Thrombomodulin (TM), a major anticoagulant protein at the vessel wall, serves as a potent cofactor for the activation of Protein C by thrombin. Previous work has indicated that (rabbit) TM is a proteoglycan that contains a single polysaccharide chain, tentatively identified as a sulphated galactosaminoglycan, and furthermore suggested that this component may be functionally related to additional anticoagulant activities expressed by the TM molecule [Bourin, Ohlin, Lane, Stenflo & Lindahl (1988) J. Biol. Chem. 263, 8044-8052]. Results of the present study establish that (enzymic) removal of the polysaccharide chain abolishes the inhibitory effect of TM on thrombin-induced fibrinogen clotting as well as the promoting effect of TM on the inactivation of thrombin by antithrombin, but does not affect the ability of TM to serve as a cofactor in the activation of Protein C. Studies of yet another biological activity of rabbit TM, namely the ability to prevent the activation of Factor V by thrombin [Esmon, Esmon & Harris (1982) J. Biol. Chem. 257, 7944-7947], confirmed that TM markedly delays the conversion of the native 330 kDa Factor V precursor into polypeptide intermediates, and further into the 96 kDa heavy chain and 71-74 kDa light-chain components of activated Factor Va. In contrast, the activation kinetics of a similar sample of Factor V incubated with thrombin in the presence of chondroitinase ABC-digested TM did not differ from that observed in the absence of TM. It is concluded that the inhibitory effect of TM on Factor V activation also depends on the presence of the polysaccharide component on the TM molecule.


The technics of T-tube suction drainage of the retroperitoneal space and of prophylactic antibiotics were evaluated each alone and then in combination in a randomized study of 451 private patients undergoing abdominal or vaginal hysterectomy. As compared with results in a control group, suction drainage alone and prophylactic antibiotics alone were equally effective in reducing the incidence of postoperative pelvic infection and febrile morbidity. When the two technics were used in combination, there was further reduction in the incidence of pelvic infection and febrile morbidity. However, these results were not statistically different from those of either technic alone. Data are presented to indicate that hysterectomy is performed in a bacteriologically contaminated operative field and that a contaminated fluid collection routinely accumulates in the retroperitoneal space. It is therefore suggested that hysterectomy be managed as a potentially infected surgical wound.


Abstract The influence of the thermoelastic effect on the sound propagation in metals is discussed. A strict description of the effect based on a combined solution of the equations of elasticity and heat conductivity is presented. It is shown that acoustic relaxation resonance caused by the thermoelastic effect can be observed when metal single crystals of high purity are studied by pulse-echo spectroscopy at about 10 K.


The rapid growth of scuba diving as a sport and the vast expansion of underwater exploration for energy has made it necessary for all physicians to become familiar with diving emergencies. The basic principles of scuba diving and related clinical implications are outlined to provide a more meaningful understanding of problems which may affect a diver.


Rapid urbanization and population growth since 1980 have become central issues in big cities of developing countries like Egypt. As Egypt was experiencing active modernization processes in the twentieth century, its urban population has increased very significantly both in its numbers and proportions. With the rapid economic growth and urban expansion, the demand for building and infrastructure construction has also increased rapidly, particularly in the residential sector. Undoubtedly, the urban system plays a dominant role in establishing Egypt's energy consumption profile, where the CO2 emissions from Egyptian cities and their share in country emissions have a powerful influence on achieving the country's national carbon emission reduction target. While many countries have recognized the significant role of urban planning in the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, the spatial planning framework in Egypt is still lacking applications in this aspect. The scope of this paper is to develop a method for calculating carbon emission associated with urban activities at the city scale. Thus, the study proposes a new model for accounting the CO2 emitted from the different land uses within the city and to balance the carbon cycle with green structure planning based on the Ecological factor threshold


This paper analyzed the effects of the U.S. domestic offset program on the world cotton markets using a partial equilibrium model following the assumption given by Brown et al. (2010). The results in our study are largely similar to those of Baker et al. and Brown et al., confirming that study's findings that ACES, and its domestic offset program in particular, would cause increases in the domestic prices of several agricultural commodities. However, the overall effects of this increase in the world price on total world trade is tempered by increased exports from India, Brazil, Uzbekistan, Australia, and Western & Central African countries.


ABSTRACT The authors aimed to investigate the effects of different sporting experience on nonspecific temporal preparation. They evaluated temporal preparation in tennis players (an open-skill sport) and their athletic (swimmers, a closed skill-sport) and nonathletic (sedentary students) controls using a go/no-go variable foreperiod paradigm in which one simple condition and two go/no-go conditions (central-go and mixed-go) were included, which can be used to study the temporal aspects of nonspecific preparation with decision making in inhibition with different levels of cognitive load. Tennis players responded faster than nonathletic controls while there was no significant difference relative to the athletic controls. Additionally, the main finding of the present study is that the difference in reaction time between tennis players and nonathletic controls was found selectively for short foreperiods in which temporal uncertainty is higher and less temporal preparation can occur. Moreover, correlation analysis revealed that superior temporal preparation was positively associated with enhanced go/no-go decision making in the higher difficulty condition. Our findings are consistent with tennis players showing superior temporal processing. The absence of a significant effect in athletic controls suggests that there is a specific benefit from tennis training and indicates that temporal preparation may be susceptible to modulation by fitness and appropriate training.


Has the Austrian-German nobility had the same high degree of noble homogamy during the 20th century as the Dutch nobility? Noble homogamy among the Dutch nobility was one of the two main reasons for their 'constant noble advantage' in obtaining elite positions during the 20th century. The Dutch on the one hand and the Austrian-German nobility on the other can be seen as two extreme cases within the European nobility. The Dutch nobility seems to have had a lower degree of noble homogamy during the 20th century than the Austrian-German nobility. However, the analysis shows that this is a consequence of the different composition of the Austrian-German nobility (higher noble titles, more nobility with feudal origins), a more modern concept of nobility among the Dutch nobility (paternal family instead of noble stock of paternal and maternal ancestors) and a successful merger of the feudal and post-feudal Dutch nobility. If one takes these compositional differences between the Austrian, German and Dutch nobility into account, then the Dutch nobility had a higher degree of noble homogamy in the early 20th century, yet their homogamy declined faster during this century than that of the AustrianGerman nobility.


As is well known, chickenpox is one of the very mildest of the infectious diseases to which children are subject. It possesses, however, considerable medical interest, as one of the group of diseases of unknown origin, and furthermore, because of its remarkable communicability. In the latter particular it is rivalled only by measles. In the Home for Hebrew Infants it has been our experience that in the course of an epidemic about three quarters of the younger children develop varicella, and about one half of those above 2 years of age. It spreads rapidly through the institution, progressing from ward to ward in an uncontrollable manner, frequently necessitating quarantine for a period of many months. Among children in private homes it possesses a serious pedagogic aspect, often disrupting the school sessions for long periods because of its widespread prevalence and long incubation period, which causes the infection to drag along


Polymer materials doped with rare-earth ions are promising candidates for the formation of low-cost integrated optical amplifiers. However, there are significant technical challenges associated with the integration of these dissimilar materials and the formation of high-quality Er-doped polymer films. In this paper, therefore, we present for the first time the fabrication of polymer thin layers modified with erbium-doped sodium zinc tellurite (Er-TZN) glass nanoparticles (NPs) using femtosecond (fs) pulsed laser deposition (PLD) and the characterisation of their basic properties. The surface morphology and the compositional and structural characteristics of the samples produced with this method are evaluated using scanning and transmission electron microscopy (SEM and TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD), while photoluminescence (PL) measurements are carried out at room temperature under a 980 nm laser diode excitation. The studies indicate that the Er-doped TZN NPs are successfully integrated in the polymer layers. The obtained average NP size is measured to be in the range of 12 to 21 nm depending on the fabrication parameters, while broad PL emission at 1534 nm that corresponds to the 4I13/2 →4I15/2 transition of Er3+ is observed from the samples. The full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) of the PL spectra is found to be ~39 nm while the fluorescence lifetime is measured to be in the range of 3.52 to 4.18 ms. The obtained results clearly demonstrate the potential to efficiently dope polymer layers with glass NPs using fs-PLD and is a first step towards the successful formation of hybrid polymer-glass waveguide amplifiers.


Melanoma brain metastasis (MBM) is frequent and has a very poor prognosis with no current predictive factors or therapeutic molecular targets. Our study unravels the molecular alterations of cell‐surface glycoprotein CD44 variants during melanoma progression to MBM. High expression of CD44 splicing variant 6 (CD44v6) in primary melanoma (PRM) and regional lymph node metastases from AJCC Stage IIIC patients significantly predicts MBM development. The expression of CD44v6 also enhances the migration of MBM cells by hyaluronic acid and hepatocyte growth factor exposure. Additionally, CD44v6‐positive MBM migration is reduced by blocking with a CD44v6‐specific monoclonal antibody or knocking down CD44v6 by siRNA. ESRP1 and ESRP2 splicing factors correlate with CD44v6 expression in PRM, and ESRP1 knockdown significantly decreases CD44v6 expression. However, an epigenetic silencing of ESRP1 is observed in metastatic melanoma, specifically in MBM. In advanced melanomas, CD44v6 expression correlates with PTBP1 and U2AF2 splicing factors, and PTBP1 knockdown significantly decreases CD44v6 expression. Overall, these findings open a new avenue for understanding the high affinity of melanoma to progress to MBM, suggesting CD44v6 as a potential MBM‐specific factor with theranostic utility for stratifying patients.


Information has become a major asset in companies that have based their business on the production and exploitation of this information, but also in traditional companies that exploit their information with a view to continuously improving their processes. This is the case in collaborative systems where companies are interconnected but also in intelligent systems that have many information exchanges with there environment. It is important that companies keep control of the information they import, process and distribute. In this article, in the context of a risk management approach, we present a new security criterion: controllability.


Beetle horns are attractive models for studying the evolution of novel traits, as they display diverse shapes, sizes, and numbers among closely related species within the family Scarabaeidae. Horns radiated prolifically and independently in two distant subfamilies of scarabs, the dung beetles (Scarabaeinae), and the rhinoceros beetles (Dynastinae). However, current knowledge of the mechanisms underlying horn diversification remains limited to a single genus of dung beetles, Onthophagus. Here we unveil 11 horn formation genes in a rhinoceros beetle, Trypoxylus dichotomus. These 11 genes are mostly categorized as larval head- and appendage-patterning genes that also are involved in Onthophagus horn formation, suggesting the same suite of genes was recruited in each lineage during horn evolution. Although our RNAi analyses reveal interesting differences in the functions of a few of these genes, the overwhelming conclusion is that both head and thoracic horns develop similarly in Trypoxylus and Onthophagus, originating in the same developmental regions and deploying similar portions of appendage patterning networks during their growth. Our findings highlight deep parallels in the development of rhinoceros and dung beetle horns, suggesting either that both horn types arose in the common ancestor of all scarabs, a surprising reconstruction of horn evolution that would mean the majority of scarab species (~35,000) actively repress horn growth, or that parallel origins of these extravagant structures resulted from repeated co-option of the same underlying developmental processes.


A modified CMFB circuit is presented that reinstates the use of direct opamp auto-zeroing offset cancellation techniques in low voltage applications. This approach is particularly useful for high precision sample and hold amplifiers and Nyquist rate ADCs, where the opamp is reset during one of the clock phases. Differential offsets up to 50 mV are effectively reduced as demonstrated by a sample and hold example.


Skin disease has lower impact on mortality compared to others but instead it has greater effect on quality of life because it involves symptoms such as pain, stinging and itchiness.  Psoriasis is one of the ordinary skin diseases which are relapsing, chronic and immune-mediated inflammatory disease.  It is estimated about 125 million people worldwide being infected with various types of skin infection.  Challenges arise when patients only predict the skin type disease they had without being accurately and precisely examined.  This is because as human being, they only observe and look at the diseases on the surface of the skin with their naked eye, where there are some limits, for example, human vision lacks of accuracy, reproducibility and quantification in the collection of image information.  As Plaque and Guttate are the most common Psoriasis skin disease happened among people, this paper presents an evaluation of Psoriasis skin disease classification using Convolutional Neural Network.  A total of 187 images which consist of 82 images for Plaque Psoriasis and 105 images for Guttate Psoriasis has been used which are retrieved from Psoriasis Image Library, International Psoriasis Council (IPC) and DermNet NZ.  Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) is applied in extracting features and analysing the classification of Psoriasis skin disease.  This paper showed the promising used of CNN with the accuracy rate of 82.9% and 72.4% for Plaque and Guttate Psoriasis skin disease, respectively.


A handwritten letter from Elise Geis in Berlin to her children, dated 28 August 1893. An English translation of this letter, provided by Sonja Keschner, is available. To see this translation please contact the University of Cape Town Libraries' Special Collections.


A national probability sample of the public was asked questions dealing with perceived relationships between diet (especially sodium, cholesterol, and saturated fats) and cardiovascular disease (CVD). More than half of the respondents were aware of the suspected relationship between sodium and hypertension, and nearly half were aware that saturated fats and cholesterol may be factors in other types of CVD. Majorities expressed concern about these substances, and substantial minorities claimed to be making efforts to reduce consumption of them. The data provide a baseline against which future developments may be measured.


On-demand ride-pooling (e.g., UberPool, LyftLine, GrabShare) has recently become popular because of its ability to lower costs for passengers while simultaneously increasing revenue for drivers and aggregation companies (e.g., Uber). Unlike in Taxi on Demand (ToD) services – where a vehicle is assigned one passenger at a time – in on-demand ride-pooling, each vehicle must simultaneously serve multiple passengers with heterogeneous origin and destination pairs without violating any quality constraints. To ensure near real-time response, existing solutions to the real-time ride-pooling problem are myopic in that they optimise the objective (e.g., maximise the number of passengers served) for the current time step without considering the effect such an assignment could have on assignments in future time steps. However, considering the future effects of an assignment that also has to consider what combinations of passenger requests can be assigned to vehicles adds a layer of combinatorial complexity to the already challenging problem of considering future effects in the ToD case.A popular approach that addresses the limitations of myopic assignments in ToD problems is Approximate Dynamic Programming (ADP). Existing ADP methods for ToD can only handle Linear Program (LP) based assignments, however, as the value update relies on dual values from the LP. The assignment problem in ride pooling requires an Integer Linear Program (ILP) that has bad LP relaxations. Therefore, our key technical contribution is in providing a general ADP method that can learn from the ILP based assignment found in ride-pooling. Additionally, we handle the extra combinatorial complexity from combinations of passenger requests by using a Neural Network based approximate value function and show a connection to Deep Reinforcement Learning that allows us to learn this value-function with increased stability and sample-efficiency. We show that our approach easily outperforms leading approaches for on-demand ride-pooling on a real-world dataset by up to 16%, a significant improvement in city-scale transportation problems.


Innovation is increasingly recognized as the key to successful competition in the global knowledge-based economy. In Knowledge, Clusters and Regional Innovation the authors illuminate the highly differentiated nature of the innovation systems found across the country and demonstrate that innovation can occur in a wide range of sectors and clusters, ranging from multimedia and biotechnology in large metropolitan areas to more traditional sectors such as wood products in rural settings. Written by members of the Innovation Systems Research Network (ISRN), a cross-national network of regionally oriented researchers from a wide range of disciplines, Knowledge, Clusters and Regional Innovation provides important insights into the varied nature of innovation in the Canadian economy. The members of the network have recently launched a major study of cluster development across Canada that promises to provide scholars and policymakers with continuing insights into the nature economic development in Canada. Contributors include Neil Bradford (Huron University College), Shauna Brail (Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, Ontario), John N.H. Britton (University of Toronto), Michael Gurstein (Technical University of British Columbia), J. Adam Holbrook, Cooper H. Langford (University of Calgary), Lisa Mills (Brown University), Jorge Niosi (Universite du Quebec a Montreal), Pierre Therrien (Marketplace Innovation Directorate, Industry Canada), Diane-Gabrielle Tremblay (Universite du Quebec), and David A. Wolfe.


KPD is classically regarded as an atypical form of diabetes caused by near-complete beta-cell failure. A 37-year-old Egyptian man (BMI: 27.7 Kg/m2) presented with hyperglycemia (362 mg/dL) and DKA (arterial pH 7.20, ketonemia 5.0 mmol/L, ketonuria 80 mg/dL) . He was afebrile, with recent polyuria, polydipsia and weight loss. HbA1c was 107 mmol/mol (11.9%) and blood tests excluded diabetes secondary to endocrinopathies. SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR test was negative. IV insulin infusion (0.1 IU/kg/h) and IV fluid therapy were started. He was shortly transitioned to a sc basal-bolus insulin regimen (0.7 IU/kg/day) . Mixed-meal tolerance test (MMTT) revealed a peak 120-min stimulated C-peptide of 12.3 ng/mL, suggesting marked insulin resistance. Islet autoantibodies (ICA, IAA, GADA, IA-2A, ZnT8A) and insulin receptor autoantibodies (IgG/IgM) were negative. HLA genotyping detected the following haplotypes: DRB1*01,*04; DQA1*01:01P,*03:01P; DQB1*03:02P,*05:01P. Insulin dose was gradually reduced and insulin therapy was discontinued after 4 months in favor of metformin (2550 mg/day) plus sc semaglutide (up to 1 mg/week) . After one year, MMTT revealed a peak 60-min stimulated C-peptide of 8.25 ng/mL. During the 18-month follow-up period, fasting capillary beta-hydroxybutyrate values were <0.2 mmol/L and HbA1c remained <48 mmol/mol (<6.5%) , indicating disease remission. This case suggests the existence of an autoantibody-negative KPD subtype driven by marked insulin resistance rather than by insulinopenia.

 M. Infante: None. P. Diperna: None. M. Passeri: None. R. Monetta: None. F. Papola: None. F. Brancati: None. M. Caprio: None. A. Fabbri: None.


Feature selection is widely used in preparing high-dimensional data for effective data mining. The explosive popularity of social media produces massive and high-dimensional data at an unprecedented rate, presenting new challenges to feature selection. Social media data consists of (1) traditional high-dimensional, attribute-value data such as posts, tweets, comments, and images, and (2) linked data that provides social context for posts and describes the relationships between social media users as well as who generates the posts, and so on. The nature of social media also determines that its data is massive, noisy, and incomplete, which exacerbates the already challenging problem of feature selection. In this article, we study a novel feature selection problem of selecting features for social media data with its social context. In detail, we illustrate the differences between attribute-value data and social media data, investigate if linked data can be exploited in a new feature selection framework by taking advantage of social science theories. We design and conduct experiments on datasets from real-world social media Web sites, and the empirical results demonstrate that the proposed framework can significantly improve the performance of feature selection. Further experiments are conducted to evaluate the effects of user--user and user--post relationships manifested in linked data on feature selection, and research issues for future work will be discussed.


Five commercial greenhouses in the central mountainous zone of Puerto Rico were studied in order to identify changes in soil factors that affect P retention. Soils were collected both within and outside drainages at a 0- to 15-cm depth. Soil physicochemical properties varied in samples taken both within and outside drainages. The high Fe and Al content in the soils of this study suggested a high phosphorus retention capacity. Laboratory estimates of P retention parameters indicated differences in P sorption capacity among soils. Phosphorus retention parameters were highly correlated with citrate dithionite extractable Fe. The equilibrium P concentration was also correlated with citrate dithionate Al in soils outside drainages. This finding was due to the higher soil organic matter counterbalancing the soil P retention capability of Al, all of which indicates the importance of clearing all drainages of organic residues in order to avoid excessive movement of P outside the greenhouse premises.


We developed a system for the detection of botulinum neurotoxin (BoNT) type A based on a highly sensitive luciferase reporter assay automated by the centrifugal microfluidic LabDisk platform. The assay is based on the detection of BoNT's proteolytic activity and generation of a bioluminescent signal due to the release of firefly luciferase, pre-bound to microbeads via a cleavable peptide linker, in response to BoNT. It detected purified BoNT, BoNT in complex with neurotoxin associated proteins, and the recombinant enzymatic BoNT light chain in buffer and whole milk in the concentration range of 8 pM to 6 nM with an analytical sensitivity and limit of detection of 10–39 pM and 6–14 pM, respectively. The intra-disk, intra-day and inter-day variability were in the range of 1–13%, 1–7% and 10–13%, respectively. The developed assay correlated well with the conventional microwell plate assay. It is superior to the conventional BoNT assays in terms of portability, cost-effectiveness, lesser sample requirement, lesser number of steps and detection of a broad spectrum of BoNT serotypes and subtypes. It takes only 30 minutes, which is ideal for point-of-need BoNT detection in the case of security threats and food monitoring.


This paper describes our experience in using the POSIX API standard for MPSoC applications prototyping on a reconfigurable multiprocessor ARM architecture. Applications running on this platform use a symmetric multiprocessor (SMP) POSIX compliant kernel named MUTEK. This work allows us to investigate and understand the complexities of the hardware/software interface design process. We propose a new generic MPSoC prototyping flow based on the POSIX standard, which allows fast prototyping of POSIX threads based applications


Abstract— Eight patients with malignancies confined to the peritoneal space participated in this study. Five hundred milligrams 5‐fluorouracil or 10 mg mitomycin C was diluted in 1 L saline. The mixed solution was injected intraperitoneally through the semi‐permanent peritoneal catheter. Blood and peritoneal fluid were collected after injection. 5‐Fluorouracil concentrations in the peritoneal fluid were 1000 times those in serum, while mitomycin C concentrations were 100 times those in serum. Areas under the concentration vs time curve (AUC) were calculated by the trapezoidal method with extrapolation to infinity. The ratio of peritoneal fluid AUC to serum AUC was about 1400 for 5‐fluorouracil and 80 for mitomycin C. Patterns for the absorption and elimination from systemic circulation were similar for both compounds. Drug concentrations in the peritoneal fluid and serum were analysed according to the compartment model. The half‐life in the peritoneal fluid (t½p) and the rate constant from the peritoneal fluid to the systemic circulation (ka) were nearly equal for both 5‐fluorouracil and mitomycin C (t½p, 1·0 h for 5‐fluorouracil and 1·3 h for mitomycin C; ka 0·71 h−1 for 5‐fluorouracil and 0·68 h−1 for mitomycin C), although the apparent volume of distribution (Vds/F) and clearance in the peritoneal cavity (CLp) for mitomycin C (78 Lm−2 and 1.8 L h−1 m−2) were about twice the values for 5‐fluorouracil (149 L m−2 and 0·8 L h−1 m−2).


Mechanical clearing and herbicide-burn treatments were compared to evaluate saltcedar (Tamarix chinensis Lour.) control and recovery along the Rio Grande on the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, Socorro, N.M. The herbicide-burn treatment included an aerial application of imazapyr (+)-2-[4,5-dihydro-4-methyl-4-(1-methylethyl)-5-oxo-1H-imidazol-2-yl]-3-pyridinecarboxylic acid] + glyphosate [N-(phosphono-methyl)glycine] (0.6 + 0.6 kg ai ha-1 rate) followed 3 years later by a prescription broadcast fire that eliminated > 99% of the standing dead stems. Six years after initial herbicide application, saltcedar mortality was 93%. Mechanical saltcedar clearing entailed removing aerial (trunks and stems) growth by blading, stacking and burning debris, followed by removal of underground plant portions (root crowns) by plowing, raking, and burning stacked material. Saltcedar mortality 3 years after mechanical clearing averaged 70%, which was deemed unsatisfactory. Thus, root plowing, raking, and pile burning was repeated. Three years later, after the second mechanical clearing, saltcedar mortality was 97%. Costs for the herbicide-burn treatment averaged $283 ha-1, whereas mechanical control costs were $884 ha-1 for the first surface and root clearing and an additional $585 ha-1 for the second root clearing. Riparian managers should consider environmental conditions and restoration strategies prior to selecting a saltcedar control approach. Although control costs were significantly lower for the herbicide-burn treatment compared to mechanical clearing in this study, the choice of methods should always consider alternative control strategies for saltcedar. Frequently, combinations of methods result in more efficient, cost-effective results. DOI:10.2458/azu_jrm_v56i5_mcdaniel


The sustainability challenges of the aquaculture sector will probably be closely linked with continuing interest in ingredients as alternatives to fishmeal for use within aquafeeds. Among the many protein sources available, plant proteins appear to be the most appropriate alternatives. Different aspects on the health implications of using vegetable feed ingredients on the digestive tract, plus possible effects on quality of the fish, are some of the most relevant problems currently confronting the aqua industry.
The need to understand this phenomenon leads to the present thesis, in which the investigation on the feasibility of the inclusion of plant protein in aquafeed was undertaken through a multidisciplinary approach.
The first study highlighted that inclusion of soybean meal in combination with different blends of plant protein maintains optimal growth in 20% fish meal dietary level for the on-growing of European sea bass. Despite fiber is considered as a component that cannot be utilized by most fish, inclusion up to 9.3% has no effects on growth, feed efficiency and digesta transit time in European sea bass. It was encouraging to note that inclusion of high levels of plant protein sources and fiber did not affect health and nutritional status of the animals. When replacing fish meal in aquafeeds, besides the research on alternative ingredients, also the nutritional profile should be considered. In the third study, it was demonstrated that taurine is a required nutrient for juvenile Southern flounder. The fourth study, highlighted that increasing the inclusion of plant ingredients, in substitution of fish meal, had no effects on quality traits of the commercial product.
However, it is not yet an easy or economi¬cally feasible task to reduce the aquaculture dependence from marine feedstuff, the present thesis has contributed to provide some insights on the feasibility of the replacement of fish meal in aquafeed.


One of the best ways to achieve global literacy is through communication, collaborative learning, research, and problem solving. Technology helps tremendously in these areas, so it is a great tool to use in this process. As e-infrastructures gain ground in many African countries and at the same time promises a new way of delivering health, education and agriculture. New technologies should be readily acceptable in order to deliver these essential services to the populace. However, against a background of previous studies pointing to e-learning as a monster under the bed (Chiome, Kurasha and Mupa, 2011) and after 98% of the students failed to voluntarily register for an e-learning blended programme, this research set out to find the factors affecting user acceptance of e- infrastructures in health, agriculture and education. This was a survey of institutions engaged in e-agriculture, e-health and e-learning in Zimbabwe. A purposive sample of 65students who were exposed to e-infrastructures was interviewed in order to determine the user acceptance variable applicable in Zimbabwe. The study found out that e-infrastructure users made rational choices faced with alternatives, belief in the usefulness or lack of it of the system, too much effort put into using technology, content richness, e-infrastructure usefulness and update regularity of the e-infrastructure are some of the absolutely vital technology acceptance variables. The research argues that the ability to navigate the complex life and work environments in the globally competitive information age requires e-infrastructure developers to pay rigorous attention to technology acceptance to engage e-infrastructure users other than the "early adopters" with the opportunities in e-infrastructures. Key terms: e-infrastructure , E-learning, e-agriculture, e-health, technology adoption, new technologies 1. Background to the Study


Abstract We describe near‐field coseismic and tsunami evidence collected following the 28 October 2012 M w  7.8 thrust earthquake that occurred offshore western Haida Gwaii, British Columbia, and discuss factors that influence its extent and preservation potential. Observations indicate minor geomorphic and sedimentological impacts on the rugged and unpopulated west coast of the islands, despite widespread coastal coseismic subsidence (∼0.5  m), triggered landslides, and tsunami waves exceeding 3 m in runup (maximum 13 m) along ∼230  km of coastline. Evidence left by the tsunami was minimal, likely because it occurred during a low tide that restricted its onshore reach, its flow depth, and its capacity to entrain and transport significant amounts of clastic sediment, sources of which are minimal or absent on the dominantly steep, rocky coastline. It is unlikely that subaerial evidence of coseismic subsidence and tsunami inundation will be recognizably recorded in the coastal stratigraphy of western Haida Gwaii, due to the relatively small magnitude of subsidence, a lack of suitable coastal environments such as tidal marshes to record paleoelevation differences, sedimentation rates that are too low to bury a paleoseismic or paleotsunami record, and long‐term relative sea level fall leading to erosion and bioturbation. A higher preservation potential is likely for tsunami deposits in coastal lakes, ponds, and bogs, as well as coseismic slope failure deposits offshore, in lakes and in sheltered fjords. Our findings imply that large tsunamigenic earthquakes are likely undersampled in the paleoseismic record of Haida Gwaii and of other plate margins with similar characteristics.


Our goal in this article is to contribute to a differentiated analysis of paid caring work by considering whether and how women's experiences of such work is shaped by their employment status (for example, self-employed versus employee) and the nature of care provided (direct or indirect). Self-employed care workers have not been widely studied compared with other types of care workers, such as employees providing domestic or childcare in private firms or private homes. Yet their experiences may be quite distinct. Existing research suggests that self-employed workers earn less than employees and are often excluded from employment protection. Nonetheless, they often report greater autonomy and job satisfaction in their day-to-day work. Understanding more about the experiences of self-employed caregivers is thus important for enriching existing theory, research and policy on the marketization of care. Addressing this gap, our article explores the working conditions, pay and levels of satisfaction of care workers who are self-employed. We draw on interviews from a small-scale study of Canadian women engaged in providing direct care (for example, childcare) and indirect care (for example, cleaning).


The ant-like stone beetle tribe Glandulariini harbours approximately 3700 species, representing more than 70% of the extant diversity of the subfamily Scydmaeninae. Fossil records of this large tribe are rare, and are mostly confined to Eocene to Miocene amber, whereas only four genera were known from Mesozoic deposits. Here we report a new Mesozoic taxon, Pangusyndicus excavatus Yin, Zhou & Cai gen. et sp. nov., from Cenomanian Burmese amber. For the first time the ventral cephalic structures of an extinct Glandulariini are observable, a character system usually difficult to discern, especially in fossil scydmaenines. Pangusyndicus clearly lacks lateral sulci on the submentum, a critical character state that justifies the placement of Pangusyndicus in one of the two assumedly 'natural groups' of Glandulariini. Pangusyndicus displays strongly reduced antennomeres XI, similar to those found only in the extant Australo-Oriental genus Syndicus Motschulsky. To test the phylogenetic position of Pangusyndicus, cladistic analyses were performed based on morphological data. Both parsimonious and maximum likelihood cladograms recovered a close relationship between Pangusyndicus, Syndicus and Loeblites Franz, indicating the unique reduction of apical antennomeres in this group may have originated once, and by the mid-Cretaceous at the latest. More strikingly, Pangusyndicus possesses a large cavity on the mediobasal surface of the pronotal disc, a feature previously unknown among all scydmaenines. We interpret this as a specialized glandular structure, although its function remains uncertain. The presence of such a cavity in Pangusyndicus represents the earliest known presumably glandular structure in Staphylinidae. Moreover, Pangusyndicus and several recently described mid-Cretaceous scydmaenines belonging to various tribes exhibit notably longer legs than their extant relatives, indicating shifts in habitat and prey preferences may have occurred during the evolution of these groups.http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:11529A5C-DAF3-4AD9-A074-10E937CE75CF


This overview of C++ presents the key design, programming, and language-technical concepts using examples to give the reader a feel for the language. C ++ is a general-purpose programming language with a bias towards systems programming that supports efficient low-level computation, data abstraction, object-oriented programming, and generic programming.


In this research two dibenzylideneacetone (DBA) analogs compounds: (1E,4E)-1-(4-(dimethylamino)phenyl)-5-(4-methoxyphenyl)penta-1,4-dien-3-one (DBA-1) and (1E,4E)-1-(4-methoxyphenyl)-5-(4-nitrophenyl)penta-1,4-dien-3-one (DBA-2) were encapsulated in poly(lactic acid) (PLA) membranes. These DBA analogs can have several applications such as in the development of controlled drug release systems and tissue engineering.  The membranes were elaborated by solvent casting. It was found that these fluorescent compounds have a small percentage of hemolysis in human blood red cells at concentrations between 200-500 µg/mL. Therefore, they can be considered not-toxic at these concentrations. The hydrolytic degradation of PLA membranes loaded with the DBA analogs was studied at a temperature of 37 °C under solutions at acid, neutral, and basic pH conditions for a maximum time of six weeks. The hydrolysis was monitored by measuring the loss of mass of the membranes, changes in pH environments, variations in the molecular weight of PLA matrix, and changes in surface morphology observed through Scanning the Electron Microscopy (SEM) technique. Applying UV-visible spectrophotometry, the amount released from the DBA analogs in the PLA membranes was determined during the degradation time, and finally, the release profile was obtained. It was observed employing SEM that the membranes presented a major degradation under basic pH conditions, with a higher percentage of release in an acid medium for both analogues of DBA studied


Hierarchical matrices are space- and time-efficient representations of dense matrices that exploit the low-rank structure of matrix blocks at different levels of granularity. The hierarchically low-rank block partitioning produces representations that can be stored and operated on in near-linear complexity instead of the usual polynomial complexity of dense matrices. In this article, we present high-performance implementations of matrix vector multiplication and compression operations for the H2 variant of hierarchical matrices on GPUs. The H2 variant exploits, in addition to the hierarchical block partitioning, hierarchical bases for the block representations and results in a scheme that requires only O(n) storage and O(n) complexity for the mat-vec and compression kernels. These two operations are at the core of algebraic operations for hierarchical matrices, the mat-vec being a ubiquitous operation in numerical algorithms while compression/recompression represents a key building block for other algebraic operations, which require periodic recompression during execution. The difficulties in developing efficient GPU algorithms come primarily from the irregular tree data structures that underlie the hierarchical representations, and the key to performance is to recast the computations on flattened trees in ways that allow batched linear algebra operations to be performed. This requires marshaling the irregularly laid out data in a way that allows them to be used by the batched routines. Marshaling operations only involve pointer arithmetic with no data movement and as a result have minimal overhead. Our numerical results on covariance matrices from 2D and 3D problems from spatial statistics show the high efficiency our routines achieve over 550GB/s for the bandwidth-limited matrix-vector operation and over 850GFLOPS/s in sustained performance for the compression operation on the P100 Pascal GPU.


Since the 1970s, the rise of global capitalism posed new ethical dilemmas for Western multinational corporations (MNCs), when it became apparent that they could profit from lower labor, environmental and human rights standards in developing countries. Aca- demic reflection on the matter led to the development of the international business ethics field, which seeks to answer a key question: how should a company behave when the standards followed in the host country are lower than those followed in the home country? This chapter will fulfill three goals. Firstly, it will present the new moral dilemmas that economic globalization and technological change are posing to multinational corporations. Secondly, it will introduce a number of answers developed by practitioners in civil society, government and business. Finally, it will review a number of theoretical answers developed by normative researchers by adapting traditional moral theories such as utili- tarianism, kantian deontology and virtue ethics. The chapter will conclude that traditional moral theories have mostly failed at providing guidance for a number of new cross- cultural moral dilemmas in the global economy.


This study utilizes unique product barcode, store, and retail real estate data to calculate consistent estimates of the effects of retail market structure on food prices in the US. Our uniquely disaggregated data allow for identification strategy that corrects for the type of endogeneity that plagues many previous studies on price-concentration relationship. Empirical findings from an instrumental-variables fixed-effects model indicate that retail concentration is endogenous to price determination. Further, retail prices are found to rise with retail concentration. Importantly, ignoring endogeneity results in a severe downward bias in the estimated effects of concentration on food prices.


Towards the situation that the traditional fractional difference always has the same order in various regions of image for image processing, this paper presents a novel approach that the fractional order is automatically adjusted according to the gradient of every image pixels. The main contribution of this work is that Otsu algorithm is used to design the adaptive image enhancement operator, and calculate the maximum gradient of eight directions for every pixls of image, finally, the optimal threshold of image can be calculated by the novel method, which can clearly distinguish the strong edge pixels of image, the texture of image and the smooth region of image. Information entropy and average gradient are used for quantitative analysis and experimental verification. Compared with traditional fractional differential method, the results show that this presented method can not only obtain more edge information, but also reserve texture. It provides an effective method of image enhancement.


A pharmacy computer medication profile is a valuable tool for the management of drug resources, proper utilization of physician time, and improvement in patient care by drug compliance monitoring. In an effort to reduce medication stockpiling, improve patient compliance, and reduce drug abuse, a system of preparing computer printouts of patient medication profiles was developed. The profile is placed in each patient's chart prior to each visit with the physician. This profile can then be used by the physician to identify drug compliance and abuse problems.


This thesis will study the various roles that quasi-Gorenstein modules and their properties play in the study of homological dimensions and linkage of modules. To that effect we begin by studying these modules in their own right. An R-module M of grade g will be quasi-Gorenstein if ExtR(M,R) = 0 for i 6= g and there is an isomorphism M ∼= Ext g R(M,R). Such modules have many nice properties which we will explore throughout this thesis. We will show they help extend a characterization of diagonalizable matrices over principal ideal domains to more general rings. We will use their properties to help lay a foundation for a study of homological dimensions, helping to generalize the concept of Gorenstein dimension to modules of larger grade and present a connection to these new dimensions with certain generalized Serre conditions. We then give a categorical construction to the concept of linkage. The main motivation of such a construction is to generalize ideal and module linkage into one unified theory. By using the defintion of linkage presented by Nagel [53], we can use categorical language to define linkage between categories. One of the focuses of this thesis is to show that the history of linkage has been wrought with a misunderstanding of which classes of objects to study. We give very compelling evidence to suggest that linkage is a tool to gain information about the even linkage classes of objects. Further, scattered among the literature is a wide array of results pertaining to module linkage, homological dimensions, duality, and adjoint functor pairs and for which we show that these fall under the umbrella of this unified theory. This leads to an intimate relationship between associated homological dimensions and the linkage of objects in a category. We will give many applications of the theory to modules allowing one to cover vast grounds from Gorenstein dimensions to Auslander and Bass classes to local cohomology and local homology. Each of these gives useful insight into certain classes of modules by applying this categorical approach to linkage. iii


Workflow is Oracle's E-Business Suite tool for modeling business processes. Workflow combines procedures performed by the computer with a system of notifications that allow humans to better direct the computer how to proceed. This book provides a very thorough explanation of the various components of Workflow. You'll learn step by step how to develop and test custom Workflows, and how to administer Workflow using OAM, the Workflow Management screens, and Oracle Diagnostics. This book also explains how the underlying tables store the data generated by Workflow, and how to perform the setups required for a few of the most commonly used Oracle Workflows. The book also includes SQL scripts and sample procedures that we use at Solution Beacon to assess and solve Workflow problems, as well as DBA topics like cloning considerations and partitioning Workflow objects.


Co-adaptation between mites (Arachnida: Klinckowstroemiidae) and Passalidae beetles (Insecta: Coleoptera). Mites of the family Klinckowstroemiidae establish an association with beetles of the family Passalidae known as phoresy. In order to obtain information about this association, we analyzed the rela- tionship between mites of the family Klinckowstroemiidae and beetles of the family Passalidae, as adult mites have been exclusively collected from host beetles. We examined 1 150 beetles collected in seven states of the Mexican Republic, and found 19 species of klinckowstroemiid mites associated with 168 passalids, that belong to 28 different species in 15 genera. Host specificity between species of both groups does not exist, as one spe- cies of passalid beetle can have several different symbionts; conversely, a given mite species can associate with passalid beetles of different species and even of different genera. This way, Odontotaenius zodiacus has been found associated with mites of seven species of the genus Klinckowstroemia. Besides, Klinckowstroemia valdezi is associated with five species of passalids. Furthermore, two and even three different species of mites have been found on one host beetle (synhospitality). The lack of congruence between the phylogenies of the mites and that of the beetles indicates that a process of co-adaptation by colonization is going on, because the association is due to the resources that passalid beetles can offer to the mites, like transportation, food and refuge. Since these resources are not host-specific, the klinckowstroemiid mites can climb onto virtually any species of passalid beetles occurring on the same habitat. Rev. Biol. Trop. 60 (2): 599-609. Epub 2012 June 01.


Triparanol [2-(4-chlorophenyl)-1-(4-diethylaminoethoxyphenyl)-1-p-tolylethanol] at a concentration of 2 micronm has no effect on the overall conversion of [2=14C]acetate into C27 sterols by isolated liver cells. In the presence of triparanol, however, the formation of radioactive cholesterol is inhibited by 85-90% and the balance of radioactivity appears in the C27 sterol desmosterol (cholesta-5,24-dien-3beta-ol). The very small weights of desmosterol which accumulate under these conditions were, as a routine, quantitatively converted into the heptafluorobutyrate 3-enol ester of cholesta-4,24-dien-3-one. This derivative has a high electron-capturing capability, a property that enables extremely small quantities (less than 0.25pmol) of the material to be accurately measured by gas chromatography with electron-capture detection. Measurements of the mass and specific radioactivity of the newly biosynthesized desmosterol formed in the presence of triparanol provides an accurate assessment of the amount of cholesterol that would be synthesized by the liver cells in the absence of the drug.


The consideration of environmental matters in trade liberalization agreements has become an issue since they were included in NAFTA and recognized Uruguay round agreement that created the WTO. Many WTO members, especially the less developed countries, remain opposed to including environmental issues in trade agreements. However, Canada, the U.S. and a few other countries now include environmental provisions in their bilateral and regional trade agreements; the U.S. is required to do so under its 2002 Trade Promotion Act (PL 107-210). Furthermore, the declaration establishing the Doha Round of multilateral negotiations recognizes a role, albeit a limited one, for the environment in negotiating the next multilateral trade liberalization agreement. Negotiations on these issues have been intense with relatively little agreed on to date.


Open online brand communities represent a significant potential for innovative ideas. Companies are seeking ways to utilize this source of information and knowledge and to promote knowledge exchange between the company and active members of open online brand communities. In open online brand communities, members voluntarily contribute and control their knowledge. For this research, we collected data from the members of online brand communities from two high technology but culturally different countries: Finland and the USA. Our primary goal was to compare the willingness of members in an online brand community (for a heart rate monitor company) to share information and knowledge and to participate in companies' innovation processes between two different high technology cultures. We used Hofstede's cultural dimensions to help explain differences between information and knowledge sharing and participation in open innovation activities between Finland and the USA. We found that the effect of utility, social identity, and domain-specific skills on information and knowledge sharing differed between the Finnish and American sample. Structural equation modelling results indicate that information and knowledge sharing play an important role.


ZnS:Cu, Eu nanocrystals with an average diameter of ∼ 80 nm are synthesized using a hydrothermal approach at 200 °C. The photoluminescence (PL) properties of the ZnS:Cu, Eu nanocrystals before and after annealing, as well as the doping form of Eu, are studied. The as-synthesized samples are characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometry, and the excitation and emission spectra (PL). The results show that both Cu and Eu are indeed incorporated into the ZnS matrix. Compared with the PL spectrum of the Cu mono-doped sample, the PL emission intensity of the Cu and Eu-codoped sample increases and a peak appears at 516 nm, indicating that Eu3+ ions, which act as an impurity compensator and activator, are incorporated into the ZnS matrix, forming a donor level. Compared with the unannealed sample, the annealed one has an increased PL emission intensity and the peak position has a blue shift of 56 nm from 516 nm to 460 nm, which means that Eu3+ ions reduce to Eu2+ ions, thereby leading to the appearance of Eu2+ characteristic emission and generating effective host-to-Eu2+ energy transfer. The results indicate the potential applications of ZnS:Cu, Eu nanoparticles in optoelectronic devices.


Abstract The study aimed at identifying specific giftedness patterns that teachers discriminate against, and for, when nominating gifted students and focused on the identification of implicit theories adopted by teachers on the topics of intelligence, giftedness, and creativity in light of their specialization and experience. The study examined the differences between the effect of summer enrichment programs and school enrichment programs on students' performance. Profiles for types of gifted students were created, and implicit theory scales and performance assessment scales were implemented. The results showed that regardless of teachers' specialization and experience, they tended to increasingly nominate students who are intellectually, creatively, and academically gifted. On the other hand, they are strongly biased against students who were gifted in visual arts, psychomotor, and leadership fields, as well as gifted underachievers. Gifted students' teachers tended to incremental theories in all fields, compared to classroom teachers who tended to entity theories. The results revealed that differences exist in the effectiveness of summer enrichment programs and school enrichment programs, as gifted students' performance was favorable in summer enrichment programs. Results showed that trainers' experience with giftedness programs was a factor on students' performance, and was dependent on the type of program, age of students, number of students, and trainers' qualifications.


Estrone-appended liposomal formulation of doxorubicin was designed to enhance the capability of clinically used liposomal doxorubicin formulation with the added advantage of delivery of doxorubicin to its destination site, i.e. cancerous cells over-expressing estrogen receptors (ERs). Estrone was conjugated with distearoyl phosphatidylethanolamine (DSPE) using succinic anhydride as a linker and the conjugate was characterized by IR and mass spectroscopies. Estrone-coupled liposomes were prepared with the composition of egg phosphatidylcholine/cholesterol/distearoyl phosphatidylethanolamine-estrone (PC/CHOL/DSPE-ES) at the molar and drug-lipid ratios of 7:3:0.5 and 0.1:1 (w/w), respectively. The average vesicle sizes of the conventional and estrone-appended liposomes were found to be 193 +/- 24 and 207 +/- 28 nm, respectively. The fluorescent microscopy studies were performed with estrone-appended liposomes loaded with 6-carboxyfluorescein (6-CF). Results of in vivo biodistribution studies showed that estrone-appended liposomes were effectively taken up by cells expressing ERs. The drug uptake study showed that accumulation of ligand-appended liposomes in the breast and uterus was 13.9 and 12.7 times higher when compared with plain drug, and 11.05 and 10.3 times higher when compared with conventional liposomes, respectively, after 8 h of tail vein intravenous administration. The findings are seminal for selective targeting of antineoplastic agents to the ER, which are frequently over-expressed on carcinoma of breast and uterine origin, and opens the promising possibilities for non-immunogenic, site-specific delivery of bioactive(s) to these sites.


By creating better goals and results definition, by clarifying and checking on rules, and by ensuring processes are well integrated and documented, you can avoid workplace toxins. But the real secret to long-term project health lies in ensuring that every team member feels it appropriate to their role to expose toxic levels of team activity and to name a solution. You can ensure this by implementing five antitoxins: clear, mutually agreed upon goals and results; clear rules that make sense; well-integrated and visible processes; increased accountability of all team members for uncovering and reporting toxic performance levels; and, most importantly, recognition and a positive approach to answering tough questions about the project's progress. Continuous positive feedback about small successes is still the best medicine for keeping a team healthy and productive. What do healthy team members do when they see a toxin! They add it to the list of other toxins already caught or prevented before they caused bugs in the team's software. Such lists become an important part of the project's lessons learned.


Web accessibility continues to have important social, legal and economic implications for ecommerce. Over 50 million Americans have disabilities and so do around 600 million world-wide (www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-17.pdf; www.usdoj.gov/crt/ada/busstat.htm). Disabilities include a vast range of issues: cognition, vision, motor skills, and hearing. The disabled comprise 19.3% of the U.S. population, more than any other minority group, including the next largest group---Hispanics (14.9%).
 This growing population commands significant discretionary funds. The U.S. Department of Labor estimates those with disabilities control $175 billion (www.dol.gov/odep/pubs/ek98/provide.htm) exceeding twice that of teens and 17 times that of tweens (8--12 year-olds), currently the most sought after demographic groups (www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-17.pdf). This untapped, growing market exceeds most company's estimations.
 In this study, we extend a previous CACM paper that surveyed accessibility at a snapshot in time with historical and additional perspectives on accessibility of Fortune 100 (F100) Web sites. The initial study revealed that over 80% of the F100's websites were potentially inaccessible to people with visual disabilities. Companies have become more aware of accessibility in recent years, which leads one to wonder whether the predominance of inaccessible websites continues or if companies have actually begun to seriously address website accessibility.
 Researchers have called for accessibility reviews over time. Following these suggestions, in addition to the initial study sample this study adds three additional data sets for a total of four: 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2005. The F100 Web sites were chosen for the usual reasons this population is studied, but also because we expect the largest and most profitable companies to be the most likely to have the resources and personnel to ensure website accessibility.
 The unit of analysis was the top-level home page for each Web site. This is an optimistic approach as companies may put their best foot forward here and then fail to consider accessibility for lower level pages. Deeper level analyses are possible but beyond the scope of this study.
 All samples were analyzed with the Watchfire® Bobby#8482; 5.0 Web accessibility validation tool. The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) guidelines were used to review all error types: Priority 1 (developers must satisfy), Priority 2 (developers should satisfy), and Priority 3 (developers may satisfy) (Table 1). WAI guidelines are a good starting point from which to evaluate Web accessibility and they are quickly becoming the global standard. WAI guidelines focus predominantly on problems encountered by blind users and therefore following only these guidelines will not always ensure accessibility for all disabled people. Given the breadth of existing disabilities it is difficult to evaluate all possible limitations to website accessibility. For this reason and to remain consistent with the previous study, this research concentrates on the WAI guidelines and thus issues that primarily impact visually impaired users.
 Automatically identified errors are important, yet many Web site accessibility problems must be checked manually by users or developers. For example, as the first criteria under Priority 1 suggests in Table 1, an accessible website should "provide alternative text for all images." Automated checkers cannot determine if the alternative text provided is meaningful to the user. Similarly, blind users often encounter problems with unlabeled "forms" that would allow them to enter information that could be searched, such as an author or title to a book. Further, 'user checks' may be more important than automatically validated errors because they can hide more subtle, yet potentially more problematic issues. We ran an automated user check analysis to determine the types and numbers of user checks for all sample years (Table 2).


It is known that near-Earth objects (NEOs) during their orbital evolution may often undergo close approaches to the Sun. Indeed it is estimated that up to ∼70 per cent of them end their orbital evolution colliding with the Sun. Starting from the present orbital properties, it is possible to compute the most likely past evolution for every NEO, and to trace its distance from the Sun. We find that a large fraction of the population may have experienced in the past frequent close approaches, and thus, as a consequence, a considerable Sun-driven heating, not trivially correlated to the present orbits. The detailed dynamical behaviour, the rotational and the thermal properties of NEOs determine the exact amount of the resulting heating due to the Sun.

In the present paper, we discuss the general features of the process, providing estimates of the surface temperature reached by NEOs during their evolution. Moreover, we investigate the effects of this process on meteor-size bodies, analysing possible differences with the NEO population. We also discuss some possible effects of the heating which can be observed through remote sensing by ground-based surveys or space missions.


Studies about subterranean fauna in Latin America were intensified in the last decades. Many research are species description, but other knowledge areas have been studied, such as subterranean invertebrates communities. This study aims to characterize studies about these communities in Latin America countries. We made a bibliographic survey of published papers in scientific journals and bulletins of speleology groups, and different aspects were verified, like localities (country), publish date, number of sampled caves, use of tests and statistical analyzes and sample effort. Of the 20 Latin America countries, we not found those studies for ten (10) of them (Bolivia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Dominican Republic, and Uruguay). We accessed a total of 164 published studies, of which the most was conducted in Brazil (69), followed by Mexico (52), Venezuela (17) and Cuba (11). In Brazil, most of studies was published in the last two decades (2000-2017), in Mexico in the 70's, in Venezuela between 80's and 2009 and in Cuba in 70's and 90's. Except for Brazil, where the most of studies explored the influence of biotic and abiotic factors in the communities, all countries published mainly faunistic inventories about only an unique cave or region. Thus, they do not present tests and statistical analysis and, sometimes, neither ecological discussion. Moreover, many publications do not have information about number of sample occasions and most of Brazilian studies did only one sample occasion. That makes it harder both the ecological approach that permits the verification of patterns that acts in the communities structuring and the comparison of data from different regions. Therefore, although the knowledge of subterranean invertebrates communities has increased, the Latin American has a huge potential to be explored in relation to areas with few or no studies, and to more consistent ecological studies.


Aim: In this study, we aimed to assess the relation between extroversion personality characteristics and awareness of works of art among a group of university students. Materials and Methods: One hundred thirty-five phase II students of the Medical Faculty of Hacettepe University registered in the 2005-2006 academic year participated in this descriptive study. In order to assess extroversion personality characteristics, Eysenck Extroversion Personality Scale was used. For determining awareness of works of art on the campus, researchers photographed selected works of arts and presented them for evaluation by the participants in a questionnaire. Four categories were determined as follows: category A: artistic products with the least probability of being recognized; category B: products with low probability of being recognized; category C: products with intermediate probability of being recognized; and category D: products with the highest probability of being recognized. Results: 59.3% of the participants in this study were male and 40.7% female students. Twelve works of art in total were presented to the students in the study. Students knew the correct location of a mean number of 6.3 ± 2.3 works of art. The mean extroversion score of the participants was 13.7 ± 4.3. Those scoring ´´14 or mor´´ points from the extroversion scale were described as ´´more extrovert´´. Conclusions: The personality trait of extroversion might be one of the positive influences on the participants´ awareness of works of art. Further studies in order to evaluate and increase the awareness of the students about works of art may be appropriate.


Received: January 2016, Accepted: May 2016 Background: Nosocomial infections are an important cause of hospital mortalities. Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) carriers among medical staff are an important source of nosocomial infections. The purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalence of the nasal carriers of S. aureus and antibiotic resistance in staff of Nikuee Hospital, Qom, Iran. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 152 health care workers (HCWs) were assessed to determine the frequency of nasal carriage of S. aureus, the rates of methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA), and their antibiotic resistance profiles in Nikuee Hospital in 2012. Clinical samples were cultured and S. aureus was detected using conventional bacteriologic methods. Antimicrobial susceptibility patterns against penicillin, vancomycin, erythromycin, clindamycin, cefazolin, cotrimoxazole, and doxycycline were evaluated using the Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion technique. Methicillin resistance was confirmed by oxacillin disk diffusion test. Data were analyzed in SPSS software using chi-square test and independent two-sample t-test. Results: Among the processed samples, 34.2% illustrated nasal carriage of S. aureus, and among them, 23.5% were carriers of MRSA. None of the isolates were resistant to vancomycin. However, 96.1%, 33.3%, 27.5%, 19.6%, 9.8%, and 15.7% resistance to penicillin, erythromycin, clindamycin, cefazolin, co-trimoxazole, and doxycycline were observed. There was no significant relationship between sex, age, and number of years of healthcare service and positive nasal carriage. Conclusions: Data obtained in this study revealed high prevalence of nasal carriage of S. aureus (34.2%) in HCWs at Nikuee Hospital. Therefore, it can be concluded that the role of the hospital staff in Nikuee Hospital as a source of staphylococcal infections is prominent. Thus, to prevent nosocomial infections, we recommend the identification and treatment of the carriers among the staff of other hospitals.


This article gives an overview of a recently developed channel system, frit-inlet asymmetrical flow field-flow fractionation (FI-AFlFFF), which can be applied for the separation of nanoparticles, proteins, and water soluble polymers. A conventiona l asymmetrical flow FFF channel has been modified into a frit-inlet asymmetrical type by introducing a small inlet frit near the injection point and the system operation of the FI-AFlFFF channel can be made with a great convenience. Since sample components injected into the FI-AFlFFF channel are hydrodynamically relaxed, sample injection and separation processes proceed without interruption of the migration flow. Therefore in FI-AFlFFF, there is no requirement for a valve operation to switch the direction of the migration flow that is normally achieved during the focusing/relaxation process in a conventional asymmetrical channel. In this report, principles of the hydrodynamic relaxation in FI-AFlFFF channel are described with equations to predict the retention time and to calculate the complicated flow variations in the developed channel. The retention and resolving power of FI-AFlFFF system are demonstrated with standard nanospheres and protreins. An attempt to elucidate the capability of FI-AFlFFF system for the separation and size characterization of nanoparticles is made with a fumed silica particle sample. In FI-AFlFFF, field programming can be easily applied to improve separation speed and resolution for a highly retaining component (very large MW) by using flow circulation method. Programmed FI-AFlFFF separations are demonstrated with polystyrene sulfonate standards and pululans and the dynamic separation range of molecular weight is successfully expanded.


The lack of baleen whale (Cetacea Mysticeti) audiograms impedes the assessment of the impacts of anthropogenic noise on these animals. Estimates of audiograms, which are difficult to obtain behaviorally or electrophysiologically for baleen whales, can be made by simulating the audiogram as a series of components representing the outer, middle, and inner ear (Rosowski, 1991; Ruggero and Temchin, 2002). The middle-ear portion of the system can be represented by the middle-ear transfer function (METF), a measure of the transmission of acoustic energy from the external ear to the cochlea. An anatomically accurate finite element model of the minke whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) middle ear was developed to predict the METF for a mysticete species. The elastic moduli of the auditory ossicles were measured by using nanoindentation. Other mechanical properties were estimated from experimental stiffness measurements or from published values. The METF predicted a best frequency range between approximately 30 Hz and 7.5 kHz or between 100 Hz and 25 kHz depending on stimulation location. Parametric analysis found that the most sensitive parameters are the elastic moduli of the glove finger and joints and the Rayleigh damping stiffness coefficient β. The predicted hearing range matches well with the vocalization range.


This study aims to explore the idea of sustainable transportation in the United States, China, Canada, and South Korea. Sustainable transportation has an essential role in developing a sustainable city that pays attention to an effectiveness-oriented transportation system that impacts the economy, the environment, and the quality of social life. The selection of case studies in four countries motivated the top four countries from the keywords sustainable transportation. This study uses a bibliometric analysis method using data sources from 306 articles (Scopus). The data search was carried out using the keyword "sustainable transportation" from 2012-to 2022. The highest number of research trends in the United States is 166 articles; China has 102 pieces, Canada has 46 papers, and South Korea has 26 articles. The data analysis stage was carried out using the Vos Viewer and Nvivo 12 Plus software. The results show that each country has a different focus measured from three aspects: planning, information, and investment. Planning factors include types of transportation, routes, costs, carbon emissions, and applications. The information aspect consists of estimation, trip, and performance. The investment aspect includes current demands and issues to shape future policies. Development strategy Sustainable Transportation in the planning stage only focuses on the use of vehicle emissions. In contrast, in the information aspect, it focuses on travel modes, then in the investment aspect, there is no attention to future policies related to issues that occur today. In the planning part of Sustainable Transportation, China has a varied focus, such as the type of transportation used, emissions, and the route used for transportation. In contrast, the Chinese state has not paid attention to this focus on the information and investment aspects. Meanwhile, Canada and South Korea have not focused on planning, information, and investment aspects. From these findings, it is hoped that it can provide input for various countries to pay more attention to these aspects to achieve sustainable transportation in smart cities. The concept of sustainable transportation is also helpful for achieving SDG's 11th goal.


A 70-year-old woman with PAS-positive acute lymphatic leukaemia was treated with vincristine, vindesine and prednisone. After three-month peripheral remission there developed mature-cell chronic myeloid leukaemia with positive Ph1 chromosome. After 12 days on busulphan (Myleran) treatment peripheral remission occurred for three months. After this there was again a lymphoid blast crisis with progressive development of a peripheral aplastic syndrome, of which the patient died 14 months after diagnosis of the first blast crisis. In retrospect, basophilia, spleen size and platelet count provided a pointer to the existence of a myeloproliferative syndrome even prior to the first blast crisis. Cytogenetic studies are recommended before treatment is started in every case of blast leukemia in order to assess any morphological change in the further course of the disease.


Increased competition and globalization motivate us to join forces to enhance the impact of the research conducted. Collaboration between organizations with different views can, however, be difficult to manage and needs awareness and skills to meet different expectations. This article will consider both a mutual industrial and academic perspective into the development of action research and, in six research project cases, empirically explore how the impact can be enhanced by considering certain key factors in the research process. How the phases of problem formulation, methodology, and results are managed is critical for the success of a collaboration and, thereby, its impact. Counter-productive forces that could dilute the progress over time need to be considered given that combining practical relevance and scientific rigour comes with challenges.


This study investigated the relationship between delta13C of ecosystem components, soluble plant carbohydrates and the isotopic signature of ecosystem respired CO2 (delta13CR) during seasonal changes in soil and atmospheric moisture in a beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) forest in the central Apennine mountains, Italy. Decrease in soil moisture and increase in air vapour pressure deficit during summer correlated with substantial increase in delta13C of leaf and phloem sap soluble sugars. Increases in delta13C of ecosystem respired CO2 were linearly related to increases in phloem sugar delta13C (r2=0.99, P<or=0.001) and leaf sugar delta13C (r2=0.981, P<or=0.01), indicating that a major proportion of ecosystem respired CO2 was derived from recent assimilates. The slopes of the best-fit lines differed significantly (P<or=0.05), however, and were about 0.86 (SE=0.04) for phloem sugars and about 1.63 (SE=0.16) for leaf sugars. Hence, changes in isotopic signature in phloem sugars were transferred to ecosystem respiration in the beech forest, while leaf sugars, with relatively small seasonal changes in delta13C, must have a slower turnover rate or a significant storage component. No significant variation in delta13C was observed in bulk dry matter of various plant and ecosystem components (including leaves, bark, wood, litter and soil organics). The apparent coupling between the delta13C of soluble sugars and ecosystem respiration was associated with large apparent isotopic disequilibria. Values of delta13CR were consistently more depleted by about 4 per thousand relative to phloem sugars, and by about 2 per thousand compared to leaf sugars. Since no combination of the measured pools could produce the observed delta13CR signal over the entire season, a significant isotopic discrimination against 13C might be associated with short-term ecosystem respiration. However, these differences might also be explained by substantial contributions of other not measured carbon pools (e.g., lipids) to ecosystem respiration or contributions linked to differences in footprint area between Keeling plots and carbohydrate sampling. Linking the seasonal and inter-annual variations in carbon isotope composition of carbohydrates and respiratory CO2 should be applicable in carbon cycle models and help the understanding of inter-annual variation in biospheric sink strength.


The pact between the artist and his community is underscored by the relevance of art to society. The artist plays a vital role in the community's growth and development in some ways: he represents his community through the artistic mode; he helps in preserving cultural values by rescuing such from extinction or degeneration and these values are transferred from generation to generation. In essence, Literature depicts man and his environment and it is the conscience of society. AbdulRasheed Na'Allah's Ilorin Praise Poetry and Ahmad Fulani truly reflect this noble role of the artist in exerting an influence on the cultural practices of a people. The diversity of culture which defines the heterogeneous composition of the Northern Nigeria is artistically captured in these collections. Apart from the sociological imperative of the poet's songs, there is also a touch of humanism as a philosophical guide. It is submitted that from style and language, these collections interrogate dynamics of cultures, attitudes and entertainment of many tribes and ethnic groups inhabiting the northern hemisphere of Nigeria, the most populous black nation in Africa.


Date of Award Fall 12-20-2013 Degree Type Thesis Degree Name M.A. Degree Program History Department History Major Professor Mary Niall Mitchell Second Advisor Connie Atkinson Third Advisor Michael Mizell-Nelson Abstract In the 1880s, two cycling clubs formed in New Orleans—the New Orleans Bicycle Club in 1881 and the Louisiana Cycling Club in 1887. These clubs were institutions of Victorian middle class culture that, like other athletic clubs, arose from the conditions of urban modernity and Victorian class anxieties. The NOBC, like other American cycling clubs, conformed to Victorian values of order and respectability. The attitudes and activities of the LCC, whose membership was younger, reflected instead a counter-Victorian ethos. This paper examines these two clubs in the context of late Victorian culture in New Orleans as it responded both to the conditions of urban modernity common to American cities in this period and to the particular cultural situation of New Orleans at the end of the nineteenth century, including proximity to and amalgamation with the recently-dominant, non-Anglo culture of the Creoles. Rights The University of New Orleans and its agents retain the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible this dissertation or thesis in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. The author retains all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis or dissertation. Recommended Citation Musgrove, Lacar E., "Knights, Dudes, and Shadow Steeds: Late Victorian Culture and the Early Cycling Clubs of New Orleans, 1881-1891" (2013). University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations. 1753. https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/1753  Download


This essay is both a review and a critical engagement with Heidegger's Heraclitus: The Inception of Occidental Thinking and Logic: Heraclitus's Doctrine of the Logos (Bloomsbury Academic, 2018). The ancient Greek term logos and the modern philosophical concept of logic are found throughout Heidegger's work. This work situates him at a middle period of his thinking on these terms, through lectures given in 1943 and 1944. The text marks the first English translation of these lectures, based on Volume 55 of Heidegger's Gesamtausgabe , published by Vittorio Klostermann in 1979. This review asserts that while Heidegger aims for a return to "originary" Heraclitean thinking, his principle concern is in advancing his own ontological concepts. The text, itself a translation of translations, is therefore a work of meta-interpretation that functions at multiple discursive and historical levels.


Deals with model-based pressure and flow control of a fine coal injection vessel for the use of the blast furnace injection process. By means of system modeling and identification, the structure and behavior of the coal injection vessel are analyzed. It is shown that by use of model-based design, the control goals can be reached and the control performance can be significantly improved compared to the conventional PI-controllers. Several dynamic models of the plant are developed. A number of control strategies are presented and compared by means of practical tests. The LQG design method is used to design the controllers. All the controllers are validated through experiments on the coal injection plant at SSAB Tunnplat in Lulea, Sweden.


The disease was simulated by inhalation of dust containing 29% of free silica in Wistar male rats during 8 months. One group of the subjects was kept under 26-28 degrees C and other one--under 38-40 degrees C. Dynamic surface tension of lung tissue homogenate was studied by means of computer tensiometer MRT (Lauda, Germany). Interphase tensiometry precisely characterizes state of lung surfactant in experimental chronic dust bronchitis. Equilibrium surface tension and surface tension for 0.01 and 1 sec deteriorate during combined exposure to silica dust and heating microclimate. The studies demonstrated strong correlation between interphase tensiogram parameters and individual lipids content of lung surfactant. Surface tension is related to the state of lipids peroxidation in lungs and antioxidant systems.


In this thesis I investigate aspects of dispersion controlled high nonlinearity all silica holey fibre, including design, fabrication, sample applications, and modelling. Microstructured fibre fabrication allows for great flexibility in core and cladding structure designs, with the large available refractive index contrast between glass and air. This allows the control of waveguide dispersion across a wide wavelength range, which can be used to offset the material dispersion of the core glass. Therefore, this technology provides improved overall dispersion control via fibre design. This often requires a complex arrangement of air holes in the structure. The full fabrication procedures for small-core holey fibres are presented. In particular, the fabrication of fibres with a graded-hole-size structure is reported. A structural accuracy of ±6% is achieved and improvements are proposed for future work. A systematic study of the Supercontinuum Generation phenomenon is presented in this thesis. By using fibres with different dispersion profiles, pumping at 1.06 μm, the nonlinear effects such as Self-Phase-Modulation, Four-Wave-Mixing and Self-Soliton-Frequency-Shift, which dominate the spectral broadening in fibres with one or two zero-dispersion wavelengths are identified accordingly. The latest work has been focussed on controlled structural variation of holey fibres along their length to obtain fibre with a longitudinal variation of dispersion and nonlinearity. I fabricated a dispersion-decreasing holey fibre and performed the first demonstration of soliton compression in a holey fibre. A compression factor of 2 has been achieved with pJ pulses at 1.06 μm. Further numerical modelling has been carried out from a holey fibre design contour map, to optimize holey fibre tapers for soliton compression at 1.55 μm. A compression factor of 6 is possible in a 15-m holey fibre taper with a loss of 0.1 dB/m.


LONGITUDINAL MODELING OF EARLY HIV BURDEN IN THE CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM V. Diego Armengol, Veronika Shabanova, Lars Hagberg, Richard Price, Magnus Gisslén, Serena S. Spudich. 1 Department of Neurology, Yale University, School of Medicine, New Haven, CT. 2 Department of Biostatistics, Yale University, School of Medicine, New Haven, CT. 3 Gothenburg University, Gothenburg, Sweden. 4 University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA. Background: The dynamics of plasma HIV replication during early infection including establishment of a viral set-point are well-known. However, the course of HIV in the central nervous system (CNS) after initial entry of HIV into this compartment is less understood. Using longitudinal samples, we modeled the natural history of HIV RNA in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and plasma during early HIV prior to initiation of antiretroviral treatment (ART). Methods: Participants with primary HIV infection (PHI, within 12 months of initial infection) were enrolled in prospective studies with paired longitudinal sampling of blood and CSF conducted in San Francisco, USA, and Gothenburg, Sweden prior to test-andtreat guidelines. This analysis incorporated all samples available over the first 3 years of infection from visits where participants were ART-naïve. HIV RNA assays had a lower limit of quantification of 40 copies per mL. Mean trajectory of CSF HIV RNA levels relative to time from infection was characterized using a restricted cubic spline function of time accounting for the correlated data within subjects. Parametric linear mixed effects models (LME) were also estimated to account for the covariate CD4/CD8 ratio and to confirm results from the spline analysis. Results: The final analytical cohort included 110 PHI participants (95% male, median age = 37, days post infection = 91 at enrollment) with 228 CSF and 247 plasma measurements. The model shows an initial decrease in CSF HIV RNA over the first 100 days of estimated infection, after which CSF HIV RNA begins to increase at a slow rate. Similar trends were seen in the plasma model, but at higher absolute values of HIV RNA copies/mL and with a narrower confidence interval compared to CSF. Plasma-CSF viral load difference declined rapidly in the first 100 days of infection. We confirmed the mean trajectory of change in HIV RNA derived from the cubic splines approach using the parametric LME model. Blood CD4/CD8 ratio negatively correlated with CSF HIV RNA, as there was a 0.69 unit decrease in log10(CSF HIV RNA) for each unit increase in the CD4/CD8 ratio (p = 0.0005). Conclusions: The viral dynamics in the CSF of ART-naïve individuals over the first 36 months of infection support the early spread of HIV to the CNS, and indicate that HIV replication is maintained in this compartment throughout the course of early infection prior to ART. Early initiation of ART may limit nervous system exposure to pathogenic effects of viral replication.


E extraction (EME) is a sample preparation technique in pharmaceutical, chemical, clinical and environmental analysis. This technique uses electro-migration across artificial liquid membranes for selective extraction of analytes and sample enrichment from complex matrices. This method has many advantages such as simplicity, rapid, low-cost, low LOD, high pre-concentration factor and high recovery. In the present work, simultaneous pre-concentration and determination of two basic drugs namely metoclopramide (MCP) and ondansetron (OSN) were studied using EME as a suitable extraction method, followed with capillary electrophoresis (CE) using ultraviolet (UV) detection as separation technique. The drugs were extracted from 4 ml sample solutions, through a supported liquid membrane (SLM) consisting 2-nitrophenyloctylether (NPOE) impregnated in the walls of a polypropylene hollow fiber, and into a 20 mL acidic aqueous acceptor solution resent inside the lumen of the hollow fiber with a potential difference applied over the SLM. The variables of interest, such as chemical composition of the organic liquid membrane, stirring speed, extraction time and voltage, pH of donor and acceptor phases and salt effect in the EME process were investigated and optimized. Under optimal conditions NPOE as SLM, stirring rate of 1000 rpm, 200 V potential differences, 20 min as the extraction time, acceptor phase HCl (pH 1.0) and donor phase HCl (pH 1.5). After the microextraction process, the extracts were analyzed by CE with optimum conditions phosphate running buffer (pH 2.0), applied voltage of 20 kV and 25°C. Under the optimum conditions, limits of detection (LOD) and quantification (LOQ) for MCP and OSN were 2.31-2.68 and 7.72-8.91 ng mL-1 respectively. Pre-concentration factor and RSD for five replicates of each drug were calculated to be 200 and 4.06-3.93 respectively. Finally, the applicability of this method was studied by the extraction and determination of these drugs in urine samples with recovery percentages of 87–92%.


With tetraspanning topology, members of the membrane-spanning four-domain subfamily A (MS4A) may facilitate signaling or ion channel functions in many tissues. In this study, we report the cloning of a full-length cDNA from rat testis, designatedMs4a14 (Sp3111), which encodes the MS4A protein with 1139 amino acid residues. In situ hybridization and immunohistochemical analyses indicate that Ms4a14 is predominantly expressed from round spermatids to spermatozoa at specific stages in the rat testis at both the mRNA and protein level. Immunofluorescence analysis revealed that MS4A14 (SP3111) is located in the acrosome and the midpiece of the flagellum in mature sperm. Previously, we explored and reported the involvement of MS4A14 in reproductive functions, using antibody blockage during IVF and a transgenic RNA interference method in a mouse model. Our results suggested that MS4A14 is involved in fertilization and zygote division. As MS4A14 protein exists in mammals, such as humans, cows, dogs, and rodents, MS4A14may play a ubiquitous role in mammalian reproduction. Reproduction (2014) 148 81–86


The ethical aspects of computing are increasingly being taught and written about in professional information systems education in universities. However, the ever-increasing role and use of computer technology means that computer ethics education related to computing is also necessary for non-professional/non-major computing/information systems students. Owing to the differences between professional and non-professional education, end-users need a different computer ethics program. First, this paper explores some of the issues (goals, challenges and problems to overcome) in end-user ethics teaching. Second, it proposes a solution based on the concept of universalizability. Third, the paper argues that the universalizability thesis is a proper tool for end-user education. Finally it demonstrates, with the help of three cases, how the solution chosen can be used to solve the issues identified and to educate end-users.


There has been much research on different forms of inequality and their effects on social cohesion. Few studies, however, have explored the psychological and social mechanisms linking inequality to social cohesion and other macro-social outcomes. How do individuals perceive and experience inequalities, and how do these perceptions relate to civic participation, tolerance, trust and other outcomes relevant for social cohesion? The Perceptions of Inequalities project – of which this literature review paper forms an essential part - focuses on inequalities as perceived and understood by young people. In the first section of the paper, we clarify the main concepts and terms used in the study of perceptions of inequalities project, and examine the different types of theories explaining differences in perceptions, values, and judgements relating to inequality, as well as how individuals respond to these. The second section of the paper takes a cognitive and social psychological approach to understand how people perceive inequalities. The third section of the paper reviews international comparative studies in order to assess the influence of societal level conditions on the cognitive elements of inequality (viz. perceptions, values, and judgements of inequality). We take a comparative perspective, and examine perceptions of inequalities within a comparative and 'macro' context. In the fourth section, we examine the studies that investigate the social effects of the cognitive elements of inequality. In the fifth and final section, we identify the omissions in the literature, and explain how the Perceptions of Inequalities project seeks to address these omissions.


Observations indicate that some of the largest Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) have retained volatiles in the gas phase (e.g., Pluto), while others have surface volatiles that might support a seasonal atmosphere (e.g., Eris). Since the presence of an atmosphere can affect their reflectance spectra and thermal balance, Schaller & Brown examined the role of volatile escape driven by solar heating of the surface. Guided by recent simulations, we estimate the loss of primordial N2 for several large KBOs, accounting for escape driven by UV/EUV heating of the upper atmosphere as well as by solar heating of the surface. For the latter we present new simulations and for the former we scale recent detailed simulations of escape from Pluto using the energy limited escape model validated recently by molecular kinetic simulations. Unlike what has been assumed to date, we show that unless the N2 atmosphere is thin (<∼1018 N2 cm−2) and/or the radius small (<∼200–300 km), escape is primarily driven by the UV/EUV radiation absorbed in the upper atmosphere. This affects the discussion of the relationship between atmospheric loss and the observed surface properties for a number of the KBOs examined. Our long-term goal is to connect detailed atmospheric loss simulations with a model for volatile transport for individual KBOs.


The most important aspects of GaN-based devices are high breakdown field and high operating temperature. One highspeed device structure is the HFET (heterojunction field effect transistor) where two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) is formed on AlGaN/GaN heterointerface. The electrons in 2DEG have significantly higher mobility than that in the conduction channel of a conventional metal-semiconductor field effect transistor (MESFET). Traditionally, GaN-based devices are fabricated on sapphire substrates. Since the sapphire substrate has relatively low thermal conductivity (0.28 W/cmK), it is necessary to carry out thermal analysis to ensure that the peak operating temperature of the device is within the acceptable range. Much effort has been exerted to provide sufficient thermal analysis in the past. In this paper, we present our thermal simulation using codes previously developed based on analytical solutions in our laboratory and compare the result of thermal simulation to actual thermal measurement results using nematic liquid crystal. Thermal simulation results agree reasonably well with measurement profiles.