Background As of 2016, almost 16 million individuals were cancer survivors, including over 3.5 million survivors of breast cancer. Because cancer survivors are living longer and have unique health care needs, the Institute of Medicine proposed a survivor care plan as a way to alleviate the many medical, emotional, and care coordination problems of survivors. Objective This pilot study for breast cancer survivors was undertaken to: (1) examine self-reported changes in knowledge, confidence, and activation from before receipt to after receipt of a survivor care plan; and (2) describe survivor preferences for, and satisfaction with, a technology-based survivor care plan. Methods A single group pretest-posttest design was used to study breast cancer survivors in an academic cancer center and a community cancer center during their medical visit after they completed chemotherapy. The intervention was a technology-based survivor care plan. Measures were taken before, immediately after, and 1 month after receipt of the survivor care plan. Results A total of 38 breast cancer survivors agreed to participate in the study. Compared to baseline levels before receipt of the survivor care plan, participants reported increased knowledge both immediately after its receipt at the academic center (P<.001) and the community center (P<.001) as well as one month later at the academic center (P=.002) and the community center (P<.001). Participants also reported increased confidence immediately following receipt of the survivor care plan at the academic center (P=.63) and the community center (P=.003) and one month later at both the academic center (P=.63) and the community center (P<.001). Activation was increased from baseline to post-survivor care plan at both the academic center (P=.05) and community center (P<.001) as well as from baseline to 1-month follow-up at the academic center (P=.56) and the community center (P<.001). Overall, community center participants had lower knowledge, confidence, and activation at baseline compared with academic center participants. Overall, 22/38 (58%) participants chose the fully functional electronic survivor care plan. However, 12/23 (52%) in the community center group chose the paper version compared to 4/15 (27%) in the academic center group. Satisfaction with the format (38/38 participants) and the content (37/38 participants) of the survivor care plan was high for both groups. Conclusions This study provides evidence that knowledge, confidence, and activation of survivors were associated with implementation of the survivor care plan. This research agrees with previous research showing that cancer survivors found the technology-based survivor care plan to be acceptable. More research is needed to determine the optimal approach to survivor care planning to ensure that all cancer survivors can benefit from it.


This article contributes to the debate on the social and economic impacts generated by tourism activities using a methodology that is still insufficiently explored in the field of tourism and the impacts that this causes: social return on investment (SROI). Using the analysis of a case as a guiding thread, this article shows how the application of this methodology allows one to know in depth the social value that an emblematic palace (one of the main tourist attractions of a city in the south of Spain that was designated as a United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization [UNESCO] World Heritage Site) brings, the changes experienced by the interest groups that interact with it, and the theory of change that promotes the very existence of the palace. Its results and conclusions can also inform policies and strategies of these other actors related to the intervention.


Background: Numerous studies have documented the in vitro differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) into kidney cells. Fewer studies have followed the fates of such kidney precursor cells (KPCs) inside animals, a more life-like setting. Here, we tested the hypothesis that implanting hPSC-derived KPCs into an in vivo milieu surgically engineered to be highly vascular would enhance their maturation into kidney tissues. Methods: 3D printed chambers containing KPCs were implanted into the thighs of adult immunodeficient mice. In some chambers, an arterial and venous flow-through (AVFT) was surgically fashioned. After 3 weeks and 3 months, implants were studied by histology, using qualitative and quantitative methods. Results: After 3 weeks, chambers containing AVFTs were richer in small vessels than contralateral chambers without AVFTs. Glomeruli with capillary loops and diverse types of tubules were detected in all chambers. At 3 months, chambers contained only rudimentary tubules and glomeruli that appeared avascular. In chambers with AVFTs, prominent areas of muscle-like cells were also detected near tubules and the abnormal tissues immunostained for transforming growth factor β1. These features have similarities to renal dysplasia, a typical histological signature of human congenital kidney malformations. Conclusions: This study urges a note of caution regarding the in vivo fates of hPSC-derived kidney precursors, with pathological differentiation appearing to follow a period of increased vascularity.


Accurate tracking is still a challenging task due to appearance variations, pose and view changes, and geometric deformations of target in videos. Recent anchor-free trackers provide an efficient regression mechanism but fail to produce precise bounding box estimation. To address these issues, this paper repurposes a Transformer-alike regression branch, termed as Target Transformed Regression (TREG), for accurate anchor-free tracking. The core to our TREG is to model pair-wise relation between elements in target template and search region, and use the resulted target enhanced visual representation for accurate bounding box regression. This target contextualized representation is able to enhance the target relevant information to help precisely locate the box boundaries, and deal with the object deformation to some extent due to its local and dense matching mechanism. In addition, we devise a simple online template update mechanism to select reliable templates, increasing the robustness for appearance variations and geometric deformations of target in time. Experimental results on visual tracking benchmarks including VOT2018, VOT2019, OTB100, GOT10k, NFS, UAV123, LaSOT and TrackingNet demonstrate that TREG obtains the state-of-the-art performance, achieving a success rate of 0.640 on LaSOT, while running at around 30 FPS. The code and models will be made available at https://github.com/MCG-NJU/TREG.


Objective: To compare the clinical efficacy of methotrexate and tolerance to the drug in patients with rheumatoid arthritis who were switched from intramuscular to oral administration because of a shortage of the intramuscular preparation. Methods: 143 patients were switched from intramuscular to oral methotrexate. Of these, 47 were switched back to the intramuscular form. A multiple choice questionnaire was sent by mail to evaluate clinical and biological criteria of efficacy and tolerance. Results: When methotrexate was first switched from intramuscular to oral administration, increased disease activity, exacerbation of morning pain and hand stiffness, duration of morning stiffness, increased joint pain, and increased joint swelling were observed. There was a greater frequency of gastrointestinal symptoms, but without a significant increase in liver abnormalities. When intramuscular methotrexate became available again, 47 of the 143 patients were switched back and were followed for at least three months. On average, disease manifestations were improved and side effects reduced by the switch. Conclusions: Methotrexate given intramuscularly had improved clinical efficacy with fewer side effects than given orally. Intramuscular methotrexate administration should be considered when rheumatoid arthritis remains active in spite of high dose oral methotrexate.


We use L1 regularized transductive regression to learn mappings between source and target features of the training sets derived for each test sentence and use these mappings to rerank translation outputs. We compare the effectiveness of L1 regularization techniques for regression to learn mappings between features given in a sparse feature matrix. The results show the effectiveness of using L1 regularization versus L2 used in ridge regression. We show that regression mapping is effective in reranking translation outputs and in selecting the best system combinations with encouraging results on different language pairs.


OBJECTIVE
This systematic review looked at different clinical trials that explored the beneficial effect of a ketogenic diet on insulin sensitivity in Type 2 Diabetics, both with and without exercise. It was hypothesized that a ketogenic diet is effective in improving insulin sensitivity in individuals with Type 2 Diabetes, with the greatest effect resulting from a ketogenic diet paired with exercise.

METHODS
The databases used when searching were the Directory of Open Access Journals and PubMed for randomized control trials, non-randomized control trials, and prospective longitudinal studies. Results were summarized in an evidence table found in the Appendix. Studies were not limited by study type, age of study participants, gender, ethnicity, language, journal in which the studies were published, or geographic location. One study utilized mouse models. Statistical analysis was not performed.

RESULTS
Twelve trials were studied. Three trials studied the role of exercise and a ketogenic diet in the treatment of Type 2 Diabetes. Five trials studied a ketogenic diet compared to another diet in the treatment of Type 2 Diabetes. Two trials studied a ketogenic diet alone in the treatment of Type 2 Diabetes. One trial studied a ketogenic diet in those with pre-diabetes. One trial studied a ketogenic diet in those with pre-diabetes and those diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. Every trial utilizing a ketogenic diet showed marked improvement in glycemic control among participants in support of the hypothesis. One study noted that while a ketogenic diet greatly improved glycemic control, it created problems with lipid metabolism and the liver. When pairing a ketogenic diet with exercise, hepatic steatosis was avoided. Eleven studies used adult participants, one used mouse models. One study was a prospective longitudinal study, nine randomized control trials, one nonrandomized control trial, and one observational cohort study.

CONCLUSIONS
The studies provide encouraging results. A ketogenic diet consistently demonstrates improved glycemic control in Type 2 Diabetics, and in those at risk of Type 2 Diabetes. However, the studies are limited in their lack of exploration of the effects of a long-term ketogenic diet on the liver, with only one study including this data. Randomized trials looking at the effect of a ketogenic diet on the liver are needed. In addition, there were very few studies found when researching that paired a ketogenic diet with exercise to study both the effect on glycemic control, as well as avoiding potential hepatic steatosis.


The Central basin of Lake Baikal is intersected by the North-East – South-West-oriented
escarpment named the «Gydratny Fault zone». This laterally extensive structure runs subparallel to the North-Western shore of the lake. The Gydratny Fault zone has been investigated using geophysical techniques during 6 years of research in the framework of international expeditions of the Class@Baikal project. The acquired seismic data provided details of the structure of the upper part of the sedimentary section revealing a system of previously unknown faults. A new tectonic scheme of the South-Western deep-water part of the Central basin is presented. The Gydratny fault is accompanied by a system of numerous synthetic and antithetic normal faults that form a wide and extended faulted zone. These structures are unevenly distributed, and include modern and active faults as well as features buried under undeformed sedimentary units with different thickness. This parameter is used to constrain the patterns observed in several zones of the study area. The difference in the characteristics of faults and their manifestations on seismic data can be explained by complex and uneven distribution of active tectonic and sedimentary processes.


The main aim of this thesis is to provide information to more thoroughly describe kava's health effects and to assist policy makers to gauge the health, social and economic effects of regulatory efforts. No epidemiological study has investigated kava's health effects in Arnhem Land since 1987. In response to continued kava use, regulators have implemented controls on kava supply and distribution in the Northern Territory. However, few data are available to provide precise regulatory guidelines.


Chiggers are the tiny six-legged larval stage of mites in the family Trombiculidae. These mites, particularly the genus Leptotrombidium, act as important vectors of Orientia tsutsugamushi, the causative agent of scrub typhus disease in the Asia-Pacific region (including Thailand). Although the medical impact of these mites has been recognized in the country due to the increasing incidence of the disease in humans, knowledge of the ecology and epidemiological role of these mites is still very limited to date. A systematic review of mite-associated bacteria was conducted from 193 publications (1964 - January 2015) providing a reference database of bacteria found in mites of agricultural, veterinary and medical importance. Approximately 150 bacterial species were reported from 143 mite species with Cardinium, Wolbachia and Orientia as the dominant genera. Nationwide field sampling of small mammals from 13 locations in Thailand revealed a high diversity of chigger mites. From approximately 16,000 mites isolated from 18 host species examined (1,574 individual animals), 38 chigger species were found including three species new to science (i.e., Trombiculindus kosapani n. sp., Helenicula naresuani n. sp. and Walchia chavali n. sp.) and 10 new records for the first time in the country. Brief taxonomic information for the morphological identification of chiggers is provided. A combination of autofluorescent and brightfield microscopy was demonstrated to be a novel approach to study both the morphology and DNA profile of the same individual chigger. Most chigger species showed low host specificity. The diversity of chiggers on hosts was influenced by host intrinsic (i.e., host phylogeny and maturity) and extrinsic factors (i.e., habitat and geographical location). Chigger species richness and host-chigger network connectance were found to be interrelated variables explaining human scrub typhus incidence in Thailand. Chigger-associated bacteria were investigated for the first time using an Illumina MiSeq 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing approach. DNA of O. tsutsugamushi was detected in the chigger population as expected. In addition to O. tsutsugamushi, Borrelia and Mycobacterium were identified aspotential pathogens of human and animals. Potential symbiotic bacteria of arthropods; e.g., Candidatus Cardinium, Pseudonocardia, Rickettsiella and Wolbachia were also discovered for the first time in chiggers. An important technical limitation was that chigger DNA starting quantity (individual specimens versus pooled mites) was found to have a significant impact on the apparent microbiome profile. These outcomes from the studies of chigger taxonomy and the ecology of host-chigger interactions, as well as the composition of the microbiome in chiggers, are of key importance to the chigger research field, providing essential information for disease epidemiology with vector control implications.


Meaning in life is vital for human wellbeing. Research has examined important sources of meaning: however, it has not yet investigated whether certain sources of meaning might be more predictive of overall meaning and wellbeing. A community sample of 247 individuals (30 – 69 years) rated the degree of meaningfulness they experienced in certain domains and completed 11 wellbeing measures. Presence of meaning was positively predicted by family and interpersonal relations, and negatively by leisure activities; search for meaning was positively predicted by personal growth and religiosity/spirituality. Meaning from family and health aided in the process of searching for meaning leading to presence of meaning; similarly, meaning from family, interpersonal relationships, health, religiosity/spirituality and life in general buffered against impoverished wellbeing when searching for meaning. Presence and wellbeing were both higher if the domains of work, family, interpersonal relations, community/society issues, and life in general were highly endorsed. Lastly, highly endorsing a larger number of sources buffered against negative wellbeing outcomes when searching for meaning. Overall, we found that meaning from important domains such as family and interpersonal relationships, and strongly endorsing a wide variety of sources, protected against negative wellbeing outcomes when searching for meaning.


Health is often valued by its contribution to well-being. The most common way to establish values for health states is through eliciting a sample population's preferences among states. The evidential view supports preferences based on the idea that preferences provide reliable indicators of well-being. The ethical view takes eliciting preferences to show proper respect for persons. I address the ethical view. In this thesis, I explain the process of valuing health states and describe the evidential and ethical views. I explain how preference-based measures are supposed to show respect for persons, and that respect for persons is shown by respecting autonomous preferences, and only autonomous preferences. I argue that health state preferences are not autonomous preferences, and as a result, preference-based measures do not show respect for persons. Thus, they are not actually supported by the ethical view. I explain the consequences of this argument for health valuation, suggesting that this gives us a reason to prefer methods that value health on other bases, e.g. through opportunity or capability. I also suggest that this has consequences for how we should think about autonomous choice in healthcare, and propose that bioethics needs further investigation into the processes of patient decision-making.


Conditional Logit approach was used to analyze the Choice Experiment data obtained from the grocery stores and supermarket of Tbilisi, Georgia. Results show that customers' preferences for selected pork attributes in different stores are not the same. So, targeting customers by store can be beneficial marketing tool for pork suppliers.


Background The 14-3-3 proteins family consists of biologically essential protein kinases with multiple functions, such as in cell proliferation, differentiation, and cell cycle and functional regulation. It is evolutionally conserved and consists of 7 isoforms. Dysregulation of human 14-3-3 has been reported in several diseases such as neurologic disorders and cancers. Although aberrant up-regulation of 14-3-3 eta has been recently discovered in synovial fluid and serum in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), little is known about the role of other family proteins. More interestingly, recent research showed that these proteins, including 14-3-3 zeta (YWHAZ), are activation-induced cytidine deaminase binding factors that work as essential elements in immunoglobulin class-switch DNA recombination [1]. Objectives To validate the presence of 14-3-3 zeta in blood and clarify its immuno-pathological role in RA Methods Peripheral blood samples obtained from untreated or methotrexate-naïve active RA patients who met either the 1987 and/or 2010 classification criteria and healthy individuals (HI) were enrolled. Total RNA was purified and relative mRNA expression was measured by quantitative PCR. Protein expression in peripheral mononuclear cells (PBMC) was evaluated by Western blotting. Further, intracellular expression was analyzed in a subpopulation by flow cytometry, and serum protein levels were measured by ELISA. Statistical correlation of expression with clinical indicators were analyzed. Results In whole blood, expression of 14-3-3 zeta mRNA in RA patients (n=30) was significantly (p=9.0E-07) up-regulated compared to HI (n=27). In PBMC also, Western blotting showed up-regulation of 14-3-3 zeta in RA patients (n=9), to a comparable degree to that of mRNA. On intracellular staining by flow cytometry in 41 RA patients and 13 HI, expression in whole blood from RA patients tended to be increased (average 1.7 times) in the percentage of positive cells (p=0.07). Interestingly, further subpopulation analysis showed a tendency to increased expression in CD20+ B cells only (p=0.07), but no increase in CD14+ or CD8+ cells. With regard to serum concentrations, the proportion of RA patients with a high concentration of 14-3-3 zeta (n=31) was higher than that of HI (n=13), while no correlation was seen with either titers of rheumatoid factors or anti-citrulinated antibodies, unlike the case with 14-3-3 eta. Conclusions We established different quantitation methods for 14-3-3 zeta in peripheral blood. Analysis showed up-regulation of 14-3-3 zeta in RA patients compared with HI. Aberrant expression of 14-3-3 proteins family, including eta and zeta, may link to B cell abnormalities in RA. References Zhenming Xu et.al. Nat Struct Mol Biol. 17(9):1124-35, 2010 Disclosure of Interest None declared DOI 10.1136/annrheumdis-2014-eular.3949


Die Dissertation erscheint unter gleichem Titel im Grin-Verlag 2007. - 360 S. (broschiert). - ISBN 3638803821. - 978-3638803823
This doctoral thesis examines the role and influence of civil society organisations in European multilevel governance structures. Therefore the policy field of sustainability is chosen to analyse how and if civil society organisations can take part in European decision making processes. The case study focuses on the participation process for the organised civil society during the negotiations for the European Constitution by analysing the conventions forum as a new and electronically based participation-channel. Background of the examination are the reforms of the European Commission under the presidency of Romano Prodi, in office from 1999 to 2004; with a focus on the European Governance Reform introduced basically by the Commissions White Paper on Governance in the year 2001. The theoretical background of the study is the theory of "ecological communication" by the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann to reflect the problems and chances for societal communication processes in functional differentiated societies. The specific role organisations can play to transform and communicate relevant information and alternative knowledge requests innovative governance structures which are able to improve the quality of societal communication and which are necessary to find generally accepted solutions for problems with supra-national character. The specific role of civil society organisations for societal- and systemic integration is underlined by Montesquieu's theory of secondary powers (pouvoirs intermediaires) and leads to a differentiated understanding of NGOs in processes of political communication.


Abstract Nowadays, the real estate sector is also benefiting from the advance of the technology. Digital images accompany announcements advertising for renting or selling a property. Computer vision and image analysis contribute to the understanding of these images towards better consumer experience. In this paper we show how retrieval and description can be used efficiently to isolate cvasi-duplicate images and identify similar examples to the ones that have drawn viewer's interest. Three problems related to real-estate imaging are identified and solutions are proposed and evaluated on large databases.


Because diphenylhydantoin (DPH) has been shown to inhibit nontumorous insulin release, we evaluated its effects in patients with insulinoma. Three patients with surgically demonstrated insulinomas were tested with oral and intravenous glucose before and after DPH. In two of these patients, we compared the effects of DPH and diazoxide. Ingestion of DPH for several days did not alter fasting glucose or insulin. Poststimulatory insulin was appreciably reduced in only one patient during treatment with the drug. During diazoxide administration, this patient had increased fasting glucose and decreased fasting insulin, in addition to reduction of poststimulatory insulin. Combined DPH-diazoxide therapy in this patient did not produce greater effects than did diazoxide alone. Neither fasting ingulin or glucose nor poststimulatory insulin secretion were influencse by DPH or diazoxide in the second patient, or affected by DPH alone in the third. The accepted role of DPH in the treatment of insulinoma involves its ability to alter seizure threshold. It did not influence fasting hypoglycemia in our patients. Reduced insulin secretion after stimuli might reflect effects of DPH on responses of nontumorous endocrine pancreas.


Background Purpose Methods Formation of Consensus Committee Methodologies for Synthesizing Expert Consensus Evaluation and Anticipatory Guidance of the Patient with DMD Routine Evaluation of Respiratory Function End of Life Directives Nutrition Sleep Evaluation Cardiac Involvement Management Airway Clearance Respiratory Muscle Training Noninvasive Nocturnal Ventilation Daytime Noninvasive Ventilation Continuous Invasive Ventilation Scoliosis in DMD Corticosteroids in Management of DMD Patient Education Long-term Care Issues End of Life Care


Growth characteristics and cell properties of Aureobasidium (Pullularia) pullulans were studied. The organism grew well on an acid hydrolysate of ryegrass straw over a wide range of pH and temperature. The optimum temperature and pH for the growth of the organism were 32 degrees C and 5.5, respectively. A cell yield of 1.5 g/liter of straw hydrolysate was obtained. The dried cell mass contained 42.6% crude protein, 0.4% crude fat, and 6.4% nucleic acids. The essential amino acid profile of the microbial protein was comparable to that of Candida utilis. A rat feeding study indicated that the A. pullulans cells were not toxic and that the feed intake, weight gain, and protein efficiency ratio values were superior to those obtained with C. utilis. Once the question of mathogenicity is resolved, A. pullulans could be useful for production of single-cell protein from cellulosic wastes.


To overcome the Internet ossification, network virtualization has been proposed as a promising method because of its advantages (e.g., on-demand and efficient resource allocation). Virtual network embedding (VNE) is one of the main challenges for network virtualization. Energy costs of servers in data centers (DCs) aremajor contributions to the power consumption in information and communication technology. Therefore, VNE should consider both acceptance ratio and power consumption. In this paper, a mixed integer linear programming model is proposed with the objective of minimizing the total power consumption in software- defined optical data center networks by reducing the active data centers and power-consuming network components. In addition, the coordinates of nodes and delay of links are considered for a more realistic scenario. Compared with the existing node ranking method, the proposed global topology resource (GTR) can effectively evaluate the possibility of each DC node to host virtual nodes. Based on the GTR method, we propose a location-aware energy efficient VNE algorithm, namely GTR-VNE. Simulation results show that GTR-VNE can obtain up to 9.3% and 5% improvement of power consumption and acceptance ratio compared with benchmarks. Furthermore, based on GTR and artificial intelligence ant colony optimization (ACO), another energy efficient algorithm, ACO-VNE, is proposed.ACO-VNE can obtain up to 28.7% improvement in power consumption compared with GTR-VNE. In addition, ACO-VNE has better performance in terms of revenue cost ratio and acceptance ratio.


The development of transgenic oilseed Camelina sativa (2n = 40) and the potential for hybridization with its weedy relative Capsella bursa-pastoris (2n = 36) necessitates a careful evaluation of the reproductive compatibility between the species. Here, we conducted over 1800 crosses (emasculation and manual pollination) to examine the ability of 10 Canadian C. bursa-pastoris (♀) accessions to hybridize with five accessions of C. sativa (♂). Seven hybrids were confirmed among 586 putative hybrids screened with species-specific markers, indicating a hybridization rate of 1.5 hybrids per 10 000 ovules pollinated. All seven hybrids had intermediate DNA content compared to their parents, were morphologically distinct, had low (1.9%) pollen fertility and failed to produce selfed or backcrossed seed. Given the abundance of C. bursa-pastoris along field margins, hybrids will likely be generated in the wild, but they will be unable to establish lineages unless fertility is restored. The large number of crosses and the diversity captured by the use of multiple accessions resulted in strong statistical power and a high degree of confidence in the estimated hybridization rate.


Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) have recently been shown to excel at performing visual place recognition under changing appearance and viewpoint. Previously, place recognition has been improved by intelligently selecting relevant spatial keypoints within a convolutional layer and also by selecting the optimal layer to use. Rather than extracting features out of a particular layer, or a particular set of spatial keypoints within a layer, we propose the extraction of features using a subset of the channel dimensionality within a layer. Each feature map learns to encode a different set of weights that activate for different visual features within the set of training images. We propose a method of calibrating a CNN-based visual place recognition system, which selects the subset of feature maps that best encodes the visual features that are consistent between two different appearances of the same location. Using just 50 calibration images, all collected at the beginning of the current environment, we demonstrate a significant and consistent recognition improvement across multiple layers for two different neural networks. We evaluate our proposal on three datasets with different types of appearance changes - afternoon to morning, winter to summer and night to day. Additionally, the dimensionality reduction approach improves the computational processing speed of the recognition system.


In this paper, we provide guidelines for strategically using crowds as part of a crowdsourcing strategy and an open innovation portfolio. We start by defining crowd organisations as sustained through a crowd of loosely coupled and equally aligned agents that achieve their value creation goals through generativity and coordination of collective behavior. Firms, in their crowdsourcing strategies, may organize crowds in different fashions that vary on the control mechanisms applied and consequently on the output in terms of knowledge flows; such fashions encompass crowd-driven, crowd-based, and so-called crowded organisations. The final goal of this paper is not only to call attention to the variance among online collectivities and how their characteristics shape the way that they are organized efficiently, but also to propose how managers might resort to crowd tuning to get the right "frequency" of crowd organisations.


Different effects of a bad oxygen state of the organism on several organs an tissues as well as observed differences in their response to a lasting restoration of a good oxygen state by the Oxygen Multistep Therapy (O2MT) initiated the search for the (common) cause of these differences. From the view of our O2MT research, the organ- and tissue-specific different levels of the switching threshold of the bioenergetically controlled switching mechanism of blood microcirculation were suspected to be decisive. Observations discussed here revealed that this switching threshold is controlled by the local venous pO2 values and the capillary blood-flow. When the microcirculation is initially little changed (starting situation), the pathogenic lowering of microcirculation in different organs and tissues is mainly dependent on the venous oxygen partial pressure. From a scale containing venous pO2 values of different organs and tissues for two ages on can obtain the following order of succession with increasing pO2-ven: heart, lower extremities, brain (circulatory disorders), upper extremities, lungs, liver, stomach and bowel, skin, kidneys, spleen. This order agrees well with clinical findings on the frequency of diseases and disorders in different organs in relation to the increasingly insufficient oxygen state (progressing age). On the other hand, this sequence is also in good correlation with clinical observations, which are given here and show the abolition of pathogenic disturbances in different organs and tissues after "step-up" of microcirculation by means procedures of the O2MT. Finally, the abrogation of peripheral circulatory disorders of the lower extremities is discussed as a paradigm. The specific feature of this disease is to additionally weaken the oxygen state of the organism by the constraint in ability to move.


Researches on education of pupils with learning disabilities reveal the importance of parental involvement in education as a remediation measure. Parents need to be in close contact with the school in order to complement teacher's efforts when the children are at home. This support would yield consistency at home and in school practice that can have a strong facilitating effect on the learning of pupils with specific learning disabilities as well as others with Special Educational Needs. Research results show that teacher-parent collaboration in education of pupils with Learning Disability is faced with many challenges. For example, there are no guidelines from Ministry of Education; disability manifests itself in many ways some of which are not understood by parents and teachers since they are not trained in handling pupils with Learning Disabilities. Above all, it was confirmed that teachers were reluctant to work with parents in schools. As collaboration in provision of education of pupils with Learning Disabilities is an important resource, it was recommended that the Ministry of Education should provide guidelines on how to tackle this problem.


This thesis is concerned with the combustion hazard posed when there are accidental releases of methane from plant, particularly within the petrochemical 'exploration and production' industry. At the present time, such explosion hazards are controlled using explosion suppression systems based around Halon 1301 deployment. However, due to its environmental impact, such methods are being reviewed with the objective being their replacement with environmentally friendly alternatives. During the course of this study, the effect of water in the form of vapour and 'fine' mists has been investigated to determine its effectiveness in the containment and control of a potential methane explosion. Laminar flame/water interaction has been studied in considerable detail, and to a lesser extent the interaction with turbulent burning mechanisms has been studied through a demonstration study based on the conclusions of the laminar flame studies the efficiency of water in various concentrations and states (vapour or liquid-droplets) has been appraised. The research studies have also necessitated fundamental studies of droplet formation via supersaturated vapours, within small-scale laboratory test facilities, and methods suitable for generating large-scale sprays deemed suitable for the replacement of Halon systems were then appraised and characterised so as safety systems of the future may be optimised. The laminar test programme illustrated that water is a competitive explosion suppressant capable of extinguishing a fully propagating flame. It was found that water vapour and 'fine' water droplets are most effective in the mitigation of methane-air flames during early flame formation when curvature effects are a predominant factor, with 'fine' water droplets being more effective than vapour at this time. Turbulent experiments demonstrated that water in the form of 'fine' droplets can be used to fully arrest a propagating stoichiometric methane-air explosion, at concentrations probably less than the molar water concentration associated with inerting methane air explosions. A system based on the 'flashing' concept was fully characterised to illustrate that sprays similar to those utilised in the laboratory combustion work can be produced in a full- scale release, leading to the conclusions that Halon based systems may in the near future be replaced by environmentally sound explosion suppression systems that utilise water.


We investigated the average operating time and extent of intra-operative blood loss in orthognathic surgeries performed using induced hypotensive general anaesthesia, with the intention of devising a practical guideline for blood unit preparation for these procedures. We prospectively studied 32 Chinese patients undergoing surgery to correct dentofacial deformities at a public hospital in Hong Kong from 1 December 1997 to 1 December 1998. Most patients (72. 4%) needed double-jaw surgery. The mean estimated blood loss was approximately 617.6 mL. The blood loss during simple Le Fort I osteotomies was about half that of multiple segmentalised osteotomies. For mandibular ramus osteotomies, the mean blood loss and operating time for were approximately 280 mL and 2 hours, respectively; for anterior mandibular osteotomies, the corresponding values were 171.3 mL and 1 hour 13 minutes. The average drop in the haematocrit value was 15.4%, and the crossmatch to transfusion ratio was 29. A bivariate correlation test between the blood loss and operating time gave a strong correlation (P<0.01), as did blood loss with a drop in haematocrit value (P<0.01). Orthognathic surgeries are thus safe and predictable in terms of intra-operative blood loss and operating time, and a 'type, screen, and save' policy for blood unit preparation is more appropriate than a 'crossmatch' policy.


Low tidal volume, rather than high tidal volume, ventilation is often used for mechanical ventilation during surgery to avoid lung injury due to alveolar overdistention. Under general anesthesia with a muscle relaxant, there is a risk of compressing the lungs by diaphragmatic displacement, which can be aggravated in patients placed in the supine position. Such a risk becomes even higher during reduced tidal volume ventilation, causing alveolar atelectasis and hypoxemia. Therefore, positive end expiratory pressure (PEEP) is applied to prevent spontaneous closure of alveoli.

In this volume, Jung et al. [1] reports on the importance of the alveolar recruitment strategy (ARS). The authors applied ARS before the start of one-lung ventilation (OLV), and compared the oxygenation score between high- and low-tidal volume groups. Repetitive open and closure of collapsed alveoli by positive pressure ventilation could cause damage to the capillary endothelium and alveolar epithelium. Excessive expansion and risk of alveolar injury may even occur during low tidal volume ventilation due to an uneven distribution of ventilated volume to already open alveoli. However, Jung et al. [1] showed that preemptive ARS commonly increases PaO2 without causing hemodynamic instability in groups with or without PEEP during OLV. The improvement in oxygenation was better in the group where ARS was combined with PEEP. Their study design and intriguing results will draw the attention of general readers of the journal.

The ARS helps to open collapsed alveoli, which is effectively maintained by PEEP. Therefore, both ARS and PEEP maneuvers are compulsory to improve oxygenation and lung mechanics during general anesthesia [2]. Diverse ARS methods have been reported in recent clinical studies. The recommended ARS is peak inspiratory pressure up to 40 cmH2O at 10 respiratory cycles with 15-20 cmH2O PEEP. Adequate PEEP level following ARS is reportedly 5-20 cmH2O depending on the condition of the patient (i.e., pulmonary function and physical condition) and also the type of operation.

The time to apply ARS is typically (1) immediately after intubation before confirming lung sounds, (2) after suctioning, or (3) just before extubation. Functional residual capacity is reduced in 50% of patients after tracheal suctioning, in which case combined ARS and PEEP effectively restores PaO2 [3]. Along with increased PaO2, several reports have indicated that ARS with PEEP during OLV decreases AaDO2, and decreases the alveolar dead space ventilation ratio [4,5,6]. In addition to OLV anesthesia, ARS with appropriate PEEP is required to improve PaO2 in patients with minimal lung injury during other surgeries with a high risk of atelectasis such as laparoscopic surgery [7,8,9], pediatric patients [10], and obese patients [9]. This preemptive ARS effect during low tidal volume OLV has been described previously [11]. Preemptive ARS can also be applied before pneumoperitoneum during laparoscopic surgery [8] with the purpose of improving oxygenation.

However, high intrathoracic pressure during ARS may cause hemodynamic instability. Therefore, adjustment of the pressure and application duration should consider a patient's hemodynamic status and the potential risks [5]. In obese patients, higher pressures are required for adequate ARS and PEEP [9]. The risk of hemodynamic derangement by such high pressures can be prevented by intravascular volume replacement [12]. Interestingly, one study reported that applying ARS with PEEP to the donor lung in situ as well as after transplantation lowers the risk of primary graft dysfunction [13]. Several reports have suggested the beneficial effects of ARS with PEEP during general abdominal surgery to reduce post-operational complications [14].

In conclusion, applying ARS and PEEP during surgery or in patients vulnerable to atelectasis is helpful for improving oxygenation and lowering postoperative pulmonary complications. PEEP must be sustained to keep alveoli in their open state and optimize patient oxygenation. In addition, adequate ARS before applying PEEP is essential to maximize the benefits of PEEP.


Abstract This article discusses George Orwell's attitude to Zionism and the Palestine question, a controversial and emotional subject in left-wing circles in his time and since. There have been a number of studies on Orwell's attitude to Jews and anti-Semitism and some of these have touched upon Orwell's approach to Zionism. However, his stance on the Palestine question specifically deserves further exposition. This is so, not least because on this subject too Orwell's views—largely anti-Zionist—differed from the prevailing, passionate beliefs of most left-wing intellectuals of his time, including some of his closest friends and political allies. Furthermore, Orwell's views were expressed at a time when the Palestine conflict peaked during the last decade of the British Mandate with results which resound to this day.


Organizations worldwide spend large amounts of money and resources on developing their employees, yet the money invested in professional learning (PL) yields low to moderate results at best. Because culture is a predominant force in people's life, multinational corporations and other institutions should take culture into account at every stage of the PL process or they will not obtain the desired return on their investments. Despite the numerous studies on learning transfer, practitioners continue to experience challenges when it comes to altering their practices and generate better outcomes. Scholars have not yet fully taken into consideration culture when developing learning transfer models. Although some learning transfer models address transfer climate as an enhancer or a hindrance to learning transfer, none have considered the overall influence of culture on the transfer phenomenon. This article proposes a culturally grounded multidimensional model of learning transfer (MMLT). The MMLT is designed to assist practitioners and PL organizers before, during, and after the PL event. This innovative model aims at enhancing the implementation of new knowledge, skills, or behaviors in the workplace. The MMLT is based on qualitative data collected and analyzed over 6 years in educational institutions in five African nations. The model is relevant to any organizations across sectors whose aspirations are to maximize learning transfer and obtain a return on their investments that would in turn positively affect organizations' outcomes.


Robot tasks for real-world applications typically involve multiple paths of execution, where the same task can be achieved in different ways. This poses challenges with respect to the representation and execution of such tasks, as enumerating all possible execution paths leads to combinatorial increases in the size of the representation. We present a novel robot control architecture that addresses these challenges. The architecture 1) provides an efficient, compact encoding of tasks with multiple paths of execution, 2) uses the same compact representation as the controller that the robot will use to achieve its goals, 3) allows the robot to dynamically decide which execution path to follow using an activation spreading mechanism that relies on environmental conditions, and 4) provides a mechanism for robustness to changes in the environment during the task execution. We validate our architecture using a humanoid PR2 robot, showing that the robot dynamically selects a path of execution based on the current state of the environment, and is robust to environmental changes.


Selective laser sintering technology is used for manufacturing parts from 316 stainless steel powders. Experiments were carried out on a Nd:YAG laser machine (LMY400) with 400W. Powder is layered by a roller over the surface of a 100mm diameter build cylinder. Effects of processing parameter on the scan line width, the scan line height, the single layer structure and the multilayer structure are investigated. The results show laser power, scan speed and layer thickness have a great effect on the scan line width and line height. Furthermore, the stable and continuous vectors are formed with the increasing of the number of layers.


The objective of this work was to evaluate the lethal and sublethal toxicity of hexane and methanolic extracts from the leaves of Annona vepretorum (Annonaceae) on Tetranychus urticae (Acari: Tetranychidae). The methanolic extract toxicity was evaluated by Potter tower application (topical + residual effect) and by immersion of Canavalia ensiformis leaf disks in the extract solution (residual contact effect). The hexane extract toxicity was evaluated exclusively through residual contact effect. Sublethal effects of the methanolic extract were evaluated through LC 50 on the females. Mite preference for feeding and oviposition was evaluated by multiple choice tests, between the control and the extract concentrations, using the hexane and methanolic extracts. Estimated LC 50 for the methanolic extract was 10.96 mg mL -1 for the topic + residual effect and 22.07 mg mL -1 for the residual effect. Estimated LC 50 for the hexane extract was 50.61 mg mL -1 . The methanolic extract at the previously estimated CL 50 interfered in the fecundity and longevity of females, differing significantly from the control treatment. In the multiple choice tests, for both extracts, mites showed a significant preference for the control, both for feeding and oviposition. Annona vepretorum has acaricide effect and constitutes a botanical source with great potential for controlling T. urticae .


Li-doped ZnO thin films were grown on quartz substrates by radio frequency magnetron sputtering and In-situ annealing. The structural, electrical and optical properties of Li-doped ZnO films strongly depend on the annealing oxygen pressure. XRD and AFM analysis indicate that the ZnO films possess a good crystallinity with c-axis orientation, uniform thickness and dense surface. Optical transmission spectra show a high transmittance (~85%) in the visible region. Hall measurement demonstrates that ZnO films have p-type conduction with a Hall mobility of 5.0 cm2/Vs, resistivity of 0.97Ωcm and carrier concentration of 1.60×1017cm-3 when annealing oxygen pressure is 1Pa.


Introduction: To insight the importance of immunoglobulin's (Ig) role in allergic reactions and to determine the mechanism of IgG in allergic responses. Aim: This study aimed at purifying the proteins from Parthenium hysterophorus flower and to check their allergic activity with IgG. Materials and Methods: Purification methods of phenol extraction for P. hysterophorus flower proteins and affinity chromatography for IgG purification were used. The purified allergens were characterized by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE), two-dimensional (2D)-electrophoresis, mass spectrometry, immunoblot, and IgE-ELISA. Results: SDS-PAGE analysis of pollens under reduced conditions revealed four proteins with molecular weights 44 kDa, 38 kDa, 18 kDa, and 23 kDa as the major allergens of Parthenium pollen with an isoelectric point of 10 by 2D-PAGE. Furthermore, cross-reactivity between allergens was investigated by IgG-ELISA, which was identified at 100 ng/ml concentration of IgG antibody. The result of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy analysis confirmed the presence of alcohol and amides, whereas the mass spectra were matched by the National Center for Biotechnology Information/Blastp to find possible glycopeptides applying settings of GlycoMod search program. Conclusion: The research findings suggest that several proteins in the range of 18-40 kDa could be used as diagnostic markers for patients allergic to P. hysterophorus.


International organisations (IOs) play increasingly important roles in world politics. As states face more complex challenges they have joined together in IOs to solve their common problems. Yet once an IO has been created it may take on a life of its own, and it becomes difficult for its state founders to control what it does. Permanent secretariats populated by experts are one of the most important sources of IO authority. Why do some organisations gain authority and influence while others remain loyal servants? When did the first autonomous secretariats emerge? Most scholars would argue that the League of Nations secretariat was the first 'true' international secretariat, yet this was not the first permanent IO secretariat in existence. How much autonomy and influence did the first permanent secretariats formed in the 19th century possess? What can the experience of these institutions tell us about how IOs in general gain authority? Through a study focusing on the secretariat of the International Telegraph Union, created in 1868 as the first permanent secretariat, this paper will seek to answer these questions. (Less)


Loneliness is a subjectively experienced pervasive emotion which is influenced by one's personality and situational variables. In this study we examined the influence of age and culture on the perceived causes of loneliness. A total of 1,347 Canadian and Portuguese participants from all walks of life volunteered to answer an 82-item yes/no questionnaire reflecting on the causes of their loneliness. The questionnaire used in this study is composed of the factors that describe causes of loneliness: Personal inadequacies, developmental deficits, unfulfilling intimate relationships, relocation/significant separations, and social marginality. Gender differences between and within the groups were also examined. Four age groups were compared: youth (13-18 years old), young adults (19-30), adults (31-58), and elderly (60 and older). Within and between culture and age comparisons were also carried out. Results indicated that the causes of loneliness are perceived differently depending on one's age and culture.


: The formulation of guidelines for our health care system is under the dictates of limited financial resources a demand of legislation and therefore a duty from which medical doctors cannot and should not free themselves. Doing so we've got to see not only the possible savings, the better information of patients and physicians, the more transparency and control, but also the negative consequences for the scope of treatment, the responsibility under civil and criminal law, i.e. the forensic risk of the physician, and for the freedom of choice and self-determination of the patient. Establishing guidelines an objective consideration of pros and cons is demanded, no euphoria but self-restraint upon the necessary with respect to the number but also the content of guidelines.


Root bark extract of Terminalia avicennioides was obtained by cool maceration with 750 ml n-hexane, chloroform, ethyl acetate and methanol, independently for 48 h using soxhlet extractor. ATCC 33591 standard strains of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) was used. Strain resistance to methicillin/oxacillin antibiotic was verified by a retest of its sensitivity to oxacillin antibiotic. The antimicrobial test and zone of inhibition were determined using the agar well diffusion method. The isolated bioactive fractions of the extract were subjected to FTIR and GC-MS analysis. Results revealed both fractions; (TLb4 and TLb17) were both bacteriostatic and bactericidal. The growth of MRSA was inhibited at extract concentrations of 60, 120, 180 and 240 µg/ml, within the susceptible range of ≥ 14 mm, with a mean inhibitory zone sensitivity of 14 mm at 60 µg/ml, 15.76 mm at 120 µg/ml and 15.33 mm at 180 µg/ml for fraction TLb4 and 15.33 mm at 60 µg/ml, 17.33 mm at 120 µg/ml and 20 mm at 180 µg/ml for TLb17 (≥ 14 mm). GC-MS detected oleic acid and analogs of palmitic acid as pharmacological active compounds of both fractions. FTIR showed the presence of alkyl halides. These bioactive agents revealed could be effective therapeutic agents for the treatment of MRSA.

 Key words: Methicillin-resistant, Staphylococcus aureus, inhibition, bacteriostatic, bactericidal, Terminalia avicennioides.


Written as a technology guide for students, practitioners, and administrators, the focus of this book is on introducing current and future trends in library technology and automation within the larger context of strategic and systems planning, implementation, and continuous improvement. Technology is an essential resource for attaining both organizational and patron goals, and planning needs to emphasize the alignment between the clearly defined goals of each. For this alignment to occur on a consistent basis goals must be designed, or engineered, in a systematic fashion where technology fulfils the need to deliver the desired outcomes in an efficient, cost-effective manner. The concept of usability engineering is also examined, where the technology is planned, designed, and implemented in such a way as to maximize utility and ease-of-use for users and employees. Readers of this book will understand both the why and the how of library technology, planning, and implementation articulated in a simple, easy-to-understand fashion.

 Delivered from academic, public, and school library media perspectives

 Current and emerging technologies are discussed along with their current and future application in the field of library and information science

 Technology planning and integration is explained using a systems design process with scenarios and case studies that are articulated in a step-wise, holistic fashion


Virus recognition by visual examination of electron microscope (EM) images is time consuming and requires highly trained and experienced medical specialists. For these reasons, it is not suitable for screening large numbers of specimens. The objective of this research was to develop a reliable and robust pattern recognition system that could be trained to detect and classify different types of viruses from two-dimensional images obtained from an EM.

This research evaluated the use of radial spectra of higher order spectral invariants to capture variations in textures and differences in symmetries of different types of viruses in EM images. The technique exploits invariant properties of the higher order spectral features, statistical techniques of feature averaging, and soft decision fusion in a unique manner applicable to the problem when a large number of particles were available for recognition, but were not easily registered on an individual basis due to the low signal to noise ratio. Experimental evaluations were carried out using EM images of viruses, and a high statistical reliability with low misclassification rates was obtained, showing that higher order spectral features are effective in classifying viruses from digitized electron micrographs. With the use of digital imaging in electron microscopes, this method can be fully automated.


Background: We aimed to establish a novel diagnostic model for kidney diseases by combining artificial intelligence with complete mass spectrum information from urinary proteomics. Methods: We enrolled 134 patients (IgA nephropathy, membranous nephropathy, and diabetic kidney disease) and 68 healthy participants as controls, with a total of 610,102 mass spectra from their urinary proteomic profiles. The training data set (80%) was used to create a diagnostic model using XGBoost, random forest (RF), a support vector machine (SVM), and artificial neural networks (ANNs). The diagnostic accuracy was evaluated using a confusion matrix with a test dataset (20%). We also constructed receiver operating-characteristic, Lorenz, and gain curves to evaluate the diagnostic model. Results: Compared with the RF, SVM, and ANNs, the modified XGBoost model, called Kidney Disease Classifier (KDClassifier), showed the best performance. The accuracy of the XGBoost diagnostic model was 96.03%. The area under the curve of the extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) model was 0.952 (95% confidence interval, 0.9307–0.9733). The Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) value of the Lorenz curve was 0.8514. The Lorenz and gain curves showed the strong robustness of the developed model. Conclusions: The KDClassifier achieved high accuracy and robustness and thus provides a potential tool for the classification of kidney diseases


AIM
To explore the effect of indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) on recruitment and chemotaxis function of neutrophils in Aspergillus fumigatus (A. fumigatus) keratitis.

METHODS
C57BL/6 mice models of A. fumigatus keratitis were established by inoculating hyphae of A. fumigatus evenly on the corneas. The clinical scores and inflammatory cytokines expression were measured respectively on the 1st, 3rd, 5th day after infection. The 1-MT (1 mg/mL) was administered by gavage to exert an inhibitory effect on IDO during infection. The mice were divided into control group, 1-MT group, A. fumigatus (A.F.) group, and 1-MT+A.F. groups. The corneas were monitored by slit lamp microscopy, and recorded disease scores in 3d after infection. Myeloperoxidase (MPO) assay was done to evaluate the neutrophils infiltration. Immunofluorescence staining was used to detect the recruitment of neutrophils in murine corneas. The mRNA of inflammatory cytokines was measured with reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR).

RESULTS
The corneal inflammation and the clinical score reached the peak on the 3rd day after the corneal infection. The mRNA of inflammatory cytokines of the A.F. group reached the highest on the 3rd day after the infection accordingly. Meanwhile, the results of slit light photography indicated that inhibitors of IDO made inflammation more serious contrasted with the A.F. group on the 3rd day. Besides, imunofluorescence staining and MPO indicated that 1-MT enhanced the recruitment, infiltration and chemotaxis of neutrophils obviously in contrast to the A.F. group. RT-PCR indicated that 1-MT increased the expression of CXCL-1, ICAM-1, IL-1β, and IL-8 significantly.

CONCLUSION
IDO participates in the pathogenesis of A. fumigatus keratitis and plays an important role in inducing immune protection by inhibiting neutrophils-related inflammatory reaction and suppressing recruitment and chemotaxis of the neutrophils.


The nano-CeO2 was synthesized by two-step solid-phase reaction. The image of TEM showed that nano-CeO2 with an average size of about 70 nm. The series of polyaniline/nano-CeO2 composites with different PANi: CeO2 ratios were prepared by in-situ polymerization in the presence of hydrochloric acid (HCl) as dopant by adding nano-CeO2 into the polymerization reaction mixture of aniline. The composites obtained were characterized by FT-IR and UV-vis spectroscopy analysis. The FT-IR spectra of nanocomposites indicate different blue-shifts, attributed to C–N stretching mode for benzenoid unit. The UV-vis spectra of nanocomposites display einstein-shifts compared with PANi at 620nm. The conductivity properties of the composites are also changed compare to the pure PANi. These results suggest that the interactions between the polymer matrix and nanoparticles take place in polyaniline/nano- CeO2 composites.


The use of a fluorescent dye to visualize cellular material on surfaces offers a targeted sampling approach for locating touch DNA on casework items. However, the current application of such dye is not feasible for examination of relatively large items. As a result, development of an efficient dye application system is required to translate this approach into practice. Here, the spray pattern (area covered, intensity, and evenness) of 15 different commercial spray devices was examined visually using food coloring. From this, five devices were selected to apply Diamond Nucleic Acid Dye (DD) to three substrates (glass slide, plastic sheet, and brown packing tape) seeded with saliva and touch DNA. The cellular material was visualized using the Dino‐lite Microscope and Polilight. The inhibitory effects of DD afforded by each spray device were examined using Identifiler Plus® DNA profiling kit and a DNA input of 800 pg. The two most promising devices were further tested on a range of mock casework items seeded with touch DNA. The results presented demonstrate the feasibility of a spray system to apply DD to large surfaces and subsequently detect cellular material at both micro and macroscale. Specifically, the data suggest that a pressurized continuous‐spray system is favorable and that droplet size influences the intensity of fluorescence and surface coverage. Furthermore, this study indicates that full STR profiles can be obtained following spraying with DD solution, even with excessive application, which is essential for the widespread use of these devices in casework.


Abstract When the famously nationalistic Japanese author Hyakuta Naoki published his best-selling novel A Man Called Pirate (Kaizoku to yobareta otoko) in 2012, which subsequently became both a manga and a major film, he renewed interest in the midcentury oil baron Idemitsu Sazō, using him as the model for the novel's lead character. Hyakuta claims to have aimed to inspire the country, reeling from decades of slow growth as well as the 2011 tsunami and nuclear disaster, by featuring a visionary Japanese leader motivated primarily by love for his employees and his country. This article traces the efforts across these media to render Idemitsu as a credible character, particularly in dealing with his real-life family as well as his "family" of employees. It argues that the partial disappearance of the "real" Idemitsu in these versions of Hyakuta's novel allowed the production of a more believable one—made believable in part because of the essential Japanese values that he ostensibly represents, even as the constraints on these representations hint at fissures and tensions in contemporary political use of biographical fiction and film.


Many mathematical programming models of the selection of investment portfolios assume that the best portfolio at any given level of risk is the portfolio having the highest level of return. The expected level of return is defined as a linear combination of the expected returns of the individual investments contained within the portfolio,and risk is defined in terms of variance of return. This study uses Monte Carlo simulation to establish that if the estimates of the future returns on potential investments are unbiased, the steady-state return on the portfolio is overestimated by the procedure used in the standard models. Under reasonable assumptions concerning the parameters of the estimates of the various returns, this bias is quite sizeable, with the steady-state predicted return often overestimating the steady-state actual return by more than ten percentage points. In addition, it is shown that when the variances of the alternative potential investments are not all equal,a limitation on the variance of the portfolio will reduce the magnitude of the bias. In many reasonable cases, constraining the portfolio variance reduces the bias by a magnitude greater than the amount by which it reduces the predicted portfolio return, causing the steady-state actual return to rise. This implies that return cannot automatically be assumed to be a monotonic function of risk.


Precipitation, as a primary hydrological variable in the water cycle plays an important role in hydrological modeling. The reliability of hydrological modeling is highly related to the quality of precipitation data. Accurate long-term gauged precipitation in the Mekong River Basin, however, is limited. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to assess the performances of various gridded precipitation datasets in rainfall-runoff and flood-inundation modeling of the whole basin. Firstly, the performance of the Rainfall-Runoff-Inundation (RRI) model in this basin was evaluated using the gauged rainfall. The calibration (2000–2003) and validation (2004–2007) results indicated that the RRI model had acceptable performance in the Mekong River Basin. In addition, five gridded precipitation datasets including APHRODITE, GPCC, PERSIANN-CDR, GSMaP (RNL), and TRMM (3B42V7) from 2000 to 2007 were applied as the input to the calibrated model. The results of the simulated river discharge indicated that TRMM, GPCC, and APHRODITE performed better than other datasets. The statistical index of the annual maximum inundated area indicated similar conclusions. Thus, APHRODITE, TRMM, and GPCC precipitation datasets were considered suitable for rainfall-runoff and flood inundation modeling in the Mekong River Basin. This study provides useful guidance for the application of gridded precipitation in hydrological modeling in the Mekong River basin.


Paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH) is an acquired disorder characterized by intermittent hemolytic anemia. Membrane abnormalities of blood cells from patients with PNH are the reason for the unusual sensitivity to lysis by autologous plasma complement. A patient with typical clinical disease consistent with PNH is described together with a few strategies and pitfalls for treatment. Commonly used in vitro assays are discussed that document the complement-mediated lysis of aberrant PNH erythrocytes. Membrane-associated proteins that are abnormal in PNH cells, the characteristics of these proteins, and their mechanism(s) of action are described; these include the decay accelerating factor that inhibits the C3/C5 convertases of both complement pathways on cell surfaces, the C8 binding protein that modulates a step in terminal complement lysis, and other proteins that regulate complement-mediated lysis at early or late steps of the complement cascade.


Aggressive supply voltage scaling to below the device threshold voltage provides significant energy and leakage power reduction in logic and SRAM circuits. Consequently, it is a compelling strategy for energy-constrained systems with relaxed performance requirements. However, effects of process variation become more prominent at low voltages, particularly in deeply scaled technologies. This paper presents a 65 nm system-on-a-chip which demonstrates techniques to mitigate variation, enabling sub-threshold operation down to 300 mV. A 16-bit microcontroller core is designed with a custom sub-threshold cell library and timing methodology to address output voltage failures and propagation delays in logic gates. A 128 kb SRAM employs an 8 T bit-cell to ensure read stability, and peripheral assist circuitry to allow sub-Vt reading and writing. The logic and SRAM function in the range of 300 mV to 600 mV, consume 27.2 pJ/cycle at the optimal V DD of 500 mV, and 1 muW standby power at 300 mV. To supply variable voltages at these low power levels, a switched capacitor DC-DC converter is integrated on-chip and achieves above 75% efficiency while delivering between 10 muW to 250 muW of load power.


1. The volume of submandibular salivary secretion and electrical activities in preganglionic parasympathetic fibres innervating the submandibular gland were recorded in rabbits, anaesthetized with chloralose‐urethane, to evaluate the neural control mechanisms subserving reflex salivary secretion. 2. Single, paired or repetitive electrical shocks were applied to the various parts of the oral region in sympathetically decentralized animals. A copious salivary secretion was induced when the repetitive electrical stimulation was applied to anterior ipsilateral parts of the oral region, especially the upper lip. The optimum frequency of stimulation was 10‐‐20 Hz. 3. About 90% of the preganglionic parasympathetic fibres responded to single electrical shock applied to a respective confined area of the oral region with a mean latency of 10.8 msec. The remainder responded to wider areas of the oral region with a mean latency of 31.5 msec. 4. Preganglionic fibres were classified into three types (E‐type, N‐type and I‐type) in accordance with the mode of impulse discharges. Spontaneous discharges of E‐type fibres (41%) were increased, while those of N‐type fibres (36%) were unchanged and those of I‐type fibres (23%) were decreased by repetitive stimulation at over 10 Hz. Most dominant responses in E‐type fibres were induced by electrical shocks with a frequency of 10‐‐20 Hz. 5. When paired shocks with varying intershock intervals were applied, excitability of E‐type fibres was enhanced for about 20 msec, and then inhibited for about 100 msec, while that of N‐type was inhibited for 150‐‐200 msec, and I‐type was inhibited for 500‐‐700 msec after onset of the first shock. 6. The volume of reflex submandibular salivation evoked by varying frequencies of electrical shocks applied to the oral region correlated statistically significantly with the magnitude of responses in E‐type fibres. This result strongly suggests that E‐type fibres are secretory fibres. The functional significance of N‐type and I‐type fibres is discussed.


TARGETING ENERGY METABOLISM IN COLORECTAL CANCER Nelson Ho Advisor: University of Guelph, 2015 Dr. B. L. Coomber A switch to aerobic glycolysis regardless of oxygen tension is a metabolic phenotype observed in a variety of tumors, known as the Warburg effect, and is a possible target in cancer therapy. The abnormal tumor vasculature leads to a heterogeneous microenvironment with areas of hypoxia, acidity, and low nutrient supply. This thesis investigated the effects of the tumor microenvironment on the expression of glycolytic enzymes and on the efficacy of compounds targeting them. The first set of experiments examined the molecular and metabolic changes associated with dichloroacetate-induced cytoprotection in different human colorectal cancer (CRC) cell lines under anoxic conditions. There was evidence of differential regulation of pyruvate dehydrogenase phosphorylation between different cells leading to altered mitochondrial activity following dichloroacetate exposure. Hexokinase II (HKII) is a glycolytic enzyme often upregulated in tumors. 3bromopyruvate (3BP) is an alkylating agent that shows promising anti-cancer effects in various cancer models and HKII has been suggested to be one of its principal targets. The efficacy of 3BP against CRC cells was assessed under different media glucose concentrations, and it was determined that 3BP was effective in reducing cell growth through alterations in AKT signaling and that media glucose availability played a role in cytotoxic sensitivity to 3BP. However, knockdown in HKII expression did not alter 3BP sensitivity in different CRC cell lines. Finally, HKII expression was assessed in colorectal cancer tissues and correlated with clinical parameters and patient outcome. Dual immunofluorescence was used to colocalize HKII with a marker of ischemia, carbonic anhydrase IX in 60 cases of human CRC. HKII expression was found only in non-ischemic areas of the tumors. While HKII expression did not correlate with any measured clinicopathlogical characteristics, patients with low HKII-expressing tumors had a worse prognosis than those with high HKIIexpressing tumors. Overall, this thesis presents the effects of the tumor microenvironment on both glycolytic enzyme expression and therapeutic efficacy. This research promises to improve our understanding of tumor metabolism in the heterogeneous microenvironment in order to better apply this field of cancer biology for therapeutic use.


Scotland's religious culture is dominated by the polarised profiles of Protestantism and Catholicism. Media representations of Scottish religion fix on sectarianism, but an increasingly visible Islamic culture fits uneasily within this frame. In Glasgow, Muslims are particularly active and prominent in public and political life, making it a fruitful site for study. In this paper, I draw on data from interviews with journalists in Glasgow to assess their conceptions of Muslims in Scotland. Muslims make up a small percentage of Scotland's population, but they receive disproportionately high interest from the news media. Studies which demonstrate this trend and examine it tend to focus on the content of news texts – that which is published, printed and broadcast. My research from 2012-13 instead looked qualitatively at relationships between journalists and sources who identify as Muslim, using observation, semi-structured interviews, and documentary analysis to understand how these representations are crafted. A key element in organising my findings was a consideration of how journalists conceive of Muslims as a subject. My research found a more nuanced appreciation among journalists of the diversity of Muslims and the challenges they face than scholarly and popular literature suggests. Journalists also expressed uncertain and sometimes contradictory views about whether to frame Muslims religiously or whether the designation can encompass ethnic and social markers. Of specific interest to this paper was the question of authority and representative status, and in their attempts to negotiate this question, journalists compared Islam with the familiar leadership structures in Scotland: the hierarchical model of the Roman Catholic Church and the diffuse model of the Church of Scotland. Islam, being neither one nor the other but exhibiting characteristics of both, emerges as a distinctive religious culture in Scotland but one which presents a puzzle for the news media. Understanding how journalists conceive of these religious communities and their practical expectations of spokespeople gives us a context in which to analyse reporting on religion in Scotland's mass media.


Sensations of vertigo or disequilibrium in children are usually simplified to the ambiguous complaints 'feel giddy' or 'vertigo'. However, these complaints are rare and there are few clinical reports of such cases in clinical pediatrics.We examined 41 patients under 18 years old. Twenty-four were female and 17 were male. These patients were brought to our clinic at Saitama Children's Medical Center with complaints of vertigo or disequilibrium between 1992 and 1996. The mean age on initial examination was 6.9 years. The frequency of orthostatic dysregulation (OD) was higher (11 cases; 27%), and 9 of the 11 patients were above 10 years old. The frequencies of acute cerebellar ataxia (9 cases) and multiple sclerosis (4 cases) followed that of OD. In the lower onset-age group (under 5 years old), gait instability due to palsy of the lower limbs was frequently seen. Cases of sensory disturbance were seen more frequently in the higher onset-age group.To differentiate symptoms due to disturbances of the central or peripheral nerve system, we should consider the age-related characteristic of the diseases and developmental level.


Increasing availability of funds for development, design, and evaluation of alternative learning environments has challenged educational researchers to develop and validate innovative and effective interventions. The focus on accountability has resulted in an accelerated effort to record events, activities, and participation in substantive ways that suggest significance, statistical and otherwise, and that warrant further program improvements and modification. Yet, relying on traditional individual standardized measuresFones that are specifically designed to discriminate among students and that are better suited to the study of controlled experiments in laboratories rather than the sporadic and often spontaneous interactions common to learning settings in and out of schoolFleaves educational researchers generally ill equipped. Even as alternative educational programs are financially supported, the sanctioned means with which researchers and program developers document success of all educational programs have progressively narrowed, favoring traditional experimental designs with an emphasis on whether it works rather than on understanding why the program is successful. In this article, we used a multimethod, multilevel analysis to document the underlying dynamics of specific alternative learning contexts to identify generalizable principles while allowing for local variation.


YEAR-ROUND MANAGEMENT OF HIGH TUNNEL PRODUCTION SYSTEMS: SPINACH AND TOMATO by Connor Eaton University of New Hampshire, May, 2016 As high tunnel production is relatively new to the Northeast, this research has helped understand knowledge-gaps in common warm and cold-season crop systems in the region. High tunnels increase crop yield and quality and extend the growing season, and are most commonly used for tomato in the warm-season and spinach in the cold-season. Spinach was grown in unheated high tunnels throughout the cold-season to evaluate the effects of cultivar and planting date on yield and sweetness (Brix° levels). Cultivar and planting date had a significant effect on yield, where earlier planting dates resulted in higher yields. Cultivar had a significant effect on Brix° levels and a significant negative correlation existed between in-tunnel temperature and Brix° levels. While hydroponic tomato fertility is well understood, little research exists in high tunnel tomato soil fertility, which this experiment addressed focusing on potassium (K) because of its importance in fruit production. Tomato was grown in high tunnels throughout the warm season to establish critical soil K levels for maximum yield with organic K fertility, evaluate the effects of soil K on yellow shoulder disorder (YS), and assess if the combination of a field soil test with the saturated media extract test (SME) will x. improve the strength of predicting soil K levels in high tunnels under three years of continuous production. Applied K had a significant effect on marketable yield, however critical soil K levels could not be established. Applied and soil K had significant effects on YS. The field soil and SME tests were significantly correlated in their ability to measure soil K. As a result, their combination could not increase soil K prediction strength. These results can improve year-round high tunnel production of spinach and tomato in the Northeast.


Brainstorming has moved from the individual, to the meeting room, to digital tools, and recently, to online collaborative systems with masses of participants in a "crowdsourced" brainstorm. This paper presents IDEAS2IDEAS, our design of a mass-participation online brainstorming system built to encourage a particular behavior in brainstorm participants: constructive, collaborative ideation. This system (Figure 1) was evaluated against a system built to imitate existing industry practice with a between-subjects study with 60 participants, and found that the I2I system was significantly better at encouraging constructive behavior.


This document presents a Decision Support System (DSS) aimed at small livestock farmers who have not made use of Information Technologies (IT) in their production systems. The DSS was built based on the finite difference equations of a simulation model in System Dynamics in whose definition the beneficiaries participated and also served as a base for the development of a serious video game. The DSS and the Serious video game is supported in a Web and Mobile Architecture. The simulation model and the serious video game are used as support tools in the training given to users to learn how to use the DSS. These three tools are the result of a doctoral research project, which used two methodologies during its execution: Design and Development Research and the Case Studies methodology. The tools were applied in an appropriation strategy with livestock farmers of the department of Santander in Colombia, where resistance to change and cultural attachment causes a low adoption of technology. The inclusion of gamification elements helps the user to understand the connection of these elements and their processes in a real farm, know the large volume of data managed by the DSS, enhance the process by making it more fun, improve the learning curve and provide useful data for tracking the use of the DSS. 16 months after the end of the training, the DSS has more than 13000 reported records about the activities of the farmers in their farms.


Circle packing problems are a class of packing problems which attempt to pack a given set of circles into a container with no overlap. In this paper, we focus on the circle packing problem proposed by López et.al. The problem is to pack circles of unequal size into a fixed size circular container, so as to maximize the total area of the packed circles. López et al. formulated this problem as a mixed-integer nonconvex quadratic programming problem, and proposed a heuristic method based on its continuous relaxation, by which they were able to solve instances with up to 40 circles. Here we propose heuristic algorithms using mixed-integer DC programming. A DC program is an optimization problem in which the objective function can be represented by the difference of two convex functions, and a mixed-integer DC program is a DC program where some of the variables are restricted to integer values. By our method, we were able to obtain good solutions for problems with up to 60 circles.


SUMMARY In the 1980s, Chile adopted a mixed (public and private) model for health insurance coverage similar to the one recently outlined by the Affordable Care Act in the United States (US). In such a system, a mix of public and private health plans offer nearly universal coverage using a com- bined approach of managed competition and subsidies for low-income individuals. This paper uses a " most different " case study design to compare policies implemented in Chile and the US to address self-selection into private insurance. We argue that the implementation of a mixed health insurance system in Chile without the appropriate regulations was complex, and it generated a series of inequities and perverse incentives. The comparison of Chile and the US healthcare reforms examines the different approaches that both countries have used to manage economic competition, address health insurance self-selection and promote solidarity. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Red tide-forming dinoflagellates maximize cell numbers during periods of low light intensities in two ways. For short-term exposures to suboptimal light intensities such as might occur during recirculation in frontal convergences, cell division rates can be maintained at the expense of stored carbon for up to two generation times. During longer periods, corresponding to subsurface transport below a pycnocline, cell division rates eventually decrease as a portion of the fixed carbon is diverted to replenishing stored carbon. As a result, maximum rates of cell division can be resumed rapidly upon advection into surface waters where light intensities are optimal for growth.


In this article, we presented a variety of modelling approaches for the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) time series data trying to capture two features that are present in the data, in particular the persistence and the seasonal structure. For this purpose, we use long memory models based on fractional integration. The results indicate that the four ENSO series examined (El Niño 1–2; El Niño 3, El Niño 4 and El Niño 3.4) can be described in terms of a seasonal I(d) model with an order of integration higher than 0 and smaller than 1 in all four cases. The lowest degree of persistence is found in the series corresponding to El Niño 1.2, with an order of seasonal integration of 0.39. This seasonal fractional differencing parameter, however, is found to be higher than 0.5 (and thus non‐stationary) for the remaining three series.


The analysis of dissolved contaminant transport away from source areas containing nonaqueous phase liquids is an important component in the evaluation of the risk posed to downgradient receptors, of monitoring plan development, and of remedial alternative selection. Typically, individual source‐plume systems are evaluated on a site‐specific basis; however, much can be learned by looking at the collective data from multiple sites. This has been done with leaking underground storage tank sites in California, Texas, and Florida, where the analyses led to important conclusions concerning dissolved MTBE (methyl tertiary butyl ether) and benzene plume behaviors that could not be drawn from individual site data sets. In these previous works, each site data set was reduced to a plume length and then a statistical analysis of plume lengths was performed. In this paper, the use of multiple‐site collective data analyses is also pursued; however, rather than use a single metric plume length analysis, a composite plume data analysis approach is proposed and examined. This alternate approach provides a means for making use of data from ground water plumes that are incompletely defined. In addition, few of the assumptions required by single plume studies for interpolation of data are necessary. The composite plume approach is especially well suited to the analysis of large sites or regions with multiple source areas within similar hydrogeochemical settings. A case study of petroleum hydrocarbon transport at a large former oil field with more than 90 source areas illustrates the application and benefits of this approach.


North America is currently experiencing an opioid crisis. One proposed solution to combat problems associated with injection drug use is the use of supervised injection facilities. These facilities provide drug users a space to inject pre-obtained drugs without any legal repercussions. Research on these facilities has focused on public health outcomes, and generally found positive results. Far fewer studies have investigated the impact supervised injection facilities have on crime. The current study provides an interrupted time-series analysis on the impact of North America's only supervised injection facility on crime. Analyses of city wide crime data evidence no impact of the supervised injection facility on crime. Disaggregated analyses indicate a significant decrease in crimes in the district where the supervised injection facility is located. Implications of the findings are discussed.


The characteristics of the excitatory neuromuscular transmission of the crayfish claw opener were studied with intracellular recording during high frequency stimulation . The high frequency block was of the presynaptic origin. The appearance of failures of transmission was correlated with the decrease of the conduction velocity in the axon and/or its branches. At the high rates of stimulation before the failures of transmission, the mean quantum content of the polysynaptic EPSPs on the plateau of potentiation was lower than that at the lower rates. There were no signs of the transmitter store depletion during high frequency stimulation. The stability of transmitter secretion mechanism is concluded to be higher than that of the nerve conduction.


Information overload is a phenomenon of our days due to the unprecedented penetration of information and communication technologies (ICT) in our daily lives. As a result, people often end up with more options than they can process to choose from and therefore may opt for choices which do not fit best to their preferences. To address these issues, recommender systems (RSs) were proposed and have gained a lot of interest from the research community and industry. However, privacy is a big concern in these systems. While decentralized recommenders can protect privacy, they lack the needed efficiency to be widely adopted. In this article, we use blockchain as the backbone of a decentralized RS, managing to equip it with a broad set of features while simultaneously, preserving user's privacy. We introduce a new architecture, based on decentralized locality sensitive hashing classification as well as a set of recommendation methods, according to how data are managed by users. Extensive experimental results illustrate the performance and efficacy of our approach compared with state-of-the-art methods. In addition, a discussion about its benefits and opportunities provides ground for further research.


Recent advances in deep learning have led to an accurate diagnosis of pneumonia from chest X-ray images. However, these models usually require large labeled training datasets, not always available in practice. Furthermore, combining images from different medical centers does not preserve the accuracy of the results mainly because of differences in image acquisition settings. In this work, we propose an approach aiming to overcome this challenge, consisting of a subspace-based domain adaptation technique to increase pneumonia detection accuracy using a small training dataset. This dataset is augmented with automatically selected images from a large dataset acquired in a different medical center. This is performed by computing a subspace basis of the target domain dataset on which is projected the source dataset to find the most representative images. Augmenting the training set using the proposed method allows achieving an improvement from 90.03% to 96.18% in overall accuracy using the Xception neural network.


Importance sampling is a technique for speeding up Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. The fundamental idea is to use a different simulation distribution to increase the relative frequency of "important" events and then weight the observed data in order to obtain an unbiased estimate of the parameter of interest. This estimate often requires orders-of-magnitude fewer simulation trials than ordinary MC simulations to obtain the same specified precision. We present an importance sampling technique applicable to error event simulation of hidden Markov model (HMM) tracking algorithms. The computational savings possible with the use of this technique are demonstrated both analytically and using simulation results for a specific HMM tracking algorithm.


The fruit of Ziziphus jujuba, commonly called jujube, has long been consumed for its health benefits. The aim of this study was to examine the protective effect of dietary supplementation of enzymatically hydrolyzed jujube against lung inflammation in mice. The macerated flesh of jujube was extracted with aqueous ethanol before and after Viscozyme treatment. The extract of enzyme-treated jujube, called herein hydrolyzed jujube extract (HJE), contained higher levels of quercetin, total phenolics, and flavonoids, and exhibited more effective radical-scavenging abilities in comparison to non-hydrolyzed jujube extract (NHJE). HJE treatment decreased production of inflammation-associated molecules, including nitric oxide and pro-inflammatory cytokines from activated Raw 264.7 or differentiated THP-1 cells. HJE treatment also reduced expression of nuclear factor-κB and its downstream proteins in A549 human lung epithelial cells. Moreover, oral supplementation of 1.5 g of HJE per kg of body weight (BW) attenuated histological lung damage, decreased plasma cytokines, and inhibited expression of inflammatory proteins and oxidative stress mediators in the lungs of mice exposed to benzo(a)pyrene at 50 mg/kg BW. Expression levels of antioxidant and cytoprotective factors, such as nuclear factor erythroid-derived 2-related factor 2 and heme oxygenase-1, were increased in lung and liver tissues from mice treated with HJE, compared to mice fed NHJE. These findings indicate that dietary HJE can reduce benzo(a)pyrene-induced lung inflammation by inhibiting cytokine release from macrophages and promoting antioxidant defenses in vivo.


Because exposure to potentially traumatic events is common (Kessler, Sonnega, Bromet, & Hughes, 1995), the mechanisms through which post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms develop is a critical area of investigation (Ozer, Best, Lipsey, & Weiss, 2003). Among the mechanisms that may predict PTSD symptoms is spiritual struggle, a set of negative religious cognitions related to understanding or responding to stressful events. Although prominent theories emphasize cognitive factors in the development and maintenance of PTSD symptoms, they have not explicitly addressed spiritual struggle. The present prospective study tested the role of spiritual struggle in the development and maintenance of PTSD symptoms following trauma. We assessed exposure to trauma and non-trauma events during the first year of college, spiritual struggle due to the most stressful event, and PTSD symptoms resulting from the index event. Spiritual struggle partially mediated the relationship between trauma and PTSD symptoms. Interestingly, some individual subscales of spiritual struggle (specifically, Punishing God Reappraisal, Reappraisal of God's Powers, and Spiritual Discontent) partially mediated the relationship between trauma and PTSD symptoms; however, reappraisal of the event to evil forces did not relate to PTSD symptoms. These results suggest that spiritual struggle is an important cognitive mechanism for many trauma victims and may have relevance for cognitive therapy for PTSD.


The computational part of the thesis is the investigation of titanium chloride (II) as a potential catalyst for the bis-silylation reaction of ethylene with hexaclorodisilane at different levels of theory. Bis-silylation is an important reaction for producing bis(silyl) compounds and new C-Si bonds, which can serve as monomers for silicon containing polymers and silicon carbides. Ab initio calculations on the steps involved in a proposed mechanism are presented. This choice of reactants allows them to study this reaction at reliable levels of theory without compromising accuracy. The calculations indicate that this is a highly exothermic barrierless reaction. The TiCl{sub 2} catalyst removes a 50 kcal/mol activation energy barrier required for the reaction without the catalyst. The first step is interaction of TiCl{sub 2} with ethylene to form an intermediate that is 60 kcal/mol below the energy of the reactants. This is the driving force for the entire reaction. Dynamic correlation plays a significant role because RHF calculations indicate that the net barrier for the catalyzed reaction is 50 kcal/mol. They conclude that divalent Ti has the potential to become an important industrial catalyst for silylation reactions. In the programming part of the thesis, parallelization of different quantum chemistry methods is presented. The parallelization of code is becoming important aspects of quantum chemistry code development. Two trends contribute to it: the overall desire to study large chemical systems and the desire to employ highly correlated methods which are usually computationally and memory expensive. In the presented distributed data algorithms computation is parallelized and the largest arrays are evenly distributed among CPUs. First, the parallelization of the Hartree-Fock self-consistent field (SCF) method is considered. SCF method is the most common starting point for more accurate calculations. The Fock build (sub step of SCF) from AO integrals is also often used to avoid MO integral computation. The presented distributed data SCF increases the size of chemical systems that can be calculated by using RHF and DFT. The important ab initio method to study bond formation and breaking as well as excited molecules is CASSCF. The presented distributed data CASSCF algorithm can significantly decrease computational time and memory requirements per node. Therefore, large CASSCF computations can be performed. The most time consuming operation to study potential energy surfaces of reactions and chemical systems is Hessian calculations. The distributed data parallelization of CPHF will alloy scientists carry out large analytic Hessian calculations.


This article challenges the contention that it is not feasible to trace the agency of subaltern female subjects in colonial documents without at the same time distorting and even violating that very agency. Taking as its prism a letter written by a male Danish missionary chronicling a young Pariah woman's escape from missionary control in early 20th-century South India, it argues that while a search for authentic, autonomous agency is a highly dubious endeavour, relinquishing attempts to recover the acts and interventions of persons at the bottom of social hierarchies is equally problematic. Suggesting a reading 'along as well as against the grain', the article tracks the ways in which the subaltern woman's agency has been simultaneously recorded and denied, and argues for the necessity of probing both the possibilities and impossibilities presented by this type of a source.