How to identify and manage information leakage of user privacy is a very crucial and sensitive topic for handheld mobile device manufacturers, telecommunication companies, and mobile device users. As the success of a financial fraud usually requires possessing a victim's private information, new types of personal identity theft and private information acquirement attack are developed and deployed along with various Apps in order to steal personal private information from mobile device users. With more than 50% of smartphone market share, Android-based mobile phone vendors and Internet service providers have to face the new challenge on user privacy management. In this paper, we present a user privacy analysis framework for an Android platform called LRPdroid. The goals of LRPdroid are to achieve information leakage detection, user privacy disclosure evaluation, and privacy risk assessment for Apps installed on Android-based mobile devices. With a formally defined user privacy model, LRPdroid can effectively support mobile users to manage their own privacy risks on targeted Apps. In addition, new privacy analysis viewpoints such as user perception and leakage awareness are introduced in LRPdroid. Two general App usage scenarios are evaluated with our system prototype to show the feasibility and practicability of the LRPdroid framework on user privacy management.


Cost overruns are a ubiquitous feature of construction projects, and realistic budgeting at the development stage plays a significant role in their control. However, the application of existing models to budgeting for power plant projects is restricted by the limited amount of project-specific cost data available. This study overcomes this by using a Classification and Regression Tree (CART) approach involving mixed methods of website visits, document study, and expert opinion to predict the amount of project cost (PC) and cost contingency (CC) needed to cover probable cost increases by the use of models containing readily available project attributes and national economic parameters at the project development stage. The modeling process is demonstrated and tested with a case study involving 58 Bangladeshi power plant projects – producing average absolute errors ranging from 0.7% to 1.7% and enabling project cost, inflation rate, and GDP to be identified as significant factors affecting PC and CC modeling. The approach can be applied to predict the PC during preliminary budgeting and selecting a project type and location aligned to the country's economic status and policy-making strategies, thus facilitating further investment decisions.


When Denis Donoghue left Warrenpoint and went to Dublin in September 1946, he entered University College as a student of Latin and English. A few months later he also started as a student of lieder at the Royal Irish Academy of Music. These studies have informed his reading of English, Irish, and American literature. Now in this volume, one of our most distinguished readers of modern literature offers his most personal book of literary criticism. Donoghue's Words Alone is an intellectual memoir, a lucid and illuminating account of his engagement with the works of T. S. Eliot-from initial undergraduate encounters with "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" to later submission to Eliot's entire writings. "The pleasure of Eliot's words persists," Donoghue says, "only because in good faith it can't be denied." Submission to Eliot, in Donoghue's case, involves the ear as much as it does the mind. He is a reader who listens attentively and a writer whose own music in these pages commands attention. Whether he is writing about Eliot's poetry or confronting the (often contentious) prose, Donoghue eloquently demonstrates what it means to read and to hear a master of language.


The transformation of formally productive coastal areas into barren ground is a serious problem in Japan and worldwide. Although several factors have been proposed for this phenomenon, this study especially focused on the effect of lack of dissolved iron in limiting the growth of seaweed beds. A method has been developed where a mixture of steelmaking slag and compost including humic substances, is supplied to seawater in order to stimulate seaweed bed restoration. This method increases dissolved iron concentration, since complexes called iron-humates are formed from the iron in steelmaking slag and the humic substances in compost. In this study, an evaluation was made whether humic substances increases dissolved iron concentration. A laboratory based iron elution test using seawater was attempted. Three kinds of samples were evaluated for iron elution namely, steelmaking slag in isolation, compost in isolation, and a mixture of steelmaking slag and compost. The change in dissolved iron concentration using each method was monitored over time. We found that the iron elution rate was more rapid within the mixture of steelmaking slag and compost than that in the steelmaking slag. Results of the study indicated that the structural characteristics of the humic substances were related to the increased iron elution from steelmaking slag. The method of using a mixture of steelmaking slag and compost was more effective not only for increasing dissolved iron concentration within seawater, but also for extending the life time of Fe elution.


Nonhost resistance (NHR) of plants to fungal pathogens comprises different defense layers. Epidermal penetration resistance of Arabidopsis to Phakopsora pachyrhizi requires functional PEN1, PEN2 and PEN3 genes, whereas post-invasion resistance in the mesophyll depends on the combined functionality of PEN2, PAD4 and SAG101. Other genetic components of Arabidopsis post-invasion mesophyll resistance remain elusive. We performed comparative transcriptional profiling of wild-type, pen2 and pen2 pad4 sag101 mutants after inoculation with P. pachyrhizi to identify a novel trait for mesophyll NHR. Quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) analysis and microscopic analysis confirmed the essential role of the candidate gene in mesophyll NHR. UDP-glucosyltransferase UGT84A2/bright trichomes 1 (BRT1) is a novel component of Arabidopsis mesophyll NHR to P. pachyrhizi. BRT1 is a putative cytoplasmic enzyme in phenylpropanoid metabolism. BRT1 is specifically induced in pen2 with post-invasion resistance to P. pachyrhizi. Silencing or mutation of BRT1 increased haustoria formation in pen2 mesophyll. Yet, the brt1 mutation did not affect NHR to P. pachyrhizi in wild-type plants. We assign a novel function to BRT1, which is important for post-invasion NHR of Arabidopsis to P. pachyrhizi. BRT1 might serve to confer durable resistance against P. pachyrhizi to soybean.


We discuss the supersymmetry and fermionic sector of the recently obtained consistent truncations of IIB supergravity containing massive modes. In particular, we present the general form of the five-dimensional N = 4 supersymmetry transformations and equations of motion for the fermions arising in the reduction of IIB theory on T^{1,1} which contains all modes invariant under the SU(2) x SU(2) isometry group. The N = 4 reduction can be further truncated to two different N = 2 sub-sectors. For each of these, we present the N = 2 fermionic supersymmetry transformations and corresponding superpotentials. As an application, we obtain the explicit Killing spinors of the Klebanov-Strassler solution and comment on the relation to the ansatz of Papadopoulos and Tseytlin. We also demonstrate the applicability of consistent truncations on squashed Sasaki-Einstein manifolds to a class of flux compactifications, focusing on a recent solution describing the geometry of gaugino condensation on wrapped D7 branes and which possesses dynamic SU(2) structure.


The in-house IIIM natural product repository of 302 small molecules was screened for their ability to inhibit P-glycoprotein (Pgp) in Pgp-overexpressing human adenocarcinoma LS-180 cells. The screening has identified 13 natural products displaying significant Pgp-inhibition activity, which include praeruptorin B, curcumin, imperatorin, osthol, 5,7-diacetoxy-8-(3-methyl-2-butenyl)-coumarin, 5,7-dihydroxy-8-(3-methyl-2-butenyl) coumarin, pongamol, phellopterin, tangeretin, 3-(2-methyl but-3-en-2-yl) xanthyletin, 7-demethyl osthol, allorottlerin and tetrahydroangeolide. These natural products were then screened for their effects on bacterial efflux pump inhibition activity against NorA (Staphylococcus aureus), MdeA (S. aureus Mupr-1), TetK (S. aureus SA-K2192), and MsrA (S. aureus SA-K2191) efflux pumps. Curcumin and osthol showed significant inhibition of the S. aureus NorA efflux pump with 8- and 4-fold reductions in the MIC of ciprofloxacin at 25 μM. The molecular docking studies of curcumin and osthol with the human Pgp and S. aureus NorA efflux pump identified plausible binding modes and binding sites for these natural products.


Communication with donors has become an important variable in fundraising for NGOs the researcher has noted that most NGOs receive funds from external donors and governments, but they don't bother to communicate with the funding agency on the progress of their operations and activities. Donors have always provided a common proposal and reporting template and guidelines to all NGOs for programs they seek to fund or the ones already funded, but despite the availability of these templates and guidelines, some NGOs still do not secure funding while others continually receive funds from the same donor agencies. Donors usually want a good concept paper of about 4 – 5 pages yet some NGOs still present a more than 5 page concept paper, which are not perceived well by donors. Reporting to donors on the progress of the development activities that have been undertaken are either delayed, or not done. If they do, it's not according to the standards set by donors. Therefore, this study sought to establish the roles of communication in enhancing fundraising for Kenyan NGOs by doing a comparative study of AAIK and CWL. Internal desk review approach was employed. Purposive sampling was used to select KCDF as a donor agency. Qualitative data collected was coded and listed to obtain proportions and presented using quantitative narratives. The findings of the study were: both NGOs are using digital platform in communicating with donors, only AAIK posts appealing stories about their beneficiaries on their website so as to attract potential donors, both NGOs give feedback to donors on status of activities, AAIK allocates more funds for communication in their budgets than CWL and has communication experts who disseminate information into simple forms that donors can understand. The study recommended CWL to adopt the same, the two NGOs should use social proofs which demonstrate that others have supported the cause and that money has been raised. Also, NGOs should utilize all key communications streams such as media, advertising, delivering consistent messages across all streams and demonstrate the purpose by making a personal connection to the target audience , use compelling images and some aspects of branding which people like to see so as to get more funds.


In this paper we aim to generalize results obtained in the framework of fractional calculus by the way of reformulating them in terms of operator theory. In its own turn, the achieved generalization allows us to spread the obtained technique on practical problems that connected with various physical - chemical processes.


Summary Cross-sectional echocardiography is an essential tool in the evaluation ofchildren with Kawasaki disease, both in the acute and chronic stages. In the acute phase of the illness, it is valuable for diagnosis and management of pancarditis and for the long-term monitoring of pericardial effusions, left ventricular function, and the rare cases of chronic valvar dysfunction. When coronary arterial abnormalities are detected, echocardiography can serially evaluate long-term treatment with drugs which prevent the aggregation of platelets and monitor the resolution of coronary aneurysms. The value of cross-sectional echocardiography, nonetheless, is very limited in the detection of coronary arterial stenosis. Coronary arteriography is still important for the diagnosis of obstructive lesions in the coronary arteries and should be used in conjunction with cross-sectional echocardiography for the appropriate long- term management of children with Kawasaki disease at high risk of developing coronary arterial stenosis. Perhaps, in the future, high resolution transesophageal echocardiography will allow clear delineation of coronary arterial anatomy and specifically stenosis, but its role in the evaluation and management of children with Kawasaki disease remains to be explored.


RADAR systems that use a phased array and an electronically scanned array of antennas are extensively used in terrestrial applications on account of their vastly improved directive gain over single-element antennas. The effective beam pattern in such cases is a combination of the elemental pattern and the array factor. In this paper, the design and evaluation of a printed log-periodic dipole antenna, that operates in the L-band, is being discussed. The antenna was fabricated on an FR-4 substrate using printed circuit technology; tested and characterized in terms of its S-parameters, return loss, and insertion loss. The radiation pattern in the azimuth and elevation planes has also been determined. The antenna is found to have a directive pattern, and is linearly polarized with a wide bandwidth. The antenna is being designed for use in the front-end of a RADAR system for terrestrial surveillance applications such as landslide detection, and monitoring the productivity of metallicore mines.


Recently, high-strength zirconia-toughened alumina (ZTA) ceramic substrates have attracted interest, because they offer much improved mechanical properties over straight alumina, while maintaining advantages such as good thermal conductivity and chemical stability. This allows their application in high-power electronics and piezoresistive thick-film sensors, where the substrate is subjected to considerable stress. This work examines the impact of processing a range of thick film materials (Ag- and Au-based conductors, and a resistor material widely used in piezoresistive sensors) on the short- and long-term strength of ZTA, as compared to the standard 96% alumina used in thick-film electronics. It is found that many layers substantially reduce the substrate strength, especially in the long term, which is related to enhanced crack growth in the presence of glassy layers. These findings have pronounced implications in piezoresistive sensor design. Key words: piezoresistive, sensors, force, pressure, ZTA, strength, thick-film.


In automated machine learning systems, concept drift in input data is one of the main challenges. It deteriorates model performance on new data over time. Previous research on concept drift mostly proposed model retraining after observing performance decreases. However, this approach is suboptimal because the system fixes the problem only after suffering from poor performance on new data. Here, we introduce an adversarial validation approach to concept drift problems in automated machine learning systems. With our approach, the system detects concept drift in new data before making inference, trains a model, and produces predictions adapted to the new data. We show that our approach addresses concept drift effectively with the AutoML3 Lifelong Machine Learning challenge data as well as in Uber's internal automated machine learning system, MaLTA.


This article examines the media frames and legislative responses of eighteen states in the United States to the use of racial profiling and a technology of modern policing. Racial profiling is characterized as a troubled technology because of the way in which the use of racial identification as an index of criminality contributes to the cumulative disadvantage that shapes the life chances of African Americans. An analysis of media coverage of legislative debates enables an assessment of the extent to which the technology of racial profiling is characterized as an immoral act of discrimination that should be made illegal across the United States. The dominant policy frame is one of uncertainty and caution. The strategic use of quotation marks around references to racial profiling in some newspapers reflects unwillingness on the part of the news media to even acknowledge the existence of a problem or a basis for concern. The analysis of statutes and newspaper discourse reveals the ways in which particular arguments and rationales are associated with readily identified group interests opposed to, or in support of, the use of racial profiling. The article concludes that many in the public believe that race can be used as an index of criminality. The public does not understand that the use of race as a predictor of risk, ironically, tends to amplify the risks to the operation of the criminal justice system.


On Nov. 23, 1980, a small (magnitude 2.9) earthquake occurred on the Chelmsford-Lowell, Massachusetts border and was felt by most residents of the area. Adequate station coverage by the M.I.T. and Weston Observatory Seismic Networks insured a precise determination of the hypocentral location at lat. 42.63, long. −71.36, depth 1.5 km, O.T. 00:39:32.0 UCT. Rarely does an earthquake occur close enough to a station in New England for good depth control. The fault plane solution shows either strike-slip or dipslip faulting with a NE-SW trending P-axis. This is consistent with overcoring measurements in a nearby granite quarry. This earthquake was heard as well as felt, and the maximum intensity was IV (M.M.). We also re-examined the data for another earthquake which occurred near the present event on June 23, 1938. Our re-computed epicenter was at lat. 42.60, long. −71.42, O.T. 03:57:55.9 UCT with the depth constrained at the surface, and the magnitude was 2.7. The P-wave first motions for this event are consistent with the solution for the 1980 event. The maximum intensity was V (M.M.). The occurrence of these two earthquakes demonstrates for the first time that focal depths in New England can be very shallow (≤ 2 km), which accounts for the relatively high epicentral intensities observed for some small earthquakes.


Science has a very important role in the development of any society. A special dimension of social phenomena has been analyzed by social sciences like anthropology, economics, education, communication studies, sociology etc. Despite that this type of research should provide solid basis for solving many social problems, the researchers in this area in the Western Balkans are facing many problems. The main limitation is the lack of funding for quality research, and the consequences are reflected in the small number of scientific papers published in internationally recognized journals and studies without connection to real problems. Regarding the fact that process of collecting primary data is most expensive and time consuming phase in the research process, establishment of national digital data archives for research data in social sciences and their integration into the standardized system for data sharing on the international level is considered as cost savings solution. Digital data archive (DDA) is technique that would deal with issues of preservation and archiving primary research data. In this paper we analyze the concept of DDA and its significance for researchers in social sciences, give an overview of EU effort in this field, reflected through the work of Council of European Social Science Data Archives (CESSDA), organization that gathers social data archives across Europe. In addition, we analyze the current practice of data archiving in Western Balkan countries and possibilities to build the prototype of DDA in Serbia according to the European standards.


The utility approach to the measurement of health-related quality of life is discussed and its theoretical foundations and compatibility with economic evaluation are explained. The advantages of the approach include its generalizability, comprehensiveness, ability to integrate mortality and morbidity effects, ability to represent multiple viewpoints, and its incorporation of time and risk preferences in the scores. Disadvantages include interviewer administration, limitations on obtaining scores from all types of subjects, some lack of precision, and attenuated clinical sensibility. Use of the utility approach as an outcome measure in two recent clinical trials is also described. In a trial of an oral gold compound for arthritis, the utility measures were responsive and added information to that from standard clinical and other quality-of-life measures. The utility approach and clinical decision making are being used in an on-going trial of two procedures for prenatal diagnosis in which major potential differences include quality-of-life effects. The comprehensiveness of the utility approach overcomes difficulties in interpreting results from more narrowly focused psychosocial measures of outcome. In sum, the utility model provides a reliable, valid, and responsive approach to measuring quality of life as an outcome in clinical trials.


We have characterized 4H-SiC–oxide interfaces fabricated by thermal oxidation of SiC using spectroscopic ellipsometry in the wide spectral range from visible to deep UV region. It was found that there exists an interface layer, around 1 nm in thickness, regardless of the oxide thickness from 15 nm to 40 nm. The optical constants of the interface layer have similar spectral dependence to those of SiC, though the absolute value of the refractive indices is 0.5–1 larger than that of SiC. We have discussed the structure of the interface layer based on the oxidation mechanism of SiC, like the Si-emission model.


Objective: The objective of this study is to compare the prevalence of refractive error among private and public-school children.

Methods: Altogether 18 schools of Dhangadhi (capital city of Far West Province of Nepal) with a mix of public and private schools were randomly selected. We collected data from children studying in grade 1-10 from January to March 2018. Eye examination was performed for all children satisfying inclusion criteria. Refractive error was determined by retinoscopy followed by subjective refraction.

Results: A total of 5128 school children (3159 from public and 1969 from private) were examined. The overall prevalence of refractive error was 80 (2.5%) (95% CI 2%-3.1%) children in public schools, of which 48 (1.5%) (95% CI 1.1-2) had myopia and 32(1%) (95% CI 0.7-1.4) had hyperopia. Among private school children, refractive error was present in 93 (4.7%) (95% CI 3.8-5.7) children, of which 55 (2.8%) (95% CI 2.1-3.6) had myopia and 3 (1.9%) (95% CI 1.4-2.7) had hypermetropia. Among Brahmin/Chhetry ethnic group, refractive error was 40 (3.5%) in public school and 75 (5.2%) in private school children.

Conclusion: The prevalence of refractive error among private school children is twice as that in public school children which was higher in Brahmin/Chhetry than other ethnic groups.


Methods to synthesize black phosphorus (BP) have been studied over the last few decades with several challenges remaining to be solved. In this paper, BP flakes were synthesized using a novel method, which we named as "Pressure Quenching" approach. Briefly, BP was obtained from red phosphorus (RP) through a controllable phase transition under conditions below 0.4 GPa and 580 °C. The mechanism was investigated in detail via a decompression process at fixed temperature with the phase transition exhibiting an energy barrier dependence. Meanwhile, an extra tunable energy was generated by pressure quenching as a supplement for the phase transition. Therefore, the transition from RP to BP could be easily controlled by tuning the applied pressure.


This paper reviews the progress, major issues, and trends in the development of solid-state visible and infrared image sensors. The most common photodetector readout structure and imager architectures are discussed. This presentation also includes a brief review of recently reported visible and infrared image sensing arrays.


IN AN INCREASINGLY COMPLEX financial world, personal finance education is more important today than ever. Nevertheless, the number of states incorporating personal finance concepts into their academic standards is not rising significantly, and students are demonstrating few gains, if any, in their knowledge of those concepts. One reason for this paradox is that personal finance education does not have a home in the American school curriculum. The natural home for personal finance education is in the economics curriculum, which is one of lo core subjects in the No Child Left Behind law. Economics provides the organizing principles and logic that could be the structure for personal finance education, helping to strengthen it so that K-12 students will learn the concepts and skills of personal finance they need to make informed choices throughout their lives. Advocacy vs. Results In recent years, many advocates have argued for improving the financial literacy of young people. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan is prominent today among those who argue that we need strong school programs in personal finance to prepare consumers for making wise choices in a new era. New information technologies and financial products have expanded the range of choices available to consumers. Furthermore, people today are called upon increasingly to take responsibility for their financial future. For example, defined-benefit programs are becoming an endangered species as defined-contribution programs, which are directed by individual investors, become more common. This is the context for Mr. Greenspan's statement, in his lead essay for this special section, that "the importance of basic financial skills underscores the need to begin the learning process as early as possible. Indeed, improving basic financial literacy at the elementary and secondary levels will provide a foundation of financial literacy that can help prevent younger people from making poor decisions that can take years to overcome." (1) The chorus of advocates for more financial literacy grows louder every day More than 14o corporations, government agencies, educational organizations, and nonprofit organizations have formed the Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy to advocate for more and better programs. (2) Congress has established the Financial Literacy and Education Commission, housed in the Department of the Treasury, to coordinate federal agencies and federal education efforts on financial literacy The Federal Reserve System has made financial literacy a priority in its educational programs. It appears, however, that this advocacy is not being translated into results. In responding to a survey conducted by Lewis Mandell for the Jump$tart Coalition in 2004, students answered only 50.3 percent of the questions on personal financial topics correctly Based on a typical scale used by public schools, 65.5 percent of students who took this exam (it was administered to 4,000 students in 215 high schools across 33 states) would have failed it. (3) The 2004 results represented a slight improvement over results from 2002, when students answered only 50.2 percent of the questions correctly, but results from both years marked a decline from 1997, when the survey was inaugurated. In 1997, students answered 57.3 percent of the questions correctly. (4) A Homeless Curriculum Why has widespread advocacy for personal finance education yielded such discouraging results? In large part, the problem is that personal finance education has a weak presence and no obvious home in most school programs. A 2004 survey by the National Council on Economic Education (NCEE) found that only six states required students to complete a course in personal finance, and the number of states with standards in personal finance had fallen from 40 in 2000 to 34 in 2004. (5) These personal finance standards are often embedded in the economics standards but in some cases are stand-alone standards. …


BACKGROUND
The occurrence of coagulation system alterations after bone marrow transplantation (BMT) and their possible role in the pathogenesis of thrombotic complications such as veno-occlusive disease of the liver (VOD) are still a matter of debate. The aim of this study was to evaluate prospectively the alterations in hemostatic balance developing during the early period after BMT (up to day +21) and their relationships (if any) with VOD.

PATIENTS AND RESULTS
Twenty-nine patients (15 autologous and 14 allogeneic BMT) entered the study. No patient suffered from thrombotic and/or major hemorrhagic events. Since there were no differences between the two groups of patients with regard to modifications of coagulation parameters, they were considered together for the purposes of the study. We observed a progressive increase from baseline levels of fibrinogen, factor VIII activity (fVIII:C) and von Willebrand factor antigen (vWf), while factor VII antigen (fVIIAg), protein C and plasminogen significantly decreased. The alterations in these test values were maximal on day +14, with a trend towards normal levels one week later. There was no modification of PT, PTT, prothrombin fragment 1 + 2 (F 1 + 2), fXIIC, tPA, PAI-1, D dimer or protein S levels; serum levels of tumor necrosis factor-alpha were also unchanged.

CONCLUSIONS
These results suggest that some alterations of the hemostatic system, probably a consequence of endothelial damage, can be detected early after BMT, but their clinical significance remains uncertain due to the lack of a correlation between hemostatic test alterations and the occurrence of thrombotic complications.


The IT Service Management (ITSM) industry has defined processes as best practices in the widely accepted IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) framework. However, studies on the measurement of ITSM process improvement are scant. Our research addressed the dual problems of the lack of transparency and the need for efficiency in ITSM process assessment. Using the Design Science Research methodology, we developed a Software-mediated Process Assessment (SMPA) approach that enables assessment of ITSM processes. The SMPA approach includes process selection; an online survey to collect assessment data; measurement of process capability; and reporting of process improvement recommendations. We implemented a decision support system (DSS) to automate the SMPA approach and evaluated it at two IT service providers. The evaluations indicated that the SMPA approach supports decision-making on process improvements. The findings provided design knowledge of virtualisation in ITSM process assessment and how this may facilitate continual service improvement.


Background Throughout the Ebola virus disease (EVD) epidemic in West Africa, field laboratory testing for EVD has relied on complex, multi-step real-time reverse transcription PCR (RT-PCR) assays; an accurate sample-to-answer RT-PCR test would reduce time to results and potentially increase access to testing. We evaluated the performance of the Cepheid GeneXpert Ebola assay on clinical venipuncture whole blood (WB) and buccal swab (BS) specimens submitted to a field biocontainment laboratory in Sierra Leone for routine EVD testing by RT-PCR ("Trombley assay"). Methods and Findings This study was conducted in the Public Health England EVD diagnostic laboratory in Port Loko, Sierra Leone, using residual diagnostic specimens remaining after clinical testing. EDTA-WB specimens (n = 218) were collected from suspected or confirmed EVD patients between April 1 and July 20, 2015. BS specimens (n = 71) were collected as part of a national postmortem screening program between March 7 and July 20, 2015. EDTA-WB and BS specimens were tested with Xpert (targets: glycoprotein [GP] and nucleoprotein [NP] genes) and Trombley (target: NP gene) assays in parallel. All WB specimens were fresh; 84/218 were tested in duplicate on Xpert to compare WB sampling methods (pipette versus swab); 43/71 BS specimens had been previously frozen. In all, 7/218 (3.2%) WB and 7/71 (9.9%) BS samples had Xpert results that were reported as "invalid" or "error" and were excluded, leaving 211 WB and 64 BS samples with valid Trombley and Xpert results. For WB, 22/22 Trombley-positive samples were Xpert-positive (sensitivity 100%, 95% CI 84.6%–100%), and 181/189 Trombley-negative samples were Xpert-negative (specificity 95.8%, 95% confidence interval (CI) 91.8%–98.2%). Seven of the eight Trombley-negative, Xpert-positive (Xpert cycle threshold [Ct] range 37.7–43.4) WB samples were confirmed to be follow-up submissions from previously Trombley-positive EVD patients, suggesting a revised Xpert specificity of 99.5% (95% CI 97.0%–100%). For Xpert-positive WB samples (n = 22), Xpert NP Ct values were consistently lower than GP Ct values (mean difference −4.06, 95% limits of agreement −6.09, −2.03); Trombley (NP) Ct values closely matched Xpert NP Ct values (mean difference −0.04, 95% limits of agreement −2.93, 2.84). Xpert results (positive/negative) for WB sampled by pipette versus swab were concordant for 78/79 (98.7%) WB samples, with comparable Ct values for positive results. For BS specimens, 20/20 Trombley-positive samples were Xpert-positive (sensitivity 100%, 95% CI 83.2%–100%), and 44/44 Trombley-negative samples were Xpert-negative (specificity 100%, 95% CI 92.0%–100%). This study was limited to testing residual diagnostic samples, some of which had been frozen before use; it was not possible to test the performance of the Xpert Ebola assay at point of care. Conclusions The Xpert Ebola assay had excellent performance compared to an established RT-PCR benchmark on WB and BS samples in a field laboratory setting. Future studies should evaluate feasibility and performance outside of a biocontainment laboratory setting to facilitate expanded access to testing.


Effective weed control was a major concern of Oregon grass seed growers during their recent transition from open-field burning to mechanical methods of managing post-harvest residues. This 4-yr herbicide by residue management study was conducted to determine: (i) efficacy of herbicides on volunteer tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.) seedlings and other weeds, (if) whether treatments required for weed-free seed production could be reapplied annually without damaging stands, (iii) occurrence of interactions between herbicides and crop residue management, and (iv) increases in grassy weeds over time. Nearly all herbicide treatments controlled volunteer tall fescue seedlings with bale/flail chop/rake residue removal. Vacuum sweep residue removal improved control over bale/flail chop/rake in many cases, and controlled seedlings even without herbicides in 1995. Incorporation of pendimethalin [N-(1-ethylpropyl)-3,4-dimethyl2,6-dinitrobenzenamine] improved weed control in bale/flail chop/rake and residue-retained conditions. Although carryover treatment effects reduced weed seedling survival in later years of production and sometimes reduced tall fescue seed yield, specific treatments existed which controlled weeds for all 4 yr without reducing yield. Interactions between residue management and herbicide treatments included reduced efficacy of pendimethalin in residue-retained management, higher yields at equal weed densities in residue-removed conditions, and higher weed densities from equivalent herbicide treatments in residue-retained conditions. Roughstalk bluegrass (Poa trivialis L.) increased over time in some treatments and was a major cause for reduced yields in later years of production. Tall fescue seed growers must risk some current-year yield loss from herbicide injury to avoid greater losses in future years from perennial weeds like roughstalk bluegrass.


Abstract Background Increasing longevity raised the prospect of a workplace for ageing workers. Previous studies reveal that work ability decreases with age, even among the healthy, and decreased significantly with age among women. The aim of the study is to examine the perception of work ability of public sector employees aged 55 years and older and gender differences in three European countries. Methods A prospective longitudinal study design and standardized "Work Ability Index" (WAI) were used. This study analysed the relationship between ageing, gender, and perceived work ability among 1653 employees aged 45.06±10.90 years (562 men and 1091 women) from Spain, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Monte Negro. The research was conducted in 2018. Results Older employees had a better WAI than their younger colleagues (P<0.001). The lowest prevalence rate 20% of excellent WAI was between 35 and 44 years of age. The reduction of WAI in Bosnia and Herzegovina was huge 68%, compared with 30% in Monte Negro (more than 2 times) and 14% in Spain (almost 5 times more). Conclusion Gender and age was not protector and predictor of excellent or reduced work ability. Work ability did not decrease with age among women and men, public sector employees. Work ability depends of health and safety, promotion and preventive activities at the workplace.


Abstract In eukaryotic cells, the gene expression status is strictly controlled by epigenetic modifications on chromatin. The repressive status of chromatin largely contributes to HIV latency. Studies have shown that modification of histone H3K27 acts as a key molecular switch for activation or suppression of many cellular genes. In this study, we found that K27-acetylated histone H3 specifically recruited Super Elongation Complex (SEC), the transcriptional elongation complex essential for HIV-1 long terminal repeat (LTR)-mediated and general cellular transcription. Interestingly, H3K27 acetylation further stimulates H3R26 methylation, which subsequently abrogates the recruitment of SEC, forming a negative feedback regulatory loop. Importantly, by inhibiting methyltransferase activity of CARM1, the enzyme responsible for H3R26 methylation, HIV-1 transcription is reactivated in several HIV latency cell models, including a primary resting CD4+ T cell model. When combined with other latency disrupting compounds such as JQ1 or vorinostat/SAHA, the CARM1 inhibitor achieved synergistic effects on HIV-1 activation. This study suggests that coordinated and dynamic modifications at histone H3K27 and H3R26 orchestrate HIV-1 LTR-mediated transcription, and potentially opens a new avenue to disrupt latent HIV-1 infection by targeting specific epigenetic enzymes.


Introduction and Objective: Suicide is the most basic urgency of psychiatry and one of the greatest problems of human. Awareness of epidemiologic factors can help to predict it. The marital status, age, sex and socio-economical and geophysical factors such as time (day, week) can influence it. The recognition of these factors lets us to realize preventative methods and decrease suicide. Therefore, this study was implemented to achieve these goals. Materials and Methods: The current survey was a descriptive cross-sectional. The studied population was suicide attempters that hospitalized in Hamadan Sina Hospital from August 2001-2002. The sample population (N=400) were chosen randomly out of 1108 suicide performers hospitalized during this period. Required data included demographic and suicide attempters' spatial-temporal features extracted from their history records and entered into computer. The data were statistically analyzed by SPSS v.10 using chi square test. Results: The current study showed that the ratio of men (52%) who attempted suicide was more than that of women. The group age of 15-25 years had the most frequency in suicide attempters (63.7%), the single persons included 50.5 % of suicide attempters and housewives were 29.75% of cases. 80% of attempters were from urban areas. The greatest ratio of suicide related to time; was 17% in August, and 15.75% on Thursdays. While 33.75 % attempted suicide at night, more than any other times of the day. The least attempting of suicide occurred in Ramadan (3.75%), second was of Norouz (New Year) (4%). There was no increase in suicide attempting during the perfect moon. Conclusion: The present study showed that suicide attempters were remarkable among youth and housewives and preventative affairs can include the investigation of these groups' problems. Language: fa


We are facing a trend towards ubiquitous connectivity where users demand access at anytime, anywhere. This has lead to the deployment of public network ports and wireless networks. Current solutions to network access control are inflexible and only provide all-or-nothing access. It is also increasing important to protect Intranet hosts from other mobile and static hosts on the same Intranet, in order to contain damages in the case that a host gets compromised. We present an architecture that addresses these issues by using a programmable router to provide dynamic fine-grained network access control. The Javaenabled router dynamically generates and enforces access control rules using policies and user profiles as input, reducing administrative overhead. Our modular design integrates well with existing authentication and directory servers, further reducing admininstrative costs. Our prototype is implemented using Nortel's Accelar router and moves users to VLANs with the appropriate access privilege.


In this paper, we address the problem of blind separation of spatially correlated signals, which is encountered in some emerging applications, e.g., distributed wireless sensor networks and wireless surveillance systems. We preprocess the source signals in transmitters prior to transmission. Specifically, the source signals are first filtered by a set of properly designed precoders and then the coded signals are transmitted. On the receiving side, the Z-domain features of the precoders are exploited to separate the coded signals, from which the source signals are recovered. Based on the proposed precoders, a closed-form algorithm is derived to estimate the coded signals and the source signals. Unlike traditional blind source separation approaches, the proposed method does not require the source signals to be uncorrelated, sparse, or nonnegative. Compared with the existing precoder-based approach, the new method uses precoders with much lower order, which reduces the delay in data transmission and is easier to implement in practice.


UNLABELLED
We conducted a study on humans to determine whether quantitative evaluation of blood-brain barrier (BBB) breakdown using the (99m)Tc-diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid ((99m)Tc-DTPA) SPECT technique at the peak time of stroke evolution can predict neurologic outcome.

METHODS
Thirty consecutive patients with acute stroke of the middle cerebral artery occurring >24 h and <48 h before admission were included in the study. Each patient underwent a complete neurologic examination according to the Scandinavian stroke score at 72 h after the stroke (S1) and again at 30 d (S2). The difference between initial and late scores was calculated (Delta S) and used to evaluate the change in neurologic status. A CT scan was obtained on all patients to determine the volume of stroke. The integrity of the BBB was evaluated using (99m)Tc-DTPA brain SPECT. A quantitative index of BBB disruption was defined as the ratio of the mean counts/pixel in the infarcted region compared with the mean counts/pixel in the contralateral nonaffected hemisphere. SPECT perfusion imaging was also performed with (99m)Tc-hexamethylpropyleneamine oxime ((99m)Tc-HMPAO) at 24 h after the (99m)Tc-DTPA study. The relative perfusion in the infarct region was expressed as the percentage of contralateral perfusion.

RESULTS
The mean (99m)Tc-DTPA disruption index was 6.8 +/- 6.9 (range, 1-26.2). Seven patients (23%) had no BBB disruption. Statistical analysis showed that the disruption index was negatively correlated with Delta S (r = -0.423, P < 0.02). A disruption index of <2.5 was associated with a significantly better neurologic outcome (mean Delta S, 17.5 +/- 9.5) compared with patients with an index of >2.5 (mean Delta S, -0.85 +/- 4.97, P < 0.0001) with a sensitivity of 95% and a specificity of 89%. S2 was significantly correlated with S1 (r = 0.738, P < 0.001) and with Delta S (r = 0.656, P < 0.001). Perfusion abnormalities on the (99m)Tc-HMPAO SPECT studies ranged between 12% and 90% (mean, 37.6% +/- 17.8%) compared with those on the contralateral nonaffected side. No correlation was found between (99m)Tc-HMPAO uptake and Delta S, infarct volume by CT, or disruption index. The CT volume measurements were negatively correlated with S2 (r = -0.560, P < 0.004) but not with Delta S.

CONCLUSION
(99m)Tc-DTPA SPECT of the BBB combined with quantitative analysis in patients with acute stroke is significantly related to clinical outcome, with a distinct prognostic cutoff threshold of 2.5. The use of this radionuclide brain SPECT technique represents a unique application of conventional nondiffusible brain agents.


I focus on the experience of time and perception of history within the Word of Life charismatic ministry in Sweden, demonstrating the mutual implication of the physical and the temporal, the biographical and the historical, in members' lives. While conversion draws on a personal frame of reference in relation to the passage of time, spiritualised temporality can also be given a more ambitious frame, incorporating major events that might lead to Christ's return. Believers wrestle with at least two ways of dealing with history. One pertains to a mimetic relation to previous action: invoking history. The other involves the articulation of something discontinuous and new, an 'event' that moves towards the ultimate salvationist and transformative aims of the faith: making history. Both raise the question of how novelty can be invoked through deploying cultural resources that, seemingly paradoxically, recall actions taken in the past – a process I term 'historiopraxy'.


Simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) of cellulose via engineered Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a sustainable solution to valorize cellulose into fuels and chemicals. In this study, we demonstrate the feasibility of direct conversion of cellulose into ethanol and a biodegradable surfactant, ethyl‐β‐d‐glucoside, via an engineered yeast strain (i.e., strain EJ2) expressing heterologous cellodextrin transporter (CDT‐1) and intracellular β‐glucosidase (GH1‐1) originating from Neurospora crassa. We identified the formation of ethyl‐β‐d‐glucoside in SSF of cellulose by the EJ2 strain owing to transglycosylation activity of GH1‐1. The EJ2 strain coproduced 0.34 ± 0.03 g ethanol/g cellulose and 0.06 ± 0.00 g ethyl‐β‐d‐glucoside/g cellulose at a rate of 0.30 ± 0.02 g·L−1·h−1 and 0.09 ± 01 g·L−1·h−1, respectively, during the SSF of Avicel PH‐101 cellulose, supplemented only with Celluclast 1.5 L. Herein, we report a possible coproduction of a value‐added chemical (alkyl‐glucosides) during SSF of cellulose exploiting the transglycosylation activity of GH1‐1 in engineered S. cerevisiae. This coproduction could have a substantial effect on the overall technoeconomic feasibility of theSSF of cellulose.


We compared the electrical characteristics of 4H-SiC(0001) and (000-1) Schottky barrier diodes (SBDs), and derived the Schottky barrier heights (Hbs) of Ta, W, Mo, and Pd on {0001}. We investigated the annealing temperature dependence of Hbs in Mo and the W Schottky contacts for (0001) and (000-1). The Hbs are increased by annealing, except for the W Schottky contact on (0001). The yields of 0.25 cm2 as-deposited Mo-SBDs were 93.3% for (0001) and 71.1% for (000-1), respectively. We also demonstrated over 1 cm2 (0001) as-deposited Mo-SBD with a low leakage current, an excellent ideality factor, and no excess current, encouraging the enlargement of the active area in the SBD.


This paper describes two related tests; to navigate an articulated lawn mower and to reverse a mobile robot with a trailer. In both cases the vehicles are to follow a prespecified trajectory. The navigation principal is based on measured directions to several identical beacons, consisting of strips of reflective tapes. The angular sensor is a rotating laser for the illumination of the beacons and a highly sensitive electro-optical receiver for detecting the directions to the beacons. A Kalman filter is used to combine the measurements from the odometers with the detected angles to the known position of the beacons. To measure the angle between the robot and the trailer the same laser was used. This was done by placing two reflective beacons on the trailer. The repeatability was within 2 centimetre at low speed. The navigation of these two different types of vehicles turns out to be, essentially, the same problem. The sensitivities are different. Emphasis is on robust state estimation.<<ETX>>


Massive hypertriglyceridaemia associated with fatty liver and abdominal pain or frank pancreatitis (the chylomicronaemia syndrome) is uncommon, but clinically important and under-recognized. It may arise as a result of severe genetic defects in lipolysis or, more commonly, from a moderate primary hypertriglyceridaemia that is exacerbated by a secondary cause. The latter include several drugs, among which the protease inhibitors, used for the treatment of human immunodeficiency virus infection, are increasingly apparent. In the acute situation plasma exchange, fat-free parenteral nutrition and acute insulin treatment, even in nondiabetic persons, may be valuable. A potentially major advance in prophylaxis is the use of high-dose antioxidant therapy, which has been shown to reduce attacks of pancreatitis even in the absence of a reduction in serum triglycerides. Asymptomatic patients with abnormal liver function tests are common in the lipid clinic, and can be a difficult group in which to make management decisions. Among those who are not taking excessive amounts of alcohol, many will have nonalcoholic steatohepatitis. The care of these patients is discussed, but there remains considerable uncertainty regarding their optimum management and prognosis.


Lysosomal storage diseases (LSDs) are a group of genetic disorders due to defects in any aspect of lysosomal biology. During the past two decades, different approaches have been introduced for the treatment of these conditions. Among them, enzyme replacement therapy (ERT) represented a major advance and is used successfully in the treatment of some of these disorders. However, ERT has limitations such as insufficient biodistribution of recombinant enzymes and high costs. An emerging strategy for the treatment of LSDs is pharmacological chaperone therapy (PCT), based on the use of chaperone molecules that assist the folding of mutated enzymes and improve their stability and lysosomal trafficking. After proof‐of‐concept studies, PCT is now being translated into clinical applications for Fabry, Gaucher and Pompe disease. This approach, however, can only be applied to patients carrying chaperone‐responsive mutations. The recent demonstration of a synergistic effect of chaperones and ERT expands the applications of PCT and prompts a re‐evaluation of their therapeutic use and potential. This review discusses the strengths and drawbacks of the potential therapies available for LSDs and proposes that future research should be directed towards the development of treatment protocols based on the combination of different therapies to improve the clinical outcome of LSD patients.


This article claims that the meaning of presence is closely linked to the concept we have of reality, i.e., to the ontology that we more or less explicitly adopt. Different ontological stances support different criteria for presence, telepresence, and virtual presence. We propose a cultural conception of presence that challenges the current idea that experiencing a real or simulated environment deals essentially with perceiving its objective physical features. We reject commonsense ingenuous realism and its dualism opposing external reality and internal ideas. In our perspective, presence in an environment, real or simulated, means that individuals can perceive themselves, objects, and other people not only as situated in an external space but also as immersed in a sociocultural web connecting objects, people, and their interactions. This cultural webstructured by artifacts both physical (e.g., the physical components of the computer networks) and ideal (e.g., the social norms that shape the organizational use of the computer networks)makes possible communication and cooperation among different social actors by granting them a common reference grid. Environments, real and virtual, are not private recesses but public places for meaningful social interaction mediated by artifacts. Experiencing presence in a social environment such as a shared virtual office requires more than the reproduction of the physical features of external reality; it requires awareness of the cultural web that makes meaningfuland therefore visibleboth people and objects populating the environment.


The discussion on sustainable urban development is ubiquitous these days. Concerning the more specific field of urban design and urban morphology we can identify a movement from a first generation of research and practice, primarily addressing climate change, and a second generation, broadening the field to also encompass biodiversity. The two have quite different implications for urban design and urban morphology. The first, stressing the integration of more advanced technological systems to the urban fabric, such as energy and waste disposal systems, but more conspicuously, public and private transport systems, often leading to rather conventional design solutions albeit technologically enhanced. The second generation ask for a more direct involvement of urban form, asking the question: how are future urban designs going to harbor not only social and economic systems, which they have always done, but ecological as well, that is, how are we in research on urban form, as support for future practice in urban design, develop knowledge that bridges the ancient dichotomy between human and ecological systems. This paper presents, firstly, a conceptual discussion on this topic, based in Resilience Theory and Urban Morphology, secondly, the layout of a principal research field towards a spatial morphology of urban social-ecological systems, where strategic research tasks are identified.


textabstractThe combination of on-line dynamic pricing with price discrimination can be very beneficial for firms operating on the Internet. We therefore develop an on-line dynamic pricing algorithm that can adjust the price schedule for a good or service on behalf of a firm. This algorithm (a multi-variable derivative follower with adaptive step-sizes) is able to respond very quickly to changes in customers' demand. An additional advantage of the developed algorithm is that it does not require information about individual customers. Given the growing concern about customers' privacy this can be of great practical importance. Computational experiments (with different customer behavior models) indicate that our algorithm is able to successfully exploit the potential benefits of on-line price discrimination.


The endcap of time-of-flight (ETOF) detector in BES (Beijing Spectrometer) III is planned to be upgraded by using multi-gap resistive plate chambers (MRPCs) and the designed time resolution of the MRPCs is around 50 ps. Thus a time-zero (T0) detector needs to be built to offer a high quality reference time for the MRPCs beam test. So a T0 detector is built using plastic scintillator tiles (BC420) to couple with four fast phototubes (PMTs, Hamamatsu H6533). The timing properties of the detector is studied by using a cosmic ray test and factors related to the time resolution, such as plastic scintillator size, readout mode and angle effects, are discussed. T0 detector timing resolutions of ∼41–62 ps are achieved, which means that the T0 detector can be used in the MRPC beam test.


Business groups are large inter-organizational entities that significantly contribute to economic activities worldwide. While being a highly relevant form of business organization in many emerging nations (Hoskisson, Johnson, Tihanyi, & White, 2005), they are still well represented in some of the post-socialistic countries. For instance, private- and public- sector (state-owned) business groups in Croatia account for a one third of the GDP (Lider, 2011) and play a very important role in the development of the national economy. However, we know very little about the corporate strategy, governance processes and organizational structure applied within business groups, especially given the fact that business groups around the world vary considerably (Khanna & Yafeh, 2007). Therefore, the aim of the paper is to examine how business groups in Croatia are organized and managed. A comparative analysis of the largest business groups listed by the Croatian Chamber of Commerce offers useful insights about their level of diversification, group configuration and board structure, as well as regarding the organizational architecture of their holding company, the current level of the group internationalization, and the business group-level performance. The results clearly show similarities and differences present between among private- and state-owned business groups of interest. Thus, the paper contributes to better understanding of organizing practices of the largest business systems in Croatia, and offers specific insights about the divide between the private- and public-sector business groups.


This study was conducted using auto-skin transplantation for repairing of large skin loss of one front limb in dogs. The study was carried out on 8 clinical cases of dogs that brought to the Veterinary Teaching Hospital, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Mosul, Mosul, Iraq; from October 2006 to September 2010. These animals underwent severe lacerated necrotic wounds especially at one front limb more than others. A protocol of general anesthesia was conducted by premedication with atropine sulphate, followed by a mixture of xylazine hydrochloride and ketamine hydrochloride. The large skin defect treated by creating a subcutaneous tunnel extended from the thoracic to the abdominal area at the lateral side of the trunk; therefore the naked area of affected limb covered by a new skin successfully from the subcutaneous tunnel. The result revealed that the all flaps healed without partial or total loss. The appearance, texture, and color of the flaps were similar to those of the donor site. The auto-skin transplantation by subcutaneous tunnel considers an effective and alternative method for the treatment of large skin defect of one front limb in dogs.


Nonlinear functions can be approximated by the linear combination of base functions, which provides a road towards the analog synthesis. An improved Simulated Annealing Algorithm (SA) for nonlinear function approximation and a universal implementation of analog circuits are presented in this paper. Synthesis results demonstrate the validity and efficiency of the proposed approach.


Inorganic arsenicals are worldwide environmental contaminants that affect molecular characteristics in biological systems and lead to genomic and epigenomic instability as well as epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT). In this study, we aimed to investigate whether low levels of sodium arsenite (iAsIII) can influence EMT and genomic instability through microsatellite analysis. We have also determined epigenomic instability by investigating the methylation status of SEPT9 tumor marker in colorectal cancer (CRC) cell lines, Caco2 and HCT116, which were treated with iAsIII to assess IC50s. Short-term and long-term exposure to low concentrations (1 µM and 0.1 µM) of iAsIII in two separate experiments was implemented to analyze EMT, microsatellite status and the methylation pattern of SEPT9 promoter. As expected, after 20 days of exposure to iAsIII, the expression of CDH1 was significantly decreased while the expression of CDH2, FIB1 and VIM was increased in Caco2 and HCT116, a finding that confirmed EMT induction. However, there was no detectable alteration in the size of microsatellites. As for the methylation pattern, SEPT9 promoter was hypomethylated as a result of long-term exposure to 0.1 µM iAsIII in Caco2. Long-term exposure of HCT116 to both concentrations could induce hypomethylation of SEPT9 promoter. Our findings indicate no linkage between EMT induction and microsatellite status in iAsIII-treated CRC cell lines. For the first time, the current study has shown that the induction of EMT by iAsIII is linked with SEPT9 promoter hypomethylation in Caco2 and HCT116 in a concentration- and time-dependent pattern.


Abstract. While scientists are paying increasing attention to the seismicity potentially induced by hydrocarbon exploitation, so far, little is known about the reverse problem, i.e. the impact of active faulting and earthquakes on hydrocarbon reservoirs. The 20 and 29 May 2012 earthquakes in Emilia, northern Italy (Mw 6.1 and 6.0), raised concerns among the public for being possibly human-induced, but also shed light on the possible use of gas wells as a marker of the seismogenic potential of an active fold and thrust belt. We compared the location, depth and production history of 455 gas wells drilled along the Ferrara-Romagna arc, a large hydrocarbon reserve in the southeastern Po Plain (northern Italy), with the location of the inferred surface projection of the causative faults of the 2012 Emilia earthquakes and of two pre-instrumental damaging earthquakes. We found that these earthquake sources fall within a cluster of sterile wells, surrounded by productive wells at a few kilometres' distance. Since the geology of the productive and sterile areas is quite similar, we suggest that past earthquakes caused the loss of all natural gas from the potential reservoirs lying above their causative faults. To validate our hypothesis we performed two different statistical tests (binomial and Monte Carlo) on the relative distribution of productive and sterile wells, with respect to seismogenic faults. Our findings have important practical implications: (1) they may allow major seismogenic sources to be singled out within large active thrust systems; (2) they suggest that reservoirs hosted in smaller anticlines are more likely to be intact; and (3) they also suggest that in order to minimize the hazard of triggering significant earthquakes, all new gas storage facilities should use exploited reservoirs rather than sterile hydrocarbon traps or aquifers.


The variation in degree of offspring dependence in parents where parental care has evolved is striking, from feeding independence at birth to complete dependence on parents for all nutritional resources. This presents an evolutionary puzzle. Why lose the ability to feed as a contingency when parents may die or abandon broods? Comparisons of altricial and precocial vertebrates suggest that there may be life-history and developmental costs to early independence1-3. The generality of this beyond vertebrates is unclear, but we can extend the comparison as invertebrate species also vary in the level of independence in early life-history stages. For example, larvae of several burying beetle species (Nicrophorus), a genus in which parents regurgitate pre-digested food to begging larvae, have lost the ability to self-feed thus creating complete parental dependency for first instars4. Here, we ask whether variation in dependency amongst burying beetles is related to heterochrony in development of a more complex morphological structures. We show that the rate of development and allometry of mandibles of precocial larvae that can self-feed from birth are the same as those in altricial larvae that cannot survive without parenting. Instead, self-feeding is associated with shape variation in mandibles. In altricial species first instar larvae have smooth mandibles, whereas in precocial species mandibles are serrated. Later instars, which can self-feed in all species, have serrated mandibles. Serrations on teeth generally function to "grip and rip"5, whereas smooth blades function more to puncture6, and broods of altricial but not precocial Nicrophorus larvae show evidence for siblicide. We therefore suggest that altricial first-instar mandibles function more as weapons than feeding tools when released from self-feeding. This study presents a novel coevolution between developmental timing and parenting potentially mediated by sibling competition.


Background While oral anticoagulants (OACs) are highly effective for ischemic stroke prevention in atrial fibrillation, intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) remains the most feared complication of OAC. Clinical controversy remains regarding OAC resumption and its timing for ICH survivors with atrial fibrillation because the balance between risks and benefits has not been investigated in randomized trials. Aims/Hypothesis To survey the practice of stroke neurologists, thrombosis experts and neurosurgeons on OAC re-initiation following OAC-associated ICH. Methods An online survey was distributed to members of the International Society for Thrombosis and Haemostasis, Canadian Stroke Consortium, NAVIGATE-ESUS trial investigators (Clinicatrials.gov identifier NCT02313909) and American Association of Neurological Surgeons. Demographic factors and 11 clinical scenarios were included. Results Two hundred twenty-eight participants from 38 countries completed the survey. Majority of participants were affiliated with academic centers, and >20% managed more than 15 OAC-associated ICH patients/year. Proportion of respondents suggesting OAC anticoagulant resumption varied from 30% (for cerebral amyloid angiopathy) to 98% (for traumatic ICH). Within this group, there was wide distribution in response for timing of resumption: 21.4% preferred to re-start OACs after 1–3 weeks of incident ICH, while 25.3% opted to start after 1–3 months. Neurosurgery respondents preferred earlier OAC resumption compared to stroke neurologists or thrombosis experts in 5 scenarios (p<0.05 by Kendall's tau). Conclusions Wide variations in current practice exist among management of OAC-associated ICH, with decisions influenced by patient- and provider-related factors. As these variations likely reflect the lack of high quality evidence, randomized trials are direly needed in this population.


The motivation and central idea of this thesis, in a statistical point of view, rises from the properties and long-run relationship of pairs of financial time series. These can be forward and spot exchange rates, short-run and long-run interest rates. This category of series contains a lot of crucial information for econometric forecasting. Concerning the relationship of the regression vectors, we are not about to check for causality in any form. Modeling the type of long-run interaction in the framework of cointegration, in effect, we establish a long-run equilibrium-type equation between the integrated series. This type of relation is versatile and mathematically well defined. In the economic theory of behavior under uncertainty, an agent must make a decision based upon the distribution of a random variable sometime in the future. Assuming a general utility function and risk averse agents, not only the conditional distribution affects the decision but a measure of the dispersion is also of primary importance. As long as we maintain the convenient assumption of linear covariance stationary models, we imply that most measures of uncertainty will remain constant over time. So in the GARCH territory we emerge ourselves because of the properties of the involved series. Even though exchange rate changes are serially uncorrelated, they are not independent. Where many used to perceive the data as pure noise, now they usually can see that "large changes tend to be followed by large changes, of either sign, and small changes tend to be followed by small changes" (Mandelbrot 1963). This type of feature is very common in interest rate and exchange rate changes. From an empirical standpoint, it is important to model any temporal variation in the volatility process. The Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedastic model introduced by Engle (1982) explicitly recognizes this type of temporal dependence. The key insight offered by the ARCH model lies in the distinction between the conditional and the unconditional second order moments. While the unconditional covariance matrix for the variables of interest may be time invariant, the conditional variances and covariances often depend non-trivially on the past states of the world. Understanding the exact nature of this temporal dependence is crucially important for many issues in macroeconomics and finance, such as irreversible investments, option pricing, the term structure of interest rates, and general dynamic asset pricing relationships. Also, from the perspective of econometric inference, the loss in asymptotic efficiency from neglected heteroscedasticity may be arbitrarily large and, when evaluating economic forecasts, a much more accurate estimate of the forecast error uncertainty is generally available by conditioning on the current information set. Thus, there is a tendency for extreme values to be followed by other extreme values, but of unpredictable sign. With these characteristics in mind we are about to test the performance of various commonly used estimators in the environment of Cointegration under GARCH. Our first step is to examine the theoretical asymptotical properties of each estimator assuming we had infinite samples. Realizing that the information set is never enough in financial forecasting we will test again the performance in finite samples using Monte Carlo simulations.


The health of local democracy in the UK is being undermined by the very low turnouts in local government elections. As the recent government pilot schemes for changing the conduct of local elections have recognised, there is an urgent need to get people more involved at the local level, to reconnect voters with the local political system and to help reduce the level of cynicism towards local government. However, there is one area of local electoral politics in which there are clear signs of democratic renewal: turnouts are up, candidates are well-known and clearly identify with their community, young people and minority ethnic communities have a voice and local people are interested and enthused by a distinctively 'local' brand of politics. This area is the 'non-statutory' community elections increasingly used within the New Deal for Communities (NDC) regeneration initiative. This article examines the experience of community elections in NDC areas - particularly focussing on Newcastle's West Gate - and argues that the elections provide examples of good practice and innovation that could be used to enhance the conduct of local government elections. Moreover, community elections could also make a positive contribution to revitalising the overall health of local democracy by providing an 'complementary' channel of representation to that provided by elected local councillors.


A colony of Plutella xylostella (L.), established from crucifer fields in Florida, was used to investigate resistance to Bacillus thuringiensis Berliner subsp. kurstaki . From an initial level of >1,500-fold, resistance fell within 3 generations in the absence of selection to ≈300-fold compared with susceptible larvae. Unlike previous cases of resistance to B. thuringiensis in P. xylostella , resistance in our Florida colony was stable at ≈300-fold without additional selection in the laboratory. High levels of resistance (>1,000-fold) recurred after a single exposure to B. thuringiensis subsp. kurstaki in the 4th generation. High levels of resistance did not recur after a 2nd selection in the 8th generation. Cage studies and genetic analysis of F1 larvae and backcross progeny. where the resistant parents were characterized by stable levels of resistance, showed that resistance was an incompletely recessive, autosomal trait probably controlled by a single allele that did not confer detectable levels of reduced fitness in the absence of exposure to B. thuringiensis . As one of the few shldies to demonstrate stable resistance to B. thuringiensis subsp. kurstaki from insects that were collected from the field and not subject to further selection in the laboratory, our results clearly emphasize the need to develop specific resistance management strategies for B. thuringiensis before there is widespread evolution of resistance.


The ongoing transition from uniprocessor to multiprocessor computers requires support from the operating system kernel. Although many general-purpose multiprocessor operating systems exist, there is a large number of specialized operating systems which require porting in order to work on multiprocessors. In this paper we describe the multiprocessor port of a cluster operating system kernel from a producer of industrial systems. Our initial implementation uses a giant locking scheme that serializes kernel execution. We also employed a method in which CPU-local variables are placed in a special section mapped to per-CPU physical memory pages. The giant lock and CPU-local section allowed us to implement an initial working version with only minor changes to the original code, although the giant lock and kernel-bound applications limit the performance of our multiprocessor port. Finally, we also discuss experiences from the implementation.


Hexapod machines are emerging as a new type of CNC machine tools. Among other things, stringent calibration is an important means to improve their accuracy. Traditionally, to perform system calibration, one needs to measure a number of machine poses using an external measuring device. However, this process is often labor-intensive and invasive, and difficult for on-line calibration.
 In this paper, a systematic way of self-calibrating a hexapod machine tool is introduced. By adding a small number of redundant internal sensors, errors of the hexapod machine tool can be measured. This approach has the potential of automatically producing accurate measurement data over the entire workspace of the system with an extremely fast measurement rate. Once the measurement data is available, a recursive filter is applied to estimate machine parameter errors from the predicted geometric errors, and to update the model residing in the machine controller. Thus, it is possible to dynamically calibrate and compensate for various types of machine errors including those induced by thermal and loading variations, without interrupting the normal operation of the machine tool. To verify the concept, preliminary experimental studies were conducted on a Stewart platform built at Florida Atlantic University.


When the Church of England began ordaining women as priests back in 1994, ecclesiastical laws were put into place that prevented the election of a woman as bishop. As one Anglican friend told me at the time, the prohibition against women bishops was a concession made necessary at the time. Just wait, he told me, and you will see that as soon as there is a large number of women priests, the rule against women bishops will fall. Now, fully half of those studying to be priests are women. The total feminization of the Church of England is well underway. BBC News now reports that the church's governing body has just taken steps to remove the barriers to women bishops. As the report indicates, "The vote beginning 'the process for removing the legal obstacles to the ordination of women' came after a debate at the General Synod in York." In reality, once the biblical pattern of ministry is compromised, further compromise is all but inevitable. As my friend understood, it's only a matter of time.


The ca. 1050 Ma Bylot Supergroup in Arctic Canada is one of the best-preserved archives of late Mesoproterozoic geochemistry and biology and offers evidence that this period of Earth history may have been more biogeochemically dynamic than previously appreciated. The Bylot Supergroup was deposited in the Borden Basin and is the most thoroughly studied stratigraphic succession from a series of broadly contemporaneous late Mesoproterozoic intracratonic basins known as the Bylot basins. This ∼6-km-thick mixed carbonate-siliciclastic succession has undergone minimal postdepositional deformation and is now exposed on Baffin and Bylot Islands, Nunavut, Canada. Deep-water and tidally influenced carbonate facies, traditionally interpreted as marine, have yielded important insights into the evolution of Proterozoic seawater chemistry; however, more recent studies indicate that the Borden Basin was restricted marine or lacustrine for portions of its depositional history. Here, we present new multiproxy radiogenic isotope chemostratigraphic data spanning the Bylot Supergroup. A comparison of stratigraphic trends in radiogenic isotope data from hydrogenous (black shale 187Os/188Os and limestone 87Sr/86Sr) and detrital (whole-rock mudstone 143Nd/144Nd) sedimentary phases elucidates the complex hydrologic history of the Borden Basin and reconciles these disparate interpretations.
 Episodic coupling and decoupling between the composition of basin waters (from Os and Sr isotopes) and the local weathering input to the basin (from Nd isotopes) indicate that depositional environments within the Borden Basin fluctuated between marine and nonmarine (i.e., lacustrine). Variations in basin hydrology controlled secular sedimentation patterns through changes in basin water chemistry. These interpretations help to characterize the environment in which the early red algal fossil Bangiomorpha pubescens evolved. Episodically restricted epeiric seaways, such as within the Borden Basin, were relatively widespread within Rodinia and may have exerted unique selective pressures on eukaryotic evolution in the Mesoproterozoic Era. Hydrogenous and detrital radiogenic isotope chemostratigraphy, as implemented in this study, may provide a useful paleoenvironmental framework for future paleontological studies aimed at testing the role of freshwater environments in eukaryotic evolution. In addition, 87Sr/86Sr compositions from 81 new middle Bylot Supergroup marine limestone samples, calibrated by recent Re-Os geochronology, contribute to the terminal Mesoproterozoic marine 87Sr/86Sr curve. These data display a rise from ∼0.705 to 0.706 that reflects weathering of the active Grenville orogenic belt and demonstrates a global increase in chemical weathering during the amalgamation of Rodinia.


Received: Revised: Accepted: April 22, 2015 May 03, 2015 June 27, 2015 The effects of anesthesia using medetomidine combined with isoflurane or sevoflurane on hemodynamic parameters, blood biochemistry, and intraocular pressure was evaluated in horses. Healthy horses (n=12) with a mean body weight of 438±51kg were used. Premedication was provided by administering medetomidine (7 μg/kg) intravenously (IV), and general anesthesia was induced by administering ketamine (2.2 mg/kg) and midazolam (0.03 mg/kg) IV after which isoflurane (n=6) or sevoflurane (n=6) was administered for inhalation anesthesia. Blood gases, respiratory rate, heart rate, electrocardiogram, body temperature, and oxygen saturation, as well as systolic, diastolic, and mean arterial blood pressure were recorded at 0, 5, 15, 30, and 60 min after administering medetomidine. Statistically non-significant differences in the study variables were observed between the isoflurane and sevoflurane groups. Blood gases and electrolyte parameters in both groups were unchanged. Intraocular pressure and liver enzymes levels were similar to reference values. Anesthesia protocols of study using medetomidine combined with isoflurane or sevoflurane produced minimal complications in horses. Medetomidine with sevoflurane provided deep anesthesia, and had fewer cardiopulmonary effects than medetomidine with isoflurane. ©2015 PVJ. All rights reserved


Fast charging is an essential stakeholder concern for achieving a deeper penetration of Electric Vehicles (EVs), as optimizing the charging times of conventional vehicles is as yet a bottleneck to be solved. An important drawback of EV's fast charging lies in the degradation suffered by the Li-ion Batteries (LIBs) at high charging currents. A deep understanding of the how these fast-charging activities affect the LIBs' degradation is necessary in order to design appropriate fast charging stations and EV powertrains for different scenarios and contexts. In this regard, the present paper analyzes the effect of fast charging on Libs' degradation under operation profiles from real driving cycles. Specifically, Battery Electric Buses (BEBs) driving profiles from three demos in European Cities (Gothenburg, Osnabrück and Barcelona) have been used in this analysis. In order to deduce the best practices for the design of the charging stations, different sizes for the chargers have been simulated, focusing on the analysis of the LIB degradation under each situation. Besides, for the design of the EV powertrain, different LIB sizes and LIB chemistries (Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt-NMC, Lithium Iron Phosphate-LFP, and Lithium Titanate Oxide-LTO) have also been proposed and compared in terms of LIB degradation. The results demonstrated that LTO batteries exhibited the lowest degradation, with capacity fade values under 1.5%/year in the nominal scenario (nominal charger and LIB sizes). As long as a full charging is ensured, reducing the fast charger size has been found to be a cost-effective measure, as the LTO degradation can be reduced at least to 1.21%/year. In addition, increasing the battery (BT) size has also been found to be a cost-effective approach for LTO batteries. In this case, it was found that for a 66% increase in capacity, the degradation can be reduced at least to 0.74%/year (more than 50% reduction). The obtained conclusions are seen as useful for the design of charging stations and EV's BT systems that undergo fast charging.


Study Design. Clinically based systematic review. Objective. To define optimal clinical care for elderly patients with Type II and III odontoid fractures using a systematic review with expert opinion. Summary of Background Data. Numerous manuscripts have been written about treatment strategies of odontoid fractures in the elderly. However, these articles are of low quality and optimal treatment algorithms do not exist. Methods. Focused questions on the treatment of elderly patients with Type II and III odontoid fractures were refined by a panel of spine traumologists surgeons, consisting of fellowship trained neurologic and orthopedic surgeons. MeSH keywords were searched through MEDLINE, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Database of Systematic reviews, and pertinent abstracts and manuscripts obtained. The quality of literature was rated as high, moderate, low, or very low. Using the GRADE evidence-based review system, the proposed questions were answered using the literature review and expert opinion. These treatment recommendations were then rated as either strong or weak based on the quality of evidence and clinical expertise. Results. The literature searches revealed low and very low quality evidence with no prospective or randomized studies. The MEDLINE search engine returned 1759 articles, which were further limited to "all aged (65 and over)," human subjects and the English language. The subsequent search resulted in a return of 377 manuscripts. These abstracts where then reviewed in detail and 117 manuscripts were selected, which were obtained and supplemented with additional manuscripts to form an evidentiary table. Conclusion. Odontoid fractures have a significant morbidity in the elderly (>65 years) population. Type II fractures in this population are recommended to be treated operatively with a weak recommendation, and if treated nonoperatively using a hard collar immobilization device. Type III odontoid fractures in the elderly optimal treatment with a strong recommendation is immobilization in a hard collar.


The article reveals the role of university curators in the professional self-determination of first-year students in humanitarian areas of training. The concept of "professional self determination" is being clarified. Possible directions of professional orientation work with students are indicated. The relevance of the topic of obtaining a humanitarian education in society is substantiated, the reasons for the emergence in society of the need for professions of a social and humanitarian orientation are indicated. The works of research scientists studying the areas of professional self-determination are analyzed. The dynamics of personal changes that occur with firstyear students as a result of their professional orientation are analyzed. The meaning and tasks of curatorial work are presented, as well as problems that university curators may face today: possible mistakes of the curator in working with first-year students, namely lack of experience, lack of conscientiousness, incompetence. The main directions of the curator's work with first-year students are revealed. The directions of activity of the university curators in conjunction with the psychological and pedagogical service are proposed. The conditions for the successful implementation of the curator's activities with students in the direction of professional self-determination, such as planning, organization, control, motivation, are noted.


Fine-grained recognition and retrieval are complex tasks in computer vision due to the high level of similarity between images of different subclasses. Recent work on fine-grained image recognition achieved significant improvements by using the attention mechanisms of the Vision or Swin Transformers to find discriminative image regions at coarse or fine scales, respectively. Here, we propose SwinTransFuse, a novel architecture for fine-grained recognition that fuses a Swin transformer and a Multiscale Vision transformer to capture both local and global features. We also propose Swin Transformer and SwinTransFuse siamese networks for fine-grained image retrieval. Our methods reach state-of-the-art performance on the CUB-200-2011 and Stanford Online Products fine-grained datasets.


A series of copolymers P(MMA-NVP) composed of methyl methacrylate (MMA) and N-vinyl pyrrolidone (NVP) were prepared by a solution copolymerization technique. The copolymer could absorb and capture amount of liquid electrolyte within its chain networks structure to form quasi-solid-state electrolyte. The influences of synthesis conditions for copolymers, such as the content of NVP, the amount of initiator 2,2'-azobisisobutyronitrile(AIBN), and the amount of crosslinking agent triethylene glycol dimethacrylate(TEGDMA) on the ionic conductivity of quasi-solid electrolyte were investigated. The highest conductivity of the copolymer gel was 2.17mS/cm at 25°C. Based on the copolymer gel electrolyte, a dye-sensitized solar cell was fabricated with short-circuit current of 12.16mA/ cm2, open circuit voltage of 619mV, fill factor of 0.4633 and an overall conversion efficiency of 3.05 % under 100 mW/cm2 irradiation (AM1.5).


In present era leadership of Muslim countries are more controversial. For leadership managing a state is tougher target. Muslim leaders have no noteworthy part in the world. There are many reasons behind this failure. But the core of all is lack of principles of leadership. Leadership has vital and most important role in a successful state. A leader is the one who lead people for the sake of state's objectives. Therefore, he/she must have the qualities by which individuals happily follow him and achieve set goals of state. The leader can only be successful when he set his principles and act accordingly those decided principles. Rules and regulation are the basic of all systems. Even if a small organization does not set their principle get fail. Setting principle and practicing them is the guarantee of success. Successful leaders known by their principles and never neglect their principles at all. Muhammad (peace be upon him) is an ideal and great leader in every aspect. Muhammad (peace be upon him) made neonate Medina a strong and organized state by his successful principles. This can help to lead the system of state successfully. Thus, Muslim leaders should adopt such principles and can run their countries successfully


This paper outlines the design and development of a survey targeting the cyber-security culture assessment of critical infrastructures during the COVID-19 crisis, when living routine was seriously disturbed and working reality fundamentally affected. Its foundations lie on a security culture framework consisted of 10 different security dimensions analysed into 52 domains examined under two different pillars: organizational and individual. In this paper, a detailed questionnaire building analysis is being presented while revealing the aims, goals and expected outcomes of each question. It concludes with the survey implementation and delivery plan following a number of pre-survey stages each serving a specific methodological purpose.


Most existing robots are designed to exploit only one single locomotion mode, such as rolling, walking, flying, swimming, or jumping, which limits their flexibility and adaptability to different environments where specific and different locomotion capabilities could be more effective. Here we introduce the concept and the design of a flying robot with Adaptive Morphology for Multi-Modal Locomotion. We present a prototype that can use its wings to walk on the ground and fly forward. The wings are used as whegs to move on rough terrains. This solution allows to minimize the structural mass of the robot by reusing the same structure (here the wings) for different modes of locomotion. Furthermore, the morphology of the robot is analysed and optimized for ground speed.


Objective Pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) guided by a standardised CLOSE (contiguous optimised lesions) protocol has been shown to increase clinical success after catheter ablation for paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (PAF). This study analysed healthcare utilisation and quality of life (QOL) outcomes from a large multicentre prospective study, measured association between QOL and atrial fibrillation (AF) burden and identified factors associated with lack of QOL improvement. Methods CLOSE-guided ablation was performed in 329 consecutive patients (age 61.4 years, 60.8% male) with drug-refractory PAF in 17 European centres. QOL was measured at baseline and 12 months post-ablation via Atrial Fibrillation Effect on QualiTy of Life Survey (AFEQT) and EuroQoL EQ-5D-5L questionnaires. All-cause and cardiovascular hospitalisations and cardioversions over 12 months pre-ablation and post-ablation were recorded. Rhythm monitoring included weekly and symptom-driven trans-telephonic monitoring, plus ECG and Holter monitoring at 3, 6 and 12 months. AF burden was defined as the percentage of postblanking tracings with an atrial tachyarrhythmia ≥30 s. Continuous measures across multiple time points were analysed using paired t-tests, and associations between various continuous measures were analysed using independent sample t-tests. Each statistical test used two-sided p values with a significance level of 0.05. Results Both QOL instruments showed significant 12-month improvements across all domains: AFEQT score increased 25.1–37.5 points and 33.3%–50.8% fewer patients reporting any problem across EuroQoL EQ-5D-5L domains. Overall, AFEQT improvement was highly associated with AF burden (p=0.009 for <10% vs ≥10% burden, p<0.001 for <20% vs ≥20% burden). Cardiovascular hospitalisations were significantly decreased after ablation (42%, p=0.001). Patients without substantial improvement in AFEQT (55/301, 18.2%) had higher AFEQT and CHA2DS2-VASc scores at baseline, and higher AF burden following PVI. Conclusions QOL improved and healthcare utilisation decreased significantly after ablation with a standardised CLOSE protocol. QOL improvement was significantly associated with impairment at baseline and AF burden after ablation. Trial registration number NCT03062046.


This research provides an assessment of the utility and quality of risk management and insurance (RMI)-related journals using professorial expert opinion. Although Social Science Citation Index (SSCI)-produced citation counts and article impact factors are widely available and commonly used methods of journal comparison, they are limited to very few generally premier journals in any field, including RMI, leaving stakeholders with substantial gaps when benchmarking journal factors. We bridge this gap by comparing RMI faculty opinion of quality to SSCI assessments for 13 journals with results indicating general consistency across these measures. The expert opinion approach is extended to assess quality across a sample of 30 RMI-related publications, along with assigning journal categories delineated based on reported academic utility, contributing to RMI boundary definitions. Posthoc analysis indicates only modest influences for some individual, institutional, and journal-related factors on professorial perceptions, evidence that expert opinions are reliable measures of RMI journal utility and quality. Additionally, only modest differences are found in journal quality assessments by academics relative to the teaching versus research institutional mission of their employers, as well as across perceived individual teaching versus research role expectations. Thus, the expert opinion approach to evaluating utility and quality, coupled with regression and subsample analysis, aids RMI academics and other stakeholders in journal assessment and boundary definition issues. These contributions to the advancement of journal assessment methodologies in general may also prove useful across academic disciplines.


Nitric oxide (NO) is a free radical synthesized from L-arginine by three different NO-synthases (NOS). NO exhibits multiple and complex biological functions and many of its effects can be mostly attributed to its strong oxidant capacity, which provides it a high affinity to metals, mainly metal with low spin configuration. Molecular targets of NO are diverse and include both low molecular weight species (e.g. thiols) and macromolecules that can be either activated or inhibited as a consequence of reacting with NO. Thus, NO is an important mediator of immune homeostasis and host defence, and changes in its generation or actions can contribute to pathologic states. The knowledge of novel effects of NO has been not only an important addition to our understanding of immunology but also a foundation for the development of new approaches for the management and treatment of various diseases, including Chagas' disease. Herein, the multiple mechanisms by which NO can directly or indirectly affect the generation of an immune response against T. cruzi infection are discussed.


The qualitative and quantitative monosaccharide spectra of purified yeast cell walls revealed that there are three phylogenetically distinct lineages of sterigma-forming basidiomycetous yeasts: (i) Kurtzmanomyces and Sterigmatomyces species, which contain high levels of mannose; (ii) Tilletiopsis species, which contain glucose, galactose, and small amounts of mannose; and (iii) Fellomyces, Kockovaella, Sterigmatosporidium, and Tsuchiyaea species, which appear to be closely related on the basis of their high levels of glucose and the presence of xylose. The yeast cell wall neutral sugars of Sporobolomyces antarcticus and Sterigmatomyces aphidis were similar to those of members of the genus Tilletiopsis. However, the possibility that these taxa are conspecific was eliminated by the results of a random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis. The conspecificity of Mrakia frigida and Mrakia nivalis, the conspecificity of Mrakia gelida and Mrakia stokesii, and the conspecificity of Sterigmatomyces halophilus and Sterigmatomyces indicus were confirmed by RAPD analysis results. RAPD analysis was found to be a simple and highly sensitive method which can be used to differentiate species at the DNA level; it can replace nuclear DNA-nuclear DNA hybridization experiments for species identification, characterization, and delimitation.


Nurses and other healthcare providers have little research to guide them on specific interventions and attitudes which expedite the attainment of rehabilitation outcomes by spinal cord injured (SCI) individuals and their successful return to the community (Fuhrer, 1994; Whiteneck, 1994). Acquisition of knowledge is required during rehabilitation to learn self-care and decision-making which is essential to long term survival following SCI. However, skills that patients and families are able to accomplish in rehabilitation are often not able to be translated into the home environment (White & Holloway, 1990). The process of learning self-care and decision-making needs to be more clearly elucidated, so more effective interventions can be designed which can improve problem-solving and lead to enhanced well-being and quality of life. The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe the meaning, process and consequences of caring during rehabilitation from the perspective of the SCI individual. This paper will report on the findings from one research question: How is the process of a developing caring relationship perceived by SCI individuals during rehabilitation? The theoretical foundation of caring for this study was synthesized from philosophical, ethical, feminist, and nursing literature. A purposive sample of adults with traumatic SCI were interviewed at least once during their initial rehabilitation stay. Twenty interviews were conducted with fifteen participants at various times during their rehabilitation stay over a six month period. The core category of "getting back together" or reintegration of self, which was the major work of rehabilitation, was accomplished with nurses and therapists who were perceived as caring. The process of a developing caring relationship was conceptualized, from participants' descriptions in three phases: learning the other, learning what I need to know, and letting me find out. During each phase reciprocal behaviors occurred between the patient and the caregiver resulting in intermediate outcomes, which facilitated movement to the next phase. Consequences of these caring relationships were: well-being, self-care, autonomy, independence, and hope. Caring by rehabilitation professionals was perceived by SCI individuals as central to recovery and to a positive attitude toward disability.