In this article we take a closer look at the relation between general didactics and civic studies education through a critical analysis of civic studies syllabuses in primary education, in order to illuminate some general motives that legitimizes the role and content of general didactics. It seems to us that the idea of general didactics in Sweden either is about learning theories for instruction, regardless the subject, or to emancipate the democratic potentiality of the subject. In his article, we focus on the latter: First we present our theoretical perspective. With the help from Klafki's understandings of school as an engaging part of democratic society we discern two aspects of general didactics. In relation to education, one emanates from democracy and learning, and the other springs from democratic virtues and political action. Secondly, and with these two understandings in mind, we engage in a critical reading of the Curriculum for compulsory school (LGR 11) and the syllabuses for civic studies in primary education in order to trace some similarities that might give civic studies a central position for democratic socialization in general. Thirdly, and through our analysis, we reach the conclusion that, due to the similarities between the curricula and syllabus when it comes to foster the democratic subject, the pupil risks not only to be evaluated and graded subject wise, but also for his or her democratic disposition.


In the article the influence of major factors on saving the fuel and energy resources in locomotive and motor wagon rolling stock is considered, the analysis of influence of the given factors during the last years is carried out, the basic directions of economy of fuel and energy resources are formulated.


Acne vulgaris is a very common, chronic disorder, involving inflammation of the pilosebaceous units that can be varied in presentation and difficult to treat. Inflammatory acne may yield both scarring and pigmentary changes so early and adequate therapy will, in all cases, decrease its severity and may entirely suppress this disease. Serratiopeptidase has anti-inflammatory, anti-edemic and fibrinolytic activity and acts rapidly on localized inflammation. Serratiopeptidase was added in aim to hasten acne resolution. During March to July 2010, A comparative study for a 50 healthy patient suffering from acne was divided into 2 groups: 1st group treated by common acne modalities and the 2nd one with same modalities plus serratiopeptidase. All patients were followed up in out patient clinic by a dermatologist after 1st week of treatment and once weekly through the period of treatment. The results of this study showed that the effect of serratiopeptidase as adjuvant therapy for acne treatment result in a significant rapid improvement, this might be explained by serratiopeptidase ability in enhancing antibiotic efficacy and also increase the possibility of excellent improvement in acne appearance which may be due of it's  anti-inflammatory, anti-edemic. Serratiopeptidase was found to create a good hope as additional therapy for complicated acne vulgaris and bring a rapid and better improvement in treating acne.
Key words: Acne ,Serratiopeptidase.


Recent research has indicated that growth factors play an important role in normal and malignant cell growth. Previous work in this laboratory established that RPMI-2650, a cell line derived from a human carcinoma, produces growth factors including TGF-a, TGF- 3 and an autocrine factor. The purpose of this thesis was to investigate whether growth factor production is a property of all cells, or of a sub-population of cells. If high-producer clones were available it would greatly facilitate production of material for purification and characterisation.

In order to answer this question it was necessary to isolate clones of RPMI-2650. A number of experimental variables were examined, with the objective of improving cloning efficiency. Initially, basic parameters related to the environment of the cells were examined : The use of a basal medium consisting of DMEM:HamsF12 (1:1) gave a higher cloning efficiency then MEM or DME. Choice of a suitable batch of serum was very important, and serum concentration was important in determining the size of the colonies. It was also found that trypsinizing cells at 4°C gave better cloning efficiencies than trypsinization at 37°C. On the other hand, use of gas atmosphere with reduced oxygen tension caused a decrease in cloning efficiency.

Feeder cells proved to be of considerable significance. The use of mitomycin C-treated feeder cells consistently improved the cloning efficiency of RPMI-2650 cells; Mouse 3T3 or human RPMI-2650 cells were both effective as feeders. Use of RPMI-2650 conditioned medium and pre-coating of culture dishes with DEAE dextran gave a marginal improvement in cloning efficiency.

Transfer of cells from the initial clone to a larger growth area proved difficult. This problem was largely overcome by a procedure involving transfer of cells to a small volume of medium (in 96-well microplates) following trypsinization using a cloning ring.

Using this improved procedure, twenty independent clones of RPMI-2650 were isolated and frozen in liquid nitrogen. Many of the clones appeared morphologically distinct from one another. Fourteen of the clones were examined for cloning efficiency in monolayer and agar, and for production of TGF-a, TGF-3 and autocrine factors. Considerable variation between clones was observed in all of these properties. All clones examined, however, produced significant amounts of growth factors. It was concluded that growth factor production is not a property confined to a small sub-population of RPMI-2650 cells in culture.

The techniques developed in this thesis should facilitate future work in preparing clonal populations of human cancer cells. The finding that TGF-a and TGF-S production is a general property of the carcinoma cells studied, rather than a property of a sub-population, suggests that production of these growth factors may be related in some way to the process of carcinogenesis.


Abstract Most of the countries in West Asia have expressed an interest in developing nuclear energy. For them their growing demand of electricity owing to the increasing population, growing industries, their eternal reliance on the desalinated water and environmental protection are the major drivers of their decision to produce nuclear energy. Importantly, they would like to use nuclear energy for domestic consumption and supply oil and gas to earn more revenues. But their decision has also raised suspicion in some quarters amidst the fears of militarisation of their nuclear programmes, which may lead to an arms race in the region. Nuclear programmes of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Saudi Arabia have been termed as an effort to counter the Iranian nuclear programme. Similarly, Syrian and Egyptian nuclear programmes are suspected to be intended against Israel. There are also increasing safety and proliferation concerns as these countries still have not adhered to a number of relevant International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) documents.


In this paper we build a model economy in which the prevailing family structure arises endogenously as a response to labor market conditions. In this model the members of the household (parents and young adults) either work in the market, search for a job, or produce a household good. Parents feel altruistically towards their offspring. Our first finding is that search efforts of the unemployed members of the family are strategic substitutes. The second one is that, everything else equal, young adults leave their parents' house if they receive a sufficiently high wage; otherwise, they stay. In the latter case, both young adult's and spouse's search efforts are lower, since the spouse's opportunity cost of working in the market is greater when the employed young adult stays at home. As a result, both youth's and female spouse's unemployment rates are higher. This result is in line with the evidence we have for Spain.


Nitric oxide is a gaseous secondary messenger that is critical for proper cell signaling and plant survival when exposed to stress. Nitric oxide (NO) synthesis in plants, under standard phototrophic oxygenic conditions, has long been a very controversial issue. A few algal strains contain NO synthase (NOS), which appears to be absent in all other algae and land plants. The experimental data have led to the hypothesis that molybdoenzyme nitrate reductase (NR) is the main enzyme responsible for NO production in most plants. Recently, NR was found to be a necessary partner in a dual system that also includes another molybdoenzyme, which was renamed NO-forming nitrite reductase (NOFNiR). This enzyme produces NO independently of the molybdenum center of NR and depends on the NR electron transport chain from NAD(P)H to heme. Under the circumstances in which NR is not present or active, the existence of another NO-forming system that is similar to the NOS system would account for NO production and NO effects. PII protein, which senses and integrates the signals of the C–N balance in the cell, likely has an important role in organizing cell responses. Here, we critically analyze these topics.


Classicalizing theories are characterized by a rapid growth of the scattering cross section. This growth converts these sort of theories in interesting probes for ultra-high energy experiments even at relatively low luminosity, such as cosmic rays or Plasma Wakefield accelerators. The microscopic reason behind this growth is the production of N-particle states, classicalons, that represent self-sustained lumps of soft Bosons. For spin-2 theories this is the quantum portrait of what in the classical limit are known as black holes. We emphasize the importance of this quantum picture which liberates us from the artifacts of the classical geometric limit and allows to scan a much wider landscape of experimentally-interesting quantum theories. We identify a phenomenologically-viable class of spin-2 theories for which the growth of classicalon production cross section can be as efficient as to compete with QCD cross section already at 100TeV energy, signaling production of quantum black holes with graviton occupation number N ∼ 104.


Disruption of innate immunity leading to systemic inflammation and multi-organ dysfunction is the basilar footprint of autoinflammatory disorders (AIDs), ranging from rare hereditary monogenic diseases to a large number of common chronic inflammatory conditions in which there is a simultaneous participation of multiple genetic components and environmental factors, sometimes combined with autoimmune phenomena and immunodeficiency. Whatever their molecular mechanism, hereditary AIDs are caused by mutations in regulatory molecules or sensors proteins leading to dysregulated production of proinflammatory cytokines or cytokine-inducing transcription factors, fever, elevation of acute phase reactants, and a portfolio of manifold inflammatory signs which might occur in a stereotyped manner, mostly with overactivity or misactivation of different inflammasomes. Symptoms might overlap in the pediatric patient, obscuring the final diagnosis of AIDs and delaying the most appropriate treatment. Actually, the fast-paced evolution of scientific knowledge has led to recognize or reclassify an overgrowing number of multifactorial diseases, which share the basic pathogenetic mechanisms with AIDs. The wide framework of classic hereditary periodic fevers, AIDs with prominent skin involvement, disorders of the ubiquitin-proteasome system, defects of actin cytoskeleton dynamics, and also idiopathic nonhereditary febrile syndromes occurring in children is herein presented. Interleukin-1 dependence of these diseases or involvement of other predominating molecules is also discussed.


Recent work has shown that humans can learn or detect complex dependencies among variables. Even learning a simple dependency involves the identification of an underlying model and the learning of its parameters. This process represents learning a structured problem. We are interested in an empirical assessment of some of the factors that enable humans to learn such a dependency over time. More specifically, we look at how the statistics of the presentation of samples from a given structure influence learning. Participants engage in an experimental task where they are required to predict the timing of a target. At the outset, they are oblivious to the existence of a relationship between the position of a stimulus and the required temporal response to intercept it. Different groups of participants are either presented with a Random Walk where consecutive stimuli were correlated or with stimuli that were uncorrelated over time. We find that the structural relationship implicit in the task is only learned in the conditions where the stimuli are independently drawn. This leads us to believe that humans require rich and independent sampling to learn hidden structures among variables.


An epidemic of chronic pulmonary hypertension of vascular origin (CPHVO) has occurred in Austria, the Federal Republic of Germany, and Switzerland. The epidemic started in 1967 and reached its peak in 1968 and 1969. Since 1972, the prevalence of patients with CPHVO among individuals investigated by cardiac catheterization is again as low as in the pre-epidemic years. In Bern the prevalence of CPHVO during the peak of the epidemic was 20 times higher than during the 12-year period preceding the epidemic. The clinical, physical, electrocardiographic, radiologic, haemodynamic and respiratory findings of the patients observed in Bern (n = 102) are summarized. There has been a mortality between 12 and 20% at the time of the epidemic. Most patients observed for the first time during the epidemic have remained severely disabled over the years. A minute fraction seems to have recovered. There is a close geographic as well as temporal relation of the epidemic to the marketing and intake of the appetite depressing drug aminorex fumarate (Menocil). Acute administration of aminorex leads to a transient rise of the pulmonary artery pressure and vascular resistance in a number of animal species. It has not been possible to produce sustained precapillary pulmonary hypertension and chronic cor pulmonale vasculare under the conditions of chronic administration of the drug in the species tested. Morphologic examination of lung biopsy and autopsy material of patients who have died from CPHVO after the intake of aminorex reveals the presence of "plexogenic pulmonary arteriopathy". The vascular lesions are identical with those observed in pulmonary hypertension due to large congenital left-to-right shunts. In balancing the pros and cons, it appears that the arguments in favour of a cause-effect relationship between aminorex and pulmonary hypertension, which are derived from epidemiological evidence, outweigh the results of "negative" animal experiments. A "propter" in the title of this paper, therefore, seems to be more appropriate than a post".


As a universally common endocrinopathy in women of reproductive age, the polycystic ovarian syndrome is characterized by composite clinical phenotypes reflecting the contributions of reproductive impact of ovarian dysfunction and metabolic abnormalities with widely varying symptoms resulting from interference of the genome with the environment through integrative biological mechanisms including epigenetics. We have performed a genome-wide DNA methylation analysis on polycystic ovarian syndrome and identified a substantial number of genomic sites differentially methylated in the whole blood of PCOS patients and healthy controls (52 sites, false discovery rate < 0.05 and corresponding p value < 5.68e–06 ), highly consistently replicating biological pathways extensively implicated in immunity and immunity-related inflammatory disorders (false discovery rate < 0.05) that were reportedly regulated in the DNA methylome from ovarian tissue under PCOS condition. Most importantly, our genome-wide profiling focusing on PCOS patients revealed a large number of DNA methylation sites and their enriched functional pathways significantly associated with diverse clinical features (levels of prolactin, estradiol, progesterone and menstrual cycle) that could serve as novel molecular basis of the clinical heterogeneity observed in PCOS women.


In this paper we provide a framework to analyze the effect of uniform sampling on graph optimization problems. Interestingly, we apply this framework to a general class of graph optimization problems that we call heavy subgraph problems, and show that uniform sampling preserves a 1-ε approximate solution to these problems. This class contains many interesting problems such as densest subgraph, directed densest subgraph, densest bipartite subgraph, d-max cut, and d-sum-max clustering. As an immediate impact of this result, one can use uniform sampling to solve these problems in streaming, turnstile or Map-Reduce settings. Indeed, our results by characterizing heavy subgraph problems address Open Problem 13 at the IITK Workshop on Algorithms for Data Streams in 2006 regarding the effects of subsampling, in the context of graph streams. Recently Bhattacharya et al. in STOC 2015 provide the first one pass algorithm for the densest subgraph problem in the streaming model with additions and deletions to its edges, i.e., for dynamic graph streams. They present a (0.5-ε)-approximation algorithm using ~O(n) space, where factors of ε and log(n) are suppressed in the ~O notation. In this paper we improve the (0.5-ε)-approximation algorithm of Bhattacharya et al. by providing a (1-ε)-approximation algorithm using ~O(n) space.


For the last twenty years, the dominant narrative of the over-the-counter derivatives market has been one of absent regulation, deregulation, and regulatory conflict, predictably resulting in disaster. This Article challenges this narrative, arguing that the global derivatives market has been subject to pervasive and harmonized regulation by what should be recognized as transnational private regulators. Recognizing the reality of widespread transnational private regulation of derivatives has significant implications, which this Article explores. Appreciating the actual regulatory status quo is essential if policymakers are to correctly diagnose problems, avoid past regulatory errors, and plan effective remedies. There are also advantages to relying on private transnational regulation, as increased governmental effort to regulate the OTC derivatives space may undermine and fracture existing regulation. To be sure, private transnational regulation carries risks that have sometimes materialized, such as the manipulation of LIBOR. Thus, this Article also evaluates best practices in regulating through transnational private governance.


When holiday variation is present so that the dates of certain holidays change from year to year, the relatively automatic seasonal adjustment procedures may fail to extract the seasonal component from a series since the holiday effects are not confined to that component. Turkey, a predominantly Muslim country, constitutes a good example of moving holidays since the official calendar is Gregorian, based on the cycles of the Earth around the sun, while significant Islamic holidays are tied to the Hegirian calendar, based on the lunar cycles. One finds significant deterministic seasonality remains in the conventionally de-seasonalized time series and removing the effects of religious seasonality using a very simple method improves the qualities of the de-seasonalized component.


This article summarizes the features of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that may affect treatment outcome and discusses the areas in which treatment outcome can be productively evaluated. PTSD is a complex psychiatric condition that tends to run a chronic course. Measurement of treatment outcome in PTSD is confounded by multiple factors, including a high prevalence of comorbid disorders, reactivation of the syndrome by ongoing environmental stressors, spontaneous recovery of the early disorder, and a fluctuating course of the chronic disorder. Four principal domains of treatment outcome may be evaluated in PTSD: core symptom severity, comorbid conditions (particularly depression), adverse practices (e.g., violence or alcohol consumption), and social/vocational disability. To gain an accurate assessment of these domains, a comprehensive assessment battery is needed. The relevant instruments and their yield in studies of PTSD are reviewed.


This work attempts to determine the bioactive agents' groups probably responsible for the diverse growth characteristics and medicinal uses of Tetracarpidium conophorum Hutch. & Dalziel and to explore the global propagation of the climber plant. Consequently, four segments of the seedling namely: the dried epicotyls and foliage, the upper regenerative hypocotyl, the poorly regenerative swollen hypocotyl and the roots of the conophor seedlings were screened for ten bioactive compounds as well as their food values. Results showed that alkaloids and saponin concentrations were highest in the foliage. Terpene concentration was highest in the regenerative hypocotyl segment. Tannins, phenolic compounds and phlobatannin concentration were highest in the non-regenerative hypocotyl segment. Anthraquinone, cardiac glycoside and flavonoids concentrations were highest in the roots. Cardenolide concentration is generally low in all the segments of the conophor seedling studied. It can be inferred that the foliage can be used as an anti-venom agent based on its relatively high content of cardiac glycosides, alkaloids, saponins and phenols which are active substances responsible for detoxification of venoms in human system. There were also obvious variations in the amount of both bioactive agents and food content of the various segments of the conophor seedling. High proteins and terpene content of the regenerative hypocotyl segment are probably responsible for adventitious bud regeneration since terpenes are precursors of plant hormones.


While early empirical evidence has supported the case for learned index structures as having favourable average-case performance, little is known about their worst-case performance. By contrast, classical structures are known to achieve optimal worst-case behaviour. This work evaluates the robustness of learned index structures in the presence of adversarial workloads. To simulate adversarial work-loads, we carry out a data poisoning attack on linear regression models that manipulates the cumulative distribution function (CDF) on which the learned index model is trained. The attack deteriorates the fit of the underlying ML model by injecting a set of poisoning keys into the training dataset, which leads to an increase in the prediction error of the model and thus deteriorates the overall performance of the learned index structure. We assess the performance of various regression methods and the learned index implementations ALEX and PGM-Index. We show that learned index structures can suffer from a significant performance deterioration of up to 20% when evaluated on poisoned vs. non-poisoned datasets.


The current macro-payment systems used by most e-commerce sites are not suitable for high-volume, low-cost produce or service purposes, such as charging per page for Web site browsing. These payment technologies suffer from the use of heavyweight encryption technologies and reliance on always-online authorisation servers. Micro-payment systems offer an alternative strategy of pay-as-you-go charging, even for very low-cost, very high-volume charging. However, several different micro-payment schemes exist, not all of which are suitable for all e-commerce uses. We compare and contrast several micro-payment models and outline a new micro-payment technology which we have been developing.


BACKGROUND
The optimal timing of nephrology consultation in patients with hospital-acquired acute kidney injury (AKI) is unknown.

STUDY DESIGN
Prospective controlled nonrandomized intervention study.

SETTING & PARTICIPANTS
We screened daily serum creatinine (SCr) levels of 4,296 patients admitted to the St. Louis Veterans Affairs Medical Center between September and November 2008 (control group) and January to May 2009 (intervention group). 354 patients (8.2%) met the definition of in-hospital AKI (SCr level increase of 0.3 mg/dL over 48 hours); 176 of whom met all inclusion criteria; 85 and 91 patients were enrolled in the control (standard care) and intervention groups, respectively.

INTERVENTION
Early renal service involvement (EARLI), defined as a 1-time nephrology consultation within 18 hours of the onset of AKI.

OUTCOME
Primary outcome defined as 2.5-fold increase in SCr level from admission.

MEASUREMENT
Daily SCr until discharge.

RESULTS
The 2 groups had similar characteristics at baseline and at the time of AKI. The intervention was completed at a mean of 13.1 ± 0.8 hours from the onset of AKI. Nephrology recommendations in the EARLI group included specific diagnostic, therapeutic, and preventative components. The primary outcome occurred in 12.9% of patients in the control group compared with 3.3% of patients in the EARLI group (P = 0.02). Patients in the EARLI group had a lower peak SCr level of 1.8 ± 0.1 versus 2.1 ± 0.2 mg/dL in controls (P = 0.01).

LIMITATIONS
Single-center nonrandomized study of mostly US male veterans.

CONCLUSIONS
Early nephrologist involvement in patients with AKI may reduce the risk of a further decrease in kidney function. A larger randomized trial is needed to confirm the findings.


Backgrounds/Aims: The incidence of obesity is increasing dramatically not only among adults, but also in children. The purpose of the survey was to assess the age- and gender-specific anthropometric data of children between the ages of 7 and 14 years who attended elementary schools in Budapest. Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed in 2005. Altogether 1,928 students (1,002 boys and 926 girls) were recruited from the schools. The representative sampling sites were selected randomly. Height and waist circumference were measured, other data were analyzed by an 8-polar bioelectrical impedance procedure. Statistical analysis was carried out using SPSS 11 for windows. Results: On the basis of body mass index (BMI), prevalence of underweight, overweight and obesity were 5.1, 18.1 and 7.4% for boys and 6.8, 19.6 and 6.3% for girls, respectively. On the basis of body fat percentage (%BF), prevalence of obesity was 17.9% for boys and 12.8% for girls. Forty nine percent of boys and 28% of girls categorized as overweight by BMI were obese according to their %BF. The difference in waist circumference between individuals categorized by BMI as normal and obese was 24.7 cm for boys and 20.5 cm for girls. Between those categorized as non-obese and obese by %BF, the difference was 17.3 cm for boys and 16.4 cm for girls. Normal and overweight boys and girls with high %BF had significantly higher waist circumferences than their counterparts with normal %BF. This means that many obese children may escape detection as obese, if classified as overweight on the basis of BMI alone. Conclusion: Results appear to underline that in addition to BMI, the determination of the %BF and waist circumference is important in epidemiological studies to identify obese subjects.


Understanding of the philosophy and theory behind the law is significance to law makers, legal practitioners, academicians and laymen.The rationales are to have some understanding of public policy and the real aim of the laws that made up particular practices or the root of practices.Therefore, this book highlight selected philosophy and theory of laws in the area of commercial, financial and corporate law; medical law; constitutional and administrative law and lastly human resource law.The massive information and knowledge in this book will benefits law makers, legal practitioners, academicians, universities students in understanding the philosophy and theory of the law first, before appreciating and applying the substantive law in their profession and life.


It has been assumed by design professionals and educators that designers are innovators or at least contribute to innovation, indeed there have been numerous studies linking design to creativity and innovation. Often design is linked to intangible as well as tangible values in product success but do we know exactly how; what models exist; and how do designers really provide real value to the organisation and indeed to the supply chain? These are the questions that this current research study has been addressing in the UK.


Neonatal microglial cells respond to GM-CSF and M-CSF by acquiring different morphologies and phenotypes. To investigate the extent and consequences of this process, a global gene expression analysis was performed, with significant changes in transcript levels confirmed by biochemical analyses. Primary murine microglial cells underwent substantial expression reprogramming after treatment with GM-CSF or M-CSF with many differentially expressed transcripts important in innate and adaptive immunity. In particular, many gene products involved in Ag presentation were induced by GM-CSF, but not M-CSF, thus potentially priming relatively quiescent microglia cells for Ag presentation. This function of GM-CSF is distinct from its primary function in cell proliferation and survival.


Currently, many of Malaysian SMEs was using open source Enterprise Resource Planning (OS-ERP) as the enterprise information system. With OS-ERP, financial needs can be decreased and the system can be customized freely and easily. Those factors are affecting technical activity in implementing OS-ERP based on Malaysian SME, such as an appropriate database migration, synchronizing modules based on workflow of Malaysian SME, designing interfaces as a user friendly application, well-maintained user support and integrating ERP with third-party software (optional). Otherwise, work culture of SMEs must be changed to synchronize with ERP workflow. Without changing work culture,implementation process will not working properly. As for detail, this paper will propose five major critical factors to ensure the  successful of OS-ERP implementation in technical requirement point of view; specialize to Malaysian small and medium enterprises (SMEs).


We report a new strategy toward construction of functional composite materials for fast molecular separation. Molecularly imprinted nanoparticles containing surface-exposed alkyne groups were synthesized by one-pot precipitation polymerization. Magnetic Fe3O4 nanoparticles were first coated with a silica shell, and then modified with terminal azide groups. The two types of clickable nanoparticles were conjugated through a Cu(I)-catalyzed azide–alkyne cycloaddition (CuAAC) reaction to give composite magnetic particles, which displayed high molecular recognition selectivity and could be easily separated using a simple magnet.


Sutton E. Griggs9s Imperium in Imperio and James D. Corrothers9s "A Man They Didn9t Know" are two early Afroamerican fictions which suggest a black alliance with foreign powers in the face of unrelenting racial injustice at home. Imperium in Imperio, published in 1899, has been described as "the first political novel" by a black American; and "A Man They Didn9t Know," appearing in 1913, is probably the first Afroamerican fiction to suggest a specific alliance between American blacks, groups in Mexico, and the Japanese. Sutton E. Griggs is currently undergoing rediscovery, and Imperium in Imperio is by now well known to students of Afroamerican literature, if not to students of American literature in general. However, aspects of the historical context of Imperium in Imperio have been overlooked by literary scholars at significant cost to a complete appreciation of what Griggs is doing in the novel. Corrothers9s "A Man They Didn9t Know" has been overlooked in all respects. This highly interesting fictional work, comparable in important respects to Griggs9s novel, needs to be brought to the attention of students of American culture of various disciplines, and, like Imperium in Imperio, to be fully understood, it must be read in its historical context.


The search for an HMG-CoA reductase inhibitor agent as a safe and inexpensive alternative treatment for hypercholesterolemia has been carried out using soy protein hydrolysates as one of the bioactive peptide sources. This study was conducted to explore the potency of soy protein hydrolysates as an anti hypercholesterolemia agent by an in vitro assay, through the inhibition capacity of the HMG-CoA (3-hydroxy-3-methyl glutaryl-coenzyme A) reductase enzyme as a key component of cholesterol biosynthesis. Sample preparation started with soy protein isolation through acid precipitation and separated by centrifugation. The samples were analyzed the proximate content and hydrolyzed by papain enzyme at concentration 0.2% (w/v), for 0-6 hours and at 37, 50, and 55 o C. The protein hydrolysates were subsequently evaluated for hydrolysis degree (% DH), hydrolysates profile with SDS-PAGE (Sodium Dodecyl Sulphate Polyacrylamide Gel Electrophoresis), and anti-cholesterol assay through HMG-CoA reductase inhibition tests. The sample with the highest inhibition activity was fractionated using gel filtration chromatography (Sephadex G-10) and the molecular weight of fractions was characterized by LCMS QTOF (Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry Quadrupole Time-of-Flight) for molecular weight determination. The results indicated the optimum hydrolysis conditions of soy protein isolates were obtained at 3 hours incubation, at 50 °C with DH 33.39% and the inhibition value was 95.65% (protein concentration 39.21 μg / mL). LCMS data showed the molecular weight of fractionated peptides were 1514 and 2029 Da. We assumed that both peptides have the same affinity as previous peptides in inhibiting HMG-CoA reductase.


Introduction pregnancy problems form a major part of all gynecological emergencies. In the past, patients were admitted to the emergency receiving ward and waited for a considerable length of time before undergoing ultrasound scan and clinical assessment. With the appearance of early pregnancy assessment units (EPU), an increasing number of women are being assessed and managed as outpatient or office attenders. The advent of high-resolution transvaginal ultrasound coupled with the improved access to hCG measurements has allowed the development of models of care and improved delivery of care. Within the UK the growth of EPU numbers has increased to the extent that over 200 active units are registered with the Association of Early Pregnancy Units (AEPU). The AEPU has set out, since it's inception in 2001, to improve the standards of early pregnancy care and to provide a clearer pathway for the patient's journey (earlypregnancy.org.uk). In recent years ultrasound diagnosis and improved understanding of problems related to early pregnancy have led to the introduction of medical and expectant management of miscarriage and selected cases of ectopic pregnancy. Randomized controlled trials have provided evidence-based practice (rcog.org.uk/guidelines). Patient choice has emerged as a powerful selector for treatment. The mission statement from the Association of Early Pregnancy Units has the patient at the center of all activity and the multidisciplinary care structure reflects the multitasking approach of care providers.


Proposals to use a helmetlike interface for noninvasive positive pressure ventilation (NIV) can be traced back to more than a century ago. Among the earliest descriptions, Brauer and Petersen,1 in 1904, developed a helmetlike positive pressure ventilation "cabinet" to be placed around the patient's head, with an air-tight seal formed via a soft neck collar. This prescient invention garnered little attention at the time. Instead, negative pressure ventilation via the "iron lung" gained widespread use to treat respiratory failure from polio and was superseded by endotracheal intubation for invasive mechanical ventilation by the 1960s. Although the physics of various mechanical ventilation devices is similar (pressure difference between airway opening and alveolus drives airflow), the interface used can have important implications for features of mechanical support possible, access of health care personnel to the patient, and comfort of the patient that may influence efficacy.


Genome instability is a characteristic of cancer and aging, and is a hallmark of the premature aging disorder Werner syndrome (WS). Evidence suggests that the Werner syndrome protein (WRN) contributes to the maintenance of genome integrity through its involvement in DNA repair. In particular, biochemical evidence indicates a role for WRN in base excision repair (BER). We have previously reported that WRN helicase activity stimulates DNA polymerase beta (pol β) strand displacement synthesis in vitro. In this report we demonstrate that WRN exonuclease activity can act cooperatively with pol β, a polymerase lacking 3′–5′ proofreading activity. Furthermore, using small interference RNA technology, we demonstrate that WRN knockdown cells are hypersensitive to the alkylating agent methyl methanesulfonate, which creates DNA damage that is primarily repaired by the BER pathway. In addition, repair assays using whole cell extracts from WRN knockdown cells indicate a defect in long patch (LP) BER. These findings demonstrate that WRN plays a direct role in the repair of methylation-induced DNA damage, and suggest a role for both WRN helicase and exonuclease activities together with pol β during LP BER.


Background The relationships between auditory processing and reading-related skills remain poorly understood despite intensive research. Here we focus on the potential role of musical experience as a confounding factor. Specifically we ask whether the pattern of correlations between auditory and reading related skills differ between children with different amounts of musical experience. Methodology/Principal Findings Third grade children with various degrees of musical experience were tested on a battery of auditory processing and reading related tasks. Very poor auditory thresholds and poor memory skills were abundant only among children with no musical education. In this population, indices of auditory processing (frequency and interval discrimination thresholds) were significantly correlated with and accounted for up to 13% of the variance in reading related skills. Among children with more than one year of musical training, auditory processing indices were better, yet reading related skills were not correlated with them. A potential interpretation for the reduction in the correlations might be that auditory and reading-related skills improve at different rates as a function of musical training. Conclusions/Significance Participants' previous musical training, which is typically ignored in studies assessing the relations between auditory and reading related skills, should be considered. Very poor auditory and memory skills are rare among children with even a short period of musical training, suggesting musical training could have an impact on both. The lack of correlation in the musically trained population suggests that a short period of musical training does not enhance reading related skills of individuals with within-normal auditory processing skills. Further studies are required to determine whether the associations between musical training, auditory processing and memory are indeed causal or whether children with poor auditory and memory skills are less likely to study music and if so, why this is the case.


Models of Titan's thermal history indicate that an ocean consisting of an ammonia-water solution, as much as 200 km deep, is presently concealed beneath a crust of water ice. Conditions within this hypothetical ocean are discussed here and compared with conditions in terrestrial biomes. These conditions, while extreme by terrestrial standards, are such that life could indeed survive. This is in stark contrast with conditions on the surface where even the simplest prebiotic reactions have half-lives of the order 10(7) years, and free water would only infrequently be available to participate in chemical reactions. The plausible existence of life within Titan's subterranean ocean is discussed in terms of the effects that gaseous waste products of such indigenous organisms could have on the chemical and isotopic composition of the atmosphere. The possibility that all of Titan's current atmospheric CH4 and N-2 is of biogenic origin is explored from a consideration of the potential productivity of oceanic microbes. While microbial life appears to be possible, it is unlikely that the Cassini/Huygens mission will be able to distinguish any unambiguous biomarkers. The existence and possible depth of the ocean may be constrained from Cassini flyby data, but detection of life in that ocean calls for a closer examination than the Huygens lander will afford us. (C) 2000 Academic Press.


Multiresistance plasmids are one of the main drivers of antibiotic resistance development and spread. Their evolutionary success through the accumulation and mobilization of resistance genes is central to resistance evolution. ABSTRACT By providing the bacterial cell with protection against several antibiotics at once, multiresistance plasmids have an evolutionary advantage in situations where antibiotic treatments are common, such as in hospital environments. However, resistance plasmids can also impose fitness costs on the bacterium in the absence of antibiotics, something that may limit their evolutionary success. The underlying mechanisms and the possible contribution of resistance genes to such costs are still largely not understood. Here, we have specifically investigated the contribution of plasmid-borne resistance genes to the reduced fitness of the bacterial cell. The pUUH239.2 plasmid carries 13 genes linked to antibiotic resistance and reduces bacterial fitness by 2.9% per generation. This cost is fully ameliorated by the removal of the resistance cassette. While most of the plasmid-borne resistance genes individually were cost-free, even when overexpressed, two specific gene clusters were responsible for the entire cost of the plasmid: the extended-spectrum-β-lactamase gene blaCTX-M-15 and the tetracycline resistance determinants tetAR. The blaCTX-M-15 cost was linked to the signal peptide that exports the β-lactamase into the periplasm, and replacement with an alternative signal peptide abolished the cost. Both the tetracycline pump TetA and its repressor TetR conferred a cost on the host cell, and the reciprocal expression of these genes is likely fine-tuned to balance the respective costs. These findings highlight that the cost of clinical multiresistance plasmids can be largely due to particular resistance genes and their interaction with other cellular systems, while other resistance genes and the plasmid backbone can be cost-free. IMPORTANCE Multiresistance plasmids are one of the main drivers of antibiotic resistance development and spread. Their evolutionary success through the accumulation and mobilization of resistance genes is central to resistance evolution. In this study, we find that the cost of the introduction of a multiresistance plasmid was completely attributable to resistance genes, while the rest of the plasmid backbone is cost-free. The majority of resistance genes on the plasmid had no appreciable cost to the host cell even when overexpressed, indicating that plasmid-borne resistance can be cost-free. In contrast, the widespread genes blaCTX-M-15 and tetAR were found to confer the whole cost of the plasmid by affecting specific cellular functions. These findings highlight how the evolution of resistance on plasmids is dependent on the amelioration of associated fitness costs and point at a conundrum regarding the high cost of some of the most widespread β-lactamase genes.


In this paper we present a detailed analysis of large scale experimental data from the SINTEF Multiphase Laboratory on high-rate low liquid loading flows. The experimental work [1] was funded by Equinor as part of the Tanzania gas field development project [2] [3] [4], and SINTEF was granted access to use the data for improving the accuracy of the pressure drop predictions in LedaFlow. The experimental results showed that a key element for predicting high-rate low liquid loading flows accurately is to account for the droplets that deposit on the walls in the gas zone, creating a wall film. This wall film can have a profound effect on the hydraulic roughness experienced by the gas, and subsequently the frictional pressure drop. Furthermore, the data showed that this effect was particularly important for high liquid viscosities and in three-phase flows, and simulations showed that LedaFlow had a clear tendency to under-predict the pressure drop in such scenarios. To improve this situation, we used the data to derive a model for predicting this complex phenomenon. This paper summarizes the main parts of the data analysis and the development of the wall film model. We show that by introducing this new model into LedaFlow, we were able to significantly improve the agreement with the measurements.


Introduction: Gallbladder cancer is a highly fatal malignancy. Even though it is a rare malignancy, it is the most common biliary tract malignancy in USA. Majority of the patients are asymptomatic and among symptomatic patients, the most common complains include pain, anorexia, nausea or vomiting. Patients with GBC may also present with obstructive jaundice, either from direct invasion of the biliary tree or from metastatic liver diseases. Gall bladder carcinoma mainly metastasizes to liver, intra-abdominal LNs and biliary tract. Intramuscular and subcutaneous manifestations are very rare from gallbladder carcinoma. In this article we present a rare case of Intramuscular metastasis of gallbladder carcinoma in an African American lady with no other history of gallbladder disease. Case narration: 55 year old African American lady with history of poly-substance abuse disorder presented to Boston Medical Centre with 2 months of progressive Right Upper Quadrant abdominal pain. She had CT scan showing 6.3 cm mass in gallbladder invading into the liver which on biopsy was consistent with adenocarcinoma of gallbladder. She presented again in the Emergency Department with a new 3 x 3 cm lump in her left arm and 5 x 5 cm lump in her left thigh. A CT Scan of the thigh mass showed an extensive lesion in her left thigh muscles again which on USG guided biopsy confirmed intramuscular metastasis with IHC positive for CK7, AE1:3 and CAM5.2 consistent with metastatic gallbladder adenocarcinoma.  Conclusion: Although rare, intramuscular lesions should raise suspicion of metastatic disease in the gall bladder carcinoma patients. In our case, patient reported two new rapidly growing lesions consistent with rapid progression of disease. Palliative radiation therapy should be considered in patients with severe pain associated with intramuscular metastasis. Intramuscular metastasis is usually associated with poorer prognosis


This paper proposes the minimum time deadlock recovery problem in the AGV system with the ladder guidepath layout(DRPL, for short) and analyzes its computational complexity. In order to analyze the computational complexity, this paper introduces the decision problem version of DRPL to ask whether all deadlocks in the AGV system are recoverable within predetermined time, and NP-hardness in a special case of the problem is proved. Moreover, the condition by which the problem becomes NP-hard when the AGV system has a ladder guidepath layout is clarified, and we propose a polynomial time algorithm that solves the optimization problem version of this problem whenever the problem in the ladder guidepath layout is not NP-hard.


Preventive measures sometimes fail to deflect malicious attacks. We adopt an information warfare perspective, which assumes success by the attacker in achieving partial, but not complete, damage. In particular, we work in the database context and consider recovery from malicious but committed transactions. Traditional recovery mechanisms do not address this problem, except for complete rollbacks, which undo the work of benign transactions as well as malicious ones, and compensating transactions, whose utility depends on application semantics. Recovery is complicated by the presence of benign transactions that depend, directly or indirectly, on the malicious transactions. We present algorithms to restore only the damaged part of the database. We identify the information that needs to be maintained for such algorithms. The initial algorithms repair damage to quiescent databases; subsequent algorithms increase availability by allowing new transactions to execute concurrently with the repair process. Also, via a study of benchmarks, we show practical examples of how offline analysis can efficiently provide the necessary data to repair the damage of malicious transactions.


An error was made in the editorial for the previous issue of this journal, Global Constitutionalism 8(1). In the editorial, mistaken reference was made to Aoife and O'Donoghue as the authors of 'Can Global Constitutionalism Be Feminist?' in S Harris Rimmer and K Ogg (eds), Research Handbook on Feminist Engagement with International Law (Edward Elgar 2019). This of course should have referred to Aoife O'Donoghue and Ruth Houghton.


Pollinators provide critical ecosystems services vital to the production of numerous crops in the United States' agricultural sector. However, the U.S. is witnessing a serious decline in the abundance and diversity of domestic and wild pollinators, which threatens U.S. food security. In response, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has created the Pollinator Habitat Initiative (CP-42) to induce landowners to create quality habitat for pollinators by planting beneficial crops and wildflowers on Conservation Reserve Program (CRP)-eligible land. Landowners' potential conservation decisions under CP-42 and the resulting impact on land use decisions regarding crop production are not well-understood. We examine these issues by designing an economic experiment that simulates landowners' decisions to enroll in CP-42. As our motivating example, we focus on how CP-42 might affect crop production patterns and the resulting returns in Goshen County, Wyoming. The results indicate that about 16% of CRP-eligible land would be enrolled. Based on the relatively low CP-42 payment, our subjects remove only lower value crops from production. Our results suggest that (1) all dry wheat and sunflower production and a portion of barley, corn, and dry beans could be taken out of production when transferred to pollinator habitat, and (2) that habitat fragmentation would likely occur, which would reduce the efficacy of pollination. Overall, our results suggest that there are significant limits to the overall effectiveness of the CP-42 policy.


The incapability of conventional biological wastewater treatment to remove effectively biorecalcitrant and/or toxic pollutants, as well as the shortage of world water resources have promoted the research of more efficient and ecologically y friendly water treatment technologies. This thesis contributes to the development of a new hybrid technology combining advanced oxidation processes (AOP) and biological processes for the treatment of wastewater containing biorecalcitrant and toxic pollutants. In the proposed coupled system, AOP is applied exclusively as pre-treatment with the aim to modify the chemical structure of the pollutants to transform them into biodegradable intermediates. During this step partial mineralization of pollutant take place, and the subsequent biological treatment is applied to complete mineralization. This approach is viable from the economic and environmental point of view, and appears as an alternative to the drastic and/or inefficient single-step processes actually applied for the treatment of biorecalcitrant wastewater. This thesis is organized in 6 chapters and focuses on the degradation of a model biorecalcitrant pollutant: 5-amino-6-methyl-2-benzimidazolone (AMBI) an important precursor in the industrial production of dyes. In the first chapter, AOP and the concept of coupling AOP-biological process are introduced. An overview of studies which used a combination of photoassisted and biological degradation of organic contaminants in water was performed. Chapter 2 focuses on an exploratory study with some of the most representative AOP Thus sonochemical, electrochemical and photochemical oxidation processes were applied to degrade AMBI. The comparison of these AOP revealed that the iron photo-assisted processes are the most advantageous, and have an application potential in sunny regions. Chapter 3 focuses on the degradation of AMBI by means of the hν/Fe(III)/O2(air) and hν/ Fe(III)/H2O2 systems using an artificial irradiation source. The transformation of AMBI photoinduced by the Fe(III) in presence of both O2(from air) and H2O2 electron acceptors is studied. The effect of AMBI, Fe3+ and H2O2 concentration for the degradation of AMBI wastewater in the photo-Fenton process was discussed and optimal conditions were found. Chapter 4 focuses on coupling iron photoassisted process with a biological system at lab scale. Here a general strategy to develop combined photochemical and biological systems for biorecalcitrant wastewater treatment is proposed. Following this strategy, two kinds of combined systems were developed and tested using for the photocatalytic pretreatment hν/Fe3+/O2(air) or hν/Fe3+/H2O2 and in both cases fixed bed with activated sludge culture for the biological step. To replace relatively expensive artificial irradiation in photoassisted processes, the solar irradiation was applied. Chapter 5 illustrates the development and optimization at pilot scale, of a coupled solar-biological system for water treatment. The following points were taking into account: (i) the choice of the most appropriate solar collector and the most efficient photocatalytic system, (ii) the optimization of the photocatalytic system, (iii) the monitoring of the chemical and biological characteristics of photo-treated solution and (iv) the evaluation of the performances of the coupled solar-biological system for the treatment of real industrial wastewater containing AMBI. Results indicate that coupling solar-biological processes at pilot scale is an effective method to the treatment of non-biodegradable industrial pollutants such as AMBI. To overcome the problem of electricity supply for pumps used for the recirculation of wastewater in a coupled water detoxification process, chapter 6 proposes a new Hybrid Photocatalytic-Photovoltaic System (HPPS). HPPS is a device which allows simultaneously decontaminate water and convert solar energy into electricity. This ecological equipment (which is actually following a patent procedure at the EPFL) was designed, installed, and tested. The results show that the HPPS represents an autonomous and environmentally friendly method for this strategy of polluted water remediation.


Aging is a complex process driven by seven intertwined pillars that functionally decline with increasing chronologic age. These pillars of aging include stem cell function, mitochondrial function, proteostasis, autophagy, nutrient sensing, metabolism, epigenetic control, and adaptation to stress, macromolecular damage and inflammation. All of the pillars appear to be interconnected such that a change in one, impinges upon others. With so many pillars of aging, it makes drug development to target aging processes equally complex. This leads to the notion that multiple pathways or biological processes need to be targeted to effectively prevent, delay or attenuate aging. The concept of drug combinations as a powerful anti-aging platform is intriguing but has yet to be tested systematically. Insulin function, mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin) signaling and epigenetic regulation are well-established molecular pathways involved in the pathobiology of aging. Existing drugs that target these pathways include acarbose, rapamycin, and phenylbutyrate, respectively. Acarbose and rapamycin, used as single agents, extend the lifespan of mice. Thus, a cocktail of these drugs with different mechanisms of action would be expected to complement one another and robustly enhance a delay of aging and age-related disease not achievable with mono-therapeutic approaches. Studies to test this concept will be helpful in the development of clinical trials to enhance healthy aging.


Introduction. Gender disparity in higher educational institutions of Ethiopia has become one of the cross cutting agendas that need special concern. The objective of this study was to assess gender disparity in academic performance among undergraduate students of Ambo University, College of Medicine and Health Sciences. Methods. This paper analyzed the university entrance examination score and Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) of 133 (92 male and 41 female) undergraduate graduates of 2017 at Ambo University, College of medicine and health sciences. The census survey was conducted through an anonymous self administered questionnaire from September 20-October 10, 2017. Independent sample t-test was performed to test gender disparity among the undergraduates with regard to academic performance. Results. The study findings revealed that, there were gender disparities among undergraduates of Ambo University, College of Medicine and Health Sciences. Female students joined the University with lower university entrance examination score (Mean=428.5, SD=27.1) compared to males (Mean=442.6, SD=25.2). Thus, their grade 12 exam achievement mean difference was found to be statistically significant (Mean difference=14.1; 95% CI= 4.52-23.67; t=2.913, df=131, p-value=0.004). Similarly, female undergraduates achieved lower CGPA (Mean=2.93, SD=0.39) than male undergraduates (Mean=3.29, SD =0.41). There was also a significant mean difference between male and female students in CGPA achievement at university (Mean difference=0.36; 95% CI= 0.21-0.51; t=4.780,df=131, p-value<0.001).  Moreover, the proportion of females graduated from the college in 2017 was only 26.5%. Conclusion. According to the students' high school performance, female students achieved university entrance examination score significantly lower than males. Similarly, female students' academic performance at university was also low compared to male students. Regarding gender composition graduates, the result indicates that female undergraduates were underrepresented in the college accounting only 26.5%.  The implication of this study suggests that the affirmative action intervention including tutorial classes, study skills, time management trainings and counseling provided to female students in the university was not effective since it couldn't eliminate gender gap in academic performance. Keywords : Academic performance; Gender disparity assessment; independent t-test. DOI : 10.7176/RHSS/9-5-04 Publication date :March 31 st 2019


Six α-synuclein (aSyn) point mutations are currently known to be associated with familial parkinsonism: A30P, E46K, H50Q, G51D, A53E, and A53T. We performed a comprehensive in vitro analysis to study the impact of all aSyn mutations on lipid binding and aggregation behavior. Markedly reduced lipid binding of A30P, moderately attenuated binding of G51D, and only very slightly reduced binding for the other mutants were observed. A30P was particularly prone to form metal ion induced oligomers, whereas A53T exhibited only weak tendencies to form oligomers. In turn, fibril formation occurred rapidly in H50Q, G51D, and A53T, but only slowly in A30P, suggesting mutants prone to form oligomers tend to form fibrils to a lesser extent. This was supported by the observation that fibril formation of wild type aSyn, A30P, and A53T was impaired in the presence of ferric iron. Additionally, we found the aggregation kinetics of mixtures of A30P or A53T and wt aSyn to be determined by the faster aggregating aSyn variant. Our results implicate differential mechanisms playing a role in aSyn pathology on the molecular level. This might contribute to a better understanding of Parkinson's disease pathogenesis and provide potential links to develop prevention strategies and disease-modifying therapy.


The memory footprint of bounding volume hierarchies (BVHs) can be significantly reduced using incremental encoding, which enables the coarse quantization of bounding volumes. However, this compression alone does not necessarily yield a comparable improvement in memory bandwidth. While the bounding volumes of the BVH nodes can be aggressively quantized, the size of the child node pointers remains a significant overhead. Moreover, as BVH nodes become comparably small to practical cache line sizes, the BVH is cached less efficiently. In this paper we introduce a novel memory layout and node addressing scheme and map it to a system architecture for fixed-function ray traversal. We evaluate this scheme using an architecture simulator and demonstrate a significant reduction in memory bandwidth, compared to previous approaches.


Among the full-field optical measurement methods, the Digital Image Correlation (DIC) is one of the techniques which has been given particular attention. Technically, the DIC technique refers to a non-contact strain measurement method that mathematically compares the grey intensity changes of the images captured at two different states: before and after deformation. The measurement can be performed by numerically calculating the displacement of speckles which are deposited on the top of object's surface. In this paper, the Two-Dimensional Digital Image Correlation (2D-DIC) is presented and its fundamental concepts are discussed. Next, the development of the 2D-DIC algorithms in the past 33 years is reviewed systematically. The improvement of 2D- DIC algorithms is presented with respect to two distinct aspects: their computation efficiency and measurement accuracy. Furthermore, analysis of the 2D-DIC accuracy is included, followed by a review of the DIC applications for two-dimensional measurements.


The purpose of this study is to explore the use of office-based sedation by board-certified pediatric dentists practicing in the United States. Pediatric dentists have traditionally relied upon self-administered sedation techniques to provide office-based sedation. The use of dentist anesthesiologists to provide office-based sedation is an emerging trend. This study examines and compares these two models of office-based sedations. A survey evaluating office-based sedation of diplomates of the American Board of Pediatric Dentistry (ABPD) based on gender, age, years in practice, practice types, regions, and years as a diplomate of the ABPD was completed by 494 active members. The results were summarized using frequencies and percentages. Relationships of dentist age, gender, and number of years in practice with the use of intravenous (IV) sedation was completed using two-way contingency tables and Mantel-Haenszel tests for ordered categorical data. Relationships of office-based sedation use and the type of one's practice were examined using Pearson chi-square tests. Of the 1917 surveys e-mailed, 494 completed the survey for a response rate of 26%. Over 70% of board-certified US pediatric dentists use some form of sedation in their offices. Less than 20% administer IV sedation, 20 to 40% use a dentist anesthesiologist, and 60 to 70% would use dentist anesthesiologists if one were available.


We present a patient in whom indomethacin treatment for acute gouty arthritis induced reversible azotaemia and hyperkalaemia. Re-introduction of the drug under controlled conditions of metabolic balance resulted in recurrence of hyperkalaemia and azotaemia, and was associated with a fall in plasma renin activity, but no change was observed in plasma aldosterone. Since potassium retention and hyperkalaemia occurred in the absence of hypoaldosteronism, other factors must be invoked to explain the observed upset in potassium homeostasis. This, and other recent case reports suggest that prostaglandin synthetase inhibitors such as indomethacin should be used with caution, especially in patients with pre-existing azotaemia, congestive heart failure, or gout.


This article presents theory and technology addressing the design of computing technologies for social computing and gaming: (1) to provide dynamic means of identity representation while avoiding stigmatising norms, and (2) to provide for critical reflection on stigmatising identity infrastructures found in other systems. The theory and technologies developed with these aims are encapsulated under the rubric of the Advanced Identity Representation (AIR) Project that initiated in the Imagination, Computation, and Expression Laboratory (ICE Lab) directed by the author. This work has a basis in the cognitive science foundations of categorisation and metaphor-based bias, and study of social classification infrastructures from sociology of science. Using this theoretical framework, this article provides a model to reveal a set of inadequacies of many current identity infrastructures in social computing and gaming systems for supporting the needs of collective groups of people and individuals in marginalised categories. As results, several social networking systems and games developed in the ICE Lab to empower users in the creative goal of constructing computational identities and/or critiquing the phenomenon of stigma in these applications are presented.


: This paper examines the issue of gender equality within Islam in order to develop an ethical framework for businesses operating in Muslim majority countries. We pay attention to the role of women and seemingly inconsistent expectations of Islamic and western societies with regard to appropriate gender roles. In particular, we contrast a mainstream western liberal individualist view of freedom and equality—the capability approach, used here as an illustration of mainstream western liberalism—with an egalitarian Islamic view on gender equality. While the paper identifies an opportunity for this particular approach to reform patriarchal interpretations and practices of Islam toward gender egalitarian interpretations and practices, it also contests the notions of adaptation and well-being inherent within the capability approach. We suggest that a dialectical approach to understanding the relationships among religion, culture, and business provides a better guide to responsible business action in Muslim Majority countries than does the capability approach


The present study examined how well individuals could differentiate between two different types of signals (early and late decels) in maternal-fetal heart rate tracings with and without the use of a visual aid. Twenty-one undergraduates twice viewed 80 simulated images under four different signal-to-noise (S/N) ratios. Further, the late decels were delayed in 4-sec increments. In one block of trials, the images were presented without a visual aid, and in the other block a visual aid consisting of a large turquoise crosshair was overlaid on the images. The results indicated that lower S/N ratios and shorter onset delays made signals more difficult to distinguish. However, overall levels of accuracy were significantly higher when the visual aid was present. These results provide initial evidence that utilizing visual aids can enhance the ability to detect critical signals in maternal-fetal heart rate patterns.


The conversion of natural habitat for human use such as, agricultural intensification and others cause the simplification of landscape and loss of biodiversity. The fragmentation of landscape may influence the ecological functions like trophic cascades or predator-prey-primary producer interactions either directly or indirectly. This paper presents the review of the major theories in population regulation, island biogeography, and general concepts in brief and some reports of research findings in trophic cascades, population dynamics of natural enemies in agricultural landscape in both temperate and tropical contexts. The result of the review indicated that the heterogeneity of agricultural landscape (e.g. from simple crop habitat to complex natural habitat) determines not only the cross-edge spillover but also affects the magnitude (abundance), direction of flow and diversity of natural enemies and crop pests. As a result, the efficiency of natural regulation of crop pests in top-down and bottom-up processes may vary accordingly. Nevertheless, from the literature I have assessed, I would suggest that further empirical research is needed to get a comprehensive understanding concerning the relationship between natural pest regulation functions (top-down and bottom-up mechanisms) and crop pests in agroecosystem both at local and regional scales. This suggestion may be vital mainly in tropical regions context where the high biodiversity is declining rapidly on one hand and where little information is currently available on the other verge.


Facilities management (FM) exists to support the core business, that is the preliminary goal‐seeking activities of the enterprise. The role of FM in facilitating organizational performance, and thereby in providing competitive advantage, is widely acknowledged. Performance measurement (PM) is a topic which is often discussed; however, the mechanisms of how this happens in FM are quite unclear, prompting performance evaluation researchers to question whether performance evaluation in fact does add value and enhance organizational performance. Further, the growing acceptance of a need to measure FM performance is in contrast to a lack of a systematic process for determining appropriate measurements. This proposed study provides a performance‐based approach that considers the FM process elements for measurement to be people‐process‐output‐customers.


To safeguard the competitiveness of energy-intensive industries, in light of lower-cost energy supplies elsewhere, Europe requires combined resource and energy efficiency technology. Most technical components of CO 2 utilization can in principle be mobilized in Europe in the short term. Nevertheless, infrastructural, logistical, regulatory and business strategic issues must be addressed imminently by all relevant stakeholders. Given the already dense EU policy landscape, industry stakeholders need to assess first the applicability of the current framework and then the impact that policy changes could bring. Notably, connectivity infrastructure requires more analysis and coordination. This paper presents relevant policies to support CO 2 utilisation along the value chain. It outlines the applicability of current policy and benefits of policy enhancements to address barriers to deployment of CO 2 -derived products. It also lays out the role of key stakeholders to effect appropriate changes in policy. Finally, it explores the justification for a CO 2 Utilisation Directive, comparable to the Carbon Capture and Storage Directive.


A traumatic dislocation of the clavicle is a rare injury. So far 37 reports of this trauma have been found in the relevant literature; they are most often treated by surgery. A 32-year-old woman was admitted to local hospital for polytraumata sustained in a motor car accident. Once the patient had been stabilised, at three months after injury, stabilisation of the left dislocated clavicle was undertaken. The medial end was stabilised, using a strip dissected from the ligament of the sternoclavicular (SC) joint capsule, with Orthocord sutures, and laterally by coracoacromial ligament transfer (Weaver and Dunn technique) and K-wire fixation through the acromioclavicular (AC) articulation. The K-wire was removed 10 weeks after stabilisation. At 6 months after the repair surgery, the patient was free of any complaint, with no motion restriction and with good configuration of the SC and AC joints. The mean scores according to the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) rating system were 14 points before surgery and 28 points at 6 months after surgery; the mean Constant scores were 56 and 92 at the respective intervals. The clinical outcome of surgical stabilisation in this patient was very good. She had no signs of instability and no restriction of motion at the joints treated.


Cracks considerably reduce the life span of pavement surfaces. Currently, there is a need for the development of robust automated distress evaluation systems that comprise a low-cost crack detection method for performing fast and cost-effective roadway health monitoring practices. Most of the current methods are costly and have labor-intensive learning processes, so they are not suitable for small local-level projects with limited resources or are only usable for specific pavement types.This paper proposes a new method that uses an improved version of the weighted neighborhood pixels segmentation algorithm to detect cracks in 2-D pavement images. This method uses the Gaussian cumulative density function as the adaptive threshold to overcome the drawback of fixed thresholds in noisy environments. The proposed algorithm was tested on 300 images containing a wide range of noise representative of different noise conditions. This method proved to be time and cost-efficient as it took less than 3.15 seconds per 320 × 480 pixels image for a Xeon (R) 3.70 GHz CPU processor to determine the detection results. This makes the model a perfect choice for county-level pavement maintenance projects requiring cost-effective pavement crack detection systems. The validation results were promising for the detection of low to severe-level cracks (Accuracy = 97.3%, Precision = 79.21%, Recall= 89.18% and F1 score = 83.9%).


The β-tricalcium phosphate (β-TCP)/ poly(lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) composites for biodegradable scaffolds in bone tissue engineering were synthesized by in situ polymerization with microwave energy. The degradation behavior of β-TCP/PLGA composite was investigated by soaking in simulated body fluid (SBF) for 4 weeks. The molecular weight of the β-TCP/PLGA composites decreased with soaking time until week 2, whereas the loss rate of molecular weight reduced after week 2. The incubation time was needed for the degradation of the β-TCP, indicating that the β-TCP should be detached from the PLGA matrix and then degraded into SBF solution. The studies of mass loss of the composites with the soaking time revealed that the degradation behavior of PLGA would be processed with the transformation from the polymer to the oligomer followed by the degradation. Morphological changes, whisker-like, due to transformation and degradation of polymer in the composites were observed after week 2. On the basis of the results, it found that the degradation behavior of β-TCP/PLGA composites was influenced by the β-TCP content in the composite and the degradation rate of the composite could be controlled by the initial molecular weight of PLGA in the composite.


Precipitation hardening, or aging hardening, is one of the most widely adopted techniques for strengthening of aluminium alloys. During the precipitation process, three major mechanisms are involved: i.e. nucleation, growth and coarsening. Kampmann and Wagner have developed a powerful and flexible numerical approach (KWN model) for dealing with concomitant nucleation, growth and coarsening and thus capable of predicting the full evolution of the particle size distribution. KWN model has been successfully applied to a number of aluminium alloy systems, such as 2xxx, 6xxx and 7xxx. However, most of these modelling works were focused on the wrought aluminium alloys, few had applied to the casting aluminium alloys. In the present modelling work, the microstructure evolution is modeled based on the KWN model and then a strength model based on the well established dislocation theory is used to evaluate the resulting change in hardness or yield strength at room temperature. Then the modelling is applied to casting aluminium alloys A356 and A357. And the modelling results are validated by comparing with own experimental results and the results obtained from the open literature.


The ever‐increasing data demands in a radiation oncology (RO) clinic require medical physicists to have a clearer understanding of information technology (IT) resource management issues. Clear lines of collaboration and communication among administrators, medical physicists, IT staff, equipment service engineers, and vendors need to be established. In order to develop a better understanding of the clinical needs and responsibilities of these various groups, an overview of the role of IT in RO is provided. This is followed by a list of IT‐related tasks and a resource map. The skill set and knowledge required to implement these tasks are described for the various RO professionals. Finally, various models for assessing one's IT resource needs are described. The exposition of ideas in this white paper is intended to be broad, in order to raise the level of awareness of the RO community; the details behind these concepts will not be given here and are best left to future task group reports. PACS number: 87.52.Tr, 87.53.St, 87.53.Xd, 87.90.+y


Background Low lung function in early life is associated with later respiratory illness. There is limited data on lung function in African infants despite a high prevalence of respiratory disease. Aim To assess the determinants of early lung function in African infants. Method Infants enrolled in a South African birth cohort, the Drakenstein child health study, had lung function measured at 6–10 weeks of age. Measurements, made with the infant breathing via a facemask during natural sleep, included tidal breathing, sulfur hexafluoride multiple breath washout and the forced oscillation technique. Information on antenatal and early postnatal exposures was collected using questionnaires and urine cotinine. Household benzene exposure was measured antenatally. Results Successful tests were obtained in 645/675 (95%) infants, median (IQR) age of 51 (46–58) days. Infant size, age and male gender were associated with larger tidal volume. Infants whose mothers smoked had lower tidal volumes (−1.6 mL (95% CI −3.0 to −0.1), p=0.04) and higher lung clearance index (0.1 turnovers (95% CI 0.01 to 0.3), p=0.03) compared with infants unexposed to tobacco smoke. Infants exposed to alcohol in utero or household benzene had lower time to peak tidal expiratory flow over total expiratory time ratios, 10% (95% CI −15.4% to −3.7%), p=0.002) and 3.0% (95% CI −5.2% to −0.7%, p=0.01) lower respectively compared with unexposed infants. HIV-exposed infants had higher tidal volumes (1.7 mL (95% CI 0.06 to 3.3) p=0.04) compared with infants whose mothers were HIV negative. Conclusion We identified several factors including infant size, sex, maternal smoking, maternal alcohol, maternal HIV and household benzene associated with altered early lung function, many of which are factors amenable to public health interventions. Long-term study of lung function and respiratory disease in these children is a priority to develop strategies to strengthen child health.


This thesis presents a new approach to compute and optimize feasible three dimensional (3D) flight trajectories using aspects of Human Decision Making (HDM) strategies, for fixed wing Unmanned Aircraft (UA) operating in low altitude environments in the presence of real time planning deadlines. The underlying trajectory generation strategy involves the application of Manoeuvre Automaton (MA) theory to create sets of candidate flight manoeuvres which implicitly incorporate platform dynamic constraints. Feasible trajectories are formed through the concatenation of predefined flight manoeuvres in an optimized manner. During typical UAS operations, multiple objectives may exist, therefore the use of multi-objective optimization can potentially allow for convergence to a solution which better reflects overall mission requirements and HDM preferences. A GUI interface was developed to allow for knowledge capture from a human expert during simulated mission scenarios. The expert decision data captured is converted into value functions and corresponding criteria weightings using UTilite Additive (UTA) theory. The inclusion of preferences elicited from HDM decision data within an Automated Decision System (ADS) allows for the generation of trajectories which more closely represent the candidate HDM{'}s decision strategies. A novel Computationally Adaptive Trajectory Decision optimization System (CATDS) has been developed and implemented in simulation to dynamically manage, calculate and schedule system execution parameters to ensure that the trajectory solution search can generate a feasible solution, if one exists, within a given length of time. The inclusion of the CATDS potentially increases overall mission efficiency and may allow for the implementation of the system on different UAS platforms with varying onboard computational capabilities. These approaches have been demonstrated in simulation using a fixed wing UAS operating in low altitude environments with obstacles present.


Kernels have been a common tool of machine learning and computer vision applications for modeling non-linearities and/or the design of robust Robustness may refer to either the presence of outliers and noise or to the robustness to a class of transformations (e.g., translation). similarity measures between objects. Arguably, the class of positive semi-definite (psd) kernels, widely known as Mercer's Kernels, constitutes one of the most well-studied cases. For every psd kernel there exists an associated feature map to an arbitrary dimensional Hilbert space mathcal H, the so-called feature space. The main reason behind psd kernels' popularity is the fact that classification/regression techniques (such as Support Vector Machines (SVMs)) and component analysis algorithms (such as Kernel Principal Component Analysis (KPCA)) can be devised in mathcal H, without an explicit definition of the feature map, only by using the kernel (the so-called kernel trick). Recently, due to the development of very efficient solutions for large scale linear SVMs and for incremental linear component analysis, the research towards finding feature map approximations for classes of kernels has attracted significant interest. In this paper, we attempt the derivation of explicit feature maps of a recently proposed class of kernels, the so-called one-shot similarity kernels. We show that for this class of kernels either there exists an explicit representation in feature space or the kernel can be expressed in such a form that allows for exact incremental learning. We theoretically explore the properties of these kernels and show how these kernels can be used for the development of robust visual tracking, recognition and deformable fitting algorithms.


The numerical simulation model of single roller rapid solidification melt-spinning CuFe10 alloys was built in this paper. The vacuum chamber, cooling roller and sample were taken into account as a holistic heat system. Based on the heat transfer theory and liquid solidification theory, the heat transfer during the rapids solidification process of CuFe10 ribbons prepared by melt spinning can be approximately modeled by one-dimensional heat conduction equation, so that the temperature distribution and the cooling rate of the ribbon can be determined by the integration of this equation. The simulative results are coincident very well with the microstructure of rapid solidification melt spinnng CuFe10 alloys at three different wheel speeds 4, 12 and 36 m/s.


This letter presents a new design for microstrip bandpass filters and its application to a millimeter-wave diplexer. Basically, parallel-coupled microstrip lines are utilized for bandpass response and non-uniform open-circuited stubs are added to tune the bandwidth of the passband and improve out-of-band rejection. The designed filters are connected to make a diplexer, which can be used in a phased-array transceiver system operating in millimeter-wave range. The diplexer is designed to separate an input signal containing both 32GHz and 35GHz into two signals of 32GHz and 35GHz, respectively or to combine two signals at 32GHz and 35GHz into one signal.


Plant macroremains from five boreholes in Poland were studied. Two of them (Huta OP-1 and Studzianna) from the northern margin of the Holy Cross Mountains, yielded several taxa. In the other three boreholes determinable fossil plants were sporadic, albeit important. Most of the taxa from the Huta OP-1 and Studzianna boreholes are typical of the European Early Jurassic (Hettangian and Sinemurian). Both localities, although close to one another, show quite different taxonomic floral compositions. The Huta OP-1 flora is fern-dominated with the presence of ginkgophytes and conifers (a new species incertae sedis, Desmiophyllum harrisii Barbacka et Pacyna is herein proposed), which would suggest rather wet and warm conditions. This flora is typical of the European Province of the Euro-Sinian Region. In Studzianna the Siberian elements dominate, gymnosperms, mainly Czekanowskiales, which indicate a drier and colder environment.The palaeobotanical data correspond to the results of clay mineral studies, in particular the kaolinite/illite ratio in the source formations. The kaolinite content confirms a decrease in temperature and a reduction in rainfall in the late Early Hettangian and the latest Hettangian in the area.


The desired properties of a multi-loop PID tuning procedure is to find some parameters that makes the plant robust, meet some desired performance requirements and guarantee failure tolerance. A detailed literature survey of the different multi-loop PID tuning procedures are presented. Properties of the Independent design methods, Detuning methods, Sequential closing methods, Iterative or trial and error methods, Optimization methods and Relay feedback approaches are described in detail and discussed. Most of the tuning procedures result in a too conservative design without integrity. It is shown how the integrity property may be achieved with a multi-loop Hinf optimal tuning method. How to deffine and solve such a Hinf optimal problem is presented. The desired properties of the multi-loop PID tuning procedure is obtained with this method. The method aim for its object to solve a Hinf optimization problem with Linear Matrix Inequality (LMI) constraints. The optimization problem is non-convex, so a Successive Semidefnite Programming (SSP) algorithm is used to find local solutions to the problem. Several initial points must be examen to aim for a global solution. The SSP algorithm is implemented in MATLAB, and applied at a distillation column example. The implemented algorithm does not converge to a solution. Hence no simulation results that back up the theoretical work is presented.


The roots of newly emerging forces of globalization exist in specific economic and political development in the late 1980s and early1990s. From other regulatory measures to correct the prevailing distortions in the Indian economy, government of India introduced Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) in July 1991. The World Trade Organization (WTO) which came into existence on January 1, 1995 with a view to ensure global cooperative trade environment, to raise incomes and to create ample job opportunity for the nations through fair and open trade. In order to estimate growth of Indian exports as well as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the period 1985-86 to 2004-05 keeping view the structural reform of 1991 and WTO Settlement in 1995, we have employed OLS technique based on dummy variables. The empirical evidences of the present paper has scanned Gross Domestic Product and export performance of the Indian economy for the period 1985-86 to 2004-05 with an attempt to isolate the impacts of Economic reforms and WTO.


Many people question whether God is the source of morality. Under divine command theory, God's will creates the moral order, and therefore ethical truths are true because of God's will. Under natural law, on the other hand, some ethical truths do not depend on God's will, and yet perhaps they depend on his reason or creation. Ethics and Religion develops strong, defensible, and original versions of both divine command theory and natural law. The book also discusses ethics and atheism: how atheists object on ethical grounds to belief in God and how they view ethics. The book defends belief in God from criticisms and analyzes related concepts, such as practical reason, the golden rule, ethics and evolution, the problem of evil, and the fine-tuning argument.


: The importance of pharmacology to the family physician needs no emphasis. The most decisive act in his approach to the patient is writing a prescription for the most appropriate drug. To achieve this, he must understand the principles underlying the use of the drugs so that by being aware of the pharmacological properties of different classes of drugs, he can make a rational choice with regard to the most appropriate drug and regime. This knowledge is essential to get maximum efficacy and the minimum of side effects.


We study the top-$k$ selection problem under the differential privacy model: $m$ items are rated according to votes of a set of clients. We consider a setting in which algorithms can retrieve data via a sequence of accesses, each either a random access or a sorted access; the goal is to minimize the total number of data accesses. Our algorithm requires only $O(\sqrt{mk})$ expected accesses: to our knowledge, this is the first sublinear data-access upper bound for this problem. Our analysis also shows that the well-known exponential mechanism requires only $O(\sqrt{m})$ expected accesses. Accompanying this, we develop the first lower bounds for the problem, in three settings: only random accesses; only sorted accesses; a sequence of accesses of either kind. We show that, to avoid $\Omega(m)$ access cost, supporting *both* kinds of access is necessary, and that in this case our algorithm's access cost is optimal.


The installation of a passive 3 harmonic cavity in both the e and e rings of the Frascati Φ-factory DAΦNE has been decided in order to improve the Touschek lifetime by increasing the bunch length. The implications of the RF harmonic system on the beam dynamics, in particular those related to the gap in the bunch filling pattern, have been carefully studied by means of analytical and numerical tools. A single-cell cavity incorporating a ferrite ring for the HOM damping has been designed through the extensive use of MAFIA and HFSS simulation codes. One cavity prototype has been built and extensively bench tested, while the fabrication of the two final cavities is almost completed. A description of the design and construction activities, and a set of experimental measurements are reported in this paper.


Objective: Neonatal nurses face numerous barriers in providing end-of-life (EOL) care for neonates and their families. Addressing neonatal nurses' attitudes could provide insight into barriers that impede neonatal palliative care (NPC). This study thus conducted to examine neonatal nurses' attitude toward barriers in providing NPC in Southeast Iran. Method: In this cross-sectional study, a translated modified version of Neonatal Palliative Care Attitude Scale was used to examine attitudes of 70 nurses toward barriers of palliative care in 3 neonatal intensive care units in Southeast Iran. Results: Findings indicated that overall 42.63% of nurses were strongly agreed or agreed with the proposed barriers in NPC. Among all categories, the highest and the lowest scores belonged to the categories of "insufficient resources" (3.42 ± 0.65) and "inappropriate personal and social attitudes" (2.33 ± 0.48), respectively. Neonatal nurses who had less education and study regarding NPC reported the presence of more barriers to NPC in the categories of "inappropriate organizational culture" and/or "inadequate nursing proficiency." Also, younger nurses had more positive attitudes toward the category of inappropriate organizational culture as being a barrier to provision of NPC (4.62). Conclusion: The findings suggest that developing a context-based instrument is required to represent the barrier more precisely. Neonatal palliative care can be improved by establishing a special environment to focus on infants' EOL care. This establishment requires standard palliative care guidelines and adequate NPC-trained nurses.


The motions studied In biomechanics today are Increasingly more complex, requiring spatial, force and myographic measures. The Peak system employs off-the-shelf video equipment and an AT compatible microcomputer to perform spatial and analog data acquisition. Every video field can be analyzed in either NTSC (North American) or PAL (European) video formats. Video sampling rates can vary from 50 to 2000Hz, depending upon the video hardware used. The body locations of interest may be obtained using any of three methods. The manual acquisition method superimposes a colored cursor over the video image and its position is controlled by a handheld mouse. The semi-automatic option controls the initial position of the cursor by predicting the position based upon its location in previous frames. The value of these options is that they can be applied in difficult experimental settings or for digitizing points that are internal to the body (e.g., joint centers). The third method is automatic tracking, which determines the center of area of a marker that contrasts with its immediate background. An individual criterion may be set for each marker to discriminate it from noise, background and other markers. Hidden markers can be treated via manual digitization, interpolation or ignored if seen by other cameras. Once collected, spatial data can be translated and/or rotated with respect to external reference frames, or to internal reference frames within the moving subject. An analog to digital sampling module acquires data from sensors and synchronizes them with the video generated spatial data. Subsequently, complete motion information can be generated rapidly and accurately for countless applications. The performance of the video measurement system was assessed by measuring its precision and accuracy in two dimensional static tests. The precision for manual digitizing was found to be 1 in 2422 and for automatic digitizing, 1 in 5280. The accuracy for manual digitizing was found to be 1 in 3267 and for automatic digitizing, I in 4310.


Abstract Horse purslane, a C4 species, is a branched, prostrate, and annual weed of upland field crops throughout the tropics. Experiments were conducted to determine the influence of various environmental factors on seed germination and seedling emergence of two populations of horse purslane. Seeds were collected from rice fields of the International Rice Research Institute (the IR population) and from sorghum fields of the University of the Philippines (the UP population); the two sites were 5 km apart in Los Baños, Philippines. Germination response of both populations was greater at 30/20 C and35/25 C day/night temperatures than they were at 25/15 C alternating day/night temperatures. Germination of both populations was greater in the light/dark regime than in darkness. In dark, depending on the temperature, seed germination of the UP population ranged from 37 to 62%, whereas seed germination of the IR population was < 20%. Exposure to 5 min at 117 and 119 C for the IR and UP populations, respectively, reduced germination to 50% of maximum germination. Osmotic potential of −0.26 MPa inhibited germination to 50% of the maximum for the UP population, whereas the corresponding value for the IR population was −0.37 MPa. Seeds placed on or near the soil surface had maximum emergence, and emergence declined with increase in seed burial depth. Seedling emergence of the UP and IR populations was 74% and 13%, respectively, for seeds placed on the soil surface. For both populations, no seedlings emerged from a soil burial depth of 6 cm or more. Germination and emergence responses to light and seed burial depth differed between the two populations of horse purslane. Residues on the soil surface of up to 6 Mg ha−1 did not influence seedling emergence of either populations. Knowledge gained in this study could contribute to developing components of integrated weed management strategies for horse purslane. Nomenclature: Horse purslane, Trianthema portulacastrum L.; rice, Oryza sativa L.; sorghum, Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench ssp. bicolor.


Two adaptation schemes based on on-chip measurement of failure rates have been proposed to reduce the effects of process, voltage, temperature and data rate variations on synchronizers on chip. One scheme is to select the best synchronizer out of a number to improve the synchronizer performance subject to process variation on chip. Compared to increasing the transistor size, this scheme can further reduce the effects of process variation without increasing the power consumption. The other scheme is to improve the performance of the system by adjusting the synchronization time according to the actual process, voltage, temperature and data rate variations on the condition that the required MTBF is met. It is targeted at overdesigned synchronization times due to synchronizer performance variability. To assess their feasibility, the two schemes have been implemented using a Xilinxpsilas 90 nm FPGA Spartan 3. The on-chip overhead for the Synchronizer Selection scheme in terms of equivalent flipflops and gates is 9 and 6. For the Synchronization Time Adjustment scheme it is 33 and 104.