This paper uses stochastic frontier analysis and Tobit regressions to provide international evidence on the impact of regulatory, supervision and environmental factors on bank efficiency. Our contribution is twofold. First, we use a newly constructed database of 3,086 observations from 677 publicly quoted commercial banks operating in 88 countries to provide cross-country evidence on the determinants of banks' cost and profit efficiency during the period 2000-2004. Second, we utilise the new database of the World Bank (WB), developed by Barth et al. (2004b), to investigate the impact of a broad range of regulatory and supervision measures, including capital requirements, restrictions on bank activities, private monitoring, official supervisory power of the authorities, and deposit insurance. Our results suggest a robust association of some of these measures with bank efficiency, despite being marginal in their impact compared to the influence of bank level capitalisation. We also reveal, in this context, some similarities, and differences in the determinants of cost and profit efficiency, with plausible effects of the impact of the conditioning environmental factors on bank efficiency.


Faces and facial expressions recognition is an interesting topic for researchers in machine vision. Viola-Jones algorithm is the most spread algorithm for this task. Building a classification model for face recognition can take many years if the implementation of its training phase is not appropriately optimized. In this study, several settings for implementing the training phase are analyzed. The aim was to share our experiences when we try to accelerate the training phase using one computer with a graphical processing unit (GPU). For each setting, the execution times were analyzed and compared with previous studies. Although we don't contribute to break new ground in topic or methodology, we decide to share our experience in order to show an antecedent working with a cheap GPU with the aim that this can be useful to another for to make comparisons.


Abstract: The ecological impacts of introduced species can reveal mechanisms underlying habitat selection and behaviour. We investigated the habitat use of native frog species and the invasive cane toads (Rhinella marina) in tropical northern Australia to measure overlap in habitat use, and to test if the presence of the cane toad influences frog behaviour. Native frog species and the cane toad both preferred habitats close to water and unvegetated holes. However, native frogs were found further from water (on average 19.4 m) than were toads (on average 12.6 m), and preferred areas with higher vegetation (8–50 cm) than did toads, which were more abundant in vegetation lower than 8 cm. For both types of anuran, the next neighbour was more often of the same type (89% in frogs, 52% in toads) than expected by chance (observed ratio: 75% frogs vs 25% toads), reflecting these differences in habitat use. Our counts of frog abundance increased on average 14.5% in areas from which we removed cane toads temporarily. This result suggests that cane toads inhibit the activity of native anurans either by inducing avoidance, or by reducing activity. By modifying the behaviour and spatial distribution of native taxa, invasive cane toads may curtail activities such as feeding and breeding.


The importance of cyber-security in protecting data and information is huge in this era of technology. With the number of cyber-attacks increasing daily, the security system has been developing for several years because we have been concerned about predicting and preventing cyber-attacks. The top 10 security threats identified by the OWASP are injection attacks. The most common vulnerability is SQL injection and is the most dangerous security vulnerability due to the multiplicity of its types and the rapid changes that can be caused by SQL injection and may lead to financial loss, data leakage, and significant damage to the database and this causes the site to be paralyzed. Detecting SQL injections is still a difficult task. How to successfully defend against SQL injection attacks has become the focus and frontier of web security in recent years. Machine learning has proven successful against these threats and effectively prevents and detects cross-site scripting and SQL input in web applications. Machine learning is used to analyze and identify security vulnerabilities. It uses classic machine learning algorithms and deep learning to evaluate the classified model using input validation features.


The role of general practitioners is being redefined in the light of the emphasis on more care in the community, economic factors, and patients' expectations. The strength of general practice lies in the doctor-patient relationship; this strength must not be lost sight of. Specific tasks of the general practitioner include the responsibility for the care of individuals; the role of gatekeeper; broad knowledge of curative, preventive; and rehabilitative medicine; teamwork; management; and development of population based strategies. Future work patterns include the general practitioner first and foremost as a clinician and an integrator of health services, but they also involve audit, education and training, research, management, and relations with organisations in the public, private, and voluntary sectors. It is important to make changes only when they benefit patients and to maintain the principle of equity of access to care.


Intracellular pathogens and endogenous danger signals in the cytosol engage NOD-like receptors (NLRs), which assemble inflammasome complexes to activate caspase-1 and promote the release of proinflammatory cytokines IL-1β and IL-18. However, the NLRs that respond to microbial pathogens in vivo are poorly defined. We show that the NLRs NLRP3 and NLRC4 both activate caspase-1 in response to Salmonella typhimurium. Responding to distinct bacterial triggers, NLRP3 and NLRC4 recruited ASC and caspase-1 into a single cytoplasmic focus, which served as the site of pro–IL-1β processing. Consistent with an important role for both NLRP3 and NLRC4 in innate immune defense against S. typhimurium, mice lacking both NLRs were markedly more susceptible to infection. These results reveal unexpected redundancy among NLRs in host defense against intracellular pathogens in vivo.


We analyze fermionic response in the geometry holographically dual to zero-temperature N=4 Super-Yang-Mills theory with two equal nonvanishing chemical potentials, which is characterized by a singular horizon and zero ground state entropy. We show that fermionic fluctuations are completely stable within a gap in energy around a Fermi surface singularity, beyond which non-Fermi liquid behavior returns. This gap disappears abruptly once the final charge is turned on, and is associated to a discontinuity in the corresponding chemical potential. We also show that the singular near-horizon geometry lifts to a smooth AdS_3 x R^3, and interpret the gap as a region where the quasiparticle momentum is spacelike in six dimensions due to the momentum component in the Kaluza-Klein direction, corresponding to the final charge.


Methylation of the fragile X mental retardation 1 (FMR1) exon 1/intron 1 boundary positioned fragile X related epigenetic element 2 (FREE2), reveals skewed X-chromosome inactivation (XCI) in fragile X syndrome full mutation (FM: CGG > 200) females. XCI skewing has been also linked to abnormal X-linked gene expression with the broader clinical impact for sex chromosome aneuploidies (SCAs). In this study, 10 FREE2 CpG sites were targeted using methylation specific quantitative melt analysis (MS-QMA), including 3 sites that could not be analysed with previously used EpiTYPER system. The method was applied for detection of skewed XCI in FM females and in different types of SCA. We tested venous blood and saliva DNA collected from 107 controls (CGG < 40), and 148 FM and 90 SCA individuals. MS-QMA identified: (i) most SCAs if combined with a Y chromosome test; (ii) locus-specific XCI skewing towards the hypomethylated state in FM females; and (iii) skewed XCI towards the hypermethylated state in SCA with 3 or more X chromosomes, and in 5% of the 47,XXY individuals. MS-QMA output also showed significant correlation with the EpiTYPER reference method in FM males and females (P < 0.0001) and SCAs (P < 0.05). In conclusion, we demonstrate use of MS-QMA to quantify skewed XCI in two applications with diagnostic utility.


The expansion of the neocortex during mammalian evolution has been linked to an enlargement of the subventricular zone during cortical development and an increase in the proliferation of the basal progenitors residing therein. Here, we explored a potential role of YAP, the major downstream effector of the Hippo signaling pathway, in proliferation of basal progenitors. We show that YAP expression and activity are high in ferret and human basal progenitors, which are known to exhibit high proliferative capacity, but low in mouse basal progenitors, which lack such capacity. To induce YAP activity in mouse basal progenitors, we expressed a constitutively active YAP (CA-YAP). This resulted in an increase in proliferation of basal progenitor. In addition, CA-YAP expressing mouse basal progenitors promoted the production of upper-layer neurons. To investigate if YAP is required for the proliferation of basal progenitors, we pharmacologically interfered with the function of YAP in the developing ferret and human neocortex. This resulted in a decrease of cycling basal progenitors. In concert, genetical interference with the function of YAP in ferret developing neocortex resulted in decreased abundance of basal progenitors. Together, our data indicate that YAP promotes the proliferation of basal progenitors and suggest that changes in YAP activity levels contributed to the evolutionary expansion of the neocortex.


The objective of this research are: (1) to find out whether picture series is effective use in teaching writing skill at tenth grade students of SMA Negeri 01 Balai in the academic year of 2018/2019; (2) to find out how strong the effect of using picture series to teach writing to the tenth grade students of SMA Negeri 01 Balai in academic year of 2018/2019. This was carried out at SMAN 01 Balai from 8 October to 8 November 2018. This research method was pre-experimental study. The subject of the research are the students of the tenth grade MIA students of SMAN 01 Balai. The class was consist 23 students. The procedure of research was one group pretest posttest. This research was conducted in three meeting. Technique to choose the sample was cluster random sampling. The sample tough by using picture series as the media. The data was obtained from test. The researcher gained quantitative data for his research. The students' scores of students' writing test was gained from pretest and posttest and the students ly have one time for treatment. The researcher analyzed using Microsoft Excel, then the researcher found out the numerical data of pretest score 65.3 and standard deviation 7. For the data posttest the researcher was gained the mean score 74 and standard deviation 4.6. T-test was shown the numerical data as follow; t-count 7.8289 and t-table 1.7171 it proved that using picture series in teaching writingskill is effective. and the effect level of using picture series in teaching writing skill based on data analysis was 0.75. Based on data analysis, the research finding are: (1) using picture series to teach writing to the tenth grade students of SMAN 01 Balai is effective; (2) The level of effect size got strong effect when teaching writing skill by using picture series. it can be concluded using picture series to teach writing skill is effective media to the tenth grade students of SMAN 01 Balai. The research have suggestion as follow: (1) for the teacher choose a suitable strategy, model, or media of teachi g and learning based the topic that going to learn; (2) for the students need pay attention, active, have a good communicate with other; for the reader and future researcher this thesis result could be an information and reference.


In this Article, I examine relationships between the American legal profession and judiciaries through the lens of judicial conduct regulation. Close relationships between bench and bar have been theorized to increase the political efficacy of these related institutions, but the increased political efficacy can be used to undermine as well as to support liberal democratic values. I argue that the legal profession's ongoing involvement in defining and regulating permissible judicial conduct has eroded the legitimacy and independence of both institutions. Through the twentieth-century process of judicial conduct regulation reform, the profession increased its own power at the expense of judicial power. Through the resulting codes of judicial conduct, the profession ensured that special and more lenient standards would apply to lawyers' interactions with judges. The result has been a challenge to core liberal democratic values through problematic appearances, problematic contacts, and excessively close relationships between bench and bar. I argue that these relationships should be voluntarily reconditioned to ensure that strong and independent judiciaries are supported by a strong and independent profession.


The dual nature of the short story cycle: the interdependence within the tales and the independence of each tale is unique as a literary genre, yet this produces tension between the two. The interdependence within the Winesburg tales is analyzed from consistency of the framing devices and the consistency of mood; the independence is explored from the new looseness and the exclusive structure in Winesburg, Ohio. KEYWORD: The short story cycle; independence; interdependence


Literacy is a fundamental skill to function in society. However, hearing impaired are severely disadvantaged in literacy development by lack of access to language's phonemic system. Recent developments in information and communication technologies stimulated technology integration endeavors in special education field. Hearing impaired children's literacy instruction stands a fruitful area of technology integration. Former studies generally reported development or examination of supportive tools like visual dictionaries, sign language support, vocabulary drills or storybooks. However, few studies developed an overall approach and reported whole technology integration procedures. This study reports findings from a research which investigated the affordances of mobile devices in hearing impaired children's literacy instruction. Two mobile applications were built from scratch and optimized through design based research. Furthermore, affordances and integration guidelines of these applications were investigated in a case study. The research was conducted in Anadolu University's Applied Research Center for Hearing Impaired Children (ICEM). Participants of the study are hearing impaired children studying at ICEM in 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 academic years. Data sources of the project were observations, video recordings, audio recordings of expert panels and semi-structured interviews. The data were analyzed inductively using NVivo 10 software. Results suggested significant increase in student motivation towards the technology enriched instructional environment. This paper summarizes design and optimization studies along with technology integration guidelines to hearing impaired children's literacy classes.


The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace saw the Second Balkan War of the summer of 1913 as an opportunity to extend its influence and authority. The war seemed made to order for peace advocates in that its causes were disputed, atrocities had been charged from all sides and it was geographically in Europe. The Carnegie Endowment immediately sent an international commission to the Balkans to investigate the causes of the war, and the veracity and responsibility of alleged atrocities. The Commission was also charged with studying the economic and moral losses from the war, and the lessons it could teach 'civilized people.' In this paper, I focus on the aims of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace and the extent to which the Commission achieved them in the Balkans and in the resulting publication, The Report of the International Commission to Inquire into the Causes and Conduct of the Balkan Wars. I describe how the head of the Carnegie Division of Intercourse and Education conceived of the initiative, and how he worked with the Paris Carnegie office to assemble the international members. I present how political post-war difficulties affected their fieldwork in the Balkans. The Report, scheduled to be published in January 1914, appeared in French in May 1914 and in English in June 1914 – too late to rekindle interest before other events took center stage. The Carnegie Commissioners were successful in meeting many of their aims but the Report's late publication made this moot. Still, the Carnegie Commission to the Balkans and its Report are significant as an international attempt of peace advocates to bring out the horrors of war in the year just before the First World War. They are also significant as early work to document war crimes and human rights abuse, including abuse of non-combatant citizens. In addition, the Report has been used naively as a historical source on the Balkan Wars. I contextualize it as an historical source with its strengths and weaknesses.


1508 Effect of Polypropylene Fibers on Properties of Mortar Containing Crushed Brick as Aggregate * Shakir A. Salih & Maha E. AL-Azaawee Received on:16/9/2007 Accepted on:26/6/2008 Abstract: More recently there has been a great attention towards converting waste materials byproducts into useful materials as aggregate in concrete industry. It is thus aimed in this study to investigate the possibility of using waste brick as suitable materials and alternative to the natural aggregate in the production of lightweight mortar. The essential objective of this work is to study the mechanical properties of lightweight mortar containing different percentages of polypropylene fiber with high range water reducing agent. The effective synergy of this admixture on the properties of mortars is also investigated. Compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, thermal conductivity and drying shrinkage tests were conducted on reference and polypropylene fiber reinforced mortar specimens at various ages of curing (7, 14, 28, 60 and 90 days) respectively. The results show a significant increasing in splitting tensile strength with the increment of fibers content. Although, a considerable reduction in workability is recorded as increasing the fiber content. Which is controlled by using high range water reducing admixture. All mixes show acceptable values for thermal insulation with regards to ACI 213-87 thermal insulation recommendations. Keyword: Lightweight Mortar, Crushed Brick Aggregate, Polypropylene Fiber.


The emergence of pattern formation and chaotic dynamics is studied in the one-dimensional (1D) generalized Kuramoto–Sivashinsky (gKS) equation by means of a time-series analysis, in particular, a nonlinear forecasting method which is based on concepts from chaos theory and appropriate statistical methods. We analyze two types of temporal signals, a local one and a global one, finding in both cases that the dynamical state of the gKS solution undergoes a transition from high-dimensional chaos to periodic pulsed oscillations through low-dimensional deterministic chaos while increasing the control parameter of the system. Our results demonstrate that the proposed nonlinear forecasting methodology allows to elucidate the dynamics of the system in terms of its predictability properties.


Fragment B, the N-terminal half of the heavy chain, an important domain of the tetanus neurotoxin molecule, was isolated for the first time. Tetanus toxin (composed of three domains, A, B, and C) was prepared from culture filtrates. Fragment A-B, derived from the toxin treated mildly with papain, was used for the isolation of fragment B. Fragment A-B obtained was dissociated into fragments A and B by reduction with 100 mM dithiothreitol and treatment with 2 M urea. Fragment B was separated from fragment A by ion-exchange column chromatography on a Mono Q column equilibrated with 20 mM Tris hydrochloride buffer (pH 7.6), containing 1 mM dithiothreitol and 2 M urea, in a fast-protein liquid chromatography system by elution with a linear gradient of 0 to 0.5 M NaCl. Fragment B was obtained in two forms having molecular weights of 48,000 +/- 2,000, which were indistinguishable by sodium dodecyl sulfate-gel electrophoresis or antigenic specificity, but distinguishable on polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis without sodium dodecyl sulfate and on isoelectric focusing (pI 6.7 and 7.3). The recovery of fragment B was 50 to 72% of that of fragment A-B on a molar basis. Purified fragment B was not toxic to mice on intravenous or intramuscular injection at doses of up to 100 micrograms, but was found to form channels (ca. 2.3 pS) in a lipid bilayer membrane by a patch clamp technique. The role of domain B of the tetanus toxin molecule in the mechanism of action of the toxin is discussed.


The virtual machine allocation problem is the key to build a private cloud environment. This paper presents a virtual machine mapping policy based on multi-resource load balancing. It uses the resource consumption of the running virtual machine and the self-adaptive weighted approach, which resolves the load balancing conflicts of each independent resource caused by different demand for resources of cloud applications. Meanwhile, it uses probability approach to ease the problem of load crowding in the concurrent users scene. The experiments and comparative analysis show that this policy achieves the better effect than existing approach.


BACKGROUND
Anemia is an important cause of morbidity in MDS patients, principally through increased cardiovascular disease. Transfusion status has been seen to be a significant prognostic factor for disease progression and mortality, yet the relationship between anemia levels and cardiovascular disease is not well understood.

OBJECTIVE
This study aimed to review the published literature on the effect of anemia on cardiovascular outcomes in patients with MDS.

METHODS
A systematic literature review was undertaken to identify studies that investigated the relationship between anemia (as defined by hemoglobin levels) and cardiovascular outcomes in patients with MDS (all subtypes).

RESULTS
Three studies were identified that explicitly evaluated the relationship between anemia and cardiovascular outcomes in MDS, and another study reported the relationship between hemoglobin levels and survival. The four studies consistently showed a strong relationship between lower hemoglobin levels and worse cardiovascular outcomes, including cardiac remodeling, congestive heart failure, coronary artery disease, myocardial infarction, arrhythmia, heart valve disease, and cardiovascular mortality. Anemia was seen to be an independent predictor of cardiovascular disease outcomes in patients with MDS, beyond transfusion status and IPSS.

CONCLUSION
Based upon a relatively small body of evidence, there appears to be a strong and clinically significant association between anemia and cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in MDS. While further research is needed, clinicians should seek to actively manage hemoglobin levels in MDS patients before the point of transfusion dependency is reached.


Knowledge has continuously been recognized as one of the important resources in an organization, and many firms in the public and private sector have focused on knowledge management as a means of enhancing their competitiveness. This study sought to investigate the factors that influence knowledge management from the perspective of public sector organizations; through an inductive case study of a public organization in Kenya, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC). Organizational factors including leadership, structure, culture and the technology available in an organization were taken as the factors that determine the state, nature and level of knowledge in an organization. Knowledge management level is denoted by the various processes that go in knowledge management, namely creation, sharing, application and use in the organization. Data for the research was collected from the respondents who comprised staff of the EACC sampled from various departments under the proportionate stratified sampling approach. Linear regression technique was used to determine the nature of the relationships between the variables, from which a knowledge management model for the organization was developed based on the findings. The study establishes that leadership, structure, technology and culture affect the nature and level of knowledge management in an organization, albeit in different degrees. Leadership emerged as the most critical determinant of how knowledge is managed in an organization. The study provides managerial implications for knowledge management particularly in a public sector oriented organization; to better realize the benefits that can be attained through apposite adoption and implementation of knowledge management. The study also offers suggestions on possible areas for future research in knowledge management.


This paper considers the feasibility of the Icarus satellite weapon in the film Die another day. We fi nd that the power requirement of Icarus exceeds the total world power demand 500 times over. Even with the current largest space based solar panels (aboard the ISS), it would take several years to store the energy required for a ten second burst of the weaponized beam of light depicted in the fi lm.


In this study, we address the modification of sheared turbulence by dispersed inertial particles. The preferential sampling of the straining regions of the flow by inertial particles in turbulence leads to an inhomogeneous distribution of particles. The strong gravitational loading exerted by the highly concentrated regions results in anisotropic alteration of turbulence at small scales in the direction of gravity. These effects are investigated in a rapid distortion theory (RDT) extended for two-way coupled particle-laden flows. To make the analysis tractable, we assume that particles have small but non-zero inertia. In the classical results for single-phase flows, the RDT assumption of fast shearing compared to the turbulence time scales leads to the distortion and shear-induced production of turbulence. In particle-laden turbulence, the coupling between the two phases under rapid shearing induces number density fluctuations that convert gravitational potential energy to turbulent kinetic energy and modulate the turbulence spectrum in a manner that increases with mass loading. Turbulence statistics obtained from RDT are compared with Euler–Lagrange simulations of homogeneously sheared particle-laden turbulence.


We investigated the effects of N(omega)-monomethyl-L-arginine (L-NMMA) and fluid loading on tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-induced cardiovascular dysfunction in awake dogs. L-NMMA (40 mg x kg(-1) given intravenously over a period of 10 min, and followed by dosing at 40 mg x kg(-1) x h(-1) for 6 h) and TNF (20 or 45 microg x kg(-1) given intravenously for 20 min), given alone or in combination, significantly decreased stroke volume, cardiac index, oxygen delivery, and left-ventricular (LV) function plots over a period of 6 h. Of note was that the cardiac-depressant effects of TNF and L-NMMA given together were significantly less than additive. Thus, the combination was beneficial (or significantly less harmful to cardiac performance than expected), possibly because L-NMMA augmented cardiac preload as shown by significant increases in both pulmonary capillary wedge pressure (PCWP) and central venous pressure (CVP). Fluid challenges at 6 h (Ringer's solution at 80 ml x kg(-1) given over a period of 30 min) also significantly increased PCWP and CVP, and abolished the beneficial preload effect of L-NMMA on cardiac performance. Thus, after fluid loading, the cardiac-depressant effects of TNF and L-NMMA given together became equal to the sum of those produced by TNF and L-NMMA given separately. Although L-NMMA significantly decreased serum nitrite/nitrate levels, TNF did not increase these end products of nitric oxide (NO) production relative to controls. Therefore, after preload abnormalities were eliminated with fluid loading, L-NMMA had no beneficial effect on TNF-induced cardiac depression, and TNF did not increase end products of NO production. These findings are not consistent with NO being the mechanism of TNF-induced acute cardiac depression.


In South Africa mental retardation is still ill-defined as regards the aetiology and general epidemiology. A systematic diagnostic/genetics programme implemented at various institutions for the mentally retarded within the framework of a comprehensive genetic service is described. The progress made is reported and the contribution of genetic services to the prevention and the management of mental retardation highlighted.


Interruptions become more and more predominant in daily life and lead to more errors and slower task completion. One way to minimize the disruptiveness of interruptions is to manage at which moment in the task they occur. Interruptions are less disruptive when they take place on low mental workload moments than on high mental workload moments. In the current study, we created a system for managing the timing of interruptions in order to make them less disruptive. This interruption management system (IMS) is based on pupil dilation, a well-known indicator for mental workload. The IMS was tested with a simple task that simulates air traffic control and was compared to random interruptions. However, after testing it with 6 participants, we discovered that there is probably a flaw in the software that prevented us from drawing any conclusions about the performance of the IMS.


Using 23 years of data (1978-2000), this study examines seven vertically integrated sugar beet plants representing three different companies in the United States. The objective of this research is to identify the marginal costs of producing sugar beets for vertically integrated sugar beet processors as a way of determining the cost savings from higher quality sugar beets. In doing so, we account for quality differences in the sugar beet input that are used to manufacture the refined sugar output. The results quantify links between high quality sugar beets and lower processing costs.


The ability to identify insights from multi-dimensional big data is important for business intelligence. To enable interactive identification of insights, a large number of dimension combinations need to be searched and a series of aggregation queries need to be quickly answered. The existing approaches answer interactive queries on big data through data cubes or approximate query processing. However, these approaches can hardly satisfy the performance or accuracy requirements for ad-hoc queries demanded by interactive exploration. In this paper, we present BigIN4, a system for instant, interactive identification of insights from multi-dimensional big data. BigIN4 gives insight suggestions by enumerating subspaces and answers queries by combining data cube and approximate query processing techniques. If a query cannot be answered by the cubes, BigIN4 decomposes it into several low dimensional queries that can be directly answered by the cubes through an online constructed Bayesian Network and gives an approximate answer within a statistical interval. Unlike the related works, BigIN4 does not require any prior knowledge of queries and does not assume a certain data distribution. Our experiments on ten real-world large-scale datasets show that BigIN4 can successfully identify insights from big data. Furthermore, BigIN4 can provide approximate answers to aggregation queries effectively (with less than 10% error on average) and efficiently (50x faster than sampling-based methods).


This thesis identified key mix design variables that influence the mechanical
properties and behaviour of shockpads and developed a mechanical model to
describe this behaviour.
This investigation was undertaken to address the lack of scientific understanding of
shockpad layers used in synthetic sports pitches. Shockpads play a crucial role in the
player and ball interaction properties of synthetic pitches. However, the current poor
state of knowledge regarding shockpad mix design effects and the implications for
site practice during construction was developed through constructor experience and
basic testing. This lack of comprehensive knowledge was reflected in the barelyexistent
standards for design specification and testing requirements stipulated by
sporting governing bodies at the time of this project inception. Further scientific
investigation of the effects of shockpad mix design on mechanical properties and
behaviour was required to develop guidelines to optimise shockpad design,
construction and testing and also to build more knowledge on sport surface
behaviour due to growing interest among the industry and other stakeholders such as
governing bodies and sport shoe manufacturers for example.
A method to construct small-scale cast in-situ shockpads in the laboratory was
developed to produce reliable and repeatable samples for investigation, including a
benchmark shockpad and shockpads with carefully controlled mix design variations.
Shockpad thickness, binder content, binder type, rubber size, rubber size distribution
and bulk density were varied through a range of appropriate values in the laboratory
constructed shockpads. Shockpads and shockpad-carpet systems (using water based
and 3'1 generation carpets) were subjected to Berlin Artificial Athlete and 2.25 kg
Clegg Hammer impacts to measure player-surface interaction properties and vertical
hockey ball impacts to measure ball interaction properties. Tensile measurements and
cyclic fatigue testing were used to determine shockpad durability. Impact testing was
repeated on shockpads and shockpad-carpet systems with thickness variations to determine shockpad behaviour using a force plate. Behaviour measurements were
used to develop a mechanical model to describe shockpad behaviour. (Continues...).


Background Social vulnerability is the accumulation of disadvantageous social circumstances resulting in susceptibility to adverse health outcomes. Associated with increased mortality, cognitive decline, and disability, social vulnerability has primarily been studied in large population databases rather than frail hospitalized individuals. We examined how social vulnerability contributes to hospital outcomes and use of hospital resources for older adults presenting to the Emergency Department. Methods We analyzed patients 65 years of age or older admitted through the Emergency Department and consulted to internal medicine or geriatrics at a Canadian tertiary care hospital from July 2009 to September 2020. A 20-item social vulnerability index (SVI) and a 57-item frailty index (FI) were calculated, using a deficit accumulation approach. Outcomes were length of stay (LOS), extended hospital LOS designation, alternative level of care (ALC) designation, in-hospital mortality, and discharge to long-term care (LTC). Results In 1,146 patients (mean age 80.5±8.3, 54.0% female), mean SVI was 0.40±0.16 and FI was 0.44±0.14. The SVI scores were not associated with admission to hospital. Amongst those admitted, for every 0.1 unit increase in SVI, LOS increased by 1.15 days (p<.001) after adjusting for age, sex and FI. SVI was associated with staying over the expected LOS (aOR: 1.19, 1.05–1.34, p=.009) and ALC status (aOR 1.39, 1.12–1.74, p<.004). SVI was not associated with in-hospital mortality, but was associated with incident discharge to LTC (aOR 1.03, 1.02–1.04, p<.001). Conclusion Independent of frailty, being socially vulnerable was associated with increased LOS, designation as ALC, and being discharged to LTC from hospital. Consideration of social vulnerability's influence on prolonged hospitalization and long-term care needs has implications for screening and hospital resources.


Public libraries are a wonder—they are institutions that invite you to linger at no expense. Often, they are built as if to anticipate your needs before they even register. Although not part of their job description, community branch librarians frequently take on the roles of local educators, resource advocates, and cultural navigators. The San Francisco Chinatown Branch librarians embodied this invisible history of labor, particularly through their advocacy to revitalize the physical space of the library in the 1970s-1990s. I deploy methods of close-reading with specific theoretical frameworks on community formation and culture to analyze the librarians' work in the service of their public branch libraries. I analyze print material and local ephemera: coalition circulations, programming and exhibition flyers, pamphlets and surveys, and newspaper and magazine articles from the San Francisco Public Library archives. I argue that libraries are not only physical community centers, but critical centralized hubs of community knowledge and culture that librarians cultivate, that are vital to combatting and reshaping narratives of who and what Asians and Asian Americans are, against dominant forms ascribed by the nation-state.


Background and aims Urinary levels of N-telopeptide (NTx) have been reported to be a sensitive and specific marker of bone resorption. This cross-sectional study determined the urinary levels of NTx among healthy children living in Calgary and explored their relationship with age, sex and vitamin D status. Methods We included healthy children 2 to 13 years of age who presented to the Alberta Children's Hospital for elective surgery during a 12-month period. Data including the child's weight, height, age, gender, ethnicity, dietary intake, vitamin intake, and physical activity were collected. Urinary NTx levels were measured with a commercially (Wampole Laboratories, Princeton) available competitive-inhibition enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Results Urinary NTx levels were available for 968 out of 1862 participants, of whom 605 (62.5%) were boys. The mean urinary NTx/Creatinine ratio was 605.4 nmol/mmol (SD 264.8, range 200–2985.1). We found that mean urinary NTx/creatinine excretion was higher in the younger children (2–5 years) compared to subsequent ages. There was no significant difference in urinary NTx levels between children with suboptimal vitamin D status (serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D <80 nmol/L) compared to those with optimal vitamin D status. Conclusions Higher urinary NTx levels were measured in our healthy paediatric participants compared to what has been reported in healthy adults. In healthy children, urinary NTx levels may not be a useful marker of increased bone turnover in face of suboptimal vitamin D status. Future research is needed to determine the effect of suboptimal vitamin D status on bone health in children.


The $20m Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network (AURIN) project (www.aurin.org.au) began in July 2010. AURIN has been tasked with developing a secure, Web‐based virtual environment (e‐Infrastructure) offering seamless, secure access to diverse, distributed and extremely heterogeneous data sets from numerous agencies with an extensive portfolio of targeted analytical and visualization tools. This is being provisioned for Australia‐wide urban and built environment researchers – itself a highly heterogeneous collection of research communities with diverse demands, through a unified urban research gateway. This paper describes these demands and how the e‐Infrastructure and gateway is being designed and implemented to accommodate this diversity of requirements, both from the user/researcher perspective and from the data provider perspective. The scaling of the infrastructure is presented and the way in which it copes with the spectrum of big data challenges (volume, veracity, variability and velocity) and associated big data analytics. The utility of the e‐Infrastructure is also demonstrated through a range of scenarios illustrating and reflecting the interdisciplinary urban research now possible. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


The production of inclusive jets and di-jets at hadron colliders provides a stringent test of perturbative QCD at the highest energies. The process can also be used to probe the gluon density function of the proton. The ATLAS collaboration has measured the inclusive jet production cross section in 20.3 /fb of data collected at a center-of-mass energy of 8TeV and in 3.2 /fb of data collected at a center-of-mass energy of 13TeV. The measurements have been performed differentially in jet rapidity and transverse momentum. The collaboration also presents a measurement of the di-jet cross section at a center-of-mass energy of 13TeV as a function of the di-jet mass and rapidity-difference. The results have been compared with state-of-the-art theory predictions at NLO in pQCD, interfaced with different parton distribution functions. Special focus is drawn on the correlation models of the associated systematic uncertainties and the interpretation of the chi2-values resulting from theory comparisons. The 13 TeV measurements have also been compared with the more recent NNLO predictions.


Anthropogenically-modulated reductions in pH, termed ocean acidification, could pose a major threat to the physiological performance, stocks, and biodiversity of calcifiers and may devalue their ecosystem services. Recent debate has focussed on the need to develop approaches to arrest the potential negative impacts of ocean acidification on ecosystems dominated by calcareous organisms. In this study, we demonstrate the role of a discrete (i.e. diffusion) boundary layer (DBL), formed at the surface of some calcifying species under slow flows, in buffering them from the corrosive effects of low pH seawater. The coralline macroalga Arthrocardia corymbosa was grown in a multifactorial experiment with two mean pH levels (8.05 'ambient' and 7.65 a worst case 'ocean acidification' scenario projected for 2100), each with two levels of seawater flow (fast and slow, i.e. DBL thin or thick). Coralline algae grown under slow flows with thick DBLs (i.e., unstirred with regular replenishment of seawater to their surface) maintained net growth and calcification at pH 7.65 whereas those in higher flows with thin DBLs had net dissolution. Growth under ambient seawater pH (8.05) was not significantly different in thin and thick DBL treatments. No other measured diagnostic (recruit sizes and numbers, photosynthetic metrics, %C, %N, %MgCO3) responded to the effects of reduced seawater pH. Thus, flow conditions that promote the formation of thick DBLs, may enhance the subsistence of calcifiers by creating localised hydrodynamic conditions where metabolic activity ameliorates the negative impacts of ocean acidification.


Ballistic transport has been of interest in semiconductor devices for quite some time, and its effect has been used to predict quite-different device performance. Here, we investigate the role of ballistic transport in a short-channel InGaAs/InAlAs HEMT through full-band cellular Monte Carlo simulations. We can examine the contrast in behavior between when scattering mechanisms are present and when they are turned off. When the scattering processes are completely removed, the output characteristics show a distinct change in behavior over all drain voltages. This result is in qualitative agreement with prior arguments, suggesting that triodelike behavior should be expected due to enhanced drain-induced barrier lowering. However, we find that explicit band-structure effects are observable in the output characteristics of the ballistic transistor. We also find that this distinctive behavior gradually disappears as scattering is turned on, particularly in the drain end of the device. We also develop a method of determining the probability that electrons pass through the gate region in a ballistic manner in the presence of realistic scattering. Even when the gate is only 10 nm long, we find that this probability is only on the order of 50% in these devices. We also examine the ballistic ratio in our device as a function of gate length.


This thesis is a comprehensive study on the noncovalent complexation of single wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) using biopolymers, including single-stranded DNA and synthetic glycopolymers to explore their potential applications as optical sensors. SWCNTs are cylindrical structures of carbon lattice with diameters of ~ 1 nanometer. They have unique electronic, chemical, and optical properties, which make them ideal candidates for bioimaging, biosensing, and drug delivery applications. The resulting biopolymer SWCNT complexes maintain the intrinsic properties of nanotubes and possess specific biological functionalities as well. Here, we have extensively studied the structure-property relationship of two types of biopolymer-complexed SWCNT systems, namely DNAand glycopolymer-wrapped SWCNTs (i.e., DNA-SWCNTs and Glyco-SWCNTs). First, we investigated the optical properties of DNA-SWCNTs utilizing (GT)n sequences, where n = 6, 10, 15, 20, at controlled pH to examine the effect of DNA nucleobase deprotonation on the near-infrared (NIR) fluorescence of SWCNTs and the subsequent SWCNT separation. When increasing the pH of aqueous dispersions of DNA-SWCNTs to a basic region (i.e., pH ~ 12) the NIR emission intensity of nanotubes increased indicating the conformational change of DNA on the surface of nanotubes. The resulting DNA-SWCNT complexes distributed unevenly in a polymer aqueous two-phase system, allowing SWCNT separation at controlled pH. iv Next, we studied Glyco-SWCNT complexes and their ability to interact with carbohydrate-binding proteins (i.e., lectins). We utilized a disaccharide lactose-containing homopolymer with a polymer chain length of n = 400 (i.e., Lact-AM 400) to investigate the dispersion quality and carbohydrate-protein binding interactions of Glyco-SWCNTs. Various lectins were utilized including glucose and mannose-binding Concanavalin A (ConA) and galactose-binding Arachis hypogaea (PNA) to determine carbohydrate-protein interactions which were compared to mannose-binding Galanthus nivalis (GNA) and Bovine serum albumin (BSA) that does not bind specifically to carbohydrates. ConA showed a greater ability to cause the cross linking and aggregations of Glyco-SWCNTs while PNA reacted faster with Glyco-SWCNTs based on the kinetics of protein interactions. Taken together, our findings provide insights for creating biopolymer-SWCNT complexes with controlled optical properties and biological functionalities. This opens new possibilities for designing novel nanosystems for many applications, from nanotube purification to biological sensing and imaging to nanomedicine.


An investigation was carried out on the cultivation of mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus) using corn cobs and saw dust as the main substrates. Lignocellulosic wastes such as corn cobs and saw dust were packaged inside heat – resistant polythene bags and pasteurized before being seeded with 7.5% w/w millet spawn of Pleurotus ostreatus and incubated at room temperature (250C) for six weeks. Thereafter, they were exposed by incising small stripes on the bag to give a cold shock to initiate fruiting. The result of this study showed that corn cobs had an average yield of 1,248g per flush and saw dust 526.50g per flush. Thus, indicating that saw dust gave a significantly (p<0.05) higher yield (70%) than saw dust (30%). Mushroom cultivation in Nigeria (Developing Country) is of great importance because it converts agricultural and industrial waste (which can pollute the environment) into edible protein; it can serve as a means of generating employment for the Nigeria populace because it can be grown all year round; if exported, mushrooms will be an important source of foreign exchange.


There is little data on the spectrum of renal diseases in children in Croatia. The Croatian Society for Pediatric Nephrology has established the Registry of Biopsy-Proven Renal Diseases in an attempt to address this issue nationwide. Here we report preliminary results of a retrospective analysis of clinical and histopathological data of 565 children aged < or =17 years presenting to 9 hospitals in Croatia from 1991 to 2004, in whom kidney biopsy was performed. The most common indication for renal biopsy was nephrotic syndrome (39.1%), followed by asymptomatic proteinuria/hematuria (22.0%) and acute nephritic syndrome (17.0%). All biopsies were analysed by light-, immunofluorescent and electron microscopy. The majority of children, 552 out of 565 (92.4%), had glomerulonephritis (GN). Tubulointerstitial nephritis was found in 16 (2.8%), congenital renal parenchyma anomalies in 14 (2.5%) and vascular disease in 11 (1.9%) cases. One (0.2%) child had sarcoidosis with nephrocalcinosis. The sample was non-diagnostic in 1 (0.2%) case. Among children with GN, primary GN accounted for 70.9%, secondary GN for 16.1% and hereditary GN for 13.0% cases. The most frequent primary GN forms were focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) (24.6%), mesangial proliferative glomerulonephritis (MEPGN) (19.2%) and IgA nephropathy (18.1%). Acute GN in resolution was found in 11.1% and minimal changes GN in 6.8% of cases. Most children with secondary GN had nephritis of Henoch-Schonlein purpura (HSP) (54.7%) and nephritis of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) (40.5%), while among hereditary GN Alport syndrome was most common (80.9%). In the group of children with primary GN who presented with nephrotic syndrome, most common forms were FSGS (38.5%) and MEPGN (24.0%). Minimal changes GN accounted for only 10.9% of cases. IgA nephropathy, primary or related to HSP (20.0%), FSGS (16.1%), MEPGN (12.6%) and Alport syndrome (9.7%) were the most common biopsy-proven renal diseases in Croatian children. The analysis provided data on the frequency of histological renal lesions in children in Croatia. The higher frequency of FSGS and MEPGN among Croatian children in comparison with other countries deserves further evaluation


Alan Turing and John von Neumann pioneered the study of complex systems. In analyzing feedback processes, they were interested in how complex interacting systems can respond to new information. Among other things, they found that some systems with many interactions among highly differentiated parts can produce surprisingly simple, predictable behavior (such as a programmable mechanical routine or process), while others generate behavior that may be impossible to predict, even though these systems feature simple laws and few actors or agents (such as an evolving living organism).


Climatic changes in Arad area, Romania, made possible for droughty periods to appear in areas where the sums of annual or seasonal precipitations is closer to multiannual means, that is, the water which came with a high intensity (mm/min) rainfall was prevented from being collected in the soil. This shows that the main hydro-climate risks are the hydric deficits and some humidity excess periods. This study is focused at presenting the hydric deficits ( i.e. the existence of large droughty periods an d some hydric excess) in the Arad area in a time span of over two years (2015-2016). These years have been analyzed from the multiple points of view of several hydro climatic indicators from the specialized literature. The following parameters for monitoring hydro climate deficits in the Arad area have been used: sum of annual and monthly precipitations, monthly and annual hydric deficit and their own graphic representation, average monthly temperatures, monthly and annual mean evapotranspiration, mean monthly temperature and their evolution. Climate and hydro-thermal indexes of drought (Hellman, Topor, Lang and the hydro-thermal indicator Seleaninov) have also been calculated and analyzed. Moreover, the Thornthwaite index of precipitation efficiency has been characterized according to the precipitation deficit. When taking into consideration the rainfall regime, which is an important indicator of acknowledging drought and humidity excess, this of course depending only on the sum of monthly precipitations in the summer as well as in the spring (annual sum of the precipitations), a conclusion can be drawn is that during the lenghty period studied (2015-2016) the second year, 2016, was humid and rainy. Regarding the precipitation deficit, when compared to monthly, seasonal, annual and multiannual figures, it can be said that June, August and September were mainly droughty periods in both analyzed years. The year 2015 was a semi-arid one according to most indicators analyzed, having significant hydric deficits during most of the hot season as well as higher monthly and annual temperatures than multi-annual ones. Finally, results regarding the year 2015 show that there have been periods with hydric deficits, even droughty months from April till August, being defined as a semi-arid year in most indicators analyzed.


Purpose The study was aimed to investigate the effect and mechanism of lncRNA LINC00346 on cell proliferation and apoptosis of colorectal cancer (CRC). Methods The expression of lncRNA LINC00346 in CRC tissues and cells was detected by qRT-PCR. LINC00346 was overexpressed and silenced in HT29 and LoVo cells by the transfection of pcDNA-LINC00346 and si-LINC00346. The proliferation of CRC cells was detected by CCK-8 and colony-formation assay. The apoptosis was detected by flow cytometry assay. The expression of apoptosis-associated proteins (Caspase-3, Bcl-2, Bax) and JAK1/STAT3 signaling-associated proteins (JAK1, STAT3, p-JAK1, p-STAT3) was detected by Western blot. The tumor growth was detected in mice subcutaneous injected with transfected HT29 cells. Results LINC00346 was significantly upregulated in CRC tissues and cells. Overexpression of LINC00346 significantly increased the OD450 values, number of colonies, decreased the apoptosis rate, upregulated Bcl-2, and downregulated Caspase-3 and Bax in HT29 and LoVo cells. Knockdown of LINC00346 exerted opposite results of proliferation and apoptosis on HT29 and LoVo cells. The expression levels of JAK1/JAK1 and p-STAT3/STAT3 were upregulated by LINC00346 overexpression. Tofacitinib (JAK1 inhibitor) reversed the tumor-promoting effect of LINC00346 overexpression on CRC cells. In vivo experiments further validated that LINC00346 overexpression promoted the growth of CRC xenograft tumors. Conclusion LncRNA LINC00346 promoted the proliferation and inhibited the apoptosis of CRC cells through activating JAK1/STAT3 signaling.


Background: Infection with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), the Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) and the Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) is a global health problem. Epidemiological studies worldwide show wide variations in the prevalence patterns of the HIV, Hepatitis B and the Hepatitis C Virus infections. Globally, a total of 39.5 million were living with HIV in 2006, of which approximately 5.7 million were from India. Early detection can contribute substantially to the timely diagnosis of the patients with acute illnesses and to an early treatment and hence, it can limit the transmission of the infection. Aim: To provide a baseline data on the prevalence of HIV, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C among the patients who were referred to our hospital over a period of 5 years (2006-2010). This study was planned to evaluate the prevalence of the HIV coinfection with the Hepatitis B and C viruses among the patients who were admitted to and were attending the hospital. Materials and Methods: This was a retrospective study which was carried out among the patients who were attending the AJ Hospital Kuntikana Mangalore, over a period of five years (January 2006 – December 2010). The sera of the patients were initially tested for the presence of anti-HIV antibodies as per the National Aids Control Organisation (NACO) guidelines and they were tested for HBsAg (Hepatitis B surface antigen) and the anti-HCV antibody by an Enzyme linked Immuno-sorbent Assay (ELISA) test. Results: Out of 24,576 samples or sera which were studied, 608 (2.5%) were sero-positive cases. These included 318 with antibodies to HIV, 285 with antibodies to the Hepatitis B surface antigen and 5 with antibodies to the Hepatitis C Virus. Among the positive cases, a majority were of the age group of 21 to 40 years, with a male preponderance. The anti-HCV positivity showed a significant downward trend during the study period. Conclusion: The overall prevalence of the positivity for these three markers among the patients who attended the AJ Hospital in this study was comparatively lower than that which was reported by other studies from India. The lower incidence of the HCV positivity which was found in this study was probably due to the lack of awareness about the co-infection with HBV and this was not screened for. Our study demonstrated low HIV / HCV/HBV co-infection rates.


Abstract. In recent decades much attention has been given to the Arctic environment, where climate change is happening rapidly. Black carbon (BC) has been shown to be a major component of Arctic pollution that also affects the radiative balance. In the present study, we focused on how vegetation fires that occurred in northern Eurasia during the period of 2002–2013 influenced the budget of BC in the Arctic. For simulating the transport of fire emissions from northern Eurasia to the Arctic, we adopted BC fire emission estimates developed independently by GFED3 (Global Fire Emissions Database) and FEI-NE (Fire Emission Inventory – northern Eurasia). Both datasets were based on fire locations and burned areas detected by MODIS (Moderate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) instruments on NASA's (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) Terra and Aqua satellites. Anthropogenic sources of BC were adopted from the MACCity (Monitoring Atmospheric Composition and Climate and megacity Zoom for the Environment) emission inventory. During the 12-year period, an average area of 250 000 km2 yr−1 was burned in northern Eurasia (FEI-NE) and the global emissions of BC ranged between 8.0 and 9.5 Tg yr−1 (FEI-NE+MACCity). For the BC emitted in the Northern Hemisphere (based on FEI-NE+MACCity), about 70 % originated from anthropogenic sources and the rest from biomass burning (BB). Using the FEI-NE+MACCity inventory, we found that 102 ± 29 kt yr−1 BC was deposited in the Arctic (defined here as the area north of 67° N) during the 12 years simulated, which was twice as much as when using the MACCity inventory (56 ± 8 kt yr−1). The annual mass of BC deposited in the Arctic from all sources (FEI-NE in northern Eurasia, MACCity elsewhere) is significantly higher by about 37 % in 2009 (78 vs. 57 kt yr−1) to 181 % in 2012 (153 vs. 54 kt yr−1), compared to the BC deposited using just the MACCity emission inventory. Deposition of BC in the Arctic from BB sources in the Northern Hemisphere thus represents 68 % of the BC deposited from all BC sources (the remaining being due to anthropogenic sources). Northern Eurasian vegetation fires (FEI-NE) contributed 85 % (79–91 %) to the BC deposited over the Arctic from all BB sources in the Northern Hemisphere. We estimate that about 46 % of the BC deposited over the Arctic from vegetation fires in northern Eurasia originated from Siberia, 6 % from Kazakhstan, 5 % from Europe, and about 1 % from Mongolia. The remaining 42 % originated from other areas in northern Eurasia. About 42 % of the BC released from northern Eurasian vegetation fires was deposited over the Arctic (annual average: 17 %) during spring and summer.


A novel technique for lateral resolution improvement in optical coherence tomography (OCT) is presented. The proposed method is based on lateral oversampling of the image. The locations and weights of multiple high spatial resolution sub-volumes are calculated using a Capon estimator assuming each contributes a weighted portion to the detected signal. This technique is independent of the delivery optics and the depth of field. Experimental results demonstrate that it is possible to achieve ~4x lateral resolution improvement which can be diagnostically valuable, especially in cases where the delivery optics are constrained to low numerical aperture (NA).


Arginine (2-amino-5-guanidino pentanoic acid) was shown in 1895 by Hedin to be present in the proteins of horn. Metabolic nitrogen balance studies, conducted in 1957 by Rose in human adults and in 1959 by Snyderman and coworkers in young infants revealed that a dietary source of this amino acid was not an obligatory requirement for growth and maintenance of nitrogen homeostasis in healthy individuals. Hence, it was initially classified as a non-essential (dispensable) amino acid and, perhaps, for reasons of this classification arginine did not receive the earlier attention it now deserves, in relation to an understanding of the nutritional biochemistry and physiology of its metabolism in humans subjects. However, there is currently a considerable interest in the cellular and tissue functions, as well as clinical, therapeutic significance, of arginine. In this paper we review the multiple functions of arginine, including its role in the L-arginine-nitric oxide pathway, cellular regeneration, immune function, protein synthesis and protein breakdown. We then consider some in vivo aspects of the physiology of arginine metabolism, which varies greatly among eukaryotes, with particular reference to humans. Against this background, studies of arginine in the nutrition of humans under various pathophysiological conditions are reviewed briefly. Finally, a new, updated concept for the metabolic basis for the "conditional essentiality" of arginine is proposed.


The literature suggests that the emotional needs of interns, residents, and fellows have received inadequate attention. Comprehensive psychiatric services are provided by a model program at UCLA. During the 1981-1983 academic years, 89 house officers were seen. Between 16% and 19% of certain groups sought help each year; depression was the most frequent diagnosis (63%, N = 56), followed by anxiety disorders (24%, N = 21). Over two-thirds of the evaluated residents entered free or low-fee treatment, and these therapies were generally considered quite beneficial. This report reemphasizes the desirability of providing carefully structured, confidential psychiatric assistance to house staff and documents medical trainees' acceptance and use of such programs.


Graham Greene is remembered as one of the greatest twentieth century British writers whose novels depict international settings beyond the borders of his homeland. Greene's travels across the globe liberated his worldview to create borderland landscapes that capture historical contexts juxtaposing divergent perspectives burdened with moral dilemmas. His literary reputation combines politics, mystery, and religion with a camera-eye focused on the oppression of the individual. Among his crowds of characters are children trapped in conflicted spaces of political rivalries, social tensions, and racial divisions. Greene portrays children whose marginalized identities must cave in to pressures of migration, miscegenation, and social classification. Graham Greene's biographies and novels illustrate how children pay a toll for power struggles in borderland situations when cross-cultural entanglements are glossed over to set the stage for suppressed identities and cultural stereotypes.


Simple Summary Insomnia symptoms and daytime fatigue significantly impact physical and psychosocial health. While these are common symptoms in pediatric oncology, relationships between these symptoms remain unclear. This study evaluated the prevalence of insomnia only, daytime fatigue only, the co-occurrence of insomnia and daytime fatigue symptoms, and associated risk factors in adolescent/young adult childhood cancer patients in follow-up after treatment. Results showed that around forty percent had insomnia and daytime fatigue symptoms, which often co-occurred. Risk factors that emerged were: female sex and co-morbidities (all), shorter time after treatment and bedtime gaming (insomnia only), young adulthood (insomnia–fatigue and fatigue only), needing someone else to fall asleep and inconsistent wake times (both insomnia groups), and lower educational level and consistent bedtimes (insomnia–fatigue). Overall, insomnia symptoms and daytime fatigue were common and often co-occurred in this patient population. While current fatigue guidelines do not include insomnia symptoms, healthcare providers should inquire about insomnia as this potentially provides additional options for treatment and prevention. Abstract Insomnia symptoms and daytime fatigue commonly occur in pediatric oncology, which significantly impact physical and psychosocial health. This study evaluated the prevalence of insomnia only, daytime fatigue only, the co-occurrence of insomnia–daytime fatigue symptoms, and associated risk factors. Childhood cancer patients (n = 565, 12–26 years old, ≥6 months after treatment) participated in a national, cross-sectional questionnaire study, measuring insomnia symptoms (ISI; Insomnia Severity Index) and daytime fatigue (single item). Prevalence rates of insomnia and/or daytime fatigue subgroups and ISI severity ranges were calculated. Multinomial regression models were applied to assess risk factors. Most patients reported no insomnia symptoms or daytime fatigue (61.8%). In the 38.2% of patients who had symptoms, 48.1% reported insomnia and daytime fatigue, 34.7% insomnia only, and 17.1% daytime fatigue only. Insomnia scores were higher in patients with insomnia–daytime fatigue compared to insomnia only (p < 0.001). Risk factors that emerged were: female sex and co-morbidities (all), shorter time after treatment and bedtime gaming (insomnia only), young adulthood (insomnia–fatigue/fatigue only), needing someone else to fall asleep and inconsistent wake times (both insomnia groups), lower educational level and consistent bedtimes (insomnia–fatigue). Insomnia symptoms and daytime fatigue are common and often co-occur. While current fatigue guidelines do not include insomnia symptoms, healthcare providers should inquire about insomnia as this potentially provides additional options for treatment and prevention.


ABSTRACT This paper presents a novel adaptive spatially constrained fuzzy c-means (ASCFCM) algorithm for multispectral remotely sensed imagery clustering by incorporating accurate local spatial and grey-level information. In this algorithm, a novel weighted factor is introduced considering spatial distance and membership differences between the centred pixel and its neighbours simultaneously. This factor can adaptively estimate the accurate spatial constrains from neighbouring pixels. To further enhance its robustness to noise and outliers, a novel prior probability function is developed by integrating the mutual dependency information in the neighbourhood to obtain accurate spatial contextual information. The proposed algorithm is free of any experimentally adjusted parameters and totally adaptive to the local image content. Not only the neighbourhood but also the centred pixel terms of the objective function are all accurately estimated. Thus, the ASCFCM enhances the conventional fuzzy c-means (FCM) algorithm by producing homogeneous regions and reducing the edge blurring artefact simultaneously. Experimental results using a series of synthetic and real-world images show that the proposed ASCFCM outperforms the competing methodologies, and hence provides an effective unsupervised method for multispectral remotely sensed imagery clustering.


This report illustrates the difficulty in managing CNS infection in neurosurgical patients, the altered drug pharmacokinetics associated with critical illness, and the role that therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) of CSF can play in assisting clinical decision making. The authors present a case of external ventricular drain-related ventriculitis in a critically ill patient who initially presented with a subarachnoid hemorrhage. They discuss the physiological changes found in such patients, in particular augmented renal clearance (demonstrated in this patient by a measured creatinine clearance of 375 ml/min/1.73 m(2)), noting the effect this had on drug pharmacokinetics and leading to dosing requirements 2-3 times those recommended in standard regimens. The authors consider the bacterial "kill" characteristics of 2 different antibacterial agents (meropenem and vancomycin) and describe the unique approach of using plasma and CSF TDM to achieve optimal drug exposure at the site of infection while limiting toxic side effects. The authors demonstrate that simply using plasma TDM as a surrogate marker for drug concentration in the CNS may lead to underdosing, exemplified in this patient by CSF vancomycin concentrations as little as 13% of that in plasma. Finally, by measuring CSF and plasma ratios, the authors illustrate the disparity in pharmacokinetic properties between drugs, reminding the clinician of the importance of CNS penetration when selecting antibacterial agents in such cases. This work raises an important hypothesis in the accurate prescription of antibacterial agents in neurosurgical critical care, namely underdosing in the context of augmented elimination and impaired target site penetration. However, prior to any recommendations regarding empirical dose modification, more data are clearly needed, particularly with respect to the safety and efficacy of such an approach. In this respect, the authors would advocate further research using TDM in the management of CNS infection in this setting, in addition to work defining plasma and CSF concentrations associated with antibacterial efficacy and toxicity.


Utilizing the Wronskian technique, a combined Wronskian condition is established for a(3+1)-dimensional generalized KP equation. The generating functions for matrix entries satisfy a linear system of new partial diferential equations. Moreover, as applications, examples of Wronskian determinant solutions, including N-soliton solutions,periodic solutions and rational solutions, are computed.


Concerns surrounding the ecological impacts from increasing numbers of non-native Mute Swans Cygnus olor have led some management agencies in the United States to implement control efforts directed at reducing populations of this invasive species. By 2001, concerns regarding the rapid increase in Mute Swan numbers in Maryland (USA) and their negative impacts upon Chesapeake Bay living resources (e.g. submerged aquatic vegetation, native waterfowl and colonial waterbirds) had become acute. An understanding of citizens' attitudes toward Mute Swans and potential management alternatives is necessary before wildlife agencies can enact socially acceptable measures to control these populations. A random telephone survey of Maryland registered voters therefore was conducted in February 2005 to assess public awareness (knowledge and attitudes) of Mute Swans in Chesapeake Bay, including the size of the swan population, preferences for swan management options and confidence in the ability of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) to control their numbers. A total of 625 completed surveys were obtained from respondents in seven geographical regions. Nearly all respondents (86%, n = 539) indicated they would support Mute Swan population control after they were provided evidence that this species was harmful to the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem; they felt the health of Chesapeake Bay was more important than sustaining a non-native swan population. Of the respondents that supported aggressive control measures, 62% (n = 387) supported the use of lethal methods of control, and a majority supported hunting over egg addling as a control method. Most respondents were also confident that the MDNR would implement control methods that were both humane and effective in solving the overabundance of Mute Swans in the region. The results provide useful information to wildlife professionals for management planning and communication when considering control of Mute Swan populations.


In this study the goal was to establish which design parameters have a significant effect upon the leak rate of the current static radial lip seals and to establish the magnitude of these effects, as well as to optimize the design parameters settings for a minimum leak rate. This was achieved by the means of an experimental setup coupled with a numerical simulation, leading to the conclusion that the parameters which have an important contribution towards the change of leak rate are: lip ring chamber (housing) diameter, insertion pipe diameter and pressure drop along the seal contact surface.

The first important thing to mention is that the leak rate at zero hour for the current studied lip seals along with their geometrical variations of tolerances is not of any concern involving increased leakage rate and it is well within the standards with a 6000 times lower leak rate.

The theory of leak rate seals presented as a subchapter in this study, relates indeed the parameters written above as being of high importance, because ultimately they can be translated as variation of contact pressures due to stress (force) exerted upon the seal within certain given tolerances. It has been concluded that two situations exist: one in which the seal is mounted in a pre-compressed state in the chamber and the other one when the seal is not mounted in a pre-compressed state. In the first situation is shown that the applied contact force which is transmitted thru the seal has less change than the change with the contact surface, meaning that the contact pressure increases with decreasing contact surface until a point where the seal is almost not subjected to any stress anymore and the contact surface as well as the contact pressure drops dramatically, case in which we would not like to find ourselves. In the second situation it has been remarked that the applied contact forces change more (exponentially) with respect to contact surface, and for a lip seal which is subjected to a pre-compression state, the contact pressure starts increasing with increasing contact surface, meaning that an increase in force will give an increase in contact pressure as well as an increase in contact surface.


Locomotion of 5 species of Ophiuroids from the Barents Sea has been described--Ophiura albida, O. robusta, O. sarsi, Ophiacantha bidentata, Ophiopholis aculeata. Representatives from the genus Ophiura move by means of one or two symmertic pairs of arms which perform rhythmic rowing beats. The feet tube do not participate in their locomotion. Locomotion pattern in O. bidentata and especially O. aculeata, which have long flexible arms, is more complex. However, the analysis indicates that they replace themselves by a comparatiely limited set of standard "programmed" movements which may be used in various combinations. In locomotion of these species, the tube feet are involved which provide for the reliable contact of distal ends of the active rays with the supporting surface; due to this contact the animals can move in a straightforward direction.


Abstract We present a model of sequential innovation in which innovators use several research inputs to invent new goods. We extend work by Shapiro (2001) and Lerner and Tirole (2004) by studying the effects of increases in the number of patented research inputs on innovation incentives and optimal patent policy. We consider not only the effects on the incentives to invent final goods, but also on the incentives to invent research inputs (ex-ante effect). We find increasing complexity has a negative effect on innovation activity in the final goods sector when research inputs are complements. Either limiting market power through weaker patents or reducing the lack of coordination through patent pools may solve this problem. We also find the optimal patent breadth and show it is increasing in the elasticity of substitution between the inputs used in research and decreasing (increasing) in the complexity of the R&D process when research inputs are complements (substitutes).


Using quantitative and qualitative methods, the present study sought to explore: the patterns or types of closest, same-sex friendships among ethnic minority, low-income adolescents; the psychological and familial correlates of these patterns; and the adolescents' subjective experiences of each type of closest, same-sex friendships. Two hundred and thirteen African American, Latino, and Asian American high school students participated in the study. Results of cluster analyses suggested four types of closest, same-sex friendships: (i) `ideal'; (ii) `engaged'; (iii) `average'; and (iv) `disengaged.' Girls and Latinos were most likely to have `ideal' friendships, while boys and Asian Americans were most likely to have `disengaged' friendships. In addition, the `disengaged' adolescents reported significantly lower self-esteem, higher levels of depressive symptoms, and lower levels of family support than the adolescents in the other cluster groups. The qualitative data suggested across and within group variability in the subjective experiences of closest, same-sex friendships. Findings suggest new directions for friendship research as well as new ways of conceptualizing the integration of quantitative and qualitative data.


July 1910: a gruesome discovery has been made at 39 Hilldrop Crescent, Camden. Buried in the cellar are the remains of Cora Crippen, former music-hall singer and wife of Dr Hawley Crippen. But Dr Crippen and his mistress Ethel Le Neve have disappeared, and a full-scale hunt for them has begun. Across the Channel in Antwerp, Captain Kendall gives the order for the SS Montrose to begin its two-week voyage to Canada. On board are 1300 passengers, including the overbearing Antonia Drake, the unassuming Martha Hayes and the enigmatic Mathieu Zela. And, slipping in almost unnoticed, a Mr John Robinson with his seventeen-year-old son Edmund ...CRIPPEN is a beautifully drawn novel recreating the true story of the amazing escape attempt of one of history's most notorious killers.


Presenting any workshop brings a level of anxiety and challenge (Mills, 2006), planning the anticipated outcomes, method of delivery and all the ancillary decisions that come because of this can often lead presenters to remain within their comfort zone and stick with the types of workshops that we as attendees have come to expect to be delivered to us at conferences (Chung, 2018). Deciding to do something radically different in a workshop involves a level of risk and adventure on the part of the presenters but also on the part of the attendees, who sign up for something that is going to be done differently.
As doctoral students on the Professional Doctorate in Systemic Practice (PDSP) we are all invited to participate in the Annual Systemic Spring School, hosted by Brathay Hall in the lake district. This year the spring school was entitled 'Making NewSense of Practice and Research' and this article acts as a reflexive account of the workshop presented by us during this event.


The authors propose a low profile 4-arm slot spiral for broadband commercial applications. The antenna is designed for circularly polarised dual-mode, 1st (normal) mode and 2nd (split-beam) mode, operation from 1.4–3.5 GHz and 2.5–6 GHz, respectively. Phase progressions at arm ports are realised through the odd and even coplanar waveguide (CPW) excitations, a dual Dyson balun, and a single broadband 180° hybrid. A finite-element boundary-integral (FE-BI) based numerical tool is extensively used to study effects of various antenna parameters, including slot width, resistive taper etc. The designed antenna has return loss better than 10 dB, nominal gain of 3 dBic, wobble on wave less than 3 dB and axial ratio lower than 4 dB over realised bandwidth for both modes. When compared with classical printed 4-arm spirals, the proposed antenna has only two access ports and is about five times shallower. Thus, a much simpler mode-forming network is needed and significant reduction in the cost can be achieved. Measured and simulated results are presented and, generally, a very good agreement between the two is obtained.


Eight flavonoids, quercetin (1), quercetin 3-Oβ-D-glucopyranoside ( 2), quercetin3-Oα-L-rhamnopyranoside( 3), myricetin (4), myricetin 3-Oβ D-galactopranoside ( 5), myricetin 3-Oα-L-rhamnopyranoside ( 6), desmanthin-1 ( 7), and naringenin ( 8), in addition to four phenolic acids, brevifolin c arboxylic acid ( 9), ellagic acid ( 10) gallic acid (11), and methyl gallate (12) were isolated from th e leaves of Acrocarpus fraxinifolius. The chemical structure of the isolated phenolic compounds were established by H, C-NMR, UV, and HR-ESI-MS. Ellagic acid produced an antiproliferative effect on the triple negative bre ast cancer cells MDA-MB-231 with IC 50 of 38.7 μM. The aq. methanolic extract and most of the isolated compoun ds showed significant antioxidant activity in compa rison with the positive control; rutin using TLC-DPPH ̇-image processing procedures. Also the methanol ext ract and some isolated compounds exhibited antibacterial activity against P.aeruginosa L. subtilis E. coli S. aureus , it did not show any antifungal activity.


Oral and maxillofacial procedures require nasotracheal intubation that often obscures the anesthesiologist's direct vision of the surgical field. Premature extubation of a damaged endotracheal tube frequently requires replacement and poses a potential risk to the patient. This case illustrates a technique for replacing a damaged endotracheal tube using a nasogastric tube inserted within the damaged tube to suction secretions, insufflate oxygen, and serve as a guide for placement of a new endotracheal tube.


Thirty-nine patients with mild to moderate essential hypertension participated in a parallel, single-blind study comparing 6 weeks' treatment of nicardipine hydrochloride (90 mg/day) with nifedipine (40 mg/day). Nicardipine-treated patients commenced therapy with a significantly higher mean supine diastolic blood pressure than the nifedipine-treated patients. There was a statistically significant fall in blood pressure (systolic and diastolic) on both treatments at the 3 and 6 week follow-up visits. On adjusting the results for the baseline inequality, no statistically significant differences were found between treatment groups. Seven patients withdrew from nifedipine therapy and six patients withdrew from nicardipine therapy due to adverse events. The results show that nicardipine hydrochloride at 90 mg/day is an effective anti-hypertensive agent. The incidence and nature of adverse events were similar on the two treatments.


The article is devoted to the issue of approaches to learning used by prospective teachers. The key difference between two main approaches to  learning — deep and  surface  — lies in  the  intention or  absence of  intention to  understand the  material. Deep approach to  learning is  likely to  result in  a high level of  understanding and  better learning outcomes while surface approach leads to  ineffective learning. Understanding students' approaches to  learning helps adjust teaching strategies for more effective learning. The purpose of  the article is to identify the approaches to learning used by prospective teachers and consider the implications for teacher trainers. The article reports findings of a survey study into the  approaches to  learning used by  prospective teachers of  the  Ukrainian language and  literature mastering English as  a  specialism at  a Ukrainian university. The  main research tool was a  questionnaire consisting of  twenty statements. Ten statements concerning deep approach include such aspects as deep approach per se, relating ideas, use of evidence, intrinsic motivation. The other ten statements relate to surface approach and include such subscales as surface approach proper, syllabus boundness, fear of  failure, extrinsic motivation. The respondents were asked to express how much they agreed with the statements using Likert scale. The data were analysed to find out mean scores and standard deviation. The findings demonstrate that students employ both approaches almost equally intensely: the mean scores of the Deep Learning Approach and the Surface Learning Approach scales are 3.64 and 3.34 correspondingly. However, according to the evaluation criteria the figures fall into different categories: deep approach ISSN 2617-5266 (Online) 21 has a high level of prevalence while surface approach has a moderate one. Basing on  the  obtained results, the  authors suggest that teacher trainers should pay more attention to promoting deep learning approach through applying effective instructional strategies which improve the quality of learning; fostering students' personal interest in  learning; changing the  focus of  the  assessment system from reproducing to understanding.


In this groundbreaking study, Linda Cusworth explores the impact of parental employment or unemployment on the educational and emotional well-being of their children using a case study from the British Household Panel Study. The increase in maternal employment and lone parenthood in the last few decades will make this a key volume for social policy, public policy and sociology academics and policy makers wishing to know more about the implications on our children.


The conventional land use Policy tends to release farmland to achieve economic development and satisfy land use demand and resulted in the conversion of farmland into nonfarm uses. In 2000, farmland ownership has been greatly released and enterprise capital has been allowed to enter farmland market. Farmland transactions have become leading index of farmland use changes in urban fringe. Developers are often willing to pay a premium and further encourage farmland transactions and the frequent change on farmland ownerships. We subject data from Tainan County (with boundaries as recognized prior to the changes of 2011) for spatial features of farmland transactions and on farmland use changes to certain spatial relationship analyses after the release of farmland ownership. The results show that the conversions of farmland use change have happened in study area,of whichconverted to industrial and residential uses wereresulting in negative impacts on the remaining surrounding farmlands.In addition, transacted farmland changed to transportation, nonfarm structures and public facilitiesappear to cluster together in urban fringe. Moreover, the results of bivariate LISA statisticshow thatthe moderately positive spatial relationship represents similar spatial features for both farmland use changes and farmland transactions in neighborhoods close to each other resulting in clustered patterns, and the clustered patterns decrease with distance which shows that farmland use changes values are associated with farmland transactionsunder certainproximity.


The aim of this paper was to provide a preliminary comparative investigation of the customer satisfaction in ATM service of public and private sector banks in India. For this investigation primary data was collected from 150 respondents of public and private sector banks through a structured questionnaire. Collected data was analyzed according to the objectives of the present research and result of the statistical analysis indicates that private sector banks are providing more satisfactory ATM service as compared to public sector banks. Empirical evidences indicates that customers perception about Efficiency, Security and Responsiveness, Cost Effectiveness, Problem Handling and Compensation and Contact service related to ATM service is low in both public and privates sector banks (ranging between 3.00 to 3.50). Therefore both types of banks should aware about these aspects of ATM service to enhance customers' satisfaction.


Aquatic macroinvertebrate communities in Bookham Common Hollows Valley Ponds were sampled using National Pond Survey techniques from 1993 to 1998. Drying of the ponds due to drought in the summer of 1995 resulted in low-diversity and high-abundance communities characteristic of a perturbed habitat. Analysis of community structure in Isle of Wight and Western Hollow Ponds suggests that total or partial dessication initiated recolonization processes resulting in modification of the macroinvertebrate communities. It is suggested that these changes occurred because they are not true temporary ponds and their communities are not intrinsically adapted to persist through this type of environmental perturbation.


The optical links for the ATLAS Pixel detector has been passed several steps of development. After the design and production of the components itself, various tests have been performed on individual components on smaller or larger parts of the full system. Finally, the links were commissioned in situ after installation. A lot of experience has been gained and this should be used to step into the research on future optical links for the Pixel detector itself, but also for other detectors. In this paper the procedure of the commissioning work of the ATLAS Pixel optical link and observed issues on the system layout and function are discussed and brought into an outlook for future optical link designs.


The aim of this report is to describe and discuss the CFD analysis of a convergent-divergent conical nozzle. This analysis was conducted to estimate the region in which the flow within the nozzle transforms from laminar to turbulent flow given known experimental measurements of the inflow. The outflow conditions will be taken after computation using CFD++ analysis software and compared to other hypersonic nozzle experiments.


Online social networks (ONSs) such as Twitter have grown to be very useful tools for the dissemination of information. However, they have also become a fertile ground for the spread of false information, particularly regarding the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Best described as an infodemic, there is a great need, now more than ever, for scientific fact-checking and misinformation detection regarding the dangers posed by these tools with regards to COVID-19. In this article, we analyze the credibility of information shared on Twitter pertaining the COVID-19 pandemic. For our analysis, we propose an ensemble-learning-based framework for verifying the credibility of a vast number of tweets. In particular, we carry out analyses of a large dataset of tweets conveying information regarding COVID-19. In our approach, we classify the information into two categories: credible or non-credible. Our classifications of tweet credibility are based on various features, including tweet- and user-level features. We conduct multiple experiments on the collected and labeled dataset. The results obtained with the proposed framework reveal high accuracy in detecting credible and non-credible tweets containing COVID-19 information.


Distributed representations were often criticized as inappropriate for encoding of data with a complex structure. However Plate's holographic reduced representations and Kanerva's binary spatter codes are recent schemes that allow on-the-fly encoding of nested compositional structures by real-valued or dense binary vectors of fixed dimensionality. In this article we consider procedures of the context-dependent thinning developed for representation of complex hierarchical items in the architecture of associative-projective neural networks. These procedures provide binding of items represented by sparse binary codevectors (with low probability of 1s). Such an encoding is biologically plausible and allows a high storage capacity of distributed associative memory where the codevectors may be stored. In contrast to known binding procedures, context-dependent thinning preserves the same low density (or sparseness) of the bound codevector for a varied number of component codevectors. Besides, a bound codevector is similar not only to another one with similar component codevectors (as in other schemes) but also to the component codevectors themselves. This allows the similarity of structures to be estimated by the overlap of their codevectors, without retrieval of the component codevectors. This also allows easy retrieval of the component codevectors. Examples of algorithmic and neural network implementations of the thinning procedures are considered. We also present representation examples for various types of nested structured data (propositions using role filler and predicate arguments schemes, trees, and directed acyclic graphs) using sparse codevectors of fixed dimension. Such representations may provide a fruitful alternative to the symbolic representations of traditional artificial intelligence as well as to the localist and microfeature-based connectionist representations.


The present analysis is devoted to interdiscourse functions in argumentative activities in psychological consulting on radio. The interdiscourse participates in persuasive premises by introducing sentences in relation to doxa and the topic, and the audience or the clients'reactions. it also occurs in interpretative activities according to the psychological consulting's pattern and contributes to creating vulgates in relation to stabilized theories.


'Petite Yellow' dwarf ixoras (Ixora spp.) were grown in an alkaline substrate (3 limestone gravel: 2 coir dust) or a poorly aerated composted seaweed substrate to induce iron (Fe) chlorosis. Chlorotic plants were fertilized every 2 months with soil applications of 0.1 g (0.0035 oz) Fe per 2.4-L (0.63-gal) pot using ferrous sulfate, ferric diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (FeDTPA), ferric ethylenediaminedi-o-hydroxyphenylacetic acid (FeEDDHA), Hampshire Iron (FeHEDTA plus FeEDTA), ferric citrate, iron glucoheptonate, or DisperSul Iron (sulfur plus ferrous sulfate). Additional chlorotic ixoras growing in a substrate of 3 sedge peat : 2 cypress sawdust : 1 sand were treated every 2 months with foliar sprays of Fe at 0.8 g·L–1 (0.11 oz/gal) from ferrous sulfate, FeDTPA, FeEDDHA, ferric citrate, or iron glucoheptonate. Only chelated Fe sources signifi cantly improved ixora chlorosis when applied to the soil, regardless of whether the chlorosis was induced by an alkaline substrate or a poorly aerated one. As a foliar spray, only FeDTPA was effective in improving chlorosis in dwarf ixora. Leaf Fe content either showed no relationship to plant color or was negatively correlated with plant chlorosis ratings.


According to the media, the 2000 election debacle was a once-in-a-century fluke. But, in this riveting new polemic, political analyst Daniel Lazare argues that such events are increasingly likely to become the rule rather than the exception. After more than two hundred years, America's antiquated government is in a state of chronic breakdown. A constitutional overhaul is urgently needed to update the machinery in line with the needs of modern democracy. With an amending clause that requires approval by two-thirds of Congress and three-quarters of the states, such change is extremely difficult to achieve. As a result, the United States has entered the twenty-first century with an eighteenth-century government. Not only will breakdowns like the one that occurred last November grow more frequent, they will grow more serious as well. Lazare contends that nothing less than a democratic revolution is needed to rescue American politics from growing paralysis and decay. A constitution supposedly drawn up by "we the people" that cannot be amended by the people is patently absurd. A new arrangement for governments is required, one which abolishes such pre-democratic vestiges as the electoral college, equal representation in the Senate for all states regardless of size, and an all-powerful Supreme Court. Only when these shackles from the past are broken can the American public assert effective control over their government.


This book on crime and justice is motivated primarily by the idea that individual behaviour is influenced both by self-interest and by conscience, or by a sense of community responsibility. Forst has assembled a collection of authors who are writing in four parts: (1) the philosophical foundations and the moral dimension of crime and punishment (2) the sense of community and the way it influences the problem of crime (3) on offenders and offences and (4) on the response of the criminal justice system.


Abstract In a high-yield, low repetition rate Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE) system, such as the Z-Pinch IFE reactor, compressible liquid/gas jets offer the opportunity to protect the cavity walls from the target X-rays, ions and neutrons. They can especially limit and mitigate the mechanical consequences of the shock waves produced by rapid heating/evaporation of the protective jets. In this investigation, experiments have been conducted to examine the stability of two-phase jets and quantify the extent by which they can attenuate a shock wave. An exploding wire was used to generate a shock wave at the center of downward flowing annular single- and two-phase jets within a concentric cylindrical enclosure. The pressure history at the enclosure wall was recorded as the shock wave propagated through the attenuating two-phase medium. Experiments were conducted using two different-size jets and enclosures at various liquid velocities, void fractions, and initial shock strength. The data showed that stable coherent jets could be established and steadily maintained with relatively high void fractions and that significant attenuation in shock strength could be attained at relatively modest void fractions. The data obtained in this investigation can be used to validate predictions of shock attenuation models for future IFE reactor cavities.