Composite microsystems that incorporate microelectromechanical and microelectrofluidic devices are emerging as the next generation of system-on-a-chip (SOC). We present a performance comparison between two types of microelectrofluidic systems (MEFS): continuous-flow systems and droplet-based systems. The comparison is based on a specific microelectrofluidic application-a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) system. The behavioral modeling, simulation, and performance evaluation are based on a SystemC design environment. The performance comparison includes the system throughput, system-correction capacity, system-processing capacity, and system-design complexity. By using our system-performance evaluation environment, we demonstrated that the droplet-based MEFS provides higher performance, as well as lower design and integration complexity.


A small prototype of a 5-level single-phase full H-bridge inverter for ocean current applications is presented. The inverter was designed applying level-shift control in pulse-width modulation (LS-PWM), and experimental tests were conducted using a variety of modulation subschemes, including in-phase disposition (IPD), alternate-phase opposition–disposition (APOD), and phase opposition–disposition (POD). The test results were examined for harmonic content and voltage total harmonic distortion (THDV). The results suggest that the inverter presents a viable solution with significant potential for the development of a larger three-phase inverter model that can be used to connect ocean current power sources to the electrical grid.


We studied and compared the ipsilateral afferents of the superficial and deep layers of the superior colliculus of the rhesus monkey. Using a stereptaxic method, microelectrodes were inserted through the contralateral hemisphere in order to make electrolytic lesions of the superior colliculus. Large lesions involved all layers of the superior colliculus, while smaler lesions involved either the superficial or the deep layers of the superior colliculus. Following various survival times, the brains were prepared with the Fink‐Heimer technique (1967). Following lesions of the superficial layers of the superior colliculus, definite degenerated axonal endings were found in the dorsal and ventral lateral genuculate nuclei, inferior pulvinar, centrontermediate nucleus, magnocellular dorsomedial nucleus, anterior pretectal nucleus and pretectal refion. Sparse degenerated axonal endings were found in the limitans nucleus, lateral posterior nucleus and some intralaminar nuclei following lesions of the superficial layers in the rostral portion of the superior colliculus. Following lesions of the deep layers of the superior colliculus, degenerated axonal endings were found in the central gray, magnocellular medial geniculate nucleus, suprageniculatre nucleus, limations nucleus, lateral posterior nulceus, medial and oral pulvinarm nucleus of athe accessory optic tract, zona incerta, subdivisions of the ventral lateral and ventral posterior lateral nuclei, ventral posterior inferior nulceus, densocellular and mulriform dorsomedial nuclei, all intralaminar nucleim inferior coliculus, parabigeminal nucleus, olivary nucleus, reunions nucleus, Forel's Field H and an undefined midbrain nucleus. In general the projections were topographically organized in that the caudal portions of thalamic nuclei. All the degeneration patterns seen after lesions of the superficial and dep layers were accoundted for by large lesions which involved all layers of the superior colliculus. It is conclude that the superficial and deep layers of the rhesus monkey superior colliculus have different ascending projections. The findings are related to the organization of visual and multimodal thalamocortical system in primates and other mammals.


Aims To assess the frequency of premedication use for neonatal unit intubations. To analyse medication use by condition of the baby and indication for intubation. Methods Local guidelines for premedication use were reviewed. Data was collected contemporaneously in ten neonatal units (five ITU, four LNU, one SCBU) using a standardised proforma over an eight week period. Babies intubated on the unit were eligible for inclusion and were identified from weekly checks of the BadgerNet system and by reviewing the notes of ventilated babies. Data were collected on; weight, gestation, indication for intubation, choice and timing of medication, condition of the baby and documented reasons for not using premedication. Results There were 307 intubations in total, 96 (31%) occurred on labour ward and were excluded. 212 neonatal unit intubations were analysed. Sixty-six (31%) of babies had no premedication for intubation. Of these; 30 (45%) were classified as being spontaneously breathing, 21 (31%) were apnoeic but could be mask ventilated, 6 (9%) were difficult to mask ventilate and 4 (6%) were apnoeic and bradycardic despite attempts to mask ventilate. An additional 12 (5%) babies had unsuccessful intubation attempts without premedication followed by successful intubation with premedication. Forty percent of babies not receiving premedication had a documented reason for this decision in the notes. Reasons included; 'No IV access' (4), 'Unable to cannulate' (1) 'Difficult to mask ventilate' (3) and 'in/out surfactant' (6). Units varied in their choice of medication. Morphine was used for analgesia in 55 intubations. Only three had a time gap of more than five minutes between morphine and muscle-relaxant. Given the delayed onset of action of morphine most these babies are unlikely to have received adequate analgesia during intubation. Conclusions Previous research demonstrates that premedication blunts the adverse physiological responses to neonatal intubation and improves the chances of successful intubation. Providing analgesia and sedation for intubation should be considered humane care. Our data demonstrates that premedication is not used in all non-emergency intubations and could be used more widely. These results could be used to change current practice leading to quality improvement in patient care. Acknowledgements The main contributors to the project are K Atkinson, H Mc Dermott, H Vawda, K Harvey, A Henderson, D Bogue, L Duthie, O Kowobari, R Yew, J Brindley, G Bhat, N Kottayankandy and A Ratcliffe. Consultant members of PRAM provided advice and supported the project, in particular A Ewer.


The shift to neoliberalism in socio-political thinking across the western world has seen the once widely held value of the public good of education replaced by the notion of its private benefit. The complexity of the roles that education plays in society; for example, developing human capital and economic productivity, social cohesion and opportunity for personal development, is deepened by the struggle over ideological agendas. In Australia, this ideological shift has been accompanied by: (a) claims of falling teacher quality and poor student outcomes as justification for greater accountability on schools; (b) local school management and changes in employment relationships that attempt to link pay with external, standardised outcomes; (c) the imposition of national curriculum and testing regimes for schools; (d) the adoption of 'new public management' practices in schools; and (e) a continued government funding support for private schools. The 175,000-member Australian Education Union (AEU) has been the key voice defending the importance of public education as a public good and a cornerstone of democracy. Yet, despite the change to a social-democratic (Labor) Federal Government in 2007, neoliberal policies continue to drive the national education agenda. This article will describe briefly the current Australian political context following the election of a Federal Labor Government to show how policy from the former conservative government has been re-shaped to fit the new government's agenda in the area of testing, performance pay and new management practices, and to suggest how the emerging tensions between the education union and the government might be played out over the first term of government.


The EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation is a unique venture, co-managed and co-funded by the European Commission Directorate General Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW) and the Japanese government under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and industry (METI).
 It is a non-profit organisation established in 1987 aimed at promoting all forms of industrial, trade and investment cooperation between the EU and Japan and at improving EU and Japanese companies¡ competitiveness and cooperation by facilitating exchanges of experiences and know how
 between them. The Centre is also an operational instrument for implementing EU and Japan policy initiatives, building economic intelligence and helping our businesses access each other¡s market. The pace of the development of technologies is growing exponentially and universities
 and research centres play a pivotal role in this regard both in the EU and Japan. Europe and Japan should look to each other and send a signal to the world that the EU and Japan are committed to keeping the world economy working on the basis of open, fair and regulated markets. This article
 describes some of the tools offered by the Centre to promote and support cooperation between Japanese and EU companies


This study evaluates the spatial properties of flats block, where daily social interactions often take place, in order to identify socially encouraging layouts. It attempts to establish any significant relationship between spatial properties of flats layouts and the local network of social relations among the residents. It employed network mapping to measure social contact sizes and utilized syntactical software to compare visibility and integration levels of various flats configurations. Findings showed possible relationship between flats spatial properties and the size of social contacts.
Keywords: Flats configuration; Local Social Contact; Outdoor Near Home Space; Visibility; Integration.
eISSN 2514-751X © 2018. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open-access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.
https://doi.org/10.21834/aje-bs.v3i8.275


Shopping streets at local city in Japan became old and are generally declining. In this paper, we handle the area rebirth and/or regional revitalization of shopping street. We focus on Fuji city in Japan. Four big festivals are held at Fuji city (two for Fuji Shopping Street and two for Yoshiwara Shopping Street). Many people visit these festivals including residents in that area. Therefore a questionnaire investigation to the residents and visitors is conducted during these periods in order to clarify residents and visitors' needs for the shopping street, and utilize them to the plan building of the area rebirth and/or regional revitalization of shopping street. There is a big difference between Fuji Shopping Street and Yoshiwara Shopping Street. Therefore we focus Yoshiwara Shopping Street in this paper. These are analyzed by using Bayesian Network. The analysis utilizing Bayesian Network enabled us to visualize the causal relationship among items. Furthermore, sensitivity analysis brought us estimating and predicting the prospective visitors. Sensitivity analysis is performed by back propagation method. These are utilized for constructing a much more effective and useful plan building. We have obtained fruitful results. To confirm the findings by utilizing the new consecutive visiting records would be the future works to be investigated.


This chapter adds to a growing subfield of music festival studies by examining the business practices and cultures of the commercial outdoor sector, with a particular focus on rock, pop, and dance music events. The events of this sector require substantial financial and other capital in order to be staged and achieve success, yet the market is highly volatile, with relatively few festivals managing to attain longevity. It is argued that these events must balance their commercial needs with the socio-cultural expectations of their audiences for hedonistic, carnivalesque experiences that draw on countercultural understanding of festival culture (the countercultural carnivalesque). This balancing act has come into increased focus as corporate promoters, brand sponsors, and venture capitalists have sought to dominate the market in the neoliberal era of late capitalism. The chapter examines the riskiness and volatility of the sector before examining contemporary economic strategies for risk management and audience development, and critiques of these corporatizing and mainstreaming processes.


Blockchain has become one of the hottest technologies in the market, and has immense potential to reshape current business operations in multiple industries, particularly the banking sector. Its impact comes through the facilitation of fund transaction, securities trading, data analytics, and risk management. This study identifies the key characteristics of blockchain that cultivates competitive advantages applied in the banking sector. We discuss how blockchain's capabilities cultivate a new form of data monitoring, analysis and storage. We identify the nine key challenges to be mindful of, before considering a strategic shift onto an entire infrastructure based on such new blockchain technology.


Policy at the local level is a critical component of comprehensive tobacco control programs. This study examined the relationships of individual and social factors with support for tobacco-related public policy using cross-sectional data (n = 4461) from adults participating in a statewide survey. Weighted multivariate, multinomial logistic regression examined associations between individual and social factors and support for tobacco-free city properties and support for limiting the number of stores that sell tobacco near schools. Oklahomans were more likely to favor policies that create tobacco-free city properties than policies that limit the number of stores that sell tobacco near schools. While non-smokers were most likely to favor both policies, support for both policies was greater than 50% among current smokers. Knowledge of secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure harm and female gender were predictors of support for both policies and among current, former, and never smokers. Rural-urban status was a predictor of support among former smokers and never smokers. Tobacco use among friends and family was only a predictor among never smokers' support for limiting the sale of tobacco near schools. This study demonstrates that level of support differs by policy type, individual smoking status, as well as among subpopulations, and identifies critical elements in the theory of change for tobacco control programs.


The feeling of sadness is said to be an individual problem which can take advantage of an adequate Spa therapy in all its complexity. The sadness as a feeling of disproportional affective reaction with mental consequences, can find relief in the Spa cures and their different structural elements like the hydrothermal techniques, psychical actions, environmental features..., etc. These Spa cures have many favourable effects not only on the body but also on the mind, being capable of liberating the mind of worries and respecting the peculiar personality and way of suffering of the patient.


High-dispersed nano-ZnO were used for alternating ordinary ZnO in the vulcanization process of nature rubber. The properties of vulcanized natural rubber including the mechanical properties and anti-aging properties were investigated in this paper. The results showed that high-dispersed nano-ZnO made natural rubber the scorched time longer, the degrees of cross-linking higher and anti-aging properties remarkably stronger, compared with 99.5 % of ordinary ZnO under the same vulcanization conditions. Specially, when 0.8 dosages of high-dispersed nano-ZnO being used, the mechanical properties and anti-aging ability of natural rubber were best and better than that of 5 dosages of 99.5 % of ordinary ZnO in traditional formula. The reasons may be that high-dispersed nano-ZnO were completely resolved in rubber and can fully be contacted with the double bond of rubber molecules and the surface of sulfur so that they increased the efficiency of rubber vulcanization to improve the properties of natural rubber.


Interest in the rankings of contributors to academic literature is evidenced by the numerous publications across most business and economic disciplines. This study presents the most prolific authors 1) over the entire history of the 11 high-impact IS journals and 2) over the ten most recent years for each of the journals. We include the number of authors who have published in the journals but who may not be considered prolific based on our classification; this data is important and especially critical for IS departments that set research standards. Identifying and ranking authors in the IS discipline is interesting for several reasons. While some may be curious to see how they perform compared to these researchers, a more beneficial application of the findings in this paper pertains to establishing realistic promotion and tenure standards. Although 11,204 authors published in the 11 high-impact journals, 7,734 (69%) of those authors published only once in these journals in the 1977-2014 period. This fact is essential for any IS department that sets promotion and tenure guidelines. Using our findings will help colleges and IS departments establish reasonable and attainable promotion and tenure standards based on the actual performance of others in the discipline.


Coke bed preheating with shunt rheostats is considered one of the most popular methods used in the aluminium reduction cells preheating. Typical cathode heat-up rate during preheat and start-up as well as typical start-up anode effect were achieved. This paper studied the important considerations affecting the preheating and start-up of 210 kA prebaked cells at Egyptalum, as well as the evaluation of performance of the coke bed preheating method with shunt rheostats. The average preheating time was found to be 53 hours with energy consumption of up to 115,000 kWh. The effect of using different shunts-rheostats materials on cell current was illustrated. Also cell voltage before, during and after finishing the anode effect was studied. It was found that the cell voltage and time of anode effect during this stage varied in the range from 12 to 23 V and 60 to 120 min. respectively. The cell performance parameters, like current efficiency, energy and carbon consumption, were improved.


Metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) is a comprehensive approach for sequence-based identification of pathogenic microbes. However, reports on the use of mNGS in pulmonary infection applied to lung biopsy tissues remain scarce. In this study, we applied mNGS to detect the presence of pathogenic microbes in lung biopsy tissues from 20 patients with pulmonary disorders indicating possible infection. We applied a new data management for identifying pathogen species based on mNGS data. We determined the thresholds for the unique reads and relative abundance required to identify the infectious pathogens. Potential pathogens of pulmonary infections in 15 patients were identified by mNGS. The comparison between mNGS and culture method resulted that the sensitivity and specificity were 100.0% (95% CI: 31.0–100.0%) and 76.5% (95% CI: 49.8–92.2%) for bacteria, 57.1% (95% CI: 20.2–88.2%) and 61.5% (95% CI: 32.2–84.9%) for fungi. The positive predictive value (PPV) (42.9% for bacteria, 44.4% for fungi) was much lower than negative predictive value (NPV) (100% for bacteria, 72.7% for fungi) in mNGS vs. culture method. The mNGS showed the highest specificity (100.0 and 94.1%) and PPV (100.0 and 75.0%) in the evaluation of fungi and MTBC respectively, when compared with histopathology method. The study indicated that mNGS of lung biopsy tissues can be used to detect the presence (or absence) of pulmonary pathogens in patients, with potential benefits in speed and sensitivity. However, accurate data management and interpretation of mNGS are required, and should be combined with observations of clinical manifestations and conventional laboratory-based diagnostic methods.


This paper presents the German version of the Short Understanding of Substance Abuse Scale (SUSS) [Humphreys et al.: Psychol Addict Behav 1996;10:38–44], the Verständnis von Störungen durch Substanzkonsum (VSS), and evaluates its psychometric properties. The VSS assesses clinicians' beliefs about the nature and treatment of substance use disorders, particularly their endorsement of psychosocial and disease orientation. The VSS was administered to 160 treatment staff members at 12 substance use disorder treatment programs in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. Because the confirmatory factor analysis of the VSS did not completely replicate the factorial structure of the SUSS, an exploratory factor analysis was undertaken. This analysis identified two factors: the Psychosocial model factor and a slightly different Disease model factor. The VSS Disease and Psychosocial subscales showed convergent and discriminant validity, as well as sufficient reliability.


Background
 CD19-specific chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy has achieved high efficacy in acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients. However, the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) has remained a particular challenge due to the heterogeneity of AML bearing cells, which renders single antigen targeting CAR T cell therapy ineffective. CLL1 and CD33 are often used as targets for AML CAR T cell therapy. CLL1 is associated with leukemia stem cells and disease relapse, and CD33 is expressed on the bulk AML disease. Previously, we demonstrated the profound anti-tumor activity of CLL1-CD33 compound CAR (cCAR) T cells. Here we present the efficacy of cCAR in preclinical study and update the success in level 1 dose escalation clinical trial on relapsed/refractory AML patients.
 Methods
 We engineered a cCAR comprising of an anti-CLL1 CAR linked to an anti- CD33 CAR via a self-cleaving P2A peptide and expressing both functional CAR molecules on the surface of a T-cell cell. We tested the anti-leukemic activities of CLL1-CD33 cCAR using multiple AML cell lines, primary human AML samples, human leukemia cell line (REH cells) expressing either CLL1 or CD33, and multiple mouse models. An alemtuzumab safety switch has also been established to ensure the elimination of CAR T cells following tumor eradication. Children and adults with relapsed/refractory AML were enrolled in our phase 1 dose escalation trial with primary objective to evaluate the safety of cCAR and secondary objective to assess the efficacy of cCAR anti-tumor activity.
 Results
 Co-culture assays results showed that cCAR displayed profound tumor killing effects in AML cell lines, primary patient samples and multiple mouse model systems. Our preclinical findings suggest that cCAR, targeting two discrete AML antigens: CLL1 and CD33, is an effective two-pronged approach in treating bulk AML disease and eradicating leukemia stem cells. Patients enrolled in the phase 1 dose escalation trial have shown remarkable response to cCAR treatment. Noticeably, a 6-yr-old female patient diagnosed with a complex karyotype AML including FLT3-ITD mutation had achieved complete remission. The patient was diagnosed with Fanconi anemia, which had progressed to juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia and eventually transformed into AML. The patient had been resistant to multiple lines of treatments, including 5 cycles of chemotherapy with FLT3 inhibitor prior to receiving cCAR. Before the treatment, patient's leukemia blasts comprised 73% of the peripheral blood mononuclear cells and 81% of the bone marrow. Patient underwent lymphodepletion therapy (Fludarabine and Cyclophosphamide) prior to cCAR infusion. Two split doses, each consisting of 1x106/kg CAR T cells, were infused on day 1 and day 2 respectively. On day 12, while leukemia blast still counting up to 98% of the bone marrow (Fig. 1A), robust CAR T cell expansion was detected in both peripheral blood and bone marrow. On day 19, patient achieved MRD- complete remission with bone marrow aspirates revealing complete ablation of myeloid cells (Fig. 1B). Flow cytometry confirmed the absence of leukemia blasts and showed that CAR T cells comprised 36% of the PBMC and 60% of the bone marrow. The patient later underwent non-myeloablative hematopoietic cell transplantation with less toxicities compared to conventional total body radiation and high dose chemotherapies. Updated results on other patients enrolled in this clinical trial including adverse events will be presented.
 Conclusion
 Our first-in-human clinical trial demonstrates promising efficacy of cCAR therapy in treating patients with relapsed/ refractory AML. cCAR is able to eradicate leukemia blasts and leukemia stem cells, exerting a profound tumor killing effect that is superior to single target CAR T cell therapies. cCAR is also shown to induce total myeloid ablation in bone marrow, suggesting that it may act as a safer alternative to avoid the severe toxicities caused by standard bone marrow ablation regimens without sacrificing the anti-tumor efficacy. This strategy will likely benefit patients who are unable to tolerate total body radiation or high dose chemotherapies. In addition to AML, cCAR also has the potential to treat blast crisis developed from myelodysplastic syndrome, chronic myeloid leukemia, and chronic myeloproliferative neoplasm.

 Pinz: iCell Gene Therapeutics LLC: Employment. Ma:iCAR Bio Therapeutics Ltd: Employment. Wada:iCell Gene Therapeutics LLC: Employment. Chen:iCell Gene Therapeutics LLC: Employment. Ma:iCell Gene Therapeutics LLC: Employment. Ma:iCell Gene Therapeutics LLC, iCAR Bio Therapeutics Ltd: Consultancy, Equity Ownership, Research Funding.


The rapid progress of HLA typing techniques has contributed to improving the outcome of haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). However, unambiguous HLA typing remains challenging. Next generation sequencing (NGS) has been shown to resolve the HLA typing ambiguity and simplify HLA typing workflows. The aim of this study is to develop a multiplexed full‐gene PCR assay for 11 HLA loci that can be used on any NGS platform to provide additional information to the traditionally sequenced regions. The entire gene of HLA‐A, HLA‐B, HLA‐C, DRB1, DRB3/4/5, DQB1, DQA1, DPB1, and DPA1 were amplified in four multiplexed reactions. A DNA reference panel of 47 samples representing the most common allele groups was selected to evaluate this novel assay using the Ion Torrent sequencing platform. The specificity and sensitivity of this assay was confirmed on additional 158 samples from a local Caucasian control cohort. Full gene sequences from start to stop codons including some UTR regions were obtained for all 11 HLA loci with complete gene coverage and sufficient read‐depth for 3619 alleles. The whole amplicon was analysed for HLA class I genes, while only exons were analysed for class II genes. All alleles were amplified as expected with 100% concordance at full gene resolution for HLA class I and exon resolution for HLA class II loci when compared with previously used NGS or Sanger sequencing methods. In summary, the novel multiplexed PCR approach for full‐gene HLA typing enabled for a large amount of genetic information to be generated in a simple and fast workflow.


The author uses cohabitation data from the 2010 Chinese Family Panel Studies to analyze the association of premarital cohabitation with subsequent divorce of first marriage. After balancing selection factors that influence premarital cohabitation through propensity score matching, the author uses Cox proportional hazards models to examine the selection, causation, and diffusion perspectives on the relationship between premarital cohabitation and marital dissolution. The results show that premarital cohabitation is positively associated with divorce for those married in the early-reform period (1980–1994) when cohabitation was uncommon. However, this relationship disappears for those married in the late-reform period (1995–2010) when cohabitation became more prevalent. The findings suggest variation in the link between premarital cohabitation and divorce across different marriage cohorts and provide strong evidence for the diffusion perspective in postreform China. Supplemental sensitivity analyses support the robustness of the conclusion.


The deregulation of the electric power industry in Europe is the major issue nowadays. The new environment raises questions concerning all sectors of the electric power industry. Nevertheless, the transmission system is the key point in market development since it puts constraints to the market operation due to technical requirements. Especially, in systems having weak connections among areas, congestion problems arise due to line overloading or to voltage security requirements. This paper focuses on topics concerning voltage security in a deregulated power market and related market issues. Results by the application of the proposed methodology in the Greek Electric Power System (EPS) are presented.


This contribution portrays J.J.A.A. Frantzen (1853 – 1923), the first Germanic scholar with a chair in Utrecht, as a teacher and professor of German. The author reaches the conclusion that even after a century the relation between philology and language teaching is still problematic. To counter this he advocates linguistic research into the learning processes involved in language teaching as an autonomous academic approach.


This Policy Contribution is a lightly edited version of the written statement submitted by the author to the hearing of the Finance Committee of the German Bundestag on the European System of Financial Supervision, held on 31 May 2017 in Berlin. The combination of banking union and Brexit justifies a reform of the European Banking Authority (EBA) and the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) in the near term, in line with the subsidiarity principle. The other EU-level financial authorities, namely the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA), European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB), Single Resolution Board (SRB) and Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM), do not immediately require a legislative overhaul. For operational reasons, the October 2017 deadline currently set for the decision on EBA relocation from its current base in London to the EU27 must be respected. In a later phase, the EBA's governance should also be reviewed to take into account the framework of banking union as is currently in place, including the SRB and SSM. ESMA should be quickly upgraded into a strong and authoritative hub for European Union capital markets supervision and, more generally, financial conduct supervision. This entails a significant overhaul of its governance and funding framework, together with an expansion of its supervisory mandate. The accountability of EBA and ESMA and their scrutiny by the European Parliament should be enhanced as a key element of their governance reform. Further initiatives, including possibly the merger of the SSM, EBA and EIOPA, separation of the SSM from the European Central Bank (ECB), and the folding of the ESRB into the ECB, might be considered in the more distant future, but not in the near term as they would unnecessarily distract from more urgent tasks.


Examination of blood films for trypanosomes in primates housed at the Tulane University Delta Regional Primate Research Center showed that 47% (32/68) of the Bolivian Saimiri sciureus and 51% (68/135) of Brazilian Saguinus mistax harbored one or more types: Trypanosoma (Schizotrypanum) cruzi in 6% to 7% and Trypanosoma (Herpetosoma) spp. or Trypanosoma (Megatrypanum) spp. in 39% and 45%, respectively. Trypanosomes were isolated from a sample of the infected monkeys and morphobiological studies were carried out. Both T. cruzi and Trypanosoma rangeli were demonstrated. The transmission of T. rangeli by Rhodnius prolixus, Rhodnius neglectus, and Triatoma infestans was assessed: only R. prolixus transmitted the infection by bite. T. rangeli has not been found previously in Bolivia, nor has any trypanosome been reported previously in Saguinus mistax.


A popular approach to model interactions is to represent them as a network with nodes being the agents and the interactions being the edges. Interactions are often timestamped, which leads to having timestamped edges. Many real-world temporal networks have a recurrent or possibly cyclic behaviour. For example, social network activity may be heightened during certain hours of day. In this paper, our main interest is to model recurrent activity in such temporal networks. As a starting point we use stochastic block model, a popular choice for modelling static networks, where nodes are split into $R$ groups. We extend this model to temporal networks by modelling the edges with a Poisson process. We make the parameters of the process dependent on time by segmenting the time line into $K$ segments. To enforce the recurring activity we require that only $H<K$ different set of parameters can be used, that is, several, not necessarily consecutive, segments must share their parameters. We prove that the searching for optimal blocks and segmentation is an NP-hard problem. Consequently, we split the problem into 3 subproblems where we optimize blocks, model parameters, and segmentation in turn while keeping the remaining structures fixed. We propose an iterative algorithm that requires $O(KHm + Rn + R^2H)$ time per iteration, where $n$ and $m$ are the number of nodes and edges in the network. We demonstrate experimentally that the number of required iterations is typically low, the algorithm is able to discover the ground truth from synthetic datasets, and show that certain real-world networks exhibit recurrent behaviour as the likelihood does not deteriorate when $H$ is lowered.


Several algorithms have been proposed for image reconstruction in MREIT. These algorithms reconstruct conductivity distribution either directly from magnetic flux density measurements or from reconstructed current density distribution. In this study, performance of all major algorithms are evaluated and compared on a common platform, in terms of their reconstruction error, reconstruction time, perceptual image quality, immunity against measurement noise, required electrode size. J-Substitution (JS) and Hybrid J-Substitution algorithms have the best reconstruction accuracy but they are among the slowest. Another current density based algorithm, Equipotential Projection (EPP) algorithm along with magnetic flux density based Bz Sensitivity (BzS) algorithm has moderate reconstruction accuracy. BzS algorithm is the fastest.


Starting from the (Hubbard) model of an atom, we demonstrate that the uniqueness of the mapping from the interacting to the noninteracting Green function, G→G_{0}, is strongly violated, by providing numerous explicit examples of different G_{0} leading to the same physical G. We argue that there are indeed infinitely many such G_{0}, with numerous crossings with the physical solution. We show that this rich functional structure is directly related to the divergence of certain classes of (irreducible vertex) diagrams, with important consequences for traditional many-body physics based on diagrammatic expansions. Physically, we ascribe the onset of these highly nonperturbative manifestations to the progressive suppression of the charge susceptibility induced by the formation of local magnetic moments and/or resonating valence bond (RVB) states in strongly correlated electron systems.


The rapid growth of Nigerian's poultry has made it more advantageous in terms of providing the essential raw material for soil fertility enhancement than other livestock. This paper evaluates the benefits of poultry manure use among integrated poultry-maize farmers in Ekiti and Osun States of Nigeria for improved land quality and continuous food production. Data were collected using Structured survey questionnaires administered on 500 randomly selected respondents in the two States. Data were analysed with descriptive statistics and costs and returns techniques. Respondents were small holders, with land area grown to mazie varying between 0.01 and 3.00 hectare. Majority of the respondents have personal farms but applied poultry manure only on small portions (25%) of the total cropped area of their farmlands. On the average, 53% of the respondents used poultry manure on their farms. Respondents were fairly literate with a mean age of 43 years. Major constraints to poultry manure use include odour, transportation, scarcity, wetness, bulkiness and time wastage in descending order of importance. While odour and transportation were identified as common problems among poultry manure users in Ekiti and Osun States, bulkiness was an additional constraint for non-user respondents in both states. Poultry manure material constituted about 91% of the total cost of inputs; transportation cost was 8% while labour cost averaged 2%. The mean net income earned per annum by poultry manure users was 1.40 times higher than that for non-users. The difference in mean net income users and non-users of poultry manure constitutes an important land improvement technique capable of enhancing farm production and income levels. Thus, technologies aimed at packaging it in such a way as to remove the associated social constraints to its use by farmers need be put in place.


This paper characterises the insurance demand in terms of the entropy of the underlying probability distribution for losses. A characterisation of this nature provides the prediction that insurance for large losses with small probabilities tends to be purchased less frequently than insurance for moderate losses with higher probabilities, without deviating from the standard expected utility framework. The predictions of the theoretical model are tested empirically using household data collected in Vietnam.


Abstract Introduction: Fat embolism syndrome (FES) is a known complication of long bone fracture and can affect multiple organs. The organ most commonly affected with FES is the lung. Severe cases of FES from long bone fracture can cause acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Although the treatment of ARDS remains challenging, it is reported that a lung protection strategy and prone positioning are effective. In addition, early fixation is reported to be beneficial in respiratory failure due to FES, though it may exacerbate respiratory failure during the perioperative period. We report the use of venovenous extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (VV-ECMO) for the successful perioperative management of a patient diagnosed with ARDS due to FES. Patient concerns: A 24-year-old man injured in a traffic accident was brought to our emergency department due to shock and consciousness disorder. Diagnosis: After examining the patient, we noted bilateral pneumothorax, liver and spleen injuries, and multiple long bone fractures. Four days after admission, he was diagnosed with FES due to a prolonged consciousness disorder, progressive hypoxia with diffuse lung damage, and cutaneous and mucosal petechiae. Intervention: As respiratory failure progressed, VV-ECMO was initiated on the 6th day. To improve the respiratory failure caused by ARDS, prone position therapy was necessary. Thus, we performed osteosynthesis on the 9th day under ECMO. Prone position therapy was started after surgery. Outcomes: Subsequently, his respiratory condition and chest radiographs improved steadily. VV-ECMO was discontinued on the 17th day and the ventilator was removed on the 28th day. His consciousness levels improved without residual central nervous system complications. Conclusion: Our study reveals the successful improvement of FES-induced ARDS by osteosynthesis and prone positioning under VV-ECMO. This strategy prioritizes supportive treatment over pharmacologic interventions.


There often is a significant difference between predicted energy performance of buildings and measured energy performance once buildings are operational. Actual occupant behavior is often different from the assumptions made in the design stage, and this is regarded as one of the main reasons for the performance gap. The diversity in occupants' sociological and behavioral characteristics must then be taken into account when predictions are undertaken, in order to determine confidence intervals of the expectable performances. Software tools must then be made available to design firms, letting them generate statistically representative sets of occupants and plausible activity and appliance use scenarios. Here we introduce two tools developed at CSTB, named Qiriel and Croniq, focused respectively on statistical generation or inference of dwellings, appliances and households, and on stochastic simulation of occupants' activities and the implied appliances activation and power consumption. They are built upon French national databases on households and time use surveys. These tools enable their users to generate in a short amount of time hundreds of occupancy, activity and power consumption profiles for specific sociological profiles or for representative sets of households. The obtained sets of series can then be used to determine median and extreme configurations of building usage, and the implied range of building performances. Such tools can also be useful at the building design stage, in order to evaluate how robust a building, its HVAC systems and their regulation can be when confronted to a large variety of usage patterns.


Fertilization of the sea urchin egg is known to involve activation of a variety of protein kinases including at least one protein tyrosine kinase. In the present study, fertilization was found to stimulate the association of the Abl [correction of AbI] protein kinase with the detergent-insoluble egg cytoskeleton. Increased levels of Abl protein and of protein tyrosine kinase activity were detected in cytoskeleton preparations made as early as 5 to 15 min after insemination. Immunofluorescence localization demonstrated that the Abl kinase becomes associated primarily with the cortical cytoskeleton of the fertilized egg. A separate, 57 kDa protein tyrosine kinase did not associate with the cytoskeleton indicating that fertilization results in the selective association of the Abl kinase with the cortical cytoskeleton.


Atkinson Gallery Atkinson Gallery is SBCC's showcase for the visual arts, located on the second floor of the Humanities Building, H-202. Atkinson Gallery currently hosts three exhibitions each academic year, closing out the year with the Annual Student Exhibition. Usually, at least two exhibitions of artists are mounted annually. Through the Atkinson Gallery, the Art Department's dedicated gallery space, we maintain a strong commitment to our local community and have reached a broad audience through exhibition programming. Our Fine Arts Lecture Series brings speakers representing many art disciplines from across the country to our department. Dozens of innovative artists and historians have shared their journeys and directly advised our own students


In patients with inflammatory bowel disease using a maintenance dose of sulfasalazine (SASP), compliance to therapy was studied by measuring serum sulfapyridine (SP) levels. Serum SP levels were determined in 51 patients both during hospitalization and at outpatient follow-up 1-6 months later. In 21 patients (41.2%) the serum SP level was considerably lower at outpatient follow-up than the serum level before discharge. In 21 (12%) of 175 outpatients taking a maintenance dose of SASP, SP in serum was not detectable at all at repeated determination during follow-up. These results indicate that a substantial number of patients on maintenance therapy with SASP do not take the prescribed dose. Drug trials in these patients should therefore incorporate methods of detecting defaulters.


This guide will help you find resources on different aspects of cyber security, cyber studies and information management including: books, scholarly articles, technical reports, and internet resources.


Realizing a smart Low Voltage Distribution
System (LVDS) is essential to realize a smart grid. Restructuring the existing
distribution system into microgrids is one important requirement to achieve a
smart LVDS. The realization of microgrids in LVDS can take different shapes in
different countries. This article discusses the challenges and practical
solutions to realize a smart LVDS for radial distribution grids, which are
common in India. The network following a distribution transformer can be
distinguished as a microgrid for radial low voltage distribution grids.
However, this leads to many operational issues. Therefore, this article
envisions replacing the Low Voltage distribution transformers with Solid-State Transformers (SSTs). This will enable the
LVDS to control the power exchange between the phases within a microgrid as
well as power exchange between different microgrids. The architectural design
of a smart home in smart LVDS is outlined to complete the discussion. Various unique
features required for smart inverters in a smart home and existing grid codes
to make them compatible with smart LVDS are also reviewed.


Background: Emergence of vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) has become a serious issue for nosocomial infection control worldwide. The increase in antibiotic resistance among enterococci, specifically to vancomycin, has become a major clinical and epidemiological problem. Aim: The study aimed at the identification, phenotypic characterization of Enterococcus faecalis, and susceptibility pattern of vancomycin on E. faecalis associated with urinary tract infection (UTI) on patients admitted to the female medical ward and postnatal ward of Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, Kano, Nigeria. Materials and Methods: A total of 114 urine samples were aseptically collected from patients suspected with UTI and cultured on blood agar and cystine–lactose–electrolyte-deficient agar and incubated under anaerobic and aerobic environment, respectively, at 37°C for 24 h. Bacterial growth was subjected to standard methods for the identification of E. faecalis and tested for their antibiotic susceptibility patterns on vancomycin (30 μg), ciprofloxacin (10 μg), streptomycin (10 μg), chloramphenicol (30 μg), tetracycline (10 μg), and co-trimoxazole (25 μg) (Oxoid, UK) using disk diffusion method. Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) of vancomycin were determined. ATCC E. faecalis 29,212 was used as control organism for every test run. Data generated were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results: A total of 8 (7.0%) E. faecalis were isolated from 114 samples studied. The prevalence of 50.0% and 25.0% VRE was obtained by disk diffusion and broth dilution methods, respectively. The result of antibiotics susceptibility pattern revealed that 6 (75.0%) of the E. faecalis isolates show multiple resistance to tetracycline (30 μg), co-trimoxazole (1.25/23.75 μg), and streptomycin (10 μg), but more sensitive to ciprofloxacin (5 μg) and chloramphenicol (30 μg). The MIC result revealed that vancomycin has high effect at lower concentration of 4 and 2 μg/ml and loses its effect at increase concentration of 8, 16, 32, and 64 μg/ml, and the result obtained from the MBC of vancomycin revealed that it has only a bacteriostatic effect against E. faecalis. Conclusion: Therefore, ciprofloxacin and chloramphenicol are the best therapeutic options to treat infection with VRE in Kano, and treatment with the resistant drugs obtained may affect feature treatment and management of infection with these drugs.


An enduring feature of New Public Management in many countries has been the move to create more autonomous, 'complete' organisations such as universities, hospitals and social service agencies. Often referred to as 'corporatisation', this process is assumed to be leading to the emergence of new organisational forms with dedicated management functions and a greater focus on strategy. However, these assumptions remain largely untested and rely heavily on 'technical' accounts of organisational re-structuring, ignoring the potential influence of institutional pressures and internal political dynamics. In this paper, we address this concern focusing on the case of acute care public hospitals that have undergone corporatisation (to become Foundation Trusts) in the English National Health Service. Using administrative data spanning six years (2007–2012), the analysis shows that corporatisation is having mixed effects. While it is associated with a shift in the focus of managers to strategic concerns, it has not led to an expansion of management functions overall. Both tendencies are found to be mediated by institutional pressures, in the form of media scrutiny, and, indirectly, by the involvement of clinical professions in management. These results advance ongoing debates about the emergence of new organisational forms in the public sector, highlighting the limitations of technical accounts of change and raising the possibility that corporatisation is leading to organisations that are both more managed and under-managered at the same time.


Energy efficiency in the construction industry is crucial to reducing increased energy consumption. A significant portion of the energy is consumed in residential buildings. Thermal properties of the materials used in the building envelope can reduce the energy consumed in the buildings and thus contribute to the building economy. For this purpose, in the study, structural lightweight concretes (SLWC) with a lower thermal conductivity than normal weight concrete (NWC) were produced and energy efficiency and life cycle costs were compared between these concretes on a 1 + 1 reference flat. The compressive strength, unit weights and thermal conductivity coefficients of SLWCs and NWC were determined experimentally. Heating and cooling energy consumption and life cycle costs for the flat were calculated using the DesignBuilder simulation program according to the different concrete types produced. The results indicate that the thermal conductivity coefficients of all SLWCs produced were about 37–45 % lower than those of NWC. All mixes of the SLWCs provided energy saving by about 18–25 % compared to the NWC and two SLWCs reduced the life cycle cost by 4 %. In addition, the results showed that the best SLWC about energy was not the best SLWC about life cycle cost.


SUMMARY Experimental and theoretical studies of arc cathode region have been made during several decades and the task is not yet completed, in spite of many efforts and progress. In this work, a numerical model describing the arc cathode region is developed. The model is then applied to a vacuum arc discharge interacting with a Cu cathode at low current (4-50A). The model yields the temperature and electric field strength at the cathode surface, electrons emitted and total current density, cathode spot radius, different kinds of power densities heating and cooling the cathode, and the plasma electron density. The comparison with experimental results shows good agreements.


Human hair has significant effect on the life-likeness of human portrait and human recognition. In this paper, we present a classified method of human hair for hair sketching. We extract shape and appearance features from the training data of hair, including hair raw images and their corresponding sketching templates. Based on these features, we learn twenty-four hairstyles. Given a human hair raw image, we extract its shape and appearance features and find the best matched hair style and sketching template by Nearest Neighbor from twenty-four hairstyles. Taking the template as prototype, a new hair sketching corresponding to the raw image can be generalized by Thin Plate Spline. We test our algorithm to a large data set of hair images with diverse hair styles, experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our method.


The most critical attribute of a power control strategy for a fuel cell (FC) and ultracapacitor (UC) based hybrid vehicular power system is the sharing of load demand between available power sources. Transients and rapid changes of the power demand may cause drying of the FC membrane resulting in degradation of FC lifetime. The load demand profile of a hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) is a nonstationary fluctuating signal and consists of transients. Wavelet transforms are suitable for analyzing and evaluating such signals for dynamic systems. This paper focuses on the integration of a developed novel-wavelet-based load sharing algorithm and dynamic model of the FC/UC hybrid vehicular power system in order to ensure efficient power flow control strategy.


On the basis of analyzing the local control of variable air volume (variable air volume, VAV) systems, puts forward the two kinds of real-time optimization control scheme. One is when the difference between actual room temperature and set temperature is small change the indoor air output to adjust the room temperature; the other is when the difference between actual room temperature and set temperature is big change indoor air output and supply air temperature to adjust the room temperature at the same time. And the combination of fuzzy neural network controller and neural network predictor can predict the new wind force for indoor online, it will reduce light running time of the air conditioning system. The results show that the system is under partial load cases, especially in smaller load using the method of combining two optimization scheme can not only save more energy, but also can improve indoor thermal comfort


Background and Purpose Fatigue is the most commonly reported symptom among those with a diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis (MS). There are approximately 2.5 million people with MS worldwide. The research presented looks at how exercise can affect fatigue in those with MS. It provides physical therapists evidence based findings regarding what interventions may positively change patients' fatigue levels. Physical therapists play a key role in educating their patients how to positively affect fatigue and also have the ability to adapt exercise programs to suit the vastly different presentation and symptoms associated with MS. ! Case Description This case study aims to answer the question illustrated by a female diagnosed with MS for the past 27 years. She hopes to find the energy to be able to participate in activities of daily living, play more with her grandchildren and decrease her dependence upon others with regards to dressing, bathing, transferring and mobility. This patient was only seen for a few days in an outpatient facility in Albuquerque, NM, therefore, there was not an implementation of intervention and all research was done post meeting this patient. ! Outcomes: There was no intervention plan implemented and no follow up with this patient. Patient history and two MS related fatigue scales, the Fatigue Severity Scale (FSS) and the Modified Fatigue Impact Scale (MFIS) were retrieved. Despite not getting my own data regarding outcomes specifically with this patient, I was able to assess many results regarding how exercise can affect fatigue in patients with MS. Through the article analysis on this topic I was able to determine the clinical exercise effect on fatigue for those with MS, however more research is indicated to determine specific exercise parameters. ! Discussion: The findings from this research analysis can be relatable to our own patients with similar backgrounds, characteristics, disease progression and symptom presentation. It is clear that future studies need to focus on exercise parameters, dosage, intensity and type and also classifying those with MS into more identifiable patient characteristic so interventions can match specific disease presentations. Future studies need to include differing types of MS as well as wider ranges of age. What has been found consistently is that exercise does not lead to disease progression or have deleterious effects on patient symptoms. It has been found to improve patient reported fatigue and improves activity levels in many studies. These findings are clinically significant and can help lead to determining exercise interventions for our patients with MS. !!


This is the text of an Open Lecture delivered by Professor Judy Fudge at the University of Kent on 16 January 2013. By focusing on the patterns of change and continuity in women's work the lecture traces the profound transformations in national and transnational labour markets that have been driven by global capitalism, while questioning the normative goal of women's claims for equality in employment. The lecture aims to historicize the narrative of the expansion of the legal definition of equality and women's employment – to recontexutalise and re-interpret this progressive narrative in light of changes in the labour market and political discourse. Women's claims to equality in employment have become more nuanced and complex as the contours of the gender order have been redrawn to reflect the growing diversity between women and a deterioration in what has been the normative or standard employment relationship for men. Using Canada and the United Kingdom to illustrate the changes in the labour market and gender order, the lecture calls into question the potential of equality norms, however expansive, to solve the problems women workers face in the wake of global austerity.


This article focuses on the only two Pathé Frères short films shot in India before the First World War and still preserved in the French Film Archives today: Delhi grande ville de l'Inde supérieure/Delhi Great City of Upper India (1909) and Dans l'État du Cachemire/In the State of Kashmir (1914). In this latter phase of colonial expansion, India was not considered an important matter of concern within the larger French imperial project and this allowed more liberties and dissonances to emerge in the films shot in India in comparison with the official colonial discourse of the period. This article suggests that looking at the margins of French imperialism and film production sheds new light on the complexity of the imperialist doctrine and proto-documentary cinema. It argues that the two Pathé Frères films are ambivalent because they were shot in the context of transition toward a standardized film production and of early appropriation of the film medium by colonized populations. It further demonstrates that these two proto-documentaries neither expressed the common apology of the Belle Époque nor a message of triumphant imperialism, but rather doubts about the posterity of French national grandeur and fears concerning the rising tensions with Germany.


Accessibility is considered as an important indicator for the public transit service level. Transit accessibility is generally evaluated by its distance to transit access points such as bus stops and metro stations, and methods of measuring the access distances to transit points have been relying heavily on geographic data of transit facilities, built environments and pedestrian routes. Data collecting and analyzing are tedious for researchers in conventional approaches. As the application of cloud computing is on the rise, open services provided by Google Cloud Platform may simplify the procedure of accessibility measurement if the outputs of the open computing services could be validated.

 This paper aims to develop a method of measuring public transit accessibility based on Google Direction API rather than local data analyzing. A mechanism of API (Application Program Interface) probing is introduced. In a case study, the metropolitan area of Beijing was sliced into gridded spaces, with transit access distance of each cell space calculated by Google Direction API. The access distances in the API feedbacks were compared with transit access numbers in each cell area in order to validate the method with their correlation coefficient.

 It was found that Google Direction API generally gave shorter access distances in cell areas with more public access points. The conclusion is that open cloud services such as Google Direction API may serve as alternative solutions to public transit accessibility measurement. Transit researchers and agencies may take advantage of such open API services to avoid the tediousness of collecting and processing geographic data sets on transit facilities.


SUMMARY: Four strains of Staphylococcus aureus (coagulase-positive) were each subjected to three or more series of transfers on penicillin ditch plates. The plates were examined for colonial variants and four quite distinct types of penicillin-resistant variant, one of which was penicillin-dependent, were isolated. These types often occurred in association, and sometimes as many as three were isolated from a single culture plate. The main characteristics of the different types are described.
Studies on the incidence of penicillin-resistant bacterial variants began soon after the isolation of the antibiotic and have continued in increasing numbers (see Abraham et al. 1941; Todd, Turner & Drew, 1945; Demerec, 1945, 1948; Bellamy & Klimek, 1948; Gale & Rodwell, 1948; Hughes, 1952). In most studies of this description bacteria have been subcultured in fluid medium containing increasing concentrations of penicillin. In the present investigation solid medium was used to determine whether different types of variant could be isolated from the same culture.


A procedure is presented for the analysis of multi-cell structures such as multi-span and multi-storey frames by use of the method of column analogy, normally applicable to analysis of single-span and closed frames. The multi-cell structure is first divided into a number of cells each of which can be readily analyzed by column analogy for the applied external loads. A number of simultaneous equations are then written to restore continuity of the isolated cells. Certain moment-coefficients are computed also by column analogy, and used in writing the continuity equations. Solution of these equations yields moment corrections which are superimposed to the moments of the isolated cells to arrive at the final bending moments of the multi-cell structure. The procedure is presented for the analysis of frames with fixed columns, and is applied for the analysis of three examples in order to illustrate the details of the solution. Results obtained are in excellent agreement with values calculated using the stiffness method.


An overview highlighting 19th, 20th, and 21st American literature and poetry held in Pepperdine's Special Collections. Compilation includes first editions and copies with inscriptions from writers.


Tambon Khambong, Ban Phue District, Udon Thani…is a bypass area through major tourist attractions in Udon Thani, it is the area where large sugar factory is located which resulting in several cars in the area. Therefore, many problems have arisen in the area including death from road accidents, damaged road, overturned of sugarcane trucks on the curve area, sugar canes falling off from the trucks, sugar cane trucks take the shortcut through Baan Chai Chareon Village leading to the risk of accidents and deaths. From the statistics, in Tambon Khambong: in 2016, 44 accidents, 38 injuries and 7 deaths or mortality rate 117.85 per 1 00 000 population. Most of the accidents occurred on the curved DongMoo ('100 bodies-curved') from 5 accidents, 3 were dead from group accidents. Normally, they were people outside the area. Most of the causes are from unfamiliar with the area, speeding. From the problems mentioned above, the committee of Center for Road Safety, Khambong acknowledged the importance and awareness to solve problems and to be the role model to solve the accidents and more importantly is to reduce the death rate, injury and disability from using the road. Guidelines To be consistent with practical use from the concept of the World Health Organization (WHO) or the 5S strategy to implement 10 activities, The implementations are as follows:1) Information Management Surveillance and problem-solving Tambon Khambong has surveillance system and data storage. Historical data has been collected since 2014: prepare situation, analyze problems, and find the causes of accidents and submit or present in the meeting every month. 2) Investigating the causes of injuries and deaths from road accidents. All in-depth accident investigations have been conducted by the SRRT-RTI team to investigate the deaths and serious injuries as well as those that have accidents and come to the hospital. 3) Driving the operation of cooperative interdisciplinary teams by utilizing information to drive preventive measures. There was a signing on Memorandum of Understanding to drive road accident prevention and reduction plan by community leaders. Leaders of communities and villages, Tambon Khambong, hospitals, schools and network share their efforts resulting in a measure of 100% Helmet organizations, subdue sugarcane trucks (4 m/3.5 m pole), and speed limit measures (60/40). 4) A plan/project provide a strategic map from the participation of local people in the community, community leaders, and club leaders in order to define the measures and action plans. There were 6 projects supported from municipal budgets, Tambon Khambong. 5) Driving the team level: sub-district/village/agency (RTI Team Tambon) There are 3 role model villages: Baandongmoo, Chaichareon, Chareonsuk. Actions include: set up the measures, continuously conduct public relations on Monday mornings, determine role model person and rules keeper in the village, and manage alcohol free zone.


Molecular graph serves as a convenient model for any real or abstract chemical compound. A topological index is the graph invariant number calculated from the graph representing the molecule. The advantage of topological indices is that it may be used directly as simple numerical descriptors in QSPR/QSAR models. Most of the topological descriptors are based either on atom-atom connectivity or on topological distances. A chemical reaction can be represented as the transformation of the chemical (Molecular) graph representing the reaction's substrate into another chemical graph representing the product. The type of chemical reaction where two substrates combine to form a single product (combination reaction) motivated us to study the effect of topological indices when a bridge is introduced between the respective vertices (of degree i, i=1, 2, 3) of two copies of the same graph. The graph obtained in this manner may or may not exist in reality, but it is the interest of the chemist to check the stability of the so obtained structure of the product. In this paper we present an algorithm to calculate the distance matrix of the resultant graph obtained after each iteration and thereby tabulate various topological indices. We also give the explicit formula for calculating Wiener index of the graph representing the resulting product.


Using aggregate time-series data from post-war Hungary, we investigated the effect of child-related benefits and pensions on overall fertility and fertility by birth order. The results indicate moderate effects that are robust across a wide range of specifications. According to our estimates, a 1-per-cent increase in child-related benefits would increase total fertility by 0.2 per cent, while the same increase in pensions would decrease fertility by 0.2 per cent. The magnitude of both effects increases by birth order; this is more robust for child-related benefits.


The Planctomycetes, Verrucomicrobia, Chlamydiae (PVC) super-phylum contains bacteria with either complex cellular organization or simple cell structure; it also includes organisms of different lifestyles (pathogens, mutualists, commensal, and free-living). Genome content evolution of this group has not been studied in a systematic fashion, which would reveal genes underlying the emergence of PVC-specific phenotypes. Here, we analyzed the evolutionary dynamics of 26 PVC genomes and several outgroup species. We inferred HGT, duplications, and losses by reconciliation of 27,123 gene trees with the species phylogeny. We showed that genome expansion and contraction have driven evolution within Planctomycetes and Chlamydiae, respectively, and balanced each other in Verrucomicrobia and Lentisphaerae. We also found that for a large number of genes in PVC genomes the most similar sequences are present in Acidobacteria, suggesting past and/or current ecological interaction between organisms from these groups. We also found evidence of shared ancestry between carbohydrate degradation genes in the mucin-degrading human intestinal commensal Akkermansia muciniphila and sequences from Acidobacteria and Bacteroidetes, suggesting that glycoside hydrolases are transferred laterally between gut microbes and that the process of carbohydrate degradation is crucial for microbial survival within the human digestive system. Further, we identified a highly conserved genetic module preferentially present in compartmentalized PVC species and possibly associated with the complex cell plan in these organisms. This conserved machinery is likely to be membrane targeted and involved in electron transport, although its exact function is unknown. These genes represent good candidates for future functional studies.


Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most common malignant brain tumor in adults, causing many deaths each year. The life expectancy of patients from the time of diagnosis does not exceed 15 months. Tumoral cells are generally surrounded by a bed of tumor microenvironment (TME), composed of various components such as different immune cells, stromal cells, and blood vessels. Previous studies on the treatment of this tumor have generally focused on cancerous cells and therefore, have introduced conventional therapies for eradicating this tumor, including maximal safe surgery, chemotherapy with temozolomide (TMZ), and radiotherapy. Despite treatment with this method, tumors almost always recur, and life expectancy has not increased much. Recently, due to the discovery of the various roles of immune cells (including tumor-associated macrophages or TAMs) in the pathogenesis of this disease, the path of studies has moved towards targeting them as a treatment for glioblastoma. In this review, we aimed to investigate recent studies on the different roles of TME components, the role of TAM in the pathogenesis, and novel methods that target TAMs, including induction of TAM repolarization, inhibition of TAM-produced cytokines, and prohibition of immune system suppression induced by TAMs. In this regard, various targets, including colony-stimulating factor-1 (CSF-1) receptors, Nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-κB), or chemokine receptor (CXCR) pathways, are investigated.


A new stylized fact in development economics is the importance of social capital in promoting economic growth. This paper examines the effect of social capital on industrialization in Indonesia. We analyze a rich set of social capital and social interaction measures, including voluntary associational activity and levels of trust and informal cooperation. The main finding is that initial social capital does not predict subsequent industrial development across 274 Indonesian districts. Though these findings are for only a single nation and may not apply everywhere, they call into question recent claims regarding social capital and economic development.


A healthy city connotes a city that is clean, comfortable, safe and healthy for inhabitants, which is achieved  through  the  implementation  of  the  arrangements  and  agreed  activities  between communities and local government units. Healthy house is one indicator of a healthy city. A healthy house meets the health requirements as measured by three parameters: components of house, sanitation facilities and the behavior of occupants. This study aimed to analyze if the houses in Medan qualify for the attainment of a healthy city, determine the knowledge of community in terms of healthy house, healthy city and the role of community, and to find out if there is a significant relationship between the role of community and having a healthy house. The study design used is survey with quantitative and qualitative approaches. Research sites were the 21 districts in the city of Medan wherein 400 respondents were selected through proportional random sampling. Data were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. The results showed that in the city of Medan, only 30% of houses were healthy and 70% were not. 63.0% of the respondents have good knowledge about healthy house  and  57.8% have good  knowledge about healthy city. Furthermore, the community perceived to have played a good role as much as 75.5% in the effort to realize a healthy home/city. The community's role has a positive and significant effect on healthy house in efforts to achieve a healthy city in Medan ( p = 0.04). It is recommended that the government of Medan City draw up a program of healthy house and healthy city and involve related stakeholders, increase  community  participation from  the  beginning of  planning  stage  in  order  to  increase community involvement in the implementation of development and formation of Healthy City Forum.


A 74-year-old woman was admitted to the hospital with sudden onset of a blue, painful right index finger, and the condition progressed to digital ulceration. The ulcer gradually healed over a period of 2 months. Peripheral pulses, Doppler-derived brachial and radial systolic pressures, and results of an echocardiogram were normal. Digital pulse volume recordings showed obstructive waveforms in all digits of the right hand. Arteriography showed a normal arch and normal innominate, subclavian, and axillary arteries. The midbrachial artery was markedly abnormal and had alternating areas of stenosis and aneurysm formation. Multiple occlusions involved the palmar arch and proper digital arteries. The abnormal brachial artery segment was excised and replaced with an autogenous reversed saphenous-vein conduit. Histologic examination confirmed the lesion to be medial fibromuscular dysplasia. Fibromuscular dysplasia that involves upper extremity arteries is extremely uncommon and rarely presents with digital artery embolization. This case emphasizes the importance of exclusion of proximal reconstructible arterial occlusive disease by means of complete arteriographic examination of patients who were admitted with unilateral finger or hand ischemia.


Advanced glycated end products (AGEs) including glucose and methylglyoxal-modified albumin (MGA) may play a key role in tissue injury arising from various pathologies. Activation of AGE receptor (RAGE) induces myofibroblast transition (MT), hypertrophy and tubulointerstial fibrosis associated with diabetic nephropathy. AGE-RAGE signaling evokes activation of the renal angiotensin system (RAS) and the Ang II-AT1 receptor may facilitate the actions of AGE; however, the role of the Ang-(1-7)-Mas receptor axis in the AGE pathway is unknown. Moreover, there are reports that Ang-(1-7) directly induces renal MT and fibrosis. Therefore, the current study addressed the functional influence of Ang-(1-7) in AGE-induced signaling in the NRK-52E proximal tubule cell line following MGA treatment for 48-72 hours. MGA exposure enhanced cellular hypertrophy 175% (p<0.05 vs. control), increased α-SMA protein 300% (0.4±0.1 vs. 0.1±0.1U; p<0.05), stimulated myofibroblast transition (MT) and markedly increased the cellular release of TGF-β 350% (1.2±0.1 vs. 0.3±0.1 ng/ml; p<0.05). Ang-(1-7) (100 nM) essentially abolished the MGA-induced cell hypertrophy (175±0.1% vs. 85±0.1%), α-SMA expression (0.4±0.1 vs. 0.1±0.1U; p<0.05), and MT, but did not attenuate the increase in TGF-β release (1.2±0.1 vs. 1.3±0.1 ng/ml). Since TGF-β and MAP kinases are integral to the AGE-RAGE signaling cascade, we assessed the effect of TGF-β receptor kinase (SB525334, SB) and ERK1/2 (PD98059, PD) inhibitors. Similar to Ang-(1-7) treatment, SB and PD abolished MGA-induced hypertrophy, α-SMA expression and MT. We further show that both Ang-(1-7) and SB abolished the chronic activation of ERK1/2 at 48 hour MGA exposure. Finally, Ang-(1-7) abolished the TGF-β stimulation of ERK1/2. Pre-treatment of the MGA exposed cells with the AT7/Mas receptor antagonist D-Ala7-Ang-(1-7) reversed the inhibitory actions of Ang-(1-7), but did not potentiate the responses. In summary, we report that Ang-(1-7) abolished AGE activation of TGF-β and ERK1/2 pathways in the NRK-52E cells. We conclude that Ang-(1-7) may provide a potential therapeutic approach in addition to current RAS blockade regimens to prevent the progression of diabetic injury and the decline in renal function.


Background: Some of New Zealand's exotic pine (Pinus radiata D.Don) forests were planted for erosion mitigation but cultural, legislative, environmental, and profitability limitations in some parts of the landscape have led to reassessment of their suitability. There is limited information to support landowner decisions on the viability of natural regeneration of native forest post-pine-harvest. Methods: We evaluated scenarios of post-harvest natural regeneration, compared to remaining in pine production, using erosion susceptibility determined from historical occurrence of landslides, gullies and earthflows, biophysical growth modelling of mānuka–kānuka (Leptospermum scoparium-Kunzea ericoides (A.Rich) Joy Thomps.) shrubland using the process-based CenW model, and cost-benefit analyses using NZFARM with two land use change scenarios, at two levels of erosion mitigation ± honey profits. Results: In our study area, the Gisborne Region (North Island of New Zealand), ~27% of the land has moderate–very high susceptibility to landslides, 14–22% a high probability of contributing material to waterways, and 19% moderate–very high gully erosion susceptibility. Pines grow 10 times faster than naturally regenerating mānuka–kānuka shrubland, but mānuka–kānuka is used for honey not wood production. Natural regeneration resulted in losses of $150–250 ha−1 yr−1 compared to the current profitability of pine production. Honey production offset some reduction in pine revenue, but not fully. Thus, the viability of shifting from pines to native forest is highly dependent on landowner impetus and value for non-market ecosystem services (such as cultural and biodiversity values) provided by native forest. Conclusions: A mosaic of land uses within a property may sufficiently offset income losses with other benefits, whereby highly erosion-prone land is shifted from rotational pine forest production to permanent native forest cover with honey production where possible. At the regional scale in Gisborne, the conversion of the most highly susceptible land under production forestry (315–556 ha) to natural regeneration has the potential for wider benefits for soil conservation reducing erosion by 1–2.5 t yr−1 of sediment facilitating achievement of cleaner water aspirations and habitat provision.


This paper presents a force control strategy for a water-surface robot. The control strategy reduces the number of vehicle actuators required for the force control by utilizing the restoring force/moment applied to the vehicle. In this research, the relationship between thruster outputs and the contact force/moment at the endpoint is derived taking the restoring force into account, and the range of the realizable contact force is calculated using this relationship. Moreover, an experimental system of robot on the water is introduced in this paper.


Distributed databases take advantage of replication to bring data close to the client, and to always be available. The primary challenge for such databases is to ensure consistency. The inherent trade-off between consistency, performance, and availability represents a fundamental issue in design of the replicated database serving applications with integrity rules. Recent research provide hybrid consistency models that allow the database supports asynchronous updates by default, but synchronisation is available upon request. To help programmers exploit the hybrid consistency model, we propose a set of useful patterns, proof rules, and tool for proving integrity invariants of applications. The main goal of this thesis is to co-design the application and the associated consistency in order to ensure application invariants with minimal consistency requirements.

In the first part, we study a sound proof rule that enables programmers to check whether the operations of a given application semantics maintain the application invariants under a given amount of parallelism. We have developed a SMT-based tool that automates this proof, and verified several example applications using the tool. A successful analysis proves that a given program will maintain its integrity invariants. If not, the tool provides a counter-example, which the program developer can leverage to adjust the program design, either by weakening application semantics, and/or by adding concurrency control, in order to disallow toxic concurrency.

In the second part, we apply the above methodology to the design of a replicated file system. The main invariant is that the directory structure forms a tree. We study three alternative semantics for the file system. Each exposes a different amount of parallelism, and different anomalies. Using our tool-assisted rules, we check whether a specific file system semantics maintains the tree invariant, and derive an appropriate consistency protocol. Our co-design approach is able to remove coordination for the most common operations, while retaining a semantics reasonably similar to POSIX.

In the third part of this thesis, we present three classes of invariants: equivalence, partial order, and single-item generic. Each places some constraints over the state. Each of these classes maps to a different storage-layer consistency property: respectively, atomicity, causal ordering, or total ordering. Given a class of invariant, we introduce a set of common patterns where synchronisation is not necessary i.e., nothing bad happens for any arbitrary order of operation executions. We also identify patterns where synchronisation is necessary, but can be relaxed in a disciplined manner.


upper level of normal; serum aldolase level and creatinine phosphokinase level. normal; porphyrins, none in urine; urinary catecholamines, normal; microurine, no abnormality; serum magnesium level, normal; cortisol levels. normal. Electrodiagnostic tests including electromyography, revealed no abnormality. Subsequently it emerged that she had been taking huge doses of purgative pills for the last 15 years. She was currently taking 15 to 20 pills a day, and previously had taken up to 30 pills a day. Her motions had been watery. Also, she had been vomiting frequently between March and September. This had been related to an emotional upset. Further, her diet had been rather inadequate. In summary, the excessive and long use of purgatives had been responsible for her hypokalaemia and the associated attacks of periodic paralysis. The vomiting and inadequate diet had also been contributing factors. The marked reduction in the excretion of aldosterone was the result of the hypokalaemia, which inhibits the production of aldosterone.


Heterozygous carriers of mutations in the BRCA2 gene have a high risk of developing breast and other cancers. In these individuals, BRCA2 appears to act as a tumour suppressor gene, in that loss of the wild type allele is frequently observed within tumours, leading to loss of BRCA2 function. Because BRCA2 functions in DNA repair via homologous recombination, this leads to genomic instability. However, it is unclear whether loss of the wild type allele is stochastic or if heterozygosity for BRCA2 mutation carries a phenotype that contributes to tumorigenic progression. Here we demonstrate that, in a specific vertebrate cell type, the chicken B cell line DT40, heterozygosity for a BRCA2 mutation has a distinct phenotype. This is characterized by a reduced growth rate, increased cell death, heightened sensitivity to specific DNA damaging agents and reduced RAD51 focus formation after irradiation. Thus in certain cell types, genome instability might be driven directly by heterozygosity for BRCA2 mutation.


Paul Simon's popular lyric about these being "the days of lasers in the jungle" reflects the stark contrast, contradiction, or even exploitativeness of conventional strategies of development. Once paraded as the ultimate recipe for progress and the solution for poverty, the idea of development itself is now being criticized for its poverty of substance, as well as for its impoverishing and regressive propensities. Apparently, development as we know it has been indicted for the social production of poverty because it can only exist in symbiosis with conditions of underdevelopment. Within its capitalist framework, it is impossible for all to be "developed" and there can be no rational distribution of resources across the board; massive one-sided accumulation and the co-existence of surplus wealth with severe poverty are more consistent with the present process and reality of development. Increasingly, people are questioning the very paradigm of development and its dominant blueprint which is predicated on a presumption of the superiority of the Western system of production and signification. Some critics advocate alternative development and others reject the concept entirely, arguing instead for alternatives to development. My reading of the controversy surrounding development suggests that it is largely a critique of the discrepancy inherent in its unidimensional conceptualization and implementation.

Even as oppositions to established discourses and practices of development are gaining ground, the most (dis)affected, the so-called lesser developed countries (LDCs), are agitating for redress through the recognition of a right to development. How do we interpret, and respond to, this initiative or subversive act by those who were never given the option to elect out of (mal) development, but were forced to put up with its effect? Do we continue to disregard it or do we engage it as a forward to a tentative proposal - a point of entry for inclusion, or as an invitation to begin to explore what development should be by revisiting and revising problematic orthodox models and modes? Can we see it as a challenge to idealized conceptions of human rights and a case for harnessing the human rights regime to make it more actualizable and sustainable? At the very least, can we approach claims about the right to development as seeking to secure the dignity and well-being of the human subject? If seen in the light of conquering poverty and protecting the physical environment for the general good of humanity, would the right to development be better appreciated as a prerogative of and a mandate for both the North and South. After all, communities in these places that once "marginalized the economy" and achieved relative equilibrium are now violently compelled to contend with the colossal hunger, scarcity and social disintegration dictated by their place of insertion in the world economic structure? Could the right to development be seen as espousing the entitlement of the dislocated and disempowered to a reciprocation of the benefits of development and/or to compensation for the sins of (mal) development? What are the possibilities for the emergence of a concept, devoid of the baggage traditionally associated with development, that caters to the aspirations of the "LDCs" to equitably compete and exercise their full potentials in the context of the modern world; how do we facilitate the development of an under-developed concept?

Several reasons have been proferred to explain why the right to development has failed to attain definitive status and effectiveness as a rule of law. By and large, it appears that the right to development has not been widely embraced because of concerns which, while valid, are not beyond containment. Meaningful implementation of the right to development requires committed clarification and strengthening of its conceptual framework. Primarily, a feasible paradigm of development must go beyond simplistic dichotomizations, polarizations or prioritizations. At the same time, it must celebrate the realities and possibilities of reciprocity and dependence among processes and phenomena. In this article, the resounding argument revolves around the reciprocity of paradigms, relations, rights and responsibilities. It posits the principle of reciprocity as rudimentary for (re) interpretations and (re) appropriations of the idea of development, and as both a norm and a justification for the recognition of development as a human rights ideal. The over-arching thesis is that conceptualizing and analyzing development from the perspective of the metaphor of reciprocity attenuates many of the problems of articulating it in terms of the conventional rhetoric and politics of rights. With particular emphasis on the norm and functioning of reciprocity within the context of gift and return, the article ultimately delineates the ubiquity of varied ranges of reciprocity as an anchor for a claim to development.


The topic of how to decrease environmentally adverse effects of agriculture without losing too much crop yield is an important issue. In this respect, nutrient leaching losses were studied from a soil (land fallowing is not practiced) treated with two types of organomineral fertilizers [organomineral fertilizer (OMF) and organic + inorganic fertilizer mixture (O+IF), respectively]. Inorganic N losses were greatest in the soil treated with the O+IF, followed by those treated with the OMF, the former of which resulted in more gradual losses than the latter. Losses of other elements supplied by the fertilizers, particularly P and K, were greatest for the O+IF, followed by OMF treatment. The high nutrient losses observed in the soil treated with the O+IF make it advisable to use an OMF in soils with an abundant water supply. The highest N/P ratios were produced by the OMF, which suggest a lower eutrophication risk in drainage waters from soils treated with this fertilizer. Wheat (Triticum aestivum L. cv. Cajeme) yield parameters obtained and the alveographic assays showed that the OMF has a great potential of being used, at least on the wheat variety tested and under the pedoclimatic conditions prevailing in the study area. In this respect, application of OMF gave a significant increase in grain gross protein content of 2.9%, an increase in number of grains per spike of 2.2%, a significant increase in number of spikes per square meter of 3.4%, an increase in 1000-grain weight of 3.9%, and a significant yield increase of 2.5% with respect to the O+IF treatment.


Natural gradient ascent (NGA) is a popular optimization method that uses a positive definite metric tensor. In many applications the metric tensor is only guaranteed to be positive semidefinite (e.g., when using the Fisher information matrix as the metric tensor), in which case NGA is not applicable. In our first contribution, we derive generalized natural gradient ascent (GeNGA), a generalization of NGA which allows for positive semidefinite non-smooth metric tensors. In our second contribution we show that, in standard settings, GeNGA and NGA can both be divergent. We then establish sufficient conditions to ensure that both achieve various forms of convergence. In our third contribution we show how several reinforcement learning methods that use NGA without positive definite metric tensors can be adapted to properly use GeNGA.


This paper presents the theory of modulation by hopping or by commutation among a number of spaced antennas. The theory brings out the important considerations and criteria for selecting the separation of discrete antennas in discrete time and/or space to produce a desired modulation. In addition, antenna hopping and commutation are proposed for generating direction-dependent spread spectrum to enhance receiving system anti-interference processing gain and/or transmitted signal camouflage and LPI, as well as to provide an effective means for channel monitoring and analytical probing.


We develop a multiresolution model to predict two-dimensional spatial fields based on irregularly spaced observations. The radial basis functions at each level of resolution are constructed using a Wendland compactly supported correlation function with the nodes arranged on a rectangular grid. The grid at each finer level increases by a factor of two and the basis functions are scaled to have a constant overlap. The coefficients associated with the basis functions at each level of resolution are distributed according to a Gaussian Markov random field (GMRF) and take advantage of the fact that the basis is organized as a lattice. Several numerical examples and analytical results establish that this scheme gives a good approximation to standard covariance functions such as the Matérn and also has flexibility to fit more complicated shapes. The other important feature of this model is that it can be applied to statistical inference for large spatial datasets because key matrices in the computations are sparse. The computational efficiency applies to both the evaluation of the likelihood and spatial predictions.


This paper utilizes electrical methods to follow the early hydration characteristics of pozzolanic materials activated with powdered calcium hydroxide at room temperature (20°C). The electrical response is measured in terms of conductance and capacitance. Four materials are studied: ground granulated blastIurnace slag, microsilica, metakaolin and pulverized fuel ash (the last from three different sources). The work shows that monitoring the temporal change in electrical parameters can exploited as a potentially usefit! test method for identifying the stages of hydration and studying the rate of reaction over these stages. To this end, different formats of data presentation are exploited. It was shown that the capacitance of the material displays a marked frequency dependence over the range of the current study (10a Hz to 10kHz); the influence of frequency of applied field on conductance was less pronounced.


The understanding of mechanisms, by which microorganisms are effecting the dissolution of metal sulfides, what in general is called bioleaching, has progressed largely during the last 15 years. Whereas in the beginning of the nineties of the last century the direct and the indirect mechanisms were state of the knowledge, nowadays it is generally accepted that contact and non-contact mechanisms besides ferric iron, perhaps with some organic sulfhydryl groups, are the relevant players [1]. Consequently, since the introduction of these ideas/hypotheses, research in this field has been revived considerably, as is obvious from the literature[2]. Also molecular biology has started to contribute to the understanding of these processes due to the clarification of the basic reactions [3, 4, 5]. Summarizing the main elements of the contact and non-contact mechanisms, we know now that in case of the contact mechanism bacteria need to attach to metal sulfide surfaces by means of their extracellular, polymeric substances (EPS) due to a primary electrostatic interaction between iron(II)ions complexed by uronic acid residues. This first interaction is followed by hydrophobic interactions (more than half of the EPS of A. ferrooxidans are lipids) and perhaps covalent bonding (speculative). These forces are active in the Angstrom range (Å). Consequently, the space between bacterial outer membrane and the surface of a metal sulfide, which is filled by EPS, ranges between 10 and 50 nm only. In this space the dissolution reactions occur.


Abstract We have studied the structures of Al/Si disordered leucite and bicchulite with a quantum mechanical version of the virtual crystal approximation, VCA. In leucite, the average tetrahedron has a composition of (AlSi2)O4, while bicchulite represents an extreme case with (Al2Si)O4 tetrahedra. Both structures are well described with the VCA. In conjunction with an earlier study, where we have shown that the (AlSi)O4tetrahedra in gehlenite and Al,Si-disordered octahedra are also well reproduced, we have now established that the VCA gives a reliable description of the averaged structure of disordered aluminosilicates over the whole compositional range. The current calculations confirm that Al/Si ordering is not driving the cubic to tetragonal phase transformation in leucite. In bicchulite, the model calculations are consistent with hydrogen on Wyckoff position 8c, in agreement with the result of a single crystal X-ray diffraction study, but in variance with results based on a neutron powder diffraction study.


A tungsten heavy alloy (92%W, Ni-Co matrix) is subjected to severe plastic deformation (SPD) by high pressure torsion (HPT) at room temperature up to equivalent strains of 0.7, 5.3, 10.7 and 14.3. The microstructure and the mechanical properties are investigated by cylindrical compression samples at quasi-static and dynamic loading. The harder spherical W particles are homogeneously deformed within the softer matrix, becoming ellipsoidal at medium strains and banded at high strains without shear localization or fracture. Results of quasi-static loading show that the strength is approaching a limiting value at strains of ~10. At this strain for the matrix a grain size of ~80 nm and for W a cell size of ~250 nm was observed, suggesting strain concentration on the matrix. The initial yield stress of 945 MPa for the coarse-grained condition is increased thereby to an ultimate value of 3500 MPa, while a peak stress of ~3600 MPa is reached. Such remarkably strength has never been reported before for pure W or W-based composites. The strain hardening capacity as well as the strain rate sensitivity is reduced drastically, promoting the early formation of (adiabatic) shear bands.