Background : Despite locating in a dry region with a mostly homogeneous ethnic group, South Khorassan province has a high diversity of medicinal plant uses and rich cultural background. The current study was conducted in Birjand (South Khorassan province) and its 18 adjacent villages to document information concerning the plants used and introduce important plant species using ethnobotanical indices. Methods : In total, 59 people were interviewed about local plants and their utilizations using a semi-structured questionnaire and personal observations between 2018 to 2020. All of the documented plants were collected and identified. The obtained data were analyzed using quantitative ethnobotanical indices. Results : A total of 119 plant species belonging to 93 families were identified. Asteraceae, Apiaceae, and Lamiaceae were the most used plant families. The most frequently plant part used was the aerial part. Decoction was reported as the most common preparation method. The highest UV and RFC values were recorded for Sclerorhachis leptoclada , Scrophularia leucoclada , and Nepeta saturejoides . The highest ICF was reported for digestive system disorders. 35 species showed fidelity level value of 100%. Conclusions : The present study reveals that the people in Birjand and the adjacent areas have a rich indigenous knowledge regarding the plants. Moreover, plants still maintain their place in people's lives, especially as medicine and food. Older people were more knowledgeable than young ones. The results of this study can be used for screening plant species for future phytochemical and pharmacological studies. The present study will facilitate the protection programs of the endangered plants in Birjand area.


Executive Summary: 21st century Asia is a powerhouse in the contemporary global economy. In a short period of time it has closed the development gap between the Region and the rest of the world. All indications suggest that this growth performance will continue into the foreseeable future. Australia's high levels of economic growth over the last decade are directly related to Asia's 'economic miracle,' with Western Australia playing a lead role in Australia's regional economic engagement. Indeed, the State has accounted for nearly 50 per cent of Australia's commodity export trade in recent years, concentrated overwhelmingly in Asia. In this sense Australia, and Western Australia in particular, are becoming increasingly 'hard wired' into the Region. This presents many opportunities but also challenges. The First Murdoch Commission was established to identify how these opportunities may be pursued and how the challenges may be addressed. The initial impetus was that future prosperity required well-informed strategies and policy settings to optimise potential benefits and sustainable gains. The broad context of the inquiry was the contemporary rise of Asia. This rise is a story of success, yet it is success accompanied by significant challenges. Deepening regional integration is an essential part of the story, with the effect of distributing risks as well as benefits. The ongoing performance of the Region is thus also a question about addressing major problems including rapid urbanisation, resources security, demographic burdens and environmental pressures. This insight underpinned the deliberations of the Commission and its investigation of how economic engagement and the growing interdependency of Western Australia, Australia and the Region can be pursued to enhance mutual benefit and long-term resilience. A distinct feature of the Commission's investigations was its regional approach. This included the composition of the Commission's membership, and a series of meetings and consultations with various stakeholder groups and individuals in major regional centres. This approach was taken precisely because Australia's core interests are now closely intertwined with Asia's continuing prosperity and stability. The Commission found that there is a strategic choice to be taken by Australia: whether to remain a mere exporter to the Region or to become a more active participant engaging in the Region. The former choice leaves Australia susceptible to the volatilities of a game that it has little capacity to influence. By contrast, the latter offers Australia far greater potential influence, opportunity and long-term benefit for its economic prosperity and wider future. Efforts in this space should not underestimate the major challenges confronting both the Region and the Australian economy, and how regional cooperation can provide ways to address these challenges. Western Australia provided a fertile case for the Commission to examine regional opportunities and challenges from the standpoint of a sub-national unit. There is potential for Western Australia to develop a more prominent role in the Region, and the Commission identified various possibilities at hand. The Commission concluded that greater regional engagement offered many benefits. This includes opportunities for Australia to contribute to addressing some of the major challenges in the Region, especially in areas such as food security and capacity building. Western Australia in particular has a lot to offer and a lot to gain in this respect.


I propose a syntactic typology of numeral classifier languages based on the observation that the order of nouns and numeral classifiers correlate with substantial differences in the syntactic uses of classifiers. In languages where classifiers precede nouns, they have an article-like use marking definiteness. We take this as evidence that classifiers are functional projections of the NP there, forming a constituent with that noun. In languages where classifiers follow nouns, they do not form a constituent with the head noun, explaining why these languages almost universally exhibit quantifier float of a quantifier+classifier constituent.


The University of the West Indies (UWI) celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2008: in October 1948, a small group of 33 medical students came to Mona, Jamaica, to start their studies as the first undergraduates of the then University College of the West Indies (UCWI, affiliated to the University of London). But in fact the Extra-Mural Department (EMD) is even older; it set up shop in 1947, the first entity established by the fledgling UCWI, for the founding fathers (no mothers, it seems) believed that outreach, work 'outside the walls', would be critical to the new institution. The name for the Department was borrowed from British university terminology, and it was explicitly envisaged that its programmes would also be closely modeled on British practice. In 1989, the EMD was renamed the School of Continuing Studies (SCS), reflecting presumably a more 'modem' (and less British) nomenclature (pp. 62-63).


Mapping of organisations in Indonesia in disaster risk reduction (MOIDRR)  Scope This is the first Technical Report in a three part series for the two year DFAT Australian Aid funded project (2013-2015), Promoting the Inclusion of People with Disabilities in Disaster Management in Indonesia.  This report details the mapping of organisations in Indonesia working in disaster risk reduction (DRR). The two year project was concerned with understanding the gaps between disability inclusive policy and practices in DRR and supporting opportunities to include people with disabilities in all phases of disaster risk management. The premise of this work was that reducing the vulnerability of people with disability during disasters is a key strategy to promote broader community resilience. The direct and practical solutions that people with disability can offer to community-level DRR activities should be a key consideration within all phases of disaster risk management. Inclusion of people with disabilities in DRR before, during, and after disasters contributes to the "whole-of-community" approach to disaster resilience advocated in contemporary policy and enacted by DRR agencies. This project was initially framed within an increasing awareness of disability inclusion in DRR globally which is now articulated in the recently issued Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 (UNDISR, 2015), and within an increasingly supportive policy environment in Indonesia Background For the decade 2005 - 2015, the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA): Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters (UNDISR, 2005) was the agreed international framework to reduce disaster losses. The HFA promoted a strategic and systematic approach to reducing vulnerabilities and risks to hazards with the aim of building the resilience of nations and communities to disasters (UNISDR, 2005). The General Considerations of the HFA made specific reference to gender, cultural diversity, age and vulnerable groups; however, the single reference to 'the disabled' [sic] was confined to a discussion on social safety nets. The HFA insufficiently addressed the disproportionate risk that people with disability face and failed to recognise the agency of people with disabilities and their potential contribution to disaster risk reduction (DRR). This has meant that people with disabilities have been largely excluded from DRR practice and policy to date. DRR is, by definition, concerned with reducing the risk and vulnerability of individuals, households and communities prone to hazards. People with disabilities are especially vulnerable when they are excluded from community-level DRR planning and preparation and when their specific needs are not met during response to and recovery from natural hazard emergencies. Disability inclusive DRR recognises that direct and practical solutions should come from people with disabilities themselves by making disability issues and people with disabilities visible in DRR before, during, and after natural disasters. Purpose The Mapping of Organisations in Indonesia in Disaster Risk Reduction (MOIDRR) survey sought to understand the barriers and enablers that DRR actors face in including people with disabilities in DRR activities in Indonesia. Capitalising on enablers and overcoming barriers is necessary if disability inclusive DRR is to be realised. Specific Aims The MOIDRR survey sought to: Identify the HFA Action Areas targeted by DRR agencies and map the regional DRR activities of these agencies; Describe the groups targeted by agencies' DRR activities in Indonesia and to ascertain whether people with disabilities were included in agency DRR initiatives; and Identify what the agencies perceived as barriers and enablers to engaging in disability inclusive DRR. Method The MOIDRR survey was designed to elicit information about the inclusion or otherwise of people with disabilities in DRR activities in Indonesia, and perceptions about the enablers and barriers to doing so. The MOIDRR survey invited participates to identify, from a list of 9 options, the population targeted for each of their three identified priority DRR programs. The MOIDRR survey also asked respondents to address barriers and enablers to including people with disabilities in their agency's DRR programs and activities. Invitations to participate were sent to 117 agencies listed with the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) in Indonesia that were identified as delivering DRR programs and that had accessible contact information. Respondents could choose either the English or Bahasa Indonesia version of the MOIDRR survey. The survey was open for 3 months between February and April 2014. We received 38 responses. Duplicate responses were removed and incomplete surveys were discarded. A total of 28 surveys were included for analysis. Findings Key findings concerned what DRR organisations perceived as barriers and enablers to disability inclusive DRR. These were grouped into two thematic areas: (a) Limited Experience, Expertise and Networks; and (b) Commitment: Policy Framework, Community Collaboration, and Engagement of Disabled People's Organisations (DPOs). Key findings are discussed in the body of this report. Briefly, these include: An ongoing challenge to disability inclusive DRR concerns the limited data on disability at the local level in Indonesia. This makes it more difficult for governments to support disability inclusive DRR programs through coordination of efforts between national (BNPB) and regional (BPBD) level DRR efforts. Gathering data on people with disabilities and their resilience, capabilities and needs in disaster risk reduction was addressed in the larger project and the processes and findings reported in Technical Report 3: The Disability Inclusive Disaster Resilience (DiDR) Tool: Development and Field Testing There is an emerging understanding among some organisations involved in DRR that to be disability-inclusive they do not need to add technical expertise in disability, but rather develop their networks to include people who have expertise such as Disabled People's Organisations (DPOs). It is anticipated that this kind of partnership would expand capacity for disability inclusive DRR for both DRR actors and DPOs. Partnerships and networks, particularly with DPOs, provide the bridge to go from awareness to actual implementation of disability inclusive DRR. Continued effort is needed to identify and share practical ways of engaging DRR actors and DPOs in the development of disability inclusive DRR programs.


This review describes the current status of proteomic approaches to identify kinase substrates, which may lead to valuable medical applications. It guides the reader towards various methods using 2DE and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Dynamic changes of phosphorylation during extracellular stimuli can be quantitatively monitored by both technologies. Among appropriate prefractionation procedures, the purification of phosphoproteins and phosphopeptides is an absolute step for success. The temporal change and stoichiometry of phosphorylation are the important criteria to evaluate the physiological meaning of the reaction. Kinase substrates can also be identified by in vitro phosphorylation systems employing protein arrays, fractionated lysates, genetically engineered kinases and phage libraries. The final section contains an expert opinion on the current strategies and the issues we are going to challenge in the next 5 years.


In recent years, the production of biogas from animal manure has gained increased attention in Denmark,
as it has been identified as an important resource to reach the goal of a fossil free society by 2050. In
addition, manure management with biogas production has been recognized as a viable way to reduce
environmental impacts from animal production systems. Yet, because the methane production potential of
animal manure is low, biogas plants depend on the addition of high energy organic wastes as co-substrates
to manure, to make their operations profitable. The latter are in short supply and are already being
imported in countries like Denmark. The use of different co-substrates and their biogas potential has been
investigated, but there is presently a lack of knowledge about the environmental impacts of using one cosubstrate
versus another. Therefore, this study assessed the environmental impacts of three co-substrates
to pig slurry, which are currently underexploited; namely extruded wheat straw, the organic fraction of
municipal solid waste, and the solid fraction of liquid-solid separated slurry. A comparative LCA was carried
out, where the conventional manure management scheme of slurry storage and subsequent application to
arable fields was compared to this three different ways of biogas production. Upon the analysis, extruded
wheat straw was identified as a superior co-substrate. This is due to its low nutrient content, high methane
yield potential, and low water content, which resulted in the lowest environmental impacts for
eutrophication and the most savings for climate change potential. The second best co-substrate was
identified to be the solid fraction of separated slurry and lastly the OFMSW had the most environmental
impacts out of all scenarios, due to its relationship to energy production from incineration. A sensitivity
analysis, where different methane yield potentials were tested for each co-substrate, was performed and
the results proved to be robust. However, increase detail to the model is necessary to provide more
confidence to the results, since system expansion activities proved to be crucial for the performance of
each scenario.


Abstract In the last decades, increasing attention has been devoted to the role of socio-cultural identity in the language-learning process. What issues have taken the stage throughout this discussion? What is the relationship between individual, community, and socio-cultural identity in the language-learning process? This article will explore the role of social space and cultural identity in the development of plurilingualism. The emphasis on successful communication skills, motivated by increasing opportunities for interaction and mobility in Azerbaijan and in the rest of the world, remains important, but globalization and internationalization pose new challenges to social cohesion and integration. Language skills remain essential if individuals are to benefit from opportunities in employment leading to economic mobility, but they are also necessary to participate actively in the social processes. This increasing focus on language policies is reflected in the goals of education for plurilingual and intercultural citizens capable of interacting in a number of languages across linguistic and cultural boundaries. In this context, this article recalls the main developments in language education policy and practice in Azerbaijan from the early 1990s to the present.


Hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si: H) were prepared by d.c. and pulsed plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) technique at silane flow-rates of 5, 10, 20, 30, and 40sccm. The pulsed PECVD system was developed from a modification of the existing d.c. PECVD system with a modulation frequency of 10KHz. These films were analyzed using UV-Vis-Nir spectrophotometer, X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier Transform infrared (FTIR) absorption and Raman spectroscopy. The optimized deposition conditions for a-Si: H using the d.c. PECVD system was used. The ON-time and OFF-time was set at 30 seconds for pulsed PECV system. Quantum confinement effect was observed in the pulsed PECVD films from the blue-shift in the optical energy gap. Films produced by pulsed PECVD technique were comparatively more homogeneous at all silane flow-rates than the d.c. PECVD films. Evidence of nanocrystallites presence in the film structure was observed at high silane flow-rate in the pulsed PECVD films. OPTICAL AND STRUCTURAL PROPERTIES OF D.C. AND PULSED PECVD HYDROGENATED AMORPHOUS SILICON Goh Boon Tong and Saadah A. Rahman Solid State Research Laboratory, Physics Department, University of Malaya


The paper focuses on the definition of the legal status of the cryptocurrency in the framework of the current Russian legislation. The subject of the research is the principal scientific and practical approaches to determining the object of civil rights and the object of acquisitive crimes in terms of their adaptability to cryptocurrencies. The purposes of the work were the search for a universal algorithm for resolving civil disputes related to the turnover of the crypto currency, and the qualification of the virtual currency theft (fraud). By using historical, comparative legal and dialectical methods as well as the content analysis method parallels between cryptocurrencies and individual objects of civil rights (a thing, property rights, other property) were drawn, and a number of options for qualifying the actions related to the non-repayable withdrawal of the cryptocurrency were proposed. Finally, the paper analyzes the draft laws prepared by the RF Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank of the Russian Federation and presents the author's vision of the prospects for legalizing the cryptocurrency as an object of civil rights.


Recent studies in gender representation tackle issues that no longer deal with the under representation, invisibility, powerlessness, and silence of women in the media. Hence, it is aim of this study to analyze women's representation in a new light following the principles of feminism of difference. This study sought to prove that competing gender discourses and the notion of varying femininities are discursive practices that can be observed as strategies in representation in modern magazines. To prove this, multimodal analysis was used to analyze the verbal and non-verbal text of the magazine in question. Moreover, feminist critical analysis was applied to see how the use of diverse and competing discourses in the magazine are intertwined with the text producer's consumerist agenda. The analysis also shows how seemingly neutral or harmless discussions about feminine activities are actually embedded with biased ideologies about gender. A critical discourse analysis is deemed important in raising the awareness of readers regarding this manipulative process. It is through a critical look into language and discourse that one may find how unequal power relations do exist in social discourse.


Mandevilla coccinea (Hook. et Arn.) Woodson, Apocynaceae is a herb native to South America employed in folk medicine as an analgesic, anti-inflammatory and to inhibit snake venom effects. This work was carried out to study the morpho-anatomical characters of the leaf and stem in order to advance knowledge on this medicinal plant and on pharmacognostic quality control. The plant material was fixed and prepared according to light and scanning electron microtechniques. Its leaves are simple, alternate and ovateobovate. The epidermis is uniseriate and coated with a thick and striate cuticle. The stomata are paracytic and occur on both foliar surfaces. The dorsiventral-like mesophyll has a sub-epidermal parenchymatic layer containing phenolic substances and is traversed by minor collateral vascular bundles. The midrib is biconvex and the petiole is concave-convex, both presenting bicollateral vascular bundles in an open arc. The stem is circular in transverse section and the epidermis remains in incipient secondary growth. A sub-epidermal parenchymatic layer containing phenolic substances, a discontinuous sclerenchymatic sheath of non-lignified fibres and cylinders of external phloem, xylem and internal phloem occur. Numerous branched laticifers and idioblasts with phenolic substances are present in the leaf and stem.


The CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) analysis is the well known analysis which is done to parameters of the interface between the body and the fluid. Fluid flow around the body is major topic of concern so the CFD is held. These analyses will helping in minimize the fuel consumption of a freight vehicle, Truck-trailer and increase its stability while at work. One parameter on which the whole project depends is the Drag coefficient of the body which is being determined in the project further. The analysis is done in ANSYS software and Coefficient of Drag is obtained. A truck-trailer as a ground vehicle is considered. The project will be dealing with the air flow around the body at high speed of 30 m/s. Analysis will be done by considering the Menter's SST (Shear Stress Transition) model as standard. Simulation would be done on different cases with some improvements on the body and comparing them. Velocity contours and vector fields will be obtained along with the Coefficient of drag. A single modified device or body is analyzed at a time and there COD are to be noted for improvements.


Paper discussed the problem of wind farm localization at sea will cause to the threats for shipping and fishing. The wind farm located at sea forms an area with the necessary protective zone limits the access into the area for recreational tourism and water sports. Providing new, artificial water barrier and past building outside the shipping or fishing routes the wind farm creates many threats. It was distinguished direct and additional threats, showing that collisions between vessels and wind farm infrastructure are possible. It is conducted scientific research for estimating the risk of accidents on chosen sea areas between vessels and artificial water obstacles. It was discussed the risk of accidents during wind farm operation process on the statistical data received in three European countries. It is possible decreasing the risk of dangerous situations arising between those objects or decreasing the ships' collisions effects and consequences if the farm localization is far from shipping routes and progressively better present vessel technical equipment. Undoubtedly presence of the wind farms at sea worsens the shipping safety, constricts the access to some areas but localization the wind farm at sea is a compromise solution (it makes smaller social resistance) allows for the development of wind farms energy production.


Policy Points Population health efforts to improve diabetes care and outcomes should identify social needs, support social needs referrals and coordination, and partner health care organizations with community social service agencies and resources. Current payment mechanisms for health care services do not adequately support critical up-front investments in infrastructure to address medical and social needs, nor provide sufficient incentives to make addressing social needs a priority. Alternative payment models and value-based payment should provide up-front funding for personnel and infrastructure to address social needs and should incentivize care that addresses social needs and outcomes sensitive to social risk.

CONTEXT
Increasingly, health care organizations are implementing interventions to improve outcomes for patients with complex health and social needs, including diabetes, through cross-sector partnerships with nonmedical organizations. However, fee-for-service and many value-based payment systems constrain options to implement models of care that address social and medical needs in an integrated fashion. We present experiences of eight grantee organizations from the Bridging the Gap: Reducing Disparities in Diabetes Care initiative to improve diabetes outcomes by transforming primary care and addressing social needs within evolving payment models.

METHODS
Analysis of eight grantees through site visits, technical assistance calls, grant applications, and publicly available data from US census data (2017) and from Health Resources and Services Administration Uniform Data System Resources data (2018). Organizations represent a range of payment models, health care settings, market factors, geographies, populations, and community resources.

FINDINGS
Grantees are implementing strategies to address medical and social needs through augmented staffing models to support high-risk patients with diabetes (e.g., community health workers, behavioral health specialists), information technology innovations (e.g., software for social needs referrals), and system-wide protocols to identify high-risk populations with gaps in care. Sites identify and address social needs (e.g., food insecurity, housing), invest in human capital to support social needs referrals and coordination (e.g., embedding social service employees in clinics), and work with organizations to connect to community resources. Sites encounter challenges accessing flexible up-front funding to support infrastructure for interventions. Value-based payment mechanisms usually reward clinical performance metrics rather than measures of population health or social needs interventions.

CONCLUSIONS
Federal, state, and private payers should support critical infrastructure to address social needs and incentivize care that addresses social needs and outcomes sensitive to social risk. Population health strategies that address medical and social needs for populations living with diabetes will need to be tailored to a range of health care organizations, geographies, populations, community partners, and market factors. Payment models should support and incentivize these strategies for sustainability.


On the basis of the Berkovits pure spinor formalism of covariant quantization of supermembrane, we attempt to construct a M(atrix) theory which is covariant under SO(1, 10) Lorentz group. We first construct a bosonic M(atrix) theory by starting with the first-order formalism of bosonic membrane, which precisely gives us a bosonic sector of M(atrix) theory by BFSS. Next we generalize this method to the construction of M(atrix) theory of supermembranes. However, it seems to be difficult to obtain a covariant and supersymmetric M(atrix) theory from the Berkovits pure spinor formalism of supermembrane because of the matrix character of the BRST symmetry. Instead, in this paper, we construct a supersymmetric and covariant matrix model of 11D superparticle, which corresponds to a particle limit of covariant M(atrix) theory. By an explicit calculation, we show that the one-loop effective potential is trivial, thereby implying that this matrix model is a free theory at least at the one-loop level.


Our objective was to assess whether neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL)/lipocalin 2 (LCN2) expression in cervical human papillomavirus (HPV) lesions has implications on the outcome of HPV infections or disease progression. Cervical biopsy specimens from 225 women in the Latin American Screening study were analyzed for NGAL/LCN2 expression using immunohistochemical analysis, to assess associations with cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) grade, high-risk HPV, and in predicting outcomes of high-risk (HR)-HPV infections. Expression of NGAL/LCN2 increased with lesion grade (odds ratio [OR], 3.86; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.53-9.71; P = .001). Up-regulation was also related to HR-HPV detection (OR, 2.21; 95% CI, 1.15-4.24; P = .016) and showed a linear relationship to HR-HPV load (P = .002). NGAL/LCN2 expression was of no value in predicting the outcomes of HR-HPV infections or the surrogate end points (incident CIN 1+ and CIN 2+) of progressive disease. Because the SV40 large T antigen is a powerful up-regulator of this lipocalin, up-regulation of NGAL/LCN2 in CIN is probably induced by HR-HPV E6 oncoprotein, most likely by eliminating its normal transcription repression exerted by wild-type p53.


To eliminate or reduce initial data redistribution overheads for distributed memory parallel computers, this paper considers the problem of writing data distribution independent (DDI) programs whose functionality and execution time are independent of initial data distributions. Relations between time-space mappings and input data distributions are established. These relations are the basis of a systematic approach to the derivation of DDI programs which is illustrated for matrix-matrix multiplication. Conditions on data distributions that correspond to an optimal modular mapping are provided. It is shown that only twelve programs suffice to accomplish redistribution-free execution for the many input data distributions that satisfy the above conditions. When DDI matrix multiplication programs are used in an algorithm with multiple matrix products, half of data redistributions otherwise required can be eliminated.<<ETX>>


Titania nanotubes loaded with antibiotics can deliver a high concentration of antibiotics locally at a specific site, thereby providing a promising strategy to prevent implant-associated infections. In this study we have fabricated titania nanotubes with various diameters (80, 120, 160, and 200 nm) and 200 nm length via electrochemical anodization. These nanotubes were loaded with 2 mg of gentamicin using a lyophilization method and vacuum drying. A standard strain, Staphylococcus epidermidis (American Type Culture Collection 35984), and two clinical isolates, S. aureus 376 and S. epidermidis 389, were selected to investigate the anti-infective ability of the gentamicin-loaded nanotubes (NT-G). Flat titanium (FlatTi) and nanotubes with no drug loading (NT) were also investigated and compared. We found that NT-G could significantly inhibit bacterial adhesion and biofilm formation compared to FlatTi or NT, and the NT-G with 160 nm and 200 nm diameters had stronger antibacterial activity because of the extended drug release time of NT-G with larger diameters. The NT also exhibited greater antibacterial ability than the FlatTi, while nanotubes with 80 nm or 120 nm diameters had better effects. Furthermore, human marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells were used to evaluate the effect of nanotubular topographies on the osteogenic differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells. Our results showed that NT-G and NT, especially those with 80 nm diameters, significantly promoted cell attachment, proliferation, spreading, and osteogenic differentiation when compared to FlatTi, and there was no significant difference between NT-G and NT with the same diameter. Therefore, nanotube modification and gentamicin loading can significantly improve the antibacterial ability and osteogenic activity of orthopedic implants.


How would a learning arena that promotes "just‐in‐time" learning in the workplace ideally be created? This was one of the most important questions the Norwegian research project, NEMLIG, aimed to illustrate through a series of work place experiments. The present article presents the evaluation of the project in the form of a number of dilemmas. These are clustered into three categories: those that related to present and future work organisation, those related to the user‐interface, and those dealing with user‐participation and systems development.


Scholarly articles are now increasingly being mentioned and discussed in social media platforms, sometimes even as pre- or post-print version uploads. Measures of social media mentions and coverage are now emerging as an alternative indicator of impact of scholarly articles. This article aims to explore how much scholarly research output from India is covered in different social media platforms, and how similar or different it is from the world average. It also analyses the discipline-wise variations in coverage and altmetric attention for Indian research output, including a comparison with the world average. Results obtained show interesting patterns. Only 28.5% of the total research output from India is covered in social media platforms, which is about 18% less than the world average. ResearchGate and Mendeley are the most popular social media platforms in India for scholarly article coverage. In terms of discipline-wise variation, medical sciences and biological sciences have relatively higher coverage across different platforms compared to disciplines like information science and engineering.


Soft rot occurred severely in potato tubers stored in traditional and ameliored storehouses at Sikasso, Mali. 17 infective bacterial isolates were isolated from potato rot tissues (Solanum tuberosum L var. Odessa). Out of all, the isolate Od23 was found pathogenic and was characterized as rod-shaped, Gram positive, endo-spore formers and yellow pigment producers. This isolate which was found to be the principal organism responsible for potato rot in storage in Sikasso, grew at a temperature range from 5 to 45°C, with optimum temperature of 30 - 35°C. However, it showed strong pathogenicity to potato tubers at 30°C at 3 days. Furthermore, the 16S DNA analysis confirmed that the obtained isolate was Bacillus pumilus. All Potato varieties cultivated in Mali responded to infection with B. pumilus. Potato var. Sahel was the most susceptible, while Pamina appeared the most resistant potato variety from Mali. According to literature review, this is the first report on the occurrence of B. pumilus as a causal agent of potato soft rot in storage in the region of Sikasso, Mali.

 Key words: Potato, storage, Bacillus pumilus, soft rot, Mali.


In the past few decades and up to now, the fossil energy has exerted tremendous impacts on human environments and gives rise to greenhouse effects while the wind power, especially in offshore region, is an attractive renewable energy resource. For offshore fixed wind turbine, stronger foundation like jacket structure has a good applicability for deeper water depth. Once water depth increases, dynamic responses of offshore wind turbine (OWT) support structures become an important issue. The primary factor will be the total height of support structure increases when wind turbine is installed at offshore locations with deeper water depth, in other words the fatigue life of each components of support structure decrease. The other one will experience more wind forces due to its large blades, apart from wave, current forces, when makes a comparison with offshore oil and gas platforms. Summing up two above reasons, fatigue analysis, in this research, is a crucial aspect for design of offshore wind turbine structures which are subjected to time series wind, wave loads and carried out by aiding of SACS software for model simulation (P-M rules and S-N curves) and Matlab code. Results show that the fatigue life of OWT is decreased accordingly by increasing the wind speed acting on the blades, especially with the simultaneous interaction between wind and wind-induced wave. Hence, this should be considered in wind turbine design.
Keywords: offshore wind turbine; Jacket structure; fatigue analysis; P-M rules; S-N curves.
Received 01 October 2018, Revised 19 November 2018, Accepted 31 January 2019


In developing a jurisprudence for global law, we have to move beyond the paradigms of the Western legal tradition. A crucial issue is how legal professionals will be able to deal with complex interdependencies involving cultural notions from a non-western legal tradition. A dialogue is then called for, as the example of Amartya Sen's analysis of the Indian concepts of niti (somewhat like organizational propriety) and nyaya (somewhat like living law) demonstrates. Accordingly, global legal scholarship must not only become post-national, inter-disciplinary and empirical (as Pierre Larouche argues elsewhere in this issue) but it must also concern itself with cultural issues of justice and injustice.


We investigated the seasonal pattern of changes in body condition of breeding black-legged kittiwakes Rissa tridactyla in Svalbard (79°N) to evaluate whether changes in body condition were a consequence of the energetic demands of breeding (the reproductive stress hypothesis) or of voluntary anorexia to attain lower flight costs during chick rearing (the programmed anorexia hypothesis). Adult body condition was recorded from early egg laying to fledging and was examined in relation to date (relative to hatching), sex, parental time-budget, brood size and reproductive success. To distinguish between the two hypotheses we evaluate whether the reduction in body condition occurred during or ahead of the energetically most demanding part of the chick-rearing period. We combine our results on changes in body condition and time-budget with published information on field metabolic rate (FMR) and chick energy requirements from studies in the same colony. Our calculations of adult energy requirements and energy intakes indicate that the first part of the chick-rearing period was energetically the most demanding period, because adult energy requirement per hour spent off the nest was highest in this period, and adults were time constrained because of the need for 24-h brooding of the chicks. During the incubation period female body condition increased slightly, but significantly, while male body condition was stable. During the first part of the chick-rearing period, female and male body condition decreased by 14.8% and 8.4%, respectively. During the second part of the chick-rearing period, both male and female body condition remained stable. The reductions in body condition occurred during the phase which was suggested to be the energetically most demanding part of the chick-rearing period, thus supporting the reproductive stress hypothesis. Parental body condition during the incubation period was positively related to the probability of successfully fledging young, providing additional support for the reproductive stress hypothesis.


A study was performed along 30 km distance of the coast of South England to estimate the size of falling blocks and their extent using RocFall and other computer programmes. In addition to computer analysis, observational analysis was used to identify many factors affecting the size and the end point of falling rocks. The analysis was based along the coastal Chalk cliffs from Brighton to Eastbourne. It involved measurements of dip and dip direction, classification and characteristics of rocks as well as noting the history of previous rock fall in relation to the extent and size. Nine areas were examined and reported according to their location except for Brighton which was divided according to the cliff protection methods used. For each area a cliff profile was drawn and information about its height, cliff sloping angle, geological formations, and type of cliff protection used, if any, were listed. Types of common failures were also identified from observation during site reconnaissance and from performed failure analysis using Dips programme. As a result, falling block size and rocks end point, to the worst case, could be estimated and judgment about the efficiency of protection methods used in protected areas has been made.


Wireless sensor networks (WSN) have recently gained popularity in distributed monitoring and surveillance applications. The objective of these devices is to extract pertinent information under several constrains such as low computational capabilities, limited arithmetic precision, and the need to conserve power. One of the most revealing environmental cues is audio. In this paper, we propose a voice activity detector and a simple gender classifier for use in a distributed acoustic sensing system. This algorithm makes use of low-complexity audio features and a pre-trained regression tree to classify incoming speech by gender. The algorithm is implemented real-time on the Crossbow sensor motes and a series of results are given that characterize the algorithm performance and complexity. Challenges in this real-time implementation include designing the algorithm and software architecture such that the signal processing is appropriately distributed between the sensor mote and the base station. At the base station, a data fusion algorithm considers a linear combination of individual mote decisions to form a final decision


An increasing number of people now rely on online platforms to meet their health information needs. Thus identifying inconsistent or conflicting textual health information has become a safety-critical task. Health advice data poses a unique challenge where information that is accurate in the context of one diagnosis can be conflicting in the context of another. For example, people suffering from diabetes and hypertension often receive conflicting health advice on diet. This motivates the need for technologies which can provide contextualized, user-specific health advice. A crucial step towards contextualized advice is the ability to compare health advice statements and detect if and how they are conflicting. This is the task of health conflict detection (HCD). Given two pieces of health advice, the goal of HCD is to detect and categorize the type of conflict. It is a challenging task, as (i) automatically identifying and categorizing conflicts requires a deeper understanding of the semantics of the text, and (ii) the amount of available data is quite limited.

In this study, we are the first to explore HCD in the context of pre-trained language models. We find that DeBERTa-v3 performs best with a mean F1 score of 0.68 across all experiments. We additionally investigate the challenges posed by different conflict types and how synthetic data improves a model's understanding of conflict-specific semantics. Finally, we highlight the difficulty in collecting real health conflicts and propose a human-in-the-loop synthetic data augmentation approach to expand existing HCD datasets. Our HCD training dataset is over 2x bigger than the existing HCD dataset and is made publicly available on Github.


In order to solve the problem of large space and time overhead in the PrefixSpan algorithm, a new sequential pattern mining algorithm based on PrefixSpan is proposed, which is PrefixSpan-x algorithm. The algorithm reduces unnecessary storage space and removes the non-frequent items, and combines AC automaton to optimize frequent sub-sequence mining, so as to improve the performance. Experiments prove that the performance of PrefixSpan-x algorithm is better than Prefixspan algorithm in time and space.


Abstract Scotland today has a plentiful supply of drinking water derived from upland gathering grounds, but groundwater supplied all of its major towns and cities in the past. Pollution of many of the old groundwater sources, as well as the atmosphere, by the massive industrial boom of the mid nineteenth century in central Scptland led to the development of hydropathic establishments to dispense the 'water cure'. Most drew on fresh and pure groundwater sources, and the establishments continued to be a popular source of medical care until the early part of the twentieth century. The groundwater sources were characterized by weak to moderate mineralization unlike the strongly mineralised waters typical of the more traditional spa resorts. A small part of the hydropathic legacy remains in use until this day


Hypertension is a public health problem that happens a lot, many people do not realize that they suffer from hypertension, this is due to symptoms that are not real and in the early stages before causing serious health problems, new symptoms are clearly visible at age 50- an. Generally there have been more severe complications or diseases such as a heart attack or stroke. Because of its presence which is still difficult to detect and control, it is not surprising that hypertension has been dubbed the "the silent killer" (Julianti.2005). Based on prevalence throughout the world in 2013, hypertension spread to almost all segments of society. The high prevalence of 26.4% of hypertension makes it a high risk factor for cardiovascular disease (WHO, 2013). The chemicals contained in hypertension drugs will have an impact on the body if taken too long. Non-pharmacological therapy can be given to patients with hypertension such as Banana Ambon (Musa Acminata). Ambon banana plant (Musa acuminata Cavendish Subgroup) grows abundantly in tropical regions such as Indonesia (Yuliarti, 2011)., But its existence is only known to be only fruits and basic ingredients for making snacks and drinks. The combination of high potassium and very low salt in the flesh of Ambon banana (Musa Acuminata Cavendish Subgroup) is believed to be beneficial for people with high blood pressure and reduce the risk of coronary heart disease. Objective: To analyze the effectiveness of musa acminata against blood pressure reduction. The research method used is an experimental approach (one group) in patients with severe hypertension and then analyzed with the Wilcoxon signed ranks test technique. The results showed that in both groups the proportion of the results of the same blood pressure measurement was greater in Stage 2 hypertension (where the results of Blood Pressure measurements pengukuran 160/100 mmhg) and p-values obtained in group I = 0.027 and (p <0.005 ) which means there is a difference between the results of blood pressure measurements before and after the intervention (administration of Ambon banana) while in group II the p value is 0.056 which means there is no significant difference in blood pressure measurements before and after.


This study examines the effects of industrial policy support on the initial public offering performance of listed enterprises on the Chinese small and medium‐sized enterprises board. We observe that industrial policy support has a positive effect on IPO performance. In addition, we provide evidence that after the financial crisis, the decrease of IPO underpricing resulting from policy support implemented three months before firms going public is less than that deriving from the policy support issued six months prior to listing, whereas the effect of industrial policy support on post‐IPO operating performance has increased after the financial crisis.


Abstract. Bight redfish, Centroberyx gerrardi, is a demersal teleost endemic to continental shelf and upper slope waters of southern Australia. Throughout most of its range, C. gerrardi is targeted by a number of separately managed commercial and recreational fisheries across several jurisdictions. However, it is currently unknown whether stock assessments and management for this shared resource are being conducted at appropriate spatial scales, thereby requiring knowledge of population structure and connectivity. To investigate population structure and connectivity, we developed 16 new polymorphic microsatellite markers using 454 shotgun sequencing. Two to 15 alleles per locus were detected. There was no evidence of linkage disequilibrium between pairs of loci and all loci except one were in Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium. Cross-amplification trials in the congeneric C. australis and C. lineatus revealed that 11 and 16 loci are potentially useful, respectively. However, deviations from Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium and linkage disequilibrium between pairs of loci were detected at several of the 16 markers for C. australis, and therefore the number of markers useful for population genetic analyses with C. lineatus is likely considerably lower than 11.


Bone regeneration is a complicated process that involves a series of biological events, such as cellular recruitment, proliferation and differentiation, and so forth, which have been found to be significantly affected by controlled drug delivery. Recently, a lot of research studies have been launched on the application of nanomaterials in controlled drug delivery for bone regeneration. In this article, the latest research progress in this area regarding the use of bioceramics-based, polymer-based, metallic oxide-based and other types of nanomaterials in controlled drug delivery for bone regeneration are reviewed and discussed, which indicates that the controlling drug delivery with nanomaterials should be a very promising treatment in orthopedics. Furthermore, some new challenges about the future research on the application of nanomaterials in controlled drug delivery for bone regeneration are described in the conclusion and perspectives part.


All anaesthetists recognise the problem. Some minutes after transferring an anaesthetised patient into theatre, you become suspicious that even for one of your own quality anaesthetics, the blood pressure is remarkably constant. A slightly uneasy feeling is soon confirmed: the auto-cycling has been switched off or the device has defaulted to manual and your blood pressure reading is ten minutes old or more. Usually no harm occurs, often because the reason you noticed the problem was a change in another parameter (such as a fall in FÉCO2 or an increase in heart rate) that had not been reflected in a change in blood pressure. Apart from accusations of lack of appropriate vigilance, the reason this is such a common problem may be due to the fact that all other parameters are being displayed in real-time, and subconsciously we are lured into thinking the non-invasive blood pressure is also continuously updated. If we were to use an aircraft comparison, this situation is analogous to having most instruments displaying current values in flight except the fuel gauge, which is happily still indicating the status when the plane was on the tarmac! In our experience, many monitors from a variety of manufacturers behave in this way. We believe that any monitor providing continuous values, such as SpO2 and ECG, should only display a static non-invasive blood pressure value for a maximum of 5 min, after which the value should blink or disappear altogether. This should be easily achievable through software modification, and could immediately improve patient safety during anaesthesia and in other contexts. Following another occasion of being caught out by this problem, we wrote to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), who decided to investigate the incident, and in turn they contacted the device's manufacturer, in this case, GE Healthcare (Hatfield, Herts, UK). After identifying the monitor (a Solar 8000) and confirming that the device was working normally, GE indicated in their response to the MRHA on the incident report (2009 ⁄ 010 ⁄ 006 ⁄ 401 ⁄ 010) that their engineers would consider a modification to software in future generations of devices. We would urge other manufacturers to consider this easily made improvement on all non-invasive blood pressure monitors.


Set in the backdrop of Gothic horror tradition, Bram Stoker's novel Dracula (1897) intermixes with fondness of romance. It overtly describes the love of Dr. John Seward, Arthur Holmwood and Quiencey Morris to Lucy Westerna. The behaviuors that they show towards main female characters in the novel express their love to women. But Dr. Van Helsing, the leader of the heroes' team, is presented as the inspiring figure who leads the band of the young people in a sacred ritual. He is from Amsterdam and we do not know anything about his family background except his insane wife who is now in "insane institution". In the novel he is the character taken for granted as an all good personality. He is presented as the benevolent father figure who is panacea for the trouble wrenched youngsters. However, we can raise some questions on his behaviours. Is he solely an ascetic person? Is he not interested in love affairs with any woman? This paper attempts to analyze the behaviuors of Dr. Van Hesling from psychoanalytic perspective. This paper claims that there is the working of the unconscious at his love to the women so that he takes part in Dracula killing mission. By analyzing his behaviours from psychoanalytic perspective, he is a man unconsciously running after women. His behaviours express his unfulfilled sexual desire, a man with woman fixation.


In this paper, we propose a stochastic investment model for actuarial use in South Africa by modelling price inflation rates, share dividends, long-term and short-term interest rates for the period 1960– 2018 and inflation-linked bonds for the period 2000–2018. Possible bi-directional relations between the economic series have been considered, the parameters and their confidence intervals have been estimated recursively to examine their stability, and the model validation has been tested. The model is designed to provide long-term forecasts that should find application in long-term modelling for institutions such as pension funds and life insurance companies in South Africa


Due to the reduction in fertile land availability, ex coal-mining land can be used to produce animal feed plant (AFP). The objective of this study is to determine the productivity of grass for grazing areas planted in ex-coal mining land. Soil samples were chemically analyzed by the Soil Research Institute. The design used was a randomized block design (RBD), with plant varieties for treatment, namely B. humidicola (A), C. dactilon (B), P. notatum, (C) S. secundatum (D) and P. purpurium cv Mott (E). Plant grass each in plots measuring 5 x 7 m, and repeated three times with spacing of 0.5 x 0.5 m. The results showed that plant varieties had a significant effect (P <0.05) on the production of biomass (grams plot−1) and plant height (cm). The highest production and grass height were P. purpureum cv Mott with a production of 52,716.57 ± 6,366.12 g plot−1 and 104.26 ± 2.46 (cm). It is concluded that P. purpureum cv Mott has the potential to be developed as a pasture grass in ex-coal mining land.


Background Bacopa monnieri, a herb that has been used for many centuries in India, has shown neuroprotective effects in animal and in vitro studies; human studies on patients with Alzheimer disease have been inconclusive. Objective The primary objective of this review was to determine the clinical efficacy and safety of B. monnieri in persons with mild, moderate, or severe dementia, or mild cognitive impairment, due to Alzheimer disease. Methods We searched PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, clinical trial registries (World Health Organization, Australia-New Zealand, United States, and South Africa), the metaRegister of Controlled Trials, and CINAHL. We intended to include all randomized and quasi-randomized controlled trials that compared B. monnieri, its extract or active ingredients (at any dosage), with a placebo or a cholinesterase inhibitor among adults with dementia due to Alzheimer disease and in those with mild cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer disease. Results Our comprehensive search yielded 5 eligible studies. A total of 3 studies used B. monnieri in combination with herbal extracts while the remaining 2 used B. monnieri extracts only. Two studies compared B. monnieri with donepezil while the others used a placebo as the control. There was considerable variation in the B. monnieri dose used (ranging between 125 mg to 500 mg twice daily) and heterogeneity in treatment duration, follow-up, and outcomes. The major outcomes were Mini-Mental State Examination scores reported in 3 trials, Cognitive subscale scores of the Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale in 1 study, and a battery of cognitive tests in 2 studies. Using the Cochrane risk-of-bias tool, overall, we judged all 5 studies to be at high risk of bias. While all studies reported a statistically significant difference between B. monnieri and the comparator in at least one outcome, we rated the overall quality of evidence for the Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive Subscale, Postgraduate Institute Memory Scale, Mini-Mental State Examination, and Wechsler Memory Scale to be very low due to downgrading by 2 levels for high risk of bias and 1 more level for impreciseness due to small sample sizes and wide CIs. Conclusions There was no difference between B. monnieri and the placebo or donepezil in the treatment of Alzheimer disease based on very low certainty evidence. No major safety issues were reported in the included trials. Future randomized controlled trials should aim to recruit more participants and report clinically meaningful outcomes. Trial Registration PROSPERO CRD42020169421; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=169421


The study aims to investigate the efficiency of the incorporation of drama techniques into the teaching of English literature. This study has several purposes which are to identify the differences between drama techniques and the ones being used by teachers, advantages and disadvantages of using drama techniques into the teaching of English literature as well as the efficiency of the
incorporation. This research was done using mixed approach where questionnaires were used to gather data from the respondents. The samples of the study consist of 40 students from Form 3 Nano and Form 3 Alpha of Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan TTDI Jaya, Selangor. The findings show that the students have been exposed to various drama techniques when teaching English literature.However, not all techniques have been used in class due to practicality and other conditions. Despite being used in classes, there are advantages and disadvantages
of the incorporation which the teachers and students need to consider. On the basis of the results of this research, it can be concluded that the incorporation of drama techniques when teaching English literature is efficient and has helped the
students learn English literature better.


This paper refines the existing axiomatic semantics of digital circuits with delay and feedback, in which circuits are constructed as morphisms in a freely generated cartesian traced (dataflow) category. First, we give a cleaner presentation, making a clearer distinction between syntax and semantics, including a full formalisation of the semantics as stream functions. As part of this effort, we refocus the categorical framework through the lens of string diagrams, which not only makes reading equations more intuitive but removes bureaucracy such as associativity from proofs. We also extend the existing framework with a new axiom, inspired by the Kleene fixed-point theorem, which allows circuits with non-delay-guarded feedback, typically handled poorly by traditional methodologies, to be replaced with a series of finitely iterated circuits. This eliminates the possibility of infinitely unfolding a circuit; instead, one can always reduce a circuit to some (possibly undefined) value. To fully characterise the stream functions that correspond to digital circuits, we examine how the behaviour of the latter can bemodelled usingMealy machines. By establishing that the translation between sequential circuits and Mealy machines preserves their behaviour, one can observe that circuits always implement monotone stream functions with finite stream derivatives.


The concept of creativity has been theorized and debated for millennia, dating back to the Greek philosopher Plato, who referred to "divine madness" in poets. Debates continue as to whether creativity is a gift or talent, a product of the genius gene, a side effect of mental health conditions, or if it is learned and nurtured through the environments and societies in which an individual grows and develops. While there is a wealth of research that sets out to define the concept of creativity, and numerous theoretical models have emerged since the early part of the 20th century, little of that involves artists reflecting on the concept. In order to explore this area, this study surveyed 314 artists from a range of countries, using an online survey, which invited them to reflect on creativity as a concept and how they understand it within their artistic practice. The findings reveal that creativity is a complex term and there is a range of understandings demonstrated by those who practice art-making. Questions for key stakeholders in education and policy are also raised, in terms of the role and place of artistic creativity in society.


At a public office with a staff of 129, twenty people work for short periods with large amounts of self-copying paper. A controlled study has shown a significantly higher incidence of pruritus and nasal congestion amongst staff exposed to large amounts of self-copying paper or its components, no drying of the skin after working with the paper and no increased degree of irritation of the skin were found in the study group at dermatological examination. No differences were found between the study group and the control group with respect to allergy or skin status or working conditions apart from the contact with self-copying paper. The study confirms that contact with fresh self-copying paper may result in pruritus and skin irritation, but allergy to the paper or microcapsule contents could not be demonstrated in this study.


Different stochastic simulation methods are used in order to check the robustness of the outcome of policy simulations with a macroeconometric model. A macroeconometric disequilibriummodel of the West German economy is used to analyze a reform proposal for the tax system. The model was estimated with quarterly data for the period 1960 to 1994, the presently possible margin. Because of nonlinearities confidence intervals for the simulation results have to be obtained by means of stochastic simulations. The main contribution of this paper consists in presenting the simulation results. The robustness of these results is analyzed using different approaches to stochastic simulation. In particular, different methods for the generation of uniform error terms and their conversion to normal variates are applied. These methods include standard approaches as well as quasi-Monte Carlo methods.


Forests provide multiple ecosystem services ranging from local livelihoods and socio-economic benefits to global ecological services. Despite these benefits, human activities have put immense strain on forest resources, resulting in forest degradation, impoverishment of the environment, and loss of livelihoods. Hence, monitoring forest cover change and identifying its drivers are essential for developing sustainable forest management strategies that restore forest resources and ecosystem services. This study examined the trends of forest cover changes and its drivers in and around the Semien Mountains National Park, Northwest Ethiopia, from 1984 to 2020. Data from Landsat satellite images of 1984, 1996, 2008, and 2020 were used for forest cover mapping and quantifying the changes using remote sensing techniques. A household survey and key informant interviews were also used to identify the drivers of forest cover change. Results showed an overall decline in forest cover and grasslands while cultivated lands, bare lands and built-up areas have registered gains in the study area. The percentage area under forests declined by about 31% (33,084 ha) over the past 36 years. This loss translates to an annual average forest loss of about 1.02% (919 ha). Conversely, cultivated land, bare land, and built-up areas have experienced an increase of about 159% (33,387 ha), 220% (10,121 ha), and 366% (6356 ha), respectively, over the last 36 years. Analysis of the 36-year change detection matrix revealed that about 62% of the study area experienced a transition, of which 21% and 41% were attributable to net change and swap change, respectively. The observed reduction in forest cover was driven by agricultural expansion, population growth, growing demand for fuelwood, livestock pressure, and forest fires. Such drastic changes in forest cover have a detrimental impact on the community's well-being, biodiversity, climate, and the availability of forest ecosystem services. Thus, the study recommends concerted efforts by stakeholders to develop participatory forest management and public awareness that consider the co-existence of nature conservation and sustainable livelihoods.


We present analytical and numerical results for the steady-state resonance fluorescence spectrum produced by a coherently driven two-level atom in the presence of a broadband squeezed vacuum. Here the central frequency of the squeezed vacuum is off-resonant with the driving field frequency, while maintaining resonance between the driving frequency and the atomic resonance. Numerical solutions of the Bloch equations of the system are obtained under the strong driving field approximation which agree well with the analytic results.


In this work, we study the self-interference cancellation (SIC) capability of two basic radio frequency (RF) SIC schemes: auxiliary antenna cancellation and multireconstruction-path (MRP) cancellation (including particular two-reconstruction-path balun cancellation), and derive their cancellation capability in detail. Theoretical results show that auxiliary antenna cancellation capability and balun cancellation capability are related to the ratio of bandwidth to carrier frequency, the latter is further related to an angle ratio; that is, the ratio of the angle between the self-interference vector and the first fixed delay vector to the angle between the two fixed delay vectors, and common MRP cancellation capability is essentially related to the channel response of self-interference and the canceller frequency response. Numerical results confirm a perhaps obvious intuition: MRP cancellation outplays auxiliary antenna cancellation to cancel self-interference, especially when multiple self-interference paths exist, and MRP cancellation with more reconstruction paths achieves higher cancellation capability.


Porcine deltacoronavirus (PDCoV) is an emerging infectious disease of swine with zoonotic potential. Phylogenetic analysis suggests that PDCoV originated recently from a host-switching event between birds and mammals. Little is known about how PDCoV interacts with its differing hosts. Human-derived cell lines are susceptible to PDCoV infection. Herein, we compare the gene expression profiles of an established host swine cells to potential emerging host human cells after infection with PDCoV. Cell lines derived from intestinal lineages were used to reproduce the primary sites of viral infection in the host. Porcine intestinal epithelial cells (IPEC-J2) and human intestinal epithelial cells (HIEC) were infected with PDCoV. RNA-sequencing was performed on total RNA extracted from infected cells. Human cells exhibited a more pronounced response to PDCoV infection in comparison to porcine cells with more differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in human, 7486, in comparison to pig cells, 1134. On the transcriptional level, the adoptive host human cells exhibited more DEGs in response to PDCoV infection in comparison to the primary pig host cells, where different types of cytokines can control PDCoV replication and virus production. Key immune-associated DEGs and signaling pathways are shared between human and pig cells during PDCoV infection. These included genes related to the NF-kappa-B transcription factor family, the interferon (IFN) family, the protein-kinase family, and signaling pathways such as the apoptosis signaling pathway, JAK-STAT signaling pathway, inflammation/cytokine–cytokine receptor signaling pathway. MAP4K4 was unique in up-regulated DEGs in humans in the apoptosis signaling pathway. While similarities exist between human and pig cells in many pathways, our research suggests that the adaptation of PDCoV to the porcine host required the ability to down-regulate many response pathways including the interferon pathway. Our findings provide an important foundation that contributes to an understanding of the mechanisms of PDCoV infection across different hosts. To our knowledge, this is the first report of transcriptome analysis of human cells infected by PDCoV.


BACKGROUND
Medicare funding for graduate medical education may be cut in the next federal budget.

OBJECTIVE
We quantified the value of work that 1 orthopedic surgery resident performs on call and compare it to Medicare educational funding received by the hospital for each resident.

METHODS
A single orthopedic resident's on-call emergency department and inpatient consults were collected during a 2-year call period at a large, tertiary, level-1 trauma center. Patient charts were reviewed; ICD-9 codes, evaluation and management, and procedural treatment were recorded. Codes were converted into work relative value units. The number of work relative value units was multiplied by the 2012 Medicare rate of $34.03 per relative value units to calculate the monetary value of resident work.

RESULTS
Of 120 resident call shifts, 115 call sheets (95.8%) were available for review, and 1160 patients were seen (average  =  10.09 consults/call). A total of 4688 work relative value units were generated (average  =  40.76 per night), and the total dollar value generated was $159,561 ($1,387 per call) during the 2 years of call (average  =  $79,780 annually). Evaluation and management codes generated 2340 work relative value units, with a calculated dollar amount of $79,648, and procedural codes generated 2348 work relative value units, with a calculated dollar amount of $79,913.

CONCLUSIONS
Our institution estimated Medicare direct medical education support per resident at $40,000/y, and total funding was $130,000/resident. At our tertiary care institution, the unbilled work of 1 orthopedic resident on call amounts to more than 60% of Medicare direct medical education and indirect medical education funding annually.


This paper describes the design, development and deployment of the British Energy Trace Analysis (BETA) condition monitoring system that performs automated analyses on reactor refueling data to help support the continued safe operation of Advanced Gas Cooled Reactors (AGR) in the UK. The system performs automated analyses of a particular set of refueling data to detect the presence of damage in the graphite bricks, which compose the core. By detecting anomalous changes in the load of fuel during refueling, the system can identify likely cracks in the fuel channel bricks. Though the example presented here describes the development of a condition monitoring system for AGR stations, the methodology used to extract knowledge from condition monitoring analyses could potentially be adapted to other applications. Based on feedback from the plant operators, future versions of the software will include the storage of previous analyses and more advanced analyses in a centralized system that can be accessed remotely. Constructing a database of previous analyses will also allow the generation of envelopes of normal behavior, which will increase the ability of the system to detect anomalous behavior. Future work for the BETA system includes the application of data fusion techniques to combine the existing analyses with other reactor data sources to further enhance the ability of BETA to detect fuel channel distortions.


This study traces how Anglo-American legal thinkers used primitive law to develop their concepts of modern law in the century from Austin to Hart. It first examines how Maine developed his historical jurisprudence as a form of social evolutionary analysis of law. Next, it traces the development of legal anthropology as a distinct discipline combining the scientific method of participant observation with the legal method of the case study. Finally, it looks at how Hart uses primitive law to make his famous argument that law was 'the union of primary and secondary rules'. In each case, legal thinkers develop their concepts of modern law through a foundational contrast with primitive law. This is a striking feature of much Anglo-American jurisprudence that cuts across the borders of the positivist, natural, historical, realist, and other schools of jurisprudence. Appreciating these new uses of primitive law is a first step in excavating an intellectual history of legal thought grounded in the context of colonial knowledge.


It is shown that the interaction of a plasma with thermal radiation leads to the stabilization of both periodic and solitary nonlinear plasma waves. The stabilized periodic nonlinear plasma waves were indeed observed in the experiment carried out by Looney and Brown. There are many branches of radiation-induced solitary waves in plasmas, corresponding in particular to the density waves in hot plasmas of accretion disks.


Abstract Data-constrained modeling is a method that enables three-dimensional distribution of mineral phases and porosity in a sample to be modeled based on micro-computed tomography scans acquired at different X-ray energies. Here we describe an alternative method for measuring porosity, synchrotron K-edge subtraction using xenon gas as a contrast agent. Results from both methods applied to the same Darai limestone sample are compared. Reasonable agreement between the two methods and with other porosity measurements is obtained. The possibility of a combination of data-constrained modeling and K-edge subtraction methods for more accurate sample characterization is discussed.


Apricot is an important crop in Italy and, especially in Southern regions, in the last five years numerous plantings using new cultivars and appropriate cultural management have been established. The cultivars available were created in different environments (USA, France, New Zealand, etc), they then often show low adaptability to Italian conditions. However, in the South of Italy, it is still possible to safeguard and to exploit a considerable amount of the apricot genetic variation available in ecotypes often characterised both by useful bio-agronomic traits and by good environmental adaptation. These genetic materials could be used in breeding programs aimed at broadening the harvest period and obtaining high fruit quality and resistance to the main biotic and abiotic stresses.


Surface wettability as a response to the cooperation of different stimuli has been intensively studied and provides more advantages than as a response to a single stimulus. Recently, we demonstrated the patterned wettability transition from the Cassie to the Wenzel state on a superhydrophobic aligned‐ZnO‐nanorod array surface via a photoelectric cooperative wetting process. However, the specific aligned‐nanorod array structure of such devices is easily damaged due to their low mechanical strength and cannot sustain multiple transfer printing. Meanwhile, the patterned wetting process is not easily controlled due to the air‐permeable structure of adjacent nanorods. As a result, in practice, it is difficult to apply liquid reprography on such a nanostructure. Here, we demonstrate photoelectric cooperative induced patterned wetting on the superhydrophobic aligned‐nanopore array surface of TiO2‐coated nanoporous AAO film, which has a high mechanical strength and excellent controllability. Liquid reprography is achieved through the patterned wetting process on the superhydrophobic aligned‐nanopore array surface, which is a new progression in liquid reprography, and is promising for gearing up the application of photoelectric cooperative liquid reprography.


Quantitative calculations of film thickness and friction in elastohydrodynamic lubrication will require that the low-shear viscosity, μ, be described with far greater accuracy than it is today. The free volume model has the advantage, over those currently used, of reproducing all of the trends that were known 80 years ago, although not necessarily to experimental accuracy. A scaling parameter, ϕ∝TV γ based on the repulsive intermolecular potential having exponent ―3γ allows the viscosity to be written as a function of temperature, T, and volume, V, only, as μ = F(ϕ). The appropriate function for lubricants appears to be a Vogel-like form, μ∝ exp(B F ϕ ∞ /(ϕ ― ϕ ∞ )). Parameters are presented here for seven liquids. When the dynamic crossover is present, two such functions are required. A low molecular weight dimethyl silicone having high compressibility is an exception.


Converging lines of evidence confirm a role for the anterior parietal cortex in pain processing and extend the traditional view of SI to include discriminative aspects of somatic stimulation that is potentially tissue-damaging (e.g., painful). Recent studies more specifically implicate SI in the sensory aspect of pain perception by demonstrating that SI activation is modulated by cognitive manipulations that alter perceived pain intensity, but not by manipulations that alter unpleasantness, independent of pain intensity. Nevertheless, despite the probable role of SI in the encoding of the various sensory features of pain, considerable evidence suggests that nociceptive input to SI may also serve to modulate tactile perception. Thus, SI cortex may be involved in both the perception and modulation of both painful and nonpainful somatosensory sensations. Defining a role in pain processing for the parietal operculum is somewhat more problematic. The absence of a fine somatotopic organization of cutaneous (or visceral) receptors virtually eliminates a substantial role for this region in localizing noxious stimuli. Several studies suggest separate representations for pain and touch within the posterior parietal cortex and SII, respectively; however, inter-species differences in cortical anatomy and inconsistencies in the designation of SII proper preclude a clear reconciliation of the data. Likewise, suggestions that SII activation is predominantly related to processing the nociceptive quality of the stimulus (60,61) are inconsistent with many studies in both human and nonhuman subjects, which show a strong functional relationship between SII activity and innocuous (especially, vibrotactile) stimulation. Nevertheless, the numerous studies indicating pain-related activation within the parietal operculum (and/or SII) underscore the potential importance of this region in the perception of pain and the need for continued research. Finally, a possible role of posterior parietal cortex (BA 5/7, 39/40) in orientation and attention toward painful sensory stimuli is consistent with existing literature describing this region as a poly modal association area concerned with intrapersonal and extrapersonal space; however, results from studies that actually manipulate the subjects' level of attention relative to painful stimuli have not uniformly supported this hypothesis (75). Future studies assessing both attentional demand and direct manipulation or motor interactions involving noxious stimuli may help to resolve this issue. In spite of some discrepant results concerning specific details of the nociceptive process, the weight of human pain research now firmly establishes a role for the parietal lobes in the conscious appreciation of the sensation of pain.


The histopathology of human myocardial infarcts is reviewed in a series of 46 cases ranging from sudden death to a clinical age of 3 days. A set of histopathologic features is described whereby the diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction can be made, even in cases of sudden death, on routine sections and even after considerable autolysis. This is primarily a stretching and waviness of the myocardial fibers, especially at the border of the infarcted area. Its mechanism is probably twofold: the rythmical pull exerted by the normal myocardium against the infarcted paralyzed area and the outward bulging of this area at every systole. On the basis of human material alone, it may be inferred that this pattern develops very rapidly: surely less than 1 hour and perhaps a few minutes after the local circulation has failed.


Genetic diversity and structure of Pseudoplatystoma corruscans and P. reticulatum, large migratory South America catfishes, where overfishing and the construction of numerous dams in their feeding and reproducing areas are affecting their migratory processes negatively, were studied using microsatellites in samples from Paraguay (that comprises the Pantanal biome), and the upper and lower Paraná Basins. Genetic diversity was in accordance to that observed for other large migratory fishes, but the most geographically isolated populations of P. reticulatum and those P. corruscans subject to anthropogenic effects (stocking and dams) showed lower genetic diversity and evidences of bottlenecks compatible with low effective population size. Pseudoplatystoma reticulatum presented subtle genetic differentiation within the Paraguay area, especially between the edges of its distribution. Pseudoplatystoma corruscans, in this same area, presented a quite homogeneous but significant genetic break between the Paraguay and upper Paraná populations, apparently resulting from natural and historical isolation between the basins until recently. These data demonstrates that, although these Pseudoplatystoma spp. are abundant in the Pantanal area, anthropogenic events are leading to negative effects on their populations, particularly in the upper Paraná Basin. Genetic differentiation observed along each species distribution demands conservation actions to preserve each population's biodiversity. These results represent important genetic information using new microsatellite markers and the first genetic study of P. reticulatum covering this area of its native distribution. Data may also contribute to a better understanding of species migration patterns and to be used as a baseline for proper management.


See article on page 225

The paper by Ono and colleagues1 in this issue of Gut documents the remarkable results achieved at the Tokyo National Cancer Centre Hospital (NCCH) with endoscopic management of early gastric cancer (EGC) (see page225). EGCs constitute a much higher proportion of the total number of gastric cancers in Japan than is the case in the West. There are a number of reasons for this: firstly, many asymptomatic subjects in Japan are screened for gastric cancer (usually by barium radiology, followed, if necessary, by endoscopy); secondly, Japanese diagnostic gastroscopy is a much more careful procedure than the "smash and grab" style of endoscopy which is typical in this country: the stomach is inflated to a greater degree, indigo carmine dye spraying is used to examine any suspicious area, and simethicone (to eliminate bubbles and froth) and hyoscine (to paralyse the stomach) are used routinely. There is some evidence that early lesions are missed in the UK: a recent audit in one centre showed that 11 of 81 patients presenting with advanced gastric cancer had undergone endoscopy within the previous two years.2

Is EGC in Japan the same disease as EGC in the West? A recent analysis of published data from Japan and the rest of the world3 …


One hundred twenty-seven bullfrogs, Rana catesbeiana, and 120 green frogs, Rana clamitans, collected in July and August 1987 from Turkey Marsh, Michigan, were examined for helminths. Of the 16 helminth species found, Falcaustra catesbeianae had the highest prevalence and mean intensity in bullfrogs. In green frogs, Megalodiscus temperatus had the highest prevalence and Haematoloechus parviplexus had the highest mean intensity. Taxonomically, 1,030 (30.5%) trematodes and 2,348 (69.5%) nematodes occurred in bullfrogs; 2,874 (96.4%) trematodes, 2 (0.1%) cestodes, and 105 (3.5%) nematodes were found in green frogs. The larger and more aquatic of the 2 hosts, R. catesbeiana, had the highest mean number of helminth species, helminth intensity, diversity, and evenness. Adult frogs of both species had a significantly higher mean number of helminth species than did juveniles. Significant correlations existed between the number of helminth species and frog length. Although the helminth communities of Turkey Marsh frogs are isolationist in character, they are more diverse than other helminth communities studied in amphibians.


Academic literature emphasizes the importance of agents in conflict resolution analysis and neglects the influence of structure. A study of the resolution of conflict between the people of Pangean Village, Riau Province, and an oil palm plantation company shows that structure contributes to the resolution process and to the outcome of conflict. The conflict in question concerned a plot of land cultivated by PT Citra Riau Sarana (PT CRS) as part of its oil palm plantation and by smallholders linked to the company. The local district government tried but was unable to end the conflict. With the involvement of an NGO, the people of Pangean Village and PT CRS succeeded in reaching consensus, in implementing written agreements and in resolving their conflict.


Recently, navigation and localization for ground vehicles have become a hot research topic. The use of low-cost MEMS (micro-electromechanical system) inertial sensors and GNSS (global navigation satellite system) receivers are widespread in this industry. To perform ZUPT (zero velocity update) measurement update for the navigation filter to correct PVA (position, velocity, attitude) errors of a typical inertial navigation system (INS) using inertial sensors, in this paper, a method of detecting ZUPT phases of a typical ground vehicle is proposed based on machine learning. The algorithm detects stationary and dynamic movements of vehicles through SVM (support vector machine), which is well-known for solving binary classification problems. The proposed SVM-based ZUPT detection approach can improve the accuracy of a GNSS/INS integrated system by replacing the traditional threshold-based detector. The test and results indicate that the proposed method could recognize the ZUPT phases of a vehicle with high efficiency and accuracy.


Abstract There is an urgent need to develop scalable approaches to community-based mental health services for children in rural China and other developing countries involving task shifting from clinicians to trained community workers. Evidence is needed about the effectiveness of interventions for children affected by AIDS in rural areas. This article describes an intervention study aimed at developing, implementing, and evaluating a community-based counseling program for the AIDS orphans of Fuyang, Anhui Province, an area of central China where a tainted blood donation scheme infected countless farmers and left many children orphaned by AIDS. In China these children live in rural settings with no access to mental health services. The authors trained a group of community-based counselors to provide group counseling sessions focusing on self-awareness and communication and to provide a basic therapeutic approach for depression and anxiety. The authors conducted a baseline and two follow-up surveys of 39 children who met the clinical diagnostic criteria for anxiety and depression. There was a statistically significant improvement for the children on anxiety, but there was no statistically significant improvement on depression, with greatest gains immediately following the intervention. We demonstrated the feasibility of task shifting for mental health services in this setting.


We previously mapped a quantitative trait locus (QTL) affecting milk production to bovine chromosome 14. To refine the map position of this QTL, we have increased the density of the genetic map of BTA14q11-16 by addition of nine microsatellites and three single nucleotide polymorphisms. Fine-mapping of the QTL was accomplished by a two-tiered approach. In the first phase, we identified seven sires heterozygous "Qq" for the QTL by marker-assisted segregation analysis in a Holstein-Friesian pedigree comprising 1,158 individuals. In a second phase, we genotyped the seven selected sires for the newly developed high-density marker map and searched for a shared haplotype flanking an hypothetical, identical-by-descent QTL allele with large substitution effect. The seven chromosomes increasing milk fat percentage were indeed shown to carry a common chromosome segment with an estimated size of 5 cM predicted to contain the studied QTL. The same haplotype was shown to be associated with increased fat percentage in the general population as well, providing additional support in favor of the location of the QTL within the corresponding interval.


The adsorption mechanisms and capacity of adsorbent derived from banana stalks in removing ciprofloxacin (CIP) from aqueous solutions were investigated in this study. The Banana Stalk Activated Carbon (BSAC) was prepared through acid activation and were characterised via SEM, FTIR and pHpzc. The SEM micrograph of BSAC revealed prominent well-developed pores which aid the adsorption process. The FTIR spetra shows the presence of various functional groups for efficient CIP adsorption. The effects of temperature (30 – 70 oC), adsorbent dosage (0.01 – 0.05 g/L), pH (2 - 10),initial adsorbate concentration (1 - 5 mg/L) and contact time (10 - 360 min) were evaluated using batch operations. Optimum CIP adsorption was obtained at pH 6. The maximum monolayer adsorptive capacity of the acid-treated banana stalk was 222.22 mg/g at 30 oC. Langmuir isotherm was the most appropriate isotherm model while pseudo second order kinetics best describe the kinetic process. Its thermodynamic studies indicated endothermic and spontaneous process. The cost implication of BSAC preparation (12.35 USD/kg) indicates that it is about 21 times cheaper than Commercial activated carbon (270.8 USD/kg) while the desorption studies reflects the reusability efficiency of the spent adsorbent. BSAC was found to be effective, efficient and economically viable for ciprofloxacin removal from aqueous solution.


Aim: Studies addressing the prevalence of prediabetes among liver transplantation (LT) candidates are limited. We aimed to investigate the prevalence and predictors of prediabetes in the patients on LT wait list. Material and Methods: One hundred one adult patients on LT wait list were included. Patients with known diabetes were excluded. Clinical, demographic and laboratory features were analyzed retrospectively. The patients were grouped by fasting blood glucose (FBG), age, gender, body mass index (BMI), and other clinical parameters. Results: Mean age of the patients was 47.98 ± 14.53; and 63.3% were males. Prediabetes and new-onset diabetes mellitus were diagnosed in 34(33.6%) and 6(5.9%) of the patients. Mean age was significantly higher in prediabetes group comparing to normal FBG. 52.47% (n = 53) of the patients was obese, 27.7% (n = 28) overweight, 19.8% in normal weight. The distribution of BMI subgroups was similar in FBG subgroups (p = 0.447). There were significant positive correlations between age, and BMI or FBG (p = 0.021 and p = 0.002, respectively). Being older (≥ 40 years-old) was found to be a predictor for prediabetes (p = 0.010, Odds Ratio = 4.986). BMI was not a predictor for prediabetes (p = 0.151). Conclusions: Our results suggested that the prevalence of prediabetes was increased in patients on LT wait list. Age but not BMI seems to be a significant predictor of prediabetes.


Abstract The morphology of the zoeal stages IX and XI of the shrimp Thalassocaris lucida is described and illustrated in detail from plankton specimens identified by barcoding of the mitochondrial 16S ribosomal RNA gene (sequence similarities 99.4–99.6%). The present study confirms the larval morphology of Thalassocaris, that shows distinct features within Pandaloidea: (1) carapace broad and dorsoventrally flattened, (2) coxal endite of maxilla with only one lobe, (3) basis of third maxilliped with a distal globose lobe. On the other hand, the funnel-shaped eyes, and the development with long series of larval stages of Thalassocaris indicate affinities with some genera of Pandalidae which corroborates the results of recent phylogenetic analyses in abandoning the family status of Thalassocarididae.


Although empathic interaction between counselor and client is fundamental to success in the psychotherapeutic process, there are currently few datasets to aid a computational approach to empathy understanding. In this paper, we construct a multimodal empathy dataset collected from face-to-face psychological counseling sessions. The dataset consists of 771 video clips. We also propose three labels (i.e., expression of experience, emotional reaction, and cognitive reaction) to describe the degree of empathy between counselors and their clients. Expression of experience describes whether the client has expressed experiences that can trigger empathy, and emotional and cognitive reactions indicate the counselor's empathic reactions. As an elementary assessment of the usability of the constructed multimodal empathy dataset, an interrater reliability analysis of annotators' subjective evaluations for video clips is conducted using the intraclass correlation coefficient and Fleiss' Kappa. Results prove that our data annotation is reliable. Furthermore, we conduct empathy prediction using three typical methods, including the tensor fusion network, the sentimental words aware fusion network, and a simple concatenation model. The experimental results show that empathy can be well predicted on our dataset. Our dataset is available for research purposes.


The original purpose of this paper was to present some account of how the manuscripts of the Cathedral Library of Carolingian Cologne under Archbishop Hildebald (785–819), helped to fulfil the aims of study in Charlemagne's Renaissance – by their clarity of lay-out, marginal annotations, rubrication, indexing, etc. But then I made what appeared to be a discovery in one of these manuscripts, which temporarily deflected me from that purpose. Around 800, Archbishop Hildebald, Charlemagne's Archchancellor, commissioned a majestic copy of Augustine of Hippo's Enarrationes in Psalmos, in three folio volumes, for his cathedral library, and in the Cologne Cathedral Library they have remained ever since, now as Mss. 63, 65 and 67. It is in the first of these, Ms. 63, that there is an unusual phenomenon with which I am here concerned. As Charlemagne's Archchancellor, Hildebald necessarily stood in the forefront of the Carolingian Renaissance 1. Not least was this so in that the rise in the study of Latin, fundamental to this Renaissance, made itself felt in the improved Latinity, compared with earlier, of Charlemagne's time, including one must suppose in his own diplo-


We present an analysis of the interfacial tension model for the movement of the catalytically driven nanorod. The model considers the convective reaction-diffusion equation for the production and diffusion of oxygen around the bimetallic nanorod. We solve the equation and find the concentration difference, which drives the nanorod. We use our expression to calculate the force on the nanorod and find that the result is within 20% of the results found earlier [W. Paxton et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 128, 14881 (2006)] by an approximate method. Unlike the earlier results, our results are valid from short to long lengths of the nanorod.


Using a comprehensive microarray database of human gene expression, we identified that in mammals, a secreted protein known as isthmin 1 (ISM1) is expressed in skin, mucosal tissues, and selected lymphocyte populations. ISM1 was originally identified in Xenopus brain during development, and it encodes a predicted ∼50-kDa protein containing a signal peptide, a thrombospondin domain, and an adhesion-associated domain. We confirmed the pattern of expression of ISM1 in both human and mouse tissues. ISM1 is expressed by DX5(+) lung lymphocytes that include NK and NKT-like cells, and is also expressed by some CD4(+) T cells upon activation but its expression increases significantly when CD4(+) T cells were polarized to the Th17 lineage in vitro. The presence of IFN-γ during CD4(+) T cell polarization inhibits ISM1 expression. Given that ISM1 has been reported to have anti-angiogenic properties, these observations suggest that ISM1 is a mediator of lymphocyte effector functions and may participate in both innate and acquired immune responses.