Introduction: Obstetrics is a high risk specialty. The cephalic presentation vaginal delivery complicated by shoulder dystocia is a medical emergency commonly encountered. This study compares shoulder dystocia resolution edu- cational and manual skills of Obstetrics and Gynecology (OB-GYN) and Family Medicine (FM) residents following com- pletion of Advanced Life Support in Obstetrics (ALSO ® ) trained vs. a group of OB-GYN and FM residents untrained in ALSO but trained in traditional means in a traditional residency to manage shoulder dystocia. Materials and Methods: Shoulder dystocia resolution skills taught in simulation using pelvic and fetal manikins were tested in Family Medicine and OB-GYN residencies who were ALSO ® trained, and they were retested for the purpose of this study 6 months after their training. The same testing, using the same checklist, was done for traditionally trained OB- GYN and Family Medicine residents (who had not been exposed to the ALSO® training) by the same instructor, using the same checklist. Results: The mean score of all (FM & OB-GYN) who had taken the course six months before testing was statistically higher than those in traditional OB-GYN and FM training who had not (p < 0.0001). Discussion/Conclusions: Performance scores of simulation-trained Family Medicine and OB-GYN residents in resolving shoulder dystocia was higher 6 months after training compared to a group of OB-GYN and Family Medicine residents from traditional residencies not trained in shoulder dystocia resolution. This may have implications for patient safety.


CIMMYT is the source of improved maize (Zea mays L.) breeding material for a signifi cant portion of the nontemperate maize growing world. Landraces which did not serve as sources for improved maize germplasm may contain untapped allelic variation useful for future breeding progress. Information regarding levels of diversity in different germplasm would help to identify sources for broadening improved breeding pools and in seeking genes and alleles that have not been tapped in modern maize breeding. The objectives of this study were to examine the diversity in maize landraces, modern open pollinated varieties (OPVs), and inbred lines adapted to nontemperate growing areas to fi nd unique sources of allelic diversity that may be used in maize improvement. Twenty-fi ve simple sequence repeat markers were used to characterize 497 individuals from 24 landraces of maize from Mexico, 672 individuals from 23 CIMMYT improved breeding populations, and 261 CIMMYT inbred lines. Number of alleles, gene diversity per locus, unique alleles per locus, and population structure all differ between germplasm groups. The unique alleles found in each germplasm group represent a great reservoir of untapped genetic resources for maize improvement, and implications for hybrid breeding are discussed.


Several hypotheses exist about the trophic mechanisms that support fish stocks at seamounts. This study investigated the diets of benthopelagic fish species on the summit plateau of Seine Seamount (NE Atlantic), testing the sound-scattering layer interception hypothesis. A combined approach of gut content, stable isotopes and fatty-acid biomarker analyses was employed. Fish species included zooplanktivores, benthivores, piscivores and species with mixed crustacean/cephalopod/fish diets. Trophic coupling between pelagic food sources and benthopelagic fish consumers was apparent based on three main lines of evidence: (i) dominance of pelagic prey in the guts of zooplanktivores, (ii) stable isotope enrichment of consumers indicative of a pelagic prey source, and (iii) high proportions of fatty acids that are typical of phytoplankton and zooplankton in the storage lipids of fishes and their similarity with fatty acid signatures of pelagic prey. Elevated levels of arachidonic acid in a benthivorous species suggested a minor dietary contribution of rhodophytes. The lack of larger taxa that undergo diel vertical migrations in the fish guts suggests that it is horizontal fluxes of non-, or weakly migrating zooplankton that are the main food supply to the resident fish consumers. Overall, there was no unambiguous support for the trophic blockage hypothesis. Differences in gut contents, trophic position and storage lipid fatty acid signatures of zooplanktivorous fishes indicate some degree of resource partitioning with respect to feeding habitats, prey selection and ontogenetic diet shifts. Irrespective of body size and feeding mode, the benthopelagic fishes occupied intermediate trophic positions between the 3rd and 4th trophic level in a food web composed mainly of omnivorous species.


This paper briefly explains the concept of whistleblowing and why it should be encouraged. It then outlines the effect of the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 and examines the recent Middlesex University research into whistleblowing procedures in local authorities. The paper establishes the prevalence of whistleblowing procedures, why they were introduced and the extent of trade union involvement. It provides examples to illustrate who can use these procedures, the types of concern that can be raised and who investigates them. Other issues discussed include: the need for confidentiality; the problems of reprisal and malicious allegations; the availability of advice and assistance and the existence of feedback. The paper also describes how information about whistleblowing procedures is disseminated, who has overall responsibility for such a procedure within organisations and the extent of monitoring and review. The paper concludes by using the research findings to make observations about good practice a...


Raising organic loading rate, and the behavior of dissolved CODcr (D-CODcr), VFA and specific methanogen activity, were investigated through a laboratory experiment for the start-up of a sludge recycling center. Moreover, application for MPN-PCR methods using a gene as a direct technique to measure the quantity of methanogen was attempted. It was recognized that specific methanogen activity depends on the quantity of methanogen, and that gas production does not reflect the condition of methane fermentation. The methane fermentation condition was checked through the specific methanogen activity and analysis of D-CODcr. The target organic loading rate was reached in the short period of about 30 days, and rapid start-up was successfully attained for a full-scale anaerobic digester.


A principal barrier to the development of effective vaccines is the availability of adjuvants and formulations that can elicit both effector and long-lived memory CD4 and CD8 T cells. Cellular immunity is the presumptive immune correlate of protection against intracellular pathogens: a group composed of bacteria, viruses and protozoans that is responsible for a staggering level of morbidity and mortality on a global scale. T-cell immunity is also correlated with clinical benefit in cancer, and the development of therapeutic strategies to harness the immune system to treat diverse malignancies is currently undergoing a renaissance. Cyclic dinucleotides (CDNs) are ubiquitous small molecule second messengers synthesized by bacteria that regulate diverse processes and are a relatively new class of adjuvants that have been shown to increase vaccine potency. CDNs activate innate immunity by directly binding the endoplasmic reticulum-resident receptor STING (stimulator of interferon genes), activating a signaling pathway that induces the expression of interferon-β (IFN-β) and also nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) dependent inflammatory cytokines. The STING signaling pathway has emerged as a central Toll-like receptor (TLR) independent mediator of host innate defense in response to sensing cytosolic nucleic acids, either through direct binding of CDNs secreted by bacteria, or, as shown recently, through binding of a structurally distinct CDN produced by a host cell receptor in response to binding cytosolic double-stranded (ds)DNA. Although this relatively new class of adjuvants has to date only been evaluated in mice, newly available CDN-STING cocrystal structures will likely intensify efforts in this field towards further development and evaluation in human trials both in preventive vaccine and immunotherapy settings.


The polar alignment layer (AL) surface provided relatively small liquid crystal (LC) pretilt angles while polyimides with long alkyl side chains gave relatively large LC pretilt angles. The results suggest that LC pretilt angles, in addition to an anchoring effect, are greatly affected by both electronic and steric interactions between LC molecules and a polyimide alignment layer surface. Rubbing with a cotton cloth induces functional groups, side chains, and repeat units at the surface of a liquid crystal polyimide AL to re-orient. It was discovered that rubbing induced polar functional groups and repeat units to re-orient out-of-the-plane of the surface, and it made non-polar aliphatic side chains partially re-orient inwards, toward the bulk of the film.


Engineers have created a chemical process that produces useful crude oil just minutes after engineers pour in harvested algae -- a verdant green paste with the consistency of pea soup. The PNNL team combined several chemical steps into one continuous process that starts with an algae slurry that contains as much as 80 to 90 percent water. Most current processes require the algae to be dried -- an expensive process that takes a lot of energy. The research has been licensed by Genifuel Corp.


Tax systems influence the decisions of private agents. Because of that their evolution and the principles that govern them determine to some extent economic development. Modern tax systems existing in the developed countries follow broadly the principles enunciated by the German economist Fritz Neumark. In this article we will analyze how the evolution of these principles can be traced back to the School of Salamanca, in the XVIth century. To do this we carried out a comparative analysis with the aim of determining what modern taxation principles were developed by theologians-jurists of the School of Salamanca. The results show that at least half of Neumark's eighteen principles were already known by the scholastics of the School of Salamanca.


During the past few years it has become increasingly evident that specific oligosaccharides in glycoproteins/glycolipids may play a central role in mammalian cell adhesion. This review deals with two of the best studied systems, the interaction of sperm cells with the Zona pellucida layer surrounding mammalian eggs, and the binding of leukocytes to endothelial cells. In the sperm cell-Zona pellucida system, it is known that a specific oligosaccharide(s) in the Zona pellucida glycoprotein 3 is responsible for binding. In the leukocyte-endothelial cell interaction, sialyl Le(x), sialyl Le(a), sulfatides, and other less well-defined sugar structures are involved in cellular binding. Oligosaccharides involved in these adhesion events may turn out to have clinically important applications.


The consecutive k -out-of-n systems are important structures in reliability engineering due to their applications in various real life situations. In this paper, we study the residual lifetime of these systems under the condition that the total number of failed components at time t1 is r , and at time t2 (t2 >; t1) the system is still working. We obtain explicit expressions for the survival function of the corresponding residual life when the components are exchangeably dependent. We also obtain a signature-based mixture representation for a coherent system satisfying a certain property.


Many modern compound-screening technologies are highly miniaturized, resulting in longer-lasting solution stocks in compound management laboratories. As the ages of some stocks stretch into years, it becomes increasingly important to ensure that the DMSO solutions remain of high quality. It can be a burden to check the quality of a large library of compound solutions continuously, and so a study was devised to link the effects of initial compound purity and physicochemical properties of the compounds with the current purity of DMSO solutions. Approximately 5000 compounds with initial purity of at least 80% were examined. Storage conditions were held or observed to be relatively constant and so were eliminated as potential predictors. This allowed the evaluation of the effects of other factors on the stability of solutions, such as initial purity, number of freeze-thaw cycles, age of the solution, and multiple calculated physicochemical parameters. Of all the factors investigated, initial purity was the only one that had a clear effect on stability. None of the other parameters investigated (physicochemical properties, number of freeze-thaw cycles, age of solutions) had a statistically significant effect on stability.


Microbial communities are complex and dynamic entities, and their structure arises from the interplay of a multitude of factors, including the interactions of microorganisms with each other and with the environment. Since each extant community has a unique eco-evolutionary history, it might appear that contingency rather than general rules govern their assembly. In spite of this, there is evidence that some general assembly principles exist, at least to a certain extent. In this work, we sought to identify those principles by performing a cross-study, cross-biome meta-analysis of microbial occurrence data in more than 5,000 samples from ten different environmental groups. We adopted a novel algorithm that allows the same taxa to aggregate with different partners in different habitats, capturing the complexity of interactions inherent to natural microbial communities. We tried to decouple function from phylogeny, the environment, and genome size, in order to provide an unbiased characterization of phylogenetic and functional redundancy in environmental microbial assemblages. We then examined the phylogenetic and functional composition of the resulting inferred communities, and searched for global patterns of assembly both at the community level and in individual metabolic pathways. Our analysis of the resulting microbial assemblages highlighted that environmental communities are more functionally redundant than expected by chance. This effect is greater for communities appearing in more than one environment, suggesting a link between functional redundancy and environmental adaptation. In spite of this, certain pathways are observed in fewer taxa than expected by chance, suggesting the presence of auxotrophy, and presumably cooperation among community members, which is supported by our analysis of amino acid biosynthesis pathways. Furthermore, this hypothetical cooperation may play a role in genome reduction, since we observed a negative relationship between the size of bacterial genomes and the number of taxa of the community they belong to. Overall, our results provide a global characterization of environmental microbial communities, and offer design principles for engineering robust bacterial communities.


Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is ongoing pandemic of the 21st century. The noninvasive assessment includes serum biomarkers, predictive models, and imaging modalities. The "Steato test," "NAFLD liver fat score," and "Fatty liver index" are models developed for noninvasive assessment of hepatic steatosis. Out of the imaging modalities, magnetic resonance imaging proton density fat fraction is the most sensitive test to detect hepatic steatosis. Out of the various serum biomarkers to detect nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), cytokeratin-18 has been the most widely investigated. Recent approach for the diagnosis of NASH has targeted research toward genetic biomarkers such as PNPLA3 and microRNAs. However, none of the presently available biomarkers or imaging modalities are able to differentiate simple hepatic steatosis from NASH with a high sensitivity and specificity. Different models have been developed to predict fibrosis which are aspartate transaminase (AST)/platelet ratio index (APRI), fibrosis-4 (Fib-4) index, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease fibrosis (NFS) score and body mass index, AST: Alanine transaminase Ratio, diabetes (BARD) score. The accuracy of BARD, APRI, FIB-4, and NFS to detect advanced liver fibrosis was found to be of 0.76, 0.77, 0.84, and 0.84, respectively, in a large meta-analysis. Transient elastography, acoustic radiation force impulse, and magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) are imaging techniques available to detect liver fibrosis. MRE has shown to have a pooled accuracy 0.96 to detect advanced fibrosis in NAFLD patients. Noninvasive tests may not completely replace liver biopsy, but it may help to avoid it where probability of fibrosis is low.


This paper studies the efficiency of transferring BERT learnings to low complexity models like BiLSTM, BiLSTM with attention and shallow CNNs using sentiment analysis on SST-2 dataset. It also compares the complexity of inference of the BERT model with these lower complexity models and underlines the importance of these techniques in enabling high performance NLP models on edge devices like mobiles, tablets and MCU development boards like Raspberry Pi etc. and enabling exciting new applications.


Low temperature scanning tunneling microscopy (LT-STM) has been applied to investigate the adsorption of acetylene (C2H2) on the rutile TiO2(110) surface at 77 K. Through in situ exposing and ex situ annealing experiments we unambiguously demonstrate that C2H2 molecules adsorb weakly on top of the Ti5c ions. Moreover, our data clearly reveal that the oxygen vacancy (Ov) cannot directly adsorb C2H2 molecules but can activate its next-nearest Ti5c ions which register as a binding site for C2H2 molecules with enhanced stability. Further increasing the C2H2 coverage leads to the stepwise formation of c-(4 × 2) and c-(2 × 2) ordered structures before final saturation at around 0.68 monolayer. The saturated film is characterized by dominating C2H2 dimers and other minority linear clusters whose intermolecular distances are slightly larger than the intervals between Ti5c ions yet significantly shorter than the C2H2 dimers in the gas phase. We propose that such clustered C2H2 may serve as potential precursors for the polymerization reactions on metal oxide surfaces.


Analyzing a deployed software provides a means to characterize and leverage the software's runtime behavior as it is employed by its intended users. Preliminary studies have shown that leveraging the information obtained from the field provides engineers an opportunity to improve their software testing activities. The analysis of a deployed software can be performed in three stages: (1) the analysis to determine, before the software is deployed, where the instrumentation probes should be inserted into the software and what information that they should capture, (2) the analysis to determine when the field data should be sent back to the company during deployment, and (3) the analysis to leverage the field information after deployment. To make the analysis activities more feasible, we need to take into consideration that there are distinct characteristic differences between the development and the deployed environment. Deployed environment allows for less overhead, provides less control for the engineers, and requires highly scalable techniques due to the high volume of information. Hence, the existing approaches for in-house analysis may become ineffective, inefficient, or even useless when they are directly applied to the deployed environment. Existing approaches for analyzing deployed software also need to be more aware that a technique in one analysis stage may affect the performance of a technique in other analysis stage. This research proposal details the challenges that arise when analyzing a deployed software and seeks to develop a set techniques to address these challenges that can be applied to each stage or across the analysis stages.


This research explored the effectiveness and practicability of LS in the Dutch educational context. Therefore, we built a theoretical model describing (1) factors influencing participation and implementation of LS, (2) participation in the LS process itself, (3) pathways of change and (4) outcomes for teachers and pupils. Our research questions were: which outcomes has participation in LS? which pathways of change lead to these outcomes? which elements in the LS process get the pathways of change going? which factors hinder or stimulate teachers' participation in LS? The research consisted of two parts: a literature review and a case study. For the literature review, we recorded 57 international studies about LS. For the case study, during two years we gathered quantitative and qualitative data from some 30 teachers of Dutch and mathematics from 12 secondary schools in two cross-school PLC's. Results of both the literature review and the case study confirm the theoretical model: the quality of teaching and learning increases via new knowledge and insights, and increased professional community. The four LS features seem to enhance these pathways of change. Important promoting factors are teacher motivation, facilitation, support by the school management and time.


Motivated by the need to relate various design parameters of Coandă Micro Air Vehicle (MAV) for its design operation and development, an integrated approach has been undertaken statement that is to develop a workable theoretical analysis that can be utilised as a baseline to design a MAV that can operate effectively in various environmental conditions. The first approach is the analytical, which capitalizes on the basic fundamental principles. The second is the utilization of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), which is based on Navier-Stokes equation for viscous fluid to simulate configurations considered in the analysis, to assess the analytical results, to serve as guideline in developing the analytical model and to provide visualization, and significant insight in identifying the pertinent, problem, to validate the results and to assess the plausibility of the analysis.In the theoretical analysis, care has been taken in identifying the geometrical parameters of the MAV physical properties of the environment and medium, and the motion of the vehicle at the atmosphere. For the motion of the MAV, basic flight dynamics treatment of the vehicle as a free body mass particle has been followed to derive the basic governing equations. The governing equations for Coandă MAV in hover and translatory motion have been developed and given the understanding of the relationships between relevant Coandă MAV parameters for design and operation purposes.The mathematical model and derived performance measures have shown the capability of the theoretical model and analysis in describing the physical phenomena of the flow fields of the semi-spherical Coandă MAV as well as of the cylindrical Coandă MAV. These models provide fundamental tools for the analysis and estimation of Coandă MAV lift generation. In summary, the two approaches have been able to offer the working relationships among various design parameters for the design and operation of Coandă MAV, which are novel and have not been formulated elsewhere as in this work. The results of the analysis are believed to be useful for conceptual or preliminary design sizing of Coandă MAV's, and can be used in the estimation of their lift and other performance measures.


Abstract Objectives  This study aimed at evaluating the risk for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and its frequency in adults with Treacher Collins syndrome (TCS). The association of OSA with excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS), respiratory symptoms, and clinical variables was also assessed. Material and Methods  The subjects were prospectively screened for OSA through the Berlin Questionnaire and type I polysomnography. The Epworth Sleepiness Scale and the Respiratory Symptoms Questionnaire were used for assessing OSA-related symptoms. Quality of life was assessed by means of the Short Form 36 Health Survey. Results  The sample comprised 20 adults with TCS (55.0% female), aged 22.6 ± 5.8 years. Mean values of systemic blood pressure (113.0 ± 12.6/68.0 ± 9.5mmHg), body mass index (22.9 ± 5.9kg/m 2 ), neck (34.1 ± 4.3cm), and waist circumference (80.4 ± 13.6cm) characterized the sample. A high risk for OSA was detected in 35% of the sample. Polysomnography results indicated an OSA frequency of 44.4%, with a median apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) value of 3.8 events/hour (minimum = 0.2; maximum = 77.5). Snoring (75.0%), nasal obstruction (70.0%) and EDS (20.0%) were the reported OSA-related symptoms. Quality of life median scores were 72.3 points (minimum = 45.0; maximum = 91.1). Strong positive correlations between AHI versus waist circumference and AHI versus systolic blood pressure were found. Moderate positive correlations between AHI versus body mass index and AHI versus neck circumference were detected. Negative correlation between AHI versus vitality were also observed. Conclusion  Adults with TCS are at high risk for OSA, which is associated with respiratory symptoms, altered anthropometric measurements, increased systolic pressure and impairment of quality of life.


Role of vitamin D deficiency in allergic and autoimmune diseases

Asthma is occurring in epidemic proportions with more than 300 million affected subjects worldwide. In almost all cases the disease has its onset in early childhood, with 80–90% of all cases initially being diagnosed before the age of 6 years.1,2

It was not always so. In the early 1970s the prevalences of asthma and allergy were roughly half of what they are today, and although the onset of the asthma epidemic started insidiously and cannot be precisely documented, it has several interesting and important features that have defied a unified explanation until now. There is clearly a North/South equatorial gradient with Western industrialised countries furthest away from the equator (New Zealand, Australia, the UK) having the highest prevalence worldwide. There is also a clear urban/rural gradient among poorer Third World countries, and a First (industrialised) World/Third World gradient with the lowest asthma prevalence occurring in rural areas in Third World societies. A very important feature of the epidemic is that it is not only asthma that has increased. A host of other autoimmune diseases—such as multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes and Crohn's disease—have all increased dramatically as well.3 So it is not just Th2 diseases like asthma, allergic rhinitis, eczema and food allergy that have increased, but also Th1 autoimmune diseases. Less directly connected to the epidemic is the seasonal gradient in incidence with a peak in the late winter/early spring. Finally, in the USA the asthma epidemic seems worse among the urban poor, particularly among minorities (African-Americans and Puerto Ricans).

One of the theories to explain these disparate epidemiological findings is the hygiene hypothesis, which posits that the decrease in early childhood infections leads to "missing immune deviation" …


Background The purpose of this descriptive study was to observe the distribution of four different classes of non-carious cervical root surface discrepancies in teeth with gingival recession. Additionally to explore the different treatment modalities in the literature for each of these defects. Material and Methods A total of 150 subjects with at least one labial gingival recession were included in the study. 1400 teeth were evaluated using 2.5 X magnification loupes and UNC -15 probe for the presence of the cemento-enamel junction and step like defects according to Pini-Prato's classification: A-, identifiable CEJ without defect; A+, identifiable CEJ with defect; B-, unidentifiable CEJ without defect, B+, unidentifiable CEJ with defect. Further a comprehensive electronic and hand search of pubmed indexed journals was performed to identify appropriate treatment modalities for these defects and their predictability following restorative/surgical or combination of both. Results A total of 1400 teeth with exposed root surfaces were examined (793 Maxillary; 607 mandibular). 499 teeth were A-, 405 were A+, 322 were B+ and 174 were B-. The distribution of these defects in different teeth was: 36% premolars, 32% molars, 21% incisors and 11% canines, collectively 68% in the aesthetic zone. Conclusions Majority of these lesions are in the maxillary aesthetic zone. Hence the presence of the CEJ and the defect must be taken into account while managing these defects surgically. Key words:Cervical abrasion, gingival recession, magnification loupes, root coverage, step defects.


Pteridine levels from supernatants of mixed lymphocyte cultures and from urinary samples of allogeneic kidney transplant recipients were measured by high-pressure liquid chromatography. Marked proliferation of alloreactive lymphocytes was paralleled by an increased release of pteridines. In human allograft recipients rejection episodes were preceded at least 1-2 days by increased urinary neopterin levels. Thus, the urinary neopterin estimation is useful in the early detection of immunological rejections.


AIM: Despite the important role of agility in successful performance in many team and racket sports, little is known about their physiological and muscular basis. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between the leg extensor strength and power and agility performance. METHODS: Male physical education students (n=76) were assessed by means of 3 typical agility performance tests (lateral stepping, 20-yard shuttle run, and slalom run). Six tests of leg extensor strength (isoinertial squat, isometric squat, and one-leg rising) and power (squat jump power, hopping power, and standing long jump distance) were also obtained. RESULTS: The correlations between strength and power, and each agility performance were generally low. As a consequence, the multiple correlation coefficients between strength and power predictors and agility, albeit significant (P<0.01), were also rather low (r=0.33, 0.44, and 0.35 for the lateral stepping, 20-yard shuttle run, and slalom run, respectively). The highest relationship with each of the agility tests was revealed by the one-leg rising test (r within -0.3 and -0.44 ; P<0.02). CONCLUSION: The results of the present study suggest that most of the multijoint leg extensor strength and power measures are poor predictors of agility in physically active men. Thus, the effects of interventions aimed towards the improvement of functional movement performance may not require evaluation by means of the common tests of muscular strength and power. A more specific approach including both the functional strength tests and functional movement performance tests could be recommended instead.


BACKGROUND
Pregnancy complications and adverse birth outcomes are among the major contributors to poor maternal and child health. Mothers in remote communities are at higher risk of adverse birth outcomes due to constraints in access to healthcare services. In Ghana, a community-based primary healthcare programme called the Ghana Essential Health Interventions Programme (GEHIP) was implemented in a rural region to help strengthen primary healthcare delivery and improve maternal and child healthcare services delivery. This study assessed the effect of this programme on adverse pregnancy outcomes.

METHODS
Baseline and end-line survey data from reproductive-aged women from the GEHIP project were used in this analysis. Difference-in-differences and logistic regressions were used to examine the impact and equity effect of GEHIP on adverse pregnancy outcomes using household wealth index and maternal educational attainment as equity measures. The analysis involves the comparison of project baseline and end-line outcomes in intervention and non-intervention districts.

RESULTS
The intervention had a significant effect in the reduction of adverse pregnancy outcomes (OR = 0.96, 95% CI:0.93-0.99). Although disadvantaged groups experience larger reductions in adverse pregnancy outcomes, controlling for covariates, there was no statistically significant equity effect of GEHIP on adverse pregnancy outcomes using either the household wealth index (OR = 0.99, 95% CI:0.85-1.16) or maternal educational attainment (OR = 0.68, 95% CI: 0.44-1.07) as equity measures.

CONCLUSION
GEHIP's community-based healthcare programme reduced adverse pregnancy outcomes but no effect on relative equity was established. Factoring in approaches for targeting disadvantaged populations in the implementation of community-based health programs is crucial to ensuring equity in health outcomes.


This article offers a framework for developing viable drinking water services and institutional development in developing countries. The framework evolved from the authors' research and field experience in transition and developing economies. Viability is related to operative technology, appropriate organizations, and adequate cost recovery within the context of water resources, human and economic resources, sociocultural conditions, and other constraints. The ability of institutions to solve the problems of coordination and production depends upon player motivation, the complexity of the environment, and the ability of the players to control the environment. Third party enforcement of agreements are essential to reduce gains from opportunism, cheating, and shirking. Empirical research finds that per capita water production costs are 4 times higher in centralized systems and lowest in decentralized systems with coordination from a central party. Three-tiered systems of governments, regulators, and service providers are recommended. Management options must be consumer driven. The worst case scenario is consumer's reliance on vending and reselling with no alternative source of supply. Policies should have a strong focus on institutional reforms in the water sector, the development of a consumer driven water sector, facilitation of appropriate private-public partnerships, sound management of existing capital assets, a system for building viability into national strategies for the water sector, and financially self-sufficient and consumer responsible water supply organizations.


The use of high-voltage electrophoresis and bioautography for the separation mixtures of antibiotics received in clinical serum samples is described. The electrophoretic characteristics of 39 antibiotics are given as is the accuracy of the method for quantitating three antibiotics. In screening 189 consecutive serum samples submitted for routine antibiotic assay, undisclosed antibiotics were revealed by the technique in 35.


Past attempts to measure the economic consequences of ozone on agriculture have been based on limited plant science information. This paper reports on an economic assessment of ozone on U.S. agriculture using recent crop response data from the National Crop Loss Assessment Network (NCLAN). The results are derived from a U.S. agricultural sector model that includes major crop and livestock production as well as domestic consumption, livestock feeding and export uses. The economic effects of four hypothetical ambient ozone levels are investigated. The analysis Indicates that the benefits to society of moderate (25%) ozone reductions are approximately $1.7 billion. A 25% Increase in ozone pollution results in costs (negative benefits) of $2.1 billion. These estimates do not reflect compliance costs of achieving the ozone changes and hence are not net benefits.


This paper describes the design of a novel synthesis filter for real-time implementation of MPEG-2 audio decoder on a single, programmable DSP chip. In the first phase of our design we propose a fast subband synthesis filter bank employing a decomposed IDCT block with reduced multiplication stages, shared by both MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 decoders. In the second phase of the design, a parameter analyzer block is adopted to take advantage of the multichannel computing structure in MPEG-2 thereby further reducing the number of MAC operations. In the final phase, we propose a low-cost decoder employing unorthodox methods of boosting performance by gracefully degrading quality of service. The overall runtime of the decoder has been reduced by 60% when compared to the modified ISO decoder employing a synthesis filter bank with fast IDCT block. Real-time performance validation have been made by re-tuning time-critical code sections for both native VLIW and DSP architectures. The final implementation successfully passes all ISO/IEC MPEG-2 audio compliance tests and achieves near-transparent audio decoding and signal reconstruction on the fly.


In this paper we discuss the principles, design options and implementation issues to support coordination and awareness services in the context of scalable CSCW sessions. We analyze essential differences between the coordination support needed by these sessions when compared with the conventional coordination activity within workflow systems. Then we propose a flexible support model, which is more adequate for group-oriented collaborative work tasks developed in the context of a more complex workgroup activity. The support is concerned with a set of adaptable mechanisms as well as system base components and services provided by an integrated, open and extensible support platform. These components implement a set of facilities for coordination and awareness control in the context of collaboration sessions.


The large gold-telluride Svetlinsk deposit (~135 t Au) is considered to be a nontraditional one in the Urals and its origin is debated. A specific feature of the deposit is the abundance of various tellurides, such as tellurides of Fe, Ni, Pb, Sb, Bi, Ag, and Au. The new data of microthermometry, Raman spectroscopy, LA-ICP-MS, and crush-leach analysis (gas and ion chromatography, ICP-MS) for fluid inclusions as well as O-isotope data for quartz were obtained for the construction of PTX parameters of ore-formation and fluid sources in the deposit. Mineralisation was formed at a wide range of temperature and pressure (200–400 °C, 1–4 kbar) and from contrasting fluids with multiple sources. At the early stages, the magmatic fluid evolved during its ascent and phase separation and the fluid derived from the host rock decarbonation and dehydration were involved in the hydrothermal system. In addition, mantle-derived fluid might be involved in the ore-forming process during gold-telluride precipitation as well as heated meteoric waters during the late stages. Early fluids were rich in H2S, S0, and CH4, while the Au-Te mineralisation was formed from N2-rich fluid.


: The problem of computational super-resolution asks to recover high-frequency features of an object from the noisy and blurred/band-limited samples of its Fourier transform, based on some a-priori information about the object class. A core theoretical question is to quantify the possible amount of bandwidth extension and the associated stability of recovering the missing frequency components, as a function of the sample perturbation level and the object prior. In this work we assume that the object has a compact space/time extent in one dimension (but otherwise can be fairly arbitrary), while the low-pass window can have a super-exponentially decaying "soft" shape (such as a Gaussian). In contrast, previously known results considered only the ideal "hard" window (a characteristic function of the band) and objects of finite energy. The super-resolution problem in this case is equivalent to a stable analytic continuation of an entire function of finite exponential type. We show that a weighted least-squares polynomial approximation with equispaced samples and a judiciously chosen number of terms allows one to have a super-resolution factor which scales logarithmically with the noise level, while the pointwise extrapolation error exhibits a Holder-type continuity with an exponent derived from weighted potential theory. The algorithm is asymptotically minimax, in the sense that there is essentially no better algorithm yielding meaningfully lower error over the same smoothness class. The results can be considered as a first step towards analyzing the much more realistic model of a sparse combination of compactly-supported "approximate spikes", which appears in applications such as synthetic aperture radar, seismic imaging and direction of arrival estimation, and for which only limited special cases are well-understood. Joint work with L.Demanet and H.Mhaskar.


Recent changes in the German energy sector forces energy companies to adopt their processes and IT-Systems. As a consequence intensive interaction is required amongst many different actors that now have to participate in intercompany business processes. One way to mitigate the issue of this additional information overload is the dedicated application of modern ICT systems. The Smart Architecture is being developed as a decentralized approach to connect the different players of the energy sector and support open and flexible communication. This paper illustrates the potential of the Smart Architecture and describes the functionality and interaction of its basic services based on a full scale use case, the web-based change of supplier.


Environmental policies and measures are controlled strictly, which make government and business locked in a non-cooperative game state. High cost and low flexibility is limited and criticized. As a new environmental policy, voluntary environmental management is adopted by from developed countries to developing countries. Clean production is one of voluntary environmental management tools. It can better solve both resource shortage and environmental pollution difficulties. Clean production technology is quasi-public goods with positive externality. Such product provided by voluntary non-profit organization is the lowest cost of institutional arrangements. As a bridge between government and enterprises, Industry associations can effectively motivate corporate environmental management of power, but also assist government implement policies to achieve a win-win performance both environmental development and government departments.


SUMMARY 1. The hyporheic zone of a permanent first-order stream was divided into a treatment and a control section using a 1 m deep sheet-metal barrier. During a 4-month pre-treatment period, water temperatures in two transects of the two sections were not different. Upon heating, the water temperature in the treatment transect increased by an average of 4.3 � C over values in the control transect. 2. Eleven bimonthly core samples were taken from a treatment and a control transect, and recovered CPOM was classified as twigs, wood, grass, roots, cedar and deciduous leaves. 3. In both transects, twigs were the most common and deciduous leaves the least common substrates. The number of leaf fragments declined significantly in the heat-treated transect. 4. Diversity and frequencies of occurrence of aquatic hyphomycetes were highest on leaves and lowest on grass and wood. On leaves, their frequency of occurrence was higher in control than in treatment samples. 5. Preliminary results with amplified and cloned 18S DNA sequences revealed many fungal taxa with high affinities to Basidiomycota, particularly to Limnoperdon incarnatum. 6. By itself, higher water temperature due to global warming is likely to lower the availability of substrates for, and therefore the occurrence of, aquatic hyphomycetes.


This article will discuss the difficulties in analysing and mapping Hinduism in Europe, and will present a suggestion for a working typology. The point of departure is Denmark as a geographically limited space. The aim of this article is to use the findings in Denmark and the suggested categories for groups to form a heuristic framework, or present some overall patterns that apply to other European countries. This is despite the special history of Denmark, which of course has to be taken into account—not least when it comes to its Hindu migration patterns, relations with the Hindu tradition among the public, and relations with religion in general (Denmark and the other Scandinavian countries are regarded as prototypically secular societies). The following categories or typologies will be presented from a polythetic point of view: (a) people or groups who understand themselves as Hindus by birth and by descent; (b) people or groups that can be understood as Hindu related; (c) people or groups that can be understood as being inspired by the Hindu religion. There is also a fourth category or better tendency, which will be called Crossover Hinduism. Crossover Hinduism can be understood as a form of dialectical network and entanglement, but also as a mutual reference point between the different groups. This representation of Hinduism will be the main focus of this article. The concept of Crossover Hinduism not only challenges concepts such as syncretism and eclecticism, but can also give an idea of how concepts flow and generate new meaning(s) that will have some kind of impact on the way the different groups can be associated with the Hindu tradition.


Introduction: Alcohol consumption is a risk factor for morbidity and mortality globally. Consumption levels in Southern Latin America are among the highest in the world. Objectives: To describe consumption patterns and adherence to guidelines in the general adult population of Southern Latin America, as well as exploration of reasons for alcohol cessation and the advising role of the health worker in this decision. Methods: In 7,520 participants from the Centro de Excelencia en Salud Cardiovascular para el America del Sur (CESCAS) cohort, consumption patterns were described and the proportion excessive drinkers (i.e. >7 units/week for women and >14 for men or binge drinking: >4 (women) or >5 (men) units at a single occasion) was calculated. Former drinkers were asked if they had quit alcohol consumption on the advice of a health worker and/or because of health reasons. Furthermore, among former drinkers, multivariable logistic regression analysis was performed to assess which participant characteristics were independently associated with the chance of quitting consumption on a health worker's advice. Results: Mean age was 54.8 years (SD = 10.8), 42% was male. Current drinking was reported by 44.6%, excessive drinking by 8.5% of the population. In former drinkers, 23% had quit alcohol consumption because of health reasons, half of them had additionally quit on the advice of a health worker. The majority of former drinkers however had other, unknown, reasons. When alcohol cessation was based on a health worker's advice, sex, country of residence, educational status and frequency of visiting a physician were independent predictors. Conclusion: In this Southern American population-based sample, most participants adhered to the alcohol consumption guidelines. The advising role of the health worker in quitting alcohol consumption was only modest and the motivation for the majority of former drinkers remains unknown. A more detailed assessment of actual advice rates and exploration of additional reasons for alcohol cessation might be valuable for alcohol policy making.


Objectives: Recent movements in urban planning propose a promotion of health condition as one of its emerging topics as growing body of evidence suggests that individual health is correlated with the built environment. The concept of healthy city was introduced in Korea and many local governments were tried to implement relevant policies. However, empirical studies were insufficient for understanding the relationship between health and the built environment. Most studies and policies were viewed and implemented from public health perspective. The purpose of this study is to estimate a value of healthy city as an activity-friendly environment. Methods: The 195-respondent survey data in Seoul Metropolitan Area was used for estimating the perception of healthy cities. Results: Survey results reported that more than 90% of respondents did walking and/or biking regularly. Moreover, they were willing to pay ₩3,695 per month for creating healthy cities. Conclusions: This study confirmed that the consideration of built environmental factor was necessary in policies of healthy city. This can offer insights into how to manage and develop the policies of healthy city to help promote individual health conditions.


ABSTRACT Lack of information about basic life history traits of endangered species hinders conservation efforts, since such data have important implications for species' long-term survival. Little is known about the reproductive biology, ecology, and behavior of the Araripe Manakin (Antilophia bokermanni), despite its highly threatened status in Brazil. In this study, we provide detailed information about the Araripe Manakin's breeding biology and discuss ecological factors that affected nest survival rates across 3 breeding seasons. Females lay 1- or 2-egg clutches and may attempt renesting if the nest fails. The open-cup nests are built in the forking branches of 14 different identified plant species. The Araripe Manakin's nesting period corresponds to the rainy season of approximately 6 months, and its annual reproductive capacity is 2 fledglings. Nesting success of the species was high (72%) compared to other Neotropical species with similar nests, but varied across seasons and sampled areas. Fewer nests were associated with periods of less rainfall, more fragmented forest areas, and areas with higher rates of human activity. The shape of the nest also seemed relevant for nest success, where external diameter of the nest appeared to play an important role. Only females provided parental care in all nesting stages and no differences were found in parental investment between nests with 1 or 2 nestlings. We believe our findings are crucial for future population viability analyses and effective conservation strategies. We argue that although these results point toward this species' critical situation, they also suggest its intrinsic resilience.


Proteins selectively upregulated in infective parasitic forms could be critical for disease pathogenesis. A mammalian prohibitin orthologue is upregulated in infective metacyclic promastigotes of Leishmania donovani, a parasite that causes visceral leishmaniasis. Leishmania donovani prohibitin shares 41% similarity with mammalian prohibitin and 95–100% within the genus. Prohibitin is concentrated at the surface of the flagellar and the aflagellar pole, the aflagellar pole being a region through which host–parasite interactions occur. Prohibitin is attached to the membrane through a GPI anchor. Overexpression of wild‐type prohibitin increases protein surface density resulting in parasites with higher infectivity. However, parasites overexpressing a mutant prohibitin with an amino acid substitution at the GPI anchor site to prevent surface expression through GPI‐link show lesser surface expression and lower infective abilities. Furthermore, the presence of anti‐prohibitin antibodies during macrophage–Leishmania interaction in vitro reduces infection. The cognate binding partner for Leishmania prohibitin on the host cell appears to be macrophage surface HSP70, siRNA mediated downregulation of which abrogates the capability of the macrophage to bind to parasites. Leishmania prohibitin is able to generate a strong humoral response in visceral leishmaniasis patients. The above observations suggest that prohibitin plays an important role in events leading to Leishmania–host interaction.


In May 1953 the first natural history television programme was broadcast from Bristol by naturalist Peter Scott and radio producer Desmond Hawkins. By 1997 the BBC's Natural History Unit has established a global reputation for wildlife films, providing a keystone of the BBC's public service broadcasting charter, playing an important strategic role in television scheduling and occupying a prominent position in a competitive world film market. The BBC's blue-chip natural history programmes regularly bring images of wildlife from all over the globe to British audiences of over 10 million. This thesis traces the changing aesthetics, ethics and economics of natural history film-making at the BBC over this period. It uses archive material, interviews and participant observation to look at how shifting relationships between broadcasting values, scientific and film-making practices are negotiated by individuals within the Unit. Engaging with vocabularies from geography, media studies and science studies, the research contextualises these popular representations of nature within a history of post-war British attitudes to nature and explores the importance of technology, animals and conceptions of the public sphere as additional actors influencing the relationships between nature and culture. This history charts the construction of the actor networks of the Natural History Unit by film-makers and broadcasters as they seek to incorporate and exclude certain practices, technologies and discourses of nature. These networks provide the resources, values and constraints which members of the Unit negotiate to seek representation within the Unit, and present challenges as the Unit seeks to preserve its institutional identity as these networks shift. The thesis tells a series of stories of natural history film-making that reflect one institution's contributions and responses to the contemporary formations of nature, science, the media and modernity.


The Federal Aviation Administration is developing the En Route Automation Modernization (ERAM) system to replace the legacy en route air traffic control automation system consisting of the Host Computer System, the Display System Replacement (DSR), and the User Request Evaluation Tool (URET). This technical note provides an analysis of major areas where new ERAM features may affect how controllers do their jobs. The authors describe test methodologies for examining these effects and corresponding metrics. The analysis examines the following categories of ERAM changes: (a) backup and redundancy capabilities; (b) Areas of Interest (AOIs) that increase flight data capabilities in ERAM; (c) differences between the legacy system and ERAM user interfaces (UIs); (d) the ERAM tracker; and (e) safety alerts. The authors also discuss two recommended test activities: a usage characteristics assessment and human-in-the-loop baseline simulations.


The effects of the centrally produced allylic neurosteroid, 3 alpha-hydroxy-4-pregnen-20-one (3 alpha HP), on the responses of male mice to the odors of estrous female mice were examined in an odor preference test. Control untreated mice displayed a significant preference for the odors of an estrous female, spending more time in a Y-maze in the vicinity of the odors of an estrous than a non-estrous female. Intracerebroventricular (i.c.v.) administrations of 3 alpha HP enhanced male preference for the odors of estrous females, causing a significant dose-related (0.01-1.0 microgram) increase in the amount of time spent in the proximity of the odors of the estrous female, while having no significant effect on the responses to the non-estrous female odors. These effects of 3 alpha HP were stereospecific, with the stereoisomer, 3 beta-hydroxy-4-pregnen-20-one (3 beta HP), having no significant effects on odor preferences. The analgesic, morphine, also had no significant effects on the responses to female odors suggesting that the enhanced preference for estrous female odors were unlikely to be directly due to any analgesic effects of 3 alpha HP. The effects of 3 alpha HP were significantly reduced by peripheral administrations of the GABAA antagonists, bicuculline and picrotoxin, but were unaffected by either the benzodiazepine antagonist, Ro 15-1788, or the opiate antagonist, naloxone. These results suggest that the neurosteroid 3 alpha HP has facilitatory effects on olfactory mediated male sexual interest or motivation that involve interactions with the GABAA receptor.


This paper presents an approach to the calibration of ecological models, using intelligent agents with learning skills and optimization techniques. Model calibration, in complex ecological simulations is tipically performed by comparing observed with predicted data and it reveals as a key phase in the modeling process. It is an interactive process, because after each simulation, the agent acquires more information about variables inter-relations and can predict the importance of parameters into variables results. Agents may be seen, in this context, as self-learning tools that simulate the learning process of the modeler about the simulated system. As in common Metaheuristics, this self-learning process, initially involves analyzing the problem and verifying its inter-relationships. The next stage is the learning process to improve this knowledge using optimization algorithms like Hill-Climbing, Simulated Annealing and Genetic Algorithms. The process ends, when convergence criteria are obtained and thus, a suitable calibration is achieved. Simple experiments have been performed to validate the approach


Estimation of the covariance between two of the variables in a set of observed variables is investigated when the factor analysis model holds. Under the assumption of multivariate normality, explicit formulae for the asymptotic sampling variances and covariances of the maximum likelihood estimators are derived. Asymptotic sampling variances of functions of the covariances are also investigated. Examples suggest that while the usual unbiased estimators can perform poorly in estimating the covariances, they may perform to the same extent as the maximum likelihood estimators in estimating functions of the covariances.


The development of androgen resistance is a major limitation to androgen deprivation treatment in prostate cancer (PCa). We have developed an in vitro model of androgen-resistance using the androgen sensitive cell line LNCaP to characterize the phenotypic and transcriptomic changes occurring as androgen resistance develops. Our aim is to understand biological network profiles of transcriptomic changes during the transition to androgen-resistance and to validate these changes between our in vitro model and previously published clinical datasets (paired samples before and after androgen-deprivation therapy of patients with advanced PCa) (1). Methods: PCa cells, LNCaP, expressing mutated AR which are androgen-dependent (2,3), are used in the development of an androgen-resistant subline. Subline cells were established by prolonged cultures in media + 10% CS-FBS to mimic the clinical course of PCa. Cell proliferation, cell motility and invasion, morphology, AR expression were examined. RNA-sequencing was performed using the parental LNCaP cells and an androgen-resistant subline (LNCaP-AI) established by chronic exposure to the androgen-deprivation. Reads from cells and clinical samples (1), pre- vs. post-treatment, were processed through the same standard pipeline and quality control. Data outputs were analysed as differential expression [DEG] (EdgeR) (4) and top scoring protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks [PINA2 (5) and BioNet (6)]. Data outputs from the cell line model and clinical samples were compared. Results: LNCaP cells initially showed poor growth after prolonged exposure to androgen-deprived conditions but later adapted and started to grow well. After 24 weeks of androgen-deprivation, LNCaP-AI9s growth was no longer responsive to addition of androgen [0.1 - 10 nM]. AR expression was not different in LNCaP and LNCaP-AI (P>0.05). LNCaP-AI cells had increased proliferation and cell invasion compared to LNCaP. We identified key genes that overlap between our cell line and clinical RNAseq (1) datasets and analyzed the overlapping PPI network that showed the same pattern of behavior in both datasets. The network revealed several potential mechanisms and gene interactions that warrant further investigation, including cooperative behaviors of other nuclear receptors, TP63 mediated signalling pathway and Aryl hydrocarbon receptor transcriptional pathway. Conclusion: Cell line model of androgen-resistance will be used for further longitudinal study of the mechanism of castrate resistant prostate cancer (CRPC). Our approach allows for better characterization of biological processes of CRPC. Knowledge of the genetic profiles during transition to androgen resistance will improve our understanding of this common clinical scenario and may lead to biomarker discovery. References: 1. Rajan P, Sudbery IM, Villasevil ME, Mui E, Fleming J, Davis M, et al. Next-generation sequencing of advanced prostate cancer treated with androgen-deprivation therapy. Eur Urol 2013;66(1):32-9. 2. Marques RB, van Weerden WM, Erkens-Schulze S, de Ridder CM, Bangma CH, Trapman J, et al. The human PC346 xenograft and cell line panel: A model system for prostate cancer progression. Eur Urol 2006;49(2):245-57. 3. Pienta KJ, Bradley D. Mechanisms underlying the development of androgen-independent prostate cancer. Clin Cancer Res 2006;12(6):1665-71. 4. Robinson MD, McCarthy DJ, Smyth GK. edgeR: a Bioconductor package for differential expression analysis of digital gene expression data. Bioinformatics 2010;26(1):139-40. 5. Cowley MJ, Pinese M, Kassahn KS, Waddell N, Pearson JV, Grimmond SM, et al. PINA v2.0: mining interactome modules. Nucleic Acids Res 2012;40(Database issue):D862-5. 6. Beisser D, Klau GW, Dandekar T, Muller T, Dittrich M. BioNet: an R-Package for the functional analysis of biological networks. Bioinformatics 2010;26(8):1129-30. Citation Format: Sujitra Detchokul, Aparna Elangovan, Melissa J. Davis, Geoff Macintyre, Edmund J. Crampin, Albert G. Frauman. Biological network analysis using an in vitro model of androgen-resistance in prostate cancer. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference on Computational and Systems Biology of Cancer; Feb 8-11 2015; San Francisco, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(22 Suppl 2):Abstract nr B1-40.


The Indian crested porcupine, Hystrix indica, is a significant ecosystem engineer that builds extensive burrows in the semi-arid regions of north-west India. Many different animals use these burrows as temporary retreats or permanent shelters. Camera-traps were used to record 22 species using porcupine burrows, including 10 mammals, 8 birds, 3 reptiles, and 1 amphibian. In addition to birds foraging inside and around the entrance, the most common and persistent visitors were mongooses, rats, squirrels, hares, jungle cats, and small Indian civets. A bat species, Hipposideros sp. was found to be permanent occupants of porcupine burrows, while Indian rock pythons and jackals exhibited seasonal use. During winter, pythons basked outside the burrows and constricted their activities to the daytime. Conversely, porcupines are nocturnal and use deeper parts of their burrows than the pythons. Temporal usage patterns and spatial segregation allows for mutualistic behaviour between pythons and porcupines. Jackals were also found to use porcupine burrows during their summer breeding season, employing aggression to evict both porcupines and pythons. The study demonstrates a functional role for porcupines, which are capable of constructing "landmark" structures in the semi-arid regions of north-west India that support a range of micro-communities.


We provide a Landau theory of the coupled charge density wave and spin density wave order parameters to investigate the possibility of coexistence or competition between the two ordering processes occurring in the two-dimensional doped antiferromagnet. We find that the two ordering processes can coexist only in a certain region of coupling parameters, and the one with lower transition temperature can only coexist together with the other one with higher transition temperature and cannot be stabilized separately. Phase diagrams in different situations are given.


We investigate the feasibility of realizing a superluminal ring laser with enhanced sensitivity by using the gain produced via double-Raman pumping in an inverted three-level system. If the laser cavity is tuned to the center between the two gain peaks produced in such a system, it is expected to experience an effective negative dispersion, which can be tuned to the condition necessary for enhancing the sensitivity of the laser frequency to a change in the cavity length. Using a model of two idealized, independent Lorentzian gains, we solve the laser equations to show the enhancement of sensitivity. We then extend our analysis to calculate the gain profile in a real lambda system. Unlike the idealized system mentioned above, where the dual gain peaks are modeled as two adjacent Lorentzians in a manner that ignores the relative coherence between the Raman pumps, we present a more accurate model where this coherence is not neglected. As such, the Hamiltonian remains time dependent after making the rotating wave transformation. Using an approximation --- valid for practical systems --- where higher order terms in the density matrix are neglected, we determine the gain experienced by a weak probe beam. Numerical techniques are needed to incorporate the resulting gain and dispersion profiles into the laser equation to determine accurately the behavior of the superluminal laser. This work will be carried out in the near future. Experimental realization of a superluminal laser based on this approach may prove to be easier than other approaches proposed previously.


The method of moments (MoM) is used to analyze the disk loaded monopole (DLM) antenna. Results were validated by comparison with mode-matching and wire-model methods as well as with measurements covering a wide range of electrical sizes. A quasistatic treatment is shown to be both rapid and accurate for the electrically small case. Equivalent circuits are obtained for predicting communication system performance. Parameters defining the fundamental limitations of electrically small antennas are extracted and shown to be accurate for system analysis and useful as design tools.


Ten inbred parents with varying resistance levels to Chilo partellus and Busseola fusca were crossed in a half diallel mating scheme to generate 45 F1 hybrids. The hybrids and five commercial checks were evaluated across four locations in Kenya under artificial and natural infestation in 2009. Genotype (G) by environment (E) interaction (G x E) was non-significant for stem borer leaf damage, number of exit holes and tunnel length, suggesting that screening for stem borer resistance at one location would be adequate. On the other hand, G x E and general combining ability (GCA) x environment interactions were highly significant for gray leaf spot and turcicum leaf blight, indicating an inbred line resistance to a disease in one location may have a different reaction to the same disease in another location. The results of combining ability analysis showed that GCA effects were significant for stem borer resistance traits (leaf damage scores, number of exit holes, and tunnel length) while the opposite was true for specific combining ability (SCA) effects. Parents 5, 2, 6, 9 and 3, were good sources of genes for higher grain yield while parents 1 and 4 were good sources of resistance genes for stem borers. Hybrid 5 x 9 was the best performing hybrid in grain yield (6.53 t/ha) across the locations, while hybrid 1 x 4 was the least performing in grain yield (3.08 t/ha). The source of stem borer resistance identified in the study may be useful for improving levels of stem borer resistance in maize breeding programs in eastern and southern Africa.


Advanced high strength galvanized steel sheet has been one of the dominant materials of modern automotive panels because of its outstanding mechanical properties and corrosion resistance. The zinc coating thickness of hot dip galvanized steel sheet is only about 10–20 μm, which is a discarded object on the macro level. However, it is obvious to damage and impact on stamping performance. Therefore, this paper takes zinc coating as the research object and builds its mechanical constitutive model based on a nano-indentation test and dimensional analysis theory. We separated the zinc coating from the galvanized steel substrate and constructed a sandwich material model by introducing a cohesive layer to connect the zinc coating and the steel substrate. We obtained the interface binding energy between the zinc coating and the steel substrate through the nano-scratch test. The accuracy of the model is verified by the finite element analysis of hemispherical parts. We used the five-layers element model with 0 thickness cohesive layer to simulate the zinc coating damage of galvanized steel sheet. The hemispherical part drawing experiment is used to verify the feasibility of the finite element analysis results. The results demonstrate that it is more accurate to consider the finite element numerical simulation of the zinc coating, introducing the cohesive element to simulate damage between the coating and the substrate. Drawing depth, stamping force, and the strain of the numerical simulation are closer to the experimental results.


Examines the development of the Spanish non‐residential property market over the last 20 years and in particular since the Boyer reform of 1985. Explores the legal framework of property interests to demonstrate that the legal prerequisites of a mature market form are now in place. Places legal change in the context of economic pressures for the creation of a modern property investment market. Considers the professional support for transacting property and the nature of the urban planning regime as factors which constrain and mould property market activity, but which may ultimately be transformed by it. Presents market data which show that the Spanish market has experienced one turn of the property cycle in its modern form. Demonstrates that it has proved highly susceptible to extremes of under‐ and over‐supply, arguably owing to the combined influence of an extremely open market and underdeveloped information provision.


The article summarises three fatalities after attacks by wild animals. The first case describes a 90-year-old woman who died as a result of pneumonia after a bear fell on her and caused multiple chest fractures. The second case deals with a 76-year-old woman who was hit in the middle face by the hoof of a camel and, thereafter, died of myocardial infarction. The third case describes a 27-year-old biologist who died from severe blunt trauma after an attack of a wild living elephant. The article gives a summary of typical injury patterns of selected wild animals and outlines potential reasons of death as a result of the injuries.


ABSTRACT Ligand-bound nuclear receptors (NR) activate transcription of the target genes. This activation is coupled with histone modifications and chromatin remodeling through the function of various coregulators. However, the nature of the dependence of a NR coregulator action on the presence of the chromatin environment at the target genes is unclear. To address this issue, we have developed a modified position effect variegation experimental model system that includes an androgen-dependent reporter transgene inserted into either a pericentric heterochromatin region or a euchromatic region of Drosophila chromosome. Human androgen receptor (AR) and its constitutively active truncation mutant (AR AF-1) were transcriptionally functional in both chromosomal regions. Predictably, the level of AR-induced transactivation was lower in the pericentric heterochromatin. In genetic screening for AR AF-1 coregulators, Drosophila CREB binding protein (dCBP) was found to corepress AR transactivation at the pericentric region whereas it led to coactivation in the euchromatic area. Mutations of Sir2 acetylation sites or deletion of the CBP acetyltransferase domain abrogated dCBP corepressive action for AR at heterochromatic areas in vivo. Such a CBP corepressor function for AR was observed in the transcriptionally silent promoter of an AR target gene in cultured mammalian cells. Thus, our findings suggest that the action of NR coregulators may depend on the state of chromatin at the target loci.


The aim of this study is to explore the existence of different patterns of manufacturing strategies and the relationship between these patterns and firm performance in the Turkish automotive industry. Apart from the scarce taxonomic studies in the operations strategy literature, this research focuses on a single industry and examines the relationship between the firm ownership and strategic types. Three different strategic types (differentiators, intermediators and low emphasizers) are identified based on taxonomy of 31 international and leading automotive firms operating in Turkey. The three types do not differ from each other in terms of ownership, but they do differ significantly in terms of growth performance. Furthermore, it is observed that the findings partially support the sand cone model and the underlying dimensions that described West European manufacturers.


The years 159 to 192 C.E., from the palace coup overthrowing Liang Ji to the assassination of Dong Zhuo, form a distinct epoch marked by sociopolitical calamities that presage the end of the Han era. Literary works by Cai Yong (132/133-192) and some of his contemporaries, Zhao Yi (ca. 130-ca. 185), Zhu Mu (100-163), and Zhang Chao, invest the tragic course of the times with a significance derived from a perception that these events signal a great change; some kind of "ending" is inevitable and imminent. In The Sense of an Ending, Frank Kermode describes kairos as "a significant season . . . , charged with a meaning derived from its relation to the end." This is a useful way to describe the epoch of late second-century China. In this context we can call a literature that reveals its writers' beliefs about the future—their own fate or that of their society—by reflecting on and extrapolating from their memories of past events and perceptions of present circumstances, "kairotic literature." The epoch of 159-192 witnessed the emergence of a kairotic literature. Each of the chapters in this study focuses on a different issue associated with the late Han fin de siecle—the sociopolitical and literary background of this period, the political crisis at court, the end of the "Confucian" orthodoxy, emerging individual sensibilities and cultural "decadence," and filial piety and death. The literary works treated herein are all united by the act of creating a concord between past (shared cultural and historical memory), present (social and political crises), and future (the increasingly apparent end of the era). This study also concludes that in this period there was a shift in the center of clerisy-written literature from the court to "public" exchange, i.e., circulation of works among members of the clerisy class. Thirteen appendices accompany this study, consisting of detailed annotated translations of the works discussed in the text.


Various issues pertinent to producing high volumes of a high-end BiCMOS technology in a 200-mm manufacturing line are described. The technology consists of a baseline 0.8- mu m CMOS process with four levels of metal and 0.45- mu m L/sub eff/ FETs, to which has been added a boron-implanted precision resistor, a 14-GHz vertical NPN with As-doped polysilicon, and an antimony-doped subcollector. Chips fabricated in the technology include a 3.5-ns 576 K BiCMOS SRAM and a 200 K BiCMOS gate array with a 180-ps gate delay. Yield detractors unique to the integration of the BiCMOS elements are discussed and solutions presented. In particular, collector-emitter shorts, a spurious polysilicon filament, management of the critical emitter window image, and modulation of the titanium silicide/silicon interfacial resistance are considered.<<ETX>>


The ballistic free-fall absolute gravimeters are widely used in acquiring information of gravity field and the self-vibration of the absolute gravimeter is crucial for high precision gravitational measurement. The self-vibration of the T-1 absolute gravimeter has a multi-directional full-band excitation. The resulted horizontal swing has the major impact, since the T-1 absolute gravimeter is simplified as a cantilever beam. A laser vibrometer was applied to directly measure the mechanical self-vibration. The frequency of self-vibration has a nonlinear effect on the measurement error of g, and the peak frequencies should be avoided. The vibration signal was analyzed in time and frequency domain by continuous wavelet transform (CWT). The close frequency profiles were measured in the scalogram and the beat vibrations were observed in time domain as the results of the horizontal swing. The 38 Hz self-vibration had the dominating effect on the measurement error of g for T-1 absolute gravimeter. After optimizing the structure of the tripod, the dominating frequency increased from 38 Hz to 42 Hz. A 11% increase of the vibration frequency can reduce the measurement error of g.


ABSTRACT Virtual reality (VR) technology can increase prosocial behaviour toward a target person or group by enhancing their empathic response for the subject, but such technology has not always improved learning outcomes. This interdisciplinary study compared the potential advantages of delivering the same learning material about daily life in an ancient Greek household via two modes of delivery: VR technology and classroom lecture. The VR group explored a Greek villa containing historical artefacts and virtual characters with whom they were able to interact through set dialogues. The dialogues illustrated social hierarchies, gender relations, the situation of slaves, cult practice, and religious beliefs. The classroom group received the same information in a classroom environment. Both randomly-assigned groups answered a multiple-choice quiz to evaluate the knowledge gained. They also responded to open-text questions designed to test the degree of empathy that was aroused. We found that classroom lecture delivery was significantly superior in terms of the acquisition of factual knowledge, consistent with cognitive learning theory. We identified this as learning with the mind. The immersive VR environment, however, imparted a level of empathic response to the lived experiences of people in ancient Greece; in that sense it allowed learning with the heart.


Background: A review of the literature indicates that the extant research generally focused on identifying which of the two main capital structure theories, the trade-off theory (TOT) or the pecking order theory (POT), performs best, with only few papers aiming to reconcile the two.

Purpose: This study seeks to assess the impact of size and profitability on capital structure, and to analyse the moderating role of size on the profitability–leverage relationship, in order to provide a means for reconciling POT and TOT.

Methodology: The impact of size and profitability on leverage was gauged through OLS regressions, on a sample of 10.688 firm-year observations from France, Germany and the United Kingdom during 2006–2013. The moderating role of size was analysed graphically, the coefficients being computed via the Johnson–Neyman technique.

Findings: In small and medium German and British firms profitability follows the predictions of TOT and has a positive effect on the debt level. Conversely, the effect of profitability in large firms is significant only in the British sample, and is negative, as predicted by POT. In French companies profitability negatively impacts leverage, which is consistent with POT. The effect, however, is significant only in the year 2006 and in the full period subsample, and only in medium and large companies. As regards firm size, the variable positively affects leverage across the studied years and countries, which is consistent with TOT.

Implications: The main implications of the findings are twofold. First, POT and TOT can and should be reconciled, rather than be viewed as competing capital structure models. Second, a new capital structure model should be developed, which would encompass existing theories and take into account firm size and country
differences.


A high rate of Borna disease virus (BDV) infection has been demonstrated in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). Herein, we focused on BDV infection in two family clusters of patients with CFS: a father, mother, two sons and one daughter (family #1); and a father, mother, two daughters and one son (family #2). All members, except for the elder son in family #1 and the father and son in family #2, were diagnosed with CFS. The results supported that all the family members with CFS were infected with BDV, as evidenced by the presence of antibodies to viral p40, p24 and/or gp18 and BDV p24 RNA in peripheral blood mononuclear cells. The healthy members, except for the father of family #2 who was positive for antibody to p24, were all negative by both assays. Follow‐up studies in family #1 continued to reveal BDV antibodies and BDV RNA, except in the mother, who lost the RNA upon slight recovery from the disease.


Abstract The Mesozoic and Cenozoic history of the Porcupine Basin may be broadly summarized as a Jurassic synrift phase, followed by Cretaceous and Cenozoic post-rift subsidence. Two periods, Early Cretaceous and Early Eocene times, do not fit the simple pattern of post-rift subsidence and are characterized by increased sedimentation. We recognize distinctive sedimentological responses to the basin flanks being either exposed or submerged, and infer that transient regional uplift caused the Early Eocene event. Modelling subsidence histories of wells and of the Porcupine Bank allows quantification of the magnitude and timing of anomalous uplift and subsidence. Transient uplift of 300–600 m occurred at the Paleocene-Eocene boundary, followed by subsidence of 500–800 m after Early Eocene time, over a period with a minimum length of 25 Ma and a maximum of 55 Ma. Renewed rifting is unlikely to be responsible for the Paleogene subsidence because it cannot account for the preceding uplift, and significant normal faults of Paleogene age are absent. A Paleogene uplift-subsidence cycle has also been noted in the basins surrounding Scotland and along Hatton continental margin. One way to explain regional subsidence between Eocene time and the present is that the European plate moved off the topographic swell above the Iceland plume following continental separation between Greenland and Europe in Early Eocene time. Another possibility is that an anomalously hot layer c. 50 km thick was emplaced beneath the entire region just before the onset of sea-floor spreading in Early Eocene time and was then dissipated by convection following continental separation. A Cretaceous transient uplift-subsidence cycle that shares many similarities with the Paleogene cycle is also recognized. Immediately following Late Jurassic rifting, 200–700 m transient uplift occurred in Early Cretaceous time, followed by 0–500 m subsidence coeval with the onset of sea-floor spreading at the Goban Spur margin. The Cretaceous uplift-subsidence cycle might also be caused by anomalously hot mantle.


Objective: To validate Friedewald's formula for determing LDL cholesterol levels in cattle, species with HDL metabolic pattern. Materials and Methods: One hundred (100) blood samples from different age, race and gender cattle were taken. After removing the serum, the LDL cholesterol levels were determined using the direct method and later the same values were determined using Friedewald's formula. Results were statistically analyzed using one-way ANOVA. Results: The direct method reported values (mg/dl) of average, minimum range, maximum range, and standard deviation of 40.769, 2.438, 126.751, 29.814, respectively, and Friedewald method results showed minimum, maximum and standard deviation averages of 34.659, 1.349, 145.31, 29.108, respectively. The value of P in the F test Direct in the comparison of the direct method and Friedewald's method was greater than or equal to 0.05 (0.154), reason why no significant difference was evident at a level of confidence of 95% between the values obtained through the two methods. Conclusion: Friedewald's formula can be used for determining LDL cholesterol in species with HDL pattern.


We report a case of a 27-year-old woman who presented to our endocrinology clinic with two episodes of severe and symptomatic hypercalcemia associated with thyrotoxicosis in Graves' disease. The degree of hypercalcemia (3.34 mmol/L) is the most significant we have seen documented in the literature. On both occasions, we found that it was responsive to fluids and antithyroid medication. Unusually, we also noted that her severe hypercalcemia was associated with an unsuppressed parathyroid hormone level in the absence of demonstrable parathyroid disease. We conclude that thyrotoxicosis can be associated with a severe and symptomatic hypercalcemia and unsuppressed parathyroid hormone. Our case would suggest that it is important to screen for thyrotoxicosis in a new presentation of hypercalcemia, and that a diagnosis of primary hyperparathyroidism should not be made in the context of thyrotoxicosis. J Endocrinol Metab. 2013;3(6):147-149 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4021/jem194w


Chan Buddhism had become a reinvented popular Buddhist school of the Song dynasty, and it had also integrated with the indigenous culture of Song China. It had become an inseparable part of the indigenous Song culture of China and had exerted direct or indirect influence upon Chinese culture and even the mentality of most of the Chinese population.Thus, this paper taken Chan Buddhism in Song dynasty literati's culture as its objects of research; in the paper, the research will be approached by focusing on four aspects: 1) the tea ceremony (chadao), 2) Chan poetry, 3) Chan painting, and 4) the art of calligraphy (shufa yishu).


Powder metallurgy processes such as cold and hot isostatic pressing and powder-bed fusion additive manufacturing are being extensively used to produce metallic and ceramic parts due to several significant benefits these techniques provide, including reduction in wasted material, more precise handling of complicated shapes and requirement of fewer steps to achieve the final geometry and tolerance. Often the quality of the products obtained through these processes is greatly affected by the homogeneity of the feedstock powders used. But the presence of particles of different shapes and sizes in the powders may lead to inhomogeneous distribution which give rise to segregation of particles. In this study, discrete element method was used to investigate the degrees of segregation of a binary mixture in a cylindrical die with sharp stepped features. To study the effect of the composition of the binary mixture, three different mass ratios are considered in the study. In addition, vibrations are applied to the cylindrical die to increase the compaction of the particles in the stepped regions of the die. The effects of vibration amplitude and vibration frequency on the size segregation of the particles in the die are studied. At higher amplitude location dependent segregation patterns were observed.


Sharp comparison theorems are derived for all eigenvalues of the (weighted) Laplacian, for various classes of weighted-manifolds (i.e. Riemannian manifolds endowed with a smooth positive density). Examples include Euclidean space endowed with strongly log-concave and log-convex densities, extensions to $p$-exponential measures, unit-balls of $\ell_p^n$, one-dimensional spaces and Riemannian submersions. Our main tool is a general Contraction Principle for "eigenvalues" on arbitrary metric-measure spaces. Motivated by Caffarelli's Contraction Theorem, we put forth several conjectures pertaining to the existence of contractions from the canonical sphere (and Gaussian space) to weighted-manifolds of appropriate topological type having (generalized) Ricci curvature positively bounded below; these conjectures are consistent with all known isoperimetric, heat-kernel and Sobolev-type properties, and would imply sharp conjectural spectral estimates on such spaces. While we do not resolve these conjectures for the individual eigenvalues, we verify their Weyl asymptotic distribution in the compact and non-compact settings, obtain non-asymptotic estimates using the Cwikel--Lieb--Rozenblum inequality, and estimate the trace of the associated heat-kernel assuming that the associated heat semi-group is hypercontractive. As a side note, an interesting trichotomy for the heat-kernel is obtained.


A survey of radiologists and nuclear physicians in 360 hospitals in the UK was undertaken to assess the current use of pulmonary ventilation agents. Replies were received from 340 (94%) hospitals. Of these, 200 (59%) provided lung scanning. The agents used for ventilation studies were Tc-labelled aerosols (118, 59%), 81Krm (58, 29%), 133Xe (42, 21%) and 127Xe (4, 2%). Nine (4.5%) hospitals performed perfusion scintigraphy without providing ventilation imaging. Thirty-two (16%) hospitals used more than one agent for ventilation imaging.


As a young student in Paris, O'Connell was first enamored of the intriguing artistic imagery of Augustine's works. The imagery continued to impress him as his scholarship continued. Now, after many years of research and regarding study on the topic, a thorough treatment of Augustine's "image clusters" is revealed in this volume, Soundings in St. Augustine's Imagination. That St. Augustine's writings are empowered by use of poetic imagery is of interest to readers of philosophy, theology, as well as language. In this work, Augustine's imagery is used as a basis to shed light on some of his thought which had previously puzzled the scholarly world. Soundings in St. Augustine's Imagination is an imperative addition to any philosophical library and a rich reward for all intrigued by his dramatic use of language and metaphor.


Despite global urbanization, not all cities have increasing populations. While not homogenous, shrinking cities arguably have different opportunities and challenges for green space than growing cities. This article reports a structured content analysis to investigate how urban green space planning evolved in two case study cities: Buffalo (New York, US) and Porto (Portugal). These cities both underwent shrinkage and suburbanization but with very different green space planning histories. The concept of green infrastructure is used as a lens to analyze green space planning change, specifically focused on multifunctionality. The aim of investigating how objectives and priorities for planning green spaces change during a period of urban shrinkage, and particularly what functions these cities have assigned to green space, showed that, over time, green spaces were expected to produce more ecological functions in both cities, and, particularly in Buffalo, contribute to the economic and demographic outcomes of the city. Overall trends in green space planning appear to have played a role but we find shrinking cities may leverage green space to meet unique needs. These findings contribute to the literature by addressing how shrinkage affects not only vacant areas but also overall green space planning, as well as suggesting that general green space planning studies should consider demographic change as a relevant context factor.


Normal self-renewal of follicle stem cells (FSCs) in the Drosophila ovary requires Hedgehog (Hh) signaling. Excess Hh signaling, induced by loss of patched (ptc), causes cell-autonomous duplication of FSCs. We have used a genetic screen to identify Mastermind (Mam), the Notch pathway transcriptional co-activator, as a rare dose-dependent modifier of aberrant FSC expansion induced by excess Hh. Complete loss of Mam activity severely compromises the persistence of both normal and ptc mutant FSCs, but does not affect the maintenance of ovarian germline stem cells. Thus, Mam, like Hh, is a crucial stem cell factor that acts selectively on FSCs in the ovary. Surprisingly, other Notch pathway components, including Notch itself, are not similarly required for FSC maintenance. Furthermore, excess Notch pathway activity alone accelerates FSC loss and cannot ameliorate the more severe defects of mam mutant FSCs. This suggests an unconventional role for Mam in FSCs that is independent of Notch signaling. Loss of Mam reduces the expression of a Hh pathway reporter in FSCs but not in wing discs, suggesting that Mam might enhance Hh signaling specifically in stem cells of the Drosophila ovary.


Suppose there are one or a few point sources out there at infinity and our jib is to extract information about their location (θx and θy) relative to the sensor normal and their signal intensity I at the sensor. For each point, we need at least three measurements that embody those parameters and seek to compute the data we need. Imaging, the traditional way of doing this uses the presumption that θx and θy are converted to spatial coordinates in the image plane with a known (possibly θx and θy variant formula), so θx and θy are easily found. It farther assumes that the intensity at the point in the imaging plane is proportional to the intensity of the source. Here we examine the possibility of nonimaging systems for obtaining those data and argue that the nonimaging approach should be preferred in some cases.


Motion information is extracted by identifying the temporal signature associated with the textured objects in the scene. In this paper, we present a new computational framework for motion perception. Our methodology considers spatiotemporal frequency (STF) domain analysis to extract the optical flow information. First, we show that a sequence of image frames can be used to extract the motion parameters for the different regions in a dynamic scene using the basic Fourier transform properties in the STF analysis approach. When the observer (or the camera) moves, motion is induced in the scene, and the extracted motion information can then be used to estimate the depth parameters. A detailed analytical description of this model to interchangably extract motion and depth parameters and results to highlight their salient properties are presented.<<ETX>>


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Background Optimal monitoring of disease course and individual fluctuation in patients with rheumatic diseases requires both frequent and real-time assessment of relevant outcomes. Traditionally, patient-reported outcomes (PROs) have been collected using questionnaires completed with pen and paper (P&P). However, as a measurement tool in more frequent data collection, the P&P method is impractical and P&P registrations are not always filled in at the intended time (1). In contrast, data collected with text messages (SMS) on mobile telephones are time stamped and thus real-time assessments. This precludes retrospective reporting of data with regard to real time. Mobile phone ownership is rapidly increasing worldwide, making it a well-suited tool for frequent data collection and real-time assessments of PROs. Objectives To compare daily registrations of PROs assessed with SMS messages and P&P forms with regard to scores, variation of scores and feasibility of methods. Methods Pain, fatigue, stiffness and ability to carry out daily activities were assessed daily on a numeric rating scale (NRS, 0 to 10, 0 = best). Every other day the scales were reported on SMS and every other day on P&P forms for a total of 28 consecutive days. When receiving the SMS message, the patients scored each of the four variables and separated the scores with a period. A correct SMS response could for instance be: "184.108.40.206". Data from the SMS responses were electronically transferred to a secure data server. Completed P&P forms were mailed using postage prepaid envelopes, and data from the forms were entered manually into the statistical software package. Variations, expressed as the pooled standard deviation or as the average range between the maximum and minimum scores for the two formats were compared with paired sample t-tests or Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test. Results Twenty-one patients with various rheumatic diseases, mean (SD) age 49.7 (12.2) years, 70 % female and 90 % with disease duration > 6 years, were included. The mean scores of the four variables did not differ significantly between the SMS and the P&P formats, and the variations were comparable (p>0.05)(table). Agreements between the two formats, illustrated by Bland-Altman plots for all four variables, were acceptable. Overall, the SMS data sets were more complete than the P&P data sets with 10.4% versus 28.6% missing. When asked for preference of format, 85 % preferred the SMS format while 15 % were indifferent to type of format. None of the patients preferred the P&P format. Conclusions Collection of PROs provides more complete data sets on mobile phones than on paper questionnaires. The two formats are comparable with regard to scores and variation of scores. Our results encourage the use of text messages in frequent data collection aiming at real-time assessments. References Lane SJ, Heddle NM, Arnold E, Walker I. A review of randomized controlled trials comparing then effectiveness of hand held computers with paper methods of data collection. BMC Med Inform Decis Mak. 2006;6:23 Disclosure of Interest None Declared


Certain groups of HLA gene alleles play an important role in emergence of acquired aplastic anemia (AAA). We studied HLA antigens in Slavic children with AAA of different clinical forms, severity, and response to immunosuppressive therapy (IST). The study was carried out in 147 children with AAA. The reference group was formed from 1700 specimens of umbilical blood from healthy newborns. HLA genotyping showed that DRB1*15 and B*51 were common markers of liability to idiopathic aplastic anemia for boys from the age of 14 years and girls aged under 14 years; characteristic markers were dQB1*06 for girls aged under 14 years and B*08, B*40, DRB1*03 for boys aged under 14 years. A common marker of liability to extremely severe AAA in boys and to severe AAA, including the disease sensitive to combined 1ST, was HLa-DRB1*15; characteristic markers of liability to extremely severe AAA in boys were B*08, B*14, and DRB1*03. These results suggested a novel view on the available models of AAA pathogenesis.