Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) are a class of antidepressant medications that came on the market in the late eighties and early nineties. SSRIs were found to be clinically effective in treating clinical depression, and anxiety disorders in adults and had less cumbersome side effects compared to the older Tricyclic antidepressants.1 The first drug in this class introduced was fluoxetine (Prozac), which was soon followed by paroxetine (Paxil), sertraline (Zoloft), citalopram (Celexa), fluvoxamine (Luvox), and escitalopram (Lexapro). Today the uses of SSRIs have broadened to include treatment for "Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder, urinary incontinence" and many other seemingly unrelated conditions.2 In North America, "it is estimated that 2% of children and up to 8% of adolescents suffer from a depressive disorder. In addition, at least 10% of youth suffer from anxiety disorders."3 Given the prevalence of childhood depression and anxiety disorders, it is not surprising that in the 1990's and early 2000's, SSRIs became the treatment of choice in fighting childhood depression and anxiety.4 Not only were SSRIs prescribed to adolescents and prepubescent children, they were commonly prescribed to kindergarten aged children and even infants less than a year old.5 However, SSRIs were not clinically tested for use in children and adolescents, nor were they approved for use in children and adolescents. SSRIs were prescribed to children and adolescents "off-label" by physicians, meaning SSRIs had not received approval for use in these age groups by Health Canada. In the first part of the 21st century, concerns began to arise concerning the use of these drugs in children and adolescents as reports began to emerge demonstrating that in many cases SSRIs were associated with an increase in suicidal behavior and thoughts in children and adolescents.6 Despite being subjected to regulatory warnings from Health Canada and intense media coverage, SSRIs are still widely prescribed to children and adolescents. In this paper, I will review how SSRIs are currently regulated for use as a treatment for depression and anxiety in children and adolescents in Canada by examining the roles of the different actors involved, including: drug manufacturers, regulatory bodies, professional associations, physicians, parents and the patients themselves. In Part II of this paper I will discuss the 2004 warnings issued by regulatory agencies in Canada, the USA and the UK, against the use of SSRIs in children and adolescents; in Part III I will analyze the current off-label status of SSRIs for children and adolescents and the current system used by physicians to prescribe SSRIs to children and adolescents; and in Part IV I will discuss the problems that exist with the current system by examining the roles of each of the abovementioned actors. Finally, in Part V, I will make suggestions as to how the current system can be reformed and improved. The continued off-label use of SSRIs in children is not only dangerous for short-term use in children and adolescents, but could also have dangerous long-term effects as the consequences of SSRIs on child and adolescent development is unknown. The current regulatory system fails to protect this vulnerable population and exposes them to unwarranted and unnecessary risks. A new system is needed in which drug manufacturers are more accountable, regulatory warnings are more forceful, the ability of physicians to prescribe off-label is curtailed, and patients and their parents are more informed about treatment options.


Long lava flows are traditionally considered to form when low-viscosity lava is erupted at high effusion rates. However, this view has recently been challenged. Detailed field measurements on active lava flows on Kilauea have shown that inflation of lava flows after emplacement can result in reactivation and continued lengthening of flows. Inflated sheets can thus act a insulated conduits (lava tubes) that permit the transport of lava over great distances at near isothermal conditions. Detailed observations of long lava flows in the Columbia River Basalt Group and in the Cenozoic Volcanic Provinces in northern Queensland confirm that this mechanism is not restricted to recent flows on Hawai'i. These findings have led to a search for evidence of inflation in flows in other parts of the world and have stimulated theoretical and laboratory research on the emplacement and cooling of lava in flows and in tubes. Understanding the formation of long submarine and planetary lava flows presents an additional challenge. Current evidence supports high effusion rates for some, possibly all, long planetary lava flows, and improved resolution from the Mars Global Surveyor will undoubtedly lead to either a confirmation or a rejection of this view. In this review, we discuss the geological importance and distribution of long lava flows, we investigate diametrically opposed views on the formation of long lava flows, and we stress the need for an interdisciplinary approach to improve our understanding of these enigmatic geological features.


In biotechnology, cell growth is one of the most important properties for the characterization and optimization of microbial cultures. Novel live-cell imaging methods are leading to an ever better understanding of cell cultures and their development. The key for analyzing acquired data is accurate and automated cell segmentation at the single-cell level. Therefore, we present microbeSEG, a user-friendly Python-based cell segmentation tool with graphical user interface and OMERO data management. microbeSEG utilizes a state-of-the-art deep learning-based segmentation method and can be used for instance segmentation of a wide range of cell morphologies and imaging techniques, e.g., phase contrast or fluorescence microscopy. The main focus of microbeSEG is a comprehensible, easy, efficient, and complete workflow from creation of training data to final application of the trained segmentation model. We demonstrate that accurate cell segmentation results can be obtained within 45 minutes of user time. Utilizing public segmentation datasets or pre-labeling further accelerates the microbeSEG workflow. This opens the door for accurate and efficient data analysis of microbial cultures.


Objectives- Falls in older people are a major concern in terms of disability, institutionalization, mortality and socioeconomic burden. Studies on falls in Indian older adults were reviewed to determine the prevalence, consequences, risk factors, and interventional strategies for falls.
Data sources- MEDLINE, PubMed, Google, Cochrane databases, Internet searches and IndMED.
Study selection- Studies on falls in older adults published in last ten years were found using the key words: falls, Indian older adults or older adults, prevalence, circumstances and consequence, injuries, risk factors, health, balance, and mobility.
Data extraction- A comprehensive literature search was done. The search resulted in 20 publications:- 10 national published and 10 international published research studies.
Data synthesis- The prevalence of falls in Indian older adults ranges from 14% to 53%. Falls result in considerable morbidity and mortality. Indian elderly people are facing challenges secondary to the changing socio-economic scenario, economic dependency, and decreasing family support. Fall-related injuries impose a substantial financial burden on older adults and their families, in addition to dependency for daily activities and activity restriction.
Conclusion- Falls are an emerging public health problem and a barrier to active ageing in India. There is an urgent need for coordinated and collaborative efforts of health professionals, researchers, policy makers, and health care delivery systems to prevent falls and promote active ageing. Falls are potentially preventable. For older adults in the community, exercise programs and vitamin D supplementation in those with deficiency are highly effective in preventing falls. Psychoactive drug withdrawal, home visits, vision optimization and a multifactorial approach are also effective.

Key words: Falls; Aged; Prevalence; Primary prevention; Risk factors; elder adults.


OBJECTIVE
The effect of lamotrigine maintenance therapy on body weight was assessed retrospectively in analyses of data from two double-blind, placebo- and lithium-controlled, 18-month studies in patients with bipolar I disorder (n = 227 for lamotrigine, 190 for placebo, 166 for lithium).

METHODS
Endpoints included mean change in weight, the percentage of patients with > or = 7% change (increase, decrease, fluctuation) in weight, and the percentage of patients with weight-related adverse events during double-blind treatment.

RESULTS
Mean weight remained stable during maintenance therapy with lamotrigine. In a mixed-model repeated-measures analysis, mean changes in weight (kg) at week 52 were -1.2 with lamotrigine, +0.2 with placebo, and +2.2 with lithium [estimated difference (95% CI) lamotrigine minus placebo = -1.3 (-3.6, 0.9), p = 0.237; lithium minus placebo = +2.0 (-0.3, 4.4), p = 0.094; lithium minus lamotrigine = +3.4 (1.4, 5.4), p < 0.001]. Analyses were truncated at week 52 because of the high incidence of missing data at later time points. The percentages of patients with a >/=7% weight gain, during randomized treatment, were 10.9%, 7.6% and 11.8% for the lamotrigine, placebo, and lithium groups, respectively. The percentages of patients with a > or = 7% weight loss, during randomized treatment, were 12.1%, 11.5%, and 5.1% for the lamotrigine, placebo, and lithium groups, respectively. The percentage of patients with a > or = 7% weight loss did not significantly differ between lamotrigine and placebo but was significantly higher with lamotrigine than lithium. The incidences of > or = 7% weight changes and of weight changes reported as adverse events were comparable between active treatments and placebo.

CONCLUSION
Lamotrigine was associated with stable body weight during 1 year of treatment and was comparable to placebo in mean weight change, incidence of clinically significant weight change, and incidence of weight changes reported as adverse events in patients with bipolar disorder. Lithium was associated with weight gain, but the magnitude of lithium-associated weight gain was lower in the current analysis than in previous studies.


Non-economic loss and damage (NELD) could constitute a major proportion of the total loss and damage caused by any climate-related disasters. Despite this, most NELD has not been well measured and reported in most post-disaster reports and databases and has often not been given the attention it deserves in most disaster risk assessments and risk reduction interventions. Issues include a lack of proper recognition among the stakeholders engaged in disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation of the value that society attaches to NELD, and a lack of simple methods to identify, prioritize and measure NELD. Keeping these barriers in view, this research aimed to develop an assessment framework to identify and prioritize NELD in key vulnerable sectors and make policy recommendations for addressing NELD. In this paper, results from case studies conducted in Japan and Bangladesh, two of the five project countries, are presented for a better understanding on this subject. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was used to identify and prioritize key NELD caused by climate-related disasters and to identify important risk reduction practices that could address NELD. The findings show that mental health disorders can be one common and important NELD in both Bangladesh and Japan despite their contrasting developmental situations. Inaccessible sanitation and waterborne diseases were Bangladesh-specific NELD, while poor risk governance and risk communication between local governments and communities were Japan-specific NELD. Climate change adaptation, Climaterelated disasters, Community, Disaster risk reduction, Loss and damage, Mental health, Non-economic loss and damage


The three Pim kinases represent a small subfamily of serine/threonine kinases known to be involved in a number of signaling pathways as downstream effectors and potent inhibitors of apoptosis. Unlike most other kinases, Pim kinases lack a regulatory domain which means they are controlled largely at the transcriptional level and that the mRNA expression levels of Pim kinases in cells correlate with their activity. While normal expression of Pim-1 kinase is seen in cells of hematopoietic origin, examination of gene expression of Pim-1 in different malignancies using cDNA microarray analysis suggests that Pim-1 is overexpressed in a large percentage of ALL, AML, CML, DLBCL, Prostatic Adenocarcinoma, Bladder, and Oral cancers. Pim-2 is also largely expressed in ALL, AML, Squamous Cell Lung and Adenocarcinoma of the Lung while Pim-3 is restricted to Melanoma, Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma, Gastric cancers. This implicates Pim-1 and Pim-2 in the onset and progression in several of hematological malignancies and therefore they represent interesting potential targets for drug development. To evaluate the potential of Pim-1 and -2 as a drug targets we have identified and synthesized a series of Pim kinase inhibitors using our proprietary CLIMB™ drug discovery process. Through the use of CLIMB™, the published Pim-1 kinase crystal structure was used to build several models that were then used to predict potential small molecule inhibitors of Pim-1 and Pim-2 from a large virtual library. A subset of leads, based on calculated binding energies as well as additional physical chemical properties, were screened using a number of in silico physicochemical and ADMET prediction algorithms to determine which compounds were most likely to be successful in a biological context. Lead candidates were initially screened using biochemical enzyme-based and cell-based assays. Cell-based activity was determined in HEL (acute megakaryocytic leukemia), K562 (chronic myeloid leukemia), MO7e (myeloid leukemia), and other human leukemia and lymphoma cell lines. From several lead candidates a series of analogs were produced with improved inhibitory activity and pharmacokinetic characteristics. In the Pim-1 and Pim-2 in vitro kinase assay and in the cell-based assay a number of leads exhibited inhibitory activity with IC50 concentrations in the low nanomolar range. Here we present the details of the biochemical and cell-based assay results as well as the activity in tumor xenograft models of our Pim kinase inhibitors.


The terms of permanent teeth eruption were analyzed in 909 children (permanent residents of St. Petersburg) aged 7-15 years. The study showed that all groups of permanent teeth, except the first molars, erupted on the mandible earlier than on the maxilla. In girls only canines and second molars erupted earlier than in boys. There was virtually no sex-specific difference in the terms of eruption of both premolars, and the terms of the end of eruption of both groups of canines were virtually the same in boys and girls. Twenty-one children lacked some of permanent teeth by 15 years (the age considered as the upper threshold level for the end of normal tooth eruption). The most frequent teeth that failed to erupt in time were the upper lateral canines (33.3% of all teeth which failed to erupt by the age of 15 years), lower central canines and upper first premolars and molars (12.8% each).


OBJECTIVE
The aim of this research was to investigate the relationship between atrial fibrillation (AF) recurrence and second generation cryoballoon ablation (CBA) procedural parameters in patients with non-valvular paroxysmal AF (PAF).

METHODS
A total of 131 patients with a PAF diagnosis who underwent second-generation CBA (59 male; mean age: 55.2±10.6 years) were enrolled. Recurrence was defined as the detection of AF on a 12-lead electrocardiography (ECG) recording, or an attack lasting at least 30 seconds observed on Holter ECG records. CBA procedural data and echocardiographic findings were recorded and compared.

RESULTS
After 1 year of follow-up, AF recurrence was detected in 27 patients. Patients with recurrence were older and had higher rates of hypertension and diabetes (p<0.05 for both). Left atrial diameter, left atrial volume (LaV), left atrial volume index, and the averaged warming angle (calculated by combining lowest temperature point and balloon temperature at 20°C point) were significantly higher in the recurrence group. Balloon warming time was significantly longer in the non-recurrence group (p<0.001). In binary logistic regression analysis, the averaged warming angle (odds ratio [OR]: 1.559, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.342-1.811; p<0.001) and LaV (OR: 1.063, 95% CI: 1.028-1.100; p<0.001) were found to be independent parameters for predicting recurrence. The cutoff value of the warming angle obtained with ROC curve analysis was 50° for the prediction of recurrence (sensitivity: 94.3%, specificity: 88.5%, area under the curve: 0.909; p<0.001). The cutoff value of LaV obtained by ROC curve analysis was 53.5 for prediction of recurrence (sensitivity: 77.8%, specificity: 74.5%; p<0.001).

CONCLUSION
Measurement of balloon warming angle during CBA and increased LaV may predict the AF recurrence.


Large structural shifts in the global economy are causing a dramatic rise in the price of food. Since 1994, food prices in Trinidad and Tobago have risen above 350%, faster than the price of other items. From March 2006 to 2007, the food component of the retail price index increased by 19% whilst the overall price index increased by 8%. Sizable and fluctuating price differences have been recorded between wholesale and retail prices. Non-linear hedonic models are estimated using auction price and quality data for specific commodities and markets to examine whether buyers have systematic preferences for specific attributes (weight, sales lot size, market location and timing of sale) and whether they pay significantly different prices for these attributes consistent with their preferences. The results show that buyers have systematic preferences for specific product attributes and that these preferences are implicitly reflected in prices offered in traditional auction markets. The results underscore the need for increased producer supply response to capitalize on the opportunity offered by higher commodity prices by targeting specific attributes and by better timing production and marketing undertakings.


: Minilaparotomy, as described in this report, is surgical entry into the lower abdominal cavity through a small transverse suprapubic incision, for the purpose of tubal ligation. The 200 operations reported were performed under local anesthesia in a free-standing office surgical unit. For most women requesting sterilization, minilaparotomy is a highly satisfactory approach. For patients with fixed uterine retroversion, enlarged uteri, or suspected adnexal disease, open laparoscopy under local anesthesia is preferable. The standard Pomeroy technique was used in all cases. Analysis of a follow-up minilaparotomy questionnaire indicates a high degree of patient satisfaction. No subsequent pregnancies have been reported by these patients, but since no patient in this series has been followed for more than 2 years, no conclusion as to long-term failure rate may be made.


Abstract Background: Geriatric reference intervals (RIs) are not commonly available and are rarely used. It is difficult to select a reference population from a cohort with a high degree of morbidity. Also important are the statistical approaches used to determine health-associated reference values. It is the aim of this study to examine the statistical methods used in the calculation of geriatric RIs. Methods: A search was conducted on EMBASE and Medline for articles between January 1989 and January 2014. Studies were selected if they: 1) were English primary articles; 2) performed a clinical chemistry test on a blood fraction; 3) had a population sub-group consisting of individuals ≥65 years of age; and 4) calculated a RI for the subgroup ≥65 years of age. Results: There were 64 articles identified, of which 78.1% described the RI calculation method used. RI calculation was performed by non-parametric (21.9%), parametric (42.2%), robust (3.1%), or other (17.2%) methods. Outlier detection (SD, Grubb's test, Tukey's fence, Dixon) was infrequently used and although most studies performed partitioning, only 57.8% tested the statistical significance of the partitions. Few studies (17.2%) reported confidence intervals for the RI estimates. Overall, only 14.1% of studies provided RI estimates which followed the CLSI guideline EP28-A3c. Conclusions: Statistical methods for RI calculation and partitioning varied considerably between studies and many failed to provide adequate descriptions of these methods. Challenges in analyses arose from insufficient sample sizes and heterogeneity in the elderly population. Geriatric RIs, although present in the literature, may not be properly calculated and should be carefully considered before applying them for clinical care.


The safety and immunological activity of P. aeruginosa vaccine were experimentally evaluated. The vaccine was prepared on the basis of the antigens of P. aeruginosa extracellular slime which was accumulated in medium K-4, obtained with the use of original technology. The immunization of animals with P. aeruginosa vaccine induced the synthesis of antibodies. The introduction of the vaccine in 2 or 3 injections resulted in a high level of antibody formation, differing with the use of various strains. Hyperimmune sera, obtained by the multiple immunization of rabbits with P. aeruginosa vaccine, ensured high protection of mice from P. aeruginosa infection. The vaccine proved to be safe when evaluated in experiments of acute and chronic toxicity, made on laboratory animals.


Objectives: To (1) evaluate preliminary effects of aerobic exercise on progesterone, prostaglandin metabolites and pro-inflammatory cytokines in women with primary dysmenorrhea, (2) assess the feasibility of methodological procedures and obtain preliminary data (effect size) to estimate the sample size for a future randomized controlled trial. Methods: Twenty women aged 18-29 years were divided into two groups (highintensity aerobic-exercise group and no-exercise control group) in a 1:1 ratio. Women assigned to the exercise group performed high-intensity treadmillbased aerobic exercise for three days a week, at 70-85% of maximum heart rate for 30 minutes for 4 weeks. The control group did not receive trial intervention but provided blood for estimation of plasma variables. Blood plasma levels of progesterone, prostaglandin (PG) metabolites, F2 alpha [KDPGF2α]) and PGE2 (KDPGE2), and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) were measured at 4-weeks post-intervention. Results: There was an increase in progesterone levels (d=0.36) and decreases in KDPGF2α (d=0.35), KDPGE2 (d= 0.47), and TNF-α (d=0.33) from baseline to week 4 in the exercise group compared with the control group. Concerning feasibility outcomes, 90% of the required number of participants were recruited in 3-4 weeks and adherence to the intervention was 97%. Conclusion: Study findings suggest that aerobic exercise may be effective for primary dysmenorrhea via its influence on progesterone and inflammatory pain mediators. The study methodology appears to be feasible for conducting a fullscale randomized controlled trial.


Optimization of Fractured Well Performance of Horizontal Gas Wells. (August 2007) Fellipe Vieira Magalhães, B.S., Texas A&M University Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. Ding Zhu In low-permeability gas reservoirs, horizontal wells have been used to increase the reservoir contact area, and hydraulic fracturing has been further extending the contact between wellbores and reservoirs. This thesis pre ents an approach to evaluate horizontal well performance for fractured or unfractured ga s wells and a sensitivity study of gas well performance in a low permeability formation . A newly developed Distributed Volumetric Sources (DVS) method was used to calculate d imensionless productivity index for a defined source in a box-shaped domain. The unique features of the DVS method are that it can be applied to transient flow an d pseudo-steady state flow with a smooth transition between the boundary conditions. In this study, I conducted well performance studies by appl ying the DVS method to typical tight sandstone gas wells in the US basins. The objective is to determine the best practice to produce horizontal gas wells. For fract u ed wells, well performance of a single fracture and multiple fractures are compared, and the effect of the number of fractures on productivity of the well is presented based on the well productivity. The results from this study show that every basin h as a unique ideal set of fracture number and fracture length. Permeability plays an important role on dictating the location and the dimension of the fractures. This study indicated that in order to achieve optimum production, the lower the permeability of t he formation, the higher the number of fractures.


Background and objectives. Sex is an important contributing factor to neuroimaging phenotypes in brain disorders. However, little is known about the contribution of sex differences to the neurodegeneration in dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). We investigated sex differences in probable DLB patients by using both visual rating scales of lobar atrophy and automated estimations of regional atrophy. Methods. We included 442 probable DLB patients from the European-DLB consortium and the Mayo Clinic who have magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data available. We assessed sex differences and the sex-by-age interaction in two largely independent samples through visual rating scales of lobar atrophy (n = 333; mean age 73 ± 8 years, 62% males) and automated regional estimations of gray matter (GM) volume and mean cortical thickness (CTh) (n = 165; mean age 69 ± 9 years, 72% males). We used binary logistic regression and ANOVA for statistical analysis. Results. We found a statistically significantly higher likelihood of frontal atrophy measured by the global cortical atrophy-frontal subscale (GCA-F) in males (40% of males had an abnormal GCA-F score versus 29% of females, P-value = 0.006). Using automated estimations, we found smaller GM volumes in 6 cortical regions in males compared with females, as well as smaller GM volume in the entorhinal cortex and thinner olfactory cortices in females, compared with males. The sex-by-age interaction showed statistically significant results in 6 cortical volumes and 7 mean CTh estimations (P-value ≤ 0.05), accentuated in the right middle frontal gyrus (FDR-adjusted P-value = 0.047). These cross-sectional interactions indicated that while females have statistically significantly less atrophy than males at younger ages, differences become non-significant at older ages, with females showing the same level of atrophy than males around the age of 75. Conclusions. This study demonstrates sex differences on brain atrophy in probable DLB. While male DLB patients have a more widespread pattern of cortical atrophy at younger ages, these sex differences tend to disappear with increasing age. Longitudinal studies will help establish these cross-sectional findings and inform on sex and age considerations to the use of MRI in clinical routine, as the field moves towards precision medicine.


Insulin resistance has been demonstrated previously in both glucose-intolerant and untreated type II diabetics. Although the former group had hyperinsulinemia in the fasting state and after an oral glucose load, the hyperglycemic type II subjects were relatively insulin deficient after carbohydrate ingestion. In an attempt to define the role that insulin deficiency might have played in the pathophysiology of insulin resistance in this latter group, we measured the steadystate plasma glucose level (SSPG) during a constant infusion of glucose (6 mg/kg/min) and insulin (80 mU/min) in 15 nonobese insulin-deficient type II diabetics before and after insulin replacement therapy. Hepatic glucose output (HGO) and plasma clearance of glucose (PCG) during these studies were also determined using an infusion of 3-3H-glucose. Before insulin treatment, 13 of 15 subjects had SSPG levels above the range reported in normal subjects. Two type II patients appeared to be normally sensitive to insulin. Although all subjects were more sensitive to insulin after 1–8 wk of insulin therapy, they could be clearly divided into two groups. Thus, five patients were now normally sensitive to insulin (SSPG:75 ± 5.3 mg/dl) while 10 patients were still significantly resistant (SSPG: 227±11.3 mg/dl). HGO during the infusion studies was high in the resistant group pretreatment and did not change posttreatment (3.54 ± 0.32 vs. 3.14 ± 0.78 mg/kg/min). HGO was lower before insulin therapy and decreased by > 50% after therapy in the sensitive group (1.93 ± 0.07 vs. 0.71 ± 0.32 mg/kg/min). PCG determinations revealed a similar pattern of response. Retrospective analysis of the two groups revealed no significant differences in their baseline characteristics. Fasting plasma glucose and hemoglobin A1c levels also did not differ between the two groups before or after insulin therapy. These results indicate that heterogeneity exists among subjects with type II diabetes mellitus. One-third of the subjects studied appear to have only insulin deficiency as the basis of their diabetes, while two-thirds seem to have an underlying resistance to insulin that is not corrected by insulin therapy.


Summary.  The prothrombin time (PT) test once designed by Dr Quick to investigate patients with obstructive jaundice was later adapted and standardized by means of the international normalized ratio (INR) to monitor patients on treatment with vitamin K antagonists (VKA). After more than 70 years from its introduction it is now time to think about its standardization for those very patients for whom it was intended at the beginning of its history. Two studies carried out independently and published recently in the same issue of a specialized journal do exploit the very same idea on how to accomplish this standardization. Both of them confirm previous anecdotal observations that the INR as devised for patients on VKA (INRvka) is not valid to harmonize PT results for patients with chronic liver disease. This fact, that at first sight may appear academic, has important consequences because the PT INR is used to construct the model for end‐stage liver disease (MELD) scores, which is widely used to prioritize patients for liver transplantation. The two studies further demonstrate that an alternative calibration model, modified from that recommended by the World Health Organization for patients on VKA, may be feasible also for patients with chronic liver disease. This alternative calibration model, which calls for the substitution of plasmas from patients on VKA with those from patients with chronic liver disease, may be highly beneficial to harmonize the calculation of the MELD score, with important implications for the prioritization of patients for liver transplantation.


Abstract Calcium transport across the basolateral membranes of the enterocyte represents the active step in calcium translocation. This step occurs by two mechanisms, an ATP-dependent pump and a Ca2+/Na+ exchange process. These studies were designed to investigate these two processes in jejunal basolateral membrane vesicles (BLMV) of the spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) and their genetically matched controls, Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) rats. The ATP-dependent calcium uptake was stimulated several-fold compared with no ATP condition in both SHR and WKY, but no differences were noted between rate of calcium uptake in SHR and WKY. Kinetics of ATP-dependent calcium uptake at concentrations between 0.01 and 1.0 μM revealed a V max of 0.67 ± 0.03 nmol/mg protein/20 sec and a Km of 0.2 ± 0.03 μM in SHR and V max of 0.69 ± 0.12 and a Km of 0.32 ± 0.14 μM in WKY rats. Ca2+/Na+ exchange in jejunal BLMV of SHR and WKY was investigated in two ways. First, sodium was added to the incubation medium (cis-Na+). Second, Ca2+ efflux from BLMV was studied in the presence of extravesicular Na+ (trans-Na+). Both studies suggest a decreased exchange of calcium and Na+. Kinetic parameters of Na+-dependent Ca2+ uptake at concentrations between 0.01 and 1.0 μM exhibited V max of 0.05 ± 0.01 nanmol/mg protein/5 sec and a Km of 0.21 ± 0.13 μM in SHR and V max of 0.11 ± 0.02 nanmol/mg protein/5 sec and a Km of 0.09 ± 0.05 in WKY, respectively. These results confirm that the intestinal BLMV of SHR and WKY rats have two mechanisms for calcium extrusion, an ATP-dependent Ca2+ transport process and a Na+/Ca2+ exchange process. The ATP-dependent process appears to be functional in SHR; however, the Ca2+/Na+ exchange mechanism appears to have a marked decrease in its maximal capacity. These findings suggest that calcium extrusion via Ca2+/Na+ is impaired in the SHR, which may lead to an increase in intracellular calcium concentration. These findings may have relevance to the development of hypertension.


The aim of this study was to compare the cytotoxic effects of a newly synthesized thialo benzene derivative 2,4-dithiophenoxy-1-iodo-4-bromobenzene (C18H12S2IBr) and a well-known antifungal agent, fluconazole, in L929 cells. L929 cells were treated with 250, 500, or 1000 µg/mL of C18H12S2IBr and with the same doses of fluconazole. Cytotoxicity tests including 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide (MTT), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) leakage, and protein content were compared. Glucose and lactate concentrations were measured to determine alterations in metabolic activity. Apoptosis was investigated by TUNEL test and results were supported with survivin enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Treatment with C18H12S2IBr resulted in a concentration-dependent cytotoxicity as indicated by MTT, LDH leakage assay, and decreased protein concentration. The loss of cell viability and the increased LDH leakage in 500 µg/mL and 1000 µg/mL C18H12S2IBr and fluconazole groups indicated cell membrane damage and necrotic cell death. In all groups, metabolic activities were altered but apoptosis was not induced. We have previously investigated lower doses of C18H12S2IBr; there was no cytotoxicity in L929 cells. In this study, higher doses caused cytotoxicity and alterations in metabolic activity . When we consider the similar results obtained from fluconazole and especially the lowest dose of C18H12S2IBr, this newly synthesized compound may be a good alternative antifungal agent.


The UML (Unified Modeling Language) has been widely accepted as a standard language for object-oriented analysis and design. Among the UML diagrams, one of the most difficult and time-consuming diagrams to develop is the object interaction diagram (OID), which is rendered as either a sequence diagram or a collaboration diagram. Our experience shows that developers have significant trouble in understanding and developing OIDs. In this paper, we present an effective heuristic for developing interaction diagrams and illustrate the technique with a case study. We found that students effectively developed OIDs using this heuristic method.


This study was conducted between March 2001 and February 2002 to investigate the size composition, growth characteristics and stock size of the pikeperch, Sander lucioperca (L. 1758), population of Lake Egirdir. In the population, the rate of individuals more than 2 years of age and 20 cm was very low. The average length and weight of the commercial catch were also low. The length-weight relationship and von Bertalanffy growth equation were W = 0.006 L3.148 and Lt = 95.4*(1-e-0.0841(t+1.5638)), respectively, and the average condition factor was 0.992. This last value is higher than those reported in other studies on the pikeperch population of this lake in the last 30 years. The total mortality and exploitation rates were 71.9% and 0.85, respectively. During the study, the annual catch of pikeperch was 50.2 t. In the lake, the stock of pikeperch over 14 cm in length was estimated as 601,299 individuals and 53.4 t in biomass. The present fishing effort should be decreased by 60% for maximum sustainable yield (MSY). In this way, 82.8 t of pikeperch could be obtained from the lake and the biomass of this species in the lake would be increased up to 350 t.


Pesticides are of interest in etiologic studies of breast cancer because many mimic estrogen, a known breast cancer risk factor, or cause mammary tumors in animals, but most previous studies have been limited by using one-time tissue measurements of residues of only a few pesticides long banned in the United States. As an alternative method to assess historical exposures to banned and current-use pesticides, we used geographic information system (GIS) technology in a population-based case-control study of 1,165 women residing in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, who were diagnosed with breast cancer in 1988-1995 and 1,006 controls. We assessed exposures dating back to 1948 (when DDT was first used there) from pesticides applied for tree pests (e.g., gypsy moths), cranberry bogs, other agriculture, and mosquito control on wetlands. We found no overall pattern of association between pesticide use and breast cancer. We found modest increases in risk associated with aerial application of persistent pesticides on cranberry bogs and less persistent pesticides applied for tree pests or agriculture. Adjusted odds ratios for these exposures were 1.8 or lower, and, with a few exceptions, confidence intervals did not exclude the null. The study is limited by uncertainty about locations of home addresses (particularly before 1980) and unrecorded tree pest and mosquito control events as well as lack of information about exposures during years when women in the study lived off Cape Cod and about women with potentially important early life exposures on Cape Cod who were not included because they moved away.


Overall review of Supreme Court cases regarding racial violence suggests that while the Court did rule in favor of acquitting lynchers of federal prosecution, it did not completely strip all authority for federal rights enforcement. This essay reassesses the Supreme Court's handling of racial violence and formulates a theory of law that can account for how lynchings could exist as a tacitly accepted practice without being explicitly sanctioned by the law. Rather than cracking down on lynchers and/or the states that failed to deal with lynchers, the Supreme Court decided to create "zones" wherein questionable activities like lynchings could occur unhampered. Lynchings for the most part were situated within a constructed zone of permissiveness that was contingent not upon the sanctioning of political authorities per se, but rather upon political authorities choosing to maintain an active policy of non-interference. Drawing from Ernst Fraenkel's model of the dual state and Gerald Neuman's concept of anomalous zones, constitutional anarchy illuminates how the U.S. carved out legally bounded regions of lawlessness. Implications of existentially demarcated spaces can be seen in a variety of arenas and highlight the commensurability of illiberalism and liberalism via the distinction between content and scope of law.


Gynaecomastia is a common situation, with a proliferation of glandular component of male breast secondary to an imbalance in sexual hormones in mammary tissue. A main cause of gynaecomastia is anabolic steroids consumption. Few studies have been performed in patients with high consumption of anabolic steroids, showing a high prevalence (52%). In this article we present a case of bilateral gynaecomastia secondary to anabolic steroids intake, with a partial response to tamoxifen. In summary, a patient with sportive habits and gynaecomastia, an early suspicious diagnosis is anabolic steroid intake. After suppression of anabolic steroid intake and treatment with tamoxifen, a high remission rate can be achieved. If gynaecomastia persisted, surgery is a good option.


For species that rely on visual cues to detect prey items, increasing the structural complexity of a patch can greatly influence forager behaviour through consequent reductions in prey detectability and accessibility. These effects are likely to manifest themselves in terms of foraging site selection and there is plentiful evidence for preferential site selection for a suite of taxa. However, the underlying effects of habitat structure on foraging behaviour, which are likely to drive these observed site selections, are much less well understood. We present the results of two studies designed to quantify the effects of vegetation structure on prey detectability and accessibility to avian invertebrate feeders and granivores on farmland. There was a significant negative relationship between potential prey detectability and both distance and vegetation height in cereal crops and stubbles for Northern Lapwings Vanellus vanellus. The interscan distance travelled by Lapwings differed significantly between habitats, with longer distances travelled in cereal crops and harrowed compared with ploughed soil and grasses. The peck rate, head-up rate and mean search period of foraging Chaffinches Fringilla coelebs were not affected by increasing vegetation structure but forager mobility was significantly reduced. We hope that by quantifying the effects of vegetation structure on prey detectability and accessibility we can highlight the importance of considering these factors, as well as prey abundance, when developing management strategies for farmland birds.


Treatment of oat grain by anhydrous ammonia at levels of approximately 0,75; 1,5 and 3,0% was investigated. Diets consisting of untreated oat grain and oat grain ammoniated for 24 hours at 90°C in an AN·STRA·VERTER® -oven at the respective treatment levels were individually fed at an intake level of 45 g/kg V'fJ,75 to adult SA Mutton Merino wethers in an in vivo digestibility and N balance trial. The crude protein (CP) content of the experimental diets was 10,3; 16,0; 16,8 and 17,3% respectively. The apparent digestibility of dry matter (OM) and organic matter (OM) was significantly (P ~ 0,01) increased from 68,1 to 69,6; 72,2 and 76,5% and from 69,1 to 71,4; 73,8 and 78,0% respectively. CP digestibility of untreated oat grain was significantly (P ~ 0,01) improved from 72,6 to 78,4% at the 0,75% treatment level. No significant further improvement was obtained at higher ammoniation levels. Ammoniation at a level of 3,0% significantly (P ~ 0,01) improved the apparent digestibility of neutral detergent fibre (NOF) and hemicellulose (HC) by 22 and 29,4 percentage units respectively. The slight improvement in the digestibility of acid detergent fibre (ADF) with increased ammoniation levels was not significant. Like CP digestibility, ammoniation significantly (P ~ 0,05) affected N balance. Ammoniation levels above 0,75%, however, resulted in no further improvement in the N balance. S. Afr. J. Anim. Sci. 1985, 15: 43-46


A route to compounds with a 5,7-diazapentacene skeleton has been established involving a Friedlander reaction. A diaminodiketone 8 has been made by a novel method and reacted with cyclohexanone to prepare an octa-hydro-5,7-diazapentacene 7a and with tetralone to produce a dibenzotetrahydro-5,7-diazapentacene 7b. Reaction of the diaminodiketone with a diarylethanone followed by oxidation gave a tetrabenzo-5,7-diazapentacene 18b. Compound 7b undergoes solid-state dimerization during single-crystal X-ray analysis. These materials possess lower frontier orbitals than pentacene and show strong absorption and fluorescence which is affected by the presence of acid. In particular 18b shows a remarkable colour change in solution upon addition of acid. These results suggest that suitably functionalised 5,7-diazapentacenes could be promising candidates for optoelectronic applications.


Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) is a glycoprotein with a molecular weight of approximately 34,000 daltons serine protease secreted exclusively by prostatic epithelial cells that lining acini and prostate gland. Increased of PSA levels can be caused by prostate cancer or benign prostate enlargement (benign prostatic hyperplasia, BPH). PSA in the blood was found in the free condition (free PSA) and most of the bound protein (complexed-PSA, c-PSA). Measuring levels of PSA was found in the blood can be done by several methods such as by immunoradiometricassay (IRMA) methods or ELISA methods. IRMA method is one of immunoassay techniques using radionuclides ,/' 125 oJ I as a tracer, so the sample in small 13 quantity can be detected The purpose of this study was obtained PSA reagent kit that includes 1251labeled PSA as a tracer, PSA coated tube and PSA standard that requirements of the kit, then it can be optimized assay design, that eventually PSA reagent kit can be used for early detection of prostate cancer. It has been done labeling of Mab PSA using 125 1with reaction time was 90 seconds, amount of PSA MAb was 75 ugram and the activity of Na_ 125I was 1000 flCi. Preaparation of PSA coated tube using 0.05 M Na2C03 solution, at pH: 9.6 with volume was 250 ml., standard PSA with 0.025 Mphosphate buffer at pH 7.4 containing 5% BSA and 0.1% NaN3, and resulting at 1,25% and 14,12% respectively of NSB and BIT that requirement of the kit.


The dipole interaction model is used to investigate the effects of interactions between helices and supertwisting of helices by determining whether the predicted UV absorption and CD spectra for the three-helix bundle and coiled coil are significantly different from spectra for the single straight alpha-helix. Crystallographic data by Yan et al. for alpha-spectrin are used to construct a three-helix bundle of poly(L-alanine) modeling the protein. Backbone torsion angles represented by Fourier series are used to generate supertwisted helices and coiled coil models of poly(L-alanine) that have pitch, radius, and residue repeat similar to experimental crystallographic data on tropomyosin. Calculated CD spectra are compared with available experimental data. Theoretical spectra for the three-helix bundle and the supertwisted structures are quite similar to predictions for the straight alpha-helix of the same length with similar torsion angles, suggesting that CD is primarily dependent on the average backbone conformation and would not be a sensitive tool for distinguishing between single straight helices and closely packed or twisted alpha-helices.


Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to propose a moderated mediation model involving core self-evaluations (CSE), perceived organizational support (POS) and work-related well-being in terms of job burnout and job satisfaction. Drawing on conservation of resources theory, the authors examine the mediating effect of job burnout on the relationship between CSE and job satisfaction, while also investigating the moderating role of POS on the above effect.

Design/methodology/approach
Survey data were collected from a sample of 396 full-time employees from four restaurant and food service companies in Taiwan. Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to test the hypotheses.

Findings
The results show that job burnout partially mediates the relationship between CSE and job satisfaction. Moreover, the results indicate that POS moderates the negative relationship between CSE and job burnout, as well as the mediated relationship between CSE and job satisfaction via job burnout. Specifically, both the CSE-job burnout relationship and the CSE-job burnout-job satisfaction relationship become stronger for employees with high POS than for those with low POS.

Practical implications
The results highlight the importance of raising employees' POS by creating a supportive work environment in organizations, because it can serve as an important job resource that complements the impact of employees' CSE on their work-related well-being.

Originality/value
This study contributes to the literature by suggesting that work-related well-being should be viewed as the results of interplay between personal characteristics and perceptions of the work environment, highlighting the importance of the person-environment interaction in explaining employees' work-related well-being.


This letter presents the first successful method for iterative stochastic decoding of state-of-the-art low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes. The proposed method shows the viability of the stochastic approach for decoding LDPC codes on factor graphs. In addition, simulation results for a 200 and a 1024 length LDPC code demonstrate the near-optimal performance of this method with respect to sum-product decoding. The proposed method has a significant potential for high-throughput and/or low complexity iterative decoding.


The leukocyte adherence inhibition technique was used to study cell-mediated immunoactivity to breast adenocarcinoma. In a group of 74 patients with untreated breast cancer in Stages I and II, 69% showed a positive response, while 48% of the 25 patients in Stages III and IV had reactive leukocytes. Among 43 control persons, only 2 women showed positive responses. In a group of 161 women with benign breast diseases, 24% showed a positive reaction against breast carcinoma extract. The percentage of positive responses was higher than the average of women with benign disease among those who had a mother or a sister with breast cancer, who had previously had benign breast lumps removed, who had microcalcifications in their breasts, or for whom an increased intraductal epithelial proliferation was found in their biopsies. Twenty-eight women with benign breast diseases and two or more of the above factors were assigned to the high-risk group, in which 43% had reactive leukocytes. Of the 50 women with one risk factor, 34% showed a positive response, while of the 83 women in the low-risk group, with none of the above factors, only 11% had a positive reaction. The results suggest that the leukocyte adherence inhibition test may be used to identify groups of women who have a high risk for breast cancer.


This paper deals with the mechatronic design of a large-scale wind turbine model (outdoor scaled prototype) based on the DTU 10MW. This is going to be integrated in the model of a multi-purpose floating structure to be deployed at the Natural Ocean Engineering Laboratory (NOEL) in Reggio Calabria (Italy). The floating wind turbine model is the downscaling of the full-scale structure designed within the EU H2020 Blue Growth Farm project. The structural design of the scaled wind turbine is presented, starting from the aeroelastic and aerodynamic design carried out in a previous work.


This is a catalog from the exhibition "The Strangest Fruit" by Vincent Valdez which was held from April 27 to May 29, 2015 in the Staniar Gallery at Washington and Lee University. From the forward by the Director of the Staniar Gallery, Clover Archer Lyle: "This catalogue provides a broader context for understanding Valdez's artwork through a diverse range of scholarly perspectives. Each essay approaches The Strangest Fruit from its author's discipline, providing the reader with multiple lenses through which to more deeply engage the shared object of their texts: the highly disturbing pattern of widespread, institutionalized racism experienced by those with dark skin in America, a pattern that Valdez's paintings both present and render available for critical transformation."


This paper presents a framework and detailed vision for using immersive virtual reality (VR) environments to improve the design, verification, validation, and manufacture of medical devices. Major advances in medical device design and manufacture currently require extensive and expensive product cycles that include animal and clinical trials. The current design process limits opportunities to thoroughly understand and refine current designs and to explore new high-risk, high-payoff designs. For the past 4 years, our interdisciplinary research group has been working toward developing strategies to dramatically increase the role of simulation in medical device engineering, including linking simulations with visualization and interactive design. Although this vision aligns nicely with the stated goals of the FDA and the increasingly important role that simulation plays in engineering, manufacturing, and science today, the interdisciplinary expertise needed to realize a simulation-based visual design environment for real-world medical device design problems makes implementing (and even generating a system-level design for) such a system extremely challenging. In this paper, we present our vision for a new process of simulation-based medical device engineering and the impact it can have within the field. We also present our experiences developing the initial components of a framework to realize this vision and applying them to improve the design of replacement mechanical heart valves. Relative to commercial software packages and other systems used in engineering research, the vision and framework described are unique in the combined emphasis on 3D user interfaces, ensemble visualization, and incorporating state-of the-art custom computational fluid dynamics codes. We believe that this holistic conception of simulation-based engineering, including abilities to not just simulate with unprecedented accuracy but also to visualize and interact with simulation results, is critical to making simulation-based engineering practical as a tool for major innovation in medical devices. Beyond the medical device arena, the framework and strategies described may well generalize to simulation-based engineering processes in other domains that also involve simulating, visualizing, and interacting with data that describe spatially complex time-varying phenomena.


Abstract The potential role of dimethyl sulfoxide in minimizing early structural damage to the eye following corneal alkali injury was examined. Corneal alkali injury was induced in rabbits and treated with topical applications of 20% dimethyl sulfoxide. At day 3 the rates of corneal opacification (p less than 0.01) and corneal ulceration (p less than 0.05) were significantly lower in the treatment group than in the control group, but this effect was not sustained during the rest of the study period. Further work is required to determine the therapeutic value of topical dimethyl sulfoxide in combination with other agents, such as cycloplegics, corticosteroids, ascorbic acid and citric acid, in corneal alkali injury.


We analyzed 123 thermonuclear (type I) X-ray bursts observed by the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) from the low-mass X-ray binary 4U 1636-536. All but two of the 40 radius expansion bursts in this sample reached peak fluxes normally distributed about a mean of 6.4 × 10-8 ergs cm-2 s-1, with a standard deviation of 7.6%. The remaining two radius-expansion bursts reached peak fluxes a factor of 1.69 ± 0.13 lower than this mean value; as a consequence, the overall variation in the peak flux of the radius-expansion bursts was a factor of ≈2. This variation is comparable to the range of the Eddington limit between material with solar H fraction (X = 0.7) and pure He. Such a variation may arise if, for the bright radius-expansion bursts, most of the accreted H is either eliminated by steady hot CNO burning or expelled in a radiatively driven wind. However, steady burning cannot exhaust the accreted H for solar composition material within the typical ≈2 hr burst recurrence time, nor can it result in sufficient elemental stratification to allow selective ejection of the H only. An additional stratification mechanism appears to be required to separate the accreted elements and thus allow preferential ejection of the hydrogen. We found no evidence for a gap in the peak flux distribution between the radius-expansion and non-radius-expansion bursts, previously observed in smaller samples. Assuming that the faint radius-expansion bursts reached the Eddington limit for H-rich material (X ≈ 0.7), and the brighter bursts the limit for pure He (X = 0), we estimate the distance to 4U 1636-536 (for a canonical neutron star with MNS = 1.4 M☉, RNS = 10 km) to be 6.0 ± 0.5 kpc, or for MNS = 2 M☉ at most 7.1 kpc.


Two cytochromes P450 (PB1 and PB2) have been isolated from the livers of rats treated with phenobarbital. PB2 (mol. wt. 53 500) is novel and is the first example of a phenobarbital-inducible enzyme with a Soret peak at 447 nm. Using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, some immunochemical and structural similarities were observed between these cytochromes. PB1 and PB2 were induced by phenobarbital, Aroclor 1254, trans-stilbene oxide and to a lesser extent by isosafrole. Immunohistochemical localization of these proteins in the liver of untreated rats showed PB1 to be localized in a large area and PB2 in a narrow range of cells around the central vein. This demonstrates the heterogeneity of hepatocytes even within the centrilobular area and indicates that the synthesis of these two proteins is regulated differently although both are induced by the same agent, phenobarbital. Two 3-methylcholanthrene inducible cytochromes MC1 (mol. wt. 54 500) and MC2 (mol. wt. 57 000) were present at very low levels, MC2 mostly in the periportal region but also diffusely distributed throughout the lobule including some centrilobular cells, MC1 concentrated in the centrilobular region. The localization of two major groups of glutathione transferases (GST's) was also different. 'C' type proteins (Yb Yb') and microsomal epoxide hydrolase (EH), were concentrated around the central vein, whereas the 'B' type proteins (Ya Yc) and cytochrome P450 reductase were distributed in a larger area of this region. Thus, the localization was different for some members of the same enzyme family, whilst similarities in the localization existed across the border of the families: (i) PB2, MC1, EH and GST 'C' type proteins were concentrated in a narrow area around the central vein; (ii) PB1 and GST 'B' type proteins occupied a large centrilobular area; (iii) MC2 levels were very low, predominantly periportal but also diffusely distributed throughout the lobule. Treatment of the animals with inducers increased the staining intensity and in several cases extended the areas of cells containing these proteins over the adjacent zone without fundamentally altering their distributions. However, treatment with beta-naphthoflavone led to a shift of MC1 to the periportal area. This suggests that the expression of these proteins in certain cells is not an irreversible quality of differentiation but depends on the degree of suppression and derepression of regulatory components.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)


Background: The correlation between gastric myoelectrical activity (GMA) and gastrointestinal symptoms such as nausea and vomiting is poorly understood. The aim of this study was to assess the association of GMA with vomiting induced by retrograde gastric electrical stimulation or duodenal balloon distention. Methods: Ten dogs were involved in this study. Vomiting was induced by retrograde gastric electrical stimulation in 6 dogs and by duodenal balloon distention in 4 dogs. Computerized spectral analysis and visual analysis were applied to detect the GMA change during various periods before and after vomiting. Results: Gastric dysrhythmia preceded vomiting but was of brief duration. The major pattern of dysrhythmia immediately before vomiting was tachyarrhythmia and gastric slow wave was completely uncoupled before vomiting. Gastric dysrhythmia and slow wave uncoupling were also noticed immediately after vomiting but the dogs recovered quickly. The major pattern of dysrhythmia after vomiting was arrhythmia. GMA was normal during the periods other than 5 min before and during vomiting and 5 min after vomiting. Conclusions: Gastric dysrhythmia seems to be the cause of vomiting induced by retrograde gastric electrical stimulation or duodenal balloon distention. It is brief and characterized with tachyarrhythmia and uncoupling.


This thematic set emerged out of the 3rd EAGE Sustainable Earth Science Conference, held in the picturesque town of Celle in Lower Saxony, Germany, on 13 – 15 October 2015. This conference series was established to develop and promote an emerging group of applied geoscience topics focused on technologies for sustainable use of the subsurface to serve the energy transition; and the focus so far has been mainly on geothermal energy, CO2 storage and energy storage. Inspired by the research emerging from this conference, the conveners proposed a thematic set on the common ground between long-term geological storage of CO2 and the shorter-term cyclic storage of energy. The resulting set of papers is very rewarding, since they capture examples of all these topics and illustrate the complementary nature of subsurface studies on the storage of energy and CO2. We have arranged the set to start with two review papers, followed by three papers on energy storage and then a further three on CO2 storage.


Biometric passports is to prevent the illegal entry of traveler into a specific country and limit the use of counterfeit documents by more accurate identification of an individual. The e-passport, as it is sometimes called, represents a bold initiative in the deployment of two new technologies: Cryptography security and biometrics face and fingerprints. The privacy and security implications of this impending worldwide experiment in biometrics face and fingerprints authentication technology. An overall security process that involves people, technology and procedures can overcome limitations of the Cryptography security and face and fingerprint biometric passport using ASP.Net. Index Terms—ASP.NET, Biometrics, e-Passport, Face, and Fingerprint.


Logistics and supply chain outsourcing is an area of constant growth, and global sourcing is now a competitive requirement. It is a recognized strategy to align the supply chain with company direction and to manage services and costs more effectively. International Logistics Supply Chain Outsourcing is a comprehensive guide to the use of outsourcing logistics and supply chain operations. It includes a review of the market, an assessment of the major providers, a description of the main services available and a consideration of the key drivers for outsourcing. In addition, it provides a detailed framework for selecting a suitable service provider as well as a comprehensive evaluation of change management and subsequent contract management requirements.


While e-commerce sales continue to grow, product returns remain a key risk for online retailers' profitability. At the same time, credence goods such as sustainable products become increasingly important in retailing. This study aims to combine these two developments and empirically investigates the effect of credence goods on product returns and sales after returns in e-commerce. Furthermore, we assess how third-party assurances can help organizations to positively affect customer behavior and reduce product returns of credence goods. Our research is based on unique data from a large-scale online field experiment with 35,000 customers combined with data of more than one million past transactions of these customers. Surprisingly, the results reveal that credence goods are associated with lower product returns than experience goods. Adding a third-party certificate to the online product description helps to reduce product returns and increase sales after returns. We find that customer relationship strength and price consciousness act as boundary conditions for the certificate to reduce product returns. Our research contributes to signaling theory and extends IS literature on product uncertainty and returns to the field of credence goods. Furthermore, we provide relevant insights for e-commerce practitioners on how to manage sales and returns of credence goods.


U-Pb single-zircon and Sm-Nd whole-rock isotopic data for the Tanghu Granite of the Zhuguangshan batholith suggest that a basement either composed of or derived from Middle Proterozoic to Late Archean rocks underlies southeast China The granite contains two kinds of inherited zircon components, whole anhedral zircons and small cores within younger magmatic zircons. The U-Pb data for a single analysis of four magmatic zircons yielded a concordant age of 433 ±2 Ma, whereas single zircons yielded two linear arrays with lower intercepts of 435 ±1 and 434 ±14 Ma and upper intercepts of 1415 ±3 and 2516 ±6 Ma, respectively. Xenocrystic zircons of Archean age had not previously been recognized in any rocks from southeast China Two whole-rock samples from the granite yielded ϵNd values of -7.1 and -8.3 at 434 Ma and Nd model ages of ∼1750 Ma relative to a depleted mantle. We conclude from this isotope data that the Tanghu Granite crystallized at 434 ±1.6 Ma (weighted average) and was derived from a source of unknown age, but had an average crustal-residence age of ∼1750 Ma, and was partially composed of a mixture of continental crustal material of at least two ages (∼1400 and ∼2500 Ma).


The main ca.use of the Hiroshima disaster Rim 1999 is the heavy rain due to the cold front. This heavy rain appeared in the band with small width. It was considered that this concentration of rainfall was under the influence of the mountainous geographical features and the wind fields. A radar rain gauge was effective to know the distribution and the movement of this heavy rain, if we use the ground rain gauge together. It is considered that the radar rain gauge system is effective for short time prediction of rainfall through the movement of heavy rainfall area. We examine the feasibility of simple prediction of rainfall based on the radar rainfall gauge. As the result, it is necessary to consider the change in rainfall due to the mountainous geographical features.


Three Dimensional (3D) human heart model is attracting attention for its role in medical images for education and clinical purposes. Analysing 2D images to obtain meaningful information requires a certain level of expertise. Moreover, it is time consuming and requires special devices to obtain aforementioned images. In contrary, a 3D model conveys much more information. 3D human heart model reconstruction from medical imaging devices requires several input images, while reconstruction from a single view image is challenging due to the colour property of the heart image, light reflections, and its featureless surface.
 Lights and illumination condition of the operating room cause specular reflections on the wet heart surface that result in noises forming of the reconstruction process. Image-based technique is used for the proposed human heart surface reconstruction. It is important the
 reflection is eliminated to allow for proper 3D reconstruction and avoid imperfect final output. Specular reflections detection and correction process examine the surface properties. This was implemented as a first step to detect reflections using the standard deviation of RGB colour channel and the maximum value of blue channel to establish colour, devoid of specularities. The result shows the accurate and efficient performance of the specularities removing process with 88.7% similarity with the ground truth.
 Realistic 3D heart model reconstruction was developed based on extraction of pixel information from digital images to allow novice surgeons to reduce the time for cardiac surgery training and enhancing their perception of the Operating Theatre (OT). Cardiac medical imaging devices such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), Computed Tomography (CT) images, or Echocardiography provide cardiac information. However,these images from medical modalities are not adequate, to precisely simulate the real environment and to be used in the training simulator for cardiac surgery. The propose
 method exploits and develops techniques based on analysing real coloured images taken during cardiac surgery in order to obtain meaningful information of the heart anatomical structures.
Another issue is the different human heart surface vessels. The most important vessel region is the bloodless, lack of blood, vessels. Surgeon faces some difficulties in locating the bloodless vessel region during surgery. The thesis suggests a technique of identifying the vessels' Region of Interest (ROI) to avoid surgical injuries by examining an enhanced
input image. The proposed method locates vessels' ROI by using Decorrelation Stretch technique. This Decorrelation Stretch can clearly enhance the heart's surface image.
Through this enhancement, the surgeon become enables effectively identifying the vessels ROI to perform the surgery from textured and coloured surface images. In
addition, after enhancement and segmentation of the vessels ROI, a 3D reconstruction of this ROI takes place and then visualize it over the 3D heart model.
Experiments for each phase in the research framework were qualitatively and quantitatively evaluated. Two hundred and thirteen real human heart images are the dataset collected during cardiac surgery using a digital camera. The experimental results of the proposed methods were compared with manual hand-labelling ground truth data.
The cost reduction of false positive and false negative of specular detection and correction processes of the proposed method was less than 24% compared to other
methods. In addition, the efficient results of Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) to measure the correctness of the z-axis values to reconstruction of the 3D model accurately
compared to other method. Finally, the 94.42% accuracy rate of the proposed vessels segmentation method using RGB colour space achieved is comparable to other colour
spaces. Experimental results show that there is significant efficiency and robustness compared to existing state of the art methods.


Empathy is likely more widely distributed among animals than many researchers realize or perhaps are willing to admit. Studies of social carnivores, other group-living animals, and communication via different modalities will help us learn more about the evolutionary roots and behavioral, sensory, and cognitive underpinnings of empathy, including what it means to have a sense of self. There are also important implications for debates about animal well-being.


This study investigated the gap that exists between the technological knowledge and skills preservice teachers possess and their confidence in using them to successfully integrate technology in their classrooms. Specifically, this study addressed whether a model of instructional delivery using the integration of technology practices into the elementary method courses for preservice teachers positively influenced their self-reported confidence level and their use of technology in the classroom as student teachers. A time series analysis with repeated measures using a single-group design was conducted with a group of 26 self-selected preservice teachers. The technology instruction in the method courses occurred in the first semester (Phase One) and student teaching occurred in the second semester (Phase Two). The findings indicated the preservice teachers' confidence level in integrating specific technologies into their teaching practices increased over the two semesters they were involved in this study. Furthermore, the findings revealed that the preservice teachers demonstrated a higher use of the technologies in which they had more confidence and with the technologies that their supervising teachers used in the classroom. Providing experiences for the preservice teachers to use the technologies while student teaching and to see the technologies being modeled, continued to increase the preservice teachers' confidence and use of the technologies. CONCEPTURAL FRAMEWORK Niederhauser, Salem, and Fields (1999) reported that the trend in education today has moved from the transmission of didactic pedagogy to a learner-centered constructivistic approach. This movement has led to the need of strengthening the constructivist instructional methods in the classroom. Constructivists believe students acquire knowledge through active involvement with the learning environment. As students' direct involvement in the learning process increases, their motivation level increases, thereby leading to a greater understanding of knowledge (Jonassen, Peck, & Wilson, 1999). Like constructivist philosophies, the use of technology in education has been in existence for many years, but instructional technology in education is virtually a new frontier to be explored in teacher education programs. Both technology and constructivist methods can be found in today's classrooms, however the integration of the technology with the teaching practices of the teacher is not as effective as it should be. Preservice teachers need opportunities to learn with the technology by being exposed to authentic, learner-centered activities that allow them to construct their own understanding of the learning outcomes (Doering, Hughes, & Huffman, 2003; Wang, 2002; Wang, Ertmer, & Newby, 2004). Greening (1998) stated that "one view of the effect of technological change on society is that it has largely left the educational system behind" (p. 23). Greening further reported that educators should be involved in the technology that their students will be using on a daily basis. A model of technology integration that aligns itself with the constructivist theory advocates a learner-centered classroom where the students play a central role. This type of classroom uses technology to enhance and support the higher-order thinking skills of the students. Thus, the opportunity for the students to use technology to its fullest extent greatly increases. The teacher then becomes the facilitator in this learning environment, guiding the students to discover how technology can be used to accomplish the final outcome of an educational task (Wang, 2002). Although the CEO Forum (1999) School Technology Readiness Report (STAR) revealed that the number of schools that are effective in using technology has risen from 15% in 1997 to 24% in 1999, "the gap between technology presence in schools and its effective use is still too wide" (p. …


It is challenging to decipher molecular mechanisms in biological systems from system-level input-output data, especially for complex processes that involve interactions among multiple components. We addressed this general problem for the bacterial histidine kinase CheA, the activity of which is regulated in chemotaxis signaling complexes by bacterial chemoreceptors. We developed a general network model to describe the dynamics of the system, treating the receptor complex with coupling protein CheW and the P3P4P5 domains of kinase CheA as a regulated enzyme with two substrates, ATP and P1, the phosphoryl-accepting domain of CheA. Our simple network model allowed us to search hypothesis space systematically. For different and progressively more complex regulation schemes, we fit our models to a large set of input-output data with the aim of identifying the simplest possible regulation mechanisms consistent with the data. Our modeling and analysis revealed novel dual regulation mechanisms in which receptor activity regulated ATP binding plus one other process, either P1 binding or phosphoryl transfer between P1 and ATP. Strikingly, in our models receptor control affected the kinetic rate constants of substrate association and dissociation equally and thus did not alter the respective equilibrium constants. We suggest experiments that could distinguish between the two dual-regulation mechanisms. This systems-biology approach of combining modeling and a large input-output dataset should be applicable for studying other complex biological processes.


© 2011 J.A. Hobkirk, D.S. Gill, S.P. Jones, K.W. Hemmings, G.S. Bassi, A.L. O'Donnell and J.R. Goodman. All rights reserved. Hypodontia: A Team Approach to Management provides specialist clinicians with a practical reference to the multidisciplinary management of patients with this condition. The book synthesises current information and best practice from specialties involved in the treatment of hypodontia into one comprehensive volume, emphasising a problem-based approach throughout. This volume is structured over three sections. Part One offers background information on the epidemiology and aetiology of hypodontia, its inheritance patterns and syndromic associations, as well as describing the clinical features of the condition and outlining the importance of a multidisciplinary approach to patient care. Part Two addresses key issues in hypodontia management, namely challenges posed by excessive or inadequate space within and between the dental arches, specific occlusal considerations, and problems related to the supporting tissues. Part Three considers treatment of hypodontia within the framework of three broad stages of dental development: the primary/early fixed dentition, the late mixed dentition/early permanent dentition, and finally the established dentition. Hypodontia: A Team Approach to Management draws on the best available evidence and opinion to provide a complete, in-depth practical resource for dental specialists dealing with this complex condition. Complete multidisciplinary resource on hypodontia. Authored by a team with over 30 years of clinical and research experience in the treatment of hypodontia. Extensive reference lists. Features comprehensive section on age-related approaches to treatment. Many clinical illustrations in full colour.


We report the PASCAL2 benchmark for DAOOPT and GUROBI on MPE task with 330 optimally solved instances from 8 benchmark domains. DAOOPT outperformed GUROBI in 3 domains, while GUROBI was faster than DAOOPT in the rest of the 5 domains. We show that DAOOPT performed well in domains where it could have high quality initial solutions for pruning the AND/OR search space, or skip search when the heuristic upper bounds were converged to the optimal due to MPLP/JGLP algorithms. GUROBI presented excellent performance if cutting planes were applied progressively and its heuristic algorithms could find the optimal solution at the root of branch-and-cut tree.


Industries' systems are shifting toward almost entirely sophisticated electronic devices. Power Quality (PQ) analysis is getting importance for the economy because this equipment is highly sensitive to PQ events. Control and supervision of an industrial process has mainly been focused on the electrical protection, and little attention has been paid to the quality of the electrical supplies. Nowadays, measurement and communications systems have advanced to enable the installation of web-based sensors within a PQ assessment scenario. In this sense, this paper presents an innovative low-cost measurement system, as well as investigates the challenges and trends in the development of distributed PQ measurement systems using smart sensors.


We treat the problem of estimation of orientation parameters whose values are invariant to transformations from a spherical symmetry group. Previous work has shown that any such group-invariant distribution must satisfy a restricted finite mixture representation, which allows the orientation parameter to be estimated using an Expectation Maximization (EM) maximum likelihood (ML) estimation algorithm. In this paper, we introduce two parametric models for this spherical symmetry group estimation problem: 1) the hyperbolic Von Mises Fisher (VMF) mixture distribution and 2) the Watson mixture distribution. We also introduce a new EM-ML algorithm for clustering samples that come from mixtures of group-invariant distributions with different parameters. We apply the models to the problem of mean crystal orientation estimation under the spherically symmetric group associated with the crystal form, e.g., cubic or octahedral or hexahedral. Simulations and experiments establish the advantages of the extended EM-VMF and EM-Watson estimators for data acquired by Electron Backscatter Diffraction (EBSD) microscopy of a polycrystalline Nickel alloy sample.


Cytokines are multifunctional chemical messengers produced in response to stimuli for regulating the innate and adaptive immune systems. Rapid detection of cytokines in physiological fluids will enable precision management of diseases, such as dry eye, postoperative infections, graft versus host reactions in organ transplant, and cancer. In this study, we present a portable electrochemical biosensor with electrokinetic enhancement for rapid detection of interleukin-6 in conductive fluids, including phosphate buffered saline, contrived tears, and human blood plasma. The multiplex electrochemical biosensor incorporates self-assembled monolayers and an enzymatic amplification cycle to achieve sensitive and specific detection of cytokine biomarkers. We establish electrokinetic enhancement by Joule-heating induced temperature rise and electrothermal fluid motion on the sensor surface for enhancing molecular advection and reaction kinetics, which overcomes major limiting factors of point-of-care immunoanalysis systems. By investigating the thermal and electrochemical characteristics of the system, we optimize the assay time and the signal-to-noise ratio of the biosensor for rapid immunoanalysis of physiological fluids. With its effectiveness and outstanding performance, the electrokinetics enhanced electrochemical biosensor provides a versatile platform for rapid immunoanalysis valuable for precision disease diagnosis and monitoring.


For young people from non-Chinese speaking backgrounds who are attending schools in Hong Kong, acquiring Chinese language proficiency can be a significant and anxiety-provoking challenge. When students are not yet proficient in Chinese language, their low estimation of their Chinese language ability can create a vicious circle: feeling incompetent and worrying about language acquisition makes it more difficult to learn. Acquiring an additional language is not merely a linguistic and grammatical exercise, but an affective one. This article explores the use of narrative tools and perspectives for supporting culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) students in Hong Kong with their Chinese language learning. In particular, it shows how externalisation, therapeutic documents (in this case storybooks), Denborough's (1995) 'step by step' process and a search for 'wonderfulnesses' (Marsten, Epston, and Markham, 2016) were used with individuals and groups. The article includes accounts of work with an individual and two groups of students. In the first story Alex, a 13-year-old student attending a mainstream secondary school, externalises negative emotions that adhered to the learning of Chinese, thus paving ways to see her abilities. In the second story, a group of three 14-yearold students from a mainstream secondary school externalise 'strengths' and 'resources' for learning Chinese so that the internal quality of a person was made apparent (M. White, 2007, p. 38). The third story involved a group of five students, eight to nine years of age, from a primary school attended mainly by CALD students. 'Chinese' was externalised and became an imaginary friend. This imaginary friend learned from the students, thus making the language less intimidating to approach. Recruited as a carrier and consolidator of the dominant knowledge associated with ethnic minorities, as a local Cantonese speaking person I attempted to maintain a position of being decentred but influential in these stories.


Recent cyber-attacks have used unknown malicious code or advanced attack techniques, such as zero-day attacks, making them extremely difficult to detect using traditional intrusion detection systems. Botnet attacks, for example, are a very sophisticated type of cyber-security threat. Malicious code or vulnerabilities are used to infect endpoints. Systems infected with this malicious code connect a communications channel to a command and control (C&C) server and receive commands to perform attacks on target servers. To effectively protect a corporate network's resources against such threats, we must be able to detect infected systems before an attack occurs. In this paper, an attack pattern chain algorithm (APChain) is proposed to identify infected systems in real-time network environments, and a methodology for detecting abnormal behavior through network-based behavioral profiling is explained. APChain analyzes the attribute information of real-time network traffic, connects chains over time, and conducts behavioral profiling of different attack types to detect abnormal behavior. The dataset used in the experiment employed real-time traffic accumulated over a period of six months, and the proposed algorithm was developed into a prototype for the experiment. The C&C channel detection accuracy was measured at 0.996, the true positive rate at 1.0, and the false positive rate at 0.003. This study proposes a methodology that can overcome the limitations of conventional security mechanisms and suggests an approach to the detection of abnormal behavior in a real-time network environment.


The Greenland ice sheet preserves high resolution records of environmental and climate change spanning seasons to hundreds and thousands of years. In this study, we utilize major chemical species measurements of surface snowpit samples and ice cores collected at GISP2, 20D, Mount Logan, and Sentik Glacier to investigate major chemical species spatial distribution, temporal variations, and possible sources for the major chemical species in these ice cores. A two-sided t-distribution test (a = 0.05) was applied for the study of major chemical species spatial distribution over a portion of central Greenland. The results suggest that concentrations of major chemical species in snow do not vary significantly over the central Greenland. The relationship between chemical concentration and snow accumulation rate was investigated using the snowpits and ice core samples. Chemical concentrations do not vary with snow accumulation rate over the Greenland ice sheet We further suggest that it is improper to study the relationship between chemical concentration and snow accumulation rate by using data collected from different geographic sites. Of all the chemical series studied, only NO$\sb3\sp-$ concentration data are normally distributed. NO$\sb3\sp-$ concentration in snow is affected by post-depositional exchange with the atmosphere. The persistent summer maxima in NO$\sb3\sp-$ observed in Greenland snow is believed mainly due to NO$\rm\sb{x}$ released from peroxyacetyl nitrate (PAN) by thermal decomposition in the presence of higher OH concentrations in summer. A nearly complete depletion of NO$\sb3\sp-$ (94%) and depletion of Cl$\sp-$ (63%) correlates with the largest volcanic eruption horizon in the GISP2 core. It is suggested that such depletion is due to the large amounts of SO$\sb4\sp{2-}$ disturbing atmospheric photochemistry and extremely acidic condition in ice layer. The 110,000 year long major chemical species fluctuations in the GISP2 ice core demonstrate that chemical concentrations are inversely correlated with $\delta\sp{18}$O during last glacial period, suggesting that chemical concentration increases while temperature decreases, and vice versa. During the Holocene the atmosphere was acidic, during interstadials the atmosphere was a neutral or alkalescent, and during stadials the atmosphere was alkaline. Changes in major chemical composition and ratios also indicate that source regions differed during these periods.


Abstract Responses of ecosystems to elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) remain a critical uncertainty in global change research. Two key unknown factors are the fate of carbon newly incorporated by photosynthesis into various pools within the ecosystem and the extent to which elevated CO2 is transferred to and sequestered in pools with long turnover times. The CO2 used for enrichment in many experiments incorporates a dual isotopic tracer, in the sense that ratios of both the stable carbon-13 (13C) and the radioactive carbon-14 (14C) isotopes with respect to carbon-12 are different from the corresponding ratios in atmospheric CO2. Here we review techniques for using 13C and 14C abundances to follow the fate of newly fixed carbon and to further our understanding of the turnover times of ecosystem carbon pools. We also discuss the application of nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen isotope analyses for tracing changes in the linkages between carbon, nitrogen, and water cycles under conditions of elevated CO2.


In this paper a statistical method is described for predicting fatigue accumulation. The proposed method for predicting accumulated fatigue is based on a nonparametric Bayesian analysis. Bayesian analysis provides a natural prediction framework for combining long-term design information and actual measured data. This work is part of the Monitas II project which delivered an advisory hull monitoring system for FPSOs with automatic data analyses capabilities. The prediction tool is to be embedded in this hull monitoring system.


In this paper we present an efficient way to both compute and extract salient information from trace transform signatures to perform object identification tasks. We also present a feature selection analysis of the classical trace-transform functionals, which reveals that most of them retrieve redundant information causing misleading similarity measurements. In order to overcome this problem, we propose a set of functionals based on Laguerre polynomials that return orthonormal signatures between these functionals. In this way, each signature provides salient and non-correlated information that contributes to the description of an image object. The proposed functionals were tested considering a vehicle identification problem, outperforming the classical trace transform functionals in terms of computational complexity and identification rate.


Malaria, a vector-borne infectious disease, is currently a grave and universal concern with a significant social, economic, and human cost, mainly in developing countries. In addition, the emergence and spread of resistance to antimalarial therapies have further aggravated the global situation. Currently most of the research is focused on development of antimalarial drugs, drug resistance, and novel formulations to maximize the therapeutic effect. A number of novel molecules potentially active against malarial parasites are being developed. A vaccine is still viewed as a critical part of a long-term malaria control strategy. In the last several years various studies have shown significant progress in the development of vaccines against malaria. Advancement in vaccine technology and immunology is being used to develop malaria subunit vaccines that would open up new vistas for effective treatment and control of malaria. The development of an effective malaria vaccine represents one of the most important approaches that would provide a cost-effective intervention in addition to currently available malaria control strategies. An overview on progress in antimalarial vaccines is presented.


In popular models of expertise and decision making in complex environments, such as the recognition-primed decision (RPD) model and take-the-first (TTF) heuristic, expert and skilled decision makers are described as generating few response options and typically choose the best option first. To explain these behaviors, proponents of TTF have suggested that a negative relationship exists between the number of options generated and decision quality. In the current article, we use a prediction and situational option generation paradigm to assess perceptual-cognitive skill in the complex domain of soccer to determine whether these claims explain how decision makers make predictions about others in the environment. In three experiments we provide evidence to show that superior prediction performance was supported by a situation model-type mechanism as proposed by long-term working memory (LTWM) theory rather than simpler heuristics, such as TTF or RPD. The similarity between LTWM mechanisms and relevant macrocognitive processes is discussed. The data have important implications for how future experts should be trained and, in particular, for developing skilled comprehension, apprehension, and prediction skill.


The paper is dealing with the credit support to the Czech agriculture provided by Supporting and Guarantee Agricultural and Forestry Fund (SGAFF) during the ten years period since the inception of its activities in 1994 do the year 2003 which preceded to the Czech entry into European Union (EU) and accession to the Common Agricultural Policy of the EU. SGAFF guaranteed relatively stable inflow of commercial bank credit for agriculture provided according to the market determined allocation, which is considered as an opposite to the administrative decisions. We evaluated the multiplication effect of the credit support which shows that one monetary unit allocated from the government budget to the support of agricultural credit secured commercial credit in the range of 3-5 monetary units.


OBJECTIVE
To measure the dental anxiety levels of post-graduate pediatric dental students (PGS) and their instructors, and their ranking of the most anxiety provoking situations in the dental situation; to investigate gender differences with regard to dental anxiety.

STUDY DESIGN
Twenty-four PGS and 31 of their instructors completed a three-section questionnaire on socio demographic information, dental anxiety scale (DAS) and dental fear survey (DFS).

RESULTS
The overall mean DAS and DFS scores were similar for both groups. The scores of the PGS were significantly higher on the DFS for perspiration when dental work was done (p = 0.032), the smell of the dentist's office (p = 0.009), and seeing the dentist enter the treatment room (p = 0.005). The total DAS score was significantly higher among females than among males (8.03 ± 3.08 and 6.63 ± 1.77, p = 0.037), and for item on waiting for the dentist to scrape the teeth, (p = 0.05). The DAS and DFS scores were strongly correlated (r = 0.768, p = 0.000). The highest DAS score was for the item on anticipation of dental treatment before arrival to the clinic and waiting for the drilling. The response pattern for both groups was similar.

CONCLUSIONS
Overall dental anxiety of PGS and their instructors was similar. Female PGS and instructors had higher dental anxiety levels than males.


The MAPK signal-integrating kinases Mnk1 and Mnk2 are closely related but show marked differences in their basal activities and regulation. Both possess, within their C termini, motifs for binding to MAPKs, although these differ between Mnk1 and Mnk2. Mnk2 shows much higher activity in unstimulated cells than Mnk1, whose activity is greatly increased, e.g. by stimulation of the MEK/ERK pathway. Such increases are sensitive to blockade of that pathway, whereas the activation state of Mnk2 is relatively insensitive to inhibition of upstream signaling. Here we have studied the roles of features in their catalytic domains and C termini in determining their regulatory properties and basal activities. Mnk2 can bind to phosphorylated, active ERK, whereas Mnk1 cannot. Such binding apparently protects ERK against dephosphorylation and inactivation. The high basal activity of Mnk2 and its binding to (phospho)ERK requires features both of the catalytic domain and of the C terminus. For example, within the catalytic region an aspartate in Mnk2 plays a key role. Mutation to alanine inactivates Mnk2. In the C terminus, features within the MAPK-binding motif and to either side of it, including potential phosphorylation sites, affect MAPK binding and activity. The association of Mnks with the scaffold protein eukaryotic initiation factor 4G is negatively modulated by Mnk activity. These data indicate that multiple features determine the activities of the Mnks and thus impact on their ability to phosphorylate physiological substrates such as eukaryotic initiation factor 4E.


Today, bidding to host international sports events is no longer a privilege of certain developed countries. Hosting international sports events has attracted many developing countries, as they have begun to realize the multiple benefits that it can offer. Sports as a form of popular culture that cuts across class, caste and ethnicity has a lot to offer to many developing countries that are still grappling with many crucial national agendas, provided its benefits and potential effects are creatively exploited. The successful hosting of a high-profile international sports event would not only trigger and promote national pride and a sense of patriotism, but quite often, its socio-economic outcome may outweigh the political effects. Whilst the political focus of sports is usually related to aspects such as national pride, improving the image of a nation as well as national unity, the economic dimension of sports has always been linked to economic growth, tourism and creating new frontiers for the economy. Over the past decade Malaysia has seen growing interest and intensive government investment in sports. The success of the Kuala Lumpur 1998 Commonwealth Games and the Sepang Formula 1 Grand Prix has gained the country outstanding international reputation in the hosting of world sports events, despite its average achievements in sports. This paper attempts to examine the underlying factors that prompted Malaysia to actively become involved in promoting itself as a host country for several world sports events in which it has never before partaken nor had achieved international reputation. In addition it will also look into the country sports policy as well a$ the roles of government and sports bodies in making sports an important dimension to strengthen the country's domestic and internatipnal 1 agendas. The paper argues that for many developing countries, the role of government is still far more crucial than any other factors in the development of sports. Sports have far-reaching implications in the development of a country and should not be viewed merely as a form of popular culture. Therefore, many more 'focus studies' should be carried out to further apprehend the contribution that sports could make in developing