Coastal erosion is an ongoing hazard affecting Gaza beach, but is worsening due to a wide range of human
activities such as the construction of Gaza fishing harbor in 1994-1998. The net annual alongshore sediment
transport is about 190×103 m3, but can vary significantly depending on the severity of winter storms.
According to the observed wave heights and directions, the net waves are cross-shore, therefore vast
quantities of sediments may transfer to deep sea. The main objective of this study is to mitigate the erosion
problem of Gaza coast.
Change detection analysis was used to compute the spatial and temporal change of Gaza shoreline between
1972 and 2010. The results show negative rates in general, which means that the erosion was the
predominant process. Gaza fishing harbor caused a serious damage to the Beach Camp shoreline.
Consequently, several mitigation measures were considered in this study, which are: relocation of Gaza
fishing harbor to offshore, groins, detached breakwaters, wide-crested submerged breakwaters and beach
nourishment. Several numerical model tests associated with coastal structures are conducted to investigate
the influence on morphodynamics.
The results show that the relocation of the harbor is the best alternative to stop trapping of the sediments. If
for any reason the relocation was not carried out, the wide-crested submerged breakwater alternative is an
effective structure for preventing sandy beach erosion. The artificial reef type of submerged breakwaters
with beach nourishment is recommended for Gaza beach, because it is an environmentally friendly and
improving the ecosystem of marine life.


We have developed a method for estimating travel times as a function of epicentral range and hypocentral depth which is faster than ray tracing or direct evaluation of ray integrals yet more compact and general than the interpolation of traditional travel-time tables. In this method, delay or intercept time (tau) as a function of ray parameter and source depth is tabulated. We show that direct manipulation of delay time yields travel time as an explicit function of range eliminating the iteration required to determine the proper ray parameter in ray tracing or the evaluation of ray integrals. Travel-time versus range tables exhibit the same explicit dependence by virtue of having eliminated the common independent variable, ray parameter. However, delay-time branches are monotonic, single-valued, and have fixed ray parameter limits. In contrast, travel-time branches may be nonmonotonic and multi-valued and generally have range limits which vary with source depth. Thus, delay-time tables are simpler to generate and interpolate than are travel-time tables and so result in travel-time estimates which are both more reliable and more precise for a given table size. Further, by retaining the explicit ray parameter dependence and hence a more direct relationship with the ray integrals, the delay-time method offers more flexibility in organizing suites of related phases and in tailoring the algorithm to meet specific computational requirements than does the travel-time table approach. Additionally, we show how the delay-time method can be extended to laterally inhomogeneous media.


A numerical investigation of turbulent flow over wall-mounted cube in a channel was studied by Large Eddy Simulation. The Selective Structure Function model was used to determinate eddy viscosity appears in the subgrid scale stress terms in momentum equation. Studies were carried out for the flows with Reynolds number ranging from 1000 to 40000. To evaluate the computation results, data was compared with measurement data at Re=40000, showing a reasonable agreement. In this study the effect of Reynolds numbers on flow characteristics such as time-averaged streamlines, instantaneous vorticity and turbulent intensity were investigated. Results of computations show that the flow with higher Reynolds number has a shorter reattachment length and by increasing the Reynolds number, the number of horseshoe vortex in upstream decreases. The negative vorticity near the solid surface is lifted-up by the positive vorticity in the shear layer and penetrates the positive vorticity region and causes the detachment of a part of the shear layer. When the flow pasted around the wall-mounted obstacle, the different pattern of the streamlines appears at the each sides of the cube which is changed by increasing the Reynolds number. With increasing the Reynolds number, turbulent intensity and Reynolds stresses increase at the center of the vortexes and sides of the cube respectively.


1. Polyribosome preparations were made from the deoxycholate-treated post-nuclear fractions obtained by the disruption of mammary glands from lactating and pregnant guinea pigs. 2. A high proportion of large polyribosomes was obtained from the glands of lactating animals whereas mainly small polyribosomes were obtained from the glands of pregnant animals. The isolated preparations incorporated [(14)C]phenylalanine into protein. The polyribosomes from the glands of pregnant animals were less active than those from the glands of lactating animals but the activity of the former was stimulated more by poly(U) than was the latter. 3. The ribosomes from mammary gland could be dissociated into subunits after incubation, under conditions necessary for protein synthesis, in the presence of puromycin. The subunits could be recombined to give a preparation that actively polymerized [(14)C]phenylalanine in the presence of poly(U). The subunits from guinea-pig mammary gland could be combined with subunits from liver of either guinea pig or rat. Hybrid ribosomes were also formed from subunits derived from glands of pregnant and lactating animals. The hybrids were as active as were the ribosomes formed by reassociation of subunits from the same tissue, suggesting that in this respect the ribosomes from pregnant animals were not defective. 4. Polyribosomes from mammary glands of lactating animals when incubated with cell sap from the same source were tested for their ability to synthesize alpha-lactalbumin. The polyribosomes were incubated in the presence of [(3)H]leucine and alpha-lactalbumin was isolated from the supernatant. The protein was finally treated with cyanogen bromide and the C-terminal and N-terminal fragments were separated and their radioactivity was determined. Both fragments were radioactive consistent with the synthesis of alpha-lactalbumin. 5. The results are discussed in relation to protein synthesis in the mammary gland after parturition.


The purposes of this paper are to investigate the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reporting information at Indonesia sharia banks based on Sharia Enterprise Theory and explores the potential effects of Corporate Governance (CG) elements, Return on Equity (ROE) on CSR based on sharia enterprises theory, with size as the moderating variable.  Using the sample of 10 sharia banks which published annual reports, CG, and CSR reports above the year 2014 to 2016, the panel data are examined by regression.  The statistic test reveals that size is not fit as a moderating variable in testing the effect of CG and ROE on CSR. Aggregately, GCG, Size and ROE influence CSR.  A large and high-profit sharia bank which apply good corporate governance will implement CSR by considering horizontal and vertical accountability based on Sharia Enterprise theory. This study makes a significant contribution to the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and enterprise theory by offering Sharia Enterprise theory as the foundation of the CSR implementation at sharia banks.


We performed a paternity test without the alleged father, who was deceased, and we found a mismatch in one of the alleles of the autosomal short tandem repeat (STR) locus D3S1358 in the illegitimate daughter. DNA genotypes of the dead alleged father were estimated from the DNA genotypes of his wife and their four children. The ABO genotype, the DXS10011 locus and the calculations using the 12 STR loci and the D1S80 locus, but not the STR locus D3S1358 suggested that there was a high probability that the dead alleged father was in fact the actual biological father. The genotype of locus D3S1358 of the dead alleged father, the illegitimate daughter's mother and the illegitimate daughter was 15 / 17, 15 / 17 and 15 / 18, respectively. PCR and sequencing after TA cloning of allele 17 of one of the children who had only a homozygote of allele 17, of allele 17 of the illegitimate daughter's mother and of allele 18 of the illegitimate daughter revealed that allele 18 which was considered to be a mutated allele had one more repeat of (GATA) within the first repeat region.


The Westminster Parliament is worth closer scrutiny not just for the sake of democracy, but on intellectual grounds because the surprises it contains challenge our understanding of politics. Based on anthropological fieldwork between 1998-2000 in the House of Lords and 2011-2013 in the House of Commons and constituencies, this short book explains how relationships within the two Houses are utterly different from their surface appearances. The high social status of peers in the House of Lords gives the impression of hierarchy and, more specifically, patriarchy. In contrast, the Commons conjures assumptions of equality and fairness between members of the lower House. But observation of the everyday relationships within the two Houses reveals the opposite: while the Lords has an egalitarian and co-operative ethos, and women thrive in the upper House, the competitive and aggressive Commons is a far less comfortable place for women.
Paradoxically MPs have to be both an individual, serving their constituents, and a symbol of a collective, their political party. The inevitable messiness of representative politics, and the disappointment it brings, are both the virtue and weakness of parliamentary democracy. Emma Crewe looks beneath the surface and uncovers its surprises and secrets.


Introduction : Among African countries, Ethiopia has a relatively high burden of road traffic injuries. It is challenging to accurately estimate the public health burden and causes of road traffic crash in Ethiopia. Objective : The objective of this study is to describe the prevalence and determinants of road traffic injuries in Ethiopia. Methods : A population-based cross sectional study was conducted in accordance with the World Health Organization step-wise approach to survey of non-communicable diseases risk factors. The survey was carried out between April and June 2015. Men and women adults ages 15-69 years old were the target population. A single population-proportion formula was implemented to determine the sample size. Data were entered using e-STEPS, cleaned and analysed using SPSS and Stata. Descriptive weighted analysis was done along with complex sample analysis and bivariate and multivariate analysis was conducted for RTIs and associated factors. Results : About 3% (2.7%, 95% CI: 1.8-3.5) of respondents were involved in a road traffic crash as a passenger, driver, or pedestrian during the prior 12 months. Our study found that the risk of being involved in road traffic injuries in those who have completed primary education is 1.4 times higher than in those that have no formal education (95% CI: 1.002-1.992). Those whose household income level is above 30,000 Ethiopian birr (ETB) had the highest involvement in road traffic injuries (4.2%). Those whose annual household income is above 30,000 ETB have an about 2 times increased risk of being involved in road traffic injuries than those whose annual income is below 12,000 ETB (95% CI between 1.313-3.230). The finding revealed that the risk of being involved in road traffic injuries is about 2 times higher in those who chew the plant khat (Catha endulis) than in those who do not chew khat (95% CI: 1.368-2.774). Conclusion : The fact that the most economically productive age group are affected by road traffic injuries has serious economic implications for their immediate families and for the country, in general. Based on the finding of this study, level of education, household income and khat use are determinants of road traffic injuries in Ethiopia. These findings indicate that higher education has a role in reducing the risk of road traffic injuries. Based on this study we conclude that income of the individuals is directly proportional to road traffic crashes.  Key words : Road traffic injuries, prevalence, determinants, population-based, Ethiopia


anatomy of horror the masters of occult fiction is available in our book collection an online access to it is set as public so you can download it instantly. Our books collection spans in multiple countries, allowing you to get the most less latency time to download any of our books like this one. Kindly say, the anatomy of horror the masters of occult fiction is universally compatible with any devices to read.


The Palestinians face a unique challenge to their national security as a people under occupation and in exile across the Middle East and beyond. This volume is the first of its kind to address security issues from a Palestinian perspective, with or without a two-state solution to the conflict with Israel. The authors break new ground in focusing on Palestinian national needs as well as the means to defend the Palestinian people wherever they may be. The book's ultimate objective is to lay the foundations for a formal non-offensive Palestinian national security doctrine. It will be essential reading for policymakers, experts, and the media in the Middle East as well as interested parties in the international community. Contents Overview Components of Palestinian National Security Some Doctrinal Elements The Changing Strategic Environment Tables and Maps


This project included evaluation of operational practices and performance results for wastewater treatment plants designed to meet very low effluent total phosphorus (TP) concentrations. As stringent phosphorus limits of 0.1 mg/L and lower are becoming more common, there is a need to better understand factors impacting the sustainability of operating to meet these limits. This effort focuses on maximizing what can be learned from existing facilities to help utilities operate more sustainably while achieving the necessary level of performance.

Phosphorus removal practices were evaluated using performance data for 11 water resource recovery facilities (WRRFs). Assessments were made of overall performance, chemical consumption, influent characteristics, tertiary treatment performance, and resource recovery. Greenhouse gas emissions were estimated for the phosphorus removal component of each WRRF. In addition, several research elements were examined at full scale to help establish the effectiveness and the practical differences in performance. These items include impacts of chemical dosing location and waste chemical solids on phosphorus removal operation; impacts of primary sludge, return activated sludge (RAS) and mixed liquor suspended solids (MLSS) fermentation on enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR); and impacts of EBPR on anaerobically digested biosolids dewaterability.

This title belongs to WERF Research Report Series

ISBN: 9781780406923 (eBook)


Abstract This article examines whether there are differences between older and younger adults in recall and liking of arousing television commercials. As hypothesized, the experiment demonstrated that older adults remembered brands and products in calm commercials better than in arousing commercials, and they also liked calm commercials more. In contrast, younger adults remembered brands and products in arousing commercials better and they liked these commercials more. In addition, (curvi)linear relationships showed that for older adults arousal deteriorates their recall and liking, whereas for younger adults arousal – up to a certain point – is beneficial. These findings strongly suggest that advertising effects found in younger samples are unlikely to be the same for older target groups. An important practical implication is that it currently seems wise to make commercials targeted towards older adults calm instead of arousing when the aim is to generate brand recall and liking.


Motivated by the need for designing efficient and robust fully-distributed computation in highly dynamic networks such as Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks, we study distributed protocols for constructing and maintaining dynamic network topologies with good expansion properties. Our goal is to maintain a sparse (bounded degree) expander topology despite heavy churn (i.e., Nodes joining and leaving the network continuously over time). We assume that the churn is controlled by an adversary that has complete knowledge and control of what nodes join and leave and at what time and has unlimited computational power, but is oblivious to the random choices made by the algorithm. Our main contribution is a randomized distributed protocol that guarantees with high probability the maintenance of a constant degree graph with high expansion even under continuous high adversarial churn. Our protocol can tolerate a churn rate of up to O(n/polylog(n)) per round (where n is the stable network size). Our protocol is efficient, lightweight, and scalable, and it incurs only O(polylog(n)) overhead for topology maintenance: only polylogarithmic(in n) bits needs to be processed and sent by each node per round and any node's computation cost per round is also polylogarithmic. The given protocol is a fundamental ingredient that is needed for the design of efficient fully-distributed algorithms for solving fundamental distributed computing problems such as agreement, leader election, search, and storage in highly dynamic P2P networks and enables fast and scalable algorithms for these problems that can tolerate a large amount of churn.


Coccolithophore microalgae, such as Emiliania huxleyi (EHUX) and Chrysotila pseudoroscoffensis (CP), are composed of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) and contain bioactive compounds that can be explored to produce sustainable food packaging. In this study, for the first time, these microalgae were incorporated as fillers in starch-based films, envisioning the development of biodegradable and bioactive materials for food packaging applications. The films were obtained by solvent casting using different proportions of the filler (2.5, 5, 10, and 20%, w/w). For comparison, commercial CaCO3, used as filler in the plastic industry, was also tested. The incorporation of CaCO3 and microalgae (EHUX or CP) made the films significantly less rigid, decreasing Young's modulus up to 4.7-fold. Moreover, the incorporation of microalgae hydrophobic compounds as lipids turned the surface hydrophobic (water contact angles > 90°). Contrary to what was observed with commercial CaCO3, the films prepared with microalgae exhibited antioxidant activity, increasing from 0.9% (control) up to 60.4% (EHUX 20%) of ABTS radical inhibition. Overall, the introduction of microalgae biomass improved hydrophobicity and antioxidant capacity of starch-based films. These findings should be considered for further research using coccolithophores to produce active and sustainable food packaging material.


Barrier Properties of Polymer Nanocomposites during Cyclic Sorption and Stress Coupled Sorption Experiments Suneetha Burla It is well known that layered silicate nanoparticles, when distributed within the matrix of a polymer, can retard the diffusion of small molecules and improve barrier properties. This has been demonstrated in both sorption and permeation experiments in the past. In order to assess the long-term retention of barrier properties of polymerlayered silicate nanocomposites, it becomes important to study their response to various environmental effects. The main theme of this investigation is to study the effect of several water exposure cycles and exposure coupled with external tensile stress on the barrier properties of various polymers like vinyl ester, polyester and epoxy and their polymer-based nanocomposites. As expected, Montmorillonite clay decreased the diffusivity of moisture in the above polymers and retained its effect during the repeated cycles of sorption and desorption. However, in the presence of clay (5 wt%), diffusivities measured during absorption under external stress were larger than those without stress. SEM analysis on the 5 wt% clay loaded vinyl ester samples subjected to stress-coupled sorption revealed the presence of micro cracks which caused increase in diffusivities.


The effect of genotype on the productivity of in vitro microspore culture of wheat (Triticum aestivum) was studied. Wheat cultivars and hybrids bred in Kazakhstan and used in the programs on breeding new high-productivity and disease-resistant cultivars and forms of plants were tested. The genotypes that are responsive to androgenesis have been found among the cultivars tested: cultivars Kazakhstanskaya 4, Kazakhstanskaya 5, and hybrids obtained from crosses with the participation of these cultivars (K-6, B-5, and B-10). Such genotypes are recommended to be used as model objects in the studies on androgenesis and plant biotechnology. Based on the use of haploid technology, wheat dihaploid lines were created that are currently tested by breeders.


This work discusses the evaluation of
baseline algorithms for Web search results
clustering. An analysis is performed
over frequently used baseline algorithms
and standard datasets. Our work shows
that competitive results can be obtained by
either fine tuning or performing cascade
clustering over well-known algorithms. In
particular, the latter strategy can lead to
a scalable and real-world solution, which
evidences comparative results to recent
text-based state-of-the-art algorithms.


1. Early survival is a key life-history trait that often accounts for a large part of the variation in individual fitness and shapes population dynamics. The factors influencing early survival are multiple in large herbivores, including malnutrition, predation, cohort variation or maternal effects. However, the mechanistic pathways connecting these drivers to variation in early survival are much less studied. Indeed, whether these factors influence early survival directly or indirectly through early growth remains to be disentangled. 2. In this study, we used a path analysis to separate the direct and indirect (i.e. mediated by early growth) pathways through which sex, birth date, cohort and family effects influence early survival. We used a large data set of marked roe deer newborns collected from 1985 to 2010 in the intensively monitored population of Trois Fontaines (France). 3. We found that most drivers have indirect influences on early survival through early growth. Indeed, cohort effects influenced early survival through the indirect effect of precipitation around birth on early growth. Precipitation also had direct effects on early survival. Family effects indirectly influenced early survival. Twins from the same litter grew at about the same rate, so they had the same fate. Moreover, some factors, such as birth date, had both direct and indirect effects on roe deer early survival, with fawns born early in the season benefiting from high early survival both because they have more time to grow before the harsh season and because they grow faster during their first days of life than late-born fawns. 4. These findings suggest that most drivers of early survival previously identified in large mammalian herbivores may affect early survival primarily through their influence on early growth. Disentangling the direct and indirect pathways by which different factors influence early survival is of crucial importance to understand the mechanisms shaping this key component of individual fitness.


Abstract This study presents evidence on the characteristics of firms judged by the Financial Reporting Review Panel (FRRP) as having published defective financial statements. Relative to a pairwise-matched control sample, FRRP firms are associated with weak performance in the defect year. In contrast, their performance in the post-defect period is indistinguishable from that of the control sample, suggesting that rather than being perennial underachieves, FRRP firms are average performers suffering temporary performance difficulties. FRRP firms are also less likely to have a Big Five auditor. Weaker evidence is also presented that FRRP firms are less likely to have an audit committee and a high proportion of outside directors. In contrast, their remaining governance characteristics are largely indistinguishable from those of the control sample. Moreover, there is no evidence that public censure by the FRRP leads to a higher incidence of executive turnover in subsequent years.


Temporal Difference Learning with function approximation is known to be unstable. Previous work like \citet{sutton2009fast} and \citet{sutton2009convergent} has presented alternative objectives that are stable to minimize. However, in practice, TD-learning with neural networks requires various tricks like using a target network that updates slowly \citep{mnih2015human}. In this work we propose a constraint on the TD update that minimizes change to the target values. This constraint can be applied to the gradients of any TD objective, and can be easily applied to nonlinear function approximation. We validate this update by applying our technique to deep Q-learning, and training without a target network. We also show that adding this constraint on Baird's counterexample keeps Q-learning from diverging.


Decoding visual stimuli from brain recordings aims to deepen our understanding of the human visual system and build a solid foundation for bridging human and computer vision through the Brain-Computer Interface. However, reconstructing high-quality images with correct semantics from brain recordings is a challenging problem due to the complex underlying representations of brain signals and the scarcity of data annotations. In this work, we present MinD-Vis: Sparse Masked Brain Modeling with Double-Conditioned Latent Diffusion Model for Human Vision Decoding. Firstly, we learn an effective self-supervised representation of fMRI data using mask modeling in a large latent space inspired by the sparse coding of information in the primary visual cortex. Then by augmenting a latent diffusion model with double-conditioning, we show that MinD-Vis can reconstruct highly plausible images with semantically matching details from brain recordings using very few paired annotations. We benchmarked our model qualitatively and quantitatively; the experimental results indicate that our method outperformed state-of-the-art in both semantic mapping (100-way semantic classification) and generation quality (FID) by 66% and 41% respectively. An exhaustive ablation study was also conducted to analyze our framework.


Post traumatic cerebral edema is a multiplex process. Mainly two types of cerebral edema occurred after traumatic brain injury-vasogenic edema and cytotoxic edema. Cytotoxic cerebral edema is due to accumulation of water in the intercellular space. Mitochondria mainly cause cytotoxic edema due to the involvement of oxidative metabolism. Various molecules are involved in the formation of cytotoxic edema- like aquaporin, Sulfonylurea-receptor 1 – transient receptor potential member 4 (Sur1-Trpm4), Glutamate, Na+-K+-2Cl− cotransporter, Arginine vasopressin, Histamine, and Erythropoietin .Vasogenic edema develops due to disruption of blood-brain barrier or altered permeability of blood-brain barrier so correlate with the level of impact and or activation of molecular pathways related with neuroinflammation. Molecules involved in neuroinflammation are tumor necrosis factor (TNF), interleukins (IL) 6 and I beta, Substance P and Bradykinin. Management is mainly dived into two part- medical and surgical. Medical management includes management of increased intracranial pressure and later blocking of the pathways involved in the formation and progression of cerebral edema. In refractory cases, surgical decompression plays a role in controlling the intracranial pressure due to cerebral edema.


Most research practice constructs in social sciences are predominantly well defined and constructed, yet many authors hold different interpretations of certain key terms and concepts, causing a degree of confusion, overlap and uncertainty. The term 'qualitative research' is such a case in point. Not only does this concept show different interpretations by many authors, but there is also uncertainty about how this concept relates to exploratory research or other contemporary social research practice concepts. It is also unclear whether a longitudinal research approach can be applied to qualitative research or related concepts. In order to provide a clear perspective on the above-mentioned dilemma, the authors recommend the application of the so-called social sciences research methodology framework , which follows Saunders' (2009) research 'onion' approach. This proposed framework provides an uncluttered and unambiguous guide to social sciences research methodology with relevant social sciences methodologies and constructs clearly positioned in a structured and simplistic way. The research employed was fundamental in nature. Inductive rational philosophical reasoning was used, and a theoretical analysis was applied through a systematic literature review of published text. In the end, the framework provides a unified understanding of most social sciences research constructs and at the same time acts as an aiding tool in the evaluation of all academic work, thereby enabling various examiners to provide clear and unambiguous guidance to contributors and students alike.


Objective To describe specific causes of death and evaluate whether bleeding events and infection contributed to mortality in all ticagrelor-treated and clopidogrel-treated patients with acute coronary syndromes. Methods In the PLATelet inhibition and patient Outcomes (PLATO) trial, ticagrelor significantly reduced rates of vascular and total death compared with clopidogrel. In the 905 patients who died postenrolment in the PLATO trial (n=18 624), reviewers, blinded to study treatment, subclassified direct causes of death and evaluated whether infection or bleeding events contributed to fatal events. Results Among vascular deaths, there were significantly fewer sudden deaths (63 (0.7%) vs 98 (1.1%), p<0.01) but no significant difference in deaths caused by acute myocardial infarction (179 (1.9%) vs 194 (2.1%), p=0.43) or heart failure (31 (0.3%) vs 42 (0.5%), p=0.20) with ticagrelor compared with clopidogrel. For non-vascular deaths, there was no difference between treatments in deaths directly caused by infection. Although, patients treated with ticagrelor were at lower risk for death where infection was either a direct cause or contributed to death (51 (0.5%) vs 76 (0.8%), HR 0.67 (0.47 to 0.95), p<0.05) but not for bleeding (42 (0.5%) vs 42 (0.5%), HR 0.99 (0.65 to 1.53), p=0.98). Conclusions In this post hoc analysis, ticagrelor compared with clopidogrel reduced total and cardiovascular mortality, which appeared to be mainly mediated by a reduction in sudden death. Importantly, bleeding causing or contributing to death did not differ between treatments. Clinical trial registration number NCT00391872 (http://www.clinicaltrial.gov).


Since the equipment transmission parts of combination electric appliance in transformer substation are located in the shell, when an internal fault appears, the traditional charged test method only can preliminarily determine the defective position and types, but cannot directly shows the internal defects of the equipment. The Fuxin Company actively introduced X-ray CR imaging test technology and applied it to imaging test of switch equipment, achieved the visual inspection of equipment internal condition without disassembly of equipment and influence on the normal operation condition, and more accurately judged the defect nature, position and size. Practice results show that as a new method of switch devices testing, the X-ray imaging test can successfully achieve the visual and mobile NDT.


Macro algae are important for the ecosystem as they provide food and shelter for many organisms. Trace metal or Rare Earth Elements (REE) content of macro algae are very little understood and there is a great need for further understanding since macro algae may be used as important bio indicators. This thesis, by using High Resolution Inductive Coupled Plasma Spectrometer (HR-ICP-MS), investigates the trace metal and REE concentration and composition in the youngest tissue of various species within three algae classes (Phaeo-, Chloro- and Rhodophytes) in two seasons with the main focus on Phaeophytes (brown algae). It also investigates the element concentration in the kelp Saccharina latissima with respect to age of the algal tissue. Algal samples from February and May 2013 in Braennebukta, Trondheim, Norway were found in a clear zonation depth order. A Clean-Lab (Class 1000) and plastic equipment were used to avoid contamination from e.g. metals. A significant difference in element concentration and composition was found between the Phaeophyte species along with a significant seasonal difference. A zonation depth trend in algal tissue element concentration was also found for the Phaeophytes where the algal species located in both extreme ends (shallowest and deepest growing) obtained a lower element concentration than the algae located in the middle of the zonation depth. This trend seems to result from the different contact with the metal rich Sea Surface Microlayer (SML). Due to its high concentrations of sugars, Ascophyllum nodosum deviated from this zonation depth trend for some elements with a lower element concentration than its neighboring species. There was a significant difference between the different parts of S. latissima (four tissue of different age) where most measured elements showed an exponential increase with respect to tissue age due to accumulation over time whereas the cadmium concentration, as the only exception, showed an exponential decrease with respect to tissue age possibly due to the need of cadmium for high photosynthetic rate. A great difference in element concentration and composition was found between the Phaeo-, Chloro- and Rhodophytes. The Chlorophytes had 5-27 times higher concentration of REE and lead (Pb) than the two other algal classes. Results indicate that the Rhodo- and Chlorophytes are better accumulators than the Phaeophytes for several trace metals and REE.


We propose a new test to measure a text model's multitask accuracy. The test covers 57 tasks including elementary mathematics, US history, computer science, law, and more. To attain high accuracy on this test, models must possess extensive world knowledge and problem solving ability. We find that while most recent models have near random-chance accuracy, the very largest GPT-3 model improves over random chance by almost 20 percentage points on average. However, on every one of the 57 tasks, the best models still need substantial improvements before they can reach expert-level accuracy. Models also have lopsided performance and frequently do not know when they are wrong. Worse, they still have near-random accuracy on some socially important subjects such as morality and law. By comprehensively evaluating the breadth and depth of a model's academic and professional understanding, our test can be used to analyze models across many tasks and to identify important shortcomings.


ABSTRACT Definitions can generate actionable consensus for a given subject matter by resolving important differences in philosophy and best practices and by streamlining activities for a stronger strategic direction. Interest in the global dimensions of oral health, a generally neglected area of global health, is growing; yet, no previously published research has defined the term 'global oral health.' As such, the Global Oral Health Interest Group of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health determined a need for an introductory definition of 'global oral health' to guide program planning, implementation, and evaluation. With the oversight of an expert senior Task Force for the Definition of Global Oral Health, we employed a mixed-methods approach using the more common expert consensus-building Delphi technique combined with the lesser utilized Q methodology. This approach allowed us to identify the interconnectedness of global oral health themes and integrate multiple, seemingly disparate, topics into a single streamlined concept. Our resulting definition is as follows: Global Oral Health aims for optimal oral health for all people and elimination of global health inequities through health promotion, disease prevention, and appropriate oral care approaches that consider common determinants and solutions and acknowledge oral health as part of overall health. The purpose of this short communication is to generate a narrative around our proposed definition of global oral health to support establishing guidelines and developing best practices for academic global oral health programs, policies, and practices that aim to achieve a goal of oral health globally.


Problem of finding the closest stable matrix for a dynamical system has many applications. It is well studied both for continuous and discrete-time systems, and the corresponding optimization problems are formulated for various matrix norms. As a rule, non-convexity of these formulations does not allow finding their global solutions. In this paper, we analyse positive discrete-time systems. They also suffer from non-convexity of the stability region, and the problem in the Frobenius norm or in Euclidean norm remains hard for them. However, it turns out that for certain polyhedral norms, the situation is much better. We show, that for the distances measured in the max-norm, we can find exact solution of the corresponding nonconvex projection problems in polynomial time. For the distance measured in the operator l∞-norm or l1-norm, the exact solution is also efficiently found. To this end, we develop a modification of the recently introduced spectral simplex method. On the other hand, for all these three norms, we obtain exact descriptions of the region of stability around a given stable matrix. In the case of max-norm, this can be seen as an analogue of Kharitonov's theorem for non-negative matrices.


The authors attempt to clarify neural network (NN) controller characteristics by comparison with the adaptive control theory. The authors clarify the classification of the NN controller architecture and the dynamic NN structure. Comparison between the NN controller and the adaptive controller clarifies that the framework of a linear two-layer NN-type controller is the same as that of adaptive control and the nonlinear three-layer NN (PDP type) is a nonlinear extension of the adaptive control. The stability characteristics of the NN control system are discussed. NN controller experiments are demonstrated using a force control servomechanism. Experimental results suggest that the nonlinear sigmoid function of the NN can compensate for the nonlinear plant effect. >


Objective:
To determine the smoking patterns of citizens of Karachi and its consequences on the health of smokers.

Method:
The study was carried out on 1700 subjects residing in different localities of Karachi. A specifically designed questionnaire was filled individually.

Results:
Out of 1700 subjects, 740 (43.53%) were found indulged in cigarette smoking. Anxiety was the assigned cause for smoking by 64% and 70% had cough, many with sputum. A total of 86% admitted smoking in public places.

Conclusion:
The study suggested that many smokers indulge in this habit as a result of anxiety and many suffer its injurious consequences. These data should prompt meaningful efforts to discourage this detrimental habit. (Rawal Medical Journal 2003;28:48-51).


Although development of humanitarian action is rooted historical events, the dynamics behind today's international relief organizations can only be understood within the context of the modern world. Relief organizations are currently confronted with major challenges and paradoxes. The challenges include the need to enhance professionalization and standardization of assistance operations and exposure to greater risks. The paradoxes involve the need to implement complex, highly publicized programs in a simplistic manner and problems involved in managing the complex relationship between relief workers and victims, tainted with the almighty powers of the actors.


ABSTRACT Ethiopia's 60 million chickens are reared primarily in free range, smallholder systems. Therefore, upgrading smallholder poultry to small-scale commercial systems is central to rural development. With the aim of providing access to improved chicken by rural farmers in Ethiopia, the live body weight at week 17 and number of eggs per bird per week for one locally improved and three tropically adapted dual-purpose chicken strains was tested through a project called the African Chicken Genetic Gains. Both traits were analyzed by fitting a linear mixed model with week and pen as random effects, and station and breed as fixed effects. The result showed that both breed and station effects were significant for both traits. The introduced breeds performed better than the local improved breed for both traits. Thus, the introduction of system-appropriate high-yielding tropically adapted breeds has the potential to increase the productivity of chicken.


Real-time detection and processing of both normal and abnormal event patterns in cyber-physical systems are imperative for advancing early warning and response capabilities. We integrate fundamental principles from logic-based program synthesis and multiagent systems to lay out the foundations of novel complex event processing (CEP) techniques and tools for intelligent reliable management of power systems. We investigate the formal underpinnings of a novel distributed, complex event-triggered, knowledge-based control system for situation-aware, provably-correct, declarative control of the logic of large power systems.


This paper presents a review of creep cavitation and rupture of low Cr alloy and its weldment, particular in the heat-affected zone (HAZ). Creep damage is one of the serious problems for the high temperature industry. One of the computational approaches is continuum damage mechanics which has been developed and applied complementary to the experimental approach and assists in the safe operation. However, the existing creep damage constitutive equations are not developed specifically for low stress. Therefore, in order to form the physical bases for the development of creep damage constitutive equation, it is necessary to critically review the creep cavitation and rupture characteristics of low Cr alloy and its weldment.


Homo sapiens (H. sapiens) exhibits growth characteristics not observed in other mammals, including other primates. Both male and female H. sapiens experience pubertal growth spurts and are not sexually dimorphic in adult stature. These unique growth characteristics must have evolved to benefit the reproductive success and survival of the species. The H. sapiens childhood is relatively protracted, and the pubertal growth spurt may be a compensatory measure to attain adult size in a relatively short time. Because reproductive patterns of H. sapiens have evolved away from a male-dominated social structure, large male size no longer confers a reproductive advantage. The relatively large female size of H. sapiens might have evolved to support the birth of offspring with ever-increasing cranial characteristics. Growth in H. sapiens depends largely on GH-dependent STAT5b regulation of IGF-I expression. STAT5b in other mammals contributes to growth in males only. Although speculative, the loss of sexual dimorphism in H. sapiens may reflect a progressive dependence on STAT5b to control growth.


Prospective studies of infants at risk for autism spectrum disorder have provided important clues about the early behavioural symptoms of autism spectrum disorder. Diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder, however, is not currently made until at least 18 months of age. There is substantially less research on potential brain-based differences in the period between 6 and 12 months of age. Our objective in the current study was to use magnetic resonance imaging to identify any consistently observable brain anomalies in 6-9 month old infants who would later develop autism spectrum disorder. We conducted a prospective infant sibling study with longitudinal magnetic resonance imaging scans at three time points (6-9, 12-15, and 18-24 months of age), in conjunction with intensive behavioural assessments. Fifty-five infants (33 'high-risk' infants having an older sibling with autism spectrum disorder and 22 'low-risk' infants having no relatives with autism spectrum disorder) were imaged at 6-9 months; 43 of these (27 high-risk and 16 low-risk) were imaged at 12-15 months; and 42 (26 high-risk and 16 low-risk) were imaged again at 18-24 months. Infants were classified as meeting criteria for autism spectrum disorder, other developmental delays, or typical development at 24 months or later (mean age at outcome: 32.5 months). Compared with the other two groups, infants who developed autism spectrum disorder (n = 10) had significantly greater extra-axial fluid at 6-9 months, which persisted and remained elevated at 12-15 and 18-24 months. Extra-axial fluid is characterized by excessive cerebrospinal fluid in the subarachnoid space, particularly over the frontal lobes. The amount of extra-axial fluid detected as early as 6 months was predictive of more severe autism spectrum disorder symptoms at the time of outcome. Infants who developed autism spectrum disorder also had significantly larger total cerebral volumes at both 12-15 and 18-24 months of age. This is the first magnetic resonance imaging study to prospectively evaluate brain growth trajectories from infancy in children who develop autism spectrum disorder. The presence of excessive extra-axial fluid detected as early as 6 months and the lack of resolution by 24 months is a hitherto unreported brain anomaly in infants who later develop autism spectrum disorder. This is also the first magnetic resonance imaging evidence of brain enlargement in autism before age 2. These findings raise the potential for the use of structural magnetic resonance imaging to aid in the early detection of children at risk for autism spectrum disorder or other neurodevelopmental disorders.


Bruxism is known as the rhythmical clenching of the lower jaw (mandibular) by the contraction of the masticatory muscles and parafunctional grinding of the teeth. It affects patients' quality of life adversely due to tooth wear, pain, and fatigue in the jaw muscles. Recently, effective diagnosis methods that use electromyography, electrocardiography, and electroencephalography have been developed for bruxism. However, these methods are not economical since they require specialization and can be performed in clinical conditions. Although using surface electromyography signals alone is an economical solution, it is difficult to identify fatigue and parafunctional movements of the jaw muscles via electromyography signals due to peripheral effects. In this study, to achieve an accurate diagnosis of bruxism economically with only electromyography measurements, a new approach based on Autoregression and Shannon Entropies of Discrete Wavelet Transform Energy Spectra to identify jaw muscle activities and fatigue conditions is proposed. By using Artificial Neural Networks in the proposed model, bruxism activities can be detected most accurately.


One of the major issues in formalizing the dynamics of chemical reactions is that the graph representa tion of such reactions is not immediate. This is due to the case that chemical equations involve more than one reac tants and products can also be more than one. Over the last d ecade, an increased attention to reaction dynamics, combined with the intensive application of computers, mathem atical modeling of chemical processes, has brought graph theory to the forefront of research. It offers an a dvanced and powerful formalism for the description of chemical reactions and their intrinsic reaction mechanisms. This paper proposes an elegant method of represent ing a chemical equation as directed graph.


The Obnoxious p-Median problem consists in selecting a subset of p facilities from a given set of possible locations, in such a way that the sum of the distances between each customer and its nearest facility is maximized. The problem is NP-hard and can be formulated as an integer linear program. It was introduced in the 1990s, and a branch and cut method coupled with a tabu search has been recently proposed. In this paper, we propose a heuristic method – based on the GRASP methodology – for finding approximate solutions to this optimization problem. In particular, we consider an advanced GRASP design in which a filtering mechanism avoids applying the local search method to low quality constructed solutions. Empirical results indicate that the proposed implementation compares favorably to previous methods. This fact is confirmed with non-parametric statistical tests.


OBJECTIVES
To assess the antimalarial pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics of the novel dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) inhibitor, JPC2056 and its principal active metabolite JPC2067 in cynomolgus monkeys using an in vivo-in vitro model.

METHODS
In a two-phase crossover design, five cynomolgus monkeys were administered a single dose (20 mg/kg) and multiple doses (20 mg/kg daily for 3 days) of JPC2056. Plasma samples collected from treated monkeys were assessed for in vitro antimalarial activity against Plasmodium falciparum lines having wild-type (D6), double-mutant (K1) and quadruple-mutant (TM90-C2A) DHFR-thymidylate synthase (TS) and a P. falciparum line transformed with a Plasmodium vivax dhfr-ts quadruple-mutant allele (D6-PvDHFR). Plasma JPC2056 and JPC2067 concentrations were measured by LC-mass spectrometry.

RESULTS
The mean inhibitory dilution (ID(90)) of monkey plasma at 3 h after drug administration against D6, K1 and TM90-C2A was, respectively, 1253, 585 and 869 after the single-dose regimen and 1613, 1120 and 1396 following the multiple-dose regimen. Less activity was observed with the same monkey plasma samples against the D6-PvDHFR line, with a mean ID(90) of 53 after multiple dosing. Geometric mean plasma concentrations of JPC2056 and JPC2067 at 3 h after drug administration were, respectively, 113 and 12 ng/mL after the single dose and 150 and 17 ng/mL after multiple dosing. The mean elimination half-life of JPC2056 was shorter than its metabolite after both regimens (single dose, 7.3 versus 11.8 h; multiple doses, 6.6 versus 11.1 h).

CONCLUSIONS
The high potency of JPC2056 against P. falciparum DHFR-TS quadruple-mutant lines provides optimism for the future development of JPC2056 for the treatment of malaria infections.


Background HIV-infected controllers control viral replication and maintain normal CD4+ T cell counts. Long Term Non-Progressors (LTNP) also maintain normal CD4+ T cell counts, but have on-going viral replication. We hypothesized that different immunological mechanisms are responsible for preserved CD4+ T cell counts in controllers and LTNP. Methods 25 HIV-infected controllers and 14 LTNP were included in this cross-sectional study. For comparison, 25 progressors and 34 healthy controls were included. Production and destruction of T cells were addressed by determination of T cell receptor excision circles (TREC), recent thymic emigrants, naïve cells, immune activation, senescence and apoptosis. Furthermore, telomere length was determined, and the amount of lymphoid tissue in tonsil biopsies was quantified. Results Controllers presented with partly preserved thymic output, preserved expression of the IL-7 receptor and IL-7 receptor density, and lower levels of destruction of cells than progressors resembling HIV-negative healthy controls. In contrast, LTNP appeared much like progressors, and different from controllers in immune activation, senescence, and apoptosis. Interestingly, CD8+ RTE, TREC and telomere length were partly preserved. Finally, both controllers and LTNP displayed decreased amounts of lymphoid tissue compared to healthy controls. Conclusions Controllers presented with an immunological profile different from LTNP. While controllers resembled healthy controls, LTNP were similar to progressors, suggesting different immunological mechanisms to be responsible for preserved CD4+ T cell counts in LTNP and controllers. However, both controllers and LTNP presented with reduced amounts of lymphoid tissue despite preserved CD4+ T cell counts, indicating HIV to cause damage even in non-progressors.


PURPOSE
We aimed to evaluate BIRADS-3 breast lesions with dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) and compare with histopathology, and to investigate the effectiveness of breast MRI for follow-up and management.

METHODS
A total of 84 BIRADS-3 lesions reported by US or mammography and evaluated by DCE-MRI between September 2014 and October 2015 were included in this study. All patients underwent percutaneous or surgical biopsy for histopathologic diagnosis. Morphologic and kinematic features on MRI were compared with histopathologic results.

RESULTS
Of the 84 BIRADS-3 breast lesions, 9 (10.7%) had malignant features on DCE-MRI and all were verified with histopathologic results. DCE-MRI had 96.7% sensitivity, 72% specificity, 92% positive predictive value, and 82.5% negative predictive value. MRI and histopathology results were correlated for the diagnosis of malignant lesions. The sensitivity and negative predictive value of MRI for diagnosis of malignant lesions were both 100%.

CONCLUSION
Differentiation of benign versus malignant lesions was accomplished with 100% accuracy with DCE-MRI. We suggest that DCE-MRI should be an additional diagnostic tool and problem-solving modality for BIRADS-3 lesions, particularly in patients with relative risk factors.


Usually, methods for detection of differential item functioning (DIF) compare the functioning of items across manifest groups. However, the manifest groups with respect to which the items function differentially may not necessarily coincide with the true source of the bias. It is expected that DIF detection under a model that includes a latent DIF variable is more sensitive to this source of bias. In a simulation study, it is shown that a mixture item response theory model, which includes a latent grouping variable, performs better in identifying DIF items than DIF detection methods using manifest variables only. The difference between manifest and latent DIF detection increases as the correlation between the manifest variable and the true source of the DIF becomes smaller. Different sample sizes, relative group sizes, and significance levels are studied. Finally, an empirical example demonstrates the detection of heterogeneity in a minority sample using a latent grouping variable. Manifest and latent DIF detection methods are applied to a Vocabulary test of the General Aptitude Test Battery (GATB).


There are many cases of cancer which are curable if properly treated early in their course. The responsibility for the eradication of malignant disease rests largely with the general practitioner and the public itself. Yet an attitude of helplessness and hopelessness on the part of both the laity and the profession when confronted with cancer is not unusual. Doctors of medicine tend to forget that following surgical or other special therapeutic procedures, whether their effect is curative or not, patients with cancer should receive such wise medical advice as may increase their happiness, comfort, and health, even if it be for only a brief period of time. The medical aspects of the cancer patient deserve more attention than they usually receive. Individuals with conditions that predispose to malignant disease and patients with cancer in its early stages seek more often the advice of a general practitioner or internist than that of an individual practising only some special phase of medicine. There is, perhaps, a tendency for the group of physicians most likely to see such early cases to neglect consideration of what can be done toward the prevention of cancer and the establishment of early diagnosis, the first requisites of curability.


Background: A limited amount of data exists regarding the effect of lipoic acid (LA), an oral antioxidant supplement, on cytokine profiles among multiple sclerosis (MS) patients. Objective: We aimed to assess the effect of daily consumption of LA on the cytokine profiles in MS patients. Methods: In this double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trial, 52 relapsing-remitting MS patients with an age range of 18-50 years were recruited into 2 groups: LA consumption (1,200 mg/day) or placebo. Patients followed their prescribed supplements for 12 weeks. Fasting blood samples for cytokine profile measurement were collected at baseline and after the intervention. Anthropometric parameters were measured based on the standard guidelines. Results: INF-γ, ICAM-1, TGF-β and IL-4 were significantly reduced in the LA group compared to the placebo group [(INF-γ: 0.82 ± 0.2 vs. 0.2 ± 0.2 pg/ml, p < 0.0001), (ICAM-1: 20.2 ± 9.4 vs. 8 ± 10 ng/ml, p = 0.0001), (TGF-β: 103.1 ± 20.2 vs. 54.9 ± 26 ng/ml, p < 0.0001) and (IL-4: 0.1 ± 0.1 vs. 1.02 ± 1.7 ng/ml, p = 0.0112)]. No significant changes in TNF-α, IL-6, EDSS and MMP-9 were found between the LA and placebo groups (p = 0.6, p = 0.8, p = 0.09 and p = 0.8, respectively). Conclusion: The results suggested that consumption of 1,200 mg LA per day beneficially affects several inflammatory cytokines including INF-γ, ICAM-1 TGF-β and IL-4. Further investigations are needed to verify the beneficial role of LA on other cytokine profiles among MS patients.


Organizational design and instantiation is the process that accepts a set of organizational goals, performance requirements, agents, and resources and assigns responsibilities and roles to each agent. We present a prescriptive organizational design and instantiation process for multi-agent systems. An important aspect of our approach is the separation of application-specific organizational issues from more generic organizational coordination mechanisms. We describe our model of organizational design and our search process. We also present example organizations generated by our automated system for the distributed sensor network domain under different environmental characteristics and performance requirements.


This executive summary describes the methodology for assessing the favourable conservation status of N2000 habitats and species on site level in Bulgaria and gives guidelines for its application. The methodology was developed in the frame of the BBI/Matra project 2006/014 "Favourable Conservation Status of Natura 2000 Habitat types and Species in Bulgaria". The project was generously supported by the Dutch government under the BBI/Matra programme, which is a combination of two international policy programs of the Dutch government. The objectives and financial resources of the BBI/Matra Programme fall within the remit of the Matra Social Transformation Program of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and under the International Policy Program on Biodiversity of the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality.


Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) are rapidly emerging as the premier integration and architectural approach in contemporary, complex, heterogeneous computing environments. SOA is not simply about deploying software: it also requires that organisations evaluate their business models, come up with service-oriented analysis and design techniques, deployment and support plans, and carefully evaluate partner/customer/supplier relationships. Since SOA is based on open standards and is frequently realised using Web Services (WS), developing meaningful WS and business process specifications is an important requirement for SOA applications that leverage WS. Designers and developers cannot be expected to oversee a complex service-oriented development project without relying on a sound design and development methodology. This paper provides an overview of the methods and techniques used in service-oriented design and development. The aim of this paper is to examine a service development methodology from the point of view of both service producers and requesters and review the range of elements in this methodology that are available to them.


The influence of aging treatment on microstructure, mechanical and electrical properties of 7A52 alloy was investigated by mechanical property test, electrical conductivity measurement, XRD and TEM analysis. The results showed that the alloy was a typical aging hardening alloy. During aging supersaturated solution decomposed, G.P. zones and η'(MgZn2) precipitated. The precipitates of the alloy aging at 100°C were mainly G.P. zones with the size of about 5nm. During aging at 120°C, η' precipitates nucleated from the G.P. zones. With increasing aging temperature and time, the size and amount of η' increased. As aged at 120°C for 24h the tensile strength, yield strength, elongation and electrical conductivity of the alloy were 496 MPa, 445 MPa, 9.5% and 26 %IACS, respectively. The G.P. zones and η' dispersion strengthening are the major strengthening mechanisms for the studied alloy at the single-stage peak aging.


Spectacle blur decreases stereoacuity more than ordinary visual acuity, and this cannot be accounted for by contrast reduction or by accommodation and/or convergence instability. Stereoscopic acuity was measured over a range of defocus exceeding 2 D in normal subjects with a 3-mm artificial pupil. Blur of one eye leads to a decrement in stereoacuity that is at least as high and usually higher than blur of both eyes; blurring only the disparate element of the pattern while keeping the rest clear is nearly as detrimental as blurring the whole pattern. In a separate experiment, the individual line elements of the pattern were subjected to spatial frequency filtering in the horizontal direction. For best stereoacuity values, representation of the whole spatial frequency spectrum is required. Patterns with diminished high-frequency content (> 10 cycles/deg) show lowered stereoacuity and those utilizing predominantly a spatial frequency band centered on 22 cycles/deg even more so.


Recently, a recursive code construction (RCC) approaching the rate-distortion bound of reversible data hiding (RDH) was proposed. However, to estimate the rate-distortion bound or execute RCC, one should first estimate the optimal transition probability matrix (OTPM). By previous methods, OTPM can be effectively estimated only for some specific distortion metrics, such as square error distortion or L1 -Norm. In this paper, we proposed a unified framework of estimating the OTPM for general distortion metrics, with which we can calculate the rate-distortion bound of RDH for general cases and extend RCC to improve state-of-the-art RDH schemes based on any distortion metrics.


The solid solution between the antiferroelectric, PbZrO3 (PZ), and relaxor ferroelectric, Pb(Ni1/3Nb2/3)O3 (PNN), was synthesized by the columbite method. The phase structure and phase transition of Pb(Zr1-x(Ni1/3Nb2/3)xO3 (PZNN), where x = 0.0 ≤ x ≤ 0.50, were investigated. The samples were kept at the calcination temperature of 900°C for 4 h and at the sintering temperature of 1,150°C for 2 h. Phase formation and phase transition of PZNN were investigated by x-ray diffraction (XRD) and thermal analysis, respectively. It was found that the structure of sintered pellets is orthorhombic for 0.0 ≤ x ≤ 0.10, rhombohedral for 0.20 ≤ x ≤ 0.30 and pseudo-cubic for x = 0.5. DSC measurement shows that in the antiferroelectric (AFE) phase – ferroelectric (FE) phase and FE to paraelectric (PE) phase; phase transformation temperatures decrease with increasing PNN concentration. The AFE–FE phase transformation was detected for compositions 0.00 £ x £ 0.08.


1. Type-specific anaphylactic shock was produced with HCI extracts of Streptococcus hæmolyticus in guinea pigs passively sensitized with antibacterial sera. 2. With occasional sera and certain HCl extracts, type-specific shock was not produced unless the serum was first absorbed with heterologous bacteria or unless the guinea pigs were desensitized with heterologous extracts before testing with the homologous extract. The findings indicated that this was due to the presence of the non-type-specific substance which has been provisionally designated as Y. 3. Tryptic digestion destroyed the ability of HCI extracts containing the type-specific M substance and the non-type-specific Y substance to produce anaphylactic shock in passively sensitized guinea pigs. 4. Active sensitization was not accomplished with the type-specific M. It seems probable, therefore, that this substance is a hapten, reacting with antibodies but not stimulating their production after separation from the bacterial cell.


Cued-recall graphical passwords have a lot of potential for secure user authentication, particularly if combined with saliency masks to prevent users from selecting weak passwords. Saliency masks were shown to significantly improve password security by excluding those areas of the image that are most likely to lead to hotspots. In this paper we investigate the impact of such saliency masks on the memorability of cued-recall graphical passwords. We first conduct two pre-studies (N=52) to obtain a set of images with three different image complexities as well as real passwords. A month-long user study (N=26) revealed that there is a strong learning effect for graphical passwords, in particular if defined on images with a saliency mask. While for complex images, the learning curve is steeper than for less complex ones, they best supported memorability in the long term, most likely because they provided users more alternatives to select memorable password points. These results complement prior work on the security of such passwords and underline the potential of saliency masks as both a secure and usable improvement to cued-recall gaze-based graphical passwords.


A large number of XAI (eXplainable Artificial Intelligence) solutions have been proposed in recent years. Recently, thanks to new XAI evaluation metrics, it has become possible to compare these XAI solutions. However, selecting the most relevant XAI solution among all this diversity is still a tedious task, especially if a user has specific needs and constraints. In this paper, we propose AutoXAI, a framework that recommends the best XAI solution and its hyperparameters according to specified XAI evaluation metrics while considering the user's context (dataset, machine learning model, XAI needs and constraints). It adapts approaches from context-aware recommender systems on one side and strategies of optimization and evaluation from AutoML (Automated Machine Learning) on the other. Through two use cases, we show that AutoXAI recommends XAI solutions adapted to the user's needs with the best hyperparameters matching the user's constraints.


In the last decades, business process models have increasingly been used by companies with different purposes, such as documenting enacted processes or enabling and improving the communication among stakeholders (e.g., designers and implementers). Aside from the differences, all the roles played by process models involve human actors (e.g., business designers, business analysts, re-engineers) and hence demand for readability and ease of use, beyond correctness and reasonable completeness. It often happens, however, that process models are large and intricate, thus resulting potentially difficult to understand and to manage.
In this thesis we propose some techniques aimed at supporting business designers and analysts in the management of business process models. The core of the proposal is the enrichment of process models with semantic annotations from domain ontologies and the formalization of both structural and domain information in a shared knowledge base, thus opening to the possibility of exploiting reasoning for supporting business experts in their work. In detail, this thesis investigates some of the services that can be provided on top of the process semantic annotation, as for example, the automatic verification of process constraints, the automated querying of process models or the semi-automatic mining, documentation and modularization of crosscutting concerns. Moreover, special care is devoted to support designers and analysts when process models are not available or they have to be semantically annotated. Specifically, an approach for recovering process models from (Web) applications and some metrics for evaluating the understandability of the recovered models are investigated. Techniques for suggesting candidate semantic annotations are also proposed. The results obtained by applying the presented techniques have been validated by means of case studies, performance evaluations and empirical investigations.


Students were made to earn at least 90% on eight automatically graded (using MyOpenMath) online homework assignments to either remain enrolled (stay) or get permission to enroll (add) in a blended-instruction introduction to circuit analysis class. While this stay/add policy has caused some controversy, it was the only effective treatment to decrease the DFW rate (percentage of students who earn a D, F, unauthorized withdrawal or authorized withdrawal in one section of a course) in the regular semester offerings of the course. The DFW rate before this treatment was typically around 35% and as high as 53%. The DFW rate dropped to 17% for the same instructor after the gateway assignment policy was implemented. The DFW rate remained lower (19% and 26%) even when new (no prior teaching experience), part time faculty taught the class with the same materials, and stay/add policy. While other treatments that were tried such as making the class activities more realistic, flipped classroom, I-clickers, changing the pre-requisite from D- to C for the pre-requisite physics course, enforcing the differential equation co/pre-requisite, and switching the flow of the course to "impedance first", did not decrease the DFW rate, they did lead to increased student learning.


In recent years, nasal absorption has received a great deal of attention as a convenient and reliable method for the administration of certain drugs. Although this route is currently being used for the systemic administration of drugs, such as Oxytocin and DDAVP, it has only recently been quantitatively studied. This chapter will deal with the importance of the physical and chemical properties of drugs on the rate and extent of their nasal absorption.


Applications of mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) occur in situations, where networks need to be deployed immediately but network infrastructures are not available. If MANET nodes have sensing capabilities, they can capture and communicate state of their surroundings, including environmental conditions or other nodes in proximity. If the sensed state information is propagated and collected in a database, this allows for a variety of promising automatic monitoring, tracking and navigation applications, using global state information to built up models of reality. Since state changes represent events happening in reality, applications are typically interested to see the most recent state. Also the order of state changes should be consistent with the corresponding order of events in reality. In particular, preserving consistency becomes a challenging research problem if there are multiple nodes sensing the same object, either subsequently or even concurrently. In this paper, we introduce a generic model of state propagation in MANETs and propose two consistency levels for this model. For each of these consistency levels, we define a state propagation algorithm based on information diffusion. Our simulations show, that for typical scenarios the additional synchronization overhead for achieving the proposed consistency levels is low. In terms of communication overhead and state propagation latency one of the proposed algorithms shows a similar performance as the underlying flooding mechanism.


Pyrimidine is the six membered heterocyclic aromatic compound similar to
benzene and pyridine containing two nitrogen atoms at 1st and 3rd positions. Pyrimidine is present
throughout nature in various forms and is the building blocks of numerous natural compounds from
antibiotics to vitamins and liposacharides. The most commonly recognized pyrimidines are the bases of
RNA and DNA, the most abundant being cytosine, thymine or uracil.

Pyrimidine is a core structure in a wide variety of compounds that exhibits significant biological
activity and also plays an important role in the drug discovery process. Various synthetic aspects
indicated that pyrimidine derivatives are easy to synthesize and has diverse biological and chemical
applications. The present review article aims to review the work reported on synthesis, anticancer and
antiviral potentials of pyrimidine derivatives during new millennium.

It may be concluded that the fused pyrimidine derivatives enhanced the anticancer potential
against different human cancer cell lines and antiviral potential against different human immunodeficiency
virus (HIV), herpes simplex virus (HSV-1) etc, which created interest among the medicinal
chemists in the pyrimidine skeleton in medicinal chemistry. Thus, a tremendous scope for research is
present in this direction for investigating pyrimidine derivatives as lead molecules.


Pastoral care in the University of Cambridge has traditionally been identified with college-based Christian chaplaincies. As the University grows and becomes more diverse and more complex so do the challenges of pastoral care. In the face of these challenges the Chaplaincy to University Staff has been developed. This study is a reflexive exploration of its character; I am the current Chaplain to University Staff.
I adopt virtue ethics as the methodological construct, drawing critically and creatively on the late twentieth century scholarship of Alasdair MacIntyre. Using the cardinal and theological virtues as a curriculum of themes I facilitate an intentional scheme of storytelling among six colleagues from secular disciplines with whom I collaborate in the promotion of staff wellbeing. The communal character of virtue ethics is focussed on this small community of colleagues but the storytelling process, in turn, illuminates the political landscape of the wider University as an institution.
The participants demonstrate a humanistic diversity in their interpretation of the theological virtues, a similar diversity of understanding around their conception of justice and both passion and modesty in their subtly teleological commitment to the work of staff wellbeing. Special features emerge from the data set including Moments of Semantic Breakthrough, Narratives of Established Habitus and Discourses of Solidarity.
The practice of virtue storytelling amongst colleagues with collaborative responsibility for the promotion of staff wellbeing across the University discloses the viability of narrative virtue ethics in this specific context as a way of enabling such people to understand and extend the nature of their work. It further demonstrates the viability of the Chaplain as a supporter and interpreter of virtue. The practice is commended by the participants for further development among wider circles of colleagues as a novel form of reflective practice. I identify a personal interpretative standpoint that stresses the importance of community and interdependence. The model is commended for the practice of chaplaincy in other contexts.


An effective way to reduce the power consumption of a high-speed LSI is to use two supply voltages. Most circuit parts off the critical path can then operate at a supply voltage lower than that of parts in the critical path. Rows of logic-cell blocks for example, can be assigned to circuits for either a high or low supply voltage, and this approach has been used to reduce the power consumption of a 75-MHz 0.3-/spl mu/m bulk CMOS media processor using both 3.3-V and 1.9-V supply voltage. Here we use a fully depleted CMOS/SIMOX device and 2-V/1-V supply voltages to enhance the low-power characteristics of the two-supply-voltage technique with a little area penalty.


ABSTRACT The exploitation of soil ecosystem services by agricultural management strategies requires knowledge of microbial communities in different management regimes. Crop cover by no-till management protects the soil surface, reducing the risk of erosion and nutrient leaching, but might increase straw residue-borne and soilborne plant-pathogenic fungi. A cross-site study of soil microbial communities and Fusarium fungistasis was conducted on six long-term agricultural fields with no-till and moldboard-plowed treatments. Microbial communities were studied at the topsoil surface (0 to 5 cm) and bottom (10 to 20 cm) by general bacterial and actinobacterial terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) and phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) analyses. Fusarium culmorum soil fungistasis describing soil receptivity to plant-pathogenic fungi was explored by using the surface layer method. Soil depth had a significant impact on general bacterial as well as actinobacterial communities and PLFA profiles in no-till treatment, with a clear spatial distinction of communities (P < 0.05), whereas the depth-related separation of microbial communities was not observed in plowed fields. The fungal biomass was higher in no-till surface soil than in plowed soil (P < 0.07). Soil total microbial biomass and fungal biomass correlated with fungistasis (P < 0.02 for the sum of PLFAs; P < 0.001 for PLFA 18:2ω6). Our cross-site study demonstrated that agricultural management strategies can have a major impact on soil microbial community structures, indicating that it is possible to influence the soil processes with management decisions. The interactions between plant-pathogenic fungi and soil microbial communities are multifaceted, and a high level of fungistasis could be linked to the high microbial biomass in soil but not to the specific management strategy.


Countries endowed with natural resources such as Nigeria have been susceptible to economic underdevelopment and conflict. Nigeria is an empirical case for the resource curse-a notion that depicts a negative correlation between resource endowment, development and conflict. This study examines the relationship between natural resources, oil in particular and conflict in Nigeria. The study sought to examine the historical development of conflict over oil in Nigeria and to ascertain the impact of structurally-induced scarcity resulting from the distribution of rents in the country. The research was guided by the hypothesis that lack of accountability and unfair distribution of natural resource wealth amalgamated with political and social grievances normally results in explosive conflicts in resource rich countries. The resource curse, greed and grievance theories provided the framework for analysis. The study used the case study design wherein qualitative tools such as documentary search and in-depth interviews with key informants were employed to gather data. Data was analyzed using content analysis for documentary data and thematic analysis for interview data. Information gathered was presented using emerging themes from the data. The main finding of the research is that, the regime governing the oil industry in Nigeria pushes the producing community to the periphery in decision making. The local people are frustrated because of the perception that oil revenue has not been used to improve their livelihoods. This has led them to resort to violence in seeking the attention of the government. The research concludes that conflict in Nigeria is a result of the governance system in the country which does not allow for the equitable distribution of oil wealth. The implication of this is that there is need for the inclusion of the Delta people into the central government such that their needs can be addressed at the highest level. The research recommends the systematic reform of institutions governing the oil industry in Nigeria such that the government would be made accountable on the use of oil revenue.


Ag deposited Si/C composite was studied as the anode. In order to enhance the electrochemical properties of Si electrodes, which show poor cyclability as an anode in lithium ion secondary battery, the deposition of Ag prepared by electroless deposition method on the surface of the Si/C composite powder produced by high energy ball milling. Si/C composite shows overall fade in capacity which is caused by Si pulverization. However, The Ag deposited Si/C composite improves cyclability and exhibits capacity of ~590mAh/g after 30th cycle. Scanning electron microscopy(SEM) and X-ray diffraction(XRD) measurement are adapted to inspect the deposition process.


Were there women authors in the Middle Ages? The answer depends on which term we consider to be in question, 'women' or 'author'. The burden of proof has long rested on the former, following the assumption that medieval authors were exclusively men. Accordingly, nearly every major work believed to have been written by a medieval woman - including the letters of Heloise, The Book of Margery Kempe , and many works by Christine de Pizan - has at various times been attributed to a male author. More recently, however, the term 'author' itself has come into question, as some scholars have asked whether authorship - at least in its familiar, modern sense - could be said to have existed in the Middle Ages at all. The author holds a privileged status in literary studies; more than simply a work's writer, the author carries an ideological function as the figure around whom ideas about literary tradition, authority, and creativity are organized. Yet what counts as an author has been historically variable.1 The idea that authors were the sole originators of their texts is a relatively recent one, supplanting earlier models that invested those origins in divine or historically remote sources; likewise, the modern idea of the author as a single, creative individual holds limited relevance for medieval textual culture, in which many texts were collaborative, anonymous, or adopted as common property. Those who study literature by medieval women find themselves facing a critical quandary: is it possible to speak of medieval women authors if the 'author' did not exist in the Middle Ages?


Gilbert Rozman examines the Soviet debate on Chinese socialism, revealing striking similarities between what Soviet scholars write about China and what they criticize as anticommunist" in Western writing on the Soviet Union. Originally published in 1985. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.


The aim of this case study was to evaluate whether there had been educational changes and if so, in which phases of implementation and institutionalization in three African higher education institutions. The changes were evaluated from the point-of-view of trainees in the field of e-learning and library services during the project conducted in 2013-2015. Written texts and visual material were analysed using qualitative content analysis. The enthusiasm and mutual pedagogical understanding of the academic and support service staff were the key factors promoting the changes in the integration of e-learning and modern library services into everyday practices in these higher education institutions. The provision of suitable training and pedagogic skills to the academics and the support service staff made it possible dovetail these concepts to suit their home institution and provide them with a common language and value base that supported student learning.


The thesis is the culmination of an academic degree and an important steppingstone for the student on the way to employment. Academic and industrial institutionsrely on thesis students to explore research directions that may otherwise beoverlooked. Consequently, an efficient process for connecting students withsupervisors and relevant, viable thesis proposals is crucial for students, for academiaas well as for the industry. A database can serve as the basis of a software applicationto facilitate such a process. Support for tackling concerns such as data persistence,redundancy and security, which are challenges in most application designs, is built into common database systems. In this work, we investigate how a database system canbe leveraged as the foundation for an application that connects students with thesisproposals and supervisors.


The objective of this book is to investigate an efficient methodology to capture two dimentional objects which should be highly accurate, storage efficient and should require no user interaction. The book provides survey of latest algorithms and techniques on the subject. Analytical and comparative study of existing techiques is an important part of this book. Some newly proposed algorithms are also given in this book. The presented material can lead to various applications like visual surveillance, vector graphics, font capturing and designing, digitization of printed shapes, image understanding and many more. The latest work presented in this book is expected to have high usability in computer graphics, image processing and computer vision applications. The book will be a handy guideline for researchers in the field of image processing and computer graphics.


The objective of this work was to evaluate the effect of different pruning methods on the yield performance and on the oenological potential of Vitis vinifera 'Nebbiolo', cultivated in high-altitude regions of Santa Catarina state, Brazil. The work was carried out in a commercial vineyard located in São Joaquim, SC, during the 2011/2012 and 2014/2015 crop seasons. The treatments consisted of four pruning systems: Guyot, Guyot Arch, and Cazenave (cane pruning systems), and cordon spur pruning. Production, vine balance, and grape composition were evaluated. In the cane pruning systems, a mean production of 2.0 kg per plant and Ravaz index below 2 were observed, with no change in the composition of the berries. In spur pruned vines, there was production only in 2015, with four bunches every ten plants. Yield and production of the 'Nebbiolo' grapes can be increased without losses of oenological potential, in the high-altitude regions of Santa Catarina state. The tested cane pruning methods are indicated for the growing of 'Nebbiolo' because all methods confer similar yield and vigor to this grapevine.


The results of application of structural resonance electromagnetotherapy (SRT) for the treatment of patients presenting with gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) are presented. They show that SRT has positive influence on the neurohumoral regulation of the lower oesophageal sphincter, ensures psychocorrection, and optimizes the vegetative regulation. Taken together, these effects result in the marked clinical improvement in patients presenting with GERD. It is concluded that structural resonance electromagnetotherapy can be recommended as an efficacious and pathogenetically sound method for the treatment of patients with gastroesophageal reflux disease.


This study investigated whether source information attached to texts influences multiple-text comprehension about genetically modified (GM) foods—a controversial science topic. Participants in the experiment read two texts from two sources: an expert and/or a layperson. When the two texts presented different attitudes toward GM foods (Experiment 1), expert information facilitated intra-text comprehension. Moreover, expert information was better integrated with other information; when expert information was presented first, later information was less integrated with participants' understanding


Hemming is a manufacturing process of folding a panel onto itself or another sheet. Quality of hemming is characterized by geometry and formability. This paper presents a response surface study of 3D curved-surface-curved-edge hemming of an aluminum alloy, AA6111-T4, using finite element analysis. Solid elements and explicit FE solver are used for simulations of flanging, pre- and final hemming, and shell elements with implicit solver are deployed for springback prediction. A novel procedure called "solid to shell mapping" is developed to bridge the solid elements with the shell elements. Verified to be accurate and efficient, the model is utilized in a Central Composite Design to quantitatively explore the relationships between certain key process variables and the hem dimensional quality and formability. The most significant variables are identified as (i) pre-hemming angle on roll-in/roll-out; (ii) nominal surface curvature on sheet springback; (iii) initial sheet strain and flanging die radius on the maximum hemline surface strain of the produced hem. These results provide insights for process parameter selections in designing and optimizing 3D hems under material formability constraints.Copyright © 2006 by ASME


INTRODUCTION
The risks of cardiovascular diseases, the leading cause of death in the world, can be reduced by diet. Cowpea protein has been shown to significantly reduce total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol, and liver steatosis in hamsters.

OBJECTIVE
The objective of this proof-of-concept study was to verify whether the consumption of cowpea protein improves lipid profile and biomarkers of inflammation and endothelial dysfunction in adults with moderate hypercholesterolemia.

METHODS
In a randomized, double-blind, crossover design, 38 hypercholesterolemic subjects (LDL-cholesterol = 182.5 ± 2.7 mg/dL) consumed 25 g/day of cowpea protein isolate or 25 g/day of casein (control group) for 6 weeks each, separated by a 4-week washout interval. Fasting blood samples were collected at baseline and at the end of each diet period. Lipids (total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol, triglycerides, HDL-cholesterol) were determined by enzymatic methods, apolipoproteins (apoA-I and apoB) by standardized immunoassays, inflammatory biomarkers (C-reactive protein) by turbidimetry, and biomarkers of endothelial dysfunction (intercellular adhesion molecule 1 and vascular cell adhesion molecule 1) by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Consumption of cowpea protein significantly reduced total cholesterol ( 12 %), LDL cholesterol ( 18.9 %), non HDL-cholesterol ( 16 %) and apoB ( 14 %), and increased HDL cholesterol (+2.7 %). No significant differences between treatment groups were observed for any of the serum inflammatory or endothelial dysfunction biomarkers.

CONCLUSION
The present findings demonstrated the favorable effect of cowpea protein consumption on proatherogenic serum lipids and apoB in subjects with moderate hypercholesterolemia, similar to what was observed in a previous studies on animals.


The rapid synthesis of an optically-transparent, flexible elastomer was performed utilizing the naturally-derived source, isosorbide. A novel monomer based on isosorbide (isosorbide dialloc, IDA) was prepared by installing carbonate functionalities along with external olefins for use in thiol–ene click chemistry. Cross-linked networks were created using the commercially-available cross-linker, trimethylolpropane tris(3-mercaptopropionate) (TMPTMP) and resulted in IDA-co-TMPTMP, an optically-transparent elastomer. Systematically, IDA-co-TMPTMP networks were synthesized using a photoinitiator, a UV cure time of one minute and varied post cure times (0–24 h, 125 mm Hg) at 100 °C to observe effects on mechanical, thermal and surface alterations. The mechanical properties also had limited changes with post cure time, including a modulus at 25 °C of 1.9–2.8 MPa and an elongation of 220–344%. The thermal decomposition temperatures of the networks were consistent, ca. 320 °C, while the glass transition temperature remained below room temperature for all samples. A cell viability assay and fluorescence imaging with adherent cells are also reported in this study to show the potential of the material as a biomedical substrate. A degradation study for 60 days resulted in 8.3 ± 3.5% and 97.7 ± 0.3% mass remaining under accelerated (1 M NaOH, 60 °C) and biological conditions (pH 7.4 PBS at 37 °C), respectively. This quickly-synthesized material has the potential to hydrolytically degrade into biologically-benign and environmentally-friendly by-products and may be utilized in renewable plastics and/or bioelastomer applications.


OBJECTIVE
Assigning a failing grade to a student is one of the most important yet problematic responsibilities of a fieldwork educator, for it challenges both personal and professional values. this article describes and evaluates a 1-day course designed to prepare educators for this responsibility.

METHOD
The course was offered five times in 1989 and 1990 by the Derby School of Occupational Therapy, Derby, England, and was attended by 101 fieldwork educators. Surveys were administered to these educators immediately after the course and again 4 and 12 months later.

RESULTS
Respondents reported increases in confidence and in their ability to differentiate between students' competence and incompetence. These changes were related to three factors: an understanding of the affective responses associated with a fail scenario, the reinforcement of effective methods of supervision, and the maintenance of professional standards.

CONCLUSION
It is recommended that the topic of failure be included in all fieldwork educator training courses.


This research explores the relationship between sexual exploitability and sexual attractiveness. Sexual exploitability describes the ease with which a woman could be pressured, deceived, or coerced into sex, or sexually assaulted. Study 1 documented novel cues to sexual exploitability. Moreover, men found women displaying these cues to be attractive as short-term mates, supporting the hypothesis that men's attraction functions to motivate the pursuit of sexually accessible women. In Study 2, it was determined that women also perceived other women who displayed cues to exploitability as sexually attractive to men. Because displaying exploitability enhances a woman's sexual attractiveness, women may have co-evolved mate attraction mechanisms designed to capitalize on this feature of male sexual psychology. In Study 3, it was hypothesized that three individual differences would predict which women would be more likely to signal exploitability as a mate attraction tactic: propensity towards short-term mating, relationship status, and self-perceived mate value. Women self-reported their likelihood of using mate attraction tactics involving the intentional display of exploitability cues. Women inclined toward casual sex were more likely to report using such tactics. In Study 4, a separate set of female participants made a hypothetical video dating profile to provide a record of their actual behavior in a mate attraction scenario. Women inclined toward short-term mating and high in the personality characteristic of Openness to Experience were more likely than their female counterparts to display exploitability cues in their videos. These convergent results across studies support the hypothesis that women pursuing short-term mating capitalize on the relationship between exploitability and attractiveness to achieve their mating goals. Results from these studies expand our knowledge of sexual exploitability and mate attraction. Documentation of a comprehensive list of cues to exploitability expands our knowledge of potential predictors of sexual victimization. Identification of individual differences that predict which women may functionally display exploitability cues increases our understanding of which women may be at greater risk for sexual exploitation.


Background Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a chronic, progressive disease with a high morbidity and mortality. Some of the mechanisms of fibrosis development have been described using rodent models; however, the relevance of findings in these animal models is difficult to assess. New innovative models are needed that closely mimic IPF disease pathology. Methods To overcome this unmet need of investigating IPF with a relevant model, we utilized tree shrews, which are genetically, anatomically, and metabolically similar to primates and humans. Using human antibodies and primers, we investigated the role of macrophage phenotypic switching in normal and IPF subjects and bleomycin-injured tree shrews. Results Bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) cells from tree shrews expressed human markers, and there was recruitment of monocyte-derived macrophages (MDMs) to the lung in IPF subjects and bleomycin-injured tree shrews. MDMs were polarized to a profibrotic phenotype in IPF and in bleomycin-injured tree shrews. Resident alveolar macrophages (RAMs) expressed proinflammatory markers regardless of bleomycin exposure. Tree shrews developed bleomycin-induced pulmonary fibrosis with architectural distortion in parenchyma and widespread collagen deposition. Conclusion The profibrotic polarization of macrophages has been demonstrated to be present in IPF subjects and in fibrotic mice. Although the lung macrophages have long been considered to be homogeneous, recent evidence indicates that these cells are heterogeneous during multiple chronic lung diseases. Here, we show new data that indicate a critical and essential role for macrophage-fibroblast crosstalk promoting fibroblast differentiation and collagen production. in the development and progression of fibrosis. The current data strongly suggest development of therapeutics that attenuate of the profibrotic activation of MDMs may mitigate macrophage-fibroblast interaction. These observations demonstrate that tree shrews are an ideal animal model to investigate the pathogenesis of IPF as they are genetically, anatomically, and metabolically closer to humans than the more commonly used rodent models.