Mithad Kozlicic is a historian of navigation and geography. He was born in Zenica on April 14, 1954. He finished the Military Maritime Academy in Split, nautical orientation in 1978, and received his MSc in history in Dubrovnik in 1985. He received PhD in historical sciences at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb in 1988 with the dissertation Historical Geography of the Eastern Adriatic in Light of Results of Researching Antique Geographic Work. He was assistant director and custodian of the Military Maritime Museum in Split until 1991, after which he was the director of the Croatian Maritime Museum in Split. He has been a professor at the Department o History of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zadar and the University of Zadar. In 2005, he became a permanent full professor of humanistic sciences, scientific field of history, branch Croatian history. He lectures History of Navigation in the Croatian Adriatic, Historical Geography and History of Cartography. He initiated and led postgraduate scientific master and doctoral studies History of Croatian Navigation at the same Faculty. He led several scientific-research projects on the history of Eastern Adriatic navigation. Professor Kozlicic's scientific research concerns history of navigation and cartography and historical geography of the Eastern Adriatic. He published a dozen scientific books and more than 100 studies and articles. He participated in numerous domestic and international conferences and prepared several museum exhibitions. After a long research of map collections in Croatian and foreign archives, museums and libraries, he published Atlas – Cartographic Monuments of the Croatian Adriatic in 1995. It contains a concise overview of cartographic representations of the Croatian Adriatic from the antique to the end of the 17th century, with analyses of 275 maps, plans and views by 53 authors. Special attention is paid to older cartographic material and one intended for navigation, and charts by 12 cartographers produced between the beginning of the 13th century and the end of the 16th century are researched. The central chapter is dedicated to numerous cartographers and their perception of the Croatian Adriatic. The book contains basic map data, including toponymy, name of the collection and scientific and expert commentary. A list of bibliographic units and a terminology index can be found at the end. We would like to single out Professor Kozlicic's monographs Panoramas of Dalmatia by Giuseppe Rieger, published by the Hydrographic Institute of the Republic of Croatia, Split 2003, Regiones Flumina Unnae et Sanae in Veteribus Tabulis Geographicis, Una-Sana Area on Old Geographic Maps, published by the National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo and the Una-Sana Canton Archive, Bihac, 2003 and Eastern Adriatic in Work of Beautemps-Beaupre, published in 2006. Prof. Dr. Mithad Kozlicic is a member of several expert societies, including the Croatian Cartographic Society, in which he was a member of the Court of Honour for several years. He received several awards and acknowledgments and this year became a member of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina ("a member outside of working team" – citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina living abroad). Congratulations!


Two novel variants of Dynamic Link Architecture that are based on mathematical morphology and incorporate local coefficients which weigh the contribution of each node according to its discriminatory power in elastic graph matching are proposed, namely, the Morphological Dynamic Link Architecture and the Morphological Signal DecompositionDynamic Link Architecture. They are tested for face authentication in a cooperative scenario where the candidates claim an identity to be checked. Their performance is evaluated in terms of their receiver operating characteristic and the Equal Error Rate achieved in M2VTS database. .4n Equal Error Rate of 6.6% 6.8 % is reported.


OF THE THESIS Time and Frequency Domain Representations of the Left Ventricle: Theoretical and Experimental Results by Dennis James Arena Thesis Director: Dr. Dov Jaron A frequency domain and a time domain model of the left ventricle are described in this work. These representations provide insight into the function of the healthy left ventricle and show how ventricular function may be altered by heart disease. In developing the frequency domain representation of the left ventricle, the flow and pressure waveforms generated by the left ventricle were described as superpositions of sinusoidal oscillations at different frequencies. Flow and pressure waveforms were obtained experimentally at two different left ventricular afterloads . . The two different afterloads were obtained utilizing an intraaortic balloon. The left ventricle was modeled by an equivalent source pressure and source impedance analogous to a Thevenin•s equivalent representation. The model parameters (source pressure and source impedance) appear to be sensitive to cardiovascular changes such as myocardial infarction and increased left ventricular end-diastolic pressure. The source pressure expressed in the time domain may be a useful myocardial contractility index. For aortic input impedance much greater than source impedance, a change in left ventricular afterload would result in small change in aortic pressure. In this case the left ventricle would be functioning as a pressure source. By comparing the source resistance and aortic input resistance, the left ventricle appears to be a D.C. pressure source. For analysis in the time domain, the left ventricle was represented by truncated, confocal ellipsoids approximated by a series of cylindrical shells. The properties of the left ventricle were distributed over the cylindrical sections. The timing and sequence of contraction of the cylindrical shells were prescribed to simulate the mechanical action of the left ventricle. Plow and pressure waveforms produced by the model were similar to those obtained experimentally. Results of the simulation indicate that the pressure distribution in the ventricular chamber may be a useful index for determining the status of the left ventricle.


Slovakia joined the euro area after a period of unprecedented real appreciation. The response to financial crisis combined internal devaluation with productivity increasing measures, including capital deepening in the banking sector. Although this strategy was successfully restoring an external equilibrium, the economy experienced a strong but short recession in 2009 which was driven by credit reductions. This development is compared with Estonia and Slovenia, two other small and very open economies, recently entering the euro area. The financial crisis reduced the financial integration gains in new euro member states in Central and Eastern Europe.


Plasma vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) concentrations of normal individuals and patients with pancreatitis were studied using a VIP RIA kit. The inter-assay and intraassay variation of this kit were between 2.1 and 9.4%. The VIP levels increased in the acute phase of acute pancreatitis and patients with chronic pancreatitis. The VIP concentration increased during the first 30 min of glucose tolerance test, but this increase was much smaller than that in insulin. These results suggest that this kit is useful for physiologic and pathologic changes in the VIP level.


Background.The analysis of past research shows that the study of mental illness was part of the agenda of the founders of the discipline of sociology. Additionally, the sociological study of mental illness changes to reflect the mark of historical periods such as premodernity, modernity and postmodernity.Aim.The aim of this study is to compare and contrast some modern sociological theories of mental health problems and determine in what ways they reflect or not the period of modernity. Analysis. Comparative analysis of sociological frameworks of four sociologists (Durkheim, Merton, Marx, and Scheff) from the epoch of modernity was conducted. Conclusion.Most sociological studies related to mental illness of the period of modernity mirror key concepts of that epoch such as structure, balance, stability, order, system, and universalism. Implications for policy, future research, and limitations are discussed.


Problem statement: Mitochondrial transcription factor A (TFAM) is a nucleus-encoded protein that is a key activator of mitochondrial transcription as well as a major participant in mitochondrial genome replication. Genomic characterization of the porcine TFAM gene is, therefore, necessary to determine its involvement in regulation of fat depots and meat quality traits in pigs. Approach: Genomic DNA sequence was determined using a comparative in silico annotation approach. RT-PCR was used for analysis of alternative splicing. Genome location was determined using Radiation Hybrid (RH) mapping. Genetic marker was identified by sequencing and genotyped by the PCR-RFLP method with SacI. GENEPOP version 3.3 software was used for statistic analysis. Results: We determined both full-length cDNA and genomic DNA sequences of the porcine TFAM gene. Gene expression analysis revealed an alternative 5' splice site, which excludes exon 4 of the pig gene. We assigned this gene to porcine chromosome 14 (SSC14). A G/A substitution was detected in intron 1 of porcine TFAM gene and genotyped on a total of 252 animals, including 165 from seven Chinese and 87 from five Western pig breeds. The Bayesian analysis via MCMC (Markov chain Monte Carlo) revealed that these two groups of pigs were well separated at this locus during the breed history; 95% of the posterior difference of TFAM allelic frequency between these two pig groups was greater than zero. Conclusion/Recommendations: All these data provided basic genomic information needed for further functional characterization of the porcine TFAM gene. Because marked differences in fat and lean tissue deposition exist between Western and Chinese pig breeds, the G557A mutation in the TFAM gene deserves further evaluation to determine its phenotypic effect on fattening and carcass traits in commercial pig populations.


The weakly electric gymnotiform fish produce a rhythmic electric organ discharge (EOD) used for communication and active electrolocation. The EOD frequency is entrained to a medullary pacemaker nucleus. During communication and exploration, this rate can be modulated by a pre-pacemaker network, resulting in specific patterns of rate modulation, including stereotyped communication signals and dynamic interactions with conspecifics known as a Jamming Avoidance Response (JAR). One well-known stereotyped signal is the chirp, a brief upward frequency sweep usually lasting less than 500 ms. The abrupt change in frequency has dramatic effects on phase precession between two signalers. We report here on chirping in Brachyhypopmus cf. sullivani, Microsternarchus cf. bilineatus Lineage C, and Steatogenys cf. elegans during conspecific playback experiments. Microsternarchus also exhibits two behaviors that include chirp-like extreme frequency modulations, EOD interruptions with hushing silence and tumultuous rises, and these are described in terms of receiver impact. These behaviors all have substantial impact on interference caused by conspecifics and may be a component of the JAR in some species. Chirps are widely used in electronic communications systems, sonar, and other man-made active sensing systems. The brevity of the chirp, and the phase disruption it causes, makes chirps effective as attention-grabbing or readiness signals. This conforms to the varied assigned functions across gymnotiforms, including pre-combat aggressive or submissive signals or during courtship and mating. The specific behavioral contexts of chirp expression vary across species, but the physical structure of the chirp makes it extremely salient to conspecifics. Chirps may be expected in a wide range of behavioral contexts where their function depends on being noticeable and salient. Further, in pulse gymnotiforms, the chirp is well structured to comprise a robust jamming signal to a conspecific receiver if specifically timed to the receiver's EOD cycle. Microsternarchus and Steatogenys exploit this feature and include chirps in dynamic jamming avoidance behaviors. This may be an evolutionary re-use of a circuitry for a specific signal in another context.


This paper presents a data-driven dynamics-based filtering approach to eliminate acoustic noise-caused distortion in images of atomic force microscope (AFM). AFM operations are sensitive to external noise as disturbances including acoustic noise as disturbances to the probe-sample interaction directly results in distortions in AFM imaging. Although conventional passive noise cancellation has been employed, limitation exists and residual noise still persists. Advanced online control techniques face difficulty in capturing the complex noise dynamic and limited system bandwidth imposed by the robustness requirement. Therefore, In this work, we propose a finite-impulse-response (FIR) based post-filtering approach to remove the noise-caused distortion in AFM images. Experimental implementation is presented and discussed to illustrate the proposed technique.


In this paper, a proposed structure was suggested by replacing the blocks of the fast Haar Wavelet Transform (WT) with a two dimensional wavelet transform at the transmitter and the receiver sides in the Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) model. This can be done by converting a 1-Dimensional vector into a 2-Dimensional matrix and process it by 2-Dimensional Wavelet Transform (2D-WT). The proposed method was applied on the OFDM in Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) and flat fading channel. It was concluded that the proposed method gives much better Bit Error Rate (BER) performance than the conventional OFDM model based on WT. The simulation results showed that the proposd structure outperforms the other scheme in the carried tests at the AWGN and flat fading channels.


Ethanol as one of renewable energy was being considered an excellent alternative clean-burning fuel to replace gasoline. Continuous ethanol fermentation systems had offered important economic advantages compared to traditional systems. Fermentation rates were significantly improved, especially when continuous fermentation was integrated with cell immobilization techniques to enrich the cells concentration in fermentor. Growing cells of Zymomonas mobilis immobilized in polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) gel beads were employed in an immobilized-cells fermentor for continuous ethanol fermentation from glucose. The glucose loading, dilution rate, and cells loading were varied in order to determine which best condition employed in obtaining both high ethanol production and low residual glucose with high dilution rate. In this study, 20 g/L, 100 g/L, 125 g/L and 150 g/L of glucose concentration and 20% (w/v), 40% (w/v) and 50% (w/v) of cells loading were employed with range of dilution rate at 0.25 to 1 h-1. The most stable production was obtained for 25 days by employing 100 g/L of glucose loading. Meanwhile, the results also exhibited that 125 g/L of glucose loading as well as 40% (w/v) of cells loading yielded high ethanol concentration, high ethanol productivity, and acceptable residual glucose at 62.97 g/L, 15.74 g/L/h and 0.16 g/L, respectively. Furthermore, the dilution rate of 4 hour with 100 g/L and 40% (w/v) of glucose and cells loading was considered as the optimum condition with ethanol production, ethanol productivity and residual glucose obtained were 49.89 g/L, 12.47 g/L/h, and 2.04 g/L, respectively. This recent study investigated ethanol inhibition as well. The present research had proved that high sugar concentration was successfully converted to ethanol. These achieved results were promising for further study.


Admitting non-Riemannian geometries, Double Field Theory extends the notion of spacetime beyond the Riemannian paradigm. We identify a class of singular spacetimes known in General Relativity with regular non-Riemannian geometries. The former divergences merely correspond to coordinate singularities of the generalised metric for the latter. Computed in string frame, they feature an impenetrable non-Riemannian sphere outside of which geodesics are complete with no singular deviation. Approaching the non-Riemannian points, particles freeze and strings become (anti-)chiral.


Objective The present study aimed to investigate the predictive value of some inflammatory indexes, such as the ratio of C-reactive protein-to-albumin (CAR), high-sensitivity C-reactive protein-to-albumin (HCAR), C-reactive protein-to-lymphocyte (CLR), and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein-to-lymphocyte (HCLR) in the survival and toxicity of nasopharyngeal carcinoma and provide reference for the development of treatment. Methods A retrospective analysis was conducted on 162 patients from 2013 to 2018. The value of the indexes before the treatment was calculated. SPSS 25.0 software was used for the analysis, and the cutoff values of the indexes were determined by the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC). The prognostic value of the indexes was evaluated according to the overall survival rate (OS), progression-free survival rate (PFS), and the incidence of toxic side effects. Results The index CLR was found to be the predictor of mortality of nasopharyngeal carcinoma but not the indicator for toxicity. Conclusion The index CLR can be used for risk-stratification. However, whether the risk-stratification treatment based on these indicators can improve the prognosis subsequently needs further prospective study.


Inorganic mercury (Hg2+) pollution of water reserves, especially drinking water, is an important issue in the environmental and public health field. Mercury is reported to be one of the most dangerous elements in nature since its accumulation and ingestion can lead to a series of permanent human diseases, affecting the kidneys and central nervous system. All the conventional approaches for assaying Hg2+ have some limitations in terms of bulky instruments and the cost and time required for the analysis. Here, we describe a miniaturizable and high-throughput bioluminescence sensor for Hg2+ detection in water, which combines the specificity of a living bacterial Hg2+ reporter cell, used as sensing element, with the performance of a silicon photomultiplier, used as optical detector. The proposed system paves the basis for portable analysis and low reactants consumption. The aim of the work is to propose a sensing strategy for total inorganic mercury evaluation in water. The proposed system can lay the basis for further studies and validations in order to develop rapid and portable technology that can be used in situ providing remote monitoring.


Summary Flavonoids and their conjugates are the most important group of natural chemical compounds in drug discovery and development. The search for pharmacological activity and new mechanisms of activity of these chemical compounds, which may inhibit mediators of inflammation and influence the structure and function of endothelial cells, can be an interesting pharmacological strategy for the prevention and adjunctive treatments of hypertension, especially induced by pregnancy. Because cardiovascular diseases have multi-factorial pathogenesis these natural chemical compounds with wide spectrum of biological activities are the most interesting source of new drugs. Extracts from one of the most popular plant used in Traditional Chinese Medicine, Scutellaria baicalensis Georgi could be a very interesting source of flavonoids because of its exact content in quercetin, apigenin, chrysin and scutellarin as well as in baicalin. These flavonoids exert vasoprotective properties and many activities such as: anti-oxidative via several pathways, anti-in-flammatory, anti-ischaemic, cardioprotective and anti-hypertensive. However, there is lack of summaries of results of studies in context of potential and future application of flavonoids with determined composition and activity. Our review aims to provide a literature survey of in vitro, in vivo and ex vivo pharmacological studies of selected flavonoids (apigenin, chrysin and scutellarin, baicalin) in various models of hypertension carried out in 2008–2018.


ABSTRACT HIV-1 must overcome multiple innate antiviral mechanisms to replicate in CD4+ T lymphocytes and macrophages. Previous studies have demonstrated that the apolipoprotein B mRNA editing enzyme polypeptide-like 3 (APOBEC3, A3) family of proteins (at least A3D, A3F, A3G, and stable A3H haplotypes) contribute to HIV-1 restriction in CD4+ T lymphocytes. Virus-encoded virion infectivity factor (Vif) counteracts this antiviral activity by degrading A3 enzymes allowing HIV-1 replication in infected cells. In addition to A3 proteins, Vif also targets other cellular proteins in CD4+ T lymphocytes, including PPP2R5 proteins. However, whether Vif primarily degrades only A3 proteins during viral replication is currently unknown. Herein, we describe the development and characterization of A3F-, A3F/A3G-, and A3A-to-A3G-null THP-1 cells. In comparison to Vif-proficient HIV-1, Vif-deficient viruses have substantially reduced infectivity in parental and A3F-null THP-1 cells, and a more modest decrease in infectivity in A3F/A3G-null cells. Remarkably, disruption of A3A–A3G protein expression completely restores the infectivity of Vif-deficient viruses in THP-1 cells. These results indicate that the primary function of Vif during infectious HIV-1 production from THP-1 cells is the targeting and degradation of A3 enzymes. IMPORTANCE HIV-1 Vif neutralizes the HIV-1 restriction activity of A3 proteins. However, it is currently unclear whether Vif has additional essential cellular targets. To address this question, we disrupted A3A to A3G genes in the THP-1 myeloid cell line using CRISPR and compared the infectivity of wild-type HIV-1 and Vif mutants with the selective A3 neutralization activities. Our results demonstrate that the infectivity of Vif-deficient HIV-1 and the other Vif mutants is fully restored by ablating the expression of cellular A3A to A3G proteins. These results indicate that A3 proteins are the only essential target of Vif that is required for fully infectious HIV-1 production from THP-1 cells. HIV-1 Vif neutralizes the HIV-1 restriction activity of A3 proteins. However, it is currently unclear whether Vif has additional essential cellular targets. To address this question, we disrupted A3A to A3G genes in the THP-1 myeloid cell line using CRISPR and compared the infectivity of wild-type HIV-1 and Vif mutants with the selective A3 neutralization activities. Our results demonstrate that the infectivity of Vif-deficient HIV-1 and the other Vif mutants is fully restored by ablating the expression of cellular A3A to A3G proteins. These results indicate that A3 proteins are the only essential target of Vif that is required for fully infectious HIV-1 production from THP-1 cells.


We propose the use of discriminative training by means of the generalized probabilistic descent (GPB) algorithm to estimate hidden Markov model (HMM) stream exponents for audio-visual speech recognition. Synchronized audio and visual features are used to respectively train audio-only and visual-only single-stream HMMs of identical topology by maximum likelihood. A two-stream HMM is then obtained by combining the two single-stream HMMs and introducing exponents that weigh the log-likelihood of each stream. We present the GPD algorithm for stream exponent estimation, consider a possible initialization, and apply it to the single speaker connected letters task of the AT&T bimodal database. We demonstrate the superior performance of the resulting multi-stream HMM to the audio-only, visual-only, and audio-visual single-stream HMMs.


Subtitling a children's programme, especially a cartoon or animated programme, presents the subtitler with specific constraints and challenges. These are due, on a lexico-semantic and visual level, to the nature of the source language text, and on a pragmatic level, to that of the prospective audience. Through the analysis of some examples taken from the Italian subtitled version of the series The Book of Pooh, this article seeks to consider in greater detail both the issues involved and the strategies the translator has put in place in order to deal with such a unique situation.


The matching of asteroids and meteorites is a significant step toward a better understanding of the origin, structure, and history of the solar system. We propose a data‐driven approach for investigating common taxonomic structure between asteroids and meteorites; C‐, S‐, and V‐type for the former, and carbonaceous chondrite, ordinary chondrite, and howardite‐eucrite‐diogenite (HED) meteorite for the latter. In the numerical experiments, by checking whether the taxonomy information of meteorites improves classification for asteroid data, we examine the existence of common structure over the two domains. For this purpose, we compare the resultant accuracies of two clustering methods which are with/without the guidance of meteorite data. We observe that the guidance of meteorite taxonomy improves the accuracy for classifying asteroids, either with the reflectance spectra or major chemical compositions of meteorites. This fact serves as a piece of evidence that there is a common taxonomic structure and links between meteorites and asteroids, supporting a long‐standing hypothesis.


Suicide upon infection by lytic phages is known in several bacteria species and represents an effective defence strategy to limit phage spread. However, the ecological conditions favouring the evolution of such a radically altruistic behaviour are unclear. Here, we model the feedback of epidemiology on host evolution in a spatially structured environment and we generate several specific predictions on altruistic suicide evolution. We test these predictions experimentally by competing E. coli cells carrying the suicide gene Lit against non-carrier cells in the presence or in the absence of the lytic phage T6. We show that in accord with our theoretical analysis altruistic suicide is only favoured in the presence of the phage in spatially structured environments at intermediate levels of mixing. Our work provides a general explanation for the evolution of altruistic defence strategies against pathogens. We discuss the implications of these results for oncolytic virus therapy.


This paper provides a novel approach for the problem of detecting the yellowish lesions in the eye fundus images, such as hard and soft exudates, in a fully-automated manner. To solve this problem of segmenting exudates automatically, the fundus image was first converted into the L*a*b* color space to decouple the chromaticity information of the image. Next, the fundus image was partitioned into five disjoint clusters based on this information via the unsupervised k-means algorithm. Among the clustered images, the one having the brightest average intensity was chosen to be the best cluster containing all the bright yellowish pixels. Using this cluster, a threshold value was estimated via statistic-based metrics and subsequently applied to remove any non-bright clustered pixels and preserve only the relatively bright ones within the image. Finally, the optic disc was eliminated from the thresholded image, leaving out only the bright abnormalities. This approach was evaluated over a total of 1419 images retrieved from three heterogeneous datasets: DIARETDB0, DIARETDB1 and MESSIDOR. The proposed segmentation algorithm was fully-automated, non-customized, simple and straightforward, regardless of the heterogeneity of the datasets. The proposed system correctly detected the bright abnormalities achieving an average sensitivity and specificity of 85.08% and 56.77%, respectively.


Taxonomic studies were performed on an unusual oral Streptococcus strain isolated from Sprague-Dawley rats. The isolates were alpha-haemolytic, bile-tolerant, aesculin-hydrolytic and unable to grow in 6.5% NaCl. They fermented lactose, sucrose and trehalose. They were distinguished from other recognized species of oral and viridans streptococci by several biochemical characteristics and by Lancefield's group antigen, as well as by unique DNA-DNA hybridization characteristics. 16S rDNA sequence studies confirmed the genealogical distinctiveness of the species. The results of the study demonstrated that the isolates represented a new species of the oral and viridans streptococci. The name Streptococcus orisratti sp. nov. is proposed for the new species. The type strain is A63T (= ATCC 700640T).


OBJECTIVE
To observe and evaluate the effects of manipulation on knee osteoarthritis (KOA) using T2-mapping and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-based volume measurements.

METHODS
Forty-five cases of KOA were involved retrospectively in the study, and the patients were composed of 9 males and 36 females with the mean age of (57.4+/-6.1) years. The cases were treated with manipulative therapy once or twice per week for 12 months. MRI of each knee was performed separately by using 1.5-T MRI equipment before and during the treatment. Average cartilage depth, MRI grading of cartilage defects, cartilage volume, average T2 values in patella cartilage and femoral condyle, and bone marrow edema area were detected respectively.

RESULTS
The knee joint cartilage thickness from MRI began to increase after 6-month treatment (P<0.05). The cartilage volume increase was obviously observed after 12-month treatment, and there was a significant difference (F=14.64, P<0.01). MRI grading of cartilage defects decreased from IIIA to IIB after 3-month treatment (Z=17.96, P<0.05). The average T2 value in patella cartilage decreased after 9-month treatment (F=3.11, P<0.05), but there were no differences in cartilage from tibial plateau and femoral condyle compartments after the treatment. The bone marrow edema area in femoral condyle began to diminish at 3-month treatment (t=-4.53, P<0.01), and the bone marrow edema area in cartilage patella was diminished after 6-month treatment (t=-5.53, P<0.01).

CONCLUSION
T2-mapping and cartilage volume measurement are suitable for evaluating the manipulative therapy on KOA. Traditional Chinese manipulation therapy is an effective method for KOA in the cartilage recovery.


Interleukin 1 beta (IL-1β)-dependent inflammatory disorders, such as rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis, pose a serious medical burden worldwide, where patients face a lifetime of illness and treatment. Organogold compounds have been used since the 1930s to treat rheumatic and other IL-1β-dependent diseases and, though their mechanisms of action are still unclear, there is evidence that gold interferes with the transmission of inflammatory signalling. Here we show for the first time that citrate-stabilized gold nanoparticles, in a size dependent manner, specifically downregulate cellular responses induced by IL-1β both in vitro and in vivo. Our results indicate that the anti-inflammatory activity of gold nanoparticles is associated with an extracellular interaction with IL-1β, thus opening potentially novel options for further therapeutic applications.


We perform a model independent study of freeze-in of massive particle dark matter (DM) by adopting an effective field theory framework. Considering the dark matter to be a gauge singlet Majorana fermion, odd under a stabilising symmetry Z2 under which all standard model (SM) fields are even, we write down all possible DM-SM operators upto and including mass dimension eight. For simplicity of the numerical analysis we restrict ourselves only to the scalar operators in SM as well as in the dark sector. We calculate the DM abundance for each such dimension of operator considering both UV and IR freeze-in contributions which can arise before and after the electroweak symmetry breaking respectively. After constraining the cut-off scale and reheat temperature of the universe from the requirement of correct DM relic abundance, we also study the possibility of connecting the origin of neutrino mass to the same cut-off scale by virtue of lepton number violating Weinberg operators. We thus compare the bounds on such cut-off scale and corresponding reheat temperature required for UV freeze-in from the origin of light neutrino mass as well as from the requirement of correct DM relic abundance. We also briefly comment upon the possibilities of realising such DM-SM effective operators in a UV complete model.


Four theories of the human conceptual system—semantic memory, exemplar models, feed‐forward connectionist nets, and situated simulation theory—are characterised and contrasted on five dimensions: (1) architecture (modular vs. non‐modular), (2) representation (amodal vs. modal), (3) abstraction (decontextualised vs. situated), (4) stability (stable vs. dynamical), and (5) organisation (taxonomic vs. action–environment interface). Empirical evidence is then reviewed for the situated simulation theory, and the following conclusions are reached. Because the conceptual system shares mechanisms with perception and action, it is non-modular. As a result, conceptual representations are multi-modal simulations distributed across modality‐specific systems. A given simulation for a concept is situated, preparing an agent for situated action with a particular instance, in a particular setting. Because a concept delivers diverse simulations that prepare agents for action in many different situations, it is dynamical. Because the conceptual system's primary purpose is to support situated action, it becomes organised around the action–environment interface.


The study was undertaken to develop an efficient system for prevention and treatment of ophthalmological complications at spontaneous delivery in parturients with peripheral vitreochorioretinal dystrophies and retinal dystrophic detachment. The paper considers the results of a 2-year follow-up of 188 women during pregnancy and puerperal period. No visual changes were revealed in all the cases after both spontaneous delivery and cesarean section (if there are obstetric indications). The findings suggest that timely detection and treatment of menacing types of peripheral vitreochorioretinal dystrophies and retinal detachment considerably reduce the rates of surgical delivery as shown by ophthalmological indications.


Nano has now become a theme in almost all the established discipline. The confluence of innovative methodologies, sophisticated characterisation techniques, and potential technological utility has resulted in intense research activity in the field of polymer nano composites. Polymer composites made out of nano materials display unique properties in terms of improved tensile strength, flexibility, and flexural endurance. The paper discusses the development of polymerclay nano composites, both from the conceptual point of view as well as practical methods for the synthesis of nano composites. These are monomer intercalation, monomer modification, common solvent, and melt-intercalation methods. Various models have been discussed that describe improvements in mechanical and barriers properties due to the incorporation of nano materials. Ongoing R&D work in the two DRDO laboratories on the development of nano composites has been briefly mentioned. The emerging use of polymer-nano composites has also been described.


High-dimensional single cell profiling coupled with computational modeling holds the potential to elucidate developmental sequences and define genetic programs directing cell lineages. However, existing algorithms have limited ability to elucidate branching developmental paths or to identify multiple branch points in an unsupervised manner. Here we introduce the concept of "trajectory space", in which cells are defined not by their phenotype but by their distance along nearest neighbor trajectories to every other cell in a population. We implement a tSpace algorithm, and show that multidimensional profiling of cells in trajectory space allows unsupervised reconstruction of developmental pathways, and in combination with existing biological knowledge can be used to infer the identity of progenitor populations and of the most differentiated subsets within samples. Applied to high dimensional flow and mass cytometry data, the method faithfully reconstructs known branching pathways of thymic T cell development, and reveals patterns of tonsillar B cell development and of B cell migration. Applied to single cell transcriptomic data, the method unfolds the complex developmental sequences and genetic programs leading from intestinal stem cells to specialized epithelial phenotypes. Profiling of complex populations in high-dimensional trajectory space should prove useful for hypothesis generation in developing cell systems.


Push Button Configuration (PBC) is a method to easily set up a secure session between IT/CE devices, i.e., by simply pressing buttons on devices. Although PBC has been adopted by Wi-Fi and ZigBee, its applicability is limited due mainly to the security vulnerability leading to unintended acceptance of communication request from malicious devices. To cure this problem, we propose a Security-enhanced PBC (SePBC) scheme that is capable of uncovering suspicious or malicious devices as well as identifying the legitimate device. Our security analysis shows SePBC effectively defeats attacks on PBC preserving high accuracy of attack detection.


In this study, the water quality and diatoms of the Murat River's section between Palu district and Gülüşkür region were analyzed between March 2010  February 2011. 4 stations were identified for the study. Water samples were collected from the stations to determine the chemical properties of the river. The analyses and measurements carried out for this thesis study have revealed that according to water quality criteria the Murat River has clean water characteristics. On the other hand, the total amount of phosphorus and the number of coliform bacteria have pointed to the danger of eutrophication in the Murat River according to the Water Pollution Control Regulation.


Using conventional microfabrication techniques, we have developed a new, low-cost wafer bumping process that enables a high degree of control over patterning of conductive adhesive interconnects. This approach obviates the need for development of dispensing and scraping head equipment that may otherwise be required for mass fabrication of lithographically patterned adhesive bumps. Flip-chip interconnects formed using this new process offer better electrical performance as compared to those formed by squeegee-based definition techniques. This is inferred in this paper by experimentally demonstrating lower contact resistance with the polished bumps as compared to the squeegeed bumps. Furthermore, in order to study the high-speed electrical performance characteristics of these conductive adhesive bumps, a 10-GHz 1.55-mum p-i-n photodetector fabricated in the antimonide material system was used as case study. The results from the bandwidth characterization of the polymer flip-chip-integrated detector showed minimum degradation in the high-speed performance characteristics of the detector


The study underpinning this paper developed from a review of current practice with regard to partnership in a Postgraduate Initial Teacher Education Programme in England. Typical partnership activity between the university and partnership schools centred round the needs of the trainee teacher, however the aim of the study was to re-envisage this through the development of a collaborative partnership model focused on developing school-university research-based practice. Teacher professional knowledge was married with the expertise of university staff to facilitate systematic school-based enquiry. This paper reports on a qualitative study involving four university participants and seven participants from primary schools who were involved in the school-based enquiry project. Analysed through the lens of the concept of a "Community of Practice" (CoP), the findings illustrate the practice, relationship and role changes that occurred. In the discussion, the main factors that contributed to the development of this particular CoP are considered: both their strengths and limitations.


Abstract. We present an observing simulated system experiment (OSSE) dedicated to evaluate the potential added value from the Sentinel-4 and the Sentinel-5P observations on tropospheric ozone composition. For this purpose, the ozone data of Sentinel-4 (Ultraviolet Visible Near-infrared) and Sentinel-5P (TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument) on board a geostationary (GEO) and a low-Earth-orbit (LEO) platform, respectively, have been simulated
using the DISAMAR inversion package
for the summer 2003. To ensure the robustness of the results, the OSSE has been configured with conservative assumptions. We simulate the reality by combining two chemistry transport models (CTMs): the LOng Term Ozone Simulation – EURopean Operational Smog (LOTOS-EUROS) and the Transport Model version 5 (TM5). The assimilation system is based on a different CTM, the MOdele de Chimie Atmospherique a Grande Echelle (MOCAGE), combined with the 3-D variational technique. The background error covariance matrix does not evolve in time and its variance is proportional to the field values. The simulated data are formed of six eigenvectors to minimize the size of the dataset by removing the noise-dominated part of the observations. The results show that the satellite data clearly bring direct added value around 200 hPa for the whole assimilation period and for the whole European domain, while a likely indirect added value is identified but not for the whole period and domain at 500 hPa, and to a lower extent at 700 hPa. In addition, the ozone added value from Sentinel-5P (LEO) appears close to that from Sentinel-4 (GEO) in the free troposphere (200–500 hPa) in our OSSE.
The outcome of our study is a result of the OSSE design and the choice within each of the components of the system.


Cloud computing adoption is rapidly growing thanks to the carried large technical and economical advantages.
Its effects can be observed also looking at the fast increase of cloud traffic: in accordance with recent forecasts,
more than 75\% of the overall datacenter traffic
will be cloud traffic by 2018.
Accordingly,
huge investments have been made by providers in network infrastructures.
Networks of geographically distributed datacenters have been built,
which require efficient and accurate monitoring activities to be operated.
However, providers rarely expose information about the state of cloud networks or their design,
and seldom make promises about their performance.
In this scenario,
cloud customers therefore have to cope with performance unpredictability
in spite of the primary role played by the network.
Indeed, according to the deployment practices adopted
and the functional separation of the application layers often implemented,
the network heavily influences the performance of the cloud services,
also impacting costs and revenues.

In this thesis
cloud networks are investigated
enforcing non-cooperative approaches,
i.e.~that do not require access to any information restricted to entities involved in the cloud service provision.
A platform to monitor cloud networks from the point of view of the customer is presented.
Such a platform enables general customers---even those with limited expertise in the configuration and the management of cloud resources---to obtain valuable information about the state of the cloud network, according to a set of factors under their control.
A detailed characterization of the cloud network and of its performance is provided,
thanks to extensive experimentations performed during the last years
on the infrastructures of the two leading cloud providers
(Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure).

The information base gathered by enforcing the proposed approaches allows
customers to better understand the characteristics of these complex network infrastructures.
Moreover, experimental results are also useful to the provider for understanding the quality of service perceived by customers.
By properly interpreting the obtained results, usage guidelines can be devised
which allow to enhance the achievable performance and reduce costs.
As a particular case study, the thesis also shows how monitoring information can be leveraged by the customer
to implement convenient mechanisms to scale cloud resources
without any a priori knowledge.

More in general, we believe that this thesis provides a better-defined picture of the characteristics
of the complex cloud network infrastructures,
also providing the scientific community with useful tools for characterizing them in the future.


Investigations of the possibilities for inflation using the four dimensional models inspired by superstring theory is reported and discussed in the context of related work. Investigations of the possibilities for inflation using the four dimensional models in spired by superstring theory is reported and discussed in the context of related work.


From AD 1347 to AD 1353, the Black Death killed tens of millions of people in Europe, leaving misery and devastation in its wake, with successive epidemics ravaging the continent until the 18th century. The etiology of this disease has remained highly controversial, ranging from claims based on genetics and the historical descriptions of symptoms that it was caused by Yersinia pestis to conclusions that it must have been caused by other pathogens. It has also been disputed whether plague had the same etiology in northern and southern Europe. Here we identified DNA and protein signatures specific for Y. pestis in human skeletons from mass graves in northern, central and southern Europe that were associated archaeologically with the Black Death and subsequent resurgences. We confirm that Y. pestis caused the Black Death and later epidemics on the entire European continent over the course of four centuries. Furthermore, on the basis of 17 single nucleotide polymorphisms plus the absence of a deletion in glpD gene, our aDNA results identified two previously unknown but related clades of Y. pestis associated with distinct medieval mass graves. These findings suggest that plague was imported to Europe on two or more occasions, each following a distinct route. These two clades are ancestral to modern isolates of Y. pestis biovars Orientalis and Medievalis. Our results clarify the etiology of the Black Death and provide a paradigm for a detailed historical reconstruction of the infection routes followed by this disease.


Background Despite the progress towards the MDG 4 and 5, compared to the developed world maternal and newborn deaths are still high in Bangladesh and poor quality of maternal and newborn health care is often blamed for this high mortality. This study assessed two important components of quality of maternal and newborn health care namely, infrastructure and performance of health care providers of public hospitals in Bangladesh. Methods Cross sectional survey was conducted to measure the quality of infrastructures and assess the clinical care performance of the health care providers related to maternal and newborn services in 14 district and sub-district level public hospitals of Thakurgaon and Jamalpur districts. Six components including human resource, physical infrastructure, infection prevention, equipments/logistics/supplies, essential drugs and recordkeeping were assessed under infrastructure. Maternal and newborn care services provided by the health care providers were evaluated during antenatal, postnatal, delivery and newborn care. The study was conducted from November to December 2011. The average of the sub-items of each item was calculated and then the mean average of the items were estimated. Results The percentage of mean average scores of all items of infrastructure for district hospitals, maternal and child welfare centres and upazila health complexes were 57.1%, 52.7% and 45.9% respectively, which were below the cut-off point (60.0%). None of the health care providers of three types of government hospitals obtained 100% score in any areas namely antenatal care, post-natal care, delivery care and newborn care. Conclusions Quality of infrastructure of health facilities, and clinical care performance of the health care providers during discharging maternal and newborn health services were found poor in district and sub-district level public hospitals of Bangladesh.


Several analytic strategies exist for opening up the "black box" to reveal more about what drives policy and program impacts. This article focuses on one of these strategies: the Analysis of Symmetrically-Predicted Endogenous Subgroups (ASPES). ASPES uses exogenous baseline data to identify endogenously-defined subgroups, keeping the analysis of some postrandomization choice, event, or milestone grounded in the strength of experimental design. Building on lessons from prior applications of ASPES and also adding some new analyses, this article focuses on four specific practical considerations: first-stage prediction success, assumption credibility, data availability, and sample size. Discussion implies the optimal conditions for effective application of ASPES and points to future research that can enhance the overall tool kit of "what works" analyses.


This book introduces an effective method for seeking local and nonlocal conservation laws and exact solutions for nonlinear two-dimensional equations which provide a basic model in describing internal waves in the ocean. The model consists of non-hydrostatic equations of motion which uses the Boussinesq approximation and linear stratification. The Lie group analysis is used for constructing non-trivial conservation laws and group invariant solutions. It is shown that nonlinear equations in question have remarkable property to be self-adjoint. This property is crucial for constructing physically relevant conservation laws for nonlinear internal waves in the ocean. The comparison with the previous analytic studies and experimental observations confirrms that the anisotropic nature of the wave motion allows to associate some of the obtained invariant solutions with uni-directional internal wave beams propagating through the medium. Analytic examples of the latitude-dependent invariant solutions associated with internal gravity wave beams are considered. The behavior of the invariant solutions near the critical latitude is investigated.


RacerD is a static race detector that has been proven to be effective in engineering practice: it has seen thousands of data races fixed by developers before reaching production, and has supported the migration of Facebook's Android app rendering infrastructure from a single-threaded to a multi-threaded architecture. We prove a True Positives Theorem stating that, under certain assumptions, an idealized theoretical version of the analysis never reports a false positive. We also provide an empirical evaluation of an implementation of this analysis, versus the original RacerD. The theorem was motivated in the first case by the desire to understand the observation from production that RacerD was providing remarkably accurate signal to developers, and then the theorem guided further analyzer design decisions. Technically, our result can be seen as saying that the analysis computes an under-approximation of an over-approximation, which is the reverse of the more usual (over of under) situation in static analysis. Until now, static analyzers that are effective in practice but unsound have often been regarded as ad hoc; in contrast, we suggest that, in the future, theorems of this variety might be generally useful in understanding, justifying and designing effective static analyses for bug catching.


The identification of mechanisms by which congenital renal tract malformations arise is an important area of research given that these defects account for approximately half of all children who progress to end-stage renal failure. Understanding the genetic contribution to this pathogenesis is of particular value, facilitating the counselling of families with a history of disease, serving to highlight the critical window(s) during which the course of development is altered, and aiding in the identification of molecular pathways that might be amenable to therapy in the future. This thesis is focused on furthering our understanding of how non-syndromic renal tract malformations are genetically determined. It was hypothesised that human renal tract malformations may be caused by mutations of genes in the Uroplakin (UP) family and Sonic hedgehog (SHH), and that these genes are expressed at specific sites in tissues during normal human renal tract development. It was shown that UPIIIa, a gene expressed in early human development, is mutated in a subset of patients with severe bilateral renal adysplasia. However, no definitive evidence was found that UPII mutations cause renal tract malformations, although variants in this gene might be a rare predisposing factor. Furthermore, no support was found for SHH mutations in human persistent cloaca, although UPIIIa mutations are occasionally associated with this condition. The expression patterns of SHH signalling proteins in normal human renal tract development is consistent with a variety of signalling modes, namely epithelial-to-epithelium canonical signalling in the cloaca, epithelial-to- mesenchyme canonical signalling in the urogenital sinus and epithelial-to-epithelium non-canonical signalling in kidney medullary collecting ducts. The discovery of mutations in children with renal tract malformations will provide families with long-sought explanations regarding the pathogenesis of disease and may also have implications for genetic counselling. The proposed studies will also shed light on the cell biology of normal human renal tract development.


Complete dynamic control flow is a fundamental kind of execution profile about program executions with a wide range of applications. Tracing the dynamic control flow of program executions for a brief period easily generates a trace consisting of billions of control flow events. The number of events in such a trace is large, making both path tracing and path querying to incur significant slowdowns. A major class of path tracing techniques is to design novel trace representations that can be generated efficiently, and encode the inputted sequences of such events so that the inputted sequences are still derivable from the encoded and smaller representations. The control flow semantics in such representations have, however, become obscure, which makes implementing path queries on such a representation inefficient and the design of such queries complicated. We propose a novel two-phase path tracing framework—Hierarchical Program Path (HPP)—to model the complete dynamic control flow of an arbitrary number of executions of a program. In Phase 1, HPP monitors each execution, and efficiently generates a stream of events, namely HPPTree, representing a novel tree-based representation of control flow for each thread of control in the execution. In Phase 2, given a set of such event streams, HPP identifies all the equivalent instances of the same exercised interprocedural path in all the corresponding HPPTree instances, and represents each such equivalent set of paths with a single subgraph, resulting in our compositional graph-based trace representation, namely, HPPDAG. Thus, an HPPDAG instance has the potential to be significantly smaller in size than the corresponding HPPTree instances, and still completely preserves the control flow semantics of the traced executions. Control flow queries over all the traced executions can also be directly performed on the single HPPDAG instance instead of separately processing the trace representation of each execution followed by aggregating their results. We validate HPP using the SPLASH2 and SPECint 2006 benchmarks. Compared to the existing technique, named BLPT (Ball-Larus-based Path Tracing), HPP generates significantly smaller trace representations and incurs fewer slowdowns to the native executions in online tracing of Phase 1. The HPPDAG instances generated in Phase 2 are significantly smaller than their corresponding BLPT and HPPTree traces. We show that HPPDAG supports efficient backtrace querying, which is a representative path query based on complete control flow trace. Finally, we illustrate the ease of use of HPPDAG by building a novel and highly efficient path profiling technique to demonstrate the applicability of HPPDAG.


N'-nitrosonornicotine (NNN) is a strong carcinogen present in unburned tobacco and cigarette smoke. We here analyze data obtained in two studies, in which a biomarker of exposure to NNN--the sum of NNN and its pyridine-N-glucuronide, called total NNN--was quantified in the urine of people who had stopped smoking and used various nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) products. In 13 of 34 nicotine gum or lozenge users from both studies, total NNN at one or more time points after biochemically confirmed smoking cessation was comparable with, or considerably higher than, the baseline levels. For most of the subjects who used the nicotine patch as a smoking cessation aid, urinary total NNN at all post-quit time points was <37% of their mean baseline levels. These results indicate that endogenous formation of significant amounts of NNN may occur sporadically in some users of oral NRT. Given the carcinogenicity of NNN and the frequent use of nicotine gum as a smoking cessation aid, further studies are needed so that preventive measures can be developed.


Summary Referrals (particularly natal female) to gender identity clinics have increased significantly in recent years. Understanding the reasons for this increase, and how to respond, is hampered by a politically charged debate regarding gender identity. This article starts with a discussion of the so-called 'affirmative approach' to gender dysphoria and considers the implications of the Memorandum of Understanding on conversion therapy. I then say something about the relationship between gender dysphoria and the developmental problems that are characteristic of adolescence. Finally, I outline what changes to the current approach are needed to do our best to ensure these patients receive the appropriate treatment.


Pupil capture is a rare complication in posterior chamber intraocular lens implantation. Among 259 eyes with PC IOLs, pupil capture was noted in 6 eyes (2.3%), all J-loop planar lenses (6/119 or 5%), while none of the other 140 eyes with angled or modified J-loop lenses had pupil capture. The complication was successfully corrected by a loop compression maneuver through the sclera, and the patients had visual acuities over 1.0 on follow-up. Based on clinical observations and an experimental model, it was presumed that the arching forward of planar lenses could be the major cause of pupil capture.


Purpose
Health literacy is a key international public health goal. Conceptualising health literacy as an asset highlights the importance of fostering a health literate youth for the benefit of future generations, yet research has predominantly focused on examining adults' and older adolescents' health literacy. This presents a gap for child-centred studies with younger populations. The purpose of this paper is to report the findings from a qualitative study that explored health literacy, in a nutrition context (i.e. nutrition literacy), from primary school children's perspectives.

Design/methodology/approach
The study examined children's experiences in accessing, understanding and interacting with nutrition information. In doing so, the research employed a socio-ecological framework to understand facilitators and barriers that can influence children's nutrition literacy. Preadolescent boys and girls aged 11–12 years were invited to take part in the study. At the time of recruitment, students were attending one of three state government schools in a socioeconomically disadvantaged region of metropolitan South Australia. A series of focus groups and individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with 38 participants. Interview data were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed using thematic techniques.

Findings
Children demonstrated that they accessed and interacted with a variety of sources of nutrition information. Nutrition understandings were derived from the home, school and media environments. Parents and teachers were cited as key influences on children's interactions with nutrition information and children particularly emphasised the trust placed in their teachers as health "experts." While the home and school environments emerged as potential settings to develop children's nutrition literacy skills, the children's narratives also alluded to potential barriers surrounding nutrition literacy.

Originality/value
This study provides further insight into children's nutrition literacy. While functional nutrition literacy remains a fundamental starting point, children are interested in opportunities to develop more interactive skills, such as those related to cooking. Opportunities also exist to foster more critical competencies. This research thereby highlights the importance of more integrated strategies to promote nutrition literacy among this population group across multiple settings.


This paper reviews current cloud computing business models and presents proposals on how organisations can achieve sustainability by adopting appropriate models. Using the Jericho Forum's Cloud Cube Model (CCM), we classify cloud computing business models into eight types: (1) Service Provider and Service Orientation; (2) Support and Services Contracts; (3) In-House Private Clouds; (4) All-In-One Enterprise Cloud; (5) One-Stop Resources and Services; (6) Government Funding; (7) Venture Capitals; and (8) Entertainment and Social Networking. We newly propose the Hexagon Model that includes six key elements for sustainability based on Sun Tzu's Art of War and literature review, and the sixth factor is rated based on case studies and peer reviews. Areas occupied in the Hexagon can represent strengths and weaknesses of a cloud business, and several cases are presented with rationale explained. Apart from the qualitative approach, the quantitative approach we use is the Capital Asset Pricing Model and Modern Portfolio Theory, both of which aim computing organisational sustainability and predict how well an organisation can perform. The OMII-UK data is used to demonstrate sustainability and study the impact on cloud businesses, and is presented by statistical computation, 3D visualisation and the Hexagon Model. We believe that adopting an appropriate cloud computing business model will help organisations investing in this technology to stand firm at all times.


This study examines riparian vegetation cover changes along ephemeral channels due to the emplacement of the Central Arizona Project (CAP) canal. Two research questions examined are the following: (1) How has riparian vegetation changed over the course of twenty-eight years due to altered flow conditions? (2) How has channel morphology affected changes in vegetation cover? Five Landsat TM images acquired in 1982, 1989, 1996, 2003, and 2010 were classified. The average change of vegetation cover per 0.5-km section over the twenty-eight-year period is approximately 100,436 m2 over 25.5-km length of the canal on the upstream section. In addition, the total amount of vegetation cover increase in the twenty-eight years over the 25.5-km length of the canal is approximately 5,122,239 m2. Larger streams experienced a greater increase in vegetation cover upslope than smaller streams. In addition, streams of similar width dimensions that were completely closed off resulted in greater vegetation cover than streams that were semiconnected. A significant relationship between changes in vegetation green-up and channel widths was examined. Results from this study suggest that there is a quasi-linear relationship between channel widths and increases in vegetation cover for altered and impounded channels due to the presence of the CAP canal.


Objectives: Cigarette consumption has become global threat to both smokers and organizations. However, little is known about organizational smoking and vaping policies, and their influence to employees' smoking and vaping behavior. Methods: We collected data from 456 employed smokers, vapers, and/or dual users. Smoking and/or vaping behavior, along with perceived organizational smoking/vaping policies were examined. Results: Vapers reported perceiving more stringent smoking policy, while vapers who reported having workplace vaping policies perceived having generally more stringent vaping policy. Most smokers and vapers are well informed about smoking policy; however, a considerable portion of them do not have a good understanding about organizational vaping policy. Conclusions: Organizations should not consider smoking and vaping to be the same when setting policy. Employers should ensure that organizational vaping policies are present and clear to all employees.


This study presents a compromise approach to augmentation of response surface (RS) designs to achieve the desired level of accuracy. RS are frequently used as surrogate models in multidisciplinary design optimization of complex mechanical systems. Augmentation is necessitated by the high computational expense typically associated with each function evaluation. As a result previous results from lower fidelity models are incorporated into the higher fidelity RS designs. The compromise approach yields higher quality parametric polynomial response surface approximations than traditional augmentation. Based on the D-optimality criterion as a measure of RS design quality, the method simultaneously considers several polynomial models during the RS design, resulting in good quality designs for all models under consideration, as opposed to good quality designs only for lower order models as in the case of traditional augmentation. Several numerical and an engineering example are presented to illustrate the efficacy of the approach.Copyright © 2005 by ASME


Systematic reviews can provide evidence that informs clinical practice. However, in order to allow valid comparisons, researchers, reviewers and clinicians need to know what was done, and how similar or different study populations were (clinical heterogeneity). The importance of considering clinical heterogeneity when comparing data sets becomes evident when considering the topical issue of central sensitisation in tendinopathy. Central sensitisation refers to the increased responsiveness of the central nervous system.1 Central sensitisation encompasses such features as altered sensory processing in the brain, malfunctioning of descending antinociceptive mechanisms, and increased activity of pain facilitatory pathways, among others.2 Central sensitisation is frequently present in various chronic musculoskeletal pain disorders, including chronic low back pain,3 and rheumatoid arthritis.4 A recent systematic review reported the presence of central sensitisation in tendinopathy; however, these findings were based mainly on upper limb tendons, so data cannot be generalised to the lower limb.5 In fact, it is often argued that unlike upper limb tendinopathy, individuals with lower limb tendinopathy do not display evidence of central sensitisation. There is evidence to support this assertion, with studies appearing to confirm the absence of central sensitisation in the lower …


A flowsheet for a novel GANEX (Grouped ActiNide EXtraction) process has been tested in a spiked flowsheet trial in a 32 stage plutonium-active centrifugal contactor rig with a simulant feed that contained 10 g/L plutonium as well as some fission products and other transuranic actinides. The solvent system used was a combination of 0.2 mol/L N,N,N',N'-tetraoctyl diglycolamide (TODGA) and 0.5 mol/L N,N'-(dimethyl-N,N'-dioctylhexylethoxy-malonamide (DMDOHEMA) in a kerosene diluent that co-extracted actinides and lanthanides. Actinides were subsequently selectively co-stripped away from the lanthanides using a sulphonated and, therefore, hydrophilic bis-triazinyl pyridine (BTP) complexant in conjunction with acetohydroxamic acid (AHA). Plutonium and americium recoveries were high with decontamination factors across the strip contactors of ˜14,000 and ˜390, respectively. However, approximately 30% of neptunium was lost to the aqueous raffinate which was due to recycling within the first extract-scrub section causing a large build-up of neptunium. Some accumulation of strontium was also observed but in this case it was fully directed to the raffinate stream. In the stripping section, a small fraction of europium (taken as a model lanthanide ion), ca. 7%, was found in the actinide product stream. Modelling of selected data using the PAREX code has shown that even with a relatively simplistic treatment, reasonable agreement between modelling and experiment can be obtained, giving confidence in the use of modelling to refine the GANEX flowsheet design prior to further testing with irradiated fast reactor fuel.


Pathogenic bacteria utilise a number of mechanisms to cause disease in human hosts. Bacterial pathogens express a wide range of molecules that bind host cell targets to facilitate a variety of different host responses. The molecular strategies used by bacteria to interact with the host can be unique to specific pathogens or conserved across several different species. A key to fighting bacterial disease is the identification and characterisation of all these different strategies. The availability of complete genome sequences for several bacterial pathogens coupled with bioinformatics will lead to significant advances toward this goal.


LEUNG: Plaque Rupture and Stabilization in Coronary Artery: Current Concepts and Therapeutic Implications. Rupture of an atherosclerotic plaque has become the most important mechanism leading to acute coronary syndrome. A plaque that is prone to rupture has certain characteristic structural, cellular and molecular features, all of which indicate a state of active inflammation within the plaque. The vulnerability of a plaque to rupturing is related to multiple factors including chronic inflammation or infection, oxidative stress, and mechanical and haemodynamic stresses. Once a plaque ruptures, thrombus formation occurs, which can be occlusive or non-occlusive, depending on the thrombogenic and haemodynamic factors. Plaque stabilization is a concept of how to prevent plaque rupture. Lipid-lowering drugs have been investigated and found to have various stabilizing effects including change of plaque composition, improvement in endothelial function, and benefit in thrombosis and fibrinolysis. Other therapies also play their own roles, but are less studied. Major clinical trials on lipid-lowering drugs, especially those published recently, have given important support to this concept. We are going to see in the near future further advances in the understanding, detection and treatment of plaque rupture. (J HK Coll Cardiol 2001;9:45-54)


Over-parameterized residual networks (ResNets) are amongst the most successful convolutional neural architectures for image processing. Here we study their properties through their Gaussian Process and Neural Tangent kernels. We derive explicit formulas for these kernels, analyze their spectra, and provide bounds on their implied condition numbers. Our results indicate that (1) with ReLU activation, the eigenvalues of these residual kernels decay polynomially at a similar rate compared to the same kernels when skip connections are not used, thus maintaining a similar frequency bias; (2) however, residual kernels are more locally biased. Our analysis further shows that the matrices obtained by these residual kernels yield favorable condition numbers at finite depths than those obtained without the skip connections, enabling therefore faster convergence of training with gradient descent.


This study investigated the effects of immigration and home language on academic achievement over time. Using data from Ontario's Assessments of Reading, Writing and Mathematics administered to the same students in Grades 3 and 6, logistic regression was used to predict if students achieved proficiency in Grade 6 if they were not proficient in Grade 3. The results indicate that home language or interactions with home language are significant in most cases. In addition, students who speak a language other than or in addition to English at home are, in general, a little more likely to be proficient at Grade 6. Most students who were born outside of Canada were significantly more likely than students born in Canada to stay or become proficient in Reading, Writing, and Mathematics by Grade 6. These results highlight the importance of considering the enormous heterogeneity of immigrants' experiences when studying the effects of immigration on academic performance and the dire limitations of datasets that do not collect such data.


Software Defined Radios (SDRs) are increasingly attractive to replace common hardware solutions. Current SDRs are mostly part of communication systems using hardware front ends containing DSPs or FPGAs. Processing on CPUs only is not common due to the huge amount of processing resources required. Most current CPUs are not able to handle this. The goal is to minimize receiver specific hardware components. At the best an antenna and A/D-converter are necessary only for a flexible and cost-effective solution. We present a different approach to realize SDR-receivers on desktop computers optimized for multi-core CPUs and already available General Purpose Graphics Processing Unit (GPGPU). In addition, the processing software is scalable to guarantee real-time performance at varying processing resources. The novel scalable software defined FM-radio receiver is able to control the output quality related to the resource consumption. We focus on a two-folded approach. On the one hand we distribute the processing algorithms over different available processing units, like CPUs or GPGPUs. On the other hand we use Resource-quality scalable algorithms which can be adapted to the available resources.


Feinstein's analysis of William James's crisis of vocation and accompanying maladies of the body and spirit. While John O. King's work is more daring in interpretation and wider in scope-seeking to erect a new paradigm for American Studies and ranging from the Puritan confessionals to close readings of Josiah Royce, James J. Putnam, and Max Weber-it also evaluates the relationship between Henry James, Sr., and William James. This review will, therefore, in order to highlight the methodological and evidentiary importance of these books, focus upon their authors' respective evaluations of William James, his conflict with his father, his vocational and emotional crises, and the bearing of these trials upon his later psychological and philosophical work. The phylogeny of James family v,4)cational conflict and accompanying neurosis was recapitulated in the ontogeny of William James. The roots of this conflict, as carefully traced by Feinstein, began with the scion of the family, William James of Albany. Calvinistic in his religion and attitude, a self-made and successful businessman, William of Albany sought to force his son Henry into the study of law. A struggle of immense psychic proportions ensued, as Henry alternatively acceded to and broke from his father's iron will. That "will" was deeply imbricated with a double meaning, at once representative of the father's will or desire to direct his son's vocational future; and also emblematic of the legal document that eventually severed the son from the family fortune. The will of the


Article History: Received 11, November, 2014 Received in revised form 18, November, 2014 Accepted 14, December, 2014 Published online 28, December, 2014 Medicinal plants are the oldest known health-care products. Their importance is still growing although it varies depending on ethnological, medical and historical background of each country. From Vedic to scientific records of traditional knowledge, there are enough evidences that plants served as main medicinal source for rural populace. The medicinal knowledge and practice are passed down entirely through oral tradition and personal experience. The Chenab valley of Jammu and Kashmir is rich in flora with many rare herbs that have been used by local people since antiquity. These natural medicines renders a lot of services to the community by curing many of diseases like common cold, influenza, fever, cough, asthma, head and body aches, constipation, dysentery, diarrhea, ulcers, abdominal pain, skin infections, throat infections, impotence, allergies, wounds and burns, etc. Hence the present study is to create general awareness among the people regarding the presence of wide variety of medicinal flora in Chenab Valley of Jammu and Kashmir and its traditional use along with allopathic medicines.


In wireless radio communication, symbol rate estimation is very important to modulation signal recognizing, especially in soft radio and wireless sense network etc. Meanwhile, it is very difficult to get high correct rate of estimation. In this paper, we first change signal into pulse sequence and analyze its spectrum. Then wavelet transform is applied to deal with signal and arrive to spectrum pulse sequence and pass through low filter, then estimate the frequency value at maximum amplitude value as symbol rate. Simulation is be done to different modulated signal at different SNR. Simulation results show that the symbol rate estimation based on wavelet transform is efficient and correct rate of estimate is high at SNR over some value.


Tangible interaction has shown to be beneficial in a wide variety of scenarios since it provides more direct manipulation and haptic feedback. Further, inherently three-dimensional information is represented more naturally by a 3D object than by a flat picture on a screen. Yet, today's tangibles have often pre-defined form factors and limited input and output facilities. To overcome this issue, the combination of projection and depth cameras is used as a fast and flexible way of non-intrusively adding input and output to tangibles. However, tangibles are often quite small and hence the space for output and interaction on their surface is limited. Therefore, we propose FlowPut: an environment-aware framework that utilizes the space available on and around a tangible object for projected visual output. By means of an optimization-based layout approach, FlowPut considers the environment of the objects to avoid interference between projection and real-world objects. Moreover, we contribute an occlusion resilient object recognition and tracking for tangible objects based on their 3D model and a point-cloud based multi-touch detection, that allows sensing touches also on the side of a tangible. Flowput is validated through a series of technical experiments, a user study, and two example applications.


A number of pulmonary conditions producing hypoxemia may affect patients with chronic liver disease. Among these conditions, hepatopulmonary syndrome (HPS) is common, with the estimated prevalence of HPS among patients with end-stage liver disease ranging from 4% to 29%. HPS is considered present when the triad of liver dysfunction and/or portal hypertension, intrapulmonary vascular dilatation, and abnormal arterial oxygenation are noted in the absence of intrinsic cardiopulmonary disease. The pathogenesis of HPS is still unclear but is likely related to the effects of nitrous oxide and other vasoactive substances on the pulmonary vascular endothelium. HPS primarily affects the precapillary arterioles and capillaries in the lung bases, producing dilation of these vessels. These dilated vessels may produce hypoxemia through a combination of several mechanisms, including true anatomic shunts, ventilation-perfusion mismatch, and diffusion-perfusion defects. Chest radiographic imaging findings of HPS may be subtle and primarily consist of basilar reticular and nodular opacities. Thoracic CT often shows dilated peripheral pulmonary arteries with normal central pulmonary arteries. Pulmonary angiography may show dilated peripheral pulmonary arteries and early venous filling. 99mTechnetium-labeled macroaggregated albumin scans may show systemic embolization of radioactive tracer. Treatment of HPS consists of supplemental oxygen and, in severe cases, orthotopic liver transplantation.


INTRODUCTION Neurological illness may lead to considerable disability with consequent social, work and family repercussions. Many patients with chronic neurological disorders consider it essential to maintain good doctor-patient relationships so as to be able to adapt to and face their disabilities. The patient needs to be understood, because he believes that since the doctor understands his symptoms, he will be able to establish a diagnosis and therapeutic approach. He also needs to be able to understand the information that the neurologist gives him. Therefore the doctor should use simple language with no terminology which may be difficult to understand. DEVELOPMENT In this study we analyze the characteristics of the doctor-patient relationship in neurological disorders affecting young people, of which multiple sclerosis is the most representative, and in elderly patients in whom Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases are the commonest. We also consider important aspects of the doctor-patient relationship, such as the style and empathy of the neurologist, and also the significance of the neurological disorder for the patient and his family. CONCLUSION It is important that both the patient and his doctor understand what each expects of the other, so as to establish a satisfactory relationship between them.


- More evidence has become available concerning the sexual transmission of Zika virus and viral shedding in semen, which has led to the expansion of international guidelines for prevention of sexual transmission; Dutch guidelines have not been altered.- Internationally, the use of condoms during sex or sexual abstinence is advised for the duration of the pregnancy. Furthermore, when actively trying to conceive one should use a condom for six months.- In the Dutch guidelines, men who have visited a Zika virus epidemic area are advised to use a condom for 2 months upon return, irrespective of their partner possibly being pregnant or their wish to conceive.- Based on reports to the World Health Organisation and patient reports, the serial interval between disease onsets of both sexual partners is 4-44 days (median: 15).- Zika virus RNA is often no longer detectable in semen 2-3 months after disease onset.- International guidelines are based on the maximum detection period of Zika virus RNA and on virus isolation. Dutch prevention guidelines, on the other hand, are based on the longest serial interval known for sexual transmission (44 days).- Detection of Zika virus RNA in semen does not give a definitive answer on contagiousness. Currently, following the Dutch prevention advice is the best option in order to prevent sexual transmission.


The strain tunable exchange bias has attracted much attention due to its practical applications in flexible and wearable spintronic devices. Here, the flexible epitaxial NiMn/γ′-Fe4N bilayers are deposited by facing-target reactive sputtering. The maximum strain-induced change ratios of exchange bias field HEB and coercivity HC (|ΔHEB/HEB| and |ΔHC/HC|) are 51% and 22%, respectively. A large strain-induced |ΔHEB/HEB| appears in a thicker ferromagnetic layer, but a large |ΔHC/HC|) appears in a thinner ferromagnetic layer. At a compressive strain, the antiferromagnetic anisotropy of the tetragonal NiMn layer increases, resulting in an increased HC of NiMn/γ′-Fe4N bilayers. The bending-strain induced changes of anisotropy magnetoresistance and planar Hall resistance are also observed at low magnetic fields. The bending-strain tailored magnetic properties can be ascribed to the distributions of ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic anisotropies.


We describe the transmission characteristics of periodic magneto-optical and dielectric multilayer films under a variable magnetic field. The transmission characteristics of the films vary, depending on the magnetically induced permittivity in the magneto-optical layer. The films transmit or reflect light according to whether the magnetic field is on or off, which means that they work as an optical switch driven by the magnetic field. The transmittance and the Faraday rotation of the films depend on the magnetization, which indicates that the films operate as magnetic-field sensors.


Detection techniques for massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) have gained a lot of attention in both academia and industry. Detection techniques have a significant impact on the massive MIMO receivers' performance and complexity. Although a plethora of research is conducted using the classical detection theory and techniques, the performance is deteriorated when the ratio between the numbers of antennas and users is relatively small. In addition, most of classical detection techniques are suffering from severe performance loss and/or high computational complexity in real channel scenarios. Therefore, there is a significant room for fundamental research contributions in data detection based on the deep learning (DL) approach. DL architectures can be exploited to provide optimal performance with similar complexity of conventional detection techniques. This paper aims to provide insights on DL based detectors to a generalist of wireless communications. We garner the DL based massive MIMO detectors and classify them so that a reader can find the differences between various architectures with a wider range of potential solutions and variations. In this paper, we discuss the performance-complexity profile, pros and cons, and implementation stiffness of each DL based detector's architecture. Detection in cell-free massive MIMO is also presented. Challenges and our perspectives for future research directions are also discussed. This article is not meant to be a survey of a mature-subject, but rather serve as a catalyst to encourage more DL research in massive MIMO.


The Rio Grande Rift and Basin and Range are two of the most widely studied extensional provinces in the world, yet thermochronologic data allowing for the temporal constraint of their evolution remains sparse in southern New Mexico where the two provinces physiographically blend. Apatite (U-Th)/He thermochronologic (AHe) methods were applied to 24 apatite grains from six samples from footwalls of fault-block uplifts across southern New Mexico (the Burro Mountains, Cookes Range, Caballo Mountains, and the San Andres Mountains) in order to investigate possible differences in timing of extension between the Basin and Range and Rio Grande Rift. AHe ages range from 6.2 ± 0.4 Ma to 31.8 ± 1.1 Ma across all sample locations. Five out of six samples have standard deviation of <20% for all crystals from each sample. Effective uranium concentration (eU)-age correlations are observed in samples from the San Andres and Burro Mountains but are not detected in Cookes or Caballo samples. Thermal history models were generated for each sample in the program HeFTy that combine existing apatite fission-track and U-Pb ages where possible, as well as new AHe ages. This will allow for the evaluation of cooling trends and timing of active faulting across the southern Rift and easternmost Basin and Range. Future work will include generating additional AHe data and zircon (U-Th/He) data to better refine time-temperature models for additional locations across southern New Mexico.


We report a 62-year-old man with mild fever, headache and acute visual loss in his right eye due to anterior ischaemic optic neuropathy (AION), followed a few days later by pain in the legs and left arm associated with numbness and weakness. Giant cell arteritis complicated by AION was suspected at the beginning and high-dose oral glucocorticoids were started. However, on the basis of the past medical history of nasal polyposis, asthma, and hypereosynophilia as well as of further investigations (biopsy of the nasal mucosa showing granulomatous inflammation with a rich eosinophilic infiltrate, electromyography demonstrating, mononeuritis multiplex and positive p-ANCA), eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis (EGPA), previously known as Churg-Strauss syndrome, was diagnosed. Because visual acuity in the right eye deteriorated despite glucocorticoid therapy, pulse intravenous cyclophosphamide was started, subsequently replaced by oral azathioprine, while prednisone was slowly tapered. This treatment led to gradual improvement of the neurological symptoms, whereas the right visual impairment remained unchanged. EGPA-related AION is an uncommon lesion that is probably due to vasculitic involvement of posterior ciliary and/or chorioretinal arteries. The prognosis of established AION is poor for the affected eye, even when glucocorticoid treatment is started immediately. However, early recognition of AION and prompt aggressive treatment with high-dose glucocorticoids plus cyclophosphamide can prevent visual loss in the unaffected eye.


A method of the mathematical modeling of the spinning disk atomization process as a whole, from the film flow on a rotating disk to the drop formation and detachment from the ends of the ligaments spiralling out of the disk's rim, is formulated and the key results illustrating its implementation are described. Being one of the most efficient nozzle-free atomization techniques, spinning disk atomization is used in many applications, ranging from metallurgy to pharmaceutical industry, but until now its design and optimization remain empirical which is time consuming and costly. In the present work, the entire spinning disk atomization process is, for the first time, modelled mathematically by (a) utilizing all known analytic results regarding its elements, notably the film flow on the disk and the dynamics of outgoing spiral jets, where the flow description can be simplified asymptotically and (b) using the full-scale numerical simulation of the three-dimensional unsteady free-boundary flow in the transition zone near the disk's rim which brings these elements together. The results illustrating the developed modeling approach reveal some previously unreported qualitative features of the spinning disk atomization process, such as the drift of the outgoing ligaments with respect to the disk, and elucidate the influence of physical factors on the size distribution of the drops and, where this is the case, satellite droplets. The comparison of the obtained results with available experimental data confirms the validity of the assumptions used in the modeling.


This paper examines the effect of the introduction of labels for products of biotechnology on the markets for GM, conventional, and organic food products. In addition, the paper analyzes the market and welfare effects of the introduction of consumer-oriented, second-generation GM products. Analytical results show that while a no-labeling regime is generally beneficial for the organic sector, when segregation costs are sufficiently high the introduction of labels for GM products can enhance the consumption share and growth of the organic sector while driving the conventional products out of the market. The analysis also reveals that the introduction of the consumer-oriented GM products can change the nature of the relationship between GM and conventional and organic products from one of vertical to one of horizontal product differentiation and can enhance both consumer welfare and the market acceptance and growth of agricultural biotechnology. When the value consumers place on the new product is sufficiently high, the introduction of the consumer-oriented GM products can drive the first-generation of GM products and their conventional counterparts out of the market while reducing the consumer demand for organic food. Overall, the market and welfare effects of GM labeling and the introduction of the consumer-oriented GM products are determined by the size of marketing and segregation costs under labeling of GM products, the level of consumer aversion to genetic engineering, the production share of the GM product in the no-labeling case, the structure of the agricultural biotechnology sector, and the benefits consumers perceive from the second-generation of GM products.


INTRODUCTION
In the context of shortfalls in rural general surgeon supply, this research aims to explore why rural general surgical Fellows returned and remained after fellowship at a single rural centre in Victoria, Australia. Fellowship positions post achievement of Fellowship of the Australasian College of Surgeons are traditionally not funded by government because they currently fall outside the accredited rural training post funding provided by the federal government. This article aims to explore if fellowship positions can be an important part in sustaining the rural general surgery workforce.

METHODS
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine former general surgery Fellows from a single rural Australian institution. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, coded and themed to undertake analysis according to thematic analysis.

RESULTS
This research demonstrates that consultant rural general surgeons can be recruited from a fellowship year when emphasis is placed on: (1) creating a positive workplace culture with safe working hours, (2) ensuring diversification of the general surgical case mix, (3) facilitating opportunities for schooling and work for the surgeon's family, and (4) preferentially selecting for those who identify as rural general surgeons. Rural towns can effectively recruit general surgeons when families are supported with career and school opportunities, and the newly qualified surgeon can initially commit to a 12-month position so that opportunities can be assessed by the entire family unit. Fellowship positions (post completion of general surgical training) allow young surgeons to 'try before they buy' prior to moving to a rural area.

CONCLUSION
Ensuring a sustainable general surgical workforce in a rural community requires employee and surgical leadership to ensure a collaborative and progressive culture, which offers work diversity, supports the family lifestyle and petitions for selecting those who embody the rural general surgeon identity. Post-fellowship positions can enable young general surgeons to have exposure to the realities of a rural lifestyle, which is likely to have a positive effect on recruitment. Due to the return investment of the fellowship program, we propose that the federal government should look at funding post-fellowship positions to improve rural recruitment.


Introduction: Periodically updated (from 23 to 28 allergens), the European baseline series (EBS), first introduced in France in 1980, is an indispensable tool for the exploration of contact allergy. Patients with multiple contact allergies, also referred to as polysensitized, are more frequent than predicted from prevalence of single sensitivities.
Observations: There were three cases of patch tests carried out respectively in a 3 ½ years, a 37 year old woman and a man of 53 years. All three patients had polysensitization six contact allergens.
Discussion: This is a first study conducted in Benin on allergenic polysensitization. These three cases show that polysensitization can be seen in the child as well as the adult on the one hand, and in both sexes on the other.


The paper presents three different reconstructions of the 1980s boom of game theory and its rise to the present status of indispensable tool-box for modern economics. The first story focuses on the Nash refinements literature and on the development of Bayesian games. The second emphasizes the role of antitrust case law, and in particular of the rehabilitation, via game theory, of some traditional antitrust prohibitions and limitations which had been challenged by the Chicago approach. The third story centers on the wealth of issues classifiable under the general headline of "mechanism design" and on the game theoretical tools and methods which have been applied to tackle them. The bottom lines are, first, that the three stories need not be viewed as conflicting, but rather as complementary, and, second, that in all stories a central role has been played by John Harsanyi and Bayesian decision theory.


The renin-angiotensin system may effect blood pressure regulation by enhancing sympathetic activity. Angiotensin II given in subpressor doses has been shown to enhance the vasoconstrictive effect of norepinephrine in several animal models. However, the effects of subpressor doses of angiotensin II on the vasoconstrictor effects of norepinephrine have not been reported in humans. We found that angiotensin II, given in subpressor doses, potentiates the vascular response of norepinephrine in normotensive and hypertensive male subjects. These results demonstrate the important inter-relationship of the renin-angiotensin system to the sympathetic nervous system in normal and essential hypertensive man.


Influence of viral liver diseases on the occurrence of azathioprine hepatitis was evaluated in 21 kidney transplant recipients. Diagnosis of azathioprine hepatitis was always based on jaundice, which disappeared after azathioprine withdrawal in 18 patients and after azathioprine dose reduction in 3 patients. Histopathological diagnosis of azathioprine toxicity was ascertained in 14 patients. Rechallenge with azathioprine performed in 4 patients, within 2-4 months after the first jaundice episode, resulted in relapse of jaundice in all cases. Viral hepatitis B virus and hepatitis C markers were present in all 20 tested patients (serum hepatitis B surface antigen in 6 patients and anti-HCV antibodies in 17 patients). Biopsy-proven chronic hepatitis was observed in 18 patients, including 14 chronic active hepatitis, 3 chronic persistent hepatitis and cirrhosis in 1. In kidney transplant recipients, azathioprine hepatitis seems to be facilitated or induced by hepatitis B virus or hepatitis C virus chronic hepatitis. Azathioprine reduction or withdrawal should therefore be combined with the diagnostic evaluation and the treatment of viral liver diseases.