1. In normally hydrated rats prostaglandin F2alpha (PGF2alpha) in doses of 5 microgram/100 g body weight given subcutaneously every 2 h (three times) induced a significant increase in urinary kallikrein activity, and in sodium, potassium and water excretion for 8 h after the first injection. In moderately hyperhydrated rats loaded 2.5% of body wt. with 0.5% NaCl solution, PGF2alpha produced similar changes in kallikrein activity and electrolyte excretion. 2. In normally hydrated rats prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) in the same conditions and doses as in 1 had no effect on kallikrein activity, showing a tendency to decrease potassium and water excretion. 3. PGE2 in doses of 5, 12.5 and 25 microgram/100 g body wt. in overhydrated rats given 2.5% and 0.5% NaCl and 5% of tap water/100 g body wt. 1 h later, significantly increased kallikrein activity in the urine collected for 120 min after the injections. A significant decrease in potassium and water excretion was observed with the highest dose. 4. PGF2alpha, had no effect on kallikrein activity in overhydrated rats, but an increase in sodium and a decrease in potassium excretion was seen at the highest dose. 5. The different actions of PGE2 and PGF2alpha may be part of a regulatory mechanism associated with the kallikrein-kinin system which contributes maintainance of extracellular fluid homeostasis.


The commodity boom between 2002 and 2008 played an importantrole in increasing export earnings from Latin America. Growing demandfrom China for primary products was one factor stimulating the boom.While the direct effects of the growth of exports from Latin Americato China have been extensively explored, the indirect impact of higherChinese demand for commodities on global commodity prices hasreceived less attention. This paper estimates the contribution made bythe growth of Chinese demand to the rise in the prices of the 15 maincommodities exported from the region. On the basis of these estimates,it calculates the total gain for the region as a whole in export revenuesfrom the "China effect" on world prices. It also provides estimates for17 Latin American countries of the net effect of Chinese-induced priceincreases on their trade balances.


ABSTRACT Based on 12 months of fieldwork, including 72 in-depth interviews and a survey (N100) in five Peruvian cities, this article discusses the higher rates of nationality-, gender-, and age-based discrimination faced by Venezuelan female migrants in Peru, compared to their male counterparts, as well as their experiences with hyper-sexualisation and/or criminalisation. We suggest that these processes, which are grounded on constructions of moral integrity and identity stereotypes at the intersection of gender, sex appeal, nationality, age, and condition as migrants, contribute to the devaluation of Venezuelan migrant women, thus impacting their integration into the country. First, based on our quantitative data, we discuss Venezuelan migrant women's experiences with different types of discrimination. We then move to the qualitative analysis of their devaluation through hyper-sexualisation and/or criminalisation in both public and workspaces, as well as the effects of these complex processes on their socio-economic incorporation. Finally, we discuss our findings and make suggestions for further research. This paper contributes to the literature on female migrant hyper-sexualisation and criminalisation, as well as to research that examines how the intersectionality of stereotypes and social conditions position migrant women in the Global South.


Graph kernels have been successfully applied to many graph classification problems. Typically, a kernel is first designed, and then an SVM classifier is trained based on the features defined implicitly by this kernel. This two-stage approach decouples data representation from learning, which is suboptimal. On the other hand, Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) have the capability to learn their own features directly from the raw data during training. Unfortunately, they cannot handle irregular data such as graphs. We address this challenge by using graph kernels to embed meaningful local neighborhoods of the graphs in a continuous vector space. A set of filters is then convolved with these patches, pooled, and the output is then passed to a feedforward network. With limited parameter tuning, our approach outperforms strong baselines on 7 out of 10 benchmark datasets, and reaches comparable performance elsewhere. Code and data are publicly available1.


This thesis is concerned with modelling long chain branched polymer melts using the McLeish and Larson Pompom constitutive equations. Usually the non-linear terms in this model are fitted to uniaxial extensional data due its sensitivity to levels of branching, but in this thesis
I will study a number of other non-linear flows using this model. For each flow the results are compared to experiments on a set of polyethylene melts.

The first flow types I examine are simple shear
flows. In a shear step-strain flow the stress relaxation of branched polymers is observed to be time-strain separable, whereby the relaxation modulus can be
separated into the product of separate functions of time and strain. I show that although the Pompom model is not time-strain separable in general, there exist subsets of parameter values for which time-strain separability is valid. For these sets a branched damping function is
derived which is analogous to the Doi-Edwards damping function for linear polymer melts.

The other simple shear flow examined is oscillatory shear. Commonly, oscillatory shear is probed at low strain amplitudes over a range of frequencies to measure the usual dynamic moduli of linear viscoelasticity. In this work the effect of strain amplitude is explored up to absolute strains of order unity. The non-linear stress response is analysed from the higher harmonics in the Fourier series. In particular it is shown that the third Fourier components are dependent on the Pompom non-linear stretch relaxation time and a low-strain asymptote is obtained.

Subsequently, this thesis focuses on the stagnation point
flow generated in a cross-slot geometry. The stress calculated from the Pompom constitutive model is compared to experimental flow induced birefringence images. It is shown for linear and lightly branched materials
that the Pompom model predicts both the form of the birefringence pattern and stress values obtained from the stress-optical law. However, for more highly branched polymers the Pompom model fails to predict the change to birefringence patterns. Subsequent analysis shows that there could exist a transient overshoot in extension which
the Pompom model cannot capture as it stands.

In the final part of my thesis I suggest an empirical alteration to the Pompom constitutive model to capture this transient extensional overshoot, which is able to resolve the differences between experimental flow induced birefringence images and theoretical simulations.


We hypothesised that the isotopic signature of Pb in the digestive gland of the common octopus reflects the organisms' sources of Pb, and investigated whether isotopic Pb ratios are useful in characterising octopus populations. A total of 47 Octopus vulgaris individuals were captured between November 2005 and September 2006 in 2 areas of the Portuguese coast, near Matosinhos (Area A; NW coast) and Olhao (Area B; south coast), and digestive glands were analysed for total Pb and its stable isotopes. The same determinations were performed in 22 samples of surface sediments from the 2 areas. Pb concentrations in the digestive gland of specimens from Area B (2.8 to 13.0 µg g -1 ) exceeded the values found in Area A (1.3 to 8.3 µg g -1 ). A similar pattern was found for the isotopic Pb ratios: 206 Pb/ 207 Pb was 1.173 to 1.185 for Area A and 1.165 to 1.172 for B; 206 Pb/ 208 Pb was 0.476 to 0.487 for Area A and 0.318 to 0.483 for B. The different signatures of the digestive glands are in line with those observed in the surface sediments of the 2 coastal areas (e.g. 206 Pb/ 207 Pb was 1.179 to 1.207 for Area A and 1.171 to 1.181 for B). However, the isotopic Pb signature of octopus was less radiogenic than that of sediments. Because octopus has a short life span (up to 24 mo) the signature reflects recent sources of Pb that have a less radiogenic signature. The Pb signature of surface sediments tends to integrate the record of the previous few years or decades, due to the frequent resuspension of the upper layer of coastal sediments. The mixing of sediments deposited during those periods results in higher isotopic Pb ratios (more radiogenic). The consistent differences between the 2 areas, in sediments and octopus, points towards the isotopic Pb signature as a possible useful tool to distinguish octopus populations.


The warp of an organic substrate is a major challenge for bond and assembly (B&A) operations. A portable vacuum fixture that eliminates the warp by holding the substrate perfectly flat during the chip attach process is introduced in this paper. Excellent C4 height uniformity with increased B&A yield is achieved by this novel method. The fixture also makes it possible to utilize all electrically good substrates irrespective of their incoming shape. Furthermore, the electrical performance of the substrate is no longer constrained by the need to modify its circuit design to reduce the warp. The vacuum fixture is designed to be compatible with an industry standard mass reflow oven. The design of the fixture is described along with the manufacturing challenges that were faced. A transient thermal model, leveraged to optimize the thermal mass of the fixture by a factor of two, is presented. The performance of the fixture is compared to other mechanical techniques used for clamping substrates flat. The fixture's unique ability to shape the substrate to match the warp of the chip at reflow temperatures is discussed. Finally, application of the technique to challenging chip-attach cases is explored.


The novelty task consists of finding relevant and novel sentences in a ranking of documents given a query. In the literature, different techniques have been applied to address this problem. Nevertheless, little is known about Language Models for novelty detection and, especially, the effect of smoothing on the selection of novel sentences. Language Models can be used to study novelty and relevance in a principled way. These statistical models have been shown to perform well empirically in many Information Retrieval tasks. In this work we study formally the effects of smoothing on novelty detection. To this aim, we compare different techniques based on the Kullback-Leibler divergence and we analyze the sensitivity of retrieval performance to the smoothing parameters. The ability of Language Modeling estimation methods to handle quantitatively the uncertainty associated to the use of natural language is a powerful tool that can drive the future development of novelty-based mechanisms.


Modelling of complex wireless transmission scenario over fading channels in the presence of multiple co-channel (CCI) interferers will be presented in this paper. Propagation environment will be modelled with general kappa-mu shadowed model, which can be reduced to other well-known model as its singularities. Probability density function (PDF) and cumulative distribution function (CDF) of resulting signal-to-interference (SIR) ratio statistics at the reception will be derived in the rapidly converging infinite-series expressions form. Obtained expressions will be further used for evaluation of standard wireless performance criterions, outage probability (OP) and average bit error rate (ABER) and their analysis in the function of transmission parameters. Finally, possible performance improvement will be considered for the case of possible application of switch-and-stay (SSC) diversity reception technique. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.eie.24.2.20640


One of 12 necropsied cougars (Felis concolor vancouverensis) from Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, shed Toxoplasma gondii oocysts confirmed by mouse bioassay. Eleven of the 12 cougars (92%) had antibodies to T. gondii by the modified agglutination test with titers of <1:25 (1 cougar), 1:50 (8 cougars), and 1:500 (3 cougars). One additional cougar fecal sample collected from the Victoria watershed environment also contained T. gondii oocysts. In 1995, the largest reported outbreak of human toxoplasmosis was linked to municipal drinking water in Victoria, British Columbia. This study supports the initial hypothesis at the time of the outbreak that not only domestic cats, but also cougars, pose a risk to Victoria's water supply.


Introduction:Klebsiella pneumoniae are common causative agents of various infections and are of great concern for developing resistance against commonly prescribed antibiotics. This study gives an account of isolation of K. pneumoniae from various clinical specimens and their antimicrobial susceptibility, in a tertiary care hospital of Bangladesh. Materials and Methods: Various clinical specimens like urine, wound swab, sputum, blood and endotracheal aspirates were collected and processed for isolation of K. pneumoniae followed by their antimicrobial susceptibility testing. Results: Among the 316 samples that yielded culture positivity, K. pneumoniae were identified as second most common organism. The highest yield of K. pneumoniae (37.33%) were observed from wound swab followed by sputum (26.67%). Most of the isolates were resistant to sulphamethoxazole-trimethoprim (90.67%) and ceftriaxone (90.67%) followed by cefotaxime (89.33%), ceftazidime (89.33%) and cefuroxime (89.33%). The most sensitive antibiotic for the isolates was tigecycline. Conclusion: Isolated K. pneumoniae showed resistance to commonly prescribed antibiotics, which is very alarming and showing the importance on continuous monitoring and strict antimicrobial policy.


Purpose
Heavily regulated higher education institutions may not be able to possess the autonomy to produce students who are both college and career ready. This paper aims to explore the role of the Ministry of Higher Education in Jordan in determining the content and direction of general education requirements, the historical roots of this type of intervention and its possible implications for the future of liberal arts in general education requirements.

Design/methodology/approach
The paper is a critical and historical reflection that combines practitioner research perspectives – the author is a university president – with reference to a single case study from a Jordanian university to demonstrate the real-life context of government intervention in general education requirements.

Findings
University education is inextricably linked with employability rather than inquiry-based disciplines that produce both intellectual development and technical skills. Jordanian universities, heavily regulated by the government, are required to allocate between 21 and 27 credit hours to general education requirements. Lost between universities that are mandated to have them and policymakers who impose them, general education requirements, as recently reformed, possess neither the ability to produce intellectual skills or career-readiness skills.

Originality Value
This paper highlights the importance of university autonomy in determining its approach to general education requirements to allow students to develop both career-readiness and college-readiness skills.


Construction scheduling is based on data on the duration of works, which are directly related to the values of labor costs. This ensures obtaining of the most accurate results of scheduling implemented both at the stage of construction design and in the process of its operational management. In the Russian Federation and in other leading foreign countries, there have been developed databases for standardized labor costs in the field of construction. However, many developing countries, for example, the Republic of Iraq, are not provided with their own standards for labor costs, and therefore, they are forced to use either the standards of other countries or determine the duration of work with the help of expert estimates, which leads to a significant error in the construction planning schedule. To create databases on labor standards, various methods are used that are either based on timing measurements, or on physiological methods for measuring anthropological parameters associated with the energy costs of workers. Since the use of these approaches requires significant costs and time, a technique is proposed as an acceptable alternative. This technique is based on the collection of statistical data included in the executive documentation for construction, expert data that determine the feasibility of regulatory conditions for the performance of work, and regression processing of the final results based on the use of modeling capabilities of artificial neural networks.


C R C I N O M A of the stomach is an uncommon complication in patients who have undergone gastroenterostomy. Gray and Lofgren1 found only 17 cases of carcinoma in 825 instances where surgical exploration of a previously performed gastroenterostomy was undertaken. The infrequency of coexistent duodenal ulcer and gastric carcinoma has been repeatedly emphasized (Bockus,2 Eusterman and Balfour,3 Fischer et al4). Orringer,5 in a recent review of the literature, was able to accumulate only 32 instances of gastric malignancy which developed following surgery for chronic duodenal ulcer. Gastroenterostomy has been performed in the past as a definitive operation for benign or supposedly benign gastric lesions. One might expect that instances of gastric carcinoma associated with gastroenterostomy would be found in this group. Some of the gastric ulcers thought to be benign at the time of operation might have been, in reality, neoplastic. Furthermore, some authorities believe that a malignant change can occur in a benign gastric ulcer. It is surprising, therefore, to find little in the literature regarding such cases. Gray and Lofgren1 in their large series, reported only 6 patients with carcinoma of the stomach in whom gastroenterostomy had previously been performed for presumably benign gastric ulcers.


Frequency dependences of the sound attenuation and phase velocity in an encapsulated bubbly liquid, such as ultrasound contrast agent or Levovist suspensions, at three different concentrations are studied over a bandwidth 1.5–4.5 MHz by using an ultrasonic spectroscopy technique. Measurement of acoustic attenuation spectra demonstrates that the resonant frequency of the Levovist suspension is nearly 2.3–2.5 MHz, and the sound attenuation enhances with the increasing concentration. With the measured sound attenuation spectra, the shear modulus and the shear viscosity are estimated to be 80 Mpa and 1.3 Pa s, respectively. The phase velocity exhibits a rapid rise with frequency smaller than 3.0 MHz, then appears to approach a frequency-independent limit above 3.0 MHz, and the change of the phase velocity over the measured frequency range is also proportional to the concentration.


Elizabeth Arden and Estee Lauder are just a couple of the quintessential brands formulated through the hardships of the early 20th century, names which set the tone for the entire market to follow. These were built up from the ground by women of means who both believed that anyone could be beautiful. Pre-dating this, normative beauty was encapsulated by a pale, fair skin and a feminine demeanour. These companies were born on the bows of a newly-empowered female population and their success was achieved through the understanding of what women needed and, more importantly, what women wanted. These companies saw the pulsing promise of women living in a rapidly changing world.


Providing customer support for technical products means an essential effort for enterprises to satisfy the customer's needs and to challenge rivals in business. This paper introduces a Virtual Human Framework for a better Customer-Engineer-Interaction. We put emphasis on a preferably natural conversation achieved by continuously analyzing behaviors and emotions of the human user, suggesting his or her intentions and diversification of active and passive intentional behaviors. The underlying architecture is an extension to the Generic Embodied Conversational Agent Framework which was developed to ease the integration of heterogeneous components into an Embodied Conversational Agent system. These extensions are mainly influenced by SAIBA's architecture for a Multimodal Behavior Generation Framework. Although the system has only been accomplished to about 50% partial results show that our approach has the potential to create a more natural-like conversational situation.


Many diagnostic imaging techniques are available to aid clinicians, including transcranial radiography, conventional tomography, computed tomography, arthrography, single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) imaging and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The aim of this study was to evaluate clinical findings and MRI features of temporomandibunlar joint (TMJ) disorders. The clinical histories of 251 patients (502 joints) with MR images were evaluated. Eight clinical variables (articular pain, clicking, locking, limitation of mouth opening, dislocation (luxation), headache (temporal, facial or neck), occlusal disharmony) and imaging findings "Normal, Anterior Disk Displacement With Reduction (ADDR), Anterior Disk Displacement Without Reduction (ADDWR) Anterior Disk Displacement With Reduction + Effusion (ADDR +E), Anterior Disk Displacement Without Reduction + Effusion (ADDWR+E), Degeneration, Osteophyte, Posterior Disk Displacement (PDD)) were evaluated. A total of 175 of the TMJs were found to be normal according to MRI findings. Fifty-six unilateral, and 210 bilateral anterior disc displacement with reduction were detected, as well as nine unilateral, and 12 bilateral ADDWR, 21 unilateral, and 58 bilateral ADDR+E; 10 unilateral, and 18 bilateral ADDWR+E; 28 unilateral, and 35 bilateral degenerative arthritic changes; 44 unilateral, and 19 bilateral osteophytes were found. The MRI of TMJs were found normal in 17.9% patients (29.2% female, 5.6% male) with clinical variables. Most of the patients (190 female, 56 male) with TMJ disorders were found to have psychological problems. All of the patients displaying clinical symptoms of TMJ disorders have occlusal disharmony (ground teeth, premature contact, mandibular prognathy or retrognathy, overbite, deepbite, openbite, laterognathy) In this current study jaw pain, locking, limitation of mouth opening, dislocation, and clicking were found 98%, 7.17%, 90.43%, 54.98%, and 75.7% respectively. In addition, etiological factors, noticed as psychological factors, inheritance, and prosthetic appliances were found 98%, 0.39%, 71.71% respectively, but none as a results of unknown trauma, orthodontic treatment, general anesthesia, or maxillofacial intervention. MRI of the TMJ can detect the abnormal changes within the disc, joint and other tissues. Disc displacement is the most common diagnosis of these patients.


Background Every death on the road impacts the family, friends and relatives of the deceased as well as those people who were involved or witnessed the crash. In addition, there is a substantial economic cost of human loss. In Australia, the cost of road deaths from 2000 to 2014 is estimated at A$458.4 million. Coronial investigations generate the most comprehensive reports of the circumstances of a fatality and while internationally coronial data has been successfully used to understand fatal road transport crashes, this data has not been used for this purpose in Australia. Methods This study is the first Australian systematic review of coronial reports for all fatal road crashes. The data is from the Australian Capital Territory for the period from 2000 to 2014. The data will be examined to determine the frequency, nature and determinants of fatal injury involving transport across all modes (e.g. cars, trucks, bikes, walking, public transport) and to understand the contributing factors, patterns and trends. Results In total, 191 fatal road crashes occurred in the period. Analysis of the data is underway and includes identifying patterns in the factors that contribute to these crashes including: road user types involved, impaired driving (i.e. detection of alcohol and drugs), speeding, lack of care and driver distraction, single vehicle crashes, rear end crashes and right angle crashes, and vulnerable road users particularly motorcyclists, cyclists and novice drivers. The analysis will also include a review of the coronial recommendations made and the implications for road safety. Conclusions It is anticipated that the findings from this study will provide insights into how the road transport system can be improved to achieve safety outcomes for all road user types.


A simple and accurate spectrophotometric method has been suggested for the determination of Mesalazine (MES), carbamazepine (CAM) and diclofenac sodium (DFS) in pure and pharmaceutical dosages. The method is based on the oxidation of drugs in acidic medium with known excess of N-bromosuccinimide (in case of MES), or bromate-bromide mixture (in case of CAM and DCF) and subsequent determination of unreacted oxidant by decolorization of nile blue dye (NB) and measure the absorbance of unoxidized dye at 640 nm. Calibration curves of the dye in the presence of studied drugs were rectilinear over the ranges 0.1-2.2, 0.4-2.4 and 0.6-2.8 μg ml with molar absorptivity of 6.21×10, 1.05×10 and 1.21×10 l.mol.cm for MES, CAM and DCF respectively. The common excipients and additives didn't interfere in their determination. The suggested method was successfully applied for determination of the studied drugs in their pharmaceutical forms resulted in a good agreement with standard British pharmacopeia method and standard addition procedure.


In this paper, we describe our system and results submitted for the Natural Language Inference (NLI) track of the MEDIQA 2019 Shared Task. As KU_ai team, we used BERT as our baseline model and pre-processed the MedNLI dataset to mitigate the negative impact of de-identification artifacts. Moreover, we investigated different pre-training and transfer learning approaches to improve the performance. We show that pre-training the language model on rich biomedical corpora has a significant effect in teaching the model domain-specific language. In addition, training the model on large NLI datasets such as MultiNLI and SNLI helps in learning task-specific reasoning. Finally, we ensembled our highest-performing models, and achieved 84.7% accuracy on the unseen test dataset and ranked 10th out of 17 teams in the official results.


In this work, the removal of a model pesticide (2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid, 2,4-D) using Electrokinetic Soil Flushing (EKSF) powered directly by DC current or by solar panels during a 15 days long treatment has been studied. Results show changes in operating conditions during the solar test, which can be clearly related to the day-night cycle, with a maximum solar irradiation intensity of 513 W m-2 at noon and an average daily charge supplied of 6.2 Ah d-1. The fluctuations in the intensity supplied to the electrochemical system lead to softer pH and conductivity profiles between anodic and cathodic wells in the case of photovoltaic (PV) powered system. After the 15 days long tests, the removal of 2,4-D reaches 90.2 % and 73.6% in the electroremediation powered with DC power supply and solar panels, respectively. In this period,the total applied charge passed is 4.3 and 24.3 Ah kg-1 in both system, respectively. This means that the PV-powered electroremediation results in a much less efficient system, in which a much higher amount of charge is required to reach the same removal of pollutants in the soil. This fact may be related to the significantly lower EO flux observed during the operation of the PV-powered system.


: In November 1962, a caries prophylactic campaign was inaugurated in the canton of Zurich. At the end of 1965, two thirds of the communities, 115 of 171, had introduced already toothbrushing with fluorine compounds at school, under supervision. The following years though did not bring notable increase in participation of the remaining communities. Here are the main results of the campaign: -reduction of dental caries in the permanent dentition by 45 to 50% (fig. 2) -reduction of dental caries on cuspid and incisor teeth and on the buccal and lingual surfaces of lateral teeth by about 80% -reduction of first molar extractions (fig. 5) -massive reduction of the number of untreated carious teeth (table VI) -better condition of the deciduous dentition (fig. 6, 7) -reduction in the incidence of gingival inflammations (table VII, fig. 8) -reduction of the supra- and subgingival calculus deposits. It is deduced from the discussion that supervised toothbrushing with fluorides, the spread of fluoridated toothpastes, and in a lesser degree--the fluoridation of table salt are a certain cause for the massive improvement of juvenile dentitions. It is still uncertain whether the avoidance of sugar containing snacks have also contributed to the favourable result. The reduction of gingival inflammations can only be explained by the improved home care. It cannot be proven if this has also an influence upon caries incidence.


The high population of waterfowl subsequently with the high case fatality of poultry and people in West Java regency caused by HPAI H5N1 can raise possibility that waterfowl was a natural reservoir. This research aimed to prove that waterfowl in West Java served as reservoir of AI virus (primarily H5N1) and also identify the virus pathotype based on cleavage site of amino acid sequence. Cloacal swab sample was obtained from healthy and unvaccinated waterfowl from Sukabumi and Bogor Regency. Cloacal swab was propagated in 9 days old embryonic chicken eggs. Allantoic fluid was harvested at the 4 th day of incubation and then tested for hemagglutination, and positive isolate continued with virus sub-typing using PCR method. H5 gene from H5N1 isolate then sequenced using dideoxy termination method. Multiple alignment of nucleotide sequences were analysed using MEGA-3.1 program. Sub-typing using PCR method indicated the existence of 25 strain H5N1, 16 strain HxN1, 4 strain H5Nx and 9 virus ND. Characterization of cleavage site amino acid sequence indicated that all H5N1 sample were pathogenic with sequence QRERRRKKR (23 sample) dan QRESRRKKR (2 sample). Waterfowl was HPAI H5N1 virus reservoir. Asymptomatic infection in waterfowl, but the virus shedding gradually occurred and therefore it became potential source of H5N1 virus infection. Our findings suggest that immediate action is needed to prevent the transmission of highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses from the apparently healthy waterfowl into terrestrial poultry or human. Key Words: HPAI, H5N1, Reservoir, Water Fowl


Research on the durability of reinforced concrete structures is focusing ever more on the combined effect of degradation mechanisms. While most of the research has been directed at combined carbonation and chloride penetration, recently some attention has been given to emulate combined degradation conditions, especially those existing in Nordic countries (frost attack/chloride penetration), with regards to the harsh environmental conditions. Frost attack of concrete affects the chloride penetration by reducing the concrete cover, and more importantly, by changing the characteristics of the surface and internal concrete due to cracking. Recent research has shown there to be a synergetic effect, but no steps have been taken to characterize and comprehend the mechanisms involved, and to develop a procedure to transfer this knowledge to the industry and into practise. To address this need, a research project was set up with the objective of: ascertaining how ice formation in the concrete pore structure influences the transport properties of chloride ions in un-cracked concrete; to establish the characteristics of chloride ions transport in concrete subject to frost attack; and integrate the effect of combined degradation mechanism into a service life model. In this paper the, the preliminary result of this research project are presented.


In this paper we model the role of open-economy effects within a New Keynesian Phillips Curve (NKPC) via the inclusion of intermediate imports in firms' production technology. Using this framework we provide evidence on two questions: first, does the inclusion of import prices help explain post-war inflation dynamics in the United Kingdom, United States and Japan; and second, has the influence of import prices in firms' costs become greater over the more recent period since the mid-1980s. Overall, our results suggest that import prices do help explain movements in inflation; in particular, NKPC models that allow for import prices to enter into firms' costs outperform closed-economy models in sample. However, our results suggest that the influence of import prices has generally remained constant across our sample period, with perhaps only the United Kingdom providing some evidence that import prices have become more important in firms' marginal costs.


Invasive alien species are one of the largest threats to global biodiversity together with social, environmental and economic problems. As well, they present significant threats to global agriculture especially in the regions with moderate temperature as in northeast Anatolia. Arrhenatherum elatius (L.) P. Beauv. ex J. Presl. & C. Presl. subsp. bulbosum (Willd.) Schubl. & Martens (Poaceae) was observed in farmlands, an invasive alien taxon in tea and hazelnut plantations, in Turkey where it was established in a new ecosystem, outside its natural range in SW Europe. In this article, this subspecies was reported as a new alien vascular plant taxon for the Flora of Turkey. At the base of its stems the adjacent nodes are swollen and form a chain of bulbs which characterize this taxon and differentiate it from other subspecies. New Turkish name and photographs of the new record are also presented in the article.


The optimization of a real-valued objective function f(U), where U is a p X d,p > d, semi-orthogonal matrix such that UTU=Id, and f is invariant under right orthogonal transformation of U, is often referred to as a Grassmann manifold optimization. Manifold optimization appears in a wide variety of computational problems in the applied sciences. In this article, we present GrassmannOptim, an R package for Grassmann manifold optimization. The implementation uses gradient-based algorithms and embeds a stochastic gradient method for global search. We describe the algorithms, provide some illustrative examples on the relevance of manifold optimization and finally, show some practical usages of the package.


Chloroquine retinopathy is a severe toxic retinal impairment which may result in loss of vision by alterations of the pigmentary epithelium and photoreceptors. Currently, there is no specific treatment for this retinopathy. In order to test the possible involvement of Platelet-Activating Factor (PAF) in chloroquine-induced retinopathy and the use of PAF antagonists for prevention of this condition, we have examined the effect of these substances on the electroretinogram (ERG) of isolated rat retina. When retinas from normal rats were perfused with chloroquine (10(-6) M), a marked and rapid decrease in ERG b-wave amplitude was observed. In contrast, chloroquine had no effect on the ERG of retina isolated from animals pretreated with the PAF antagonist, BN 50730 (30 mg/kg/day i.p., 5 days). The results obtained indicate that (i) chloroquine is a toxic drug for retinal function, (ii) PAF plays a key role in chloroquine retinopathy and (iii) PAF antagonists may constitute valuable agents for the treatment of this retinal impairment.


This volume addresses the challenges facing explorers and developers alike in a region that is becoming a major focus of the petroleum industry in the United Kingdom, Faroes and North Norway. Several West of Shetland fields are still in the appraisal phase almost a decade after discovery. Sub-volcanic exploration risks remain high: sub-volcanic structural traps are imaged poorly, and so the geophysical community is responding with the application of latest technology. The more simple reservoirs might not be large enough to prompt informed and speedy development decisions; larger fields might have a combination of complexities, requiring a phased approach to the development. Infrastructure has been slow to arrive and planned developments have been subject to dramatic swings in fiscal regime ranging from special allowances to unexpected tax increases. Environmental challenges are significant when moving into more remote, deeper water. The perception of these challenges by the third parties has become much more acute. To sustain its right to operate, the industry has to demonstrate safe drilling operations and appropriate response capability with government agencies.


Wall thickness is measured by a micrometer on shells after piercing, hollows after rolling and tubes after stretch reducing in an Assel production line for seamless steel tubes. The characteristics of wall thickness eccentricity are exhibited, and the heredity and origin of wall thickness eccentricity are analyzed. Finally, the factors influencing wall thickness eccentricity are discussed. The results show that: (1) Wall thickness eccentricity originates from temperature eccentricity in cross section of round billets, comes into being on shells in piercing process, and is passed down to hollows and finally to tubes; (2) Bigger feed angle of piercing, smaller plug diameter and less stability of plug bar will increase wall thickness eccentricity, while complying to the influence of temperature eccentricity on round billets.


A simple selective high performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method was developed and validation for the analysis of omprazole magnesium trihydrate (ES) in tablets. ES was subjected to neutral, acid and alkali hydrolysis as well as oxidation, dry heat treatment and photodegration. Being simple, accurate and selective, the method can be used for routine quality analysis.


Over a century ago European explorers in Eastern Turkestan (southern Xinjiang) made a remarkable discovery: the Sunni inhabitants of Khotan were engaged in elaborate veneration of the Shiʿi twelve Imams, whom they believed to be buried at various holy sites in the Khotan region. This paper investigates Khotan's net work of holy sites and the narratives that were attached to them, from the sixteenth century to the present. While the political landscape of the present may sometimes make the Sunni-Shiʿi divide appear natural, the case of Eastern Turkestan, which had its own, idiosyncratic approach to sectarian identity, reminds us that the maintenance of such a Sunni-Shiʿi consensus on sectarian designation was dependent on networks of knowledge reproduction that did not embrace the entirety of the Muslim world. Pre-Islamic sacred geographies, the power of locally networked holy sites, the phenomenon of textual appropriation, and a popular and eclectic manuscript tradition overwhelmed weak sectarian distinctions, bringing Muslim followers of the Hanafi legal tradition to pray at the purported tombs of Twelver Imams.


Navigation and communication, Department of Defense and civilian, customers rely on accurate, low‐latitude specification of ionospheric parameters, globally, that are not currently realistic on a day‐to‐day basis. This paper describes, demonstrates, and speculates about the data sets that are required inputs to the operational ionospheric models that will correct these deficiencies. In order to investigate quiet time, vertical E × B drift velocities at two different longitude sectors, magnetometer observations were obtained for the period between January 2001 and December 2004 from the magnetometers at Jicamarca (0.8°N dip latitude) and Piura (6.8°N dip latitude) in Peru and from Davao (1.4°S dip latitude) and Muntinlupa (6.3°N dip latitude) in the Philippine sector. We choose only geomagnetically "quiet" days, when the 3‐hourly Kp value never exceeds a value of 3 over the entire day, and when the daily Ap value is less than 10. These are "binned" into three seasons, December solstice, equinox, and June solstice periods. A neural network trained for the Peruvian sector was applied to each of the days in both the Peruvian and Philippine sectors, providing ΔH‐inferred vertical E × B drift velocities between 0700 and 1700 local time. For each season, the average E × B drift velocity curves are compared with the Fejer‐Scherliess, climatological E × B drift velocity curves in both the Peruvian and Philippine sectors. In the Peruvian sector, the comparisons are excellent, and in the Philippine sector they are very good. We demonstrate that realistic magnetometer‐inferred E × B drifts can be obtained in the Peruvian sector on a day‐to‐day basis and speculate that on the basis of the average, quiet day comparisons, realistic E × B drifts can be obtained on quiet days in the Philippine sector.


One of the concepts that many group therapists use to make sense of what is going on in a therapy group is that of the 'group-as-a-whole'. A number of other terms are used to signify a similar idea. For example, some talk about the group as a supra-personal network, a living system, a matrix, a psychic apparatus, or a group mind. They talk about the group as being more than the sum of its parts, the individuals, who compose it. Group forces are said to impact on individuals and the group itself is said to have moods of its own and to speak through its members. People are sometimes said to be acting out some role on behalf of the group. All of these formulations, therefore, postulate an entity that is outside of, at a higher level than, individuals and there is a tendency to reify, anthropomorphise and mystify this entity, even when it is held to be an illusion rather than a reality. This entity is understood to be unconsciously constituted by individual intrapsychic processes of projection, projective identification, introjection, identification and splitting. The entity created in this way is then assumed to act back on its individual members as the unconscious cause of their actions. What is being postulated, therefore, is a metaphysics of human action, that is, a hidden reality beyond, above or behind appearances of the phenomena in question. This hidden reality is then understood as the cause of human action.


In the contemporary global business environment, the nature of change has increased in
degree and pace. The change management practices in any organization normally have
various ramifications and effects. It was from this background that the present study
intended to investigate the effects of change management practices on financial
performance at the Postal Corporation of Kenya. The study was a descriptive survey. The
target population for the study was five hundred and eighty nine employees of the Postal
Corporation of Kenya at the headquarters in Nairobi. A sample size of 88 respondents
was selected using the stratified and proportionate sampling techniques. Primary data was
from the PCK employees using a structured research questionnaire. A pilot survey was
conducted to pre-test the questionnaire with the aim of enhancing the reliability and
validity of the questionnaire. Secondary data will be gathered through a review of
existing published and unpublished material on change management and its effects on
financial performance. This was obtained from books, journals, websites and PCK
organization publications. Descriptive and thematic analysis techniques were used to
analyse the data. Tables and charts were used to present the data collected for ease of
understanding and analysis.
The study found that change management has significant positive effect on the aspects of
financial performance which were being investigated- revenue collection, cost
management and profitability. The study concludes that the case of PCK is evidence that
public sector firms can also adopt successfully practices which have been a preserve of
the private sector. The study however recommends that the management be on the look
out for new to enable PCK to achieve optimum potential which it has not been able to do
despite the successes noted.


Drawing on metaphors and narratives of classroom interactions, this article stresses the problem of building a community In classrooms, and takes Into account not only Individual differences between students, and between students and teacher, but also racial, ethnic, gender, and other highly charged group differences. It suggests strategies for teaching students to think about thinking and emphasizes the Importance of the standpoint of the perceiver-her discipline as well as her race, class, and other group Identities. The article argues that the teacher can maintain the Integrity of her own perspective, while modeling openness to views that are not her own.


Background: Calcium and magnesium are two micronutrients whose role in the development of preeclampsia has been investigated over the years. There is paucity of studies on the role of serum levels of calcium and magnesium in the development of preeclampsia in south-south Nigeria. Objective: Our study evaluated the serum level of calcium and magnesium in preeclamptic and non preeclamptic women in a Tertiary Hospital in southsouth Nigeria. Methodology: We carried out a comparative study in which 52 preeclamptic and 52 non preeclamptic women, who satisfied the eligibility criteria, were enrolled for the study. Data entry and statistical analysis was done using statistical software (IBM SPSS® for windows version 21.0). Data were analyzed for mean and standard deviation. Comparison of serum levels of elements between the two groups was performed by student t-test, and P value < 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results: The serum calcium level was statistically lower in the women who developed preeclampsia compared to those who did not (8.37±0.91 mg/dl vs 9.33±1.15mg/dl, p<0.001). The serum magnesium level was not statistically different between women who had preeclampsia and those who did not (1.79±0.24mg/dl vs 1.88±0.37mg/dl, p = 0.102). The systolic and diastolic blood pressure showed a significant negative correlation with serum calcium level, unlike serum magnesiun level in those that had preeclampsia. Conclusion: This study showed that women who developed preeclampsia demonstrated reduced serum calcium level and no reduction in serum magnesium level. This study support the hypothesis that hypocalcaemia, unlike hypomagnecaemia, is a possible aetiology of preeclampsia.


A correctly designed dynamic programming algorithm can be used as a fitness function to permit the evolution of maze-like levels for use in games. This study compares multiple representations for evolvable mazes including direct, as well as positive and negative indirect representations. The first direct representation simply specifies, with a binary gene, which squares of a grid are obstructed. The second paints the maze grid and passage is allowed only between colors that are the same or adjacent in a rainbow. The positive and negative representations are developmental and evolve directions for adding barriers or digging "tunnels." These representations are tested with a design space of fitness functions that automatically generate levels with controllable properties. Fitness function design is the most difficult part of automatic level generation and this study gives a simple framework for designing fitness functions that permits substantial control over the character of the mazes that evolve. This technique relies on using checkpoints within the maze to characterize the connectivity and path lengths within the level. Called checkpoint-based fitness, these fitness functions are built on a menu of properties that can be rewarded. The choice of which qualities are rewarded, in turn, specifies within broad limits the characteristics of the mazes to be evolved. Three of the representations are found to benefit from a technique called sparse initialization in which a maze starts mostly empty and variation operators fill in details while increasing fitness. Different representations are found to produce mazes with very different appearances, even when the same fitness function is used. The example fitness functions designed around dynamic programming with checkpoints are found to permit substantial control over the properties of the evolved mazes.


Bariatric/metabolic surgery (BMS) is highly effective in treating obese associated type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and a commonly performed surgical procedure worldwide now. However, vitamin D, calcium and iron deficiencies are commonly presented in obese patients before operation because of reduced bioavailability and poor dietary intake. These un-recognized or under-treated nutritional deficiencies might lead to devastating complications of bone, immune function, neurologic and muscular systems. Therefore, the benefit of BMS may be tempered by the associated post-operative nutritional deficiencies. Pre-operative nutritional screening and treatment thus are essential for BMS patients. The pre-operative existing nutritional deficiencies might be exacerbated after BMS due to reduced absorption, poor dietary intake and compliance with postoperative supplement instructions. Protein deficiency is the most commonly met macronutrient deficiencies after BMS. Iron, calcium and vitamin D deficiencies are commonly met micronutrient deficiencies after BMS and may bring significant clinical problems to the patients. Some micro-nutrient deficiencies, such as copper, selenium and zinc, are difficult to diagnose because difficult in assessment and frequently confounded by deficiencies in other nutrients. Therefore, post-operative nutritional supplements following established recommendations are essential for patients received BMS. In addition, all the patients should receive regular follow-up by a multidisciplinary team for the prevention and treatment of nutritional deficiencies in order to optimize the outcomes of BMS.


This paper is concerned with the analysis and computational methods for verifying global stability of an attractor set of a nonlinear dynamical system. Based upon a stochastic representation of deterministic dynamics, a Lyapunov measure is proposed for these purposes. This measure is shown to be a stochastic counterpart of stability (transience) just as an invariant measure is a counterpart of the attractor (recurrence). It is a dual of the Lyapunov function and is useful for the study of more general (weaker and set-wise) notions of stability. In addition to the theoretical framework, constructive methods for computing approximations to the Lyapunov measures are presented. These methods are based upon set-oriented numerical approaches. Several equivalent descriptions, including a series formula and a system of linear inequalities, are provided for computational purposes. These descriptions allow one to carry over the intuition from the linear case with stable equilibrium to nonlinear systems with globally stable attractor sets. Finally, in certain cases, the exact relationship between Lyapunov functions and Lyapunov measures is also given.


In this paper, we prove a necessary and sufficient condition for the construction of 2-to-1 optical buffered first-in-first-out (FIFO) multiplexers by a single crossbar switch and fiber delay lines. We consider a feedback system consisting of an (M+2)times(M+2) crossbar switch and M fiber delay lines with delays d1,d2,...,dM. These M fiber delay lines are connected from M outputs of the crossbar switch back to M inputs of the switch, leaving two inputs (respectively, two outputs) of the switch for the two inputs (respectively, two outputs) of the 2-to-1 multiplexer. The main contribution of this paper is the formal proof that d1=1 and di les di+1 les 2d i, i=1,2,...,M-1, is a necessary and sufficient condition on the delays d1,d2,...,dM for such a feedback system to be operated as a 2-to-1 FIFO multiplexer with buffer Sigmai=1 Mdi under a simple packet routing policy. Specifically, the routing of a packet is according to a specific decomposition of the packet delay, called the C- transform in this paper. Our result shows that under such a feedback architecture a 2-to-1 FIFO multiplexer can be constructed with M=O(log B), where B is the buffer size. Therefore, our construction improves on a more complicated construction recently proposed by Sarwate and Anantharam that requires M=O(radicB) under the same feedback architecture (we note that their design is more general and works for priority queues)


We provide a novel set of stylized facts on firms engaging in international trade in services, using unique firm-level data on services exports and imports in the United Kingdom in 2000- 2005. Less than 10% of firms trade in services but they can be found in all sectors of the UK economy. While the services sector accounts for 80% of total exports and imports, the frequency and trade intensity of services traders is often higher in sectors such as high- tech manufacturing. Services traders are bigger, more productive and are more likely to be foreign owned or part of a multinational enterprise. These 'trade premia' are smaller then for goods traders, however, with the exception of skill intensity which is higher among services traders. There are also significant differences between exporters and importers of services. Furthermore, we show that most firms only export or import a single service type and trade with a small number of countries. Trade volume, employment, turnover and value added are highly concentrated among a small group of firms trading with many countries and/or in many services types. These firms are characterised by bigger size and higher than average productivity, all of which seem to be principally correlated with more trade along the intensive margin (trade per services and country) .although there are a number of noteworthy exceptions. Interestingly, trade is also concentrated within .rms. The top export and import destination make up 70% of the average firm's total trade and the top services type around 90%. This strong concentration is still present among firms trading with many countries and/or in many products.


The goal of this paper is to discuss phonetic evidence relating to the production of tone sandhi in Mandarin. Two views of tone sandhi are contrasted: the standard "categorical" view, whereby tone 3 sandhi is treated similarly to a/an allomorphy in English, and an alternative "gradient" view, which treats tone 3 sandhi as similar to flapping in English. Evidence is presented for two main claims. First, based on a review of the phonetic literature, it appears that native speakers of Beijing Mandarin process tone sandhi more in line with the gradient view, while speakers of other varieties (including Taiwan Mandarin) process tone sandhi in accordance with the categorical view. Second, a new phonetic study of both tone 3 sandhi and the idiosyncratic tone sandhi found with the morpheme yi ("one") provides further support for the claim of categoricality of tone 3 sandhi in Taiwan Mandarin, yet also illustrates the empirical and theoretical pitfalls of phonetic research on tone sandhi.


Abstract. Drought is a phenomenon which can cause large economical impact even in Europe. To assess the magnitude and the spatial extension of drought events, it is important to have a standardized drought index which is applicable for a large climatically heterogeneous region like Europe or the WMO RA VI Region (Europe and the Middle East). Such an index should describe the drought phenomenon adequately, but it should also be derivable from meteorological quantities which are easily and timely available in whole Europe. In a first investigation, some candidates for drought indices were chosen, compared and assessed for applicability in whole Europe. The most appropriate one seems to be the widely known Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) which is a standardized and handy measurement of drought for any location and requires nothing but precipitation data. However, it has turned out that for some places in the RA VI Region, notably in arid regions in summer, the SPI does not always provide reasonable or easily interpretable results. For that reason, some modifications of the SPI have been tried out and tested statistically. It seems that the gamma distribution of precipitation which is used for computation of the SPI is in fact the most appropriate one and other distributions have not improved the results substantially. On the other hand a so called zero correction, which sets very small precipitation totals to dry values, only dependent on the precipitation distribution, but independent on the individual location delivers more reasonable results. Maps of the new modified drought index and its anomalies from the climate normal are produced quasi-operationally and distributed via the Internet each month. The drought monitoring is part of the monitoring programme of the WMO RA VI Pilot Regional Climate Centre on Climate Monitoring (RCC-CM) hosted by the German Meteorological Service (Deutscher Wetterdienst, DWD), and the maps can be found on its present RCC-CM platform ( http://www.dwd.de/rcc-cm ).


This paper is concerned with the stability analysis of linear discrete-time systems with Poisson-distributed delays. Firstly, the exponential stability condition of system with Poisson-distributed delays is derived when the corresponding system with the zero-delay or the system without the delayed term is asymptotically stable. Then, an augmented Lyapunov functional is suggested to handle the case that the corresponding system without the delay as well as the system without the delayed term are not necessary to be asymptotically stable. Furthermore, we show that the results can be further improved by formulating the system as a higher-order augmented one and applying the corresponding augmented Lyapunov functional. Finally, the efficiency of the proposed results is illustrated by some numerical examples.


ABSTRACT A mini-Tn5Cm insertion has been identified that significantly reduced the amount of an extracellular activating signal for a lacZ fusion (cma37::lacZ) in Providencia stuartii. The transposon insertion was located immediately upstream of an open reading frame encoding a putative CysE ortholog. The CysE enzyme, serine acetyltransferase, catalyzes the conversion of serine to O-acetyl-l-serine (OAS). This activating signal was also produced by Escherichia coli, and production was abolished in a strain containing a null allele of cysE. Products of the CysE enzyme (OAS, N-acetyl-l-serine [NAS], O-acetyl-l-threonine, and N-acetyl-l-threonine) were individually tested for the ability to activate cma37::lacZ. Only OAS was capable of activating the cma37::lacZ fusion. The ability of OAS to activate the cma37::lacZ fusion was abolished by pretreatment at pH 8.5, which converts OAS to NAS. However, the activity of the native signal in conditioned medium was not decreased by treatment at pH 8.5. In contrast, conditioned medium prepared from cells grown at pH 8.5 exhibited a 4- to 10-fold-higher activity, relative to pH 6.0. Additional genes regulated by the CysE-dependent signal and OAS were identified in P. stuartii and E. coli. The response to the extracellular signal in E. coli was dependent on CysB, a positive activator that requires NAS as a coactivator. In E. coli, a cysE mutant formed biofilms at an accelerated rate compared to the wild type, suggesting a physiological role for this extracellular signal.


Single Expansion Ramp Nozzle (SERN) with large expansion ratio is normally adopted for the hypersonic aircraft in consideration of integrated aircraft / propulsion system / nozzle design. Under low Mach number and low Nozzle Pressure Ratio (NPR, the ratio of inlet total pressure to outlet static pressure) conditions, the flow in the SERN is a state of severe over-expansion, the internal resistance increased obviously, the flow quality and performance of the SERN sharply deteriorated. How to effectively improve the SERN performance under over-expanded condition has become an important issue in the integrated design of hypersonic propulsion system. The passive cavity flow control technique was introduced on the upper expansion ramp of the SERN in this paper, the three-dimensional flowfield in the passive cavity SERN was investigated numerically, suitable NPR range for passive cavity flow control and impacts of passive cavity parameters were discussed. Results show the SERN performance is effectively improved when the passive cavity is applied from NPR of 5 to 10. Compared with the baseline SERN, 3.13 % improvement can be achieved for the thrust coefficient of the passive cavity SERN when NPR is 5. The passive cavity has the capacity of regulating the induced shock intensity or restraining flow separation, the reason for the change in its function is decided by the relative position between the induced shock and the passive cavity position on the upper expansion ramp of the SERN. As for each function of the passive cavity, an optimum position for the passive cavity structure exists on the upper expansion ramp. Among the primary geometric parameters of the passive cavity structure, percent of porosity is a crucial factor to affect the SERN performance by adjusting separation zone size and its separation starting position, and the improvement effectiveness of the axial thrust coefficient drops with the decrease of percent of porosity. The cavity depth and the aperture size are not sensitive to the performance of passive cavity SERN as compared to the effect of the percent of porosity.


This study investigates the effects of Transit Information Systems (TIS). TIS are wide range of systems that provide travelers information about travel options such as; travel times, delays and/or incidents. In this study, the important transit information types and their service levels are investigated in Izmir City, Turkey. The study focused on the transit users; considered information types for different transit mode segments were identified. In addition, accepted information types for non-transit users to consider transit as an alternative commute mode was investigated. For these purposes, a stated preference scenario was prepared which included the considered important information types of respondents and a function of their actual travel time. In this study, static pre-transit information systems were considered. Results indicated that considered TIS between transit and non-transit users are not much different from each other. However, considered TIS among different transit mode segments is significantly different.


Currently, in oral and maxillofacial surgery, there is a clinical need for efficient bone grafting materials, and various efforts are being made to improve materials used as bone substitutes to facilitate faster and denser bone regeneration. The purpose of this study was to evaluate in vivo the osteogenic potential of synthetic β-tricalcium phosphate in a hydroxyl sulphate matrix (β-TCP/HS) and human demineralized bone matrix (DBM) putty. Sixteen New Zealand White rabbits were used. In each animal, two bone defects (8 mm length × 3 mm width × 3 mm depth) were created in the left and right regions of the mandible, respectively. The defect on one side, chosen randomly, was filled with β-TCP/HS (group A) or DBM putty (group B), while the defect on the opposite side was left unfilled in order to serve as a control site. Two animals in each group were sacrificed at the end of the 1st, 3rd, 5th and 6th week after surgery, respectively, and the osteotomy sites were processed for histological evaluation. Our findings confirmed that β-TCP/HS and human DBM putty possess osteogenic activity and can support new bone formation, although at a slower rate than the spontaneous healing response, in rabbit mandibular osseous defects.


Polarized deep-inelastic scattering data on longitudinally polarized hydrogen and deuterium targets have been used to determine double-spin asymmetries of cross sections. Inclusive and semi-inclusive asymmetries for the production of positive and negative pions from hydrogen were obtained in a reanalysis of previously published data. Inclusive and semi-inclusive asymmetries for the production of negative and positive pions and kaons were measured on a polarized deuterium target. The separate helicity densities for the up and down quarks and the anti-up, anti-down, and strange sea quarks were computed from these asymmetries in a ''leading order'' QCD analysis. The polarization of the up-quark is positive and that of the down-quark is negative. All extracted sea quark polarizations are consistent with zero, and the light quark sea helicity densities are flavor symmetric within the experimental uncertainties. First and second moments of the extracted quark helicity densities in the measured range are consistent with fits of inclusive data.


The impact of aging on CNS white matter (WM) is of general interest because the global effects of aging on myelinated nerve fibers are more complex and profound than those in cortical gray matter. It is important to distinguish between axonal changes created by normal aging and those caused by neurodegenerative diseases, including multiple sclerosis, stroke, glaucoma, Alzheimer's disease, and traumatic brain injury. Using three-dimensional electron microscopy, we show that in mouse optic nerve, which is a pure and fully myelinated WM tract, aging axons are larger, have thicker myelin, and are characterized by longer and thicker mitochondria, which are associated with altered levels of mitochondrial shaping proteins. These structural alterations in aging mitochondria correlate with lower ATP levels and increased generation of nitric oxide, protein nitration, and lipid peroxidation. Moreover, mitochondria–smooth endoplasmic reticulum interactions are compromised due to decreased associations and decreased levels of calnexin and calreticulin, suggesting a disruption in Ca2+ homeostasis and defective unfolded protein responses in aging axons. Despite these age-related modifications, axon function is sustained in aging WM, which suggests that age-dependent changes do not lead to irreversible functional decline under normal conditions, as is observed in neurodegenerative diseases. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Aging is a common risk factor for a number of neurodegenerative diseases, including stroke. Mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative damage with age are hypothesized to increase risk for stroke. We compared axon–myelin–node–mitochondrion–smooth endoplasmic reticulum (SER) interactions in white matter obtained at 1 and 12 months. We show that aging axons have enlarged volume, thicker myelin, and elongated and thicker mitochondria. Furthermore, there are reduced SER connections to mitochondria that correlate with lower calnexin and calreticulin levels. Despite a prominent decrease in number, elongated aging mitochondria produce excessive stress markers with reduced ATP production. Because axons maintain function under these conditions, our study suggests that it is important to understand the process of normal brain aging to identify neurodegenerative changes.


This essay narrates the author's experiences as a militant translator and publisher of Italian Autonomist Marxism, including many works by Antonio Negri, from the seventies to the present. He describes his recent discussions with Negri, and his personal indignation at finding the results of his labor posted free on the Internet is ironically compared with the collective indignation expressed by anticapitalist struggles in Europe, Africa, and the Arab world. The essay also assesses the contemporary value of Negri's thought, particularly the notions of the multitude and the common, for the analysis of and resistance to cognitive capitalism.


Group B Streptococcus (GBS) has developed several strategies to evade immune defenses. We show that GBS induces macrophage (M (cid:1) ) membrane permeability defects and apoptosis, prevented by inhibition of calcium influx but not caspases. We analyze the molecular mechanisms of GBS-induced murine M (cid:1) apoptosis. GBS causes a massive intracellular calcium increase, strictly correlated to membrane permeability defects and apoptosis onset. Calcium increase was associated with activation of calcium-dependent protease calpain, demonstrated by casein zymography, (cid:2) -spectrin cleavage to a calpain-specific fragment, fluorogenic calpain-substrate cleavage, and inhibition of these proteolyses by calpain inhibitors targeting the calcium-binding, 3-(4-Iodophenyl)-2-mercapto-(Z)-2-propenoic acid, or active site (four different inhibitors), by calpain small-interfering-RNA (siRNA) and EGTA. GBS-induced M (cid:1) apoptosis was inhibited by all micro- and m-calpain inhibitors used and m-calpain siRNA, but not 3-(5-Fluoro-3-indolyl)-2-mercapto-(Z)-2-propenoic acid (micro-calpain inhibitor) and micro-calpain siRNA indicating that m-calpain plays a central role in apoptosis. Calpain activation is followed by Bax and Bid cleavage, cytochrome c , apoptosis-inducing factor, and endonuclease G release from mitochondria. In GBS-induced apoptosis, cytochrome c did not induce caspase-3 and -7 activation because they and APAF-1 were degraded by calpains. Therefore, factor and endonuclease G seem the main mediators of the calpain-dependent but caspase-independent pathway of GBS-induced apoptosis. Proapoptotic mediator degradations do not occur with nonhemolytic GBS, not inducing M (cid:1) apoptosis. Apoptosis was reduced by Bax siRNA and Bid siRNA suggesting Bax and Bid degradation is apoptosis correlated. This signaling pathway, different from that of most pathogens, could represent a GBS strategy to evade immune defenses. The Journal of Immunology, 2006, 176: 7542–7556.


It is the purpose of the communication to outline the viability of organismic tissues using selected examples for continued and catastrophic development, variation in the species specific life span, in the species specific size, metabolism, and different characteristics of cellular renewal from a species specific view. Finally, the application of tissue viability to medical research and clinical therapy was approached. It is the author's belief that a broader application of species specific facts to medicine would be an advantage to enhance our understanding of basic life processes and simultaneously human medicine.


According to a view derived from the philosopher Descartes, persons are composed of separable minds and bodies. It is claimed that modern medicine itself is strongly influenced by this Cartesian picture of the human person, and when it is applied to the phenomenon of disablement, this generates a specific conception of disability. Thus, when applied to physical disabilities, the Cartesian view implies that the internal, mental component of the person is unaffected by these; thus, it may be claimed that the real person is 'housed' or 'imprisoned' by their disabled body. In addition, when thinking about intellectual disabilities, the Cartesian view implies that although the body is intact, the mental component of the person is unable to 'instruct' the body correctly.

Key Concepts

Cartesian view of the person: human beings are composed of two distinct substances: a mental substance, or mind, and a physical substance, or body.
Cartesian conception of disability: a way of conceiving of disability which derives from the Cartesian view of the person.
Merleau-Pontian view of the person: it is a mistake to think of persons as either wholly physical things or composed of distinct mental and physical parts. Rather, the person is a unity in which mental and physical aspects are inextricably intertwined.
Merleau-Pontian conception of disability: a way of conceiving of disability which derives from the Merleau-Pontian view of the person.

Keywords:

disability;
Descartes;
mind;
body;
Merleau-Ponty


We explore the significance of political connections vs. productivity for firms' domestic sales and export performance in developing countries, using the data from the listed firms in China's Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets. We estimate firms' total factor productivity and manually build a detailed dataset on firm's political connections using public information released by firms. We find that more productive firms have larger sales in both domestic and international markets, but the effect of political connections differ. Political connections matter in a positive way for domestic sales, and employing a current member of a political body in China is more significant for domestic sales than employing a former government official. However, political connections are not significant for firm's export sales.


After a decade of correlational research, this study is the first to measure the causal impact of (general) smartphone use on educational performance. To this end, we merge survey data on general smartphone use, exogenous predictors of this use, and other drivers of academic success with the exam scores of first-year students at two Belgian universities. The resulting data are analysed with instrumental variable estimation techniques. A one-standard-deviation increase in daily smartphone use yields a decrease in average exam scores of about one point (out of 20). When relying on ordinary least squares estimations, the magnitude of this effect is substantially underestimated.


The author introduces a double iterative scheme to solve the Yamabe equation− 4(n−1) n−2 ∆gu+ Sgu = λu n+2 n−2 on closed manifolds (M, g) with dimM > 3. Thus g admits a conformal change to a constant scalar curvature metric. In contrast to the traditional functional minimization, the Yamabe problem is fully solved in five cases classified by the sign of the scalar curvature Sg and the sign of the first eigenvalue of conformal Laplacian.


WHAT'S KNOWN ON THIS SUBJECT: Data available before the 1990s in addition to small studies with clinical populations have shown that ocular growth and development differ between extremely preterm and term-born children. WHAT THIS STUDY ADDS: Contemporary data on long-term visual outcomes indicate that adolescents born extremely low birth weight and/or extremely preterm exhibit more visual sensory and perceptual morbidity than adolescents born at term. abstract BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Ocular growth and development dif


Recent developments in degradation modeling have been targeted towards utilizing degradation-based sensory signals to predict residual life distributions. Typically, these models consist of stochastic parameters that are estimated with the aid of an historical database of degradation signals. In many applications, building a degradation database, where components are run-to-failure, may be very expensive and time consuming, as in the case of generators or jet engines. The degradation modeling framework presented herein addresses this challenge by utilizing failure time data, which are easier to obtain, and readily available (relative to sensor-based degradation signals) from historical maintenance/repair records. Failure time values are first fitted to a Bernstein distribution whose parameters are then used to estimate the prior distributions of the stochastic parameters of an initial degradation model. Once a complete realization of a degradation signal is observed, the assumptions of the initial degradation model are revised and improved for future predictions. This approach is validated using real world vibration-based degradation information from a rotating machinery application.


This study was designed to determine if temperature readings using a new tympanic thermometer are affected by otitis media. These readings were also compared to a rectal or oral temperature. Eighty-four children with unilateral suppurative or non-suppurative otitis media diagnosed clinically by their pediatricians were enrolled in the study. Temperatures were measured in both ears using the Thermoscan PRO-1 Instant Thermometer and rectally or orally by a glass or electronic predictive thermometer. For 67 children with unilateral suppurative otitis media the mean temperature in infected ears was 0.38 degrees Fahrenheit higher than in uninfected ears (p = .005). Neither temperatures measured in affected nor those from unaffected ears differed significantly from oral or rectal control readings. For 17 children with unilateral non-suppurative otitis media there was no statistically significant difference between temperatures in affected and unaffected ears or between the temperatures in either ear and the oral or rectal control. Our data show that temperatures taken in ears with suppurative otitis media are slightly higher than those in normal ears. This difference is of minimal clinical significance and does not affect the accuracy when compared to oral or rectal control readings.


This Article reviews the book by Supreme Court Justice, Steven G. Breyer, "Breaking The Vicious Circle: Toward Effective Risk Regulation." The Author discusses this book's most significant contribution that draws attention to the current regulatory regime's systemic problems, thereby encouraging serious discussion about how to "reinvent" the regulatory process. Breyer courageously points out that the political legitimacy of the process rests to some degree on the effectiveness of its product. This Review outlines the systemic problems and the "vicious circle" identified by Justice Breyer and then proceeds to review his proposed solution. The final part presents several criticisms of his proposal and concludes while Breyer's modest suggestions may help at the margin, they settle for tinkering with the system instead of giving it the overhaul it really needs.


The Mayan octopus (Octopus maya) and the American octopus (O. americanus) are the two species that support the octopus fishery on the Campeche Bank. The large-scale fleet catches both species. However, landings are recorded as American octopus in the official statistics, and this causes a problem for the management of the fishery. The large-scale octopus fishery on the Campeche Bank was studied using a model based on data from interviews with skippers. A total of 180 valid interviews were conducted in the base ports of Progreso and Yucalpeten (Yucatan), representing 51.1% of the skippers in the fleet in 2019. This information was used for the first time to estimate catch per unit effort (CPUE) and total catches for each octopus species. The mean CPUE ranged between 50 and 500 kg day-1, with minimums of 10 kg day-1. The mean estimated potential catches ranged from 5069 to 3456 t per year for O. maya and from 4113 to 2805 t per year for O. americanus. The relationship between official landings and estimated catches showed a significant correlation (rxy=0.898). The total estimated catches were on average 20% lower than the official landings of O. americanus. The origin of this discrepancy is discussed.


Cells steadily adapt their membrane glycerophospholipid (GPL) composition to changing environmental and developmental conditions. While the regulation of membrane homeostasis via GPL synthesis in bacteria has been studied in detail, the mechanisms underlying the controlled degradation of endogenous GPLs remain unknown. Thus far, the function of intracellular phospholipases A (PLAs) in GPL remodeling (Lands cycle) in bacteria is not clearly established. Here, we identified the first cytoplasmic membrane-bound phospholipase A1 (PlaF) from Pseudomonas aeruginosa involved in the Lands cycle. PlaF is an important virulence factor, as the P. aeruginosa ΔplaF mutant showed strongly attenuated virulence in Galleria mellonella and macrophages. We present a 2.0-Å-resolution crystal structure of PlaF, the first structure that reveals homodimerization of a single-pass transmembrane (TM) full-length protein. PlaF dimerization, mediated solely through the intermolecular interactions of TM and juxtamembrane regions, inhibits its activity. A dimerization site and the catalytic sites are linked by an intricate ligand-mediated interaction network which likely explains the product (fatty acid) feedback inhibition observed with the purified PlaF protein. We used molecular dynamics simulations and configurational free energy computations to suggest a model of PlaF activation through a coupled monomerization and tilting of the monomer in the membrane, which constrains the active site cavity into contact with the GPL substrates. Thus, these data show the importance of the GPL remodeling pathway for virulence and pave the way for the development of a novel therapeutic class of antibiotics targeting PlaF-mediated membrane GPL remodeling. Synopsis Membrane homeostasis can be regulated by phospholipase-controlled deacylation of endogenous glycerophospholipids (GPLs) followed by reacylation of products, known as the Lands cycle in eukaryotes. Here we show that the human pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa uses intracellular phospholipase A1 (PlaF) to modulate membrane GPL composition, which is the first example in bacteria. This newly identified PLA1 indirectly regulates the bacterial virulence properties by hydrolyzing a specific set of membrane GPLs. The crystal structure of full-length PlaF dimers bound to natural ligands, MD simulations, and biochemical approaches provide insights into the molecular mechanism of dimerization-mediated inactivation of this single-pass transmembrane PLA1. Our findings shed light on a mechanism by which bacterial intracellular PLAs might regulate membrane homeostasis what showcases these enzymes as a promising target for a new class of antibiotics.


The Wasatch fault and adjacent fault zones provide an opportunity to compare present-day deformation rate estimates obtained from space geodesy with geologic displacement rates over at least four temporal windows, ranging from the last millennium up to 10 Myr. The three easternmost GPS sites of the Basin and Range Geodetic Network (BARGEN) at this latitude define a ∼130-km-wide region spanning three major normal faults extending east-west at a total rate of 2.7 ± 0.4 mm/yr, with an average regional strain rate estimated to be 21 ± 4 nstrain/yr, about twice the Basin and Range average. On the Wasatch fault, the vertical component of the geologic displacement rate is 1.7 ± 0.5 mm/yr since 6 ka, <0.6 mm/yr since 130 ka, and 0.5–0.7 mm/yr since 10 Ma. However, it appears likely that at the longest timescale, rates slowed over time, from 1.0 to 1.4 mm/yr between 10 and 6 Ma to 0.2 to 0.3 mm/yr since 6 Ma. The cumulative vertical displacement record across all three faults also shows time-variable strain release ranging from 2 to 4 mm/yr since 10 ka to <1 mm/yr averaged over the past 130 kyr. Conventional earthquake recurrence models ("Reid-type" behavior) would require an accordingly large variation in strain accumulation or loading rate on a 10-kyr timescale, for which there appears to be no obvious geophysical explanation. Alternatively, seismic strain release, given a wide range of plausible constitutive behaviors for frictional sliding, may be clustered on the 10-kyr timescale, resulting in the high Holocene rates, with comparatively low, uniform strain accumulation rates on the 100-kyr timescale ("Wallace-type" behavior). The latter alternative, combined with observations at the million-year timescale and the likelihood of a significant contribution of postseismic transients, implies maxima of spectral amplitude in the velocity field at periods of ∼10 Myr (variations in tectonic loading), ∼10 kyr (clustered strain release), and of 100 years (postseismic transients). If so, measurements of strain accumulation and strain release may be strongly timescale-dependent for any given fault system.


This article provides a broad overview of findings from a survey of 106 Japanese and U.S. factories and 8,302 of their employees. Its focus is on how work attitudes and motivation differ between Japanese and U.S. employees and whether management practice and organizational design can account for those differences. The article concludes that practices such as quality circles, the ringi system, centralized authority combined with de facto participation, employee services, seniority compensation, and enterprise unions do, in fact, help to explain the "commitment gap" that divides the Japanese from the U.S. manufacturing workforce. When these and similar practices appear in U.S. factories, similar positive changes in employee work attitudes result.


The present study was conducted in order to exploit the association between eating disorders and irregular menstrual cycles that will, ultimately, bone density and expression of the female athlete triad. Methods: six international level footballers, with amenorrhea of three months or more. All participants were asked to record their answers on a standardized questionnaire about their ovarian cycle for the analysis of the disorders of menstrual cycle and food survey in a week to calculate the energy contributions by the BILNUT software. We have also conducted anthropometric measurement in order to measure the fat mass and the meager one. Results: Our results show that the BMI is low <18.5 kg / m with an important weight loss in 3 months. Our data show also that 83% of them worry about losing control of what they eat. While, the food survey shows, a food restriction translated by a negative energetic balance sheet ( participants have a high rate of cortisol accompanied by a remarkable decrease above of the normal levels of Oestradiol. Conclusion: Weight loss, with or without a low body mass index associated with a poor perception, her slimming and disorders of monthl must evoke the diagnosis of eating disorder behavior.


Shape-From-Silhouette (SFS), also known as Visual Hull (VH) construction, is a popular 3D reconstruction method which estimates the shape of an object from multiple silhouette images. The original SFS formulation assumes that all of the silhouette images are captured either at the same time or while the object is static. This assumption is violated when the object moves or changes shape. Hence the use of SFS with moving objects has been restricted to treating each time instant sequentially and independently. Recently we have successfully extended the traditional SFS formulation to refine the shape of a rigidly moving object over time. Here we further extend SFS to apply to dynamic articulated objects. Given silhouettes of a moving articulated object, the process of recovering the shape and motion requires two steps: (1) correctly segmenting (points on the boundary of) the silhouettes to each articulated part of the object, (2) estimating the motion of each individual part using the segmented silhouette. In this paper, we propose an iterative algorithm to solve this simultaneous assignment and alignment problem. Once we have estimated the shape and motion of each part of the object, the articulation points between each pair of rigid parts are obtained by solving a simple motion constraint between the connected parts. To validate our algorithm, we first apply it to segment the different body parts and estimate the joint positions of a person. The acquired kinematic (shape and joint) information is then used to track the motion of the person in new video sequences.


ABSTRACT Altricial birds are unable to maintain body temperature when exposed to low ambient temperatures during the first days after hatching. Thermoregulatory capacity begins to form as postnatal development progresses, and eventually nestlings become homeothermic. Several factors may influence this development at both the level of the individual and the level of the whole brood, but to our knowledge no studies have focused on the effect of brood size per se on the development of endothermy in individual nestlings. We performed cooling experiments on blue tit (Cyanistes caeruleus) nestlings in the field, to study how different experimental brood sizes affected the development of endothermy in individual nestlings and the thermal environment experienced by the whole brood in the nest. Nestlings from all experimental brood sizes showed a decrease in cooling rate as they grew older, but birds from reduced broods showed an earlier onset of endothermy compared with nestlings from enlarged and control broods. This difference manifested during early development and gradually disappeared as nestlings grew older. The thermal environment in the nests differed between treatments during nestling development, such that nest temperature in reduced broods was lower than that in enlarged broods during all days and during nights at the end of the experimental period. We suggest that the development of endothermy in blue tit nestlings is not ontogenetically fixed, but instead may vary according to differences in developmental, nutritional and thermal conditions as determined by brood size. Highlighted Article: The development of endothermic heat production in individual blue tit nestlings differs between broods of different sizes.


Purpose of review In the past year, there has been progress on several fronts in the field of mitral valve surgery and intervention. Here, we review key publications regarding the surgical and transcatheter management of mitral valve disease. Recent findings This past year heralded the publication of the 2014 American Heart Association (AHA)/American College of Cardiology (ACC) Guidelines for the Management of Patients With Valvular Heart Disease. Regarding degenerative mitral regurgitation, low risk of operative mortality and data demonstrating clinical benefit for early surgery are prompting renewed calls for early intervention before guideline-based triggers. For functional mitral regurgitation, the precise roles of chordal-sparing replacement versus repair and the optimal management of moderate disease at the time of surgical revascularization are unclear. Sternal-sparing minimally invasive mitral valve surgery has become a mature procedure in experienced centers and offers comparable surgical morbidity and mortality with superior cosmesis and faster return to baseline function. Transcatheter interventions for mitral regurgitation continue to undergo development and testing. Mounting experience and ongoing clinical trials with the MitraClip endovascular edge-to-edge repair device will provide important data on the optimal target population for this device. Summary This past year has seen important advances in the surgical treatment of degenerative and functional mitral regurgitation as well as continued refinement of transcatheter interventions.


Background Recurrent pericarditis is characterized by painful flares and inflammation, which negatively impact health‐related quality of life. RHAPSODY (rilonacept inhibition of interleukin‐1 alpha and beta for recurrent pericarditis: a pivotal symptomatology and outcomes study) evaluated the efficacy and safety of rilonacept (IL‐1α and ‐β cytokine trap) in recurrent pericarditis. A secondary analysis of these data evaluated the patient‐reported outcome questionnaire score change during the trial. Methods and Results Participants completed 5 patient‐reported outcome (PRO) questionnaires assessing pericarditis pain, health‐related quality of life, general health status, sleep impact, and overall symptom severity. PRO score changes during the treatment run‐in period (12 weeks) and the blinded randomized withdrawal period (up to 24 weeks) were evaluated using descriptive statistics and mixed model repeated measures analyses. Participants with PRO data from the run‐in period (n=84) and the randomized withdrawal period (n=61; 30 rilonacept, 31 placebo) were included in analyses. Run‐in baseline PRO scores indicated that pericarditis symptoms during pericarditis recurrence impacted health‐related quality of life. All PRO scores significantly improved (P<0.001) on rilonacept treatment during the run‐in period. For the randomized withdrawal period, PRO scores were maintained for participants receiving rilonacept. For those receiving placebo and who experienced a recurrence, PRO scores deteriorated at the time of recurrence and then improved following rilonacept bailout. At randomized withdrawal Week 24/End of Study, scores of participants who received bailout rilonacept were similar to those of participants who had continued rilonacept. Conclusions These results demonstrate the burden of pericarditis recurrences and the improved physical and emotional health of patients with recurrent pericarditis while on rilonacept treatment. These findings extend prior rilonacept efficacy results, demonstrating improvements in patient‐reported health‐related quality of life, sleep, pain, and global symptom severity while on treatment. Registration URL: https://www.clinicaltrials.gov; Unique identifier: NCT03737110.


We propose alternative mechanisms for the origin of three unusual rock suites, high-Mg andesites, NaTi basalts, and arclike rocks, that have been dredged from the Woodlark basin, southwest Pacific Ocean. We show that the high-Mg andesites and NaTi basalts are associated with an unusually cool ridge environment. The cooling is due to increased hydrothermal circulation, stimulated by an unusually high crustal permeability. The high permeability is mainly due to cracking of the Woodlark basin lithosphere as it passes over the flexural bulge in front of the subduction zone, although local processes, such as faulting in fracture zones, may also make some contribution. This increased convective cooling affects magma dynamics and chemistry at the ridge crest. The high-Mg andesites occur where the hydrothermal circulation lowers the temperatures in the upper oceanic crust, causing the magma chamber to sit in the mantle rather than in the crust and promoting the interaction of basalt magma with harzburgite. The NaTi basalts are also the indirect result of increased crustal cooling, which causes anomalously low degrees of partial melting of their depleted mantle source. The arclike rocks are caused by interaction with volatiles from lithosphere that was emplaced beneath the edge of the basin less than 6 m.y. ago by a now inactive subduction zone to the north of the currently active one. Simple thermal models indicate that this formerly subducting plate is still cold enough to retain volatiles and to remain seismically active. As the old plate loses volatiles, they rise into the mantle convection cell which feeds the Woodlark basin ridge crest. Because ridge subduction increases the likelihood of ophiolite obduction, these observations and explanations of Woodlark basin tectonics are potentially important for ophiolites.


This article focuses on the transcultural aspects of the Peseschkian Balance Model. The goal was to conduct a preliminary study of the balance models of Russian and Chinese respondents, to carry out quantitative characteristics of the balance model of the two groups and to compare out quantitative characteristics of the balance model of the Russian and Chinese sample group. Object of research: settlements in Russia and China according to N. Peseschkian 's balance model. Objectives: to form two control groups for the study; create a questionnaire in Russian and Chinese for conducting research; study the population model of China (Group 1) using a questionnaire; study the model of the population of Russia (Group 2) using a questionnaire; to carry out a comparative analysis of quantitative indicators of Group 1 and Group 2 in four areas of the balance model N. Peseschkian. It was measured the quantitative parameters of the four spheres of the balance model of Group 1 and Group 2 and compared the quantitative parameters. It was found that the sphere of meanings and the sphere of contacts are quantitatively differ little in Group 1 and Group 2, and in the spheres of activity and the sphere of the body there are significant quantitative differences Group 1 and Group 2. Detailed results of the study were displayed in tables and diagrams.


Though hydroxyapatite has the ability to promote bone growing, devices based on OHAp are mechanically weak and need to be reinforced for load bearing applications or in the manufacturing of scaffolds for bone regeneration. Graphite (Gr) could provide appropriate reinforcement properties to OHAp without being deleterious for the biocompatibility of the system. This paper describes an accelerated synthesis of the OHAp with ultrasonic agitation in the presence of functionalized graphite (GO). The toxicity of the Graphite and the GO-OHAp system is evaluated. GO-OHAp was produced by a wet chemical reaction involving CaCl2 and Na2HPO4. The calcium salt solution was added first and the solution sonicated for 1 hour, before repeating the operation with the phosphate solution. Biocompatibility was tested by using a primary cell culture of HOB (ECCAC). The disappearance of the maximum at 2q = 26.32º corresponding to the d002 plane of graphite and the appearance of the maximum at 2q = 13.2º in the XRD patterns is related with an expansion of the grapheme sheets from 0.34 nm to 0.59 nm and it has been used to assess the graphite oxidation. The OHAP on GO growing has been confirmed by the appearance of a broad peak centred at 2q = 31.5º and a sharpened peak at 2q = 26.0º characteristic of low crystalline apatites. Although the employed graphite can be considered biocompatible, cellular viability is significantly improved by the presence of apatite.