With the increased affordances of synchronous communication tools, more opportunities for online learning to resemble face-to-face settings have recently become available. However, synchronous communication does not afford as much time for reflection as asynchronous communication. Therefore, a combination of synchronous and asynchronous communication in e-learning would seem desirable to optimally support learner engagement and the quality of student learning. It is still an open question though, how to best design online learning with a blend of synchronous and asynchronous communication opportunities over time. Few studies have investigated the relationship between learners' actual use of synchronous and asynchronous communication over time. Therefore, this study addressed that relationship in an online course (N = 110), taking into account student motivation, and employing a dynamic inter-temporal perspective. In line with our assumptions, we found some support for the expected association between autonomous motivation and engagement in asynchronous and synchronous communication, be it restricted primarily to the first course period. Also, positive relations between engagement in synchronous and asynchronous communication were found, with the strongest influence from using asynchronous to synchronous communication. This study adds to the knowledge base needed to develop guidelines on how synchronous communication can be combined with asynchronous learning.


There are 3: valacyclovir, acyclovir, and topical penciclovir. valacyclovir, 2 g twice in 1 day taken during the prodromal stage of herpes labialis, reduces the episode duration and time to healing. Acyclovir, 400 mg, taken 5 times a day for 5 days, decreases the pain duration and healing time to loss of crust (strength of recommendation [sor]: a, based on randomized controlled trials [rCTs]). Topical penciclovir 1%, acyclovir 5%, or docosanol 10% also decrease the duration of pain and healing time (sor: a, based on rCTs). The best prophylaxis for herpes labialis is oral valacyclovir 500 mg daily; it reduces the frequency and severity of attacks (sor: B, based on rCT). sunscreen may be effective in sunlight-induced recurrence (sor: B, based on 2 small crossover rCTs).


This is a classic study of how managers interpret and engage problems as they are experienced and felt at various points and levels in factories and businesses. Melville Dalton, drawing on ethnographic data, examines both positive and negative interactions among managers, between managers and between workers, and managers and firms. He discusses the consequences for each group that result from their interactions. Where relevance and data allow, Dalton relates his findings to the surrounding community. Dalton argues that the recurring problem areas in management grow out of six main areas: pressures for economy of operation; "cooperation" of officially powerless experts with their administrative superiors; local conflicts between union and management; uncertainty about the route to a place in middle and upper management; the task of recognizing and rewarding differential contributions; and the moral conflicts of the individual executive. Each of these six problem areas is made the subject of a chapter. What emerges is a study of compromises among key individuals and groups in business organizations, and of the strictures on compromise. The book offers insights into how workplace rules, in practice, move from being sacred guides to flexible tools to balance company goals and personal ends. This volume includes a new introduction by David Shulman detailing the importance of this work more than forty years after its original publication. It is part of Transaction's Organization and Business series.


When it comes to reform to "New Public Management" (NPM), Croatia"s need to deal with inherent challenges (Antwi and Analoui, 2010) is not unique. The major challenge for public administration has been to create the supporting mechanisms to cope with cultural and economic changes, and to implement public policies (Wilson, 1887; Taylor, 1911; Stoker, 2006). Prior to ascension to the European Union Croatia"s need to strengthen the capacity of its civil service in order to support the creation of a politically neutral, professional and honest civil service to ensure the premises for real transformation in the public sector has been on the table (Analoui, 2009). Public sector reform is invariably related to the establishment of human resource departments and the capacity building (CB) of staff and management through human resource development programmes (Antwi and Analoui, 2010; O"Flynn, 2007; Analoui, 2007).


This Article analyzes the use of international trade law by American companies as part of a broad-based legal strategy to protect their commercial and investment interests in the increasingly knowledge-based global economy. It focuses on Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930, which provides companies with a private right of action to enjoin the importation and sale of goods in the United States that have been produced in violation of their intellectual property rights. Section 337 has recently emerged as a powerful enforcement tool to combat offshore misappropriation of trade secrets by employees, and this Article constitutes the first scholarly analysis of Section 337 offshore trade secret cases brought before the U.S. International Trade Commission. We describe the broad and far-reaching implications of Section 337 as a global business remedy, focusing on the extraterritorial projection of U.S. regulatory power and the growing overlap of multiple regulators over similar business conduct. Drawing from our normative and doctrinal analysis, we propose specific strategies that companies can adopt to maximize the value of Section 337, and outline certain measures that regulators can adopt to address the systemic concerns raised by Section 337.


The enduring impression which this book will leave in the minds of those who know something about renal disease will be one of gratitude to the author for having had the courage to write a monograph on this most difficult of all subjects. There is probably no branch of medicine in which the scatter of knowledge is so great, so obvious is the contrast between the tremendous advances in our understanding of renal function in health and disease on the one hand, and our almost complete ignorance of the causation and rational treatment of most types of renal disease on the other. On the whole de Wardener has overcome the difficulties with as much success as could be expected. His chapters on renal structure and function are clear and instructive and will appeal to the intelligent reader, and he avoids the temptation of over-simplifying and thus bringing his material down to the level found in most textbooks of medicine. With the difficult question of classification he is rather less successful. Wisely he tries to avoid the unnecessary and irrational complications of classification brought about by successive authors on renal disease, and prefers to describe syndromes of renal disease as they are found in practice. This treatment of the subject, sensible though it may be in some respects in the present state of our ignorance, tends to leave the reader with a fair impression of kidney disease as it may present itself at a certain stage of its development, but fails to give him as good a picture of renal disease observed over a period of years. Admittedly the information can be found in the book, and to those who already have long experience of renal disorders there is no difficulty; but it is rather like using a somewhat complicated map which is of more value to one who already knows the district than to one who has never been there before. The book is intended primarily for students, and, though they will find much valuable material in it, one wonders whether the end-result will not be to confuse rather than to enlighten all but the best of them; but, as the less intelligent ones probably never read monographs, this may not matter very much, and the book can be strongly recommended to anyone who has a working experience of kidney disease and wants to get up to date with new knowledge.


Lake Albert contributes significantly to Uganda's fish production and ranks third behind Lakes Victoria and Kyoga. The population at the lakeshores lives almost exclusively from fishing and fishmongering. However, like the other large inland water bodies of East Africa, Lake Albert is heavily overfished. The few existing studies on fisheries in Uganda predominantly look at Lake Victoria and at fisheries technological and biological issues. This study, however, sheds light on the socioeconomic aspects of the artisanal fisheries at Lake Albert and the determinants of the overfishing of the lake. The results of the study show that the problem of overfishing cannot be explained with a simple causal chain, but that it is a result of a complex set of economical, socio-cultural and political factors. Firstly, factors such as widespread poverty, a lack of economic alternatives or the high cost of appropriate fishing gears lead to an overexploitation of the open access fisheries. Secondly, collective action to solve the problem is inhibited by a lack of problem awareness and the conflicts of interest between rich and poor fishermen as well as between indigenous people and migrants. Moreover, on the political level, the lack of enforcement of existing fisheries laws is a problem. In the long term, the sustainable use of the fish stocks and a sustainable basis for nutrition, employment and income are mutually dependent. In the short term, however, there will be conflict, since any measure for the recovery of the fish stocks will immediately lead to a reduction in income. It is therefore recommended that any measures for the conservation and sustainable use of the fisheries resources should be accompanied by an integrated development. Moreover the population of the fishing villages should participate in the development and the implementation of the measures in order to ensure their success. 1. Problem and Objective


Interleukin 18 (IL18) is known to induce the expression of interferon-γ (IFNG), but its effects on T cell proliferation and costimulation are not completely understood. In this study, we demonstrate that ectopic expression of IL18 in CART cells caused significant T cell proliferation in vitro and in vivo, and enhanced antitumor effects in xenograft models. Moreover, IL18 mediated T cell expansion required neither tumor antigen nor CAR expression, and produced severe GVHD in NSG mice. Furthermore, recombinant IL18 costimulated IFNG secretion and proliferation of anti-CD3 beads treated T cells. Interestingly, IL18 costimulation could expand purified CD4 T cells, but not CD8 T cells. However, CD8 T cells proliferated greater than CD4 T cells in magnitude within bulk T cells, suggesting CD4 help effect was involved. Using CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing, we confirmed that IL18-driven expansion was both TCR and IL18 receptor (IL18R) dependent. Importantly, we demonstrated that TCR-deficient, IL18-expressing CD19 CART cells exhibited remarkable proliferation and persistent antitumor activity against CD19-expressing tumor cells in vivo, without eliciting any detectable GVHD symptom. Finally, we describe APACHE T cells, a novel strategy for coupling IL18 expression in CART cells to antigen stimulation, thereby limiting potential toxicity associated with persistent IL18 production. In sum, our study supports human IL18 as a T cell costimulatory cytokine for fueling CART therapy.


In the present work, fast dissolving tablets of glipizide were prepared by direct compression method with a view to enhance patient compliance. Two superdisintegrants viz, crospovidone and croscarmellose sodium (4%, 5%, 6%) with different binders viz, pvp k-30 and pregelatinized starch (3%) were used. The prepared batches of tablets were evaluated for hardness, friability, weight variation, disintegration, wetting time, drug content and in vitro dissolution studies. Based on evaluating parameters, Formulation prepared by using 5% croscarmellose sodium with 3% PVP K30 was selected as optimized formulation. Finally, the optimized formulation was compared with marketed conventional formulation. Stability studies were carried out at 25oC / 60% RH and 40oC / 75% RH for optimized formulation for 2 months. Stability studies on the optimized formulation indicated that there was no significant change found in physical appearance, disintegration time and wetting time of the tablets.


Women increasingly occupy jobs in psychological research, but continue to face career barriers. One such barrier is fewer authorship and publication opportunities, with women often having fewer first authorships than men. In this research, we examine the overlooked role of middle authorship. Middle authorship contributes to various indices of productivity, while having lower costs. Study 1 looks at five years of authorship in two major journals in social and personality psychology. Study 2 examines publication records of all social psychology faculty in the Netherlands. Both studies find that women have fewer authorship possibilities: In Study 1, women were underrepresented as authors in academic journals, while women in Study 2 had shorter publication lists. More importantly, this tendency was exacerbated for middle authorship positions. Furthermore, the percentage of middle authorship publications were positively related to more publications overall. A focus on middle authorship highlights previously underestimated challenges women continue to face in psychological research.


Abstract
Purpose
We stress the public demand for accountability of global brands and the rise in normative public brand evaluations in online networks. To gain an empirical and theoretical understanding of these phenomena, we introduce the notion of public brand auditing, which refers to public agents collectively contrasting brands against a multiplicity of shared understandings of what is worthy and good.

Methodology/approach
Convention theory serves as a theoretical lens to conceptualize public brand auditing, since it provides a normative framework of orders of worth based on which the appropriateness of actions are judged. Empirically, we conduct a netnographic study and illustrate public auditing strategies with online discussions about Google on the Slashdot platform.

Findings
We find that public brand auditing comprises two major auditing strategies: drawing leeways of acceptable brand conduct and allocating responsibilities.

Research implications
Approaching public forms of normative brand judgments from a convention theory perspective allows researchers to better understand how the public holds brands accountable and evaluates brand conduct against higher-order principles.

Practical implications
The concept of public brand auditing helps managers to understand and approach the normative basis of both positive and negative brand judgments.

Social implications
We urge brands to monitor public demand for accountability and emphasize the importance of the civic, market, and industrial orders of worth in guiding brand conduct.

Originality/value
This paper offers a conceptualization of and a framework for investigating public brand auditing phenomena.


Efforts to drive action on climate change are increasingly turning to courts. Climate litigation is nothing new, but there has been a recent surge of cases with strategic ambitions. This use of litigation to achieve strategic goals mirrors a long history of human rights practitioners using litigation to achieve policy change. While climate litigators are recognizing the relevance of substantive human rights arguments to climate change, they have paid limited attention to how the human rights community has used litigation.

This is a missed opportunity. The human rights community has spent decades debating the role of strategic litigation in effecting lasting change, reflecting on the role of strategic litigation and its relationship with other forms of advocacy and activism, and identifying how to minimise the risks of litigation and maximise its impact. There is potential for climate litigators to use and build on the hard-won lessons that human rights advocates have learned about how to use litigation most effectively and strategically when facing problems with deep social, economic and political roots.

This paper outlines those links: it identifies the emergence of the next generation of climate litigation involving cases with strategic ambition; outlines the debates on strategic litigation within the human rights community; and considers how the lessons from those debates apply to climate litigation.


Japan has established a waste management system to reduce final disposal as the country has limited lands available to maintain waste disposal sites. Incineration is a key component in the overall waste management system. However, maintenance of incinerators is expensive. As such, improving the overall efficiency of the system is of high priority. Improving the waste recovery system has been identified as one such concepts in the context of overall system efficiency. At present, each municipality has its own incinerator(s). Maintenance of such facilities is a burden, especially for smaller municipalities. The conceptual idea here is to reduce the number of incineration and improve waste transportation/logistics. Some municipalities can afford to have incineration facilities of greater capacity. This will have several advantages. Instead of maintaining their own incinerators, smaller municipalities can send their waste to larger facilities and cut down on the cost of construction or maintenance of incinerators. Large municipalities can construct incinerators with greater capacity in scarcely available lands for such purposes. However this model will bring difficulties for municipalities managing larger areas. Until now the municipalities with large areas located incineration facility in the center of the city. But in the new system, the municipality may require to bring waste to the next city. This can elevate the transportation cost for municipalities with large areas. The new big facility brings another point which is energy recovery. Once the facility becomes large, it can have high efficient power generation. The waste treatment facility generates 100% renewable energy. Japanese government set a law which big electricity company has to buy renewable energy with high price. The waste treatment facility can sell the company with high price and reduce the burden of the taxpayer. One municipality is constructing waste management system which includes not only waste incineration facility but also sewage treatment facility. They mix sludge from the sewage treatment facility and kitchen garbage and get methane from fermentation system. Methane fermentation can produce methane gas, but it can also produce waste water and residue. Especially the waste water includes higher nitrogen content and can be utilized as fertilizer. However, it is difficult to utilize the fertilizer because Japan does not have much agricultural lands and agriculture sector cannot accept the entire production. Sewage treatment facility can treat waste water because the facility locates next to the fermentation chamber. Keywords: Waste management, Incineration facility, Municipality, Recycle, Energy recover


The impacts of COVID-19 outbreak on human being mental health issues have given indication for the alarming situation for sustaining a healthy lifestyle. The diverse significance of the disease surrounded by religious group of people, ontologically, as well show the ways to an assortment of fitting sensible actions in the face of dispersion a virus. Current study focuses on intellectualize and treasure the association between religious beliefs and the impact of COVID-19 among the rural population of Pakistan. Three hundred and forty adults of central Punjab comprising of three districts including Sargodha, Faisalabad and Khushab (N=340) from both genders were taken by using purposive sampling technique. Religious beliefs were measured using the religious belief scale and the impact of COVID-19 was measured using the impact of event scale as impact of event scaleRevised (IES-R). Results revealed that a negative association was found between religious beliefs and impact of Covid-19 outbreak. Study also explored the relationship between religious beliefs and dimension of the impact of Covid-19 including Intrusion, avoidance and Hyper-arousal. Further study found that religious beliefs predicted the impact of Covid-19 negatively. Due to strong Muslim religious beliefs, they believe that Covid-19, a disease is brought by the Almighty God, and it is the Almighty who can remove this pandemic. Study was completed in short span of two months. In future it is suggested that there is need to more work on other departments of different territories Punjab (Pk).


The polyol synthesis method is a popular approach for fabricating long silver nanowires. Additionally, the polyol method has been claimed to produce various shapes and sizes of nanoparticles by altering certain parameters of the reaction, such as the molecular weight of the solvent. Yet the effect of varying the molecular weight of the polyol solvent on the synthesis product is not well understood, since studies that report an effect that the solvent use substantially different procedures. Here, we analyze the effect of changing the polyol solvent, from ethylene glycol to poly(ethylene glycol) with different molecular weights, on the shape and size of silver nanoparticles using the same procedure. Using ethylene glycol, silver nanowires (up to 2 μm in length) are synthesized, similar to what has been widely reported. Under the same conditions, poly(ethylene glycol) of any molecular weight yields shorter nanoparticles (<500 nm) with different shapes. Additionally, the impacts that synthesis variables have differ with polyol molecular weight. Using ethylene glycol, chloride ions are required to obtain nanowires; the length of which can be shortened by adjusting the reaction time or the concentration of capping agent. Using poly(ethylene glycol), these synthesis variables have different outcomes: chloride ions do not affect the yield of anisotropic nanoparticles; neither does the concentration of the capping agent.


The physical properties of maize are a result of kernel structure, they indicate chemical properties of the kernel, and hence, its nutritive value. This research aimed to explore the physical traits of kernels of 80 commercial maize hybrids from nine seed companies. The grain from investigated hybrids was produced during the same season on the same field under the same agricultural conditions. Moisture content, bulk and real density, Stenvert hardness (time to grind 17mL of grits, height of freshly ground grain, and coarse-to-fine particles ratio, C/F), flotation index, breakage susceptibility, kernel dimensions, and sphericity were determined in maize samples. Test weight was in a range from 70.2 to 82.1 kg/hL, with the majority of hybrids of high nutritive value (>72 kg/hL). Density ranged from 1.159 to 1.301 kg/L and similarly as test weight increased with increasing hardness (C/F; r=0.52 and 0.68, respectively; P<0.001); a trait that is related to breakage and insect resistance, and to decreased starch digestibility. Flotation index was from 8 to 100%, and its value decreased with increasing hardness (r=-0.65; P<0.001). A wide range of values in physical traits of investigated hybrids implies different behavior of grain during postharvest handling and processing and thus variable nutritive value.


We generalize the Rubinstein (1982) bargaining model by disentangling payoff delay from bargaining delay. We show that our extension is isomorphic to generalized discounting with dynamic consistency and characterize the unique equilibrium. Using a novel experimental design to control for various confounds, we then test comparative statics predictions with respect to time discounting. All bargaining takes place within a single experimental session, so bargaining delay is negligible and dynamic consistency holds by design, while payoff delay per disagreement round is significant and randomized transparently at the individual level (week/month, with/without front-end delay). In contrast to prior experiments, we obtain strong behavioral support for the basic predictions that hold regardless of the details of discounting. Testing differential predictions of different forms of discounting, we strongly reject exponential discounting in favor of present-biased discounting.


Predicting the behavior of physical systems is essential to both common sense and engineering tasks. It is made especially challenging by the lack of complete precise knowledge of the phenomena in the domain and the system being modelled. We present an implemented approach to automatically building and simulating qualitative models of physical systems. Imprecise knowledge of phenomena is expressed by qualitative representations of monotonic functions and variable values. Incomplete knowledge about the system is either inferred or alternative complete descriptions that will affect behavior are explored. The architecture and algorithms used support both effective implementation and formal analysis. The expressiveness of the modelling language and strength of the resulting predictions are demonstrated by substantial applications to complex systems.


Crit Care Med 2015 • Volume 43 • Number 12 (Suppl.) had not and analyzed using logistic regression. Results: Among 124 graduates surveyed (31% male, median age 30 yr), 94 (76%) responded. Among the 26% of CCP residents who had published their PRP project to date, 67% were first authors and 50% were successful on the first submission. A third (36%) still planned to publish their PRP. Among the 38% not planning to publish, most (74%) perceived their PRP was not publishable due to low quality and/or impact. A number of factors [≥1 publication during PGY2 (e.g. PGY1 project) (p=0.006), presentation of PRP at a national conference (p=0.01), use of non-pharmacist clinician collaborators (p=0.05) and research training during PGY2 (p=0.05)] and perceptions [self-motivation to publish (p=0.001), post-PGY2 mentor support (p=0.006), PRP publication important to post-PGY2 employer (p=0.009) and adequate training (p=0.01)] differed between published and non-published CCP graduates. Two factors [≥1 publication during PGY2 (OR=3.70, p=0.006) and presentation of the PRP at a national conference (OR 4.47, p=0.03)] and two perceptions [self-motivation to publish (OR 8.05, p=0.008) and post-PGY2 mentor support (OR 3.30, p=0.03)] were independently associated with PRP publication success. Conclusions: A quarter of PGY2 CCP residents publish their PRP. The factors and perceptions associated with CCP PRP publication success should inform future efforts focused on increasing PRP publication rates.


Neural networks with PDEs embedded in their loss functions (physics-informed neural networks) are employed as a function approximators to find solutions to the Ricci flow (a curvature based evolution) of Riemannian metrics. A general method is developed and applied to the real torus. The validity of the solution is verified by comparing the time evolution of scalar curvature with that found using a standard PDE solver, which decreases to a constant value of 0 on the whole manifold. We also consider certain solitonic solutions to the Ricci flow equation in two real dimensions. We create visualisations of the flow by utilising an embedding into $\mathbb{R}^3$. Snapshots of highly accurate numerical evolution of the toroidal metric over time are reported. We provide guidelines on applications of this methodology to the problem of determining Ricci flat Calabi--Yau metrics in the context of String theory, a long standing problem in complex geometry.


Abstract. The article is aimed at the forming approaches for the estimated probability of bankruptcy in the system of strategic management of marketing activity which serves as a tool for coordinating production and distribution of goods and services based on the customer needs, market characteristics and the development of practical measures to meet identified needs. It is proved that strategic management of marketing activity is the difficult task because it is necessary to achieve a dynamic balance between environmental factors and internal resources of the enterprise.
The proposed analytical and applied support for the estimated probability of bankruptcy in the system of strategic management of marketing activity is based on the use of diagnostic expert systems that make it possible to formulate reasonable conclusions, to implement the necessary procedures aimed at the obtaining answers, to obtain the generalized results of analysis and to assess the probability of bankruptcy in a convenient form.
It is substantiated the procedure for the estimated probability of bankruptcy in the context of strategic management of marketing activity providing for the formation of a set of indicators based on the selected criteria characterizing the state of the enterprise as a whole and the level of marketing activity. It is established the membership functions of the fuzzy value of the indicator to the previously introduced term-sets of the levels of the probability of bankruptcy. The results of calculating membership functions for each of the selected indicators made it possible to obtain the objective result of the estimated probability of the enterprise bankruptcy according to the selected system of indicators grouped by the activity areas in conditions of uncertainty and variability of the external environment for the current and future periods. The proposed approach for the estimated probability of the enterprise bankruptcy based on the regression mechanism of inference serves as the basis for the production of strategic management influences aimed at the stabilizing the financial condition of the enterprise by harmonizing production and sales activities in the context of marketing activity.
Further areas of researches are the formation of a mechanism for strategic management of the enterprise marketing activity based on the implementation of the marketing concept in the context of the need to adapt to changing environmental conditions and consumer needs.
Keywords: management, strategic management, marketing, marketing activity, bankruptcy, estimated probability of bankruptcy.
JEL Classification G21, J31
Formulas: 0; fig.: 3; tabl.: 5; bibl.: 21.


We have hypothesized that antiallergic activity of inhaled heparin is molecular weight dependent and mediated by "nonanticoagulant fractions" (NAF-heparin). Therefore, we studied comparative effects of high-, medium-, and ultralow-molecular-weight (HMW, MMW, and ULMW, respectively) NAF-heparins on acute bronchoconstrictor response (ABR) and airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) in allergic sheep. Specific lung resistance was measured in 23 allergic sheep, before and immediately after challenge with Ascaris suum antigen, without and after pretreatment with inhaled NAF-heparins. Airway responsiveness was estimated before and 2 h postantigen as the cumulative provocating dose of carbachol in breath units, which increased specific lung resistance by 400%. NAF-heparins attenuated ABR and AHR in a molecular-weight-dependent fashion. HMW NAF-heparin (n = 8) was the least effective agent: it attenuated ABR [inhibitory dose causing 50% protection (ID50) = 4 mg/kg] but had no effect on AHR. MMW NAF-heparin (n = 8) showed intermediate efficacy (ABR ID50 = 0.8 mg/kg, AHR ID50 = 1.4 mg/kg), whereas ULMW NAF-heparin (n = 7) was the most effective agent (ABR ID50 = 0.4 mg/kg, AHR ID50 = 0.2 mg/kg). ULMW NAF-heparin was 3.5 times more potent in attenuating antigen-induced AHR when administered "after" antigen challenge and failed to inhibit the bronchoconstrictor response to carbachol and histamine. In 15 additional sheep, segmental antigen challenge caused a marked increase in histamine in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid that was not prevented by any of the inhaled NAF-heparins. These data indicate that antiallergic activity of inhaled heparin is independent of its anticoagulant action and resides in the <2,500 ULMW chains. The antiallergic activity of NAF-heparins is mediated by an unknown biological action and may have therapeutic potential.


ABSTRACT The relationship literature describes that declining commitment leads to breakup. The goal of this article is to distinguish declining commitment and breakup to clarify this claim to better understand relationship processes. Data comes from a longitudinal study of heterosexual dating couples (N = 180). Both individuals in the relationship independently graphed changes in commitment to wed their partner and reported reasons for each change monthly for eight consecutive months. Frequency and intensity of decreased interaction, relational uncertainty, and alternative partners were measured across periods of stability (increased or stable levels of commitment to wed) and declining commitment (decreased commitment to wed that was at least one month in duration). Hierarchical linear models revealed that more frequent reports of these characteristics were associated with declining commitment rather than stability. Using survival analyses, intensity of each characteristic predicted breakup versus declining commitment. Implications for relationship processes are discussed.


The transistors used to construct Integrated Circuits (ICs) continue to shrink. While this shrinkage improves performance and density, it also reduces trust: the price to build leading-edge fabrication facilities has skyrocketed, forcing even nation states to outsource the fabrication of high-performance ICs. Outsourcing fabrication presents a security threat because the black-box nature of a fabricated IC makes comprehensive inspection infeasible. Since prior work shows the feasibility of fabrication-time attackers' evasion of existing post-fabrication defenses, IC designers must be able to protect their physical designs before handing them off to an untrusted foundry. To this end, recent work suggests methods to harden IC layouts against attack. Unfortunately, no tool exists to assess the effectiveness of the proposed defenses---meaning gaps may exist.
This paper presents an extensible IC layout security analysis tool called IC Attack Surface (ICAS) that quantifies defensive coverage. For researchers, ICAS identifies gaps for future defenses to target, and enables the quantitative comparison of existing and future defenses. For practitioners, ICAS enables the exploration of the impact of design decisions on an IC's resilience to fabrication-time attack. ICAS takes a set of metrics that encode the challenge of inserting a hardware Trojan into an IC layout, a set of attacks that the defender cares about, and a completed IC layout and reports the number of ways an attacker can add each attack to the design. While the ideal score is zero, practically, our experience is that lower scores correlate with increased attacker effort.


The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is one of the main international fallout of the former Soviet Union. With the exception of the warring parties - Armenia and Azerbaijan - Turkey, Russia and Iran were indirectly involved in the conflict. Beyond them, strong international acts such as the United States and France were also parts of negotiations, although their objectivity towards warring parties was questionable, especially in Baku. It was the stalemate in the negotiations that created the militaristic environment and the preparation for a new large-scale conflict. The Second Karabakh War of 2020 completely changed the reality on the ground. Azerbaijan, with the help of Turkish weapons, not only managed to retake six of the seven regions around Karabakh but also occupied the city of Shusha, which was perceived to be the cultural centre of Karabakh. However, Russia also benefited from the military-political consequences, as it legally managed to deploy military forces not only in Armenia but directly in Azerbaijan as well. All this makes the situation on the ground quite complex. The paper discusses the post-war political and military situation in Karabakh and the region.


PAR-based UREs are undergraduate research experiences (UREs)—built into university-community partnerships—that apply principles of participatory action research (PAR) towards addressing community-defined challenges. In this paper, we advance PAR-based UREs as an action-oriented framework through which higher education institutions can simultaneously enact and advance the United Nations sustainable development agenda, while cultivating student development. We draw upon interdisciplinary scholarship on sustainable development and PAR, as well as empirical findings from a pilot program, to accomplish dual goals. First, through the lens of six Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) clusters, we explore the synergies between undergraduate PAR engagement and sustainable development, explaining how PAR-based UREs can prefigure and facilitate SDG achievement by promoting cross-sector collaboration and supporting diverse stakeholder engagement through community-driven research and action. Second, within each SDG cluster, we offer complementary reflections and recommendations around the design and implementation of PAR-based UREs towards advancing students' skills and abilities as: (1) Community Collaborators (and Learners); (2) Community-Engaged Researchers; (3) (Interdisciplinary) Scholars; (4) Agents of Change; (5) (Sustainable) Co-Innovators; and (6) Institutional Representatives. Finally, we discuss the critical role of higher education institutions in minimizing structural barriers to PAR-based URE implementation, given their prefigurative and practical potential for both SDG achievement and student development.


Nonlinear dynamic models for gated radar range trackers are developed and applied to the range resolution problem. Two common types of tracking loop dynamics, as well as the automatic gain control (AGC), are accounted for in the models. The null detector is formulated in a general way that encompasses many important error detector laws, including centroid and leading-edge. Both discrete-time dynamic models are presented for each class of tracking loop. The discrete-time models are derived using an analytical description of the pulse-to-pulse dynamics of the tracker. The continuous-time models are approximations of their discrete-time counterparts for sufficiently small values of the pulse repetition interval. Each of the models is analyzed for a deterministic target return condition. General criteria for the asymptotic stability of the equilibrium points of the models are obtained. The most striking of the stability criteria is a sign requirement on the slope of a range error curve. These criteria are used in a two-target example to draw conclusions on a tracker's ability to resolve closely spaced targets as a function of target separation. These conclusions are compared with previously reported conclusions on resolvability obtained using P.M. Woodward's (1955) ambiguity function approach. >


Abstract. A series of panoramic images are usually used to generate a 720° panorama image. Although panoramic images are typically used for establishing tour guiding systems, in this research, we demonstrate the potential of using panoramic images acquired from multiple sites to create not only 720° panorama, but also three-dimensional (3D) point clouds and 3D indoor models. Since 3D modeling is one of the goals of this research, the location of the panoramic sites needed to be carefully planned in order to maintain a robust result for close-range photogrammetry. After the images are acquired, panoramic images are processed into 720° panoramas, and these panoramas which can be used directly as panorama guiding systems or other applications. In addition to these straightforward applications, interior orientation parameters can also be estimated while generating 720° panorama. These parameters are focal length, principle point, and lens radial distortion. The panoramic images can then be processed with closerange photogrammetry procedures to extract the exterior orientation parameters and generate 3D point clouds. In this research, VisaulSFM, a structure from motion software is used to estimate the exterior orientation, and CMVS toolkit is used to generate 3D point clouds. Next, the 3D point clouds are used as references to create building interior models. In this research, Trimble Sketchup was used to build the model, and the 3D point cloud was added to the determining of locations of building objects using plane finding procedure. In the texturing process, the panorama images are used as the data source for creating model textures. This 3D indoor model was used as an Augmented Reality model replacing a guide map or a floor plan commonly used in an on-line touring guide system. The 3D indoor model generating procedure has been utilized in two research projects: a cultural heritage site at Kinmen, and Taipei Main Station pedestrian zone guidance and navigation system. The results presented in this paper demonstrate the potential of using panoramic images to generate 3D point clouds and 3D models. However, it is currently a manual and labor-intensive process. A research is being carried out to Increase the degree of automation of these procedures.


A study was conducted in Ogun state Southwest Nigeria, to identify legume species with resilience to intense defoliation through grazing, both in quality and quantity, in the moist savanna zone of West Africa. Five (5) forage legumes: Centrosema pascuorum Benth (Centro), Stylosanthes guianensis var. guianensis (Aubl.) Sw. var. guianensis (cook stylo), Stylosanthes hamata (L.) Taub. (verano stylo), Lablab purpureus cv. Highworth (L) Sweet (black seed lablab) and Lablab purpureus cv. Rongai (white seed lablab) were planted in 5 x 5 m pure plots and also in association with Panicum maximum (guinea grass) two (2) weeks after planting the grass. Legumes were drilled method at 10kg/ha for stylosanthes species and 13kg/ha for centrosema and 15kg/ha for both Lablab species. Legumes were evaluated through growth performance, disease incidence, drought tolerance and biomass dry-matter yield in 2011. During the dry season, mob-grazing using the Bunaji cattle was carried out on the entire plots in 2012 and biomass yield and forage quality of the regrowth was estimated. L. purpureus cv. Rongai was able to survive the dry season with about 40% staying green until early dry season. In mixture with Panicum, the CP contents of both S. hamata and L. purpureus cv. Rongai were significantly higher than the other legumes during the first year harvest. When the forage legumes were planted in mixed sward with Panicum in the first year, L. purpureus cv. Rongai gave the highest in vitro gas volume. Least volume of methane gas produced by both species of stylosanthes and L. purpureus cv. Rongai were similar in the first planting year. Its ability to stay green during the dry season and high regeneration potentials with higher CP contents after mob-grazing proved that L. purpureus cv. Rongai is suitable as a good livestock feed resource for the short dry season in the moist savanna of West Africa.


From the moment that his debut book, Goodbye, Columbus (1959), won him the National Book Award, Philip Roth has been among the most influential and controversial writers of our age. Now the author of more than twenty novels, numerous stories, two memoirs, and two books of literary criticism, Roth has used his writing to continually reinvent himself and in doing so to remake the American literary landscape. This Companion provides the most comprehensive introduction to his works and thought in a collection of newly commissioned essays from distinguished scholars. Beginning with the urgency of Roth's early fiction and extending to the vitality of his most recent novels, these essays trace Roth's artistic engagement with questions about ethnic identity, postmodernism, Israel, the Holocaust, sexuality, and the human psyche itself. With its chronology and guide to further reading, this Companion will be essential for new and returning Roth readers, students and scholars.


Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the factors affecting psychological symptoms and hope level in patients diagnosed with coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19). Methods: This descriptive study was conducted with 156 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who were treated in the pandemic ward of a training and research hospital between January and March 2021. Patient data were collected using a patient information form, the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), and the Dispositional Hope Scale (DHS). Results: The mean Global Severity Index score of the BSI was 0.45±0.36, the mean Positive Symptom Total (PST) score was 12.98±9.23, the mean Positive Symptom Distress Index score was 1.78±0.5, and the mean DHS total score was 46.42±9.41. Regression analysis yielded a significant cause and effect relationship between education status and anxiety disorder (F=7.953;p=0.005) as well as a relationship between age, gender, education level, income, and the presence of chronic disease and the total hope score (F=3.158;p=0.010). There was a statistically significant negative correlation between the mean DHS score and the mean PST score (r=-0.262;p=0.001). Conclusion: The findings of this study revealed that overall, the patients displayed minimal psychological symptoms and a high level of hope. Age, gender, education, income, and the presence of chronic disease affected the hope level, while education had an effect on the level of anxiety. The hope level of the COVID-19 patients studied decreased as psychological symptoms increased. The development and implementation of psychological interventions to increase the hope level of these patients and the general public is recommended as a preventive and strengthening measure. © 2022 by Journal of Psychiatric Nursing.


We use one day Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) interferograms from data of the Earth Remote Sensing Satellites ERS-1 and ERS-2 to study ice flow and uplift of two surface depressions within the Vatnajokull ice cap, Iceland. The ice cauldrons are created by melting at subglacial geothermal areas. Meltwater accumulates in a reservoir under the cauldrons over 2 to 3 years until it drains in a jokulhlaup under the ice dam surrounding the reservoir. The ice surface in the depressions drops down by several tens of meters during these draining events but rises again, as ice flows into the depressions, until a jokulhlaup occurs again. Using SAR interferograms we quantify an uplift rate of about 2 to 18 cm/day within the jokulhlaup cycle varying with the surface slope of the de- pressions. The uplift rate is high during the first months after a jokulhlaup when the cauldron is relatively deep with steep slopes, but the uplift rate decreases as the caul- dron is gradually filled. A simple axisymmetric model sim- ulating the ice-flow into one of the depressions describes quantitatively the filling rate of the cauldron and qualita- tively the shape of the ice flow field. The best-fit model has an ice flow law parameter A0 that is about one order of magnitude lower than typically estimated for temperate glaciers.


Background: In the past few decades, the incidence of cardiometabolic diseases
and disorders of the liver, kidney, pancreas, heart, and lung, have been
increasing in Western and Asian countries, including Japan. Numerous factors, including
abnormal body weight (obesity, overweight, or underweight), infrequent exercise,
and other unfavorable lifestyle factors (e.g., smoking and heavy alcohol
drinking) have been proposed as risk factors for the development and the
progression of diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and dyslipidemia,
which ultimately lead to impaired organ function and possibly death. However,
the mechanisms that link these risk factors with diseases are still poorly understood,
and the potential treatments, including pharmacotherapy and diet, have not been
fully evaluated. Methods: In 2011,
we established a new collaborative research program, the Saitama
Cardiometabolic Disease and Organ Impairment Study (SCDOIS). This
multidisciplinary observational epidemiological research study was designed to
cover several high-profile diseases and some traditional fields of internal
medicine, as well as apparently unrelated fields and particular lifestyle
factors, such as unhealthy eating behaviors. In a series of studies, apparently
healthy subjects who underwent a regular medical checkup were retrospectively
identified based on the results of their medical checkups. In this way, the
incidence, prevalence, causality, and clinical relevance of specific conditions
and diseases have been investigated in cross-sectional analyses of 100,000 - 200,000
adults, and in longitudinal studies of several thousand subjects who underwent
medical checkups multiple times. Discussion: This article describes the background, rationale, purpose, and
methods of the SCDOIS. Using data obtained from annual medical checkups, our
goals are to 1) establish criteria or identify clinical features that would
enable clinicians to detect the presence of abnormal conditions associated with
cardiometabolic diseases and/or organ impairment much earlier in the disease
course; and 2) determine the potential mechanisms and therapies for these
conditions.


Men Faculty Engagement in Gender Equity Work in STEM Amena Oliver Anderson This grounded theory study explores the sparsely examined phenomenon of men faculty engagement in gender equity work through the National Science Foundation's (NSF) ADVANCE project and one of its program innovations, Men Faculty Advocates and Allies (A & A). The A & A initiative recruits two categories of men faculty—advocates and allies—to engage in a program of work designed to heighten awareness about gender inequity and redress it through strategic efforts at the individual, departmental, and institutional level. Advocates are usually senior faculty or program administrators from within and outside of STEM fields. They assume the greater part of the program work which includes self-initiated education and awareness as well as facilitating educational workshops and dialogues for various contingents of faculty men across their campuses. Men targeted to serve as allies are typically junior faculty who are encouraged to participate in ongoing educational awareness activities and to attend or support A & A program initiatives but are not expected to take on additional work as they focus on attaining tenure. Of interest in this study were the drivers of men faculty's initial and continuous engagement in this work, the work itself—that is, the activities described as gender equity work, men faculty perceptions of their personal ally identity development, and the implications of academic and institutional context on men faculty's experiences of engagement in this work. A rigorous analysis of data generated during 35 interviews with 29 men and 6 women faculty at six ADVANCE program sites with formal A & A programs revealed four initial drivers of men faculty engagement in gender equity work. These include: prior interest or involvement in equity work, recognition of and desire to solve the problem, belief in ability to help solve the problem, and sense of duty. Four continuous drivers of engagement were also revealed. These include: belief in the importance of the work undertaken by ADVANCE/A &A, a continued sense of duty, satisfaction with the engagement experience, and positive feedback from significant others. Additionally, data revealed that men talk about their ally identity in two primary ways: as an "ever-evolving" process, and as ally-indicative actions. Participants perceived gender equity work as encompassing an array of activities including micro-actions like challenging another colleague's biased comment, and macro-actions like revamping search committee policies and practices to ensure more diverse pools of candidates. Institutional dynamics including: disposition toward sharing data, shifting priorities from teaching to research, perceived levels of support for faculty engagement in gender equity work, and the quality of the pre-existing ADVANCE initiative all emerged as variables which may influence the continuous engagement of men faculty in this work. A theory of academic men's continuous engagement in gender equity work is proposed. To accomplish the goal of diversity, equity, and inclusion, academic and administrative leaders must consider a portfolio of empirically-tested social justice-oriented change strategies that promote desired outcomes and mitigate wellintended program failure. Given that a key indicator of program demise is member disengagement. The extent to which members remain continuously engaged is likely to positively impact program sustainability. In the case of ADVANCE/A & A, there appears to be a strong chance of program survival.


The purpose of this study was to evaluate a new resin composite/bonding restorative system in clinical trials involving human subjects. Sixty restorations were inserted in Class I and Class II preparations in premolars and molars. The enamel margins of the preparations were etched for 60 seconds with 37% phosphoric acid gel. The dentinal surfaces of cavity preparations were etched for 40 seconds with 37% phosphoric acid in glycerine (K-etchant gel) and bonding agent (Clearfil Photo Bond) applied. A resin composite (Clearfil Photoposterior) was placed in three increments with a 20 second light cure of each increment and a 60 second light cure of the final increment. All the restorations were evaluated using the USPHS system and M-L indirect scale. At 36 month recalls, compared to baseline, surface texture for essentially all the restorations was rated Bravo, while all other characteristics were rated Alpha. Secondary caries was reported for one restoration during the third year of clinical use. Wear showed an adjusted mean value of 14.6 microns at 36 months or 4.9 microns per year. No cases of clinical post-operative sensitivity to hot, cold, percussion and foods were reported during the length of the study. Clearfil Photoposterior resin composite system has exhibited remarkable wear resistance and no post-operative sensitivity throughout the length of the study.


The popularity of participatory research approaches is largely driven by the expected benefits from bridging the gap between formal agricultural science institutions and local farm communities, making agricultural research more relevant and effective. There is, however, no certainty that this approach, which has been mainly project-based, will succeed in transforming agricultural research in developing countries towards more client-responsive, impact-oriented institutions. Research managers must consider appropriate strategies for such an institutional transformation, including: (1) careful planning of social processes and interactions among different players, and documenting how that might have brought about success or failure; (2) clear objectives, which influence the participation methods used; (3) clear impact pathway and impact hypotheses at the outset, specifying expected outputs, outcomes, impacts, and beneficiaries; (4) willingness to adopt institutional learning, where existing culture and practices can be changed; and (5) long-term funding commitment to sustain the learning and change process.


Extracted from text ... SIVIELE INGENIEURSWESE ? JULIE 2005 32
THE RECENT IMPLEMENTATION of
the Construction Industry Development
Regulations, 2004 promises to place a further
administrative burden on the increasingly
regulated South African construction industry.
The Construction Industry Development
Board Act, No 38 of 2000 established the
Construction Industry Development Board
(CIDB) to provide leadership to stakeholders
in the industry and to implement an integrated
strategy to stimulate sustainable
growth, reform and improvement of the
construction sector. The CIDB, which is
responsible to the Minister of Public Works,
comprises private and public sector individuals
appointed by the minister on the basis
of their individual knowledge and expertise.
In addition to establishing the CIDB,
the Act provided for the future establishment
of registers of construction contractors
and ..


ABSTRACT We investigated the efficacy of a loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) assay for detection of chicken meat samples naturally contaminated with Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli. A total of 144 Preston enrichment broth cultures from chicken meat samples were assessed by using the LAMP assay and conventional culture methods, which consist of a combination of Preston enrichment culturing and plating onto Butzler and modified charcoal cefoperazone deoxycholate agars. Compared with C. jejuni-C. coli isolation using the conventional culture test, the LAMP results showed 98.5% (67/68) and 97.4% (74/76) sensitivity and specificity, respectively, and the positive and negative predictive values were 97.1% (67/69) and 98.7% (74/75), respectively. The conventional culture test required more than 3 to 4 days to isolate and identify C. jejuni and C. coli in the Preston enrichment cultures. In contrast, the LAMP assay was markedly faster, requiring less than 90 min from the beginning of DNA extraction to final detection and differentiation of C. jejuni and C. coli. In total, the LAMP assay required 23.5 to 25.5 h from the beginning of the enrichment culture to final determination. These results suggest that our LAMP assay is a powerful tool for rapid, sensitive, and practical detection of C. jejuni and C. coli which may facilitate surveillance and control of C. jejuni-C. coli contamination in chicken, as well as investigations of food poisoning incidents caused by these organisms. This is the first report of a highly sensitive and specific LAMP assay to detect and differentiate C. jejuni and C. coli in chicken meat samples.


In this paper, a 3-D vertex processor with a floating-point four-threaded and four-issue expanded VLIW architecture and vertex caches for mobile multimedia applications is proposed. The multi-threaded datapath prevents data hazards, and the multi-issue expanded VLIW architecture enables the processor to have an opportunity to execute instructions in parallel and a well-balanced way. The efficient vertex caches are proposed and implemented for the embedded vertex processors to accelerate its geometry operations and to save bandwidth between hosts and vertex processors. The proposed architecture with the vertex caches reduces the average total energy dissipation of 44.7% compared to a conventional single-threaded SIMD architecture, and the proposed vertex processor achieves 120 M vertices/s of geometry performance which is 3.3 times faster than the previous result, and it supports OpenGL ES 2.0 and vertex shader model 3.0. The processor is implemented in a 0.18-mum 1P4M CMOS process, and the operating frequency is 100 MHz.


NSAIDs remain the principal pharmacological agents used for symptom relief in patients with rheumatic disease. They represent the largest single group of drugs used worldwide. Given the large number of available NSAIDs, it is unsurprising that some differences exist among them with regard to mechanism of action, pharmacokinetics, and tolerability. How these differences affect the overall risks and benefits of treatment continues to be examined in clinical trials. Meloxicam is COX-2 selective NSAID with favourable gastrointestinal and thromboembolic safety profile.


This study investigates how various Economic Integration Agreements between Turkey and its trading partners affected the exports of machinery during 1998~2013. In addition, it differentiates between trade in parts and components and finished products, and assesses the effects of Economic Integration Agreements separately on these two types of goods. Using a discrete-time probit model with random effects, we show that an Economic Integration Agreement increases the survival of export relations which were initiated before the agreement. It is found to be reasonably heterogeneous, that is, the effect is found to be larger for parts and components exports occurring within the Global Production Networks compared to finished products exports.


It has been found that high achievers tend to be very academically oriented either due to home or school environment or the education system that tends to encourage rote learning and convergent thinking. At the same time, these same factors has been found to stifle their creative thinking abilities. Hence, students who are high academic performers tend to be less creative than low academic performers and this is especially true with students in higher end of the intelligence continuum.In the 1990's several initiatives had been taken to revamp the Malaysian curriculum and teaching to enhance the thinking skills and creativity among elementary and secondary school students. Since then no studies have been undertaken to investigate whether changes have occurred in the relationships between creativity and academic achievement and how this relationships vary in the intelligence continuum. Cultural influences have been found to influence the development of creativity and academic performance (Palaniaapan, 1994; Yong, 1986). Since the culture of the western countries such as United States is quite different from that of Malaysia especially in the teaching and learning context, it would also be beneficial to investigate whether any cultural differences exist in the nature of these relationships and the possible existence of the intelligence thresholds.


[1] Borehole fluid injection is commonly used for geological sequestration of carbon dioxide, underground storage of natural gas, waste injections, and during stimulations and development of geothermal and hydrocarbon reservoirs. Typically, the injection process induces significant seismicity, with some earthquakes as large as magnitude four. Induced seismicity has also been observed around producing hydrocarbon boreholes. Recently, it has been argued that some induced seismicity data can be explained by a highly nonlinear fluid diffusion mechanism or by the propagation of fluid pressure pulses. The nature of the nonlinearity and the mechanisms by which a pressure pulse can trigger seismicity are still uncertain. In this paper I show that the same spatiotemporal variation of seismicity can be explained and predicted by linear diffusion coupled to deformation of a linear poroelastic medium. By calculating the propagation of Coulomb Yielding Stress (CYS) perturbation with time, it is demonstrated that seismicity can be triggered by this perturbation. The change of CYS along the diffusion front is caused by seepage forces, which are body forces generated by fluid pressure gradients, and can explain induced seismicity during borehole fluid injection and extraction. Using published experimental data, I demonstrate how the spatiotemporal distribution of fluid-induced seismic events can be used for reservoir modeling and characterization.


Bismuth vanadate, BiVO4, is a promising material for use as an anode in photoelectrochemical water splitting. However, its conversion efficiency is limited by poor bulk charge transport, which is via small-polarons. We report here the use of a suite of X-ray spectroscopic probes to determine the electronic structure of 0.3–0.6 at% M:BiVO4 (M = Mo or W). The results are interpreted in the context of current theories regarding the influence of doping on the existence of inter-band gap small-polaron states and their effect on the conversion efficiency of BiVO4. Preliminary X-ray absorption and emission measurements reveal that doping widens the band gap from 2.50 to 2.75 eV, whereas the indirect nature of the band gap remains unaffected. X-ray absorption spectroscopy verified that the doping levels did not affect the distorted tetrahedral environment of V5+ in BiVO4. For BiVO4 and W:BiVO4, V L3 resonant inelastic X-ray scattering showed energy loss features related to charge transfer from low lying valence metal/oxygen states to unoccupied V eg conduction band states. A 3.8 eV energy loss feature, coupled with small polaron-like peaks measured in valence band resonant photoelectron spectroscopy of M:BiVO4, point to the population of inter-band gap V 3d states of eg symmetry. The data reveals the existence of a band gap state in the absence of an applied bias in M:BiVO4, linked to small-polaron formation. We tentatively assign it as a deep trap state, which suggests that the improved conversion efficiency of M:BiVO4 relative to the undoped material is largely due to the increased carrier concentration in spite of increased carrier recombination rates.


BACKGROUND
Femoro-popliteal bypass is implemented to save limbs that might otherwise require amputation, in patients with ischaemic rest pain or tissue loss; and to improve walking distance in patients with severe life-limiting claudication. Contemporary practice involves grafts using autologous vein, polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) or Dacron as a bypass conduit. This is the second update of a Cochrane review first published in 1999 and last updated in 2010.

OBJECTIVES
To assess the effects of bypass graft type in the treatment of stenosis or occlusion of the femoro-popliteal arterial segment, for above- and below-knee femoro-popliteal bypass grafts.

SEARCH METHODS
For this update, the Cochrane Vascular Information Specialist searched the Vascular Specialised Register (13 March 2017) and CENTRAL (2017, Issue 2). Trial registries were also searched.

SELECTION CRITERIA
We included randomised trials comparing at least two different types of femoro-popliteal grafts for arterial reconstruction in patients with femoro-popliteal ischaemia. Randomised controlled trials comparing bypass grafting to angioplasty or to other interventions were not included.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Both review authors (GKA and CPT) independently screened studies, extracted data, assessed trials for risk of bias and graded the quality of the evidence using GRADE criteria.

MAIN RESULTS
We included nineteen randomised controlled trials, with a total of 3123 patients (2547 above-knee, 576 below-knee bypass surgery). In total, nine graft types were compared (autologous vein, polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) with and without vein cuff, human umbilical vein (HUV), polyurethane (PUR), Dacron and heparin bonded Dacron (HBD); FUSION BIOLINE and Dacron with external support). Studies differed in which graft types they compared and follow-up ranged from six months to 10 years.Above-knee bypassFor above-knee bypass, there was moderate-quality evidence that autologous vein grafts improve primary patency compared to prosthetic grafts by 60 months (Peto odds ratio (OR) 0.47, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.28 to 0.80; 3 studies, 269 limbs; P = 0.005). We found low-quality evidence to suggest that this benefit translated to improved secondary patency by 60 months (Peto OR 0.41, 95% CI 0.22 to 0.74; 2 studies, 176 limbs; P = 0.003).We found no clear difference between Dacron and PTFE graft types for primary patency by 60 months (Peto OR 1.67, 95% CI 0.96 to 2.90; 2 studies, 247 limbs; low-quality evidence). We found low-quality evidence that Dacron grafts improved secondary patency over PTFE by 24 months (Peto OR 1.54, 95% CI 1.04 to 2.28; 2 studies, 528 limbs; P = 0.03), an effect which continued to 60 months in the single trial reporting this timepoint (Peto OR 2.43, 95% CI 1.31 to 4.53; 167 limbs; P = 0.005).Externally supported prosthetic grafts had inferior primary patency at 24 months when compared to unsupported prosthetic grafts (Peto OR 2.08, 95% CI 1.29 to 3.35; 2 studies, 270 limbs; P = 0.003). Secondary patency was similarly affected in the single trial reporting this outcome (Peto OR 2.25, 95% CI 1.24 to 4.07; 236 limbs; P = 0.008). No data were available for 60 months follow-up.HUV showed benefits in primary patency over PTFE at 24 months (Peto OR 4.80, 95% CI 1.76 to 13.06; 82 limbs; P = 0.002). This benefit was still seen at 60 months (Peto OR 3.75, 95% CI 1.46 to 9.62; 69 limbs; P = 0.006), but this was only compared in one trial. Results were similar for secondary patency at 24 months (Peto OR 4.01, 95% CI 1.44 to 11.17; 93 limbs) and at 60 months (Peto OR 3.87, 95% CI 1.65 to 9.05; 93 limbs).We found HBD to be superior to PTFE for primary patency at 60 months for above-knee bypass, but these results were based on a single trial (Peto OR 0.38, 95% CI 0.20 to 0.72; 146 limbs; very low-quality evidence). There was no difference in primary patency between HBD and HUV for above-knee bypass in the one small study which reported this outcome.We found only one small trial studying PUR and it showed very poor primary and secondary patency rates which were inferior to Dacron at all time points.Below-knee bypassFor bypass below the knee, we found no graft type to be superior to any other in terms of primary patency, though one trial showed improved secondary patency of HUV over PTFE at all time points to 24 months (Peto OR 3.40, 95% CI 1.45 to 7.97; 88 limbs; P = 0.005).One study compared PTFE alone to PTFE with vein cuff; very low-quality evidence indicates no effect to either primary or secondary patency at 24 months (Peto OR 1.08, 95% CI 0.58 to 2.01; 182 limbs; 2 studies; P = 0.80 and Peto OR 1.22, 95% CI 0.67 to 2.23; 181 limbs; 2 studies; P = 0.51 respectively)Limited data were available for limb survival, and those studies reporting on this outcome showed no clear difference between graft types for this outcome. Antiplatelet and anticoagulant protocols varied extensively between trials, and in some cases within trials.The overall quality of the evidence ranged from very low to moderate. Issues which affected the quality of the evidence included differences in the design of the trials, and differences in the types of grafts they compared. These differences meant we were often only able to combine and analyse small numbers of participants and this resulted in uncertainty over the true effects of the graft type used.

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS
There was moderate-quality evidence of improved long-term (60 months) primary patency for autologous vein grafts when compared to prosthetic materials for above-knee bypasses. In the long term (two to five years) there was low-quality evidence that Dacron confers a small secondary patency benefit over PTFE for above-knee bypass. Only very low-quality data exist on below-knee bypasses, so we are uncertain which graft type is best. Further randomised data are needed to ascertain whether this information translates into an improvement in limb survival.


Under the aspect of life-threatening pneumonias in long-term ventilated patients receiving ant-acids or H2-antagonists the prophylaxis of stress ulcer with pirenzepine gains new importance. This study was aimed at detecting cardiac side effects of pirenzepine due to low receptor specificity. Pirenzepine (10 mg) was given via the peripheral or central venous route at an injection velocity of 5 or 30 seconds as well as a control of 2 ml normal saline solution via the central venous route for 5 seconds, 20 times each. Heart rate and blood pressure were determined before and after the injection. Independent of the injection site or velocity, an increase in the heart rate was found after the injection of pirenzepine. The increase was more marked if the central venous route was used. The percentage rise in heart rate was up to the thirteenth minute highly significant when comparing pirenzepine to normal saline solution. There were no changes in blood pressure. If M1-cholinoceptors are blocked, a reduction of the heart rate is seen. Blocking M2-cholinoceptors causes a rise in the heart rate. Injecting 10 mg of the M1-antagonist pirenzepine results in a significant increase in the heart rate, independent of site or velocity of injection which can be explained by blocking M2-cholinoceptors at the same time. To prevent this probably dose-dependent effect, pirenzepine should be given slowly over a couple of minutes.


Effects of mixing dye sensitizer for the photocatalytic activity of dye-sensitized Pt/K0.95Ta0.92Zr0.08O3 was investigated. It was found that the photocatalytic activity was greatly improved by mixing dye sensitizer on the catalyst, and among the examined combination of organic dyes, the highest photocatalytic activity was obtained by mixing Cr-tetraphenylporphyrin (Cr-TPP) and Pentametylene bis[4-(10, 15, 20-triphenylporphine-5-yl)benzoate] dizinc(ΙΙ) (Zn-TPP dimer). In order to identify the effect of dye sensitizer, photovoltaic behavior of the dye-sensitized KTaO3 was investigated. The lifetime of the photo-exited electron and hole can be improved by coating with dye sensitizer. Thus, the effect of porphyrinoids would be explained by the improved efficiency of charge separation.


Converting CO2 into value-added hydrocarbon fuels has attracted enormous interest due to the advantage of simultaneously addressing major energy and environmental issues. Here we report on copper sulfide nanosheet arrays supported on nickel foam (CuS@NF) applied as a robust catalyst for CO2 electroreduction. A high faradaic efficiency of 73 ± 5% and a low Tafel slope of 57 mV dec−1 for CH4 formation were achieved. Moreover, the CuS nanosheets showed a stable CO2 electroreduction capability up to 60 h. The high performance of CuS@NF for CO2 electroreduction was ascribed to the nanosheet morphology as well as the presence of S species. This work illustrates how to design efficient and stable copper chalcogenide electrocatalysts for generating carbon-based fuels.


Hospitals in the U.S. have long been able to obtain exemption from federal income tax because they meet the requirement known as the standard of "community benefit." Yet lawmakers and scholars know virtually nothing about the actual workings of tax-exempt hospitals, or about whether, how, and to what extent they deliver benefits to their communities. Within the last five years, however, IRS tax return forms have started asking hospitals to quantify these benefits, as well as to give detailed information about their financial practices with respect to their patients. These new questions coincide with new requirements for tax-exempt hospitals put in place as part of 2010's health care reform bill, the Affordable Care Act. The new tax return data offers a first-time opportunity to evaluate the workings of tax-exempt hospitals from the perspective of both the traditional requirements for tax-exempt hospitals and the 2010 reforms of the Affordable Care Act. This Article analyzes data from all tax-exempt hospitals in the U.S. in 2012 to show that tax-exempt hospitals differ widely in their provision of community benefits (and financial practices). In particular, these activities vary systematically in relation to their different notions of "community" and the characteristics of the communities where the hospitals are located. This evidence demonstrates that tax-exempt hospitals seem to be responding to the specific needs of their own communities when allocating their resources among different community-benefit activities. The data show, in addition, that while tax-exempt hospitals are generally adopting the financial policies that Congress and the IRS are requesting, hospital financial aid policies also vary by community. These findings raise several fundamental questions for lawmakers and tax policy scholars in the era of the Affordable Care Act. In particular, the findings suggest that lawmakers need to grapple seriously with how they allow tax-exempt hospitals to define their communities. For example: is it appropriate for tax-exempt hospitals merely to benefit a narrowly defined community or should they operate in terms of a broader understanding of community? In light of the new data presented, this Article considers these questions and outlines several alternatives to the "community benefit" standard to address them.


This brief introduction to Charles Bernstein's work, given in Hangzhou, China, in November 2019, on the occasion of Bernstein's Distinguished Lectureship, discusses the basic principles of Language poetics as put forward in the early books Content's Dream and A Poetics. From the first, Bernstein emphasized the idea that poetry is not the expression of feeling but a constructivist art in which language is taken out of its normal context and recharged. In "Artifice of Absorption," Bernstein insists that the poet uses all the tools at his command to create a new kind of absorption, arresting the reader's attention. Difficulty is thus inherent to poetry—a difficulty challenging the reader to rise to the challenge of what it means to read poetry. A few examples like "Standing Target" are discussed briefly.


Over the past few years we have articulated theory that describes 'encrypted computing', in which data remains in encrypted form while being worked on inside a processor, by virtue of a modified arithmetic. The last two years have seen research and development on a standards-compliant processor that shows that near-conventional speeds are attainable via this approach. Benchmark performance with the US AES-128 flagship encryption and a 1GHz clock is now equivalent to a 433MHz classic Pentium, and most block encryptions fit in AES's place. This summary article details how user data is protected by a system based on the processor from being read or interfered with by the computer operator, for those computing paradigms that entail trust in data-oriented computation in remote locations where it may be accessible to powerful and dishonest insiders. We combine: (i) the processor that runs encrypted; (ii) a slightly modified conventional machine code instruction set architecture with which security is achievable; (iii) an 'obfuscating' compiler that takes advantage of its possibilities, forming a three-point system that provably provides cryptographic 'semantic security' for user data against the operator and system insiders.


Post-conflict economic development is central to reducing poverty and improving local livelihoods. In this regard, many post-conflict development plans place a high priority on private-sector development. This paper examines the role of the private sector in post-conflict situations and discusses possible interventions for economic recovery based on a review of the literature and fieldwork in Timor-Leste. The paper identifies key factors critical to pro-poor private-sector development in post-conflict situations, with particular reference to Timor-Leste, considers some of the major obstacles, and suggests public policies to identify promising export products and to strengthen small and micro enterprises that might help the country to achieve pro-poor economic recovery and growth.


The advent of electronic environments is bound to have profound effects on consumer decision making. While the exact nature of these influences is only partially known it is clear that consumers could benefit from properly designed electronic agents that know individual users' preferences and can act on their behalf. An examination of the various roles agents perform is presented as a framework for thinking about the design of electronic agents. In addition, a set of goals is established that include both outcome-based measures, such as improving decision quality, as well as process measures like increasing satisfaction and developing trust.


Viruses are the simplest replicating units, characterized by a limited number of coding genes and an exceptionally high rate of overlapping genes. We sought a unified explanation for the evolutionary constraints that govern genome sizes, gene overlapping and capsid properties. We performed an unbiased statistical analysis over the ∼100 known viral families, and came to refute widespread assumptions regarding viral evolution. We found that the volume utilization of viral capsids is often low, and greatly varies among families. Most notably, we show that the total amount of gene overlapping is tightly bounded. Although viruses expand three orders of magnitude in genome length, their absolute amount of gene overlapping almost never exceeds 1500 nucleotides, and mostly confined to <4 significant overlapping instances. Our results argue against the common theory by which gene overlapping is driven by a necessity of viruses to compress their genome. Instead, we support the notion that overlapping has a role in gene novelty and evolution exploration.


Objective Delirium is a transient acute confusional state which can have long-term neurological sequelae. The purpose of this systematic review is to investigate the best ways to manage delirium from a pharmacological and non-pharmacological perspective. Method I followed the PRISMA guidelines to conduct a systematic review, using Medline, Embase and PsycInfo to search for literature. I searched for "delirium" and then "manag*" OR "treat*" OR "pharm*" OR "non-pharm*" OR "interven*" OR "care" or "psych*", combining these searches with AND. This gave 5215 search results, which was refined to 4359 search results by including on English articles with abstracts. By reading the titles I was left with 43 results to be looked at more closely by reading the abstract. This was reduced to 21 on reading those abstracts. Results 13 studies looked at the efficacy of atypical antipsychotics in treating delirium, usually comparing them with haloperidol, other atypical antipsychotics or with a placebo. Most of these studies found atypical antipsychotics as effective as haloperidol. All atypical antipsychotics appeared equally efficacious. Most articles found that atypical antipsychotics were safe for use in delirium, with few associated adverse events. Some studies looked at the effect of place of treatment on delirium resolution. Here, patients responded better when treated on wards offering holistic, specialist geriatric care. Pitkala et al. (2006) found that such patients were more likely to receive acetylcholinesterase inhibitors and atypical antipsychotics than other pharmacological options and overall had fewer psychotropic drugs. Conclusion The articles reviewed in this study predominantly had small sample sizes. Just one study looked purely at non-pharmacological care for delirium, finding it was effective. Very few studies compared the efficacy and safety of psychoactive drugs to that of placebo, preferring to compare them with each other. The findings of this systematic review indicate that patients with delirium are best managed on geriatric wards where they will be given individually tailored treatment. The one article reviewed investigating non-pharmacological management of delirium suggests that this may also be a useful method of treating of delirium. Our findings suggest that atypical antipsychotics are equally effective as typical antipsychotics, such as haloperidol. These may also be safer than previously thought but there is insufficient evidence to determine whether pharmacological treatment of delirium is actually safe.


This study adopted protection motivation theory, construal-level theory, and regulatory focus theory to build a model to understand the effects of information security advocacy. The purposes are as follows: first, understand the impacts on the threat/coping appraisals that different construal-level of security warning messages have. Second, understand the impacts on the information security compliance intention that threat/coping appraisals have. Lastly, understand the moderating effects of different regulatory foci on the relationship between different construallevel of warning messages and the threat/coping appraisals or between the threat/coping appraisals and the compliance intention. In this study, the experimental method and survey are employed. Eight different scenarios related to mobile phone authority setting are designed to proceed with the experiments. At the beginning of this experiment, the participants will be manipulated to a particular regulatory focus (prevention or promotion), then be assigned to one of eight scenarios randomly.


In a typical visual scene we continuously perceive a "figure" that is segregated from the surrounding "background" despite ongoing microsaccades and small saccades that are performed when attempting fixation (fixational saccades [FSs]). Previously reported neuronal correlates of figure-ground (FG) segregation in the primary visual cortex (V1) showed enhanced activity in the "figure" along with suppressed activity in the noisy "background." However, it is unknown how this FG modulation in V1 is affected by FSs. To investigate this question, we trained two monkeys to detect a contour embedded in a noisy background while simultaneously imaging V1 using voltage-sensitive dyes. During stimulus presentation, the monkeys typically performed 1–3 FSs, which displaced the contour over the retina. Using eye position and a 2D analytical model to map the stimulus onto V1, we were able to compute FG modulation before and after each FS. On the spatial cortical scale, we found that, after each FS, FG modulation follows the stimulus retinal displacement and "hops" within the V1 retinotopic map, suggesting visual instability. On the temporal scale, FG modulation is initiated in the new retinotopic position before it disappeared from the old retinotopic position. Moreover, the FG modulation developed faster after an FS, compared with after stimulus onset, which may contribute to visual stability of FG segregation, along the timeline of stimulus presentation. Therefore, despite spatial discontinuity of FG modulation in V1, the higher-order stability of FG modulation along time may enable our stable and continuous perception.


The Crinoidea are provided with long arms, penetrating plates, which together form a kind of cup containing the viscera of the animal. These arms, according to the discoveries of Mr. Thompson, which have since been fully confirmed by M. Müller of Berlin, in his beautiful analysis of the Platycrinus, have the ovaries placed at the base of pinnules attached to the arms. An ovarian orifice in the cup would therefore have been useless, and is not present. In the most ancient formations there exist, however, bodies without arms, and generally of a nearly spherical form. These bodies, of which the cup closely resembles in all respects that of the Crinoidea, are always provided with an ovarian orifice, and further, they also have an anus by the side of the mouth. This is an organization different from that of the Crinoidea, and it will be useful to collect the various species into a group under a distinct name. The Cystidea are distinguished, — 1. By having the mouth constantly at the apex and in the centre, whcih is rarely the case in the Crinoidea 2. By being provided with an ovarian orifice, generally situated in the upper part of the body or cup. This orifice is almost formed by five valves, pierced at their summit with a small hole. 2. By having an anus not far from the mouth, and always on the right of the ovarian orifice. The description of


Abstract—The rural development occuring in
Wonobodro Village in Batang Regency Central Java
uses the money collected from every activity of the
tradition pilgrimage to the Grave of Syekh Maulana
Maghribi, and build a very splendor great mosque. It
makes incorrect assumptions to arise that Wonobodro
villagers have a closed attitude and unable to cooperate
with the villages around it.
All Wonobodro villagers welcome the pilgrims to
stay at their houses for free and serve them with food
and drinks. Many seasonal vendors also come from
other cities and not allowed to increase the prices of
commodities more than the offered prices. They believe
that by increasing the prices will get misfortune in form
of great loss. The batik producers in Pekalongan lend
1 Professor, Architecture Department Diponegoro University
firstname.lastname@example.com
sheets
of
white cloth to give shade along the Wonobodro village
streets. They believe that will get blessings in form of
abundant profits coming from their batik products
selling.
Key words : Syekh Maulana Maghribi, Wonobodro
Village, tradition pilgrimage, rural development.
Folklore of Syekh Maulana Maghribi
Syekh Maulana Maghribi is believed as a sheik
coming from maghrib or West, spreading Islam earlier
than Walisongo in Java. Some people interpret the state
of Maghribi as Morocco. However, there is very little
information that can be found concerning the history of
Syekh Maulana Maghribi from Wonobodro Village
people. There are many versions of local folklore about
Syekh Maulana Maghribi existing among the people of
Parangtritis Village in Bantul Regency, Girijati Village
in Gunung Kidul Regency, Baturaden Village in


Purpose

This paper aims to clarify how affect-based adaptation can improve implicit recognition of playing style of individuals during game sessions. This study presents the "Rush for Gold" game using dynamic difficulty adjustment of tasks based on both player performance and affectation inferred through electrodermal activity and facial expressions of the player. The game applies linear regression for calculating playing styles to be applied for achieving a style-based adaptation in other educational video games.

Design/methodology/approach

The experimental procedure included subject selection, demonstration, informed consent procedure, two game sessions in random order – one without and another with affective adaptation control – and post-game self-report. The experiment was conducted with participation of 30 master students and university lecturers in informatics.

Findings

This study presents experimental results concerning the impact of affective adaptation over playing style recognition, game session time, task's effectiveness, efficiency and difficulty and, as well, player's assessment of affectively adaptive gameplay obtained by an adaptation control panel embedded into the game and by post-game self-report.

Research limitations/implications

The proposed adaptive game limits recognised styles to such based on the Kolb's Learning Style Inventory model. Another limitation of the study is the relatively small number of participants constrained by the extended experimental procedure and the desktop game version.

Originality/value

The paper presents an original research on the effect of affect-based adaptation on a novel approach for implicit recognition of playing styles.


A matched index of refraction facility has been constructed at Texas A&M University to enable optically transparent measurements in a test section capable of laminar, transition, and turbulent flow regimes. The index matching is achieved by recirculating Drakeol ® 5 oil through a closed loop system via a centrifugal pump whose heat generation does not adversely affect the refraction. Quartz is used as the solid material inside the test section to enable the index matching. Design of the system is discussed, followed by preliminary results for three rectangular slot flows that coalesce into a single channel. Particle Image Velocimetry was employed to capture the velocities in the mixing region. This configuration allows for simultaneous measurement of the flow 0.35 hydraulic diameters upstream and 3.9 diameters downstream of the outlets. The Reynolds numbers of the three channels are in the range of 1800-20000, spanning multiple flow regimes and promoting different flow physics. Results in the turbulent regime closely resembled the interaction of three confined slot jets. The non-turbulent regime shows the fluid stalling to approximately half of its inlet velocity, prompting recirculation zones near the outlet. The dominant energy contributions and momentum dissipation in the stalling region come from shear and spanwise stresses, whereas streamwise stresses dominate in other locations. It was also observed that the shear stresses decrease with increasing bulk velocities, while the spanwise stresses remained relatively constant. The ability to simultaneously measure upstream and downstream of the outlets enables further investigation into understanding the complex interaction of the momentum exchange that occurs as a result of the geometry, flow regime, and the effect of pressure in these areas. This data also enables a straightforward exercise to help validate models of turbulence and transition for such mixing scenarios.


Extraovarian sex cord–stromal tumor is an exceedingly uncommon entity that may cause a diagnostic dilemma clinically. We report a case of extraovarian fibroma with minor sex cord elements arising in the left broad ligament. The patient was a 66-year-old woman presenting with an intra-abdominal solid mass near the left ovary on magnetic resonance imaging. The tumor was located in the left broad ligament in contact with the left ovary and fallopian tube based on laparotomy findings. Histological examination revealed that the tumor was a fibroma that contained cell nests with aggregates resembling the Call-Exner bodies of granulosa cell tumors and irregularly shaped cell nests composed of undifferentiated sex cord–type cells. Cellular atypia or mitotic figures were not identified in any of the components. It was speculated that the possible site of origin of this tumor might be a supernumerary ovary in the broad ligament that was thought to be derived from embryonic remnants.


This note considers a failure-prone manufacturing system producing one part-type in discrete mode. The problem is to find the optimal integrated production and backordering policy, in which control decisions include how much the production rate should take when the machine is up and whether an unmet demand should be backorder or rejected. The optimal policy is proved to be a threshold control and can be characterized by three threshold parameters for both discounted cost and long-run average cost cases. The structural relationships between three threshold parameters are established. It is found that the completely backordering policy may be optimal for the discounted cost but will never be optimal for the average cost. In addition, the explicit form of the stationary distribution under such threshold policy is derived, which is then be used to calculate interesting steady-state performance measures and seek the optimal threshold values. A numerical example illustrates the results.


Copyright was invented by and for early capitalism, and its importance to that system has grown ever since. To oppose copyright is to oppose capitalism. Thus, Marxism is a natural starting point when challenging copyright. Marx's concept of a 'general intellect', suggesting that at some point a collective learning process will surpass physical labour as a productive force, offers a promising backdrop to understand the accomplishments of the free software community. Furthermore, the chief concerns of hacker philosophy, creativity and technological empowerment, closely correspond to key Marxist concepts of alienation, the division of labour, deskilling, and commodification. At the end of my inquiry, I will suggest that the development of free software provides an early model of the contradictions inherent to information capitalism, and that free software development has a wider relevance to all future production of information.


Antacids reduce gastric acidity by neutralization, diminish peptic activity by increasing luminal pH above that optimal for proteolysis and provide thereby the rational for their use in ulcer disease. In clinical trials antacids fastened ulcer healing in patients with duodenal ulcer but not with gastric ulcer when compared to placebo. Furthermore, the prophylactic use of antacid medication can significantly reduce the frequency of acute bleeding when gastric content is titrated to a pH greater 3.5 on an hourly basis. Cimetidine does not adequately protect seriously ill patients from acute upper gastrointestinal tract bleeding. Antacids are better for this purpose. So far the efficacy of an antacid therapy has not been proven in controlled trials in patients with chronic ulcer disease, in patients with recurring ulcers following gastric surgery and in patients bleeding from acute or chronic gastroduodenal lesions.


Eleven specific pathogen-free, five week old piglets were infected orally with the T80 strain of porcine enterovirus type 2. Three days after infection, five of the piglets were treated with cyclophosphamide, together with two of four uninfected control piglets. The treated, infected piglets developed severe diarrhea, and one showed signs of encephalomyelitis. These piglets showed no virological evidence of recovery from the infection, since the virus persisted throughout the intestinal tract, and they failed to mount a serological response. It was concluded that immunosuppression with cyclophosphamide impaired the normal recovery mechanisms in this infection, providing further evidence that the humoral immune response is an important defence mechanism against porcine enterovirus infection in piglets.


Background Antepartum, intrapartum, and postpartum preventive measures with antiretroviral drugs, appropriate delivery methods, and discouraging breastfeeding significantly decrease the risk of mother-to-child transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. Herein, we investigated the pregnancy outcomes in HIV-infected Korean women. Methods We retrospectively reviewed medical records of childbearing-age HIV-infected women between January 2005 and June 2017 at four tertiary care hospitals in Korea. Results Among a total of 95 HIV infected women of child-bearing age with 587.61 years of follow-up duration, 15 HIV-infected women experienced 21 pregnancies and delivered 16 infants. The pregnancy rate was 3.57 per 100 patient-years. Among the 21 pregnancies, five ended with an induced abortion, and 16 with childbirth including two preterm deliveries at 24 and 35 weeks of gestation, respectively. The two preterm infants had low birth weight and one of them died 10 days after delivery due to respiratory failure. Among the 14 full-term infants, one infant was small for gestational age. There were no HIV-infected infants. Conclusion The pregnancy rate of HIV-infected women in Korea is lower than that of the general population. Although several adverse pregnancy outcomes were observed, mother-to-child transmission of HIV infection was successfully prevented with effective preventive measures.