ABSTRACT Ineffective and oppressive schooling of people of color has been obstinate and widespread. Disinviting and hostile practices often engaged through written and oral discourses contribute to this condition. Thus, identifying such discourses becomes imperative to reversing these conditions and creating equitable schooling. This essay proposes the use of critical analysis of white innocence as a concept to investigate prejudicial schooling practices. Borrowing from legal studies, the author proposes analyzing the rhetoric of white innocence and its simultaneous opposite, person of color as perpetrator, as an investigative frame in the schooling context. In this work, white innocence is reviewed as a social representation that assists in making more transparent the unmarked standard of white supremacy. The essay first conceptualizes the rhetoric of white innocence. Then, a methodological framework of social cognition through discourse and its (re)production of social representations is offered and utilized to exemplify the manifestations of white innocence in a social studies context.


This case focuses on the sponsorship sales aspect of the 2013 International Triathlon Union World Duathlon Championships in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The case outlines the process of acquiring the right to host the event and creating/implementing a sponsorship sales strategy for the event. The case provides background on the sport of duathlon and the city of Ottawa's capacity to host an international sport event of this level. This case recognizes that securing sponsorship is a major challenge that many small sport organizations and sport events face. Strategies are presented to show how these sport organizations can actively promote their offerings to overcome this challenge. Intended for graduate and undergraduate students in sport management, event management, and marketing, information for this case was obtained from interviews with event staff, secondary research, and documentation provided by the event organizing committee. It will be necessary for students to use critical thinking to provide feedbac...


Paraphrase generation is a difficult problem. This is not only because of the limitations in text generation capabilities but also due that to the lack of a proper definition of what qualifies as a paraphrase and corresponding metrics to measure how good it is. Metrics for evaluation of paraphrasing quality is an on going research problem. Most of the existing metrics in use having been borrowed from other tasks do not capture the complete essence of a good paraphrase, and often fail at borderline-cases. In this work, we propose a novel metric $ROUGE_P$ to measure the quality of paraphrases along the dimensions of adequacy, novelty and fluency. We also provide empirical evidence to show that the current natural language generation metrics are insufficient to measure these desired properties of a good paraphrase. We look at paraphrase model fine-tuning and generation from the lens of metrics to gain a deeper understanding of what it takes to generate and evaluate a good paraphrase.


The problem of an interface edge crack between two dissimilar piezoelectric materials is analyzed under the conditions of anti-plane shear and in-plane electrical loading. The crack is considered to be traction-free, but electric permeable one across which the normal component of the electric displacement are continuous. A series form of electromechanical solution and field intensity factors are obtained. The results show that all fields including strain, stress, electric field strength and electric displacement are singular in the front of crack tip. At last, the stress intensity factor is solved by the boundary collocation method (BCM), numerical results are given and discussed.


The central unit of the language is the nominative meaning of the word, which has been thoroughly studied by the present time of the development of the linguistic science and had fundamental research in this area. However, the study of the nominative meaning of syntactic structures in recent years has also begun to be included in the research agenda, and today it has become a special syntactic problem. It is noteworthy that syntactic structures, in particular, the nominative character of the word, show that there is a significant difference between the nominative features of the word and a sentence. Firstly, a word is literally a nominative unit, and therefore maintains its status in the speech and in the vocabulary of the language. The sentence is temporal in this aspect. It can only express a real nominative meaning when used in speech. Secondly, the fact that the word is a nominative unity is also clearly seen in the context of the denotation, which is reflected in the form of a specific narrative expressed through it. In other words, the expression of the word (signifier) is a pure sign, and the expression of the statement is a sign that also comes in the status of a denotation. Thirdly, the word is often polysemantic, and the sentence is monosemantic. Fourthly, if the word is a nominative unit, then this is the case once in a lifetime.


AIMS
To identify the reasons why workers decide to enter, stay or leave the aged care workforce; and the factors influencing them to transition between community and residential sectors in Australia.

BACKGROUND
Factors affecting the recruitment and retention of suitable care workers in aged care are complex and influenced by personal, institutional and societal factors.

METHODS
A qualitative description study design.

RESULTS
In total, 32 staff participated in the study. Five main themes were identified: entering aged care with a passion for the job; entering aged care as it is the only employment option; factors attracting care workers to stay in aged care; factors influencing care workers to leave the job; and preferring to work in residential aged care rather than community aged care.

CONCLUSION
Issues relating to the attraction and retention of aged care workers are influenced by personal, institutional and societal factors. Critical shortages in the aged care workforce make the industry more susceptible to crises such as COVID-19 outbreaks.

IMPLICATION FOR NURSING PRACTICE
Aged care organizations need to create a positive psychosocial work environment for staff to improve the attraction and retention of skilled care workers. They also need to develop staff recruitment guidelines to ensure care workers with the appropriate skills and training and a passion for working with older adults are selected. Staff development programmes need to focus on learning activities that enable staff to build peers support in the work environment.

IMPLICATIONS FOR HEALTH POLICY
There is a need to mandate curriculum to enable nursing students to receive more gerontological education and exposure to aged care throughout their education. Aged care quality standards need to mandate transition support for new graduate nurses.


In last few decades, Bangladesh Readymade Garment (RMG) Industry of Bangladesh has become a leading manufacturing industry in the world with its constant growth. The Industry is of major importance to the national economy of Bangladesh as it contributes more than 80% of the country's export earnings that amounts to about USD nineteen billion. The number of workers currently in this industry is more than 4.2 million and the number of factories is 5000 in different sizes. Despite this impressive growth, the performance of the workers in this industry is poor. Hence, this study aims at identifying the work stress factors and their impact on work performance of the RMG workers in Bangladesh. This used both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Respondent workers were selected by simple random sampling method from ten garment companies that are located in the periphery of Dhaka city. The impact of the stress of the workers was assessed by structured questionnaires. Two hundred ten readymade garment workers were interviewed from ten companies of different sizes for this study. Factor analysis was conducted to identify the factors related to stress of the workers that have impact on the work performance of the workers. Regression analysis was carried out to examine the impact of stress on workers' performance. The results show that the factors concerned with work stress symptoms are frustration and feeling of inefficiency, decrease satisfaction at work, problem of concentration at work and decrease of decision making ability. The performance impact factors are work pressure and frustration, understaffed workplace and work in holidays, job insecurity and pressure to complete the assignments. This study suggests that the policy makers should focus on the stress factors identified in this research that have impact on the performance of the workers in this industry.


Chapter 1: Introduction to Psychology Chapter 2: Neuroscience and Behavior Chapter 3: Sensation and Perception Chapter 4: States of Consciousness Chapter 5: Learning Chapter 6: Thinking, Memory, Cognition, and Language Chapter 7: Motivation and Emotion Chapter 8: Development Chapter 9: Personality and Individual Differences Chapter 10: Psychological Disorders Chapter. 11: Treatment of Psychological Disorders Chapter 12: Social Psychology


The PAX6 gene, a key regulator of eye development, produces two major proteins that differ in paired domain structure: PAX6 and PAX6(5a). It is known that an increase in the PAX6(5a) to PAX6 ratio leads to multiple ocular defects in humans. Here, transgenic mice were created that overexpress human PAX6(5a) in the lens. These mice develop cataracts with abnormalities in fiber cell shape as well as fiber cell/lens capsule and fiber cell/fiber cell interactions. While the structure of the actin cytoskeleton appeared relatively normal, the cataractous lens expresses increased amounts of paxillin and p120(ctn) as well as large aggregates of (alpha)5(beta)1 integrin in the dysgenic fiber cells. The elevated amounts of these proteins in the transgenic lens correlated well with elevated levels of their respective mRNAs. To investigate the role of Pax-6(5a) in the upregulation of these genes, a series of gel shift experiments using truncated proteins and consensus oligonucleotides demonstrated the complexity of Pax-6 and Pax-6(5a) binding to DNA, aiding our identification of potential binding sites in the human (&agr;)5- and (beta)1-integrin promoters. Consequent gel shift analysis demonstrated that these putative regulatory sequences bind Pax-6 and/or Pax-6(5a) in lens nuclear extracts, suggesting that the human (alpha)5 and (beta)1 integrin promoters contain PAX6/PAX6(5a) binding sites and maybe directly regulated by this transcription factor in the transgenic lens. We conclude that these transgenic mice are good models to study a type of human cataract and for identifying batteries of genes that are directly or indirectly regulated by both forms of Pax-6.


Studies carried out in the early and mid-1900s demonstrated the presence of 2 separate populations of eelpout Zoarces viviparus associated with the outer and inner parts, respectively, of Mariager Fjord in eastern Jutland, Denmark. In 1997, the fjord experienced a major fish kill resulting from a hypoxia/anoxia event. The purpose of this study was to examine whether 2 populations could still be identified in this fjord in 1998. The same morphological traits and genetic methods used in the earlier studies were employed for the present study. Neither the morphological characteristics nor any of the 7 investigated allozymes examined revealed any population differentiation between fish caught in the inner and outer fjord in 1998. It was concluded that there was no population differenti- ation in eelpout in this fjord in 1998. In addition, growth rates (estimated from otolith growth zones) appeared to be the same in fish caught in the inner and outer fjord in 1998. Estimated growth rates for fish in autumn/winter 1997 to spring/summer 1998 (assumed to be the growth season for the year of the hypoxia event) were lower than those estimated for autumn/winter 1996 to spring/summer 1997. Genetic data obtained in studies from the 1970s were re-examined and the earlier conclusion regarding the existence of 2 populations was confirmed to be robust. Thus, a change in population distributions of eelpout may have occurred in this fjord between the 1970s and the late 1990s. As the characteristics of the fish found throughout the fjord in 1998 resembled those of the 'outer fjord' pop- ulation identified in earlier studies, it is argued that the inner fjord population identified in earlier studies has been reduced or eliminated and that the outer fjord population has moved into the inner fjord. A comparison of catch statistics from the 1970s and 1998 suggests a major decrease in stock size during this same period.


The plan of the thesis is as follows: The introductory chapters
review the literature pertaining to human prediction and predictive
control models (Chapter 1), and to engineering aspects of predictive
displays (Chapter 2). Chapter 3 describes a fundamental study of predictive
display parameters in a laboratory scheduling task, Chapter 4
attempts to verify these findings using test data from an actual job shop
scheduling problem. Chapter 5 branches into the area of continuous
control with a pilot study of predictive displays in a laboratory
simulated continuous stirred-tank chemical reactor. Chapter 6 uses the
experience gained in the pilot study as the basis for a comprehensive study
of predictive display parameters in a further laboratory study of a
simplified dual-meter monitoring and control task, and Chapter 7 attempts
to test the optimal design in a part-simulated semi-batch chemical reactor
using real plant and experienced operators in an industrial setting. The
results of the experimental programme are summarized for convenience in
Chapter 8. Chapter 9 draws together the threads from the various experiments
and discusses the findings in terms of a general hierarchical model
of an operator's control and monitoring behaviour. Finally, Chapter 10
presents conclusions and recommendations from the programme of research,
together with suggestions for further work.


The biogeophysical characteristics of watersheds have an important role as a determinant of the river discharge amount in the watershed. Various watershed problems such as flood and drought related to river discharge require data and information. The importance of this data and information will determine a better watershed management plan. The issue of flooding and drought are the important issues in Ralla sub watershed, Souht Sulawesi Province. This study aims to describe the biogeophysical characteristics and the discharge of Lompo Riaja Atas and Lompo Riaja Bawah Rivers in Ralla sub watershed, Lisu Watershed. This research was conducted in from November 2016 to August 2017. Primary data collection was done through river discharge and precipitation measurements during 34 days of observation. Secondary data obtained from government or related agencies such as geological data obtained from Geological map of the Ujung Pandang sheet 1982, the slope data from Aster DEM, land type from RePPProt 1987, land cover data from google earth image 2015. A quantitative descriptive method was used to analyze the data obtained. The results showed that the Lompo Riaja Atas and Lompo Riaja Bawah rivers have relatively similar discharge fluctuation, although they have a different amount of discharge. River discharge of both rivers is more influenced by rainfall compared to biogeophysical conditions such as geology, topography, soil type, watershed area, watershed shape, river length and order, gradient, flow pattern, flow density, and land cover.


Metal rubber (MR) sleeve isolators have been widely applied in aerospace industry. An experimental investigation into its fatigue lifetime was conducted. The results indicate that its performance is determined by the following factors: the relative deformation of MR sleeve elements, the preloading of sleeve elements, friction coefficient of metal wires and vibration amplitude. It is concluded that solid lubricates can increase the lifetime of MR isolator greatly but lower its ability to dissipate vibrating energy.


This paper sets out to explore whether data about the usage of hashtags on Twitter contains information about their semantics. Towards that end, we perform initial statistical hypothesis tests to quantify the association between usage patterns and semantics of hashtags. To assess the utility of pragmatic features - which describe how a hashtag is used over time - for semantic analysis of hashtags, we conduct various hashtag stream classification experiments and compare their utility with the utility of lexical features. Our results indicate that pragmatic features indeed contain valuable information for classifying hashtags into semantic categories. Although pragmatic features do not outperform lexical features in our experiments, we argue that pragmatic features are important and relevant for settings in which textual information might be sparse or absent (e.g., in social video streams).


PURPOSE
Human corneas preserved in bioreactor (BR) are characterized by not only a better endothelial viability, but also a more differentiated and stratified epithelium compared to corneas preserved in organoculture. By using corneal preservation in BR, we aimed to analyze the respective contribution of corneal (C), limbal (L), and conjunctival (Conj) epithelia in corneal epithelial regeneration.

METHODS
Five pairs of corneas from body donation to Science were used with a death-to-collection time <20 hours. A 3- to 5-mm-wide conjunctival flange was kept intact. Five patterns were set up by complete mechanical removal of 1, 2, or 3 epithelia (-): C-L+Conj+, C-L-Conj+, C-L+Conj-, C+L-Conj-, C-L-Conj- (control) (n=2 for each pattern). The L epithelia was destroyed by scraping and thermocoagulation. Corneas were then kept in BR (21mmHg, 2.5µl/min of Corneamax Eurobio, 31°C) for 3 weeks to allow epithelial regeneration. The epithelium was then analyzed using immunofluorescence (IF) on flat mounted cornea by targeting CK12 (corneal epithelium) and CK15 (limbal epithelium). Cell nuclei were counterstained with DAPI. Corneal transparency was quantified using a transparometer.

RESULTS
No epithelium was reconstituted in the C-L-Conj- control group. In the other 4 models including the C-L-Conj+ group, the cornea was transparent and covered by a pluristratified corneal epithelium, characterized by CK12 expression.

CONCLUSION
In this BR model, conjunctival epithelial cells alone allowed the regeneration of a typical corneal epithelium whereas corneal epithelium was able to migrate to the limbus and conjunctiva. We hypothesize that all 3 ocular surface epithelia contain stem cells or progenitors able to migrate throughout the cornea and restore the corneal epithelium independently of each other. The main difference between our ex vivo model and in vivo situation is the absence of neovascularization. This suggests that the main cause of limbic insufficiency is due to the loss of the anti-angiogenic barrier rather than the loss of limbic stem cells.


Objectives This systematic review examined available literature on the prognostic accuracy of Doppler ultrasound for adverse perinatal outcomes in low/middle-income countries (LMIC). Design We searched PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library and Scopus from inception to April 2020. Setting Observational or interventional studies from LMICs. Participants Singleton pregnancies of any risk profile. Interventions Umbilical artery (UA), middle cerebral artery (MCA), cerebroplacental ratio (CPR), uterine artery (UtA), fetal descending aorta (FDA), ductus venosus, umbilical vein and inferior vena cava. Primary and secondary outcome measures Perinatal death, stillbirth, neonatal death, expedited delivery for fetal distress, meconium-stained amniotic fluid, low birth weight, fetal growth restriction, admission to neonatal intensive care unit, neonatal acidosis, Apgar scores, preterm birth, fetal anaemia, respiratory distress syndrome, length of hospital stay, birth asphyxia and composite adverse perinatal outcomes (CAPO). Results We identified 2825 records, and 30 (including 4977 women) from Africa (40.0%, n=12), Asia (56.7%, n=17) and South America (3.3%, n=01) were included. Many individual studies reported associations and promising predictive values of UA Doppler for various adverse perinatal outcomes mostly in high-risk pregnancies, and moderate to high predictive values of MCA, CPR and UtA Dopplers for CAPO. A few studies suggested that the MCA and FDA may be potent predictors of fetal anaemia. No randomised clinical trial (RCT) was found. Most studies were of suboptimal quality, poorly powered and characterised by wide variations in outcome classifications, the timing for the Doppler tests and study populations. Conclusion Local evidence to guide how antenatal Doppler ultrasound should be used in LMIC is lacking. Well-designed studies, preferably RCTs, are required. Standardisation of practice and classification of perinatal outcomes across countries, following the international standards, is imperative. PROSPERO registration number CRD42019128546


Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive technology that integrates computer-generated sensory information to a physical environment in real time (Lee, 2012). Major apparel retailers continually test AR's potential for in-store shopping (Davies, 2015). Since designing such technology requires large amount of investment; developers need to create better fitting applications. Therefore, the purpose of our study was to understand how consumers would use an AR application to make decisions, and their preferences concerning the usability of the AR. We interviewed with 17 female and three male participants. Qualitative data themes were grouped around Usability ,Usefulness, Garment attributes, and Psychological reactions. Females paid more attention to garment details, whereas males were focusing on the entertainment value as well as technical features of the application, and did not care about garment fit. The results of the study can assist technology developers in building better applications for apparel consumers.


With limited data and information, this paper aims to examine the recent developments in women participation/entrepreneurs in India.. This paper focuses on women entrepreneurs in micro, small and medium enterprises. The objective of the paper is: a) to estimate the ratio of women labor force in micro, small and medium enterprises, b) women share in registered and unregistered MSMEs, c) to identify the socioeconomic problems faced by women, d) credit availability, e) development of women entrepreneurship under planning. The findings of the paper shows that women form a category of "forced" entrepreneurs seeking to supplement their family incomes. A larger share of the women workforce belongs to the poor families or lower middle income group. Our findings also comes up with the fact that even after six decades of independence, women participation is just 10-13% of the in micro, small and medium enterprises. The recent trends show that when women are better educated and have better paid employment opportunities, then participation of women might decline in SMEs and they may move towards large scale industries.


The burden of unwanted infertility appears to be increasing, but links to environmental causes have, until recently, been difficult to establish. A large body of data suggests that sperm counts have been declining in Europe and the United States, but interpretation of these statistical trends remains controversial, and the role of the environment uncertain. We were able to show that some currently used pesticides are significantly associated with reduced sperm concentration by linking pesticide concentration in men's urine to results of their semen analysis. In a follow-up study, we showed that prenatal phthalate exposure was linked to subtle differences in genital development of male offspring that could impact the child's future fertility. Researchers are increasingly able to measure levels of environmental chemicals in human samples, and are using these to identify agents that impair fertility. These methods, rather than trend analyses, may lead more directly--and more persuasively--to identifying the role of environment in human fertility.


OBJECTIVE
To assess the effectiveness of metoprolol in preventing clinically detectable atrial fibrillation (AF) and flutter after coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery.

METHODS
An open, randomized study was carried out to treat 200 patients who had undergone isolated CABG surgery with extracorporeal circulation. The patients were randomized to either receive metoprolol orally or not to receive the medication in the postoperative period. The outcomes were the detection of sustained atrial AF and flutter, which were symptomatic or required treatment. The patients with the following characteristics were excluded from the study: baseline left ventricular ejection fraction < 35%; previous AF; history of bronchospasm; second- and third-degree atrioventricular blocks, low cardiac output, and heart failure.

RESULTS
Arrhythmias occurred in 11 out of 100 patients in the metoprolol group and in 24 out of 100 patients in the control group (P=0.02). The relative risk (RR) was 0.46 (95% CI = 0.24-0.88), and the number necessary to treat (NNT) and avoid the outcome was 8 patients. AF was the arrhythmia most frequently observed (30/35). In 38 patients aged 70 years or more, the arrhythmias occurred in 2 out of 19 patients in the metoprolol group and in 10 out of 19 patients in the control group (c2 Yates: P=0.01). The relative risk was 0.20 (95% CI = 0.05-0.79) and the number necessary to treat was 2 patients.

CONCLUSION
Metoprolol is effective in preventing AF and flutter in the postoperative period of CABG surgery, and this effect was more evident in the group of elderly patients.


Glycyrrhizic acid (GA), the main component from Radix glycyrrihizae, has a variety of pharmacological actions. In present study, GA nanoparticles suspension was prepared by supercritical anti-solvent (SAS) process and high-press homogenization process, and comparative studies were done on oral bioavailability, hepatic function and liver antioxidative activities in carbon tetrachloride–induced liver damage rats after treated with GA nanosuspension and unprocessed GA solution. Micronized CA under the optimum SAS conditions and CA nanosuspension prepared by high-pressure homogenization with the average particle size of about 80nm were obtained. GA nanoparticles suspension, compared with the unprocessed GA can significantly enhance the oral bioavailability. For carbon tetrachloride–induced liver damage rats, GA nanoparticles suspension can significantly reduce the release of ALTand AST. The plasma ALT and AST levels of GA supplementation were effective in decreasing up to 55 and 78.6 percent of model control group, respectively. For the GA solution group, the plasma ALT and AST levels were in decreasing up to 62.8 and 84.5 percent of model control group, respectively. GA nanosuspension could also significantly reduce plasma MDA and enhance SOD, GSH-Px and CAT activity. The CAT, SOD and GSH-Px activities increased by GA nanosuspension were about 1.31-fold, 1.43-fold and 1.28-fold of the unprocessed GA solution group, respectively. These results indicated that the GA nanoparticles suspension can be absorbed more easily than unprocessed GA after oral administration.


All models of lasing action require knowledge of the physical parameters involved, of which many can be measured or estimated. The value of the terminal level lifetime is an important parameter in modeling many high power laser systems since the terminal level lifetime can have a substantial impact on the extraction efficiency of the system. However, the values of the terminal level lifetimes for a number of important laser materials such as ND:YAG and ND:YLF are not well known. The terminal level lifetime, a measure of the time it takes for the population to drain out of the terminal (lower) lasing level, has values that can range from picoseconds to microseconds depending on the host medium, thus making it difficult to construct one definitive experiment for all materials. Until recently, many of the direct measurements of the terminal level lifetime employed complex energy extraction or gain recovery methods coupled with a numerical model which often resulted in large uncertainties in the measured lifetimes. In this report we demonstrate a novel and more accurate approach which employs a pump-probe technique to measure the terminal level lifetime of 16 neodymium-doped materials. An alternative yet indirect method, which is based on the ``Energy Gap Law,`` is to measure the nonradiative lifetime of another transition which has the same energy gap as the transition of the terminal level lifetime. Employing this simpler approach, we measured the lifetime for 30 neodymium-doped materials. We show for the first time a direct comparison between the two methods and determine that the indirect method can be used to infer the terminal level lifetime within a factor of two for most neodymium-doped glasses and crystals.


Understanding the complex physics involved in compressible multi-phase flows has been a challenging topic in modern Computational Fluid Dynamics. This is particularly true when investigating the unsteady dynamics of flow in high pressure fuel injectors. The high pressure and impulsive nature of these flows lead to transient complex phenomena including flow separation, cavitation, interfacial instabilities and turbulence. These phenomena contribute to evolution of the spray atomisation in a nonlinear sense. Although useful information on injector flows has been obtained experimentally, the extremely small geometry of injector holes (10\(^{-4}\) -10\(^{-3}\)) and the highly transient nature of nozzle flows still impose spatial and temporal limitations on experimental investigations. High fidelity numerical simulations serve as a promising tool to provide more insights into spray atomisation processes.
The injection of fuel sprays can be divided into three stages. In the first stage, turbulence is generated due to flow separation and cavitation in the injector. Subsequently, innozzle turbulence together with high flow inertia and wall shear lead to the development of surface instabilities incurring primary disintegration of the liquid jet into large structures such as ligaments and irregular droplets. In the final stage, large liquid structures further breakup into fine spherical droplets due to turbulent interaction with the gas in the combustion chamber.
In this thesis, three new numerical approaches to analysing different stages of the diesel spray evolution are developed. First, an efficiently parallelised Eulerian (Volume of Fluid) - Lagrangian (Lagrangian Parcel Tracking) coupling procedure is implemented. This procedure couples a high-resolution Eulerian description of primary spray breakup to an efficient Lagrangian tracking of droplet parcels for simulating secondary spray atomisation. Secondly, detailed investigation of the onset of cavitation and hydraulic flip in the injector is performed with a new compressible multi-phase Volume of Fluid cavitation code. Modelling of cavitation and air ingestion induced complete flow detachment in the injector is enabled by the use of multi-phase volume fraction transport equations. A modified multi-phase mixture energy equation integrating nonlinear equations of state and cavitation source terms is then developed and employed to enable simulation of the high pressure injection process with improved fidelity, including thermal effects. Finally, the efficiency and resolution of the cavitation code is improved through the implementation of a compressible fractional step pressure-velocity coupling method for all Mach number flows. Particularly, low dissipation and high resolution are achieved using the Kurganov-Noelle-Petrova central-upwind flux scheme.
The performance of the developed numerical methods is demonstrated using a range of geometries from a cavitating square channel to injectors with sharp and rounded nozzle entrances at various injection conditions. In addition, the superiority of the all Mach number multi-phase cavitation code in numerical resolution and computing speed is demonstrated by comparing it with the traditional Pressure-Implicit-with-Splitting-of-Operators (PISO) algorithm.


The pathology of genius. A study of the concept of genius in nineteenth-century medicineIn the mid-nineteenth century, the ancient notion that genius is a form of insanity suddenly became the topic of intense medical interest. Beginning with the French physician Lelut's 1836 study of Socrates, Du demon de Socrate, a number of prominent nineteenth century doctors developed theories that sought to explain genius with reference to various medical conditions. The most important and controversial of these theories was Cesare Lombroso's attempt in L'uomo di genio (1888) to show that genius, just like the innate tendency to commit crime that he claimed to observe in the majority of the criminals, was a form of masked epilepsy. Lombroso's opponents, in particular the followers of the French Lyon school, developed an alternative theory according to which genius was a higher form of reason and a future, more highly developed form of human appearing in advance.The paper seeks to demonstrate that the medical theories of genius were in fact an important scientific topic in the late nineteenth century. It aims to show that Lombroso's notion that genius was a positive counterpart to the born criminal, whose intuitive insights can be put to use by science and solve the very problems that the born criminal causes, meant that the theories on genius were in fact an aspect of criminal anthropology that was much more important than the previous research has noted.


Density-Dependent Mu Opioid Receptor Function Revealed by Single-Molecule Microscopy Michael Holsey The Mu Opioid Receptor (MOR) is a G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) important for pain regulation. Opioid agonists have long been the most effective treatment for most types of pain; however, this class of drugs is highly problematic due to the combination of several dangerous side effects like addiction, tolerance, and respiratory depression. Recently, a dramatic rise in opioid prescriptions has led to a nationwide opioid epidemic. Efforts to develop novel opioids with improved therapeutic profiles have led to work suggesting that MOR signaling through G proteins leads to analgesia while signaling through arrestin leads to respiratory depression and tolerance. However, more recent work has raised questions about which aspects of arrestin signaling and function contribute to these side effects. Additionally, the overall complexity of arrestin function especially with regard to trafficking at the cell membrane has recently come in to clearer view. Here, we use single-molecule tracking to describe membrane diffusion behavior of single MORs before and after agonist treatment in heterologous cells. By tracking individual MORs, we have revealed cell-context specific rules for MOR immobilization and endocytosis and shown that these processes depend on receptor density as well as the local availability of arrestin molecules.


The efficient representation of quantum many-body states with classical resources is a key challenge in quantum many-body theory. In this work we analytically construct classical networks for the description of the quantum dynamics in transverse-field Ising models that can be solved efficiently using Monte Carlo techniques. Our perturbative construction encodes time-evolved quantum states of spin-1/2 systems in a network of classical spins with local couplings and can be directly generalized to other spin systems and higher spins. Using this construction we compute the transient dynamics in one, two, and three dimensions including local observables, entanglement production, and Loschmidt amplitudes using Monte Carlo algorithms and demonstrate the accuracy of this approach by comparisons to exact results. We include a mapping to equivalent artificial neural networks, which were recently introduced to provide a universal structure for classical network wave functions.


BACKGROUND
Most of our social interactions involve perception of emotional information from the faces of other people. Furthermore, such emotional processes are thought to be aberrant in a range of clinical disorders, including psychosis and depression. However, the exact neurofunctional maps underlying emotional facial processing are not well defined.

METHODS
Two independent researchers conducted separate comprehensive PubMed (1990 to May 2008) searches to find all functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies using a variant of the emotional faces paradigm in healthy participants. The search terms were: "fMRI AND happy faces," "fMRI AND sad faces," "fMRI AND fearful faces," "fMRI AND angry faces," "fMRI AND disgusted faces" and "fMRI AND neutral faces." We extracted spatial coordinates and inserted them in an electronic database. We performed activation likelihood estimation analysis for voxel-based meta-analyses.

RESULTS
Of the originally identified studies, 105 met our inclusion criteria. The overall database consisted of 1785 brain coordinates that yielded an overall sample of 1600 healthy participants. Quantitative voxel-based meta-analysis of brain activation provided neurofunctional maps for 1) main effect of human faces; 2) main effect of emotional valence; and 3) modulatory effect of age, sex, explicit versus implicit processing and magnetic field strength. Processing of emotional faces was associated with increased activation in a number of visual, limbic, temporoparietal and prefrontal areas; the putamen; and the cerebellum. Happy, fearful and sad faces specifically activated the amygdala, whereas angry or disgusted faces had no effect on this brain region. Furthermore, amygdala sensitivity was greater for fearful than for happy or sad faces. Insular activation was selectively reported during processing of disgusted and angry faces. However, insular sensitivity was greater for disgusted than for angry faces. Conversely, neural response in the visual cortex and cerebellum was observable across all emotional conditions.

LIMITATIONS
Although the activation likelihood estimation approach is currently one of the most powerful and reliable meta-analytical methods in neuroimaging research, it is insensitive to effect sizes.

CONCLUSION
Our study has detailed neurofunctional maps to use as normative references in future fMRI studies of emotional facial processing in psychiatric populations. We found selective differences between neural networks underlying the basic emotions in limbic and insular brain regions.


Idiopathic scoliosis is a complex three-dimensional deformity of the spine of which the scoliotic deformity and rotation are entirely secondary to an abnormality of shape in the median sagittal plane. In the thoracic region, there is a lordosis where a kyphosis should exist. In a controlled series of animal experiments using the growing New Zealand white rabbit as the model, idiopathic scoliosis can readily be produced if an asymmetric lordosis is created in the lower thoracic spine. Neither pure lordosis nor pure scoliosis produces the progressive idiopathic deformity. In the experimental animal when the normal thoracic kyphosis is reconstituted before maturity, the idiopathic deformity spontaneously improves. This lays the foundation for a more physiologic approach to treatment.


Liver disease due to hepatitis C (HCV) is an increasingly frequent indication for orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT). The aim of the current study was to analyze the causes of graft loss following OLT for chronic hepatitis C and the longterm outcome following retransplantation in a large university program. Between January 1990 and December 1995, 1183 patients underwent primary OLT at our center. In 304 patients, HCV was diagnosed by seropositivity and/or polymerase chain reaction. Fifty-six (18.4%) of these patients underwent retransplantation. The 36 patients retransplanted for primary non-function were excluded from further analysis. The other indications for regrafting (>30 days following primary transplant) included hepatic artery thrombosis (5), chronic rejection (4), severe HCV recurrence (5), and other etiologies (6). The cumulative survival rates for the 248 patients who received 1 OLT (group 1) were 84% after one year and 75% after three years. The corresponding rates for the 20 non-PNF patients who were retransplanted (group 2) were 60% and 43%, respectively (P<.0001). Moreover, logistic regression analysis confirmed that patients in group 2 were more than 4 times likely to die than patients in group 1 (P<.0034; risk ratio, 4.2; 95% confidence interval 1.61 to 11.37). Patients undergoing retransplantation had a high incidence of serious infectious complications leading to mortality. Two additional patients with severe recurrent HCV died awaiting liver retransplantation. Eight of the 304 total patients (2.6%) transplanted for chronic HCV developed graft failure secondary to HCV recurrence and 6 of the 8 were retransplanted; 3 of the 6 patients retransplanted are alive without evidence of histologic recurrence (mean follow-up less than 1 year). In summary, despite the high frequency of recurrent histologic evidence of HCV following primary OLT (70% at 3 years), graft loss attributable solely to HCV is an infrequent finding. Retransplantation per se is a risk factor for a fatal outcome, and the indication for reOLT does not appear to impact ultimate outcome. Serious infectious complications were the leading cause of mortality in patients retransplanted. Furthermore, given the indolent natural history of HCV, longer follow-up is necessary to determine the ultimate rate of graft loss due to HCV recurrence.


Recent literature has identified innovative approaches of cellular therapy to generate new myocardium involving transcoronary and intramyocardial injection of cardiac progenitor cells (CPCs). One of the limiting factors in the overall interpretation of these preclinical results is the lack of reliable methods for 3D imaging and quantification of the injected cells and for the assessment of their fate within the myocardium. Here, for the first time to the authors' knowledge, we support by demonstrative experiments the hypothesis that phase-contrast microtomography (PhC-microCT) could offer an efficient 3D imaging approach to track the injected cells within the myocardium, without the need of any cell tracer. This deduction has been validated by several observations: (i) a strong phase-contrast signal was observed in infarcted hearts injected with unlabeled cells; (ii) the PhC-microCT 3D reconstructions of hearts injected with only vehicle saline solution and rhodamine particles, i.e. without CPCs, did not show any contrast; (iii) in the 3D PhC-microCT reconstructions of non infarcted hearts, injected with unlabeled CPCs, the contrast signal of the cells was present but differently distributed; and (iv) the contrast signal of injected cells diminished over time apparently following the same timing of cell engraftment and differentiation, as confirmed in literature by histology and fluorescence analysis. The chance to avoid cell tracers is of paramount interest in determining the fate of transplanted stem cells because the quantification of the signal will not be any more dependent on injected dose, concentration of the tracer, cell proliferation and tracer uptake kinetics.


Activin affects adrenocortical steroidogenesis and increases apoptosis, while follistatin (FS) acts as an activin antagonist by binding to activin, preventing attachment to its receptors. The regulation of FS expression in the adrenal cortex is poorly understood. Adrenocortical tumors often display aberrant methylation. In the present study, we investigated the effect of DNA methylation on FS mRNA expression and peptide secretion in adrenocortical cells. We treated human NCI-H295R adrenocortical cells with the methylation inhibitor 5-Aza-2'deoxycytidine (Azad; 0.1-100 microM for 1, 4 or 7 days) and measured FS mRNA expression by Northern blot and quantitative real time RT-PCR analyses as well as FS secretion by specific ELISA. Methylation-specific PCR showed decreased methylation in the FS promoter region after Azad treatment. A significant (P < 0.05) time- and dose-dependent increase in FS mRNA expression (up to 4.6-fold) and peptide secretion (up to 17.1-fold) was detected after Azad treatment. We conclude that FS gene expression and peptide secretion in NCI-H295R adrenocortical cells are regulated by DNA methylation. Thus, variable methylation in different adrenocortical tumors may influence activin bioactivity and its consequences in steroidogenesis and cell proliferation/apoptosis.


On March 1, 2019, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare added bleeding symptoms to adverse reaction package inserts as a possible adverse event for a new anti-influenza drug, baloxavir marboxil, because 13 patients with bleeding symptoms were identified among influenza patients taking the drug. Nevertheless, aspects of the epidemiology of bleeding symptoms among influenza patients remain unclear. This study elucidated bleeding symptoms among influenza patients and hospitalized patients as severe cases. A survey was administered to all physicians in Japan during the 2019-2020 season for reporting of bleeding symptoms in influenza patients. The survey elicited information about outcomes, assuming associated underlying diseases and drugs in addition to administered drugs including acetaminophen and anti-influenza (antiviral) drugs. We received reports of 63 cases with bleeding symptoms, including 5 cases of hospitalized patients. Among all patients, 54% had been administered oseltamivir; 10% had been administered baloxavir marboxil. Among hospitalized patients, all had been administered acetaminophen; 40% of them had been administered oseltamivir, and one patient had been administered baloxavir marboxil. Accumulation of bleeding symptom cases is expected to be necessary to evaluate the association.


We have incorporated the photochromic dyes spiropyran and spirooxazine in surfactant templated mesostructured silica particles. Spherical inorganic–organic hybrid pigments with varying dye content were produced by a one-pot synthesis in an aerosol reactor where the internal mesostructure could be controlled. The mesostructured inorganic–organic hybrid pigments provide a mechanically and chemically rigid framework that protects the dyes and facilitate handling. We show that an organic latex binder can be used to prepare transparent photochromic films of varying thickness. Changing the dye loading in the pigments and the pigment content in the films provides a versatile route for tuning the photochromic response. The pigmented films show both fast and direct photochromism, where the decay time for thermal bleaching is very fast in the case of spirooxazine doped pigments (kSO
 = 0.094 s−1), being in the range of the best reported values for solid state composites.


Using insulation slurry as material, the combined type insulation wall was developed with the high-effective screen-printing process. Two parts were mainly included for the combined type insulation wall, which was the lower insulation wall prepared on the cathode panel and the upper insulation wall fabricated on the anode panel, respectively. The fabricated combined type insulation wall possessed better insulation performance, and was used to separate the cathode and anode panel. Using carbon nanotube as cathode material, the field emission display with the combined type insulation wall was fabricated, and the detailed manufacture process was also presented. The sealed field emission display showed high luminance brightness, stable emission current and good field emission properties.


Tripleurospermum heterolepis (Freyn & Sintenis) Bornmuller has been poorly known as a local endemic species classified within DD category of IUCN. It had not been collected since its introduction to scientific community in 1895. In 2007, T. heterolepis was rediscovered in its type locality. Based on its syntypes deposited at B and G as well as the new specimens collected from the type locality, a misdescription of the species in the Flora of Turkey and the East Aegean Islands is also reported. A new description of T. heterolepis , amended and extended, is presented here, and its updated conservation status is indicated. The diagnostic morphological characters that distinguish the species from its close relatives are discussed.


This study investigates the perceptions of key stakeholders in midwifery education
concerning the involvement of service users in student assessment. It identifies the key
stakeholders in specific interest groups, as expert professional and expert lay people,
parents, student midwives, qualified midwives who mentor students in clinical practice
and the heads of midwifery education in University Departments. The work starts from
the premise that assessment is an underestimated means of enhancing students' learning
and the development of competence to practise as a registered midwife.

The inquiry opens by examining the professional context in which maternity services are
provided. It identifies the relationships that midwives form with the women and their
families for whom they care.
These considerations are followed by an interrogation of the literature that reveals a rich
variety of interlocking concepts that are apposite considerations in terms of the
assessment of student midwives and the involvement of women in it. This finely links
the problem to previous research and provides a sound rationale for the conduct of the
study.

Interpretivism is advanced as a suitable philosophical framework for the prosecution of
the study that offers a methodological rationale for a pragmatic, mixed methods
investigation. The study design presents a raison d'dtre for a phased approach to the
work and data are accrued variously from qualitative and quantitative sources.
Although the focus of the work concerned the role of users of maternity services in
student assessment and found considerable support for their involvement, what emerged
has wider consequences for teaching and learning, the overall student experience and also
for women as health service consumers.
Having examined the principle dynamics that influence student learning in clinical
placements, the study concludes that there is a superficial disharmony between learning
and assessment yet it claims the two are mutually complimentary. The inclusion of
women in teaching and learning is seen as a potent means to add an extra element to the
definition of competence and to add to the authenticity of its assessment.


The mixing time of the Glauber dynamics for spin systems on trees is closely related to reconstruction problem. Martinelli, Sinclair and Weitz established this correspondence for a class of spin systems with soft constraints bounding the log-Sobolev constant by a comparison with the block dynamics. However, when there are hard constraints, the block dynamics may be reducible.
We introduce a variant of the block dynamics extending these results to a wide class of spin systems with hard constraints. This applies for essentially any spin system that has non-reconstruction provided that on average the root is not locally frozen in a large neighborhood. In particular we prove that the mixing time of the Glauber dynamics for colorings on the regular tree is $O(n\log n)$ in the entire known non-reconstruction regime.


Zingiber cassumunar Roxb. (Zingiberaceae) or locally known as "Bonglai" among Malay is traditionally used as medicines to treat, skin disease, inflammation and as one of the component in herbal spices. From the isolation worked on the rhizomes of Zingiber cassumunar, five compounds isolated were elucidated as cis-3-(3',4'-dimethoxyphenyl) -4-[(E)-3''',4'''-dimethoxystyryl]cyclo-hex-1-ene (21), (E)-4-(3',4'-dimethoxyphenyl)but-3-en-1-ol (12), 3,4-dimethoxybenzoic acid (29), 8-(13,14-dimethoxyphenyl)-2-methoxynaphto-1,4-quinone (20), and beta-sitosterol (30).
 Aglaia oligophylla Miq. belongs to the Meliaceae family which is a large tree up to 25 meter high and locally is known as "Bekak". Aglaia species have received a lot of
 attention lately due to its strong insecticidal and cytotoxic activity. Phytochemical studies on stem bark of Aglaia oligophylla has afforded dammarane acid type of
 compounds, namely 20S,24R-epoxy-25-hydroxy-2-methoxy-2,3-secodammarane-3-oic acid (77) and 20S,24S-epoxy-25-hydroxy-2-methoxy-2,3-secodammarane-3-oic acid (78) while separation work from the trunk of Aglaia oligophylla successfully isolated one compound identified as silvaglin A (47) along with beta-sitosterol (30). Compounds (77) and (78) have never been reported previously, while silvaglin A (47) was isolated for first time from Aglaia oligophyalla. Structure of the compounds were elucidated using various spectroscopic techniques such as GCMS, HRESIMS, FT-IR, 1D NMR and 2D NMR and comparison with the previous worked.
In vitro investigation on the cytotoxic activitiy of isolates of both plants have been carried out towards human T-lymphoblastic (CEM-SS) and human cervical (HeLa) cancer cells. All the extracts of rhizomes Zingiber cassumunar showed no activity towards (CEM-SS) with IC50 values of > 30 μg/ml except for chloroform extract, which displayed IC50 value of 9.20 ± 0.02 μg/ml. Compounds (20) and (21) also exhibited moderate cytotoxic activity against CEM-SS cells with IC50 values 25.96 ± 0.94 and 28.34 ± 0.39 μg/ml, respectively. Meanwhile, all crude extracts from Zingiber
cassumunar displayed no cytotoxicity activity against HeLa cells. However, all compounds isolated showed significant cytotoxic activity against HeLa cell line with IC50 values < 15 μg/ml. Most of the crude extracts from stem bark of Aglaia oligophylla showed no cytotoxic activity towards CEM-SS cells except for methanol extract with IC50 value 22.76 ± 0.08 μg/ml. All extracts from trunk also did not give any activity towards CEM-SS cells. Meanwhile, petroleum ether, chloroform and ethyl acetate extracts from stem bark of Aglaia oligophylla showed moderate cytotoxic activity with IC50 value less than 15 μg/ml against HeLa cells whilst methanol extract showed IC50 value of 22.93 ± 0.38. However, all extracts from trunk exhibit no cytotoxicity towards HeLa cells. Surprisingly, compounds (47), (77) and (78) showed interesting cytotoxic
activity towards HeLa cancer cell line with IC50 value less than 15 μg/ml. Apart from the above activity, antimicrobial assay were also carried out on the isolates of the plants. Only certain extracts from Zingiber cassumunar and Aglaia oligophylla exhibit weak inhibition towards selected microbes and fungi while the rest were not active. Meanwhile, all extracts from both plants did not show any activity towards larvae of Aedes aegypti.


Reading the writings of any culture which is unfamiliar, distant in time or space, undoubtedly requires both knowledge and leaps of faith. Stephen Greenblatt, probably the most widely read commentator on Renaissance literature in the last twenty years characterised his task as 'the desire to speak with the dead': This desire is a familiar, if unvoiced, motive in literary studies, a motive organized, professionalized, buried beneath thick layers of bureaucratic decorum: literature professors are salaried, Middle-Class shamans. If I never believed that the dead could hear me, and if I knew that the dead could not speak, I was nonetheless certain that I could re-create a conversation with them ... the dead had contrived to leave textual traces of themselves, and those traces make themselves heard in the voices of the living. (1) Greenblatt's point is that we must translate the words of dead writers into our own idiom in order to be able to speak to them and comprehend their world. Critics are not unlike intermediaries between the mundane and the spiritual. Were the writers of the sixteenth century people who were completely different from us, who had totally alien conceptions of themselves to those that we possess, who would have found the most basic assumptions that most of us who read their work tend to make-that men and women should have equal rights, that everyone should be allowed to play some part in deciding who should govern the country in which they live and be equal before the law-ridiculous, blasphemous, or treasonable? Or were they really, beneath the obvious differences-education, clothes, housing--quite like us? How does either position affect our reading of the texts in question? How much do we really need to know in order to be able to speak with the dead? (2) I raise these questions, which may seem rather banal to some readers, for a number of reasons. They constitute, in a crude form, the basis of the central difference of opinion between scholars who study the Renaissance, a difference which has often been the only point of contact between the world of scholarship and wider journalistic and political debates. Some critics argue that it is impossible to understand the early modern period without appreciating the vast historical gulf between then and now; others see analogies between the two periods enabling them to compare and contrast both societies and their respective literatures. Students of literature are used to being told that the central conflict in literary studies is between those 'traditional' critics who believe in timeless, universal human truths and avant garde left-wing critics who insist that literature is culturally specific and speaks to us only from its particular historical moment. However, to draw up battle lines so straightforwardly is misleading and confusing. The first point one needs to make is that if we cannot read a work beyond its specific historical context then how can we ever understand anything? Unless we accept that things can be understood beyond their immediate cultural location, every action, phenomenon, and piece of evidence, written or physical, becomes unique, unrepeatble, and, therefore, beyond our understanding. Scholars who insist that we cannot understand aged texts because we do not have enough knowledge of the context are deluding themselves. We can never completely cover the context surrounding the production and reception of any given text: there is always more that could be known. Everything must be either repeatable or translatable into another mode in order for us to understand historical difference. Paradoxically, in order to be historically specific we must acknowledge that nothing can be truly unique. On the other hand, to imagine that everything has been the same since the dawn of time, because the world and 'human nature' are both constant, is a problematic assumption to make. There will always be questions of the social conditions under which a work was produced, the education the author received, the books he may or may not have read, the gender roles that were available to him or her, the range of political beliefs possible, the question of certain details within a text and whether they provide keys to our understanding, and so on. …


A large proportion of the Earth's surface is the deep sea. Numerous fields require access to seafloor topography and geomorphology. With the emergence of different types of underwater vehicles, especially the commercialization of near-seafloor micro-topographical mapping sonars, near-seafloor micro-topographical detection in the deep sea is possible. Near-seafloor micro-topographical exploration allows accurate detection of the seafloor using multibeam echosounder, side-scan sonar, and bathymetric side-scan sonar carried on-board various vehicles, including deep-tow, autonomous underwater vehicles, remotely operated vehicles, and human-occupied vehicles. Near-seafloor micro-topographical detection can obtain more accurate micro-topography and micro-geomorphology of the seafloor compared to full sea depth topographical detection. In this chapter, the basic principles of three types of near-seafloor micro-topographical mapping sonars are analyzed. Then, four types of underwater vehicles that are suitable for near-seafloor micro-topographical mapping are briefly discussed. Factors affecting mapping and detection results are presented using the Jiaolong human-occupied vehicle and its bathymetric side-scan sonar as an example. Next, the entire data processing and mapping methods are described. Finally, two typical detection results obtained by the Jiaolong bathymetric side-scan sonar in deep-sea are given.


The deep sea is the largest habitat on Earth and holds the majority of its' animal biomass. Due to the limitations of observing, capturing and studying these diverse and numerous organisms, little is known about them. The majority of deep-sea species are known only from net-caught specimens, therefore behavioral ecology and functional morphology were assumed. The advent of human operated vehicles (HOVs) and remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) have allowed scientists to make one-of-a-kind observations and test hypotheses about deep-sea organismal biology. Cephalopods are large, soft-bodied molluscs whose defenses center on crypsis. Individuals can rapidly change coloration (for background matching, mimicry, and disruptive coloration), skin texture, body postures, locomotion, and release ink to avoid recognition as prey or escape when camouflage fails. Squids, octopuses, and cuttlefishes rely on these visual defenses in shallow-water environments, but deep-sea cephalopods were thought to perform only a limited number of these behaviors because of their extremely low light surroundings. The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institutes' ROVs were used to determine whether or not deep-sea squids are limited in their behaviors compared to their shallow-water relatives. First, eighteen species of deep-sea squids were observed to release ink when encountered by an ROV (Chapter 2). Ink release was observed from the surface to below 1800 m and included six types of ink release, some of which have not been observed from shallow-water cephalopods. Ink release could serve as a visual defense by blocking the cephalopods' silhouette or bioluminescence stimulated by the squids' movement, or causing predators to confuse ink pseudomorphs with potential prey. It could also, or instead, have a chemical function by having distasteful or noxious qualities, blocking predator olfactory senses, stimulating feeding behaviors, or functioning as an attractant so that predators attack the ink. To investigate potential chemical functions, ink collected from deep-sea and shallow-water cephalopods was analyzed using liquid chromatography - mass spectroscopy (Chapter 3). The goal was to compare ink chemical composition between species to see if deep-sea species or a few particular species had vastly different chemical compositions that may warrant further investigations. An ethogram - a catalogue of every behavior a species performs - of the deep-sea squid Octopoteuthis deletron Young 1972 was produced from over eight hours of ROV video footage of 76 individuals (Chapter 4). Octopoteuthis deletron is capable of numerous color, posture, and locomotor changes. Individuals can also change patterns of bioluminescence produced by their arm-tip photophores, leading to the first description of bioluminescence as a cephalopod behavioral component. Additional work was performed with O. deletron to determine if this species can autotomize arms (Chapter 5). ROV observations, laboratory and in situ experimentation, and histological sectioning were conducted. Octopoteuthis deletron can autotomize any of the eight arms at numerous points along the length. This species is the first squid described to autotomize arms, has the uncommon capability of economy of autotomy, and is one of very few animals that can perform attack autotomy. Our understanding of cephalopod behavioral ecology has been greatly advanced by the research presented here. The hypotheses that deep-sea squids do not release ink and that their defensive behaviors are very limited were both falsified. Clearly there is much additional work to be done on these and other deep-sea animals to understand the ecology of the deep sea.


We used the chimeric Arabidopsis cyclic nucleotide-gated ion channel AtCNGC11/12 to conduct a structure-function study of plant cyclic nucleotide-gated ion channels (CNGCs). AtCNGC11/12 induces multiple pathogen resistance responses in the Arabidopsis mutant constitutive expresser of PR genes 22 (cpr22). A genetic screen for mutants that suppress cpr22-conferred phenotypes identified an intragenic mutant, #73, which has a glutamate to lysine substitution (E519K) at the beginning of the eighth beta-sheet of the cyclic nucleotide-binding domain in AtCNGC11/12. The #73 mutant is morphologically identical to wild-type plants and has lost cpr22-related phenotypes including spontaneous cell death and enhanced pathogen resistance. Heterologous expression analysis using a K(+)-uptake-deficient yeast mutant revealed that this Glu519 is important for AtCNGC11/12 channel function, proving that the occurrence of cpr22 phenotypes requires active channel function of AtCNGC11/12. Additionally, Glu519 was also found to be important for the function of the wild-type channel AtCNGC12. Computational structural modeling and in vitro cAMP-binding assays suggest that Glu519 is a key residue for the structural stability of AtCNGCs and contributes to the interaction of the cyclic nucleotide-binding domain and the C-linker domain, rather than the binding of cAMP. Furthermore, a mutation in the alpha-subunit of the human cone receptor CNGA3 that causes total color blindness aligned well to the position of Glu519 in AtCNGC11/12. This suggests that AtCNGC11/12 suppressors could be a useful tool for discovering important residues not only for plant CNGCs but also for CNGCs in general.


Given a matrix A, a linear feasibility problem (of which linear classification is a special case) aims to find a solution to a primal problem or a certificate for the dual problem which is a probability distribution . Inspired by the continued importance of 'large-margin classifiers' in machine learning, this paper studies a condition measure of A called its margin that determines the difficulty of both the above problems. To aid geometrical intuition, we first establish new characterizations of the margin in terms of relevant balls, cones and hulls. Our second contribution is analytical, where we present generalizations of Gordan's theorem, and variants of Hoffman's theorems, both using margins. We end by proving some new results on a classical iterative scheme, the Perceptron, whose convergence rates famously depends on the margin. Our results are relevant for a deeper understanding of margin-based learning and proving convergence rates of iterative schemes, apart from providing a unifying perspective on this vast topic.


High performance pixel design for 550Ke full well capacity, 10μm pixel pitch and 65dB dynamic range is challenging on typical CMOS process. In general silicon processes are un-optimized for critical optical parameters. Therefore, the spectral response and photo-sensitive simulation are the immediate requirements. This paper highlights a methodology for high performance imaging pixel design in a typical CMOS process and optimizing its quantum efficiency over a wide spectral range of 0.1μ to 0.9μm wavelength. It also introduces an design approach for such systems with the help of TCAD tool for photo sensitivity simulation and HSPICE simulator for integrated performance verification. The quantum efficiency of pixels has been optimized through layout design technique and verified through TCAD simulation. The integrated simulation shows good agreement with post-layout simulation of a test chip design of 4×4 pixel area array for 50% quantum efficiency and dynamic range of more than 65dB using 180 nm CMOS process.


According to the connotation of dematerialization, this paper states that dematerialization plays an important role in deepening the development of Circular Economy (CE), and maintaining balance and function of the eco-economic system. This paper demonstrates the dematerialization nature of CE in terms of de-coupling, and states that the de-coupling between economy and environment is the fundamental goal of CE. It is also proposed to further conceive the de-coupling index system, and to apply it as the measurement tool to the assessment of the CE practice in China.


Experiments were performed to demonstrate the production in Eschem'chia coli of spontaneously occurring mutants resistant to proflavine. The fluctuation test of Luria & Delbriick (1943) suggested that such mutants arise. This was confirmed by a modification of the technique of Lederberg & Lederberg (1952). By this method of indirect selection by replica plating, two separate firststep mutants were isolated; from one of these was isolated a second-step mutant, and from this a third-step mutant. The resistance of the third-step mutant was about 100 times greater than that of the original sensitive strain. By the same technique, two first-step mutants to chloramphenicol resistance were isolated. None of the 6 mutants had come into contact with either drug until the time of testing. Crossresistance between proflavine and chloramphenicol was shown by 5 of the 6 mutants ; the sixth showed an increase in proflavine resistance though not in resistance to chloramphenicol.


The promise of digital inclusion may be deterred by different sorts of discrimination brought about by next-generation network operators. As the growth of fixed and mobile networks relies on private investment and sufficient regulatory and economic incentives, competition in different telecommunications markets will increasingly depend on providers' ability to differentiate their product and discriminate among consumers. Unless the industry - operators, content providers, and regulatory and competition authorities - fully understands and exploits the welfare enhancing role of discrimination in the new environment, NGNs' promises of universal and ubiquitous access, sustainability, and affordability might be only incipiently achieved.


Measurements of the mole fraction of the CO2 and its isotopes were performed in Paris during the MEGAPOLI winter campaign (January-February 2010). Radiocarbon (14CO2) measurements were used to identify the relative contributions of 77% CO2 from fossil fuel consumption (CO2ff from liquid and gas combustion) and 23% from biospheric CO2 (CO2 from the use of biofuels and from human and plant respiration: CO2bio). These percentages correspond to average mole fractions of 26.4 ppm and 8.2 ppm for CO2ff and CO2bio, respectively. The 13CO2 analysis indicated that gas and liquid fuel contributed 70% and 30%, respectively, of the CO2 emission from fossil fuel use. Continuous measurements of CO and NOx and the ratios CO/CO2ff and NOx/CO2ff derived from radiocarbon measurements during four days make it possible to estimate the fossil fuel CO2 contribution over the entire campaign. The ratios CO/CO2ff and NOx/CO2ff are functions of air mass origin and exhibited daily ranges of 7.9 to 14.5 ppb ppm-1 and 1.1 to 4.3 ppb ppm-1, respectively. These ratios are sufficiently consistent with different emission inventories given the uncertainties of the different approaches.


Strong Borders, Secure Nation: Cooperation and Conflict in China's Territorial Disputes, by M. Taylor Fravel. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008. $70.00/£40.95 (hardcover), $27.95/£16.95 (paperback). Why and when do states cooperate in territorial disputes? Why and when do these disputes escalate to violence? In this book, based on extensive and previously unexamined Chinese-language sources, M. Taylor Fravel, Associate Professor of Political Science at MIT, provides compelling evidence that in its territorial disputes China has been less prone to violence and more cooperative than realist theory or conventional wisdom about an expansionist state might suggest. The groundwork for Fravel' s analysis was laid out in his widely cited 2005 article in International Security, "Regime Insecurity and International Cooperation", which describes where, when and why the Chinese government used peaceful means to manage conflicts, often with substantial compromises, even when its hard power was on the increase. Contrary to the diversionary war theory that leaders may instigate international conflict to strengthen their domestic positions during internal instability, Fravel instead contends that China's leaders have primarily compromised internationally when faced with internal threats to regime security. This book provides both a general theoretical response and a systematic empirical analysis of China's border disputes. The analysis is organized by the area of territorial dispute (frontier, homeland or offshore) and outcome (cooperation, delay or escalation). Fravel finds that China gave 17 substantial concessions in 23 disputes active since 1949, often agreeing to accept less than half of the territory being disputed. In 15 disputes, the compromise created conditions for a final territorial settlement through bilateral agreement. By contrast, there were 6 disputes in which the Chinese government never agreed to back down. Some of these conflicts, especially with India and Vietnam, were notably violent. Others, such as the crises over Taiwan in the 1950s and the clash with the Soviet Union in 1969, were tense moments in the Cold War involving threats to use nuclear weapons. Fravel argues that China's sense of a decline in the strength of its own claim or in bargaining power best explains its willingness to use force in its territorial disputes. This took place on two notable occasions when China faced challenges from two militarily powerful neighbors, India and the Soviet Union, when PRC leaders concluded that their adversaries sought to profit from China's internal difficulties. In October 1962, after China failed to persuade India to negotiate their contested borders, PLA forces attacked Indian positions "to halt India's increased military deployments along the contested frontier and its occupation of land in the disputed western sector" (p. 7). For similar reasons, in March 1969, during the political instability after the Cultural Revolution, Chinese troops ambushed a Soviet patrol near a disputed island in the Ussuri River because "Soviet troop deployments along the border, the Brezhnev doctrine to intervene in the affairs of socialist states, and an aggressive pattern of Soviet patrolling weakened China's position in the dispute" (p. 8). …


RNA transcriptional regulators are emerging as versatile components for genetic circuit construction. However, RNA transcriptional regulators suffer from incomplete repression, making their dynamic range less than that of their protein counterparts. This incomplete repression can cause expression leak, which impedes the construction of larger RNA synthetic regulatory networks. Here we demonstrate how naturally derived antisense RNA-mediated transcriptional regulators can be configured to regulate both transcription and translation in a single compact RNA mechanism that functions in Escherichia coli. Using in vivo gene expression assays, we show that a combination of transcriptional termination and RBS sequestration increases repression from 85% to 98% and activation from 10 fold to over 900 fold in response to cognate antisense RNAs. We also show that orthogonal versions of this mechanism can be created through engineering minimal antisense RNAs. Finally, to demonstrate the utility of this dual control mechanism, we use it to reduce circuit leak in an RNA-only transcriptional cascade that activates gene expression as a function of a small molecule input. We anticipate these regulators will find broad use as synthetic biology moves beyond parts engineering to the design and construction of larger and more sophisticated circuits.


Comparisons of the Irrawaddy dolphin, Orcaella brevirostris, between Australian and Asian sites documented geographic differences in height of dorsal fin, presence or absence of a median dorsal groove in front of the dorsal fin, and coloration (presence or absence of a dorsal cape). Analysis of genetic data provided support for two clades within the Asian samples, the Mekong River samples from Cambodia and southern Laos, and all other marine and freshwater sites from Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines. The major separation, however, was between sites in Asia and those from Australia (5.9% of base pair differences, compared with 1.2% for within Australia and 1.5% for within Asia). Within a 403 base segment of the mtDNA control region, Australian specimens had 17 diagnostic sites with 16 fixed base pair differences and one insertion/deletion. Consistent, statistically significant differences in skull characters of Australian specimens have previously been demonstrated and are reviewed in this paper. There was a high concordance in character differences demonstrated between O. brevirostris from all Asian sites and Australian specimens, especially in the genetic and osteological characters. Based on the range and concordance of character differences, we propose that the Australian dolphins be recognized as a new species, Orcaella heinsohni (suggested common name: Australian snubfin dolphin).


Abstract: The problem of memory consolidation has a long scientific history, dating to end of the 19th century, yet is still a matter of vigorous research and heated debate. I will review this history briefly and then deal mainly with current developments. One aspect of the problem concerns the interaction of the neocortex with the hippocampus and related structures in the medial temporal lobes in the formation, retention and retrieval of memory with conscious awareness (also termed explicit or declarative memory). The standard consolidation model, which has many adherents, posits that the hippocampus and related structures act as temporary memory systems, needed only until memories, with their help, are consolidated in neocortex and other regions of the brain. I will present evidence that challenges this view. Contrary to the standard model, our evidence, from humans and rodents, shows the retention and retrieval of episodic memories (detailed, context-dependent autobiographical memories) depend on the hippocampus and related structures for as long as they remain episodic, no matter how long ago they were formed. Some episodic memories, however, are transformed over time and lose the detailed contextual representations that make them episodic and hippocampally dependent; they become more gist-like, semantic (memories related to general knowledge about oneself and the world) or schematic. Once transformed, the latter memories can be retained and retrieved without the hippocampus and its related structures. In short, the change in representation from the hippocampus to neocortex over time is dependent on a process of transformation rather than consolidation. A unified account is presented based on this transformation hypothesis and multiple-trace theory from which it is derived, along with implications for understanding other functions, such as imagination, planning and problem solving.


The simultaneous perturbation stochastic approximation (SPSA) is effective for the optimization problem of complex system which is difficult or impossible to directly obtain the gradient of the objective function except the measurements of objective function. SPSA relies on measurements of the objective function to estimate the gradient efficiently. In order to accelerate the convergence of SPSA, many improvements are proposed. The typical improvement is that the Newton-Raphson gradient approximation approach replaces first order gradient approximation of standard SPSA. Although the second order SPSA (2SPSA) algorithm solves the optimization problem successfully by efficient gradient approximation, the accuracy of the algorithm depends on the matrix conditioning of the objective function Hessian. In order to eliminate the influence caused by the objective function Hessian, this paper uses nonlinear conjugate gradient method to decide the search direction of the objective function. By synthesizing different nonlinear conjugate gradient methods, it ensures each search direction to be descensive. Besides the search direction improvement, this paper also improves the stepsize calculation method of SPSA. It calculates suitable stepsize based on the current and former gradient information. With the descensive search direction and appropriate stepsize, the improved SPSA converges faster than the 2SPSA. Through applying to reinforcement learning, the virtues of the improved SPSA are validated.


Wireless indoor positioning systems have become very popular in recent years. These systems have been successfully used in many applications such as asset tracking and inventory management. This paper provides an overview of the existing wireless indoor positioning solutions and attempts to classify different techniques and systems. Three typical location estimation schemes of triangulation, scene analysis, and proximity are analyzed. We also discuss location fingerprinting in detail since it is used in most current system or solutions. We then examine a set of properties by which location systems are evaluated, and apply this evaluation method to survey a number of existing systems. Comprehensive performance comparisons including accuracy, precision, complexity, scalability, robustness, and cost are presented.


Wireless Sensor Networks consist of small sensor nodes, which are able to communicate with each other, to sense diverse data from the environment and to retransmit it to the rest of the network. The sensed data depends on the sensor embedded in the nodes, and the variety of available sensors enables these networks to measure humidity, temperature, to identify movement, to watch patients' health status, for surveillance purposes and many other applications. In a WSN, the nodes may preserve moving abilities or be static. It is also possible that they have to operate in dangerous or hostile environments. In most cases, their operation is based on small batteries, which is difficult to replace. Hence, when a node remains out of battery, it usually goes out of the network. Therefore, the design of such networks is mainly based on reducing energy consumption, in order to increase their lifetime. They mainly focus on the improved performance in terms of energy efficiency, but quality of services is also considered. In order for this study to be completed, firstly some essential models have been created, which mainly have to do with the network topology, the channel status, the energy consumption estimation and the simulation. Therefore, exact models have been examined, and used throughout the study for the design and performance estimation of the presented data transmission techniques. Based on the above study, a combined routing – adaptive transmission power algorithm has been developed. The proposed algorithm is named Energy – DElay Minimization (EDEM) and the results after its implementation indicated that it significantly decreases the energy needed for the transmission of a given data amount, increasing thus the lifetime of a WSN.


The purpose of this study was to investigate the utility of 18fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) coincidence detection position emission tomography (CDET) in the evaluation of metastatic mediastinal lymph nodes in patients with potentially operable non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). A prospective study was performed in thirty patients with newly suspected NSCLC. Thoracic computed tomography (CT), FDG CDET, and invasive surgical staging were performed in patients. Blinded prospective interpretation was performed for each test and compared to pathological staging obtained by mediastinoscopy and/or by thoracotomy. Patients were followed for six months to detect occult metastases. The sensitivity and specificity of CDET for the detection of mediaStinal lymph nodes were 75% and 94.4% respectively. The corresponding value for CT were 50% and 80.9%. Three patients with N1 disease were classified as N0 by CDET. With regard to definitive surgical node staging, CDET could identify nodal disease in 26 patients and CT only in 18 patients (n = 30). FDG full-ring positron emission tomography (PET) is the most accurate non-invasive method for the detection and staging of lung cancer. In addition, FDG CDET shows high accuracy for the detectability of pulmonary lesions with a diameter at least 2 cm and the evaluation of lymph node in NSCLC.


This article, based on "Changing Tastes: The Effects of Eating Out," the Annual Distinguished Lecture at SOAS Food Studies Centre given on March 21, 2018, focuses on change and continuity in the practice of dining out in England between 1995 and 2015. After briefly describing a restudy in three cities—Bristol, London, and Preston—the article investigates two tendencies that have progressed over the twenty-year period: familiarization and diversification. Dining out has become more common but at the same time variety has increased, allowing the expression of taste in the form of cultural omnivorousness. Behind these patterns can be found a small number of principles which steer the practice of dining out, ones shared almost universally but observed in different ways and to different degrees by sections of the population. Cohort, class, ethnicity, and location are important sources of differentiation, but almost everyone is subject to and influenced by similar imperatives to experience variety, feel comfortable, and display adequate practical knowledge. It is concluded that the rate of change has been relatively slow and that major current trends have been in train since the 1970s.


Learning cannot be separated from human life. However, each of the human beings learn differently and will need different approaches. One of the interesting learning approaches is humanistic approach. This particular approach focuses on the students. It is assumed that students are the first and the main actors in education. The students are the subjects which become the center of attention in all educational activities. Humanistic educators believe that students have potentials, abilities, and strengths to develop. Education should not only focus on physical and intellectual but social and affective aspects of the students. This writing aims to describe humanistic approach and its learning activities in detailed.


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A system model has been developed for the analytical and numerical treatment of the Wheeler cap technique. The model projects the properties of the antenna-under-test on the properties of the cavity, and was used in part I of the study to examine the performance of constant-size rectangular cavities. E/M simulations verified the model. Part II proceeds in the same framework and completes this two-part study, which estimates the limits of resonance-free efficiency measurements of planar antennas inside fixed-geometry Wheeler caps through a unified deterministic design methodology for 3 types of cavities. The focus is on the analytical and numerical treatment of spherical and cylindrical cavities. Spherical caps can provide coherent measurable bandwidths (BWs) in the range 28–41% for antenna sizes 0.5–0.85 times the wavelength. Cylindrical cavities are also versatile performers and display coherent measurable BWs in the range 20–40% for antenna sizes 0.5–0.78 times the wavelength. Electrically small antennas can secure measurable BWs up to 87% in the spherical case and up to 76% in the cylindrical one, when the cavities are operated below cut-off.


The adaptation of a temperate climate fruit cultivar to a certain area depends mainly on its chilling requirement and the chilling accumulation in such places. Several attempts have been made to estimate these two conditions, using different models. The great variation among the models to calculate chilling requirement makes it necessary to determine their efficiency in a given location. Aiming to estimate the chilling requirement of ten peach cultivars, including Bonão, Pepita, Maravilha, Precocinho, Turmalina, Diamante, BR-3, Marfim, Coral, and Cambará do Sul, seven models were tested: Utah, Positive Utah, Low Chill, Taiwan, Chilling Hours (≤7.2°C), Chilling Hours (≤11°C), and Dynamic. The results showed that the estimation of chilling accumulation for all the studied cultivars in all the tested models showed a large variability. None of the tested models was Original Research Article Milech et al.; JEAI, 20(4): 1-9, 2018; Article no.JEAI.39204 2 perfect for estimating the chilling requirement, especially considering the variable climatic conditions of southern Brazil. Except for the Utah model, any of the others can be used to provide a rough estimate of the chilling requirement of the cultivars; however, the Taiwan and Low Chill models seem to be more suitable. The chilling requirement, which was estimated based on the average over the 11 years of the study, overestimated the real need, when compared to the yields over those years. There are differences among the studied cultivars; however, with the exception of Cambará do Sul, all the others can yield good crops and show good adaptation to the climatic conditions of the southern Rio Grande do Sul.


We report a case of a 72-year-old male that underwent two sets of transrectal prostatic needle biopsy (TPNB) within 9 month period. Pathology showed unremarkable benign prostatic tissues in the first group of biopsies while extensive diffuse inflammation with the characteristic features of malakoplakia in the second set. Three cores in the repeat biopsy contained foci of prostatic adenocarcinoma as well. Occurrence of malakoplakia several months after TPNB in our case suggests that microorganisms may have been inoculated to the prostate during the biopsy procedure. We believe that malakoplakia must be added to the list of complications after TPNB.


H - ion injection into an accumulator ring is a limiting process for future high-intensity pulsed spallation neutron sources. To facilitate the injection design process, a method has been developed to access a tracking code, ACCSIM (1), from within an optimization package (2). The optimization tool is a C++ interactive driver with steepest decent and genetic algorithm optimization methods and parallel computing capabilities. Some injection parameters varied in the optimization process are the H - beam size and position, the foil configuration and thickness, and the horizontal and vertical bump time profiles. Constraints and figures-of-merit include maximum allowed foil temperature, maximum allowed space charge tune shifts, maximum allowed foil traversals, and maximum allowed beam losses. Application of this method to accumulator ring injection in the proposed National Spallation Neutron Source (NSNS) is presented. 1 BACKGROUND


The embryonic gonad of Drosophila melanogaster begins to display sexually dimorphic traits soon after its formation. Here we demonstrate the involvement of a wnt family ligand, wnt-2, in the induction of these sex-specific differences. We show that wnt-2 contributes to the survival of a male-specific population of somatic gonadal precursor cells (SGPs), the male-specific SGPs that are located at the posterior of the male gonad. We also show that the Wnt-2 ligand synergizes with the JAK-STAT ligand Upd, which is produced by SGPs at the anterior of the gonad to activate the STAT pathway in male germ cells. We suggest that the use of two spatially separated signaling systems to initiate the JAK-STAT stem cell maintenance pathway in germ cells provides a mechanism for increasing the pool of potential progenitors of the germline stem cells in the adult testes. Finally, we present evidence indicating that, like the JAK-STAT pathway, wnt-2 stimulates germ cells in male embryos to re-enter the cell cycle.


Variational quantum algorithms are expected to demonstrate the advantage of quantum computing on near-term noisy quantum computers. However, training such variational quantum algorithms suffers from gradient vanishing as the size of the algorithm increases. Previous work cannot handle the gradient vanishing induced by the inevitable noise effects on realistic quantum hardware. In this paper, we propose a novel training scheme to mitigate such noise-induced gradient vanishing. We first introduce a new cost function of which the gradients are significantly augmented by employing traceless observables in truncated subspace. We then prove that the same minimum can be reached by optimizing the original cost function with the gradients from the new cost function. Experiments show that our new training scheme is highly effective for major variational quantum algorithms of various tasks.


We realize a review of laboratory in Basic Pediatry, this is a method of etiological and pathogenical diagnosis, and also is good for the following and evolution in the treatment of the patient. We talk of the results in three levels: hematological, biochemical and microbiological, and in contrast with the needs of every pediatrics age.


As an effective therapeutic modality, high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) can destroy tumour tissues by thermocoagulation with less metastasis, but it is still limited by inaccurate non-invasive temperature monitoring and efficacy evaluation. A model of electrical impedance measurement during HIFU therapy was established using the temperature-impedance relationship. Based on the simulations of acoustic pressure, temperature, and electrical conductivity, the impedance of the phantom was calculated and experimentally demonstrated for different values of acoustic power values and treatment time. We proved that the relative impedance variation (RIV) increases linearly with the increasing treatment time at a fixed acoustic power, and the relative impedance variation rate shows a linear relationship with the acoustic power. The RIV and treatment time required for HIFU treatment efficacy are inversely proportional to the acoustic power and the square of acoustic power, respectively. The favourable results suggest that RIV can be used as an efficient indicator for noninvasive temperature monitoring and efficacy evaluation and may provide new strategy for accurate dose control of HIFU therapy.


Packaging acts like a bond between visual communication and production technology. Packaging material is often coated to enhance visual appearance and some protective features. The COVID pandemic changed consumers' behavior and understanding of the importance regarding the antimicrobial properties of goods that come in contact with hands. The aim of this research is to investigate and determine the antimicrobial properties of nanocomposite coatings which include nanosized zinc oxide (ZnO), titanium dioxide (TiO2), and silicon dioxide (SiO2). For the purpose of this research, a lithographic printed packaging was coated with a nanocomposite composed of flexographic water-based varnish with incorporated ZnO, TiO2, and SiO2 nanosized particles. A total of eight modulations were presented and compared to the lone water-based varnish. The results have shown that applying nanocomposites will increase the total surface free energy of the packaging surface but will decrease the polar component of the surface free energy leading to lower hydrophilic properties. Both nanocomposite types showed that the increase in the nanoparticle weight ratio leads to higher protection benefits. Nanocomposites with ZnO have better antimicrobial activity than the ones with TiO2. The Hybrid/Z (ZnO + SiO2) significantly improved the antimicrobial capacity of water-based varnish, primarily against the ubiquitous foodborne pathogen Listeria monocytogenes.


Background: Beneficial effects of early palliative care have been found in advanced cancer, but the evidence is not unequivocal. Aim: To investigate the effect of early specialist palliative care among advanced cancer patients identified in oncology departments. Setting/participants: The Danish Palliative Care Trial (DanPaCT) (ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01348048) is a multicentre randomised clinical trial comparing early referral to a specialist palliative care team plus standard care versus standard care alone. The planned sample size was 300. At five oncology departments, consecutive patients with advanced cancer were screened for palliative needs. Patients with scores exceeding a predefined threshold for problems with physical, emotional or role function, or nausea/vomiting, pain, dyspnoea or lack of appetite according to the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire (EORTC QLQ-C30) were eligible. The primary outcome was the change in each patient's primary need (the most severe of the seven QLQ-C30 scales) at 3- and 8-week follow-up (0–100 scale). Five sensitivity analyses were conducted. Secondary outcomes were change in the seven QLQ-C30 scales and survival. Results: Totally 145 patients were randomised to early specialist palliative care versus 152 to standard care. Early specialist palliative care showed no effect on the primary outcome of change in primary need (−4.9 points (95% confidence interval −11.3 to +1.5 points); p = 0.14). The sensitivity analyses showed similar results. Analyses of the secondary outcomes, including survival, also showed no differences, maybe with the exception of nausea/vomiting where early specialist palliative care might have had a beneficial effect. Conclusion: We did not observe beneficial or harmful effects of early specialist palliative care, but important beneficial effects cannot be excluded.