In this paper, a stochastic Holling II predator-prey model under Markovian switching with jumps is investigated. The aim is to find out how the Markovian switching and the jump noise affect the dynamics of this model. Firstly, we study the properties of the solutions, for example, the existence and uniqueness of the global positive solution, the uniform boundedness of the pth moment and the pathwise estimation. Secondly, sufficient criteria for extinction and strong persistence in the mean are established. Results show that jump noise can essentially change the nature of the system, i.e., it can make strongly persistent species extinct and extinct species persistent. We also observe that both the overall extinction and strong persistence in the mean have close relationships with the stationary probability distribution of the Markov chain. Finally, numerical examples are introduced to illustrate the results.


Subtraction of the two components (baseline and stimulation) of a neuroactivation study using 99Tcm HMPAO SPECT requires accurate registration of the two images. Immobilization of the subject during and between the two components of the study can prove difficult and degrades signal to noise ratio. The use of an automated image registration technique for registering the two components of the test can, even in the case where the subject is removed from the scanner, produce significantly better registration than immobilization.


Cotton has widespread applications in textile industries due its interesting physicochemical properties. The objective of this study was to investigate the influence of biofield energy treatment on the spectral, and thermal properties of the cotton. The study was executed in two groups namely control and treated. The control group persisted as untreated, and the treated group received Mr. Trivedi's biofield energy treatment. The control and treated cotton were characterized by different analytical techniques such as differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, and CHNSO analysis. DSC analysis showed a substantial increase in exothermic temperature peak of the treated cotton (450 oC) as compared to the control sample (382oC). Additionally, the enthalpy of fusion (∆H) was significantly increased by 86.47% in treated cotton. The differential thermal analysis (DTA) analysis showed an increase in thermal decomposition temperature of treated cotton (361oC) as compared to the control sample (358oC). The result indicated the increase in thermal stability of the treated cotton in comparison with the control. FT-IR analysis showed an alterations in –OH stretching (3408→3430 cm-1), carbonyl stretching peak (1713-1662 cm-1), C-H bending (1460-1431 cm-1), -OH bending (580-529 cm-1) and –OH out of plane bending (580-529 cm-1) of treated cotton with respect to the control sample. CHNSO elemental analysis showed a substantial increase in the nitrogen percentage by 19.16% and 2.27% increase in oxygen in treated cotton as compared to the control. Overall, the result showed significant changes in spectral and thermal properties of biofield energy treated cotton. It is assumed that biofield energy treated cotton might be interesting for textile applications.


In this study, hydrocracking of coconut oil over Ni-Fe/HZSM-5 catalyst was carried out in a batch reactor under different reaction temperature. Coconut oil is proposed as one of the potential feedstock for biofuel production. The Ni-Fe/HZSM-5 catalyst was prepared by incipient wetness impregnation method. The characterization of Ni-Fe/HZSM-5 catalyst by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy-Energy Dispersive X-ray (SEM-EDAX), and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET). The chemical composition of biofuel was analyzed by Gas-Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS). The results from the GC-MS analysis showed that the hydrocracking reaction over 10 % (Ni-Fe)/HZSM-5 catalyst at temperature of 375 oC obtained the highest hydrocarbon content (contained 49.4% n-paraffin, 26.93 % isoparaffin, 3.58 % olefin) and the highest yield of bio-gasoil 38.6 % in the biofuel liquid hydrocarbon. Pentadecane (n-C15) and heptadecane (n-C17) were the most abundant hydrocarbon compounds in biofuel liquid hydrocarbon. Decarboxylation and/or decarbonylation was the dominant reaction pathways in this process. Based on the result, the reaction temperature had a significant effect on the distribution of biofuel composition and yield of biofuel from coconut oil. Copyright © 2019 BCREC Group. All rights reserved


Abstract In June 2001, the European Commission passed a new Directive for tobacco products, which, in addition to other regulations, obliges the manufacturers and importers of tobacco products in the EU to disclose the ingredients used in their products and also to submit data on the toxicological properties of these ingredients in burnt and unburnt form. The idea of monitoring and regulating additives used for tobacco products is rather old. Almost 200 years ago, C.F. Hareless in Nuremberg [cited in P.J. Schneider: Über die Gifte; Tübingen, 1821] established 12 rules for the correct use of ingredients in manufacturing tobacco products and vinegar. These rules cover almost all aspects for a consumer-friendly, responsible and safe use of additives for tobacco products and could, therefore, have served as an example for the present EU Tobacco Directive. For instance, Hareless states in Rule 4 that the manufacturer submits to the health department the prescriptions of all added ingredients in snuff and smoking tobacco. It was also planned that the responsible authority can perform unannounced "empirical" and "chemical" tests of the finished products (Rules 7 and 8). Although these rules call for strong regulation of ingredients, they do not challenge the use of additives in snuff and smoking tobacco because ingredients may contribute to the quality, acceptability and also the safety of the product. The Directive rightly asks for toxicological data of ingredients in burnt form, in order to be sure that the use of additives does not increase the biological effects of tobacco products. The review of Paschke, Scherer and Heller in this issue of BeiträgezurTabakforschung International/Contributions to Tobacco Research has compiled data from published papers on the toxicological effects of ingredients in burnt form. The authors did not intend to evaluate the presented methods and data, therefore, this review is more a reference work rather than a scientific article. It is obvious from the material presented that there is a lack of Standard Methods for testing the toxicological properties of tobacco ingredients in burnt form. The huge number of different approaches presented in this review points to the difficulties in defining suitable methods for this purpose. Despite these limitations, it is justified to state that the data so far available give no evidence that ingredients in use today increase the toxicity of tobacco smoke.


A variety of strategies for the synthesis of solution processable graphene sheets has been developed so far. However, no approach has been reported to directly produce highly conductive, low-oxygen-containing graphene sheets without relying on toxic reagents and metal containing compounds and without generating toxic by-products. With an aim of developing such an eco-friendly approach, for the first time, this work studied solution phase oxidation of graphite particles and reversible graphite intercalation compounds using molecular oxygen and piranha etching solutions. We found that the synergy of the piranha etching solution and the intercalated molecular oxygen enables controlled oxidation of graphite particles assisted by microwave heating. The controlled oxidation leads to the rapid and direct generation of highly conductive, "clean", and low oxygen containing graphene sheets without releasing toxic gases or aromatic by-products as detected by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). These highly conductive graphene sheets have unique molecular structures, different from both graphene oxide and pristine graphene sheets. It is even different from chemically reduced graphene oxide, while combining many of its merits. They can be dispersed in both aqueous and common organic solvents without surfactants/stabilizers, producing "clean" solution phase graphene sheets. "Paper-like" graphene films are generated via simple filtration, resulting in films with a conductivity of 2.3 × 104 S m−1, the highest conductivity observed so far for graphene films assembled via vacuum filtration from solution processable graphene sheets. After 2 hours of low temperature annealing at 300 °C, the conductivity further increased to 7.4 × 104 S m−1. This eco-friendly and rapid approach for the production of highly conductive and "clean" solution-phase graphene sheets would enable a broad spectrum of applications at low cost.


Abstract Current developments in government law and policies have created the hope that people living with a disability will enjoy the same rights and privileges as the non-disabled. Unfortunately, only 2.8% of disabled persons have access to higher education. The aim of this study was to determine if a group of students, living with a physical disability, experienced constraints with regard to access to a South African higher education institution. This study, following a two-phase sequential mixed method approach, consisted of a questionnaire survey, a focus group discussion, and individual interviews. It was found that students living with a physical disability experienced constraints relating to the accessibility of the relevant higher education institution. Since access constraints affect the lives of students living with a disability, it is necessary to provide guidelines to universities on how to address these challenges.


The main objective of qualitative research is to improve the depth of understanding about issues of concern which are of particular value when conducting studies on health care issues. The qualitative methodology of ethnography is the study of a specific group or culture being explored in-depth. Its validity refers to whether the ethnographer's interpretation of the data is what it means to those providing it and to the degree by which results may be representative or generalized. However, the limitations of using this technique include the risk of misinterpretations if and when the health care researcher has not fully understood or remains unfamiliar with the social norms of those being studied. Of the various qualitative methods available for health care research, this paper provides essential information and insights into the ethnographic methodology with specific relevance to health related research and nursing in particular. Data collection in ethnography can be achieved via one or a combination of interviews, observations, document/media reviews or questionnaires. Subsequent data analysis is performed via specific, rigorous standardized techniques as described in this chapter. It is important in ethnography to use a rigorous and solid reporting process as opposed to simply compiling anecdotal information. Ethnographic research in health care entails extensive fieldwork, availability of time, resources and interviewing skills. Yet, this method of enquiry can be a key contributor in expanding the knowledge base of contemporary health care by providing constructive insights into the world of patients and staff alike.


Relapsing polychondritis (RP) is a rare multisystemic autoimmune disorder characterized by the inflammation and destruction of cartilages, with preference for auricular, nasal and laryngotracheal cartilages. RP may also affect proteoglycan-rich structures, such as, blood vessels, eyes, kidneys, and heart. The central nervous system (CNS) is involved in less than 3% of patients. We report a 32-year-old female with RP associated with a progressive subacute encephalopathy characterized by behavioral disturbances, auditory and visual hallucinations. The EEG showed generalized slow activity and a mononuclear pleocytosis with increased protein was found in the cerebrospinal fluid. The brain magnetic resonance imaging showed multiple supra and infratentorial nodular inflammatory lesions. After initiating treatment with corticosteroids and cyclophosphamide, a significant improvement in chondritis and neurological status was observed.


This paper reports the optimisation of a PDMS structure for energy harvesting applications. The PDMS structure was optimised using ANSYS simulation. The fabrication processes were also optimised for maximum PDMS ferroelectret energy harvesting performance. The optimised PDMS structure was fabricated using a 3D-printed plastic mould. The ANSYS simulation and experiment results demonstrated the variation in energy harvesting performance of the PDMS ferroelectret depending upon the different void geometry. The optimised operating frequency is determined by the geometry of the voids inside ferroelectrets and the Young's modulus of the PDMS. The peak voltage and energy generated per strike under a compressive load was obtained experimentally as a function of force applied and frequency. The experimental maximum peak output power of an optimised PDMS structure with an area of 2×2 cm2 was 0.46 μW across an optimum load resistance of 21 MΩ under a square wave force of 800 N and 17 Hz.


Based on covariant density functional theory, we study the effects of rotation on the nucleon direct URCA (N-DURCA) process for traditional and hyperonic neutron stars. The calculated results indicate that, for a fixed mass sequence of rotational traditional neutron stars, the neutrino emissivity of the star is nearly invariant with increasing frequency, while it always increases for rotational hyperonic neutron stars. Thus, rotation has different effects on the N-DURCA process for these two kinds of neutron stars.


The distensibility of the peripheral veins of the hypertensive subject is normal, that is, there is no evidence of peripheral venoconstriction, despite the excessive arteriolar constriction. The forearm veins of hypertensive patients respond to pooling of blood in the upright position to a lesser degree than do veins of normotensive individuals, indicating a lesser degree of smypathetic nervous activity in response to this stimulus. The peripheral veins of hypertensive subjects constrict normally in response to an infusion of norepinephrine, indicating that failure of venoconstriction in any circumstance cannot be attributed to failure of the smooth muscle of the veins. Infusions of angiotensin produce constriction of the veins as well as the arterioles in normotensive individuals thus failing to mimic the naturally occurring state of essential hypertension. Infusions of angiotensin in hypertensive patients result in further arteriolar constriction and hypertension without concomitant venoconstriction. The results of these experiments suggest that peripheral venous responses of hypertensive subjects to angiotensin infusions may have been modified by previous exposure of these vessels to a material at least similar to angiotensin.


A novel silver/polysulfone nanocomposite membrane was prepared by a convenient ultraviolet irradiation technique, through in situ reduction of silver salt (AgNO3) added to a solution of commercial UDEL polyethersulfone dissolved in N-methyl-2-pyrrolidinone (NMP). The UV-reduction of Ag+ to Ag0 nanoparticles was confirmed by means of UV-vis spectroscopy, from aggregation phenomena. The effects of dispersion of silver nanoparticles within polysulfone matrix were investigated by means of ATR-FTIR, dynamic mechanical thermal analysis and differential scanning calorimetry. Using X-ray diffraction, it was shown that annealing produced silver crystallites of 70-90 nm across, which are partially textured in "sheetlike" {110} planes.


Traditional strategies of technical assistance, technology transfer, appropriate technology, and self-reliance for science and technology development in the Third World cannot be successfully implemented until Third World countries improve their fundamental organization of science and technology. In order to make those improvements -a process known as capacity-building -we must determine the optimal social and cultural institutions within which science and technology in the Third World can be successfully produced, organized, and utilized. Drawing on the history and sociology of science and studies of knowledge application and public policy, this book builds a prescriptive model that addresses the problem of capacity-building in the Third World.


OBJECTIVES
To assess whether thrombophilia testing following a venous thrombotic event is clinically effective and cost-effective in the management of thrombosis compared with no testing for thrombophilia.

DATA SOURCES
Major electronic databases were searched from September to November 2006.

REVIEW METHODS
A systematic review of the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness literature was undertaken according to standard methods. A discrete event simulation model was constructed to assess the cost-effectiveness of changing the standard 3-month duration of warfarin treatment to 10 years, 20 years or lifelong.

RESULTS
No clinical studies were identified that met the inclusion criteria for the systematic review. Further literature searches and clinical opinion were therefore used to inform the cost-effectiveness analysis. Thrombophilia testing in patients with pulmonary embolism (PE) had an estimated mean cost per quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) of below 20,000 pounds regardless of sex or age. In patients with a previous deep vein thrombosis (DVT), thrombophilia testing had an estimated mean cost per QALY of below 20,000 pounds in men aged 69 years or less and in women aged 49 years or less. The estimated duration of warfarin treatment (lifelong, 20 years, 10 years or no extended treatment) that was most cost-effective is presented for each age, sex, initial venous thromboembolism (VTE) event and type of thrombophilia.

CONCLUSIONS
In terms of determining the duration of anticoagulation management, scenarios were found in which the cost per QALY of thrombophilia testing was below 20,000 pounds. However, these results are subject to great uncertainty, largely because of lack of knowledge about the increased risk of recurrence with each type of thrombophilia. Results are influenced by the fact that men have a greater risk of recurrence than women and by the fact that the frequency of adverse events associated with warfarin treatment increases with age. Further research, for example on the likely sensitivity and specificity of the tests for specific types of thrombophilia, is needed to reduce the uncertainty associated with these results. Studies comparing patients with VTE tested for thrombophilia with those whose risk assessment was based on personal and family history of thrombosis would also be beneficial.


OBJECTIVE
Adiposity is closely associated with the clustering of metabolic risk factors such as high blood pressure, dyslipidemia, and glucose intolerance. Waist circumference and body mass index (BMI) are the established markers of abdominal adiposity and general adiposity, respectively. However, it has not been examined whether these two markers can detect the clustering of metabolic risk factors in Japanese subjects.

METHODS AND RESULTS
We studied 5,796 Japanese middle-aged subjects aged 40-60 years (4,344 males and 1,452 females). Metabolic risk factors including high blood pressure, dyslipidemia, and glucose intolerance were identified according to the diagnostic criteria for metabolic syndrome in Japan. The number of metabolic risk factors was significantly associated with the BMI values in both male and female subjects. The prevalence of subjects with multiple (two or more) metabolic risk factors was 29.4% and 7.6% in males and females, respectively. According to receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis, the area under curve values of BMI and waist circumference did not differ in male (0.658 vs. 0.671, p=n.s.) and female (0.776 vs. 0.790, p=n.s.) subjects, indicating that the waist circumference as well as the BMI could be useful in detecting the occurrence of multiple metabolic risk factors. The appropriate cut-off values of BMI to predict the presence of multiple metabolic risk factors were 24.7 and 23.4 kg/m(2) in males and females, respectively. The sensitivity and specificity using these cut-off values were 58 and 65% in males and 65 and 77% in females, respectively.

CONCLUSION
The BMI values can similarly predict the presence of multiple metabolic risk factors just as the waist circumference in Japanese middle-aged subjects.


Large-scale FET-type graphene micropattern (GM) nano-biohybrid-based immunosensor (GMNS) is fabricated in a controlled fashion to detect human immunodeficiency virus 2 antibody. Flexible GMNS shows a highly sensitive response and excellent mechanical bendability. The flexible GMNS in fluidic systems also has a stable response. This is the first experimental demonstration of a large-scale flexible fluidic FET-type immunoassay based on GM nano-biohybrids.


Explanation in machine learning and related fields such as artificial intelligence aims at making machine learning models and their decisions understandable to humans. Existing work suggests that personalizing explanations might help to improve understandability. In this work, we derive a conceptualization of personalized explanation by defining and structuring the problem based on prior work on machine learning explanation, personalization (in machine learning) and concepts and techniques from other domains such as privacy and knowledge elicitation. We perform a categorization of explainee information used in the process of personalization as well as describing means to collect this information. We also identify three key explanation properties that are amendable to personalization: complexity, decision information and presentation. We also enhance existing work on explanation by introducing additional desiderata and measures to quantify the quality of personalized explanations.


Eco-friendly packing polymer materials are in the spotlight but, lack of new biodegradable polymers either natural or synthetic is yet to establish the market more competitively. So, in the present work, clay as a nano-filler is embedded and organically modified in some synthetic and natural polymers which are well established commercially to enhance their biodegradability. The impact of clay on the properties of synthetic polymers namely, poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC), poly(vinyl acetate) (PVAc) and natural polymer cellulose acetate butyrate (CAB) was studied. Results from differential scanning calorimetric (DSC) showed a decrease in the glass transition temperature of organically modified polymer clay nanocomposites (PCC) than pure polymers. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) displayed a uniform surface with small-sized crystallites distributed on the polymer surface. X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectra revealed the formation of enhanced intercalated structures in PCC. Furthermore, FTIR studies showed that the interlayer bonding (Si–O bands) of pure clay is deformed in PCCs. The tensile strength of PCC increased with an increase in organo-clay loading. This unique mechanical behavior is due to the agglomeration of organo-clay particles. Finally, the biodegradation studies revealed enhanced hydrolytic degradation in PCC than pure polymers. Hence, these PCCs are environmentally friendlier than their pure synthetic polymers without significant compromise in their properties, which makes it suitable for packaging industries.


Introduction

This work is an attempt to summarize and discuss some of the problems that have arisen in the last quarter-century, in relation to their geological and historical background. A general regional study is not given, since it is covered in the series on British Regional Geology produced by the Geological Survey (Eastwood, 1946; Wray, 1948); also some aspects are omitted, especially systematic and descriptive palaeontology, post-Carboniferous tectonics, mineralization and igneous intrusions.

The title of the review needs a little explanation. 'The North of England' may be limited according to the present outcrops or, more ideally, by cognate sedimentary history and geological structure. In the latter sense there is no natural southern boundary till we come to the Midland Barrier and St. Georges Land; this, however, would give an area of impossible size and complexity, and here the north is taken to mean north of the Lancashire and Yorkshire coalfields, containing parts of those counties, together with Cumberland, Westmorland, Durham and Northumberland. There is in the literature a plethora of geographical terms—Northern, Central, North-Western, Pennine, Mid-Pennine, North-Pennine Province or Region; without explanatory qualifications they may well confound the reader and have been used sparingly. This limitation of the geographical field leaves out little that is really essential to an understanding of northern problems, with one exception—the limestone massif of Derbyshire and North Staffordshire, which is a subject for a review in itself. With a short preliminary description certain evidence has been drawn from this area in the sections ...


Genetic predisposition has been widely studied in autoimmune and autoinflammatory diseases and has been found to play a significant role in pathogenesis, although the environment, including dietary habits, chemicals and hygienic conditions have been postulated to influence expression of these diseases as well. The autoimmune diseases most prevalent in the newborn include neonatal lupus and neonatal antiphospholipid antibody syndrome. The diseases are characterised by maternal antibodies to SS-A (Ro) and SS-B (La). The genetics underlying these diseases have been found to involve both HLA and non-HLA associations. The neonatal autoinflammatory diseases include the cryopyrin-associated periodic syndromes (CAPS), of which familial cold autoinflammatory syndrome (FCAS), Muckle–Wells syndrome (MWS) and neonatal onset multisystem inflammatory diseases (NOMID) are the three distinct phenotypes resulting from mutations in the CIAS 1 gene (NLRP3 gene). The gene mutation in CAPS are gain-of-function mutation of the NLRP3 gene coding for cryopyrin, resulting in dysfunctional inflammasomes. A defect in the inflammasome leads to overproduction of interleukin-1, resulting in inflammatory symptoms seen in CAPS. Understanding the genetics responsible for neonatal lupus, neonatal antiphospholipid antibody syndrome and CAPS may drive future research into an elucidation of complex pathophysiologic mechanisms of these diseases and perhaps ultimately lead to better treatment modalities.

Key Concepts:

Diseases that involve immune dysfunction in the neonate include neonatal autoimmune and autoinflammatory conditions, along with the more well-defined immunodeficiency syndromes.

The genetics of neonatal autoimmunity and neonatal autoinflammatory syndromes are very different.

In addition to a genetic component, the pathogenesis of these two groups of diseases may also involve an epigenetic and environmental component.

The presence of a common genetic defect may result in different clinical phenotypes, as illustrated by the three CAPS syndromes.

Treatment of these diseases is dependent on an increased knowledge of the pathogenesis of these diseases.

Genetic counselling is an important component of the management of these diseases.

Keywords:

autoimmune disease;
autoinflammatory disease;
neonatal lupus;
neonatal antiphospholipid syndrome;
Cryopyrin-associated periodic syndromes (CAPS);
familial cold autoinflammatory syndrome (FCAS);
Muckle–Wells syndrome (MWS);
neonatal onset multisystem inflammatory disease (NOMID);
NLRP3;
CIAS 1


Book synopsis: This book provides a rich collection of the work that has been informed by the ideas of the eminent family therapist and clinical psychologist, Dr David Campbell who died in August 2009. Contributors are drawn from different fields and describe models they have developed for organizational consultation, training, therapy and research. The book includes a range of important topics, key ideas which thread through contemporary theoretical frameworks, a research study into young people's experience of parental mental illness, and the application of Dr Campbell's use of semantic polarity theory in supervision, research and clinical practice. The innovative consultancy model developed by David Campbell with Marianne Groenbaek is elaborated here. Personal accounts of work in different contexts include a priest consulting within his community, the use of self in training systemic psychotherapists, the experience of consultation in academic settings, and a narrative of a training course for psychiatrists. Interspersed with these chapters are David Campbell's own reflections concerning the development of his ideas and practice over time. The book shows the value of simply expressed ideas applied in complex circumstances and will be welcomed by many different readers to enrich their thinking and practice.


buthalitone. Induction and recovery have been, in our experience, smoother and more rapid using buthalitone than with any other agents we have used. There has been consequent economy in staff time; this, we feel, is important, with the large number of cases treated daily. Although side-effects with buthalitone, such as headaches, generalized clonus, and trismus and hypotension, have been reported, we have not experienced any of these reactions. As the favourable results we have had agree with other trials, we feel it deserves wide attention.-We are, etc.,


Conflicts in published research raised a series of questions on the precision of the measurements
used to differentiate between vertical jumps performed with and without pre-stretch. Procedures
outlined by previous researchers (eg. Komi and Bosco, 1978a; Bedi et al., 1987) were repeated
and extended. Force plate data were collected for a series of squat, counter movement and
rebound jumps. Individual subjects responded differently and no evidence could be found for an
optimal rebound dropping height.
Modal analysis of the force plate highlighted the need for improving its mounting. A frame was
designed to raise the resonant frequency of the plate and static and dynamic calibrations
revealed point of force application errors. 16 mm cinefilm was selected in preference to video
for the subsequent inverse dynamics analysis of rebound jumping.
French physiologist, Marey, observed that people appeared to jump higher following a rebound
than a counter movement. A 'Marey' style jumping exercise was used to examine different
takeoff and landing strategies. Variations in kinematic data filtering, body segment inertia
parameters and quasi-static analysis techniques on the resultant moment moments were
investigated. No differences in maximum jump height were found between counter movement
and rebound jump takeoffs. This apparent contraction to the findings in previous research was
accounted for by variations in the subjects' stretch heights at takeoff. A general proximal to
distal sequencing of muscle moment peaking was observed in both takeoff actions, but moments
peaked later in rebound takeoffs than when following counter movements. Larger peak
moments occurred during landings preceding coming to rest than during the landing phase of the
rebound jump. Quasi-statically determined muscle moments about the ankles and knees
matched closely with the inverse dynamics values, but joint and overall support moments were
consistently over estimated. Conflicts with selected published research findings were shown to
arise from a lack of measurement precision. Takeoff velocities were greater following counter
movements, but were insufficient to differentiate between jumping techniques. Rebounding was
found to increase leg extension.
Improvements in automatic measurement procedures combined with an enhanced understanding
of musculo-skeletal modelling were seen as a way of improving future knowledge of neuromuscular
coordination and power production in jumping.


Information security (Infosec) has become a major challenge for all private and public organizations. The protecting of proprietary and secret data and the proper awareness of what is entailed in protecting this data is necessary in all organizations. How does simulation and training influence virtual communities of practice information security awareness over time and with a variety of security scenarios. Can members of a virtual community be significantly changed in how they respond to routine security processes and attempts to breach security or violate the security policy of their organization? How does deterrence play a role in this prevention and education? A study is planned that will train and test users of a virtual community of practice over a 3 month period of time, via a web interface, and using simulated events, to see if the planned security awareness training will be effective in changing their responses to the events and further testing.


In this paper, E. coli as experimental subjects ,by changing the input voltage, bacterial concentration, turbidity and pH to study the impact that the use intense white light on the inactivation of E. coli in medium surface. The results showed that: light pulses had a strong effect on lethal E. coli, with the input voltage increasing, the inactivation rate increased. The input voltage is 2500v as an appropriate experimental condition, that satisfy both conservation of energy and a better inactivation .The inactivation rate and the logarithm of livability of E. coli rising with the bacterial concentration increasing, when the light flashes six times, the medium surface almost be killed. Turbidity affect to the inactivation of E. coli, with the turbidity increasing, the effect of the inactivation gradually weakened. When ph was changed, the impact of pulsed light on E. coli inactivation was less .The effect of inactivation achieve the best level when pH was 6.


A "rheinforce'' composite consists of a laminar sheet of compacted micro-agglomerated cork engraved by laser with a network of microchannels and filled with a concentrated aqueous solution of shear-thickening fluid. Using it for personal protection equipment, as an energy-absorbing material layer, is one of its important applications. An accurate numerical modeling of such material is not currently available and would be a valuable tool during design and manufacturing processes.

A virtual dynamic drop tower test can be used to shed lights on the dynamics of the energy dissipation of the "rheinforce" composite. From the continuum mechanics point of view, it can be translated into an initial-boundary value problem with enclosed-Fluid-Structure Interaction, contact boundary and rigid body dynamics.

The open-source OpenFOAM toolbox called Solids4foam (S4F) offers a very attractive starting point to build a solver for that initial-boundary value problem. Not only because no commercial software available (as far as the author is aware) is as customizable as needed, but also because S4F offers a strongly-coupled Fluid-Structure Interaction with fully customizable and replaceable solid and fluid solvers. Furthermore, these solvers are constructed based on only one numerical framework, the Finite Volume Method.

Unfortunately, numerical simulations revealed that the current finite volume methodologies for solid mechanics implemented in S4F, i.e. Segregated (SEG) and the recently developed Block-Coupled (BC), cannot simulate the solid part of the "rheinforce'' composite under the finite strain regime. Moreover, the SEG method supports general materials (in theory any material law can be used), but it can be very slow. The BC method is fast, but only Hooke's law (an infinitesimal strain model) is supported.

The principal aim of the thesis is to present the development of a new BC methodology that preserves, in a great extent, the fast convergence of the original BC and material generality (only requiring the elasticity tensor to have right-minor symmetry) of SEG.

This work also demonstrates that the Field Operation and Manipulation (FOAM) concept should be implemented in a high-level programming environment to fill an important "prototyping gap'' left untouched by OpenFOAM and S4F, that is, between concept development and concept implementation in a high-performance programming language.


Recent research has shown promising results by using machine learning (ML) techniques to improve the performance of database systems, e.g., in query optimization or index recommendation. However, in many production deployments, the ML models' performance degrades significantly when the test data diverges from the data used to train these models. In this paper, we address this performance degradation by using B-instances to collect additional data during deployment. We propose an active data collection platform, ADCP, that employs active learning (AL) to gather relevant data cost-effectively. We develop a novel AL technique, Holistic Active Learner (HAL), that robustly combines multiple noisy signals for data gathering in the context of database applications. HAL applies to various ML tasks, budget sizes, cost types, and budgeting interfaces for database applications. We evaluate ADCP on both industry-standard benchmarks and real customer workloads. Our evaluation shows that, compared with other baselines, our technique improves ML models' prediction performance by up to 2x with the same cost budget. In particular, on production workloads, our technique reduces the prediction error of ML models by 75% using about 100 additionally collected queries.


Commom protein sources for poultry, fish meal and soybean meal, were ground to obtain reduced particle size. The particle was then dissolved in distilled water (1 : 4 w/v), and added with 2 mL virgin coconut oil for every 500 mL solution prior to ultrasound transducer (ultrasonic bath) treatment to obtain protein microparticle. Reducing particle size is one possible way to increase protein utilization. 180 birds were used for forced feeding and 10 other birds were plotted for endogenous correction, when they were one month and a half old. Microparticle protein of both ingredients were tested separately in either mash or pelleted forms and compared to intact protein. Completely randomized design with 3 treatments (intact, mash, and pellet) and 6 replications (10 bidrs each) was arranged for the respective ingredient. Protein and essential amino acid digestibilities, and calcium retention were the parameters measured. Analysis of variance continued to Duncan test were applied to statistically evaluate the data. Pelleted microparticle protein of fish meal and soybean meal, respectively, resulted in significantly (P<0.05) highest protein and amino acids digestibilities, and Ca retention although lower disgestibility of fewer amino acids was found in mash form. In conclusion, pelleted form of microparticle protein of either fish meal or soybean meal improve protein and mostly amino acids digestibilities, and calcium retention in broiler.


The striking difference between men and women in headache prevalence is suggested to develop in adolescence. Although headaches are common and affect quality of life and daily functioning, the evidence needed to develop effective counselling and preventive approaches is still limited.Using data collected at age 11, 14, 17 and 20 years in the Dutch PIAMA birth cohort study (n=3064 with > 1 questionnaire), we assessed headache prevalence and incidence in girls and boys and explored associations with early life, environmental, lifestyle, health and psychosocial factors. Associations were analysed longitudinally with generalized linear mixed models and discrete time hazard models.From age 11 to 20, the prevalence of headache increased from 9.4% to 19.8% in girls and hardly changed in boys (7.6% to 6.1%). Headache commonly co-occurred with other unfavorable health and psychosocial conditions. 88% of the girls and 76% of boys with headache also reported at least one of the following at age 17: sleeping problems, asthma, hay fever, musculoskeletal complaints, fatigue, low mental health or worrying. Results suggest higher headache prevalence in adolescents following lower educational tracks, in those who skip breakfast >2 days per week and in boys exposed to tobacco smoke in infancy. In girls, sleeping problems and musculoskeletal complaints were associated with higher odds of incident headache and residential greenness with lower odds of incident headache.The high prevalence and strong female predominance of headache, already in adolescence and often with comorbidities deserve recognition by professionals in (preventive) health care settings and schools.


This paper presents a suitable scheme for the fault detection and isolation of a high voltage DC electrical network in more electric aircraft. Concerning a more electric aircraft architecture comprising one variable frequency generator, one 18-pulse autotransformer, power electronic converters, high voltage DC transmission lines, electromagnetic actuators and numerous constant electrical loads e.g. lighting and PCs, the multi-model detection approach reveals more convenience and feasibility to undertake fault analysis at network level regarding the dynamic change of electrical loads. Right-sized system modelling, computer-aided trimming and linearization with Dymola are discussed. Nullspace based approach is used for synthesis of a residual generator. As demonstration, an application case where a short circuit fault occurs on the output of a buck converter in the more electric aircraft is considered. The designed residual generators are validated on the original nonlinear system with time-domain simulation.


The discovery of the lymphatic system has a long and fascinating history. The interest in anatomy and physiology of this system paralleled that of the blood cardiocirculatory system and has been maybe obscured by the latter. Paradoxically, if the closed blood system appeared open in Galen's anatomy and physiology, and took a very long time to be correctly described in terms of pulmonary and general circulation by ibn Al‐Nafis/Michael Servetus/Realdo Colombo and William Harvey, respectively, the open lymphatic system was incorrectly described as a closed circuit connected with arteries and veins. In ancient times only macroscopic components of the lymphatic system have been described, although misinterpreted, including lymph nodes and lacteals, the latter being easily identified because of their milk‐like content. For about 15 centuries the dogmatic acceptance of Galen's notions did not allow a significant progress in medicine. After Vesalius' revolution in anatomical studies, new knowledge was accumulated, and the 17th century was the golden age for the investigation of the lymphatic system with several discoveries: gut lacteals (Gaspare Aselli), cloacal bursa (Hieronimus Fabricius of Acquapendente), reservoir of the chyle (Jean Pecquet), extra‐intestinal lymphatic vessels (Thomas Bartholin and Olaus Rudbeck dispute), hepatic lymph circulation (Francis Glisson). In the Enlightenment century Frederik Ruysch described the function of lymphatic valves, and Paolo Mascagni provided a magnificent iconography of the lymphatic network in humans. In recent times, Leonetto Comparini realized three‐dimensional reconstructions of the liver lymphatic vessels, and Kari Alitalo discovered the lymphatic growth factor/receptor system. Far from a complete understanding of its anatomy and function, the lymphatic system still needs to be profoundly examined.


We report Herschel/SPIRE, Spitzer and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer observations of 44 z ≃ 4.8 optically selected active galactic nuclei (AGNs). This flux-limited sample contains the highest mass black holes (BHs) at this redshift. Ten of the objects were detected by Herschel and five show emission that is not clearly associated with the AGNs. The star formation (SF) luminosity (LSF) obtained by fitting the spectral energy distribution (SED) with standard SF templates, taking into account AGN contribution, is in the range 1046.62–1047.21 erg s−1 corresponding to SF rates of 1090–4240 M☉ yr−1. Fitting with very luminous submillimeter galaxy SEDs gives SF rates that are smaller by 0.05 dex when using all bands and 0.1 dex when ignoring the 250 μm band. A 40 K graybody fits to only the 500 μm fluxes reduce LSF by about a factor of two. A stacking analysis of 29 undetected sources gives significant signals in all three bands. A SF template fit indicates LSF = 1046.19–46.23 erg s−1 depending on the assumed AGN contribution. A 40 K fit to the stacked 500 μm flux gives LSF = 1045.95 erg s−1. The mean BH mass (MBH) and AGN luminosity (LAGN) of the detected sources are significantly higher than those of the undetected ones. The spectral differences are seen all the way from UV to far infrared wavelengths. The mean optical–UV spectra are similar to those predicted for thin accretion disks around BHs with similar masses and accretion rates. We suggest two alternative explanations to the correlation of LSF, LAGN and MBH, one involving no AGN feedback and the second involving moderate feedback that affects, but does not totally quench, SF in three-quarters of the sources. We compare our LSF and LAGN to lower redshift samples and show a new correlation between LSF and MBH. We also examine several rather speculative ideas about the host galaxy properties including the possibility that the detected sources are above the SF mass sequence (MS) at z ≃ 4.8, perhaps in mergers, and most of the undetected sources are on the MS.


Dihydroergocristine (DEC, CAS 17479-19-5) is a dihydrogenated ergot alkaloid with a potent dopaminergic activity that has been proved both in vitro and in vivo. Apart from its effect on the secretion of pituitary hormones, the following actions have been evidenced. It induces stereotyped behaviour and changes in the sleep-waking cycle, and reduces hypoxia-induced cerebral metabolic changes and emesis. The effect of DHEC on behaviour patterns has been studied in aged male rats in comparison with young animals. The acquisition of the active avoidance response in the shuttle-box test and the retention of the passive avoidance response in a step-through passive avoidance task were facilitated in aged rats by an acute treatment with DHEC. The effect on the acquisition and extinction of the pole-jumping performance after a single injection of DHEC at the beginning of the acquisition session was restricted to the first acquisition trial. A more potent effect on the acquisition of the shuttle-box response and on the retention of passive avoidance reaction was found in animals treated subchronically with DHEC. The latter animals also showed a facilitation of acquisition and an inhibition of extinction of the pole-jumping performance. In other experiments, the repeated administration of DHEC was followed by a decrease in the excessive grooming in aged rats, which is considered a sign of the lack of adaptability of these animals. A facilitation of the compensatory mechanisms in experimental models of vertigo has also been found in animals treated with DHEC.


Besides classical criteria such as cost and overall organizational efficiency, an organization?s ability to being creative and to innovate is of increasing importance in markets that are overwhelmed with commodity products and services. Business Process Management (BPM) as an approach to model, analyze, and improve business processes has been successfully applied not only to enhance performance and reduce cost but also to facilitate business imperatives such as risk management and knowledge management. Can BPM also facilitate the management of creativity? We can find many examples where enterprises unintentionally reduced or even killed creativity and innovation for the sake of control, performance, and cost reduction. Based on the experiences we have made within case studies with organizations from the creative industries (film industry, visual effects production, etc.,) we believe that BPM can be a facilitator providing the glue between creativity management and well-established business principles. In this article we introduce the notions of creativity-intensive processes and pockets of creativity as new BPM concepts. We further propose a set of exemplary strategies that enable process owners and process managers to achieve creativity without sacrificing creativity. Our aim is to set the baseline for further discussions on what we call creativity-oriented BPM.


The 0to 1000-m vertical distribution patterns of micronekton and macrozooplankton were determined in the Costa Rica Dome region (98 N; 908 W) of the Eastern Tropical North Pacific in October–November 2007 and December 2008–January 2009. The area has a pronounced oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) that impacts the distribution of both migrating and mesopelagic species. Sampling was conducted at a relatively fine scale (mesopelagic depth intervals as small as 25 m) within ecologically relevant strata to assess how this hydrographic environment influenced the structure of these groups. Zooplankton were collected in vertically stratified Multiple Opening/Closing Net and Environmental Sensing System tows during the day and the night, and abundances were analyzed in association with variations in oxygen concentration, temperature and depth. Each vertical stratum of the water column was a unique ecological zone with a specific community makeup. The upper and midwater column (0–550 m) was strongly influenced by diel vertical migration patterns, particularly the daytime descent of euphausiids and myctophid fish into the core of the OMZ. Distinctly different communities occurred below the OMZ core. The lower oxycline (LO) ( 500–700 m depth range) was dominated by Cyclothone spp. fish as well as a diverse population of other taxa, often aggregated into a discrete layer (25 m thick), particularly in 2008. In the suboxycline (.700 m depth range), the community shifted to


The properties of a silicone-based elastomeric thermal pad filled with inexpensive ceramic additives were studied in this research. The effects of the content, particle size and mixing ratio of two additives upon the thermal and di-electrical property of the thermal pad are investigated. The result shows that the higher the content, the higher the thermal and dielectric properties are. In addition, the thermal conductivity of two particles filled thermal pads are higher than that of a single particle filled thermal pad. The thermal conductivity of the two kind of particle sizes (14 and 2 um) of 60 % (vol.) SiC filled thermal pad is the highest (2.14 W/m·K).


Social organization is an important attribute of the animal society. We describe the social structure of a bottlenose dolphins population living in Panama City, a seaside resort located on the north-west coast of Florida. Study was conducted with 46 individuals. Dolphins are associated on average half weight index of 0.11. Preferred long-term associations are observed. The proportion of the non-zero association indices suggests that some dolphins seem to avoid others. Associations between and within sex-classes were investigated using only dolphins of known sex and observed at least 4 times. Highly significant differences are found in associations between and within sex-classes (Mantel test, t = 3.7987; P = 1); indeed, male associations are stronger than between inter-sexual associations or between females only. Sociogram of males reveals a complex network with strong associations between pairs or trios that reach up to 0.97, whereas female associations are lower than males. The cluster analysis shows no clear division in the social organization of bottlenose dolphins in Panama City, except for dyads, triads and their multiple networks. The population structure seems to be temporally stable over the study and constant companionships are observed in the dolphin population in Panama City.


The Arabidopsis monovalent cation:proton antiporter-1 (CPA1) family includes eight members, AtNHX1-8. AtNHX1 and AtNHX7/SOS1 have been well characterized as tonoplast and plasma membrane Na+/H+ antiporters, respectively. The proteins AtNHX2-6 have been phylogenetically linked to AtNHX1, while AtNHX8 appears to be related to AtNHX7/SOS1. Here we report functional characterization of AtNHX8. AtNHX8 T-DNA insertion mutants are hypersensitive to lithium ions (Li+) relative to wild-type plants, but not to the other metal ions such as sodium (Na+), potassium (K+) and caesium (Cs+). AtNHX8 overexpression in a triple-deletion yeast mutant AXT3 that exhibits defective Na+/Li+ transport specifically suppresses sensitivity to Li+, but does not affect Na+ sensitivity. Likewise, AtNHX8 overexpression complemented sensitivity to Li+, but not Na+, in sos1-1 mutant seedlings, and increased Li+ tolerance of both the sos1-1 mutant and wild-type seedlings. Results of Li+ and K+ measurement of loss-of-function and gain-of-function mutants indicate that AtNHX8 may be responsible for Li+ extrusion, and may be able to maintain K+ acquisition and intracellular ion homeostasis. Subcellular localization of the AtNHX8-enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) fusion protein suggested that AtNHX8 protein is targeted to the plasma membrane. Taken together, our findings suggest that AtNHX8 encodes a putative plasma membrane Li+/H+ antiporter that functions in Li detoxification and ion homeostasis in Arabidopsis.


Using a variety of stellar tracers - blue horizontal branch stars, main-sequence turn-off stars and red giants - we follow the path of the Sagittarius (Sgr) stream across the sky in Sloan Digital Sky Survey data. Our study presents new Sgr debris detections, accurate distances and line-of-sight velocities that together help to shed new light on the puzzle of the Sgr tails. For both the leading and the trailing tails, we trace the points of their maximal extent, or apocentric distances, and find that they lie at R-L = 47.8 +/- 0.5 kpc and R-T = 102.5 +/- 2.5 kpc, respectively. The angular difference between the apocentres is 93.degrees 2 +/- 3.degrees 5, which is smaller than predicted for logarithmic haloes. Such differential orbital precession can be made consistent with models of the Milky Way in which the dark matter density falls more quickly with radius. However, currently, no existing Sgr disruption simulation can explain the entirety of the observational data. Based on its position and radial velocity, we show that the unusually large globular cluster NGC 2419 can be associated with the Sgr trailing stream. We measure the precession of the orbital plane of the Sgr debris in the Milky Way potential and show that, surprisingly, Sgr debris in the primary (brighter) tails evolves differently from the secondary (fainter) tails, both in the north and the south.


Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) have achieved state-of-the-art performance in node classification, regression, and recommendation tasks. GNNs work well when rich and high-quality connections are available. However, their effectiveness is often jeopardized in many real-world graphs in which node degrees have power-law distributions. The extreme case of this situation, where a node may have no neighbors, is called Strict Cold Start (SCS). SCS forces the prediction to rely completely on the node's own features. We propose Cold Brew, a teacher-student distillation approach to address the SCS and noisy-neighbor challenges for GNNs. We also introduce feature contribution ratio (FCR), a metric to quantify the behavior of inductive GNNs to solve SCS. We experimentally show that FCR disentangles the contributions of different graph data components and helps select the best architecture for SCS generalization. We further demonstrate the superior performance of Cold Brew on several public benchmark and proprietary e-commerce datasets, where many nodes have either very few or noisy connections. Our source code is available at https://github.com/amazon-research/gnn-tail-generalization.


Some current models of mathematical cognition (Dehaene, 1992; Campbell & Clark, 1992) make strong claims about the code in which arithmetical operations are solved, basing themselves on how these operations were originally acquired or are most frequently employed. However, data on acquisition and use are often derived from anecdotic reports and no systematic figures have ever been collected. In this study a questionnaire was devised to investigate how participants learned multiplication tables, as well as the code in which one-digit and multi-digit operations are usually solved. The questionnaire was administered to two groups of university students, one Spanish (Study 1) and the other Belgian (Study 2). The results show that multiplication tables are mainly learnt by oral rehearsal, but adults solve multiplications more frequently by visualizing Arabic digits. This is also their preferred code for calculating additions, subtractions, and divisions. The preference for the Arabic code increases when subjects have to solve multidigit operations.


As the magnets are embedded in a rotor for the interior permanent magnet (IPM) motor, the distribution of the armature reaction magnetic field is different from that of the surface permanent magnet motor (SPM) type. Various methods have been used for the magnetic field solution, including analytical methods based on the winding function and the Laplacian-Poisson equation. However, in the IPM motor, the boundary condition is too complicated for using the Laplacian-Poisson equation. What is more, the equivalent air-gap inverse function presented in literature is not suitable for the IPM motor. A new armature reaction magnetic field model is proposed for the IPM motor, considering the effect of the embedded magnet in the rotor, which is named a pole-cap effect in this paper. The proposed model is derived from the winding function theory, and the rotor magnetic motive force (MMF) function is employed to model the so-called pole-cap effect. The proposed model is used to predict the armature reaction field under a different type of stator MMF, such as different orientation of the excitation current as well as various MMF wavelengths. The calculation result is validated by the finite element analysis (FEA) and shows remarkable advantages over the traditional method. The new model proposed in the paper is quite useful for evaluating various IPM motor performances in an accurate and time-effective manner, such as inductance, stator core losses, and magnet eddy current losses. Complete demonstration of the method to calculate the aforementioned performance indices will be presented in a separate paper, and inductance calculation of a primitive winding is given as an example at the end of this paper.


A survey of the possibilities of gliding in convection currents reveals that heretofore only the most simple kind of ascending convection currents, that is, the "thermic" of insolation, has been utilized to any extent. With the increasing experience in gliding, the utilization of the peculiar nature of the "wind thermic" and increased glider speed promises further advances. Evening, ocean, and height "thermic" are still in the exploration stage, and therefore not amenable to survey in their effects.


BACKGROUND
In BALB/c mice, a yogurt diet given before and after the carcinogen 1, 2 dymethylhydrazine (DMH) inhibited colon cancer. This paper studied at which stage of tumor development (initiation, promotion or progression) yogurt exerts its antitumor activity.

MATERIAL/METHODS
Six experimental groups were used: 1) non-treatment control; 2) DMH control; 3) yogurt-DMH-yogurt: yogurt administered before and after DMH. 4) yogurt-DMH: yogurt given only 10 days before DMH; 5) DMH-yogurt: yogurt given cyclically after DMH; and 6) yogurt control. The groups DMH-yogurt and yogurt-DMH were compared histologically and TNFalpha, INFgamma, IL-10 and IL-4 cytokines, CD4+/CD25+ T cells, and apoptotic cells were determined in large intestine biopsies. TNFalpha and INFgamma were also determined in cells isolated from large intestine nodules and from Peyer's patches.

RESULTS
The DMH-yogurt group did not develop tumor. The yogurt-DMH group showed only tumor delay; TNFalpha, INFgamma and IL-10 increasing in this group in all the periods assayed. These results agree with those already reported for DMH control and yogurt-DMH-yogurt. There was no correlation between the high levels of IL-10 and CD4+/CD25+ T regulatory population. IL-4 and apoptotic cells increased in the yogurt-DMH group only in the first months. In the DMH-yogurt group, cellular apoptosis increased during the whole treatment. Yogurt feeding induced TNFalpha and INFgamma increases in cells isolated from large intestine nodules. These cytokines also increased in cells from Peyer's patches of the yogurt control group.

CONCLUSIONS
These results show that yogurt inhibited tumor progression and promotion by modulating the immune response and stimulating cellular apoptosis.


Despite the considerable interest in community-based physical activity (PA) interventions, there is a lack of clarity on which strategies are most effective and most likely to work in different contexts. The purpose of this study was to use existing community resources to promote PA in a population sample of insufficiently active women using a cluster RCT design. Participants (n = 402) were grouped into 32 geographical-based clusters, which were randomly allocated into 16 intervention (n = 193) and 16 control (n = 209) regions. The intervention was delivered in conjunction with regional units of the Irish Sports Council; participants received a pack containing tailored information about local PA options in their community, training plans, stage-matched behaviour change booklets and a pedometer. Control participants received health promotion leaflets. Evaluation was conducted using the RE-AIM framework to assess both effectiveness and generalizability. Repeated measures ANOVAs with adjustment for clustering revealed that both groups displayed an approximate 39 min increase in PA, but decreases in sitting were greater in the intervention group than the control group (32.9 versus 1.2 min). Recall of materials was high ranging between 85 and 97% for the various intervention components. Finally, those who received higher doses of the intervention (three or more components) reported an approximate 50 min increase in PA compared with 18 min among those who did not use any aspect of the intervention. While no clear intervention effect was evident, this research was successful in linking and implementing good research design with PA promoting networks.


As the author has written, it is the modern developments in medicine which have completely displaced the use of pomanders for therapeutic and prophylactic purposes, but at one time the matter was quite otherwise. From at least the days of the Ebers papyrus (c. 1600 BC) perfumes have been used for disinfection, doctors have exercised their wits on the use of scented materials in medicine, and pharmacists on the best method of presentation. Certainly by the Middle Ages, the globular or "apple-shape" was decided upon as one of the most desirable forms, and it was from these that the beautiful pomanders, true works of art, of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are descended. Of particular interest to pharmacists is the section on ingredients; from 125 recipes, ninety different drugs are listed and the percentage frequency of use given. Rose flowers, red or white, figure in seventy-eight per cent of the formulae, styrax in an overwhelming ninety-nine per cent, and it is not surprising to find ambergris in sixty per cent; equally, to modern tastes, it is unsurprising that Succus valerianae is to be found in a mere one per cent. Recipes for pomanders are drawn from many countries: Italy, France, Germany, the Arab lands, and England; including one which ends with the helpful advice, "This, if your breath be not too valiant, will make you smell as sweet as my lady's dog." The book has 106 illustrations of pomanders, well over half of which, it is interesting to note, are from this country, no less than twenty-six from the Wellcome Museum. Some of the illustrations, however, do not show the fine workmanship of the pomanders as clearly as one would like. In a world of rising costs this is always a problem, but possibly fewer pictures on an art gloss paper would have been better. There is a fine bibliography, and the book may certainly be taken as a definitive work on pomanders. This book is yet another worthwhile addition to the series "Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte der Pharmazie" (Bd. 21), which is proving so useful to pharmaceutical historians. One minor defect in this volume is the lack of underlining of even major headings and titles, which does not make for easy identification of particular aspects of the subject. Hospital history is burgeoning, as medical historians turn to the social history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, studying not …


Fifteen local isolates of Pseudomonas were obtained from several sources such as soil, water and some high-fat foods (Meat, olives, coconuts, etc.). The ability of isolates to produce lipase was measured by the size of clear zone on Tween 20 solid medium and by measuring the enzymatic activity and specific activity. Isolate M3 (as named in this study) was found to be the most efficient for the production of the lipase with enzymatic activity reached 56.6 U/ml and specific activity of 305.94 U/mg. This isolate was identified through genetic analysis of the 16S rRNA gene. and it was shown that the isolate M3 belongs to Pseudomonas aeruginosa with 99% similarity.  The DNA of isolate M3 was extracted and lipase gene was amplified through PCR technique, then purified and cloned into E.coli DH5α cells first using pTG19-T plasmid, and expressed in E.coli Bl21 with expression vector pet-28a. The activity of lipase from transformed E.coli Bl21 was 196.6 U/ml and the specific activity 618.2 U/mg.


We present an energetic model to describe the initial stage of growth of GaAs nanowire seeds in SiOx/Si (111) templates. The model explains the experimentally observed geometry of GaAs seed crystal emerging from Ga droplets in the holes, with either stepwise or ring geometry at the outer periphery of the holes and restricted by the steps that are much larger than monoatomic. Understanding and controlling this geometry is crucial for further growth of nanowires, improving their vertical yield and optimizing the morphology and crystal structure.


The content of RNA and cytoplasmic protein was assayed by methods of quantitative cytochemistry in motoneurons of anterior horns of the spinal cord and neurons of spinal ganglia of rats flown for 22 d. It was shown that the 22-d space flight did not change the RNA content in motoneurons of anterior horns of the spinal cord and reduced the RNA content in large neurons of spinal ganglia. The protein content in the cytoplasm of motoneurons and neurons of spinal ganglia was significantly lowered as compared with the control. The RNA content 27 d postflight in motoneurons of anterior horns of the spinal cord was significantly reduced and in neurons of spinal ganglia it did not differ from the control. On the 27th postflight day the protein content in the cytoplasm of motoneurons returned to the preflight level and in the cytoplasm of large neurons of spinal ganglia remained lowered.


Sweetpotato is an important food crop in the world as well as in Kenya. Various fungal, and viral diseases are major constraints in its production and are currently threatening the sweetpotato production in sub-Saharan Africa. Genetic engineering offers significant potential for the crop's genetic improvement. However, this is limited by the low efi¬Âciency and strong genotype dependency in tissue culture. This study aimed to establish an efficient somatic embryogenesis and plant regeneration system using shoot apical meristem explants of sweetpotato. Three sweetpotato cultivars that are widely grown in Kenya; KSP36, Kemb36 and Mweu mutheke along with an exotic model cultivar Jewel were evaluated. The maximum somatic embryogenic induction, at 96.72%, was obtained from explants cultured on Linsmaier and Skoog salts and vitamins medium supplemented with 0.5 mg/l dichlorophenoxyacetic acid and 0.2 mg/l zeatin riboside. The highest number of shoot induction (33) was observed after transfer of embryonic callus to embryo maturation medium supplemented with 2 mg/l abscisic acid. Significant differences were observed between cultivars for somatic embryogenesis and plant regeneration. Jewel showed the best response, while Mweu mutheke was the least responsive under the culture conditions tested in this study. Regenerated plants were successfully rooted and grown to maturity after hardening in soil in the greenhouse. Such a robust, successful and efi¬Âcient system possesses the potential to become an important tool for crop improvement and functional studies of genes in sweetpotato.


Computed tomography (CT) is a widely-used diag-reproducibility regarding radiomic features, such as intensity, nostic image modality routinely used for assessing anatomical tissue characteristics. However, non-standardized imaging pro-tocols are commonplace, which poses a fundamental challenge in large-scale cross-center CT image analysis. One approach to address the problem is to standardize CT images using generative adversarial network models (GAN). GAN learns the data distribution of training images and generate synthesized images under the same distribution. However, existing GAN models are not directly applicable to this task mainly due to the lack of constraints on the mode of data to generate. Furthermore, they treat every image equally, but in real applications, some images are more difficult to standardize than the others. All these may lead to the lack-of-detail problem in CT image synthesis. We present a new GAN model called GANai to mitigate the differences in radiomic features across CT images captured using non-standard imaging protocols. Given source images, GANai composes new images by specifying a high-level goal that the image features of the synthesized images should be similar to those of the standard images. GANai introduces an alternative improvement training strategy to alternatively and steadily improve model performance. The new training strategy enables a series of technical improvements, including phase-specific loss functions, phase-specific training data, and the adoption of ensemble learning, leading to better model performance. The experimental results show that GANai is significantly better than the existing state-of-the-art image synthesis algorithms on CT image standardization. Also, it significantly improves the efficiency and stability of GAN model training.


This study aims to identify the vocational maturity level and the prevailing family nurturing patterns among Irbid University College students, and to investigate the relationship between the vocational maturity and the family nurturing pattern of students. This study was conducted on a random sample of (337) male and female students at the diploma and bachelor degrees. The Crites measurement of vocational maturity was used in this study; it was translated by Al-Safasfah, developed by Al-Balawi, and redeveloped by researchers to be in its final form (29) paragraphs. Family nurturing pattern measurement, which was developed by Mobarak consists of (36) paragraphs, and was redeveloped by researchers to align with the Jordanian environment, and was divided into four patterns: (democratic, authoritarian, extra protection, neglectful). The study results indicate that vocational maturity level of Irbid University college students was medium, and the existing family nurturing pattern was democratic, followed by the extra protection pattern, then the neglectful pattern, and finally the authoritarian pattern. The results found statistically significant positive relationship between the vocational maturity level and family nurturing pattern (democratic), it found statistically significant negative relationship between the vocational maturity level and family nurturing pattern (authoritarian), and didn't find statistically significant relationship between the vocational maturity level and the family nurturing patterns (extra protection, and neglectful).


The development of the Earth Gravitational Model 2008 (EGM2008) model is a significant contribution for modeling the Earth's gravity and geoid. Recently, it can be confidently used versus geometric models following a simple refinement procedure. Several studies show that, EGM2008 can reach the accuracy of regional or local geoid models after modeling the differences between the GPS-leveling geoid heights and EGM2008 derived geoid heights at identified control points. The study focuses on a corrector surface fitting (CSF) approach based on radial basis functions (RBF) as improvement procedure for EGM2008. A detailed mathematical model and solution algorithm of the proposed model is given, and it has been applied in different test areas covering the city borders of Bursa, Konya, Denizli and Gaziantep in Turkey. Accuracy of the improved model was evaluated in scattered check points within test regions. The geoid heights of all check points obtained by GPS-leveling measurements were compared with the geoid heights obtained from improved model. The discrepancies between the calculated and measured geoid heights were analyzed and discussed.


Background: Parastomal hernias (PSHs) are a frequent complication and remain a surgical challenge. We present a new option for single-port PSH repair with equilateral stoma relocation using preshaped, prosthetic 3-dimensional implants and flat mesh insertion in intraperitoneal onlay placement for additional augmentation of the abdominal wall. Methods: We describe our novel technique in detail and performed an analysis of prospectively collected data from patients who underwent single-port PSH repair, focusing on feasibility, conversions, and complications. Results: From September 2013 to January 2014, 9 patients with symptomatic PSHs were included. Two conversions to reduced-port laparoscopy using a second 3-mm trocar were required because of difficult adhesiolysis, dissection, and reduction of the hernia sac content. No major intra- or postoperative complications or reoperations were encountered. One patient incurred a peristomal wound healing defect that could be treated conservatively. Conclusion: We found that single-port PSH repair using preshaped, elastic 3-dimensional devices and additional flat mesh repair of the abdominal wall is feasible, safe, and beneficial, relating to optimal coverage of unstable stoma edges with wide overlap to all sides and simultaneous augmentation of the midline in the IPOM technique. The stoma relocation enables prolapse treatment and prevention. The features of a modular and rotatable multichannel port system offer benefits in clear dissection ongoing from a single port. Long-term follow-up data on an adequate number of patients are awaited to examine efficacy.


The design, analysis, and implementation of an accurate delay circuit used to synthesize critical paths in a microprocessor system are presented. The delay circuit includes a novel 64-step programmable calibration delay line that is highly uniform across a wide range of supply voltages and a reconfigurable delay path with tunable delay sensitivity to voltage variations. The calibration delay line generates delay step in picosecond range, which is less than 1% of the clock cycle time for the microprocessor. The reconfigurable path is capable of increasing voltage sensitivity of the delay circuit by 40% and emulating the steeper frequency versus voltage slope of the microprocessor in low-voltage domain. The proposed circuit is implemented inside the critical path monitor block placed on a test microprocessor core fabricated using 22-nm silicon-on-insulator CMOS process. Measurement results from nine test cores show that the circuit tracks microprocessor timing margin change with an error less than 1.3% of the core operating frequency over a wide supply voltage range.


Those athletes who run at high speeds require eccentric strength when the hamstring muscles are in a lengthened state in order to absorb the increased forces, decreasing injury rate and performance deficits (Schmitt, Tyler & McHugh 2012). The purpose of this study was to determine if the intervention of an eccentric hamstring strengthening program would increase peak torque production in eccentric and concentric hamstring and quadriceps movements in Division I Men and Women Varsity soccer players. Participants included 8 Division I soccer athletes (3 men, 5 women, mean age= 19.3 years (men) and 19.4 years (women), mean height= 71in (men) and 67.4in (women), mean weight= 166lbs (men) and 139.8lbs (women)). AW-Critical (One-Tail) test was run on the peak torque extension and :flexion for eccentric and concentric movements comparing pre-test measurements to post-test measurements. A significant mean difference was found for concentric flexion of the non-dominant leg with a mean difference of -9.46. Other significant differences were found for peak torque where the pre-test had higher measurements. This included dominant extension at 150ft/lbs (mean difference= 9.42), dominant eccentric flexion at 60ft/lbs (mean difference= 15.28), non-dominant eccentric flexion at 150ft/lbs (mean difference= 4.74), dominant concentric :flexion at 180ft/lbs (5.38) and non-dominant concentric flexion at 180ft/lbs (mean difference= 2.74). Prior to completing the eccentric hamstring strengthening program, participants selfreported having a total of 63 lower leg injuries. During the spring season, no lower leg injuries were recorded for either men or women. It was concluded from the findings of this study that an eccentric hamstring strength training program had no effect on eccentric peak torque. An increase in non-dominant peak torque for concentric flexion at 60ft/lbs was found.


BACKGROUND
Small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) carries the worst prognosis among lung cancer diagnoses. Combined radiation and chemotherapy is the standard of care; however, treatment outcomes vary. Variability in the rate at which chemotherapy agents are metabolized and in the capacity of repairing DNA damage has been hypothesized to be partly responsible for the treatment response variation. Genes in the glutathione metabolism and DNA repair pathways were tested through tag single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) to assess their association with survival in SCLC.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Blood DNA from 248 patients with primary SCLC was genotyped for 419 tag SNPs from 49 genes in the glutathione and DNA repair pathways. Association analyses with patient survival were carried out at single-SNP, whole-gene, and haplotype levels after adjusting for age, gender, tumor stage, treatment modalities, and smoking history.

RESULTS
Among the 375 SNPs successfully genotyped, 21 SNPs, located on 11 genes, showed significant association with survival. Whole-gene analyses confirmed 3 of the 11 genes: GSS, ABCC2, and XRCC1. Haplotype analyses of these three genes identified haplotype combinations and genomic locations underlying the observed SNP associations.

CONCLUSION
Genetic variations in genes involved in the glutathione and DNA repair pathways are associated with SCLC survival.


We compare how new pharmaceuticals are priced in the price-regulated Swedish market with how they are priced in the U.S. market, as studied by Lu and Comanor (1998). We collect a data set consisting of all new chemical entities (NCEs) launched in Sweden between 1987 and 1997, and test the same models as Lu and Comanor. In line with their results, we find that introductory prices depend on the degree of therapeutic innovation. Contrary to the results from the U.S. market, Swedish real prices for NCEs fall substantially over time for all classes of therapeutic innovation. Also contrary to the findings of Lu and Comanor, we find no effect of the presence of branded substitutes on either introduction prices or price dynamics. Our results indicate that the price regulation discourages price competition between brandname drugs.


A decline of norepinephrine transporter (NET) level is associated with several psychiatric and neurological disorders. Therefore positron emission tomography (PET) imaging agents are greatly desired to study the NET pathway. We have developed a C-fluoropropyl analog of nisoxetine: (R)-N-methyl-3-(3'-[(18)F]fluoropropyl)phenoxy)-3-phenylpropanamine ((18)F-MFP3) as a new potential PET radiotracer for NET with the advantage of the longer half-life of fluorine-18 (110 min compared with carbon-11 (20 min). Synthesis of (R)-N-methyl-3-(3'-fluoropropyl)phenoxy)-3-phenylpropanamine (MFP3) was achieved in five steps starting from (S)-N-methyl-3-ol-3-phenylpropanamine in approx. 3-5% overall yields. In vitro binding affinity of nisoxetine and MFP3 in rat brain homogenates labeled with (3)H-nisoxetine gave Ki values of 8.02 nM and 23 nM, respectively. For radiosynthesis of (18)F-MFP3, fluorine-18 was incorporated into a tosylate precursor, followed by the deprotection of the N-BOC-protected amine group with a 15% decay corrected yield in 2.5 h. Reverse-phase chromatographic purification provided (18)F-MFP3 in specific activities of >2000 Ci/mmol. Fluorine-18 labeled (18)F-MFP3 has been produced in modest radiochemical yields and in high specific activities. Evaluation of (18)F-MFP3 in animal imaging studies is in progress in order to validate this new fluorine-18 radiotracer for PET imaging of NET.


AIM
To investigate the effect of astilbic acid (3beta, 6beta-dihydroxyolean-12-en-27-oic acid, AA) on human colorectal carcinoma COLO 205 cell proliferation and apoptosis.

METHODS
Proliferation of COLO 205 cells was measured by MTT assay. Content of DNA in COLO 205 cell was measured by modified diphenylamine assay. AA-induced morphological changes was observed with fluorescence microscope and transmission electron microscope. DNA fragmentation was visualized by agarose gel electrophoresis. Apoptosis rate and cell cycle distribution were determined by flow cytometric analysis. Expressions of Bcl-2 and Bax proteins were visioned by immunohistochemical analysis. The change of relative mitochondrial transmembrane potential (MTP) in COLO 205 cell was analyzed with FCM after rhodamine 123 staining.

RESULTS
The IC50 (96 h) of AA for inhibiting COLO 205 cell proliferation was 61.56+/-0.34 micromol/L. AA induced a marked concentration- and time-dependent inhibition of COLO 205 cell proliferation and reduced the DNA content in COLO 205 cell. Cells treated with AA 64 micromol/L showed typical morphological changes of apoptosis and DNA ladder pattern. The cell cycle was arrested in G0/G1 phase, and the apoptosis rate was 28.25 % for COLO 205 cells treated with AA 64 micromol/L for 48 h. Meanwhile the expression of Bcl-2 protein was decreased while that of Bax was increased and relative MTP was decreased as well. DEVD-CHO 1 micromol/L could increase the viability of COLO 205 cells treated with AA for 48 h.

CONCLUSION
AA showed potent inhibitory activity on COLO 205 cells proliferation, and could induce COLO 205 cells apoptosis through disturbing DNA replication, down-regulating Bcl-2 expression, and up-regulating Bax expression, lowering relative MTP, and activating caspase-3 pathway.


The United Kingdom has become the first country to give official approval for the use of results from genetic tests for Huntington's disease for insurance purposes.

An advisory committee to the governmentthe Genetics and Insurance Committeelast week reported that the reliability and relevance of two genetic tests for Huntington's disease are sufficient for insurance companies to use the results when assessing applications for life insurance.

The approval was given in response to an application from the professional body representing the insurance industry, the Association of British Insurers, to use information from such testing.

Professor John Durant, chairman of the …


We studied the relationship between the timing of discontinuing chronic angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEI) and angiotensin II receptor subtype 1 antagonists (ARA) and hypotension after the induction of general anesthesia in a general surgical population. We retrospectively studied 267 hypertensive patients receiving chronic ACEI/ARA therapy undergoing elective noncardiac surgery under general anesthesia. During preoperative visits, patients were asked to either take their last ACEI/ARA therapy on the morning of surgery or withhold it up to 24 h before surgery. The number of hours from the last ACEI/ARA dose to surgery was recorded during the preoperative interview. Electronic medical and anesthesia records were reviewed for comorbidities, type and dose of anesthetics used, intraoperative hemodynamics, IV fluids, perioperative vasopressor administration, and rate of severe postoperative complications. Arterial blood pressure (BP) and heart rate were recorded during the 60-min postinduction period, and hypotension was classified as moderate (systolic BP ≤85 mm Hg) and severe (systolic BP ≤65 mm Hg). We analyzed all variables separately for patients who took their last ACEI/ARA therapy <10 h and ≥10 h before surgery. During the first 30 min after anesthetic induction, moderate hypotension was more frequent in patients whose most recent ACEI/ARA therapy was taken <10 h (60%) compared with those who stopped it ≥10 h (46%) before induction (P = 0.02). The adjusted odds ratio for moderate hypotension was 1.74 (95% confidence interval, 1.03–2.93) for those who took their ACEI/ARA therapy <10 h before surgery (P = 0.04). There were no differences between groups in the incidence of severe hypotension, nor was there a difference in the use of vasopressors. During the 31–60 min after induction, the incidence of either moderate (P = 0.43) or severe (P = 0.97) hypotension was similar in the two groups. No differences in postoperative complications were found between groups. In conclusion, discontinuation of ACEI/ARA therapy at least 10 h before anesthesia was associated with a reduced risk of immediate postinduction hypotension.


The levels of unmet need for contraception are not only high but the underlying causes behind the observed levels are poorly understood. This study utilizes data drawn from the 1998 K.DHS to examine the magnitude of unmet need for contraception by selected characteristics and to assesses the factors that explain the various components of unmet need for contraception. The unit of analysis is the currently married women who constituted 61 percent of all the sampled women. Out of the 4847 currently married women. 4004 resided in the rural areas while 843 were urban residents. Analytical tools employed in this study are frequency distributions, cross tabulations and multivariate logistic regression. Frequency distributions provided a summary of the selected characteristics used in this study. Cross tabulations served to show the magnitude and differentials of the various components of unmet need for contraception by selected characteristics. Finally, logistic regression models provided predictor variables that were significantly associated with the various components of unmet need for contraception. The Westoff and Bankole (1995) algorithm, which was used in the 1998 KDHS, was also used in this study to estimate unmet need for contraception. Findings revealed that unmet need for contraception to space was much higher than that to limit further childbearing (14.7 % against 10.4 % respectively). Additionally, the causes of unmet need for contraception to space were not necessarily similar to those for unmet need for contraception to lirriit births. In general, the various components of unmet need for contraception appeared to be higher in rural areas, among women who are not exposed to mass media, among those whose husbands disapprove of their use of family planning, among those who have a higher number of living children and those who are still young. This was true in both bivariate and multivariate analyses. However, except tor unmet need to limit, the association between education by various components of unmet need for contraception appeared to be inconsistent in our multivariate analysis. This association is similar to that of other DHS sub-Saharan African countries (Robey et aL 1996). Upon the backdrop of the above findings, this study recommends for increased accessibility and availability of effective and side effect free contraceptives to people who need them. This could be done by improving the performance of existing health facilities and by expanding some. Community based delivery contraceptive services such as the popular CBD, and Depot Service Arrangements could be used to complement the Clinic-Based Delivery System. Mass media family planning awareness campaigns should be enhanced in order to disseminate information to a large proportion of the Kenyan women given the fact that literacy levels are still low in Kenya. Similarly, there is also need to enhance Behaviour Chanee for Communication (BCC) campaigns, which entail Information, Education, and Communication (IEC) for awareness creation and IEC for behaviour change. Future studies should focus on qualitative and in-depth methods of data collection since DHS questionnaire is not detailed enough to enable us appreciate fully underlying causes of unmet need for contraception. There is also need for refinement oUtfie measures of unmet need for contraception by redefining terms such as infecundity and reconsidering periodicity in the measure in order to yield reliable estimates of unmet need. Future researches should also study the underlying causes of unmet need for contraception among the unmarried and ever married women. In Kenya where cases of unwanted pregnancy are substantial among the unmarried, the omission of the previously t mentioned target population only serves to understate the actual levels of unmet need among women.


The GNU Hurd's design was motivated by a desire to rectify a number of observed shortcomings in Unix. Foremost among these is that many policies that limit users exist simply as remnants of the design of the system's mechanisms and their implementation. To increase extensibility and integration, the Hurd adopts an object-based architecture and defines interfaces, in particular those for the composition of and access to name spaces, that are virtualizable.
 This paper is first a presentation of the Hurd's design goals and a characterization of its architecture primarily as it represents a departure from Unix's. We then critique the architecture and assess it in terms of the user environment of today focusing on security. Then follows an evaluation of Mach, the microkernel on which the Hurd is built, emphasizing the design constraints which Mach imposes as well as a number of deficiencies its design presents for multi-server like systems. Finally, we reflect on the properties such a system appears to require.


The main goal of an earthquake early warning system (EEWS) is to estimate the magnitude of an underway rupture from the first few seconds in order to allow hazard assessment and mitigation before destructive events occur. This letter investigates the application of a wavelet-based algorithm for local magnitude estimation in the South Aegean Sea (focusing on Crete Island) which is covered by a sparse seismological network. A relation between the first few seconds of the first-arriving energy at the surface, the P wave, and the local magnitude of the earthquake has been developed for the area of interest. Results show that the errors produced by the proposed method present less scattering than relevant magnitude rapid estimation methods. It is the first time that such a method is applied in a sparse seismological network since all the previous studies took place in high-density networks. This fact expands the applicability of EEWS and also provides an alternative magnitude estimator for the currently developed EEWS.


This volume contains the proceedings of a cross-disciplinary science conference that took place in the historic city of Litomysl in the Eastern Czech Republic on 8-12 September 2014 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth in this city of Zdeněk Kopal, one of the most famous Czech astronomers of the 20th century. The meeting attracted over 120 experts in the fields of binary stars and planets from more than 25 countries around the world. Binary stars and planets form and evolve through processes involving redistribution and evolution of the angular momentum of collapsing interstellar clouds, through several dissipation and re-organization mechanisms. Both types of objects are studied in similar ways, with methods and tools developed by the binary-star community over many years, but now extensively applied to study planets. The theory and observation of these processes are now rapidly advancing and leading to new and exciting results, which made this meeting a timely opportunity for discussion and vigorous exchange of ideas. This volume will be of interest to researchers wishing to learn about new observational projects related to many aspects of binary star physics, as well as the discovery and characterization of exoplanets, particularly planets in binary star systems. Included as well are many presentations describing ongoing research on close and interacting binary stars, which was a subject close to the scientific interests of Zdeněk Kopal, as embodied in his monumental monograph "Close Binary Systems" (1959).


Recent network intrusion detection systems (NIDS) use regular expressions to represent suspicious or malicious character sequences in packet payloads in a more efficient way. This paper introduces a new basic building block based on non-deterministic finite automata (NFA) hardware implementation to support complex constraint repetitions in regular expressions. This block is a customized counter capable of handling any type of constraint repetition, applicable to any sub-regular expression. We also introduce optimization techniques to reduce the area and improve the overall performance. We have implemented SNORT IDS regular expressions in hardware by taking advantage of the basic NFA building blocks, our proposed counting block and our proposed optimization techniques. We report experimental results for our architecture that verify area saving and performance improvement.


To isolate differentially expressed peanut genes responsive to chilling, a suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH) cDNA library was constructed for a chilling tolerant peanut cultivar A4 with mRNAs extracted from the seeds imbibed at 2oC and 15oC, respectively, for 24 hrs. A total of 466 cDNA clones were sequenced, from which 193 unique transcripts (73 contigs and 120 singlets) were assembled. Of these unique transcripts, 132 (68.4%) were significantly similar to the sequences in GenBank non-redundant (nr) protein database, which belonged to diverse functional categories including metabolism, signal transduction, stress response, cell defense and transcriptional regulation. The remaining 61 (31.6%) showed no similarity to either hypothetical or known proteins. Six differentially expressed transcripts were further confirmed with real-time quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR).


On a recent Sunday morning, The Times-Picayune, a newspaper from New Orleans, carried news that two young people had been arrested for an arson death, that a jury had convicted a man of killing a waitress in a robbery, and that a 15-year-old escapee from a youth detention facility had been recaptured. Those three stories were among the six main stories making up the first two pages of the local section of the newspaper.
That same day, the main website pages of The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune featured similar police-related coverage. In New York, the Times reported that a suspect in a weekend murder spree had been arrested. In Washington, D.C., a highly-placed story focused on the sentencing hearing for the man convicted in the murder of Chandra Levy, a congressional intern murdered by someone who had kidnapped her while she was jogging ten years earlier. And in Chicago, all six "breaking news" stories on the Tribune's website had some connection with a police investigation: charges in a double homicide, charges in a girl's death, an arrest for animal neglect, a missing girl found, a death in a parking garage, and a house fire.
If there is one type of news that is routinely covered in media, it is what I am calling here "detective stories": news items that report the details of a crime or a criminal investigation or an arrest or a trial or a sentencing. For those living near the scene of the crime or some other police activity, the stories offer an important alert to neighborhood trouble, update residents as the investigation moves forward, and offer them some comfort when a perpetrator is eventually caught. The stories detail human relationships gone terribly wrong, drug dangers, and an inexplicable disregard for humanity. They also often detail bold courage. The New York Times' story on the murder spree arrest, for example, outlined investigating officers' fearless moves to apprehend the suspect in a subway train after a worried witness spotted the fugitive onboard. Even though The New York Times has a decidedly national readership, the story of the subway arrest was the eighth most-viewed by readers that Sunday morning, indicating great public interest in a story that directly affected only a few.
And yet recent decisions by a handful of courts seem to hint at a limit to such coverage. These courts have punished media for reporting the arrest of a prosecutor, for publishing nude photos of a murder victim, and for reporting on somewhat mundane criminal matters. In many of the decisions, the courts criticize media both soundly and broadly, with great implications both for future cases and for editorial decisions on news coverage. This symposium piece offers a historical perspective on detective stories, it explores recent cases that seem to push some detective stories back to a time when patrician attitudes quashed similar coverage, and it warns ultimately that courts deciding such cases need to recognize that they have a marked and potentially unconstitutional chilling effect on press freedoms.