Semantic networks can simulate the human complex frames in reasoning process providing efficient association and inference mechanisms. Ontology can be used to fill the gap between human and computational intelligence for a task domain. For an evolving environment it is important to understand what knowledge is required for a task domain with an adaptive ontology matching. To reflect the evolving knowledge this paper considers ontologies based on folksonomies according to a new concept structure called "Folksodriven" to represent folksonomies. Folksonomies are a set of terms that a group of users tagged content without a controlled vocabulary. A Folksodriven Structure Network (FSN), built from the relations among the Folksodriven tags, is presented as a folksonomy tags suggestions for the user to solve the problems inherent in an uncontrolled vocabulary of the folksonomy. It was observed that the properties of the FSN depend mainly on the nature, distribution, size and the quality of the reinforcing Folksodriven tags (FD tags). So, the studies on the transformational regulation of the FD tags are regarded to be important for an adaptive folksonomies classifications in an evolving environment used by Intelligent Systems. This paper discuss the deformation exhibiting linear behavior on FSN based on folksonomy tags chosen by different user on web site resources, this is a topic which has not been well studied so far. The discussion shows that the linear elastic constitutive equation possesses some leaning for the investigation. A constitutive law on FSN is investigated towards a systematic mathematical analysis on stress analysis and equations of motion for an evolving ontology matching on an environment defined by the users' folksonomy choice. The adaptive ontology matching and the elastodynamics are merged to obtain what we can call the elasto-adaptative-dynamics methodology of the FSN.


We use time-series methods to estimate a simple aggregate-supply aggregate-demand model in order to analyze the comparative performance of fixed- and flexible-exchange-rate systems and test competing hypotheses designed to explain shifts between exchange-rate regimes. The paper provides a coherent explanation of the causes and consequences of the shift from the Bretton Woods System of pegged exchange rates to the post-Bretton-Woods float. The shift from fixed to floating was associated with a modest increase in the cross-country dispersion of supply shocks but not with an increase in their average magnitude. In contrast, there was little change in either the cross-country dispersion or the average magnitude of demand shocks. More important in explaining the collapse of Bretton Woods were factors that heightened the impact of shocks on the external accounts, forcing governments to respond to supply shocks with changes in demand that stabilized prices and the exchange rate at the expense of increased output volatility.


The requirement for an effective handling and management of heterogeneous and possibly confidential data continuously increases within multiple scientific domains. PLANET (Pollution Lake ANalysis for Effective Therapy) is a INFN-funded research initiative aiming to implement an observational study to assess a possible statistical association between environmental pollution and Covid19 infection, symptoms and course. PLANET is built on a "data-centric" based approach that takes into account clinical components, environmental and pollution conditions, complementing primary data and many eventual confounding factors such as population density, commuter density, socio-economic metrics and more. Besides the scientific one, the main technical challenge of the project is about collecting, indexing, storing and managing many types of datasets while guaranteeing FAIRness as well as adherence to the prescribed regulatory frameworks, such as those granted by the General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR. In this contribution we describe the developed open-source DataLake platform, detailing its key features: the event-based storage system provided by MinIO, which allows automatic metadata processing;the data-ingestion pipeline implemented via Argo Workflows;the GraphQL interface to query object metadata;finally, the seamless integration of the platform within a compute multi-user environment, showing how all these frameworks are integrated in the Enhanced PrIvacy and Compliance (EPIC) Cloud partition of the INFN Cloud federation. © Copyright owned by the author(s) under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)


We investigate the scattering of cold, neutral atoms from a charged wire. For an infinitely thin, absorbing wire the 1/ρ2 interaction leads to quantum steps in the absorption cross section and diffraction structure in the differential scattering cross-section. We discuss the case of a finite-size wire and give parameters for a possible experimental realisation.


Nowadays one of the most important energy sources is natural gas. By depletion of oil reservoirs in the world, natural gas will emerge as the future energy source for human life. One of the major concerns of gas suppliers is being able to supply this source of energy the entire year. This concern intensifies during more consuming seasons of the year when the demand for natural gas increases, resulting in a lot of problems such as pressure depletion in the pipelines. One of the most effective policies to prevent pressure depletion is gas storage in warm seasons of the year when public demand is low. In this paper three different methods of underground and surface gas storage at high capacities have been discussed which are as follows: depleted oil and gas reservoirs, liquefied gas storage, and gas hydrates storage. In this study, the NPV function for economical evaluation of these three natural gas storage methods was employed. Finally, after assessing the technical and economical aspects of these methods, the TOPSIS model was constructed and depleted oil and gas reservoirs storage selected as the best natural gas storage method at high capacities.


Purpose: The purpose of this guideline is to provide a clinical structure with which to approach the diagnosis, counseling, and treatment of female patients with stress urinary incontinence (SUI). Materials/Methods: The primary source of evidence for the 2017 version of the SUI guideline was the systematic literature review conducted by the ECRI Institute. The initial search spanned literature from January 2005 to December 2015, with an additional updated abstract search through September 2016. The current amendment represents the first update to the 2017 iteration and includes updated literature published through February 2022. Results: This guideline has been amended to reflect changes in and additions to the literature since 2017. The Panel maintained that the differentiation between index and non-index patients remained important. The index patient is a healthy female with minimal or no prolapse who desires surgical therapy for treatment of pure SUI or stress-predominant mixed urinary incontinence. Non-index patients have factors that may affect their treatment options and outcomes, such as high grade prolapse (grade 3 or 4), urgency-predominant mixed incontinence, neurogenic lower urinary tract dysfunction, incomplete bladder emptying, dysfunctional voiding, SUI following anti-incontinence treatment, mesh complications, high body mass index, or advanced age. Conclusion: While gains have been made in the field to support new methods for the diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up of patients with SUI, the field continues to expand. As such, future reviews of this guideline will take place to stay in keeping with the highest levels of patient care.


BACKGROUND
Previous surveys performed in this area showed that the age at onset of ragweed allergy in monosensitized subjects is about 35.

OBJECTIVE
To detect whether a reduction in the mean age of ragweed sensitization in the area of Milan has taken place after the last survey.

METHODS
All patients developing clinical ragweed pollen allergy in the years 2007-2010 and monosensitized to this allergen seen were included. 30 randomly selected subjects already sensitized to at least one other allergen source among grass, pellitory, or mite who developed ragweed allergy during the same period served as controls.

RESULTS
The 137 patients showed a median age at onset of ragweed allergy of 36-40 years in the years 2007-2010 with no tendency to reduction. About 10% of patients were < 20 years old in 3 of the 4 study years. 15% of patients were > 50 years old at onset, and 3 of them were > 70. In the control group the mean age at onset of ragweed allergy was 31,6 years (median 32,5 years; range 10-60; p < 0.001 vs patients).

CONCLUSION
In this area monosensitization to ragweed occurs steadily at an adult age. In already allergic subjects it occurs at a younger age. The age at onset of allergy to one specific airborne allergen source seems to depend on several variables, including exposure duration, atopic status, and specific features of the allergen.


Abstract : Iodized carbons, impregnated with KIx(KI + xI2), were evaluated for trapping methyl iodide-127. In this method the complete effluent of the carbon is sampled and analyzed continuously. In contrast, the RDT-M16 test procedure counts the carbon and the back-up beds for the accumulated 131 species and no information is obtained for the interaction of the large amount of carrier methyl iodide-127 with the iodized charcoal. The test apparatus to measure the penetration of methyl iodide-127 is described and the calibration procedures are detailed. Results are given for the penetration of methyl iodide-127 through new activated carbons, carbons in service, and exhausted carbons withdrawn from service. The reduction in trapping efficiency with service is accompanied by the development of a maximum in the concentration of methyl iodide-127 during the air purge after the dose period. This behavior has escaped notice with methyl iodide-131 due to the way that test is made. The chromatographic holdup of methyl iodide-127 by carbons in service, together with the subsequent slow desorption step, could result in a dilution of the penetration iodine to acceptable levels under some conditions encountered in plant filter operations.


The objective of field study was to study the response of ants to forest damage due to presence of human activities in Sirimau Conservation forest, Ambon. The respons of ants was analyzed based on their richness, abundance, diversity, frequency and functional response to anthropogenic damage by used of line transecting method. Secondary parameters measured were local microclimate as well as soil physical and chemical characteristics. The study found 23 species of ants and 16,601 individual ants in the forests; the highest species abundance was 0.158, while frequency and diversity index was 32.44% and 2.92 each and were classified as moderate. Functionally ants consisted of oppurtunist (1 species), generalized myrmicinae (1 species), specialist predators (4 species), tropical climate specialists (6 species), dominant dolichoderinae (4 species), subordinate camponitini (6 species) and criptic species (4 species). Anthropogenic activity contributed to forest habitat destruction through forest opening, logging, forest fires and shifting cultivation. Anthropogenic damage in secondary forest caused fragmentation and degradation, followed by inbalance of environment and ecosystem components


The current study examined the effects of video self modeling (VSM) on social initiations using a multiple baseline across participants experimental design. Three students with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) watched videos of themselves engaged in typical, age appropriate social initiations prior to playtime with a triad of peers. A partial interval recording system was used to measure social initiations of students with ASD and typically developing peers. The percentage of intervals during which students with ASD exhibited play initiations increased to levels comparable to typically developing peers for all three participants. Two students with ASD demonstrated elevated levels of initiations during a maintenance probe conducted two weeks post-intervention. The efficiency of using VSM within a social skills curriculum, limitations of the current study, and future directions for VSM are discussed.


Leaders often overlook a valuable community asset: their youth population. Many communities prioritize local resources to provide opportunities for youth, yet the community often asks little in return. Young people have significant contributions to make now, in the present, and their involvement today gives them ownership in the community's future. If we are truly concerned about youth leaving our communities and not returning as adults, we must be willing to work with them today to figure out ways to provide for a positive future.


Abstract 2350 The finding that the epigenome of differentiated cells can be reset to a pluripotent state indicates that any somatic cell may potentially change or reverse its already established developmental identity through the delivery of appropriate instructive signals. Here we show the possibility of generating mature and functional neurons from Cord Blood (CB) cells without reprogramming into a pluripotent state. In particular, we demonstrate that the ectopic expression of two transcription factors (SOX2, c-MYC) as well as only one factor (SOX2) allows the generation of proliferating neural progenitor cells starting from CB CD133+ cells. Given its important role in neural stem cell activity, we first tested if only SOX2 was sufficient to induce the conversion of CB cells into neural progenitor cells. Three weeks after retrovirus infection, we observed the formation of a few colonies showing an iPS morphology, although they were negative for pluripotency markers (OCT4, NANOG, SSEA4). However, these colonies homogenously expressed multiple neural markers (TJU1, GFAP, MAP2, PAX6, NF) and we called them CB-inducible neural cells (CB-iNCs). Since, it is known that c-MYC has a role in controlling self-renewal and proliferation of neural progenitor cells, we therefore tested the neuron-inducing activity of SOX2 in combination with c-MYC. The data showed that the presence of c-MYC increased the efficiency 20 fold. In addition, we have demonstrated that CB-iNCs were able to differentiate into functional mature neurons in vitro and in vivo . The expression of the mature synaptic marker, synapsin, and both excitatory (VGLUT-1) as well as inhibitory markers (GABA), indicated that CB-derived neurons had the protein machinery necessary to fire action potentials. To investigate if CB-derived neurons had functional membrane properties similar to neurons, we performed patch-clamp recording and calcium transient assays. The results confirmed that CB-derived neurons could form functional synapses and generate action potentials. Finally, an in vivo assay, where CB-derived neurons were injected into dentate girus of mice hippocampus, demonstrated that these cells were able to engraft, differentiate as well as extend processes along the corpus callosum, one month after transplantation. Next we compared the global gene expression analysis of CB CD133+ cells, CB-iNCs and CB-derived mature neurons. The results indicated that CB-derived neurons have a neural transcription profile similar to neurons derived from human ES. In addition, to gain further insight into the role of SOX2 during the conversion process, we investigated whether genes up-regulated in CB-iNCs, which are known to have potential SOX2 binding sites were also bound by SOX2 in our CB-iNCs. Using Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) we found evidence that SOX2 was bound to NEUROD1, DCX, NAV2, MASH1 and CHD7 genes. All these data suggest that the ectopic expression of SOX2 and c-MYC as well as only SOX2 can rapidly convert CB cells into function neurons. The possibility to generate functional neurons starting from CB cells, in an efficient and easy way, could offer a novel and powerful system for studying human cellular identity and plasticity. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


The growing demand for mobile broadband internet and wireless multimedia applications and the requirements for the future 4G mobile systems have pushed the search for means to improve wireless networks throughput and coverage. In particular, it is desired that the new networks provide very high data rate (up to hundreds of Mbit/s) in every location of the cell and to every User End (UE), even to the ones dealing with the most unfavourable conditions, i.e. experiencing a very high signal strength attenuation on the radio link with their service provider netowrk node, here referred to as enhanced Node B (eNB). The solution to this problem in a traditional network would consist in increasing the eNB density, in order to reduce the average distance between UEs and their respective eNB. In this way signal strength attenuation problems can be partly overcome. Nevertheless, this would imply a meaningful cost increase because of the growing number of deployed eNBs and other expenses related to eNB site rentals and backhaul links costs for connecting all the eNBs to the network backbone. Hence, new cost-e?cient strategies based on the introduction of Relay Nodes (RN) have been proposed. An RN is a wireless device communicating with both its controller eNB and its controlled UE. Its main task is to forward informations from the eNB to the UEs on the downlink, and from the UEs to the eNB on the uplink. RNs have less intelligence than an eNB, they use a lower transmission power and they are smaller (i.e in some cases they can be placed on lamp posts). In consequence, they appear to be the best solution for ubiquitous high data rate throughout the cell without an excessive increase in network costs. The use of RNs implies dealing with a multi-hop network scenario. Hence, complexity is greater and new strategies for communication and management have to be developed. According to the de?nition given by 3GPP, RNs do not only amplify the received signal before forwarding it to the recipient. Instead, they perform a decode-and-forward operation on the processed signal. This minimizes the e?ects of thermal noise and interference on the ?rst network hop a?ecting the forwarded signal on the second hop. RNs can operate in simultaneous mode of operation, sharing the same time-frequency resources with their controller eNB, or in division mode of operation, using non-overlapping time-frequency resources. In this way, in-sector interference between RNs and their respective eNB can be avoided. Division mode of operation can be achieved e.g. by mean of Time-Division Duplex (TDD) mode, in which eNB and RNs transmit in di?erent time instant, or Frequency-Division Duplex (FDD) mode, in which eNB and RNs transmit using multiple carrier frequencies. Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) is the proposed modulation scheme for relay-enhanced networks, because it optimally manages the frequency-selective fading and it is ?exible in resources allocation to UEs. In OFDMA, transmission of data is achieved by distributing the symbols to be transmitted on several adjacent narrow-band subcarriers, and regulating the data rate on each subcarrier according to the channel conditions at the subcarrier frequeny. Bad channel conditions force to transmit at a low data rate, while high data rates on a given subcarrier are possible if channel conditions are good. The narrow band implies long symbol duration, easing the problem of inter-symbol interference. Deployment of RNs in the network is expected to produce e?ects in terms of coverage, capacity and transmission power. The Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio (SINR) decreases in the cell with the distance from the transmitting station, because the received power from the serving station diminishes, while the power from the interferers stations increases. The SINR gives us a measure of the quality of the communication link, and it is bonded with the achievable data rate per UE. If RNs are deployed the distance of the UE close to the cell border with respect to the serving station will sensibly decrease, with a positive e?ect on the coverage. If the SINR ratio is higher throughout the cell, then also the achievable data rate for users in every position of the cell will improve, leading to an increased overall cell capacity, and hence a greater throughput. Furthermore, as the serving station-UE distance is now smaller, the serving station transmitting power can be decreased keeping the throughput ?xed with respect to the single-hop network case. This will have a positive in?uence on the energy consumption, which is an important parameter in todays' networks because it is related to networks costs and ecologic issues ('green networking').


To train a general person detector a huge amount of training samples is required to cope with the variability in the persons' appearance and all possible backgrounds. Since this data is often not available we propose an interactive learning system, that enables an efficient training of a scene specific person detector. For that purpose we apply a two stage approach. First, a general detector is trained autonomously from labeled data. Later on this detector is improved and adapted to a specific scene by user interaction. Thus, only highly valuable samples are selected and only a small number of updates is necessary to adapt to a specific scene. In particular, for learning we apply off-line boosting in the first stage and on-line boosting in the second stage. Since we use the same underlying representation for both methods, we can efficiently re-train an existing classifier. In the experiments we applied the proposed approach for different scenarios and showed that the detection results (recall and accuracy) can be significantly improved by hand-labeling only a few novel samples.


Some conformational feature of dithymidine nucleotides containing natural 3'-->5' phosphodiester, methylphosphonate, or 5'-methylenephosphonate internucleotidic linkages were probed in solution and in solid phase using FTIR spectroscopy. A high similarity of the IR spectra in the region of 1800-1250 cm-1 indicates that all the investigated compounds have similar glycosidic torsion angels and the preferred conformation of the deoxyribose rings. However, small but significant differences between the Rp and Sp diastereomers of methylphosphonate analogue 5 may suggest that the association or the hydration mode of these compounds may vary.


This paper uses Shannon's information theory to give a quantitative definition of information flow in systems that transform inputs to outputs. For deterministic systems, the definition is shown to specialize to a simpler form when the information source and the known inputs jointly determine all inputs uniquely. For this special case, the definition is related to the classical security condition of non-interference and an equivalence is established between non-interference and independence of random variables. Quantitative information flow for deterministic systems is then presented in relational form. With this presentation, it is shown how relational parametricity can be used to derive upper and lower bounds on information flows through families of functions defined in the second-order lambda calculus.


When a tumbling particle bed in a horizontal rotating drum is aerated, the particle bed can be considered as a gas fluidized bed, which may be called a fluidized bed in rotating drum (FBRD).Measurement of the residence time distribution (RTD) of gas in an FBRD of coarse particles was carried out by the stimulus-response method using a bench-scale rig. The concentration change of nonadsorbing tracer gas (methane) in the exit stream, as the response to a pulse input, was measured by a flame ionization detector connected with PC data acquisition system.The results of the experiments revealed that the RTD of gas was affected by the parameter ξ, which included aeration rate and rotation speed of drum, and aeration angle. Backmixing of gas was found for large ξ. The reactor efficiency, calculated from the real RTD functions, was close to that of the packed bed and was distinctly higher than that of the conventional bubbling fluidized bed for small ξ. Finally, the reactor efficiency of the FBRD was represented in terms of parameter ξ.


RNA transcribed in vitro at low ionic strength, from either rat liver chromatin or DNA, contains a significant amount of structure resistant to RNase in high salt buffer. This is observed with rat liver (form B polymerase) as well as with Escherichia coli RNA polymerase (RNA nucleotidyltransferase; nucleoside triphosphate: RNA nucleotidyltransferase; EC 188.8.131.52). Treatment with RNases specific for either double-stranded or hybrid RNA indicates that resistance to RNase is due to the presence of double-stranded RNA sequences. Denaturation kinetics in the presence or absence of RNase suggest that these sequences are formed by intramolecular base pairing. Their mean length is about 20 to 30 nucleotides, but 15-20% are more than 100 nucleotides long. They contain 60-65% G-C base pairs. The proportion of double-stranded segments is higher in chromatin transcripts than in DNA-templated RNA, and is higher with homologous RNA polymerase than with the bacterial enzyme. On the other hand, chromatin endogenous RNA polymerase, which is unable to initiate transcription, does not synthesize double-stranded RNA. The problem of the location of these sequences is discussed; preliminary results suggest that the 5' end of the RNA transcripts could be enriched in complementary sequences.


Abstract. Grain legumes in cropping systems result in agronomic and environmental benefits. Nevertheless, their areas in Europe have strongly decreased over the past decades. Our aim was to design locally adapted innovative cropping systems including grain legumes for three European local pedoclimatic contexts, to assess their sustainability, and to discuss their feasibility with stakeholders. The methodology included an initial diagnosis of the most frequent cropping systems and local improvement targets in each local context (e.g. improve legume profitability, limit diseases of legumes, reduce intensive use of chemical inputs in cropping systems), the design of innovative legume-based cropping systems during a common workshop, focusing on three aims ((i) decrease pesticide use, (ii) reduce mineral N fertiliser dependency, and (iii) increase yield stability of grain legume crops and other crops of the crop sequence), and their multicriteria sustainability assessment. Stakeholders meetings were organised in each local context to discuss the feasibility of implementing the innovative cropping systems in farmers' fields (technical implementation of cropping systems and possibility of development of legume sectors). Four to five cropping systems were designed in each local context, with crop sequences longer than references. They included at least two grain legumes (pea, faba bean, chickpea, lentil or lupine), as sole crops or intercropped with cereals. Overall sustainability was similar or improved in 71% of the legume-based cropping systems compared with their corresponding references. Among the designed cropping systems, stakeholders identified feasible ones considering both technical issues and development of legume sectors. The results indicate that reintegrating more grain legumes in the three European local contexts tested will contribute to more sustainable farming systems.


Vertical organic thin-film transistors (VOTFTs) are promising devices to overcome the transconductance and cut-off frequency restrictions of horizontal organic thin-film transistors. The basic physical mechanisms of VOTFT operation, however, are not well understood and VOTFTs often require complex patterning techniques using self-assembly processes which impedes a future large-area production. In this contribution, high-performance vertical organic transistors comprising pentacene for p-type operation and C60 for n-type operation are presented. The static current-voltage behavior as well as the fundamental scaling laws of such transistors are studied, disclosing a remarkable transistor operation with a behavior limited by injection of charge carriers. The transistors are manufactured by photolithography, in contrast to other VOTFT concepts using self-assembled source electrodes. Fluorinated photoresist and solvent compounds allow for photolithographical patterning directly and strongly onto the organic materials, simplifying the fabrication protocol and making VOTFTs a prospective candidate for future high-performance applications of organic transistors.


In this paper, we propose the Q-edge labeling method related to the graph embedding problem in binomial trees. This result is able to design a new reliable interconnection networks with maximum connectivity using Q-edge labels as jump sequence of circulant graph. The circulant graph is a generalization of Harary graph which is a solution of the optimal problem to design a maximum connectivity graph consists of n vertices End e edgies. And this topology has optimal broadcasting because of having binomial trees as spanning tree.


To assess maternal mortality in Rio Grande do Norte, in the series 2003-2008, data from the Mortality Information System (SIM) and the Committee on Maternal Mortality (MMR) of the state. Methods: A descriptive study of population-based data on maternal mortality secondary collected by the SIM state through the program Tabwin, version 3.2, and CMM-RN, through the records and file reports. Results: We found that the percentage of maternal deaths investigated and confirmed by the Committee in relation to the registered on SIM ranged from 3% in 2003, decreasing to 1% in 2007, which is very small compared to total deaths of women in childbearing age in the period studied. Conclusions: It is possible to perceive weaknesses of the epidemiological surveillance of maternal deaths in the screening and a performance of the Committee in investigating these deaths far below those recorded in the on SIM, showing underreporting, data incompleteness and lack of consistency in the flow of information between these banks, making it impossible to compare the existing information. It is suggested that the Ordinances No. 1172/2004 and No 1119/2008 of the Ministry of Healthcare have to be complied, that surveillance supervises the registration of maternal death as an event of compulsory notification and that a punitive effect for municipalities that fail to comply with this protocol is established . These measures will help to reduce maternal mortality


The theory rhetoric situation put forward by Bitzer is applied to the analysis of President Bush's address on September 11. Such these essential elements as the exigence, audience and constraints will be illustrated to reveal the cultural and religious roots behind the September 11 terrorist attack.


Segmental fractures of humerus are difficult to treat. Various options exist for treating ipsilateral metadiaphyseal fractures of humerus but have their own set of complications. Management of these fractures with long angular stable plates gives us an advantage of treating these two level fractures simultaneously thereby reducing complications and postoperative morbidity. Applying minimally invasive plate osteosynthesis (MIPO) principles helps in the biological healing of fracture by being minimally invasive and preserving blood supply to the soft tissues. We are presenting a small series of ipsilateral metadiaphyseal fractures humerus using long angular stable plates in an MIPO fashion.


The study deals with the analysis of repetitions, their phonetic structures and functions as demonstrated in the organisation of talk-ininteraction in Kurdish. The repetitions are described as complex phonetic objects whose design has received no previous attention and are neglected by the scholars in the fields of discourse and conversation analysis studies in Kurdish. The main aims of the study are to identify the phonetic characteristics of repetitions in Kurdish, their functions and the relationship between differences in the phonetic features and their functions in speech. The study integrates the methodology of conversation analysis and impressionistic and instrumental phonetics to show how repetitions in a conversation are managed by the participants. The data used in this study comes from different types of natural speech, namely, face to face conversations, radio-phone-ins of Northern Kurdish. 27 cases of self repetitions have been analysed and they are lexical, phrasal and clausal with a range of syntactic forms. The study contributes to the theoretical issues of the prosody-pragmatics interface and participants' understanding of naturally occurring discourse. It is hoped that such a study may contribute to language and information processing by providing a detailed analysis of patterns and functions of repetition in social interaction.


NUTRITIONAL DIARRHOEA Diarrhoea is common among. people suffering from semistarvation and malnutrition; as noted by Kenny' in a recent pumber of the Journal it adds to the difficulties of treatment, but usually clears up in a short time when the patients are given a milk diet. It has been attributed to a diet containing large amounts of cellulose and other indigestible materiars, and to infections as a result of eating anything edible. Diarrhoea is, however, one of the three " D's " that are regarded as characteristic of pellagra, and Heilig,2 working in Mysore, found that chronic diarrhoea in malnourished persons was relieved by nicotinic acid. Aykroyd and Gopalan3 have recently recorded a study of 54 cases of chronic diarrhoea not attributable to sprue or other known condition. The onset in these cases was gradual; all of them had vague abdominal discomfort, but no griping or tenesmus; the stools were not frothy and contained no blood. In all but 13 the number of motions was over six a day. Test meals were examined in 42 cases: free hydrochloric acid was absent in 28 and subnormal in 13. Evidence of nutritional deficiency other than emaciation was found in most of the patients. Forty-nine had glossitis: this was of the hypertrophic type, with fungiform or filiform papillae, in the early cases with diarrhoea of under four weeks' duration; and atrophic, with a red and smooth or a fissured tongue, in the more advanced and chronic cases. Anaemia w4s found in 46 cases; in all but three of these it was of the macrocytic hyperchromic type commonly found in pellagra. Fifteen had " crazy-pavement" dermatosis-that is, patches of epithelium of a darker colour separated by fine and irregular fissures. Only one had the typical symmetrical dermatitis of pellagra. Twenty-five had oedema of the dependent parts. The oedema and, possibly, the dermatosis and anaemia may have been caused by general undernutrition secondary to the diarrhoea; but the soreness of the tongue was noticed by the patients at the same time as, or a short while before, the diarrhoea started. After admission to hospital all these patients, except some who were so severely ill that it was not justifiable to withhold treatment, were kept for four days on the usual hospital fluid diet. Little orno improvement was seen during these four days. Nicotinic acid was then injected intramuscularly. In the severe cases 100 mg. was injected daily; in the milder cases 50 to 70 mg., according to the severity. After the third injection the number of motions was reduced and the stools were more formed. In 50 cases the diarrhoea was controlled within twelve days. The four that did not respond were severe cases that had had


26 non-selected out-patients of a psychiatric and psychotherapeutic clinic with psychoneurotic personality disorders and psychosomatic complaints were treated with the Guidive Affective Imagery (GAI) during 20 sessions. Analysis of the psychodiagnostic tests prior to treatment showed that 7 patients had insignificant psychopathological profiles although they felt bad and had diffuse psychosomatic complaints whereas 12 suffered from neurotical symptoms and severe psychosomatic disorders. The rate of improvement was assessed by standardized tests. The GAI proved to be an effective short term treatment of depressive and inhibited patients. A significant rate of improvement of less neurotic and psychosomatic disorders was found. These results are still to be confirmed by katamnestic questionnaires in order to assure that the therapeutic changes are long lasting.


The global requirements on lower fuel consumption and emissions are increasing the demand for lowering the weight of cast components. Reducing the wall thickness of cast components is one way of achieving this. The aim of this work was to investigate castability of 17-4PH stainless steel in thin-walled test geometries (less than 2mm). The casting trials were performed to investigate the fluidity as a function of casting temperature, mold preheat temperature and filling systems in thin-walled sections. It was observed that fluidityin a top-gated configuration is strongly affected by casting temperature, however, effect of mold pre heat temperature on fluidity was not significant. On the other hand, castings made in bottom-gated configuration were more stable and fluidity was not significantly affected by variation in casting temperature and mold preheat temperature. Less porosityand flow-related defects were observed in the bottom-gated system as compared to top-gated system.


BACKGROUND
The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) study articulated the negative effects of childhood trauma on adult weight and health. The purpose of the current study is to examine the associations between ACEs in infancy and toddlerhood and obesity and related health indicators in middle childhood.

METHODS
We used data collected from a sample of low-income families enrolled in the national evaluation of Early Head Start (EHS). Data come from 1335 demographically diverse families collected at or near children's ages 1, 2, 3, and 11. An EHS-ACE index was created based on interview and observation items from data collected at ages 1, 2, and 3, which were averaged to represent exposure across infancy and toddlerhood. At age 11, children's height and weight were measured and parents were asked about their child's health.

RESULTS
Children were exposed at rates of 30%, 28%, 15%, and 8% to one, two, three, and four or more EHS-ACEs, respectively. Logistic regressions revealed significant associations between EHS-ACEs in infancy/toddlerhood and obesity, respiratory problems, taking regular nonattention-related prescriptions, and the parent's global rating of children's health at age 11. Across all outcomes examined, children with four or more ACEs had the poorest health. Compared with children with no ACE exposure, the odds of each of the examined health outcomes were over twice as high for children who experienced four or more ACEs.

CONCLUSIONS
Findings highlight that ACEs experienced very early in development are associated with children whose health is at risk later in childhood.


Efforts continue to identify new product development (NPD) best practices. Examples of recognized studies include those by the Product Development and Management Association's Comparative Performance Assessment Study and the American Productivity Quality Center NPD best practices study. While these studies designate practices that distinguish top-performing companies, it is unclear whether NPD practitioners as a group (not just researchers) are knowledgeable about what represents a NPD best practice. The importance of this is that it offers insight into how NPD practitioners are translating potential NPD knowledge into actual NPD practice. In other words, are practitioners aware of and able to implement NPD best practices designated by noteworthy studies? The answer to this question ascertains a current state of the field toward understanding NPD best practice and the maturity level of various practices. Answering this question further contributes to our understanding of the diffusion of NPD best practices knowledge by NPD professionals, possibly identifying gaps between prescribed and actual practice.

Beginning the empirical examination by conducting a Delphi methodology with 20 leading innovation researchers, the study examined the likely dimensions of NPD and corresponding definitions to validate the NPD practices framework originally proposed by Kahn, Barczak, and Moss. A survey was then conducted with practitioners from the United States, United Kingdom, and Ireland to gauge opinions about perceptions of the importance of different NPD dimensions, specific characteristics reflected by each of these dimensions, and the level of NPD practice maturity that these characteristics would represent. The study is therefore unique in that it relies on the opinions of NPD practitioners to see what they perceive as best practice versus prior studies where the researcher has identified and prescribed best practices.

Results of the present study find that seven NPD dimensions are recommended, whereas the 2006Kahn, Barczak, and Moss framework had suggested six dimensions. Among practitioners across the three country contexts, there is consensus on which dimensions are more important, providing evidence that NPD dimensions may be generalizable across Western contexts. Strategy was rated higher than any of the other dimensions followed by research, commercialization, and process. Project climate and metrics were perceived as the lowest in importance. The high weighting on strategy and low weighting on metrics and project climate reinforce previous best practice findings. Regarding the characteristics of each best practice dimension, practitioners appear able to distinguish what constitutes poor versus best practice, but consensus on distinguishing middle range practices are not as clear.

The suggested implications of these findings are that managers should emphasize strategy when undertaking NPD efforts and consider the fit of their projects with this strategy. The results further imply that there are clearly some poor practices that managers should avoid and best practices to which managers should ascribe. For academics, the results strongly suggest a need to do a better job of diffusing NPD knowledge and research on best practices. Particular attention by academics to the issues of metrics, project climate, and company culture appears warranted.


Herein, a novel and fluorescent zinc-organic framework sensor [Zn3(μ3-Hbptc)2(μ2-4,4'-bpy)2(H2O)4]n·2nH2O (1) (H4bptc = 2,3,3',4'-biphenyl tetracarboxylic acid, 4,4'-bpy = 4,4'-bipyridine) is synthesized and characterized, demonstrating its excellent fluorescence performance for Cu2+ detection and the enrichment of Cu2+ in aqueous media. The fluorescence intensity of 1 can be selectively quenched by Cu2+ in a linear range of Cu2+ concentrations of 0-0.7 μM. The limit of detection (LOD) value is as low as 32.4 nM, which is superior to those of most of the fluorescent sensors based on metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). It is also far below the maximum allowable concentration of Cu2+ in drinking water as defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the World Health Organization (WHO), so it is employed for the detection of Cu2+ in actual water samples. More importantly, the nature of the interaction between the active coordination site (COO-) of 1 and Cu2+ determines the quenching mechanism, that is Cu2+ in the analyte is captured by MOF 1, which has been investigated by ICP, luminescence, UV-vis, XPS, and lifetime studies. Besides, the chemosensor shows regeneration performance without the loss of performance in five consecutive cycles. So MOF 1 is a simple and convenient probe used not only for the rapid detection but also for the enrichment of trace amounts of Cu2+ in aqueous media, and the application can be further extended to a variety of environmental and biological analysis processes.


To determine the incidence of maternal mortality associated with non utilization of obstetric services and how socio-demographic and medical factors influence the deaths of pregnant women. A retrospective study of information extracted from hospital records on live birth, antenatal attendance, age at death, parity, educational level and cause of death was reviewed, the study covered data from thirty General hospitals in both urban and rural areas in Kano state for a period of 6 years from 1st January 2005 to 31st December 2010. Data collected was analyzed for pattern of antenatal care, hospital live delivery, age at death, obstetric causes of death and maternal mortality ratio. There were 2,310,727 antenatal attendance 1,886,932 live deliveries and 3,062 maternal death during the period under review given a maternal mortality ratio (MMR) of 1625/100,000 live deliveries. It was also discovered that mean age at death for pregnant women for urban areas was 28.8 years and rural 27.6 years. Both antenatal and hospital live deliveries had irregular pattern. The major direct causes of death in urban area was eclampsia and bleeding cases while in rural areas bleeding cases followed by eclampsia and obstructed labor and then anemia were more prevalent.


A 50-year-old male immigrant from Ethiopia presented for consultation after 3 years of hematochezia/melena requiring > 25 units of blood transfusions. Physical examination revealed severe proximal muscle wasting and weakness, central obesity, proptosis, and abdominal striae, accompanied by eosinophilia, elevated hemoglobin A1c, elevated 24-hour urinary cortisol, lack of suppression of 8 am cortisol levels by 1 mg dexamethasone, and inappropriately elevated random adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) level. Histopathological examination of gastrointestinal biopsies showed large numbers of Strongyloides stercoralis, indicating Strongyloides hyperinfection. Treatment with 2 days of ivermectin led to resolution of gastrointestinal bleeding. This syndrome was due to chronic immunosuppression from a pituitary ACTH (corticotroph) microadenoma, of which resection led to gradual normalization of urine cortisol, improved glycemic control, resolution of eosinophilia, and no recurrence of infection.


This article examines the impact of youth transition regimes (YTR) on the political participation strategies of young people from 26 locations in 12 European countries. The central hypothesis is that the way that youth transitions take place in different European contexts determines the position of youth as a group in the system of social relations that Bourdieu calls the 'social space'. Depending upon this position, young people may be more inclined to participation through institutional channels or political protest, or, in contrast, remain inactive. Thus, the specific context of youth in each society (measured through the exposure to risk and vulnerability, the length of the pathway to adulthood and the role of the welfare state) plays a crucial role in defining young people's political action strategies. Multilevel logistic regression analysis using the MYPLACE survey, the specific operationalization of the YTR and other aggregate control variables reveal that YTR centrality is a very important contextual predictor for explaining different forms of political participation among young people in Europe.


Closed-loop feedback control and command shaping are often used together to achieve superior control performance. In many cases, the feedback control is designed and implemented first. Then, the command shaping is designed to improve the resulting closed-loop dynamics. However, there is an often-overlooked advantage of optimally combining these two control schemes. This study will show that proportional and derivative feedback control can be intelligently used to create a closed-loop system that is particularly advantageous when input shaping is used as a filter outside of the loop. Experimental results are shown to verify the theoretical developments.


Abstract We propose a framework that elucidates the input–output characteristics of flows with complex dynamics arising from nonlinear interactions between different time scales. More specifically, we consider a periodically time-varying base flow, and perform a frequency-domain analysis of periodic perturbations about this base flow. The response of these perturbations is governed by the harmonic resolvent, which is a linear operator similar to the harmonic transfer function introduced by Wereley (1991 Analysis and control of linear periodically time-varying systems, PhD thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology). This approach makes it possible to explicitly capture the triadic interactions that are responsible for the energy transfer between different time scales in the flow. For instance, perturbations at frequency $\omega$ are coupled with perturbations at frequency $\alpha$ through the base flow at frequency $\omega -\alpha$. We draw a connection with resolvent analysis, which is a special case of the harmonic resolvent when evaluated about a steady base flow. We show that the left and right singular vectors of the harmonic resolvent are the optimal response and forcing modes, which can be understood as full spatio-temporal signals that reveal space–time amplification characteristics of the flow. Finally, we illustrate the method on examples, including a three-dimensional system of ordinary differential equations and the flow over an airfoil at near-stall angle of attack.


Non-intrusive load monitoring (NILM) process intends to deduce the individual energy consumption of appliances used in the house, which is mainly based on measuring the aggregate power consumption with a single smart meter. Comprehensive device consumption information can facilitate the improvements of the energy usage habits of the users. This work presents a novel framework on NILM via adaptive association rules mining, which aims to address the following issues. 1) The failure of detection for the appliances or group of appliances consuming the same or similar power. 2) Small power appliances' signals get overwhelmed by noise in the aggregate power data. To evaluate the effectiveness of our proposed framework, we implemented experiments based on the public datasets in production environment. By comparing with the state-of-art algorithms in general evaluation metrics, our framework gets around 10% gain on average in the performance of NILM task.


The modern study of the dynamics of stellar systems requires the use of high-performance computers. Indeed, an accurate modelization of the structure and evolution of self-gravitating systems like planetary systems, open clusters, globular clusters and galaxies imply the evaluation of body-body interaction over the whole size of the structure, a task that is computationally very expensive, in particular when it is performed over long intervals of time. In this report we give a concise overview of the main problems of stellar systems simulations and present some exciting results we obtained about the interaction of globular clusters with the parent galaxy.


This thesis examines the mobile phone culture in Bangkok, Thailand, and the way mobile phone can be seen to represent an expression of modernity and cultural changes among Thai middle class teenagers at large. The idea of modernity has been explored in terms of Tween and Teen subcultures' incorporation of mobile phones to form and create their cultural identities as cool and modern in different social settings, such as homes, schools and department stores. The material data probes these social interactions in relation to the demographic and psychographic backgrounds of Thai teenagers, who employ cool brands to display their cool selves by using the generations of mobile phones technology to enhance their communicative patterns, blurring the boundaries of public and private spaces. The symbolic meanings of mobile phones i.e. necessity-luxury and fashion as symbols of modernity bring about social and cultural changes, as well as consumerism and leisure activities which can be showed as habitus. It further considered Thai teenagers' social relations alongside advertising representations elaborated issues of modernity to show to their consumption patterns and cultural identities. My ethnographic data suggests that the distinction Tween (9-14 years old) and Teen (15-18 years old) subcultures, and the university students use mobile phones as symbols of modernity to create their identities are relevant to fashion and social emulation among family and peer in terms of purchases, opinions, and activities. Thai teenagers perceived mobile phones as new of intimacy rather than merely as tools of connectivity, indicating social status and serving as means of seeking pleasure. New identities in terms of Gig and Deck Neaw subculture are elaborated to show how global interacts with local through their subcultures in ways that they incorporate fashionable mobile phones to form their new identities and deviant behaviours as resistance to traditional norm in Thai society.


The only significant early industrial films, before 1910, have been made available and show in detail the work conditions for women in heavy industry. These films show Westinghouse workers in 1904 fabricating parts for the rapidly growing electric industry. The literature of women workers from that time provides little insight to their conditions of work which were different from those of textile, garment, and cigar makers, which were better documented. The limited information on the background and work conditions of the workers is presented. The films clearly indicate the speed-up characteristics of the piece-work pay system and the physical discomfort of the workers.


SummaryThe validity of several functions of Gompertz, logistic and Richards types, as descriptions of leaf growth in Begonia × hiemalis in long days and with an intercalated period of short days was assessed on the basis of three criteria: (1) goodness of fit, (2) ability of extrapolated values representing primordial length to simulate bud structure when curves are stacked in sequence, and (3) the credibility of estimated leaf initiation sequences from extrapolated curves. The best fit for plants grown in long days was obtained by a Richards-type function with a curved asymptote and further modified to reflect ontogenetic drifts in some parameters. For plants transferred to short days for eight weeks the model was less appropriate. Problems arose from inadequate data from leaves with greatly inhibited growth and the failure of these mathematical functions to describe discontinuous growth.


We report experimental results on a highly efficient optical limiter that uses a three-mirror, multipass ring configuration. The optical limiter's enhanced performance is based on the accumulative effect that is achieved when the laser beam passes through the sample several consecutive times. Its feasibility was demonstrated for media with different limiting action processes, namely, reverse saturable absorption, nonlinear scattering, and thermal lensing. We employed a frequency-doubled, Q-switched, 10-ns Nd:YAG laser operating at a 5-Hz repetition rate.


The present paper utilizes a numerical method to investigate the effect of flexible shroud seals, including the forward bending flexible seals and backward bending flexible seals, on aerodynamic performance of high pressure steam turbine stages. At first, the wear performance of flexible seal is analyzed with the Finite Element Analysis method. It shows that wear in flexible strip is so small that only the installation clearance needs to be considered in operation process. Then, by replacing the labyrinth shroud seals with flexible shroud seals, the aerodynamic efficiency, outlet flow angle distributions, and reaction degree distributions in two-stages are obtained. At three installation clearances, interactions between leakage flow and main flow, as well as the flow patterns in flexible shroud seals, are visualized and also compared with the original design case. The numerical results indicate that turbine stages configured with forward bending flexible shroud seals have a very close aerodynamic performance to those configured with conventional labyrinth shroud seals at the same clearance, whereas the turbine stages configured with backward bending flexible seals have lower total-total isentropic efficiency than those with conventional labyrinth shroud seals. By replacing the conventional labyrinth shroud seals with forward bending flexible shroud seals (at the same clearance), the aerodynamic efficiency, outlet flow angles, limiting streamlines, secondary flow patterns in shroud region and reaction degree distributions in stages are almost not affected. Since the forward bending flexible seal allows relatively smaller installation clearance than the conventional labyrinth seal, application of this kind of seal in rotor blade tip gap is much beneficial to achieve lower leakage rate and higher aerodynamic performance in large power steam turbine stages.


The interactions between biomolecules and material interfaces at the molecular level are complicated but very important for the development of materials science, nanotechnology, biophysics, biomedicine, and analytical science. Atomic force microscopy-based force spectroscopy (AFM-FS) is a useful technique for directly measuring the interactions between biomolecules and different material interfaces from the hard inorganic surfaces to the soft bio-substrates. In this review, we summarize recent studies on how to utilize AFM-FS to investigate the interactions between biomolecules and materials interfaces at the single-molecule level. Furthermore, we highlight the typical cases on applying AFM-FS for imaging DNA, proteins, antibodies, bacteria, and cells on one side, and for label-free sensing of DNA, RNA, proteins, enzymes, small molecules, and metallic ions on the other side. The key aspects of the modification of probes, the preparation of material interfaces, and the construction of the AFM-FS measurement system are introduced and discussed in detail. We expect that this work will be helpful for researchers to understand fundamental molecular interactions and to gain insights into the biological functions of various bio-hybrid materials.


ABSTRACT The MA domain of the retroviral Gag protein mediates interactions with the plasma membrane, which is the site of productive virus release. HIV-1 MA has a phosphatidylinositol-(4,5)-bisphosphate [PI(4,5)P2] binding pocket; depletion of this phospholipid from the plasma membrane compromises Gag membrane association and virus budding. We used multiple methods to examine the possible role of PI(4,5)P2 in Gag-membrane interaction of the alpharetrovirus Rous sarcoma virus (RSV). In contrast to HIV-1, which was tested in parallel, neither membrane localization of RSV Gag-GFP nor release of virus-like particles was affected by phosphatase-mediated depletion of PI(4,5)P2 in transfected avian cells. In liposome flotation experiments, RSV Gag required acidic lipids for binding but showed no specificity for PI(4,5)P2. Mono-, di-, and triphosphorylated phosphatidylinositol phosphate (PIP) species as well as high concentrations of phosphatidylserine (PS) supported similar levels of flotation. A mutation that increases the overall charge of RSV MA also enhanced Gag membrane binding. Contrary to previous reports, we found that high concentrations of PS, in the absence of PIPs, also strongly promoted HIV-1 Gag flotation. Taken together, we interpret these results to mean that RSV Gag membrane association is driven by electrostatic interactions and not by any specific association with PI(4,5)P2.


Alcohol, gallstones and drugs account for the majority of the identified causes of acute pancreatitis. Severe acute pancreatitis (SAP) is diagnosed if three or more of Ranson's criteria are present, if the APACHE II score is 8 or more, or if one or more of the following are present: shock, renal insufficiency, and pulmonary insufficiency. Infections account for a minority of the identified causes of SAP and fungal pancreatic infection is rarely reported. We report a case of pancreatic candidiasis in an 87-year-old woman. CT guided biopsy of a pancreatic mass yielded budding yeast on culture and pathology. This was identified as Candida albicans. The patient improved with IV fluconazole and had no more episodes of pancreatitis after finishing a total of six weeks course of oral fluconazole. Pancreatic candidiasis has been associated with significantly increased mortality. The diagnosis of pancreatic candidiasis is confirmed by biopsy and culture, but this has its limitations. Although fungi are isolated in 30-40% of pancreatic aspirates and biopsies, they are often regarded as contaminants. In the absence of confirmed diagnosis it seems appropriate to use antifungal therapy in selected patients that do not show improvement despite appropriate management of SAP, including prophylactic antibiotics. Amphotericin B and itraconazole are alternatives to fluconazole. Surgical débridement of necrotic tissue remains important and percutaneous necrosectomy is an available alternative in patients with limited necrosis. The use of prophylactic antibiotics has led to decreased mortality in SAP. In appropriately selected patients it seems prudent to use prophylactic antifungal therapy. The incidence of fungal pancreatitis has been decreased with the use of prophylactic antifungal therapy. Failure of prophylaxis and emergence of azole resistant fungi pose a problem.


The purpose of this paper is to analyze the urban resilience capacity and its relations with the economic, social and environmental well-being in smart cities in the state of Sao Paulo (SP), particularly after the 2008 financial crisis.,Concerning its objectives, this study is characterized as descriptive. From the point of view of technical procedures, the research is bibliographic, and regarding data collection, it is documental. The approach of this research is quantitative, since it uses the statistical method. The sample was made up by 62 smart cities located in SP. The analysis comprised the period from 2010 to 2015.,The urban resilience pillars influence the economic well-being represented by the gross national product, in 58.8 percent, social well-being represented by the life expectancy of the residents of the smart cities, in 71.7 percent, and in environmental well-being indicated by CO2 emissions, in 21.5 percent.,They are related to the researchers' decision about the methodological design.,This study was limited to smart cities in SP listed in the RBCIH (Brazilian Network of Human Smart Cities), and may be extended to other cities in other Brazilian states.,How resilience dimensions related to economic, social and environmental well-being such as poverty, food security, health, well-being, education quality, climate changes, and the like, were measured, which can be investigated in future research studies.,Despite its growing popularity worldwide, the urban resilience pillars and their relationship with human well-being in smart cities in the national context are little investigated, making this research original.


ABSTRACT The attitudes of grade 6 middle school students and teachers toward their social studies textbook, "American Neighbors," (Macmillan, 1980) were measured through conversations, interviews, classroom observations, questionnaires, attitude measures, student letters to textbook authors, and a metaphor task. The case study, which took place between November 18 and December 18, 1981, in a Champaign (Illinois) school, also examined viewpoints of: students and teachers on different levels and at different schools, administrators, learning coordinators, other staff, and parents. The document is presented in 4 parts. Part I describes the schools and teachers and the history of social studies textbooks in the Champaign schools. Part II compares criteria devised by administrators, students, teachers, and parents for the ideal sixth grade social studies textbook; the acceptability by all groups of a single as opposed to a multi-text approach; and the specific acceptability of "American Neighbors." This part contains results of attitude measures and sample letters from students to textbook authors. Part III examines textbook use issues. The role of the textbook according to the curriculum committee, administrators, teachers, parents, and students is described. Dependency on textbooks by all groups, and student and teacher styles of textbook use are also examined. Part IV, the conclusion, presents 10 questions related to textbook content and approach for publishers, educators, and parents. Appendices outline research methodology and contain data forms, documents, and quantitative tables. (KC)


Effect of irrigation with groundwater (GW), primary‐treated wastewater (PTWW), secondary‐treated wastewater (STWW), and roof‐collected rainwater (RCR) on the microbial quality of lettuce cultivars "Annapolis," "Celinet," and "Coastline" grown in high tunnel was investigated. Lettuce plants were spray irrigated with irrigation waters once a week for 2 weeks and analyzed for indicator and pathogenic bacteria. PTWW irrigation resulted in the highest Escherichia coli recovery on the lettuce plants (4.7 log MPN/g) as compared to irrigation with other three waters on 0 day postirrigation (dpi). Lettuce cultivars affected the bacterial die‐off rate, where E. coli populations reduced the most by 1.5 log MPN/g on "Annapolis" lettuce on 2 dpi. The STWW and RCR irrigation did not significantly influence indicator bacterial populations on lettuce as compared to GW irrigation. The STWW and RCR containing low populations of indicator bacteria may be suitable for lettuce irrigation in Mid‐Atlantic area without affecting its microbial quality.


This disstertation is a study of the foundations of the early state of Lombard Italy, AD 568-774. The main issue of the work is the hypothetical integration of social sectors within the context of an early state, as opposed to alternative forms of integration. the possibilities of achieving this kind of integration is regarded as connected with the urban infrastructure. The chief analysis consists of a thorough investigation of the institutional functions of the towns, accompanied by a survey of the discussions of the socio-economic centrality of these towns. The conclusion of the study is that the early state in Lombard Italy reached a comparatively high level of military and juridical integration of society and partly controlled the ecclesiastical system. The basis for this was not taxation but land, or rather the control of landed resources. This was achieved by control of the towns. The Italian towns were socio-economic as well as institutional centres. Neither the church nor the nobility were strong enough to control the urban world, but the early state based its existence on a network of urban dukes, gastalds, bishops, and others. (Less)


The 96 input channels are multiplexed to six (12 bits) converters in such a way that adjacent channels are driven to different chips. The maximum conversion time is 65 ¿s. Common analog threshold for zero suppression is available with possible choice of neighbours to be converted. The threshold action can be disabled by external input command (or CSR # 0 status). S.R. and broadcasts are implemented.


Background: Gender diversity in the field of orthopedic surgery has lagged behind other surgical subspecialties. One potential barrier to the recruitment and retention of female orthopedic surgeons lies in controversies surrounding pregnancy and parental leave during residency training, for which no clear guidelines exist. Trainees and residency programs face the challenge of balancing clinical and surgical competency with the health and well being of the mother and her child. This article addresses the current policies, health considerations, perceptions of parental leave and future recommendations regarding pregnancy and parental leave for orthopedic residents. Level of Evidence: V.


A lumped-parameter model of a fingertip is presented. The semispherical model includes the effects of heat storage, heat exchange with the environment, and heat transport by blood perfusion. The thermal insulation on the surface of the fingertip is represented by the overall heat transfer coefficient that is calculated by common engineering formulas. The model is solved analytically for the simple case of constant blood perfusion rate. The general case of variable blood perfusion rates is solved by an Euler finite difference technique. At this stage, the model does not include active control mechanisms of blood perfusion. Thus the effects of cold-induced vasodilatation have to be superimposed and are modeled by symmetrical triangular waveforms because these were found to best depict the behavior of fingers exposed to cold environments. Results of this model were compared with experimental data obtained in two separate studies. One included 60-min infrared thermograms of the dorsal surface of bare hands of sedentary subjects horizontally suspended on a fish net in a 0 degree C environment. Another study, on gloved finger temperatures, involved 0 and -6.7 degrees C environments. Fingertip (nail bed) temperatures of both these studies were compared with model predictions. Blood perfusion rates were assumed and adjusted within physiologically reasonable limits. Comparison of measured and computed temperature records showed very good conformity in both cases studied.


US medical student applicant. Many of us are convinced that the average academic level of our residents is falling. This may have resulted from the concerns of our medical students over the last 10 years that career opportunities in neurology after graduation are disappearing. Neurology had previously been able to attract the best and the brightest medical students, but unfortunately poor residents have a negative effect upon medical student recruitment. We must find a way to break this vicious cycle. The report of the Long-Range Planning Committee lays out the steps that should be taken to maintain the highest academic level of neurology trainees in the coming years. Unless we find some way to divorce patient-care needs from educational considerations, it seems unlikely that the goals of the Committee can be achieved.


This study examined the concepts of depression in oder to develop the depression attitude questionnaire in adult. The participants of study were 26 adults who agreed with our study among the stratified clustered random sampling. Based on ground theory, the data from transcribed interviews were analyzed by using open coding. The result of this study presented the concepts of depression which composed of the knowledge of depression and the attitude of depression. Finally, we were separate the concepts of depression into two questionnaires. The questionnaire for knowledges of depression was composed of the cause, symptoms, and treatment of depression. Most of participants were understood the symptoms of depression well but considered the cause of it to psychological factor, and depression are not genuine disease. The attitudes toward depression were compose of emotional distance, stigma, familism, personal weakness. Participants have a negative emotion to depressive patients and have stigma to them, but they have responsibility to their family member who have depression. We expect that result of the study will be a base upon the development of psychometric tool for depression attitude.


There is an ongoing increasing demand in the steel industry to produce duplex stainless steels at a higher rate, consequently in order to do so it is necessary to have a more efficient pickling process. In this project, the annealing and pickling conditions of this family of grades have been studied in order to determine conditions that can increase their pickling efficiency. For cold rolled materials, electrolytic pre-pickling is shown to be a key process towards facilitating the pickling process for material both annealed in production line and in laboratory experiments. The mechanism for the neutral electrolytic process on duplex 1.4462 and austenitic 1.4401 stainless steels has been examined and the oxide scale found to become thinner as a function of electrolytic pickling time. Spallation or peeling of the oxide induced by gas evolution did not play a decisive role. A parametric study was therefore carried out to determine whether adjustment of process variables could improve the current utilisation. For hot rolled materials, chemical pre-pickling in HF gives a dramatic reduction in the subsequent mixed acid pickling time. On the other hand, it was observed that a porous or cracked scale and a large chromium depleted layer, associated with a low chromium concentration at the metallic surface, permit a decrease of the pickling duration. Neutral or reducing annealing atmospheres are recommended for the formation of oxide layer types easy to pickle. The study of new baths, free of nitric acid, points out the possibilities of using mixtures of hydrofluoric acid and hydrochloric acid to improve the pickling conditions.


Erythraline, isolated from the bark of Erythrina crista-galli which are used as Brazilian medicine plant for the treatment of inflammation diseases, suppressed nitric oxide (NO) production and induction of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) expression in RAW264.7 cells stimulated by lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Because of Toll-like receptor (TLR) 4 and its signal transduction are indispensable to the production of NO and iNOS expression by LPS, we investigated the effects of erythraline on TLR signaling molecules. Western blot analysis revealed that the degradation of inhibitor of nuclear factor (NF)-κB (IκB) by LPS was suppressed by erythraline. Moreover, erythraline inhibited not only LPS-induced phosphorylation of IκB kinase (Ikk) but also phosphorylation of mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs). However, it showed no effect on LPS -induced phosphorylation of transforming growth factor (TGF)-β-activated kinase (TAK) 1 that exists upstream of Ikk and MAPKs, and is required for the activation of these signaling molecules on TLR signaling pathway. These results suggested that erythraline might have inhibited the kinase activity of TAK1. Furthermore, these results were supported from the inhibitory pattern of erythraline on TLR signaling molecules when the cells were stimulated by TLR2 ligand, peptidoglycan which activates the same pathway as LPS on TLR signal transduction.


The rapid formation of a new proton radiation belt at L ≃ 2.5 following the March 24, 1991 Storm Sudden Commencement (SSC) observed at the CRRES satellite is modelled using a relativistic guiding center test particle code. The SSC is modelled by a bipolar electric field and associated compression and relaxation in the magnetic field, superimposed on a dipole magnetic field. The source population consists of both solar and trapped inner zone protons. The simulations show that while both populations contribute to drift echoes in the 20–80 MeV range, primary contribution is from the solar protons. Proton acceleration by the SSC differs from relativistic electron acceleration in that different source populations contribute and nonrelativistic conservation of the first adiabatic invariant leads to greater energization of protons for a given decrease in L. Model drift echoes and flux distribution in L at the time of injection compare well with CRRES observations.


Low-level image processing is a critical phase, since the results of following "more intelligent" steps depend on the output quality of the first processing stages. In this work we present an edge detection filtering algorithm, strictly oriented to enhance the edge of some objects, in a typical real image noisy context, using some "a priori" known characteristics. We describe also an application of this algorithm to the analysis of road images, where the goal is the enhancement of traffic signs.<<ETX>>


Blend of polymers is an effective way to tailor the ferroelectric responses and improve the energy storage properties of polymers. In this work, the microstructure and dielectric responses of the blends of poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) and poly(vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene-chlorofluoroethylene) [P(VDF-TrFE-CFE)] have been studied. It is found that the addition of PVDF disturbs the crystallization process of P(VDF-TrFE-CFE), leading to lower crystallinity and smaller crystalline size. The aforementioned microstructure changes result in tailored ferroelectric responses. Dielectric responses show that the blend with 10 wt % PVDF achieves larger polarization response under high electric field (above 300 MV/m) due to the interfacial polarization. Because of the tailoring effect and the interfacial polarization, the blend with 10 wt % PVDF exhibits higher energy density and efficiency. Moreover, the breakdown strength (Eb) is also improved by adding a small amount of PVDF into the terpolymer. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2014, 131, 40994.


Dipeptidyl-peptidase (DPP)-4, which catalizes the degradation of the insulinotropic incretin glucagon-like-peptide (GLP)-1, and the DPP-4 like enzyme attractin are involved in activation of T-lymphocytes and monocytes. Recently, it has been demonstrated, that the risk for certain infections is increased in type 2 diabetic patients under DPP-4 inhibitor treatment. The aim of the present study was to examine the expression of DPP-4 and attractin in circulating blood monocytes of obese and type 2 diabetic subjects. Monocytes were isolated by CD14-antibody based magnetic cell sorting from blood samples of 17 lean controls, 20 obese, non-diabetic subjects and 19 obese patients with type 2 diabetes. FACS analysis was performed to test purity of the cell preparations. Expression was measured by multiplex RT-PCR on RNA-level. DPP-4 and attractin were detectable in human circulating monocytes with attractin being expressed at higher levels compared to DPP-4. Both enzymes were significantly higher expressed in circulating blood monocytes of obese subjects compared to lean controls. In contrast, type 2 diabetes did not significantly affect expression levels. Finally, neither DPP-4 nor attractin expression was altered by sitagliptin or insulin treatment. In conclusion, our data demonstrate, that expressions of DPP-4 and attractin in circulating blood monocytes of human subjects are influenced by metabolic abnormalities with obesity being an important factor.


This study was conducted to measure the effects of classroom instruction entitled Citizenship curriculum Training on high school discipline. Data for this study were collected and analyzed for fifty-eight ninth-grade students who had been referred to the principal's office three or more times the semester prior to the experimental treatment. An experimental group of twenty-nine students received citizenship curriculum instruction. The control group of twenty-nine students received only the school's traditional curriculum during second period class. Two teachers presented the citizenship curriculum training which included instructional units on beliefs, attitudes, emotions, anger, decision-making, communications, confrontation, positive attention, stress, peer pressure, authority figures, getting along in school, and the society game. Data were collected relative to grade-point average, absences, discipline referrals, and attitude toward high school as measured by the Remitters High School Attitude Scale. T-tests for correlated samples and analysis of covariance examined the effects of the Citizenship Curriculum Training on the four variables measured. The .05 level of significance was used to test the four hypotheses. The results of the study indicate that Citizenship Curriculum Training does not improve the students' gradepoint averages, absentee rate, lower the number of discipline referrals, and does not improve students' attitude as measured by the Remitters High School Attitude Scale. It is recommended that similar studies be conducted to address the problems of grade-point average, number of discipline referrals to the office, high absentee rate, and attitudes toward high school by teaching discipline students in small classes with a curriculum that aims at improving these specific problems. Future studies should collect the posttest data the first grading period following the experimental treatment to test for immediate results.


The High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC) upgrade aims for a tenfold increase in integrated luminosity compared to the nominal Large Hadron Collider (LHC), and for operation at a leveled luminosity five times higher than the nominal LHC peak luminosity. In order to compensate the geometric luminosity loss due to the increased crossing angle, crab cavities will be used to transversely rotate the beam bunches, allowing quasi head-on collisions at the experiments. Crab cavity failures can be very fast, having time constants similar to the reaction time of the machine protection system. In such a scenario the beams cannot be immediately extracted, making the protection of the accelerator fully rely on passive protection devices such as the collimation system. At the same time the energy stored in the HL-LHC beams will be doubled with respect to the LHC to more than 700 MJ, which increases the risk of damaging the accelerator and the experiments in case of failure. Crab cavity failures have the potential to displace the beam core and create considerable particle losses around the accelerator, posing a machine protection challenge. Any increase in failure rates will be difficult to compensate, affecting the performance of the HL-LHC and therefore the integrated luminosity goal. This is why it is important to correctly interlock the accelerator and make sure that certain types of failure never happen. In order to do this advanced simulations are needed well before the crab cavity prototypes can be tested in real operating conditions. This thesis analyzes different failure scenarios for crab cavities installed around the ATLAS and CMS experiments. The selected failure scenarios are later simulated with the tracking code SixTrack thanks to a newly developed functionality. The distribution of the particle losses in space and time are analyzed for the different failure cases and a quantitative estimate of the impact in the collimation system is given. The results are analyzed from a machine protection point of view, where the time for the beam abort trigger is calculated for each failure case and mitigation techniques are proposed. These results allow identifying corner cases corresponding to the most dangerous crab cavity failure scenarios, serving as input for the design of the future interlocking system.


OBJECTIVE The superficial venous system of the posterior neck (suboccipital venous plexus) is a potential source of complications from bleeding and air embolism. Because there is little information available about this in the literature, an anatomic study of the superficial posterior neck venous system and a morphometric analysis of the mastoid emissary vein (MEV) complex were undertaken. Both surgical and endovascular implications were considered. METHODS The posterior craniocervical regions of 15 silicon-injected human cadaveric specimens were dissected. The patterns and variances of venous anatomy were observed. Distances between fixed bony landmarks were measured with a caliper. RESULTS The suboccipital venous plexus, which forms a complex venous network located between the posterior muscular layers of the neck, drains to the anterior vertebral vein and deep cervical vein. The MEV connects this plexus to the sigmoid sinus. Its average diameter was 2.15 mm, and it was located a mean of 21.14 mm from the asterion and a mean of 33.65 mm from the mastoid tip. However, the size of the MEV complex varied considerably. CONCLUSION The suboccipital venous plexus in the posterior neck region may be very large. The size of the veins in the plexus varies, but the drainage pattern remains consistent. The plexus is a potential source of intense bleeding and air embolism during posterior fossa approaches. The risks are greatest for lateral surgical approaches, as a result of the anatomic position of the venous system. The described measurements can be used to approach the MEV in endovascular procedures that involve the sigmoid sinus.


Abstract Background: Written asthma action plans are an important part of asthma management, but cannot be used for illiterate people. Objective: The aim of this study was to establish the effectiveness of a pictorial asthma action plan on asthma control, health-related quality of life (HRQoL), and asthma morbidity in a population of illiterate women with asthma. Methods: Forty illiterate women with moderate-severe persistent asthma were assigned alternatively to receive either asthma education alone (control group) or asthma education and a pictorial asthma action plan (study group). Asthma control was assessed using the asthma control test (ACT), HRQoL was assessed using the St George's Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ), and the frequency of non-scheduled hospital or emergency visits was monitored. Results: Thirty-four patients completed the study. The ACT and SGRQ scores of both groups improved at every follow-up time point compared with baseline (p < 0.001). The ACT scores at 1 month (22.44 versus 20.75, p = 0.034) and 2 months (23.28 versus 21.81, p = 0.010) were higher in the study group than in the control group, but this was not maintained at 6 months (24.00 versus 23.25, p = 0.069). The SGRQ scores at 6 months were better in the study group (18.12) than in the control group (23.96, p = 0.033). No hospital admissions were recorded for either group. Conclusion: Education provides a significant improvement in asthma control and HRQoL while managing illiterate asthma patients, additionally the pictorial asthma action plan can be a helpful tool for self-medication.


: Backgrounds: Soils harbor diverse bacteria, and these bacteria play important roles in soil nutrition cycling and carbon storage. Numerous investigations of soil microbiota had been performed, and the core microbiota in different soil or vegetation soil types had been described. The upper layer of soil, as a source of organic matter, is important and affected by the habitats and dominant bacteria. However, the complexity of soil environments and relatively limited information of many geographic areas had attracted great attention on comprehensive exploration of soil microbes in enormous types of soil. Methods: To reveal the core upper layer soil microbiota, soil samples from metropolis and countryside regions in the North China Plain were investigated using high-throughput sequencing strategy. Results: The results showed that the most dominant bacteria are Proteobacteria (38.34%), Actinobacteria (20.56%), and Acidobacteria (15.18%). At the genus-level, the most abundant known genera are Gaiella (3.66%), Sphingomonas (3.6%), Acidobacteria Gp6 (3.52%), and Nocardioides ( 2.1%). Moreover, several dominant operational taxanomy units OTUs, such as OTU_3 and OTU_17, were identified to be associated with the soil environment. Microbial distributions of the metropolis samples were different from the countryside samples, which may reflect the environments in the countryside were more diverse than in the metropolis. Microbial diversity and evenness were higher in the metropolis than in the countryside, which might due to the fact that human activity increased the microbial diversity in the metropolis. Conclusion: The upper layer soil core microbiota of the North China Plain were complex, and microbial distributions in these two places might be mainly affected by the human activity and environmental factors, not by the distance. Our data highlights the upper layer soil core microbiota in North China Plain, and provides insights for future soil microbial distribution studies in central China.


Genetic variation inEpipactis helleborinein the British Isles was assessed using starch gel electrophoresis of isozymes; 273 individuals were sampled from 13 populations and examined for genetic variation using eight enzyme systems encoded for by 13 loci. Overall, 46% of the loci examined were polymorphic, with an average of 1.69 alleles per locus. Within populations, a mean of 33% of the loci were polymorphic, with a mean number of 1.46 alleles per locus. Levels of genetic variation were compared between urban and well established rural populations to assess the genetic consequences of colonization of the urban sites. The average levels of genetic variation detected in urban populations were lower than that found in rural populations, although there was a much greater range of variation among the urban populations. Large urban populations actually have patterns of variation similar to rural populations and show evidence of multiple founders. This indicates that the high dispersibility ofEpipactisseeds can in some cases overcome the predicted loss of genetic variation associated with founder effects during colonization. Small urban populations, however, show significantly lower levels of genetic variation compared with these large urban populations and the rural populations, and it seems likely that this is attributable to single founding events and/or genetic drift.


Autosomal, non-maternal effect, sex-specific lethals of Drosophila melanogaster were examined by lactic-aceto-orcein staining and 3H-uridine incorporation autoradiography of larval salivary gland chromosomes. Two classes of lethals were revealed. One class, which affects dosage compensation, in addition to the male-specific lethals, mle, msl-1, and msl-2 reported previously by Belote and Lucchesi (1980a), now includes a male-specific lethal, mle(3)132. The other group which shows normal dosage compensation is a new group and includes a male-specific lethal, C52, and a female-specific lethal, fle(3)100. A possible action of the lethals in the latter group is discussed.


Angiolymphoid hyperplasia with eosinophilia or epithelioid haemangioma is a rare benign vascular proliferative disorder usually affecting the scalp, face and neck and rarely reported in peripheral locations. Differentiation from Kimura disease, tuberculoma and Kaposi sarcoma is of utmost importance. The literature has no consensus in the treatment due to the paucity of cases reported. The recurrence rate has varied between 5-55% with the least rates reported after surgical excision. We report in a 15-year boy, a giant sized epithelioid haemangioma occurring as left prepatellar bursa swelling and presenting with a diagnostic dilemma. He underwent excision and wide marginal clearance and no adjuvants. He had no recurrence in a follow-up period of two years. We report this case in view of its varied presentation of this pathology and also review the cases of angiolymphoid hyperplasia with eosinophilia having unusual presentations and its current management.


Reports Report of the Committee, consisting of Dr. Gladstone, F.R.S. (Secretary), Mr. William Shaen, Mr. Stephen Bourne, Miss Lydia Becker, Sir John Lubbock, Bart., M.P., F.R.S., Dr. H. W. Crosskey, Sir Henry E. Roscoe, F.R.S., Mr. James Heywood, F.R.S., and Prof. N. Story Maskelyne, M.P., F.R.S., for the Purpose of Continuing the Inquiries relating to the Teaching of Science in Elementary Schools.—Since the reappointment of your Committee at Southport no legislation affecting the teaching of science in elementary schools has taken place, and it is yet too early to estimate the whole influence of the Education Code of 1882 in that respect. Some indications, however, have been gathered from the Blue-book and from some of the large Boards. The first effect of the change of Code upon the teaching of science is shown in the return of the Education Department for this year; but as the tabulated statements only extend to August 31, 1883, tney contain merely the results of those examinations that were made of schools which came under the new Code between April 1 and August 1, 1882, or about 28 per cent. of the whole. The following conclusions may be drawn; (1) Elementary science was taken up by scarcely any schools examined during these months, the number of departments that took it up as the second class subject being only 15, while 3988 took up geography, 1644 (girls) needlework, and 114 history. It must be remembered that geography is more scientific than it was before, but needlework is rapidly displacing it in girls' schools. (2) The exclusion of the Fourth Standard from instruction in specific subjects has reduced the number of scholars so taught by 56.6 per cent.; but the remaining 43.4 per cent. that is to say, the children in Standards V., VI., and VII., do receive a larger proportion of scientific teaching. The actual number of children examined during these four months in the mathematical and scientific specific subjects is given in Column I. of the following table; Column II. gives the estimated number who would have been examined under the old Code; Column III. the number of those who would have been above Standard IV.


This study aims to describe the children gamelan media  in fostering national character values such as tolerance, responsibility, independence, adaptation, courtesy and discipline, and finalize the achievements of gross motoric development, fine motor skills, cognitive, and the early childhood art. This research method uses quasi-experiment. The variables consisted of playing children gamelan, children development, and national character values. The subjects were 16 students aged 4-6 years of Sari Asih Kindergarten, Catur Tunggal, Depok, Sleman, Yogyakarta. This research starts from learning using children gamelan media and observing children national character behavior as well as the achievements of the children development. Data collection techniques use observation sheets for national character behavior and unstructured interview guidelines. The data analysis technique uses descriptive-qualitative. The results showed that playing children gamelan can accelerate the stimulation of the values of tolerant, responsible, and children independent characters, and can finalize the achievement of gross and cognitive motor development.


The etiology and pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is complex and remains to be completely elucidated. Numerous cytokines are associated with the initiation and development of IBD. Fibrinogen‑like protein 2 (FGL2), an immunosuppressive cytokine expressed by regulatory cluster of differentiation (CD)4+ T (Treg) cells, has been identified to be important for immunomodulatory activity in the inflammatory state. Therefore, the present study investigated the expression of FGL2 and interleukin (IL)‑17 in trinitro‑benzene‑sulfonic acid (TNBS)‑induced colitis mice to identify the function of FGL2, based on the effector CD4+ T helper (Th)17/Treg balance, in IBD. Compared with control mice, TNBS‑induced mice exhibited marked alterations in clinical manifestation, including macroscopic and histopathological damage. Intestinal and peripheral expression of FGL2 was upregulated in TNBS‑induced mice, while the level of FGL2 in the spleen was decreased. Expression of IL‑17 in the plasma, colon and spleen was increased in TNBS‑induced mice. The percentage of Treg cells was markedly decreased, although Th17 cells were increased following TNBS induction. The results of the present study indicated that, in the colitis model, FGL2 was associated with the immunopathogenesis of IBD.


Gender has been regarded as an important predictor of human behaviour. It this study, an attempt was made to examine the association between gender and mobile phone communication among telecom subscribers. A total of 384 (male =192, female 192) were sampled using a combination of stratified and purposive sampling techniques. The study tested four hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The questionnaire was used as the instrument for data collection. In the analysis of data for the study, both descriptive and inferential statistics were used. The result showed that all the four tested hypotheses were accepted (p=<0.05). In particular, gender was found to have been significantly associated with mobile phone communica tion in areas like duration of mobile phone voice communication, length of text communication, purpose of mobile phone communication as well as form of mobile phone communication. The implications of these results have also been explored. Keywords: communication, gender, mobile phone, purpose, pattern, use


Studies on foreign policy consider government as the key actor in policy formulation and implementation. Research, apparently, has devoted far less attention to impact of knowledge brokers, such as think tanks, on policy-making. How and why do think tanks influence US foreign policy? An analysis of five think tanks that differ in terms of their proximity to elites, origin, and ideology reveals two types of nonstate actors' impact on foreign policy. Think tanks either advocate for own alternative policy proposals, solutions, and actions ("alternatives' facilitators"), or clarify, justify, and legitimize those of the governments ("policy legitimizers"). These two roles dictate special mechanisms and think tank impact directions. In the first type, think tanks are less oriented toward mass media, but more oriented toward coalitions with nonstate actors and influence the opinions of elites. The second type is the opposite: higher orientation toward mass media and more pronounced connections with elites, and influence on the public. Different origins and strategy of think tanks may be the reasons for some observed differences.