Wireless connectivity in airplanes is becoming more important, demanded, and common. One of the largest bottlenecks with the in-flight Internet is that the airplane is far away from both the satellites and the ground base stations during most of the flight time. Maintaining a reliable and high-rate wireless connection with the airplane over such a long-range link thus becomes a challenge. Microwave frequencies allow for long link distances but lack the data rate to serve up to several hundreds of potential onboard customers. Higher bands in the millimeter-wave spectrum (30 GHz–300 GHz) have, therefore, been utilized to overcome the bandwidth limitations. Still, the per-user throughput with state-of-the-art millimeter-wave systems is an order of magnitude lower than the one available with terrestrial wireless networks. In this paper, we take a step further and study the channel characteristics for the terahertz band (THz, 0.3 THz–10 THz) in order to map the feasibility of this band for aviation. We first propose a detailed channel model for aerial THz communications taking into account both the non-flat Earth geometry and the main features of the frequency-selective THz channel. We then apply this model to estimate the characteristics of aerial THz links in different conditions. We finally determine the altitudes where the use of airplane-to-satellite THz connection becomes preferable over the airplane-to-ground THz link. Our results reveal that the capacity of the airborne THz link may reach speeds ranging from 50–150 Gbps, thus enabling cellular-equivalent data rates to the passengers and staff during the entire flight.


Mediastinal granuloma/mediastinal fibrosis is a chronic inflammatory disease of the mediastinum. Mediastinal granuloma is the abnormal enlargment of mediastinal lymph nodes by granulomatous inflammation, is usually asyptomatic or minimally symptomatic, and is often detected on chest radiographs taken for other reasons. In contrast, mediastinal fibrosis is extensive fibrous tissue throughout the middle mediastinum causing compression, encasement, or invasion of the large bronchi, superior vena cava, pulmonary veins, or esophagus, often with serious clinical consequences. Some patients may exhibit a clinical entity characterized by enlarged fibrotic and/or calicified lymph nodes with a variable amount of fibrosis that may be asymptomatic, or may cause symptoms by compression or invasion of structures in the mediastinum. Clinical manifestations may be due to superior vena cava (SVC) obstruction, esophageal compression, large airway involvement, pulmonary artery or pulmonary vein narrowing, or laryngeal or phrenic nerve impingement. Definitive diagnosis is traditionally made on the basis of a surgical exploration and biopsy, either a mediastinoscopy or thoracotomy; however, characteristic findings on computed tomography (CT) of the chest may be sufficient for a diagnosis in a certain number of cases. The best therapy is unknown. Antifungal therapy and corticosteroids have been reported effective in some cases. Surgical resection of localized mediastinal granuloma or fibrosis causing symptoms is often effective. However, surgical resection of extensive mediastinal fibrosis usually is not feasible.


PURPOSE
To provide new information on epiretinal cell proliferation and the cells' origin in idiopathic macular holes and to overcome the effects of embedding and sectioning preparation procedures on cell-distribution patterns.

METHODS
Interference and phase-contrast microscopy, immunocytochemistry, and scanning and transmission electron microscopy were performed on surgically excised whole-mounted internal limiting membrane (ILM) specimens removed from 60 eyes with idiopathic macular holes. Cell distribution and cell morphology were correlated with immunocytochemical staining characteristics. Twelve cell type-specific antibodies were used to detect glial cells, hyalocytes, retinal pigment epithelial cells, retinal ganglion cells, and immune cells. Cell viability was analyzed.

RESULTS
Epiretinal cell proliferation was found in all ILM specimens, irrespective of the stage of the macular hole. Cell density showed a broad variety. Immunocytochemistry frequently revealed simultaneous expression of GFAP/CD45, GFAP/CD64, GFAP/CD68, GFAP/CRALBP, and GFAP/CD90. Some cells presented with intracellular contractile filaments (anti-αSMA); others were not immunoreactive to any antibody examined. The percentage of viable cells showed a broad variety with a mean of 73% (SD 29%). Electron microscopy demonstrated glial cells, hyalocytes, and myofibroblast-like cells.

CONCLUSIONS
The presence of epiretinal cells at the ILM in all macular hole stages strongly suggests a substantial involvement of cell migration and proliferation in the course of macular hole development. Glial cells and hyalocytes play the predominant role in epiretinal cell proliferation. Given the co-expression of glial cell and hyalocyte markers, transdifferentiation of epiretinal cells needs further elucidation, especially with respect to αSMA-positive cells leading to traction at the vitreoretinal interface.


: A patient with unusual symptoms showed a polypoid lesion of the esophagus, found to be a primary malignant melanoma. Surgical excision was followed by localized radiation therapy and was completed with external radiotherapy. Subsequent bougienage and biopsy failed to show any evidence of malignancy.


Identity development is widely recognized as the most important developmental task during adolescence (Erikson, 1968). This task is made much more difficult in highrisk adolescents as there is more trouble creating stable and coherent identities (Crocetti, Klimstra, Hale, Koot, & Meeus 2013). The proposed case study examined the personal narrative created by six adolescents transitioning out of a residential facility. Through a self-defining memory interview the adolescents described memories that reflected their identities today. This study hoped to create a better understanding of how youth in residential facilities create an identity from memories of the past. Major themes from the interviews were a mixture of positive and negative identity attributes: accomplishment, change/growth, determination, encouragement of others, future/goals, and relationships (particularly based out of fear).


This interview is one of the three interviews conducted for an audio documentary project titled "Attitude Makeover Towards Unconventional Dance In Egypt".


Funds available to purchase land and easements for conservation purposes are limited. This article provides a targeting strategy for protecting multiple environmental benefits that includes heterogeneity in land costs and probability of land-use conversion, by incorporating spatially explicit land-use change and hedonic price models. This strategy is compared to two alternative strategies that omit either land cost or conversion threat. Based on dynamic programming and Monte Carlo simulations with alternating periods of conservation and development, we demonstrate that the positive correlation between land costs and probability of land-use conversion affects targeting efficiency using parcel data from Sonoma County, California.


This course guide contains library research resources for the IT market sector analysis project in ITI 220. Accessing Library Databases


It is tough to relate visual perception or other achievements to physiological processing in the central nervous system. The diagrammatic, algebraic, and verbal pictures of how sights seem to Lehar do not advance understanding of how we manage to see what is in the world. There are well-known conceptual reasons why no such purely introspective approach can be productive.


The following protocol is intended for the quantification of double-stranded DNA using Quant-iT™PicoGreen® dsDNA Assay Kit (ThermoFisher). This protocol is a simplified and condensed version of the full protocol from the manufacturer. The procedure described here is for 96 reactions. If samples are run in duplicates, then this should allow quantifying 40 samples.


We present an interactive gesture recognition-based, immersive augmented reality system visualizing computational fluid dynamics (CFD) datasets of indoor environments. CFD simulation is used to predict the indoor environments and assess their response to specific internal and external conditions. To enable efficient visualization of CFD datasets in actual-space, an augmented reality system was integrated with a CFD simulation engine. To facilitate efficient data manipulation of the simulated post-processed CFD data and to increase the user-control of the immersive environment, a new intuitive method of human-computer interaction (HCI) has been incorporated. A gesture recognition system was integrated with the augmented reality-CFD structure to transform hand-postural data into a general description of hand-shape, through forward kinematics and computation of hand segment positions and their joint angles. This enabled real-time interactions between users and simulated CFD results in actual-space.


Good motion detection and tracking algorithms are the basic elements of any video-surveillance system. In this paper we present a simple and robust method for tracking unclassified moving targets. Classification of moving objects into dangerous intrusions or not is made only after having tracked them for some frames. Experimental results showing the feasibility of the method are given.


In this installment of At Issue, two of CiSE's editorial board members describe the magazine's current and future Web presence. We start with Bill Feiereisen's discussion of science on the Web and what it could mean for CiSE ("Are We There Yet?") and end with George Thiruvathukal's discussion of the challenges therein ("If We Build It, Will They Come?"). CiSE's official homepage is www.computer.org/cise; we gladly welcome comments with suggestions or feedback. You can contact lead editor (Jenny Stout; firstname.lastname@example.com) or write to either Bill or George (their email addresses appear at the end of their respective essays).


The titanium anodizations in 0.1 M sulfuric acid solution at different treated potentials and the effects of UV-irradiation on the anodized films were investigated by spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). The results showed that the thickness of anodized films decreased in air within 280 min over 500 mV vs. Ag/AgCl. The features of parameters tanΨ and cosΔ in SE were in accord with the polarization curve and the thickness of anodized films, respectively. UV-irradiation could greatly decrease the thickness of the anodized films and provably assisted the reconstruction of anodized titanium films from an amorphous and porous structure to a compact structure. Regardless of UV-irradiation, the cosΔ and tanΨ were still in good agreements with the thickness of anodized films and the polarization curve, respectively. It was also found that UV-irradiation could decrease the surface roughness and make a wider atomically flat terrace on the anodized titanium surface.


In this work, we report the relationship between the electrical conductivity and nanoparticle effective surface area with functional properties of polymer-metal and polymer-clay nanocomposites. Conductivity of the nanocomposite strongly depends upon metal/clay nanoparticle size and concentration that ultimately dictate where the system percolates. Knowledge of percolation properties allows the design of functional nanocomposites for biomedical and sensors applications. Herein we report the successful production of three functional chitosan-metal/clay nanocomposites: a) chitosan-Ag films with antibacterial properties, b) chitosan-Au potentiometric sensor for detection of Cu ++ and c) chitosan-nanoclay potentiometric sensor for detection of NO3-. For all these applications the best functional performance of nanocomposites has been observed when NPs concentration increases and approaches the percolation threshold. The obtained relationship between electrical percolation threshold and functional properties of polymer nanocomposites is of primary importance in the design of high-performance applications. Copyright © 2016 VBRI Press.


True personalised medicine relies on being able to create a learned representation, or embedding, of a patient's health data. While efforts have been made to incorporate some of the data available, there is a distinct lack of imaging modalities used to develop this representation. Due to the complexity of extracting useful features across data types from imaging to text, including overcoming data sparsity, accurately embedding multi-modal data, and ensuring interpretability, design decisions for machine learning models need to take this into account. This article covers the rationale driving the development of personalised patient embeddings, the current approaches used with healthcare data and in the wider realm of multi-modal deep learning as well as shortfalls and challenges. Finally, drawing on current best practices and extensions to single mode learning metrics as well as the shifting focus towards utilising a patient's imaging data for determining relevant clinical factors, a model architecture is proposed and discussed.


Signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (Stat3) is a transcription factor that has many essential roles during inflammation, development and cancer. Stat3 is therefore an attractive therapeutic target in many diseases. While current Stat3 knockout mouse models led to a better understanding of the role of Stat3, the irreversible nature of Stat3 ablation does not model the effects of transient Stat3 therapeutic inhibition, and does not inform on potential dosage effects of Stat3. Using RNAi technology, we have generated a new mouse model allowing the inducible and reversible silencing of Stat3 in vivo, which mirrors the effects of specific Stat3 therapeutic interference. We showed that upon Doxycycline‐mediated activation of the Stat3 short‐hairpin RNA, Stat3 expression was efficiently reduced by about 80% in multiple organs and cell types. Moreover, Stat3 reduction was sufficient to reduce tumor burden in a clinically‐validated mouse model of gastric cancer. Finally, we demonstrated that Stat3 silencing during embryonic development led to reduced birth rate without leading to complete embryonic lethality, in contrast to full Stat3 ablation. In conclusion, this new mouse model will be invaluable to understand the effects of Stat3 therapeutic interference and Stat3 dosage effects.


Abstract. Sister chromatid exchange (SCE) is one of the cytogenetic methods which diagnoses damage to chromosomes and allows evaluation of the mutagenic influence of a given factor on a cell's DNA. The purpose of the experiment was to determine the level of spontaneous and inductive SCE in the domestic cat. The research was carried out on 23 domestic cats Felis catus. Chromosome preparations were prepared from lymphocytes of peripheral blood after 72 h of in vitro breeding with the addition of bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) in five different concentrations: 0.25, 0.5, 1.0, 2.5, 5.0 μg/ml. Chromosomes were stained by means of the fluorescence plus Giemsa (FPG) technique in order to carry out microscopic analysis. It was stated that the level of spontaneous SCE in the domestic cat occurs at a concentration 0.5 μg/ml on the basis of research previously carried out. Higher concentrations of this substance have a genotoxic action and damage DNA of chromosomes and induct additional SCEs in chromosomes of this species. Moreover, it was stated that the number of SCEs is higher in males than females. Our research also proved that the number of exchanges increases along with age in cats of both sexes.


The Kidd blood group is clinically significant since the Jk antibodies can cause acute and delayed transfusion reactions as well as hemolytic disease of newborn (HDN). In general, HDN due to anti-Jkb incompatibility is rare and it usually displays mild clinical symptoms with a favorable prognosis. Yet, we apparently experienced the second case of HDN due to anti-Jkb with severe clinical symptoms and a fatal outcome. A female patient having the AB, Rh(D)-positive boodtype was admitted for jaundice on the fourth day after birth. At the time of admission, the patient was lethargic and exhibited high pitched crying. The laboratory data indicated a hemoglobin value of 11.4 mg/dL, a reticulocyte count of 14.9% and a total bilirubin of 46.1 mg/dL, a direct bilirubin of 1.1 mg/dL and a strong positive result (+++) on the direct Coomb's test. As a result of the identification of irregular antibody from the maternal serum, anti-Jkb was detected, which was also found in the eluate made from infant's blood. Despite the aggressive treatment with exchange transfusion and intensive phototherapy, the patient died of intractable seizure and acute renal failure on the fourth day of admission. Therefore, pediatricians should be aware of the clinical courses of hemolytic jaundice due to anti-Jkb, and they should be ready to treat this disease with active therapeutic interventions.


An important step in the verification of the reliability of portal films as in vivo dosemeters is the evaluation of the agreement between exit dose profiles and optical density profiles measured on the portal film. To test the possibilities of a conventional portal film system in 60Co beams suitable for head and neck irradiation, we verified the agreement between relative exit doses (measured by ionization chamber) and relative optical densities, on cubic homogeneous phantoms, on an homogeneous "step" phantom and on a cubic phantom including air and aluminium inhomogeneities. The optical density profiles were corrected with the appropriate sensitometric curves. For an homogeneous phantom 10.8 cm thick and with the film in contact with the phantom, the agreement was found to be excellent with a mean deviation of 0.8% and a maximum deviation of 1.5%. The agreement was worse when the air gap between the exit surface of the phantom and the portal film was increased (with an air gap equal to 15 cm the maximum deviation was 4%), and when the thickness of the phantom was increased (for a thickness of 14.4 cm the maximum deviation was 3.1%). The agreement was found to be acceptable for the "step" phantom too, with a mean deviation around 1% and a maximum deviation within 2% (air gap equal to zero). When air and aluminium inhomogeneities were incorporated into the phantom a maximum deviation of 6% and a mean deviation less than 3% were found. Furthermore, the relative optical density profiles show an underestimate of measured off-axis exit dose values under a high density inhomogeneity and a small overestimate under a low density inhomogeneity. Results suggest the possibility of using conventional portal films for exit relative dosimetry in head and neck irradiation with 60Co beams if the air gap is kept as small as possible.


Network service providers continue to require new and different call processing features for their switching systems. Open call processing addresses the limitations of the current feature procurement process by being vendor-independent; i.e. the same call processing model is used for all switching systems and it is required that features be independently installable on a running system. A structure for call processing software that supports open call processing is described. Different approaches to managing call processing features are discussed. The implementation of a simulation model of a feature manager that ties 17 interacting features together into a single feature package is presented.<<ETX>>


P. Gerber, DJui' Medical School University of Queensland Brisbane, QLD 4029 care in even the most remote areas, have helped bring this about. But there are limits to what money and medical technology can achieve. Many of the remaining health problems in Aboriginal communities are socially based alcoholism and venereal diseases are examples. Individual and community attitudes to these and other socially derived diseases will not change overnight, but there is evidence that attitudes are changing. While this is happening, the medical profession should involve itself, in its expert and advocacy roles, as friends and supporters of Aboriginal people in their struggle for improvement and equality. In this, we have a responsibility to document and publish factual information about the persisting health problems of Aboriginal people. To do anything less should be interpreted as professional neglect. Michael Gracey, Mil University of Western AUstralia Randolph M. Spargo, MPH Kimberley PublicHealth Region Western Australia Donald B. Cheek, MD University of Adelaide


Concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing rapidly. Emission of CO2 directly impact on global climate change. Monoethanolamine (MEA) absorption process for CO2 capture was developed to combat this trend due to its high reactivity. This allows higher priority absorption for carbon dioxide. The aim of this study is to investigate the intermolecular interaction between the solvent (MEA) and the acid gas (CO2) during the absorption process. Molecular dynamic (MD) simulation will be used to study the molecular interaction and give insight of this process at molecular level. The intermolecular interactions for pure molecules (pure MEA, pure water, and pure CO2), binary system (MEA+CO2, CO2+H2O and MEA+H2O) and tertiary system (MEA+CO2+H2O) at different operating conditions are considered in this study. To perform the molecular dynamic (MD) simulation two boxes of carbon dioxide gas and MEA solvent are combined to study the absorption process. Thermodynamic condition under NVE, NPT and NVT conditions is specified in the simulation. The simulation results are analysed in terms of radical distribution function (rdf) to describe the intermolecular interaction and diffusion coefficient to calculate the solubility factor. Meanwhile, Mean square displacement (MSD) is also used to determine the diffusivity of molecules. The rdf function is plotted on the graph to identify the highest potential molecular interaction at various operating conditions. MD simulation was performed at temperature of 25oC, 40oC, and 45oC to observe the potential interaction of molecules. The trend of rdf graph of each component shows an increasing trend with increase temperature. The purpose of studying primary system is to study the intermolecular interaction of each component on effects of different temperature. A further analysis of binary system was performed to study the intermolecular interaction between MEA molecule and H2O molecule. The rdf graph generated from simulation proved that solubility of MEA in water increase with temperature. Hydroxyl group, –OH of MEA molecule interact with water to form hydrogen bonding bond. Tertiary system of intermolecular interaction is performed to study the CO2 absorption in aqueous MEA solution. It is found that the amine group, -NH of MEA has higher probability to form carbamate ion with carbon dioxide compare to –OH group of MEA. As a references from binary system for tertiary system, higher number of lone pairs in hydroxyl group than amine group of MEA tends to form hydrogen bonds with water.


This study reports on the solution conformation of the covalent (+)-trans-anti-[BP]dG adduct (derived from the binding of the highly mutagenic and tumorigenic (+)-anti-benzo[a]pyrene diol epoxide to the N2 of deoxyguanosine) positioned opposite dC at a junctional site in the d(A1-A2-C3-[BP]G4-C5- T6-A7-C8-C9-A10-T11-C12-C13).d(G14-G15-A16-T17-+ ++G18-G19-T20-A21-G22-C23) 13/10-mer DNA sequence. The 13-mer represents the template strand containing the junction [BP]dG4 lesion while the complementary 10-mer models a primer strand which extends upto and is complementary to the modified dG4 residue. The solution conformation has been determined by initially incorporating intramolecular and intermolecular proton-proton distances defined by lower and upper bounds deduced from NOESY spectra as restraints in molecular mechanics computations in torsion angle space and subsequently through restrained molecular dynamics calculations based on a NOE distance and intensity refinement protocol. The duplex segment retains a minimally perturbed B-DNA conformation with all base pairs, including the junctional [BP]dG4.dC23 pair, in Watson-Crick hydrogen-bonded alignments. The pyrenyl ring is not stacked over the adjacent dC5.dG22 base pair but is positioned on the minor groove-side of the [BP]dG moiety and directed toward the 5'-end of the template strand. The pyrenyl ring stacks over the base of the non-adjacent dA2 residue in one direction and the sugar ring of dC23 in the other direction. The solution structure of the (+)-trans-anti-[BP]dG adduct opposite dC in the 13/10-mer in which the modified deoxyguanosine adopts an anti glycosidic torsion angle (this study) is in striking contrast to the structure of the same (+)-trans-anti-[BP]dG moiety in a 13/9-mer of the same sequence but without the dC23 residue positioned opposite the adduct site [Cosman, M., et al. (1995) Biochemistry 34, 15334-15350]. For the latter case, the aromatic portion of the BP residue stacks over the adjacent dC5.dG22 base pair, the modified deoxyguanosine adopts a syn glycosidic torsion angle and is displaced toward the major groove direction. Insights into the factors that affect the sequence and context dependent conformations of stereoisomeric [BP]dG lesions have emerged following comparison of these two structures with the minor groove conformations of the same (+)-trans-anti-[BP]dG lesion in the fully complementary 11-mer duplex [Cosman, M., et al. (1992) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 89, 1914-1918] and in the base displaced-intercalative conformation of the 11/10-mer deletion duplex containing a -1 deletion site opposite the lesion [Cosman, M., et al. (1994) Biochemistry 33, 11507-11517]. The contributing factors where applicable include Watson-Crick base pairing at the site of the lesion, positioning of the carcinogen within the floor of the minor groove, and the tendency of the bulky hydrophobic aromatic BP residue to assume stacked or intercalative conformations.


Cell signaling is crucial for cellular interactions to occur properly and expediently. Due to the body's numerous available responses, many receptors bind to multiple ligands, resulting in receptors' abilities to produce various responses depending on the initial ligand to which it binds. Of the numerous receptors in the body, our research focuses on arrestin3, a scaffold protein that plays an amplifying role in signal cascades for mitogen-activated protein kinases, making it a scaffold protein. Arrestin3 has the ability to bind multiple ligands on the same site, with distinct specificity, but how this multifaceted binding occurs is currently unknown. Fluorine-tagged NMR is widely used for protein conformational studies as it is robust, clear, quick, and consistent in determining shifts in a residue's hydrophobic character. By labeling single-cysteine arrestin3 mutants with 19F in designated residues, the chemical shift can be determined before and after binding with MAPK kinases. These shifts signify key changes in arrestin3 conformation, constructing a clearer image of its overall structure. Unfortunately, previous labeling methods were only effective in labeling residues on the external environment of the protein, not sites with low solvent-accessibility, and required a three-day dialysis procedure, inhibiting expedient research. Solid-state labeling (SSL) is a quick, efficient, and non-denaturing method that provides a much higher labeling efficiency to residues with low solvent accessibility as well as reduces labeling time to approximately six hours instead of three days. This method optimization has produced high-quality NMR data for residues not formerly labeled efficiently or at all.


Parkinsonism has rarely been described in association with intracranial tumours. In a previous review by Polyzoidis et al in 1985, 49 verified cases with intracranial tumours were collected from the literature,' the majority of which were meningiomas.8'3 2 Further review of the current literature adds another four cases.3' 72 Only six of these 55 cases directly involved the thalamus and or the basal ganglia.8 All six were infiltrating intraaxial gliomas.8 12 When symptoms of Parkinsonism occur in a patient with intracranial tumour, it is not uncommon to make an incorrect diagnosis of Parkinson's disease." We report an additional case of an intraaxial glioma located in the left thalamic area with ipsilateral hemi-Parkinsonian features, but without any clinical signs of increased intracranial pressure. A 62 year old man presented with a one year history of increasing tremor of the head and left limbs, impairment of memory, slowness in his actions and unusual fatigue. His complaints failed to respond to anti-Parkinsonian drug therapy. There was no other previous medical history of note. At the time of admission on 28 August 1989, physical and neurological examination revealed facial impassivity, a marked resting tremor involving the left limbs and head in combination with mild cog-wheel rigidity. There was no sign of pyramidal involvement and no sensory deficits. Plantar responses were flexor. There was no other evidence of the intracranial involvement except for a right homonymous hemianopia. There was no papilloedema. His attention span was brief. He had great difficulty buttoning clothes and his walking was slow with a tendency to fall frequently. A cranial enhanced CT scan showed an extensive area ofmixed attenuation in the left thalamic region with some mass effect (fig)


SUMMARY: Methylococcus capsulatus (Bath) was grown in continuous culture with methanol (1·0%, v/v) as sole carbon and energy source. Cells grown on methanol exhibited differences in methane monooxygenase (MMO) activity which were dependent on the concentration of copper sulphate present in the growth medium; an increase in the concentration of copper in the growth medium enhanced both in vivo and in vitro MMO activity. The MMO activity in methanol-grown Methylococcus capsulatus (Bath) was always associated with the particulate fraction of cell-free extracts; at no time was soluble MMO activity detected. In vitro MMO activity was also stimulated by the addition of copper compounds to the assay system and the stimulation was shown to be pH-dependent. The concentration of copper sulphate in the growth medium also determined the intracytoplasmic membrane content of the cells, as judged by electron microscopy of thin-sections, which could be correlated with particulate MMO activity, although it is not possible at this time to say whether the increase in MMO activity seen is due to the increased membrane content or due to the copper ions per se.


A B S T R A C T Pulmonary fibrosis was induced in eight baboons with bleomycin; five untreated animals were controls. After 45-65 U/kg of bleomycin, lung volumes and diffusing capacity were reduced, and static lung pressure-volume curves were shifted to the right. Right middle lobes were resected at this time in five bleomycin-treated and two control animals. Compared to controls, right middle lobes from bleomycintreated animals had increased weight and contained increased amounts of total protein, collagen, elastin, and DNA; synthesis of collagen and noncollagen protein were also elevated. Occasional alveolar septae were edematous and infiltrated by mononuclear inflammatory cells; a slight increase in collagen was demonstrable histologically. Four of six treated animals died with extensive diffuse interstitial fibrosis after 95 U/kg of bleomycin. Biochemical analyses revealed significantly elevated lobar contents of dry weight, protein, elastin, and collagen. Two animals survived 95 U/kg ofbleomycin and were terminated 6mo after treatment. In these animals, physiologic studies were indicative of restrictive lung disease, but lung histology was nearly normal. Lung weight, total protein, and DNA had returned to control values, but collagen and elastin were increased in amount and concentration. Bleomycin induces an intense inflammatory response in the lung. During this inflammation, connective tissue proliferation occurs in concert with proliferation of other tissue components. Cessation of bleomycin treatment is followed by resolution ofinflammation manifested by decreases in tissue mass, cellular content, and nonconnective tissue protein. Collagen and elastin deposited


This dissertation is concerned with adaptation, in the context of new emerging digital media platforms. The project proposes that new media has allowed for the creation of a universal digital heteroglossia; a heteroglossia that contains the plurality of the unstable utterances of cinema, radio, television, the web and computer games. This has allowed for the process of adaptation to become more instantaneous in the simultaneous deployment of narratives across the digital heteroglossia. Therefore, the process of adaptation is far more dialogical, with previous variants of narratives being 'rewired' and gaining an 'afterlife' through adaptation, and through the creation of new variants and versions.

The Internet has allowed for adaptation to move into a participatory mode, where fanfic writers fill in 'gaps' left by the creators of televisual and filmic texts. Videogames, based on pre-existing or co-existing texts, mean that players can experience moments of supreme and non-permanent adaptation themselves. This thesis suggests that this participation has democratised adaptation, and has fundamentally altered the nature of 'traditional' adaptation.

The thesis concludes that, due to a digital heteroglossia, 'traditional' adaptation will decline, as the process becomes more plural and instantaneous. With previous variants of narratives being summoned back into life - due to adaptation, remaking and refashioning - it is increasingly unlikely that 'fidelity' strategies of adaptation will continue to be the dominant discourse, as all variants of narratives begin to exist in a dialogical plurality with one another; a mutual exchange of fluctuating source and target texts, cross-referenced through intertextuality and assembling a collage of influences.


This note examines some issues involved in an attempt to go beyond the assumption, long-made by most economists, that people's preferences are simply to be treated as "given" and that the principle of consumer sovereignty entails a refusal to consider some (or some people's) revealed preferences as more authoritative than others. The most important break with that assumption has been the development of behavioral economics, which shows that people may not always know what they really want, and that economists have to develop a more critical approach, distinguishing people's true preferences from those that are merely apparent. While this approach, a version of which is proposed by Michael Woodford, might very well be needed to explain various otherwise mysterious ways in which actual societies defy economists' predictions based on the assumption of purely rational behavior, it also involves a danger of replacing an empirical investigation of human choice with a normative account of what people should chose--or might chose under some sort of "ideal conditions" that reduce the diversity of human preferences to merely erroneous deviations from what reason and human nature demand. To solve this conundrum, economics might need to incorporate a more robust theory of human choice, perhaps along the lines proposed by Robert Shiller and Edmund Phelps. Such a theory would bring economics closer to other social sciences, such as history, psychology, and maybe even ethics and aesthetics.


The trend of using location-based services (LBS) is not new but has evolved over long time and continues to enter into new application and service landscapes. LBS have essentially targeted outdoor scenarios, whereas GPS is the de-facto standard for these cases. Indoor localization technologies are also gaining attraction. In this paper, we present our Linux-based solution, which runs on low-cost embedded hardware, and is equipped with shortrange wireless technologies such as Bluetooth and WIFI. Using the beaconing capabilities of these technologies in combination with control over M2M protocols, we are able provide different applications at the point of presence (PoP).


This study aims to investigate the effect of culturing conditions (static and flow perfusion) on the proliferation and osteogenic differentiation of rat bone marrow (RBM) stromal cells seeded on two starch based three-dimensional scaffolds exhibiting distinct porous structures. For this purpose, it was selected: i) a scaffold based on SEVA-C (a blend of starch with ethylene vinyl alcohol) obtained by extrusion with a blowing agent and ii) a scaffold based on SPCL (a blend of starch with polycaprolactone) obtained by a fiber bonding process. The obtained results suggest that flow perfusion culture enhances the osteogenic differentiation of RBM cells and improves their distribution in 3-D starch-based scaffolds, by improving nutrients delivery in the interior of the scaffolds and simultaneously by stimulating the seeded cells by exposing them to fluid shear forces. They also indicate that scaffold architecture and pore interconnectivity affect the homogeneity of the formed tissue.


The generation of an acoustic signal by means of voltage pulses (f = 15 kHz) applied to the electrodes of a barrierdischarge excilamp based on a Xe/Cl 2 = (50-500)/1 mixture kept at a pressure of 5-500 Torr is studied. It is shown that, from the time variation of the acoustic signal intensity, one can judge the time instant the excilamp starts operating in a steady mode. Optimal (in power and efficiency) operating conditions of the excilamp are found (Xe/Cl2 = 240/1, p = 98 Torr, η ≈ 9.5%). It is experimentally demonstrated that the dis� charge energy at a low pressure is spent largely on heating the gas. This is indicative of the volume heat release and volume glow discharge (as the pressure grows, the efficiency of this source of energy consumption drops and more and more energy is spent on acoustic vibration excitation). Under higher pressures, the Fourier spectrum of the acoustic signal becomes richer, the intensity of the spectrum rises, and the dispersion of the signal grows. At very high pressures, the intensity of the acoustic signal drops to a level corresponding to the natural vibrations of the excilamp envelope without the discharge (when the discharge is quenched, the Fou� rier spectrum of the signal becomes depleted and contains only harmonics corresponding to the carrier fre� quency of voltage pulses from the power source).


Preliminary communication Many filtration systems employing perlite granulations have been designed so far. Size distribution of perlite particles directly influences the retention properties of filter media. The information on the size distribution of perlite particles, used in each specific dead-end filtration process (the flow of fluid being filtered is perpendicular to the surface of filter medium), is crucial for the adequate design of filter medium. In order to facilitate the design of filter systems possessing filter media of this kind, a new and particular mathematical model has been developed for this present study. It is based on an appropriate partial differential equation and additional mathematical conditions, whose solution is an exponential function describing the probability density distribution of perlite particle sizes. The formulated model was experimentally verified by measuring the particle sizes of a perlite granulation using the morphometric method, based on the application of a standard light microscope and digital image analysis software. The fitting procedure of experimental data gave acceptable values of accuracy parameters high R-square factor (R = 0,905) and small value of the root-mean square error (MSE = 0,490).


The change in the hydrogen-trapping behavior of a TiC particle accompanying its coherent to incoherent interfacial-character transition in a 0.05C-0.20Ti-2.0Ni steel that was quenched and tempered in a partially protective argon atmosphere and in ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) has been studied by thermal desorption spectrometry (TDS). The results indicated that (semi)coherent TiC precipitates demonstrate distinctly different hydrogen-trapping features from that of incoherent TiC particles with respect to hydrogen capacity, interaction energy with hydrogen, locations available for hydrogen occupation, and the capability of hydrogen absorption from the environment. The broad (semi)coherent interface of the disc-shaped (semi)coherent TiC precipitate does not trap hydrogen during tempering in a partially protected argon atmosphere, but traps hydrogen during cathodic charging at room temperature. The semicoherent interface traps 1.3 atoms/nm of hydrogen at the core of the misfit dislocation with short-time charging (1 hour), which is characterized by a desorption activation energy of 55.8 kJ/mol. The side interface of the (semi)coherent TiC precipitate acts like the broad interface when the precipitate is small. As the precipitate grows, the side interface gradually loses its coherency and results in a simultaneous increase in the trapping activation energy and the binding energy. An increase in the trapping activation energy, i.e., the energy barrier for trapping, makes hydrogen trapping more difficult in cathodic charging at room temperature, while an increase in the binding energy enhances the capability of hydrogen absorption from the atmosphere during heat treatment. An incoherent TiC particle is not able to trap hydrogen during cathodic charging at room temperature due to its high energy barrier for trapping, but absorbs hydrogen during heat treatment at high temperatures. The amount of hydrogen that is trapped by incoherent TiC particles depends on their volume, which strongly indicates that incoherent TiC particles trap hydrogen within them rather than at the particle/matrix interface. Octahedral carbon vacancies are supposedly the hydrogen trap sites in incoherent TiC particles.


Abstract International relations scholarship has made great progress on the study of compliance with international agreements. While persuasive, most of this work has focused on states' de jure compliance decisions, largely excluding the de facto behavior of nonstate actors whose actions the agreement hopes to constrain. Of particular interest has been whether the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention (ABC) might reduce the propensity of multinational corporations (MNCs) to bribe officials in host countries through its mechanisms of extraterritoriality and extensive peer review. Unfortunately, research is hampered by reporting bias. Since the convention raises the probability of investors' punishment for bribery in their home countries, it reduces both the incentives for bribery and willingness to admit to the activity. This generates uncertainty over which of these incentives drives any correlation between signing the convention and reductions in reported bribery. We address this problem by employing a specialized survey experiment that shields respondents and reduces reporting bias. We find that after the onset of Phase 3 in 2010, when the risk of noncompliance increased for firms subject to the OECD-ABC, those MNCs reduced their actual bribery relative to their nonsignatory competitors.


The Italian real estate industry improved quickly in the last decade of the past century due to a large investigation on public contracts and calls for tenders in many sectors of the economy, the so called "mani pulite" affair, and the increasing attention paid to the Italian market by international investors, banks and other financial operators, since real estate's relative prices were lower than expected. This paper aims to explore the legal features related to the recent large increased adoption of financial instruments in the real estate sector, expecially with respect to investment funds on real estates and properties and mortgage loans. Financial instruments used by the Central Government and other local administrations in their real estate activities, as well as by other Italian public and private bodies, are fully analysed. It also deals with Italian tools as managed funds and REITs, starting from a retrospective analysis (from both a regulatory and fiscal approach) of the processes of privatisation and exploitation of real estate public assets, which have been put in place through securitisation and creation of real estate investment funds. The analysis takes into account the most recent tax law changes. At the end, useful comments on the political corrective measures recently adoped by the Financial Act for 2009 on real estate financing and its fiscal implications, and to the so called "residential estates' plan" are advanced.


Abstract HIV disproportionately affects racial/ethnic minorities and individuals living in the southern United States, and missed clinic visits account for much of this disparity. We sought to evaluate: (1) predictors of missed initial HIV medical visits, (2) time to initial visit, and (3) the association between initial visit attendance and retention in HIV care. Chart reviews were conducted for 200 consecutive HIV‐infected patients (100 in Dallas, 100 in San Antonio) completing case management (CM) intake. Of these, 52 (26%) missed their initial visit, with 22 (11%) never presenting for care. Mean age was 40 years, 85% were men, >70% were of minority race/ethnicity, and 28% had a new HIV diagnosis. Unemployment (OR [95% CI] = 2.33 [1.04‐5.24], p = 0.04) and lower attendance of CM visits (OR = 3.08 [1.43‐6.66], p = 0.004) were associated with missing the initial medical visit. A shorter time to visit completion was associated with CD4 ≤ 200 (HR 1.90 [1.25‐2.88], p = 0.003), Dallas study site (HR = 1.48 [1.03‐2.14], p = 0.04), and recent hospitalization (HR = 2.18 [1.38‐3.43], p < 0.001). Patients who did not complete their initial medical visit within 90 days of intake were unlikely to engage in care. Initial medical visit attendance was associated with higher proportion of visits attended (p = 0.04) and fewer gaps in care (p = 0.01). Missed medical visits were common among HIV patients initiating or reinitiating care in Texas. Employment and CM involvement predicted initial medical visit attendance, which was associated with retention in care. New, early engagement strategies are needed to decrease missed visits and reduce HIV health disparities.


Many political commentators diagnose an increasing polarization of the U.S. electorate into two opposing camps. However, in standard spatial voting models, changes in the political preference distribution are irrelevant as long as the position of the median voter does not change. We show that media bias provides a mechanism through which political polarization can affect electoral outcomes. In our model, media firms' profits depend on their audience rating. Maximizing profits may involve catering to a partisan audience by slanting the news. While voters are rational, understand the nature of the news suppression bias and update appropriately, important information is lost through bias, potentially resulting in inefficient electoral outcomes. We show that polarization increases the profitability of slanting news, thereby raising the likelihood of electoral mistakes. We also show that, if media are biased, then there are some news realizations such that the electorate appears more polarized to an outside observer, even if citizens' policy preferences do not change. JEL Code: D72, D80.


The absence of government policy related to livestock has resulted in ineffective counselling scheme to help boost the achievement of beef self-sufficiency in West Sumatra. One of the reasons is communication disharmony between the executive and the legislative in policy formulation process. This study aims to identify the legal bases and recommendations of livestock counselling policy formulation process in West Sumatra. The research, using qualitative method, was carried out for 6 months at the Department of Animal Husbandry of West Sumatra, the Secretariat of Coordination Agency (BAKORLUH) and the Regional House of Representatives (DPRD). Research informants, as many as 6, were determined by purposive technique. Secondary data was obtained by documentation while primary data was obtained through interviews. Data analysis method used is descriptive qualitative with instrument analysis using technique 5W+1H (what, who, why, when, where and how). The study concludes that the legal bases that can be used for livestock counselling policy formulation consist of laws, government regulations, presidential decrees and two regulations of the Minister of Agriculture. This study suggests that West Sumatra Livestock Counselling Commission should be involved in livestock counselling policy formulation as a mediator, communicator and expert.


The rise in online education, coupled with research suggesting the influence of instructorlearner interaction and frequency of student engagement with course materials on academic outcomes, highlight the need for innovative ways to keep the online learner connected to the course. This article describes results from a study conducted to examine students' perceptions about the use of instructor-made videos that provided explanations of course assignments, syllabus requirements, discussed weekly topics, reviewed for exams, and answered student questions in video format in both a 100% online course and in several face-to-face courses. Student perceptions of this instructional strategy were overwhelmingly positive, with all of the students surveyed expressing satisfaction with this method of instructor-learner interaction. Open-ended answers revealed that students felt more connected to the instructor when able to view instructor-made videos. Descriptive results are provided for both the 100% online course and the face-to-face courses on variables related to frequency of viewing videos, purpose of videos viewed, and perceptions about the videos in regard to their experience with the course. Recommendations are also provided for online instructors interested in employing this teaching technique.


Surface nano-structuring of polysulfone (PSf) membrane surrogate surfaces was accomplished by grafting hydrophilic polymers, poly(methacrylic acid) (PMAA) and poly(acrylic acid) (PAA), using the atmospheric pressure plasma-induced graft polymerization (APPIGP) approach. Atmospheric pressure (AP) plasma was used to activate the polysulfone substrate surface, and subsequent graft polymerization of hydrophilic monomers was carried out with an aqueous monomer solution. Optimization of generating the surface initiation sites was guided by water contact angle (WCA) measurements of the PSf surface after plasma treatment at different gas compositions, radio frequency (RF) power, and the treatment time. Optimal surface activation of the PSf substrate surface was achieved for AP helium plasma of RF power of 50 W and treatment time of 15 s. Graft polymerization was carried out at initial monomer concentration in the range of 5 - 20 vol% and reaction time of 0.5 - 2 h at 60dC and 70dC for grafting PMAA and PAA, respectively. Compared to the PSf surrogate surface (WCA: approx. 97 - 100o), the surface hydrophilicity of the grafted surfaces was improved for all grafting conditions, with the water contact angles of the PMAA- and PAA-grafted polysulfone surfaces decreasing by 28.8% and 34.0%, respectively, both at the lowest initial monomer concentration of 5 vol% and the longest graft polymerization time of 2 hours. Surface topography of the grafted surfaces was evaluated by atomic force microscopy (AFM). Both the surface feature number density and root-mean-square surface roughness (Rrms) increased with initial monomer concentration, from 5 - 20 vol%, suggesting that a higher density of surface grafted chains with a wider chain size distribution was achieved with increased initial monomer concentration. All polymer grafted polysulfone surfaces were significantly more hydrophilic than the original polysulfone surface, and high grafting densities were observed. However, relative to lower initial monomer concentration (5 vol%), increased roughness of the surface at high initial monomer concentration (20 vol%) resulted in somewhat reduced surface hydrophilicities quantified by 15.9% and 18.2% contact angle decrease for PMAA- and PAA-grafted PSf, respectively, after 2 h of graft polymerization. Results of the present study are encouraging in indicating that the APPIGP methodology could be beneficial for surface modification of commercial polysulfone membranes for improving the surface hydrophilicity and hence fouling mitigation.


This presentation highlights the relationship between wellbeing achieved by farming and the care of cows with dairy farmers participating in the ARGOS programme. Its purpose is to indicate how environmental care might be part of farmersr everyday life and become part of their sense of wellbeing and way of living a meaningful life. It also discusses on how dairy farmers can associate environmental issues with their own wellbeing. Information on organic versus conventional dairy farming...


The study was carried out to investigate the customer satisfaction at Istana Budaya. The main focus of the study was to study the differences in satisfaction among the audience based on their demographic backgrounds. The outcomes of the study are essentials in order to identify the target groups for theatre s audience development programs. Next, the study investigated the relationship between customer satisfaction and service quality,
and subsequently identified the possible factors that contribute to audience satisfaction in the performing arts. An instrument called the SERVQUAL was chosen to facilitate the study. Initially, SERVQUAL was designed to measure the service quality of an organization. However, recent studies show that the instrument can be used for
satisfaction study. The application is based on the relationship between these highly related constructs. A particular relationship stated that customer satisfaction is temporal measurement pertaining to a service that is made at a transaction-specific basis whereas service quality is defined as a long-term measurement based on multiple transactions with the service. Hence, a single study using the SERVQUAL can be regarded as a satisfaction study. The result of the study showed that the audience was mostly made up of young Malay post-graduate female students. The study also found that that there were
differences in satifaction among the audience based on demographic factors with the exceptions for gender and salary. It was also revealed that the audience had a high
satisfaction toward the service of the theatre and its personnel, namely the ushers and ticketing and reception staffs. The study was also able to show the relationship between the two constructs where service quality explained about 21% of the variation in customer satisfaction. Lastly, empathy and tangible were found to be important factors in influencing customer satisfaction. Based on the study it is hopeful that these findings can contribute significantly towards the development of audience at Istana Budaya and also to the performing arts sector in Malaysia.


BACKGROUND & AIMS
Vesicular glutamate transporter (VGLUT) has been reported to be involved in glucose-induced insulin secretion. It has been shown that glucose stimulates the expression of VGLUT isoform 2 (VGLUT2) in beta cells via transcriptional mechanism. In this study, we identified the mouse VGLUT2 (mVGLUT2) promoter and characterized the transcriptional mechanism of glucose-stimulated mVGLUT2 expression in beta-cells.

METHODS
A promoter region of mVGLUT2 was cloned by genomic polymerase chain reaction. The mechanism of Sp1 in glucose-induced transactivation of mVGLUT2 was investigated by luciferase assay, electrophoretic mobility shift assay, chromatin immunoprecipitation assay, and Western blot analysis.

RESULTS
A promoter containing 2133 base pairs of upstream sequence of the 5'-flanking region of mVGLUT2 complementary DNA was cloned. Transient transfection of various 5'-end deletion constructs of the mVGLUT2 promoter/luciferase reporter indicated that the region between -96 to +68 base pair contains the basal promoter for mVGLUT2. Mutational analysis and electromobility shift assay showed an important role for the transcription factor Sp1 in both basal and glucose-induced mVGLUT2 transcription. The interaction between Sp1 and mVGLUT2 was confirmed by chromatin immunoprecipitation assays. Glucose stimulates the phosphorylation of Sp1 via mitogen-activated protein kinase P38 and P44/42. This leads to increased binding activity of Sp1 to the mVGLUT2 promoter and results in activation of the gene.

CONCLUSIONS
We cloned the mouse VGLUT2 promoter and showed a novel molecular mechanism of glucose-induced mVGLUT2 transcription.


In this paper we study measurable dynamics for the widest reasonable class of smooth one dimensional maps. Three principle decompositions are described in this class : decomposition of the global measure-theoretical attractor into primitive ones, ergodic decomposition and Hopf decomposition. For maps with negative Schwarzian derivative this was done in the series of papers [BL1-BL5], but the approach to the general smooth case must be different.


Taxodium Rich. is a genus of the family Cupressaceae. The trees are especially prized for their rot and termite resistant wood. Taxodium leaves and cones, which are particularly rich in essential oils were used as folk medicine to treat skin, gastro-intestinal, respiratory, inflammation, and infections. Preliminary bioactivity assays reported antimicrobial, an- titumor, antitermitic, antispasmodic and bronchodilator activities of the extracts or isolates from Taxodium but further pharmacological investigations of bioactive compounds are not available. To data, at least 130 compounds have been identified from extant or fossil Taxodium. Fifty-seven compounds have been isolated primarily from the cones, leaves, and branches of extant Taxodium, with diterpenoids and flavonoids as the major components. At least three major abie- tane diterpenoids (sugiol (1), ferruginol (2), and 6,7-dehydroferruginol (3)) are also identified in the fossil Taxodium by GC/MS. The diterpenoids may be important marker compounds for understanding the evolution of the genus Taxodium. However, the taxonomy and evolutionary pattern of Taxodium remains elusive until a full understanding of the chemical constituents of all Taxodium taxa is determined.


The convective boundary layer flow,. heat (and mass) transfer of nanofluid over a wedge
are investigated. The fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics of nanofluid have received
considerable attention due to wide range of engineering applications. In many
boundary layer flow studies, it is found that nanofluid exhibits higher thermal conductivity
and heat transfer coefficients compared to the conventional fluid. In this thesis, the
mathematical nanofluid model proposed by Buongiomo is used to study the boundary
layer flow of nanofluid past a wedge under the influence of various effects. The nanofluid
model takes into account the transport mechanism of nanoparticles, namely the Brownian
diffusion and thermophoresis. Based on this model, the mathematical formulation
is developed to study the characteristics of flow, heat (and mass) transfer of six boundary
layer flow problems. The problems are limited to steady, two-dimensional, laminar
flow of incompressible viscous nanofluid along a wedge. The governing partial differential
equations are reduced to a system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations using
similarity transformation. The resulting system is solved numerically using the fourthorder
Runge-Kutta-Gill method along with the shooting technique and Newton Raphson
method. Then, the numerical values of the skin friction, heat (and mass) transfer coefficients
are obtained for various values of the governing parameters such as wedge angle,
heat generation/absorption, thermal radiation, Brownian motion, thermophoresis, suction,
power law variation, Soret and Dufour effects. Comparisons with previously published
work for verification and accuracy of the method used is performed and found to be in
good agreement. The solutions are expressed graphically in terms of velocity, temperature,
solutal concentration and nanoparticle volume fraction profiles. The effects of pertinent
parameters entering into the problems on skin friction coefficient, local Nusselt
number and local Sherwood number are discussed in detail.


Acanthus ilicifolius (Acanthaceae) has received considerable attention due to its wide range of traditional usage in Indian system of medicine. The chemopreventive effect of ethanol extracts of Acanthus ilicifolius (AIEE) on N-nitrosodiethylamine (DEN, 200 mg kgG)-induced experimental liver tumour was investigated in male Wistar rats. Experimental rats were orally treated with AIEE (400 mg kgG b.wt.) for 1 week before the injection of diethyl nitrosamine and continued to be 14 weeks. The changes of lipid peroxidation, antioxidants and membrane bound enzymes were studied in AIEE treated experimental and control rats. The result indicates AIEE treatment effectively suppressed liver tumour induced with DEN as revealed by decrease in the levels of extend of alanine transaminase, aspartate transaminase, alkaline phosphatase, lipid peroxidase, glutathione peroxidase and glutathione-S-transferase with a concomitant increase in enzymatic antioxidant (superoxide dismutase and catalase) levels when compared to those in liver tumour bearing rats. The result of the study concludes significant chemopreventive effect of AIEE against DEN induced liver tumour.


This thesis presents our investigations on how to efficiently utilize on-chip wires to improve network performance in reconfigurable hardware. A fieldprogrammable gate array (FPGA), as a key component in a modern reconfigurable platform, accommodates many-millions of wires and the on-demand reconfigurability is realized using this abundance of wires. Modern FPGAs become computationally powerful as hardware IP (intellectual property) modules such as embedded memories, processor cores, and DSP modules are accommodated. However, the performance and the cost of the inter-IP communication remains a main challenge. We meet this challenge in two aspects. First, conventional general-purpose on-chip networks suffer from high area cost when they are mapped onto the reconfigurable fabric. To reduce the area cost, we present a topology customization technique for a given set of applications. Specifically, we present an application-specific crossbar switch, crossbar schedulers, point-to-point interconnects, and circuit-switched networks-on-chip (NoCs) that reside on top of a reconfigurable fabric. As a result, by establishing only the necessary network resources, our customized interconnects provide significantly reduced cost compared to general-purpose on-chip networks. Second, while the reconfigurability is a key benefit in FPGAs, it is traded off by decreased performance and increased cost. This is mainly because of the bit-level reconfigurable interconnects. To increase performance and reduce cost, we propose to replace the bit-level reconfigurable wires by hardwired circuit-switched interconnects for the inter-IP communication. Specifically, we present hardwired crossbars and a circuit-switched NoC interconnect fabric. We describe the advantages of the hardwired networks evidenced by the quantified performance analysis, network simulation, and an implementation. As a result, the hardwired networks provide two orders of magnitude better performance per area than the networks that are mapped onto the reconfigurable fabric.


The primary objective of these experiments was to examine the function and distribution of the alpha1-adrenoceptor (alpha1-AR) subtypes in the mouse carotid artery. The aims were achieved by using wire myography for the functional studies and confocal microscopy for the studies of alpha1-AR distribution. For both types of study, single and double knockouts of the alpha1-AR subtypes were employed, in addition to pharmacological analysis, to provide an insight into the alpha1-ARs in the wild type (WT) mouse. The aim of the first two studies presented in this thesis (Chapters Three and Four) was to establish whether an alpha1A-AR-mediated and/or alpha1e-AR-mediated contractile response exist in the mouse carotid artery, in addition to the predominant alpha1o-AR. It was found that the alpha1A-AR had a contractile role in this vessel based on pharmacological analysis in the WT mouse and knockout mice. Firstly, an alpha1-AR-mediated contractile response was identified in the alpha1B/o-KO. Secondly, the alpha1o-AR and another alpha1-AR subtype were identified as mediating the phenylephrine-induced response by employing subtype selective antagonists. Thirdly, the A-61603-induced response was found to be mediated by the alpha1A-AR and the alpha1D-AR using subtype selective antagonists. This also demonstrated that this alpha1A-AR selective agonist had an action on the alpha1o-AR. In the absence of am-AR selective compounds, comparison of the agonist responses in the WT mouse and knockout mice revealed that a minor alpha1e-AR-mediated response was also present. Thus, the am-AR predominantly mediates the vasoconstriction of the mouse carotid artery but the alpha1A-AR and alpha1B-AR appear to contribute to the contractile response. The aim of Chapter Five was to assess the effect of nitric oxide (NO) on the alpha1-AR- mediated contractile response in the mouse carotid artery. The contractile response to both phenylephrine and A-61603 was augmented by the nitric oxide synthase inhibitor L- NAME. This suggested that the alpha1-AR-mediated contractile response was suppressed by NO. An attempt was made to determine whether NO was released spontaneously in this vessel or in response to alpha1-AR stimulation. There was no evidence of constitutive NO release. The effect of L-NAME was greater with increasing concentrations of alpha1-AR agonist and a non-adrenergic response was shown to be unaffected by L-NAME. From these findings it is evident that in the mouse carotid artery activation of alpha1-ARs triggers NO release, which suppresses the alpha1-AR-mediated contractile response. Chapter Six aimed to examine the distribution of the alpha1-AR subtitles in the media of the mouse carotid artery. A protocol was developed to determine optimum conditions to visualise the binding distribution of the fluorescent alpha1-AR ligand Quinazoline Piperazine Bodipy (QAPB) in the media of this vessel. Comparison of QAPB binding in the WT mouse with the alpha1-AR knockout mice demonstrated that the alpha1o-AR was a major component of the alpha1-AR population. The use of non-fluorescent subtype selective antagonists to compete for QAPB binding sites revealed that the alpha1A-AR and alpha1e-AR also appeared to exist in the media of the WT mouse. Comparison of the QAPB subcellular binding distribution in the WT mouse and knockout mice suggested that the alpha1e-AR may be predominantly located on the cell surface, while, in the absence of the alpha1B-AR, the alpha1A- AR and am-AR may be predominantly located at intracellular sites. The final study in this thesis (Chapter seven) aimed to establish whether alpha1-ARs exist on the endothelium of the mouse carotid artery. Evidence of alpha1-ARs on endothelial cells (EC) was found both in the WT and knockout mice through the use of QAPB and non- fluorescent subtype selective antagonists. The proportion of EC with QAPB binding was reduced in the knockout mice indicative of the loss of an entire alpha1-AR population compared to the WT mouse. Comparing QAPB binding in the WT mouse and knockout mice in the presence of the non-fluorescent antagonists provided evidence that all three alpha1- AR subtypes are present on the endothelium in the carotid artery of the WT mouse. Collectively, the findings of the studies presented in this thesis demonstrate that all three alpha1-ARs are present and are functional in the mouse carotid artery. The alpha1o-AR is confirmed as being the predominant contractile alpha1-AR subtype but both the alpha1A-AR and ttiB-AR do have minor contractile roles in this vessel. furthermore, the activation of alpha1- ARs on the endothelium may result in the release of NO and subsequently cause the suppression of the alpha1-AR-mediated contractile response.


The White Pine-Grant Range area is a 400 sq mile region located in east-central Nevada, east of the Antler erogenic front, and west of the Sevier-Laramide thrust belt. About 20,000 feet of Paleozoic rock are overlain by 3000 to 5000 feet of Eocene-Oligocene sedimentary and volcanic rocks, and 0 to 10,000 feet of Mio-Pliocene sedimentary rocks. The near concordance of Paleozoic and early Tertiary strata indicates that the major deformation of the area is post-Oligocene in age. Mesozoic tectonic movements were limited to the formation of gentle folds and high-angle faults of limited displacement. The structure of the area is dominated by north-trending folds, some overturned, which involve both Tertiary volcanic and Paleozoic rocks. These folds are cut by a series of low-angle faults emplacing younger rocks over older; six faults are present in the White Pine Range and two in the northern Grant Range. A series of complex discrete slide masses 1 to 3 miles long characterizes the southwestern Horse Range; a relatively unfaulted overturned Paleozoic section characterizes the southeastern Horse Range. Displacement along these faults increases from the center toward the ends of the ranges; the faults are not continuous throughout the length of the range, and probably do not represent features of a regional d ecollement. Relations suggest that deformation or movement on these faults was probably nearly surficial, partly a product of uplift of the ranges and partly the result of basement extension. Much observable movement took place during deposition of Mio-Pliocene sediments, accompanied by emplacement of gravity slide masses and monolithic breccia of Paleozoic and volcanic rock in the Mio-Pliocene sedimentary basin. Differences in intensity of folding and degree of low-angle faulting in the White Pine, Horse Range, and northern Grant Ranges suggest that these areas were deformed separately. The north-trending folds may be the result of gravity effects on the flanks of major uplifted blocks, but probably reflect a period of postvolcanic crustal shortening in this region.


Energy literacy is a key factor in ensuring the protection of the natural environment. Numerous studies on energy literacy have demonstrated the development of instructional methods to promote the willingness to save energy as a critical research subject. Through a project-based activity, this research explored how hands-on activities improve the energy literacy of students. A quasi-experimental design was adopted, namely a pre-test and post-test nonequivalent control group design. In total, 77 senior high school students participated in a 6-week teaching experiment. A single-factor analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) and multiple regression analyses were employed to analyze the collected data. The main findings were as follows: (1) Project-based hands-on activities helped improve the energy literacy of senior high school students; however, the effect was not statistically significant in both experimental and control groups. (2) The key factor influencing the energy conservation behavior of senior high school students was energy-related attitudes following the project-based learning process.
Keywords: Energy literacy, project-based activity, senior high school students, solar-powered insect trap.


This is a short clip intended for use at the NIME 2011 convention in a presentation by Zachary Seldess.

Toshiro Yamada demonstrates the Auralization in 3 VR systems with system-specific spatialization using Asset Manager's panner abstraction layer at KAUST Visualization Laboratory.

The demonstration includes: 1) NexCave: 5 loudspeakers + 1 subwoofer using VBAP panning method 2) Cornea: 20 loudspeakers + 4 subwoofers using a custom 20-channel panning method 3) MPR: 8 loudspeakers + 4 subwoofers using a custom 8-channel panning method

Sound system development by Zachary Seldess, KAUST and Toshiro Yamada, UCSD


Identification of individuals in marine species, especially in Cetacea, is a critical task in several biological and ecological endeavours. Most of the times this is performed through human-assisted matching within a set of pictures taken in different campaigns during several years and spread around wide geographical regions. This requires that the scientists perform laborious tasks in searching through archives of images, demanding a significant cognitive burden which may be prone to intra- and interobserver operational errors. On the other hand, additional available information, in particular the metadata associated to every image, is not fully taken advantage of. The present work presents the result of applying machine learning techniques over the metadata of archives of images as an aid in the process of manual identi- fication. The method was tested on a database containing several pictures of 223 different Commerson's dolphins (Cephalorhynchus commersoni) taken over a span of seven years. A supervised classifier trained with identifications made by the researchers was able to identify correctly above 90% of the individuals on the test set using only the metadata present in the image files. This reduces significantly the number of images to be manually compared, and therefore the time and errors associated with the assisted identification process.


Disk-diffusion sensitivity tests were conducted with the antimicrobics sulfathiazole, gentamicin, erythromycin, kanamycin, penicillin, ampicillin, and spectinomycin on 300 to 350 bacterial isolates of food animal origin. The minimal inhibitory concentration of each antimicrobic was also determined for each bacterial isolate, using a microdilution technique. Results indicated that inhibitory zone sizes should be larger for some antimicrobics when testing animal pathogens than those zone sizes recommended for testing human pathogens. In addition, zone interpretive data are reported for spectinomycin, a drug for which such data were previously lacking.


Fast-growing plantations of Populus ×canadensis Moench (syn. P. ×euramericana (Dode) Guinier ex Piccarolo) clone I-214 have good potential for biomass production. The objective of the study was estimation of biomass using allometric equations and estimation of carbon allocation according to tree components. The study was carried out in five poplar stands (total area 16.9 ha) in the Pogradeci region, Albania. Poplar stands were 6, 8 and 11 years old, planted at a density of 2 500–4 444 trees ha−1. We used 0.2 ha sample plots per each poplar plantation, where diameter at breast height and tree heights were measured. Sample trees in each stand were selected for determination of fresh biomass with methods of moisture content (25 sample trees) and stem analysis (five sample trees). We noted a discrepancy in dry biomass estimation between the two methods, where the moisture content method underestimated the biomass compared with the stem analysis method. Allometric equations for dry biomass were determined based on field measurements. Trees had a diameter at breast height (DBH) ranging from 2.5–24 cm and 8–21 m for height. Diameter at breast height resulted as a better allometric predictor of dry biomass than tree height. Relationships between dry biomass and predictor variables (DBH or tree height) were non-linear (exponential), whereas the relationship between dry biomass and age was linear. The squared DBH was the best predictor variable and the relationship with dry weight was fitted with a linear regression. A total of 281 t C ha−1, 137 t C ha−1, and 54 t C ha−1 was stored in 11-, 8- and 6-year-old poplar stands, respectively. Of the total C stored in all stands, 81% of carbon was allocated in the aboveground components, whereas 19% carbon was allocated in the belowground components of the trees. One-way analysis of variance (LSD test) revealed a highly significant difference in dry biomass between 6- and 11-year-old poplar stands, while the difference between 6- and 8-year-old as well as 8- and 11-year-old poplar plantations was less significant.


Triboelectric materials and their modification methods are the cornerstones for fabricating triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs). Numerous modification methods have been proposed for TENGs, while a highly effective and long-term stable method is still under exploration. Here, a surface modification method using low-energy ion irradiation has been proposed for tuning the chemical structures and functional groups of triboelectric polymers at the molecular level. The low-energy ion irradiation brings negligible change to the surface roughness at the micro-scale and mechanical flexibility of the target polymer, while it can provide a stable modification of the electrification performance. Systematic studies about the chemical structure changes in four different polymers induced by ion irradiation can bring insight into the interaction between different chemical groups and electrification performance. A Kapton film modified by ion irradiation shows several unprecedented characteristics, such as high surface charge density, excellent stability and ultrahigh electron-donating capability, and not only creates a new record in the tribo series, but also provides a good demonstration for regulating electrification behavior based on controllable chemical structure change. This study can open up a series of possible breakthroughs in the production of triboelectric materials with diversified properties, which can promote the study of TENGs from a very fundamental level.


Abstract The normal antireflux mechanism consists of several components, any one of which may malfunction and render an individual prone to the development of GERD. The LES is clearly the most important component because gastroesophageal reflux almost always occurs when the sphincter pressure equals that of the stomach. Usually, an LES pressure of just 2 to 3 mm Hg above intragastric pressure is sufficient to prevent reflux. Other factors certainly play significant ancillary roles in preventing reflux. In the absence of a hiatal hernia, the crural fibers of the diaphragm serve as an "extrinsic" sphincter. Furthermore, the unique anatomy of the proximal stomach (e.g., the angle of His, mucosal flap valve, posterolateral location of the fundus) serves to keep gastric contents away from the gastroesophageal junction, making it less likely for reflux to occur when the LES relaxes. When a hiatal hernia is present, these factors are lost, and the hernia sac provides a reservoir for gastric juices with ready access to the LES. Finally, some degree of reflux occurs in all individuals, but esophageal clearance and acid neutralization provide an important last line of defense.


What are the challenges to future democratization in states regarded as democratic? This study shows that some states that are traditionally regarded as democratic consist of political institutions in need of further democratization. On average, states that are classified as democratic have one or two institutional dimensions in need of further democratization. The main institutional dimensions in need of democratization are functions of government, rule of law, personal autonomy and individual rights. In order to investigate challenges to future democratization, the study presents a methodology that uses Freedom House Index and Polity Index in a new innovative way.


We demonstrate three-dimensional spatial confinement of exciton-polaritons in a semiconductor microcavity. Polaritons are confined within a micron-sized region of slightly larger cavity thickness, called mesa, through lateral trapping of their photon component. This results in a shallow potential well that allows the simultaneous existence of extended states above the barrier. Photoluminescence spectra were measured as a function of either the emission angle or the position on the sample. Striking signatures of confined states of lower and upper polaritons, together with the corresponding extended states at higher energy, were found. In particular, the confined states appear only within the mesa region, and are characterized by a discrete energy spectrum and a broad angular pattern. A theoretical model of polariton states, based on a realistic description of the confined photon modes, supports our observations.


Thermal uplift of northern Britain during the Paleogene converted the Northern North Sea and Faeroe-Shetland areas from deep, sediment-starved basins into areas dominated by coarse clastic submarine fan and deltaic sedimentation. The uplift resulted from the initiation of a thermal plume which affected much of Greenland, western Norway and northern Britain in the Paleogene and which continues today, its axis lying under Iceland.

The volume and grain size of the clastic input increased during the Paleocene as the source area was uplifted. This uplift reached a peak in the mid-Thanetian (late Paleocene) when large volumes of coarse clastic sediment poured east into the Northern North Sea Basin and northwest into the Faeroe–Shetland basin to accumulate as basin floor fans. Hebridean volcanism also peaked at this time, supplying tuffaceous sands which are found in both basins, as well as lavas which erupted over much of the area between the Hebrides and the Faeroes. The basin edges acted as bypass zones, sediments being only temporarily dumped on delta slopes before failure transported them basinward in turbidity currents. Thus the fluvial input was not significantly reworked and the fans developed as mixed sand–mud systems.

By the late Thanetian, fan sedimentation had shallowed the basins sufficiently for deltas to prograde seawards. Small fans lay at the foot of these deltas and coal swamps developed on the delta plains. Sedimentation almost completely filled the relatively small Faeroe–Shetland Basin.

In the early Ypresian (earliest Eocene) volcanism became concentrated along the rift northwest of . . .


South Africans have long been present in the United Kingdom. However, since 1994, their numbers in the British Isles and, in particular London, have grown exponentially. Some have even predicted that over a million South Africans now called the UK home. While this number is an exaggeration, it is clear that this group comprises the largest portion of the South African diaspora. Variously labeled as chicken runners, exiles, and emigrants, these South Africans have regularly attracted attention in the South African media, yet there has been no serious study of these South Africans and their story. This book addresses that gap. It asks who these South Africans are, why they are in the UK, and what they were doing there. The answers to these questions not only provide a unique insight into the short history of South Africa's unofficial tenth province, but also what it reveals about the 'Rainbow Nation.' These insights further help to answer the question of whether or not these South Africans will return to South Africa.


(5) Finally we have the paper by Thomas et at9 purporting to show that hypercholesterolaemic diet-induced atherosclerotic lesions in young swine are polyclonal. A group of pigs were injected with tritiated thymidine. Five were killed 15 days later and served as controls. The remaining eight were given a high cholesterol diet. Three were killed after 30 days and the remaining five after 60 days. Only one gross atherosclerotic plaque was found. This may well have been present before the start of the experiment. In addition "focal intimal cell masses" were found both in the control and in the cholesterol-fed animals. It would be rash indeed to assume that those in the treated animals were induced by the dietary treatment, though they may well have been exacerbated by it. In the absence of evidence that any of the lesions arose de novo during the course of the dietary treatment the autoradiographic findings reported provide no evidence about their clonality. In any case the interpretation of the results of this study is fraught with difficulties, depending as it does on predictions from an idealised theoretical model. In the complexities of an in-vivo situation such predictions might or might not be fulfilled. If the objections raised in your leader are the most powerful ones that can be mustered against the monoclonal theory of atherosclerosis, its proponents need not worry unduly.


Nearly every country in the world has a legal regime devoted to the process of recovery and distribution of value following a general default by a debtor in business. In the United States, we have both a public and a private regime that may govern the recovery process. The public regime is bankruptcy and the private regime is secured credit. Any regime governing the recovery process must include two components: (1) control of the process that maximizes value and allocates that value to chosen beneficiaries; and (2) rules of priority that specify the beneficiaries and their shares of the value. The greater sophistication of the modern recovery process means that control of that process crucially influences outcomes, but the theoretical literature discussing bankruptcy and secured credit has been devoted to questions of priority rather than control. Control is the central subject of this Article. New models of secured credit and bankruptcy are proposed, incorporating the concept of control as fundamental to both regimes. The struggle for control is the essential linkage between them. A number of consequences follow from these new models. Development of these consequences is the author's larger project, but only one of them is fully explored in this Article. "Contractualism" is a term describing a variety of proposals for privatizing the recovery process through contracts between a debtor and its creditors. This Article argues that these proposals cannot be legitimate or efficient unless linked to a dominant security interest encumbering substantially all of the debtor's assets, even though none of the scholars proposing contractual regimes has acknowledged that the contractual schemes require security to be plausible. Because secured-credit law in the United States is in place and highly functional, it represents the only method for resolving the otherwise intractable difficulties presented by these privatization proposals. That conclusion is confirmed by the United Kingdom's experience with a contractualist system based upon a dominant security interest, a system that has served as the core structure of commercial finance in that country for over a century. Recognition that secured credit is the sina qua non for contractualism presents some serious difficulties for its proponents, including underdeveloped claims of efficiency and substantial conflicts of interest in secured-party management of the recovery process. The abolition of the British system in 2003 demonstrates empirically the serious weaknesses of secured contractualism. This Article concludes that the case for secured contractualism cannot be made. The control models give rise to a number of consequences mentioned here but left for subsequent development, including: (1) the need to introduce valuation of control rights, pre- and post-default, to the long-standing debate about the efficiency of secured credit - a point closely tied to the specific debate about securitization of assets; and (2) the relationship between the control models offered by other recent articles and the models presented here.


BACKGROUND:The primary objective of this study was to determine whether alterations in the pulse oximeter waveform characteristics would track progressive reductions in central blood volume. We also assessed whether changes in the pulse oximeter waveform provide an indication of blood loss in the hemorrhaging patient before changes in standard vital signs. METHODS:Pulse oximeter data from finger, forehead, and ear pulse oximeter sensors were collected from 18 healthy subjects undergoing progressive reduction in central blood volume induced by lower body negative pressure (LBNP). Stroke volume measurements were simultaneously recorded using impedance cardiography. The study was conducted in a research laboratory setting where no interventions were performed. Pulse amplitude, width, and area under the curve (AUC) features were calculated from each pulse wave recording. Amalgamated correlation coefficients were calculated to determine the relationship between the changes in pulse oximeter waveform features and changes in stroke volume with LBNP. RESULTS:For pulse oximeter sensors on the ear and forehead, reductions in pulse amplitude, width, and area were strongly correlated with progressive reductions in stroke volume during LBNP (R2 ≥ 0.59 for all features). Changes in pulse oximeter waveform features were observed before profound decreases in arterial blood pressure. The best correlations between pulse features and stroke volume were obtained from the forehead sensor area (R2 = 0.97). Pulse oximeter waveform features returned to baseline levels when central blood volume was restored. CONCLUSIONS:These results support the use of pulse oximeter waveform analysis as a potential diagnostic tool to detect clinically significant hypovolemia before the onset of cardiovascular decompensation in spontaneously breathing patients.


Abstract. In this paper, we investigate the dependability modeling in redundant communication networks. We use Stochastic Petri Net as an enabling modeling approach for analytical evaluation of complex scenarios. We apply our proposed modeling approach in a case study to evaluate the availability of enterprise networks in different architectures. These architectures consider different redundancy mechanisms. A combination of dependability models and reliability importance are used to analyze the system availability according to the most important components. We also show the variation of system availability in accordance with Mean Time To Failure in different architectures.


From 1933 to 1945, Hitler's Nazi regime attempted to realize its vision of a biologically healthy and ethnically homogeneous population through "racial hygiene" programs designed to cleanse German society of those perceived to threaten its biological health. Deadly Medicine examines the critical role German physicians, scientists, public health officials, and academic experts played in supporting and implementing the Nazis' program of racial eugenics, which culminated in the Holocaust. Illustrated with many never-before-published photographs, images from rare Nazi publications, and historical artifacts, Deadly Medicine presents essays by internationally recognized authorities that provide the wider contextual framework for a compelling visual and documentary exploration of the origins of the Holocaust. This publication is an accompaniment to the exhibition at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum running from April 22, 2004, through October 16, 2005.


Background: Dietary diversity refers to increasing the consumption of a variety of foods across and within the food groups, adequate and diversified diets during pregnancy is essential for fetus health, body maintenance and enhancement of maternal health through protection of infectious and non-communicable diseases. Hence, this study was targets to assess dietary diversity and its determinants among pregnant women of public health facilities in Hossana town, south Ethiopia Methods: Facility based cross-sectional study was applied among selected 303 pregnant women in Hossana town from June 1 to July 15, 2018. Systematic random sampling procedure was employed to recruit study participants. Data were collected using an interviewer administered pretested semi-structured questionnaire, one week dietary consumption was used to compute women dietary diversity score. Descriptive statistics and multivariable logistic regression were done to isolate predictors of dietary diversity. Result: The prevalence of low, medium and high women's dietary diversity was 9.2, 48.2 and 42.6% respectively. Educational status (AOR=2.1; 95%CI: 4.8, 15.2), monthly income (AOR=2.1; 95% CI: 4.8, 15.2), nutritional education (AOR=2.3; 95% CI: 1.2, 4.4) and frequency of eating (AOR=12.9; 95% CI: 3.1, 52) were meaningfully associated with women dietary diversity. Conclusions: In this study women educational status, monthly income, receiving nutritional education and frequency of eating were determinants of women dietary diversity. Efforts should be strengthened towards improving women educational level, delivery of nutritional education and enhance frequency of eating among pregnant women to advance dietary diversity. Keywords: Dietary diversity, Determinants, Pregnancy


Wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) mathematical models are based on the behavioural patterns of microorganisms involved in the treatment process. These microorganisms are assumed incapable of thinking or planning but simply act according to the capabilities afforded to them by their surrounding conditions – hence different microorganisms pre-dominate different WWTP zones according to how well the conditions suit them. When waste activated sludge (WAS) from biological nutrient removal (BNR) activated sludge (AS) systems, containing phosphorus-accumulating organisms (PAOs), is fed to an anaerobic digester, there is a release of high quantities of metals, phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N). The manner in which we model the release of these metals and nutrients significantly affects the accuracy of predicted anaerobic digestion (AD) outcomes. Previous studies of PAOs show that in the anaerobic zone of the AS system, they can form energy-rich poly3-hydroxybutyrate (PHB) at the expense of their aerobically generated polyphosphate (PP). Thus, it is expected that the PAOs containing PP sent into an anaerobic digester with volatile fatty acids (VFAs) present, would utilize their PP reserves as they would in the anaerobic zone of an AS process ending up with formation and storage of some PHB. Ultimately, all the stored products of the PAO get released, since there is no alternating aerobic environment to cater for their growth. Since it has been established that the PP release in the AD occurs much faster than the PAO biomass hydrolysis rate, it is modelled as a separate process. Steps are presented in the development of this PP release mass-balanced stoichiometries that occur with AD of PAOs. By comparing outcomes from these proposed stoichiometries against measured experimental data, it is noticed that better predictions are obtained with acetate uptake for PHB formation than when modelling the AD PP release to occur with PAO death and hydrolysis.


Two models have been developed for simulating CO2 emissions from wheat farms: (1) an artificial neural network (ANN) model; and (2) a multiple linear regression model (MLR). Data were collected from 40 wheat farms in the Canterbury region of New Zealand. Investigation of more than 140 various factors enabled the selection of eight factors to be employed as the independent variables for final the ANN model. The results showed the final ANN developed can forecast CO2 emissions from wheat production areas under different conditions (proportion of wheat cultivated land on the farm, numbers of irrigation applications and numbers of cows), the condition of machinery (tractor power index (hp/ha) and age of fertilizer spreader) and N, P and insecticide inputs on the farms with an accuracy of ±11% (± 113 kg CO2/ha). The total CO2 emissions from farm inputs were estimated as 1032 kg CO2/ha for wheat production. On average, fertilizer use of 52% and fuel use of around 20% have the highest CO2 emissions for wheat cultivation. The results confirmed the ANN model forecast CO2 emissions much better than MLR model. Keywords—Artificial neural networks; modelling; CO2 emissions; wheat cultivation


This study examines the effect of religiosity on terrorism by focusing on one of the five pillars of Islam: Ramadan fasting. For identification, we exploit two facts: First, daily fasting from dawn to sunset during Ramadan is considered mandatory for most Muslims. Second, the Islamic calendar is not synchronized with the solar cycle. We find a robust negative effect of more intense Ramadan fasting on terrorist events within districts and country-years in predominantly Muslim countries. We argue that this effect partly operates through a decrease in public support for terrorism, which in turn reduces the operational capabilities of terrorist groups.


Abstract This paper describes a technique of using a mass-consistent model to derive wind speeds over a microscale region (about 4 km2) of complex terrain. A serious limitation of these numerical models is that the calculated wind field is highly sensitive to certain input parameters, such as that used to simulate the atmospheric stability. Because accurate values for these parameters are not usually known, confidence in the calculated winds is low. However, values for these parameters can be found by tuning the model to existing wind observations within a microscale area. This tuning is accomplished with an optimization procedure that adjusts the unknown parameters so that the discrepancy between the observed winds and model calculations of these winds is minimized. The model was verified with eight sets of hourly averaged wind data. These data were obtained from measurements made at 28 sites covering a windfarm development in the Altamont Pass area of California. When the model was tuned to a small subs...