A Digital Elevation Model issued from the SRTM mission was assessed on a study area located in a dense equatorial forest setting in French Guiana. The SRTM DEM defined on a 90-m grid was compared to three check sources: (1) airborne laser altimeter data, (2) an accurate heliborne DEM, and (3) spot heights. The paper also includes a comparison with a radargrammetric RADARSAT DEM. The results show that the accuracy of the SRTM DEM is about 10 m (standard deviation of errors). For a given slope aspect, the absolute value and the standard deviation of elevation errors increase almost linearly with the slope value. The slope aspect has a major influence on the sign of the elevation error: elevations are underestimated for slope facing SRTM signal (foreslopes, northwest), and conversely in the opposite direction (backslopes, southeast). Maximum errors are


ABSTRACT Membrane and protein traffic to the cell surface is mediated by partially redundant pathways that are difficult to perturb in ways that yield a strong phenotype. Such robustness is expected in a fine-tuned process, regulated by environmental cues, that is required for controlled cell surface growth and cell proliferation. Synthetic genetic interaction screens are especially valuable for investigating complex processes involving partially redundant pathways or mechanisms. In a previous study, we used a triple-synthetic-lethal yeast mutant screen to identify a novel component of the late exocytic transport machinery, Avl9. In a chemical-genetic version of the successful mutant screen, we have now identified small molecules that cause a rapid (within 15 min) accumulation of secretory cargo and abnormal Golgi compartment-like membranes at low concentration (<2 μM), indicating that the compounds likely target the exocytic transport machinery at the Golgi. We screened for genes that, when overexpressed, suppress the drug effects, and found that the Ras-like small GTPase, Gtr2, but not its homolog and binding partner, Gtr1, efficiently suppresses the toxic effects of the compounds. Furthermore, assays for suppression of the secretory defect caused by the compounds suggest that Gtr proteins can regulate a pathway that is perturbed by the compounds. Because avl9Δ and gtr mutants share some phenotypes, our results indicate that the small molecules identified by our chemical-genetic strategy are promising tools for understanding Avl9 function and the mechanisms that control late exocytic transport.


Objectives Hypertension is a highly prevalent disease worldwide, constituting one of the main risk factors for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. The aims of this study were to evaluate the level of awareness and control of hypertension comparing sex, socioeconomic and educational level, BMI and drug therapy in over 40-year-old patients. The cost-effectiveness of the main pharmacologic classes of antihypertensives, as monotherapy and combination therapy, was also assessed. Methods In this randomized and cross-sectional populational study, a sample of 738 hypertensive adults with ages at least 40 years were evaluated. Of these, 345 (46.7%) were men and 393 (53.3%) were women. Results A total of 72.9% of the hypertensives knew about their disease. Women in the 40–49 and 50–59 age groups and obese individuals had a higher rate of awareness of their hypertensive status. The rates of awareness were similar in different social classes and educational levels, however, blood pressure control varied. β-Blockers were the most effective drugs to control blood pressure with no differences being observed between monotherapy and combinations. Diuretics were the most cost-effective. Conclusion Approximately half of the participants received monotherapy. The best percentage of control with monotherapy was obtained with β-blockers but the diuretics treatment was the most cost-effective. The levels of awareness and control were high compared with developed countries, most evident in the higher social classes and higher education levels.


INTRODUCTION
A wealth of evidence reveals the benefits of breastfeeding. During the breastfeeding period, nursing mothers may face many medical conditions that require medical management. The medication use among breastfeeding women in Jordan is largely unknown.

OBJECTIVE
This study assessed the beliefs and attitudes of breastfeeding women in Jordan toward medication use.

METHODS
The data were collected from breastfeeding women in hospitals and maternal and children care centers from north, middle, and south Jordan by semistructured interviews using a self-administered questionnaire from February 2015 to November 2015.

RESULTS
Of the 903 participants (96% response rate), 17% used over-the-counter medications and 33% took prescribed medications. Of these, 7% (n = 64) used both over-the-counter and prescribed medications. Analgesics followed by antibiotics were the most commonly used medications among breastfeeding women in Jordan. The majority of breastfeeding women consulted with their physician or pharmacist before initiating or changing any medication. Product Information was the most commonly used drug information resource utilized by breastfeeding women to inquire about safety of medication use during breastfeeding.

CONCLUSION
Breastfeeding women should be educated about the reliable sources of medication information and the importance of physician consultation before initiation or modification of medication therapy. Physicians and pharmacists should be encouraged to be actively involved in detailed discussion with breastfeeding women regarding medication use.


The focal properties of microwave lenses with F-numbers of the order of unity have been experimentally investigated. The intensity and phase distributions in the focal region have been studied for several systems of polystyrene lenses utilizing microwave frequencies between 9.2 GHz and 70 GHz. The results have been compared with theoretical predictions based on scalar diffraction theory. An assessment of the useful values of beam width and depth of field is given.


Vaccination programmes are one of the most important public health development of the 20th century. Yet, how much have they actually impacted mortality, morbidity, and health care expenditure in the Netherlands? We collected and digitized large amounts of historical data on mortality, morbidity and costs. Our data go back to the early 20th century. Using statistical analyses, we looked at 'what would have happened if vaccination programmes had not been implemented?' By answering this question and comparing the results with what actually happened, we get an impression of the impact of vaccination programmes. We mainly focussed on the 20th century and on the 'older' vaccination programmes: diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, polio, measles, mumps and rubella. While mortality was already declining before vaccination programmes started, they have certainly further reduced childhood mortality: vaccination programmes have averted between 6- and 12-thousand deaths among those born between 1953 and 1992. Vaccination programmes also greatly reduced the number of disease cases reported, ranging from 50% for rubella to 90% for polio. The total expenditure on programmes increased from €5 million in 1957 to €93 million in 2014, mainly due to new and more expensive vaccines. This is still, however, only a fraction of the total government health care spending. Vaccination programmes have saved and continue to save many lives and avert much suffering. We should however recognise that past performance is not indicative of future (or even current) results. Monitoring the impact of vaccination programmes and highlighting their importance to public health remains paramount.


Abstract Excavation of the Han Dynasty chambered tomb at Laoguanshan in Chengdu, south-west China, has provided the earliest known evidence of pattern loom technology. Four model looms, along with accompanying artefacts and figurines relating to the weaving process, give insight into the technique of jin silk production. The discovery is hugely significant as it provides the first direct evidence of pattern-weave textile production in ancient China. Jin silk, made using this method, was both valuable and widely distributed, and the design of the machine influenced the invention of later looms and the spread of technology throughout Eurasia and Europe, representing great technological accomplishment for the second century BC.


Mexico receives an average annual rainfall of 740 mm, which are distributed in the hydrologi‐ cal cycle as follows: 72% evapotranspiration, 21% becomes runoff and 6% as aquifer recharge. Within the Mexican territory, exist a great diversity of climates and high spatial and temporal variability in water resources availability. In the period 2000–2015, damages from hydrome ‐ teorological phenomena in Mexico represented between 60 and 99% of total damages and losses at national level due to natural and socioorganizational events. Considering global cli ‐ mate change impact on the selection, design and implementation of flood control measures, represents a major challenge, since the level of certainty regarding its influence on the vari ‐ ables involved, remains insufficient. This chapter provides a description of the main elements directly linked to flooding in México, such as a high spatial and temporal variability in water resources availability and presence of tropical cyclones in both coasts and climate change. A brief summary of the main disasters caused by hydrometeorological phenomena, the annual cost of the damages, the main non‐structural measures for flood control and the intervention from the Mexican Institute of Water Technology in the use, development and spread of tech ‐ nology focused on flood risk management are also included. information system. They play a central role in the delineation of floodplains for differ ‐ ent return periods, visualization of change in flow depth and velocity, strategic planning, early warning systems, impact analysis on infrastructure and population and damage assessments.


With nearly 750,000 amateur-collected objects recorded onto an
online database, the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) has created a unique dataset that has the potential to revolutionise the way in which we research our past. However, whilst the biases inherent in archaeological data have been explored in the context of professional collection, there has been little work on understanding the factors that control the distribution of objects recovered by amateur collectors. In this paper, I argue that the biases behind the distribution of the amateur collected finds recorded by the PAS need to be understood before these objects can be fully incorporated into our interpretations of the past. Despite the numbers of academics now using the PAS data, there are no established methodologies for exploring the factors controlling the distribution of finds. This paper introduces a number of quantitative and qualitative techniques that have been used to explore bias in the past, including comparative analyses with other archaeological datasets, the identification of internal variation, and statistical analyses of the distributions of landscape features. The paper concludes with an analysis of the effectiveness of these methods.


BACKGROUND
We determined the prevalence and factors associated with hyperlactatemia among HIV patients admitted on the emergency ward of a national hospital in Uganda.

OBJECTIVE
We were specifically interested in knowing whether there was an association between clinically significant hyperlactatemia and concurrent antiretroviral therapy (ART) use.

METHODS
A cross sectional descriptive study enrolled 303 HIV infected patients at a national referral hospital between March and April 2008. We consecutively recruited all eligible HIV infected patients above 18 years admitted on the emergency ward. Data were collected on socio-demographic, clinical and laboratory characteristics. Lactate levels were measured using the Accutrend® portable lactate analyser. Data analysis was performed using Stata 10.0; P-value of < 0.05 was considered to be significant.

RESULTS
Three hundred and three HIV infected patients were recruited. Prevalence of hyperlactatemia (lactate ≥2.5mmol/L) was 252 (83.2%). Clinically significant hyperlactatemia (lactate ≥4mmol/L) was present in 105/303(34.6%) patients. There was no association between use of ART and clinically significant hyperlactatemia. In the multivariate analysis, body weakness 1.91 (1.09-3.35), skin rash 3.18 (1.11-9.10) and tachypnoea 1.04 (1.01-1.07) were independently associated with clinically significant hyperlactatemia.

CONCLUSION
There was a high prevalence of clinically significant hyperlactatemia among HIV infected patients but it was not associated with concurrent antiretroviral use.


The Leksell Gamma Knife is a standard radiosurgical tool for treating brain lesions by directing beams of gamma radiation to a specific region. The diameter of the gamma beams is confined by collimator systems and available collimator sizes are 4, 8, 14 and 18 mm. The reduction in dose rate for each collimator helmet is called the output factor (OPF). Experimental determination of OPFs is difficult due to the extremely narrow beams for which the dose is determined. In the present work, the PRESTA version of the EGS4 Monte Carlo code was used to obtain relative OPFs for the Leksell Gamma Knife for collimator sizes of 14, 8 and 4 mm (relative to that of the 18 mm collimator). A spherical probe with a radius of 1 mm was utilized in this computer experiment. Our Monte Carlo results gave OPFs of 0.974, 0.951 and 0.872 for the 14 mm, 8 mm and 4 mm collimators respectively, relative to the 18 mm collimator. Our calculated OPF for the 4 mm collimator helmet was more than 8% higher than the value currently used, but in good agreement with the average of experimental values obtained by various Gamma Knife centres throughout the world and with the value now recommended by the manufacturer, Elekta (Elekta Instrument AB, Skeppargatan 8, S-114 52 Stockholm, Sweden).


The fabrication of cell‐laden structures with anisotropic mechanical properties while having a precise control over the distribution of different cell types within the constructs is important for many tissue engineering applications. Automated textile technologies for making fabrics allow simultaneous control over the color pattern and directional mechanical properties. The use of textile techniques in tissue engineering, however, demands the presence of cell‐laden fibers that can withstand the mechanical stresses during the assembly process. Here, the concept of composite living fibers (CLFs) in which a core of load bearing synthetic polymer is coated by a hydrogel layer containing cells or microparticles is introduced. The core thread is drawn sequentially through reservoirs containing a cell‐laden prepolymer and a crosslinking reagent. The thickness of the hydrogel layer increases linearly with to the drawing speed and the prepolymer viscosity. CLFs are fabricated and assembled using regular textile processes including weaving, knitting, braiding, winding, and embroidering, to form cell‐laden structures. Cellular viability and metabolic activity are preserved during CLF fabrication and assembly, demonstrating the feasibility of using these processes for engineering functional 3D tissue constructs.


While some theorists in International Relations have engaged with thinking about complexity, we would argue that few have thought it through to its logical conclusion – the interconnectedness of systems, and the implications for agency and structure. This article examines the structure–agency question using the framework of 'posthuman international relations', which draws on recent thinking in complexity and argues for an approach to the study of global politics that is post-Newtonian and non-anthropocentric. Key elements of a complexity-based approach are examined, and it is argued that these provide a novel way of considering issues of agency and structure. They also raise issues for the analysis of agency and the link between actions and outcomes. Complex systems can present problems of analysis related to unpredictability, causality and non-linearity. Having laid out a framework for thinking about action and context in international politics, the article turns to questions of agency and practice within complex systems. Perhaps the most significant claim here is that it is possible to conceive of agency beyond the human. Drawing upon Margaret Archer's discussions of primary and corporate agency, a threefold approach to thinking about structure and agency is developed, which allows us to think about agency beyond the human. Finally, an explanation is given as to why a complex approach to thinking about international relations ultimately implies a posthuman perspective.


Severe floods are common in the Brahmani-Baitarani river basin in India. Insights into the implications of climate change on rainfall extremes and resulting floods are of major importance to improve flood risk analysis and water system design. A wide range of statistical and dynamical downscaling and bias-correction methods for the generation of local climate projections exists. Yet, the applicability of these methods highly depends on availability of meteorological data. In developing countries, data availability is often limited, either because data do not exist or because of restrictions on use. We here present a climate change analysis for the Brahmani-Baitarani river basin focusing on changes in rainfall using data from three GCMs from the Fifth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) that were selected based on their performance. We apply and compare two widely used and easy to implement bias-correction methods. These were selected because reliable open historical meteorological datasets required for advanced methods were not available. The results indicate likely increases in monsoon rainfall especially in the mountainous regions and likely increases in the number of heavy rain days. We conclude with a discussion on the gap between state-of-the-art downscaling techniques and the actual options in regional climate change assessments.


The World Health Organization (WHO) Eastern Mediterranean Region occupies an exceptional place in the world; not only is it home to over 600 million people and some of the oldest civilizations recorded, it is also unfortunately suffering an unprecedented number of natural and man-made disasters and social conflicts. Regional conflict has led to a multitude of humanitarian crises including displaced populations, trans-border refugee movements, destruction of medical facilities and reduced availability of essential health-care workers. In addition, natural disasters in the form of extreme weather events, as witnessed by the unprecedented flooding in the Islamic Republic of Iran, had the World Bank declaring that the Region is among the most vulnerable to climate change and rising sea levels, with Egypt, Kuwait, Libya, Qatar, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates particularly at risk. Moreover, much of the Region has been exposed to continuous drought since 1998, the worst dry period for 900 years according to NASA, and an estimated 80-100 million people will be vulnerable to water stress by 2025.


Direct visualization of macromolecular crystal growth using atomic force microscopy (AFM) has provided a powerful tool in the delineation of mechanisms and the kinetics of the growth process. It has further allowed us to evaluate the wide variety of impurities that are incorporated into crystals of proteins, nucleic acids, and viruses. It is possible, using AFM, to image the defects and imperfections that afflict these crystals, the impurity layers that poison their surfaces, and the consequences of various factors on morphological development. All of these can be recorded under normal growth conditions, in native mother liquors, over time intervals ranging from minutes to days, and at the molecular level.


We propose a simple and effective re-ranking method for improving passage retrieval in open question answering. The re-ranker re-scores retrieved passages with a zero-shot question generation model, which uses a pre-trained language model to compute the probability of the input question conditioned on a retrieved passage. This approach can be applied on top of any retrieval method (e.g. neural or keyword-based), does not require any domain- or task-specific training (and therefore is expected to generalize better to data distribution shifts), and provides rich cross-attention between query and passage (i.e. it must explain every token in the question). When evaluated on a number of open-domain retrieval datasets, our re-ranker improves strong unsupervised retrieval models by 6%-18% absolute and strong supervised models by up to 12% in terms of top-20 passage retrieval accuracy. We also obtain new state-of-the-art results on full open-domain question answering by simply adding the new re-ranker to existing models with no further changes.


Fluid - Structure Interaction (FSI) phenomena is becoming a relevant study field for the design or revamping of hydropower plants. The generalized trend of increasing flow rates and reducing rotor blades/stay vanes thickness in order to improve the efficiency of the machine together with a major push from plant owners/operators for production flexibility (partial load operation is more common nowadays) make the FSI between the vortex shedding phenomenon and the vanes/blades of the machine an area of interest. From a design point of view, the machine structure has to resist all the hydrodynamic forces generated and maintain tension stresses under the fatigue limit to ensure a machine lifetime of several decades. To accomplish that goal, designers have to assure there is no presence of strong coupling phenomena (lock-in) between the vortex shedding frequency and the eigenfrequencies of the structure. As the vortex street is directly related to the state of the boundary layer along the hydrofoil, in this paper the effect of the boundary layer on the vortex shedding in a Donaldson-type hydrofoil is studied using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). The development of the boundary layer along the Donaldson trailing edge hydrofoil chord is presented under lock-off conditions. The results are validated against previously obtained experimental results. Since the Donaldson trailing edge is non-symmetric, the boundary layer velocity profiles are reported for the suction and pressure side of the hydrofoil. In addition, the effect of the Donaldson trailing edge on laminar-to-turbulent transition on both sides of the hydrofoil is studied.


Systematic analysis of prevalence and timing of developmental stress in the bonobo, Pan paniscus, is accomplished through examination of enamel hypoplasia (EH), a non-specific stress-induced defect permanently recorded in the developing dentition. Bonobo crania (n=182) housed at the Royal Museum for Central Ahca in Tervuren, Belgium, are grossly examined under natural and artificial oblique lighting for presence of EH. Three methods are employed to determine the timing of linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH). (1) Imbricational enamel formation schedules are created for bonobo teeth (n=6) by counting the number of perikymata from the cemento-enamel junction to the occlusal surface. (2) Caliper measured defects are calculated as a proportion of crown height and multiplied against crown formation times for bonobo and chimpanzee to establish age at which defects form (n=490 teeth). (3) Using scanning electron microscopy, tooth crown surfaces (n=22) are examined and perikymata counted within and between enamel defects. Bonobos are very stressed; 100% of adults (n=58) are affected with LEH the highest prevalence reported for any ape. Bonobos also yield a high prevalence of pitting and localized hypoplasia of the primary canine but not for Darcy's Defect, indicating these primates are more impacted by or susceptible to physiological stressors than other apes. Distribution, however, is consistent with other apes, i.e., anterior teeth demonstrate a higher degree of EH; LEH and pits are common in permanent and deciduous dentitions, respectively. No significant differences exist between sexes. Imbricational enamel formation times for the bonobo are 2.9 and 3.4 years for the maxillary central (n=3) and lateral incisors (n=l), respectively, 3.3 years for the mandibular lateral incisor (n=l), and 5.2 years for the mandibular canine (n=l). Onset of LEH occurs around 2 to 3 years of age and continues throughout crown formation. LEH is found to be episodic, averaging 6-month intervals, and stress lasts 6 to 8 weeks. The periodic nature of LEH is attributed to seasonal rainfall and disease cycles (e.g., parasitic infection) rather than nutritional stress. Teeth picked up milder microscopic episodes of stress suggesting a chronic problem exacerbated at various times, including seasonal moisture cycles.


Multicore/manycore architecture accelerates demand for a new programming environment to utilize the massive processors integrated in an LSI. GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) is one of the typical hardware environments. The programming environments on GPU are traditionally vendor-/hardware-specific, where complicate the management of uniform programs that access computing resources of the massively parallel platform. The recently released OpenCL is expected to become a standard for providing a uniform programming environment for the heterogeneous processors from different vendors. This tutorial paper introduces the overview of the OpenCL that motivates the programmers who are going to program the massively parallel hardware or who migrates the programming method from another vendor specific programming interface to the OpenCL. This paper explains the  haracteristics of the OpenCL interface with describing in detail the basic structures used in the program. Moreover, this paper discusses performance aspects to evaluate advanced programming techniques that improve the performance of the OpenCL applications.


Growth patterns of pulmonary adenocarcinoma (ADC) have high prognostic impact and are accepted as a novel classification system for this entity. However, specifically for the papillary pattern, divergent data with respect to prevalence, clinical associations, and prognostic impact have been reported. By evaluating 674 resected pulmonary ADCs containing 308 cases with a papillary component and 101 papillary predominant cases, we documented differences in the morphologic composition of papillary growth patterns and delineated 3 different types. The different types were correlated with pathologic and clinical data including survival. Type 3 papillary cases with any or predominant papillary growth were associated with extensive spread through alveolar spaces, high proliferation, higher stage, low rates of EGFR mutations, and smoking, whereas type 1 papillary tumors showed the opposite associations. The subclassification of papillary growth revealed type-specific associations for overall and disease-free survival (disease-free survival type 1: 67.1 mo, type 2: 56.8 mo, type 3: 49.9 mo, P=0.025). The presence of any papillary type 3 pattern was a predominant pattern independent predictor of worse overall survival (hazard ratio=2.5, P=0.02). For a future grading system of lung ADC, categorization of papillary growth in 1 single category might not be adequate, as this pattern contains a heterogenous mix of tumors with a divergent prognosis. We suggest that papillary pattern types should be separated to further improve the prognostic power of ADC growth pattern analysis.


Agricultural research and development (R&D) has been found to be a powerful engine for poverty reduction worldwide. Based on experience in other countries, it seems likely that raising investment in agricultural from around 0.44 percent of agricultural GDP to the African Union target of 1 percent of agricultural GDP might increase agricultural productivity by around 50 percent. Such an increase in agricultural productivity could result in a decline in poverty of around 12 percentage points, from its current level of over 50 percent, with slightly larger poverty reduction gains for farmers than for other groups. For achieving such a goal, the allocation of research resources across commodities is an important question. If resources are allocated across commodities in line with their poverty-reduction impact, the poverty reduction gains are likely around twice as high as if they are allocated uniformly across commodities. In the specific context of Rwanda, it appears that allocating them in line with the value of output would give almost as large a gain as targeting their much-harder-to-evaluate poverty-reduction benefit. * International Food Policy Research Institute, ** International Growth Centre.


Introduction By and the large, the most common indication for obtaining biopsy of the 2nd part of the duodenum is in the diagnosis of coeliac disease. We wanted to identify the diagnostic yield of duodenal biopsies at upper GI endoscopy. Methods We obtained clinical details of 500 patients who had duodenal biopsies taken at upper GI endoscopy (UGIE). This was provided by our local histo-pathology department. These included patients who had UGIE from October 2011 till September 2012. We excluded indications related to coeliac follow up and suspected malignancy (n = 31). We collected data that included age of the patient, indication of the biopsy, findings at endoscopy and histology. We also looked at our results server to see if TTGs were sent for these biopsies. Results Duodenal biopsies were taken to rule out coeliac disease in the context of a variety of symptoms: mainly iron-deficiency or other unspecified anaemia, but also chronic or intermittent diarrhoea, unexplained GI symptoms including nausea and vomiting, fatigue, abdominal pain and distension and weight loss. Of the 469 biopsies, 89% (n = 416) were reported as normal at histology and 11% (n = 53) were reported as being abnormal. 84% (n = 45) of the abnormal biopsies were non specific in nature. Only 11.3% (n = 6) of the abnormal biopsies were diagnosed as coeliac. A further 2 patients were diagnosed as coeliac disease after further clinical evaluation. Of the 469 samples, 34% (n = 161) of patients had TTG serology was sent prior to biopsy. Only 50% (n = 3) of those diagnosed with coeliac disease in this study had TTG done prior to biopsy. 1.7%(n = 8) of patients who had duodenal biopsies had a conclusive diagnosis of coeliac disease. Only 0.4% (n = 2) of patients who were TTG negative were diagnosed with coeliac disease based on histology and clinical correlation. There were no falsely positive TTG. Conclusion The diagnostic yield of duodenal biopsies is low. It may be more cost-effective if we limit biopsies after being guided by tissue transglutamiase (TTG). Disclosure of Interest None Declared.


The transforming acidic coiled‐coil containing protein 2 (Tacc2) gene and its paralogs, Tacc1 and Tacc3 encode proteins that are associated with the centrosome and involved in microtubule assembly during the cell cycle. Tacc2 produces several splice variants, which are poorly characterized, especially in the rat. Characterization of the temporal/spatial expression patterns of these isoforms would be useful in understanding their distinct and overlapping functions. By comparative sequence analyses of Tacc2 in multiple species, we identified a third splice variant in rat, which is much shorter in size (1,021 aa) than the longest isoform (2,834 aa). This newly identified Tacc2 splice variant (isoform 3) uses a distinct first exon and generates a different open reading frame. Although Isoform 3 is expressed predominantly during developmental stages, the long Tacc2 isoform (isoform 1) is distributed mainly in adult tissues. Multiple protein sequence analyses revealed that Tacc2 Isoform 3 could be the ancient form, as it is conserved in mammals, birds, and amphibians; whereas the long Tacc2 isoforms may have evolved in the mammalian lineage by adding exons toward the 5′ region of the ancient isoform. genesis 52:378–386, 2014. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


This paper discusses the aims, process and outcomes of an interdisciplinary workshop day held for undergraduate students from Social Work, Mental Health Nursing, Adult Nursing, Midwifery and Occupational Therapy courses. The day's activities focused on mental health and were based on the use of service user narrative within three different workshops. The feedback from the students showed that the day was relevant to the curriculum that they were engaged in; allowed them to interact with and explore the perspectives of different professional groups; assisted them in understanding the lived experience of mental health difficulties; offered them the opportunity to consider implications for practice; was enjoyable and added 'value'.


Glasses with composition xBi2O3:(60-x)BaO:40B2O3 with 10£x£50 (in mol%) have been prepared using the normal melt-quench technique. The optical absorption spectra of the glasses have been recorded in the wavelength range 400-700 nm. The fundamental absorption edge has been identified from the optical absorption spectra. The values of optical band gap are decreased with the addition of Bi2O3. The density and molar volume studies indicated that Bi2O3 in these glasses is acting partly as network modifier and partly as network former.Values of the theoretical optical basicity are also reported and discuss in term of oxide ion polarizability.


The role of computing has changed: information and communication technologies have become the social infrastructure itself. And this is reflected to building design, as buildings create the habitual context of human beings. The advancements in technology offer advantages and opportunities, but they are not successfully integrated with physical space. Technology has to distinguish the life patterns in order to meet the design challenge of pervasive computing. For this, context becomes an important issue, in order to define the activity both for architectural use and computing use. This paper looks for spatial designs that make use of context aware technology, in order to bring out the key for the design of intelligent environments.


This study identifies the role and significance of heat treatment parameters on blood compatibility and hemostatic performances. Bioactive nanomaterials step-annealed at 550 °C and 600 °C enhances the biocompatibility due to the liberation of nitrate content. This also develops the anisotropic structures such as needle-like and rod-like appearances that positively improve the erythrocyte compatibility. Different stable crystalline phases such as NaCaPO4 , Na2 Ca2 Si3 O9 and Na1.8 Ca1.1 Si6 O14 were observed for all the bioactive materials, while in the case of 800 °C phase transition of Na3 CaPSiO7 was perceived along with P2 O5 . Alternatively, morphology varied from cubical (600 °C) to rod-like (step annealing) and further turned towards flake-like (800 °C) structures. Step-annealing process decomposed the nitrate groups as well as maintained the glass network without altering the crystalline phases. As a result, bioactive nanomaterials subjected to step-annealing at 550 °C along with 600 °C exhibited superior compatibility with erythrocytes. Bioglass heat treated at 800 °C revealed incredible blood clotting efficacy, in which Ca2+ ions initiated the thrombotic effect, blood components were concentrated due to the effect of calcium and enhances the hemostatic performance. Bioactive glass annealed below 800 °C facilitates the bio-compatibility, subsequently encourage bone ingrowths at in-vivo. Bioglass-800 °C inspired the fibrin formation and induced clot as a hemostat to control hemorrhage. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.


For many children and their families, access to care in a pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) is vital. Unfortunately, as a rival good, it is also limited. This thesis analyzes the group which uses the most of this important and scarce good: long stay patients (LSPs). Using an original survey of PICU practitioners across Canada and an original dataset of a year of PICU admissions from a particular PICU, this thesis applies a unique mix of qualitative and quantitative methods to draw conclusions and generate hypotheses. Two findings are of particularly noteworthy: a new theoretical framework for dichotomizing LSPs into "high-need" and "high-dependency" and the potential existence of "congestion effects" in which additional LSPs at any given time force PICUs to ration the care they can make available to any individual patient.


We acknowledge EPSRC Grant No. EP/H008403/1 awarded to Professor Brian J. Howard (Oxford University), the Centre for Public Engagement (Queen Mary, University of London) for funding, and Lis Carter for help in the recording.


Background: Otalgia and Bell's palsy are rare manifestations of metastasis and the most common presentation of an inflammatory process in the temporal bone. Case presentation: This article explains a 34-year-old woman with breast cancer who presented with cranial nerve palsy symptoms. The 7th and 8th cranial nerves were involved in the metastatic phase and then hoarseness was added to her symptoms. Brain MRI showed a petrous lesion in the temporal bone due to metastasis, which was the first clue to cancer. Her metastatic workup showed multiple bone lesions. On chest CT scan, multiple lung lesions were noted. Also, a breast mass was discovered on her chest CT scan. On breast examination an irregular mass fixed to the pectoralis muscle was found. Pathologic evaluation of samples obtained through ultrasound-guided core needle biopsy confirmed the diagnosis of invasive ductal carcinoma. Conclusion: Temporal bone metastases are rare and may be asymptomatic, or with mild symptoms mimicking mastoid infections. Physicians should consider metastatic cancer on the list of differential diagnoses in patients presenting with prolonged otologic symptoms or facial nerve disorders.


Several sets of variables can be analyzed simultaneously by canonical correlation in a multi-way analysis. These sets of variables are often high-dimensional and repeated over time. For instance, full-transcriptome measured by RNA-Seq used to be performed in longitudinal studies as well as other measures such as peptides or cells. Hence, canonical correlation analysis has been extended with regularized approaches to deal with several high dimensional data. However, some measurements can be missing for technical reasons and therefore introduce undesired structures due to the huge dimension of the datasets.
Our objective is to find an efficient method allowing to impute the missing values taking into account the three-way structure, participant-transcriptome-time, and also the missing path structure.
We proposed an EM-like covariance-maximization lasso-penalized high-dimensional completion matrix algorithm to reach that goal.
We compared our approach on simulated data-sets with the mean imputation per gene pertime step, the missMDA-imputeMFA algorithm which takes structure into account and the softImpute solution initially designed to solve the Netix competition a high-dimensional problem. We used two criterions: the L2-error between estimated and simulated values and the L2-error between estimated and simulated covariance matrices. The numerical results
exhibited the superiority of the proposed method in most of the scenarii. We also illustrated our approach on a real data-set from a phase I Ebola vaccine trial measuring RNA-Seq data after vaccination (richtien, cell report 2017) in 20 participants at 4 different times on whole-blood samples, representing 74 sequenced-samples, among which 24 samples were missing because of technological issues.


Abstract This paper presents the slope stability analysis for the current as well as projected (final) geometry of waste dump Sandstone Open Pit "Osielec". For the stability analysis six sections were selected. Then, the final geometry of the waste dump was designed and the stability analysis was conducted. On the basis of the analysis results the opportunities to improve the stability of the object were identified. The next issue addressed in the paper was to determine the proportion of the mixture containing mining and processing wastes, for which the waste dump remains stable. Stability calculations were carried out using Janbu method, which belongs to the limit equilibrium methods.


Many policymakers view power outages as a major constraint on firm productivity in developing countries. Yet empirical studies find modest short-run effects of outages on firm performance. This paper builds a dynamic macroeconomic model to study the long-run general-equilibrium effects of power outages on productivity. Outages lower productivity in the model by creating idle resources, depressing the scale of incumbent firms and reducing entry of new firms. Consistent with the empirical literature, the model predicts small short-run effects of eliminating outages. However, the long-run general-equilibrium effects are much larger, supporting the view that eliminating outages is an important development objective. (JEL D22, D24, G32, L94, O13, O14)


Three morphologically very similar species of Asecodes Forster (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae) are reviewed. Asecodes parviclava (Thomson) is removed from synonymy under A. lucens stat. rev., and differentiated from A. lucens (Nees) and A. lineophagum sp. n. All three species develop as gregarious endoparasitoids in larvae of Galerucella spp. (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae), but each species has its own unique host range. Asecodes lineophagum attacks only Galerucella lineola (Fabr.) and A. lucens only G. sagittariae (Gyllenhal), whereas A. parviclava parasitizes G. tenella (L.), G. calmariensis (L.) and G. pusilla (Duftschmid). The Asecodes species are similar but display small though distinct morphological differences, and are distinguished also through molecular differences. The genetic distance in mitochondrial CO1 ranged from 2.3% to 7.3% between the species. Five names, one valid and four synonyms, were available for this group of species, but none of them was linked to a primary type. To promote stability of nomenclature, primary types are designated for all five names, neotypes for Eulophus lucens Nees, Entedon mento Walker and Derostenus parviclava Thomson, and lectotypes for Entedon chthonia Walker and Entedon metagenes Walker. Entedon mento, E. chthonia and E. metagenes remain synonymized under A. lucens.


In recent years, the study of psychedelic science has resurfaced as scientists and therapists are again exploring its potential to treat an array of psychiatric conditions, such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and addiction. The scientific progress and clinical promise of this movement owes much of its success to the history of indigenous healing practices; yet the work of indigenous people, ethnic and racial minorities, women, and other disenfranchised groups is often not supported or highlighted in the mainstream narrative of psychedelic medicine. This review addresses this issue directly: first, by highlighting the traditional role of psychedelic plants and briefly summarizing the history of psychedelic medicine; second, through exploring the historical and sociocultural factors that have contributed to unequal research participation and treatment, thereby limiting the opportunities for minorities who ought to be acknowledged for their contributions. Finally, this review provides recommendations for broadening the Western medical framework of healing to include a cultural focus and additional considerations for an inclusive approach to treatment development and dissemination for future studies.


Abstract. In order to clarify the role of the mode conversion process in the generation mechanism of LO-mode waves in the equatorial region of the plasmasphere, we have investigated the linear mode conversion process among upper-hybrid-resonance (UHR)-mode, Z-mode and LO-mode waves by a numerical simulation solving Maxwell's equations and the equation of motion of a cold electron fluid. The wave coupling process occurring in the cold magnetized plasma are examined in detail. In order to give a realistic initial plasma condition in the numerical experiments, we use initial parameters inferred from observation data obtained around the generation region of LO-mode waves obtained by the Akebono satellite. A density gradient is estimated from the observed UHR frequency, and wave normal angles are estimated from the dispersion relation of cold plasma by comparing observed wave electric fields. Then, we perform numerical experiments of mode conversion processes using the density gradient of background plasma and the wave normal angle of incident upper hybrid mode waves determined from the observation results. We found that the characteristics of reproduced LO-mode waves in each simulation run are consistent with observations.


Conjugated polymers are organic polymers that can conduct electricity. They undergo a volume change upon redox reaction and can be used as an active material in some micro- actuator system. Micro-actuators are useful in biomedical and electronic application. We have fabricated a patterned Polypyrrole (PPy) trilayer microactuator device that has individually addressable microactuators (a micro walker) which can operate in air. Furthermore, the PPy trilayer microactuator device is fabricated using standard microfabrication method called photolithography to pattern PPy on PVDF membrane material. An etching process was used to achieve the patterning process. We presented the result of characterization of speed as a function of voltage and thickness of PPy film. Secondly, distance as a function of applied voltage and thirdly, the work density as a function of applied voltage. The procedures for fabrication of PPy microactuator device, using clean room facility is detailed in this thesis.


textabstractOpen is as open does. Open content has been a hot topic in heritage for several years. The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision has long been a front runner when it comes to supporting open standards and free re-use of our collections. Surprisingly enough, we never tried it the other way around: using open content to create an exhibit. So when we started to develop an exhibition celebrating the 50th anniversary of 3FM - one of Holland's main public pop radio channels - we asked ourselves: would we be able to create a personalized, interactive videomapping exhibit using mainly open content? During a How-To-Session Karen Drost and Maarten Brinkerink will dive into how we managed this, and share what we learned.


Geomagnetic storms start with activity on the Sun that causes propagation of magnetized plasma structures in the solar wind. The type of solar activity is used to classify the plasma structures as being either interplanetary coronal mass ejection (ICME) or corotating interaction region (CIR) driven. The ICME‐driven events are further classified as either magnetic cloud (MC) driven or sheath (SH) driven by the geoeffective structure responsible for the peak of the storm. The geoeffective solar wind flow then interacts with the magnetosphere producing a disturbance in near‐Earth space. It is commonly believed that a SH‐driven event behaves more like a CIR‐driven event than a MC‐driven event; however, in our analysis this is not the case. In this study, geomagnetic storms are investigated statistically with respect to the solar wind driver and the intensity of the events. We use the Hot Electron and Ion Drift Integrator (HEIDI) model to simulate the inner magnetospheric hot ion population during all of the storms classified as intense (Dstmin ≤ −100 nT) within solar cycle 23 (1996–2005). HEIDI is configured four different ways using either the Volland‐Stern or self‐consistent electric field and either event‐based Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) magnetospheric plasma analyzer (MPA) data or a reanalyzed lower resolution version of the data that provides spatial resolution. Presenting the simulation results, geomagnetic data, and solar wind data along a normalized epoch timeline shows the average behavior throughout a typical storm of each classification. The error along the epoch timeline for each HEIDI configuration is used to rate the model's performance. We also subgrouped the storms based on the magnitude of the minimum Dst. We found that typically the LANL MPA data provide the best outer boundary condition. Additionally, the self‐consistent electric field better reproduces SH‐ and MC‐driven events throughout most of the storm timeline, but the Volland‐Stern electric field better reproduces CIR‐driven events. Contrary to what we expect, examination of the HEIDI model results and solar wind data shows that SH‐driven events behave more like MC‐driven events than CIR‐driven storms.


Refurbishment is becoming an important economic driver in Singapore's construction
industry due to existence of high number of ageing buildings, limited vacant land for
new development and the rapid changes of technology used. There are limitations and
even drawbacks to these efforts as the time required to complete the refurbishment
projects is frequently greater than the time originally specified in the contract. The main
purpose of the study is to identify factors affecting the time performance for
refurbishment projects in Singapore.
This study used mixed method approach with quantitative as the main data. Semistructured
interviews that involved twenty projects were carried out to verify the project
characteristics of refurbishment in Singapore. The result of the interviews was used to
identify the project characteristics variables for the next stage of data collection. Onehundred
(100) questionnaires were distributed to main contractors who have experience
in refurbishment and a contract value of minimum two-hundred-and-fifty thousand
dollars. Of those, 33 replied and were found to be useful for data analysis.
Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyse the data. From
the data analysis, three variables were found to be significantly correlated with time
performance variable. They are non-payment of salary to workers causing slow down;
conflict and disputes between contractor and superintending officer; and uncertainty and
complexity of the project. From the correlation analysis result, a prediction model was
developed using multiple regression analysis. The result indicated that to control the
time performance of refurbishment projects in Singapore, three variables need to be
given more attention through the equation of Time Performance= 0.945+
0.076Finance-NP + 0.035Contractual-CD + 0.076Site-UC.
From the findings, it could be concluded that the time performance of refurbishment
projects is affected by the project characteristics. Thus, more focus probably needs to be
given to those factors in order to improve the time performance of refurbishment
projects in Singapore.


Introduction IBD is a common cause of gastrointestinal morbidity with an estimated 240 000 people affected in the UK. Successive rounds of the UK IBD Audit have shown variation in care and there is a recognised need to implement the National Standards for IBD Care that were published in 2009. The IBD QIP was established as a pilot project to explore the potential of a web based self assessment tool to assist services benchmark themselves against the standards and develop action plans to improve. Methods The IBD QIP assessment tool was developed through a series of meetings consisting of representatives of key stakeholder groups, including patients. Statements relating to aspects of IBD care were identified from analysis of the Standards and UK audit results. These were then included in a web based tool, similar to the "GRS" used in UK endoscopy. All IBD services in the UK were invited to volunteer for the pilot and after a series of regional meetings, participating sites were provided with access to the tool and asked to complete their assessment and provide feedback on the process. Results were collated centrally and fed back to sites locally. The QIP web site, also included tools for formulating an action plan and a "Shared Document Store" for sites to submit examples of good practice that could be shared with others. Re-assessment is planned for March 2012. Results 73 sites enrolled for the pilot (64 adult & 9 paediatric services), 62 (85%) of whom submitted data. 52/62 (90%) of sites met to complete the assessment as a multidisciplinary group with at least 2 disciplines represented. 93% of sites took <4 h to complete the rating process. Overall results for all domains showed similar scores for adult and paediatric sites with 18, 17, 23 and 43% of adult and 14, 12, 26 and 48% of paediatric sites scoring A, B, C and D respectively. Representative scores for selected items from adult sites are shown in the following Abstract PWE-226 table 1 (n=56).Abstract PWE-226 Table 1 Patient experience A B C D Rapid access 30 8 3 15 Education of patients 24 18 4 10 Clinical quality  Access to nutritional care 6 7 8 35  Arrangements for use of immuno-suppressants 5 1 22 28  Surgery for IBD 15 12 10 19 Research, education and audit  Participation in research 46 13 13 29  Training and education of IBD staff 4 18 64 14 Conclusion We have demonstrated that it is feasibile for services to use a web based self assessment tool to benchmark themselves against nationally agreed standards for IBD care. First round results show that the majority of services are currently failing to meet the UK IBD Standards, with two thirds of sites scoring at level C or D. Feedback from the pilot round is currently being used to refine the tool and re-assessment in March 2012 will give sites an indication of their progress. Competing interests None declared.


Teen childbearing is commonly viewed as an irrational behavior that leads to long-term socioeconomic disadvantage for mothers and their children. Cross-sectional studies that estimate relationships between maternal age at first birth and socioeconomic indicators measured later in life form the empirical basis for this view. However1 these studies have failed to account adequately for differences in family background among women who time their births at different ages. We present new estimates of the consequences of teen childbearing that take into account observed and unobserved family background heterogeneity, comparing sisters who have timed their first births at different ages. Sister comparisons suggest that previous estimates are biased by failure to control adequately for family background heterogeneity, and, as a result, have overstated the consequences of early fertility.


OBJECTIVES
To measure the total rate of attending physician, medical resident, and medical student acceptance of interventions recommended by third-year student pharmacists supervised by a licensed pharmacist and to determine the type of health care provider group that accepted the most interventions, type of interventions provided, and number of patients counseled on medication use.

METHODS
This prospective unblinded pilot study followed single interventions documented by nine third-year student pharmacists enrolled at the University of Louisiana at Monroe College of Pharmacy. Success rates of suggested interventions made to family medicine attending physicians, pharmacists, medical residents, and medical students in three Louisiana outpatient clinics were documented. Student pharmacists performed medication histories, identified potential medication-related problems, discussed interventions with health care providers, and counseled patients on medication use. Outcomes assessed were intervention type and number, intervention acceptance rate, and number of patients counseled.

RESULTS
Student pharmacists communicated with attending physicians, medical residents, and/or medical students regarding 32 patients. A total of 48 interventions were documented. Of these interventions, 34 were potential medication-related problems, 8 were pharmacotherapeutic recommendations for a new problem, 4 were responses to a health care provider's drug information requests, and 2 were referrals to a diabetes education class. The acceptance rate of student pharmacists' recommendations was 86%. Attending physicians accepted 93.8% of recommended interventions, medical residents 70%, and medical students 87.5%, Student pharmacists counseled 29 patients on medication use.

CONCLUSION
Student pharmacists were able to recommend new drug regimens and discuss changes in therapy with health care providers. Attending physicians, medical residents, and medical students accepted the majority of students' recommendations. Third-year student pharmacists have the potential to serve an important role in the identification and prevention of medication-related problems by suggesting interventions to health care providers.


This study considers an experimental design of disturbance compensation control to improve stabilization performance of main battle tanks. An adaptive non-parametric design technique based on the Filtered-x Least Mean Square(FXLMS) algorithm is applied in the consideration of model uncertainties. The optimal compensator is designed by two-step design procedures: determination of frequency response function of the disturbance compensator which can cancel the disturbance of series of single harmonics by using the FXLMS algorithm and determination of the compensator polynomial which can fit the frequency response function obtained in the first step optimally by using a curve fitting technique. The disturbance compensator is applied to a simple experimental gun-torsion bar-motor system which simulates gun driving servo-system. Along with experimental results, the feasibility of the proposed technique is illustrated. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed control reduces the standard deviation of stabilization error to 47.6% that by feedback control alone. The directional properties of the FXLMS Algorithm such as the direction of convergence and its convergence speed are also verified experimentally.


Skeletal muscle can adapt its structure to cope with the mechanical and metabolic stresses placed on it by various amounts and patterns of human movement. The release of calcium into the cytoplasm of muscle fibres is thought to have an important role in these adaptations, yet the calcium-dependent signalling pathways involved haven't been fully defined. Calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII) has been presumed to drive mitochondrial biogenesis in skeletal muscle, but this has not been investigated in vivo.The experiments in this thesis aimed to address how CaMKII is activated in response to electrical stimulation of skeletal muscle and how CaMKII affects the muscle phenotype. A rat model was used for two main reasons: 1) it allowed for imposing well-defined stimulation patterns onto phenotypically homogenous muscle fibre populations under controlled conditions in situ, and investigating the molecular response to these stimulation patterns, and 2) it allowed for manipulation of CaMKII signalling in muscle fibres in vivo through the use of electro-assisted somatic gene transfer.It was hypothesised that CaMKII would be activated in a muscle and recruitment pattern specific manner. Furthermore, it was hypothesised that CaMKII overexpression would increase the expression of mitochondrial markers. In chapter 2, the effect of recruitment frequency on CaMKII phosphorylation in slow-twitch m. soleus and fast-twitch m. gastrocnemius medialis is investigated. Furthermore, the time course of CaMKII phosphorylation after muscle stimulation is studied. Chapter 3 presents a study into the effects of in vivo CaMKII overexpression in m. soleus and m. gastrocnemius on mitochondrial gene expression and muscle contractile function. The effects of CaMKII overexpression on skeletal alpha-actin transcription are presented in chapter 4. In chapter 5, a mathematical model of CaMKII activation in sarcomeres is described, and used to investigate the effects of CaMKII overexpression on calcium handling and on contractile properties of a muscle fibre. It was concluded that CaMKII is activated by very brief stimulation in a recruitment frequency-independent manner, and that increased CaMKII protein levels increase SERCA expression, but not mitochondrial gene expression.


Crude oil is usually co-produced with reservoir water, with increasing content in the production fluid along field life. Changes in temperature, pressure, and/or chemical composition may cause significant precipitation of inorganic salts ("scales") during production. Therefore, the knowledge of the influence that different variables may have on salt solubility is critical to anticipate or identify potential flow assurance problems related to scales. The present work is specifically focused in the study of calcium carbonate precipitate formation as a main component of "scales". Due to the number of variables involved in calcium carbonate precipitation (temperature, pressure, CO 2 partial pressure, other salt content) and the heterogeneity of reservoir conditions, there are serious limitations to perform a full experimental study covering all the possible precipitation scenarios. Solubility data presented in this work, both previously reported and experimentally determined, cover a wide range of experimental conditions. A simulation model that allows quantitative predictions in different scenarios is an interesting tool. A versatile simulation algorithm was developed using ASPEN PLUS ® 7.1 from Aspen Technology, Inc., that allows different experimental conditions and the quantification of the influence of temperature, pressure and pH in CaCO 3 solubility. This simulation scheme was applied to describe both literature and new experimental solubility data. Predicted results were in reasonable agreement with experimental information. The solubility of calcium carbonate decreases with temperature, increases with pressure and shows a maximum in presence of NaCl. The CO 2 partial pressure has strong effect because it is direct relation with solution pH that modify the amount of ionic species present in the aqueous solution, and hence increasing the solubility of calcium carbonate. Special attention was devoted to such pH effect but, in order to have a fully predictive model, no parameters fit was carried out. The main conclusion of this work is the suitable simulation scheme to describe and predict the solubility of calcium carbonate at different conditions.


De novo differentiation of inflammatory dendritic cells (DC) and macrophages (MΦ) occurs in autoimmune diseases that are strongly female biased in incidence. We previously showed that estrogen receptor alpha (ERα) signaling promotes DC differentiation mediated by GM-CSF, an inflammatory pathway. To compare the efficiency of myeloid cell differentiation from ERα+ and ERα-/- bone marrow (BM) cells in vivo, we generated mixed competitive ERα+/ERα-/- BM chimeric mice. In the radiation-induced inflammatory environment 3 weeks post reconstitution, DC and MΦ in spleen and BM were derived preferentially from ERα+ BM cells, and ERα+ DC displayed higher levels of CD86. These data show that during inflammation ERα signaling promotes the new differentiation and activation of myeloid cells. In contrast, in the homeostatic environment 3 months post reconstitution, DC, MΦ and lymphocytes were predominantly derived from ERα-/- BM cells, consistent with reports that ectopic estradiol depletes hematopoietic progenitors. In chimeric mice, ER signaling also increased splenic DC activation induced by in vivo exposure to TLR9 ligands: ERα+ cDC displayed significantly more CD86 than ERα-/- DC. Thus, during inflammation in vivo, ERα signaling in response to physiological levels of endogenous estrogens promotes DC and MΦ development and activation. Supported by OCAST HR06-157 & NIH AI079616, RR020143.


Progenitors of core-collapse supernovae (SNe) can shed significant mass to circumstellar material (CSM) in the months to years preceding core collapse. The ensuing SN explosion launches ejecta that may subsequently collide with this CSM, producing shocks that can power emissions across the electromagnetic spectrum. In this work we explore the thermal signatures of dense CSM interaction when the CSM density profile is truncated at some outer radius. CSM with optical depth >c/v (where v is the shock velocity) will produce primarily ∼blackbody optical/UV emission, whereas lower optical depth CSM will power bremsstrahlung X-ray emission. Focusing on the latter, we derive light curves and spectra of the resulting X-ray transients that include a detailed treatment of Comptonization. Due to strong photoelectric absorption, the X-ray light curve is dominated by the postinteraction phase that occurs after the shock reaches the CSM truncation radius. We treat this regime here for the first time. Using these results, we present the phase space of optical, UV, and X-ray transients as a function of CSM properties, and discuss detectability prospects. We find that ROSAT would not have been sensitive to CSM X-ray transients but that eROSITA is expected to detect many such events. Future wide-field UV missions such as the Ultraviolet Transient Astronomy Satellite will dramatically enhance sensitivity to large optical depth CSM configurations. Finally, we present a framework within which CSM properties may be directly inferred from observable features of X-ray transients. This can serve as an important tool for studying stellar mass loss using SN X-ray detections.


It is well-known that the affective value of an environment can be relative to whether it reflects an improvement or a worsening from a previous state. A potential explanation for this phenomenon suggests that relative changes from previous reward contingencies can constrain how brain monitoring systems form predictions about future events. In support of this idea, we found that changes per se relative to previous states of learned reward contingencies modulated the Feedback-Related Negativity (FRN), a human brain potential known to index discrepancies between predictions and affective outcomes. Specifically, we observed that environments with a 50% reward probability yielded different FRN patterns according to whether they reflected an improvement or a worsening from a previous environment. Further, we also found that this pattern of results was driven mainly by variations in the amplitude of ERPs to positive outcomes. Overall, these results suggest that relative changes in reward probability from previous learned environments can constrain how neural systems of outcome monitoring formulate predictions about the likelihood of future rewards and nonrewards.


We describe the three-dimensional geometry and Quaternary slip history of the Puente Hills blind-thrust system (PHT) using seismic reflection profiles, petroleum well data, and precisely located seismicity. The PHT generated the 1987 Whittier Narrows (moment magnitude [ M w] 6.0) earthquake and extends for more than 40 km along strike beneath the northern Los Angeles basin. The PHT comprises three, north-dipping ramp segments that are overlain by contractional fault-related folds. Based on an analysis of these folds, we produce Quaternary slip profiles along each ramp segment. The fault geometry and slip patterns indicate that segments of the PHT are related by soft-linkage boundaries, where the fault ramps are en echelon and displacements are gradually transferred from one segment to the next. Average Quaternary slip rates on the ramp segments range from 0.44 to 1.7 mm/yr, with preferred rates between 0.62 and 1.28 mm/yr. Using empirical relations among rupture area, magnitude, and coseismic displacement, we estimate the magnitude and frequency of single ( M w 6.5-6.6) and multisegment ( M w 7.1) rupture scenarios for the PHT.

Manuscript received 16 November 2001.


Background Spinal dysraphia is a non-fatal foetal anomaly comprising a range of spinal canal fusion abnormalities. There have been recent advances in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of this condition. The longer term outcomes currently vary within the literature and are based historic cohorts prior to more recent advances in care. Aims Review the long term outcomes and symptomatology in a current cohort of children with spinal dysraphia. Methods Retrospective review of medical records of patients with diagnosis of spinal dysraphias. Children were excluded if there was other genetic abnormality or syndrome. Results We identified 70 children (mean age 10.7, SD 7.1, 41% male). There was 100% survival at 1 year of age and 68 (97%) children were still alive at time of the review. Mortality in both children was secondary to meningitis. Diagnosis was made antenatally in 37%, and postnatally in 63% with 3 children (5.7%) being diagnosed at school age. 51 (73%) were symptomatic and 22 (31%) had evidence of neuropathic bladder and bowel. Antenatal diagnosis (p = 0.047), higher level of lesion (p = 0.044) or shunts in situ (p < 0.001) were all predictive of greater symptomatology. If a patient was found to be symptomatic in one area, they were significantly more likely to also have other symptoms (p < 0.001) supporting the need for regular review in these children. There was a high incidence of urinary symptoms (11.7%) constipation (37%) and orthopaedic problems (such as scoliosis or lower limb abnormalities) (48%) in the absence of neuropathy. Mental health issues were documented in 4 children (5.7%). Conclusions Spinal dysraphia is associated with high rates of morbidity (73%) with a significantly lower mortality (3%) and incidence of mental health issues (6%) when compared to previous studies. The current follow-up of patients with spinal dyraphias varies, therefore further studies are needed to develop appropriate follow-up strategies for this high risk patient group; including the evaluation for comorbidities and psychosocial complications.


In this paper, an investigation is presented into infrared nanoantennas for solar energy harvesting at 10-μm wavelength, where considerable solar energy is available. These antennas have been modeled using both the integral equation model and the circuit model. The method of moments has been utilized to solve Hallen's and Pocklington's integral equations to find the current distribution over the antenna surface by considering the conductivity and the dielectric properties of gold at this wavelength, as well as its effect on the antenna performance. For verification of the obtained results, this antenna has been simulated using a finite element method-based electromagnetic simulator and both results were found to be consistent. In addition, the metal/insulator/metal (MIM) diode has been studied and its equivalent circuit is presented. Furthermore, a solar rectenna has been constructed by overlapping the antenna arms over a small area to incorporate the MIM diode. The circuit of the solar rectenna, with mathematical expressions for the elements of the equivalent circuit, is demonstrated. Finally, a parametric study into the effect of the MIM diode on the captured voltage is conducted.


This book provides a comprehensive overview of the rapidly developing field of molecular electronics. It focuses on our present understanding of the electrical conduction in single-molecule circuits and provides a thorough introduction to the experimental techniques and theoretical concepts. It will also constitute as the first textbook-like introduction to both the experiment and theory of electronic transport through single atoms and molecules. In this sense, this publication will prove invaluable to both researchers and students interested in the field of nanoelectronics and nanoscience in general. "Molecular Electronics" is self-contained and unified in its presentation. It may be used as a textbook on nanoelectronics by graduate students and advanced undergraduates studying physics and chemistry. In addition, included are previously unpublished material that will help researchers gain a deeper understanding into the basic concepts involved in the field of molecular electronics.


Innovative Operational Research practitioner, intellectual leader in the development of systems ideas, and founder of the field of management cybernetics. Born: September 25, 1926 in London, England. Died: August 23, 2002 in Toronto, Canada. Education: D.Sc., University of Sunderland, 2000. Key positions: Production Controller and Head of OR Group, Samuel Fox (1949–1956); Head, Operational Research and Cybernetics, United Steel (1956–1961); Managing Director, SIGMA (1961–1966); Development Director, International Publishing Corporation (1966– 1970); Consultant (1970–2002). Awards and Recognition: Silver Medal, Royal Swedish Academy for Engineering Sciences (1958); Lanchester Prize, Operations Research Society of America (1966); McCullough Plaque of the American Society for Cybernetics (1970); Norbert Weiner Gold Medal, World Organization of Systems and Cybernetics (1984); Lifetime Achievement Award, UK Systems Society (1999); Honorary degrees: Doctor of Laws, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada (1988); Doctor of Economic Sciences, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland (2000). Key OR roles: President, Operational Research Society (1970–1971); President, Society for General Systems Research (1971–1972); President, World Organization of Systems and Cybernetics (1970–the time of his death). Stafford Beer was one of the most remarkable figures that Operational Research (OR) in any country has produced. A charismatic, even flamboyant, character, he founded two major and pioneering OR groups; wrote some of the best books about the subject; and was a world leader in the development of systems ideas. He is widely acknowledged as the founder of the field of International Transactions in Operational Resarch.


The colonization rate of Candida spp. reaches up to 80% in patients who reside in intensive care units (ICUs) more than a week, and the mean rate of development of invasive disease is 10% in colonized patients. Since invasive candidiasis (IC) in ICU patients presents with septic shock and high mortality rate, rapid diagnosis and treatment are crucial. The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between invasive infection and the determination of Candida colonization index (CI) and Candida score (CS) in patients admitted to ICU who are at high risk for IC and likely to benefit from early antifungal therapy. A total of 80 patients (34 female, 46 male; age range: 12-92 years, mean age: 69.57 ± 16.30) who were in ICU over seven days or longer of Anesthesia Department of Kayseri Education and Research Hospital between April, 2014 and July, 2015 were included in the study. None of the patients were neutropenic. After admission, throat, nose, skin (axillary region), urine, rectal swab and blood cultures have been collected weekly beginning from day zero. Isolation and identification of Candida strains were performed by using conventional mycological methods. CI was calculated as the ratio of the number of culture-positive distinct body sites (except blood culture) to the total number of body sites cultured. CI> 0.2 was considered as fungal colonization, while CI≥ 0.5 as intensive colonization. CS value was calculated according to the components including total parenteral nutrition (TPN) (plus 0.908 points), surgery (plus 0.907 points), colonization in multiple areas (plus 1.112) and severe sepsis (plus 2.038 points), and cut-off value for CS was accepted as >2.5. In our study, overall 1009 cultures (mean: 13 cultures per patient) were taken from 80 patients, and yeast growth was detected in 365 (36.2%) of them. Accordingly, among 68 (85%) of 80 patients included, in at least one sample, yeast growth was determined. No yeast growth was observed in the blood cultures. Of 365 yeast-positive cultures, C.albicans was isolated from 184 (50.4%), C.glabrata from 66 (18%), C.parapsilosis from 42 (11.5%), C.tropicalis from 12 (3.3%), C.kefyr from three (0.8%), and C.krusei from one (0.3%) samples, whereas six (1.6%) samples yielded other yeasts (3 Saprochaete capitata, 3 Trichosporon spp.) and 51 (13.9%) samples yielded multiple yeast growth. The highest colonization rates were detected in rectal swabs (27.4%), urine (23.3%) and throat (22.5%) samples. CI value was found as >0.2 in 65% (52/80), and ≥0.5 in 25% (20/80) of the patients, whereas CS value was >2.5 in only 2.5% (2/80) of the patients. In the statistical evaluation, significant correlations were found between fungal colonization (CI> 0.2) and gender (p=0.032) and length of stay in ICU (p=0.004), and between intensive colonization (CI≥ 0.5) and gender (p=0.008) and age (p=0.012). However, the correlation between Candida colonization and the presence of underlying diseases, APACHE II score, Glasgow coma scale, invasive procedures, use of extended-spectrum antibiotics, presence of bacterial infections, haemodialysis, transfusion and history of previous hospitalization was not statistically significant. Our results have also indicated a statistically significant relationship between fungal colonization and the positivity of C.albicans, C.glabrata, C.parapsilosis ang C.albicans/C.glabrata (p=0.001, p=0.002, p=0.008 and p=0.028, respectively), emphasizing the importance of species-level identification of Candida isolates. The reason of lacking of IC development in our patients may be explained by their low CI and CS values. In conclusion, monitoring of ICU patients who are at high risk for IC in terms of CI and CS would be beneficial. However it is clear that our data need to be supported by multi-center and high-scale studies.


The Archive Query Log (AQL) is a previously unused, comprehensive query log collected at the Internet Archive over the last 25 years. Its first version includes 356 million queries, 137 million search result pages, and 1.4 billion search results across 550 search providers. Although many query logs have been studied in the literature, the search providers that own them generally do not publish their logs to protect user privacy and vital business data. Of the few query logs publicly available, none combines size, scope, and diversity. The AQL is the first to do so, enabling research on new retrieval models and (diachronic) search engine analyses. Provided in a privacy-preserving manner, it promotes open research as well as more transparency and accountability in the search industry.


Through this research, engineering students and conservation biologists constructed an off-grid video system for observing western burrowing owls in El Paso, Texas. The burrowing owl has a declining population and their range decreasing, driving scientists' interest to see inside the den for observing critical nesting behavior. Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) biologists wanted videos from inside the dark, isolated hillside owl burrows. This research yielded a replicable multi-camera prototype, empowering others to explore applications of engineering and wildlife monitoring. The remote station used an off-the-shelf video recording system, solar panels, charge controller, and lead acid batteries. Four local K-12 science educators participated in system testing at Lake Ray Roberts State Park through the Research Experiences for Teachers (RET, NSF #1132585) program, as well as four undergraduate engineering students as senior design research.


Rhodotorula glutinis is a yeast that secretes the enzyme α-L-arabinofuranosidase (E.C. 188.8.131.52) into the culture medium and thus has an interesting biotechnological potential. To determine improved culture conditions of this organism, different factors of the culture media were evaluated such as the use of peptone as nitrogen source, salts composition, pH and growth temperature. Likewise, beet molasses and beet cosette were tested as industrial carbon sources to induce the production of the enzyme and how they influence the yeast growth. Based on these studies a culture medium is proposed for growth of this yeast in a continuous system. By assaying different dilution rates an average specific activity for the enzyme of 82.4 U/mg of protein was obtained.


FlexRay is a deterministic communication bus in the automotive context that supports fault-tolerant and high-speed bus system. It operates based on the time-division-multiple-access scheme and allows transmission of event-driven and time-driven messages between nodes in a system. A FlexRay bus has two periodic segments which form a bus cycle: static segment and dynamic segment. Such a bus system could be used in a wide area of real-time automotive applications with soft and hard timing constraints.Recent research has been focused on the FlexRay static segment. As opposed to the static segment, however, the dynamic one is based on an event-triggered scheme. This scheme is more difficult to be temporally predicted. Nevertheless, the event-triggered paradigm provides more flexibility for further incremental design. The dynamic segment is also suitable for applications with erratic data size. Such advantages motivate for more research on the dynamic segment.In a real-time system, results of the computations have to be ready by a specific instant of time called deadline . However, in a soft real-time application, the result can be used with a degraded Quality of Service even after the deadline has passed while in a hard real-time system, missing a deadline leads to a catastrophe. This thesis aims at optimizing some of the parameters of the FlexRay bus for soft real-time applications. The cost function which helps to assess the solution to the optimization problem is the deadline miss ratio and a solution to our problem consists of two parts: (1) Frame identifiers to messages which are produced at each node. (2) The size of each individual minislot which is one of the FlexRay bus parameters.The optimization is done based on genetic algorithms. To evaluate the proposed approach, several experiments have been conducted based on the FlexRay bus simulator implemented in this thesis. The achieved results show that suitable choice of the parameters which are generated by our optimization engine improves the timing behavior of simulated communicating nodes.


Water is an increasingly scarce resource. It is often distributed such that consumers do not face any marginal cost of consumption, creating a common pool problem. For instance, tenants in multi-family buildings can often consume both hot and cold water at zero marginal cost. Using high-frequency data over many years, we analyze how the introduction of apartment-level metering and billing (IMB) affects hot water consumption. We find that introducing a marginal cost, reflecting the market price, decreases consumption drastically by 26%. Hence, price interventions can curb free-riding behavior and help the conservation of cheap but precious resources. Our results also show that heavy water users in the top consumption quartile account for 72% of the reduction. Moreover, cost-benefit calculations indicate that IMB for hot water is a cost-effective policy tool for reducing water and energy consumption.


The higher temperature in cities relative to their rural surroundings, known as the urban heat island (UHI), is one of the most well documented and severe anthropogenic modifications of the environment. Heat islands are hazardous to residents and the sustainability of cities during summertime and heat waves; on the other hand, they provide considerable benefits in wintertime. Yet, the evolution of UHIs during cold waves has not yet been explored. In this study, ground-based observations from 12 U.S. cities and high-resolution weather simulations show that UHIs not only warm urban areas in the winter but also further intensify during cold waves by up to 1.32° ± 0.78°C (mean ± standard deviation) at night relative to precedent and subsequent periods. Anthropogenic heat released from building heating is found to contribute more than 30% of the UHI intensification. UHIs thus serve as shelters against extreme-cold events and provide benefits that include mitigating cold hazard and reducing heating demand. More important, simulations indicate that standard UHI mitigation measures such as green or cool roofs reduce these cold-wave benefits to different extents. Cities, particularly in cool and cold temperate climates, should hence revisit their policies to favor (existing) mitigation approaches that are effective only during hot periods.


This study (Part I) covers the comparative structure of the thalamus and metathalamus in the prosimian superfamilies, Lorisoidea and Lemuroidea. Several lemuroid specimens, namely Lemus, Cheirogaleus, Microcebus, Avahi and Daubentonia, and lorisoid specimens such as Galago, Perodicticus and Loris have been used in this extensive study. The anterior nuclear group does not show much difference among these species, although attention is focussed on the differentiation of the principal anterior nucleus into anteromedial and anteroventral parts; the latter increases in structural complexity. The anterodorsal nucleus has regressed into a small, flattened cap-line structure covering the dorsal surface of the anteroventral nucleus. The midline thalamic nuclei are more or less the same throughout the entire prosimian primate scale, though the gradual fusion of the nucleus rhomboidalis with the nucleus centralis medialis is observed from Microcebus to Daubentonia. The medial thalamic nuclear region is dominated by the nucleus mediodorsalis which is clearly differentiated into dorsomedial magnocellular and ventrolateral parvocellular protions. A third division consisting of rather large, darkly staining cells have been observed in the caudal region of the nucleus mediodorsalis. The nuclei centrum medianum and parafascicularis are both large in size, but is not completely demarcated from each other. The dorsolateral thalamic nuclei--the nuclei laterales dorsalis, intermedius and posterior, are well developed, but cannot be distinguished from one another. The pulvinar shows a remarkable phylogenetic development; it does not only enlarge, but is differentiated into several distinct parts. The ventrolateral thalamic nuclear group is comparably larger in structural size than the dorsolateral thalamic nuclei. The nuclei ventrales anterior and lateralis are not clearly demarcated from each other, but on both cyto- and myelo-architectonic grounds, are separate entities. The nucleus ventralis posterior is differentiated into lateral, medial and inferior parts. The posterior thalamic nuclei show the beginnings of regression. The nucleus pretectalis remains comparatively large in size and divided into medial and lateral parts. The nucleus posterior thalamicus is either absent or involuted into other nuclei. The nucleus limitans makes its first appearance in the Prosimii. The lateral geniculate body is very variable in size in all respects among the prosimian species, that is, in the dorsoventral shift along the lateral surface of the thalamus, the cellular differentiation of the lateral geniculate nucleus into 5 or 6 layers, the topographical position of the pregeniculate nucleus and the degree of inversion. The medial geniculate body is shown to be clearly subdivided on cyto-architectonic grounds into dorsomedial and ventrolateral parts; a magnocellular protion can be seen on the dorsal region of this nucleus, and appears to be closely related to the nucleus suprageniculatus.


The PDF format represents the de facto standard for print-oriented documents. In this paper, we address the problem of wrapping PDF documents, which raises new challenges in several contexts of text data management. Our proposal is based on a novel bottom-up hierarchical wrapping approach that exploits fuzzy logic to handle the "uncertainty" which is intrinsic to the structure and presentation of PDF documents. A PDF wrapper is defined by specifying a set of group type definitions that impose a target structure to groups of tokens containing the required information. Constraints on token groupings are formulated as fuzzy conditions, which are defined on spatial and content predicates of tokens. We define a formal semantics for PDF wrappers and propose an algorithm for wrapper evaluation working in polynomial time with respect to the size of a PDF document. The proposed approach has been implemented in a wrapper generation system that offers visual capabilities to assist the designer in specifying and evaluating a PDF wrapper. Experimental results have shown good accuracy and applicability of our system to PDF documents of various domains.


Much current cultural policy research focuses on activity traditionally viewed as arts practice: visual arts, music, literature and dance. Architecture's role in the discussion of cultural policy is, however, less certain and thus less frequently interrogated. The study presented here both addresses this dearth of in-depth research while also contributing to the interdisciplinary discussion of cultural policy in wider terms. In seeking to better understand how architectural culture is regulated and administered in a specific case study, it unpacks how the complicated relationships of nominal and explicit policies on both sides of the Irish/Northern Irish border contributed to the significant expansion of arts-based buildings 1995-2008. It contrasts political and cultural motivations behind these projects during a period of significant economic growth, investment and inward immigration. Data has been gathered from both official published policies as well as interviews with elite actors in the decision-making field and architects who produced the buildings of interest in both countries. With the sizeable number of artsbased buildings now completed in both Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, one must wonder if this necklace of buildings is, like Jocasta's, a thing of both beauty and redolent with a potential future curse. It is the goal of this project to contribute to the larger applied and critical discussion of these issues and to engage with future policy design, administration and, certainly, evaluation.


This work was done to test the view that there is a marked rise in the content of fructose 2,6-bisphosphate during the climacteric of the fruit of banana (Musa cavendishii Lamb ex. Paxton). Bananas were ripened in the dark in a continuous stream of air in the absence of exogenous ethylene. CO2 production and the contents of fructose 2,6-bisphosphate and sucrose were monitored over a 15-day period. A range of extraction procedures for fructose 2,6-bisphosphate were compared. Recovery of fructose 2,6-bisphosphate added to samples of unripe fruit varied from poor to unmeasurable. Recoveries from samples of ripe fruit were high. It is argued that this differential recovery of fructose 2,6-bisphosphate undermines claims that the amount of this compound increases at the climacteric. When recoveries are taken into account, our data suggest that there is no major change in fructose 2,6-bisphosphate content during the onset of the climacteric in bananas.


Background: Our aim was to assess the value of brain apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) in Intra Cytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI) and spontaneously conceived preterm singletons. Methods: Twenty ICSI-conceived preterm singletons and 20 gestational age matched spontaneously conceived preterm singletons were studied. All subjects underwent diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI). The main outcome measure was the brain ADC value in the in ICSI-conceived and naturally conceived newborns. Results: Children born after ICSI had an increased ADC value than the controls. The ADC values of ICSI-conceived singletons were higher than those of spontaneously conceived singletons at cerebellum, corpus striatum, frontal lobe, occipital lobe, and temporal lobe white matter. The mean Apgar score, birth weight, height, and head circumference of ICSI children were found to be similar to naturally conceived children. Conclusions: Measuring ADC value may be a promising marker in identifying neurological outcome of ICSI-conceived newborns.


Abstract. This study examined the relation between benchmark data and rate of growth across the year for reading, math computation, and math concepts and applications curriculum-based measures, and a statewide and large-scale achievement test. Results showed that reading and math benchmarks were significantly and moderately correlated with performance on both achievement measures 1 and 2 years later. Rate of growth in first-grade reading was significantly and moderately related to third-grade statewide achievement performance, with the relation decreasing to nonsignificance by Grade 3. Math computation growth was also related to performance on the statewide achievement test. Curriculum-based measures provided adequate diagnostic accuracy for screening of performance on statewide and large-scale achievement tests both 1 and 2 years later. These data suggest the importance of early identification of students who are at risk for developing academic problems in reading and math.


The present study analysis size and weight-frequency composition of Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus thynnus) fattened in Tunisian farms for the period 2005-2010 and compare these morphometric parameters with those from wild bluefin tuna landed on 2001 at Sfax port (Tunisia). A total of 6,757 wild and fattened bluefin tuna were measured as straight-line fork length and 49,962 were weighted. Average value of K for wild BFT was 1.59 and respectively 2.43, 2.32, 2.15, 1.61, 1.79 and 1.90 for Fattened BFT after 5-6 months from 2005 to 2010 . Length frequency of fattened bluefin showed clearly a substantial increase in juvenile rate. The percentage which was 21.4% in 2005 reached 31.3% in 2009. For weight distribution, 73.3% of the fish caught in 2001 are below the annual mean (75.7 kg), while means 71 to 72% of fattened fish were under annual mean weight. Year 2009 is exceptional because only 57% of fattened fish were under the mean weight. This demonstrates that the fish caught are becoming increasingly small. Mean weight for fattening period (77 to 124 kg) are obviously higher than those of the wild fish (75,7kg).This study showed an increment in the amount of specimen under first sexual maturity which will not have the chance to spawn.


PURPOSE
The aim of this study was to evaluate the utility of dual-phase imaging in the assessment of nonfunctioning islet cell tumors (NFITs).

METHOD
Six patients with histologically and biochemically proven NFIT were evaluated by arterial and portal venous dual-phase helical CT. Scan delay was 20 s for the arterial phase and 70 s for the portal phase. Each phase was assessed by consensus reading and specifically evaluated for tumor conspicuity, hepatic metastases, vascular encasement by tumor, and presence of lymphadenopathy.

RESULTS
Overall, tumor conspicuity was greater in the arterial phase (5/6) than in the portal venous phase (1/6) with a mean tumor/normal pancreas attenuation difference of 31.8 HU in the arterial phase compared with 19.2 HU in the portal venous phase. The arterial phase detected a total of 17 liver metastases compared with 9 seen in the portal phase. Lymph node enlargement was noted in three patients, which, although visible in both phases, was more easily discernible in the arterial phase. Venous encasement by tumor was better evaluated on the delayed portal venous phase than the arterial phase.

CONCLUSION
Dual-phase helical CT scanning leads to improvement in the detection and staging of NFITs.


Photoresponsive cross-linked liquid crystal polymer (CLCP) films with different surface topographies, submicropillar arrays, and submicrocone arrays were fabricated through colloidal lithography technique by modulating different types of etching masks. The prepared submicropillar arrays were uniform with an average pillar diameter of 250 nm and the cone bottom diameter of the submicrocone arrays was about 400 nm, which are much smaller than previously reported CLCP micropillars. More interestingly, these two species of films with the same chemical structure represented completely different wetting behavior of water adhesion and mimicked rose petal and lotus leaf, respectively. Both the submicropillar arrayed film and the submicrocone arrayed film exhibited superhyrophobicity with a water contact angle (CA) value of 144.0 ± 1.7° and 156.4 ± 1.2°, respectively. Meanwhile, the former demonstrated a very high sliding angle (SA) greater than 90°, and thus, the water droplet was pinned on the surface as rose petal. On the contrary, the SA of the submicrocone arrayed CLCP film consisting of micro- and nanostructure was only 3.1 ± 2.0°, which is as low as that of lotus leaf. Furthermore, the change on the wettability of the films was also investigated under alternating irradiation of visible light with two different wavelengths, blue light and green light.


For the successful deployment of the Heavy Duty (HD) hydrogen vehicles, an associated infrastructure, in particular hydrogen refueling stations (HRS) should be reliable, compliant with regulations and optimized to reduce the related costs. FCH JU project PRHYDE aims to develop a sophisticated protocol dedicated to HD applications. The target of the project is to develop protocol and recommendations for an efficient refueling of 350, 500 and 700 bar HD tanks of types III and IV. This protocol is based on modeling results as well as experimental data. Different partners of the PRHYDE European project are closely working together on this target. However, modeling approaches and corresponding tools must first be compared and validated to ensure the high level of reliability for the modeling results. The current paper presents the benchmark performed in the frame of the project by Air Liquide, Engie, Wenger Engineering and NREL. The different models used were compared and calibrated to the configurations proposed by the PRHYDE project. In addition, several scenarios were investigated to explore different cases with high ambient temperatures.