Abstract There are several supply chain-related problems facing the construction industry, such as poor construction site logistics, lack of communication and trust. These problems can jeopardize construction projects through delays and cost overruns. Supply chain planning, a part of supply chain management (SCM), can be used as a tool to deal with these problems. The purpose of this paper is to study how linkages between common supply chain-related problems in construction can be illustrated and to demonstrate how they could be resolved through supply chain planning. Firstly, we identify how the linkages between common problems can be illustrated, and secondly the role of supply chain planning in resolving these problems. A conceptual model is developed that was verified using three cases with Swedish gypsum and kitchen supply chains. The model is shown to be useful in illustrating how supply chain problems occurring at executional level on-site are related to problems originating in lack of planning at company/pre-construction level. The study thus demonstrates how supply chain planning can aid in resolving supply chain problems. The paper contributes by bringing planning back into the picture and by showing how supply chain planning can help to adopt SCM in construction.


Currently both Science & Engineering students and Art students are recruited by the major of Industrial Design at colleges and universities. This paper attempts to analyze their differences and similarities in terms of the student sources, theory and practice teaching system and employment status by a three-phase research, including pre-training, in-training and post-training. Based on the research results, a talent cultivation scheme is proposed for training of creative, contemporary and practical industrial designers, whereby the major has to combine the technique education with the aesthetic education, so as to establish a scientific and complete system of both theory and practice training.


In this dissertation, a comprehensive evaluation framework for remote eye gaze estimation systems that are implemented in consumer electronics applications is developed. For this, firstly, a detailed literature review was made which helped to gain deep insights about the current state-of-the-art in eye gaze estimation algorithms and applications, by categorizing eye gaze research works into different consumer use cases. The wide range of existing gaze estimation algorithms were classified and their applications in interdisciplinary areas such as human computer interactions, cognitive studies and consumer electronics platforms like automotive, handheld devices, augmented and virtual reality were summarised. The review further identified the major challenges faced by contemporary remote gaze estimation systems, which include variable operating conditions such as user distance from tracker, viewing angle, head pose and platform movements that have significant impact on a gaze tracker's performance. Other issues include deficit of common evaluation methodologies, standard metrics or any comprehensive tools or software which may be used for quantitatively evaluating gaze data quality and studying impact of the various challenging operating conditions on gaze estimation accuracy. Based on the outcomes of this review, the concept of a dedicated performance evaluation framework for remote eye gaze estimation systems was formulated. This framework was implemented in this thesis work through the following steps: a) defining new experimental protocols for collection of data from a remote eye tracker operating under several challenging operating conditions b) collection of gaze data from a number of participants using a commercial remote eye tracker under variable operating conditions c) development of a set of numerical metrics and visualization methods using the collected data to express gaze tracking accuracy in homogeneous units and quantitatively explore gaze data characteristics and quality d) implementing machine learning models using the collected gaze datasets to identify and predict error patterns produced in gaze data by different operating conditions e) development of a software and web-application that incorporates the developed metrics and visualization methods into user-friendly graphical interfaces f) creation of open source code and data repositories containing the performance evaluation tools and methods developed in this thesis, so that they can be used by researchers and engineers working with remote gaze estimation systems. The aim of this dissertation is to present a set of methods, data, tools and algorithms as analytical resources for the eye gaze research community to use for better understanding of eye tracking data quality, detection of anomalous gaze data and prediction of possible error levels under various operating conditions of an eye tracker. Overall, these methods are envisioned to improve the quality and reliability of eye tracking systems operating under practical and challenging scenarios in current and future consumer applications.


Since the euphoria of independence in the 1960s and subsequent attempts at decolonization of university education through promotion of perspectives grounded in African realities and experiences, African universities have almost without exception significantly Africanized their personnel but not their curricula, pedagogical structures, or epistemologies in a systematic and productive manner. Even a late arrival to political independence such as South Africa has, however reluctantly, embarked upon and covered some mileage toward Africanization of university personnel. Hardly addressed in any meaningful and transformative manner (even in countries that gained independence in the 1960s or shortly before), however, is the tradition of knowledge production and the epistemological order that informs it. This paper argues that any serious attempt at making African universities uncompromisingly inclusive institutions through embracing African traditions of knowing and knowledge production would require looking beyond the academy in its current configuration for inspiration. It uses the example of Amos Tutuola—a man of limited formal colonial education, and his writings depicting African universes as inspired by his Yoruba cosmology and ontology, to make the case on the reservoirs of insights and wisdom in the lived experiences of ordinary Africans, waiting to be tapped and channelled into the lecture halls of universities to refresh minds and reconfigure practice in the interest of a more relevant scholarship. The paper baptizes as convivial such a scholarship that dwells less on zero-sum games of absolute winners and losers, encourages a disposition of incompleteness and humility through the reality of the ubiquity of debt and indebtedness, and finds strength in themes of interconnections, interdependences, compositeness, and incompleteness of being that Tutuola's writings exude.


OBJECTIVE
The exposure of large intracranial arteries to blood after an aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage leads to a cascade of morphological and physiological changes in the vessels, a condition generally described as vasospasm. This response to the periadventitial deposition of blood is mediated in part by the endothelial layer of the vessel. This study was undertaken to examine the role of endothelial cell expression of intercellular adhesion molecule 1 (ICAM-1) in the initiation and regulation of this response.

METHODS
The femoral artery model of vasospasm was used in rats (65 animals, 130 arteries). In each rat, one artery was exposed to blood and the contralateral vessel was exposed to saline, so that each animal served as its own control. Animals were perfused and killed at sequential time points, from 1 hour to 20 days after blood exposure. The vessels were examined immunohistochemically and histologically for the presence of ICAM-1 and morphological features of vasospasm, respectively.

RESULTS
Endothelial cell ICAM-1 immunoreactivity was extensively increased in only the blood-exposed vessels, beginning 3 hours after clot placement and persisting for 24 hours. ICAM-1 immunoreactivity returned to baseline by 48 hours after blood exposure. The influx of inflammatory cells correlated directly with the time and location of increased ICAM-1 expression. Peak arterial remodeling was observed on the blood-exposed side 8 to 12 days after clot placement, as quantified by measurements of increased wall thickness, decreased lumen size, and increased collagen content.

CONCLUSION
Endothelial cell ICAM-1 expression seems to be an early and specific signal used by a vessel in response to the deposition of blood periadventitially. This molecule may be a marker for vessels likely to undergo subsequent morphological remodeling and vasospasm.


We evaluated user perception of certain attention behaviours, eye head and body orientation in particular, of humanoid agents in a virtual environment for the purposes of interaction initiation. Users were shown a number of scenarios involving agents making gaze, gesture and locomotion behaviours and were asked to report their impressions of how attentive the agents were and their perceived likely-hood to engage in interaction. These evaluation studies are critical for furthering our understanding of the early phases of human-computer interaction where distance may be involved and there is uncertainty as to the intention of the other to interact. Amongst other results, we establish here that the human perception of interest, interaction seeking and openness from a humanoid agent is based, in part, on the time-varying behaviour of its eyes, head, body and locomotion directions. Application domains include social robotics and embodied conversational agents.


The aim of the present study is to make clear the factors controlling the fatigue strength of the locally hardened machine parts. Rotational bending fatigue tests were performed with special focus on the effect of a peak tensile residual stress generated at the quenching boundary on the fatigue properties of the super rapid induction hardened steel. Results are summarized as follows. (1) The final failure starts at the position of the specimen surface where the peak tensile residual stress has been generated near the quenching boundary. (2) The fatigue strength at 107 cycles of the locally hardened specimen is inferior to that of the non-hardened one because of such a peak tensile residual stress. (3) The effect of the peak tensile residual stress on the fatigue strength becomes smaller at higher stress amplitude because the relaxation of the residual stress occurs under stress cycling at such high stress levels. (4) Reduction of the fatigue strength due to localized hardening can be removed by introducing the cold working of the specimen surface after quenching.


Intrahepatic gallbladder perforation (GBP) is a rare medical entity, which creates a cholecystohepatic communication. We describe the case of a 70-year-old patient who presented with abdominal pain and a Niemeier type II GBP. This case report illustrates the minimally invasive management of a rare and life-threatening pathology.


Disagreements about abortion are often assumed to reduce to disagreements about fetal personhood (and mindedness). If one believes a fetus is a person (or has a mind), then they are "pro-life." If one believes a fetus is not a person (or is not minded), they are "pro-choice." The issue, however, is much more complicated. Not only is it not dichotomous—most everyone believes that abortion is permissible in some circumstances (e.g. to save the mother's life) and not others (e.g. at nine months of a planned pregnancy)—but scholars on both sides of the issue (e.g. Don Marquis and Judith Thomson) have convincingly argued that fetal personhood (and mindedness) are irrelevant to the debate. To determine the extent to which they are right, this article will define "personhood," its relationship to mindedness, and explore what science has revealed about the mind before exploring the relevance of both to questions of abortion's morality and legality. In general, this article does not endorse a particular answer to these questions, but the article should enhance the reader's ability to develop their own answers in a much more informed way.


The exploration of radio emission from the relativistic jets of X-ray binaries has become key to understanding accretion onto compact objects. Upgrades to existing radio telescope arrays have improved the ability of these instruments to detect faint sources and their unique behaviours. In this thesis I address the use of one such instrument in observing several X-ray binary systems: the Australia Telescope Compact Array - Compact Array Broadband Backend (ATCA-CABB). Firstly, a study of the adverse effects that may arise when imaging spectrally variable sources using broad bandwidths, with emphasis on ATCA-CABB. Images are produced from model data and examined to find any false structures. I then discuss complications that such features may cause when attempting to interpret real structure in images. Secondly, the results of attempts to observe the black hole X-ray binaries, GRO J1655-40 and XTE J1550-564, in quiescence with ATCA-CABB are presented. Upper limits from the non-detection of these sources are used in exploring the lower luminosity region of the radio/X-ray correlation for hard state black hole X-ray binaries and the implications of "universal" scatter is discussed. Thirdly, a 16 day campaign observing the radio emission of the neutron star Xray binary Circinus X-1 over a complete orbit during an historically faint state is presented. Variability in the source is examined and corrected images are compared with archival maps in order to find any differences. I discuss my findings in terms of secular changes in jet geometry and behaviour. Finally, the first successful millimetre detections of neutron star X-ray binaries Circinus X-1 and Scorpius X-1 are presented. Sub-arcsecond jet structure in Circinus X-1 is compared to the existing centimetre maps, providing additional support for theories proposed earlier in the thesis. The radio to mm spectrum of both sources is estimated and discussed. This thesis concludes with a description of the broader impacts of the above projects, as well as possibilities for future research in each field.


This work reviews a wide range of factors that are responsible for male infertility. The normal human sperm cell measures 50-60 m in length and has head, neck, middle piece and tail. The head is oval in shape and is 3-5 m in length and 2-3 m in width. The mid-piece is slender, straight and regular in outline. It is aligned with the long axis of the head, and is approximately 7-8 m in length. Its width is about one third of the head. The tail is slender, straight and regular in outline and is 40-45 m in length. The ability to fertilize oocytes is considered as the ultimate test of sperm function. A male is said to be infertile if he is unable to impregnate his partner after one year of unprotected intercourse. Some cases of male infertility are due to anatomical abnormalities such as varicoceles. This work reviewed some natural and synthetic products that have been implicated in male infertility. There is also a section on some medicinal plants that are responsible for male infertility.


This paper revisits the equilibrium and welfare effects of long-run inflation in the presence of distortionary taxes and financial constraints. Expected inflation interacts with corporate taxation through the deductibility of i) capital expenditures at historical value and ii) interest payments on debt. Through the first channel, inflation increases firms' taxable profits and further distorts their investment decisions. Through the second, expected inflation affects the effective real interest rate negatively, relaxes firms' financial constraints and stimulates investment. We show that, in the presence of collateralized debt, the second effect dominates. Therefore, in contrast to earlier literature, we find that when the tax code creates an advantage of debt financing, a positive rate of long-run inflation is beneficial in terms of welfare as it mitigates the financial distortion and spurs capital accumulation.


An important problem in large vocabulary speech recognition for agglutinative languages like Turkish is the high out of vocabulary (OOV) rate caused by extensive number of distinct words. Recognition systems using words as the basic lexical elements have difficulty in dealing with such virtually unlimited vocabulary. We propose a new time-synchronous lexical tree decoder design using morphemes as the lexical elements. A key feature of the proposed decoder is the dynamic generation of the lexical tree according to the morphological rules. The architecture emulates word generation in the language and therefore allows very large vocabularies through the defined set of morphemes and morphotactical rules.


I examined the influence of dimensions of the love of money (rich, importance, achievement, budget) and moral judgment toward counterfeit product purchase, on consumers' intention to purchase counterfeit apparel. Data were collected from 185 participants in Ankara, Turkey, who had purchased
 counterfeit apparel. Results showed that the achievement and budget dimensions of the love of money positively influenced counterfeit purchase intention and, as predicted, moral judgment toward counterfeit product purchase negatively affected the intention to purchase counterfeit apparel.
 In contrast, the influence of the rich and importance dimensions of the love of money on counterfeit purchase intention was nonsignificant. My aim was that the practical outcome of this study would be to reduce consumer demand for counterfeit products through achieving an increase of awareness
 of morality, which reduces counterfeit purchase intention.


A series of compds. of general formula [Ru(.eta.6-p-cymene) (R2acac)(PTA)][X] (R2acac = Me2acac, tBu2acac, Ph2acac, Me2acac-Cl; PTA = 1,3,5-triaza-7-phosphaadamantane; X = BPh4, BF4), and the precursor to the Me2acac-Cl deriv. [Ru(.eta.6-p-cymene)(Me2acac-Cl)Cl], have been prepd. and characterised spectroscopically. Five of the compds. have also been characterised in the solid state by X-ray crystallog. The tetrafluoroborate salts are water-sol., quite resistant to hydrolysis, and have been evaluated for cytotoxicity against A549 lung carcinoma and A2780 human ovarian cancer cells. The compds. are cytotoxic towards the latter cell line, and relative activities are discussed in terms of hydrolysis (less important) and lipophilicity, which appears to exert the dominating influence.


This article triangulates data to show that black empowerment in top business is not happening. Black empowerment (defined in this context as initiatives to give the black community access to corporate ownership and management roles) has made little impact in South Africa since 1994. The sample of three black empowerment companies and five top South African companies shows that top business remains predominantly white, with few signs of black integration into ownership or management. The failure of black empowerment was ensured when the African National Congress government failed to nationalise key industries (as the Afrikaner National Party did in 1948) or even to bolster its parastatals (government organizations) enough to build a strong black middle class. The ANC could not overcome its fear of white-capital-flight (a flight that happened anyway) and withstand the pressure from economic liberals. The Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) programme is the tragic result of this fear.


To protect and secure critical wireless network communications, high-end security services are used to encrypt, authenticate and validate packets. This approach opens up a new area of system attacks. Since the security services are time and resource demanding, a service may be easily overworked. Using Adaptive Packet Discard Mechanisms in conjunction with a lightweight packet classifying mechanism, it is possible to reduce, if not remove, the effects of a Denial-of-Service attack on complex security services, and thus creating a hier-archical approach to security.


English in Nepal is taken as a foreign language but ground reality shows that it is one of the primary and dominant languages, which is extensively used in various spheres such as academic institutions, technology, business, tourism, social gatherings, and daily lives. This study attempts to analyze the growing craze in the use of English in Nepali public domains. We collected qualitative data from both primary and secondary sources. We purposively selected names of academic institutions, public vehicles, persons, places and things, Nepali movies, two billboards, one text from the social media, two teachers as well as our own experiences. The result reveals that there has been a growing craze in the use of English in Nepali discourses and public domains, along with code-mixing in speech and writing. Extensive use of English in naming, academic institutions, media, and everyday discourses justify that English is growing as a primary and dominant language in Nepal. Therefore, this study suggests that it is necessary to reassess the status and functions of English in Nepal and give it an official status.


Mucin 1, cell surface associated (MUC1) is a tumor-associated glycoprotein that has been reported to have an important role in lymphatic invasion and metastasis. The present study aimed to investigate the significance of MUC1 expression in endoscopic biopsy specimens of submucosal invasive gastric carcinomas and the association with lymph node metastasis. The clinicopathological features of 144 cases of surgically resected submucosal invasive gastric carcinomas and their paired endoscopic biopsy specimens were reviewed. Immunohistochemical staining for MUC1 was performed for the 144 endoscopic biopsy specimens. Positive MUC1 expression was identified in 70 (49%) cases. In addition, univariate analysis revealed that MUC1 expression was significantly associated with the presence of poorly-differentiated (P=0.001) and poorly-cohesive (P=0.015) carcinoma cells, undifferentiated type by Japanese classification (P<0.001), diffuse type of Lauren classification (P<0.001) and lymph node metastasis (P=0.024). By multivariate analysis, diffuse type of Lauren classification (P<0.001) and lymph node metastasis (P=0.035) were identified as independent factors for MUC1 expression. Furthermore, MUC1 expression (P=0.007), tumor size (P=0.018) and lymphatic invasion (P<0.001) were demonstrated to be independent factors for lymph node metastasis under multivariate analysis. In conclusion, the results of the present study indicated that positive MUC1 expression in endoscopic biopsy specimens may be a predictive factor of lymph node metastasis in submucosal invasive gastric carcinoma.


An accurate, precise, sensitive and economical procedures for the determination of Telmisartan in tablet dosage form have been developed. In the present investigation, A mixture of 5.0 M urea solutionand1.0M citric acid solution (hydrotropic solubilizing agent) was employed to solubilize, telmisartantablets to carryout spectrophotometric analysis. The result showed that Beer's law was obeyed in concentration range of 5-50 mg/ml with good linearity (r2>0.99) for both the drugs in both methods. The recoveries were within 99.12 -101.04% for Telmisartan. The optimized methods showed good reproducibility and recovery with standard deviation of < 1.0% and percent relative standard deviation less than 2.0%.


The crack initiation and growth mechanisms in an 2D graphene lattice structure are studied based on molecular dynamics simulations. Crack growth in an initial edge crack model in the arm-chair and the zig-zag lattice configurations of graphene are considered. Influence of the time steps on the post yielding behaviour of graphene is studied. Based on the results, a time step of 0.1 fs is recommended for consistent and accurate simulation of crack propagation. Effect of temperature on the crack propagation in graphene is also studied, considering adiabatic and isothermal conditions. Total energy and stress fields are analyzed. A systematic study of the bond stretching and bond reorientation phenomena is performed, which shows that the crack propagates after significant bond elongation and rotation in graphene. Variation of the crack speed with the change in crack length is estimated. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.


A simple method for detection of static friction (stiction) in control valves was presented in [6]. However, that method cannot be used for control loops with integrating processes. This paper presents a new method to handle these cases. The main idea is to detect abrupt changes (which are typical in the case of stiction) in the loop output. This is done by considering the probability distribution of the second derivative. In the stiction case the distribution is close to Gaussian, otherwise it will have two peaks.


: Long-term intermittent heparin-induced extracorporeal low-density lipoprotein (LDL)-cholesterol precipitation was performed in three men - aged 32, 52 and 56 years - with severe familial hypercholesterolaemia and angiographically demonstrated coronary heart disease. This significantly lowered by 65-70% their LDL-cholesterol concentration and by 48-54% their fibrinogen concentration. Fibrinogen elimination reduced plasma viscosity by 13-14% and clearly raised the transcutaneously measured partial pressure of oxygen by 33-50%. Clinically the improved microcirculation achieved a decrease in angina symptoms: the walking distance of the 52-year-old man increased from about 100 m to 4000 m, the daily need of glyceryl trinitrate falling from an average of 12 to 4 aerosol doses.


Introduction Traditional surveys (including phone, mail and online) can be valuable tools to obtain information from specific communities. Social media apps such as Twitter are being increasingly adopted for knowledge dissemination and research purposes. Twitter polls are a unique feature which allows for a rapid response to questions posed. Nonetheless Twitter does not constitute a validated survey technique. The objective was to compare the similarities of Twitter polls in describing practice patterns for the treatment of rectal cancer. Methods A survey on the management of rectal cancer was designed using modified Delphi methodology. Surgeons were contacted through major colorectal societies to participate in an online survey. The same set of questions were periodically posted by influencers on Twitter polls and the results were compared. Results A total of 753 surgeons participated in the online survey. Individual participation in Twitter ranged from 162 to 463 responses. There was good and moderate agreement between the two methods for the most popular choice (9/10) and the least popular choice (5/10), respectively. Discussion It is possible that in the future polls available via social media can provide a low-cost alternative and an efficient, yet pragmatic method to describe clinical practice patterns. This is the first study comparing Twitter polls with a traditional survey method in medical research. Conclusions There is viable opportunity to enhance the performance of research through social media, however, significant refinement is required. These results can potentially be transferable to other areas of medicine.


Pollen from wind-pollinated plants is the predominant cause of pollinosis which corresponds mainly to allergic rhinitis and conjunctivitis. Bacterial communities associated to leaves and roots surface were analysed for many years with both culture-dependent and independent methods. However, microbiota of pollen grains was rarely investigated and never with a molecular fingerprint technique. The aim of this study was to perform a preliminary analysis of the pollen microbiota by applying PCR-TTGE method. Pollen samples were collected from various anemophilous trees genera (Cephalotaxus, Cupressus, Pinus, Platanus and Quercus) in Montpellier (France) in 2013. Thorough pollen preparation was essential to a successful recovery of DNA from pollen. Regarding the results, pollen microbiota was tree genus-dependent. In addition, intra-tree genus variations were also observed. The Gammaproteobacteria class was the most represented in pollen samples whatever the tree genus. Among this class, some bacteria were recognized as phytopathogens (Pseudomonas, Erwinia) but also opportunistic human pathogens (Pseudomonas, some enterobacteria). PCR-TTGE is a suitable tool to analyse the microbiota associated with pollen responsible for phytopathogenicity or affecting the human respiratory tract.


Recently, more and more people have begun using mobile devices such as PDAs and notebooks. Our lives have been profoundly affected by such devices. A MANET, a mobile ad hoc network, is an effective networking system facilitating an exchange data between mobile devices, without the support of wireless access points and base stations. A MANET is not restricted to unicast or multicast communication, but can also provide "many-to-many" transmission, which can be treated as a group communication. Until recently, however, the way in which such groups are formed had not drawn much attention. Because communication in wireless networks is broadcast and a certain amount of devices can receive transmitted messages, the risk of unsecured sensitive information being intercepted by unintended recipients is a real concern. Consequently, efforts to ensure the security of group communications in MANETs are essential. This article proposes a virtual subnet model to construct secure group communication over a MANET. With the model, the composition of groups is established as the forming of group keys. Our results show that this approach can completely satisfy the needs for both security and efficiency.


We used a murine model of multiple sclerosis (MS) induced by Theiler's murine encephalomyelitis virus (TMEV) to test the effect of IL-6 on central nervous system (CNS) demyelination. Administration of human rIL-6 (2.5 micrograms/dose), beginning one day before infection and then twice daily for 28 days, dramatically reduced demyelination and inflammation in the spinal cord of susceptible SJL/J mice. Benefit also was observed when rIL-6 was used as a therapeutic agent and begun on day 15 after infection, a time in which there is the first evidence of inflammation and demyelination in the spinal cord. Suppression of myelin damage by treatment with rIL-6 was associated with fewer virus Ag-positive cells in the spinal cord. Infectious CNS virus titers, as measured by plaque assay, were reduced in rIL-6-treated animals on day 15 after infection, but not on day 7, 22, or 29 after infection. Total serum Igs and virus-specific Igs, as detected by indirect ELISA, were increased markedly in rIL-6-treated mice, whereas no effect was observed on TMEV-neutralizing Ab titers. In vivo administration of rIL-6 inhibited a murine CNS-demyelinating disease induced by a virus, suggesting that this IL may have application for the treatment of human MS.


An examination of the effects of credit quality on the relative yields of Treasuries and municipals reveals that the municipal term structure model with no default risk underestimates equilibrium marginal income tax rates and yields of municipals relative to yields of Treasuries. The downward bias is more severe for long-maturity and low-rated bonds. Incorporating default risk into the municipal term structure model helps explain a considerable portion of the relative yields of tax-exempt and taxable bonds, and generates much more accurate estimates of implicit marginal income tax rates. After controlling for the effect of default, the estimated implicit tax rates for long and short bonds become quite comparable and consistent with the tax regime.


Summary Hen Harrier Circus cyaneus and Short-eared Owl Asio flammeus are open-country birds of prey with overlapping distributions. Although both species face similar conservation threats across their ranges, work to date has largely been undertaken at a national scale with few attempts to collate and assess factors relevant to their conservation at an international scale. Here we use an expert knowledge approach to evaluate the impact of conservation threats and the effectiveness of conservation strategies for each species across Europe. We report results of responses to a questionnaire from 23 Hen Harrier experts from nine countries and 12 Short-eared Owl experts from six countries. The majority of responses for both species reported declines in breeding numbers. The perceived impact of threats was broadly similar for both species: ecological factors (predation, extreme weather and prey availability), changes in land use (habitat loss and agricultural intensification) and indirect persecution (accidental nest destruction) were considered to be the greatest threats to breeding Hen Harrier and Short-eared Owl. Short-eared Owl experts also highlighted lack of knowledge and difficulties associated with monitoring as a major conservation challenge. Despite broad-scale similarities, geographical variation was also apparent in the perceived importance of conservation threats, with some threats (such as direct persecution, large-scale afforestation or habitat degradation) requiring country-specific actions. Implementation of different conservation strategies also varied between countries, with the designation of protected areas reported as the most widespread conservation strategy adopted, followed by species and habitat management. However, protected areas (including species-specific protected areas) were perceived to be less effective than active management of species and habitats. These findings highlight the overlap between the conservation requirements of these two species, and the need for collaborative international research and conservation approaches that prioritise pro-active conservation strategies subject to continued assessment and with specific conservation goals.


This article examines the cultural conceptualizations of haghighat/vagheyat
 ('truth'/'reality') expressions in Persian as these are fundamental concepts in life, religion, as well as culture and are used in
 many commonly used everyday expressions. Therefore, it is important to understand what these expressions really mean and how they
 compare with equivalent concepts in other languages. To that end, this study investigates
 haghighat/vagheyat expressions that instantiate cultural conceptualizations in Persian. This
 is the first attempt at employing the analytical tools of Cultural Linguistics (Sharifian
 2011, 2017b) to exclusively focus on exploring such cultural
 conceptualizations. In order to study naturally instigated expressions, the researcher makes use of multiple sources including an
 open-ended questionnaire, dictionaries, online sources, and focus group interviews. The study further draws on the author's
 intuition as a native speaker and analyzes have been cross-checked by a number of Persian native speakers and experts. Analysis of
 the data concerns the significant conceptualizations of haghighat/vagheyat expressions, indicating that
 haghighat/vagheyat functions as the main conceptual basis for many manifestations of truth/reality in
 Persian. Furthermore, the findings demonstrate that a number of sociocultural factors such as religion, history, and literature
 have a role in shaping the cultural conceptualizations of haghighat/vagheyat expressions in Persian.


Objective: To determine the proportion of older adults with Alzheimer's disease presenting to a geriatric clinic with low body mass index (BMI), the proportion of these individuals recognized by clinicians as malnourished, and what patients' characteristics and caregivers' and clinicians' impressions are associated with low BMI. Design: Cross-sectional study. Setting: An outpatient geriatric clinic located in a university-affiliated teaching hospital. Participants: 340 patients with Alzheimer's disease, average age 75 years. Measurements: Individuals with a BMI below 21 were considered at risk of malnutrition. Physical examination and medical information were obtained from patients and caregivers by clinicians using a standardized assessment protocol. Clinicians' impression regarding evidence of malnutrition was obtained. Results: Forty-six patients (16%) had a BMI below 21. Clinicians reported evidence of potential malnutrition in 11 patients, 8 of whom had a BMI below 21. Using logistic regression, we found that women were five times more likely to have a BMI below 21 than men, and that individuals with low cognition were twice as likely to have a BMI below 21 than individuals with higher cognition. Conclusion: The proportion of patients with Alzheimer's disease with a BMI below 21 is similar to that encountered in the general population aged 65+. However, clinicians have difficulty identifying persons at risk of malnutrition according to BMI status. Women with low cognition were at increased risk of having a low BMI. Improvement in the detection of malnutrition is desirable. Further exploration of causal links between cognition and malnutrition is required.


Attachment and identity are the two links most studied in the recent decades, which leaded to numerous definitions and theoretical positions on the relationship between each other. Increasingly more authors, who agreed on the distinction between attachment and identity, have dedicated their studies to test such differences (Chow and Healey, 2008, Devine-Wright, 2009; Hernandez, Hidalgo, Salazar-Laplace and Hess, 2007; Lewicka , 2008; Rollero and De Piccoli, 2010). A line of research that aims at extending the scope of these investigations is concerned with the comparison of place attachment and place identity in territories where the motivation of residents to establish themselves differs. In this study we present the hypothesis that in territories such as Israel, non-native speakers quickly develop an identity with place, whereas in other places such as Tenerife, place identity takes longer to develop. In order to test this claim, a questionnaire containing scales of attachment and identity with the city (Hidalgo and Hernandez, 2001) was administered to a sample of 493 participants - 219 residing in Tenerife, and 274 in Israel. From participants of Tenerife, 121 were natives and 98 non-natives, while in Israel, 171 were natives and 103 non-natives. In order to compare the means in both variables, we calculated the averages in each scale for each subject, and their scores were considered as standardized z-scores. A MANOVA analysis was performed with the standardized scores as dependent variables and two factors: place of residence (Tenerife or Israel), and origin (native or not native).Results indicated a significant interaction of site X origin for attachment and identity with the city. For the non-natives, no significant differences in attachment were found between Tenerife and Israel. However, differences in identity were observed for this group, where the non-natives from Israel scored higher. Moreover, the mean scores obtained for both links in the group of natives were higher in Israel than in Tenerife. Regardless of whether participants are native or not, mean scores for place attachment in Tenerife were higher than those for place identity. In contrast to this, mean scores in place identity in Israel were higher than those of place attachment.An explanation for these findings might be that while people who move to Israel already have an attraction to the territory, non-natives who displace themselves to Tenerife are usually more motivated by economic reasons than by their attraction to place. We discuss these and other results in light of their contribution to the clarification of differences between place attachment and place identity, and their possible consequences for adaptation and integration to place.


Electrical energy has to be generated at the time it is needed. This is in contrast to economic efficiency in power generation since the best operating point for a power plant is constant power generation at its best economical rating. The presented approach shows a way to schedule loads so that some energy is storaged when it is available at lower generation costs. An evolutionary algorithm is evaluated which computes the optimal operation times of the above-mentioned loads. Since the evolutionary strategies (ES) themselves do not consider special cases, a knowledge base is integrated into the algorithm. The resulting approach allows a more efficient application of telecontrol systems for power system load management.


The kinetics of the reduction of diphenylbenzidine by ascorbic acid were investigated in the pH range 3.5 to 5.0. Diphenylbenzidine was prepared by the oxidation of diphenylamine with cerium(IV) sulfate tetra hydrate. The order of the reaction with respect to each of the reactants, i.e ascorbic acid (ASC), diphenylbenzidine (DPB) and H+ ,was found to be first. The following rate law is recommended: Rate = {k1 [C12H10N2C12H10] + k2K [C12H10N2C12H10][H+]}[C6H8O6] where k1 and k2 have the values of 2.0 \times 104 dm3mol-1 s-1 and 6.58 \times 103 dm3.mol-1.s-1 , respectively. K is the protonation constant of DPB, having a value of 476 dm3 mol-1. A possible mechanism for the reaction is also proposed.


This guide is intended for use by the students who choose Systematic Reviews (SR) as their 2020 Summer research program. It includes resources and tools that they can use to conduct SRs.


The work reports the experience of planning the course: Semiology and Semiotechnique which is part of Nursing new curriculum. The objectives were: stimulating creativity and sensitivity that care bears in techniques development; valuing feelings and emotions in the establishment of nurse and patient relationship, allowing some reflection and self-knowledge in collective experience, and establishing relationship between professors and students based upon partnership, compromise and on mutual feeling/doing/learning. Methodological work and art creativity privileged sensitivitiness as the necessary step for formation process and together with this developed from arts and creativity and understand these workshops performance and developing a critical as well as dynamic group. The results show that it is an experience as an opportunity of developing critical potential, critical and theoretical, creative towards conscience which leads to Liberty in Nursing.


Vitiligo is an acquired hypomelanotic disorder characterized by depigmented macules resulting from the loss of functional melanocytes. Many different etiological hypotheses have been suggested for vitiligo, the most recent of which involves a combination of interacting environmental and genetic factors. Among the various pieces of evidence in support of an autoimmune origin of vitiligo, there is the epidemiological association with several autoimmune diseases. The most frequently reported association is with autoimmune thyroiditis; however, other diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes mellitus, pernicious anemia and chronic urticaria have been described in variable percentages, depending upon the genetics of the population studied. Among the diseases described in association with vitiligo there are the so-called autoimmune polyglandular syndromes (APS). Here we report 31 cases of APS diagnosed in 113 vitiligo patients, according to the newest classification. Autoimmune association was more present in generalized non segmental vitiligo and was more frequent in females. The most frequent association was with thyroid autoimmune disease, followed by autoimmune gastritis and alopecia areata. ANA positivity was similar to that reported previously in the general population. We stress the importance of an assessment for autoimmune diseases in vitiligo patients.


Automatic prohibited item detection in security inspection X-ray images is necessary for transportation. The abundance and diversity of the X-ray security images with prohibited item, termed as prohibited X-ray security images, are essential for training the detection model. In order to solve the data insufficiency, we propose a Region-Wise Style-Controlled Fusion (RWSC-Fusion) network, which superimposes the prohibited items onto the normal X-ray security images, to synthesize the prohibited X-ray security images. The proposed RWSC-Fusion innovates both network structure and loss functions to generate more realistic X-ray security images. Specifically, a RWSC-Fusion module is designed to enable the region-wise fusion by controlling the appearance of the overlapping region with novel modulation parameters. In addition, an Edge-Attention (EA) module is proposed to effectively improve the sharpness of the synthetic images. As for the unsupervised loss function, we propose the Luminance loss in Logarithmic form (LL) and Correlation loss of Saturation Difference (CSD), to optimize the fused X-ray security images in terms of luminance and saturation. We evaluate the authenticity and the training effect of the synthetic X-ray security images on private and public SIXray dataset. The results confirm that our synthetic images are reliable enough to augment the prohibited X-ray security images.


After years of unprecedented growth, the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK faces a major financial challenge. The cuts which providers will have to make to achieve savings will be dramatic.1 The UK is not alone: most health systems are challenged to 'do more with less' to meet the immediate funding crisis, but also the longer-term financial pressures resulting from changing demographics, new technologies and increased demand.2 This will require both immediate and sustained efforts.

The challenge for the NHS is to act in such a way that does not damage the significant gains in quality that have been achieved in the last decade3 and, ideally, is able to build on them. This will require the Department of Health and the NHS to respond to this financial crisis in ways that are different from those of the past. Too often, indiscriminate cuts were made without considering the longer-term costs, and often in ways which save little but irritate staff greatly.4 Those who work in and comment on the health service are aware of the risks to patient care of such 'slash and burn' policies, and of the need for a more considered approach to the current financial crisis. A number of recent reports by leading institutions have proposed an alternative approach by suggesting that improving quality and safety can help to address both the short- and long-term financial challenges.5–8

This paper uses research evidence to assess the contribution that quality-improvement can make as a central component of cost reduction. It draws on this evidence to suggest realistic strategies and changes that might help to improve both the quality and the efficiency of healthcare provision.

Savings of £15–20 billion are said to be required of the NHS in England over the next 4 years.1 It …


Local monitoring has been demonstrated as a powerful technique for mitigating security attacks in multi-hop ad hoc networks. In local monitoring, nodes overhear partial neighborhood communication to detect misbehavior such as packet drop or delay. However, local monitoring as presented in the literature is vulnerable to a class of attacks that we introduce here called stealthy packet dropping. Stealthy packet dropping disrupts the packet from reaching the destination by malicious behavior at an intermediate node. However, the malicious node gives the impression to its neighbors that it performed the legitimate forwarding action. Moreover, a legitimate node comes under suspicion. We introduce four ways of achieving stealthy packet dropping, none of which is currently detectable. We provide a protocol called DISA, based on local monitoring, to remedy each attack. DISA incorporates two techniques—having the neighbors maintain additional information about the routing path, and adding some checking responsibility to each neighbor. We show through analysis and simulation that basic local monitoring (BLM) fails to efficiently mitigate any of the presented attacks while DISA successfully mitigates them. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


This ground-breaking comparative perspective on the subject of World War II war crimes and war justice focuses on American and German atrocities.
 Almost every war involves loss of life of both military personnel and civilians, but World War II involved an unprecedented example of state-directed and ideologically motivated genocide―the Holocaust. Beyond this horrific, premeditated war crime perpetrated on a massive scale, there were also isolated and spontaneous war crimes committed by both German and U.S. forces.
 The book is focused upon on two World War II atrocities―one committed by Germans and the other by Americans. The author carefully examines how the U.S. Army treated each crime, and gives accounts of the atrocities from both German and American perspectives. The two events are contextualized within multiple frameworks: the international law of war, the phenomenon of war criminality in World War II, and the German and American collective memories of World War II. Americans, Germans and War Crimes Justice: Law, Memory, and "The Good War" provides a fresh and comprehensive perspective on the complex and sensitive subject of World War II war crimes and justice.


Pre-eclampsia (PE) is a disorder of pregnancy, often leading to serious and fatal complications. Endoplasmic reticulum aminopeptidase 1 and 2 (ERAP1/ERAP2) are present in the placenta. They are involved in processes regulating blood pressure, angiogenesis, cytokine receptor shedding, and immune recognition. Previous studies have associated both ERAP1/ERAP2 genetic variants with PE, although the underlying mechanisms remain unknown. Less is known about the roles for these enzymes in early placentation, which could be a contributory factor to PE. To ascertain whether ERAP1/ERAP2 change in PE and whether such a change is present before PE is clinically diagnosed, we analyzed mRNA and ERAP1/2 protein expression in the placenta in the early first trimester (8–14 weeks) and at delivery in normotensive or PE women (n = 12/group). Gene expression was analyzed using qPCR, and protein expression and localization were assessed by immunohistochemistry. Additionally, we profiled peripheral immune cells from normotensive and PE (n = 5/group) women for activation and expression of cytotoxic markers using flow cytometry to investigate a possible correlation with placental expression of ERAP1/2. Finally, we characterized the cytokines released from immune cells isolated from normotensive women and those with PE, stimulated ex vivo by JEG-3 trophoblast cells. The ERAP1 protein was significantly upregulated in first trimester placentae compared to placentae at delivery from both normotensive and PE women (p < 0.05): expression of placental ERAP1 protein was also relatively higher in normotensive than PE women. Although the protein expression of both ERAP1/ERAP2 was significantly lower in women with PE compared to normotensive controls (p < 0.05), ERAP2 protein expression remained unchanged in normotensive women at delivery compared to expression in the first trimester. Flow cytometry analysis revealed an increase in activation and cytotoxic natural killer (NK) cells in peripheral blood of PE compared to normotensive women. Intriguingly, there was a notable difference in cytokine release from the activated immune cells when further stimulated by trophoblast cells. The immune cells from PE released elevated expressions of interleukin (IL)-2, IL-4, and most notably, pro-inflammatory IL-13 and IL-17α, inflammatory cytokines tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α and interferon (IFN)-γ, and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) compared to normal peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). Taken together, these findings suggest that differential lymphocyte activation could be associated with altered ERAP1/ERAP2 expression.


A new approach to environmental policy advocated by state agencies and by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is to create "tracks" of environmental performance. The philosophy behind performance track programs is simple: distinguish strong environmental performers from weak ones and give strong firms special recognition and rewards such as enforcement forbearance and flexibility. The implementation of an environmental management system, or EMS, is one criterion agencies are using to determine which companies deserve special treatment. In this paper, the authors raise questions about whether the mere presence of an EMS is an appropriate metric for differentiating among firms. Policymakers should bear in mind that the EMS tool by itself is not necessarily sufficient for firms to create superior environmental improvement. Improvements may depend much more on how effectively and ambitiously an EMS is implemented, how well the organization is managed overall, and how committed the managers are to seeing that the firm achieves real and continuous improvement. These factors will always be harder for public agencies to assess. Reduced regulatory oversight may actually weaken the EMSs that firms implement, because incentives for using EMSs aggressively to achieve positive outcomes may be reduced. An agency mandate for broad EMS adoption might lead to a variety of responses from firms, including the adoption of systems with trivial environmental goals. Instead, policymakers should consider providing technical assistance to firms interested in EMS implementation and recognizing EMS firms with certificates of participation, product labeling, or government-sponsored publicity.


Background — Revision arthroplasty often requires anchoring of prostheses to poor-quality or deficient bone stock. Recently, newer porous materials have been introduced onto the market as additional, and perhaps better, treatment options for revision arthroplasty. To date, there is no information on how these porous metals interface with bone cement. This is of clinical importance, since these components may require cementing to other prosthesis components and occasionally to bone. Methods — We created porous metal and bone cylinders of the same size and geometry and cemented them in a well-established standardized setting. These were then placed under tensile loading and torsional loading until failure was achieved. This permitted comparison of the porous metal/cement interface (group A) with the well-studied bone/cement interface (group B). Results — The group A interface was statistically significantly stronger than the group B interface, despite having significantly reduced depth of cement penetration: it showed a larger maximum tensile force (effect size 2.7), superior maximum tensile strength (effect size 2.6), greater maximum torsional force (effect size 2.2), and higher rotational stiffness (effect size 1.5). Interpretation — The newer porous implants showed good interface properties when cemented using medium-viscosity bone cement. The axial and rotational mechanical strength of a porous metal/cement interface appeared to be greater than the strength of the standard bone/cement interface. These results indicate that cementing of porous implants can provide great stability in situations where it is needed.


One positive impact of smart cities is reducing energy consumption and CO2 emission through the use of information and communication technologies (ICT). Energy transition pursues systematic changes to the low-carbon society, and it can benefit from technological and institutional advancement in smart cities. The integration of the energy transition to smart city development has not been thoroughly studied yet. The purpose of this study is to find empirical evidence of smart cities' contributions to energy transition. The hypothesis is that there is a significant difference between smart and non-smart cities in the performance of energy transition. The Smart Energy Transition Index is introduced. Index is useful to summarize the smart city component's contribution to energy transition and to enable comparison among cities. The cities in South Korea are divided into three groups: (1) first-wave smart cities that focus on smart transportation and security services; (2) second-wave smart cities that provide comprehensive urban services; and (3) non-smart cities. The results showed that second-wave smart cities scored higher than first-wave and non-smart cities, and there is a statistically significant difference among city groups. This confirms the hypothesis of this paper that smart city development can contribute to the energy transition.


The sea urchin Diadema antillarum was the most important herbivore on Caribbean reefs until 1983, when mass mortality reduced its populations by more than 97%. Knowledge of its past demography is essential to reconstruct reef ecology as it was before human impact, which has been implicated as having caused high pre–mortality Diadema abundance. To determine the history of its population size, we sequenced the ATPase 6 and 8 region of mitochondrial DNA from populations in the Caribbean and in the eastern Atlantic (which was not affected by the mass mortality), as well as from the eastern Pacific D. mexicanum. The Caribbean population harbours an order of magnitude more molecular diversity than those of the eastern Pacific or the eastern Atlantic and, despite the recent mass mortality, its DNA sequences bear the genetic signature of a previous population expansion. By estimating mutation rates from divergence between D. antillarum and D. mexicanum, that were separated at a known time by the Isthmus of Panama, and by using estimates of effective population size derived from mismatch distributions and a maximum likelihood coalescence algorithm, we date the expansion as having occurred no more recently than 100 000 years before the present. Thus, Diadema was abundant in the Caribbean long before humans could have affected ecological processes; the genetic data contain no evidence of a recent, anthropogenically caused, population increase.


This study aimed at investigating the factual situation of electronic information resources centers to faculty members at university education. Competencies that faculty members should possess regarding this issue were determined. Also their needs for (scientific research skills and teaching) were assessed. In addition, problems that hinder their use of electronic resources centers were identified. Data obtained were analyzed statistically using SPSS in measuring reliability of instruments. Participants of the study were (655) faculty members at Saudi Universities (412 males & 243 females). Results indicated that there were significant differences between male and female at (α ≤ 0.05) level. Results also revealed significant differences between members of different ranks at (α ≤ 0.05) level, and between academic areas of specializations at (α ≤ 0.05) level. Significant differences were also found between faculty members in terms of years of experience in using electronic information resources centers at (α ≤ 0.05) level. This study recommends that most Saudi Universities are in need of establishing electronic information resources centers and offering training courses to provide technical support in a way to solve some of faculty members' problems.


The development of ischemic lesions has primarily been studied in horizontal cortical space. However, how ischemic lesions develop through the cortical depth remains largely unknown. We explored this question using direct current coupled recordings at different cortical depths using linear arrays of iridium electrodes in the focal epipial endothelin-1 (ET1) ischemia model in the rat barrel cortex. ET1-induced impairments were characterized by a vertical gradient with (i) rapid suppression of the spontaneous activity in the superficial cortical layers at the onset of ischemia, (ii) compartmentalization of spreading depolarizations (SDs) to the deep layers during progression of ischemia, and (iii) deeper suppression of activity and larger histological lesion size in superficial cortical layers. The level of impairments correlated strongly with the rate of spontaneous activity suppression, the rate of SD onset after ET1 application, and the amplitude of giant negative ultraslow potentials (∼−70 mV), which developed during ET1 application and were similar to the tent-shaped ultraslow potentials observed during focal ischemia in the human cortex. Thus, in the epipial ET1 ischemia model, ischemic lesions develop progressively from the surface to the cortical depth, and early changes in electrical activity at the onset of ET1-induced ischemia reliably predict the severity of ischemic damage.


The process of education must apply with " Learning Process Skill", not " Learning Concept ". Process approach marked with student centered curricula, not teacher centered. Role of teacher is as facilitator, mediator, dynamizing, organizing, and catalyst to apply " dialog" as spirit of education process. Critical education model is an education that independent from internal-institutional fetter, social hegemony, or structured to maintain political and economical stability. These happen in the length of our national history, then produce tame-weak human accorded to system condition. Whereas, education is human right, even people right to enhance its maturity, self-identity, and independence to serve his function to his God. .


Nonthermal plasma (NTP) is an advanced technology that has gained extensive attention because of its capacity for decontaminating food from both biological and chemical sources. Plasma-activated water (PAW), a product of NTP's reaction with water containing a rich diversity of highly reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS), is now being considered as the primary reactive chemical component in food decontamination. Despite exciting developments in this field recently, at present there is no comprehensive review specifically focusing on the comprehensive effects of PAW on food safety and quality. Although PAW applications in biological decontamination have been extensively evaluated, a complete analysis of the most recent developments in PAW technology (e.g., PAW combined with other treatments, and PAW applications in chemical degradation and as curing agents) is nevertheless lacking. Therefore, this review focuses on PAW applications for enhanced food safety (both biological and chemical safeties) according to the latest studies. Further, the subsequent effects on food quality (chemical, physical, and sensory properties) are discussed in detail. In addition, several recent trends of PAW developments, such as curing agents, thawing media, preservation of aquatic products, and the synergistic effects of PAW in combination with other traditional treatments, are also presented. Finally, this review outlines several limitations presented by PAW treatment, suggesting several future research directions and challenges that may hinder the translation of these technologies into real-life applications.


Children undergoing treatment for malignancies may be at risk for adjustment difficulties as a result of physical symptoms or treatments related to their condition (e.g., missed school, lack of participation in extracurricular activities or sports, changes in appearance, fatigue). Children generally associate with peers who have similar social characteristics (e.g., aggressive children often befriend other aggressive children). By interrupting children's participation in social activities, cancer may disrupt these typical patterns of friendship. This study compared 84 children with cancer, ages 8-15 years, to 84 behaviorally similar, gender-, race-, and sex-matched, non-chronically peers, with regard to differences in patterns of peer affiliation, social acceptance and friendships. Sociometric data (Like Rating Scale, Revised Class Play, 3 Best Friends) were collected in children's classrooms from peers. Results did not confirm our hypothesis that the friendships of children with cancer would be less homophilious than friendships of non-chronically ill children with regard to gender, social acceptance, or behavioral reputation. There were group differences in similarity for gender, sensitive-isolated behavior, and friend nominations. However, in all instances, homophily was greater for children with cancer. Results provided mixed support for the hypothesis that children with cancer would have more social problems than comparisons. Children with cancer were more well liked than comparisons, but received fewer friend nominations and had fewer reciprocated friendships. Overall, these results suggest that children undergoing treatment for cancer have difficulty maintaining friendships during treatment and that friendships they do maintain are primarily with peers who are more similar to them.


Summary Thrombin induces Ca2+ transients and subsequent nitric oxide (NO) production in vascular endothelial cells. Thrombin cleaves protease-activated receptors, resulting in activation of intracellular signals, but it is not clarified how the extracellular thrombin stays around the cells to exert its enzyme activities. This study aimed to investigate the possible involvement of heparin sulfate proteoglycan (HSPG) in the effects of thrombin on vascular endothelium. Heparinase III completely removed the polysaccharide chain of HSPG in bovine aortic endothelial cells (BAECs).Thrombin induced Ca2+ transients in control BAECs, but not in heparinase III-treated BAECs. In contrast, ATP induced Ca2+ transients both in control and heparinase III-treated BAECs. Thrombin that was pre-incubated with heparin also failed to induced Ca2+ transients in BAECs. Furthermore, thrombin-induced NO production, as assessed with DAF-2 flu-orescence, was suppressed in heparinase III-treated BAECs and by the pre-incubation of thrombin with heparin. ATP-induced NO production was, however, not affected in heparinase III-treated BAECs. These results indicate that it is essential for thrombin to bind to the polysaccharide chain of HSPG for inducing Ca2+ transients and NO production in BAECs.


Abstract
One of the most important capabilities that an organisation can develop is an effective strategy implementation process, which enables that firm to compete in a given market. Within the framework of strategy implementation, this study focuses in a comparative manner on the implementation processes for strategic management within conventional and Islamic banks in Saudi Arabia. In this thesis, a particular strategy implementation framework is adopted from Okumus (2001 and 2003). This framework offers in a systematic form an explicit explanation of the entire strategy implementation process, therefore providing a comprehensive framework through an integrated systematic understanding.
An extensive review of the strategy implementation literature reveals fifteen factors that can influence the strategy implementation process and its outcomes, with these factors taking roles in enhancing the process and resulting in successful implementation outcomes. These factors are organised into four categories or groups: (i) organisational groups; (ii) project groups; (iii) process groups, and (iv) outcomes, each of which contains sub-factors to make them measurable.
In operationalising the research, an inductive research approach has been adopted for this study; the data was collected via semi-structured interviews followed by a questionnaire survey used as a support tool. The whole sampled included two Saudi Arabian Islamic and two Saudi Arabian conventional banks as case studies. This study employs face-to-face semi-structured interviews with each of the selected bank's decision-makers as its primary tool for data collection. The elite interview sample consists of in total eight top managers belonging to four banks: two Islamic and two conventional banks. Each bank has its recent strategic case implementations analysed through the primary data collected. The sample of the interview schedule consists of the top management who were involved in the strategic decision of two conventional and two Islamic banks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The primary criteria of choosing the sample were that those mangers should have a great influence and experience of the strategic decision as well as the ability of declaring the required information. In relation to the questionnaires, the sample included Middle management levels who are only involved in the strategic cases being implemented and studied. Consequently, 260 questionnaires were distributed among the banks; 120 were returned as complete, to be used in the analysis. The response rate, hence, is approximately 46%.
The results show that there are clear trends in how the Saudi Arabian` banks' approach in their strategy implementation, common factors influencing the strategy implementation process and its outcomes, and various considerations regarding the role of religion in both Islamic and conventional types of banks.
The subsequent statistical and econometric analysis of the questionnaire data indicates that factors from three of the main groups significantly influence strategic decision outcomes, thereby determining successful strategy implementation. These influential factors are as follows: (i) process and personnel factors, including involvement and communication; (ii) project factors such as time and the priority of the decision; (iii) organisational factors, including top management support, religion, and organisational structure. Further, it is also revealed that in each case the correlation coefficients are positive between independent factors and the outcomes indicating the presence of positive correlation between the outcome and the process factors.
The findings of this study contribute to the literature on strategic implementation management by providing a critical and empirical analysis of the sampled Islamic and conventional banks in Saudi Arabia. The findings may in addition prove useful to the leadership of those banks in their attempts to understand the interrelationship between the process and the outcomes of their strategy implementation decisions, by drawing out both tangible and intangible results of strategy decisions.


The code a programmer writes plays a key role in communicating the intent and purpose of that code. However little is known about how this process is influenced by sociological factors. Does a programmer's background, experience, or even gender affect how they write computer programs? Understanding this may offer valuable information to software developers and educators. In this initial phase of research we focus on experience and writing, while upcoming phases will incorporate reading and comprehension. In this paper we discuss an early experiment looking at how years of programming experience might influence identifier formation.


An important dietary source of vitamin B-6, pyridoxine-5'-beta-D-glucoside (PNG), exhibits only partial bioavailability, which is limited by the extent of enzymatic cleavage of the beta-glucosidic bond to release metabolically available pyridoxine (PN). This laboratory showed that the intestinal hydrolysis of PNG is catalyzed by cytosolic PNG hydrolase (PNGH) and brush border lactase-phlorizin hydrolase (LPH). LPH-catalyzed PNG hydrolysis in vitro is competitively inhibited by lactose. In the present study, the uptake and hydrolysis of PNG were examined in Caco-2 human colon carcinoma cells, which express a functional LPH but exhibit no PNGH activity. PNG uptake at 37 degrees C was linear over 5-500 micromol/L PNG. Uptake was not significantly reduced when Na(+) was substituted with K(+), Li(+), or Tris in the medium. Increasing PNG concentration in the medium did not change intracellular concentrations of PN, pyridoxamine (PM), pyridoxamine 5'-phosphate (PMP), or pyridoxal 5'-phosphate (PLP); however, intracellular pyridoxal (PL) concentration increased. Intracellular PNG concentration was not significantly reduced in the presence of lactose, but the concentration of PL declined in proportion to extracellular lactose (P = 0.01). These results indicate that PNG can be absorbed intact in a Na(+)-independent process and is taken up by passive diffusion. The presence of lactose in this in vitro model of intestinal uptake reduced the enzymatic hydrolysis of PNG by lactase.


In spite of the recent progresses on classifying 3D point cloud with deep CNNs, large geometric transformations like rotation and translation remain challenging problem and harm the final classification performance. To address this challenge, we propose Geometry Sharing Network (GS-Net) which effectively learns point descriptors with holistic context to enhance the robustness to geometric transformations. Compared with previous 3D point CNNs which perform convolution on nearby points, GS-Net can aggregate point features in a more global way. Specially, GS-Net consists of Geometry Similarity Connection (GSC) modules which exploit Eigen-Graph to group distant points with similar and relevant geometric information, and aggregate features from nearest neighbors in both Euclidean space and Eigenvalue space. This design allows GS-Net to efficiently capture both local and holistic geometric features such as symmetry, curvature, convexity and connectivity. Theoretically, we show the nearest neighbors of each point in Eigenvalue space are invariant to rotation and translation. We conduct extensive experiments on public datasets, ModelNet40, ShapeNet Part. Experiments demonstrate that GS-Net achieves the state-of-the-art performances on major datasets, 93.3% on ModelNet40, and are more robust to geometric transformations.


Through linkage creation, commodity extraction has the capacity to support local industrial production and capabilities building. Drawing on the experience of supplying inputs into the East African gold mining industry, this paper examines the constraints experienced by local suppliers arising from the purchasing procedures of large mining corporations and specialist construction companies contracted to construct these mines. Lead firms become locked-in to particular ways of working which minimise the opportunities that local suppliers have in providing products and services. After reviewing the situation for local mining suppliers in East Africa, the paper examines ways lead firms, the suppliers themselves and others (governments and industry associations) can better support local supplier involvement.


This article focuses on the molecular geochemistry of previously unreported carbonate- and siliceous-mat assemblages at two adjacent lake-shore environments. The first study area, on the Lake Van shore, is an intersection of hyper-alkaline lake water and seep water discharge, both of which represent an acid-base geochemical barrier. Comparing alkaline lake water with seep water samples collected from a biomineralization site reveals that seep water has an acidic character and is rich in Ca and Si cations. The second study area, Mt. Nemrut, is the largest volcanic caldera located west of Lake Van in eastern Anatolia, and is the only volcano that has erupted in historical time. While the main lithified-mat components of Lake Van's shore environments are Ca-carbonate and diatoms, Na-carbonate and diatom assemblages represent recent biomineralization in the Mt. Nemrut Soğuk Lake shores. In particular, the normal habitat for the development of these unique microbial mat assemblages can be changed in a short time by the decreasing seep water discharge into the Lake Van shore environment. A detailed study on these lake shore microbialites, before they are lost, would provide a great opportunity to understand the biogeochemical interactions that produce unique sediment fabrics.


Aflatoxins, the most frequently studied mycotoxins, are produced by certain Aspergillus species/strains/isolates of fungi. The aflatoxin biosynthetic pathway studies have led to a number of discoveries. Several structural and their enzymes involved in the biosynthesis of aflatoxins have been discovered and purified. Aflatoxin production and contamination of agricultural crops are major causes of economic losses in agriculture. Thus, better methods of characterization/differentiation are required for both aflatoxigenic and nonaflatoxigenic isolates. Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR)-based, single sequence repeats (SSR) micro satellites analysis has been used successfully in the analysis of DNA relatedness of species of fungi, bacteria, plants and animals. SSR micro satellites analysis present in nuclear and organelles DNA can be used as molecular markers and has wide ranging applications in the field of genetics including kinship and population studies. These Inter simple sequence repeats (ISSR) represent genome region between micro satellite loci. Sequences amplified by ISSR-PCR can be used for delimiting species. Dendograms which evaluate the likeness between different isolates has also been used.


"The GIS Guide to Public Domain Data" gives users of geographic information systems (GIS) relevant information about the sources and quality of available public domain spatial data. Readers will understand how to find, evaluate, and analyze data to solve location-based problems. This guide covers practical issues such as copyrights, cloud computing, online data portals, volunteered geographic information, and international data. Supplementary exercises are available online to help put the concepts into practice. Students, researchers, and professionals will find "The GIS Guide to Public Domain Data" a useful desk companion to help them navigate the world of spatial data in the public domain.


Background Studies regarding coxsackievirus A6 (CVA6) infection were limited. In Taiwan, outbreaks of CVA6 occurred in 2009 and 2010, respectively, but the clinical manifestations were markedly different. We conducted a study to compare the clinical features and genomic sequence between the two years. Methodology/Principal Findings In 2009 and 2010, 205 patients with coxsackievirus A6 (CVA6) infection were treated at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital. Detailed clinical features were obtained from 126 inpatients, 62 in 2009 and 64 in 2010. Between the inpatients in 2009 and 2010, no statistically significant difference was noted in terms of demographics, length of hospital stay and laboratory data. Significantly more patients in 2009 presented with herpangina (82%) while more patients in 2010 presented with hand-foot-mouth disease (HFMD; 67%) and skin rash beyond the typical sites for HFMD. Complete genomic sequences were determined and compared for three isolates from patients with herpangina in 2009 and three isolates from patients with HFMD in 2010. The complete sequences showed that 2009 and 2010 CVA6 isolates were indistinguishable by partial VP1 genes, but there were 5 unique nucleotide changes in 3′ UTR, and 23 out of 2201 (1%) amino acids were different. 2010 viruses underwent the largest number of amino acid changes in 3CD protein, which is the precursor of both 3C protease and 3D polymerase. Conclusions Since 2008 in Finland, outbreaks of HFMD due to CVA6 were noted internationally. CVA6 of different genetic background may cause different clinical manifestations such as herpangina and HFMD.


By integrating cellular automaton (CA) theory into topology optimization of continuum, the local rule is defined for sensitivity analysis and updating of the design variable, according to the analysis of the structural mechanical response. Topology optimization design of loaded structure is conducted using minimal compliance as the optimization objective. The optimal distribution of material in the design domain is finally obtained. Comparing to other algorithms, the local rule has proved to be computationally efficient to solve structural topology optimization problems. The resulting optimal structures are free of numerical instabilities such as the checkerboard patterns and mesh dependency.


The recent discovery that low-intensity pulsed ultrasound can be used to stimulate the brain non-invasively and without any noticeable tissue damage is expected to have a major impact in neuroscience in the coming years. Nevertheless, this emerging field also raised a lot of unanswered questions: how does ultrasound affect neurons on a molecular and cellular level? Does it correspond to a pure mechanical interaction? A controversy even rose on whether an intensity threshold exists for inducing a neurological response or if such an effect always occurs whatever the ultrasonic intensity. In this study, the motor responses of rats (N=6) were investigated as a function of the in situ excitation pressure level and a sharp threshold was observed at 0.5MPa. Moreover a set of micro CT-based simulations were performed in order to investigate the pressure distribution in the cranial cavity. The presence of modes in the cavity was observed thus refuting the hypothesis of a localized excitation in the state of art experiments. The corresponding mechanical stress imposed on brain tissue give new insights for understanding the underlying potential mechanisms.


This paper gives a brief survey of forecasting with panel data. Starting with a simple error component regression model and surveying best linear unbiased prediction under various assumptions of the disturbance term. This includes various ARMA models as well as spatial autoregressive models. The paper also surveys how these forecasts have been used in panel data applications, running horse races between heterogeneous and homogeneous panel data models using out of sample forecasts. This paper was presented at the 8th Bundesbank Spring Conference on "New Developments in Eco-nomic Forecasting" in Eltville, Germany, 5-6 May, 2006. I would like to thank the editor, Massimiliano Marcellino and three anonymous referees for their helpful comments and suggestions.


The article presents results of the MMA repair welding of nodular cast iron GJS 350-22. Casting defects were simulated mechanically (through milling), whereas repair welding was performed using selected filler metals (low-carbon filler metal, austenitic filler metal, Monel alloy and nickel alloy) and the manual metal arc welding method (MMAW). Test welds were subjected to visual, penetrant, macro and microscopic tests as well as hardness measurements and were compared in terms of the colour with that of the base material. The tests made it possible to identify the effect of the repair welding process on structural changes in the HAZ area and the susceptibility of the HAZ and the weld to crack formation. The tests also enabled the determination of structures of repair welds and their usability when repairing iron casts. The hardness measurements confirmed effects related to structural changes triggered by repair welding in the HAZ and in the weld. In turn, the comparative tests concerning the colour of the weld and that of the repaired cast iron enabled the selection of a filler metal satisfying the above-named criterion. The tests revealed that the most favourable properties of the repair welds in terms of structural changes were obtained using nickel-based filler metals.


The spacer grid assembly, which is an interconnected array of slotted grid straps and welded at the intersections to form an egg crate structure, is one of the main structural components of the nuclear fuel assemblies of a Pressurized light Water Reactor (PWR). The spacer grid assembly is structurally required to have enough crush strength under lateral loads due to lateral seismic accelerations, lateral Loss Of Coolant Accident (LOCA) blowdown forces, and shipping and handling loads so that the fuel rods are maintained within a coolable geometry, and that the control rods are able to be inserted. The ability of the spacer grid assembly to resist the lateral loads is usually characterized in terms of its dynamic and static crush strengths, which are acquired from the relevant tests. In this study, dynamic buckling tests and finite element analyses on spacer grid assembly specimens are carried out. As a result of the comparisons, the analysis results are in good agreement with the test results to within an 8 % difference range. Therefore, we could predict the crush strength of a spacer grid assembly in advance before performing the dynamic buckling test.


In a previous study of head injury patients we found that old age, low Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) score, pupillary inequality, and falls were significant predictors of intracranial mass lesions (IMLs). Injury to motor vehicle occupants was less likely to result in IML. The present study defines predictors of severe torso injury (STI) in 646 patients admitted to a trauma unit and compares these with predictors of IML obtained in the previous study. Tachycardia and low blood pressure were associated with an increased incidence of STI (p = 0.003, p = 0.0000). The incidence of STI in falls differed from that of IML (13.2% vs. 47.7%, p less than 0.001). There was a greater incidence of STI than IML in MVAs (33.6% vs. 14.8%, p less than 0.001). Patients 70 years of age or older had a higher incidence of IMLs than STIs (p less than 0.001). Patients less than 30 years old had a significantly greater incidence of STIs than IMLs (p less than 0.001). These data suggest that in MVA victims who are less than 30 years old, are hypotensive, and tachycardic, the diagnosis and emergent treatment of severe torso injury should take precedence over measures designed to detect and treat intracranial mass lesions. The converse is true for older patients injured in falls.


Lectin-like adhesins of hyphal-form Candida albicans were investigated by conventional fluorescence microscopy, fluorescence microscopy with image analysis, spectrofluorimetry and flow cytometry. Labelling was done with neoglycoprotein probes consisting of sugars (fucose, mannose, glucose, galactose, lactose) covalently linked to bovine serum albumin (BSA), which itself was labelled with fluorescein. The fucose probe bound to both the yeast and germ-tube portions of hyphal-form cells, not especially at the tip, but in the adjacent region of the germ-tube portion. Probes with the other sugars did not label the hyphal-form cells. Fucose-probe binding to the cells was optimal at pH 5.0 in citrate buffer, and was a time-dependent reaction requiring 30-60 min and reaching saturation concentration at 100 microg ml(-1). Each hyphal-form cell of C. albicans grown in 199 medium was calculated to have about 2 x 10(7) fucose probe-binding sites. There appeared to be no requirement for Ca2+ or Mg2+ in binding. Binding of the fucose probe to the hyphal-form cells was higher at 37 degrees C than at 22 degrees C or 4 degrees C. Fluorescence intensity of the fucose-labelled yeast forms was not increased over the hyphal-form cells. A germ-tube-deficient mutant when exposed to hyphal-form growth conditions for 2 h showed much less binding of the fucose probe than the wild-type which produced germ tubes. Confirmation of specificity and the need for a carrier molecule was obtained by showing that Fuc-BSA (without fluorescein) effectively inhibited the binding of the fucose probe, although L-fucose itself was inactive, as was Gal-BSA.


Management plan model of agricultural planting information technology research and application of design system for agricultural production and digital has important theoretical and practical significance of agricultural planting. The study concluded, extracted the relevant agricultural planting design theory and technology research based on the show, applying the system analysis principle and mathematical modeling technique, the construction and perfection of the cropping system, ecological regionalization, precision farming and productivity of quantitative analysis of the agricultural planting management knowledge model, by using the technology of software component, with GIS as spatial information management platform, the establishment of the digital system design based on GIS and model plant. The system has reali- zed the design of cropping system of regional cropping information standardization management and different levels of for the realization of crop planting design, quantitative and digital laid the foundation.


The materials science community is poised to take advantage of new technologies that add unprecedented time resolution to already existing spatial-resolution capabilities. In the same way that chemists and biologists are using ultrafast optical, photon, and particle techniques to reveal transition pathways, materials scientists can expect to use variations of these methods to probe the most fundamental aspects of complex transient phenomena in materials. The combination of high-spatial-resolution imaging with high time resolution is critical because it enables the observation of specific phenomena that are important to developing fundamental understanding. Such a capability is also important because it enables experiments that are on the same time and length scales as recent high-performance computer simulations. This article describes several new techniques that have great potential for broader application in materials science, including electron, x-ray, and γ-ray imaging.


The preparation and characterisation of iron(II) η3-but-1-en-3-yn-2-yl complexes [Fe(η3-RCC–CCHR)L]+ [L = P(CH2CH2PMe2)3, R = Ph 1; R = But 2; R = p-HCCC6H4 3] is reported. The phenyl substituted butenynyl complex 1 was prepared by the reaction of FeCl2L 5, FeH(Cl)L 6 or [FeH(H2)L]+ 7 with phenylacetylene in alcohol solvent. The coordinated but-1-en-3-yn-2-yl fragment is bound as a σ-vinyl/π-acetylenic ligand. In solution, complex 1 exists as a pair of equilibrating isomers (1a and 1b) which differ in the anchoring mode of the butenynyl ligand i.e. depending on whether the π-bound acetylenic group is cis or trans to the apical phosphorus of L in the octahedral coordination sphere. Assignment of the relative stereochemistry of 1a and 1b was achieved by analysis of the 2D NOESY spectrum. Exchange peaks in the NOESY spectrum also provided information on the mechanism of exchange between 1a and 1b. The crystal structure of 1 showed the solid state structure to be that of the major solution state isomer 1a (π-bound acetylenic group is cis to the apical phosphorus of L). Complex 1 catalyses the stereospecific head-to-head dimerisation of phenylacetylene to Z-1,4-diphenylbut-1-en-3-yne.


Patrinia heterophylla Bunge, Caprifoliaceae, is a traditional Chinese medicine that has been used for cancer therapy. In our study, a panel of human cancer cells was treated with extract of Patrinia heterophylla Bunge. (PHEB), MTT study showed that PC-3 Human prostate adenocarcinoma was the most responsive (IC50 9.21±0.32 µg/mL) one to cell growth inhibition, the further study also demonstrated that PHEB could inhibit the proliferation of PC-3 based on a concentration-and time-dependent manner. The transplanted model of sarcoma 180 (S180) and hepatoma 22 (H22) was established in mice, the study demonstrated that i.p. administration of 20, 40, 60 mg/kg PHEB exhibited a significant inhibitory effect on the growth of transplantation tumor, with inhibition rate 23.9, 48.4 and 53.6% on S180 and 21.0, 46.3 and 57.2% on H22, respectively. To investigate the molecular mechanism of PHEB in PC-3, the morphological changes of apoptosis were observed by fluorescent microscopy, apoptosis rate was analyzed by flow cytometry (FCM). Morphological characterizations such as apoptotic bodies and membrane blebs were shown by microscopy. The increase of an early apoptotic population was observed in a dose-dependent manner. These results suggest that PHEB has anti-tumor effects and its mechanism is attributed partially to apoptosis induced.


By consideration of the formulae for the reflection and transmission of up to three films, it has been possible to form a generalization for an arbitrary number of films. This generalization is stated as a simple rule whereby the expressions for the reflected and transmitted amplitudes can be readily formed in terms of the Fresnel coefficients of the various boundaries. The generalization is proved by induction. It is also shown that the solutions of the problem by the consideration of the electromagnetic disturbance in each medium, and by the summation of multiple beams, lead to the same result.


The rock outcrops and cliffs of Shenandoah National Park provide habitat for several rare and endangered plant and animal species, including the federally endangered Shenandoah Salamander (Plethodon shenandoah; Ludwig et al., 1993). The location of the well-known park tour road, Skyline Drive, along the ridgeline provides exceptional access to many outcrops and cliffs throughout the park for a large number of the park's 1.2 million annual visitors. Consequently, visitor use of cliff areas has led to natural resource impacts, including marked decreases in size and vigor of known rare plant populations. Despite the clear ecological value and potential threats to the natural resources at cliff areas, managers possess little information on visitor use of cliff sites and presently have no formal planning document to guide management. Thus, a park wide study of cliff sites was initiated during the 2005 visitor use season. As part of this research effort, our study used an integrative approach to study recreational use and visitorcaused resource impacts at one of the more heavily visited cliff sites in the park: Little Stony Man Cliffs (LSMC). In particular, this study integrated data from resource impact measurements and visitor use observation to help assess the effects of recreational use on the natural resources of LSMC. Procedures derived from campsite and trail impact studies were used to measure and characterize the amount of visitor-caused resource impacts on LSMC (Marion & Leung, 2001; Marion, 1995). Visitor use observations were conducted on top of LSMC to document and characterize the type and amount of recreational use the cliffs receive and the behaviors of recreationists that may contribute to cliff-top resource impacts. Resource impact measurement data show trampling disturbance present at LSMC, characterized by vegetation loss, exposed soil, and root exposure. Documentation of informal trails, soil erosion, tree damage, and tree stumps provide further indicators of resource damage at LSMC. Results of visitor use observation offer several insights into contributory factors of cliff-top resource damage by showing differences in use and behavior between visitor types. The findings from this study suggest that a management approach characterized by visitor education, some site hardening, and concentration of visitor use on durable surfaces, along with the installation of fixed anchors at the top of popular climbing routes is likely to have the greatest success at balancing visitor enjoyment with resource protection at LSMC.


The nonlinear analysis and design of contact-aided compliant mechanisms (CCMs) are challenging. This paper presents a nonlinear method for analyzing the deformation of general beams that contact rigid surfaces in CCMs. The large deflection of the general beam is modeled by using the chained pseudo-rigid-body model. A geometry constraint from the contact surface is developed to constrain the beam's deformed configuration. The contact analysis problem is formulated based on the principle of minimum potential energy and solved using an optimization algorithm. Besides, a novel technique based on the principle of work and energy is proposed to calculate the reaction force/moment of displacement-loaded cases. Several analysis examples of the compliant mechanisms with straight or curved beams are used to verify the proposed method. The results show that the proposed method and technique can evaluate the deformation of beam-based CCMs and the reaction force/moment with acceptable accuracy, respectively.


The relationship of systemic and local hemodynamics with neurohumoral factors has been evaluated in 104 patients with primary open-angle glaucoma with normalized intraocular pressure. Changes in the functional activity of the sympathoadrenal activity and hydrocortisone levels were in high correlation with the initial type of systemic hemodynamics: the hormonal activity of the sympathoadrenal system predominated in patients with eukinetic and hyperkinetic circulation with normal levels of hydrocortisone, while in patients with hypokinetic circulation the mediator (norepinephrine) component of the sympathoadrenal system combined with a high plasma level of hydrocortisone predominated. A principal characteristic of unstable primary open-angle glaucoma, discriminating it from the stable condition in all types of circulation, is the presence of deep autonomic disorders in the neurohumoral mechanisms of autoregulation of ocular blood flow, because of excessive accumulation of norepinephrine, epinephrine, and hydrocortisone in the lacrimal fluid at the expense of their decreased utilization by the receptor systems of ocular tissues and blood vessels.


Abstract This paper describes 19 brachiopod species (including six indeterminate species) in 15 genera and one indeterminate genus from the basal Itaituba Formation at the Caima Quarry 1 section of Itaituba, Amazon Basin, Brazil. The faunal correlations of the brachiopods and the associated fusulinids and conodonts indicate a late Chesterian (late Serpukhovian) age for the described fauna, therefore confirming for the first time the presence of uppermost Mississippian rocks in the Amazon Basin. A new species, Composita caimaensis, is created, and two species, Inflatia cf. gracilis and Marginovatia cf. catinulus, are described for the first time from the Amazon Basin. The Amazon brachiopods appear to be of strong affinity with coeval faunas of the North American midcontinent.