Agreement is defined as the systematic covariance of one element with another. The most uncontroversial agreement configuration is that between a controller—an element intrinsically specified for a value of an agreement feature—and the target of agreement—the element reflecting a displaced feature value of the controller. The distribution of morphological agreement markers is however much wider than controller–target configurations: targets can express agreement values for features that are not visible on the controller and even show agreement morphology in the absence of a lexical controller. A second source of variation is due to the fact that in certain contexts there is a choice between syntactic agreement (with formal features of the controller) and semantic agreement (with semantic features of the referent of the controller). The choice between syntactic and semantic agreement is correlated in part with cross-linguistically observed regularities that have been formulated as the agreement hierarchy and the animacy hierarchy.
 Agreement morphology harnesses the same morphological devices found with derivation and inflection. Like inflectional morphology more generally, agreement morphology is only present in a subset of the world's languages.


Background Digital mental health interventions are increasingly prevalent in the current context of rapidly evolving technology, and research indicates that they yield effectiveness outcomes comparable to in-person treatment. Integrating professionals (ie, psychologists and physicians) into digital mental health interventions has become common, and the inclusion of guidance within programs can increase adherence to interventions. However, employing professionals to enhance mental health programs may undermine the scalability of digital interventions. Therefore, delegating guidance tasks to paraprofessionals (peer supporters, technicians, lay counsellors, or other nonclinicians) can help reduce costs and increase accessibility. Objective This systematic review and meta-analysis evaluates the effectiveness, adherence, and other process outcomes of nonclinician-guided digital mental health interventions. Methods Four databases (MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, and PsycINFO) were searched for randomized controlled trials published between 2010 and 2020 examining digital mental health interventions. Three journals that focus on digital intervention were hand searched; gray literature was searched using ProQuest and the Cochrane Central Register of Control Trials (CENTRAL). Two researchers independently assessed risk of bias using the Cochrane risk-of-bias tool version 2. Data were collected on effectiveness, adherence, and other process outcomes, and meta-analyses were conducted for effectiveness and adherence outcomes. Nonclinician-guided interventions were compared with treatment as usual, clinician-guided interventions, and unguided interventions. Results Thirteen studies qualified for inclusion. Nonclinician-guided interventions yielded higher posttreatment effectiveness outcomes when compared to conditions involving control programs (eg, online psychoeducation and monitored attention control) or wait-list controls (k=7, Hedges g=–0.73; 95% CI –1.08 to –0.38). There were also significant differences between nonclinician-guided interventions and unguided interventions (k=6, Hedges g=–0.17; 95% CI –0.23 to –0.11). In addition, nonclinician-guided interventions did not differ in effectiveness from clinician-guided interventions (k=3, Hedges g=0.08; 95% CI –0.01 to 0.17). These results suggest that guided digital mental health interventions are helpful to improve mental health outcomes regardless of the qualifications of the individual performing the intervention, and that the presence of a nonclinician guide improves effectiveness outcomes compared to having no guide. Nonclinician-guided interventions did not yield significantly different adherence outcomes when compared with unguided interventions (k=3, odds ratio 1.58; 95% CI 0.51 to 4.92), although a general trend of improved adherence was observed within nonclinician-guided interventions. Conclusions Integrating paraprofessionals and nonclinicians appears to improve the outcomes of digital mental health interventions, and may also enhance adherence outcomes (though this trend was nonsignificant). Further research should focus on the specific types of tasks these paraprofessionals can successfully provide (ie, psychosocial support, therapeutic alliance, and technical augmentation) and their associated outcomes. Trial Registration PROSPERO International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews CRD42020191226; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=191226


INTRODUCTION
Recent biopsychological research on stress-related psychopathology shows promising evidence for the 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) transporter linked polymorphic region (5-HTTLPR) genotype by life event interaction on depression. Yet, there appears to be variability in replicating such findings. From leading cognitive models of depression, it can be deduced that mainly high-impact events, particularly in stress-vulnerable, high trait neuroticism individuals who possess low coping abilities, can cause depression.

OBJECTIVE
The current study therefore examines the interaction between the 5-HTTLPR genotype, impact of life events, and trait neuroticism on depression symptoms.

PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS
A group of 771 healthy individuals, 595 women and 176 men aged 21.0±2.1 years, were genotyped for the 5-HTTLPR polymorphism and were rated for depressive symptoms, impact of life events, and neuroticism.

RESULTS
Only the low-allele expressing (S) 5-HTTLPR carriers showed vulnerability to depression exclusively when they also reported exposure to high-impact events and showed high neuroticism.

CONCLUSION
This suggests that cognitive vulnerabilities may mediate the 5-HTTLPR genotype by life event interaction on depression.


That there is a discrepancy between disaster planning efforts and the actual
response experience seems rather universal. That discrepancy is symbolized by
the graffiti which predictably surfaces on many walls in post disaster locations--
"First the earthquake, - then disaster. " That contradiction is seldom reduced as
a result of post disaster critiques, since the most usual conclusion is that the plan
was adequate but the "people" did not follow it. Another explanation will be
provided here. A more plausible explanation for failure is that most planning
efforts adopt a number of erroneous assumptions which affect the outcome. Those
assumptions are infrequently changed or modified by experience.


Using a simulated bilateral negotiation over several security issues, the authors explore how variations in the negotiation context influence reactions to a negotiating crisis. Negotiators were primed to focus on one of three aspects of the context: transaction costs, dependence, or shared identity. They were asked to respond to the crisis with a decision to reach an immediate agreement, continue negotiating, or reframe the issues. The results showed that mutual dependence (unattractive alternatives) led to reframing (turning points) whereas high transaction costs led to a preference for continuing the negotiation. Shared identity did not affect negotiators preference across alternative courses of action. Affective trust amplified the impact of dependence and transaction costs: the decision to reframe was made more often by negotiators who reported low affective trust, whereas the decision to reach immediate agreement was made more often by negotiators who reported high affective trust. High cognitive trust encouraged negotiators to continue the negotiation if they had a shared identity or if transaction costs were high. Applications were made to real-world cases and implications were developed for Relational Order theory and for further research.


The current studies assessed the role of trait anger and anger expression styles on
risk decision-making in adulthood, adolescence and childhood. In the first experiment
158 adults completed the STAXI-2 and an inventory consisting of a battery of
hypothetical everyday decision-making scenarios. Participants were also asked to
evaluate the perception of risk for each chosen option and some contextual
characteristics, that are familiarity and salience for each scenario. The study provides
evidence for a relationship between individual differences in the tendency to feel and
express anger and risky decisions and for mediation effects of familiarity and salience
appraisals. Moreover, results indicated that trait anger was predictive of risk
perception and they provide evidence for a positive relationship between risk
decision-making and risk perception.
In the second study, we examined the relationship between specific components of
anger (i.e., cognitive, affective and behavioural) and risk decision-making in
adolescents. 101 subjects completed specific tasks, measuring risk decision-making,
assessed using hypothetical choice scenarios, and anger, evaluated through the
STAXI-CA and the MSAI-R. Results showed that adolescents higher on hostility,
anger experience and destructive expression, make more risky decisions in everyday
life situations. Moreover, regression analyses indicated that destructive expression of
anger and hostility were predictive of adolescents' risky decisions.
In the third experiment, 104 children completed three tasks: the STAXI-CA, the
MSAI-R and a task measuring risk decision-making in everyday situations. Subjects
were also asked to evaluate the degree of danger, benefit, fun and fear perceived for
each risky choice. Analyses indicated that: (a) risk decision-making was predicted by
both trait anger and outward expression of anger; (b) destructive expression o anger
was predictive of children's risky decisions; (c) appraisal of danger fully mediated
the relation between trait anger and risk; (d) perceptions of benefit, scare and fun
partially mediated the relationship between trait anger and risk; and (e) appraisal of
danger partially mediated the relationship between outward expression of anger and
risk decision-making. The results provide evidence for a relationship between
dispositional anger and risk decision-making during childhood, suggesting a possible
explanation of the mechanisms below. In particular, risk decision-making can be
viewed as the output of cognitive and emotive processes, linked to dispositional anger
that leads children to be amused, optimistic and fearless in potentially risky
situations.
These findings substantiate the importance of incorporating cognitive and emotive
factors in theories that seek to explain the relationship between personality traits and
risk decision making across a broad range of age.


The X9.3 flare of 2017 September 6, was the most powerful flare of Solar Cycle 24. It generated strong white-light emission and multiple helioseismic waves (sunquakes). By using data from the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory as well as hard X-ray (HXR) data from the KONUS instrument on board the WIND spacecraft, and Anti-Coincidence System on board the INTERGRAL space observatory, we investigate spatio-temporal dynamics of photospheric emission sources, identify sources of helioseismic waves, and compare the flare photospheric dynamics with the HXR temporal profiles. The results show that the photospheric flare impacts started to develop in compact regions in close vicinity of the magnetic polarity inversion line (PIL) in the preimpulsive phase before detection of the HXR emission. The initial photospheric disturbances were localized in the region of strong horizontal magnetic field of the PIL, and, thus, are likely associated with a compact sheared magnetic structure elongated along the PIL. The acoustic egression power maps revealed two primary sources of generation of sunquakes, which were associated with places of the strongest photospheric impacts in the preimpulsive phase and the early impulsive phase. This can explain the two types of helioseismic waves observed in this flare. Analysis of the high-cadence HMI filtergrams suggests that the flare energy release developed in the form of sequential involvement of compact low-lying magnetic loops that were sheared along the PIL.


A unified bit-based probabilistic data association (B-PDA) detection approach is proposed for multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) systems employing high-order rectangular quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM). The new approach transforms the symbol detection process of QAM to a bit-based process by introducing a unified matrix representation (UMR) of QAM. Both linear natural and nonlinear binary reflected Gray bit-to-symbol mappings are considered. With the aid of simulation results, we demonstrate that the linear-natural-mapping-based B-PDA approach typically attained an improved detection performance [measured in terms of both bit error ratio (BER) and symbol error ratio (SER)] in comparison with the conventional symbol-based probabilistic data association (PDA)-aided MIMO detector, despite its dramatically reduced computational complexity. The only exception is that, at low SNRs, the linear-natural-mapping-based B-PDA is slightly inferior in terms of its BER to the conventional symbol-based PDA using binary reflected Gray mapping. Furthermore, the simulation results show that the linear-natural-mapping-based B-PDA MIMO detector may approach the best-case performance provided by the nonlinear binary reflected Gray-mapping-based B-PDA MIMO detector under ideal conditions. Additionally, the implementation of the B-PDA MIMO detector is shown to be much simpler in the case of the linear natural mapping. Based on these two points, we conclude that, in the context of the uncoded B-PDA MIMO detector, it is preferable to use the linear natural bit-to-symbol mapping, rather than the nonlinear Gray mapping.


EPSONDE is a tethered free-fall profiling system used to obtain temperature microstructure and velocity turbulence data to a depth of at least 1500 m. EPSONDE, which carries a variety of slow and fast sensors, is deployed on a loose kevlar multiconductor cable by a specialized wire-handling system. Data are transmitted from this underwater unit (1792 samples per second) to a shipboard system which includes a dedicated microcomputer for data logging and online data processing. The performance of this system is demonstrated by discussing a study of turbulent mixing processes in a lens of Mediterranean water (a MEDDY) found at a depth of 1000 m in the Canary basin. These studies indicate that turbulent kinetic energy dissipation may be an important mechanism in determining the decay and lifetime of a MEDDY. >


Multi-threaded libraries, including the ones advertised as thread-safe, may contain concurrency bugs, and worse, may not include relevant test cases that can drive the program execution towards bug-prone interleavings. Also, the effectiveness of dynamic verification, a prominent concurrency bug detection technique, depends critically on the availability of relevant test cases. Generating such test cases automatically to assist dynamic verification is, therefore, a significant problem.Among hard-to-detect concurrency bugs in multi-threaded Java libraries are communication deadlocks, which occur due to the incorrect usage of wait() and notify() communication primitives. In this work, we present a novel technique to systematically synthesize multi-threaded test cases to expose communication deadlocks. We model these deadlocks as global constraints over the events of two sequential program traces of the library APIs. The task of predicting the relevance of combining two sequential program traces is delegated to an SMT solver. We implement our technique in a prototype tool named REVELIO, and evaluate it on fifteen classes of popular multi-threaded Java libraries. We find that REVELIO is able to synthesize precise tests exposing communication deadlocks, which the state-of-the-art tools cannot.


Dysregulation of angiogenesis is associated with tumor development and is accompanied by altered expression of pro-angiogenic factors. EGFL7 is a newly identified antigenic factor that plays a role in various cancers such as breast cancer, lung cancer, and acute myeloid leukemia. We have recently found that EGFL7 is expressed in the bone microenvironment, but its role in giant-cell tumor of bone (GCTB) and osteosarcoma (OS) is unknown. The aims of this study are to examine the gene expression profile of EGFL7 in GCTB and OS and compare with that of VEGF-A-D and TNFSF11 using single-cell RNA sequencing data. In-depth differential expression analyses were employed to characterize their expression in the constituent cell types of GCTB and OS. Notably, EGFL7 in GCTB was expressed at highest levels in the endothelial cell (EC) cluster followed by osteoblasts, myeloid cells, and chondrocytes, respectively. In OS, EGFL7 exhibited highest expression in EC cell cluster followed by osteoblastic OS cells, myeloid cells 1, and carcinoma associated fibroblasts (CAFs), respectively. In comparison, VEGF-A is expressed at highest levels in myeloid cells followed by OCs in GCTB, and in myeloid cells, and OCs in OS. VEGF-B is expressed at highest levels in chondrocytes in GCTB and in OCs in OS. VEGF-C is strongly enriched in ECs and VEGF-D is expressed at weak levels in all cell types in both GCTB and OS. TNFSF11 (or RANKL) shows high expression in CAFs and osteoblastic OS cells in OS, and osteoblasts in GCTB. This study investigates pro-angiogenic genes in GCTB and OS and suggests that these genes and their expression patterns are cell-type specific and could provide potential prognostic biomarkers and cell type target treatment for GCTB and OS.


Malnutrition remains a major clinical problem in Cystic Fibrosis (CF). As the degree of underweight correlates closely with reduced survival, interventions are needed which optimise nutritional outcomes. The focus of this thesis was on developing a home based behavioural nutrition education programme for adults with CF and assessing its effectiveness on nutritional status, knowledge and other psychosocial measures using a randomised control study design. Chapter 2 describes the development of the "Eat well with CF" programme, which used a framework of Social Cognitive Theory. The next investigations aimed to test the programme both with consumers and with peers. The results showed that adults with CF would be motivated to take part and felt they would learn from the programme. The peer review demonstrated that the programme was rated highly with regard to content, accuracy and information. In Chapter 3 the effectiveness of "Eat well with CF" was tested in a randomised trial (n=74) using a control group who received standard care. The results demonstrated a trend towards an increase in weight. After 6 months the average weight gain in the intervention group was 0.57 kg compared to control weight gain of 0.09 kg (p=0.545, 95%CI -1.07-2.0). Subjects undertaking the "Eat well with CF" programme had significantly increased their self-efficacy to cope with their diet, (p=0.003, 1.19-5.67), their specific nutritional knowledge (p<0.001, 4.05-7.38) and their reported dietary fat intake (p=0.014, 0.76-6.50) compared to the control group. At 12 months, the average weight gain was 0.02 kg in the control group and 1.14kg in the intervention group with no statistical differences between the two groups. The intervention group continued to show a marked and significant improvement in CF specific nutritional knowledge and self-efficacy score. Chapter 4 examines the reasons for subject non- participation in the study, which led to the development of an audio version of "Eat well with CF". The positive results of the process evaluation detailed in chapter 5 highlight the significant personal enjoyment and benefit received by the participants. These studies combine to demonstrate the utility, acceptability and efficacy of "Eat Well with CF". In addition they challenge traditional dietetic practice. We suggest this novel behavioural education approach could enhance current dietetic practice, to improve outcomes and lead to life long maintenance of optimal nutritional status for adults with CF.


The subject of this paper is the relationship between the visual representation of choral performance as described in some epic passages (particularly in the description of the shield of Achilles) and the iconographic language, both figured and geometric, of the Geometric period. The study of this relationship leads to the consideration of a more fundamental issue: the function of choral mimesis in the definition and organization of the space of the polis at multiple levels, physical, social and poetic, through the visual and textual projection of a limited range of symbolic, articulating images upon the watching community. In this wider sense, chorality is defined as a cultural paradigm, including both actual choral performance and its iconographic or textual representations, which underlies, beyond choral lyric, central aspects of Greek culture, particularly in the Archaic period, such as epic poetry or painted pottery.


In oil exploration, our data usually falls into two categories: sparse but accurate well logs and dense but inexact seismic traces. A geostatistical approach allows us to merge the data sets and create detailed geological images. In the current case, a Vp/Vs data set from seismic isochrons and fractional percentage shale values, estimated from gamma ray logs, was used to generate a fractional percentage shale distribution map of Mississippian to the top of a glauconite sand channel event in Blackfoot area, Alberta.


Despite prolonged survival and improved quality of life as a result of treatment advances for HIV/AIDS, thousands still suffer with the disease and 15-16,000 a year die in the United States alone. Little is known about those patients with HIV/AIDS who still require palliative care services or the types of services needed. This paper describes the program elements and clients of three programs providing palliative care to persons with HIV/AIDS in Alabama (n = 41), Baltimore, Maryland, (n = 55), and New York City (n = 52). Also presented are the prevalence of need for 27 services as assessed by clients and staff, the level of agreement found between client and staff assessments at each site, and services for which prevalence of need varied among programs. Interviews were conducted between June 2000 and October 2002. The majority of clients at all programs were socioeconomically disadvantaged, persons of color, and had a history of substance abuse, although significant differences were noted in the distributions of clients at each program with regard to these characteristics. Greater differences were observed among programs in the prevalence of need reported than were found between reports of clients and staff at the same program. Despite these differences, a common set of medical (ambulatory/outpatient care, laboratory testing, pharmacy) and ancillary (nutritional counseling, transportation) services was identified by at least 25% of clients and staff at each program. These findings suggest that need, beyond a core of medical and ancillary services, is relative and best conceptualized as a mixture of need, demand, and supply. The need for a mix of "care" and "cure" services identified reflect the erratic disease trajectory experienced by some clients who move in and out of treatment as well as the vulnerability and marginalized lives of the clients served by these programs.


Background Progress in the management of pregnancy in patients with lupus and asymptomatic women with anti-Ro antibodies has been made on several fronts in the last year. Results Data from the PROMISSE study (Predictors of PRegnancy Outcome: Bio Markers In Antiphospholipid Syndrome and Systemic Lupus Erythematosus) under the leadership of Dr. Jane Salmon which enrolled 389 women with or without anti-phospholipid antibodies, identified several important and potentially actionable baseline predictors of adverse pregnancy outcomes (APO). These include: taking hypertensive medications, having a platelet count less than 100 k, being positive for the lupus anticoagulant (LAC), and having a physician global assessment of lupus activity at >1. The absence of a rise in C3 during the second trimester also constituted a risk factor. Being non-Hispanic white was protective. Both mild/moderate and severe flares were infrequent, 13% and 3%, respectively. De novo renal disease was rare, occurring in 3/265 patients who never met ACR renal criteria. Overall, in patients with no risk factors at baseline, the APO rate was 7.8%; fetal/neonatal mortality 3.9%. In contrast, in patients who are either LAC positive, or LAC negative but non-White and treated with antihypertensives, the APO rate was 58%; fetal/neonatal mortality 22%. With regard to clinical and basic translational work in neonatal lupus, there have been several advances. Based on review of 156 cases of heart block absent any extra-nodal involvement the use of fluorinated steroids did not reverse the block, influence the cumulative probability of extranodal disease, the cumulative probability of survival, or the cumulative probability of pacemaker implantation. Accordingly, these data do not support the use of dexamethasone in isolated block for the sole purpose of preventing more progressive disease. Evaluation of umbilical cord blood from 139 anti-Ro exposed neonates with and without heart block suggests innate and parenchymal immune cell activation in the affected fetus. Specifically, cord CRP, NT-proBNP, MMP-2, uPA, uPAR, and plasminogen levels were higher in affected fetuses than in unaffected cases, independent of maternal rheumatic disease, season at highest risk of heart block, and medications taken during pregnancy. These biomarkers were positively associated with a disease severity score derived from known risk factors for mortality. Based on the consistent demonstration of fibrosis of the atrioventricular node surrounded by macrophages and multinucleated giant cells in anti-Ro antibody exposed fetuses dying with heart block, investigational studies focused on macrophage signalling stimulated by ssRNA associated (hY3) with the Ro60 protein and the impact of antagonising innate cell drivers such as TLR7/8. Ligation of TLR7/8 resulted in increased histone methylation as measured by increased H3K4me2, a requirement for binding of NF-κB at certain promoters, specifically the kB1 region in the TNF promoter which was significantly decreased by hydroxychloroquine. Conclusion Translation of these finding to the bedside suggests that hydroxychloroquine may be efficacious in preventing heart block. An ongoing study is currently addressing secondary prevention.


Helping users explore data becomes increasingly more important as databases get larger and more complex. In this demo, we present PyExplore, a data exploration tool aimed at helping end users formulate queries over new datasets. PyExplore takes as input an initial query from the user along with some parameters and provides interesting queries by leveraging data correlations and diversity.


The contribution is based on a method that has been developed during practical workinanofficeforgynecology,obstetrics,andpsychotherapy,whichhasresultede.g.inan astoundinglylowrateofprematurebirthsamongthepregnantwomencaredfor.Ithasbeen found that many physical problems in pregnancy should be regarded within the entirety of physical and emotional processes. In contrast to the traditional approach, symptoms are not regarded as problems that have to be got rid of, but are rather to be interpreted as signals and signposts that point towards more appropriate modes of behavior and lead to insights into the inner emotional history of the mother and previous burdens, arising from her own or her ancestors early history. This leads to suggestions for primary prevention, the encouragement of the expectant mother to improve her inner emotional and physical state and to get her unborn child free from mothers so far unconcious impairments. An overview about five different methodological levels within prenatal psychology and the importance of their inclusion into care of pregnancy is pointed out. This psychosomatic and psychotherapeutic work is a help to prevent pregnancy difficulties like repeated mis- carriage, preeklampsia, HELLP-Syndrome, post partum mastitis and others. Three case histories are included.


In this paper we present the study of a Schottky diode gas sensing by using porous SiC films with palladium as a catalytic metal. The Schottky diodes were used for the first time for hydrocarbon (C2H6) gas sensing. The properties of the porous SiC films formed by electrochemical method were investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The electrical measurements were made at room temperature (295 K) in different ambient. The effect of the porous surface structure was investigated by evaluating electrical parameters such as the ideality factor (n), barrier height (Bp) and series resistance (Rs). The porous layer significantly affects the electrical properties of the Schottky diodes. Analysis of current-voltage (I-V) characteristics showed that the forward current might be described by a classical thermal emission theory. The ideality factor determined by the I–V characteristics was found to be dependent on the SiC thickness. For a thinner SiC layer (0.16 µm), the electrical parameters n was found around 1.135, 0.7041 eV for a barrier height and 45  for a series resistance, but for a thicker one (1.6 µm) n, Bp and Rs were 1.368, 0.7756 eV and 130 , respectively. The low value of the series resistance obtained using Cheung's method clearly indicated the high performance of the Schottky diode for thinner SiC layer. This effect showed the uniformity of the SiC layer. Finally, sensitivity around 66 % and selectivity of the sensors were reached by using the PSC layer at low voltages below 0.5 Volt.


Location-based games are an emerging paradigm fortraining, simulation, entertainment, health and many other domains. In this paper, we consider the role of artificialagents in such games. We also examine how human teams perform when given the same game, playedin both a real environment with mobile devices and alsoin a virtual environment that replicates the real environment.We perform the first direct comparison of real andvirtual instantiations of the same location-based game.We show the similarities and differences in game playand then investigate how adding an advice-giving agentchanges the experience.


Iranian people have experienced two democratic movement between1997 and 2009. For this reason, notwithstanding the result of these struggles, it seems undeniable that there is a significant tendency towards democratic values in Iranian society. This study considers the factor of education and particularly educated women as one of the vital elements which creates democratic demands. Our theoretical approach originates from Martin Lipset's theory that seriously addressed the concept of democracy and its social requisites. Our empirical evidence confirms that despite the behaviour of the Islamic Republic in politics and its control on the economy via oil revenue, Iran's society has a strong propensity towards democracy, specifically because of its educated class.


A hybrid Multi-Terminal DC (MTDC) system can combine the benefits of both Line Commutated Converter (LCC) and Voltage Source Converter (VSC) technologies in the form of reduced losses and flexibility to connect to weak and passive grids. In this paper, an analysis of control strategies used in a hybrid MTDC system is presented. A case study of a four terminal hybrid MTDC system supplying a passive AC network was considered for simulation study. A control scheme based on voltage margin was developed to cope with the condition of main DC voltage controlling station tripping. Two various control scenarios for controlling the VSCs connected to the passive network were presented and compared. The system performance was studied through EMTP-RV simulations under different disturbances. The results show the ability of selected converter control modes and proposed control schemes to operate the hybrid MTDC system under different disturbance conditions.


The objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between employee commitment and patient satisfaction with respect to health care Industry. This research was conducted in two centers of a leading Medical service provider in Bengaluru city. The population for this study consists of all the employees directly interacting with the customers (excluding doctors), in the two centers .The total population was (N=50), as reflected on the personnel list obtained from the HR department of the organization. The Independent variable in this study is employee (Organizational) commitment, and the dependent variable is patient satisfaction .A slight positive correlation between the employee commitment (affective component) and patient satisfaction is observed in our study, thereby highlighting the importance of employee commitment (especially the affective component) in organizations, particularly in the healthcare sector which is essentially a people-centric industry .


The USDA NRCS Aberdeen Plant Materials Center (PMC) produces certified early generation seed of hoary tansyaster (Machaeranthera canescens (Pursh) A. Gray [Asteraceae]), a late summer and fall blooming forb native to the Intermountain West region. Hoary tansyaster is an excellent forb candidate for restoration efforts in arid to semiarid sites. It is relatively easy to manage in a seed production system, establishes quickly in a rangeland situation, and provides blooms in late summer during the establishment year. Propagation methodologies including establishment, weed control, harvest, and seed processing are herein discussed. We have grown seed production fields of hoary tansyaster in 2 different field systems, one using weed barrier fabric and the other in open drill-seeded fields. Seed can be collected by hand, combine, Flail-Vac, or vacuum-type harvester and can be processed with brush machine and air-screen type cleaning equipment. Seed yields at Aberdeen, Idaho, range between 2 and 8 kg pure live seed (PLS)/ha (2–7 lb/ac).


Background Information technology is being used increasingly in sexual health services to improve clinical efficiencies and sexual health management. While past research has demonstrated the effectiveness of such interventions, little attention has been paid to their use in general practise. We describe the challenges of introducing a sexual health information technology package in nine general practise clinics with medium to high case loads of gay or bisexual men. Methods As part of 'The eTEST Project', an integrative information technology package was developed containing an electronic risk assessment, clinician prompts to offer testing, SMS testing recalls, and electronic auditing functions. The software was introduced progressively starting in November 2011 with meeting and field notes gathered during clinic visits before, during and after implementation. Using these data, a thematic analysis was undertaken with a focus on identifying the challenges of introducing new technology in a clinical context. Results Three dominant themes were identified in the meeting and field note data. The first of these, 'time management', describes the perceived risks to time-efficient consults that doctors and staff feared employing a new tool and collecting additional information could pose. Second, 'administrative limitations', a theme most common among practise managers, raises issues of increased demand on already burdened administrative supports. The final theme, 'technological requirements', is characterised by doctor's concerns over the additional burden of learning and using new software and troubleshooting technical issues. Conclusions The results highlight common concerns and fears among clinical staff around the use of new technologies in general practise. Not only does this provide an opportunity for comparisons with the traditional hurdles to clinical health interventions but it is also the first step towards overcoming such obstacles. More broadly, these findings can inform future technology interventions of a similar nature in general practise.


Abstract. Large changes in the Arctic carbon balance are expected
as warming linked to climate change threatens to destabilize ancient
permafrost carbon stocks. The eddy covariance (EC) method is an established
technique to quantify net losses and gains of carbon between the biosphere
and atmosphere at high spatiotemporal resolution. Over the past decades, a
growing network of terrestrial EC tower sites has been established across
the Arctic, but a comprehensive assessment of the network's
representativeness within the heterogeneous Arctic region is still lacking.
This creates additional uncertainties when integrating flux data across
sites, for example when upscaling fluxes to constrain pan-Arctic carbon
budgets and changes therein. This study provides an inventory of Arctic (here > = 60∘ N)
EC sites, which has also been made available online
(https://cosima.nceas.ucsb.edu/carbon-flux-sites/, last access: 25 January 2022). Our database currently
comprises 120 EC sites, but only 83 are listed as active, and just 25 of
these active sites remain operational throughout the winter. To map the
representativeness of this EC network, we evaluated the similarity between
environmental conditions observed at the tower locations and those within
the larger Arctic study domain based on 18 bioclimatic and edaphic
variables. This allows us to assess a general level of similarity between
ecosystem conditions within the domain, while not necessarily reflecting
changes in greenhouse gas flux rates directly. We define two metrics based
on this representativeness score: one that measures whether a location is
represented by an EC tower with similar characteristics (ER1) and a second
for which we assess if a minimum level of representation for statistically
rigorous extrapolation is met (ER4). We find that while half of the domain
is represented by at least one tower, only a third has enough towers in
similar locations to allow reliable extrapolation. When we consider methane
measurements or year-round (including wintertime) measurements, the values
drop to about 1/5 and 1/10 of the domain, respectively. With the
majority of sites located in Fennoscandia and Alaska, these regions were
assigned the highest level of network representativeness, while large parts
of Siberia and patches of Canada were classified as underrepresented.
Across the Arctic, mountainous regions were particularly poorly represented
by the current EC observation network. We tested three different strategies to identify new site locations or
upgrades of existing sites that optimally enhance the representativeness of
the current EC network. While 15 new sites can improve the
representativeness of the pan-Arctic network by 20 %, upgrading as few
as 10 existing sites to capture methane fluxes or remain active during
wintertime can improve their respective ER1 network coverage by 28 % to 33 %. This targeted network improvement could be shown to be clearly
superior to an unguided selection of new sites, therefore leading to
substantial improvements in network coverage based on relatively small
investments.


Many countries, including Britain, suffer from grossly oversimplified debates on important issues like drugs, crime and punishment, genetically modified foods, and animal research. Are you for or against? Sign here. Yet none of these issues is moved forward by such polarised arguments. The British debate on animal research currently features people in balaclavas using every tactic, including illegal and violent ones, to close down animal research institutes pitted against intimidated scientists arguing that no progress can be made in treating serious human diseases without animal research. We need more understanding of the complexities of animal research and a greater concentration on where we agree.

Can any of us imagine a world where animals were not used for food, clothing, or transport, where we had no pets, where rats and other vermin were not controlled, and where an ape, or even a fly, was regarded as the moral equal of the Archbishop of Canterbury? Most of us can't, and many people in Britain accept the need for some animal research.1 Yet most of us would not tolerate a world where animals had no rights and could be exploited for whatever cause. We thus have to find some middle …


These flyers, written by Natalie Seymour, Mary Yavelak, Candice Christian, and Ben Chapman (NC State University Extension), provide quick, digestible information regarding prevention of COVID-19 and procedures for food service, grocery stores, and other food-related businesses. This flyer in particular provides guidance regarding COVID-19 for farmers markets and market managers. Published by the UF/IFAS Food Science and Human Nutrition Department.
Revised April 21, 2020: Changes were made relating to physical distancing, mask usage and monitoring employee health when exposed to the virus.
FSHN20-3/FS326: COVID-19 FAQ for Farmers Markets: Steps for Markets and Market Managers (ufl.edu)


Instruction combiner (IC) is a critical compiler optimization pass, which replaces a sequence of instructions with an equivalent and optimized instruction sequence at basic block level. There can be thousands of instruction-combining patterns which need to be frequently updated as new coding styles/idioms/applications and novel hardware evolve over time. This results in frequent updates to the IC optimization pass thereby incurring considerable human effort and high software maintenance costs. To mitigate these challenges associated with the traditional IC, we design and implement a Neural Instruction Combiner (NIC) and demonstrate its feasibility by integrating it into the standard LLVM compiler optimization pipeline. NIC leverages neural Seq2Seq model techniques for generating optimized encoded Intermediate Representation (IR) sequence from the unoptimized encoded IR sequence. To the best of our knowledge, ours is the first work demonstrating the feasibility of a neural instruction combiner built into a full-fledged compiler pipeline. Given the novelty of this task, we built a new dataset for training our NIC neural model. We show that NIC achieves exact match results percentage of 72% for optimized sequences as compared to traditional IC and Bleu precision score of 0.94, demonstrating its feasibility in a production compiler pipeline.


Abstract Purpose: To identify and inform the experience and roles of occupational therapists (OTs) in the contexts of a natural disaster. Method: This scoping review was conducted via five steps: (1) identify the research question, (2) identify relevant academic articles published between 2000 and 2014 in English, (3) select articles based on the inclusion criteria, (4) chart the data and (5) collate, summarise, and report the results of the selected articles. The results were presented using descriptive numerical and thematic analyses. Results: OTs can prepare a plan for evacuation of people with disabilities and their accommodation before a disaster occurs. Immediately after a disaster, they can provide emergency services for injuries and provide education and training in coping skills for psychological distress via a community-based rehabilitation approach. Consistent services for survivors' mental health and for building the OTs' capacity as part of disaster management are focussed on in the recovery phase. Conclusion: The potential roles of OTs across the spectrum of a natural disaster were identified via this scoping review. This review will help OTs to become involved in a disaster management system for vulnerable groups across the three phases of preparedness to, respond to and recovery from a disaster. Implication for Rehabilitation Occupational therapists can be involved in disaster management to prepare for, respond to and recover from a natural disaster. Consistent services for psychological distress are needed for people affected by a disaster to return to normalcy. Community-based rehabilitation (CBR) is an important approach to help a wider group of people respond to a natural disaster in a timely manner.


Thin crystalline silicon films on glass substrate, fabricated using solid phase crystallization for application in thin-film solar cells, were investigated by deep level transient spectroscopy (DLTS). The analyses of the DLTS spectra obtained during temperature scans revealed presence of carrier traps related to dislocations in silicon. Other carrier traps of yet unknown nature were detected as well. Variations of electrical activity of the traps were achieved applying variations in the process of the film formation. These changes were also detected during DLTS measurements, suggesting a possibility for applying of DLTS for the investigation and characterization of the thin-film Si material on glass.


An idealized reconstructive tympanoplastic procedure must not compromise the major objective, namely adequate eradication of an irreversible lesion. Compulsive attempts to close tympanic membrane perforations and to reconstruct ossicular chains to restore hearing or to avoid exteriorizing operations should be avoided in certain specific '4L' equation problems. Tympanoplastic reconstruction, as pointed out by Smith, is not always innocuous in terms of audiovestibular and in cranial nerve sequelae. In some cases the wisest course of action is adequate exenteration of the lesion and exteriorization for observation and for continued local medical therapy. A hearing improvement by means of a hearing aid may be far more prudent than tympanoplasty in such cases. It is indeed important at this stage in our knowledge that a pause for reflection be considered by all tympanoplastic surgeons. Sincerely


Abstract Possibility of metal coatings on F82H as the tritium permeation reduction coating was examined by means of deuterium permeation experiment. Metal coatings such as copper, aluminum and gold plating of 10 μm thickness on outer surface of the F82H tube (250mm length, 10mm diameter and 1mm thickness) were prepared as the permeation reduction coating. Permeation Reduction Factor (PRF) of the metal coatings was evaluated by comparing the steady state permeation flux between metal plated specimens and F82H specimen. As the results, the PRF of the metal coatings at 590K were 5, 100 and >1000 for copper, aluminum and gold plating, respectively. Those results indicate the possibility that aluminum and gold plating could be applied in the tritium system as the tritium permeation reduction method.


Today, cloud storage becomes one of the critical services, because users can easily modify and share data with others in cloud. However, the integrity of shared cloud data is vulnerable to inevitable hardware faults, software failures or human errors. To ensure the integrity of the shared data, some schemes have been designed to allow public verifiers (i.e., third party auditors) to efficiently audit data integrity without retrieving the entire users' data from cloud. Unfortunately, public auditing on the integrity of shared data may reveal data owners' sensitive information to the third party auditor. In this paper, we propose a new privacy-aware public auditing mechanism for shared cloud data by constructing a homomorphic verifiable group signature. Unlike the existing solutions, our scheme requires at least t group managers to recover a trace key cooperatively, which eliminates the abuse of single-authority power and provides nonframeability. Moreover, our scheme ensures that group users can trace data changes through designated binary tree; and can recover the latest correct data block when the current data block is damaged. In addition, the formal security analysis and experimental results indicate that our scheme is provably secure and efficient.


Alzheimer's disease (AD) and cancer represent two of the main causes of death worldwide. They are complex multifactorial diseases and several biochemical targets have been recognized to play a fundamental role in their development. Basing on their complex nature, a promising therapeutical approach could be represented by the so-called "Multi-Target-Directed Ligand" approach. This new strategy is based on the assumption that a single molecule could hit several targets responsible for the onset and/or progression of the pathology.
In particular in AD, most currently prescribed drugs aim to increase the level of acetylcholine in the brain by inhibiting the enzyme acetylcholinesterase (AChE). However, clinical experience shows that AChE inhibition is a palliative treatment, and the simple modulation of a single target does not address AD aetiology. Research into newer and more potent anti-AD agents is thus focused on compounds whose properties go beyond AChE inhibition (such as inhibition of the enzyme I²-secretase and inhibition of the aggregation of beta-amyloid). Therefore, the MTDL strategy seems a more appropriate approach for addressing the complexity of AD and may provide new drugs for tackling its multifactorial nature.
In this thesis, it is described the design of new MTDLs able to tackle the multifactorial nature of AD. Such new MTDLs designed are less flexible analogues of Caproctamine, one of the first MTDL owing biological properties useful for the AD treatment. These new compounds are able to inhibit the enzymes AChE, beta-secretase and to inhibit both AChE-induced and self-induced beta-amyloid aggregation. In particular, the most potent compound of the series is able to inhibit AChE in subnanomolar range, to inhibit I²-secretase in micromolar concentration and to inhibit both AChE-induced and self-induced beta-amyloid aggregation in micromolar concentration.
Cancer, as AD, is a very complex pathology and many different therapeutical approaches are currently use for the treatment of such pathology. However, due to its multifactorial nature the MTDL approach could be, in principle, apply also to this pathology. Aim of this thesis has been the development of new molecules owing different structural motifs able to simultaneously interact with some of the multitude of targets responsible for the pathology. The designed compounds displayed cytotoxic activity in different cancer cell lines. In particular, the most potent compounds of the series have been further evaluated and they were able to bind DNA resulting 100-fold more potent than the reference compound Mitonafide. Furthermore, these compounds were able to trigger apoptosis through caspases activation and to inhibit PIN1 (preliminary result). This last protein is a very promising target because it is overexpressed in many human cancers, it functions as critical catalyst for multiple oncogenic pathways and in several cancer cell lines depletion of PIN1 determines arrest of mitosis followed by apoptosis induction.
In conclusion, this study may represent a promising starting pint for the development of new MTDLs hopefully useful for cancer and AD treatment.


Background: Patients with myelodysplasia may have autoimmune manifestations (AIM). Interferon regulatory factor-1 (IRF-1) is a transcription factor involved in interferon signalling, leukaemogenesis, and the development of the immune system. Objectives: To determine whether IRF-1 is implicated in the pathophysiology of AIM in myelodysplasia. Methods: 14 patients with myelodysplasia were studied, seven with AIM and seven without. Five patients with vasculitis and seven normal subjects served as controls. The expression of IRF-1 was studied in bone marrow mononuclear cells taken from patients and controls, using a relative quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction. Results: A 10-fold reduction in full length IRF-1 mRNA was detected in the myelodysplasia patients without AIM compared with the normal controls. In contrast, the group with AIM had increased IRF-1 transcripts, to a level almost equal to that observed in patients with vasculitis and normal controls. Conclusions: Myelodysplasia patients without IRF-1 expression had a decreased incidence of AIM. Thus the absence of IRF-1 transcription factor appears to protect against the development of autoimmunity in myelodysplasia.


SIR: I note the letter concerning myocardial infarction and retinal artery disease in the correspondence columns (Journal, August 21). I should like to dispute Dr Merton's statement that people who have myocardial infarctions always have normal retinal vessels. I have been in charge of the coronary care unit at The Royal Newcastle Hospital for several years. We frequently find abnormal arterial changes in the fundus of those hypertensive patients who are admitted to our unit. Our observation is that this degree of retinal change is commensurate with the degree of hypertension preceding the development of the infarct. We would also dispute his statement that people who have obvious retinal artery disease rarely, if ever, have a myocardial infarction. Our experience of several thousand cases would not support his statement. Likewise, we would dispute his statement that one rarely hears of or sees a person who has had a myocardial infarction followed by a stroke. Cerebral vascular complications, particularly in the form of emboli, are a well known feature complicating myocardial infarction with (in our experience) an incidence of approximately 2% in the absence of prophylactic anticoagulant administration. Also, we would dispute his statement that people taking antihypertensive drugs seem prone to strokes when the blood pressure has been rendered too low. This is a most unusual complication of antihypertensive therapy and is usually seen in the very elderly patient, in whom injudicious administration of potent hypertensive drugs has led to this outcome. On the other hand, there is a phenomenon which would interest cardiologists. This is that severely hypertensive patients have been noted to return to normotensive levels for a period after their myocardial infarction. The conventional explanation for this is that the blood pressure has fallen because the cardiac output is diminished. I suspect that the answer is more subtle than this, because these patients still maintain their baroreceptor and other cardiovascular reflexes functioning quite satisfactorily, especially after the early stages of convalescence, and yet their blood pressure still remains low. Similarly, there is a suggestion that very occasionally a patient may develop a malignant level of hypertension, shortly before a major myocardial infarction. We have severl well documented cases of this nature and we suspect that there may be some form of baroreceptor or chemoreceptor mechanism functioning within the coronary system. It should be noted that these are purely speculative observations. The reason for writing this letter, however, is to refute, for the benefit of your readers, the observations of Dr Merton's, which I suspect are based on his own clinical experience which, unless he is working in a coronary care unit, is liable to statistical distortion because of the relatively small numbers of cases of myocardial infarction with hypertension that would be seen in a non-coronary care practice. The Royal Newcastle Hospital, DAVID C. WALLACE, Newcastle, N.S.W. 2300. Director, Coronary Care Unit.


The moving public spectacle of the inauguration of the first black president of the United States in January of 2009 prompted many Haitians and friends of Haiti to think back to the ascension of the first black leader in a New World nation, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, in January of 1804. The coming to power of Dessalines coincided with the celebration of the new nation's declaration of independence. Thomas Jefferson described the U.S. Declaration of Independence as "an instrument pregnant with [...] the fate of the world."1 It was in Haiti, as David Armitage has noted, that the declaration of independence as a genre began its trajectory from a single nation's document to a "global history" of "imitations and analogues" (1 1). Haiti's own Acte d'independance is hardly fully described as an "imitation" or "analogue," however; it stands as one of the most remarkable monuments of Black Atlantic textual history. But do we fully understand the circumstances of the articulation and dissemination of the Haitian declaration of independence? This article revisits the history of the proclamation(s) of Haiti's independence to explore evidence of Dessalines's mediated but essential authorial role, which I will argue has been downplayed for two centuries, in part because of Dessalines's later iconic imperial role. And yet, Dessalines's production of the poetics of the independence not only reveals the remarkable innovations of the early construction of Haiti as a nation or, in Benedict Anderson's terms, "an imagined community," it also highlights the early period of independence as a time of intense and intentional media dialogue between Haiti and the United States as neighboring republics in hemispheric history. From the time of the independence, some disclaimers about Dessalines's authorship have been made in the name of racism rather than scholarship. The French Journal des debats et lois du pouvoir legislatif: et des actes du gouvernement, which was one of the newspapers in France arguably the most open to representations and self-representations of the postcolonial government in former Saint-Domingue, hastened nevertheless to state "the obvious," which is to say the editor's firm belief that all of Dessalines's proclamations were authored by renegade whites: "Il est egalement inutile de faire observer que la proclamation qu'on vient de lire n'est l'ouvrage ni de Dessalines, qui ne sait pas signer son nom,2 ni d'aucun individu de sa couleur"3 ("Nor is there any need to state the obvious, which is to say that the above proclamation is not the work of Dessalines, who is unable to sign his own name, nor of any other individual of his color"). Someday, the paper asserted, the blacks would be only too happy to acknowledge that their "atrocious counsel" should be attributed in fact to "apostate whites, who came from Europe to turn these ferocious animals against their own kind." Far from being a statesman with an oeuvre, Dessalines in this account is a ferocious animal and, at the same time, a puppet. In Haitian historiography, nationalist pride inadvertently has fueled a parallel lack of attention to Dessalines's textual legacy, through unquestioning acceptance of distinguished nineteenth-century Haitian historian Thomas Madiou's account of Boisrond-Tonnerre's scripting of the Declaration of Independence. David Geggus summarizes the story that has been transmitted from history to history through the centuries: Louis Boisrond-Tonnerre, who wrote the declaration of independence, was passionately anti-European but, Pariseducated, of mixed racial descent, and several generations removed from slavery, he had little personal connection to Africa. Dessalines entrusted him with writing the independence proclamation on December 31st after rejecting as too staid an earlier attempt by another French-educated mulatto, Chareron. Boisrond supposedly declared, "To draw up the act of independence we need the skin of a white man for parchment, his skull for an inkwell, his blood for ink, and a bayonet for a pen. …


The structural properties of the system Y-2(Ti1-xZrx)(2)O-7 have been investigated using the neutron powder diffraction technique, including a detailed analysis of the "total scattering" using reverse Monte Carlo modeling to probe the short-range ion-ion correlations over sample range 0.0 <= x <= 1.0. The average crystal structure shows a continuous transformation from the long-range ordered pyrochlore structure (Fd (3) over barm, a = 10.0967(1) angstrom, Z = 8, for x = 0.00, Y2Ti2O7) to a disordered fluorite structure (Fm (3) over barm, a = 5.2042(1) angstrom, Z = 1, for x = 1.00, Zr2Y2O7) in agreement with previous reports. However, on increasing x the disordering of both the cation and the anion sublattices occurs in stages, with the Zr4+ initially only substituting onto the Ti4+ site and adopting a cubic, rather than octahedral, local anion environment. At concentrations in excess of x approximate to 0.4 there is a gradual disordering of the Y3+, Ti4+, and Zr4+ species over all the cation sites, coupled with a redistribution of the O2- which initially only involves those anions on the O1 sites. The relationship between the composition dependences of the structure properties and the ionic conductivity is discussed.


This report is intended for policy-makers concerned with the governments and efficiency of the financial sector and its banking institutions. The essays in this report were written by bankers with experience in both industrial and developing countries. They set out international best practices - practices that, because of the increasing globalization of international financial markets, are becoming the accepted standard everywhere. These materials have already been used in a number of World Bank - sponsored training programs for bankers and bank supervisors. Training and educational institutions in Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Russia have undertaken translations of part or all of the materials.


The neutralizing Ab response after primary HIV-1 infection is delayed relative to the virus-specific CD8+ T cell response and the initial decline in plasma viremia. Because nearly all HIV-1 infections result in AIDS, it would be instructive to study cases where neutralizing Ab production commenced sooner. This was done in subject AC10, an individual treated during early infection and in whom a rapid autologous neutralizing Ab response was detected after therapy cessation as rebound viremia declined and remained below 1000 RNA copies/ml of blood for over 2.5 years. This subject's Abs were capable of reducing the infectivity of his rebound virus by >4 logs in vitro at a time when rebound viremia was down-regulated and virus-specific CD8+ T cells were minimal, suggesting that neutralizing Abs played an important role in the early control of viremia. The rebound virus did not exhibit an unusual phenotype that might explain its high sensitivity to neutralization by autologous sera. Neutralization escape occurred within 75 days and was proceeded by neutralizing Ab production to the escape variant and subsequent escape. Notably, escape was not associated with a significant rise in plasma viremia, perhaps due to increasing CD8+ T cell responses. Sequence analysis of gp160 revealed a growing number of mutations over time, suggesting ongoing viral evolution in the face of potent antiviral immune responses. We postulate that an early effective neutralizing Ab response can provide long-term clinical benefits despite neutralization escape.


The pontocerebellar hypoplasias (PCHs) are a heterogeneous group of autosomal recessive disorders characterized by hypoplasia of the ventral pons and cerebellum, with variable cerebral involvement and severe psychomotor retardation. Eight different subtypes (PCH1-8) have been reported up to now. PCH2 is the most common type, generally caused by homozygous mutations in the TSEN54 gene and characterized by cerebellar hypoplasia that affects the hemispheres more severely than the vermis, progressive cerebral atrophy, microcephaly, dyskinesia, seizures and death in early childhood. We present two cousins with PCH2. Both patients presented with exaggerated startle response in the newborn period. Here we discuss the clinical and neuroradiological findings of PCH2, and its differentiation from familial startle disease or hereditary hyperekplexia.


Purpose Lymph-node metastasis is considered as critical prognostic factor in colorectal cancer. A preoperative evaluation of lymph-node metastasis can also help to determine the range of distant lymph node dissection. However, the reliability of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (FDG-PET/CT) in the detection of lymph-node metastasis is not fully known. Methods The medical records of 433 patients diagnosed with colorectal cancer were reviewed retrospectively. FDG-PET/CT and CT were performed on all patients. Lymph nodes were classified into regional and distant lymph nodes according to the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) Cancer Staging Manual, 7th edition. Results The patients included 231 males (53.3%) and 202 females (46.7%), with a mean age of 64.7 ± 19.0 years. For regional lymph nodes, the sensitivity of FDG-PET/CT was lower than that of CT (57.1% vs. 73.5%, P < 0.001). For distant lymph nodes, the sensitivity of FDG-PET/CT was higher than that of CT (64.7% vs. 52.9%, P = 0.012). The sensitivity of FDG-PET/CT for regional lymph nodes was higher in patients with larger primary tumors. The positivity of lymph-node metastasis for FDG-PET/CT was affected by carcinoembryonic antigen levels, tumor location, and cancer stage for regional lymph nodes and by age and cancer stage for distant lymph nodes (P < 0.05). Conclusion The sensitivity of FDG-PET/CT for regional lymph-node metastasis was not superior to that of CT. However, FDG-PET/CT provides helpful information for determining surgical plan especially in high risk patients group.


PURPOSE
To compare sciatic nerve regeneration in rats using three different techniques of repair.

METHODS
Fifteen isogonics rats were divided into three groups according to the method used to repair a 5-mm long defect created in the sciatic nerve: autogenous graft (Group A), polyglycolic acid tube (PGAt) (Group B), and of the association of PGAt with the graft (Group C). Histological analysis, regenerated myelinated axon number count and functional analysis were used to compare after six weeks.

RESULTS
There was no difference in fiber diameter and degree of myelinization presented by Groups A, B and C. Group B presented the lowest number of regenerated axons. The groups did not display any significant functional difference after walking track analysis (p<0.05).

CONCLUSION
No differences between the three groups in terms of functional recovery, although there were histological differences among them.


This study compares the use of a narrative information format in school health education about drinking alcohol with the traditionally used non-narrative information format amongst a sample of low educated adolescents. Narrative information is suggested to be more enjoyable, but may not always be as effective as non-narrative information. An experiment was conducted amongst 296 students (age 11-14) of the lowest levels of the Dutch secondary education system. Results showed immediate effects on knowledge and attitude, which did not differ between conditions. There were no effects on intention. Hence, both types of information are equally effective for this target group. An adapted version of this chapter is published as: Zebregs, S., van den Putte, B., de Graaf, A., Lammers, J., & Neijens, P. (2015). The effects of narrative versus non-narrative information in school health education about alcohol drinking for low educated adolescents. BMC public health, 15(1), 1085.


Lyn kinase (Lck/Yes related novel protein tyrosine kinase) belongs to the family of Src-related non-receptor tyrosine kinases. Consistent with physiological roles in cell growth and proliferation, aberrant function of Lyn is associated with various forms of cancer, including leukemia, breast cancer and melanoma. Here, we determine a 1.3 Å resolution crystal structure of the polyproline-binding SH3 regulatory domain of human Lyn kinase, which adopts a five-stranded β-barrel fold. Mapping of cancer-associated point mutations onto this structure reveals that these amino acid substitutions are distributed throughout the SH3 domain and may affect Lyn kinase function distinctly.


The ultrahigh‐frequency observation during an ionospheric heating experiment on 11 March 2014 at the European Incoherent Scatter Scientific Association Tromsø site illustrated a remarkable extension of observing altitudes of the enhanced plasma line and the ion line, implying that the enhanced ion acoustic wave and Langmuir wave should satisfy the Bragg condition within the extending altitude range. An analysis shows that the dependence of the wave number of the traveling ion acoustic wave on the profiles of enhanced electron temperature and ion mass, as are expected from the dispersion relation of the ion acoustic wave, leads to the extension of observing altitudes of the enhanced ion line. In addition, the altitude extension of the enhanced plasma line is dependent mainly on the profile of the electron density, although it is not independent of the profile of the electron temperature. Considering a small gradient profile of electron density, however, the enhanced electron temperature, as well as the thermal conduction along the magnetic field, may lead to the altitude extension of the enhanced plasma line.


We present a distributed algorithm to compute the bandwidth max-min fair rates in a multi-rate multicast network. The significance of the algorithm, compared to previous algorithms (Sakar, S. and Tassiulas L., 1999, 2000; Kar, K. et al., 2001), is that it is more scalable (it does not require each link to maintain the saturation status of all sessions and virtual sessions travelling through it) it is more stable (it converges asymptotically to the desired equilibrium, satisfying the minimum plus max-min fairness, even in the presence of heterogeneous round-trip delays) and it has explicit link buffer control (the buffer occupancy of every bottlenecked link in the network asymptotically converges to the pre-defined value). In addition, we propose an efficient feedback consolidation algorithm which is computationally simpler than its hard-synchronization based counterpart and eliminates unnecessary consolidation delay by preventing it from awaiting backward control packets (BCPs) that do not directly contribute to the session rate. Through simulations, we verify the performance of the proposed multi-rate multicast flow control scheme based on these two algorithms.


The depletion of fossil fuel reserves and increment of concern on environmental sustainability has motivated industries to search for alternatives for both energy generation and production of chemicals and materials. Among the alternative sources which are deemed to be viable, biomass has been identified as one of those with the highest potential sources to replace fossil fuel. In order to convert biomass into biofuels, bioenergy and biochemical, a sustainable integrated biorefinery is needed to integrate multiple biomass conversion processes with minimum impact to the environment, health and safety aspects. Currently, integrated biorefinery is designed primarily based on economic performance and environmental impact as these are the most important factors for decision makers especially for the development of new processes. However, the challenge is mounted up in a way that the design of an integrated biorefinery needs to also simultaneously consider other factors such as energy utilization, inherent occupational health and safety hazard. The increasing number of technologies available in the market will add to the complexities in the synthesis and design of an integrated biorefinery. Hence, the aim of the current paper is to conduct a review on the sustainability assessment methodologies which was used during the process synthesis of an integrated biorefinery system.


A class of wavelet-based methods, which combine adaptive grids together with secondorder central and central-upwind high-resolution schemes, is introduced for accurate solution of first order hyperbolic systems of conservation laws and related equations. It is shown that the proposed class recovers stability which otherwise may be lost when the underlying central schemes are utilized over non-uniform grids. For simulations on irregular grids, both full-discretized and semi-discretized forms are derived; in particular, the effect of using certain shifts of the center of the computational allow to use standard slope limiters on non-uniform cells. Thereafter, the questions of numerical entropy production, local truncation errors, and the Total Variation Diminishing (TVD) criterion for scalar equations, are investigated. Central schemes are sensitives for irregular grids. To cure this drawback in the present context of multiresolution, the adapted grid is locally modified around high-gradient zones by adding new neighboring points. For an adapted point of resolution scale j, the new points are locally added in both resolution j and all successive coarser resolutions. It is shown that this simple grid modification improves stability of numerical solutions; this, however, comes at the expense that cell-centered central and central-upwind high resolution schemes, may not satisfy the TVD property. Finally, we present numerical simulations for both scalar and systems of non-linear conservation laws which confirm the simplicity and efficiency of the proposed method. These simulations demonstrate the high accuracy, the entropy production of wavelet-based algorithms which can effectively detect high gradient zones of shock waves, rarefaction regions, and contact discontinuities.


Methacholine challenge testing is the most commonly used method for detecting and quantifying nonspecific bronchial hyperresponsiveness and has been used primarily in the clinical investigation of occupational asthma. This chapter reviews the rationale, methodology, and interpretation of this test which are relevant to conducting methacholine challenge testing outside the clinic ("in the field"). It also reviews the issues surrounding the methodology of methacholine challenge testing in general and, in particular, its use in epidemiologic studies.


The Porco Ag-Zn-Pb-Sn deposit, a major Ag producer in the 16th century and currently the major Zn producer in Bolivia, consists of a swarm of fissure-filling veins in the newly recognized Porco caldera. The caldera measures 5 km north-south by 3 km east-west and formed in response to the eruption of the 12 Ma crystal-rich dacitic Porco Tuff. Well-defined topographic walls of the caldera are cut in Ordovician and Cretaceous sedimentary rocks. The mineralization is associated with, and is probably genetically related to, the 8.6 Ma Huayna Porco stock (elev 4,528 m); the deposit is part of a system of radial dikes, metal zonation, and alteration mineral patterns centered on the stock. The outflow Porco Tuff to the north underlies the 6 to 9 Ma ash-flow tuffs of the Los Frailes volcanic field.The Porco deposit consists of steeply dipping irregular and curvilinear veins that cut the intracaldera Porco Tuff about 1 km east of the Huayna Porco stock. Major veins are generally less than a meter wide and as much as 2 km long. Most of the veins, especially the most productive ones, together with a small stock, dike, and breccia pipe, are aligned along the structural margin (ring fracture) of the caldera. The ore deposit is zoned around the Huayna Porco stock--cassiterite is generally close to the stock, and base metals, mostly as sphalerite and galena, are farther away, along the ring fracture veins. The primary Ag minerals, chiefly pyragyrite, acanthite, and stephanite, are most abundant in the upper parts of the veins.Fluid inclusions in sphalerite stalactites have homogenization temperatures of about 225 degrees C and salinities of about 8 wt percent NaCl equiv. The stalactites and the presence of sparse vapor-rich inclusions suggest deposition of sphalerite under boiling conditions. Modeling the depth of formation below the water table indicates that the present ground surface is close to the surface that existed at the time of mineralization.


In this study, polyvinylpyrrolidone-based nanofibrous air filter media were produced via centrifugal spinning and subsequently stabilized by thermal cross-linking process. Samples were produced using solutions with three different polymer concentrations (5, 10 and 20 wt.%) and three different rotational speeds (4000, 6000 and 8000 r/min). After obtaining the optimum web structure with the lowest average fiber diameter and the most uniform distribution, the webs were later thermally cross-linked in order to stabilize polyvinylpyrrolidone against the degradative effects of water. In addition, the webs were subjected to dissolvability tests to see the efficacy of cross-linking treatment. Morphological, structural and chemical characterizations of the polyvinylpyrrolidone webs were performed by SEM, XRD and FTIR, respectively. Finally, filter efficiency and pressure drop were measured to assess filter performance. The results have shown that the lowest average fiber diameter is obtained at the highest rotational speeds. Subsequent thermal cross-linking treatment has been found to prevent fibers from dissolving in water. The produced water-resistant, environmentally friendly polyvinylpyrrolidone nanofibrous filter media has had a satisfactory filtration performance with a high filter efficiency of 99.995% and a high quality factor of 0.39 mm H2O−1.


The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of a tick size change announcement to capital market quality using data from firms listed in Bursa Effect Jakarta. Database classified firms by stock volume level and price level. Generally, there is no evidence to prove that a tick size change announcement have an influence to capital market quality, but for special case we can prove that a tick size change announcement tend to influence capital market quality: i.e for firm that have lower price stock, the reducing tick size announcement will decrease capital market quality and from regression result find that reducing tick size will also decrease capital market quality.Keywords: Announcements, tick size, capital market quality


SUMMARY The chronic inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, are recognized as important causes of gastrointestinal disease in children and adults. In this review we delineate the clinical manifestations and diagnostic features of IBD. In addition, we summarize important recent advances in our understanding of the immune mediators of intestinal inflammation. This information has led to new therapeutic approaches in IBD. Further, we discuss the considerable data that point to the significance of genetic factors in the development of IBD and the genetic loci which have been implicated through genomewide searches. The commensal bacterial flora also appears to be a critical element, particularly in regards to Crohn's disease, although the precise role of the bacteria in the disease manifestations remains unclear. Current investigations promise to yield fresh insights in these areas.


Rational design and synthesis of efficient catalysts for electrochemical CO2 reduction is a critical step towards practical CO2 electrolyzer systems. In this work, we report a strategy to tune the catalytic property of a metallic Pd catalyst by coating its surface with a polydiallyldimethyl ammonium (PDDA) polymer layer. The resulting PDDA-functionalized Pd/C catalysts exhibit an enhanced CO faradaic efficiency of ∼93% together with a current density of 300 mA cm−2 at −0.65 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode in comparison to non-functionalized and commercial Pd/C catalysts. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis reveals that the improvement can be attributed to the electron transfer from the quaternary ammonium groups of PDDA to Pd nanoparticles, weakening the CO binding energy on Pd. The weak CO adsorption on Pd was further confirmed by the CO temperature programmed desorption measurement and operando attenuated total reflection-Fourier-transform infrared analysis. Therefore, the incorporation of electron-donating groups could be an effective strategy to decrease the CO binding energy of a metallic catalyst for a high CO selectivity in CO2 electroreduction.


In this study, the genetic diversity of three milk protein genes namely beta-casein, kappacasein and beta-lactoglobulin was estimated in Turkish cattle breeds. Based on these genes, breeds in Turkey have been grouped as: 1) Eastern Anatolian Red, Anatolian Black and Southern Anatolian Red and 2) Turkish Grey, Turkish Holstein and Holstein Candidate Bulls. B alleles of the three studied genes, which were reported to be positively related with cheese yield and quality, seemed to be low-intermediate for beta-casein and kappa-casein but relatively high for beta-lactoglobulin in the first group of Turkish breeds compared to other breeds of the world. The kappa-casein E allele, which has a negative effect on cheese quality, is absent in Turkish cattle breeds, except in Holstein Candidate Bulls. Therefore, the results suggest that milk of Turkish native breeds is suitable for cheese making. Based on observations of the Turkish breeds, some suggestions were made regarding breeding practices in Turkey.


We consider a generic protocell model consisting of any conservative chemical reaction network embedded within a membrane. The membrane results from the self-assembly of a membrane precursor and is semi-permeable to some nutrients. Nutrients are metabolized into all other species including the membrane precursor, and the membrane grows in area and the protocell in volume. Faithful replication through cell growth and division requires a doubling of both cell volume and surface area every division time (thus leading to a periodic surface area-to-volume ratio) and also requires periodic concentrations of the cell constituents. Building upon these basic considerations, we prove necessary and sufficient conditions pertaining to the chemical reaction network for such a regime to be met. A simple necessary condition is that every moiety must be fed. A stronger necessary condition implies that every siphon must be either fed, or connected to species outside the siphon through a pass reaction capable of transferring net positive mass into the siphon. And in the case of nutrient uptake through passive diffusion and of constant surface area-to-volume ratio, a sufficient condition for the existence of a fixed point is that every siphon be fed. These necessary and sufficient conditions hold for any chemical reaction kinetics, membrane parameters or nutrient flux diffusion constants.


In this study a commercial evacuated tube solar hot-water system was modified to be used as a thermal-power source for a thermodynamic engine. Commercial hot-water systems are meant to operate at temperatures that are close to the boiling point of water. Single-tube non-imaging concentrators were built in order to increase the input solar-radiation per tube and therefore supply thermal-power at temperatures of 180 - 220°C. Simulations and experiments show that it is possible to use concentrators to increase the temperature range of thermal power extracted from a commercial evacuated tube system and use this modified system to increase the efficiency of solar-thermal energy generation.


Purpose Corneal endothelial cells (CECs) are critical in maintaining clarity of the cornea. This study was initiated to develop peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC)-originated, induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived CECs. Methods We isolated PBMCs and programmed the mononuclear cells to generate iPSCs, which were differentiated to CECs through the neural crest cells (NCCs). The morphology of differentiating iPSCs was examined at regular intervals by phase contrast microscopy. In parallel, the expression of pluripotent and corneal endothelium (CE)-associated markers was investigated by quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR). The molecular architecture of the iPSC-derived CECs and human corneal endothelium (hCE) was examined by mass spectrometry–based proteome sequencing. Results The PBMC-originated, iPSC-derived CECs were tightly adherent, exhibiting a hexagonal-like shape, one of the cardinal characteristics of CECs. The CE-associated markers expressed at significantly higher levels in iPSC-derived CECs at days 13, 20, and 30 compared with their respective levels in iPSCs. It is of importance that only residual expression levels of pluripotency markers were detected in iPSC-derived CECs. Cryopreservation of iPSC-derived CECs did not affect the tight adherence of CECs and their hexagonal-like shape while expressing high levels of CE-associated markers. Mass spectrometry–based proteome sequencing identified 10,575 proteins in the iPSC-derived CEC proteome. In parallel, we completed proteome profiling of the hCE identifying 6345 proteins. Of these, 5763 proteins were identified in the iPSC-derived CECs, suggesting that 90.82% of the hCE proteome overlaps with the iPSC-derived CEC proteome. Conclusions We have successfully developed a personalized approach to generate CECs that closely mimic the molecular architecture of the hCE. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report describing the development of PBMC-originated, iPSC-derived CECs.


BACKGROUND AND AIMS
A better understanding of prognostic factors within the heterogeneous spectrum of pediatric Crohn's disease (CD) should improve patient management and reduce complications. We aimed to identify evidence-based predictors of outcomes with the goal of optimizing individual patient management.

METHODS
A survey of 202 experts in pediatric CD identified and prioritized adverse outcomes to be avoided. A systematic review of the literature with meta-analysis, when possible, was performed to identify clinical studies that investigated predictors of these outcomes. Multiple national and international face-to-face meetings were held to draft consensus statements based on the published evidence.

RESULTS
Consensus was reached on 27 statements regarding prognostic factors for surgery, complications, chronically active pediatric CD, and hospitalization. Prognostic factors for surgery included CD diagnosis during adolescence, growth impairment, NOD2/CARD15 polymorphisms, disease behavior, and positive anti-Saccharomyces cerevisiae antibodies (ASCA) status. Isolated colonic disease was associated with fewer surgeries. Older age at presentation, small bowel disease, serology (ASCA, antiflagellin, and OmpC), NOD2/CARD15 polymorphisms, perianal disease, and ethnicity were risk factors for penetrating (B3) and/or stenotic disease (B2). Male sex, young age at onset, small bowel disease, more active disease, and diagnostic delay may be associated with growth impairment. Malnutrition and higher disease activity were associated with reduced bone density.

CONCLUSIONS
These evidence-based consensus statements offer insight into predictors of poor outcomes in pediatric CD and are valuable when developing treatment algorithms and planning future studies. Targeted longitudinal studies are needed to further characterize prognostic factors in pediatric CD and to evaluate the impact of treatment algorithms tailored to individual patient risk.


Absolute electron-impact cross sections for molecular targets, including their radicals, are important in developing plasma reactors and testing various plasma processing gases. Low-energy electron collision data for these gases are sparse and only the limited cross section data are available. In this report, elastic cross sections for electron-polyatomic molecule collisions are compiled and reviewed for 17 molecules relevant to plasma processing. Elastic cross sections are essential for the absolute scale conversion of inelastic cross sections, as well as for testing computational methods. Data are collected and reviewed for elastic differential, integral, and momentum transfer cross sections and, for each molecule, the recommended values of the cross section are presented. The literature has been surveyed through early 2010. © 2010 American Institute of Physics. doi:10.1063/1.3475647


OBJECTIVE
Our study aims to explore the correlations of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) features and pathological changes in liver cancer with the messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) and protein expression of Beclin1.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
The mRNA and protein expression levels of Beclin1 in 42 cases of liver cancer and para-carcinoma tissues from liver cancer patients were detected via fluorescence quantitative polymerase chain reaction (FQ-PCR) and immunohistochemistry, and its correlations with the clinicopathological characteristics and MRI features were analyzed.

RESULTS
The mRNA expression of Beclin1 in liver cancer tissues was significantly higher than that in para-carcinoma tissues, and statistical correlation between pathological grade and mass size of liver cancer was found (p < 0.05). The immunohistochemical results revealed that the Beclin1 positive expression was mainly located in the cytoplasm, and the level was significantly increased compared with that in corresponding para-carcinoma tissues (p < 0.05). The MRI showed that both Min-apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) and Mean-ADC in Beclin1 high-expression group were significantly lower than those in Beclin1 low-expression group.

CONCLUSIONS
The Beclin1 expression plays an important role in the occurrence and development of liver cancer. MRI shows significant correlation with the level of Beclin1 in liver cancer, which provides certain value in the evaluation of the biological behaviors and prognosis of liver cancer.


Abstract Animals with dependent and vulnerable young need to decide where to raise their offspring to minimize ill effects of weather, competition, parasitism, and predation. These decisions have critical fitness consequences through impacting the survival of both adults and progeny. Birds routinely place their nest in specific sites, allowing species to be broadly classified based on nest location (e.g., ground‐ or tree‐nesting). However, from 2018 to 2020, we observed 24 American robin (Turdus migratorius) nests placed not on their species‐typical arboreal substrates or human‐made structures but on the ground at a predator‐rich commercial tree‐farm in Illinois, USA. This behavior does not appear to be in response to competition and did not affect nest daily survival rate but was restricted to the early half of the breeding season. We hypothesize that ground nesting may be an adaptive response to avoid exposure and colder temperatures at sites above the ground early in the breeding season or a nonadaptive consequence of latent robin nest‐placement flexibility.


For a better understanding of how different disorders affect motor function, a uniform, standardized and objective evaluation is a desirable goal for the clinical community. We explore the potential of Augmented Reality (AR) combined with serious gaming and free hand tracking to facilitate objective, cost-effective and patient-friendly methods for evaluation of upper extremity motor dysfunction in different patient groups. In this paper, we describe the design process of the game and the system architecture of the AR framework to meet these requirements. Furthermore, we report our findings from two pilot studies we conducted with healthy people aged over 50. First, we present a usability study (n = 5) on three different modalities of visual feedback for natural hand interaction with AR objects (i. e., no augmented hand, partial augmented hand and a full augmented hand model). The results show that a virtual representation of the fingertips or hand improves the usability of natural hand interaction. Secondly, a study about game engagement is presented. The results of this experiment (n = 8) show that there might be potential for engagement, but usability needs to be improved before it can emerge.


Background & Objectives: Macrophages have a variety of functions and different phenotypes that are affected by the microenvironment. Due to the multiple functions, Melatonin can promote the cancer progression or cancer regression in relation to other factors. However, there is no information about the role of melatonin on the formation of macrophages in the tumor environment. The purpose of the present study is to evaluate the effects of melatonin treated RAW264.7 macrophages on the growth rate of erythroleukemia cell line K562. Materials & Methods: RAW264.7 cells were cultured in the 24-well plates at a density of 6 × 10 4 cells per well. After culturing for 24 h, the cells were treated for 24 h with melatonin at concentrations 0, 50, 75, 100, 150, 200 μmol/L. After removal of the supernatant, macrophages and K562 were co cultured in 1:10 ratio. K562 vitality was then determined by MTT and NR assay. The rate of apoptosis in the cell population was evaluated by staining with acridine orange and ethidium bromide colors. Also, NO and MPO were measured in the supernatant of macrophages RAW264.7. Data were statistically analyzed using Kruskal-Wallis and Mann – Whitney U test (P<0.05). Results: The growth rate and vitality of K562 cells co-cultured with melatonin-treated macrophages was increased at concentrations of 50 and 75 μmol/L. Nevertheless, at higher concentrations of melatonin, this process was reversed. The levels of MPO and NO were decreased by increasing concentrations of melatonin. Conclusion: These results indicated that treatment of macrophage with melatonin, especially at lower doses (50 and 75μmol/L) could remarkably increase the K562 viability and vitality.


The world standards for patents and copyrights established by the Agreement on TradeRelated Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) have been controversial from their inception. This article establishes parallels between cooperative increases in the duration of intellectual property protection and cooperative reductions in tariff protection. Whereas a country's tariffs lead to unintended harm to other countries, its intellectual property protection generates unintended benefits. The long-established GATT principle of trade liberalization has traditionally achieved mutual gains for countries of all types through symmetric tariff rate cuts that result in different final rates. By contrast, the TRIPS agreement created the likelihood of losses for developing countries by requiring asymmetric increases in patents and copyrights to establish common worldwide standards. The technical annex to this paper formalizes the analysis with a simple model of "North-South" patent protection. Sample calculations suggest a decline in the net benefits from innovation in developing countries in the order of 40 percent.


Economic growth is important, but at the same time it loses its importance if nothing trickles down to the poor. One of the frequent heard arguments against growth strategies is that it benefits only the comparatively well off segment of the society. This means that the concomitant of economic growth is more skewed income distribution. Growth and equity should be solved subsequently or in some cases simultaneously, otherwise these countries are exposed to disaster [Hirschman (1973)]. The surge for income distribution studies both in developed and developing countries has, however, been caused by different reasons. In a developed nation, a high economic growth, in terms of GNP per capita and the introduction of the concept of a welfare state necessitated a widespread debate on income inequality and relative poverty issues. In the developing countries, failure to achieve sustainable high growth rates and disappointment from the pursuit of growth-led macro-economic policies in the past decade has surfaced a need to conduct income distribution studies and policies. Much of the recent literature on inequality and economic well-being in Pakistan has focused on the apparent increased inequality that occurred during the last two decades.


Aspects of the mechanism for reductive coupling of alkyl isocyanide ligands in seven-co-ordinate molybdenum(II) complexes of general formula [Mo(CNR)6X]+(X = halide) have been elucidated. The chemistry is analogous to that previously reported for reductive coupling of adjacent CO ligands in [M(CO)2(dmpe)2Cl] molecules (M = Nb or Ta, dmpe = Me2PCH2CH2PMe2). Reduction of [Mo(CNBut)6l]+ with 1% Na/Hg yields the six-co-ordinate molybdenum(0) species, [Mo(CNBut)6]. An X-ray crystal structure determination of this molecule revealed considerable bending at the isocyanide nitrogen atoms indicative of substantial charge delocalization onto the ligands. Addition of trifluoroacetic acid to [Mo(CNBut)6] results in reductive coupling of two isocyanide ligands to form [Mo(ButHNCCNHBut)(CNBut)4(O2CCF3)]+. Although additional intermediates in this coupling reaction were not isolated, an alkylaminocarbyne is suggested to be another likely species along the mechanistic pathway, by analogy to the CO reductive coupling mechanism. In support of this hypothesis, addition of SiMe2But(O3SCF3) to [Mo(CNBut)6] resulted in the formation of the stable cation [Mo{CN(But)(SiMe2But)}(CNBut)5]+. The structure of this new aminocarbyne complex was elucidated in an X-ray crystal structure determination. When 1 equivalent of trifluoroacetic acid was added to [Mo(CNBut)6] the interesting doubly protonated species [Mo(CHNHBut)(CNBut)5]2+ was obtained, as revealed by solution NMR spectroscopic analyses. The possible mechanistic implications of these results are discussed.


Abstract The effects of taper in a nonlinear slab waveguide with a distributed feedback grating are studied. The role of taper in the operation of the bistable gate is analysed with regard to switching intensity and transmission for various detunings from the Bragg condition. A comparison is made between three different functional forms of taper, namely linear, quadratic and triangular, which could occur in the preparation of a working device.


This article evaluates the insecurity of tenure that John Major suffered as leader of the Conservative party. It offers a chronological narrative that demonstrates that for the duration of his tenure as leader of the Conservative party, Major lacked the necessary authority within the parliamentary Conservative party to ensure his legitimacy as Conservative party leader. A range of explanatory themes are explored such as the circumstances through which he acquired the leadership; the betrayal thesis of the Thatcherites and the absence of a cohesive and enduring group of Majorities; and the lack of credible unifying alternatives. The article concludes that Major was the default leader of the Conservative party.