ABSTRACT Background: The neurobiological basis of increased risk of dementia in stroke patients is unclear, though there are several related pathological changes, including white matter hyperintensities (WMH), and medial temporal atrophy. Subcortical gray matter structures have also been implicated in dementia resulting from vascular pathology, particularly vascular dementia. This study aimed to investigate the contribution of changes in subcortical gray matter structures to post-stroke dementia (PSD). Methods: T1- and T2-weighted images and T2-weighted fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) images were obtained on a 3-Tesla magnetic resonance (MR) system, in four groups aged over 75 years: post-stroke with dementia (PSD; 8), post-stroke no dementia (PSnoD; 33), Alzheimer's disease (AD; 26) and controls (30). Automated software was used to measure the volume of thalamus, putamen, caudate nucleus, and hippocampus as well as total WMH volume. The number of subcortical lacunes was also counted. Results: The number of caudate lacunes was higher in the PSnoD group, compared with AD (p = 0.029) and controls (p = 0.019). The putamen volume was smaller in the stroke and AD groups, when compared with controls. In the whole stroke group, putamen lacunes were correlated with impairment in memory (Rey test; ρ = −0.365; p = 0.031), while WMH and hippocampal volume both correlated with global dysfunction. Conclusion: Our findings implicate a variety of neurobiological substrates of dementia, such as small vessel disease and Alzheimer pathology, which develop after stroke in an old older population, with a contribution from subcortical brain structures.


Second order statistics provides a dynamic representation of a fading channel and plays an important role in the evaluation and design of the wireless communication systems. In this paper, we present a novel analytical framework for the evaluation of important second order statistical parameters, as the level crossing rate (LCR) and the average fade duration (AFD) of the amplify-and-forward multihop Rayleigh fading channel. More specifically, motivated by the fact that this channel is a cascaded one and can be modeled as the product of N fading amplitudes, we derive novel analytical expressions for the average LCR and the AFD of the product of N Rayleigh fading envelopes (or of the recently so-called NRayleigh channel). Furthermore, we derive simple and efficient closed-form approximations to the aforementioned parameters, using the multivariate Laplace approximation theorem. It is shown that our general results reduce to the corresponding ones of the specific dual-hop case, previously published. Numerical and computer simulation examples verify the accuracy of the presented mathematical analysis and show the tightness of the proposed approximations.


Purpose
In this paper, the authors aim to explore the relationship between the concepts of Industry 4.0 and circular economy (CE) as a contribution to the management decision on emerging countries. By analyzing the trends of scientific production to ascertain the interface of both constructs, the purpose of this paper is to identify limitations for Industry 4.0 and CE implementation in Brazil, as well to present an original framework and strategic pathways to overcome limitations for emerging countries.

Design/methodology/approach
Supported in the Brazilian case, the authors draw a framework using the structuralism approach to indicate pathways for the strategic positioning of emerging economies that consider their limitation and potential for competitive advantage. By understanding country-related limitations such as social and economic contingencies, the authors conceive a structure of implications for Brazil's capacity to develop CE in the digital era.

Findings
Results show that Brazil has a reasonable, institutional and stable environment, as well as strong regulatory policies for solid waste that can stimulate CE in the country. However, it requires more communication between actors, especially public and private institutions, performing long-range relationships. Also, the country requires consolidation of industrial policies and investments in the remanufacturing process in the supply chain. Likewise, despite Brazil's ability to take advantage of CE's benefits, the country presents a huge lack of qualification to fulfill the competences that the digitization process demands. Economically, Brazil has been fighting against an economic crisis since 2014 that has limited general investments, especially in the industrial sector. Industry presents low performance and decreasing GDP participation, which leads to constant overseas production transfer as a consequence of the workforce's high costs.

Research limitations/implications
The authors can affirm that Brazil is far behind developed countries in searching for the capacity to provide CE through technological industrial change. The main problems are related to the lack of articulation of public and private spheres to promote new digital business models. Therefore, the structured framework enables managers and public agents to provide solutions and to properly address supply chain bottlenecks in emerging economies.

Originality/value
Exploring the relationship between the concepts of Industry 4.0 and CE through the specific lens of the structuralist method, this work can contribute to the management decision on emerging countries, looking into four important perspectives: political, economic, social and technological.


fourteenth week of pregnancy, and a platelet count at that time showed 15,000 platelets per c.mm., and at no time during the remainder of the pregnancy did the count rise above 163,000 per c.mm. At delivery the count was 76,000 per c.mm., and yet despite a perineal laceration there was no undue loss and the puerperium was uneventful. The infant's platelet count at the end of the first week was 332,000 per c.mm., and the mother's count gradually returned to normal over the ensuing 6 months. At no time did the patient have any specific treatment for her purpuric condition. It appears, therefore, that (1) the figures quoted by Dr. Chalmers are not all cases of true purpura, and (2) there is nothing in the available literature to support the statement that the mortality rate is high or to provide any basis for dogmatic principles of treatment.-I am, etc.,


The use of bending as self forming process allows the realization of shape-resistant systems, such as grid shell structures. Here, a numerical method for optimisation of the cross-section of actively bent structures is introduced. For a given load distribution, the optimisation objective consists of normalizing the bending stresses to a given value on the entire structure. In addition, strength and geometric compatibility constraints are taken into account. The method is demonstrated by numerical examples. Further, in order to handle the large displacements involved, a co-rotational Finite Element formulation is adopted and modified to take into account the changes in stiffness that occur in the forming process of active bending systems. The modified co-rotational formulation is solved for static equilibrium using a Dynamic Relaxation scheme, and is tested against the analytical solutions of some preliminary test cases, as well as experimental results, and shown to be 'accurate'.


Restoration of individual image points by the method of least squares is investigated. We show that restorations computed point by point appear the same as global restorations produced by Fourier techniques. Moreover, parameters that are related to noise, point-spread functions, or object texture can be varied easily from pixel to pixel, allowing a flexibility that is achieved only with computational difficulty in global restoration techniques. To restore individual pixels, only a few points in their neighborhood, need to be considered, and the matrices that must be inverted are small enough for practical computation. The sizes of these matrices can be reduced especially if the blurring point-spread function has symmetries.


ABSTRACT He, L., 2020. The factors influencing green building design: A perspective from the characteristics of coastal regions. In: Gong, D.; Zhang, M., and Liu, R. (eds.), Advances in Coastal Research: Engineering, Industry, Economy, and Sustainable Development. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 106, pp. 419–422. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. China must adhere to a low-carbon development model with Chinese characteristics that focus on two aspects: the green building of family residences and a government directive for developing the overall level of the city, such as building ecological cities, low-carbon cities, and so on. Therefore, the design of green buildings in coastal areas needs to be in accordance with the characteristics of and to solve comprehensively the problems of those areas. Green building can effectively address the problems of indoor environmental protection and external environmental impact, thus solving the problems of human life and global climate change. In this study, green building design factors were analyzed, such as climate characteristics, water resource conditions, renewable energy, the geological environment, and so on. Analysis of green building design factors can make green building technology strategy suitable for coastal cities, which will point out the important concerns of green building.


Microenterprises are crucial for an economy since they have a possibility toexpand to large-scale enterprises over the time while serving as the livelihood of thepoor at present. This paper aims at identifying the potential of (i) initiatingmicroenterprises among the urban poor who do not presently engage in such activitiesand (ii) promoting the enterprises of those who have already initiated such enterprise.The study was completely based on primary data collected from a questionnaire surveyconducted in a sample of underserved settlements within the Colombo city limits. Thestudy used simple quantitative techniques based on the Statistical Package for SocialScientists. The study revealed that those who are engaged in full-time jobs do not havethe opportunity to become entrepreneurs due to lack of time for extra activities.Especially, the employment of the youth in full-time minor jobs deviate them frommicro entrepreneurial activities. As such, elderly and disabled people and women whodo not have a good educational background and those who have no strong effectivedemand in the labor market as skilled or unskilled laborers significantly engage inmicroenterprises. Such enterprises have been mostly important in the provision oflivelihood for socially marginalized people. Human capital formatted through educationand training in the labor force of the urban poor seems to be not adequate for theirsuccessful engagement in self-employment. However, a small proportion of populationin the underserved settlements has been capable of expanding their enterprises beyondthe micro-level. Finally, it can be recommended that all these categories of people in theunderserved settlements need the help of education, training and micro-financing eitherfor maintaining their enterprises as a livelihood or expanding them beyond the microlevel. Key words: Microenterprise, Urban poor, Underserved settlement


While 70% of HIV positive individuals live in sub-Saharan Africa, it is widely believed that the future of the epidemic depends on the magnitude of HIV spread in India and China, the world's most populous countries. China's 1.3 billion people are in the midst of significant social transformation, which will impact future sexual disease transmission. Soon approximately 8.5 million 'surplus men', unmarried and disproportionately poor and migrant, will come of age in China's cities and rural areas. Meanwhile, many millions of Chinese sex workers appear to represent a broad range of prices, places, and related HIV risk behaviors. Using demographic and behavioral data, this paper describes the combined effect of sexual practices, sex work, and a true male surplus on HIV transmission. Alongside a rapid increase in sexually transmitted disease incidence across developed parts of urban China, surplus men could become a significant new HIV risk group. The anticipated high sexual risk among many surplus men and injecting drug use use among a subgroup of surplus men may create bridging populations from high to low risk individuals. Prevention strategies that emphasize traditional measures – condom promotion, sex education, medical training – must be reinforced by strategies which acknowledge surplus men and sex workers. Reform within female sex worker mandatory re-education centers and site specific interventions at construction sites, military areas, or unemployment centers may hold promise in curbing HIV/sexually transmitted infections. From a sociological perspective, we believe that surplus men and sex workers will have a profound effect on the future of HIV spread in China and on the success or failure of future interventions.


Using an adenovirus-hepatitis B virus (HBV) recombinant, expression of the HBV surface antigen (HBsAg) genes was examined in various cell lines using S1 nuclease mapping and radioimmunoassay. The steady-state level of the 2.4 kb RNA encoding the large HBsAg was much greater than, or the same as, that of the 2.0 kb RNA, encoding the middle and major HBsAgs, in primate cells, but was negligible in non-primate cells, as is the case in most expression systems. According to the amount of 2.4 kb RNA expressed, cells were classified into three groups: those in which (1) the amount of 2.4 kb RNA was much greater than that of 2.0 kb RNA (HepG2 and JHH-4), (2) the amount of 2.4 kb RNA was the same as that of 2.0 kb (Hul-1, HeLa and other non-hepatic primate cells), and (3) the amount of 2.4 kb RNA was less than one-tenth of that of 2.0 kb RNA (rodent cells). Radioimmunoassay revealed that most HBsAg is located intracellularly in primate cells, but is secreted into the culture medium of rodent cells. The expression of 2.4 kb RNA was unaffected by an inhibitor of DNA synthesis in HepG2 cells, which are of human liver origin, whereas it was strongly inhibited in human non-hepatic HeLa cells.


Over the last decade, destination marketers and Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) have increasingly invested in Web 2.0 technologies as a cost-effective means of promoting destinations online, in the face of drastic marketing budgets cuts. Recent scholarly and industry research has emphasized that Web 2.0 plays an increasing role in destination marketing. However, no comprehensive appraisal of this research area has been conducted so far. To address this gap, this study conducts a quantitative literature review to examine the extent to which Web 2.0 features in destination marketing research that was published until December 2019, by identifying research topics, gaps and future directions, and designing a theory-driven agenda for future research. The study's findings indicate an increase in scholarly literature revolving around the adoption and use of Web 2.0 for destination marketing purposes. However, the emerging research field is fragmented in scope and displays several gaps. Most of the studies are descriptive in nature and a strong overarching conceptual framework that might help identify critical destination marketing problems linked to Web 2.0 technologies is missing.


Online discussions are growing as a popular, effective and reliable source of information for users because of their liveliness, flexibility and up-to-date information. Online discussions are usually developed and advanced by groups of users with various backgrounds and intents. However because of their diversities in topics and issues discussed by the users, supervised methods are not able to accurately model such dynamic conditions. In this paper, we propose a novel unsupervised generative model to derive aspect-action pairs from online discussions. The proposed method simultaneously captures and models these two features with their relationships that exist in each thread. We assume that each user post is generated by a mixture of aspect and action topics. Therefore, we design a model that captures the latent factors that incorporates the aspect types and intended actions, which describe how users develop a topic in a discussion. In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach, we empirically compare our model against the state of the art methods on large-scale discussion dataset, crawled from apple discussions with over 3.3 million user posts from 340k discussion threads.


Blockchain is a public ledger technology to which everyone has access without a central authority having control. This technology typically gets to use registration and smart contract. To make sure there are security and authenticity in the transaction information in blockchain, many researchers are study on consensus algorithm. There is a lot of consensus algorithm are using in blockchain. Determining leading research area and finding the best key of consensus algorithm is the motivation of this study. Thus, this study will investigate how consensus algorithm areas of research can be determined by study on the Proof of Stake (PoS) and Delegated Proof of Stake (DPos). Besides that, this research study about the key parameters that being using in these two algorithms. In addition, after getting the parameters we measure the comparison in terms of their transaction per second, nodes, and block sizes. Furthermore, we conclude the efficiency of these two algorithms in terms of their scalability. Although DPoS performance is expected to be much better than PoS, the impact of parameters can be assessed and analyzed to see and prove results. We hope after this study, can solved the performance and security affected by the application of consensus algorithm used in the blockchain. Keywords—Blockchain, Consensus, PoS, DPoS


Sudden releases of pressurised hydrogen may spontaneously ignite by the so-called "diffusion ignition" mechanism. Several experimental and numerical studies have been performed on spontaneous ignition for compressed hydrogen at ambient temperature. However, there is no knowledge of the phenomenon for compressed hydrogen at cryogenic temperatures. The study aims to close this knowledge gap by performing numerical experiments using a computational fluid dynamics model, validated previously against experiments at atmospheric temperatures, to assess the effect of temperature decrease from ambient 300 K to cryogenic 80 K. The ignition dynamics is analysed for a T-shaped channel system. The cryo-compressed hydrogen is initially separated from the air in the T-shaped channel system by a burst disk (diaphragm). The inertia of the burst disk is accounted for in the simulations. The numerical experiments were carried out to determine the hydrogen storage pressure limit leading to spontaneous ignition in the configuration under investigation. It is found that the pressure limit for spontaneous ignition of the cryo-compressed hydrogen at temperature 80 K is 9.4 MPa. This is more than 3 times larger than pressure limit for spontaneous ignition of 2.9 MPa in the same setup at ambient temperature of 300 K.


A novel adsorbent Pb(II)-imprinted interpenetrating polymer network (IPN) of epoxy resin-triethylenetetramine and lead methacrylate-acrylamide-1,4-butanedioldiacrylate (BDDA) was synthesized by the metal ionic imprinted polymer (MIIP) technique. The IPN was prepared by in situ sequential polymerization, and the coordination interaction of Pb(II) and functional groups of the IPN adsorbent was discussed using FT-IR spectra. The characters of the IPN were investigated by a series of experiments. The experimental results show that trace Pb(II) ions can be quantitatively preconcentrated at pH 4.0 with recoveries >95%. The maximum static adsorption capacity of the ion-imprinted adsorbent was 138.6 mg g−1. The imprinted IPN has a higher adsorption capacity and selectivity towards Pb(II). Moreover, the Pb(II)-imprinted IPN shows superior reusability and stability. The precision (R.S.D.) for 11 replicate adsorbent extractions of 20 ng mL−1 Pb(II) was 2.9%. The accuracy of the proposed procedure was verified by analysing three standard reference materials. The prepared ion-imprinted IPN adsorbent was applied to three natural samples and also yielded satisfactory results. That is to say, the Pb(II)-imprinted IPN is suitable for environmental Pb(II) ionic selective removal as an SPE adsorbent.


: For the past 15 years there has been an increasing interest in the prolapsed mitral (PMV) syndrome as evidenced by its increasing attention in the literature. Although the syndrome in many of its aspects is still ill-defined, enough is known about it and its possible sequelae--arrhythmias, endocarditis, and sudden death--to signal some concern to flight surgeons. This paper briefly reviews the prolapsed mitral valve syndrome and defines the aeromedical problem which it presents. The author, furthermore, points out that there is a need for prospective studies so that the prognosis of PMV will be better understood. Only in that way will flight surgeons be able to determine more intelligently appropriate aeromedical disposition.


Sensor-Net is a sensing system using small wireless devices with sensors. The information from these sensors will gain value as we use more sensors, control more actuators, and deliver higher quality data to more users. In the future, healthcare services that use personal sensing devices will be necessary for most people and need to be able to provide important information to the users. To build a type of system with tiny sensing devices is one of the technological challenges towards a ubiquitous computing world.


Abstract Background Brain tumors are the leading cause of cancer death for pediatric patients. Pelareorep, an immunomodulatory oncolytic reovirus, has intravenous efficacy in preclinical glioma models when preconditioned with GM-CSF (sargramostim). We report a phase I trial with the primary goal of evaluating the safety of sargramostim/pelareorep in pediatric patients with recurrent or refractory high-grade brain tumors and a secondary goal of characterizing immunologic responses. Methods The trial was open to pediatric patients with recurrent or refractory high-grade brain tumors (3 + 3 cohort design). Each cycle included 3 days of subcutaneous sargramostim followed by 2 days of intravenous pelareorep. Laboratory studies and imaging were acquired upon recruitment and periodically thereafter. Results Six patients participated, including three glioblastoma, two diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, and one medulloblastoma. Two pelareorep dose levels of 3 × 108 and 5 × 108 tissue culture infectious dose 50 (TCID50) were assessed. One patient experienced a dose limiting toxicity of persistent hyponatremia. Common low-grade (1 or 2) adverse events included transient fatigue, hypocalcemia, fever, flu-like symptoms, thrombocytopenia, and leukopenia. High-grade (3 or 4) adverse events included neutropenia, lymphopenia, leukopenia, hypophosphatemia, depressed level of consciousness, and confusion. All patients progressed on therapy after a median of 32.5 days and died a median of 108 days after recruitment. Imaging at progression did not show evidence of pseudoprogression or inflammation. Correlative assays revealed transient but consistent changes in immune cells across patients. Conclusions Sargramostim/pelareorep was administered to pediatric patients with recurrent or refractory high-grade brain tumors. Hyponatremia was the only dose limiting toxicity (DLT), though maximum tolerated dose (MTD) was not determined.


Conventional approaches to sound source localization require at least two microphones. It is known, however, that people with unilateral hearing loss can also localize sounds. Monaural localization is possible thanks to the scattering by the head, though it hinges on learning the spectra of the various sources. We take inspiration from this human ability to propose algorithms for accurate sound source localization using a single microphone embedded in an arbitrary scattering structure. The structure modifies the frequency response of the microphone in a direction-dependent way giving each direction a signature. While knowing those signatures is sufficient to localize sources of white noise, localizing speech is much more challenging: it is an ill-posed inverse problem, which we regularize by prior knowledge in the form of learned non-negative dictionaries. We demonstrate a monaural speech localization algorithm based on non-negative matrix factorization that does not depend on sophisticated, designed scatterers. In fact, we show experimental results with ad hoc scatterers made of LEGO bricks. Even with these rudimentary structures we can accurately localize arbitrary speakers; that is, we do not need to learn the dictionary for the particular speaker to be localized. Finally, we discuss multi-source localization and the related limitations of our approach.


Recently a lot of attention has been directed to advanced techniques of reservoir operation. The continuous evolution of the information technology (software and hardware) and the development of new techniques including soft computing, intelligent techniques, and evolutionary algorithms created a good environment for reality-based methods and tools. From the Theoretical point of view, modeling a system requires explicit mathematical relationships between inputs and outputs (variables). Since these relations are unknown in many systems, developing such an explicit model is very difficult. In this case, soft computing methods that are based on imprecise conditions and evolutionary algorithms provide capabilities in defining many nonlinear systems and identifying control issues. One of these heuristic self- organization methods is Group Method of Data Handling (GMDH) that produce increasingly complex models during the performance evaluation of input and output sets. Based on GMDH, in this research we have developed a model for the operation of reservoirs in the Tehran-Karaj plane including Lar, Latian and Karaj reservoirs. The GMDH is selected for reservoir operation based on the sufficiency of sampling, characteristics of reservoir in the region of study, and suitability of this technique in the data driven systems. Results of modeling showed high performance of GMDH in reservoir operation.


The effects of acute administration of captopril on heart rate, blood pressure and physiological responses to head-up tilt, hand-grip, exercise and Valsalva manoeuvre were studied in 25 hypertensive subjects (10 untreated, 15 previously treated). After chronic administration for 8-12 weeks the effect on heart rate, blood pressure and the response to head-up tilt were studied again in 15 of these subjects. After the first dose of captopril (0.5 mg/kg), both systolic and diastolic blood pressures fell significantly, with no change in heart rate. Head-up tilting produced a significant increase in heart rate without any alteration in the blood pressure; hand-grip produced a significant increase in heart rate and blood pressure. These responses and exercise-induced tachycardia were unaltered by captopril. There was a significant reduction in the Valsalva ratio. After chronic administration the hypotensive efficacy was maintained for 10-12 h after the last dose, suggesting that twice daily dosage may be sufficient. There was a significant reduction in the basal supine heart rate by captopril. Head-up tilt produced the same physiological changes as in the acute study. These findings suggest that captopril has a vagotonic effect, possibly associated with resetting of baroceptor mechanisms. This could be one explanation for the hypotensive effect of captopril even in low-renin states.


[1] THEMIS five-point observations on April 8, 2009 were used to study thinning of the current sheet in the near-Earth tail that led to the onset of a small substorm. Taking advantage of a fortuitous alignment of the five spacecraft near 2300 LT and 11 RE and within 1.5 RE of the current sheet center, latitudinal gradients are analyzed. A significant latitudinal pressure gradient is present indicating the necessity of a (J × B)z force to maintain the pre-onset equilibrium state. During thinning the total pressure remained approximately constant at all spacecraft rather than increasing. Within the plasma sheet, magnetic field strength increased while plasma pressure decreased due to decreasing temperature. We present a comprehensive explanation for the relationship between the thinning, the stretched structure, and development of intense current density. Our analysis of this event suggests that (1) the thinning in this event is an MHD force-balanced self-evolving process and is not a forced process due to an increased lobe field; (2) the thinning changes flux tube structure in length and curvature but not significantly in volume; (3) the thinning evolves with a change of the radial plasma pressure profile in the near-Earth tail, which is associated with a locally intensified current sheet. The conclusion is that the increased lobe field strength is not the necessary and the primary cause for cross tail current sheet thinning but rather thinning can occur within the plasma sheet as a result of unknown internal processes.


Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has infected more than 4.4 million people and caused more than 300,000 deaths partly through acute respiratory distress syndrome with propensity to affect African American and Hispanic communities disproportionately. Patients with worse outcomes have exhibited higher blood plasma levels of proinflammatory cytokines. Activation of the vitamin D receptor expressed on immune cells has been shown to directly reduce the secretion of inflammatory cytokines, such as interleukin-6, and indirectly affect C-reactive protein. Areas of Uncertainty: The significance of the vitamin D pathway in patients diagnosed with COVID-19. Therapeutic Innovation: Vitamin D supplementation in patients after diagnosis of COVID-19. Patients and Pharmacological Interventions: We report 4 vitamin D deficient patients diagnosed with COVID-19 in April 2020 who were provided with either cholecalciferol of 1000 IU daily (standard dose) or ergocalciferol 50,000 IU daily for 5 days (high dose) as part of supplementation. Clinical Outcomes: Patients that received a high dose of vitamin D supplementation achieved normalization of vitamin D levels and improved clinical recovery evidenced by shorter lengths of stay, lower oxygen requirements, and a reduction in inflammatory marker status. Conclusions: Vitamin D supplementation may serve as a viable alternative for curtailing acute respiratory distress syndrome in patients in underserved communities where resources to expensive and sought-after medications may be scarce. Randomized clinical trials will serve as an appropriate vessel to validate the efficacy of the therapeutic regimen and dissection of the pathway.


In countries worldwide, the provision of policy advice to central governments has been transformed by the deinstitutionalisation of policymaking, which has engaged a diverse range of actors in the policy process. Scholarship should therefore address the impact of deinstitutionalisation
 in terms of the scope and scale of policy advisory systems, as well as in terms of the influence of policy advisors. This article addresses this gap, presenting a programme of research on policy advice in Whitehall. Building on Craft and Halligan's conceptualisation of a 'policy
 advisory system', it argues that in an era of polycentric governance, policy advice is shaped by 'interlocking actors' beyond government bureaucracy, and that the pluralisation of advisory bodies marginalises the civil service. The implications of such alterations are considered
 against the backdrop of governance changes, particularly the hybridisation of institutions, which has made policymaking processes complex, prone to unpredictability and at risk of policy blunders.


In this letter, we investigate the performance of dual-hop channel state information-assisted amplify-and-forward relaying systems over Nakagami-m fading channels in the presence of multiple interferers at the relay. Assuming integer fading parameter m, we derive closed-form expressions for the exact outage probability and accurate approximation for symbol error rate of the system. Furthermore, we look into the asymptotical high signal to noise ratio regime, and characterize the diversity order achieved by the system. All the analytical results are validated via Monte Carlo simulations.


Abstract: One of the modifications of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (known as the No Child Left Behind Act) gave parents of low-income students in low-performing schools a choice of Supplemental Educational Services (SEdS). SEdS include tutoring or other academic support services offered outside the regular school day, at no charge to students or their families, by public or private organizations that have been approved by the state. We examine the impacts of SEdS on test scores among 24,000 students in school districts where SEdS were oversubscribed in Florida, Ohio, and Connecticut. Oversubscribed school districts are required to make SEdS available to the lowest achieving students among eligible applicants, creating the opportunity to estimate impacts using a regression discontinuity design, which relies on districts' use of a continuous measure of prior academic achievement to determine which eligible applicants will be offered services. We find no impact of SEdS on student test scores.


Background : CD4 T-lymphocyte count has been known to be affected by several factors including ethnic group, region, age, sex and physiological conditions. Studies to evaluate CD4 count in vertically exposed, but human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) negative infants from this region have not been done previously. The aim of this study was to determine the reference values of CD4 counts, percentages and temporal profile in  vertically exposed HIV negative infants residing in this environment. Methodology : Blood samples were auto.analyzed using hematology machine made by Point Care Technologies, Inc. (Marlborough, MA, USA). All data were analyzed using statistical package for the social sciences 15.0 for Windows.. Median and 10 th and 90 th percentiles of CD4 cells were determined and analyzed using Mann-Whitney U test and Kendallfs non-parametric correlations. P .0.05 values were considered to be significant. Results : The values of CD4 counts in the infants studied were higher compared with adults. The values of CD4 count, %CD4 and their normal ranges were statistically the same for male and female sexes and within all age categories under 1 year. Although absolute CD4 cell count remained fairly constant from birth to the age of 1 year, %CD4 decreased gradually from birth toward the age of one. Conclusions : For the first time in this environment, our study has reported absolute and percentage CD4 count, which were similar to those reported from other African studies. The results support the use of the same  reference values for resident male and female infants for clinical decision making. Key words : CD4 count, infant, Nigeria, reference ranges


We address the overlooked unbiasedness in existing long-tailed classification methods: we find that their overall improvement is mostly attributed to the biased preference of "tail" over "head", as the test distribution is assumed to be balanced; however, when the test is as imbalanced as the long-tailed training data---let the test respect Zipf's law of nature---the "tail" bias is no longer beneficial overall because it hurts the "head" majorities. In this paper, we propose Cross-Domain Empirical Risk Minimization (xERM) for training an unbiased test-agnostic model to achieve strong performances on both test distributions, which empirically demonstrates that xERM fundamentally improves the classification by learning better feature representation rather than the "head vs. tail" game. Based on causality, we further theoretically explain why xERM achieves unbiasedness: the bias caused by the domain selection is removed by adjusting the empirical risks on the imbalanced domain and the balanced but unseen domain.


: Intraarterial administration of histamine and 4-methylhistamine induced a fall in perfusion pressure of perfused hindquarters of the chloralose-anesthetized cat. Mepyramine which is a histamine H1-receptor blocker competitively inhibited the depressor effect of histamine without altering that of 4-methylhistamine. Continuous intravenous infusion of metiamide, which is a histamine H2-receptor blocker, to the mepyramine treated cats caused a further inhibition in response to histamine as well as 4-methylhistamine. These results indicate that both histamine H1- and H2-receptors are present in the vasculature of the cat hindquarters and both of them are responsible for the vasodilator effect of histamine.


The focus of this workshop was the modeling, analysis and numerical simulation of biological membranes. The fundamental models which characterize equilibria are based on bending energies such as the Helfrich energy and suitable generalizations. Talks in the workshop focused on equilibrium shapes of membranes and vesicles, the corresponding relaxation dynamics and the coupling with outer or inner flows.


The analytic survey of experimental and theoretical studies of the magnetic anisotropy of ferromagnetic shape memory alloys (FSMAs) is presented. The interdependence between the magnetic anisotropy of FSMAs, their lattice parameters, microstructure, and magnetostrain properties is considered. The temperature dependencies of the magnetocrystalline anisotropy energy density (MAED) and magnetically induced mechanical stress are described in the framework of magnetoelastic model based on Landau theory of phase transitions. The magnetic anisotropy of thin martensitic platelets/films and wires is considered. The effect of compensation of magnetocrystalline anisotropy by the magnetostatic one is studied. The reduction of MAED as a result of internal twinning of single crystal is discussed. The possibility of observation of reversible magnetic-fieldinduced strain in the twinned FSMAs with reduced MAED is demonstrated.


In the last decade entertainment-education has emerged as a key educational approach to promoting personal and social change amongst the general population in mass media contexts such as radio and television. Audiences of entertainment-education are commonly presented with educational messages embedded in soap-opera style dramas that are designed to prompt individuals to explore their values and beliefs and make positive choices about their actions and behaviours. Its use with learners in higher education is however limited and there is a paucity of research regarding its transferability to the online learning environment.
In order to understand how nurses learn through online entertainment-education in the higher education context I interviewed nine registered nurses who had studied in these circumstances using Interview Plus technique. The interviews were taped, transcribed and subsequently analysed using Smith and Osborne's (2003) steps for Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis.
Parasocial learning emerged from nurse learners' experience of entertainment-education as an active, reflective response to an emotional encounter between a nurse learner and an online character. It promoted changes in nurse learners' attitudes leading them to act as change agents in the clinical environment. Alternatively nurse learners engaged in monophonic learning. This unilateral approach appeared lead to a reduction in their communicative capacity and their sense of therapeutic agency.
The online learning environment appeared to enhance the experience of learning through entertainment-education by facilitating social support for learning. Nurse learners were able to increase their social capital through online social networking; a sense of identity concealment in the form of a virtual mask appeared to liberate them to participate. Some nurse learners however seemed to experience a sense of identity revelation in the form of a virtual window which inhibited their willingness to contribute.
By promoting parasocial learning it seems entertainment-education has the potential to enrich the nursing curriculum. It places the patient voice at the centre of the educational experience and stimulates nurse learners to shape care. It seems entertainment-education can be usefully adopted in higher education with nurse learners.
The online learning environment appears to be an appropriate media for learning through-entertainment-education. It affords an increase in social capital through meaningful social interaction and promotes freedom to participate through a sense of identity concealment. As liberation through identity concealment was not a universal experience approaches to identity concealment/revelation would need to be carefully considered.
Monophonic learning emerged as an alternative experience of learning through entertainment-education. As the factors that influence the adoption of monophonic learning remain unclear they would benefit from further exploration.


This paper is a corpus-based contrastive study of the realization of negative attitudinal stance in English and Spanish discourse through the use of evaluative adjectives. The main aim of the study is to analyse and compare the grammatical patterns in which negative evaluative adjectives occur in each language and discuss the observed cross-linguistic differences in terms of the effects that alternative linguistic realizations have in the construction of evaluative discourse. The working procedure follows a contrastive analysis methodology: description of empirical data, juxtaposition and contrast. The descriptive data have been extracted from a large comparable corpus of English and Spanish newspaper opinion discourse. The study has revealed interesting similarities and differences in the construction of Attitude in each language, which are inferred by contrasting its surface structural features.


In this work, a labyrinth metasurface sensor operating at the low‐frequency edge of the THz band is presented. Its intricate shape leads to a high electric field confinement on the surface of the structure, resulting in ultrasensitive performance, able to detect samples of the order of tens of nanometers at a wavelength of the order of millimeters (i.e., five orders of magnitude larger). The sensing capabilities of the labyrinth metasurface are evaluated numerically and experimentally by covering the metallic face with tin dioxide (SnO2) thin films with thicknesses ranging from 24 to 345 nm. A redshift of the resonant frequency is observed as the analyte thickness increases, until reaching a thickness of 20 μm, where the response saturates. A maximum sensitivity of more than 800 and a figure of merit near 4500 nm−1 are achieved, allowing discriminating differences in the SnO2 thickness of less than 25 nm, and improving previous works by a factor of 35. This result can open a new paradigm of ultrasensitive devices based on intricate metageometries overcoming the limitations of classical metasurface sensor designs based on periodic metaatoms.


Natural images arise from complicated processes involving many factors of variation. They reflect the wealth of shapes and appearances of objects in our three-dimensional world, but they are also affected by factors such as distortions due to perspective, occlusions, and illumination, giving rise to structure with regularities at many different levels. Prior knowledge about these regularities and suitable representations that allow efficient reasoning about the properties of a visual scene are important for many image processing and computer vision tasks. This thesis focuses on models of image structure at intermediate levels of complexity as required, for instance, for image inpainting or segmentation. It aims at developing generative, probabilistic models of this kind of structure, and, in particular, at devising strategies for learning such models in a largely unsupervised manner from data. One hallmark of natural images is that they can often be decomposed into regions with very different visual characteristics. The main approach of this thesis is therefore to represent images in terms of regions that are characterized by their shapes and appearances, and an image is then composed from many such regions. We explore approaches to learn about the appearance of regions, to learn about region shapes, and ways to combine several regions to form a full image. To achieve this goal, we make use of some ideas for unsupervised learning developed in the literature on models of low-level image structure and in the "deep learning" literature. These models are used as building blocks of more structured model formulations that incorporate additional prior knowledge of how images are formed. The thesis makes the following contributions: Firstly, we investigate a popular, MRF based prior of natural image structure, the Field-of Experts, with respect to its ability to model image textures, and propose an extended formulation that is considerably more successful at this task. This formulation gives rise to a fully parametric, translation-invariant probabilistic generative model of image textures. We illustrate how this model can be used as a component of a more comprehensive model of images comprising multiple textured regions. Secondly, we develop a model of region shape. This work is an extension of the "Masked Restricted Boltzmann Machine" proposed by Le Roux et al. (2011) and it allows explicit reasoning about the independent shapes and relative depths of occluding objects. We develop an inference and unsupervised learning scheme and demonstrate how this shape model, in combination with the masked RBM gives rise to a good model of natural image patches. Finally, we demonstrate


In this paper the effects of dominance interactions on social-spatial structure (i.e. centrality of dominants) and social interaction patterns are studied in a simple virtual world: artificial entities inhabiting it are just grouping and performing dominance interactions in which the effects of winning and losing are self-reinforcing. I compare three strategies of attack. The first is based on the contention that aggression stops once individuals recognize the status of others ('the Ambiguity Reducing strategy'). The second represents another popular view among ethologists, that attack depends on risks involved. The third version is a kind of control system. Here, entities attack obligatory whomever they encounter. In all three systems a dominance hierarchy develops and an increase in intensity of aggression leads to clearer differentiation of ranks, which has a cascade of effects on frequency of aggression, stability of ranks and spatial structure. Furthermore, a spatial structure with dominants in the center emerges in the control and risk sensitive strategy. In the risk sensitive system, bidirectionality of attack is decreased at higher intensities of aggression. Since the latter is observed in certain primate species too, other patterns that emerged for the risk sensitive strategy may be used as research hypotheses for these species.


The recent financial crisis reignited concerns about systemic risk in the financial industry. For the first time, systemic risk was caused by a lack of liquidity in the marketplace. To deal with this newly revealed systemic risk, researchers have developed various quantitative indicators. Despite successful empirical results, these indicators are mainly empirically based and are not capable of differentiating liquidity risk from other sources of risk, such as market and credit risks. In this article, the authors develop a liquidity index to measure the systemic risk caused by liquidity distress in the financial market. The index is based on a parsimonious model that has a semi-closed-form solution to compute a discount due to illiquidity. The model can be used to distinguish liquidity default from economic default (solvency). The authors construct their liquidity index using stocks in Standard & Poor's 1500 financial sector index over the January 1996–December 2013 period. This liquidity index then can be used for various systemic risk analyses. They discover that there is large variation among banks in their liquidity health, that large banks suffer more liquidity discounts than smaller banks, but only a portion of banks suffered severely during the crisis. Using measured liquidity discounts, the authors relate their index to several financial variables used to represent financial distress or economic conditions in the academic literature.


When all nations including Indonesia are hit by COVID-19 pandemic in era digital, we are compelled to conduct research with the main purpose, namely how much the contribution or influence of Pancasila Education and Civic Education on Value Education for students during the Covid-19 pandemic. The method used in this research is a quantitative method. The data was obtained by asking the students who were respondents to fill out a questionnaire. 150 students who have attended Pancasila and Citizenship courses were chosen by random sampling. Then the data obtained from the responses of the respondents were processed by the SPSS 22 program, and analyzed by path analysis. From the data processing and path analysis, the results of the research are obtained which prove that Pancasila Education has a significant contribution or influence on Value Education. Civic Education has no significant contribution or influence on Value Education. Based on these findings from this research, it is necessary to increase more intensive and serious efforts in delivering Pancasila Education, especially Civic Education in order to increase the contribution of both education to value education for the students, so that the students as the younger generation do not only have an understanding about Pancasila Education and Civic, but also be able to live the values, especially SPIRIT (Striving for the excellence, Perseverance, Integrity, Respect, Innovation, and Team Work) which are the core values at Bina Nusantara University.


Planning of transport through inland shipping is complex, highly dynamic and very specific. Existing software support is focusing on road transport planning and/or is merely a visual representation of shipments to be manually assigned to particular vessels. As a result inland shipment planning is time-consuming and highly relies on the personal skills of the planner. In this paper we present a business rules based model that aims to further support inland shipping organizations in their shipment planning by identifying the characteristics and constraints that are of interest and the related explicated business rules. The model is derived from transport-related literature, explorative expert interviews and transport management software vendors.
The usability and applicability of the model is subsequently successfully empirically tested using identified performance measures through a case study at a major European inland shipping broker


In this study we present the fabrication process and characterization techniques to integrate metallic nanostructures on the surface of crystalline Si (c-Si) solar cells. These structures are designed to enhance light trapping at particular wavelengths [2]. Tuning the wavelength to maximize the efficiency can be achieved by changing the sizes and shapes of these structures. A special design of these structures atop c-Si solar cell is expected to affect the absorption near the band gap. These structures have been fabricated by electron beam lithography on c-Si substrates. The processing integration and preliminary characterization results of metallic nanostructures on c-Si solar cells are reported.


An efficient solvent-free synthetic method for the preparation of diphosphonium substituted naphthalenediimide (NDI) radical ions [NDI(PR3)2]˙+ Br− (R = alkyl/aryl) with excellent yields and ambient stability has been described. A diverse range of trialkyl- and triarylphosphines along with different groups at the axial-positions of the NDI were assessed to verify the efficacy of this new synthetic protocol. A library comprising 24 ambient stable radical ions was synthesized and isolated via solvent-free and conventional heating conditions. The reactions were found to be quite fast and could be completed within 10–20 minutes. In addition, we applied sonication to synthesize the NDI radical ions, when the phosphine reactants exist in the liquid state. Intriguingly, NDI radical ion formation was also observed even on manual grinding of the reactants in a mortar and pestle, although with poor yields. Furthermore, we also realized NDI radical ions in moderate yields by applying ball mill grinding. In addition, we have made an attempt to unearth the most plausible reaction mechanism for these reactions. Importantly, this is the first instance whereby synthetic radical ion chemistry has been brought under the realm of green synthesis. The other significant aspect of our findings is the eco-friendly formation of two consecutive C–P bonds and the in situ one-electron transfer, which can have vital ramifications in organophosphorus and electron transfer chemistry.


Changes in the hydrological cycle are one of the most important aspects of climate change prediction. Globally, precipitation change is well understood in terms of the atmospheric energy budget, whereby the latent heat released is balanced by net atmospheric cooling. As a result, forcing agents affect precipitation directly through forcing-dependent adjustments, as well as through temperature-driven feedbacks. However, the physical processes driving regional precipitation changes are less understood, particularly over land, and regional projections exhibit significant uncertainties.

The global energetic perspective can be extended to regional scales through incorporating horizontal transport of dry static energy. Therefore, the aim of this thesis was to utilize analysis of the local atmospheric energy budget to improve understanding of how forcing agents affect regional precipitation patterns through both forcing-dependent adjustments and temperature-driven feedbacks. The precipitation response to a range of atmospheric forcing agents was analysed using the Met Office Hadley Centre climate model, HadGEM2, as well as output from a large number of the latest generation of global climate models.

Land-mean precipitation was shown to have a weak sensitivity to global temperature change. Therefore, adjustment processes have a strong influence on land-mean precipitation trends. During the historical period temperature-driven intensification of land-mean precipitation has been entirely masked by negative adjustments in response to anthropogenic sulphate and volcanic forcing. However, as projected sulphate concentrations decline, temperature-driven changes will soon dominate.

The rapid land surface response to forcing was found to play a key role in driving regional precipitation adjustment patterns. Adjustment processes were found to be particularly important for precipitation in the eastern Amazon. Projected drying of the eastern Amazon was shown to be dominated by the physiological effects of CO2 on plant stomata, through reducing evapotranspiration.

These results highlight the importance of short-timescale adjustment processes in understanding historical and future precipitation changes over land.


In this paper, development of LOM with general versatility (generalized LOM) and its speed enhancement technology are described. An existing LOM is rebuilt by using versatile database and Java to realize the "generalized LOM". The generalized LOM doesn't depend on the software platform and it is convenient to use the network and the visualization. Furthermore, the speed of the generalized LOM is enhanced. The processing time is shortened without reducing the prediction accuracy


Two methanol feeding methods, namely constant methanol feed and on-line monitoring feed control by methanol sensor were investigated to improve the production of recombinant human growth hormone (rhGH) in high cell density cultivation of Pichia pastoris KM71 in 2 L bioreactor. The yeast utilized glycerol as a carbon source for cell growth and yeast cells were accumulated to high cell density. Cell dry weight concentration around 140 to 150 g/l was obtained before entering the methanol induction period. Methanol was applied to express rhGH after high cell accumulation. The constant methanol feed rate at 0.009 l/h was applied to the cultivation to compare with the on-line monitoring feed control of methanol concentration. The highest amount of rhGH around 501 mg/l was obtained by using on-line monitoring feed control of methanol at the set point of methanol concentration at 4.0 g/l. After achieving the best result from the on-line monitoring feed control method, the experiment was further carried out to investigate the optimal methanol concentration. On-line controlling of methanol concentrations at 2.0, 4.0 and 8.0 g/l were investigated. The result shows that high amount of rhGH was achieved by controlling the methanol level at the set point of 4.0 g/l. Key words: Recombinant human growth hormone, Pichia pastoris , fed-batch cultivation, methanol feeding control.


In capital‐intensive industries, the management of the prime revenue‐earning capital assets is of critical importance. While much has been done to improve some key functions, such as maintenance of the asset, the area of materials management – a critical support service – is frequently ignored. Defines the scope and impact of materials management and sets out the key aspects involved in optimizing performance. Places emphasis on aligning the objectives of "materials" with overall corporate goals, and examines a number of internal and external influences (such as people factors, customer and supplier relationships, systems and technology, market trends and industry developments) to enable definition of the right "materials" strategy.


In Sphaerium striatinum, a freshwater brooding bivalve, up to 97.5% of offspring that adults initially produce fail to reach independence. Marsupial sacs, specialized extensions of gill filaments that act as nurseries, initially contain multiple offspring in various sizes and stages of development. However, by the time offspring reach later stages of development, marsupial sacs typically contain only one offspring. Brood mortality is hypothesized to be the result of competition among embryos for nutrients and/or space. Sphaeriid eggs do not contain enough yolk for offspring to complete development. Adults supply additional nutrients required to reach independence. Brood capacity is limited by adult size. Adults cannot physically brood all offspring they produce. Here, we examine the validity of the competition hypothesis for brood mortality. We reared offspring, in vitro, through metamorphosis under varying nutrient levels and embryo densities. While hatching success and time to hatching were not influenced by nutrients or density, both factors had significant effects on the percentage of embryos completing metamorphosis and timing of metamorphosis. A higher percentage of offspring completed metamorphosis in higher nutrient levels and lower densities. Offspring reared with higher nutrient levels and lower densities also completed metamorphosis more rapidly. We discuss these results in relation to hypotheses for the overproduction of offspring, sibling rivalries, as well as factors that might explain brood mortality in this species.


Upconversion (UC) refers to nonlinear optical processes in which the sequential absorption of two or more photons leads to the emission of light at shorter wavelength than the excitation wavelength (anti-Stokes type emission). In contrast to other emission processes based on multiphoton absorption, upconversion can be efficiently excited even at low excitation densities. The most efficient UC mechanisms are present in solid-state materials doped with rare-earth ions. The development of nanocrystal research has evoked increasing interest in the development of synthesis routes which allow the synthesis of highly efficient, small UC particles with narrow size distribution able to form transparent solutions in a wide range of solvents. Meanwhile, high-quality UC nanocrystals can be routinely synthesized and their solubility, particle size, crystallographic phase, optical properties and shape can be controlled. In recent years, these particles have been discussed as promising alternatives to organic fluorophosphors and quantum dots in the field of medical imaging.


Aims: The provision of blood for transfusion largely depends on the availability of blood donors. Hence donor protection as well as patient's protection is necessary in achieving good quality blood and blood products for the benefit of the patient. Methods: A cross- sectional, descriptive and analytical study was conducted to compare the hematocrit, erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), serum protein and body mass index (BMI) in voluntary (99) and commercial (95) blood donors aged between 18–36 years using simple, cost effective and efficient techniques. Data were analyzed using Pearson correlation and Student T-test. Results: The commercial and voluntary blood donors differed significantly (p < 0.05) in ESR, total protein, hematocrit and BMI. The majority, 13 (13.7%) of the commercial donors were underweight while the voluntary blood donors had more 14(14.1%) of overweight blood donors. There were significant correlations between the hematocrit and the BMI among the voluntary blood donors (r = 0.287, p<0.05) and commercial blood donors (r = 0.371, p<0.05) respectively. The total protein differed significantly between the commercial and voluntary donors, but there was no significant correlation with BMI (r = 0.000 and 0.053 respectively, p>0.05). Conclusion: Voluntary donors are better choice for good quality blood donation than commercial donors in respect of the PCV and BMI. Blood donors should be protected against the adverse effect of blood donation by assessing both the hematologic and nutritional status and by behavioral change communications.


The pest management plan (V. 1) focuses on the potential environmental adversity resulting from implementation of the Madagascar Irrigation and Watershed Management Project, which improves agricultural production and soil and water management by increasing irrigation infrastructure and integrated pest management to be used to grow rice and diversify crops. The report assesses the risks to human health and the environment associated with acquiring, storing and maintaining, and disposing of and using pesticides; discusses risk prevention through training and education of workers and the public, protective equipment for workers, and regulation and legislation. It also evaluates the capacity of Madagascar's institutions to control and regulate pesticides while assigning roles and responsibilities; and identifies pest types and discusses strategies to control their spread-especially the control of mosquitoes and the prevention of malaria. Specific risks it identifies include soil contamination and water resources contamination, including leaching leading to water table pollution, and groundwater and underground water pollution; as well as accidental ingestion of chemicals, inhalation by residents of gases and dust, and skin contact with the actual substances. Beyond those measures already mentioned, the report recommends an integrated approach to pest management, installing emergency procedures in case of accidents, promoting the effective use of alternatives, and environmental monitoring. Also addressed are those issues related with regional environmental and social assessments for each project site - Maravoay, Itasy, Andapa, and Alaotra - (v. 2 through 5).


Public libraries as social organizations play a significant role in reducing the digital divide. In order to perform this role, their quantitative aspects need to be sufficient. In addition, the quantitative indicators of public libraries reveal their qualities and qualified services. Iran has a population of 71 million, in 30 provinces. In this paper, the public libraries of Iran are studied with respect to number of libraries, users, collections and staff. The results suggest that the abovementioned factors are generally insufficient as regards public libraries in Iran. In the conclusion of the study, some suggestions are made.


A patient with progressive systemic sclerosis (PSS) complicated by accelerated hypertension, postpartum renal failure and gangrene in all 4 extremities is presented. Pregnancy seldom has a significant effect upon the course of PSS unless there is renal involvement. Four previously reported cases of PSS with postpartum renal failure are reviewed. In our case, sepsis, shock, retained placenta, propranolol therapy and disseminated intravascular coagulation may have contributed to the development of renal failure and symmetrical peripheral gangrene.


Romsey Lowest Prices! We Get The Local People Of Romsey The Best Deals Around On Luxurious Scented Candles, and More. Buying Online In Romsey Is Easy And


Data on structural organization and interactions inside the virion of bovine leukemia virus (BLV) proteins are presented. Uniqueness of the structural organization of BLV proteins having no antigenic relationship between the corresponding animal retrovirus proteins is emphasized. Certain connection is also observed in the structural organization of surface glycoprotein gp69, major internal protein p24 and internal protein p12 with the corresponding polypeptides of human T-cell leukemia virus (HTLV). It is shown that BLV proteins form various complexes inside the virion which are not found in other known retroviruses. A structural model of BLV is presented.


Despite the progress within the last decades, weather forecasting is still a challenging and computationally expensive task. Current satellite-based approaches to predict thunderstorms are usually based on the analysis of the observed brightness temperatures in different spectral channels and emit a warning if a critical threshold is reached. Recent progress in data science however demonstrates that machine learning can be successfully applied to many research fields in science, especially in areas dealing with large datasets. We therefore present a new approach to the problem of predicting thunderstorms based on machine learning. The core idea of our work is to use the error of two-dimensional optical flow algorithms applied to images of meteorological satellites as a feature for machine learning models. We interpret that optical flow error as an indication of convection potentially leading to thunderstorms and lightning. To factor in spatial proximity we use various manual convolution steps. We also consider effects such as the time of day or the geographic location. We train different tree classifier models as well as a neural network to predict lightning within the next few hours (called nowcasting in meteorology) based on these features. In our evaluation section we compare the predictive power of the different models and the impact of different features on the classification result. Our results show a high accuracy of 96% for predictions over the next 15 minutes which slightly decreases with increasing forecast period but still remains above 83% for forecasts of up to five hours. The high false positive rate of nearly 6% however needs further investigation to allow for an operational use of our approach.


Abstract This research study of an exploratory-interpretive nature mainly focuses on the role and effectiveness of grammar instruction and corrective feedback as controversial areas of language instruction of considerable debate in SLA research and L2 pedagogy. Since the question today is no longer whether or not to teach grammar but rather how grammar could be best taught in classrooms, the results revealed that although most learners acknowledged the importance and potential usefulness of grammar instruction and corrective feedback for L2 acquisition, the fact is that they prioritised communication over grammar. Emphasis was mainly placed on using the language communicatively rather than focusing on grammar accuracy. Learners expect and/ or wish to transfer their grammatical knowledge into communicative language use. The results suggest the need for further opportunities for practising communicative language use rather than practising formal grammar in a very controlled way in class. While negative attitudes to grammar instruction were found, evidence of positive attitudes to corrective feedback in contrast were also found because most learners expect and wish to be corrected regularly in classroom settings, moreover they may also feel upset when they neither receive nor understand the teachers' corrective feedback.


A new species of entomopathogenic nematode, Steinernema vulcanicum n. sp., is described from the slopes of Mount Etna (Sicily, Italy). It was recovered from soil in a chestnut wood. Molecular and morphological data indicate that the new species belongs to the glaseri group of Steinernema spp. The new species can be distinguished from the other described species of the group by morphological characteristics, crossbreeding tests and by the DNA sequences of ITS1 rDNA, 12S and cox1 mitochondrial loci. Steinernema vulcanicum n. sp. is characterised by the long and slender male spicules, with manubrium wider than long, velum prominent, rounded tip with ventral concavity and tail without mucro. The female has double epiptygmata in both generations. The third-stage infective juveniles have an average body length of 1200 μm, excretory pore generally located level with posterior part of the pharyngeal corpus (D% = 47-68), lateral field pattern of variable formula and hyaline part of tail forming ca 50% of its length. The DNA sequences, life cycle and the endosymbiotic bacterium of S. vulcanicum n. sp., Xenorhabdus kozodoii, indicate the similarity of the new species with S. arenarium, S. apuliae and S. boemarei, from which it can be distinguished by both morphological and molecular characters.


Laminin self-assembles in vitro into a polymer by a reversible, entropy- driven and calcium-facilitated process dependent upon the participation of the short arm globular domains. We now find that this polymer is required for the structural integrity of the collagen-free basement membrane of cultured embryonal carcinoma cells (ECC) and for the supramolecular organization and anchorage of laminin in the collagen- rich basement membrane of the Engelbreth-Holm-Swarm tumor (EHS). First, low temperature and EDTA induced the dissolution of ECC basement membranes and released approximately 80% of total laminin from the EHS basement membrane. Second, laminin elastase fragments (E4 and E1') possessing the short arm globules of the B1, B2, and A chains selectively acted as competitive ligands that dissolved ECC basement membranes and displaced laminin from the EHS basement membrane into solution. The fraction of laminin released increased as a function of ligand concentration, approaching the level of the EDTA-reversible pool. The smaller (approximately 20%) residual pool of EHS laminin, in contrast, could only be effectively displaced by E1' and E4 if the collagenous network was first degraded with bacterial collagenase. The supramolecular architecture of freeze-etched and platinum/carbon replicated reconstituted laminin gel polymer, ECC, and collagenase- treated EHS basement membranes were compared and found to be similar, further supporting the biochemical data. We conclude that laminin forms a network independent of that of type IV collagen in basement membranes. Furthermore, in the EHS basement membrane four-fifths of laminin is anchored strictly through noncovalent bonds between laminin monomers while one-fifth is anchored through a combination of these bonds and laminin-collagen bridges.


This article discusses the "sick body" in performance art and ethics, specifically in Taste of Flesh/Bite Me I'm Yours (2015) by London-based artist Martin O'Brien, which was commissioned by the Arts Catalyst as part of Trust Me, I'm an Artist, a Creative Europe-funded project exploring ethical issues in art that engages with biotechnology and medicine, such as medical self-experimentation, extreme body art and art practices using living materials and scientific process. It considers the bodily categorization "sick," particularly in relation to when the markers for such categorization are rendered invisible through illnesses—in this context, cystic fibrosis. Through the performance of this illness, important ethical questions are raised for the performing sick body, including complicity, subjectivity and the situation-behavior dynamics present between a performer and an audience.


This letter reports about some observations over rainforests (in Brazil and Indonesia), where the spectra of TanDEM-X interferograms show distinct features, almost a signature, which is explained and modeled in terms of the scattering properties. Supported by comparisons with simulations, the observations exclude any homogeneous horizontally layered forest; instead, they are compatible with a model with point scatterers clustered in clouds. Such a model, with high extinction and large gaps that allow significant penetration, is able to explain to a good degree the observations.


Nigeria's annual population growth and fertility rates are fueling the popular postulation that by 2050, the nation will rank after India and China in population size. Increasing population growth amid poor economic and health statistics in Nigeria point to family planning as one of the long-term effective solutions to this issue. After years of raising awareness and knowledge building, there still exists a huge gap between knowledge of contraceptives and the application of the knowledge in Nigerian society. This gap has initiated a myriad of behavior change communication campaigns on the use of contraceptives. This study goes beyond considering the influences of both spousal communication and mass media on family planning awareness and usage of contraceptives; it examines the response of each gender to family planning campaigns and contraceptive use in Osun and Ogun states, Nigeria. In spite of awareness raising, knowledge building, and persuasion for adoption, how does each gender respond to social marketing of contraceptives usage? A comparative descriptive survey was conducted among ninety men in Iwo, Osun State, and ninety-five women in General Hospital, Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State. The purposive sampling method was adopted in selecting men and women with previous exposure to social marketing campaigns on family planning. The findings revealed that television and radio, social media, and interactions with doctors/nurses are prominent means through which family planning communication takes place. Through mass and social media, barriers and myths relating to family planning are being eradicated, and access to family planning knowledge and resources is increasing. The media has been able to successfully persuade and change negative attitudes toward contraceptive usage. Findings also showed that while men respondents were not using contraceptives, almost all the women respondents were. Some of the factors that could contribute to the varying responses to behavior change communication on the use of contraceptives between genders have been identified to be individual differences, as well as socio-cultural and religious barriers. The study calls for a new wave of social marketing on contraceptives usage, specifically targeted at transforming the positive attitudes of a proportionate number of men, to actual usage of contraceptives.


The aim of the present thesis was to examine the cognitive and attentional processing of smoking-related stimuli in abstinent, active and non-smokers. The initial research reported here is directed at establishing appropriate experimental and questionnaire materials for the main studies. This included the development of a valid list of smoking-related words with frequency-matched controls, and revising the Smoking Motivation Questionnaire based on
analyses of structure and reliability.
Generalised cognitive biases were assessed through a series of modified Stroop experiments. Although the findings suggested that abstinence alters cognition with respect
to smoking-related stimuli an assessment of the results suggested that there were some inconsistencies in the findings. Only when a blocked-format Stroop with vocal responses was used was there evidence of a cognitive bias for smoking-related words in abstinent smokers. In order to specifically examine attentional bias in abstinent, active and nonsmokers, a final study assessed performance on a Dot Probe task. Results showed no shift in attention towards smoking words in abstinent smokers. However, a subsidiary analysis revealed that smokers who reported an awareness of smoking shifted their attention towards smoking words.These findings may suggest that different formats of attentional tasks
provide differing outcomes in terms of smokers processing of smoking-related information, and that awareness is an important aspect of this processing. Finally, analyses of self-report measures revealed that smokers were more state anxious than smokers and that abstinence increased state anxiety and cigarette craving.
The results from this thesis have provided some useful indicators of successful smoking cessation and may assist in the development of a cognitive model of smoking. However, the development of the work will be dependent on modifications and extensions needed to address the anomalies in the findings. Specifically the smoking-related words used and the type of attentional task employed.


How pleasant it will be to put aside the miseries of the economy and global warming, and indulge in the excitement of the London Olympic games. But how sad if this is spoilt by drug testing, public exposures, and destroyed athletic careers, when in the absence of a valid case against sports drugs this is illogical and immoral.

Sports training is hard, and for the supreme competition of the Olympics the effort has to be supreme; but why is help from drugs1 2 "cheating"—an unfair advantage from outside help rather than personal effort—when we allow specialised training equipment, sports psychologists, physiologists applying optimising monitors, electronic positioning of cyclists in relation to pedals and handlebars, and dieticians using foods and additives as drugs? What makes a covert team of sports specialists fair, and taking a pill cheating? Why is training in a low oxygen chamber acceptable but not erythropoietin?

Cheating—for example, tripping a competing runner—is confused with fairness; but in competitive sport you aim to win regardless, whether by personal application, help from others, or genetic good fortune. "Fairness" is for the level playing field of the looking glass world, where the faster you can …


This study aims to determine the quality factors of Customer Service consists of tangible, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy toward customer satisfaction PD Bank Perkreditan Rakyat Blora The population are all customers from Tabungan Prema, they are 100 respondent. Testing method of data that used in this study was to test the validity, reliability test, normality test, multicoloniarity test, heteroskesdastisitas test, test analysis linear multiple, F test, t test, and the coefficient of determination (R2 ). wich shows the can used to measure customer satisfaction. multiple linear regression methot yields customer satisfaction equation = 0,246 + 0,295 tangible + 0,318 reliability + 0,208 responsiveness + 2,16 assurance + 0,330 empathy + e. In F test, it is found that dimention of Customer Service there are tangible, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy secara simultaneously have significant effect. The result of t test is influence tangible, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy have significant influence to customer satisfaction Tabungan Presma users of customer service at PD Bank Perkreditan Rakyat Blora


In this thesis, antiferromagnetic and superconducting order in the Kondo-lattice model is investigated by means of the dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT) in combination with the numerical renormalization group (NRG) method. First, these numerical methods are introduced and a special emphasis is put on the inclusion of superconducting order by employing the Nambu formalism. In the next chapter, the Kondo-lattice model as a paradigmatic model for heavy-fermion system is introduced. The analysis of the paramagnetic state at zero temperature reviews the description of the electronic system as a Fermi liquid of heavy quasiparticles. Afterwards ordered phases are investigated.
In the antiferromagnetically ordered phase at zero temperature and half filling, a Neel state is found to be stable for small Kondo interactions. A peculiar feature arises in the density of states: A "spin resonance" is observed at energies which scale with the Kondo coupling. These resonances are the more pronounced, the higher the conduction band electrons are polarized – hence they are quite likely related to spin fluctuations.
As a main result of the thesis, a superconducting state at zero temperature is found to be stable in a large parameter regime within the DMFT+NRG approach. The pair correlations are the most pronounced in the region of the parameter space, where AF order breaks down. Although only even-frequency singlet s-wave superconductivity can be treated within the utilized approach, the superconducting state is actually found to be closely related to local spin fluctuations, which act as retarded "glue" for s-wave pairing of heavy quasiparticles. This is a novel mechanism for superconductivity in HF systems. Similar to the antiferromagnetic case, resonances are observed in the density of states at energies related to the spin-fluctuation spectrum. These resonances are interpreted by means of a static mean-field description as a separation of the flat quasiparticle bands from the strongly dispersive part of the bandstructure. Such a structure is also observed in the spectral functions obtained by DMFT. Therefore, the conclusion is drawn that the pairing appears among the heavy quasiparticles. This conclusion is underpinned by sign changes of the dynamic gap function at the very frequencies, where the resonances respectively the band splitting is observed. In addition, the observed rule that the critical temperature for the superconducting state is generally lower than the coherence scale, indicates that the heavy-fermion state is a prerequisite for pairing in the Kondo-lattice model. Moreover, the ratio of the gapwidth and critical temperature is strongly enhanced over the universal BCS ratio. This fact is associated with a non-phononic origin of the attractive interaction. In summary, the stable superconducting state in the Kondo-lattice model is identified to be highly unconventional.


BACKGROUND
The extended spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL)-producing Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Klebsiella pneumoniae (K. pneumoniae) are the major pathogens causing pneumonia and have a significant impact on the clinical course. Limited data exist on molecular characterization of ESBL-producing E. coli and K. pneumoniae that cause pneumonia. The aim of this study was to investigate the comprehensive multilevel characteristics of E. coli and K. pneumoniae causing pneumonia in China for the first time.

METHODS
E. coli (17) and K. pneumoniae (21) isolates responsible for pneumonia were isolated from 1270 specimens collected in a prospective multi-center study in eight teaching hospitals in China from June to December in 2007. The susceptibilities, ESBL confirmation, sequence typing, blaCTX-M and blaSHV genes, their genetic environment and plasmid Inc/rep types were determined.

RESULTS
Sixteen E. coli (94.1%) and eleven K. pneumoniae (52.4%) isolates were ESBL producers. About 77.8% and 66.7% of them were resistance to ciprofloxacin and levofloxacin, and 100% were susceptible to imipenem. The most prevalent ESBL gene was CTX-M-14, followed by SHV-2, CTX-M-15, CTX-M-3, CTX-M-65, SHV-12, SHV-26 and SHV-28. SHV-1 and SHV-11 were also detected and coexisted with blaCTX-Ms in five strains, and three strains contained only SHV-1. All CTX-M-14 were detected ISEcp1 upstream and nine were found IS903 downstream and the majority of them (64.3%) were carried by IncF plasmids. All blaSHV were flanked by recF and deoR, located on IncF, IncN, IncX and IncH plasmids. Two SHV-2, one SHV-1 and the only SHV-28 were further preceded by IS26. Genes lacY and lacZ were detected at further upstream of two blaSHV-1. The K. pneumoniae carrying SHV-28 was susceptible to β-lactams, and no mutations or deletions in gene or promoter sequences were identified to account for susceptibility. Multilocus sequence typing experiments showed the ESBL-producing strains were genetically diverse.

CONCLUSIONS
The rate of occurrence of blaESBL in E. coli and K. pneumoniae causing pneumonia was high, and blaCTX-M-14 was dominant and probably mobilized by ISEcp1 mainly on IncF plasmids. Importantly, unexpressed blaESBL genes may occur in susceptible isolates and hence may have clinical implications.


This paper considers simple step-stress accelerated life tests (SSALTs) for one-shot devices. The one-shot device is an item that cannot be used again after the test, for instance, munitions, rockets, and automobile air-bags. Either left-or right-censored data are collected instead of actual lifetimes of the devices under test. An expectation-maximization algorithm is developed here to find the maximum likelihood estimates of the model parameters based on one-shot device testing data collected from simple SSALTs. Furthermore, the asymptotic variance of the mean lifetime under normal operating conditions is determined under the expectation-maximization framework. On the other hand, the optimal design that minimizes the asymptotic variance of the estimate of the mean lifetime under normal operating conditions in terms of three decision variables, including stress levels, inspection times, and sample allocation is discussed. A procedure then is presented to determine the decision variables when a range of stress levels and the termination time of the test as well as normal operating conditions of the devices are given. The properties of the optimal design and the effects of errors in pre-specified planning values of the model parameters are also investigated. Comprehensive simulation studies show that the procedure is quite reliable for the design of simple SSALTs.


Each year one in every five foreign direct investment dollars in the Global South flows through project finance transactions. These transactions consist of large-scale energy and infrastructure projects, and consistently produce deleterious effects on third parties. Until now, much of the legal scholarship in the infrastructure development field has focused its attention on the complex mechanics of project finance, including understanding the ways in which project promoters utilize project finance to manage commercial and political risks. Much of the human rights and environmental advocacy related to negative development outcomes is limited to seeking ex post fact relief. To date, very few scholars have delved into the intersection between these bodies of scholarship (project finance and human rights), and queried whether project finance transactions, ex ante, have a relationship to the externalities produced in large-scale development projects.This article squarely engages this inquiry, and argues that the risk diffusion mechanisms native to project finance transactions work together to undermine limits on risky behavior on the part of project sponsors and thereby lead to the externalization of risk. To remedy this transactional failure, I recommend that three of the key risk-mitigation features of project finance - (1) non-recourse debt, (2) high debt-to- equity ratios, and (3) the use of special purpose entities - be abrogated in order recalibrate the development calculus and force project sponsors to bear more of the risk of their activities. Ultimately, more rigorous, interdisciplinary, examination of project finance is required to understand fully how this pervasive method of financing infrastructure externalizes many of the costs of development, however, this article provides a useful starting point for the discussion.


Summary: Ninety-two twelve-year-old subjects were examined for type of swallow and types and degrees of malocclusion. All were subjects who had been chosen at random eight years previously to participate in a longitudinal study of swallowing. Four years had lapsed since the children had been evaluated. Purposes were: (1) to determine incidence of tongue thrust, and (2) to examine relationships between malocclusion and tongue thrust. The incidence of tongue thrust was found to be 48.9%. This was considerably higher than had been expected. It is probable that ten of the 45 with a tongue thrust were transitional thrusters. If these ten were excluded, the incidence would be 38.9%. A chi square formula was used to determine possible relationships between various types and degrees of malocclusions and manner of swallowing. No significant relationships were found. However, all but one of the subjects with overjets of 5mm. or more were tongue thrusters.


The availability of automated evaluation methodologies that may reliably be used for determining students' scholastic performance through assigning letter grades are of utmost practical importance to educators, students, and do invariably have pivotal values to all stakeholders of the academic process. In particular, educators use letter grades as quantification metrics to monitor students' intellectual progress within a framework of clearly specified learning objectives of a course. To students grades may be used as predictive measures and motivating drives for success in a study field. However due to numerous objective and subjective variables that may by be accounted for in a methodological process of assigning students' grades, and since such a process is often tainted with personal philosophy and human psychology factors, it is essential that educators exercise extra care in maximizing positive account of all objective factors and minimizing negative ramifications of subjectively fuzzy factors. To this end, and in an attempt to make assigning students' grades more reliable for assessing true-level of mastering specified learning outcomes, this paper will: i) provide a literature review on previous works on the most common methods that have traditionally been in use for assigning students' grades, and a short account of the virtues and/or vices of such methods, and ii) present a user-friendly computer code that may be easily adapted for the purpose of assigning students' grades. This would relieve educators from the overwhelming concerns associated with mechanistic aspects of determining educational metrics, and it would allow them to have more time and focus to obtain reliable assessments of true-level of students' mastery of learning outcomes by accounting for all possible evaluation components.


This article explores the potent sacrificial sacred canopy that shrouds rhetoric, practices, and institutions of post-9/11 war-culture in the United States. Analyzing examples from popular culture, presidential rhetoric, and military history, especially Andrew Bacevich's America's War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History, I show how the depth and breadth of sacrificial rhetoric and logic result in a highly disciplined practice of framing and decision-making about militarism and war in the United States. Sacrificial linguistic patterns profoundly ignite and transcendentalize militarization and war, even while simultaneously mitigating conscious awareness, concern, and protest.


ABSTRACT Background: There has been limited empirical speech–language pathology (SLP) study of language and cognitive communication during post-traumatic amnesia (PTA) and the early stages after TBI. The purpose of the current research was to explore the potential means and utility of assessing cognitive communication during PTA and the post-acute recovery period. Method: This research used a longitudinal mixed methods design to describe language and cognitive communication assessment and recovery profiles of three patients with TBI. Cognitive communication was assessed with repeated standardised and non-standardised methods during PTA (rated with Westmead PTA Scale) and at follow-up 3 months after PTA emergence. Results: All participants demonstrated a profile of language and cognitive communication strengths and weaknesses during PTA and the post-acute period, also evident at follow-up. Improvement occurred gradually throughout PTA, although with individual fluctuation across test occasions. There was no marked change in communication function immediately before and after PTA emergence, indicating that cognitive communication ability and those functions measured on the Westmead PTA Scale (memory and orientation) did not recover at the same rate. Conclusion: It was feasible to assess language and cognitive communication throughout PTA and the post-acute period, and early assessment results were relevant to the patient's ongoing communicative function. It is suggested that early and repeated SLP assessment may contribute to the prediction of persisting cognitive communication issues.


Nestled between the Cocos, Nazca, Caribbean, and South American plates, the Panama microplate represents an area of rapidly evolving tectonics throughout the past ~10 m.y. Past and current studies have observed a notable amount of seismicity throughout this region, in particular the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, which experienced a Mw 7.7 earthquake in 1991 CE. We investigated the crust and upper mantle structure of this region using the receiver function methodology and report two results: (1) first-order lateral constraints on the position of the Panama microplate boundary near the intersection between the Central Costa Rica Deformed Belt (onshore) and North Panama Deformed Belt (offshore), and (2) an impedance contrast south and east of these belts, supporting that the Caribbean plate currently subducts beneath the Panama microplate. Observed local seismicity is a consequence of the recently (ca. 14 Ma) initiated Caribbean plate subduction beneath the overlying Panama microplate. Our results are also consistent with a doubly convergent subduction margin dominating southern Costa Rica tectonics, uplifting the Talamanca Cordillera, and causing the cessation of southern Costa Rica volcanism over the past ~10 m.y.


China has targeted Myanmar's resources to enhance and provide resources for its economic growth. Myanmar's proximity and pariah status (before 2010) made it both feasible and convenient for this purpose. Chinese investment in Myanmar intensified in the mid-2000s and has continued to increase. The largest increase in approved and actual Chinese FDI over the years has taken place in the energy (oil and gas) and mining sectors.There has been a groundswell of opposition to large oil and gas, hydropower and mining projects on the grounds of poor governance (e.g. land acquisition and compensation, the destruction of livelihoods), and secretive, inequitable wealth sharing. The Thein Sein administration has dealt with these conflicts by suspending projects; establishing an inquiry commission and an implementation committee; re-negotiating contracts and preparing to become a member of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). These unprecedented measures will likely take place on an ad hoc basis rather than across the extractive industry. Dramatic changes to contracts are more likely to take place with Chinese (and other) corporations that are involved in large-scale rather than small-scale projects. The changing political circumstances - Myanmar no longer being reliant on a handful of countries for strategic and financial support and the necessity of taking into account the wishes of its electorate means that the political landscape has shifted under the feet of stakeholders.


Current studies involve an investigation of the role of the pleckstrin homology (PH) domain in membrane targeting and activation of phospholipase Cbeta(1) (PLCbeta(1)). Here we report studies on the membrane localization of the isolated PH domain from the amino terminus of PLCbeta(1) (PLCbeta(1)-PH) using fluorescence microscopy of a green fluorescent protein fusion protein. Whereas PLCbeta(1)-PH does not localize to the plasma membrane in serum-starved cells, it undergoes a rapid but transient migration to the plasma membrane upon stimulation of cells with serum or lysophosphatidic acid (LPA). Regulation of the plasma membrane localization of PLCbeta(1)-PH by phosphoinositides was also investigated. PLCbeta(1)-PH was found to bind phosphatidylinositol 3-phosphate most strongly, whereas other phosphoinositides were bound with lower affinity. The plasma membrane localization of PLCbeta(1)-PH induced by serum and LPA was blocked by wortmannin pretreatment and by LY294002. In parallel, activation of PLCbeta by LPA was inhibited by wortmannin, by LY294002, or by the overexpression of PLCbeta(1)-PH. Microinjection of betagamma subunits of G proteins in serum-starved cells induced the translocation of PLCbeta(1)-PH to the plasma membrane. These results demonstrate that a cooperative mechanism involving phosphatidylinositol 3-phosphate and the Gbetagamma subunit regulates the plasma membrane localization and activation of PLCbeta(1)-PH.