Background: It is reported that high frequency of chromosomal aberrations in peripheral blood lymphocytes of individuals is a marker of cancer predisposition. The aim of this study was to investigate the in vitro frequency of chromosomal damage in lymphocytes of patients with head and neck cancer against gamma irradiation compared with those in healthy individuals. Methods: In a case and control study, peripheral blood lymphocytes of 101 patients with head and neck cancer were collected before the onset of radiotherapy. Lymphocytes of 40 healthy individuals were also collected as controls. Head and neck cancer patients and the control group were consecutively recruited between April 2012 and February 2015 from Clinics of Cancer Institute, Imam Khomeini Hospital, Tehran, Iran. Lymphocytes of patients or control group were cultured and exposed to gamma radiation in G2- and G0-phase of the cell cycle. The induced chromosomal aberrations such as chromosome and chromatid breakages, chromosome and chromatid gaps, chromatid exchanges and micronuclei were scored in one-hundred metaphase cells of each individual. The mean of each chromosomal aberration was compared in patient and control groups. Early and late tissue reactions were scored during radiotherapy treatment or thereafter. Results: There was no significant difference in demographic characterization between the two study groups. The frequency of radiation- induced G2 aberrations in lymphocytes of patients was significantly higher than in those of healthy donors (P= 0.001 for chromosomal breaks). The frequency of radiation-induced micronuclei in G0 assay was also higher in patients than in those in controls (P= 0.05). The results also indicate that there is no correlation between the two assays. No significant correlation was also ob-served between aberration frequencies in lymphocytes and the degree of both early and late normal tissue reactions. Conclusion: The results indicate that the in vitro chromosomal radiosensitivity of peripheral blood lymphocytes of patients with head and neck cancer against gamma irradiation was significantly higher than that in healthy individuals. Abstract D o w n l oaded f r o m t u m j .t u s . a c . i r a t 5 : 31 I RD T on edne da M


This is the first English translation of the Prolegomena iuris naturalis by Gottfried Achenwall (1719–1772). In this book, Achenwall presents the philosophical foundation for his comprehensive theory of natural law. The book is of interest not only because it provides the basis for a careful, systematic, and well-respected eighteenth-century theory of natural law in the Leibniz-Wolffian tradition, but also because it sheds important light on the work of Immanuel Kant. Achenwall's work influenced Kant's legal and political philosophy as well as his ethics, and it is indispensable for understanding Kant's Feyerabend Lectures on Natural Law and his Metaphysics of Morals. The present volume complements the translation of Achenwall's handbook, Natural Law.
Edited by Pauline Kleingeld, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands
In September 2020, Pauline Kleingeld will be awarded the Spinoza Prize.
Translated by Corinna Vermeulen, PhD, a professional translator who has translated Latin works of Grotius, Descartes, and Spinoza.
Cover design: Riette van Zwol
Publisher: University of Groningen Press,
Broerstraat 4, 9712 CP Groningen
Production support: LINE UP boek en media bv
The Hardcover version of this book (ISBN: 9789403422541) is available via  Uitgeverij kleine Uil, and all regular (internet) bookshops.
Printing on demand via Uitgeverij kleine Uil
The first English translation of Achenwall's handbook Natural Law: A Translation of the Textbook for Kant's Lectures on Legal and Political Philosophy edited by Pauline Kleingeld, translated by Corinna Vermeulen, has  been published by Bloomsbury Academic in February 2020


In this paper, the complete moment convergence and the integrability of the supremum for weighted sums of negatively orthant dependent (NOD) random variables are presented. As applications, the complete convergence and the Marcinkiewicz-Zymund-type strong law of large numbers for NOD random variables are obtained. The results established in the paper generalize some corresponding ones for independent random variables and negatively associated random variables.


This study shed light on the constraints of increasing farm-income in the traditional rainfed sector of North Darfur State (NDS) through investigating the situation of crop production in Dar Elslam district. The study used linear programming (LP) technique in the data analysis. The results of data analysis showed that the basic models gave a cropping pattern different from the real farmers production plan. Groundnuts was the most profitable crop at the prevailing prices and productivity in season 2006/07. The basic models solution gave a profitable objective function while in reality the farmers gained a loss. Family labour and operating capital represented the main constraints of agricultural production in the study area. Application of recommended technologies, increasing output prices and lowering production costs gave high support to the farm income in the study area. In order to achieve agricultural development and farmers' food security in the study area, the study recommended supply of farmers with agricultural inputs especially seeds through repayment (in kind) after harvesting and support agricultural extension to be more efficient and effective in adoption of recommended improved technologies. Resolution of Darfur security problems in addition to solution and removal of all other problems facing agricultural production such as pests, marketing, desertification, drinking water, grazing … etc. are also essential.


In preliminary ageing test, the cement using only calcium phosphate glass as power phase cracked with 1 day in simulated body fluid because of high dissolution rate of the cement. We added 30 wt% of either β-TCP or HA to 70 wt% calcium phosphate glass as powder phase to control the dissolution rate of the cement and performed in vitro ageing test in simulated body fluid by dynamic protocol as well as static protocol to confirm the possibility of controlling. Adding either β-TCP or HA to the cement increases the setting time and decreases the compressive strength. In dynamic assay, the pH of extract is maintained over 7. However, pH decreased to around 5 in static assay. Therefore, weight loss by static protocol continuously increased for 14 days, while weight loss by dynamic protocol almost saturated. In XRD patterns of ageing cements, CaO peaks appeared. CaO peak was maximized most lately in dynamic assay of the cement adding HA and within 7 days, the cement adding HA showed higher weight loss. It is indicated that CaO formed in surface of the cement hinder the dissolution of the cement. In addition, compressive strength increased when the CaO peak was maximized.


Accurate, reliable, and timely traffic information is critical for deployment and operation of intelligent transportation systems (ITSs). Traffic forecasting for travelers and traffic operators should become at least as useful and convenient as weather reports. In the US, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has envisioned a real-time traffic estimation and prediction system (TrEPS) as an ITS support platform that resides at traffic management centers (TMCs) for dynamic route assignment (DRA) and other transportation operations.


In this paper, we propose a novel image-based approach to model hair geometry from images taken at multiple viewpoints. Unlike previous hair modeling techniques that require intensive user interactions or rely on special capturing setup under controlled illumination conditions, we use a handheld camera to capture hair images under uncontrolled illumination conditions. Our multi-view approach is natural and flexible for capturing. It also provides inherent strong and accurate geometric constraints to recover hair models.In our approach, the hair fibers are synthesized from local image orientations. Each synthesized fiber segment is validated and optimally triangulated from all visible views. The hair volume and the visibility of synthesized fibers can also be reliably estimated from multiple views. Flexibility of acquisition, little user interaction, and high quality results of recovered complex hair models are the key advantages of our method.


In part one of this two-part series, we described our Gesture-Based Programming paradigm for programming by human demonstration. This paradigm depends on a pre-existing knowledge base of capabilities, collectively called "encapsulated expertise," that comprise the real-time sensorimotor primitives from which the run-time executable is constructed as well as providing the basis for interpreting the teacher's actions during programming. In this paper we present a technique based on principal components analysis, augmentable with model-based information, for learning and recognizing sensorimotor primitives. We describes simple applications of the technique to a mobile robot and a PUMA manipulator. The mobile robot learned to escape from jams while the manipulator learned guarded moves and accommodations that are composable to allow flat plate mating operations. While these initial applications are simple, they demonstrate the ability to extract primitives from demonstration, recognize the learned primitives in subsequent demonstrations, and combine and transform primitives to create different capabilities.


Cloud Computing markets arise as an efficient way to allocate resources for the execution of tasks and services within a set of geographically dispersed providers from different organisations. Client applications and service providers meet in a market and negotiate for the sales of services by means of the signature of a Service Level Agreement that contains the Quality of Service terms that the Cloud provider has to guarantee by managing properly its resources.
Current implementations of Cloud markets suffer from a lack of information flow between the negotiating agents, which sell the resources, and the resource managers that allocate the resources to fulfil the agreed Quality of Service. This thesis establishes an intermediate layer between the market agents and the resource managers. In consequence, agents can perform accurate negotiations by considering the status of the resources in their negotiation models, and providers can manage their resources considering both the performance and the business objectives. This thesis defines a set of policies for the negotiation and enforcement of Service Level Agreements. Such policies deal with different Business-Level Objectives: maximisation of the revenue, classification of clients, trust and reputation maximisation, and risk minimisation. This thesis demonstrates the effectiveness of such policies by means of fine-grained simulations.
A pricing model may be influenced by many parameters. The weight of such parameters within the final model is not always known, or it can change as the market environment evolves. This thesis models and evaluates how the providers can self-adapt to changing environments by means of genetic algorithms. Providers that rapidly adapt to changes in the environment achieve higher revenues than providers that do not.
Policies are usually conceived for the short term: they model the behaviour of the system by considering the current status and the expected immediate after their application. This thesis defines and evaluates a trust and reputation system that enforces providers to consider the impact of their decisions in the long term. The trust and reputation system expels providers and clients with dishonest behaviour, and providers that consider the impact of their reputation in their actions improve on the achievement of their Business-Level Objectives.
Finally, this thesis studies the risk as the effects of the uncertainty over the expected outcomes of cloud providers. The particularities of cloud appliances as a set of interconnected resources are studied, as well as how the risk is propagated through the linked nodes. Incorporating risk models helps providers differentiate Service Level Agreements according to their risk, take preventive actions in the focus of the risk, and pricing accordingly. Applying risk management raises the fulfilment rate of the Service-Level Agreements and increases the profit of the provider


CONTEXT
Thyroid dysfunction is a common complication of interferon-α (IFNα) therapy, with many phenotypic patterns and the potential for significant morbidity.

OBJECTIVE
Our objective was to gain mechanistic insight and predict clinical presentations by determining the risk factors for distinct subtypes of IFNα-induced thyroid dysfunction.

DESIGN
ACHIEVE-1, a randomized trial conducted from 2005-2009, compared long-acting preparations of IFNα in 1323 patients with hepatitis C, genotype 1.

SETTING
A total of 149 outpatient clinics in North America, Europe, and Australia participated.

PATIENTS
We studied 1233 patients who were euthyroid at baseline. This population is 60% male and 82% Caucasian.

INTERVENTIONS
Patients were treated with pegylated IFNα2a weekly or albumin-IFNα2b every 2 wk for 48 wk. Serum TSH and free T(4) were measured before therapy and 12 or more times over 60 weeks.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Thyroid dysfunction was defined as a TSH outside the normal range during the course of therapy. Low serum TSH indicated thyrotoxicosis, elevated TSH indicated hypothyroidism, and both abnormalities occurred in biphasic thyroiditis.

RESULTS
Of previously euthyroid patients, 16.7% developed abnormal TSH values during therapy, including 24 with TSH below 0.1 mU/liter, 69 with TSH over 5.5 mU/liter, and 76 with biphasic thyroiditis. Biphasic thyroiditis was over 8-fold more common among women than men using multivariate logistic regression analysis [odds ratio (OR) = 8.4; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 4.5-15.8]. Thyrotoxicosis was most strongly associated with a lower pretreatment TSH (OR = 4.1 per -1 mU/liter decline; 95% CI = 1.9-9), whereas hypothyroidism was strongly associated with higher pretreatment TSH (OR = 3.9 per 1 mU/liter increase; 95% CI = 3-5.2).

CONCLUSIONS
Biphasic thyroiditis is common among women treated for hepatitis C with IFNα. Lower and higher pretreatment serum TSH are associated with greater likelihood of thyrotoxicosis and hypothyroidism, respectively. Antithyroid antibody levels were not available for the cohort, and thus we cannot clarify the role of pretreatment thyroid autoimmunity as a risk factor. Our results do show that readily identifiable patient characteristics are risk factors for specific patterns of IFN-induced thyroid dysfunction. These findings suggest that distinct mechanisms may underlie subtypes of thyroid dysfunction associated with immune-modulatory therapy for hepatitis C.


Increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere and the resulting negative impacts on climate change have compelled global efforts to achieve carbon neutrality or negativity. Most such efforts focus on carbon sequestration through chemical or physical approaches. We aim to harness the power of synthetic biology to enhance plants' natural ability to draw down and sequester carbon, thereby positively affecting climate change. Past decades of scientific progress have shed light on strategies to overcome the intrinsic limitations of carbon drawdown and fixation through photosynthesis, particularly in row crops in hopes of improving agricultural productivity for food security. Incorporating a photorespiration bypass in C3 plants has shown promising results of increased biomass and grain yield. Despite their globally dominant role in atmospheric carbon flux, the drawdown rates of most trees are currently limited by their C3 photosynthetic metabolism, and efforts to improve the photosynthetic capacity of trees, such as by reducing energy loss in photorespiration, are currently lacking. Here, we selected a photorespiration bypass pathway and tested its effectiveness on photosynthetic enhancement in hybrid poplar INRA717-IB4. The design includes a RNAi strategy to reduce the transportation of the photorespiration byproduct, glycolate, out of chloroplast and a shunt pathway to metabolize the retained glycolate back to CO2 for fixation through the Calvin-Benson cycle. Molecular and physiological data collected from two repeated growth experiments indicates that transgenic plants expressing genes in the photorespiration bypass pathway have increased photosynthetic efficiency, leading to faster plant growth and elevated biomass production. One lead transgenic event accumulated 53% more above-ground dry biomass over a five month growth period in a controlled environment. Pilot projects with photosynthesis-enhanced trees in the field are in progress. Our results provide a proof-of-concept for engineering trees to help combat climate change.


AIM
The aim of this paper is to report a study exploring the perceived stressors identified by a group of 70 students who undertook a part-time degree at one Irish university.

BACKGROUND
In the literature on stress, part-time nursing students who are undertaking continuing education programmes appear to have received little attention. Stress amongst nurses is evident within the nursing literature but little information is available on the specific stressors that affect Registered Nurses who undertake further academic study. Anecdotally, students attending part-time programmes while working full-time report high levels of stress.

METHOD
Quantitative methods were used. While many instruments exist to measure overall stress, this study aimed to explore student's perceptions of specific stressors associated with academic study. We used a questionnaire developed from the literature on the topic.

RESULTS
Factors related to writing assignments at degree level, fulfilling personal needs and academic demands, were perceived as major stressors by these students. Factors of little concern were financial issues and attendance on the programme. Individual items receiving highest mean scores were: trying to balance work commitments and the required study (mean 3.89, sd = 1) and the prospect of the final examination (mean 3.86, sd = 1). This study was limited by the use of convenience sampling and self-report methods. Larger studies are required to support the findings. In addition, student stress was not observed or measured.

CONCLUSION
Those involved in the delivery of nurse education programmes to part-time students need to consider the impact of the workload on student welfare, and to prepare students for demands of the programme.


Climate Change
Sea ice in the Arctic's Fram Straight is only half as thick as it was a decade ago, Renner and colleagues report. Measuring ice both at the surface and from the air with an instrument towed below a helicopter, they found that the ice in that region thinned by more than 50% between 2003 and 2012. The patterns of variability that they see most likely are caused by thinning occurring more broadly across the Arctic, rather than being just a regional effect. These observations are consistent with the contemporaneous reduction of the area covered by sea ice that has occurred in the Arctic and should help provide a better understanding of both the magnitude and the causes of the loss.

Geophys. Res. Lett. 10.1002/2014GL060369 (2014).


Mathematical modelling was used to study the effect of a changed aspect ratio of a continuous casting mould on the resulting flow field in the upper part of the mould when using a swirl flow in the nozzle. Model predictions were initially compared to physical modelling data. More specifically, the predicted axial velocities were found to differ only at the most ~3 mm/s from the measured data. Thus, the model was concluded to be sound. By changing the aspect ratio of a billet mould from 1 to 3 systematically, a numerical analysis of the mould region of a billet continuous caster was performed with a novel injection concept using swirling flow in the immersion nozzle in order to control the heat and mass transfer in the continuous casting mould. The predictions showed that the aspect ratio of the mould has a large influence on the flow field in the upper part of the mould. The meniscus temperature was found to increase with an increasing aspect ratio from 1 to 2, but the maximum temperature was found to decrease when the aspect ratio was increased above 2.


In this paper we study the excursion time of a Brownian motion with drift outside a corridor by using a four-state semi-Markov model. In mathematical finance, these results have an important application in the valuation of double-barrier Parisian options. We subsequently obtain an explicit expression for the Laplace transform of its price.


The olfactory-jump response assay was used to analyze habituation in Drosophila mutants of potassium (K+) channel subunits. As with physiological assays of the giant fiber-mediated escape reflex, mutations at loci that encode K+ channel subunits have distinct effects on habituating the olfactory-jump response. The data for slowpoke and ether à go-go indicate similar effects on habituation of the olfactory-jump response and the giant fiber-mediated escape. Habituation in the olfactory jump assay in Hyperkinetic and Shaker mutants was drastically different from the degree of defect in the giant fiber-mediated escape reflex, indicating differential control mechanisms underlying the two forms of non-associative conditioning.


Various doses of apomorphine, haloperidol, pilocarpine and scopolamine were administered i.p. to rats self-administering i.v. morphine (0.4 mg/kg/infusion). Apomorphine, at low doses, increased rates of morphine self-administration and, at high doses, decreased rates. Haloperidol decreased self administration rates with increasing dose. Both pilocarpine and scopolamine produced only small decreases in rates at high doses. When administered in combination, the effects of apomorphine and haloperidol were antagonistic as were the effects of pilocarpine and scopolamine; the effects of apomorphine or haloperidol predominated, however, when either drug was administered in combination with pilocarpine or scopolamine. The results are consistent with previous work implicating an important role for dopaminergic mechanisms in morphine's reinforcing property.


The effect of span-to-thickness ratio (L/h) on the bending modulus was investigated in warp, 45°, 67.5° and weft directions in woven glass fiber reinforced polyester laminates. Using classical beam theory the results of the bending tests carried out for L/h = 5,..,50 were extended to the total range of definition (0≤L/h<∞) by applying rational fractional and exponential fractional functions. The extensions take the asymptotic behavior of the bending test for L/h = 0 and L/h = ∞ in account while providing the best fitting to the measured data. It has been shown that the exponential fractional estimations give better results regarding the form of functions that is independent from the directions.


A study was conducted to assess the effectiveness of the International Roughness Index (IRI) and Heavy Articulated Truck Index (HATI) to identify pavement sections subject to high dynamic wheel loads (DWL). HATI is a profile-based roughness index used by some Australian road agencies to identify road sections providing poor ride quality for heavy trucks. The longitudinal surface profile data of ten pavement sections were used to simulate DWL caused by a typical fully laden articulated truck and to calculate relevant IRI and HATI values. The results of this limited study showed that HATI could be a good indicator of road sections subject to high DWL. For the sections tested herein, it was found to have strong correlation with the Dynamic Aggregate Force Coefficient (DAFC), a measure of road damage due to DWL. The study also included using wavelet analysis to identify and locate the sources of DWL excitation for sections with different HATI values. Wavelet signals of longitudinal profile data in relevant roughness subbands proved to be effective in identifying and locating profile characteristics responsible for exciting truck body motions that induce high DWL. The approach proposed herein would help road agencies to adopt maintenance programs to eliminate or minimise the additional damage and ensure sustainability of their assets' and mobility of road users.


Research on body image has neglected a number of factors that seem likely to influence individuals' eating disorders. This study looks at eating disorder relationships with age, cultural background, physical and psychological factors, amount and type of media exposure, and body image processing (i.e., comparing and endorsing thin ideals). Survey results from a sample of 376 Korean adolescent and college-aged females confirmed the mediating effect body image processing had on eating disorder indicators. Although striking age differences were found in the relationship between media use and eating disorders, there were also similarities between the two age groups. Comparing and endorsing thin ideals played a more important role among adolescent girls than among college-aged women. Contrary to previous research reported in the U.S., exposure to television "thin drama" was not a significant predictor of Korean females' body image disturbance. Instead, exposure to foreign media had direct and indirect impacts on eating disorders among Korean females. Implications of the age and cross-cultural differences were discussed.


Larsen SN, Leisher C, Mangubhai S, Muljadi A, Tapilatu RF. 2018. Fisher perceptions of threats and fisheries decline in the heart of the Coral Triangle. Ocean Life 2: 41-46. The Coral Triangle contains the most species-diverse coral reefs in the world, and at its center is the Raja Ampat archipelago in West Papua, Indonesia. The marine resources of Raja Ampat are an important source of food and livelihood for thousands of people, but overfishing and destructive fishing practices threaten its coral reefs and fisheries. To better understand the threats, we surveyed the 'most knowledgeable fishers' in all 88 of Raja Ampat's coastal villages (n = 495) in 2003-2005. We analyzed the links between declines in fish catch and threats to marine resources as perceived by fishers. Blast fishing, cyanide fishing, and 'outsiders' were perceived to be the causes of the fish declines and the greatest ongoing threats to fisheries resources. We also found evidence of inter-generational differences in perceptions on the health of local fisheries. For fishers who had over 15 years of fishing experience, 77% reported a decrease in fish catch. For fishers who had less than 5 years of experience, only 41% reported a decrease in catch. Education and outreach on illegal fishing practices and the benefits of healthy coral reef ecosystems are likely to be ongoing needs in communities in Raja Ampat.Coral reefs


The ionizing radiation dose-response relationships for internally deposited radionuclides are examined using data from humans involving 226Ra and laboratory animal studies involving alpha-emitters 224Ra, 226Ra, 228Ra, 228Th, 238Pu, 239Pu, and 241Am and beta-emitters 90Y, 90Sr, 91Y, and 144Ce. Intake routes included ingestion, inhalation, and injection. The lifetime effects are best described by three-dimensional average-dose-rate/time/response surfaces that compete with other causes of death during an individual's lifetime. Using maximum likelihood survival regression methods, the characteristic logarithmic slope for cancer induction was found to be about negative one-third for alpha-emitters or about negative two-thirds for beta-emitters. At the higher average dose-rates the principal deleterious effects were those associated with radiation-induced injury while at intermediate average dose-rates radiation-induced cancer predominates. The relative biological effectiveness for cancer induction of high linear energy transfer alpha radiation with respect to low linear energy transfer beta radiation is a strong function of dose-rate. As average dose-rate decreases, the effectiveness of the beta irradiation drops off more rapidly than that of the alpha irradiation. The cumulative dose yielding a specific level of induced cancer risk is less at lower dose-rates than at higher dose-rates showing an apparent inverse dose-rate effect (up to a factor of about 10 for high linear energy transfer alpha radiation and a factor of about 2 for low linear energy transfer beta radiation). The cumulative radiation dose is neither an accurate nor an appropriate measure of cancer risk associated with protracted ionizing radiation exposure. Cancer risk associated with protracted ionizing radiation exposure is a non-linear function of lifetime average dose-rate to the affected tissues. At low average dose-rates the long latency time required for radiation-induced cancer may exceed the natural lifespan. This long latency results in a lifespan virtual threshold (cancer risk p < 0.001) for each internally deposited radionuclide. For young adult beagles, bone sarcoma induction from alpha-emitting radionuclides was unlikely for cumulative doses below about 1 Gy (20 Sv) delivered specifically to the sensitive tissues at bone surfaces in a manner associated with radionuclide relative potency from highest for 228Th, 239Pu, and 238Pu to lowest for 226Ra. Bone sarcoma induction from ingested 90Sr was unlikely for cumulative beta radiation doses below about 20 Gy (20 Sv), but beta irradiation of tissues adjacent to bone also induced leukemia and soft tissue carcinomas above 10 Gy (10 Sv). Inhaled radionuclides tended to be most potent in producing lung carcinoma when the radiation dose was most uniformly distributed in the lung. In young adult beagles lung carcinoma from inhaled alpha-emitting 239Pu in the dispersible nitrate form was unlikely for cumulative doses below about 0.5 Gy (10 Sv) and below higher cumulative doses for other forms of 238Pu and 239Pu depending on relative potency. Lung carcinoma from inhaled beta-emitting 90Y in relatively insoluble fused aluminosilicate particles was unlikely for cumulative doses below about 5 Gy (5 Sv) and below higher doses for inhaled particles with 91Y, 144Ce, or 90Sr in order of deceasing potency.


This report looks at multi-level governance dynamics and at the integration policies targeting post-2014 migrants developed by four small and medium-sized towns and rural areas in Poland. Primarily based on interviews conducted in each of the selected municipalities, it provides an overview of 1) national and regional integration policies targeting post-2014 migrants in Poland; 2) policymaking relations among the key actors involved in these policy processes in the 4 localities and key features of policy networks within which these actors interact; 3) how these actors perceive and define integration. The report finds that Poland has not yet created a nationwide integration policy, however, good practices are shared between different actors involved, leading to the rise of initiatives taken predominantly at the regional and local levels. No policies at the national level directly affects the funding of various public and private organisations dealing with the integration of migrants, leaving them with shortages of funds or with complete dependence on external funds (e.g., from the EU). With the majority of the labour migrants coming from neighbouring countries, the Polish government, emphasises on solely providing quick fixes like Polish language courses. Overall, at the national level, integration in some cases resembles the concept of assimilation, whereas, at the regional and local levels various actors appear to take the lead and form their own tailor-made integration policies. Medium-sized and small towns have developed several mechanisms to handle migration flows and integration programs, in contrast with rural areas, which are still struggling to employ similar practices.


: Collaborative learning strategies, which can promote student learning and achievement, have rarely been incorporated into pedagogies of MOOCs. Such strategies, when implemented properly, can boost the quality of MOOC pedagogy. Nonetheless, the use of collaborative groups in MOOCs is scarce due to several yet critical contextual factors (e.g., massiveness, and variable levels of engagement) that hamper the group formation process. Therefore, there is a need for supporting MOOC teachers in the design and implementation of group formation policies when implementing collaborative strategies. This paper presents a study where two instruments were used to explore solutions to this need: a guide to support teachers during the planning of the group formation, and a technological tool to help them implement the collaborative groups designed and to monitor them. According to the results of the study, the design guide made the teachers aware of the contextual factors to consider when forming the collaborative groups, and allowed teachers inform some configuration parameters of the activity (e.g., duration and assessment type) and the group formation (e.g., criteria and parameters needed to build the groups). The technological tool was successfully incorporated into the MOOC platform. Lessons learned from the findings of the study are shared and their potential to inform the design guide is discussed.


Protein phosphorylation regulates numerous cellular processes. Although the importance of the spatiotemporal context of second messenger activity has become increasingly apparent, the precise consequences of the spatiotemporal dynamics of second messenger signals on the extent, duration, and specificity of activity of downstream kinases has been less clear. Violin et al. developed C kinase activity reporter (CKAR), a genetically encoded reversible fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET)-based reporter of protein kinase C (PKC)-mediated phosphorylation. They used CKAR in combination with novel FRET-based reporters of PKC translocation, phospholipase C (PLC) activity, and diacylglycerol (DAG) to study the regulation of PKC-mediated phosphorylation in MDCK and HeLa cells in the context of second messenger, substrate, kinase, and phosphatase activity and localization. Maximal activation of PKC by phorbol esters did not saturate phosphorylation of cytoplasmic CKAR unless phosphatases were also inhibited; when CKAR was targeted to the plasma membrane, however, phosphatase inhibition had little effect. Moreover, histamine, which caused only a slight increase in FRET of cytosolic CKAR, elicited oscillations of membrane-targeted-CKAR phosphorylation in HeLa cells. These oscillations were synchronized with oscillations in intracellular calcium concentration ([Ca2+]i), were not accompanied by oscillations in DAG or in PLC activity, and correlated with PKC translocation to the plasma membrane. In MDCK cells, however, ATP stimulated synchronous increases in [Ca2+]i, membrane-targeted CKAR phosphorylation, PLC activity, and DAG. These data suggest high fidelity of kinase activity to second messenger dynamics. J. D. Violin, J. Zhang, R. Y. Tsien, A. C. Newton, A genetically encoded fluorescent reporter reveals oscillatory phosphorylation by protein kinase C. J. Cell Biol. 161, 899-909 (2003). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Introduction Endoscopic resection and ablation treatment is the standard of care for barretts oesophagus and related early neoplasia. To evaluate the real world experience with EMR and RFA treatment at a single centre outside of clinical trials. Method Data was evaluated from a prospectively maintain charts of patients undergoing RFA/EMR treatment for Barretts and Early Oesophageal Cancer (EOC) (T1a and T1b). All patients with Barretts dysplasia referred through MDT from 2010–2015 were included in the study. Results A total of 91 patients The mean age of the patients undergoing RFA/EMR is 72±8, (Range: 47–92) years with predominance of male population (85%). The most common reason for referral was HGD (58%) followed by LGD (17%), T1a (16%), T1b (7%) and squamous dysplasia (2 and ). EMR was performed in in 75/91 (82%) patients in the study mostly in OEC patients (100%) followed by HGD (78%) and LGD (45%) patients. The disease was upstaged in 20% of study patients with 12 patients referred with HGD upstaged to T1a and 3 patients to T1b. Upstaging to HGD was observed in 3 patients with LGD. Only 3 patients had their disease down staged (x2: T1a to HGD and x1: HGD to LGD). RFA was performed in majority of the patients in our study (86.4%, n=76) with median RFA sessions of 2 (Range:1–6). The proportion of patients having RFA performed with final diagnosis of LGD, HGD, T1a and T1b was 92%, 95% and 91% and 30% respectively. A complete response (CR) defined as complete endoscopic and histological eradication of barretts oesophagus after HALO procedure was seen in 88% patients who completed the study (n=68). The excluded patients included those who did not opt for further RFA (n=6) sessions and patients which died of unrelated deaths (n=2). The CR is 100% in patients with LGD and T1a and 79% in HGD group. Out of 9 patients with T1b cancer, 7 had oesophagectomy done with none of the patient having cancer in resected specimen or had disease recurrence including 1 patient who had T1N1 cancer. CR was mostly seen in patients with prior EMR than who did not (79% vs. 21%). In all the non-CR (n=6), 80% had Barretts>6 cms and 100% of incomplete responders had HGD. Nine patients (10%) had complications from HALO procedure with 6 patients requiring endoscopic dilatation of post RFA oesophageal stricture after CR and 2 having ulceration at previous RFA site precluding further RFA. Post RFA stricture was seen mostly in LGD patients than in HGD patients (23% vs. 5%) and 80% of these patients had a prior EMR. 1 patient had a suspected oesophageal perforation after a rescue EMR which was successfully sealed by OVESCO clip. There was no procedure related deaths. Conclusion RFA is a safe and effective procedure for management of early oesophageal neoplasia. Disclosure of Interest None Declared


This inquiry unearths the stratified nature of racial harm in higher education by applying counterstorytelling to fashion an equity case study on racial harm. Racial harm consists of four conditions (hyper-cognition, hyper-isolation, hyper-distress, and hyper-reactivity) brought on by persistent exposure to racial discrimination embedded subtlety within academic departments as a series of racialized conflicts (diversity & curriculum clashes, and relational & power dynamics). To advance the use of qualitative research to end racism in higher education, we offer a true-telling framework, a guide for talking back, a research typology to unearth the pandemic of racism infecting faculty relations.


This study aimed to determine the effect of catfish meat to increase protein of jerked meat cassava leaves (Manihot utilissima) and  to find the best products from cassava leaves jerked meat. This research was conducted at the Laboratory of Engineering and Process Technology,  Chemical Agricultural Products and Nutrition Department of Agricultural Technology Andalas University from August to October 2014. The method used in this study experimental method, using a completely randomized design (CRD) with 6 treatments and 3 replications.  The treatments are the addition of catfish meat,  respectively : 37.5 % (A), 50 % (B), 62.5 % (C), 75 % (D), 87.5 % (E), and 100 % (F). Data was processed with statistically by using ANOVA which was followed by Duncan 's New Multiple Range Test (DNMRT) at the 5% significance level.  The results of this study showed that the addition of catfish meat were very significantly  effect on the improvement of cassava leaves protein jerked ranged  from 25.9 % - 38.08 %,  decreasing water content that ranges between 7.58 % - 9.16 %,  increasing ash content which ranged between 1.15 % - 1.54 %, and fat content ranged from 28.83 % - 33.33 %.  Based on sensory analysis,  the best product is  treatment B ( the addition of 50 % of catfish meat),  where color was preferred by 70% panelist,  flavor by 75%,  taste by 90%,  and texture by 90% of panelist.


Here, we have disclosed two solid state forms of 5,11,17,23-tetramino-25,26,27,28-tetrabutoxycalix[4]arene (1) and two solid state forms of the non-functionalized 25,26,27,28-tetrahydroxycalix[4]arene (2). This is the first structural knowledge of a tetra-amino functionalized calixarene derivative, even though this compound is well known and used as a precursor of several other functionalized calix[4]arenes. The two solid forms of 1 differ by the presence of either water or water/dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) solvent molecules entrapped in the major calixarene cavity, even though the pinched conformation is adopted in both forms as a consequence of the contacts between solvent molecules and phenyl rings. Likewise, the switch from water to DMSO in the cone cavity of 1 has abrogated the photoluminescence (PL) found only in the dihydrate form. Frontier molecular orbital calculations at the B3LYP/6-31G* level of theory support a short-range electron transfer between guest (DMSO) and host (1) molecules quenching the solid state photoluminescence when DMSO is entrapped in the cone. This solvatomorphism approach for PL search in calixarenes opens a perspective on tuning and even increasing the performance of calixarenes through changing the guest solvent molecule. Similarly, the two crystal forms of 2 entrap either methyl alcohol or DMSO in their cones, which, as well as both crystal forms of 1, are packed into sheets through different fashions and contact patterns.


Many of the discrepancies reported to date in empirical investigations of the impostor phenomenon (IP) may be due in part to (a) the use of different methods for identifying individuals suffering from this syndrome (impostors), (b) the common use of a median split procedure to classify subjects and (c) the fact that subjects in many studies were drawn from impostor-prone samples. In this study, we compared the scores of independently identified impostors and nonimpostors on two instruments designed to measure the IP: Harvey's I-P Scale and Clance's IP Scale. The results suggest that Clance's scale may be the more sensitive and reliable instrument. Cutoff score suggestions for both instruments are offered.


For women diagnosed with early breast cancer, 3 main forms of adjuvant systemic therapy are available, i.e., endocrine therapy, anti–human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)4 therapy, and chemotherapy (Table 1). The decision on whether or not to administer endocrine therapy is based on the estrogen receptor (ER)–progesterone receptor (PR) status of the primary cancer, i.e., ER-positive or PR-positive patients receive endocrine therapy. On the other hand, patients with HER2 gene amplification/overexpression are usually treated with anti-HER2–based chemotherapy, especially trastuzumab (Herceptin). In contrast to the situation with endocrine and anti-HER2–based therapy, predictive biomarkers for selecting patients for specific forms of chemotherapy are currently unavailable.

View this table:

Table 1.
Systemic therapies used to treat breast cancer.

Although biomarkers for predicting benefit from specific chemotherapy drugs currently do not exist, several recently described multigene signatures (1) are indirectly predictive of a benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy in general, as they identify women at an increased risk of early recurrence. Because of this enhanced risk of early recurrence, these women tend to obtain a greater absolute reduction in recurrence and death rates from treatment with adjuvant chemotherapy. Furthermore, some of these multigene signatures (e.g., Oncotype DX) may be predictive of a benefit from chemotherapy since they measure the expression of genes involved in cell proliferation. Enhanced cancer cell proliferation is generally associated with a better response to cytotoxic drugs.

In a recent report, Cardoso et al. (2) described the clinical validation of one of these multigene signatures, named the 70-gene signature or MammaPrint, using a prospective randomized trial, i.e., a level I evidence study. In this phase 3 study, which involved 6693 women with newly diagnosed invasive breast cancer with 0–3 metastatic lymph nodes [Microarray for Node-Negative Disease Avoids Chemotherapy (MINDACT) trial], women were categorized as having a low or high risk of disease recurrence using 2 …


This paper presents a novel hybrid preprocessing method for improving noise resilience and improved computational efficiency of image skeletonisation. Common techniques for extracting the topological skeleton of a shape include distance transforms, thinning, and geometric analysis. All of these methods are sensitive to noise, and can suffer from instability and unwanted spurs. In the case of needing to match skeletons from different images, instability can be a significant problem. Skeleton stability using the proposed preprocessing method is evaluated for a range of existing medial axis transforms. It is shown to be more effective for suppressing unwanted spurs and improving stability against other preprocessing techniques.


The initially mandated and non-optional use of metric dimensions and designs for new highway construction requires the use of metric dimension fasteners. Even though the ASTM Specifications A325M and A490M for metric high strength bolts have been available for almost 20 years, they have not been used in any U.S. construction and have only been manufactured in a test lot by one U.S. manufacturer. This research examines the influence of bolt length, grip length, bolt strength, and thread lubrication on the relationship between nut rotation and bolt tension. Two different diameters of A325M metric bolts were tested: 24-mm bolts with lengths of 70, 100, and 120 mm, and 20-mm bolts with lengths of 50, 60, and 70 mm. The performance results for the two sizes of fastener are evaluated and compared with the present nut rotation requirements for inch fasteners. The results are used to set installation requirements for the turn-of-the-nut procedure and changes to the rotational capacity test to accommodate metric fasteners.


Surface manipulation and representation is becoming increasingly important, with applications ranging from special effects for films and video-games to physical simulation on the hulls of airplanes. Much research has been done to understand surfaces and to provide practical and theoretical tools suitable for acquiring, designing, modeling and rendering them. This thesis contributes to fill the gap that exists between acquisition of surfaces from 3D scanners and their use in modeling. The problem has been studied from different perspectives, and our contributions span the entire modeling pipeline, from decimation and parametrization to interactive modeling. First and foremost, we propose an automatic approach that converts a surface represented as a triangle mesh to a base domain for the definition of a higher order surface. This allows us to have the advantages of a structured base domain, without the need of defining it by hand. The algorithm performs a series of local operations on the provided triangulation to transform it into a coarse quad mesh, minimizing in a greedy way a functional that keeps the newly computed smooth surface as close as possible to the original triangle mesh. The same problem is also approached from a different angle, by proposing an algorithm that computes a global parametrization of the surface, using an automatically costructed abstract mesh as domain. The problems are related because whenever a global parametrization of a surface is known, it is possible to produce a quad mesh by imposing a regular grid over the parametrization domain, which is usually a plane or a collection of planes, and mapping it to the surface using the parametrization itself. It is then possible to use surface fitting methods to convert the quad mesh to a base domain for a high-order surface. Our contribution is an algorithm that is able to start from a cross-field defined on a surface, simplify its topology and then use it to compute a global parametrization that is especially suitable for re-meshing purposes. It is also possible to use it for other usual applications of a parametrization, like texturing or non-photorealistic rendering. Since most objects in the real-world are symmetric, we studied robust methods to extract the symmetry map from acquired models. For extrinsic symmetries, we propose a simple and fully automatic method based on invariants usually used for image analysis. For intrinsic symmetries, we introduce a novel topological definition of symmetry and a novel algorithm that starting from a few correspondences is able to extract a high-quality symmetry map for the entire shape. The extracted symmetric map is then used to produce symmetric remeshing of existing models, as well as symmetric non-photorealistic rendering and parametrization. We also introduce an innovative parametrization algorithm for the special case of mapping a rectangular subset of the plane to another subset of different size. This case is of special interest for the task of interactive image retargeting, where the aspect ratio of an image is changed without distorting the content in interesting areas. Our algorithm searches for the parametrization function in the restricted subset of axis-aligned deformations, by minimizing a convex functional. This allows us to achieve robustness and real-time performances even on mobile devices with low processing power. A user-study with 305 participants shows that our method produces high-quality results. Starting from a structured model, we consider the problem of refining it in an adaptive way. We present a way to encode an arbitrary subdivision hierarchy in an implicit way, requiring an amount of additional space that is negligible with respect to the size of the mesh. The core idea is general, and we present two different instantiations, one for triangle and one for quad meshes. In both cases, we discuss how they can be implemented on top of well-known data structures and we introduce the concept of topological angles, that allows to efficiently navigate in the implicit hierarchy. Our adaptive framework can be used to define adaptive subdivision surfaces and for generating semi-regular remeshing of a given surface. Finally, we extend common geometric modeling algorithms to prevent intersections. We show that it is possible to extend them to produce interesting deformations, which depend on the modeling algorithm used, to avoid self-intersections during interactive modeling. Self-intersections are a common problem, since they usually represent unrealistic scenarios and if a mesh contains intersections it is hard to run any kind of physical simulation on it. It is thus impossible to realistically model clothes or hair on self-intersecting meshes, and the manual cleaning of these models is time-consuming and error-prone. Our proposal allows us to produce models with the guarantee that self-intersections cannot appear and can be easily integrated into existing modeling software systems.


Spectral libraries have a fundamental role in the development of interpretation methods for airborne and satellite-borne remote sensing data. This paper presents to-date the largest spectral measurement campaign of boreal tree species. Reflectance and transmittance spectra of over 600 leaf and needle samples from 25 species were measured in the Helsinki area (Finland) using integrating sphere systems attached to an ASD FieldSpec 4 spectroradiometer. Factors influencing the spectra and red edge inflection point (REIP) were quantified using one-way analysis of variance. Tree species differed most in the shortwave-infrared (1500–2500 nm) and least in the visible (400–700 nm) wavelength region. Species belonging to same genera showed similar spectral characteristics. Upper (adaxial) and lower (abaxial) leaf sides differed most in the visible region. Canopy position (sunlit/shaded) had a minor role in explaining spectral variation. For evergreen conifers, current and previous year needles differed in their spectra, current-year needles resembling those of broadleaved and deciduous conifers. Two broadleaved species were monitored throughout the growing season (May–October), and two conifers were measured twice during summer (June, September). Rapid changes were observed in the spectra in early spring and late autumn, whereas seasonal variations during summer months were relatively small for both broadleaved and coniferous species. Based on our results, shortwave-infrared seems promising in separating tree species, although it is to-date least studied. The spectral library reported here (Version 1.0) is publicly available through the SPECCHIO Spectral Information System.


Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental psychopathology. It's etiology is not clear yet. ASD is characterized by restrictive interests and behaviour paterns, deficiencies in social and communication areas. It seems 1/68 ratio according to the last epidomiological data. Despite that it seem frequently in society, promising results in medical treatment has not been until today.
MicroRNAs evolutionary conversed member of non-coding RNA familiy and consists 22 nucleotides in. miRNAs are important element of the genetic regulation. Several studies have been identified consistent dsyregulation on some miRNAs in ASD. If we accept this as a new epifenom for this disorder these studies can be considered to be a new potential biomarker candidates. High reliability of the ASD gene targeting miRNAs are likely to provide new insights to the mechanisms underlying ASD. It can also help design appropriate miRNA therapeutics for such an understanding autism.


Population increase and the need to achieve food security; especially in Nigeria, necessitated encroachment into forests and marginal lands for agricultural land uses in the Savanna ecologies. However, tropical soils are inherently fragile and prone to rapid degradation under intensive agriculture; especially when soil cover is removed and the soil tilled conventionally. Also, Savanna Alfisols are low in inherent fertility, organic matter, cation exchange capacity, dominated by low activity clays and sesquioxides. The increasing incidence of soil degradation and nutrient impoverishment of the savanna ecologies resulted in deceasing soil quality, agricultural production and increasing farmer food insecurity that generated interest in the need to evaluate effect of slope and Land use on soil properties, quality and carbon stock on Afaka soils in Nigerian Guinea Savanna. Data generated were analyzed using ANOVA and significant means were determined using Duncan multiple range test (DMRT). Results obtained reveal that cultivation activities and erosion accounted for increased silt (19.10 %) in cultivated areas than forest areas (14.89%), while sand fractions (54.44%) dominate separates in the Forest and the Cultivated land uses. Upper Original Research Article Chidowe et al.; CJAST, 32(4): 1-13, 2019; Article no.CJAST.46375 2 slope positions had the highest sand content (71.67%), followed by lower slope with 68.00%, and then middle (67.67%) slopes. Silt contents at the middle slope positions were significantly higher than at upper (15.33%) and Lower slope Position (17.00%) and clay values increased in the lower slope terrains. Also, organic carbon varied significantly between the land use types and slope position on the toposequence. At the forest areas, organic carbon was 10.2 gkg -1 and higher significantly than Cultivated fields (8.2 gkg). At the upper slope fields under cultivation, organic carbon value was 8.7 gkg -1 and was significantly lower than Middle slope (9.60 gkg -1 ) and Lower slope terrains (6.30 gkg). Under Forest land use also, Middle slope terrains had significantly higher organic carbon content than Upper slope terrains. The high Carbon stock of the forest middle slope terrain (1.77 tCha -1 ), followed by forest land use type would discourage global warming and climate change within the Afaka environment However, carbon stock in forest Land use type in Afaka areas (1.41 tCha -1 ) was significantly higher than cultivated land use types (1.21 tCha). At cultivated slope terrains, middle slopes retained significantly higher SOC (1.37 tCha) than upper and lower slope terrains. Considering soils for prime quality, soils under forest lower slope terrain ranked best quality (SQ1; prime quality) for sustainable cultivation purposes, followed by cultivated middle slope and forest land use type that ranked SQ2. Cultivated upper slope soils ranked least (SQ6) in quality for use in crop production, while cultivated lower slope and cultivated land use type soils ranked SQ5. However, increasing loss of forests to intensive cultivation activities without adequate soil management practices would portend increase in global warming and climate change in the study area.


Dredging and land reclamation is a billion dollar industry that is spread around the coastal regions of Australia. Maintenance dredging is carried out regularly in many major Australian ports and in several cases the dredged mud is pumped ashore into containment paddocks at high water contents. When the dredged mud settles, there can be segregation with possible anisotropy. The sedimentation of the dredged mud is followed by self-weight consolidation which can take a long time. To accelerate the consolidation process, prefabricated vertical drains and surcharge are often used. To analyse the consolidation process of the dredged mud with vertical drains it is necessary to have a proper understanding of the anisotropic characteristics of the dredged mud. The objective of this paper is to summarise the results of laboratory consolidation studies carried out on reconstituted dredged mud specimens that were sedimented from slurry at high water contents in the order of 270%. The horizontal and vertical coefficients of consolidation were determined on separate oedometer tests with appropriate drainage boundaries. At every pressure increment, vertical permeability and volume compressibility were estimated to evaluate the variation of consolidation properties with depth. Strong anisotropy in horizontal and vertical directions was observed and the variations of consolidation properties and compressibility with depth were assessed.


In this paper, we study the Direct Torque Control (DTC) of an Induction Motor coupled to an Inverter (Inv-IM). DTC permits to control directly the stator flux and the torque by selecting the appropriate inverter state. DTC has been introduced because it presents several advantages in comparison to other techniques such as voltage/frequency control, vector control and field control. In this paper, we first model the DTC of Inv-IM as a hybrid system (HS). Then, we abstract the continuous dynamics of the HS in terms of discrete events. We thus obtain a discrete event model of the HS. And finally, we use Supervisory Control Theory of DES to drive Inv-IM to a desired working point.


132 samples of domestic and imported juices and juice concentrates for child nutrition were analyzed on content of 5-hydroxymethylfurfurol (5-HMF), which is considered as an indicator of violation of juice manufacturing technology. The concentrations of 5-HMF in 15.9% of domestic juice samples and 10.3% of imported juice and concentrate samples were found higher than 20 mg/L--maximum level established by AIJN for some juices and nectars. The results confirmed the expediency of including of HMF maximum concentration in hygienic characterization of fruit juices and concentrates as an indicator of violation of their manufacturing and storage procedures.


A. F. Bentley's The Process of Government (1908) is widely accepted as an important source of contemporary interest group study. This paper argues to the contrary that Bentley's arguments in this area are obscure and have contributed little to the programme of modern interest group research. His importance is as a contributor to the debate on the nature of social science and social science method and not as the starting-point for interest group analysis. The judgement about his role as a social scientist should rest on consideration of his body of work and not simply the one book. In terms of his much cited book, Bentley, it is argued, is misread. The central purpose of this article is to explore the consequences of that misinterpretation. The misreading of The Process of Government, and the unmerited assumption that it is directly connected to modern interest group theory, has led to a misunderstanding of that contemporary theory. In particular his use of the term 'group' is much wider in scope than is now usually followed. This means that his claims are not so uni-dimensional as they appear when extracted from their context. Bentley used the term in a sociological sense that included informal social associations as 'groups': these are not the sort of formal, collective organizations of the interest group type as identified in political science. It is argued that the major sources of ideas current in the interest group field are Truman (1951) and the case-study authors of the 1930s such as Odegard, Childs, Herring and Schattschneider. Bentley's contribution to political science is not as progenitor of interest group studies, but his emphasis on process anticipates the policy studies movement.


Vaginal adenosis is an uncommon pathology, characterized by the presence of cylindrical epithelium in the vagina. This pathology is considered rare if not found in women exposed in utero to diethylstilbestrol (dietilestilbestrol). Vaginal intraepithelial neoplasia (VAIN) is another uncommon condition in women who have not been hysterectomized to treat cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN), with an incidence of 0.3 per 100000 women. On the other hand 0.9% of the patients who have been poshysterectomized to treat CIN develop VAIN. This paper aims at reviewing the literature on vaginal adenosis, vaginal intraepithelial neoplasia and their possible treatments. In addition, the paper reports on a case of vaginal adenosis in a young female patient with concomitant VAIN 2, the CO2 laser ablation performed, and the short-term results obtained.


INTRODUCTION
Serotonin (5-HT) is an important neurotransmitter for sexual behaviors. Heterozygous (+/-) serotonin transporter (SERT) rats and SERT knockout rats (-/-) have serotonergic disturbances with significant elevations of basal extracellular 5-HT levels.

AIM
To investigate the putative role of the SERT in male sexual behavior.

METHODS
After extensive sexual training, the effects of the 5-HT(1A/7) receptor agonist ± 8-OH-DPAT, the 5-HT(1A) receptor antagonist WAY100 635 and a combination of both on sexual behaviors of SERT(-/-) and SERT(+/-) knockout and wildtype (SERT(+/+) ) male Wistar rats were examined.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Male rat sexual behaviors of mounts, intromissions, and ejaculations.

RESULTS
SERT(-/-) had lower basal ejaculation frequencies than SERT(+/-) and SERT(+/+) animals. ± 8-OH-DPAT enhanced sexual performance in all three genotypes to the same extent. WAY100635 dose-dependently inhibited sexual behavior in all three genotypes with significant dose to genotype interactions. WAY100635 exerted the strongest effects in SERT(-/-) animals. The combination of a dose range of ± 8-OH-DPAT and a selected dose of WAY100635 revealed only partial antagonism by ± 8-OH-DPAT of the sexual inhibitory effects of WAY100635.

CONCLUSIONS
Absence of the serotonin transporter reduces basal ejaculatory performance in male rats. Pharmacological experiments suggest that separate pools of 5-HT(1A) receptors regulate different aspects of sexual performance in male rats. 5-HT(7) receptors may play a minor role in the partial recovery of sexual behavior after combination of ± 8-OH-DPAT and WAY100635. The SERT(-/-) rat may be a model for chronic SSRI treatment, delayed ejaculation, anorgasmia, and/or low libido.


In synchronized human lymphoid cell lines, production of immunoglobulins G and M is greatest during the late Gl and S phases of the cell cycle. Little immunoglobulin appears immediately before, during, and immediately after mitosis. The results indicate that transcription of immunoglobulin genes takes place during a limited part of the mitotic cycle.


Mobile learning (M-Learning) integrates the current mobile and wireless computing technology with education primarily to enhance the effectiveness of the traditional learning process. One of the difficulties in implementing M-Learning is to deliver the content efficiently. This paper focuses on the development of M-Learning management tool in campus-wide environment using the Microsoft .NET infrastructure. User acceptance study was carried out to measure the feasibility of the M-learning management application development. The results of the study indicate a tendency towards the M-Learning acceptance in campus-wide environment. The main objective of the works that have been carried out is to develop a server-side M-Learning application using the Microsoft .NET infrastructure. The works that has been carried out act as preliminary work for future development of M-Learning application in campus-wide environment.


This paper presents a stator flux estimation method based on duty cycles of inverter switching. The stator flux is calculated by integrating the back electromotive force, which is the terminal voltage minus the voltage drop on the stator resistance. The terminal voltage mentioned above is calculated by the duty cycles of inverter switching and dc link voltage, while the duty cycles is derived in the digital control system of induction motor based on the DSP. Without employing voltage sensors to measure phase voltage, the proposed flux estimation method is cost effective and error reducing. The method is also effective in fault-tolerant operation when the motor works with two phases. Experimental results verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.


This paper presents the development of a mathematical model based on curved beam theory of composite pipes with irregular shapes under diametral loading. The analytical solution was validated through finite element models of the same pipe shapes under similar loading conditions. Four shapes (circular, elliptical, rectangular, and egg shaped pipes) were considered in this study. The analytical and finite element results were used to estimate the shape factor defined by the ratio of the maximum tangential stress of an irregular shape over the maximum tangential stress for a circular pipe. Comparison of the load-deflection curves for the four different shapes revealed that the egg pipe is the stiffest among the rest of the pipes while the square shape is the most flexible one. The analytical solution and finite element results were used to determine the shape factor for the four pipe shapes taking into account the circular pipe as the base shape. Both results were in good agreement and can be used as design guidelines for the irregular shapes without resorting to the conduct of any further testing.


Studies of cardiac mechanics, metabolism, and coronary hemodynamics have traditionally been carried out in rhythmically beating hearts. We have developed an isolated rabbit heart preparation that is free from contractions and allows a stable graded ventricular pressure to be established. Rabbit hearts were rapidly excised and perfused at constant pressure with heated (39 degrees C) Tyrode solution bubbled with 98% O2-2% CO2. A latex balloon was inserted into the left ventricle (lv) to adjust lv volume and measure pressure. Nine hearts were depleted of calcium by reducig the calcium concentration in the Tyrode's from 5 to 0.078 mM. When barium (Ba2+) was added to the perfusate, the hearts spontaneously developed pressure that was free of an overriding beat (contracture). The intensity of the contracture increased in a sigmoid fashion as the barium concentration was increased. During contracture balloon pressure ranged between 33.8 +/- 5.0% (SE) (Ba2+ 0.5 mM) and 79.0 +/- 4.5% (Ba2+ 1.5 mM) of control systolic developed pressure Ventricular pressure-volume curves were linear (r > 0.98) and indicated increased ventricular stiffness as barium concentration increased. We believe that barium-induced contracture is a good model of systolic cardiac muscle interactions.


The migration, adhesion, and subsequent extravasation of leukocytes into inflamed tissues contribute to the pathogenesis of a variety of inflammatory diseases including asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, and multiple sclerosis. The integrin adhesion receptor alpha 4 beta 1 expressed on leukocytes binds to the extracellular matrix protein fibronectin and to the cytokine inducible vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (VCAM-1) at inflamed sites. Binding of alpha 4 beta 1 to VCAM-1 initiates firm adhesion of the leukocyte to the vascular endothelium followed by extravasation into the tissue. Monoclonal antibodies generated against either alpha 4 beta 1 or VCAM-1 can moderate this inflammatory response in a variety of animal models. Recently peptides containing a consensus LDV sequence based on the connecting segment-1 (CS-1) of fibronectin and cyclic peptides containing an RCD motif have shown promise in modulating leukocyte migration and inflammation presumably by blocking the interaction of alpha 4 beta 1 with VCAM-1. Here we describe novel, highly potent, cyclic peptides that competitively inhibit alpha 4 beta 1 binding to VCAM-1 and fibronectin at sub nanomolar concentrations. The structure of a representative analog was determined via NMR spectroscopy and used to facilitate optimization of peptide leads. The peptides discussed here utilize similar functional groups as the binding epitope of VCAM-1, inhibit lymphocyte migration in vivo, and are highly selective for alpha 4 beta 1. Furthermore the structure--activity relationships described here have provided a template for the structure-based design of small molecule antagonists of alpha 4 beta 1-mediated cell adhesion processes.


Mammalian oocytes and surrounding granulosa cells are metabolically coupled via gap junctions. In growing follicles of the mouse, gap junctions between oocytes and granulosa cells are assembled from connexin 37 (Cx37, encoded by Gja4), whereas those between granulosa cells are assembled from connexin 43 (Cx43, encoded by Gja1). This spatial separation, and the different permeability properties of gap junctions composed of Cx37 and Cx43, suggests that Cx37 channels serve a unique function in oogenesis. Female mice lacking Cx37 are sterile because oocytes do not complete their development. To test the hypothesis that the unique properties of Cx37 make it irreplaceable in oocytes, Cx43 was ectopically expressed in growing oocytes lacking Cx37. Transgenic mice were produced in which Gja1 is expressed in oocytes under control of the Zp3 (zona pellucida protein 3) gene promoter. When the transgene was crossed into the Cx37-null mutant line, oocyte–granulosa-cell coupling, oocyte growth and maturation, and fertility were all restored. Thus, despite their different properties, Cx43 is physiologically equivalent to Cx37 in coupling oocytes with granulosa cells.


Many telco analytics require maintaining call profiles based on recent customer call patterns. Such call profiles are typically organized as aggregations computed at different time scales over the recent customer interactions. Customer call profiles are key inputs for analytics targeted at improving operations, marketing, and sales of telco providers. Many of these analytics require clustering customer call profiles, so that customers with similar calling patterns can be modeled as a group. Example applications include optimizing tariffs, customer segmentation, and usage forecasting. In this demo, we present our system for scalable aggregate profile clustering in a streaming setting. We focus on managing anonymized segments of customers for tariff optimization. Due to the large number of customers, maintaining profile clusters have high processing and memory resource requirements. In order to tackle this problem, we apply distributed stream processing. However, in the presence of distributed state, it is a major challenge to partition the profiles over machines (nodes) such that memory and computation balance is maintained, while keeping the clustering accuracy high. Furthermore, to adapt to potentially changing customer calling patterns, the partitioning of profiles to machines should be continuously revised, yet one should minimize the migration of profiles so as not to disturb the online processing of updates. We provide a re-partitioning technique that achieves all these goals. We keep micro-cluster summaries at each node, collect these summaries at a centralize node, and use a greedy algorithm with novel affinity heuristics to revise the partitioning. We present a demo that showcases our Storm and Hbase based implementation of the proposed solution in the context of a customer segmentation application.


Marxism-bashing is currently as popular in the academies of North America as the mainstream media tell us it is in the streets of Eastern Europe. In the introduction to The Ethical Dimensions of Marxist Thought , Cornel West tells us that Marxism-bashers in the academy include not only the predictable conservatives but also trendy intellectuals who find epistemological and methodological reasons to discredit the entire Marxist enterprise of critical social theory. The book was written over a decade ago by a self-described American democratic socialist of American descent then in his mid-twenties. It is published at this time not just with the scholarly intention of countering vulgar reductionist readings of Marx but with the directly political intention of rehabilitating the Marxist project of understanding the world in order to change it. This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website , where most recent articles are published in full. Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.


Isotropic pyrolyric graphite (IPG) is a new kind of brittle material, it not only has the general advantages of ordinal carbonaceous materials such as high temperature resistance, lubrication and abrasion resistance, but also has the advantages of impermeability and machinability that carbon/carbon composite doesn't have. So it can be used for sealing the aeronautics and astronautics engines turbine shaft and the ethylene high-temperature equipment. The mechanism of this material removal during the precision cutting was analyzed by using the theory of strain gradient. The critical cutting thickness of IPG was calculated for the first time. Furthermore, the cutting process parameters such as cutting depth and feed rate which corresponding to the scale of brittle-ductile transition deformation of IPG was calculated. The prediction model of surface roughness in precision cutting of IPG was developed based on the Genetic algorithm. Using the surface roughness prediction model, the study investigates the influence of the cutting speed, the feed rate and the cutting depth on surface roughness in precision turning process was researched.


The growing number of AI applications, also for high-stake decisions, increases the interest in Explainable and Interpretable Machine Learning (XI-ML). This trend can be seen both in the increasing number of regulations and strategies for developing trustworthy AI and the growing number of scientific papers dedicated to this topic. To ensure the sustainable development of AI, it is essential to understand the dynamics of the impact of regulation on research papers as well as the impact of scientific discourse on AI-related policies. This paper introduces a novel framework for joint analysis of AI-related policy documents and eXplainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) research papers. The collected documents are enriched with metadata and interconnections, using various NLP methods combined with a methodology inspired by Institutional Grammar. Based on the information extracted from collected documents, we showcase a series of analyses that help understand interactions, similarities, and differences between documents at different stages of institutionalization. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work to use automatic language analysis tools to understand the dynamics between XI-ML methods and regulations. We believe that such a system contributes to better cooperation between XAI researchers and AI policymakers.


Background Worksite dietary interventions show substantial potential for improving employee health and well-being. The aim of this pilot study was to determine the effect of a worksite nutrition intervention on improving well-being. Methods Thirty-five university employees participated in a 6-week nutrition intervention. The dietary protocol emphasized the daily consumption of greens, beans/legumes, a variety of other vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, and whole grains, referred to as a micronutrient-dense, plant-rich diet. Participants were encouraged to minimize the consumption of refined foods and animal products. Results Significant improvements in sleep quality, quality of life, and depressive symptoms were found. Conclusions Findings reveal that a worksite nutrition intervention is effective at improving sleep quality, quality of life, and depressive symptoms with a projected improvement in work productivity and attendance.


Osteoporosis is a common bone disease; however, its pathophysiology is yet unclear. This study aimed to investigate candidate genes in osteoporosis and its pathomechanism. Microarray datasets Genomic Spatial Event-7429, 13850, 56815, and 7158, comprising data obtained from blood samples of osteoporosis patients and healthy controls, were downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus database. Differentially expressed genes were identified via intersection of the four datasets, using Affy and Limma software packages. Functional and pathway enrichment analysis of differentially expressed genes were conducted using the database for annotation, visualization, and integrated discovery database. Thereafter, proteinprotein interactions between the products of differentially expressed genes and key modules were analyzed using the search tool for the retrieval of interacting genes/proteins database and Cytoscape software. Furthermore, a transcriptional regulatory network was established with the differentially expressed genes, using the Web-based gene set analysis toolkit database. In total, 702 differentially expressed genes were filtered from the intersection of the four datasets, which were primarily enriched in functions and pathways associated with glutamate secretion, Adenosine triphosphate binding, extracellular region, and phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase-protein kinase B signaling pathway. Furthermore, 361 nodes and 846 edges were present in the protein-protein interaction network. Two significant modules were obtained, each containing 22 key genes. Transcriptional factor-target gene regulatory network analysis revealed two vital transcription factors, Forkhead Box O4 and LIM Homeobox 3. Genes including endothelin receptor type A, XC chemokine receptor 1, 5-hydroxytryptamine receptor 2a, phosphatidylinositol-4,5bisphosphate phosphodiesterase beta-4, glutamate metabotropic receptor 5, kiss-1 metastasis suppressor, 1-phosphatidylinositol-4,5-bisphosphate phosphodiesterase beta-2, cholinergic receptor muscarinic 3, g protein subunit gamma 4, neurotensin receptor 1, neuromedin U, neuromedin B, breast cancer gene 1 associated RING domain 1, exonuclease 1, replication factor C subunit 2, restriction site associated DNA 52 homolog DNA repair protein, DNA topoisomerase III alpha, Hemolytic uremic syndrome 1 checkpoint clamp component, timeless circadian regulator, breast cancer gene 1 DNA repair associated, tumor protein p53 and claspin are potential key genes for osteoporosis and may help elucidate the underlying pathomechanism, and transcription factors Forkhead Box O4 and LIM Homeobox 3 are potential therapeutic targets for osteoporosis.


The National Council on Teacher Quality's (NCTQ) recent review of university-based teacher preparation programs concluded the vast majority of such programs were inadequately preparing the nation's teachers. The study, however, has a number of serious flaws that include narrow focus on inputs, lack of a strong research base, missing standards, omitted research, incorrect application of research findings, poor methodology, exclusion of alternative certification programs, failure to conduct member checks, and failure to use existing evidence to validate the report's rankings. All of these issues render the NCTQ report less than useful in efforts to understand and improve teacher preparation programs in the United States. The article also suggests alternative pathways NCTQ could have undertaken to work with programs to actually improve teacher preparation. The article concludes by noting that the shaky methods used by NCTQ suggest shaky motives such that the true motives of NCTQ for producing the report must be questioned.


This article examines diversity on corporate boards, focussing on gender diversity and taking both contemporary and historical perspectives. Australia forms a particular focus of this article, but, as far as mandatory quota legislation is concerned, other jurisdictions provide comparisons. The authors illustrate how Australian corporate board gender diversity is starting from a low base in contrast to some other types of boards. Arguments for and against more women on boards are analysed in order to provide a comprehensive examination of extant research. The article also examines briefly whether a business case can be made for board gender diversity within the wider framework of board diversity. The authors acknowledge that there are unanswered questions about the right gender balance on boards and whether, without mandatory quota legislation, a voluntary system can achieve best practice targets. They explore the notion of critical mass - the idea that, upon board representation reaching approximately 15 per cent, efforts to further redress the imbalance may lose momentum. Their conclusion is that, in the Australian jurisdiction, progress is being made belatedly towards increasing gender diversity on corporate boards. However, substantial challenges are envisaged if significant progress is not made imminently to increase the number of women serving on corporate boards.


Precursor derived Si-B-C-N ceramic is a kind of amorphous materials with high hardness, low density, durability at extremely high temperature. The materials show a great potential to be used in the field of the Thermal Protective System (TPS). The physical states and chemical properties of the amorphous materials greatly depend on the starting materials. The effect of degree of polymerization (DP) of the precursor on the pyrolysis process and the characteristics of the amorphous Si-B-C-N materials are studied. The SiBCN-based preceramic polymer synthesized by dichloromethylvinylsilane, ammonia and BH3•SMe2. Dichloromethylvinylsilane reacted with ammonia and BH3•SMe2 in toluene or tetrahydrofuran (THF) as solvent in the presence of catalytic amounts of pyridine. The polymeric precursors were cured at low temperature to obtain solid-state precursors. Pyrolysis process of the solid-state precursors under various temperatures and carried out in nitrogen atmosphere. The results showed that DP of the precursor influences the pyrolysis process and the high temperature stability of the Si-B-C-N amorphous ceramics.


Lip motion reflects behavior characteristics of speakers, and thus can be used as a new kind of biometrics in speaker recognition. In the literature, lots of works used two-dimensional (2D) lip images to recognize speaker in a text-dependent context. However, 2D lip easily suffers from various face orientations. To this end, in this work, we present a novel end-to-end 3D lip motion Network (3LMNet) by utilizing the sentence-level 3D lip motion (S3DLM) to recognize speakers in both the text-independent and text-dependent contexts. A new regional feedback module (RFM) is proposed to obtain attentions in different lip regions. Besides, prior knowledge of lip motion is investigated to complement RFM, where landmark-level and frame-level features are merged to form a better feature representation. Moreover, we present two methods, i.e., coordinate transformation and face posture correction to pre-process the LSD-AV dataset, which contains 68 speakers and 146 sentences per speaker. The evaluation results on this dataset demonstrate that our proposed 3LMNet is superior to the baseline models, i.e., LSTM, VGG-16 and ResNet-34, and outperforms the state-of-the-art using 2D lip image as well as the 3D face. The code of this work is released at https://github.com/wutong18/Three-Dimensional-Lip-Motion-Network-for-Text-Independent-Speaker-Recognition.


Purpose: To report a case of subconjunctival air leakage from the anterior chamber (AC) into a trabeculectomy bleb after Descemet's stripping automated endothelial keratoplasty (DSAEK). Methods: An 89 year-old woman with a previous history of primary open angle glaucoma in her left eye and previous trabeculectomy with mitomycin C had DSAEK on the patient's left eye in order to treat her endothelial disease. During the DSAEK procedure, air was injected into the AC to aid in graft adherence. Results: The day after the surgery, subconjunctival air leakage from the AC into a trabeculectomy bleb was observed. Conclusions: Although our patient did not have any complications from this leak, there exists the potential for hypotony, bleb-related infections, and dislocations of the DSAEK graft. Given the potential consequences, these patients should be monitored closely.


Practice development depends on understanding current research and practice in order to improve healthcare for patients and users. Practice Development in Nursing explores the basis of practice development, its aims, implementation and impact on health care, and goes on to propose a conceptual basis for developing practice. It is aimed at practitioners, managers, and educators as well as those with a primary practice development role, in order to enable them to effectively develop practice.


With all the advantages of film dosimetry in the megavoltage energy range, the use of film as a dosimeter is still limited due to the various difficulties associated with films such as energy dependence, film orientation, and sensitometric nonlinearity. Recently, therapy verification and localization films (CEA TVS and TLF films) from a Swedish manufacturer have become available in vacuum-sealed water-proof packaging in the US. The packaging renders the CEA films useful in a water phantom and ideal for photon and electron dosimetry. A systematic study has been carried out to investigate the potential of dosimetric application of the new films for high energy photon and electron beams. For the TVS films, the characteristic curve is generally energy independent but appears to be dependent on the source of the radiation, i.e., whether it is gamma rays or bremsstrahlung x rays. Compared to Kodak Readypack XV films, the CEA TVS film is linear in optical density over a much larger range of radiation dose. The inter- and intra-variation of the TVS films is less than 2%. For electrons, the characteristic curve is linear over a similar density range as photons but exhibit a slight energy dependence. TVS film is slightly directional dependent on the incident radiation for both photons and electrons. The perpendicular orientation results in higher optical density than the parallel orientation. The differences are within +/- 2% except in the buildup region for photons and in the exponential fall-off region of the electron beams where differences up to 4% are noted. For the CEA TLF film which is about three times faster than the TVS film, the characteristic curve is reasonably linear over the dose range of 0-15 cGy and energy independent within the experimental uncertainty (+/- 5%). Percent depth dose and isodose measurements with the TVS films are in good agreement with ion chamber results.


When humans perform a series of motions, they prepare for the next motion in advance so as to enhance the response time of their movements. This kind of preparation behaviour results in a natural and smooth transition of the overall movement. In this paper, we propose a new method to synthesize the behaviour using reinforcement learning. To create preparation movements, we propose a customized motion blending algorithm that is governed by a single numerical value, which we called the level of preparation. During the offline process, the system learns the optimal way to approach a target, as well as the realistic behaviour to prepare for interaction considering the level of preparation. At run-time, the trained controller indicates the character to move to a target with the appropriate level of preparation, resulting in human-like movements. We synthesized scenes in which the character has to move in a complex environment and interact with objects, such as a character crawling under and jumping over obstacles while walking. The method is useful not only for computer animation, but also for real-time applications such as computer games, in which the characters need to accomplish a series of tasks in a given environment.


Three planar nonfullerene acceptors (FTIC-C8C6, FTIC-C6C6 and FTIC-C6C8) comprising a central fluorenedicyclopentathiophene (FT) core and two 2-methylene-(3-(1,1-dicyanomethylene)-indanone) terminal groups are designed and synthesized. The coplanarity of the molecular backbone can be maintained through a locked conformation via intramolecular noncovalent interactions. The solubility of these nonfullerene acceptors is very good because the FT core can bear enough flexible aliphatic side-chain substitutions. Thus, the dilemma of the planarity–solubility tradeoff can be minimized. Through changing the length of the six flexible aliphatic side chains at the central FT core, we can easily adjust the π–π interactions of nonfullerene acceptors and optimize the nanoscale morphology of the photoactive layers. Among these three small molecular acceptors, FTIC-C6C8 based active layers show the best morphology together with the highest electron and hole mobility. These inherent advantages of FTIC-C6C8 guarantee it a high power conversion efficiency of 11.12% when used in non-fullerene polymer solar cells with a wide-bandgap polymer donor PBDB-T. Our results provide an appropriate molecular design strategy for building high-performance nonfullerene acceptors and show that optimizing alkyl-side chains is a very effective way to further improve the photovoltaic performance of devices.


Radiation based sterilization is a common tool for microbial inactivation in different products on a commercial scale. The objective of the current study was to determine the effect of gamma radiation on cephradine antibiotic in the solid-state to enhance its biological response. Cephradine drug in powder form was treated with different doses (25, 50, 75, 100 and 125 kGy) of the cobalt-60 source in a Gamma cell-220 at a current rate of 8.5 gray/h. The effect of radiation doses on antibiotic was assessed with the help of different analytical techniques such as FT-IR, UV, XRD, SEM and HPLC. The UV spectra of radiated cephradine show some changes in the absorption peak by increasing the intensity of radiations while only slight changes were observed in the other peaks. The crystallinity of antibiotics was tested by the XRD and SEM, it shows a little morphological change. The FT-IR data disclosed significant changes in the absorption bands. The HPLC analysis showed reports an insignificant change which revealed that the radiolytic products are not formed. The radiated cephradine exposes a remarkable antibacterial activity against bacteria; indicating the enhancement of a biological response. In summary, a slight change was observed in cephradine drug with the radiation but the drug was chemically stable.


The study empirically examines the influence of CEO power and risk governance on bank performance in Nigeria. CEO power determinants include CEO tenure, percentage of CEO
shareholding, and internally hired CEO and risk governance variables includes capital adequacy ratio, non-performing loan ratio, liquidity ratio and loan-to-total deposit ratio. While the model for estimating bank performance is return on asset (ROA). The study covers
four years from 2012 to 2015 while secondary data used were extracted from the firms' annual reports and finance websites. Using panel data, the random effect regression was employed for the regression analysis. The study also included the random firm effect general least square
regression to conduct the hypotheses testing. The descriptive results indicate that 56% of CEO are internally hired in Nigerian banks, CEO holds 1.6% on the average of the ordinary shares of the bank, and risk governance variables (NPLR, LTD, LR and CAR) is within the limits specified by CBN. The findings from the correlation analysis show that CEO power variables
have a significant relationship with risk governance variables in the Nigeria banking industry. However, the results from the regression analysis show that despite the adherence of banks to corporate governance regulations by CBN, CEO power and risk governance measures are no adequate determinants of bank performance measured by ROA. The major implication of the study is that CEO power (tenure, percentage of shareholdings, internally hired) and risk governance (NPLR, LTD, LR, CAR) is not a standalone measure to improve the performance of listed banks. Therefore, firms should consider the other measures of CEO power and risk
governance as well as other inherent and external factors that may impact on the performance of banks in Nigeria.


The paper examines whether, how, and why the theme of translation can be used as a device to produce nonsense. Starting from the more conventional problem of translating nonsense, I introduce the opposite notion of nonsensing translation and present different possible expressions of this practice with the help of examples drawn from Morgenstern, Taylor, du Maurier, van Rooten, and the French cartoon Les Shadoks. I conclude by suggesting that the reason why translation lends itself so fruitfully to nonsense manipulations is that it itself relies on rather counterintuitive premises, such as pretending to carry concepts across linguistically incompatible universes or to be two texts at the same time.


Various ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) cultivars [Covet, OSC129 (Covet II), Galileo, OSC127 (Galileo II), Michelangelo, Newton, Whitney and OSC126 (Whitney II)] were studied in a greenhouse to evaluate their growth responses in terms of shoot and root lengths, shoot (clippings) fresh and dry matter (DM) weights and grass general quality under salinity stress conditions. Grasses were grown hydroponically using Hoagland solution No.1. Treatments included control and sodium chloride (NaCl) at various EC levels (2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14 and 16 dSm -1 ). The 8 ryegrass cultivars were grown with 4 replications of each salinity treatment in a Randomized Complete Block (RCB) design trial. Shoot and root lengths and shoot (clippings) fresh and DM weights were determined weekly. After the fresh weight determination, shoots were oven-dried at 60oC and DM weights recorded. At the last harvest, roots were also harvested and fresh weights were determined, then oven-dried at 60oC and DM weights were recorded. Grass general quality was daily evaluated at each stress level (one week growth period at each stress level). The results show shoot and root lengths and shoot (clippings) fresh and DM weights of all the cultivars decreased linearly with increased salinity levels. However, at each salinity level, there were only some numerical differences found in the shoot (clippings) lengths or fresh and DM weights of the various cultivars. In contrast, for all the cultivars, under any level of salinity, the root length was more severely affected than the shoot length. There were significant differences in root lengths or fresh and DM weights of various cultivars at each level of salinity. Grass general quality followed the same pattern (decreased) as the shoot (clippings) lengths, fresh and DM weights. The canopy color of all the cultivars turned to lighter green at the higher levels (EC >6 dS/m) of salinity. Based on the results of this study, all the cultivars exhibited a high level of salinity tolerance.


Sharing products and services might have environmental consequences. This report is partly a literature review on the topic, but also an attempt of estimating the effects on emissions of different sharing schemes in the SHAR(e)ON project. The four different sharing schemes we have investigated are: community supported agriculture, sharing in local communities, sharing of cabins, and car sharing. The estimates are presented as scenarios or illustrations informed by literature or other parts of this project, not as what is likely to happen to emissions for different sharing schemes. Language of Report: English


Zerumbone is a potential anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory and anti-tumor agent. However, the major problems that prevent the in vivo and even clinical applications of Zerumbone are its water insolubility that compromises its bioavailability. To enhance the bioavailability and efficacy of Zerumbone, nanostructured lipid carriers (NLC) were used to encapsulate Zerumbone. NLC–Zerumbone has been reported to have a slow release, comparable in vitro cytotoxicity against leukemia and breast cancer, and no observed in vivo oral acute toxicity. However, the in vivo antitumor effect of NLC–Zerumbone is still unknown. The anti-tumor, immunostimulatory and anti-inflammatory effects of Zerumbone and NLC–Zerumbone in 4T1 challenged mice were compared in this study. Zerumbone effectively controlled the tumor growth and metastasis via delaying the cancer cell cycle progression and apoptosis. Besides, Zerumbone also enhanced the anti-tumor immunity and anti-inflammatory effects. NLC encapsulation was found to further improve the anti-tumor, immunomodulation, anti-inflammation and anti-metastatic efficacy of Zerumbone in 4T1 challenged mice. This study provides the possibility of utilizing NLC encapsulated Zerumbone for breast cancer therapy.