Castlereagh Borough Council (Castlereagh BC) borders with Belfast in the east of Northern Ireland and serves a population of approximately 67,500. There are approximately 28,500 properties in the borough and 80% of households lie within urban areas. In 2007/8, Castlereagh BC had a household waste recycling and composting rate of 37.69%. In 2007/8, 19,603 tonnes of household waste was landfilled this equates to 0.69 tonnes per household. The Council actively promotes Home Composting of green garden waste as a method of waste reduction and has offered a subsidised rate on the sale of Home Composters. In order to evaluate whether this subsidisation is justified, a survey was carried out on all householders that have purchased a Home Composters. It was hoped that this survey would provide information on whether householders who had purchased Home Composters from the Council were actually using them, whilst also gauging whether householders are aware of the relationship between composting and diversion from landfill. Some 96% of respondents that purchased Home Composters are still using them. This is extremely encouraging and demonstrates that they would appear to be satisfied with their Home Composting experiences. Respondents (92%) stated that they noticed a decrease in the amount of their waste being sent for landfill/composting through the kerbside collections, this demonstrates that they are aware of the relationship between Home Composting and diversion from landfill. Some 86% of householders feel that they are using their Home Composter successfully and 93% of householders were satisfied with the scheme. However, 17% of householders complained about composter design and 16% found it difficult to use. Size, mobility and the unattached lid were of main concern. The results will be used to drive enhanced campaigns for the uptake of home composting of green garden waste


Array comparative genome hybridization (aCGH) is a widely used methodology to detect copy number variations of a genome in high resolution. Knowing the number of break-points and their corresponding locations in genomic sequences serves different biological needs. Primarily, it helps to identify disease-causing genes that have functional importance in characterizing genome wide diseases. For human autosomes the normal copy number is two, whereas at the sites of oncogenes it increases (gain of DNA) and at the tumour suppressor genes it decreases (loss of DNA). The majority of the current detection methods are deterministic in their set-up and use dynamic programming or different smoothing techniques to obtain the estimates of copy number variations. These approaches limit the search space of the problem due to different assumptions considered in the methods and do not represent the true nature of the uncertainty associated with the unknown break-points in genomic sequences. We propose the Cross-Entropy method, which is a model-based stochastic optimization technique as an exact search method, to estimate both the number and locations of the break-points in aCGH data. We model the continuous scale log-ratio data obtained by the aCGH technique as a multiple break-point problem. The proposed methodology is compared with well established publicly available methods using both artificially generated data and real data. Results show that the proposed procedure is an effective way of estimating number and especially the locations of break-points with high level of precision. Availability: The methods described in this article are implemented in the new R package breakpoint and it is available from the Comprehensive R Archive Network at http://CRAN.R-project.org/package=breakpoint.


In this paper, a traffic flow control scheme is presented. Wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) technology have significantly increased the transmission capacity of today's transport networks, and played an extremely important role in high-speed network. Since high bandwidth wavelength channels will be filled up by many low-speed traffic streams, efficiently provisioning customer connections with such diverse bandwidth needs is a very important problem and is also known as the traffic-grooming problem. Traffic grooming is an extremely important issue for next-generation optical WDM networks.


In current application of measurement uncertainty evaluation, dynamic uncertainty evaluation simply uses the static uncertainty methods. To change the situation, a new evaluation method of measurement uncertainty is investigated based on Bayesian principle in this paper. Bayesian evaluation method uses conjugate normal-inverted gamma distribution as the distribution function in uncertainty evaluation, which can be employed to evaluate both static and dynamic measurement uncertainty. The evaluation method put forward in this paper can achieve higher evaluation accuracy than the conventional methods, particularly in processing dynamic data with small samples. It has been proved in theory and by computer simulation.


An obese, 12 year old girl comes for review in clinic. A year ago when you first saw her you gave comprehensive advice regarding dietary modification, and exercise. She has continued to gain weight with a BMI greater than the 99th centile. You arrange for an oral glucose tolerance test to be performed which shows her to be hyperinsulinaemic with fasting insulin of 20 mIU/l, and 120 min insulin of 200 mIU/l. She has normal fasting and 120 min blood glucose measurements. You wonder whether prescribing metformin may help her to lose weight.

In obese hyperinsulinaemic adolescents [patient] is metformin [intervention] effective in promoting weight loss [outcome]?

Secondary (Cochrane library, 2004) and primary (Medline, Embase) sources were included in the search.

Search strategy: "Obesity" AND "Adolescent" AND "Metformin".

Search outcome: 276 hits (14; 61; 201; each search respectively), of which 2 (2; 2; 0) studies were directly relevant to this question. …


We investigated the control of movement in 12 patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) after they received surgically implanted high‐frequency stimulating electrodes in the subthalamic nucleus (STN). The experiment studied ankle strength, movement velocity, and the associated electromyographic patterns in PD patients, six of whom had tremor at the ankle. The patients were studied off treatment, ON STN deep brain stimulation (DBS), on medication, and on medication plus STN DBS. Twelve matched control subjects were also examined. Medication alone and STN DBS alone increased patients' ankle strength, ankle velocity, agonist muscle burst amplitude, and agonist burst duration, while reducing the number of agonist bursts during movement. These findings were similar for PD patients with and without tremor. The combination of medication plus STN DBS normalized maximal strength at the ankle joint, but ankle movement velocity and electromyographic patterns were not normalized. The findings are the first to demonstrate that STN DBS and medication increase strength and movement velocity at the ankle joint. © 2005 Movement Disorder Society


This study investigated the quality of domestic water obtained from the boreholes and water trucks used in Kimara, Mbezi and Mwananyamala wards in Kinondoni District, Dar es Salaam. Objectives were: (i) to determine levels of fecal and total coliform bacteria in domestic water supplied from private wells (boreholes) and water trucks, and compare these with the Tanzania Drinking Water Standards of 2008; (ii) to assess the physical quality of domestic water using pH, turbidity, electrical conductivity (EC) and total dissolved solids (TDS) and compare these to the Tanzania Drinking Water Standards of 2008; (iii) to analyze the chemical quality of the domestic water using total hardness and Chloride and compare these to the Tanzania Drinking Water Standards of 2008. Water samples were taken from deep boreholes (60-116m) and water trucks following procedures described in WHO (1985) Guidelines for Drinking Water Quality. Samples were taken to the laboratory and analyzed. Studied parameters were fecal coliform, total coliform, electrical conductivity, total dissolved solids, pH, turbidity, chloride and total hardness. The first two were determined by the methods described in APHA (1985) and the rest by methods described in Thermo Scientific (2008). Results indicated that most of the water samples from boreholes and water trucks were contaminated with bacteria. The mean fecal coliform was 44.58 counts per 100 ml in boreholes and 138.88 in water trucks. These values are higher than the value zero of TBS specifications for Tanzania Drinking Water Standard of 2008. The total dissolved solids in water from the boreholes were lower (128 mg/l) than the 2000 mg/l set by Tanzania Drinking Water Standard of 2008. Seven out of 12 samples of water from boreholes were hard (640-1200 mg/l) compared to less than 600 mg of Tanzania Drinking Water Standard. Total dissolved solids, chloride and total hardness of water from trucks met the standards of Tanzania. Based on obtained results it is recommended that the water from boreholes and water truck vendors should be boiled first or treated by users in order to kill fecal bacteria before drinking.


PURPOSE
To compare the efficacy and safety of latanoprost monotherapy to dorzolamide combined with timolol from pooled data of five multicenter, randomized, 3-month, observer-masked trials with identical study design.

METHODS
Patients who were on a beta-blocker or dual therapy where one agent was a beta-blocker were eligible after a 2- to 4-week run-in period on timolol 0.5%, twice daily. Patients then either discontinued timolol treatment and received latanoprost monotherapy n=345) or continued on timolol and received dorzolamide add-on therapy (n=352). Data from these 697 patients were included in the meta-analysis.

RESULTS
From an overall baseline of 22.8mmHg, the mean IOP reduction was 4.8mmHg (21%) in latanoprost-treated patients and 4.1mmHg (18%) in timolol + dorzolamide-treated patients p<0.001). A reduction in diurnal IOP of >=20% was achieved in 54% of the latanoprost-treated patients compared with 44% of the timolol + dorzolamide-treated patients. There was no marked difference between the two groups in the incidence of ocular and systemic events.

CONCLUSION
This meta-analysis provides further support that a switch to latanoprost monotherapy can be an alternative to combined treatment with timolol + dorzolamide.


The signatures of the geoeffectiveness solar disturbed events on the Magnetosphere Convection Electric Field (MCEF) universal time variation from 1964 to 2009 are investigated. Here, attention is focused our on the periods concerned by the whole shock activity and by the different types of the geoeffectiveness Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) which are one-day-shock, two-days-shock and three-days-shock. The investigation is made with respect to the orientation of the Interplanetary Magnetic Field (IMF). The MCEF time profiles show three different trends except for one-day-shock activity and for three-days-shock activity where we have four trends and one trend, respectively. The MCEF time profiles of the whole disturbed activity, the all shock activity and the one-day-shock activity present the initial phase where the Interplanetary Magnetic Field (IMF) is southward. During the two-days-shock activity, the initial phase of the MCEF shows a non-sensitive trend to the change of the direction of the IMF z-component while for the three-days-shock activity, the MCEF always exhibits the signature of the northward IMF. The last trend of the MCEF time profile shows the southward IMF signature except for the one-day-shock and the three-days-shock activities where that of the northward IMF was seen.

 Key words: Magnetosphere convection electric field, interplanetary magnetic field, shock activity, coronal mass ejections (CMEs).


Response surface methodology (RSM) was adopted to study the key parameters such as acid leaching time, calcined temperature, calcined time in order to increase silicon dioxide extracting rate from rice husk. A second order quadratic equation was established and the applicability of model and interaction involved factors on predicting the SiO2 extracting rate was verified. The results indicated that the effect on the SiO2 extracting rate was as follows: calcined time, acid leaching time, calcined temperature. The optimal levels for achieving the highest SiO2 extracting rate were obtained ,including calcined time of 1.495 hour, acid leaching time of 36 hour, calcined temperature of 620°C. The SiO2 extracting rate reached 73.4% under optimized conditions. Extracting rate were conducted under the optimum condition and the results showed the models fitted well.The products XRD diffraction analysis proved that it was amorphous SiO2 .


Mesoscale (~10 m) models using rock-physics concepts and effective-media ideas are a manageable basis for Bayesian seismic integration because seismic is usefully informative at this scale. An attractive route to geocellular scale (~1 m) models is downscaling mesoscale models using categorical (facies) simulations that honor effective media laws, and using well data and geologic concepts to formulate priors. In this nonlinear downscaling, it is unclear whether the overall posterior distributions for fine-scale models can be approximated as the product of conditional distributions using local neighborhoods, which is necessary for accurate sequential simulation. The factorization requires computing analytical marginal distributions (integrating over "unvisited" sites) and conditional distributions dependent only on "visited" sites. Analytical techniques fail for nonlinearly constrained problems; the only alternatives are expensive MCMC or analytical approximations within a sequential method. An approximation based on an expansion assuming weak correlation between visited and unvisited sites is developed in this paper. We test and illustrate by comparing global methods (with rigorous marginals) to local approximations. Local method errors increase as correlation length increases, especially if seismic data are highly informative or the marginals are poorly approximated. Using the proposed marginal approximation improves sequential simulation accuracy for these cases.


Complex sphingolipids in yeast are known to function in cellular adaptation to environmental changes. One of the yeast complex sphingolipids, mannosylinositol phosphorylceramide (MIPC), is produced by the redundant inositol phosphorylceramide (IPC) mannosyltransferases Csg1 and Csh1. The Ca2+-binding protein Csg2 can form a complex with either Csg1 or Csh1 and is considered to act as a regulatory subunit. However, the role of Csg2 in MIPC synthesis has remained unclear. In this study, we found that Csg1 and Csh1 are N-glycosylated with core-type and mannan-type structures, respectively. Further identification of the glycosylated residues suggests that both Csg1 and Csh1 exhibit membrane topology with their C termini in the cytosol and their mannosyltransferase domains in the lumen. After complexing with Csg2, both Csg1 and Csh1 function in the Golgi, and then are delivered to the vacuole for degradation. However, uncomplexed Csh1 cannot exit from the endoplasmic reticulum. We also demonstrated that Ca2+ stimulates IPC-to-MIPC conversion, because of a Csg2-dependent increase in Csg1 levels. Thus, Csg2 has several regulatory functions for Csg1 and Csh1, including stability, transport, and gene expression.


The aim of this paper is to study ultralimits of pointed metric measure spaces (possibly unbounded and having infinite mass). We prove that ultralimits exist under mild assumptions and are consistent with the pointed measured Gromov-Hausdorff convergence. We also introduce a weaker variant of pointed measured Gromov-Hausdorff convergence, for which we can prove a version of Gromov's compactness theorem by using the ultralimit machinery. This compactness result shows that, a posteriori, our newly introduced notion of convergence is equivalent to the pointed measured Gromov one. Another byproduct of our ultralimit construction is the identification of direct and inverse limits in the category of pointed metric measure spaces.


The relationship between surface atmospheric circulation and temperature in Europe from the 1770s to 1995 is examined using correlation analysis. The atmospheric circulation is represented by six indices: the three leading principal components (PCs) of an empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis of 20 European pressure series from 1822 to 1995, which represent the central tendency of European pressure (EOF 1), a zonal circulation pattern (EOF 2) and a meridional pattern (EOF 3), a North Atlantic zonal index constructed from Gibraltar and Reykjavik pressure series for 1821–1995; a Western European zonal index constructed from Madrid, Barcelona, Lund and Trondheim for 1786–1995; and an index constructed from Paris and London, 1774–1995. Eight long temperature series from northwestern and central Europe were correlated with these circulation indices. European temperatures in general had the highest correlations with the zonal circulation indices in winter, with almost 70% of the variability in the temperature records explained by variations in the zonal index. The correlation coefficients between PC 3 (representing meridional circulation) and temperatures were highest in spring and autumn, particularly for Scandinavia. Running correlation series calculated over 25‐year windows reveal significant non‐stationarities in the relationship between surface temperature and atmospheric circulation on decadal time scales, suggesting caution must be used in extrapolating current relationships between circulation and temperature for future climate predictions based on downscaling or past palaeoclimatic reconstructions. Copyright © 2001 Royal Meteorological Society


Nanowires (NWs) consisting of P-doped Si/B-doped Ge axial heterojunctions were grown via vapor-liquid-solid synthesis using a combination of Au and AuGa catalyst particles. Off-axis electron holography (EH) was used to measure the electrostatic potential profile across the junction resulting from electrically active dopants, and atom-probe tomography (APT) was used to map total dopant concentration profiles. A comparison of the electrostatic potential profile measured from EH with simulations that were based on the APT results indicates that Ga atoms unintentionally introduced during AuGa catalyst growth were mostly electronically inactive. This finding was also corroborated by in situ electron-holography biasing experiments. Electronic band structure simulations guided by the experimental results helped to provide a much better explanation of the NW electrical behavior. Overall, this work demonstrates that the combination of EH, APT, in situ biasing, and simulations allows a more complete understanding o...


Fairtrade represents a small but rapidly growing share of the world market. This paper discusses Fairtrade impact on the coffee value chain. Both Fairtrade and the coffee value chain link together the producer and the consumer. This is of importance as the geographical distance between where most coffee is produced and consumed can be great and level development often varies widely. In Northern consuming countries coffee has become a fashionable drink and coffee chains expand rapidly. Coffee is becoming an increasingly differentiated product and most value to the product is added in the North where rents are largest. At the same time, coffee prices received by producers in the South are rather low, around the turn of the century even below production costs. The spread between coffee producer prices and retail prices tends to increase. This paper shows that Fairtrade increases producer income and market power. However, Fairtrade does not necessarily increase producer share of final retail price as gains from Fairtrade in producing countries tend to be outset by inefficiencies further down the chain. Costa Rica has been producing coffee for 200 years and Fairtrade coffee since 1989. Costa Rica has a long history of coffee production and provides an example of coffee producing countries in this paper.


GAP analysis provides a quick overview of the distribution and conservation status of several components of biodiversity. It used a Geographical Information System (GIS) to overlay digital maps of vegetation, areas of high species richness, and land management status to assess the "gaps" is biodiversity protection for the State. GAP analysis is an important tool to aid conservation planning. A number of states have completed their initial stages of database development and are working on the next state of data dissemination. Utah Gap is an example of this work. They have designed a series of CD-ROM disks that run with either ArcInfo or ArcView software. Users can interactively query datalayers such as vegetation, land ownership, and vertebrate species distribution. The use can overlay these data with political boundaries within the state as well has hydrogriphy and road topology. These day overlay techniques allow for visual assessment of impacts of various management decisions. The State of Georgia is beginning the initial stages of datebase development for a Gap Analysis. We hope to have a similar package available to managers and land planners within a three to four year time frame. Cooperations agencies include: Georgia Department of Natural Resources, U.S. National Biological Survey, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Forest Service, and The University of Georgia. For more information contact Dr. Michael J. Conroy, Assistant Leader, Georgia Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit; telephone: 706-542-5260.


This qualitative research study examined the role of women's leadership in Iowa community colleges. Administrative leaders from community college settings, recommended by their presidents, wrote narratives about effective leadership traits and from these narratives, four women leaders were selected and later interviewed. Key thematic categories were developed from the written and verbal narratives. The resulting data set was then analyzed by a comparative case study approach. Emerging thematic categories were interpreted through the lens of four primary research questions addressing the relationship between gender, spirituality, and authentic leadership. A plethora of issues surfaced from the data. Issues of gender and gender equality rose immediately to the surface. Awareness of gendered issues allowed women leaders to develop a gender literacy that informed their decision-making and their development towards more authentic leadership. Women leaders' knowledge of and sensitivity to hegemonic leadership and historical gender biases as well as their awareness of their own gender-specific leadership traits and qualities enabled women leaders to understand more clearly and contribute more effectively to an emerging sense of authentic leadership. This assisted them in being better members of leadership teams as well as being more prepared to meet the unique needs of their employees. Spirituality and its role in personal and professional leadership development was another important idea that arose from the data. Spirituality, defined as a search fo r meaning, purpose and connection, was the cyclical process of inner reflection and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. transcendence to the outer world of life's experiences, reflections, realizations, and choices. As women constructed and refined the meaning and purpose of their life and began to forge more rewarding inter-connections with themselves and others, they felt the corresponding pull to deeper levels of authenticity in themselves and in their leadership roles. The emergence of this authenticity in themselves and their leadership roles was important to these women leaders because in finding themselves they connected to their deeper purpose. These connections were not just internal cognitive and affective patterns but also had an external relational and behavioral dimension to them. Women living these connections as they evolve towards more authentic leadership discover richer personal lives and more effective decision-making. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.


Creation of deep core holes leads to extensive nuclear dynamics on a few femtosecond timescale despite the very short (τ ≤ 1 fs) lifetime of such states. This is because the 1st steps of the relaxation processes (i.e. both radiative and non-radiative decays) generate intermediate states with one and multiple holes in core orbitals. As an example, ultrafast dissociation is observed in three well-distinguishable LVV Auger decay channels for HCl following Cl1s→σ* excitation.


The main objectives of this thesis are two pronged which include the development of a novel diagnostic technique and the creation a geospatial database for soil-transmitted helminthiasis in Malaysia. These aims have been successfully accomplished and the outcomes are detailed out in Chapters 5 and 7. Nonetheless in order to achieve these good outcomes, prior work in getting appropriate samples for high resolution melting (HRM) analysis and current data for geographical information system (GIS) had to be conducted in some epidemiological studies in the human and animal populations and these are illustrated in Chapters 3, 4 and 6. Therefore, this abstract will summarize our main findings relevant to the two main objectives.
In the present study, we have successfully developed a cost-effective and practical diagnostic tool based on real-time PCR coupled with HRM analysis which can serve as a reliable alternative technique for rapid and accurate identification of the five major hookworm species, namely Necator americanus, Ancylostoma duodenale, Ancylostoma ceylanicum, Ancylostoma caninum and Ancylostoma braziliense that are known to be endemic in Malaysia. These five hookworm species can be easily distinguished from one another based on their unique and distinct melting characteristic HRM curves. Each species has their own curve profiles and characterized by different melting temperature (Tm) peaks (i.e., N. americanus: 79.24 ± 0.05°C and 83.00 ± 0.04°C; A. duodenale 79.12 ± 0.10°C; A. ceylanicum: 79.40 ± 0.10°C; A. caninum: 79.63 ± 0.05°C; A. braziliense: 79.70 ± 0.14°C). The present real-time PCR-HRM assay (100%) also has higher sensitivity compared to conventional semi-nested PCR (84.1%). However both techniques gave similar sensitivity (100%). The establishment of this new alternative diagnostic tool in this study has allowed accurate determination of
Abstract
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parasite prevalence, increased the understanding of transmission dynamics and provided important information particularly on the zoonotic potential of hookworm in high risk communities (i.e., Orang Asli communities). In these socioeconomically disadvantaged communities, the poor levels of hygiene and overcrowding, along with a lack of veterinary attention and zoonotic awareness coupled with uncontrolled population of stray and semi-domesticated dogs or cats exist in close proximity with humans, exacerbating the risk of zoonotic transmission. Our findings shown that N. americanus (89.6%) was the most common hookworm species found in human fecal samples, followed by A. ceylanicum (19.0%) while no A. duodenale infection was detected in this study. This result indicated that almost a quarter of hookworm-positive individuals are infected with A. ceylanicum, a zoonotic hookworm species that utilizes dogs and cats as definitive hosts. In fact, our study among dogs and cats inhabiting the same locations showed that hookworm infections (61.9%) were significantly higher in both animals compared to other parasite species. Of these hookworm-positive samples, 47.1% of the infected dogs and cats were also harboring A. ceylanicum. It is especially evident in these poor and deprived communities as uncontrolled populations of dogs and cats co-exist with the Orang Asli communities as demonstrated in our earlier epidemiological analysis which showed that close contact with dogs and cats were significantly associated with hookworm infections in the Orang Asli communities. Furthermore, our analysis via molecular tool on these A. ceylanicum positive isolates indicated that some of the A. ceylanicum strains from both human and animal host within the same geographical location were clustered together within the same group based on phylogenetic analysis. This provided evidence to show that dogs and humans may share genetically similar genotypes of A. ceylanicum within the same geographical location. Thus, the present study highlighted that it is essential to recognize that accurate
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diagnosis through practical, sensitive and specific analytical tools are crucial factors to address key epidemiology and population genetic questions to support surveillance, treatment and control program of STH infections.
Besides advancement and improvement in diagnostic tools, it is also vital to understand the STH biology and epidemiology with regards to their environmental and ecological limits. Significantly, we have demonstrated how the utilization of GIS coupled with remote sensing (RS) technology can play an important role in providing basic information for the implementation of sustainable and effective control programs for STH infections. We believe that findings of this study will have direct beneficial implications to STH control programs in Malaysia. This is particularly relevant that an accurate estimation of the total disease burden has not been fully explained although STH infections in Malaysia are still highly prevalent especially in rural and remote communities such as the Orang Asli. Moreover, these data are rarely available in the public domain in a form that is accessible to policy maker or relevant authorities for control program intervention. The current study has successfully utilized GIS to collate and map the geographical distribution of STH infections from available empirical survey data in peninsular Malaysia and highlighted areas where such information is lacking. The current assembled database represents one of the largest and comprehensive survey coalitions of STH infections in the country, consisting 99 survey locations conducted between 1970 and 2012 through our combined search strategies. As illustrated in our prevalence maps, the geographical distribution of STH vary considerably with no clear pattern across the surveyed locations. Given that only few survey data is available for most regions in Malaysia as illustrated in our prevalence maps, thus it is important to generate predictive risk map of infection on the basis of their ecological limits such as climate and other environmental factors. In the present
Abstract
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study, our correlation analysis between infection patterns and ecological factors indicated that Land Surface Temperature (LST) and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) were significantly associated with the observed prevalence of A. lumbricoides. On the basis of these two significant variables, we have managed to extrapolate predictive risk map of A. lumbricoides particularly in areas for which no data are available. The predictive risk map can serve as a baseline data in the estimated number of population at risk, numbers requiring treatment and cost of delivering anthelminthic at broad scale by prioritizing areas and populations at greatest needs. Our A. lumbricoides predictive risk map showed that prevalence of infection is low along the west coast and southern part of the country, whilst the prevalence is high along the central plain and northern part. Based on our estimation according to the latest available national census in 2010, it is estimated that up to 3.5 million individuals would be infected with A. lumbricoides. Of these, we estimated that there are 587,482 school-aged children in 75 out of 81 districts corresponding to 359 out of 842 sub-districts in the country who warrant mass drug administration (MDA) treatment at least twice a year according to WHO recommendations. Thus, this study reinforces that the utilization of GIS and RS techniques can provide the way forward in developing and implementing sustainable national control programs at realistic scale by identifying key endemic areas, providing more accurate estimates of populations at risk and basic information on treatment intervention by reducing the costs involved at both upstream (e.g., survey and design) and downstream (e.g., targeting, monitoring and evaluation) particularly when the recourses for control program are limited.


The most common destructive insect pests affecting cabbages in African smallholder farmers include Plutella xylostella, Helula undalis, Pieris brassicae, Brevycoryne brassicae, Trichoplusia ni and Myzus persicae. Those insect pests infest cabbages at different stages of growth, causing huge damage and resulting into huge yield losses. The African smallholder farmers use cultural and synthetic pesticides to control insect pests and minimize infestations. The cultural practices like crop rotation, weeding and handpicking are used to minimize the invasion of cabbage pests. However, those practices are not sufficiently enough to control cabbage insect pests although they are cheap and safe to the environment. Also, the African smallholder famers rely intensively on the application of broad-spectrum of synthetic pesticides to effectively control the cabbage pests in the field. Due to severe infestation of cabbages caused by those insects, most of African smallholder farmers decide to; first, increase the concentrations of synthetic pesticides beyond the recommended amount by manufacturers. Secondly, increase the rate of application of the synthetic pesticides throughout the growing season to effectively kill the most stubborn insect pests infesting cabbages (Brassica oleracea var. capitata). Thirdly, they mix more than two synthetic pesticides for the purpose of increasing the spectrum of killing the most stubborn insect pests in the field. All those scenarios intensify the environmental pollution especially soil and water pollution. Moreover, most of insecticides sprayed are made with broad-spectrum and are hazardous chemicals posing environmental pollution and threats to natural enemies' ecosystems. Therefore, this paper reviews Brassica oleracea var. capitata insect pests and control measures as a potential environmental pollution threat in African smallholder farmers.


a stated value of 370 jAg/100 ml (acceptable range 330-410 ug/100 ml), we obtained a result of 450 ,g/100 ml when using the unheated magnesium carbonate and 345 pg/100 ml with the heated magnesium carbonate. With Behringwerke human control serum, of stated value 399 pg/100 ml (range 369-429 Mg/100 ml), we obtained results of 465 ,ug/100 ml with unheated, and 435 Mg/100 ml with heated, magnesium carbonate. A further experiment was performed in which two batches of horse serum were


A 3-year-old boy was at home with his cousin who was preparing for a fishing trip when a fishhook accidentally became lodged in the distal part of the child's right middle finger. There was mild erythema and swelling, with tenderness on palpation. No bleeding or discharge was noted. The patient had full range of motion, with normal sensation and capillary refill. Remaining examination findings were unremarkable. Radiographic views of the affected area confirmed the absence of bony infiltration.


DEAD box proteins share several highly conserved motifs including the characteristic Asp-Glu-Ala-Asp (D-E-A-D in the amino acid single-letter code) motif and have established or putative ATP-dependent RNA helicase activity. These proteins are implicated in a range of cellular processes that involve regulation of RNA function, including translation initiation, RNA splicing and ribosome assembly. Here we describe the isolation and characterization of an embryonic RNA helicase gene, ERH, which maps to mouse chromosome 1 and encodes a new member of the DEAD box family of proteins. The predicted ERH protein shows high sequence similarity to the testes-specific mouse PL10 and to the maternally acting Xenopus An3 helicase proteins. The ERH expression profile is similar, to that of An3, which localizes to the animal hemisphere of oocytes and is abundantly expressed in the embryo. ERH is expressed in oocytes and is a ubiquitous mRNA in the 9 days-post-conception embryo, and at later stages of development shows a more restricted pattern of expression in brain and kidney. The similarities in sequence and in expression profile suggest that ERH is the murine equivalent of the Xenopus An3 gene, and we propose that ERH plays a role in translational activation of mRNA in the oocyte and early embryo.


In the Middle Ages a Christian system of values met the values of a noble warrior society. Although these two systems had completely different conceptions of norms, they adapted from each other certain values and symbolic forms to express these values.The development of this adaptation is depicted by treating the Christian values misericordia, humilitas and clementia. In which way did the noble warrior society take up these values and how did these norms possibly change?Misericordia, for example, became an essential part of noble behaviour, but the fundamental idea of Christian misericordia was changed. Helping the poor was often motivated by the nobles' will to prove his mercy, not by personal compassion.Although the value of humilitas implied a sharp contrast to the values of honor and rank, one can find forms of expression, which revealed a noble's or ruler's humility. With his humble behaviour one proved one's qualification and legitimacy. Humility was expressed with symbolic forms of expression like walking barefoot and in penitential clothes or making footfalls. Similarly, these forms were used in inner-secular communication to acknowledge the existing order of rank.The ritual of deditio combines the values humilitas and clementia. The author describes this ritual as a pre-arranged stage-play, in which the one's humility granted the other's clemency. These 'stage-plays' had only little in common with the original Christian virtues, but this way several elements of the Christian virtue system influenced the noble behaviour pattern.


ABSTRACT The prevalence of Helicobacter pylori infection in a population-based sample of 477 children (mean age ± standard deviation, 5.8 ± 0.5 years) determined by the [13C]urea breath test ([13C]UBT) was 10.7% (95% confidence interval [CI], 8.1 to 13.8%), and that determined by salivary enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was 11.9% (95% CI, 9.2 to 15.2%). Compared to the [13C]UBT, the sensitivity and specificity of the salivary ELISA were 80.9% (95% CI, 66.3 to 90.4%) and 95.3% (95% CI, 92.7 to 97.1%), respectively.


Fanfiction is the creative appropriation and transformation of existing popular media texts by fans who take stories, worlds and/or characters as starting points and create their own stories based on them. As a cultural field of practice, fanfiction questions prevalent concepts of individual authorship and proprietary of cultural goods. At the same time, fanfiction itself is challenged. Through processes of mediatization, fanfiction grew and became increasingly visible. Third parties, ranging from the media industry (e.g., film studios) and copyright holders to journalism and academia, are interested in fanfiction and are following its development. We regard fanfiction communities and fan acting as fields for experimentation and as discursive arenas which can help understand what appropriating, writing and publishing in a digital culture and the future of writing might look like. In this paper, we outline important debates on the legitimacy and nature of fanfiction and present preliminary results of current research within Germany.


Maintaining computational load balance is important to the performant behavior of codes which operate under a distributed computing model. This is especially true for GPU architectures, which can suffer from memory oversubscription if improperly load balanced. We present enhancements to traditional load balancing approaches and explicitly target GPU architectures, exploring the resulting performance. A key component of our enhancements is the introduction of several GPU-amenable strategies for assessing compute work. These strategies are implemented and benchmarked to find the most optimal data collection methodology for in-situ assessment of GPU compute work. For the fully kinetic particle-in-cell code WarpX, which supports MPI+CUDA parallelism, we investigate the performance of the improved dynamic load balancing via a strong scaling-based performance model and show that, for a laserion acceleration test problem run with up to 6144 GPUs on Summit, the enhanced dynamic load balancing achieves from 62%--74% (88% when running on 6 GPUs) of the theoretically predicted maximum speedup; for the 96-GPU case, we find that dynamic load balancing improves performance relative to baselines without load balancing (3.8× speedup) and with static load balancing (1.2× speedup). Our results provide important insights into dynamic load balancing and performance assessment, and are particularly relevant in the context of distributed memory applications ran on GPUs.


This paper proposes a hybrid energy system combing solar photovoltaic and wind turbine as a small-scale alternative source of electrical energy where conventional generation is not practical. A simple and cost effective control technique has been proposed for maximum power point tracking from the photovoltaic array and wind turbine under varying climatic conditions without measuring the irradiance of the photovoltaic or the wind speed. The proposed system is attractive owing to its simplicity, ease of control and low cost. A complete description of the proposed hybrid system along with detailed simulation results which ascertain its feasibility are given to demonstrate the availability of the proposed system in this paper. Simulation of the hybrid system under investigation was carried out using PSIM software


The enzymes of Actinomyces cellulosae were fractionated by precipitation with ammonium sulphate and gel filtration on Sephadex G-75. Fractionation yielded protease, beta-1,3-glucanase and an enzyme of a low molecular weight and unknown nature involved in lysis by 70% of yeast cells at early exponential growth phase without the participation of the other two enzymes. The protease did not accomplish lysis of the cells; beta-1,3-glucanase was involved in degradation of the cell walls of old yeast cells.


For the safe use of lithium-based batteries, a management system is neccessary. This management system keeps an eye on the battery to prevent it from overloading (explosion hazard) and underloading (battery failure). Furthermore, it strongly reduces degradation of the battery.


In radius neck fractures, reduction manipulations applied on the radial head with percutaneous K-wires may lead to epiphysis or physis damage. In this study, 16 cases were evaluated without using any percutaneous manipulations upon the displaced radius head. Rather, an Ender-pin-like, curve-tipped K-wire was inserted intramedullarly (Metaizeau technique) after a certain amount of reduction by manual manipulation under fluoroscopic guidance. Complete reduction was obtained with wire rotations in 16 patients. A total of 16 patients with open growth plates with an average age of 8 years were enrolled within the scope of the study. Thirteen patients (81.25%) showed excellent clinical results, two patients (12.5%) showed good results, and one patient (6.25%) showed average results. None of the cases exhibited poor results. A single K-wire was used in nine cases, whereas two K-wires were used for fixation rigidity in seven cases with larger medullas. No sign of neurovascular deficit, synostosis, or infection was observed in any of the cases. In conclusion, the use of two wires in patients with larger medullas and emphasis on the importance of closed reduction, even without percutaneous K-wire manipulation, might lead to the development of a new treatment approach for pediatric patients with radial head fractures.


A rebellion in the scientific ranks has created turmoil at Brazil9s most famous brain research center, the Edmond and Lily Safra International Institute for Neuroscience of Natal. Since late July, 10 principal investigators have shut down their labs at the center, which opened its doors in 2005 under the direction of Miguel Nicolelis, a Brazilian-born neuroscientist based at Duke University. The defectors include one of the institute9s co-founders, Sidarta Ribeiro, a former postdoctoral fellow with Nicolelis.


Twenty-eight raccoons from Columbus, Ohio, were surveyed for intestinal parasites. Baylisascaris procyonis was found in 7, trichurid eggs in 2, capillarid eggs in 8, trichostrongyloid eggs in 9, and Eimeria procyonis oocysts in 23. Meronts, gamonts, and oocysts of E procyonis were found in epithelial cells at the tips of the villi of small intestine. Meronts were 7 x 5.5 microns and contained 4 to 10 merozoites which were 5 x 1.5 microns. Male gamonts were 15.5 x 11.7 microns and contained numerous gametes. Female gamonts were 13.7 x 11.3 microns. Oocysts were 15.5 x 11.8 microns and had the outer rough wall and the micropyle. Baylisascaris procyonis-embryonated eggs were fed to 2 parasite-free cats, a Toxocara-free dog, a fox, a sheep, a goat, and numerous white laboratory mice. Neither lesions nor larvae were found in nonmurine hosts each fed 5,000 infective eggs; 16 or more eggs of the same inoculum were fatal to each mouse.


Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) poses a critical, yet historically understated threat to global public health. Recent mutations in the enterobacteriaceae genome that confer resistance to multiple antibiotics, have made some virtually untreatable. Currently, antibiotics are prescribed largely on guesswork, with little or no prior evidence as to their efficacy. This not only accelerates the spread of AMR, but endangers patient's lives in the process. To counter this, new tools are required which can rapidly identify a pathogen's susceptibility to an antibiotic prior to administration. Traditional procedures are labour-intensive, taking several days - with sample preparation and cell-culture being the primary bottlenecks. A novel, proof-of concept system was developed to rapidly determine antibiotic resistance in pathogens using nucleic acid analysis. The system comprised of a plastic microfluidic cartridge, control software, optical reader and *control hardware*. E. coli were captured, concentrated and lysed within the device; DNA could be amplified on-chip using rapid, isothermal DNA amplification (Recombinase Polymerase Amplification). The assay identified samples containing the CTX-M resistance gene; the limit of detection was 500 copies (in 50l), as measured by the reader's integrated fluorescence microscope. Each component was validated prior to integration into the final system. Concentrations of E. coli equivalent to a urinary-tract-infection (100,000 Colony Forming Units/ mL) were captured with up to 98% efficiency from 1ml suspensions onto functionalised, 0.5m magnetic, ion-exchange beads. These were isolated on-chip by a NdFeB magnet, providing up to 96% bead-capture and a 100x volume reduction. An oil compartmentalised the aqueous samples within the chip, while thermal control was achieved by coupling a resistive heater to an IR camera. Fluid routing was managed by bespoke, in-line, solenoid-controlled valves, which could operate at 5-bar and for over 4000 cycles without degrading. Bacteria were thermally or chemically lysed post-concentration, and an on-chip metering chamber aliquoted fixed-volumes of buffer (1% uncertainty for 400nl). DNA from lysed bacteria was amplified on-chip with a limit of detection of 250 E. coli per sample in the final assay. Both sample-preparation and DNA amplification performed well on the prototype system. However, inefficient bacterial elution on-chip post-capture prevented the steps being run sequentially, as insufficient bacteria were released to the lysis region. Future development would fully integrate sample transfer and automate the fluid actuation so as to enable complete sample-in, answer-out capability.


The purpose of this master thesis is find out what the resource-rich Ghana and Venezuela can learn from management of natural resources in Norway and Botswana. Previous studies show that institutions are an important determinant for the impact of the resource curse in resource dependent countries. By a comparative analysis, large differences in institutional quality are revealed. Transparency, accountability and a strong rule of law are found to be among the features that distinguish the successful countries. These differences translate into different economic policies. While Norway and Botswana have exhibited prudent fiscal management, government spending in Venezuela in particular, have been procyclical and unproductive. Although Ghana is lagging behind Norway and Botswana, the country should be able to avoid the resource curse if follows the path of the successes. Venezuela on the other hand, seems unlikely to pursue policies that can promote sustainable growth.


The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of parental alcohol abuse on the self-esteem of secondary school students in Kosirai Division, Nandi North District, Kenya. The results of the study showed that students who reported parental alcohol abuse had significantly lower self-esteem than those who did not. The study therefore concluded that parental alcohol abuse negatively influenced the self-esteem of students. When comparisons were made on the basis of gender, the girls were found to be more negatively influenced more than the boys. It was recommended that effective guidance and counselling should be offered to assist the affected students in learning institutions. The study is useful in widening the knowledge base on parenting and the influence of parental alcohol and drug abuse on the psychosocial development and personality adjustment of their children. It provides schoolteachers, counsellors and other educators with information to help in motivating, guiding and counselling students from homes where there is parental drug abuse.


A description is given of the global atmospheric electric circuit operating between the Earth's surface and the ionosphere. Attention is drawn to the huge range of horizontal and vertical spatial scales ranging from 10 m to 10m, concerned with the many important processes at work. A similarly enormous range of time scales is involved from 10>s to 10s, in the physical effects and different phenomena that need to be considered. The current flowing in the global circuit is generated by disturbed weather such as thunderstorms and electrified rain/shower clouds, mostly occurring over the Earth's land surface. The profile of electrical conductivity up through the atmosphere, determined mainly by galactic cosmic ray ionisation, is a crucial parameter of the circuit. Model simulation results on the variation of the ionospheric potential, ~ 250kV positive with respect to the Earth's potential, following lightning discharges and sprites are summarized. Recent experimental results comparing global circuit variations with the neutron rate recorded at Climax, Colorado, are then discussed. Within the return (load) part of the circuit in the fair weather regions remote from the generators, charge layers exist on the upper and lower edges of extensive layer clouds; new experimental evidence for these charge layers is also reviewed. Finally, some directions for future research in the subject are suggested.


This study investigated the deception detection abilities of teenage offenders and teenage non-offenders who made veracity judgments about 12 videotaped interviewees, and also explored the behavioural characteristics of teenage liars and truth tellers. The findings revealed that teenage offenders were significantly more accurate in their credibility judgments than teenage non-offenders. However, the offenders' impressive accuracy rates were not as a consequence of using valid cues to deceit. The feedback hypothesis helps to explain why the offenders were more accurate in their decisions: Operating within a criminal environment may mean that teenage offenders frequently lie and are lied to. Consequently, they receive more feedback than non-offenders regarding the effectiveness of their lies as well as how successful they are at detecting lies. As a result, their lie detection ability improves. The current study suggests moving away from individual deceptive cues as predictors of deceit towards a more intuitive and holistic approach to lie detection, such as the Brunswikian Lens Model.


BACKGROUND:Histamine receptors are known to participate in spinal cord nociceptive transmission, and previous studies have suggested that histaminergic receptors are involved in the analgesic effects of morphine. Herein, we investigated the effect of intrathecal injection of histaminergic agonists and antagonists in a model of acute articular inflammation and their interaction with morphine. METHODS:After carrageenan injection in the right knee joint, articular incapacitation was measured hourly, for up to 6 hours, by the paw elevation time during 1-minute periods of stimulated walking. Inflammatory edema was also assessed hourly by determining an increase in articular diameter. Spinal treatments were administered 20 minutes before knee-joint carrageenan injection and were compared with the saline-treated control group. RESULTS:Intrathecally injected histamine increased incapacitation and articular edema, whereas the H1R antagonist, cetirizine, decreased both parameters. The H3R agonist, immepip, decreased both incapacitation and edema, but the H3R antagonist, thioperamide, increased both incapacitation and edema. Morphine inhibited both incapacitation and edema. Furthermore, combining a subeffective dose of morphine with cetirizine or immepip potentiated the analgesic and antiedematogenic effect. CONCLUSIONS:Histamine seems to act at the spinal level via H1 and H3 receptors to modulate acute arthritis in rats. An H1R antagonist and H3R agonist were found to potentiate the analgesic and antiedematogenic effects of morphine, suggesting that histaminergic and opioid spinal systems may be explored for means of improving analgesia, as well as peripheral anti-inflammatory effects.


The perspective of social anthropology is broadening to include the changing realities of both traditional and modern people. Anthropologists such as Oscar Lewis, Marvin Harris, Margaret Mead, Frederick Barth, and others represented in this volume apply comparative analysis to a wide spectrum of human groups--from urban villages to nomadic tribesmen. "Anthropological Realities" offers an up-to-date introduction to the standard areas of language, ritual, politics, and economics. In addition, special focus is given to the most current trends in field research. Essays on urbanization, Third World development, ethnicity, and professional ethics provide complte coverage of anthropology today. "Jeanne Guillemin" is associate professor of Sociology and Anthropology, Boston College.


Trajectories are used in many target tracking and other fusion-related applications. In this paper we consider the problem of modeling trajectories as Gaussian processes and learning such models from sets of observed trajectories. We demonstrate that the traditional approach to Gaussian process regression is not suitable when modeling a set of trajectories. Instead we introduce an approach to Gaussian process trajectory regression based on an alternative way of combing two Gaussian process (GP) trajectory models and inverse GP regression. The benefit of our approach is that it works well online and efficiently supports sophisticated trajectory model manipulations such as merging and splitting of trajectory models. Splitting and merging is very useful in spatio-temporal activity modeling and learning where trajectory models are considered discrete objects. The presented method and accompanying approximation algorithm have time and memory complexities comparable to state of the art of regular full and approximative GP regression, while having a more flexible model suitable for modeling trajectories. The novelty of our approach is in the very flexible and accurate model, especially for trajectories, and the proposed approximative method based on solving the inverse problem of Gaussian process regression.


In situ synthesis of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) nanocomposites by photopolymerization using organophilic montmorillonite (MMT) as the layered clay is reported. MMT clay was ion exchanged with N-phenacyl, N,N-dimethylanilinium hexafluoro phosphate (PDA) which acts as both suitable intercalant- and photo-initiator. These modified clays were then dispersed in methyl methacrylate (MMA) monomer in different loading degrees to carry out the in situ photopolymerization. Intercalation ability of the photoinitiator and exfoliated nanocomposite structure were evidenced by both X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Thermal properties and morphologies of the resultant nanocomposites were also studied.


OBJECTIVE
To assess factors associated with regular intake of non-diet soft drinks among adults.

METHODS
Population-based cross-sectional study including 972 adults (aged 20 to 69) in the city of Pelotas, Southern Brazil, conducted in 2006. The frequency of non-diet soft drink intake in the 12 months prior to the study was evaluated by the question: "In general since last , how many times did you have a non-diet soft drink?". The answers were dichotomized for the analysis. Intake of non-diet soft drinks five times or more per week was considered regular intake. The association between the outcome and sociodemographic, behavioral and nutritional variables was tested using the chi-square test for heterogeneity and linear trend and a multivariate analysis was performed through Poisson regression with a robust variance.

RESULTS
Approximately one in every five adults (20.4%) reported regular intake of non-diet soft drinks. Males (PR 1.50; 95%CI 1.20;2.00), smokers (RP 1.60; 95%CI 1.20;2.10) and those reporting weekly intake of snacks (PR 2.10; 95%CI 1.60;2.70) had higher prevalence of non-diet soft drink intake in the adjusted analysis. The analysis stratified by gender showed that in women regular intake of fruits and vegetables was protective against soft drinks consumption (PR 0.50; 95%CI 0.30;0.90).

CONCLUSIONS
Regular intake of non-diet soft drinks among adults was high, particularly among men, young adults and smokers.


: East Africa is separated from the continent by the Great Rift Valley which was created at the end of the secondary era limiting then the East Africa under-continent with peculiar fauna and flora features. A several million years long isolation, during the tertiary era, seems to explain that a certain number of protozoan and helminthic diseases present peculiar clinical, epidemiological, therapeutical and parasitological features. The occurrence of those peculiar strains tends to indicate that in this region, for example, the resistance of P. falciparum to amino-4-quinolines is a regional feature which should not largely expand to the rest of the African continent.


Online material : P -wave tomography model for the United States; scripts for plotting cross-sections.

In 2011, the Transportable Array of USArray (http://www.iris.edu/USArray/), the seismological component of EarthScope (http://www.earthscope.org/), continued to extend east of the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains and into the Midwest and Gulf Coast regions where not many routinely processed data were available for previous regional- or global-scale traveltime inversions. In previous papers (Burdick et al. 2008, 2009, 2010) we presented 3-D tomographic models of mantle P -wavespeed from global and USArrayTA traveltime data through November 2007, December 2008, and January 2010, respectively. Here we present a model update using USArrayTA data through March 2011. The new model, MITP\_USA\_2011MAR, is available as an electronic supplement. Interpretation of the 3-D tomographic images is beyond the scope of this brief research note.

The method for traveltime tomography used here is described in previous papers (Li et al. 2008; Burdick et al. 2008), but for the sake of completeness we include a brief summary. We perform global (linearized) inversions of P -wave traveltime residuals using an adaptable grid with a minimum grid spacing of 0.3° × 0.3° × 45 km. The spacing of the adaptable grid is adjusted based on raypath coverage in each mantle volume. The data included in the inversion consist of ∼10 million P -wave residuals from the International Seismological Centre and the National Earthquake Information Center processed using the algorithms developed by Engdahl et al. (1998)—henceforth referred as the EHB catalog—and the database …


A new unsymmetrical isomeric diarylethene bearing an electron-donating methoxyl group at ortho-positions of the terminal phenyl ring was synthesized, namely 1-(2,4-dimethyl-5-thiazolyl) -2-[2-methyl-5-(2-methoxyphenyl)-3-thienyl]perfluorocyclopentene (1o). The compound displayed excellent photochromism both in solution and in PMMA film. The isomeric compound also functioned as a fluorescence switch by photoirradiation in solution. In addition, cyclic voltammetry tests showed that the electron-donating methoxyl group at the terminal benzene ring had a significant effect on the electrochemical properties of the isomeric diarylethene.


Increasing parts of the world are facing ageing societies with growing figures of morbidity and disability. Focus of attention for European countries is directed towards prevention of old age impairment. As considerable time is spent at work, preventative psychosocial work environment measures could be entry points for a healthier ageing. The aims of this study are to i) explore the impact of mid-life work strain on old age disability ii) to examine the independent effects of the work strain components on disability, iii) to analyse the relation between education and disability and whether work strain mediates parts of this association. Work strain and baseline data will be collected from Level of Living Survey (LNU) 1981 and disability data from Swedish Panel Study of Living Conditions of the Oldest Old (SWEOLD) 2004 (n=626). Multiple logistic regression analysis showed that persons in high strain work had the lowest odds of being IADL disabled compared to the passive group. Low demand was not associated to disability, low control group had more than twice the odds of being ADL disabled. Further results indicated that work strain may mediate the association between education and disability. Finally the results support that psychosocial work environment plays a part in the health of individuals at old age.


We have identified, cloned and characterized a formerly unknown protein from Streptomyces lividans spores. The deduced protein belongs to a novel member of the metallophosphatase superfamily and contains a phosphatase domain and predicted binding sites for divalent ions. Very close relatives are encoded in the genomic DNA of many different Streptomyces species. As the deduced related homologues diverge from other known phosphatase types, we named the protein MptS (metallophosphatase type from Streptomyces). Comparative physiological and biochemical investigations and analyses by fluorescence microscopy of the progenitor strain, designed mutants carrying either a disruption of the mptS gene or the reintroduced gene as fusion with histidine codons or the egfp gene led to the following results: (i) the mptS gene is transcribed in the course of aerial mycelia formation. (ii) The MptS protein is produced during the late stages of growth, (iii) accumulates within spores, (iv) functions as an active enzyme that releases inorganic phosphate from an artificial model substrate, (v) is required for spore dormancy and (vi) MptS supports the interaction amongst Streptomyces lividans spores with conidia of the fungus Aspergillus proliferans. We discuss the possible role(s) of MptS-dependent enzymatic activity and the implications for spore biology.


Abstract With the aim of understanding how different mental or intentional states are processed in the brain, the present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study examined the brain correlates during the ascription of belief intentional states relative to desire intentional states as well as the effect of incongruent relative to congruent intentional states. To this end, sentences containing scenarios were presented to participants and their task was to make judgments concerning the ascription of intentional states based on this information. Belief ascriptions, relative to desire ascriptions, were accompanied by activations in lateral prefrontal structures that include areas known to be involved in relational and conceptual reasoning. Desire ascriptions, in contrast, were accompanied by activations in regions of the medial prefrontal cortex, superior temporal gyri and hippocampal formation, all of which are known for their involvement in self-referential, autobiographical and episodic memory-relevant processes. In addition, the ascription of intentional states that were incongruent with reality (false beliefs and unfulfilled desires) was compared to the ascription of intentional states that were congruent to reality (true belief and fulfilled desires). While no brain region was selectively activated during the processing of unfulfilled desires, the processing of false beliefs was associated with stronger activations in the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex, an area that has been previously linked to the process of decoupling in false belief attribution. These findings provide new insights into more fine-grained aspects of mental state reasoning.


Three new 3D lanthanide-based metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), [Ln2(ImBDC)3(2H2O)]n (where Ln = Tb3+ (1)/Sm3+ (2)/Eu3+ (3), ImBDC = 2-(imidazol-1-yl)terephthalic acid), have been synthesized solvothermally and characterized with single-crystal X-ray diffraction and other physicochemical methods. MOFs1–3 are isostructural and feature a 3D framework structure with 1D channels of dimension 3.91 × 5.27 A2 decorated with basic imidazole groups. Owing to imidazole functionalized pores, MOF1 exhibits selective adsorption properties for CO2 with a high interaction energy (Qst) of 37.1 kJ mol−1. The activated samples of the MOFs act as efficient heterogeneous catalysts for the cycloaddition reaction of CO2 to epoxides to generate value-added cyclic carbonates. Interestingly, due to the narrow pore channels of the MOFs, preferential conversion of smaller size epoxides over the larger epoxides is observed. Furthermore, the MOF catalyst could be recycled and reused for up to five cycles without significant reduction in the catalytic activity. Thus the present study demonstrates size-selective catalytic activity for the conversion of smaller epoxides to cyclic carbonates under mild reaction conditions.


A highly selective wet chemical etch process for gate recess of the GaAs power metal-semiconductor field effect transistors (MESFETs) was developed. The power MESFETs used in this study were epitaxially grown devices with a 20 A AlAs etch-stop layer for gate recess. The selective etch process using citric acid/potassium citrate/hydrogen peroxide solution was studied. A selectivity better than 3800:1 was achieved for GaAs/AlAs layers. This selective etch was applied both to high-power, high-voltage power MESFETs and low-voltage large-periphery power MESFETs. For high-power applications the 14.7 mm device had a breakdown voltage of 22 V. When tested at 1.88 GHz with a drain bias of 10 V, it provided a maximum output power of 38.8 dBm and a maximum power-added efficiency of 52.5%. For low-voltage applications, the 19.8 mm device was tested under IS-95 code-division multiple access (CDMA) modulation at 1.88 GHz with a drain bias of 3.5 V. Under CDMA modulation, the device showed an output power of 28.03 dBm with an adjacent channel power rejection of -29.6 dBc at 1.25 MHz offset frequency. Both devices also showed excellent uniformity in pinch-off voltages.


Montane forests contribute significantly to regional biodiversity. Long-term monitoring data, often located along hiking trails, suggests that several indicator species of this ecosystem have declined in recent decades. Declining montane bird populations have been attributed to anthropogenic stressors such as climate change and atmospheric deposition. Several studies from montane systems have also documented decreased estimates of abundance and reproductive success as well as altered singing rates near hiking trails. Therefore, recreational hiking may be contributing to montane bird population declines and potentially biased population estimates because of trail avoidance or altered detection probabilities near trails. We studied the effect of hiking trails on the abundance, seasonal movements, and detection probabilities of montane birds in the White Mountains, New Hampshire in 2006 and 2007. We used hierarchical, generalized N-mixture models that account for imperfect detection probabilities to examine the effects of recreational hiking on bird communities. We also examined the potential effects of hiking on the reproductive success of a boreal forest songbird, blackpoll warbler (Setophaga striata). We found little evidence to suggest hiking trails influence abundance, detection probabilities, or within and among seasonal movements of montane forest birds. We also found no evidence to suggest daily nest survival of blackpoll warbler nests vary with distance from trail. Our study suggests that recent increases in hiking traffic are unlikely to have caused declines in montane birds in this region. Furthermore, our results provide evidence that trail-based monitoring programs can provide accurate and efficient estimates of abundance for some montane forest bird species in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. 2014 The Wildlife Society.


In this paper we deal with eigenvalues and eigenvectors (E-values & E-vectors) in diagonalizating a square matrix and in the Cayley-Hamilton theorem used to find the inverse of a given square matrix. Key Words: Mysteries of Eigenvalues; Diagonalization of a Matrix; square matrix DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/jie.v8i1-2.5116 Journal of the Institute of Engineering Vol. 8, No. 1&2, 2010/2011 Page: 237-242 Uploaded Date : 20 July, 2011


This article describes the most significant features of Regulation (EC) No 593/2008 on the Law Applicable to Contractual Obligations that will enter into force on 17. December 2009 (the Rome I Regulation). The Regulation will replace the Rome Convention on the same subject–matter. The authors approve of the "fine-tuning" of the provision regulating the parties' rights to choose the applicable law. They welcome the provision on the law applicable in absence of an agreed choice. Though radically different from the corresponding provision of the Rome Convention it will satisfy the need for predictability. The new provisions on transports of carriage and insurance contracts are also discussed. The authors find the provision on the application of foreign international mandatory provisions very useful. However, they regret that the Regulation does not allow courts to apply the lex mercatoria in international disputes on an equal footing with national law. They also emphasize the need for a choice–of–law rule on jurisdiction agreements, which has not been provided in the Regulation.


Trichloroethylene (TCE) is a widely used organic solvent, the most important toxic effect of which is a narcotic central nervous (CNS) effect. In the present study we have used rat erythrocyte membranes as a nerve cell model for studying the changes in membrane integrity caused by TCE treatment. The parameters determined were osmotic resistance and the activities of acetylcholinesterase (AchE) and adenosinetriphosphatase (ATPase), both of which are integral membrane proteins. TCE had a dose-dependent effect on all these parameters. It increased the osmotic resistance at low concentrations and caused a decrease at high concentrations. Enzyme inhibition was only significant at high solvent concentrations. Decrease of temperature potentiated these effects. Our results indicate that changes in membrane proteins may be the initial factor leading to other changes in the membrane, e.g. increased osmotic resistance.


Abstract. Direct geo-referencing system uses the technology of remote sensing to quickly grasp images, GPS tracks, and camera position. These data allows the construction of large volumes of images with geographic coordinates. So that users can be measured directly on the images. In order to properly calculate positioning, all the sensor signals must be synchronized. Traditional aerial photography use Position and Orientation System (POS) to integrate image, coordinates and camera position. However, it is very expensive. And users could not use the result immediately because the position information does not embed into image. To considerations of economy and efficiency, this study aims to develop a direct geo-referencing system based on open source software and hardware platform. After using Arduino microcontroller board to integrate the signals, we then can calculate positioning with open source software OpenCV. In the end, we use open source panorama browser, panini, and integrate all these to open source GIS software, Quantum GIS. A wholesome collection of data – a data processing system could be constructed.


The influence of the clay particle morphology on the structural consolidation process associated with high temperature sintering was studied. By computer modeling, the different degrees of packing related to the distinct shapes naturally assumed by the particle clays as well as the consolidation conditions, based on solid sate reactions and surface diffusion were simulated. The model was compared with experimental data of clays fired at several temperatures. This permitted to explain differences in the behavior of red ceramics that was sintered with clays presenting distinct particle shapes.


A RESEARCH THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE SCHOOL OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES, AHMADU BELLO UNIVERISTY, ZARIA.
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT FOR THE AWARD OF MASTER OF SCIENCE IN HUMAN ANATOMY
DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN ANATOMY,
FACULTY OF MEDICINE,
AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY,
ZARIA, NIGERIA.


Two high-performance coronagraphic approaches compatible with segmented and obstructed telescope pupils are described. Both concepts use entrance pupil amplitude apodization and a combined phase and amplitude focal plane mask to achieve full coronagraphic extinction of an on-axis point source. While the first concept, called Apodized Pupil Complex Mask Lyot Coronagraph (APCMLC), relies on a transmission mask to perform the pupil apodization, the second concept, called Phase-Induced Amplitude Apodization complex mask coronagraph (PIAACMC), uses beam remapping for lossless apodization. Both concepts theoretically offer complete coronagraphic extinction (infinite contrast) of a point source in monochromatic light, with high throughput and sub-λ/D inner working angle, regardless of aperture shape. The PIAACMC offers nearly 100% throughput and approaches the fundamental coronagraph performance limit imposed by first principles. The steps toward designing the coronagraphs for arbitrary apertures are described for monochromatic light. Designs for the APCMLC and the higher performance PIAACMC are shown for several monolith and segmented apertures, such as the apertures of the Subaru Telescope, Giant Magellan Telescope, Thirty Meter Telescope, the European Extremely Large Telescope, and the Large Binocular Telescope. Performance in broadband light is also quantified, suggesting that the monochromatic designs are suitable for use in up to 20% wide spectral bands for ground-based telescopes.


Alan Milburn, the Chair of the Government's Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission recently highlighted the role of education in progressing social mobility in Scotland; 'In my view it's a grave social injustice that only one in forty pupils from Scotland's most deprived households…got three As in their Highers in 2011, compared to one in ten across all income levels'. An analysis of the data on school leavers in Scotland also points towards a considerable inequality in access to higher education in particular. This paper reports on a research and development project that progressed the provision of intergenerational mentoring for young people from communities experiencing social and economic disadvantage. The findings affirm the role of research in such innovation and indicate that intergenerational mentoring offers a process, long awaited, through which young people can gain access to the different forms of social and cultural capital that are implicitly essential for progression into higher education.


ABSTRACT During T helper cell differentiation, distinct programs of gene expression play a key role in defining the immune response to an environmental challenge. How chromatin remodeling events at the associated cytokine loci control differentiation is not known. We found that the ATP-dependent remodeling enzyme subunit BRG1 was required for T helper 2 (Th2) differentiation and Th2 cytokine transcription. BRG1 binding to cytokine genes was regulated by the extent of differentiation, the extent of activation, and cell fate. BRG1 was required for some features of the chromatin structure in target genes (DNase I hypersensitivity and histone acetylation), suggesting that BRG1 remodeling activity was directly responsible for changes in gene expression. NFAT and STAT6 activity were required for BRG1 recruitment to the Th2 locus control region, and STAT6 associated with BRG1 in a differentiation-inducible manner, suggesting direct recruitment of BRG1 to the bound loci. Together, these findings suggest BRG1 interprets differentiation signals and plays a causal role in gene regulation, chromatin structure, and cell fate.


Epigenetic changes affect the gene expression profile of cells without altering the DNA sequence in response to different environmental stimuli, such as the diet. Several dietary plant compounds have the epigenetic ability to prevent both the onset and the progression of different diseases, including cardiovascular diseases that are one of the most common in the world. Heart failure following perioperative myocardial infarction is a complex clinical syndrome without cure, also affecting high-risk patients undergoing non-cardiac surgery. It is characterized by serious decay of cardiac pump function as a result of ongoing remodelling of the myocardium. Despite the increasing use of conventional medications has reduced the mortality of patients with myocardial infarction, the outcome remains unpredictable so far. The past three decades have witnessed incessant research aimed at protecting the adult myocardium against ischemic injury, but the development of effective strategies to prevent the maladaptive tissue remodelling is still a desirable achievement. Recent findings reveal that the dietary intake of natural bioactive components with known antioxidant activity improves the intercellular communication and increases the tolerance of both cardiomyocytes and coronary endothelial cells against the ischemic microenvironment. The Epigenetic activation of rescue genes prevents the decay of function of the abovementioned cardiac cells. Consequently, this scenario would reduce the myocardial accumulation of collagen responsible for the tightening of the heart walls. Whereas the noninvasive delivery of cardioprotectant epigenetic compounds through diet is a promising approach, regulatory mechanisms need to be unravelled.


S Erande S Sarwardekar B Desai 1Department of Medicine, Akshay Hospital, Pune 411004, India; 2Department of Medicine, Sawardekar Clinic, Mumbai 400055, India; 3Department of Cardiology, Desai Heart Care Clinic, Mumbai 400092, India Background: Newer therapies, such as dipeptidyl peptidase-IV inhibitors, are increasingly being used in the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Teneligliptin, a DPP4 inhibitor, currently commonly used as monotherapy or as add-on therapy, was generally well tolerated in patients with T2DMduring clinical trials. No AEs related to QT prolongation were detected with 40 mg/day of teneligliptin, but were seen at a supratherapeutic dose of 160 mg/day. Aims and objective: To evaluate the safety of teneligliptin in type 2 diabetes patients with respect to QTc prolongation. Methodology: This was an open-label, prospective, multi-centric trial conducted in patients with T2DM aged ≥18 to ≤65 years with a hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) ≥7.0% and gliptin naïve. Teneligliptin 20 mg once a day was added to the standard treatment. The dose of teneligliptin was increased to 40 mg once a day if required, on the basis of glycemic parameters. Twelvelead ECG was recorded at baseline and follow-up visits. The QTc was calculated by using the Bazett's formula (QTc=QT/√RR). Results: The mean QT interval at screening (Visit 1, Day 0, baseline ECG) was 0.33±0.07 seconds, while at visit 2 (Day 1, post 2 hours of Teneligliptin dosing) it was 0.32±0.04 seconds, at visit 3 (Day 15) it was 0.32±0.04 seconds, and at visit 4 (Day 90) it was 0.32±0.03 seconds. The mean QTc interval at baseline was 0.37±0.04 seconds, while at visit 2 it was 0.37±0.04 seconds, at visit 3 it was 0.37±0.03 seconds, and at visit 4 it was 0.37±0.03 seconds. There was a significant reduction in fasting blood glucose (P=0.002), postprandial blood glucose (P<0.001), and HbA1c (P<0.001) at the end of the 3 months as compared to baseline. Conclusion: Teneligliptin at a therapeutic dose of 20 mg/day or 40 mg/day improved glycemic parameters significantly and did not cause QT/QTc interval prolongation.


The Web bears the potential of being the world's greatest encyclopedic source, but we are far from fully ex- ploiting this potential. Valuable scientific and cultural content is interspersed with a huge amount of noisy, low- quality, unstructured text and media. The proliferation of knowledge-sharing communities like Wikipedia and the advances in automated information extraction from Web pages give rise to an unprecedented opportunity: Can we systematically harvest facts from the Web and compile them into a comprehensive machine-readable knowledge base? Such a knowledge base would contain not only the world's entities, but also their semantic properties, and their relationships with each other. Imagine a "Structured Wikipedia" that has the same scale and richness as Wikipedia itself, but offers a precise and concise representation of knowledge, e.g., in the RDF format. This would enable expressive and highly precise querying, e.g., in the SPARQL language (or appropriate extensions), with additional capabilities for informative ranking of query results. The benefits from solving the above challenge would be enormous. Potential applications include 1) aformalizedmachine-readableencyclopediathatcanbequeriedwithhighprecisionlikeasemanticdatabase; 2) a key asset for disambiguating entities by supporting fast and accurate mappings of textual phrases onto named entities in the knowledge base; 3) an enabler for entity-relationship-oriented semantic search on the Web, for detecting entities and relations in Web pages and reasoning about them in expressive (probabilistic) logics; 4) a backbone for natural-language question answering that would aid in dealing with entities and their rela- tionships in answering who/where/when/ etc. questions; 5) a key asset for machine translation (e.g., English to German) and interpretation of spoken dialogs, where world knowledge provides essential context for disambiguation; 6) acatalystforacquisitionoffurtherknowledgeandlargelyautomatedmaintenanceandgrowthoftheknowl- edge base. While these application areas cover a broad, partly AI-flavored ground, the most notable one from a database perspective is semantic search: finally bringing DB methodology to Web search! For example, users (or tools on behalf of users) would be able to formulate queries about succulents that grow both in Africa and America, politicians who are also scientists or are married to singers, or flu medication that can be taken by people with high blood pressure. The search engine would return precise and concise answers: lists of entities or entity pairs (depending on the question structure), for example, Angela Merkel, Benjamin Franklin, etc., or Nicolas Sarkozy for the questions about scientists. This would be a quantum leap over today's search where an- swers are embedded if not buried in lots of result pages, and the human users would have to read them to extract entities and connect them to other entities. In this sense, the envisioned large-scale knowledge harvesting [42] from Web sources may also be viewed as machine reading [13].


The impact and the universality of the pandemic by SARS-CoV-2 has caused the need to have information quickly and accessible for the benefit of decision-making among healthcare professionals. In 10 months the scientific production on this new coronavirus has exceeded the number of 66 thousand articles, according to the LitCovid database, created by the National Library of Medicine, doubling and tripling every few weeks. This same urgency has characterized some of the main features of this voluminous production, in addition to its continuous and exponential growth, such as greater dissemination in open access and preprint repositories, a certain acceleration in the manuscript review process by editorials and an abundance of opinion articles, recommendations or comments compared to a smaller number of original articles with clinical data from large groups of patients.


Workers' compensation for occupational lung disease in South Africa and in other countries is reviewed. Compensation legislation in South Africa has a long history of evolution, with important changes expected in the near future. The South African system is similar to that in other countries, but has some unique features. Problems for workers disabled by occupational lung disease include a limited range of compensable conditions, difficulty in establishing a diagnosis, delays in obtaining payment, and small amounts paid. International experience suggests that certain changes would be especially useful. Racial inequalities should be removed, the schedule of compensable occupational diseases needs to be extended, and presumptive standards should be developed for diagnosis and disability assessment.


Overuse of antibiotics in the prevention and treatment of diseases among humans and livestock has led to the emergence of multi-antibiotics resistant bacteria worldwide. This includes bacteria which produce the enzymes extended-spectrum β-lactamases (ESBLs). This study reports the presence of β-lactamases-producing bacteria (35.7%) and ESBL-producing bacteria (21.4%) from retail sausages in Kampar, Malaysia and the detection of blaCTXM-2 (60%), blaTEM (40%) and blaSHV (20%) genes, but not blaCTXM-1 and blaCTXM-9 genes in these isolates. The bacteria harboring blaCTXM-2 and blaTEM genes were identified as Pseudomonas pneumotropica, whereas the bacteria harboring only blaSHV gene was identified as Klebsiella pneumoniae subsp. pneumoniae. This is the first report of blaCTXM-2 in food source in Malaysia.


This guide is intended to support Lane students taking Nursing and the Allied Health Professions courses find materials for research, projects, and clinical practice.


A large proportion of farmed Atlantic salmon Salmo salar L. smolts are produced under intensive rearing conditions. They reach smolt size and are transferred to net pens in sea- water during their first autumn under a short natural daylength, instead of being synchronised with the natural period for seawater entry of wild smolts under increasing daylength the next spring. Escapes of cultured salmon may threaten the genetic integrity of wild salmon, but there is little information about the impact of escaped out-of-season smolts. Do they display normal migra- tory behaviour typical of spring smolts, and can they survive at sea and return as mature adults? To answer these questions, about 23 000 spring smolts (1 yr old) and a similar number of autumn out-of-season smolts were tagged with T-bar anchor tags and released from net pens in Masfjord on the west coast of Norway in 2007, 2008 and 2009. A further 43 out-of-season smolts were equipped with acoustic transmitters in 2008. A quarter of the acoustically tagged smolts migrated rapidly out of the 22 km long fjord, while the rest disappeared in the fjord. Predation by pollack Pollachius pollachius contributed to this loss. One tagged out-of-season smolt (0.004% recapture rate) and 39 (0.17%) spring smolts were recaptured as adults. Escaped out-of-season smolts appear to be capable of normal smolt migratory behaviour if they escape during their first autumn, but their survival rate in the sea appears to be very low. The risks of negative environmental impacts are probably much lower for autumn smolts than for smolts that escape from net pens dur- ing spring and summer.


Purpose: Research on disclosure of sustainability information has focused on the level of firms, and very few works analyze the differences between countries.  The objective is to identify the factors that explain the differences in the provision of sustainability information at a macroeconomic level. Design/methodology : The sample includes 9.570 reports drawn up within the framework of the Global Reporting Initiative in 53 countries in the period 2007-2012. Information for each country has been standardized by a million inhabitants every year. Multiple regression models have been used to study the incidence of governance, culture and globalization.  Findings: It has been detected that indicators of the World Bank's governance, the proportion of seats for women in national parliaments and foreign direct investment explain significantly the provision of sustainability information in all analyzed countries. There are differences when the sample is broken down into developed and developing countries. Research limitations /implications : The use of macroeconomic variables that show strong correlations between each other prevents from including all the institutional factors that may affect the organizations' behavior. Practical implications : Organizations are facing the coercive isomorphism, so their performance in the emission of corporate social responsibility information is explained mainly by the pressure of formal and informal institutions. Originality/value : Evidence of the importance of institutional factors in the emission of sustainable information is presented.


The texture evolution in the surface and center layer of hot rolled electrical steel containing initial columnar grains with their <100> nearly along ND, RD and TD of sheets were determined by EBSD technique. The transition from Goss to Brass or Copper orientation in surface was analyzed. The difference in texture of center layers in these samples was compared. In particular, orientation evolutions within grains and at grain boundaries of different types of orientations were explored. The results are discussed in terms of the special alignments of grain boundaries among columnar grains.


Patients with brain tumors including intracranial meningiomas are at increased risk for developing deep vein thrombosis (DVTs) and suffering thromboembolic events (VTEs). Many surgeons are concerned that early use of low dose enoxaparin may increase the risk of intracranial hemorrhage which outweighs the benefit of DVT/VTE reduction. We aimed to address concerns around the use of enoxaparin after meningioma resection in the development of postoperative intracranial hemorrhages and DVT/VTEs. This is a retrospective review of 86 patients with intracranial meningiomas who underwent craniectomy and surgical resection of the mass, treated by one attending surgeon at UCSF Medical Center between 2000 and 2005. Within 48 h after surgery patients treated 2003–2005 routinely received enoxaparin therapy unless there was documented intracranial hemorrhage, lumbar subarachnoid drain, enoxaparin hypersensitivity, or thrombocytopenia (n = 24). These were compared to a cohort treated 2000– 2002 who did not receive the drug (n = 62). Exclusion criteria were prior VTEs or coagulopathies. The groups were similar in tumor and surgical characteristics. Enoxaparin therapy did not increase the incidence of intracranial hemorrhage following surgical meningioma resection and the incidence of DVTs/VTEs was 0% (n = 0) versus 4.8% (n = 3) in the non-enoxaparin group. Results did not reach statistical significance. In this retrospective study, postoperative administration of enoxaparin following meningioma resection does not increase the risk of intracranial hematoma though enoxaparin administration may slightly decrease the incidence of post-surgical thromboembolic events. Due to study design and power, we were not able to demonstrate DVT/VTE reduction with statistical significance.


RECOMMENDATION SYSTEM FOR NEWS READER APPLICATION By Shweta Athalye Recommendation Systems help users to find information and make decisions where they lack the required knowledge to judge a particular product. Also, the information dataset available can be huge and recommendation systems help in filtering this data according to users" needs. Recommendation systems can be used in various different ways to facilitate its users with effective information sorting. For a person who loves reading, this paper presents the research and implementation of a Recommendation System for a NewsReader Application using Android Platform. The NewsReader Application proactively recommends news articles as per the reading habits of the user, recorded over a period of time and also recommends the currently trending articles. Recommendation systems and their implementations using various algorithms is the primary area of study for this project. This research paper compares and details popular recommendation algorithms viz. Content based recommendation systems, Collaborative recommendation systems etc. Moreover, it also presents a more efficient Hybrid approach that absorbs the best aspects from both the algorithms mentioned above, while trying to eliminate all the potential drawbacks observed.


Wavelet analysis is an efficient approach to studying textural patterns at different scales. Artificial neural networks can learn very complex patterns in the data and could be an efficient classifier. However, whether wavelet analysis, in combination with artificial neural networks or other classifiers, can be used to detect the social-economic conditions of urban neighborhood is a key research question that needs further study. The hypotheses of this study were: (1) neural networks yielded higher classification accuracy than linear discriminant analysis and the minimum-distance classifier based on wavelet measures of urban land covers; (2) wavelet textural measures could be used to efficiently discriminate among urban neighborhoods of different social-economic conditions; (3) image resolution had great influences on the discrimination of urban neighborhoods; and (4) window size had great influences on the discrimination of urban neighborhoods. In addition, two technical problems related to the application of textural approach, including the edge effect and image segmentation problem, were examined.
The results show that the new approach developed to reducing edge effects consistently achieved higher accuracy than the traditional moving-window approach. The post-segmentation integration scheme in the region-based splitting-and-merging segmentation procedures reflected all the segmented clusters identified by two or more textural measures and was helpful in identifying homogeneous regions in an image. Regarding the four hypotheses, (1) The minimum-distance classifier performed the worst. Neural networks were found to generally yield slightly better results than discriminant analysis but the difference was not statistically significant. The first hypothesis was shown to be invalid. (2) With a window size of 85m by 85m, an overall accuracy of 93.00% was achieved using band 2 and an overall accuracy of 96.83% was achieved using combination of band 2 and band 3. (3) The 1-foot resolution subsets were found to yield higher classification accuracy than the 0.9m resolution subsets and the 2.7m resolution subsets for band 2 and band 3 for the six neighborhoods in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The differences were generally over 5%. (4) Window size was found to have great influences on the discrimination of urban neighborhoods. The larger the window size, the higher the classification accuracy.


The Internet has truly become the ubiquitous communication infrastructure, bringing many benefits to the users and making the communication over IP the predominant protocol architecture for data and multimedia transmission (Web). The regular telephone service shall, in a near future, converge to the Internet, giving place to a single integrated voice and data network. IP telephony is growing, following this expected trend, and different protocol standards, as SIP and H.323, are available for this new service. In order to guarantee interoperability and give users the freedom of choosing from equipment and applications based on these protocols, a SIP/H.323 gateway has to exist. We present the implementation of a SIP/H.323 gateway, which allows a transparent interoperation to the users. The implementation unites the two protocol stacks over a simple signaling message channel, allowing partial utilization of two existing open source codes: OpenH323 Opengatekeeper and SIP client IPTele, developed at the Helsinki University of Technology (HUT). The modular approach allows using developed modules for implementing other gateways.