BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
It is unclear whether the presence of albuminuria modifies the effects of intensive systolic BP control on risk of eGFR decline, cardiovascular events, or mortality.

DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, & MEASUREMENTS
The Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial randomized nondiabetic adults ≥50 years of age at high cardiovascular risk to a systolic BP target of <120 or <140 mm Hg, measured by automated office BP. We compared the absolute risk differences and hazard ratios of ≥40% eGFR decline, the Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial primary cardiovascular composite outcome, and all-cause death in those with or without baseline albuminuria (urine albumin-creatinine ratio ≥30 mg/g).

RESULTS
Over a median follow-up of 3.1 years, 69 of 1723 (4%) participants with baseline albuminuria developed ≥40% eGFR decline compared with 61 of 7162 (1%) participants without albuminuria. Incidence rates of ≥40% eGFR decline were higher in participants with albuminuria (intensive, 1.74 per 100 person-years; standard, 1.17 per 100 person-years) than in participants without albuminuria (intensive, 0.48 per 100 person-years; standard, 0.11 per 100 person-years). Although effects of intensive BP lowering on ≥40% eGFR decline varied by albuminuria on the relative scale (hazard ratio, 1.48; 95% confidence interval, 0.91 to 2.39 for albumin-creatinine ratio ≥30 mg/g; hazard ratio, 4.55; 95% confidence interval, 2.37 to 8.75 for albumin-creatinine ratio <30 mg/g; P value for interaction <0.001), the absolute increase in ≥40% eGFR decline did not differ by baseline albuminuria (incidence difference, 0.38 events per 100 person-years for albumin-creatinine ratio ≥30 mg/g; incidence difference, 0.58 events per 100 person-years for albumin-creatinine ratio <30 mg/g; P value for interaction =0.60). Albuminuria did not significantly modify the beneficial effects of intensive systolic BP lowering on cardiovascular events or mortality evaluated on relative or absolute scales.

CONCLUSIONS
Albuminuria did not modify the absolute benefits and risks of intensive systolic BP lowering.


We examined ways in which the Brown planthopper induced008a (Bphi008a; AY256682) gene of rice (Oryza sativa) enhances the plant's resistance to a specialist herbivore, the brown planthopper (BPH; Nilaparvata lugens). Measurement of the expression levels of ethylene synthases and of ethylene emissions showed that BPH feeding rapidly initiated the ethylene signaling pathway and up-regulated Bphi008a transcript levels after 6 to 96 h of feeding. In contrast, blocking ethylene transduction (using 1-methylcyclopropene) reduced Bphi008a transcript levels in wild-type plants fed upon by BPH. In vitro kinase assays showed that Bphi008a can be phosphorylated by rice Mitogen-activated Protein Kinase5 (OsMPK5), and yeast two-hybrid assays demonstrated that the carboxyl-terminal proline-rich region of Bphi008a interacts directly with this kinase. Furthermore, bimolecular fluorescence complementation assays showed that this interaction occurs in the nucleus. Subsequently, we found that Bphi008a up-regulation and down-regulation were accompanied by different changes in transcription levels of OsMPK5, OsMPK12, OsMPK13, and OsMPK17 in transgenic plants. Immunoblot analysis also showed that the OsMPK5 protein level increased in overexpressing plants and decreased in RNA interference plants after BPH feeding. In transgenic lines, changes in the expression levels of several enzymes that are important components of the defenses against the BPH were also observed. Finally, yeast two-hybrid screening results showed that Bphi008a is able to interact with a b-ZIP transcription factor (OsbZIP60) and a RNA polymerase polypeptide (SDRP).


An understanding of the thermal behavior of heated microcantilevers is essential to their use. In this article, we investigated the infrared (IR) emission of two silicon cantilevers with integrated solid-state heaters over the 2500–3000 cm−1 spectral range. Two cantilevers were examined: the first had a heater surface area of 17 × 20 μm and the second had a heater surface area of 170 × 100 μm. We calculated the spectral power emitted by the cantilever based on the Planck function, dielectric function of the doped silicon at elevated temperatures, and cantilever spectral emissivity. Measurements of the cantilever spectral power compared well with predictions. The first cantilever had a radiative power of 4.2 μW at a heating power of 15.7 mW and maximum temperature of 1,150 K, and the second cantilever had a radiative power of 70.1 μW at a heating power of 54.9 mW and maximum temperature of 850 K. The cantilever emissive power depended on the spatial variation in the cantilever temperature and cantilever emissivity. It is also shown how the heated cantilever can be used as an IR source to acquire absorption spectra of polymer films in an IR spectrometer.


Objectives: Although targeting the effect site concentration may offer advantages over the traditional forms of administering intravenous anesthetics, it is not applicable for sufentanil in children because its plasma effect site equilibration rate constant (ke0) is not known yet. We estimated ke0 of sufentanil in children using the time to peak effect (tpeak) method. Materials and Methods: Under general anesthesia, sufentanil tpeak was measured after administration of a submaximal bolus dose by means of the decrease in heart rate, blood pressure and calculated approximate entropy (ApEn) of electroencephalogram in 105 children (age range: 3–11 years). ke0 was estimated using tpeak and known sufentanil pharmacokinetic parameters in normal children. Results: The mean tpeaks were measured as 44 ± 22 s and 227 ± 91 s by heart rate and by mean blood pressure respectively. The estimated ke0 were 5.16/min and 0.49/min by heart rate and blood pressure respectively. tpeak could not be measured using the ApEn, thus ke0 could not be calculated by ApEn in children. Conclusions: Shorter measured sufentanil tpeak by heart rate compared to blood pressure indicate that the heart rate decrease faster than decreasing of blood pressure. Moreover, the calculated sufentanil ke0 in children depends on the pharmacodynamics parameters.


The survey moves from the analysis of a well-known passage of Aulus Gellius concerning the punishment for theft in ancient legal cultures (N.A. 11.18). The close inspection of the precisely ordered structure of Gellian text reveals some hitherto undetected aspects of Gellius' working method, providing insight into the manner in which he managed his legal sources (particularly Sabinus' works). This issue, of literary and cultural interest (the exegesis discloses a sort of 'commentary' on Sabinus' works), is at the core of the present study and extends throughout its first part. The relationship between Gellius and the works of the Roman jurists, however, does not exhaust the interest of N.A. 11.18. The structural analysis of Gellius' Chapter 18 will enable us, in fact, to read in a new light the discussion on Roman theft provided by Gaius' Institutes (Gai 3.183 ff.). We devote the second part of this study to a short analysis of Gaian text as well, which can be extensively compared with N.A. 11.18. The contrast between the structures of the two texts will help us track down some common elements, providing us with evidence of a shared underlying pattern. This result makes a textual contribution to the never-ending debate on the 'model' of Gaius' Institutes, on the one hand, and to the palingenesis of Sabinus' Libri iuris civilis, on the other.


Background Airway viruses, most often respiratory syncytial virus, cause acute bronchiolitis. Despite no evidence of its effect, 30–100% of hospitalised children globally receive antibiotics. The aim of the study was to identify the rate of antibiotics use in hospitalised infants with moderate to severe acute bronchiolitis in Norway. Methods 404 infants hospitalised with moderate to severe acute bronchiolitis in eight centres in Southeast Norway completed a clinical trial of inhaled racemic adrenaline[1] was included in this study. The mean length of stay was 3.3 days, 43.6% received oxygen support, 29.0% nasogastric tube feeding and 7.4% ventilatory support. Results 8.4% (n = 34) of the patients received systemic antibiotics, (17 intravenous and 17 oral), most commonly penicillin (41%), ampicillin (26%) and gentamicin (24%). Use of antibiotics versus no antibiotics was significantly associated with a longer hospital stay (mean 135.5 h (95% CI 117.0–154.1) vs 65.9 h (95% CI 47.2–85.1), p < 0.001) and use of supportive therapy (all p < 0.03). Patients receiving supportive therapy more often received antibiotics than those without supportive therapy: oxygen (17.4% vs 1.4%, p < 0.001), nasogastric tube feeding (15.5% vs 5.7%, p = 0.03) and ventilation (CPAP) (48.3% vs 5.3%, p < 0.001). Conclusion The use of antibiotics is substantially lower than previously reported in any geographical region. With length of stay and use of supportive care comparable to other countries, we believe the finding supports a conservative approach in bronchiolitis management. Reference Skjerven HO, et al. Racemic adrenaline and inhalation strategies in acute bronchiolitis. N Engl J Med, 2013.368(24):p.2286-93


An azobenzene-containing thermotropic liquid crystalline polyester showing unique thermo- and photo-responsive behaviours was synthesized by polycondensation from mesogenic dial 4,4′-bis(6-hydroxyhexyloxy)azobenzene (BHHAB) with 2-phenylsuccinic acid (PSA), and named as poly(4,4′-bis(6-hydroxyhexyloxy)azobenzene phenylsuccinate) (PBHPS). Liquid crystalline behaviours were investigated through differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), polarizing optical microscopy (POM) and wide-angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD). PBHPS showed a smectic phase with strong π–π interactions between the adjacent phenyl rings or between the side group and mesogenic unit, which could be regarded as physical crosslinking points that made PBHPS have good shape memory and self-healing properties. A series of PBHPS/methylcellulose bilayer films were prepared to study the reversible photo-mechanical properties. UV-vis absorption spectra were used to study the reversible photo-responsive behaviour of the polyester, proving that the reversible photoisomerization-induced volume expansion of the PBHPS layer resulted in good reversible photo-responsive properties.


Gauge-invariant perturbation theory for theories with a Brout-Englert-Higgs effect, as developed by Fröhlich, Morchio and Strocchi, starts out from physical, exactly gauge-invariant quantities as initial and final states. These are composite operators, and can thus be considered as bound states. In case of the standard model, this reduces almost entirely to conventional perturbation theory. This explains the success of conventional perturbation theory for the standard model. However, this is due to the special structure of the standard model, and it is not guaranteed to be the case for other theories. Here, we review gauge-invariant perturbation theory. Especially, we show how it can be applied and that it is little more complicated than conventional perturbation theory, and that it is often possible to utilize existing results of conventional perturbation theory. Finally, we present tests of the predictions of gauge-invariant perturbation theory, using lattice gauge theory, in three different settings. In one case, the results coincide with conventional perturbation theory and with the lattice results. In a second case, it appears that the results of gauge-invariant perturbation theory agree with the lattice, but differ from conventional perturbation theory. In the third case both approaches fail due to quantum fluctuations.


The community of copyright professionals lost a champion recently, with the passing of Frank J. ("Fritz") Dolak on July 14, 2021. Fritz was the copyright librarian at Ball State University, and he was known nationally for the series of annual copyright conferences he organized and led in Indiana, and for his leadership in addressing the use of copyrighted works for the enhancement of distance education. He came to copyright after years of music, military service, and more. A hallmark of his life was bringing clarity and humor to serious challenges, starting with his family name. He had a simple family name that was routinely mispronounced. As Fritz would tell anyone who would listen, "The name is 'Doo-Lok,' as in 'Do Lock the Door.'" Fritz was a professional colleague to many editors and contributors to JCEL. Three of his copyright colleagues—Dwayne K. Buttler, Kenneth D. Crews, and Donna L. Ferullo—worked with him for many years, and they share memories of Dr. Fritz Dolak and his influence and leadership. The story of Fritz Dolak is a story of kindness, generosity, and inspiration.


STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) initiatives are of current interest for both in-school and out-of-school contexts in North America. This is a new concept which is shifting educational paradigms towards art integration in STEM subjects. This article focuses on the need for STEAM education at the early childhood level and investigates the teaching and educational models of STEAM education in the kindergarten and in the first grades of primary school and how pre-school and primary school teachers see these models in the Greek context but also what students eventually learn from these models. The purpose of this chapter is to better understand the educational programs of STEAM education, which are offered by non-profit organizations and both public and private schools. Preschool children have a natural disposition toward science with their sense of curiosity and creativity. More research needs to be done in the area of STEAM implementation in the K-8 classrooms to incorporate engineering education.


BACKGROUND
Rosacea is a common, chronic dermatosis for which safe and effective new treatment options are needed.

OBJECTIVE
The objective of these studies was to evaluate the efficacy, tolerability, and safety of a new formulation of 15% azelaic acid (15%) gel (AzA gel), for the topical treatment of moderate, papulopustular rosacea.

METHODS
Two multicenter, double-blind, randomized, parallel-group, vehicle-controlled studies were conducted using identical study designs, patient-selection criteria, and efficacy end points. Overall, 329 patients were enrolled in study 1 and 335 patients in study 2.

RESULTS
Both studies consistently demonstrated the superiority of AzA gel over vehicle in the topical treatment of moderate, papulopustular rosacea. AzA gel yielded statistically significantly higher reductions in mean inflammatory lesion count than vehicle: 58% versus 40%, study 1 (P =.0001); 51% versus 39%, study 2 (P =.0208). Significantly higher proportions of patients treated with AzA gel experienced improvement in erythema compared with vehicle gel: 44% versus 29%, study 1 (P =.0017); 46% versus 28%, study 2 (P =.0005). Using the investigator's global assessment, therapeutic success in terms of a clear, minimal, or mild final result was achieved in 61% and 62% of patients treated with AzA gel in studies 1 and 2, respectively, which was significantly superior to the result achieved with vehicle (40% and 48%, respectively) (P <.0001, study 1; P =.0127, study 2). No serious, treatment-related adverse events were reported.

CONCLUSION
The results of these 2 controlled studies demonstrate that AzA gel, used twice daily, is an efficacious, safe, and well-tolerated topical treatment for moderate, papulopustular rosacea.


BACKGROUND DNA- and proteomics-based techniques are currently used to identify a triatomine human blood meal. These methods are time consuming, require access to laboratories with sophisticated equipment, and trained personnel. OBJECTIVES We tested a rapid and specific immunochromatographic assay (that detects human blood in forensic samples) to determine if human blood was present in triatomines and their fecal excreta. METHODS We fed Triatoma rubida human blood (positive control) or mouse blood (negative control) and performed the assay on the abdominal contents and fecal excreta. Triatomine field specimens collected in and around human habitations and excreta were also tested. FINDINGS The assay was positive in triatomines fed human blood (N = 5/5) and fecal excreta from bugs known to have ingested human blood (N = 5/5). Bugs feeding on mice (N = 15/15) and their fecal excreta (N = 8/8) were negative for human blood. Human blood was detected in 47% (N = 23/49) triatomines, representing six different species, collected in the field. MAIN CONCLUSIONS The pilot study shows that this rapid and specific test may have applications in triatomine research. Further study is needed to determine the sensitivity of this assay compared to other well-established techniques, such as DNA- and proteomics-based methodologies and the assay's application in the field.


Background: Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a combination of risk indicators that appear to promote the development of chronic diseases. It is also described as a group of risk factors that increase the chance of having heart disease and other health problems such as diabetes and stroke. Methods: The proposed study used data abstracted from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2015-2016. The following variables were utilized: sociodemographic data (age, gender, marital status, educational level and household income); the criteria for MetS diagnosis (levels of blood pressure, fasting plasma blood glucose, blood triglyceride, HDL-cholesterol, and waist circumference); and the consequences of MetS (coronary heart disease, heart attack, stroke, breast cancer, prostate cancer, diabetes and prediabetes, overweight and obesity). The data were analyzed using SUDAAN software (RTI international, INC., Research Triangle Park, North Carolina). The relationships of MetS and its individual components to the consequences of MetS were compared among the three ethnic groups using chi-square and t-tests. The level of significance was 5%. Results: The findings demonstrated that participants who are diagnosed with MetS criteria are more likely to have higher risk of the following consequences


Open clusters are known as excellent tracers of the structure and chemical evolution of the Galactic disk, however, the accuracy and reliability of open cluster parameters is poorly known. In recent years, several studies aimed to present homogeneous open cluster parameter compilations, which are based on some different approaches and photometric data. These catalogues are excellent sources to facilitate testing of the actual accuracy of open cluster parameters. We compare seven cluster parameter compilations statistically and with an external sample, which comprises the mean results of individual studies. Furthermore, we selected the objects IC 4651, NGC 2158, NGC 2383, NGC 2489, NGC 2627, NGC 6603, and Trumpler 14, with the main aim to highlight differences in the fitting solutions. We derived correction terms for each cluster parameter, using the external calibration sample. Most results by the compilations are reasonable scaled, but there are trends or constant offsets of different degree. We also identified one data set, which appears too erroneous to allow adjustments. After the correction, the mean intrinsic errors amount to about 0.2 dex for the age, 0.08 mag for the reddening, and 0.35 mag for the distance modulus. However, there is no study that characterises the cluster morphologies of all test cases in a correct and consistent manner. Furthermore, we found that the largest compilations probably include at least 20 percent of problematic objects, for which the parameters differ significantly. These could be among others doubtful or unlikely open clusters that do not facilitate an unambiguous fitting solution.


Sensor networks presented new opportunities for observing and interacting with the real physical world. They are composed of a large number of sensor nodes and each sensor node has capabilities of sensing, processing, and communication, which underpinned by limited energy. Reducing energy consumption was, is and will be a major concern in sensor networks. For the given extremely limited hardware resources on sensor nodes and the inclement deploying environment, the adversary attack becomes a serious security threat toward wireless sensor networks. In this paper a secure public-key based effective and efficient sensor network is first to be introduced and an algorithm for fast calculation based on 1's complement of binary is also presented. The powerful elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) is presented with hidden generator point.


SiC particulates reinforced Al matrix composites were fabricated by thermal spray process, and the dry sliding wear behavior against four different counterparts was investigated under a varying of the sliding speed and the applied load conditions. Al/SiC composites were fabricated by flame spraying, and the dry sliding wear tests were performed using the sliding speed of 0.4 m/s and 0.8 m/s at the applied load of 3 N. Sliding distance was kept at 1000 m for all the tests. Al2O3, ZrO2, Si3N4 and AISI 52100 balls were used as the counterparts. Wear tracks on the Al/SiC composites were investigated using scanning electron microscope (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). It was revealed that wear behavior of Al/SiC composites was much influenced by counterpart materials.


"Style File" is a celebration of the stylish as opposed to the stylized. "Style File" appeals to those with an interest in fashion, graphic design, art, and celebrity. It appeals to a cultured audience with an interest in pioneering stylemakers and receiving that point of view in both interview format and smart, but not academic, essays by top thinkers in the field. This approach broadens the book's appeal to a secondary, more mass audience, because it is lighter. In this book, celebrity is not tauted - an innate sense of fashionability and vision is, and it is these qualities, among others, that have made the interviewees chosen for this book enduring style arbiters. Following a foreword by Valerie Steele and an introduction by Harold Koda, the book includes more than 58 interviews - all with a photograph of the subject.The book also features numerous special photo albums put together specifically for the book. They include an album of images by the renowned fashion photographer Scavullo, an album by photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders and an album on the recently deceased and highly revered fashion stylist Isabella Blow, among others. Sidebars - such as essays on the popular blog The Sartorialist, Motown Style, and the Belle Epoque - and aphorisms on style also enhance the book throughout. The personalities profiled and/or interviewed include: Rufus Albemarle; Iris Apfel; Lara Aragno; Marisa Berenson; Hamish Bowles; Valentina Cervi; Alba Clemente; Francesco Clemente; Pat Cleveland; Amy Fine Collins; Peter Davis; Victoire de Castellane; Oscar de la Renta; Jacqueline de Ribes; Ines d'Urso de la Fressange; Anh Duong; Lapo Elkann; Isabella Ferrari; Duggie Fields; Barnaba Fornasetti; Montgomery Frazier; and, Bella Freud.The personalities profiled and/or interviewed also include: John Galliano; Romeo Gigli; Carolina Herrera; Sebastian Horsley; Amechi Ihenacho; Stephen Jones; Kenny Kenny; Klossowska, Harumi; Krell, Gene; Lemper, Ute; Logan, Andrew; Louboutin, Christian; Ludot, Didier; MacDermott, David; MacGough, Peter; Malle, Frederic; McDonald, Patrick; McFaddden, Mary; Mounia, Orosemane; Odukoya, Olu; Ontani, Luigi; Pearl, Mr.; Pernet, Diane; Posen, Zac; Ruffino, Robert; Sabisha; Sparks, Cator; Talley, Andre Leon; Toledo, Isabel; Toledo, Ruben; Turner, Darryl; Tworkowski, Mish; Ude, Ike; Von Keller, Cordelia; von Furstenberg, Diane; and, Von Teese, Dita.


Prostate Specific Membrane Antigen (PSMA)-directed radionuclide therapy has gained an important role in the management of advanced castration-resistant prostate cancer. Although extremely promising, the prolongation in survival and amelioration of disease-related symptoms must be balanced against the direct toxicities of the treatment. Xerostomia is amongst the most common and debilitating of these, particularly when using an alpha emitter. It is therefore of main importance to develop new preventive strategies. This preclinical study has evaluated the effect of α-adrenergic and anticholinergic drugs on [99mTc]TcO4− Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography/Computed Tomography (SPECT/CT) and [68Ga]Ga-PSMA-11 Positron Emission Tomography (PET/CT). Methods: The effects of phenylephrine, scopolamine, atropine, and ipratropium on salivary glands uptake were evaluated in non-tumor-bearing mice by [99mTc]TcO4− microSPECT/CT. The most efficient identified strategy was evaluated in non-tumor-bearing and xenografted mice by [68Ga]Ga-PSMA-11 PET/CT. Results: Scopolamine and atropine showed a significant decrease in the parotid glands' uptake on SPECT/CT whereas phenylephrine and ipratropium failed. Atropine premedication (sublingual route), which was the most effective strategy, also showed a drastic decrease of [68Ga]Ga-PSMA-11 salivary glands' uptake in both non-tumor-bearing mice (−51.6% for the parotids, p < 0.0001) and human prostate adenocarcinoma xenografted mice (−26.8% for the parotids, p < 0.0001). Conclusion: Premedication with a local administration of atropine could represent a simple, safe, and efficient approach for reducing salivary glands' uptake.


Introduction: A fluid and electrolyte balance is essential for
human health. There are some situations in which fluid
imbalance occurs, causing fluid overload and consequent
associated problems. Patients with these problems, may benefit
from the administration of parenteral drugs in the smallest
possible volume. Patients in critical condition typically require a
large number of drugs intravenously, and high doses of these
diluted in large quantities of serum. Therefore, it seems useful
to seek an optimization strategy of parenteral drug admi -
nistration. Objective: To review and collect data on minimum
dilution volumes. Besides administration s routes, recons -
titution, compatible diluents, infusion times. Methods: The
study included those drug substances frequently used in
critically ill patients. A search through multiple sources of
information has been made: technical data for Propietary
medicinal products, Handbook on Injectable Drugs, Trissel L.,
American Society Healh-System Pharmacists, 15thEd., 2009,
Thomson Micromedex® Healthcare Series, or by phone calls to
the manufacturers of the product. Results: Results are shown
in a table. 65 drugs were revised. Conclusions: It is considered
useful the collection of these data to optimize parenteral
administration in critically ill patients, or in those who require
restrictive fluid therapy, because information has been collected
from different sources, not always found it in the technical data
of the drugs.


Purpose This study was designed to assess the effects of Ramadan fasting on the profile of mood state and perceived exertion in young soccer players and aerobic and anaerobic performances during the Yo-Yo, repeated sprint ability (RSA) and the Wingate tests. Methods Twenty junior male soccer players completed the Yo-Yo, the RSA, and the Wingate tests on three different occasions: one-week before Ramadan (BR), the second week (SWR) and the fourth week (ER) of Ramadan. The total distance (TD) covered and the estimated maximal aerobic velocity (MAV) during the Yo-Yo test were recorded. During the RSA test, peak power (PP) during each sprint, the percentage of decrement of PP (PD) and total work (Wtotal) were calculated. During the Wingate test, peak (Ppeak) and mean (Pmean) powers and fatigue index (FI) were recorded. Results TD and MAV (P=0.01) during the Yo-Yo test and PP (P=0.01, P=0.004, P=0.001, P=0.01, P=0.03 for sprints 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, respectively) and Wtotal (P=0.02) during the RSA test were significantly higher during BR than ER. Furthermore, muscle fatigue during the RSA test increased significantly from BR to ER (P=0.01). Ppeak and Pmean during the Wingate test decreased significantly from BR to SWR and ER (P<0.0005). FI was higher during SWR (P=0.001) and ER (P<0.0005) than BR. In addition, rating of perceived exertion scores and fatigue estimated by the profile of mood state questionnaire were higher during Ramadan in comparison with BR. Conclusions The present study suggests that both aerobic and anaerobic performances during the Yo-Yo, the RSA and the Wingate tests were affected by Ramadan fasting in young soccer players.


Agriculture production in Nigerien rural areas mainly depends on weather variability. Weather forecasts produced by national or international bodies have very limited dissemination in rural areas and even if broadcast by local radio, they remain generic and limited to short-term information. According to several experiences in West Africa, weather and climate services (WCSs) have great potential to support farmers' decision making. The challenge is to reach local communities with tailored information about the future weather to support strategic and tactical crop management decisions. WCSs, in West Africa, are mainly based on short-range weather forecasts and seasonal climate forecasts, while medium-range weather forecasts, even if potentially very useful for crop management, are rarely produced. This paper presents the results of a pilot initiative in Niger to reach farming communities with 10-day forecasts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—Global Forecast System (NOAA-GFS) produced by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP). After the implementation of the download and treatment chain, the Niger National Meteorological Directorate can provide 10-day agrometeorological forecasts to the agricultural extension services in eight rural municipalities. Exploiting the users' evaluation of the forecasts, an analysis of usability and overall performance of the service is described. The results demonstrate that, even in rural and remote areas, agrometeorological forecasts are valued as powerful and useful information for decision-making processes. The service can be implemented at low cost with effective technologies making it affordable and sustainable even in developing countries. Nonetheless, the service's effectiveness depends on several aspects mainly related to the way information is communicated to the public.


Nine patients with primary hyperoxaluria have been followed regularly for 1 to 11 years, and their treatment and progress are discussed in relation to the known natural history of the disease. 6 of them probably have the usual form of primary hyperoxaluria associated with increased glycollic acid excretion, while 3 who are sibs have the recently described variant associated with L-glyceric aciduria and normal glycollic acid excretion. All 9 patients have been on regimens designed to increase the urinary solubility of calcium oxalate, with or without the simultaneous lowering of urinary calcium and raising of urinary phosphate excretions. 8 patients have been treated for 1½-7½ years (average duration 4 years) with oral magnesium hydroxide, and 2 patients have been treated with sodium phosphate. One of the latter was changed after 3½ years to magnesium hydroxide and the other has been on sodium phosphate combined with a low calcium diet and cellulose phosphate continuously for 5½ years. 2, not at first diagnosed as hyperoxalurics, were first given sodium bicarbonate for their presumably secondary renal tubular acidosis. The over-all progress of the whole group is felt to have been better than could be expected from the known natural history of primary hyperoxaluria. They average 4¼ years on treatment during 5 years of our observation and all remain clinically well after an average of 9½ years since the onset of their first symptoms. Results warrant the recommendation that, until reliable means are available to decrease oxalate over-production, affected patients should be treated continuously with magnesium hydroxide. A more final opinion must await many more years of follow-up. The failure of several attempts to lower urinary oxalate excretion in these patients is also reported.


Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) noninvasively provides information on the concentration of some cerebral metabolites in vivo. Among those measurable by proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS), N-acetyl-aspartate (NAA) is decreased, and myo-inositol (mI) and choline (Cho) levels are increased in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). Donepezil, an acetylcholinesteraze inhibitor, has proven effect on cognitive symptoms in patients with AD. In previous studies, treatment response was associated with an increase of NAA and NAA/Cr in the parietal lobe and hippocampi. Correlation of longitudinal changes of 1H-MRS detectable metabolites in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) with clinically observable changes is a poorly researched topic. The objective of this non-interventional study is to assess whether changes in 1H-MRS measurable metabolites correlate with clinical outcome after donepezil treatment. Twelve patients with mild to moderate AD were evaluated during 26 weeks of donepezil treatment. 1H-MRS parameters in DLPFC were assessed before and after 26 weeks of donepezil treatment. Cognition was assessed with Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale cognitive subscale (ADAS-Cog). A significant increase in NAA/Cr ratio and significantly lower decrease in mI/Cr ratio were found in AD patients with positive treatment response. The results of this study indicate possible modest donepezil effect on prevention of neuronal functional deterioration in DLPFC which correlates with clinical outcome and point the use of 1HMRS as technique of help in assessment of drug effect.


Recessively inherited limb girdle muscular dystrophy (LGMD) type 2A is the most common LGMD worldwide. Here, we report the first single missense variant in CAPN3 causing dominantly inherited calpainopathy. A 43‐year‐old proband, his father and two sons were heterozygous for a c.1715G>C p.(Arg572Pro) variant in CAPN3. Affected family members had at least three of the following; muscle pain, a LGMD2A pattern of muscle weakness and wasting, muscle fat replacement on magnetic resonance imaging, myopathic muscle biopsy, and elevated creatine kinase. Total calpain 3 protein expression was 4 ± 3% of normal. In vitro analysis of c.1715G>C and the previously described c.643_663del variant indicated that the mutant proteins lack autolytic and proteolytic activity and decrease the quantity of wild‐type CAPN3 protein. Our findings suggest that dominantly inherited calpainopathy is not unique to the previously reported c.643_663del mutation of CAPN3, and that dominantly inherited calpainopathy should be considered for other single variations in CAPN3.


INTRODUCTION This paper investigates how developing country firms with generally less developed capability bases than their counterparts from the developed world can benefit from their location in the technologically more advanced developed world. It documents that subsidiaries in more developed countries do act as centres of excellence for their firm, but that their role as such centres of excellence is still emerging, and characterised by less formal, less optimal knowledge sharing mechanisms. In addition, firms learn more if they are more similar (whether seen in terms of industrial competitiveness or institutional infrastructure) to their host country. The paper follows the traditional format: The theoretical model is discussed, hypotheses derived, and the methodology explained. The paper ends with a presentation and discussion of results, and a conclusion with suggestions for further research.


Abstract We estimate the intergenerational transmission of education in Turkey using micro-data from the 1990 and 2000 censuses and an instrumental variable (IV) approach. We construct a historical series of provincial enrolment rates by gender to isolate the environmental effect on parental education. The results reveal that intergenerational educational mobility increases over time through a stronger decrease in the transmission of paternal education. The improvement is larger for boys, and the transmission is higher for mother-daughter pairs and in the case of poorer educated parents.


A novel and sustainable tandem‐catalysis system for asymmetric synthesis is disclosed, which is fabricated by bio‐inspired self‐assembly of artificial arthropod exoskeletons (AAEs) or artificial fungi cell walls (AFCWs) containing two different types of catalysts (enzyme and metal nanoparticles). The heterogeneous integrated enzyme/metal nanoparticle AAE/AFCW systems, which contain chitosan as the main structural component, co‐catalyze dynamic kinetic resolution of primary amines via a tandem racemization/enantioselective amidation reaction process to give the corresponding amides in high yields and excellent ee. The heterogeneous AAE/AFCW systems display successful heterogeneous synergistic catalysis at the surfaces since they can catalyze multiple reaction cycles without metal leaching. The use of natural‐based and biocompatible structural components makes the AAE/AFCW systems fully biodegradable and renewable, thus fulfilling important green chemistry requirements.


Gun-related violence is a public health concern. This study synthesizes findings on associations between substance use and gun-related behaviors. Searches through PubMed, Embase, and PsycINFO located 66 studies published in English between 1992 and 2014. Most studies found a significant bivariate association between substance use and increased odds of gun-related behaviors. However, their association after adjustment was mixed, which could be attributed to a number of factors such as variations in definitions of substance use and gun activity, study design, sample demographics, and the specific covariates considered. Fewer studies identified a significant association between substance use and gun access/possession than other gun activities. The significant association between nonsubstance covariates (e.g., demographic covariates and other behavioral risk factors) and gun-related behaviors might have moderated the association between substance use and gun activities. Particularly, the strength of association between substance use and gun activities tended to reduce appreciably or to become nonsignificant after adjustment for mental disorders. Some studies indicated a positive association between the frequency of substance use and the odds of engaging in gun-related behaviors. Overall, the results suggest a need to consider substance use in research and prevention programs for gun-related violence.


The Northeast Interstate Dairy Compact has been established to regulate milk prices. Simulation models show impacts on Vermont farms of alternative milk prices and accelerated productivity growth. Enhancing prices (by $0.85/cwt) improves financial performance the most, while impacts of doubling growth in milk production/cow (to 2.6% per year) and setting a price floor (which reduces the standard deviation of the price by 19% and raises prices $0.12/cwt) are substantially smaller. These impacts are inversely related to farm profitability. However, impacts on larger farms are not proportionately larger than those on smaller farms. Reducing price variability has smaller impacts than the $0.12/cwt price increase.


On April 7, 1988, Albie Sachs, an activist South African lawyer and a leading member of the ANC, was car-bombed in Maputo, capital of Mozambique, by agents of South Africa's security forces. His right arm was blown off and he lost the sight of one eye. This intimate and moving account of his recovery records the gradual recuperation of his broken body, his complex interaction with health professionals, the importance of touch and sensuality, and his triumphant reentry into the world. It also captures the spirit of a remarkable man: his enormous optimism, his commitment to social justice, and his joyous wonder at the life that surrounds him. In a new epilogue, Sachs gives a gripping insider's view of the major public events of the last decade--the election of Nelson Mandela, the formation of the Constitutional Court and Sachs's appointment as judge, and his own role with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.


Exotic invasive plants threaten ecosystem integrity, and their success depends on a combination of abiotic factors, disturbances, and interactions with existing communities. In dryland ecosystems, soil biocrusts (communities of lichens, bryophytes and microorganisms) can limit favorable microsites needed for invasive species establishment, but the relative importance of biocrusts for landscape-scale invasion patterns remains poorly understood. We examine effects of livestock grazing in habitats at high risk for invasion to test the hypothesis that disturbance indirectly favors exotic annual grasses by reducing biocrust cover. We present some of the first evidence that biocrusts increase site resistance to invasion at a landscape scale and mediate the effects of disturbance. Biocrust species richness, which is reduced by livestock grazing, also appears to promote native perennial grasses. Short mosses, as a functional group, appeared to be particularly valuable for preventing invasion by exotic annual grasses. Our study suggests that maintaining biocrust communities with high cover, species richness, and cover of short mosses can increase resistance to invasion. These results highlight the potential of soil surface communities to mediate invasion dynamics and suggest promising avenues for restoration in dryland ecosystems.


In Content Based Image Retrieval (CBIR), images are segmented to synthesize image information. Among several characteristics like color or edges, texture is useful for segmenting. This paper proposes an intensive multiresolution approach to texture segmentation based on a wavelet transform. The technique delivers schematic descriptions of images. That is to say, it provides the main regions of interest (ROIs) according to image information. Firstly, the process divides images into 2 × 2 blocks. Then, it tracks texture through the multiresolution offered by the wavelet transform to form featuring vectors. Next, a K-means algorithm partitions the texture vector space into clusters. Finally, a connected component extraction delivers the image schema.


The present article deals with theoretical and experimental aspects of language representation in the multilingual brain. Two general approaches were adopted in the study of the bilingual brain. The study of bilingual aphasics allows us to describe dissociations and double dissociations between the different subcomponents of the various languages. Furthermore, symptoms peculiar to bilingual aphasia were reported (pathological mixing and switching and translations disorders) which allowed the correlation of some abilities specific to bilinguals with particular neurofunctional systems. Another approach to the study of the bilingual brain is of the experimental type, such as electrophysiological investigations (electrocorticostimulation during brain surgery and event-related potentials) and functional neuroanatomy studies (positron emission tomography and functional magnetic resonance imaging). Functional neuroanatomy studies investigated the brain representation of languages when processing lexical and syntactic stimuli and short stories. Neurophysiologic and neuroimaging studies evidenced a similar cerebral representation of L1 and L2 lexicons both in early and late bilinguals. The representation of grammatical aspects of languages seems to be different between the two languages if L2 is acquired after the age of 7, with automatic processes and correctness being lower than those of the native language. These results are in line with a greater representation of the two lexicons in the declarative memory systems, whereas morphosyntactic aspects may be organized in different systems according to the acquisition vs learning modality.


This paper describes a method for determining the optimal robot path that minimizes thermal variations over a surface during a spray deposition process, where the deposited material is hotter than the surface. An analytical expression is formed for the amplitude of the thermal modes of the surface temperature profile. This expression is then used to determine the optimal robot velocity, scan angle, and start position. Experimental results from a metal spray deposition process are used to confirm the analysis


To investigate the complex coupling between surface heat transfer and local fluid velocity in convective heat transfer, advanced techniques are required to measure the surface heat flux at high spatial and temporal resolution. Several established flow velocity techniques such as laser Doppler anemometry, particle image velocimetry and hot wire anemometry can measure fluid velocities at high spatial resolution (µm) and have a high-frequency response (up to 100 kHz) characteristic. Equivalent advanced surface heat transfer measurement techniques, however, are not available; even the latest advances in high speed thermal imaging do not offer equivalent data capture rates. The current research presents a method of measuring point surface heat flux with a hot film that is flush mounted on a heated flat surface. The film works in conjunction with a constant temperature anemometer which has a bandwidth of 100 kHz. The bandwidth of this technique therefore is likely to be in excess of more established surface heat flux measurement techniques. Although the frequency response of the sensor is not reported here, it is expected to be significantly less than 100 kHz due to its physical size and capacitance. To demonstrate the efficacy of the technique, a cooling impinging air jet is directed at the heated surface, and the power required to maintain the hot-film temperature is related to the local heat flux to the fluid air flow. The technique is validated experimentally using a more established surface heat flux measurement technique. The thermal performance of the sensor is also investigated numerically. It has been shown that, with some limitations, the measurement technique accurately measures the surface heat transfer to an impinging air jet with improved spatial resolution for a wide range of experimental parameters.


Ferasiska Y Hasim Nim 911 415 116 "Application of Cooperative Script  Learning Method in Improving Learning Outcomes ". Undergraduate Economic Education Study Program, Department of Economic Education, Faculty of Economics, Gorontalo State University The research aimed to improve student's learning outcomes at integrated social science subjek in SMP Negeri 1 Kabila of bone bolango District, Gorontalo Province. The methode applied in this research was classroom action research that was conducted in II cycles and involved  27 people. The finding of research found that result of this classroom action research in cycle I reached 62,97% then increased to 81,49% in cycle II meanwhile, students who were not completed would be remedied through the implementation of cooperative script method at integrated social Science subjek in grade VIII thus the students' learning outcomes Improved. Keywords: Cooperative Script, Student Learning Outcomes


Markov chain Monte Carlo (McMC) simulation is a popular computational tool for making inferences from complex, high-dimensional probability densities. Given a particular target density , the idea behind this technique is to simulate a Markov chain that has as its stationary distribution. To be successful, the chain needs to be run long enough so that the distribution of the current draw is close to the target density. Unfortunately, very few diagnostic tools exist to monitor characteristics of the chain. In this paper, we present a new approach to render sonifications of McMC simulations. The proposed method consists of several auditory streams which provide information about the behavior of the Markov chain. In particular, we focus on uncovering modes in the target density function. In addition to monitoring, we have found our sonification to be an effective means for understanding the structure of high-dimensional densities. We have also applied our method to the exploratory analysis of highdimensional data sets. In this case, we take as our target a nonparametric density estimate obtained from the data. In this paper, we present a detailed description of our sonification design and illustrate its performance on test cases consisting of both synthetic and real-world data sets. Sound examples are also given.


The cellular and biochemical mechanisms that direct destruction of bone at the site of tumor osteolysis are unknown. In order to understand this process better, a murine model designed for the study of tumor osteolysis was developed and the influence of osteolytic and nonosteolytic tumors on bone was investigated. Tumors developed following femoral intramedullary injection of sarcoma (2472) and melanoma (G3.26) cell lines: however, only tumors from the 2472 cell line caused osteolysis. It was determined that 2472 tumor‐induced osteolysis commenced 6 days after the femora had been inoculated with 2472 cells. There were more osteoclasts per millimeter of bone surface in 2472 tumor‐bearing limbs (16.7 ± 5.0) than in sham‐injected limbs (3.8 ± 0.9) (p < 0.015). In addition, an increase in the osteoclast size (area) was detected in 2472 tumor‐bearing limbs: 412 ± 65 μm2 compared with 187 ± 17 μm2 (p < 0.01). In vitro bone resorption experiments indicated that 2472 tumor cells had a limited ability to destroy bone in comparison with macrophages and osteoclasts. Taken in total, these findings define a model that is useful for the study of tumor osteolysis, and the data from analyses of the model demonstrate that the cellular mechanisms responsible for 2472 tumor‐induced osteolysis include both an increase in the number of osteoclasts and activation of mature osteoclasts.


In this study, the design of the mechanism of a recycling system using composite electrochemical and chemical machining for removing the surface layers from silicon wafers of solar cells is studied. The reason for constructing a new engineering technology and developing a clean production approach to perform the removal of surface thin film layers from silicon wafers is to develop a mass production system for recycling defective or discarded silicon wafers of solar cells that can reduce pollution. The goal of the development is to replace the current approach, which uses strong acid and grinding and may cause damage to the physical structure of silicon wafers and cause pollution to the environment, to efficiently meet the requirements of industry for low cost. It can not only perform highly efficient recycling of silicon wafers from discarded solar cells to facilitate the following remelting and crystal pulling process, but can also recycle defective silicon wafers during the fabrication process of solar cells for rework. A small gap width between cathode and workpiece, higher temperature, higher concentration, or higher flow rate of machining fluid corresponds to a higher removal rate for Si3N4 layer and epoxy film. Pulsed direct current can improve the effect of dregs discharge and is advantageous to associate with the fast feed rate of workpiece, but raises the current rating. A higher feed rate of silicon wafers of solar cells combine with enough electric power produces fast machining performance. The electrochemical and chemical machining just needs quite short time to make the Si3N4 layer and epoxy film remove easily and cleanly. An effective and low-cost recycle process for silicon wafers of solar cells is presented.


In this study, the effect of fluid damping on the performance of a 2-pole, 4-kW line start synchronous reluctance machine (LS-SynRM) with different slot opening structures for submersible water pump applications is investigated. Since the submersible pump motors run inside a fluid-filled environment and the fluid viscosity and density differ from the air, it causes an increased damping effect comparing air-filled machines. Hence, a non-negligible damping loss occurs. In this study, the damping effects of the fluids in a 24 slot LS-SynRM for various stator slot indentations are investigated with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) finite element analysis (FEA) to highlight the importance of the fluid damping loss in flooded machines. Results show that the damping loss can go as high as 10% of the motor output power when the stator surface has indentations, and this loss can be cut down to 3.5 % when the surface indentations are eliminated with custom no-slotting wedge structures.


Maritime piracy in African waters started to flourish in 21 st century when Pirates focus their activities in the two sides of the Continent. Between 2005 and 2012 piracy activities were rampant in the Horn of Africa and the East Africa Coastal waters. Thereafter, piracy activities prospered in West Africa Gulf of Guinea States. To date the same are still persisting in the Gulf of Guinea Coastal States. The impact brought by African piracy to the shipping industry and maritime transportation at large, have touched a range of nations from developed countries to the developing countries. Because of that, the International and Regional communities set up strategies to fight and repress piracy activities within the Continent. Maritime piracy is a crime and was firstly considered as crime by the customary international law even before codification of the same in 1958 Geneva Convention on the High Seas and later the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) has not set for the punishment of pirates but it has rest to the individual countries to prosecute and punish piracy offenders according to the laws of a particular country.  In defining what constitutes acts of piracy, the UNCLOS does not consider acts committed within the territorial waters of a State to be piracy, instead, it considers only those acts that are committed on the high seas for the private ends. The International law perception of what constitutes acts of piracy lead the governments of Gulf of Guinea coastal states to be solely responsible for maritime security of their countries as well as eliminating piracy acts happening in their area. Different from piracy off the coast of Somalia, a stateless country, Gulf of Guinea countries have stable governments and thus the principle of sovereignty applies. Despite the differences in nature for the acts of piracy that are happening in the two regions of the African continent, the same are still falling under the same umbrella of criminality of the acts of piracy. So whatever the differences there are still some similarities which basing on the same, the other part of the continent (West Africa) should draw the attention from, and copy the strategies of combating and eliminating acts of piracy in their region.This paper focuses on differences and similarities between Gulf of Guinea piracy and piracy off the coast of Somalia, what lessons Gulf of Guinea Coastal States should learn from Somali piracy for them to effectively combat and eliminate piracy activities within their area. Keywords: Piracy, Crime, Gulf of Guinea, Somalia.


We forecast 18 groups of individual components of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) using a large Bayesian vector autoregressive model (BVAR) and then aggregate those forecasts in order to obtain a headline inflation forecast (bottom-up approach). De Mol et al. (2006) and Banbura et al. (2010) show that BVAR's forecasts can be significantly improved by the appropriate selection of the shrinkage hyperparameter. We follow Banbura et al. (2010)'s strategy of "mixed priors," estimate the shrinkage parameter, and forecast inflation. Our findings suggest that this strategy for modeling outperform the benchmark random walk as well as other strategies for forecasting inflation.


Pancreatic transplant is increasingly being performed for management of diabetes. There are known complications, specifically related to exocrine drainage of the pancreas, with enteric versus bladder drainage being options. Here we present a unique complication of leakage of the pancreaticocystostomy, likely secondary to severe urethritis and obliteration of the urethra. Accumulation of pancreatic enzymes in the subcutaneous tissues led to fat necrosis of the scrotum and groin with severe systemic inflammatory response syndrome. Presentation mimicked an infectious soft tissue infection that failed antibiotic management. This highlights a unique clinical entity mimicking infection. This patient required debridement, urinary diversion, and a multidisciplinary approach to treatment.


Dynamic synchronous transfer mode (DTM) is a broadband network architecture based on fast circuit-switching augmented with dynamic reallocation of resources. It provides a service based on multicast, multirate channels with short setup delay and supports applications with real-time requirements on quality of service as well as applications with bursty, asynchronous traffic. The paper describes the DTM architecture and its distributed resource management scheme. Performance analysis results from network simulations are presented. The analysis is performed with respect to throughput and access delay for two network topologies: a dual bus and a grid of dual buses. The effects of varying user requirements, internode distances and transfer size are studied for uniform traffic patterns. The results indicate that the overhead for establishing channels is low (a few hundred microseconds), which gives a high degree of utilization even for short transfers. The analysis also shows that when channels are established very frequently, the signaling capacity limits the performance.


Sigmoidal slope profiles are common on the margins of continents and intracratonic basins. We propose that these profiles consist of two genetically different segments. The lower, concave part reflects the exponential decrease of the sedimentation rate with increasing distance from the source at the shelf edge. The upper, convex part represents the gradational boundary between the shelf domain where sediment is moved by waves (and wave-induced currents) and the slope domain where sediment is moved by gravity. The boundary is narrow and the shelf edge is sharp if sedimentary base level remains stationary during progradation; the boundary becomes gradational and the shelf edge becomes rounded if storms and sea-level cycles induce significant fluctuations of base level. This model is supported by observations on Holocene sedimentary systems as well as numerical simulations with the program STRATA based on the diffusion equation for sediment dispersal.


The Italian law 152/2006 adopted the EU Water Framework Directive principles and delegated to the Regions the task of identifying areas subject to groundwater diffuse pollution. In the Lombardy Plain, the qualitative groundwater conditions are affected mainly by the presence of industries and anthropic activities. The aim of this work was to assess tetrachloroethylene (PCE) diffuse pollution in the Milan Functional Urban Area (FUA), where chlorinated solvents are the main groundwater contaminants and the results of monitoring campaigns for the years 2003-2014 were collected in a dataset. For this purpose, a new methodology was implemented both in a deterministic and stochastic process. At first, hotspots were identified through Cluster Analysis (CA) applied to concentration values collected in unconfined/confined aquifers (2003-14). Then, a numerical transport model was implemented to study the hotspot plume extension in reason to identify monitoring wells not affected by diffuse pollution but related to specific hotspot sources. Consequently, it was possible to erase these data from the whole initial dataset in order to have a new one containing only diffuse concentrations. Interpolating them through ordinary kriging, PCE iso-concentrations maps identified areas where values are over the Maximum Contaminant Level (1.1 μg/l, Italian Law 152/06). Considering descriptive statistics and iso-PCE concentration maps, a median PCE value estimation (10 μg/l) was find as representative of PCE diffuse contamination Milan city. Moreover, a stochastic methodology was used in order to consider uncertainties due to unknown multiple-sources and environmental heterogeneity. The innovative approach gave some interesting solutions to point out areas where the contaminant mass release is higher and where high probability unknown sources can be found.


In this thesis a tectono-sedimentary forward model has been presented, devised to simulate sediment erosion and deposition in a coupled drainage basin - foreland system, as well as accumulating a three-dimensional stratigraphy.
The aim of the research was to investigate which features recorded in the foreland basin architecture are diagnostic of the balance and interplay between two main external forcings: repeated tectonic activity and eustatic sea-level variation. Special attention has been paid to differences in stacking patterns of fluvial depositional systems and the character of the sequence-bounding unconformities.

The sediment yield generated by fluvial bedrock erosion in the orogenic drainage basins has the typically asymmetrical shape of a response curve (Chapter 2). Yield gradually increases during tectonic activity, and declines exponentially during tectonic quiescence. Syn-tectonic yields are increasing, but they are not sufficient to completely fill the accommodation space created in the adjacent foreland basin due to flexural response upon active tectonic thrust loading. As a result and counter-intuitively, deposition of alluvial fan gravels in the foreland basin retreats during tectonic activity, whereas progradation is characteristic of phases of tectonic quiescence and reduced flexural subsidence. A history of pulsating tectonic activity is reflected in the alluvial architecture of the basin as a succession of coarsening-up, prograding gravel sheets that laterally connect during quiescence, and alternate with basin-wide onlap of fine-grained sediments marking renewed tectonic activity.

The experiments of Chapter 3 show that there are two contrasting types of sequence boundaries developed in the alluvial stratigraphy when a eustatic sea-level variation is superposed upon the alternation of tectonic activity and subsidence:
A) During intervals of tectonic activity, eustatic fall and rise of sea level form prograding, shallowing up sequences, which are bounded by Type-2 unconformities and subsequent flooding surfaces. The syn-tectonic, high flexural subsidence rates prohibit the sea level to drop below the delta break in slope, safeguarding the stratigraphy from severe incision.
B) During intervals of tectonic quiescence, Type-1 unconformities are formed, because eustatic falls now drop below the delta break in slope, as they are no longer compensated by the subsidence component in relative sea level. Because multiple eustatic sea-level cycles may occur during a quiescence interval, the resulting Type-1 unconformity at the base of the delta-top sheet sandstone can be a composite and therefore poor time marker.
The suites of amalgamating, axial channel belts that characterize this delta top sheet sandstone have a preference for the depression between the basin-margin alluvial fans and the conical delta surface that was formed during a previous tectonic phase.

Similar suites of amalgamating axial channel belts are created when the foreland basin is detached from its substratum by a hinterland-dipping sole thrust and transformed into a thrust-sheet top basin (Chapter 4). In the light of these model results the Eocene Castissent Formation in the Pyrenean Tremp Basin, previously interpreted as a incised valley system, is explained as a phase of moderate tectonic reduction of the accommodation space. This mechanism explains the continuous marine influence on the delta plain simultaneous with a forced regression and increased sandstone interconnectedness at the cost of fine-grained intervals.


This paper juxtaposes postmodernist discourses on language, identity and cultural power with historical forms of language inequalities grounded in the nation-state. The discussion is presented in three sections. The first section focuses on the mixed legacies of language-state relations within the pluralist nation-state, colonial and postcolonial language policies. The second section examines the concept of linguistic minority rights beyond the nation-state. This incorporates discussion of transmigration, the breaking up of previous power blocs in Eastern Europe and the role of language in the articulation of emergent 'ethnic' nationalisms. The third section examines the concept of multilingualism within the interactive cultural landscape defined by 'informationalism'. Discussing the collective impact of these variables on the shaping of new cultural, economic and political inequalities, the paper highlights the tensions in which the concept of linguistic minority rights exists in the world today.


Convergence problems for both voltage- and charge-controlled models of MOSFET gate capacitances are often a limiting factor of CAD tools. In paper, an idea of exponential smoothing of model discontinuities is proposed. The method is demonstrated by smoothing the discontinuity of Meyer's model at zero drain-source voltage. The updated model is tested on flip-flop circuit by an advanced algorithm.


Oil price shocks are the main source of macroeconomic fluctuations in oil exporting countries. It is believed that appropriate monetary policy can help to stabilize these unwanted variations toward optimal allocations. A stochastic dynamic general equilibrium model featuring the properties of both cost push and wealth effect transmission channels is developed for the Iranian economy. In this context, it is possible to evaluate the role of monetary policy measures to accommodate supply side cost push effects and demand side wealth effect of oil price shock. This paper is intended to investigate the optimal monetary policy strategy for the economy of Iran and calibrated for its structural characteristics and patterns of external shocks. The comparative analysis of alternative monetary policies in terms of 1 author's Ph.D. thesis at Alzahra University . Ph.D. student at Alzahra University . Associate Professor, Alzahra University 22 Money and Economy, Vol. 8, No. 3, Summer 2013 Ramsey, and optimal simple rules is performed based on key nominal and real variables variance reductions and the linear quadratic loss (LQ) function. Our findings show that domestic inflation targeting rule is the optimal monetary policy both in terms of stabilization performance and welfare costs. It must be mentioned that the addition of exchange rate to domestic inflation targeting rule has failed to improve the welfare measure and stabilization in comparison to domestic inflation targeting rule.


We report the development of an advanced sensor for atomic force-guided scanning Hall probe microscopy whereby both a high mobility heterostructure Hall effect magnetic sensor and an n-Al0.4Ga0.6As piezoresistive displacement sensor have been integrated in a single III–V semiconductor cantilever. This allows simple operation in high-vacuum/variable-temperature environments and enables very high magnetic and topographic resolution to be achieved simultaneously. Scans of magnetic induction and topography of a number of samples are presented to illustrate the sensor performance at 300 and 77 K.


Four Egyptian pollen pellets: sunflower, clover, maize and broad beans, were evaluated for environmental risk of allergenic protein subunits, indexing amino acids, as well as nucleic acids contents . Protein fractions were subsequently extracted as albumin, globulin, urea and SDS-soluble proteins, by different methods. The results showed that albumin and globulin fractions represent the major constituents in different pollen pellets and amounted 33.24-40.3% and 32.57-37.22% respectively. SDS soluble protein showed minor amount. The electrophoretic separation of albumin and globulin extracts of sunflower pollen showed the presence of 8 protein subunits, which varied in their molecular weight between 4-67 KiloDalton (KDa); allergic protein subunits with MW 35 and 45 KDa were identified in all pollen pellets tested. Indexing and general analysis of the four pollen pellets showed that carbohydrates ranged from 28.12 (maize) to 36.12 (sunflower), while total chlorophyll ranged from 5.85 (broad bean) to 6.07 (maize) mg/100 g fresh weight. It is also clear that the protein content of pollen pellets is above 40% and therefore they could be considered as a protein rich source. Broad bean pellets had the highest amount of protein content (48.31%). The lipid content ranged from 4.47 to 15.7%, according to pollen source. All pollen pellets contained relatively high quantities of RNA, which are nearly three times the equivalent of DNA content. Relative values of total free amino acids of four pollens were considerably low (below 20%) and ranged from 2.93 ± 0.089 (sunflower) to 15.99 ± 0.015 µmol/ mg fw.


Venous thrombo-embolism (VTE) occurs in 1 in 1000 pregnancies, pulmonary embolism being the leading direct cause of maternal death in the UK. Risk assessment was introduced to the trust in 2008 to identify women at increased risk and initiate thromboprophylaxis. Updated recent RCOG guidance (Nov 2009) has suggested additional risk factors for example, smoking. The aims of the study were to evaluate whether risk assessment had been performed in women with a confirmed VTE and whether correct management was initiated as per guidelines at VTE diagnosis. Also to see whether any woman's risk status differed using recent RCOG guidance. All women who had a VTE confirmed by Doppler ultrasound or lung perfusion scan/CTPA were identified by reviewing all scans requested by the obstetric team from April 2008–January 2010. Retrospective analysis of the patients' case notes was performed. 24 patients had a confirmed VTE, a much higher incidence than expected. Only two women had documentation of risk assessment. There were six women who were at increased risk of VTE who should have received thromboprophylaxis. With the new RCOG criteria, 14 women would have been at increased risk and would received thromboprophylaxis. The lack of documentation questions whether health professionals were risk assessing. A significant number of these women's VTE may have been preventable if risk assessment had been performed, with an even higher number possibly preventable using new RCOG criteria. This stresses the importance of risk assessment and the additional risk factors that are now in the new risk assessment tool.


Objectives: The aim of the study was to analyze the clinical presentations, diagnosis, and treatment of patients ages ⩽5 years with early onset Wilson disease (WD). Methods: Data from 143 pediatric patients with WD treated at our center between January 1996 and November 2015 were retrospectively analyzed. Results: A review of the 143 pediatric patients with WD identified 21 (10 girls, 11 boys) with first symptoms or abnormal liver function test results at age ⩽5 years. The diagnosis of WD was confirmed in 8 patients younger than 5 years. At baseline the mean serum alanine aminotransferase level was 222 U/L and the mean serum aspartate aminotransferase level was 130 U/L. The mean serum ceruloplasmin concentration in 16 tested patients was <20 mg/dL. Of the 15 patients who underwent urinary copper excretion testing, 8 had levels between 40 and 100 &mgr;g/day, with only 4 having levels >100 &mgr;g/day. Liver copper quantification was >250 &mgr;g/g dry weight in 16 patients. The most common mutation was p.H1069Q, with compound heterozygosity in 5 patients and homozygosity in 9. Sixteen patients were treated with zinc salts and 5 with D-penicillamine. Both treatments were effective, with no serious side effects observed after 3 to 24 months. Conclusions: WD can present as early as 2 years of age. Because biochemical tests may be less sensitive in very young children, diagnoses may require a combination of tests. If molecular tests are inconclusive, liver copper content should be measured.


Results of surgical treatment in 14 patients with lymphatic duct traumas of abdominal cavity and retroperitoneal space are presented. Diagnostics and surgical treatment in patients with lymphatic duct injuries and tactics in the presence of chronic lacteal fistula, caused by trauma are described.


Increased competitive position of the financial market is one of the priority goals of national economic growth and clear-cut ascendancy of the state in the global economic space. The paper discusses one of the key problems of the financial market development and performance, namely, the policy of its regulating. This paper has also specified the stages of the financial market management system reformation, which allow to estimate the level of supervision integration for Russia over the period from 1991 to 2015. The study outcomes have showed that till the end of 2013 in Russia there was the sectoral supervision model, according to which the management was provided by areas of activity. The paper describes the system of the single regulatory authority functioning in the financial market as the improvement of its management policy. Moreover, the paper has determined the principles which are the basis of the mega-regulator performance such as independence, transparency, responsibility, collegiality, uniformity of the application. The advantages and the results of the financial mega-regulator performance were analyzed and powers of the Bank of Russia as a basic regulator of the financial market. Keywords: Financial market, management, control, financial mega-regulator JEL Classifications: G23, G32


Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a hemodynamic and pathophysiological condition defined as an increase in mean pulmonary arterial pressure of 25 mmHg or more at rest assessed by right heart catheterisation. It is a progressive disease characterized by high mortality and morbidity. Current PH guidelines suggest that patients with PH should be cared for in dedicated specialist centres, with expertise and resources available to provide high quality care to this fragile population. In this review, we focus on the clinical manifestations, diagnostic algorithm, risk assessment and therapeutic strategies for PH. We also provide an overview of the organisation of PH services in United Kingdom, including designation of expert centres, national audit and steps to ensure the quality and financial viability of PH care.


We investigated the potential impact of a Georgia regulation that allows individual landowners to encase 200-ft sections of small (<25 gal/min mean annual flow) headwater trout streams in buried drainage pipes. In the Blue Ridge physiographic province in North Georgia, 41% of privately held lands drain into these small streams. Hence this regulation applies to a large fraction of the mountain landscape. Small headwater streams in this region have a diverse aquatic biota (~30 taxa) indicating good water quality (10-14 EPT taxa), even though some of the streams are intermittent. Aquatic insects drifting downstream provide food for drift-feeding fishes such as trout. Insect drift immediately downstream from a buried reach was predominantly oligochaetes, indicative of poor water quality, whereas there were 5-6 EPT taxa in the drift from forested headwaters. Burying streams in pipes eliminates aquatic habitat. The impact of this regulation depends upon how widely it is applied, but it has the potential to impact a significant fraction of aquatic habitat in the headwaters of Georgia's trout streams.


[1] Experimental data from a constellation of five NOAA Polar Orbiting Environmental Satellites (POES), satellites were used for studying the penetration of solar energetic particles (SEP) to high latitudes during long-lasting SEP events on 5–15 December 2006. We determined cutoff latitudes for electrons with energies >100 keV and >300 keV and for protons with energies from 240 keV to >140 MeV. The large number of satellites allowed us to derive snapshots of the cutoff boundaries with 1-hour time resolution. The boundaries were fitted well by ellipses. On the basis of the elliptical approach, we developed a model of cutoff latitudes for protons and electrons in the northern and southern hemispheres. The cutoff latitude is represented as a function of rigidity, R, of particles; MLT, geomagnetic indices Dst, Kp, and AE; and dipole tilt angle PS. The model predicts tailward and duskward shifting of the cutoff boundaries in relation to intensification of the cross-tail current, field-aligned currents, and symmetrical and asymmetrical parts of the ring current. The model was applied for prediction of polar cap absorption (PCA) effects observed at high latitudes by the Canadian Advanced Digital Ionosonde network of ionosondes. It was found that the PCA effects are related mainly to intense fluxes of >2.5 MeV protons and >100 keV electrons, which contribute mostly to the ionization of ionospheric D-layer at altitudes of ∼75 to 85 km. This finding was confirmed independently by FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC observations of the SEP-associated enhancements of electron content at altitudes of ∼80 km.


In this paper, we present a framework for high quality splatting based on elliptical Gaussian kernels. To avoid aliasing artifacts, we introduce the concept of a resampling filter, combining a reconstruction kernel with a low-pass filter. Because of the similarity to Heckbert's EWA (elliptical weighted average) filter for texture mapping, we call our technique EWA splatting. Our framework allows us to derive EWA splat primitives for volume data and for point-sampled surface data. It provides high image quality without aliasing artifacts or excessive blurring for volume data and, additionally, features anisotropic texture filtering for point-sampled surfaces. It also handles nonspherical volume kernels efficiently; hence, it is suitable for regular, rectilinear, and irregular volume datasets. Moreover, our framework introduces a novel approach to compute the footprint function, facilitating efficient perspective projection of arbitrary elliptical kernels at very little additional cost. Finally, we show that EWA volume reconstruction kernels can be reduced to surface reconstruction kernels. This makes our splat primitive universal in rendering surface and volume data.


The transmission-line modeling method and an analytical formulation are employed in this paper to investigate the electromagnetic shielding performance of enclosures with apertures. The effects of some related parameters, which are neglected in the formulation, are analyzed over a broad-band (0-3 GHz) to make the formulation optimal, and the shielding performance at some frequency points is studied in detail. Finally, approaches to improve shielding effectiveness are proposed. For the enclosures we studied, the theoretical analysis and simulation results illustrate that the analytical formulation can predict shielding effectiveness accurately when the frequency of the incident wave is less than 1 GHz, while when the frequency is more than 1 GHz, its applicability declines remarkably. Fortunately, the simulation results indicated that the shielding effectiveness can be improved to a certain extent by adjusting the spacing between apertures, selecting appropriate shapes of apertures, ensuring the longer side of apertures is not perpendicular to the polarization direction of the incident wave, and installing sensitive equipment according to the propagation direction in the case of that these properties of the incident wave are known.


"Why must all girls want to be flag women?" laments one critic regarding what he sees as the infiltration of "Carnival" culture into the performative desires of Indo-Trinidadian women. The intersections of soca, a form of music derived from the traditional Carnival genre of calypso, and chutney soca, as an Indo-Trinidadian-identified form with roots in traditional South Asian music as well as Carnival cultures, is a particular arena of visibility—and controversy—for critically including Indo-Trinidadian "flag" women in a feminist framework. In this essay, I read these Carnival-related performances in relationship to the colonial and national histories of the circulation of Indian and black women's bodies in Trinidad and Tobago, asking what is at stake in these occupations of genre, form, and performative presence in the latest global scenes of late capitalism (where image and sound, as cultural productions, are always in circulation beyond the scope of the nation, and their own "original" referents).


Many unsupervised learning problems seek to identify hidden features from observations. In many real-world situations, the number of hidden features is unknown. To avoid specifying the number of hidden features a priori, one can use the Indian Buffet Process (IBP): a nonparametric latent feature model that does not bound the number of active features in a dataset. While elegant, the lack of efficient inference procedures for the IBP has prevented its application in large-scale problems. The core contribution of this thesis are three new inference procedures that allow inference in the IBP to be scaled from a few hundred to 100,000 observations. This thesis contains three parts: (1) An introduction to the IBP and a review of inference techniques and extensions. The first chapters summarise three constructions for the IBP and review all currently published inference techniques. Appendix C reviews extensions of the IBP to date. (2) Novel techniques for scalable Bayesian inference. This thesis presents three new inference procedures: (a) an accelerated Gibbs sampler for efficient Bayesian inference in a broad class of conjugate models, (b) a parallel, asynchronous Gibbs sampler that allows the accelerated Gibbs sampler to be distributed across multiple processors, and (c) a variational inference procedure for the IBP. (3)A framework for structured nonparametric latent feature models. We also present extensions to the IBP to model more sophisticated relationships between the co-occurring hidden features, providing a general framework for correlated non-parametric feature models.


If dynamic bandwidth-guaranteed connections between distributed services (e.g., grid services) are provisioned through a centralized system, the policy to serve connection requests might heavily impact both the success in and the time required for setting up user services (e.g., grid-enabled applications).

In this paper, the implementation of a batch queue in the centralized system is proposed. By implementing different service policies for the queued requests, connections and, in consequence, user services can be set up with different guarantees. In this study, a bulk-service policy is proposed and implemented to maximize connection set up success.

The experimental evaluation results show that the utilization of the proposed policy brings advantages in terms of percentage of accepted connection requests as the number of requests served in one batch increases. Moreover, the achieved improvement does not impact the time required to set up the connections because of the specific LSP set up procedures implemented in the utilized commercial routers.


Urbanization often occurs in an unplanned and uneven manner, resulting in profound changes in patterns of land cover and land use. Understanding these changes is fundamental for devising environmentally responsible approaches to economic development in the rapidly urbanizing countries of the emerging world. One indicator of urbanization is built-up land cover that can be detected and quantified at scale using satellite imagery and cloud-based computational platforms. This process requires reliable and comprehensive ground-truth data for supervised classification and for validation of classification products. We present a new dataset for India, consisting of 21,030 polygons from across the country that were manually classified as "built-up" or "not built-up," which we use for supervised image classification and detection of urban areas. As a large and geographically diverse country that has been undergoing an urban transition, India represents an ideal context to develop and test approaches for the detection of features related to urbanization. We perform the analysis in Google Earth Engine (GEE) using three types of classifiers, based on imagery from Landsat 7 and Landsat 8 as inputs. The methodology produces high-quality maps of built-up areas across space and time. Although the dataset can facilitate supervised image classification in any platform, we highlight its potential use in GEE for temporal large-scale analysis of the urbanization process. Our methodology can easily be applied to other countries and regions.


Paradigm change has recently taken place in spine surgery with the application of minimally invasive techniques. Minimally invasive techniques have several advantages over the open traditional techniques: less blood loss, preservation of spine muscle integrity, shorter hospitalization, early mobilization, reduced pain levels, lower risk of infection. The presented cases cover following lumbar pathologies: segmental spinal instability, LV-SI grade II. spondylolisthesis, degenerative spondylolisthesis, spine trauma. Unilateral or bilateral mini-open technique was employed in the degenerative cases, depending on symptoms and signes. If unilateral symptoms--pathology was identified, screws and rod were implanted percutaneously on the side contralateral to the pathology. The segmental fusion between vertebral bodies was always assured by a cage and autologous bone. The presented trauma case involved combined AO type A2 and B fractures. The anterior column was strengthened with vertebral body stents filled with bone cement, the posterior column was fixed with a percutaneously implanted screw rod system. Insertion of stents in the collapsed vertebra significantly increased the vertebral body height and also improved the stability of the spine. Minimally invasive spine surgery techniques appear more advantageous over the traditional open spine surgery that necessitates for large midline approaches.


Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) as a new non-invasive painless procedure has been tested for augmentation of motor performance and reduction of spasticity in post-stroke patients. Stroke patients (N = 34) were recruited for rTMS treatment and brain activity analysis (EEG) was performed before and after rTMS. The effect of rTMS was evaluated using National Institute of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS), Barthel – Index and Ashworth Scale. The content of L-tryptophan (L-TRP), L-kynurenine (L-KYN), kynurenic acid (KYNA) and anthranilic acid (ANA) was determined in the serum of stroke patients before the 1st, after the 5th and after 10th rTMS application using high performance liquid chromatography. In a separate experiment, L-TRP metabolites were determined in the serum of an independent group of stroke patients (N=47) and control subjects (N=6). The content of L-TRP and L-TRP metabolites in the serum of stroke patients was significantly increased, L-TRY was 121% of CO; L-KYN 161% of CO, p<0.015; ANA 280 % of CO, p<0.001; KYNA 243% of CO, p<0.001, compared to control subjects. Similar changes were found in stroke patients recruited for rTMS. After the 10th rTMS treatment L-KYN and ANA levels increased moderately but significantly in the serum and it was L-KYN 107%, p<0.01; ANA 110%, p=0.055, versus the value before 1st rTMS, respectively. The ratios L-KYN/TRP and ANA/KYNA increased moderately but significantly after the 10th rTMS. Creatin kinase and prolactin levels were in normal range during rTMS. Stroke patients treated with rTMS have shown a significant enhancement of motor performance and moderate reduction of spasticity. The alteration of ANA/KYNA ratio after rTMS might be of significance with respect to the clinical improvement of patients. The present study gives favour for rTMS as a means for neurorehabilitation of patients after stroke. Notable, the management of therapies following rTMS are of importance for an improvement of hand and fingers activities, as observed within this study.


Context Hepatic metastases represent the most relevant prognostic factor in gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors and are associated with significantly reduced survival. Objective The aim of this single-institution retrospective series was to evaluate overall survival and progression-free survival from the diagnosis of liver metastases. Patients Among 230 consecutive patients diagnosed with gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors, between 1995 and 2013, 93 had hepatic metastases: in 48 the primary tumor was pancreatic, in 45 gastrointestinal. Results Median overall survival was 96 months (95% CI, 48-168), 67% of the patients were progressionfree at 5 years. Eleven patients underwent radical surgery, 49 had non-radical resection and medical therapy, 9 had partial resection with peptide receptor radionuclide therapy, 7 had medical treatment with radionuclide therapy; the remaining 17 patients received medical treatment only. Overall, 13 patients (14%) achieved complete remission, 22 (25%) partial remission, 25 (27%) disease stabilization, and 33 (35%) disease progression. The best overall survival (100% at 10 years) was observed in patients with radical resection. Age at diagnosis (p<0.005), low histological grade (p<0.0001), type of treatment (p<0.001), isolated liver involvement (p<0.001) and early chromogranin A decrease after treatment (p<0.0001) were positively associated with OS. At multivariate analysis, type of treatment (p=0.0029), low histological grade (p<0.0001) and early post-treatment chromogranin A decrease (p=0.0078), retained statistical significance, resulting independent predictors of overall survival. No specific factors were associated with progression-free surviva. Conclusions Our data has clearly defined the prognostic factors in a cohort of 93 patients with gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors with liver metastasis.


What can healthcare providers do if a pregnant woman refuses cesarean delivery when the life of the fetus and perhaps her own life are in jeopardy? Only in exceptional circumstances would it be morally permissible, or morally required, to compel her to submit to invasive medical procedures against her will. Ethical analysis of all maternal-fetal issues depends on how the maternal-fetal dyad is conceptualized. The pregnant woman and her fetus may be viewed as an organic whole (the one-patient model) or as two distinct individuals (the two-patient model). The one-patient model balances prospective benefits to the fetus with possible harm to the mother. In exceptional situations, such as near certainty of serious harm to the fetus and the mother if a cesarean is not performed, a physician or institution wishing to override the woman's refusal within the one-patient model invokes paternalism. Recourse to the courts to force the woman to undergo the cesarean would probably not be feasible when applying the one-patient model. The two-patient model focuses more on fetal well-being because it views the fetus as a distinct individual and patient. Catholic institutions usually subscribe to the two-patient model. When near-certain harm to the fetus is coupled with probable benefit to the woman, the institution may ethically override her right of refusal of a cesarean. However, the institution must be prepared to face legal scrutiny should they override the woman's wishes. Other means of achieving the goals of medicine (such as persuasion based on a good doctor-patient relationship) are preferable from both an ethical and a human standpoint.


This study examines the distribution of long-term trends in ground level erythemally weighted ultraviolet (UV) exposures in the northern latitudes for the period 1979-1991 using measurements from the Nimbus 7 Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) instrument. A new erythemal UV data set (now available to the public via World Wide Web) was produced recently by NASA and has been tested by NASA at the Goddard Space Flight Center against a previous NASA erythemal UV product, which was used in a former study that included similar adjustments for aerosols and clouds but not aerosol absorption. Zonal mean erythemal UV data from both products show similar, ∼3-7% per decade, increases in the midlatitudes to high latitudes. The detection of regional patterns in trends in erythemal UV favors summer months when surface UV is strongest and noise factors such as clouds and aerosols are not as influential. Analysis of the zonal patterns in trends around summer months indicates that most of the regional increases (exceeding 6% per decade) in the Northern Hemisphere in the latitude range 30°N-40°N originate from the Pacific and Atlantic oceanic regions. Increases (also exceeding 6% per decade) in latitudes 40°-60°N appear to originate from the North American and Asian continents and also central Europe. Trends over the east Asian continent in high latitudes indicate increases exceeding 10% per decade for May-August. The important conclusion is that positive trends in the northern subtropical latitudes originate mostly over oceanic regions, whereas positive trends at higher latitudes originate mostly over landmasses. Some of the increases in erythemal UV over central Europe and the east Asian continent in summer months can be attributed to decadal decreases in cloudiness for the 1979-1991 time period.


Competition between Higher Education Institutions is increasing at an alarming rate, while changes of the surrounding environment and demands of labour market are frequent and substantial. Universities must meet the requirements of both the national and European legislation environment. The Bologna Declaration aims at providing guidelines and solutions for these problems and challenges of European Higher Education. One of its main goals is the introduction of a common framework of transparent and comparable degrees that ensures the recognition of knowledge and qualifications of citizens all across the European Union. This paper will discuss a knowledge management approach that highlights the importance of such knowledge representation tools as ontologies. The discussed ontology-based model supports the creation of transparent curricula content (Educational Ontology) and the promotion of reliable knowledge testing (Adaptive Knowledge Testing System).


This book is mainly a practical handbook for those already practising acupuncture and familiar with traditional Chinese medicine and is, therefore, of limited value to those who are not, for whom the terminology is largely incomprehensible, despite a limited glossary. Dr Scott has several qualifications, though not medical, and practises acupuncture for children in a Brighton clinic. The opening chapter reminds us of some of the rich wisdom in ancient Chinese sayings, but the author goes on to give us (from his own experience supplemented by translation from Chinese texts) some quaint explanations of disease: 'a red tip to the tongue always denotes mental irritation'. There are many dogmatic statements that have no foundation in medical facts ('inoculations commonly cause hyperactivity and retarded growth'), and despite believing that alternative treatments can be complementary to orthodox medicine, I find it hard to take Dr Scott seriously. It is a relief that in occasional diseases such as pneumonia and convulsions a combination with Western medicine is recommended. Apart from increasing general awareness of different approaches to disease, this book would be of little value in a paediatric library.


Abstract Manipur is a state situated in the Eastern-most corner of Northeast India. The state shares borders with other Northeastern states of Nagaland, Mizoram and Assam and the neighbouring country of Myanmar. Manipur has conducive Agro-Climatic Conditions for fruits and vegetables. It has also a good connectivity and link with South East Asian countries. It has supportive vegetation for various medicinal and aromatic plants. It also has a good transport infrastructure and effective air connectivity with major cities of the country including Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Bangalore etc. Manipur has various unique and beautiful tourist destinations which attract a large number of tourists not only from within the country but also from abroad. The state is surrounded by green verdant hills with salubrious weather. It offers a variety of attractions for tourists including lakes, parks, historical places, gardens, waterfalls, mountains etc. This paper is an attempt to identify the branding components of Manipur as a differentiated tourist destination. It has adopted the destination branding model adapted from (from Saarinen 1997; Ooi 2001; Iliachenko 2005). The paper is exploratory in nature. In order to achieve the objectives, the cases of various attractive tourist destinations in Manipur have been taken into account. Moreover the SWOT analysis has also been used for better analysis. The findings of the study reveals that branding is an important element in identifying and differentiating tourist destinations in order to attract a large number of tourists from all over the globe. It also plays an important role in promoting the destination in a unique way. Keywords: Branding, Destinations, Manipur, Promotion &Tourist.


The inositol phosphatase, MTMR4 (myotubularin-related protein 4), was identified as a novel interactor of the ubiquitin ligase Nedd4 (neural-precursor-cell-expressed developmentally down-regulated 4). hMTMR4 (human MTMR4) and Nedd4 co-immunoprecipitated and co-localized to late endosomes. The PY (Pro-Tyr) motif of hMTMR4 binds to WW (Trp-Trp) domains of hNedd4. MTMR4 expression was decreased in atrophying muscle, whereas Nedd4 expression was increased and hMTMR4 was ubiquitinated by hNedd4, suggesting that this novel interaction may underlie the biological process of muscle breakdown.