved with the four predictors are 85.48%, 80.78%, 78.49%, and 85.66%, respectively. Conclusion/Significance Our results indicate that the network prediction system thus established is quite promising and encouraging.


This paper discusses the problem of the unity of moral good, concerning the kind of unity that moral good or the concept thereof constitutes. In particular, I am concerned with how Wittgenstein's identification of various complex modes of conceptual unity, and his introduction of a methodology of clarification for dealing with such complex concepts, can help with the problem of unity, as it rises from the moral philosophical tradition. Relating to this I also address the disputed question, whether Wittgenstein regards good as a family-resemblance concept, and make an attempt to characterize family-resemblance concepts generally by way of their similarities and differences from certain other complex modes of conceptual unity. I argue that whilst Wittgenstein does regard good as a family-resemblance concept, in the Philosophical Investigations he seeks to make a more general methodological point. I conclude with a suggestion of how Wittgenstein's methodological points can help us to put into a broader perspective famous criticisms of the moral philosophical tradition by Michael Stocker and Bernard Williams, and how Wittgenstein's methods more generally can help to address the problem of the unity of good. This illustrates one way in which Wittgensteinian methods can help resolve disputes in moral philosophy, where the main approaches, Aristotelian, Kantian and utilitarian theories, seem to be locked in a stalemate. As I argue, this situation has to do with their assumptions about the unity of moral good. The response isn't to reject those theories, however, but to re-interpret them in a way consistent with the Wittgensteinian methodology.


Professor Kautz, a political theorist, tells lawyers to stick to our lasts.' We ought to do only law and refrain from seeking assistance from political theory. This is not, however, because we are likely to do badly as consumers of political theory. Rather, Professor Kautz insists on a reasonably sharp distinction between roles. Political theorists "educate the public mind," whereas lawyers, in our capacity as lawyers, do law. Of course, in other roles lawyers may seek to educate the public mind as well. And there, I think, lies one of the two problems I wish to address here. I doubt that a sharp distinction can be drawn between doing law and educating the public mind. My second difficulty is that Professor Kautz's sense-I cannot call it more than that, in light of the allusiveness of his comments-of what law "is" seems to me substantially inaccurate. These two problems are related: Precisely because the outlines of the law are less clear than Professor Kautz appears to believe, the distinction between doing law and educating the public mind is quite thin.' For the moment, let me accept the distinction between doing law and educating the public mind. The difficulty with that distinction comes in Professor Kautz's final section, where he turns from political theory to social criticism. In this section he sharply criticizes


Ameloblastomas are predominantly benign, intra-osseous odontogenic tumors and mucosal involvement is a rare secondary phenomenon, occurring only after a long period of intra-osseous growth and bone expansion. This article presents a case report of an eleven year old male patient with a large plexiform ameloblastoma which invaded the soft tissues, presented as an exophytic growth in the mandibular anterior region with radiographic feature of a large unilocular radiolucenc y and displaced mandibular left central incisor. The management comprised of surgical removal of ameloblastoma under local anesthesia along with extraction of displaced mandibular left central incisor.


The author investigates the function and possible meanings of the of/um particle and how this particle can be used as a dating criterium for Eddic poems, as Hans Kuhn proposed in 1929. The author concludes that the of/um particle was not a filler word ("expletive particle"), as most philologists have assumed, but an unstressed prefix which supplied the following word with a specific meaning – as Ingerid Dal claimed in 1929/30. The particle was probably used in daily speech when Old Norse was spoken, but gradually fell out of use, and disappeared after the end of the 13th century. The most marked change occurred between the end of the 10th and the middle of the 11th centuries. The frequency of the of/um-particle in skaldic poems from the 9th and 10th centuries is 10 times the frequency in skaldic poems from the 12th and 13th centuries. This is important when dating Eddic poems.

The of/um particle can be used as a dating criterium only when the material for analysis is extensive. This requires at least 300 short verses to use the particle as an indication for age. It is a very sound criterium when the material includes thousands of short verses. Dating of Eddic poems based on the frequency of the of/um particle corresponds well with dating based on other linguistic criteria. All in all, dating based on the of/um particle is the best criterium we have for dating Eddic poems.


Recently, many remote-sensing datasets providing features of individual fire events from gridded global burned area products have been released. Although very promising, these datasets still lack a quantitative estimate of their accuracy with respect to historical ground-based fire datasets. Here, we compared three state-of-the-art remotesensing datasets (RSDs; Fire Atlas, FRY, and GlobFire) with a harmonized ground-based dataset (GBD) compiled by fire agencies monitoring systems across the southwestern Mediterranean Basin (2005–2015). We assessed the agreement between the RSDs and the GBD with respect to both burned area (BA) and number of fires (NF). RSDs and the GBD were aggregated at monthly and 0.25 resolutions, considering different individual fire size thresholds ranging from 1 to 500 ha. Our results show that all datasets were highly correlated in terms of monthly BA and NF, but RSDs severely underestimated both (by 38 % and 96 %, respectively) when considering all fires > 1 ha. The agreement between RSDs and the GBD was strongly dependent on individual fire size and strengthened when increasing the fire size threshold, with fires > 100 ha denoting a higher correlation and much lower error (BA 10 %; NF 35 %). The agreement was also higher during the warm season (May to October) in particular across the regions with greater fire activity such as the northern Iberian Peninsula. The Fire Atlas displayed a slightly better performance with a lower relative error, although uncertainty in the gridded BA product largely outpaced uncertainties across the RSDs. Overall, our findings suggest a reasonable agreement between RSDs and the GBD for fires larger than 100 ha, but care is needed when examining smaller fires at regional scales.


The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) concluded a study in 2001 of the condition of Oregon bridges nearing the end of their design life—those built in the late 1940's to the early 1960's. Funded under the first two phases of the Oregon Transportation Investment Act (OTIA I and II), this study found varying degrees of shear (diagonal cracking) in a large number of the state's bridges. In July 2003, Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski signed legislation authorizing OTIA III, a $2.5 billion transportation package, including $1.3 billion to repair or replace over 400 bridges under the OTIA III State Bridge Delivery Program (Bridge Program) over the next 10 years. Timely completion of environmental regulatory permitting was critical to meet the Bridge Program's aggressive construction schedule. To facilitate this, ODOT and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) began working with a number of federal and state regulatory and resource agencies in late 2002 to develop permitting strategies that would meet the dual goals of timely review of individual permitting and protection and enhancement of fish and wildlife habitat. In addition to coverage under the Federal Endangered Species Act (ESA), the preferred regulatory compliance approach needed to ensure compliance with other state and federal statutes designed to protect fish, wildlife, and plant species and their habitat, including the Oregon ESA, Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA), Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA), and Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act. As a contractor to ODOT, Mason, Bruce & Girard, Inc. (MB&G) worked closely with ODOT and other state and federal agencies from 2003 through 2004 to prepare a programmatic Biological Assessment (BA) for the Bridge Program. Critical to the BA was the development of a set of environmental performance standards designed to minimize and avoid impacts to ESA listed species. In addition, a fluvial performance standard was developed to ensure that bridges replaced under the OTIA III Program would enhance, not simply maintain, geomorphological features at the bridge site. The BA was submitted to the regulatory agencies in March 2004. In June 2004, ODOT received a joint Biological Opinion from NMFS and the USFWS addressing 73 threatened, endangered, proposed, and selected sensitive species and their designated or proposed critical habitat. In addition to listed fish, wildlife, and plants, the BA also satisfied the requirements of the MMPA, MBTA, FWCA, and MSA. ODOT expects that 85 to 90 percent of the bridges under the OTIA III Bridge Program will be permitted using the programmatic approach, resulting in significant time and cost savings. ODOT anticipates that the programmatic approach to environmental compliance will, program-wide, result in time and cost savings of two years and $54 million over the 10-year program, exclusive of time saved on the part of state and federal resource agencies. Bridge design using the environmental performance standards developed for the program is now underway.


The main purpose of this study is to examine the effect of discipline as an explanatory factor on e-journal use in the Istanbul University context. In order to meet this goal, the data used in this study were collected by a web based user survey conducted to examine the e-journal use of Istanbul University Faculty between the dates of October 2005 and February 2006. The results revealed that discipline was statistically significantly associated with both the 'frequency of use' and 'format preferences'. The results also suggest that the availability of e-journals might be a factor of the e-journal use.


Cobalt ferrite CoFe2O4 crystalline nanoparticles (50-100 nm) were produced by carbon combustion synthesis of oxides (CCSO). In this combustion synthesis process, the exothermic oxidation of carbon generates a thermal reaction wave that propagates through the solid reactants mixture of CoO and Fe2O3  converting it to cobalt ferrite. The extensive emission of CO2 increased the porosity and friability of the product. The quenching front method combined with XRD and VSM characterization revealed that crystalline CoFe2O4 particles formed in the early stage of the combustion, before the temperature reached its maximum. The maximum value of the coercivity of the quenched product within the front region was 940 Oe with a magnetization of 15 emu/g. The as-synthesized ferrites had hard magnetic properties with coercivity of 700 Oe and saturation magnetization of up to 47 emu/g


In recent years, there has been a significant shift towards greater collaboration in various spheres of society, in which the creation of value from shared resources while balancing self-interest and community well-being is emphasized. Consumption has ceased to be characterized exclusively by the purchase and possession of goods; instead new collaborative initiatives represented by exchanges, loans, renting, and other forms of sharing that allow consumers access to a good or service only in the time they are necessary have appeared. However, few studies have attempted to measure the reasons that lead consumers to practice collaborative consumption. Therefore, the main objective of this article is to propose a scale that measures the motivators, facilitators, and constraints for this mode of consumption. For this, a study was conducted among carsharing users in Brazil, which aimed to purify and validate the proposed scale. The results indicate that collaborative consumption applied to a carsharing setting is composed of six dimensions and confirm the validity and reliability of the studied construct. The discussion highlights the study findings and offers suggestions for further research into this topic.


Abstract Background: Lupus anticoagulant (LAC) detection represents diagnostic challenges among which the multitude of available reagents and interference by anticoagulant treatment. One of the two advised tests is the dilute Russell's viper venom time (dRVVT). However, it is currently not clear whether all dRVVT reagents may be considered equivalent. The objective of the study was to evaluate the diagnostic performance of two dRVVT reagents, with special attention to the influence of anticoagulant therapy. Methods: STA®-Staclot® dRVV Screen/Confirm (Stago, Asnières-sur-Seine, France) and dRVT-LS/dRVTL-LR (Haematex, Hornsby, Australia) were evaluated on 443 patient samples [358 consecutive patients with LAC request including six antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) patients, 18 non-consecutively selected APS patients and 37 vitamin K antagonists (VKA)-treated and 30 direct oral anticoagulants (DOAC)-treated non-APS patients]. Additionally, pooled normal plasma (PNP) was spiked with factor deficient plasma (n=33) and DOAC calibrators (n=21) to evaluate sensitivity for factor deficiencies and false-positivity rates, respectively. Results: A higher number of samples were defined as LAC positive by Stago vs. Haematex [11.5% (41/358) vs. 3.63% (13/358)]. Most discordances were in the VKA and DOAC group. Haematex was less prone to VKA-related factor deficiencies, explaining the absence of false-positive LAC results in VKA-treated non-APS patients compared to 10.8% with Stago. We observed no false-positive LAC ratios with Haematex in DOAC-spiked PNP and a lower number in DOAC-treated non-APS patients. However, increased specificity seemed to be at cost of a reduced sensitivity as Haematex showed less positive APS patient samples (45.8% vs. 87.5%). Conclusions: dRVVT reagents differ in LAC sensitivity and for VKA and DOAC interference.


In some 20% of cases urolithiasis is directly linked to chronic urinary tract infection by urea-splitting bacteria and essentially Proteus mirabilis. The stones are generally composed of struvite and carbonate apatite, which usually occur as the staghorn calculi feared because of their obstructive and infectious consequences which cause important renal damage. A case is described of newberyite calculus in a woman with chronic urinary infection. Newberyite is thought to be a breakdown product of struvite in particular physico-chemical conditions, and is a very rare constituent of urolithiasis. X-ray diffraction and infrared spectroscopy were used to identify the constituent. Clinical and technical investigations are briefly described, and the literature is reviewed.


—Weather prediction is a challenging task for researchers and has drawn a lot of research interest in the recent years. Literature studies have shown that machine learning techniques achieved better performance than traditional statistical methods. This paper presents an application of Support Vector Machines (SVMs) for weather prediction. Time series data of daily maximum temperature at a location is analyzed to predict the maximum temperature of the next day at that location based on the daily maximum temperatures for a span of previous n days referred to as order of the input. Performance of the system is observed over various spans of 2 to 10 days by using optimal values of the kernel function. Non linear regression method is found to be suitable to train the SVM for this application. The results are compared with Multi Layer Perceptron (MLP) trained with back-propagation algorithm and the performance of SVM is found to be consistently better.


Malnutrition in sub-Saharan Africa contributes to high rates of childhood morbidity and mortality which make it a public health concern in Africa. This study assessed the nutrient intakes and nutritional status of mothers and their under-five children in a rural community of Oyo State, Nigeria. A total of 500 households with a mother and child pair were sampled using a multi-stage sampling procedure. Information on household socio-economic status, hygiene practices, breastfeeding practices and clinical observation for signs of malnutrition were collected using pre-tested semi-structured questionnaires by trained interviewers. Weight for age (WAZ), weight for height (WHZ), and height for age (HAZ) for underweight, wasting and stunting, respectively were calculated and assessed by Epi Info software using the NCHS/WHO international reference values. BMI (weight/height 2 ) of mothers were also constructed from the measurements of mothers' weights and heights. The waist/hip ratio of mothers was also determined. An interactive 24 h recall repeated for three days was used to obtain data on food and nutrient intakes of the women. Information on foods consumed was converted into quantitative data of nutrients using Food Composition Table. The result showed a high proportion (81%) of mothers ate three times daily while 14% ate twice and 5% ate more than thrice daily. The mean daily intakes of calcium, vitamins A, B6, B12, niacin, and folate were found to be inadequate compared with the Recommended Intakes. The WHR of the mothers indicated that majority had low risk. Most of the mothers (69.2%) were normal, underweight 9.6%, overweight 15.8% and obese 5.4%. About 37% of the children were stunted, 18% were underweight and 14.3% were wasted. BMI correlated negatively with age (r = -0.41; p <0.05), and positively with education (r = 0.22; p<0.05) and income (r = 0.45; p <0.05). Clinical observation revealed PEM prevalence in 12% children while eyes pallor and palm pallor were present in 15% and 20% respectively. The nutritional status of mothers and their under-five children is poor with respect to the overall food consumption and micronutrient intake. Consequently, nutrition programmes in this area should include effective measures to promote nutritional status of mothers and children.


,is paper focuses on the De Finetti's dividend problem for the spectrally negative Lévy risk process, where the dividend is deducted from the surplus process according to the racheting dividend strategy which was firstly introduced in Albrecher et al. (2018). A major feature of the racheting strategy lies in which the dividend rate never decreases. Unlike the conventional studies, the closed form expression for the expected, accumulated, and discounted dividend payments until the draw-down time (rather than the ruin time) is obtained in terms of the scale functions corresponding to the underlying Lévy process. ,e optimal barrier for the ratcheting strategy is also studied, where the dividend rate can be increased. Finally, two special cases, where the scale functions are explicitly known, i.e., the Brownian motion with drift and the compound Poisson model, are considered to illustrate the main result.


: Unavailability of relatively clean water for several industrial, domestic and agricultural purposes is a serious concern to many regions of the world today. This challenge is growing worse with the increasing world global warming and human population. Therefore, there is need to research into an innovative, sustainable and/or improved technology for an efficient and effective solution, such as desalination. Desalination of freely available sea water is considered a promising source of fresh water. Solar radiation is abundant and can be used to desalinate water, using a solar still device. Also, it is important to increase the productivity of the solar still device through hollow fin modification. Therefore, the effectiveness of this improvement was investigated in this study, using an analysis system (ANSYS) Fluent computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulation. Appropriate models were used to describe the physical processes, including condensation, evaporation, multiphase flow, surface tension and solar radiation. A close agreement between the simulation values of solar energy and the water temperature in the basin was observed when compared with the experimental data from the literature. Velocity of 0.259 m/s, pressure of 55.8 Pa, temperature of 57.85 ºC and mass transfer rate of 1.41 kg/m³/s were obtained in the mid-plane of the improved double slope single basin (DSSB). The degree of improvement was 5-7% when compared with the existing models. Importantly, this process is economically efficient and can support the concepts of sustainability and healthy living, especially in rural areas.


The thesis presents investigations on two-phase gas-liquid microstructured reactors
operating in Taylor flow and the dependence of reactor performance on design
parameters. Literature review revealed that flow patterns in microchannels are affected
not only by channel dimension, fluids flowrates and surface tension, but also by wall
wettability and gas inlet size. A universal flow regime map does not seem to exist. The
hydrodynamic parameters of Taylor flow were investigated both by Computational
Fluid Dynamics simulations and experiments in microstructures with sizes 0.3mm –
1mm and various inlet configurations such as T- and Y- junctions fabricated in-house.
The same parameters that influence flow patterns and their transitions were also found
to affect Taylor bubble sizes. To account for the effect of inlet conditions, correlations
were developed for predicting bubble/slug size in the T- and Y- inlet geometries that
were used subsequently. Mass transfer with and without chemical reaction was
investigated numerically in Taylor flow microreactors using CO2 physical absorption
into water or chemical absorption into NaOH aqueous solution. Chemical absorption
was enhanced by a factor of 3-18 over physical absorption. With reaction present, the
reactor performance depended mainly on the gas-liquid interfacial area, while mixing
within the phases was only important in physical absorption. This agreed with the
experimental results of a similar reaction system, which showed that bifurcating main
channels, where new interfaces are generated, significantly improved reaction
conversion while meandering channels that enhance liquid mixing had little impact.
Finally, the performance of a Taylor flow microreactor was evaluated for an industrial
fast gas-liquid reaction of CO2 absorption from fuel gas into amine solutions. The
Taylor flow microreactor offered the largest specific area and the smallest reactor
volume compared to other microreactor types. However, in order to meet absorption
specifications for the case considered multistage absorption would have been necessary.


The language of rights has been of great value to queer movements, particularly in the context of claim making vis-a-vis the state. There are however iv Sexuality Matters 0Prelims37.5.qxd 02/11/2006 16:10 Page iv IDS Bulletin Volume 37 Number 5 October 2006 v significant limitations of the rights language that need to be recognised. This article focuses attention on these, drawing on the experience of PRISM (People for Rights of Indian Sexuality Minorities), a queer activist forum based in Delhi, India. The rights language pushes us into a limiting framework of identity politics. It also allows other progressive movements to offer their support from a 'safe' distance. A narrow use of the rights language runs the danger of maintaining the discourse of the status quo, offering escape routes from addressing more directly intersectionality, heteronormativity and its subservions. The article makes a case for rooting the rights language in queer/feminist politics in order to allow for a more transformatory engagement with sexuality


The American Civil War, 1861-1865, broke out during a time of intense debate over slavery and fear of foreign-born influence on American society. The war's outbreak, however, provided both freedmen and immigrants an opportunity to prove their loyalty to the United States. Scandinavian Americans, among other ethnic groups, seized the opportunity. This article argues that the Scandinavian elite implicitly constructed at least three different forms of ethnic identity – here termed exclusive, political, and national – to spur enlistment at the ground level, gain political influence, and demonstrate American allegiance. In the process the Scandinavian war effort strengthened these immigrant soldiers' ties to their adopted nation, while a political ethnic identity, initially constructed in opposition to other ethnic groups, was weakened by the Scandinavians' experience in the American multiethnic military crucible. The Civil War thereby hastened Scandinavian immigrants' path towards the American mainstream, where many veterans subsequently served as a bridge between their local communities and broader American society, and reinforced their belief in American civic nationalism.


Microsurgical fimbriectomy with removal of the fimbria ovarica was performed on one side in 19 rabbits. The other tube was left intact as a control. In 10 animals the new ostium was left free, some distance from the ovary. In the remainder, the ostium was fixed to the ovarian capsule. Three animals with a fixed ostium developed mild hydrosalpinx even though the neostomy was patent. Of the remaining 16 rabbits, 15 conceived and became pregnant in both uterine horns. There was no significant difference between nidation index on the two sides. It is concluded that intact fimbriae with a fimbria ovarica are not essential for normal ovum capture. It is therefore suggested that methods for clinical salpingostomy may require re-evaluation.


We report data from the final analysis of the Chinese subset of the GIDEON (the Global Investigation of therapeutic DEcisions in hepatocellular carcinoma and Of its treatment with sorafeNib) study, which evaluated the safety and efficacy of sorafenib in Child-Pugh A, B and C patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (uHCC) in real-life clinical practice. Patient demographics, disease characteristics and treatment history were recorded at enrollment; dose, adverse events (AEs) and efficacy were recorded at follow-up. Of the 338 evaluable patients, 98.5% started on 800 mg/day sorafenib, regardless of their Child-Pugh status. The median treatment duration (21.1 vs. 18.8 weeks) and median overall survival (322 vs 240 days) were longer in patients with Child-Pugh A compared with the Child-Pugh B, progression-free survival were 183 vs. 208 days, respectively). AEs (all grades) were comparable in the Child-Pugh B vs A group (56.3% vs. 50.4%, respectively), moreover, the Child-Pugh B group also had comparable rates of drug-related AEs (35.4% vs. 27.2%, respectively) and serious AEs (25.0% vs. 23.0%, respectively) compared with the Child-Pugh A group. The overall dosing strategy was consistent in Chinese patients across Child-Pugh subgroups. Tolerability and safety data suggest that Child-Pugh B patients might be safely treated with sorafenib. The findings from our study showed that safety profile of sorafenib in terms of rate and type of AEs is similar to the global international GIDEON study as well as other pivotal studies.


In several papers published since 1954 by one of us, suggestions have been made concerning the genesis of a certain class of lead-bearing sulfide orebody of the conformable type. Such deposits are thought to have been derived from seaboard vulcanism and to have been emplaced in off-shore, largely volcanic, sequences, during sedimentation and diagenesis. The metals are considered to have come directly from a deep source--probably the basaltic layer or mantle.Recently it has been found that the isotope ratios of leads of several such deposits are apparently "ordinary" and extremely uniform, and the leads have suffered no detectable contamination with crustal radiogenic lead. This suggests that they may indeed have come from deep source and that they have been in contact with crustal rocks for no more than a very short time prior to deposition. In contrast the leads of some vein deposits are anomalous and highly irregular, suggesting significant radiogenic contamination. Apparently the leads of the conformable deposits (and some orthomagmatic leads) have been brought to the surface directly from below the continental crust and rapidly isolated and shielded from crustal materials, whereas those of the veins may have spent a considerable time in contact with the latter.It appears, too, that the occurrence of ordinary and anomalous leads may give important general information on the history of galena-bearing deposits, and that leads from deposits of the conformable type may indicate, with good precision, the age of the sediments enclosing them.


MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding double-stranded RNA with sizes of 20-25 nucleotides, and inhibit protein translation by binding the 39-untranslated region of target mRNA. Each miRNA can regulate multiple mRNAs and each mRNA can be targeted by a number of miRNAs. In cancer, miRNAs can act as not only tumor suppressor genes but also oncogenes (OncomiR). Most recent study has demonstrated OncomiR addiction in mouse pre-B-cell lymphoma. OncomiR addiction may also provide therapeutic opportunities in human cancers such as oncogene addiction. In this study, we have attempted to identify an OncomiR in human oral cancer cells through functional screening and considered whether targeting miRNA can be possible for cancer therapy. First, we performed functional screening for OncomiR in human oral cancer cells by the use of miRCURY LNATM microRNA Knockdown Library (Exiqon). We transfected 918 locked nucleic acid (LNA) antisense oligonucleotides for specific human mature miRNAs into human oral squamous cell carcinoma cells (GFP-SAS) and salivary gland cancer cells (GFP-ACCM). After transfection for 80 hours, each cell growth was evaluated. LNA antisense oligonucleotides against microRNA-361-3p (LNA-miR-361-3p) showed a remarkable growth inhibition in both types of cells as compared with non-targeting LNA oligonucleotides. We also observed the change of cell morphology, diminution of colony size, and a number of non-adherent cells after transfection of LNA-miR-361-3p. Subsequently, we examined the knockdown effect of LNA-miR-361-3p in GFP-SAS cells by quantitative RT-PCR. Compared with control oligonucleotides, the expression of miR-361-3p was significantly reduced by 71%. These effects of LNA-miR-361-3p were not observed by transfection of DNA or RNA antisense oligonucleotides for miR-361-3p. Next, we transfected synthetic human mature miR-361-3p into GFP-SAS cells to investigate the effect of miR-361-3p overexpression. Cell growth resulted in a significant 20% increase compared with non-targeting control miRNA. Furthermore, co-transfection of LNA-miR-361-3p and its decoy oligonucleotides abrogated the growth inhibitory effect by LNA-miR-361-3p in GFP-SAS cells. These results suggest that miR-361-3p functions as an OncomiR in human oral cancer cells and LNA antisense oligonucleotides are useful and efficient for silencing miRNA. Targeting miR-361-3p with LNA antisense oligonucleotides may be a useful therapeutic approach for patients with oral cancer. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 102nd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2011 Apr 2-6; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2011;71(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 145. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2011-145


Hardware reusability in high-level synthesis is based on the possibility of mapping several operators to the same hardware module. This possibility may dramatically depend on the ability of the design tool to recognize operators that can mapped to a single module. This work presents a uniform framework to formally express the semantics of hardware modules, in order to support transformational hardware allocation based on symbolic reasoning.


When one-dimensionally aligned to the same side, multiple non-covalently associated crown ether groups could act as a whole to yield a higher catalytic activity than an individual poorly active crown ether group, delivering the lowest catalyst loading of 1 - 2 mol% among all hitherto known organocatalysts for catalyzing direct arylation of unactivated arenes with haloarenes.


Introduction.—The above three subjects are closely akin to one another. The sections that will be described in the first part of this paper show that the "thinning" treated of ~n the secoucl is greater than has been hitherto thought; and the extent of this latter must much change our notions as to the formation from which have come the greater part of those loose blocks of Greywether-sandstone that, in many places, lie on the surface of Cretaceous and Tertiary beds. The age of the sands noticed in the thud part may also have some bearing on that of the Greywethers. The data on which a great part of this paper is founded have been in my hands for some time ; and the conclusion that I have come to with regard to the age of the Greywethers at the western end of the London Basin has been shortly given in the Geological Survey Memoir on Sheet 13 (p. 48). I have great pleasure in knowing that Prof. Ramsay wholly agrees with my views of the beds in that district, to which this paper chiefly refers. The thinning-out of the London Clay in Marlborough Forest has also been noticed at p. 54 of the above-mentioned memoir. The new points of this paper, which treats of the London Tertiary District alone, are—the proof of the occurrence of the London Clay and the Lower Bagshot Sand further westward than they have been before noticed; the thinmng of the Woolwich and Reading Beds west


2 Abstract: This study was conducted at Agricultural Research Station, College of Animal Sciences, Agriculture University of Huazhong, China, for the period of 27/3/2009 to 27/6/2009. The aim was to determine the effect of strain, sex and age at slaughtering on quality traits of meat of two breeds of ducks (Cherry Valley and Chinese local duck). A total of 120 chicks (60 from each breed) one day old were used. A sample of birds was slaughtered at 6, 8, 10 and 12 weeks of age. Muscle pH at 0.25, 6 and 24 h, meat color at 24 h of breast and leg muscles, water holding capacity and proportion of losing fluids were measured. Breeds had no significant effect on breast or legs muscle PH, however, Leg muscle showed higher (p<0.05) pH at the storing period of 0.25 and 24 h than breast. Breast muscle of local Chinese ducks showed higher (p<0.05) redness (a) and less transparency (L) in comparison with Cherry Valley ducks. Males breast muscle were more (p<0.05) yellowness (b) in comparison with that of female for both breeds. Viscous of Cherry Valley ducks were higher (p<0.05) than that of Chinese local ducks. Both breeds did not exhibit significant differences. Local Chinese ducks breast muscle males showed significantly (p<0.05) higher water holding capacity than that of Cherry Valley breed for both sexes. Muscle extensibility and muscle shearing value and drip loss percentage of Cherry Valley carcass were higher (p<0.05) than that of local Chinese ducks in preceding ages.


This thesis is concerned with the exploration of genealogical connections by family historians in Northumberland, County Durham, and Tyne and Wear, and what this tells us about contemporary reckonings of kinship and relatedness. After situating my research within the wider context of kinship studies in anthropology I demonstrate that the digital and genetic technologies play a pivotal role in the ways that genealogical connections are both evidenced and imagined. Ethnographic engagement with online historic census records and commercial genetic ancestry tracing products reveals the integration of hard fact on the one hand and narrative elaboration on the other as part of family history research. It is then shown that in order to facilitate and add depth to their genealogical explorations family historians rely heavily upon personal reminiscences that are entwined within folk idioms of inheritance. Key to this is the convergence of biological and social explanations of connectedness that manifest as part of the analysis of surnames and in the application and use of selected genetic kin terms. It is demonstrated that the establishment and maintenance of contemporary social interaction constitutes a key feature of genealogical research. Moreover, by focusing on the transmission of genealogical knowledge it is also shown that imaginings of the future remain significant to the thoughts and actions of the contemporary family historian. The fundamental findings of this thesis thus demonstrate that through the active evidencing and imagining of genealogical connections family historians are developing novel ways of understanding how it is that they are connected to one another, the past, and the future.


We present a model for globally optimizing arborescent multilevel inventory-production problems. State-space constraints as well as Poisson distributed demands arriving at any node are considered. For the numerical solution a rate of convergence of order h.Inh is obtained.We introduce a new algorithm for the fast computation of the numerical solution which allows the resolution of complex problems. Some numerical results are shown. We also study the advantages of cooperative behaviour of nodes versus decentralized optimization.


In this paper, two series of numerical simulations are performed using LS/DYNA3D: The first series of numerical simulations are collision events between a 310,000 DWT double hull VLCC (struck ship) and two 35,000 and 105,000 DWT tankers (striking ships). Collisions are assumed to occur at the middle of the VLCC with the striking ships moving at right angle to the YLCC centerline. The second ones, grounding accidents of two 40,000 DWT Conventional and Advanced Double Hull lanker bottom structures, CONV/PD328 and ADH/PD328 models. The overall objective of this study is to understand the structural failure and energy absorbing mechanisms during collision and grounding events for double hull tanker side and bottom structures, which lead to the initiation of inner shell rupture and cause the kinetic energy dissipation to bring the ship to a stop. These numerical simulations will contribute to the estimation of damage extents of collision and grounding accidents and the future improvements in lanker safety at the design stage.


An efficient single-step synthesis of optically pure (adenin-8-yl)phenylalanine nucleosides, a new type of purine amino acid conjugate, by palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions of unprotected 8-bromoadenosines with4-(borono)phenylalanine was developed.


Sensor-measurement systems rely upon knowledge of the functional dynamics between system states and the measured outputs. Errors in sensor measurements come from a variety of sources. While there are well-known techniques to compensate for those errors that result from such issues as noise and sensor-accuracy limitations, other types, such as those that are more deterministic, can result in biases that are not easily compensated for in standard systems. A modification of an adaptive tracking technique based on the neural extended Kalman filter is proposed as a technique to provide for online calibration for the sensor models. Previously, the technique has been applied to tracking problems and successfully improved the motion model of a target when a maneuver occurs. In this new application of the technique, the sensor dynamics are learned rather than the target dynamics.